Harry was pacing around his room in agitation. He had already rummaged through Rowle's trunk twice, but there was no indication as to how it got to the Room of Requirement or clues to the boy's whereabouts. He didn't want to consider the worst, but the case was taking increasingly nasty turns.

Not knowing what to do, Harry tried to contact Pansy to bounce some ideas off her, but she wasn't picking up her mirror so far. He cast Tempus absentmindedly. Half-past nine already. He still hadn't decided if he should call Severus and how he would explain his discovery if he did. Polyidus Thompson couldn't have known about the Room of Requirement, and Harry found himself reluctant to outright lie to Severus if he could help it.

Coming to a decision, Harry threw a pinch of floo powder into the fireplace.

"Paul?" Fortunately, Severus was in his office, cataloguing ingredients. He looked at Harry questioningly from the piece of parchment in his hand.

"Could you please come over to my quarters if you have a spare moment, Severus? There is something you might want to see."

Probably sensing the urgency in Harry's voice, Severus nodded. "I'll be in a minute."

Harry put his head out of the fireplace, and Severus stepped through the green flames almost right away.

Harry motioned to the open trunk. He saw the exact moment when the understanding dawned and Severus swallowed back a snide comment he had obviously had on the tip of his tongue.

"Is that—"

"Alexander Rowle's trunk, yes."

"Where did you find it?"

"The Room of Requirement," Harry said after a pause.

Severus regarded him with an unreadable expression on his face. "For a homeschooled wizard, you are acquainted with the halls of Hogwarts remarkably well, Polyidus Thompson."

Harry bit his lip and looked down at the floor.

"I see," Severus said finally, his words laced with irony. "I guess I shouldn't ask you any questions if I don't want to hear any lies, right?"

"I'll tell you everything later, I promise," Harry said, hand reaching to the bridge of his nose to straighten the glasses that weren't there. "What matters now is how this trunk got there, who brought it and what they did with Rowle."

To Harry's relief, Severus didn't press the issue. Instead, he opened the lid and started inspecting every item carefully. He checked the pockets of every robe and was now leafing through Rowle's Potions notes. Harry had already looked through the trunk but decided against saying anything. He suspected Severus would insist on doing it himself anyway.

Severus extracted a sock from between the parchments with a disgusted expression.

"Someone has already been through all of this," Harry said defensively. "It's not me who created this mess in the first place."

"You never know what somebody might miss in a hurry."

"True enough."

"It's time to have a good chat with that Talbott brat and his goons," Severus snarled after fishing out an almost empty jar of bruise paste. "They've gotten away with their despicable bullying for far too long, and I can bet a gallon of Felix Felicis that they are involved in this somehow."

"No, please don't say anything for now!" Forestalling Severus's furious protests, Harry hastily added, "I have Talbott's class tomorrow, and I will talk to him myself. We need to tread carefully here."

"Carefully," Severus scoffed. "Carefully would never work on the likes of him. Strutting like they own the place, ganging up on other students, and then turning away and laughing about it to the delight of their sycophants. I know the type well. They would just escalate their hilarious pranks until they are outright murder attempts. This behaviour must be nipped in the bud. Unless the perpetrators are Gryffindors, of course. In that case, no matter what they do, the staff just wag their fingers complacently and praise the students in question on a job well done." The words dripped with bitter sarcasm.

Harry fidgeted uneasily, longing to offer comfort and maybe an apology, because it obviously was not just about Talbott anymore. The Marauders, despite being dead for many years, still haunted Severus. Or maybe he was thinking about Harry himself, slashing Malfoy with Sectumsempra in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Yet Harry realised that anything he could say would be unwelcome, let alone extremely difficult to explain.

"Bullying should not be tolerated," he said with conviction instead.

Severus just threw him a contemptuous glance and busied himself with the content of the trunk again.

"We do need to be careful with Talbott, though. If he is somehow involved, there's a high possibility that Richardson is too. We don't want to tip that one off early," Harry added, trying to sound reasonable.

That reminded him that he hadn't checked on the Defence Professor since morning. He took out his surveillance ball and peered into it. The office was in even more disarray than usual, and its owner was pacing in agitation.

"Is it really the time for that?" Severus asked incredulously.

"Richardson is nervous about something."

"And you know this because your crystal ball told you so."

"Just come look at this." Harry cancelled the silencing spell on the ball.

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but Divination is not my best subject," Severus said but came over to the sofa where Harry was sitting anyway and looked over his shoulder.

In the ball, Richardson opened the window with an impatient wave of his wand and let a tawny owl in. He untied the parchment from its leg and studied it for a minute, face thunderous. Grabbing an inkwell from the desk, he hurled it at the owl who dodged and left with an indignant hoot. A string of colourful obscenities later, the note was turned to ashes with a snarled Incendio. As soon as the last flames died down, Richardson marched out of the office.

"Is it happening right now?" Severus's breath ghosted over Harry's ear, making him shiver.

"Yeah."

"I sincerely hope Trelawney does not have one of these."

Harry grinned. "Nope, this is one of a kind."

"Can you see other parts of the castle through this?"

"Only Richardson's office."

