Disclaimer: I do not own HP & Co.
A/N: Sorry for the delay. I'm preparing to move this weekend (gee, wonder why?). Hopefully, once moved & comp is replaced, can update more often & get more typing done.
WOW! Thanks Reviewers!!!! Wanted to get this out, so I didn't have time to respond to every review, but I loved them! FYI-Names won't help; GoddessMoonLady is on the right track. Dante Lewis, thanks for the incredible review-again, names won't help. HP knows the names of Snape's family already.
As for them being clueless you're right in many ways, but also, their isn't much reason for them to suspect anything (yet).
Some of you commented on the suspense/not rushing it/delay/ when they will find out: I wanted to develop some type of relationship between the two before they found out. Also, they won't find out till after school starts (and I like how they find out).
Some of you also figured out 'the twin', good job. I didn't do it to be mean, but to give support to story line.
Chapter 19 appearances can be deceiving
Severus admits that his reason for this afternoon's lesson weren't just to teach the boy occlumency. No, Snape had an ulterior motive. He couldn't help but think about what Harry had said while he rambled earlier that morning. 'To finally have a family of my own, someone to care for me' Snape was curious as to what Harry could have meant by those words. The boy had a family that spoiled him, didn't he? Lily's sister, her husband and their son. Even if they were muggles, they had to know about the boy-who-lived, they were probably instructed by Dumbledore 15 years ago to spoil the boy. Harry and his cousin must be so close in age that the two were probably like the Weasley twins, best friends, always together when possible, and completing each other's sentences. Snape was an only child, a 'lonely only' some would say. Often as a child he would wish for a brother or sister to share things with, someone that would always be there, similar to what he saw in the Weasley's relationships. Severus was so happy when he learned that his wife was expecting twins. Even after his wife died, he took comfort in the fact that they would always have each other, someone to share life's burdens with, someone to talk to who would understand.
Severus shook his head, no time for this, he thought, Potter should be here any minute now. As if on cue, he heard a knock on his door.
"Come in." Snape said, after reminding himself that he was going to try to 'play nice'.
Harry walked into the room. "Is this a good time, professor?"
"Perfect." Snape said, pretending not to notice the look of shock on Harry's face at his professor's friendly tone. "Ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Legilimens."
Hmm, much different than he imaged, Snape thought, as he found the information he was seeking. Memories of Harry as a young child and his life with the Dursley's played in the boy's mind. Harry obviously didn't use his journal after this morning's discussion.
"You okay, Potter?"
"Yes, sir," Harry replied, shocked and embarrassed that his professor saw so many troubling memories. Harry didn't understand what was happening. He had been able to keep Snape from seeing the memories of his childhood most of the summer, why not now?
"Okay, let's do this again. Try to reign in your emotions. Legilimens."
Once more Snape saw pictures of Harry, cooking, cleaning and waiting on his relatives. He saw him being hunted by Dudley, locked in a cupboard, and locked in his room. Snape watched as the three youngest Weasley brothers tore bars away from his window and pulled Harry into a get away car. He saw Christmases with a young Harry receiving a coat hanger, while a much larger boy opened up a mountain of presents and sweets.
"Potter, sit down." Snape said, trying to keep the bite out of his voice.
"Do you know why I was able to see so many memories just now? Why they were so clear and accessible?"
"No, sir."
"It is because you are vulnerable. You had an emotional morning. After our discussion, you should have taken the time to clear your mind. If necessary, carry the journal with you everywhere you go, just be sure to place protective charms on it." Snape cautioned. "It is especially important that you use it after emotionally stressful times. You also might want to think about other options besides the journal to help clear your mind. The Dark Lord will do his best to distress you, cause you to lose control of your emotions. He will make you vulnerable and then go in for the kill."
Harry paled at Snape's choice of words.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, I didn't mean kill like that, although knowing the Dark Lord, it is a possibility. I meant he will take advantage of your vulnerable state to gain access to your memories. I don't think he will grant you a few minutes reprieve to write in your journal. If nothing else, at least picture yourself writing what you are feeling in the journal. This should help you organize your emotions and help you get them under control."
"But sir," Harry asked, "Why was the journal working so well before?"
"Harry, what is the last thing you do at night?"
"Write in the journal."
"And what do you do before our lesson?"
"Get up and get some breakfast," Harry replied.
Snape just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. At Harry's confused look, Snape replied, "Piece it together, Potter. How stressful or emotionally taxing is breakfast?"
"Oh," Harry replied, as he finally understood the point Snape was making.
"Oh, indeed, Mr. Potter." Snape paused as he came to a decision. "Starting tonight, while we are working on the appearance potions, I will use that time to check on your progress in occlumency. It wouldn't hurt for you to be prepared at any given moment to repel me from your mind."
