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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

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Two—Playing Dirty
“He Stunned me!”
Harry rubs his forehead. His scar doesn’t sting, but he almost wishes it would. No, it’s just Sirius’s shrill voice giving him a headache. And the way Sirius is bound to the chair with ropes, has been since Professor Snape forced him back into human form, but it’s hard to blame Professor Snape for that one, really. He gave Sirius the chance to act normal when he woke up. Sirius instantly tried to tear out his throat again.
Snape is just standing back against the wall with his arms folded now. And probably looking disgusted, but Harry doesn’t turn to stare at him. It’s his task to convince Sirius that he can actually listen to them.
“He had to. You were going to bite him.”
“He’s a git! And a liar!”
“He captured Pettigrew for you.”
That’s what Harry has been trying to say for ten minutes now, but Sirius kept shouting. Sirius stares at him, then stares at Pettigrew, who’s still unconscious. Then he shakes his head slowly. “Snivellus wouldn’t do something like that for me.”
“Don’t call him that!”
Harry utterly surprises himself with how loudly he yells. He surprises Sirius too, apparently. Sirius just looks at him with his mouth hanging open. Then he smiles and says, “You’re a kind boy. But you don’t know everything he did during school. He was a Death Eater—”
“Yeah, well, I stayed with a Death Eater this summer. And Professor Snape helped tutor me. It was a lot better than staying with my relatives.”
Sirius looks devastated. And lost. He finally says, “Harry, you can’t be serious.”
“Perhaps, Black, if you had been available,” Snape says, “then Harry would not have had to stay with abusive relatives. He might not have been Sorted into Slytherin. He might have turned out more like the Gryffindor ideal that you pride yourself on being. Your own fault, really.”
Harry turns around and scowls at Snape. “You say out of this, too. Sir.”
“Hey! How come you’re more respectful to him than me?”
“Because he’s insulting you, but he’s not using a stupid nickname,” Harry says, and turns back around to scowl at Sirius. “Anyway. You can’t spring surprises on me like that. I know Professor Snape was a Death Eater.” It’s actually kind of hard to remind himself to keep putting “Professor” in front of Snape’s name, but he has to show Sirius that he respects him, or they aren’t going to get anywhere. “I know he did lots of things he’s not proud of. And you, too. I know you’re innocent, okay? I told Professor Snape that. And he’s the one who hunted down Pettigrew and tied him up.”
“Dumbledore must have done it.”
“No.”
“Then Remus.”
“No.” Harry rolls his eyes. Sirius isn’t much like an adult, or at least he’s not acting much like one right now. Then again, Remus doesn’t, either, most of the time. “Why would they have tied him up and left him in Professor Snape’s quarters? No, Professor Snape did it.”
“But—why?”
“I did it for Harry.” Snape is examining his nails when Harry turns around. Harry didn’t think people actually did that outside of books. “Emphatically, not you, Black.”
“You would never have done something like that for James’s son. Never!” Sirius tries to shrug off the ropes so hard that the chair rocks.
“Can both of you just stop acting like idiots?”
Harry’s scream makes both of them stop and pay attention to him. Sirius just looks like someone’s shot a Stunner at him again. Professor Snape’s expression is more dangerous. Harry gulps a little and shakes his head. “Well, you are,” he says, and tries not to think about how he might have detention for the rest of the year. He looks at Sirius. “Professor Snape was even going to have me go outside when most people stopped moving around and search for you.”
“I’m glad that didn’t happen.” Sirius’s face is suddenly savage. “The Ministry lost patience or heard I’d been seen or something. They’re sending Dementors onto the grounds.”
Harry shivers. He’s never been near a Dementor, but the thought of them is bad enough. Professor Snape promptly straightens up and points his wand, and Harry snaps to attention, mouth open to protest. If he’s going to curse Sirius—
“You are not to go outside by yourself.”
This again. Harry glares steadily at Snape. “I know there’s a charm to keep them away. The Patronus Charm, right? I’ll learn it. I’ll teach it to my friends. But I’m not going to stay caged in the school.” He eases up on the tone when he sees the narrow-eyed way Snape is staring at him. “Please. Besides, they might go away when the Ministry realizes that Sirius is innocent, anyway.”
“That lot? They’ll never believe that.” Sirius almost barks his laugh. He makes the chair rock again as he turns to stare at Pettigrew. “Just give me that bastard and I’ll take him off your hands. I’ll kill him, and then James and Lily will be avenged—”
“And you will remain on the run for the rest of your life,” Snape interrupts, voice smooth. “Which is likely to be short. You will also take away the chance at a steady home for Harry. Now, I am not personally convinced that you value that option, when revenge was the first thing on your mind twelve years ago as well as now. But I am doing this for Harry, not for you, and my own personal prejudices must stand aside.”
“Shut up, Snape!” Sirius whirls back again. “You know nothing about it! There’s no way the Ministry will ever grant me a trial! It doesn’t matter what evidence they have! They’ll be too ashamed that they fucked up the first time!”
“Such language in front of your godson, Black.”
“I’ll say whatever I bloody well fucking please, you berk!”
