December approached, and with one letter per day, Severus was making good progress. Potter had asked him for advice on homework a couple of times, and actually managed to improve her performance in potions.
Severus had not praised her, not in his role as teacher, but he had remarked on it.
He had not found out much about her home life, except that she did not like to talk about it. There were only very few half-sentences, squeezed in here and there, on how cousin Dudley was praised, cousin Dudley got birthday presents, cousin Dudley had pets he could mistreat.
It was very clear that Lily’s sister and her husband were capable of loving a child, they just chose to not love Harriet.
And while the girl usually claimed not to like her relatives much, Severus could see, between the lines, a burning envy whenever the cousin was mentioned.
On the day of the first snowfall, it was Severus’ turn to watch the students while they ran around and threw snowballs at each other.
He noted, with some surprise, that Potter was running around, too.
When Madam Hooch had commented that the girl was good at flying, he had been distracted by memories of James Potter, but now he realized – being good at flying meant she had more energy.
The hair loss had stopped, too. At least Potter didn’t leave a trail of hairs everywhere she went anymore.
Severus was cautiously optimistic.
Then, one day, James Potter walked into his classroom.
Only not really.
It was still Harriet, but she had black hair now.
Severus felt tempted to make a scathing comment on how the little celebrity thought she didn’t get enough attention … but he refrained.
Of course she wanted attention. Like any neglected child would. It would be cruel to ridicule her for it.
In the evening, as most evenings now, a letter arrived.
„Dear Half-Blood Prince,
today, there was an accident in Charms and Professor Flitwick had to help me, and now my hair is black.
It was black when I was little, but then it changed colour. I guess that was accidental magic? But now I can’t do it again. Is there a spell for it?
I don’t really like having black hair.
Thank you for helping me with my potions essay. I got an E for it, and Snape never gives anyone an O, so it’s basically the best grade!
Is it snowing where you live? We had a snowball fight today!
Yours sincerely,
Harry“
Ah. That would explain it. Of course the Potter spawn had black hair.
Well, it was easily fixed.
Severus wrote a letter instructing Potter on the Colovaria charm, and confirmed that, yes, he had seen the snow, too.
After some consideration he added a comment on how he hoped she had thought to wear a hat, scarf and gloves while out in this weather.
He knew for a fact that she had not worn any of those.
The next day, Potter still did not wear a hat or a scarf, but had put on dragon hide gloves. Whether because Severus had reminded her of it or because she had noticed her hands getting cold while making snowballs, he did not know.
Her hair was blonde again. She must have learnt the charm extremely fast.
Lost in his thoughts, he did not properly pay attention and was hit in the face by a snowball.
He had his wand out ready to curse someone when he noticed the horrified faces of the three Gryffindor first-years who were in the snowball fight team opposing Potter’s.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it had been an accident.
„Who did that?“, he asked quietly, wiping the remaining snow off his face. The snowball had not been very hard, and definitely did not contain any stones. It could have been meant for a child.
He waited a moment, not really expecting an answer, when a trembling hand rose.
Neville Longbottom.
It really must have been an accident. Longbottom would never dare to attack a teacher … but then, Longbottom would also not dare to admit to attacking a teacher, would he?
„Detention. Tomorrow morning after breakfast. We will be going outside, dress accordingly.“ He gave a curt nod and walked away.
His original plan had been to take points from Gryffindor, ten for each suspect, but now that Longbottom had owned up to his crime, it seemed only fair to have mercy on him.
That evening, a letter from Potter arrived.
Severus sat down to read it in his private quarters, a cup of tea in one hand, the letter in the other.
Potter thanked him for the Colovaria charm, proudly stated that she had worn gloves, and … what?
He jumped, scalded himself with hot tea and had to spend a quarter of an hour putting some essence of dittany on the wound and drying his robe.
Then he sat down again, without a cup of tea this time, to re-read.
„You won’t tell anyone, right?“ The paragraph began. „When Hagrid took me to Diagon Alley, he had to drink something for his upset stomach after Gringotts, so I walked around a little and got a bit lost.
I met a woman who offered to trade me the potion I needed for a fingernail clipping. The potion was supposed to turn me into a boy if I took it once every week for three months, but after two months, Snape caught me drinking it and dragged me to the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey fussed over me a lot, and when I got back to my dorm, someone had stolen the next five doses!
Hermione says it can’t have been Snape because boys can’t get into the girl dorms, but he’s a teacher, so who knows, right? (Do you know?)
They told me the woman was an evil hag who eats children, but that sounds like something from a fairy tale. I mean, hags are mentioned in the book for Defence, unless Snape faked that one, and Ron said his mum warned him about them, but they wouldn’t just let them walk around in Diagon Alley, would they?
Anyway, what I wanted to ask was, do you know how to brew that potion? It’s possible and you are a genius, so I figured you would be able to, right?
I know it is probably a lot of effort, but I can pay you! You did say that you don’t like your job much and would prefer to invent new potions full time.
