Yo! Please be sure you've read the previous chapter! You may not have received an email notification about the update because FFN was being kind of fucky at the time (which I didn't know when I updated). This chapter will be very confusing if you haven't read the previous one, so just take a few seconds to be sure you've read it before continuing. Anyway, thank you to all readers so far!
Potter and Draco didn't even glance at one another during breakfast the next morning, but when Severus saw Draco leave the Great Hall barely a moment after Potter did, he got up to follow.
Draco took a shortcut and ended up intercepting Longbottom, who was walking somewhere behind Potter. And then, speeding up just slightly enough to seem deliberate, Draco shoved Longbottom as he walked past him.
"Watch where you're going, you clumsy oaf!" he barked when Longbottom stumbled and grabbed his shoulder. But as they made eye contact, Draco subtly tapped his pocket before he kept walking.
Longbottom only rolled his eyes and hurried up to Potter, who was waiting for him to catch up to her.
"What was that about?" asked Potter.
"Just Malfoy being a git again, I guess," Longbottom replied with a shrug. They walked a few feet before he added, "Oh, I nearly forgot. Here's that potion you asked me to get you." He pulled a small vial out of his pocket, and Severus saw that it was three-quarters full of a sunshine-yellow potion.
A nutrient potion, Severus recognized instantly. True to his word, Draco had provided one for Potter.
Thanking Longbottom, Potter accepted the vial and drank the potion without question, which meant two things.
The first was that Longbottom was indeed aware of Potter's friendship with Draco-though whether he was on friendly terms with Draco himself remained to be seen. The second was that Potter trusted Draco enough to drink a potion either brewed or obtained by him, which surely meant this wasn't the first time he'd given her a potion.
Curious to know if Potter and Longbottom would address the potion when in private, he made sure he was still disillusioned and continued to follow them, glad he didn't have a class to teach this period. And sure enough, the two students slipped into a short, abandoned corridor hidden behind a tapestry.
Severus hadn't known there even was a corridor back here. One thing he did notice though, was that there were no portraits on the wall here.
Now that he thought about it, the corridor with the large windows where Potter and Draco had met the previous night didn't have any portraits hanging either. Interesting.
"That was the nutrient potion, right?" asked Longbottom. "The vial Malfoy put in my pocket?"
"Yeah, we talked about it last night," Potter replied. "He said it'll be better for me to take the potion for a while instead of stuffing myself with food which, to be fair, never ends well for me." She laughed sardonically, but Longbottom regarded her in obvious concern.
"Was it really that bad?"
Severus frowned at the question, but Potter seemed to understand what he meant because she said, "I guess? I mean, they've been treating me like this my entire life, so I'm not the best at judging what is and isn't bad when it comes to them."
"But...isn't all of it bad?"
Potter blinked and then smiled. "You aren't wrong. It is bad-everything about the situation is bad. It's just that...well, I'm used to it. I guess I always knew it wasn't right, but I didn't know how bad it was until I came here and met people who didn't live like me. That was when I started realizing the way I live isn't normal, like I'd always thought it was. It's kind of hard to explain," she added with a grimace.
Longbottom didn't quite seem to understand, but Severus did. He knew exactly what Potter was getting at, and that realization terrified him. Why hadn't he known about this? Why hadn't anyone known about this?
Unable to remain here any longer and unwilling to get caught (Potter had already glanced his way more than once), Severus left the corridor as quickly and silently as he could, trying to understand what he'd witnessed and heard.
But as much as he thought, Severus could come to no other conclusion other than that Potter had been suffering abuse at the hands of her relatives since she'd been placed with them after the Dark Lord had killed her parents. And somehow, he'd never even caught wind of it.
How had he never noticed it? Beatings and starvation left visible signs, and yet he'd never noticed them? He'd literally been in Potter's mind when he'd taught her occlumency last year, and somehow, he hadn't seen a single memory displaying the abuse she'd supposedly gone through.
How was that possible? Potter had been a quick learner when it came to occlumency, but not perfect. He'd seen a few of her memories. But somehow, none of those memories had been about any of this. Not just the abuse but her strange friendship with Draco as well.
Severus should have been the first one to notice all of these things, but it seemed like Draco of all people had managed it first.
He needed time to observe. He needed time to think.
The sixth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins had double potions that afternoon, and Severus observed Potter and Draco surreptitiously.
They paid little attention to one another until halfway through the lesson, when Draco made a scathing comment. Potter retorted, then Draco said something else, and then Granger pulled at Potter's arm to get her to turn away from Draco, telling her to ignore him.
The interaction seemed so normal that Severus wondered whether he'd hallucinated the meeting between the two the previous night, and the conversation between Potter and Longbottom that morning. But then Draco smirked at Potter and she rolled her eyes, flashing him a quick grin before she returned to her potion.
No, he hadn't hallucinated anything. Something was going on here.
But why?
Why were Potter and Draco suddenly getting along so well? Why had they become friends? Why were they discussing such terrible things as if they were as casual as talking about what to have for dinner?
And why had he never noticed any of this?
Everything was getting worse. The Dark Lord was demanding more from him, but Dumbledore was no better. Severus still hadn't decided what to do. He knew more than ever that he didn't want to follow either of the men he had to call master, but he still knew he had no choice.
Even now, he knew Potter was safer at Dumbledore's side and so, he too had to remain there. At least until the Dark Lord was defeated. Perhaps then he would leave Hogwarts and do something else with his life.
But no, there were a few problems with that as well.
Hogwarts was his home, and though he cared little for teaching, he couldn't fathom leaving and going elsewhere. He'd spent so much of his life in the castle. He'd suffered plenty while at Hogwarts, but it was also the only place he'd ever felt true joy, even though that joy was rare.
He doubted the Dark Lord could be defeated either. Not because he thought highly of him or anything like that. To him, the Dark Lord had always felt...untouchable, in a way. He'd even considered the possibility of him being immortal once or twice. He couldn't imagine how else he'd survived being hit with his own killing curse.
Yes, he did have to stay on Dumbledore's side. Potter was unlikely to leave either, so what choice did he have?
Dumbledore was giving Potter private lessons. Severus didn't know what the lessons were about-Dumbledore hadn't told him, only informing him that if he happened to assign Potter a detention on the same day as one of these lessons, the lesson would always trump the detention. Severus knew he had no leg to stand on in arguing, so he only agreed.
Hopefully, this meant Dumbledore was finally teaching Potter some advanced magic. The spells she was learning in her classes were going to be of little help against the Dark Lord.
What spells would he teach her though? Severus knew many advanced spells himself, but he doubted Potter was strong or skilled enough to cast any of them just yet. It would take a fair bit of training, certainly more than she would get during one lesson every month.
And if Potter was being taught magic, why was no one else involved in the process? Dumbledore knew many spells, yes, but not every spell. And if he only had time to teach her once a month, why not get other Order members involved as well? They could rotate her lessons with everyone focusing on something else. Potter would learn more that way.
Yes, while Severus was pleased Potter was finally going to learn something helpful, he was still questioning the logistics of the entire matter.
That's it for now. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!
