Phoenix Rising

Chapter 1: Looking for Allies

Harry rolled out off bed and landed with a thud on the floor of Ron's bedroom. Ron grunted in his sleep and turned away from Harry.

After watching him for a few seconds, Harry sidled to his trunk and carefully opened it. He rummaged around until he found the book, the book that Evan Rosier had given him while Harry had been in his Pensieve.

Man, had that been one strange occurrence. Mr. Weasley had confiscated that Pensieve from the Malfoy's and held onto it just long enough for Harry to get into it and then out of it again before Lucius Malfoy had taken it back. Very strange, even for Harry's knack of having things happen to him.

Shrugging, Harry opened the book in the middle and grimaced. Strange symbols, equations, and words filled the page. Harry flipped through the thing and frowned. He couldn't understand one thing in it! Not even the first page! How was he supposed to do the Remembrance Spell Evan had wanted him to do so Severus would remember where he had put his kids?

This was terrible! Hermione. He was going to have to get Hermione to help him. She would be able to understand the book. He wouldn't tell her why he wanted to do the spell but he was sure she would enjoy the challenge nonetheless and maybe, just maybe, he would get Lupin to help him too.

Sighing, Harry stuffed the book back into his trunk. Evan hadn't been kidding about being intelligent, that book, from what Harry had managed to garner from it, was for very advanced witches and wizards, not kids still in school, and yet Severus had given it to Evan while Evan was only a sixth year. He only hoped Hermione was as bright as he had been.

"Oi!" grunted Ron again as he sat up and stared at Harry with sleepy eyes. "What was that noise this morning? Did you find out?"

Harry shook his head. "I just woke up."

"Oh," Ron muttered, getting out of bed. Harry was pleased to see that he had new pajamas on, ones that fit him properly and had room to grow, too.

"I meant to ask you, where did you get those pajamas?" Harry asked.

Ron shrugged. "I found them, along with a new dress robe, on my bed one morning when I woke up. Several of us have gotten small gifts this summer. It's been kind of fun trying to figure out who sent them. My vote is for Charlie."

Harry smiled. It wasn't Charlie. It was Fred and George, using that money Harry had given them wisely.

"Who do Fred and George think it was?" Harry asked, wondering how they were covering it up.

Ron rolled his eyes. "They're convinced it's me! They think you split the money you won with me! What did you do with it, anyway?" he asked.

Harry shrugged. "Threw it into my vault to forget about it," he lied.

Ron nodded his head tactfully and started to change into his robes. Harry followed suit, picking out a dark blue robe.

They tromped down into the kitchen and Harry's mouth watered at the smells of breakfast being prepared. Mrs. Weasley was one good cook. She looked slightly flustered, probably still boiling inside over her encounter with Lucius Malfoy.

A letter lay by his plate. It was from Lupin and Snuffles. Harry grinned as he opened it.

Harry,

Dumbledore has asked me to teach at Hogwarts again! I'll have to be more careful this time, to make sure that nothing like what happened your third year happens again. That was much too dangerous.

Mad-Eye Moody will also be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'll have you for one class during the week and he'll have you for the other. Each house is being taught separately. Dumbledore must be really desperate to hire two DADA professors.

My pet dog, Snuffles, will be coming with me too! He'll be staying with Hagrid, who knows all about Snuffles now, and Fang in Hagrid's cabin.

We'll be coming around the Weasley's to take you all to Diagon Alley and then go with you on the train to Hogwarts!

Lupin and Snuffles

Harry stared at the letter, smiling, excited about seeing Lupin and his godfather again. But, his smile faded a tad, with those two around getting Severus to be his friend was going to be difficult. Sirius hated Severus. Harry would just have to get Lupin on his side, Lupin didn't seem to hold any anger for Severus, and hopefully Sirius would come around eventually.

He let Ron and Hermione (who was also staying with the Weasleys the last week before school started) read the letter, they got just as excited as he did at the news.

"By the way, mum," Ron said, looking back at his mum, "what was all that noise this morning?" he asked, when he had put the letter back in its envelope.

Mr. Weasley went red-eared, but he and his wife just shrugged. "Nothing important," he mumbled, clearing indicating that it had been important.