My parents left me a lot of money, but you probably know that. So if the ingredients are expensive or anything, that’s not a problem.
It’s the thing I want most in the world. If I was a boy, everything would be okay.
So … please?“
This foolish, idiotic, imbecile, terminally daft child!
No doubt Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore had told her, time and again, how dangerous the potion she had poisoned herself with was, and now she wanted to take it again?
She must have noticed, even if Madam Pomfrey had not told her the whole truth about what was happening to her bones, the lack of energy and the hair loss she had gone through.
Severus wanted to slap her like he had never wanted to slap a child before.
Taking a deep breath, he folded the letter. Fortunately the child was not here. He would not slap her. Why had he even thought of it?
Probably because his mother had slapped him the time he’d tried to stand between her and his father.
He’d fled, in tears, and only realized what she had done when she came to his room, with a black eye and an arm that looked broken, to apologize.
It was strange … he could not even recall every crying after his father hit him. Father hitting him was just par of the course.
But mum … mum had only done it this one time. And she had apologized.
No, he would not ever physically hurt a child. He abhorred the very idea. It was a good thing that Dumbledore had abolished the practice of caning students.
Severus would have found it hard to gain a reputation as stern teacher if he had been the only teacher to never apply physical punishment.
After making himself another cup of tea and drinking it, Severus went to his private desk to write an answer.
„Dear Harry,
I’m glad to hear you thought to wear gloves. You don’t want to have to go to the hospital wing for a pepperup potion and sit in class with your ears smoking all day, believe me!
It sounds like you do not trust the matron’s judgement? Harry, I must caution you against using potions from questionable sources.
Would they let child-eating monsters walk around in Diagon Alley? Yes Harry, „they“ if by that you mean the Wizengamot and the minister of magic, certainly would and, in fact, do.
During the time I went to Hogwarts, one of my fellow students was a werewolf. I have been made to swear to never tell anyone who it was, but he did go to Hogwarts, and the precautions taken to keep him away from the students at full moon were flimsy at best.
This is a secret, and I am only telling you so that you know how dangerous the world really is.
Madam Pomfrey already was the matron when I was a student, and I trust her judgment. If she told you that potion was bad for you, then it was.
You may have been under the impression that it worked, but such things are easy to fake. It is, for example, certainly possible to induce beard growth in women (you may have noticed that it occurs naturally in elderly ladies), but that does not mean they are in any way male. There is no potion known to me that would permanently turn a girl into a boy.
I am no expert on the side effects of such potions, but no doubt, Madam Pomfrey told you what they were or could be in the future.
There are many ways magic can temporarily alter your outwards appearance, as you might already have learnt in Transfiguration.
Feel free to experiment with transfiguration and charms, but be certain to not use anything classified as curse on yourself. Those are meant to do harm, and are often not reversible.“
Severus faintly remembered rumours that a girl in his year had used an infertility curse as contraception and had come to regret it when she learnt that Madam Pomfrey could not reverse it.
„The Colovaria charm is harmless enough, and any accidents you have while shrinking or enlarging body parts are usually reversible, although you should take care not to be alone when you try them - if you shrink yourself down to the size of a house fly, you run quite the risk of getting killed on the way to the hospital wing.“
It was probably her breasts she wanted to be rid of. He hadn’t noticed any, but it wasn’t like he had really looked, and she made an effort to hide them with her bad posture, and he could so very well imagine her uncle commenting on how she was becoming a woman …
Bile rose in his throat at the very thought.
At least if she used a shrinking charm, Madam Pomfrey could reverse it once Harriet realized that there were no child molesters in Hogwarts.
Though of course there were teenage boys …
He would address that issue once Harriet told him about it.
„In what way, do you think, would your life be better if you were a boy? I have always been a boy and felt that my life was pretty terrible when I was your age.“
Was there anything else he could add to encourage her to tell him what was wrong?
No, better leave it at that, he didn’t want to seem nosy.
Hopefully, he was wrong with his suspicions, and her uncle was not the reason why she hated her female body.
Because he couldn’t imagine Dumbledore letting him keep his job if he applied his favourite trademark curse to a muggle’s genitals.
“As for your suspicions of who confiscated the rest of the potion, I am confident that would have been your head of house. In my time, there were rumours that male teachers could get into the girl dorms in case of dire emergency, but I have never heard of it happening. If there is need to fetch a female student who has been taken sick to the hospital wing, a male head of house would usually send a female prefect.” That was what he did, in any case.
It was possible to overrule the safety charms with a secret spell, but doing so would leave a glowing red mark on the teacher doing so, one that could be only removed in a very complicated process that would require most, if not all other teachers to agree that the breach of privacy had been necessary.
Not really worth the hassle if no one was in immediate danger of dying.
The next morning at breakfast, Severus watched Harriet like a hawk, but she did not read his letter there at the table, just pocketed it.
