Severus glared menacingly out at his class of fifth years. If they thought they were off the hook because Potter was ‘missing,’ they were sorely mistaken. His wrath would know no bounds, especially not today. Something was going on with the Gryffindors, he could feel it. The animosity towards him was pouring off of them in ways he could barely describe but was rather attuned to feeling directed towards him.
But he wasn’t the object of their wrath, his son was.
“Weasley!” Severus snapped, stepping towards his cauldron of Draught of Peace with a sneer. “Does this seem like a kitchen to you?”
“No,” Ron said miserably, frowning at his cauldron which was belching yellow steam and smelling horrifically of rotten eggs.
“Then explain to me how you have managed to make my entire classroom smell like a gone off breakfast!” Severus sneered, knowing full well that the Weasley boy hadn’t ground his moonstone fine enough.
“I… I don’t know, sir,” Ron said, nostrils flaring suddenly in anger.
Severus raised an eyebrow at the change in attitude. Something was certainly going on with the Gryffindors, if only he could pin-point what it was. They hadn’t seemed this angry since he had been the substitute for the bloody wolf over the full moon two years ago. At the time, they at least had some reason to be angry with him; he had been refusing to go off of the provided lesson plans after all. And had been purposefully trying to make them realize the man was a dangerous animal. And had assigned them a ridiculously long essay.
They didn’t have any of those excuses to despise him now, however. He would be happy to give them reason to hate him, but he didn’t want to incur more of their wrath on Elias. Had it not been for Lupin’s intervention, he surely would have fallen on the stairs at least once in the last twenty-four hours.
And had it not been for Lupin there to witness it, he likely never would have known the Gryffindors were after his son.
The other students had only been back in the castle for all of four days and already they had decided to attempt to go after Elias. The strangest part though was how little Elias fought back. It was almost as if he had been expecting this or was extremely practiced at trying to hide being the victim of bullying, a fact which burned Severus to the core. Had he truly missed something in the boy’s years here at Hogwarts?
“Fifteen points from Gryffindor and banish that abomination before you contaminate the entire dungeons with that scent,” Severus ordered before stalking to the other side of the dungeon. “And five points from Gryffindor, Longbottom, for completely disregarding the instructions and creating concrete in your cauldron.”
“It’s not his fault your handwriting’s rubbish!” Weasley exploded before turning so white his freckles stood out like beacons on his face.
Severus turned slowly to face the red-head, a dangerous look on his face, noting the other Gryffindors shooting their comrade rather fearful looks. “Come again?”
“You heard…”
“Detention, Weasley. Tonight. Seven o’clock,” Severus growled, cutting the boy off mid-sentence.
Thankfully, the Weasley boy immediately shut his mouth and glared at his cauldron furiously before banishing it’s contents and angrily cleaning his workstation. Severus glared daggers at him for a few more moments before turning back to the Slytherin side of the room. He would find out tonight what was going on; surely Weasley was the ringleader of the current nonsense.
“Ronald!” he heard Granger whisper. “What are you doing?”
“Look,” Weasley whispered back. “Someone needs to stand up to him! Especially if he’s prejudiced against muggleborns!”
“When he’s actually being prejudiced, yes. But not when he’s right about your potion!” Granger said, continuing to cover her nose with her jacket sleeve.
Severus frowned. He would definitely be getting to the bottom of this tonight. Come hell or high water, he would find out where these accusations were coming from.
Elias groaned as he pulled the cloth mask over his nose and mouth before entering the potions lab. He was not looking forward to his potions lesson for the week in the slightest. Potions had always been his least favorite subject and now he was having to take the class in two separate parts and wear a mask for the entirety of the brewing portion. He understood the logic behind wearing it, he was on too many potions himself to want to risk inhaling a cross-contaminate, but it was miserably stifling to wear for hours on end. They had tried a bubble head charm, but he found the distortion too great to be able to convince his eyes to focus on anything smaller than a cauldron.
A mask it was then.
Entering the lab, he was surprised to find he wasn’t alone in the room with his father. A rather familiar red-head was standing at the sink, elbow deep in soapy water with a wicked frown on his face. Apparently he would be sharing his potions lab time with Severus’s detention times.
“Elias, take a seat,” Severus said rather gently before bringing over a tray full of pre-prepared ingredients and setting them down in front of him. “Before we begin, I would like to apologize for Mr. Weasley’s intrusion on your lab time. He earned himself a detention today during class.”
