HP and the Price, part 5 (Patreon)

“It’s about time for you to head back to your dorm, young man,” Professor Sprout said.

Neville sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” He finished smoothing the soil over the seeds he’d planted and took off his gloves.

Professor Sprout came and sat on the edge of the raised planting bed. “Mr. Longbottom, is everything alright?”

Neville shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“But is anything right?” She pressed.

Neville looked at her. “I wish I’d been sorted into Hufflepuff.” His grandmother had gone on and on about how his parents were Gyrffindor and how he was destined to follow in their footsteps, but he didn’t know anymore. He wasn’t good at anything except herbology and he didn’t fit in with the others.

“Is something wrong with Gyrffindor?”

“No.”

“Are the students being mean?”

Neville loved Professor Sprout because she cared about stuff like that. “Not really. I mean, I just don’t fit.”

“Most of us feel like we don’t fit when we first come to school,” she said kindly.

“But Dean and Seamus turned into best friends overnight. And Ron is always getting teased by his brothers, and if I sit too close to him, Fred and George tease me, too.” Of course, the teasing usually took the form of tongue sticking toffees and color changing hexes that made him purple. Ron yelled and threw food and threatened to write their mother, but he didn’t seem to care enough to make them stop, and Neville always felt like he was in danger when when he sat near Ron. “And Hermione is so serious. I don’t do well in other classes, and she’s always trying to tell me what I’m doing wrong, and she makes me almost as nervous as the teachers do, and I just don’t have a place.” The common room was supposed to be a safe haven, but the only place where Neville felt safe was in the greenhouse.

“Oh dear. Well, you are always welcome with me, dear,” she said.

Neville smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“I happen to appreciate a young man who can plant seeds a consistent depth and tell a weed from an herb, so you are always welcome. But right now, you have to hurry to avoid breaking curfew.”

Fear shot through Neville. “Right. I’m going.” He grabbed his bag and ran for the door. At the door he stopped and turned around. “Thank you Professor Sprout.”

“Any time, my dear.” She smiled before she returned to her pruning.

Neville followed the line of shrubs toward the castle, but a shadow caught his eye. Something was coming out of the castle. At first, Neville thought it was a professor—maybe Professor McGonagal coming to find out why he wasn’t in the dorm. But then the shape twisted and jerked into lines that weren’t human. The shade scrabbled over the ground, always in the shadow of the shrubs, and fear made Neville’s insides turn to ice and made his knees weak.

He took a step back, and something cold washed over him. The shade straightened and stepped into the light. It was Professor Quirrell; however, the professor had never looked at a student with the raw fury Neville saw in his face now. Neville took another step back. “Professor Quirrell?” he said, his voice quivering.

The professor offered him a cruel smile. “How unfortunate for you,” he said. But then the world started to shimmer and blur.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The world shifted between one blink and the next. Neville was in a cave with a ceiling that glittered with crystals and a huge fire that burned in a raised fire pit. Luxurious couches sat in clusters around it, and charmed musical instruments lined the far wall, which was made of polished stone with veins of gold and silver threaded through. It looked like someone had crossed Marble Cave in Chile with his grandmother’s formal parlor, only it was grander than either. The setting startled him so badly that he didn’t notice the man standing next to the fire at first.

“Hello?” Neville said. The man took a step closer, and something connected in Neville’s brain. The black hair, the hooked nose, the long and cruel face. Posters with this face still hung in Diagon Alley. He pointed at the stranger. “You. You’re Steveneus Snape.”

“Severus Snape,” the man corrected, his tone dripping with contempt. He took a step forward, and Neville took one back and finally remembered to pull his wand out of his pocket.

“Stay away. I know who you are. You’re one of You-Know-Who’s followers. You murdered Harry Potter!”

“You-Know-Who?” Snape crossed his arms over his chest, looking utterly unconcerned about having a wand pointed at him. He probably was. He was one of the most feared Death Eaters ever. He was a renowned dueler and a potions master. And he was a famed occlumens. He had even lied to Professor Dumbledore, convincing him that he was loyal to the Light before he killed Harry Potter and disappeared. There was a reward of like a billion galleons for information leading to his capture. Snape sounded amused as he said, “I take it that the wizarding world moved on from calling him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

Neville retreated more, stopping when his back touched a ward that made his flesh tingle. He glanced over his shoulder and shock made him whirl around. He was standing on a balcony protected by a shield charm. Outside, the world was glittering and white and sharp. Jagged, snow covered mountains stabbed the blue-gray sky and the wind picked up tuffs of snow and swirled them through the air before dropping them back to the earth. Neville had travelled widely with his Grandmother, but he had never seen any place as wild and beautiful or as deadly. No wonder Snape had escaped the Aurors.

