Chapter Twenty-Three of 'A Door Into Hope'- Surprises Waiting

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Part One.

Title: A Door Into Hope (23/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: None among main characters, background Lucius/Narcissa and Arthur/Molly
Content Notes: AU, angst, some violence
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harry is mustering more and more support for the changes he wants to make in the wizarding world as he returns to Hogwarts after his first Christmas holiday. But as some people begin to believe he can make those changes, others see him as a threat.
Author’s Notes: This takes place in my Children of the Sun series after “The Secrets of Longbottom Manor.”

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Three—Surprises Waiting

“You realize we will have to do something soon, Minerva. We cannot sit on this revelation forever.”

Minerva stared up at the ceiling of her office while Malkin lay on her lap and gently kneaded with his paws. “I know, Severus,” she said, to the man sitting in the chair across from her desk. “But what would you have me do? I brought the truth about artificial familiars to Amelia. She refused to listen. Many people may say it doesn’t matter now that Albus is in the Dream Labyrinth. Either he will never emerge, or he will emerge changed. Either way, he is properly punished for making an artificial familiar.”

“We need to let others know.”

“You still haven’t answered my question, Severus.” Minerva brought her gaze away from the ceiling back to her colleague. Shadowstriker was hissing around his arm. Minerva sometimes wished she understood Parseltongue, but this was not one of those times. “Who? How? What will we do with the revelation?”

“We could spread rumors—”

“That others could discount as rumors, and ones which would let our enemies know that we are aware of them.” Minerva shook her head. “I’m sorry, Severus, but I don’t see any alternative but to let this lie for now. I am having to dedicate half my days as it is to handling the correspondence about Mr. Malfoy’s Sorting and the custody hearing Mr. Potter went through. I don’t have the time or patience to manage anything else.”

Severus sat with his face tilted towards the floor. His expression was deeply unhappy. Minerva knew why. After all, it was one of his former Slytherins who was caught up in this, as well as a student he cared deeply for.

“If I come up with a means to reveal the knowledge without leaving us vulnerable, will you let me do that?”

“Yes, Severus. If you can,” Minerva said quietly, and watched with some compassion as he excused himself from the office.

In truth, the fact that she couldn’t think of anything to do herself bothered her intensely, but her mind remained stubbornly blank. She sat and stroked Malkin and stared into the fire until it was time to go to bed.

*

Severus stepped out of the moving staircase that ascended to Minerva’s office and immediately knew that someone was behind him, close enough that he could perhaps have reached out and touched them.

But he did not turn. He kept briskly walking, his gaze aimed ahead and the expression on his face, if someone had bothered to look, a mingling of annoyance and anger. Either the person behind him was waiting for a moment of privacy when they could speak to him, and this public corridor with its watching portraits would not do—

Or they were there for an attack. It was in his best interests to make it look as if he did not know they were present.

He rounded two corners and descended one staircase before they struck, and Severus felt rage and elation flood him together as he turned and raised a shield, and then identical barriers before him and behind his attacker, ones that would keep anyone from interfering. He had been waiting for this. It was something he could do.

He hoped that some of his attackers were also the people who had gone after Harry, so he could hand out some punishment as well.

There were two people facing him, Severus saw as their Disillusionment Charms fell from the stress of defending against his spells while still trying to curse him. One of them at least wore the face of a Ravenclaw student who might have been Polyjuiced when attacking Harry. The other one was a tall man with shaggy brown hair and a snarl like a wereanimal’s.

And both their familiars stood next to them with that betraying lack of movement that marked them as artificial.

A plan coalesced so abruptly in Severus’s head that he felt dizzy. He launched two burning nooses of light in the same moment as he conjured fire and sent it speeding towards his opponents.

They dodged to the sides, letting the flames fly between them. But they neglected to protect their familiars, and in seconds, Severus had lassoed the animals—a copper sheepdog and a tin oryx—and dragged them rapidly towards himself.

The man and the student, or the person disguised as the sixth-year Ravenclaw, froze at once. Severus smiled a little as he placed the sheepdog behind him and clasped one hand around the oryx’s slender neck. Neither reacted except with a few slow blinks.

“Will you come to me and reclaim your familiars?” Severus asked, his wand moving as he wound the ropes of fire tighter and tighter, and bound the two animals to remain beside him. Shadowstriker hissed on his arm, and Severus leaned his cheek against his viper and gathered up the magic that his familiar had reaped for him from the duel. “Or are you too frightened to do anything but stay over there?”

The student, or person disguised as one, moved abruptly towards him. The man reached out and seized the imposter’s arm. “He’s trying to make you angry enough to do that.”

Severus sighed. It was always a disappointment when an enemy turned out to be intelligent. He glanced towards the far barrier that he’d put up to block off the corridor. It looked like nothing but a faint shimmer of fog in the air. It would make anyone who was coming this way suddenly remember something else they’d been meaning to do or another way they could take to reach their goal.

