Snape woke him at six in the morning, with a sharp command to get himself into the shower he had neglected the evening before. It was a bizarre experience to be practically shoved under a hot stream of water, while at the Dursleys, his aunt Petunia was likely to have a stroke if Harry used anything but lukewarm. He washed his hair as ordered, scrubbing his scalp with Snape's shampoo, and feeling unreal. Or maybe the feeling of dissociation was caused by the dark purple bruise adorning his left cheekbone rather than strange hygiene products.
His hair was still dripping by the time he got downstairs, walking slowly through Snape's tiny living room. Like everything in this house, it was cramped and dim, with threadbare sofa, and dark bookcases filling the small space. An empty hearth suggested there was a connection to the Floo, the boy stepped closer to examine an ivory box on the mantle, and sure enough it contained the travel powder.
"Potter!" Snape suddenly shouted from the kitchen, making him jump and almost drop the box. "Stop your snooping, and set the table!"
Harry flushed at the rebuke, and went into the kitchen to do what was apparently his new chore. Snape was standing at the stove, grilling some sausages, judging by the smell. His stomach rumbled loudly, and he ducked his head in embarrassment as he opened cupboards, but the man ignored him.
He finally found the dishes and cutlery he needed, and was setting them to aunt Petunia's exacting standards, when the man seemed to take a proper look at him for the first time.
"What is that you've put on, Potter?!" he demanded in a scandalised tone.
Harry looked down at himself, blushing at his worn, too large t-shirt and trousers that hung on him despite being tied with a belt as tightly as possible.
"Just clothes," he mumbled.
"Just clothes?" Snape mimicked, curling a lip in disgust. "Not yours, I surmise. Go and change."
Harry fled, pounding up the steep staircase as anger and mortification twisted in his stomach. He thrust open the lid of his trunk, and stared at the contents, blinking as his vision blurred. He hated that bastard, mocking and punishing him for what he could not help. The boy knew that drill very well; at the Dursleys it was 'No food' for not completing his chores, and here apparently it was 'No food' for not having well-fitting clothes.
Incensed at the unfairness, Harry dug until he unearthed the only well-fitting items of clothing in his possession - Mrs. Weasley's jumpers. He changed into the first one he got, out of nostalgia, it was red, with a big yellow H knitted at the front. He was hot and sweaty within moments of putting it on, but he gritted his teeth, and stalked downstairs to demand food!
Snape was eating already, but as he caught sight of the boy he scowled.
"What is that?"
Harry was all geared up to tell the greasy git what he thought of him, but before he could say any of that, he spied on the table a second plate. It was piled high with sausages and toast, and the steam coming off the plate, as well as the cup of tea next to it, seemed to be frozen like under the stasis charm. Seeing that unmoving steam made the boy realise that his teacher never intended to deprive him of breakfast, and anger drained out of him, leaving only shame behind.
"It's well-fitting," he said with a helpless shrug.
"Oh, I see," Snape returned sharply, his black eyes gleaming with ire. "You're being hilarious. Now, sit down and eat, before I warm your seat for this insolence, Potter."
Harry couldn't have said if the food was good or bad after that statement, everything tasted like sandpaper as his anxieties sky-rocketed. He chewed and swallowed mechanically, cleaning his plate more out of fear that his earlier epiphany was a fluke than out of hunger.
"Upstairs," Snape ordered the moment the boy took the last sip of his tea and put the empty cup on the table.
Harry scowled, hating that the man treated him like a well-trained dog, and he was too much of a coward to do something about it. He stalked up the stairs well ahead of the git, stopping to glare out of the window in his tiny room, trying to ignore the feeling of icicles running down his back he got from the creepy man looking at him disapprovingly from the door.
"I believe I told you to unpack yesterday, Potter," Snape growled, making the boy tense and spin about to see the man glaring at him from next to the empty wardrobe. "Must I supervise you every time to make sure you do as instructed?!"
Harry folded his arms stubbornly.
"You can always send me back," he sneered, managing to sound as arrogant as Snape always accused him of being.
The man's face darkened with anger at the disrespect, but he didn't rise to the bait.
"That would be rewarding your bad behaviour," Snape commented dryly, sweeping the boy from head to foot with his cold stare, and finding him wanting. "I could, however, add to the switching you already earned from me today, Potter. Nothing creates a better-behaved ward than a very sore bottom, I always thought."
