--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An Unexpected Occurence
Double Potions on a Monday morning. With the Slytherins. And Snape. It was only three weeks into the term and already Harry was contemplating suicide. Or homicide. Yeah, that would probably be more fun. People would finally stop calling him the Boy-Who-Lived. He could be the Boy-Who-Killed. Or something equally inane. Maybe the Dark Lord Harry. Actually, Harry thought that didn't sound too bad, really. It was certainly better than the Dark Lord Voldemort. Harry smiled, plans for death and destruction already forming in his head. Malfoy would be the first to go…
Feeling someone poke him hard in the side, Harry turned to glare at the perpetrator.
"Stop smiling," Hermione hissed, "you're scaring Ron."
Harry turned his glare on the cowering Ron, who whimpered. Hermione poked him again. Harry huffed. How rude.
Snape, of course, chose this moment to swoop into the room like the overgrown bat that he was, with a scowl firmly plastered on his face, his robes flying behind him and his metaphorical fangs bared. Idly, Harry mused that he would probably look scarier if his fangs were literal. Maybe when he was a Dark Lord he could have fangs. He should get Hermione to look into that. She would be suspicious of his reasons, but that was okay. She could be dealt with.
"Today," Snape hissed, breaking into Harry's train of thought, "we will be brewing a weaker offshoot of Veritaserum. It forces the person to answer truthfully, but they are aware during the questioning and the questions need to be more direct. Nevertheless, it is still an extremely difficult potion to brew and I don't expect that most of you imbeciles will even come close to brewing it correctly."
Neville let out a high-pitched keening wail. Harry rolled his eyes. Malfoy smirked, obviously thinking that he would be one of the few to get it right. Harry grinned at the Slytherin's pride. Malfoy would definitely be the first to go. Snape continued lecturing, completely ignoring the by-play.
"At the end of this lesson, I will administer a potion that I have prepared to one of you so that you may view the effects."
Harry rolled his eyes again.
'Gee, I wonder who he might use as his guinea pig?' he thought sarcastically.
Snape's eyes roamed the classroom until they stopped on Harry and lit up with malicious glee.
"Potter," he hissed triumphantly, "why don't we give your adoring fans a look at what really goes on inside your head?" Harry snorted. Well, he didn't see that one coming. Honestly. Slytherins were supposed to be cunning. So why were they all so transparent?
Meanwhile, Snape abruptly returned his attention to the class. "You have the whole lesson to think up questions to ask our resident celebrity, so be sure to make them sufficiently invasive and painful. Well? What are you waiting for? Start brewing!" he barked, soundly oddly like Sirius used to when he was mad. Harry closed his eyes in pain for a moment. It had been over a year and it still hurt to think about Sirius. Forcing his eyes open, he pushed his thoughts away from his late godfather and began brewing his potion on autopilot, not noticing Hermione's worried glances or Ron edging away from his vacant face.
As he worked, Harry wondered if he should be more worried about the upcoming interrogation. He held a lot of secrets that could get him into trouble. Could get other people, like Hermione and Dobby, into trouble. And then there were the really big secrets. The Dursley secrets. The Voldemort secrets. The Order secrets. The family secrets. The training secrets. The secrets of the people he had met and the things he had learned, and done, during the summers in his dimension-hopping, never-ending quest to destroy Voldemort and his followers. Things about his home life with the Dursleys, his connection to Voldemort, the Order of the Pheonix, things about Remus and Sirius and the Weasleys and Tonks and the rest of his adopted family. Things like killing more than a few prominent members of society (all Deatheaters of course) with a sniper rifle as they visited the Ministry, and various other nefarious deeds. Secrets he had planned to take to the grave.
But somehow, Harry just couldn't bring himself to care. Hermione said he was becoming dangerously apathetic. Harry didn't care. Besides, he doubted anyone would ask him anything too bad. Nobody suspected him of straying beyond the image of the golden Boy-Who-Lived they had painted for him. He could deal with whatever came out. The whole world had hated him twice before and he'd dealt with it, so he could handle the repercussions of Snape's little stunt, whatever they may be.
All too soon, the students had finished brewing their potions and it was time for the promised questioning. Harry noticed with amusement that many people seemed too have rushed through their potions in order to question him sooner, and consequently had completely ruined them. Serves them right, he thought.
