Chapter 4 – The Grim Babysitter

After the talk with Dumbledore, Severus kept his routine with the thought of Lily's boy on the back of his head. There was nothing he could do immediately and he didn't see any reason to protect Harry from anything graver than a Quidditch injury, but Dumbledore was sure the kid was in danger. The old headmaster also was adamant the Dark Lord was not totally dead. Maybe Dumbledore had finally become irrevocably barmy.

Since he went less and less frequently to watch Lily, Severus invested most of his free time with the mortals or his eternal peers. Fate alerted him to keep a low profile whilst dealing with the living, since he was literally dead to the world.

The world was fueled by money, and thankfully Severus required only a small amount of it to survive. He had small need for clothes or food, yet he required those. And he required money. He sold a great deal of objects from Spinner's End, and sometimes Dumbledore or other Incantations gave him money. When times were rough, Severus went to charity shops and church shelters. His habits had been frugal when he was alive, and he kept being so.

It would have been just too easy to take money from his clients. It could even be justified, since they wouldn't need it anymore. But Severus knew quite well that stealing was stealing, and at the end of the day it would weigh on his soul. Satan might be a nice fellow, but Severus preferred to avoid spending eternity with him if he could.

Interaction with the mortals were tricky. With his peers also, sometimes. War liked to drink, so they went pub crawling sometimes, as long as War promised Severus not to pick fights. That was his idea of fun. It ended in work for Severus sometimes. As many of the other Incarnations of Immortality, War loved his job. Severus? Not so much.

But the problem with Lily's son came back to his attention during his work. He received a call to a client and Mort dropped him at Hogwarts. But when Severus consulted the watch, it gave a peculiar reading. It was as if two souls were sharing the same body.

'What in the name of Merlin?,' he thought. Severus had never heard it was possible.

Following the directions of the ever trusted arrow, Severus arrived at some room in the bowels of the school. As a student, Severus never heard of that place, much less recognize it. But the watch was adamant his next client was there.

Five minutes.

There was a man in a turban looking at a mirror. It was the Mirror of Erised, and the man must be a teacher. A boy was with him, and Severus immediately knew who he was.

Harry Potter.

With growing horror, Severus watched as that small child confronted the man. The turban hid another entity, the second soul detected by the watch.

In less than two minutes, Severus realized what was going on: the entity had taken hold of the man in the turban and now wanted a body, a feat that the boy could help with the Philosopher's Stone. But it seemed Harry had no intention of giving the stone. There was shouting and the watch flashed, telling Severus he was about to reap one of the two souls inside the man in turban.

It wouldn't be long.

The man charged over the boy, demanding the stone, and he tried to fight the kid. That was when weird got weirder.

In the exact moment Turban Man touched Harry, two things happened: Severus collected his soul and his body began disintegrating immediately. The man yelled, but he was dead. The second soul that inhabited his body was virtually homeless, so it fled to the boy, trying to possess him. But it could not, so there was nothing left to do but flee the scene. Harry collapsed right there, with a big red stone loosely held in his fingers.

Severus took some time to contemplate what he had witnessed. There surely were some evil forces at play, and Lily's boy was right in the middle of it all.

Loathe as he was to admit it, Dumbledore might be right. But how could he help protect the child? And why did he have that nagging sensation that the old coot was not being entirely altruistic?

Severus consulted his peers.

'In my experience,' offered War, 'altruism is a dead art. Everybody has his own agenda. This Dumbledore fellow obviously has his own.'

'I agree, up to a point,' joined in Nature. 'I just can't see how he would benefit from it, though. He may have some legitimate reasons.'

Severus offered a second round of biscuits, saying, 'I wish Fate were here. She knows Dumbledore.' The others looked at him and he added, 'From before. We knew Dumbledore. We used to be wizards.'

'I don't trust wizards' said Nature, in contempt. 'They live too long , it's not natural.'

'I was not yet 22 when I died,' recalled Severus.

'Technically, you haven't died yet, so it is still a valid point,' said War.

Severus rolled his eyes. He should have known his Incarnations friends wouldn't be much help. They had been immortals too long to relate to the human condition. Fate and himself were the exceptions. After a decade in the office, the others still called them newbies.

Fate didn't show up until a few days later. She also had no answers to him. To his dismay, Severus hadn't realized she had bias in relation to Dumbledore.

