Chapter Text
The next few weeks were filled with rumors about Sirius Black. Harry overheard Hannah Abbott in Herbology saying that he could transform into a flowering shrub and resisted the urge to mention that shrubs couldn’t move but dogs could. He talked to Luna, who mentioned that she’d seen the dog making its way to the castle a few hours before Black had attacked and thought that it was somehow an accomplice—he resisted the urge to tell her the truth flat-out, because while he liked her very much and trusted her with more than most, he wasn’t sure this was his secret to tell.
He was caught between wanting to kill Black and wanting to sit down with him and talk about his parents over tea. Somehow, knowing that Black had known them made the pain of their deaths all the more palpable. It was an ache he carried with him every day: a (supposedly) vicious mass murderer that wanted Harry dead was also the closest tie to his parents he had ever had.
The first Quidditch match was right around the corner and the weather was set to look awful—Harry had learned in his first year that wizards were much better at weather forecasts than the muggle TV. Malfoy claimed he was still recovering from the Hippogriff attack and so Gryffindor had to play Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin in the first Quidditch match. Harry thought Malfoy’s excuse was stupid and told him so in Potions, earning him 10 points from Gryffindor and a detention skinning shrivelfigs.
On the night of the full moon, Luna invited Harry out to see the mooncalves dance. The weather was already much cooler than it had been the week before as the storm moved in, so Harry bundled up with as many sweatshirts as he could and double-layered his socks.
At half-past eleven, he met Luna at the bottom of the stairs in the entrance hall. It wasn’t until they were a few feet from the door that they realized there was something blocking it.
“And where do you two rule-breakers think you are going?” Snape stepped from the shadows looking formidable as ever. In the moonlight, his skin shone even brighter against the black of the night and his robes.
“Oh, hi, professor!” Luna looked perfectly happy to see him, but Harry knew better. She swore Snape was nice to her when he caught her, but she was Luna—Harry was another case entirely. Snape would be thrilled to take points and berate him. He stepped slightly behind Luna as if she could possibly shield him from Snape’s diatribe.
“You cannot go out tonight. I recommend you return to your respective dormitories and catch up on your sleep.”
Huh?
“But Professor Snape, we have to go see the mooncalves,” Luna said. “I promised Harry, and it’s a tradition and—”
“Be that as it may, Ms. Lovegood, no one is allowed outside this evening.”
Snape looked positively sour about it, as if he’d rather not enforce the rule either, and all of a sudden, Harry understood. All the pieces snapped together.
“It’s okay Luna, let’s head back. It’s probably not, ah, safe in the forest tonight anyway. Full moons draw out lots of dangerous creatures, I think.” Snape shot him a suspicious glare and Harry looked away quickly, remembering how easy it was for him to read minds.
“B-but… no one’s ever stopped me before, and I’ve never been harmed by anything! I did it all last year, remember, professor?” Luna’s eyes welled up with tears, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she began to cry. Before Harry could do anything to comfort her, Snape knelt down next to her and spoke in a softer tone than Harry had ever heard.
“I know how important this is to you, Ms. Lovegood,” the professor said. “And I truly regret it, but it is simply not possible for you to venture into the forest during the full moon any longer. Not for the remainder of this year, and possibly past that as well. There have been… recent werewolf sightings that make it highly dangerous for a young student such as yourself.”
Harry was shocked. Not only had Snape not taken points or yelled at them, he was being so nice that he almost worried Polyjuice was involved. Maybe this was the headmaster, playing a trick?
“But maybe I could—” The words sounded strangled, as if Luna was trying very hard to stop crying.
“There is nothing we can do, Ms. Lovegood. But I know your mother will not think ill of you for this—she would want you, more than anything, to be safe and warm and in bed. Traditions are wonderful things, but your memories will always be stronger.”
Luna nodded.
“Do you need any Dreamless Sleep for tonight?”
She nodded again, and Snape withdrew a small vial from his robes.
“Please, return to bed. You will find hot cocoa by your bedside.”
Luna thanked him quietly and, after hugging Harry, made her way towards the stairs again. Harry turned to follow her, but Snape called him back.
“A word, Potter. Privately.”
He followed him numbly into a small offshoot corridor that led down to Snape’s office. The shelves were lined with vials and jars and skulls which were all rather creepy, but the chair Snape conjured for him was plush and warm.
