Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: Again, the National Police Memorial in St James's Park wasn't built until 2005. Unfortunately I didn't think to fact check the date it until after this chapter was written and it's such a small detail I decided to leave it be.
The Unspeakable

~~~~SS~~~~

Sunday, 2 November 1997

How can I be simultaneously too old and too young for a task like this?

As a former Death Eater turned spy, Severus never understood why people consistently choose early morning as the best time for supposedly clandestine meetings. The ability to hide in the predawn shadows became negligible when two people stood out in an otherwise empty location; especially when said location typically didn't see visitors until the daylight hours. As two wizards, they would have the added benefit of hiding beneath a disillusionment charm, however, they needed to be visible for at least a small amount of time to ensure not to miss one another, leaving them vulnerable to the muggle police officers continuing to patrol the area on horseback. Therefore, unlike his meeting with Lucius at the London coffee shop where Severus dressed as a smart muggle businessman, he opted for a newly transfigured pair of black jogging bottoms, complete with reflective stripes down the outer sides, and a long-sleeved black jumper, assuming the identity of an early morning runner best matched the scene around him. Looking around at the empty park, he congratulated himself for a well thought through plan.

Despite having spent the previous afternoon wandering the park grounds to familiarize himself with the potential locations, not knowing exactly where to find Christopher exponentially increased Severus's anxiety over the whole ordeal. His experiences of blindly apparating to Voldemort's side without any indication of what to expect left him unable to go into any situation without having some sort of control and to give it up without knowing if he'd obtain the information he sought terrified him.

This is an Unspeakable, Severus reminded himself. He's not going to disapparate me to the Dark Lord's side.

He paused in his trek down the path leading to the National Police Memorial, where he planned to start his journey when he recognized his slip up of the moniker for the deceased evil wizard. What caused him to revert when referencing his former master? He'd exclusively used the previously cursed name since his demise last May, so why suddenly did he change it? Flexing his left forearm, grateful never to have to feel the burning pain of the Mark again regardless of whether a new dark wizard emerged, Severus physically shook his head in a failed attempt to clear his mind and continued on his way.

Although the Police Memorial sat right outside of St James's Park, Severus chose to begin from inside of the park and work his way outward. With fewer trees surrounding the Memorial than the park, doing so allowed him the chance to observe the less secluded space in the shadows rather than out in the open before getting a feel for the meeting. Unfortunately, proving just how off his mind had been as of late, he completely forgot they'd be meeting prior to dawn and therefore he wouldn't be able to see much of anything on the other side of Horse Guards Road. The lights illuminating the glass Police Memorial would provide him with enough visibility to at least see when a figure arrived, but not in nearly enough detail to confirm the person's identity - something he technically couldn't do regardless as he hadn't met Christopher - or if he brandished his wand. Still, old habits die hard, and Severus found himself sitting on a stone bench facing the glowing list of fallen muggle police to watch the desolate road for any sign of life around him.

Right as his patience dwindled to their final straw and he'd about given up to head over to the Guard's Memorial, a lone person rounded the slab of glass paying no attention to the list and instead focused on the slightly shorter darkened slab to its right. Severus watched as the figure stilled in front of the seemingly empty list, assumed by muggle tourists to be for future expansion, and waited, as if reading over names that technically did not exist. Severus knew better, though. His reconnaissance yesterday paid off because he knew this same panel of glass, the one all of the tourists ignored, displayed a list of Aurors lost in the line of duty throughout the years and became visible only when one with a magical signature approached. Thus, the person on the other side of the road had no reason to be viewing its contents, unless he was a wizard.

"In case you were unaware, the Police Memorial isn't technically inside the grounds of St James's Park, making your instructions fallible," Severus announced to the man wearing a set of solid blue wizarding robes.

So much for blending in.

"And yet, here you are, perfectly on time," the Unspeakable countered, his eyes never leaving the previously blank slate, and his hands firmly clasped behind his back, further proof the man was as far from the level of a Death Eater as possible. Severus, though, kept his hand tightly coiled around the base of his wand, ready to pull it at a second's notice. When the professor failed to reply, Christopher turned and calmly said, "I do believe you were the one who initiated this meeting, and as such, I'd prefer you release your wand. There's no need for your threatening display here."

With his jaw clenched tight, Severus considered his options. This man may be the best chance to get the information needed on the Obcasio, meaning the fastest way to obtain the information was, regrettably, playing by his rules. Going against his own instincts, Severus pulled his hand off his wand and lifted them both in the air, displaying his compliance; what choice did he really have at this point?

"Christopher?" Severus confirmed, and with a nod from the other man, he added, "prove it."

"My sister was held captive with you for two months this year. Her cover story was that she provided live-in care for a high priority patient. I guess it's not too far from the truth, however, I'd challenge that most of her patients are not evil dark wizards and do not threaten her life on a regular basis," he said the words as if he were retelling a children's story in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but it served his purpose; Dr Swanson's entrapment at Malfoy Manor didn't get published in either the Wizarding or Muggle news. "I take it this is sufficient enough for you?"

"You're correct."

Christopher nodded, then elegantly waved his hand around them putting into place a set of privacy wards assumed to be stronger than anything Severus could conjure. As an Unspeakable, the man likely lived under these conditions more than out in the open; if possible, a life almost lonelier than Severus's. They didn't sit at the nearby stone bench, identical to the one Severus sat in across the road to observe, a move suiting the professor just fine. He preferred the ability to vacate at his will.

