Author's Note: This is a one-shot request from choccobun, my team's Beater 1 for this season of the QLFC. Here is her request: Muggle au: "the Prince" is the signature of a well-known graffiti artist. Harry Potter has just turned 18 and is out of the youth detention centre where he's lived for the past three years. He's looking to make a name for himself in the world of street art, and so sets out to search for the Prince in the hopes of becoming part of his crew. What happens when London's best graffiti artist happens to be a middle aged chemistry expert who always works alone and who has no interest in instructing a young delinquent in the finer points of vandalism?
Also (and this is from me, the author), NOT SNARRY. Sorry, not my thing.
Tag! You're It!
"It's more than just a way to mark your turf, Ron," Harry explained, for what felt like the millionth time.
"Eh, my brothers have been in the GInger Boys for years," Ron replied wistfully. "They had me climbin' up sign poles since I was a wee lad. I could fit into the small places, see, and was good at hiding."
"They caught you last time, mate," Harry retorted.
"Yeah, well, that's cuz I had this damned growth spurt," Ron groused, pushing down his hair as though this would take away from his substantial height. "They probably have my sister doing my job now."
As usual, Ron and Harry were sitting in the back of art class with all of the aerosol paint cans. Which, at Madam Dursley's Detention And Learning Centre, meant that they each had one, and the cans were so empty that they were nearly all fumes. The art class was mandated by a local government measure to reduce recidivism, or the school would not receive funding, but the class itself was rather sad. The teacher at the front of the class, a Mrs. Washburn, who looked as though she'd attempted to use her surname as a hair treatment, looked as though she was overlooking a class of bedpan-emptiers, not a class full of disreputable youths that had been forced into living out their remaining days as minors in a pseudo-prison environment.
Harry sighed and shook his can before angling the nozzle. The spray sputtered a bit at first, but the line was strong as he streaked down and around into the final turn.
"It looks like...some kind of squiggly bird?" Ron stared at the picture with a squinty sort of bafflement that Harry couldn't stand.
"Nah, see, it's like a ball of lightning with wings of lightning and a lightning strike down the middle," Harry said, running his finger over the drying paint. "Like my alter name. Flashboy."
Ron winced. "You sure you want to stick with that one, mate? It gives a bloke the wrong impression. 'Sides, you're fixin' to hit your 18th birthday any day now."
Harry sighed, "Yeah, well, do you have any better ideas? Because the only thing about me that makes me stick out in any way is my scar and my messy hair. Other than that, I'm just a scrawny orphan kid from...well, dunno, really. My adoptive guardians were all too happy to fob me off on this place using lies and bribery."
"Gee, Harry, are you sure you've used enough lightning?" A feminine voice joined them from behind, and both Harry and Ron turned to see Hermione Granger and her bushy hair towering over them as she chewed an impressively large wad of gum.
"Why're you even still here?" Ron complained.
It was true. Hermione should have aged out months ago, and yet, here she was, giving them a lecture again.
"I'll have you know that I'm working in the student higher education release program, which means that I get special privileges and access that you two blokes can only dream of," Hermione replied, nose in the air. "Besides, I was merely pointing out an aesthetic point. Harry is going to feel rather silly handing in such an unbalanced design."
"Who says I was going to turn it in?" Harry pouted, crumpling up the paper and stuffing it in his backpack. "I was just doodling, anyway."
"Oh, don't take it like that," Hermione said sympathetically. "I never get things right the first time in art class. It's all about experimentation anyway, isn't it?"
Ron snorted in disbelief at her words. If they hadn't saved her from falling off the side of the far wall of the facility in a failed escape attempt back in their first year there, they'd never have stayed friends. Still, they looked after each other and Hermione was an exemplary student for a supposedly degenerate girl who'd talked back to her highly religious mother one too many times and been disowned as punishment. Oddly enough, she was still at least somewhat religious, though she was far more liberal in her interpretation of the holy book. Something about Jesus loving the sinners and hating the sin. Harry hadn't quite been paying attention at the time.
"Yeah," Harry said, still feeling a bit chagrined at Hermione's blunt appraisal of his work.
"That being said," Hermione said, coming close to them and hushing her voice, "Be ready Friday night. 9:00 AM. I've got a bit of a birthday surprise planned."
Harry and Ron immediately perked up.
"What sort of naughtiness d'ya have planned, 'Mione?" Ron asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
"Not what you're thinking, Ron, but I promise it will be fun."
Ron gave her a suspicious look. The last time Hermione had suggested something fun, they'd ended up being volunteered to restock the library with all the new book arrivals.
"Just trust me!" Hermione pleaded.
"Fine," Harry said, "but if it turns out like last time…"
"It won't," Hermione promised.
"Good, now if you don't have anything else to tell us-" Harry started, turning over the next page of his sketchbook.
"Here, Harry, this is part of your birthday present. I was going to wait until the day of, but you look like you need it now." Hermione pulled something out and slid it over the desk until it pressed against the sketchbook slightly.
"What is this?" Harry picked up both items. "Some sort of ruler thing? And a box….of pencils?"
