Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 28
Remus sat in the teacher’s lounge as he perused the small amount of findings Elias had managed to uncover on his own. It was strange how electricity, from the small potato study he had done, seemed to increase the wizard’s magical output. It wasn’t a good or well put together study, but it was a good jumping off point for potential future studies. Actual studies with more participants and methods of data collection and analysis.

The more Elias found, the more passionate he became of the project. And his passion was infectious.

Now that Remus had had a chance to evaluate where Elias’s education level was, and where he struggled, it was now possible to begin not only preparing him for OWLS this year, but also working his core subjects into his theory project. It was interesting to watch him think about his project through the lenses of the various core subjects of wizarding education. He struggled with the application of Arithmancy, but admitted the first day that he and Remus began working together that he had not begun studying Arithmancy until this summer and was unsure if he wanted to even attempt an OWL for the subject.

For Transfiguration, he had begun to delve more deeply into the theory side of the subject to see if there was any way of tracking the mass of the object being transfigured as there was apparently a muggle law of “Conservation of Mass” which apparently also applied to energy in a sense. They spent several hours one afternoon interviewing Professor McGonagall on the topic after having spent hours in the library trying to find any answers to the question of ‘where does mass go to and where does it come from’ in regards to transfiguration. As Elias interviewed her, it became obvious quite quickly that many of the questions Elias had were supposedly answerable through alchemical and arithmancy equations, however few students had ever questioned it to this extent so she did not know the answers off the top of her head.

Charms was another class with unexpected results as the class of magic itself was dedicated to giving new properties to objects. The interview with Professor Flitwick went far smoother than the interview with Professor McGonagall, but mostly because he was able to provide some of the equations his NEWT students were working on. He and Elias had gotten on quite well, though Remus had needed to make a new rule for any interviews with professors should they take place on the weekend: no interview should take longer than four hours at any given time. Elias and Filius had continued their discussion on manipulation of mass to allow objects to fly for nearly six hours and could have continued for double that had Severus not come up in an absolute rage and demanded that Elias come down for dinner that instant and take his potions which he was now nearly an hour late for.

They were beginning to wrap things up anyways as Elias was beginning to struggle with his concentration anyways, but no one dared interrupt Severus during his tirade.

History was actually the most difficult topic to work the project into as electricity just hadn’t been around for that long. Remus had never been a fan of the topic either, and asking Professor Binns for information had only led to a lengthy and quite boring lecture on the Lightning Rebellion of 968 and how it affected Goblin-Wizard relations of the time. Both Elias and Remus agreed they would not have much luck integrating the topics and called it a loss. Unless the books coming from Durmstrang or Ilvermorney happened to contain any historical references, they would stick to studying history the way the other students were.

Which was terrible for Elias as rote memory was not his strong suit.

Potions was by far the biggest surprise when it came to integrating the project. Oddly enough, there were many potions which were used to increase a caster’s energy or mimic the sensation of being struck by lightning. It wasn’t even a difficult task finding out which ingredients were the cause of these sensations and effects as Severus was quite easily able to produce a comprehensive list of ingredients and their interactions with one another. He couldn’t quite answer the question of ‘why’ these ingredients caused these reactions, however, and was quite frustrated that his answers weren’t as complete as he had thought. He had stalked off to his personal library muttering only minutes after the interview was completed.

The only core Professor they had yet to speak with was the one he dreaded speaking to at all: Deloras Umbridge. From what he had heard from the students who would stop him in the hall, she was by far the worst professor of the class in recent history. Some of the students even fell to their knees in front of him begging him to return to his former position.

Initially he had played this off as they didn’t like her teaching methods. Then he began to be approached by houses other than Gryffindor all saying the same thing. ‘She’s a right terror,’ ‘she doesn’t teach, only pushes ministry propaganda,’ ‘she won’t listen to questions.’ It wasn’t until several of the Slytherins began asking why he wasn’t teaching the class that he began to get concerned. It wasn’t even two years ago that the entire house had been wary of entering his classroom (a direct result of warnings from Severus, he realized) and now they were begging him to come back.

That did not bode well.

“Hem, hem,” a high pitched voice coughed next to him causing him to jump ever so slightly.

‘Speak of the devil,’ Remus thought as he resisted the urge to growl.

“I do believe this is the teachers lounge, is it not?” Umbridge said in a sickeningly sweet tone.

“It is,” Remus responded, beginning to pack up his things. He knew where she was going with this and didn’t want to be around her anyways.

“And you are no longer a teacher here, are you not?” Umbridge continued as she sat in one of the plush armchairs opposite Remus.

Remus gritted his teeth so hard he could have sworn he heard a molar crack. “Not of the general student populous.”

“Then why would you be in the teacher’s lounge if you aren’t an educator employed by this school?” Umbridge asked in her sickeningly sweet voice.

Remus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of all the rules she could choose to enforce, this one was by far and away one of the most minor. While not an educator employed by Hogwarts, he was still here in the capacity of a teacher. “I apologize, madam. I didn’t realize my presence here would be considered problematic as no one else has ever stated that I was not allowed to be in here.”

