[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Eleven of 'Adagio'- Mysteries With No Answers

[lomonaaeren]

“Dementors did attack the students.”

Severus nodded silently in response to Harry’s question. He had come to Severus’s office right after the Sorting, and it was obvious he had other things he wished to talk about than the presence of Dementors. He kept shifting his weight.

“Speak your mind, Mr. Potter.”

“That—new Defense professor. Remus Lupin. He was one of the Marauders.”

“He was.” Severus kept his voice as quiet and careful as he could. He had not quite dared to tell Harry about Lupin’s lycanthropy. That was something that could cause Albus to withdraw his protection, with how clearly he had announced to the staff today that no one was to inform the students.

Harry’s eyes grew bright with some emotion Severus didn’t know how to name. “And he never contacted me.”

“No.”

“Good. Then I don’t want anything to do with him, either.”

And Harry turned his back and walked away. Severus frowned after him. He had thought, if anything, that Harry would have wanted to seek Lupin out and confront him, asking after his parents and challenging the one remaining Marauder as to why he had not fulfilled the duties James and Lily would have expected of him.

But, well, Harry was a Slytherin, not the Gryffindor that Lupin might have been expecting. It was time for Severus to keep that in mind.

Along with Lupin.

*

“Severus, can I speak to you, please?”

Severus turned around with displeasure prickling down his spine. Being close to Lupin at any time—including meals and when Severus brought him the Wolfsbane—was unpleasant, and he had just sat through a staff meeting with the man. “Yes? What is it?”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk here?”

Severus raised his eyebrows, since the room was empty of all the other professors, but perhaps Lupin, with his sensitive hearing, was thinking of spies beyond these walls. He nodded. “Very well.”

They took an uncomfortable walk to Lupin’s quarters, during which he tried to chatter about all sorts of unimportant things, and Severus ignored him as coldly as he could. When the door was shut behind them, Lupin dropped the pretense and turned to face Severus in a way that made him reach for his wand.

“How have you poisoned Harry against me?”

“You did that yourself. What with your constant absence from his life.”

Lupin stared at Severus with slightly parted lips. Had he truly thought he should be able to get away with this? “What—what do you mean?”

“I did tell him the story of Sirius Black being his godfather, since no one else seemed interested in informing him,” Severus said. “And that meant—”

“I’m sure you gave him a fair and unbiased picture!”

“In fact, I tried to hide from that his own father was a bully. He was the one who sensed the lie of omission and demanded to know the truth.”

Lupin clenched his jaw. “You probably still told him the truth in a biased way.”

Severus shrugged. “I was the only one who would give it to him.”

“I—you know why I could not raise him.”

“And what prevented you from writing, Lupin? Does lycanthropy cripple the wand hand in a way I’ve never heard of?”

Lupin bowed his head, shuddering. Severus simply waited. He had little patience for Lupin. He guessed the man had already approached Harry and been reprimanded—unless he had relied on Albus for every account of Harry.

But despite everything, Severus had thought Lupin was smarter than this.

“If I had written to him,” Lupin whispered at last, “he would have started asking why I couldn’t raise him. And then I would have had to disappoint him with vague excuses.”

“Why not tell him the truth?”

“And expect a child to keep the secret?”

“It was more important to not tell him you were a werewolf than to tell him anything at all?”

Lupin looked away, his face painted with shame, the aggression draining off. Severus watched him in silence. He would accept that Lupin had reasons not to want to contact Harry, but he would not accept that it was the right decision.

“I simply wanted to—to not make him realize that I was a Dark creature,” Lupin whispered. “And you know it would have been difficult to interact with him in the Muggle world on a regular basis.”

Privately, Severus thought that lying to Harry about magic if Lupin had ventured into the Muggle world would have been the height of folly, but he knew his student better than Lupin did. He sighed. “So all you wished to do was ask me what I said of you?”

“Yes.”

“I did not tell him of your lycanthropy. I said nothing at all except that you had been one of the Marauders and had sometimes targeted me, as a matter of fact. I spent more time explaining Black and that utter mess.”

