Severus woke up the next morning and was temporarily at a loss as to where he was. Then memory came flooding in and he groaned to himself and pulled the covers up over his head, determined to block out reality for just a little while longer.
His life was truly a neverending series of tragedies and he had to hope that this particular tragedy ended soon.
Truly he had to wonder what god he had pissed off to result in the cesspool that was his life. First, he had a shitty childhood, then he had shitty school days, then- and he could admit that this was mostly his own fault- he'd joined the Death Eaters and that was a truly terrible stage of his life. Then he had to hear that damned prophecy that spelled doom for his one childhood friend and her son which lead to him leaving the Death Eaters, but he didn't even get to properly tell them all to go screw themselves, because he then had to spy on them for Dumbledore! And then Lily still ended up dying! And Voldemort still lived!
So, he was then cursed to spend the next decade teaching at a school where his colleagues and even some of his classmates vividly remembered his school years making it nearly impossible to get any respect. Not to mention the actual teaching of students who, by and large, were too stupid to even learn how to cook, let alone how to make potions.
Then at the culmination of that first decade, Harry bloody Potter turned eleven and came to Hogwarts. Every time Severus saw him it was like his flight or fight reflexes from his own school days were activated- until he saw those damned green eyes that is. When he saw those, he was swamped by guilt and grief from both the original loss of Lily's friendship- oh how stupid he had been to throw that away- and from his role in her death.
And now he was being forced to live with the spoiled brat. Not only that, he was going to have to befriend the rich and famous sprog somehow, even though they had nothing in common except a thriving hatred for each other. Except, of course, Severus wasn't even able to use Harry's hatred of him as a bonding point since Alfonse wasn't even supposed to know Severus!
He indulged himself in his self-pitying for a moment longer then reluctantly sat up in bed. Even the sun shining through his curtains was tinted scarlet. He thought longingly of his lovely, dark dungeons as he got himself ready for the day.
Heading down to breakfast, Severus was startled to see Potter sitting in the common room. He was at the same table and surrounded by the same books as the night before. He altered his course to intercept with Potter.
His reception last night had been fairly positive, so he figured he may as well try and continue the positive note. Although, now that Severus thought back on the interaction, he had to wonder if Potter's intentions had been truly altruistic. When Severus had come into the room, everyone had flocked around him because they were so interested in the mystery he presented, and while he had hated being swarmed like that, he now had to wonder why famous, attention-seeking Harry Potter had called everyone off.
Because, in Potter's mind, that kind of attention was the goal, was it not? So by calling off the crowds, was that an act of jealousy rather than camaraderie?
Severus sighed. Jealous or not, the sooner he befriended Potter, the sooner he could return to his own life.
"Have you had breakfast yet?" Severus asked politely, but Potter didn't seem to notice, so he tried again, slightly louder this time, "Hey Potter, have you had breakfast yet?"
Potter jumped away from him and Severus hid his snort of derision. Served him right for being so blind to his surroundings.
"Sorry, uh no I haven't, and would you mind calling me Harry? Since we're going to be living together and all."
Severus hadn't even noticed that he'd called him 'Potter' out loud.
"Yes, I can do that." Severus paused for a brief moment, then said, "And you can call me Eli."
If Severus had known that Albus was going to give him such a ridiculous pseudonym, he would have insisted on being more involved with the creation of his new identity. As it was, he absolutely refused to go by 'Al' as it would amuse Albus far too much to be seemly.
"Eli, then. Did you want to get breakfast together?" Potter said.
Severus swallowed several sarcastic responses and resigned himself to repeating the action many times in the near future. He responded with a simple, "Yes."
"Alright, let me just pack up my things," Potter said.
Severus stood around waiting for Potter to be ready to go, struck by the surreality of the situation: here he was, standing around in Gryffindor Tower waiting for Harry Potter to finish collecting his things so they could go to breakfast together.
"I'm ready," Potter said, shrugging his bag onto his shoulder and heading towards the door.
Severus followed him out of the common room in silence, still pondering the bizarre situation he was in.
He figured that it was alright to be so quiet since Potter seemed comfortable with the situation. The silence allowed Severus to keep his mouth closed and removed the risk that he'd say something Potter would find offensive. The goal was to avoid any setbacks in his mission.
As they sat across from each other in the Great Hall eating their breakfasts, Severus looked up as he finished his cup of tea and was disconcerted to realize that at no point during the meal had he felt abnormal about sitting at the Gryffindor table.
It had taken, what, three meals? For this part, at least, to feel normal.
He continued to stare off into space as he processed this and as he did so, Potter caught his eye.
