[From Litha to Lammas]: Confusion Is Mine, Saith the Lord, gen, 2/5

[lomonaaeren]

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Part Two

Nott marches up to him in the library a week or so after Christmas with something in his hand. Harry is pleased to see that it’s the gift he sent Nott, and that everything probably did get delivered when he sent Hedwig out with three or so packages at a time. She also came back with empty claws when Harry asked her to take a heavy robe to the “broom-sender,” so presumably that worked.

“What is this, Potter?’ Nott asks, and plops down in the chair across from him. Ron and Hermione don’t even look up at this point, although Hermione rolls her eyes a little.

“A mirror,” Harry says. It is, too. It’s a hand mirror that’s enchanted to chime when the owner gets a bit of ink on their faces or food stuck in their teeth, even if they aren’t looking into the mirror at the time. “What, doesn’t it work? Or maybe you don’t like it?”

“It works,” Nott says between his teeth. “The point is that a Lord isn’t supposed to send gifts back to people who sent them to him.”

“You’ll live, Nott.”

“But you weren’t supposed to!”

“What exactly have I done in the last few months to make you think I care about those stupid rules?”

Nott stares down at the mirror in his hands. He looks, for once, not weird or sneering but lost and small. Harry feels sorry for him. He supposes it is different, when you’ve been trying all your life to fit into one set of rules and expectations, to have someone show up who just doesn’t care about them.

But Harry can’t change who he is for Nott. He can just try his best to help and protect him.

“The old Lords didn’t do things like this,” Nott whispers at last. “And the old Lords are the only guide I have as to what you’re going to act like. If those rules are wrong, then what am I going to do?” He drags his gaze from the mirror up to Harry’s face.

“Try being my friend.”

“You don’t want to be friends with a Slytherin. Allies is all you’ll be.”

“And who told you that? Malfoy? The one who insulted me the first time we met and then insulted Ron, my first friend, on the train? Yeah, he’s sure an unbiased witness.”

Nott stares at him. “I’ve heard all about the train incident, but—the first time you met? What’s that about?”

“It was in Madam Malkin’s,” Harry says, and rolls his eyes as he remembers. His impression of Malfoy being like Dudley was honestly right on the money, although Malfoy’s got a little better this year. He seemed pleased with the gift of brooms to the school, anyway. Maybe he wants more decent competition at Quidditch, just like Harry does. “He didn’t bother asking who I was, just launched into this monologue about how he ought to be able to bring a broom to school and how Hogwarts shouldn’t let in people whose parents were Muggles.”

“Wow,” Nott says, staring into the distance.

Harry nods. “Yeah, he didn’t make a great impression. But I didn’t really know anything about you before this year other than your name. And you haven’t always made a great impression, either, but you’re trying, and I appreciate that.”

“I’m going to have to think about this,” Nott says, and gathers up his mirror, and departs without a word.

“That was very mature of you, Harry,” Hermione says, sounding pleased.

Harry shrugs at her, feeling a prickling rash of embarrassment creep up the back of his neck. “Nott’s not that bad a sort. Just too formal and obsessed with Lordship business.”

*

To Harry’s surprise, he gets a reply from the broom-sender a few weeks after that. A nondescript barn owl comes in bearing it. He could be a school owl or not. It’s not like Harry knows every single bird in the Owlery. He’s a cheerful sort, though, landing on the table and sticking one foot into Harry’s bacon while turning so Harry can get at the leg with the letter on it.

“Hi, there, boy,” Harry says, and strokes the owl around the eyes for a moment before he takes the letter. “What do you have for me?”

When he opens it, he notices that the letter is written in a shaky kind of handwriting, as if whoever wrote it was having trouble gripping their quill—or wanted to disguise their handwriting. Harry still isn’t sure what his theory on the broom-sender actually is.

Dear Harry,

Thank you so much for the cloak. I wear it every day, and it’s particularly welcome in this nasty weather. I suppose you know this already, but Scotland in winter is cold!

I wonder if you would be willing to meet with me? It would have to be without anyone else knowing. I have a lot to explain to you, but it can’t be done with other people around. They’ll just start shouting in a boring way and telling you that it’s too dangerous and you shouldn’t expose yourself to that.

Harry is startled into a laugh. It does seem like the broom-sender is probably in the school and can see the arguments between Harry and the people who call themselves his bodyguards. And they’re probably in Gryffindor, too, from the phrasing.

