A/N: Well, well, well – here we are, with the 'sevitus' or 'severitus' foundation all laid out, with Snape and Harry both confused and hurting from the awful truth. The usual disclaimer applies, of course. Any comments to reviewers will now come at the bottom of each chapter.
Now, watch Harry try to deal with the cavernous rift that exploded between he and his friends last chapter, as well as juggle the truth of his parentage and the good and bad that is within, all through Severus' eyes…
Chapter 7 – Round and Round We Go
Severus Snape, at the moment, was highly unsettled. It could be seen in the tense set of his shoulders, in the slightly nervous, jerky movements of his hands as he continued to add, stir, crush, grind and pulverise ingredients for the potion before him.
As one might have thought, the potion was very difficult – and, with complex layers upon layers of instructions that appeared to contradict at first glance, it certainly was. A potion worthy of the Potions Master indeed – but it was not the reason Severus bent low over the cauldron, fingers shaking slightly as he added the final drops of newt's blood, sighing and blinking rapidly as the potion turned the required sickly green. The real reason for his jerky movements and unsettled actions sat not far away, fidgeting in much the same manner as the professor.
Severus eyed Harry Potter covertly, as he had been doing for the last few days. It was foolish, his constant searching of the boy's newly arrogant features, now that the glamour of his false father's appearance had been re-cast, but Severus could honestly not help himself. For all the blistering, condemning words they had traded last Friday in this very classroom, he could not stop looking, watching Potter's diffident little gestures, once an open sore that festered in his dreaded Advanced Potions lesson with the nervous sixth years, but now faintly reminiscent of…something.
Something, Severus thought darkly, that definitely does NOT come from that arrogant bastard of a Potter…
Severus began to incant slowly, watching Potter jerk to attention out of the corner of his eye, as he spooned into a small, shallow glass basin the amount they would need for the test, and methodically extracted the requisite fifteen drops of blood. When Potter came shaking towards him, he seized the boy's quivering hand, turning it palm up, cutting deeply out of spite, growing even angrier when he merely flinched and blinked at the pain, as his own blood went dripping into the potion before them. Once the fifteen drops were within, the insolent boy jerked back his hand, furiously muttering a healing spell before Severus could say a word, green eyes holding black defiantly.
The potion began to smoke gently, as was expected, breaking the two from their mutual glaring. The smoke was nearly colourless at first, then strengthened slowly to a deep, silvery green, eliciting sighs from both of them. Severus was the first to react, angrily Vanishing the rest of the used potion with a word, ignoring the words that seemed to hang between them.
It was true.
Carefully spelling the rest of the viable potion into several vials despite his growing anger, Severus eyed the still fidgeting teenager, who was now leaning against a desk, staring blankly at the silver cauldron his professor was rapidly emptying. Severus muttered another incantation, and the vials began to float. He herded them into his office, locking them away in a cupboard – Scrire Paternam was a rather difficult, time-consuming potion to make, and the seventeen vials he had would fetch good prices. Returning to the classroom, he was greeted by the sight of a thoughtful, humming Potter, who was listlessly putting away ingredients, almost all of which, Snape reminded himself, his hands curling into fists, were mundane, but rather expensive items.
"What do you think you are doing?" he got out, startling the boy, who looked at him with those hateful green eyes.
"Helping…" the boy turned back to his task, hovering the newt's blood back to a spot on the nearby cabinet of ingredients.
"I have no need of your help!" Harry shrugged, leaving hold of the jar of pickled salamander legs he'd been about to ferry away. Snape turned his back on him, spelling the spattered, grimy cauldron and glass basin clean. He turned round, black robes sweeping spectacularly, to find Harry watching him almost boredly. "What are you still doing here? Get out!"
"No." Potter folded his arms, glaring at him. Snape could not think what this stupid boy – "I'm supposed to have an Occlumency lesson this evening."
"And who will teach you?" Snape strode over, shaking with anger. "If you think – "
"Dumbledore said – "
"Professor Dumbledore!"
"Dumbledore," Potter ground out, eyes flashing with anger, "said you were to continue the lessons." Snape opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off. "You don't believe me? Ask him." Snape held the gaze of the boy before him for a moment, then turned, stomping back into his office.
He emerged, moments later, quivering with fury.
"It appears," he managed to grind out, face contorted in anger, "that you were correct. Legilimens!"
