Chapter 4.
To Harry's great disappointment, Borrible neither spontaneously combusted nor choked to death on his own tongue in the time it took him to guide Harry from his father's study to his new bedroom. As they passed through the corridors, turning so many corners that he wasn't sure he'd be able to re-trace his steps on his own, Harry took the opportunity to examine his surroundings.
The "house" seemed to be more of a castle-a smaller one, judging by the height of the ceilings, but a castle nonetheless. Turning his eye to the buttresses overhead, it occurred to Harry that, over-all, it reminded him strongly of Hogwarts. In fact, he mused, taking a closer look at the pattern of the lead casing in a window as he passed, it was almost an exact copy, at least in regards to the decorative style.
Harry grinned slightly. The house was a replica: a Hogwarts knock-off. His grin turned into a smirk. If this was supposed to be Hogwarts, then what was the tower study? The Headmaster's Study, he presumed. Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, he'd heard, but this seemed dangerously close to crossing some sort of line.
He amused himself for a moment with an image of his father in a white wig and fake beard, posturing in front of a mirror, eating Sherbet Lemons while trying to find the muscle required to make his eyes twinkle.
Harry snorted, which made Borrible look over his shoulder, giving him a haughty glance. He sniffed and looked away without comment, as if Harry was not even worthy of his distain.
Scowling at the elf's back, Harry rolled his eyes. This "Holier than Thou" bit was wearing on his nerves. After the initial weariness had worn off, and he had a firmer grip on the situation, Harry saw Borrible as more annoying than intimidating. Returning to his earlier train of thought, Harry supposed the elf could be seen as the counter-part to Peeves.
Pleased with this new image, Harry allowed the grin to creep back onto his face, just as the malodorous cretin in question stopped. He turned, and was obviously miffed to find the boy's smiling face. He regarded him with his best spirit-crushing glare, which he was clearly annoyed to find did not have the desired effect.
With a "humph" and one last glare, Borrible crossed his arms petulantly over his chest and jerked his head toward a door on his right.
"Young Master's bedroom," he said curtly. "Can Young Master manage on his own, or does Borrible need too..."
"No thank you Borrible," Harry interrupted cheerfully, "but thank you very much for your help." He smiled winningly, then entered the room, turning his back on the fuming creature. As he closed the door he poked his head out, flashed another smile, and added,
"Oh, by the way, Borrible, there's a spot on your tea cloth," the ducked into the room as the elf's hands and eyes flitted anxiously over his raiment, searching for the imaginary stain. By the time he realized it didn't exist, Harry had shut the door in his face.
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Harry pressed his ear against the door and held a hand over his mouth to suppress his mirth. Through the thick oak he could hear the elf spitting in impotent rage. Laughing to himself, Harry turned to face the interior of the room that was to be his residence for...ever, he thought bitterly.
He shook his head.
"Let's not fire up the pity factory again, Harry," he admonished himself. Hands shoved into the cavernous pockets of his bear-spangled pajama trousers, he began a slow circuit of the room.
It wasn't small, but neither was it huge. The three inner walls, the outer being left natural stone, were painted a not-quite-cream colour that was neither warm nor cold. In a corner, by a medium-sized desk, sat an easy chair that, when he tested it, Harry found neither comfortable nor un-comfortable. The bed was of an average size, the bedding made of fabric patterned in a simple yet confusing pattern.
When he reached the outer wall and looked out the un-remarkable windows, his view was one that did not compel him to gaze at for hours on end. The only decoration was above the fireplace mantel: a framed painting of a non-descript pastoral scene that looked as if it had previously hung on the wall of a less-than five-star hotel.
In fact, now that he thought of it, that was exactly what this room reminded him of: a hotel room. It wasn't as un-welcoming as, say, a hospital room, but it was definitely nowhere one would wish to spend more than a few days.
It occurred to Harry that this was likely a simple guest-room that had been turned over to him without any specific preparations for his arrival.
Feeling more welcome by the minute, Harry dragged his feet over to the bed, at the foot of which sat his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage. She'd been out flying during his abduction, but Harry was sure she'd be able to find him.
Setting the cage aside, he began rummaging through the trunk for more "suitable" clothes, as his father had ordered. He considered wearing his worst cast-offs from Dudley, but the pain that shot through his backside as he sat back on his heels to survey his wardrobe made him re-consider in a hurry.
He finally pulled out a pair of hound's-tooth trousers and a pull-over that was only one or two sizes too big for him. It had been a birthday gift for Dudley from a distant relative who had made the mistake of believing he was buying a gift for a boy, not a hippopotamus with a gland problem. Unfortunately, said relative was colour blind, an affliction which, when combined with an acute lack of taste, resulted in one very ugly article of clothing.
