Fear of a Name

Chapter Twenty-Four: Saying Too Much

As soon as we'd left the room and shut the door, Harry said, "Is he completely mad?! He drank the potion!"
"Harry..."
"Snape could've done anything to it! And Lupin drank it!"
"Harry, if you're suggesting that Snape was trying to poison Lupin—"
"I am, Ivory! You know what Snape's done before! You know what he's capable of!"
"No, Harry. Whatever Snape's done in the past..."
I broke off, thinking of the times he had yelled at me and hurt me, then took a deep breath and continued.
"Whatever he's done in the past, he wouldn't try to kill Lupin. Especially not in the same building as Dumbledore."

"But Snape—"
I felt the anger start to rise.
"Snape is not trying to kill Lupin," I said, my voice containing more venom than I had intended.
"Ivory, you saw—"
"Harry, for Merlin's sake!" I interrupted. "You allow your hatred for Snape to blind you! Not everything he does means he's trying to kill someone!"

"I am not blinded by hatred!" Harry said, raising his voice.
"You are!" I said, raising my voice too. We had both completely forgotten that Lupin could probably hear us, as we were right outside his office. "Snape has done far worse things to me than he'll ever do to you! If anyone should be untrusting of him, it should be me! But no; the Boy Who Lived chooses to hate him and suspect him of attempted murder, while I see everything clearly!"
The anger was building now, and it was all I could do not to scream in rage and frustration.

"What?! I didn't — that's not—"
"Don't tell me that's not what you meant, Harry! You need to stop and think before accusing people of stuff! And you know what, I could say that to the rest of our world too!"
"You could say that to the rest of our world too?" Harry repeated, looking confused.
"Yes. People are too quick to make accusations based on witness accounts alone!"
I shouldn't have said that! I should not have said that! I can't tell anyone that he's innocent!
"Based on witness accounts alone?"
I sighed. "It doesn't matter. Sorry for losing my temper like that, it's just..." I paused, realising that I needed to be careful so I didn't let anything else slip. "It's complicated. What do you reckon Ron and Hermione are going to bring us back from Hogsmeade?"

And just like that, Harry started talking about Fizzing Whizzbees, Jelly Slugs, Exploding Bonbons, and all the other wizarding sweets he'd heard about but had never got the opportunity to try, visibly putting the argument out of his mind as we made our way back to the common room. I couldn't help but give a small sigh of relief.
That had been a close one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"There you go," said Ron. "We got as much as we could carry."
He dropped a whole load of brightly coloured sweets onto Harry's lap, and Hermione did the same for me. It was dusk, and Ron and Hermione had just got back from Hogsmeade, looking as if they'd had the time of their lives.
"Thanks," Harry and I said together, and I quickly put my share of the sweets into my purse to duplicate and store properly later on.
"What's Hogsmeade like? Where did you go?" Harry asked them.

It sounded like they had gone everywhere. Dervish and Banges, which was apparently the wizarding equipment shop, Zonko's Joke Shop, the Three Broomsticks for foaming mugs of hot butterbeer (which I thought sounded disgusting, though according to Ron and Hermione it was very nice), and many other places besides.

"The post office! About two hundred owls, all sitting on shelves, all colour-coded depending on how fast you want your letter to get there!"
"Honeydukes have got a new kind of fudge, they were giving out free samples, there's a bit, look—"
"We think we saw an ogre, honestly, they get all sorts at the Three Broomsticks—"
"Wish we could've brought you some Butterbeer, really warms you up—"

"What did you two do?" asked Hermione, looking slightly anxious. "Did you get any work done?"
"No, Lupin made me a cup of tea in his office," Harry started.
"I didn't want one," I explained quickly, "so I just watched the Grindylow."
"Yeah, and then Snape came in, and he had a goblet with blue smoke coming off it, and he put it on Lupin's desk—"
"And then he tried to use legilimency on me and all that good stuff," I added, making sure Harry didn't forget that part.

"That reminds me, what's legilimency?" Harry asked.
"The art of reading another's mind," I explained. "Snape's a legilimens, and a highly skilled one at that, though why he was trying to look into my mind, I don't know..."
"And what's occlumency?"
"Occlumency is a sort of barrier you can put up in your mind, which, if strong enough, can stop people being able to use both legilimency and Veritaserum on you."

"What's Veritaserum?"
"Veritaserum is a truth-telling potion. It can be mixed in with pretty much any drink, and just three drops is enough to force the drinker to tell the complete truth to any question put to him or her, according to whatever the drinker perceives to be true. It can be resisted using an antidote or occlumency. It's a a clear, colourless and odourless potion that is almost indistinguishable from water."
They all stared at me, looking a little shocked at this sudden burst of information.
"Anyway, that's beside the point," I said. "Harry, tell them what happened after Snape had finished trying to invade my privacy."