I hope you like this chapter, it's nice and long.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, they are J. K. Rowlings.
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Harry turned towards him in surprise, but Snape was already walking into the house with Támera at his heels.
She turned to Harry and barked happily, wagging her tail like it was playtime.
Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked inside the door.
"Bathroom is the third door on the left," Severus called from the kitchen with Támera and her curious nose at his heels.
He must be making something, Harry mused as he heard the slight clatter of pans, It better not be poisoned.
He walked slowly inside the house, looking about and noticing the mess.
Dirty plates were all over the dining room stacked on side tables, the fireplace, and even on top of couches and chairs.
The dining room was connected to the kitchen, part of a wall and a bar table separated them to where Snape could watch Harry's curious scrutiny.
Harry continued past the dining room and the kitchen to the hallway.
Some clothes were caught under the cracks of closed doors and some were in the walkway where he had to step over them.
The third door.
Harry opened it, expecting a cramped space with mold and a rusty tub.
He was surprised.
The bathroom was enormous, and not only that, but perfectly spotless.
Harry grunted in amusement; Sure shows where their priorities lie. It's definitely better than them not having any hygiene.
It was bigger than Harry's bedroom; a large bathtub was in the corner and looked to have power-jets, the ceiling was high and made of glass, he could see the stars.
Turning the nozzle to as hot as he could stand, Harry went to the sink to wash his face.
It was flower-shaped.
Harry snorted, this was too funny.
He took off his glasses, laid them on the counter, and picked up the soap; wet it under a small stream of water, and worked up lather.
Harry was about to snort again, but the lavender-smelling soup was fitting with the flower-shaped sink.
Lavender soap.
A flash of memory crossed his mind.
A completely white-marble bathroom softly lit by a candle-filled chandelier; a swimming-pool bath in the middle of the floor with about a hundred golden taps surrounding it, different colored jewels in each handle.
Harry shook his head.
Long, white, linen curtains. A golden-framed painting of a mermaid.
He shook his head, but this time more violently, sending soap suds flying. This memory had to stop. It could not progress.
A haunting mermaid tune.
This memory always ended the same way.
"He's dead!" "He's dead!" "Cedric Diggory! Dead!"
Harry gripped his head, the soap burning his eyes and the memories his soul.
"Stop…" he weakly whispered, still hearing the voices, the screams, the sobbing.
Tears mixed with the suds as Harry gripped at his hair, they had to go away.
"Kill the spare."
With shaky hands Harry grabbed madly for the sink handle, finding it quickly and turning it full blast he thrust his hands under and scrubbed brutally at his face, splashing the cold water everywhere.
Over, and over, and over until the suds were gone.
He gripped the edges of the sink with shaky arms and irregular breathes, his knuckles were white.
Harry opened his eyes, straining with the faint stinging and sudden light; everything was made clearer as he put his glasses back on.
He looked in the mirror and grimaced, he had scratch marks all over his face, and his eyes were red and puffy.
But the memories were gone.
Remembering his bath, Harry quickly shut off the taps, removed his dirty flannels and boxers, and climbed quickly into the bath after setting his glasses back on the sink.
Harry immediately sighed with contentment at the feel of hot, clean water against his dirty skin.
His eyes shot wide open, they had closed.
He never closed his eyes if he could help it.
The memories always made it past their doors when his eyes were closed.
Then he couldn't hold them back.
Harry leaned back against the tub and looked up through the glass ceiling to the blurry stars.
"They're really a marvel." Harry talked to himself, "Glistening and twinkling up there, looking down at us in our terrible ways."
His eyes clouded over.
"Murderous ways."
Harry blinked back to reality; he grabbed the nearest clean wash-cloth, chose some green-tea body wash and scrubbed at the dirt on his arms and legs and neck.
Petunia had him work in the flower-bed.
Harry grimaced, the flower-bed was almost impossible to de-weed and keep fertilized.
He had to go out there almost every day that summer.
Harry rinsed himself off with the water and dipped his head in, closing his eyes.
"Kill the spare."
His head shot up out of the water, gasping and sputtering with nearly-swallowed water, wiping desperately at his eyes so he could open them.