Still, as Harry was loath to admit, it was the best he had. Sighing, he pulled his soiled and rumpled pajamas off and dressed half-heartedly. When he was finished he looked around for a mirror, which he found inside the door of a wardrobe set into the wall beside the bed.
He looked at himself and made a face. While he didn't pretend to be an expert on fashion, he knew full well that the combination of his black and white trousers with the shockingly patterned pull-over would have raised eyebrows in the dressing-room of a circus side-show. They were, however, the only articles of clothing he had that didn't swim on his lean frame or have gaping holes in obvious places.
Harry let out a resigned sigh and ran a hand through his unruly hair. He absent-mindedly tried to flatten it, and stepped forward to examine himself more closely in the glass. He was searching, as he had been for the past two weeks, for a family resemblance.
What Dumbledore had said had turned out to be true. The first chance he had, Harry had carefully scrutinized every inch of his face in the mirror, and had found that he did indeed very closely resemble his mother. Nose, eyes, mouth, even his ears looked exactly Lily Evans'.
Now he leaned closer and turned his head from side to side, trying to find Snape in his reflection. The hair, he supposed, was obviously inherited from him, and perhaps, now that he thought of it, his chin. Remembering what the Headmaster had said about his face thinning out, he sucked in his cheeks.
"There," he said through his pursed lips, "now I look like a fish. I should ask the git if this is something I should be worried about...Maybe the Snape ancestor was a little late in crawling out of the primordial ooze, and they haven't yet evolved fully into human beings. Hmmm," he tapped his sunken cheek in mock-contemplation, "that might explain a lot of things."
He grinned, and his lips parted with a loud smacking noise. Tired of staring at his own reflection, he turned and went back to his trunk. He poked through it, but was soon bored with what it contained: clothes, schoolbooks, papers and...certain things he would rather avoid looking at.
His photo album, which only weeks before he could leaf through for hours, now set his emotions in turmoil. James Potter now seemed like a stranger, and he couldn't look at a picture of his mother without hearing Snape's description of Harry's own adulterous conception.
Images of Remus stirred up resentment over his having kept such a secret from him, and Sirius...well, Sirius was another story altogether.
After the initial confrontation, Harry had not seen his then-God Father until he was leaving Hogwarts, two days later, when Dumbledore had finally decided that things had clamed down enough for him to be allowed to leave.
Sirius had approached Harry in the Great Hall where he was waiting with his trunk. The meeting had been brief, and had left a bad taste in Harry's mouth.
"Keep in touch, right Sport?" he said from a casual distance, "Oh, and you can still keep the Firebolt, by the way...I don't really need it...got my bike, you know?"
He'd lingered a moment, hands in his pockets, rocking slightly on his heels. Then his mouth smiled, and he said,
"Well, you have a good summer, right?" and with that he clapped Harry on the shoulder and strode off.
In his new room, sitting on a stack of pillows to cushion his smarting rear, Heroditus Severus Snape stared down at the photo album that now lay in his lap, tracing Sirius' features with his index finger. He half expected the image to turn away from him in revulsion, or worse, to give him that empty-eyed smile again.
Harry knew that he shouldn't dwell on this. Sirius was obviously not the person he'd thought he was; he was petty and vindictive. If Harry needed any proof beyond the treatment he himself had received, the fact that the man had labeled Remus a "half-breed" and shut him out of his life should have been enough. If this was the real Sirius, he wasn't worth pining for.
Harry knew this, he really did. But then, Harry knew that the sky was blue, but that didn't stop him from looking at it every day.
The Firebolt lay at the bottom of the trunk, shrouded in his Hogwarts cloak. Harry hadn't yet been able to bring himself to touch it. It was tainted by Sirius' last words to him.
Placing the album back into the trunk, Harry closed the lid.
He glanced at the clock that sat on the desk and moaned. How could time possibly be passing so slowly? Since Borrible had appeared in his room at Privet Drive at 5 am, barely two hours had passed. That couldn't be true, could it? Surely the interview with his father had taken more time that that!
On reflection, Harry grudgingly admitted that what had seemed like several torturous hours was more likely a scant half-hour or so, if a very...eventful one.
How on earth was he going to fill the four hours that lay between now and the pending father/son bonding session? He had no diversions, save for his school books, and he had not yet been driven to the level of desperate boredom required for an act of such extra-curricular madness.
His fingernail found the edge of a floorboard, and traced the network of ridges until a grain of sand derailed it.
An errant thread caught his eye, which he dutifully plucked from the hem of the coverlet.