The boy staggered at the reminder, and he collapsed heavily into the window seat behind him. He had completely forgotten about the beating Snape promised him, or maybe not forgotten, but he'd pushed the dreadful prospect to the deepest recesses of his mind and locked it there.
"Please, don't, Professor Snape," Harry heard himself say in a hollow voice that he didn't quite recognise.
"No?" the man mused thoughtfully, his expressive eyebrow rising ever so slightly. "Then, come, show me those atrocious clothes, and stop acting like a stubborn fool."
He ducked his head, flushing in shame as he opened his trunk for his teacher to see his ugly cast-offs in all their horrifying glory.
"Take them out," Snape commanded, indicating with a hand that the boy should deposit them on the bed.
Harry obeyed, watching anxiously as the man examined closely every stitch he owned.
"Books on the bookshelves," Snape growled after a few minutes of being scrutinised. "School supplies on the desk and in the drawers, clothes in the wardrobe. Unpack, Potter, it's not so difficult."
"Yes, sir," Harry mumbled, trying for a glare, but it was so weak it barely deserved to be called that. He didn't want to think what the Head of Slytherin would make out of his pauper's wardrobe, or what new insults the sight would inspire. Still, having something to do would distract him and help settle his nerves.
He took a couple books at a time, arranging them by year and topic on the bookshelves. Harry only owned Hogwarts textbooks, with the notable exception of the strange birthday gift Hagrid had sent him. It growled at him as he pulled it out of his trunk, and he dropped it on the desk hastily.
"You wish to take Care of Magical Creatures as your elective, Potter," Snape mused, and the boy looked at him wearily.
He noticed that the man had already finished sorting his meagre assortment of clothing into two piles on the bed, and was now observing his progress with arms folded across his chest. Harry nodded reluctantly.
"The new Professor decided it would be useful to make his students earn the trust of their textbooks," the man said in a deadpan voice.
"It bites my hand when I try to open it," Harry muttered, frowning.
"Perhaps, you should try stroking it, like you would a pet," Snape suggested dryly.
The boy's eyebrows shot up with incredulity, but the man looked completely serious. He couldn't imagine his teacher making a joke in any circumstances, so he did as suggested. Harry felt an utter idiot as he patted the snarling book, but after he stroked its spine gently a few times, it began to purr contentedly instead.
"Wicked," he whispered, releasing the belt he'd tied around it to prevent it from attacking him. Thinking he must have been transported overnight into some alternate universe where Professor Snape could be actually helpful, he stretched his lips in a tiny smile. "Thanks."
The book fell open easily to the first entry on Hippogrifs, and Harry promised himself he'd read it as soon as he had the opportunity. For now, he placed the Monster book between his Herbology texts and the Fantastic Beasts book.
Snape grimaced as if he forgot that he was helping his least favourite student.
"Finish unpacking, Potter," he said sourly, waving a hand at the smaller pile of clothing. "These may go in the wardrobe, leave the rest. We'll dispose of them later, I set aside a shirt and trousers you may change into for today. I applied a Smart Re-Fitting charm. After you're done, meet me in the study downstairs, and we'll get the punishment out of the way. I suggest you don't tarry, boy."
"Yes, sir," Harry breathed, feeling suddenly very cold.
He watched Snape leave, dread pulling in his stomach at what had just transpired. That the man didn't feel the need to drag Harry kicking and screaming to be beaten meant something. The greasy git was confident that the boy would come to him on his own, because, quite frankly, he didn't have any choice. It was better to face the unavoidable things with his head held high, wasn't it? It was the only way to retain some dignity, and they both knew it.
It took some time to pull himself out of the hopeless void, and take a ragged breath. Harry was very afraid, but at the core of himself, he was not a coward. He blinked his eyes dry, and looked around at his things openly displayed in a room given to him by Snape. It felt like his room in that moment, more than Dudley's second bedroom had ever done, and that was horrifying. In that tiny room, he was Harry Potter, Snape's ward. That boy sometimes was punished harshly by his guardian, but he wasn't broken by the experience.
