Another Prisoner, Another Professor

Bringing Norbert to Charlie's friends had involved sneaking around the school late at night, and making the Polyjuice Potion had involved breaking into a teacher's office. This plan involved both. It wasn't the most dangerous thing they had ever done, Harry thought, but it might qualify as the most dangerous thing they had ever planned out in advance.

They had a stroke of luck in that Black was indeed gone from Hogwarts for Christmas. According to Hagrid, he had gone to visit his cousin - Andromeda, Harry assumed - and was due back on the twenty-seventh. Even more in their favor was the fact that Hagrid had told them this at Christmas dinner without their having asked about Black. If Black knew someone had broken into his office but didn't manage to catch them, he wouldn't hear that Harry, Ron and Hermione had asked about his whereabouts hours before the break-in occured.

Harry couldn't help but wonder what Hagrid would think if he knew that they were planning on breaking into his old friend's office. They had hidden things from Hagrid in the past - aside from the fact that they once thought he had opened the Chamber of Secrets, they had never let on how much they hated his cooking - but never something that Hagrid was sure to thoroughly disapprove of. Hagrid might drink too much and hide illegal dragons, but Harry knew that he would never go through a friend's things behind his back.

Still, Harry thought, even if Black was Hagrid's friend, he wasn't necessarily theirs. And unless Harry went and talked to Black, which he had no intention of doing, breaking into his office was their only way of finding out where his allegiances were.

Harry, Ron and Hermione stayed in the common room until midnight, Hermione working on her endless homework and Ron trying different charms to make his new Christmas jumper turn some color other than maroon. Harry tried to look through books for Buckbeak's defense, but he was too nervous to concentrate. Finally, at a few minutes past twelve o'clock, they climbed through the portrait hole and started down the stairs. Sir Cadogan, still filling in for the Fat Lady as the guardian of Gryffindor Tower, seemed to have gone off to another painting.

They had previously agreed that Harry would wear the Invisibility Cloak on the way to the broom shed; Ron and Hermione found out of bed in the earliest hours of the morning would severely annoy any teacher who might find them, but if Harry were caught out of bed it would surely lead to much more fuss. The cloak might have kept Harry hidden from sight, but it gave him no extra protection against the weather. Outside it was bitterly cold and windy, the branches of the trees tossing in the air. They had to be sure to stay in the shadows; there was a full moon.

Harry wondered where Lupin was at that very moment. Was he roaming around in search of prey, or had he locked himself inside somewhere so as not to be discovered? Perhaps he wasn't even in Britain; perhaps he was on a tropical island while Harry fought against the harsh winds.

Once at the broom shed, they picked the rusty lock and managed to find the three best broomsticks available to them. Harry's was decidedly wobbly, but it could fly over to Black's office window and that was what counted. As they ascended higher and higher, Harry noticed that Hermione looked slightly ill. He had never really thought about it before, but he realized now how little flying experience she had compared to him and Ron.

Slightly ill or not, Hermione was able to perch on her broom beside the darkened window and lift the latch. It was remarkably easy to get inside; most likely Black had never thought that someone might steal a broom in the dead of night, fly up to his window, and climb into his office. Harry was the last one in, careful not to knock over the ink bottle on the sill.

He had, of course, noticed Black's desk and armchairs when he had been in his office before, but until now he had never given much thought to the tall and full bookshelves that lined the walls. Memories of searching in the library came back to Harry; he thought he must have spent more time looking through books in just four months than he ever had in his life, even in his first year when he was looking through the library for information about Nicolas Flamel. How were they ever going to go through all of Black's things? Black must have used either magic or a stepping stool to get some of his books, because the shelves reached all the way up to the ceiling. The picture of Nymphadora on the wall smiled at Harry and waved. He gave a queasy smile back, feeling rather guilty.

"All right," Hermione said. "How about - Ron, you go through Black's desk, I'll start on the books, and Harry can keep watching the Marauder's Map to make sure no one's coming."

"If we don't all look through stuff, we'll never find anything," said Harry. "Someone only has to look at the Map every minute or so. I'll take the shelf on that end and you can take this one."

Ron turned out to have the most boring job of the three; after going through every single drawer of Black's desk, all he found were some graded seventh-year essays ("Percy got ninety-nine percent, it'll kill him"), ungraded second-year quizzes, several quills, a pink Muggle eraser, a couple of pencils, a box of paper clips, a few keys to unknown doors, two magically chilled bottles of butterbeer, an empty glass bottle, and, to Hermione's suppressed amusement, three elastic hair binders much like the one in her own hair. The only thing she found to be of note was the bottle. It was small and blue, with no label and a cork in the neck. "I think there's some kind of residue of something in here," she said, holding her lit wand next to it. "I wish we could send it to a forensics lab, or whatever wizards use instead of forensics labs."