"It's a protractor," Hermione explained. "You'll be able to draw straighter and rounder lines with it. The pencils have different thicknesses so that you can work on different types of textures and shading. You really are a natural artist, Harry. You don't have to throw it all away doing illegal things-"
Harry stuffed the gifts into his bag, his expression cold. "I don't tell you off for dating blokes ten years older than you, Hermione. Maybe you shouldn't tell me what to do with my life."
Hermione stiffened at this, her expression wounded. "Fine. I guess I'll see you Friday, then. If you're not still mad at me."
She moped off towards the front of the classroom and began animatedly helping another student before Harry could go and properly apologize to her. Far too quickly, the bell rang and the class was over. The spray paint was returned and the students trudged through the gray halls to their next class.
It was going to be a difficult day.
"How is this not immensely illegal?" Harry hissed, as Hermione unlocked the key to his shared barred dorm room with Ron.
"It's not illegal if it's not in the rule book," Hermione replied smugly, handing them both badges attached to lanyards that bore the school's depressing gray and black logo. "I checked. Nowhere does it say that students and their friends are not allowed to be out after curfew on their birthday."
Ron sniggered at this and Harry simply gave Hermione and impressed shrug. "Well. I suppose not. Let's go, then."
They followed Hermione through a series of narrow hallways that were considered too inconsequential to require video surveillance before they finally reached a narrow stairway that they'd never been to before.
"It's up here," Hermione said softly, climbing up the stairs and unlocking the door.
Harry and Ron stepped through the door, and they gasped with wonder.
They were on the roof, which would normally have been rather flat and bleak, except for the fact that Hermione had decked it out with tea lights and a blanket, upon which rested a number of treats and snacks that had obviously been pilfered from the kitchen. A few other guys and girls were hanging out and helping to set things up. A soft melody was playing, at least Harry thought so at first, but it turned out to be Luna, a girl a few years younger than him, singing in her odd, haunting way. It was rather beautiful, he had to admit. Another girl, who they hadn't seen before turned and her eyes widened when she saw Ron.
"Brother!" she yelled, launching herself through the air and knocking him on the ground with an over-energetic pounce. "So there you are!"
"Gerrof me, Ginny!" Ron grunted. "What're you doing here anyway?"
"It involves a whole bunch of explosives and a dragon," Ginny replied mysteriously.
"What?!" Ron yelped.
"Not a real dragon, you dolt," Ginny replied. "That's what it's called on account of the big BOOM at the end. S'posed to sound like a real dragon roaring."
Harry was rather taken by Ginny's spunky personality, which was rather different than her brother's. While Ron sulked and drank his punch, Ginny nattered on and told Harry about her ambition to paint a two story graffiti mural in a single night.
"It's gonna be absolutely brilliant!" she said, her hands making shapes in the air as though drawing it right then and there.
Harry took a drink from the cup that Luna had handed to him, her spacy voice telling him something about the contents, and he puckered his lips at the initial sourness, which mellowed out into a sweet, smooth taste that made him feel quite a lot more relaxed about the potential of being caught by the night warden. He had to admit, it tasted good...but there was definitely...something...in it. He wasn't sure he wanted to ask what it was.
"It was that damn chemistry bloke what caught me," Ginny grumbled. "Snape or whatever."
"Professor Snape, Ginny," Hermione said, crossing her arms. "He's not all that bad. Just a bit strict, is all."
"Strict? Strict? Is that what you're callin' 'im now?" Ron replied with a sour expression on his face that had nothing to do with Luna's odd beverage. "Bastard tried to mark me down because I didn't turn in my notes with the test! They're bleedin' notes!"
"Yeah, and get this, 'e just happened to be in Chinatown when me 'n the twins were usin' our sticky fingers to get the good stuff," Ginny said conspiratorially. "Charlie got away, of course, and the twins are of age, so they just got community service. But here I am, wastin' away in this drab place."
"Hey!" Hermione said, her voice sounding wounded.
"Hermione, none of us are disputing the fact that you made the roof look downright cheery," Harry said, "It's just that you have to admit all the security doors and bars are pretty depressing, yeah?"
Hermione's shoulders slumped, but she looked relieved. "Yeah, I guess you do have a point."
Ginny shot a wicked half-smile at Harry and his belly lurched with a strange sensation. He turned his head to look at Ron instead. He knew his friend wouldn't take kindly to him having the sorts of feelings that he was having. He couldn't help it, though. The way her freckles dotted her face reminded him of the expansive summer Milky Way glow above them.
"Wait...what is that?" Harry squinted up at the strange, dark blob that had obscured part of the starry glow, and felt rather silly when it didn't come into focus. Of course not. Even with his glasses on, his eyes weren't good with distance. The fact that the night was moonless and dark, and that all the floodlights around the complex were trained on the ground to discourage students from climbing the walls to escape didn't help matters much, either.
But suddenly…a fat rope hit the roof with a resounding THUD. Then another. And another.
Ginny and Ron seemed to know exactly what to do, and Hermione wasn't close behind. All three of them grabbed at the ropes with Luna providing emotional support via a strange cheer that seemed to be largely in a squawky language other than English.
