Chapter 14: No Such Thing

"That's it?"

All eyes slowly turned to Harry, Hadrian's speckled blue and Snape's mud black, not to mention, the apprentice apothecary's—a young, blond-haired man whom Harry still hadn't been introduced to.

Snape had just taken out a delicately dried, perfectly round yellow leaf from the back of the book he had finally—finally—found in his collection (in his old bedroom, of all places) and was holding it carefully between his fingers, offering it to Hadrian.

Still rather vexed and ill-tempered, Harry hadn't bothered to follow his professor into the small, dusty bedroom. In fact, once they had made their way back downstairs, Harry had sat on the sofa, eyes tracing the million other books that Snape had stuffed into his living room shelves, uninterested in trailing after Snape into the kitchen as he fiddled around with the damper. Snape hadn't pushed him, and Harry didn't care.

If Snape wanted to drag him through his moldy house in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, England without giving him any details about anything, that was Snape's business.

But Harry didn't have to go traipsing through any more of the man's past life than he must. Even though Snape had so easily traipsed through Harry's…

Who gave a bloody bother? Harry didn't.

He didn't.

"So the lad c'n speak, can he?" Hadrian burbled through a thick Irish accent.

Snape blinked at Harry. "Unfortunately."

Nudging his glasses to rights with his forefinger, Harry slouched down in his chair and continued picking at the edge of the small table in front of him. The other three men were gathered around Hadrian's counter near the back of the shop, conversing in mutters. Aside from the bottles of jewel-colored potions along the shelves and the candle-lit chandelier hanging from the ceiling, Hadrian's shop was even more boring than Snape's office. And filthier than the brick house from which they'd Apparated. The sun was shining but the shop was dark, the windows painted with dust and grime.

If Snape had spent the day here, brewing potions with this stubby bloke, no wonder he hadn't allowed Harry to come along. They had only been here for ten minutes and already, Harry was bored out of his mind.

Maybe Snape noticed, because not more than a moment or two later, a folded newspaper floated from the countertop to just under Harry's nose, settling on his table.

Harry caught Snape's eye for only a second before glancing down at the front page of the Daily Prophet. He smiled, his heart swelling, when he noticed the entire Weasley family waving back at him, grinning heartily in their black-and-white photograph. Harry hadn't realized how much he missed his best mate. He missed all of the Weasleys, actually—even Percy.

Resting his chin on his forearm, Harry settled in to read the small article printed next to the Weasleys' picture: Ministry of Magic Employee Scoops Grand Prize.

So Snape had been telling the truth—the Weasleys were in Egypt. Harry went on to read about the seven hundred Galleons that had fallen into Mr. Weasley's good favor. With the extra money, they were able to visit Bill.

"Well done, mate," Harry mumbled to himself, smiling again. Ron was slouching with his hands shoved into his pockets, but he was grinning widely enough to show all of his teeth.

Reading through the article a second time, Harry folded up the newspaper into a small waded square and shoved it in his back pocket, like he always did with Snape's.

Hadrian's gritty voice carried across the empty shop, "Crush it into powder, Flinn." The man was holding open a green curtain, calling out orders to his apprentice, who, apparently, had gone into a room Harry couldn't see. "Store it in one of the wee vials. And take care you don't waste a speck of it."

Snape was no longer holding the leaf, so Harry assumed Hadrian had instructed Flinn to annihilate that flimsy yellow thing.

Harry's eyes met Professor Snape's again; he opened his mouth to tell him about Ron's family and the gold prize when Harry remembered that he was rather annoyed with Snape, even if Snape had shown him the article in the first place. He resumed his slump.

Hadrian returned from the other side of the curtain. "That'll be enough for at least twenty batches of the paralyzing serum, Sev'rus."

Snape cleared his throat loudly, causing Harry to glance up in time to see Snape shake his head—a tiny movement that Harry would have missed had he been looking away.

Hadrian must have missed it as well, as he only leaned down to retrieve a metal box from underneath the counter, grimacing and clutching his lower back as he eased up. He continued speaking, "Peter Pettigrew was only a lad when he came into my shop, asking for the same serum—for his mam, he said."

Pettigrew. Harry recalled the name from somewhere, though the source was a bit fuzzy.

"Mm," Snape replied absently. He had his back turned now, so Harry couldn't tell whether Snape's face exhibited the same amount of boredom that was laced through his tone.

Hadrian counted coins into his palm. "A paralyzing serum for his mother," the ginger man murmured, shaking his head, "in place of an amputation…to deaden the nerves. His mother never cared much for healers, he said."

"Charming." Snape transferred the pile of galleons into his leather change purse and drew up the tie.

Listening intently, Harry imagined a dumpy woman dragging her foot behind her, pitching a fit when her son tried to take her to see a doctor. He snorted—quiet amusement.