"Meghan tells me you're interested in time," Christopher prompted. "As you know I cannot give any particular details about the work done in our part of the Ministry. Nevertheless, I am able to answer - to the best of my ability - things that may or may not have occurred regarding our rooms. For example, I cannot say anything, in any capacity, about the work being done in the Death Chamber, but if you asked me if someone broke into the room, I am allowed to answer yes and report we had a battle there leading to at least one death in June of 1996."

Sirius Black's murder.

"Is that clear, Mr Snape?"

Severus pondered his answer momentarily. "Yes, but to use your own words, I'd challenge you in that it's not that you can't speak to the work being done, but that you won't speak. A small, yet significant distinction which has not always been upheld by those in your profession."

"Rookwood," the other man whispered. "A small blimp in our department's history, I'll give you that, nonetheless, my terms remain unchanged… take it or leave it."

Severus may have had no intention of changing his mind, still, he took a moment to pause, as if he were considering rescinding his queries. Now, he simply had to be more cunning in his approach to them.

"I'm interested in learning about Obcasio," he started, "specifically where one might obtain it. Theoretically, of course."

"Of course," Christopher gave a small smirk. "I can inform you the time room hasn't seen any attempts of burglary from the outside in, nor any theft from the inside out."

"And importing?" Severus quickly followed up, taking note of the silent confirmation of the Obcasio's presence in the Department of Mysteries. "If someone wanted to procure it into the UK, a permit is needed, correct?"

Christopher clearly expected the question. "Should a request containing a magical artefact or product within our area of expertise come through the Ministry typically an Unspeakable reviews the Request for Transport and provides his or her recommendation to either authorise or reject the substance into our borders."

"And has a request for Obcasio importation been received in the last six months?"

Unlike every other question, Severus threw at the other wizard, this time he failed to answer expediently. Just as telling as the man's sudden silence, was his very short, three-word answer: "I cannot say."

"Ah, I see," Severus slowly responded, fully understanding the message hidden between the Unspeakable's words. "And if one wanted to obtain a copy of any request made. Where, hypothetically, might one go?"

"Very few have the security level required to access them and a Hogwarts professor certainly does not make the cut."

"Who then?"

Christopher took a breath to determine if the information Severus sought was information he could give. The professor released a sigh of relief when the other wizard ultimately responded, "Unspeakables, obviously, the Minister for Magic and his or her undersecretary, DMLE if they can prove the subject of the request overlaps with a current investigation - though admittedly the Ministry see few Aurors mingling in other departments-, the Department of Regulation who house the requests, and, similar to prophecies, the requestor."

Though the shortlist was interesting in that the Ministry felt these seemingly benign inquiries needed such a cloak and dagger approach, Severus stopped listening after mention of the DMLE. With Obcasio being found on the Slytherin Common Room window, Kingsley - or Samson, if he wanted to stay on the up and up - could get him a copy and with it the identity of the person who asked to import it. In fact, he'd be surprised if they hadn't done so already, making this rendezvous almost pointless.

"Thank you for your assistance," Severus promptly said, signalling the completion of their meeting.

"I work in the Space Chamber," Christopher announced when Severus turned to walk away. Unclear why the piece of information mattered, the professor swivelled around, willing to listen to the explanation. "Do you know what we study?"

"Is space-" he pointed to the orange-tinged sky above them, noticing for the first time the sun starting to rise; an indication of how long they'd been standing at the Auror's Memorial, "-too obvious of an answer?"

If Christopher heard Severus's sarcastic retort, he didn't care nor react. "We study all aspects of space, including those here on Earth."

Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Severus queried, "how can there be space on Earth?"

"Different… dimensions… so to say," Christopher clarified. Severus tried to tell himself his increasing heart rate had nothing to do with the connection between those words and his own situation with his dual realities. "It's a small part of our work overall. Truthfully, I can count on one hand the occasions where I had to personally get involved with it. Yet there's a story we've all been told about… an interesting debacle between the Space Chamber and the Time Room. It goes back before my generation, where we received a petition to bring in a new substance from the Far East, one which, when consumed, caused a person to jump out of one time and dimension into another. As you can reduce, if this substance crossed between both departments, they had to collaboratively surmise whether to accept it into our borders or not. The Time Room, being more liberal with their research, wanted to allow it in so long as they were given the chance to study it when used. The Space Chamber… Well, we vehemently disagreed. The story changes depending on the side you speak to, but ultimately, the Time Room overruled the Space Chamber and convinced the Department of Magical Regulations to permit it."

Severus swallowed despite his throat going completely dry. "And what came of this… substance… once it was used?"

"That's the interesting part," Christopher asserted, "our records don't show it being used here."

"Then perhaps it wasn't."

"I would agree, except a record in the Space Chamber shows a change in dimensional energy occurring over a year ago… and this individual will always carry the magical energy imprinted from his old life into this one."

Feeling faint, Severus straightened his posture even further than normal, a reaction to the uncomfortable conversation.

"Do you know who made the original petition for the substance?"

"Albus Dumbledore."


"Welcome back to the Crystal Palace," Arlie Clagg uncharacteristically joked. Severus sighed wondering when they crossed the line from strangers who worked silently beside one another into esteemed colleagues.

The professor barely had a moment to breathe once leaving St James's Park, having only enough time to disapparate to Spinner's End and floo to Hogwarts - the most complicated, yet his quickest way to get home - to meet Molly and check in on Harry; happy to see the young wizard still fast asleep since they fought another difficult post-chemotherapy night. Although he'd be fine during the day, Severus hated the idea of leaving him alone, and so when Molly's latest insistence on "a visit" practically fell into his lap, he jumped at the opportunity. Harry would surely be irritated by it, but Severus was in no mood to deal with any of it. He had his own demons to battle, including arranging a meeting with Kingsley to hand off the Obcasio information and deciding on what - if anything - to do with Christopher's implied knowledge of Severus's true self.