After putting everything back exactly as he had found it - "if Black's anything like my mum, he'll catch on if it's one centimeter out of place" - Ron joined Harry and Hermione at the bookshelves. So far neither of them had found anything interesting. Hermione was shaking each volume in a set of encyclopedias to make sure Black hadn't left any papers between the pages, and Harry was searching through one of the most miscellaneous collections of books he had ever seen. Black had a book about wizard colonies in Spain next to one about practical housekeeping, followed by a Muggle book called The Odyssey.

"I bet we don't find anything," said Ron, resting his forehead against one of the shelves. "You know what we should have done? When Hagrid told us Black was gone until the twenty-seventh, we should have figured out where his bedroom was and broken in there instead. I bet that's where he's keeping everything secret. Why would he keep it in his office, when he's got Harry there for anti-dementor lessons and Malfoy there for detention? Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should give up, but - "

"I've got something," said Hermione suddenly. Harry turned. She was sitting on the floor, holding a wide black book in her lap. "I think this is all his financial information. He's written down everything he bought in the last year and how much it cost.

Harry glanced at the Marauder's Map, found that they were the only ones on the second floor, and quickly sat down next to Hermione as Ron sat on her other side. "Here, start at the end and go backwards," Harry said. His heart had started to beat faster. Hermione flipped the pages.

"He's got a lot of abbreviations in here," she said after a moment. "I'll read them aloud and you two can try and figure out what they mean. 'Guitar music for Nym' - "

"That's got to be his cousin's daughter, Nymphadora," Harry said. "I bet that's her Christmas present. Here, skip anything normal-looking, I don't care if he bought a toothbrush or gave Kreacher a new loincloth. Just look for anything medical or anything that cost a lot of money."

Black's December records were uneventful, but when Hermione turned to November she found a purchase of twenty-one thousand Galleons. "His handwriting's pretty bad. 'QQS, 7 FB for G', whatever that - "

"Give me that," said Ron suddenly. He grabbed the book from Hermione's lap and stared at the page. "Oh my God," he said after a few seconds had passed. His eyes had grown very wide. "He - "

"What?"

"'QQS, 7 FB for G' - " An irrepressible grin began to spread across Ron's face. "Quality Quidditch Supplies, seven Firebolts for Gryffindor."

"You're joking," said Harry at once. "Let me see - "

"A Firebolt costs three thousand Galleons, right? Three thousand times seven, twenty-one thousand. How many different things can QQS stand for? How can 'QQS, 7 FB for G' mean anything else? This is from late November, the Willow killed your broom near the beginning of the month and so Black went and bought - "

"I think there's a team in Ethiopia called the Gimbi Giant-Slayers," said Harry, blinking as he looked at the page. The shock was so great that he was hesitant to believe it. "Black used to travel in Africa, maybe he bought - "

"Oh Harry, don't be stupid!" It was clear that Ron was relishing a concrete reason to believe that his favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher wasn't the selfish and neglectful godfather Harry suspected him of being. "They're a professional team, they'll already have Firebolts. Who doesn't have Firebolts? Who doesn't even have seven brooms at the moment? Who does Black's godson play for? Gryffindor! You're getting a Firebolt, mate." Ron grinned even wider. "Oh, and so's Wood - he's going to go mental with glee when he finds out. D'you think Fred and George will let me fly one of theirs? They'd better, the gits, they've got two between them. And Malfoy - Malfoy! Harry, you've got to tell me when you're going to take your Firebolt out for the first time, I've got to see the look on Malfoy's pointed little face when he sees it. He thinks he's so great because his dad's rich? Well, now Gryffindor's got a rich relative buying brooms for them. I can't wait - "

"Harry," said Hermione, "I understand why you don't want to hope for too much, but I think this might be a positive sign."

"Either that," said Harry, "or he's trying to buy me off."

He could not help but feel that if Black really wanted to make things right between them, he would speak to Harry in person and tell him so. Why would a man who used to travel the world and kill dangerous animals for potions ingredients be afraid to talk to a thirteen-year-old boy? Hermione, perhaps remembering what Harry had said about how he would never speak to her again if she made excuses for Black, didn't reply. "I'll keep looking in this," she said. "You and Ron keep looking through the shelves."

Harry looked at the Marauder's Map again, saw that they were still the only ones on the second floor, and returned to Black's countless rows of books. Upon reaching a set of potions encyclopedias, he followed Hermione's earlier example and shook each volume to see if anything fell out from between the pages. Nothing did.

