Disclaimer: They aren't mine. Well, apart from Trudi, who's going to a good home at the end of the story.

Warning: Rich food and snark.

ooOOoo

Chapter 22: Breakfast of Death Eater Champions

The sun woke Harry the next morning. It must be almost summer here – the days were long enough for it. He yawned, considering the benefits of sleeping in. He hadn't stayed up too late over Animal Farm as he'd been tired and the print was small and hard to read in the dim light of Severus' light-emitting potion, and now it was lying next to his pillow with a scrap of paper in it as a bookmark. Not that a bookmark was really justified at page three. He reached over and shook Severus' shoulder.

The response wasn't printable.

"Oh, come on," Harry said. Maybe a long stick to poke the other boy with would have been a better idea. "I'm hungry. Any idea what time it is?"

Severus sat up like a vampire rising from its coffin and shook his hair out of his face.

"Doesn't it bug you having it hanging over your face like that?" Harry yawned. He backtracked over what he'd just said and winced. Maybe it was because he'd just woken up that rudeness came so easily. "Sorry. That's a bit personal."

"Yes," sneered Severus, hunching his shoulders and following the sneer up with one of his patent-pending glares. The glare would get nastier with age, or maybe it was only that it was too early in the morning for the full version. "But to save on your asking stupid questions like that in front of normal – that is to say, everyday – people, I'll say that I'm used to my hair. And if you're going to ask me why I don't wash it, I might as well ask you why you've never managed the fine art of running a comb through your excuse for a mop."

Harry, torn between embarrassment and annoyance (Snape was good at turning an argument back on someone), was diverted. "I always thought my hair stayed messy because I was a wizard."

"Well done."

"Is yours the same?"

Severus' expression of brooding annoyance changed to puzzlement. "Didn't you know that hair tends to stick to its own rules? It's an established magical fact. Muggle hair products don't have much effect. I bet you've tried cutting your hair…?"

"Well, my aunt got really fed up one day and hacked it all off. It grew back overnight."

"See? But why'd she do that? I mean, it's not as if your hair being messy is any fault of yours."

"She didn't allow magic in the house."

Severus' sleepy stare was astonished. "She… that's right, you said she was a Muggle. Are you a Mudblood or something?"

Harry sat up and glared. "No, I'm not. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't say things like that. I thought you didn't hate Muggles? Or was that a big pile of Slytherin 'we're not so bad after all' propaganda?"

Severus rubbed his face and yawned. "Sorry. I usually only usually say that when I'm trying to get rid of someone annoying. And although it's the current philosophy within Slytherin, if you check the records carefully you find that the founding ethos was to recruit students who wanted to make something of themselves. It's not my fault everyone prefers to think Salazar's ideas were to promote bigotry rather than the total separation between Muggle and Wizarding worlds for the safety of both," he added calmly.

"Well, my mother was Muggle-born. And one of my best friends is, too. She's a nice person – I mean, seriously good – and it really hurts her when people say things like that."

"I promise not to say that to her. Oh, all right. I'm sorry. I won't go around calling people Mudbloods around you and you won't go on about me being ugly." He yawned again as he sat up and reached for his robe, which he pulled on over his grey nightshirt, ignoring Harry's embarrassed flush.

"I didn't mean to say you were –"

"No. You didn't. People never do." But Severus didn't seem too upset. Oddly composed, in fact. But something in him had closed off, leaving a chill in the air that was more sinister than that from the cool morning. Harry, not sure what this meant, decided these were waters too deep for him to paddle in. What would Robert Python do?

He'd change the topic.

"I was thinking about tunnels. Hufflepuff had a lot to do with badgers. And gardening."

"Yes. Sprout's a fairly typical Hufflepuff Head of House. Well, I don't know her feeling on badgers, but she has quite the green thumb."

"So I thought we should explore some of the tunnels around here."

Severus cocked an eyebrow. "What tunnels?"

Harry realised Severus wouldn't know about them; Harry had only found out about them thanks to the Marauders' Map. Had his father and the other Marauders made the map yet? Harry felt his gut clench at the thought. Suddenly breakfast didn't seem so important anymore. "Hogwarts has tunnels – some secret passageways. I thought you'd know – you must have known the one to the kitchens if you could get food so easily."

Severus scratched his nose. "I don't use it much. But, yes. I've suspected there must be something odd around. People tend to turn up in odd places, I've noticed. And…" He trailed off.

"What?"

Severus shrugged. "One of those cretins from yesterday. Lupin. Who needs his prefect badge heated red-hot and shoved up his –"

"– yes, yes. What about him?" Harry was getting a bad feeling.