If you agree, then please tell me the time and place you would like to meet, as long as it’s on school grounds or near Hogsmeade. I’m willing to let you choose it as a gesture of good faith, and to prove that I’m not setting up a trap.

Your Firebolt friend.

Harry grins and folds up the letter, He’ll show it to various people, of course, including Ron and Hermione, but he doesn’t anticipate any difficulty. After all, they would cause a huge fuss if they knew about it only after the fact. And this is the only way that they’ll let him go alone.

It kind of sucks that he has to break the promise the broom-sender asked him to make about confidentiality, but Harry has learned some lessons.

*

“Absolutely not.”

All right, so Harry should have anticipated that response. But what gets to him is that it isn’t Hermione or Nott saying this. It’s Susan Bones.

“They’re obviously someone who can’t meet with me just out of the blue and without someone else noticing,” Harry says, folding his arms. They’re at what has become the “Lord Slytherin and his groupies” table in the library. Madam Pince actually glares other people away from it if they try to sit there, apparently. Harry thinks it’s because it’s kind of back near the shelves and she doesn’t want the noise of such a large group more out in the library. “I thought you would be sympathetic to that. Lord Slytherin is about protecting the people who need protection.”

“They sent you an expensive gift and a note that sounds as though it’s trying to lure you into a trap.” Bones waves the letter around, or rather, a copy of the letter that Harry has made and passed out to some of the “bodyguards.” “It’s vitally important that you not go.”

“If they sound like they are trying to lure me into a trap, then obviously they’re not very smart about it and I’m not actually in danger!”

Unfortunately, this logic produces some unimpressed looks and some glares from the people around him. Harry rolls his eyes and decides to attack the leader of the group. “Look, Bones, why do you care? According to you, last year the Heir of Slytherin was a terrible person to be. Why are you here? Why don’t you think that it’s worth walking into a trap to protect someone who might need it?”

Bones flushes bright red. “I’m sorry for that. I don’t believe you’re like that anymore.”

“But you agree that this could be a student who needs protection, since they can’t write to me openly.”

“I don’t think anyone has disputed that that might be the case,” Nott interrupts, like the shark looking for blood in the water that he is. “But it might also be a trap. The student could even be writing based on the instructions of someone else, not realizing that they’re playing bait for you.”

Harry sighs. Yes, all right, that’s true. “So what do you want me to do?”

“Not go.”

“Even if the person needs me to be protected?”

Hermione rolls her eyes and interrupts. “You know very well that he won’t stay indoors or away from this person if he thinks they really need help. So the only logical thing to do is set a trap of our own.”

Nott eyes her. Bones eyes her. Ron just grins and leans back in his chair. “Listen to Hermione,” he says. “She’s the smart one.”

*

Harry takes a long, deep breath. It’s a Hogsmeade weekend, and technically he’s not supposed to be out of the castle, since the Dursleys never signed his permission slip. But he has an Invisibility Cloak, and an enormous group of people spread out around him. Oliver cast Disillusionment Charms over everybody, since he’s a seventh-year and knows how to do that. And he’s hovering overhead on a broom right now, under a Disillusionment Charm himself, ready to dive and take his Seeker out of danger at any time.

They’re meeting near the Shrieking Shack. It’s almost noon, the time Harry specified, and he only has to wait a little more.

So far, none of the other students from the castle have wandered out towards the Shack, but Harry’s not concerned by that. The person he’s meeting could easily be someone using the same tactics they are, especially if it’s a Slytherin or other kid worried about being tracked.

Harry hears some of the bells and clocks in the village sounding noon, at last. He takes a deep breath and walks around the Shack.

For a minute, he wonders if the person who came to meet him is still invisible but left their dog visible to reassure Harry. It’s a huge black dog that raises some of the small hairs on the back of his neck. And which also looks Grim-like and vaguely familiar.

But then the dog shakes itself and transforms into someone even more familiar.

“Oh, shit,” Harry says, staring up at the face of Sirius Black.

The others immediately spring into action. Oliver dives with a war-cry. Hexes come from the direction of shimmers in the air that Harry thinks, from their voices, are Bones and Nott. Greengrass appears from bloody nowhere and Banishes a heavy stone at Black. Ron and Hermione are charging, still under the Disillusionment Charms, shouting.

