Harry Potter Mania

The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301

Part III - Chapter Twenty-Five

By the time Professor Snape led me to the entrance to the Slytherin common room and uttered the password, "elixir," my head was buzzing with fatigue and with a jumble of thoughts as I tried to sort out all that had happened since my arrival at Hogwarts. Our journey down from the Headmaster's Office was not entirely without incident either, though I found our encounter with Professor McGonagall, the severe looking witch who had directed us through the Sorting, another small puzzle.

We had reached the landing leading to the Great Hall, which was now entirely empty and was dimly lit only by torches on the wall and by the vast starry sky reflected in the enchanted ceiling. Professor McGonagall stopped us there and said simply "Well?"

Professor Snape responded rather curtly, "What did you expect. The Sorting cannot be altered. Even the boy's father knew that."

McGonagall dark brows rose. "Harry is here?"

"He was," Professor Snape replied. "Dumbledore summoned him I suppose."

The Professor's beady black eyes examined me thoroughly and I worried that she would dislike me as I had been sorted into Slytherin instead of her House. I was surprised to see that she was sympathetic, if anything, and she muttered, more to herself than to either of us, "To think I should ever see the day that a Potter was sorted into Slytherin."

This made me feel a bit worse just as I had begun to come to terms with my placement as being the place my Dad should have been in.

Professor Snape's face was hard to read, but a funny expression flitted across it, one almost irritated, but amused at the same time. With the tiniest lift of the right corner of his mouth, he looked down at me and asked, "I don't suppose you've learned to play Quidditch yet, have you, Mr. Potter?"

"Course I have," I answered. "We all play, only James and Lily get themselves into trouble more often because they're ridiculously reckless."

Professor Snape blinked and said, "James and Lily?" His tone was just short of incredulous.

"The twins," I clarified. "They're younger than me by almost a year and half. They won't start here until, erm, next year, maybe."

It was Professor McGonagall’s turn to look amused and oddly, rather sad as well. "It seems history may replay itself," she commented, to which Professor Snape replied, "I sincerely hope not."

"Perhaps you are right," Professor McGonagall said. With a gleam in her beady black eyes, she said quite severely, "You do recall that first years don't normally play on the Quidditch team."

Professor Snape answered coolly, "That is a decision for the Head of House, is it not? And I seem to recall that exceptions have been made in the past." He smiled suddenly and said most dryly, "Like father, like son, perhaps? We shall see then. But if I were a betting man, Professor McGonagall, I should lay even odds that Slytherin will take the Quidditch Cup this year."

Professor Snape said no more about quidditch once we arrived in the common room. He merely pointed to the stairway, which led back up again to where the dormitories were and quickly left. I should have been quite undone again at that point except that two red heads turned to me and two pairs of eyes, one green and one lake blue, stared accusingly.

I realized that my two cousins had kept their side of the pact and they now felt I had broken it. I said right away, "I'm sorry. I've been stupid. It won't happen again."

"Well," Vicky said. "Here we are, In Slytherin. Dad did have a cousin who was in Slytherin once," she added. "But we don't see her much."

"I don't see what's such a big deal," Bryony put in. "Not if we're all together like we agreed. And anyway, it's quite cozy here, isn't it. Too bad there's no telly, though."

A nasty, drawly voice cut across our conversation. "A telly! Only Muggles and Mudbloods watch the telly."

It was the blond boy from the train. I had been so preoccupied with my own Sorting that I had failed to notice that he had been sorted into Slytherin, too.

"You watch your mouth," I answered drawing my wand. I don't know exactly what I would have done, but I was quite enraged.

Vicky sprang up beside me and drew her wand too. Bryony, however, was looking from him to me with puzzlement, and then with dawning comprehension as she realized the insult had been directed at her.

"And just who are you?" she asked in the snottiest voice I've ever heard, then or since.

The boy's pale grey eyes narrowed in disdain. "Narcissus Malfoy," he said. "And I, unlike you, am a pure-blood. I, unlike you, come from a family who've been in Slytherin almost since its founding."

I laughed a bit. Well, I just couldn't help it. Who, after all, would saddle his kid with a name like that, I ask you?

"Pity, then," I drawled in a tone as offensive as his, and exact in tone. (I am quite a good mimic and often amuse my Mum with imitations of Nana and Papa and from the way his pale face flushed, I saw he had recognized what I was doing.)

"What's a pity?" one of his friends asked.

"His being a pureblood," I answered in the same drawl. "I mean, think how many intermarriages there must have been in your family. How many cousins and too nearly related people are in your bloodline? Defective genes, you've got by now, I expect. It explains why you, unlike us, are a stupid git."

This last infuriated him even more. Better, it silenced him altogether for a moment. But I didn't care that I had just made myself an enemy as the distress had gone from my cousin's face.

"And just what blood do you come from?" Malfoy asked slowly. "Sirius Potter? Potter's a famous name. Any relation to, you know, the famous Potter?"

"Can't be," his other friend said. "What is your father's name, then?"

