1Authors note: thank you to all of you who reviewed :) - as I should say I do not own any rights to characters etc. :)

Chapter 2

Harry rose to his feet, breathing in deeply, trying not to humiliate himself further in front of his dreaded teacher. He could feel Snape's unmoving gaze on him. Watching for anything he can make fun of, thought Harry angrily. When he was on his feet, he just stood staring at what he thought was Snape.

"Potter I am over here" sneered Snape, from somewhere to Harry's left.

"My glasses are broken." pointed out Harry as he turned trying to locate Snape.

"Repairo" came Snape's voice as Harry's glasses, that were hanging off his ears, had now fixed themselves back to new, balancing on the bridge of his nose. And Harry could finally see around him. He stood in the middle of a small room, there was a window in the wall facing him, with a desk and chair underneath. To his left was a dark green sofa, the only bit of colour in this bleak room. To his right was a fire place with a big clock on the mantle. Snape stood in front of him, his arms folded across his chest, he was wearing his black teaching robes and his hair fell around his face. Harry felt a bit out of place, battered and bruised, wearing Dudley's massive hand-me-downs that had big rips in, showing the bruises underneath. Harry looked up suddenly feeling uncomfortable, realizing how close to Snape he was stood. Mindlessly he took a step backwards from his potions professor. Snape's eyes narrowed fixing Harry with a glare.

After a silent moment of the pair staring at each other, Snape disappeared out of a door behind him. Harry looked up at the clock on the mantle, wanting to know what time it was, as he was having trouble keeping his eyes open, 6pm it read. Footsteps could be heard getting closer to the room, and Snape reappeared, caring a mixture of potions in his arms.

"Here potter drink these" said Snape, thrusting bottles in to Harry's hands. Harry just stood there dumbfounded. Was Snape trying to poison him? Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Its not poisonous boy" he sneered reading Harry's mind.

Harry hesitated once more before gulping down the potions. He had to do his best not to gag, they tasted disgusting!

"Are you hungry?" asked Snape when Harry had finished. It took Harry a couple of minutes to decide that after all that had happened, he wasn't really hungry anymore, just tired.

"No" replied Harry.

"No what?" demanded Snape.

"No thanks?" asked a confused Harry.

"Here in my own home Potter, you will address me as sir or professor, is that understood?" sneered Snape.

"Yes Sir" Harry stated sarcastically, Snape raised an eyebrow but did nothing about it.

"Follow me" ordered Snape as he turned around and walked out the door. "Now Potter" Slowly Harry moved to the doorway to find Snape staring at him from halfway down a long corridor. Snape continued to walk down the corridor, Harry had to race to catch him up as he had started to walk up a grand staircase. At the top was another long corridor that had a lot of closed doors along it. Only one door was open and from what Harry could see it was the bathroom.

Snape stopped directly outside of a door, that looked identical to all the rest, at the end of the corridor. He opened it, swinging the door wide open. Harry peered in. Inside next to a wall was a bed, there was a wardrobe in one corner and a desk and chair in another. The curtains were pulled tightly over the windows making the room dark. The room was decked out in slytherin colours, which was so typical of Snape, thought Harry.

"You are to stay in here for now." Snape told Harry. "You are not to go into any other rooms apart from this one and the bathroom. You will find a change of clothes in the wardrobe, I expect you down for breakfast at 7am exactly or you will not get anything. Any questions?" rushed Snape trying to get out of there as fast as he could. He needed to contact Dumbledore.

"What happens now professor?" asked Harry biting his lip, as he looked up at the foreboding man.

"Potter I am not a seer, I cannot predict the future, what happens now is entirely up to Dumbledore." replied Snape sounding annoyed. Harry just nodded looking dejected, since Snape had rescued him, he had allowed himself some hope of never having to go back to the Dursley's again, but if it was up to Dumbledore then there was no doubt that he was going back, Dumbledore obviously knew what was going on, and must have thought it was okay, otherwise he surely wouldn't send him back time and time again, would he?

Snape was just glaring at him, so he took his cue and walked into the guest room. Snape shut the door behind him and walked off down the hall, he had a few fire calls to make.

Harry slowly walked around the room, taking in its size, colour and furniture, stopping at the bed and sitting down. It was soft and so soothing against his sore skin. On the pillow Harry found a pair of black pyjamas. He changed quickly, not wanting to look at the damage his uncle had caused. He sunk under the duvet. Soon his tiredness over powered him and he fell into a fit full sleep.

Snape paced back into the living room, where he and Harry had been a few moments ago, in time to see the headmasters face in the fire place.

"Severus I need to speak to you." ordered Dumbledore, as he disappeared without hearing Snape's reply. He sighed inwardly, knowing somehow that he was in trouble with the headmaster. He grabbed some floo powder and emerged in the headmasters office.

