Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for the comments everyone!

I don't have the energy to answer them at the moment, but they are very much appreciated.
Chapter 8
Harriet did not ask who had removed her dirty clothes and put her in pyjamas. Why not? Did the thought it could have been anyone but Madam Pomfrey just not occur to her, or … was she so used to assault that it did not even register?

The boy double of her had not said anything about not being targeted for abuse, but he did not know how this sort of thing worked. Perhaps the hags could not read repressed thoughts.

It was all rather superficial … some of the doubles had looked like him, clearly an attempt to lure him in with the vision of having a child with Lily, and then the Lily-double … he shuddered to think of it. Could they have seen some deeply buried wish to become a child molester in his subconscious?

No, certainly not. They had gotten a glimpse of his memories of Lily and tried to tempt him with her.

The doubles had all been so ridiculously easy to recognize, you’d have to be a right idiot for falling for them.

He had hesitated a tiny bit with the one who had begged him and apologized. It had seemed fake, and yet ... the fear for her life could have made Harriet act strange.

But upon hearing the voice of the real girl … she had been crying. The doubles had not. It had been all too easy.

And that was not even taking into account the fact that she had pissed herself.

He had not noticed that at first – apparently, children’s piss didn’t smell as bad as that of grown men who had drunk too much – but once the stench had hit his nose, he had not doubted anymore.

Once he was satisfied that Harriet was not too upset, he left the hospital wing and went straight to his personal quarters.

How could the hags have gotten at the child already?

Had he not looked out for Twelfthtide?

The calendar said it was the 22th. Tomorrow, most students would take the train home.

And yet …

When he finally realized, he wanted to smack himself. Solstice. Winter Solstice was before Christmas. But Solstice was the original date for the celebration.

Of all the mistakes he could have made, this was the most monumentally stupid one.

After all those astronomy lessons, this was the important detail he forgot about?

Embarrassing.

Fortunately, he would be the only person to ever know. Except for Dumbledore, possibly, but Dumbledore could hardly say anything, having made the same mistake himself.

Contacting Harriet again had been out of the question, of course, but if only he had watched her more closely …

Then he would not be at high risk of her recognizing his voice.
He did not care much about the horrid experience she went through. No, certainly not. Being a Potter, it couldn’t have harmed her much, could it? Getting a good fright would make her less likely to endanger herself in the future, so ultimately, this was a good thing. Yes, a good thing. He had reason to be happy. Not like anything too bad happened to her, did it?

And he would most certainly not start pitying her now. Or having any other feelings, for that matter. All he needed was to pretend to care about her convincingly enough so that she believed it and the hags went away. That was all.



Harriet’s letter found him at the breakfast table.

He took it off the snowy owl as fast as possible. A snowy owl. Of course damn Potter owned a snowy owl.

Why hadn’t he thought to ward against this sort of thing? It was pure luck the girl was impatient enough to always send her answers at unusual times so that it would be transferred to his office by the house elves.

Fortunately, Harriet wasn’t yet there. Perhaps still in the owlery?

He put the letter in his pocket. His colleagues were used to him never reading private letters at the table, so would not suspect anything.

A while later, when he had just decided to get up, go to his office and finally read the damn letter, Harriet entered the hall and shuffled to Gryffindor table.
She looked extremely tired, and when she hugged Granger, he realized that saying goodbye to her friend was the only reason why she was even up.

Figured. She probably had not gotten much sleep that night. He suspected, because he had not slept much himself.

It was not until he was safely in his office, with a cup of hot tea next to him, that he opened the letter.


“Dear Half-Blood Prince,

thank you for saving me. That … was you, wasn`t it? Hermione showed me your letter.

When you said I was yours and you wanted me back, did you really mean it? I mean, you did just drop me off for one of the Professors to find, so I don’t know.

How did you know which one I was, anyway? I think … I think I would have taken the boy if I were you. Everyone likes boys better than girls, don’t they?

But I guess you don’t have to keep me so it doesn’t matter. Hermione would have noticed if you had brought back one of the fakes. (Perhaps Ron, too, but I’m not so sure about him.)

