I don't own anything, just having fun. This chapter contains the spanking of a child. This does not endorse endorse the author's views on spanking, it just feels like this is what would have happened.
The next day began in much the same way, with Harry bathing in the largest bathtub he had ever seen, enjoying the warm suds and being able to feel very clean. He slipped into his clothes, tightened the belt to keep the pants on, and was ready to go downstairs. He made his way down to the kitchen, looking around at the pictures on the walls. He had never seen pictures move before, and he couldn't figure out if the people were real or if it was like a movie.
"Good morning, young master," a young shepherdess greeted Harry.
"I'm Harry Potter," he introduced himself.
"Harry Potter! Here, at Spinner's End?" a robed wizard in another picture exclaimed. "Merlin's beard!"
The paintings were whispering to each other excitedly, quickly passing around the information and buzzing excitedly. Why did people know his name? Snape thought he was a celebrity too, and Harry felt strangely that everyone seemed to know more about him than he did. He briefly wondered if this were some sort of reality tv show, but dismissed that idea. Nobody would believe this.
"Talking to your adoring crowds?" a silky, dangerous voice from behind him asked.
"Are they real, sir, or like a movie?" Harry asked him.
"They are real, more or less," Snape answered him. "It's breakfast time."
Harry ate the porridge with gusto, though trying not to wolf it down like before. He ate the toast with jam and fruit too, happy to eat a breakfast he hadn't cooked and he was allowed to eat.
"Today I would like you to read the introductory chapter in three of the first-year books; potions, herbology and the history of magic. I will try and get you some primary school materials as well, but I think that it is never too early to get started on your Hogwarts books. I want a twelve inch essay on each of those introductions."
"Yes, sir."
"I have left you everything you need on the desk in your room. You can commence your work as soon as breakfast is over."
"Will you be gone all day, sir?" Harry asked quietly.
"Yes, I told you that," Snape replied impatiently. "If you need anything, ask Treadle. He is in charge of looking after you. Now, I need to leave or I will be late."
Snape hurried off, black robes flapping and case in his hand. "Hogwarts, Professor Snape's Laboratory," he announced loudly, throwing down some powder. Harry coughed a bit at the smoke, but then returned to finishing his breakfast. If you had told him two days ago that seeing people disappear into fireplaces was going to become a regular event, he would never have believed it. Now, it seemed so unremarkable that it didn't interrupt him eating toast.
"Get to work on your schoolwork," Treadle barked at him. "I knows the schedule, boy, and Master Snape 'spects me to keep tae it."
Nodding, Harry took the last piece of toast with him and walked up to his room. WIthout the presence of the Professor, the house seemed very quiet. He could hear Treadle grumbling as he cleared the dishes, and he was glad to not be with him all morning.
Harry found a stack of the schoolbooks on a bookshelf above his desk, and he found the three that the professor had told him to start on. Though some of the reading was a bit slow due to large words that he didn't understand, he found that he was able to mostly get through the introduction to the History of Magic. Okay, now to write the essay. Harry had to admit that he didn't really know how to write an essay, but in his class he had been working on writing paragraphs, so maybe it was something like that? Hunting around the desk, Harry couldn't find any notebooks or pens, but he did find stiff, funny-looking paper and feathers. Looking carefully, he saw that the feathers had been cut at the point, and he wondered if this might be for writing like he had seen in old movies. Dipping the feather in the ink, he found that it did hold the ink, but then when he reached it to the paper it didn't seem to work for him at all. The ink smeared and nobody could tell what he was going to write. Frustrated, Harry realized that he didn't even know how to use pens in this place!
Harry thought for a moment, and then remembered that he had a pencil stub in the pants he had worn yesterday, left over from school. He had been in the habit of collecting pencil stubs at school so that he wouldn't have to ask Petunia for more pencils. Hurriedly, he found the stub in his pocket, and began to write the essay. He assumed that twelve inches would be with normal handwriting, so he estimated what he thought looked like twelve inches and then wrote about what he had read in the book. Happy to be succeeding, he did this with each of the other books as well. When he had finished, his stomach growled as he realized that it was time for lunch. Stacking his three essays together and replacing the books on the shelf, he ran downstairs to see what Treadle was cooking for lunch.
Treadle had the table set for him, and Harry eagerly sat down. On his place instead of a sandwich or soup like he was hoping for, there were three large earthworms still wriggling. Harry jumped, backing away, and looked at Treadle. Treadle glared back.
"I knows who you are, Harry Potter," he said, his voice dripping venom. "And I know who you killed. The master said I had to feed you, he did not say what."
"I, I can get my own lunch," Harry bravely told him.
"If I catch ye in mys kitchen, I will beat ye," Treadle told him firmly.
Harry believed him, and realized that he was not going to be getting lunch that day. Though his stomach rumbled, he knew he would be fine. It was a rare day indeed at the Dursleys that he would get three meals a day, so he was very used to making due.
"I will go into the yard, then," Harry told Treadle, backing away as if Treadle was a mad dog. "Professor Snape said to do that."
Harry then explored the yard, his stomach rumbling, wishing there was a vegetable garden or something out there.
When Snape returned that afternoon, he saw that the boy was playing in the yard quietly and smiled to himself. Maybe this was going to work after all.
"Mr. Potter," he called. "Go and fetch your work for me to see."
Harry, startled at the call, scampered inside and up to his room. He was eager for the Professor to see his work, he knew he had been at the top of his class and wanted to show the professor. But when he got to his desk, the essays he had worked so hard on were not in the place he had left them. Panicked, Harry searched the sides and behind the desk, and then looked around for where else they could be. The room answered back, bare and empty, and he knew that they were gone.
"Problems, Potter?" a silky, menacing voice sounded behind him. Whirling, Harry came face to face with a very angry Snape.