“How did you learn of Professor Lupin’s affliction, as it were? From Ms. Granger, I assume?”
Oh. Harry hadn’t known what Snape had wanted to know, but this made sense.
“Uh, no, Professor. I don’t think she knows. I figured it out after your, er, rant when Black broke in.”
Snape crooked his eyebrow at the word ‘rant,’ but there was really no other way to describe it.
“Yes, Potter, but how? I don’t believe I explicitly said anything of the sort.”
“No, sir, you didn’t. It was… a lot of things, I guess. First, Lupin just seems kinda off, doesn’t he? And he has all those scars, and when we did the boggart his fear was a full moon—at first I thought it was an orb, like divination, but I don’t think that could really scare anybody. And then I heard you talking and how much you hated Black and you thought someone was helping him—which I realized was Lupin, ‘cuz I looked at some pictures of Black and my dad and saw Lupin in some of ‘em too. And you called him furry, or something, like an animal, and talked about him being ‘ill’ but like it was a code for something. And then I remembered my dreams and it just—it made sense, I guess. That he was a werewolf. I mean, I saw one, right?”
Harry said all that very quickly; by the end, he was slightly winded. Snape was just staring at him. Finally, he sat back in his chair and steepled his hands, looking satisfied.
“Yes, Potter, that is what you saw in your visions. Five points from Gryffindor.”
“From? Five points from Gryffindor? Professor, come on!”
“You were able to assay a vast assortment of data and come to a logical conclusion; yes, that is true. However, you were unable to realize the immense danger such a conclusion poses for you and your friends—you had not thought to warn Ms. Lovegood about this evening. Had I not been there, you both could have died.”
“Do you really just let him roam around the forest, sir?”
“Of course not, Potter. Dumbledore is not quite that stupid. He is contained, for the time-being, but accidents, as I am sure you are aware, do happen.”
“Still don’t think you should take points,” Harry muttered.
“Were you an adult responsible for the wellbeing the most injury-prone child in the world, you would understand the constant struggle I am under to appropriately ensure you do not kill yourself daily.”
Snape had been so nice to Luna, but here he was again, being his regular, vile self. It was almost comforting. Almost.
“No offense, professor, but I don’t need an adult responsible for me. I’ve been fine on my own for a while.”
Harry stood to leave, but Snape pulled him back down.
“Sit, you foolish boy. I am not done.” Snape’s mouth was twisted in a weird grimace.
“What is it? Sir?”
“I require your assurance you will not tell anyone of what you’ve discovered. While I am not the most approving of Professor Dumbledore’s hiring decisions, it would not do to find Hogwarts without a Defense teacher this early in the year.”
Suddenly, Harry was furious.
“Maybe I should tell everyone! After all, if he’s in cahoots with Black then he’s a danger to us all every day, not just once a month. He could kill all of us; Dumbledore is so stupid to let him teach here when he was friends with, with that man! And with my dad! He betrayed him, I know it, they both did, and I should kill them both. They’d deserve it. But no, I have to sit in class with him every day while he just ignores me like I’m something dirty or unwanted and I have to be okay with knowing they were my dad’s best—his best—” Harry was gulping for air and then he was sobbing. He couldn’t stop. All of a sudden, he was overwhelmed with how truly messy his life was. “It’s just… it’s not fair.”
“Life is not fair, Potter.”
“I know that, Snape! I know! Nothing’s ever been fair, ‘cuz if it was I would have been born a boy instead, and my parents would be alive, and a madman wouldn’t be trying to murder me, and I wouldn’t have to dream about my mum screaming while he kills her, and dementors wouldn’t exist, and you’d treat me like you treat Luna, and I wouldn’t have this scar, and my aunt and uncle wouldn’t have kicked me out, and, and, and…”
“I see. I had not expected to evince such a strong reaction with four words, but I… see the merit in your anger.” Snape conjured a box of tissues and passed it across the desk to him. “Control yourself.”
Blowing his nose angrily, Harry muttered, “I wouldn’t tell anyone, anyway. Not really. That's why I didn't tell Luna.”
“Why is that?”
“I know the importance of secrets, Professor. I wouldn’t want anyone blabbing mine, would I.”