Suddenly remembering that Snape was at his back, Neville whirled around again and raised his wand to defend himself. Snape still stood there, arms crossed.

“How did I get here?” Neville asked.

“The Fae,” Snape said. He moved toward the fireplace, and Neville followed with his wand. “The more interesting question is why the Fae would have brought you here.”

The last word vanished under a shout of “Expelliarmus!” from the side. The spell hit, and Neville went flying the length of the balcony and his wand clattered to the marble floor. Snape darted forward, grabbing the wand, and Neville crouched on the floor, utterly helpless and at the mercy of a Death Eater. He thought about his parents—how they sat in St. Mungo, their minds shattered by Death Eaters’ torture. His vision grayed and he started to shake. They were going to kill him. And he hadn’t gotten off a single spell.

“Child, quiet yourself,” Snape said. Neville realized he was sobbing. Snape was going to torture him if he couldn’t stop. Despite that, the sobs continued.

“Harry, bring a calming draught. Dinae, do stop staring. I believe you have work to complete.”

“But our game.”

“Consider it a draw,” Snape said. He knelt down next to Neville, and Neville shied away, but he was trapped in a corner, the shield charm and the wall of the cave preventing retreat. Neville wished he could throw himself off the balcony and die from the fall or the cold, but he wasn’t going to get that mercy.

“Here you go,” a boy said as he handed Snape a potions bottle.

Snape held it out. “Drink.”

Neville shook his head. “You’ll poison me.”

“To what end? Are you a threat I would need to poison?” Snape asked. Neville tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.

The boy with wild hair sat on the floor next to Snape. “I’m Harry,” he said. Neville glance over, and suddenly he was too shocked to cry. The boy had a lightning shaped scar on his forehead.

“Harry Potter?” Neville asked softly.

The boy smiled. “That’s me.”

“As you can see, I have not murdered Harry.”

“Not even when I spilled girding potion on your scroll,” Harry said brightly. He gestured to the bottle in Snape’s hand. “It’s just a calming draught. Severus gives them to me when I have a nightmare.”

“But… you’re dead,” Neville whispered.

“Um, not really,” Harry said. “The Muggles who were raising me were abusive. Severus knew my mom, so he took me away from them.”

Neville looked at Snape. He looked more like a killer than someone who would save a child. And the potion in his hand could be a poison. But Harry Potter said it wasn’t and said that Snape had saved him. Caught between two realities, Neville couldn’t decide what to believe.

Snape rolled his eyes. “Taste this, please, Harry.”

“But I’ll be too tired for practice.”

“As opposed to allowing a child to live in terror. Yes, I am terribly concerned about your dueling practice, inconsiderate brat.”

Neville hadn’t expected a Death Eater to be sarcastic… or to use “brat” as an insult.

“Fine.” Harry sounded aggravated, but he took the bottle and sipped it. “Standard calming draught,” he said as he held the bottle out to Neville.

Neville never would have taken a potion from someone like Severus Snape, but this was Harry Potter. This was the boy who survived a killing curse. He took the bottle and sipped at it, nervous that he might fall down dead or this might be a potions version of a crucio spell. However, it tasted like the calming draught his grandmother sometimes gave him.

Snape turned his attention to Harry Potter. “Evaluate your performance during that… adventure.”

“I didn’t panic, and I pulled Dinae to safety behind the sofa as soon as I realized someone was shimmering in.”

“And?”

“And I performed the Expelliarmus correctly. He dropped his wand.”

“The spell was not necessary given that our visitor does not appear overly threatening, but I would rather you overreact to a threat than underreact. However, what critical error did you make?”

“Error?”

Severus sighed. “Where should your opponent’s wand land when you use that spell?”

Harry winced. That was the exact same expression Neville got when his grandmother lectured him over some mistake he’d made.

“In my hand or at my feet, somewhere that my opponent can’t easily get it back.”