Once again, all eyes were on Harry. At least he'd thought it was quiet…

Sharing a wary glance between the two men, Harry sat up a little straighter when he realized that he, indeed, had the floor.

"But if she paralyzed her leg, then how could she walk?" Harry wondered, directing the question to no one in particular. "Why not just have it chopped?"

Snape stared at him.

Hadrian let out a bark of laughter that shot through Harry like a bullet, pinning his shoulders to the chair back.

Squeaking noises drifted in from the room behind the drapery; Harry had watched Snape prepare potions ingredients enough to know that Hadrian's apprentice had begun crushing the leaf into powder with a marble stone.

"Bit practical, that one…" Hadrian commented to Snape, his blue eyes shining but hard, like glass. Snape continued to eye Harry with his deadpan expression. A paralysis of its very own. "To deaden the pain, boy; it was constant," the apothecary continued; the redness in his cheeks reminded Harry of Uncle Vernon. Made him uncomfortable. He wasn't overly fond of this man.

Harry frowned. "Why not take a pain reliever, then?" He'd labeled dozens of vials of Snape's strongest pain-relieving potion last year.

Hadrian sniffed out a chortle. "We've got an apprentice healer on our hands, Sev'rus."

"That is quite enough," Snape said stiffly. And then, after a pause, "My ward is in a foul disposition today—disregard him."

"Right…" Harry mumbled as he lowered his eyes, swearing he could feel Snape's gaze singeing his fringe. But when he dared peek over the rims of his glasses, Snape had turned back to Hadrian.

"I will be in contact," Snape muttered before sweeping around the squat man, who followed Snape with his ice-blue eyes.

Snape's boots punished the floor in steady clicking tempo.

"A minute, Sev'rus," Hadrian called out before Snape reached Harry. "Alone, if you please…" His ham hock knees bowed out as he tapped his fingertips together.

Snape gazed straight ahead, considering the request. "Sit tightly." His eyes traveled downwards, expectantly.

Harry nodded.

The two men disappeared through the curtain. In the next second, Flinn darted out, his cheeks hollowed in concentration as he entered another room behind the counter and slammed the door, leaving Harry in silence that stretched over the entire shop like a floating cobweb.

A peculiar mixture of irritation and worry washed over Harry as he sat very still in his chair. He didn't expect to be included in the secret conversation, but he was awfully tired of being left behind—expected to sit—and wait. Like a gaudy knickknack on a shelf that no one wanted to dust. If Harry were braver, or cared less about angering Professor Snape, he might have stepped out for a bit of air.

Instead, he pushed his chair away from the table and crossed the floor as quietly as he could; he studied a row of bottled potions—all various shades of green and stamped with a tin label. A curly 'H' had been scratched into the corner of each one. Harry carefully fingered one of the vials, twisting it around to see the price: seven galleons.

Wow, Harry thought. Snape could make a fortune.

A heavy thump sounded from behind the curtain. Harry's fingers twitched, nearly upsetting the vial. He held his breath, his heartbeat suddenly thrumming in his ears. The drapery danced with a small gust of wind that must have come from the other side.

Muffled grumbling. "…completely mad?"

Snape's voice.

Hadrian twittered a response—his voice gruff and defensive.

Harry took a large step toward the curtain, breathing as quietly as he could. He poked his forefinger toward the drapery, curled it in his fist, reconsidering for an instant, and then… reconsidered his consideration.

Snape would kill him if he knew. But, judging by the mental gleam in Hadrian's beady eyes, Harry hardly doubted the frizzy-haired nutter would kill Snape if need be.

He drew aside the edge of the curtain, revealing a crack of light as thin as string. Harry leaned forward.

More muddled sound. And then Snape's deep voice cut through the quiet.

"…I asked you to contact a single person, Gibbon. One."

Gibbon?

"He was there when Regulus took the mark," Hadrian murmured, though his voice was getting higher and slightly more frantic. "…knows of the Blacks better than I, Sev'rus. Faithful to Walburga and her lot."

Snape's voice was cutting in and out like a fuzzy station on the radio. "…we agreed…never to be contacted…Dolohov is more dangerous—"

Hadrian's mumbling.

Snape's voice grew dark, easily cutting through the drawl. "—No, it was more than foolish."

"If Black's sought out anyone it would be a barmy enough bloke—"

"Lower your voice."

A long pause.

The voices resumed in mutters. Whispers.

Harry eased the drapery closed.

"Oy…"

Harry's heart slid down to his feet as he caught sight of Hadrian's apprentice, standing over the threshold of the storage room, handfuls of spiky herbs clenched in both fists.

Harry took several steps back, his shoulder blades bumping into the shelves.

Flinn's eyes grew round as two vials tipped over and landed face down onto the floor. In shards.