"A spell or some kind of transmitter?" Severus demanded.

Harry decided to spare him a sleepless night going through everything in his office and a living room—Severus was definitely paranoid enough for that—and fished a snow globe out of his pocket.

"Fascinating." Severus's long nose almost touched the glass. "Big Brother is watching you."

"Huh?"

He made a face, probably at Harry's lack of culture. "It's from a book. About a dystopian future."

"Had enough of dystopia in my past, thank you very much."

Severus was still sitting close, his collar undone, revealing a jagged scar across his neck. Harry wanted to know how it would feel under his fingers, his lips. The proximity was setting every nerve in his body on edge. Realising he was staring, he tried to distract himself by rewinding the image in the ball.

The only visitor in Richardson's office that afternoon was the Head Girl coming to give him a new password to the Gryffindor common room. Richardson positively leered at her during the short interaction, and Harry wanted to throttle him even more.

"What a sleazeball."

"Indeed."

Severus stood up abruptly and returned to the trunk, even though he must have been already finished with it by now. Harry felt his absence by his side keenly. He stood up himself and strode to the shelves behind the sofa. Most of them were still largely empty as he hadn't bothered to unpack half of his things.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked. "I've got wine if you'd like some."

He produced a bottle of elf-made wine Narcissa Malfoy gave him that Christmas, as she did every year. The first time, Harry was really surprised. But apparently, as Andromeda explained, saving a pureblood from Azkaban put you on their Christmas list, and it would be rude to refuse. He usually let Pansy choose something appropriate in return, thanking heaven he didn't have to exchange presents with Draco.

Nodding absentmindedly, Severus dug into Rowle's clothes. Harry conjured some glasses and poured the wine. Severus looked at the bottle strangely.

"It's good stuff," Harry said defensively.

Severus took a sip. "It's exquisite. I'm surprised you wouldn't wait for some special occasion to open it."

"I don't have a clue about wine anyway, to Pa—my wine enthusiast friend's dismay. More of a beer or a Firewhiskey type of person, myself." Harry shrugged. "This bottle was a gift."

"So this friend of yours—" Severus started and then trailed off.

"Just a friend, nothing more. A girl," Harry said hastily and blushed, taking a big gulp from his own glass. The wine was too sour for his taste.

"It's not any of my business," Severus harrumphed, but Harry liked to think that he heard a pleased note in his voice.

Harry regretfully turned the conversation back on track. "If nothing pans out with Talbott, we can present our case to McGonagall," he said dubiously, remembering the times he appealed to his then Head of House. Her heart was in the right place, but she brushed him off both times, with the Philosopher Stone as well as with Umbridge. "Without mentioning the surveillance, of course. She seems fair if a bit passive. She won't listen to me, but she must listen to you."

Severus snorted. "I very much doubt it. The only outcome of Minerva's involvement would be the whole staffroom learning about our suspicions, Richardson included." His expression turned ponderous. "Which we can use to our advantage, actually."

"How?" Harry perked up.

"With a little help of your... Divination tools. We may involve Minerva, or I can simply voice some vague suspicions, during dinner or in the staffroom if our brave Auror deigns it with his presence. Or perhaps you can pretend to tell his fortune as you did today. Nothing concrete, but enough to make Richardson go check on the trunk if he indeed is the culprit. Will your globe work in the Room of Requirement?"

"The Room's magic will probably interfere. We can install it across the entrance, though. In fact, whatever we decide, I think I should do it first thing tomorrow morning anyway."

"Yes, the sooner the better."

"Let's do it right now," Harry proposed excitedly.

The wine must have been stronger than he thought, or maybe he shouldn't have skipped dinner that day, but sneaking side by side with Severus around Hogwarts at night suddenly seemed the most exciting thing he had done in years. Harry had an overwhelming urge to dissolve into giggles. He refrained, of course, although if Severus's glare was any indication, he wasn't altogether successful in making his expression any less stupid. Especially when they were walking in otherwise companionable silence, brushing hands now and then. Oh well, Occlumency was never his strongest suit.

Harry put the snow globe inside a visor of a suit of armour so it would have the best overview of the corridor and the wall where the door of the Room of Requirement usually appeared.

"All done," he whispered, trying to come up with an excuse to have Severus back in his quarters.

"I still have to prepare for tomorrow's lessons," Severus said, interrupting his thoughts.

"Oh," Harry said disappointedly. He reached into his pocket and took out a spare mirror he'd prepared earlier.

"What's that?"

"It's a communication mirror. Just open it and call my name if you need to contact me quickly." Harry reached for his own mirror, before realising it was still a powder compact box. Cheeks aflame, he looked at Severus defiantly, daring him to say anything.

Severus took the mirror. "You are certainly full of surprises, Paul."

That night, Harry went to bed well after midnight and lied awake for hours, full of nervous energy. He finally fell asleep at the crack of dawn, only to have Richardson invade his dreams. The man sprung out of a trunk like a jack-in-a-box, a Beater's bat in his hands, while Severus's voice, low and seductive, whispered something important in Harry's ear. When he woke up a couple of hours later, his heart was pounding, but he for the life of him couldn't remember what was said.