Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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
- 33
- 34
- 35
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Four—Responses
“Harry, if you would, please? I need to talk to you.”
Harry doesn’t much please, but he stands up. Headmaster Dumbledore has a faint, determined smile on his face, as if he imagines that he’ll look straight at Harry and all his secrets will come spilling out. But that’s not going to happen as long as Harry can keep his head a little ducked and a firm grasp on his Occlumency.
Blaise and Theo stand at the same time. “I think we’ll come with him, Headmaster,” Blaise chirps. “That way we can all leave from your office at the same time and make sure that Harry isn’t late to Potions.”
Harry knows he isn’t imagining the tightness to Dumbledore’s jaw, although his smile and eyes are as bland as ever. (And Harry would never have noticed that last year. He doesn’t think being a Slytherin makes him bad anymore, but it does make him different). “I think we can discuss this in private, Mr. Zabini, Mr. Nott.”
“Then why did you approach Harry in public?”
“Mr. Nott. That is enough.” Professor Snape’s voice sounds behind the Headmaster’s shoulder, smooth and cool. “While the—grace of your offer is noted, I will accompany Mr. Potter to the Headmaster’s office.”
Harry relaxes a little. It’s insane to be so calm around Snape, part of him still insists, but it does mean that he’ll have someone there who knows all the secrets and can tell Harry if Dumbledore is using Legilimency. He nods to Professor Snape and moves around the table so that he’s standing next to him.
“I was under the impression that you had a class to prepare for, Severus.”
“So does Mr. Potter, but you wanted to talk to him anyway. Shall we?” And Snape nods to the doors of the Great Hall and then starts walking towards them with a bored expression on his face. His hands rests on Harry’s shoulder, making sure that Harry comes with him whether or not he really wants to.
If that’s the way it goes, Harry thinks, and falls into step beside Snape. Dumbledore gives a loud sigh, but Harry doesn’t look around.
Other than that sigh, Dumbledore doesn’t actually make a sound until they get to his office; he even whispers the password for the gargoyle too softly for Harry to hear. Harry doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or not, so he just keeps quiet, too. Dumbledore sits down behind his desk once they’re in the office and shakes his head. His face is so sad Harry would have winced.
But he thinks Sirius’s story, and the way that Peter betrayed his parents, is sadder. So he just looks past Dumbledore and smiles at Fawkes, and waits for Dumbledore to say something he can react to.
“I am grieved that you think I would hurt Harry, Severus.”
“Did I say anything that implied as much, Headmaster?”
“Your wanting to be present with him when I spoke of private matters—”
“Is no more than any Head of House might do for their students. I know for a fact that Filius was present when you ordered that Ravenclaw girl last year to leave Hogwarts, mightily though he agreed she deserved it.”
Dumbledore pauses. Then he says, “I’m hoping you can explain this letter to me, Harry.” Harry looks up. Dumbledore pushes a letter across the desk, and Harry picks it up and scans it over quickly.
He can feel his breathing quickening, despite the way that Snape reaches out and presses down on his shoulder. He knows he shouldn’t show any emotion. But he can’t help it. The letter is from Fudge, and in it he’s complaining to Dumbledore about Harry writing to him with stories of Sirius Black and asking why he can’t just go through Dumbledore instead.
Harry looks up. Dumbledore is peering at him over the top of his hands. Harry doesn’t think he can feel the press of Legilimency, but he doesn’t always, so he keeps his eyes a little to the side, on Dumbledore’s forehead and beard.
“Why, Harry?” Dumbledore says, still quietly.
Harry feels Snape press close behind him. Telepathy would be useful right now, Harry thinks, and only says, “Because I want a real home with someone who cares for me, sir.”
“Dudley would care for you—”
“You would still have to have an adult take care of us. Who is it going to be, sir?” Harry isn’t even going to address the stupidity of Dudley wanting to live with him. If Dumbledore is that stupid, the arguments won’t get through anyway.
“Well, I thought Remus might be acceptable.”