Dark green liquid pooled onto the floor boards.

Without thinking, Harry dropped into a squat and began gathering up several of the larger pieces, which dripped potion onto his trousers.

"No!" Flinn exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, dropping the leaves onto the counter as he zipped around it, reaching for his wand. "Don't touch that!"

Harry could only stare as the denim of his jeans began fraying away where the potion had bled.

Just as Flinn cleared the mess, the broken pieces clinking together as they repaired and settled onto the shelf—empty bottles now—Snape's face appeared from behind the drapery, his forehead deeply creased as his gaze drifted from Flinn's wand arm at the ready, to the dark, wet stain on the floor, and finally, to Harry.

Hadrian stood at Snape's side, his freckles pale on his blotchy, purpling face as he opened his mouth to scold his apprentice.

The man had begun to rant, but Harry didn't hear it. As Snape moved around the thin boy, Harry did the only logical thing that popped into his head. He bolted for the door.

Snape's shout mingled with the tinkling of bells as Harry stepped out onto the cobblestones of a street even older and more run down than Snape's street and Knockturn Alley combined. And it appeared to be deserted.

Having nowhere to go, Harry jammed his back against the murky store window.

Snape strode right past him. Harry watched him go, knowing well that in a minute he would turn around.

In this case, it was less than a minute.

Snape's long legs carried him back to Hadrian's in just a few strides.

Harry slid down the window, sinking to the ground to avoid his professor's grasp, but Snape only hauled him back up with a firm grip on Harry's elbow. Snape's lips were graying around the edge, quivering. He glared at Harry for a long moment.

And then, emitting a growl deep in his chest, Snape released him. The hand that had been holding Harry's arm was now clutching a handful of black hair atop Snape's head as he turned from the window, his back heaving with silent breaths.

It wasn't until Harry sat down heavily on a nearby iron bench that he noticed the gaping holes in his trousers. His knees were stinging with shallow abrasions. The heels of his hands were raw and throbbed in time to his heartbeat. Harry's whole face felt flushed.

Snape was still gazing out into the street.

Terribly ashamed, Harry leaned over, the points of his elbows digging into his sore knees. He pulled his t-shirt up over his face, breathing in the scent of clean cotton.

Once again, Harry found himself waiting. Waiting to smother in his own clothing. Waiting for a hiding that would certainly come later if it didn't come very soon. Waiting for the bench to grow teeth and eat him alive…

Fresh air assaulted his face hot face as his shirt was yanked away, but Harry kept his forehead pressed into his fists.

Without a word, Snape knelt down and began cleaning Harry's knees—uncorking a tiny vial of clear solution and dribbling it onto Harry's burns, smoking, smarting so much that his feet twitched, but Snape gently held each of Harry's legs still until the aching stopped.

He repeated the process with Harry's hands, which were now bright red and beginning to peel around the edges. This time, though, Harry couldn't be quiet. He hissed through his teeth and tried to lift up off the bench, but like last time, Snape held him still, flexing Harry's fingers back and forth until his palms only tingled.

Snape's mouth was still pressed into a thin line, but after sealing and pocketing the potion, Snape reached up and thumbed away the few tears that had escaped and trailed down Harry's cheeks.

The unexpected kindness had Harry's breath hitching, his eyes traitorously filling with a new round of tears as he tried to focus on the dirty window. But with deep breaths, he was able to calm himself quickly.

"What was that?" Harry asked through a stuffy nose, much to his annoyance.

"Skin-repairing solution." Snape stood, pulling Harry up by the elbow again; he followed without a fuss. "A first-aid kit has become vital with you in tow."

There was raw truth in that.

Harry tried to sniff away the clogged sensation. "I'll go apologize."

Snape held him back with a stiff arm across his chest. "No need," he said bitterly, curling a lip in disgust at the filthy shop. "He would not be able to produce half of his potions without my assistance."

"Oh…right."

Snape's reverence for Hadrian and his elixirs in concentrated form had seemed to fizzle out in blinking speed.

"We are going home."

Harry hooked his thumbs into his pockets. "Oh."

"Indeed, young man."

Fortunately for Harry, Snape had given him his just desserts in the form of a scathing lecture while the two of them polished the stack of solid gold cauldrons in Snape's classroom, which was usually off-limits to Harry's scratching and smudging. Snape poured the ruby red polishing solution into the bottom of each cauldron and Harry's job was to rub it into the metal with the soft flannel in slow circles. Snail circles.

The speed of the earth's rotation around the sun circles.

Not ovals, boy. Circles.

Harry studied the reflection of his glasses in the cauldron; they appeared twice their normal size. Making faces at himself would have been a brilliant way to ignore Snape's monotone rambling about Harry rushing headlong into everything and Harry losing his temper as often as a toddler and Harry needing to curb his spite tongue…

Harry this, Harry that.