"Do you have a life outside of here?" Severus approached their pod with an armful of the same textbooks and notes he brought last week. He dropped them haphazardly onto the laboratory bench, also not in the mood to deal with any snarky co-workers, particularly after he assumed working on a Sunday to be synonymous with working alone; an oversight on his part, apparently, as Lucius demanded only the best, and the best didn't close for Sundays.

"What can I say? I prefer to work the weekends," the other wizard replied with a shrug, eliciting a skeptical glare out of the professor.

"For the peace and quiet, naturally."

"Something like that," the other wizard chuckled.

Drawing his wand, Severus lit the cauldron in front of him and started setting up his station, planning to ignore Clagg and the rest of his pod for the remainder of the day. Unfortunately, Clagg had other plans.

"For what it's worth," the careful voice to his left said, "Heisenberg was out for three whole days, and I heard they threatened to move him to the Flobberworm Mucus Project."

"Congratulations to him," Severus grumbled. "I couldn't care less what appropriate or inappropriate punishment he saw for his part in our altercation, but Lucius would be a fool to move him off the Dragon Pox team and I'll be the first to tell him so. "

"I never took you as the righteous type," Clagg accused.

"I'm not," Severus countered, highly offended, "and neither is Lucius. He wouldn't risk the quality of his research simply because of some schoolyard fight, which is how I know that bullock statement came out of some quill pusher who sits behind a desk all day-"

"You mean like me?" A stern female voice surprised him from behind.

Damn.

Keeping his head held high, Severus slowly rotated his stool until he faced a woman he scarcely remembered meeting when signing his employment contract on his first day at the laboratory; merely a formality, Lucius told him, as if Severus truly cared either way. Dressed in a set of fitted grey business robes, the blonde witch, who had to be at least ten years his senior, fit the part of "corporate quill pusher" to a T.

"You have my sincerest apologies," he said, sounding anything but sincere. "Although perhaps you should be apologizing for listening in on a private conversation."

"See, that's where you're wrong," she leaned in towards him menacingly. "I find it best to assume nothing is private in the MLD. Now, I need you to follow me, we have some business to attend to."

Severus gestured his hands over this workbench telling her without words where his work, and his primary focus, laid.

"If you want to air out your dirty laundry in front of your colleague, that's on you. For my purposes, you're needed in the offices upstairs. Now follow me."

A round for sniggering passed through the others in the pod, but coming from them, he didn't feel nearly as threatened over it. Somehow his one regular coworker and the other rotating assortment of potioneers created a kind of camaraderie he never anticipated or thought he wanted. Acquiescing to the impatient witch still standing behind him, Severus pushed himself away from the table then followed her back through the part of the room he entered less than ten minutes ago. He paid no attention to the other potioneers as he snaked his way carefully by their tables, out into the glass atrium, and up the stairs to the corporate office he only visited with Lucius during his initial tour of the facility.

The unassuming office gave him no concern, but the extra person - a man around his age in a smart business suit - waiting for them at the small desk most certainly did; if this rendezvous had anything to do with his newly tainted employment record, he preferred to discuss it with as few personnel as possible.

"Is an audience truly necessary for this?" Severus argued, entering the room barely enough for the door to be closed behind him.

"Mr Snape, that's hardly-"

"It's fine," the other man interrupted. His American accent caused Severus to startle and miss when he approached to introduce himself. "Mr Snape, my name is Silas Elms. I'm a squib, as you call us over here, a solicitor in the muggle world, and was told by my employer you have a personal matter you might need to use my assistance on."

Severus sighed, defeatedly. This wasn't the best first impression he wanted to make when starting the proceedings for Harry's potential adoption, proving yet again how off he'd been feeling. Sensing his need for privacy regarding the issue, the Human Resources witch silently excused herself from the room. For a second, Severus picked up her own wariness over this new man, but he let it slide.

Sitting in the other chair in front of the desk, Severus nodded. "I want to petition for the adoption of a half-blood child in my care. He's seventeen, though, so I assume it has to be done in the muggle world as he's past the age of majority in ours."

"Harry Potter," Silas stated it not as a question.

"Yes," Severus confirmed. For reasons he didn't know himself, speaking about it outside of his personal group of friends embarrassed him. "Can you help me? I don't even know where to start."

"That's what I'm here for," the squib pulled out a muggle file folder from his briefcase on the floor and handed it to Severus. "Inside there you'll find an outline of this procedure with details about how to back process it all in the Ministry, a copy of all the paperwork you need to fill out, and a list of the extensive items the muggle courts need to verify."

Trying not to feel overwhelmed at the start, Severus opened the folder and found all the information Mr Elms described in neatly separated sections.

"What about my muggle credentials?" He asked the question weighing heaviest on his mind. "For example, will I need to transfer my galleons to pounds before starting everything?"

"Not necessarily," the solicitor relieved him. "I can get any of the required information translated over through our legal offices, but generally speaking, there are benefits to having a foundation for me to build your profile up from… it makes the whole thing more believable. Do you have a muggle bank at all, and what about a muggle home?"

"I have both," Severus confirmed, his eyes still scanning the folder's contents. "Harry and I lived in my muggle home for the summer. I can give you the address."

"Already have it-"

Of course, he does.

"- which definitely helps a bit, but let's be honest it's in a shithole neighbourhood… have you considered moving to a place that doesn't scream 'we do drug deals here'?" Silas didn't wait for the professor's response. "Either way, under usual circumstances that would work against you."

"What exactly do you mean by under usual circumstances?" Severus nervously asked. "Are you planning on confunding the court?"

"Wouldn't be the first time I've hired a wizard to do it on my behalf," Silas admitted with a sarcastic chuckle, "and I'm not against it if it comes down to it, but I'm more referring to this-" he leaned over to his briefcase and once again pulled out another folder.

