"Well, maybe we can get you onto a Chocolate Frog card instead," Harry lightly joked. "Severus Snape. Worked for years toward the overthrow of the dark wizard Voldemort. Saved Harry Potter's life on multiple occasions..."
"Two," Snape corrected, letting him go. "Don't exaggerate."
"More than two, depending on how you count them," Harry rallied, smiling. When he remembered what they were still facing, though, his expression went solemn. "I suppose we'd better get going so we can ask the headmaster to let us talk to Remus."
Snape cast him a sideways glance. "I somehow never thought I'd be so eager to speak with Remus Lupin."
"I'm eager too," Harry admitted, following his father out to the Floo. "Um, and not just because of map. I miss Remus something awful. Does that... um, does that bother you?"
The Potions Master gave the question some serious thought. "Yes, it does," he finally admitted. "But not because I suffer some twisted form of jealousy. I simply cannot respect the man much."
"Just because he's a werewolf?" Harry thought that patently unfair. It wasn't like Remus wanted to be a werewolf, or had chosen to be one, even.
"Because he has no strength of character," Snape sighed. "Lupin ignores his own convictions. He takes the path of least resistance rather than the one he believes to be right, simply because it is easier."
"You're judging him by things he did when he was still in school here--"
"He's scarcely distinguished himself since. Recruiting the werewolves," Snape scoffed. "Hardly a dangerous assignment, is it?"
"It could be very important!"
"It could be," Snape agreed. "But my point is this: were it important and dangerous, Lupin would not agree to it. Do you know what he was doing while I spent years risking my life and sanity so that Dumbledore might have a firsthand account of Voldemort's activities? He was working in Muggle London, among Muggles, doing absolutely nothing for the cause of Light!"
"Well, it's hard for him to get work in the wizarding world," Harry pointed out.
"It wasn't then; his affliction was known only to a select few. But the wizarding world was becoming engulfed in war. Lupin made quite certain to stay clear of battle. James and Lily, you understand, did not. Lupin is not a man worthy of your respect."
"You..." Harry sighed. "I guess some part of me knew that you would never, ever like him."
"Like him," Snape mocked. "It would be more apropos to speculate on whether I will ever be able to tolerate him."
Something deep inside Harry started hurting, then. "Draco can't stand him either. I'd just hoped... no, I didn't really hope. I knew it would be stupid to. Beyond stupid. But... I'd have liked it if we could have all been friends, instead of the two of you hating him so much. He's... look, he's not anything like what you've become to me. I don't look on him as a father, not at all. But he's really nice! I know you can't see it... but he is."
The Potions Master considered that for a moment. "Perhaps you misunderstand. I am not saying you may not see him, Harry."
That certainly came as a shock. "I thought you wouldn't let me," Harry confessed, biting the inside of his cheek, he was so agitated. "I mean, you didn't, for the longest time, and you weren't even really in charge of me, then. Well you were, I guess, but not like you are now. But you will? Let Remus visit?"
"Yes," Snape confirmed, though he didn't look too pleased. "But Harry... remember what we have discussed here tonight. Lupin is... perhaps not the best choice of friend."
"He's not really the way you make him out," Harry insisted. "He's just... got a different way of working for the Light, that's all. Not everybody can do the most dangerous assignments, you know. Everybody's got different strengths."
"Lupin's has been staying safe and warm."
As it turned out though, Snape was wrong.
Remus Lupin had been neither safe nor warm during his time abroad.
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Coming soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Seventy-One: Draco in Devon
Comments very welcome,
Aspen in the Sunlight
Chapter 71: Setting the Stage
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=71
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Seventy-One: Setting the Stage
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"Headmaster," Snape greeted the older man as he and Harry strode from the fireplace at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. "Have you any news of import?"
Albus Dumbledore's eyes were sad and sombre as he nodded. "I remained with the Aurors while they investigated the Owlery and examined the young lady's body. Even without an autopsy they were able to determine that she was subjected to the Corpus Aqueous curse before she was killed."
Snape flicked a glance towards Harry. "It increases the water content in the body. Corpus Aqueous alone would kill were it allowed to last sufficient time." His dark eyes assessed Dumbledore again. "And so?"
"She was cursed immediately before being flung from the Owlery; she died on impact."
Snape frowned. "I see. The Aurors presume Corpus Aqueous was inflicted out of sheer spite? It would appear the only purpose for it was to allow the body to be greatly damaged."
"Its purpose is to link the crime to someone who is believed to virulently hate Miss Parkinson. And indeed, the Aurors have already heard from several 'helpful' Slytherins how angry Mr. Malfoy became that day in your class, Severus, how he screamed that he would make her and her parents sorry."
Again, the Potions Master explained for Harry's benefit, "Between Samhain and the incident in my class, Miss Parkinson spent a weekend at home. She had already broken off her... dalliance with Draco, but attacked him only after she returned from visiting her parents. Draco has long blamed them for the way her attitude towards him suddenly hardened. Unfortunately, he did rather advertise this fact that day in class."
"And so now the Aurors believe he deliberately arranged for her death to be particularly gruesome, so much so that her parents would not be able to see in the body the daughter they love." The headmaster's beard swayed as he sadly shook his head.
Harry couldn't help the question that came to mind. "But Draco didn't do it, not the Aqueous curse nor the murder itself. So, instead of the curse being used to help frame him, maybe it was supposed to disguise the identity of whoever was killed? Maybe Draco's right, and it's not Pansy at all." Of course, that wouldn't account for what they'd seen on the map, but they'd concluded already that the map had to have been fooled...
"Well-reasoned, my boy," Dumbledore praised him, though there was no twinkle in those kindly old eyes, not now. "However, there is no doubt that it is Miss Parkinson who has passed on. The official Hogwarts roll magically updates itself, and her name has been crossed out with the notation deceased written alongside."
Dumbledore sighed, then sadly continued, "Besides, when her parents went to see her, they could recognise her magically if not physically. A little bit of a person's magical signature lingers for a short time after death, you see. It's not enough for strangers to detect, generally, but someone who has known you throughout your whole life can often sense it."