The Anti-Heroine || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter LXII

A/N: there's a scene (marked by ***) that I feel I should warn is not something everyone might be okay with and some people could find disturbing. It's Sane and Consensual (though not exactly responsible) but not at all Safe. So if knife-play/blood-play/pain-play is not your thing, then I definitely suggest skipping it. If it is your thing (or you're curious or just don't care) then enjoy ;)

CHAPTER LXII:

Severus's POV:

There was a tense atmosphere at Hogwarts, following Skeeter's latest article 'The Infamy and Incarceration of Sirius Black'. It wasn't hard to read the underlying accusations between the lines, the thinly veiled declarations that Dumbledore knew Black was innocent and had let an innocent (Pureblood Heir to an Ancient and Noble House) man rot in Azkaban in order to have control over the Boy Who Lived. Whispers were rife over the school amongst students and staff alike. As far as Severus knew, Harry was staying quiet– for once– but plenty of other people were talking, wanting answers– beginning with demanding for Lily and James Potter's Will to be made public.

Considering the upcoming custody dispute of Harry that was likely to end in blood, Severus wondered just who had been behind Skeeter's latest, suspiciously well-timed and well-informed article. Dumbledore's reputation taking such a hit was one of the best things that could happen for Harry right now– and so was the unsealing of his parents' Will.

He wasn't sure if Harry was aware of what the Headmaster was planning, or if he had guessed. The fact was, Dumbledore wanted control over Harry– and with Harry fighting him every step of the way, the best course for the old bastard to take would be to gain legal control. With the boy's custody up for grabs and Lily and James's Will tucked away, out of sight, it would come down to political power and influence to decide where the boy ended up– a painfully, Dumbledore-worshipping Light family being the Headmaster's first choice and one of the worst possible outcomes for Harry.

Skeeter's article, however, cast public doubt over Dumbledore's ability to make good choices, alienated him from his allies with the suspicions of his complicity in the imprisonment of one of their own and subsequently had begun to both minimise Dumbledore's influence in the Wizengamot chambers, the useless lot of them less likely to blindly follow his word like gospel with such dark suspicions hovering over him, and to remove the rose colored glasses of the Wizarding world as a whole.

Severus didn't like Black. Still loathed him, in fact– his ex-class mate had almost murdered him when they were teenagers, was he really supposed to just 'forgive and forget'? No, despite his bizarre not-friendship with Re– with Lupin (and no, he was not deluding himself, Minerva!) and recent grudging acknowledgment that holding onto his animosity towards a dead man wasn't worth it in the case of James Potter, especially not after the man had spent the last moments of his life trying to save Lily and Harry's, he still couldn't let go of his bitterness and resentment towards Black. He didn't care that Black was dead, murdered by his own beloved godson, or that the man had suffered for years in the hellhole cesspit that was Azkaban. He hated him and would always hate him.

And that was why he had been the one chosen to go talk to Dumbledore, to see if he could find out the truth.

He gave his usual weekly report to the headmaster, complaining about the Gryffindors, deriding the Ravenclaws, belittling the Hufflepuffs and praising his Slytherins, all as per normal and like he didn't admire Poppy's sharp intelligence, Minerva's fierce courage and Pomona's even fiercer loyalty, like he wasn't aware of the acumen, tenacity and resolution of most of the students from all Houses (even though they had the most irritating tendency to leave their better qualities behind when they entered his classroom).