- The Potion Master's Observance -

I OWN NOTHING OF THE HARRY POTTER WORLD!

( Rating might be T+ cause of mentions of abuse. and my own paranoia)

Dumbledore sends Severus to pick Harry up from the Dursleys. How will this alter the first book? (Harry still does the whole business with the Sorcerer's Stone, just a slightly different angle.) Harry's abuse from the Dursleys is slightly harsher than what is originally put in the book. Before picking him up from the Dursleys, Severus does some snooping, inquisitive as to how 'pampered' his arch-rivals son has been the past 10 years. (Slight OOC-ness from Harry and Snape, they're actually friendly-ish to each other!) Severeus and Harry POV! Don't know how long this is gonna be. Might be until they get to Hogwarts. Might go 'till the end of the third book.

Mkay, here they send Hogwarts letters at one's tenth birthday so that they have until whenever the 'original' owl reply was due. This way they have more time to prepare. But they only send a maximum of 200 letters before sending in a professor in order to avoid alerting the Muggle authorities. The story starts roughly around when Hogwarts has already sent Harry the 200 letter maximum, and have heard nothing (Dumbledore has the same expectations of Harry's knowledge of the Wizarding world as in the books)

Severus simply stared, incredulously, at the silver-bearded man that was standing calmly in front of him. He knew that it had to be done, but he didn't understand why he had to do it. So he gave the headmaster the only logical answer he could think of to such an insane question.

"No."

A slight pause.

"Now, now Severus. Surely you are perfectly capable of handling such a simple task?" Dumbledore replied evenly, almost as if he was shocked that he had refused the ridiculous offer.

"No." Severus hissed, even more coldly, if that was possible,"I see absolutely no reason why I must do it. That oaf Hagrid or even Minerva would be more suitable for this assignment."

Dumbledore simply glanced at him, blue eyes twinkling, as if amused about something. "Yes, but Minerva is still quite busy with class preparations at this time, while I know that you, as always, have already completed all of yours." Severus almost cursed under his breath for being unable to use that as an excuse."And while Hagrid does indeed have the time, I have assigned him another task that is actually of equal importance, one that would best be done free from any possible leakage to those not already privy to it." Severus muttered under his breath about 'a ridiculous oaf'', 'irresponsible blundering', and even something that sounded like an actual curse.

"Are you positive that none of the other professors are capable with handling this?" He pushed, as if hoping that maybe one of them would magically have an open schedule.

"I'm afraid not Severus," Dumbledore said softly. "But even if they were, I would still wish for you to go and retrieve him," he then smiled gently down at Professor Snape, "After all, I can think of no one better than you to introduce Lily Potter's son into the wizarding world.

Severus simply continued to glare at the old man before him. Minutes passed before he suddenly heaved a large sigh. "Fine," he muttered as he swiftly left the Headmaster's Office, cloak swishing almost ominously behind him.

It was exactly 1 week after his 10th birthday that the letters from no one stopped completely. They hadn't stopped suddenly or all at once, no. It was almost gradual. A few less in the eggs, a few less owls in the afternoon, a few less down the chimney that night. Harry had fully expected Uncle Vernon to snap at some point, but the walrus look-alike had somehow been able to contain his strange rage towards the letters. Harry was quite saddened that they had stopped, for it seemed as if any communication to someone outside of Dursleys was closed off when they stopped. Although, he also was, in some twisted, messed up way, eternally happy that whoever was sending the letters had finally given up. Uncle Vernon had been in a terribly awful mood ever since they first started arriving.

He had also, of course, taken his horrible mood out on Harry.

Harry was used to Uncle Vernon, Dudley, and (very rarely) even Aunt Petunia hitting him, kicking him, throwing him up against the wall, throwing him into his cupboard, all of that. But it increased ten-fold from his uncle when the letters started to come, and even Dudley's overlarge, baggy clothing was having a hard time hiding the bruises that spread over almost every inch of his skin. He was slightly worried that the neighbors would notice them when he was tending the front lawn; Aunt Petunia would never let him hear the end of it if he was the source of rumors about their family.

And then the letters had finally stopped.

8 days after his 10th birthday, there were no letters, nothing strange, nothing... abnormal. His uncle had been cautiously ecstatic. The next day, still no letters, and Harry would have been completely unsurprised if Uncle Vernon started a full-blown party that day in celebration. He had even forgotten to give Harry his seemingly daily thrashing that day!

This thought only added to that sickly, twisted feeling of happiness in Harry's gut.

It was now a good few weeks after the whole letter incident. He preferred to keep it in the back of his mind, for whenever he thought about it, that sick, filthy feeling came back to him again.