Twenty minutes later, Harry was unsuccessful and exhausted. The time was nearing one o'clock and all they had found out was that Black had bought Firebolts for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, for reasons that had yet to be determined. "We ought to go," said Harry. "We aren't finding anything, and the longer we're gone from bed the more time there is for someone to figure out that we're not there."

Hermione looked up from Black's book. "But Harry, this is the only chance we've got to go through Black's office. Here, just sit down and rest for a few minutes and watch the Map. You're probably just tired of standing up."

Harry sank to the floor, leaning against the bookshelf. On the Map, he saw that Ron's brothers and Ginny were all in their rooms. Hopefully none of them would have any reason to knock on Harry and Ron's or Hermione's door. Madam Pince was walking up and down the aisles of the library, and Harry was only too grateful that they had not gone there tonight. He set the Map on the floor and leaned back. With the only light in the room coming from three wands, Black's armchairs looked like shadowy beasts lurking in the darkness. Harry squinted. There was something under one of the chairs...

He took the Map and his wand and leaned over to see. It was a thick brown book that had Family Law in the Wizarding World stamped across the front. A piece of paper was poking out the top. Harry opened the book, removed the paper and read:

Dear Mr. Black,

While the Court recognizes the veracity of the wills of James Edmund Potter and Lily Evans Potter and acknowledges your legal guardianship of their son Harry James Potter, we are unable to release him to your custody without your having undergone a complete medical examination by a healer appointed by the court. This is a standard procedure that the Court has in place to assure the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children. If you undergo the examination and are found to have no serious and/or easily transmittable diseases, we will promptly release Harry to your custody.

Miranda Phipps

Family Court of Wizarding England, Section Two

Below this message, someone had written, in different handwriting:

Sirius - Look, I don't know what it is that you don't want them to find, but just to make one point clear - they'll still give you custody if you have VD provided you're being treated. Seeing as you won't give me any more information, I don't see what else I can do for you, but I would be glad to continue with your case should you change your mind. Best of luck. Brutus Swift.

"Hermione," Harry said quietly, "Ron, come and look at this."

The suspicion that had been both his best and his worst had been right. There was something medically wrong with Black that had prevented him from raising Harry, something serious enough that Black had not - and, most likely, still did not - want anyone to know about it. Yet it was something that enabled him to live in a school filled with students and teachers without transmitting it -

Ron and Hermione came over at once; when Hermione saw that it was a letter, she whipped out a small notebook from the pocket of her robe and began copying the text at once. "Blimey," said Ron, his eyes moving back and forth across the paper. "You're right, Harry - he's ill."

In light of this new discovery, Harry had not looked at the Marauder's Map in about a minute. He looked now and saw that they were still alone on the floor. But - a small dot was quickly moving down the staircase that connected the second and third floors. It seemed for a moment as though his heart had stopped beating. The dot was labeled "Severus Snape".

"Snape's coming!" he hissed, shoving the Map in Ron and Hermione's faces.

"Don't panic," Hermione whispered, hastily scrawling the end of the message. "All we have to do is be quiet until he's gone."

They sat in silence, all three of them staring at the Map. Snape's dot had reached the second floor and was about five rooms away. "We should go," Ron breathed. "We've found what we wanted, let's get out of here. Nox."

"Nox. He'll hear us opening the window!" Hermione insisted. "He won't come in here, we just have to be quiet - "

The dot continued down the corridor; Harry could hear Snape's footsteps from the other side of the door. They fell silent and the dot stopped right in front of Black's office.

"Under the desk!" Harry mouthed to Ron and Hermione. This was about the worst situation in which to take chances. He put the note back in the book, shoved it under the chair, grabbed the Invisibility Cloak and threw it over his back before picking up the Map and his wand and crawling to the back of the room, Ron and Hermione following as silently as they could.

Black's desk was the sort that had a column of drawers on either side of the space for the owner's legs, and one large piece of wood covering the front. The front was parallel to the door. Harry motioned for Ron and Hermione to get underneath the desk before crawling under himself. Once they were all squashed beneath it Harry covered them as best he could with the Invisibility Cloak. His was the only wand still lit; he shielded most of the light with his hand and craned his neck to look at the map.

Snape was still outside the door; to Harry's horror, he heard the clanking noise of a key ring being lifted and a key inserted in the lock. Hermione had gone very white. The key turned and Snape stepped inside.