Elias nodded silently before taking a seat and looking over the ingredients he was presented with. Moonstone, syrup of hellebore, essence of lavender, and … bat guano? That didn’t seem right. He was almost certain he was supposed to be making the Draught of Peace, not… whatever that was going to make. He was fairly certain there was no way he would be able to integrate the guano into his potion with only the ingredients provided. In fact… he was fairly certain his father was testing him.
Gently setting the ingredient to the side, he methodically set out the ingredients in the order they would be added to the potion. Of all the fiddley potions to start with, why this one? He was sure it was to see how much Severus’s students had actually retained over the summer, but that was hardly fair considering he could barely retain what he had for breakfast.
Pouring over the instructions and carefully writing them out onto individual slips for each ingredient, he licked his lips nervously and began to brew, double checking the amounts and preparations as he went. While he doubted he would brew a perfect potion, he knew he was at a bit of an unfair advantage as all of his ingredients had been prepared by his father before he ever started though he was already suspicious of the ingredients with the addition of the bat guano.
As he got to the third step, he frowned as he looked at the moonstone he had sitting in front of him. It was supposed to be powdered, however the consistency of the stone was far more coarse than the powder it was supposed to be. Grabbing the mortar and pestle from the tray, he quickly ground the stone into an almost corn-starch consistency before adding it to the brew, stirred three times counter-clockwise, and reduced the flame to allow the mixture to simmer for the listed seven minutes.
“Good,” Severus said, pulling a stool opposite Elias and sitting down gracefully before removing the bat guano from the provided ingredients. “I’m pleased you caught those. Do you know what would have happened if you had added the guano to the potion?”
“N-not really,” Elias muttered, blushing furiously as Ron looked in his direction curiously. “It w-w-wasn’t on the l-l-list, s-s-so I d-d-d-didn’t add it.”
“And a good thing too. The entire potion would have separated and curdled. There are ways to save a potion when that happens, but it is entirely potion specific and must be done with great care,” Severus lectured calmly, before flicking his eyes conspiratorially towards Ron who was very obviously listening in from the corner. “Now, the moonstone. Why did you decide to grind it further?”
“Um…” Elias muttered, frowning as he looked over the ingredients in front of him once more and refreshed his memory of what he had done thus far in the potion. “It w-w-would sm-mell like eggs if it-t w-w-wasn’t g-ground fine en-n-nough?”
“A fact Mr. Weasley wished to blame on my handwriting during class today,” Severus said with a snort. “How is your project coming along?”
“N-not g-g-good,” Elias said with a sigh of relief as the conversation turned from the art of potions making and instead focused on something he was actually interested in. “We’ve hit a r-r-roadblock.”
“Oh?” Severus raised his eyebrow questioningly and folded his arms. He wasn’t surprised, it was a complex topic after all, but he would have thought they could have gotten at least somewhat farther into the subject before having problems.
“I-I’ve h-had to r-reach out to Ilverm-m-morny for inform-mation, as w-w-well as B-b-beauxb-b-baton’s and D-durmstrang, b-but I h-haven’t h-heard b-back yet,” Elias said with a sigh and a frown. “A-and I j-just sent a l-letter to the M-ministry today, too.”
“Which department are you reaching out to?” Severus asked curiously, checking his watch to make sure the simmer time wasn’t up. It wouldn’t be fair for him to be distracting Elias and have that be the reason his potion failed.
“R-remus said the h-head of the M-m-misuse of M-muggle Artif-f-facts office m-might know something,” Elias said with a small smile as he looked slightly in Ron’s direction.
A loud crash was heard as Ron dropped the cauldron he was working on into the washbasin in shock. Why would the Snape boy be reaching out to his dad? His dad? What was his ‘project’ on anyways? His dad was extremely pro-muggle; it made no sense for a Death Eater in training to be reaching out to him! Something wasn’t adding up.
“Clean, Mr. Weasley!” Severus snapped. “You have twenty minutes left.”
“But that’s my dad you’re talking about!” Ron said loudly, refusing to turn back to the cauldron which was now soaking in the tepid water. “What do you want from him?”
“You can ask him yourself,” Severus snapped back. “Now clean!”