Harry leaned forward and opened the trunk again. From one of Uncle Vernon's socks he pulled the miniature animated Hungarian Horntail and set it down on top of the bed. Kneeling at the edge, the boy rested his chin on his crossed arms and observed the charmed figure. After several minutes of mindless observation, he noticed that the dragon was set on a loop; it would roar, pace, flex its wings, pace, stretch, pace, swish its tail, pace, circle and lie down. Then it would get to its feet with a roar, and start the process again.
How depressing.
Harry shoved the Horntail back into the sock and tossed it into the trunk. With a frustrated roar he flopped onto his back on the bed. He stared at the plaster ceiling and came to the conclusion that it was the least interesting ceiling in the world. He hated that ceiling. Stupid ceiling.
He closed his eyes to block out the image of the despised ceiling, and did what any fourteen year-old boy in his situation would have done. He fell asleep.
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Once, as the boys of Gryffindor tower lay about, steeped in serious discussion, Seamus Finnegan stated that the worst way to be awakened was to have a bright light shone in one's face.
Neville Longbottom disagreed, on the grounds that hearing the harpy-like screeching of his grandmother first thing in the morning was guaranteed to have one starting the day with a healthy nervous tick.
Dean countered with his account of an experience he'd had while away at a Muggle summer camp, involving his hand and a bowl of warm water.
The boys were about to concede to his victory when Ron emphatically declared that the absolute worst way to be called out of the Land of Nod was to have a 5-litre pail of Bubotuber Puss suspended from one's ceiling in such a way as to make it spill its contents on one's head when the bedroom door is opened by one's Mother, wanting to know if what one's elder twin devil's-spawn brothers had said about him feeling ill was true.
Ron won, hands down.
At the time, Harry had thought, but not wanted to say, that the worst (though possibly not worse than Ron's) method of being woken up was to the hollow thumping of Aunt Petunia's fist against his cupboard door.
He was about to discover that they had all been wrong. None of them had ever been awakened by....Borrible.
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When the diminutive elf received no response to his knocking, Borrible opened the door and poked his long nose into the room. He spied the peacefully sleeping boy, and stepped through the door, easing it shut silently. With exaggerated care, he tiptoed to the edge of the bed. He gripped the coverlet and hoisted himself up until he was at eye-level with Harry.
"Young Master," he whispered, so quietly that he could barely hear his own words. "Young Master must wake up if he is to be on time for his father."
There was no response, so the elf reached out a finger and, with a feather-light touch, prodded the sleeping figure's nose. Harry didn't even twitch.
Finally, and ever-so-gently, Borrible bounced on the mattress, not creating enough motion to startle an ant.
A slow, malicious grin spread across his nasty little face. He carefully slid off of the bed, making sure not to jostle its occupant, and tiptoed a few steps away. He grabbed one of the pillows from the stack on the floor, took a deep breath, shoved the pillow in his face and gave a muffled yell. He looked at Harry, and finding his still sleeping, grinned and rubbed his long fingers together.
He raised a finger, pointed it toward the bed, and...
With a loud BANG! , the mattress sprang upwards and to the side, catapulting Harry into the air and sending him in a graceful parabola across the room, where he landed with a bone-jarring THUMP! on the hardwood floor.
Harry let out a terrified yell as he flew through the air, followed by a loud yelp as he connected with the floorboards.
Concern written all over his face, Borrible rushed over, wringing his hands, eyes wide.
"Oh, is Young Master alright? Oh, Borrible feels very, very badly about this. But he tried, he really did, to wake Young Master another way."
Harry squinted at the elf through watery eyes and gasped,
"Well, you can't have tried very hard...Merlin, owwww!"
"Oh, yes, Young Master, Borrible tried very hard to wake him," a glint had appeared in his eyes, and a smile played at the corner of his mouth, "Borrible asked nicely, then poked, then shook, and Borrible even shouted, but Young Master did not wake!"
"Why you..." Harry snarled, beginning to get gingerly to his feet.
Borrible, not even trying to hide his smirk, interrupted him.
"It is already ten minutes to the hour...does Young Master truly wish to be tardy? His father may not be pleased."
With that, he turned and walked toward the door.
Harry, cursing and wincing alternately, scrambled into his shoes and hurried after the elf.
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Once again, Borrible merely pointed at the door that Harry was supposed to enter before disappearing with a loud crack!
The boy stood outside and ran a nervous hand through his hair, which he realized he'd had no time to comb after his rude awakening. He reached up to make sure it wasn't too tousled, but stopped mid-gesture when he remembered the charm on his father's study door. Jerking his hand down, he paused only to tug once at his suddenly tight collar before pushing the heavy door open.