"Harry Potter," I answered. I had almost forgotten that Dad was supposed to be famous for something, though no one ever spoke about it.

"That's not possible," Malfoy said. "That Potter, the Boy Who Lived, he died years ago."

"It's a common enough name, Potter," his first friend said. "It's just not the same one."

I found all of this irritating in the extreme, especially since I really wanted nothing more than to get into bed and sleep for a week. I abandoned the drawl and said quite loudly in my own voice, "It doesn't matter what House you're in anyway. It matters what you do. It matters whether we earn our House points, not what blood we've got."

Had I expected this to act as an olive branch to the other boys, I should have been mistaken. In any event, this was the beginning of my permanent feud with Narcissus Malfoy and his friends, Godfrey Avery and Paul Parkinson. It was unfortunate for me, too, that I was the odd man out, being the fourth boy in our dormitory room. The fifth bed in our room remained empty as the number of students starting that year at Hogwarts was the lowest since numbers had been decimated in the Middle Ages by the plague.

The next morning when the prefect banged on our door and shouted for us to get our miserable first year bodies out of bed, I huddled under my comforter and wished I were back at home. I had tossed and turned for quite a while before falling asleep. Would I be a miserable failure at magic? I had always done well in Muggle School, but this was different. All the brains in the world are irrelevant if you don't have the talent for magic. And then there was the fact that I'd already alienated the boys of my year in my own House.

I waited until the other three had left before rising and dressing. Vicky and Bryony were waiting in the common room, which made me feel a whole lot better, and we all went up to the Great Hall for breakfast together. We received our schedules and I was relieved to see that our first class was Potions.

"That's good," I told Bryony. She was looking very worried and she kept taking out her wand to check that it was there and saying, "What if I don't really belong here? What if it was a mistake? Mum and Dad don't do magic. What if I can't?"

"Why's it good?" Vicky asked. "Dad said Professor Snape is the worst teacher in the school."

"He's our head of House," I said. "Dad said he's a good teacher, so it should be alright. And besides," I added, "Potions should be easier in a way. You just have to add the ingredients in the right order and follow directions. It's like cooking. I've seen Mum make Potions lots of times. She always lets me help when she makes Pepper-up Potion if one of us gets a cold."

It wasn't too hard to find the classroom either as it was downstairs in the same direction as our common room. Narcissus Malfoy was already there with his friends and I made sure to take a seat on the opposite side of the room. This put us away from all the rest of the Slytherins and among other students whom we didn't know."

***

Snape made sure to close the dungeon door behind him with an extra loud bang. Everyone in the first year class jumped most gratifyingly, and he swooped to the front of the class with an extra flourish beyond his usual first day's intimidation tactics. He had heard from the fifth year prefect, Phineas Finster, that Potter and Narcissus Malfoy had already had a major set to, only moments after he had delivered Potter to the common room. It had occurred to him then that Dumbledore might have made a mistake in not permitting the boy to be moved out of Slytherin House. Sure enough, a lightning scan of the first years told him that Potter and Malfoy had staked out opposite sides of the classroom and that Potter was seated away from the other Slytherins flanked by his two redheaded cousins smack in the middle of sea of Gryffindors.

He tapped the board with his wand and the directions for the first potion appeared on the board along with his name. It was a moment he still relished, the appearance of his name - Severus Snape - as Professor. He launched into his first class speech, the one he used with but small variation on every first year class.

A glance at Narcissus Malfoy told him that Lucius' grandson was already bored. In any other class, he would have chosen Narcissus for his first victim. In this class, however, his eyes were drawn to the other, the one whose face was the image of the man he had hated more than any other, Sirius Black. The blue-grey eyes, which were the exact color of his namesake's and the exact color of his mother, Narcissa Black Malfoy, were fixed on Snape with attentive interest. It took no more than a second to decide.

"Mr. .." he paused only momentarily to remind himself of the boy's name, and to sweep the class with his most ferocious glare, "Mr. Potter," he said quite menacingly, "can you tell me what constitutes the art and what the science of potion-making?" Inside, a small bubble of glee rose. This was undoubtedly the nastiest first day fist question he had ever asked, as it was one that fully qualified wizards still debated.

The blue-grey eyes brightened and instead of flinching Potter said nothing for a moment. Snape was on the brink of calling him for his slow response when the boy said thoughtfully, "The science, I suppose, is knowing which ingredients to use, what their uses are, from where they come, in what order and in what quantities to add them." He stopped again and tipped his head as though trying to work out exactly the next part. "The magic," he said hesitantly, "the magic is the art. The...erm...I dunno how to put it, but...I suppose the control over the magic that it takes to fuse the ingredients into the potion." He stopped again and asked Snape directly, as though he was the only pupil and Snape was giving the class only to him, "Does that make sense, sir? I mean, it's sort of what Borage says in his introduction to Potion Making, and I think he is pretty close from how you phrased the question. Don't you think so?"