Harry was currently locked up in his cupboard, nursing a new set of now purple bruises blossoming across his shoulder and back. His uncle had just thrown him in, moments before Mr. and Mrs, Mason entered their home. He supposed it was for being slow with finishing tidying up the whole house so it sparkled, and then cooking their lavish dinner. If he had been faster, Harry wouldn't have been thrown into his cupboard.

His stomach growled, loudly. Harry blanched, fearing that those outside had heard the ferocious sound as well. He slowly relaxed when Uncle Vernon didn't come busting in to give him a swift kick to the ribs and a rapidly hissed threat.

The dinner party schedule was one that he was quite familiar with. First he would be woken at the crack of dawn my Aunt Petunia and given only a thin slice of burnt toast for breakfast. Next, he would tediously scrub the house from top to bottom, inside and outside, often doing rooms twice; even ones the guest might not ever even know existed. Then he would have ended up not getting lunch, and then made to start cooking up a storm for dinner, during which he was never allowed a morsel. Lastly, during the dinner, he was always to stay in his cupboard, making no noise and pretending he wasn't there.

He was always lucky to get more than that piece of burnt toast on days with a dinner party.

Severus Snape had never understood muggles. Their lives were incredibly boring and he couldn't be bothered to figure out how their devices worked without magic. But these muggles, oho.

They were a whole new level of boring.

A few good weeks after Hogwarts had sent their last letter, Severus finally decided that he couldn't put it off any longer and went to 'pick up Harry'. So he reluctantly apparated near to this 'Number 4 Privet Drive', which had to be the least interesting place on the face of the planet.

Striding up the street, he noticed that the house that Harry was supposedly living in appeared to have guests.

That wasn't good.

Severus frowned. If he were to properly invite Harry to Hogwarts, as much as he would rather not, he needed to so in the most indiscreet fashion.

Which meant not while these 'Dursley's' had more boring muggles over for some type of drab dinner party.

Severus heaved a sigh. He had taken the time to properly clean up the dungeon just to find he had interrupted his work just to go right back to it. He hated 3 things, work interruptions, wasted time, and James Potter.

Professor Snape was struck with the strange urge to scout out Number 4 anyway, maybe to find out something that would prevent him from this unfortunate timing again? He wasn't sure why he wanted to do so, but he decided that since he had indeed left the dungeons in pristine condition, and already stopped all work on his potions and class plans, he should at least do something slightly productive.

So he headed towards Number 4 with the intentions of scouting out the place. Invisible, of course.

Slipping into the plain-looking house after the guest muggles, Severus looked around. It was an average muggle dwelling, probably identical to the others lining the street outside. He could see the lounge over to his left, and a kitchen down the hall, past that small cupboard under the stairs. The entire house seemed immaculate, and he vaguely wondered just how long it had taken to get it so, so... clean.

A rather large little boy welcomed the two guests. 'Mr. and Mrs. Mason', were apparently their names. Severus was greatly relieved when he saw that this was, indeed, NOT Harry, largely due to the lack of a scar, the unruly mop of black hair, and piercing green eyes. He was quite unsure why he felt such relief, but he was quite sure in the disgust he felt coiled up inside of him while looking at that fat little thing. The large fat man called him 'Dudley'.

He then laid eyes on the thin, horse-faced woman and was startled to find that this was Petunia, Lily's sister. She had been awfully jealous of Lily when she had gone off to Hogwarts. Severus was slightly interested to see how she treated her nephew. If this 'Dudley' was anything to go by, he was probably spoiled rotten to the core, never having to work for anything in his life, he thought with a sneer especially reserved for James Potter.

The evening progressed tediously and slowly. Severus also learned that the large fat man with the mustache was known as 'Vernon', and he was apparently Petunia's husband, with Dudley as their son. What he found most curious however, was that Harry was nowhere to be seen. Or heard, for that matter. While Petunia seemed dead-set on focusing all on her 'sweet little duddy-kins', Harry was never even brought up in the conversation.

Severus suddenly looked up at the mantle. Up there was still-life muggle pictures of Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley, all doing various activities, but not a single one of Harry. It was as if the boy didn't exist in this house at all. In fact, if Severus didn't specifically remember Dumbledore telling him that Harry had been sent to his only living relatives, meaning Petunia and her family, Severus would have been positive he had walked into the wrong house.

Now slightly unnerved by the virtual eradication of Harry Potter's existence, however much he despised the boy, he now was curious as to where the now 10 year old boy could be.

Leaving the pathetic muggles to their idle chatter, Severus silently went up the stairs towards the most obvious destination: the kids' bedrooms.

Hooray for a first fanfic!
Woohooo! \^o^/
Ok, now you can tell me what a terrible plotline this is, go ahead, not stopping ya. But no complaining about the OOC-ish Snape, DEAL WITH IT! I have trouble writing from the POV of a bonefide slimy git. btw, anyone who is a true Harry Potter fan knows that Severus is actually a good guy and deserves way more credit!

So umm... review?