On his way down, he'd again begun musing about this building's similarities to Hogwarts, and had imagined that he'd be led to a scaled-down version of the Great Hall. This was why, as he stepped cautiously through the doorway, he'd glanced first at the ceiling, expecting to see an image of the mid-morning sky.
What he saw instead was dark wood paneling, which continued to the walls. Slightly disappointed, he turned his eyes downward, where they met his father's disapproving glare.
He jumped, and was mortified to hear his voice say,
"Eeep!"
Severus Snape let his paper fall onto the table and crossed his arms. He eyed his son with a look that did not fall short of loathing.
"Well," he said, "You do clean up nicely, don't you."
After four years of the man's sarcasm, Harry had built up a good amount of resistance to such verbal barbs, but that didn't keep him from flushing in embarrassment at the obvious dig about his clothes.
Crossing his own arms, he replied tersely,
"They were the best I had. Sorry, Father"
Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Really. Even better than your Hogwarts uniform? I seem to recall those having a slightly better fit and the pattern being not quite so...interesting."
Harry flushed even redder. Why hadn't he thought of his uniform? Even just his shirt and trousers would have been appropriate. Idiot! He closed his eyes and growled,
"Would you like me to go change? Sir?"
Snape didn't miss the hostility in the boy's voice, but didn't react.
"No. I'll not have you wasting any more of my time." He gestured to a seat across from his own, and ordered, "Sit."
Harry, clenching and un-clenching his fists, sat.
The two stared at each other in un-blinking silence until they were interrupted by the arrival of the food,brought in by an elf which, Harry noticed with relief, wasn't Borrible.
"Snidget has brunch, Master, Young Master," said the elf, bowing to each in turn. He looked curiously and almost fearfully at Harry, as if observing a strange dog. Harry smiled in what he thought was a reassuring way, at which Snidget let out a yelp and jumped to hide behind the cart on which he'd brought the food.
Harry was unsure whether or not he should laugh. This elf, at least, seemed to be more like the one's he'd already met.
Snape, apparently, found nothing amusing in the behavior of his servant.
"Snidget!" he snapped, making both elf and boy jump, "Don't be ridiculous! Serve the food and get out!"
The elf scurried out from behind the cart and quickly set to work, stammering apologies the whole time, along with assurances that he would properly punish himself once he returned to the kitchen. Harry was disturbed to hear the words, "double-broiler" and "toes" mentioned in conjunction.
Unperturbed, Snape simply waved the jibbering elf away and turned to his meal.
Harry cast a worried glance after the elf, then turned to his own plate. He eyed the food warily, and poked a sausage carefully with his fork before trying any of it.
"Expecting poison, boy?"
Harry didn't answer beyond a scowl directed at his eggs, which he proceeded to savagely cut into smaller and smaller pieces. He was fairly sure that Snape didn't want him to answer him anyways. The way he figured it, "conversations" in this household were going to be fairly one-sided: Snape talking (lecturing, ranting, dictating, berating, etc) and Harry listening, with only the occasional head-nod or muttered "Yes, sir," or "No, sir."
That was the way the man ran his classes, so Harry saw no reason to expect anything more here. Not that he especially wanted to talk with him. Anything he really wanted to say would not likely be well received, so he decided the head-nodding approach would be safest.
As if he'd read the boy's thoughts, Snape started talking.
"I have several things planned for the day. First, since you are in obvious need of one, you shall be accompanying me to Diagon Alley, where I will purchase you a wardrobe more befitting your station and less...you."
Harry renewed his attack on his eggs, shoveling them into his mouth. He figured that if he kept it full of eggs, there would be no room for his foot.
"While we are there, I will conduct some business. You will behave yourself, and stay out of my way. Finally," he said, looking intensely at his son, "we will be dining at my brother's house."
Harry choked and coughed, spewing bits of semi-chewed egg and sausage across the table.
"Heroditus!"
"Sorry," gasped Harry, taking a swig from his water goblet, "s-sorry! I just...we're going tonight?" He looked nervously at his father and leaned as far back in his chair as he could.
Snape was gripping the edge of the table, obviously trying to control his temper.
"Yes," he seethed, glaring daggers at the wide-eyed boy across from him, "we have been invited, tonight, to my brother Atticus' home to dine. You will go, you will make a good first impression, and you will not embarrass me. Is that clear?"
The black eyes clearly held a challenge, but Harry knew better than to rise to the bait.
"Yes, sir," he said. Then, nervously trying to fill the tense silence, he stammered,
"Umm, Atticus...he's, umm, my godfather? Right?"
