Don't you just love Midterms and 50+ page projects? College is such a joy, really! Anyway, I am back. I loved your reviews, again I want to say that this is not slash. Just wanted that to be clear.

Disclaimer: I do not own the world that I am writing about.

Chapter 3

It was a disorientating experience being apparated by someone else's magic. Harry found himself to be too queasy to take note of his destination until a few moments after his arrival...then he was astonished. He guessed that he was in Snape Manor, but he had never expected it to be so opulent. The entire room was lit up by a grand crystal chandelier that covered nearly the full expanse of the ceiling. The carpet beneath Harry's feet was thick, soft, and a deep shade of maroon. If it had been any other situation, Harry might have teased his ex-professor of showing his Gryffindor side; but with the situation as it was, he just found himself bemused.

The room was delimited by four ivory colored walls with several portraits of people who looked to be Snape's ancestors on each wall. Planters holding exotic herbs decorated the corners of the room, a small number of stray vines from each container climbed a few meters up the walls. A tall, closed oak door with no visible handle faced the pair leading out into what Harry assumed to be a rather large mansion, if the lavishness of this one room was any indication.

Harry reigned in his astonishment as he looked around and forced his expression to remain one of neutrality. He would not be caught looking around in awe as if he were not displeased with the situation, but try as he might he could not stop the feeling itself.

Snape, who had immediately removed his hand from Harry's shoulder, did Harry the courtesy of pausing while the boy collected his bearings. The man stood tall, his black eyes looking at nothing while he pointedly ignored the surrounding portraits as they tried to engage him in conversation. As the disrespectfulness of Snape's behavior did not seem to faze them in the least, Harry figured that the man's actions were not atypical.

Harry sighed silently, his shoulders drooping slightly, and looked up at Snape. Snape turned his head to meet the young wizard's unsteady gaze and then smoothly led the way out of the room, opening the heavy wooden door with a slight flick of his wand.

The term mansion did not cover what Harry was looking into; in fact, Harry was quite certain that there were no words adequate enough to describe the quiet luxury of the manor before him. Castle would not do, the place was brighter than that, and the walls were not made of craggy stone blocks. The place was not gaudy enough to be called a palace, it was quite apparent to be full of wealth, but it was not on display with useless statues and bobbles for everyone to admire.

The richness of Snape's manor could be seen in the quality of the deep blue rug that ran as far as Harry could see, it was in the thick wooden doors that were easily able to let someone through them had that person been twice Hagrid's height yet looked strong enough to give an army trouble getting past had they been locked. The richness of Snape's home was further seen in the deep cushioned black couches that ran in a semicircle in the center of the room separated from a pair of matching chairs by a hand carved oak coffee table with carved wooden intertwining snakes as the table legs.

It was a calm, quiet beauty that would have left Harry wide eyed and amazed had he not still been carefully schooling his expression at the time. Not matter what the place was like though, Harry was not happy to be here, he wanted to make certain that no one would mistake that...but he could still inwardly appreciate the beauty of it. Secretly, very secretly.

"Master Severus! I is so happy to see Master is back!" A wide eyed house elf appeared out of nowhere only to earn a reproving glare from his master.

"I is meaning...am meaning, welcome back sir. I am glad to see you are well?" The little elf corrected looking embarrassed.

Snape gave a sharp nod to the elf which Harry found not just a little odd. He could not imagine Snape taking time out to give house elves grammar lessons. Actually the thought was mildly amusing, perhaps Snape would be a better teacher if the students were bowing, worshiping, and calling him master. He certainly could not handle a class of students exercising free will.

That was not true, Harry realized, or at least it was not fair. He knew that his teacher had to act a certain way to maintain his mask while spying on Voldemort, he also realized that after the Dark Lord's fall Snape seemed to be more quiet and introspective...no longer the loud, angry, impatient man that Harry had been a student of. But the teenager had no desire to be fair, after all, was what Snape was doing to him fair? Hardly.

Harry was brought back to reality by the feeling that he was being watched.

Looking around Harry discovered that sometime during his inner monologue the house elf had disappeared. Eventually Harry looked up at Snape and discovered where the feeling had come from.

Snape was watching him, his eyes seeming to see right through Harry, as if the man was reading the younger boy's thoughts. Harry, having no desire to be read quickly occluded his mind, but as Snape did not seem to notice the young wizard did not know if his occlusion was either complete or correct. Perhaps Snape was only watching him, not sifting though his memories. Harry could not feel the man in his mind, but that did not really mean much if Snape wished to remain hidden.

