kbinnz - Harry's New Home

Harry nodded soberly. "I won't tell. Honest. I'm good at keeping secrets."

That Snape didn't doubt. Harry had kept the secrets of those bastard Muggles all too well. "Very well. Then we will say no more about it."

"Hold on," Sirius butted in. "What does Harry mean, you'll smack him? Have you laid a hand on my godson? After what you said those fucking Muggles did to him?"

Harry's eyes widened. Oooooh, his godfather swore! And right in front of him!

"Padfoot!" Remus rebuked. "Language!"

"Moony! He hit Harry!"

Remus sighed. "Did you deserve it?" he asked quietly, bending down to look Harry in the eye.

Harry nodded.

"How long before you could sit down?"

Harry blushed. "Er, maybe a minute or two," he exaggerated, worried that his professor would look bad otherwise.

Remus blinked. "Is that all?"

"ErrrтАж could have been three or four," Harry offered.

"So it doesn't sound as if it was a very hard walloping?"

Harry shook his head. "He's not really good at smacking, to tell you the truth. He doesn't like to hit, and he doesn't know how. Mostly he just scolds and has me write essays or lines, but he doesn't even make me do that very much. He тАУ he's really nice to me. Nicer than Mr Weasley even!"

"And he just swats your bum, right? With his hand?"

Harry nodded.

"He doesn't hit your face or anything else?"

Harry shook his head.

"He doesn't use his wand?"

Harry frowned, perplexed. "Y'mean to hit me with?"

Remus fought back a smile. "No, to hex you."

"Oh, we haven't started duellin'. Pr'fessor Snape says I'm not ready yet."

"No, no. I meant does he hex you for punishment?"

Harry's eyes widened. "You mean using magic to hurt me?" At Remus' nod, he huffed in outrage. "Pr'fessor!" he turned to Snape, scandalized. "Remus is asking if you ever hex me for punishment! Do people - I mean wizards - really do that?"

Part of Snape тАУ the part that wasn't busy exchanging loud insults with Sirius тАУ felt a glow of pride and triumph that he was the one Harry trusted. The brat still didn't trust the werewolf's word. No, it was Snape, the nasty Slytherin, who'd won his loyalty first.

Unfortunately, the little voice in his head pointed out this would hardly be the case much longer, and the sweetness turned to ashes. "Yes, yes, Potter," he said testily. "Some wizarding families do use magic to discipline their offspring. I'm sure some of your classmates are very familiar with the practice."

"Huh." Harry folded his arms across his chest and glowered at Remus. "That's disgusting."

Remus decided he didn't need to bother asking whether Snape had ever used any Dark curses on the child. "What did you get your last smacking for?"

Harry squirmed, his embarrassment returning. "There was this DADA professor at schoolтАж"

Remus blinked. "You mean Quirrell?"

Harry looked surprised. "Yeah! You heard about that?"

Remus chuckled. "Everyone heard about that. So you got smacked for that?"

"Well, a smack, anyway," Harry admitted. "Plus detention and lines."

Remus straightened up, trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face, and looked over to where Sirius was still yelling at Snape. "Padfoot!"

"What?"

"Ask Harry why he got his last swat."

Sirius walked over, still grumbling. "Doesn't matter why, Moony. Evil git shouldn't be hitting my godson. Poor little guy. Doesn't deserve to be тАУ Harry?" his voice softened remarkably. "Can you please tell me what that mean old bat Snape walloped you for? I promise I won't get angry."

Harry mentally shrugged. Grownups sure were strange. "I got a swat for Sticking Professor Quirrell's turban to the infirmary bed and letting out Lord Voldesnort."

Sirius' eyes widened. "What did you call тАУ Wait. One swat? You only got ONE swat for Quirrell? Only one? One?" Harry nodded blankly. "Merlin! You jammy little sod! Your grandfather would have blistered your bum for something like that! When your father and I took our brooms into the Forbidden Forest, he made sure we couldn't sit for a week! And you only got ONE SWAT for facing You Know Who?"

"Pr'fessor Snape doesn't hit to hurt," Harry told him primly, "just to make sure I know I messed up." He felt relief that his professor was the one caring for him. It sounded like, for all his playfulness, his godfather might not be quite so indulgent. "No one's hurt me like that since the Dursleys." And I'm going to keep it that way.

Snape glared at the Marauders and his ward. "If you are quite done reviling me and questioning my disciplinary methodsтАж"

Sirius huffed. "Never would have thought of you as being lenient," he grumbled.

"Harry is many things, but dimwitted isn't one of them," Snape retorted. "I don't have to worry about him taking nocturnal joyrides in the Forbidden Forest."

Harry straightened proudly. That had definitely been a compliment!

"We weren't joyriding," Sirius protested, obviously still nursing a grievance from twenty years back. "We were reconnoitering good places to take Moony during the full moon. But we could hardly say that when Filch caught us, so Dumbledore called James' dad and we got our arses striped good and proper."

Snape shot a look at Harry. The boy was looking almost sympathetic. "Harry knows perfectly well that if he were to get into similar trouble, he is able to tell me the complete and unvarnished truth so that I may decide what best to do," he said, giving the boy a pointed look.

Harry grinned and nodded. It seemed a little odd that his father had had to keep secrets from his own dad, but Professor Snape had said that wizards were funny about werewolves, so maybe that was it.

"Well, if you let him off with a little tap on the bum for facing down You Know Who, why wouldn't he tell you everything?" Sirius sulked.

Remus hid a smile behind his hand. "You know, Padfoot, I rather think that's Severus' point," he explained.

Harry had had enough of the adults' pointless asides, and he steered the conversation back to what really interested him. "So what's it like to be an animagus?" he asked, pulling on his godfather's arm. "Is it hard to change?"

Sirius' grumpy mood melted at the sight of his godson's eager face. "Would you like to see your father and the rest of us as animagi? Should I get the pensieve?"

Harry nodded, eyes shining. "Sure! What was my dad? Was he a bear? A lion? A hawk?"

"He was a stag," Sirius told him proudly.

Snape nearly snorted with amusement at the look of utter disgust that came over Harry's face. "A deer? My dad was a deer? They don't even have teeth!"

"Harry!" Sirius protested. "Your dad's form was brilliant! He was a magnificent stag, with big antlers and тАУ"

"Are you sure you can't choose your form?" Harry whined.

Remus put an arm around the boy. "Wait until you see Prongs in action, Harry. Sometimes he was the only one who could keep the wolf back. Those antlers can do a lot of damage, you know, and he was a big animal."

Harry sighed. "I guessтАж" he allowed grudgingly.

TBCтАж

*Chapter 33*: Chapter 33

Remus went off to fetch the pensieve, and Harry accompanied him for a tour of the house.

Snape took a deep breath and forced himself to approach Black. He had a favor to ask, and he might as well get it over with. Though it might be sensible to start with a pleasant topic first. "What have you been doing to torture the Muggles lately?"

Sirius perked up. "We talked to the Bertie Bott's Company тАУ you know, they make the Every Flavor Beans?" Snape nodded. "Being a celebrity makes everything so much easier. I just had to send an owl and they were falling all over themselves to help me. Anyway, they showed us the spells they use to get the really disgusting flavors, and we've spiked the Muggles' food. Pretty much everything they eat tastes like vomit, pig shite, rotten onions, week-old roadkill, dead rat, ear wax, toe jamтАж Even those two fatties are losing weight. Dursley must have dropped a stone by now." Sirius' evil grin was a little too reminiscent of his expression when he stalked Snape through the corridors of Hogwarts. Snape had to fight off the urge to draw his wand.