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Harry Prince and the Philosopher's Stone - Chapter 5 - The Potions Master

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“Listen up, first years,” comes the loud voice of Professor Sprout as she grins down at them. “We have to get the first day speeches out of the way.”

“Isn’t this technically the second day?” Ernie asks.

The Professor shakes her head, waving a dismissive hand.

“One feast and a good sleep hardly counts as a day. I hope you’re all well rested because we’ll be going straight into classes and I know magic is new ground entirely for a good few of you.”

“First classes tend to be quite introductory so it shouldn’t be too stressful, but it’s still a lot to process if you’re tired,” Tina says knowingly, cradling a mug between her hands.

The girl seems a lot less tied now, as she accompanies Professor Sprout, than she had done last night. Her eyes are more alert and her posture straighter. Gabriel, however, is nowhere to be seen right now.

“Yes, thank you, Tina,” Professor Sprout says as a couple of students seem to deflate from relief around Harry, now in yellow-accented robes that they found in place of the fully black ones they had all packed in their suitcases. The Professor had attributed that to house elves but that didn’t really clear things up for Harry at all. Sprout then does a double take, looking back at Tina. “Are you allowed to have coffee?”

The girl takes a pointed slurp, not breaking eye contact with the professor, before Sprout just shakes her head and turns back to the first years before her.

“Well, anyway, welcome to Hufflepuff! Our house colours are yellow and black and our mascot is the badger. We value loyalty and kindness here, but I expect you’re hiding some bright minds in there as well.

“Now, I’m the Herbology teacher, as well as your head of house, so you can absolutely come to me for anything plant or house related. We’ve had a fair few green thumbs in this house, but we get all sorts too.”

“Other houses seem to think we’re the dumb house,” Tina cuts in bitterly, “but that’s a load of cack.”

“Thank you, Tina, yes. There have been Ministers for magic from Hufflepuff that have been exceedingly popular, like Grogan Stump, and experts in all sorts of fields, like Newt Scammander who revolutionised the outlook on treatment of magical creatures. What I’m saying is that there’s no need to limit yourself, and you can come to me with any requests or interests and I’ll do my damndest to point you in the right direction, understood?”

“Yes, Professor Sprout,” Harry and the other first years chorus.

“Great! Now, timetables: you’ll receive them at breakfast today, as happens every year. Breakfast is 6:30 to 8:30 every morning, so you should head there as soon as we’re cleared up here. Lunch is served 12:00 to 13:00, and dinner runs from 18:00 to 20:00. You don’t have to be there as soon as it’s served but do try to make sure you eat. If you don’t, the kitchens are just round the corner and I know lots of my students like to sneak in from time to time.”

“If you ask an older Hufflepuff nicely they’ll probably show you,” Tina agrees.

“Well, I have to finish watering the plants in here, so Tina you take this lot up to breakfast before they miss all the good stuff.”

With a nod and a smirk at the group before her, Tina leads the way back through the corridors and up the stone stairs to the entry hall.

“Just so you know,” Tina says, “houses only have to sit up their designated table officially during the first and last meals of the year. Any other times you can sit wherever you please, in case you guys make friends in other houses.”

“Aren’t we supposed to compete against other houses?” Wayne asks.

“Yeah,” the prefect shrugs, moving to push open the doors to the Great Hall, “but I’d still encourage not limiting your friends. We’re not gonna be in Hogwarts forever, and house loyalty doesn’t matter in the wider world. Besides, even when people say they’re not interested, the amount of Hufflepuffs who end up adopting or being adopted by Slytherins is kind of hilarious… especially given how it makes some of the Gryfindors want to blow a fuse.”

With a sharp smirk, Tina departs from the Hufflepuff and plops herself at the Slytherin table between a girl with golden curls and a boy with cropped black hair. They both greet her enthusiastically and a Ravenclaw makes a beeline towards her as well.

“Huh,” Megan says intelligently as the group of first years make their way over to an empty-ish stretch of the Hufflepuff table.

Ernie huffs, scraping scrambled eggs onto his plate.

“Well,” he says, “I’m not gonna be friends with Slytherins. I’ve heard awful things about them.”

“Like what?” Harry frowns, putting a bacon sandwich together for himself.

“That all the bad witches and wizards are from Slytherin,” he says, like it should be obvious. “Everyone knows that.”

Hannah rolls her eyes at Harry before turning back to her conversation with Susan about accidental magic they did before coming to Hogwarts. Harry thinks they are thinking the same thing.

His eyes dart over to the Slytherin table and, this time, actually manages to find and make eye contact with Zabini who smirks back at him.

All musing on house hostility and friendships are cut off as a flurry of owls swoop into the Great Hall from somewhere in the ceiling. Peering through the chaos of feathers and flurrying wings, Harry spots an opening in the roof right against the wall the staff table is in front of. That must be the owl entry for the post, he realises. Useful since it meant owls didn’t have to wait outside for someone to open a window like they did for Snape back home.

Each owl swoops along the lengths of the tables, expertly dropping letters and packages into their recipients lap before taking off. Harry isn’t really expecting much already, so it’s no shock when the only thing dropped atop his plate, luckily missing the greasy mess from his bacon, is an identical envelope that everyone else around him gets.

Excited to see what his schedule for the year will look like, Harry tears into it quickly and looks over all the lessons. Taking note of all the class titles is incredibly exciting. Sure, Harry knows that magic is a thing that exists but he hasn’t known what types of magic exist up until now, nor how they’re separated into teachable topics.

The other muggle-raised first years look just as awed as he does, and even most of the magical-raised children are buzzing with excitement to finally learn all the things they’ve been able to see around them all their lives.

“Awh nice,” Justin is grinning as Harry looks back up from inspecting his own timetable. The other boy is waving his paper under the noses of Kevin and Susan, though his eyes flicker round to everyone else as well. “We’ve got Friday morning’s off!”

“Nice,” Wayne agrees.

“What do we got today?” Megan asks, too busy liberally applying lemon curd to her toast to look at her own sheet.

“History of Magic,” Roger dutifully supplies, fidgeting with the cuff of his robe, “and then Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

–

Breakfast breezes by, everyone rested and ready to start learning at the magical school. They wait for each other, chatting excitedly in their seats, before hurrying from the Great Hall to find their first classroom with plenty of time to spare.

Anticipation only seems to lead them so far, however, and within ten minutes they become painfully aware of the fact they have no idea where they’re going. They must make something of a spectacle, a cluster of Hufflepuff firsties looking around with wide, lost eyes. A pair of Ravenclaws roll their eyes at their murmuring about which corridor to look down next while a group of Slytherin’s watch on in sympathy.

“Well,” Megan huffs, “this is certainly a way to start the year.”

Kevin elbows her sharply in the ribs, making her cringe, while Wayne snorts out in laughter. Hannah slings an arm over Harry’s shoulders.

“We’re doomed,” she says seriously and despite the lingering anxiety in his stomach from being late to his first ever class he can’t help the way his lips twitch upwards in amusement.

“What’s all this?” a voice creaks out from behind them.

The group jumps, whipping around to meet the scowling face of the caretaker. A quick glance at each other reveals that none of them really know how the old man managed to sneak up on them – the corridor had been mostly clear just a moment ago. It’s like the man and the cat slinking around his ankles simply walked through a wall to confront them.

“I hope you new kids aren’t up to any funny business,” he says, eyes narrowed.

They all huddle slightly closer together, and Susan lets out a little squeak.

“No, sir,” Hannah promises.

“You better not be. See if I’ll be putting up with any more trouble makers. Quit loitering and get to class before I talk to Dumbledore about having you thrown in the dungeons, the lot of you.”

Not wanting to goad the caretaker into actually following through with this threat, they all hurry back the way they came, slipping through one of the many archways in the castle.

“He’s so creepy,” Roger shudders.

“So creepy,” Wayne nods solemnly.

“Who’s creepy?”

The group all jump again, though this time they’d account that to the fact that Mr Filch had put them so much on edge.

“The caretaker,” Harry answers before offering the older boy a small smile. “Hi, Cedric.”

“You guys lost?” he smiles down at them, and they seem to droop in relief as one.

“So lost.”

“So so incredibly lost.”

Cedric huffs a laugh.

“Everyone is for at least their first week. You get used to the place eventually, but they could probably do with drawing up maps for the first years. Where are you guys headed?”

They relay their subject and room number and then all hurry to keep close on Cedric’s heels. A couple of them worry about making Cedric late but he just waves them off, explaining that he’s not bothered about being a little late and that Professor Flitwick will probably understand if he says he was helping the new students find their classes.

“The easiest way to all the floors is this way,” he explains, leading them to the room full of moving staircases. “You just have to keep an eye on the stairs.”

Cedric waves politely to some of the canvases inhabitants as they pass, making all the younger Hufflepuffs watch on in awe as they wave back and offer polite greetings. Hannah dares to ask how he’s friendly with so many and, with a flustered face, he confesses to getting incredibly lost a lot of the time when he first came to Hogwarts.

“The paintings are usually pretty helpful, if you guys get lost. Ghosts tend to be fairly preoccupied but the Fat Friar’ll always stop to help a Hufflepuff and Sir Nicolas – the Gryffindor ghost – can be swayed with enough pleading looks.”

He shoots a grin back at them as he leads the way to a now silent classroom. They’ve definitely missed the start of the lesson; hopefully it won’t be by much and they can catch on quickly.

“Never trust Peeves, the poltergeist, though,” Cedric warns before stopping outside a wooden door displaying their room number. “Here we are.”

The boy receives a wave of genuine thanks, everyone relieved to finally be in the right place. They only get easily waved off by him before he’s striding off to his own classroom, and so they all slip into their lesson quietly and awkwardly.

It seems they shouldn’t have worried, though. It turns out the teacher for History of Magic – an actual ghost! – doesn’t even notice them at all. He simply keeps droning on about what they will be covering in this year at Hogwarts like they’re not there at all.

Sharing quickly confused looks, the Hufflepuffs split up to sit themselves down in the spare seats. While the teacher may not have had any care for their arrival, the other students in the room do. Interspersed with their own yellow robes are green-clad students – Slytherins, Harry remembers – who shoot them looks as they slide into desks around them.

Harry ends up sat next to Roger at a desk behind where Zabini is sitting next to Hannah. They don’t do much talking, though, taking notes as the teacher rambles on in an unending drab monotone, barely pausing to note down things he says on the chalkboard they can see through his slightly translucent form.

The lesson continues on in this almost silence until the hour ends and everyone packs up their things, suddenly feeling very sleepy again.

“...You don’t think that’s how he always is?” Hannah turns around to ask them, as she’s shoving her quill and ink back into her bag. “Surely this is only because it’s the introductory lesson?”

Zabini is shaking his head doubtfully.

“I haven’t heard any promising things.”

Harry cringes at that, sharing a despairing look with the four students around him.

In no time their things are packed and they’re heading back out into the winding passages of the school, ready to brace the likelihood of getting lost in the pursuit of finding their next lesson. This time, with the knowledge of how to get back to the moving stairs and a much larger group on the look out for room numbers – it seems that they also share Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherin’s too – it doesn’t take them much time at all to reach their next class.

It’s when they’re lining up outside, ready to go in whenever the teacher comes out to meet them, that a Slytherin boy with white-blonde hair steps forward ready to make his move.

“So you’re Harry Potter?” the boy grins, expression prideful and superior in a way that immediately makes Harry wary. It doesn’t particularly help that the boy is flanked by two huge kids, staring down at him in the way that makes Harry think they really should be cracking their knuckles threateningly at him. It doesn’t make for an all too welcoming picture.

“Uh - yeah, I guess?” he answers intelligently. “But technically my legal name’s Harry Prince.”

The blonde boy tuts, but sticks out his hand, which Harry hesitantly shakes.

“The name’s Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. And this is Crabbe and Goyle.”

“Nice to… meet you?”

Malfoy smirks at that, like Harry’s confused words only stoked whatever ego he has.

“You’ll find that there are certain types of people that it’s better to be around, Prince. That’s something I can help you with, to make sure you’re making connections with the… right sort.”

Malfoy glances between the Hufflepuffs with great scrutiny, something which Zabini rolls his eyes at from where Harry can see him behind Malfoy’s entourage.

“Stick with me, and you’ll come out of Hogwarts in the best possible position, surrounded by upstanding members of society – family names with influence.”

The last of Harry’s confusion seems to melt away, his nose curling at that. Based on Malfoy’s own logic Harry isn’t sure Malfoy should really be wanting to be Harry’s friend. After all, despite what it turns out that Harry’s had waiting for him to claim from the bank, he grew up living at Spinner’s end, in what even Harry knows to be something of a run-down place, living comfortably enough but certainly not in indulgence.

And maybe Harry’s mad at Snape, and wants to know who he actually is, but… If Harry had been in Malfoy’s gang all this time, he likely wouldn’t be friends with Mickey, Mandy and Chris back home. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have been mates with anyone from school either. The idea that Harry would have missed out on them is startlingly unpleasant; they’re his family, near enough. Maybe more so than Snape since they never lied to him about anything more important than who stole his biscuits.

“I think I can decide who to be friends with for myself,” he frowns.

Malfoy’s jaw drops at that, the smug look sliding clean off. Apparently he thought Harry would gladly let him dictate who was good enough for him to be friends with. Between one blink and the next, that shocked look turns furious and it’s only the door swinging open to reveal a nervous looking professor, smelling strongly of garlic, who saves Harry from whatever outburst might have been headed his way.

–

“Well, that was an experience,” Hannah says as they wander around in the name of exploration.

Her, Blaise, Harry and Susan had broken off from the rest of their group during their break. Now they are finding their way around, trying to figure out where there classrooms are ahead of time, like they’re not going to forget and have to do this all over again. As much as Harry thinks he may be taking a liking to his housemates, at the least, it’s nice to be in a bit of a smaller group while he feels as overwhelmed as he does now.

Every hallway they turn down and staircase they climb seems to just reveal more and more students to gawk as they pass. At him. Pointing and whispering follows his every turn and Harry’s face feels hot from the attention.

It’s not like anyone’s bothering to be subtle, either. Their eyes outright cling to him and all conversations end while he’s in their eyesight. It doesn’t matter how most of Harry’s scar is covered, right now, from his dishevelled hair. The fringe flops in a mess over the top rim of his glasses since he, in his rush to meet Professor Sprout on time that morning, rushed through brushing it nicely. It’ll be in knots later but that, frankly, is the least of his concerns.

“There! Look, with those other Hufflepuff first years.”

“I’d have thought he’d have been a Gryffindor.”

“I hoped he’d be Ravenclaw… but honestly, me too.”

“Did you see his face?”

“Did you see his scar?”

He ducks his head, trying his best to tune their gossiping out, and pays more attention to what the group around him is talking about. Zabini has an eyebrow raised and Susan is looking up at Hannah curiously.

“What was an experience?” the red-head asks.

“The professors,” Hannah grins. “They were both so weird. I know it’s a wizarding school… but a boring ghost and a superstitious man afraid of his own shadow. Only makes you wonder what the other teachers we have are gonna be like.”

“Professor Snape is supposed to be highly regarded in the field of potion making,” Zabini offers.

“Gotta be better than what we’ve had so far then?” Susan offers hesitantly, which Hannah encourages by throwing an arm over her shoulder and grinning down at the shorter girl.

“Exactly!” she beams.

Harry can hardly match their bright moods though. Something heavy has just settled in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly he feels ridiculously, stupendously stupid. He can’t believe he didn’t think to check that, it’s just… Snape had told him he wasn’t the only Potions Professor – it just wasn’t physically possible for one man to fit 39 hours of lessons into the 25 hour school week – but he hadn’t– he couldn’t–

Reasonably, Harry knew, deep down, that this was a possibility. As far as he had been concerned it was a fifty-fifty chance, but knowing that and expecting it are two different things.

“We have Professor Snape?” he asks, picking up his pace again before the others realise his faltering.

Hannah hums an answer in the affirmative.

“Snape’s the professor in all black, right?” Sarah hedges.

Zabini nods; “Correct.”

She shudders and, instinctively, something in Harry bristles.

“He looks pretty creepy, to be honest,” the girl squeaks, to which Hannah responds by barking out an amused laugh.

“Oh, super creepy. Like he’s dressing up as a bat.”

“He doesn’t look that bad,” Harry grumbles and then cringes.

For one, he isn’t supposed to know or care about Snape – that was something his dad had not failed to make clear. And, on top of that, he’s still furious. Isn’t he?

–

By the time Harry finds himself queuing up outside Professor Snape’s dungeon classroom the following day, awaiting his first potions lesson, he’s more unsure than ever how he should be feeling. Snape had still lied and they haven’t talked about it since and Harry is still very much very very mad... but he also just wants his-- his Snape back. Hearing the others being so unsure of his father felt bad, something deep in his chest aching at the words. Maybe Auntie Maggie had a point... maybe... maybe they just needed to talk, no matter how much part of him wants to grip tight onto that righteous fury and never let go

The door flings itself open, interrupting his thoughts, and the assembled first years startle before the drawling call of “Enter” reaches their ears. One by one they shuffle neatly inside, lining up at the back of the room with the last student closing the door behind them carefully. It seems that it’s not just Sarah and Hannah who are a little disturbed by their potions professor’s aura. Half the Ravenclaws they share this class with are huddled together, casting nervous glances between each other, the empty seats, and the professor himself. Some of Harry’s new Hufflepuff mates seem to be faring even worse. Wayne’s swallow is audible beside him and Roger’s pallor is white enough to rival the ghosts'.