Snape blinked. "Which Borage do you mean?" Snape asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Libatius Borage," Sirius answered promptly. "The author of Advanced Potions."

Every head in the class swiveled to look at Sirius Potter, but Potter was still waiting for his answer. "Quite right," Snape said. In truth he was flummoxed. He would never have expected a child raised in Harry Potter's house to look at a potion text prior to class and certainly not at a book years above his level. A peculiar emotion rose in him, one for which he had no name. "Ten points to Slytherin," he said. "An excellent answer indeed, Mr. Potter."

With a thrill of horror as he realized he had not only praised a student but given out points on the very first question asked in class, he glared at the rest of the class and said, "Now let's see if any of the rest of you dunderheads have prepared for class today. I can assure you," he added, "if you have not, it will be the last time you neglect to do so." He did not bother to say what the punishment would be for being unprepared. The imagination was always a far better instructor of fear than any threats by words or deeds.

***

"What an insufferable know-it-all," Malfoy said as he brushed by Sirius. "Always sitting with the girls, too," he said in a carrying voice. "Do you suppose he's really a girl? I mean has anyone checked under his robes to see?"

The flush of pleasure that had carried me through the rest of class turned into a flush of humiliation and anger. I actively considered drawing my wand and trying out one of the hexes I had memorized when a voice behind me said knowledgably, "That's one jealous git, isn't he? He thinks he ought to be the top dog by right and you've taken that from him on the first day."

I turned and looked at the speaker. He was a tall boy with brown hair and brown eyes. His voice had a pleasant Scottish burr and he was looking at me with curiosity. "Wood," the boy said. "Lionel Wood." He stuck out his hand and I remembered my manners as I said abruptly, "Sirius Potter."

"I knew that," Wood said. "So is it true your Dad is Harry Potter?"

I nodded in surprise. This was the second time someone had asked about my Dad. For the second time, Wood said, "But he can't be the Harry Potter. He died when he defeated You Know Who."

Not knowing what to say to that, I asked, "So you're in Gryffindor?"

"Yeah," Wood answered. "So was my Dad. He played Quidditch on the same team as the Boy Who Lived."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your Dad isn't Oliver Wood, is he? He's a big Quidditch star, right?"

"Yeah," Lionel said. Mournfully, in the same sort fashion that James had complained over not being able to start Hogwarts yet, Lionel said, "Too bad we're first years. First years almost never get to try out for the team."

It turned out, however, that Lionel was quite wrong about that as he was wrong about a lot of things I didn't know at the time.

We had Quidditch tryouts even before our first flying class and when I turned up at tryouts as instructed by Professor Snape, the older boys stared at me in astonishment.

"Can't you read?" one of the boys asked. "Tryouts are for second years and up."

These boys were all a good deal larger than me and none of them appeared very friendly. I was about to hand the spokesman my note when he said, "Scram, why don't you? We don't want any fakes on our team."

I was in two minds whether to spit at him or whether to simply stalk off, the latter being the one that would preserve my dignity when Professor Snape arrived.

"We won't win the Quidditch Cup, that way, Finster," he said. "And we definitely won't win the Quidditch Cup without a decent Seeker."

Finster was a heavy looking boy with black hair that grew down on his forehead to a peak and eyes as black as his hair. "He's a Mudblood lover," Finster replied. "He didn't even want to be in Slytherin. Why do we want a quasi-Gryffindor on our team?"

I realized then that my behavior at the Sorting had not gone earmarked. Indeed, from that moment, the rest of my House as suspect had marked me, and not all of my other achievements ever quite undid the first day's damage. Of course, it didn't help that Narcissus Malfoy would keep bringing up my questionable loyalty at the most inopportune times.

"Because he'll help us win," Professor Snape replied, "and because according to the Sorting Hat, which is never wrong, he is a Slytherin."

It takes quite a lot to get me really angry, but I was really quite hot at this point. "Look, Professor," I said. "If they don't want me, it's all right. A team has to get along to play well together. Pick someone else if they don't want me."

"On the contrary," the Professor said, "a team does not have to get along well to play well together. They only have to have the common goal of wanting to win. I don't care whether you all like each other. I want that Quidditch trophy back in my office at the end of this year. And did you really think I would send you a first year who was a dud, Finster?"

Finster shook his head. Clearly, he, like everyone else, was pretty intimidated by Professor Snape. He nodded to me wordlessly and I followed him to the pitch. Most of the others had their own brooms and I was forced to choose one of the school brooms, which were nothing like the ones I was used to flying. My own favorite is Dad's Firebolt, for which I normally have to fight furiously with James for the right to fly. Although once James and Lily got their own brooms for their birthday, we'd had fewer fights over that.

I found a decent looking Nimbus and took off without a word to Finster or any of the others. I was determined to show them that I was better than any of them. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be another candidate who could even see the Snitch, much less catch it, so the position of Seeker went to me almost by default.

