The Wee Hours and the Punishments That Weren't

1:43 AM, summer, Snape's house

Snape noticed a leg bouncing beneath the table. "There's more."

Harry looked up. "They, they were planning something. Planning to kill, gulp, someone."

"What else aren't you telling?"

Shrug.

Snape flicked his wand at a cupboard then levitated a plate to the table, then swished at another cupboard and had a box of biscuits from a local bakery floating toward him. He placed the biscuits on the plate and touched them with a mild heating charm and a smell wafting charm. Snape kept the plate to his side of the table. He lifted a warm, soft, and ever so slightly gooey chocolate chip biscuit to his mouth and savored a bite.

"Tell all and you can share in the biscuits and finish your cocoa. Stay quiet and you'll go straight to bed."

The odd ploy actually pulled a small smile from the teen before his face again paled, "They plan to take me. Use me for something. Kill me. They're waiting until after the World Cup and he's supposed to have someone loyal at Hogwarts that will help him get me. He said many loyal servants would give their right hand to assist him. Said it with an odd tone."

Snape's brow furrowed. He shoved the cookies toward the teen. "Eat. Then we must plot."

1:48

Snape's brain calculated, connected and created as they chewed. Feeling as though his boot was sunk in a boiling cauldron with his foot still within, he spoke. "I know you can tell a lie, but what of maintaining one?"

Harry imagined himself in a saloon, in a cowboy hat and chaps, playing poker. He laid a pair of aces on the table. "Well, there is last year with your detentions that were really lessons and there was the play and everything related to Petigrew. I kept that going pretty well."

Snape gave a slight tip of his head in acknowledgement, but contradicted with three of a kind, "You did well, but even your plan with the play saw in sight an end to the lie and you'd have ten real detentions if you spoke the truth of your side lessons."

Harry looked Snape straight on, "No one in the magical world, other than you, knows that I used to live in a cupboard."

Snape's heart ached at that admission, but countered with, "The cupboard isn't here for them to stumble upon and question. This will be a lie that you will need to live and breathe everyday and may never be able to divulge, even when under stress, such as you were when you let that secret slip."

"No one knows I own McTacozzia, Sir."

"True," agreed Snape, "But Ms. Granger is observant and you are a public figure. Someone is likely to determine it is you."

Harry looked at his metaphorical hand, a royal flush and narrowed his eyes at his poker opponent, "What of you, sir? If I show the hand I've kept hidden, will you manage to keep it to yourself when the teachers are gossiping in the lounge or at the dinner table? Will you allow me to maintain my facade?"

"I am not a gossip and I have kept more of your secrets than you are even aware exist." Harry's eyes squinted at that, but he let it pass.

Harry laid his cards on the table, but his heart hammered a bit when he did so, "When I was five I completed a packet of handwriting practice for school. Ms. Wilkens drew a smiley face on the front. I stuck it to the fridge, like Dudley always did with his stuff. I wanted my Aunt and Uncle to see proof that I wasn't stupid like they had always insisted. Dudley didn't do so well. Ms. Wilkens had sent a spare packet home with him along with a note stating that Dudley required more practice and that it was important that he take his time and do well on them. Aunt Petunia ripped my packet from the fridge and yelled at me, 'How dare you steal Dudley's paper and claim it as your own?!' She knew she lied, but keeping Dudley superior to me was more important to her. I was forced to do the spare packet. Then I was sent to my cupboard until the following evening."

Harry continued, "It wasn't the only time I was punished for showing up Dudley, but I did my best to try to make it the last. I deceived my teachers. They all saw me as a lazy, mediocre student, capable enough to not require extra attention, but not a star student, worthy of the honor roll. Aunt Petunia said that as such a poor student, I required more practice than her precious Dudikins. She had me do Dudley's homework throughout all of primary school. I had to learn to mimic his chicken scratch. I had to do well on his and poorly on my own. Aunt Petunia orchestrated the con, I did the work, Dudley excelled at laziness and laying claim to the work I did and Uncle Vernon and our teachers were the ones conned. Neither our teachers nor Uncle Vernon ever gave any indication they were aware that I was the one doing both sets of assignments, earning A's and B's for Dudley and lower grades for myself."

"When it started I felt ill treated, misused, angry." Harry looked through Snape with, cold, unseeing eyes, "It was drilled into me that I had no right to such feelings. Outside of school I had no right to even a name. Questions repeated until they were all I dreamed of,

'Who are you?'

'Nobody. Freak, Boy.'

'What are you?'

'A useless nobody.'

'What are you while in the cupboard?'