Harry's problem, however, remains much more complicated than that. He’s maybe realising that it might be a little difficult to pretend he doesn’t even know the man who has masqueraded as his dad for the past ten years of his life. And, to top it all off, he’s horrified to find this blossoming, staggering relief at seeing the man’s familiar form. The impatient scowl is something Harry has seen all too often growing up, and never for anything positive; and yet those billowing black robes remind him so starkly of home that a homesickness he didn’t even realise he has been feeling seems soothed away by the balm of Snape’s presence.

Maybe, after all, he isn’t any less freaked out than the rest of his class; his ears are ringing in alarm and it feels like all the blood’s rushed from his face.

“Find yourself seats,” the man of all the students’ lamentation says, tone not particularly kind. “We cannot wait around all day while you all gawk like toddlers who have never seen a potions set before.”

Everyone scrambles into whatever empty seat is closest, pulling out their notebooks, parchment, and other writing utensils. Harry thinks he might see a couple of students pull out biros and think that might not be a bad choice – Snape hadn’t exactly been the most patient teacher when helping a younger Harry with his homework, so Harry doesn’t doubt it might come in handy to have something that’s quicker to dry while speeding down all the notes Snape might throw at them.

Like all Harry’s classes so far, it starts out like normal with the register being taken. Well, normal save for the tense silence and terrified glances. This time Harry can hardly begrudge anyone for their attitudes, even he’s vibrating from nerves in his seat.

“Harry…” Snape says, before hesitating. It’s seemed so far that Harry’s name has been put down as ‘Harry Potter’ on all of his forms and registers so far, and he really hasn’t been sure whether or not he should talk to his teachers about that. He thinks he should at least talk to Professor Sprout about it but something feels like it’s holding him back. “Prince,” Snape finally decides on, and some of the other students turn and send him a confused frown.

The situation moves on quickly enough, getting through the list of names before Snape situates himself back up the front of the class. His arms cross before him and he frowns down at them, making the class squirm in their seats.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic.”

Harry doubts that he’ll fall into that category. Enough evenings of his childhood had been spent watching Snape dice herbs and other ingredients in the kitchen as he peered in from the living room or perched on another stretch of counter to observe. Magic is many things, but so much of his perception of it is already built around potion making. He tastes the word magic in the tang of crushed garlic in the air, sees it in the shine of a blade, smells it in the mist pouring from Snape’s cauldron. Potion-making is something Harry thinks he’ll never be able to separate from his idea of magic, and given how much strain there is on his and Snape’s relationship, he doesn’t know if that’s a good thing anymore.

“I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes,” Snape continues on; “the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the minds and ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death – if you aren’t as useless as the first years they usually send my way.”

No one speaks up. Though it looks as if, from the anxious shifting of a couple students in their seats, some people are desperate to prove Snape wrong, no one seems prepared to incur his wrath by speaking out of turn. When Snape seems to notice this, his expression twists into an amused smirk and he slithers down between the rows of desks, peering judgmentally at the faces of all the students – as if he could see their potential in the freckles on their skin or the shape of their noses.

“Prince!” he suddenly says, turning to face him so sharply it actually makes Harry jump. “What would you get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Harry cringes, all eyes turning on him in an instant. Some of the looks are curious, others pitying. It doesn’t matter what his classmates are thinking, though – not with the way Snape’s staring him down. He doesn’t know the answer to this question; despite being raised by a potions professor, Harry doesn’t know all that much, since Snape had rather preferred to work diligently by himself even when Harry’s curious eyes clung to him.

“I don’t know.”

“You will address me as ‘Sir’, in this classroom as you would any other professor,” Snape snaps, voice cool and uncaring, with eyes narrowed, in a way that makes Harry flinch.

Something cold settles within himself. An unfeeling fury to match Snape’s own tone rises in the back of his throat. Why shouldn’t it, after all? Snape can hardly be expecting more from him when this is how he’s acting towards him--like he hasn't raised Harry his whole life. But, really, what else had Harry been expecting?

“Right,” Harry glares. “Well, I don’t know, sir.”

Snape sniffs in indignation, his own sour expression worsening. Judgement darkens his black eyes and the feeling makes Harry’s skin crawl.

“Let’s try again. Prince, where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

This time Snape actually tuts.

“Did you not think to open your potions book before the start of term, Mister Prince.” Snape’s eyes flick round to the rest of the class before settling back on the boy glaring up at him. “All of you should know to at least read the summaries in your textbooks before your first class. I will not tolerate this failing to be made again in my class, is that understood?”

There are some quick nods and Snape, satisfied with the wider class’ input, turns to Harry one more time.

“What is the difference, Prince, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

By now, the frustration that had been lingering under Harry’s skin has grown to a full boil. Rage burns along his veins and his hands tremble where they’re clenched on his lap. More than anything he wants to yell at Snape for being so horrible and awfully unfair – his cheeks burn from the humiliation, and the stares of everyone around him raises gooseflesh upon the back of his neck where he can feel their eyes on him – but he knows that Snape has the power to give him detention, humiliate him at school, and ground him.

Instead he takes a steadying breath, and stares back as impassively as he can feign.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Clearly fame isn’t everything here. You will be expected to perform much better in future, Mister Prince.”

Harry barely listens as Snape lists all the correct answers – Draught of Living Death, the stomach of a goat, they’re the same plant – too busy reconsidering his perspective on the man. He’d been too quick to ease up even in the slightest, he decides. Snape had treated him awfully despite claiming to be his father for years; the man had turned on him so quickly that Harry is still jarred from the whole experience as the class gets set to work. None of that had even been in their potions textbook! Harry would know, he spent his evenings skimming through all his books before leaving for Hogwarts.

With that in mind, he still whole-heartedly refuses to forgive him.

#fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 10 months

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Harry Prince and the Philosopher's Stone - Chapter 4 - Into The Badgers' Den

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It’s only a moment before the noise starts back up. One quick pause of pin-drop silence and then people are gasping, yelling, cheering.

The whole yellow table jumps to their feet, yelling out in victory like they won a great prize. It’s… not really an experience Harry knows how to feel about. While the tables cheer for every new student within their ranks, this is something else and Harry isn’t sure how to react under this attention.

A glance at the professor over his shoulder, as she lifts the hat from atop his head, gains him a reassuring smile. And so Harry pushes to his feet and shuffles his way to the celebrating table. Some students shuffle around and Harry drops himself in the nearest vacant seat. The fact that Hannah is close enough to talk to, should he need, is something of a reassurance.

When the noise starts to die down, Harry looks back up to the top of the hall, face flaming. The teacher Harry assumes to be the headmaster is already looking at him, an expression Harry can’t understand on his face. But then the man is smiling and pushing himself to his feet to call for quiet.

Reluctantly, all the students settle down, though a glance suggests that the other tables are a little put-upon that Harry didn’t end up with them. It’s a dizzying thought. But the rest of the names go by easily enough, all getting sorted into their houses with suitable applause. Zabini is last and ends up in Slytherin, much to his pleasure if the smirk he wears is anything to go on.

After the last bout of celebration that brought drew to an end, the probably-headmaster rises once again to his feet and surveys the hall with a wide smile.

“Welcome!” he says. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you”

Harry and Hannah exchange bemused glances, quickly distracted by the appearance of food beneath their noses. Platters are piled high with any and every food Harry could possibly think of; he doesn’t know where to start!

“This is all mental,” he breathes to himself, overwhelmed by everything around him.

An older student smiles at him and leans across the table to stage-whisper.

“That’s what makes Hogwarts so amazing.”

Harry laughs a little nervously before glancing up towards the professors’ table. A breath steels his nerves and then he turns back to the person who addressed him.

“Is he… a little mad?”

“Professor Dumbledore?” they ask, dishing themselves up roasted carrots and then offering the serving spoon to Harry. “A little. He’s a genius, though, and a great Headmaster. Everyone loves him, and you get used to his eccentricities.”

“Ah,” Harry nods with a grin. “Yeah, okay.”

Another older student nudges at Harry’s side, catching his attention and then gesturing towards the hesitant chatter amongst the other first years.

“You’ll want to start chatting with the other first years,” he says with a knowing smile. “It’s always a little easier to get friendly with people on the first day, when everyone’s feeling a little shy.”

“So I can’t be friendly with you?” Harry jokes.

The boy huffs a laugh, spearing a potato with his fork.

“You can, I’m Cedric.”

“Harry.”

“I caught that, funnily enough,” the other boy grins, making Harry flush.

“Ah, yeah,” he manages, ducking his head and busying himself with piling food onto his own plate. “Usually I go by Harry Prince, though so… That hasn’t really happened before.”

When he dares a glance back, Cedric offers him a sympathetic smile.

“Well, you handled it great – I nearly fainted during my sorting just as it was, I was so nervous.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he laughs, nudging Harry again; “so try talking with everyone else – I promise they’re nervous too, and will want to make friends.”

Harry offers a last shy smile, before sucking up his courage and turning to the other first years, noticing for the first time how all their robes are solely black. Maybe they’ll have to hand them in to someone to get them changed to their house colours?

“I thought I might’ve been put in Ravenclaw,” one of the boys is saying. “At least, that’s what me mum thought, cause I were doing real well in school before this.”

Another kid grins at him.

“That’s so cool! Do you think that’s why you were up there longer than me?”

“Well, duh,” the first returns with a teasing smile.

“You weren’t gonna be anywhere other than Hufflepuff, Kev,” a girl with long black hair leans in to tell the second boy, before turning to Hannah and another girl. “Y’know, Kevin used to just come home with stray animals… all the time. Should’ve started his own shelter.”

“That’s cute,” the red-head next to Hannah smiles shyly.

“You know each other, then?” Hannah asks the dark-haired girl.

“Hmm? Yeah – live in the same town, don’t we?”

Kevin nods back at her.

“I’m stuck with her.”

“Oi!” She huffs, good-naturedly.

It makes Harry’s chest ache, longing for his friends back home already.

“So… are you all raised magic or…?” he finds himself asking, genuinely curious.

Hannah grins at him, nodding although he already knew about her.

“Me and Megan were, yeah,” Kevin says, and Harry makes a mental note of his friend’s name.

The red-head nods, and the boy next to her grins a gap-toothed smile.

“I was half-raised magic. Mum’s a muggle, but dad made sure I knew all the basic stuff,” he agrees.

“I wasn’t,” one of the last first years says, not meeting anyones eye. “My family isn’t magic”

Everyone, seemingly satisfied with the answers already given, turns to Harry.

“What about you?” Megan asks, waving three skewered green beans at him with her fork. “I haven’t heard about you at all!”

“Oh, uh,” Harry flushes. “I was raised with muggles, but by a wizard.”

Unconsciously, his eyes dart to Snape where he’s whispering to the Professor that did the sorting. Harry realises, suddenly, that he’ll actually be able to put faces to the names of the friends his dad talks about. He also realises how weird it’s going to be knowing the gossip about the teachers – though Snape is adamant he doesn’t gossip, that is exactly what he does.

“So, um,” he continues, turning his gaze quickly back to the group, “I don’t actually know a lot about magic, but I’ve known that I have it for a while, y’know?”

“And you’re friends with muggles?”

Harry manages a bitter-sweet smile. It’s only been a day and he feels the distance between them already.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Neat,” a boy who hasn’t spoken yet is saying. “What’s everyone’s names, by the way? I’m Justin.”

The group goes round introducing themselves and Harry finds out that the boy who might have been a Ravenclaw is called Ernie, the red-headed girl is called Susan, and the boy with the gap-tooth smile is Wayne, and Roger is the last and most quiet of the lot. Including Harry that makes nine Hufflepuff first-years, which doesn’t strike him as a lot considering this must be about a quarter of his whole year-group and this school supposedly holds the whole population of school-aged British witches and wizards. Harry’s year group was larger than this in his primary school, and that was just for Cokesworth.

Still, though, there’s enough of them that they manage to bounce through conversations that aren’t actually that awkward. Harry likes these kids, he thinks. He definitely likes Hannah, at least, and he’s very glad he got to get to know her a bit already on the train so he feels less alone in this group. He just hopes Neville and Zabini are making friends at their own tables, though he can’t quite seem to spot them through the crowds of students even as the good food and late hour starts to subdue them.

It seems that the teachers seem to notice that the students are finishing up their desserts – Harry had a pretty large piece of treacle tart that he absolutely didn’t have room for, but that was unequivocally worth it – and are growing tired. After a dip in the chatter, the headmaster pushes himself back to his feet once more, all eyes swinging round to him.

With final words of warning from the Professor and a, pretty confused on the part of the first years, rendition of the school song, students were dismissed to file out of the hall.

“You guys’ll want to follow Gabriel, he’ll be the prefect who’ll show you to the common room,” Cedric leans over to tell Harry before hurrying off to catch up with the other older students waving him along.

Gabriel turns out to be a tall, stocky boy who seems to be practically vibrating with excitement to be giving them the tour. House pride, Harry assumes, but his sleepy mind and heavy limbs aren’t nearly as on the ball as their guide’s.

“Right, hi, firsties!” the guy beams. “You’re lucky, it’s really not far to the Hufflepuff common room so you’ll be settling in to rest in no time.”

Harry and the rest follow after him, docile from exhaustion, as the prefect continues on.

“Gryffindor and Ravenclaw both have entrances to a tower somewhere, so that’s a lot of stairs for them.”

They descend a set of stone stairs not too far from the entrance to the Great Hall.

“Slytherin’s a bit better since they’re only somewhere in the dungeons, but still not great. Whereas we…”

There are a few turns down corridors before they stop before stacks of huge barrels, each of them that Harry could probably stand up in were they open. In fact, Gabriel mightn’t even have to duck too far to fit through.

“Ha!” the prefect exclaims, throwing them all a grin. “We’re right here.”

He pulls a wand from a pocket in his robe and raises it to one specific barrel.

“Now, pay attention, cause this is how we get in–”

And then he taps the tip of his wand against the wood, making Harry think back, briefly, to his venture into Diagon Alley. It wasn’t all that different from the entrance there, he supposed.

“Hel–ga… Hu-ffle-puff…” Gabriel mutters under his breath to the rhythm of his tapping, a little smile still on his face.

That smile widens as the wood of the barrel lid rolls aside to reveal not the inside of a barrel… but a bustling room full of Hufflepuff students. Even as tired as they are, there are some gasps of awe and surprise as Gabriel ducks into the opening to the space on the other side.

“C’mon!” the prefect coaxes and everyone scrambles to follow him inside.

The space, Harry has to admit as he looks around in awe, is pretty damn amazing. The room is pretty huge, as he figures it has to be to house all of Hufflepuff in their down time, and has beautiful stone-brick walls. The space isn’t cold, though. The room itself forms a large and yet snuggly cluttered circular space. There are tapestries and moving paintings adorning the walls, and shelves upon shelves of books and potted plants. The floor has overlapping rugs, all in various states or wear but feeling beautifully lived in. The furniture, too, looks cushy and inviting. The space is full of plush sofas and armchairs, all piled high with soft-looking cushions and discarded blankets.

Everything is warmed by the roaring fireplace and further lit by the candles mounted to the walls and cluttered on beautiful wooden side-tables. It gives the room a bright, cosy feel that only accentuates the personality of the mismatched furniture. And, on the other side of the room, is a large glass window taking up most of the wall-space. Light must pour through that in the day to keep all the plants thriving; though, now, all that can be seen is an ocean of night.

Harry glances at Hannah, who seems to be taking this all in with a great deal of awe, too. In fact, all the first years are looking around with a kind of sleepy wonderment as the rest of the house tiredly say their goodbyes and shuffle off to what Harry assumes must be their beds.

“Welcome to the Hufflepuff common room,” Gabriel grins. “You’ll get the proper speech from our head of house tomorrow morning before breakfast, but this is where you’ll probably spend a lot of your evenings.” He gestures to two wooden doors, one on either side of the room. “Through these are the student dorms – girls on the left and boys on the right. Some of the other houses have preventions against boys or girls going in the wrong dorms, but Hufflepuff doesn’t for reasons you probably don’t care about. Either way we just need to wait for….”

Gabriel trails off, looking around until his eyes fall onto an exhausted looking girl who makes her way over to them.

“Ah! Tina,” Gabriel grins at her.

Tina, Harry notes, is wearing the same ‘P’ badge attached to her clothes that Gabriel is on his school robes, despite the fact she’s already changed into a pair of soft pink pyjamas. She nods, blinking through evident exhaustion, before turning to their group and putting her hands on her waist.

“Right, hello!” she tries for cheerful. “I’m Tina, and I’m also a Hufflepuff prefect.”

Even through everything, Harry feels a sense of ease with both the prefects. Gabriel and Tina, outwardly, seem to be quite opposite. Gabriel is a tall, lanky boy with dishevelled, dirty blonde hair and a dusting of freckles who is vibrating with energy and excitement, smile wide enough to show both rows of his teeth. Tina, on the other hand, is a plump girl with beautiful ochre skin and wide downturned eyes who seems a lot more calm, at least right now, and wears a much more subtle smile. Despite all that, they both feel oddly approachable and friendly. That’s probably, thinking about it, how they both ended up both in Hufflepuff and as the prefects greeting the first years.

“Tina’s gonna show the girls to their room. Just cause we can go into the girls area, doesn’t mean we do so for no reason.”

The boys all nod. That’s fair enough.

“Right, girls,” Tina announces sleepily, waving a hand over her head, “to bed! This way.”

The girls and guys wave a quick goodbye before they trail after Tina and the boys are led to the other door by Gabriel. The hallway behind is is simple and quaint, with doors at various intervals on either side, each with a name plate dictating which yeargroup’s dorms lie beyond. It’s the second door on the right with a sign proclaiming ‘1st Years’.

Behind this door is yet another, much shorter corridor. There are five doors branching off this corridor, though only two have nameplates on currently. At the end of the corridor, almost stretching from the ceiling to the rug that runs along the floor, is a canvas of a greying, red-headed wizard sat up a chess board.