Lupin shut his eyes. “Thank you.”

Severus nodded curtly and then waited to see if Lupin would demand anything else of him. He did not, continuing with his face turned away. Severus turned as well and strode out of the room.

*

“How afraid should I be?”

Severus sighed as he stared downwards into Harry’s shadowed green eyes. They seemed to acquire more shadows every year. But Severus could hardly blame him, when he had faced the shade of the Dark Lord once and only avoided facing a basilisk because Severus was there.

“I don’t know.”

“You said he wouldn’t be able to get into the castle! With all the Dementors around—”

“I thought it unlikely. That is not the same as saying it is impossible.”

Harry bowed his head, his teeth clenched, and visibly gained mastery of himself. Severus was beyond impressed. The Minister himself had sounded more afraid of facing Sirius Black than Harry did, and Black was not out for his blood.

“I need to ask you something.”

Severus looked at Harry again, although part of his attention remained on the potions that had been simmering when Harry knocked on the door of his office. Two of them would be ruined if he didn’t properly attend to them. “Yes?”

“What would be better if Black captured me?”

“What would be—better?”

“Should I try to kill him? Could I even do that? Or should I try to just get him to drop me? Or should I kill myself, so I wouldn’t have to live through the torture he might try to inflict on me?”

Severus hissed as pain from the Unbreakable Vow flared to life in his chest. He had not known that Harry talking about possibly committing suicide would do that.

Then again, he had never pictured being put in this exact situation.

“You should do whatever you must to get away,” Severus said sharply. “Kill him if you must, wound him if you can.”

“You care that much about his life?”

“I care that murder is a means of splitting one’s soul. I do not know what it would do to someone so young who committed that kind of act.”

Severus was speaking the truth. All of the Death Eaters who had either killed someone or tortured someone in such a way that the victim had died had been older than sixteen, most older than seventeen.

Severus would prefer that Harry not take the risk for Black, of all people.

Harry’s eyes widened again as he stared at Severus. Then he said, low and fierce, “And you believe that I’m good enough to maim Black instead of killing him?”

“I saw what you did to Lockhart last year. Would you be incapable of doing it against Black?”

Harry shook his head. He was still watching Severus with those surprised, assessing eyes. Severus sighed. “Did you think I would tell you that you should not defend yourself, even in the name of saving your life?”

“I thought you would be more upset by it.”

“I am upset about your potential death, if that is what you mean—”

One of the potions spluttered, and Severus whirled around and cast a Freezing Charm at it. In seconds, the surface congealed, arresting the dangerous reaction that might have made it overflow the cauldron’s lip. Severus shook his head and turned back to Harry. “My apologies. I did not mean to interrupt our talk.”

“No, it’s all right.” Harry was smiling at him with a chill that went deep into his smile and which Severus relaxed at the sight of. Perhaps most people should not smile like that, but the truth was, Harry had to. “Thanks, sir. I’ll make sure that I can survive Black, no matter what happens.”

Severus nodded. “Good. Now, come sit down, and we’ll see how your Occlumency lessons are working for you. Then we’ll follow that with a lesson in dueling.”

In truth, it had turned out that Harry was a natural at both skills. Severus had asked him why he didn’t try as hard in Defense, and Harry had shrugged. “It doesn’t seem as though it’s worth it, with the quality of the professors we’ve had.”

Later, there was another reason. But Severus did not know it then.

*

“What do you want done with the broom, Mr. Potter?”

“Burn it.”

Severus stared at the boy. They were both in Severus’s quarters, and much as Harry had brought him the Invisibility Cloak during his first year, he had received another mysterious Christmas gift. This one was a Firebolt broom, however.

“You would rather burn such a valuable broom than sell it on?”

“You believe I could?”

Severus nodded slowly. It seemed obvious that Harry wasn’t thinking clearly, probably because he was rattled by the odd appearance of the broom in his dormitory. “Yes. I do think that there are people on your House’s Quidditch team who would pay a large amount for it.”

Harry smiled. There was a gleam in that smile and in his eyes that made Severus wonder abruptly whether Lily would even recognize her child.