Hermione says I should tell you it’s okay if you write me again, because otherwise you won’t. So yeah. You can write.

Yours sincerely,

Harry.”


Dear Merlin. He was not paid nearly enough to deal with that sort of drama. Yes, he hadn’t informed Dumbledore that he was doing it, but that was beside the point, he wouldn’t have gotten a pay raise anyways.
It was all part of the “protect the Potter brat if you really loved Lily” package.

At least the child had the decency to thank him.

That Harriet had not asked why he had not shown his face betrayed a concerning lack of curiosity. Or rather … a concerning naivety.
He could have been a Death Eater. One of those who were not serving as Dumbledore’s double agent, that was.

Since he didn’t have that much to do after most of his students had left for the holidays, he started writing his answer immediately:

“Dear Harry,

yes, that was me. I doubt anyone else could have done it.

You see, there are things that are not taught at Hogwarts. They are termed “Old Magic”, a very general term that encompasses pretty much any kind of magic that is lost or fell out of use. (And then, of course, are the so-called Dark Arts, which are considered to dangerous.)

It seems that hags only have power over children who do not belong to anyone. Any adult, that is.

Of course, you are your own person and not anyone’s property, but the thing with Old Magic is that it is … old.
For a long time, children were considered their parents’ property, and hags still seem to subscribe to such outdated notions.”

Or perhaps they were bound to a treaty one of the legendary witches and wizards of old had negotiated? Now there was food for thought …

Anyway. The letter.

“Attempting to force the hags to release you by attacking them would have run the risk of you getting injured, so I thought it wiser to just walk in there and claim you as mine, counting on it that they would have to let you go.

For that to work I had to have some kind of claim on you. Possibly your Head of House might have been able to demand your release – the bond between master and apprentice would be almost as good as that between parent and child, seeing as in the old time, an apprentice would have lived in the master’s household – but I doubt it. There are too many children in any given House for the Head of House to pay much individual attention to them.

I, on the other hand, helped you with your schoolwork quite a few times. My claim was still rather dubious, but I did pass the test of having to recognize you and it seems that was enough.

How I did recognize you? Many reasons, for example the false versions of you were obnoxious brats, trying to ingratiate themselves with me by telling nonsensical lies.

It was not even difficult.

As for the boy, he thought he was better than you by virtue of being a boy.

No doubt you have already encountered pureblood fanatics who look down on your friend Hermione because she is muggleborn, something she didn’t choose and cannot change.

And I am sure you agree that is terribly unfair and they are jerks.

It is the same with boys who look down on you for being a girl, really. They’re jerks. I do not like jerks.

And no, not ‘everyone’ likes boys better than girls.”

If he was honest, he had always liked girls better. In his experience, they did not tend to bully as much.

And of course, Lily, brave Lily, had stuck up for him against Potter and his cronies. No boy had ever done that. Risked their own neck to defend him.

But that was probably not something he should tell a child.

Perhaps if he worded it differently …

“Were you my child, I assure you, not for a second would I ever wish you had been a boy.”

If she were his. It broke his heart to even think about it.

The Mirror of Erised that Dumbledore had asked him to find … when he had looked, he had seen Lily, alive, and it had cost him all his strength to tear away from the sight.

Were he to look into it a second time … he was quite certain he would see Lily and himself, and in front of them the girl with dark hair, the fake version of Harriet who looked like she was his daughter.
Only in this vision she would not be fake. And probably not so nice and obedient. Real children tended to have flaws, after all.
“As for me just dropping you off, I had good reason to. In my past, I did some things I am not exactly proud of, and my reputation with many witches and wizards is less than stellar. In other words, I did not want to have to explain myself to your teachers. Of course I did make sure that you would be found immediately after I lowered you to the ground. In reality, you only spent a couple of seconds there.

And surely you are aware that I would have had to drop you off at the hospital wing in any case. You needed medical care and I am not qualified to provide it.

