Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Still JKRs.
Chapter 12: The Plan
Summary: Snape has to figure out what to do with the Dursleys.
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Harry blinked, completely confused, and Snape prayed that he'd managed to distract the boy away from uncomfortable topics for a while. He didn't have all that much longer before the potion would wear off, and he'd have to deal with the Dursleys before then. There wasn't any time for heart-to-heart talks with students or specious bouts of introspection. Not just now.
"I don't understand, sir," the boy said warily, pulling the snowy owl closer to himself. "Are you going to blow it up or something?"
"Or something," Snape said, realizing he'd have to expand on his plans in order to get cooperation. "I need a place to put your Aunt Petunia until I'm ready to deal with her again. This room has bars on the windows, and a flap for food in the door. If necessary, she can be left here for days."
Harry was just staring at him now, the letter in his hand forgotten. "Aunt Petunia? In here?" If it weren't that Snape already knew that the boy's temperature was going up and making him flushed, he would have ascribed the rising color in his cheeks to delight and embarrassment. "What if she needs to … you know… go to the loo?"
Snape was pleasantly surprised by the practicality of the objection. On second thought, he wasn't. Harry must have had a lot of experience in the matter. As he considered the possibilities, his eye lit on the bag of bird bedding that Vernon had brought for the owls. "I think we can provide her the means to devise a cat box," he said with satisfaction. "A bucket of earth, and a trowel. Still, I shouldn't like to leave anything of value in here with her, so if you would kindly point them out..." Snape folded his arms, radiating impatience.
A gleam of unholy delight began to shine in Potter's eyes, and he tried unsuccessfully to fight down a grin, but at least he started looking around the room. "Well, Hedwig's things, of course. The basket with the clothes. I don't have to worry about school things; my trunk's in the other room. I don't suppose …" he blushed. "Can we take the Big Bird blanket without letting Aunt Petunia know that I like it? She'll cut it up for the rag bag if she finds out."
"Big bird blanket?" Snape repeated incredulously, leaning down to sort through the blankets that had been on the owl's cage, since that was where Harry was looking. One of them had been imprinted with a fading drawing of a misshapen yellow ostrich, and when he held it up, Harry nodded, fidgeting uncertainly. "It's threadbare, Potter!" Not to mention covered with lumpy knots of fiber that had been pulled halfway free of the warp and woof. "As well as pilled."
"I know," Harry said, looking at his owl to avoid looking at Snape. "But I've had it ever since Dudley decided that he was too old for it. And it was still pretty fuzzy then."
Snape eyed the bedraggled, disgusting thing, wishing he could spare the energy to spell it clean of bird traces and the dirt from the tray. "If I'd known you liked this, I could have used it for the Extractus Toxinus spell. You'd have had to burn it afterwards, most like, but it would have saved me the trouble of looking for that snowglobe."
"The snowglobe!" Harry sat up straighter and twisted, trying to see it. The chair unlimbered its legs and turned itself to save him the effort. "It's still here!" Harry sighed happily and looked at it sitting on the shelf, then frowned. "We don't have to burn it, do we?"
"No." Snape dropped the blanket gratefully and went to fetch the snowglobe from the shelf, noticing again that Harry didn't reach for it, even when he could. That surprised him. He would have thought that James's son would have been quick to break any rule, and he was certain that Petunia must have indulged in what Albus called regrettable disciplinary tactics to leave Harry afraid even now to touch the ornament. "Had we used the blanket, the toxins would have been able to work back out to the surface. Since we used this, the toxins are safely trapped inside the glass. Here. You can hold onto it," Snape said, swapping the globe for the letter.
Harry stared at it, and then, very carefully, twisted his hand around to make the snow dance, everything else forgotten for the moment as he stared into the glass sphere. Snape rolled the letter up and crooked a finger to the smaller of the two owls, which flew over to him contentedly and took the letter after only a small nibble on his fingers. Snape went to let it out the window, and the window wouldn't open more than an inch. "Blast it."
"Uncle Vernon blocked it," Harry said, pulled out of his reverie. "You'll have to let Pig wiggle out first, and then pass the letter out through the crack."
"Or use another window," Snape said. "Follow me," he told the chair, and Harry had to let go of the owl to hang on as it obliged him. The owl flew off, to perch on the end of the bed and watch as Snape piled the bag of bedding, the mouse cage and the mouse food in Harry's lap before leading boy and chair down the hall to the master bedroom.
The room, as he had remembered, was large enough for his purposes, and the window slid upwards easily, letting in the rainswept evening breeze. Snape took a deep breath of it, grateful for the coolness of it. The little owl fluffed itself importantly as he turned to give it directions. "Straight to the Ministry, and that letter into no one's hand but Madam Hopkirk's, you understand? It's confidential."
Pigwidgeon merped confidently and took off out the window – it was blown six feet to one side as soon as it hit the breeze, but it righted itself and kept going determinedly until it vanished into the thickening night.