Potter seemed to take this as a cue to start a conversation, because then he said, "So, what classes are you taking this year?"
And Severus realized that he had absolutely no idea.
What the hell had Dumbledore enrolled him in?
He couldn't very well say that to Potter, though, so reining in his mild panic, he said, "Oh I still have a meeting with Professor McGonagall today to sort out the final decisions."
Potter nodded and said, "That's fair, I imagine it'd be hard to make decisions like that from afar."
"Yes. I can say that I'm definitely taking Potions and Defense though. Probably Charms and Transfiguration too," Severus said, since those were some of the more common subjects.
Then Severus asked, "What are you taking?" since it seemed like the polite thing to do.
"Oh, let's see, Charms, Transfiguration, Defense, Herbology, and Potions," Harry said, counting off the classes on his fingers as he went.
Severus barely managed to contain a snort of derision at the counting and then he said, "So you want to be an auror, huh."
Harry looked mildly surprised at this, as though it took a great genius to guess that Harry bloody Potter wanted to be an auror. In some ways, Severus agreed that it was a sensible path to take since it would get him free training in how to defend himself, but really how cliché of him.
"Well, yes, but a lot of careers require those classes, or at least some of them. How'd you guess it so easily?" Harry asked, with a mildly curious expression on his face.
Severus couldn't believe he'd said that. Really, he had no basis to have made that assumption on… oh god he'd forgotten that he wasn't even supposed to be from England. Dumbledore had cast a spell back when he'd first transformed into Eli that altered his accent to make it sound like he was a native Floridian as Severus had requested, and then he'd promptly forgotten to consider the implications this should have on his behavior.
Which was absolutely ridiculous since he'd chosen to be from out of country specifically so he would have an excuse to not hero-worship Potter for the ridiculous Boy-Who-Lived thing.
And now he's gone and put his foot in his mouth. Absolutely brainless.
"Ah- I want to be an auror so I recognized the classes and just assumed that you wanted the same when you named those classes," Severus finally said, hoping this would alleviate any suspicion.
"Oh, that makes sense. So, are the required classes to be an auror the same in the United States? Are they even called aurors over there?"
Severus now realized the utter inanity of saying he was from somewhere he knew nothing about.
Just because the stakes were comparatively lower didn't mean he had to be slovenly about the operation, Severus now realized to his regret. He should have done his research properly and properly developed his backstory. Things like the classes he would have taken at a real U.S. school and career aspirations- both the U.S. version and the English version. Hell, "Eli" didn't even have any hobbies or interests, beyond potions, he supposed, since he had spent the entire day yesterday in the potions section.
"Actually I was raised as a muggleborn, and my mother had been planning to send me off to live with relatives in England once I turned sixteen, so I never learned a whole lot about wizarding culture in the States because I knew I'd be doing the most important part of my schooling here in England," Severus said slowly, trying his best to come up with something believable that wouldn't be something Potter could mention to Granger, who could then easily call him out on a lie.
"So, I looked more into the English side of things and," here Severus had to force himself to sound normal and casual when he said this, "I thought that being an auror sounded interesting."
Severus really hoped that Potter would buy that mess of lies he just told him and resolved to write it all down somewhere to help him keep his story straight.
"That makes sense," Potter finally said after a moment.
Then Severus asked, "How did you decide you wanted to be an auror then?"
He figured the more talking Potter did, the less he'd have to worry about contradicting himself later. Even if it meant feigning interest in Potter's life.
"Oh, a lot of reasons," Potter said with a nervous chuckle. "Um. It's getting kinda dangerous here because of Voldemort and, well, I want to do my part to fight him, and, well the skills I'd learn being an auror would just generally be useful."
Severus waited for Potter to continue, to enlighten him of his duties as the Chosen One and to brag about all the dangerous situations he's been in. But he didn't continue. And Severus realized that he needed to find a compelling reason that his "mom" had to move to England when the war was heating up. For once, Severus was grateful that the Ministry had been so adamant about the Dark Lord being dead for the past year because he could claim he hadn't known about the war.
"Wait- Vol-dee-mort?" Severus asked, purposefully mispronouncing it slightly, "Who's that? And what danger?"
"I'm guessing you don't get the Daily Prophet, then? Basically, Voldemort is this bad guy, this xenophobe, as Hermione would say, who first got power a couple decades ago and used that power to do his best to get rid of all the muggleborns. Then he…disappeared, for about fourteen years- but now he's back and trying to do the same thing again."
