Escape ↣ Harmione

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter 53 - Tactics and Confrontations

Severus only realised time had passed when Hermione had come in to wish her father good night. She'd given him a hesitant smile before vanishing through the door on quiet feet. He'd started making his excuses to leave only to have Helen walk into the room. Somehow the look she'd given him complete with raised eyebrow had his teeth clicking together, and he'd sunk back into his chair waiting for the wrath of Potter's adoptive family to come raining down upon him. She curled up on the end of the sofa and gratefully accepted the whisky John had poured her.

"Harry's gone up to bed," she said. "Thank you for telling him before it got any further."

"How is he?" John asked.

"So, so," she reported. "Upset that it's been dragged up again, angry that he's been forced to be adult about it, but he's sorting it into something he can deal with. I passed Hermione on the stairs, they'll sort it between them."

"Does he," Severus said, then stopped to clear his throat. "Does he have any questions?"

"I imagine he has more than a few," Helen replied. "As to if he's going to ask you?" she sighed. "I think he probably will eventually, maybe not immediately but he's short on reliable sources of who they were. It's always been that he's the saviour of the world, not that he lost his parents and his survival likely had a lot less to do with him and more to do with whatever his mother did. They were the darlings of the school; he looks like James but has his mother's eyes. She was a bright muggle born witch, he was a prankster, and part of a group called the Marauders. It's not a lot to build on."

"Hasn't he spoken to Black and Lupin?"

Helen cocked her head at him. "You seem to be under some sort of false assumption of how much use a man who spent over a decade in prison can be in answering the types of questions he has. He's barely spent time with Sirius that wasn't heavily supervised, and he could hardly be expected to ask when surrounded by the Weasley's. That avenue is now closed to him, and as for Mr Lupin, he appeared briefly when he was thirteen, nearly killed him then vanished again until Harry visited Sirius' house. Then he was, as I understand it, a visitor in between missions for the Order much as he is now."

Severus blinked, he hadn't realised he might be one of the few people left in Potter's life that might have known his parents for the people they were, rather than the footnotes in his survival they had been reduced to. He swallowed again. "If he wishes to ask, I will make myself available."

"That would be kind of you, I'll let him know. Would written correspondence be easier?" Helen asked.

"Not if Potter's handwriting hasn't improved," Severus replied.

The barb made both the Grangers chuckle and the blade of tension he had between his shoulders lessened. He nodded to Helen. "If he wishes to write I will correspond."

The tension broke, and they began to talk about other things and the evening wended its way through to the early hours of the morning.

He returned to the castle and stumbled his way to his rooms. He was drunker than he had any right to be even on a Saturday night but lighter of heart and soul.

Two days later Severus returned to McGonagall Lodge with misgiving. He was no longer worried that Helen or John or even Hermione might have a problem with him over his revelations. However, he hadn't seen Potter since, and despite what Helen seemed to think he wasn't going to assume anything.

Folly greeted him as he came through the floo. "Mistress is waiting in the dining room," she reported before taking his cloak and vanishing. He made his way to the dining room and found Minerva stood looking out of the window and moved to join her.