"Potter!"
"Good . . ." Hari paused a moment, " . . . morning, Professor Snape." Hari was sitting cross-legged on his bed, single visible eye bright and alert inasmuch as could be told when it kept spinning. "Might I ask to what I owe the unexpected pleasure of your company?"
It was just shy of three in the morning and Professor Snape had nearly kicked in the door. Even now, he was glaring at Hari with a newfound venom. "Janus Ingsanson is dead."
"Who?"
"The Slytherin Prefect."
"Oh. Him."
"Yes, him. Now up you get!"
"Why?" Hari asked as he rose and headed out the door.
"Because I have a dead student—a dead Prefect!"
"I'm not sure what that has to do with me," Hari replied mildly as he led the way out of the Common Room.
"Really? Not the slightest hint of an idea?"
"Not at all, Professor Snape."
"So it isn't, for example, involved with you because you killed him?"
"What isn't?"
And so it went, for several flights of stairs. At the gargoyle, Snape glared at it for a moment. "I told the Headmaster to expect me. Don't jerk me about." The gargoyle failed to respond. "I'm not going to guess."
Silence.
"Not happening."
Silence again.
"Open up."
"As fun as this is, Professor Snape, is there any chance that we can get to the purpose of this visit?" The gargoyle stepped aside.
"Really?" Snape glared at the gargoyle. "I don't believe you for a minute that was the password."
Silence.
"Are you coming, Professor Snape?" came Hari's voice from up the winding stairs.
X
X
"Good morning, Mister Potter, Severus."
"Headmaster, Potter killed my Prefect!"
"I did?"
"Shut up, Potter." Snape stopped glaring at Hari to glare at Dumbledore, who seemed to be enjoying the search through a giant pile of sweets for something in particular. "Well?"
"I'm sorry, Severus, is there any evidence this time?"
"No."
"Then I'm not sure what you expect me to—ah! A boiled humbug! Lovely." Dumbledore held up the candy with glee. "What were we talking about, Severus?"
"If it's any consolation, he wasn't much of a Prefect, Professor."
"It's not. And what do you mean by that?"
"Well, last night, he asked me how I got into the Common Room. I mean, we were both in it at the time, so I'm not clear why he wasn't sure about how to enter and he never even told me the password."
"That was why you killed him?"
"Did I say I killed him?"
"I'm pretending you said yes and moved on to my next question, Potter. I'm not going to spend my time asking just the first question on the list all year."
"As you like. You can pretend I said 'no', also."
"What was your pretend reason?"
"You may imagine that I answered that 'he was asking for it', if you wish."
"Funny thing, the presumed-late Mister Yaxley said the same thing last year. I rather expect he was saved the rest of his punishment by his untimely presumed-death."
"Ah yes," added Dumbledore. "Poor boy. I sent a letter to his parents advising that they complain to whoever taught him English. He seemed to have reversed 'yes' and 'no'." There was a steely glint in his eyes. "I do expect that if he hadn't vanished to his presumed-timely end, that he would have suffered all manner of interesting afflictions; I feel certain that someone would have ensured that he got the rest of the language as mixed up, just to keep it neat, of course." The twinkle was back. "But why speak ill of the presumed-dead?"
"Why indeed," Hari replied solemnly.
"Setting that aside, Headmaster, I wish to lodge my complaint."
"I'm sorry?" Dumbledore's head cocked. "Your complaint wasn't that you believe Mister Potter to have murdered a student?"
"After your reaction last year? Hardly."
"Oh. Then what is the problem?"
"I'm going to have to write the 'Dear Sir and/or Madam' letter before dawn!" Snape whirled to snarl at Hari. "You couldn't have waited a week? What was so pressing that it couldn't wait until classes had started, hm?"
"Well—" Hari began, before Snape cut him off.
"In a week, I would have finished the letter during my spare time!"
"Umm . . ." Hari tried.
"It's not like I didn't expect him to die! Stupid boy like that as Prefect? He was bound to annoy you sooner or later. But his parents complained and there weren't any other takers. Not in all three upper years, Potter! Only one student was fool enough to take the badge in Slytherin!"
"Er . . ."
"But I had to be woken at two in the morning by a frantic House Elf who'd had the misfortune of discovering the body first. Do you realize how much sobbing I had to listen to over how she'd had to report it and so someone else was going to get to deal with the mess? It took twenty minutes to get her to shut up! And if I have to be awake, you get to be awake, remember, Potter?"