Harry groans, so loudly that they both shut up and pay attention to him again. Harry shakes his head and stares back and forth between them. He doesn’t really know what he’s going to say until he opens his mouth and says it.
“I can’t believe it. I’m doing so much better than you two!”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Snape’s voice is quiet and dark, the kind of voice that promises detentions for a month, but honestly, at this point Harry doesn’t care anymore. He faces Snape and folds his arms. “I got moved from Gryffindor to Slytherin, and I hated it. And I have people in that House who want to kill me. And I stayed with a Death Eater. And I’m still making friends in Slytherin and doing better with Slytherins and Gryffindors than either of you are. I mean, than either of you are with someone from another House. And you’re bloody adults.”
Snape’s gaze rakes across his face as if he’s going to read Harry’s mind. Harry averts his eyes a little. His pulse is beating so fast in his throat that it feels as if he’s going to throw up. But he’s not about to take the words back.
“He sure told you,” Sirius says, and starts laughing.
“I’m telling you the same thing,” Harry says. He faces Sirius. Maybe he thought it didn’t apply before because Harry was looking at Snape? Well, it does. “You still can’t stop taunting him even though you’ve been out of school for longer than I’ve been alive. You’re really—” The word struggles in his throat, and he almost doesn’t want to say it, because it was what the Dursleys said to him sometimes, and he hates it.
“Tell us.” Snape’s voice is low, almost hypnotic.
Harry does, even though he’s not sure it’s the best thing. “You’re disappointing.”
Sirius stares at him. “Harry?”
“When I heard you were my godfather,” Harry whispers, “I felt awful. Then when I realized you were innocent, I thought it was going to be different. But it’s not, is it? You hate Sn—Professor Snape. And you’ll probably hate me, because I’m a Slytherin now.” He’s shaking, and he didn’t mean to do this, and he’ll pay for this later, but right now, he can’t help the hot tears that are welling up, sliding down his face. He takes off his glasses and wipes furiously at his eyes. He hates this. “I thought it was going to be different, and it’s not. It’ll never be different. I’ll always have to live with someone who hates me—”
He clamps down, and finally manages to stop saying any more. Snape’s hands are on his shoulders, drawing him gently backwards.
“You will not.” Snape sounds like he’s making a vow. “I promise it. If Black is unable to take you, then we will find someone who will give you what you need.”
Sirius throws himself forwards against the ropes binding him and almost knocks the chair over. “Get your filthy Death Eater hands off him, Snivellus!”
Snape jerks and hisses out a long breath between his teeth, but his hands don’t move. “Are you all right, Harry?”
Harry keeps his head bowed for a second. He’s honestly not sure, and that’s pathetic. But he keeps breathing, and the world keeps turning, and that means there’s only one answer. He lifts his head and nods.
Sirius is hanging forwards and staring at Harry like he’s the center of the universe. Words cascade off his lips. “Harry, please. It’s not like that. I don’t care about insulting Snivellus more than you! I don’t care about revenge! I care—”
“You say that, and you still can’t stop insulting him,” Harry hisses. He wonders for a second if he’s used Parseltongue, because Sirius looks stunned. But he shakes his head and presses on.
“Fine, I’ll call him Snape. But I don’t care about other things! I care about you! I want to be your godfather! I want to adopt you—I mean, get custody of you! Just let me have a chance.” Sirius calms down a little, but his eyes are so yearning they look like black pits. “Please. Please let me do it.”
*
Severus is aching with the urge to say something, to point out, in case Harry has forgotten, that the mutt still cared more about revenge than him up until a few minutes ago, that he came here for Pettigrew and not because he thought Harry needed someone. But he stays silent. That would simply push Harry further away.
And he wants to maintain that connection with Harry. Even if Harry is adopted by, or becomes the ward of, Black. Even if the world tilts impossibly far and Black turns Harry more into a Gryffindor and makes him start insulting Severus, too. Children have done worse things for love or the lack of it.
Harry only shudders under Severus’s restraining hands. Severus can guess some of the depth of the battle going on in him. He doesn’t move. Harry needs a stronger anchor for the storm inside him than his own will can provide.
Harry finally says, in a croaking voice, “I do want to give you a chance, Sirius. But you have to do more than stop insulting Professor Snape. You have to take Pettigrew to the Ministry and undergo a trial.”
“What if the Dementors kill me first?”
Severus sneers in spite of himself. Black always comes up with some bargain, some contingency, that means the careful planning of others is in vain and he should be allowed to do what he wants.
But Harry only shakes his head, and says, “Minister Fudge still listens to someone. He listens to Dumbledore. Dumbledore can make him back off and take the Dementors away if we talk to him first. I’m sure of it.” His body trembles for a second, then calms down. “And if he doesn’t for some reason, I have something Dumbledore wants. We can make a bar—”
“No, Harry,” Severus says before he realizes he’s going to speak. “You are not going to promise to remain in your cousin’s company during the holidays just to make sure that Black has a trial.”
Harry only tilts his head. Severus has learned better than to mistake that for compliance. He leans down towards Harry and makes his voice as calm as possible. “No.”
