Severus
The child's eyes were making him uncomfortable. They were eyes that could convey such emotion, and he had to force himself to look away from them as he noticed tears gathering.
"Enough with this fuss" the man said briskly "you've had your adventure, now it is time to return home" he continued, as much for himself as the child. He told himself that the boy was simply upset at having his plans quashed. It was likely the child was just nervous about the trouble he would be in once returned to his relatives. Well, Severus thought, it would serve him right. Perhaps it would behove him to behave in the future if they shouted at him just a tad. With those comforting thoughts, Severus knocked once again, as he had done over an hour earlier, on the door to number 4.
As it did before, the door opened just a crack, Petunia's face appearing behind it. She barely looked at Severus before noticing the whelp stood behind him. She sighed, unable to keep the displeasure off of her face. She had hoped he would make it far enough away that they wouldn't find the boy again, at least not for a while longer.
"I am returning the child" Severus said simply, "do keep an eye on him this time, Petunia" he added, as he nudged the child towards the front door with a hand on his shoulder. The boy resisted slightly, before resigning himself to his fate and shuffling toward his Aunt, head hanging low.
"Come in, come in" she rushed, grabbing the child by the collar of his shirt and pulling him across the threshold. She was about to shut the door once more, when Severus heard a small voice.
"Goodbye Mr Snape" the forlorn voice could be heard, just as the door shut behind the pair. Severus Snape stood in satisfaction. Now, he could check off his tasks. He had located the boy, returned him to his relatives, and now he just had to report to Dumbledore, and get back to his potion. With a slight uneasiness in his chest, Severus Snape began walking away from the house and towards an appropriate apparition spot.
Harry
Harry was more nervous now than when the Snape man had appeared. His Aunt Petunia had a hold of his shirt collar, and it was painfully restrictive as she pulled him forward towards the living room.
"Please Aunt Petunia, I'm sorry!" the boy cried loudly as he was pulled towards the living room. His Aunt usually refrained from touching him, and he knew if she had willingly grabbed him then she was angrier than she had ever been before. As she dragged him into the living room, Harry saw that his Uncle Vernon was waiting in there too. He attempted to twist away, hoping he could run outside and beg the Snape man to take him wherever he was going, or at least to let him properly run away this time.
"oh, you've done it now boy!" his Uncle's voice boomed off the walls, and Harry thought he might start shaking with fear. His Aunt and Uncle had never really liked him, but they hadn't actively disliked him until a few weeks ago. He didn't really understand why, but he definitely didn't like it and wished he hadn't done whatever he had done to upset them so.
"I'm sorry Uncle Vernon, I'll be good!" the young boy promised in desperation, as his Aunt continued dragging him towards his Uncle.
Severus
Something was stopping him from apparating. He hadn't felt this feeling in some time, and it was making him more frustrated than anything. Damn the boy for having such an effect on me he thought as images of the child's face replayed in his head. Growling softly, he made his way back towards the house, planning only to glance in and reassure himself that the child was in fact fine.
As he approached the house he now loathed more than any other muggle house, Severus could hear the growls and grumblings of a loud man. Must be Petunia's husband he thought as he moved towards the front window of the house.
Severus began to move with haste once he heard "GET BACK HERE FREAK!" booming from inside the house.
Now, Severus Snape was not a sensitive man. In fact, it might be one of the last words people would think of to describe him. However, as a child who had himself heard those same words shouted across his house, he was immediately on alert. Standing at the front door, he cast a mild Sonorus to increase the volume of the noises emerging from inside. He could hear what he thought sounded like a scuffle, though how a grown man could scuffle with a 5-year-old, he did not understand. It was when he heard the child release a piercing scream that he gave up on his weak attempts to monitor what was happening. Whipping out his wand, he blasted the front door down with a quiet and controlled "confingo".
Harry
The lardy man was now advancing on him as he backed up. Harry had walked backwards long enough that he had now walked out of the living room entirely, and had his back pressed against the staircase. He was well aware by this point, that if he inched closer to his cupboard, he was more likely to just get thrown in there. Harry had learnt to quite enjoy the peace of his cupboard, and it was better to spend a few days in there than to face his Uncle's wrath. They had been particularly angry at the spectacle that the missing posters had caused, with many local residents having dropped by to offer unwanted condolences.
"GET BACK HERE FREAK!" the man screamed from across the room, advancing towards Harry with a dangerous glint in his eyes. Lunging towards Harry, the boy could think of nothing to do but scream.