"They aren't here . . ." Harry started, gulping in fear.
"So, you decided that my assignments were optional, did you? That you had no reason to respect the work I asked you to do?"
"I did it!" Harry argued frantically. "I did all three! They were right here on my desk!"
"And you expect me to believe that we've been burgled? That someone has made off with your essays and nothing else?"
"I don't know!" Harry yelled back hotly. "This is your house!"
"So, it turns out that you are a lay-about and a liar. Treadle told me you were playing and wasting time instead of working. And Treadle also informs me that you were too picky as to eat any of the lunch he prepared for you."
"Do you know what he made me for lunch?"
"I am sorry it was not up to your exacting standards," Snape replied. He caught Harry's wrist in his hand and pulled Harry's desk chair out with the other one. Seating himself on the chair, he smoothly put Harry between his legs, pulling him over one knee and trapping his legs under the other. He locked the other arm around Harry's waist, holding him firmly. Harry could do nothing to fight back.
"This is the punishment for lying and disobedience in my house," Snape growled at him. "If someone had done this to your father at your age it would have done him a lot of good."
Harry, panicking at what he guessed was about to happen, struggled in Snape's grip and tried to protest. "I did it! I swear! I don't know what happened! Please, don't!" The Dursleys had of course hit him often, leaving him bruised and welted afterwards, but they had never put him over their knee like this. Was this going to be worse?
"This will teach you to respect me!" Snape growled, smacking Harry's backside sharply with his hand. Harry cried out, and soon his protests dissolved into sobs as the Professor's hand smacked his bottom sharply for a total of ten times.
"You will stay in your room the rest of the evening," Snape announced as he released the child. "I expect you to be working on the work I assigned, and I expect it to be done before bed."
Harry hiccupped in response, nodding, trying to get control of his sobs.
"This will happen every time you lie to me, young man," he growled again. "There will be no disobedience in this house. Now get to work."
After the professor left, Harry continued to sob to himself. Curling up on his bed, he rubbed his stinging backside and cried at the unfairness of it all. Oh, where had his essay gone? It must have been Treadle, he decided. The Professor didn't seem the sort to steal his work, and he had been quite upset that Harry hadn't done the work. And Treadle seemed to have it out for him in not feeding him, so apparently he was trying to get Harry in trouble in other ways as well. He didn't have the expectation that adults would believe him or to treat him well, but he had had such hope that this home could be different . . . oh well. He wanted to curl up and sleep again as he had yesterday, but he knew that he had to rewrite those essays. He did not want to risk another spanking. Though, he thought to himself judiciously, it was not as bad as it could have been. True, the professor's hand was as hard and firm as a paddle, but he had in fact not given him an overly harsh punishment. The Dursleys usually left marks on him, he knew this spanking wouldn't. The punishment had been unjust, but not cruel.
Wiping his eyes and trying to resign himself to his work, Harry sat up gently on his sore backside and then gingerly sat down on his desk chair. The sting was already fading, though he would feel it at least a bit for the rest of the evening. Sighing, he pulled out more of the strange paper, found his pencil stub, and began work. Surprised and grateful when a cup of warm tea and a biscuit appeared a short time later, he happily set to his work. Apparently being sent to your room did not mean that you starved.
Snape settled to his tea downstairs more unsettled than he had expected to be. True he had spanked his share of children, usually first year Slytherins; they typically got smart enough not to cross him after that. And he had expected to feel a large amount of satisfaction in spanking this particular child - the spawn of James Potter. And although the idea had sounded good, in reality the child's insistence on his innocence rankled Snape in a way that he didn't understand. And he also had been so upset at being spanked that Snape had actually stopped several swats before he normally would have. Perhaps it was just that the boy was so young, he told himself. Three years before he could even be a first year.
By the time Harry's teacup disappeared and his dinner of pot roast with potatoes and carrots appeared, he was most of the way through his third essay. Because he had already done them once, he found doing them again to be much easier. He even thought the finished essays were much improved over his last ones, and hoped that the Professor would be at least a little impressed with them.
When he finished, he neatly stacked the essays and then looked around for something to do. He was not letting those essays leave his sight until the Professor saw them, and he couldn't leave the room anyway. He figured that he might as well get a jump on the next chapter in his schoolbooks, so he took out the Potions book and began reading.
Around bedtime, a knock on the door proceeded the Professor entering.
"Still doing your reading for your essays?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I finished the essays," Harry explained, motioning to the essays on the desk. "I'm reading ahead."
Snape looked at the essays in surprise, he hadn't expected the child to have enough time to finish them. But there they were, though the words were so slight as to be hardly legible.
"Why did you not use the quill and ink provided to you?" he asked in surprise.
"I couldn't get it to work for me," Harry explained, "I had a pencil stub with me, so I used that."
"I see we need to add quill practice to your list of assignments," Snape observed. "It takes some patience to master, but it is what you'll be using at Hogwarts, so it is good to learn now."
"Yes, sir."
The professor picked up the essays, and read them through quickly. Harry shifted nervously as he did so, hoping that they would impress him. He squirmed a bit more, absently rubbing his bottom a bit as he did so, though the pain was all but gone.
"These are an adequate start," the Professor told him, setting them down again on the table. "But you have very far to go. I expect your penmanship to improve as well, Mr. Potter. It is time now for you to go to bed, I expect you to brush your teeth and then be in bed."
"Good night, sir," Harry told him, trying not to show his disappointment in the Professor's evaluation of his work.
Snape nodded in response, and then closed the door as he left. He had expected the boy to be sulking and uncooperative, but instead he had finished the work set to him and was actually reading ahead. Apparently he had at least done the reading for the essays, even if he hadn't written them. And the work wasn't bad for his age either, he had had worse essays from first years.