Gritting his teeth in determination, Harry stripped and put on the clothes that Snape bespelled for him. He stood very still, watching as the shirt and trousers shrank to hug his thin frame comfortably. He took another breath as that boy who was strong enough to face Snape, and resumed his unpacking. He winced, seeing that his wardrobe now consisted only of his Hogwarts robes and Weasley jumpers, as well as the re-sized clothes he had on. That was going to suck…
It didn't take long after that to finish his unpacking, and as he set the pocket sneakoscope he got from Ron on a shelf, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. The effect made him feel more disturbed than he anticipated, he blinked and Ron's room at the Burrow superimposed over his vision for a second. It had been more messy than this one, and filled with toys and knick-knacks his friend collected over the years. Harry had never had a space he could call his own, his things were always locked away, hidden as if he didn't exist until he went back to school. It made him upset that this was no longer Snape's empty room. It was Harry's, and it already had the air of permanence that he didn't like.
He hyped himself up for another ten minutes, before he had the guts to leave the room, but he really didn't fancy Snape coming back to do the dragging after all.
"Dignity and courage," the boy muttered to himself as he slowly descended the stairs. "I'm not scared of him."
It took an enormous effort of will to raise his fist and knock it on the door lightly. The sound produced was a mere tap, and he dared to hope that the man wouldn't have heard, but it was a fool's hope. Snape's hearing was as sharp as ever, and he was bid to enter at once.
Harry pushed the door open hesitantly, and came into what should be rightly called a cubicle rather than a room, it was so tiny. He came to a stop before a desk that was a main feature of the room, and waited for the man to acknowledge him. Snape was furiously scribbling something, and the boy thought he'd never once seen his teacher not working on one thing or another. It took a few excruciating minutes before the man put down his quill, and looked up at the boy, who couldn't help but squirm a little.
"Why are you here, Mr. Potter?" Snape questioned neutrally.
Harry almost spluttered at that.
"You… you told me to come, sir!" he exclaimed.
"So I did," the man mused, his thin lips curling in a slight sneer. "As you will come here every time you require serious correction, but why in particular have you come this time, boy?"
Harry stared, blood draining from his face in dismay. Snape watched impassively, as if daring him to claim that he didn't know. A month ago, he would have lied with a straight face, done anything to get out of a detention with this man, but what would be the point of doing it now? They were no longer at school, and Snape wasn't constrained in how he treated Harry, as he didn't have the protections of a student-teacher relationship any longer. He didn't know everything the guardians were allowed to do, but in his experience anything was acceptable if it was done out of the public's eye. His shoulders slumped as those thoughts ran unhappily through his mind.
"I… I ran away from the Dursleys'," the boy said softly, dropping his gaze to the cracked linoleum on the floor.
"You had a fight with your guardians, and you stormed out of the house in a temper," Snape paraphrased in his strictest classroom voice. "What was wrong with that course of action, Potter?"
Harry cringed.
"I, er, I could have been in danger," he grimaced at what he was going to say next. "I didn't mean to be reckless, honest! I just… didn't think about it like that!"
His admission was met by a beat of deafening silence that quickly became unnerving, and he looked up at his guardian wearily. Snape's face was somehow closed off as he regarded the boy across the desk, like the calm before the storm.
"That is the crux of the matter, Mr. Potter," he eventually said without emotion. "You habitually enter into situations that present a very real threat to your safety, and you do so without a single thought to what might happen to you, or to your friends whom you lead into danger alongside you. You will be made to consider the consequences of your actions before you make those decisions, child, and that will be done by providing consequences of a different kind."
Harry stiffened, sensing that they were getting to the point at last. He was surprised the man bothered trying to justify what he wanted to do at all.
"For this latest misadventure," the man continued mercilessly. "I will administer a sound spanking with a willow switch that you will provide, boy. There will be no less than twenty strokes administered, you may go now. There is a willow tree in the back garden that you may use for the purpose."
He didn't move at first, his brain stuck on the words 'no fewer than', this was going to be very bad. He jerked as Snape's sharp voice intruded on his thoughts.
"Have you chosen to take the Strap instead, then?" he demanded.
Harry shook his head vehemently.
"No, I just," he stammered, looking away from the man anxiously. "I don't really know how…"
Snape actually laughed at that, a mirthless sound that made the boy shiver, but he rattled out the exact parameters of a stick he wanted Harry to find without comment.
"Here, use this," he said, drawing a potion knife out of a trouser pocket and handing it to the boy. "Now, go, before you waste any more of my time, Potter."