When I landed with the winged golden ball in my hand, the air was no longer full of tension and dislike. Professor Snape had a faint smile on his face, like that of a cat relishing the taste of a bird it hasn't yet caught and Finster said grudgingly, "Well, you can fly. Where did you learn to fly that well when you're only a first year?"

I shrugged and said, "My Mum and Dad both played on their team when they were in Hogwarts. We play all the time, especially when the family all meets up. Uncle Charley was a Seeker and Uncle Ron was a keeper."

"So your family are all wizard then," Finster asked.

I was too relieved that he was going to treat me as one of them to notice the emphasis in his words and I nodded as I handed back the Snitch.

The Gryffindor team was on their way out for their tryouts just as we were leaving the pitch. My new friend Lionel saw me suited up and gawped. "You made your team? You're a first year and you made your team? Wow!"

Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape met just at that moment and Professor Snape said with dry pleasure, "He is a Potter. Quidditch is in his blood."

The only other truly memorable incident my first year occurred during Quidditch practice just before our third game, the game that would win us the Cup. I fell off my broom in practice and would have been badly hurt had Professor Snape not been watching and stopped my fall. Everything was going fine. It's true we were on our third hour of practice and everyone was tired. Finster was pushing us all as he desperately wanted a win. There were lots of Slytherins in the stands watching including Malfoy but Vicky says she was sure my broom wasn't jinxed.

I had been circling and circling looking for the Snitch and though the sky was rapidly darkening I had finally gotten a glimpse of its golden wings. I shot straight upward at an acute angle, my hand outstretched to make the catch. I leaned as far forward as was possible as I knew that if I could only catch it, we might all get to go in and call it a night. The air whistled past me as I encouraged my broom to go - faster and faster and still the winged ball stayed just out of reach of my fingertips.

I urged the broom on even faster, like a jockey urging on his horse in the Grand National, and stretched out even farther, almost flat against the broom. Just as I got the Snitch in my grasp, my broom gave an almighty lurch and hurled me right off. I fell from nearly sixty feet up and as the broom had flipped me off with such a jerk, I fell with my back down and I had a glimpse of the broom bucking and jerking off into the clouds.

It was with a shock that I stopped dead just feet from the ground. Professor Snape had come running and several others. "Are you a complete idiot?" the Professor roared. "Did you want to kill yourself?"

He assumed as everyone else had that I had simply lost control. I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it shut with a snap. Narcissus Malfoy, I saw, looked utterly angry. "Next time," he mouthed. "There'll be another time."

"You must have been imagining it," Vicky said, when I told her and Bryony what had really happened.

"So you think I just lost control of my broom?" I said furiously.

"Sirius," Bryony said, "You were going so fast and at such an angle, it's a wonder you didn't fall off sooner."

"It was Malfoy," I said flatly. "He jinxed my broom."

"He was just trying to make you think that," Vicky said steadily. "So you'll be afraid of him. He can't stand it that you don't worship him like all of his other toadies."

"He's the king of the toads," I said. "And a poisonous git to boot. I know he jinxed my broom."

That was the first night I avoided going to my dormitory to sleep and I was glad I did. When I went up in the morning to dress and wash, having slept the night on the long green leather couch beside the fire, I found that my bedclothes had been jinxed, too. They wrapped about me the moment I sat on the bed to tie my shoes and it took me a good few minutes of fighting with them to draw my wand and utter the counter-curse. From then on, for the rest of the time I spent at Hogwarts, we had an ongoing war, Narcissus and I. I could expect a trip jinx any time I was near the trick step or any time the staircases decided to change unexpectedly. I got back at him when I could, on one occasion making sure that a particularly creamy pie landed in his face just when he was asking out one of the girls. I was usually careful to make my tricks on him more humiliating than dangerous, but on at least one occasion, I did him some fairly substantial damage and I've never been sorry that I did.

~~*****~~

Fifth year is a tough year for everyone. Even students who don't normally care about classes may find themselves drowning in the extra work the teachers assign in anticipation of O.W.L.s. I wasn't too bothered by the extra work myself, but the added stress had spilled over into Quidditch making the usual competition even more fraught with tensions than most years.

I had asked to switch from Seeker to Chaser when James and Lily made their team. Unlike me, the Sorting Hat had shown no confusion placing either of them. The moment the Hat touched their heads, it had shouted out Gryffindor. Naturally, being demons for quidditch, they had tried out and been selected for the Gryffindor team in their second year. I'm not sure why Professor McGonagall didn't allow them to try out first year. James, of course, was absolutely despondent his first year and would make remarks about how Professor Snape allowed me on so early simply to annoy Professor McGonagall. This might even be true for all I know.

In any case, you might wonder why I switched to being a Chaser. Well as I told Finster when Lily was chosen as Seeker, in order to win, I was sure I'd have to play roughly enough to hurt her. Finster's response was utter indifference, but as I told him, I like Quidditch and wanted to win, but I wasn't about to hurt my own sister just for a game. He nearly threw me off the team altogether except that he didn't have enough players who could fly well, and no one who could fly as well as I did, so he gave in. I was sorry I'd made the switch though as soon as I saw who got the Seeker post. Naturally, it had to be Narcissus Malfoy.

