Complexity
By ChocolateEclar
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or places, although I do own this story and some elements of the characterizations of Al Potter, his siblings, and their cousins.
A/N: A few years later now. In which there is a fifth-year Al in the office… Oh yeah, and James' seventeenth birthday arrives.
A/N 2: Also, I changed some minor dialogue in chapter one. I pretty much just made some things statements instead of questions.
Thank you to the reviewers!
EDIT: Sorry for the confusion. The Fred mentioned in this chapter is George's son, who has graduated Hogwarts and works in the joke shop by the time Al is in his fifth year.
Chapter Three: Capacity (for mischief)
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall is sitting at her desk, one afternoon in April, reading through various letters that had been brought by three owls, while simultaneously listening to the story of a very annoyed teacher. "I didn't want to involve you," claims the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, "but I really do think they are up to something."
Unlike the other snoring portraits, Snape's is listening because of the mention of the names involved in the complaint. There are a ridiculous amount of Weasleys and Potters running around the school causing mischief, and he is not overly surprised that the boy named after him and Dumbledore is involved. Despite being a fifth-year Gryffindor prefect, Albus Severus Potter still frequently appears in the office at night to talk to the portraits and always hints about possible exploits he is involved in. Just two weeks before, he had said, "My cousins, my sister, and I are planning the best coming-of-age party for James in history. It may involve Uncle George's fireworks in the common room, although my cousin Fred, who works at the joke shop, isn't quite sure he can sneak them through the post to us without them setting off."
Snape had said, "Oh, what a surprise. A Potter breaking the rules for his own pleasure. I was beginning to wonder what the world was becoming."
Al had smirked at him knowingly and said, "C'mon. We have to do something spectacular. Uncle George would never forgive us for being tame. I'm worried that if we get caught we'll get really terrible howlers from my grandmother though." Snape wanted to get rid of that meaningful, almost Dumbledore-like, smirk, but nothing he had thrown at the boy over the last five years seemed to faze him. (That is, except for the time when Al had been eleven and Snape had remarked loudly that the boy must be very lonely for all the time he spends up in the office talking to dead people. That had been the only time the boy had looked something close to upset and the other portraits had silenced. Finally, Dumbledore had sighed and said, "You are doing us a great favor by bringing us some fresh news, Albus." No one had spoken about the incident since, including Snape.)
Snape remembers the children in the office at two o'clock in the morning the night of the second James Potter's seventeenth birthday in front of McGonagall trying to weasel their way out of too much punishment. Of course, all of them – including the three Potter siblings, the Weasley children, and the Malfoy boy – had spent a week down in the dungeon scrubbing cauldrons for Slughorn, although Snape did not think that was much of a punishment unless you hated Slughorn. Otherwise, it was all tea and stories. (And why hadn't that man retired again? He was always complaining about being too old, and yet Slughorn never seemed to want to leave now that he was back. Snape has a suspicion it has something to do with all of the famous people's children coming to school now.)
McGonagall had wanted to know what exactly Scorpius Malfoy had been doing in the Gryffindor common room, being a Slytherin and all, but he and Rose Weasley had just become faintly pink and insisted he had just come for the birthday party.
Presently, McGonagall reaches into her desk drawer to pull out some frighteningly old muggle sweets that had been there since before she became headmistress (which naturally means that they are Dumbledore's and that McGonagall will never have the heart to throw them out). She tips a few peppermint candies out of her hand and the three owls gobble them up happily.
After the owls have eaten their fill, she says, "Let me summarize what you have just told me. You wish me to believe that Albus, James, and Lily Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, and Hugo and Rose Weasley are trying to bring the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets back to life. Is that correct?"
The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Miriam Rosewater, took the post that year after the old one spent a blissful twenty-four years teaching the job that was no longer cursed. McGonagall had found her competent enough for the position, but then Rosewater had, for some reason, taken an immediate dislike to the Potter-Weasley-Malfoy gang. Ever since she had been hired, she had been coming to McGonagall with theories about Dark Arts that somehow involved those mischievous students.
