Patroni Problems
October seemed to be twice as cold and rainy as Harry remembered it being when he had been eleven.
The castle was drafty and the Slytherin common rooms should have been freezing, as Snape’s classroom was. It wasn’t cold though, it was actually rather warm and somehow even cozy with the fires lit and the comfortable chairs.
Harry was huddled in front of one of the fires after a long quidditch practice. He was trying to get feeling back in his frozen fingers after spending three hours outside in the dark training.
All around him were conversations happening, apparently nobody felt like going to sleep just yet. Sirius was reading a book on Harry with his head on Harry’s lap; Harry had already teased him about how he had never seen Sirius read before and received a punch to his arm over it.
Draco and Blaise were on the other side of Sirius, playing what seemed to be an intense game of chess with high-stakes. Daphne and Pansy Parkinson were beside Harry, chatting about their potions homework.
It was strangely comfortable, even though Harry still missed Gryffindor and his other friends. It was becoming oddly normal, which would be worrisome if Harry hadn’t time-traveled from 1996 to 1991.
Even with as little effort as Harry felt he put into making friends with the others, it seemed like Sirius was charming and charismatic enough for both of them. Blaise and Draco followed Sirius around like Vince and Greg used to follow Draco around. And, Harry could admit even reluctantly, Daphne and Pansy had taken some strange liking to Harry. Daphne seemed to be a kind enough person and Pansy was apparently very interested in quidditch.
Things weren’t the same, but they weren’t bad either.
Harry had just started to lose the tension in his frozen muscles and stretched out to relax more when Sirius glanced up at him. Sirius’s brow was furrowed, more in a look of deep thought than anything else.
“Can you cast your patronus?” Sirius asked, rather randomly to Harry it seemed.
Harry shrugged, not noticing the way the others went quiet around them.
“Suppose so,” Harry said. He didn’t know why Sirius wanted him to do it, but he figured it had something to do with the book he read. It was an old book and Harry didn’t think it came from the library. Sirius had been absorbed by it since the second they returned to the common room after Harry’s practice.
Harry shifted around to grab his wand and gave a nonverbal incantation a few goes before he finally caved in the face of what seemed to be Sirius’s impatience.
“Expecto Patronum!”
There was a wave of audible surprise when Harry was able to cast his spell. Nobody was more surprised than Harry though when his stag was gone.
Staring at Harry, as eerie and intimidating as it had been the first time Harry saw it at thirteen, was a giant dog. It was silver, but Harry knew it would be as black as Sirius’s hair if it were in color.
Harry could feel the blood draining from his face. Why - why would it change?! Where had Harry’s stag gone?!
Beneath the pounding of his heart that Harry swore he could feel in his throat, there was an outbreak of whispers. What they were saying, Harry didn’t know and he didn’t care. Harry only shoved Sirius off him and positively fled to the dorm.
It should have been a stag. It was always a stag.
Harry’s mum protected his blood and Harry’s dad protected his soul.
It was always a stag.
Harry blindly threw himself in his bed and burrowed under his blanket. He hadn’t realized that his new patronus followed him, but when he poked his head out - there it was.
“Why?” Harry whispered to it, feeling sick. Things with Sirius had just gotten back to normal, maybe even better than normal. They were goofing off together in classes, making plans together in their spare time.
Sirius had a lot of things he wanted to do, Harry had his own list of things that needed done. They were going to work on their list on the holidays, then maybe travel some.
Neither of them ever had as much freedom as they suddenly found themselves with. It was liberating and overwhelming and that patronus was going to ruin it all, Harry just knew it.
Harry reached out for the grim, suddenly feeling guilty for his immediately negative reaction. It was bigger than Snuffles was, probably how Sirius would look as an animagus if he were a healthy weight.
The patronus began wagging its tail and it begrudgingly pulled a smile from Harry when he remembered Sirius accompanying him to the train at the start of fifth year. Sirius had been overjoyed to have a chance to stretch his legs and spent most of the walk either trying to tackle Harry or chasing squirrels to make Harry laugh.
“Remember when I kept chasing those squirrels?”
