Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns this. I am not worthy.
Chapter 3: The Cousin
Summary: Dudley's having a bad day.
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Dudley Dursley had seldom been so frightened in his life. He had far too much reason to believe that the magical freaks who hung around his cousin were as vicious and treacherous as they came, but this man was even worse than the bear man who had given him a pig's tail on Harry's eleventh birthday. He rubbed furtively at the old scar as he backed into the farthest corner of the room. His first term at Smeltings had been made a lot less comfortable than it could have been because of the place where the surgeon had snipped it off; it had stayed tender for weeks. He'd been forced to invent an accident stunt riding on his bicycle to explain why he needed cushions to sit on. Luckily, he'd been bigger than the rest of the first years, and Piers had backed him up.
He stood as still as he could, watching wide eyed when the stranger remade the bed with the bedclothes and hot water bottle his mother had brought up without ever waking Harry up or even touching the blankets. Then he stood there, wrapped again in his cloak, running his stick thing…his wand… about a foot over the bed, down the entire length the sleeping boy's quiet form, muttering in what sounded like the drivel the Latin master at school was always trying to make them learn. It took a long time, and Dudley's feet began to hurt. When the man finally finished playing mumbo-jumbo by the bed, he went over to the doorway, giving a careful study to the box the mouse poison had been in by the hall light. He even sniffed at the residue of the poison, and much to Dudley's disgust, touched a bit of it to his tongue with one finger. After all that, he started to prowl around the room, looking at things. Ignoring Dudley. Dudley had never been ignored so long in his life, and when the man began to flip through some of the books on the shelf he decided that he couldn't make things any worse by talking. "What do you want with my books?"
"Your books?" The dark eyes swivelled to meet his, but the room was dim enough that Dudley could pretend to himself that they were only shadowed.
"Of course they're mine. All those things you've been meddling with are mine." Dudley said, trying to remember to keep his chin high. "And I think you ought to ask before you go poking through them."
The man cocked an incredulous eyebrow. "Hard on your toys, aren't you, 'Duddykins'?" he said in a voice like the Sahara.
Dudley flushed scarlet at having a stranger knowing the pet name he'd finally convinced his mum not to use in public only this summer. "My name's Dudley. You should call me by right name."
"Mine is Snape. Professor Snape. You will call me, 'sir'." He waited for Dudley's frantic nod before turning back to the shelves. "Now that you've found your tongue, you can make yourself useful. What's in this room that does belong to Potter?"
Dudley looked around, trying to think. "Well, the owl," he offered, and then added, "sir," hastily in case Snape noticed the omission.
"I need an inanimate object, boy," Snape glared at him and signalled him peremptorily to come over to the shelves.
"Well, it would be easier if you turned on the light," Dudley whined, sidling forward reluctantly.
"Lumos," Snape said, and again that weird light filled the room. Dudley swallowed hard and started looking carefully at the stuff on the shelves.
"That's mine. That's mine. That's mine. Oh, I'd forgotten about those. That's mine. That's mine. That never worked in the first place. That was the cheapest plastic ever. That's mine. I think…" At the very end of the of the lowest shelf, near the bed he finally found something he didn't recognise. "I think that tin box must be Potter's. It isn't mine, anyway."
Snape took the box and went to the desk with the mended leg that was stored in the room to sort through the contents. Dudley drifted over to watch over his shoulder, curious about what it was that Potter had hidden in the tin. It wasn't much. Seven Legos, four filthy tarnished pence, a piece of quartz, a plastic comb with the barber's name and address embossed on it, a headless plastic knight on a three legged horse, two rubbishy plastic medals, of the kind that the grammar school teachers handed out to reward little kids, and a picture cut out of a newspaper.
"Who is this?" Snape asked, showing the picture to Dudley.
To his surprise, Dudley knew the answer. "That's old Fergusson." Snape waited impatiently and Dudley expanded a little. "Miss Fergusson. She was the school nurse at our grammar school. A real nosey parker, too. Always sending notes home about vaccinations and glasses and diets and things. I can't imagine why Potter would bother having her picture. She got killed in a car accident donkey's-years ago."
"It might do," Snape said thoughtfully, looking at the picture. Then he frowned a little, as if he'd had an idea. "We could do better though. Are there any pictures of your aunt in this house?"
