Author:
Little Needle
Category: Angst, Drama
Keywords: AU, Harry Potter, Snape, cross-dressing, shotacon
Rating: R, overall
Summary: In 1940's muggle England Professor Snape takes a boy called Harry into
his home when his widowed Aunt Petunia can no longer care for him. Skirts,
kisses, soda shops, love, tea, cakes and tragedy occur.
A/N & Dedications: For Lux who's beta was sex itself (read 'Over the Fence'!)
For Jade who wrote it better. For Annika Twist who inspired it. For Lunarennui
because I love you. For Libertine who abhors chan but loves this. For Glockgal
who's drawing of the first kiss inspired the last half of this piece. For the
gang at my beloved 'hpchan', I live for you! And for Venivincere who loves 'ATB'
more than anyone else.
I must thank Vladimir Nabokov for the plot 'advice' and Jeremy Irons for his portrayal of Humbert Humbert. This novella was inspired in part by raspberry ice pops and my love of school boys. In answer to questions asked; yes, Charlotte from chapter's three and four is my tip of the hat to Charlotte Haze. skirt!potter was inspired by a boy called Christopher Fair I knew in grade school. The actual skirt was inspired by my inherent loathing of the skirt I had to wear at the academy.
---
A Troubled Boy
Chapter One: A Troubled Boy
I would like to tell you now before it is too late and you have passed your
judgment, that it was never my intention for anything of this 'nature' to take
place. No, kind gentleman (and gentlewomen) of the jury, this could not... no,
*would* not have happened had I not the sense to foresee what was absolutely
bound to take place.
I would ask to plead my case now, in front of your righteous gaze, that if there
is blame to place that it be on the shoulders of giants and not on such meagre
shoulders as my own. If this has been anyone's 'fault' than as surely as I am
Professor Severus Snape, this was The Strumpets doing. The little creature that
tip-toed into my life during afternoon tea on an unlaced shoe and one thin white
stocking; one Harry Potter.
---
I remember the first time I lay eyes on the boy very clearly, as if it were only
this morning; his tiny gash of a mouth plump and stained with the sticky
raspberry syrup of an iced pop (a treat that I would very soon come to sample
for myself). His bright, unblinking eyes trained on me like candy jewels in a
sweet shop window; their display not to be upstaged by lengths of pale,
cream-rose satin skin and the deepest, blackest velveteen mop of flimsy, unkempt
waves.
He, with his fragile, searching little hands; so pale and smooth like
confectioners sugar shells, one curved to trace along the crisp white hem of his
equally small and untidy shorts, the other grasping lazily around the small
wooden pith of his ever-diminishing frozen treat.
Harry, always with his tiny pointed tongue, every so often peeking out of its
sweet, sticky cavity to map over and dip after trickling pools of ruby-iced
confection, leaving its trail of contrasting stains on the boys sinfully
milk-pale flesh. I watched raptly that sultry afternoon as he concentrated on
the task of collecting each stray drop on the tip of his tongue; between his
warm fingers, smeared endearingly at the small, pinched corners of his precious
petaled bud, a bright dribble on his chin, just below the pout of his protruding
bottom lip.
---
I hear the faint tinkering of his maidenly aunt in the kitchen with the tea, an
entire etched glass door between she and the two of us. The boy shifts, still
sitting uncomfortably where his aunt has placed him opposite me, his tiny feet
dangle from the too-tall chair, one unlaced shoe slipping slightly from his
curved, clothed heel. I jar as his skinny knees press tightly together, the
golden glow of his heat-dampened thighs causing him obvious discomfit in his
confinement to the small space of his narrow seat.
He does not look my way from the time poor Mrs. Dursley introduced the boy, and
that has been some time now, but still I find myself more than curious as to why
such a child should be perched and then ignored. After all, I am here to meet
with the boy (I have agreed, for better or for worse, to take on the position of
young Potter's guardian) as a favour to Headmaster Dumbledore who believes the
misfit boy to be too much for one woman in Mrs. Dursley's unfortunate (widowed)
condition.