If Harry was going to remain here, he knew he would have to study his occlumency book much more thoroughly.

Harry found the man's gaze to begin to unnerve him. Did Snape ask him a question that he did not hear? Was he supposed to respond to something? Harry had not spoken to his old teacher since the meeting with Albus, and in truth Harry did not much feel like speaking to him now. Even Harry's desire to scream and rage at the man for the unfairness of it all had been replaced with a hollow sense of betrayal.

At last Snape turned away from Harry and made his way up the curving staircase that had been facing them. Not turning back the man motioned for Harry to follow. Harry caught up to Snape and trailed after him just as he turned off the continuing staircase once they reached the second floor. Snape then led Harry down a well lit hallway where a thick green carpet that made Harry feel as if he was walking on soft, newly tilled earth covered the floor.

Harry counted the closed doors as he passed them, trying to keep track of where they were going and how far away from the staircase their destination was. He had a feeling that where ever Snape was taking him it was going to be a place Harry visited often.

Or, Harry thought, he could be giving me a tour. He smiled to himself at the thought, after all, if Snape was giving Harry a tour he was even worse at being a tour guide than being a teacher.

Nine closed doors had passed and Harry found himself being led into the tenth. Nice even number to remember. Harry's mood darkened again as he remembered some of his ex-professor's comments as to his intellect and ability to retain information.

Harry scowled, he could have remembered to go to the third door, or the seventh door, or even the one-hundred twenty-fourth door…although he was grateful that it wasn't quite that long of a walk. Perhaps he was reading too much into this.

Harry found himself inside of a bedroom, but before he had a chance to give the place more than a cursory glance Snape caught his attention.

"This is your residence for the duration of your time here. I expect you to treat this room, as with all my belongings with the utmost respect." Snape paused.

Harry focused on breathing evenly and tried to not let Snape's insinuation of Harry's inability to…not wreck things get to him. Harry had heard much worse than that come out of this man's mouth.

Harry waited for the man to go on, but Snape seemed to be waiting for some indication that Harry had heard him. As the boy did not trust his voice, and really had no desire to speak to the man, he just nodded.

Snape narrowed his eyes and studied the teenager, but said nothing about the abrupt gesture. This surprised Harry who had listened to multiple lectures on the subject of showing the proper respect to Snape. Harry had lost count of the amount of times Snape had leaned down to the point that he was only inches away from Harry's face and hissed menacingly at Harry to call him sir, professor, or some other term of respect.

"Have you eaten?"

So much for Harry's carefully schooled expression, but then again, Snape always did have the ability to startle him. Before Harry could stop himself he found his treacherous mouth breaking his vow of silence and answering Snape.

"Lunch…I'm not really hungry right now though." Harry narrowed his eyes, held his tongue prisoner between his teeth, and silently berated himself for being caught off guard.

"None the less, I expect you to eat. I will have food brought to you tonight, and you will settle down for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow morning an elf will collect you to inform you of your duties." Snape turned to leave but paused in the doorway and without turning around he spoke again. "I will know, Mr. Potter, of any magic done in my house, so do try to keep yourself out of trouble."

The door snapped shut behind Snape and Harry found himself alone in the unfamiliar room. Harry stood uncomfortably in the center of his new home and looked around. This was not to say that the room itself was uncomfortable, far from it actually. Harry just found that the situation he was in made it difficult to relax.

Harry took the time he now had to take in his new surroundings. He found himself slightly annoyed to see that the carpet was the same green that the hallway had been, in fact the entire room was done in various shades of green. Harry figured that Snape boarded him on this green floor to make a point, and the boy highly doubted that it was because the color went well with his eyes.

Aside from the insult Harry knew Snape must have intended to give, the room was the nicest Harry had ever seen. It was easily four times as large as Dudley's second bedroom and it had a door that appeared to connect into his very own bathroom. A large oak four poster bed with thick multi-shaded green curtains tied open at each post was to the left of the entrance door, the head of the bed up against the wall. A thin wardrobe stood against the opposite wall across from the foot of the king size bed. Twin dressers stood, one on each side of the wardrobe, bookshelves built into the wall above them.

A tall, wide window framed by curtains that matched the darkest green of the bed hangings faced the door. An elaborately built oak desk stood in front of the window while a matching oak chair with leather padding was neatly pushed into place under it.

Sighing Harry made his way over to the wardrobe facing the foot of his bed, deciding to leave his trunk and belongings out of sight. The hand carved oak doors opened outward to reveal a room twice the size of Harry's old cupboard. The size of the wardrobe startled Harry, he was sure that it looked quite smaller on the outside. It seemed that he would never stop being shocked at the magic that other wizards took for granted.

