"Come along, Potter," Snape snapped, his voice cracking like an impatient whip.
Harry was surprised, and then quite rapidly not, when Snape headed straight to the basement door (in the kitchen) on the first go. Downstairs he headed, and Harry went after, trying to hurry and also trying not to kill himself on the creakity stairs.
Snape looked the room over with a sneer, seeming to struggle with himself to not cough over the dust in the room.
"I'm sorry it's not cleaner sir," Harry Potter said, trying to be thankful. It was hard being thankful with Severus Snape, however - he never seemed to be anything other than dour and constipated.*
"Nonsense," Snape said, "I think this shall do very well indeed." The next thing Harry knew, Snape had pulled out his long, black wand, and started to cast. By the fourth spell, Harry had figured out that Snape was casting privacy enchantments. Spells against eavesdropping. Why Snape wanted to cast so many - wouldn't they conflict and cancel?
"There we are. Private as my office at Hogwarts. And less likely to be bothered by Albus." Severus Snape said, slightly smirking at the last.
Harry at the last second remembered to call Snape sir, "Sir, what's happening here?"
"I've decided that my bargain with you can be fulfilled by absconding with you beneath the Dursleys' very noses." Snape said.
"Absconding?" Harry Potter asked, not knowing what the word meant.
"I will inform your Aunt that your presence is essential." Snape's odd half-grin boded ill for Harry, he thought grimly. "What I offer you here is a reprieve from Muggle chores."
"Thank you sir," Harry said, and he meant it.
"You will have to do potions work in exchange." Snape said, "Go get your schoolbooks. I believe you'll find working down here to be less distracting."
Harry couldn't help but smirk at that last part, Snape had heard Dudley's loud television from outside the house, no doubt! Harry's face quickly fell into a frown. "They've locked my books up, sir."
"Then I will deal with that momentarily." Snape pulled dozens of shrunken objects out of his pockets, setting them down on the floor and swooshing his wand to embiggen** them.
Harry blanched at the number of cauldrons - there were even tables. Snape continued, "I trust you know how to move this into some acceptable semblance of functionality. Make sure to let your aunt hear you groan." That was nearly the only warning Harry got, as Snape strode upstairs as quickly as he always walked.
Harry set to it, gladdened by Snape's confidence in his ability to reason out how to set up the Potions Lab. He grabbed a stout oaken bed (luckily, near the edge of the mess), and started to drag it across the floor, groaning with the effort - it obviously wanted to be in a corner of the room, away from the furnace as this was summer.
Snape sneered at Aunt Petunia (Harry could hear it in his voice), "Where are Potter's schoolbooks?"
"Kept in a cupboard. We don't like that stuff, and he's not to be practicing unsupervised." Aunt Petunia said crossly.
"Did you ever think," Snape's voice was soft, but carrying. That was one of his deadly tones, "That he might wreck less havoc if he'd been given the opportunity to wrestle his mind into the correct pathways for control? Magic School is as much about restraint as it is about power."
"N-no," Aunt Petunia stammered, her eyes wide.
"Now, his books," Snape said, and sauntered after Aunt Petunia as she led him to the cupboard under the stairs. In the basement, Harry could hear every creak, and knew exactly where they were standing.
"Here you go," Aunt Petunia said crossly, opening the cupboard and showing him Harry's chest, which took up nearly all the space.
Snape nodded, levitating the unwieldy object out of the cupboard. He looked inside, and frowned. He picked up Potter's wand off a shelf (more a carved out bit of floorwork, neatly concealed from view from the outside. "Why is there a cot in the cupboard?"
"Potter stayed there, when he was younger. Small as he was, he didn't need something bigger." Aunt Petunia said.
"How thrifty of you," Snape said approvingly, and Harry heard him spin around, looking at the entire place. Harry frantically hoped his drawings weren't still hanging up. They were shite anyway. Harry hadn't any right to expect anything from Snape more than he'd already got, which was mostly scorn.
Abruptly, Snape's voice snapped. "What is this? Forty marks or so, in charcoal, on the back of the door?"
Aunt Petunia's voice dripped scorn, "When the boy was bad, we gave him timeout."
"For how long," Snape said, his form rushing out of the cupboard to loom over Aunt Petunia.
"Days, sometimes." Aunt Petunia said, seeming not to notice the change in Snape's attitude. "He wasn't to do any of that stuff around my husband or Dudley! I wouldn't stand for it."
Snape said, his voice cold, "As it seems you cannot control the boy, you will leave discipline to me. I will provide plenty of outlets for him to do "that stuff" " (Snape's tone was openly mocking), "without bothering your family." Snape's tone was iron, as he said, "I assure you I can keep him under control."
So much for my summer, Harry Potter thought bitterly. Not that I was getting one anyway."
"You'll do as you wish, regardless, I'm sure." Aunt Petunia said and Harry could hear her hands on her hips, "You always did. Obnoxious, the lot of you."
Snape strode out of the hallway and downstairs, looking at Potter only to ask, "You understood all that?"
Harry flushed, embarrassed to admit that he'd been eavesdropping rather than working. He nodded quickly, and Snape responded, "Good. Saves me the trouble of repeating it all." Harry Potter had never dreamed he'd find an adult willing to approve of eavesdropping. What had he gotten himself into now?
[a/n: And here's where I leave off, unless you'd like a different story entirely. Snape knows how to handle Petunia Evans, and that's not by getting riled by past behavior. Reviews, as always, mean more story!]
*it's true! You know it's true!
**Harry Potter, folks, is not the most literate of people. Therefore, sometimes he makes up words that don't exist.