Title: Lusus Naturae

Chapter: Nineteen

Rating: M for Meddling

Warnings: Abuse, Death, Torture, Gryffindors

Meddlesome old fool ... dare to ... I'll kill him ...

"Potter!"

Harry sat precariously atop a bed in the Hospital Wing, clutching his head and rocking as a sharp pain thrummed behind his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to throw off his newly minted spectacles and stick his thumbs into the sockets of his eyes to quell the angry pulse behind them.

"Har-"

How dare he ... a child ... touches us again ... petrify him where he stands ...

"I can't hear you," Harry hollered, hopelessly over the incessant buzzing between his ears.

Strong hands gripped his shoulders, holding him in place. Harry whined as the soothing rocking he had managed was halted and the gentle sloshing of the liquid in his inner ear ceased. One of those disembodied hands disappeared and reappeared below his chin, gently urging his face into the light. It seared past the membranes covering his eyes and he hissed.

"Harry," that was Professor Snape's voice near to his right ear. "I'm going to take off your glasses. Keep your eyes shut."

Lithe fingers slipped the metal frames from his ears and he heard them clatter as they were deposited on the table beside the bed.

If he saw ... drastic ... play it safe ...

"Breathe," Severus instructed him, placing his hands on either side of Harry's face - taking the place of his own. "You will faint if you don't breathe."

Harry did so through his teeth, sucking in gulps of air that promptly expelled themselves through his nose. It didn't help. Nothing would. It felt as if his brain was being tugged out of his ear.

"It's a migraine," Madame Pomfrey supplied.

Her heeled boots clicked against the stone floor as she rushed to his side. Harry flinched away from the noise of it.

"Open up, Mr. Potter."

Professor Snape manually tilted his head back and a cool vial was pressed to his lower lip. Harry opened his mouth to accept a surprisingly pleasant potion. It swirled with the thick saliva pooling in his mouth in a distinctly unpleasant way, forming globs that slid down his throat in a most undesirable fashion.

The Professor lowered him to the pillows situated at the head of the bed and released his hold. When the pressure retreated, Harry instinctively replaced it with his own hands.

"Keep your eyes closed," Severus reminded.

"What happened?" Madame Pomfrey hissed in a furious whisper.

Severus exhaled as if it were the same breath he had been holding since they stood in Dumbledore's office.

"The Headmaster attempted to extract a memory from him. Against his will."

"No," Pomfrey gasped.

"It is fortunate I happened upon them," Severus said with a sneer. "He did not appear concerned with Potter's obvious distress."

"I can't believe-" The Medi-Witch spluttered. "To a child?"

"He was holding the boy's head in place."

Madame Pomfrey choked on a laugh or a sob. "This has gone on long enough, Severus."

Snape hummed and returned to Harry's side. Harry felt the Professor slip two fingers under one of his wrists and the brush of knuckles against his cheek.

"Any progress?" he asked.

Harry could feel the potion taking effect. The roaring between his ears was fading and a hollow silence took its place. He was still shaking, bouncing his feet on the mattress in hopes of assuaging the phantom pain. For lack of words, Harry nodded.

"I found the note," Severus murmured softly. "I would have you know I did not write it. I would never have sent you without an escort."

Fresh tears pooled and spilled from the corners of his clenched eyes, cursing himself for not considering.

"What note?" Madame Pomfrey asked.

Severus let his hand fall away and a moment later a rush of cool air danced along Harry's skin - likely summoned by the man's wand.

"I found a note in our quarters, signed by myself apparently, inviting Potter to a meeting with the Headmaster at noon today."

"He wouldn't- do you think?"

"I forbade him from questioning Harry until he had recovered, until after the holiday. It seems that was an unsatisfactory demand."

"If this is true, Albus is becoming more deranged than we imagined," she said gravely. "Mr. Potter? Still with us?"

Harry nodded glumly, pleased to find the motion did not produce any more pressure behind his eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir," he called, unsure of where Professor Snape had landed when he stepped away. "I didn't know."

"When you are feeling up to it, we will pen a notarized statement of your account. If he demands anything else, I will handle it," Severus insisted. "You are not to be alone with the Headmaster, Potter. If you are cornered, you will leave and find me immediately. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Professor Snape and Madame Pomfrey excused themselves to the far end of the room, the latter patting his knee reassuringly as she went.

"All this over a werewolf," Severus growled as they went.

Madame Pomfrey seemed saddened when she replied, "I can't imagine, Remus Lupin a traitor."

"You've seen first hand how dangerous that - man could be," Severus snapped. "He nearly killed me."

"Yes... I suppose so," Pomfrey relented with a sniffle. "What does this mean for Sirius Black?"

