By the time the new Professor Potter had made his way to the little house on Tansell Road where Jonathan Blake lived with his mother, he had managed to thoroughly confuse himself. It simply did not make sense. Standing at the foot of the splintering porch steps, Harry Potter ran through the bizarre facts in an effort to piece them together in a logical matter.
Fact: Jonathan Blake was a second-year Ravenclaw.
Fact: Blake was currently not at Hogwarts and his mother had not notified Dumbledore of any change in plans.
Fact: Severus Snape hated all children, but especially those who were not in Slytherin.
Fact: Snape had first listened to the worries of a second-year who was not in his house; second, he had cast a locating spell of his own to determine that what she had said was true; and third, he had demanded that Dumbledore send someone to the Blake home that very night instead of waiting until the next day.
Fact: none of this made any sense.
Why, Harry wondered, not for the first time, why was Snape so concerned? The boy was in Ravenclaw! It just wasn't like the greasy—now graying!—git to be so worked up over something that didn't involve a Slytherin student.
And then, Harry actually looked at the house in front of him.
The porch had once been painted green, but the paint had faded and the wood was splintering. The tan paint on the house, harshly illuminated by the porch light, was peeling. There was duct tape and cardboard over a broken windowpane in the window next to the door.
The new professor felt a wave of unease pass through him. Although Harry told himself that it was wrong to judge people based on the appearance of their home—the Dursley's house had been immaculate, after all—the war taught him to trust his instincts. And his instincts clamored that there was something very, very wrong at the Blake family residence.
Then he saw the blood.