Even Snape has to admit, the woman really has no idea what she is discussing. He has spent enough nights talking to and listening to Al Potter, to know that he is not a potential Death Eater or a Tom Riddle wannabe. (Scorpius Malfoy is even dating a Weasley for Pete's sake!) As for Al's brother James, he is no more a prat than his namesake, as far as Snape can tell.
He is not surprised when McGonagall lets out a sigh and says, "Miriam, do you have any proof of this?"
"Just look them in the eyes," squawks Rosewater.
She continues to blab nonsense, but Snape stops listening when there is the tiniest sound of someone bumping into a cupboard. He narrows his eyes at the seemingly empty space and waits for McGonagall to urge Rosewater out of the office with her for some of 'Madam Pomfrey's nerve-soothing tea.' Then, he snarls, "Out with you, Potter. You may think yourself invincible, but if I had revealed your presence just now, you would have had worse than Rosewater to manage."
There is a moment of silence and then a head appears, seemingly floating in midair. "Sorry, I just wanted to hear what Professor Rosewater had to say about me," Albus Severus Potter says. "After all, last time I was here, Phineas Nigellus did want to know what sort of Dark Arts I could possibly know being so – what did he say? – ah yes, so 'dunderheaded.' And then he told me about how the professor's always in here about me and my family."
It is broad daylight, and yet Al removes the cloak and walks towards McGonagall's desk. He appears to be trying to grow out his hair with about as terrible results as when he put a spell on it in his third year to make it blond. It had been an attempt to stop people from gawking at him like he was his father. It just succeeded in making him look like a Malfoy and even Scorpius had told him it looked dreadful.
"Are you ever in class, Potter?" Snape finally asks.
"It's Sunday actually," Al explains to the portrait. "And besides, everyone's off practicing for Quidditch. Score might as well be on the Gryffindor team. He spends so much time with Rose in the stands during practices."
Suddenly awake, Dumbledore yawns and does not seem at all surprised to see a student in the headmistress' office on a Sunday afternoon when no one else is there. "Good day, Albus," he addresses the boy.
"Hi, professor," replies Al, as he allows one of the three little owls to perch on his palm. The young owl is small and white but not nearly as tiny as Al's uncle's owl Pigwidgeon.
"Pardon my intrusion, but you seem to be discussing Quidditch, so I must ask how your team is faring this year," Dumbledore says.
"Oh, we'd probably be doing worse if Scorpius actually watched the Gryffindor practices instead of watching Rose," Al answers with a grin. "He's a Slytherin Chaser. James is much better as a Keeper than a Seeker, we found out this year. It's pretty ridiculous, though, seeing as it's his second to last year. You'd think they'd have learned by now that he isn't quick enough. I mean, he isn't my dad or anything. Hugo was happy to give up the post to him. He does positively brilliant commentary with Lily instead." He pauses and shrugs. "All in all, I'd say we'll probably win the cup this year. Slytherin only won last year because James got hit with a Bludger and passed out."
"Arrogance, boy," remarks Phineas Nigellus, who has also awakened.
"Truth, sir," Al insists. Snape really wishes to discover how the Gryffindor had become Slytherin-proof. However, to have been painted with a vial of Veritaserum would have been useful but ultimately impractical unless he wanted to pour some down his fellow portraits' throats. "James was the Seeker. We certainly didn't have a chance after he got rather forcefully taken out of the game." He stops and smirks. "Of course, what do I know about Quidditch? My mum was on the Holyhead Harpies and now she writes about Quidditch at the Prophet, but I still won't get on a broom to save my life… Okay, maybe to save my life."
Some of the portraits make indignant squawks when even their favorite student leans across McGonagall's desk to read the letters the owls had brought. "Don't worry," mutters Al. "I know at least one of these has to do with me."
"How do you know that, Mr. Potter?" squeaks Dilys Derwent crossly.
"Simple," replies Al, as he lifts up the hand with the small, white owl still resting in the palm. "This is one of my dad's owls." The owl nips at Al's thumbnail, causing him to scold, "Wiggy!"