Thirty minutes later, both men were sweating copiously, but considerably less furious at each other – the hard practice left no room for emotions, as Snape first put Potter vigorously through his paces, attacking his mind without pause, then ordering him to return the favour, which the boy did, all too willingly. Snape, for his own part, had been turning over Potter's seeming aversion to calling the Headmaster by his title, and now, in the break between the boy's considerably less pathetic attempts to enter into his own, heavily occluded mind, decided he had nothing to lose by broaching the subject.
In a proper manner, of course.
"Why do you not give the Headmaster his proper title, Potter? Or do you think yourself above such simple manners that…" Severus Snape trailed off in bewilderment – the boy was chuckling –
"Can't even ask a simple question without insulting me, can you?" the boy got out, between his chuckling.
"I fail to see what amuses you so, Potter," the Potions Master said, disdainfully lowering his wand. Potter eyed him, almost calculatingly, for a moment, then spoke, seeming to measure his words.
"Er – let's just say…you're not the only one who left his office last weekend, frothing at the ears." His face darkened as he spoke, tightening the grip on his wand. Snape tried – and possibly failed – to keep the surprise from showing on his face, as Potter snorted and continued. "You didn't think I noticed, did you?" He shook his head, shrugging. "Well, now you know…I did a good bit of frothing at the ears myself." His tone and stance changed slightly, as he continued with the lesson. "Legilimens!" Snape focused on the attack, trying to confuse Potter in the mists of his mind at first, then, switching abruptly to a different tack, brought up the memory of that awful Saturday morning, playing out the Headmaster's cheery words and stance.
The boy jerked away from him immediately, colouring angrily and grinding his teeth. Snape's eyes narrowed as he spoke, sneering.
"I see no reason why his words have such an – ahem – interesting effect on you, Potter." He paused, raising an eyebrow at the shaking boy. "Care to share?" Potter did not seem to even hear him, he was so angry.
"He was smiling…" he seemed to mutter, over and over again, to himself. Snape tried to keep from chuckling nastily at his – dare he say it – progeny's seeming madness. Potter glared up at him suddenly, his eyes glazed over with emotion. "This lesson is over – I'm going."
"The lesson is over when I say it is, Potter – "
"Let – me - out!" came the surprising hiss. Potter turned on him, gripping his schoolbag convulsively by one handle, looking white with rage. He took a step toward Snape, one that was surprising in its menace. "If you don't want me to – destroy this classroom, I – suggest you let. Me. Out. Now." Snape smiled mockingly, raising the wards, inwardly shaken at the sheer rage that seemed to underline those words.
He watched the boy storm silently from the room, surrounded, it seemed, by a pulsing, throbbing halo of emotion, and wondered if he had not underestimated him.
Shaking his dark head in dismissal, Severus Snape returned his attention to his desk, where lay a pile of assignments he needed to correct. He hoped, for once, that Potter would not be utterly stupid in finding a way to relieve his – ahem – strong emotions.
He snorted to himself, doubting even that.
"Come in," Severus Snape volunteered, his tone bored, at the knock at his office door. Who would be foolish enough to –
Potter.
The boy was angry again, that much was obvious, Snape thought darkly, to himself. Why on earth is he here, of all places? It was a Hogsmeade weekend, too – why isn't this shaking, pale boy off screaming and running round the town, buying useless snacks and meaningless joke tricks?
"Potter – " he wearily began, only to be sharply cut off.
"Don't call me that," Potter muttered darkly, sliding, still shaking, into the chair in front of his desk. Snape looked at him sharply, irritated and unsettled by this, and other appearances Potter had been making over the last week – popping into his office or classroom during lunch or after dinner diffidently, sometimes fidgeting and looking lost, or looking as if he'd like to strangle something or someone with his bare hands, asking meaningless, sometimes jerky, questions all the while.
Snape ignored him now, dipping into his nearly-empty bottle of red ink with his eagle feather quill, so as to put the finishing touches to a rather lengthy insult he was writing on a harebrained essay of that stupid Macmillan boy. He'd given up trying to make Potter leave, or better yet, stop coming, midweek, when he'd found that there was, it seemed, within the boy, a deep well of anger and an even deeper one of stubbornness that geared him to scream the insults right back at his professor. At his father, as he'd stubbornly insisted, once, eyes gleaming maliciously at Snape's blanched features.
Severus shook his head grimly. Potter, he'd decided, after seeing that fierce, almost maliciously pleasurable expression – to the boy himself, of course – was mad, or swiftly approaching it.
