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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
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Chapter Fifty—Opened Eyes
Harry thinks long and hard, lying there in his hospital bed during the night and looking up at the ceiling.
His brain felt like it was on fire before. Everyone wanted to deny him living with Sirius, except Dumbledore and Remus, and Harry knew he couldn’t trust Dumbledore, and it was hard to trust Remus. But he also knew Sirius loved him. That was the problem with all the guardians that Snape proposed to him and the things other people said. None of them would have cared about him. Just about politics or making themselves look good or sticking it to Dumbledore.
Snape might accuse him of not being very Slytherin, but Harry’s learned that much in his new House. You don’t just trust what people say to you.
But now Sirius has hurt him, and Snape wants to arrest him. Harry puts aside his blind fury at that for a second. Snape can’t get Sirius arrested all by himself. That means there must be people who agree with him, as stupid as that seems to Harry. Like the Healer who came from St. Mungo’s, probably.
So other people are going to think Snape is right. Harry has to prepare himself for that.
He has to be calm. He has to act rational, even though he hates the feeling. Otherwise, people will dismiss him as a hysterical thirteen-year-old, the way Madam Macmillan said they would most people his age.
What can he do to prevent that from happening?
He can choose someone as a second guardian who makes sense. Someone who will watch out for him but accept that Sirius is the most important person, because he’s the only one who loves Harry.
The problem is, Harry can’t think of someone who will make sense and satisfy all the other requirements, like convincing people that Sirius shouldn’t be arrested for child abuse.
Last year, I would have thought it was Dumbledore.
Harry swallows and tucks the thought away. Yes, fine, but that was last year. A lot of things have changed since then.
The second guardian doesn’t have to love him like Sirius does, though. They just have to be calm and rational themselves and have some good standing and be willing to let Sirius get treatment with a qualified Mind-Healer.
And they have to not hate Sirius. Which exiles Snape from any sort of consideration.
I can’t believe I was considering him in the first place.
Harry rolls over restlessly, then hisses in pain. Sometimes he still forgets about the steam burns on his shoulders, at least until he moves in such a way that they remind him. He lies on his stomach and stares into the darkness of the hospital wing. Some Ravenclaw firstie came in earlier today because of a Potions accident, but she’s gone to sleep, with little light snores.
I would have liked it to be him. He’s trying as hard as he can to get me to choose another guardian. But he hates Sirius. He won’t accept the plan of a second guardian. He hates Sirius more than he cares about me. If he didn’t, then he would have backed off when I told him to.
Harry sighs, and lets the thought go. As far as he can tell, it has to come down to someone who both makes sense and can’t be influenced by Dumbledore. That’s not very many people. That means it probably has to be Madam Macmillan or that Yaxley woman Snape was talking about.
Or maybe Cedrella Weasley? Harry wishes he knew her. He wishes he’d ever met her. He wishes he knew she wasn’t influenced by Dumbledore.
I’m going to write a letter to her tomorrow, he decides, as he drifts slowly away to sleep. And I’m going to put one of those spells on the owl that Theo told me about, so no one else can stop it from flying away without getting a nasty sting on the side of their hand.
*
Severus has to admit to a sharp clench of satisfaction in his heart as he watches the Aurors march into Hogwarts. And there are a few among them who have tight lines around their eyes, as if they always expected this.
Black wasn’t guilty of the first crime he was accused of. But they probably always knew this day would come. It’s hard to escape the shadow of Azkaban.
Severus has to wince a second later. He was in Azkaban for a short time himself, before Albus vouched for him and freed him. He suspects that some of those Aurors would look at him and think the same thing about him that they are thinking about Black. He knows that Albus thinks Severus still under his influence, in his debt, for remaining free of the place.
He has tricks up his sleeve that Albus could not have anticipated, however.
“Where is Sirius Black?” The woman at the head of the Aurors is dark-skinned, with a scar on her chin where the claws of a manticore caught her once, if Severus is any judge. She plants her heavy iron staff on the floor in front of her and looks around at the gaping students.
“Why are you here to collect him, madam?”
Severus stares. He expected Albus to be the first to confront the Aurors, if anyone did. But it’s Granger, moving forwards out of the Great Hall where the students are having breakfast. Flanking her are Weasley, Nott, Zabini, Longbottom, Chang, and Ernie Macmillan. Macmillan is frowning in a pompous way that would ordinarily make Severus laugh, but right now it gives him a chill.
“He is under arrest.” The Auror doesn’t seem inclined to give Granger any information other than that.
“Is it about Harry Potter? Because he’s my friend, and he’s still in the hospital wing. And I know that he wouldn’t want to press charges. Who’s going to press them, please? Can you tell me, madam? I’m Muggleborn, and I don’t know a lot about how the wizarding world works, but it just doesn’t seem right.”
Severus stares at her in blank amazement. I’m Muggleborn, and I don’t know a lot about how the wizarding world works…that manipulative little Gryffindor.