"Well, Potter? We don't have all day, you know."
As Harry moved to the front of the class he noticed that Snape seemed to be rubbing his hands together in glee. Strange. It somehow rather made him look like a house-elf. He pictured Snape with large ears, tennis ball eyes and a squeaky voice and smirked. This seemed to irritate the greasy man as he handled Harry rather roughly than was strictly necessary to pour the vial of potion down his throat. Harry grimaced. It tasted just as bad as any other potion he'd taken. He suspected Snape did it on purpose.
And the questions started.
"What is your name?"
"Harry James Potter."
"What are your parent's names?"
"James Richard Potter and Lily Marie Potter, nee Evans."
"Did you break into my storeroom during your second year and during the Triwizard Tournament in your fourth year?"
Snape smirked, obviously thinking he would expose Harry as a thief. Which he was, but Snape didn't need to know that.
"No."
Snape's face fell abruptly, and Harry took a moment to admire the stupid look upon his face before his eyes narrowed.
"Do you know who did?"
Harry saw Hermione tense out of the corner of his eye. Well, he couldn't really be sure she did it, could he? He'd never actually seen her do it, and it was highly unlikely that Hermione had just broken such a major school rule like that. It was completely out of character. And Dobby…well, Dobby had lied to him before. Who's to say Dobby didn't lie when he said he stole the Gillyweed? It was possible.
"No."
Hermione's eyes widened, and Harry smirked. That was the thing with allowing someone free will when trying to get the truth out of them. They could convince themselves of anything, and then it would be the truth. Harry could have told Snape his name was Maxmillion Ignatius the third under the influence of the potion, as long as he believed it was true. That was why Veritaserum was so affective. It took away the person's awareness, and consequently, their will. What Harry had done was a tricky business though, and it usually didn't work if the memories attached to the question were particularly strong. They would linger in the mind, showing the real truth of the matter and preventing the person from lying to themself. But even then there were ways around telling the truth. Duo taught him that. Duo Maxwell who never lied, but hardly ever told the truth either. Duo delighted in omitting facts, putting a certain slant on his words, or mentioning something completely irrelevant and watching as the people he was talking to made their own wild assumptions. Assumptions which were nearly always wrong. It drove Heero crazy. Heero, who was short, sharp and to the point of appearing harsh and cruel. But Harry knew better. He'd seen Heero's small smile of contentment when the Gundam boys (as Duo called them) got together for some quiet bonding time. Harry smiled sadly. He missed the five boys. They were some of the few people he'd ever met that he could truly relax around, that understand who he was and why and accepted it without complaint.
The questions continued, and Harry wasn't surprised to note that they were all rather inane in nature. Not even the Slytherins had anything overly shocking to ask him. He had been right. They all thought he truly was Gryffindors' golden boy, who could do no wrong and had no shocking secrets. He shared a conspiratorial smirk with Ron and Hermione. The most shocking thing anyone got out of him was that he didn't know how much his broom cost, as his godfather had bought it for him. Harry saw Malfoy's eyes light up and mentally prepared himself for a round of painful questions about Sirius.
And then it happened.
"Are you a virgin?"
That was Parkinson, trying to be witty and obviously expecting an embarrassed yes in answer. Harry grinned.
"No."
The murmurs that arose from this statement were enough to cover Ron and Hermione's amused snickers. They may not know the details (thank god) but they knew that Harry was far from being a virgin.
"Who was the last person you had sex with?"
Everyone stared at Seamus, pretending to be shocked and amazed that he would ask such a thing, before turning back to Harry and eyeing him with barely disguised glee. Who had the famous Boy-Who-Lived been shacking up with? Was it a Gryffindor? A Ravenclaw? A Hufflepuff? Or, heavens forbid, a Slytherin? Maybe even a muggle? Most people seemed to be of the opinion that it had to be one of his friends. Ginny, maybe?
