J

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 15

The Potter/Snape Peace Treaty

Sirius arrived in the Great Hall at exactly the same time as Harry did, after about a full second of staring the well built, well fed, Sirius Black launched himself on his Godson.

You may think that eighteen years is a long time that they would all be over their grief for Harry by now, but that wasn't the case, Harry was special. Harry was Lily and James's son, he had been cute as a button, an adorable child born into a world full of death and chaos, he had been the beacon of hope for their little group of friends, whenever anyone was feeling down they would go play with Harry and come out feeling hopeful again, he was their bright shining light, their hope for the future, and they often wondered aloud to each other whether the loss of Harry was worth the destruction of Voldemort.

It was selfish, but they didn't care, they had not celebrated the destruction of Voldemort like the rest of the wizarding world, they had mourned the loss of Harry, in their grief for their lost star they could not celebrate the demise of the evil wizard they had been combating for the majority of their lives, was it really worth the loss of Harry they often asked and selfish as it was the answer alternated between yes and no, with no being the most common answer.

Harry for his part was shocked, even though this was not the first time his slightly rabid mutt of a godfather had launched a surprise attack on him he had never really accustomed himself to it, Sirius had always been unexpectedly good at giving bear hugs, tight enough to squeeze the life out of a person, could give Hagrid a run for his money actually, and given Hagrids heritage that was quite an achievement.

Harry was in a daze, he knew Sirius was here, he knew he would be seeing him, but he wasn't sure he was ready for this. The pain of Sirius's death was still very raw; he had never really gotten over Sirius's death, Sirius was his father figure, he had kept him together though his training and the war emotionally, Sirius had kept him from going insane.

And now he was here, at Hogwarts, he knew his Sirius was gone, the one he had known as well as circumstances would allow, but he was still Sirius, and thus they must be a little similar at least.

Releasing him Harry found himself pushed gently back and examined by Sirius, "No doubt about it, your definitely a Potter." He said before pulling him back into a hug, Harry still staring off into space trying to order his thoughts.

Albus decided to interrupt them, after all from what he had been shown of Harry he didn't think he would appreciate the entire Great Hall watching one of his rare moments of weakness, after all he couldn't have the students thinking he was weak, he would never survive the first lesson, which reminded him, he would have to have a little chat to Harry about the man-eating horrible students that fed on weaknesses displayed before them, can't have him going into these things with confidence after all, confidence is only a feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

Coughing lightly and only managing to gain Sirius's partial attention and Harry's dazed glance he gestured at the student body which was currently staring at the pair with interest. After all it wasn't everyday your old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher decided to come in and attack your new one, even though they hadn't had a class with him yet they had a feeling that they were going to like this teacher, he just had an air about him, they had a feeling they were going to learn a lot from Professor Potter, and to a lesser extent Professor Granger. They had all love Professor Black but he just didn't seem to have the knowledge or experience that these other worldly new Professors did. Really who would you prefer, someone cool like Professor Black, or someone cool, young, handsome, experienced who knew how to handle all sorts of weapons and beat an Unspeakable without even using a WAND!

It was safe to assume that the student population, even the Slytherins were looking forward to lessons with Professor Potter, even though they would never admit it.

Sirius turned and looked at their watching audience before giving a short bow and sitting on a chair towards the edge of the Head Table, careful NOT to sit directly next to Snape.

Harry blushed at the sight of the entire school staring at the display his Godfather had just caused and rushed to his seat, right next to Sirius unfortunately it just so happened it was also right Snape, but this wouldn't be a problem, so long as he ignored Snape Snape would ignore him, hopefully.

Sirius wasted no time jumping right into the interrogation.

"So what house were you in?"

"Gryffindor"

"Thank god you weren't a slimy greasy grovelling Slytherin"

"There's nothing wrong with Slytherins, Snape either for that matter"

Sirius looked at him with an odd look on his face, "Yeah nothing except their all evil, and if your so fond of Snape how come you haven't said a word to him all day."

"Slytherins are not evil, they're just not stupid enough to openly support the light, and many of our most important allies were from or in Slytherin. And I haven't talked to Snape because I haven't had a reason to and he hates it when I talk to him without a reason and that wasn't until after the Potter/Snape peace treaty."

"The Potter/Snape peace treaty?" he now had the attention of practically everyone in the room, including Snape who was muttering under his breath that he would never agree to anything with a Potter.

