Chapter 6: Misunderstanding—oh, really?

An update. Yay. ...Can I sleep now?

Severus couldn't believe he was doing this. Yes, he owed Albus three lifetimes of favors, but when had he ever agreed to be a possessed castle's errand boy? Fervently, he wished that Salazar Slytherin had given up on Hogwarts completely and just created his own school—one that couldn't murder the teaching staff. Damn battle enchantments. Damn Godric Gryffindor for casting them in a school, the idiot. What had Salazar ever seen in the barbaric, bloodthirsty brute?

As Severus continued to fume, he finished rattling off a long list of directions. "Do you understand all that?" he demanded of the creature standing in his Potions lab.

The bizarrely dressed House Elf blinked up at him with eyes the size of Snitches. "Yes, Professor Snape, sir. Dobby does, sir."

This was another thing Severus couldn't believe. An ex-Malfoy House was the only pers—living being capable of keeping the cauldrons in back room from exploding while he was gone. He repressed a groaning sigh. The career of Potions Master had seemed so illustrious in his youth. Now the only good it was to him was that he would know when Lucius Malfoy tried to poison him.

Lucius would never forgive him for taking on the services of the House Elf that had—he tried to bite back the inescapable smirk. Silently, he wondered if Lucius would ever live that down. "No one is to see you here," he added to Dobby with a glare. He prayed that, for once, a secret at Hogwarts would remain secret.

Dobby nodded repetitively, gushing, "Oh, of course, Professor Snape, sir. It woulds be a low blow, a House Elf that won'ts obey his own masters to willingly serve their family friend. How bad." The House Elf's mouth twitched. "Dobby woulds never want to be seen and embarrass his old masters."

Severus stared at the creature. Had that been a sarcastic smirk? "You are not to be seen," he repeated, eyes flashing.

The House Elf seemed a bit put out at that, but nodded.

The castle rumbled. The Potions Master glanced sharply up at the ceiling and decided it was time to leave. "Bar the classroom doors if I'm not back by Monday," he said when he was ten feet from the door.

"Of course, Professor, sir."

Nine feet from the door: "And keep a close watch on cauldron eight in the back."

"Of course."

Nine feet again: "And—"

"Severus."

He stopped at stared back at the House Elf.

"Old Dobby may look the fool to you grand Wizarding types," it said with a raised, bushy eyebrow, "but he knows which end of the spoon goes in the cauldron. Go now. Dobby can handle things while you're gone."

Inexplicably, Severus was reminded of his Muggle father: hopelessly out of place in the Wizarding world, but competent all the same. Without another word, he left the dungeon—

—And almost walked smack dab into Albus Dumbledore's beard. The headmaster had been standing in the doorway—for how long was uncertain. Instinctively, Severus pulled the door shut behind him to hide Dobby from view, even though the headmaster had been the one to recommend the creature. "Yes?" he demanded.

Albus raised up a roll of parchment in one hand. "The status spell on Mr. Svartálfar's letter," he explained. "It may be of some help. The letter has been delivered—but not opened—and has remained at this location for several hours."

Severus took the scroll and unrolled it. There was a pause as he stared at a map of the Forbidden Forest with a red dot on the western fringe. Then he tapped it repetitively, each time giving him a closer view of the dot's location. Finally, it showed up at the center of a triangular-shaped clearing inside the rough sketch of a house. His face went slack.

XXX

Dobby looked up, startled, when Severus stormed into the back room. The man didn't stop, only stalked to the wall between cauldrons four and five and slugged one of the dark bricks, knocking it back. The rest of the wall slunk away, revealing a shelf of potion vials.

Severus crammed several into the pockets of his robes, and then took up a small, black bottle. He twisted the stopper left, right, and left again, much like a Muggle would turn a combination lock, and then pulled it off. He took the barest of sips before replacing bottle on the shelf. The brick wall reformed. "You did not see this," he ordered Dobby with the blackest of looks.

And then he apparated.

XXX

In a last ditch effort for normalcy, Fen had resorted to cleaning. Henry's house was a nightmare, but he was making progress. The dishes were now scrubbed and stored in the kitchen instead of in the bookshelves. The floor was swept. Most of the dirt had fallen into the cranks between planks, but he wasn't going to take that gunk out until he was sure something wasn't going to crawl out after it.

Henry finally caught on to what Fen was doing and barricaded him from the bedroom. After much confused thought, Fen realized that Henry was just being territorial. And who could blame the man? House Elves would be twitching for days if a human tried to reorder their kitchens for them. So he moved on.

