[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Seventeen of 'Adagio'- True Allegiances

[lomonaaeren]

“There’s going to be a Tournament at school this year?”

Severus made an irritable noise as he ate the last of his buttered toast. He and Harry were leaving Spinner’s End soon, because Harry had to appear on the King’s Cross platform from the Muggle side. And he had finally been able to tell Harry the truth about the event Hogwarts would be hosting, because the promise he had made Albus after learning of it had only lasted until “the day that the students returned to school.”

They would all find out at the feast that night, anyway. But Severus had wanted Harry to know as soon as possible.

“Why are they doing this?”

“Supposedly to ensure international cooperation and increase amity with the schools on the Continent.”

“And in reality?”

“Fudge wants to increase his popularity. The papers have been getting increasingly critical of him of late, and some of the bribes he received have dried up. He wishes to attract attention, perhaps new donations.”

“How do you know that?”

Severus looked calmly at Harry. His voice was calm, too, the same pitch of respect it had always been since Severus had allowed Harry to use his first name, but his eyes were burning and fixed.

“Many of those donors move in my former circles.”

“Former?”

“You know very well that I cannot be said to be a Death Eater while I teach at the school the Dark Lord’s nemesis works at. And despite Albus’s confidence that I can somehow cozen the Dark Lord and resume my place in his ranks, I defied him for your sake in your first year.”

“But your real allegiances?”

Severus stared at Harry in silence. Harry looked back in a silence just as stubborn, and didn’t appear to be thinking at all of the fact that they would need to leave for the train station soon.

Severus swallowed and gave the only possible answer. “Before he allowed me to teach at Hogwarts, Albus asked me to make an oath. An Unbreakable Vow, to protect the Dark Lord’s infant nemesis.”

“You told me about that.”

“It means my allegiance lies with you.”

Harry stared at him in a way that made it seem he hadn’t expected to hear that answer even though he knew about the Vow. Severus wondered what he had expected. A declaration of faith in either Dumbledore or the Dark Lord?

I thought I raised him better than that.

The next instant, Severus smothered that horrifying thought, and cleared his throat. “It is the truth.”

“I—didn’t know that,” Harry whispered. “That changes things.”

“How?” Severus asked, more sharply than he’d meant to. “You no longer feel comfortable staying with me?”

Harry’s mouth dropped open a little, and his eyes went wide enough to remind Severus forcefully of young Lily when Severus had first told her about magic. It was the first time he had seen Harry so shocked, or so like his mother.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” Harry said. “I just meant that I was thinking about one course of action, and now I need to think of another one.”

“Concerning?”

“You, and my guardianship, and the Dark Lord, and my place in Slytherin.” Harry frowned at the fireplace, and then shook his head. “Well. We should leave. We don’t want to miss the train.”

“No,” Severus said, although it felt as though the inside of his throat was dry. What was Harry thinking, when it came to the Dark Lord? “At least we can be sure that there will be no Dementors hunting fugitives on the train this year.”

“He’s written to me this summer.”

“Yes, I saw the letters.”

Harry hesitated with his hand on the wall beside the fireplace. Then he turned around and said, more directly than Severus had ever heard him speak, “He wants to be a good godfather, and sometimes I’m glad that he’s alive and out of Azkaban, but he couldn’t replace you.”

He’d tossed the green powder into the Floo and was gone before Severus could think of a response. Severus shook his head, shut his eyes, and froze the emotions behind the Occlumency barriers that had served him so well for the past fifteen years.

Then he followed his ward.

*

“I’m keeping an eye on you, Snape.”

“So it appears,” Severus said dryly, without bothering to look up from the cauldron in which he was brewing the Wolfsbane Albus still insisted he brew. Soon Severus would have to Apparate to the shack that Lupin was currently calling home. “I know you have more than enough gazes to spare.”

“What do you want with the Potter boy?”

