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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12399 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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"Bar the door.”
Harry frowned a little at Professor Snape's back. It seemed to him that the Professor should bar the door. Harry had read about a few Locking Charms, but he wasn't any good at them yet, when he'd been researching possession and law and people with golden familiars and a few other things.
Then he thought of one way he could manage it. He nodded at Golden, who slid softly towards the door and lay down along the crack underneath it. Now no one would be able to look underneath it or probably hear them, and Golden could push back with enormous strength if someone tried to open it.
"There," Harry told Professor Snape.
The professor turned around, wand already in one hand. Then he paused and his eyebrows flickered. "You found a way."
"I do most of the time, sir." Harry looked around and saw the student chair in front of the desk. He went to sit down in it. "Did you want to talk with me about Professor Quirrell, sir?"
"In part." Snape put his wand away with a strange expression on his face. Then he sat down in his own chair. "I have decided that you were right and that sickness with his familiar is something worth worrying about. Possession, in fact." He shifted his hand around the way mice shifted when Golden stalked them. "I brought that fact to the attention of the Headmaster."
Harry leaned forwards. "What did he say, sir?"
"That he does not intend to move at the moment."
Harry scowled. "Is that because he thinks like my friends? That it's somehow an inconvenience to help other people than me?"
"No--no, I don't think that is it." Professor Snape hesitated, and Harry found himself wishing the man would simply spit it out. But he had no idea what was coming next, so he had to wait. Professor Snape petted his familiar and looked all around the room before he nodded.
"I believe," said Professor Snape at last, "that the Headmaster would rather disregard what you say about Professor Quirrell because you do not fit in with his plans for you."
Harry blinked some more. The one thing he knew for certain was that no one had had plans for him, because no one thought he was going to show up with a golden familiar. "What do you mean, sir?"
“I am not entirely certain.” At least Professor Snape looked as frustrated with that fact as Harry felt. “I do know that he seems to think that you will take certain actions he can predict, and Professor Quirrell, the same.” The professor stroked his familiar again. “If I had to venture a guess, then I think he means to set up Quirrell an obstacle for you to overcome.”
“But he’s sick! Or possessed. That means we have to help him.”
“You would be amazed at the amount of people Albus Dumbledore manages to get out of helping, even when it seems as if that is one of the main reasons his office exists.”
There was a lot of bitterness in Professor Snape’s remark. Harry hesitated and looked back at Golden, but Golden just looked at him. So Harry had to face Professor Snape and ask the question by himself. “Were you one of them, sir?”
Professor Snape stiffened. “We are not here to discuss me, Mr. Potter. We are here to discuss what we are going to do.”
“We’ll have to work against the Headmaster, then.” Harry felt a little despondent about that. He would have liked to connect with the only other person who had a golden familiar, and ask him questions like how he kept people from fawning over him. “Hermione has been looking up ways to expel a possessing spirit. Do you think we could do that?”
There was a long moment when Professor Snape seemed about to choke on his own spit. Dudley did that sometimes, but Harry didn’t know why Professor Snape seemed so surprised.
“Expelling a possessing spirit is Dark magic.”
“But is there any other way to help Professor Quirrell?”
“We could report him to the Ministry. They have the right to use that particular—anti-possession magic without being arrested for it.”
Harry wanted to roll his eyes. But he knew Professor Snape was trying to be helpful, so he didn’t do it. “Do you think they would? Or would they imprison him for the crimes of the spirit possessing him?”
For a second, he thought the silver snake on Professor Snape’s shoulder was actually going to slither down and attack him, and he braced himself for that. But instead, Professor Snape held the snake back with a motion of his hand, and said only, “You have been studying.”
“Yes. I know they do that to other possessed people, sometimes. They only seem to help the famous ones or the ones that have a lot of money. And I don’t think Professor Quirrell fits into those categories.”
“No. He does not.” For some reason, Professor Snape was studying him very closely now. “You don’t mind using Dark magic?” His eyes went to the scar on Harry’s forehead, and he frowned.
“Well, Dark magic seemed pretty broad to me,” Harry said honestly. “Yes, there’s one kind of it that killed my parents and Voldemort used on me, too. But that was a curse. Should I never cast any curse because of that?”
“No.” Professor Snape’s voice was low. “It just isn’t what I expected to hear from you.”
Harry shook his head, a little exasperated. Professor Dumbledore seemed to have given up helping Professor Quirrell because Harry wasn’t what he expected him to be, but Harry didn’t think that meant it should happen to anyone else. “How could anyone have all these expectations of me, sir? Fine, they didn’t know that I would have a golden familiar, but I’ve been in the wizarding world for weeks now. That means they should have time to get used to me! Will you help us get rid of that possessing spirit or not?”
*
He thinks people can get used to him within a fortnight?
Severus wished he could have time alone with a vat of Firewhisky. It would have to be a vat. But he couldn’t, which meant he needed to keep on going and try to address Potter’s own expectations.
“They thought you would be a Gryffindor,” he said. “Because your parents were. They thought you would understand and be conscious of your own importance. Because they thought you would be raised by a wizarding family. They thought you would be a prodigy with magic, compassionate, kind to them all, wonderfully accepting. And some of that might be true, but most of it comes from their belief in you as a hero.”
