Disclaimer – I solemnly swear that JKR owns everything Harry Potter. Whether or not I am up to no good with her characters is for you to decide.
-oOoOo-
Potter Haven
Chapter 11
Severus Snape … was torn.
The objects of his disconcertion were sitting in front of him – three large trunks. They'd been delivered to his office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry a half an hour ago. And, apart from throwing the lids of them open, he'd done nothing but fall back into his seat and stare at them.
Inside, neatly lined up and packed with cushioning spells, were dozens and dozens of boxes, jars and containers. Each one was labelled in a neat clear handwriting: basilisk venom, heartstring of basilisk, powdered basilisk fang, basilisk blood, cornea of a basilisk's eye … On and on they went. Each and every container was worth its weight in gold, especially to a potioneer. These sorts of ingredients were all incredibly rare and used in some of the more obscure potions imaginable.
And the three trunks full of ingredients had simply been given to him. No payment necessary, only the simple note that asked him to use them wisely for the betterment of the students in the school, a task that he was eager to do.
Unfortunately, the main thrust of Potion Master Severus Snape's unease was directed at who had given him such a gift.
Potter.
Oh, certainly, he recalled the moment down in the Chamber of Secrets when he'd approached the boy and asked for access to the slain beast to harvest it for potion ingredients and, while his rendering skills were politely declined, the boy had indicated that he'd be willing to share a portion of the carcass. But never had he actually believed that Potter would follow through.
There was simply far too much animosity between the two.
Thinking back over the past two years since the boy had come to Hogwarts, Severus was forced to admit that most of that animosity had been on his part. But how could there not be, the boy being the spitting image of his father. Except for his eyes, of course. Eyes that Severus could never look at without a stab of guilt and pain slamming into his chest.
No, if he was brutally honest, then he was the main instigator of the ill-will between the two.
In his first year, the boy had shown a complete lack of skill, just like his father, so unlike his mother. Every potion class there had been something that demonstrated that the boy had no skill. Grudgingly, he admitted that by the end of the year, he showed … promise. But that hadn't stopped him from reminding the boy as much as possible just how mediocre and talentless he was. It was a way to put Potter in his place and to keep those damned eyes of his pointed at the ground and away from him.
And then had come Quirrell and his infernal battle to stop the thief from leaving the castle with the Philosopher's Stone. Severus had caught him coming out of the third floor corridor with a triumphant grin plastered on his face, one hand clasped around a bulge in a pocket of his robe. He'd instantly realised what had happened and had challenged the man with his wand.
The stuttering fool though had been more talented than anyone ever realised. It was all that Severus had been able to do to simply hold his own. Their battle in the Entrance Hall had drawn unwanted attention, forcing Severus even more onto the defensive as he tried to keep the students from harm.
And then, just when he thought that he was going to be killed, help had arrived from Potter of all people. He'd tried to distract Quirrell. For an instant, he'd thought it'd worked. But the man had been too good, recovering far too quickly and putting Severus out of the fight.
When he'd awoken two days later and learnt of the aftermath of his battle with Quirrell – that Potter had saved two Slytherins from serious harm or possibly even death, before killing Quirrell with his bare hands, not to mention the fact that Quirrell had apparently been possessed by The Dark Lord at the time – he'd been stunned.
The boy had put himself on the line, risked likely death for him, a person who'd gone out his way to make his life as miserable as possible. And then, to save two basic strangers from a rival House before defeating The Dark Lord once more. Severus had had to face a harsh truth that day: Potter had earned his respect, however grudging it was.
His hatred of the boy's father was hard to overcome, not to mention his hatred of himself for what happened to the boys' mother. In the end, all he could do was to vow to cease making the boys' life harder than it was. Thus, Severus had just spent the previous year basically ignoring the boy.
Oddly, it'd had a positive effect on Potter's potion skills. His awareness of ingredients and brewing skills had increased to the point where Severus was forced to award the boy not just passing grades, but even a collection of Exceeds Expectation, not to mention that one surprising Outstanding.
Of course, there'd been the accusations during the year that the boy was Dark simply because he had the ability to talk to snakes. Almost the entire school had not only shunned the boy but actively bullied him. The notion that Potter was the next Dark Lord was laughable – even he could see that. Now, thinking back on it, a pang of remorse shot through him as he remembered that he'd done nothing to stop his Slytherins' attack of the boy.
And then Potter had been kidnapped, taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. By the time the boy had returned with that unbelievable story, Severus hadn't known what to think. A boy of twelve killing a basilisk? Even with the evidence of his injuries, it was story worthy of the trash that had been written about the boy during the years that Dumbledore had hidden him away.
