Harry Potter gets smart and takes control - The Goblet

Chapter 36 Houston, we have a problem

I'm tired today, so have another chapter, yay!

Filius Flitwick was in his office marking, but not really concentrating. He was thinking on the Potter conundrum, when a knock at his door interrupted him. He glanced up and a flick of a long finger towards the door, revealed it to be Severus.

"Come in," he called and gestured his colleague and friend to have a seat

"Merry meet, Severus, I don't often see you leaving your dungeons," he said.

"Indeed," the dour man drawled, looking worried. Filius's brows furrowed and he wondered what the man was concerned about. Could it be that he had noticed as well?

"What seems to be on your mind," he asked summoning tea and pouring his colleague a cup.

"Her son." He said simply, his dark eyes burning.

"Yes," Filius said after a moment, "me too. But you're not often openly concerned. Normally you come here to rant about his stupidity," the half-goblin teased.

Severus winced, and said, "it seems I was wrong about the boy. I am worried."

Filius frowned, "I agree. But that is out of character for you. You hate the boy."

"Indeed, on both counts." He said slowly, "it is a change of character..."

Filius peered at him slowly, "you think there is something else at play?" He flicked his wand in a complicated pattern, bringing up privacy wards around his office.

"Mayhap. I shall be going to Gringotts over the break. I know I have not been potioned. As a master I would have noticed a compulsion brew. But there are other methods someone could use to bend a person's will. I should have-" he cut himself off furiously.

"Severus?"

"The boy is abused. I should have noticed it. There is something wrong, and I didn't notice. I always notice, and I failed him. I failed Lily's son." Severus burst out, sounding uncharacteristically openly pained.

"Would you like me to scan you?" Filius asked.

Severus nodded sharply, "I was so angry I wanted to make him scrub cauldrons until the day he died; until his fingers bled, Filius," he said looking at his colleague with an unusually raw expression.

Filius frowned, "that is a bit extreme. I can understand thinking it occasionally, but really wanting too, that's not like you."

Filius waved his wand over Severus in a long, complicated pattern before pinching the end of it and withdrawing a silver wispy substance that he then pressed into the end of a quill he'd pulled from somewhere. The Half-goblin always seemed to have a few spear quills and parchments on him. A click of his long fingers and it started writing.

"hmmm, you have a complex hatred hex on you, and a torment hex," Filius said with a frown, "both old. The target is Gryffindor, Weasley, Granger, and Potter and Longbottom. Both seem to be based on your true dislike of Gryffindor and Potter. It has built increased its intensity, and compromising moral values." Flitwick said, frowning deeply at his colleague.

"Can you break them?" Severus asked.

"Yes. It's ingeniously done, really." Filius said as he handed Severus a short knife, "horrible but genius, so you wouldn't notice, so it would slowly build upon your known dislike and make it extreme. Extreme enough that you had trouble thinking clearly and judging your own actions it took your own mild dislike and made it into someone else's seething loathing."

With a scowl that would have sent students running, Severus pricked his finger and touched it to the top of Filius's wand. Filius made a complicated pattern around Severus, touched the bloody wand tip to his forehead and drew it away. It made a bang like a gun, making Severus flinch. He felt a horrible squelching sensation in his chest, pulling to the point it almost hurt, and then...

He blinked, and took stock of his body. Everything felt the same. He scanned his mental shields and his mind. Some holes as normal. Wait... He frowned. How had he missed that? He thought a moment.

"I still hate them." He said

"Well, yes, I expected as much. You hated Gryffindor before, disliked the younger Weasleys already and dislike people in general, especially students and Gryffindors at that. Add in Potters and no wonder you didn't notice it. It carefully amped up your general dislike of people." Flitwick explained, "you wouldn't have noticed. It just tweaked, took away your control, heightened the desired attributes to unreasonable extremes."

"I should have thought," he said, taking a long sip of tea. "I have treated all of the little blighters appallingly, not that they don't deserve it, the little terrors. Not that I have much choice even without the spells. But it was extreme even for me. I never should have made that comment about Granger's teeth, and Longbottom is hopeless but needs tutoring, and possibly investigation into his home life, not constant berating. Potter was ignorant, not arrogant and is clearly abused. That much is clear now. I never should have yelled at him when he apologised either..."

Filius smiled sadly at his colleague and patted his hand, "We'll manage. I'll take you to see my half brother over Christmas, for a full work up. We'll see what else we can figure out." Filius said.

Severus nodded and said, "the boy is abused."

"Yes."

"He's acting oddly this week." He continued

"Yes, I noticed, it worried you too?"

"Yes. I haven't been able to corner the brat to ask him. He's been avoiding me since our disagreement last Friday. It's remarkable how hard to catch he is in the corridors."

"Oh?" Filius enquired curiously.

"He came to apologise for his lack of manners," Severus said slowly, reluctantly, "I threw it in his face."

Filius winced, then frowned but asked, "why?"

"I thought him lying; mocking me. He somehow found out about his father's treatment of me. I lost my temper, thought him rubbing my face in it. Now he is avoiding me like the plague."

"Ahhh," Filius said, "we'll give him the holidays to calm down. If you can't get hold of him, maybe send him an owl. I haven't been able to catch him properly either."

"Mmm..."

"Though," Filius mused, "if he has a troubled home life, why is he going home for the holidays now? He never has before..."

"Why indeed," Severus mused.