"You've misunderstood," Severus said when they were back in his dusty little house.

They had not gone directly home, but spent the afternoon buzzing through Australia. They collected pink water from Lake Hillier, orange lichen from the Bay of Fires, Australian Glumbumbles which were grey, furry, flying insects and supposedly rarer than the Europian ones, and Witchetty grubs that would turn into Ghost Moths, but also made a good snack. At the very end, right before they took a Portkey home, Severus bought an enormous box of Lamingtons from a bakery in Sydney because he had a sweet tooth.

He now pulled the letter out of his pocket and handed it to Harry. "Read it. This means you will be in my care from now on and I do not believe little boys should be out working on ships. There are such things as child labour laws, and besides, the Headmaster will be against it."

Harry read the letter and it said exactly that: he was to stay with Severus Snape. He thought about it for a bit. It would not be worse than the Dursleys but his heart by now lay firmly in the sea.

"When can I be a sailor?" he asked, already making plans to run away if the answer was never. He had managed it once, he was sure he could again.

"When you're seventeen. After you've gone to school and learned everything a child should."

That was… maybe acceptable. "Will I go to Hogwarts?"

"No." Severus took the letter back. "You will go to Hogwarts when you are eleven. Right now you'll stay in your Muggle school, I don't see a reason to change. I can drop you each…" he slowly stopped talking. "Why the face? All kids have to go to school."

"I know." He did. "Only, school wasn't so nice," Harry admitted.

He told Severus everything about Piers Polkiss who would still be there even if Dudley wasn't, how he was teased for his glasses and clothes, and how no one wanted to be friends with him because they were scared of Dudley's gang.

"I see."

"So I don't have to go, right?"

"I have never met a teacher's kid who did not go to school."

Harry nearly sighed but remembered in time that he wasn't doing that anymore. He went out to scrub the courtyard and sang very loudly about mermaids who wrecked ships until Severus called him in for dinner.

Was it a boring time that followed? The two of them shut inside the dusty little home until the end of the summer?

Why on earth would they do that? Severus still had a long list of items he needed to collect for his classes next year, from bobutubers which they never seemed to have enough of to walking plants for the school's greenhouse, a fifth-year student having strangled their last one when exam stress got the better of her.

They still had a little over two weeks left until the first of September and he had to do all of those, and now he also had Harry extra. Harry, who couldn't indefinitely walk around in one pair of shorts and a blue striped shirt. Who needed a new toothbrush and pyjamas and school supplies, really everything from pencils to socks.

He took Harry to St Grogory's Primary School, yes, that was not a spelling mistake of his, the school was truly named such, to sign him up and get the required item list. Not two minutes in he had a falling out with Headmistress Roemmele and took him right out again for ice cream instead.

While Harry shovelled the icy treat in his mouth as fast as he could, Severus thought about Muggles and the difficulties of a little wizard growing up around them.

When Harry clutched his head, moaning from ice cream induced brain-freeze, Severus thought harder about Muggle schools and such things as essays on 'What I did this summer'.

Many little wizards and witches were homeschooled, but Harry was now in a one-parent household and that parent needed to work if they wanted to buy toothbrushes and socks.

As the last creamy scooped was teased out of the bowl, Severus had made up his mind.

"Finish up, Harry," he said. "We're moving."

And so they did.

Susan the estate agent's cousin, Suzelle, who took care of the magical side of things, found them a bright little cottage in Hogsmeade, the only completely magical village in Britain. It was not much larger than his house in Spinner's End but they didn't need more space being only two. What it did have was large windows in brightly painted rooms, a sunny kitchen, new linoleum, and taps that did not drip. Best of all was the garden in the front and back, large enough to kick a ball in for Harry, and enough space to keep a greenhouse for Severus.

It even came with its own cat.

"We're not keeping him," Severus said.

It was a mangy-looking thing: its ginger hair stood up in all directions, half of its left ear had been chewed up, and it meowed much too loud. He watched Harry put out a saucer of milk but didn't stop him.