Severus
"Get away from him Dursley" the man spoke as the muggle inhabitants turned shocked eyes towards him. I didn't really need to blast the whole door off he thought as he looked at the fragments of wood that now littered the hallway. A simple Alohamora would have sufficed, but the blasting curse was much more satisfying, and the shock appeared to have alleviated some of the anger directed towards the child.
Severus could not help the shocked expression that overtook his face as the child appeared to hedge towards him. "Please Mr Snape" the child whispered as he reached him. The child looked at the wand he was holding in wonder, but Severus could also see a depth of emotion to those eyes. The child really was pleading with him, and it made him very uncomfortable. Once again, he cursed Dumbledore for sending him here, cursed the child for having such expressive eyes, and cursed himself even for falling for it all. If only he had told Albus Dumbledore that he was busy.
"Vernon was simply trying to explain the danger the boy was in when he left" Petunia attempted to placate the wizard, though he noted she maintained a healthy level of trepidation when she spoke. Continuously glancing at the wand, which remained poised at the ready in the Wizards grip.
"Explain?" inquired the man in a silkily sarcastic tone, "no such explanation was heard by myself" he added at her dumbfounded look.
"You had stepped out" she added, alluding to the fact that he can't possibly have heard whatever had happened inside her house.
"I am a wizard" he responded, as if explaining all. "I will remind you, Petunia, that magic allows for much deeper probing than those things we may say aloud" smiling smuggle he noted the look of anxiety shot his way. "Now, tell me how you deal with the boys misbehaviour or I shall enter your mind and see for myself" he warned before adding, "I should inform you, if I am forced to do so I will ensure it is as uncomfortable for you as possible".
Harry
Did the man just say he could read Aunt Petunia's mind?! Harry thought nervously. What would he do if he read Harry's mind and saw all the times that he had wished for Dudley to drop his ice-cream cone? Or, how about that time he had wished real hard that the supermarket would run out of Aunt Petunia's favourite face cream before she got there? He would be in a lot of trouble!
Harry watched in silence as the adults spoke. He wasn't quite sure what was happening, but he tried to stay as close to the Snape man as possible. Sometimes the man was mean to him, shooting him dour looks and such, but Harry thought the man seemed to be trying to protect him. It was weird – weren't people either nice or mean? Why were there mean people who were sometimes nice? This man seemed like one of those kinds of people, but Harry hadn't had much experience with them. Mrs Wilkinson was always nice to him. She would tie his shoelaces sometimes, and she had even kissed his knee once when Dudley and Charlie Pilkins had pushed him down. Harry had never had someone kiss him before and remembered the moment as if it were yesterday.
"Shhhh" the woman soothed as she walked Harry carefully back into the little classroom. "You'll be alright" she added, stopping at her chair and taking a seat. She had a soft spot for the small boy, who was shy but endearing, and always polite to her. The child would even sometimes spend his lunchbreak picking the prettiest flowers to present to her once they returned to class, while the other children ran around with joy.
Lifting the boy up to sit him on her own knee, she began rolling up his trouser leg where the child was clutching his knee, a small hole in his school trousers. "There there Harry" she cooed softly as the child's sobs turned into coughs and hiccoughs. "What happened out there?" she asked as she began cleaning the small knee.
"I-I trip-ped" the boy managed through tears, turning watery eyes towards Mrs Wilkinson. He had never been held on someone's knee before and he liked it! Maybe Mrs Wilkinson didn't know that people weren't meant to touch him, but he was thankful for it. The woman felt soft and Harry wondered if this was what having a Mum felt like. As he thought about this, he began to smile, though he then gasped as Mrs Wilkinson bent down to place a single kiss to his knee.
"There, a magic kiss to make it all better" she said as she looked back at the small child on her lap. Harry was shocked. Kisses were not magic! For as long as he could remember he had seen little boys and girls get 'magic kisses' to take away their pain. He had always wondered what such a magic kiss felt like.
"It didn't work" the boy spoke quietly as he looked up at his teacher through thick, wet eyelashes.
"Ah" the woman smiled knowingly, as if she had come across this problem countless times before "sometimes for the bigger injuries, we need the magic of two kisses" she indulged him before applying a second kiss to his knee. When it still did nothing to alleviate his pain, Harry flashed her a big grin, bounced off her knee and proclaimed.
"It worked!"
Harry liked Mrs Wilkinson, he thought as he reminisced on that moment.