Rather than a nice and clean marketing-driven informational one, this one was scuffed, thick with papers sorted at all kinds of angles, and had coloured notes sticking throughout. Without waiting for the professor to inquire of its nature, Silas handed it over to Severus. Unwilling to show his concern for not only the contents of the file but how the squib solicitor managed to get it, Severus's face remained calm even though the blood inside of him boiled.

"In case you haven't figured it out yet," the solicitor crudely announced, "that is a combination of your Saviour's muggle education, medical, and family services' records. It was a fun read — I highly suggest you give it a go sometime."

"How is this going to help me overcome my muggle residence?"

"Let's put it this way," acknowledged Silas, "the kid has fallen through so many cracks it's amazing he's in one piece. We're talking teachers, school nurses, and even an elderly neighbour-" he flipped a page on the notebook in front of him to read from his own messy scribbling, "-ironically the same neighbour his loving aunt and uncle left him to… anyway, all these people have filed at least one official report concerned over Harry's well-being at some point until he turned eleven. I'm talking about the school administration questioning regularly missing medical forms, his nice second-year teacher inquiring why his clothes didn't fit, the school nurse reporting him being malnourished, and good 'ole Mrs Figg saying she saw bruises on him when she used to watch him while the family went on holiday, leaving him behind.

"Here's the kicker, though… after all of that he's now less than a year of ageing out of the system, lost another set of guardians, is dying of cancer -"

"-he's not dying-"

"- and now the man… albeit a less than ideal, kind of scary looking, single man, but we can work through that… who's been his official medical guru for the past year, getting him to his doctor's appointments on time, making sure he has his medication, and even living at the hospital with him, wants to adopt this kid and live happily ever after on the campus of their posh boarding school? After how much they fucked up, you bet they'll want to settle this quickly before I threaten to drag every single one of those reports through the media. Trust me, an orphan dying of cancer finally getting the family he deserves makes a much better headline."

Dumbfounded, Severus sat staring at the man, lost somewhere between amazed and disgusted. He knew about the care or lack thereof Harry was exposed to by Petunia and her husband in his old reality, but he'd not seen any of the reports nor did he know there had been people actively trying to help his child. Seeing as the two Harry's could never coexist, he'd never get the opportunity to see if Harry's upbringing here differed at all from that of his old reality. If by chance it had been worse than what he already knew about, the very last thing he wanted to do was drag Harry through a messy court proceeding. But if Silas could be trusted - a very liberal term he wasn't sure he believed yet - it wouldn't come to that, and Severus refused to permit anything to end up in the media.

"So then your grand plan is to intimidate your way through this?"

"If even half of what Lucius tells me about you is true, I think your moral compass will be just fine," Silas countered.

"That's exactly my point," Severus disputed, "had I wanted to do this the easy way, there are plenty of skeptical methods to choose from. People will be looking into this due to Harry's medical condition. All the details must be correct, not simply good enough."

"It won't come to that," the solicitor leaned back and rested his right ankle on his left knee. "Basically, you give me the information outlined on page four of the first booklet, plus a couple of references, and I'll tell you when you show up to the proceedings."

Severus opened the pretty folder and found the referenced list:

- Photo Page of Passport or Driving License

- Proof of Employment

- Proof of Residency

- Financial Statements

- Personal References

- Certified Copy of Birth Certificate of Child

- Certified Copy Death Certificate of previous parents or guardian(s)

- Health Records for Child

In addition to the above he needed to provide, he could expect to have a background check and home inspection completed on his behalf. In light of the thick file on his lap, the prospect of going through all of this for a child eight months away from becoming a legal adult was almost humorous. Where was all of this "protection" when the same child slept in a cupboard under the stairs, then later in a room with locks on the outside of the door and a cat flap he didn't have to use his feeble imagination to know its purpose? Silas was correct, he didn't care what they had to do to process this adoption, he'd done worse things for a far less noble cause. Reading through the leaflet about what to expect during the adoption process and the outline of events brought him one great relief: the typical timeframe took about six months, meaning if it started now and didn't run into any issues, it'd be finalized before Harry's eighteenth birthday; the only real milestone which mattered.

They spent the better part of the next hour going over the finer details of Silas's plan. Once Severus procured all his relevant wizarding information - mainly his Gringotts' financial statements, letter of Employment Verification, his proof of identity, and personal references - and the solicitor would make sure they were recreated under their muggle counterparts, then filed appropriately. As for all the certificates, since Harry already existed in the muggle world, tracking down his original birth certificate, the appropriate death certificates, and handling Mrs Figg's cooperation in transferring custody, would be easy enough for Silas's office. He made it sound so manageable, and if Severus didn't already have Draco's arrest, Harry's chemotherapy, and Death Eaters on his mind perhaps he'd feel more comfortable with it all. Nevertheless, in his current state, he had a difficult time comprehending it all.

"When do you know if this will go through?" Severus tentatively asked. "I don't want to broach the subject with Harry if it's going to be turned down."

"This is pretty much a done deal," Silas confidently - a bit too much for Severus's liking - stated. "But if you want to be sure, you can wait until your assessment is completed and you're marked acceptable to adopt a child. Seeing as Mr Potter has gone through guardianship before, the biggest hurdle will be your verification and once we have that in place it's only a matter of formality. So it's really up to you when you decide to spill the beans. And if for some reason he decides he doesn't want you as a father, he can change his mind up until the final papers are signed, but after that, he's stuck with you."

Severus might have sounded confident in Harry equally wishing for this adoption to go through, but deep down, the professor was still exponentially nervous to ask him. What if he didn't want to officially be related to Severus? And even more importantly, if he said no, would they be able to fall back into the same cadence they'd found in the past year?

I surely hope so.

