Harry Potter and the Return of the Insanity

* * *

Classes resumed as usual on Monday, but nobody bothered to do much more than sit around and talk. Professor Flitwick let them play at first-year Hovering Charms while they hashed over the upcoming festivities, but Snape would no sooner let them slack off than take over as Head of Gryffindor. Which is why, halfway through Potions, he flew into a rage at our three favorite Hogwartians.

“POTTER!” he thundered, as Harry and Ron, who were dueling with sticks of wormwood, each dealt an especially hard blow and cracked both of them in half. “That’s it. You, Granger, and Weasley, follow me. NOW.”

Harry glanced at Ron, his good spirits fading in an instant. This was most unfair, seeing as Hermione hadn’t even done anything wrong, but knowing Snape he wanted to get the three of them while the getting was good.

“I said move,” snapped Snape, glaring at them, and Harry got to his feet with a resigned sigh. More than likely they were going to see Dumbledore, unless Snape decided to be really horrible and hand them over to Filch (Harry didn’t want to think about that one.) He, Ron, and Hermione followed wordlessly after the Potions master, who pointed them into a small room.

“Wait there,” he said, a soft, deadly poison in his voice. “I’ll deal with you at the end of class.” He slammed the door behind him.

Ron stared after him. “Wonder what that was all about?” he said, shivering and drawing his cloak tighter about him.

“Beats me,” said Harry, his breath clouding in the air; it was freezing in here, and if Snape was aiming to give them all hypothermia, he’d probably succeed.

“He’s losing it,” muttered Hermione, blowing on her fingers. “I didn’t even DO anything, why am I in here, anyway?”

Harry didn’t answer; he was too busy looking around at the contents of their little prison. A high slit of a window let a strip of cold sunshine in, that fell across all sorts of oddly mismatched junk. A battered armchair stood beside a rusted cauldron full of broken wands, which was tipped against a cracked set of scales. And beyond that, half shrouded in cobwebs and buried under layers of dust, stood--

“The mirror?” muttered Harry. He wiped the dust from the glass, and nearly yelled out in shock.

It was the Mirror of Erised.

“You guys,” he said, beckoning fervently to Ron and Hermione. “You guys, get over here.”

The two, who had been bickering over God knew what, left off and joined him.

“What is it, Harry?” asked Hermione, coming up behind him. She peered at the mirror over his shoulder, and stopped short. Staring for a moment, her eyes round, she suddenly burst into giggles.

Ron stared at her as though she’d gone mad. “Hermione?” he said, peering over her shoulder. “Oh....” Comprehension dawned on his face.

“Is this the Mirror of Erised?” asked Hermione, reaching up and wiping the dust from the mirror’s frame.

Harry didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at his family. But this image was different from the one he had seen in his first year; there were far more people standing behind him, including Aunt Marge with a punch bowl on her head. Harry nearly laughed aloud at the sight of Lupin and Sirius, both wearing long frilly wedding gowns and linking arms with Doors, who was wearing a tux and a top hat.

He heard Ron snort behind him, and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Malfoy,” Ron said. “He’s wearing a kilt and a poncho and dancing with Millicent Bulstrode.”

“Really?” said Harry, still staring at his own image.

“Well, that and I’m Head Boy and Minister of Magic, and Percy’s cleaning toilets.” He glanced back at Hermione, who was still transfixed.

“Do I want to know?” he asked.

“No,” Hermione said dreamily. “Well, yes, I suppose. I’ve just won the Nobel Peace Prize for uniting wizards and Muggles, and for turning Voldemort into a dung beetle.”

Harry and Ron burst out laughing--this last was so un-Hermione-like that it had to be the truth.

“As pleased as I am that you’re enjoying your punishment,” came a cold voice, “the party is over. Mr. Filch, if you will.”

All three of them winced, and Harry turned to find himself confronted with the grotesque, grinning visage of the caretaker, his old tartan scarf wrapped around his head. Snape stood in the doorway like an overgrown, very malevolent bat.

“Think we’re funny, do you, Potter?” the latter asked softly, leaving his post at the door and advancing on Harry. “You think this whole horrid situation is quite amusing, don’t you?”

“No,” said Harry, wondering uneasily if Snape and Filch just might be planning to hack them into tiny pieces or something. “It was.....the mirror.”

“Mirror?” said Snape, that slightly unstable glint in his eye brightening. “What mirror?”

Harry pointed behind him. “That one,” he said, more nervous than ever.

Snape’s eyes darted past him to the mirror, and he froze. He whirled around and turned back, the comprehension that dawned on his face swiftly turning to horror. He went whiter than Harry would have thought possible, and shoving Filch in front of him he turned and fairly fled.