A small chime was heard from Elias’s desk reminding him the simmer time was up and he needed to move on to the next step in the brewing process. Two drops of syrup of hellebore later and he was back to working on the potion despite the now tense atmosphere in the room. He wished he could talk with Ron about his project and assuage his fears, but for some reason there was a lot of animosity towards him already. Particularly from the Gryffindors.
Had he still been Harry Potter, he would have attributed this to the ending of the previous year, but he was no longer Harry Potter. Yes, he was now known as ‘Snape’s kid’ and Severus was by far and away the least liked professor at the school, but what had he done to warrant such hatred from his former house? The first time he had nearly fallen on the stairs, he attributed it to his legs just giving out on him. The second time, however, he found his shoelaces had been tied together.
The third time he had physically felt hands on his back pushing him towards the stairs and certainly would have fallen had Remus not been with him at the time.
But why? School had barely started and it didn’t make any sense to him. He had hardly had any interaction with the other students outside of the few times he had sat with the Slytherins. He hadn’t worked up the courage to try sitting with the other houses yet, but with the way things were going he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not. And he knew the chances of him making friends outside of Slytherin if everyone assumed he was sympathetic to the Slytherins was slim already.
Soon enough, his potion was complete. While not perfect, it was certainly better than anything he had ever done in Severus’s class before, and Severus had actually been rather helpful rather than actively trying to make a fool out of him as he had for the past four years.
“Mr. Weasley, your time is up,” Severus said as Elias turned off the burner under his cauldron. “Do not leave just yet, however. I would like to discuss your statements from class.”
Ron froze while putting away the gloves and wire scrub brush he had been using to clean the cauldrons. He hadn’t thought that Snape had overheard him and Hermione speaking after he had gotten detention. The damn bat’s hearing was too good. The chance of him not landing a second detention in a week was so astronomically low it wasn’t even worth mentioning. And if he got one more detention this month, the chance of him getting on the Gryffindor Quidditch team was almost nonexistent. He was doomed.
Turning to look at the two Snapes, the feeling of dread overwhelmed him. He was trapped in a room with two Death Eaters and no way out. He pictured Elias having a wicked grin under his mask as kept shooting glances towards Ron followed by looking back at his father. He was trapped like a rat.
“Take a seat, Mr. Weasley,” Severus said, motioning to an open stool before turning back to Elias. “Hands.”
Elias held out his hands which were quivering violently. He had been struggling more with them as the night dragged on, making him more and more thankful his father had pre-prepared the ingredients for him. He doubted very much that he would be able to bottle his potion without spilling the vast majority of it on himself.
“I’ll bottle it for you, clean up your area and we’ll go back to our quarters,” Severus said, turning back to the redhead who was looking rather green as he sat and waited for the shoe to drop. “Mr. Weasley.”
“Yes, sir,” Ron said defiantly though his insides were quivering.
“What makes you think it appropriate to speak to me so disrespectfully?” Severus said darkly, arms folded loosely in front of his chest. “I can assure you that, in the fourteen years I have been employed at Hogwarts, never once has my handwriting been deemed the reason a student has failed my class.”
“Nor has a student’s blood status been the reason for their failure,” Severus continued, voice dropping to a hiss, aware the boy in front of him was becoming progressively more terrified. “No, what I want to know is where those accusations came from.”
Ron swallowed hard and felt himself lose whatever color he had left in his face as Snape’s glare darkened and his nostrils flared. Why he was the one being singled out for this, he didn’t know, but for some reason Snape wasn’t immediately ripping his head off. That was what was more concerning to him. Snape had seemed odd all night, though much of that could easily have been attributed to him being around his son.
His son who seemed to be actively trying to avoid looking at Ron.
“I … I … I don’t know,” Ron said meekly though he tried to continue looking defiant. “I heard from… some people… that … uh … that hedoesntlikemuggleborns…”
“Repeat that,” Severus snapped, though he was quite certain he had understood what had been said.
“I heard from some people that he doesn’t like muggleborns,” Ron said, looking pointedly at Elias, who was pointedly staring at the desk he was working on cleaning off, though it was obvious he was paying attention to the conversation.
“From whom?” Severus asked, lips thinning slightly as he leaned in towards the now cowering Gryffindor.
“Hermione,” Ron mumbled, looking at the ground as his stomach turned. He had been on the professor’s bad side many times, but always with Harry and Hermione around. Never before had Snape’s wrath been directed at him in particular.
