Chapter Thirty-Nine of 'Practicing Liars'- The Hunt Begins

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Thirty-Eight.

Title: Practicing Liars (39/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Summary: AU of HBP. Harry found out that he was Snape’s son two years ago, and he’s carefully concealed it. But now Snape is his Defense teacher, and Draco Malfoy is up to something, and Dumbledore is dying, and the final battle is coming up, and everything is getting very, very complicated.
Pairings: Background Ron/Hermione and Ron/Lavender. Harry and Draco have a ‘complicated friendship’ which will become a preslash relationship. For obvious reasons, Snape/Lily is mentioned.
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence (lots of violence), profanity, angst, character death (not Snape, Harry, or Draco), slash and het hints.
Author’s Notes: While I’m hoping to make this plot at least somewhat original, I know that I’m treading on well-covered ground. I don’t know yet how long the story will be, except that it will be novel-length. Practicing Liars is being written for my dear soft2smooth2000, who has helped me wonderfully with keeping track of and linking to my fics on LJ.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Nine—The Hunt Begins

Severus began his hunt among the Slytherins. As much as he favored his own House, he knew that he was more likely to find his culprit there than he was among the others. Besides, if Draco had been poisoned at dinner, as Severus thought likely, a Slytherin would have had the least trouble placing the Acromantula’s Bite in Draco’s drink or food.

There was also the fact that most of his Slytherins were more advanced in Potions talent than the other Houses—no small thanks to his extra lessons and favoritism—and might have thought of poison before a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff would have. They would also have the skills to brew it themselves, if need be.

Severus started with observation alone on the first day. Well, observation and a simple spell. He murmured an incantation that made a slight sting appear in the left forearm of the person he was looking at. Then he watched to see who merely scratched, who looked suspicious that it was a prank, and who looked panicked.

Five of them had expressions he considered panicked: Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Pansy Parkinson, a seventh-year called Monica Cravens, and a fifth-year, Joseph Napier. Severus nodded slightly. He had expected that the predominance of suspects would come from the upper years. Not even the Dark Lord thought that fourth-years and younger would make good soldiers. They could be indoctrinated, but they could not be trusted to keep secrets; Severus had first learned about the Dark Lord as a third-year from a student in the year above him who simply could not stop himself from bragging about his newfound knowledge.

There might still be others, of course. Or they might all be Death Eaters, and yet none of them might be the one who had poisoned Draco. Severus had to accept that the failure rate of his mission would be high at first.

However, it gave him a smaller number of suspects to use Legilimency on, which meant that there were fewer people who might learn what he was doing, and fewer minds to need Memory Charms.

Severus glanced at his son, and was sorry that the nature of his mission meant that he could not be open about what he was doing. He would have liked to receive a green-eyed glance of approval.

*

“But what happened to Malfoy?”

Draco bristled. Harry, after a day of being plagued unmercifully by his friends as to what had happened after he had run away to Professor Snape with Draco in his arms, had begged Draco to let him tell Weasley and Granger the truth. It was the only thing that would make them leave him alone, he said.

Draco had agreed. Anything for Harry. It was the thought that had come to him when he woke up the other morning, cradling Harry and meeting Professor Snape’s steady glare, and realized, again, that he might have died if not for Harry’s quick action.

But he hadn’t expected them to ignore the fact that he was present and keep talking to Harry alone.

“I’m right here,” Draco said. He’d held his tongue so far, because peace on his part would make it easier for Harry to reconcile with his friends. But there was such a thing as too much leniency. “You could talk to me instead of about me.”

Granger turned on him, looking so exasperated and angry that her hair almost stood on end. “All right,” she snarled. “What happened?”

Harry stepped back and let Draco move forwards. Draco nodded to him and took his place. “Harry suspected that I’d been poisoned,” he said. “Rightly. He took me to Professor Snape, and they brewed the antidote for me. That’s all.” He waited to see how Granger would twist his words, because she would find a means for him to corrupt Harry in the most innocent tone of voice.