Shaking off the surprise, Harry removed his shrunken trunk from his pocket and set it a few inches away from the wall on the right side of the wardrobe. With a wave of his wand and a quick spell his truck was back to normal size, its lid thrown open and leaning against the wall.

Harry's breath caught in his throat, his trunk was empty. Before it has been nearly filled...and with Dobby's additions it should be overflowing. Harry started to see white. His clothes, his belongings; his life was in that trunk. Did Dobby do the spell wrong?

Dobby! He had said that Harry had plenty of room in his trunk for all that food; Harry knew that he didn't...what if... Harry stepped closer and looked properly into his trunk; sure enough the bottom was just barely covered with miniaturized items that looked as if they belonged in a doll house. Harry groaned, he was not looking forward to unshrinking an item every time he wanted to use it.

Sighing Harry reached into his trunk and pulled out one of his robes, planning on at least putting his clothes away. When Harry pulled the robe out he was not expecting it to revert back to its proper size, when it did Harry stumbled back dropping the robe into the trunk again.

Shaking his head, Harry berated himself for his reaction and stepped up to retrieve the robe which was once again in its miniaturized form.

The teenager hung his robe, and quickly did the same with the rest of his clothes minus, of course, the Harry Potter paraphernalia that was given to him by Dobby. That would remain hidden in his trunk as long as Harry had any say in the matter. The wardrobe still looked empty. Harry had far more clothing than he had ever had in his life, thanks to the shopping trip Hermione had dragged him on before seventh year started. He had well over a dozen muggle outfits, a few decent robes, and even a set of dress robes. This was not even mentioning his Pajamas or the clothes he still had from his years at the Dursley's. But hung up there it seemed as if he had very little.

Actually, Harry didn't know why he held onto his old hand-me-downs from his overweight cousin, Harry guessed that it was because he had so little for so long he was not used to throwing anything away. Ah well, maybe they would come in handy if Snape had him gardening or doing hard cleaning without magic.

A pop sounded behind Harry sounding deafening in the silent room. When Harry spun around he did not see anyone in the room, but the desk by the window now held a shiny silver tray covered by a lid of the same material.

Harry, curious despite himself, walked over to the desk and lifted the lid off of the tray. Immediately the smell of rich beef stew filled the bedroom, and Harry's traitorous mouth watered. Harry, though, was not lying to Snape when he said that he did not want to eat. No matter how good the food smelled, he doubted that it would stay down once eaten. Despite not feeling well, Harry sat down at the desk knowing that he did not eat, he very well could face the wrath of his ex-professor.

When Harry looked more closely at the tray he found himself amused to find that the entire meal was composed of easily digestible foods. It seemed as if Snape knew exactly why Harry did not want to eat. The vegetables in the stew were cut into very small pieces and the beef was shredded; there was apple sauce in a small glass bowl to the side. A cup of a spicy scented tea set by the apple sauce drew Harry's attention first.

After taking his first sip of tea, Harry even found reason to believe that his meal was doused with potions as his stomach calmed considerably.

Harry honestly did not know whether to be thankful or disturbed by the thought that his meal was covered in potions. He chose not to think about it now. Whatever had been in the tea had not only removed his queasiness, but it had also renewed his appetite.

Harry dug into the meal with gusto, tearing off a piece of the fresh brown bread that had been laying on the plate holding the bowl of stew, noticing how the inside of the bread steamed as he broke it apart. The teenager dipped the bread into the stew and nearly moaned as the taste exploded in his mouth. Harry had thought that Hogwarts food was good, but he obviously did not have much to compare it to. He now knew why the children from some of the older families complained about school food, it was nothing compared to this.

Before Harry realized it, he had finished everything on the plate and was feeling rather warm and sleepy. The young wizard's mind seemed to be incased in a pleasantly warm haze which blocked out all complicated thought. Harry barely had enough presence about him to change into a pair of deep blue pajamas and stumble into bed before sleep took him.

The young wizard never even noticed how the thick comforter that he was under remained just the perfect temperature, nor how the curtains had detached themselves from the poles that they were tied to and closed as Harry lay down, leaving him to rest in complete darkness.

TBC

But I am sure you knew that. Anyway, I have the next chapter halfway done and it should be out by next week. Sorry for any mistakes, I have taken care of them the best I can. Again, thanks for all your comments, they do mean a lot.