Probably thinking he was distracted, the man tried to cast at him. Severus bounced it negligently off his shield and turned to face them again.

“Why should we do as you say?” snarled the man, but his eyes were filled with fear.

Severus let his eyebrows rise mockingly. “How long do you think you’ll be able to hide the absence of a familiar at your side? Particularly from people who might have reason to suspect you already?”

Both of them stiffened. Severus nodded. He had known they had artificial familiars and were likely part of the former attack on Harry, but it was good to have confirmation.

“No one but our own families know—”

“You can say that,” Severus acknowledged, with a slight twist of his neck. “But I believe that someone else lacking his familiar has practically had to go into hiding from his Ministry job and claimed a near incurable illness. Otherwise, too many who don’t know would wonder where his familiar was, wouldn’t they?”

The man and the imposter exchanged glances that made Severus decide that, while the one disguised as a student was perhaps younger than the taller man, he could not be that much younger. They acted too much like equals.

“What do you want?” the Ravenclaw imposter finally whispered.

Severus smiled. “Let us talk about that in a more comfortable place.”

*

“What do you think Professor Snape is so happy about?”

Harry blinked and looked away from his conversation with Draco. He was trying to make sure that his friend was as comfortable as possible in Hufflepuff, which was taking more work than Harry had thought it would. Hufflepuff didn’t have a scary reputation like Slytherin did, but it seemed that Draco had so many prejudices about them being “stupid” that he might as well have been scared. “What, Neville?”

“Professor Snape is smiling,” Neville whispered, his eyes fixed on the High Table.

“Don’t be silly, he wouldn’t do that in pub—holy shit, he is,” Draco blurted, as he leaned past Harry and looked where Neville was looking. Golden looked thoughtfully at Draco’s plate when he did that, but Kali rattled her wings and hissed, and Golden ended up curling next to Harry’s chair again with a soft hiss of his own.

“Malfoy, please don’t use language like that in the Great Hall,” said the fifth-year Hufflepuff prefect, Melinda Ash, as she leaned over the table with a frown. She had a bronze lyrebird Harry hadn’t had the chance to ask the name of strutting around her feet, but he jumped up on his witch’s shoulder and seemed to point the whole of his impressive tail at Draco. “We’ll have to take points if you do it again.”

“Sorry, Ash,” Draco muttered, but he was obviously paying more attention to Professor Snape. “I can’t believe it.”

Harry finally glanced in the same direction and blinked. He had assumed that maybe he wouldn’t be able to see it. Draco knew Professor Snape better as his former Head of House, and Neville was always paying attention to him because he was still nervous about him. But no, there was a slight but visible smile on Professor Snape’s face as he finished up his sausage.

“Do you think he killed someone and chopped up the body into a cauldron?” Neville whispered. Trevor huddled close to him with a croak.

“He wouldn’t do something like that,” Harry said, but he was intrigued. Professor Snape really did never look like that normally. “Maybe I can speak to him before class and he’ll tell me.”

“Maybe you can do that, but you should eat breakfast, first,” said Ash, and frowned at Harry until he picked up his spoon again. “I notice that you’re still too skinny for your own good, Potter.”

Harry ducked his head in her direction, choosing not to say anything about the Dursleys, and started eating his porridge again. So did Neville, although Ash hadn’t told him to. He leaned close as Ash was distracted by people throwing scones at each other on the opposite end of the table.

“Why do you trust Professor Snape so much?” he whispered.

“He made some promises and he’s been helping me with some things,” Harry said vaguely. He knew it was vague, but he also didn’t want to talk about Professor Snape’s vow with Neville, or anyone else Professor Snape hadn’t given permission for Harry to talk about it with. “I think he’s not the best person, but he’s trying to be better.”

“Huh.” Neville swallowed and went back to petting up and down Trevor’s back and watching Professor Snape in what looked like worry.

“Neville.” Harry waited until his foster brother looked at him again. “I promise that he’s not going to hurt you.”

“I know, but…he’s so abrupt. And he just swoops around the room so much. I think I would do better in Potions if he wasn’t looking over my shoulder all the time.”

Harry sighed, because he knew Professor Snape would never agree to back away completely. He was too worried about what students would do if left to brew by themselves. After watching some of the disasters that even Ravenclaws managed to create, Harry couldn’t blame him. “I’ll talk to him and try to get him to be less abrupt.”

Neville smiled. “Thanks, Harry.”

He also didn’t look as if he thought Harry would manage to do it. Harry frowned. Well, he would try. He caught Draco’s eye, and Draco was frowning at him and shaking his head.

He probably thought Harry shouldn’t criticize Professor Snape’s teaching methods. Harry was going to ignore that. He was one of the few people who could get away with doing it, so that sort of meant he had to.