“Why didn’t you go to Madam Pomfrey?” Granger demanded, looking back and forth between them. “She could have helped a lot sooner than Snape could have. How long did it take to brew the antidote?”

“An hour,” Harry said. “Maybe a little less. I was just doing what Snape told me to. I didn’t count the time.” He looked down at Draco, and if the tenderness in his eyes wasn’t visible to Granger and Weasley, they were fools, or simply not looking. “I was too worried to do that, and just wanted Draco to get well.”

Draco squeezed his hand back and moved a step closer to him, then faced Weasley, who was starting to splutter in the way that meant he was winding up his mouth. “But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t go to Madam Pomfrey,” he said stubbornly. “How did you know that you could trust Snape, mate?”

“Because—” Harry began.

“You ran a lot farther to him than you would have had to go to get to the hospital wing,” Granger said.

Harry frowned at her. “I was worried about Draco, not counting my steps,” he snapped. “Besides, I was going to say that—”

“And you could have waited so we could catch you up,” Weasley said. “You were running so fast that we lost you before you got to the dungeons.”

Harry nodded. His face was flushed, and his tongue got tangled behind his teeth when he started to speak. “But I was thinking about saving Draco, and that meant I—”

“Why Snape?” Weasley asked again.

“Because he’s my father,” Harry snapped. “Would you let me get a word in fucking edgewise? That’s it! Snape is my father, and I trust him to make potions, and I trust him to take care of Draco, and that’s why I went to him and not to Madam Pomfrey, and that’s why I didn’t wait for you. I was in a hurry, and I didn’t want to listen to what you would say about Snape or Draco or both! I left you out on accident, but I would have done it on purpose if I’d been thinking, because you talk so much!”

There was a period of silence that Draco gloried in, because it was a period during which Granger and Weasley looked steadily redder and Harry only a little more pale. Then Harry coughed and said, “Anyway. I don’t want to leave you out all the time.” He looked so tired that Draco was reminded of the night when Harry had gone to sleep in his lap and talked unhappily about being weary. Draco rested a hand on the back of his neck. Harry sighed, and his eyes shut for a moment before he continued in a stronger voice. “I really don’t. I know it must seem like it. But I can’t let you into things that involve Draco and Snape unless you try to behave better.”

“You haven’t given us a chance.” Granger looked like she wanted to cry, of all the manipulative tactics. Weasley stood stiffly next to her, sometimes looking at Harry’s face, sometimes looking at the floor. Granger sniffled and continued. “We do want to be your friends, Harry, but you’re always shutting us out.”

“I talked to you openly about dating Draco and Snape being my father,” Harry said steadily. “And you didn’t want to listen.”

“We were startled,” Weasley muttered, scuffing one foot over the floor and then staring even more intently at it. They were once again in Umbridge’s old office. Draco thought he remembered Weasley during the same thing the last time they were here. Maybe he was trying to polish a section of the floor as practice for the household cleaning charms that he would always have to cast, Draco thought. It wasn’t as though his girlfriend would ever let him own a house-elf even if they were rich enough to afford them. “You can’t blame us for that.”

“And now?” Harry asked harshly. “Now that you’ve had time to think about it, what do you think?”

“I still find it hard to accept,” Granger said, and looked at Draco with a distinctly unfriendly expression. “How do you know he won’t turn around and insult us tomorrow?”

“How do I know you won’t do that?” Harry snapped. “I’m trying to give you chances, Hermione, but you’re making it really difficult.”

“We’ve been your friends for longer,” Weasley said stubbornly. “That means that we should have a chance, and you should be harsher with Draco and Snape.”

Harry sighed and pressed down on Draco’s shoulder, cutting off the words that he desperately wanted to say before they could emerge. He knows me so well, Draco thought, as he closed his mouth and tried to look stern instead of reprimanded. “Yes, but you haven’t shared these last few experiences with me,” Harry said in an exhausted voice. “Draco and Snape have. And things have changed.”

“We just need more time,” Granger said.