Black ducks the stone with a yelp, and reaches out towards Harry, who hasn’t taken off his Cloak, but provably revealed himself with the sounds of his footsteps and his scent. But by then Oliver is there, and snatches Harry around the waist to drag him into the sky, and Nott’s and Bones’s hexes both hit Black. He falls over and lies on the ground, tied with enormous ropes and twitching as small lightning bolts dance over his skin.

“Harry!”

“Are you all right, mate?”

Harry pulls back the hood of his Cloak and waves down at Ron and Hermione, who are staring up at him with anxious faces. “Yes! Oliver, put me down.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Did you see how Black’s lips were moving?” Oliver turns around on the broom and glares at him sternly. “He was muttering ‘Bludger.’ I saw it! You’re not getting near him when he must been plotting to put a Bludger in your brain. Not with the Gryffindor-Slytherin match coming up!”

“Oliver, for fuck’s sake—”

Oliver shakes his head and remains stubbornly in the air, although when Harry yells at him, he at least does float down far enough that they can sort of join the circle of people standing around Black. Oliver waves his wand to remove the last of the Disillusionment Charms. Nott is staring at Black with a furious, flushed face. Bones looks like a vicious badger with all her teeth bared. Greengrass once again looks like an owl, but now as if Black is some small fluffy thing she wants to eat.

“No wonder he’s been able to get past the Dementors and escaped the prison so easily,” Nott says. “He’s a bloody Animagus.”

Harry remembers Professor McGonagall and grimaces. Then he looks more closely at Black and says, “Whose was the lightning hex?”

Bones raises her hand proudly. Nott looks envious.

“Well, can you end it, please? He can’t talk like that.”

“What do you want him to talk for?” Ron demands, and nudges Black with the toe of his boot. “We should take him to the castle and get the Dementors to eat him!”

“Because I want to know why he sent me a really expensive broom. Even if he was going to kill me with it, he didn’t have to spend that much money on it.” Harry thinks that’s the part that bothers him most. Why a Firebolt?

(And it’s all very well for Hermione to say that anyone normal would probably have fallen off it and died because it goes so fast. Harry’s not a normal person, and it’s still a much more indirect way of killing him than Harry thought a Death Eater would come up with).

Bones sighs as if Harry’s asking her to give up the last treacle tart after a feast, but reverses the hex. The little lightning bolts stop stinging Black. He groans and rolls over, as much as he can when the ropes are still wrapped around him.

In fact…Harry leans down from the broom and narrows his eyes, ignoring the way Oliver’s hand tightens on his robes. He’s not going to fall. The ropes are tighter than they were a second ago.

Well, that explains some things. Harry thought Incarcerous was a terribly mild hex for Nott to cast on Black. He glares at Nott and says, “Will you please make sure those ropes don’t strangle him before we get some answers?”

“They’re meant to crush his inner organs, not strangle him.”

“Either, Nott.”

Nott sighs like Harry’s taken the last two treacle tarts and reverses the spell, at least enough to loosen the ropes. Harry sees Ron and Hermione standing ready with their wands, and doesn’t think that Black is going to get away even if he suddenly turns back into a dog.

Black takes a deep, rasping breath that makes Harry doubt Nott’s claim about the ropes not really strangling him, and stares at Harry with dazed eyes. “Harry,” he whispers. “Thank you for giving me the chance to explain.”

“You have it. Now talk.”

“It wasn’t me,” Black says in a rush. “I never would have betrayed your parents. James was like a brother to me. You’re my godson. I was their Secret-Keeper first, but everyone suspected me because of how close James and I were. I suggested changing to Pettigrew, that rat,” and his teeth flash like he’s still a dog, “because no one would suspect him. But he was a Death Eater, and he ran straight to You-Know-Who!”

Harry blinks. That is—sure a story. “And then you killed him for that?”

Black laughs heavily. “No. He’s a rat Animagus. He was the one who accused me, then threw the spell that killed all those Muggles. He cut off his finger and disappeared down the pipes, the sewers, wherever rats like him go.” And he turns his head and stares at Ron with those unnerving eyes. “Your pet a rat with one toe missing, huh, boy? More than a little off lately? Keeps getting attacked by a certain half-Kneazle?”

Ron jumps as if he’s been pinched by Peeves. Harry knows he’s gaping. But yes, Scabbers is missing a toe, and all the other things Black said are true, too.