Somehow, Potter had realised that he wouldn't be believed and used that damnable Gryffindor courage to not only face the entire school, but to then take the prefects, professors, aurors and reporters down into the Chamber to prove his story. That adventure following the boy through the pipes and into the Chamber itself was the stuff of dreams. Severus had walked it in a daze until he'd seen the statue of Salazar Slytherin himself and the great basilisk dead within the Chamber.
And now he'd given three trunks worth of invaluable potion ingredients from that basilisk that the boy had killed.
The boy had earned his respect. He'd earned the right to be treated as his own person, not simply as a clone of his father. Somehow, Severus knew that his attitude to the boy needed to change once more. At least he had over a month before they'd come face to face once more in which to determine how he was going to interact with the b…Harry.
A silver phoenix winged into his office, alighting on the desk beside him, breaking him out of his reverie.
"Severus, your presence, if you please," Dumbledore's patronus stated in that condescending tone that the Headmaster perpetually used.
The potion master grimaced as the phoenix patronus faded away.
Dumbledore. There was another problem that was interwoven with the b…Harry.
Ever since the 'incident' at King's Cross Station, Dumbledore had been using him to attempt to find Potter. He'd been sent out to every known location that was connected with Potter. He'd staked out Petunia's house, including infiltrating and searching it in the dead of night. He'd spent whole days watching that bookstore of his, Hermione's Book Nook, as well as the widow and her son that owned it. He'd questioned every child that could be considered Potter's friend. He'd even been forced to watch Black and the werewolf.
Worst of all had been the time that Dumbledore had given him one of his precious silver trinkets and sent him to London. He'd traced the tracking charm on Potter's glasses to a small muggle store that sold eyewear. After disillusioning himself, he'd gone in, following the trace until he'd opened a drawer filled with dozens of old glasses, including Harry's.
Once more his eyes came to rest on the three trunks of potion ingredients at his feet. Harry had done exactly as he promised, no strings attached, simply for 'the good of the students of Hogwarts'. There was no ambiguous 'Greater Good'. Instead, a clearly defined thought of wanting to do good for all that wasn't hidden away.
By now, he knew, Dumbledore would be expecting him to be well on his way.
Of its own accord, Severus' mind began comparing the two.
One was full of his own self-importance. The other, loathe as he was to admit it, was small, never expecting to be given any special treatment. One had had decades of accolades and thrived on them. The other had had a decade of being famous but seemed to hate the attention. One kept everything to himself, sharing out only the meanest of scraps of information to others while he held the strings that made everyone dance. The other had gathered friends, friends that were loyal and worked with him. One had determined what he considered the ultimate goal for wizarding society, the exact shape that he wanted it to be and declared everything that worked towards it 'The Greater Good'. The other gave of himself, expecting no reward.
There was no comparison and, when it came down to it, Severus wondered why he still did the bidding of Albus Dumbldore. He'd joined the Light and Dumbledore to keep his precious Lily safe. A task that Dumbledore had failed at. Both Lily and the Dark Lord was gone. Yes, Dumbledore had kept him from Azkaban, but surely he'd repaid enough of his life for that debt to be paid for now.
Lily was dead. The Dark Lord, the one who'd killed her, was dead. But Harry, Lily's son, still lived. And right now, the son of the woman he still loved needed his help. Help that could be given simply by not trying to find him.
Raising his wand, Severus cast, causing a silver doe to appear.
"Go to Dumbledore. Tell him that I just received a shipment of potion ingredients and will be unavailable for the foreseeable future."
-oOoOo-
"What do you have there, Poppet?" Xenophilius Lovegood asked as he entered the rounded kitchen of the Rookery.
Luna spun around, causing her dirty blonde hair to flay out behind her.
"Morning, Daddy!" she exclaimed before bouncing over to wrap her father in a hug.
The crunch of parchment against his back caused Xenophilius to release his daughter after a shorter than normal hug.
"What's that, Luna?" he asked, nodding at the sheaf of parchment in her hands.
"Oh, that's the last of the notes that Harry Potter promised me," Luna explained. "These ones are his Astronomy and Herbology notes from first year."
Xenophilius smiled at the look of delight and awe on his daughter's face. "That's very kind of him."
"Harry's my friend," Luna replied simply.
"Make sure that you thank him properly. Perhaps some gurdyroot seedlings might be appropriate to help him repel gulping plimpies, hmm?" Xenophilius suggested.
Luna's face switched from thoughtfulness to excited in a matter of moments. "I'll do that, Daddy. And maybe I'll add in a butterbeer-cork necklace to chase away the nargles as well."
