Sssss speech ssssss parseltongue

** speech** telepathy

And the basilisk made three.

"Why should I care what happens to that bushy-haired loser? Snarled Ron. Harry flinched back as though he had been slapped.

"Fine, I'll go tell her there's a troll loose in the school by myself," said Harry.

Harry reached the bathroom just before the troll, and shouted to Hermione.

"Hermione! There's a troll!"

Hermione looked up from where she was sobbing on the floor, and screamed as the troll came in to the bathroom. Harry grabbed her by the hand and retreated, without taking his eyes off the troll, until he backed up against a sink with a curious snake motif on it.

sssssOh help, someone, help!sssss he cried, unaware he was speaking parseltongue.

Sssss Speaker? I come! Tell the tube to open!" said a voice.

Sssss open!sssss said Harry.

The sink slid away with a grating noise, and Hermione whimpered as the troll smashed his club into the piece of damaged stall she tried to levitate into his way.

And then the massive snake shot out of the hole of the sink and the troll was gone in two bites.

Ssss thank you, speaker, that was a good meal. Is the human also prey or is she your mate?sssss

Ssss she is s friend ssss said Harry. It might not be true as such, but facing death together was enough to give them the start of a bond.

"Harry, are you a parselmouth?" asked Hermione. "You're speaking to a very, very big snake. I ... I think it's a basilisk and they can kill by looking at you."

Ssss tell your mate that I can hood my eyes and that a sspeaker is never in danger from a basilisk's

Ssss right, thanks,ssss said Harry. Ssss you had better go back down; I can hear people coming. Sssss

The basilisk glided away.

"He said he can hood his eyes," said Harry. "What are we going to tell people?"

"Leave the tube open and say we tripped the troll and he fell," said Hermione.

"They might go down," said Harry. Ssss close ssss

"Let me do the talking," said Hermione, just before Professors McGonagall and Snape burst in.

"Miss Granger! Mr. Potter! Whit are ye doing here?" demanded McGonagall.

"Harry came to warn me about the troll," said Hermione. "Only then it turned up, and we ran around a lot, but we managed between us to drop that sink," she indicated one the troll had ripped out, "on its head, and I think it got confused and concussed because it wandered off."

"It wandered off?" Snape sounded sceptical.

"Well it's not hiding in one of the stalls, is it, Severus?" asked Minerva. "head wounds are tricky things, even for trolls. You're not accusing these two of making this much damage by themselves, are you?"

"Not at all, Minerva, and indeed the troll seems to have left his club. And there is troll blood. I wonder where it might have wandered to?" he frowned at the two children.

"I don't care so long as it isn't here," said Harry, frankly. "I won't mind if I never meet another troll in my life."

"Ten points to Gryffindor for seeking out a classmate and minus five for not getting a prefect to do it," said Minerva. "What were you doing in here in the first place, Miss Granger?"

"Ron Weasley was a bully in charms and she ran out, and Lavender said she was still in the toilet trying to make sense of him being a git," said Harry, before Hermione could concoct an excuse.

"I see," said McGonagall, her lips thinning. "I will have words with Mr. Weasley. Now you two, get to the common room. Severus, we need to find the troll and shoo it out."

"If concussed it might try to follow its own scent trails home for comfort," said Snape. "Hurry along you two, or I'll take points for dawdling."

They hurried along.

"How long have you known you were a parselmouth?" asked Hermione, when they were out of earshot.

"Uh, since you told me?" said Harry. "I just spoke to it like to anyone."

Hermione huffed.

"No, Harry, you were hissing. There were weird words in the hisses, but it was hissing. Do you think I could learn?"

"I dunno," said Harry. "I just say things to snakes and they understand and I understand them."

"We shall probably need a picture of a snake," said Hermione, "and then you can say words and I'll try to copy them."

"Uh, right," said Harry. "I told the snake you were my friend. Was ... was that okay?"

Hermione stopped and stared at him.

"Would you really like to be my friend?" she asked.

"Yeah, you're smart, and you don't squeal like a girl at snakes," said Harry.

"Harry Potter, anyone might squeal at a basilisk!" said Hermione. "I was too scared to squeal."

Harry chuckled.

"Well if you couldn't understand it, I guess that makes sense. But I would like to be your friend. I thought I was Ron's friend, but he made you cry, and then he wouldn't come with me to look for you, and I don't want to be friends with someone like that."

They had reached the common room by this time, and Ron came forward.

"Hey, Harry, mate, you find the bushy-haired menace then?" he said.

Harry hit him hard, in the mouth.

"I find your way of talking about people ... disturbing," he said. It worked for Darth Vader. "Hermione drove the troll off, once she was prepared."

"We did it together," said Hermione. "It needed both of us to cast wingardium leviosa on the sink to drop on it."

"Yeah," said Harry. "It was as well you didn't come, Weasley; it needed some competent spell casting."

Hermione slid her hand into Harry's surreptitiously and squeezed it.

Learning parseltongue was a lot harder than learning French, but Harry had the idea of taking Hermione down to visit the baslisk so he, or as it turned out, she, could help. It was a nice, quiet place to take their homework, especially when Sassie, which was as close as they could get to the basilisk's name, suggested calling for stairs for the back door, and showed them other ways in and out of the Chamber of Secrets. He also showed them Salazar Slytherin's library, which included a dictionary of written parseltongue and books on parselmagic, which were mostly concerned with healing. Which, as Hermione said, stood to reason as Paracelsus was a parselmouth, proving that it wasn't the province of evil wizards.

Harry found learning fun now he was allowed to study without being afraid of making either Dudley or Ron mad. He was left alone by the Weasley twins, once they found out what their brother had done, and Harry tactfully managed to persuade Hermione not to make him feel bad by knowing all the answers in class. They managed to stun Professor Snape by improving no end at potions, when Hermione discovered a note in Salazar Slytherin's journal that parselmagic could help improve potions and increase their potency.

"If you're sure it's not cheating," she worried to Harry.

Harry stared.

"Was it cheating when someone did things to willow bark to turn it into aspirin?" he asked.

"Well, no, but ..."

"But nothing, it was an advanced technique. I can see jealous people saying that it's cheating because they aren't parcelmouths, but then, they should have learned it like you did," he said.

Hermione considered this. Harry was a natural parselmouth but he still had to learn how to use it for magic and she had worked hard to learn enough to use, as well as to chat to Sassie. It was not cheating to do something which was something you had strived for.