Harry left, gritting his teeth not to let loose a string of insults at the man. Oh, he hated that slimy bastard, he despised him with every fibre of his being! Picturing stabbing the git with his own potion knife, the boy went straight for the gate, determined to find a way out of this trap. He still didn't believe Dumbledore would condone what Snape wanted to do to him.
The fifteen minutes that followed were frustrating and nerve-wracking, as he did everything he could think of to open the rickety contraption, or even climb over it, all the while looking over his shoulder for Snape bearing down on him to stop his glorious escape. Of course, the man didn't bother coming out, as the wards kept him inside the fenced off area, shoving him back with more and more fervour every time he tried to cross the property border.
By the time he gave up on the escape attempt, and slumped to the grass in defeat, he felt like he'd already been beaten that day. Bloody spell had given him quite the punch that last time, he grimaced, rubbing his aching ribs unhappily. He groaned, catching sight of a tiny paper aeroplane flying towards him from the direction of the house. Of course, the containment spells would have alerted Snape that he was assaulting them. What did he expect?
Angry at himself, Harry snatched the missive from the air, and unfurled it. It contained a single line of writing in the man's spidery script.
Procrastination can only increase your anxiety, Potter. I expect you in ten more minutes.
"Fuck," the boy swore, crumpling the note in his hand and stuffing it in a pocket.
He didn't want to go, but Snape was right in a way. All the time he spent trying to force the gate only served to make him more afraid of what the man had in store for him. Berating himself for being such a craven child, Harry heaved himself up from the lawn, and with a determined stride rounded the house in search of the stupid willow.
It was absurdly easy to find a stick that filled all of the specifications given to him by his teacher, and he had it in his hands in under a minute. Skinning the bark off the thin bough took longer, and it was well past the ten minute mark by the time he was done, but Snape didn't come to berate him so he wasn't too concerned. The switch didn't look very impressive, Harry decided, barely the thickness of his two littlest fingers at its widest point. Curious what to expect, he held out an open palm and wacked himself with it as hard as he could manage. He winced, it smarted a bit, leaving an unpleasant tingle, but it wasn't as bad as he had feared. He snorted, if Snape thought he'd scare him into submission with this thing, he had another thing coming. There was a confident spring to his step as he returned to the house.
Harry knocked on Snape's study door with much less hesitancy, and entered with his head held high. This time the man looked up from his papers almost at once, his sharp eyes taking in the prideful youth.
"Done with procrastinating, Mr. Potter?" he questioned smoothly.
The boy scowled.
"Sorry I made you wait for so long, sir," he said, taking care to sound insincere.
"Indeed," Snape replied, his voice turning sharp as a knife, his eyebrows lowering into a fearsome scowl. "I have decided not to penalise the tantrum you threw outside, but don't expect such leniency again. The same applies to your tardiness, boy."
"I understand," Harry mumbled, feeling short of breath all of a sudden.
Snape took a few minutes to tidy his desk, leaving the boy to wait in rising anxiety. Eventually, he stood, holding his hand out for the switch, and Harry relinquished it with an odd sense of relief. He supposed getting the punishment over and done with was better than worrying about it for hours on end. He watched the man examine every inch of the willow stick, before giving a little nod of approval.
"Well done, Potter," he murmured, changing his grip to a two-handed one, and giving an experimental swing. The switch sang strangely as it sailed through the air, to crack sharply as it met wood, before bouncing back. "It will serve."
Snape looked at his bloodless face, as he slowly rounded the desk, stopping to the right side of it.
"Come," he ordered sternly, holding the boy's frightened gaze steadily. "Bend over the middle of the desk, and grip the other side tightly with your hands."
Harry felt like in a daze, as he followed the instructions, too muddled by fear to do anything but obey. He lowered himself on the hard surface, holding the other side with hands that were beginning to shake. He was an idiot for thinking a boy's strength would equal that of a grown man. Snape tugging his trousers down made him let out a squeak of protest and latch to the waistband of his trousers with one hand, dragging them back into place.
"What do you think you're doing!" he shouted in outrage, glaring over his shoulder at the greasy git.
"Potter, you can't have thought I would allow you the padding of clothes for this," the man growled in growing ire, smacking the boy's hand to slap it away.
"But… you can't just-,"
"Yes, I can, and I will, child," Snape cut him off sharply, taking several deep breaths to calm himself. "Now, settle down, or I will add five more for your insubordination."
