Chapter 4- Unexpected Appearance
*****Severus, Day 5*****
It was- quiet in his lab without the boy. He had only been brewing for a few hours a day for this last week of term, and most of them were in the company of the boy. It wasn't that he enjoyed the companionship of course. It was that having someone else brew the lower level potions had even freed up more of his time. He certainly didn't mind that he wouldn't have the child underfoot for one day today.
Severus looked up to see the boy walking through his doorway looking quite uncomfortably. "You didn't answer when I knocked," the boy said almost apologetically.
What was the boy doing? The child was surprising him far too much lately. Spies weren't supposed to be surprised. And how had he missed a knock at his door?"There aren't any steps for the potion today," Severus said. But surely the boy couldn't have forgotten already?
"I know. I just- didn't know what to do and hoped you wouldn't send me away anyway. If you do, I understand, and I guess I'll figure something else out." What? The boy was lonely but avoiding his little friends, Severus supposed. It made little sense, but more than anything else.
Severus stared at the boy who had wreaked such havoc on his life in the last days, more than in the last five years. And they had just been talking during those days, almost amicably, over a range of varying in importance issues, but not about what had been bothering him most about the boy, "You may stay if you wish, if you answer my questions," Severus said, pausing to give the child ample time to flee. The boy only nodded, looking around the room as if he hadn't spent hours every day there for nearly a week already, and classes for the previous five years. "The first day you invaded my office, you made a few comments indicating that your relatives did not care for you the way guardians should care for a child?" It wasn't really a question, but it would service for a Gryffindor.
"Er- I guess so. I mean, I can't blame them- it's not like anyone ever asked if they wanted me. They can't have or the Dursleys would've said no. And I caused a lot of trouble for them, I guess, with magic when I was a kid, even though I didn't know what was happening or really think I was causing it."
"They did not explain to you about magic? Your mother's sister would have known a fair amount about magic from her childhood," Severus said neutrally, grinding mandrake leaves to go into his skele-grow.
"No, magic was the worst thing to mention in that house, worse than anything else I could imagine, and I didn't know why. Sometimes shows on television that Dudley wanted to watch were about magic, and when they found out, even he wasn't allowed to watch them, and Dudley was allowed to do anything he wanted usually. They came up with other explanations for what had happened, like a terrible sweater I didn't want to wear must have shrunk in the wash, when I guess really I shrank it with magic. And when they couldn't come up with an explanation, they just punished me anyway and didn't say anything about how the- oddity happened, like when I turned my teacher's hair blue," the teenager admitted, facing the other direction, though that was hardly needed because Severus wasn't looking at the boy much anyway. He was busy trying to look anywhere else. Quietly, the child added, "They said my mum and James were drunks and got themselves killed in a car wreck and that's where I got my scar."
Fury locked Severus's hands. He looked down at his work and realized that he'd have to start with new leaves because he'd grounded these for too long. Severus Snape hadn't been distracted enough to ruin potions ingredients in years. "I see, and do others- the Headmaster and the Weasley family know about this?"
"Er- some of it. Hagrid knew about the car wreck bit, because he was the one who told me the truth. And, I think most everyone in the Order knows that the Dursleys don't like me. If they did, I guess I'd spend the whole summer there and not get out as soon as I could each year. Fred and George and Ron rescued me before second year, so they saw the bars and the locks. Tonks probably did too, because she came up to my room to help me pack last summer."
"Bars and locks?" Severus said calmly, grinding new leaves more carefully this time while maintaining a calm façade. The boy wouldn't have to realize that he'd made a mistake in ingredient preparation.
"Yeah, after Dobby did some magic my first summer back there, and the ministry sent a letter so they knew I wasn't allowed to do magic in the summer. I'd er- gotten them to give me some space when they were afraid I might be able to hex them, well, Dudley had been afraid at least. I guess I should be surprised that my aunt didn't already know that I wasn't allowed to use magic. Was that not a rule or law or whatever when you and my mum were kids?"
"It was- less enforced at the time," Severus settled on before darting the boy with another question, "And what were your usual punishments, and what did you have to do to deserve them? Why did they place bars and locks on your windows- did they have reason to think you would run away?"
"Why do you care?" the child asked, almost pathetically. Severus would have expected anger if anything- more of a scream.
"I thought that would be obvious given the nature of the potion we- I have been brewing," he managed uncomfortably.
"Even if we're blood related, you don't have to care about me," the child said simply, "The Dursleys don't care, and I'm related by blood to them, except for Vernon, but I guess he does hate me the most."
"I am treating you the same way, asking the same question, that I would any of my Slytherin students who came from an unhappy home. It is more common of your fellow students than you might think. And my house is not the only one who receives troubled children, though I must say, they are not often in Gryffindor."
"The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin," the boy said softly enough that Severus would have missed it if he had worse ears.
"Then why are you in Gryffindor?" he couldn't stop himself from asking. Why didn't the world make sense anymore? The Boy Who Lived, Harry James Potter- in Slytherin? But there's the rub, wasn't it? He perhaps shouldn't have been a Potter in the first place. And what can a child really have in common with a father who was dead before he could remember him? Or a father who wasn't around because he didn't know the child was his?
