Snips and Scars In Which Ron and Harry are Put on a List, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter 54, everybody! In which the altercation between fake Moody and the familiars is resolved….

So good news: Sirius gets to be right. Also, Remus has concerns and the boys are having difficulties getting a date.

In other news, I don't know what beef England and France have with each other, only that it's longstanding, but Poland is pretty neutral with that in mind.

Slytherinsal, thanks for the review! Oh the calvary's coming….

Okay you know what there was nothing for it they were dead anyway—bark RUN! before launching himself direct at the fake Moody.

The brilliance of ridiculously stupid plans, sometimes, was that they were so stupid no one ever anticipated them—the fake Moody shot off a spell in alarm, but since Mauve and Trevor had scattered and Snips was already past the wand it didn't hit anyone—dive right for his face, sinking sharp teeth into the scarred nose and hanging on for dear life, scratching and gnawing and doing his best to ignore the hits to him—the guy might not want to risk hexing at his face, but those slaps still hurt. Start looking for a place to bail—

Leaped at the wand when the guy finally decided to risk it, wrap his tail around it and yank—first curse hit the chandelier, second one hit the window—Snips spun around before he could grab at him, sank his teeth into the man's hand—

Leaped away and flew for the rafters once he had the wand.

"You," the man growled—glanced at the foe-glass before returning his attention to Snips. "You coward. You TRAITOR! How dare you!?"

Snips really had no idea what he was talking about. Glance at the foe-glass again, saw that sallow-faced guy—

Saw that sallow-faced guy had company—

Which was when Dumbledore, McGonagall, Mr. Weasley, Remus and Sirius came in, all of them with wands drawn.

"Alastor," Dumbledore said calmly. "I was hoping to discuss the nature of your employment, if you don't mind."

So. Sirius had had plenty of shocks today, starting with Kreacher popping into the Weasley's house with Mad-Eye Moody, who had a whole yarn to spin about an imposter at Hogwarts—

Which had led to some quick apparating back to Hogsmeade and running to Hogwarts, sending a Patronus ahead to Dumbledore, who informed McGonagall, with all of them charging for the Defense teacher's room—

The guy had been bound pretty quickly—easy to do with no wand, thank you small snippy familiar—and while they waited for the Aurors to get here the Polyjuice potion had worn off and left them all with a major bombshell.

"I told you Barty Junior was still alive!" Sirius crowed.

Granted that was a whole can of worms to deal with, especially when Barty Senior showed up, looking faint—Sirius was debating on asking Kreacher for some popcorn while they watched the family drama when Remus tapped him on the shoulder.

"Padfoot," he muttered, staring at the mirror. "I keep looking at that foe-glass and…does the one guy seem familiar to you?"

Sirius looked—yes there was a lot of people in the mirror, all of them familiar, the ones that could be picked out in the room evident—

And one guy who was nowhere to be seen in the room, despite everyone but Barty Junior being accounted for in there.

"I mean maybe?" Sirius noised. "But who is it? It's no one in here, that's for sure. Unless there's another guy sipping Polyjuice."

"I've been debating about it and…I think that's Snape," Remus said.

"Seriously?" Sirius took another look at the stranger in the mirror. "No way, Sni—Severus was a lot younger and skinnier and had a bigger beak than that."

"Listen, the last time you saw him was over a decade ago—the last time I saw him, he looked a lot like that. I'm telling you, that's Snape."

"I thought you said he was blown up—he's dead."

"So was Pettigrew."

Both of them fell silent at that.

"Then where is he?" Sirius asked. "Like I said, everyone in the room is accounted for."

"We're going to need to produce the wand," an Auror said—looked at Sirius's startled yelp.

Sirius, meanwhile, looked at the source of that yelp. "We really need to get you a bell," he told Snips, taking the wand the little familiar was offering. "I take it this is the missing wand."

Snips nodded, sat on his shoulder as the drama continued to unfold….

Sirius noticed that Remus kept looking at Snips, then the mirror, then Snips, then the room like he was counting, then the mirror, then Sirius—

"Do not," Sirius said, a hand up. "Do not even give voice to that theory, I like this guy and you are not ruining this for me."

"I'll be honest, even if I do give voice to the theory, it's immediately followed up with why and how," Remus said, looking at Snips—who, for the most part, seemed singularly disinterested in their drama and more interested in the larger issue of Barty Junior.

Okay say he did for a second give the theory merit—this was nothing like a certain rat because Snips definitely didn't seem inclined to fly under the radar, he was a particular magical creature of unknown origin that kept sticking its beak where it didn't belong, albeit in the name of keeping Harry safe, which he could get behind. Had he, Sirius, talked with Snips? Yes, but that was just the blanket benefits of Animagus magic. Saying that was part of the evidence also had pretty much every single familiar in Hogwarts as potentially human, and he was pretty sure the numbers weren't there.

Plus…Snape was a Death Eater. He would have been invested in helping other Death Eaters get Harry to Moldy-Voldy, not sabotaging them. And while he did have a disparaging opinion of Sirius, he was pretty sure they had worked past that, and Snape had never met a grudge he didn't like. No, at the end of the day he was reasonably sure that Remus's theory was unsound, and that was even before factoring in his other questions of why and how.

"So. We agree, this is not that," Sirius said, pointing at Snips before indicating the mirror.