Harry grabbed a rope as well and they all heaved down the object, which appeared to be a large basket attached to ropes and a small fire, which lit up-
"A balloon!" Harry marveled, but it was bigger and unlike any hot air balloon he'd ever seen in his life. The colors appeared in the meager light to be purple and gold, and there appeared to be a scrawling cursive logo across the side, though Harry couldn't make out what it read. The balloon also had a strange oblong shape to it, which was probably due to the fact that the basket where one might ride was at least twice as wide and tall as any Harry had ever seen.
Using some quick ingenuity, Hermione, Ron and Ginny lashed the ropes to one of the bolted-down tables (a regular fixture at a school that was far more penitentiary than learning facility), and the mysterious pilots slowly decreased the gas on the burner until it was safely bobbing a few inches from the roof.
"Why hello there!" exclaimed a tall, young man, his fiery red hair long and braided down his back. He wore a purple top hat that would have looked silly on anyone other than himself- somehow he wore it in such a way that seemed almost dignified, though there was definitely a sense of roguishness there as well.
"And a good evening to you all!" exclaimed a second man, who stepped out of the shadow of the first. For a moment, Harry thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. The two men looked almost exactly alike.
"Fred! George!" Ginny and Ron ran to the two men and hopped up into the basket with obvious excitement.
"I told you they'd come for me!" Ginny exclaimed, hugging her brothers tightly.
"For us, you mean, Gin," Ron replied, hugging George and Fred just as tightly. "Oi, brothers, why didn't you come get me sooner?"
Ginny stuck out her tongue.
"Well, we'd meant to," George (or was it Fred? Harry couldn't tell) said.
"Yes," Fred (or was it George?) continued, "we'd hoped to come and get you before, but we needed to save up the money for good ol' Bessie here, and that wasn't possible until a few weeks ago. Now, then, we mustn't be rude when we're not meaning to be."
"True, that, brother."
Both twins hopped down onto the roof from the basket, leaving Ginny and Ron to tend to the balloon.
"It's good to finally meet you," One of the brothers said, shaking Harry's hand. "I'm George, and this is Fred."
"Oi!" Fred exclaimed. "I can introduce myself, you know!" He grabbed Harry's other hand and shook it. "I'm Fred, as he said. And this dunderhead...is George. There. Now we're even."
George stuck his tongue out at his brother and Harry got the feeling that this gesture was a Weasley sibling tradition.
"We'd heard you were looking to join a crew," Fred said.
"And what better crew than the Ginger Boys?" George continued. "We don't cause too much trouble. We just like to have fun, really. If only the Old Bill would leave us the feck alone."
"Not our eldest brother, mind," Ginny cut in, "We're talking about the law."
Harry, who was utterly lost, just nodded politely.
"Harry." At hearing the uncharacteristically soft, almost shy tone in Hermione's voice, he turned to find Hermione carrying a giant duffle bag.
"Hey, that looks like-"
"Yours? Guilty as charged," Hermione said with a soft smile. "Happy birthday, Harry."
"I can't- I'm going to be released tomorrow," Harry sputtered.
"Bugger tomorrow!" Ron said loudly. "It's your birthday! You deserve your freedom. Besides, it'll give me a chance ter show yeh 'round the Burrow!"
"Wait, you're coming too?" Harry asked, bewildered.'"What about your things?"
Ron waved away Harry's question as though it was of no consequence. "They ken keep the rags I came in with."
Once they were finished with the party, all of them clambered into the large basket and the twins launched them into the air.
"Are you sure you want to come with us, Hermione? You wouldn't be a model specimen of the corrections system any longer," Harry said, feeling somewhat guilty.
"There's no way I'm going to get away with springing the rest of you out of here and get through it unscathed," Hermione said with a shrug. "A life of crime it is, then."
The twins cheered, which made the others cheer as well. Harry leaned over the basket, watching the lights of the building fade away into the distance. The wind was cold as it blew through his thin t-shirt, but he smiled anyway. The air was fresh with the scent of freedom, and Harry wanted as much as he could get.
Severus Snape groaned as an alarm began blaring, causing an answering throb in his head. He reached out blindly to hit the snooze button, but found his hand catching nothing but air. Blearily, he realized that he was not in his bed at all, but had fallen asleep in his chair again. The book he'd been reading was in his lap. At least the bookmark was still marking the page he'd been reading. One of his major pet peeves was going back to figure out where he'd left off. This was most likely because it kept on happening.
Placing his book back on the end table, he pulled himself up to a sitting position and stretched, feeling a number of pops and cracks rippling through his body as he did so.
"Ugh," he grumbled to himself, "I'm getting so...old."
Teaching high school science class was supposed to have been his back-up career, but after getting embroiled in a political scandal in his young adulthood, he'd been the fall guy. Of course he'd been the fall guy. He was the only one in his gang who'd come from the wrong side of...well...everything. The others had rich parents to bail them out and hide their identities from the papers. Severus had not been so lucky. Other than Lucius, who had an innate talent in being utterly untouchable and was benefitting from it in spades, the others had either pissed away their respective inheritances and were living out their lives in prison while the rest of them had high but inconsequential positions in society that were mostly for show.
But no, he'd started teaching as part of his mandatory probation after Headmaster Dumbledore had spoken to his character in court. He was truly indebted to the old man, but that meant that not only did he have to teach the rich blighters at the private Hogwarts Academy, but he had to teach extra classes from time to time when Madam Dursley's Detention And Learning Centre was either in the process of hiring a new teacher (which happened fairly often), or a substitute was needed (which happened even more often).
