AN: best way to start a chapter? With the cheery Severus Snape of course!


Spawn of Potter,

It has been one year since you have disappeared from the wizarding world yet I know you are at least alive; every chance I get to sneak a peak over the old man's shoulder I do, just to see if the globe tracking your magic is still glowing blue. So knowing you are alive, I will not bother asking you if you are well. I doubt those horrible muggles-yes Potter those are your relatives, they are known as muggles, beings without magic- are overly concerned over your health.

While you sit and do nothing, I must grade first year essays over the effect of chopping not dicing. It seems everyone knows the difference and those who don't shall fail my class anyway, I see no point in keeping it in my syllabus.

Ah, I can see your expression right now. If I shall die before you vanquish the dark lord it will not be without me teaching you at least the most basic potions knowledge.

When you dice an ingredient, the more fluids that come out. This fluid is part of what reacts with the actual potion, the solid ingredient is only one part of what it is asking.

In simpler terms, when it says 'chop', they want more solid and less fluid. But when they say dice, they want more fluid and smaller solid bits. They way you cut the ingredient changes the potion drastically.

Done with trying and probably failing (due to your natural Potter brain) at teaching you the subtle art of potions, I must leave you with a warning.

If I live to see you in my class, make sure you know the difference between the ways to cut an ingredient. Or I shall skin you alive and hang you up by your tendons.

S.S.


The Potter Heir,

Damn my impulses. For they are the reason I am writing to you. The werewolf, one of the beings your father picked up when we went pranking, is ignoring me. I have never realized how much I relied on him to be sane and sadly now that he is gone, the Black curse is shifting and creeping upon me. To avoid the madness, I have decided to write to you; on an impulse I feel the need to remind you, so you don't end up like your father; dependent on me and god forbid, think I hold affection for you.

Today they are holding a special edition of the daily prophet, telling of your 'great dead' to the rest of society. Also known as the day you became an orphan. I am feeling slightly nostalgic on this day so I shall tell you about your parents. I must warn you that you shouldn't expect anything like the worshiped praises others would be more than happy to shove down your throat.

Where to begin? Your mother was born to filthy muggles but her magical prowess more than made up for her lack of a magical background. She had red hair, much unlike the orange mop of a Weasely, and dull green eyes. Most would say you have her eyes. This, I assure you, is a lie. Your eyes are much more vibrant than hers ever could be. In school she was a know-it-all and refused to break even the smallest of rules. A fact that had her hating your father's guts for many years.

Now your father was childish at heart. He never grew up at his time at Hogwarts until the very end of his sixth year when I tried to kill another student. He loved practical jokes and goofing off, yet he could maintain perfect grades, minus the occasional low scoring potions score. He had a mean streak and it drew me towards him yet he was a Gryffindor to the core. A pity really, he put his friends before himself and got more detentions because he felt as my 'friend' he should be blamed for my own more vicious pranks.

Your grandparents were odd but a nice old couple that took me in when I 'ran away' from home.

The madness is receding and so I shall end this letter.

You are just a simple impulse,

S.B.


Petunia had actually cared for her nephew, he was a smart and bright boy, but her husband had known of the freakishness that his mother had possessed and had punished the boy for it, saying that it would be better to keep the boy away from their son until he knew their was no more magic left in the boy. Yet she knew he had no intention of ever treating her nephew right and she had spoken out against her husband and learned never to speak against him again.

She was powerless to protect her only living blood relative. She had saved herself in her son from her husband's wrath; but now all she had to do was find a way to make her nephew's imprisonment easier on the poor boy.


The webs stuck to his skin, clinging to him as if to hold him back, to detour him from the quest ahead of him. He paid no mind to the webs and brushed them off easily, occasionally pulling at the more stubborn threads.

He shifted from where he was kneeling in front of the keyhole, his eye lined up to the little space of light. Squinting, he watched the blurry forms move about the house, sitting, standing, walking, and eating.

With the mention of food, he couldn't stop his stomach from giving a unhappy rumble, the sound moving throughout the house, making the blurs all around the table stop and look towards his cupboard.