"What do you want this time, Potter?" Snape sighed, finally. He always ended up asking this at some point – it was best to get it over with –
"What happens if you miss a lesson – and – er – nothing's wrong, or anything?" Potter said, the angry look on his face becoming one of eagerness. It disturbed one, seeing that…rapid transformation. It certainly unnerved Severus and set him on his guard, though he did not show it immediately.
"If you ever absent yourself from my lesson, Potter, I will not hesitate to remove you from my attendance list – is that clear?" Potter shook his head, ignoring the threat.
"I wouldn't do it to you," he said, dismissing his Professor's dark look, "I was just – wondering, you know – what the official policy is. Sort of." He peered at Snape, who seized the opportunity to try to sift through his mind – whatever he was thinking or planning, it couldn't be good –
…a flash of a syllabus: DADA, it said, written boldly across the front in swirling script – Harry copied it eagerly, easily affecting a satisfied tone – "Oh, I've found it, Professor, thank yo- "
Snape was ejected abruptly from the mind of the boy before him, who now stood, eyes flashing angrily.
"What the hell did you think you were doing – "
"Finding out what you were really up to, Potter," Snape said slowly, dangerously. "Sit down, immediately – "
"I warned you to stop that – " Potter began, starting to shake again, no sign of acquiescence in the defiant lines of his body. Snape cut him off, rising to his feet imperiously.
"And I informed you that I would – if and only if you ceased to commit such folly, Potter!" Snape thundered. "What on earth are you thinking – planning to absent yourself from Defence lessons – "
"I know half what's on that syllabus already!" Potter shouted back, defiantly. "I can't stand that man – never paying attention to anyone else while I'm in class – "
"I would've thought you of all people would welcome that, after that toad of a woman – "
"It makes me sick," Potter muttered furiously, dropping into his seat, clenching his hands spasmodically. "Everyone hates it, in my class – don't know why I bother going anymore, not when Hermione can't lecture me about skipping lessons – "
"What do you mean?" Snape demanded, slowly regaining his chair, looking sharply at his – no, it was Potter – none of that son nonsense –
Potter shrugged, a little listlessly.
"I'm not friends with her anymore," he stated matter-of-factly. "She was always nagging at me to tell her what was going on – you know, with me…changing, and that – and I wasn't sleeping at one point, with all the research I was doing, because of the letter, and she noticed that – " The boy was beginning to babble, raking his hand compulsively through his hair.
"Stop that," Severus said, sharply, mind whirling. "Don't babble – why are you no longer friends with the Granger girl? What exactly happened?" Potter looked up, looking lost again.
"It was that Saturday, after the meeting with Dumbledore," he began, hollowly. "I told you – I was angry, and I…went somewhere to work it out," he said carefully, his eyes not meeting Snape's, "and after that I went somewhere else, to think for a bit. I got tired of being in – that place – and Ginny found me on the way to Gryffindor, where I was headed next." Potter seemed to stare at a spot above Snape's shoulder as he talked of these 'places' – disconcerting, of course, but also fairly obvious that he didn't want to talk of the exact locations of the 'places'. Snape sighed impatiently.
"I suppose you won't tell me where you went?" He asked, disgustedly. Potter started, training those green eyes on him. "Never mind – go on – "
"Well, I went with her, up to the common room," the boy continued, after a sharp intake of air. "And they were waiting for me; Hermione, Ron, Neville – even Luna – and Hermione started in on me. She called me my full name, eventually, and that just set me off." His face hardened. "I'm going to change that, sometime…anyway, I started shouting at her to leave me alone, and that my secret wasn't her business. She said it was, just as much as Ron's business was hers, and I went for that," he shot a look at Snape, "because they never saw fit to tell me they were going out, and it was so bloody obvious – and now she's not talking to me. Ron and Neville still are – just barely, with Ron. And Ginny and Luna still talk to me, too. I just thought Hermione wouldn't care if I skipped Veron's lessons…or, at least, she wouldn't give me grief about it now…" He trailed off, staring at his hands again. "You're right – it is stupid." He stood up suddenly, giving himself a little shake. "I'll just – "
"You will sit down," Snape began, annoyed, "and you will inform the Headmaster of your concern, and continue attending the lessons of Professor Veron, or you will have me to deal with." The boy muttered something indistinct, but nodded jerkily, anyway. "Now – a question it irks me greatly to ask – why did you come to me with this? Why not the Headmaster, or, even better, someone else who would not easily see through your intentions, as I have done?" Potter started, and bit his lip thoughtfully.
