Jamie Snape and the Chamber of Secrets
Original Dark Angel
Chapter 9: My Dad
Ron dashed up the stairs to the hospital wing and almost tripped as he entered. Madame Pomfrey caught his arm and steadied him. "A little slower in the future, Mr. Weasley. What is the matter?"
"Nothing . . . just . . . wanted to see . . . Jamie . . . down to breakfast," he panted.
"His father discharged him already and I'm assuming that they are breakfasting in their chambers now if they haven't already. Now get out of my infirmary before you fall over again, and don't forget to walk," she called after him as he raced away. He sprinted down to the corridor where the Girls Bathroom was located, checked for both Filch and Percy and slipped inside.
"He was already out, Mione. He's with Snape."
"Oh, well, he'll probably be here soon. You can add the lacewings now."
"Do we seriously have to drink this?"
"Oh, come on, Ron, we have to drink potions for class that contain dead spiders, toad bile and snake fangs or worse. It's lacewings, you won't even be able to see them after a month, much less taste them. I'd like to know how we're going to get those special ingredients from Snape's cupboard if Jamie won't help."
"He will. He's our friend, Mione. We just have to explain why it's so important when he gets here. He'll understand. We can't let Malfoy continue cursing people like Colin Creevey."
"I hope so. Where is he?"
Draco turned towards Jamie's footsteps and thought hard about exactly where he was in relation to the sofa and the kitchen counter. He would have to walk around the counter to get to Jamie who would have ample time to escape. He would have to coax the boy back into the main part of the rooms. He started off towards his target, just a little to the left. He heard Jamie giggle and the critical step off of the tile and onto the carpet. He spun and seized a handful of robe. "Got you!" The lights came on and he looked up at his Professor. "Or not."
Jamie leapt off the counter, landing lightly next to Draco. "You fell for it, hook, line, and sinker."
"Huh?"
"Sorry, muggle saying. How was that, sir?"
"Decent first try at seeking. Excellent evasive skills, Jamie, but in the future, please refrain from standing on the counter."
"Sure. My turn to seek. Can I try the net spell if I find him?"
"If you can manage it without breaking anything."
The lights went out and Draco moved out into the living space, dropped to his knees and crawled under the end table to slip behind the sofa. He waited until he heard Jamie at the other end and slipped back out the way he came. He hid in between the two large bookshelves, and waited patiently. But he must have miscounted the steps, because a moment later, he felt a wand tap him, and a muttered. "Capture." A neat net of silver light trapped him against the wall as the lights came back on. Jamie promptly freed him, and stepped back so he could get out. "That was a cool trick with the sofa, Draco. I'll have to remember that one."
"Why don't you two try the basic curse detection spells I showed you a few times on the potions bottles on the counter? There are three curses on each of the five tall bottles, and two on the three short ones. If you can undo all of them before I finish grading the fifth years' essays, I won't make you do an essay on the topic."
"Sounds fair to me," Jamie smirked briefly before he slipped onto the stool and studied the challenge. Draco sat next to him and cast the first spell on the tall bottle in front of him. He smiled victoriously as the bottle flashed purple and undid the sleeping curse before trying the next spell. This one didn't activate and he groaned. This would take awhile to test all eight bottles with all ten of the spells.
Draco raced Jamie down the corridor to the Great Hall, and slammed into Ron Weasley as a result. "Sorry, Weasley. Couldn't stop."
Jamie had caught up to them, and gave them both a hand up. "Hey, Ron. What's for lunch today?"
"Where have you been? Hermione and I have been looking for you for hours."
"Professor Snape let me do my Defense Against the Dark Arts practical lesson today so that I could have a free period on Tuesday. You wouldn't believe how cool the regular Second Year curriculum is when he teaches it. And he's letting Draco do the practical with me as long as he reads the theory on his own time, so we just finished part of the curse detection unit and he taught us how to use our other senses to find an opponent when we can't see. It was awesome."
Draco grinned at Jamie's long monologue. The kid was hyper on sugar so sharing the box of Sugar Quills probably wasn't the best idea. It would take a while to wear him out and he wasn't about to return Jamie to Professor Snape when the kid was a step away from bouncing off the walls. "Come on, kid. I'm starving for real food and I smell fish and chips."
"I'm coming. See ya later, Ron."
"Hermione and I were worried about you, Harry."
Jamie stiffened. "I'm fine. All my bones grew back, and Professor Snape got me out of the Hospital Wing early so I'm going to go eat and then play quidditch or something outside. If you want to meet us there, fine."