Harry walked out without answering. Draco lingered a moment to look at Granger and Weasley, shaking his head. “You don’t realize how lucky you are to have him,” he said. “He doesn’t have to put up with this, you know.”

“It’s too much of a change,” Weasley said. “It’s not like him.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you should think more about the new person Harry’s becoming than the old person he was.”

He could have said a lot more, but he sauntered out, because Harry needed him and because he was more like an adult than Granger and Weasley were.

And because staying and arguing would have meant a chance that he wouldn’t get the last word.

*

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Severus looked up. “What was that, Miss Parkinson?”

Pansy looked sullenly back at him, then focused on the cauldron in front of her. “Nothing, sir,” she muttered.

As it happened, Severus agreed with her. Pansy had done something that Severus had ignored at other times: running through the corridors because she was late to Charms. This time, it had given him a convenient excuse to tell her off for breaking the rules of the House and the school, including the ones that demanded decorum, dignity, and waking up on time so that one wouldn’t have to run.

He had set her to detention with him, and she had sulked and grumbled and moaned so much that Severus was tempted to take points from Slytherin. Had his Snakes really become so undisciplined while he was occupied with Draco, Harry, and winning his freedom from the Dark Lord? It seemed so.

Severus decided that he would have to look at them more carefully, and keep a particularly sharp watch out for any recruitment attempts on the part of the Dark Lord. He had become Harry’s father, but that didn’t mean that he had stopped being Head of Slytherin.

Pansy finally straightened up, working the tension out of her back, and then went to put the cauldrons away. Severus waited until she turned around again, her head bent and her eyes directed towards the floor in a scowl.

It was a perfect moment. She was looking down, but not completely, and against a mind he expected to be undefended, that was all the eye contact Severus needed for the spell.

“Legilimens,” he whispered.

Yes, he passed into her mind through no sort of shields. Severus held his contempt back, because Miss Parkinson might still be sensitive even if shieldless, and began to explore her recent memories of Draco.

There was fear that Draco’s father dying meant that Pansy herself (because she had once been Draco’s friend) would be noticed by the Dark Lord, wonder that he could continue getting good marks in his classes despite his stress, curiosity about what had happened to his mother, and suspicion as to the nature of his relationship with Harry Potter. But no matter how deeply Severus pressed or how thoroughly he searched, he could uncover no evidence that she was involved in the poisoning.

And she bore no Dark Mark. She had probably grabbed her arm simply because she was startled by the sting that the incantation had caused her.

Severus pulled carefully out of her mind, watching her face all the while so that he might see if she suspected something. But though Parkinson blinked and touched her forehead, he saw no anger on her face. She even looked at him and said, “Did I fall asleep, sir?”

“You look half-asleep on your feet,” Severus said. “Back to your common room, Miss Parkinson. And this time, make sure that you get enough sleep that you don’t need to run in the corridor.”

Pansy flushed, said, “Sir,” and left.

Severus leaned back in his chair and smiled thinly. As disappointing as it had been not to find the poisoner in his first effort, the evening had not been without result. It had given him the excuse that he would use to investigate the rest of his Snakes.

*

Harry sighed when Ron and Hermione sat down on either side of him at breakfast. It wasn’t that he hated to see them, he thought, staring at his plate while he pushed around the remains of the single piece of soggy toast he’d had for breakfast. But they’d avoided him for the last few days, talking furiously to each other at the opposite end of the table, and he wondered if they’d come up to him simply to scold and complain.

Hermione touched his arm. Harry looked up and tried to put on his most patient expression. Maybe he could do this. If he tried really hard.

It’s easier with Draco and Snape, he thought, and then paused in astonishment, because that was the first time he had ever included the words “Snape” and “easier” in the same sentence.

“We’ve thought about it,” Hermione said. “We want to know whether Malfoy’s changed his mind.”

