In the morning while she was milking he walked around to the gate and went through it he stiffened as the dog ran up to him with a few loud barks sniffing him with stiff legs before barking again. He stepped forward and to his surprise the dog let him, trotting just in front of him. It kept looking back over his shoulder almost as if to make sure he was still following. at the dairy, the girl hadn't stopped working, with two more goats to go, she simply looked in his direction and arched an eyebrow. He stood and watched her work in silence as she occasionally spoke to the animal soothing it or scolding it when it moved. When she got up to empty the bucket he finally spoke to her.

"Where is the boy?"

She stopped and gave him an even look. "You should know; you've been watching long enough." Then she moved her stool to the next goat and continued working, not even looking in his direction. Too trusting for her own good he thought with a mental sneer, I could draw my wand or even a knife and she would be dead before she realised. He put a hand into his pocket to get the list of questions out and heard movement to one side of him putting a hand on his wand instead he glanced around and saw that a second dog had joined he first and both were watching him closely.

"They will only attack if you threaten me, Harry or any of the domestic animals here." She never glanced up once when she spoke but had some how correctly guessed what he was doing and therefore thinking. He realised that it was because of the 3rd dog who was doing the same as the others was standing on the other side of the goat, in her line of sight. So he stood with one hand in his pocket and watched as she finished. Turning the goats back into the paddock she continued with her routine, washing down the shed. He simply moved to one side and let her keep going. For her part she seemed not to care that he was there and just kept going. Knowing that she was perfectly capable of taking the milk to its destination he walked and that she would probably take offence if he tried, he made no move to take it for her but simply walked beside her as she took it to the lambs yard. He had never found out what the inside of the house looked like so when she held door open he was a little nervous about entering, not about to let her know that he went anyway and stood in the kitchen while she walked through to what appeared to be a sitting room and beyond it. A few seconds a cat strolled out followed by a pair of rats who ran straight to the kitchen climbing up onto the back of one of the chairs. It was almost a minute later that she came out again carrying Harry. Putting him into the chair with armrests again she pointed to the chair occupied by the cat.

"sit" she said. "Diesel, off" the cat stood, stretching before jumping to the floor and strolling over to Harry's seat.

"No, scat" he said to it. The tom just sat and looked at him. Moving over to the wood oven and stove in the corner she stoked the fire and put more wood on it before turning to the males. "Porridge, toast or cereal."

"Porridge," Harry called.

"I'll have the same" Snape said after a moment, looking at her strangely as she started. "Goat or cows milk."

"Goat!" Harry yelled. Not bothering to check with her other guest who she thought would not care she turned back to the stove. As a potions master Snape approved of the ease at which she moved around the kitchen.

"Tea, coffee, hot chocolate or milkshake."

"Milkshake"

"tea" Were her responses and they too were made in the same efficient motions that he had seen her use on almost everything. At the same time the porridge was stirred, the cat evicted off the boys lap and a rat from the table. When the drinks were on the table the porridge was ready, dished, and put on the table along with the jug of goats' milk, sugar, honey and spoons. She started eating and helping Harry at the same time. With a shake of his head Snape started on his breakfast, it was good. He couldn't help but think that she would do well in a potions lab, but then if she wanted that then she would be there not looking after animals. No wait what was he thinking, she was a muggle! An inferior, or was she. Even though he was a part of the order it was only because he didn't believe in the methods that Voldemort went about trying to fix the problem that he didn't like. Pushing the thoughts to the back of him mind he continued with his breakfast. When Harry had finished with the last of his breakfast she washed the dishes and Harry's face before picking him up and taking him to the door. Turning back she said,

"Come, the babies need feeding."

