Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all this. I am meek and mild and unworthy.
Chapter 4: The Aunt
Summary: Snape finds what he's looking for.
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Petunia Dursley heard the voices as she came through door from the laundry with a stack of Vernon's clean underthings. She had Harry's clothes into the dryer now, although she'd like to have shredded them with a scissors to vent her feelings, and had had to start a fresh load of washing with towels and fold all of the things in the earlier load from the dryer in order to calm herself down. But now, hearing that man's voice in her front hallway with Dudley's she felt the rage swirl back up and tasted acid at the back of her throat.
Carefully, she closed the door, trying not to make any sound. She put the laundry on the kitchen table and crossed over to the stove quietly, stirring what needed stirring and checking the heat under the double boiler. Beef tea, indeed! A ruin of a good piece of meat unless that owl could eat it. She'd been lucky that she'd saved a steak with freezer burn to feed to Harry on Sunday, when Dudley was allowed his one big meal of the week.
Once she was certain that she wouldn't burn anything if she took her eyes off it for a few minutes, she flipped off the kitchen light and went over to the door, easing it open just a bit to see if she could see anything.
The stranger was bent down, looking for something in the cupboard under the stairs. Dudley was standing by, looking frightened poor dear, and she willed him to think of running for the front door, but it was too late. The stranger backed out, looking angry.
"Uh..Mister… I mean, Professor Snape?" Dudley stammered, nervously. "I think I might know where there might be a picture of Potter's mum."
A picture of Lily? What in heaven's name could he want that for?
"Where? Timbuctu?" The man, Professor Snape was it now, growled sarcastically.
"Well, in that box of Potter's. The one Daddy went to get." Petunia didn't know whether to be proud of Dudley for suggesting it or angry for not thinking of the possibility earlier. She should have gone through the trunk before it left the house.
Snape straightened and shook his greasy haired head. "While you are probably correct, it won't do. Since the trunk has been out of this house I shall have to go over it very carefully for boobytraps, an effort which will probably take several hours."
"B-b-boobytraps?" Dudley stammered. "Do you think it might blow up? Shouldn't we warn Daddy?"
"That's the least of what I think it might do, but your father's not in any danger unless he's foolish enough to try to open it," Snape turned, looking at the doorway suddenly with eyes as black as coal. Petunia didn't move, uncertain of whether he saw her or not, and after a long stare he turned back just as suddenly on Dudley. "Can you think of anywhere else?"
Dudley bit his lip, and then brightened a little, "There are a lot of old photograph albums in the bookcase by the fireplace," he offered. "There might be something in the oldest ones."
Snape seemed to go a little more alert, like a cat on the trail of a mouse. "Photo albums."
"Yes," Dudley straightened his shoulders manfully. "This way," he said, and led Snape around the corner.
Petunia flipped on the light and went back to the stove, smiling with satisfaction as she poured the water off the potatoes. Let Snape look through the albums. The only picture of Lily he'd find was the one of the back of her head showing through the space under Petunia's arm when she'd been dressed up as a fairy princess for Halloween the year she was seven. She'd gone through the picture albums her mother had left her with scissors the year after Lily had married that freak, Potter, but she couldn't figure out how to cut out Lily from that one picture without cutting across the image of her own wrist so she'd left it. No one knew it was Lily anyway now, since their parents had died.
She mashed the potatoes and set them in the oven to stay warm. Then she picked up the frying pan, to make some chicken, and the weight of the cast iron gave her an idea. If Snape was so involved in looking at pictures, maybe she could catch him off guard. Quickly she slipped out into the hallway and around the corner to look and see if it were going to be possible, the pan held close behind her.
Dudley was sitting on one of the pouffes, turning pages slowly through an album, while Snape stood by the bookcase and flipped through another. "I don't understand. There ought to be some pictures of Aunt Lily. There are lots of mum," he said.
It cost her a pang to hear her precious son refer to her sister as Aunt Lily, but she supposed that it was the polite way to do so, and she knew how wonderfully polite Dudley was, so she resolutely ignored it. Now if only Dudley would stay absorbed long enough for her to…
Snape turned and transfixed her with a glare. "Mrs. Dursley."
"I heard voices," she said, defensively, hoping that the frying pan didn't show. "What are you doing down here?"
"Looking for a picture of your sister," Snape said. "Or something else that belonged to her."
She hadn't expected that, and Petunia felt her glance flicker to the end of the mantelpiece. Only for a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction of a second too long. Snape followed her gaze and took three long strides over to the shelf. She watched, breathing hard through her nose as he examined each of the little souvenirs Marge had sent them from abroad. It was impossible. He'd never be able to tell which of them was…
"This." He picked up the snowglobe, and his voice went quieter. "This will do."
"That's mine," Petunia said, furious with him for finding it.
"Then you stole it," Snape accused, twisting to face her, matching her fury with an anger so deep she stepped back and raised the frying pan, knowing that her cheeks were burning. How could he know?
It was the truth though. Their Uncle Michael, long ago, had given two nearly identical snowglobes to his small nieces, and they'd lived on either end of the mantelpiece in her childhood home. They hadn't been allowed to play with them often, and then only under the eyes of her mother, since Uncle Michael had bought them in Vienna, and spent far more money than was proper for a childhood toy. It had been decreed that when they were old enough to take care of them properly, they would be able to take them up to their own rooms, and on Petunia's fourteenth Christmas, she'd been proud to be allowed to take hers upstairs, while Lily had to wait another two years. And then Petunia had dropped the thing playing with it in the bath on the very first night and put a crack in it. She'd snuck downstairs and switched them off after Lily had gone back to that school of hers, and it had been a week before anyone had realized that all the water had run out of the snowglobe on the mantelpiece. Petunia had caught Lily looking at the globe in her room once, but Lily had never accused her of making the switch, and she'd gotten away with it.
Until now.
"It's not like she needs it anymore," Petunia sneered, livid with fright, but still careful not to admit the truth. Dudley had gone as still as a mouse on the footstool, his eyes flashing wildly from one of them to the other, and Petunia willed him to stay out of the way, safe from whatever this freak might do to her.
He raised his wand as if it were a gun, and his grip on the snowglobe in his other hand tightened so that she could see the knuckles whiten. "There is so very little stopping me from demonstrating to you exactly how your sister died," he said in a hollow voice.
She waited, tense, but still defiant, and to her horror he whipped the wand around, pointing it at Dudley. "No!" she cried, immediately dropping the frying pan. "Not my son!"
Snape was breathing heavily, the way Vernon did when he was holding himself back from a fit of temper. "See to your cooking, then," he ordered. He put away the wand and reached over to grab a handful of Dudley's shirt at the shoulder, hauling the boy to his feet with ease.
"Right. Yes." She had to do it. Dudley's only safety lay in obedience, and as much as she hated conceding to Snape's bidding, she couldn't see another way out. Petunia shook with frustration and rage as she stood aside to let Snape haul Dudley past her on the way to the stairs. She caught Dudley's hand and gave it a squeeze as he went by, trying to smile reassuringly into his frightened eyes.
"And bring up the boy's clothes!" Snape roared back at her as she heard them starting up the stairs.
"I will as soon as they're dry!" she called back, hoping that he'd comprehend the delay. As she bent to pick up the frying pan, she felt the hot tears begin, and she dashed them away with the back of one hand. Why did this have to happen? Why did this have to happen to her perfect family?
Reluctantly, tiredly, she went to the kitchen and started making the chicken.