“Exactly. We will be practicing. You’ve had your wand a year longer than Dinae, and you still do not control the direction of the expelling force.”

Harry hunched over. “Sorry.”

“Do not be sorry. Be better. This time you threw a spell at a child that the Fae delivered into our care. At some point in the future, you will need to use that spell against an enemy who will take advantage of your foolishness. Do not get into habits that could, one day, cost you your life.”

Harry looked up from under his shaggy hair. “I’m sorry, Severus.”

Snape huffed. “And yet you do not change your behavior.”

“Severus! There’s a new bedroom!” A girl with auburn hair ran into the room, her bare feet slapping against the marble. “But it’s on the opposite side of the keep. It’s by the greenhouse.”

Neville’s eyes widened. They had a greenhouse?

“Check to see if our supplies have been replenished,” Snape ordered, and Harry got up and headed for an ornate door on the other side of the room. “Dinae, introduce yourself.”

Dinae straightened up. “Very pleased to meet you. I am Dinae Carrow of the ancient and noble house of Carrow.”

Neville knew this. His grandmother had drilled it into him. “Well, met, Dinae Carrow. I am Neville Longbottom of the ancient and noble house of Longbottom.”

“Another of the sacred 28,” Snape said softly, and then he said louder, “Dinae, show Mr. Longbottom his new room while I check to see if the apothecary supplies have been renewed.”

Dinae held out her hand to Neville, and he took it on instinct. She pulled him to his feet and practically dragged him toward a door. “None of the bedrooms are large, but they’re so pretty with the stone walls. You seem to have a vein of turquoise through yours. I just don’t know why your room is on the opposite side of the keep from where us and Severus sleep. That seems silly.”

Being on the opposite side of the keep from Snape seemed reasonable to Neville. The only thing that would be more reasonable would be if he were back at Hogwarts, but until he could get home, he planned to spend as much time as possible on the opposite side of the keep from the most famous Death Eater in history.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Neville allowed Dinae to pull him into a library with a large dark wood table taking up a good deal of the floor space just inside the door. “You can sit next to me,” she said as she pulled him around to the far side of the table.

“Dinae is excited to have someone new in the keep. It’s been a while,” Harry explained. Neville still couldn’t quite get over that he was talking to a living, breathing Harry Potter.

“That’s okay,” Neville said. “How long have you guys been here?”

“Ages!” Dinae said, her voice full of tragedy.

Harry shot her an amused look as he grabbed two scrolls from an organizer set on the nearest shelf. “She’s only been here three years. Severus and I have lived here for five.”

“Yeah, but when you turned eleven, you got to visit the outside world, so that resets the clock and you haven’t even been here a whole year, and I’ve been here three.” Dinae made everything sound so dramatic that Neville had to resist the urge to smile. He suspected she might hex him. “I can’t wait until I turn eleven and I can visit the outside.”

“Wait. You aren’t eleven?” Neville looked at her confused.

“Not yet. Why?”

“But you have your wand.” Neville had been a little envious when she’d pulled out her wand and levitated his school bag to the top of the dresser in his new room. The room had been beautiful, but what really surprised Neville was how many of his possessions were in it. And it hadn’t just been his school books from Hogwarts. His bedding from home and some of his favorite clothes and even his stuffed leaping toadstool that he’d slept with from the age of three—it had all been in his new room. Maybe someone had wanted to give Neville some comforts from home, but it made him feel worse because it felt like he was going to be here forever.

“So what if I have a wand. You have a wand. Harry has a wand.”

“Harry and I are eleven. You can’t get a wand if you’re not eleven.”

“Correction, Mr. Longbottom,” Snape said as he walked in the room, “shops controlled by the Ministry of Magic will not sell a wand unless the intended user is at least eleven. Since this is a Fae keep and the Fae provide for our needs, including the children’s need for wands, the Fae can provide wands at any age they find appropriate.”

“But… isn’t that dangerous?” Neville bit his tongue he shouldn’t be questioning the Death Eater who was holding him captive. But still… every kid asked for one early, and every parent explained all the ways someone could damage their magical core by straining it too early.

Snape crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you questioning the magical acumen of the Fae, Mr. Longbottom?”

“No?” Neville hated how unsure his voice came out.

Snape rolled his eyes. “You two have your assignments. Mr. Longbottom, have you started studying Arithmancy?”