"I'm not sure," he said lamely. Snape groaned in frustration.
"Why are you even here, Potter?"
"As I keep telling you, don't call me that." He stood up straight, the picture of diffident arrogance. "I am not a Potter – "
"As you are certainly not a Snape," his professor finished angrily for him. Potter shook his head, disdainfully.
"When will it enter your head that I've never said anything like that?" he said, almost to himself, tugging the corner of his robe from where it had wedged in a crevice of the chair he'd been seated in.
"You've meant it," Snape supplied darkly. Potter rolled his eyes impatiently.
"And how would you know? You don't know me, whatever you think – you certainly don't know what I think, anyway…" He made rapidly for the door, but paused in thought, just as he reached it. "And the reason I come? Because," he said, turning slightly to a taken aback Snape, "you tell the truth, as you see it, at the very least. And you're not afraid to tell it to me." Potter paused again, thoughtfully. "And, you're actually the one person I know that understands my anger at that – that letter – Dumbledore certainly doesn't." He paused yet again, giving Snape a slightly sardonic, mocking look. "Hope I was of – of service, Professor. Good afternoon." He was gone before Severus could voice any kind of retort.
Severus Snape stared hard at the door to his office. The boy was absolutely infuriating, sometimes – acting so mysteriously one moment, and laying his pathetic mind wide open the next.
Got you interested, though, doesn't he? Got you thinking how he'd be if those worthless Muggles he stayed with hadn't gotten their inept hands on him –
No! Professor Snape swirled an angry question mark atop the essay of – who was it – that dizzy Chang girl. He wouldn't let that little, smirking voice get the better of him now.
He wouldn't admit to himself that he wondered. Wondered what would have happened, what he would have done, if that arrogant prick hadn't waved his silly wand over his son, and –
God, Snape thought, full of horror. I just called him my son…
He buried his face in his ink-splattered hands.
It was positively shameful, the way he went on…
Severus Snape sighed again – the interruptions were driving him mad –
But not as mad as the presence of the person entering now, who slipped easily into his dungeon and walked confidently over to the complicated potion Severus was stirring frantically. It had been several days since that embarrassing visit during the Hogsmeade trip, and Severus had begun to think he'd been free of the boy's annoying presence.
Potter.
Again.
Severus gritted his teeth, wishing it could have been anyone else – even Draco, who had lately developed an unpleasant habit of dropping by occasionally to whine about his lost power in Slytherin, and how his illustrious father wasn't communicating with him at all, now that he had escaped Azkaban…
Severus sighed. His head hurt. His hands and shoulders ached from the stirring. And it was all made worse by the presence of this boy, who actually looked happy, for once.
It, Severus thought darkly, switching to the counter clockwise, square strokes the instructions called for, was not to be borne.
"Boy!" he demanded sharply, becoming even angrier when Potter merely looked at him. With – dear Merlin – pity.
"You've gotten to the fifty-eight counter-clockwise stirs, have you?" the boy murmured, dropping his bag carefully out of the way of the sweaty, nervous Potions Master. "Let me help – I can take over for the next set of clockwise ones, since the potion'll just need to simmer after those – "
"Not," Professor Snape sneered, "if you want the blasted thing to actually work, Potter," he said the name as if it were a swear word, purposely trying to infuriate the stupid boy.
It, for some ungodly reason, did not work.
"You know, you'd do well to remember I did get that Outstanding on my own merit," the boy merely said, giving him a cool look. "Besides, you're practically sweating in the potion – I can stir just as well as you, too – "
"Just go away," Snape half-snarled, half-pleaded. The boy was not even looking at him – he was staring at the cauldron with narrowed eyes, watching the last three, squared strokes of Snape's long-handled stirrer. Suddenly, the boy stumbled close, almost tipping the small pot of crocodile scales into the potion. Severus reacted instantly, feeling a roar of impatience about to tear from his throat, diving to the side to catch the ingredient pot before it fell…
…only to have Potter, smirking triumphantly, wrest the stirring-spoon from him, and begin to stir in measured, clockwise strokes. Snape glared at him for moments, his anger and incredulity nearly suffocating him at once.
"You – you – insolent – foolish – "
" – brilliant, resourceful son of yours…?" Potter finished innocuously, an oddly hooded grin appearing on his face. Severus spluttered, his mouth failing to form words.
