These characters aren't mine, sadly, and I make no profit from Harry Potter. I cry out to the stars, "If only, if only."
Chapter 3: Offending Selena
As Selena led him into her office, he had a fleeting fantasy about being alone with her in her office. He banished quickly; it was more probable that it would be a lecture on how her brother had warned her that Harry was a troublemaker.
"Sit down, please," she said, gesturing to the seat in front of her desk as she shut the door. She took the seat behind the desk, and sighed. "I'm not exactly sure how to begin this conversation. I suppose I should be honest. Severus told me that he'd overheard you talking to your friends. You said you were inflicting emotions on other people. Is that true?"
This was not what Harry had expected at all. He sat there, his mouth hanging open in shock. How had Snape found out about that? And why did he tell his sister? Harry didn't know if he really wanted to let it slip to a total stranger that Snape had been right, and Harry was concerned about this new ability. But his attraction to Selena took over his brain and answered for him before he could stop it. "Yes, professor."
"I thought as much. You didn't relax at all on the train," Selena mumbled.
"Excuse me?"
"Forgive me. As hard as this is going to be to believe, you're a male siren Harry," Selena said. "I'm a female siren, and that explains why my voice didn't work on you. When I had been given your names, I said "pleased to make your acquaintances" with a calming, soothing voice, meant to relieve the tension in the compartment."
Harry sat there in a stunned silence. Him? A siren? That was impossible. "Aren't sirens born with their powers?" he asked, looking for anything to dispute her theory.
"No, we aren't," she replied. "In female sirens, our powers appear when we start puberty. Male sirens tend to develop their powers between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one."
"But...I can't be," Harry stated firmly. "It's just not possible."
"Say that as much as you like; it won't change the facts," Selena sighed.
"You could be wrong, right? There's always that chance," Harry reasoned.
"It's possible, but not probable," she replied. "You don't have any classes for the next hour. I would be pleased if you would consider spending this hour in my office, learning to control your new abilities."
"Professor, I don't know..." Harry trailed off.
"It would make me very happy," Selena purred. Silence prevailed for the next minute. "It didn't work, did it?"
"What?"
"Well, I put a command in my voice. Anybody who isn't a siren would have eagerly agreed to do as I asked," Selena explained. "You didn't. And according to everything we just went over in class, you could only ignore my message if you were a siren."
Harry didn't want to believe her; he had enough problems in his life as it was. He didn't need new powers, nor did he want them. Couldn't he be a normal wizard like everybody else? No, he had to be the Savior of the Wizarding World and now he had to be a siren as well. "Alright, let's get this over with," he whispered.
"That's entirely the wrong attitude to approach this with, Mr. Potter," Selena admonished. "An attitude like that leads to sloppy work, and sirens can't afford to be sloppy."
"Whatever," he mumbled under his breath.
"Quite clearly, you are not interested in being responsible and saving people from your mood swings," Selena snapped. "I'll not teach someone who is not interested; it will be a waste of time. You are dismissed, Mr. Potter."
"Professor, I didn't mean to"-
"I don't care what you did or did not mean to do. You are lucky enough to have another siren at your convenience. I never had another siren to teach me. I had to learn the hard way," Selena said brusquely. "You are dismissed."
"Professor"-
"What part of "you are dismissed" do you not understand? Go! Be gone with you," she said, waving her hand towards the door and involving herself with paperwork on her desk.
As Harry left the office, he realized he had just turned another member of the Snape family against him.