Augury [Harry Potter Fanfic]

d. four

"Snape?" Sirius questioned harshly, taking his eyes off Scabbers; for the first time in minutes and looking up at Remus, getting Sawyer attention. She was staring at, as it seemed, nothing, gaze chilling. "What's Snape got to do with it?"


"He's here, Sirius," said Remus heavily. "He's teaching here as well." He looked up at Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons...you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me --"


Sirius made a derisive noise.

"It served him right," he sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to...hoping he could get us expelled...."

"Well, he did have quite a good reason, that Snivellus," Sawyer said, smirking at the same spot she's been staring at. Sirius looked at her in interest, before turning back to Scabbers.

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Remus informed Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "We were in the same year, you know, and we -- er -- didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field..." Sawyer snorted, and Remus shot her a look. "Anyway Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be -- er -- amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it -- if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf -- but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life...Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was...."


"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," said Harry slowly, "because he thought you were in on the joke?"

"That's right," sneered a cold voice from the wall behind Remus, wand pointed at him.

Hermione screamed. Sirius leapt to his feet. Harry seemed frozen. Sawyer looked at his as calmly as before, taking the chance to slowly dig through his mind.

"I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow," said Snape, throwing the cloak aside, careful to keep this wand pointing directly at Remus's chest, his whole concentration at the group. "Very useful, Potter, I thank you...."

Snape was slightly breathless, but his face was full of suppressed triumph. "You're wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here?" he said, his eyes glittering. "I've just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along. And very lucky I did...lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight."

"How very lucky indeed, Professor," Sawyer struggled to keep her cool as she dug through memories. Every step she took further into his mind poked her with death, and she had to struggle against her nature and not see the deaths that Severus Snape was in charge of.

She dug further and further, until she found what she was looking for.

As she found it, Snape realized something was happening, and he turned to look at her in the midst of Remus' sentence, pointing his wand at her.

"Insolent child!" he spoke, firing a green spell, that Sirius and Remus recognized in a moment, but none of them could do a thing.

Simply raising her hand, she stopped the spell.