Panic welled up within him, they were going to find him, and they were going to block his light! Scrambling up from his knees, the little two year old urged his awkward, slightly pudgy, legs to move faster as he half stumbled half ran to the little cot under the burnt out light bulb.

"Freak!" Hearing the thundering stomps and the loud voice of his uncle, he quickly fought with the uncorrupting blankie and managed to tangle himself up enough in it just in time for his uncle to throw the door in, letting it bang against the small dusty wall of the cupboard.

His uncle's voice rang loud and clear, a deadly tone to the words. "Freak what is with the noise? Were you trying to get out? I swear if you were…"

He didn't dare look up from under his blankie, more than content to hide in a little ball from his uncle. He didn't want to be punished for looking at his uncle in the eyes again. His bum still hurt from the leather of his uncle's belt from the last time.

"Freak! Answer me!" Screamed the man, as he lashed out, stomping on the boy's back.

"AH! Y-yes uncle V-vernon." His voice came out shaky and with a certain rasp. He gasped in air quickly, wanting to catch his breath from having the wind knocked out of him.

"You will not eat or be let out for two days Freak." Once again his door was slammed closed and locked, leaving him surrounded by darkness. The thuds of his uncle's feet padding away were soon faint and in the distance, far away from his cupboard.

Even though he knew the eminent danger was gone, he still stayed curled in a little ball for many minutes, counting the seconds as time passed by and the family cleaned up and settled down for nightly television. He stopped counting when the television was turned on and instead listened to the voices and noises coming from the telly. Soon he was satisfied with the amount of time that had passed and he slowly pushed himself up and untangled himself from the blanket and neatly folded it into a square; making sure the name Harrison J. Potter faced up towards the cobwebbed ceiling.

Slowly he touched his feet to the floor, mindful of the few squeaking boards. Once his weight was completely on the floor, he quietly maneuvered himself over to the little basket he had half hidden behind a small wooden shoe cubby that he had changed the function to that of a desk.

Moving the cubby to the side, he reached out and picked up the desk and reached for the two worn pieces of parchment he was so familiar with.

He had long ago lost the envelopes for the letters but those he didn't need anyway, but these letters, he didn't think he could survive without them.

He couldn't read what the words were, only able to sound out a few of the more simpler words thanks to his tutoring from Mrs. Kinsey at the pre-school he was attending with Dudley. But it didn't matter, these people knew his name and didn't call him freak and if his guesses were right, had hope in him. for what, he didn't know, but the fact that someone, two of them actually! Were out there and thinking about him, it was more than even his dreams could imagine.

Carefully, he unrolled the two letters, running his hands over them to get rid of wrinkles and creases from the paper. He let his eyes rove over the letter and once again he tried to decipher more letters, trying to string them together to create familiar words. It was probably of no use, he did this every day and night and the problem wasn't that he couldn't read, it was that he didn't understand some of the bigger words and he was to scared to bring them to school unless something would happen to his treasures.

Reading the two letters final letters on both of the pieces of paper, he felt all the more determined to escape his cupboard tonight.

Suddenly he heard a creak near his little space and as quickly as he could manage with out making to much noise, he re-folded his letters and stashed them away in the little basket and moved the cubby back over his treasures.

Once finished with that, he practically flung his body at the little cot, and once again wrestled with the blanket, trying to get covered with the piece of fabric.

He then heard footsteps walking past his cupboard and up the stairs next to the little locked room. The footsteps went right above his head and then were completely gone. He didn't dare breathe for several moments. Sure now that he wouldn't be caught, he released the breathe he was holding.

He knew it would take several hours before he could escape from his prison, a word he had learned last week and found very fitting for this house he was occupying space in. he wasn't living, he couldn't live in this space; he was merely surviving. It was all he had ever known.

He passed the time by playing with the spiders, they would walk on his hand while he moved his hand into different positions and some would weave little webs around his fingers, connecting them to each other. One even mimicked a tightrope act.

Be the time he was done giggling at the antics of his little friends, it was well into the night and perfect for escaping.

He moved towards the lock door and closed his eyes in concentration. In the letter it said he had magic, that the writers of those letters had magic and that his parents had magic. He had to say, it made things a lot clearer now.