And, despite his interest in getting into industrial chemistry and one day developing the perfect palette for his true calling, Severus had become, for lack of a better title, a bitter old bastard.
Well, that wasn't quite true. There was one time when he still felt that stillness in his chest- the sense of being able to put aside all of his worries and frustrations and just...exist.
He picked up his burner phone and looked at the email that he'd received earlier that afternoon. He didn't exactly do anything illegal, not anymore. When he was younger, he'd put his talents to more...dubious pursuits, but he now had ways of...indulging...without having to do anything that would land him behind bars. He checked the time and growled in irritation. There wasn't enough time to cook something proper.
He dressed quickly and stuffed the mask and gloves into his pocket. He wouldn't need it until he got to the designated place. Grabbing an obviously over-stuffed rucksack, he left his dingy old house on a street where everyone was disreputable and nobody cared if you left the house at two in the morning looking like you were up to no good.
Ah, Severus thought to himself, but that isn't quite true. Looks, after all, have a way of being deceiving.
The blank stretch of wall was a thing of beauty. It had already been power-washed, covered with primer, and sanded by Lucius' side-company. Severus merely had to sponge it down with a trisodium phosphate solution to remove any extra dirt that might have stuck to the wall in the few hours it had been since it had before he had arrived.
Severus had already chosen the stencils and basic mural outline that he wished to use, as well as the acrylic and spray paints that he would be using to give the entire thing the life it deserved. Finally, he had a special clear sealant of his own making that he would use to preserve the mural for the harshness of the elements. Severus was no hack being paid pennies to paint gauche window paintings in supermarkets for the holidays. No, he demanded creative control in all of his works. Certainly, he'd take requests on the general theme, but an artist was never truly able to create unless given the freedom to use creativity to the fullest. He received all of his payments through coin, and went only by the moniker "The Prince," which was signed at the bottom of each of his creations. Those who wished to procure his highly demanded services were only told of his existence through whispered word of mouth. There were some gangs that wanted him on their squads and were willing to kill to keep him from joining a rival faction, but Severus had had enough of that long ago, and was unwilling to correct any of the articles that billed him as being half his actual age. Though his murals were usually considered a thing of beauty and admired by many, local council groups all over the country were livid at the unconventional art showing up on public-facing walls. They couldn't do much about it, though, as it was all on privately owned property. Severus smirked as he remembered the political murals he'd created on privately-owned billboards during the last election. Rita Skeeter, a well-known far-right news correspondent, had wrung 'the mysterious Delinquent Prince" through the wringer of absurd speculations.
But there was no time to ruminate over the past. Severus had to be gone from this area by the time the street sweepers came along, so he had no time to lose.
The material in the clothing and rucksack that Severus wore was extremely rare and expensive. Lucius had procured it from a Japanese company that was developing it for military purposes. Once again, his silver tongue had won him things that others could only dream of getting. The material was light, breathable, wicked moisture away, wiped clean of any stains, and was machine-washable without receiving damage. What more could a bloke want, really?
Not to be caught by the Old Bill, naturally, but that went without saying.
After Severus slipped on the gloves and mask, he was practically invisible to the casual observer, and any video cameras. Lucius would have already disabled the security cameras in this area anyway, but the optical camouflage would help if the police came along and tried to pursue or photograph him. It had only ever happened a handful of times, but it was a handful too many as far as Severus was concerned.
Severus touched the wall with one of the highly sensitive and thin glove fingertips and nodded when it came back dry. Sniffing at the cold night air, Severus could tell that there would probably be condensation everywhere by morning, so he got to work right away. First, he started with the underpainting. It looked messy but there was a method to the madness. Spray paint worked the best during this part- he took his cans with the largest nozzles and blocked out vague shapes for the final painting.
After the underpainting was done and dry, he pulled a thick, black grease pencil from the pocket in his jacket that had been specifically installed for the purpose, and marked lines on the wall to fill in the detail. The space for the mural was wide enough that everything appeared to dry enough for him to start at the beginning once he'd finished the far end of it. Severus worked at a feverish pace, wiping his sweaty brow with a dirty old rag and shoving it in the back pocket of his trousers before continuing once more. Then came the stencils. Most of them were large and blocky, but there was also one that included a very delicate lace pattern, which he would use to create the top and bottom frame for the finished piece. He left those in the bag and pulled out the others. Affixing them with one hand, he sprayed a sparkling white, green and silver in such a way to match the planned image that he kept clearly in his mind until he was done with his work.
Finally, when everything was dry, he went to work blending colors with his palette of acrylic paints. He affixed a bandoleer of different brushes that he wore down his chest for easy access, and got to work, finishing even the smallest details of eyelashes and highlights to hair before the sun began to rise. Finally, he signed his name with a flourish- it was nothing like his normal spidery handwriting, and he always signed his masterpiece with his left hand, not the right, which was the hand he always used in public. The sealant was still wet and he was in the middle of gathering his things and making sure that nothing was left behind to identify him when he heard a shout and the sound of something large dragging against concrete.
Severus groaned and slid down the side of an alley, hoping he hadn't been seen. There were a few splotches of paint on his trousers that he hadn't had the chance to wipe away, but they were dark and blended fairly well in the shadows.
