Chapter 5 : Morning at Hogwarts
He nearly slept through breakfast. After the all-night ordeal of his visit to Privet Drive and then the Burrow, he had arrived back in his quarters in time to sleep for an hour and present himself in front of his morning class while feeling like a wrung-out dishrag. He had made it through the day and through dinner, somehow, and then collapsed into bed, not waking until the following morning.
The long sleep had left him feeling a bit off, and he went through his morning routine in a kind of fuzzy stupor.
He arrived in the Great Hall and sat down in his usual place, scowling at his plate until it was filled. He didn't notice anything around him until a newspaper was passed right in front of his face from Pomona to Minerva.
"I can hardly believe it," Minerva sighed with a shake of her head. "I don't know if I ought to be happy or devastated. How the poor boy must have suffered all these long years. And yet -- innocent! I had never wanted to believe he had done it. Never. They had been such close friends. Inseparable."
Severus raised his head. Something... something about that didn't sound right to him. Didn't sound right at all.
Minerva, who had been speaking across him as though he were not there, stopped and looked at him. An odd expression came over her face.
"May I see the paper?"
She looked slightly reluctant as she handed it to him wordlessly.
It was front page news. Of course it would be. Damn Lupin and his stupid bloody hand and his blasted Animagus rat.
He stomped back to his quarters and didn't come out until the next day. He supposed his classes had been cancelled and the dunderheads were happier for it.
No one came looking for him, which alternately irritated and pleased him.
He supposed, after he had the chance to think about it, that his problem had just been taken off his hands. Black was the Potter spawn's godfather, and there was hardly any chance he would leave the boy with the Muggles, Albus or no Albus. Severus didn't have to spend the next six years skulking around Privet Drive in the dead of night, risking his neck every time he went.
He forced himself to be convinced that it was quite for the best. It wasn't as though he had been able to think of a better plan, in all these months.