And found himself before the axe.

The deadly sharp wedge of metal had solidly clunked itself into a tree stump. Fen pulled on the handle forward, backwards, and straight up with both feet planted on the stump before it finally loosened and sent them both flying. He checked to see if he had been cleaved to death, exhaled gratefully when he wasn't, and turned to glare at axe stuck in the ground a few feet away. The sharp implement of death gleamed innocently in the late afternoon light.

Fen pulled it from the cold dirt cautiously. The long handle rested awkwardly in his small arms, dipping towards the ground on the side with the axe head. He turned around in the yard, careful of his burden as he turned, and searched for a place to get rid of it. Impy's words spoke again in his head every time he looked at it.

'Will kill Master Fenrir and chops him into Potions ingredients.'

There was a gardening shed half-hidden in the shadows of the tree line. Fen made a beeline for it, dragging the axe behind him. He had to drop it to get the heavy door open. It was six inches thick, or at least felt that way. Why was everything in the human world so large, he wondered as the wooden slab of a door creaked open inch by laborious inch. His eyes were clenched tightly shut. Even individual hairs strained themselves. Every bit of him went into opening that door—except his feet. They kept treacherously skidding across the dirt.

But he overcame. The door opened, and he heaved breaths, repressing the nightmarish thought that he would have to close the door too.

Sighing, he opened his eyes. The inside of the shed was nearly black. He squinted into the darkness. The wind picked up. There was a creaking noise. An unforgettable scent drilled through his skull, into the back of his brain. His instincts gushed out of the hole, flushing his body with both power and crippling fear. He shrank back. Light wormed past him into the darkness and illuminated a dark, many-layered stain on the wooden floor. Above it hung dull chains.

Shackles and blood. Impy's words screamed at him. An image of being cleaved to death by the axe flooded his mind. The forest suddenly seemed a thousand times safer than here. He turned around fast, and Henry was standing in the doorway.

The human's eyes were cold and monstrous. Fen's traitorous feet stumbled back into the shed.

"Y—you shouldn't be here," Henry said and reached into his pocket as he advanced on Fen. His hand came out cupping a small mound of violet powder, which he blew into the boy's face.

Fen sneezed. The smell, it deadened everything, and he slumped unconscious into the man's waiting arms.

XXX

Henry laid Fen, wrapped in blankets, on the reclining chair. Frowning, he reached forward to pull a wild tangle of dark curls away from boy's face and behind his ear. But a popping sound stalled any action he was about to take.

He jerked up and turned to the man who had suddenly appeared in the room. He relaxed, seeing who it was. "Severus," he smiled. "What are you doing here? I haven't seen you in… And it's the middle of the school"—his eyes flicked to the Hogwarts letter for Mr. F. Svartálfar sitting unopened on the nearby desk—"Ah." He straightened and gestured to a doorway. "Let's go into the kitchen. I'll whip you up some cocoa."

The wizard in dark robes frowned. "I'm a little old for that, Henry."

"Tea, then."

"I don't have any poison antidote with me."

"Cocoa, then. And you can scowl and pretend you don't love it."

XXX

Severus sat, sipping from a steaming mug. He looked around occasionally. The kitchen was different than he remembered. But then it had been years, an even dozen of them. He glanced in the direction of the living room and the boy sleeping there. A lot could change in that time. "You've really cleaned this place up," he remarked.

Henry ducked his head down. "That's the boy's doing. Regular whirlwind with a dust rag. Got everything but the bedroom," he sighed, and then took a sip from his own cup. The two of them sat at the long kitchen table. They had moved the chairs from the opposite ends to the middle and awkwardly tried to keep from stepping on each other's toes.

Severus looked down at his drink. "Who's the mother?"

Henry choked. Mid-cough, he spluttered, "No! Just a boy. Found him in the woods. Orphan", he added, as if to drive the point home.

Severus turned to the side and sighed, only partly in relief. "I'm Sorry. It just that he looks like—"

"Dad with curls," Henry finished for him. "It's eerie. At first, I thought he might be yours." He smiled at Severus's snort. "I can dream, can't I? And you'd make a good father, Severus."

He shook his head. "My students would say otherwise."

"So you're still teaching at Hogwarts? I seem to recall getting that letter"—Henry shot a murderous glance up towards the ceiling—"chewed half to pieces!"