“The werewolf who can’t legally have custody of children?” Snape laughs like a crow. “That is your brilliant idea, Albus?”
Harry thinks he knows now why Dumbledore invited Remus to Hogwarts, other than because he really might be able to search for Sirius in his Animagus form. He wanted Harry to get to know him and get comfortable around him. “I don’t want Mr. Lupin to take care of me permanently, sir. He’s nice sometimes, but he is uncomfortable around me, and he tells me uncomfortable things.”
“I had hoped you wouldn’t pick up the prejudice against him for being a werewolf, Harry.”
“I mean that he tells me stories about him and my father and Black bullying Slytherins. And then he looks shocked when I don’t laugh.”
Dumbledore pauses for a long time. Harry wonders if it’s the honesty that’s throwing him, Harry’s bluntness, or the fact. Maybe he never considered that fact, Harry has to admit. He doesn’t seem to think a lot about anyone who’s not a Dursley or a Gryffindor.
“I—see,” Dumbledore says finally. Harry thinks he means to say something else, too, but Snape surges in to fill the gap.
“And you know that legally, werewolves cannot have custody, Albus. It is the major reason that Lupin never took care of the boy before now. I heard you say as much to Minerva. Do you want to place him with an adult, have Potter start to get used to him, and then have the arrangement crumble again when the Ministry finds out Lupin’s condition?”
“They have no need to find out Remus’s condition—”
“Secrets do have a way of slipping out.”
Snape and Dumbledore are staring at each other as if they’re going to light the air on fire between them. Harry uncomfortably clears his throat, and does it again, even more uncomfortably, when they won’t look at him. Dumbledore finally does. Harry says, “I don’t want to stay with Mr. Lupin.”
“You would prefer to go back to a Death Eater?”
“That would be better than Dudley.”
Dumbledore only shakes his head and says, “I think you’re exaggerating, Harry. I know how badly you want to live in the wizarding world, but your cousin is not the same as someone who tortured people to death.”
Harry must go a bit mad then. It’s the only explanation he can think of later for why he does what he does next. He jerks up his left sleeve and turns around a little, so that Dumbledore can see the thick scar that runs behind his elbow. “Dudley had his friends hold me down and he cut my arm open, sir. With a rock. It took a long time, and it hurt a lot. And the only thing my aunt and uncle ever said was I mustn’t get blood on the carpet.”
Snape makes a sound like a dying serpent. Dumbledore leans back and looks older than ever by the time Harry turns around again.
I know that I’m going to have to talk about that to Snape later, Harry thinks, but that’s one reason that he carefully doesn’t turn and look at Snape. He only stares across the desk at Dumbledore’s cheek more than anything else.
“I have made mistakes.” Dumbledore’s voice is soft and old. “But you made another one, Harry, writing to the Minister.”
“Why?”
“Because—because anyone could have intercepted this letter.”
“But you didn’t. You only know what I said because Fudge wrote to you and asked you what he should do with me.” You spineless little coward, Fudge.
Dumbledore lowers his glasses as if he thinks Harry will find it more intimidating to be looked at over them. Harry doesn’t. Right now, he wouldn’t find Voldemort resurrected from the dead intimidating. He just stares, and Dumbledore finally sighs and asks, “Is what he says true? Is Sirius innocent?”
“You could have asked that at the first, Headmaster,” Snape murmurs.
Harry fully agrees. “Yes, he is,” he says. “And you can test him with Veritaserum and find that out for yourself.” He stares at Dumbledore, willing him to meet Harry’s eyes this time, willing him to see that Harry wants to know why Veritaserum was never used on Sirius in the first place to find out why he supposedly betrayed Harry’s parents.
Dumbledore doesn’t say anything, though he does flinch a little. If he can read Harry’s thoughts right now, Harry hopes it was the most pointed one. “Then we have much planning to do.”
“Yeah. If Sirius is going to be sane enough to take custody of me—”
“Oh, Harry. That won’t be true for many years. On the mind of an innocent man, even Azkaban would operate terribly.”