"Mr. Potter, I hope you and Miss Granger are not spending too much time in broom closets," said a seventh year prefect.

Harry blinked.

"Why would we want to do that? Hermione doesn't even like flying, and we aren't allowed on brooms without supervision," he said.

"Eloise, he's eleven," said one of the other prefects. "You aren't in the common room much."

"No, it's too loud to do homework," said Harry. "We found an abandoned room where we could study. It isn't against the rules, I looked."

"No, it isn't against the rules, but your house is your family," said Eloise.

"Yes, but I avoid my relatives like the plague because they are bullies like Weasley, Brown and Patil," said Harry. "Why should I treat my house any differently? Weasley keeps trying to sabotage my potions, and those rotten girls are mean to Hermione. And none of you prefects actually care or you'd put a stop to it, so we look out for ourselves, thank you very much."

"Of course we care! Why didn't you come to us?" asked the other prefect.

Harry gave him a rather fishy stare.

"You were there when Brown was giving Hermione a hard time about her teeth," he said. "And you just laughed."

"Why ... she didn't seem to mind," spluttered the prefect.

"Well, that's the first rule of dealing with bullies, isn't it?" said Harry. "Never let them see that you mind, try to ride the blows you can and pretend not to feel the ones you can't ride."

The two prefects exchanged looks and went to talk to their head of house about certain insights into how victims of bullies might not be obvious.

They did not notice the tall figure who disillusioned himself when they came in to Madam McGonagall's room, babbling how much they were in need of advice, and Severus Snape listened in astonishment to hear how Potter spoke of his supposedly loving family. It sounded too familiar. Surely the saviour of the wizarding world did not need to use impudent indifference to hide how much he was hurting? Snape resolved to watch more closely. And if the Granger brat was after validation by her teachers to cover a less than perfect home life, that bore watching too.

McGonagall listened, and got rid of the prefects with a few platitudes and encomiums on their skills at noticing things, to which Snape huffed gently to himself. 'Gryffindor' and 'noticing things' was an oxymoron.

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A week later, Snape finished potions by saying,

"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, please stay behind."

"You'll catch it now," hissed Malfoy. "What have you and the mudblood been up to now, Scarhead?"

"Mr. Malfoy for using disgusting and derogatory terms, you are in detention with Mr. Filch until the end of term," said Snape. "Now get out. I have no desire to have to add to your detentions, I have better things to do with my time."

Malfoy got.

"Sir?" Hermione was starting to panic.

"Sit down, both of you," said Snape. "I know you Lions should be the responsibility of Madam McGonagall, but she doesn't have the same experience that I do to recognise children who are abused."

"And you want me to help Harry?" said Hermione.

"Miss Granger, I believe you are both abused," said Snape. Hermione went red.

"I'm not abused! My parents want the best for me!" she shouted."

"There's a line in a play which says, 'methinks the lady doth protest too much'," said Snape. "I suggest to you, Miss Granger, that your parents want what is best for their aspirations for you, regardless of whether that is, indeed, best for you. I suggest you went to a Montessori school before you were three, to facilitate learning to read, have had tutors and coaches every holiday, probably entered school a year or two early and have completed two years secondary education in a private school and your parents only agreed to you attending Hogwarts if you promised to study hard to keep up with muggle subjects at weekends and in the holidays. I suggest you are also at least grade 6 in piano or some other instrument."

"What's abusive about that?" asked Hermione.

"What isn't?" said Snape. "Now if you picked up reading at your mother's knee at an early age, and wanted to go to school early because you were bored, and asked for tutors in the holiday, I'll content myself with rolling my eyes at you being a, er, nerd, and will withdraw any further comment. However, if you are honest, and can say that any of that was not your own idea, and that sometimes you'd like to just disappear and climb a tree with a story book not a school book, then you acknowledge abuse."

Tears welled up in Hermione's eyes.

"I'm sure they mean well," she said in a small voice.

"Do they praise you at least twice as much as they put your efforts down?"

Hermione dissolved into a sobbing pile.

"And do they tell you they are proud of you, to your face, or do they just show off your achievements to neighbours and relatives?"

Hermione sobbed. Harry put his arm around her.

"Don't be rotten to her!" he shouted.

"Potter, if you have a broken bone, would you leave it to heal badly or pull it into the right position, which hurts, to heal properly?" asked Snape.

"Uh ... I dunno, what has that to do with it?" demanded Harry.

"Mr. Potter, sometimes you have to hurt someone to heal them," said Snape. He waved his wand over Harry, and his breath hissed in. "Ah. I understand now how you don't realise that broken bones are supposed to be set, when reasonable guardians take their charges to the hospital," he went on. "You are half-starved, half-blind with incorrect lenses, making it hardly surprising you cannot read what I write on the board and so make fundamental errors, and you have old injuries, which I assume came from your cousin as they do not bear the stamp of an adult abusing you, but which have been left to heal on their own. Have I got that correct?"

Harry dropped his eyes.

"Yes, sir," he muttered.

"Have the adults ever hit you?"

"Only once each," said Harry. "I burned breakfast once when I wasn't used to cooking, and even standing on the stool I couldn't see very well what I was cooking so she hit me with the frying pan. And Uncle Vernon whacked me with his belt end once when I threw Dudley across the room. I didn't mean to, but it was my fault for being a freak..." he tailed off at the look on Snape's face, and cowered.

"Foolish boy, I'm not angry at you, I'm furious at your aunt and her husband," snapped Snape. "Right. We have established that you both have abusive family."

"I'd take being given extra education any day over living in a cupboard and being Dudley's punching bag," said Harry.

"I don't think you understand what is the worst thing that has been done to both of you," said Snape. "What Miss Granger suffers from is a feeling that she has to prove how good she is, to avoid being told off for not being good enough, for fearing failing. As that has been compounded by discovering the prejudice in the wizarding world towards the muggleborn Miss Granger is currently very fragile, and is going to depend on YOU to help her to realise that she can have friends, even when overtrained in the matter of academe. And YOU will need HER to understand that you can achieve anything you want to achieve and that you are not a freak. And I want you both to know that I understand, probably better than either of you will ever know, and to a certain extent from inside both your skins," he added. Why did I tell them that? They don't need to know that my muggle father was free with his fists and my mother was an underachiever who dumped her ambitions on me. "I will see you both in my office every Friday after school where I will teach you penmanship, and how to structure essays properly without loading every fact you know into them. I suspect your parents encourage you in this, Miss Granger, and your tutors dare not go against them. However, if you are writing me an essay on the properties of Asphodel, I do not need to know the chemical formula for nail varnish just because you had put anti-nailbiting varnish on your fingernails when writing it."