"Oh yes, Albus was not impressed by our constant pranking and made us sign a peace treaty, said it was bad for morale or some such nonsense." Harry was enjoying himself for one of the first times since landing here, he was beginning to feel comfortable and fit in, he still hadn't had a real conversation with his parents yet but now that he was starting to settle in he was going to try to remedy that situation.

"And what exactly did this peace treaty entail?" asked Snape arching an aristocratic eyebrow.

"Um well the treaty stated that, Harry Potter and Severus Snape in light of recent events will each sign this treaty, this treaty will ensure that Severus Snape and Harry Potter will work together in relative peace and harmony (I don't expect miracles). Name Calling and playing of pranks is prohibited until such a time as the others demise or the end of the war, contact between the parties will remain at a minimum and should be restricted to business only. Violation of this treaty will result in the most horrible and severe punishment in existence."

"And then there was: Amendment: Baiting of the other party is also prohibited. That bit was added after a particularly nasty Order meeting in which we subtly insulted each other without name calling for the entire meeting trying to get the other to hex you first."

"Interesting. And what punishment would be so terrible to keep us from breaking this treaty?" Snape asked in his usual drawling tone, trying to cover up his interest in the conversation

"Oh, well, umm, if the treaty was broken Albus was going to put a bonding spell on us and we would be unable to leave each others company for an unspecified amount of time," Harry suddenly looked scared "Please don't give this Albus ideas" he added in a whisper to Sirius "He's going to be bad enough as it is." Snape was straining to try to hear what they were saying, failing miserably.

"Don't think I am going to sign the agreement here, I already have too many plans for you my dear Potions Master." Harry added with an evil smirk, loud enough that the entire Head Table heard wondering what they had been talking about.

James who was close enough to hear bits and pieces smiled from behind his glass while Sirius looked like he had just won the lottery, his son was a true Marauder, or at least he would be with a little training and guidance, after all one of the crucial factors involved in being a Marauder was a healthy love of Snape torture, even if he wasn't really evil he was still Snape and that made him a very ripe target, really who could resist with all that greasy hair.

Soon all the teachers with classes filed out signalling to the students dallying to hurry up and James, Lily, Harry, Hermione and Sirius were left alone at the table.

"Err, we should probably leave," said Harry, already having spotted more than one house elf waiting to come in and clear the Great Hall.

"Why should we move?" asked Sirius "I'm perfectly comfortable here, I never knew the teachers were living in such luxury while we suffered away down at the house tables. Even when I taught here before they weren't this comfortable, complained heaps to Dumbledore about it but he always just smiled at me saying I would get accustomed to it with time, hey do you think Albus took the charms off my chair, I'm gonna have to have a little chat with him later on I think."

It was true the teachers chairs at the High Table were extremely comfortable despite not looking like much, they probably had all sorts of charms on them to make them feel like lounge chairs while looking like stiff wooden things, lest the children suspect them.

"Well we should move because the House Elves want to come in here and clean up the Hall" Harry whispered as low as he could to his godfather

"House Elves!" Sirius fairly roared not recognising the imminent danger of mentioning them in front of Hermione "Why should we move just because of House Elves!"

Harry cowered down in his seat, this would not be pretty.

Hermione was suddenly reminded of one of her favourite pet projects before the war and wasted about a second of good yelling time to give a mental smile as she thought of starting up S.P.E.W. anyway as I said she wasted only a second before tearing into her speech, she may have been forced to abandon her pet project during the war due to the need to focus on other matters but she was not Hermione Granger for nothing, she had a perfect memory for these things and proceeded to lecture Sirius and effectively everyone else in the room about the horrid way people treat house elves and how they should be more grateful and give them holidays and sick leave and of course fair pay and equal to wizard rights.

Needless to say Sirius kept his mouth shut and everyone else nodded their heads in the appropriate places hoping to divert the teenagers wrath from themselves.

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Sitting comfortably in the teachers lounge, in the teachers lounge as a teacher was not something Harry had ever imagined, Hermione he could see as a teacher of children, a teacher at Hogwarts, it was probably one of her schoolgirl aspirations to be just like McGonagall before she agreed to take part in her training, before she changed her destiny like so many others to fit in with the times. But he had never ever in his wildest dreams seen himself as a teacher, not him, he was more of an action person than a teacher person, but here he was, and with the oddest group of people, come to think of it he would have never imagined this, if in fact if he had imagined this he would have apparated himself straight to St Mungos and admitted himself to the mental ward, he could see himself now sitting in a whitewashed room staring at the wall in a straightjacket, idly he wondered whether wizard hospitals had straightjackets or whether they had other methods for keeping prisoners in line.