“How couldn’t he?” Harry asked. He kept his voice low, because while they were discussing things Ron and Hermione already knew about Draco, he hardly thought Draco would like his private business plastered all over creation. “You saw what the Dark Lord did to his father.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged hard looks. Then Ron leaned forwards and said, “No offense, mate, but that doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind. For all we know, he might have decided that he’d like to stick by his ideals because it would be a way of honoring his dad.”

Harry smiled in spite of himself. That objection sounded much more reasonable than some of the ones they’d raised so far, and didn’t rely so much on Draco’s past behavior.

“Well,” he said, and lowered his voice further, so that they had to lean in to hear him, “Draco also told me that he’s changed his mind about blood. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to talk to him. I’m already sort of violating his confidence by telling you this much.”

Hermione ran her finger through her hair, unwinding one curl and letting it spring back. “He doesn’t think I should die anymore?”

Harry shook his head.

“He probably still thinks of my family as poor and nothing else,” Ron muttered.

“I don’t know,” Harry said stubbornly. “I wouldn’t listen to what he said about you and not defend you, either, but I’d invite you in so you could speak up for yourselves. You’ll have to listen to him.”

“All right,” Hermione said. “I can’t do it today because I have too many essays to write, and I have to keep to my NEWT schedule.” Harry refrained from rolling his eyes by a heroic effort. Hermione had gone around to every teacher at the beginning of the term and got a schedule from them of how many essays they were likely to assign this year, then divided the two years until NEWTs up into certain amounts of time for each task. She knew what she was doing every day from now until the start of the exams. “But can you have him meet us tomorrow so we can start?”

“As long as you promise to listen to him,” Harry said. “And let him talk,” he added, because he hadn’t forgotten his frustration with trying to explain about Draco and Snape while they kept interrupting him.

Ron coughed. His face was red enough to hide his freckles, as if he was remembering the way he’d acted and disliking it. Harry hoped so. That had been the most annoying conversation he’d ever had with them. “We promise.”

Hermione nodded. She hesitated, then added, “And Harry—if you can accept Snape as your father, so can we. Right, Ron?” She nudged him in the ribs.

Ron leaned forwards, one hand raised as if he wanted to shield his words from any lip-readers who might be sitting around the Great Hall. “He doesn’t hurt you, right, mate?” he asked. “I mean—I’ve heard that sometimes, people with—families that aren’t the best—seek out other parents and friends who aren’t—the best.” He was flushing even more heavily by the time he’d finished, obviously trying to hint that he knew something about the Dursleys without saying outright that he did.

Harry did his best to relax the tense hunch his shoulders had automatically taken on. Ron knew more about the Dursleys than Draco and Snape did, since he had seen the bars on the window the summer that he came to rescue Harry from his bedroom. It was all right for him to talk about it like that, as long as he never talked about it. That would be more than all right, in some ways. Harry could have some sympathy, and it was a bond between him and his best friends that wasn’t threatened by Draco or Snape.

It will be if you ever tell them more about it.

Harry ignored that thought and nodded. “I know that. But he really does treat me all right. I’ve learned too much about families who aren’t right.” He smiled grimly. “And families that are, by watching you with your Dad and Mum.” He nodded to Ron, who seemed to be flushing with pride this time. “I wouldn’t stand for that kind of thing.”

He decided that, for right now, he wouldn’t tell them that he’d avoided telling Snape he was his father because he’d been afraid of exactly that kind of thing. It was enough if they knew that Harry accepted Snape now. Harry thought Snape was probably even more private than Draco and wouldn’t like them knowing how long it had been before he learned the truth.

More stupid secrets. But he didn’t resent them as much when he was keeping them for someone else instead of himself. The number he’d carried earlier in the year had soured him on having his own.

“Good,” Ron said, and relaxed. “We’ll see you and Malfoy tomorrow then, right?”

Harry nodded, and watched as they left the table, Hermione talking animatedly to Ron about nothing in particular. When Harry looked up, Draco was watching him with sharp eyes from the Slytherin table. Harry smiled at him, which seemed to reassure him enough to let him eat the rest of breakfast.

Harry reached for the plate of eggs, suddenly hungry himself.