Hermione managed a rather hysterical giggle at that.

"I'm not allowed to do better than Dudley," muttered Harry.

"Dudley, however, isn't here," said Snape. "Where, by the way, do you disappear to?"

They exchanged looks.

"If he's going to help us we ought to be honest," said Hermione.

Harry sighed.

"But they might want to ssss kill Sassie sssss" he said.

"Mr. Potter, are you a parselmouth?" asked Snape.

"Please, sir, I'm not evil, and nor are big snakes," said Harry.

"Mr. Potter, I am head of the house of snakes," said Snape. "And what big snake is this?"

"The troll didn't wander off, Harry called Sassie, and she ate it," said Hermione.

"Now you've done it, he'll have people kill Sassie because he'll say basilisks are dangerous, even though she does hood her eyes," said Harry, bitterly.

Snape sat down and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Are you telling me that you children stumbled on the legendary Chamber of Secrets and woke up Salazar Slytherin's familiar?" he said.

"She was awake already, she was going to hunt in the forest," said Harry. "And I called for help and she came."

"Then I believe that means that her allegiance as familiar has passed to you, Mr. Potter, and it is against the law to kill a wizard's familiar unless they pose an active threat to the wizarding world," said Snape. "I can brew you a potion to make the connection closer so that you can make sure she does not pose a threat to the wizarding world. She ate a whole troll? Really?"

"Well her head is about the same length as its body," said Harry. "She's mostly sleeping, now, but she said we could go to her lair and work in Slytherin's own library."

Snape was hungry.

"I ... I would be much obliged if you would show it to me," he said. "I will also advise you if I think that any of the books are dangerous to you at your age. I doubt an outsize snake would know," he added.

"No, she doesn't really get that we are too young to be mated," said Harry.

"Wait, what?" said Hermione. "I didn't pick up that much."

Harry blushed.

"She asked if you were my mate; it was easier to let her think so," he said. "But I guess I should have mentioned it, especially as you know enough parseltongue now if she mentions it again."

"You should have mentioned it," said Hermione.

"You have been able to teach Miss Granger parseltongue?" Snape was amazed.

"Oh, yes, sir, she's a very quick study," said Harry.

"I ... would like to learn," said Snape.

Harry beamed.

"Well as you're teaching us extra stuff, fair exchange is no robbery," he said.

He still looked too much like James Potter, but knowledge would always buy the singed and battered heart of Severus Snape.

"It is a deal," said the Potions Master. "And I will ask Madam McGonagall how she expects you to read the board with incorrect glasses, and if, as I suspect, she has not got time to take you to an optician herself, I will do so. It's a disgrace, and it's not as if eye tests and spectacles weren't free for children on the national health, what was Petunia Evans thinking of?"

"Specsavers is in town and the car park is expensive and she didn't want to hang around for me to have a test," said Harry. "And she found a pair in a charity shop."

"I cannot adequately express my opinion of your mother's sister," said Snape. "I would be fired for bad language."

Harry chuckled.

"I expect I've thought some of it for you," he said.

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Harry stared about Diagon Alley with his new glasses, which had square, gold frames nothing like James Potter's. It made, thought Snape, a real difference to his face, showed up Lily's eyes better, and highlighted that he had her cheekbones too, which led to one noticing that his chin was hers as well.

"Professor, there are individual bricks on the houses!" said Potter, awed.

"There always have been, you silly child," said Snape.

"Well, yes, but I never could see that from across the street," said Potter.

"That bad? Really, it's disgraceful that nobody noticed before," said Snape. "We are going to get you some self-inking quills as well; your chicken-scratch is hard enough to read without adding to the number of blots, and I want you concentrating on penmanship, not on avoiding blots. One thing at a time."

"There are self-inking quills? I love magic!" said Harry.

He protested about being bought new clothes of course, but having jeans and t-shirts which fitted, and trainers which were not held together with tape had the boy thanking Snape effusively.

"I can't stand you looking like I looked," said Snape, gruffly.

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"Why would I care that there's a three-headed dog on the third floor corridor?" asked Harry, when Ron, Dean and Seamus told the rest of their dormitory about it. "I have better things to do with my time than risk getting triple rabies from an animal which has to have come from somewhere like Greece and probably hasn't been through customs quarantine."

"Wot?" said Ron.

Harry sighed.

"Just because there's no rabies in Britain doesn't mean foreign animals imported illegally can't bring it in, and if you don't know about customs and quarantine means it doesn't exist in the wizarding world, and that's seriously inconsiderate and stupid to even risk it," he said. "Anyway, I'm learning too much to have time to waste barking up the wrong, er, corridor."

"I agree," said Neville, softly. Harry and Hermione had dragged him, protesting, to their Friday night lessons, to inform Professor Snape that Neville was being abused too, and it had marked a somewhat better relationship between boy and professor, especially when Harry pointed out that the wrong wand was as abusive as the wrong glasses. As a temporary measure, Snape had sent a castle elf to collect all the lost wands from over the years, to see if one suited Neville better, and he was currently happy with a rosewood wand with a unicorn mane hair core which produced far better results for him than his father's wand.

Snape had written a waspish letter to Lady Augusta Longbottom along the lines that mistaken ideas of loyalty were what had led to the Lestranges attacking her son and daughter in law. He wrote that he considered it positively dark to torture a child with feeling inadequate over having a wand which might just as well be used for stirring coffee as anything else since trying old abandoned wands had shown the boy to be more than adequate with a better fit. He also threatened to go to wizarding child services over endangering a child's life to see if he was a squib or not, and more or less said that so long as the boy had his own wand, he would not do so.

It was a Slytherin piece of blackmail and more vitriolic than it would have been had not Snape been fooled into thinking that Neville was virtually a squib. He had seen what he expected at first of Potter, and what he was told of Longbottom, and Snape subscribed to the view of fool me twice, shame on me.

Neville was finding parselmagic a lot easier than ordinary magic now he was also learning parseltongue, and if one reason he was keen was because he thought his grandmother would disapprove, there was no harm in a little rebellion.

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It has to be said that Snape had been shaken by the size of Sassie, but having overcome that, he negotiated through Harry to milk some of her venom, and take her shed skin and cast off teeth as potion ingredients, promising to share with Harry and his confreres. The shed skin was fairly recent, and Snape suggested full suits of armour for all of them.

