Chapter 9- Visits and Returns
*****Severus*****
Students would be returning to school soon, and Severus's already limited amount of free time would virtually disappear. He had uncharacteristically been putting off seeing the Dursley household for months now. There were any number of completely logical reasons, if he thought about it. At first, he had so many other things to do because of the boy. Then, when the boy proved that he couldn't refrain from getting himself nearly killed on a regular basis, how was Severus supposed to leave the castle?
It had nothing to do with the inclination to murder the damned muggles, adults who had so abused a child. At one time he had a more sinister fear that he couldn't voice, that he would relate to the muggles, acknowledge that he would have treated the child no better and turned to abuse the same way his own father had. But he hoped he knew himself better now. Those people, and his own father, were reprehensible, unforgivable, and he would not be the same. If he was even more honest with himself, he didn't want to see Petunia Evans ever again, because of everything she would bring to mind.
Petunia Evans had been the prim, older girl when he was a penniless scruff of a child in patched, second-hand clothing. She was the older sister of the girl, the woman he had loved for so many years. Severus was more than angry that Petunia had rejected Lily, hurt her- even though he had hurt Lily far more so, even bringing about her death. There was a lot of guilt that would go along with this visit.
The child hadn't even known what Lily looked like. He hadn't even known anything of his grandparents, for all that they were Petunia's parents too. Did their acceptance of their younger daughter mean that their older daughter would ignore their presence even after their death? Or was she willing to not even tell her own son about his grandparents, just to deprive her nephew.
Number Four, Privet Drive. The house was not altogether unlike the one that the Evans girls were raised in, but larger, and less inviting. It was boring at best, Severus thought. He knocked on the door, almost smiling at wondering what the woman's reaction would be. Petunia Evans did not like surprises. He had picked a time during the day when Petunia would likely either be alone or only with her child that was about Harry's age.
"You," she said, more fear in her eyes than anything else. Those eyes darted around to other houses on her street, the same nosy bitch from their childhood.
"I have come to speak about the- about Harry. I suggest you invite me inside before I make a scene in front of your precious neighbors." Stiffly, Petunia Dursley allowed Severus Snape into her bland, antiseptic house. Severus made a cursory scan around the room, sure to make evident his distaste. There were dozens of pictures of the little blond elephant, some including his parents as well, the father along the same appalling stature. There was not a single sign of the fourth member of this should-be-family, but Severus didn't really expect it by that point.
"What do you want? I've already signed him over to you, haven't I? You sent that owl to harass me as if I wasn't a perfectly normal upstanding citizen, didn't you? I don't know what your angle is saying that you're the brat's father when he is the very image of the Potter boy, but I don't even care."
Muggle killers usually went to Azkaban these days, and that really needed to be avoided. "I just wanted to pick up the remainder of his belongings. You know, extra clothes, beloved keepsakes, childhood toys, things every eleven-year-old has. Where are his things, Tuney?" Severus barked loudly. He was letting this woman affect him more than he intended.
"He never deserved any," the bitter woman hissed before clapping her hands over her mouth. Severus wished that the emotion was at least shame, but the woman before him only felt fear.
"I would take great pleasure in performing all manner of torture upon you if you were worth going to Azkaban over. Perhaps that's where you'llend up. Do you know anything about Azkaban, Petunia? Ah, I see that you do. Such a thing to remember, when you were such a little girl when you would have last heard me talk about it. Always eavesdropping. And you remember everything I said about the magical world in those days, don't you? Because you wanted to be a witch, but you never could be. It would almost be sad, really, if you weren't so despicable. To neglect, perhaps even to torture a child for years because he had something that you could never have. What if your son had been a wizard too? His future children, should he ever have them, easily could be. Of course, you may not need to worry about grandchildren if you don't fix his dietary habits before the child dies of heart failure along with your oaf husband." The woman only whimpered.