'Of course he just wants to help the boy,' she offered.

'He seems to believe the Dark Lord is not quite dead. Can you please share a light?'

For the first time since he met her as the personification of Fate, she looked discomforted. 'Voldemort do seem to be hanging by a thread, and it is not a pun.'

Severus whispered, in horror, 'He lives...?'

'That is the rub,' said Fate reluctantly. 'The answer is yes and no. Damn him! He is the closest thing to a Schrödinger cat I have ever seen!'

'But how?'

'I don't know. Nature is right: wizards do have a tendency to defy nature. It seems Lord Voldemort is defying you, Death.'

If he could, Severus would have turned white. He recalled the prophecy he had heard about the Dark Lord and the one born by the end of July. Everything came back to him like a flash flood: Lily's son persecution, Dumbledore's failure, Sirius Black's betrayal... And if the Dark Lord could somehow be alive, Lily's son was really in danger. He told so to Fate.

'I didn't get to know the kid. Was he cute?'

Severus answered instinctively, 'He has his mother's eyes.'

Fate smiled. 'Then he is cute.'

Severus could not but agree.

o0o 0o0 o0o 0o0

Keeping tabs on Harry Potter was not easy. Severus had to convince Mort about the importance of keeping in touch with the boy because of his connection with the defiant soul who refused to die. Somehow, though, he joined forces with Dumbledore, and together they developed a device that helped him to sense close death near Harry. It was an extreme measure, and Severus thought he would only use it in a few occasions. Surely the kid would not be at the brink of death so many times in his short life.

To call this assumption a miscalculation was an understatement.

A few weeks after the device was set, it alerted of a very real danger quite close to the boy. Severus rushed to Hogwarts and found the boy in the school's infirmary. This time he was visiting a girl who had been petrified. The stench of dark magic was evident even to Severus, who was no longer a wizard.

Another boy joined him. Severus deducted they were friends - close friends. And they were also partners in crime. From what Severus could hear, the girl was the brains of the operation. Her name burned in his skull only after the redheaded boy said she was the one who brewed them Polyjuice Potion. As a devout Potions lover, Severus knew brewing Polyjuice was a feat in itself, let alone to a twelve-year old Muggleborn called Hermione.

Severus checked his devices of Death: the girl was in no immediate danger, so he didn't intervene. He only did that later, when the boy was foolish enough to enter a secret chamber inside the school and, egged on by a wraith, battled a basilisk. There was a happy ending, though: the Weasley girl was saved, Harry Potter came out of there alive and Severus needn't intervene.

Some interesting things happened then: Severus realized that Dumbledore was looking over the boy, that Lily's son unfortunately had inherited his father's knack for running straight into trouble and that the wraith Potter encountered while trying to rescue the Weasley girl had some actual answers that Fate might like to know.

'I think you need to talk to Dumbledore,' suggested Fate. 'He might know exactly what that apparition meant.'

'Marlene,' he said shakily. 'That apparition felt like a soul. It was not the same as a ghost, yet it was a bit just like one. I am Death; I know how a soul feels. You know I am not easily impressed, but now I am, and it's not in a good way.'

'That is why I think you should talk to Dumbledore. He may know a lot more than you think.'

That was not beyond the realm of reasonable thought, so Severus kept that in mind. But he was not ready to look for the old meddling coot.

Yet.

Then a convicted criminal escaped from Azkaban.

Severus was alarmed by the news, even though his wonderful device was silent. To him, it was deeply disturbing: Sirius Black had escaped. The man the whole wizarding world knew as the hideous traitor to the Potters was on the loose, and young Harry could be in terrible danger. Dumbledore even had Dementors posted all over Hogwarts grounds. Damned device! Why couldn't it express the same fear Severus felt?

The surprises were not over, though. Another of Severus's old enemies, Remus Lupin, was back at Hogwarts, now as a teacher. Though he was friends with Black, Potter and that insipid Peter Pettigrew, Lupin had been half decent to Severus in their schooldays. But what was Dumbledore thinking, letting loose a werewolf amongst innocent children?

The cherry on the top of the cake, though, came when the device alerted him of the danger Harry and his friends were facing. They were lured into the Shrieking Shack by no other than Sirius Black himself. The Weasley boy had a broken leg and the three thirteen-years-old were facing a mass murderer.

