The Gryffindor Invasion
Severus stopped by his quarters five times that day. On the first stop, Harry and Miss Tonks were playing 13 Dead End Drive, something he only knew because the top of the box laid at the foot of the bed. The board game was perched on top of a big, conjured lap table that stood on the bed across Harry’s legs. On the next stop by, they were having lunch. After that Miss Tonks was reading for Harry who was laying down in the bed. And at the next visit Harry was asleep and Miss Tonks was reading a magazine in an armchair in the corner. The last time, right before dinner, Miss Tonks was helping Harry with his Potions homework.
During dinner Severus sent a message to Miss Granger and Mister Weasley and told them to meet him by the potion lab at half past seven, during the later part of dinner. It was better to meet where people could not see them, at least before Severus had gotten them to swear a Secrecy Oath. The fact that they were a courting pair would be revealed, probably sooner rather than later, but Severus wanted to let Harry keep his privacy for as long as possible.
The two Gryffindors were there before the given time, and he let them into the lab. Miss Granger had an almost fearful expression on her face while she observed him, and Mister Weasley moved stiffly and hardly took his eyes off him.
“You are not in trouble,” he told them promptly and continued before they could ask any questions. “Harry has asked me to ask you to come visit him.”
“Harry? Of course, we would like to see him, sir! What happened to him? We haven’t seen him since the Start of Term Feast! He hasn’t even slept in his own bed, and he isn’t in the Infirmary, and we can’t find him anywhere! Do you know where he is, Professor?” Miss Granger let the words and worry flow out of her without even trying to keep them back, while Mister Weasley slowly got redder and redder in the face.
“Something out of the ordinary occurred to him …” he began and got a peculiar reaction from both of them. Miss Granger’s shoulders sagged in something that could be interpreted as relief, and she gave a small sigh.
“Oh, Harry,” she whispered.
While Mister Weasley scoffed and rolled his eyes, but also relaxed notably.
“Always you, mate, always you.”
Then they both looked attentively at Severus.
A heavy and ice-cold stone settled in his stomach and Severus got the distinct impression that he should talk to Harry about his Hogwarts career so far. He also got the impression that he would not like those stories, at all. He only knew the bare bones of what had happened to the child each year, before Albus delivered him back to his abusers every summer, and something told him that he might not know as much as he previously had assumed.
It was strangely easy to get them to swear the necessary Oath, even though both went through the Oath several times before agreeing to the wording. None of them had protested when he told them that it was for Harry’s safety and privacy and that Harry himself could release them for the Oath whenever he wished.
The smile on Harry’s face when he saw his friends was more than compensation enough for Miss Granger’s incessant stream of questions and Mister Weasley’s open suspicion before Severus managed to convince them that he in fact wasn’t holding Harry hostage, and that both Madam Pomfrey, the Headmaster, an Auror and a Healer knew where he was.
“Hello, Harry,” Miss Granger said in a wobbly voice before she sank down into one of the chairs Miss Tonks conjured up beside the bed. Both of them had presumed right in that something serious had happened to Harry, even before Severus ordered them to be calm, not overwhelm him with questions and not touch him without his explicit permission.
“Hiya, mate,” Mister Weasley said and sat down in the other chair, right beside Miss Granger so Harry didn’t have to look from one to the other. “What trouble have you gotten yourself into now? Do I need to get the twins to help out? You know they would love to, and they are quite the geniuses in their own way.”
Harry smiled at them.
Miss Tonks silently left the room and let the door remain slightly ajar behind her and both she and Severus went to sit down in the seating group by the fire. Severus asked for a pot of tea and two cups, and soon after they served themselves.
“How did the day go?” Severus asked when they both had their tea.
“Good, good. I taught him two of the games and how to do a sudoku. We started on one of the novels and the Potion and Charm assignments for the summer. Holding things, especially books, is hard for him, but we made do with a Hovering charm when he wanted to read for himself, and I read quite a bit for him, as he tired fast. He didn’t have any problems moving the dictaquill to where he wanted it, and he took the notes he wanted without my help, by way of the dictaquill.