"I asked the hat to put me there. Well, I asked it to not put me in Slytherin, and I guess Gryffindor was a good fit too, or decent at least, it thought."
"And why did you ask the hat to place you in a different house?" Severus asked, abandoning the mandrake leaves entirely so he didn't ruin another batch.
"I'd met Malfoy, in my first visit to Diagon Alley, and he was prejudiced against anyone who wasn't a pureblood, and he was rude to Hagrid who was the best person I'd met in my life. And Ron was sure he was going to be a Gryffindor, and he and his family were nice to me, so I guess I probably wanted to be in a house with him. Oh, and Malfoy was rude to Ron too, when we were waiting to be sorted."
Severus kneaded his forehead, something he would have yelled at a student for after handling any potions ingredients, even if they weren't toxic. The child had been so desperate for positive attention that he befriended the first family who was nice to him. He was probably fortunate that it was the Weasleys. And of course he would avoid the unpleasant spoiled boy… Strange that he would have used those words to describe this child a week ago. "I suppose that is- understandable for an eleven-year-old. I believe I first asked you some questions about your relatives that you have yet to answer. About punishments and bars and locks on your windows?"
"Would you have liked me if I'd been in Slytherin?" the stubborn boy bit out, eyes meeting his now. This wasn't the question and answer session that Severus had intended.
"I can't know that, now can I?" It was a poor answer. Probably not, not with that face. Regardless, the boy was better off where he was. The world would not have reacted well to a Slytherin Boy Who Lived. "I would not have been outwardly demonstrative at the least. Slytherins present a united front even if they disagree in the safety of their common room. You probably assume that I do not punish my own students. I assure you that I do- only not in view of the rest of the school."
"The locks were on the door, not just the windows, so I couldn't get out of the room except when they let me out to use the loo. They made a flap in the door to pass food through when they felt like it, and I could drink from the sink when they let me out. It was hard to take care of Hedwig, which was the worst part. They're not always that bad though. They were scared because of the magic and angry because I'd messed up a business deal for Uncle Vernon- or, Dobby did really, but they didn't accept that explanation. I'd be told I couldn't have dinner lots of times as a kid, or no food the next day, but they usually didn't lock me up, so I could steal some at night, or I could just sneak some food when I was cooking for them, so long as I didn't take much and only when Aunt Petunia wasn't watching. And I could always drink water from the sink or the hose when I was working outside."
They starved the boy. Petunia Evans starved Lily's son. His son! The child was saying it all like it wasn't an ordeal, perhaps underreporting the neglect even. There were more details there too, "You did the yard work and cooked meals. Anything else?"
"Cleaning. And painting and stuff. Sometimes Aunt Petunia cooked, when she wanted to or was having special guests."
"I see- and did your cousin have a share of these chores?"
"No," the boy laughed a bit, "Dudley got whatever he wanted, and he mostly wanted to sit down and eat, and beat up little kids."
Another lump in his throat, "And were you one of those kids?"
The boy was picking at some imagined piece on his robes, "When I was younger, yeah. Not since first year though. Hagrid gave er- scared him about magic, and he didn't much mess with me anymore. I was too fast for him to catch without his friends to help anyway. And sometimes I used magic to get away without meaning to. I had to explain how I ended up on the top of the school once."
"So, your cousin hit you when he could," Severus stated far more directly than he would with a Slytherin student, "Did your aunt and uncle try to stop him when they found out? Did they hit you themselves?"
"No," the boy said quickly, looking at his feet. The boy knew not to look him in the eye if he was lying, so there was a fair chance that he was.
"No to which part? They didn't stop him, or they didn't hit you themselves?"
"Both," the child admitted, looking so small. The boy had grown in recent years, but hadn't he been a very under-sized first year? The child opened and shut a few times, but Severus was quiet. He had far more patience than the boy, "Sometimes Uncle Vernon would shove me around a bit, or Aunt Petunia would throw something, but she almost always missed," the child whispered.
"I see. And this I why you spend as much time as possible with the Weasley family?"
"Yeah. I wouldn't go back at all, except Dumbledore said it's important for the blood wards, and they wouldn't let me stay at school anyway."
"You asked?"
"No. I didn't bother. I- thought it would be better with the Dursleys after first year, but it wasn't. And by after second year, I knew the headmaster wouldn't let me. I mean, Vol- sorry- Tom Riddle didn't get to stay, and he had to go back to an orphanage, which had to be even worse. But maybe- maybe he should have gotten to stay. Maybe he wouldn't have hated muggles so much if he hadn't only met bad ones." Hell, fucking hell, the boy was empathizing with the Dark Lord. The Boy Who Lived has cast the Cruciatus Curse and is now feeling sorry for, understanding, the Dark Lord.
"Have you met many nice muggles in your life?" Severus asked. Oh hell, what was he doing to himself now? He was not some therapist.
"Hermione's parents are nice, though I've barely met them. And Mrs. Figg wasn't so bad- she's really a squib, but I grew up thinking she was norm-er a muggle." That was the best the boy could come up with? What on earth was he working with? "The school nurse was nice."
