All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

A New Friend pt11

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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"Now, this is supposed to be some kind of security interview or something, isn't it? What do you want to know?"

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Snape actually chuckled. "You are dating a Weasley. I think we can call you safe. Even Dumbledore would probably agree with that," he remarked motioning for the waitress to bring them another round.

Percy rolled his eyes and Harry laughed. He was still laughing when their drinks were delivered and only marginally pulled himself together. "Merlin...the Order had really better be more secure than that!" He knew it really wasn't from his experiences in the past and future.

"I'm kind-of on the outs with the family right now," Percy winced. "I'm trying to make it up to them though and plan to apologize for being a prat about some things as soon as I'm able."

Snape shrugged, not caring at all. "So, I clearly know what Mr. Weasley does for a living. What have you found to do since you moved to Britain?" He asked in actual interest.

Harry huffed and took a sip. "Not a lot. I'm an artifact dealer and serve as a competent brewer for anything not overly complex...please don't ask about the types of artifacts or potions I have though," he added at the end with a smirk.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Snape smirked right back, remembering what both of them had been buying the day they met.

"Actually, on that note, I'm brewing some Polyjuice for Sirius...aren't there a few spells to speed along the process so it doesn't take a full month?" He asked in interest.

Percy now sat back and enjoyed watching the two geek out since Potions were at the very bottom of his interests. Harry held out a hand and Percy passed him some parchment and a quill with an eyeroll while Snape went into some kind of lecture into magical theory that had Harry scribbling excitedly while Percy planned his next experiment on Persephone. He supposed that everyone had their interests, Morgana knew he was the more academic of the two of them, but Potions was just not his thing.

"Sorry, Percy," Harry looked up at him sheepishly while he folded the parchment that supposedly would help him speed along Sirius's potion by over a week. "I know you'd rather talk Charms or Transfiguration or anything besides Potions."

He shrugged, just happy that Harry was so happy and that Snape seemed to be actually getting along with them. "I love to see you when you get all nerdy..."

"Am not! Take that back Percy Weasley!" Harry protested with a wrinkle of his nose while Snape stifled a snort of laughter in his drink.

Percy turned to Snape, ignoring the ridiculous man. "Do you happen to know of a spot on campus or in the Forbidden Forest where a spike of dark magic wouldn't be noticed?" He asked. Harry needed to get rid of the horcrux he'd already collected as well as the diadem once they grabbed it. Plus, he couldn't exactly test out the spells on Persephone in the castle, and he still needed to solve the glowing red eyes problem.

Snape slowly shook his head as he ran through everything he knew about the wards. "Not with Albus's wards..."

"What about the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked with a frown when the idea came to him. "I've heard of its existence from Hogwarts: A History. Isn't it a chamber within the castle where Salazar Slytherin himself practiced dark magic?"

"It's secret, Hadrian. It's in the name," Percy reminded him, clearly knowing that Harry knew where it was, but Snape wouldn't and would definitely not expect either of them to know.

"Both of you make good points," Snape nodded at them before draining his glass once he realized he really should get back up to the castle if he wanted to finish his marking before bed.

"Yes, I am sure whatever you are wanting to practice could theoretically be done there, but no one knows where it is except for Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore. I would suggest not asking either of them, Mr. Weasley. I get the impression neither will trust you if you are indeed on the outs with your family currently. I would assume especially Albus would want to know what you were planning to do there." Clearly Snape was avoiding the question but really wanted to know as well.

Percy just smiled at him and drained his own glass, having plenty of practice in just not answering questions after his years as an Unspeakable. "I will pursue off-campus opportunities then."

Harry chuckled, knowing they would be going into the chamber soon now that they'd thought of it. "I have some, possibly expired, but very rare, potions ingredients that I don't know what to do with," he thought of the basilisk and wasn't sure what to do with the carcass. If they were going to use the space, then he refused to have the dead thing there as well. Honestly, knowing Percy, he'd probably start experimenting on it if it was there, and that would probably be bad for humanity as a whole.

"Er...would you want to check them out to see if they are viable? If they are, I'm sure we could work out some kind of mutually beneficial deal," he ended while Percy looked a little confused, not having put together the large, dead snake bit yet.

"Personally, I could use the funds," he ended honestly. He needed to buy some kind of base of operations and probably shell out quite a lot of bribe money, and his inheritance vault just wasn't going to cut it.

"With pleasure," Snape gave them both a nod. "Just owl them to me, or bring them by when visit your cousin next. I will inform Albus we can trust you, but that we were not able to come to terms on a secrecy oath."