*

“I have been remiss in my responsibilities.”

In most Houses, Severus knew, if the Head said something like that, there would be a murmur of denial as students who liked the Head spoke up for him or her. But he didn’t tolerate murmurs, so all his Slytherins simply watched him with becoming gravity as he paced back and forth in front of them. They were assembled in the common room. Severus had allowed no exceptions, either for study or for any other reasons. He had persuaded Minerva and Filch to release several from detention for an hour, as long as they promised to return immediately after the meeting.

That meant the group included Draco. He sat still on the couch between Zabini and Parkinson, his eyes wide with wonder and innocence, as if he couldn’t imagine more than any of the others why Professor Snape would be blaming himself. Severus had to avoid looking directly at him.

“I have not spent enough time with you of late, or attended to my duties as a Head of House.” Severus paused in front of them and swept them with a grim gaze. “I could give as my excuse my concern with magical matters and the new classes, but those are not enough to remove all duty from my shoulders.”

His Snakes looked wise. By “magical matters” they would know that he was talking about the rumors of Dumbledore’s power weakening, and the new classes were a convenient excuse for any number of things. Severus knew some of them suspected that he was a traitor to the Dark Lord, others knew, and still others lived in ignorance but had an idea that something important had happened. The morass of silence and sly hints in Slytherin House meant that one could never be sure of the state of general knowledge at any single time.

“You may come to me still with your concerns, your questions, your problems,” Severus said. “In fact, I insist on it. I will be conducting a series of random meetings in the next week, so that I may make sure you are not falling behind in your classes or letting your personal life interfere with your responsibility as I let it interfere with mine.”

There was a tiny groan from the back of the group sitting on the couches, which Severus understood perfectly well: Great, he’s upset with himself so he’s taking it out on us. He raised an eyebrow, and the groan ceased.

Severus consulted a piece of parchment in his hand, frowning as if he were choosing names from it. In reality, it was blank; he had memorized the names he would call, the suspected Death Eaters mingled with others added for concealment purposes. He had learned long ago never to create permanent documents about his students, at least not if he wished to store them in the dungeons.

“Mr. Zabini,” he said, “Miss Cravens, Miss Keller, Miss Greengrass, Mr. Goyle, Mr. Todd, Mr. Napier, Miss Marks.” He paused and stared directly at Draco, letting his voice become slow. “Mr. Malfoy.”

“Sir?” Draco sounded not at all worried, which in reality he had no reason to be. He and Severus had already spoken about this and established the necessity of the deception. He sat up with a bright helpful face that Severus would have found irritating in an ordinary situation. He is overacting.

“You have had more problems than most of the others,” Severus said, and lowered his voice in the way he did when he was looking to impress, perhaps frighten, but under no circumstances let off. “You will make sure that you come to me before the others do, and that you stay longer. A detention might not be out of order.”

Draco folded his arms and glared. “Most of those problems weren’t my fault, sir,” he insisted.

“Nevertheless,” Severus said, “you have let them interfere with your schoolwork and your personal life, and that is enough for me to be concerned about you.” He took a moment to study the other Slytherins skeptically, and then turned his back. “Dismissed.”

He could feel Draco pouting at his back, and had to hold back a dark smile. This deception would make it seem as if Draco were removed from his protection, or at least potentially so, and perhaps encourage the poisoner to strike again. It was dangerous, but in this case, Severus intended to provide Draco with a bezoar. If his Legilimency did not identify the culprit first, a careless mistake could.

Then, too, it was entirely possible that the candidates Severus had identified were not the only Death Eaters in his students’ ranks. He would welcome a double-baited trap, a safeguard to be sure that he had not left Draco too dangerously exposed.

In that way, I am different from my son, he thought as he strode back to his office. For he will not think twice about taking risks, whereas I move to ensure that no risks are necessary.

Then he remembered what his life was currently like, especially when he tried to get Harry to speak openly about his emotions, and grimaced.

At least, that no risks are necessary which do not simply assert themselves as part of the laws of the universe.