Severus
As the grip on his wand grew evermore tense, Severus glanced down at the child who appeared to be in another world, lost in his own thoughts. Severus was surprised at the child's reflexivity. Just a moment ago his own oaf of an Uncle was prepared to take his life, and now he was stood there daydreaming as if he were at a funfair.
"Come along Potter" the man spoke, interrupting his thoughts. The child glanced at him questioningly and while part of him wanted to ignore the child entirely, he found himself responding "we are leaving". Then, turning on his heel he walked through the gaping hole that once housed the Dursley's front door. At not seeing the boy by his side, he turned back to the small frame that stood bewildered in the hallway, and raised a lone eyebrow "unless you wish to stay, of course?"
Harry
Leaving? He wondered internally, but where would they be going? Aunt Petunia had told him a long time ago that nobody else wanted to take him in. That all the people who had known his Mum and Dad had not wanted to look after him once they had died in their car accident. Aunt Petunia had said it was because of his ghastly scar. He didn't know what ghastly meant, but it sounded like a bad thing. Thus, Harry wondered if he might be going to one of those orphanages his Aunt had told him about, shuddering at the thought.
As the man turned away and began walking out of the house, Harry hesitated briefly, looking back at his Aunt. He wondered if she might beg him to stay. Maybe she would realise that he wasn't so bad, and that sometimes he was actually useful around the house. However, as she looked back at him with emotionless eyes, Harry turned towards the scary Snape man, and instead followed him. With one last glance back at his Aunt, 5-year-old Harry left number Four Privet Drive.
Severus
"Keep up Potter" the man demanded sternly as he stormed towards the apparition point. "I need to get you back to Hogwarts in time to see Dumbledore before he leaves for the Wizengamot" He said, though the words were entirely lost on Harry. Severus was trying hard to remind himself that he was not angry at Potter. He was, of course, angry at the predicament the child had placed him in, but he attempted to soothe this anger as he noted the apprehension in the young boy.
"Bogwarts?" the child questioned as he once again jogged to keep up with the man's long strides. Apparently, they were going somewhere and had to do so quickly, or else someone that they needed to see wouldn't be there anymore.
"Hogwarts" he corrected with a frown, not pausing as he approached an old tree which served as his apparition spot. Unbeknownst to the man, the small child was testing the word Hogwarts out over and over in his head.
Severus paid little attention to his actions as he scooped the child up in his arms. It was not because he felt anything for the child! In fact, it was only so that the idiot boy wouldn't get himself splinched as they apparated to just outside the Hogwarts grounds. Harry, on the other hand, was most surprised when he had suddenly been lifted from the ground. It was a rare thing for him, and it caused a little rush in his tummy just like when he got to go on the Waltzer ride at the fun fair when Mrs Wilkinson had taken them on a trip.
Harry
Despite his embarrassment at his own behaviour, Harry Potter kept his face firmly tucked against the older man's neck. Appabitions had been the worst thing he had ever experienced in his life! It had felt as if he was being turned inside out from his belly button, and he thought he'd rather be hit by Dudley than have to do that again, well maybe.
Soon, however, his interest in his new surroundings peaked and Harry had turned his attention to the wonders of the castle. Severus was thankful for it as the small spikey head pressing against his neck had made him rather uncomfortable.
Harry felt the man shift his hold on him, as if granting him a better view of the castle.
"Hey, that man moved!" the child proclaimed in wonder, his arm outstretched towards a portrait hanging on the wall to their left. "Mr Snape?" the child spoke when the man made no attempt to answer or respond. Meeting the child's eyes, silently conveying that he would answer the child's question, Harry continued in a whisper "how did that picture move?" as if the painting might hear him.
"It is not a picture, it is a portrait" the man began "and it moves because it is magic" he added simply, relief flooding through him as the pair finally reached the stairs that would lead them to the Headmasters office. Harry, however, still had many questions he wanted answered. Was this Mr Snape's house?
As Severus began ascending the staircase, Harry's head constantly swivelling to keep up with the rotating staircase, a loud noise at the top caused him to look up.
"Alrigh' Sev'rus?" Hagrid asked, joy evident in his voice as it often was. "what ya got there then?" he added, as he began descending the stairs towards them.
"I am well, Hagrid" the man responded as he too descended the stairs. There was no way anyone, save possibly 5-year-old Harry, could get passed Hagrid on the staircase. Instead, he would have to try again once the half-giant had made his way out of the office. "what, or rather whom, I have here is Mr Potter" the man finished once Hagrid had finally reached them. Of all people, he had hoped not to see Hagrid. Severus had nothing against the half-giant, but he was known to get a bit excitable and Severus did not have the time nor patience for it this evening.
