average human’s Reviews > Veritaserum > Status Update

He drove a sword through the mouth of a basilisk. And he had used that same sword to end the life of his Professor who threatened his friends.

If there was trouble to be found- Potter would find it.

Which made Severus’ relief at Potter’s return home that night so strong it may as well have been palpable.

“How was your day?” Severus asked calmly, subtly eyeing the boy for any possible injuries.

“Brill,” Potter said brightly, bouncing on his feet in the way that Severus has begrudgingly become accustomed to. “Got a lot done, didn’t I?”

Severus gave him an amused look. Potter was glancing around the room quickly in a hyperactive way that made him believe the child had likely been indulging in junk food all day with his friend.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You aren’t hungry?”

“Nope.” Potter smiled as he popped his pronunciation. “Gonna go study, good night!”

Severus shook his head. Clearly Potter had not accomplished much homework today if he still needed to study. He was pleased that he must have been acting like a typical teenager. If anyone deserved an opportunity to act their age, it was Potter.



The next few days followed the similar pattern.

Potter woke up, informed Severus he was leaving to spend the day with the Bones’, and returned home after dinner, but before dark. Each night he immediately rushed off to complete his homework.

“Perhaps you and Miss Bones should spend more time actually studying and less time plotting mayhem,” Severus suggested after the third night in a row of Potter frantically rushing to his room to work on essays.

“Probably,” Potter agreed easily with a laugh. “We’ll do our best.”

Severus shook his head at him, relieved that Potter was having a normal holiday despite the very abnormal circumstances.



On the fourth morning of Potter rushing out of the house the moment sun broke, Severus felt comfortable enough with the protection Amelia was providing him to once again work on his research.

He was fed up with rifling through old texts and convoluted journals- he would simply begin his own experiments with combining the bases today. Perhaps he was complicating it more than it needed- if he slowly added the transfigurative base potion to the medicinal one, there had to be a way to combine the properties of both while neutralizing the less desirable side effects.

One of those less desirable effects being a painful death to any Muggle who drank it.

Severus inhaled the fumes of his lab, soaking in the rich scent of the burning embers beneath the cauldron.

There was no smell in the world more grounding to him.

As he measured, poured, tested, and continuously restarted the same process Severus wondered if he should offer to let Potter work on this stage of the research with him. The boy was an adequate brewer, and this research would be a mere dream instead of a reality had it not been for Potter’s donation of the basilisk.

5%

Merlin forbid Potter believe Severus is concerned for his well-being.

***

Severus had thought that a summer break with a perkily cheerful Potter was irksome? He wished he could go back to such a simple time.

Potter had maintained an irritated, frenzied, energy for several days after Severus confronted him about his activities. Thankfully, Potter seemed to have given up, albeit likely only temporarily, on his mad hunt for Black. Instead, he apparently was focused on making Severus as miserable as possible.

Severus wasn’t sure if this was purposeful, or a happy coincidence on Potter’s part.

Potter rose before the sun and went out back every morning to fly. Severus had set a ward to alert him when the back door was open and twice since their confrontation three days ago Potter had been out back before five o’clock.

Potter was channeling his frenzied energy and attempting riskier and riskier stunts on his broom. Severus began to fear that Black was a secondary threat to Potter behind the child himself.

‘There is no activity on our end. We have no new leads. HP has remained within the wards. Though you may consider raising the wards skyward as he seems determined to graze against the uppermost limits on his broom.
-KS’
After four days of watching Potter spend his entire day spiraling across the yard on his broom, after watching Potter heal himself of his third broken arm, and after receiving a note from Shacklebolt implying he was not caring properly for Potter- Severus had enough. He could not spend another day holding his breath as Potter raced towards the ground nor another afternoon attempting small talk while Potter raced through lunch before flinging himself back outside.

“Harry why don’t you visit Luna tomorrow?” Severus suggested at dinner that evening. “She would undoubtedly enjoy the company.”

It would be more work for Shacklebolt to trail Potter to the Lovegood’s, but after his note this morning Severus wasn’t feeling very charitable.

“Can’t,” Potter said shortly, taking quick bites of his meal. “I’m way behind on homework, aren’t I? Plus my project. Plus all the other stuff I have to get done. Luna’ll be here on the in a couple weeks anyway for the party.”

“What project?” Severus asked conversationally, keeping his eyes on his own meal in an effort to lull Potter in to a conversation.

Please do not say hunting Sirius Black.