"I care little to imagine."

"I don't think he was there for me," Harry said. He pushed a neatly penned letter across the desk to Professor Snape with a nod, approving the contents. He hadn't been trusted to write it himself after the a large splotch of ink splattered onto the first iteration.

Severus took the leaflet of parchment and began folding it into thirds. "What do you mean?" he asked as he readied an envelope.

"He, er, Professor Lupin was looking for something, but I'm not sure it was me," Harry repeated. "He had a piece of paper, folded up like a muggle map, and his wand was out. He barely noticed me walking by. After he asked me to walk with him, he kept looking around. I thought maybe to see if we were being followed."

The Professor eyed him for a moment before seeming to come to a private agreement with himself. He finished sealing the letter with a wave of his wand and set it to the side.

"We recovered a map on Lupin's body," he explained. "The Curse Breakers at the Ministry believe it to be a map of Hogwarts, enchanted to show the location of every witch and wizard on the castle grounds. The theory is that Lupin knew of Black's whereabouts the whole time. They believe he was using it to track Pettigrew's movements as well."

"If he knew," Harry questioned, "about Black and Pettigrew... Why bother with me?"

Severus considered him for another moment, then grabbed the letter and made to stand.

"The Dark Lord would handsomely reward any of his followers able to secure your capture," he explained. "Even so. If Lupin truly betrayed your parents, he may consider your continued existence a failure to be corrected."

Harry blanched, though he doubted the glamour allowed him even that. "I thought Vol- er, the Dark Lord was dead?"

Severus led him from the room, guiding them out into the corridor that carved a narrow path through the dungeons of Hogwarts. The two ambled amicably side-by-side down its length.

"I shall not understate the significance of your victory over the Dark Lord," the Professor drawled, "There is however a reason so many fell in pursuit of his demise. It takes a great deal of effort to eradicate a darkness such as that from our world."

Harry dreamt for the first time in months that evening. Perhaps because he hadn't had a moment to reflect on what had happened with Professor Lupin and his psyche needed to reorient after reliving the event. Whatever the reason, he fell quickly into fitful sleep tucked comfortably into the bed he had claimed for himself in Professor Snape's quarters. He expected to find the welcoming darkness that greeted him each night and was instead thrust into a memory far different from his own.

Professor Lupin was a bloodied statue, kneeling in the grass in front of him in a sick mockery of subservience. It took a moment to register than Lupin was not bloodied, but rather that the world around him had taken on a crimson hue. He turned to survey his surroundings, but his intentions were overruled. His eyes stopped on the disheveled figure of the man he now knew to be Sirius Black, clawing towards him in the dirt.

The words shared between them were far off and away - buzzing like a fat lazy bumblebee at the edge of his awareness. Harry's wand hand raised of its own accord, bearing a wand that did not belong to him. A fragrant cloud of magic spilled forth at his behest, hurtling towards Black. It encircled his head and crawled up his nose. Black clawed at his face as if to stop it.

"Find Severus," Harry spoke. "Tell him Harry Potter is in trouble. Bring him here."

Sirius rose a different man driven by newly found purpose.

"He'll be in his office," Harry called after him, looking back to the petrified corpse left in his company. "Tell him it was Lupin."

He grabbed the pendant dangling over his exposed chest and ripped it over his head, discarding it to the ground beside him. Pain blossomed across his chest and upper arms as the cutting curse tore his thick robes to ribbons. With a crunch his glasses were crushed under foot. Trembling from the cold, Harry marched forward and delicately balanced the unfamiliar wand into Professor Lupin's pointed grip. He paused to scoop up a handful of snow that had turned dark with blood from the slashes across his skin, tossing it back at the tree as he returned.

Everything was in place, except...

He summoned the rat wandlessly to his hand from the discarded book bag laying a few feet away. With a grimace he tossed the unconscious rodent into the air. When it landed it was no longer a rat, but a rodent-faced man face down in the muddied snow.

With a glance spared at Remus Lupin's preserved expression of indignant rage, the red bled from his vision and Harry collapsed unconscious to the ground.

As his head hit the wet earth, Harry awoke with a strangled cry. He was in his bed. A warm trickle leaked down his upper lip and he wiped blood down the length of his forearm as he tried to stem the tide.

He considered waking the Professor, but could not shake the feeling of guilt that had plagued him the last several days - as if he had done something very wrong. He wasn't desperate enough to bother Snape with his troubles.

Just a dream ...

"I refuse," Minerva McGonagall spat matter-of-factly. "Under no circumstances will I agree to this."