The dragging noise was followed by a horrible tearing sound. Severus stared around at the shadowy not-quite-dawn sky and only had a second before something large and wickery slammed into his chest, knocking him off his feet.
Severus tried to breathe, his body pinned between whatever had hit him and the disgusting alley wall. He was seeing double due to having the back of his head slammed into the grimy bricks behind him, but he could barely make out a couple of heads and a concerned gasp before a hand touched his shoulder, shook him gently, and Severus lost consciousness altogether.
"Is he dead?"
"I don't know! I'm not a doctor!"
"You guys, he's obviously breathing."
"I guess that means we can just dump 'im, right?"
"Wrong, Ron. He got hurt because of us, so we have a duty to help him out until he's better."
"Pfft, you and your bloody duties, Hermione. I don't see why we outta do anything."
Severus groaned and brought his hand to his head. He felt as though he'd been dropped on his head and kicked about by an angry moose. He tried to sit up and was immediately overcome by nausea. Scratch that. Two angry, drunken moose.
"Please, mister, don't try to get up." That was the voice from before. It was soft and kind, but it was also maddeningly familiar. Still, with the blinding pain echoing through his skull, Severus was having a troublesome time recalling exactly where he'd heard it before.
They sounded like a bunch of kids, which was good and bad. Good, because they'd probably be far too ignorant to call the cops on him or recognize who he was. Bad, because he was a teacher, and kids meant students, and he had plenty of students. Hopefully, they wouldn't recognize him.
Someone pulled off his mask. Shite.
"Is his face supposed to look like that?" A voice that sounded a bit like it was used to laughing far too often piped in.
"Maybe if he's part-grape or something," said an almost identical voice from the other side of the room.
Severus wondered if he was beginning to hallucinate.
When he cracked his eyes to look around, his head pounded and he winced.
"Turn out the light!" the young woman nearest to him said.
"I'm goin', I'm goin'," said a male voice in a sulky tone of voice.
There was a click and Severus tried again. The half-darkness was still spinning a bit, but he could make out the outlines of heads peering down at him.
"Ugh...where am I?" he slurred.
"We may have hit you...a little bit...with a hot air balloon?" An embarrassed voice replied.
"You weren't in any state to move on your own, so we dragged you over to our hideout," a male voice said. "Hopefully you don't need to call into work, because your phone got all busted. Maybe if Hermione had allowed the two of us to carry you instead of insisting on getting ahold of your legs and fumbling them a few times, you'd be more in one piece."
"Well I wasn't the arsehole who dropped a bloody hot-air balloon on the poor man!" Hermione snapped back, her eyes wild with fury.
"He's got some weird shimmery clothing on," another voice said curiously. "I can barely look at him head on."
"Good one, Harry!" one of the twin-shaped figures put his hand up as though waiting for a high-five.
Harry, the one with the shiny glasses that kept reflecting painfully into Severus' eyes every time he moved his head, shyly returned the gesture in a half-hearted manner.
Severus felt his heart drop to his toes.
Oh. Oh no. Well, Harry is a fairly common name. He wouldn't be...that Harry. The one who kept trying to make paint in my chemistry lab classes instead of the actual experiment we were supposed to be doing. The one who kept doodling that stupid squiggle on all of his notes...
"Yikes, he is an ugly bastard, innit?" Ron grunted, his irritating inflection grating on Severus' nerves in a horribly familiar way.
Severus felt his eye twitch. There was no mistaking that voice, not now that his head had stopped spinning long enough to actually comprehend what he was saying. They couldn't know. He'd lose his only source of income. He'd have to go back….no. No he wouldn't.
"What's your name, sir?" Hermione asked
Severus couldn't think of a convincing lie and he sure as hell wasn't going to tell the truth, so instead, he moaned loudly in pain and pretended to go unconscious again. It was probably a bit more theatrical than it needed to be, but it had the intended effect.
"Put his head up on a pillow!" Hermione barked, "And you two! Go get something at the pharmacy for his head!"
"Are you, by chance, ordering us to steal things?" One of the twins said.
"Why, that would be...utterly delightful! Let's go, Fred!"
This was followed by a slamming door that made Severus grit his teeth. Luckily, no one seemed to notice, and soon he had a cool washcloth placed on his forehead as well.
Severus slept.
Harry hadn't meant to find the invisible backpack, but he'd tripped on it, and it had seemed foolish to simply leave it there. The bag was made out of some strange sort of reflective material that seemed to bend the light around it in an impossible manner.
Inside, however, was an even greater treat.
Harry's eyes were wide as he glanced at the contents of the backpack and pulled it over one shoulder before following the others.
Now that they were back at the Burrow (which was, unironically, underground; specifically, built into the side of a hill with a door that looked like a stump that featured as an entrance), Harry was staying in a tiny spare bedroom until he figured out what he wanted to do next. So, naturally, he went through everything. From the mask that had been removed from the injured man they'd dragged home, Harry could infer that the backpack probably belonged to him. If that was true, however, then that also meant that the man was probably the one who'd just finished the mural he'd seen on his way back down the street. The image had glistened with a fresh clear-coat. The quality was higher than anything he'd ever dreamed of painting himself.
