Immediately following the end of the Veritaserum incident.
Severus had to fight the urge to run after the damned boy. Stupidly stubborn, too proud for his own good. He contented himself with remaining in the kitchen, pressed to the doorframe, where he could listen to hear if the idiot managed to drag himself up the stairs or not.
He glanced back over his shoulder at the mess that the boy had made of the kitchen—shattered bulbs and glass, the table cracked slightly in the middle. He drew his wand, his hand shaking slightly—far more than he ever wanted to acknowledge—and flicked a quick Reparo over the room. Slowly, the glass dust of the bulbs pooled up from the ground as the wooden table groaned, sealing the deep crack in its middle. Bits of porcelain clattered softly as they trailed over the flat surface of the table to reform their dishes. A subsequent Scourigify fizzled away the remnants of the meal that had spattered over the surface.
Severus judged then that he'd best the boy enough space. He hadn't heard any thumps or cries, so hopefully Potter hadn't injured himself. Likely the boy was collapsed at the foot of the stairs, if Severus judged his condition correctly.
His condition… Lord, the child had been chalk-white. And if he closed his eyes, he could still hear those answers, dragged from his lips only by the powerful compulsion of the Veritaserum.
He'd been a damned fool, though he could scarcely stomach to admit it. He'd watched the boy work his fingers to the bone, watched him starve himself meal after meal, and still he'd been content to write it off with increasingly ludicrous explanations.
Merlin, even after he'd found the boy practically naked in the dead of night, dripping wet, his only set of clothes (you idiot, Severus, you could not even clothe the child), even then he'd allowed himself to believe that Potter was only doing it for attention, no more. Never mind that he was frozen in some remote corner of the kitchen like a deer caught in the headlights, his luminous green eyes wide, too much of the whites showing. He'd been too afraid to shower, too afraid to inquire about changing out of the clothes he'd worn for days—clothes he'd performed hard labor in, clothes he'd sweated and likely bled in. And the look of surprise on the boy's face when Severus had dried him off, as if he could not possibly conceive of such a small gesture of kindness directed at him….
Severus swept through the sitting room and up the stairs. Giving Potter space be damned. If the boy was hurt, if that burst of magic had been too much—well, the idiot wouldn't cry out, would he? He'd just declared he'd rather be delivered in to his enemy's hands than rely on Severus for anything.
He wasn't on the stairs, though that revelation did nothing to quell Severus' growing sense of panic. He continued to hurry, stop just short of an outright sprint, making his way swiftly to the boy's room and peering inside.
Potter, crumpled in a heap on the floor. He hadn't even made it onto his bed. Severus knelt down, his long fingers seeking out an arm, then a wrist, and finally a pulse. He cursed his lack of medical training as his own heart seemed to cease beating while his two trembling digits desperately sought and failed to locate some sign that Harry Potter had not just died on his floor.
But finally he found it, weak and thready but unmistakably there. He let it beat against the very tips of his fingers for a few more seconds, willing his own heart to match that slow rhythm. Finally, when he felt he'd gotten ahold of himself, he gently dropped the limp boy's wrist back to the floor, sinking back slightly onto his haunches to survey the situation.
Too dim. Idiot, he cursed himself, drawing his wand and summoning forth a low-level light with a single broad arc. His gaze burned rapidly over the scene before him, seeking out his next move. Get the boy up off the floor, yes… he started to murmur the incantation to lift Potter up off the floor, but something about that felt wrong. He hesitated, wand still clutched in his hand, then sheathed it violently and turned to Potter's bed, expecting to have to straighten out a disgusting heap of blankets to settle the boy into it. What he found instead froze him.
Clothes. Ripped, ragged clothes, grass-stained and far too big for the waif of a boy lying on the floor. His cousin's, perhaps? Severus vaguely recalls a particularly dull afternoon in Dumbledore's office with some Squib woman chattering about the Boy Who Lived's pudgy cousin. An unexpected visit, he recalls, though clearly Dumbledore had insisted he stay (claiming that they would be able to resume their class-related discussion after his dear guest had left) for Severus' own benefit.
A bare mattress beneath, too. Not even a blanket, or a pillow. Hadn't Potter thought to make the bed? The wardrobe was stocked—
But Potter would not have known that. And clearly he'd not gone pawing through drawers and closets and barging through every room of the house as if he owned the place as Severus had initially expected. He'd instead fashioned himself a nest of overused, oversized clothes in the same way that scavenging vermin might snatch discarded scraps and fashion a home from them in some out-of-the-way space in the walls or crawl space.