He was under no illusions that the Philosopher's Stone was designed to test Harry as much as to trap Quirrel and he was pleased that the idle conversation of the children suggested that they had no desire to try to handle a Cerberus or anything it was guarding.

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"My parents are going to France for Christmas; they've sent me end of term exam papers to complete," said Hermione, hyperventilating.

Harry grabbed her arm and manoeuvred her to the dungeons.

Once Snape understood what was happening, he sighed.

"Hermione," he said, in an unwontedly gentle voice, "A lot depends on whether you want to go back to your parents, and their unreasonable demands on you, or whether you prefer to fully embrace the wizarding world."

"But ... but they are my parents, I'm supposed to love them," said Hermione.

"That isn't what I asked," said Snape.

Hermione burst into tears.

"I don't cry this much," she said into Snape's handkerchief.

"It is perfectly normal for the victim of an abusive relationship to be unwontedly lachrymose when having admitted to the abuse and when coming to terms with it," said Snape.

"He said it's okay to cry because you're learning how to deal with your life becoming normal when it hasn't been," said Neville.

"Did I really need translating, Mr. Longbottom?" said Snape.

"Yes," said Harry.

Hermione emerged from the handkerchief.

"Oh Professor Snape, you're the strictest, sternest professor in the school but I do wish you were my daddy. Although you need translating so people understand that a nod and 'acceptable' from you is the same as 'very well done' from other teachers, you do give credit where it's due, and don't just find the things to criticise."

Snape burned red.

"I ... hrrrr'm!" he said. "I wouldn't be a very good father."

"I dunno, sir, we've none of us got great role models and you knock them all into a cocked hat now you realise we aren't just being lazy and impudent," said Harry.

Snape sighed.

"I admit to making mistakes," he said.

"I rather think that's why we like you, sir," said Hermione. "You admit to them, which makes you ..."

"... More grown up than Mione's parents," opined Harry. "I guess if anyone was good enough to be a helper to you in the holidays, Hermione would," he added, with a sigh. "I know I'm not good enough, but I'm good at cleaning and cooking."

"Are you silly children making a bid to stay with me in the long holidays?" asked Snape.

Hermione and Harry exchanged looks.

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

"He's tough, but he's fair," said Harry, who had sometimes managed to purloin Dudley's old 2000AD comics with Judge Dredd in them.

"I don't do fathering," said Snape.

"Except to your snakes," said Harry. "I bet you look out for Millicent Bulstrode when Parkinson is bullying her."

"I do not, however, plan on taking Miss Bulstrode home for the holidays," said Snape.

"I'd go back to sleeping in a cupboard and would cook every meal and polish and scrub like mad for a chance not to go back to the Dursleys," said Harry. "I could pay for my keep with work."

"I don't know where to go if I don't go back to my parents," said Hermione. "But won't they make a fuss?"

"Not if I hand wizarding child services a copy of this outrageously demanding letter and the extra assignments," said Snape. "You'd be removed from their custody in a twinkling of an eye."

"I don't know, sir," said Hermione. "Do ... should I try harder to please them?"

"Since this loving letter says that as you've had to waste your time monkeying about to make sure you don't present a danger to your family with your ridiculous powers, you should at least strive to keep up with what they call 'real studies' until you are old enough to be in control and can be removed from the 'unwholesome environment of the unscientific', I don't think you are ever going to please them," said Snape. "They are displeased that you are a witch, and that, my girl, is something you cannot change. You need to make a choice as to whether you do plan to learn just enough to control your powers so you can then return to their world and do their bidding, or whether you wish to embrace being a witch and eschew the muggle world. I'm afraid this is only too common with some muggleborn and halfbloods." He hesitated. "My father disliked magic, and my mother wanted me to prove to her relatives that marrying a muggle did not leave me weak. So you see, I do understand."

"Did anyone call child services for you?" asked Hermione.

"No. My head of house was a fatuous idiot concerned with his own image and making useful connections," Snape almost spat. "And Dumbledore made it clear that Slytherin were to be despised."

Hermione looked shocked.

"It's true," said Neville. "I had a spat with Blaise, who's ok really, and Dumbledore gave me points for defending myself manfully, and I pulled wand first."

"Did you tell him that?"

"Yes, I did and all he did was twinkle at me and said that doubtless the insults I received warranted it."

"The headmaster is not all wise and all knowing, Hermione," said Snape, harshly. "In fact, I suspect he's a bit like your father, and that's why you want to please him as an authority figure who needs to be appeased."

Hermione stared at him, her mouth open.

"I ... I wanted to have someone to respect and look up to," she said.

"Well we have Professor Snape," said Harry. He grinned at the potions master. "Tell you what, sir, if you have Hermione and me for the summer hols, we won't call you 'daddy' in school."

"HARRY!" said Hermione, scandalised.

Snape stared, and then he laughed.

"How very Slytherin of you, Mr. Potter," he said.

"The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, but I'd met Malfoy," said Harry.

"Not conducive to a favourable disposition towards my house," said Snape.

"No," said Harry. "It's OK, Nev, I didn't need that translated."

"I don't need translating," said Snape, waspishly.

"Only sometimes, sir," said Harry. "Is it a deal?"

"I will consider the ramifications of your suggestions," said Snape. "However, I suspect the decision of the headmaster might have something to do with you returning to your relatives. Because your mother sacrificed her life for you, there are blood wards which enact through her blood because of your Aunt Petunia, as long as you consider 4 Privet Drive to be your home."

"But I've never considered it to be my home," said Harry. "It's a prison where I live. Hogwarts is my home. I hate it there and I hate Aunt Petunia and she hates me."

"I think right now the headmaster is just having a heart attack as his monitoring devices on the wards blow up," said Snape, dryly.

"The wards are intent based?" asked Neville. "Oh, then if your aunt doesn't see you as family, they've never functioned properly, Harry."

"Well she doesn't see me as family and I don't see her as family either," said Harry, firmly. "I'm going home in the summer with you, Daddy."

"Don't even start that in jest or you will be scrubbing cauldrons for the next seven years," said Snape.

"If he tries to send me back, I'll go and live with Sassie and he doesn't know where to find another parselmouth, unless you've told him, sir," said Harry.

"I haven't," said Snape. "And I shall not. I ... let's get Christmas over and Easter before we worry about the summer."