There was a hiss as Snape let out the breath he'd been holding, and he slowly sat back, releasing the table from his grip.
"Yes," he said, schooling his features to his former icy-calm, "Atticus is my brother, younger by one year. His wife is Calliste, and their son is Castor. He is your age, I believe. My sister Adara, her husband Odysseus and their children will also be in attendance. Myles is a year or two behind you at Hogwarts and Philomena has yet to start."
Harry waited for him to continue, and when he simply resumed eating, asked,
"I have cousins at Hogwarts?" this news couldn't help but intrigue him. There were little Snape-spawn running about Hogwarts and he didn't know about it? 'Ugh,' he thought, 'they ought to make them wear signs: "WARNING! THIS IS A SNAPE! VOLATILE SUBSTANCE, MAY EXPLODE!"
He almost smiled before he realized that he was referring to himself as well. The idea immediately lost its appeal.
"A cousin," said Snape, jolting Harry out of his thoughts.
"What?" said Harry, "Why just one? You said there were two around my age..."
"Yes," interrupted Snape, "Castor is of Hogwarts age, but his mother," here he rolled his eyes, and spat the word out as if it tasted bad, "seems to feel that she can do a better job of educating her son at home than the entire staff of Hogwarts can."
He snorted, clearly disgusted by the thought,
"The boy is spoiled, as most only children are..." he glared at Harry, as if to let him know that he'd receive no such treatment, only child or not.
Harry glared right back.
"The other one...Myles? I don't think I know him. Which house is he in, Slytherin?" he asked with a slight sneer.
His father met his sneer with one of his own, and answered,
"Ravenclaw, actually. He just finished his third year, I believe. Which means you would have missed his sorting, due to the incident involving Mr. Weasley's car."
The look on his father's face as he remembered the incident made Harry very, very glad that Snape had not been his guardian in second year. Eager to change the subject, Harry cleared his throat.
"Umm, yes. Ah...his last name's not Snape, then is it? I'd have known, otherwise..."
"I expect you would have," came the reply. "His father is an Alexandros. A very good family."
"Oh."
The rest of the meal passed in silence.
Finally, well after Harry had finished eating, Snape put down his paper and announced that they were going. He summoned Snidget (who Harry noticed was walking awkwardly on his heels) and told him to fetch Harry's cloak from his room. When he returned, and Harry thanked him, Snidget squealed in terror and fled the room.
Snape looked at his son with renewed disgust, then with a muttered, "Make sure your clothes are covered for Merlin's sake!", he grabbed Harry roughly by the arm and apparated them both out of Snape Manor.
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Thank you SO much, to all of my reviewers. Seriously, you all blew me away with your responses to the last chapter. I appreciate all of your input very much...feel free to tell me exactly what you think...what you DID like, what you DIDN'T like, or just any observations you might have.
I'd love to respond to all the reviews I got, but since there were 45 (!!! I LOVE you guys!!!) I'm just going to address the questions that were brought up.
For those of you who were worried that Harry was too easily cowed, don't worry. He was just a little shaken up. After all, he WAS kid-napped in the wee hours of the morning, ridiculed by a nasty little elf, had his identity ripped away from him and beaten up. I don't know about you guys, but personally, I wouldn't be feeling too hot in that situation. You'll see pretty soon that he's still got some spirit in him. He's going to make sure things get shaken up for Snape too. Promise.
For those who thought Sev was OC...what can I tell ya. Sorry, but after reading the fifth book especially, I have no problem believing that he would do what he did to Harry, given the chance. Also, I don't want to sound too touchy-feely here, but Sev's going through a big change too. He doesn't have all that much experience in this area. He MAY end up re-evaluating his parenting methods...depending on just how much of that "spirit" I mentioned earlier Harry decides to exhibit.
People wondering what ship I'm going to use...I'm not really at that point in the story yet, so I'm afraid you're all just going to have to wait!
Sorry again about the awkward shifts between scenes. As soon as I know how (help me out here, people) I'll go back and fix them.
People who like Borrible...hee hee! Welcome to my twisted rendition of a Mary-Sue! :P
Some of you seem to think that I invented the concept of Sev/Harry Father/Son stories. Well, the truth is...ummm...you're right! It was all me! It has never been done before! Severitus? Never heard of 'em!
Heroditus is just for the philosopher. No special meanings there, sorry. Does anyone know where I got the names for the other characters, including the elves?
And, as a last note...Tia Evans and Molly Morrison, it was really cool to get reviews from you guys...I really like your stories!
And...Kamahpfan...I had to double check...but, yup, you ARE the person who wrote "A Life of Lies"!! One of my favourite fics ever, by the way.