“There’s no way,” Ron whispers, and then his voice gains a little strength. “Scabbers was Percy’s pet for years before he was mine! He would have tried something if he was a—a Death Eater! There’s no way!”

“How long do rats live?” Black squirms a little on the ground, and both Hermione and Nott tighten their grips on their wands simultaneously. “Not years and years like that, huh? I don’t think so. And maybe an ordinary Death Eater would have tried something, but Wormtail, he was always a coward. No sign of his master coming back and no way to be sure where to go for search for him? No, he would have stayed someone’s pet, where it was nice and warm.”

Ron looks like he’s on the verge of fainting. Harry squirms, and Oliver flies him down and sets him on the ground. At least he seems convinced that this has nothing to do with Quidditch anymore.

“Is that why you tried to break into Gryffindor Tower?” Harry asks. “Because you were after that rat?” It does make sense, but on the other hand, so did everyone’s belief that Black was after him.

Black focuses on him, panting a little now, as if his outburst has exhausted him. “Yeah. I swear, Harry, I never wanted to harm you.” His voice goes all soft, and his eyes so big and wide and hopeful that Harry thinks he can see exactly why Black’s Animagus form is a dog. “But I knew I had to kill Wormtail in case he did decide to try and hurt you one day. And to get revenge on him,” he adds after a second.

Harry has private doubts about how much was Black wanting to protect him and how much was him wanting revenge, but he does know that he doesn’t have any way to find out if Black is telling the truth on his own. “Okay. Can someone tie him up tightly enough that he can’t escape, but not with the strangling ropes, thanks, Nott? And we’ll smuggle him into the school down, I don’t know, the passage from Honeydukes—”

“Harry.”

“Potter.”

The chorus is so loud that Harry isn’t sure who said what. He frowns at Ron and Hermione and the other people who decided they had to be involved in this. “What?”

“You want to take him into the school? And, what, just see if he’s telling the truth about Scabbers?” Hermione looks horrified. “Without involving a professor?”

“The professors are all convinced he’s a mass murderer!” Harry says hotly. “They’ll just feed him to Dementors! Yes, I want to take him to Gryffindor Tower and at least see if this is true!”

“Just because Weasley’s rat is deprived of an appendage does not make Black’s story smell less of ridiculousness,” Grengrass says flatly, and Harry wonders if there’s something wrong with him, because he understood that.

“There has to be a spell that can reveal someone is an Animagus,” Harry says stubbornly. “Right?” He’s never heard of one, but it seems weird that people would just let Animagi run around all the time without one.

“Yes,” Oliver says reluctantly. “I can probably cast it. But Harry, are you sure we should bring Black into the school?”

“Unless one of you thinks they could go and get Scabbers from Ron’s bed without causing him to run away and maybe know something is going on?”

“Of course we can do that,” Nott says, sounding puzzled.

“Not you, Nott, you can’t get into Gryffindor Tower,” Ron snarls at him, and then takes a deep breath. “I’ll do it, Harry. Scabbers would be expecting me to be the one to pick him up, anyway. And it’s better than trying to bring Black in through the wards or the tunnel when that might alert the Dementors.”

Harry didn’t think of that. He nods. “All right. We’ll be waiting.”

Oliver binds Black with a regular Incarcerous charm, and Ron disappears in the direction of the school. Harry pulls his Invisibility Cloak over himself just in case someone comes along and makes a fuss about him not having permission to be in Hogsmeade, and Oliver Disillusions Black. Then the others start a combined discussion of Quidditch strategy and offensive spells. Harry can participate as long as he keeps his voice low.

*

“Got him.”

Ron’s voice is low and angry. Harry turns around with relief. He half thought that Scabbers might be gone when Ron got back to the Tower, and half thought that Ron might decide he didn’t believe Black’s story after all and just not come back.

Ron scoops Scabbers out of his pocket. The rai is asleep. Oliver draws his wand and immediately casts the charm Black taught him the incantation of that forces an Animagus to turn back.

Scabbers wakes up when it hits him and desperately scrabbles at the air with his paws, but it’s too late. He falls to the ground and transforms into a small, dirty, rat-like man who immediately tries to climb to his feet and run away.

Harry Stuns him. He didn’t even realize he had his wand in his hand. He just had to.