"And do you feel the need to go off and kill innocent hundreds because unrelated people who just happened to be magicless hurt you?"
"No, of course not!" the boy said with more energy. "I wasn't saying that- just that I wouldn't have gotten to spend the summer at Hogwarts, because he had it worse off, and he didn't get to."
"You have more empathy than most Hufflepuffs," Severus sighed. "Each person has their own past, but it does not excuse their later mistakes. Perhaps when they are eleven they are not responsible for their actions, but before seventeen at the very least… And I do not take it as given that life in an orphanage was worse than your life before Hogwarts, with what I know now."
"I never ran away, because I knew they wouldn't take me back if I did. They said sometimes that they should take me to the orphanage but wouldn't because what it the neighbors found out. They said they'd missed their chance when I was a baby before everyone knew about me and before they knew how much trouble I'd be. Except, I did run away before third year, they- the ministry or someone- made the Dursleys take me back after that. They did something to force the Dursleys to take me back."
Severus looked over at his mandrake leaves, untouched for the last minutes but ground well enough this time. He was lucky that his potion was very forgiving at this stage. "Arrangements can be made to make your summer more bearable, if your stay at your relatives must in fact take place. You will doubtless have a guard at all times, and there is no real reason why that guard cannot enter the house to monitor from there. Now, I do not believe I have any other questions at this time, and I'm sure your friends are worried about where you disappear to." He needed time to think.
"Please?" the boy asked without Severus knowing what he meant. He looked over at the boy who started talking again. "I know I've made all the potions on the list from Madame Pomfrey that I've brewed before, but isn't there anything else I can do? I'll scrub caldrons or whatever," he mumbled.
"You've not been given a detention. Surely caldron scrubbing is another form of torture?" Did he just try to tell a joke? Perhaps it was too poor to be considered a joke by anyone's standards.
"I clean a lot- it's not so bad," the boy said, rubbing salt in Severus's wounds. The boy was in fact so starved for attention that he would be willing to scrub caldrons to not be tossed out by the dungeon bat.
"You can brew the antidote for common love potions. You'll have to let it sit overnight after the first stage is completed."
"I haven't brewed that before, sir," the boy said, as if Severus didn't already know.
"No, you wouldn't have. It's one of the first that I cover in sixth year potions. Around that age, there's always one or two who would consider resorting to a love potion for affection, so it is necessary and educational to provide defense. Of course, the Hospital Wing always has it in stock and usually needs some around February." Damned Valentine's Day- what kind of holiday was that?
"I- you trust me to brew a NEWT potion?"
"I am not even two meters away, and the potion is difficult but hardly deadly- I don't think my classroom is in danger," Severus managed. "Now fetch a sixth year book and follow instructions, which I may supplement with directions of my own. Often instructions recorded in books are not ideal, a concept I begin my sixth years with." The child scrambled away, returning with perhaps the most battered and ugly book on that old shelf. The boy had an entitlement issue, but not the entitlement problem that Severus had thought a spoiled Potter brat would have. "You will brew the base today, and the more difficult portion tomorrow. The theory is not very different from the cure for common poisons. Take that book with you when you leave today and study that entire chapter before you arrive tomorrow, if you still wish to return." The boy just nodded and gave a bit of a smile, settling onto the correct page and squinting at the text. Were the boy's eyes that bad? Had he never noticed another facet of the boy's neglect? How did the child play as a seeker so well? Severus returned to his own brewing plans for the day, his skele-grow. Severus found himself not even looking at the boy often, but trusting him to do the work adequately. Severus had been impressed with the boy's brewing abilities in the past days, and thought the child did better when he didn't hover.
Severus had another hour of brewing ahead of him when he knew Harry would be approaching the final stages for the day. "Add one stir counterclockwise after every third clockwise stir," he instructed just as the boy had lifted his stirring rod. He glanced over and caught the child's shocked expression before the boy hurried to do as he instructed. Severus shook his head- changing directions didn't sit well with some students, but he hadn't actually expected it to particularly bother this one, as the boy always had a 'flexible' understanding of rules. He wondered if Miss Granger would hemorrhage next term when he told her that her precious books were flawed. "Ten o' clock tomorrow," Severus said in dismissal as the boy gathered his things and left his presence.
"Thank you," the boy said in almost a whisper as he left.
When his potion was finally completed, Severus collected himself. The boy had no reason to come today, but he had come anyway. Of course, the boy didn't actually have to be present until blood needed to be added to the potion, so he was always there by choice anyway. None of this was what Severus had expected this week to be like.
A/N: Sooooo- what do you think? Please review! Any predictions for the next day? Several people wondered what Harry would do on his day off, but I wanted him to still show up anyway. After all, it's not like he had to ever come to watch Severus brew the potion, or try to maneuver his way into staying longer by brewing potions. Also, real life update, I just got a new job! But I have a fair amount written in backlog, so I don't think updates will slow down. I'll try to make sure they don't anyway. Only two more chapters of Part I of this story!