"I thought, for months, of what punishment might suit this wretched family. I concluded that I should avoid the cretin you married, or I would kill him on the spot. The direct approach had its appeals, but it stinks of Gryffindor. Various retribution curses could be fitting, placing you in the same pain you inflicted, or placing that torment on your son instead," Severus threatened as Petunia started to outright sob. "But I have a rather new resolution not to harm children, even an unpleasant bully of one," he said, noticing the child's eyes and forehead dart back from around a doorway. "You and your husband will be cursed in a more general sense," Severus drawled, smirking at Petunia's sharp intake in breath. Perhaps your gardens will die, or you will get fat, or your husband will lose his job. For certain, your neighbors will gossip, more about you than anyone else in the neighborhood," he added, remembering how nosy Petunia had been even as a child. The woman's sobbing increased. Appearance was all the woman cared about.
"What is the child's name?" he asked.
"D-Dudley?" Petunia stuttered.
"Dudley, come here, and I suggest you obey," Severus called in what he thought was a voice rather more cordial than the little brute deserved. "Look at me," he directed when the child waddled close enough to him, curiously clutching his voluminous hind quarters. Severus actually felt a twinge sorry for the child, in his own way mistreated just as much as Harry had been. He knelt down a bit to be closer to eye-level for the child. "Your parents are despicable monsters for treating your cousin as less than human, and at some point, they will likely end up in prison for it. They would right now except that would require Harry to testify against them, which I currently will not ask of him. They taught you to treat your cousin just as despicably, and that is not healthy, an abuse in itself. From what I can tell, you are an obese bully, and you need to grow up into a functioning member of society unlike your parents. Pick up a hobby, ideally something active and non-violent, and work on your grades, do a few chores. Your parents' misfortune will not be upon you, if you are a good boy. Do you understand?" The child nodded vigorously and took the chance he was granted to back away, still holding his posterior.
Severus smirked to himself. Some small things he had planned himself, disappearing items, punctured tires at inopportune moments, some unfortunate banking investments. With a few muttered spells updated regularly, larger objects in the house would have an inordinate tendency towards dropping on Vernon Dursley. Severus wouldn't worry his mind over a few broken bones for the man, perhaps a few concussions. The man didn't seem to have many brain cells to begin with, and it would all be virtually untraceable to Severus Snape. He couldn't let anything happen to him while he was responsible for Harry.
The rest, he would let their paranoia cause themselves more trouble than he could cause them. Then a call to social services if needed for their own pampered brat, though it would risk getting picked up by the wizarding newspapers. He felt guilty that he would have used those same two words "pampered brat" to describe Harry before he knew the truth. Severus would do more, but did not want to bring any more unwanted attention to Harry. His teeth still gritted that he couldn't kill the older two on the spot, or at least see them thrown in Azkaban. He left Petunia to her tears without another word. There would be nothing that had ever belonged to Harry that was worth removing from that place. With a last thought, he cast a locking charm on the cupboard under the stairs, in case anything left there was needed for evidence at a later date. Those muggles wouldn't be able to enter it even with demolition tools, though he almost wished to see them try.
*****Harry*****
Harry sat, taking a moment alone in his Gryffindor dormitory and staring at the gifts he had received a week ago now. He had recently moved most of his new clothes from his- father to Gryffindor Tower, and he hadn't wanted to return a single article. For all that his father seemed to think they weren't enough to be considered a Christmas Present, Harry felt like he was given so many things. Twenty new pieces of clothing including the new dressing gown and slippers, more if you counted the slippers and socks separately. There were sixteen different individually wrapped sweets of ten different kinds, plus the wizard's chess set, the snitch, the snake he could get, and the pictures. Eighteen pictures, which were the best gift Harry had ever received.
Harry hadn't played chess with his new set yet, though Ron had offered. He had almost wanted to leave it in his other room, but Harry thought that his father might be insulted. Harry just didn't want to risk anything being damaged. He hadn't even opened any of the sweets from his father yet, though between him and Ron, the sweets from Hermione and Mrs. Weasley were already gone.