With his knowledge of past freak accidents of magic he had performed and the added awareness that he actually could do magic and he just wasn't insane, he concentrated and thought only of the lock, of forcing his magic through the tiny lock and moving the gears until it would click open. He had the odd sensation of déjà vu, and was on the verge of losing his concentration, his mind trying to push up the memory and the word that was haunting him.

"Alohomor-" No! he felt the magic drain from around the lock. He had it almost open, he could feel it, but that damn word had clawed it's way out of his subconscious and he knew that it was lost, his concentration had been broken.

"Alohomora!" He spat, desperately wishing the lock would just click open and free him from his dark space. That damn word! It was all the word's fault!

He was to busy fuming that he didn't hear the soft click or the muffled swing as the door opened until he felt a slightly cooler breeze wash over his skin.

He flicked his eyes over to the door only to see the dark living room and a little standing fan rotate, the source of the cooler breeze on his skin cooler breeze.

He felt his mouth open slightly, awestruck that it had worked, unintentionally, but it had worked! Maybe it was the word? He would have to investigate later, because right now he had to go steal from old Miss Fig.

He carefully moved across the carpeted floor, not very worried about where he placed his feet, the carpet was less noisy than the old wood floor he had in his little cupboard.

Once across the living room he was faced with his biggest challenge, tile flooring and the door.

More than grateful that he was wearing socks, he softly put his weight on a foot that he had moved onto the tile flooring. Carefully he moved his other foot onto the floor and slowly put more pressure on it, evening his weight out once again.

Never lifting his feet up, he glided on the tile silently until he reached the door. He timidly reached out and touched the brass knob. Frantically looking around just to make sure, he opened the door, mindful not to close it all the way and made a beeline down the street and towards Miss Fig's house.

He was panting lightly when he had reached Miss Fig's house and most importantly, the garbage. Not wanting to alert the nosey neighborhood that he was up and about at this time of night, he slowly reached out and removed the top from the plastic garbage can.

He had to stand on his tiptoes to even get close to the top of the garbage can but he was only two, only a month a way from three and was too short to even peer down into the bin.

Suddenly arms wrapped around him and lifted him up. He almost cried out as his arms continued to flail, but a soothing voice that he recognized shushed him.

"Shh, Harry, it's alright, just tell me, what do you want with Miss Fig's garbage?" His aunt asked softly. He almost didn't believe it was her, but that voice did indeed belong to his one and only aunt. The only problem? She had never been this nice before, it scared him.

"No, no, don't be scared, just please answer the question my little nephew." She made another soothing noise as he whimpered in confusion and fear.

"S-she threw out a perfectly good dictionary and I wanted it…she wasn't going to use it! That's why she was throwing it out! I know it's not nice but!" He fumbled in trying to explain to his aunt that he was a good kid and that Miss Fig didn't want it or need it or else she wouldn't be throwing it out.

His aunt sighed lightly. "Don't worry, Vernon is not around you have nothing to fear alright? Now, let me lift you up and you can rummage through the garbage. But don't make this a regular thing okay?" He nodded quickly, all the more willing to please his aunt now.

As he was lifted he saw several books just thrown away on top of half eaten food. He spotted the book he had been eyeing. Snatching it up, his eyes were drawn to two more books that he desperately wanted.

"Aunt, can I take two more books?" With a soft yes from his aunt he grabbed the other two books and clutched his three books to his chest.

Finally he could understand his letters and all of those waiting for him in the shed.

As he and his aunt walked back to the house, he got to know his aunt a little better and understand her a little more, it made accepting the truth about his uncle and cousin all the more easier, they may not love him or want him, but his aunt held affection for him and that was one more person than what he had before.

When he was once again locked in his cupboard he thought of what he could do that would be 'bad' enough for him to be banished to the shed but not so much that it would cause him too much pain.

He fell asleep with Slytherin like plans floating in his head.


Two more letters were delivered to the boy-who-lived but instead of the shed where all the others ended up, the owls easily slipped into an open window and slid the letters under the cupboard door under the stairs.


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Later loves! hugs and kisses for all those who review.