"Yes, sir," Harry replied, wondering if he should start to expect sneak attacks when he was walking down the corridors.
"Okay, next week we can work on potions that are set to be reversed by antidotes." Severus said, as Harry went to leave the lab. "That will only take one or two nights, if you listen."
"Okay, thank you, sir." Harry said, hoping that even though the revealing potion didn't show a potion in his system, that one of the antidotes would still trigger the reversal process.
"Oh, and Potter, interesting look for you."
Harry just gave him confused look as he walked out the classroom door.
Snape shook his head after the boy. Harry was smarter than he originally gave the boy credit for, Severus thought, but still utterly clueless at times.
At least the boy was getting practice at potions, even if they didn't serve any real purpose at this moment, once more thinking that the object to learning appearance altering potions was for a prank. Although where he was brewing them was mystery.
Snape couldn't figure out why the boy was so desperate to change his appearance though. For his hair to have grown that fast, it had to have been a spell of some kind, the logical choice was a potion since they had been working on such potions all week, of course, Snape thought, given the boys tendency to steal ingredients in the past, Harry could have just taken the potion when he wasn't looking. Snape laughed and wondered what Harry's reaction would be if he knew that the appearance that he had chosen was so similar to the way he looked when he was a Hogwart's student.
"It's good to hear you laugh, Severus." Albus said as he entered the room.
"Evening, Albus."
"Care to share what is so amusing?"
"Just curious over Potter's use of appearance altering potions."
"Speaking of potions, Severus-"
"Headmaster, do I need to remind you that you said I could have until the end of next week to inform you of my decision? I fully intend on using every second of that time."
"Fine, fine. I was just wondering if I needed to contact the ministry to reschedule the test or if I should warn Harry to start studying for it."
"Tell him it wouldn't hurt to start studying." Snape said with a smirk, before grimacing and grabbing his left arm. "Make sure Potter clears his mind before he goes to sleep tonight."
Seeing Severus's action, Dumbledore said "Yes, of course. You had better go now, but be careful. You're important and not just to the order or for the information you bring back."
Snape dismissed Albus's words with a wave of his hand as he headed to his room to grab his things before leaving the castle.
Saturday morning, Severus spent recovering from Friday's 'meeting'. He finished his report to Albus, detailing what he had learned last night, which wasn't much. All he knew was that the Dark Lord was planning something and that Potter was somehow involved. No surprise there. The only difference is that it doesn't seem like the Dark Lord is willing to wait until the end of the school year as he normally does. Severus had a feeling that the Dark Lord's plan would be implemented before the new year was upon them.
The remainder of the weekend Severus thought about what he learned regarding the boy-who-lived in the past few weeks. Severus thought back to yesterday's 'make-up' lesson in occlumency. "No wonder he so readily latched onto the mutt," Snape mumble, "even I would be a better caregiver than those muggles." Maybe he was wrong about Harry being like James, giving how he was raised, he obviously wasn't spoiled, in fact, he was treated worse than some house-elves Severus knew.
There was no denying that the boy had a knack for finding trouble, but he often tried to protect his friends and keep them away from danger or punishment. He also took things too seriously, on the plus side, he admits to his mistakes, often taking it too far, by becoming paralyzed with the guilt.
Perhaps he does understand, Severus thought, and maybe we do have a lot in common.
Saturday afternoon, Moony decided to track down Harry and share his suspicions. He finally found him down by the lake, reclining on a blanket, reading.
"Harry, can we talk for a moment?"
"Of course, Moony, come down and join me."
After Moony sat down, he took a look at Harry, before deciding to speak. Words failed him, he was shocked at what he saw. How could Harry not notice all the changes that were happening to his body? "Harry, have you noticed how much you've changed in the last week?"
"What? Oh, you mean the height, I already told you about that."
"Well, then, what about your hair?"
"Yeah, I admit that's a bit strange. I never knew it to grow at all, except one time when Aunt Petunia gave me a really bad, really short hair cut, it grew over night that time, but only to the length it was before. I didn't even notice that it was at my shoulders until Professor Snape mentioned it at breakfast on Monday."
"Harry," Remus said, wondering how clueless the boy could get, "On Monday it was shoulder length, now it is more than half way down your back."
"Really? I could do with a change, hopefully the longer it is, the easier it will be to keep neat."
"Harry, if it keeps growing at this rate, you'll be lucky if you aren't tripping on it when school starts."
"What! You don't think it'll keep growing, do you?"
"I don't know, we will just have to wait and see, I don't think there is anything we can do about it, anyways. What about your eyes?"