'I don't exist.'

'What do you own?'

'Nothing.'

'What rights do you have?'

'I have no rights. I am a freak. I deserve nothing.'

Snape felt his skin crawl. He knew Petunia. Knew she would ridicule Harry for being magical. He hadn't known Harry was with her, but he would've felt just in leaving him there as payback for the sins of the father. Once he was presented with the actual child whining about his poor treatment Snape had felt just in making Harry's life a tad more tolerable than he'd previously experienced. But now, with the teen confessing in detail how he was raised, Snape wondered if he was trading in his prior and current masters, the Dark Lord and Albus Dumbledore, for a third, with an equal power of deception.

Harry went on, "It hurt, saying those words. It hurt until it didn't anymore, until I accepted that I was a burden that deserved nothing." Harry's eyes were seeing again, blazing into Snape's, "But I wasn't useless. I cleaned. I cooked. I gardened. I ensured that Dudley appeared to do well in school. I wasn't allowed to display pride in accomplishing those task well and I was never thanked for them. But at school I had a name. I existed. I was a student and a con-artist. The deception became a point of pride for me that I was capable of keeping the con going. I'd sit alone in my cupboard at night defying my Aunt and Uncle by ignoring their rule that I was to pretend not to exist. I existed in my head as I replayed my part, my success at deception and planned for how to deceive the next day both on the homework and in other ways."

"Then I came to Hogwarts. Met my first friend on the train. Discovered that he was so intimidated by his predecessors that he found it preferable not to try than try and fail in their eyes. If I proved to be a contender, like his siblings, Ron would have dropped me. Hermione likewise doesn't like to be shown up and she gets a kick out of mothering us and helping us, so I give her a boost by letting her. And its nice to be mothered. No one cared enough to bother before. I've never had anyone that wanted to be impressed by a report card. It has always been the opposite. So the goal of mediocrity continues with the privilege being maintaining friendships and a mothering presence. Harry ended his monologue with, "I have no intention of losing those privileges just for different letters to appear on a piece of paper no one cares to read."

Snape contemplated doing the adult thing and explaining to Mr. Fuss that grades were important and that the Mutt might care to see the report. Then he scratched that. Black hadn't been studious and it was unlikely he'd hassle the boy over a few low grades and if he did then Mr. Fuss would just have to live with his guardian's consequences. The only consequences Black were likely to doll out were in prank form. Snape thought pranks were a worse punishment then his own methods, but again, that was Mr. Fuss' problem, not his. As to himself, he appreciated the boy's Slytherin approach to friendship.

Snape had tried to play both sides as a teen, maintaining a friendship with Lily and garnering relationships in Slytherin. He'd been a cue ball bounced around the table, everyones target and on no ones team. The pressure became overbearing and he'd chosen to conform, to modify his behavior so he could have more allies and fewer enemies.

Snape chose to divulge the plan that had begun to form in his mind, "The Dark Lord excels at achieving goals. Therfore, it is in your best interest that he succeeds on our terms."

"What do you mean?" inquired Harry.

"I mean, we will orchestrate your kidnapping on our terms."

"You want me to get kidnapped?"

Snape inclined his head, "Better it happen at a time and place of our choosing than to catch us unawares."

Harry was puzzled, "But how will we know when and where?"

"I will return to his side. I will be his agent in the school."

"Sir, how can you control when I am kidnapped?"

"There will be an event at the school this year, the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Students from two schools will be visiting the castle this year. One student from each school will compete in a competition. I will enter your name under a fourth school. You will compete as the fourth champion. There will be three contest throughout the year, each of them particularly dangerous. I will convince the Dark Lord that the easiest time to kidnap you will be at the end of the third task. That will give us most of the year to train you for the confrontation and to discover and subvert his plans."

Harry shifted uncomfortably, "Doesn't this fall under the category of, 'Never stupidly put yourself in danger'?"

"It falls under 'As long as you don't do something completely idiotic I won't punish you.' The task will be incredibly dangerous. It is common for contestants to die. But, I have been training you and will be training you throughout this year. It will be your responsibility to devise reasons for me to assign you detentions, so that we may continue your private tutoring."

Harry's foot bounced with his worry, "Sir, I don't exactly want to be kidnapped. Shouldn't we be working on a means of preventing it?"

"You can only control what you know, Potter. If we aren't aware of the when, where, how, etc... Then we won't be able to prevent it."

"Well, if you are rejoining him to discover that information, then can't we just, you know, use that information to stop him."

