*If you wanted to skip this chapter, and just read the last few paragraphs, starting from "the boy stopped talking" be my guest because reading the whole thing might just be too confusing for you to understand lmao.
see my authors note at the end to understand why.*
October 21, 1991
That following evening, Severus sat at his desk, awaiting the arrival of not one, not two, but five idiotic Gryffindors. They were told to arrive at 8:00 sharp, and it was currently 7:45.
Lord help them should they arrive later than 7:55...
While he sat waiting, he took the time to reflect on the past few days—hell the past few weeks. Every notion that Severus had of the golden Gryffindor boy, had been completely and utterly uprooted. Harry was no closer to being anything like James Potter than Professor Sprout was to the Dark Lord.
Harry was his own separate person now in Severus' mind—though he would never dare to admit that—and he's quite a frequent thought in his head. Hard as he tries to put the boy out of his thoughts, they always return to him.
Severus, for the life of him, could not get the image of that small child, completely terrified of his abusers, and fully rooted in the belief that adults were bad. That adults that should have protected him from the start, wouldn't. He'll never get over the fact that he let down Lily's son like this. The boy that she had given her life for.
A slip of paper stating the names Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas and Neville Longbottom alerted him to the five children currently standing outside of his office. Sighing, which seemed to be the only thing he does anymore, he prayed one last time to the gods that they would cooperate with him tonight. He didn't want them in his presence any longer than necessary and he'd like to visit Harry before the night is over. He was beginning to regret assigning them these "detentions".
Waving his hand, the door to his office flung open, revealing the young Gryffindors. Although the only one who seemed to live up to their house name was Ms. Granger. She stood upright and in front of the four boys behind her. Mr. Weasley was doing his best to not meet his potions professors eyes, most likely remembering their previous conversation, and Mr. Thomas and Mr. Finnegan seemed to have a particular interest in the ground below them. Longbottom looked seconds away from face planting into said ground.
Standing from his desk, Severus sneered at the children before him. "Well are you going to stand there and waste my time or are you going to come into my office? I haven't got all night."
All five children immediately sprang into action and all but ran into the room. Severus rolled his eyes at the actions of the Gryffindors and waved a hand to slam the door shut, casting a locking and silencing spell. What he was about to say was something that he did not want to risk being heard.
The man moved to his desk, eyeing the children until they each sat in a chair surrounding him. He usually didn't hold detentions this big all at once, which meant he had to add two extra chairs. But desperate times called for desperate measures and what not.
"Before any of you dunderheads can speak, I would like all of your attention on me." When he made sure that five pairs of eyes were watching him, he continued. "I am sure by now you all have realized that the reasons for your individual detentions are rather, for lack of a better word, foolish. Please note that that was done on purpose, and that this detention will not go down on your personal records as such because it is not."
The shocked faces staring back at him gave him an uneasy feeling of deja vu, their faces being similar to the one that Harry had made when Severus told him he wanted to help. These children will never understand how much help they are about to be to Severus. As well as Harry, whom they have most likely noticed odd or concerning quirks about. The man hopes that by the end of the night, he has all the information required to help Harry to the best of his ability. He needs to earn their trust first, however.
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 :(