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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story

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Chapter Twenty-Three—Finding the Right Balance
“Ah, Harry. Thank you for coming to my office. And I’m sorry to hear about what happened to you with Mr. Flint yesterday.”
Harry sits down in the chair across from Dumbledore’s desk and just nods. The more he doesn’t say anything, the better the chance of getting out of here without doing something that Dumbledore wants him to do, like agreeing to go back to the Dursleys or something.
He can’t help shooting a curious glance at the man who’s sitting in another chair next to him. The man is staring avidly at Harry, but Harry’s certain he’s never seen him before. He would have remembered brown hair that shaggy and wild. Harry’s only seen his own to compare to it.
Of course, the man is probably only staring because Harry’s famous. Harry tries to put that out of his mind as Dumbledore starts talking again.
“Now that Sirius Black is on the loose, we need to make sure that you are protected,” Dumbledore says. “I managed to talk the Ministry out of sending Dementors here, but only by promising that I would recruit someone else. Someone who once knew Sirius Black, and who needs to tell you some information.” He nods to the man, who sits up a little and shows Harry that he’s painfully thin, too.
Harry blinks. Then he says, “Um? Who are you, sir?”
“My name is Remus Lupin,” the man says in return. His eyes are gentle and kind, lightening almost to amber. Harry relaxes. He seems even kinder than Professor Dawlish, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who has pretty high standards for essays that Harry doesn’t always manage to meet. “I was—a friend of Sirius and your parents, both.”
Harry immediately says, “Do you know how he betrayed them? I mean, do you know why? That’s what I can’t figure out. He was my godfather and people told me that he was really close to my mum and dad. Why did he do that?”
Lupin gapes at him a little. Dumbledore frowns. Lupin glances at Dumbledore, then clears his throat and says, “I was going to tell you that he was your godfather, actually, Harry. I didn’t realize you already knew.”
“One of my friends told me.” Harry instinctively doesn’t think it’s a good idea to say that it was Blaise who did it.
“Is it that widespread as knowledge?”
Harry doesn’t know if Lupin is asking him, but anyway, it’s Dumbledore who answers. “I had not thought so. But, on the other hand, Minister Fudge knows. Almost anyone who works in the Ministry could have learned of it from there. Fudge’s office is porous.” Dumbledore sighs and looks older.
“That’s true.” Lupin turns back. “Well, I wanted to share a few things about Sirius with you. These aren’t common knowledge, all right? But both Albus and I agreed that you needed to know to protect yourself.” He hesitates, then adds, “Sirius can transform into a black dog. He’s an Animagus, and that’s probably how he escaped Azkaban. No one would notice a dog where they were looking for a human. If a dog approaches you, you must retreat and get back inside the school to safety as soon as possible, all right?”
Harry blinks. “No one said anything about that in the papers or to me,” he mutters, and he glances at Dumbledore before he can stop himself.
Dumbledore only nods sadly, though, and the twinkle has faded from his eyes until Harry almost can’t see it anymore. “It’s not commonly known, Harry. Sirius and your father and the man Sirius killed—Peter Pettigrew—became Animagi when they were in school together.”
Harry recollects himself and turns back to Lupin. He’s the one Harry wants to talk to, not Dumbledore. “What form did my dad have?”
Lupin’s smile comes back, and it’s soft. “A stag. We called him Prongs. Peter was a rat, called Wormtail. Sirius was—” He closes his eyes, and his face is miserable again. “Padfoot.”
Harry sits there and digests that information. He wouldn’t have got it anywhere else, not when he didn’t know Lupin existed until today.
Although, of course, Dumbledore knew and could have told him. But why would he do that? Harry keeps himself from shivering in disgust or rolling his eyes, though, because he’s thought of something else, and it’s a lot more important for him to ask Lupin about it than spend his time questioning Dumbledore.
“Do you think my dad would have been okay with me?” he blurts out. Lupin blinks at him, and Harry makes a self-conscious gesture to the snake on his robes. “Because I got Sorted into Slytherin when the Hat fell on my head.”
“Yes, Albus told me all about the true circumstances,” Lupin says, and he’s sitting up straight now and there’s an expression on his face that’s somehow happier than a smile. “And I am absolutely sure that James would be proud of you no matter what. Okay? So would your mother. I’ve never seen anyone so joyous as Lily was when you were born. What would matter to them would be what kind of person you are, not what House you’re in.” Lupin leans forwards and takes one of Harry’s hands. “And as I said, Albus told me about the basilisk, and the true circumstances surrounding the Philosopher’s Stone. Never doubt that you are a person your parents would be proud of, Harry.”
Harry sits back and relaxes with a long sigh that he didn’t know could come from the bottom of his stomach. Part of him has been worried about that all summer. He’s resigned to staying in Slytherin, since no one seems likely to get him out of it, but it’s good to know that—maybe he can make something more of it than that.
