-York-
"Sevvy! Severus!"
Harry knocked on the boy's bedroom door early in the morning. He opened the door and entered.
Severus' room was the first they'd cleaned after the kitchen and livingroom. Harry had been amused that even as a child, Severus preferred Slytherin colors. The room was creamcolored, with green and silver accents. His own room was the same, only with gold and red.
"Come on, Sevvy," he said to the sleepy child, "we need to put glamours on before we go to the Alley."
That woke the boy up. He jumped out of bed.
"Are we going now, Harry?"
"Breakfast first! Put on Muggle clothes, and a light cloak. That way we'll fit into both the Muggle and the Wizarding world."
The boy jumped up and down on his bed, and Harry smirked. The quiet, scared child finally felt safe enough to act his age.
"Are we going to the Muggle world too? Where are we going?"
"That's a surprise. We'll be gone all day and have as much fun as we can."
-Hogwarts-
"Come in, Minerva," the Grey Lady said.
Dumbledore's rooms had been closed to all other humans in the castle for nearly two weeks. Minerva entered, nervously.
"H..how is he?" she asked the ghost.
"We have made progress," she smiled her ghostly smile, "and I believe he will recover. He is very distraught, however, when he realized what he has done to Harry and Severus. He wants to give you any information he has that might help with the search."
"How should I act towards him?"
"Be yourself, but don't yell at him or judge him harshly. You must not excuse his behavior, but don't condemn him either. Go on, he is waiting for you."
Minerva entered the bedroom, and stood at the threshold, looking at her old friend and mentor.
He was pale, his eyes were red to betray that he had been crying, and he looked so very frail and old.
He hardly dared to look at her.
"A…are you very mad, Minerva?" he finally managed, "I…Merlin, I'm so sorry…"
She thought her heart would break. Of course they had all known that he was ill, but until now, anger had been the more prominent emotion when it came to Albus. But now, she just rushed towards him and threw her arms around the broken old man.
"Oh, Albus, I know. It's not just your fault. We kept heaping responsibilities on you without considering you needed rest and someone to turn to just as much as the rest of us. I'm sorry we didn't help you before. If we had, it wouldn't have come to this."
"Severus did," he whispered in her ear, and she felt how thin he had become.
"Severus tried to help me. He was already pulling much more then his own weight, but he spent every free moment helping me. I…I miss him, and it's all my own fault."
"We'll find them, Albus.We will bring him back."
"But how?" the old wizard said sadly, "I hurt him. He hates me now. And we don't even know if he'll ever be an adult again."
The witch pulled back. "Filius is researching. If anyone can find a countercurse, it's him, you know that. Meanwhile, the Grey Lady said you wanted to help us?"
Dumbledore nodded. "James and Lily had more houses then the one at Godric's Hollow. I don't know exactly how many and where, but the Goblins do. They could've told Harry."
Minerva looked excited at the prospect. "And Severus? Is there somewhere…"
Dumbledore stared in the distance as he wiped away a stray tear.
"Severus has nowhere to go, except perhaps his parents' old house, if he remembers where it is. It's in a Muggle town, in a street called Spinner's End."
-Bungalow-
Harry and Severus were eating breakfast, talking excitedly about their day out, when an owl flew in, carrying a letter. Severus paled.
"Have they found us, Harry?" he asked, frightened.
Harry shook his head. "I doubt that. Owls are clever; they can find people in hiding. Let's see what it says…"
He cast a few Finite's first for good measure, to make sure the letter wasn't used to track him, and then opened it.
"Dear Harry,
The search team looking for you has decided that as its leader, the task to write you should fall to me.
We have been looking for you for a while now, and it was only when we talked to your relatives –who have now moved to a safe location- that we learned something.
You see, your cousin told us in no uncertain terms that he would have left too, if he had been as abused and neglected by us as you were.
I'm sorry, Harry. We never bothered to realize how your life in the wizarding world has been since you entered it. Your cousin said 'he looked like he had aged fifty years instead of five'. Now that the headmaster is suffering from a nervous breakdown…wait, you didn't know that yet, did you? I'll go into it in a moment.
Anyway, when the headmaster broke down we realized that we had placed all of our expectations and demands on the shoulders of an old man and a boy, and how unfair that is. We are doing our best to amend it.
Harry, we promise not to force you into anything anymore. We just want to be sure that you are safe and sound. Will you let us know?
Dumbledore reacted very badly to Severus being found out and de-aged…I am getting ahead of myself again, right? Well, Severus was found out as a spy. I'm not sure what Voldemort meant to accomplish with turning him into a six year old, but he did. The Grey Lady and Hermione both explained to us that this worked as a 'triggering event' for Dumbledore and he broke down, abusing Severus at least verbally and to a lesser degree physically, though he didn't really harm him. This shocked us all; Dumbledore loves Severus. He even tried to adopt him when we were in school, but nothing came of that. I don't think Severus even knows; Arthur found the old paperwork at the Ministry last week.
Oh dear, I'm ranting on. I'm sorry, but we are looking for both of you right now and I tend to get a bit confused sometimes.
Do write and tell us how you are. If you need anything, let us know and we will help you.
Remus."
"Harry?"
Harry startled. Then he smiled at the boy.
"Everything is ok, Sevvy. They're not hunting me anymore, although they are still searching for you. Nobody's mad at you, either. They finally came to their senses, it seems…" Harry trailed off.
Severus rushed at Harry and threw his arms around the older boy's waist.
"Don't send me back, please, I like it here!"
Harry patted his hair. "Of course I'm not sending you back. You can stay with me as long as you like. Now, I just need to write a response to this, then we're putting on our glamours and go out, ok?"
-Remus Lupin, The Burrow-
"Any luck, Arthur?"
"No. Nothing. And you?"
"No response yet. Minerva flooed, though, that she has seen and spoken to Dumbledore and might have some leads for us. She's asking that we come by."
"Of course! Did she say how Dumble…hey, isn't that your owl?"
Remus turned around and rushed to the tired animal.
"He replied. Arthur, he replied!" the man nearly danced.
"Well open it! What does it say?"
"Hey Moony,
Are you really not angry, or is that just a tactic to get me to give myself up to you? Sorry, but I have to ask.
So Dumbledore is ill; I already thought sending me to the Dursleys after what I told him was pretty sick. At some level, I am happy that he didn't do it out of malice.
Dudley, eh? Well perhaps there is hoe for him after all.
About my wellbeing: I am doing fine. I'll be on the train on september 1st, but I intend to have some fun first. When I'm absolutely sure you're not just trying to get me to show myself so you can abduct me and send me back to the Dursleys, I might even visit.
Tell my friends I said hi, and that I'm sorry for any worry I might have caused them.
Harry."
"He doesn't sound very friendly," Ron said when they got to read the letter.
"He has no reason to believe…"
"In our good intentions," the twins said.
Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "Remus told him about Snape being kiddified, but he doesn't respond to that at all. That's strange."
Ron shrugged. "Probably doesn't want to waste a thought on him. He still thinks Snape is an evil git, after all."
Rereading the letter, Hermione got lost in thought.
A/N: Short chapter, sorry, but I want to take a lot of time for Sevvy's and Harry's day out, so I'm reserving the whole next chapter for that. And I was fearing angry mobs if I didn't update today. So here it is. I'm going to sleep now.