The Slytherin-Gryffindor game was the second one that year. Tensions were high and though the Gryffindors usually left me alone, they were not above playing a trick or two on my teammates. James and Lionel had already given Paul Parkinson boils and Malfoy had retaliated by attempting to curse James.

I had a part in stopping that trick, too. Malfoy lay in wait outside during the change of classes. Our class had just finished Care of Magical Creatures and the fourth years were on their way to Herbology. Malfoy struck at James from the side of Greenhouse Three, throwing a curse at him that I was sure was quite dark. I deflected the curse, which caused his to shatter several panes of the Greenhouse and opened him up to a really vicious attack by a Venomous Tentacula.

"Get out of it," I told James, but his temper had erupted when he realized what Malfoy had done.

He struck at Malfoy just as Malfoy had started to swell where the vicious plant had bit him. The additional hex James threw in did not go well with the Tentacula bite and suffice it to say, Malfoy ended up in the hospital wing two days before the final game, even though I did do the counter-curse on him.

I was expecting Malfoy to retaliate against me. Stupidly, I forgot that he would want to win badly enough to let me off the hook, at least until the game was over. And then, it was Lily he went after, not me.

The cheers and jeers at the game were the loudest I could recall. They play the roughest, as well. I would no sooner score than the Gryffindor Chasers, led by James, would caught the Quaffle and be off to tie it up. Above us, Lily and Malfoy circled in search of the Snitch. Our beaters were working overtime to distract the others and they went after James again and again, no doubt on Malfoy's urging. He managed to escape every bludger, but he did not manage to escape when I stole the Quaffle right out of his hands. He roared with fury but I still managed to put the stolen ball in the hoop, which put us in the lead. It was then that Lily dove for the Snitch. Malfoy dove after her but I was sure he couldn't catch her. The beaters, though, were on it immediately. They sent both Bludger at her, one after the other, but she ducked them easily, but the maneuvers cost her lead. Her black hair streamed out behind her and her green eyes were fixed on the winged Snitch with perfect concentration. Malfoy caught up to her and shoved her off her broom, but too late. Her hand had closed around the Snitch in the second before and though she landed with a thunk on the ground, the Gryffindors took the game. I flew down at the same moment as James and we both yelled at Malfoy.

"Why don't you bugger off, Potter?" he said to me directly, "You're a secret Gryffindor. You could have stopped her, only you didn't."

I said something quite nasty back. It was really unprintable and both Lily and James looked at me in surprise, as I'm not usually given to vulgarities. "I'm not going to hurt my own sister," I added angrily, "and you'd better not try anything like that again."

I heard the whistle blowing and would have gone for the poisonous git if James hadn't held me back. This was a bit of a reversal really, as he's the one who usually acts rashly, but on this occasion I was furious beyond measure. I did not stop to question why I should be so angry. I simply was.

Malfoy's revenge for that incident was what led to our first major fight. A few days after the game, he and Parkinson and Avery cornered Lily in an unused classroom. Parkinson and Avery had got hold of her, taken her by surprise I suppose, and Malfoy had hit her with an immobliarbus spell so she couldn't fight back. I walked in on them just in time to see him strike her, not with his wand, but with the flat of his hand.

"You won't look so pretty when I'm through with you," he said. He brought his wand to bear, but never got off whatever curse he intended to use. I hit him with a stinging hex so hard he actually screamed. I hit the other two in quick succession and hit them all again and again, that's how angry I was. I'm quite sure they were covered in weals as painful as though they'd been whipped and I didn't care. Until then, I never understood that one could literally see red with rage. I think Lily even told me to stop, but I barely heard her.

"Potter!" Professor Snape bellowed.

This cut through my rage as the Professor had only ever yelled at me once before and I lifted my wand and stood breathing as though I had run a marathon with a pack of Dementors for my companions.

"What have you done?" the Professor asked.

"Hit them with a Stinging Hex," I answered coldly.

"Detention," he said after a glance at my three victims. "You, too," He added. "Both of you."

"I did it," I said coldly. "They attacked my sister, and if they try it again, I'll give them worse."

Lily stood up and said stoutly, "I'll take detention with you. I don't care if I do. I would have done the same if I could have."

"No, you wouldn't," I answered. "You're way too soft-hearted."

"I am not," she said. She was shaking though so I wrapped my arm around her and held her and felt a nameless rush of emotion. I ignored Snape's piercing look and held her hand all the way to the Headmaster's office. I wouldn't apologize either, not even when Professor Dumbledore gave me the most troubled look.

"They got off easy," I asserted. "James would have probably done worse. He's her twin and he has a much worse temper than I do."

Neither Dumbledore nor Snape contradicted me. Only later when Lily and I sat in Snape's office pickling dead newts, she said, "James wouldn't have hurt them worse, you know."