After a quick hug, Luna skipped out of the room. With a contented sigh, Xenophilius eased his lanky form into the nearest kitchen chair. If Luna was getting help from her friends, then the exams that she was due to sit at the beginning of the next school year were nothing that he needed to worry about.
-oOoOo-
The chapter read, Harry snapped the book shut and tossed it the length of the desk. He watched it in disgust as it slid across the smooth surface before coming to rest with one edge just hanging in empty air. Enchanting, it seemed was going to be a lot harder than he had expected.
Oh, the topic itself was fascinating – the ability to build protective charms into jewellery, giving a mirror a 'personality', creating multi-compartment trunks, even making musical instruments be able to play without the help of a human, just to name a few – but in practicality, it looked as though it was going to be one of the hardest subjects that he'd chosen to learn. At least for now all that it involved was reading. That was until he had not only a handle on the principles of Enchanting, but also a very good grasp of both Ancient Runes and Arithmancy.
There, too, were more subjects that, after a single 'lesson' Harry could tell were going to be a lot of work. Ancient Runes involved a lot of memorisation and copying before he could even begin learning how to place runes together to get them to do anything. Arithmancy, or 'maths for magic' as he'd decided to call it, was going to involve working methodically through the textbook of examples as well as reading about the theories of how magic worked.
And they were just three of the subjects that he was learning.
After his first full week of studying at Potter Haven, Harry had an inkling of what it was that he'd just bitten off. And he suspected that it could be more than he could chew.
Muggle Studies and History of Magic were alright. All they needed was for him to sit around and read. Astronomy wasn't that much different – a bunch of reading before heading up to the attic, opening the roof and searching the heavens with the powerful telescope the goblins had procured for what he'd just been reading about.
Beginning Healing was another subject that thankfully seemed to be mostly about reading. At least for the first half of the book. After that, well …
Potions wasn't too bad. It was mostly continuing what he was doing last year – following the instructions and working methodically through the potion. The only difference was that, without a responsible adult around, he knew that he needed to take extra care with what he was doing. Especially when it came to the harder potions instead of the review work that he was currently doing.
Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts were the biggest worry that he knew that he was going to have once he got past the review work at the start of the texts. Sure, there were wizarding pictures that accompanied each new spell that demonstrated the correct wand movements, but he wondered how much that was going to help. In some things, he knew that there was no substitute for a real person. He guessed that he'd just have to wait and see.
At least when it came time to begin learning fencing and sword-work, Dobby had managed to obtain a couple of wizarding dummies that were enchanted to teach those disciplines. Idly, he wondered if there was something similar that he could get Dobby to find to help with Transfiguration, Charms and DADA.
Now that he had the greenhouses and the animal enclosure fairly well stocked, he suspected that those subjects could be a lot more interesting than they could be. Read about a plant or animal and then head outside to spend time physically examining the specimen and observing them in real life to see if what he was seeing matched up with what he'd read.
And then there were the meditative subjects. He wasn't sure if he really should drop those two, but from what little he'd already read, they seemed really useful. Or at least, the end result seemed really useful.
Mind Arts or, as he'd come to understand after reading the first chapter of the book that he'd decided to begin his studies from, Occlumency and Legilimency, were the disciplines of protecting the mind from outside attacks and the art of invading another's mind. Both, it seemed, involved a lot of reading and then even more meditating on what he'd read and trying to understand how his mind worked. And according to the book, both were going to take a year or two to even begin to master.
Lastly, there was Animagi.
After hearing that both his father and Sirius were able to turn into animals, it had become something that he'd been eager to be able to do as well. Now, after reading the journal that the Marauders had created and more particularly the section about the process of becoming animagi, he wondered if it was even possible.
Apparently, in order to become animagi, he was going to need to spend hundreds of hours in meditation, much like with occlumency, learning about how his mind worked and more importantly, the various aspects and personalities that made him him. After that, there was a particularly complicated potion that needed to be brewed, a potion that would take about seven months to make, before he'd be able to take it.
After that, there was still many more months of integrating the new-found knowledge of his animal form into his mind. Then there were advanced human transfiguration that he needed to learn. Finally, if everything came together the way that it should, then after something like two or three years, he might finally be able to make the transformation.
Harry was well aware that trying to continue his magical education without some proper adult help was going to be incredibly hard, if not at times nearly impossible. But without a solution, all he could do for now was to struggle along by himself.
Pushing himself to his feet, Harry quit the 'classroom'. His first week of self-study was over.
Tomorrow he was due to have his first shift at the Plough and Shear. At least it'd give him something to do instead of mope around the manor alone on his thirteenth birthday. And that had to be an improvement over some of the birthdays that he'd had to endure with the Dursleys.