The Auror seems to assume that a Muggleborn wouldn’t know about charges and who would press them, however, because she answers after a pause with a faint smile on her face. “The Healer who saw Mr. Potter is going to press them. He seems to be in bad shape and it’s his godfather who caused it.”
“Suppose they should have investigated him before they let him take charge of a child,” another Auror mutters.
The woman in the lead turns around and scowls hard enough to make him scowl back, but he shuts up. Then she faces Granger again. “So you see, it doesn’t have to be the hurt child himself who presses them. It can be the Healer.”
“Um, thank you, madam, but I suppose I’m still confused?” Granger raises huge, shining eyes to the Auror’s face, and Severus is rethinking every interaction he’s had with her in the past few years. “I read a book, you see. It says in the wizarding world, only the child or their guardian can press the charges. And Sirius Black isn’t going to get himself arrested, right?”
“There’s an exception for Healers.”
“Healers have to get the guardian’s permission, though, the book said. Or the child’s permission. I know that sometimes guardians abuse their wards, and that’s horrible.” Granger’s head droops like a flower on a cut stem. “But they have to still get permission. Did this Healer ask Harry?”
And Severus knows the answer to that. He moves forwards in a slow, gliding stalk that serves to turn the Aurors’ attention to him immediately. “No need to ask him, Miss Granger,” he says. “I took care of it.”
“You did, sir? But how? You don’t have legal custody of Harry, either.”
Severus would have snapped if they were in private, but he doesn’t dare risk not being accommodating when they’re in public and Granger is radiating innocence like the sun does light. “I informed the Healer of the incident that caused Mr. Potter to be injured, acting in loco parentis as the head of Harry’s House.”
The dark-skinned Auror smiles and nods to him. “Knew there had to be something to it, Professor Snape. I would never have expected Harry Potter in Slytherin, of course, but it looks like there’s some good to it.”
Severus blanks his expression to conceal his reaction and looks at Granger. She’s giving him a steady, cool look.
“That book said Heads of House couldn’t do it, though, sir,” she murmurs. “It goes back to a legal case where the Head of Hufflepuff hated one of her students’ guardians and tried to get him arrested on false charges. The guardian or the child, or someone else with their permission. No one else.”
Severus bares his teeth in a snarl at her, and then Macmillan steps forwards and makes the whole situation worse.
“My great-aunt came and saw Harry the other day,” he says, with a nod to the Aurors. “Madam Macmillan, y’know. She knows how the system works. She recommended a second guardian for Harry, but someone who would work in conjunction with Sirius Black. Don’t think she thought he was going to be arrested for child abuse.”
“Well, endangerment,” one of the Aurors starts in with pedantry.
“Don’t think she thought that, either.” Macmillan remains resolutely unimpressed. “Could you contact her? She’d know the law.”
“Children cannot stand in our way,” the leading Auror says implacably. “I understand your eagerness to have your confusion clarified, but if it turns out the arrest was a problem, we can always release Mr. Black later.”
“The way you released him the first time, on the first false charge?”
Severus snaps around. Harry is standing at the top of the staircase that leads down from the first floor, his face so pale that it looks as though someone has been bleeding him. Longbottom hovers next to him. Severus never even noticed him leaving Granger’s little group.
“Mr. Potter?” The leading Auror asks it with a tone that makes Severus hope she isn’t going to let Harry get away with whatever he wants to do.
Harry advances slowly down the steps, swaying a little. Longbottom keeps beside him, ready to grab him if he falls, it seems. Severus shoots the boy a nasty look for enabling someone injured to leave his bed at all. Longbottom swallows, but doesn’t seem inclined to back away from Harry. “I don’t want Sirius arrested.”
“What he did to you—”
“Was a failure of judgment. I don’t want to live with him by myself. I want someone else there who can help me if Sirius does something stupid again. And I want him to get real Mind-Healing. Which probably has to mean—someone who’s not a Gryffindor.” Harry stops to gasp for air, and Severus strides towards him. Harry snaps a freezing glance that actually locks him in place. “But I don’t want him arrested.”
“Mr. Potter, you are a child,” the lead Auror murmurs. “You don’t necessarily know what’s best for you.”
“Imagine what will happen if I go to the papers and say that I didn’t want my godfather arrested and you arrested him anyway,” Harry says, his eyes snapping. “And took him back to Azkaban, where his mental condition started to deteriorate again. He isn’t even over the first time! What do you think they’ll say?”
This is the kind of nonsense that Madam Macmillan planted in his head. He shouldn’t have to fight his own battles.
“I think they would still believe that you are a child and we are the adults,” the leading Aurors says, probably unwisely.
“With all the witnesses here?” Granger has apparently dropped her pretense of being an ignorant little Muggleborn. “Really? I might not have much power in the wizarding world, but people with the names Macmillan and Nott do.”
“Shouldn’t think my great-aunt would be pleased to hear of it at all,” says Macmillan, right on cue.
The Aurors look at them as if they can’t believe that several children have managed to turn the world upside-down. Severus would be doing the same thing if he wasn’t used to it already. He does glare at Zabini and Nott, though, who are both wearing smiles of delight.