"He'll keep himself," Harry said. He knew Severus fairly well by now and wasn't bothered. He'd keep his new bedroom window open and Severus would be fine. "Do we have tuna?"

They had.

"What will you call it?"

"Ginger!"

"How inventive," Severus said in his most droll tone. Ginger curled herself around Harry's legs. She purred loud enough to wake the dead and Severus narrowed his eyes, seeing Ginger's butt. "I believe she's a boy."

On one of those last summer days, Harry wrote letters. To Captain Tom, wishing him well and thanking him for everything. To Captain Jack, explaining what happened to his family and that he was now living with Severus. To Timothy, telling him everything that happened, and that he was still wearing stripes, only leaving the magical parts out. To Ant and Fontaine, asking what they were doing and how Jeffrey was. To Kaiko, explaining that Severus refused to let him work on the Aronnax, but that he was going to ask again when he was seventeen. He sent the letters off with owls who would drop the Muggle ones in a postbox.

Some days they foraged in the Forbidden Forest close to their new home and Harry and Severus learned he could speak to snakes which was amazing. Other days Severus made him grab on to a Portkey, and they would zip all over the world, from Alaska to Zimbabwe, collecting magical fauna and flora and meeting friends Severus had made over previous summers of doing the same.

There were days they stayed at home: Rainy days where they stayed cuddled under blankets with a book each. Days Severus had to prepare lesson plans for the coming school year and he would send Harry out to play.

And those days Harry roamed around Hogsmeade, meeting other children. No one teased him, because he was dressed in his own clothes and his glasses were new. They listened in awe because he had many stories to tell. They asked him to join their Quidditch games, because the more the merrier, letting him borrow their extra broom. Quidditch, for anyone who is not in the know, is a fast action ball game played up in the air while flying on brooms.

He quickly became a sought-after player and because he never sighed even on the days that he was sad, and was generally a kind boy, he made many friends. They would come knock on their cottage door and call, "Professor Snape! Professor Snape! Can Harry come play?" And off they would all go to have some fun.

Harry received mail. From Captain Jack, congratulating him on his good fortune to find a home. From Captain Tom, who said he'd welcome Harry on his new steamer any time and any age. From Timothy, who was now working on a fishing boat with his dad and said he might have his own one day. From Ant and Fontaine, who said they were in the Bristol Channel near Ilfracombe and that he should visit. He showed the letter to Severus who agreed he should.

They packed his wetsuit and Severus took him to the Nektons. There he made sure Harry had enough Gillyweed for any emergency. Harry was to stay for three days, so that might be many emergencies. It was the Nektons, after all. Severus had finally collected all he needed to, and the only thing left was to organise Harry's new school, his new school supplies, and his new school clothes. It was much faster to shop without a curious six-year-old, he had found.

"Ant and Fontaine are getting homeschooled," Harry said. "I could be too. It would save a lot of money also."

"And who would look after you while I was at work?" Severus asked. "Ginger?"

This was a mistake for Harry by now knew many people and started listing all of them off on his fingers, Ginger included.

"Have fun with the Nektons," Severus said. "Try to keep them out of trouble."

He left them to it.

In the three days that Harry spent with the Nektons they never once sat down. They swam with Jeffrey. Harry invented with Ant, which generally meant he soldered things together and made a lovely mess that no one minded while Ant sat next to him and worked out how to increase the power to his robosuits. Fontaine gave him lessons on captaining the submarine and the three of them had lots of fun.

They also managed to get into quite a bit of trouble and luckily out of it again. They found a mysterious ancient temple beneath the sea, and when they escaped that, they found a mysterious underwater maze and became trapped all over again when the walls shifted. They finished the third day off by saving a whale from a Monster Hunter.

