"Yeah, Severus lent it to me so I could leave my other trunk at home," he said, tossing the sentence out just as casually as he had planned, though he was watching everyone carefully to gauge their reactions.
"I think that's just grand," Hermione said, nodding staunchly. "Right?"
"Yes, it's very... uh, nice." Neville nodded his agreement, though he kept his distance from the trunk.
"Snape, nice!" That was Seamus, guffawing. Then he caught the look on Harry's face. "Sorry. It's just... well, you know. I'm sure you two get on. It's just... Merlin's beard, Snape, nice!"
Harry wasn't going to argue the merits of Snape's personality, especially since the man himself had said not to call him sweet or anything, but neither was he going to pretend the adoption wasn't real. Best to make that clear from the start, he thought. "Listen, everybody," he announced, clearing his throat. "You don't have to like Snape, and you can complain all you like about Potions lessons or points from Gryffindor. But don't insult him, or at least, not to me. Nobody here would like it if I made mean jokes about your parents. Or grandparents," he added, with a glance at Neville.
"Yeah, but Harry--"
He cut Seamus off. "Severus Snape is my father and I love him. Does that settle it for you?"
Harry didn't know if that settled it, but it certainly did shut everyone up. Everyone except Neville, that was. And Hermione.
"Well of course you do," she said, glancing about in challenge. Harry almost laughed. It seemed clear to him that Hermione was really sorry about her earlier behaviour. So very sorry, in fact, that now she was determined to stand by him and Snape. He was proud of her, even if it had taken her an awfully long time to realize she didn't know everything.
"Harry's right," was all Neville said, but Harry really appreciated it all the same.
"I also don't want to hear anybody here accusing Draco Malfoy of murder," Harry continued, staring at several Gryffindors in turn. "He's been cleared by the Ministry, and that's that."
"You don't want much, do you?" asked Ron as he stepped into the room, the Gryffindor Quidditch team close behind. He was smiling, though, so Harry didn't take him too seriously. "Good to see you here, mate!"
"Good to be here." Tired of being the centre of attention, Harry flopped down onto a couch. "Don't mind me. I'm not the resident celebrity, you know. I'm just glad to get back to normal life."
Most of the Gryffindors drifted off, leaving Harry alone in the common room with a few of his closest friends. He lost a chess game to Ron, then looked at Quidditch magazines with Ginny, and watched Hermione valiantly struggle to ignore the books and essays that were clearly calling her. Ron and Hermione managed to draw him aside at one point and ask how he really was; he quickly told them about his eye so they'd know he didn't see well to the left.
Between all the chatter and fun, Harry didn't get to bed until after midnight. He'd forgotten how great it was in the Tower. As he drifted off to sleep, though, Sals in a little heap by his side, his thoughts wandered down into the very bowels of Hogwarts.
He was happy, he was. He really was. But for all that, Harry Potter missed his family already.
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other
Chapter Seventy-Five: Just Another Average Week at Hogwarts
Chapter 75: Just Another Average Week at Hogwarts
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=75
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Seventy-Five:
Just Another Average Week at Hogwarts
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The first thing Harry did when he entered the Great Hall the next morning was glance toward the head table. Snape wasn't there. That was all right, though. Harry didn't want Draco to have to eat breakfast all alone on Harry's first day back. He was actually glad to see Snape's empty chair up on the dais... though he did wish he could give his father a little wave. He wondered what Snape and Draco were talking about over tea and toast.
Hopefully, the subject of lines wasn't too prominent.
His own breakfast seemed pretty typical at first. Gryffindor table, of course; he didn't feel up to braving the Slytherins yet. Platters heaped with food, students laughing and talking and eating all at once. Hermione reminding them all that there was a test scheduled for Charms. Everything just as it usually was. Except...
"Be good, Harry," said Seamus in a slightly mocking voice as he stood up and grabbed his book bag.
What struck Harry about it was that Seamus had never said anything remotely like that to him before. Be good... what was that about?
"Yeah, be good," Dean echoed, a wide grin on his face.
A bunch of the students who remained started laughing.
"I don't get it," Harry said, looking around, but that only made them laugh harder.
Ron leaned over to speak quietly to Harry. "That's what Snape said last night when he left. Be good."
"Oh..." Harry shook his head. "What's so funny about that?"
Ron finished his juice, then stood up so they could make their way to Charms. "You're kidding, right? Snape, going all fatherly and saying a thing like that right in front of us? It's hilarious."
Harry didn't think so, but he didn't want to argue about it. Besides, by then he was thinking back to Hermione's comment about a test. He hadn't known about that, though he had been keeping up with the readings and essays for the Charms class. He'd even finally gotten caught up in his spell casting, though the Parseltongue incantations didn't have always have exactly the same results as Draco's Latin ones. The differences weren't too important, and it wasn't like Flitwick had ever graded them that hard to start with, but Harry was still nervous.
Or maybe he was on edge at the prospect of incanting in Parseltongue in front of anyone but his family and closest friends.
Hermione must have sensed his nervousness; she smiled kindly at him as he walked down the corridor, Ron on his other side, the two of them flanking him as they'd agreed. Ron was taking guard duty, as he'd called it, pretty seriously; his gaze was constantly swinging from left to right, left to right as if he was trying to identify in advance anybody that might try to cause trouble for Harry. He even had his chest sort of thrown out in a don't-mess-with-my-friend stance.
The Slytherins didn't seem like they wanted trouble, though. In fact, they were subdued. Thinking back, Harry realized that yes, their table had been awfully quiet during breakfast. Maybe it was the funeral coming up. One of their own... all right, so he'd never been able to stand Pansy and frankly thought her last letter to Draco had been a ploy to return him to Voldemort, but she'd had friends in Slytherin. A lot of them. And they were still reeling from her sudden death, obviously. The Slytherins he saw on his way to class looked seriously depressed. Almost ill with it, in fact.
It was probably wrong to be glad for that, Harry thought. Yeah, it was definitely wrong. But he couldn't help it, not if their depression meant that nobody felt like tangling with him. He really didn't want to have to fight with anybody in Snape's House. In his House, he told himself. Too strange, that thought. It was one thing to recognize Slytherin tendencies in himself. It was quite another to really feel like he was a member of their House. Back in the dungeons, it had been almost theoretical, and visit their common room, sit at their table, Harry had sounded a lot less daunting than it really was.