"Y – you're – n-no – "
"No son of mine…?" the insolent boy finished again, the grin slipping of his face, replaced by a smaller, equally hooded, smile. "Don't worry, Professor, you don't have to thank me – all you have to do is sit down. And glare at me, if you wish. That should be sufficient, yes…" Potter muttered the last sentence to himself, abruptly switching his stirring direction and deftly reaching for a pinch of powder from his left.
Snape, helpless with anger and muted relief, sat down nearby and followed his – the boy's instructions to the letter, trying hard not to admire or praise his able, if slightly fumbling, work. Potter worked for a full hour on the potion, before turning the heat down and wiping his brow, leaving it to simmer for the second time, as the book had instructed. Snape eyed him as he spelled away the sweat on his hands and arms – it was a rather vigorous potion to make, the Enchantment Strengthener –
"I suppose you're pleased with yourself, almost ruining five hours' work with your little stunt," Snape sneered. Potter shook his head, smiling faintly.
"Quite pleased, actually – you looked like you needed the rest." He sat down not far from Snape, running his hands through the still-sweaty hair that hung on his brow. "It's a complicated potion – took me ages to find – "
"And of course you saw fit to ask the advice of no one in your fruitless little search – certainly not the Potions Master, who you thought to be your father…" Snape said, as nastily as he could He never could help himself around the boy – he was so dammed foolish at times, overworking himself in the silliest ways possible –
"Considering how you reacted when I told you, it wasn't a bad idea, was it?" Potter pointed out, his tone getting a bit short. Snape just sneered at him again, ignoring his salient point, trying to get under his skin somehow –
"Wonder what's got you so perky today, Potter," he said snidely, watching how the boy flinched, imperceptibly, with great satisfaction. "Made up already with your dear little friends?"
"Not yet," Potter answered doggedly, some of the stupid smile finally leaving his face. "but I will – got a splendid little 'secret' to tell Hermione now, spent ages getting the story perfect – "
"You aren't going to tell her about your dear old father, Potter?" Snape continued, affecting a tone of mocking remorse. "How simply shocking – "
"You never believe anything good of me, do you?" the boy shot back, his tone finally sharpening satisfactorily. "Of course I won't tell her – not when you practically dragged me into your office and swore me to secrecy the other day when you panicked after overhearing me asking Ginny if I could talk to her in private – don't think I don't see what you're doing with this," he added, sharply. "You're just trying to make me angry, as usual – "
"And succeeding," Snape said triumphantly, leaning back in his chair. "Fascinating, isn't it? All I have to do is simply mention your precious little Gryffindor friends, and you redden like that foolish Weasley boy – you should see yourself now – " The boy ground his teeth, his face starting to turn the peculiar red-and-white Snape had gotten used to. "There we are – I do wonder what would happen if I was to mention the Weasley girl – sickeningly besotted with her, aren't you – pathetic – "
"Leave her out of this," Potter said, gulping hard, suddenly, violently getting to his feet.
"Pray tell me why, Potter," came the nasty reply. This was going so excellently –
"Stop – calling – me – "
"Temper, Potter – " The boy, instead of going into one of his now trademark rages, merely threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of utter frustration.
"You're impossible, sometimes – " He lunged for his bag, shaking sweaty hair out of his face, checking the time on the broken, yet functioning face of the wristwatch on his left hand. "I've got to go, thank Merlin," he paused in the doorway, which he'd gotten to ridiculously rapidly, "for you, anyway. I'd eventually have to turn the tables, you know – start calling you father – "
The shot told, and Snape sat back in his chair, red in the face, as a now-smirking Potter left the room.
The boy, he told himself some time afterwards, still watching the simmering potion, is a menace.
A smart menace, he grudgingly admitted, glancing at the door through which Potter had left earlier, but a menace, just the same.
Just over one week later, Severus Snape watched, covertly, the slightly stooped figure that trooped past his concealed spot in the library, unconscious of the sharp black eyes that watched him. It was Potter – no – well, not exactly, at least.
Snape turned the page in his Annual Potions Compendyum: 1919. He didn't know what exactly to call Po – the boy now.
I'm certainly not going to call the brat my son¸ Snape thought firmly, keeping his eye on the dark-haired, slightly less thin figure, which sat two or three tables away, bent over a huge book – some rubbish on Defence, no doubt, Snape sneered to himself – occasionally turning pages and scribbling something in that leather-bound book he'd seen with Po – the boy many times. He amused himself with thoughts on what the little brat could be writing in the book – 50 Points on How to be an Annoying Little Gryffindor Sod, Severus chuckled nastily to himself – before turning his attention back to his own, handsome grimoire – several times more respectable than that shabby little book of Po – that boy's.