When Severus fetched him on the third evening Harry was quite exhausted and happy to go put his feet in a basin of warm water back home and settle with Ginger on his lap. He told Severus all about their adventures that evening and his friends all about it the next day. It was quite nice having friends, he thought and decided it might not be too hard to wait until he was seventeen to be a sailor.

Then it was the night before school. Summer was finally over and Severus told Harry to go sleep early so that he would be fresh and ready to learn the next day.

"I can't believe summer is already over," Harry said while he sat in the bath and scrubbed behind his ears. He talked loudly so Severus could hear him through the open bathroom door. Severus was in Harry's bedroom, putting Harry's clothes out for the next day. Their home wasn't large, he didn't need to shout. "Isn't there a magical way to keep summer going on forever?"

"Then you'll always be six."

"Six isn't so bad."

"So you say now."

"Will you put a striped shirt?" Harry called.

First impressions counted and he felt more confident in striped shirts and wetsuits. Obviously, a wetsuit was not something you would wear to school. He had been surprised to learn that he didn't need a uniform.

"You're sure I don't need to wear a uniform?" he asked now, thinking of it and getting worried that he would once again be the odd one out. "Did you read every last line? Did you ask?"

"I promise you won't need a uniform. I asked twice." He had. He had asked everything twice because he was entrusting Harry to them and was invested enough in the young boy by now to want to keep him safe, and more so, happy. Harry wasn't like his father at all. And Severus wasn't like his. "Wash under your nails."

Harry washed under his nails. "And they'll pick me up in the morning?"

"The bus will pick you up right outside the gate at eight and drop you again at three. Scrub between your toes."

He scrubbed between his toes. "And you'll be here?"

"Yes. If you're done you should dry off."

"I like the water."

"Well, five more minutes only."

They came at eight o'clock sharp. One moment there was nothing, and the next it hooted at the gate. Harry looked through the window and saw a bright yellow school bus. Children's faces pressed against the large windows looking back at him.

He took a deep, fortifying breath, picked up his school bag and his lunch bag, and said goodbye to Severus.

"Behave, be polite, and have fun," Severus said. Severus was dressed in a long black robe and was just waiting for Harry to go then he would go himself to Hogwarts to start his day.

"School is not fun."

"Try anyway."

They went out to the gate.

Harry hadn't thought about running away to the sea for quite a while now but he secretly decided that he might have to consider it again if the school was going to be as awful as he feared. Only this time he would miss Severus so he hoped he wouldn't have to.

He went up the steps and the bus doors clanged shut behind him.

The bus driver was a young woman in a colourful dress. She had kind eyes, long, frizzy red hair, and a bright green, horned lizard on her shoulder. She smiled at Harry.

"Good morning, Harry," she said. "Welcome to Walkerville Elementary. Perhaps you would like to sit next to Neville?" She pointed out a blond little boy of Harry's age who looked scared stiff. "He's new also. Then we can all introduce ourselves."

The absolute last thing Harry expected was to find the school bus full of desks. He took the seat she had pointed out and smiled nervously at the boy before taking a good look around. There were six more boys and girls, all sitting behind desks of their own. They were a colourful bunch, and Harry was glad to see no one wearing a uniform. At the back were lockers and tables filled with exciting stuff like dioramas and bunsen burners and glass beakers and was that a real skeleton? It was. Harry settled down to pay attention to the teacher and learned the lizard was a Jackson's chameleon called, Liz.

Ms Frizzle, who was both the driver—when the bus didn't drive itself—and the teacher, was the strangest, most surprising teacher Harry had ever met. And it was the strangest, most surprising school Harry had ever gone to.

"Oh, this is not the whole school," a boy named Carlos said. "We actually have a school that we will go to also but Ms Frizzle likes to start the year off with a bang. We might go to school instead but I think we're going to the desert."

"Why do you say that?" the girl next to him asked. Harry thought her name was Phoebe, he was still trying to remember them all.

Carlos pointed to a row of hats and canteens hanging next to a sandy diorama filled with cacti and rocks.

