His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 36: would rather not think about it

Harry knew, more than almost anything else in his life, that his Aunt Petunia was not a reliable witness. Still, there was usually some vein of truth somewhere in her malicious gossip - his mother may not have died in a car crash, but she also hadn't turned out to have been living quietly in the Caribbean as a singer, either.

Harry decided to do the mature thing and pretend he hadn't heard anything, nothing had happened, and he'd never had reason to visualize Severus Snape wanting to date his mother.

Harry hummed very loudly to himself until the mental image went away, and when that didn't work, he tried banging his head into a pillow. Then he tried smothering himself with the pillow.

Nothing really helped, so he slunk his way out of his room and grabbed pruning shears to massacre the hedge. His aunt very carefully pretended she couldn't see him, and Harry turned up for meals. At least Uncle Vernon hadn't noticed he was missing, so that was a bullet dodged.

Snape and his mother no no no. Anything else. Kreacher dancing naked in the rain. Fighting Voldemort! Maybe Voldemort could kill him, that would be grand, he'd really love a horrible fight to the death right now....

After a few days, Harry stopped twitching every time the curtains twitched and eyeing the teapots as if they'd betrayed him, but he still kept very busy for the next month.

So in a way, a vivid dream of Voldemort murdering an old man was a nice change of pace.

In a way.

Now, in another reality Harry had only vague memories of this dream. In this reality, Harry had been attempting to learn Occlumency for almost two years, and had mostly failed except for gaining a habit of lucid dreaming. With that in mind, it was an easy decision to write to Sirius.

Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. I've made peace again with Dudley by sharing a tremendous amount of birthday cake with him, except then Uncle Vernon found out that I was helping Dudley disobey his diet and we had to make ourselves scarce. I wouldn't call myself friends with Dudley yet, but we're working on it. He has ideas about Muggle music for you. Apparently 'classic rock' is okay but you should listen to new stuff. He's finally been convinced that you're alright because I told him you used to have a motorbike, which is very impressive if you're Dudley. (He wouldn't fit on a motorbike, but I didn't tell him that.)

I don't want to worry you, but I had a dream about Voldemort. It was a little different from my usual nightmares, so here it is: he was sitting and planning with Wormtail, something about doing something involving me, but after the Quidditch World Cup. Then a muggle interrupted and Voldemort killed him and I woke up. They were in an old house - I think maybe in England? And Voldemort talked about murdering a woman named Bertha Jenkins.

Hope all is well and this helps! I sometimes get a sense about him because of my curse scar, but it being a full dream is new....

If you come back to the country, maybe we could go by your house over my school breaks? It would be good practice for my Defense class!

Say hello to Buckbeak for me.

Harry

Harry settled back and studied his letter with satisfaction. Yes, he'd managed to feel like he might be helping Sirius, suggest Sirius come back to the country, and tell an adult about a problem, all in one letter. He was getting good at this dealing with adults thing.

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Harry had taken Dudley aside before the Weasleys arrived and tried to reassure him as best he could that it wouldn't result in any more curses. (Dudley having been the recipient of a pig's tail last time he encountered a wizard. Which Harry didn't feel at all bad about, but did try to pretend to regret.)

"Mr. Weasley works for the government," Harry tried, "So he'd be sacked if he, er, did anything. He mostly does paperwork."

Which was, of course, a complete lie, but it left Dudley less twitchy, which in turn made Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia a bit less tight around the eyes. Aunt Petunia, in particular, had looked like she'd swallowed extra lemons all summer, ever since Professor Snape had visited, and had actually sat Harry down to make a schedule of chores and meals so that she and Harry could avoid being in the same room for six days out of seven.

"You have a government?"

"Well, sort of. It's a ministry of the regular government, I think," Harry said doubtfully, since he'd never really paid attention to how it worked. "They take care of keeping things secret and, er, quiet. Make sure no one bothers the Queen, that sort of thing."

Dudley gave Harry a gimlet, doubtful stare that suggested he didn't think wizards cared about things like queens, and also he suspected Harry was growing up to be a serial killer. Harry, who was at this point half convinced that all adult wizards were barking mad, tried to look as if he definitely wasn't going to grow up to be a serial killer, or at least if he was, it was the sort of serial killer you backed away slowly from and respected in a quiet way, rather than panicking and screaming a lot.

"Right," said Dudley, and went to find his mother for reassurance they wouldn't all be murdered or turned into squirrels.

Fred and George testing their new toffees on Dudley, Harry thought later with a sigh, would not actually help him convince Dudley wizards weren't collectively out to get him.

"You aren't cross with us, are you Harry?" asked Fred.

"We know he's your precious test subject," added George.

"But we needed to try it on someone and we hoped you'd share," finished Fred.

Since Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were right there, Harry tried to pretend he hadn't been testing candies on Dudley all year.

Things went well from there. At least Ron and Hermione escaped. Harry felt guiltily pleased that mostly his part of the lecture was Fred and George corrupting him when he was young and innocent.

Ron, a bit later, commented, "It's eerie seeing you three at it together - your innocent face is just the same as theirs."

Harry groaned and tried to smother himself with a pillow again, was briefly reminded of why he'd previously been trying to smother himself with a pillow, and asked Ron plaintively, "Is there any way to erase your own memories?"

"Well, there's memory charms," Ron said doubtfully. "But they can make you a little odd. Mum didn't give you that bad a lecture, did she?"

"It's not that." Harry hesitated. "I just realized that at some point... at some point... Professor Snape and Professor McGonnegall probably had, you know. Kissed people."

Ron swiftly developed a thousand-yard stare.

"Mate."

"Yeah, Ron?"

"Professor Dumbledore probably kissed someone once."

"...maybe your parents will let us get drunk if you explain," Harry said faintly.

Ron's parents did not let them get drunk. Harry was only faintly mollified by conversation over dinner with Bill Weasley about the best identification spells for cursed objects and safe handling practices - hypothetically speaking, of course.

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