Disclaimer: The characters and settings, including any sentences taken directly or partly from the books or movies, of Harry Potter are the property of J. K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, Bloomsbury Publishing, AOL Time Link and Warner Brothers. I do not make money from publishing my story.
'Where could that wretched boy be?', Severus thought. When he had returned to the boy's room after the meeting, he had found the room to be desolate and without any sign of a struggle. He had immediately assumed that something was wrong. Whipping his wand from his sleeve, he checked the adjoining bathroom. When he couldn't find his student in any of the rooms he went into the main room again.
While he was not as experienced as the Aurors that were specialized in crime scenes, Severus did know his way around some of the revealing charms. First he wanted to determine if Harry was somehow still hidden in these chambers, invisible and cloaked by someone. He could use the same charm to see if anyone else had hidden themselves away in these quarters, so he quickly cast his first spell. "Homenum Revelio", Severus intoned strictly, it took a few seconds for his magic to have scanned all of the rooms, before he got the results; there was no one besides him in Harry's rooms.
Since there was no physical evidence of a struggle he hoped there was at least some magical residue left of whatever had occurred here. There were quite a number of different spells he could use for this purpose, but most of them were either magically taxing or took a long time to take effect. There was however, one spell that was most arbitrary. This spell would act as some sort of anti-magic substance, sticking to all magic residues in the room. The magic residue would then light up, allowing Severus to locate where spells were cast and even the magical power of said spells. Sometimes if the spells cast were powerful enough, the substance would even show the trajectory of the magic.
Most of the time, the Aurors didn't use this spell as it was not very accurate. It didn't allow for any determination of the type of spell, nor did it allow for determination of when the spells were cast, as magic residues deteriorated fast. It was also possible that Severus would not detect anything at all, since the magic of minor spells deteriorated even faster. Even with all its flaws, this spell was possibly a quick way to find out what had happened.
"Magicis reliquiae obseruo", Severus called, while making some intrinsic wand movements, which were followed by an explosion of some sort of dust. Some of the anti-magic substance flowed to the ground, not touching any magic and thus disappearing. However, at the places where magic was present it began to glow brightly, allowing Severus to observe the magical residues.
The wards around the room glowed softly. The magic of wards was normally barely noticeable and only a small amount of magic was present when they were not actively keeping threats in or out. The magic of the wards was slightly brighter around the doors and windows, which was as Severus had expected, these places were after all the weak spots of wards. What Severus had not expected however, was the significant increases in magical residue on the door that connected these quarters to the hallway.
Even from a distance Severus could clearly see that the magic on the door was brighter than anywhere else in the room. When inspecting the wards around the door more closely he found that the wards themselves were intact. It appeared that the one whose magic was all over the door had only overloaded the wards and not broken them. However, the thing that had Severus most intrigued was the magical handprint on the door.
The outline of a hand was glowing brightly on the wooden door, even with the glow of the magic of the wards as a background. From the brightness of the handprint, Severus had concluded that the magical residue was extremely concentrated and probably quite fresh. Whoever had done this was quite skilled with wards and had to be magically skilled as well. After all there was a handprint on the door and not a spell trajectory connecting to it, which could only mean that wandless magic had been used.
Suddenly the door opened again, revealing an out-of-breath Harry Potter standing in the doorway, whom Severus quickly pulled inside. Harry in the mean time was gaping at the brightly shining, but slowly fading effects of Severus' revealing charm. It took all his willpower not to be visibly drawn to the handprint on the back of the door, but instead focussed on his teacher. "Professor, I am sorry", Harry started apologising, "I should not have left my rooms..."
However, Severus did not let him finish. "I cannot believe you were this reckless!", there was hardness in his voice, but also relief, "I thought someone had taken you." 'I thought the Dark Lord had hurt you', Severus' mind supplied for him, even though he did not voice this concern. Harry lowered his eyes to the ground and looked quite ashamed, while Severus began his inquisitions.