Severus turned and looked up. Perched on the top of an opened door was a large brown owl. "Pet?" he asked.

"Waking nightmare."

"Ah. I have one or two of those myself. Six, actually. All Gryffindors."

Henry laughed, and then sighed, "I've missed you, Severus. You're the only person I don't feel scared around." When Severus didn't say anything, he looked at a small window set over the kitchen sink. The sun was almost set, and reddish light streamed into the room. He swallowed. "Can't stall with this, can I? I'm glad you've come, Sev. I—I need your help." He reached into his pocket and placed a pouch onto the table.

Stitched into the side, black as basilisk blood, was the ministry insignia—and in crimson, the words Obliviating Stupefyer: for use on Muggles.

As Severus's gaze on him sharpened, he slumped and rested his head on his folded arms. "Found the boy collapsed in the woods 'round sunset last night. I thought he would be safe in the house, at least for the night and some of the morning, until I could figure out how to get him back to his folks—but he doesn't have folks. Thought of handing him to the police in that little Muggle town to the west, but he's Wizarding kind—and most of the Muggles there are unregistered Weres anyway.

"After getting that letter, I was planning to take him out at dawn and get him onto Hogwarts' grounds before sunset—but—" He sighed. "Sev, he found the shed."

Severus started to rub at his left temple. "And you panicked." He looked up and pinned the other man with a glare. "Henry, memory modifiers are for Muggles! How did you even get that?"—he gestured at the pouch and waited for an answer that didn't come—"Tell me you at least know how to administer it properly." He got only silence. He ran his hand over his face. Standing, he said, "Follow me. I'm going to check on him right now."

Henry went pale. He sat unmoving, staring out the window as the last rays of the sun winked out. "I—I can't do that, Sev. You kn—n—know I—" He stopped and stared at the vial Severus had plunked down in front of him.

"Drink it" he was commanded, and when Severus got that way, there was no arguing with him. He choked down the liquid and its rancid taste.

"Jesus, Sev!" he coughed. "Couldn't you make it—"

"The properties of the potion are easily nullified. If I added something to make it bearable, it wouldn't work."

He blinked, uncomprehending. "What does it do?" he asked.

Severus caught his eyes with a meaningful look. "It will help."

XXX

Henry suddenly stood, clutching his stomach. He stared out the window. "It's not—I need to—" But Severus's hand latched onto his shoulder and pushed him back into his seat. "Sev," he whispered and shook when the man placed one hand over his. The light of the half-full moon peeked through the trees. A gasp escaped Henry, and he doubled over.

Severus held his hand tightly as the slender fingers elongated further. The pads of the fingers turned gray, and dark hairs lanced through the skin of the back of the hand. Hard nails transformed into points and spasmed in pain, digging deep claw marks through the wood of the table.

Then Henry sagged in the chair, and Severus cautiously let him go. Henry straightened and stared at his monstrous hands. "It didn't work," he sighed, "I still"—he froze—"I can still think." He turned to Severus with his mouth hanging open. "How—"

It was the Potions Master turn to stare out at the moon. "When transformed Weres ingest Wolfsbane, it kills them," he said. "But they die human. Something in the plant reverses the transformation. I've been working to separate that from the—fatal poison."

Henry stood up fast. "Wolfsbane? You fed me Wolfsbane! Sev, you could have killed me!"

"I know that!" he snapped. "I tested it first. On a man with aggravated lycanthropy on the last full moon. He survived—unfortunately."

"Aggravated?" Henry held up his slender, bestial hands for Severus's inspection. "You mean, there's someone else like this?"

"No. He's different. He's still limited to the three nights, but"—Severus's eyes went glassy and his voice dropped—"the Were, it's is enormous. Twice the size it should be."

Henry's eyes narrowed. "This big Were, is he the one that almost—" His words died when Severus drew his wand.

"I'm envenerating the boy now," he stated coldly. "Stay here. When I get back, we're going to talk about what you've done."

The words were supposed to be hard and mortifying for Henry, but the partially transformed Were only smiled toothily. "Yea, we'll talk—thank you, Brother." Severus swooped out of the kitchen without a word, and Henry turned to sit back down and try to finish his cocoa. He stopped, though, and snickered when he caught sight of Nibble the owl. She had fallen off the door out of shock and lay splayed out on the floor, unconscious.

"Hallelujah," he murmured for more reasons than one and carefully wrapped his claws around his mug.