“Ah!” the painting greets. “Evening boys.”

“That’s Lucien,” Gabriel introduces. “He was a Seer who attended Hufflepuff… was it three hundred years back, sir?”

“Three hundred and four,” the man nods agreeably, stretching his legs out.

“He’s sort of security for these dorms, but he wanders off from time to time.”

“Is an old man not allowed friends?” the painting teases in the background.

“You’ll be in these dorms for your years at Hogwarts – the sign will be changed between the years to match what year you are in when you return. This’ll be your home for as long as you’re here, so take care of it!

“That door at the end–” he gestures “--is your shared bathroom space. You can check that out in the morning. For now your cases have been put in your respective rooms. Feel free to debate which beds you all get, but they should all be about the same.

“Have a good night, guys! You’ll need to be up for half past six tomorrow to meet Professor Sprout in the common room.”

With that, the older boy lets himself back out of their corridor and off to his own room. For a moment all the boys just blink at each other tiredly.

“C’mon then chaps,” Lucien smiles. “Spit spot! To bed with you.”

They startle slightly and then peer at the doors around them. It seems the six of them have been split evenly between two of the four dorm rooms. Harry finds his own name – ‘Harry P.’ it reads, which is a little relieving since being Harry Potter has already been such an overwhelming experience – on a door alongside ‘Roger M.’ and ‘Justin F.’.

The inside of their dorm is as round as the common room, with canopy beds pushed with the heads against the walls somewhat-evenly spaced apart. They hang with muted yellow curtains – a colour that had been seen in abundance in the common room. It seems the whole of Hufflepuff is adorned with yellows, blacks, greys, and earth tones as well as a splash of green from plants. Even here they can’t seem to escape the pop of a new colour. Each bedside table has a potted plant standing proud.

On the wall directly opposite the door is a little fireplace that makes entering the room warm and cosy.

“Who wants the bed nearest the fire?” Justin asks, yawning as he makes his way over to their cases left neatly to the side of the door.

Roger doesn’t say anything, but shifts a little, eyes darting towards the bed longingly.

“You want it?” Harry asks him and the boy nods.

“If – uh – if no one else does? I get a bit cold at night.”

“Cool with me,” Justin says, tugging out a pair of pyjamas from his case. “You mind if I have the one closest to the door, Harry?”

“No, that’s cool,” he agrees, moving to haul his bed over to the last remaining bed.

They change in comfortable silence before burrowing into the comforters and pillows on their new beds. Eyes heavy and belly full, Harry thinks he won’t last long at all before slipping into the embrace of sleep. Even so, he can’t help muttering out a little:

“This all feels so strange…”

Roger hums in agreement as Justin snorts in amusement.

#fic: hpatps #i didnt forget to post chapter 4 to tumblr even tho it was on ao3 already #what on earth do you mean #im totally organised

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theburdenofresponsibility · 10 months

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as is entirely par of the course for me, i entirely forgot to keep working on this series. and also to update on whats going on. so, uh- motivation dropped (im very distractable sorry) but ill keep working on this story whenever i remember to/can wrangle my self control

#updates #i do currently have a cold tho so not gonna be coming too soon

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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updates will probably fall to less than once a week after chapter 7 is posted because i have the urge to start another fic for cunningway (chrissy x heather, stranger things) and i have no desire to control my impulses for them, they are my girlies and take priority <3

#updates #fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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Harry Prince and the Philosopher's Stone - Chapter 3 - A Journey Aboard The Hogwarts Express

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read on AO3 | word count: 4,413

The short month between Harry’s birthday and the departure of the Hogwarts Express passes in days of playing with his friends and flicking through his textbooks.

Sunny summer days are spent tossing pebbles into the rivers and staging adventures through the woods. The sun smiles down on them, seeping into what will undoubtedly become fond memories, held close to Harry’s heart, caressed as he looks back on them like photographs. It shines down on the gurgling streams, glinting off the miraculously clear surface in shimmering reflections of their bright moods.

Trees seem greener, that summer, and the breezes fresher and sweeter. Laughter sings out like birdsong until kids scurry home as the wounded day bleeds red into the blue sky. But even as another day dies, Harry remains determined again and again to heed Maggie’s advice and make each day the most it can be. Smiles are never far from faces, and chatter rises and falls like the rippling breeze that flutters through the wildflowers in the woods.

Maybe bittersweetness drives Harry and all his friends closer and closer each day, maybe it makes their hugs linger a few seconds longer and their tightness strike with the pain of a blade through their hearts but each day is full and alive. The world seems to breathe with them as they catch their breath between days of wandering and chasing and hoping to believe that maybe August would never draw to an end.

He thinks about talking to his friends about Snape, about how he feels his whole life is a lie, but he can’t bear it. Everything is crumbling beneath him, the trajectory of his life changing irrevocably, and he just wants to act as if everything is fine, just for these last few weeks. As far as everyone needs to know, Harry’s dad is still his dad and all that matters is how soon they can meet up to play again.

But playing pretend always ends up cut short, and the game pieces seem to flutter away as the first leaves are kissed red by time. Before Harry knows it, and sooner than he would like, he has to start packing up his case for school in the following week.

Of course, he is excited to go to Hogwarts, too! That’s where he belongs, where he needs to be – and Harry is more than excited to learn magic, as any kid would be. Each night he pours over his textbooks, utterly captivated with the idea of magic. Erys whispers to him, asking about what he’s looking at as he reads by the light of his bedroom lamp. So, yes, he does want to go–

He just can’t bear to leave.

The day before Harry is due to leave, Maggie comes over and helps him unpack and repack his case to make sure there’s nothing he’s missed. There isn’t, of course, as Harry very well knows – he’s checked his case six times over already – but he can hardly bear the thought of having to be with his friends and pretend that nothing is going to change tomorrow when everything will be different.

By this time tomorrow he’ll be in Scotland. So, so far away. Nothing will be the same, and Harry isn’t so sure he’s ready for that.

Snape, of course, had tried talking to him about Hogwarts to quell his nerves. It hadn’t been much of a help, though. Sure, now Harry knows a little about the school, but he still can’t hear the word without his stomach twisting itself into knots. Eventually, Harry just told him to stop talking about it and that had been that; though, that was partially because Snape had started to be required at Hogwarts more and more to set up for the year.

Yet another thing for Harry to be annoyed at him for.

Rationally, a part of him knew it was his job and that he had to be gone a lot more, just as he was every year… but most of him just wished he had his usual ‘nothing will go wrong, because I will not tolerate nuisance to pester either of us’ attitude. So, yes, Harry glared at his dad whenever he was around, and snarked about his absence under his breath when he wasn’t.

“Quit your grumbling,” Maggie huffs at him as he does just that, trying to fit his novels back into his case – the ones he’d gotten for his birthday but hadn’t read yet. “One would think you’re being sent off to live in a cave, not that you’re packing to go to one of the most famous wizarding schools in the world.”

Harry sighs, closing the clasps on his case and shuffling over to sit by where Erys is laying content in her enclosure. She peers up at him, half snuggled into her bedding and no doubt enjoying the warming charms that run through the base of her tank.

“I just… I wanted him to be here. He’s not even seeing me off on the train, and none of my friends can see me off.”

“I know, kid,” Maggie tells him, voice softening. “You’re feeling left alone. I felt left alone every year I had to watch my big sister get on that train without me. Trust me, it’s no easier having the people you’re going to miss be there to wave you off.

“We’re all going to miss you, so much. Me, Cath, and all your friends. But – and I know it’s not the same – but you can write to us. And once you make some new friends the time will start going by a lot quicker, I promise.”

Harry nods, sighing out very put-upon once again.

“But, if it’s any condolence, me and Addie will be there to see you off. So, you’ve got two old bats – at least one of which who will miss you every day, and so will Taffy – to wave as the train departs. And we’re both incredibly proud of you for trying to be so brave, and kind to your friends even though you’re upset.”

“It is… a bit,” Harry confesses, looking down to hide the embarrassed look on his face.

“That’s the spirit,” Maggie grins. “Well, since we’re all repacked for the – what? – the ninetieth time–”

“It’s not the ninetieth–”

“-then I think it’s about time we get cooking tea. You and your friends still wanting jacket spuds when they come round for your send-off meal?”

Harry nods decidedly.

“You always do me jackets at the end of August when Snape’s off at work. It feels right.”

The woman’s smile is heartbreakingly fond, and Harry suddenly realises how much he’s going to miss her as well as all his school friends.

“Well, then that’s coming right up, Harry,” she promises, reaching over to ruffle his hair.

Maggie smells, as always, like lavender and dish soap as he presses his face deep into her jumper. The idea of letting go seems more impossible now than ever, and Addie putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder only makes him feel more like he should be staying. Everyone who cares about him is here in England – or back in Cokesworth specifically. He’s leaving them all behind.

Sure, he’s known that this whole time, but now, standing in front of the fiery red engine of the train as his two guides try in vain to get him to get onto one of the cars, it seems so much more real. It’s no longer a ticking clock, no longer something he can put off thinking about like the day will never come if he ignores the panic it brings stubbornly enough. Now it’s waiting right there, whistling as the crowds of kids, and parents, and guardians bustle about.

Erys is already in the compartment with the other pets, helped by a kind-faced older student dressed in blue-accented robes while they were sorting out their own belongings. Still, Harry almost still thinks he might be able to cling on until the train pulls away so that Maggie would have no choice but to take him home.

“Come on, kid,” Maggie is coaxing, and it makes his emotions feel justified to hear the watery waver in her own voice. “Time to get aboard and make some memories.”

Reluctantly, Harry withdraws from his hold on the woman, though his hands linger another moment on her arms as if he’s having a great deal of trouble reigning in the impulse to cling straight back to her. The platform the women had guided him to once they got off their train from home to Kings Cross – Platform 9 ¾ – wavers in his teary gaze. The train gives another whistle and Harry finally pulls away entirely.

A glance at the clock tells him he only has five minutes to get on and seated before the train pulls away. He’d already been warned, after all, that it did not linger for any student, teacher or anyone else of any sort. So, despite everything within him begging to stay, he asks Maggie and Addie to help him put his heavy case up the step into the train.

With a wave of her wand, Addie sends it up for him and then Harry is clambering aboard.

“Bye, Auntie Maggie, Auntie Addie.”

The women’s lips quirk in amused smiles, though Maggie’s is a great deal more bitter-sweet.

“You’d better write as soon as you get there, kid,” Maggie warns as he starts his way down the aisle to find a compartment either empty, or at least not full of kids three times his size. Harry doesn’t dignify that with a response, already having assured the woman that he would do exactly that countless times over, and instead laughs wetly to himself.

It only takes Harry a minute to peer into a compartment he doesn’t mind opening so much. It isn’t empty, though. There are three kids already inside but, since Harry happens to recognise one, he doesn’t feel so bad about invading their space.

“Hey,” he waves awkwardly as the door slides half-closed to press against his arm. “Got room for one more?”

“Prince,” Blaise – or, uh, well, Zabini greets him, inclining his head. “You’re welcome to come in, you don’t have to linger.”

Harry flushes slightly, but pushes all the way in and struggles to put his suitcase up on the rack when another of the kids steps in to help him. He offers her a grateful smile and she grins right back before dropping back into her seat beside Zabini.

“I’m Hannah,” she introduces, eyes flickering between Harry and the other boy in the compartment, and it’s at that moment that Harry realises that she must not know him either.

The thought maybe shouldn’t be so immensely comforting, but it is. It suddenly allows the fact that, despite some other kids here being raised in the wizarding world, not everyone knows each other to sink in. Which means that everyone won’t already be in groups.

He sighs a discrete breath of relief before offering a shy smile and returning the introduction.

“I’m Harry.”

“Uh – Neville Longbottom,” the boy next to him chimes in.

“Zabini. Blaise Zabini.”

It’s only a minute or two of awkward silence later that a final, doubly piercing whistle to the ones prior, splits through the air and the train shudders and begins to move. Erupting shouts of excitement from the rest of the train seem to coax the four of them to their feet. Within seconds they are all pressed to the open window of their compartment with varying degrees of dignity.

Unabashed, Harry waves vigorously at his Aunties until he can no longer make them out in the crowd and then drops back into his seat. Neville seems to linger for the longest by the window, though Harry does also notice Zabini sending subtle glances out of it as if he expects them to suddenly be able to see the crowds waiting there once again.

After the fanfare of the departure wears off, the group seems to lapse again into a slightly awkward silence. It’s one Harry doesn’t quite know how to break, and from the looks of it, neither do the rest of them. He almost considers pulling a book from his case, before deciding that would be incredibly rude – besides, he’s supposed to be making friends, not ignoring people.

And he wants to make it easier for the others, too. He remembers too many instances where he had to jump in to help Chris out when he was having trouble connecting with others and they ended up icing him, and is determined to not be the cause of that with someone else.

“How long do you think it takes to get to Hogwarts?” he asks, to break the ice.

“I hope not too long,” Neville confesses. “I was too nervous to eat my breakfast this morning so I’m starving.”

“I guess we have something in common, then,” Harry admits, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, there’s a sweets trolley on the train,” Hannah enthuses; “so we’ll get to snack at some point.”

“Great!” Neville beams, and even Zabini cracks a pleased grin.

“I hope they have cauldron cakes,” he confesses. “Mum doesn’t often get them in, and I’m a bit fond of them.”

“Um..” Harry stumbles, “Cauldron cakes?”

“Yes,” Zabini frowns. “Have you never had them before?”

“They’re standard wizard sweets,” Neville says, and then promptly flushes at realising how teasing his tone had been with someone he hardly knows.

“Ah,” Harry manages, toying with his fingers nervously. “I’ve never had any wizard sweets. I was raised muggle.”

“Oh!” Hanah exclaims, half jumping out of her seat and startling Zabini beside her.

After that, the group delves into a conversation about different wizarding sweets and which kind are the most superior. The topic shifts between enthusiasm and good-natured bickering easily enough, and by the time Harry realises they’ve managed to switch onto ranking other things – colours and wand-woods, considering both practicality and aesthetics, mainly – Harry has a long list of treats he would like to try.

“Well, what kind of wood is your wand then, Zabini?” Hannah asks, good naturedly.

“12 ½ inch, unyielding, chestnut, phoenix feather,” he recites.

“Woah,” Neville huffs.

“Show off,” Hanna snorts, though the air of the chatter remains pleasant. “Mine’s 13 ¼ inches, quite bendy, larch, dragon heartstring, mister specific.”

“Well,” Zabini smirks, “if we’re being specific then the correct title would be Master Specific, Mistress Abbott.”

She simply rolls her eyes and turns to Neville.

“How about–? Hey, are you okay, Neville?”

“I-” he stutters, face somehow both drained of colour and flushing from embarrassment. “I can’t find Trevor, my toad. I was- I was sure he was in here…”

“We’ll look,” Harry promises, getting to his feet to check around him to see if Trevor was blending into any of the cushions… somehow.

The toad, though, doesn't seem to be anywhere in their compartment, no matter how they all get up and search. Bags are pulled down from racks and rifled through, cushions are checked behind, pockets are emptied; but the creature is nowhere, and with each passing moment Neville is getting more distressed.

“I-” he stutters; “I’m going to check out in the hall.”

“Good idea,” Harry nods.

“We’ll keep looking in here,” Hannah promises.

And they do, checking every corner until there is nowhere else in the compartment the toad could feasibly be. Eventually they cave and settle into their seats, eyes still flickering around guiltily although they know Trevor isn’t in there with them.

“He should have put the beast in the animal carriage,” Zabini sighs and Hannah shoots him an exasperated look.

“I didn’t even know we had the choice not to put pets there,” Harry confesses. “Otherwise I probably would’ve kept Erys with me.”

“Erys?” Hannah asks as Zabini cocks a brow.

“My snake.”

The girl shudders.

“They’ve always freaked me out a little.”

Harry just shrugs.

“Erys is lovely, and she’s only a baby so she’s tiny. You can meet her when we get to Hogwarts if you’re not too freaked out.”

“I would like to,” Zabini says, puffing out his chest and sending Hannah a smug look. She pulls a face at him before breaking out in a breathless laugh.

“Maybe,” she concedes.

The door slides open and the three of them jump. A girl with bushy, brown curls stands in the entrance with a determined frown on her face, with a teary-eyed Neville cowering behind her.

“And you’re sure he’s not in here?” she asks. “Because we checked everywhere else.”

Harry bristles, shoulders tensing at her impatient tone. Hannah seems unimpressed as well, face twisting in a frown, while Zabini merely surveys her with disinterest.

“We all looked together,” Harry tells the girl. “Trevor really isn’t here.”

Her eyes jump to him and survey him up and down. She casts everyone else a quick glance before her gaze seems to settle back on him, as if drawn. It isn’t like she’s looking at him, though, her eyes seem to dance about as picking out little details but never seeing the full picture of just Harry. And then that evaluating look lands just above his eyes – something very discomforting to realise since she is so close to meeting his stare but just failing – before recognition sparks through her.

She straightens with a beaming smile, as if she is very proud of her search and whatever conclusions she has drawn.

“I know you,” she grins. “You’re Harry Potter–” Hannah’s eyes jump to him, widened slightly, for a brief moment at this “I got a few extra books for background reading and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and you’re mentioned briefly in Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century .”

“Am I?” Harry squeaked, feeling rather overwhelmed.

“Goodness, didn’t you know? I’d have–”

“Yes, yes,” Zabini dismisses, waving a hand. “But it doesn’t matter in the slightest what you’d have done, does it?”

The girl looks rather scandalised at that, not that Zabini seems to care in the slightest. He just scratches the corner of his brow with a bored expression.