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Christmas at Hogwarts was a revelation to Harry. Being allowed to join in with the festivities was amazing, and finding presents on his own bed left him staring in wonder. He gathered them up to run down to the common room, where he found Hermione, also with an armful of parcels. Nobody else was up.

"You weren't expecting anything either, were you?" said Harry, shrewdly.

"No, my parents usually give me a book token but I had a letter from them saying that they doubted a book token would be acceptable in my new world, so they wished me good luck instead," said Hermione.

"I suppose that beats a used tissue," said Harry. "But look, I have four parcels!"

"I have three," said Hermione. "But I have had parcels before."

"You are generous," said Harry. "Shall we open the ones addressed in Professor Snape's handwriting first?"

"Yes, and I am glad we found a mail order catalogue to get him something," said Hermione.

Harry unwrapped his parcel and his eyes widened at a deluxe potions kit. Hermione had one too.

"I feel kinda mean just getting him a subscription to a magazine," said Hermione.

"Yes, likewise for a gift voucher for potion ingredients," said Harry. "But we'll know him better next year."

Harry had got Hermione a book about famous muggleborn witches and wizards, and she had got him a book on how astronomy affects other magical skills. Neville had got them each chocolates, which was what they had got for him, as they didn't know him as well as they knew each other. The fourth gift Harry unwrapped, to find it was a silvery cloak, and with it was a note saying,

"Your father left this with me, use it well."

"It's a bit ..." said Harry.

"Dracoish?" said Hermione.

Harry chuckled and threw it around himself, trying to strut. Hermione gasped.

"Am I that awesome?" asked Harry.

"No, well, yes, but you're invisible," said Hermione. Harry looked down.

"So I am," he said. "Better not let Weasley find out, or he'll steal it from me; he's always rifling through my things.

"Why not take it to Professor Snape for safe keeping?" said Hermione.

"Brilliant!" agreed Harry. "It's the sort of things fathers are for, even if they haven't agreed to do the father thing yet."

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Snape was an early riser by choice, although he remained a surly early riser until the first cup of coffee of the day. He was therefore up and partially pacified when there was a knock on his door. He opened it, and was hugged by Hermione Granger, and then again by Harry Potter.

"Help, who are you and what have you done with my truculent students?" he managed.

"We wanted to say thank you and to ask you to look after something," said Hermione.

Harry handed over the cloak and the note.

"I ... I am glad to have something of my father's, but I just know Ron will try to steal it and use it for trouble," he said. "And I'm not sure what I'd use it for in school anyway."

Snape sat down weakly.

"You can't see what use you'd have for it in school," he said. "Oh Harry! I swore you were like your father, but thank the powers, you are nothing like him. He used it to ... prank people."

Harry and Hermione exchanged horrified looks.

"Imagine the twins with an invisibility cloak!" said Hermione, wide eyed. Harry shuddered.

"I might use it to escape the headmaster to go to Sassie," he said.

Snape got out his wand and tapped the cloak, then cast a few spells, got out some nail scissors, and made a few precise snips.

"Sir?" Harry tried not to feel worried.

"I cannot believe I just removed all the tracking charms and the runic embroidery to make you visible to the headmaster," he said. "Just ... use the wretched thing wisely. I'll come up and help you to ward your trunk at some point so Weasley can't get into it. Or anyone else," he said.

"Why would he have tracking charms on it? Did he give it to me?" asked Harry, bewildered.

"It's his handwriting. And I suspect he has a number of tracking charms on various of your belongings," said Snape.

"Shouldn't we go to the police if he takes an unwholesome interest in Harry?" frowned Hermione.

"It's the whole Boy-Who-Is-Hyphenated business," said Snape. He hesitated, and added, "There was a prophecy. I don't know the whole of it, and I'm not supposed to talk about it. But if I am to take more responsibility for you, then I'll be damned if I mushroom you."

"Sir?" said Harry.

"Fed on dung and kept in the dark," said Hermione.

"Exactly, Miss Granger," said Snape. "Now, will you breakfast with me, or do you want to join the ravening hoard?"

"With you, sir," they said with one voice.

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Dumbledore lurked, almost giggling, in the room with the mirror of Erised, waiting for Harry to try his new cloak after Christmas. Faint compulsion charms aimed at him would direct a boy wandering aimlessly to the empty classroom where it was kept.

Dumbledore was beginning to think that his greatest desire in the mirror would be another pair of woollen socks and a chamber pot. Harry was very late, surely he had not missed his way? Eventually the headmaster gave up and went to bed, with an elf directed to let him know if anyone came to look in the mirror.

By the night before the beginning of the term, Dumbledore was stiff, sore, and had caught a cold. What was wrong with Harry?

He made sure to run into the boy.

"Ah, Harry, my boy, how was your Christmas? I didn't see much of you at the feasts," he said.

"No, sir, Christmas is about family," said Harry. "I spent Christmas with the only people I consider family."

"But my boy, you did not go home."

"I don't need to 'go', I am home; the house where the Dursleys live isn't my home and never has been," said Harry.

"Harry! You don't mean that!"

"Excuse me, sir, how can you know what another person means? They hate me, and I dislike them intensely, though I do pity them because they don't have magic," said Harry.

Dumbledore just knew that the hastily reconstructed wards had fallen again.

"My dear boy, it is imperative that you feel the place to be home," he said.

"Ain't going to happen," said Harry, with a shrug.

"Ah, I know what will make you feel better," said Dumbledore, guiding Harry towards the room with the mirror. "Something you may have found when exploring with your father's cloak."

"Oh, I wouldn't use something like that in school!" said Harry. "It's morally indefensible. I asked Professor Snape to take care of it for me, so nothing can happen to it."

"Oh!" whatever Dumbledore might have imagined, this was about the last thing on his mind.

He steered Harry into the room with the mirror.

Harry was on his guard, and looked carefully at the writing over the top of the mirror. Sassie had increased his appreciation of how words were put together, and he read the writing on it, I reflect not your image but your desire.

"Now, Harry, what do you see?" asked Dumbledore.

Harry peered and smoothed his hair.

"Oh dear, nothing makes it stay flat," he said. "I see myself, and you, sir, that's what a mirror does."

"Not your family or anything?" asked Dumbledore.

Harry was not about to admit that what he saw was himself and Hermione, snuggled up to Professor Snape on a sofa watching videos. It was a bit surreal to discover that desire.

"Why would they be in the mirror? They aren't here," said Harry.

"You are supposed to see your greatest desire," said Dumbledore, staring sadly at the reflection of a younger self hugging his sister.