Severus was again surprised that Potter didn't take the opportunity to brag about his involvement in all this, but he supposed that Potter might just assume that his fame was international even if Voldemort's wasn't. It sounded like the kind of ridiculous thing Potter would believe.
"I guess I'm glad my mother didn't stay here for long after they dropped me off, if she would be in danger. Do you think it'd be safer for me to claim to be a halfblood with all that going on? Since I very well might be, we just don't know for sure who my father is," Severus said, frantically trying to come up with a backstory he could live and remember with for the next couple months.
He figured that since he liked to forget his own father's existence, pretending that he'd not even been in his life wasn't much of a stretch. And it'd be much simpler for him to explain not getting much mail if he pretended his mother was off doing…something… somewhere very far away. He'd sort out the details later when he was alone.
"I honestly don't know. I don't think you really need to worry about it since you're safe here at Hogwarts- Dumbledore is the only one Voldemort is afraid of, and the castle itself has centuries of wards and enchantments to protect us. If you want better advice though, I definitely recommend asking Professor McGonagall about it when you go to talk to her about your schedule."
"That's a good idea, thank you for the advice, Harry," Severus managed to say without grinding his teeth too obviously or stumbling on the name.
Severus looked down at his plate and was startled to realize that it was empty. He set his utensils down and glanced over at Potter's plate.
"You don't have to wait for me to finish," Potter said when he caught Severus's glance.
He was relieved that he wouldn't have to sit around and wait for Potter to finish eating. He gathered his bag and stood up.
"I am going to head out now, I have some planning to do that I want to get done before my meeting with Professor McGonagall," Severus said.
"I'll see you later then Eli, good luck with your schedule," Harry replied.
Finally, Severus was able to make his escape. He hurried out of the Great Hall and quickly decided on the library as his destination.
As he went, he ruminated on his morning so far. Breakfast with Potter- take two- was not nearly as bad as the first try had been in some ways and was much worse in others. He felt like he had made some significant strides in befriending Potter as he was supposed to, but he had also come dangerously close to raising some serious suspicions about his identity.
And now he had committed himself to pretending to want to be an auror. Maybe he could use the "brand new" information about the war Potter had told him to get out of it…? Like, he had wanted to be an auror, but did not want to fight in a war?
This did not feel like sound reasoning for him to get away with suddenly changing his aspirations like that.
Severus decided he would put a pin in the problem and reconsider it once he had outlined his backstory properly. Something better might come to him with all his thoughts laid out in front of him.
And at some point, he really did need to meet with Professor McGonagall, since the packet of details Dumbledore had promised to send him had never arrived. He also needed schoolbooks; Severus was a little horrified to realize.
He wondered if Albus had been kind enough to inform the other professors that he was not really a student, and as such did not need to actually turn in schoolwork. The thought of having to spend hours of his day to complete assignments that he had already done years ago was a truly horrifying one.
Honestly, he knew that Dumbledore wouldn't have informed the other professors. Hell, he had not even told him, Severus, what his schedule would be, so it was ridiculous to hope that Albus had gone out of his way to make Severus's life more convenient.
Although, Severus thought as he sat down deep in the Potions section of the library, he was supposed to be a Gryffindor. And Gryffindors are not exactly known for their academic prowess.
His grades were not going to matter, since this identity was not intended to last past school, so it is not like there is any reason for Severus to strive for good grades. He would simply avoid doing his work, and what little work he did turn in would be mediocre at best. Just like the Gryffindor he was supposed to be would do.
This decided, Severus pulled out quill and parchment from his bag and set about recording all that he had said about himself to Potter and fleshing out the rest of his back story.
.
Harry watched Eli walk off and returned to poking at his breakfast. The longer he managed to sit at the table, the more he would be able to get down, and the sooner he would be able to regain the weight he'd lost over the summer.
He felt bad that he'd been the one to tell Eli about the whole mess in England, especially since Eli had just moved here from the States and didn't know his blood status for certain. He hoped Professor McGonagall would be able to give Eli better advice.
Thoughts of the war and the prophecy were so intimately connected that Harry felt himself almost reflexively begin to turn the phrasing of the prophecy over in his head.
He had long since acknowledged that that this wasn't productive and that he'd be better off not thinking about it. So, he pulled his thoughts away from the pit they were falling into it by forcefully turning his thoughts back to the other things he and Eli had talked about.
He was looking forward to- probably- having someone in his classes who also wanted to be an auror, and he was sure that Ron would be too, if Harry remembered to tell him when they finally saw each other again.
Once more, Harry wondered how long this period of Ron and Hermione only wanting to be around each other would last. He missed his friends and it felt like he had hardly seen them at all this year.