Except that Black was not a mass murderer. He didn't even kill Peter Pettigrew. Actually, Pettigrew was alive and, since he was a bloody Animagus, he had been living as Ronald Weasley's pet rat.

Severus could have frothed in sheer rage at the rat. For he was the reason James and Lily were dead: contrary to popular belief, Peter Pettigrew was the one who the Potters trusted their Unplottable location and he had sold them to the Dark Lord. Black was innocent.

That was a table turner for Severus. A rat was a good form for a coward, back-stabbing unqualified wizard whose soul he would gleefully collect and send down to the Prince of Darkness. Lupin and Black surely had their minds set on doing just that – killing Pettigrew right then and none would be the wiser. But they'd rather ask Harry what should they do to the person who was responsible for his parents' death. Being Lily's son, the boy decided to deliver Pettigrew to the authorities and let the Dementors have a go at him.

Severus hated Dementors. Those foul creatures were a mockery of his office, stealing souls as if they had any claim to them. They were an aberration and wholly unnatural, since even Nature wanted nothing to do with them. Only Satan protected them, for the sheer evil in them.

It was clear, though, that Black loathed that decision, and that Pettigrew himself was not sure if not being killed right away was a good thing, given what the Dementors did. For once, Severus agreed with Black.

But then someone appeared at the Shrieking Shack. Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, had followed the trio and was shocked to see what she thought criminal Sirius Black in cahoots with Professor Lupin. She was keen to apprehend both and deliver them to the authorities, but Harry Potter knocked her down. Hermione was shocked that her friend attacked a teacher, and Severus nodded at that.

So many things happened after that. The three students and two adults led the prisoner and levitated the unconscious teacher through a secret passage outside the Shrieking Shack, and then the moon came out. It was the full moon, and they knew it had a devastating effect on Lupin.

Sirius Black's pleas to Lupin to take a hold on his head and keep his consciousness fell on deaf lupine ears, of course. Severus was even shocked that Black could be that sentimental and actually believe that their mere friendship would deter a powerful imperative to a werewolf. Black then had no other choice but turn into a dog (he was also an Animagus) to confront the wolf.

Fortunately, at that time, Sinistra was up and protected the children as Black tried to steer Lupin away from the students. But Harry, being James's son, broke free and chased dog and werewolf. Severus swore under his breath and went after the boy, who lost himself in the forest. Some Dementors approached, and Severus's device began to beep madly.

The Dementors attacked Sirius and Harry, and then Severus could hold back no more. He closed his hood and called Mort, who was in his horse form. Swiflty, both appeared near the lake, where the attack was set.

It was a sight to see. Death and its daunting steed arose from the trees, looming up ominously toward the foul creatures. Dementors were considered living beings, but their nature was surely from the Great Beyond, and so they immediately recognized Death as it approached. Severus always thought Mort make a much more intimidating figure as a gigantic horse. His valiant steed prove that by making all foul creatures flee in horror.

Later, it was said that a powerful Patronus Charm was what caused the Dementors to disperse in such a hurried way. Severus didn't resent that version. Death was feared enough; he didn't need the extra publicity.

But his attention was grabbed by the arrival of a colleague in the scene. Another Incarnation was there. Severus could not contain his surprise.

'Chronos?'

'Thanatos?' The personification of Time was used to call Death by the classical name. 'I was wondering if you would come in this version of reality as well.'

'This version?'

Chronos checked his hourglass before continuing. 'Oh, yes. There has been some time traveling here. This much is clear.'

'I think those wizard teens might have something to do with that, then.'

The personification of Time turned and sighed. 'Ah. I should have known: wizards. They make my life so hard sometimes.'

Death agreed. 'They do that to me, too. Apparently, I don't have a client anymore.'

'All is well, then.' He looked at his hourglass once more. 'I must make haste, my friend. Time stops for no one. Drop by sometime, if you can.'

'Will do. Farewell, my friend.'

And as Chronos left, Severus found himself relieved of having escaped being caught doing things unrelated to the dying business. It was highly unprofessional, to say the least.

After the time turner was used, and the hippogriff was saved (also saving Black in the process), Severus deemed Harry safe enough and went back to his job, since it was already getting a remarkable backlog. But he made a mental note to visit Dumbledore and get a few things straight as soon as he could.

His intentions might keep on being intentions a while longer, though, he thought, as he went back home and noted he has unexpected company waiting for him in his living room.

Satan had come to Spinner's End.