“So, thank you for returning Longbottom to us, Miss…”

“Hermione Granger.”

“Granger,” Zabini nods, with a tight, polite smile that has Harry and Hannah looking at each other in disbelief. “A pleasure. But, since you are not Prince, here, then your hypothetical course of action rather has no effect on this topic. So…”

The girl – Hermione – huffs and turns up her nose, barely shuffling to the side as a flustered and still distraught Neville squeezes his way through past her. She eyes Zabini for a moment before flitting her gaze between the rest of them.

“Well,” she huffs, “the lot of you ought to put on your robes, I expect we’ll be arriving soon.”

And then, in a swirl of robes, she turns on her heel and strides back out – presumably in the direction of her own compartment. Zabini merely rolls his eyes at her antics, though a smile does quirk at the corner of his mouth when Hannah erupts into giggles. It's the kind of smile that Harry can’t help but find himself returning, a wide grin breaking out on his face.

“Thanks, Zabini.”

The other boy dismisses his appreciation with an idle flap of his hand, but that quickly-growing-familiar smug expression returns to his face.

“Not at all. I have no patience for misplaced superiority,” he confesses. “And we’ve not even arrived at the school yet – that girl needs to earn my respect before she goes blithering on.”

Hannah snorts a laugh.

“Does that mean we’d better all keep our mouths shut around you until you give us some signal that we’re worth your time?”

Zabini just smirks. Acknowledging a; “Perhaps.

“She was right about the robes, though. The sun’s dropping low so we must have been on this train for a good few hours now.”

They all glance out the window and see that he’s right. The horizon is painted in peaches and fiery reds as the light of the sun dips lower and blinding.

Thinking of summer evenings he has left behind, Harry wriggles out of his hoodie so that he can pull his outer robes over his shirt and trousers.

Being led out from the dimly lit side chamber into that bustling hall is probably the second most overwhelming moment of Harry’s life so far – second, obviously to that conversation with Snape. The flickering lights of the floating candles seem more blinding than any other light before. They all glare down at him, their light piercing him just as the gazes of all the other students do, already sitting up their colour-coordinated tables.

The anxious churning of his stomach is no help either. Try as he might, Harry can’t seem to ignore the half-excited, half-nervous whispering of Hermione which just makes everything worse. Ideas of what this test could possibly be are swimming through his mind, shouting out and drowning out the sound around him. Everything seems muffled beneath his turbulent thoughts and the pounding of his heart, though he knows the sounds of their footsteps must be ringing out through the hall.

Neville and Hannah are pressed close on either side of him, looking no better off than he is. Both of them are pale and wide-eyed, gazes flickering around in a way that Harry doubts has anything to do with awe – at least for right now. Harry feels nothing but anxiety, anyway, and can’t imagine it’s that different for anyone else.

Zabini strides just ahead of them, head held high, but even that doesn’t hide the way his hands are clenched into fists. He glances back over his shoulder and dark eyes meet Harry’s for a moment, he offers the other boy a weak smile hoping to reassure them both.

When the procession is slowed to a halt, they stand in front of the table at the top of the hall. All the staff seems to stare down at them and, unthinkingly, his eyes flick across the teachers until–

He tears his gaze away from Snape, unable to bear the way the man’s eyes had snapped to meet his own, as if Snape had been able to sense Harry’s on him. Instead, Harry pointedly stares at the woman who led them into the hall; Harry, in his stress, seems to have already forgotten her name and can only hope he isn't the only one. He hasn’t paid attention to a word of what she’s been saying, though, until she lifts a list and begins reading names.

Maybe he should have actually been listening. From the way Hannah seems to jump in terror when her name is the first to be called, Harry can infer that this isn’t going to be anything particularly fun. Instead of just bemoaning himself for not paying enough attention, he reaches out and gives her arm a quick reassuring squeeze.

He’s still revelling in self-pity while he does that, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Hannah hurries up and seats herself where the professor indicates and an old, ratty hat is promptly dropped onto her head. A pause stretches on for a few seconds, it feels like the whole school is holding their breath. Then–

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

The whole group of first-years seem to stumble a step backwards in surprise, except for Zabini who Harry collides backwards into. A huff of a laugh escapes Harry as the yellow-clad table erupts into rapturous applause. That’s it? Just- They put on a hat and it tells them what house they’ll be in?

Spinning slightly on the spot, Harry shoots Zabini an apologetic smile but the other boy merely smirks back at him. Harry doesn’t think he’s imagining the relieved flash in his expression that he quickly schools away.

“So we’ve just got to try on the hat!” A red-haired boy is whispering, outraged. “I’ll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll.”

“Bones, Susan,” is announced next, and Harry watches with rapt attention as they progress through the rest of the assembled kids.

Hermione, from the train, takes a full five minutes before she gets sent to Gryffindor. Neville gets sent there after her and promptly follows, to which he looks pleadingly over at Harry and Zabini as they wait in the crowd for their turns.

It seems fairly simple for each student, and so Harry is actually calming down just a tiny bit before–

“Potter, Harry!”

A chattering breaks out among the students, seeming to fill up every inch of the room. It’s a smothering, suffocating feeling to know that everyone is staring at him – more so than everyone else. Some kids are even half-standing from their seats to peer at him, he notices as he throws a glance over his shoulder.

Unsure, Harry’s eyes naturally turn back to Snape’s. The man is clenching his jaw, glaring at the old man sitting in the middle of the staff table. But when Harry turns to look at the same man there is merely a pleased gleam in his eyes.

Not wanting to linger and give everyone more time to gawk at him, he hurries up to the seat and allows the professor to drop the tattered hat over his head. The hall disappears beneath the rim, and all the eyes with it – though Harry can still feel them on him, making his skin crawl.

‘Hmmmm,’ a voice speaks into his ear, making him jolt in place. ‘Now… this isn’t what many would expect of you. But, oh, what an interesting mind. There’s talent, of course, and a decent deal of courage. And then there’s this new, burning need to prove yourself in regards to who you believe everyone thinks you should be…’

Harry squirmed in place - if this is what everyone else has to go to he doesn’t know how they sat so still. He actually feels sorry for poor Neville and Hannah.

‘And there’s that great kindness, and value for friendship. Difficult… Quite difficult. But with a mind like this, the perfect place for you is… ’

“HUFFLEPUFF!” the voice shouts out into the hall.

And a shocked silence descends.

#fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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Harry Prince and the Philosopher's Stone - Chapter 2 - The Last In A Long While

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read on AO3 | word count: 2,930

When Harry wakes up on the thirty-first of July, he finds himself in an odd mix of excitement and sadness.

Naturally, as has happened each year for as long as Harry can remember (and he tries pointedly to not think about the years he cannot remember right now, and the fact he would have lived in a different house and grown up to have different friends there had he been able to stay) Chris, Micky and Mandy will all come around for his birthday. Auntie Maggie and Catherine will spend the day tucked into the kitchen, baking Harry’s cake fresh for later in the day, and Harry and the other kids will spend all day playing while trying not to pester the adults to let them lick the bowl free of batter afterwards.

He’s still super excited for it, of course! His leg is jumping beneath the table as he eats his breakfast, and his eyes keep darting to the door as if expecting everyone to burst through early. It doesn’t matter that most of his friends live directly next door, and the rest he has seen every school day for the past six years, he’s still always beyond happy to see them…

Which is why today will be so hard.

His leg bouncing shifts between enthused impatience and a way to pretend away the growing dread. One thing he had not thought about, until he’d had that clipped conversation with his dad over the dining table about what pets would be preferable for Hogwarts, was that he wouldn’t be seeing his friends for long stretches of time. The idea was practically unbearable, no matter that his dad had assured him that, even should Harry not get his own owl to bring to Hogwarts, he had an owl he could use or there were the school ones he could borrow to keep in touch with his friends.

Harry has seen Chris in particular, his best friend, in person almost every day for so long that he can’t imagine not going to school together anymore. Sure, that will be the case for a year anyway, no matter what, since Chris is in the year below him, but he won’t even be living nearby. He’s going to be all the way across the country!

Harry curls his arms around himself, unable to think of how he was going to break the news to everyone.

“Harry?” a voice calls from the other side of the dining table and Harry’s head snaps upward on instinct. His father clears his throat a little awkwardly. “I know you usually wait until your friends are here before opening presents, but I think this one might benefit from being opened away from a crowd of giddy children.”

With that, Snape pushes up from his seat and leads Harry to a decent-sized box on the coffee table. It’s wrapped in green wrapping paper with little frogs in party hats on, and Harry’s lips quirk upwards in an amused smile despite himself.

“There’s no bottom to this one, the box is just covering your gift so you only need to lift it up.”

Shooting his dad a confused frown, Harry reaches over to lift the box off of his present. Then, he promptly gasps.

Beneath the covering is a tank mostly full of some kind of bedding and with a few sparsely placed decorations. That isn’t what steals Harry’s breath, though. No, he’s staring in wonder at the little snake curled up towards the centre of the tank, peering back up at him.

“Maggie said you’d been looking at her when she took you to Diagon Alley. I hope that you’re alright with this as your companion for Hogwarts.”

Harry lets out a gasp, glancing between the man beside him and the little snake, still staring back uncertainly.

“Erys?” he asks, uncertainly, somehow not sure that this could possibly be the same snake, and that his dad had put in such care.

The little thing’s head turns more towards him upon hearing her name.

“Friend Harry,” the snake hisses, tongue flicking out as she speaks.

“She’s an emery kenyan sand boa,” his dad fills in, sounding slightly nervous which makes Harry blink up at him in surprise. “Only a baby – though she won’t get too big so you took a liking to a great snake to take to Hogwarts; I doubt having to house a huge snake would be simple in the dorms. Do you have a name for her?”

“She told me her name,” Harry tells him. “It’s Erys.”

“She… told you?”

“Yes,” Harry frowns. “Didn’t you ask her?”

“Harry, I don’t understand snakes.”

“Well, she’s probably a magical snake, right?” Harry tries, puzzled. “I mean, she was at the menagerie.”

“Yes,” Snape agrees; “she was at the menagerie. But that wasn’t because she’s a magical creature. Your snake – Erys? – is just the same as any muggle could procure. They’re sold at the menagerie because there is something of an appeal to snakes – especially in certain magical families.”

Harry frowns.

“So… you really can’t understand her?” he turns to Erys. “Can other people not understand you?”

The snake gives a minute shake of her head.

“I am not able to sssspeak to many humans at all. Only Friend Harry.”

Harry blinks in surprise, not even shrugging off the hand that lands on his shoulder despite the vague awareness that he’s still mad at Snape for lying to him.

“Harry,” Snape presses gently. “Do you really understand her? It’s okay for you to tell me if you can.”

“I can,” he nods, smiling indulgently as Erys pipes up with a little: He can. “Is that weird?”

“No, not weird,” Snape dismisses. “Just rare. It’s a skill not many possess to be able to speak Parseltongue; I can only think of a few wizards known to be Parselmouths, and not a single muggle.”

“Parseltongue?”

“Snake language,” Snape fills him in. “It’s probably best if you don’t tell your friends that you have the skill, just as you can’t tell them of your magic.”

Harry nods compliantly.

“But I can keep Erys?”

“Of course you can.”

Without the festering grudge poisoning their relationship with tension, Harry likely would have thrown his arms about Snape and pressed his face into the comforting familiarity of the man’s clothes. As it was, though, Harry just manages a wide smile, keeping his arms firmly to his sides.

For a moment he feels a fleeting stab of pain at missing that closeness he’d had so freely before. In little moments like this, since learning the truth of his past and the depth of Snape’s deceit, it has been so difficult to keep that distance between himself and the man who raised him. Sometimes he even wonders if it’s worth it – this is his dad – but then he reminds himself that Snape technically isn’t; …so that’s better, right? And, more importantly, he didn’t tell him about how important his parents were, how important he supposedly is, that he’s got living family he’s never let him meet.

The door swings open as Catherine lets herself in and Harry’s qualms go forgotten.

“Hey, tiny!” Mickey is calling as he leads his siblings up with his longer stride. Harry rolls his eyes – Mickey is very glad of his little growth spurt he had last month, it doesn’t matter that his sister is actually taller than him despite being a year younger.

Mandy scoffs and elbows her brother in the side.

“Hypocrite,” she chides, pointedly looking down on him.

“Hey, guys,” Harry is grinning before turning solely to his best friend. “Chris! Come look; my dad got me a snake!”

“Woah!” he enthuses, rushing up to peer through the glass of the tank.

“Not quite a dinosaur but cool, right?”

“So cool,” Chris easily agrees, leaning in close enough that his nose is practically pressed to the side of the enclosure.

“Hello,” Erys greets with a flicker of her tongue and Chris watches, enraptured, though Harry supposes Snape must’ve been right and he doesn’t understand her.

“Okay, that’s awesome,” Mickey is enthusing and even Mandy is peering between the boys’ shoulders, though more apprehensively. “What’s his name?”

“Her name is Erys.”

“Like the Greek goddess?” Mickey turns to him. “I’ve checked out a library book on Greek mythology at the minute – it’s cool!”

Harry shrugs.

“It just… felt right for her.”

“Okay, kids,” Catherine admonishes. “Leave the snake to adjust to its new home. Why don’t you guys play hide and seek while you wait for Harry’s school friends to show up.”

They agree easily and hurry off to find hiding places as Chris starts to count, though Harry suspects that’s just a reason to let him gawk at Erys a little longer. Not that Harry minds, since Erys seems to preen under the attention before burrowing through the bedding of her tank.

Harry’s birthday goes along rather brilliantly, as always.

The group of kids – made up of Harry, his neighbours, and his four friends from primary school – play plenty of games as the enticing smell of baking chocolate cake drifts through from the kitchen. Harry wins a few games of hide and seek, though in a few instances he was sure the seeker looked straight through him, and then loses several games of tig and duck duck goose. It’s all great fun, and everyone is laughing breathlessly by the time the adults call them into the kitchen for lunch.

They nibble on cheese and tomato sandwiches, and cocktail sausages before hurrying back out since the adults are ready to let Harry do his presents.

Maggie and Adeline watch on happily, though Harry knows the gifts they got him are waiting in his room to be opened away from muggle eyes, alongside a couple of smaller gifts from his dad. Chris is a lot less patient, and pushes the parcel he clearly wrapped himself into Harry’s hands – it’s a set of lizard figurines, which Harry grins at his friend for; at some point, the younger boy’s interest in anything scaly became mutual. His friends from school got him some sweets and hotwheels. Mandy and Mickey each got him some books that he unwraps with much enthusiasm–

Until he is cut off by everyone erupting in singing Happy Birthday, since Snape has returned from the kitchen – which Harry didn’t see him even leave to – carrying the cake. The candles are blown out and everyone pauses to take cake, because that always takes precedence over opening more presents.

When they get back to it, though, things take something of a turn.

“That one’s from me, Harry,” Cath smiles at him as he picks up one of the last presents.

Harry thanks her, pulling at the bright-coloured paper to reveal a pad of nice paper and a beautiful fountain pen.

“I thought it might help you keep in touch,” she explains. “For when you move away.”

The other kids’ heads shoot up.

“Move away?” Ben from his maths class is asking, half-frantic.

“What do you mean, mum?” Mandy pleads.

Mickey is blinking like he can’t even comprehend what is being said.

“Yeah,” Harry confesses, toying with the edge of the torn paper. “I’m going to a boarding school in Scotland for secondary school. The same one my dad went to.”

The other kids erupt into confused and excited questions. He answers the best he can without admitting anything he shouldn’t, and is doing so when Chris starts shaking his head.

“No.”

“Christopher, hun-” Catherine is trying to placate, but it’s too late. Chris’ face is scrunched up like it does sometimes when he gets overwhelmed, tears in his eyes.

“No. That’s not fair, you’re not going away.”

“I have to,” Harry defends, voice wavering. “I don’t want to say goodbye but I’ll see you in the holidays and I’ll write, I promise.”

“No!” Chris shouts, and then he storms out, walking himself home easily.

Catherine starts fussing, apologising profusely, and rounds up her other kids to take home. They give Harry a crushing hug like they might never see him again. Once again, he’s reminded about the fact that this one of the last times he will be seeing his friends in a long while and tears streak down his cheeks, crumpling his face into an ugly sob.

Harry casts a desperate look between his dad and Maggie, silently pleading for help. After which they start tidying up all the mess and helping the other parents wrangle their own kids to head home.

He lingers just long enough to throw himself into a sorrowful hug with his classmates before he’s dashing up to his room. The door is slammed behind him, though his hands never touch the wood of it. Instead he rushes straight for his bed and collapses there, face pressed to the plushness of his pillow to stifle his sobs as best he can.

He’s not going to see his friends for so long, and Chris hates him for it– What is he meant to do? How will he make new friends at this new school? Who would even want to be his friend at all – maybe he’d just been lucky to make the friends he has here and no one really likes him that much. Maybe Chris won’t ever write to him, either, because he was so mad and he hates Harry now and—

“Harry?” comes the hesitant call from the other side of his door.

“Go AWAY!” Harry yells back, pulling his face away from the pillow just long enough to snap at Snape waiting in the hall before hiding away again. His head is pounding from the force of his tears and his nose is running and he just wants to be left alone.

“Harry…” Snape sighs and Harry’s temper boils over.

“Leave me alone! You’re not my real dad – you’re a liar and I don’t want to talk to you.”

As soon as he hears the silence that follows, guilt takes his heart in a crushing grip. Stubbornness overrules it, though; he’s not going to apologise. This is the worst birthday ever, and Snape is the worst dad ever and–

The door creaks open and Harry turns to glare daggers over his shoulder, not caring about how puffy his eyes are. It’s not his dad, though. His dad just left, apparently – didn’t even try again. Instead, his Auntie makes her way slowly over to his bed, looking at him with sorry eyes.