Ron blinked. “Ooooookkkaaaaayyyy......” he said. “Well, Hermione, you were half right; he’s not losing it, he lost it long ago.”

“No kidding,” said Harry, who was too relieved to have escaped death to care about much else. “Remind me not to run into him down a dark hallway.”

“Harry, don’t run into Snape down a dark hallway,” Ron said promptly. Harry smacked him.

“I wonder what he saw?” Hermione said thoughtfully, as they started down the corridor to the Great Hall.

“Probably told him he should have been a Gryffindor,” Ron snickered to Harry.

The four extra tables in the Great Hall were laid with Hogwarts’ second-best china, and most of the adult guests were already seated at them. Harry had no idea where they’d been or what they’d been doing all day, but this was the first time he’d seen any of them since breakfast.

“So,” said Fred, materializing beside Harry as the three settled down at their table. “How was school?”

“Yah, we want to see if you’re upholding our legacy,” added George, popping up on Harry’s other side. He hopped onto the bench next to Ron and tucked his napkin into his collar.

“So tell us,” said Fred, grabbing Hermione’s napkin and doing the same. “What have you done to further the cause of magical mischief today?”

Harry and Ron looked at one another and burst out laughing. “Well, we scared hell out of Snape about five minutes ago,” said Ron, reaching for a jug of pumpkin juice. The food appeared as he did so, and there was a sudden silence as fifteen hundred people dove for drumsticks and mashed potatoes.

“Oh, do tell,” said George, taking a bite out of his chicken leg and, ignoring his napkin, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his robe. Hermione made a slight noise of disgust.

“Er, well, we didn’t exactly do it,” admitted Ron, pouring gravy over his Cornish game hen. “Snape kicked us all out of class and locked us in this little room, and we found the Mirror of Erised in there.”

“The what?” asked Fred, stealing a piece of Ron’s chicken.

“It’s a mirror that shows you what you want most in the world,” Harry said quickly, not wanting to launch into the whole explanation. The twins nodded sagely.

“Anyhow, we were all looking in it and laughing at what we saw, and then Snape and Filch came in, and I swear they were going to kill us or something.” Ron paused to take a bite. “But the moment Snape gets a look in that mirror, he goes whiter than a sheet and fairly runs for his life. Dunno where he went, but I sure don’t see him in here.”

“Excellent!” said Fred and George together. “I’d say that’s good enough to keep the legacy alive,” added Fred.

“You say this mirror shows you whatever you want most, huh?” asked George, spraying bits of stuffing all over his plate. Hermione turned away, looking faintly green.

“Yuh-huh,” said Harry, through a mouthful of sprouts.

“Wonder what old Slimeball saw?” George snorted. He sent even more food particles hurling across the table, making Ginny edge away from him.

“Probably himself as a Boggart,” sniggered Fred. “Ever since Lupin’s class he’s discovered he likes wearing women’s clothes.”

Even Hermione had to laugh at that one, though Harry could tell she was taking it a bit more seriously than the rest of them. He sighed. Trust her to make a big deal out of something that had just saved them from a lot of trouble.

 

 

He soon discovered he was quite right about Hermione’s ferreting instincts, as he and Ron sat pouring over their Transfiguration homework in the common room that night. It was about ten thirty, and neither one of them was anywhere near finished with their assignment. Hermione, who never left her homework till the last minute and therefore had no business sitting up late, was curled up in an armchair with yet another enormous book, reading by the light of a wand held in her teeth.

“You know, it’s strange,” she said, spitting out her wand.

“What is?” asked Fred. He and George were sitting deep in conversation with Denis Creevey and Natalie McDonald, showing them the various ropes of the life of a proper prankster.

“Oh, why did you have to ask her that?” Ron moaned hopelessly.

Hermione glared at him. “I was wondering if there were any way to make the Mirror of Erised show someone else’s vision,” she said.

Ron rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Oh, Hermione, drop it,” he snapped. “Who cares what Snape saw in that mirror? As if we don’t have enough to keep us busy already.”

“Amen,” said Harry, copying down a likely-looking line about turning shoes into flank steak.

Hermione slammed her book shut. “Open your eyes, you idiot,” she said. “Snape used to work for Voldemort, right? Everyone knows that.”

“So?” said Ron, crossing his arms.

“So what if he saw himself as, you know, a Voldemort lackey again? He’s already unbalanced enough, Lord knows what a sight like that might make him do.”

“You know, Hermione’s got a point,” said George, his expression so serious Harry knew it couldn’t mean anything good. “It might make him wish he was still Voldie’s boyfriend.”