Hermione had calmed herself down since her little tirade in the Great Hall but was still mulling over the possibilities of restarting S.P.E.W. even though here it was extremely likely it had never existed in the first place.

At first it was extremely awkward, the walk to the teachers lounge had been a silent one, no one really knowing what to say, especially Lily and James, not only had they just gotten a son back, a son who they had no idea what to say to, how to start a conversation with but they would also have to within the next few weeks announce Lily's pregnancy, something they were not sure how Harry would take to the news. Quite frankly they were not sure how Harry would take anything, they had barely had the chance to speak with him since he had arrived save for the initial meeting and mealtimes. They knew the gist of what Harry was like but they did not really know HIM, and they desperately wanted to they just weren't sure how to go about it.

Sirius ever shameless of course came to the rescue and broke the tension.

He was bouncing in his seat in anticipation; after all why bother with life stories when you could share stories and reminisce about tormenting Snape, something Mel had made him cut down on, in her presence at least.

"So Harry what did you do to Snape? Come on please tell me I need to know! Its very important!" Sirius burst out with all his dramatically brilliant enthusiasm.

Harry smirked at Sirius knowing perfectly well the bounty he held over his head,

"I dunno maybe I shouldn't tell you, might make you jealous" with another smirk. He knew they would. His pranks were brilliant everyone who had seen them knew that, even Hermione who generally disapproved of pranks would admit that Harry's pranks were spectacular.

Lily and Hermione turned away from the 'boys' as they started a conversation which in all likelihood would solely based on past pranks and their effects on Snape, although it broke the tension in the room for Lily and Hermione it was not their favourite topic and definitely did not inspire them as much as it did the boys. Instead Lily spent her time chatting with Hermione about Harry and their lives, finding out more about her son.

"You do know who you are talking to right? Right? You are talking to Padfoot and Prongs, by far the best of the timeless Marauders, nothing could live up to our mischief making records!"

"Oh then tell me what was your best Snape related prank?"

Harry had not pulled his first non-purpose related prank until the middle of his fifth year, four months into his training when he was forced to begin working with Snape, fed up with the scathing comments and having an infinite well of highly adaptable spells at his disposal Harry had proved himself as someone you DID not mess with unless you wanted to find yourself utterly humiliated, when Snape had retaliated he had proven himself a worthy opponent however Harry's pranks had far more appeal because no one but a close few even knew he was in the castle, Snape however was still keeping up appearances and going to the Great Hall for his meals.

Thus who would be more effective in the art of embarrassment, Harry whose presence in the castle was known to so few and was not seen out of his quarters and the training area the Headmaster had set up in his tower or Snape who was in the Great Hall for every meal and had the entire school population to watch as he performed countless embarrassing acts that the Weasley twins took great pleasure in duplicating the effects of for their joke shop. 

And the best bit, although it did not help him much now was that the Creevy brothers had taken pictures, which sold for a huge profit and that Ron had continuously owled to him.

It had been hard living in the same castle as his friends and knowing that they neither knew nor could find out that he was there and that he was lying to his friends albeit for safety purposes but it was still lying.

In those days he had been forced to tell them that he was being trained by an alliance of powerful wizards to prepare for the upcoming war, which although true was misleading.

Hermione had been the nest to join in the program after Harry's extensive success, Hermione's version of the program was toned down a lot, although it was designed to either make or break the wizard the course was specialized to fit with the power level of the person taking it, it would take them beyond their limits but only if they could handle it, if not you died from an overload of power, there was no backing out once you were in, that was a fact stressed before you agreed to the training.

Hermione had joined the course six months after he had started and it had come as a huge relief to have someone to talk to again who was not one of his teachers, although he had become very close to Albus it was just not the same as having someone your own age who knew you well to talk to.

While all these memories flicked though his head he happily listened to the chatter between Sirius and James who were arguing about what their best Snape prank had been.

He wondered what their reaction would be when he revealed some of his best Snape pranks, the other Sirius had always said that his pranks were a miracle, had no idea how he could pull such dazzling pranks off, personally he thought it was the spells he used, though more complex than the standard pranks and were not designed to be used as pranks Harry mainly used a combination of Offensive and Defensive spells with safety precautions and just a dash of the normal pranking spells. It was a lot more complicated to set up but also a lot more spectacular.