"He disappears every so often. I think maybe he's got an illness. I'm sure I've seen him sneaking out into the grounds. I thought maybe he'd found a tunnel and there was something in there that makes him better. A philosopher's stone, perhaps."

"Mm," Harry said non-committally. "Well, he's hardly about to help us, is he. Although he didn't seem as bad as the others."

Severus snorted. "Don't fall for that one. He's been pretending to be nice to me lately. That's partly why I haven't been out hunting down what he's really up to. I'm that sure they're setting a trap for me."

"You don't think that's a bit paranoid, do you?" Harry asked with a frown, thinking of Remus in the future, face lined and hair greying, leaning on a fence telling him about how he'd once tried to be friendlier to Severus Snape. It was hard lining that image up against the conflicted prefect he'd met yesterday.

"Get dressed," Snape said shortly, not looking at Harry. It wasn't hard to tell he was angry by the way his lips thinned. Give him a few years and that look would presage points falling from Gryffindor like autumn leaves. "Dumbledore sent me a key to one of the old bathrooms – we can use that for showers and what-not."

Harry picked up his bundle of clothes and followed him out in silence. The set of Snape's thin shoulders made him wonder what Robert Python would say about this one.

Strangely, it was Hermione's voice he imagined saying, 'You're on thin ice, Harry. Are you really his friend? Would a friend tell him as many lies as you have? Especially the biggest lie – that when he grows up you and he are going to absolutely loathe each other? And more importantly, why would he think that someone who's here for five days and needs a lot of help really wants him for a friend?'

He hated it when Hermione spoke sense. Especially when it was Imaginary Hermione. In any aspect she had the terrible effect of making him think about things he didn't want to think about.

ooOOoo

They went down to the Great Hall for breakfast. In retrospect it was an act of bravado, but Harry was in a mood for an argument. And he wasn't able to pick one with Severus because, aside from needing Severus' willing help, he suspected Imaginary Hermione was right and now he was feeling guilty over lying to Severus. They sat at the end of the Slytherin table, where the other members of Severus' House gave them cursory sideways examinations and then ignored them. That was fine by Harry. It was strange seeing some of them and hearing their names as they talked quietly among themselves. Just two along from them on the other side of Severus to Harry was a boy with light brown spiky hair. He looked like a sixth year, and Harry was pretty sure he'd heard someone address him as Wilkes. Between Wilkes and Severus was another boy with a prefect's badge. The prefect was extremely handsome and only saved from being blandly beautiful by having a clever, slightly foxy face. He nodded with cool politeness as Harry and Severus sat down.

"Snape."

"Rosier."

And that seemed to be it for conversation between Severus and the other Slytherins. Wilkes was talking quietly with Rosier and a doughy-looking boy across the table, and a small knot of first year girls just along the table from Harry were yawning over a Charms textbook. Harry wondered with a pang how Trudi and Daisy were getting on. Hopefully Millicent was looking after them. Would Trudi still talk to him after Draco got his sight back? Or would she go back to being the mistrusting girl she'd been before she'd started talking to him?

One of the girls said, "It doesn't make sense."

Harry leaned over. "Oh. That's because you're using a cheering charm. It doesn't react very well when you combine it with a levitation charm. Have you thought about using a hex like the hilarity hex instead?"

The girls looked at him as if he'd grown another head.

"Sorry. Forget it," Harry sighed, and went back to buttering his toast. He missed Trudi. Amongst everyone else.

"Hilarity hex wouldn't work," Severus supplied as he ladled half a pot of raspberry jam on his toast. "Leviosa reacts badly with all mind-altering spells. I'd use a – hang on, what the hell are you lot trying to achieve, anyway?"

One of the girls blinked at him. But apparently the others were used to Severus being abrupt and swearing at table. "Benny Frock from Ravenclaw said that the reason I couldn't levitate my newt was because it was so depressed looking at my ugly face that there was no way it'd get into the air," said a second girl. She had a rather squashed face but pretty dark eyes. She'd never be beautiful, but Harry wouldn't have called her ugly.

"Charming. So you're going to levitate the newt or the Ravenclaw?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you should use a potion." With a quick glance at the head table to see no teachers were watching, he reached into a pocket. There was a muffled clink. "Here. Soak a little bit of this into one of his shoes." He smirked as the girl took the vial and tucked it away into a fold of her robes. "It'll give him a lift, all right. And he won't look so pretty himself for about a fortnight – well, it depends on how hard he hits the ceiling."

The girl grinned at him. "Brilliant. Thanks, Snape. Who were you going to use it on?"