Then Nott binds him, and if he uses the strangling ropes this time—they still looked like regular ropes to Harry until he saw how they were strangling Black—then Harry frankly doesn’t care.

And then, finally, Oliver gets on his broom and flies back to the school to fetch someone who can do something about this.

*

Harry doesn’t really get to rest until they’re back in Gryffindor Tower that night. He falls on his bed between Ron and Neville and they stare at each other. Neville shakes his head. He got caught up in the parade of people—including a bound Black and a bound Pettigrew—who went up to Headmaster Dumbledore’s office.

“Wow,” Neville says. Harry nods.

Black told his story, again, in front of an audience that included a staring Professor Dumbledore, a teary-eyed Professor McGonagall, and a Snape who for some reason started yelling halfway through that it couldn’t possibly be true. Professor Dumbledore had to ask him to leave. They woke Pettigrew up, and of course he couldn’t give a good explanation about why he was in hiding as a rat. He did try, squeaking that he’d been afraid of the unstable Black, but the Dark Mark on his arm was a pretty good counter to that.

So was the lack of a Mark on Black’s arm.

Professor Dumbledore said they would have to take Black and Pettigrew to the Ministry, and Harry got nervous, because the Ministry was the place that had started the hunt for Black with Dementors and hadn’t even bothered to confirm that he had the Mark or not. But Professor McGonagall said flatly that she would go with them and “sort things out,” and Black asked them to Floo someone named Andromeda Tonks, who he said was a cousin of his, and Professor Dumbledore nodded and said that Mrs. Tonks would protect Black’s interests.

“I’m so sorry about Pettigrew, Ron,” Harry whispers, rolling over, because while his day has been pretty great, finding out that the murderer who wanted to kill him wasn’t a murderer after all, Ron’s has been pretty bad.

“It’s still better to know,” Ron whispers back, and holds out his hand.

Harry reaches over and clasps it tightly.

*

“See,” Harry finds an opportunity to tell Nott the next day, “the letter wasn’t from someone who wanted to kill me.”

Nott draws his wand and hexes him with boils. Harry laughs, because that’s more the way a friend would react than a mindless follower of a Lord.

*

In all the chaos and excitement, Harry nearly misses his next lesson with Professor Lupin about his Patronus. Well, Lupin has been in the Ministry giving testimony about what he knew concerning Black’s Animagus form. The Daily Prophet has been reporting story after story, mostly so juicy that they aren’t even lying the way they do most of the time. And there’s something about how Pettigrew and Black and James Potter were all unregistered Animagi. Apparently, Professor Lupin was as well, but the stories are a little vague about that. Harry supposes that he might be sacked if he admitted it.

“Come in, Harry.”

Professor Lupin sounds tired. Harry opens the door and steps into the office. “Hi, Professor Lupin.”

The professor gives Harry a weary smile. He has a cup of tea in one hand, and he looks back and forth between the wardrobe that contains the boggart and the tank with the grindylow as if he thinks one of them is going to escape. “Hello, Harry. I suppose you came to tell me that you don’t think the lessons are necessary anymore?”

Harry blinks. “No, sir. I’d still like to learn.”

“But the Minister will withdraw the Dementors from around the school now that—Sirius has been proven innocent.” Professor Lupin says the name like he’s speaking around a loose tooth.

“I won’t trust them to do that until I see the Dementors actually leave,” Harry says. “And what if I run into Dementors in the future? I still need to know.”

Professor Lupin smiles, then. “Good.” He puts aside the teacup, but hesitates. “Do you think that you can forgive me for not telling you what I knew of Sirius’s Animagus form? I was so worried about what it would say about me being friends with him that I put your safety at risk.”

Harry thinks he understands. Professor Lupin is so connected with the friends he made as a kid that he would do almost anything to preserve those memories. It meant he kept quiet about Black’s Animagus form, and it meant he kept quiet about his connection with Harry’s parents. When Harry asked, Professor Lupin admitted that he was worried about saying something wrong and tarnishing their memories in Harry’s eyes.

Harry thinks he might do something similar if Ron or Hermione went to prison or died and he was confronted with their kid. If he can forgive Trelawney for being not very good at her job and Nott for slinging around hexes like the strangling ropes one, he can forgive Professor Lupin for this.