“That’s a third year elective. I’m only first year.”

“And many ancient families teach their children the fundamentals of magic before they attend Hogwarts. But I shall infer from your answer that you have not. Have you studied algebra?”

“What’s that?”

Dinae pushed her scroll toward him, and he could see mathematical problems with letters mixed into the equations. “This is algebra. I hate it,” she said.

“Dinae!” Snape’s voice carried so much condemnation that Neville cringed just being in the same room with it. Snape sighed. “I shall see how fast you can complete your times tables and we shall go from there.” Snape pulled a new scroll from the shelf.

Neville had not impressed anyone with his work. He’d gotten all the answers, but only after counting on his fingers, and Snape had assigned him to draw boxes to represent each answer on a times table until he could envision the numbers when he saw a multiplication problem. Neville blushed, humiliated that both Harry and Dinae had witnessed him struggle with multiplication when they were so far ahead of him. Dinae shot him a smug look, but then she’d had a quarter of her sheet erased and she’d been sent back to fix her errors. Harry, on the other hand, was so focused on his arithmancy charts that he didn’t seem to notice. Math was hard.

Potions was harder.

Neville practically shook as he cut the dittany for the strength potion. It didn’t help that Snape stood behind him, watching the entire time. Harry and Dinae got to work on their potions without the extra attention, and Neville was deeply envious. Potions was never his best subject but Neville was fairly sure he would fail even herbology if Snape watched while he tended the plants.

“Mr. Longbottom, control your knife. At this rate you will remove your own fingers.”

Neville fumbled and the knife slipped out of his hand and nearly landed on Snape’s foot.

“You will be doing all chopping for lunches and dinners until I say otherwise, Mr. Longbottom,” Snape said. Considering they weren’t even at school, that sounded a lot like a detention, but Neville wasn’t going to argue with a Death Eater.

“Um, Severus?” Harry asked. Neville looked up, and Harry was backing away from his cauldron. “What could make a wideye potion develop purple streaks, and is this something you need to vanish before it blows up?”

“Thank you for checking the safety of your clearly inadequate work,” Snape said. Neville tried to shrink in his seat. “What was the last ingredient you added?”

“Billywig stings.”

“Since the discoloration is a streak and not consistent, what can you deduce?”

Harry moved closer to his cauldron again, studying it. “Something got in there and it’s causing a reaction, but there’s not enough of the contaminate to ruin the whole potion.”

“And what would that something be?”

Harry frowned. “I’m not sure. The contamination could be anything, but since I just added billywig stings, it could be billywig wings.”

“If you know this and know how to test your hypothesis, why are you bothering me instead of testing for the presence of billywig wings in your potion?”

“Right.” Harry drew himself up and went to the shelves to pull more ingredients. Neville didn’t even recognize some of the supplies he brought back to the table.

“Mr. Longbottom,” Snape said, “have you stirred that potion the requisite four times or several dozen?” Neville froze. With a sigh, Snape waved his wand and the potion vanished. “Begin again.”

Neville went back to cutting dittany while Harry used a mortar and pestle to grind several ingredients together. He then added it to the small amount of his potion and the combination turned bright red. “I have billywig wings,” Harry said. “If I slowly add leek root until the color returns to normal and reverse the direction of the stirs while I do, will that neutralize the contamination?”

“It will. Ten points for correctly addressing the problem, Harry.”

Dinae spoke up. “What if my cure for boils is too yellow? I think there is something wrong with my porcupine quills, Severus.”

“There was, and you could have corrected it had you asked me fifteen minutes ago when you added your crushed quills,” Snape said. “Ten points from you for attempting to hide a problem with your work. These potions are intended for human consumption, Dinae. You cannot produce an inferior product and hope it does not kill someone. Start again.” He waved his wand and her potion vanished too.

Neville thought potions was going to be the hardest part of the day.

Until they started charms.

They moved to the great hall and Snape laid three eggs on the ground. “You must levitate your egg to the balcony. Your egg must remain within one inch of the ground at all times and if you crack your egg you will not only lose but you will clean the floor without magic. Take out your wands. Begin.”

Neville’s hand shook as he cast his wingardium leviosa. By the time he finished the incantation, Dinae’s egg was already moving toward the balcony and picking up speed. After a few dips and wobbles, Neville’s egg slammed into the ground, splattering raw egg everywhere. Dinae easily won the race with Harry sending his egg across the finish line a minute later.