~~~~HP~~~~

"How're you feeling, Harry?"

Hermione asked the number one question Harry hated answering from anyone. How did she think he felt the day after chemo? He had every intention of asking her the same thing back, in regards to Draco's arrest, but stopped himself at the last second, not wanting to get into the "eye for an eye" cycle.

When Hermione and Ron messaged him early this morning asking to stop by for a visit, even though he normally would have turned them down - because he honestly still didn't feel well enough for guests from yesterday's treatment - waking up to Mrs Weasley changed his plans. Snape reminded yesterday about the meeting he had to attend before his shift at the laboratory, and at the time, Harry envisioned spending the day lounging in various locations around their quarters, perhaps even taking a bath to soak off the sick feeling seeping into his skin; because the one McGonagall embarrassingly forced upon him hardly counted. So waking up to his surrogate mother definitely altered those plans, knowing any possible misstep like not eating enough or just having an overall down disposition, would make its way back to Snape. And so when Hermione pleaded to see him, Harry figured their distraction was better than sitting around with Mrs Weasley overanalyzing his every move. Hermione, Ron, and Lavender arrived shortly after breakfast.

Thankfully, Harry ended up being saved from answering Hermione's inquiry by Lavender's loud protest when Ron nudged - in Harry's opinion, as opposed to Lavender's description - his girlfriend off of his lap while sitting on Harry's floor. "Hey! Why'd you push me off?!"

"My mum's here if you hadn't noticed," Ron's face flushed a deep crimson-red. "Do you really want her to see you sitting so… close?"

Harry laughed. "I'd like to see that! Maybe then your mum won't come in here anymore."

"Yeah, right," Ron scoffed, "if anything she'd pull a chair over and join us."

A grimace fell on all four Gryffindors' faces.

"That might be worse than Snape," Harry retorted.

"Where is he today?" Hermione sat at the foot of his bed facing him with her feet tucked between his yellow blanket on top and the green bedspread on the bottom. Harry faced her, leaning cross-legged against his headboard with the other side of the yellow blanket tucked up his waist. "Anything to do with the trial on Friday?"

The question practically sucked all of the oxygen from the room. Harry tried to empathize with her, to think about what he'd do if someone he loved were in a similar situation, but he had no one he loved in the same way Hermione did to Draco. To have to think about the person she loved being wasted away by the dementors in Azkaban, all for turning into a cat - not even a dangerous animal like a bear or a lion - seemed drastic. Even if they didn't cross the line into friendship, Harry had seen what the dementors did to Sirius and he wouldn't wish that on anyone; except maybe the Death Eaters who held them captive.

"Harry?" Hermione reached out across the bed and touched his calf to get his attention back into their conversation.

"Sorry," he sheepishly said. "Erm, no, he's at the lab today. I talked to him late last night… or I guess early this morning… and all I know is Draco's trial isn't until Friday."

"Maybe they'll find it's all a big misunderstanding?" Lavender naively suggested.

"It's not," Hermione rested her chin on her knees. "I told him to register. But he-"

"He did what he had to do," Harry defended their missing friend. "Don't chastise him just because it's not the thing you would do."

"Who? 'Mione?" Ron feigned surprise. "She'd have the paperwork filled out before she even placed the bloody Mandrake leaf in her mouth."

Lavender winced. "Tell me… was it gross kissing him with it there? Or what when you-"

"Ugh, I don't want to hear this," Harry exclaimed, then turned to Hermione and added, "seriously don't answer either of those."

A round of ruckus laughter passed through the group of friends, and for once Harry didn't care if it was, in part, at his expense. He'd be the first to jump at the fact his only real romantic experience had been a failed date with Cho. The kiss they shared - his first ever - he'd always cherish, but the date he looked forward to forgetting about; and the sooner, the better.

"Are you going to be at the trial?" Harry asked when the noise around his room died down.

"I asked McGonagall this morning," she fiddled with the loops on the knitted yellow blanket, knotting her finger as far as they'd go through them and then slithered it back out, all the while a scowl on her face Harry hadn't seen since Umbridge's days. "She won't approve me leaving the grounds. Said it wouldn't be appropriate. I argued I'm eighteen already and offered to get my parents' permission, but she, or Dumbledore, won't budge on their decision."

"Maybe they think it won't be safe?" Ron logically suggested, and Lavender nodded her agreement emphatically to them.

"Not safe?" Hermione exasperatedly retorted. "What do they honestly think is going to happen? He's not dangerous!"

"No, that's not what I meant," Ron amended, excitedly leaning in towards them. "What if Dumbledore - or the Order - has a plan to get him out?"

Harry shook his head disappointingly thinking back to the Death Eater trials he saw in Dumbledore's pensieve in his fourth year. If they treated Draco half as badly as the Death Eaters, Hermione shouldn't be there to see it.

"He's guilty, Ron!" Hermione bellowed. "There's no getting him out of it!"