“Not that you probably care anymore, but I still have to make those charmed notebooks before Nev’s birthday. And I’m painting my bedroom.”

Severus glanced up hopefully at the mention of the notebooks. He had quite forgotten, in the mess that Sirius Black has created, that Potter requested his help with creating notebooks that nine children could communicate through.

The fact that Potter and his ‘gang’ got the idea from the Dark Lord’s diary was disturbing, but a healthy enough project for Potter to focus his energy on.

He was also relieved that Potter was finally decorating his bedroom. It would add a sense of stability to the erratic child’s life.

“I would be delighted to help you with your project,” Severus said honestly, though not too eagerly to be suspicious to the cunning child. “We could do it tomorrow?”

“Oh? You’re not too busy with your research and setting the police to follow me to help?”

“Shacklebolt is hardly ‘the police’,” Severus said, maintaining his casual tone despite his shock.

Kingsley Shacklebolt is an expert in the field at concealment.

Supposedly.

6%

By the third day of Potter lethargically laying in his bed, eating the bare minimum, and speaking even less, Severus had to admit that perhaps Potter did not have a summer flu.

“Harry what specific symptoms do you have?” Severus asked that morning after Potter refused to get out of bed.

“I dunno what you mean,” Potter groaned, rolling on to his back away from the light Severus conjured for the dark room.

“Do you feel hot, does your stomach hurt, what exactly is causing you to feel sick?” Severus explained.

“I’m tired and my head hurts,” said Potter. “Go away.”

“I cannot go away while you are sick,” Severus sighed. “Would you like a pain relieving potion?”

“It’s not that kind of hurting. It’s like...” Potter gave him a wary look. “Never mind. I just have a headache.”

This is what you get for calling him mad last week.

“If you can describe it to me I may have a potion to fix it,” Severus said, hoping to cajole him in to speaking.

Potter blinked up towards the ceiling as he quietly explained, “It’s like there’s too many thoughts and I can’t get them to be quiet and it’s making my head hurt.”

Severus grimaced in understanding.

“I do not believe a Pain Reliever will help in this case,” he said carefully. “Harry I believe you are depressed, which is common and is not a weakness or an insult. You would feel better if you got up and ate a real meal.” He looked at Potter’s tangled locks, “And perhaps a shower.”

“No,” Potter said shortly, rolling to face the wall away from Severus. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Severus sighed as he left Potter’s room.

He would get Potter out of bed tomorrow.



After the fifth day of trying to coax Potter out of bed, with no results, Severus began a new approach.

Outright bribery.

“If you would like, I could accompany you and Miss Bones to Diagon Alley today?”

Potter grunted laying on his back and staring at the ceiling, not even deigning to reply at Severus’ suggestion.

“You said that you would like to duel this summer, we could do that today.”

“Yeah, maybe later...”

Severus tried to think of anything that Potter may find interesting.

“There is a shop in Knockturn Alley you may be interested in, I believe Borgin has a much envied wall of weapons.”

Severus would sorely regret it if Potter took him up on this offer. Though if it got the child out of bed it would be worth it.

“I’m sick,” Potter whispered. “Not today.”

Potter sounded sick, but Severus knew it was a sickness of the mind, not body.

“It is a nice day out, perhaps you would like to go risk your life on your death trap of a broomstick? It would make you feel better Harry,” Severus said softly.

“‘M too tired,” Potter mumbled.

Severus took a deep breath before pulling out what he hoped would be his trump card.

“If you would still like to adopt that dog, I am willing to speak with Hagrid about keeping it on the grounds when we return to school. We could go find it today.”

“I don’t want to,” Potter said, rolling to his side and facing away from Severus.

Severus tried patience. He had tried bribes. He had tried being gentle. And now he was out of patience.

“You cannot stay in your bed forever, Potter,” he said sharply. “You have to get up. You need to shower. You need to eat. Get. Up.”

“I don’t feel good, alright? Is that what you want from me? To know I’m weak? Just go away!” Potter yelled, his voice strained and dull.

Severus shouldn’t have been surprised when he was shoved from Potter’s room and had the door slammed shut in his face without Potter even lifting his head from his pillow. But Potter’s magical strength was both impressive and startling even when the child himself was clearly suffering.

Severus took several steadying breaths and counted slowly as he considered the best course of action to take.

Potter is ill and requires treatment, much like any other sick child.

Which left him with minimal choices.