“Perfectly adequate, Dinae,” Snape offered.

“Bad luck,” Harry said. “It’s okay. We can practice the spell together until we can beat her.”

“You could practice forever and I’d still be better,” Dinae said.

Neville felt like a squib that everyone was pointing to and laughing at because he was trying to do magic. He was so miserable that he didn’t notice Snape standing in front of him for several seconds. “Mr. Longbottom, where did you get that wand?”

Neville clutched his wand. “Ash with dragon heartstring. It was my father’s.”

“Was it? And where did you get the wand?”

Neville looked toward Harry to see if he understood why Snape was so interested, but Harry looked as confused as Neville felt. “My grandmother gave it to me. My father was a well-respected Auror, and he battled with this wand many times.” Neville swallowed as it occurred to him that his father might have even fought Snape.

“That makes the wand a valuable keepsake, but why in the world would you choose to try to usurp the loyalty of an ash wand?”

“What?”

Snape closed his eyes for a second. “Ash, Mr. Longbottom. Your wand is ash, a wood well-known for being loyal to only one wielder. If that wand sat in your family vault for a few generations, the wand might choose another user, but it is equally likely that the wand would demand a century or more before working for another witch or wizard. Why did your grandmother not insist that you buy a new wand?”

“She wanted me to use my father’s wand.”

“She demanded you use it?” Snape’s voice rose in anger and Neville took a step back. Snape took a deep breath. “Mr. Longbottom, I apologize, but I must insist you give me your wand.”

“Why?” Neville clutched his wand tighter.

“Now, Mr. Longbottom.” Snape’s voice was hard, and fear shot through Neville stomach. He might have tried to escape, but the keep was too small to hide anywhere. He put his wand in Snape’s outstretched hand. “I apologize for this, but we must communicate to the Fae that you absolutely must have a new wand. You have a powerful core, Mr. Longbottom, and you will likely grow even more powerful the longer you are here. However, much of your magical power is being absorbed and dispersed by this wand as it fights you.” Snape snapped the wand, and Neville cried out.

“I can repair the wood, and restore the appearance so you may keep this as a keepsake of your father, but you need your own wand.” Snape repaired the wand and handed it back, but Neville could feel the difference. The warmth was gone. The magic was gone. Now it was just a piece of wood, two halves of a wand glued together with a spell. Neville started crying softly.

“Perhaps it is time for lunch,” Severus said before he cast a quick cleaning spell to remove the egg.

“Hey, let’s go to the playroom,” Harry said.

“We can play Stop-Go!” Dinae said.

“Dinae Carrow, stop assuming that everyone wants to share the company of a brat. Come and help me prepare lunch.”

“I thought Neville had to do the chopping.”

“Now, brat.” Snape pushed the girl toward the kitchen, but Neville was too miserable to care.

Harry wrapped an arm around Neville’s shoulders. “Let’s go sit on the swings. Come on.” Neville allowed himself to be led to the playroom with it’s sand floor and swings hung from the branch of a tree sculpture.

For a time, they swung quietly, Harry matching his speed. “I want to go home,” Neville confessed. He’d been unhappy at Hogwarts, but he was miserable here.

“I’m sorry.”

“Make him let me leave. Please,” Neville begged. He could see that Snape liked Harry. He’d do it for Harry. “I promise I won’t tell anyone that I saw him or tell the Aurors about Prince Keep or anything. Promise.”

“If Severus could take you home, he would. But this place was built by the Fae, and we don’t have any way of leaving. That’s why Severus gets so angry when we put ourselves in danger by doing things that could blow up. You should have seen him when I broke my ankle playing leapfrog with the couches in the grand hall. When stuff like that happens, he can’t go get help. He can’t take us somewhere to see a healer. It’s just him and us.”

Neville pressed his lips together and fought back an urge to cry again. “He broke my wand.”

“He feels really bad about that. He never cancels a punishment once he issues it, and he cleaned up your egg and everything. From Severus that’s like a dozen apologies.”

Neville gave Harry an incredulous look.