I am not going to ask you to keep my letters a secret. Adults who ask you to keep their interactions with you a secret from your teachers are not trustworthy. You telling Dumbledore about those letters would be an inconvenience for me, but if you feel that you need to tell someone, feel free to do so.

It is ironic for me of all people to warn you not to talk to adult strangers, I suppose, but you must know that hags are not the only creatures who might want to take advantage of a child whose legal guardians neglect her.

And it sounds to me that your aunt and uncle are neglecting you. Don’t they? You seem to feel that they like your cousin better because he is a boy?”

Merlin, how he hoped that was all that was behind her wish to turn herself into a boy. The wish to be loved.

Which was really bad enough, no child should have to be so desperate, but he didn’t know what he would have done if it had turned out that her uncle had … touched her.

No, that was a lie, he knew pretty well what he would have wanted to do in such a case. And it would have been a one-way ticket to Azkaban.


“I promised you that I would do everything in my power to see to it that you could have everything as girl that you thought you needed to be a boy to have. Obviously, I cannot make your relatives like you.

But I will be there for you, whenever you need someone to protect you. I will not pretend to be your friend, as I am an adult and have a responsibility to keep you safe, which as you may have noticed is something that is often at odds with what you want.

A friend would be well within his rights to leave you to your own devices after you tell him that you hate him, but as you found out, I cannot do that.”

After thinking about it for a moment he signed the letter “Yours sincerely” as he had always done.


He went to the owlery to send the letter immediately. Twelfthtide was not yet over. And he had warded his place at the table in the Great Hall against being found by Harriet’s owl, so it did not much matter when she sent her reply.


When that was done, he got to work on another project he had been thinking about. It was not, strictly speaking, legal, but he had Dumbledore to back him up if anything went wrong, and he could justify it to Dumbledore.

Harriet needed more protection than the average child, just watching over her was not sufficient.

Her answer arrived on Christmas Eve.


“Dear Half-Blood Prince,

of course I’m not your property or anything, I knew you didn’t mean it like that, I just wanted to know if you meant the bit about wanting me back.

So, am I your apprentice now? Because I need some help with an essay about polyjuice potion. There aren’t any books about it in the library, but I will get detention with Snape if I don’t hand it in. It’s so unfair, I mean, it’s Christmas! I bet he wouldn’t have done it to someone who went home during the holidays.”

She did not mention how she had gotten herself into that kind of trouble, apparently attempting to make him believe it was a completely random punishment.

Well. It was kind of random – he had, after all, only done it to get her to ask for help. And it worked … albeit too late.

“You asked if my aunt and uncle neglect me … I don’t know. I mean, I’m just their niece. They would probably like me better if I was a boy and good at boxing like Dudley, and not a witch, of course, but he’s their son.
I guess it’s normal that people don’t care as much for children who aren’t theirs. I have a roof over my head and everything, so I can’t complain.

And yeah, I think it’s mostly because I’m a girl. Uncle Vernon always tells Dudley not to cry like a girl and stuff. It’s the only times he ever tells Dudley what to do.

If I was a boy, I could fight back when Dudley hits me, too.

You can’t really change that, can you? You would have to move in with us to protect me. It would be much better if I could fight back myself.

Yours sincerely,

Harry”



Oh.

She had wondered whether he really wanted her back?

Poor child, how could she have doubted that? Of course he had wanted her back, he …

He actually had wanted her back, and he had found it difficult to place her on the ground for a few seconds while changing his appearance and before transferring her to a stretcher.

There had been an urge to keep holding her, to make sure she was safe.
Did that mean …

No, certainly not. He did not care about the child, as such. But she was Lily’s. He still had Lily’s first gifts to him, pretty pebbles and bird feathers and the like, in a well-hidden box.

So why not treat her child with the same reverence? After all, Harriet was the one thing in the world Lily loved more than anything else.

If he felt an urge to put the child safely into a room in his private quarters and never let her out of his sight until Twelfthtide was over, well, that was only the same he did with everything else that reminded him of Lily.

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