“Get off my godson, Sn—Snape!”
Severus sneers at Black and does not move. If Harry wishes to walk away from him, he can. But Harry is still fighting his own tremors.
“You’re the adult,” Snape says in a low voice. “You make the sacrifices.”
“You think spending a decade in Azkaban wasn’t enough of a bloody sacrifice?”
Severus watches, and says nothing. Of course Black’s time in Azkaban would influence his behavior, but that’s not the point, not truly. If it influences him that much, to the point that he would let Harry do something he hates because it would be more convenient for him, then he is not ready to be a guardian.
“I’d prefer it if we didn’t have to do that,” Harry says, and hesitates. Severus does not know what he is thinking, and has to wait in silence as much as Black, until Harry murmurs, “There’s another option. Minister Fudge might listen to the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Severus says nothing. He thinks Harry might hate this option as much as going to Dumbledore, but at the least, it would be something to set him higher as an independent being, without clinging to the Headmaster’s cloak.
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
Black shakes his head. He looks so old and harrowed that Severus might find room in his heart to feel sorry for him if not for—many things. “Because I told you. Fudge isn’t going to give me a fair trial. I know what sort of idi—man he is. He’s going to blame someone else for his mistakes. He’ll see me locked up on a technicality if he can’t give me the Kiss. And he’ll take advantage of you, Harry.”
“Like that’s new.”
Black peers at Harry in hurt surprise. Severus hides the roll of his eyes he wants to give. He does wish Black would stop being so hurt. He hasn’t been here for twelve years of Harry’s life. Did he expect to find a pudgy, laughing baby?
“At least it would be taking advantage that I chose, this time,” Harry says, and from the sound in his voice, Severus knows he’s made up his mind. That was the way Lily sounded when she had. “I’ll write to Fudge in the morning. I’ll tell him that I’m very concerned about new information I found out about the betrayal, and I want to speak to him personally. Because otherwise, my only source of information is the papers.”
Severus coughs into his sleeve to hide his smile. Perhaps it was forced by his House placement, perhaps Harry has been getting ideas from his friends, but it does sound like a more Slytherin plan than he would have been capable of last year.
“I don’t want you to have to do that for me, Harry.”
“Yeah, I know, Sirius. I appreciate it.” Harry’s voice goes soft and he steps forwards to put a hand on Black’s arm, and Severus feels such a scorching jealousy that he holds still and says nothing at all. “But we all do what we have to do. This will pass, too. I’ll get you freed, and then we can live together.”
“We will make sure that the paperwork is meticulously in place, this time,” Severus interjects. He tells himself it is not because he wishes desperately to be a part of the conversation. “So that no one can reject custody.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
“As I do keep telling you,” Severus drawls, glad to see that the hatred is back full force in Black’s gaze and he need not feel guilty for anything, “I am doing this for Harry, not you.”
“Can you two stop squabbling like Ron and Hermione?” Harry snaps. “Anyway, I need to write the letter—”
“You need to go to bed.”
Harry whirls and glares up at him, while Black barks at him again like the fool he is. “What kind of say do you have in it, Snape?”
“I am his Head of House,” Severus says, holding Harry’s eyes. They are the important things, not Black. If he is indeed doing these things for Harry, then it is time that he took that vow seriously. “And I know that he has had a tiring, exciting day. I think that even the time before I told him of the capture of Pettigrew and then you intruded was not restful.”
Harry nods slowly. Then he says, “I want to be at my best when I write that letter to the Minister, right?”
“Yes, you do.” Severus nods to the desk with the abandoned parchment on it. “And when you come back for detention tomorrow to do your lines.”
Harry grimaces, but says nothing. Black, as always less mature, breaks in. “You can’t just tell him that! What use are detentions when his life has just changed?”
“It hasn’t changed yet,” Severus murmurs in response. And right now, I am a source of stability in shifting waters.
He might only be that source of stability for a little while longer, if Black does win custody. Then Severus expects to see nothing of Harry outside class interaction. But he will do what he can while he can.
“And Harry? Stay within the castle walls.”
Harry pauses on his way out of the walls. Once again, though, Black speaks, not him. “What happens if he doesn’t, huh? What happens if he decides that he’d rather take the chance?”
“Then it will not be writing lines about the subjects that you have written about so far,” Severus says, to Harry. “It will be talking about them.”
Harry’s face does have a good dramatic pallor when he wants it to. He nods, gulps hurriedly, and slips away.
Black continues to yell. Severus conjures a bed for him, and blankets, and a sturdy cage around the chair, then lets the ropes loose. Then he raises a Silencing Charm around the cage and goes quietly back to work.
Black is going to learn that Harry’s choice matters. And he is going to learn that Severus is more mature than he is.
*
Kain: Severus will try to trick Peter into revealing the location of Voldemort's wand, but he doesn't think it's as important as some other things. So he won't be terribly disappointed if Peter keeps silent.
No, that flash of thought was Harry thinking about all the times the Dursleys told him he was evil.
Hope this chapter satisfied!
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