*

“Professor Snape, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Severus had wondered if Harry would seek him out, and he smiled now, opening his office door wider. They had perhaps ten minutes before class, which should be enough for Severus to tell him the important news. “Of course, Harry. I had something I wanted to share with you in any class.”

“What’s that, sir? Is it the reason you were smiling at breakfast this morning?”

Severus only barely kept from rolling his eyes as he turned to face Harry. Of course someone would have noticed that and decided he was scheming on a sinister plan. “In a way. I wanted to tell you that I was attacked last night by two people, at least one of whom also participated in the attack on you.”

He drew breath to go on, but Harry took a step towards him. “Are you all right, sir?”

“I’m fine, Harry.” He should have realized that announcement would cause that particular reaction in Harry. Severus smiled as much as he could and gestured towards the chair next to his desk. Harry sat down. “And both of them had artificial familiars, which I have taken hostage. In return, they made some promises to me.”

“Was it just to get them to stop attacking people, sir?”

“No. They also agreed to tell me about some of the people in their—I am not sure what the best word would be. Perhaps, group. People in their group who also had artificial familiars and were planning attacks similar to the one made on you.”

Harry straightened up, his eyes widening. “Are there a lot of people in that group, sir?”

Severus tilted his head. “I don’t yet know. They’re being somewhat uncooperative at the moment. But they can’t appear that many places in public without their familiars, lest rumors start circulating that they don’t want to promote. Therefore, I expect a flow of information by owl soon.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Are the familiars confined so they can’t escape?”

“Of course, but if Golden wants to observe them, or you, I would value your perspective. I may have overlooked something.” Severus gestured with his wand towards the back of the office, and the conjured illusory wall disappeared. There was a pen for the oryx, and a medium-sized cage for the sheepdog.

Harry hesitated. “Do they need to eat or drink? It looks cruel to confine them to a space so small, sir.”

Golden hissed something even before Severus could speak, and Harry sighed. “No, he says they’re completely unnatural and they don’t need to.” He stared at the creatures and shook his head. “Why would anyone think this is the same thing as having a real familiar? Why would you want a dead-eyed being at your side?”

“You perhaps underestimate the prejudice against Squibs in our world.” Severus leaned against the wall and studied Harry for a moment as he regarded the animals with dull-eyed horror of his own. “If someone could grant their children magic, or have it themselves, to escape that prejudice, they would do anything.”

Harry nodded, with an arrested look on his face that said he was taking it in this time, whereas the times he had heard it before, he might not have. He turned to Severus. “And what will you ask these people to do, sir?”

“Identify their co-conspirators to me. Whether they’ll be willing to give them all away, I don’t know. It will depend on what kind of group it is, all a single family or multiple alliances between multiple members. If they’ll turn on and betray each other, that will make it easier than if they stand united.”

Harry swallowed, turning back to the oryx and the sheepdog for a long moment. When he turned around, his face was hard. Severus waited in curiosity for what he would say.

“Someone who could do this to an innocent familiar is—they should be punished,” Harry said. “I don’t know if we can get the laws or the Wizengamot to punish them, sir. But I hope we can.”

“That is work for the distant future,” said Severus, glad that Harry hadn’t entered some whinging plea for tolerance or understanding. “But in the meantime, I think we can get some information from them and force them to take actions that will be to our benefit.”

“All right,” Harry said. He hesitated. Severus opened the door of the office, as it was almost time for class, but waited.

“You make Neville really nervous with how abrupt you are in class,” Harry said, looking up at him. “I know you’ve changed, but could you try to change some more? I know he could do better in Potions if he was less nervous.”

Severus narrowed his eyes. “You know that I do not have the relationship with all students that I do with you.”

“I know, sir. And I know that I’m asking something that’s kind of rude. But you don’t have to swear a vow to protect Neville the way you do me. Just try to hold back and keep the sharp words to yourself. And show that you’re coming more often. Walk louder? Speak more often?” Harry shrugged a little, while Golden nudged against his arm as if he wanted to be petted. Harry did that without taking his eyes from Severus. “I think it would help us all a lot.”

“Us?”

“Well, it would help Neville to get better marks in Potions. And it would mean I didn’t have to worry about him as often. And it would help you because you wouldn’t have to deal with melted cauldrons and accidents and getting irritated.”

Severus, who had been opening his mouth, closed it as he thought about that. Finally he gave a jerky nod, and Harry smiled at him with such hope that Severus wondered why he hadn’t made the request before.

Well, to some extent he had, when he’d stood up to Severus about unfairness in the classroom. But that had been so long ago, when Albus was still Headmaster, that it felt like life in a different dimension.

“Thanks, sir,” Harry said, and then slipped past him and ran to class. Severus noticed the Longbottom boy waiting for him, along with Draco. Longbottom caught Severus’s eye and blanched.

It was not the sort of reaction Severus had once set out to cause in a student.

Perhaps, yes, it was time to make a change.