Severus was doing an admirable job of not panicking, he thought, as he walked through Diagon Ally with The Boy Who Lived and Lucius Bloody Malfoy.
He had left Potter alone for mere moments, and returned to see the boy all cozied up to not just a Death Eater, but one of the Dark Lord's top lieutenants.
How could he fix this? How could he spin this in a way that would warn the boy of the dangers, while keeping his cover intact?
The group of five ordered ice cream for themselves, and sat down at a secluded table. Severus and Lucius each put up layers of anti-surveillance and privacy wards, and they made a little show of acknowledging Harry's birthday, and making the boy feel special, before allowing Draco to distract the child, so they could talk business.
Lucius flicked his wrist, and produced what appeared to be a variation of a muggle-repellant ward around the three adults. From what Severus could tell, it would increase the boys' perception of their conversation as 'boring adult talk' and encourage them to ignore it, while still allowing quick, direct communication in the case of an emergency. Severus would have to learn that one; it would be infinitely useful at Hogwarts.
"Severus, how on earth did you find the Potter boy?" Lucius asked, the almost manic gleam in his eye betraying his mask of indifference.
Show time.
Severus leaned back and allowed a disdainful sneer to creep onto his face. "Dumbledore tasked me with tracking him down, after his muggle guardians panicked at his Hogwarts letter and fled. I would have assumed the old puppet-master would keep the boy and his handlers on shorter strings, but apparently not."
Lucius looked impressed, and then suspicious. "The old man trusts you that much?"
"I don't teach at that school for my health, Lucius. I've been laying the groundwork for this for a very long time. Dumbledore is a paranoid man; it took years to convince him that I had truly changed."
"What are your plans for the boy?"
"That entirely depends on how things go, now, doesn't it? What are your plans for him? I'm surprised you've let your son get so close."
Lucius waved a dismissive hand. "We have time on our side. We both know the Dark Lord isn't dead, not entirely, but there's been no sign of him returning any time soon, either. The boy could be a useful tool, maybe even a figure head, if we play our cards right. And if the Dark Lord does return and wants to finish what he started with the boy, well, we'll be in a prime position to hand him over, now won't we?"
Severus suppressed a shiver. This was exactly what he had been afraid of. "And your son?"
Lucius gave a weary sigh. "Draco's still just a child. He's a good little actor when he remembers to be, but he's too excitable and short-sighted. I've dropped hints, but I haven't told him everything about my past, or our family's allegiances, not yet. It's too much of a risk. And now, well, it's more useful to allow him to befriend Potter than force him to antagonize the boy. It will be a hard blow, if we have to turn against him, but I'm hoping Draco will be old enough by then that he'll understand. That I'll be able to explain at least some of the intricacies of our position to him before it happens. In the meantime, we can groom the boy as we would any potential ally."
"We appear to be of the same mind, then," Severus said, frantically calculating the risks. "This is too great an opportunity to pass up, even if the boy is a walking replica of his detestable father."
Lucius chuckled. "In appearance only, it seems. How did you convince James Potter's boy to want to be a Slytherin?"
"I honestly don't know. I barely spoke to him of the houses."
"Hmm. Did you know he can talk to snakes?"
"Well, obviously," Severus said, gesturing to them both.
"No, I mean actual snakes. The boy claims to be a parselmouth."
"He what?!"
A smarmy, predatory look crossed Lucius' face. The man was dangerously amused. "So, you didn't know. That boy could rule Slytherin, Severus. It's best to keep him close."
A parselmouth. Merlin.
"Draco!" Narcissa admonished sharply, having evidently been listening in on the boys' conversation. "Where did you learn that word?"
"I…" the boy looked stunned and confused, his eyes darting between his parents and Harry for clarity.
"You picked it up from one of the older boys, didn't you? That is a bad word, Draco. It is a hurtful word. You shouldn't use it."
"I…" Draco looked even more confused, now. He looked a little betrayed. Severus and Lucius were both intrigued enough to stop talking, and focus their attention on the furiously blushing child.
Narcissa softened her featured, and her tone. "Harry's own mother was a muggleborn, darling. I'm sure he wouldn't want you saying her blood was dirty. I'm so sorry, Harry dear. Some of Lucius' political friends can get a bit crass with their jokes, and their sons tend to repeat them without really knowing what they mean. I'm sure Draco didn't mean anything by it."
Ah. Suddenly the Malfoys' own prejudice and bigoted speech was a liability, when spewed so casually from the mouth of their son. Poor boy. Severus did not believe for a second that he had learned the word 'mudblood' from anyone but his parents. He was smart enough to hang his head and not argue with his mother in front of outside company, though.
"I'm sorry, Harry," Draco said in a small voice. "I didn't know."
"It's okay," Harry said, looking equally embarrassed, and patting Draco awkwardly on the back, "I didn't know, either."
The two were quiet for a while, staring at the dregs of their deserts.
"Harry," Severus said gently, "why don't you tell Draco all about something from the muggle world. Muggle transportation, perhaps?"
Potter lit up at the opportunity to bypass the newfound tension between him and his first wizarding friend, and launched into a diatribe about muggle automobiles and airplanes.