But even pretending that the polishing potion was blood collected by a vampire wasn't drowning out Snape's solemn scolding in the least.

This afternoon, Harry simply soaked in every word whether or not he wanted to.

He stacked his third sparkling cauldron, careful not to bang it against the other two, which were symmetrically vertical with one another. He started on the fourth and final one.

But before Harry even began his first circle with the flannel, Snape grabbed the lip of the cauldron and set it onto the black desktop.

Harry sat on his stool, his feet dangling far from the ground like they always did. He wrapped a loose denim thread around his fingertip until it turned maroon.

"I want you to understand something."

Harry lifted his chin. Snape wasn't smiling. But he wasn't angry. He wasn't…anything. Only his eyes struck Harry—soft and sober.

"There will be times when I ask that you not question my actions… or my words," Snape began. "And you needn't expect an explanation, because I shall not provide you with one."

Harry didn't know what Snape wanted him to say, so he just sat there, his hands in fists on his lap.

"I am your professor," Snape continued as he reached forward and unraveled the string from Harry's finger; he let it float to the ground. "And I am your guardian. But above all, I am a dull man; I am used to being alone. And I am accustomed to privacy."

"Then how come you took me with you today?" Harry wondered, his voice gravelly from not speaking for nearly a half-hour—a rarity in itself. "If you didn't want me to see the house where you grew up, why did you take me?"

"Let me finish."

Harry averted his eyes, cracking a knuckle.

"I haven't been to my home in Stockport for nearly three years," Snape informed him. "I care very little about the property, and have no plans to return. The flat was owned by my father for over fifty years, and his father before him."

"Why don't you sell it?" Harry suggested. "If I ever ended up with Uncle Vernon's house, I'd sell it right away."

Snape's eyes grew dim. "I don't know."

"I can help you fix it up to sell…"

"Let me finish," Snape said again.

Harry clasped his hands between his knees.

Snape swallowed; he seemed to be chewing over what he wanted to say next. "I invited you into a place I would have rather not been, and it was only natural that you inquire about it. It was illogical of me not to foresee this."

"I don't mind," Harry said, feeling squirmy and uncomfortable when he realized that Snape was trying to apologize.

"You did."

I did, Harry thought. After all, Professor Snape knew about the hand-me-downs of Dudley's that Harry was forced to wear throughout his childhood…down to his pants. But, again, Harry remained silent, waiting for Snape to finish.

Quickly, Harry hoped. It was much simpler to sulk.

"Can I ask you something?" Harry ventured, figuring he might as well go for it when Snape in a sharing mood. The question had been weighing on Harry's heart all day.

"May you ask…"

"May I?" Harry corrected.

Snape pursed his lips, giving the go-ahead signal with his eyebrow.

"Don't blast me, all right?"

"Go on, Harry…"

"Did Sirius Black…" Harry observed Snape's face with vigilance. "Did he know my dad?" Harry swallowed around a dry throat, shocked at how quickly his tongue had shriveled.

A pause. Eternity.

"Yes." Snape swallowed as well. "They were acquainted."

For some reason, Harry had expected this. But hearing it was a cannonball to the gut.

"No one expected Black to turn out a murderer," Snape supplied, with uncharacteristic gentleness. "It couldn't have been helped."

Harry didn't know whether to believe Snape or not, but he was the best Harry had, so he did. He kept the bit about the Incarcerous spell to himself, not caring to know the truth.

He retrieved the gold cauldron from the middle of the lab table and resumed his polishing. "What was that leaf you gave to Hadrian?"

"Wild Porsythemus."

"Like the Greek god?" Harry concentrated on his circles, catching Snape's reflection in the gold—his frowning, head-shaking reflection.

"Like the poisonous leaf, Potter…" Snape sighed through his nose. "It must be dried and pressed for years in order to be used in paralyzing solution."

"Oh. I've never seen it."

"I should hope not. It grows in the Forbidden Forest once a decade," Snape supplied; he slid Harry's stack closer his side of the table.

"I've been there," Harry continued, flipping his cauldron over to polish the bottom. "Me and Hermione had detention with Hagrid in the Forest first year."

"There are few places you haven't been..."

"Haven't been to Egypt." Harry gave Snape a glimpse of a grin and passed him the glowing cauldron.

TBC…

Author's Note: A big thanks to Tabitha for previewing this for me! And thanks for all the reviews :-) Harry's b-day is coming up, and I suppose we'll have to hear from the bearded meddler sooner or later... Is meddler a word?

Someone asked about Remus-yes, he'll return in a few chapters. He's one of my very favorite characters to write.

Thanks for sticking round! I'm hoping to update next week; loving the encouragement. Thanks so much for it :-)