"Of course, he would," I insisted, though I had begun to think she might be right. I wouldn't let her do any of the pickling, I made her sit still while I used the healing spell Mum uses when we get small scrapes and bruises. I was a bit worried this wouldn't be enough as Malfoy had hit her really hard, but fortunately, the incident left no mark after all, At least, not on Lily.

***

Snape noted with concern that Sirius did not show up for Potions class. While it was not unusual for students to skive off classes now and then, some did so more than others; however, he could not recall that Sirius Potter had ever missed class before. It would not have worried him even then were it not for the fight between Potter and Malfoy the day before. Having questioned the three boys in the hospital wing following the incident, Snape knew quite well now that Malfoy and his cronies had, in fact, gone after the Potter girl first and that Sirius had gone after them to defend her. They had lied about it, but he knew all the same. What concerned him, though, was the boy's attitude about what he had done.

The boy had shown not a single shred of remorse after giving the other three such a whipping. Snape could not decide which was more alarming: the fact that Sirius had so easily dealt with three at once or that for the first time ever Snape had been reminded of the boy's true father, the Dark Lord. He had wondered many times whether the boy wasn't the Dark Lord's at all. Perhaps the Dark Lord had only thought this was his child. Perhaps it had really been Narcissa's and Lucius' and Lucius had been willing to let the Dark Lord think it was his. After the previous day's fight, he thought the truth was the one they had all wanted to forget. Sirius Potter was the Dark Lord’s child and he had inherited his father's brilliance and powerful talent. After the previous day, Snape thought unwillingly, it seemed possible that the boy had inherited more from his father than they had ever thought. It occurred to Snape for the first time that it might have been a mistake to keep the boy in Slytherin House.

He ran through the class on autopilot, making an occasional critical comment, but for the most part, he was just as anxious as the students were to finish for the day. At the close of class, he swept out without a reminder to them to do their homework and strode quickly to his office where he supposed the boy would finally show his face. After a quarter of an hour, his vague alarm had grown into full-blown anxiety. Not only had Sirius, who was the most dedicated student Snape had ever seen, not shown up for class, but he had now missed his appointment for Career Advice as well. Clearly something was terribly wrong.

He checked the Slytherin common room first. The room was full of students passing through after their last class to stow away their books before dinner and those who were already ensconced in various velvet chairs and leather couches with their homework spread out before them. In a corner by the fire, two redheads, one dark auburn, the other, nearly gold, were bent together. Snape pounced on them and asked quietly, "Where is Potter?"

A second year boy with an annoying habit of stuttering said, "He's h-h-hiding, s-sir." Despite the stutter, the boy seemed happy about this. "M-Malfoy h-has sworn to get b-back at him, f-for..."

"Sirius is not hiding!" the Weasley girl said hotly. "He doesn't hide!"

"Where is he, then?" Snape asked.

"We don't know," answered the other girl. Her green eyes always troubled him, they were so like Potter's. So like the other girl he remembered.

"You needn't protect him," Snape said curtly.

"We're not," Smyth-Dursley replied. "We haven't seen him all day."

The Weasley girl nodded. Her blue eyes were dark with worry. "It's not like him at all. He didn't go to any of our classes. And we know he’s not in his dormitory and not in the hospital wing because we looked."

Snape considered them closely. They were telling the truth, he was sure, and they were genuinely worried. He considered whether Malfoy had already tried to revenge himself upon Potter, but excluded that immediately. Malfoy had spent the night in the hospital and had been in class during the day.

"Stay here," he directed the two girls, "and if he comes in, tell him to wait here until I return."

He left the common room and strode back up the stairs thinking that the boy might have come in to dinner. Fifteen-year-old boys, he knew, rarely missed a meal if they had any choice about it. A quick glance at the Slytherin table told him that the Sirius was not there. Nor was he at the Gryffindor table, where he occasionally sat in defiance of custom. But, he saw, seated among a group of girls was one girl with a long mane of jet black hair. He caught her eye and waved her over.

Another pair of green eyes fixed on him. The Potter girl's were defiant though, not worried. She reminded him exactly of her father. It was truly strange how the very way she held her head, the shape of her brows, the set of the mouth were identical to her father's. "I haven't done anything," she said immediately.

"I haven't said you did," he replied. "I want to know where your brother is," he added curtly.

She frowned and pointed at the table where an untidy red head stuck out among his more drab fellows. "He hasn't done anything either," she added glowering at him.

"Your other brother," Snape said. "Where is he?"

"Sirius?" she asked. "What d' you want him for? He already served detention last night."

"Look, Miss Potter," Snape said, "Your brother is missing. He hasn't been to class all day and he missed his Career Advice appointment. I want to know where he is."

She stared up at him with those clear green eyes that were unnervingly like her father's. "Why don't you let him alone, if he wants to be alone?" she asked almost accusingly.

"So you know where he is?"

She frowned and shook her head. "But so what if he skived off class today? Maybe he didn't want to be in class with those..."