An uncomfortable silence followed her declaration and Harry's heart became heavy when he saw three tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. Nothing he said would make her feel better or lessen the pain inside. She tried her best to hide away from them, but Harry, reacting solely on his instincts, pushed his blanket off and shuffled himself across the bed until he sat next to his friend with his arm draped around her shoulders where she curled up into him and began to cry. At one point in their lives, this would have been Ron reaching out to comfort her and Harry pushed aside the memory of a time when he feared his two best friends were romantically interested in each other. And perhaps, looking back, they had been. Who's to say if Lavender didn't cling, quite literally, onto Ron, the redhead might be in his place. Of course, had that happened, this entire scene wouldn't have existed because Draco would already be in Azkaban for kidnapping Harry… or maybe not because without living together after the Quidditch attack, Harry might not have let the Malfoy heir into Snape's quarters that night. Harry had to stop the snowball way of thinking before he got too far. So many things might have been different if only one small change occurred.

"If it makes you feel any better," Lavender whispered, though in the quiet room she might as well have been yelling it, "I read the Dementors don't guard Azkaban anymore. So…"

"They don't?" Harry exclaimed when it became obvious she had no intention of finishing her sentence.

Pushing away from him, Hermione wiped her eyes with her palms and shook her head sadly. "No, they now only guard the top offenders and with the Mark and Draco's bound to end up there with his."

"But his crime had nothing to do with the Mark," Harry tried to justify. "He's already been found innocent in his role with Voldemort. They can't put him with the other Death Eaters."

"Harry's right," Lavender added and the two words caused Harry to cringe. "Becoming a fluffy, white kitten is not on the same level as… as… those people."

"You don't understand-" Hermione muttered.

A knock on the door stopped her tirade, and unsurprisingly Mrs Weasley's head peeked around the door.

"It's lunchtime, you lot," she told them with a nervous smile. Her gaze lingered longer on Lavender and Ron sitting half a meter apart than Harry and Hermione sitting on the bed practically embracing. "Then I'm afraid Harry needs to get some rest."

"I'm fine, Mrs Weasley, really," Harry protested, but the Weasley matriarch was already raising her hand to negate him.

"I'm under strict orders from Severus for you to eat lunch, then rest," she huffed. "I'm going to at least get you set up for it, and what you do with the rest is up to you."

The young wizard's face blanched at the idea of a bath; something so simple and yet sounded so enticing he may actually eat quickly just to get there.

"We'll be right there, Mum," Ron reassured, and Harry was sure it had more to do with her scrutiny over the couple on the floor.

"I think she hates me," Lavender announced as she cleaned off the invisible dust - because Snape had his room cleaned guarantee not to have any actual dust - off her jeans.

"No Lav, it's not that," Ron placed his arm around his girlfriend's waist and pulled her close to him. "She just doesn't know you very well. I bet after spending Christmas with us this year, things will get better."

Christmas. Another event Harry actively didn't think about. As much as he wanted to ask about going back to Shell Cottage with Snape, assuming everything stayed on schedule - and he needed his chemo to stay on schedule or he'd have bigger issues to deal with - he wouldn't only have chemo over Christmas Eve again, he'd be receiving it in the hospital this year. Although staying in the muggle world did open up the possibility of celebrating with Mae, so whenever he felt sad, he focused on how it might not be a complete lost cause. Similarly, Harry wondered if Hermione had a lot of the same regrettable thoughts going through her mind in relation to Draco. Had they already made plans to spend the holiday abroad or stay close to home with either the Grangers or Malfoys; the latter of which caused Harry's face to scrunch?

"We should get to lunch," Hermione interrupted Ron and Lavender's discussion over Christmas agendas, sorrow laced within her voice. She stood up from the bed and held her hand out to help Harry up - something he appreciated from his friends - but he didn't take it.

"You two go on ahead," Harry gestured with his head towards the door, "we'll catch up with you."

"You sure, mate?" Ron nervously pleaded.

"Yeah, we'll only be a minute or two," Harry smirked, "maybe you can use the time to bond a bit with your Mum."

The other wizard audibly gulped, and the face he made looked just as terrified as when they stood in front of Aragog in their second year. Facing his mother with his girlfriend couldn't really be that bad, right? If Hermione managed to have dinner with the muggleborn hating Malfoys, Lavender had nothing to complain about. Harry agitatedly listened to Ron's incoherent grumbling as they left the room, partially closing the door in their wake, and down the corridor to the kitchen.

"What's going on?" Hermione sat back down on the edge of the bed, her rimrod straight back the only sign of her uneasiness.

Yesterday, while continuing his sketching of the Quidditch match, he came across the two letters Draco sent him over the summer holiday. He may not have been able to articulate it back then, but sitting on his comfortable bed unsuccessfully ignoring his own discomfort caused by chemotherapy, Harry admitted he'd been jealous of Draco's assumed healing after being held captive in Malfoy Manor. Learning the reasoning behind Draco's decision to become an illegal animagus refuted the assumptions he made when refusing to open the letters, an action now feeling petty and small. Draco coped with his own demons by hiding away and taking the risk of another imprisonment if he were discovered, which ended up not being much better than Harry's avoidance strategy. But as Harry went to read the letters - with his newfound knowledge the sender hadn't been any better off than him - he found himself still unable to open them, this time for a very different reason. Rather than feeling intimidated by Draco's words, as he had over the summer months, he felt simply no need to read the letters and guilt over not giving his friend the missives she deserved.

Without saying a word, Harry reached down for the second time in as many days, and slowly opened the drawer containing the folded parchment, stored safely below his useless wand. Giving them one more curious glance, he handed them over to Hermione.

"You should have these," he explained to her. "I'm sure he's already told you what he wrote in them, but there's a letter inside each one for you."