“Granger is the one spreading these rumors?” Severus said in surprise. He honestly hadn’t expected that. True, he did know of the ‘incident’ over the summer, however it did not seem to be provoked by her blood status. In fact, Elias had stated that he had only been asking for her to leave the room and that it had been accidental magic pushing her out.
A quick glance at Elias confirmed he was not the only one surprised by this fact. Though he could only see his son‘s eyes, the sadness radiating from them was almost palpable. His former friends were the culprits behind his bullying and they didn’t even know it was him.
Severus straightened up with a sneer and strode to the fireplace at the front of the room before summoning a jar of floo powder from his office. “McGonagall’s office,” he stated before stepping briefly into the flames.
“Oh Merlin!” Ron moaned, collapsing onto the stool behind him. “We’re dead. We’re so dead.”
“He j-j-just w-went to g-get her,” Elias mumbled before grabbing his now cooled cauldron and removing it from its stand. Had he already given Severus a vial, or could he wash the cauldron out? He sighed heavily before limping to his father’s desk and looking at the vials which were placed on his desk.
“Yeah, to get us both expelled!” Ron exclaimed, watching the young Snape curiously as he gingerly rotated each of the vials to read their labels. “What’re you doing? Trying to sabotage the whole school’s grades?!”
Elias moaned in frustration as he reread each of the labels. Ron had distracted him and he couldn’t remember if he had seen his potion amongst these others or not. “N-n-no, I j-j-just…”
“Just what, Snape? Want to make sure the entirety to Gryffindor fails? Typical!”
“No, of c-c-course n-n-not!” Elias exclaimed with an exasperated sigh as he restarted reading the labels. He hated night time and his reliance on his lists so much. His muscles were tired, his brain was tired, and now he was trying to hold a conversation with someone who didn’t understand or care to understand and was even more frustratingly a previous friend.
“Then what are you doing looking at those potions?!” Ron nearly yelled as Elias picked up the same potion for the fifth time and squinted at the label.
“I D-DONT KNOW!” Elias yelled back as he threw himself into his father’s desk chair and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I d-don’t r-rem-m-m-meb-ber! I d-don’t rem-m-member w-what I’m d-d-doing! I’m l-looking for a-someth-thing, b-b-but I d-don’t know w-what!”
Ron stared at him in confusion for a moment as he started once again reading the labels of the vials. “Bullshit, you know what you’re doing. Your dad literally just said he’d do the job of putting your potion in a vial.”
Elias looked up in confusion at the redhead in the room. “He c-couldn’t have. He’s n-n-not here!”
“What are you on about?!” Ron said, frown deepening as the young Snape looked him over. “He was literally just here! He just left to get Hermione!”
Elias froze as his heart began to pound. Had he screwed it up already? What did he say?! What did he do?! Was his father going to eat him out to his friends? Why would he do that?!
“W-why?” Elias asked, swallowing thickly as he peered, wide eyed over the vials on the desk.
“Are you thick, mate?” Ron gaped at the other boy’s obvious confusion. “Snape’s trying to get me and Hermione expelled because of you and the fact you and him are in league in your hatred of muggles and anyone who isn’t pureblooded!”
“W-why w-would you think I h-h-hate m-m-muggles, R-ron? I w-was l-lit-terally r-r-raised w-with them. And I-I’m n-not a p-p-p-p-pureb-blood. Y-you know that!”
The floo suddenly flared green as Severus, Professor McGonagall, and a blotchy faced Hermione stepped through before Ron had the chance to respond. Severus frowned slightly when he saw Elias was no longer at his desk but rather was sitting in front of the potions which had not yet been graded. There didn’t seem to be any broken glass, thankfully, but he would have to make sure Elias hadn’t gotten into any of them. He had been steadily declining over the course of the night and trusting him to be alone in the lab with only another student was … pushing it. The rather indigent look on the Weasley boy’s face didn’t help much.
“Elias, don’t drink those,” Severus said softly, casting a quick ward over the vials to prevent them from being opened. He should have done that earlier, but hadn’t thought Elias would have gotten so distracted as to end up by them.
“I h-haven’t?” Elias said, though he was rather unsure of if he had or hadn’t.
Severus sighed and motioned for Granger to take a seat next to the last Weasley boy. A quick glance at the vials on his desk showed none of them were opened, thankfully, but that didn’t explain why he was over by the vials in the first place. “Go sit back at your desk.”