Draco watched with surprise as he turned away from Ron and headed into the great hall. "Bring broomsticks if you come out, Weasley, and for Merlin's sake remember to call him Jamie if you want him to talk to you at all."
Hermione was very concerned about Jamie's odd behavior and agreed with Ron that they should chaperone the pair outside, but that didn't mean she was going to get onto a broom. Instead she picked up her favorite book and followed a seething Ron outside. On the quidditch pitch, both brooms lay forgotten, as the two cloaked figures threw snowballs at each other, dodging and missing frequently. She ducked one errant missile and started up to the bleachers. She caught sight of Jamie packing a snowball and firing it. His face was lit up by a smile that went from ear to ear and he pitched the ball at Ron. Ron stared down at his front in mock horror and pretended to be fatally wounded, taking a long time to 'die' as he fell and squirmed. He was so busy exaggerating his death that he missed Jamie's smirk. Jamie tackled the taller boy and stuffed snow in his face, before leaping to his feet and running away as fast as possible. It wasn't fast enough and Ron took out his legs before he got too far. Hermione cringed, expecting Jamie to go into a panic attack, but he just yelped and dodged the handful of snow aimed at his face. Both boys looked up startled as snowballs started raining on them from above. Draco Malfoy sat on his broomstick and launched his missiles from not even ten feet in the air and just out of their reach. Both Gryffindors ran for their brooms and started an even more furious snow battle. Hermione went back to reading Year with the Yeti for class on Tuesday. She had been horrified to find that Snape had been serious about withdrawing Jamie from Professor Lockhart's class on Friday. How could a potionsmaster hope to educate Jamie in Defense better than a world-renowned honorary member of the Dark Force Defense League? She resolved to keep Jamie up to date with the class plans that the real teacher laid out.
Draco collapsed on the end of Jamie's bed and tried to catch his breath. "That was a close one."
"You're telling me. I thought Lockhart would see his reflection in the armor while he was telling off the Weasley Twins since he loves his reflection so much and give us another detention."
"Yeah, well he managed to withhold his vain impulses for five minutes in the corridor, so I'd be willing to bet a galleon that he's discovered what happened to his hair by now. I'm just relieved that the Weasley Twins didn't give it away as he lectured them about decorum and respect of oneself."
"They're professional pranksters. They wouldn't give us away. But if you hadn't stopped to help Ginny up than we wouldn't have still been in the hallway."
"It was instinctual not to trip over her and since I had to stop anyway . . ." Draco sputtered, before smirking. "Anyway, it really made the little Weasley's day that YOU the great ex-Harry Potter stopped and looked at her for a whole minute."
Jamie groaned and pulled a pillow over his face. He sat on the floor leaning against the bed and could reach the pillows from there unlike Draco. "Why do all the little first years do that?"
"Little? Weasley and Creevey are your height, mate, and the rest of the first years are even taller."
Jamie grimaced. "Don't care. They're still a year younger than me. Ugh, I hate being short."
"Gee, couldn't tell," Draco teased before changing the subject. "Has your head of house come around with the sign-up sheet to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas yet?"
"No, but I don't know what I'm doing yet. Does Professor Snape usually stay for Christmas? I know he was here last year, but I think that was mainly to keep an eye on Quirrell."
"Don't know. You can ask him before dinner."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm staying. Mother has a socialite ball that she can't miss, and Father's away on a business trip. Besides Hogwarts is supposedly famous for their Christmas feasts and I want to sample one." Draco hurried to get the focus back on Hogwarts and off of his less than desirable home-life.
"Last year was great, but if the Professor wants to go home, I'd like to go too. It'll be the first time that I can go home for Christmas ever, and I really want to."
"Sounds like a good idea to me. If I happen to off Finnegan and Thomas while you're gone, you will testify that they did drive me to insanity, right?"
"It's a plan."
Snape found Jamie and Draco playing wizards chess in the living room when he returned to his quarters. "Should I award ten points to Gryffindor or Five points each to Slytherin and Gryffindor for Lockhart's pink hair?"
"Does he know that we did it?"
"The staff managed to keep from laughing until he walked out, so I imagine he has yet to discover the change let alone the perpetrators."
"Wow, he must have gone straight to the staff room from the corridor. I'm surprised he survived that long without a mirror," Draco commented with a raised eyebrow. "Check."
"Pawn to F7 and Checkmate."