“You okay, kid?”

Harry gives her a sour look and she sighs.

“No, of course not. Your friend’ll come around – he just can’t deal with how much he’s going to miss you.”

Harry sniffles and presses his face back into the pillow. He doesn’t want to hear this, he doesn’t even know if he believes it. Harry’s seen Chris get overwhelmed, and upset, and mad a lot but he’s never seemed that mad at Harry. He’s not sure if they’ll ever be friends again – his breath hitches painfully – which is an awful thought. Tears sting back in his eyes and he can’t blink them away fast enough. His breath shudders as they race back down his face and join the wet splotch on his pillow.

Chris is– was his best friend.

Maggie lays a gentle old hand on his shoulder, making him meet her eye.

“He will come around,” she repeats. “And until then, your dad’s really worried about you. He’s pacing down in the kitchen, wondering what to do – and he’s real hurt because of what you yelled at him.”

That feeling twinges in Harry’s chest again and he has to look away from Maggie’s eye.

“I was right, though,” he insists, not entirely sure who he’s trying to convince. “He lied to me, and he doesn’t really care. Because of him, I grew up muggle which means that I’ve made all these friends I’ll have to lose. If I’d grown up in the wizarding world like I was supposed to, then this wouldn’t happen! I- I wouldn’t have met anyone that I have to leave. This is his fault.

“Besides, he left right away when he came to check on me, so can’t have really wanted to talk to me.”

The huff Maggie lets out is agitated.

“Now that is enough of that, mister,” she scolds. “That man loves you a great lot, you hear me? And when you realise how much you’d better run straight to him and apologise, you listening, kid?”

Harry flushes under her reproach, but stubbornly looks away and doesn’t agree.

When Maggie sighs, it’s half-resigned, half-angry.

“Well, if it weren’t your last month here I’d make sure your dad grounds you for that. But he won't, because this is your last chance to spend all your time with your friends, so you’re a lucky brat right now.”

Something in her seems to deflate and she leans down to press a kiss to Harry’s hair, despite how he squirms away from the affection.

“Enjoy this time with your friends. You’ll keep in touch with them, I’m sure, but I know you’ll still miss them. Don’t you dare spend all August sulking, because as soon as September starts you’re off to Hogwarts and your time will be wasted.”

She pushes to her feet from where she’d been perched on the edge of his comforter. Stretching her joints, she lets out a groan.

“Get some rest, kid. Being upset’s got you all tuckered out. I’ll see you soon.”

And then she sweeps from the room, leaving Harry alone with his grief again.

#fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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i have the next few chapters of hpatps prewritten and those will hopefully come out every friday for the next few weeks, but im currently in a busy point in my personal life so they might become irregular after a month or so if i dont have chance to get back to writing for this fic for a while

#updates #fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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Harry Prince and the Philosopher's Stone - Chapter 1 - Mr H. Potter

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warnings: harrys angsty, stubborn and mad at his dad

read on AO3 | word count: 4,613

The name means nothing to him at first. Harry simply stares at the swirling cursive on the envelope, addressing it to a Mr H. Potter, but then everything clicks back into place. His tired mind races to catch up and he huffs out a surprised breath.

The letter is for him. He is Mr H. Potter. Harry Potter, because that’s his true name, isn’t it? He’s not a Prince at all, even though that name is written on all the labels of his muggle school uniform, and that name is the one that’s greeted him on every school register thus far. Of course, if Harry truly is famous, like his– Snape had told him, then it would make sense for him to be acknowledged by the wizarding world by the name he is known by.

The wizarding world….

“Oh, wow!” Harry half shrieks, scrambling his way across the linoleum floor of the kitchen to reach where the letter lies in wait for him on the table. He pushes his glasses further up his nose, blinking through the sleep still blurring his vision, and snatches the paper from the surface. It seems to sing with magic beneath his fingers as he turns it over, reverently tracing the shape of the wax seal.

This- This is it. This is his letter , surely. The insignia is stamped with a bold ‘H’ in the centre, so there’s little else Harry can imagine it could be. It’s shown up just like Snape said it would. He’s truly going to a wizarding school to learn magic.

The idea is so wondrous that Harry has to sit down lest he vibrate apart from the excitement buzzing beneath his skin. Even so, he doesn’t pause as he wriggles a finger beneath the opening to tear into the letter.

There are two pieces of parchment inside the envelope. One seems to be a list, the other a letter reading:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Corc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

“It is,” he whispers to himself, awe flickering like a fireworks display in his chest – bright, cheerful, all-consuming. “It really is.”

Grin aching across his cheeks, Harry finds himself jumping to his feet, half-ready to rush upstairs and wake Snape when his feet falter. Should he really show Snape? He’s still furious with him. What he did, what he lied about, is unforgivable. Keeping that from him for so long…

Shaking his head, Harry sits himself back down at the table. Instead of rushing off, he reads the words again and again, as if half expecting they might evaporate straight off the page. By the time there’s a knock on the door, Harry thinks he must have the whole equipment list memorised.

He hurries to the door. While he knows he can’t tell his friends, he still half-hopes it’s Chris from next door come to play so that Harry can still share his excitement some way. It isn’t though; when he swings the door open he’s met with the smiling old face of Margaret.

“Auntie Maggie!” Harry beams. “What are you doing here?”

“I came as soon as I heard the news,” she tells him, pulling him into a hug that fills Harry’s nose with the scent of the flowers from her garden and dish soap. “Am I going to be invited in?”

Harry pulls back, nodding excitedly.

“Yes! Do you want me to put the kettle on for you?”

Maggie reaches down to pinch at his cheeks, which Harry ducks away from with a put-upon frown.

“I think I’ll manage myself, you go off and get yourself out of those pyjamas. You’ve got your letter with you, yes?”

Harry nods.

“It’ll be me and you off on an adventure later today, then,” she tells him. “We’ve gotta get all that on your list there. We’ll be taking the train into London so we can go to Diagon Alley – your father’s told you all about Diagon, I’m sure?”

“Snape’s not my dad,” Harry hisses. “And only a little. I’ve never been before.”

Maggie looks at him, utterly aghast. Her face seems to turn ashen and Harry almost feels a flicker of shame. Almost.

“You don’t really mean that,” Maggie insists.

“He lied to me, Auntie Maggie,” Harry insists, leading her into the kitchen. “He didn’t tell me that I was–”

“Harry Potter,” Maggie finishes for him. “Yes, I know who you are. I’m a squib, but that doesn’t mean I pay no heed to the news of the wizarding community. I get the Daily Prophet, just as your father does, and I might be getting quite on in years but I’m not blind enough not to recognise that scar after knowing you for nine years, young man.”

She accentuates the point by tapping a gnarled finger to the scar in question, the one Harry has spent hours since that first conversation staring at in the mirror. It seems like such a small thing, even for how much of his forehead it strikes across in silver lines, lighter than his natural skin tone. Yet they both know, apparently, what it means for him.

“I think,” Maggie continues, “Severus didn’t want you to live in the shadow of what happened when you were little, or, really, to admit that you’re in any way not his boy. He really loves you, you know?”

Harry scoffs, disbelieving.

“If he loved me he wouldn’t have lied to me,” he insists, making Maggie sigh.

“You’ll come around eventually, kid. I know you will.” She gestures for Harry to go upstairs. “Get out of those jammies and then we’ll get going. We’ll want to get down to London with plenty of time to explore the Alley, after all.”

Harry huffs an agitated breath but complies, hurrying up the stairs to put his everyday clothes on.

Being in London is an insane experience. Harry finds himself craning his head in all directions as they make their way through the bustling streets. After having never strayed far from Cokesworth, there is just so much around to capture Harry’s attention.

Maggie catches him staring in awe more than once and fondly rolls her eyes at his antics, making sure to keep a hand on him at all times so they don’t get separated when Harry becomes distracted once again.

“We need to get you out on more day trips, kid,” she smiles at him, turning a street corner and marching along with purpose.

Harry hums in agreement, eyes darting wildly in a bid to take in everything around them.

He almost doesn’t realise they’ve arrived when Maggie pulls him towards the entrance of a dingy little pub. His gaze is so focused on everything else, and the pub itself – The Leaky Cauldron – is so bland and unassuming that all the eyes of everyone around them, not just Harry’s, seem to glide right over it.

That changes when they walk in, and are met by an array of people dressed in all sorts of colourful robes. There are people in pointed hats, others waving wands, all chatting quite happily. Everyone seems to come in all shapes and sizes here, like this pub is some sort of magnet to the wondrous and magical. And maybe it is, Harry muses as Maggie leads him through the crowds.

They duck out another door into a small outdoor space where they seem to keep the bins and come face to face with another old woman, wearing periwinkle blue robes that match familiar blue eyes.

Maggie makes a sound of delight.

“Addie!” Maggie beams.

“Margaret,” the woman counters in a tone just as fond. “It’s been too long.”

Addie straightens up from where she was leaning back against a stone wall, distributing her weight onto a long, ivory-coloured walking stick. There are deep wrinkles in her face as she smiles – if Harry had to guess, he’d say this woman was a few years older than Maggie.

“Ah, Harry,” Maggie introduces, “this is my sister Adeline. Addie, this is my Harry that I wrote to you about, do you recall?”

Adeline huffs a laugh.

“How could I not?” she asks, turning to Harry with a conspiratorial look. “She spoke about you quite extensively. I rather thought my poor owl would struggle under the miles of parchment she spent blithering on about how amazing her honorary nephew is. I suppose it’s well past time I got to meet you, to see what all her fussing was over, hmm?”

Harry manages an embarrassed laugh, cheeks feeling hot. He feels quite relieved to notice the light blush on Maggie’s cheeks as whacks at her sister playfully.

“You’re lucky I can’t go telling to mother about your teasing,” Maggie tells her. “Now, come come, there’s lots to be getting on with. Open the Alley, why don’t you, and make yourself useful for once.”

With a fond huff, Adeline shifts, pulling a wand from a concealed pocket in her skirts, and taps the tip to the bricks on the wall she’d been leaning on. Within half a second of her wand being lowered from the last brick, the wall seem to shudder – shifting and reshaping until an archway reveals the hidden street beyond.

“Wow…” Harry breathes, stuck to the spot with wonder.

Maggie snorts a laugh.

“Suppose you’ll be a little less enamoured with muggle London now that you know this is here, huh, Harry?”

“Definitely,” he replies, shooting each of his guides a grin. “Can I go explore?”

His aunt steps forward to clap him on the shoulder.

“That’s the spirit! We’ve just got to stop off and withdraw some wizarding money from the bank before we can go around, but then you’ve got free reign, kid.”

“Obviously, there’s a few places we have to go,” Adeline cuts in. “Ollivanders, for example, for a wand – but other than those, we can go wherever you please.”

Huffing a delighted laugh, Harry reaches out to take Maggie’s hand.

“Let’s go then.”

The woman tuts in faux reproach, tittering about how he’s being impatient, but leading him along the Alley nonetheless. Adeline follows them, just behind as they head through as if to let them part the crowd for her, the clacking of her cane mostly lost beneath the joyous shouts flooding the whole street.

The marble exterior of what Harry realises must be the bank quickly looms over them. Adeline keeps up a stream of commentary about the bank – when it was built, the goblins who run it, and, importantly, the fact it is called Gringotts and not just The Bank – as they walk up to those enormous doors and push on inside.

The main floor is bustling with people waiting for help desks. Little creatures Harry assumes must be goblins are hurrying back and forth, and sitting behind desks. They’re odd looking things, or maybe Harry is the odd one, for being so unused to them with their shorter stature, inkdrop eyes and pointed ears.

Realising how he’s staring, Harry tears his eyes away and hurries up behind Maggie and Adeline as they join the end of a shorter cue. Within five minutes, they reach the front of this line and are greeted by a bored looking goblin.

“Harry Prince wishes to make a withdrawal,” Maggie tells him as he peers over the edge of his desk to look down at Harry, who is trying his best not to look too intrigued by the fact the bank teller is, in fact, a goblin.

“Does Mister Prince have a key?” the goblin asks in a creaky voice, displaying pointed teeth that make Harry shudder slightly.

“Not on us today, I’m afraid.”

“Very well,” the goblin nods, glancing between all three of them. “Does Mister Prince consent to a claim trace to see what vaults he is able to access?”

The goblin turns that black gaze on Harry who startles and looks between Maggie and Adeline for guidance. They each nod at him encouragingly.

“Uhm…” he manages. “Sure? Yes.”

The goblin – Harry glances to the nameplate on his desk, reading Gornuk – shoots him another smile, shuffling through some papers on his desk until he lays one across the surface closest to Harry.

“Now, Mister Prince, how old are you?”

“Ten, nearly eleven,” he answers.

“Ah,” Gornuk nods, like everything makes sudden sense. “So you’ll be starting Hogwarts this year, correct?”

Hesitantly, Harry nods.

“That’s right.”

“So you’ll likely not have any magical signatures linking you to any vaults. That just means we’ll have to do a blood trace to see. Slightly less comfortable, but utterly harmless,” he assures. “I’ll just need you to sign your full legal name on the line here–” Gornuk taps a manicured claw to a line below the title of the document, one of the only things on the whole document. “--using a blood quill.

“In case you are unfamiliar with blood quills, you’ll receive a sharp scratch on the back of your hand as you write, but the pain will be brief and the wound immediately healed. The blood will react with the magic of this form and any vaults you lay legal claim to will appear on this form – both those you have a dormant claim to, and those you can actively access currently.”

“...Dormant claims?” Harry dares to ask.

Gornak shoots him a grin as if pleased by the question. He puffs out his chest as he answers, clearly proud of his own ability to answer the questions – Harry wonders if the goblin is somewhat new to this job.

“Dormant claims include vaults you will be able to access when you come of age; with the permission of a co-owner; once you have met a certain criteria; or those you may never be able to access, but will be passed along to a later member of your family line according to the dictation of the previous owner.”

“Ah, okay,” Harry nods. “Thank you.”

Gornak blinks, as if shocked to be receiving acknowledgement for his help.

“You are quite welcome, Mister Prince. Now–” he reaches into a pot on his desk to retrieve a red-feathered quill, “if you could please…?”

Gritting his teeth against the sting he had been warned about, Harry scribbles his name onto the line. Once finished, he watches in morbid fascination as the Harry Evan Prince sliced into the back of his hand fades away and places the quill back in Gornak’s outstretched hand.

“Apologies for the discomfort, Mister Prince,” says Gornak, putting away the blood quill and surveying the form Harry had signed as red ink, deeper in colour than his blood signature, blooms across the surface. “Once we get the results, this form can be filed away for future use and we can give you keys to the relevant vaults so you needn’t go through this process every visit to Gringotts. When you reach seventeen years of age, your magical core should be stabilised enough for us to establish a traceable magical signature for use instead of another claim trace using the blood quill, for any future adjustments to vault claims.”

Harry nods. Waiting patiently as Gornak scans the sheet, letting out interested hums.

“It would seem you lay active claims to the Prince family vaults, and a Potter inheritance vault. You also have dormant claims to the main Potter family vaults, the Peverell family vaults, and the Slytherin family vaults.”

“Potter?” Adeline asks her sister with raised brows.

“Ah, yes,” Maggie flushes. “I didn’t say, did I?”

Ignoring the women’s fussing, Harry watches, enraptured, as Gornak presses his palm flat to the paper he had been showing Harry. Closing his fist over it and raising that hand, Gornak is suddenly holding a small gold key, and a long silver key. He then reaches out to offer them to Harry.

“The Prince key,” he notes, as Harry takes the silver key. “And the Potter inheritance key,” as he takes the other. “Which vault will we be withdrawing from today, Mister Prince?”

“Suppose we best withdraw from the Potter vault,” Maggie leans down to tell Harry, who relays the message to Gornak.

“Wonderful,” the goblin beams. “If you would follow me sir, ma’ams.”

“Oh, no,” Adeline is shaking her head. “I rather think I’ll go perch on the steps outside. Too much motion for me, those carts. You lot can surely handle this.”

Maggie snorts a laugh.

“Pathetic,” she teases, looping arms with Harry. “Let’s go, kid. Lead our way, if you would, Mister Gornak.”

“As you please,” Gornak nods. “And just Gornak is perfectly fine, thank you, ma’am.”

“Well,” Maggie counters as they follow the goblin further into the bank, “then you’d better drop the ma’am routine. Margret’s just fine, dear…”

Harry is grinning from ear to ear and shaking with adrenaline by the time they’re exiting Gringotts. Maggie has a magically extended purse, provided by the bank, to store all the money Harry could possibly need during his visit to the Alley tucked into her handbag. Despite the stomach-turning whirls their venture took them on, she’s grinning right back at him as they walk up to where Adeline is chatting with an incredibly tall man with great bushy hair.

“Behold,” Maggie announces; “a woman with the stomach for Gringotts’ bank system.”

Adeline rolls her eyes.

“A very polite way to introduce yourself,” she sighs, turning back to her companion. “This is my sister Margaret, and Harry.”

“Ah!” the giant man booms. “Harry! Dumbledore said I might be runnin’ into yer today. I’m Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of grounds and keys at Hogwarts.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“The honour’s mine. I’ll be seeing yeh when the school years start, then, I ‘spect. We’re all lookin’ forward ter welcoming yeh back into the wizarding world. But for now I’ve got ter go on some top secret Hogwarts business for Dumbledore. Enjoy yer day, Harry, ladies…”

With that, Hagrid dismisses himself and makes his way up and into the bank they’d just left.