"Perhaps once. But if his plan fails he will become suspicious and potentially hide his next plan from me. Or if not that plan, he may prevent me from knowing the plan after that, or the one after that. The Dark Lord is persistant. Currently, we know part of his plan. If I am able to influence the rest, we will have the opportunity to discover and thwart his plans."

3:18 AM

Two weary souls climbed into their beds, plots and plans swirling in each head.

September

Severus wrote:

Master,

I wish to welcome your return. I hope this owl will lead me to you.

Your most loyal,

Severus Snape

...

Severus tied the missive to the leg of a black owl. The owl took flight and Severus followed on a broom. Two hours later the owl swooped through the open window of a large home in a small village. Snape landed on the lawn and waited for his tattoo to burn. When his arm seared he entered the abode.

Snape posed prone before the Dark Lord. "Master, long I've waited your return."

"Long Severus? I was all but under your nose three years ago. You did not assist me. If I recall, you assaulted my host and demanded that I stop."

"Host, Master?"

"That bumbling fool Quirrell. Were you not intelligent enough to suss out his true nature you would not have been my spy."

"Master, no other than you deserves to possess the Sorcerers Stone. I sought only to prevent another from attempting to thieve your glory. You hid yourself well Master. I knew not that you resided in that form."

Voldemort took in the praise, but still questioned the circumstances. "What of the Potter brat? Surely he spouted of tales of a two faced man that crumbled beneath his touch?"

"Master, lies fall from the boys mouth as easily as truth. Tales to bring infamy to his fame. Even had I believed his tales they were told after you had gone. My wish is only to serve you, my Lord."

"Rise Severus. There is much you can assist me with."

Late October, "Detention"

Hermione looked up from her book, "Where are you going, Harry?"

"Detention with Professor Snape."

"Again!?" Ron looked at Harry incredulously, "That man has it out for you."

"Sirius sent him a dung bomb after the last one, but he used Hedwig so Snape thinks I sent it."

A few minutes later...

"Are you ready?"

"I believe so, Sir."

"Let's review the plan to be sure. After your name comes out of the Goblet what will you do?"

"I'll be adamant that I didn't put it in, which will be the truth."

"After that?"

"I will demand copies of the contract and claim myself emancipated, Sir."

Snape prickled, "You are too young."

"I am a magnet for evil doers. I'm done with being their punchingbag, Professor. I need to be able to claim my freedom."

"No drinking until you are 17. No apperating until you have your license."

Potter nodded, "Yes, Sir." Then Harry changed the subject before Snape could claim any other restrictions, "After that I'll suggest the use of veritus serum and write up a document saying only you can administer it and question me."

Snape described the next part, "It will be the real potion. You will be forced to answer truthfully. But I will put up barriers so mine will be the only voice you hear. What else happens before I question you?"

Harry sighed, "You will bargain with me. Demand something in return. I will offer to confess to one of my many "crimes". It will be something I've actually done so Hermione won't throw a fuss over my being punished. In return I'll have to suffer through one real detention and numerous fake ones during which you will be training me. I will also be restricted to my dormitory, which though sucks, will hopefully suck less than being hassled by the whole student body. It gives me an excuse to hide from their reactions and time to study away from the crowded common room. The loss of my broom is, in your words, Professor, 'To avoid Barty's idiotic idea that I should attempt to fly circles around a fire breathing, winged beast.' I thought school authorities weren't supposed to tell the champions what the challenges are, Sir?"

"You are not a champion. Yet. We're hardly following any of the other rules. Why should we bother with that one?" Questioned Snape.

"I'm in full agreement with you, Sir."

"Don't be cheeky, Potter. I'll dose you with the serum then I will ask so many questions that..."

Harry finished the statement, "... Hopefully no one will notice that the list does not include the questions: Did someone else offer to put your name in? Did an adult put your name in? Do you know who put your name in?"

"What is the ultimate goal Potter?"

"To know when, where and why I am being kidnapped. He will try until he succeeds. So let him succeed at taking me, but not at what he is taking me for." Harry's eyes were contrary to his confident voice, but some of the anxiety in them creeped out when he asked, "Why?"

"Why?" Snape frowned.

"Why does he want me?"

"There is a prophecy. I don't know the whole of it, but the part that he knows indicates that you will vanquish him."

October 31, 2:30 AM

Batman, AKA Severus Snape, locked the doors of the Great Hall. He manifested a hook on the door and hung his robe upon it, leaving him wearing a charcoal gray, Armani, three-piece suit. Bruce Wayne adjusted his suit cuffs and straightened his tie, then got to the job at hand. All the while the famous tune played in his head. He used a potion skillfully contrived by Mr. Fox, AKA Professor Snape, to hoodwink a powerfully magical object, The Goblet of Fire. The name Harry Potter was dropped into the Goblet. Bruce swaggered to the door. The cape was removed from the hook and Bruce Wayne became The Bat sneaking back to his cave.