Harry had known from the beginning that Snape hated Black, but he had never thought that Snape would actually break into Black's office. For there could be no other reason why Snape was there; Black would assuredly never give him permission. If Snape went to look inside Black's desk, they would escape unnoticed only by being completely silent. Snape's footsteps came near the right of the desk. "Steal from my stores," Snape was muttering to himself. "Steal it right back - "

So that was it. Snape still thought that Black had been the one to steal potions ingredients from his supply cupboard, and now that Black was guaranteed to be out of the castle for the next couple of days he had come to retrieve them. Harry's eyes watered slightly. It was so dusty under the desk.

Snape was lifting and setting down the glass bottles on one of the upper shelves, which Harry had seen but ignored because they all appeared to be empty. Snape, it seemed, had come to the same conclusion; he swore and began to take Black's books off the shelves and slam them back in again. When a few minutes had passed and Snape was still searching the same set of shelves, Harry realized that Snape intended to be just as thorough in his search as they had been in theirs. And that search was bound to bring him to the desk.

Hermione sneezed.

There was a horrible moment of silence, and then Snape's cold voice said, "Show yourself."

If they stayed where they were, Snape would assuredly find them all, Invisibility Cloak or not. Harry took a deep breath and stood up from beneath the desk.

Snape was wearing a very ratty gray dressing-gown and black slippers. "Ah," he breathed. There was a look of sinister delight on his face. "I should have known. Potter."

"What are you doing here?" Harry said.

Snape's dark eyes flashed. "An impudent question, Potter, coming from - "

"This is my godfather's office," Harry said. "Who d'you think he'll mind more being here in the middle of the night, you or me?"

It was a dangerous gamble. Snape had known that Lupin had betrayed Harry's parents; what else might he know that Harry did not? For the moment, however, Snape let it be. "And where are your faithful sidekicks Weasley and Granger?"

"In bed," said Harry.

"In bed - " Snape paused. "Or under the desk?"

"In bed. You can go look under the desk if you don't believe me."

"There are three brooms near the windowsill, Potter."

"Yeah," said Harry, doing the best he could to control his voice. "So?"

"Why, Potter, would there be three brooms in this office?"

"Dunno," said Harry. "I'll have to ask Sirius when he gets back." He had never referred to Black by his first name before, and it sounded funny to his ears.

Snape sat down in one of the armchairs, which, from what Harry could tell, was a bad sign. "So," he said. "The long-orphaned, famous Harry Potter has been reunited with his godfather at last. How very touching."

Harry said nothing.

"And he has explained for his long absence in your life?" Again, Harry was silent. "Answer me, Potter!"

"Sorry," Harry said. "I thought it was a statement, not a question."

"Ah. So Black has told you everything? Perhaps I should rephrase. Is it or is it not true that Black has told you everything about why, up until September of this year, you had no idea that such a person as Sirius Black existed in the world?"

"Yeah," said Harry, more boldly than he actually felt. "But I don't know if I should be sharing it with you."

For a moment he thought Snape was going to rise and slap him across the face. "I expect there are some things he hasn't told you, Potter. For example, his, shall we say, particular alliance with Remus Lupin."

Harry felt as though he were swordfighting on a moving slab of ice in a river, and that any moment he might be left with nowhere solid to stand. "He told me about it," he said. "But here's the way I see things right now. If you go and turn me in, you'll have to admit that you were here for no good reason in the middle of the night. I don't know who Dumbledore would believe, but Sirius'll believe my word over yours in a second. I think you ought to leave right now."

Snape practically leapt to his feet. "Never forget, Potter," he snarled, "never forget that I am a master of this school - "

"And you're still in my godfather's office," Harry said.

" - and you are a boy, an arrogant little boy who believes he may do as he pleases and suffer no consequences. Well, Potter, there are consequences in life that we cannot avoid, your parents learned that when they - "

"Shut up."

"When they trusted their lives to a werewolf! Your father was so like you, he thought he could ignore the rules and walk away unscathed, and where is he now? He's dead and cold - "

"Shut up!" Harry yelled. "You want to talk about my dad, you wouldn't even be here if it weren't for my dad! You'd be dead and cold and you know what, I bet no one would be sorry, either!"

Snape looked as though he were about to explode with rage. "Detention, Potter! Detention on every Saturday from now until the end - "

"I won't go to your stupid detention! If you try and make me I'll tell Sirius everything that happened tonight, right down to how you insulted his best friend!"

They stared at each other, Snape's hand clenching the back of Black's armchair as though he were trying to strangle it. "Very well, Potter," he said softly. "But remember this - Black has no power over what happens in my classroom." He released the chair, strode to the door, slammed it behind him and locked it with such force that the sound echoed in Harry's ears.