Harry stuffed food down his throat, eager to drag Hermione upstairs and have her see that book. Especially before Lupin and Sirius arrived.

Hermione and Ron, seeing that Harry was eating fast and eager to go back upstairs to show them something, ate fast too. Ginny, Harry noticed, looked rather hurt at being excluded. She was fourteen now, maybe it was time Harry started to treat her like it.

"Hurry up, Ginny," Harry said between mouthfuls, "or you'll hold us up!"

Blushing just a tad bit, Ginny hurried up.

Once done they all rushed upstairs.

"What is it?" Ron asked, breathless.

Harry suddenly realized he had no way to explain his sudden possession of the book, so he opted for a lie none of them would ever try to verify.

"Dumbledore sent me a book for my birthday and I just got around to opening it up this morning," he lied, feeling guilty that it came so easily. "But I can't understand anything in it."

Hermione's eyes started to glow in excitement. "Can I see it?"

Harry quickly pulled it out of his trunk.

Hermione's excitement vanished as she flipped through it. "I can't understand it!" she said, horrified.

Harry's heart dropped like a stone, and he had to fight against the tears. Great! he thought savagely, Severus would never get his kids back. Unless, unless he told Dumbledore. But that would be betraying Evan's and Severus's trust. Harry steeled himself. Getting Severus's kids back was more important than anything else, if Severus hated him for the rest of his life for telling Dumbledore than so be it, so long as he had his kids with him.

"I'll just have to take it back to Dumbledore and explain it to him," Harry decided.

Hermione handed the book to Ron, who handed it to Ginny with wide eyes when he was done with it. Ginny looked through it, her own eyes widening up.

"Did Dumbledore honestly think you were ready for that?" Hermione asked, studying him carefully.

Harry thought fast. "Dumbledore once told me that people were always giving him books, even when he didn't want them. Maybe he was just hoping to get rid of it."

Hermione bought it, as did Ron and Ginny. It was a good thing that none of them really knew Dumbledore that well.

"Visitors!" called up Mrs. Weasley's voice.

Harry stuffed the book into his trunk and sped downstairs to meet his dad's two best friends. Sirius looked good, as did Lupin. Harry hugged them both and then they all settled into the living room to talk about things; Voldemort's rebirth, Dumbledore's break with Fudge, Fudge being in Lucius Malfoy's pocket, and all the other heavy things that were happening.

"I still can't believe that Dumbledore trusts Snape!" Sirius interjected as the discussion turned to the upcoming school year. "He was a Death Eater!"

"People make mistakes," Harry quietly defended from his position on the floor in between Ron and Hermione.

Lupin nodded his head from his position beside Sirius, all four adults were on the couch. "Dumbledore wouldn't trust Severus unless he had a reason to."

"I think he's still a Death Eater," Fred said, giving up trying to oust George from the most comfortable chair and settling on the second best one. "Just making everyone think he's reformed so he can...."

"Severus isn't pretending!" Harry growled, spinning around to glare at Fred. "He's on our side! Leave him alone!"

Fred's eyebrows shot up. "Harry," he said, "we are talking about the man that has made your life as miserable as he can since you first walked into Hogwarts!"

"So," Harry shrugged.

"So?" Lupin asked.

"Since when have you called Snape, Severus?" came Sirius's voice.

Harry looked back at them. "Severus is his name. I call you by your first name," Harry said softly. "Plus, he doesn't hate me anymore."

"How do you know that?" Ron asked.

Harry looked at him and became aware of how everyone else was staring at him too, with puzzled expressions and astonishment. Oops! He was going to have to tone down his defenses of Severus. And start calling him Snape, too.

"At the end of year feast, Snape," he said carefully, "didn't look at me with loathing anymore. He just looked at me like he looks at everyone that isn't a Slytherin," Harry explained. "And he did defend me when Fudge didn't believe me about Voldemort rising. Showing off his Dark Mark like that, when no one in the room but Dumbledore knew he had been a Death Eater, was awfully brave."

Sirius grudgingly nodded his head. "Yeah, it was."