St Mungos would give Potter a cheering charm and plaster the information across the front page of the paper by the next morning. Which would be unacceptable. Severus decided that is past time to seek out the Muggle Mind Healer he had consulted with after Potter’s guardianship was approved. The man had offered acceptable advice once before, surely he could do it again.

He would just go tomorrow, get advice on how to handle a Potter who is clearly depressed for any one of many possible reasons, then return home and begin putting Potter together again.

He looked at Potter’s door as he hesitated...

Make an appointment first, find someone to come watch Potter second.

9%

“Harry, time to wake up.”

“Go away,” Harry muttered in to his pillow.

“Come now darling, surely you must be sick of this room.”

Harry suddenly realized that it wasn’t Snape in his room bothering him. Snape would never call him ‘darling’.

He picked his head up and saw that Draco’s Mum was standing at the foot of his bed.

“Oh, Mrs Malfoy.”

“Cissa, darling. We are family, wouldn’t you say?”

“Sure,” Harry agreed dully, dropping his head back to his pillow. “Where’s Snape?”

“He’s out, and you need to shower darling, you stink.”

Harry’s face burned at the insult.

“Nobody’s making you be here,” he muttered sullenly. “Feel free to go.”

“Tut, tut,” said ‘Cissa’. “Is that any way to talk to your family?”

“I don’t have a family,” Harry sighed, annoyed at everyone’s insistence at pretending to be his family. What good was a pretend family that liked you when you really only had a real family who hates you? If people pretended to be your family they could be pretending to like you as well.

They probably are.

It just isn’t smart to trust anyone like that.

“Of course you do,” Cissa said, sitting gently (even though Harry definitely hadn’t invited her) on the side of his bed. “I’m not masquerading as your family, we truly are biologically related.”

Harry sat up and looked at her more carefully, his interest caught by her statement.

“Yeah?” he said cautiously, pulling his knees to his chest.

“Has Draco not told you?” she asked with a small frown.

Harry vaguely remembered an off handed comment by Draco in their first year that they were related but he’d been too focused on Dumbledore deciding his whole life to have properly listened.

“Might have,” Harry allowed. He looked at her blonde hair, grey eyes, sharp cheekbones, and long slender limbs. “We don’t look much alike.”

Cissa laughed, and Harry liked her laugh. It was warm and musical, just the kind of laugh he imagined his own mother might have had.

Stupid to think that really.

Stupid to waste time thinking about things you could never have or hear.

“Let me think... You, my darling, are my second-cousin through James. His mother, your paternal grandmother, was my mother’s aunt.”

“So we’re- we’re actually related?” Harry asked quietly.

Cissa smiled and slowly reached over to put her hand on his quilt covered knee.

“We are. You are my favorite cousin.”

Harry laughed a little at that as he shifted away from her hand.

“D’you have many other cousins to choose from?”

“Come downstairs and have tea with me and I’ll go over our entire shared family history with you,” she said. When Harry hesitated she casually added on, “You do have an interesting cousin who is a metamorphmagus.”

Harry considered her offer. He really was tired, he didn’t want to get out of bed, but...

But he didn’t have a family, did he? And Draco’s Mum was just offering to tell him about one she shared with him. And metamorphmagi were really rare.

“What’d’ya want from me?” Harry asked.

Nobody did anything for free.

“I’d like you to shower,” she said, holding her nose dramatically. “Teenage boys require daily bathes.”

“God, get out,” Harry groaned, his face aflame with shame. “I’m going. Fuck.”

Cissa laughed merrily again.

“Fifteen minutes darling,” she called, closing the door behind her.

Harry wondered if Draco would be mad if he cursed his mom.

He probably would.

Some people were weird about stuff like that.



Harry wasn’t going to admit it, but he did feel a bit better after his shower. Cissa’s knowing look when he came in the kitchen just made him scowl at her though.

“You spend too much time around Severus,” she laughed. “You’re beginning to pick up on each other’s mannerisms.”

Harry scowled harder at that.

“Do not,” he muttered, slumping down in to a kitchen chair.

“Severus told Lucius a couple of weeks ago that his research was ‘going brill’,” she said. “I don’t believe that is a Severus-ism.”

Harry felt himself grin just a bit at that.

“A ‘Severus-ism’?” he said.

“Oh yes, surely you’ve noticed that Severus has many phrases he prefers to constantly use,” Cissa said, taking Snape’s usual seat across from Harry.