“I’m guessing that he will be one of those that will get irritable by bedrest quite fast, I recognise the signs from myself. But keeping him continuously occupied, without wearing him out, will help, and letting him do as much as he can, in accordance with the orders from the Healer, will also help. Let him experience that he actually gets better, that always helped me, still do, in fact. And of course, visits from his friends will also help take his mind off things. Did you talk about how much he should tell his friends?”
“No, I reminded him that not everyone would be pleased that he is a courting Omega, and I got an Oath from Miss Granger and Mister Weasley. Other than that, I feel it best not to intervene. He is not used to adults interfering in his life, and while I most certainly am going to interfere, I will choose my battles wisely.”
She nodded and sipped at her tea. “Smart move, Master Snape.” Then she hesitated. “We talked a bit about being an Omega and courting. He wanted to know what I knew about it, which isn’t a lot. He has many questions, but also a few observations of his own, of things I have never heard about. Like his instincts telling him things he knows that he didn’t know a few days ago. I suggested that he write it all down, both questions and observations, mostly for himself but also for others. The last source about Omegas and a courting pair is two hundred years old and we don’t really know how much of it is true anymore. I didn’t go into detail, of course, because my suggestion of writing it down is first and foremost for his own sake, but if he does and if he ever shares his thoughts and experiences, it might help others in the future.”
Severus considered it. “Sound advice, Miss Tonks. One I believe I too will follow.”
She smiled. “I’m thinking about going through the Alley on my way home and find a nice leather bound notebook with everlasting pages and the possibility to set a password. Unless you have some other ideas on how you want it?”
“If you would find one for me too, I would be much obliged. The protections are unnecessary, I would like to make my own, on both of our books.”
“Sure thing,” she set her cup down, got up and stretched. “I will be going now before the shops close.”
He rose too and nodded. “I thank you for your help in looking after Harry today.”
“I was happy to. He’s a great kid, Master Snape, and if Mum gets her way, I will soon be able to call him little cousin. If I get my way, I will call him little brother,” she smiled and winked at him, but then paled. “If that is acceptable to you, of course.”
“Either history is mistaken when they describe Alphas as enormously possessive about their Omegas, or the fact that I see Harry as a wounded child to defend and not an actual prospective mate makes a difference, but I do not, in fact, mind anything that makes Harry happy, as long as he is also safe, and not out off my reach entirely. That might change when he is healed or it might change when he gets older, but for right now, I experience no possessiveness, just protectiveness.”
Miss Tonks smiled again. “That’s good to know. I will just say good night, then?” She nodded towards the open door where they heard voices talking excitedly. He nodded and she put her head through the open door and talked for a few moments before she came closer again to get to the fireplace and the Floo. “They are playing 13 Dead End Drive, and the poor pureblood is completely blown away by the fact that the Muggles have such brilliant games, even if the pictures on the cards don't move.” She grinned and took a pinch of Floo powder. “Have a good night, Master Snape. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Miss Tonks.”
The evening continued in quiet, considering he had no less than three Gryffindors in his quarters. The two times he looked in on them they were playing the same game and Harry looked relaxed and happy, given the circumstances, so he saw no reason to cut the visit short. The visit didn’t stress him unduly either, as long as everything went fine and they didn’t pressure Harry with a lot of questions. He was able to finish this year’s lesson plans for the upper years and read some of his own preference and not some dunderheads’ essay. Soon, far too soon, he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore.
The second time he looked in on the three of them, Harry asked if he could call Sage to ask for tea, as the three of them had become used to sharing a cup before bed in previous years. Apparently, there were always a couple of teapots with herbal tea available in the evening, in the Tower. As Severus knew that the Slytherins ordered the tea they wanted when they wanted it, he didn’t find that strange at all. It might be more strange that none in the Tower knew to call on the elves, since at least thirty elves worked just with serving orders like that from students and staff, within reason, of course. Larger orders, like more than one birthday cake at once or more than three kinds of scones and finger sandwiches for a Sunday tea, had to be authorised by the staff beforehand. Maybe Minerva had disallowed such orders from the Gryffindor Tower for some reason?
“Harry, you can’t just order other creatures around …!” Miss Granger snapped, and suddenly had a long finger in her face from Mister Weasley.