In short, it was a work of art.
Though the Weasleys had been nothing but kind to him and he enjoyed their antics, Harry wasn't much of a prankster. He also knew that there were a number of nasty street gangs that would probably love to enslave an aspiring graffiti artist as their resident tagger, especially due to the way that he'd landed at Mrs. Dursley's.
The staff refused to tell him much about his family life before the facility, but he'd snuck into the admin building with Hermione one night and read through his file. His parents had apparently been involved in an anti-gang group that made street art to revitalize troubled neighborhoods in the city. Part of the inspiration for the lightning signature he'd been perfecting was due to his scar. A prominent gang leader going by the name of Void had tried to kill him, but the bullet had somehow glanced off of Harry's forehead, creating a lightning-bolt shape, and then ricocheted off of something only to hit Void right in the temple. The man had crumpled to the ground in a coma, and his gang had scattered to the wind. Many said that Void was in some secret hospital for the wealthy and would return and revenge himself on Harry, but Harry had hoped that those were mere rumors.
Harry looked through the stencils and the various colors, as well as the palette that had been hastily shoved back into the bag, leaving some of the acrylic paint smeared around inside it. Suddenly, Harry had a brilliant idea. But first, he needed some leverage. Looking at the mess inside the backpack, Harry's mouth lit up in a wide smile. This would do perfectly.
"Good morning, Professor."
Snape's eyes went wide and he stared at the young woman sitting next to the uncomfortable, lumpy couch he'd been laid out upon.
"Hnrh? I...I'm not sure what you're talking about." He tried his best to look innocent, but it became fairly obvious that the swelling on his face made anything other than a grimace basically impossible.
"No, Professor. Over here."
Snape blinked and realized that the girl's head was lolling back over the top of the chair and she was snoring rather indelicately. He turned his head to the source of the sound.
"You!" he said, staring at the piece of cardboard that Harry held over his head. He'd painted "Professor Snape" and a giant arrow in a highly-stylized manner using what looked like Snape's favorite silver and mother-of-pearl spray paints.
"I should say the same thing," Harry replied. "You're the one who painted that mural."
"I was, until you lot had to attack me with a bloody hot air balloon," Snape growled in reply. "Aren't you afraid you're going to wake her up?"
"Nah, she's pretty much dead to the world. Hermione's been sitting there all night long keeping watch over you," Harry replied. "She can be...overprotective of others."
Snape sneered at her sleeping form as though passing judgement on her for being such a sentimental idiot. "Quite."
"Your face still looks like hell-"
"How kind of you to notice," Snape drawled sarcastically.
"-but I know it's you. You're the one who use to give me hell in Chemistry class," Harry finished.
"How wonderful. You've won the prize," Snape replied. "And, if the color of your shoddily-drawn sign is any indication, you've helped yourself to my personal affects."
"I found your bag, if that's what you're implying," Harry said tersely. "I could have just left it there for the law to find. In any case, you were wearing some sort of weird reflecting clothing. You were practically invisible."
"Which is how I would have preferred to stay," Snape growled back. "Now I'm trapped in some sort of stuffy underground lair with various painful injuries of a varying severity and a bunch of idiot teenagers playing grown-up. I would almost certainly rather be anywhere but here."
"I just was trying to be nice. Anyway, you're here, so just deal with it!" Harry's anger began to bubble to the surface. They'd carried him away and bandaged him as best they could and yet he was as ungrateful and surly as ever.
"By all means, you're the kidnapper, so you set the rules," Snape replied.
"Fine!" Harry said crossly, "I'll just take your stuff and go practice myself!"
He turned to stomp off, but was stopped by a tugging at his sleeve.
Snape had lunged forward with a pained grunt and was holding on the corner of his shirt for dear life with his uninjured hand. "No," he wheezed, "you can't-"
"What?" Harry said defiantly, "paint? Oh, I can paint, Professor. And I've decided that I know just what I want to do now that I have the tools to make a mural of my own."
Snape seemed to take a deep breath and let it out in a massive, world-weary sigh.
"Do you even have a plan of what you want to paint?" he asked.
"Well...I thought I'd just make it up as I went."
"You idiot. Not only is that a waste of resources and energy, but it will make for a sloppy result. At least create a basic sketch of what you want to create, you daft boy."
"Stop calling me an idiot," Harry replied loftily. "What do you even know, anyway? You obviously don't fancy teaching me."
"Hmph," Snape replied, "even if you despise me, you have to agree that simply going over to a wall and starting to paint without a plan is both wasteful and shortsighted to the extreme?"
Harry rolled his eyes, but he turned around. "What would you know about it?"
"Look in the back zip pocket, Potter, and see."
Harry scowled at Snape but did as Snape had asked. He pulled out a handful of sheets of paper that each had rough sketches of the different designs he'd done recently on various walls around town.
"You don't have to make them look perfect, but if you don't know what goes where in the small version, you're going to run out of space with the big one or ruin your perspective when you don't intend to do so." Snape fixed Harry with a haughty look. "But by all means, go. Don't actually plan anything at all and just make it from scratch! I'm sure you won't end up with a mess because you're Harry bloody Potter and are absolutely perfect at everything due to your giant, fat head!"
