Princeps by Lomonaaeren

Chapter 2

"Professor Salvare?"

Harry turns around with a slight smile. It took Regulus Black longer to approach him than it did Severus. Then again, that makes sense, Harry thinks. Regulus is younger, and he doesn't stand out in Slytherin House the way Severus does, with his self-confidence and his skill at Potions and his Gryffindor friend. It's taken Regulus longer to decide that he deserves answers, or that he's not going to get them just from watching the older Slytherins.

Regulus stands in front of him and twines a quill around his fingers. It's already broken, so Harry doesn't comment on it. He just nods. "Yes, Mr. Black?"

"I—heard something. I don't know if you want to act on it, because it's a rumor, but I heard something," Regulus says rapidly. From his tone, Harry reckons that other professors have scolded him for bringing "rumors" to them before.

"That's all right, Mr. Black. You can tell me and I can investigate it."

Regulus nods, looking relieved. "I heard that my brother and his friends were planning to play some kind of trick on Prince—Severus, I mean." Regulus sounds a little self-conscious, maybe because Severus has been speaking with him for the first time. That's cute, and it distracts Harry for a moment from the words.

When he hears them fully, he can feel his cold heart falling into his belly. Shit. He knows, he just knows, that this is one of the tricks that the force of history is pulling, trying to align things back into what they were before.

"Where?" he asks sharply.

Luckily, Regulus doesn't take his tone the wrong way and get silent the way he sometimes does in class when he has the wrong answer to a question. "It was somewhere around a tree," he says. "Sorry, sir. That's all I know."

Harry nods and tears out of the class as though someone's lit him on fire.

Hopefully, that will be enough "information" to make it seem reasonable that he managed to guess where he was going, if someone asks him about his "knowledge" in the future.

*

"What do you think you're doing, Mr. Black?"

Sirius freezes when Harry abruptly looms over him and Severus. They're not far from the Whomping Willow, and Sirius was just speaking about the "mysterious secret" located there and betting Severus that he wasn't man enough to face it.

Harry has no idea of whether this happened the first time or not. All the participants in the Prank were dead by that point, and no one else had ever known the details.

He knows, though, that he has intervened in time this second rotation through. Sirius droops and looks away, projecting guilt so strongly that Harry doesn't understand how the other professors always seem to be fooled by the Marauders' excuses. Then again, most of them seem to be less suspicious of Gryffindors than Slytherins.

"Professor Salvare." Severus draws himself up a little. "I don't really know why you think you need to interfere. This is a private matter between me and Black, and we're outside of class and it's not curfew yet."

Sirius perks up a bit, as though thinking that means he'll get away with it, but Harry withers him with one careful glance. Then Harry sighs and turns to face Severus. "I don't think that you can't handle yourself," he says. "But I do know that if you go down that tunnel into the Whomping Willow, you'll regret it."

"Why, sir?" At least Severus is listening.

"Because there's a werewolf at the end of that tunnel, and he can either infect you, kill you, or scare you so badly that you'll have nightmares about werewolves for the rest of your life," Harry says bluntly. "Personally, I think your chances at infection are higher, because you'll probably freeze in surprise."