And if he cared about that.

“Thanks for the advice, sir. Then I’m going to do that, and whoever sent this can be disappointed that I didn’t fall into their trap.”

“Why do you think of it as a trap, Mr. Potter?”

“An expensive broom, when I don’t even play Quidditch, and when Sirius Black is hunting me?”

Severus nodded slowly. He had cast a few detection charms on the broom, but he had no idea what kind of spells were normal for such an expensive piece, and so he couldn’t know whether he was detecting something that should be there or not.

“I believe Mr. Malfoy might pay you a pretty Galleon for it.”

“Then that’s decided, sir. Thank you.”

Long after Harry had slipped out of his office, Severus sat contemplating the fire, and wondering whether he should have tested the broom more thoroughly.

And what goal Black, or anyone else, would have accomplished by sending Harry the broom in a way guaranteed to make him suspicious.

*

“You’re well?”

“Yes, of course, sir. He wasn’t even in my dormitory.”

Severus inclined his head. That was true enough, and now he only had to convince his rapidly pumping heart of it.

It was the morning after Sirius Black had apparently tried to break into Gryffindor Tower again, and had managed it this time. Ron Weasley had woken to see Black standing over him with a knife and woken most of the Tower by screaming his head off. Severus thought the reaction extreme, but if it meant that Weasley had warned others, it had served its purpose.

Harry, meanwhile, was frowning into his teacup.

“Drink it. It is good for you.”

Harry started a little and drank some. “Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

“I just—it seemed like Black was just mad at first, trying to force his way into Gryffindor Tower when I wasn’t there.” Harry sipped some more from his teacup and put it down, staring into Severus’s face with no evidence that the Calming Draught was having an effect on him. “But this second time—he had a knife, he went into the Tower even though he must know by now I’m not there, and he would have attacked Weasley? Why?”

“He could still be mad.”

“It just doesn’t seem like it, sir.”

Severus closed his eyes. Was that true? Was Harry mistaken, because he wanted so badly to attribute some sense to Black?

Or was Severus the one who was overlooking something obvious, because he didn’t want to believe that Black would have the strength of mind to survive with any of his sanity intact after twelve years in Azkaban?

“Sir?”

Severus sighed and opened his eyes. “I suppose we may have to accept the possibility that Black is less mad than the Ministry assumed,” he allowed. “I will investigate this, Harry. But discreetly. In the meantime, you might continue acting as you have been.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harry had put down his teacup and stood up before Severus thought of something he hadn’t noticed before. “I did not know that you called Mr. Weasley by his last name.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. His eyes were deep and wild in the way that they had been sometimes during the summer when he was studying Occlumency and evidently coping with painful memories.

“We had a disagreement, sir. Last year.”

“Last year?”

“Yes, sir. At the end of term. He was upset that I didn’t go after Ginny myself.”

Severus stared. “You mentioned that, but I did not think it so serious. And you would have died. You could not have survived the duel with Riddle, or the basilisk itself.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry’s back was very straight, his arms down at his sides as if he were preparing to reach for his wand. “But Ron didn’t see it that way. He saw it as I was his friend, and she was his sister, and I was the one who had saved the magical world when Voldemort attacked. That meant I should go after her.”

Severus swallowed at the Dark Lord’s name, but simply shook his head. “So you are no longer friends?”

“Ron thinks we are. He nobly forgave me a few days after the start of last term.”

Severus hid a sigh and nodded. He could wish that Harry had friends he could confide in; Severus was not a substitute, no matter how comfortable Harry might feel with him. “Very well. I hope you will still get some benefit from his presence.”

“I learned from your example, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“You ruptured your friendship with my mum pretty publicly, and in a way that caused you lots of problems later on. I’m not going to do the same thing.”

Harry left before Severus could question him. Severus kept staring after him for a moment, a sensation that was becoming distressingly familiar.

Then he closed his eyes and rubbed his hand down his forehead.

He would just have to make sure that Harry did not repeat his mistakes, if he was determined to pattern his life so closely on Severus’s.

At least he seems to need no help in walking that path.