Harry's face went red with anger, but he took a deep breath and calmed himself down as he thought about it. Snape had a point, albeit in a verbally abusive, roundabout way.
"Fine," Harry muttered to himself, grabbing a blank piece of paper from the backpack, "but I'm not showing you what I'm drawing."
He stomped off to a desk over in the corner that looked as though it had been there for over a hundred years.
"Good riddance," Snape said with a yawn.
He slept.
Harry woke up with his face pressed against the worn wood of the desk, a long line of drool partially cementing his cheek to the paper he'd been drawing on.
"Ugh," he groaned as he pulled himself up, stretching and wincing as his back and shoulders popped loudly.
"Ugh indeed," Snape grumbled from the couch, "you've woken me up with your infernal noises."
Harry did his best not to glare at the surly professor. While he did have to admit that Snape was talented to the extreme, his personality left much to be desired. He'd picked on Harry every day they'd had a class together, and Harry had always felt singled out in the poor treatment he'd received. Still, his dreams of becoming a stellar artist with plenty of connections wouldn't be easy to achieve without relying on an existing master in the field.
"Ugh." Harry put his head back down on the desk, his vision swimming with fatigue.
"Still annoying, Potter," Snape hissed back.
Harry closed his eyes, and was awoken by a gentle tugging on his shoulder.
"Harry?" Hermione was peering down at him with a concerned expression on her face. "That position can't be healthy for sleeping."
"Hng-wha?" Harry mumbled, pulling his glasses back into place.
"Go lay down. In a bed," Hermione said, helping him up.
"Ok, Hermione," Harry slurred, shuffling towards the kitchen.
"No, Harry, you can lay down in here," Hermione admonished, taking him by the hand and leading him into another room to their left.
"It's terrible. Start over."
Harry stared at Snape, whose black eye was starting to fade, along with the swelling around his face. It had only been a few days, and the man had been unrelentless.
"But-"
"Tsk, tsk, and here I was thinking that you actually wanted to learn to be the best street artist in the world. Or was that simply posturing? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." Snape took a sip of juice from a straw and set it back down on the coffee table before crossing his arms. "So. Start over, or give up. I don't bloody care. But if you think that's going to turn any heads, you're gravely mistaken."
Harry twisted the paper in his hands and grit his teeth, but he stared defiantly at his mentor. "Fine."
"It's better, but you still lack perspective when it comes to scenery. What's that, a many legged spider floating about in the sky?" Snape's tone was relentlessly critical.
"It's the sun!" Harry replied. "I...I just…thought…"
"No, Potter, that's the problem. You don't think. You don't think at all," Snape drawled back. "The only reason I haven't run from the room at the sight of your visual monstrosities is because my ankle is still the size of a grapefruit."
"Shut UP!" Harry shouted, his face growing scarlet with fury. "I've had about enough of you insulting me at every turn. So the sun doesn't look like the actual sun! So what?! The idea was that I was mocking up a potential mural and the worst thing you can say about it is that my sun isn't realistic? Give me a fucking break!"
Snape just looked at him for a long moment with a shocked expression on his face before it relaxed into a smirk.
"Very good," he said, finally, and Harry wanted to throttle him. "You're finally learning."
"What?" Harry asked, his voice cracking slightly.
"Stand up for the things that are important to you, Potter, and you'll go far in life," Snape said, shrugging a bit and then wincing as the pain caught up with him. "You're an artist. Sure, it's all well and good to prepare yourself if you want to make sure you can get in and get out without being caught, but you still have the final say. If I teach you anything, I hope that you at least know the most important thing."
Harry stared at his mock-up for a long moment.
"I'm redoing it," he said quietly.
"What? But I just said-"
"You're right. I hate it that you're right, but you are, so that's that," Harry said, wadding up the image. "I need to think not only about the design but the speed in which I have to get it on the wall. I have to prepare better. This isn't just about quality, it's about speed. I've been working on some stencils as well."
"Let me see."
Harry pulled the stencils from his rucksack and gave them to Snape for inspection.
"Hmm, well, I must admit that your designs are fairly straightforward. A bit simplistic for my tastes, but then again, you are a beginner."
Harry's lip curled back in defiance, but he bit his tongue. Snape was being mean, but he was, as always, correct.
"I've primed the wall. I'm going to try it tomorrow," Harry said.
"I'd wish you luck, but I doubt it will help," Snape replied, shaking his head sadly.
"Watch me, Snape," Harry hissed back.
"I think I will. With a stopwatch," came the reply.
"Where did you find a wheelchair?"
"Hermione got it for me," Snape said, wheeling himself out onto the back porch and being sure to stay in the shade. "She's a clever thing, isn't she?"
"Oh, so it's Hermione, now, is it?" Harry replied suspiciously.
"It is her name, is it not? She requested that I call her by it. Don't read into it, Potter." Snape looked bored, but Harry could tell he was hiding something.
"She has a thing for older guys, but don't push your luck. That doesn't include a senior citizen like yourself," Harry said sharply, unable to stay silent any longer.
Snape merely snorted. "Moving onto actual reality where actual, real things happen instead of ridiculous, half-arsed assumptions, I am going to time your work and you are going to pretend that you're working against the clock. Obviously, it's the middle of the day, so you don't have to worry about lighting, but you will likely do much of your work in utter darkness. Oh well, I suppose you ought to start out with training wheels first."
