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Severus Snape strode swiftly through the corridors of Hogwarts. This year looked to be his worst at Hogwarts, which, given the competition, took some doing.

The Potter brat was inevitable, and after having him hanging over his head for ten years, it was almost a relief to have the menace at Hogwarts at last. Of course the brat was already causing consternation. There was that histrionic scene at the lake, which could only have come from the mind of Sirius Black. Then the debacle of the sorting, which had Albus calling an emergency teacher's meeting barely three hours into term.

It was the other debacle at the Sorting that had called Severus away from the meeting. He had told Albus that no good would come from werewolves at Hogwarts.

Lupin had been a foregone conclusion, Albus was determined to do something for the Potter brat – though why he thought the brat would appreciate a werewolf Severus had no idea.

Then Albus had decided to put a cap on Severus' year by allowing a first year werewolf to join the school.

Severus had fought that tooth and nail. Setting aside his own view on werewolves, how could Albus risk a repeat of the disaster that was Severus' sixth year. Even Black seemed to have gained some sense since then. But no, Albus had been sure it would all be totally fine.

Severus'd had some support originally, more than he expected. It seemed it was not just him left with scars from his sixth year.

Of course none of them stood up to Albus for long. All that magical power concentrated in one form made it hard to hold an opinion if Albus wished to persuade you different. Sometimes Severus was only aware he had held a different opinion after he had returned to the cool sanctuary of his Potions laboratory. He thought that it was his Occulmency skill protecting him to an extent.

He had never asked, because even his Occulmency skills wouldn't stand up to the full force of Albus Dumbledore's magic, should he choose to exert it. Severus preferred to know what he was up against instead of tootling along in happy ignorance like the rest of the dunderheads. He just saw no reason to bring his knowledge to Albus' attention. He didn't think Albus was aware he was doing it, but on the other hand, surely the old man couldn't believe he was always right?

Severus' sheer horror at the idea of another werewolf pupil had allowed him to fight longer and harder than he ever had before. Not even all Albus' vaunted power could persuade him it was a good idea. In fact Albus had started looking quite puzzled over his resistance.

Severus had given way rapidly then. He was sure Albus methods of 'convincing' the recalcitrant were less painful than the Dark Lord's, but he was full certain they were just as effective. You didn't defeat one dark lord and hold another at bay by being completely benign.

He preferred his mind to be wholly his own, even if his life was pledged to two masters.

So he had reassured himself that the werewolf would go to Gryffindor and become McGonagall and Lupin's problem. Then, to his shock, the hat on Miss Gwilt's dark head had called out 'Slytherin'. He had glared along the table, suspecting a plot, but Albus and Minerva had looked just as surprised as he felt. Then there had been nothing to do but grit his teeth and bear it.

All his reservations had been confirmed when he was summoned by his prefects in a state of high panic. He had had the satisfaction of seeing Albus actually look troubled for a second, before he slid back to twinkling and "I'm sure you will be able to deal with it, my boy."

That was no real comfort as he approached the Slytherin portrait to deal with his hysterical house and a distraught young werewolf, so he fortified himself with the thought of the I told you sos he could slip in to casual conversation. Would tomorrow at breakfast be too early?

The wash of sound that blasted his ears as he entered the common room convinced him to squeeze in his first I told you so before bedtime.

"What is the meaning of this outrageous behaviour?" he roared and had the pleasure of seeing his House fall silent before him.

All his prefects ran up to him, and a few of the other older years too. He looked about for Miss Gwilt, suddenly anxious that his House, worked up on its own self-righteousness, might have done her some harm.

He spotted her, and was hard pushed not to smile. She was a pretty thing, Celtic dark with blue eyes and she sat on one of the tables with the poised, straight-backed, confidence of a little queen.

Malfoy stood at her side, all blond arrogance, and to Severus' surprise it appeared his intentions were defensive. He had not previously suspected the Malfoy heir to be guilty of knight-errantry.

Glaring down his prefects attempts to all tell him their tale at once, he turned to Flint.