He sighed and looked down at his plate. He decided that he had eaten enough and picked up his bag to leave.
This morning he'd risen with the sun after another night spent wandering through Voldemort's mind. This was more sleep than he usually managed to get on these nights. He could never fall back asleep after that particular ordeal.
Unlike most of these nights, Harry had had a plan and a goal that he'd vaguely planned out the previous afternoon that he had intended to be implemented at the earliest opportunity. He just hadn't expected that opportunity to be so soon. With the decision to restart the D.A., Harry had spent his time in Voldemort's mind searching for memories from his school days. He was sure that there must have been a time where Voldemort had tutored other students, and he had been right.
As with everything else Voldemort did, he was good at teaching other students. Harry had only managed to find two memories before he'd woken up, but he had to admit, this was a vast improvement from when he'd first begun to enter Voldemort's mind.
Even once he'd generally gotten a feeling for the layout of Voldemort's mind, finding a specific memory was incredibly difficult. The labyrinth of doors and hallways was, so far, impossible to reduce to a simple organization scheme. Every time Harry had thought he had finally discovered the pattern and tried to use his theory to predict the next memory, he was inevitably disappointed.
He knew that it was not organized chronologically or by location. He supposed that it could be organized alphabetically, but he hadn't figured out what aspect of the memory was being used to categorize it, if this was even the case.
This difficulty, almost puzzle-like aspect, of Voldemort's mind gradually drew him further and further in. After he'd discovered that touching Voldemort would force him into his mind and his myriad horrifying memories, he'd started doing his best to avoid letting that happen.
But then as he was drawn back into Tom's mindscape, another piece of the puzzle would- well, not fall into place, exactly, but make itself known- giving him a better view of the overall picture. And then the next time, it took less to drive Harry into Voldemort's mind.
Because the memories Harry stumbled upon, even when they were as graphic or horrible as whatever Voldemort was currently up to, had an element of surrealism to them. Mostly due to them taking place in times that Harry had not existed for. Not surreal enough to stop Harry from being sick after he woke up, not enough to stop him from having nightmares of what he'd seen on the nights he stayed in his own head.
But enough that, when combined with Harry's interest in solving the puzzle of Voldemort's mind, it was increasingly worth it as an escape from the vivid and painful reality of the scenes he was forced to witness otherwise.
Harry had known from the start that access to Voldemort's memories would be useful and he had, in fact, already done his best to record interesting spells and techniques he saw him use. At least, he had done so on the occasions that the memories had not been too terrible or when he was simply so numb that he was able to operate on autopilot.
Thinking of autopilot, Harry was startled to realize that he was sitting in his favorite study nook in the library with his books out and quill and parchment ready to go on the table in front of him.
He hadn't noticed even a moment of the walk through the castle.
Harry idly wondered if his tendency to use Voldemort's mindscape as an escape mechanism was making him more prone to introspection and almost losing touch with his body, in a way.
Because when he was in Voldemort's mind, he was bodiless, and had no need to attend to things like walking around or carrying his things. Whether Harry chose to witness Voldemort's activities in real time or explore his memories, he was invariably bodiless and empty-handed.
It could also have to do with the isolation and increased violence from his summer with his relatives-
"Hey Harry," Ginny said, startling him out of his train of thought. He looked up from the parchment he'd been vaguely staring at, and saw that Ginny was standing just inside his nook.
"Hey Ginny," Harry returned, "How'd you find me? Oh, and you can sit down- if you want to."
Ginny slid into the seat across from him and said, "Thanks Harry, and as the twins would say," here she affected a mysterious and mischievous tone, "I have my ways."
Harry thought for a moment and tried to pinpoint where, exactly, he'd left the Marauder's Map. It'd been a while since he'd needed it for something, so he wasn't quite sure where he'd left it. It was probably in his dorm room though, not exactly somewhere Ginny had regular access to, but maybe he'd left it in the common room?
"Your ways don't have anything to do with a certain Map, do they?" Harry asked.
"Nah, that's your way of knowing where people are, and I'd never be so unoriginal as to copy your method," Ginny said loftily. "Seriously though, that's yours and I wouldn't touch it without asking you first."
"I wasn't certain I hadn't left it around somewhere and maybe you'd picked it up for me, but I should've known you would assert your originality before stooping to copying your brothers," Harry said.
"Oh, no, I haven't seen it around. Anyways, do you mind if I join you?" Ginny asked, with something in her voice that Harry couldn't quite identify.
"Definitely, as long as you don't mind me interrupting you to ask your opinion on the lesson I'm writing for Tuesday," Harry replied.