“No, really,” Harry said. “Severus has a secret language. When he says you’re adequate, that means you’re brilliant. When he calls you inadequate, that means you’re average. When he calls you an utter dunderhead who would forget to breathe if breathing weren’t hard-wired into the human brain, that means you made a mistake. I’m pretty sure having to work for the False Lord messed up something in his head.” Harry shrugged.

“But my father’s wand.” Neville stared down morosely. This was the worst day of his life, second only to yesterday when he’d been kidnapped by a Death Eater.

Harry dragged his feet through the sand to stop the swing. “Have you seen my wand?” Harry held it out. It was beautiful, but the center was carved out, leaving a space for a red gem. It didn’t look substantial enough to be a regular wand. It looked like one of the fancy ritual wands that was only used to bless the altar on Yule or Ostara, not something a person would use to do magic.

“The Fae left it for me. Severus says it’s really powerful. Human wands only have one core, but Severus says he can feel two cores and both are interacting with the stone. He said no human could ever make this.”

“I would rather have my father’s wand,” Neville said even though Harry’s wand was amazing. His grandmother was never going to forgive him for letting his father’s wand be broken, assuming he ever saw her again.

“Neville, the Fae brought us here. Dinae and I were both in really bad places, and Severus had asked for a way to get out from between the forces of Light and Dark, neither of which were being very nice to him. And it sounds like you might have been in trouble with Professor Quirrell. But the Fae don’t give people things to be nice. They aren’t like that.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry leaned all the way back in his swing, hanging onto the chains to keep from tumbling to the ground. “I think Fae are like your Slytherin. They believe in taking care of themselves, and maybe they assume everyone else should be able to do the same. Or maybe they think that by not being nice, they’re forcing humans to solve their own problems. Severus rarely gives us answers in potions class, not because he’s evil but because he wants us to figure stuff out on our own and he knows that as long as he fixes our problems that we’re not going to learn now to do that. That’s the Fae.”

“But you said they saved all of us.”

Harry sat up. “That’s the thing. They wouldn’t save us for us. They saved us because they want something for themselves. Dinae hasn’t figured it out yet, but the Fae have given us battle wands and the keep has a private dueling room and they gave us Severus. All the time he talks about how he doesn’t know how to handle children, although he is way better than my aunt and uncle. But the Fae didn’t pick him because he knows how to be a parent. They probably picked him because he’s a dueling genius and a potion master and he can teach every kind of magic from arithmancy to alchemy.” Harry leaned closer. “But I’ve caught him having to look up arithmancy formulas to check my homework, so maybe that’s not his strength.”

“Are you saying the Fae want you to fight?” The idea made the pit of Neville’s stomach turn cold.

Harry nodded. “Severus said I’m not allowed to fight until I’m seventy or he’s dead, whichever comes first. I’m not sure the Fae are going to let me wait that long, so I’m working as hard as I can to make sure I’m ready. But now they put you here too. And Severus says your magical core is really strong, but if you have to fight, you can’t have a wand that doesn’t work for you.”

“You think I’ll have to fight?”

“The Fae saved you, just like me.” Harry started swinging again.

Neville wanted to deny it all. He wanted to pretend he could go back to sleep and wake up in his own bed tomorrow, or even the dorm at Hogwarts. But what Harry said made sense. Neville knew he hadn’t used any wizarding form of travel to reach Prince Keep, and the Fae never got involved in human dealings unless it benefited them.

“Who will we have to fight?”

“Probably the False Lord.”

Neville froze. “You mean… you mean You-Know-Who?” His voice cracked and the last word came out a squeak.

Harry shrugged. “Maybe. Probably.”

“But he’s dead. You already killed him.”

Harry’s look was full of pity. “Then why wasn’t there a body? Why did Dumbledore tell Snape he had to keep pretending to believe in blood purity when he’s a half-blood? Why did Severus’s Death Eater friends talk about how they had to prepare for for the time when their ‘Dark Lord’ returned?” Harry made finger quotes around Dark Lord, although his tone made it pretty clear he didn’t have a lot of respect for You-Know-Who.

“Oh, Merlin,” Neville whispered.

“And I didn’t banish him from his body the first time. The nearest Severus can figure, my mother had a blood charm ready and when she died, she transferred her energy into it to protect me.”

“But she was a Light witch and blood magics are Dark. She wouldn’t have done that.”

“You have so much to learn,” Harry said, and then he pushed off from the ground so his swing soared up into the air.

This was officially the worst day ever.