"Stuff it, Snape," Harry growled, pulling on a pair of dark glasses over his normal ones. "It's not exactly the same, but it will limit my vision and give me a taste of what it's like."
"As you wish," Snape replied sarcastically.
Harry reached to grab his stencil and heard the telltale click of the stopwatch. Moving quickly, he taped up his stencils and grabbed his spray paint can without looking. He'd worked with drawing them out of his bag the night before so that he could tell which paint was which by feel alone. The base of the mural came along fairly quickly, though he had a few smudgy sections in his haste to pull the stencils down before the paint had set enough. He also was a bit uneven near the end on paint thickness, but it wasn't all that noticeable unless you were looking for it.
Snape was looking for it. In fact, it was the first thing he commented on after Harry, drenched in sweat, had collapsed onto his bum after shouting, "Done!"
"It's a start," Snape said, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully. "You know, you're not altogether terrible, Potter."
"Thanks, I think," Harry replied breathlessly.
"More than you did before, that's for sure," Snape said with a wry smirk.
At Snape's request, Harry called his business partner the next Monday. And unmarked van showed up at the rendezvous spot, which was on a rather sad street corner.
"Why did you come alone with us again?" Harry hissed at Hermione, who was standing next to him.
"Perhaps she is allergic to ginger," Snape drawled from his wheelchair.
Hermione went scarlet. "That's...n...not true…Ron is nice and all, but he...I...don't really want to talk about it."
"Don't think that you two are going to loaf around my home, though," came the sour reply. "You'll pay rent and earn your keep or it's out you go."
"Don't tempt me to push you to the top of a hill and let go," Harry growled, pushing the wheelchair into the ramp on the back of the van.
"See what I have to put up with, Hermione?" Snape said, looking to her for validation.
"You're both being idiots," she replied with a sniff.
Snape snorted. "Well, she's right, I'll give her that."
Lucius side-eyed the two young adults that Severus brought along with him, but they seemed to be trustworthy enough, so he held his tongue. Severus could use the help, after all. The man was fairly banged up, and his ankle was still fairly swollen. Luckily, his personal doctor gave Severus a full bill of health other than the ankle and a few other deep bruises, which would heal with time.
"He wants to be my apprentice," Severus had said with a smirk as he inclined his head at Harry, who was sitting with Hermione near the front.
"Poor sod. And the girl?" Lucius replied.
Severus shrugged. "Not sure, yet. I may have mentioned my library, though."
Lucius snorted. "Leave it to you to meet the one woman who's more interested in your library than your substantial lack of charm."
"Speak for yourself, old friend," Severus replied. "I happen to have an immense amount of untapped charm. I simply choose to use it sparingly."
"Very sparingly," Lucius quipped, earning a swat on the shoulder
Harry stared at his latest creation. It wasn't bad, but it lacked...something.
"And what is the message to your latest attempt at art?" Snape's voice drawled from behind him.
Harry didn't jump. He was used to his mentor sneaking up on him at random intervals at this point. "You know you shouldn't be walking on that leg. Hermione will give you hell for it."
"Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps she simply enjoys giving people what-for, regardless of what it's about?" Snape replied. "In any case, I agree. You're missing something. The message that drives your image. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of visual input without anything to make sense of it."
Harry didn't hear Snape leave, but he could feel when he was alone once more. He stared at his work again, his eyes screwed into slits as he concentrated on Snape's advice.
"I wouldn't have asked you to cover for me, but my ankle is apparently worse than expected after the x-ray," Snape said, as Harry readied his thermal optic suit. Lucius had helpfully fitted Harry for one a few weeks after he'd settled into his "apprentice" role.
"It's not hard. We already have the stencils and the blueprint set up. I'll be in and out, no problem." Harry nervously checked the cans of paint in his bag and shifted his bag from one arm to the other.
"Good luck, Harry," Hermione said, hugging him.
"I'm painting a wall, not going off to war, Hermione," Harry said, blushing slightly.
"I'd take it if I were you," Snape said, "You need all that you can get."
It was in the papers. He was being heralded as the Prince's protege.
"I'm not a protege. I'm my own man," Harry muttered over breakfast.
"You just keep telling yourself that and maybe one day it will be true," Snape snarked back.
"You two really are incorrigible," Hermione said, shaking her head as she served the eggs.
They fell into an easy routine. Snape was the grouchy master. Harry, the starry-eyed yet bitter apprentice. Hermione supported them both however she could, though she also spent most of her day with a book under her arm. Eventually, they all got to the point where it seemed as though it had always been this way. Snape never fully healed from his injuries, at least not to the point where he could nimbly dodge the law on one of his jobs, so he began to devote himself to design while Harry devoted himself to the actual business of making art. Hermione went back to school and got a degree in modern architectural design, helping to put up buildings that just happened to find themselves bestowed with lovely, unique, often political murals bearing the Prince/Thunderbird signature. Thankfully, Harry had learned rather early on that Flashboy just wouldn't cut it as a proper moniker.
Life wasn't perfect, of course. Nothing ever is. But, just like art, life is a work in progress, and everyone knows that one cannot rush greatness before it's ready.