November, Grimauld Place

"I don't like it, Remus. How did his name get in the cup? Why did he jump at getting emancipated the moment his name popped out? "

"Harry isn't planning on leaving you, Sirius. He's had a rough time of it. You saw his uncle at that water park. Being under someone else control hasn't worked for him."

"So maybe he's thinking it won't work out with me."

"Sirius, Harry loves you."

Sirius made a sound of disbelief. "Remus, he ran away less than a month after moving in with me."

"What?!"

"Told me he was spending a week with a muggle friend."

"Harry never had any muggle friends," Remus responded seriously.

"You'd never guess where he actually went." Sirius lifted his shot of whiskey, hissed as it went down, "He stayed with Snivellus."

"Snape!? You're joking." Remus hadn't noticed any sign of the two getting along. To the contrary, they were antagonistic.

"Serious as my name. Harry called me an abusive bigot."

"He didn't." Remus sat in open mouthed shock.

"Not to my face, that's how he described me to Snape."

"You now this how?"

Sirius cringed, "Spied on 'im with one of the mirrors."

January, The Common Room

Harry stuck the parchment he'd been writing on between two pages of Numerical Relations: Shapes and Figures by Rhombulus Angleton. The edges of the parchment crinkled as he wedged the book between the others in his knapsack.

Hermione frowned at the treatment of Harry's homework but refrained from commenting on it and instead queried, "Harry, where are you going?"

"Detention with Snape."

"Again!? Hermione mimicked Ron's previous comment, "You need to stop hassling that man."

"He hassles me, Hermione."

"Yes, but you don't need to be so Pavlovian in your reactions to him. Walk away instead of reacting."

"Yes, Mum."

Harry entered the Dungeon office, his eye caught the movement of something approaching him at great speed. His wand jumped into his hand and he firmly stated, "Protego." The book went through the shield and smacked him in the chest, before clattering to the floor.

"Protego will protect you from most spells. It will not block physical objects. Tonight you learn how to make walls."

Various other "detentions"

Harry realized that he performed magic prior to knowing about Hogwarts, that he hadn't needed incantations to do so and that he had no wand at that time. Ergo, he could perform magic without wand or words. Afterall, there was that old adage: Which came first, the witch or the wand? Inevetiably, the answer had to be the witch, didn't it? After all, without the witch who would have crafted the wand?

"Professor," Harry tilted his head while looking at Snape, "Could you teach me wandless magic?"

...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...

"Serpentsortia!" The viper slithered across the forest floor. "Sssssseek ssssnakessss. Bring them to me."

...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...

"Potter! If you slam me into the floor once more you'll be scrubbing cauldrons for the rest of the evening!"

"Sorry, Sir. Would you rather we work on spell-work than Judo, Professor?"

...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...d...

Snape handed Harry a slip of paper. "You will use this spell on the Mutt then provide me with a pensive memory of his reaction. Do not cast it in the castle."

"What does it do, Sir?"

"Generates a flea infestation."

"..."

"Someone made a spell that creates a flea infestation?!"

"Fleas, wasp, mosquitos, fireflies, amongst others. Tonight you'll be conjuring a mosquito swarm."

Grimauld Place, March

Remus and Sirius sat enjoying a meal of cheesy potato casserole made by Kreacher. Kreacher was at the castle attending the Friday night House-Elf get together.

"Harry did a fabulous job on the last event."

Sirius smiled at Remus' comment. "He's been talking to me on the mirror at least once a week. I've been telling him tales of our misspent youth. The magical psychologist I've been seen has been helping me piece my brain back together." Sirius chewed a bite of food. "I'm pretty sure Harry isn't planning on leaving anymore."

"Harry isn't leaving you, Sirius. He never was," Remus reassured.

"That has already been disproven. He ran off to Snivelous, remember?"

"He came back," Remus pointed out, "It's normal to get fed up with parents. He just needed a break from you."

"Parent?"

"You're the closet he has to one."

The Dungeons

"The imperio is used to control the actions of another person. It is fought by either will power or by separating yourself from the situation, making your brain believe the event is not happening."

Harry flinched as Uncle Vernon flashed in his memory, the over-weight man demanding that Harry pretend he not exsist.

