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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12416 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Severus watched warily as Harry Potter lingered behind the rest of his House. Even Longbottom had left as soon as he could, for all that Severus tried to control his tongue in class.
Why am I doing such a thing? Why do I let a child intimidate me so?
Then the enormous golden snake coiled next to Potter put his head casually on one of the tables, and Severus barely restrained a shudder that made Shadowstriker squeeze tighter around his throat. Yes, that.
“I wanted to ask you something, Professor Snape.” Potter’s tone was earnest. It always was. Severus would have suspected the boy of having no sense of humor, except that he’d seen him laughing with Granger in the library and with Draco in the corridors between classes. “I have to know what would make a familiar get sick.”
Severus narrowed his eyes. “You believe I would know, boy? Talk to Professor Kitter, she teaches Familiar Magic—”
“I don’t mean that. I think it’s a sickness that only a Parselmouth can see. Because I’ve asked, and no one else sees it, even other people who have reptile familiars like Draco. And I don’t think you can see it, or you would have done something about it already.”
Severus felt himself dropping deeper and deeper into bewilderment as he listened. “Potter, what are you going on about?”
“Professor Quirrell’s familiar. She’s a bronze rabbit, I know that, but she has a silver snake floating around inside her. I tried to talk to him about it, and he told me to go away. Do you know what it could be, sir?”
Severus felt as though his ears had abruptly acquired a touch of frostbite. He resisted the urge to touch the Mark on his left arm under the sleeve. The snake on it was silver in the right light, a reminder of the Dark Lord’s familiar.
It only increased his suspicions about Quirrell.
But other than a floating Mark—which would have been risky and ridiculous to put on someone’s familiar, anyway—he had no idea what Potter could be talking about. Impatience and wariness made his voice rough, made his hand rise to touch Shadowstriker. “I have no idea, Potter. Leave it to me. I will investigate it. I have access to many more books than you do.”
“But if you could just tell me the right area of the Hogwarts library to look in—”
Severus gave the boy a flat, incredulous look. “Do you hear yourself, Potter?”
“Yes, sir? Did I use a word wrong?”
Severus met Potter’s impossible green eyes, and ended up turning away, the way he always did—the way he always would. He cursed himself for a coward, but still kept his face averted as he said curtly, “You cannot investigate such a thing. You are hardly an experienced researcher.” Potter stood there in unconvinced silence, and Severus bit out, annoyed that he even had to mention it, “You are a child.”
“With respect, sir, I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“You insolent brat—”
“No, really, sir, I mean it. People are always telling me that I have power because I have a golden familiar, and that means I should do things, right? They don’t listen when I tell them that I’m no one special. And there’s the scar and what they think I did to Voldemort, too. So I need to go ahead and make things more comfortable for people if I can. Since I have this power I didn’t want.”
Severus stared at Potter in absolute silence. Potter’s eyes were glowing with conviction as absolute. No one else could turn Lily aside when she was feeling righteous, either, Severus remembered absently. As witness him, and the friendship she had tried so hard to keep alive even when he was doing his best to spit and trample on it.
The reminder made a fresh wave of agony run through him. Severus said, “If I find that you have been sneaking out of bed in an attempt to cure a sickness that is none of your business, Mr. Potter, you will have detention for the rest of the year. Now get out of my sight, and—thank you for alerting me of your suspicions.” The words stuck in his throat as if he was trying to swallow a bowl of thick soup.
Potter only looked at him with a steady gaze, and then nodded. He turned, and his snake twined around his leg for a minute before he uncoiled so Potter could walk.
In the meantime, Severus stroked his viper down the back and lost himself once more in the memories of the friend he had lost, and never deserved.
*
Narcissa shook her head slowly as she looked down at the letter Draco had sent her. She supposed that even the cleverest mind must experience failure sometimes. But she could not really believe that she had failed to ensnare the Potter boy. Surely he was not so intelligent or powerful that he could resist such a trap?
But she might be imagining something now, or misinterpreting Draco’s letter the way she had misinterpreted his hints about Harry Potter. So she went from the sunny owlery where she had received the letter to the ground floor where Lucius had his study. A perfunctory knock, and she entered, ignoring the way Hecate hissed at her. That was for show. Venus growled back, and Hecate laid her head down on the other side of the desk.
“What is it, my love?”
Narcissa smiled at Lucius as she held out the letter. She had found very little reason to be proud of her family once she understood the madness that consumed them so often, the result of experimenting on their own familiars instead of trusting them to guard and express their magic. But she was glad that her parents had deemed Lucius a suitable husband. “I sent Harry Potter a letter with the intention of enticing him into an alliance with us—a mentorship with me, specifically. Somehow, he resisted. And this is the letter Draco wrote me about it. I want help in making sure that I’m not misstepping with this letter as I did with that one.”