"Pictures?" Of Aunt Marge? Dudley couldn't imagine what Snape would want with them, but at least he could answer yes. "Of course. I think there's one in my parent's room."
"And which room would that be?" Snape said, indicating with a slant of his head that Dudley should proceed him into the hallway.
Dudley bounced forward feeling curiously relieved. Snape reminded him all too much of the Maths professor at Smeltings, who could come up with much worse things than detention if you didn't keep him mollified or amused. But at least now he wasn't ignoring Dudley. "It's this way. Over here." Dudley kept on talking, as much to have something to listen to as to try keeping Snape from getting bored. "My parents have the biggest bedroom, of course, because there are two of them. And it's got its own bath. I have to share the one over here with the guest room and Potter for now, but Daddy says that he's going to fix it I won't have to by next summer. I think he should use the downstairs lav the way he used to, but Mummy says that gets him too close to the front door." He pushed open his parents door and went to the nightstand to find the picture he wanted. Snape was following a few paces behind, watching with interest as Dudley flipped on the lightswitch by the bed. "Here. Here it is."
Snape looked at the picture and frowned. "I assume," he said softly, "that this woman is your father's sister. Yes?"
"Yes. Aunt Marge." Dudley realized slowly that he hadn't gotten it right. He bit his lip. "Or did you mean… you want a picture of my mum's sister – Potter's mother. Is that it?"
Snape seemed to grow taller, and the look he gave Dudley was the look you'd give a moron who'd accidentally stumbled on the right answer. But he nodded. "Five points, Mr. Dursley," he said, sounding more like a schoolmaster in that moment than he had in all the time he'd been there. "And now that you know the correct question, perhaps you could supply us with the correct answer."
Dudley wished he had his mum or his dad with him. There was no place to hide, though, so he just pulled his head down between his shoulders. "Well… yes… I suppose. But I don't know if there are any pictures of her."
Snape drew a long breath through his nose. "A picture would work, but I could also use something that she had owned. Would there be anything like that in this house?"
"I don't know." Dudley had a sudden thought. "But if there was, it would be in Potter's cupboard."
"Show me."
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Snape followed the Dursley boy down the stairs into the front hallway, and around to where a small door was bolted shut. At least Potter had a place to store his belongings, even if it wasn't in his own room. Snape was beginning to think that there wasn't anything he could use for a Extractus Toxinus spell in this entire house, and it was going to be difficult to get his hands on the right sort of ingredients to make a proper potion without taking the chance of apparating to Diagon Alley to fetch them himself. He didn't think he had the Dursleys cowed enough for that to be safe. Harry might have been able to take a few bruises a week gone by, but with his liver in its present condition, even an accidental blow might kill him. He watched as Dudley unbolted the door of the cupboard and hauled out the vacuum cleaner and a pile of boots.
"I thought you said this was Potter's cupboard," Snape said, looking at the debris.
"It is," Dudley grunted as he pulled out his father's toolbox. "The room upstairs is my second best room. He's just been let sleep in it ever since he started getting those letters when we were eleven."
"And before that, he slept in this cupboard." Snape didn't know which was harder to believe; that Potter had spent most of his young life being forced to sleep in a boot cupboard, or that his cousin was fool enough to admit it to a total stranger.
But Dudley just nodded. "That's right. So if he's hidden anything, you see, it's bound to be in here." He opened up the tool kit and pulled out a chisel. "Just you wait. All I've got to do is pry up some of these boards…"
"Come. Out." Snape said between his teeth, forcing himself to remember that Dudley was no older than Harry was, and couldn't have been the one who had decided to put Harry in the closet.
Dudley came out quickly, recognizing the anger in Snape's tones, and stood by, fiddling with the end of his shirt while Snape bent to the closet and cast a spell to discover hidden places. There were three. Two were empty, and one held the remains of a chain of daisies that went to dust when Snape touched it.
Damn. Now he'd have to go and fetch those ingredients. Maybe if he put all the Dursleys to sleep he could…
"Uh..Mister… I mean, Professor Snape?" Dudley stammered, nervously. "I think I might know where else there might be a picture of Potter's mum."