"What about my eyes?
"Harry, did you even look at a mirror this morning?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Here," Remus said as he conjured a mirror and handed it to Harry.
"Wow! My hair is long." Harry said as he noticed that his hair, normally short black, messy hair was very different. The color was still black, but that seemed t be the only thing that stayed the same His hair, was, as Remus said, more than half way down his back, it was also curling at the ends. Unfortunately, it didn't appear to be that much neater, the curls seemed to make his hair tangle easily or cause it to stick out in different directions. "I think I like it like this, although I will definitely need to get something to tie it back him."
"Your eyes, Harry, look at your eyes," Remus said, clearly lacking patience with Harry's wandering mind.
"Okay, okay." Harry said as he looked at the mirror again. At first he wasn't sure if he was seeing things correctly, He took off his glasses and looked at the mirror again. No, the same reflection was staring back at him. He blinked his eyes, once, twice, nope still the same image.
Remus watched as Harry stood up and faced different directions, positioning the mirror at different angles. Still looking in the mirror, Harry laid down on his stomach and looked at the mirror again. Slowly, Harry raised those shocking eyes to Remus and said "I don't suppose a conjured mirror can be charmed?"
Remus shook his head no.
Harry sighed, "The height, well, it's natural for teenagers to hit growth spurts, even if this one isn't quite normal. The same could be said about my hair. I mean, I've never been 'normal' so why should this be any different. But those eyes. At first I thought it was a trick with the mirror or with my glasses. Or even a reflection off of something, but it's not is it?"
Again, Remus shook his head and this time said, "No, it's not."
"But my eyes-" Harry paused for a moment "They're BLUE! How? Why?"
"I think you must have found a way for the appearance charm or potion to wear off."
For the first time since this conversation started, Harry started to smile. "Really? Do you really think so? But how? I tried everything I could think of. And most of that was weeks ago. And I've only worked on timed reversal potions with Professor Snape, we weren't going to work on the antidote potions until next week." Harry paused as he thought of something else.
"Hey! I even brewed a revealing potion and it didn't show anything at work. Charms or potions."
"I don't know what to tell you about that, Harry. I'm just sharing my suspicions. The fact that you've grown, practically overnight, your hair has changed drastically in the last week and your eyes have changed color since yesterday, makes me believe that these changes are the result of some spell ending. The only other option is that someone is playing a joke to change your appearance."
"No, the only ones brave enough to do that would be Fred and George, and they would want to be here when their victim starts to freak out about the changes."
"Well, then, maybe the original charm or potion was timed or something else happened to reverse it."
"Moony! That's it! You're a genius." Harry said as he gave the werewolf a quick hug and ran back towards the castle.
"Harry! Harry! Stop! Where are you going?" Remus shouted before standing up quickly to take off after him.
Standing up a little too quickly, perhaps, the normally agile werewolf's legs got tangled up in the blanket that he and Harry were sitting on, and the next thing he knew he was falling, falling, falling, back down onto the ground when everything went black.
"Remus. Remus. Are you okay?"
"Hmm," the werewolf replied, wondering where he was, and even more importantly, where Harry was. "Harry."
"As far as we know, Harry is fine. It is you we are worried about. We have no idea how long you were out there for. Luckily Minerva and I came along when we did, otherwise, it would take you even longer to recover."
"No, no, I'm fine." Remus said as he realized that he was in the hospital ward, being looked after by Madam Pomphrey. "I need to go find Harry."
"You are not leaving here, Remus. You took a nasty fall. You have a concussion from where you hit your head on a rock. Your broken arm will take a bit of time to mend, since I didn't want to use any potions so soon after the full moon. Not to mention that you could have pneumonia thanks to the splashing of the Giant Squid. You were positively soaked through when Minerva found you. No, you are staying right here, at least until after dinner. Preferable overnight."
"Poppy, I'm fine. I really need to go find Harry."
"I told you, Harry's fine. We will let him know what happened. Now take these potions and rest." She said, handing him two bottles of potions.
"I'm fine," Remus said again, trying to get up.
"I am not going to let my first patient in over a month, fall into a decline, because he wouldn't listen to me. You are staying in that bed until dinner and you will take these potions if I have to knock you unconscious to give them to you myself."
Recognizing the signs of a stubborn witch, Remus gave in with a long sigh. Taking the potions, he fell into a deep sleep, wondering why he was such a genius in Harry's eyes.
End Chapter 19 appearance can be deceiving
So tell me, how do you think SS should react once he knows?
Wanted to get this out to you, please forgive the minor errors (not beta'd)
Upcoming: Chapter 20 Novo Visius Adoptio
11/5/2004