“He’s a nice man, that Hagrid,” Adeline smiles. “Stopped to make sure I was alright here by my lonesome.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Maggie dismisses with a wave of her hand. “Let us be going on, then. Where’d you like to venture to first, Harry?”

The boy shoots each of the women a sheepish grin.

“You said something about a wand?”

“That I did,” Adeline smiles. “Towards Olivander’s it is, then.”

At one o’clock, Harry and the women break for lunch at a cosy little cafe named ‘Newt and Cradle’s’. It had plush cushions on all the seats, and beautiful wooden framework. The place was full of pleasant tittering from customers and had a sense for brightness and refreshment.

The whole place was lit with plenty of natural light from the large glass windows, and even the furthest corners were lit with candles. The bright feel was a nice break from the bustling crowds as Harry surveyed the lunch menu – the top of which was adorned with the name of the cafe and their slogan ‘Conserving Shopper’s Energy For Years To Come’.

In the end, they ended up getting sandwiches; Maggie and Adeline washing theirs down with cups of tea, where Harry opted for a glass of fizzy pop.

“So,” Maggie asked between bites of her bacon and sausage sandwich, “what’s left on your list?”

“I need…” Harry garbled through a full mouth. “My robes, and a- um… an owl, cat or toad.”

Maggie hummed in understanding while Adeline snorted.

“A word of the wise,” she told him as Maggie turned back to her lunch; “you’re allowed to bring other things, too. I knew kids who took in rats, mice, kneazles, pygmy puffs, and all sorts. That list’s nothing but a suggestion.”

Harry nodded but admitted: “You lost me halfway through those suggestions.”

The woman snorted a laugh.

“I suppose we’ll just have to head to the menagerie after this and show you exactly what I’m on about.”

“Well, that’s settled, then,” Maggie hums, finishing the dregs of her tea. “If we’re all ready, let’s be heading off to the menagerie.”

Within a few minutes, the three of them were winding their way down the alley again until they paused outside a store with windows displaying cages and tanks full of animals of all sorts. A sign on the shop front labelled the Magical Menagerie.

Making their way inside, Harry doesn’t know where to look. There are all sorts of creatures lining the walls. Some of them seem sweet and unassuming, others look more viscous and intimidating, though signs around the place assure the customers that all animals sold at the menagerie are handleable and trainable. Oddly, that doesn’t feel entirely reassuring.

Harry’s eyes catch on a tabby, curled up on the main desk, then on a bat hanging upside down from a hoop on the ceiling.

“Go have a wander, then,” Maggie coaxes. “We’ll be waiting for you over by the door.”

He nods as if in a trance, trailing through the store. It seems as if he’s being pulled about, moving on pure instinct. The many eyes of a spider blink up at him, little stick-like creatures scarper about in a tree-like enclosure, and a dog with two tails strains on its lead in an attempt to rush over to a little girl pulling silly faces at it from behind her mother’s skirts.

“Facessss,” a little voice whispers to his left, freezing Harry to the spot.

His head turns to the side, looking at two teenage boys peering into an enclosure. Blinking in confusion, Harry presses closer. The voice he had heard had been too feminine to have come from either of them, laughing in breaking voices at the creatures looking back at them, and too soft-spoken to have come from much further away.

“Sssso many facessss, peering in,” the voice says again and Harry’s eyes settle on the flickering tongue of a snake in one of the tanks.

When the boys move on, wanting to get a look at some other wonders, Harry steps even closer. The tiny snake burrows its head back under the ground at his approach, hissing quietly to himself.

“Hello?” Harry calls out. When he receives no response he glances about awkwardly, feeling his face heat. “This is stupid,” he mutters; “I’m talking to a snake…”

“How is that ssstupid ?” the little voice asks, as the snake peeks its head out once again. “Strange, strange humanssss .”

Surprised, Harry stumbles a step backwards.

“You do talk.”

The little head nods at him.

“And- and you understand me?”

It nods again.

“Well, uh, my name is Harry. Harry Prince.”

“Harry Princccce,” the snake repeats. “Friend? ”

“If you like,” he agrees. “What’s your name?”

“I am Eryssss.”

“Nice to meet you, Erys,” Harry acknowledges, then startles at a laugh coming from behind him.

He whips around to face a boy a good inch or two taller than him. The boy in question seems to be glowing with his amusement, even behind the dignified way he holds himself – looking at him almost makes Harry feel self conscious of his plain t-shirt and jeans he’d pulled on this morning, especially given how ridiculously muggle he looks in the ocean of magic folk milling around the Alley.

The other boy, though, hardly seems to mind at all. He only sticks out a hand to shake Harry’s, which he takes somewhat awkwardly.

“Do I not get a greeting,” he huffs, somewhat haughtily, “or is that only reserved for snakes?”

“Oh! Uh – right, sorry. I’m Harry.”

“Blaise Zabini,” the other boy introduces, eyes flicking briefly to the scar visible beneath the mess of Harry’s fringe. Rather than gawking, though, as Harry had noticed some onlookers doing, the boy merely meets his eye again with an interested upturn of his lips. “Are you not here with anyone?”

“No, no-” he assures. “I am. My - uh - Aunt Maggie and her sister are over waiting for me by the door.”

Blaise shoots him a smile.

“You’d rather looked lost over here on your own, though.”

“And you’re not alone?”

“Not in the slightest. My mother’s just paying for some owl treats at the register.”

There indeed seems to be a woman with Blaise’s complexion by the till, speaking quite smugly with an awed looking cashier.

“Are you getting things for Hogwarts, too?” Harry asks, shooting Erys a smile at her hissed ‘ Hogwartssss? What is Hogwarts? I have been hearing mention of it .’

“Not everything,” Blaise confesses, tilting his head. “We’ll be doing much of our shopping closer to the start of term when we return to the house in Italy.”

“You have a house in Italy?” Harry breathes out, awed.

Blaise shoots him a smugly contented look.

“Of course.”

“Wow, that’s–”

“Harry?” comes a call from the other end of the store.

“Oh- I–”

“I get it,” Blaise dismisses. “Until we meet again, Potter.”

Harry blinks in surprise.

“Um- Yeah. I’ll see you at Hogwarts, Zabini. And, it’s - uh - it’s Prince.”

The other boy nods in understanding, before vanishing backwards into the crowd.

“Ah, there you are,” Maggie huffs as Harry finds his way back to them. “Thought you might’ve been eaten by something.”

Adeline rolls her eyes.

“Come on, Harry. I’m sure there’s still much you’ll be wanting to see – and now that you’ve seen what kind of animals are sold in the Alley, you can negotiate what kind you’ll be taking to Hogwarts with your father at home.”

Harry nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. So… uniform?”

Maggie loops all three of them together by the arms and leads them off, declaring: “To Madam Malkins it is!” and striding onwards, leaving Adeline to fumble with her cane as she tries to keep up with her sister’s strides.

The rest of the trip is much of a success, with Harry getting everything he might need and even buying himself a couple of treats with the freedom of his own money to spend – even under the guidance of his Auntie. When the hours have moved on and Harry and Maggie have to part ways with Adeline to catch their train home, the woman pulls each of them into a hug.

“Don’t you leave it too long until we meet up again,” the woman warns her sister before turning to Harry. “Pester her about it for me, if you must.”

Harry laughs and agrees easily.

“Thank you for coming, Adeline,” he says.

The old woman scoffs.

“Just Addie is fine, Harry, sweetheart. And the pleasure is all mine, I can see why my sister is so besotted with you. Guess we’ll have to keep meeting up again, hm?”

“You’re trying to poach my honorary nephew,” Maggie accuses lightheartedly, to which Adeline lets out a creaking laugh.

“Auntie Addie has a nice ring to it, I must say.”

“Well,” Harry jumps in before the bickering continues on too long again, as it already had a couple times today. He’s grinning as he does so, though. “We’ll see you later, Auntie Addie.”

The woman’s eyes soften.

“Too right you are, Harry. You must write to me when you get settled at Hogwarts.”

“As long as you don’t write to her more than me,” Maggie warns jokingly.

With a full heart, the group finally manage their goodbyes and part ways. The countdown to Harry’s start at Hogwarts seems to begin.

#fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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Harry Prince and the Philosopher's Stone - masterpost

AO3 link || tumblr: chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8 | ...

Word Count: wip

Tags:

Summary:

Harry Evan Prince receives his Hogwarts letter just before his eleventh birthday. Now he has to navigate life at the wizarding school after being raised in the muggle world by Severus Snape, all while being mad at his adoptive father for not telling him the truth of his past and having to navigate the unfamiliar societal rules in this new world without his friends from back home at Spinner’s End.

A/N:

this fic is currently a wip and updates are likely to become more irregular

this is the second fic in my Son of the Half-Blood Prince series and is in harry's POV

#harry potter #fic: hpatps

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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Severus Snape and the Burden of Responsibility - Chapter 4 - The Dad Who Tried

prev chapter || masterpost

warnings: the end is angsty. youve been forewarned. this is not the end of the series, though!

read on AO3 | word count: 6,161

Severus Snape was not the type of person one would expect to be living such a mundane life. If you had asked anyone who had known him during his time at school or during the war what they thought Severus Snape would be doing at age twenty-five, their answer, presumably, would not be ‘waiting outside a muggle primary school for his adoptive son with his definitely-muggle best friend’.

It wasn’t until Harry was starting Year 1 that Christopher started primary school. Naturally, given they lived next door, the kids ended up going to the same school and that meant the kids started spending even more time together. Harry and Chris had gotten along well enough - with Harry even thinking to ask if Chris would be joining him in Reception when he had started last year - but that had been nothing compared to how attached they were to one another now.

Severus and Catherine would wait together outside the school gates for their respective children to come flooding out in the crowd of little monsters, shrieking and yelling - and laughing, but Severus only had so much patience for the noise of small children so the sound only registered as ‘ loud and irritating ’. Mickey was always the first out, Severus got the sneaking suspicion he was one of those kinds of kids that packed up ten minutes before the end of lesson and stared wistfully at the door. Mandy was always last, lagging behind a little in an attempt to finish gossiping with her friends - as much as a seven-year-old can actually gossip, that is. Harry always waited by the doors for a moment before Chris came out and they would race over to their parents together.

It was quite sweet, in all honesty. When the group of them walked home together, the boys would chat and play. Mickey less so; at eight he was above humouring his four-year-old brother, even if he would hold his hand on occasion as they walked. Call Severus cynical, but he was fairly certain it was mostly because of how his mother would praise him for being such a good big brother.

Chris had a thing for dinosaurs. A proper thing . On play-dates (which, could they even count as such when the kids practically lived in each other’s house at this point - Severus had even traded spare keys with Cath so that the kids could come over and play whenever), the boy would bring over picture books about them, and toys of them. Severus had even noticed that his lunchbox had a dinosaur on the front. He would tell Harry all sorts of facts about dinosaurs - and Harry would listen with rapt attention - or they would play with their plastic dinosaur figures.

Eventually, Severus found himself making good on that promise he had never actually expected to follow through on and invited Cath and her kids around for dinner. The kids parted ways when they got home on Friday with the promise that they’d see each other on Sunday for lunch. Harry was vibrating with excitement all Sunday morning and insisted on standing at the window until Cath led her equally excited children up the path at eleven.

When the kids ran inside, screaming about playing tag in the back garden, Catherine and Severus shared a knowing look. Children.

“Need a hand?” Cath asked once she had let the little animals into the garden to let off some of that eternal small-child energy.

“Wasn’t it me who invited you for lunch?” he snarked good-naturedly. “Last I checked, guests don’t help cook the food.”

Catherine scoffed.

“I ain’t been a guest in this house in a long while, Sev,” she grinned. “My kids’ve practically lived o’er at this place since you moved in here. I think by now least I could do is help cook dinner.”

Severus’ lips twitched into a small smile and he gestured over to the potatoes on the cutting board. With an extra set of hands - though, admittedly, it would have gone a lot faster if he had only been able to use magic - the food was prepared earlier than usual and cooking at the point where it was temporarily beyond their control.

In between running in and out to check on the food cooking - taking the half-boiled potatoes out of the water and into the pan of hot goose-fat, putting the parsnips and carrots into the oven, and so on - he and Cath joined in on the kids’ games. Cath kept sending him amused looks but Severus was very proud of his hide-and-seek victory against a group of small children and she couldn’t take that away from him.

“Pick me up!” Harry cried, throwing himself at Severus’ legs.

Severus laughed, hauling Harry up onto his shoulders with a lot more effort than he had in previous years. He was growing so fast - did small children always get so big so quick? Because Severus almost wanted that cute little one-year-old he had taken in back at times so that he could properly appreciate how small and sweet he had been rather than obsessing over Lily. Almost . He wouldn’t trade how far they had come - how far he had come as a man and as a father - for anything.

By one o’clock dinner was ready, the kids were running around his and Cath’s legs as they set the table. Mickey and Mandy were bickering over who got to sit where, Harry was rushing around looking for his favourite cup, and Chris was rocking up and down on his heels, watching the table get set with a big grin on his little face.

Food went down a treat, with minimal throwing of roast veg across the surfaces. It might, in fact, have even been a record for how neatly the kids had eaten in each other’s company. Not that this was saying much since the last time they ate together on a picnic the whole damned basket had somehow ended up in the river while Severus and Catherine had turned their backs for a breath. As it was, today they only had to deal with an overturned gravy boat and the potato that had somehow ended up smushed to the ceiling.

Catherine had sent Severus an apologetic look for that, which he had promptly waved off.

The whole day was pleasantly domestic after that. The group played a few rounds of uno, and then Mandy and Micky had decided to start a competition as to who could draw the best monster for the story the younger was apparently working on for her literacy class. Harry and Chris scurried away to play at being raptors, as was their usual.

With the kids happy and settled, Severus and Cath took a moment to sit in Severus’ in-home office to take a cup of tea.

“You’re doing real good, you know?” Cath told him, suddenly.

They’d been sat in companionable silence for a long moment before that and the comment, admittedly, had quite startled Severus. He blinked over at the woman in bemusement.

“What are you on about?” he asked.

“With Harry,” the woman explained. “I don’t imagine you get told it too often, not since you’re all by your lonesome here, save for me and Mags–”

“Margret will detest that you called her that,” Severus poorly attempted to deflect.

Catherine let out an amused scoff.

“So be it,” she smiled. “You go ahead and let her know I called her that, see if I care. I’ve called the dear it to her face.”

“You have a death wish.”

Letting out an amused snort, Cath pushed on:

“You won’t distract me that easily, though, Sev. You’re doing good by Harry. I could see how you were fumbling a bit when you first moved in next door, but you’re a great dad. You always have been, actually.”

“I beg to differ,” Severus huffed, averting his gaze. It was all too easy to recall how little he had cared about Harry when he’d first taken him in, and it was all too easy to let the shame of that knowledge drown him.

“No, sir,” Cath tutted. “You’ve been here the whole time, putting in effort. Not everyone can say they did that. You’re doing great, and you deserve to have that acknowledged more often.”

Taking a steadying breath, Severus looked up to meet Cath’s eye.

“Thank you,” he acknowledged, nodding. “Though I confess I’d have been lost without your help. You are as great of a friend as you are a mother.”

Cath beamed at him.

The door slammed open with a startling racket, making the pair of them jump. Tea sloshed onto Severus’ floor and teacups were just barely saved from a terrible, fracturing fate.

“Mum-!” Micky was calling, “Mandy keeps saying that her monster is better than mine but…”

The kid trailed off, his eyes flickering between Severus and his mother. It was at that moment, as Mickey’s face split into a wicked grin, that Severus noticed how his hand had grasped Cath’s to help the woman stabilise her cup.

“ Oh ~” the kid cooed, and Severus suddenly remembered why he used to hate children with such a venomocity. “Mummy and Sevvy kissing in a tree-” the brat sing-songed.

“ K-I-S-S-I-N-G! ” Mandy piped up, their quarrel apparently forgotten in light of a way to tease their parent.

Severus snatched his hand back right as Catherine pointed a stern finger at the two of her kids.

“Michael Edward Brookes, Amanda Rosa Brookes,” she scolded. “The two of you better quit that.”

Micky narrowed his eyes at his mother. Despite the way his sister was, rather wisely, backing away looking rather chastised, the kid took in a deep breath to prepare him before he belted out-

“ FIRST COMES LOVE-”

“Okay!” Cath snapped. “That’s it, thank you, Michael. I think it’s time we head home now.” The woman turned to a burning red Severus and offered him a tired smile. “ Kids ,” she sighed. “Well, thank you for having us, as always, Severus. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow morning.”

“Uhm, yes,” he stumbled in response. “Have a nice evening, Cath.”

“And you!” she called back, herding her little gremlins back towards the front door. And then they were gone.

–

Severus supposed he should have been expecting this to happen at some point. After all, he’d been raising Harry for five years now and, while he didn’t seem to remember his parents anymore, six-years-old was old enough to realise that his family dynamic wasn’t exactly the norm.

“Dad?” Harry’s little voice came from behind him as he was busy marking his students' essays one evening.

The sun had set hours back and Severus had long since put Harry to bed. Glancing at the clock on the wall, the one that’s steady ticking punctuated the silence of long evenings, he saw that it was half past eleven.

“What’re you still doing up?” he asked softly, a flicker of his irritation threatening to seep into his words. Not that he would let it.

Severus wasn’t the kindest man there was - in fact he was very aware of the fact he was selfish and irritable, and more inclined to make some snarky comment than give an actual compliment any day of the week - but he tried to make Harry the exception. Of course, he wasn’t perfect. Every now again his voice would take that harsh edge of annoyance and his face would twist in a scowl, but for the most part he kept his temper around Harry and just being able to be a better person around his son bled into the other aspects of his life.