"Oh, well, being here in Hogwarts is that," said Harry.

"Don't you want anything more in life?"

"I'm eleven; I don't want anything out of life besides a comfortable home where I belong and knowing where the next meal is coming from, which is why Privet Drive isn't a home, because I can't guarantee to steal enough out of the dustbins."

"Harry! Surely you do not mean that!"

"Headmaster, I am not in the habit of lying," said Harry. "Professor Snape says that I am close to losing my magical core as a result of malnutrition. I'm not going back there ever again because I don't want to be made a squib. Professor Snape says the long summer holidays is when magic is con... consolidated with plenty of rest and food, to help the core to stabilise. I am a slave at Privet Drive, so I won't get rest, and I can hope for one meal a day of leftovers, so I won't get the food. I don't want to be a squib."

Dumbledore stared.

"Swear to me on your magic that it is really that bad," he whispered.

"I swear on my magic that I fear for my life and my magic at Privet Drive, because of being starved, worked to death, and fear of being concussed again if Petunia hits me on the head again with a frying pan," said Harry. His wand glowed.

"Cast me a lumos, dear boy," said Dumbledore. Harry shrugged and did so.

"Oh dear me," whispered Dumbledore. "I may have made a terrible mistake in thinking you were safest there."

"Professor Snape says he thinks if I go back I won't survive to adulthood," said Harry. "He did a medical check on me and he's feeding me nutritional potions."

"He is a good boy," said Dumbledore, fondly. "I'm glad you resolved your initial differences."

"He didn't want me to be abused at home and my abuse ignored at school like his was," said Harry. His eyes were hard and accusing.

"Severus was a very self contained little boy," said Dumbledore.

"Yes, he explained to those of us he mentors about our abuse that often the abused are self-contained," said Harry. "I'm surprised someone who has become a headmaster didn't know that. Wasn't it touched on in your teacher training?"

"Teacher training? What's that?" asked Dumbledore.

"Why, you can't be a teacher without being trained to teach and to look out for problems children have; it's illegal," said Harry. "At least it is for muggle teachers. And surely the wizarding world is better than the muggle world?"

"There are fewer of us, we are mentored by older teachers on the job."

"Your mentor let you down then," said Harry. "Excuse me, sir, I need the bathroom."

Harry was not sure how he felt about the headmaster; but he was certainly fallible, and so far the only adult who had not let him down was Snape, as McGonagall was never around to stop the bullying in Gryffindor Tower.

Dumbledore too had much to ponder.

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Hermione and Harry and Neville worked out, by pooling information, that the thing being guarded was the Philsopher's Stone.

"But it won't be the real one," said Hermione. "Nobody in their right mind would hide a thing like that in a castle full of children, because it's so dangerous. Mark my words it's some kind of ingenuity test for the older ones."

"You're probably right," said Neville.

"It might have been fun ..." said Harry.

"Harry Potter, you are not an idiot like Ronald Weasley and his goons," said Hermione.

Harry looked sheepish.

"Nah, you're right. Let's go see Sassie and see if we can't find some more cool spells."

Ronald Weasley and his cohorts lost Gryffindor an unprecedented number of points in trying to smuggle a young dragon up to the astronomy tower, or at least, that was what he claimed they had been doing, and Neville and Harry decided that it was too bizarre a story to be untrue. They served a detention in the Forbidden Forest and claimed that something terrible was there and that they had needed to be rescued by centaurs.

Professor Snape was being pretty grim and close mouthed about it, but he did tell his persistent fans not to worry.

"May I borrow your cloak?" he asked Harry. "I think I may need it to track the person who is causing the trouble."

"Oh, the one who is after the pretend philosopher's stone? By all means," said Harry. "But it's not worth worrying about it; only a total loony would have the real thing in a school."

Severus later relayed this information to Dumbledore.

"I hope the boy was right and it is a decoy, not the real thing, and that you are not a total loony," said Snape.

"Of course it's a decoy," said Dumbledore, looking shifty.

"Well, as Harry Potter believes it to be, he has no intention disturbing himself to go after anyone going after it," said Snape. "So if it is a test, he's turned down entering."

Dumbledore sighed.

"He isn't a bit like his father," he said, sadly.

"Well what do you expect? He's had his spirit crushed for the last ten years by Petunia Evans and the idiot she married," said Snape.

"My dear boy, you had enough spirit," said Dumbledore.

"I was only thrashed by one parent for displaying magic; the other one encouraged me," said Severus, dryly. "I was never as cowed as Mr. Potter, who frankly doesn't have the physical strength to go gallivanting off on silly missions, his magical core is dangerously unstable as it is. If you force him to confront Quirrel, it could kill him. Are you really planning to sacrifice him?"

"Certainly not, it is too early to consider such a thing!" said Dumbledore.

Snape narrowed his eyes.

"So you do plan to sacrifice him?"

Dumbledore sighed.

"There is a residue of Tom in his head, and it cannot be removed while he is alive," he said.

"Merlin's bollocks! Have you ever tried?"

"Well, no, but it is a very evil thing ..."

"Well, I'm going to remove it. It is unacceptable that any teacher should think for even an instant that a child under his care should be sent to his death. Are you turning dark, Albus?"

Dumbledore looked startled.

"Surely you cannot think so, my boy?"

"A man who takes a little boy's life so cavalierly and speaks casually of dealing with a curse scar by killing him is not someone who is my definition of a light wizard," said Severus, exiting on this line with a swirl of his robes.

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Snape was dissatisfied with the precautions of the staff, and proceeded to brew another potion. This one was a gas, held in an invisible bubble, which he stretched forward from under the mirror, once it had been placed in the furthest chamber of the challenge. Anyone who stood at a reasonable distance from the mirror, or closer to it, disrupted the fabric of the bubble, and caused the release of its contents. As it was possible that one of the students might make their way to the mirror, the gas was not fatal. However it was a version Snape had invented of the Draught of Living Death, so anyone getting that far was not getting out without Wiggenweld potion.

When Quirrel used Dumbledore's absence to make his attempt to get the Philosopher's Stone, Snape gave him long enough to be unconscious and followed, with his own flame-freezing draught, and waited as the unholy duo had an increasingly slurred conversation as they finally keeled over. Snape smiled, grimly.

This bought as much time as they needed; if Quirrel was possessed by Riddle, why, with the two parts of him unconscious, he wasn't going anywhere. And there was a more permanent solution.

Whatever means he might have used to stay alive.