"So that's why it couldn't wait until morning."
"What? No! Just because if I don't get the formal letter there before some idiot firsty notices he's missing, then I'll get a second howler over not informing them promptly!" Snape paused. "On an unrelated note, Potter, the next time you messily execute someone, please call for Genni. I had to promise the blasted thing that she'd get the next corpse before she'd leave."
"Of course not, Professor."
"Damn it, Potter! Do not make me have to deal with another incident of hysterical House Elf!"
"But if I come across any corpses in the corpse—erm, course—of my wanderings instead of attending class and so on, I'll be sure to give her a call."
"Thank you." Snape rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The first damn night."
"Think of it this way, Professor Snape: imagine how much more trouble he'd have made for you if he'd survived."
Snape brightened up a bit. "You know, that's a fair point. He'd probably have . . . killed . . . a . . . stude— hmm . . . I'm not sure how this is better. Oh, blast! Headmaster?"
"Yes, Severus?" asked a Dumbledore who was evidently hiding a smile. Poorly, given that his beard was twitching.
"Can you let me borrow a Prefect or two? I need . . . actually, now that I think of it, he'd done the only thing he was supposed to. Any other discipline problems will probably be . . . sorted out, Mister Potter. So I think we'll leave it at that. And in the future, Potter?"
"Yes, Professor Snape?"
"Could you please try to either make it a disappearance or something obviously school-related? I don't need to explain to a half-dozen parents about the actual murders going on in the school again. And, come to think of it, please keep it to during the day, after mid-night and before breakfast is not the time I want to be dealing with this kind of mess."
"Let's imagine I said 'I'll see what I can do'."
"I'll take what I can get."
X
X
The red envelope was smoking as Professor Snape glared at it.
"A howler?" asked Blaise. "What on earth for? It's not even a full day gone yet."
"If I had to guess," said Hari.
"You don't." Hermione's response was curt. "Guessing is for when you don't actually know."
"I'd say it's because he sent a letter to that Prefect's parents, informing them that their son died in a tragic accident."
"Died?" asked Hermione.
"Accident?" asked Pansy.
Hari looked at the now flaming letter. "To judge from the fire, I would say that he was . . . drawn, quartered, impaled, gutted, exsanguinated, and hung by his own intestines in an unused dungeon."
"Sounds more like natural causes, to me," said Blaise.
"Oh, and he'd jumped up and down on a bed of nails he'd dragged from some nearby antique castle."
"Definitely natural causes, then."
"Natural?" asked Hermione.
"Yeah. Coroner ruled and everything."
Professor Snape had picked up the now-ablaze post and carried it sedately from his seat and out the door. There was some screeching barely audible through the wood. It was a door marked 'Howler'. The staff had taken the idea of a bunker and applied it to angry letters.
"Good morning, students!" Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet. "I want to welcome all of you to your first day back. In honor of the death of one of the students, we will be beginning classes today, as he would no doubt have wished. Given that change, I should mention—Gilderoy, sit down and shut up. I'm Headmaster. That means I get first refusal when it comes to student-attention and talking-time—that we are rather strict about punctuality here at Hogwarts. Our motto about tickling and dragons is most apt, given that our policy on tardiness is often called 'draconian'—and no, Mister Malfoy, that is not a reference to you. Please stop preening—and I must therefore inform you that being late to a first class of the year will be punished by whatever devious means your professors can devise.
"If nothing else, I expect that detention will only be the start of it. You who are First Years will surely be hated for your whole time here and suffer for it in whatever manner is deemed sufficient. I don't think any Professor has used the thumbscrews since the beginning of my tenure, so take heart in that, at least. On the other hand, it is remarkable, isn't it, Miss Wade, how much someone's grades can be harmed if the Professor is inclined to grade one badly? Did you manage a single A or up last year? Not good, going into your NEWTs, is it? Oh buck up, your examiners won't hate you. Probably. All you need worry about is that your Professors will sabotage your learning experience during your preparation for the most important test you'll ever take. What's to worry about?
"Back to my point about punctuality. Your schedules were delivered to your dorm rooms five minutes ago by House Elves to save your heads of house the trouble. Best to fetch them, since classes started a half hour ago."
"It's worse than last year," Millicent muttered. She turned. "Where's Hari?"