Utterly unexpectedly, as time passed, Severus became more and more friendly with his colleagues at Hogwarts. Perhaps not the passing faces of the cursed Defence professor - both for the short span of time they had to know each other and for his bitter envy at seeing face after face get the position he would prefer when he remained Potions professor despite any attempt at convincing Dumbledore otherwise - but the rest of the professors were almost his friends. In fact, Severus could say that Minerva actually was his friend. She’d been cold to him at first - as had everyone, so that was nothing special - but now she seemed the most willing to put up with his sour exterior. The woman was really a force to be reckoned with, and her advice on handling his students was more helpful than he had expected - to the extent that he was actually a somewhat better professor than he ever thought he could have been. He wasn’t great but he was somewhat civil to his students, and showed far less favouritism to Slytherin than one would have expected. Less, but not none by any means.

That being said, he could still be inclined to make his students’ existences miserable if they continued to hand in such abysmal homework, like they had now .

With a sigh, Severus placed his quill down on his desk and turned to the boy standing at the door. Harry was looking at his feet, black hair a tangled mess from no doubt tossing and turning in bed.

“Couldn’t you sleep?”

Harry shook his head, still looking down at his toes digging through the fluffy rug on the floor of Severus’ office - the one he had gotten so that Harry could sit on it and play in here when he was younger and Severus had to work.

“I was thinking.”

“About?” Severus asked, pushing completely away from the desk to give Harry his undivided attention.

For a moment, the boy was silent. Then, he let out a barely audible murmur. Severus had to lean forward to make sure he heard it correctly.

And then he froze.

“Why don’t I have a mummy?”

His breath paused in his chest. How did he even go about answering that? What even drove Harry to ask? What was he-?

“Matthew in my maths class was talking about his mummy’s birthday and was asking everyone else what their mum’s birthdays are and they said it was weird that I don’t have one.”

Severus frowned, battling the urge to find Matthew and his friends and traumatise those six-year-olds with his Stare - the one that had reduced several fifth years to tears when needed.

“It's not bad, or weird,” Severus assured him, getting up from his chair and making his way to stand in front of Harry. Sinking to his knees so that he would be level with those lost, green eyes, hand reaching out to rest on that shoulder that suddenly looked so much smaller than before. “There’s nothing wrong with people not having a mummy, or not having a daddy - like Chris, Mandy and Mickey. It’s sad you don’t have one, but there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“But why don’t I?” Harry asked, eyes so impossibly big, the confusion in them utterly consuming Severus.

Severus sighed, coaxing Harry closer until they were sat together, cushioned by the rug beneath them.

“When you were very little, something happened to your mummy and daddy.”

Harry frowned. Severus’ heart clenched painfully in his chest.

“You’re my daddy,” he insisted.

Severus’ lip quirked upwards in a small smile.

“I am now, but I wasn’t always. Something bad happened - very bad - but your parents didn’t let it hurt you because they loved you very much. But to look after you, they…”

How the hell was Severus meant to word something like this to a child?

“They had to go away.”

Slowly, tears welled in Harry’s eyes. The boy sniffled.

“They left?”

“They didn’t want to,” he promised, feeling spectacularly out of his depth but with a burning need to offer Harry any assurance he could provide. “They had to do it to look after you.” He pressed two gentle fingers to the scar that spiked across Harry’s head like lightning across a cloudy sky. “Or else you’d have been hurt more than this.”

Harry’s own hand came up to rub at the scar.

“But they still loved me?”

Severus curled his arms around him, pulling him into his chest.

“Of course they did,” he promised into fluffy hair that was tickling his nose with each breath, pressing a kiss to the boy’s head. “Almost as much as I do.”

He felt Harry smile against his chest, and then there were two little arms gripping him back with more strength than ever before. In that moment, the lights shone brighter around them.

Severus really needed to talk to Catherine about how she dealt with all these things

–

“The school called,” came the voice of Margaret as Severus stepped through the floo, startling him into drawing his wand before he saw who it was. “Since they can’t get ahold of you, I had to run up and grab Harry. He’s in the living room, setting up another game of KerPlunk for the pair of us - he got sick of Snakes and Ladders after a little while.”

“What happened?” Severus asked, tucking his wand away, and stepping further into the kitchen.

“He got into a fight - started it himself, from what I heard. The school’ll want a word with you about that soon, I ‘spect.”

He sighed.

“Thanks, Margaret. I owe you. You can head back now, sorry for the interruption.”

The woman waved a dismissive hand.

“Don’t you think on it.”

Hauling herself to her feet, Margaret made her way out the kitchen and into the halfway by the living room door.

“Come say goodbye to Auntie Maggie,” Severus called, finding a small smile fighting its way onto his face as Harry practically scurried over.

“Bye Auntie Maggie!” Harry cried, throwing himself around the old woman.

Severus sighed, relinquishing her from his son’s grip with an apologetic look. Margaret only smirked in amusement before saying a final goodbye and letting herself out.

“Dad, come play KerPlunk with me,” Harry demanded, pulling on Severus’ arm until the man allowed himself to be dragged over to where the game was set up on the coffee table. “I’ve been beating Auntie Maggie all afternoon.”

Taking a steeling breath, Severus knelt on the other side of the table as Harry took up his place once again on the opposite. He made no move to join in on the game, even as Harry’s emerald eyes sparked in deep consideration, tongue poking out between a flash of white teeth.

“Harry,” Severus started, unable to keep all the hesitance from his voice. “Before we play, I want to talk about what happened today.”

Harry’s hand stilled mid-air where it had been reaching to tug out his first straw. For a moment he just looked down at the table before he managed a non-committal hum. His little fingers drummed on the table’s edge.

Sighing, Severus reached over to pull a straw from the game himself, saying as he did so: “Auntie Maggie told me that your school said you started a fight. How did that happen?”

It’s a long pause that he has to wait, as Harry reaches over to take his turn. They both ignore the tears in his eyes, though Severus longs for nothing more than to end this conversation now and tug Harry into the safety of his arms.

“I didn’t mean to,” Harry sniffles at last, looking at his winnings like the piece of plastic is the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. “But David was being mean and I only pushed him a little but he fell back a lot .”

“Was he pretending to be pushed harder than he was?” Severus asks, feigning nonchalance. He can practically feel his magic enticing him to find this kid and shove him flat on his arse himself.

“I don’t think so,” Harry confesses, following Severus’ lead and continuing to play as they talk – Severus can only hope it makes talking about this any easier. “I really did only push him a little but he actually fell back a lot . Like, a whole table a lot.”

For a second Severus falters, cogs turning in his head, but then he continues on just the same.

“Do you think it might have been your magic?” he asks. “Did your magic make David fall back further when you pushed him?”

Wide eyes meet his in a mix of awe and understanding.

“ I have magic, too?” he asks, voice barely more than a breath.

“Of course. I have magic, your parents had magic, it makes sense that you would.”

“But no one believes me when I tell them you’re magic,” Harry whimpers. “That’s why David was saying mean stuff to me and, and, and-

The marbles clatter to the bottom of the container, rattling against plastic on their way down, as Severus’ shocked gaze snaps up to Harry’s.

“ You tell people I have magic .”

Harry nods and Severus pinches his nose. This is his own fault. Even after all this time he keeps missing thing after thing. How on earth could he have forgotten to tell Harry about this?

“Harry,” he begins; “the kids at your school won’t understand because they don’t have magic, and don’t know it’s real at all.”

“They don’t ?” Harry gasps.

Severus shakes his head.

“There are two types of humans: wizards and witches, who have magic; and muggles who do not. Your friends, the people you go to school with, are all muggles. Even Cathy and her kids, and even Auntie Maggie.”

“But… how do I tell them, then?” Harry asks.

“You can’t. It’s a big secret amongst witches and wizards. No one without magic is allowed to know unless they have magic family – like Auntie Maggie, because her parents were magic, like us, but she wasn’t born with magic.”

“So I can tell Auntie Maggie?”

“Yes, you can tell Auntie Maggie. But you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone else. Not even Chris. Understand?”

Harry nods, eyes sparkling with the excitement of being in on a secret.

“But how does magic work ?”

“You’ll learn,” Severus asks. “When you finish primary school, you’ll get a letter inviting you to attend a magical school full of other witches and wizards. I’m a teacher there.”

“ Wow .”

Severus shoots his son a fond smile, moving to tidy up the marbles.

“Do you want to play another game?”

Harry shakes his head, pleading: “Tell me more about magic!” to which Severus can only oblige.

–

“Dad?” an eight-year-old Harry asks one evening as Severus is guiding him towards his bed. “What was your favourite story when you were little?”

“The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,” he answered easily, more focused on giving Harry a pointed look when he tried to slip into bed without brushing his teeth. “It’s one of the Tales of Beedle the Bard.”

With a groan, Harry followed Severus’ prompting towards the bathroom.

“Can you read it me?” came his request, garbled by the toothpaste in his mouth at the time.

Severus shook his head fondly.

“I don’t see why not, so long as you do an adequate job of brushing your teeth.”

Harry hurried to comply, exaggeratingly brushing them in a way that Severus was sure was supposed to be for the benefit of his observation. Scurrying down the hall to his room, with Severus following behind at a more subdued pace, Harry stumbled in his haste to get into his room and under the covers.

“I’m ready!” he declared with a wide grin as Severus walked in.

“So you are,” Severus conceded with a smile, grabbing the book from the shelf.

He settled himself on the chair of the desk they’d gotten for Harry’s room a couple of years back, pulled up to Harry’s bed with his copy of The Tales Of Beedle The Bard on his lap.

“Alright… ‘ There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock, who observed that his friends grew foolish when they fell in love -’ ”

An understandable sentiment, really. Severus really couldn’t comprehend why people obsessed over such a thing.

As dark as the story was for a childrens’ tale, Severus had always loved it when he was young. Something in the story had always… appealed to him. Even when younger, he’d found the idea of romance rather… romanticised , and it was much the same now. But he’d grown since he was a boy, more than just physically. And as Severus read the story to an enraptured young Harry, the familiar words on old paper felt scorched into his life, branded into his own story like a burn.

“ The young warlock resolved to never fall prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity- ”

Reading those words was like seeing his own foolishness dripped as ink onto paper. A black splot on the page, in his life. A mistake so egregious, it was almost madness to have ever thought it could possibly be true.

“ -The warlock’s heart felt nothing at all. Nevertheless, she was the prize he sought- ”

Thoughts of red hair and green eyes.

“ -The maiden was terrified at the sight of it, for the heart was shrunken and covered in long black hair. ‘Oh, what have you done?’ she lamented- ”

Memories of her disgusted retreat.

“ -‘Now you are healed and will know true love!’ cried the maiden, and she embraced him.- ”

But something so awful cannot be righted by one act to seek forgiveness. In the end the maiden had died, torn apart by a beast masquerading as a man. Doomed by someone she had once loved dearly.

Upon closing the book, Severus’ noticed how pale he had grown. His limbs were wracked with tremors and he almost laughed, actually laughed . The truth of himself had been right there the whole time.

Oh, how Severus had revered that story in his youth, and the wisdom of caring naught for love. And now how he would give anything to go back, grasp himself by the shoulders and shake shouting: ‘ why did you not listen? Why did you never listen to the wisdom offered you so freely? ’

Because the warlock in the story had never loved the maiden as he should, but destroyed her anyway. Because Severus had never wanted more than Lily Evans’ friendship and had stolen away her life anyway. Because Severus was a flawed man, an impatient man, a cowardly man–

Because Severus Snape was the monster in his own fairytale.

And yet he still didn’t want love like in the storybooks. And yet he would content himself with his love for Harry, and his care for Catherine and her children, and Margaret. Was he still broken? Was something wrong with him that he’d found such desirability in a hairy heart?

He thought desperately of his moments with Lily, with Catherine. His two best friends throughout his miserable life – save the boy he’s selfishly stolen as his own – and yet nothing more. He could not picture living in the same house as either, or sleeping in the same bed, though they were the only two he could ever even consider entertaining the notion for.

A little hand reached across, pulling the tattered book from his hands to set down. The movement snapped him back to the moment.

“Okay, I’m tired now,” Harry told him with a sleepy smile. “Goodnight.”

Severus hurried to get up so Harry could get some rest before school the next day.

“Right, goodnight, Harry. Sleep well.”

“Love you,” Harry calls as Severus switches off the lights.

He paused, heart thundering.

You’re doing real good, you know?

Severus manages a weak smile. No, he may not be the hero of the story, but he is not the villain. No matter that he didn’t love the woman, he’s raising his son. And-

And he is a good dad.

“I love you, too,” he calls into the dark, pulling the door closed.

–

It’s three weeks before Harry’s eleventh birthday that Severus finally sat him down. For so, so long he had been putting this conversation off, but the Hogwarts letters were being written and they were fast running out of time.

The boy in question was sitting in Severus’ office chair, Severus having transfigured a temporary sear for himself from a heavy potions text he was reading to decide whether to set this for his fifth-years. Harry’s brows were drawing tighter and tighter together the longer Severus paused there, but he just couldn’t seem to get the words to squeeze their way from his throat. How do you start explaining something like that? How do you tell someone so young something so awful? Of course, it was incredibly important that the next generation knew the horrors of the past so they could well enough avoid them, but the telling itself was torturous.

Like a ghost, like some sort of taunting wraith, those dead faces stared back at him from behind closed lids. He could not blink them closed and face their accusing blanknesses. He could not open his eyes and see that confusion and trust and worry.

Severus steepled his fingers, leaning his elbows on his knees. Like he was half-praying, like he was beseeching some other presence for help. But there was only the silence and Harry’s confusion crashing upon him like waves on a craggy shore.

With a shuddering breath, Severus finally met that gaze once again.

“There is something I must tell you. Something I should well have told you before now but didn’t know how to.”

“Okay…? Are you okay, Dad?”

Severus' lips quirked up in the corner, a self-deprecating smirk. He had already admitted to himself all the ways he had managed to be subpar. Okay would forever be overestimating him.

“I’m not the one we’re talking about now, Harry. It’s actually about you, and about the wider wizarding world.”

Harry shuts up quickly after that. Though he still seems utterly lost, and entirely intrigued by the shift in topic.

“Years ago, before you were born, there rose a dark wizard…”

“Are you telling a story?” Harry asks, puzzled.

“If only. The wizard was real, and he caused real pain.

He called himself Lord Voldemort and amassed a large following of wizards, witches, and all manners of cruel creatures. He believed… he believed that muggles were lesser than those with magic, and that anyone magical born to non-magical blood was an abomination. Him, and his followers, tracked down many witches and wizards from muggle families and killed them. He killed plenty of half-bloods and even fully magical families who stepped in his way.

He killed your parents.”

Harry startles.

“ You said -”

His voice is accusing but Severus cuts in unable to bear it.

“The Dark Lord was told of a prophecy; one that said that a child born in the month of July, to those who had thrice defied him, would have the power to defeat him at last. He believed that to be you.”

Harry was shaking now as much as Severus feels he must be. Shaking apart at the seams, bones held together by nothing but thin muscle and skin. He feels he’ll break into pieces, disintegrate into ash in his seat, without the power to come back from this.

A fire eats away at the softness in Harry’s eyes and Severus wishes more than anything he could stop now, before he makes it worse.

He can’t.

“So your parents, the Potters, went into hiding. They used a special kind of magic to keep their location a secret, but their friend , a man named Sirius Black-” Severus spits the name “-gave their location away to the Dark Lord. He broke into their home on the night of Halloween and killed both your parents as they fought to protect you with the Killing Curse.

The Killing Curse is meant to be absolute. No one is spared from it, certainly not at the end of the Dark Lord’s wand, and yet, somehow, it did not kill you. The curse backfired and took out Him instead. It’s a fact I am grateful for every day . It is a fact everyone in the wizarding world is grateful for. You- You’re famous for it.

That’s why I made the decision to raise you amongst muggles. It would let you grow up having a normal childhood for as long as I could give it to you.”

“Why you?” Harry asks, voice trembling with rage. “Why did you raise me? Did I have no one else?”

Severus shook his head.

“Your grandparents were all lost before the war. You have a muggle aunt on your mother’s side – Petunia – but when I pulled you from the wreckage that day I could not bear to send you to her.”

“I have family…”

“Dumbledore entrusted you to me after I begged him. Lily– your mother had been my closest friend, once. And it was my — I was a—”

Severus felt his throat close up and found he could not say it. The words dried up in his mouth, clung desperately to his lips.

“I was involved with some dangerous groups during the war, and it has always been safer that no one knew I was the person raising you, too. I wanted you to have a good life , as much as it was in my power to…”

“I had a family ? And you never told me?” Harry demanded. The fire in his eyes had eaten up any shred of love he had held for Severus, and all that was held was fury. Righteous fury. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you!” Severus defended.

“I hate you for this,” Harry seethed, and Severus recoiled, feeling the words like a physical punch in his gut. Tears humiliatingly stung in the corners of his eyes.

No matter how he stammered out pleas for Harry to listen, the boy did not pay them any heed; he only stormed from the room without a backwards glance.

–

It was not a long wait, after that, for Harry’s letter to arrive at 11 Spinner’s End. It arrived in the early hours of the morning, as Severus was nursing a mug of tea – he hadn’t been sleeping well since the incident and had been awakening earlier than he would perhaps have liked.

He sets the letter up Harry’s seat at the table and leaves to call Margaret, noting, with distaste, that the letter is addressed to a:

Mr H. Potter

The Second Bedroom

11 Spinner’s End

Cokesworth

He does not read the letter, or even hover for Harry to find it. He shuts himself, instead, in his office to give Harry some space since the boy had seemed less than fond of his company of late.