“They would be proud of you for staying out of trouble around Sirius, too,” Lupin adds. “I hate to say it, because he was one of my best friends, but he’s dangerous, Harry. You probably saw the way he was laughing in those photographs in the papers?”
Harry nods. He’s seen the way that Black stared at the camera and almost choked on his tongue laughing. It reminds him of the way that Uncle Vernon sometimes looks in his rages. He isn’t eager to get closer to the madman.
“Good.” Lupin waves a hand. “We’ll try to capture him. I have some unique advantages because I—” He looks over his shoulder at Dumbledore, then sighs as if they’re having a silent argument, and says, “Because I know him so well. But I’ll be staying at Hogwarts for a while, in some of the rooms that don’t get used anymore, and so I can tell you stories of your parents if you want that.”
Harry has to smile at him. “I’d like that, sir. Thank you.”
Lupin flushes. “Please don’t call me that. It sounds wrong. Remus will do.”
“All right.” Harry decides that Remus is an okay adult. He still wonders why he never heard of him before and why Dumbledore never told him about his father being an Animagus, but he doesn’t think he should ask that immediately. “I need to head down to breakfast. Professor Snape gets upset when I miss it.”
“It’s so nice that Severus is protective of you,” Dumbledore chimes in, right on cue.
“He is?” Remus sounds astonished.
“It’s true that Severus and James didn’t get along,” Dumbledore says calmly, “but I think Severus has changed his mind on young Harry since his re-Sorting.”
“Oh.” Remus blinks and reaches out to grip Harry’s hand again. “Well, it was nice to meet you for the first time since you were a baby, Harry. I’ll be staying behind the portrait of the Vampire Queen at the end of the westernmost corridor on the sixth floor.”
Harry doesn’t know where that is, but he’s sure he can find it. He smiles back at Remus and waits until he lets go of Harry’s hand on his own before he leaves. Dumbledore says something to his back. Harry doesn’t bother to listen to it. It’s either going to be a warning against Black or something about Harry acting like a Gryffindor and how great that is. Either way, Harry has no intention or desire to listen.
Snape is waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs from the Headmaster’s office. He flares up to Harry and stands staring at him. Harry shrugs at him. “Dumbledore’s phoenix brought me a note to meet him in his office the minute I woke up, sir. I couldn’t stay and wait for anyone else.”
“You could have had their company to the gargoyle,” Snape retorts, and turns to pace alongside Harry as an escort. Harry very carefully doesn’t roll his eyes. “What did Albus want?”
“To introduce me to Remus Lupin, because he knew my parents. He’s going to be hunting Black, and he told me some things—”
Snape’s hand reaches out and tries to close on Harry’s shoulder. Tries, because Harry ducks and spins and comes up a safe distance away without even thinking about it. That’s the kind of training that both Tarquinius and Snape tried to drill into him over the summer, and after Flint wounding him the other day, he’s going to keep it up.
Snape stands there staring at him. Then a sneer works its way over his lips. “Please remember, Mr. Potter, to keep those evasive maneuvers for the werewolf.”
“Remus Lupin’s a werewolf?” Harry is a little surprised. Then again, he’s never met a werewolf before, so it’s not like he would have any idea how they would act.
“That you do not express immediate horror tells me that you don’t understand,” Snape says, and takes a moment to massage his nose as if that hurts instead of his forehead. “At the full moon, he goes wild. He takes a potion that supposedly controls some of the symptoms, but he is a wild animal, who can infect anyone he touches. If I find that you have been visiting him, then you will receive a week’s worth of detentions for each visit. Is that clear?”
Harry flinches as Snape’s voice suddenly snaps like a whip, but he nods. “It is, sir.” And it really is. Snape sweeps in front of him to the Great Hall, on the way to breakfast, and Harry follows him thoughtfully.
Of course, he still intends to visit Remus and learn about his parents. It’s not like he knows many other stories than the ones Snape carefully doled out over the summer, and they were only about his mum and only about their first five years at Hogwarts. Snape will give him detention if he finds out that Harry has been visiting Remus.
What he doesn’t know, Snape can’t do anything about.
*
Remus bloody Lupin is in the bloody castle. Of course he is. Severus stalks through the corridors to his first class, his breathing under control only because he spent a few minutes standing in an alcove forcing it to be so. When Albus mentioned that he’d come up with an alternative to the Dementors, I never suspected it was the werewolf.
Then again, Albus has never been predictable for Severus. He would need to be sane for that to be so.
Severus snorts bitterly as he rounds the last corner before the Potions classroom. He once thought that only the Dark Lord was insane, because Albus, as erratically as he behaves, at least did not want to take over the bloody wizarding world. But lately, he suspects that Albus has lost sight of some of his ultimate goals in his concern with, among other things, keeping Harry under control. There is no other reason for his continued insistence that Harry return to his Muggle cousin.
And if a man will share his reasons with no one, what can one do but lay plans as if that wizard was insane?