Severus nodded towards an even younger version of Sirius Black sitting right at the end of the table with a group of fourth years. One of the fourth years looked a lot like Igor Karkaroff, but Harry expected his imagination was running away on him with that one – wouldn't Karkaroff have gone to Durmstrang? "His older brother."

"Karkaroff's? Oh – Regulus'. Fair enough. His brother's a pig. Thanks. I'll let you know how it works on Frock-face."

"Are you selling drugs again, Severus?" said a musical voice from down the opposite end of the table. "Honestly, if you're that poor maybe we can have a raffle to raise funds for you. Drugs are bad. So bad." She giggled like someone who didn't think drugs were bad at all.

Harry looked away from his covert examination of Regulus Black, Sirius' younger brother who had – correction, would – join the Death Eaters and then be killed by Voldemort when he got cold feet, to see who the girl was and nearly choked on his toast. Bellatrix LeStrange. Or Black, as she must be at this time. He knew she was Sirius' cousin, anyway. In Dumbledore's Pensieve she's been beautiful, but that was a shadow compared to the real life version. In real life she was gorgeous.

Severus didn't seem impressed by her loveliness. He scowled at her. "Not that it's any of your business, but no. Some of us don't have to resort to cheap tricks to improve our minds."

"How about resorting to personal care products?" a languid boy with his arm around Bellatrix said, to general laughter. He toasted the doughy boy with a goblet of pumpkin juice.

Severus' upper lip curled. For a second Harry was reminded of Simon about to take a bite out of someone. "How about resorting to growing a mind in the first place, LeStrange? And don't look to Avery for help – he's already far too busy trying to use his new-and-improved guinea-pig brain. Someone give him the manual, for pity's sake."

Merlin, thought Harry. I'm surrounded by Death Eaters. Or future Death Eaters.

As Avery (as Harry guessed the doughy boy was) frowned, trying to work out the insult, LeStrange's languid manner vanished. He leaned forward and Harry had a glimpse of someone who'd fit under a black, hooded robe and a white mask with ease. "Where have you been, Snape? Hiding out with your little friend there? So… how good a friend is he?" He licked his upper lip suggestively.

Harry flushed at the insinuation. Before he could reply (or hex) LeStrange, Severus, long dark eyelashes fluttering at LeStrange, purred, "What? Are you jealous, loverboy?"

Several people guffawed.

LeStrange snarled and smacked the goblet down on the table. Before he could say what he was planning to, he was interrupted by Rosier, his handsome face screwed up with disgust.

"I say, now that's the sort of image we don't need while we're eating. Cut it out. Snape, where've you been sneaking off to, anyway? A few nights here and there aren't too bad, old boy, but now you're upping it to weeks. Someone's going to notice. And don't give me that 'yeah, right' snort. As soon as you've finished helping this Lovegood chappie here I think it's time you spent more time where you belong."

"What, where it's considered good manners to suffocate someone while they're asleep?" Severus bristled.

"Hey, that was an accident," LeStrange said, putting a hand on his heart. Bellatrix giggled. Harry's knife clinked on the plate and he realised he'd been buttering his toast so hard he'd made a hole in it. He stuffed it into his mouth and chewed ferociously.

"Your birth was an accident. My waking up not being able to breathe wasn't."

"It's not going to happen again," Rosier said evenly. "Not to anyone in this House."

Severus sniffed. "Like to know who's going to stop it."

"He's got a point," a lovely blonde girl further down the table said, yawning behind an elegantly manicured hand before giving the rest of the table a haughty look. She was easily as beautiful as Bellatrix, but in a pale way instead of dark. Other than that they could have been sisters. In fact, according to Sirius, they were. Harry found himself hard pressed not to stare at Draco's mum.

"I'm going to stop it. This bickering is useless, especially now that… Anyway." Rosier looked down at his scrambled eggs.

A look of suspicion briefly flickered across Severus' face and then vanished behind his normal sullen glower. It seemed that his tenure in Slytherin House was early practise for being a spy. Harry wondered if he suspected anything yet; from what he'd said about the Death Eaters yesterday, he doubted it. But Severus being Snape, he probably knew something was going on. And doubtless wanted to find out what it was.

Narcissa narrowed her pale eyes at Rosier, who didn't meet them. The resemblance between her and Draco in one of his moods made Harry realise that however much Draco resembled his father there was a lot of his mother in him as well. And, whatever Rosier thought about his influence within Slytherin House, it seemed to be Narcissa who was the quiet power here. "Enough about that, I think." She leaned back. "Some things aren't meant to be discussed over breakfast."