He noticed something else instead. Neville Longbottom was terrified and didn’t eat even just a bite of toast.
Unsurprising, but annoying.
Severus made a detour to the kitchen before he went to his office.
He had only just sat down behind his desk when there was a hesitant knock at the door.
„Enter.“
It was Longbottom, now looking more terrified than ever. At least the boy was dressed appropriately, with a red-golden wooly cap and scarf added to the school uniform.
Severus got up and shoved a sandwich into the boy’s gloved hands. „Follow me and stay close until we reach the edge of the forest, at which point I expect you to have eaten this sandwich. Once we enter the forest, you will walk in front of me.“
„We – we are going to the Forbidden Forest?“
„Indeed.“
At first, things were uneventful. He walked, more slowly than he would usually have, keeping an eye on the child.
They reached the clearing without incident, and just as he had hoped, it was covered in iceflowers, their translucent petals sparkling in the morning sun.
„Keep your gloves on at all times“, he instructed Longbottom. „Touching these will make your skin freeze.“
He took several glass jars from the bag he had been carrying and placed them on the snowy ground. „One flower for each jar. To pluck them, just bend the stems, they will break.“
Longbottom did not look scared anymore. So apparently Professor Sprout had been right, the boy really liked herbology.
Severus did a small share of the work, too, always listening, always watching.
Then, just as Longbottom put the last flower in the last jar, there was a distant, muffled sound of hooves on the snow.
Centaurs did not usually hurt children, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. „Stay close to me. If anything approaches, get behind me. Leave the talking to me, answer politely if directly spoken to, and if it is a lady, don’t gawk.“
He put the jars back into the bag and shouldered it, then waited.
Longbottom did not get any closer to him than he had already been, but it would suffice.
At last, the centaur was there. A young, blonde one who did not look very threatening.
He bowed slightly. „Good morning, Professor.“
Severus bowed his head. „Good morning. Have I inadvertently trespassed on your territory?“
“No. I have a message from the elders. They are … displeased. An ancient evil has taken residence in the woods.”
As if things weren’t bad enough already. “They expect the headmaster to sort it out?”
The centaur inclined his head. “I know it cannot have been intended, but you humans summoned it. We do not know your word for it, but we call it the One Who Takes Foals.”
Damnations. He could see where this was going.
“You should keep this young one closer”, the centaur advised, nodding in Longbottom’s direction.
“He does not want to get closer”, Severus replied. “He is scared of me.” He was not usually this honest with humans, but centaurs could get angry if they sensed a lie.
Despite their truth, his words made the centaur frown. He turned to Longbottom. “Is that true? Do you fear your teacher will harm you?”
Silently, the boy shook his head and stepped a bit closer to Severus.
The centaur, still frowning, looked at Severus again. “There is a child in the castle who feels unwanted.”
Severus sighed. “The headmaster knows and has taken insufficient action. I shall talk to him again. Is it a problem to you, though? It would not take any centaur foals, would it?”
“We love and cherish all foals of the herd, but it can always happen. A foal is rebuked for being reckless, feels rejected and …” The centaur jerked his head. “Is gone.”
So it really was about the child’s emotional state more than anything else. “I understand. It will be addressed.”
After the centaur had left, Severus turned to Longbottom. “How do you get along with your parents?”
The boy hesitated. “W-well enough?”
As far as Severus knew, they were good enough people. The fact that the prophecy he had so foolishly told the Dark Lord of was about a girl had spared them from getting attacked. A small, selfish part of Severus wished there had been more confusion about which child the prophecy meant.
“I recommend that you think about just how well you get along with your parents while we walk back. Also, hold on to my sleeve.”
Of course, the boy did not move, so Severus just grabbed him by the collar of his robes. “Another thing you learnt today: When a centaur deigns to dispense his wisdom to you, you listen. He said to keep you close, and close you will stay.”
The way back to the castle seemed to take an eternity.
Severus released his hold on Longbottom’s collar the moment they entered the castle.
“You may leave. Go to the hospital wing if you feel in need of a calming draught.”
He did not tell the boy to not talk about what he had seen. Gryffindors never did as they were told, anyway, and him forbidding it would only make it more interesting to the students.
Dumbledore appeared completely unconcerned about the centaur’s warning. “I will ask Hagrid to keep an eye on things”, he replied when Severus had finished his report.
“Don’t you understand?! They’ve come for Potter!”
“So you have come to care about her?” The old man peered at him over his half-moon-shaped classes, eyes twinkling with a smile.
“I am not – that’s not – do you want her safe, or not?”
Dumbledore smiled. “Oh, I daresay she is as safe as can be, Severus.”
Had the old meddler somehow found out about the letters? It was impossible to tell. Severus’ occlumency was superior to that of the man who had taught him, but an attempt at legilimency would surely be noticed.
After returning to his office, he was not surprised to find a new letter waiting for him.
Mindful of what had happened last time, he did not drink anything while reading.
Chapter 5