When Harry sees it, he knows . The air buzzes with excited magic, even if he hadn’t heard the delighted shout from downstairs. Severus’ eyes keep flickering to his ajar door after that, hoping that a familiar lot of messy bed-hair will appear to push it open, excited to share this news with his father.

Nothing comes. Severus busies himself with his lesson plans, though they are already done much in advance since he has spent a great deal of time shutting himself away to give Harry the space he clearly desires.

When there is a knock on the door, he rises with his heavy heart to answer it. Before he even makes it to the top of the stairs, though, he hears it open and Harry greet Margaret, who had apparently dashed straight over at the news.

It’s good that she was there. She was going to have to be the one to take Harry to Diagon Alley, since Severus is still cautious about people knowing he’s Harry’s guardian. He wishes dearly that it could be him to experience this with Harry, though .

“It’ll be me and you off on an adventure later today, then,” Margaret is telling Harry, thinking much the same line of thought as Severus himself, apparently. “We’ve gotta get all that on your list there. We’ll be taking the train into London so we can go to Diagon Alley – your father’s told you all about Diagon, I’m sure?”

“Snape’s not my dad,” Harry snaps, and the words hit Severus so fiercely, like a blade through his heart, that he nearly collapses under their strike. His legs go suddenly weak and all the air seems to leave his lungs, like they have given up on breathing as much as his heart cries to give up on beating.

He staggers into a wall as Margaret leads Harry to the kitchen, tittering about how he doesn’t really mean that like she hadn’t heard the hard conviction in his voice.

Severus does not leave his office, or the glass of firewhiskey he sinks himself into, for the rest of the day. Not when Margaret and Harry leave. Not when they return. Not when his lamps are burning low and there is no light outside. He falls asleep like that, slumped over his desk, heart thumping a dull, rhythmic agony.

#severitus #fic: ssatbor

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theburdenofresponsibility · 1 year

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Severus Snape and the Burden of Responsibility - Chapter 3 - The Man Who Loved

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Severus Snape was not a particularly brave man. He was only too aware of this fact, although he refused to allow the extent of this to be known to the wider public. Sure, people called him a coward - those from both sides of the war; after all, he had run off and hidden in the disgustingly coloured skirts of Albus Dumbledore - but he didn’t let them see how much little things affected him. Not that this was anything new, Severus had refused to allow himself to break since he’d been a boy and the only wrath he had to endure was his own father’s. No, instead he now hid any fragility in a suit of fury, in a temple of apathy.

Still, it did not change the fact that Severus was currently appalled by the prospect of going to the Ministry of Magic, but he had put it off rather long enough. Harry had turned three and so Severus would need to apply for him to go to Primary school next September. The only problem with this; Severus still hadn’t gotten the documents he would need to do this. Harry had been born into the Wizarding World, and that meant he didn’t have muggle documents - which wouldn’t be a problem if Severus wasn’t putting Harry into muggle Primary School, but he was.

Harry could have a better, more normal, life growing up away from his fame, and Severus’ connection to Harry wouldn’t become public knowledge in the Wizarding World. Dumbledore had gone to great lengths not only to convince the necessary people that Severus could be Harry’s guardian but to swear them to secrecy too. It had to be like this so that no unapprehended supporters of the Dark Lord could track them down in a bid to finish the job.

So, that left Severus now having to go into the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Muggle and Magical Contracts to actually obtain the correct paperwork. He had an appointment with a woman from the department, one who had already been sworn to secrecy, and Severus was not excited for it. He knew the woman could not tell anyone of his and Harry’s situation, but he still felt a sense of dread at having to put his trust in anyone over something so important. And that was without acknowledging the fact he would have to go to the Ministry where he would no doubt be welcomed by very few.

Unfortunately, though, Severus had very little choice in the matter so, after a quick glamour was thrown over Harry, Severus flooed into the Ministry with the child in his arms.

As expected, most people either sneered at him as he passed or kept their eyes firmly away in a blatant refusal to acknowledge his existence. Those he did not mind so much - the staring made him mildly uncomfortable, especially with Harry in his arms, identity hidden by a measly spell, but it was nothing he couldn’t manage. He could hold his head high as he passed them, letting them know just how little he cared about their opinion. The people who hissed words of disdain at him as he passed - or even tried to approach him to tell him exactly how they felt - were the problem. Each time someone made to stop him, his arms tightened reflexively around Harry in his arms. Some people seemed entirely flabbergasted at that - that Severus Snape had enough of a heart to be protective of (or maybe it was just because he was even holding) a child. That was good; usually when they saw that Severus was currently holding a small infant they would back away.

There were exceptions, of course. The worst of which was a witch - in her late thirties or early forties at a guess - who made her way over to him and began shrieking about how he was unfit to be looking after a child and demanding someone rescue the child from him. Severus glared at her, entirely unimpressed. Something which only worsened when Harry - who had been growing quite distressed by the volume and the strangers hurling abuse at Severus over his head - let out a pitiful whine, tears brimming in his eyes. Clutching Harry closer to his chest, Severus shouldered past the woman, throwing a sneer at her when she shouted in indignation. A few passersby seemed quite startled by the whole ordeal, some even gave him a sympathetic look as he passed them on his way to where he was needed so that he could get this over with, whispering comforting words into Harry’s hair.

“Alright?” a man who looked perhaps a few years older than Severus came over to him to ask.

“I will be once this is over with and we can go home,” he snapped at no one in particular.

The man nodded.

“Where are you going?”

“Department of Muggle and Magical Contracts,” he answered absently, leaning down to press a raspberry to Harry’s cheek in the hopes of cheering him up. The boy shrieked in delight, voice still slightly watery but markedly happier.

When Severus looked up he noticed that the man was still walking beside him, looking at him in a charmed sort of amusement at the display. Suddenly aware of how public he was being in his actions, Severus glanced about, noting with despair that a group of young witches were cooing at his actions and the way Harry was demanding.

“Again, again!” with his stupid, adorable little grin.

Severus cleared his throat, face flaming.

“I should-”

“I’ll walk you over,” the man told him with a grin, flashing his Auror identification briefly. “I doubt anyone will dare causing you trouble with me as your escort.”

“I hardly need-”

“I know,” the man told him, arms raised in surrender as they continued onwards. “I’m just going that way anyway and it’ll settle my conscience. I had an aunt who made some poor choices during the war - but she wasn’t an awful woman, mind - so it’d be like helping her.”

With a confused frown, Severus nodded his consent.

The walk was much shorter with the Auror - David - serving as their guide. He bid the pair goodbye at the door Severus needed, pausing to wave at Harry before he continued on his way.

After a steadying breath, Severus freed one of his hands and raised a fist to rap on the door. Almost as soon as he was lowering his fist, the door swung open and an older woman with greying hair and deep lines in her face beckoned Severus inside.

“Mister Snape,” she greeted in a rough voice as she closed and then warded the door. “And young Harry Potter, I presume.”

The office Severus had been beckoned into had three desks fit into the space, alongside doubtlessly enchanted and expanded filing cabinets. There was a padded two-seater sofa in the final corner, the fabric worn but in good enough condition. Severus set Harry down on one side of the sofa as the woman lowered herself into the seat behind the closest desk. Absently, Severus swept his eyes across the surface of it, noting the ink pots, both empty and full, and the littering of photo frames. There were two trays of paperwork on the desk and a third floating off to the side, each were practically overflowing with folders of sheets, some omitting a gentle glow.

The woman gathered some loose papers from the surface before her, before whacking them carelessly into a drawer to her side. Severus glanced at the other desks, they seemed similarly lived in and yet there was no one currently occupying them.

“Don’t worry, Mr Snape,” the woman told him, summoning a pair of folders with a flick of her wand to set on the now empty surface before her, “my colleagues know that the office is currently in my sole use for a confidential case. They will be returning to the office in a couple of hours, you needn’t worry about intrusion.”

Severus nodded, pulling a chair from one of the other desks to set beside the woman’s so that he could sit. Actually acquiring the documents he needed was fairly easy, the woman drew up some muggle documents and any relevant magical ones he had been lacking prior to his visit. Where needed, he signed his name and completed blood contracts where necessary. There was only one aspect of the whole visit that gave him any pause.

“And shall I leave the name as ‘Harry James Potter’?”

The option left him reeling. Severus hadn’t thought about Harry’s name. So far there had been no use for Severus to refer to Harry as anything other than just Harry. That’s who he was to him, now. It was almost odd to think. Severus had so loathed the boy’s father, and yet - when he looked at the child who was tracing a swirling pattern on one of the couch cushions - all he could see in Harry was the little boy who he read bedtime stories to and who made him answer telephone calls and chase him around the house just to get him to put trousers on some days.

Part of him almost recoiled at the reminder. James Potter. James Potter’s son. And Harry was in blood, but no longer in anything else. James Potter’s family magic may thrum beneath Harry’s skin, but- but he was Severus’ now, wasn’t he? Severus’ heart gave a rather hopeful thud at the thought. Harry was his - and Severus wouldn’t resent him for the bastard who might have raised him in another life, but he wouldn’t celebrate it.

Severus was shaking his head even before he realised he had come to a decision.

“No,” he voiced. “Harry Prince.”

Harry could hardly remain safe if he took a name so obviously linked to Severus like Snape was, after all. Besides, Severus’ father was a man not worthy of celebration and he didn’t want his name hovering over his relationship with Harry like a bad omen. Prince was a name Severus was proud of, was a name he was happy to share with the boy.

A stab of guilt struck his heart, making him glance over at Harry. He swept his gaze over him, each glamoured inch, before settling on his eyes. They looked hazel with the influence of the spell over him, but Severus knew all too well what startling shade of green was truly underneath.

“Harry Evan Prince,” he amended.

Evan in memory of Lily Evans - the kindest soul he had known, and the woman who had given her life to protect the boy who was turning a bored pout on Severus.

“I want to go,” Harry whined.

“It’ll just be another few minutes,” the woman answered him with a friendly smile, moving to change all the names on the documents to Harry’s new name. “We’ll need to prick his finger to make the change magically official for him - he can’t use a blood quill as you can, after all.”

Severus bristled at the thought of causing Harry any harm, but knew it was necessary in this case. He sighed, moving over to collect Harry from the sofa. Not wasting any time, the woman took a small knife from a case in one of her drawers.

“It’s perfectly sanitary,” she informed him as Severus held out Harry’s hand with clear reluctance. “We had these specifically for this purpose and we clean them thoroughly - the muggle way so no old traces of magic can interfere with the process or the developing child’s magic.”

Severus nodded, allowing her to nick the very tip of Harry’s right index finger. The knife’s edge was sharp, cutting the skin easily. For a moment, it seemed like nothing more than a papercut, but then blood welled up in the little cut and Harry began sobbing, squirming in Severus’ grasp. She quickly pressed the beads of red onto the contract. As soon as it was done, Severus cradled Harry’s hand to his face, kissing the palm and whispering a simple healing spell.

“All done, Harry,” he promised. “I’ve kissed it better, see?”

Harry continued to sniffle, but calmed ever so slightly. Knowing he would be okay, Severus glanced over at the contract in time to see the smudge of blood be absorbed by the contract. It flashed gold for a moment before returning to normal.

“And… you’re all done,” the woman told him, handing the paperwork over. “Have a good day, Mister Snape.”

“Thank you,” he said with a nod, awkwardly tucking the folder into his robes with one hand.

Now all that was left was to fight his way back to the floos.

–

After having navigated Severus disappearing every school day to work at Hogwarts, it came as something of a surprise when Harry stubbornly refused to release his iron grip on his leg when Severus had tried to drop him off at his first day of primary school.

For the past nearly two years, Severus and Harry had managed their routine. Monday through Thursday a babysitter came around to keep an eye on Harry - the woman was an elderly squibb who lived two streets down and who eternally smelled of dish-soap and lavender. Harry was besotted with the woman. Initially, he had been rather shy around her, hiding behind Severus’ legs whenever she came around, but about the fifth time he met the woman - whose name was Margaret Morris - he had asked her to play Hungry Hungry Hippos with him and had loved her ever since. Had loved her so much that he didn’t seem to mind too much when Severus went to work - though Margaret promised he missed him in the day, and Harry was always ecstatic to see him when he returned. So, really, things had been fine.

Even on Fridays, nothing was ever the matter. On Fridays, Harry would go around to Catherine’s next door and play with her youngest under her watch. Margaret sometimes stopped by anyways and would have a brew with Cath while Harry and little Christopher played, but she would just as often go out to play bingo.

Severus would have thought this would mean that Harry wouldn’t mind going to school, being used to being apart from Severus in the days like he was. It seemed not, though. The more Severus tried to pry his little arms off of his legs, the tighter Harry held on, sobbing into the fabric of his trousers as the other children around them either filed inside or stuck to their own carers in a similar fashion.

“Harry,” Severus sighed. “You have to let go. Can you do that for me? Please?”

Watery eyes blinked up at him.

“Why do I have t’ go?” he whined. “Why can’t I stay home with Mickey, Chris and Mandy’s mummy, or Auntie Maggie?”

“Because you’re old enough to go to school now - do you know what that means?”

Harry shook his head.

“That means you get to go and play with other kids your age and make sooo many new friends. I’m very jealous. You’re going to have oh-so-much fun and I have to go to work!”

Harry sniffled.

“Friends like Chris, Mick and Mandy?”

Severus shrugged, “I don’t know, you’ll have to find out and tell me all about it.”

Harry shook his head.

“I don’t want you to go. Stay… please?”

His heart gave a sudden pang, sliced down the middle as if by a blade. Those shining green eyes threatening tears made him want to reach down, sweep Harry into his arms and just take him straight home so that they could watch Fraggle Rock together like they had in the holiday. Severus took a deep breath and reached down to tickle Harry under the arms.

“I wish I could,” he grinned as Harry erupted in giggles demanding;

“Stop. Stop! I’m not laughing - ‘s not funny!”

“I’ll be right here to pick you up after school, okay? Be good.”

Leaning in, he pressed a noisy raspberry to Harry’s cheek before he stood back up and stepped back, not taking his eyes off of Harry in his new uniform until he had vanished into the school building.

The day dragged on incredibly slowly after that, making Severus all the more agitated. The students in all of his classes wisely stayed silent, casting wary glances at each other that asked why their grouchy potions professor was more impatient than usual. None of them knew that he was checking the time even more frequently than themselves, worrying about a little boy wearing that little school jumper for the first time.

Was Harry okay? Was he making friends? Severus hoped that this worrying wouldn’t last forever, that as time passed he would be more and more used to Harry spending the day at school, out of Severus’ reach. After all, he had overcome a similar thing when he had started working and had entrusted Harry’s care to Margaret for the first time.

Severus tried to distract himself by recalling the… less than ideal way he had made Margaret’s acquaintance. It wasn’t exactly his fault. Or, well, it was - but who could blame him?

It had been when Severus had just started realising that Harry’s tantrums were usually just at the lack of attention Severus paid him most of the day. The boy had been behaving incredibly better, but had begun to want Severus’ attention at all hours. He supposed it was his own fault, Harry was just looking to reassure himself that Severus wouldn’t suddenly retract his willingness to pay attention. But still, being woken up at two AM by a somehow alert and functioning child was not his favourite thing. Before Severus had learnt to put the Bagpuss VHSs he had purchased on and let Harry get sucked into that on his muggle TV, he had had no choice but to play with him, or read to him at whatever ungodly hour he had been awoken. It was after one of these nights, when he was dead to the world, that Margaret had been walking her Schnauzer - Taffy.

Now, as one might expect, Severus had been exhausted and not thinking clearly - if at all. So, when he stepped out of the door to call round to Catherine’s and ask her to keep an eye on Harry while he got a few hours rest before he passed out, he unthinkingly summoned his coat when he was already walking down the path, having forgotten it initially but not wanting to put up with the chill.

When he first caught Margaret’s stunned gaze, his exhaustion-fogged mind had thought nothing of it. But then rational thought caught up with him and he froze. In that moment, his breathing had stopped; he had truly thought he had messed up but then Margaret had burst out laughing - a whistley sound like that of a boiling kettle - and introduced herself. Honestly, Severus had been beyond lucky that she had been the only person around.

Still, even recalling that heart-stopping encounter could not distract him for long. All thinking about Margaret did was remind him that he was unreachable to the school while at Hogwarts since the magic messed with any muggle electronics. Instead, Margaret was Harry’s emergency contact - and Severus knew she would handle anything needed of her, but he still felt awful at the thought of not knowing if something had happened.

When Severus’ last lesson finally ended, he practically threw himself into his fireplace to floo home. He had plenty of time to get to the school before Harry would be released, but he rushed nevertheless. As expected, he arrived far too early so, rather than pacing pointlessly, he forced himself to walk over to the shops to grab some sweets for Harry. By the time he made it back to the school, the kids were just beginning to flow out from the door. He scanned the faces, looking for the one that belonged to him when-

“Dad!” came a cry from the doorway and a small body rushed forwards, barreling itself into Severus’ legs and clinging like a particularly friendly octopus.

Severus just stood there, utterly startled.

Dad. Harry had called him his dad. The feeling struck him so strongly, a fierce aching warmth in his chest, that tears made his vision blur very suddenly. Without a second thought, Severus reached down to heave an increasingly heavy Harry into his arms and press a kiss to his temple.

“Hello, you,” he choked. “Was school okay?”

“Mhmm!” Harry beamed, nodding furiously and jumping into a play-by-play of exactly what he had done that day. Severus had never listened more enthusiastically and refused to put Harry down for the whole walk home despite protest. Whenever he did so, Severus would swing him high or hang him upside down to hear the “Dad, stoooop!” amidst the shrieks of laughter.

#severitus #fic: ssatbor

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