Harry looked at the sweets from his father again, thinking that maybe it wouldn't hurt to open just a few, especially the chocolate frogs, which he had six of from his father. They were supposed to be eaten, after all.
Harry carefully opened the foil, wanting to at least keep the card nice to remember it by. A Dumbledore. He was slightly disappointed that he had the card already, but it was nice to think back to when he first got that card on the train, the day he became friends with Ron, and met Hermione too, even if they weren't friends yet. Harry examined the card anyway, thinking that he would have to keep it separate from his other one so that he knew which each of them was. He actually dropped the frog in surprise when he read the back of the card:
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS
Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and ten-pin bowling.*
Nicolas Flamel! Nicolas Flamel was an alchemist that had worked with Dumbledore. And the name seemed familiar before because he had read it on the same chocolate frog card. Harry looked around long enough to find the chocolate frog he had dropped lying on his bed. Fortunately, it had gotten its struggle out before he had dropped it. Cramming it into his mouth, still holding the card, Harry put his slippers on, hoping that Ron was just down in the common room. Then they would have to talk to Hermione, who would know what to do next.
Hermione would be returning the next evening, so Harry and Ron merely whispered about the new discovery to themselves, even going so far as looking through indexes of library books that they could identify as dealing with alchemy. They probably could have tried harder, but it was… harder when Hermione wasn't around to make them do it.
When they finally had some privacy in a secluded corner of the common room, Harry relayed what he had discovered over the break. Hermione ran up the stairs almost as soon as he handed her the chocolate frog card, before Harry even finished explaining what he had surmised.
"I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. In fact, I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading."* Harry and Ron looked at each other, and silently reframed from saying anything as Hermione hefted the enormous book onto the table and flipped through the pages. "Here, here! It's the Philosopher's Stone!" she whispered.
Harry looked at the passage that Hermione was still pointing excitedly at:
"The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel…"*
Harry didn't even need to read any further.
"That's why you couldn't find him in recent magic books eh- He's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?" Ron carried on. "No wonder Quirrell's after it! Anyone would want it."*
"He wants it for Voldemort," Harry said, not as shakily as he felt. He was sure the other two were looking at him now, but he didn't bother to look up. "Quirrell wanted me dead in that first quidditch match because he follows Voldemort. He was even somewhere last summer that Voldemort was supposed to be hiding, so he must have fetched up with him then."
"It might not be that serious, Harry," Hermione said cautiously. Ron just laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. All three children knew that this was precisely that serious, if not more so.
"And now he thinks the stone can bring him back," Harry stated simply. It was completely insane, the follower of an evil madman running around teaching a school full of children how to defend themselves. Not that they learned much useful in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class anyway. When it came to fighting a troll, Professor Flitwick's class was the only one that had really helped them, and that was just for a levitation charm. What were they supposed to do now? A part of Harry that might have been a conscience told him that he should tell an adult, probably his father, but he pushed that part away. They weren't really in any new danger because the stone was well protected. Besides, the adults already knew everything they had figured out anyway, he was sure, and… and telling adults wasn't the way Harry had ever done things.
*****Severus*****
The smile that the boy gave him assured Severus that the child knew why he was here. The grumblings from the other students did not go unnoticed, but Severus didn't care what Gryffindors thought anyway.
As the game was going, Severus found himself watching the boy more than he should. The child was an incredibly skilled flyer, weaving back and forth too sharply to be healthy for his brain functioning, but the child seemed unbothered. Severus surveyed the rest of the field just in time to see a bludger hurtling at him. Diving rather skillfully for someone who hadn't spent much time on a broom since his school days, Severus avoided the hit and promptly awarded a penalty to Hufflepuff, as he was relatively sure that the blasted bludger came from one of the Wesley twins, though he hadn't actually seen which. The typical amount of groaning from Gryffindor stands confirmed his assessment, because there were no real cries of injustice.
