A special thank you to-

HogwartsRocks, Ginnylove9990, JulieSnape02, hazeldragon, cara-tanaka, rowanlyn-mirrim, Tariono4ka, 13AkiraKuranXIII, and kat.

{A/N: Hello again. I am so pleased to note the special reviews and the supporters who have made it possible for me to upload this more quickly. You are all a beautiful inspiration, and I will thank everyone personally, as well as publicly, via the uploads. I want to take a moment to remind readers, or, silly me, perhaps iterate a few items of importance, depending on the individual for the first time:

-This story will most likely have a mysterious base of a type, since I tend to like writing in that genre, with new information becoming true at periods. This means essentially, that questions about plot will come out chapter by chapter until we reach a resolution.

- The genre will remain as it is for now, but there will be no slash in this piece.

- In response to one of my reviewers, who kindly asked how Harry understands the concept of legilimency, please let me stress that although he is situated in the summer before his second year at Hogwarts, I am taking certain details fore granted. Not in a vulgar way, mind you. I simply mean that in a courtesy for the greater picture of this, I will take some liberties as the author. My primary goal will remain keeping the characters in canon, and staying true to the primary principles which makes Harry Potter the great series that it has become, in so many ways. If anyone has suggestions to help me towards this goal, they are wanted and loved =)

What will happen in the next chapter? I am pining for the Snape-cat once again. He does suit this so well, don't you think?

Until then . . .

Disclaimer: None of this is mine}

Chapter 2

Spin Away, With a Bat or Spider

Harry averted his eyes as soon as he saw the professor looming before him with great, big, bat arms, that spanned over his entire breadth, while he glanced in a fiery semblance of glinting blackness down his hooked nose. The nose was so large, dripping as would a heavy glacier in its arc, blatantly bringing Harry back into Hogwarts so that his fingers curled in the same way they always did when he had been underneath that boring gaze. Harry gulped, not wanting to push back the notion of being within that castle, terrified that he would be enabled to view what was before him. The arms were no longer little paws- this was the man who would make him quake, and yet he found himself to be mesmerized by the professor's fury. He tried to focus on being in Hogwarts now, while all of these confusing feelings filled him up, threatening to choke off his airway. He tried desperately to grasp whatever memories were evoked by the professor's presence so that he did not have to see the real Professor Snape.

"Potter, remove all of these imbecilic notions from your mind," Snape said coldly, although Harry was put under the impression that he was rather bored. "I am not going to hex you, tempting as that idea is. Unfortunately, you and I are not in the best position for such to take place," he sneered. A vein in his temple twitched.

"Sir, how did you get here?" Harry asked. He had a million questions for his professor at the moment, but the most prominent in his mind, was why this, strange occurrence, was happening. He watched the professor with a minute eye for detail, without actually looking him in the face. The professor stood stoic, and straight-backed, but Harry was under the distinct impression that such a man as this would not . . . be totally privy to anything except for the best ways in which to wreak his revenge, for, after all, Harry himself had healed him. Maybe such wouldn't be the case, though. Perhaps he would be completely, and absolutely grateful. Really?

"My aunt does always cackle like a chicken professor," he voiced, while his eyes fell to the ground beneath him. What exactly possessed him to say that he really had no idea, but still- the professor had asked him, hadn't he?

"Potter, I really had no idea," he said, rather dryly. Harry glanced up rather quickly. Essentially the professor had said something that he really didn't understand. He might have been joking. Professor Snape didn't joke.

"No, Potter, that was not a joke," Snape said, sounding very angry for some strange reason. "I might add, that when you healed me last night, you might have used something stronger than Neosporin." The voice, a deep, rumbling bass, trembled through Snape and met Harry's ears. Snape did not say a word, for several minutes.

"Strange, Potter," he said, causing Harry to glance up. "How strange, indeed," he said, enumerating the last word silkily, even in a nefarious way somehow. "I had no idea," the words slowed now, "that you, the Boy-Who-Lived, was so tired of not being brave." Harry was truly confused now. A vein in Snape's temple throbbed dangerously, so he smelled danger, but he didn't know what to do about it.