"Mr Flint, perhaps you have some explanation for the collective fit that seems to have overtaken my House."

Flint cringed a little. "Please Professor Snape, Gwilt said she was werewolf."

Severus' jaw dropped, "Miss Gwilt admitted it?" Then he realised his mistake.

"You mean she is?" gasped Flint as the uproar returned.

"Silence! I said silence! Continue Mr Flint."

"Uh well." Flint, to Severus' amusement appeared to be sidling round so his back was no longer to Miss Gwilt. In fact several of the students were edging away from her. "You see Professor, some of us didn't believe her. We thought she was trying to make herself sound interesting. Some of the little ones did think it was true. Then Higgs said he didn't care either way, if she was going to claim to be a werewolf we should treat her like one. And then Malfoy," Flint was obviously surprised at a firstie thrusting himself into his elder's conversation, "said that werewolves weren't dangerous unless it was the full moon and we were all acting like a bunch of scared Hufflepuffs."

Severus took a cynical moment to wonder if an unprepossessing boy would have attracted the same assistance from Malfoy as a pretty girl and then said,

"Mr Malfoy is absolutely correct."

"I told them that too," said Miss Gwilt in a clear, unshaken voice, "I'm quite surprised that point isn't covered in the Hogwarts curriculum."

Severus bit back the desire to expostulate over the state of the DADA curriculum. If they could keep a teacher for longer than a year it would help significantly.

"Miss Gwilt, did Professor Dumbledore not instruct you to keep your condition secret."

"That would be behaving as if I had something to be ashamed of, which I do not."

The roar of comment came back as each Slytherin tried to say exactly what they thought of that. Miss Gwilt continued to sit calmly, hands folded neatly in her lap as if she was above it all.

Severus closed his eyes briefly. He foresaw a long evening ahead of him.

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The smaller sitting room was jam full of extravagantly delicate hothouse flowers.

Frank Longbottom stared. He wondered if there was any point checking the prominently displayed cards to see who had sent them.

"Alice darling," he called through the house, "It's only polite that you inform your husband before running off with the Darkest Wizard since Riddle."

He heard Alice laughing as he came down the stairs.

"I know, isn't he ridiculous? He probably did it just for the pleasure of causing consternation at the florists. There's also an horrendously large box of comfits in the fridge. I had to use magic to wedge them in there."

"Your being awfully calm about this Alice."

"Oh, now that I've actually spoken to him, I utterly refuse to believe Sirius is guilty of anything except being the total moron we all knew he was to begin with."

"Alice."

"No, do not Alice me. I am completely convinced."

"His mother bought him out of Azkaban."

"Where he was sentenced without trial. Good Merlin Frank, even the Muggles have habeas corpus. The fact that Walburga Black had to buy Sirius a trial is a stain on the Wizarding World, not upon Sirius."

"Everyone knew he was the secret-keeper."

"Which is very nearly proof he wasn't. Did any of that lot ever do what was expected."

"He could have broken Veritaserum."

"He very probably could, doesn't mean he did though. He stood on that stand, dosed to the gills with Veritaserum and told everybody Peter Pettigrew was the secret-keeper, and we were stupid enough to think he was lying. That plan sounds exactly like something Lily and James would do, far more likely than the obvious."

"So where is Pettigrew? They say Black killed him so he could blame his crimes on a dead man."

"Pft. Pettigrew is wherever he thinks Sirius Black is least likely to find him. He was damn lucky Sirius was all tangled up with Harry that night, or Sirius would have eviscerated him back then."

"Sirius treats Harry appallingly."

"No," Alice shook her head. To Frank's joy she appeared quite, quite certain. "Harry's too easy in his presence. This morning he was perfectly relaxed flopped over Sirius' shoulder. Don't forget this is Sirius Black and James Potter's son. They probably think it's funny."

"Alice."

"No. I don't even know why you're trying to convince me otherwise. You never have believed it. I do not know what Dumbledore was thinking of, and so I shall tell him."