Harry startled and his hand swiped through the warm mist of the grim, causing it to disappear and leave the room a little chillier than it had been. Harry didn’t turn to look at Sirius, he should have known that Sirius would follow him.
“I was just thinking about that,” Harry admitted. He felt Sirius climb on the bed and Harry didn’t stop him, why bother?
Sirius had overtaken Harry’s patronus, why not his bed? Why not his entire life?
Why not everything? Sirius was taking everything and it wasn’t even hurting Harry - Harry wanted him to have it all.
“Did you know it changed?” Harry asked after a few minutes of silence between them.
“No,” Sirius said.
Since Sirius sounded as if he were lying, Harry waited.
“Mine changed,” Sirius eventually said, a quiet and whispered confession. “I cast it earlier, showing off really, and it’s changed.”
Harry didn’t want to ask… some of it he didn’t need to ask, he just knew.
“What was it before?” Harry asked.
Before the veil, before the second chance, before their lives were so tangled around each other that during the time they weren’t speaking Harry often felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
“A stag,” Sirius said.
That surprised Harry, though it probably shouldn’t have.
“And now?”
“Now?” Sirius sighed and he was close enough that his breath washed over the back of Harry’s neck. “Now it’s a bloody phoenix.”
A phoenix, rebirth. That didn’t have to be linked to Harry, but Harry was sure it was.
“Does it mean anything?” Harry asked Sirius. He was grateful they were alone in the dorm, it wouldn’t have been a conversation he would want to carry on with any of the others around. It was bad enough to have the conversation, the last thing Harry wanted was eavesdroppers or lip-readers (as Harry had seen Theo Nott reading a book about lip-reading).
“James was my safe place, but you…” Sirius hesitated so long that Harry didn’t think he’d finish his thought.
It took ages, but Sirius eventually scooted closer until they were touching again and Harry didn’t need him to finish his thought. It was the same for Harry, Harry knew.
It was confusing and messy and tangled… but the same for Harry.
Sirius would wait until Harry was drifting to sleep to finish his thought. He probably assumed Harry was asleep, but Harry heard him.
“You’re what I think of for happy memories.”
It was the same.
October was probably the best month for Harry yet.
Quidditch practice was grueling, but it felt nice to be good at something again. Harry hadn’t been able to play in so long that the sessions were invigorating, like reigniting an old love that he had lost.
Hermione and Harry were quickly becoming close friends again. Hermione and Sirius didn’t care for each other at all, but Harry was slowly getting the other Slytherin students that hung around Harry more used to Hermione’s presence at study sessions together.
There was no progress being made with Ron and every time Harry saw him shoot Harry a distrustful glare it ached. Sirius tried to make it up to Harry it seemed, he definitely went out of his way to make twice as many jokes when Ron was around.
Even Lupin’s presence didn’t bother Harry much. Lupin certainly didn’t favor Sirius any, quite the opposite. Sirius even lost four points for ‘misconduct’ when Lupin caught him trying to embroider ‘idiot’ on the back of Crabbe’s robe in class.
Sirius didn’t talk about Lupin, neither did Harry. It was a lingering sore spot between them. Harry was fine never talking about Lupin, ever, and Sirius seemed to be too until they walked in class one day and saw Snape at Lupin’s desk.
“Oh, fuck,” Sirius whispered, his eyes going wide. Harry had to shove him to their usual table and he shook his head shortly, wondering what Sirius’s reaction was about.
Lupin was probably sick, the full moon would be that night. If it was about Snape, Sirius really needed to get over it.
Snape was consistently nasty to Sirius, but he hadn’t been horrible to Harry. Harry thought most of Snape’s wrath and hate had been focused on Sirius, leaving Harry a little less in his view.
“I forgot,” Sirius said, barely audible. He sat straight in his seat and clutched the table edge so hard that his knuckles were white.
Harry mimicked his pose, looking forward while Snape took a quick attendance.
“Forgot what?” Harry muttered. “That he’s - er - got that problem?”
Sirius mutely shook his head and Harry waited until they both responded to attendance to push the issue.
“You forgot tonight’s the full moon?” Harry guessed.