Lucius read, while Narcissa took her place in the chair on the other side of the desk. Hecate was large enough to drape her neck over most of its back. Narcissa reached up and delicately stroked the underside of the wyvern’s neck, getting a rumbling purr and a flash of the runes she and Lucius had created in Hecate’s scales over the years.
“No,” Lucius said at last, slowly. “I don’t think it’s your fault for not thinking of something obvious. I think it’s probably Draco. He must have been wrong about how naïve Potter was. Why would he refuse a mentorship otherwise?”
“And the part where he reported that Potter said I’m being nice, but he doesn’t need help finding his place?”
“I have no doubt those are the exact words Potter said. The problem is, Draco took them at face value. Do we have to?”
“No,” Narcissa said, her mind already turning in other directions, other ways of making that immense golden power serve Malfoy goals. “We do not.”
*
“Y-you will f-find that some f-familiars help you h-have a talent for D-D-Defense and some do n-not…”
Harry tried to catch Professor Quirrell’s eye, but the professor went on looking determinedly away from him. Harry sighed. He was trying, but he hadn’t found any way of identifying the sickness that Alanna carried with her.
He was sure that it was only visible to Parselmouths, though. He’d asked Hermione to look for the snake in Professor Quirrell’s familiar, since Ravenclaws shared the Defense class with Hufflepuff, and she couldn’t see anything. But she was taking enthusiastically to the books in the library Harry was looking through for clues, so that was something.
Golden nudged him. Harry stroked his neck and paid more attention to the lesson. If Golden thought it was important, then it was. He’d found out how smart Golden was at the Dursleys’, when he always knew before Harry did when Dudley was trying to ambush him.
“Y-you will f-find that y-you can st-start to c-cast a d-defensive s-spell and your f-familiar w-will r-react—”
Harry listened intently, and watched as Alanna sat up on her haunches next to Professor Quirrell, like she wanted to help. But really, she was suffering so much, with her ears twitching and her coat itching whenever the silver snake shifted position, that Harry didn’t see how she could.
“Mr. Potter!”
Harry looked up. Professor Quirrell was staring at him, his eyes narrowed like Uncle Vernon’s.
“It’s t-time to find out if the B-Boy-Who-L-Lived has a f-familiar who’s g-good a-at Defense,” said Professor Quirrell, and he was smiling in a way that was definitely Uncle Vernon’s. “T-take up your st-stance o-opposite me and l-lift your w-wand, but d-do n-not use i-it. Will your f-familiar to p-protect you i-instead.”
Harry just nodded. It seemed simple to him, and something he and Golden had already done a lot of, but maybe this would lead to a way to get Professor Quirrell to listen to him. He walked into the center of the classroom and lifted his wand. Golden coiled at his feet, but lifted his head high enough to rest his nose against Harry’s hip.
“Will your familiar to protect you,” said Professor Quirrell, and Harry noticed that his stutter had disappeared again. He aimed his wand. Next to him, Alanna tensed and moved her ears forwards. The silver snake was in the left one, Harry saw. “Now. Frango!”
The spell slammed towards him. Harry saw a bright blue blur in the air.
But he already knew what to do. The minute Golden lifted his head, the runes on his back flared into life.
Those runes had appeared for the first time when Dudley had knocked him down the stairs and Harry had almost smashed into the wall at the bottom. Golden had been right there, and his back glowed, and then there was a rune on his scales and Harry was bouncing softly as though someone had turned the wall into a cushion.
He didn’t think that would work this time. But on the other hand, he didn’t think it needed to.
One of Golden’s larger runes lit up, and a lightning bolt darted away from his back and met the blue spell. There was a huge explosion, and Harry felt the walls shake. He heard other kids cry out, and he frowned. He hadn’t meant to scare them. He reached out and stroked the back of Golden’s neck, to let him know that they didn’t need to do that again. Golden arched his head in response.
When the light cleared, Harry was staring straight at Professor Quirrell. Alanna was slumped over on her side, but just when Harry started getting really worried, she leaped back up. She was shaking, and the silver snake dangled around her neck like a dead worm.
“Cl-class d-dismissed!”
Most of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs just cheered and ran right out the door, but Hermione and Neville waited for him. And Hermione’s face was sour, and Regina was running up and down her shoulders and chattering.
“That was an illegal spell,” Hermione whispered. “Harry, that would have killed you if it landed on you!”
Harry shot a look over his shoulder as he took her out in the corridor. Professor Quirrell was staring after them with his face screwed up.
His familiar’s even sicker than I thought.
*
Jan: No, unless Narcissa changes her mind, you probably won't like her.
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Children of the Sun