"No Alice, you won't."

"But Frank."

"No Alice, you won't go to Dumbledore, I won't let you."

Alice stiffened up all over. "I do not see how you can stop me." Suddenly her face changed and her raised one hand to her mouth. "Frank? Frank have we had this conversation before?"

"Yes darling."

"I went to Dumbledore then, didn't I?"

"Yes darling."

"And he?"

"He persuaded you otherwise. There was no spell involved Alice I checked. I went to see Dumbledore and he betrayed no consciousness that anything was wrong. I wouldn't have thought anything was wrong myself, except that you had forgotten every conversation we'd had about Sirius and that night."

"Not, not forgot," she pressed both hands to her temples, "I remember them now, though I didn't then. I don't… Frank what happened?"

"I don't know but I suspect – Do you remember facing Riddle, and how hard it was to remember why we should hate him."

"Of course I do."

Frank risked reaching out and squeezing Alice's arm. Because of course she did. They both did.

"Part of that was purposeful on Riddle's part, I'm sure. But part of it was reaction to his magical power. I've researched it a bit. Nobody tends to argue with a powerful wizard, dark or light."

"Are you saying we can't disagree with Dumbledore?"

"Not can't. But I think you need to be very sure of your ground and very determined. I've never had a problem to keep on believing Sirius was innocent, but I never discussed it with Dumbledore, never had him try to persuade me he was right."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Alice I couldn't. You don't remember now, but you were so confused. Dumbledore was telling you one thing, and your senses another and you couldn't decide which to trust. I tried to help but it did no good. I was so relieved when you picked one over the other, I didn't much care that I was sure you were wrong."

Alice's eyes were hollow. Like they were those awful nights when he'd thought her mind might break under the strain of reconciling the impossible. He hoped desperately that her mind had had the time to grow strong enough to reject the comfort of Dumbledore's reassurances.

"I remember now. Or some of it, anyway. I wanted Dumbledore to be right, even if it meant Sirius was guilty and Harry was so unhappy, because if Dumbledore is wrong…"

Alice suddenly looked very, very scared. Frank knew how she felt because he'd been haunted by that fear for years.

"What are we going to do Frank? If we can't rely on Dumbledore, what are we going to do? Sirius said Riddle is coming back. Neville, what if Neville is the prophecy child?"

"We'll be okay. Even if Neville is the prophecy child, I doubt Riddle thinks he is."

Alice heaved a great sigh of relief and pressed close to him. "Oh Frank, it's very bad of me, but I'm so glad it's Harry and not Neville."

"I know darling. Me too." Frank felt horribly guilty about it, but he couldn't help hoping Neville and Harry ended up in different Houses. "And Sirius seems prepared for Riddle to come back. I'm sure he has a plan in place. Even without Lily and James, Sirius was always formidable."

"We have to help him."

Frank cringed. Hadn't they given enough? They'd fought in the first war, personally faced Riddle down three times and all they achieved was a place for their son in the firing line. Frank himself had nearly died, and Alice almost collapsed from her own guilt and confusion.

Harry was the prophecy child, couldn't he carry his own weight?

Frank bit it all back down as unworthy of him. Aside from the fact that it so nearly could have been his family torn to ruins, aside from all noble ideas of honour and the right thing to do; the base truth was, if they didn't band together to fight Riddle, they'd face him one at a time and lose.

"We will darling," he said.

"Good. Because I will not have that madman after our Neville. I will not."

Frank just hugged his wife tightly in agreement.

"Good," said Alice after a pause, pulling away slightly. "So tomorrow will you go and yell at Sirius about sending me flowers and assure him will support him anyway we can, that doesn't involve Neville."

"If you like," said Frank, grinning at little at the phrasing. "If you can assure me the Darkest Wizard since Riddle isn't making a move on my wife."

Alice giggled, "Don't be silly darling. Sirius is head over heels for Amelia Bones."

"Madam Bones?"

"Merlin yes, couldn't you tell?"

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