Sirius nodded and Harry twitched his hand in a ‘so what?’ gesture.
“I never forgot,” Sirius said. “Nearly twenty years… I never forgot. Not once.”
“You’ve been a bit busy, haven’t you?” Harry whispered to him. “It’s not like you can go outside with him now, right?”
Right?
Sirius didn’t answer, he only set his jaw in a decidedly unhappy way. That bothered Harry quite a bit and he planned to tell Sirius that when Snape barked at Harry.
“Potter!” Snape glared right at Harry, catching him off-guard.
“If you encountered a Lethifold, how would you neutralize it?”
Harry must have looked just as stupid and air headed as Snape had always accused him of being as he gaped at Snape blankly. Harry had never even heard of a Lethifold?
“I don’t know, sir,” Harry said.
Snape sneered at him, though Harry noticed that even Hermione had not raised her hand to answer the question.
“Detention, Potter,” Snape said coldly. “Tonight. My office. Seven o’clock.”
“That’s not fair!” Sirius howled immediately. “D’you even know how to neutralize a Lethifold?”
“Shut your mouth before I have you in detention for a month,” Snape spat at Sirius, glaring darkly at him.
“Bite me, Snivellus.”
Every fiber inside Harry’s body told him to move far, far, away from Sirius. Possibly outside of the castle, even out of the country.
Harry scooted closer to Sirius and twisted their ankles together beneath the table.
Snape had never looked so furious before, not even when Harry had seen his memories inside his pensieve. Nobody except Harry, Sirius, and Snape knew the deeply rooted significance to Sirius’s insult, yet the students made so little sound that they all might have been holding their breath.
“What did you say?” Snape stalked slowly down the aisle of the classroom, his eyes burning with rage where they locked on Sirius. “What did you say?” he repeated.
Sirius tried to stand and couldn’t because Harry had his ankle locked around Harry’s, futilely trying to keep him in place. Harry wondered then, as he wished desperately that Sirius kept silent, if that was how Hermione felt about Harry’s temper in the past.
“I said: bite me, Snivellus,” Sirius slowly sneered, looking Snape dead in the eyes as he mocked him in front of a classroom full of students.
Snape bent down and bared his teeth in Sirius’s face. If Sirius were a true first year, he would be wetting himself. As it was, Sirius looked bored.
It wasn’t that it was a bad look, it was that nobody could look at Sirius in that moment and think he was anything other than extraordinary. Also, a Gryffindor. That was true bravery beyond reason.
“Detention, every day for the rest of the term with Filch,” Snape hissed to Sirius. “And,” his eyes flicked to Harry before his lips twisted in a cruel and vindictive smile for Sirius, “you are banned from attending all quidditch matches for the year.”
Harry could see where Snape thought that was an extra punishment, except Harry and Sirius shared Harry’s invisibility cloak and Sirius’s map. There wasn’t anywhere in the castle or on the grounds that either of them could be truly banned from.
It explained why Sirius only smirked, thankfully not saying anything else to goad Snape on.
Snape glowered and gnashed his teeth for a moment longer before turning away, leaving Harry to breathe in relief.
“Idiot,” Harry whispered a few minutes later when Snape began a heated introduction on why werewolves were the most dangerous creatures to exist.
Sirius, who had never experienced Snape’s full moon lecture before, only scowled and watched Snape with what was clearly mutual hatred. There were a few times where Sirius looked ready to begin screaming and Harry pinched him each time.
“BULLSHIT!” Sirius screamed the very instant they were out in the corridor. The classroom door didn’t even close behind them yet and Sirius was already shouting profanities.
Hermione, ironically, gave Harry a sympathetic smile before she scuttled off toward the library with Neville Longbottom.
“He’s doing it on purpose!” Sirius yelled angrily enough that their usual classmates hurried away, leaving Harry to deal with Sirius alone.
“You called him Snivellus,” Harry reminded him. “Did you think he wouldn’t give you detention?”
“I don’t give a damn about detention,” Sirius said. He scowled at Harry, though Harry knew he wasn’t mad at him. “What’s he teaching about werewolves for, huh? I’m bloody sure that wasn’t next in our syllabus.”