Harry laughed, but only a little; there was far too much running through his head to worry about anything else. Christmas was only a week and a half away....He had maybe eight days before Marge and Gilderoy and the rest of the guests showed up, ready to put all of them through hell. He had no idea if the Dursleys would turn up or not, but if the nasty, sinking feeling in his stomach was any indication, they would.

Hermione and the Weasleys were still bickering over the Mirror, so Harry closed his book and snuck off while they weren’t looking. Too much excitement and nerves were churning inside him, and sitting around listening to his friends carp at one another wasn’t going to help him.

He closed the portrait-hole quietly behind him, creeping off through the dim corridors. It was just late enough that he’d get in trouble for roaming the hallways, but he didn’t care--Doors would have a way to help him, and if she didn’t, she’d think of one right quick.

As he drew near her door some minutes later, he wasn’t surprised to find the whole of her classroom lit up, as well as her more-than-bizarre enough rooms. Harry grinned as the sound of her glee-infused voice floated out to him, evidently talking to herself as she sorted her odd charges.

He paused as another voice answered her--he could see through the crack in the open door to her room that she wasn’t alone after all; Lupin was sitting at her desk, scribbling something on a roll of parchment.

“I still say we tell them about the real thing,” he was saying, dipping his quill in the ink. “It’ll only make things more interesting, and it’s obviously what Dumbledore wanted when he assigned it to them.”

Doors, who was pruning some weird, spiky purple thing, shook her frizzy head. “No way,” she said, smacking the plant as it started edging away from her.

“Why not?” demanded Lupin, corking his ink bottle and wiping his quill.

“Because,” said Doors, sticking her head around the plant and shooting him her most evil grin. “Then we couldn’t use it.”

“Oh, you’re evil,” said Lupin, now smiling as well.

Harry stared at them. Quite apart from the fact that the two of them were planning on using the ‘real’ potion (that was something of a given), there was something almost odd about them. It took him a minute to figure out what it was, but he soon realized that Doors and Lupin had exactly the sort of simpatico Ron had with his brothers. What made it even weirder was that neither one seemed aware of it, as though they had evolved into siblinghood over time.

He shook his head and pushed the door open, grinning himself. “I heard that,” he said, looking from one to the other. “It’s not going to do any good keeping it from us, you know; Hermione’ll crack it in plenty of time to wreak havoc.”

Doors and Lupin laughed. “Oh, I know,” said Doors. “But at least we won’t get blamed for what she does with it.”

“No?” said Lupin, sounding skeptical. “Somehow everything that goes wrong in this school seems to get blamed on us.”

Doors’s eyes twinkled. “Well, WE didn’t teach anyone that recipe, now did we? That was all Snape’s doing.”

Harry made a face. “Oh, don’t bring him up,” he moaned. “Hermione’s gone half ballistic over what he did after Potions today.”

“Really?” said Lupin, waving his parchment about to dry it. “And what was that?”

Harry sighed; he thought everyone had heard by now. “He kicked Ron and Hermione and me out of class today and shut us in a room with the Mirror of Erised. He and Filch came in to do something horrid to us, but Snape got one look in that mirror and ran for his life, and now Hermione thinks he’s going to murder us all in our beds....”

He trailed off--both Doors and Lupin were looking at him like someone had just died. “What?” he asked.

The two professors cast grave glances at one another. “Harry, that’s bad,” Doors said. “Hermione’s right to worry, if everything’s as you say it is. I don’t care how much you think you know about Snape’s...past, you haven’t heard the half of it.”

“What do you mean?” Harry demanded, more than exasperated with the whole affair.

Yet another glance between the professors. “Sit down, Harry,” Doors said. Harry sat, not wanting to know where this was going.

“Listen to me, Harry,” she said, gazing with unusual seriousness into his eyes. “I know Severus Snape, I’ve known him since he was a slimy-haired little pipsqueak first year, and if he’s not rotten through then he’s goddamn close. Have you ever heard what happened to his family?”

Harry shook his head.

“The whole lot of them got vivisected alive one night, when he was four years old. The Snape family always was notorious for their involvement in the Dark Arts, and nobody ever knew just where they got all their power from until their deaths.” She looked at him in silence for a moment, as though willing him to make a response. When he did not, she simply continued. “They’d owed far too great a debt to the Phantoms, and when they couldn’t pay it....Well...”

Harry shuddered. “So, why’d Snape live?” he asked.

To his surprise, a very odd, closed expression came over Doors’s face. “Somebody got to him who believed in second chances,” she said after a moment, giving Harry the suggestion that the subject was rather barred. “Anyhow, he didn’t deserve his second chance, as all of us who met him at school soon found out. He almost cursed Remus at the start-of-term feast, just because Remus got a little--er--overzealous with his fondue.”

“Huh?” Harry asked blankly.

“It flew off my fork and hit him in the forehead,” Lupin said dryly, smirking a little.