Severus had to swallow past the sudden bitter taste in his mouth. The sense of failure as the true picture of what the boy had been through (of what you put him through, Severus) started to form in his mind. From the graveyard of Little Hangleton, where he'd nearly lost his life, where he'd watched a classmate die, to the grounds of Hogwarts where the whole wizarding world turned savagely on him to call him a liar. A liar for daring to claim the return of that the very real monster who'd only barely welcomed Severus back into the fold, who'd commanded the Potions Master kiss the hem of his robes after having tortured him into near oblivion. That boy had gone home to abusive relatives, grieving and shattered and shunned, the weight of that ritual resurrection still on his mind. And from there….
The rest was history. Forced to work on the worst, hardest, most unforgiving tasks Severus could dredge up, relegated to the role of houseboy. And then the little twit had to go and answer Severus' assumptions with self-starvation and punishment instead of defiance. Not that Potter could not be defiant, but not when it came to doing his assigned tasks. No, that particular work ethic had been hard-wired into the boy, and Severus could not help but grind his teeth in rage any time he contemplated the source behind that particular habit for too long.
The Dursleys, he determined, merited at least an afternoon's worth of terror sometime in the near future.
Another wave of his wand and all of Potter's clothes were flying back into his trunk. Severus directed the length of wood to the dresser, and sheets, blankets, and pillows flew out like multicolored ghosts to enrobe the bed. Several pillows, Severus made sure, and cast an extra spell at them to arrange and fluff them properly.
And then… then he faced the task that felt like a penance of sorts. Perhaps an apology that the boy would never even know about. Severus murmured a Featherlight Charm over the boy's collapsed form and gently lifted him up, scooping him beneath the knees and back.
For one fleeting moment he looked down at the boy's face, smooth in sleep, though there was still the slightest furrow to the brow. And it was then that he was struck by how damned young Potter looked. Surly teenager by day, and child by night. There were hints of pubescence in the boy's lengthening frame, in the slight melting of the soft roundness to his face, but for all that he was still young and vulnerable.
Hurt, too. And humiliated by that round of interrogation under truth serum. Severus knew that, had anyone treated him in such a manner in his teenage years, he would have shrunken into an even more condensed ball of sneers and resentment, spitting at anyone who dared to get to close or bring up touchy subjects. He would have to tread carefully in the future with Harry. Perhaps even feign indifference, because the boy would not welcome any kind of pity (not that Severus was inclined toward pity, of course). Nor would he welcome Severus' genuine help. He would retreat, and nurse his humiliation into hatred and loathing.
Ah, yes, Severus knew that process all too well. There was a time, briefly, when he might have become friends with the werewolf. Lupin. A moment of vulnerability after Black's attempt at getting Severus mauled. Lupin had come seeking Severus out after potions class, had followed Severus down a lone hallway that led to the abandoned classroom he'd colonized and turned into his makeshift laboratory. Had begged to parlay, so that he might apologize for the more odious of the Marauders. And Severus, the fool, had allowed himself to get worked up and emotional and, when Lupin had tried to excuse his camaraderie with Potter and Black with his less-than-opulent upbringing and the difficulties of his disease, Severus had fired right back with his own trials of domestic life, particularly his father's belt and his mother's frosty demeanor toward the half-blood mongrel standing between her and her return to her well-off pureblooded family.
And then Lupin had known, and worse, had dared to sympathize. Oh, the soft-spoken boy who'd never managed Gryffindor courage when it came time to rein in his friends had oozed with compassion, simpering about how difficult it must have been for Severus, and how terrible James and Sirius could be. And Severus had hexed him good, and thus far had successfully kept to his oath to never have another civil conversation with the man as long as he lived.
Yes, he would have to tread extraordinarily carefully with Potter. Drastic changes in behavior (again, not that he was in any remote way inclined to coddling) would only breed suspicion and rancor in the boy, the kind potent enough to eventually be distilled into a bitterness so pervasive that it poisoned every aspect of his life and ensured that his grudge extended to all of Severus' kin and kindred.
Or perhaps Severus was the only one to succumb to such a phenomenon. Unrelenting resentment did seem to be one of the heritable traits of the Prince lineage.
Severus shook his head slightly to clear it, and then laid his charge carefully in the newly-remade bed, pulling the light blankets over the boy and tucking them up to his chin. He slid the glasses from the boy's face. Accidentally (or so he told himself), his fingertips brushed the boy's fringe, and perhaps lingered just a little too long to be unintentional. But as it was the only time Potter had likely been tucked in over the span of his life, Severus supposed he could overlook the unbearably saccharine moment.