“Would you see him condemned to the mutt?” he asks in a low voice, stepping away from the clump of Aurors so he can speak to his Slytherins as privately as possible.
Nott looks up at him. “I want to see him make his own decisions.”
“Right,” Zabini says. “And none of this nonsense about him being a child who adults have to look out for. He’s tried that. We’ve all tried that. And look at how well it bloody turned out!”
Severus is reminded with some force about the rumors concerning Zabini’s mother. He frowns and glances back in time to see Harry looking at him, his expression still bloodless but set.
“I wish I could trust you,” Harry says to him there in front of everyone, words that make the hair stand up on the back of Severus’s neck, words that should only have been spoken in private echoing in the air around the staircase. “I really wish I could. But you would just get Sirius arrested when my back was turned.”
“You can trust me.”
“No, I can’t,” Harry says, wearily enough that Granger sniffles. “You don’t want to let me live with Sirius even when it’s me making the choice.”
“I fear for your life living with him!”
“But that’s why I need a second a guardian, who can make sure that I’m safe.” Harry sighs. “And you don’t want to be that for me because you hate Sirius. So I’m going to write a few letters, and we’ll see.” He turns and begins making his way up towards the hospital wing again, with Longbottom hovering protectively at his side.
Severus surges towards the stairs. His hands are clenched, and his throat ripples as though he’s going to throw up a poisonous potion. He doesn’t recognize the snarl that rips out of him.
“I don’t want that because I wish to be your first guardian!”
The world is still around him. Severus is flushing as he has not done since he was a sixth-year and trying to explain to Dumbledore how Sirius Black set a werewolf on him. Everyone is staring. He has admitted to something private. He would never do this for anyone, anyone. And now he has done it for bloody James Potter’s bloody son.
He wishes the floor would open and swallow him, but this is Hogwarts, with all sorts of defensive and suppressing spells holding down accidental magic. It will not.
Harry turns back to look at him. He’s as baffled as a dragon confronted by a Keeper for the first time. “But you hate Sirius.”
“What does that matter?”
“It means you would keep me from seeing him. You would keep me from doing most of what I want. And you hated my father. So you would never—you would never be able to tell me stories about him, the way Sirius can.”
“Remember who I have cared for,” Severus says, as carefully as he can. Some things he will never reveal, not in front of his students and strangers. Let the others think he is referring to Harry himself. “Remember what I have told you.”
Harry is still staring straight at him. Then he says, “But you would keep me from seeing Sirius.”
“Mandated—visits—might be permitted, if he saw a trained Mind-Healer.” Severus can barely believe he’s saying this. The world is already dancing around him the way it did the one time he drank too much Firewhisky. He can’t take his eyes from Harry’s to see the expression on the faces around him. He can see only Longbottom’s expression from this angle, and he’s gaping like a fish.
“You would keep me from doing anything fun.”
“Fun might be permitted. Under adequate supervision.”
Harry snorts a little, and keeps looking at him. Then he says, “I need to think about this. What I know right now is that I’m not just going to live with Sirius, and I’m not going to let him be arrested for hurting me. Going back to Azkaban isn’t going to help.” He turns to the Aurors. “I don’t press charges, and I don’t give anyone else the right to press charges. And Sirius is still my legal guardian.”
It seems Granger has indeed summarized the laws correctly, because the lead Auror grimaces and glances at the door. “We have wasted our time coming here,” she says, and marches out. The others trail behind her.
Severus takes a complicated breath. He took a huge risk, and he needs to know that it has paid off. “Harry?”
“I need time to think,” Harry murmurs, eyes complicated themselves. “But—thank you, sir, for telling me that. It’s given me something to think about. If you can actually get over hating Sirius.”
“I will do anything I need to.”
Harry opens his mouth to say something else, and then wavers and collapses against Longbottom. Severus is the first one up the stairs to him, and he snarls at him under his breath as he carries him back towards the hospital wing. They both know that Harry has pushed himself much too far.
But Harry has the nerve to grin at him and then not say anything in response to his rant, only eyeing him thoughtfully as Severus gives him some potions and summons Poppy to be sure that nothing is thoroughly wrong.
Then Severus goes to report to Healer Helios that there will be no charges after all.
It is—his wish.
*
Kain: Severus is now having to ask him that question, because he can't be part of Harry's life unless he manages to handle Sirius like a normal person.
I think you can see the result of Hermione's contacting them pretty spectacularly here. :)
Daphne didn't really want Harry living with Sirius, no. But she's smart enough to know that she can only get what she wants little by little. So she'll work now on making sure that Harry doesn't disregard his own life so much that he forgives Sirius blindly for endangering it.
Glad you like Madam Macmillan.
Now Severus has another chance. We'll see how well he uses it.
Moodysavage: Good catch on how Harry's age influences him. He's still young enough that the idea of a parent is really attractive, but so is the idea of a parent who lets him do whatever he wants.
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