Snape looked at him then, probably assessing the truth of it.
“Very good,” he said finally. “I will take you at your word. Now, it is far past curfew, and for some reason you are out of bed, Potter. Detention it is.”
“Detention?”
“Seven o’clock, tomorrow night. Perhaps another round of shrivelfigs will instill the importance of respect, boundaries, and discretion.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, sir,” Harry protested.
“See that you don’t.”
As Harry stood once more to leave, Snape spoke once more.
“It would do you well to consider that things are not always what they seem. More often than not, people do not deviate into categories of good and evil. It does not behoove you to jump to conclusions when you do not possess all the pieces.”
“When will I know I have all the pieces, sir?”
“When you have a conclusion.”
Well, that made sense.
“And Potter—take this.”
In his outstretched hand, Snape held another vial of Dreamless Sleep.
“You may come to me for more, should it be required. You may go.”
The next morning, when Harry saw Snape teaching Defense instead of Lupin, he didn’t question it. When Snape started lecturing about vampires, though—maybe he was the one who needed to learn about discretion.
↠
Quidditch wasn’t much fun when you were freezing and couldn’t see through the rain. Seeing the Grim again was interesting, though Harry had expected it—he’d slid his wand and the knife into his robes before the match. He’d been tailing Diggory towards the snitch, but instantly changed directions when he saw the dog, furiously diving towards the stands.
He hadn’t expected the dementors.
↠
Losing his Nimbus 2000 wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to Harry that year, but he did mourn its loss. Yet another thing the Whomping Willow got to destroy.
The second time he woke up in the Hospital Wing, after all his friends and the Quidditch team had left, Snape was glaring at him.
“What’d I do this time?”
Snape glared harder.
“It’s not my fault the dementors were there!”
Still more glaring. Harry glared right back, not sure what else to say.
“It interests me greatly, Potter, that you thought a knife a reasonable implement to bring to a Quidditch match. Against Slytherin, I might understand the merit. But Hufflepuff? They are not known for underhanded attacks.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Perhaps because the knife ended up firmly lodged in your leg when you fell, you stupid boy. Dementors are not your responsibility, no, but to have died from such a foolish decision as falling on your own knife—what an unsatisfactory end to the Boy Who Lived’s story.”
So that was why his thigh felt so sore.
“Good thing I’m not dead, then.”
Another glare.
“How did you come about the knife?”
“What?” Harry asked stupidly.
“The knife, Potter.”
“It’s just a random knife.”
Snape hissed. “Do not lie to me, boy. Not only are you terrible at it, but anyone with half a mind knows the significance of this object.”
“Well, I guess I don’t have half a mind!” Harry retorted.
Snape smirked. “No. You do not.” He withdrew the knife from the pocket of his own robe, and Harry watched it glitter in the light. It looked perfectly plain to him, if well-crafted.
“What’s so special about it?”
“You really do not know?” The professor seemed a little surprised, then, but hid it well.
“No, sir, I really don’t.”
“Potter, take a closer look at the handle.” He handed it to Harry handle-first, the blade carefully pinned between his thin fingers. Harry took it gently and examined it. There was nothing… oh, that was something. On the edge, as he ran his fingers along it, a thin script began to shine. With it, a family crest emerged. As soon as he saw it, though, it began to fade back into the metal.
“It says my last name,” Harry said slowly. “Why?”
“Where did you get it?”
A long silence.
“Discretion, right, Professor?”
“If I deem it appropriate.”
“I stole it from Sirius Black.”
Harry almost grinned at the flash-second of sheer shock on Snape’s face.
“And you did so because…”
“Because he had it with him but didn’t use it, and I wanted to know why. Also, it kind of… called me, I guess.”
“Resonant magic.”
“Huh?”
“It is a family heirloom, likely owned by your arrogant father. Further, it is goblin-forged and imbued with your family’s internal magic. You were likely drawn to it because your magic sensed a match.”
“Oh.” Then, “Can I keep it?”
“Are you likely to stab yourself with it again?”
“Probably not.”
Another glare. They were losing their impact—Harry didn’t really mind them anymore.
“Stop making me work so hard to keep you from killing yourself, Potter,” Snape said, and swept from the room. Harry smiled and ran his fingers over the handle to see the crest once more.