"You are missing the point, Miss Potter," Snape snapped. "Your brother Sirius never skives off class. He isn't in class, he's not in his room and he's not in hospital. If you know where he is, I want to know now."

The defiant green gaze faltered as the girl realized that he was not intent on punishing the boy any further, though that might have to come later, he knew, after this business.

"I don't know," she said. Then she looked away at the late afternoon light falling through the high windows above and Snape could see in the unguarded eyes some process of knowing, recognition. "I'm not sure," she said, "but I know where he might be."

Without looking to see if Snape were following, she marched out of the Hall and out of the Castle. A few students coming in for dinner looked curiously at them, but she paid them no mind. She led them across the grounds and to the far side of the lake where the land sloped upward and tall grasses waved gently in the wind. She stopped further up, where the trees of the Forest hung over a clump of enormous boulders that could not possibly have been arranged in their circle by chance. She stood poised like a wild animal scenting the wind for danger and Snape could not imagine why she should be so wary of approaching her brother, if he were indeed there.

He stepped nearer and saw that the boy had set himself down in the center of the circle in a shady nook overhung by the encroaching trees. The branches on the trees were budding and the late afternoon light illuminated the boy's handsome features. His black hair fell about his face just as his namesake's had, with a clean elegance that was the envy of many of the girls. He seemed not to hear them and Snape was puzzled as to what the boy was doing there. Clearly he was anything but distressed. Rather, he sat cross-legged, and he made notes from time to time in a notebook that looked as though it had been purchased in a Muggle store, not in Flourish and Blotts. The markings he made were gibberish though; not any language Snape knew and not any of the runes that one studied in class. There were many parallel lines running across the page in bars of five and sprinkled on the lines and between the lines were cryptic markings- circles and half-circles, some filled in, others empty, some connected with stems and flourishes, and others standing alone like sentinels on guard to mark the way for the lost.

He dropped his quill and lifted a long object, which in the silvery light of the failing day Snape thought at first was a wand. However, instead of waving it, Sirius put the object, which Snape saw was metal, not wood, to his lips. Snape started to move, but the girl caught his arm and put her finger to her lips. Her face was lit with relief and something else. Snape pulled his arm away and again opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of the music the boy was making stopped him cold. He looked carefully and saw that the long thing he had thought was a wand at first was a flute. Music flowed out of the instrument, a sound high and pure and utterly beautiful. The melody rose and fell, now a sigh of wonder, now again sorrows too sad too bear. Snape could not have moved then, not even if the Dark Lord himself had risen once more. He held his breath and noted that he and the girl were not the only watchers. From the Forest, the blinding white form of a unicorn stood poised at the edge of the circle, in much the same attitude as the girl had stood moments before. Here and there, in the shadows at the edge, other creatures had arrived as well; a dove grey rabbit, its ears lifted high; a fox with auburn fur and bright, inquisitive eyes; and further back, in the far shadows, a pair of centaurs stood, their wild faces all solemn and calm.

The boy stopped suddenly, in the middle of a phrase, and the silence after was harsher than the clanging of the iron hammer of war. He muttered a curse, and picked up the quill and made to mark out some of the markings. The girl spoke only then.

"Oh, don't change it," she said, moving swiftly into the circle. "It was lovely."

Sirius looked up and fairly growled, "It's not right. It’s still not right. I just can't get the last bit to come out right."

He spotted Snape then and his face flushed with anger or embarrassment. He gathered up his papers hastily and shoved them back in his book sack, but not before carefully lining them up so they would not be crushed.

Finding his voice at last, Snape asked, "Have you been there all day?"

"What if I have?" Sirius answered. Snape raised a brow and considered whether to take the boy to ask for his unusual rudeness.

"You missed all of your classes," Snape said calmly. Control, he decided, would go farther with this boy than excessive harshness. "You also missed your Career Advice session."

The blue-grey eyes snapped open with surprise. "I forgot," he admitted. Then he shrugged uncomfortably as though shedding some unwanted weight and added, "I don't see the point anyway. I don't want a career like the others do. I've no interest in being a junior minister at the Ministry or, whatever."

He stalked away back toward the Castle, stepping over small twigs and kicking an occasional rock. Irritation rose up and Snape abandoned his initial peaceful approach as old resentments whispered. "I suppose," he said harshly, "you think you're above work. After all, you can afford to play the gentleman of leisure if your Daddy will support you with all his wealth for the rest of your life."

Sirius stopped and gawped at Snape. "Gentleman of leisure?" he echoed. "You sound like a nineteenth century socialist making fun of the poor lazy aristocrat. It's ridiculous. I only meant that what I want to do isn't to be found among the pamphlets you gave out."

"And what is it you want to do?" Snape asked. The boy’s slight stung him as the mockery unnerved him and once again put him in mind of the Dark Lord.

The girl watched their exchange tensely. Snape could almost have sworn she would draw her wand, though what she thought she could do against a teacher and fully trained wizard he could not think. Then he recalled that her father had done quite a lot to fully trained wizards when he was that age.