Had Severus made the right choice? Should he have sabotaged the friendship further, instead? Lucius was watching like a hawk. If he did decide to put a wedge between Potter and the Malfoy heir, he'd have to be very subtle about it. It could wait. There was no guarantee that the boys would be sorted into the same house, and even if they were, friendships ran hot and cold at the tender age of eleven.
"Sorry about that," Narcissa said. "The Potter boy is going to learn all of the rumours about each of us, eventually. I thought it best to prevent Draco from adding fuel to them."
"You did well," Lucius said, with a sharp nod.
Narcissa relaxed. "He's going to be mad at me for embarrassing him in front of his friend, when we get home."
"You've weathered worse tantrums. He'll get over it. He'll understand that he was in danger of ruining his chances with The Harry Potter, and you only stepped in to save him. Eventually."
"I'm surprised your boy ever came to idolize The Boy Who Lived," Severus probed.
"It was inevitable," Lucius groused. "I couldn't risk my naïve toddler innocently telling a ministry official or auror that 'daddy says Harry Potter would be better off dead', now could I? All of the children hero worship Potter, Severus. He's a child their own age who defeated a Dark Lord. When I was their age, I daydreamed of being a character from a fairy tale book. Kids these days dream of being Harry Potter. I'm sure Draco will grow out of it. No living person can live up to a perfect illusory ideal. Potter's no exception. Draco will realize he's just a boy, soon enough."
"We're all going to be balancing on a basilisk's back, to pull this off," Severus noted.
Lucius hummed in agreement. "How to convince the boy that we're on his side, while leaving enough evidence that we haven't betrayed the Dark Lord, to ensure he won't torture us to death before we can explain our plan, should he return without notice?"
And how to do both of those things while keeping Harry Potter safe from the pit of vipers he's fallen into. At least Draco seemed to be genuinely on Potter's side, for now.
Severus nodded. "It won't be easy."
The boy was intelligent, and curious, and those muggles of his had given him no reason to trust authority or adults. Once the initial euphoria of discovering the Wizarding World wore off, Potter was going to start scrutinizing everything he was told, and every action that did not align with those words.
Lucius seemed to grasp that, too. He was playing the long game here. He clearly did not think that a box of sweets and a pat on the head would be enough to gain Potter's trust. He was angling for something deeper, that could not be so easily brushed aside.
At the moment, Potter seemed to be clumsily explaining how a muggle combustion engine worked to a spellbound Draco. Severus stifled a smirk. If Draco developed an Arthur Weasley level of fascination with muggle gadgets because of Lucius Malfoy's political machinations, Severus might just die laughing.
The subject of Potter was dropped, and after some tedious small talk amongst the adults, Lucius dramatically announced that it was time for presents, making Potter squirm uncomfortably as all of the attention focused on him.
Draco officially presented Potter with the story books he'd picked up earlier. Lucius and Narcissa gave him a wizarding pocket watch, explaining that it was a traditional wizarding gift from parents to their children on their eleventh birthdays, to signify that the child was now old enough and responsible enough to actively use their time to study and train for their own future.
Potter, the poor, sweet, gullible child, preened under the implied praise.
So, Lucius was angling to become a father figure to the boy. That was worrisome.
Severus fingered his own gift to the boy, still hidden in the folds of his robes. Should he give it to him? He had wanted to create distance between himself and the child, had wanted to push the boy away from himself and towards the ghosts of his dead parents. While the figurine was not a lion, it was unmistakably on the nose.
He had not known the boy was hoping for Slytherin when he had gotten it. He was not expecting to have an audience when he begrudgingly shoved it at the boy with a muttered 'happy birthday'. He was certainly not expecting Lucius Malfoy of all people to ingratiate himself with the child and lure him into danger before he'd known he was a wizard for even twenty-four hours.
It was the only gift he had, and he had to give the boy something. He now needed to convince Lucius that he was attempting to charm the boy more urgently than he needed to convince Potter that he disliked him.
What a disaster.
With a heavy sigh, Severus pulled the red and gold figurine, a fully animated griffin that prowled around on it's base and roared with silent ferocity.
"I know you want to be a Slytherin, Harry, but your parents were Gryffindors, and while their house animal is officially a lion, I though this griffin figurine might remind you of them, anyways."
Harry took the gift reverently. "You don't think they'd be mad, do you? If I'm not a Gryffindor, I mean?"
"Your father might roll over once in his grave, if you get sorted into Slytherin, but he'd get over it. They would both be very proud of you, no matter where you end up."
"Unless you ended up in Hufflepuff," Draco said with a dramatic shiver of disgust. "Even I might have to ditch you, if you end up a Puff."
"Oh yes," Severus said gravely, with a wink, to show the boy he was only joking, "no one likes a Hufflepuff."
Harry smiled cautiously, and cradled the figurine to his chest. "I want to be a Slytherin. And I want to make them proud."
Lucius gave him a look, like he'd just realized Severus was a tactical genius. Severus attempted to look smug, like he had planned this all along.
He was going to age twenty years, this school term. He just knew it.