Putting Harry down so he could walk over to the lambs she grabbed the feeders and took them over. This time she put them down outside the yard, going in and looking at the lambs. Picking out one who looked oldest in the younger yard she put him in the bigger yard then fed them, not using the bottles this time. When they were fed she chose the oldest out of the big yard and put them out with some older sheep. They would be weaned now and the goat kids joined them. The next job that she did while she had company was work one of the horses. Grabbing a saddle out and a pair of boots she caught one of the horses, a large grey gelding and tacked him up quickly. She told the boys to stay at the edge of the paddock, under a tree and before Snape knew what was happening he was babysitting the boy while she rode. Maybe she wasn't so Hufflepuff after all. The horse was amazing to watch as he glided around the paddock with a showy, high step, the perfect picture of arrogance. In perfect control on top she sat, concentrating only on what the animal was doing using firm but gentle commands she got him to do every thing she asked, jumping several rails before calling him to a halt and jumping off. Harry for his part sat in the dirt playing with a stick that he found. Unsaddling quickly she let the gelding go and grabbed a different horse, this one was ridden slowly around the paddock stopping quickly on command and turning even faster, sitting on her back legs while using her fronts to throw herself in to the turns. Curious as to why she would be trained to do this he opened the gate when she asked him too and carried the boy as they moved to the paddock with the younger cattle as he reached the gate he realised what he was carrying and quickly put the brat down. When she had the horse in the gate she directed it to separate one of the youngsters from the others, stopping spinning and running in almost perfect synchronism with it. Pulling her back and walking out of the paddock. Seeing that the boy was almost asleep she asked Snape to lift him up onto the horse for the walk back and once again he did it before realising, damn she was good at that!

"Both the horses that I worked today are for sale, that is why I had to ride them." After a while he asked,

"How much will you get for them?"

"This one is 7500 and the other one is 5000, but I bought both of them for 1000 each." Then they were back at the paddock and he pulled the boy down with out a single suggestion and held him while she unsaddled and released the horse. She took the boy though as soon as she had and carried him back to the house, asking quietly to pull the boys blankets back for her. Curious as to where they slept, he followed helped settle the boy into the small bed against one wall, there was also another bed in the room so he guessed that it was hers. Moving back to the sitting room she sat back on large couch and all the animals in the room were quick to join her. He shook his head at that and sat himself in the now empty seat on the other side of the unlit fire place. "Now down to business, why is it that you have been watching me for these last few days?" Snape looked at her in surprise, trying at the last moment to keep it from showing so distinctly on has face.

"I was sent on a mission to find the location of the boy. When he was orphaned he was placed with his last blood relatives and on the last routine check it was found that they had dumped him. I was designated to find if he was in good hands and if not to take him back to England." She glanced at him again and paused in stroking the cat in her lap who flicked its tail in annoyance.

"So... What was it that you were going to pull from your pocket this morning before Anubis stopped you?" He stood for a moment and pulled out the letter.

"The group who sent me had some questions that they wanted answered. I think I can answer most of them now but I was just going to check what else was on the list."

"Why are you so nervous about asking now?" he sneered at her and was about to retort when he noticed the look on her face, it was torn between amusement and… fear? Why would she be scared? Surely he didn't look that scary, or was it something else. She was muggle after all, but how did she know when he was nervous, she can't know him well enough for that yet. Even Dumbledore himself still struggled with that, he never let anyone get that close to him. The other question that was bugging him was why she trusted him so much. Was it the same reason that he had been content with watching for another day instead of having this discussion? No it couldn't be. He refused to even think about it. She was right about one thing though, he didn't want to have this conversation yet. He realised that he was still standing and quickly sat again with the letter in his hands. All traces of amusement had faded from her face in the meantime, leaving fear and apprehension. When he sat, some of that faded from her face, so she didn't want him to leave did she? Or was it just that she was afraid that he was going to do something to her, while he towered over her. As an escape he looked at the letter in his hands and scanned through the questions that were listed there. Here was a chance to get to know her a little more; he asked her some of the questions on the list.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty, this year." Two years younger than me he thought.

"Do you have an actual job, or do you just work around here?"

"I sell the lambs for meat when they are around 1 year old, I sell the calves at around the same age, I buy and retrain horses, I sell kittens, baby rabbits and young pet rats but yeah all of that is around here. It provides me with a steady income." Yes, he had seen all of that.