X
X
"You know," said Hermione as they walked down a secret passage Hari had shown the group a while back. They saw no point in running when their teachers were still eating breakfast. There had been a certain amount of upset at the head table since the Professors had apparently been unaware of the new schedule. "There's something that's been bothering me."
"Yeah?" Blaise had taken the lead.
"Why was Fawkes transporting Hari? I mean, he just appeared on a muggle beach and everything!"
"I have no idea," replied Pansy. "I mean, when he left my house, he was being carried by a baby phoenix."
"I don't think he liked it very much," added Millicent. "I mean, he glared at it a lot when it was at my house. You know my mother is still gushing—"
"Because he has a baby phoenix?" asked Daphne.
"What? No. Because he hit her so hard she bounced off the ceiling." Millie rolled her eyes. "I swear she's already started planning the wedding."
"Come again?"
"She thinks he's the most darling boy she's ever met. It doesn't help that he sent brass knuckles for Christmas."
"Not helping, here."
"Apparently he's 'thoughtful'." Millicent paused. "Actually, he did notice that I often wish I had a set of them to hit people with, so . . . but still . . ."
"Because he hit her?"
"Well yes."
"Really?" Pansy's voice was full of confusion more than anything.
"Yep. It's funny. She never hits my dad."
"And that's remarkable?" Hermione sounded worried.
"For my mum?" Millicent raised an eyebrow. "She used to hit everyone. But daddy never gets hit."
"Because he dodges?" Tracy asked. "Sorry, sorry. I've been around Hari too much."
"What? No! She just doesn't even try. He's the only one. The milk-elf doesn't deliver in the mornings; he waits for her to go out for a walk."
"You know," said Daphne. "That raises a question."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Where's the phoenix now?"
X
X
"Itachi?"
"Yes, Leader-sama?" Itachi turned from where he'd been staring out a window of the tower. "Is something bothering you?"
"Now that you mention it, yes."
Itachi was silent.
"You see, I was just wandering through my tower and I saw something odd. I would have discounted it as just a trick of my incredibly powerful eyes, but I've been seeing this for some time and I decided I would try and work out the cause."
"Did you ask Tobi?"
"Normally, I would. In this case, I happen to suspect that you might be more helpful in sorting this matter out." Pein motioned. "Follow me."
As the two walked through the Tower, Pein asked, "how is Hari?"
"As far as I know? He's fine."
"That's good."
"Hn."
"So, if you'll just step in here, Itachi, could you explain this?"
"Explain what, Leader-sama?"
"Well, it's just that there appears to be a small, red bird sitting on my desk."
"Indeed, there does, Leader-sama."
"The thing is, I rather like being able to use my desk and when I try to, my papers catch fire."
"How remarkable."
"You see, this is something that does not quite feel like a prank, Itachi. It feels rather more like something that wasn't really thought through that has ended up in my sphere of influence through no fault of my own. I admit that I discount allowing you to keep your son."
Itachi didn't reply.
"So, I'm hoping you might explain what this bird is doing here."
"Not the slightest clue, Leader-sama."
"No?"
"Well, a little one, perhaps."
"Please, go on."
"Well, it started popping up in my room about two weeks ago."
"A slight clue indeed."
"And I'm not really sure what it's doing here. I think it's the same species as the bird that me, my son, and Kisame killed very thoroughly when he first got that odd letter. It seemed to mildly annoy it."
"Really?"
"Really. And anyway, I don't know why it seemed to just spend its time in my room. So I told it to find somewhere comfortable to relax."
"I see."
"Apparently, it chose your desk."
"So I gathered."
"But I'm not sure why."
"Which doesn't help in the slightest."
"No."
"Thank you. So, make it go away."
"Umm . . ." Itachi walked over to the bird. "Could you move, please? My boss would like his desk back."
The bird nodded.
"Please move."
The bird nodded.
"Itachi?"
"Yes, Leader-sama?"
"Why do I get the feeling your son is at the heart of this?"
"Because you are wise, Leader-sama?"
(A/N John)
I promised a corpse and I feel I delivered. I enjoyed the idea that Snape has pretty much come to accept that there will be killings that aren't as neat as the usual jockeying for power in his house. And that his complaint is that the House Elf was hysterical.
(A/N 2 John)
Also, I realized, along with Spoon, that the Phoenix needed to be somewhere. And it struck me that this was probably going to make Pein's life more difficult as a result. Poor man can't use his desk.
(A/N 3 John)
Insanity will be growing shortly. And yes, I am aware how bad that sounds.