No one was made to sit quietly behind their desks once the introductions were over, and Harry and Neville went with Carlos and Phoebe to look at the desert diorama while the school bus slowly trundled away from Hogsmeade.

"That's a Claretcup Cactus," Neville said, pointing out a cactus with beautiful red flowers.

"That's right, Neville!" Ms Frizzle praised and Neville blushed happily.

All the kids gathered now at the back and most of them thought the diorama looked great but a boy called Tim wasn't happy with it. "Something is missing," he said.

Harry looked at it. They had sand, gravel, and cacti. They even had a heat lamp for desert sun and a fan for wind. What could possibly be missing… "I know," he offered. "We need animals."

Ms Frizzle looked over from where she was sharing out canteens. "Dynamic deduction, Harry!" she said with a smile.

They had great fun when Ms Frizzle unearthed a barrel of toy animals. Dorothy Ann knew all the animals and named them as they placed them in the diorama, "Tortoise, coyote, Gila monster…"

Carlos thought the animals wouldn't survive in a real desert. It had almost no water, no food, no shelter! Neville said he was wrong, he knew loads of desert plants, and he listed a few explaining which parts of them were good to eat for animals and humans.

Harry worried that he wasn't able to contribute much because he knew more of the oceans and things that swam but Ms Frizzle said not to worry, that was exactly why they went to school.

"Maybe we should have a field trip," Arnold suggested. "Then Harry can learn about the desert, and Carlos can see if the animals would survive."

Carlos, who was busy telling Phoebe how all the cute little animals would be buzzard bait, stopped in surprise. "You never want to go on a field trip!"

"I'm starting to be interested in survival," Arnold said, and he showed them a field trip survival guide he had brought from home. He also had a bag full of equipment and already had one of Ms Frizzle's hats on and the canteen around his shoulders. "I'm ready for anything today!"

Ms Frizzle got a funny gleam in her eyes. "Excellent!" she called and suddenly the bus started zooming down the road. Faster and faster it went and then all at once the bus changed into a plane! It took to the skies with its new propellers roaring in a magnificent noise.

Harry was astonished. Magic! He had thought the school bus curious but he hadn't thought it had magic!

Next to him, Neville said, "The Knight Bus can't turn into a plane."

"But the Knight Bus has cocoa," Carlos said.

Phoebe said it was not so great, her grandmother made better cocoa, but she agreed the marshmallows were the best while Arnold said he preferred their tea. As they flew away from Britain in search of a desert, everyone wanted to know how Arnold managed to get tea on the Knight Bus, it was unheard-of! He admitted the driver of the Knight Bus was his uncle.

The discussion turned to tea and they found out Neville knew more plants in the desert that you could make tea from—if you could find water. That brought them right back to the question of how the desert animals would survive and that was lucky for they were just about to find out. They could see a vast expanse of sand down below.

Without warning, Ms Frizzle pulled a lever. The Magic School Bus started a nosedive and all the kids grabbed onto the desks, calling for parachutes—they were about to crash! But Ms Frizzle kept her cool and flipped a switch when the time was right. The school bus changed into an all-terrain vehicle, and at the very last moment rolled to a smooth stop on a dune.

The sun was hot and Arnold shared out his sunscreen and all the kids grabbed hats and checked if their canteens were filled. Above their heads, a vulture flew in circles. Harry wondered if Ms Frizzle would cast a cooling charm like Severus had in Australia but she didn't.

"Come along, class," she said. "We're here to experience the desert! Take chances! Make mistakes! Get dusty!"

They did all of that and more, and by the end of the day, Harry had learned quite a bit in the best of ways and was bursting to tell someone. The Magic School Bus had barely come to a full stop in front of his home before he was out the door, yelling goodbyes to his new classmates.

Harry rushed through the sunny house, banging doors in his wake. He found Severus at the back in their small greenhouse where he was trying to placate the fighting lilies, and shouted, "Severus! I had the best time!"

XxX

The End.

THANK YOU FOR READING!