"Now this is one that I am not sure who added, but do you have any 'special abilities'" "What like? I mean I can almost automatically tell what mood my animals are in and had little trouble learning to understand what each type was trying to tell me and have no trouble telling them what I want from them."

"Was that the same with the beast last night?" she blushed slightly, she had thought her stalker was watching but still she had to decide if that was going to be enough to persuade her t put those clothes on instead of what she normally wore. It was a good thing that she had.

"Sort of. It's more like he doesn't understand why I react like I do, but my dogs know that I am the alpha here. All my animals know that even though they are reluctant to believe it sometimes." He wondered where the blush had come from.

"Is that all, you have never made things move, disappear, change or anything like that?"

"Not frequently. Harry on the other hand surprised me…"

"What did he do?" she said nothing, just looked at him for a minute before starting to roll up the left sleave of her shirt. It reminded him of what he had seen death eaters do in the past, what he had done a few times and for a moment he thought he was going to see a tattoo grinning at him but the bottom of a scar started to show before the mark would so he relaxed slightly. When the sleave reached her shoulder he could see that it was a mass of scars, all of them were well healed. His confusion must have shown of his face because she explained.

"It got these trying to get a stupid cow out of a barbed wire fence. They were fresh the day I pick my grandparents and Harry up from the airport. When my grand mother poked at them they started to bleed again I was light headed so grandfather drove us to town but as I bandaged it Harry put his hand on the biggest one and it started to heal, it scabbed up straight away. I was even able to drive back here from town and get all the evening chores done before I had to go to bed but I didn't quite make it to getting a bed for Harry so he bunked in with me, Diesel and Tamazin when I woke in the morning he was awake already and was stroking each of them and as he did they healed a little more. I stopped him though because he was getting tired." Snape was silent for a while before responding that he was going to be especially powerful if that was the case. He sat back in the chair relaxing into the soft padding. That was how they stayed for the next hour before Harry came stumbling out of the bedroom, dragging his toy behind him. He went straight to Snape and muttered a hello before continuing on to the other couch where he climbed onto her lap, pushing the cat off the edge. Curling up for a cuddle she stroked his hair not unlike what she had been doing with the cat a minute earlier. He almost smiled, the scene was so cute. Wait! He did not just say that. That was going to seriously damage his reputation if it ever got out, but he was all the way over in Australia how were they going to find out. When Harry finished waking up they all headed for the kitchen to have some lunch which she again made for them. Then they went back outside and did some more work on the farm. It was sunset before they made it back in that night, after dinner she took Harry in to give him a bath and offered Snape the chance to use the bathroom next if he wanted so he made to trek through the quickly darkening landscape to where he had been camped. Looking at his things he decided to pack it all and sleep a little closer to the house. He pushed everything into his trunk and closed it with a snap. As he made his way back to the house he realised that he hadn't actually introduced himself yet and not once had either of them called each other by name, she probably didn't even know his and yet she had let him into her home and fed him. She had though, proved several times that she was in perfect control on the situation. That was something else he had to ask her, was it a normal occurrence for people to follow her orders or was he the only one stupid enough to do it. back at the house he dumped his trunk in the sitting room next to one of the couches and walked through to the bathroom again. Harry was out of the bath and was trying to help the girl to dress him self with out much luck. Telling him self that it was only so they would get out of the bathroom he held the boys arms while she dressed him and carried him out of the room. Closing the door after them Snape then had to figure out how to get the shower to work. When he was finished and dressed he went back out to the kitchen, the girl was making them dinner. Turning to him she asked if he had done much cooking before,

"Yes but I have never tried with distractions like this." After giving him some basic instructions she left him to it while she went and had a shower. She was only gone a few minutes, knowing that he would be struggling with keeping everything going. When she returned she noticed that he wasn't doing all that badly but took over cooking again anyway, leaving him to handle the child and pets. Later that night they were again sitting on the couches while Harry slept in the bedroom. They sat for half an hour in total silence before Snape finally cleared his throat and started. "So…" she just raised an eyebrow at him. "I realised before that we never actually introduced ourselves. Tell me one thing, do you actually have any idea what my name is?" She gave him a half smile

"No, but do you know mine either?"