Severus turned around to consider Moody, who stood with his wooden leg bracing him as he stared at Severus. When Albus had first announced his choice of Defense professor for the year, Severus had been disgusted, afraid, annoyed. Now, most of the time, what he felt was exhausted.

Perhaps breathing in the fumes of the Wolfsbane doesn’t help.

Severus sighed hard. “You know that I am his Head of House. It is my place to teach him Potions and to give him advice considering his choices in life.”

“Something like you?”

Severus stifled the wave of irritation that made dealing with Moody difficult. It still wasn’t enough reason to yell at the man. Moody would go to Albus, and Albus would scold Severus about “getting along,” the way he had last year with Lupin.

Always about my getting along with them. Never anything about their getting along with me, although I have given longer service to the school than either of them.

Then again, Moody might not know the meaning of “getting along” if he did hear it.

“Argue with the Hat, if you will,” Severus said, and tapped the stirring rod on the side of the cauldron to make the steam stop rising. He reached for one of the tough crystal flasks that he put the Wolfsbane in to make sure it would survive the Apparition. “There were many people who were surprised the boy didn’t go to Gryffindor.”

“Including you?”

Severus paused and studied Moody. The man stared back, both his eyes for once focused in the same place.

Severus felt the sting of his Dark Mark under his sleeve, and barely kept from grimacing. It seemed as though the Mark reacted more strongly in Moody’s presence. Severus wouldn’t put it past the man to have some sort of “Dark-detecting” device or spell that made it hurt.

“No,” Severus said. “At the time, yes. But not anymore.”

“And why’s that?”

“A true Gryffindor wouldn’t have been able to adapt to living with the serpents,” Severus said, and used his wand to funnel the last of the Wolfsbane out of the cauldron. “Potter has managed to do that.”

“Why?”

“He’s adaptable.”

“Not what I asked, Snape!” Moody barked, sharply enough to make Severus glad that all the potion was already in the flask, and that the flasks were spelled unbreakable. “I want to know what character traits the boy has to make you think he’s a good Slytherin.”

Severus sighed, more exhausted than normal. “What do you want me to say, Moody? He gets along with his Housemates. He knows how to deal with them, by now, after three years of doing it.”

“And is there any sign that he’s going Dark?”

“Define going Dark, and then I might be able to tell you.”

The man cocked his head, eyes glinting with the canny madness that had made him one of the most formidable Aurors. Severus could acknowledge the man’s skill at survival for all that he despised his self-righteous and erratic sense of “justice.”

“Does he hunger for the Dark Arts? Seem as if he would accept a classmate’s invitation home to get hold of their books?”

Severus snorted before he could stop himself. In truth, Harry had all the Dark Arts books he required at Spinner’s End. Severus had kept them there for years. Safer than keeping them in his quarters at Hogwarts, where Albus might intrude at any moment. “No. If anything, he has described himself as not having friends. He wouldn’t accept a classmate’s invitation home, least of all for that reason.”

“A loner?”

“Committed to his survival, yes.”

There was the fact that Theodore Nott looked up to Harry, but Severus was hardly about to share that with Moody.

“Survival, eh.”

Moody sounded so thoughtful that Severus kept a wary eye on him as he put the stopper in the flask and performed a last check to make sure it wasn’t cracked and none of the Wolfsbane could escape. He wondered if Moody was thinking Harry might be a good Auror trainee. The man had been a demon for recruiting before his forced retirement.

Of course, Harry was about the furthest person Severus could imagine from a good Auror trainee, but that was not something he would share with Moody, either.

“You’ve been helpful, Snape,” Moody said abruptly. “Not like you, but I appreciate it.”

He turned around and stumped away.

Severus shook his head as he made sure his office was locked and got ready to go beyond the wards to Apparate to Lupin’s. He supposed he would never understand a man who had chosen to become an Auror and serve the Ministry for no motive but arresting people. But if the man would leave Harry alone, any conversation with him was worth it.