"You were hurt, Professor!" he practically yelled, at last. "What was I supposed to do?" He might have handled this better without the last phrase, but, really, there could not have been a solution to his predicament. Adding or taking away words with the potions master. Ron would have been laughing his head off. Of course, if Ron could see him now then, truly, he probably wouldn't have believed it. To Harry's utter and complete horror, Snape drew the vision of a long, stick out of his pocket. It was not a vision though. Snape really planned to hex him into next week. Oh, why, had he picked up that cat? Better to have just left it to- Snape's own devices. When the wand was halfway into the air, the long hand paused. Harry was reminded of a spider, creeping up to its web, but finding some prey to catch beneath it.

"Yes, Potter. I was hurt," he said strangely. "And you brought me into a house where I am an unwelcome guest." He smiled unpleasantly." Harry gulped.

"Harrrry!" He winced painfully. Some quick thinking was required, if he planned to have a way out of this current nightmare. How he had allowed this to occur was a total and abject mystery to him. Snape's smile grew.

"Get out here, boooy!" Harry's entire face turned a deep, almost purplish, shade of red. He was so embarrassed.

"I'll be there in a minute!" He yelled back. Then he shot Snape a glare. "If you'll excuse me for a minute, Professor," he said, deliberately emphasizing the last word, "I really need to go do my chores. If I don't then neither of us will get anything to eat later." Snape brushed a lanky strand of oily hair away from his face.

"Potter, dealing with those muggles is not your concern. I will deal with them, and then we will leave this house." Harry shook his head.

"But I have to stay here." He looked at Snape, for a minute, as though he thought him insane. "What will Professor Dumbledore think?" A tick in Snape's jaw became prominent.

"I would in no way dispute such, Potter!" He spat. "I do not take issue with Professor Dumbledore." His eyes narrowed at Harry, but Harry did not say anything in return. But, he felt daring. And well he tried to turn the conversation.

"Will you turn into a cat again, Professor?" He smiled, just a little and thinly veiled, without enough humor to let it show.

"Boooy!" Footsteps thundered down the hall towards his bedroom. Harry involuntarily stepped back as a meaty fist was raised to his bedroom door, as though he could see that hammer.

"Step back, Potter," Snape ordered. Harry clearly saw the lines of Professor Snape's poignantly , harshly etched features as he rose to his full height, wincing in a nearly imperceptible, what appeared to be a quick blink, his robes molding into a bat now in every fantasy that Harry had ever wished, or not wanted fulfilled while he essentially became a book figure. He did not think that vampires really existed in the magical realm, but this particular phenomenon proved something that Harry did not fully understand in that moment. The thunderous sound of the clock ticking on his bedroom wall gave him a sense that time hung in the air only for them. He shrank back behind the bedpost as the door slammed open.

Uncle Vernon barreled through more quickly than such a fat, overweight man should have been able to roll, but he nevertheless went through the frame in a cantankerous manner. The clothes he wore dripped in a singularly funny fashion, as though even in his business attire the man knew little about size, or that of his own, the shiny buttons on the front nearly bursting in a pretty array of gold splitting at his stomach. Small pants cut off above shiny gold and silver shoes completed the picture of an overweight, glorified man with a sense of style, with a twitching mustache that was so well defined. Harry knew he had spent over an hour shaving it into that perfect bow shape.

"Where are you, boy?" His beady eyes rove around the room like a whizzing fly before they landed on Harry. "Your aunt has been calling you for over an hour, she says." The two mean little, fervently moving marbles narrowed. "What have you been doing, eh?" Harry thought that he could smell a sweat scent, such as perfume, clinging to his uncle. Perhaps he had bought, a new type of cologne when he had visited the new-minted, what those on Adwood, Boulevard, called a 'fresh scent, as shiny as a new minted penny,' store. The thought was hilarious. He wanted to burst out in raucous laughter at the exact moment the smell reached his nose, but then Uncle Vernon spotted something else- Professor Snape, standing in his room.