He admitted that he didn't because no one had actually mentioned it. The smile grew,

"Good," she said "at least we're even, on equal footing at the moment."

"Right. My name is Severus Snape"

"Melakharie Bastere but call me Khari"

"Ok, if you call me Severus" A raised eyebrow dares her to refuse.

"Now that's out of the way. Why is Harry so important? I'm not stupid enough to think that an organised group would track a young child for no reason."

"How much are you willing to believe? That is the question."

"I know that there is more that can be done than the average person knows, as I have already said."

"Well that changes things. To get started, I am a wizard and so is Harry. I'm not sure what you are but we can get to that later. Over is England and Scotland we have been fighting someone who believed that only pureblood wizards and witches, those who have been born with only magical blood should live to be taught magic. He used torture and murder to get his point across, killing every one who disagreed with him or his ideals. On Halloween a year and a half ago he and a few of his most loyal followers attacked the house of a couple and their infant son. Both the parents sacrificed them selves to save their son and it paid off. As the dark lord tried to kill the boy his curse rebounded onto him, destroying him and leaving the baby with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. The boy is the saviour of the magical world, destroyer of the dark lord and the only one to survive the killing curse which claimed hundreds of lives. He is Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived." There was a slight sneer is his voice as he said the last.

"So on whose behalf did you come?"

"I would have thought that to be obvious."

"I know which side, not who is your leader."

"Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school and leader of the main attack force of the light. The boy's parents were close to him having studied under him for seven years."

"Learning magic I suppose." He nodded.

"He will be asked to go to this school when he is old enough?"

"And what age is this?"

"Eleven." She shook her head in disbelief.

"And how long does it take to travel there?"

"That depends on if he is accompanied. With the aid of an object called a portkey I can get there in a matter of minutes but they will only work once and it only goes to a special room at the ministry of magic, from there another method of transport is used. For me it is just one trip but he will have to go to kings cross train station and catch a train to the school with all the other students, it is tradition."

"Right, that is still years in the future though. What kind of stuff will he be learning?"

"Charms, transfiguration, magical herbology, defence against the dark arts and potions."

"Is potions your favourite or something?"

"I have been offered a position teaching the class next year. As well as that I have completed my certification as a master in the subject as of last month."

"Have you had much experience with non magical herbals and essences?"

"Not much and I imagine that they would be different here."

She nodded. "Now let's get back to what you mentioned before. Why don't you know what I am?" Severus lent forward in his chair.

"You haven't received any training have you?" she shook her head no. "I didn't think so. You said that you heal faster, you are empathic, have you ever made other things happen when you are scared or angry?"

"Nothing stands out."

"Yet that beast didn't behave right."

"I have wondered about that. Its not the first time that it has happened but I can only normally do that with humans." She blushed and looked down.

"I suppose that I have been subjected to it several times?"

"Yes"

"Hmm, very subtle, I didn't even notice that you were doing it. I am guessing that it is subconscious?"

"Yes I hardly ever notice that I am doing it, that is why I usually stay away from people. As well as that, I have tried but I can't control it."

"Do you want to?" she hesitated. "I can teach you to control it but it will take time, are you willing to put up with me for a few more months? If not then I can try to find someone else to teach you. Either way you must learn, it is a danger to you as well as others."

"I could do with a little help now that I have Harry here, so if you are willing to help with the workload so we have time then yes."

"I am agreeable with that. Do you mind if I use magic for some things, like cleaning?"

"That would cut down on the time I need to spend in the house."

"Indeed"

"Sure, the only question is where you are going to sleep. The only spare bedroom I have is on the veranda, occupied by animals. Harry is in my room. For now here will have to do but I will see if I can work some thing out tomorrow." She stood, clearing the space in front of the couch she had been sitting on. Snape watched curiously as she pulled the cushions off and folded out a thin framed queen sized bed. She motioned him to follow and walked into her room. She was kneeling by the end of her bed by the time he got in there and was pulling at something underneath it. He helped and they soon had a mattress out in the open. After that it was in no time at all that they had it set up and settled in for the night.