“You have not been employed here for nearly two years, Mr. Lupin,” Umbridge continued before clapping her hands together. “Now, surely there is somewhere better for you to do your… work. How about you run along and find it, hm?”

“I apologize, everyone, for taking up so much of the lounge in my efforts to review my one student’s work,” Remus said to the empty lounge rather sarcastically as he finished packing away the few books and reference materials he had brought along before heading towards the door.

“Mr. Lupin,” Umbridge said sweetly yet dangerously. “You may not be employed by Hogwarts, and your student may not be a student here, but you would do well to remember who you are speaking with. One claw out of line, Mr. Lupin, one claw out of line.”

Remus’s nostrils flared as he quickly strode down the hallway back to the library in hopes of getting a private room to review in. He would not lose this job because of some ministry wench’s hatred of something he could hardly control. He would keep his head around her, but if she was doing something to the students, he wasn’t sure he could keep his wolf as well in check.




Dumbledore sighed as he sat behind his desk and popped a lemon drop into his mouth. This year was not going to plan at all. He had known Fudge would try to do something to usurp his power within the wizarding world, but had not expected a ministry plant to be forced into his school.

And to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at that.

True, it was the only opening that he had, but Delores Umbridge was in no way, shape, or form qualified for the job. Neither had Gilderoy Lockhart been, but no one had known about how much of a fraud he was until he had already begun his tenure at the school. True, there had been some … incidences over the past few years, but nothing too horrendous. Besides, it was good practice for Mr. Potter to learn practical duelling methods in the field.

That’s not to say Dumbledore hadn’t been concerned for his well-being. Oh no, quite the opposite in fact. Harry needed to stay alive in order to fulfill his destiny. The fact he had routinely ended up in harm’s way was actually quite beneficial for the boy, though rather nerve-wracking as he had needed to test the boy’s strength somehow and things just continued to happen to the boy’s benefit.

How was he supposed to know that the Sorting Hat, of all things, would provide him with a sword to vanquish the basilisk? Or that his friends would be so loyal as to run headlong into adventure with him? It was honestly more difficult keeping Potter’s friends alive than it was keeping him in one piece. They didn’t have a prophecy helping to hold them to the mortal realm, he did.

But now Mr. Potter was missing, Delores Umbridge was there breathing down his neck and subverting all his decisions on how to run the school, and he had been stripped of several of his titles by Minister Fudge as the paranoid man fell further into his delusions that Dumbledore was trying to take over the ministry.

While that would make far more sense, Dumbledore couldn’t help but chuckle at the idea. No, his plan was far more complex.

What he really needed to win this war was loyalty. Unwavering, unending loyalty. The vast majority of the students nearly worshipped the ground he walked on. If he said jump, the only question they would have was ‘how high.’ The only thing they lacked was experience and training, but that was easy enough to deal with.

Or would have been had he had his choice of professor for the Defence class.

Now he was stuck with Umbridge and her ‘theory first, practicality later’ style of teaching. If he could even call that teaching. The students were learning nothing but his hands were tied on the matter. He was worried for their safety in the upcoming war if they didn’t have practical lessons. There was no way they could win in a fight if they didn’t have the practical knowledge to fall back on. And with his forces from the previous war effectively decimated, he needed a new group to fight for the light, to fight in his stead.

Harry Potter was supposed to be the banner of the light. A child born of prophecy with strength born of hardship. It was perfect, everything was going wonderfully. Then the boy disappeared, Fudge forced his hand on the position opening for the DADA professor, and the Death Eaters were growing ever stronger.

Looking over his collection of monitoring devices which were housed on the large shelves which surrounded his office, he was dismayed to find a new one had begun to change colors.

“No!” he whispered to himself. “It cannot be!”

He had spent nearly a decade ensuring Harry Potter remained at his relative’s home. They were harsh, uncaring muggles with no desire to look after a wizarding child, but they raised him perfectly. A little harsh punishment sent a long way in making sure he would follow orders from a trusted adult unquestioningly as well as make him unsure of himself and more easy to form into the humble ‘Boy-Who-Lived.’

The only issue was the muggles didn’t see it this way any more. Gone were the days of corporal punishment. Instead, they now pushed other forms of punishment which were not what the boy needed in order to be able to be molded into the hero the wizarding world needed. The muggles didn’t understand that what they considered ‘neglect’ was easily survivable by a wizarding child. A few days without food here, a bit of bullying there; none of it was unheard of to encourage a child to come into their magic early. Even the Longbottom boy’s great-uncle famously threw his nephew out of a window in order to provoke accidental magic. It was normal.

True, the Dursley’s went a bit far occasionally, but suppressing the investigations into the boy’s living arrangements was a matter of importance to the entire wizarding world. And now those files had been opened by someone within the magical community. He needed to find who it was and find out how they accessed those files.

As if he didn’t have enough stress in his life.
Chapter End Notes:
I know, no Elias/Harry/Severus in this chapter. But I promise the next few chapters are very heavily Elias/Severus centric.

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