Author's note: I am still working on my other projects, things are just moving slowly and I decided to indulge this plot idea. Thanks for reading. :) I do not own Harry Potter.

Petunia Dursley sneered as she exited the passenger side of Vernon's sedan, her look of disgust as she took in her surroundings mirrored by her husband, who stayed sitting in the driver's seat. In the back of the idling car, Dudley was far too absorbed in his gameboy to notice the world around him. Smashed against the other side of the back seat, Harry Potter was trying not to hyperventilate.

He had been told to pack his things. Double time. Now after a long drive, they were here; a dirty narrow street in a dirty crooked town, with run down row houses, garbage strewn about, and the nearby river polluting the air with it's stench. Hedwig hooted soothingly in her cage beside him.

"Make that bloody bird be quiet!" Snapped Uncle Vernon.

"Sorry." Harry mumbled. He didn't know where they were, he didn't know why they were here, and the anxiety in the pit of his stomach made him more docile than normal. Maybe they would reconsider dumping him or at least tell him what was happening if he made himself as obliging as possible.

. . .

Petunia stepped gingerly up to the door half hidden from the car by a tiny recessed porch. She noted the boarded up windows and the excess of cobwebs and dirt. Apparently the creep was just as slovenly as his father. She poked the doorbell with the very tip of her finger. A crash of breaking glass accompanied the chime, punctuated by a volley of curses and thudding.

The door flew open, and Petunia was frozen in the dark gaze of Severus Snape. He looked as thin as he had been when he was a teenager, his hair was messy, his clothes rumpled. His eyes were bloodshot, but they were still that mesmerizing, impossible black. She suppressed a shudder, and tried to avoid looking him directly in the face.

"Tuney?!" The man croaked. "What the HELL. . . !"

Petunia wrinkled her nose. It was nearly midday, but Severus looked like he had just woken up, and judging from the smell of his breath was probably nursing a hangover. If the man was anything like his father Tobias on liquor, Harry - the son of Severus' rival - would be coming back to Surrey a grateful boy, happy to be back and eager to please. She suppressed a smirk. She should have thought of this ages ago.

"Snape." Petunia sneered. "We're leaving Lily's brat with you. Vernon has a VERY important business trip to Australia, and there is no one else we could give him to. He certainly can't go with us."

"How the HELL - " Severus began.

He was interrupted by Vernon roaring at Harry by the car. The brute lost patience with the boy, who was struggling to get his trunk out of the boot. He shoved him aside and heaved it out and threw it to the curb next to Hedwig, then grabbed the boy in a viselike grip by the back of his neck and marched him to the door.

Snape watched the proceedings with the detached bewilderment of a half asleep drunk whose worldview was being thoroughly nuked before his eyes as Vernon forced the boy's head down and screamed in his ear.

"You better watch yourself boy! If you're a hellion and we have to pay damages, I'll take it out of your hide when we get back! You hear?!" Vernon roared, shaking the boy slightly.

"Yes Uncle -"

"Speak up!"

"YES UNCLE VERNON!"

Vernon let go of the boy's neck, only to cuff him upside the head. "Don't shout at me, whelp!" He barked. He turned and practically ran back to the car. At no point had he looked Snape in the face.

Petunia spun on her heel, shouting over her shoulder as Vernon honked the horn. "We'll be gone the whole summer! You'll find he can make himself useful. We don't tolerate his idleness at home."

With that, Petunia hopped in the car and their perfect normal family sped away.

Severus Snape blinked, and slid down the door frame, sitting down on the stoop with a thud. The boy was standing where Vernon Dursley had left him, his head still slightly lowered. A flash of green eyes met black, as the boy peered cautiously through his fringe.

Severus put his face in his hands and swore.