Snape smiled unpleasantly and levitated Quirrel, invisibly, to Myrtle's bathroom.

He asked Sassie to come up, and gave Quirrel enough Wiggenweld potion to wonder where he was before seeing Sassie behind him in the mirror with her gaze unhooded.

The statue formerly known as Quirrelmort might be stored with impunity.

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"You did what?" Dumbledore was taken aback.

"I turned him to stone with Voldemort trapped inside him," said Severus. He wasn't about to say how. "It doesn't matter how he has managed to achieve immortality; if he's a statue, he can't access any kind of anchor."

"But my dear boy! What about poor Quirinius?"

Severus shrugged.

"What about him? He chose to let himself be used, and he was dying anyway. Storing them as a statue might even give us time to research a way to remove the dark lord from him without harming him and cure him. At least he's not deteriorating. And then we can determine if he was a willing or unwilling patsy."

"Hmm, yes, there is something in what you say, and of course, it gives Harry more time to grow up..."

"Leave Harry out of it. He isn't going to be killed for your glory, old man."

"Is that what you believe?" Dumbledore whispered, hurt.

"Well, yes, why else would you refuse to look into other possibilities?" said Severus.

"My dear boy, I cannot think of any other possibilities, there is no choice ..."

"Albus, I can think of three rituals, one muggle and two wizarding ways to remove it in a somewhat brute force fashion, and I would rather like you to come clean about what it is and why it means the dark lord cannot die without killing Harry."

"I don't want you experimenting!"

"Tough luck. I'm going to get that darkness out one way or another."

"But Severus, it's a horcrux! And you cannot remove a horcrux from a host without destroying the host! Voldemort embedded it accidentally in Harry when he died."

"A horcrux? Really? As I recall from what little I've read of the things, you can't 'accidentally' embed a horcrux. It may be a soul fragment, but if it had been a true horcrux, we wouldn't have Harry Potter with a bad headache, we'd have an unblemished Tom Riddle with Harry's body. Because horcruxes don't inhabit a tiny bit of the host, they permeate it."

"So you have read up about them."

Severus shrugged.

"Of course I did; I investigated all the ways I could find of retaining an earthly consciousness the moment you said he wasn't dead, twinkled mysteriously, and refused to say any more. What the hell do you think I was going to do, take your word without looking for more information than you were prepared to give me?"

"Well... yes."

"How could you possibly assume that a Slytherin isn't going to research ways to protect himself from an evil bastard like that? Did you think I was as stupid as the average Gryffindor?"

"Now, Severus, there is no need to be snide."

"There is every need to be snide, Albus. I object to the way you assume that you are the only person in the world capable of research and knowledge and that the rest of us are sock puppets to have your hand up us to dance at your time of choosing."

"My dear boy, do you really feel like that?"

"Frankly, yes, Albus. I am an adult, a very clever adult, who made a mistake when still barely more than a child. I grew up. I am not a moronic four year old to be fed unpalatable sweeties, satisfied with a grandfatherly smile and a patronising pat on the head. Now you've finally shared with me that Voldemort made a horcrux deliberately as well as splitting himself into Harry, I can turn my intellect into helping you find it."

"Not one, I fear," Dumbledore shook his head, sadly, much of the sadness being directed at how badly Severus misunderstood him, and his desire to protect all his children, Severus included. "I fear he may have made as many as six, with Harry being an accidental ..."

"Harry is not a horcrux, so don't go there," said Severus. "He may have prepared the ritual planning to make one at Godric's Hollow and the split soul got away from him when the killing curse bounced, but it's not a full horcrux. However, to have split it, then he must have prepared it deliberately so I doubt it's a seventh. Eight is an unlucky number in Western arithmancy, and he isn't Chinese. If he planned to honour my request to spare Lily then he would have embedded it in something she wouldn't throw away – James' coming of age watch, or a toy of Harry's. But things got away from him. Splitting his soul seven ways? No wonder he was losing it at the end."

"Indeed; and I've been trying to research items he would use, and places he would hide them."

"Good. Two heads are better than one. We can research them together. I will get the soul fragment out of Harry. We will destroy the horcruxes, hopefully revive and cure Quirinius and drive out the final piece and destroy that."

"It has to be at Harry's hand," said Dumbledore, sadly, "The part of the prophecy you missed states that 'neither can live while the other survives', I'm afraid."

"Well that's baloney unless it refers to what's already happened, as plainly both have been living, in a manner of speaking," said Severus. "Well Harry can learn soul-trapping rituals, and throw the trapped fragment through the veil. That would cover all conditions if the prophecy hasn't been fulfilled, but I think it has."

"You make it sound so simple. Simplisitic even."

"I believe in Ockham's razor; you overcomplicate everything. When it boils down to it, the simple solution usually beats the complex one. You might want to read history, and study all the wizards who have made complex plans, and approached problems in a convoluted way. I think you'll find they are all dark. Don't go dark on us, Albus."

Dumbledore stared.

"But ... Merlin ..."

"When Merlin started plotting, he strayed from the light, and his subsequent imprisonment by Nimue taught him how far he had strayed," said Severus. "Don't make me do a Nimue at you, Albus; she fancied Merlin and I don't fancy you."

"I did have red hair once," said Dumbledore, facetiously.

"And I don't rule out your family's heritance in the Evans family," said Severus. "Lily's great grandmother was a teenage mother following rape by a scary man in academic robes with hair like a lion's mane. Your father went to Azkaban for muggle baiting, didn't he?"

"They had attacked my sister!" Dumbledore lost control of some of his magic and the whole room shook.

"And that was an excuse to rape a muggle girl no older than our own firsties?"

"No! And ... if that was what he did I did not know, only that he used magic to chastise them," said Dumbledore.

"Huh," said Severus. "No wonder you have such a cavalier disrespect for rules. Well, I have stored the statue of my former colleague and his repellent guest somewhere out of the way, so you won't be tempted to try to revive him before we have a more permanent solution."

"You don't really trust me, do you, Severus?" asked Dumbledore, sadly.

"With my life? Totally. With leaving alone things better not meddled with? Not at all," said Severus.

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The rest of the year passed happily for Harry and Hermione, who were shining in class now that both knew that they were valued as people by their new unofficial father. Severus filed for Hermione to be removed from her muggle parents for the sake of her own health, as their unnatural expectations were likely to damage her magical core. He made a similar claim on Harry and made a bid to be guardian to both, citing his childhood friendship with Harry's mother, and the closeness between the two abused children as a reason that staying together would help each to overcome their former abuse as he suspected that there might be a bloodbond forming.