"Well…you agree," Remus said. "I'm going to have to do a little more digging first, satisfy for myself that we're not getting a repeat of he-who-must-not-be-named."

Sirius debated on asking Remus if he'd turn into a were-Snips, decided that was in poor taste.

Defense classes were canceled for the next week, due to, according to Dumbledore, "Accidentally hiring the wrong Alastor Moody."

"How," Ron demanded. "It's not like there's a surplus of Mad-Eye Moodys running around."

"I mean you went from having five brothers to eight," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah I'm still not sure about that," Ron admitted. "I mean yes I know that technically it's a prank but usually their pranks would have petered out by now. I'm anticipating some big payoff at some point."

"The Yule Ball would be a good time."

"Or when they graduate."

"Going back to the Yule Ball though," Hermione said. "Are you two going to ask anyone out? Harry especially needs a date, he's one of the champions."

"Unless you're volunteering, no," Ron said. "I mean look at them!" he said, gesturing around the hall. "They travel in packs! What are we supposed to do, lasso one?"

"You ask, Ron."

Snips shook his head, left off trying to direct Harry to the greens to pointedly indicate Hermione.

Harry blinked. "Um…so just so you know, I feel stupid for not asking earlier—"

"You should," Hermione said, packing up her books with the obvious intent of heading for the library. "And no."

"No what?"

"No I'm not going to the ball with you, I already have a date."

Ron's attention snapped back to her so fast Harry was surprised he didn't break something. "What? When? Who?"

"It's not Malfoy, is it?" Harry asked, aware he was grimacing.

"Ew no," Hermione said, waving them off.

"Do we know him?"

"Not personally." She stood. "You get one more question."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. "He's not in Slytherin, is he?" Ron asked.

"As in attending? No. Bye now," she said, heading off.

"Well at least it's not Malfoy," Harry pointed out.

"We're still back to the original issue," Ron said. "How do we ask a girl out? You can't just march up to one and ask her right-out, she's surrounded by witnesses so if she says no and you ask someone else then she says didn't you already ask so-and-so wasn't I good enough to ask first and…oi this is exhausting who came up with this system."

"I wouldn't know," Harry said. "But maybe Snips is onto something—what other girls do we know?"

The immediate answer was Ginny and Luna, who were just coming in—Ron waved them over.

"Okay, here's the plan," he said when they sat down. "See, as third years you can't go but if you went with us—Ginny you go with Harry and—"

"Actually I'm going with Dean," she said. "But thanks for asking, I guess?"

"Neville's asked me already," Luna said. "Which was very nice—Colin and I are going anyway as members of the press but I wasn't expecting to be asked and twice now is very nice."

"My own sister gets a date before me—that's it, we're closed," Ron told Harry. "Unless you know anyone else."

"Personally?" Harry asked. "Er…the girls on the Quidditch team, but I think they've all already gotten dates too."

"In retrospect, we really should have been expanding our social circles."

"Aren't you two in the Slug Club?" Ginny asked. "Aren't there girls in there?"

"Yes, but they've all paired off too—Fred and George are right, we left it off too late."

"Did mine ears deceive me Georgie?" Fred asked, plopping down across from them. "Ickle Ronnikins said we were right?"

"I want to remember this day always," George said, hands clasped.

"Hello Fred, hello George," Luna greeted. "Hello Fergus."

"Shh," Fergus said. "I'm deep undercover, we don't need the lions realizing a snake has infiltrated their table."

"How is this infiltration?" Ginny asked. "Luna sits over here all the time."

"True, but she's Ravenclaw, there's no longstanding rivalry—it's like Poland in relation to England and France."

"Moving on," Fred said, fingers up. "We've come up with a new service—"

"Which, from the sounds of it, needs to be rendered," George said.

"So sign here," Fred said, producing a parchment and quill.

"Left hand side please, we're sorting by gender."

"Also put down your year for ease of sorting."

"What is this?" Ron asked, looking at the parchment.

"Our latest racket," Fergus said proudly.

"Weasley and Associates' Dating Services," Fred said.

"We're taking down names of those who are in need of a date for the Yule Ball," George said.

"And we're pairing them off with those who are year three and younger to maximize ball attendance."

"So it's a win all around."

"It's basically a lottery," Fergus said. "You win the chance to not go to the ball alone."

Ron considered the parchment again. "Well…so long as I don't get paired up with someone with a funny nose."

"Define funny."

"Off-center."

"We at Weasley and Associates make no guarantees."

"Really?" Ginny asked Ron as he jotted his information down. "You'd be that petty?"

"Look, noses are important," Ron said. "When you're talking to someone it's kind of right there on their face so if it's wonky you got no choice but to look at it because if you look away that's rude—"

"You're weird, Ron."

"Oi give you a few years and see how much attention you pay to noses."

"Charming," Fergus said, taking them in before looking at Fred and George, who shrugged. "What about you, Harry? Care to try our dating services?"

Harry considered, looked over when he heard giggling to note a gaggle of girls that kept shooting him glances and tittering. Did not want to wade into that.

"Gimme," he said, reaching for the parchment.

"Harry Potter in the dating pool," Fred said. "Now that'll net some interest."

"And profits," Fergus agreed. "By the way it's three knuts to sign in."

"What?" Ron squawked.

"Also an extra sickle to ensure visual standards."

"When did we start charging extra for that?" George asked once Ron had paid up.

"Since your brother brought it up."

Ron got detention for going over the table at that.