The near miss did remind Severus that he should show some semblance of actually refereeing the game rather than just watching Harry to make sure the child wasn't cursed again. He had hated being as far away as the stands during the last match, but he had yet to decide whether in air monitoring was more helpful.
Severus watched the rest of the field, restraining himself to only frequently glancing up to find the highest-flying red-clad player. The child had taken to the tactic of watching from far above, which was just as well in Severus's opinion. It kept the boy from being a likely target of bludgers, and the distance also made him more difficult to hit with most curses and jinxes from the ground or stands. On one glance skyward, Severus was shocked to find the boy hurtling towards him. Severus turned only quick enough to see the child continue past him, missing him by scant few inches, and following his path closer and closer to the ground, difficult to see from Severus's vantage point. Harry pulled out of the dive, far too close to the ground for an eleven-year-old, only one hand on his broom in a casual maneuver belying the difficulty an average player would have with the move. The child's other hand was a fist in the air, obviously clasping the snitch.
Severus called for the end of the match and watched as all players landed, the red-robed students surrounding Harry. Severus sighed, relieved for a quick end to the match. He wasn't sure if there had been a quicker match that he could remember from all of his time at Hogwarts, though it had felt far too long to Severus. The child quickly escaped the crowd around him. Severus didn't know how he could have ever not noticed how averse the child was to being the center of attention. The break in the crowd, as red-robed quidditch players and other red-scarved children headed towards the castle, undoubtedly to celebrate, allowed Severus a brief moment to step closer to the boy, lightly grasping the child's shoulder. Harry's head darted up, fast enough that the child's glasses would have fallen off had he still needed them. Green eyes met his and then smiled.
"You flew well," Severus said gruffly. "Run celebrate with your friends," he said in a more blatant display of public approval than he would have thought himself ever capable of. The child nodded and was quickly surrounded by his two best friends, headed up to the castle with the boisterous sea of red. On the way, Harry was even raised up on student's shoulders. The child seemed embarrassed, but happy enough. It was remarkable from his upbringing to have become such a relatively well-adjusted child. There were still problems, he knew, but the boy seemed happy.
Such thoughts made Severus search the crowd, seeking out Professor Quirrell, another source of both his and the boy's troubles. If Dumbledore was going to take a passive stance, it was time for Severus to take a more active role on his own.
Severus stalked up to the twitchy wizard in a casual way. He nonverbally cast his own silencing charm variant, Muffliato, with the wand still concealed in his long sleeve. Facing away from the meandering crowd of non-Gryffindor students, he paused before Quirrell inside his silenced area, "Meet me in the forest in half an hour. Only just inside the forest, halfway between Hagrid's hut and the lake. Understood." He left with a statement rather than a question, continuing on as if he had never talked to the bumbling excuse of a professor.
The fool was half shaking when Severus came upon him just under thirty minutes later. The man looked around so franticly that Severus was surprised his turban had never fallen off. Severus skipped any pleasantries, not that he was ever a man for banal conversations. *"Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?"
"B-b-but Severus, I-"
"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell," said Snape, taking a step toward him.
"I-I don't know what you-"
"You know perfectly well what I mean.* Ponder it. We'll have another little chat soon, when you've had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie,"* Severus stalked off with his very practiced swoop of cloak. It was an exit that said that he was powerful, too powerful for a weakling like Quirrell to even consider striking from behind, not that Severus wasn't always ready for an attack.
*Rowling, J.K. (2012-03-27). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, Book 1) (p. 220-226). Pottermore Limited. Kindle Edition.
A/N: These were some scenes that I knew had to happen that I had put off writing- especially him with the Dursleys. I have a soft spot for Dudley because he had a very messed up home life, but no sympathy at all for the adult Dursleys. I hope you think it turned out well. Please let me know! I used some direct quotes, which I try to be minimal on, but it just made sense here.
Edited March 2017