Hermione sniffled back her threatening tears and turned the parchment over and over anxiously in her hands. "But these are technically yours," she weakly argued.

"If you want to read whatever he had to say to me, be my guest," Harry frowned. "He loves you, 'Mione, I'm sure he's told you loads more than whatever's written in these. Either way, I don't need to read them anymore… you do, though."

Unable to hold back her tears any longer, Hermione rested her head on his shoulder and whispered, "thank you, Harry. You're a really good friend."


As promised, Mrs Weasley hastily ushered his friends out of his home shortly after lunch, leaving Harry to his own devices to "rest" in his bedroom alone. Deep down, he appreciated her looking out for him because even if he wanted to stubbornly argue against it, he was actually still quite tired. In the back of his mind, the young wizard continued to justify his feelings as the side effects of his new chemotherapy regimen, unwilling to allow himself to wander back to memories of Maintenance, when he'd feel off for a day or two after his infusion treatment, then almost normal the remainder of the month. Since his relapse - specifically, once they blocked his magic - he didn't have any "normal" days anymore. Each day was plagued by its own set of challenges: a constant, seemingly random rotation of exhaustion, bouts of nausea, odd and severe bowel movements, no appetite or an annoying metallic blood taste coating his mouth, and a hard time focusing on tasks. It scared him to think too much about what it might mean, so he tried to keep his mind as occupied as possible; a difficult feat given the first and last items on his laundry list of conditions.

As seemed to be the case all too often lately, Harry fell asleep only three pages into his assigned reading for his Foundations class - Great Expectations, a piece of British literature he knew without a shred of doubt he'd never actually use in his life. Atypical of his usual sleeping habits, he dreamed about attending Hermione and Draco's wedding. Triggered by his earlier conversation with her and the Halloween Ball, in Harry's dream, the couple exchanged their vows atop a lake view hillside decorated in an extravagant display of dark purple flowers, lace, and satin. Harry sat in the third row wearing the same oversized dress robes he wore to the dance, his head still completely bald, with Luna by his side in a beautiful orange lanced gown. Oddly, the dream remained soundless - no wind rustling the leaves in the shade tree above his head, no birds singing their summer tune, no music playing in the background, and no spoken words, although the lips moving on the couple told him they were speaking - giving the scene an eerie aura to it. Regardless, no one in attendance could ever deny the love Hermione and Draco showed to each other. Envy coursed through Harry's subconscious, wishing someone looked at him the way Hermione gazed lovingly at Draco while he placed a diamond-encrusted golden band on her delicate finger. The blonde lifted his grey eyes to peer into his new bride's tear moistened ones and after another set of muted words, he leaned down to place a tender kiss on her makeup lips.

Happy. Despite his personal jealousy in his own shortcomings of young adult dating, Harry genuinely was happy for the newlyweds and he wished them a long and happy life together. Unfortunately, the moment was short-lived when no sooner than Draco lifted his head - an uncharacteristic wide smile spanning his face - the perfectly blue skies surrounding them darkened into an almost black cloud. Wisps of grey-tinted smoke completely surrounded the couple creating a panic in the unsuspecting guests. Harry turned to Luna, attempting to warn her to run to safety, but like everything else in the dream, no words came out of his throat. Frustrated, he pointed to the other side of the hill - alarmed at the sight of the dead brown grass sitting where the lush green used to be - signing for her to flee up there as fast as possible, while he ran past her and towards the top of the cloud engulfed altar expecting to save his friends. What he found when he crossed the smokey boundary, though, stopped him in his tracks. Instead of a crew of Death Eaters standing with wands brandished, threatening to kill one or both of them, Auror Williamson - dressed in his traditional red Auror's robes - held Draco's hands tightly behind his back. Two other wizards, one blonde and the other light brunette who Harry recognized but couldn't remember from where he stood on either side of a sobbing Hermione holding her arms and preventing her from rushing to her groom's aid, their wands pointed at her ribcage for good measure.

Instinctively, Harry drew his wand and pointed it at Williamson, choosing him as the first target since both of the lead Auror's hands were occupied. If nothing else, when the two Aurors guarding Hermione turned their focus onto him to protect their boss, she'd be free to get away. Except knowing Hermione, she'd transfigure her white wedding gown into a set of robes to join in the fight alongside him.

"I told you he wasn't unarmed," Williamson arrogantly sneered at Harry; the first sound he heard since arriving in the dream.

"Harry, no," Hermione screamed, tears streaming down her face, "you can't do mag-"

His friend's words reminding him about his inability to do magic hit a split second too late, and as he fired off an unintentionally silent expelliarmus, a bright green light raced towards his chest, hitting him so hard it knocked his last breath right out of him.

Back in the safety of his bedroom, Harry's panicked eyes bolted open, unable to see anything but a blurry black and white blob looming over him. Adrenaline still rushing through him from the dream, Harry sat up so rapidly, he almost hit the blob - luckily, it moved away at the last second - and his head immediately became dizzy. Fighting back the urge to vomit from his disorientation, he had no chance of hearing the muffled words around him trying to tell him he was safe at home; it was all a dream. In the end, the vertigo won and without thinking much about his surroundings, Harry leaned over the side of his bed propelling Great Expectations off in the process and vomited directly onto it. With his eyes tightly closed, the Gryffindor focused on the warm hand rubbing small circles on his back, allowing the wave of nausea to pass through him until the last heaving subsided.

"I know you didn't want to read the darn thing, but I think this was a bit extreme, don't you agree?" Snape's deep voice to his right made Harry chuckle.