Harry feels his magic rising up in his chest, buzzing and vibrating, the way that it sometimes did when Vernon and Petunia insulted his parents after he knew the truth about them. He’s going to say something any minute. He’s not going to live with Remus and have Dudley with him, he’s not, he’s not—
*
Severus knows he must act now. Harry, with the most understandable of reactions, is still going to play straight into Albus’s hands. He will say that the boy is unstable and needs a stable guardian, and then he’ll propose the damn werewolf again, or some Order stooge who will probably think that what Harry needs is warm milk and walks and naps. Severus steps forwards and clamps a hand down on Harry’s shoulder.
Harry still isn’t used to being touched in a way that isn’t malicious, one reason Severus chose this tactic. His magic subsides like a tide washing down the shore. Severus seizes the moment to speak.
“I would not trust most of the Healers in St. Mungo’s to cope with a man released from Azkaban,” he says. “They do not often treat such, after all. On the other hand, Headmaster, you know that I invented my own potion to mitigate the effects of the Dementors on a non-corrupted mind, after my own…brief stay.”
Albus’s eyes are on him, with such a confused mixture of emotions that Severus coughs to keep from laughing aloud. There’s hope, and wariness, and distrust, and that eternal love for Gryffindors. The hope probably comes from Albus thinking that Severus is offering this for Black’s sake, not Harry’s.
I will never forgive my nemesis, but that is different from keeping him from Harry, Severus thinks smoothly as he watches Albus wrestle with the choices.
“What are you offering, Severus?” are the words he finally decides on.
Such nice words, they leave so much open, Severus thinks, and inclines his head. “To work on healing the man so that he may offer Mr. Potter a stable home by the summer. The Christmas holiday would be far too soon, but both Black and Mr. Potter could stay here, under my supervision, and we could see the areas where Black is still suffering—deficiencies. When summer comes, then we will see how much ground we still have to cover.”
“I do want you to promise that Remus Lupin will be Harry’s guardian if Sirius can’t be made well enough.”
“I cannot promise that, as you well know, Albus,” Severus replies softly. The man is trying to use guilt to make him do the impossible, again. It will not work this time. “Not only do we not know if Black will be declared innocent in the Ministry trial he is going to receive, no one is of the mind to suddenly render werewolves legal guardians for children.”
“Remus was your father’s dearest friend,” Albus says, to Harry.
“No, that was Black,” Severus corrects, briskly and without making it look as if he knows the depth of manipulation Albus is capable of. “That is one reason it astonished so many people when Black apparently betrayed them.”
“Then someone should have looked into it sooner,” Harry mutters, but his voice is small. He looks—stunned is not too small a word for it. Severus will be happier when he can speak to him alone, but for right now, they seem to be in accord.
“They should have,” Albus says, and now he’s shining and twinkling away, probably assuming that Harry is heading back to his side and that Severus willingly spending time with Black is a good thing. “Harry, will you forgive me for not investigating? It was the height of the war, still, since so many Death Eaters did not believe Voldemort was gone. But I grieve that I sent an innocent man to prison for twelve years.”
For a moment, Harry looks up, and Severus wonders what response he’s going to give, the Gryffindor one or the Slytherin one. But Harry ends up looking down again and saying in an almost shy voice, “I can’t forgive you, sir. Sirius is the only one who can do that. You’ll have to apologize to him.”
“And I definitely will, Harry. Now, let us consider how we are going to safely hand Sirius and Pettigrew over to the authorities, and get the Ministry to send the Dementors away.”
The discussion does sound as though it isn’t going to turn on technicalities, as though Albus is committed to imprisoning the real traitor this time. Severus still listens and watches and prepares to point out anything questionable. All the while, he keeps his hand on Harry’s shoulder and wonders—because his mind is very good at running down different paths at once—whether Albus understands the importance of Harry’s last words.
Harry is absolutely right that Black is the one who has to make the choice of what to say to the man who should have fought hardest for him. But he also refused to forgive Albus.
Though Severus is reluctant to assume that anything at all gets past the Headmaster, that one honestly does seem to have slipped straight through the damn twinkle in his eyes.