Elias nodded and stood before looking around the room in confusion. Ron and Hermione were there and normally he would sit next to Ron, but Ron didn’t look like he was wanting him to sit next to him today. And Hermione looked like she had been crying. What was going on? Were they getting expelled finally? No… no, that wasn’t right… but it wasn’t making any sense.
“Sit at the desk with the cauldron,” Severus said in a low voice as Professor McGonagall began berating the other two teens. While he was carrying himself in his normal, aloof fashion, concern could be seen in his eyes as Elias made his way to the aforementioned desk and sat down, tucking his hands under his legs and looking as though he were to be chastised next for his behaviour.
Elias looked over at his friends in concern as Professor McGonagall continued to speak to the other two teens. What had they done and why wasn’t he on the receiving end of it as well? Ron was acting a prat, but he did that at least once a year. It was just odd that neither he nor Hermione were even acknowledging his presence in the room. Was he under an invisibility spell? No, because Snape was able to see him… Hopefully they would be let out soon, he really just wanted to go to bed.
“I suppose, Minerva, it ought to be determined where this story began so it can be corrected from its original source,” Severus drawled, interrupting his colleagues rant as he picked up an empty vial and bottled the potion in the cauldron with practiced ease before sealing it, labeling it, and placing it on the desk with the other potions.
Professor McGonagall nodded and turned to Hermione with a stern look on her face. “Well? Which of you wants to tell me where this started?”
Ron and Hermione both looked at each other, seemingly egging the other on to answer the question.
“I met him this summer,” Hermione finally said, trying to contain her tears though her voice shook. “I was volunteering at the hospital, a muggle children’s hospital, and I met him there.”
“And what would give you the impression that, as a patient at a muggle hospital, he disliked muggles and muggleborns?” Severus drawled as he strode towards the teens to join Professor McGonagall in her interrogation. “Was it the fact he was there on his own accord and didn’t once ask for a transfer to St. Mungo’s or was it the fact he was there after working with a muggle company for the first portion of his summer?”
“No, sir,” Hermione said defiantly. “It was because one of the first questions he asked me was what my last name was and if I was a muggleborn!”
Professor Mcgonagall sighed and looked towards Severus’s son. The poor boy hadn’t had much experience with the magical world in Britain from what Severus had told them and had had a very rough summer. For him to ask such a question was likely done innocently enough, though it was easy to see where the question could be misconstrued. And with the political climate heating back up, it wouldn’t be unheard of to make such a mistake.
“Elias? Do you remember meeting Ms. Granger this summer?” Severus said, turning to his son appeared to be attempting to follow the conversation, knowing full well that he had, in fact, met the girl while there. “At the muggle hospital?”
“Y-yeah,” Elias muttered unsurely. “I … I c-c-couldn’t t-talk t-t-to her though.”
“That’s not true!” Hermione burst out. “You and I were talking, then you blasted me across the room!”
Both Severus and Mcgonagall frowned and looked towards Elias who ducked his head. He hadn’t meant to do that, he remembered, it had been a complete accident after all. He had been frustrated and wanted her to leave because he couldn’t get a word in edgewise and she was starting to broach topics he hadn’t had a backstory to yet. He really didn’t mean to throw her from the room.
“Y-y-you kept int-terrupting m-m-me b-because of this b-b-blood-dy st-t-tutter!” Elias shouted back. “Then I-I t-t-tripped on the chair a-a-and g-grabbed the w-w-wall and then you w-w-went flying!”
“All I was doing was asking you questions and you yelled at me to get out!” Hermione shot back.
“B-b-because you k-k-k-kept interrup-p-pting me! I-i-it’s n-n-n-not my f-fault I t-talk s-s-slow!” Elias yelled, face turning red with frustration as he slammed a fist on the desk in front of him.
“That’s your excuse? Because you couldn’t keep up with the conversation?” Hermione said, voice rising in anger as she shot out of her seat, ignoring the two professors in the room. “I had bruises on my back for nearly a month after that! A month! I could hardly sleep on my back even with bruise balm applied, you -”
“Enough!” McGonagall interrupted loudly, wand in hand as if prepared to cast a silencing spell over the two of them. “Enough, both of you! Ms. Granger, I supposed I expected more self control on your part! It certainly seems to me that this started as a misunderstanding -”
“She did have bruises, Professor!” Ron said, jumping to Hermione’s defense. “She showed them to me at-”
“Sit down, Mr. Weasley!” Severus snapped. “Before I put you in detention for a month.”