Soon enough James and Sirius had come up with a prank they both agreed was their best, well their best Snape related prank.

"OK we got it." They said in perfect unison

Harry smiled, "Ok tell me."

"Ok this one time we had Snape bow down everytime he saw Professor McGonagall and when she asked him to look at her when he was talking he confessed his undying love for her and followed her around presenting her with flowers and serenades, in front of the whole school of course, we got into a lot of trouble for it because the spell we used was pretty similar to the Imperious Curse which at the time was not as great an offense as it is today but it was still pretty bad, anyway beat that!" said Sirius

"OK then… well I had Snape see all the students and the teachers in the school as ghosts and whenever someone would leave the room he would see them going through the walls, of course he also saw himself as transperant and tried to walk though a wall, of course as he was not really a ghost it didn't work, then I made an illusion so it looked and felt like there was no way out of the room, he would have been stranded there until the next day if Albus hadn't needed a potion brewed, the illusion wouldn't lift until someone else entered the room."

"Prongs how did you survive this kid growing up, he's a pranking genius! The house would have been in tatters."

"I didn't" James said disappointed he could not be there for his son, even if it wasn't really him, it was another him, the same as him.

"What do you mean you didn't, you don't mean? Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to mention it, so where did you live, with me? Of course that would explain your mastery of pranks growing up with me as a guide."

"No I didn't live with you I lived with Lily's sister Petunia and her husband Vernon, and their son Dudley."

"So if Lily and James were dead and you lived with your relatives how'd you know me?"

"Simple Sirius you were quite famous in our world" he couldn't resist it would be too easy

"So I was famous in your world? I always wanted to be famous"

"Sure you were famous, first you were famous for betraying my parents, even though you didn't, then you were famous for escaping Azkaban and trying to kill me, then for being proved innocent and for the most individual fighting style in the Dark Wars, you even had your own chocolate frog card."

"I was on a chocolate frog card? I wanna see, I wanna see!" trust Sirius to look on the bright side of everything, the most important information there was of COURSE the chocolate frog card.

"Don't get too excited I've had a chocolate frog card since I was one." He put on his most condescending Slytherin voice

"And seeing the card would prove a little difficult, It involves a little thing called time and space." Harry replied exasperatedly talking to Sirius was sometimes like talking to a little kid, he just didn't understand the way the world worked, he probably did, and he just didn't act like it.

Sirius pouted, "No Fair, I finally get famous and I can't even enjoy it."

"Sorry Sirius, nothing I can do, the only way I can see that you can get on a chocolate frog card is either you get yourself famous or bribe the chocolate frog company, take your pick"

Hermione Anne Granger without a doubt the most brilliant witch her age, very successful researcher of anything and everything magical stood outside the stone gargoyle that guarded the Headmasters office, she had been there barely a second before the password was given and she was admitted entrance, this in itself was an extremely strange occurrence after all this was Albus Dumbledore's office generally only the heads of houses had the Headmasters password, for emergencies, he would have had them guessing too if he could.

Before long she had made her way up the spiral steps and was at the door to the Headmasters office, once again she was seized with curiosity as to what the Headmaster could possibly want, or need that would require her presence. She lifted her hand and knocked on the door.

At school she had always kept to herself earning herself a reputation as a bookworm, she avoided human contact as much as possible except with her teachers and adults who she respected, her early treatment from fellow Gryffindors, especially one Ronald Weasley had made her withdraw so far into herself that many wondered how she had become a Gryffindor in the first place, what they didn't realise was that she was strong, she was strong enough to survive without their help, sure at times she had wanted what they had, the closeness of friendship, to be part of a group but in the end she knew that when they left school, they would be on their own and that she would be ready for that while they, they who wasted their time on Quidditch and refrained from doing their homework because they had a date with that cute Ravenclaw would be doomed to failure, she would not, she would be successful.

 The Headmaster almost immediately ushered her in, obviously expecting her, sitting her down opposite her.

"Hermione, so glad you could make it, now we have had a rather extraordinary event occur here just a few days ago and I saw fit that you be informed."

AN: OK I'm going to leave it there, over 4,000 words, this is not the second part of the other chapter I was going to have but I realised I wanted to get some other stuff done before I could write that chapter it would have had to be a really really long chapter to get where it had to go, so anyway LMK what you think.