And so Severus went in search of the Bloody Baron, to get some answers from the old ghost. After two hours of searching and calling, however, he was unable to make contact with the ghost, and so, quite exhausted from the night's events, he made his way back to his quarters in rather a foul mood. He fell asleep almost immediately and suffered dreams of violence and bloodshed, such as he had not in over ten years.
Severus only checked in on the Brat Who Caused Uproars once more in the Infirmary, on Saturday afternoon. Nott and Bullstrode were in attendance and the three of them seemed to be getting along well, which was a surprise. From what he could tell, Theodore Nott was intelligent, cultured and soft-spoken, whereas Miss Bullstrode was his opposite in almost every way. And yet . . . both seemed enamoured of the Brat Who Lived Again enough to put aside their own differences in his favor.
Curious.
After that, he continued his search for the Bloody Baron, questioning the other castle ghosts, but none of them had any idea where the Baron had got to either. Thus, Severus and the rest of the staff spent too much time running interference with Peeves, now that the Baron was absent -- forever? he wondered. Surely not! -- and the rest of his weekend was spent grading and assigning detentions to students who used Peeves as an excuse for their own antics.
He was surprised when the Brat showed up at his office on Sunday night.
"What are you doing out of bed?" Severus asked immediately, scanning the boy without appearing to look up from his grading. Potter was pale and peaky, still, but upright, which was an improvement.
"Detention, sir. I missed last night."
Severus rolled his eyes. Merlin, protect us. "Of course you did," he said with a sneer. "You were rather incapacitated."
The Brat held his ground.
"But I have it for a week, sir, you said. And I'm feeling better now. Madam Pomfrey let me out."
"And what were her instructions when she did?"
Potter had the grace to look abashed. "That I should check in with her tomorrow."
"And?"
A sigh. "And that I should go to bed upon my release."
Severus waited . . . waited . . .
"Immediately."
"Indeed." Severus lifted his gaze at last. "Is it really so difficult to obey simple directives, Potter?"
"No, sir."
"I beg to differ. You have consistently gone against the advice and requirements of Madam Pomfrey and myself, often to your own detriment, I might add. I am curious as to your reasoning. Is it just that you consider yourself above the rules? Or do you truly have some sort of aberrant mind that the very concept of doing what you're told does not even occur to you?"
The boy set his jaw, with that slight lift to it that Severus had seen on his first day, a defensive maneuver, to be sure, but was there something more to it? "I follow the rules."
"When it suits you."
Seemed the Brat had no answer to that. In fact, he looked away, nibbling on his lower lip.
Now they were getting somewhere. Where, Severus had no clue, but he would find out, oh yes. Regarding the boy through narrowed eyes, he considered what to do with him. Clearly there was a pattern to the Brat's regular dismissal of the edicts of others, and Severus would need to determine what that was, precisely. "For this evening's detention, I require an essay of no less than two feet, due tomorrow night. The essay will contain an explanation from you on which rules you feel it behooves you to follow, and which it does not, citing examples from both Hogwarts and your home in Surrey. You are dismissed."
For the space of three, maybe four heartbeats, Severus was almost sure the Brat Who Confounded Him would protest, or refuse to follow the very simple order to leave, but then Potter nodded, said, "Yes, sir," and escaped the office without looking back.
Severus sighed and went back to his grading. The next morning's classes were under constant interruption by the unfettered poltergeist, so much so that Dumbledore himself had to step in at least once, when Peeves' antics caused an entire roomful of second year Gryffindors to start hexing each other in an effort to get rid of him, right through the robes he had jerked over all of their heads.
At lunch, Severus kindly hid his smirk over the incident from Minerva, as she was none too pleased about the resulting flurry of feathers and thistle down in her classroom, and had spent more than enough time cleaning up after her class.
An extra special surprise was that Professor Quirrell had canceled all his classes for the day, claiming a bout of flu.
Having all the Defense students running about in the halls when everyone else was in class was just this short of the best fun Severus had ever borne witness to on a Monday.
But all that aggravation went out of his head completely when, on the way back to his office before his first afternoon class, Severus at last found the Bloody Baron.
The ghost was hovering just in front of his office door, in fact. He looked . . . less substantial than usual, for the Bloody Baron, though the silver streaks of his blood were brighter than ever.
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