"Going to throw a soiree for Lucius' new friends?" Bellatrix smirked. Then yelped. If Harry hadn't been watching he wouldn't have seen Narcissa twitch just enough to suggest she'd kicked her sister under the table.

Narcissa shrugged. Elegantly, of course. "Might as well. Honestly. This place has gone to the dogs since Lucius left."

Wilkes sighed. "Come on, 'Ciss. He graduated two – no, sorry, nearly three – years ago now. And you're marrying him just as soon as you graduate. When's that – two months? I'm sure you can survive that long."

Narcissa Black sniffed and tucked a long strand of pale blonde hair back behind her ear. A sliver bracelet with an L twinkling off it coiled around her wrist. "And what about you lot? You're just pulling each other apart. It's disgusting. Talk about divide and conquer."

"So why's Rosier trying to coax back our Resident Disgusting back into the dormitory?" LeStrange sniped.

"Maybe he wants someone with more than half a brain to talk to," said Severus.

"Hey," said Wilkes.

Severus gave a sort of apologetic shrug. "Well, barring perhaps Wilkes. And Nott."

"Thank you." Harry tried not to stare at Nott, who was reading the Daily Prophet and, other than these two words, hadn't participated in any of the conversation so far. Except for the glasses, he looked a lot like a more thoughtful version of his son Theodore.

"Ahem." A beefy seventh year reading the paper over Nott's shoulder coughed meaningfully.

"Oh, and I guess Mulciber can be kind of interesting when he stops yammering on about Quidditch and starts talking about curses."

"Well, thank you Snape. I guess."

Mulciber… Mulciber… Harry remembered at last: Mulciber was adept at using Imperius. Karkaroff had tried to plea-bargain by naming him as a Death Eater, only to be told that Mulciber had already been captured. Out of the corner of his eye Harry noticed Mulciber put down his fork and point out something to Nott, then rub at his left forearm as if something was tickling it.

Harry went cold. These weren't just future Death Eaters – some of them were Death Eaters already.

"You're welcome. But the point is that Narcissa, Nott, Mulciber and Travers are going to be out of this hole in less than two months. Next year Rosier's going to need more than one person who's not a complete pill. That'd be you, Wilkes."

"I was hoping I wasn't a complete pill. Nice to have it confirmed, thank you, Severus."

"Any time. Anyway, my point is that Rosier is playing politics."

There was a snort from Mulciber.

"Something you needed to add, Mulciber?"

The other boy stopped rubbing at his forearm. "No, just that politics is a great deal more interesting in the real world."

"Huh. No, it's dull everywhere."

"You have no interest in politics, Snape," Nott said, rustling his paper as he put it down. The front page photo of a woman holding a kneazle which was raising a litter of crups crumpled. The kneazle spat at LeStrange. Nott was wearing a pair of narrow rectangular glasses. Thanks in part to the glasses, he looked a little like John Lennon, but Harry doubted either of them would appreciate the comparison. "Who knows? Politics may one day have an interest in you."

Severus' lip curled. "I certainly hope not."

"Lucius was asking after you," Narcissa said unexpectedly.

Severus arched an eyebrow in astonishment. LeStrange frowned as if he'd just heard bad news. "Tell him I'm fine now that I'm out of the dorm and not having people experiment on me."

Narcissa leaned on her elbows and eyed him from her end of the table. The little silver L swung from her slender wrist and Harry noticed three emeralds embedded in it. "You shouldn't be away from us so much. Lucius worries about you, you know that. He thinks you've got ever so much potential."

Severus reddened. "I'm fine."

Bellatrix leaned over the table. If Harry hadn't already hated her he would have just from meeting her this morning. "Only if 'fine' means taking too much interest in those revolting creatures who think they run the world. So what if Rodolphus practises the occasional hex on you? Hey, if you like Muggles so much there's no reason why we shouldn't treat you like one," Bellatrix grinned. She jumped as if Narcissa had kicked her under the table again.

Severus' lip curled again. "As your dearly beloved and hopefully soon-to-be-dearly-departed hates them so much they must have something going for them. After all, he isn't known for his good taste in choosing…" his gaze raked Bellatrix as his voice dropped into the slow, languid drawl Harry usually only heard when Snape was extremely angry and about to start shouting "… things."

Bellatrix went white and flushed red in the next second. She clutched her butterknife as if she wanted it to be a wand.

Rosier rubbed the bridge of his nose. Harry had seen Snape do that when he was particularly exasperated, but hadn't seen Severus do that yet. "Cut it out, you two. I'd like to have one meal at this table without having it disintegrate into all-out war."