“Right,” Doors said. “Harry, my point is that Snape is one of those rare and very unfortunate people who are evil not by choice, but by nature. Whether he wants to be or not, he’s a completely self-serving git, and even if he thinks he doesn’t want an evil power boost, in his basest nature he does. And that probably scares the snot out of him.”

She sighed. “Well, at least he’s less likely to try something in the middle of this fiasco,” she said.

There was a moment’s silence. Finally, Lupin stood and said, “Well, it’s getting late, so I’ll get going. Lorna, remember we’ve got double lessons with the second years tomorrow.” He tucked his roll of parchment into his pocket and left Harry and Doors alone.

“Harry, I’m assuming you had a reason for coming to visit,” Doors said at last.

“Well, I did, but I’ve got more than enough to think about now,” he said.

He must have looked as disturbed as he felt, for Doors clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Great, now look what I’ve done,” she muttered. “Harry, here, have some cocoa and I’ll explain a few things.” She zapped the two of them steaming mugs of hot chocolate, and sitting beside him she put an almost motherly arm around his shoulders.

“Harry, honey, how far back can you remember?” she asked him after a moment.

Harry looked at her, startled. “I-I dunno,” he said slowly. “I remember the night my parents died, a little. But not much after that, until I was maybe three or so and Aunt Marge came to visit.”

He expected Doors to laugh, but she remained serious. “Do you remember me?” she asked.

Now Harry was really floored. “Remember you?” he said, staring at her. “I never met you before fourth year. Did I?”

Doors sighed and closed her eyes. “Harry, what I’m going to tell you is something I’ve never told anyone, not even Remus. You and I have met before now, when you were only four years old. I saved you from the hands of Snape, and basically destroyed his entire existence at the same time.”

Harry gawked at her.

Doors seemed to notice this. “Dammit, I’m not crazy,” she said, a hint of her normal cheer returning. “Snape always thought he should have married Lily, everybody but your parents knew it, and back before he’d learned to hate you he thought you should have been his. Combine that with his inherent hatred of James and I, and you’ve got one massive problem.”

She gave a short laugh. “And so, of course, that’s exactly what he did. The Snape family had been one of the most powerful clan of purebloods ever known, more feared even than the Malfoys, and some traces of that lingered even after most of them died out. He had this huge manor house, the most horrid thing you could possibly imagine, and one night he stole you away from the Dursleys and took you there.”

Harry continued to goggle. This was too much, FAR too much for him to process, and the only response he could manage to this extraordinary announcement was a croaked, “Why?”

Doors sighed again. “I don’t really know,” she said. “Maybe he just cracked, maybe he decided you were going to be his after all, and hang Dumbledore and Voldemort and anyone else who might wish otherwise. All I know is, he kidnapped you and I was the one who had the grave misfortune of having to go in and get you back.”

She drained her mug and set it on the bedside table. “Look, Harry, I don’t want you running around repeating this to anyone, not even Ron and Hermione. What I found in that house was enough to give me nightmares to this day. The Phantoms had entered to kill the Snape family, but what nobody knew, what Snape himself didn’t know, was that They’d never left. That entire manor was riddled with Them, watching, waiting....”

She trailed off, and Harry suppressed a shudder; how anyone could live amid such a horror and not go completely starkers was beyond him. But then, he thought, as an image of Snape’s latest antics popped up in his mind, maybe you couldn’t.

“So...what are you saying?” he asked, suddenly very aware of the many shadows in the room.

“I’m saying that maybe what Snape saw in that mirror was....you,” said Doors, fixing her piercing eyes on him. “A continuation of the night cut short, and one which would have ended very differently. Seeing as he now despises you, such a thought would naturally unhinge him, and in his current state of....mental fragility, who knows what he might do to get rid of that problem.”

“Meaning me,” Harry said grimly. “Why is it I can’t get through one year without somebody trying to kill me? I mean, is it so much to ask?” He swirled the remains of his cocoa around in the mug, staring absently at the whirling patterns.

“Well......here, give me that,” said Doors, taking the cup from him. She peered intently into it, her expression so frighteningly like Professor Trelawney’s that Harry nearly choked.

“Oh dear,” she said, in a voice so baleful Harry was sure she would say he was going to kick off.

“What?” he asked, almost tremulously.

“You’re going to have one disgusting pimple by the end of the week.”

And in spite of it all, both burst out laughing.

 

But now Harry had a new worry: Just what, if anything, Snape was planning to do to him during this wedding. Adding this on top of everything else, he probably couldn’t have borne it, but he was most mercifully spared from thinking about it (or much else) by an unfortunate but nevertheless timely event.

Marge and Gilderoy arrived at the castle.