His glasses and the goblet of water from his bedside table were offered to him - thankfully in that order, otherwise Harry was sure he'd make a mess all over himself - giving him the first chance to ground himself out of his nightmare.

"Sorry," he mumbled, embarrassed.

Picking up on the reasoning, Snape drew his wand and vanished the book and vomit off the floor. Of course, Harry's flinch from the action did not go unnoticed by the professor.

"Voldemort?" Snape guessed at the topic of his nightmare.

Harry shook his head, furrowing his brows in concentration trying to recall what made him so fearful of the wand. "No…. erm… it was Auror Williamson arresting Draco,"

his cheeks flushed, unwilling to discuss the wedding aspect of it.

Harry shifted himself back on his bed until he leaned against his headboard, drawing his knees to his chest. In response, Snape turned, tucking his left foot beneath his right to face the young wizard.

"That makes a lot of sense," the professor nonchalantly declared. Noticing Harry's confused expression, he clarified: "Given everything that's happened in the last two days, having an aversion to the man who arrested one of your best friends is quite natural."

"I don't usually dream anymore," Harry said as if that explained everything. "So to have one so… real… and so...," his lips curled in anger as he trailed off. "It's not fair."

"We've been through this, Harry." Snape pinched the bridge of his nose; a move the Gryffindor recognized, meaning the other wizard was approaching his breaking point.

"I know," he acquiesced. A companionable silence fell between them and desperate to fill it any way possible, Harry looked out of his enchanted window - forgetting for a moment that this time of year the sun set too early to help him accurately tell the time - then asked, "did you just get home?"

"Not exactly," Snape announced, following Harry's eyes to the enchanted window. "According to Molly, you've been asleep for roughly four or five hours. It's past dinner time already."

"Oh." The Gryffindor's face fell. Not ready to get into a conversation over his lack of appetite, he decided to change the topic. "How did your mysterious meeting go today? The Ministry bloke, right?"

Snape, obviously onto his distraction technique, slowly nodded. For a fleeting moment, Harry thought he saw apprehension in his mentor's obsidian eyes. "It went… about as I expected."

"That's good, though," Harry perked up over the idea of pushing the spotlight away from him and onto Snape. "Did it have to do with the Death Eater claims in the papers?"

"Why would you assume-"

"McGonagall told me you had plans made for this before Draco's arrest," Harry filled in his thought process, "so the only other thing that makes sense is all this new dark wizard talk. It's rubbish if you ask me."

"No one's asking, which is precisely the problem," Snape lamented. Heaving a tired sigh, he added, "However, even I must admit to something odd going on in the wizarding world. It's the easiest explanation."

"Doesn't mean it's right," Harry countered. "Did Voldemort do things like this when he started?"

"Absolutely not," Snape sharply answered. "He followed a more subtle tactic by gaining followers in high ranking places - like the Department of Mysteries - or those frustrated with the current Ministry."

"Like werewolves and giants."

"Exactly," Snape agreed. "The terrorizing raids only started when all of his pieces were in place. Like a good game of chess, he waited for the right timing, then struck fast and hard to where the Aurors and Order had little hope of surviving. Ronald Weasley would certainly appreciate the methodology, outside of the moral implications of it, of course."

Harry laughed, a welcome reprieve from the gloomy mood constantly following him lately.

"Let's get you something to eat," Snape patted Harry's knee. "Molly said you only picked at your lunch."

"I'm not-"

Snape lifted his hand to halt Harry's protest. "Yes, Harry-" the Gryffindor recoiled at the sound of his name for the second time since waking up; every-so-often still caught off guard by Snape saying it "-I've heard you on the few dozens of occasions you've told me you're not hungry. It does not, however, change the fact that you need to eat something… anything… at this point."

Harry glared, though most of the steam dissipated the further away his dream got from him.

"One more thing," the young wizard stalled, and based on Snape's menacing stare, he knew he'd reached the very end of his rope. "Then I promise I'll go eat some broth or something."

"Or something," Snape warned. "Go on."

"Is it true the dementors aren't guarding Azkaban anymore?" The question, while logical, made him feel like a child for asking.

If the professor judged him on it, Harry never knew it.

"That is correct," confirmed Snape. "The dementors are only guarding the highest of offenders."

"And Draco's not there?"

"No," the confidence in the single word eased Harry with hope, "I've been told he's in the tier directly under the dementors. I suspect his Mark is driving a lot of that decision, otherwise, an unregistered animagus charge being held in that location is a bit of an overkill. And yet, it's amazing how quickly others forget why he took the Mark.

"Now," Snape stood and extended his hand to help Harry up, "it's time for you to uphold your part of the bargain."

Taking a hold of his mentor's slender, calloused hand, Harry accepted the support to get him out of bed, cleaned up from his earlier sick episode, and to the kitchen for dinner. They talked about Harry's day, Mrs Weasley and her dislike for Lavender, expectations for the upcoming week, and Snape's work - or as much as he was permitted to speak about - in the laboratory. By the end of his designated mealtime, Harry, still feeling ill from chemotherapy, sat back listening to the professor go on and on about his different project aspects, his latest suggestion to his team to use one obscure ingredient over another - neither of them Harry recognized - and the bits of molecular muggle biology he committed to learning. But Harry's mind couldn't be any further from their dinner table; rather it was hundreds of kilometres away considering two very important questions:

Would Dumbledore or Snape come through and be able to get Draco's charges thrown out at his trial on Friday? And if not, who would they bunk a Death Eater, turned spy with when the Slytherin actively worked against most of those imprisoned in the stone fortress?

Chapter End Notes:
Coming Up Next: Malfoys' Interlude: Azkaban Prison

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