The word 'bloodbond' had a magical effect. Any risk to a youth who had any chance of such a rare occurrence had to be eliminated, and that one was the Boy-Who-Lived raised a serious query about why Harry had been placed into such a situation in the first place, and Dumbledore, as Chief Warlock was asked some very searching questions in the Wizengamot. He admitted to a serious error in judgement, brought to his attention by one of his staff.

There were plenty of people who were dubious about a former death eater applying for guardianship of Harry Potter, but the child services investigative team reported that the abuse against the boy had not been fabricated, but was deep-seated, long-lived and probably greater than even what Snape had claimed. That he was offering to care for a muggleborn girl as well was the clincher and WCS agreed, subject to visits and checks, after interviewing the children to see what their wishes were.

When Hermione claimed enthusiastically that Severus Snape was so much warmer than her own parents and someone you could go to if you were in difficulties, the witch from WCS, who was not fond of Snape, notched up several points against the Grangers. As both children seemed happy, she was ready to watch and see.

"Are you not concerned that the more, er, traditional Gryffindors will call you hard names?" she asked.

Harry shrugged.

"Harder names, you mean? They already try to steal or sabotage our kit and call us 'dippy bookworms' and "Winged Snakes' because they think we're a cross between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. I've had hard names since I moved away from friendship with a boy I discovered to be a bully, and people have always bullied Mione. Professor Snape says that words only hurt if you let them and in six and a bit years' time we'll be out of here and able to go our own way without the artificially imposed rivalries of dunderheaded bigots of any house. Slytherin aren't any more friendly than Gryffindors," he added.

"I am sorry you feel so isolated," said the witch, who was a Ravenclaw.

"We have each other, which is more than we ever had before, and Neville is our friend, and Daphne Greengrasse and Tracey Davis have been okay, and Justin Finch-Fletchley and Sue Bones and Hannah Abbot," said Hermione. "Actually it's quite nice making friends from other houses who don't find us as bigoted as most of the rest."

"And Padma in Ravenclaw isn't as up herself as some of them, and doesn't like how her twin behaves, and Su Li is okay, just shy," said Harry. "And she smiles at us since we stopped those two in the third year from bullying her."

"Oh dear, does that still go on towards non-conformists?" sighed the witch.

"If I'm ever headmistress here, I'm going to find a way to celebrate the founders whilst disbanding the houses," said Hermione. "I am sure more people spend time in the hospital than need to because of so-called house loyalty."

The witch was shocked, but under the circumstances, she could see the child's point. If their favourite teacher was the head of Slytherin house, that could be a problem both to the Vanquisher of Voldemort and a muggleborn from Slytherin students.

Well, Snape seemed to have their back, and they took it with equanimity.

She turned in a report approving the guardianship.

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"It's not much of a house, and I will expect you to amuse yourselves most of the time," said Snape as he let them into the Spinner's End cottage. "I'll set up a curtain and transfigure a new bed in the second bedroom, you'll have to share. One thing I intend to do is to see if there are any Potter properties left, which would be likely to be larger, and be more appropriate for children to grow up. But I haven't had time."

"We don't mind sharing, sir," said Hermione.

"It will become less appropriate as you get older," said Snape. "Also I would like to relocate to the sort of property which could be warded to the hilt. This place has its limits, but it will do for a while."

And if the WCS witch was a little concerned on her visit to find Hermione chopping vegetables and Harry cooking, she was dragged bemused into the dining room and treated to Harry's cooking.

"I like cooking," said Harry. "It's an artform."

"And chopping vegetables is close to preparing potion ingredients so I don't mess it up," said Hermione.

"Now I've trained you to do it to release the flavour the right way," said Harry.

"Can't your guardian chop with magic?" said the witch, bewildered.

"I wouldn't let him," said Harry. "It isn't good for food to mess with it with magic, you don't get the same result at all; you wouldn't use magic to chop potion ingredients, would you?"

"Um, yes?" said the witch.

"And this is why you got a 'T' in your OWL," said Snape. "How you cut, the angle of cut, the size you cut matters. It matters more for the magical reaction of a potion, but Harry informs me it also matters in cooking, and as he is a marvellous cook and enjoys cooking, we enjoy one of his meals twice a week and breakfast if he beats me downstairs."

Hermione chuckled.

"The arguments of whose turn it is to make breakfast!" she said "I lay the table; Harry says I spoil food by looking at it."

"When I'm older I'm going to take holiday jobs in various takeaways," said Harry. "Then I can learn to blend spices to cook a proper Indian or Chinese, though Dad Snape bought me Madhur Jafferey's book on cooking Indian which is pretty good."

"Well, if you enjoy it," said the witch, faintly.

"We're learning French and Italian too so we can go abroad and sample different cuisines," said Hermione.

"But she's only permitted two hours a day studying," said Severus, "Which to my mind is quite sufficient, and the point of friction is teaching her to have fun."

"I've never had time in which to amuse myself before," said Hermione.

"And I've never had the energy," said Harry. "We got an Awayaday bus ticket each though, and we're exploring the whole county. If you'd come yesterday you'd have missed us."

"Do you supervise them, Professor Snape?" asked the witch.

"No, and it was a hard decision," said Snape. "If it was just Hermione, I'd worry about her gallivanting off on her own, but the two of them together shouldn't be in danger. They are both muggle raised, so they have no difficulties interacting with muggles, and using bus time tables, and they know how to summon the knight bus if they find themselves stranded. I send them out with a sufficiency of wizarding and muggle currency. It's teaching them to make decisions on how to spend their time, and to be independent of controlling adults. That I can also get the next years' brewing for the school hospital done while they are out is a bonus."

"We went to Blackpool for the day, I'd never been to the seaside before," said Harry. "We had candy floss and ice cream and I wasn't sick, not quite, and I might never have candy floss again, but it was exciting to try it because you read about it in stories."

"And we didn't see the illuminations, because we promised to be back by seven," said Hermione, wistfully. "But Dad Snape said he would take us one day to stay late."

"Blackpool, like any large enough town, has an insalubrious element after dark," said Severus.

"And we've been to lots of steam museums, and Hermione told me how the Industrial Revolution paved the way for trains," said Harry.

The witch left, confused, well fed, and satisfied that the two children were like different children to the scared, rather withdrawn and obviously abused kids she had met at school.

End of Year 1