When Harry woke up the next morning, he saw Dumbledore stand next to his bed, looking out of the window.
“Good morning, Harry. Did you manage to get enough sleep?”
He reached for his glasses. “I suppose.“ The sun had risen already, so it couldn’t be that early. “There’s something I’m not sure whether I dreamt it ...”
“And that would be?” Dumbledore smiled. „Ask away.“
„Professor Snape was here, somewhen in the night, and said the antidote you gave me in the summer holidays didn’t work that well.”
“Ah, yes, he voiced his concerns to me as well. Did he give you another antidote?”
“Yes, but ... I don’t feel different. At all.“
„He must have been mistaken, then. You see, Professor Snape is a most diligent man. He could not bear the thought of you coming to any harm as a result of someone using his research to brew a flawed potion. The notion agitated him so much that he must have seen something that wasn’t there.” Dumbledore peered at him over the rim of his half-moon glasses. “You will not, I trust, hold it against him?”
Harry frowned. „Of course not, it didn’t do any harm.” He had a lot of things to hold against Snape, but the antidote wasn’t one of them.
Dumbledore nodded. “So your unfortunate accident in the summer has not left any lasting impressions on your mind?”
“I don’t think so. There’s just one thing that’s a bit strange, but that can’t have anything to do with it.” And he told Dumbledore about the strange, calm feeling he’d had. “I thought at first that was what Professor Snape meant, but he didn’t, and if I really felt like a chicken, I’d be more afraid, wouldn’t I?”
“Indeed. You are young, and I would be rather worried if you did not change at all from one year to the other. And of course, staying with adults who’d actually come to your rescue would have changed your outlook on life tremendously, wouldn’t it?” Dumbledores eyes twinkled, and somehow Harry got the impression the old wizard knew something he didn’t.
“That’s what I thought, but the funny thing is that nothing bad actually happened while I was staying with the Weasleys. Except for that chicken thing, which I can’t remember. So, I couldn’t have really known that they’d come to our rescue, could I?” Of course, they were much nicer than the Dursleys, and it was logical they’d be different, but still ....
Dumbledore smiled. “Of course, you were cared for very well while you were a chick, too.”
Of course! “That must have been it.” Harry hesitated. If he didn’t ask now, he might not get another opportunity to ask. “Could you talk to my relatives? They don’t understand that Hedwig needs to hunt, and she almost starved this summer, so ...”
“It has been brought to my attention – most forcefully, in fact – that Hedwig was not the only one locked up without adequate food.”
“Snape told you?”
“Professor Snape is obligated, as a teacher of this school, to bring any mistreatment of students to my attention.”
“So you will talk to the Dursleys?”
“I will.”
Harry was allowed to leave the Hospital Wing that morning, he only had to promise to come see Madam Pomfrey if he felt unwell.
“With a bezoar, there is always some uncertainty”, she explained. “Symptoms might return once it has passed through the system, so to speak. That is mostly a concern with chronic poisoning, but you never know. I have no experience at all with basilisk venom.”
Harry felt perfectly well, though, and so he woke in his own bed in the dorm when Christmas morning dawned.
The fact there were presents for him didn’t surprise him anymore, but he was still surprised at how many there were.
“There’s a letter!” Ron informed him.
Indeed, there was a letter, and it was not from the Dursleys, or even Ron’s parents. “Sirius Black? Huh. I wonder who that is and why he is writing me.“
He carefully opened the letter.
“Dear Harry”, it started, and that was strange, because why would a stranger use his first name?
But then it turned out Sirius Black was not as much of a stranger as Harry had thought, he was Harry’s godfather!
And he’d been imprisoned for the past ten years because people had assumed he betrayed Harry’s parents and murdered Peter Pettigrew.
“... he wants me to visit him and he says he fully intends to spoil me rotten”, Harry told Ron, grinning. “I can stay with him in the summer!”
And that was the best Christmas present of all.
Better than all the sweets – everything the trolley witch in the Hogwarts Express had had on offer and then some – and better than even the new Firebolt broom.
“You don’t really know what he’s like”, Ron said, somewhat sceptical. “I mean, it’d be hard for him to be anything as awful as your relatives, but ... I dunno, he was in prison for a really long time, might have become rather strange ...”
“He says Dumbledore told him I like Quidditch. He can’t be bad if he knows Dumbledore, right?”
“I don’t know, mate. Dumbledore is brilliant and all, but you know who knows Dumbledore, too? Snape.”
“Snape is alright”, Harry said before thinking. “I mean. He did save my life. Probably. Twice. He hates me, but Sirius clearly doesn’t hate me, so …“ Harry couldn’t see any downside to staying with him over the summer.
#########
Severus was quite relieved to have the basilisk problem so neatly wrapped up. All that remained for him to do was to brew the restorative draught to revive the petrified people, and it would take quite a while until the mandrakes would ripen, so he could, for once, focus on his actual job.
When the Easter holidays started, he had caught up on his work enough to be able to take a break.
Perhaps his animagus form would finally be useful – no students could pester him if they didn’t know it was him, after all. Not that anyone but his Slytherins dared do that, but some of them were rather annoying, expecting extra special treatment because of how important their families were.
And it seemed people were much less inclined to be suspicious about a completely coal-black rooster than he had assumed.
At first it worked flawlessly. He picked a sunny spot near the lake, sat there, and occasionally made chicken noises and pretended to be looking for earthworms when some student walked by.
Perhaps Dumbledore had been right after all. Severus hadn’t dared sit on the ground ever since he had become a teacher – too undignified, he had to maintain a stern, forbidding image, and could afford even fewer slip-ups than Minerva.
It was rather hard to enjoy the sun when you had to stand all the time, and also notice all wrongdoing in the area.
In his animagus form, since no one knew it was him, his image wouldn’t suffer if they got away with some rulebreaking while he wasn’t paying attention.
He had managed to doze off when a well known voice woke him.
“That oaf can’t even keep his chickens where they belong.” Draco.
“Is it dead?” Crabbe Junior.
„Let’s find out“, Draco replied, and Severus decided he’d have to find another spot to sit. Annoying.
Before he could do so, however, a stone hit his head. Hard. His vision blackened out for a moment.
That, he thought when he regained consciousness, was what it must feel like to be hit by a bludger. Good thing he’d never taken up Quidditch.
He beat his wings, but before he could properly take off, that damned boy picked up another stone.
Severus decided to fly in his face. Teach him a lesson.
That would have been a perfect solution to the problem at hand, had not the boy’s owl been in the vicinity.
It screeched. It attacked. Severus fought for his life.
Everything went black.
Chapter 11