“First off, you do not yell at the patient! That’s bad manners and is likely to get us tossed out.” Mister Weasley said calmly, but also more forcefully than Severus had thought he had in him. Miss Granger blushed and apologised profusely to Harry, who just looked bemusedly at them, since Mister Weasley still had a finger up. “Secondly, Hermione, how much do you actually know, really know, about house elves? Not what you guessed, not what you have surmised, not what you feel; what do you know from credible sources?”
Miss Granger looked at her hands in her lap, but Harry frowned.
“Who are you and what have you done with our Ron? Credible sources?!”
“Harry, mate, I might not like it, but I do come here to learn, and I haven’t flunked any classes yet, even if I only have gotten strong A’s to strong EE’s. And you can’t really sit next to Hermione in the library for three years and not pick up something, even if you tried.” He smiled at Miss Granger and removed his hand from the air.
“Also,” he became less sure of himself and lowered his voice a bit. “This summer Bill went through what subjects and grades I need to get different jobs.” He winced. “No one had done that yet. I guess Mum and Dad forgot I had to choose my electives at the end of Second Year. I’m not out of the game for Auror yet, but I need to do better. Bill made me do a lot of revising and reading this summer and promised to help me do Runes as self-study, because most Aurors have at least an O.W.L if not a N.E.W.T in the subject. So, yeah, I’m going for Auror, or I don’t want to rule it out, at least, so I need to keep my grades up, or Bill will stop helping me with Runes. I’m already a fourth into the Third-Year curriculum, it’s more fun and less of a hassle than I thought it would be.”
Harry smiled at Mister Weasley and Miss Granger beamed.
“I will be happy to help you, too, when you get to the practical part in Runes, if nothing else, Ron,” she said.
“Thanks, Hermione, I probably will ask you when Bill tells me I’m ready to try some practical application. I just wish I could drop Divination, since we learn absolutely nothing of worth in it, and work on Runes on my own in those time slots.”
Miss Granger nodded. “I know there is career counselling in Fifth Year, but there really should be two, one in Second Year before we choose our electives, and one in Fifth Year.”
“Yeah, Bill bemoaned that too. He only knew what subjects he needed to become a Curse Breaker because he actually contacted the goblins and asked. The balls of that man!” he said proudly, then frowned and looked at Miss Granger again. “Back to house elves, Hermione.”
Miss Granger swallowed, her fire to defend the creatures heavily doused, and Severus could see Mister Weasley adjust himself back into lecture mode.
At first, Severus had stayed because he thought there would be a fast solution, then he had stayed because of curiosity, now he was just fascinated by the little show between the three friends that he had done a lot to harass in previous years. Obviously, it was more to them and their friendship than he had been willing to see, or even attempt to see, before.
“There is a teacher right behind you, maybe he could point you towards some sources?” Mister Weasley asked. “And when you know a bit more, you could maybe go directly to the source, the elves themselves, and ask them what they think and feel? You can’t just assume that you know better than them. Neither can you give them human views and opinions when they aren’t human, that’s not right. You wouldn’t like it if anyone did that to you. What if a centaur assumed you liked to eat only berries and nuts and sleep under the stars because they like to eat only berries and nuts and sleep under the stars.”
“No, no I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Harry, I should not have tried to chastise you, that was very wrong of me,” she apologised again.
“That’s alright, Hermione. The elves I have met here at Hogwarts are very different from Dobby. I gather that Dobby was a very extreme case, because of the family he served and because of the situation.”
She nodded and turned in her chair while Harry asked Sage for some tea and the snacks he was allowed to eat.
“Professor, may I ask if you do have any recommendations on the subject of house elves, please?” Miss Granger asked, and Severus summoned three books from his own shelves that he levitated over to her.
“Those are my personal copies, Miss Granger, and I require them back in the same order that I lend them to you. For the record, every other year or so there is a Muggleborn that discovers the house elves of the wizarding world, and of Hogwarts in particular, and draws the comparison to slavery. Due to this, there are at least two shelves on house elves, their history, and their service in the library. There is little doubt that some elves get treated poorly by their family, but they have their own means to rectify that if it becomes severe enough. Most families are intelligent enough not to treat their elves poorly, and those that do treat them poorly either let them go before they suffer the repercussions, or they pay dearly for it.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” She clutched the books to her chest.