“Mostly just brat, I suppose,” Harry shrugged.

“I believe that is meant to be a term of endearment, which is much more polite than his usual ‘son of a bitch’” she winked. “Now- remind me what your charming house-elf’s name is. Severus refers to him as ‘that irksome elf’ but I’m quite sure that isn’t what you call him.”

“Mavis,” Harry yelled.

Crack!

“Master Potter is getting out of bed! Mavis was worrying Master was never-“

“Shut up,” Harry hissed to Mavis, his face heating up again. Draco’s Mum did not need to know all about Harry being...

Weak, his mind whispered helpfully.

Mavis looked between Harry and Cissa, wringing his hands.

“Mavis is sorry. Mavis is keeping Masters business to himself. Mavis was only being worried about Master Potter.”

“It’s fine,” Harry sighed, exhausted again already. “Cissa wants you.”

“Mavis would you be a dear and fetch a tea tray for Master Potter?” Cissa smiled charmingly at Mavis. “Perhaps some finger sandwiches and biscuits too, if you have them.”

“Of course Mavis is having them!” Mavis perked up and jumped towards the fridge. “Mavis will be having tea and snacks prepared for Master and his friend right away!”

“Thank you,” Cissa smiled again at Mavis.

“I’m not hungry,” Harry said, rolling his eyes again. Snape had been bugging him constantly to eat too and he didn’t get it. Harry wasn’t being ungrateful, he was just exhausted and miserable- and worthless -and didn’t feel hungry.

“Perhaps I am,” Cissa said, studying her perfect nails serenely. “You will need to learn how to be a proper host as the future Lord Potter-Black.”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled, feeling chastised despite Cissa’s casual tone.

“No worries darling, I will teach you these things. What else is family for?” she smiled.

“Speaking of family...?” Harry prodded, wanting her to tell him about the rest of their shared relatives.

“Hmm, where to begin...” Cissa tapped one nail against her chin thoughtfully. “I’ll begin with our living relatives first. There’s me, Draco, and Lucius, your cousins of course. And Sirius, though I fear he isn’t long for this world, provoking Severus like he has. My sister Andromeda, her husband Ted Tonks, and their daughter Nymphadora, the Auror-in-Training who is a metamorphmagus.”

Of course someone as interesting as a metamorphmagus would choose something as stupid as being a cop for a career, Harry scoffed.

“And of course my other sister, the ever so charming Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus Lestrange. Oh, thank you Mavis,” Cissa said as Mavis quietly placed a tea service and various plates of snacks on the table.

“So- so I have,” Harry counted quickly, “nine relatives that are still alive? Seven adults?”

Seven choices that would have been better than Surrey.

“You have eight relatives that we share, not counting myself,” Cissa corrected him gently. “Your father was a pureblood and most of the old families are related one way or another.”

Harry snorted, grabbing a ‘miniature treacle tart’ (as Mavis named his odd but tasty creation) off the plate closest to him.

“So if I have all these relatives why did nobody tell me before now?”

“Oh being related to the Blacks is considered quite the disgrace,” Cissa said airily, pouring them each a cup of tea. “I suppose nobody wanted to disappoint you with the knowledge.”

“Why’s it a disgrace?” Harry asked, accepting the tea and adding sugar to it. “Besides Sirius, of course.”

“Sirius, Bella, and her husband are all imprisoned. Sirius was marked as a traitor to the Light, as you are aware, and Bella and Rodolphus are quite a matched set in their madness. They tortured your friend Neville’s parents until they became little more than empty shells- surviving but never living.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably at that. Snape thought he was mad, didn’t he? And he’d tortured people before too. Perhaps not that badly, but Bellatrix’s actual nephew wore scars from Harry’s own two hands.

“Andy ran off and married a Muggle, which was quite the disgrace in our family,” Cissa continued. “And while I believe myself to be an absolute delight of a relative, many consider the House of Malfoy to be the lap dogs to the Dark Lord,” she said cheerfully.

Harry snorted at her tone.

“Not anymore though, eh?” he said with a small grin.

“Never again darling, cheers to that.” Cissa raised her mug to him with another wink.

Harry hadn’t meant to, but he let out a small huff of a laugh. Cissa was ridiculous.

“Can I ask you a question?” Harry said carefully.

“You just did,” she said, smiling softly. “Though I’ll allow one more if I may ask you one in return.”

Harry wondered if all Slytherin’s were big fans of trades.

They probably were.