“Mr. Snape,” McGonagall continued icily. “Do you have any training in wandless magics?”
Elias shook his head frantically. “N-n-no!”
“Did you have your wand on you while in the hospital?”
“N-no!” Elias said, shaking his head once more, though less vigorously. He was starting to feel nauseous from the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Do you have any ill will towards any student or faculty member due to their blood status?” McGonagall said, eyes flickering towards Severus who simply raised an eyebrow though his eye twitched involuntarily at the accusation.
“N-no! I d-d-d-didn’t m-m-mean to d-d-d-do that! I t-t-t-tripped a-and fell ag-g-g-gainst the w-w-wall while t-t-telling her t-to l-leave and she w-w-w-went flying a-a-and the l-lights w-w-went out!” Elias shouted in frustration, trying to control his stutter only to have his emotions exacerbate it terribly.
“You blew out the electricity in that wing of the hospital!” Hermione said harshly. “You could have killed someone!”
Every ounce of bravado and anger Elias had built up immediately fell away. He was a murderer; he couldn’t escape that. He would continue to kill people through his actions whether voluntary or not. It was his fault. First Cedric, now he almost killed defenseless muggle children. This was all his fault. It didn’t matter if he was Harry Potter or Elias Snape, he was a murderer and always would be. Perhaps he was going dark? Was this how it happened?
“Enough!” McGonagall said sternly. “To say I am appalled by these unfounded accusations is an understatement! I have heard no evidence proving any form of prejudice, only extrapolations of stories based on one event which occurred over the summer. Both of you, your prefect status is suspended for a month and you will be serving detention with either Professor Snape or myself every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during this time. If you both are not in the dorms in ten minutes, I have half a mind to permanently remove your prefect status and give you both detention until you graduate.”
Both Ron and Hermione paled dramatically at the fire in their Head of House’s voice. True, they had been in trouble before, but neither of them had ever seen her quite this angry before. Quickly gathering Ron’s things, the two Gryffindors fled the dungeons as quickly as possible. Had it just been Snape interrogating them, it would have been easy enough to claim he was showing favoritism for his son, but McGonagall was a different force to be reckoned with.
One close look at Elias up close and Ron almost felt bad for him. He looked positively ill and as though someone had just killed his puppy. What was with this kid anyways? There was no way someone his own age could have a memory that bad when it came to things that had just happened. Even Neville could fumble his way through bottling a potion without losing his place in the process multiple times!
“Severus, do you have any idea what transpired?” McGonagall said as soon as the door to the potions classroom closed behind the two Gryffindors. “It almost sounds like accidental magic.”
Severus frowned but nodded. “He was not on any of his normal potions at the time. It’s entirely possible he was overwhelmed enough…”
“But at sixteen?” McGonagall said, looking over at the lanky teen who was staring rather despondently at a spot on the ground. “And, if I am understanding Ms. Granger correctly, enough to stop muggle technology from working properly?”
“The building was unwarded,” Severus said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I, myself, made the lights flicker when I found out his prior living situation.”
“Goodness, Severus! Was it that bad?” McGonagall said, eyes flicking back to the teen who looked so much like his father when not smiling.
Severus nodded before looking over at Elias in concern. He looked rather green in the face and his eyes, while continuing to jolt around and not focus on one thing as was their norm, looked even more unfocused than normal. Holding up a hand towards McGonagall, he quickly approached his rather despondent son. Had the conversation really taken this much out of him? What was on his mind? The urge to probe even slightly into his mind was extremely strong, but the risk was certainly not worth the reward.
“Elias?” Severus said, crouching in front of him and making eye contact. “Elias?!”
Elias blinked slowly before his eyes finally focused slightly on his father’s face. “D-da?”
“Yes, Elias?” Severus said, breathing a pent up sigh of relief at how quickly Elias recognized him.
“C-c-c-can w-we go h-h-home?”
“Yes, we can go home now,” Severus said with a small, sad smirk before turning to McGonagall. “I’ll speak with you more on this tomorrow. Not now, though.”
McGonagall nodded and quickly transfigured a small bucket for him to use in case he vomited on the way to their quarters. The poor lad looked as though he would blow chunks at any second. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Take care of your boy!”
Severus nodded in thanks as he took the offered bucket. He had a feeling it would be a long night.
Chapter 25