“So, Dobby wouldn’t have been trapped with his bad family, even if I hadn’t freed him?” Harry asked.
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. “You freed a house elf? When, if I may ask?”
“The end of Second Year, after the fight with the basilisk,” Harry answered, and Severus felt all his blood rush from his face and the floor beneath him waver. Shadows licked at the corners of the room, and he could see the breath of the three teenagers.
“The fight with the basilisk?” he heard himself say from far away, before he got himself together and pushed himself upright from where he was slumped against the door frame. He had suspected that he didn’t know the whole story, but this … This was insanity! The Darkness and cold disappeared once more. “No, not tonight, drink your tea and play your game, but at some point, I believe I will have to ask for the whole story.”
“Sure, I can write it all down if you want. That dictaquill is the best invention ever! It’s so easy to read my notes now!”
“That was because the bones in your hand had regrown in a manner that made it impossible for you to hold your quill, or pen, correctly, Harry,” Severus said gently, and he saw Mister Weasley blanch and Miss Granger pale and blink her eyes several times.
“Oh, oh yeah, right.”
“Drink your tea now. It’s curfew in less than an hour.” He gave Harry a reassuring smile, to prove that he wasn’t in any trouble from Severus, and turned away from the door.
After Harry’s friends had left and Severus had helped him have a bath, again with the lavender oil, and he was back in bed with his new pyjama on and in fresh linen, Harry looked him in the eye and said:
“Thank you for letting my friends come and stay so long, and thank you for getting someone nice and cool to stay with me during the day. I really liked Tonks.”
“You are very welcome, Harry. Healer Tonks will be here in a minute, and then you can go to sleep.”
“Yeah, alright.”
Harry barely kept awake while Healer Tonks checked him out and only managed to mumble the answer to the questions she asked, but as everything seemed to be in order, the Healer was satisfied and left Harry to sleep. The boy hardly moved for the rest of the night, not even when Severus went to bed on the narrow, but comfortable enough, cot around midnight.
The next few days continued much in the same fashion. Miss Tonks brought the mentioned notebooks the next day. Both were nice and leatherbound with never ending pages. One in black and gold and one in green and silver with different patterns embossed on them. Harry promptly picked the black and gold one and pointed out the stylised golden snake embossed on the front and said he wanted to make his password in parseltongue, because then someone would have to know both parseltongue and the password. Harry still liked that idea even after Severus told him that he planned to bind the books to their magic so no one but them could open the books anyway, in addition to making it impossible for someone other than them to read the book if it already was open.
Miss Tonks continued to entertain and look after Harry during the days. She helped him eat and study, she entertained him with the books, the puzzle magazines and the games, she told him stories from her life and let him tell her stories in return, and rant and rave when everything became too much. It was already a lot to put on a fourteen-year-old boy to be the first Omega to live to be courted in two hundred years, on top of that he had been heavily abused and both vaunted and despised as The-Boy-Who-Lived and the wizarding worlds Saviour. That was far, far too much for any one person, and both Miss Tonks and Severus knew that.
Miss Tonks wasn’t the least bit surprised when Harry on the fourth day snapped at her, only to then apologise profusely and almost start crying in shame. Miss Tonks had told Harry what she already had told Severus, that she wasn’t surprised Harry had become irritable over being confined to bed. She had added that she wouldn’t hold it against Harry as long as he tried his best not to let his irritation take over. He had promised her he would try.
Two days later, on Saturday, Severus told him the same thing when Harry snapped and apologised again. The boy had flinched away from Severus in fear of punishment and had been almost inconsolable for half an hour before something, most likely some instinct, made him calm down to the crooning voice of his Alpha, or Warder. Not that Severus himself had registered what he was doing before much, much later.
Every night his quarters was invaded by Gryffindors. Miss Granger and Mister Weasley came every night after dinner like clockwork and stayed until curfew. The fourth night they had dragged Mister Longbottom with them and defended their action with the fact that Harry had asked it of them, and that Mister Longbottom already had sworn a Secrecy Oath identical to the one they themselves had sworn. Mister Longbottom had been his usual bumbling mess upon seeing Severus and being dragged into his quarters, but Severus saw Harry’s smile when the clumsy boy came in the door to his room, and he knew that he would do his best not to scare Mister Longbottom away, if Harry wanted him there.