Meanwhile, Harry's face had grown rather red as he fought to keep himself from answering the question. He tried to convince himself to believe a lie, tried desperately to reason his way out of it but images from that night kept popping up in his head. And what a night it had been…
Hermione's eyes narrowed as she noticed Harry's reluctance to answer and his frequent, fearful glances in her direction. He had met a lot of shady people over the past two years and Hermione had constantly worried that he would get in more trouble than he was already in. And now it seemed like she had proof that her worry was not unfounded.
His desperation to hold back the answer had not gone unnoticed by Snape although the fearful glances towards Hermione had.
"You might as well just say it Potter. The potion will bring out your dirty little secret sooner or later."
Everyone sat on the edge of their seat, more than ready to hear more about Harry's – undoubtably – scandalous affair. Harry panted, trying desperately to control the name that was pushing it's way out of his throat. It wasn't bad, not really. It was just that Hermione could be rather forceful in her concern for him. And Harry didn't like her to worry. And oh god who was he kidding, she was going to kill him.
When the name finally pushed it's way out of his mouth, it did so rather loudly as a result of Harry's furious struggle against speaking.
"Hatake Kakashi!"
The class sighed and slumped back into their seats as one, disappointed. Really, the only interesting thing about that name was that it sounded somewhat Asian. Must be a muggle then. How boring.
No-one noticed as Ron's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as he began to hastily back away from the girl next to him, whose face was rapidly turning a rather unattractive shade of puce. They sure noticed when said girl exploded though.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!"
Harry ducked behind a table, wary eyes fixed on Hermione's furious form.
"How could you! He's like, 40 years old!"
"He's 32!" Harry shot back, rolling his eyes at Hermione's exaggeration and ignoring the classes' gasps of shock.
"He has grey hair, for fuck's sake!"
The class gasped again. Hermione hardly ever swore, let alone with such vulgarity.
"It's silver, and it's natural!" Harry argued.
"He's insane!"
Harry gave her a look that clearly implied he thought she was stupid for even mentioning something so obvious.
"He's a jounin, of course he's insane. They all are!"
"Oh, so that makes it alright, does it? He's rude and lazy and he walks around reading porn all the time!"
"Yeah," Harry sighed dreamily, "and let me tell you, he sure does put all that reading to good use."
Hermione glowered. Harry frowned at her.
"If it makes you feel better, it was really, really good sex."
The class (plus Snape), who had been watching the argument as though it was a particularly interesting tennis match, waited eagerly for the resulting explosion. It was clear that this little tidbit did not make Hermione feel better. Not at all.
Before the explosion came, however, a third person unexpectedly entered the fray in a swirl of leaves and chakra.
"Someone mention my name?" the strange man asked, his only visible eye curving into an inverted U of happiness.
"You're a dead man," Hermione growled, struggling against Ron as he blocked her from physically attacking the man and pushed her outside.
"Nice to see you too, Hermi-chan!" Kakashi called after her departing figure. Harry sniggered.
"Yo," Kakashi smiled at the gaping class and teacher, giving them a V for victory sign. Harry sniggered harder.
"What happened?" this was directed at Harry.
"Truth potion," Harry answered truthfully.
"Well," Kakashi smiled, "I could certainly have some fun with this."
Harry lowered his lashes to glance up at the man coyly and replied in a low, sultry voice.
"I could think of some other things that we could do to have fun. Class is over in about…"
The bell rang.
"Now. And I have a free double before lunch."
"Your place or mine?" Kakashi smiled, his inverted U somehow growing bigger.
Harry gave the still gaping students (and teacher, though Snape would later deny it) a pointed glance, particularly Neville, Seamus and Dean.
"Do you really have to ask?"
"Mine it is then."
And they were gone in another swirl of leaves and chakra, mouths already pressed together heatedly.
"Uh….gah…mu…" sputtered Seamus. That was certainly not the answer he had been expecting.
This is how the second year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws found them five minutes later, mouths open, eyes bulging and all of them staring dumbfounded at the space Harry and Kakashi had been before they disappeared.
Madam Pomphrey did manage to subdue Hermione through the use of many potions and spells, but all her hard work was undone when Hermione learnt that Harry had left with the shinobi.
"WHAAAAAAT!"
Ron later swore that she broke more than a few windows. Magically reinforced windows that not even Fred and George had been able to break.
Meanwhile, Harry and Kakashi proceeded to have lots and lots of really, really great sex.