So he could come back to the world of now. The world where he wasn't in a graveyard, or in the Department of Mysteries, or an old classroom in Hogwarts, or the Chamber of Secrets.
But he was partly in a world of memories. A world where he was in a graveyard, and the Department of Mysteries, and an old Hogwarts classroom, and the Chamber of Secrets.
This world could be reached by just the closing of an eyelid or the flicker of a dream.
Harry was familiar with this world.
Blocking out these thoughts, Harry quickly un-plugged the tub and got out, wrapping a towel securely around his waist after rubbing his hair partly dry, making it stick up more than usual.
He put his glasses on and winced as the frame brushed against a rather nasty scrape.
Inspecting the other scrapes about his face, Harry grabbed his wand from the flannels on the floor and cast a quick glamour charm.
It was then that Harry noticed something.
"I have no clean clothes…"
He sighed.
Harry would have to ask Snape for some; he winced.
"It better not be one of his greasy robes." He muttered as he picked up the dirty clothes on the floor.
Harry opened the door nervously and bit his lip.
If he asked Snape for clean clothes…he would have to actually ask Snape…in a towel…
He even contemplated wearing his dirty ones.
Harry shook his head; he definitely wasn't wearing his dirty ones.
He stepped out of the bathroom, bundling his clothes across his chest to cover as much as possible, and walked carefully about the clothes that were strewn about.
Harry peered around the wall and saw Snape sitting at the bar with a cup of coffee.
Támera had a bowl of milk.
He blinked.
"That's weird…"
Snape turned, "What is?"
"U-uh…" Had he said that out loud?
He gestured to Támera lapping up her milk, "I thought cats like milk."
"Well, Támera used to eat whatever she was given and most of the time it was milk." Snape answered, taking a sip of coffee.
He gestured to the pot, "Want a cup?"
Harry shook his head, "Never took to coffee."
Not thinking of anything else to say, Severus turned back in his chair and continued to sip.
Harry shuffled his feet, readjusted the clothes in his arms and said, "Um…Sir? Snape. Do you have any …clothes…I could wear?" He kept his eyes on Támera, not able to look at his Professor; it was too awkward.
Severus set down his cup, "Yes, I um…" He cleared his throat and headed to a door around the bar and on the right side of the kitchen, "I have some that you would wear."
Harry followed him, keeping his eyes on the floor.
The door opened up to a staircase that led up to a hardly furnished bedroom.
A lumpy-looking mattress was in the corner and a small bathroom was off to the left.
The room was about ten by six feet.
It made Harry feel claustrophobic, which reminded him of his cupboard.
He blinked furiously, willing the flashes of darkness and strained light to dissipate.
Snape had crossed the room to a suitcase with clothes neatly packed, and took out a dark pair of flannels and, surprisingly, a t-shirt.
"You may change in the bathroom." Snape said after handing them to him, "I'm going to finish my coffee and decide where you'll sleep. "God knows who would send you back to that dreadful house." He scoffed, grimacing at the image of the Dursley's as human-pigs.
"Um…Professor?" Harry asked, seeing something missing.
Snape turned to him, "yes?"
Harry gestured to his clean clothes, "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Hm? Oh…" He went back to his suitcase and rummaged around awhile, scoffing here and there.
Harry had to smirk.
"Here." He said, forcefully handing Harry a pair of yellow Chudley Cannon boxers.
Harry's smirk grew.
Snape scowled, "One word of this Potter…" he let the threat hang, and Harry's imagination could do the rest.
Snape stalked down the stairs and back to the kitchen.
Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
Snape, greasy-haired, vulture-teacher Snape…owned a pair of yellow Chudley Cannon boxers.
He quickly hurried to the bathroom to change before he woke the whole neighborhood up with laughter.
Ron would just die right now, Harry thought as he changed; still smiling.
Coming out of the bathroom feeling refreshed, Harry rolled his dirty clothes up in his towel and headed down the stairs.
Snape was at the kitchen sink rinsing out his coffee cup and Támera's milk bowl; he looked up at the sound of the door closing, then turned back to the dishes, putting them in the dish-washer and wiping his hands off on a towel when he was done.