"How the heck did you do that?" Draco griped.
"Do I dare ask what you used to produce that result?"
"Red ink and sticking potion mixed together and spelled to his hair," Jamie confided. "By the time he undoes the sticking potion, the red ink will have sunk in and dyed it, so he'll have to dye it back to normal."
"Brilliant, boys. Five points each for ingenuity." Snape pulled the Gryffindor sign-up list from his pocket. "Where do you want to spend Christmas, Jamie?"
The boy turned to face him, flustered. "It's up to you, sir."
Over his head, Draco mouthed "home."
"I thought to relax away from the dunderheaded students at home, and if you don't wish to stay with your friends, then I think we could manage a trip to Diagon Alley before Christmas."
"That sounds like an excellent idea, sir. Thank you."
Snape waited until the boys headed into Jamie's bedroom to shake his head. If he could only break Jamie of the habit of thanking him unnecessarily and convince the boy to speak up for himself, he would be pleased.
Hermione and Ron conducted an intervention on Thursday when Jamie returned from classes because not only was his friendship with Draco reaching worrisome levels, they desperately needed help getting the ingredients from Snape's office the next day. Jamie came in practically bouncing off the wall describing his awesome lesson with Professor Snape which Ron half envied since Lockhart was such a useless git. Ron grabbed his friend's arms and forced him down into the chair, not missing the startled expression of fear that crossed his friend's face and at that moment Ron's heart sunk. This wasn't going to work and it was going to hurt their friendship in the process. But it was too late.
"We need to talk to you about getting those ingredients from Snape, Jamie. We need to catch Malfoy before he petrifies someone else," Hermione said briskly.
"It isn't Draco," Jamie insisted nervously. "He was with us during the first attack and he was with me when Colin was petrified. And I won't help you get those ingredients because it's a dangerous potion and you're going to use it on my friend." He started to get up, but Hermione grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down into the seat. "Stay here."
"NO!" Jamie leapt from the seat. "I'm not some first year that you two can order around!"
"We weren't trying to, Jamie," Hermione said in confusion. "But we're not finished because you don't seem to understand how dangerous Malfoy is."
"We are definitely finished," Jamie spat. "Draco is my FRIEND. He looks out for me and helps me when I need it, like you two should be doing!"
Utter silence met his outburst, and Jamie tore off his Gryffindor scarf and threw it at Ron. "House rivalries suck." He turned on his heel and strode out of the common room.
"Where are you going?"
"To my dad's!"
After he disappeared, Hermione turned to Ron and whispered, "When did Harry start calling Professor Snape that?"
Ron didn't know, but he had an inkling that there were some new boundaries on their friendship and that crossing them would not be permitted under Snape's nose.
Draco was watching Jamie pace back and forth, and trying to get the whole story out of him. Unfortunately it seemed to involve a Golden Trio Secret and even though Jamie was mad at the two Gryffindors, he was too loyal to spill it.
"Jamie, if you can't tell me what the situation is, how about if you tell me what about the situation bothered you?"
Jamie stopped pacing and looked at him, thinking hard. "I could do that. Brilliant, Dray." He plopped down onto the bed. "They were ordering me around. They were telling me to do things that I didn't want to do, and they were 'explaining' about how certain things are the way they see them and no one else's view matters and that's what always bugs me about Dumbledore too. How can they know what's best for me when they won't even listen to me? They completely ignored what I said and kept going on and on and then Hermione tried to make me stay in the chair and listen to them and I wigged. I jumped up and yelled at them. Then I told them that they weren't being good friends and that houses weren't supposed to divide all the houses up into four mini schools and left. Then, get this, they wanted to know where I was going, because I'm obviously incapable of taking care of myself. But I knew that if I didn't tell them, then they would follow me or go to Professor McGonagall, so I yelled over my shoulder that I was going to-" Jamie stopped and blushed. "I said that I was going to my dad's."
"He is your dad now. Legally at least."
"Yeah, but I've never called him that before or at least not meant it. It was always for show so that horrible Umbridge woman would leave us alone, or my house would shut up about my betrayal and stuff like that. But I seriously called him 'Dad' and I think I meant it, which is really weird and even if I did mean it, I don't think he really wants to be my dad."
"He takes really good care of you. All the time, and not just feeding you, teaching you, mandatory kind of caring. He sits with you in the Hospital Wing and talks to you when you need it, and he threatened Filch within an inch of his life for you. That was something to hear, let me tell you. My ears were blistering and I wasn't even the one he was threatening. And as for never calling him that before, Jamie? You did it twice after the quidditch game."