Severus sweeps into the classroom and causes the few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs already there to blush or pale or duck behind cauldrons, as is their preference. Severus bares his teeth in what they won’t take as a smile, because they aren’t first-years, and continues marching up the aisle between the tables.
Halfway to the front, he smells it.
Severus keeps walking, keeps his eyes focused straight ahead. But the smell of boiled copper, one of the prime ingredients of the Drake’s Breath potion, teases about his nostrils long after he has turned around to stare his early students into submission.
He reminds himself, as he pulls out a blank piece of parchment and pretends to scan it as if it is of ultimate importance, that he doesn’t know if the person who slipped Harry the Drake’s Breath is actually in front of him. It could be that they used this room to brew the potion.
But that only makes him more enraged, and have to control his breathing again. That someone could have created the potion during one of his classes—
No. I would have smelled the copper. And immediately confiscated the cauldron and the ingredients and probably the knives and wand of whoever was preparing it, because boiled copper reacts violently with almost everything else in common use in a Potions classroom.
So that means the person most likely just came from preparing a dose of the potion. The smells wouldn’t linger long.
Severus studies the Ravenclaws, and the one Hufflepuff, in the classroom from under his eyelids. None of them are remarkable. He knows their names, but he would never have singled them out before this year. They are all in NEWT Potions, but that only means they passed the OWL exam with an acceptable mark. Severus has only known two students in all his years of teaching who he would say merited being in his NEWT class. He must accept students with an Outstanding mark because there is none higher.
But there should be, Severus thinks, and then wrenches his mind back to the problem in front of him. A Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff isn’t who he would have suspected. A Slytherin seemed likeliest, then a Gryffindor. One who was upset about Harry’s not being on their Quidditch team anymore, perhaps.
He lets his eyes travel lazily around the classroom again, sharpening and stopping on the door as would be expected when two Hufflepuffs blunder in. They immediately slow and duck their heads as they see him. They tiptoe to their seats, and Severus wants to shake his head. Hufflepuffs. It is tempting to discount all of them.
But what he cannot discount is that the smell seemed stronger when he passed closer to their side of the classroom.
Again he let his eyes travel, and then they stop on a Hufflepuff towards the back. Hugh Claremont, a half-blood with pretensions beyond his years.
And a pure-blood cousin in Slytherin.
Severus wants to tilt his head at his own stupidity. Just because someone else is brewing it doesn’t mean that someone in Slytherin isn’t actually feeding it to Harry.
The connection snaps into place in his mind with the intuitive rightness of solving a problem in creating an experimental potion. Darius Willowbeam, the cousin in Slytherin, comes from a family with both low-ranking Death Eater members—not caught because they did not bear the Dark Mark, as they were never part of the Inner Circle—and an ancient blood feud with the Potters. James Potter did nothing to carry on that feud that Severus knows of.
Probably the only one that the arrogant cretin did keep away from.
There could be other motives; there could be someone else who slipped the Drake’s Breath potion to Harry. But Severus is certain he is right.
Therefore, when the rest of the class has arrived and they have begun to brew, Severus makes an excuse to linger, sneering, over Claremont’s adequate but not impressive effort and make the young man look him in the eyes.
Yes. There. The memory of brewing the Drake’s Breath is strong because he was doing it right before he came to this classroom, as a matter of fact.
Severus has to turn away his head, and to keep the snarl from leaving his lips is an effort. But he does it, and only aims a small spell at Claremont’s cauldron from a distance to make it wobble and ruin the potion altogether as the ingredients combine too fast and on the wrong side of the cauldron.
“Detention, Claremont, for your clumsiness,” he says, not looking around, and steps to the front of the classroom. He knows who the perpetrators are now. As soon as he has evidence that is not based solely on the Legilimency he is not technically supposed to use, then he will make sure that the children are punished to the fullest extent of the rules.
Now, if only he can get through the next few days without Potter-related mishaps. Including from Black and the bloody werewolf.
Surely the boy won’t go near the werewolf. Surely he won’t be that stupid as to tempt not only a bite but my ire.
At least, that is what Severus thinks before he gets the owl at lunch—a meal Albus conveniently misses—informing him that he is to brew Wolfsbane for one Remus Lupin.
*
SickPuppy: Severus doesn't get that he's describing himself, no. :)
Well, Harry is reckless enough on his own, at least according to Severus...
Kain: In the book, Fudge does know that Sirius is Harry's godfather, and so does Hagrid. I figured lots of other people would know, too, and Blaise's mother is well-connected.
At this point, Snape has almost given up on reading Harry's thoughts, although he'll do it if he thinks Harry is in serious danger.
Severus knows the reputation as Death Eaters has a basis in truth, but he just thinks that makes it more stupid for Flint to hurt Harry.
Severus gave Flint the same punishment he did Harry for breaking Harry's arm. He can't really do more than that without attracting attention and making it seem as if he favors Harry now.
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