Innocence Died Screaming
Filius
“There is something deeply wrong with Mr. Potter, Albus.” Filius said as an opening to their staff meeting.
“What do you mean, Filius?”
“How do you not see it?”
“I’m sorry, Filius, but unless you can raise a more specific issue, we’ll have to move onto the scheduled points.”
-{╣ ҉ ╠}-
“Minerva, old friend, surely you understand what I meant?” he asked later, ensconced in McGonagall’s office.
“I have no idea what you mean, Filius. Mr. Potter is a wonder-“ She began, a rote rebuttal slipping through her lips.
“I know you’ve felt it.” Filius interrupted. “I know you’ve felt that otherness, that looming shadow.”
Minerva sighed in response.
“Filius, a feeling is nothing without evidence to support it. And he truly is an exemplary student if one overlooks the limitations of his magic.”
“Look at his teeth.” Filius responded. “Use those ears of yours and listen. Or is that another skill you lost to the war?”
-{╣ ҉ ╠}-
It was a trembling Minerva who shakily entered Filius’ office.
“Good Lord, Filius.” She whispered, her voice quavering ever so slightly.
Filius’s response was to pour her a measure of port.
“His teeth… and the noise they make…” She whispered into her glass. “How was I so blind to it?”
“Have you heard what happened to Alder?” Filius asked, pouring himself a measure of port as he did.
“No. I shudder to think what might have happened.”
“He refuses to look at Mr. Potter. He mutters about a shifting sharpness and a smile of knives.”
“What happened?”
“According to the students, he tried to order Potter to take his companions out of the classroom and devolved to asking him how to harm a Neighbor.”
“Good God.”
“Mr. Potter invoked the Charter and let Alder choose punishment or submission.”
They drank their port in silence after that. Filius didn’t know what Minerva was thinking, but he was contemplating what had happened to the child to change him so.
-{╣ ҉ ╠}-
Severus
Severus was calmly inking over pitiful attempts at essays with scarlet ink when his office door opened. Looking up, he expected to see a student, or perhaps a prefect and a student. He did not. He saw Minerva and Filius. Wonderful, they must be here to discuss the oaf, he thought.
“Severus, I implore you, delve into Potter’s thoughts when next you can.” Filius opened, shocking him. The diminutive professor was quite the adherent to the law, though Severus asked himself which laws it was that he followed sometimes.
“And see the vapid thoughts of James Potter’s hormonal spawn? I think not.”
“He was the one to steal Rubeus’ name.”
“Bah, as though a simpleton such as he could accomplish that.”
“He never eats the food in the Hall unless given it by Diggory.”
“What of it? An odd quirk.”
“He always changes his cutlery to silver before touching it.”
“So he’s a spoiled brat.”
“Our cutlery is iron, Severus.”
After a protracted silence, one where Severus paled considerably, he finally spoke.
“I shall consider it.
-{╣ ҉ ╠}-
In the midst of a Potions lesson, Severus made eye contact with the Potter brat, connecting to his mind. His vision was filled with a half-shadowed face, auburn locks flowing behind it, a finger to his lips. With a light shushing noise, he was forced out of the adolescent mind and came to see Potter looking at him, eyes impassive, but the slight sliver of teeth a promise of knives and blood if he were to try again.
-{╣ ҉ ╠}-
He was the one to enter Filius’ office, noting Minerva’s presence.
“What news do you have?”
“None.” Severus replied, his voice shaking slightly. “I entered his mind and saw naught but a shadowed man’s face shushing me before being forced out.”
They all let the contemplative silence stand for a while.
“He knew I tried.”
“Pardon?” Came Minerva’s voice.
“He knew I tried to read his memories.” Severus replied. “When I was forced out, he had a promise of blood and pain dancing across his smile.”
-{╣ ҉ ╠}-
Irma
Irma was an old woman. Certainly by mundane standards, but she certainly wasn’t in her spring years, even for a witch. She knew things, old things, secret things. She looked on as a not-quite-human student was bent over a book, exploring the artifacts listed within.
She had learned to tell a lie from a truth, a twisted truth from a pure spinning. She knew that the something-other had told her a half-truth about the need for the Ledger. She was not certain as to the reason, nor the need, but she allowed it regardless. This instance of a more-than-human was one that did not lie, by nature, so to twist a truth into a spinning would have to be permitted this once.
Irma was rather intrigued to see what his presence portended.