All in all, that first week went remarkably well and Healer Tonks announced that Harry now was stable enough that she no longer feared a sudden collapse. He still had to keep still in bed or on the couch, but he was now allowed on the couch and she trusted him to be able to give a message if something felt wrong. The least bit wrong, she stressed to him multiple times. Between the elves, Severus and Poppy visiting during the day, or being on call, Harry would do well enough on his own for some hours. He still couldn’t walk, and had to be especially careful with his left leg and hands now that he felt a bit better.
The next three weeks Harry’s condition continued to stabilise and then get better. He got his summer assignments done bit by bit during the day, and slowly began on this year’s work with help from Miss Granger’s copious notes and descriptions of the classes, even though Healer Tonks still prohibited him to do any magic. Even if the three, sometimes four, Gryffindors often played some game in Harry’s room or by the couch or just talked, they also often worked on their assignments. The other three helped Harry with what he had missed.
Severus found it silently fascinating that not only Mister Weasley, but also Harry and Mister Longbottom soon became intrigued by Ancient Runes. Likewise, all three of them lamented the fact that they couldn’t drop Divination and take up Runes, if only as a self-study subject. Obviously, none of them felt they actually learned anything in Divination.
It stopped being fascinating by any stretch of the word when he learned that Sybil Trelawney actually predicted Harry’s gruesome death almost once a week, from his very first class in Third Year. And that she had continued to do so this year, when he hadn’t yet attended any of her lessons. That sounded too much like a threat, or possibly psychological torture, for Severus’ taste.
That night he had told Harry that Harry would not attend that woman’s classes any longer. Severus had the power to withdraw him and set him up as a self-study in Ancient Runes, or anything else Harry wanted, and he would do just that. He wished he could say that Harry’s astonishment at being listened to and believed was a surprise, but from what he had gleaned from Harry’s life, both inside and outside of school, it truly wasn’t a surprise. Harry had blinked hard several times before thanking him sincerely and ducking his head into the fur of the dog plushie. Severus left the room to give him the opportunity to gather himself, before coming back half an hour later to discuss how Harry would do a self-study in Ancient Runes and what Severus would require of him in work.
Severus often saw Harry dictate his quill to write in the snake embossed notebook from Miss Tonks when he stopped by during the day, but he had also become so enthused with the puzzle magazines, sudoku in particular, that Miss Tonks brought him a couple of new ones during her visits, that never quite stopped, even if she no longer kept him in constant company during the day. Gifts of clothes, novels and other books, one more plushie, different magazines and two games arrived from either Miss Tonks or Healer Tonks in their quest to both outfit Harry properly, and to make it clear for him that they cared about his life, his wishes and his comfort.
Almost four weeks into the whole ordeal, only days before the day that Healer Tonks had set as the date she could begin to re-break or vanish bones to regrow them, Severus agreed to let the whole Tonks’ family visit at once.
Harry had got another bath, a luxury he still hadn’t gotten over even if he most days had one in the morning and one in the evening, and got freshly dressed in deep red and black lounge wear, as he now never dressed in nightclothes except for when he slept. Harry had been so relieved when he could sit on the couch in something other than his pyjamas and feel like something more than an invalid again, as he had put it that first day, even if he still was, by all means, an invalid. All his lounge wear was soft and loose, but also form fitting enough that it didn’t look like he was dressed in sacks, and it was all new, all just for him.
The visit with the whole Tonks family had gone well, in Severus’ mind at least, and Harry didn’t seem distressed, or overly shy, even if he apparently found it difficult to call Healer Tonks for Andromeda or Andi, when she was off work, or call Ted Tonks for just Ted. Later, after a bit of prodding, Severus was haltingly informed that Harry had never called an adult by anything but their honorific and last name before Severus, outside his relatives, and that didn’t count as that had been honorific and first name, and they hadn’t wanted Harry to speak to them if at all possible. After coming with that confession, Harry hurriedly changed topic.