What he could not overlook was the corresponding tightness in his throat he'd felt when he'd touched the sleeping boy even in that insignificant way. Severus tried desperately to deny that this was affecting him at all on an emotional, because certainly it was not. Yes, undeniably he felt badly for the way the boy had grown up, and for his own hand in the boy's most recent stretch of misery. And outraged, too, that the boy's relatives could be so boorish and savage as to deprive him of basic needs. And that outrage and disgust extended beyond the boy's relatives, to those responsible for the boy's placement after the Potters' demise (Albus would be receiving a floo call later). But that all existed on an intellectual level, in a professional capacity.
He was, after all, a professor, and loathe though he was to work with children, he took his basic duties of seeing to their welfare rather seriously.
This, though, this feeling welling up in him as his fingers happened to graze across the boy's brow… this was wholly unacceptable. Unhealthy, even, as he was allowing himself to become emotionally enmeshed in his charge's issues. And really, Potter was here for one basic reason: to be monitored.
Two, now, as Severus wholly intended to help him navigate the thicket of Devil's Snare that resulted from childhood neglect and trauma, whether Potter liked it or not. He owed the boy that much.
But Severus did not become personally involved in these things. Not even for Lily's boy (odd, Severus, is it not, that he is no longer 'Potter's spawn'?). Other professors wept and whooped and generally made fools of themselves when their favorite pupils came to confide in them, or sought their advice, or wrote post-matriculation of the numerous impressive successes that they attributed to the few select educators of their formative years (and not their families or their own determination or, Merlin forbid, the simple lottery of genetics). Not Severus. He barely allowed himself to feel his own emotions, let alone emotions on behalf of others.
He quashed the feeling back down before he could even name it and settled Potter's glasses onto the nightstand.
Tomorrow. What on earth would he do about tomorrow?
Not be here. The plan struck him suddenly, in a fell stroke of genius. What better way to show Potter that things had changed? That he was trusted now? Severus would need to follow up with the neighbor anyway, to let her know of Harry's innocence and to get to the bottom of the burglary, since the Muggle police seemed thoroughly useless. He could chase that down, and there was to be a short Order meeting that afternoon.
Eight hours was not too long, and the boy was already constrained and protected by the ring. He would give the boy a very light list of chores: dishes from his meals, wipe down the counters, fold his clothes.
And meals. Severus' lips thinned in grim determination. There would be no more games with meals. Potter would eat three meals a day, even if Severus had to hex him into obedience. He would no longer allow the boy's pride to undermine his health.
And from there… he would simply have to feel his way forward. Carefully. Minding his tongue, especially what had been revealed about the boy's relatives over the course of their Veritaserum-fueled question and answer session. No more careless insults or insinuations designed to do nothing more than bring the boy low. No more flying into a rage that might scare the child, either. He would need to be the very epitome of cool and collected.
And Potter would continue to spit defiance the whole way. Of course.
Severus watched the boy breathe for a few more cycles. He'd fallen into a very deep sleep, likely exhausted from the combination of the magical outburst and the aftereffects of the Veritaserum.
Ah, the Veritaserum… there would be no small amount of resentment to overcome concerning that particular incident. Best to hold his ground, though, when Potter confronted him. He'd known it was a possibility when he'd chosen this course of action, though he could admit now that he'd not truly prepared for the caliber of wretchedness that Potter's answers had revealed.
He could not regret his actions in the least, not when it had exposed such gross neglect. Albus never would have known if not for the Veritaserum, and that alone justified its use.
Ah, Albus. Severus felt his fists curl involuntarily as his anger came rushing back to him. This anger he was comfortable feeling, even if part of it was righteous indignation on Harry Potter's behalf. Because he had sworn his life, had he not, to keeping Lily's son safe? And what had the great Albus Dumbledore, paragon of the wizarding world, done in that time? How had he vetted the home that had been selected for the Wizarding World's great and tragic hero baby?
Oh, clearly he had not. And that, Severus found, was entirely unacceptable. Yes, he would have a good, long firecall with Albus Dumbledore about responsibility and duty and the deep, lasting impacts of childhood abuse and neglect. Severus would bring Muggle psychology books if he had to (not that he knew much about any of that rubbish).
But first, Severus decided, retreating carefully from the boy's room, he would need a very, very large glass of Scotch.
A/N: Not a chapter, but a writing exercise that I thought I'd share for kicks and grins. Sorry to anyone who is terribly disappointed. The next chapter is in the works, pinky promise, cross my heart, hope to die, etc. etc. Cheers! ~Mel