"Explain to me why you felt the need to leave the security of these quarters", Severus said calmly but a vicious and somewhat mocking undertone could be heard. Harry was uncomfortably shifting his weight between his legs, trying to find the courage to answer his professor honestly. "These past weeks, I have learned a lot of magic, but without a wand I am still practically defenceless. I know that someday soon, Dumbledore will come looking for us, for me.", Harry said. He slowly looked up into his teacher's eyes and hardened his voice, "I cannot be defenceless, Professor! I need my wand!"
Some sense of desperation had made in into his student's voice, but overall he was impressed with the determination he saw within the boy. "I can see that problem has partly been solved already", Severus said, eyeing the wand currently clutched in Harry's hand. "As tempted as I am to keep you locked up here with me until you have fully explained how you have regained your wand", Severus continued, "The Dark Lord has requested your presence. He has assured me that he does not wish to kill you. However, I must still warn you to stay on your guard." Severus could imagine that Harry was quite worried about meeting the Dark Lord again, the last time they had been together in one room, was the day that Harry had awakened after his injuries. Severus himself was quite worried as well. There was no predicting what the Dark Lord exactly wanted with his student.
Around student and teacher, the glowing of the magical residue was slowly fading away. The high concentration of magic on the door caused it to fade slower than the rest however and Severus' attention was once again drawn to it. "Let me escort you to him, Harry", Severus said, while moving back towards the door, waiting for Harry to follow behind him.
Swallowing thickly once, Harry scraped his voice, before addressing his professor, "Sir, I kind of...", Harry started, gaining the attention of the Potions professor, who turned around looking Harry in the eyes. Severus' whole demeanour showed that he didn't want to be held up and was quite annoyed at his student for stalling. Harry decided he had to man-up once more and looked his teacher in the eyes, "Sir, I have already met with the Dark Lord, during which we have discussed and agreed upon a temporary truce", Harry stated confidently.
"Then I believe you have all the time you need, to explain exactly why your handprint would match that magical residue, Mr. Potter", Snape said threateningly, while indicating to the back of the door. While it was clear that Severus had been quite worried for his student, it gave Harry some weird sense of satisfaction, that he could make his professor so on edge. Then again he was quite eager to tell his teacher of his accomplishments in wandless magic and therefore replied quite cheekily, "I think that is a story best told over some tea, sir." After removing the cloak he had put on before he left, Harry sat down in his favourite chair. The same chair he had used for both studying and relaxing during the past few weeks. He invited Severus to sit in the chair opposite to his.
"Ever since you took me from the Dursleys, you have educated me in many different topics", Harry started, "I am extremely grateful that you took the time to teach me the necessary skills and also that you provide me with the means to teach myself." Harry started, his tone was of course graceful and Severus could detect some of his own speech patterns in Harry's confession. "Ever since I knew of the blood wards that were supposed to protect me, I have wanted to learn more about different types of wards, which I did with all the books you gave me. With the knowledge I gained recently, I was able to find out what kind of ward was placed on that door.", Harry indicated the door to the hallway. The handprint had disappeared in the mean time, as had all the shimmering of the magical residues.
"Being able to determine what ward is placed on a door, is completely different from being capable of overloading said ward as such that it is not dispelled-", Severus said, he sounded impressed and eager to learn of Harry's new found skills, "-especially doing this wandlessly, I might add." The corners of Severus lips were turned upwards only slightly, as he taunted his student.
"I have been practicing, sir", Harry smiled while explaining this, "Nothing grand or anything, just small easy bits of magic, like stirring my tea, summoning my books-" "-opening doors protected with ancient wards", Severus supplied, "while they are not technically complicated, they certainly posses above average magical strength." Harry had read that most wards at pureblood homes, were powerful, but he thought they had only meant the wards that protected the whole house, not the wards that were cast around each room.
"It took more time than the other spells, yes, but I only directed my magic into the wards themselves", Harry tried to down-play his accomplishment, "It was nothing elaborate!" It felt weird, to be complimented by Severus. The last few weeks Severus had sporadically hinted that he was proud of Harry's accomplishments, but nothing this direct. "We have discovered your natural talent, Harry, besides evading death of course. I will gather some more intricate books on warding and we will get started. I think we just discovered your potential worth for when the Headmaster comes knocking on our door", Severus concluded, enthusiastically he began to gather books from one of the shelves in the room, before he left to gather some more from the Malfoy family library.