Severus
Before Severus had a chance to knock on the door of the Headmasters office, a voice called from within "come in, Severus". The old man was sat behind his desk, Fawkes perched behind him, and tea laid out on the table. Dumbledore often hosted Hagrid for afternoon tea, he had developed a soft spot for the half giant student in his first year, and it had not waned since.
Albus Dumbledore was rarely surprised. He had spent most of his adult life 'in the know', often being privy to information long before it was shared with others. In fact, he prided himself in having the upper hand, knowing what to expect, and acting on these rationally. Thus, when his most feared professor entered, carrying Harry Potter no less, Albus Dumbledore could not prevent his eyebrows from rising to his hairline.
"Good evening Severus" he began diplomatically. Though he could still not school his expression into one of omnipotence, a twinkle made its way into the blue eyes as green eyes rose to meet them. While Dumbledore was quite happy to see the child looking well, he was more interested in why the child was in the castle.
Walking across the office to the chairs facing the headmasters desk, Severus plopped Harry into one before taking his seat. A sigh strong enough to push the sails of a boat across the Atlantic was released as he looked up to the Headmaster, daring the man to begin his questioning. Instead, the twinkling eyes left his own, a small smile on the old mans face as he turned to the child.
Harry
Wow! The boy thought as he swivelled his head around, trying to take in all of the room as quickly as he could. That man is Old! The child continued, before remembering that the Snape man could read his thoughts and instead turning his attention to the millions of objects lining the walls of the office. Harry barely registered being plonked into a chair until he spied the tea tray in front of him. There were all sorts of treats on there that Harry didn't recognise. Usually Aunt Petunia just puts out digestives he wondered, as he looked at the assortment of goodies on the table.
"Good evening, Harry" the old man spoke, as Harry stared on at the long white beard. "Would you care for a cream puff?" he asked, extending the tray of desserts to the small boy. Harry, however, glanced up at Snape, unsure if the man would allow him one. Aunt Petunia had once slapped his hand when Mrs Fig had offered him a KitKat in the front garden, telling him he ought not to accept food from strangers. Little did Aunt Petunia know that Mrs Fig gave him a KitKat almost once a week, whenever he would wash Uncle Vernon's car on a Sunday.
"Go on, Potter" the man replied, without looking at the child but instead looking disdainfully at the plate full of sugary goods.
"Thank you, mister" the child smiled happily to the old man as he reached, somewhat hesitantly, for the cream puff. Unbeknownst to the two adults before him, Harry was sure the plate would be quickly snatched back the moment he reached for a cream puff. However, when no such snatching took place, Harry held the cream puff in his hands, powdered sugar quickly falling on his clothes. Albus Dumbledore was pleasantly shocked when Severus reached across, ignoring the small flinch the boy made, and brushed the sugar off him.
Severus
Harry was quite nervous as he glanced up at the mans pulsing cheek. It looked like he was chewing on his own tongue, and Harry was well aware that people didn't do that when they were happy. The two adults had been arguing, but Harry wasn't quite sure what they were arguing about. The old man had given him an emerald jewel to play with whilst they spoke, and Harry turned it over and over in his hands, feelings its smooth edges.
"Absolutely not!" shouted the dark-haired man, causing Harry to jump in surprise as the man slammed his fist down on the desk. Harry attempted to work out what was going on between the two, but he also didn't want to draw any further attention to himself in case it angered them more.
"Severus" the man spoke calmly "if, as you say, the child is unsafe at his Aunts – "
"Then a home must be found for him" Severus interrupted firmly "and that home will not be with me, Albus" he continued decisively, before taking a sip of his tea. His head had been throbbing since entering the office. I should have known he thought with a sigh, of course the old coot would try to palm the brat off on me. At that moment, the child had looked at him with questioning eyes. A part of him had wanted to dismiss the boy, shove him back through the floo network and pretend the event of today had never happened. Though when the green eyes had met his own, he could not bring himself to do it.
"The sins of our Fathers –" Dumbledore began cryptically, though Severus Snape was in no mood for it.
"Are of little importance" he finished; eyes boring into the older man in hopes of stopping the infernal twinkle that threatened his senses. "I have a full-time job, and simply cannot afford the time" he concluded, before standing and adjusting his robes once more. As he headed for the door, content to allow the events to wash away like a tide on the shore, a small voice broke out.
"Are we leaving again?"