"Sounds great," Ginny said and started pulling her books out of her bag.
They lapsed into a companionable silence, and Harry was suddenly really thankful that she had come. It was much easier to stay in the present with a friend around.
For the first time since he sat down, Harry shifted his grip on his quill and properly focused on the parchment in front of him.
He hadn't witnessed all those horrors in Voldemort's mind for nothing, and now he was going to do his best to write a lesson that used what he'd learned. He set his quill to the parchment and got started.
.
Severus checked the time and saw that it was nearing 11 o'clock and reluctantly started packing his books away. Minerva was generally free at this time, so it was as good a time as any to go and sort out his schedule.
As he walked through the corridors, he felt a shiver run down his spine, and he suddenly had a terrible feeling about how this meeting was going to go.
He reluctantly knocked on Professor McGonagall's door and entered when told to do so.
"Ah, Sev- Alfonse, I was wondering if I would see you today," McGonagall said, setting aside the paperwork she'd been working on.
"First, I've decided to go by Eli, and, wait, should you even be calling me by my first name?"
"That's right, my apologies Mr. Hopkirk. I am assuming you're here about your schedule?"
"Yes, I am, but if you knew I was going to come to you about it, why didn't you just send it to me? I am sure you have got better things to do with your time."
"I would have sent it to you, but as I am sure you have guessed, Albus was the one to plan out your schedule, and I decided to preempt you storming into my office over it by letting you come to me," McGonagall said and that bad feeling Severus had had earlier slammed back into him.
"What. Did Al-Professor Dumbledore do," Severus ground out, horrible visions of months spent in Trelawney's incense filled tower and dodging Hagrid's crimes against nature filling his mind.
"Here you are," McGonagall said, handing him a standard student timetable.
Severus took a fortifying breath before scanning it.
"What was he thinking," Severus demanded, looking over the schedule again, "Where's Defense- and, why is Potions on here? Of all the classes to make me retake-"
McGonagall sighed. "I knew you were going to say that, I told Albus this was a terrible idea, but he insisted- you know how he is, and said that you were welcome to bring it up with him, if you wanted, but I think you know how that would go."
Severus grumbled his agreement.
"As for his justification for those specific courses, he expressed his concern that taking Defense would put you in situations that would inevitably bring up your memories of being discovered as a spy," Minerva paused for a moment.
Severus gestured impatiently, "And potions?" He prompted, when she didn't resume immediately.
"You're not going to like this, so I'd like to kindly remind you not to shoot the messenger," McGonagall warned him with a stern look over her glasses. "He said a lot of things, but it boils down to two words: bonding and tutoring."
Severus stared at her in shock. She couldn't be- but she was. There was a smile lurking in the corners of her mouth. Oh, she was trying to squash it, but it was there, and she was enjoying this.
"You cannot be serious," Severus finally said in response.
"Oh, but I am," McGonagall said, and Severus could finally hear the humor in her voice and realized that it'd been there the whole time.
"This isn't funny," Severus burst out, "this is my life he's mucking about with!"
"And that's precisely why I am laughing. It's certainly not my life he's messing about with because I am not the one who was childish enough to make an enemy of the child figurehead of our cause."
Severus spluttered, "But- he's so- his father-"
"Let me stop you there," Minerva interrupted him. She paused and fixed him with her stern look again.
"Listen and listen well. I have decided that Albus hasn't given you enough guidance on this, so close your mouth for a moment and listen to me. If I hear you bring up Mr. Potter's father in the context of disparaging Mr. Potter's character again, I will have you in detention until next summer."
"I will not be in this body-" Severus started, trying to get the situation back under control.
"Does it look like I care which version of you I have in detention? Harry is not James. You have got to get that into your head if you're ever going to fulfill this mission of Albus's. James did not even raise Harry, and if you continue to conflate them, then it will be because you are being willfully ignorant."
Severus sat in stunned silence as she finished speaking.
Finally, he recovered enough to say, "I do not confuse them, they're just both remarkably similar spoiled brats."
"I think if you would exercise that Occlumency that you're so proud of and separate your memories of James from your memories of Harry and review those memories of Harry, you'll find that he is remarkably less spoiled than you seem to think he is. I think you ought to go now and think about what I've said. Your books should come in the mail tomorrow morning," Minerva said, turning back to her paperwork in clear dismissal.
Severus remained seated for a heartbeat before he tore out of his seat and out of her office. If this ridiculous body was good for anything, it was for making a quick escape.
.
AN: here's the new chapter a a bit early! I'm thinking I might try updating on fridays for a bit so we'll see how this goes! please review!