For the first time in several months, it would appear she and Severus saw eye to eye on the matter. The Potions Professor was already rising to his feet to object.

The pair stood together once more in the Headmaster's office - separately summoned to a meeting on the eve of the New Year. They had both been led to believe this meeting to be about the return of the student body in the coming days.

"His condition requires around the clock supervision. The danger alone-" Severus said with vitriol coating each word.

"The danger to my students!"

Albus Dumbledore held up one wrinkled hand as if doing so would quiet them. It seemed neither of the two held much stock in his authority these days as Professor McGonagall continued her tirade, uninterrupted.

"I refuse," she repeated. "I will not have the blood of another student on my hands for agreeing to this... this absurdity!"

While her logic was laced with a prejudice with which Severus did not hold, the sentiment was one he agreed with whole-heartedly.

"I will not allow it," he echoed flatly.

Albus waited for their objections to quiet before raising himself as well as his voice.

"The arrangements made to accommodate young Harry's recovery were never intended to be permanent. While he is in this school and a student at Hogwarts, he will obey the by-laws of our Founders." His tone spoke loudly of his thoughts on their disobedience. He continued, "Harry Potter will return to Gryffindor Tower with the rest of the students as they return from the holidays. He belongs with his friends."

"I can tell you, Albus," Minerva said, her voice shaking. "None of the students in my house would call Mr. Potter a friend. Not anymore."

Severus could not contain the sneer that pulled up his lip. "It would take but one foolish Gryffindor thinking it wise to bait Potter to a duel for tragedy to unfold," he agreed after a moment's hesitation. "Any number of missteps could lead to another accident."

"Accident," Minerva scoffed. "He murdered a Professor!"

Severus pinned her with a glare as the Headmaster made quick to admonish her, but seemed to think better of it.

"Professor McGonagall," Albus began sternly. He paused a moment and used the breath to securely fasten a patented serenity on his face. "This is my final word on the matter."

"Harry!"

Neville Longbottom set out at a gangly jog, elbowing through the crush of students as they filed into Hogwarts Castle. He had spotted Harry leaning against the arched doorway leading to the Great Hall straight away. Harry waved and attempted to make his own way to Neville, only to earn a shove from a 7th year Slytherin for his efforts.

"Alright, Harry?" Neville asked as they ducked around the corner into the Great Hall. He led Harry several yards from the crowd by the shoulder.

"Good to see you, Nev," Harry said with a grin.

"You've seen the paper?" Neville asked in hushed tones. "It's all over the news. Sirius Black saved your life?"

Harry shuffled awkwardly in place with a shrug.

"They're saying Professor Lupin tried to kill you!"

"I'll tell you later," Harry muttered, leading Neville towards the far end of the Gyrffindor table in the hall which was already filling with their housemates.

"Gran lost it," Neville continued. "She said both of them new my p-parents."

Harry hummed, drawing the conclusion that his own parents must have known Neville's. It made sense, but he had never considered the connection.

"She said she never believed Black could- Well," Neville trailed off. The tips of his ears went bright red as he realized he was probably being incredibly rude. "Did you get my presents?"

"Professor Snape nearly confiscated the book," Harry said with a laugh.

"Are those new glasses?"

"Yeah, just got them made. I can see again!"

"Wicked."

As the remaining stragglers hustled through the doors at the far end of the hall, Headmaster Dumbledore rose to take his customary place at the center of the raised staff-seating. He stood in front of the podium and waited patiently for the last of the students to take their seats.

"Quiet," Professor McGonagall ordered, her voice rising above the din with the assistance of magic.

Dumbledore gave a pleasant smile. "Welcome back to our returning students," he said cordially. "Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year to you all. A few announcements before the feast commences. With the capture of Sirius Black, I am pleased to say the Dementors of Azkaban will no longer darken the grounds of Hogwarts." A timid round of applause spread across the hall. "In addition, you will notice a change in staff. I have invited a guest to take up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts for the remainder of the year - my dearest friend Alastor Moody."

"Mad-Eye," the Weasley twins declared loudly between themselves.

The name spread across the length of the Gryffindor table and leapt quickly to the other houses. Dumbledore had to tap his wand on the edge of the podium, emitting a burst of white sparks to regain the attention of the crowd.

"Alastor is a Senior Auror at the Ministry of Magic graciously donating his time to your continued studies. We thank him for his service," Dumbledore finished with a hand waved in the man's direction.

"Retired, more like," came word from the twins.

Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was a sullen mass planted stiffly beside Hagrid at the staff table. The boys observed his frightening presence and shared a pointed look between them.

"With that," Dumbledore announced, "Enjoy the feast."

A/N: We may spend longer in third year than I planned.