"Well, Potter. All the bedrooms are occupied, so you have two choices: One, you sleep on the couch in the dining room; which you won't get much sleep on because the aurors always wake up extremely early, they do have other work to do. Two, you sleep in a made-up bed in my room."
Harry contemplated both; he certainly didn't want Snape sleeping in the same room, that would be too strange.
"I'll take the couch."
Snape nodded, "There's a blanket in the closet." Hemotioned in the direction of a small door in the dinning room and headed off to his room.
"Thanks."
Severus turned and nodded, then opened the door and motioned for Támera.
She whined.
Snape sighed, "You can stay down here if you want."
She panted in delight and ran over to Harry, licking his hand with vigor.
Harry chuckled and scratched her behind the ears, wiping off the slobber all over his hand with a napkin from the kitchen table.
Severus closed the door and walked back up the steps.
Harry smiled warmly at Támera and went to the closet, being sure to avoid dirty plates.
The closet was very full and abnormally big, it obviously had a spell on it to contain all the coats and cloaks on a bar, and the blankets on the racks above them.
Harry grabbed a big, wool blanket from the top and closed the door.
Támera was sitting patiently by the couch and panting happily; a stack of dirty plates beside her.
Harry scratched her behind the ears, "Did you move the plates off the couch for me?"
She licked his hand in response.
Harry smiled, pulled out his wand and made the couch bigger.
"C'mon Támera." He said, patting the couch beside him.
She leapt on the couch and circled so her back was to Harry.
He threw the blanket over them and sighed in contentment, this couch is comfortable…
"He's dead!" "He's dead!" "Cedric Diggory! Dead!"
Voices murmered, sobbing, screaming.
"Killed him…"
"Cedric's dead!"
"Killed him…"
"Kill the spare."
"I killed him."
Harry woke up with a jolt, breathing heavily and shaking.
He sighed with irritation.
Couldn't he ever get some sleep?
Harry knew that he couldn't get back to sleep, not after nightmares.
He blinked.
Snape lives here. Where there's Snape, there's sleeping drought.
Harry lifted himself out of the blanket, careful not to disturb Támera, and climbed over the back of the couch to the kitchen and the side door.
He opened it slowly and climbed the steps carefully.
Snape was asleep.
Remembering that Snape kept potions in the bathroom, Harry tip-toed to the open door and went inside.
He squinted and bent close to the labels, being just barely able to make them out.
Sleeping drought, sleeping drought…
Here it is!
He snatched the bottle and planned to explain to Snape in the morning why it was missing.
Harry made it back downstairs without a hitch, no stairs squeaked, no floor-boards groaned, and no doors spoke of his presence.
He slipped back under the covers and uncorked the vial, downing it quickly so the vile taste didn't linger.
Harry barely re-corked the vial and placed it on the table before his head hit the pillow and was out like a light.
A nagging sun aggravated his closed eyes, telling him to wake up and enjoy the new day.
Harry groaned, it felt as if he had hardly slept at all.
"Finally awake?" A slightly chuckling voice said from the direction of the kitchen, the sound of sizzling meats wafted up Harry's nose along with scrumptious biscuits.
He immediately woke up, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and propped himself up on his elbow to where he was peering over the armrest of the couch into the kitchen where a blurry figure was flipping the sausage and bacon.
He furrowed his brow, which auror did he know that had blond hair?
Harry reached over his head to the table, grabbed his glasses, and placed them securely on his face.
He still didn't recognize the person from the back of them.
It was then that someone else walked into the room.
They had their hair in a short pony-tail with grey streaks, they looked to be about fifty or so.
Something was oddly familiar about him…
"Ah, I see you're up, son." The man remarked as he poured himself coffee.
Did…did he just call Harry…?
"Yep, he just woke up a moment ago, dad." Remarked the blond from the kitchen, he turned to Harry.
"You really need to stop staying up so late, brother."
Harry couldn't speak…
His mouth opened and closed like he was a fish.
Why was Snape calling him son?
And why was Malfoy calling him brother?
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I felt so smart whenI thought of this.
I'll try to post the next chapter as soon as possible for me; I'm working to finish up another story, so I'm apologizing in advance if I don't update until after two days or so.