"Take a seat" Dumbledore said sternly. Snape did as he was told, taking a seat in front of the headmasters desk. "Severus" Dumbledore started. "I told you to check on Harry, not to remove him from a safe environment. Where is the lad now?"

"He is resting in my guest room at the moment. He was not in a safe environment! How can you say being with that animal of an uncle as safe, I certainly don't want to be anywhere that you deem safe" retorted Snape.

"What are you talking about Severus. He is perfectly safe with the muggle family, they look after him." said Dumbledore confused. Snape's gaze narrowed on the headmaster. Dumbledore was either in favor of child abuse or simply didn't know what was happening to Potter, which most certainly happened in the past thought Snape, no wonder the boy was so thin. Snape doubted that Dumbledore agreed with child abuse, so it was clear he must not know.

" you do not know of the boys situation?" asked Snape.

"Situation?" Dumbledore's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"His uncle beats the him senseless, Potter is a case of child abuse, how could you of all people not know that? Asked Snape becoming angry. It was times like this that made him relise the all powerful Dumbledore, really wasn't all that powerful.

"You found the lad being hit by his uncle and so you rescued him?" Dumbledore said trying to make sense of it, how could he have missed this? Dumbledore's eyes changed potraying his true feelings of sorrow.

"Yes" replied Snape quietly.

"May I see the memory?" asked Dumbledore. Snape looked blank, he didn't really want to re-watch the memory, it brought back far too painful memories for him. "Please Severus I need to see this." Snape nodded and Dumbledore waved his wand, summoning his pensive on to the space on his desk. Snape pressed the tip of his wand to his temple, slowly tugging a thin, silvery substance out. He lowered it into the pensive on the desk where is swirled ominously. Dumbledore just stared at it, breathing slowly tyring to calm himself down, readying himself for what he was about to see, it was going to be bad if it made Snape take Harry back to his home.

"Would you a company me Severus?" He asked.

Snape sighed, he knew that was coming. He nodded at the headmaster and rose to his feet. Dumbledore took one last deep breathe and plunged into the memory closely followed by Snape.

Snape didn't concentrate on what was going on around him, he knew it all too well, the memory of a very vulnerable Potter had played around his mind many times while he dealt with the real Potter. Instead he concentrated on Dumbledore's expression. A fixed straight face, the entire way through. Only his eyes, giving away his true emotions, becoming sadder by every passing second the memory continued.

When the memory Snape had interrupted the scene, Dumbledore spoke up.

"Enough" He whispered hoarsely, only loud enough that Snape only just heard. Dumbledore exited the memory with Snape in tow.

The headmaster sat down heavily in his chair, looking older then he had ever done. All Snape could see when he was looking at him, was a weakened old man he truly was.

"Potter asked me what happens now, and now I also find myself wanting to know. What happens now, headmaster? Are you going to send him back?" asked Snape.

"Send him back? Do you really think of me as a monster, Severus, that was capable of doing that? No, he'll have to go somewhere else, only now I've got the problem of where." replied Dumbledore tiredly. "There is 6 weeks of summer left."

"couldn't he go to the burrow?"

"No the Weaslys have taken a trip abroad this summer to vist relatives."

"Miss Granger then? I'm sure she'd taken him in."

"Miss Granger is doing a muggle thing called skiing in the french Alps. No there is nobody left." replied Dumbledore. An awkward silence settled between the two. Snape shifted awkwardly in his chair, Dumbledore was staring at him intently.

"Are you okay, headmaster?" He asked.

"What would you say to having Harry stay at you home this summer? You can teach him occlumency, which he needs to learn, and I you would be doing me a favor?" asked Dumbledore. Snape just looked at him, appalled.

"How can you even ask me to have that brat staying in MY house? Its not just their holiday headmaster it is mine to and I am not having it ruined by that Potter!" yelled Snape.

"Severus, just think about what you promised Lily,"came Dumbledore's reply.

"Don't you start that one!" yelled Snape getting angrier. Dumbledore looked sternly at him.

"You have to teach him occlumency what ever, so whether you would like to stay at home and teach him, or you will have to come back to hogwarts to teach him, because here is where he will end up. You are not getting out of teaching him" said Dumbledore. Snape just glared, angry at being ordered about. "I take it you are staying at home. Thank you Severus. You may leave now."

Snape got up and passed through the floo. Back in his own home he sighed loudly. He crossed over to the desk, opening up a draw and pulling out a glass and bottle of fire whiskey and pouring himself some. He sat down heavily in an arm chair, dreading the up coming weeks. Teaching Potter occlumency was going to be hard, he thought to himself. He sat there until the early morning. Little did he know upstairs where Potter was a sleep, all was not well.

Authors note: hey, hope you enjoyed it :) please review! I'd love to know what you all think! :D