Potter calmed down with remarkable quickness, although he glanced at his Golden several times. Then he nodded and said, “I understand, sir. When can we set up the ritual to expel the possessing spirit from Professor Quirrell?”
Severus wanted to close his eyes. He resisted the temptation. “It isn’t that simple.”
“Why not, sir?”
“We can’t conduct the ritual without some ingredients that will take time to purchase or find. And we can’t do it without some feeling for how strong the possessing spirit is. The ritual varies in strength depending on that.”
“Oh,” said Potter, and pondered a little more. “What if we assume the spirit is as strong as possible? Is it going to be a problem if we have the ritual be too strong instead of just the right strength?”
“Perhaps not. But you should tell me why we should assume this is a powerful spirit.”
“Well, the history I’ve read says that Voldemort had a silver snake as a familiar, sir. And there’s a silver snake floating around in Professor Quirrell’s rabbit. I think that means it’s Voldemort’s spirit. Which would be as strong as possible, right?”
Severus had to swallow several times to clear the dryness out of his mouth. “Where—you are not afraid?”
“I don’t want things to go wrong,” said Potter, staring at him with earnest eyes. “So I’m afraid they might. But we can’t leave him there and suffering from being possessed by Voldemort, sir. I think the Headmaster probably does have a plan for that. But his plan involves waiting. I don’t want to wait.”
He is a rule-breaker, Severus realized with surprise. I never saw it before.
And neither would most of the other people observing Potter, he knew. They would see a polite boy—a Hufflepuff—who seemed to be concerned about everyone in sight, and they would assume that he was either weak and mild, or too frightened to stir a foot out of line. They would blame his Gryffindor and Slytherin friends if he was caught in a prank or otherwise out of bounds.
And from the way Potter stared him directly in the eye, he had all sorts of excuses ready. He had certainly hidden his readiness to use the Dark Arts well until Severus had asked a question that drew that trait out.
“We must wait,” Severus said, and made his voice sharp, “until we can gather the ingredients.”
“I know, sir. But after that?”
“We must wait until we know more about the possessing spirit.”
“I think I could send Golden to spy on Professor Quirrell. Or maybe Hermione could do it. Regina is small enough that Professor Quirrell might not see her. If he talks to himself about Voldemort when he’s alone, then we would have proof, right?”
Severus wanted to put a hand over his eyes. He wanted to laugh. But neither would actually suffice to discourage Potter, so he said only, “We need to think about this and approach it slowly. Otherwise, we might alert Professor Quirrell. He might simply flee, and then we wouldn’t be able to—free him at all.”
Potter paused, then nodded. “All right, sir. But what do you think we ought to do in the meantime?”
“I will need some money for the more expensive ingredients,” Severus murmured. He grimaced. He knew how to get that money, but it involved venturing into the Forbidden Forest and harvesting plants that were both unpleasant and dangerous to deal with. “And to gather some of the rest. The gathering is the part that will take the least time. Buying the ingredients, on the other hand, earning the money and—”
“I have a lot of money in my vault, sir.”
“I am not going to take any money from you, Potter. No, listen to me. Your parents left that money so you could pay for school. I know that in some respects it is yours to do with as you wish, but think about how you would feel if you couldn’t attend school at Hogwarts for one year, or even more, because you ran out of Galleons.”
“Okay, sir, I can see what you mean. But is there anything we can do in the meantime while you’re earning the money?”
“Keep an eye on Quirrell for me. Alert me at once if his behavior changes.”
Potter nodded slowly. “It just seems like we should be doing more.”
Severus sneered at him a little. Interacting with the boy like this let him forget easily enough how powerful Potter was, and even that he was a Parselmouth who might be able to take the allegiance of Severus’s familiar away from him. He was as impatient and eager as any student, and as disregarding of the danger as any Gryffindor. He just hid it better than many of the dunderheads Severus dealt with on a daily basis. “We are not doing more than this, Potter. If I find out that you have used your snake or Granger’s familiar to spy on Quirrell, or otherwise done something risky and failed to keep yourself safe, I will put you in detention for the rest of the year.”
Potter hesitated. Severus could almost follow his thought process. It might be worth it.
“I can easily expose your plans to the Headmaster. Or use the detentions to make sure that you cannot participate in atta—helping Quirrell at all.”
“All right, sir.” Potter surrendered with a little breath. “And thank you for helping us. You didn’t have to do it, and I know that you don’t like Professor Quirrell much, but this really is the right thing to do. Especially if I’m supposed to be fighting Voldemort.”
“For now,” Severus said, holding back the headache, “concentrate on your homework and acting like a normal schoolboy. If you do something different now, you will attract his attention.”
“You’re right, sir. Thank you again. I know this is going to take a lot of work. Please let me know if I can help.”
Potter nodded respectfully to him, collected his snake, and slipped out of the office. Severus watched him go, his frown growing more pronounced as he sat there.
It was not right that Severus himself should have to take so many risky actions to free Quirrell from what probably was the possession of the Dark Lord. But it also wasn’t right that a boy like Potter should have to come up with such plans, or notice the problem in the first place, or plot to solve it.
The first seeds of a still deeper doubt than he had felt so far grew in Severus’s mind.
The Headmaster must be wrong about Potter being the one who has to defeat the Dark Lord alone. He must be. I do not care if he has the power. It is…not right to place the burden on a child alone.
*
Jabsher12: Here's the update!
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Children of the Sun