The boy hesitated and then said, "I'm not sure. Play music and write it. But that's not all." He lifted his head to look up at the first stars that had risen in the deep, blue black of the evening sky. He gestured up at the stars and said, "That, too. I want to understand how it all works, but we don’t study it that way any more."

"Astronomy, you mean?" Snape asked. "Not Divination, surely."

"Of course not," the boy said. Again he lifted his face to the sky and said, "It's all connected, and I know it. We gave up the chance to know the whole of it when we turned our backs on science. You should understand. You’re the one who talks about the science and the art of potion making. But what about the science and the art of physics and mathematics?"

"That's Muggle stuff," Snape objected.

"It didn’t used to be," Sirius responded. "Newton was a mathematician and a physicist and an alchemist. He wasn't the only one, either. We cheated ourselves and the Muggles did the same, when we let science and magic become separated."

"What you want can't be done, then," Snape answered. "It would break the Statute of Secrecy."

"Maybe it's time it was broken," Sirius answered. "Maybe it's time it was done away with altogether."

"Are you quite mad?" Snape asked. The girl had stood silent until then. They both jumped when she spoke, so intent had they been on each other.

"He's not mad at all," she said. "Someday, the Statute will be undone, but not by Sirius."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," the boy said sarcastically.

"You can be such an idiot," she answered. "It must be a male thing. It's obvious, Sirius, that if you want to study all that, you'll have to go to a Muggle school when you’re done with Hogwarts is all. You just can’t go about telling them you’re a wizard," she added practically.

"So I'm supposed to hide and pretend for the rest of my life?"

"Have you any thought at all what the consequences would be for all the rest of us," Snape asked, "if you cavalierly go and tell the Muggles all?"

The boy frowned and Snape took advantage of his opening. "You do recall your history," Snape pressed. "Do you recall the witch hunts, the burnings? Do think we will escape those again, if the Muggles come to realize that wizards and magic are real? Do you not know how close we came to having our whole way of life destroyed not very long ago?"

"It's not like that anymore," Sirius answered. "Nobody burns witches anymore. Not that they could when they tried."

"Ask your father," Snape replied, "what Muggles think about wizards and magic when they realize they are real. He was raised by them, and they made him so thoroughly miserable he blew up his aunt. The ministry had to deflate her and modify her memory. Did you know that?"

"Dad?" Sirius asked. The look of astonishment on his face was worth the entire confrontation, Snape thought. "No way! Dad wouldn't blow up anybody. He's way too -" The boy looked at his sister and she nodded. "Too nice," she suggested. "Too...gentle," she said again. "Mum maybe," she said and the boy nodded. "She's quite the tiger when she gets mad, but not Dad."

He shook his head again and said suddenly quite plaintively, "You don’t suppose there's any dinner left, do you? I forgot to eat lunch and I’m starving."

Snape stared after them and wondered what on earth they had been told about Harry Potter's life before their birth. Not only did the boy not know he was adopted, he seemed to have little concept of what his adoptive father had been. Sirius seemed to feel his gaze and he stopped at the steps into the Hall and turned. "I'm not going to break the Statute, you know, I just want to learn all I can."

Dropping all pretense of authority, Snape answered directly, as though they were equals, "I understand that very well." He held the boy's eyes one more moment and added, "But mind you don't get yourself expelled, Mr. Potter, before you can do that. If would make Mr. Malfoy so very happy, and leave him all alone in his quest to lead our House."

Later, when he related it all to Dumbledore and asked, "Shouldn't he be told? They've waited too long already, Dumbledore. And if it comes out, - "

Dumbledore shook his head. He seemed suddenly very frail in a way that he had never seemed before. The skin slung tightly to the old face, so that the many lines were smoother than they had been only a year before and his wrists below his sleeves were bony not just thin. The light blue eyes were alert, however troubled they might be and he said decisively, "It is not our choice to tell him, Severus. We gave Harry our word not to tell. And I begin to think he was right. There are very few who know. It may be a thing he need never know."

Snape said slowly, "You did not keep the truth from Potter, but you may have done so too long, and at a cost. Do you think you will escape such a cost again, by keeping such a thing hidden?"

Dumbledore looked at Snape with pity and said, "You may be right. But the burden laid upon Harry was quite different and he had to know. And his burden was one that he could carry. This, the truth of this might break this boy. He has what his father lacked altogether - imagination and the soul of a poet. He would take such a revelation very hard, very hard indeed."

"I don't doubt it," Snape replied. "Perhaps it's just as well he wants to go to Muggle University then." For once, Dumbledore was caught entirely by surprise. "Yes, I know," Snape, said feelingly. "He wants to study mathematics and physics and music, the kind the Muggles have, not ours."

"Music?" Dumbledore asked. "Now that is one magic the Muggles have in abundance, though they don't know what they have."

Snape was left to puzzle over that. He wasn't much for music, but he was certain that no Muggle had ever made music that could call an animal as Sirius had done. This, he thought, was something he would need to keep a watch on, as who knew where it might lead?