Ten minutes later, Severus found himself staring absently at Po – the boy, again. Giving himself a slightly helpless little shake, he forced his traitorous attention back to the pages of his grimoire. His habit of staring at the boy had become even more pronounced after he'd finally dosed him with the Enchantment Strengthener five days ago. He'd been shocked at how much the boy had shrunk, after that, and how much stockier he'd gotten, as well. Even his face had changed slightly, the features losing their sharpness, regaining that delicate arrogance that characterised his arrogant, false father. Severus shifted uncomfortably in his seat, berating himself for the hundredth time for not taking some kind of picture, or something he could study before the glamour and the potion had been repaired and restored.
He turned his page again, rather violently. It wasn't anything personal, really – he'd just have wanted to – to really see his – God, he wasn't going to say it.
I'm going mad¸ Severus thought, a little desperately. Wanting a photograph of that – brat…
Suddenly, the boy looked up, seemingly suspicious of being watched, and caught sight of him. Snape bristled, sighing inwardly, shutting his book with a loud thump. There was nothing for it – he'd been meaning to ask the boy something, anyway –
"Boy," he snarled, pausing the brat in the action of hastily gathering his possessions – to run off elsewhere, no doubt – "Sit. Down." His son – may as well call him that, there was no way he was calling him Harry – sat down, the muscles in his hands clenching with frustration as he thumped his books back down on the desk. Snape ignored the wild look in the boy's eyes, ploughing determinedly on. "Have you come to your senses about attending the class we spoke of?"
"You know full well that I've been going, Professor," the boy spat out, curling his hands into fists on top of the table. "I saw you – you asked Professor Veron if I was attending at dinner on Wednesday, didn't you?" He turned accusing green eyes on a now slightly uncomfortable Severus. "What do you really want to know?"
"Whether you acted on my advice, Po – boy – and told the Headmaster, like I asked…" Snape trailed off at the rebellious look on – dare he say it again – his son's face. "You didn't, did you? Fool of a boy – "
"Oh, leave it," the boy snarled back, rising abruptly from his seat. "I'll tell my problems to whoever I like – don't you dare tell Dumbledore, it's not his fucking problem – "
"Language, boy!"
His son began to laugh hoarsely, stuffing his books into his worn schoolbag.
"You say that every time…bloody predictable, you are," He stood up, hefting his bag onto his shoulder. "It's not your problem either, is it?" Snape glared at him, momentarily robbed of all speech. "That's what I thought – you'll understand I'll be bloody glad, leaving this place for Christmas, even if I'm barely talking to my so-called friends," he said the word bitterly, "so – goodbye. Have a nice holiday, I should say – as if you'll even try…"
With that said, he shoved violently past Snape, leaving his father standing, utterly bewildered, by the now-empty table. What had happened to the so-called reconciliation the boy had been almost – well – giddy with, that day he'd tricked Severus into letting him help with the potion?
Severus Snape shook his head, muttering resentfully to himself. You could try to help such an ungrateful brat, of course – but where it would get you was another matter.
Where it had gotten him filled his thoughts for the next few hours, but was eventually dismissed. After all, he had important things to do and think about – the Headmaster had given him the task of helping one of the older Weasley brood bring the new spate of Order recruits from Romania in time for the initiation, and he'd managed to convince Voldemort it was really a desperately important visit to his poor, yet noble relatives in the same country. Snape surveyed his dungeons carefully, making sure everything was in good order.
Yes, he had infinitely more important things to do – more important than thinking about the sullen brat who was undoubtedly now on the Hogwarts Express heading hundreds of miles away, to his dead fool of a godfather's dank house.
A/N:
Hi guys! This chapter is also a wee bit abrupt, but I like it this way. I was going to write the next chapter from Harry's point of view, as he reaches Grimmauld Place and all that, but I'm thinking about doing the chapter, or some bits of it, from someone else's point of view – I was thinking Remus, or even, partly, Ginny, or even splitting it in three ways. I'll see, though. The next chapter should be along in at least two or three days, as I'm going to be rather busy the first few days of the week, but anyway.
Thanks to all who reviewed! The next chapter, just to give you a hint, will be called something like this: Chapter 8: The Hippogriffs Are Not Merry.
