Whelp II The Wrath of Snape

with them -- over the Christmas holidays -- and the subsequent mopping up, both figurative and literal, he and the rest of the staff had needed to do, he nodded grimly. 'But Harry seems to enjoy it.' And he hoped to encourage Harry to sleep in his own bedroom, with Draco, this time.

Molly laughed softly. 'You'll find you do more and more of that as they grow older.'

'What, have friends over?'

'That, too. But just in general, doing things your children fancy, which you mightn't want to undertake yourself.'

It was true already, Severus mused. From letting Harry have a kneazle to buying him a new broom after the squid ate his first one, to having Draco Malfoy sleep under his roof, to eating fudge sundaes, there were many things he did only because he knew Harry would like them.

'What's that?' she asked a few minutes later, pointing to the letter crushed in his hand.

'A letter.'

'Oh? Who from?'

'Someone with a modicum of proper manners.'

Molly smiled knowingly. 'I heard you'd received something from Sirius Black recently.'

'Not that it is any of your business,' he snarled, crushing the letter even more in a clenched fist, 'but this is not from Black.'

'Ah. I thought maybe it was, because of the way you're squishing it so.'

Caught out, Severus relaxed his hold. The sender was nearly as vexing as Black, but it would do no good to tell her any--

'Is it from Remus Lupin then? I understand he is back in the area.'

There was little Severus detested more than a gossip, and Molly Weasley was one of the worst. But she had helped him with Harry as much as she could, and he was grateful enough for that to not strangle her in the open in front of her children. But she 'understood' or 'heard' too bloody much! And she would keep pecking at him until he gave in, he knew it. 'Yes,' he told her at last. Through gritted teeth, he continued, 'He wishes to see Harry.'

'And you don't want him to.'

'Obviously not!'

She gave him a piercing gaze, and if Severus had not been positive she wasn't, he would have sworn she was attempting wordless Legilimency on him. But even her 'understands' and 'heards' would not have sussed out Severus' objection . . . unless Albus had been more free with others' secrets recently than he had been ten years ago, when Lupin had almost killed Severus, with Black's help, on a full moon. Only he, Albus, James Potter and his Marauders and a select few of Lupin's family knew that he was a werewolf, and though Severus would have loved to shout the information from the highest tower at Hogwarts, he was constrained by the promise he had made to Albus.

'Because he and Black were friends?' Molly guessed.

'Indeed.' It was certainly a factor of the whole.

'It's your right, of course. Even if Black is a free man--'

'He's still at St. Mungo's!' And would be for the foreseeable future, unless he started behaving much more sanely. Azkaban had been bad for him, no matter how good he was at avoiding the Dementors.

'I meant free from Azkaban, and from his guilt in the matter of Lily and James. Even so, Harry is your son, and you can decide who he sees.'

'Yes. I know.'

Like everyone else in England, it seemed, Molly and the rest of the Weasleys had learned that Severus was Harry's biological father when Black had insisted on a paternity test before he would give up his rights to visit Harry and have a say in his education. The news had spread like Fiendfyre, and all sorts of tawdry stories had been written in The Prophet about Severus and his relationship with Lily, none of which he let Harry see.