Harry slumped at that, flushing crimson in mortification when the man dragged his trousers and pants down to his knees. He never felt so humiliated in his entire life, as he lay exposed across Snape's bloody desk.
"This punishment will be until twenty," the man reminded him, as he began.
Harry knew it would be bad, but the intensity of the pain caught him completely unprepared. He cried out, as a line of molten lava appeared across his bottom with the first crack of a switch. It wasn't a tingle at all, it was a searing burn only encompassed by a second fiery trail that joined the first a moment later. He whimpered, clamping his jaws shut against the need to cry or curse, or both.
Over the next while, Snape methodically turned the boy's seat into a blazing furnace, bringing the switch to strike every half inch along the curve of the pale posterior, until both cheeks were a deep red. The first strike across his upper thighs marked the half of the punishment, and it was at that point that the child finally lost his battle to remain composed.
"Stop," Harry sobbed, no longer caring if Snape saw that he was crying, it just hurt too much. He pushed with his hands to get up, but a firm hand on his back pressed him down. "I can't! Can't anymore! Please!"
The hand on his back didn't relent, and the boy cried harder in hopelessness. His whole body shook with wracking sobs for several minutes, but eventually he started to calm down, as the switch wasn't massacring any part of him currently.
"You have ten more to go, Mr. Potter," Snape said softly, when the boy's crying subsided into embarrassed hiccoughs. "Are you ready to continue?"
Harry's heart stopped for a second, before breaking into a gallop.
"Couldn't you just … let me go?" he pleaded desperately.
"I'm afraid not," Professor Snape said in the most placid tone Harry had ever heard from anyone, but as he removed his hand from the boy's back as he spoke, and picked up the switch, he wasn't much reassured.
The second part of the beating was both better and worse. It was better because after breaking down into a fit of sobbing in front of his teacher, Harry no longer bothered to fight for a pretence of stoicism. When it hurt, he grunted or cried out, and enduring it became somehow easier with the acknowledgement of how hard it was to do so. It was worse because the pain was more acute, as after marking his upper thighs a few times, Snape returned to his battered bum, striking select spots several times with precision, making the boy suspect that those areas supported most of his weight when seated.
Finally, it was over, and he lay across the desk shaking and gasping in emotional and physical exhaustion. The man let him gather his wits and composure, before clearing his throat.
"You may rise and cover yourself, boy," he told him at last, and Harry hurried to do just that, flushing in embarrassment that he'd been lying there half-naked.
He pulled up his clothes, not quite managing to stifle a pained hiss as his tight trousers dragged over his injury. The boy looked at his teacher warily, not sure what to expect now that their interactions had been pushed so much off-kilter. Snape was watching him with impassive eyes, still holding the damnable switch in one hand.
"I hope you won't make these corrections necessary very often, Potter," the man commented in his most authoritarian voice. "They will be applied decisively at need, however. Am I understood?"
Harry hunched his shoulders, swallowing the lump in his throat that was the size of Greenland.
"Y-yes, sir," he managed to croak out.
"Very good," Snape continued, holding out the switch to the child. "This is yours."
Paling considerably, the boy took the thing that caused him so much pain with a shaking hand, not daring to refuse, but not fully understanding the significance of the gesture.
"You will keep it in your room, readily accessible for future use," Snape explained, showing no sign of sympathy, even when the boy's eyes filled with tears at that horrible prospect. "You will present yourself in the kitchen in a half hour to prepare the table for lunch. That is all."
Thus dismissed, Harry left, almost fleeing up the stairs before the man could call him back for something. Wiping persistent salt water out of his eyes with a hand, he deposited the damn stick behind some books, immediately averting his gaze from the place, and pretending it wasn't there. He crawled on the bed, turning to his stomach to avoid aggravating his flaming backside, that had been absolutely awful in every sense of the word!
The boy groaned softly, burying his face in his pillow, he couldn't believe that at one point there, he kind of thought Snape wasn't such a cold–hearted bastard. Foolish, imbecilic idiot, his perception of reality must have been skewed by getting thrashed. There was no other explanation for his flight of fancy, or maybe he was developing the Stockholm Syndrome after living with the git for all of sixteen hours. He needed to get out of there, Snape couldn't really be permitted to beat him up like that. There had to be a law against it.
