Chapter 32

An Opportunity Arises

Sev exited the Common Room with Scorpius, who'd come to get him after Dueling Club, and then he stopped short at Rose and Lily standing there with Albus in the corridor.

"What's this?" he asked, pointing at the pair of girls.

"Scorpius said you were going to show him how to sneak to the kitchens. We want to know too," Lily supplied, jutting her chin at Rose.

Albus rolled his eyes and said, "Scorpius blabbed to Rose, Lily overheard."

"I explained that you didn't want to come to Dueling Club but that we were doing something later." Scorpius pushed a blond lock behind his ear.

"Just wanted to know what you Slytherins get up to," Rose added.

"How useful is it for a Gryffindor to know how to sneak to the kitchens from the Slytherin Common Room?" he asked, eying Rose. "And a whole stampede of us would get noticed."

"You know how to sneak from there too, don't you?" Rose said, suddenly. She had no idea how she knew. "James won't tell us. He likes being the one to get everything."

He nearly retorted that he knew how to sneak just about everywhere from anywhere within Hogwarts, but he caught himself at the last moment, realizing that he would have volunteered himself for teaching them the selfsame thing.

There would have been so much detention. He doubted they were proficient sneakers. His life had depended upon being a proficient sneaker.

"What if Professor Slughorn catches us?" Scorpius asked, probably sensing the same thing about sneaking. Gryffindors were loud.

"I don't think attempting to find the kitchens while it's still light out and not after hours much of an offense," Sev said. "But if you lot are afraid of getting caught and risking detention, you can go back to your own Common Room." He smiled with faux sweetness at Rose. It made Lily laugh.

"I don't think he's down here all that much after classes," Albus said.

Sev smiled. "Lesson number one. Professor Slughorn doesn't need to be anywhere. The Hogwarts portraits aren't just for decoration, some are very active parts of the castle. Most of them will let you get away with some innocuous stuff, but anything that breaks a serious rule, if they see it, they're telling someone." Not to mention prefects, ghosts, and such.

"Wow, sneaky!" Lily said, with wide eyes.

"Lesson number two. If you're going to lie, always have your story prepared beforehand. Don't wait to get caught. Imagine the ways you will get caught and come up with something to say first. Me, I'm not much for lying, but I also haven't often gotten caught, so…" He'd only lied when he had to in his former life, or when morally best, and his father stance on lying to him had been one word: never. If he'd gotten caught while out after hours in his former life, he'd not only gotten in trouble but gotten a lecture on being foolish enough to get caught. "I am prepared to take the heat or not say anything, but nine times out of ten I'm not lying for you lot. Make your decisions."

Rose bit her lip some.

Lily shrugged and happily said, "I trust you. You've saved me before."

Sev fought the desire to say that was a silly sentiment. He had saved her, once, and that hardly was a pattern worth trusting in someone you barely knew, but she was twelve and in a world different from the one when he had been twelve. He let it go.

"Well?" he turned to Rose instead.

"Gryffindors are supposed to be the brave ones. I can't bow out if you bunch of Slytherins are doing it," she protested.

Truly, she did not seem all that brave. Not that a trip to the kitchens here should require much.

"You know we're in," Al said, nodding at Scorpius, who smiled.

Clearing his throat, he said, "Since five of us are going to try this, we have to take some extra measures." He didn't bother trying to fight the grin from his face. "I can do it for Lily," because she was twelve, "But you lot have to be able to disillusion yourselves or we're definitely not making it very far." Of course, he figured that none of them could do that.

"Uh, what? You didn't say it'd require magic." Scorpius said, looking nervously at Albus, who had not gotten the squib moniker for being the best at advanced spells.

"Er, of course it requires magic, we're wizards, right?"

"We've not even learned that spell, yet!" Rose protested.

"Do you always wait to learn spells in class?" He retorted, with a little more bite than he intended. He had to learn to tone himself down from his World 1.0 self. Things were said excessively gently here. "It's a school, for magic, and you can learn pretty much anything not in the Restricted Section without needing your hand held."

They looked at each other.

Rose said, "Sometimes I look through the older student's books and try some things…"

Albus said, "I can barely get all our year spells right."

Lily giggled at her brother. Scorpius gave him a pat on the back in solidarity.

"There are plenty of spells just as easy as the ones you've already learned, and sometimes the older year spells are not harder to do but are taught later for other reasons," Sev told them.

"But you're killer at, like, all spells," Scorpius protested.

The use of killer made Sev cringe internally though just his eyebrows twitched visibly.

"Because I read and practice, and I ask for help when I need it. You can ask adults to help you with things that aren't in class or books…" Why was this such a strange concept to them all. They looked at him like he was absolutely crazy.

They were interrupted by a pack of older Slytherins loudly coming down the corridor. One of the 6th years shoved a 5th year and the others threw up their hands in frustration. They were all on the Quidditch team, and as they came closer, it became clear why they were agitated with the 5th year.

"You have to beg Professor Slughorn for extra credit or something! He's have sympathy for his own House team!" begged one of the older ones.

"I would if it would help, but I'm not doing well in Arithmancy or Transfiguration either, and they're afraid I'm not going to scrape enough OWLs."

"You've screwed our chances! Why didn't you say you needed help!"

"Oh, like you lot would have helped me!"

When they saw the presence of the two Gryffindors, they stopped and grew quiet. The two groups looked at each other. Sev had the sense that whatever was going on, they did not want it to spread to the other houses. Too late for that by his estimation; Rose had the biggest mouth ever. And Lily was too young to think about discretion.

"We'll practice that spell later," Sev said, in an attempt to diffuse the tension before the cranky atmosphere was taken out on the Gryffindor girls. He gave Rose a 'clear off' sort of look, but she just made some superior don't-tell-me-what-to-do look in return.

And she was rewarded by the 5th year, who was their Beater, saying, "What are you staring at?"

"Time to go upstairs," came from the more diplomatic 6th year prefect on the team before Rose could spit out whatever it was that she was thinking.

Why Gryffindors tended to be so thick, Sev had no idea. He had seen that coming from a mile away.

"See you later," Scorpius said to Rose. Albus gave a half-hearted wave as the girls left, and the pair of them turned to head back into the Slytherin Common Room without another word. Sev, however, lingered. The older students did not intimidate him in the least.

They looked at him expectantly and also more tolerantly than the other younger students. Interesting side benefit of having classes with some of them and the hero worship they had of his father.

"What's going on?" he asked now that there weren't any other House members around.

"This stupid sod got himself booted off the Quidditch team by his parents for getting poor marks."

"We're so fucked! We didn't have any other good try-outs to fall back on."

"He's your beater, isn't he?" Sev asked, already knowing the answer to that. It was why he'd lingered.

"Yeah, what of it?"

"If you're looking for a replacement, I played at my previous school."

Though nobody said it, they all gave him that look that said he was too small and not burly enough to be a beater.

Sighing he said, "I guarantee I'll beat anyone out you can scrounge up, and I've got top notch gear already." Thanks to Mr. Malfoy's penchant for buying anything and everything he might think to need or want.

"All right, Snape, we've practice tomorrow after classes, we'll give you a shot."

AN - Have some life turmoil going on, so my updates may be a little slower than normal, but they are coming. As always, your reviews fuel the muses and also help me through the tough times!

Thanks to Duj, Guest, and Saamon-Sama for the review!