“Shut up,” Harry said, looking around to make sure nobody was lingering near them. They were alone, but there were always nosy portraits and eavesdropping ghosts.
Harry didn’t blame Sirius for Pettigrew disappearing… but…
Sirius had been screaming a lot that first day about things they shouldn’t know and then Pettigrew disappeared. It didn’t seem like a coincidence.
If Sirius started making a scene about Snape reaching Lupin’s classes about werewolves on the day of the full moon when Lupin was out sick, surely more students were going to realize that Lupin was a werewolf.
Harry didn’t think he’d actually mind much if Lupin were gone… Sirius would though and who knew how long he’d be angry over it.
“It’s rubbish!” Sirius said, still spitting furious. “What’s he trying to do, eh? Get poor Remus fired?”
“Yeah, Sirius, obviously,” Harry said. They didn’t have any classes after defense and so Harry pulled Sirius in a secret passageway for some privacy.
Sirius let himself be pulled and then yanked his wrist away quickly so that he could turn and slam it in the wall.
The stone wall.
The stone wall that absolutely broke Sirius’s knuckles judging from the way that Sirius went instantly pale and stopped moving his right hand.
Harry pulled his wand and planned to try and heal the breaks for him, but Sirius beat him to it.
“Snape should be fired,” Sirius said the moment his hand was healed. “He should be fucking arrested. You’ve got no idea, Harry… the things he’s done? Azkaban is too good for him.”
There had never been any love lost between Harry and Snape, but he thought that Sirius was taking an extreme view of it. It was cruel what Snape was doing to Remus, Azkaban was surely worse.
Harry leaned against the wall then sank down to sit when Sirius began pacing. Sirius paced with an intensely angry kind of energy, one that burned out quickly in Harry’s experience. Harry planned to quietly wait Sirius’s temper out until Sirius mentioned Voldemort.
“Wait, what?” Harry leaned forward, alert then. “Sirius, what did you say?”
“I said I wish Voldemort had killed him,” Sirius repeated. He turned at the end of the passageway and circled back, his face screwed up with hatred. “If I knew what Snape had done, what he was going to do, I would have mailed him a bloody letter, I swear on the Gods.”
“Because he was a spy, right?” Harry asked, unease prickling his skin. Snape was a spy, that much Harry knew.
Harry apparently knew nothing.
“A spy? Maybe,” Sirius scoffed. “For which side though? He was Voldemort’s before he was Dumbledore’s.”
“Snape’s a death eater?!” Harry reeled backward so quickly that he struck his head on the wall. Sirius turned, as if surprised by Harry’s surprise.
“Dumbledore swears he’s a spy now, but he started a death eater,” Sirius said. “I swear I told you that?”
“No,” Harry said faintly. “You didn’t.”
Harry had pieced together that Snape was a spy for Dumbledore. It made sense. Harry had never questioned that Snape had been a part of the Order first though, he just assumed that - that Dumbledore wouldn’t —
“James and I thought he was the one to tell Voldemort about the prophecy. We thought Snape claimed he would be a spy, only to try and keep Lily safe, the timing fit. I still can’t imagine why Dumbledore would believe him.”
“Sirius…” Harry felt dizzy with the amount of information Sirius was sharing.
Prophecy? The one that Harry had been tricked into retrieving? The one that broke? The one that Lucius Malfoy said had been the cause for Harry’s parents death?
Snape? Lily?
Harry had been told nothing and it left him feeling as if he were suddenly floating while he pinned Sirius with his gaze, needing him to pull Harry back to the ground.
“Start at the beginning,” Harry told him, demanded it really. “Now.”
Sirius did. Sirius sat down beside Harry and he held his hand tightly in both of his while he started at the very beginning, many years ago, when a prophecy was made by Professor Trewlaney.
By the end of Sirius’s story, Harry was late to detention and thought there was a very good chance that he was going to kill Severus Snape.
Sirius tried to skip his own detention to accompany Harry, but Harry didn’t want Sirius there.
Snape had very likely caused the death of Harry’s parents and that was something Harry would like to address on his own.