*
“Harry—we’re going to be late for Transfiguration!”
Blaise wants to roll his eyes. Is that all Granger cares about? She obviously didn’t understand what Weasley, from the way he perks up, seems to have grasped at once: that if Harry is tugging his Gryffindor friends into an alcove where his Slytherin ones are already waiting, that means he’s going to tell them what he was doing yesterday, all at once. Just the way he promised.
“It’s nothing, Hermione, McGonagall will just give us detention, that’s all.”
“I don’t want a detention—”
“It turns out it was Peter Pettigrew who betrayed my parents when he was their Secret-Keeper, not Sirius Black,” Harry says.
Blaise can feel, through his dim shock, appreciation for Harry’s sense of timing. He’s pretty sure that Harry did not have that last year, or he wouldn’t have revealed he was a Parselmouth in front of the whole bloody dueling club. That’s a good thing Slytherin must have taught him.
Granger and Weasley gape. Even Draco looks too startled to make a sound, and Greengrass as if she’s trying to understand. Theo leans forwards and says intently, “What happened, then?”
“Sirius was my parents’ Secret-Keeper, but he thought everyone would suspect that because he was my father’s best friend,” Harry explains in a rush. His eyes are glowing. Blaise realizes, startled, that he would fight for a lot to keep Harry that happy. “So he suggested they switch to Pettigrew. Pettigrew betrayed my parents, and then waited until Sirius came after him and shouted words that made it seem like Sirius was the traitor, then killed all those Muggles—”
“But how did he survive? That was a pretty nasty curse!” Weasley is almost dancing in place, and his eyes are glowing like Harry’s. For the first time, Blaise can really see why they might be friends.
“He turned into his rat Animagus form and escaped down the sewers,” Harry says importantly. “They were all Animagi, Sirius and Pettigrew and my dad. Sirius is a dog. That’s why the Dementors couldn’t find him or really feed off him! And then—” He abruptly gives Weasley a guilty glance. “Sorry, Ron, but Sirius saw a picture of Pettigrew in the papers and broke out to get revenge. Only, luckily, we’ve talked him out of it, and he’s going to get a trial.”
“In the papers?” Weasley repeats blankly.
“He was Scabbers.”
Weasley just stands there and stares like the others did. Then he whispers, “I was—there was a bloke on my pillow when I went to sleep every night?”
“Yeah, mate. Afraid so.”
Weasley gives the most comprehensive full-body shudder Blaise has ever seen. He’s pretty impressed. He doesn’t even say anything, though, which turns out to be a good thing, because Granger and Theo are pelting Harry with questions, and he wouldn’t get a word in edgewise anyway.
Blaise watches, and listens, and congratulates Harry when it seems appropriate. He can see the flame of hope when, in answer to Theo’s question about what will happen now with Black, Harry says, “Well, Sirius is my godfather. All we need is for him to be proven innocent and then he can have legal custody of me.”
Granger exclaims at that and throws her arms around Harry. Harry just looks blissfully happy as he returns the hug.
Blaise, listening, thinks it might not be so simple. He knows what damage Dementors can do to someone’s mind. His mother taught him that as part of the many, many reasons not to get caught when he does something illegal.
But honestly, it doesn’t matter, does it? He and Harry’s other friends have already been there through some bad things, and they can be there through more bad ones. For the moment, they’re just being asked to share the joy.
*
Kain: Snape does plan to take Harry away from Sirius if Sirius is too damaged to be a good guardian. And only Snape will make that determination.
Harry can tell the Slytherins he doesn't want to be a leader, and they won't try other ways to make him one, but they also won't stop following him or stop him from being a natural leader.
Snape mostly will want to see if Sirius thinks of Harry as James and puts Harry in danger. If he does, then he's going to intervene. He might not take Sirius away completely, but he will restrict the ways Harry can see him.
SickPuppy: Well, as you can see, the Fudge plan didn't exactly work out, but it did force Dumbledore's hand, in a way.
- 33
- 34
- 35
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Other People's Choices