He sets the owl down on the desk again and pats a larger, gray owl. "This one is a Ministry owl I've seen before," Al says. "She brought my aunt Hermione a huge book one time when she insisted on working at home despite being seven degrees of sick.
"Dolores, aren't you?" he asks the owl. The owl nearly snaps off his fingers before he can step back. "Oh, yeah, I forgot who you're named after," Al mutters. Protectively, the white owl flies up and sits on Al's shoulder and hisses at the menacing owl. The last owl just eyes them groggily and then falls asleep. Al does not quite dare to touch it.
He picks up one roll of parchment and says, "This is my dad's." He smoothes it out across his knees and then holds it up to read.
"Oh, wonderful," he finally states sarcastically. "My dad's been pushed by my grandma to enlist everyone who was at James' birthday party causing the mess in the common room to clean the Burrow top to bottom over the holidays. Splendid. Says here that that should be a good punishment for blowing a hole in the side of the castle from the inside with a firework. Huh. Good. At least our 'supplier' Fred will be helping too. He just had to give us a volatile batch of fireworks…I wonder if they'll make Scorpius come too. People might have fits though…"
The white owl hoots a little when there are footsteps on the moving staircase up to the office. Al drops the parchment back on the desk and places the owl on top of it. By the time McGonagall opens the door, Al is already safely in a corner under the invisibility cloak.
"I believe it's time to look for a new Defense the Dark Arts teacher for next year," McGonagall says.
"A hazardous job, I am afraid," Dumbledore comments. He is addressing McGonagall but his eyes are on the space in the corner.
"It's a pity those students seem to have driven her to this," says a portrait sleepily. McGonagall nods.
The white owl flies up and lands on Al's invisible head. Al lets out a sound something like a gasp and a grunt and tries to shake the owl off.
Snape smirks and watches but makes no move to help or hinder the boy from being noticed by McGonagall. McGonagall goes to her desk to finish writing a letter, as Al manages to get the owl away from him by prodding it with his wand from inside the cloak. The owl hoots indignantly and flies back to the desk. McGonagall attaches a letter addressed to Harry Potter that Snape knows the boy hidden in the room is dying to read.
The white owl soars out an open window and when McGonagall leaves the office to go down to the Great Hall, Snape can hear the swish of the cloak and the squeak of shoes as the boy quickly slips out after her.
"He will fly after the owl on a broom to find out what is written there," he comments dryly.
"Rather fortunately, I doubt that," replies Dumbledore. "This is not a life or death situation and Albus Potter is not quite enough like his father to try it."
Snape starts to retort something when a broom with a boy on it goes streaking past the window after the shrinking shape of the owl.
Dumbledore sighs. "Fine, Severus. You are becoming a bit too good at predicting the actions of Potters."
"We were both wrong," states Snape. "That boy was not the younger Potter, but the elder. Presumably, Albus Potter told his brother what was in the letter out on the Quidditch pitch and James Potter went after the owl." Dumbledore chuckles, and they wait silently for the boy to come back on the broom.
A week later, Dilys Derwent asks Al Potter what was in that letter. It is a normal nightly visit and the boy's face is illuminated by only his wand and a thin moon. He grins sheepishly and replies, "Nothing really. Just asking if Scorpius' dad had been informed of the Burrow cleaning plan. Apparently he had, but my uncle Ron hadn't and heard it from Mr. Malfoy at the ministry when he made a comment in passing. Uncle Ron sent a rather annoyed letter to Rose this week telling her that if Scorpius tried to pull anything on her, he'd punch Draco Malfoy in the face. Another letter came for Rose a day later from my aunt Hermione telling her not to mind my uncle's threats."
"So will Scorpius Malfoy be among the cleaning crew at the Burrow?" asks Dumbledore.