Immediately, without even taking the time to assess the situation, Uncle Vernon pointed a fat finger at the black-clothed man crying,

"You- it's one of your lot!" His voice shook with imminent anger, although whatever that promised, Harry knew would not work in his uncle's favor. His flabby face suffused with a dark purpling that swept through his body even to his hands, which shook, he continued speaking, while Harry himself watched Snape with interest. Words rolled out of the man's mouth almost incoherently, and Severus Snape had a bored expression merely resting upon his face. "How dare you- come in here- and try to take my nephew . . . you can have him as far as we're concerned. Petunia and I cared for him, took him in as our own, and what did we get for it? Some ruddy owls. And then a giant something or other took him- said he was a- what do you call that- never saw anything less normal- " Suddenly Uncle Vernon stopped talking, although his mouth moved up and down like a rogue fish, gasping out of the water. Harry looked up at Snape and realized that he had silenced his uncle with a silent charm of some kind. Uncle Vernon grabbed his throat with both of his hands, shooting the professor a hateful glare.

"Listen to me, muggle," Snape said boredly. "It matters little whether or not you actually have any interest in keeping Mr. Potter under your roof, or why you have taken him." He cast Harry himself a spiteful look, but Harry barely paid any attention to him. He now observed the interaction with great interest, as his uncle's face changed skin color almost completely. He would have burst out laughing if the situation were not so serious. "I was sent here as a cat on Professor Dumbledore's orders, so as to assist in protecting Potter from danger that he perceives will fall upon him this year," Snape sneered. Harry looked at Snape curiously. "Un-fortunately," he continued softly, his eyes pinned on Harry now, causing Harry to swallow as those dark tunnels bored into him, "this plan seems to have backfired, to an extent." Although he waited with baited breath for further information, Snape did not explain. "In light of this Potter will be forced to come with me in order to escape your good graces." He flicked his wand once more, and drew himself up to his full height.

"Vernon? Who are you talking to?" Aunt Petunia had sidled into the room behind her husband. Her wild, frizzy hair tamed into a prim bun that did nothing to make her appear like a beautiful muggle with all of their hair-products and creams, the mousy look about her face and that mess on her head without any color, a pale frizz that fell short of a greater attempt, her face enduring a suspicion, caused Harry to once again muffle his imprudent laughter.

"No one, Petunia. Just this bloke who's going to take the boy from us," he said, his voice inundated with a glee that would be hard to decipher to any other observer, but Harry understood the rapid change in his uncle's demeanor. When she came into view of the professor, she cried,

"You!" Her face suddenly went pale.

"Me." Snape sneered. Harry glanced between them curiously. Recognition in his aunt's eyes mirrored that in Snape's except for the fact that the potions master held a hatred that was indecipherable, alighting his entire face, making him seem nearly demonic. Harry had seen that look on his face only when directed towards himself, but in his mind, the fire in his eyes now had been enhanced tenfold. He despised her clearly, and deeply. A silence almost too heavy to be born settled over the room for a few malicious moments.

"I thought you were one of them," she hissed finally.

"You were correct," Snape said, in a soft voice, which glistened with danger. Harry could nearly see it hanging in the air, like a snake poised for attack. He turned, ignoring Harry's aunt and uncle swiftly, as though he had eliminated them both from the conversation. His eyes locked onto Harry, who met his gaze evenly now, his head spinning.

"Come, Potter." His mouth felt dry, like a burnt piece of toast lingering upon his tongue.

"But my trunk, and my owl."

"Accio Potter's trunk!" Snape spat. A moment later, the trunk came zooming toward them. He turned toward Harry. "Free the owl from its cage. She will know where to find us." Nervously, he did as he was told. Hedwig had not been allowed out of her confines all summer, so he knew that at the very least, she would enjoy more than he was, about all of this . . .

He unlatched the window a few meters away, setting the door to the large cage beside it on its hinge. The amber eyes behind the bars glared at him suspiciously. It made him feel a little sad.

"Go on girl," he whispered. Then, as though afraid that he would change his mind, Hedwig hopped to the edge of her bar nearest the door, and flew out. She spread her wings past the barrier of his room on private drive, crossing the threshold of the small window, and soaring out into the bright, sunny morning. He watched her until she became a dot in the distance. Then he turned back around. Snape was watching him with a sour expression. He held out one of his swathed arms. Harry stared at him confused.

"Take my arm, Potter. We are going to apparate. If you've never done it before," he said snidely, "you are in for a treat." Harry's eyes darted between him and the Dursley's for a split second. Uncle Vernon's face was glowing with happiness. He took a deep breath, and then stuck one of his arms out, grasping the potions master tightly.

They were spinning . . .