'Do you dread coming with me, boy?' I ask it of him kindly, my tone quiet and
somehow lost of its normally forbidding drawl. I don't wish the haggard woman to
over-hear us in the kitchen. He looks up at me from his pop with the same
startled, owlish gaze that he greeted me with the first time we were introduced,
the buttered part of his mouth pursed as if deep in thought. 'Oh no, sir.' The
boy breaths his answer in the way a child half his age would muse over being
asked the question of whether or not he would like ice cream for breakfast. I
nod encouragingly and he continues on, sounding curiously short of breath. 'I--I
think I've been waiting for this day since forever, sir. Since aunt Petunia told
me I would be going to live with you, sir'
The Strumpet flushes softly, fingers clenching into small fists at his sides.
His ears and neck are swept with a delightful pink lemonade colour before fading
abruptly with the startled exclamation of his young, tinkering voice.
His loved treat has duelled with the heat for far too long now and has fallen to
its untimely finish in a smattering of garish red on the thigh of his flawlessly
white cotton shorts. He jumps from his seat onto wobbling, coltish legs, swiping
at the smeared spot vigorously, eyes darting between the kitchen door where his
aunt stands rooted in obvious fury, and the stain, further permeating the thin
material with its now nightmarish shade of crimson.
The sound ringing through the air is her screech and without a word I realize
why the boy has been so anxious to leave this place. The woman flings herself
toward the boy, horror etched across her thin features, her normally narrowed
eyes wide with alarm and riveted to the mark on the boys thigh. 'Stupid boy!
Foolish boy!'
She grabs him by the elbow and I can see quite clearly that this pains Harry
greatly. He struggles with her, trying to jerk his arm free, twisting beneath
her grip which only tightens to the point that I am sure she will dislocate the
joint from the pressure of it.
I step forward, gently intercepting, looking the frazzled woman in the face all
the while nudging Harry behind me so that I am a barrier between she and the
boy. I can feel his small fingers grip my elbow from behind in the same place
his aunt had harmed him, clutching me to him, finally deciding on resting his
head gently on my back. My blood thins at the thoughts skipping like an old
silent film reel in the back of my mind, telling me that at his full height the
boys smooth brow must barely reach the juncture of my shoulder blades. He is so
*small*.
I must protect him.
'Now, now. The boy is troubled, you must remember yourself, Petunia. A lady such
as yourself need not worry with such trivial things.' I use her given name
coaxingly, placing a firm, gentle hand on her thin forearm. The tension visibly
drains from her shoulders but the taut, white line of her mouth stays put as she
tries to catch a glimpse of the boy over my shoulder.
I turn abruptly to him, urging the boy onward with a smart pat to his pert
little bottom, sending the boy on his way to change into a more pristine pair of
shorts. The boys back arches slightly and he turns shortly to give me a hot
little glare before marching on his way. I watch appreciatively as he ascends,
trotting up the stair, his bottom wiggling indignantly with each step in his
hurry to obey. I tell her breezily that I will deal with the boy to my own
leisure. I see from the glint in her eyes that this pleases her and so I
continue on in my chiding, indulgent tones.
'Perhaps I should take the boy with me now, Petunia.' Her face tightens around
her mouth so I continue on briskly before she has the chance to refuse my kind
offer. 'Yes, don't you see. The boy needs a man's hand in matters of discipline,
as I'm sure you know more than well enough. I would be more than... 'happy',
shall we say, to relieve you of this particular burden.' The lines around her
mouth soften and I know I must be getting through to her. It has become
imperative that the boy leave this place with me today. 'Of course, only if you
should allow the boy to come with me.' She smiles, and if my eyes do not deceive
me, she blushes quite pink across the plane of her sharp cheek. I smile
obligingly and nod my head as if to tip my hat to her.
Without further words between us, I make my way up the narrow stairwell to
collect my boy, not truly understanding in that moment what I have gotten myself
into.