"Hey, he started it…" LeStrange huffed.

"No, Bella started it. And you two clowns kept it going. I don't want to be picking porridge out of my robes during Potions today – not again. And I want to have a nice, civilised breakfast. For once. Please. Give me a nice, civilised breakfast. It can be my Happy Memory for my Patronus. I can scare off Dementors with a ham-and-cheese croissant."

Even Severus smiled at that one and passed Rosier the tray of hot croissants. A temporary truce settled on the table. It mightn't have lasted longer than three minutes, when Bellatrix smiled in a nasty way at Severus and opened her mouth, but she jumped again.

Narcissa, sipping pumpkin juice with a deceptively far-away look on her face, must have kicked her under the table.

Harry found himself warming slightly to Narcissa. Would she become a Death Eater?

He kind of liked Rosier, too, even though there was something hungry about him, but it was odd to see this person and know he'd be killed while being arrested for being a Death Eater. He found himself staring at the other boy until Rosier looked up and raised an eyebrow in silent question.

"Uh… could you pass the croissants, please?" said Harry.

He took one and bit into it. It was too rich – the cheese was camembert, which he didn't like, and only someone actively seeking out a heart attack would add extra butter to a croissant. But it was better than looking at these people and having lists come up in his head. Dead. Dead. Murderer and dead. Azkaban. Living Death Eater. Tortured people into insanity. Living Death Eater. Azkaban. Azkaban. Murderer. Married to Voldemort's right-hand man. Alive and a Death Eater. Missing. Dead.

He glanced at Severus.

Death Eater.

Murderer?

Torturer?

Spy.

Dead.

ooOOoo

The Slytherins didn't ask him many questions. Narcissa politely asked him about his school (and Harry had to pretend to be flustered to avoid being caught out in a lie). Bellatrix ignored him which was a relief as he found it hard looking at her without thinking of Neville's mum, sitting nearby at another table, who would be tortured into insanity by Bellatrix and Rodolphus – and another LeStrange whose name Harry couldn't remember. Rosier was polite, as was Wilkes, but it was the sort of politeness like Narcissa's, a politeness born from a need to manipulate rather than a desire to put him at his ease. Other than that he was pretty much left to finish breakfast without being annoyed. The Slytherins warmed to him slightly when the Marauders walked past the table and James and Sirius gave him particularly poisonous looks.

Rosier eyed them back coolly, nodding in a chilly fashion at Remus. "I heard about how you hexed them in the library yesterday," he remarked.

Harry sighed. "I didn't hex anyone. That kid with the messy hair – what's his name? Pepper? Pooper? Potty?" (Severus smirked) "He tried to hex Severus. Severus had his hands full so I threw up a shielding charm. The hex bounced. He started imitating a sheep. We were blamed. The headmaster sorted things out."

Rosier nodded thoughtfully, stroking his upper lip with one long finger. "Shielding charm, eh? Well done, old man. And I bet they didn't get any detention."

"Oh, I wondered who lost Gryffindor twenty points." Narcissa wiped her fingers on a napkin.

Severus sneered. "Huh. Last time I got caught hexing Potter I lost fifty points."

"We know," chorused the table.

Wilkes grinned at him. "Don't fret it. It's not your fault our Head of House is a senile old fart."

Rosier smiled. "One of these days we'll have a real Head of House. Mark my words, changes are coming into our world. Things will be better. People like us won't be penalised for having standards, what?"

"Oh? And what do you know that I don't?" Severus asked.

"Spend more time in the dorm and you might find out," Wilkes replied shortly. "Come on. Don't want to be late."

Narcissa smiled. "I've got History of Magic first thing. Free period, effectively."

"Going to do your nails?" Bellatrix asked, this time sounding friendlier to her older sister.

Narcissa examined them. "Why not? I'm meeting Lucius in Hogsmeade this weekend. He's managed to get a pass from the governors to visit here when he likes – he'll be on the board one day sooner than later, I expect." She slipped around behind them and patted Severus on the shoulder. He looked puzzled. "Write to him if you're that upset, Sev," she whispered. "He asked me to tell you that offer still stands." And she was gone, leaving Severus frowning and the faint, lingering perfume of freesias.

Harry wanted to ask what the offer was, but didn't dare.

ooOOoo

Unlike Narcissa, Severus had a class requiring concentration first thing. Harry considered going up to the library and doing some research there, then decided that maybe he'd be able to work just as well in a classroom. He was still trying to decide when Severus told him what the class was: Potions.

This was one Potions lesson Harry wouldn't miss for the world.

ooOOoo