"Well. The reason I called you two here in particular was because I wanted to talk to you without giving much away, believe it or not I do in fact get it that you would want to be a secret. And if he was here it'd be easier to pretend I was just talking to him if we need that. But also I—feel like we didn't end yesterday's conversation on the best of notes and I wanna fix that."

"I'd kind of like it if you'd stop acting suspicious of my intelligence," he says. "It's just going to put the idea in people's heads that I might be more than I seem."

"—oh. I'm sorry, you're right, I hadn't thought about it, I was just acting the way I'd act if I didn't know anything about it."

"Try acting the way you'd act if you were satisfied I was just a chatty owl," he says. "As for Victor - well, I'll see what he thinks."

He swoops off.

And when he comes back, it's on Victor's shoulder.

"Hi," he says. "I'm—sorry if I was rude or something yesterday."

"It's all right."

"How are you? Do you want to—do anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"About Snape. You didn't seem to think what I was doing was a good idea but I don't get why. Do you disagree that it was wrong of him?"

"It could have been much worse and I was afraid you were going to make it much worse by acting like that."

"Much worse like how?"

...He shakes his head.

"...I'm not gonna stop doing it if you don't tell me what exactly I should be afraid of, here, I haven't been able to think of anything not worth it."

"Really? Somebody's scared of something and scared to tell you what, and your response is 'okay, guess I'll just ignore you'?"

"What should it be instead? 'Okay I'll just stop doing the things I think are good ideas on someone else's ill-defined fears'?"

"Ill-defined?"

"I don't know what his fears are. Snape isn't going to kill or torture me, and if he tries it will be worse for him, Veritaserum is a thing that exists and if I'm missing time I left myself a note telling myself what to do, and I got an older Slytherin to enchant something else—anyway he won't do it, and then he'll give me detention and take points from me but meanwhile maybe other people will get the idea that, hey, the third most powerful member of faculty in this school shouldn't be bullying eleven-year-olds!"

"How confident are you that he couldn't dodge a truth potion if he really wanted to? How confident are you that he wouldn't guess you've got all those safeguards and go after Victor instead? He hasn't, but you don't know enough yet to be sure that makes you right as opposed to lucky."

"I meant a truth potion for myself not for him, and anyway yeah but he's a Professor at a school, these things don't happen, I may not be paranoid enough for the worst-case but I'm pretty sure I'm paranoid enough for school. The answer to a teacher bullying you isn't keeping your head down because he may murder you."

"Am I the only one who remembers the Headmaster telling us all that if we walk down the wrong hallway we're going to die horribly?" he asks rhetorically.

"You aren't," says Victor.

"Okay so what do you suggest?"

"Wait until you know more," says Victor. "Maybe there are rules about how teachers are allowed to behave. If you know the rules, then you can notice when someone breaks them and tell the - tell someone about it. I'm not sure if the Headmaster is the right person. Maybe Professor McGonagall."