"Yeah, apparently it'll build character or something since Scorpius doesn't generally have to clean his mansion or whatever," Al says dismissively. "Score isn't bad though. He certainly hasn't thrown any Doxycide Barrage Bombs at one of us since our second year." He smiles a little and glances at Snape, who is perusing a new potions book a young portrait entity had given him when he had been traveling around the network of portraits that afternoon. Half of the potions are written partially wrong or are complete rubbish. He had found a quill and ink and been scribbling all over the margins just out of habit. He did not, however, label anything 'For Enemies.' That was just asking for the Potters of the world to use them without knowing any Latin translations.
"Anyway," continues Al, "James sent the owl back on her way after he read the letter. He made sure the seal was fairly well replicated of course, and Mum and Dad didn't say anything, so it must've been all right."
Al chatters with some of the portraits for a moment – with Dippet on owls and with a rather fierce, little witch in a huge hat and purple robes on Quidditch – until finally he bites his lip and asks Snape, "Another Half-Blood Prince book?"
"You should tell Professor Slughorn the potion on page two hundred of this new book could kill several students by touch," states Snape from behind the book.
"What potion is it?" asks Al with a grimace.
"Foot Numbing Draught," Snape replies.
"Someone could be stupid enough to try that on someone as a joke," Al says thoughtfully. "What's so wrong with the ingredients?"
"Porcupine quills, daffodil bulbs, and oleander leaves," says Snape, "are a fairly lethal combination. It even suggests adding rhubarb leaf blades." He makes a disgruntled noise and draws a huge slash across the page.
"I'll tell him, although he might wonder how I know that when I have no Potions knowledge at all," Al says. "Maybe you should just tell Professor McGonagall tomorrow."
"It's actually more Herbology – " Snape starts to say and then stops when he notices the boy grinning at him. "But you are too dunderheaded to understand that."
"Ooh, I remember everything Neville – excuse me – Professor Longbottom's ever said to me about that stuff," Al insists. "He ordered me to stop pitching green Lantana Camara berries at Scorpius' head once. I know those are poisonous now. Two years ago, James even made some genius Herbology Slytherin mad at him. He put some crushed up Deadly Nightshade and Water Hemlock in James' water right before a Quidditch match. We all thought he was going to die."
"I remember that," says an old man's portrait with a sallow face and black hair (Everard Something-or-Other, Snape thinks. When he was headmaster, he did not learn the names of all of the portraits because it was all Dumbledore – save the students; don't allow them to come to harm, Severus – and more Dumbledore). "The boy was expelled."
"Well, yeah," says Al. "Those things are fatal unless you're a wizard who immediately knows something's amiss. James was in St. Mungo's for a week." He twirls his wand in his fingers over and over and adds, "James was humble after that." He glances at Snape again and continues softly, "And now Scorpius is on watch for any more poisoning Slytherins."
There is a moment when Al seems like he might say something more, but then he hops to his feet. He is as light as a young Seeker and still not all that tall at fifteen. It's a fairly good combination for a wizard duelist (which, despite the fact that there is no official dueling club at Hogwarts right then, he is. He runs a little Dumbledore's Army-like organization every Saturday in the Room of Requirement that McGonagall and most of the teachers know everything about. They mostly don't mind because no one's lost a limb and it isn't in existence because they aren't teaching the students enough because of some ministry rules; they just like to practice together). It makes him look like a young Harry Potter with freckles and no glasses. If, that is, Al's dad had a tendency to stick his wand behind his ear when he was not twirling it and to poke and prod at Snape's prickles at least once a week in that office.
"Well, bye, professors," Al calls out. He is answered by a chorus of voices. Several people wave goodbye to the boy, as he slips under the invisibility cloak and leaves the office.
A/N: A considerably longer chapter than I thought it was going to be, but an older teenage Al just kept doing things. Please review! I know a bunch of you have put this story on your favorites and story alerts and not reviewed, and I would really, really like to know what you think (although I can tell that you like it at least).
(And no, I won't do anything evil if you don't review; I just like feedback. Just saying...)
A/N 2: Anyway, next chapter I may bring in some of the other kids for actual appearances in the office… I haven't decided yet. (I may need to go back to some of the years I skipped.)