"I won't use the imperious curse, once I brew it I will have you take a potion that acts essentially the same way. The potion is not illegal as the ministry doesn't know of its existence."

A few days later, after the potion was brewed...

Snape was getting sneaky. He needed to train the brat, but couldn't very well let him get away with napping in his class. Harry drank the imperio potion. Snape explained, "The potion last in the system for eight hours and is activated by a spell. You are going to work on brewing a fever reducer. At some point I am going to activate the potion and you will have to attempt to not do as I say. Your detention will end when you succeed."

"Urgh."

"What was that?"

"Yes, Sir, Professor."

Harry began to gather and measure the ingredients. Two lines into the brewing process he became a superior brewer. By force of the spell. Harry was three steps from finishing the fever reducer when he felt compelled to read The Compendium of Potion Ingredients. Harry attempted to add the radish juice but his arm wouldn't move in the direction of the cauldron and his feet had already turned and were dragging him to a desk facing a wall. Harry sat in front of the book and read. And read. He read and forgot that he was supposed to be trying not to read. After he'd made it from Aardvark ear hairs to Kangaroo dung the compulsion changed and he was thankful to be doing something else. Until he discovered the something else was skunk weed preperation. "Pretend you're not smelling it, pretend you're not smelling it," Harry mumbled to himself as he sliced and diced the smelly plant. Then he thought, "Pretend it's celery. Celery being chopped and added to a bowl of day old bread. Now put down the knife and grab a spoon so you can mix the stuffing. Knife down Harry! You have to get away from this smell! STOP!" The knife clattered to the table. "No more," spoke Harry. "I've finished Professor."

"Pity. I suppose I'll have to suss out some wayward Gryffs to prep the stink puss plant. I was able to silently cast the activation spell as the main power comes from the potion. The real imperius will feel much the same, but you will be more acutely aware of when it takes effect as it is rarely cast silently. So it will likely take you less time to fight it."

"How long was it active in me, Sir?"

"One hour and 43 minutes. Most would be stuck being studious potion assistance for the full eight hours."

Harry snorted, "You must have wetdreams about dosing the student population with it before classes."

Snape swatted Harry on the back of the head, "And with that crude comment you have just earned the privilege of finishing the prep of the skunk plant and prepping the stink puss plant."

Harry groaned.

"What was that?"

"Yes, Sir."

Grimauld Place

Sirius shuffled a deck of cards, "Did you know Harry made an African amulet that is formed in part by memories of his ancestors?"

Remus nodded. "I had tea with him last week. Shared some stories of Lily."

"The third task is next week. Is Dumbledore any closer to figuring out how Harry's name got in the goblet?"

Remus shook his head.

"I don't like not knowing. Who is out to get him? Can you use the pensive to show me the night his name came out of the Goblet?"

The two watched the memory. They came out of the memory. Sirius began to chuckle, then laugh whole hardily.

"What? What did you see?" Remus was befuddled.

"I didn't think Snivellus had it in him."

"Had what? What are you talking about?"

Sirius grinned, "It was a prank, Remus. Snape and Harry pulled one over on everyone. Snape put Harry's name in and Harry knew it was coming. You notice what wasn't in those questions? Do you know who put your name in? Did an adult put your name in? Pretty odd questions to leave out."

"* *"

"But why?" wondered Remus.

Sirius sighed, "That is something we won't know until Harry decides to trust us enough to tell us he's friends with Snivellus."

"I'm surprised you haven't been pranking Snape."

"I sent him a dung bomb last fall; Harry got a detention for it. Harry is his mother's son. James and I had a grand time pranking SnotNose, but he could have had Lily a few years earlier if we had varied our targets a bit more. I've already lost several years with Harry, Remus. He's emancipated. I can't risk driving him away," Sirius voice trailed off, "The way my parents drove me away."

The Night Before the Tournament

Harry found himself in one last "detention".

Snape ran an interrogation of all that Harry was expected to do when he was "taken".

"What is the goal?"

"I'm to be kidnapped on our terms. For planning's sake."

"Sub-goals?"

"Tamper with the potion. Preventing it being made will only cause it to be made another day. So we must tamper with it; make it not function or function in a different way than it is supposed to." Then Harry rose and gave an elaborate bow, "Oh Masterful Potioner, King of the Brew, Prince of Manipulation, I bow to your brilliance."

"Well you remember it. Let's review the details." And they did.

Snape's final question was thus, "What are you Forbidden to do?"

"If the potion does not prevent his rebirth and he rises to challenge me, I am forbidden from attacking him directly. He is more powerful than I. My surroundings are my weapons, nature my ally."