eccedentesiast || severitus

chapter seventeen | mistakes

Severus cleared his throat and held a hand up when Weasley tried to speak. "Listen to me very closely. I have called you five here, for reasons totally unrelated to your behavior. Technically, you all here because of Mister Potter's behavior." The redhead looked outraged on Harry's part, knowing that the boy has done nothing to deserve the attention the Potions Master warrents on him, so he quickly continued. "He is not in trouble. No, his behavior as of late has been a bit—concerning, if you will. I am aware you all were present yesterday, in the loo where the whole event with Mister Potter took place. You all saw how he was acting. Unfortunately, that is not the first time that has happened in my presence."

The children sat in front of him looked extremely confused. Severus wasn't surprised, seeing as what they had witnessed in the loo was most likely their first time being involved in something as deep as that was.

"But sir," it was Granger speaking now. "How has something like what we saw happened more than once? Harry doesn't usually act like that, he keeps to himself and doesn't really wear his emotions on his sleeve and—oh. Oh, sir! You can't mean that—that, no." The girl immediately placed her head in her hands and Severus could tell that she had tears leaking out of her eyes. Merlin, at what age do children stop crying?

But, as annoyed as he may have seemed, Severus knows that this situation is something too deep, too intense, for children to deal with. The five kids in front him, would most likely never be able to understand the severity of this situation.

It wasn't lost on him that Harry was their age too and he's long past the point of understanding it.

Pushing those thoughts away, he continued on, now extremely uncomfortable as he felt the innocent eyes on him, waiting for an explanation. The four boys looked as confused as ever as the girl next to them continued to cry softly. Severus would never admit it, but that girl certainly has a bright future in front of her.

"I will not go into the details of the events that have transpired in my presence in the past, if only to protect Mr. Potter's wish for privacy, however I will tell you that your friend is going through something extremely difficult right now. These...situations that I have witnessed allowed me to see that. While Harry himself has made me aware of certain aspects of his issues, I need a second viewpoint. We cannot trust everything Mister Potter says right now, seeing as he is vulnerable and willing to do anything to protect himself, and he doesn't necessarily want the attention that he will receive when this eventually gets out."

Severus sighed, knowing that his students most definitely did not pick up on the hint that Harry was abused at home, save for Granger, and he was about to explain a bit more, while still trying to allow Harry some privacy, when a voice stopped him.

"We know, sir." The sentence was mumbled, and if Severus wasn't a spy he wouldn't have heard it. The words came from the redheaded boy who lived to annoy Severus. Said child was bright red, seemingly uncomfortable with where this conversation was going, but he looked up and made eye contact with him, looking far older than he wanted to give him credit for.

Severus saw emotions swirling through the blue eyes, sadness, fear, and anger. But the main one he saw was understanding.

That was surprising in the least, seeing as Severus thought he would have had to explain in as much detail as possible.

He nodded at the boy to continue. Ron took a deep breath to compose himself, before he began again, sounding too mature for his age. "Over the three months we've known Harry, we all have come to the conclusion that something is wrong with him. He, well, you see sir, Harry doesn't let us in much, meaning we've had to put the pieces together ourselves. Living with him has made it easy, but he still manages to keep things extremely hidden."

The boy stopped talking, as if he couldn't continue, and Severus noticed he was getting emotional now too. Great, now he had two crying children.

He gave the two a few moments to compose themselves, but it seemed as if they were holding something back. Severus quirked an eyebrow as he realized, Granger and Weasley are Harry's best friends. Meaning they would know the most about the boy, they would be able to give him the most useful information.

The man sighed as he realized his mistake. The other children, while they do live with Harry, probably have no clue what their two companions and their professor were talking about.

Silence ensued over his office, the only sounds heard were the sniffling of his students. Severus has never felt this out of control over a situation. The brat was really bringing his guards down. He knew he needed to speak to Harry's two friends privately, so they would be able to tell him—without worrying about exposing too much information about the boy to his other friends who he probably didn't want to know—what he needed to know.

But he also was not about to kick the other three students out, seeing as that would most likely leave him with five distraught children. He was truly stuck on what to do now.

It seemed as if the universe wanted to make his life even more of a living hell, when the floo flaring to life made his decision for him.

Poppy's voice rang out through his office, and her words stopped his heart.

"Severus! We need your help, Harry is missing!"

Severus knew he shouldn't have left the child alone after their conversation. Finding out that your most hated professor knew your mother and was her best friend, on top of spilling the dark secrets of his life to that same man who tortured you for months, was likely to send the boy into a major anxiety attack once he was able to process that information.

If Severus thought what he witnessed yesterday in the bathroom was bad, who knew what he would witness when the boy is found.

"What!"

~

a/n: so i am well aware that this chapter is extremely confusing to follow, and it probably won't make much sense, but i realized a mistake on my part when writing this.

as i was writing, i realized that it made virtually no sense for Seamus, Dean and Neville to be involved in the discussion that Snape was planning to have with them regarding Harry. Mainly because they probably wouldn't have much information to give besides the stuff the Snape already knows, but also because it was becoming too confusing to try and write this chapter with them present.

Severus most likely wanted to call this detention to get information on his theory, but remember he assigned these detentions before the whole panic attack scene in the bathroom. Now that that has happened, I realized it was kind of foolish to have them present because Severus had the basic information they were likely to provide.

Since I didn't want to go back and change the story, seeing as the detentions are what caused Harry's reaction and eventually Snape's discovery of all the information he received from Harry, I wrote this. So think of this chapter as a filler because I will have a discussion between Ron, Hermione and Severus at one point, without the other three present because I feel it just makes more sense.

This chapter basically seems to have a lot going on, but not much is happening at all. Ron and Hermione's responses are cryptic on purpose, because they don't want the other three to hear the private details they have of Harry's situation, regardless of if they realize that or not. Don't worry though, that will be explained in a later chapter.

Sorry for all the confusion, because if I was a reader I'd be like, huh? Lmao, so if y'all have any questions please ask me and I will do my best to help you understand my thought process here.

More anxiety for poor Harry coming up next :(