"What are you talking about?"
"When you were talking to Madame Pomfrey, you asked if 'Dad' would be mad at you. Professor Snape was in the doorway and he answered you even though you called him dad, so he must be able to stand being called that. And then when Dobby tried to convince you to go back to those stupid muggles, you told me that you wanted your dad. I think that you meant it both times and you didn't even notice that you had said it." Jamie looked deep in thought as Draco finished. Putting a hand on his friend's shoulder, Draco smirked. "I think you have yourself a real live parent there, Jamie-boy."
"I've got to think about this for awhile," Jamie shook his head. "I don't know if I'm ready for this yet. If I've used it before, then I'll probably use it again, but I don't want to think and agonize over it beforehand. It's confusing." He shrugged. "But hey, that's my life. Can we talk about this later when I've thought it over some more, Dray?"
"Sure, why don't you finish telling me about the Gryffindors instead?"
"Oh, there's not much more to that. I walked out on them. I think that they deserved it. I'm not in need of an intervention. I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm doing the smart thing instead of the reckless brave one."
"Three cheers for Jamie Snape. We'll make a Slytherin out of you yet."
Jamie smirked, "Did you know that the Sorting Hat wanted to put me into Slytherin?"
Draco's mouth dropped, "You turned it down? Why?"
Jamie shrugged. "Hagrid told me that every dark wizard came from Slytherin and then I met Ron and Hermione on the train and they said that Gryffindor was the best house and that Slytherins were all horrible. Plus I had met you and you were pretty arrogant and set on Slytherin."
"You talked the Sorting Hat out of the house it wanted to place you in? That's impossible!"
"Well it never said that it was going to put me into Slytherin. I was just doing my 'Not Slytherin' mantra in my head and it asked me if I was sure, because Slytherin could help me become great. But he said that I was difficult to sort, so I think that it was a close call between Slytherin and Gryffindor and my choice just tipped the scale."
"Weird. You do have a lot of Slytherin qualities and come to think of it, you have a lot of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw attributes too. I wonder why the hat decided Gryffindor."
"Last year, Professor Snape would have called it my savior-complex," Jamie grinned. "This year, he'd probably say it's surviving the muggles for eleven years."
"And what are you two talking about that would require me to say either?" a voice inquired from the doorway. Both boys looked up to see Professor Snape standing in the doorway.
Jamie laughed. "Why I'm a Gryffindor, sir."
"Really? I think it is more likely to be your ability to get away with absolutely anything."
"I thought that 'Never get caught' was the Slytherin motto, sir."
"Oh, you get caught alright, you just talk your way out of it."
"Touché," Jamie grimaced.
"And if you think that we are eating off of the bare table tonight, Jamie, you are sorely mistaken."
"Whoops." Jamie leapt to his feet. "Sorry, I forgot to set the table. I'll go do it now."
"Thank you." When the boy was out of the room, Snape turned to Draco. "How is he doing?"
"Excellent, sir. He made a decision for himself, going against what his Gryffindor friends wanted and he thought about what he wanted and was ready for rather than just jumping into something."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "Are you able to share details?"
"Not right now, sir. I think he'll come to you about it soon. But he agrees with us about Dumbledore's habit of all-knowingness."
"That is not a word, Draco, but I do understand what you mean. You're welcome to stay for dinner if you would like."
"Thank you, sir. I'll do that."
A knock on the apartment's main door caught their attention, and Jamie ran to answer it, yelling, "I've got it!" The door opened to reveal a redhead. "Ron," Jamie said coldly. Draco felt Snape look from Jamie to Ron and then him in surprise, but before either could intervene something unexpected happened.
"I'm really sorry about earlier, Jamie. You're right about Hermione's plan and you're right about the fact that Malfoy couldn't have been behind the attack on Mrs. Norris or Colin because he always was with you at the time. Hermione still doesn't believe that, but I do, and I'm sorry that we tried to tell you what to do. You're right. You are old enough to decide what you want to do, who you want to do it with, and where you want to go. And Hermione and I have been really lousy friends this year. Will you forgive me?"
"Yes," Jamie nodded. "On the condition that you stop calling Draco by his last name."
"Done, but I don't have to like him."
"Fair enough. Professor Snape, can Ron eat with us?"
"May Ron eat-"
"Right. May Ron eat dinner with us?"
"I suppose."