Lupin leaned back on the couch. "I guess we should have guessed he was one. Evan Rosier and Florence Wilkes, his two best friends, turned out to be ones. And so did those other three they hung out with."

"Snape was friends with Rosier?" Mr. Weasley asked, his voice tight.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded his head.

Mr. Weasley shuddered. "After Rosier had been brought down by Moody, we found a hit list on him." Harry nodded his head. Evan had done what he had said he would do, get Moody to bring him down. "The people that he killed, those were the worst 'clean-up' calls we ever had."

"What do you mean?" Lupin asked, sitting up.

"Evan Rosier was half-troll," Mr. Weasley explained, "and when people with troll blood kill they often use their hands and teeth instead of their wands. I had nightmares for weeks about what I saw on those calls. Especially when we went to Christopher Mayor's house."

Mayor? Harry wanted to ask if that was the same Mayor that had been Head of Slytherin when Severus was a student, but didn't dare.

"The Head of Slytherin House when we attended Hogwarts?" Sirius asked, curiously.

Mr. Weasley nodded his head. "We had to burn his house down it was so bad. Usually Evan had just killed the person and left their house alone but Mayor's house he totally destroyed. We figured it was someone from Slytherin House that had killed Mayor, seeking revenge for the way they had been treated while he was the Head of their House, but we didn't know exactly who until we found that list."

"He didn't like Slytherins?" Hermione asked. "But he was their Head of House?"

Lupin nodded his head, rubbing his forehead. "It was a mess. Dumbledore couldn't get anyone else to be Head of Slytherin House, everyone was afraid of them because it was well known that Voldemort's recruits were coming almost solely from Slytherin House, so he was stuck with Mayor. But Mayor hated the Slytherins. No one really knew why. Anyway, he was really mean to them."

"Is that why Snape favors the Slytherins so much, then?" George asked. "To make up for the way he got treated?"

Lupin shrugged. "Severus was his least favorite student," Lupin's face got dark. "Mayor was constantly telling Severus he was a servant of Voldemort, even when he was just a first year. The first time Mayor told him that I overheard Severus asking Rosier and Wilkes who Voldemort was. He didn't even know back then! And Mayor hinted, more than once, that the world would be a better place if Severus was dead."

"Ouch!" Harry said loudly.

"He had never heard of You-Know-Who before he started Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, looking kind of embarrassed. "I always thought he had been raised by a dark witch or wizard."

Sirius glanced at her, scratching his head. "So did I. Maybe they just didn't mention Voldemort around Snape so Snape wouldn't spill the beans while at school."

"But Draco Malfoy knew about You-Know-Who," Arthur Weasley said, "ever since he was a kid, way before he went to Hogwarts. And Professor Snape would have been raised during You-Know-Who's rise to power. I find it kind of hard to believe his parents wouldn't have mentioned You-Know-Who to Snape if they were serving them."

Lupin shrugged. "Not all dark witches and wizards served Voldemort, though. Maybe Severus's parents, or parent, didn't."

"I wonder if Mayor ever found out he had been correct about Snape?" Sirius wondered.

"I just hope Mayor wasn't the reason why Severus joined Voldemort," Lupin interjected.

Sirius scoffed. "He was mean all right, but that's no excuse for Severus turning against us!"

Harry had to bit his lower lip to keep himself from speaking up. Man, this was hard!

"I know that!" Lupin said, as impatiently as Harry had ever heard him. "But think about it. Severus had nobody but his two best friends to go to. Everyone else thought he was evil. If he ever ditched them I doubt he could have gotten more friends and I'm sure he knew that. So he just followed their lead and their lead took him to Voldemort."

"That's no excuse!" Sirius said.

Lupin sighed. "How many on our side are just on our side because they are following their friends' leads? It makes sense that there would be some doing that on the other side, too."

"He has a point!" Harry said, loudly again.

He got several more puzzled looks.

"Maybe," Sirius sighed.

"Let's play Quidditch!" Mrs. Weasley said, sensing the tension in the air.

Harry immediately got up. "Yeah, I want to try my hand at being a beater!"

Their conversation was soon forgotten, except by Harry, who was more determined than ever to get Lupin on his side in trying to make Severus his friend.