“Yes, sir,” he says. “You were trying to hold the memories of your friends safe. It must have been really hard to think two of your best friends were dead and your other best friend was responsible for it. I wouldn’t have dealt with it well, either.” He might not have kept the secret of an ex-friend’s Animagus form, but he wouldn’t have dealt with it well. He can’t imagine losing Ron and Hermione.

Professor Lupin relaxes all in a rush. “I wouldn’t have—blamed you if you didn’t forgive me.”

Harry sighs. “I think people think forgiveness is some kind of instant promise that you forget everything and you just trust the person without reservation.” That’s certainly been the reactions of some of his “followers” when Harry insisted that he could forgive Professor Lupin for hiding his connection with Harry’s parents and Black for rushing off to get revenge on Pettigrew. “For me, it just means that I’d rather move forwards and try to understand that person.”

“Without forgetting?”

“Without forgetting. If you ever lied to me about someone else’s Animagus form when you thought they were a mass murderer stalking me, then I would find that really hard to forgive, sir.”

Professor Lupin laughs. “I think I can promise never to do that again, Harry. Now, let’s try the Patronus Charm once more.” And he turns to the wardrobe that holds the boggart, while Harry braces himself.

*

The Dementors finally leave Hogwarts at the beginning of March. Harry sighs with relief and goes to tell Professor McGonagall that he’ll stay through the Easter holidays.

He runs into Bones as he’s walking away from Professor McGonagall’s office, and she smiles and asks him about his plans for the hols. At least she really doesn’t seem to believe he’s a monster anymore. And she’s invited him to call her Susan, so Harry decides that he’ll probably start doing that.

“I’m staying here,” he tells her. “And I think I’m going to deserve to relax for a long time.” He had to talk to an Auror a few days ago about his experience with Black and Pettigrew and give a few memories for the testimony. He also had to put up with more glares and insults than ever from Snape, and a fourth-year Ravenclaw asking him about stopping the bullying of a second-year Ravenclaw called Luna Lovegood. Harry tracked down some of the people who did it and called them bullies in a loud voice in front of the Great Hall at breakfast, then asked some of the people who claim they’re his “followers” to keep an eye on Lovegood in Ravenclaw Tower, where he can’t go.

“You stayed over Christmas, too, didn’t you, Harry?”

“Yes, that’s right. I always do.”

Susan’s eyes become shadowed. “You don’t want to spend time with your family?”

Harry flinches despite himself. But then, mostly no one talks about the Dursleys around him. Fred and George, who saw the bars on the window, make jokes sometimes, but not the kind of thing where anyone could tell what they were talking about just from that.

“No, not really,” he says, and starts to step past Susan.

Susan steps back in front of him. “We’re here to protect you,” she reminds him quietly. “From everything. What is it about your relatives that makes you not want to go back to them during the holidays?”

“What, don’t you think that I could just be an ungrateful little freak who doesn’t understand how much they do for me and would rather stay at Hogwarts being pampered?”

Susan stares at him. Harry flushes. Okay, so that went in a direction he didn’t expect.

“Uh, look, I didn’t mean that,” he says, and sprints past her, ignoring her when she calls after him. He goes to the Quidditch pitch and gets one of the new school brooms and flies it around, even though it’s not his Firebolt, his face burning.

There’s a chance that he could live with Black in the future, if the Ministry bureaucracy ever gets him a trial, and Pettigrew a trial, and he’s sane enough, and Professor Dumbledore says he can. But that’s different from everyone knowing about how he lives with the Dursleys.

It’s just—Harry doesn’t need to hear people gossiping and exclaiming about it, even if they would be sympathetic to him. And he can’t count on that. Not when the neighbors on Privet Drive all hated him and believed the Dursleys.

And he doesn’t want people feeling sorry for him. They would probably think he was weak, and the efforts to bodyguard him would step up. And people might feel that he’s so weak they couldn’t ask him for help anymore.

If they dropped the Lord title, that would be okay. But Harry doesn’t want people to just start ignoring the bullying and the budget issues and so on, either, the way they did before this year.

When he finally lands again and goes back to Gryffindor Tower, he can’t hear anyone talking about the Dursleys or him staying for the hols, and he relaxes. He even has a fun time at dinner, starting a food fight with George and Fred and laughing as he ducks flying spaghetti.

Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe Susan will have the sense to keep what she heard to herself.

*

Of course, the next morning, it turns out she didn’t.