"I still don't understand," Harry said, tugging his bathrobe more closed. "What changed your mind about having me expelled?"
"The circumstances don't warrant it," Snape said, pulling out his wand to split the single large bed into two smaller beds, bedding and all, and shooed one of them against the far wall, and the other under the window before they lost the ability to move. "Magic used to save a life when there is no other recourse should not be grounds for expulsion," he went on, hoping that sounded logical enough to the boy. And I no longer believe that you would be safer in the arms of your loving relations until you are old enough to battle Voldemort. He thought of something, and managed to give Harry a wintry smile. "Besides, if you are expelled for what you did to your Aunt, then I shan't be able to claim the credit for developing that lovely new Curse, shall I?"
"Credit for what?" Good, the boy was distracted again.
Snape tapped his wand thoughtfully. "A little study, a suitably Latinate incantation, a reasonable time limit, and I believe that the clamor in the Great Hall will be considerably reduced, don't you?"
"You wouldn't! During meals?" Harry exclaimed, his eyebrows high.
"Why not?" Snape said. "Five minutes of staring at his plate without being able to do anything about it might convince even Mr. Finnegan not to talk with his mouth full." He cocked his head to look down at Harry. "Unless, of course, you want the credit for the spell."
"Not if you're going to use it on Seamus," Harry said hastily.
"Good." Snape took the pile of bird things off of Harry's lap and waved a hand at the master bathroom door. "I suggest you prepare for sleep, now, while I get anything else you want saved from your room and settle your Aunt. The chair will take you where you need to go. When you're ready for bed, take the one by the wall, please."
"Professor," Harry said, as if he'd only just remembered it, "there's a tin box," and then looked surprised at Snape's nod of comprehension. "I think that's all. All that's mine, anyway."
Snape hesitated in the doorway. "And of the things that aren't yours?"
The boy colored again, "Well, I know they're Dudley's really, but… I've been locked in there a lot, and there are some of the books I'd rather not see torn apart."
Snape was surprised. He'd never taken Potter for a reader. Then again, in comparison to Granger, none of that year ever was ever likely to be in the running for most rabid bibliomaniac. He didn't want to waste the little time or energy he had lugging books, though… Not when Dudley could do it for him. "I'll see to the books, Potter. You see to cleaning your teeth."
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The worst part of being frozen was not being able to move, Dudley thought. This was worse than the last time, because at least when Snape had frozen him upstairs he could still talk, and this time all he could do was see what was in front of him, which the boring half of the dining room. And smell things. And think. Only he couldn't think about much except what he was smelling, really.
The chicken was so close! If it weren't that whatever it was Snape had done prevented his mouth from watering, Dudley would have been drooling. It wasn't fair, letting him smell it like this. He could almost taste it, too. Fried chicken, with all the lovely crusty skin still on it instead of peeled away for his diet's sake… Dudley wished he could remember just how he came to be standing up with a piece of chicken in his hand, but it didn't matter nearly so much as wishing he knew how to move his arm, just a little.
He could hear things too, he realized. Someone was mumbling angrily over behind him to the right. It sounded like Mummy did, when you heard her through the bedroom door, sort of, only not so clear. Dudley tried to look sideways, but that didn't work either. At least she wasn't taking the chicken away. It might be easier if she did, in some ways, but if smelling it was all Dudley could do, at least he'd enjoy that much.
It had just occurred to him that he hadn't blinked in an awfully long time when Snape came back into his range of vision, holding his wand ready..
Oh, no, now he'll take away my chicken, Dudley thought, but instead, Snape said something and waved the wand. Whatever it was that Snape said, it released Dudley from his paralysis, and he took a quick bite of the chicken before anyone could take it away from him.
"Stop stuffing your face and put that down," Snape ordered, scowling.
Dudley didn't want to put it down, but he didn't want to get frozen again, so he tried to swallow unobtrusively and then turned to the table to put down the bone. He blinked. Daddy was sitting unnaturally still, but Mummy… "What happened to Mummy?" Dudley exclaimed, looking at the shadowy black ropes that bound his mother. Her eyes were sparkling furiously over a strange black gag.
"Not enough," Snape said sourly. "Empty your pockets, Mr. Dursley, and come with me. We have work to do."
Dudley was surprised to find more chicken in his pockets. Maybe it had something to do with having been frozen. He must have gotten hungrier when Harry…
"Where'd Harry go?" Dudley asked, looking around. He checked under the table.
Snape sighed and snapped purple stained fingers under Dudley's nose. "Pay attention!" he said, in a voice that had no patience left in it.
Dudley remembered, suddenly, that this man was a wizard, and an angry one, and Possibly Insane, and a surge of fear cleared the fogginess from his thinking all of a sudden. "I'm sorry, sir, I'm sorry," he said, standing very straight. And then, before he could stop himself, he said, "What happened to your hand?" and had to clap his own hands over his mouth to keep from asking why Snape's hair was so greasy.
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "I should have realized…" he said to himself, and Dudley wondered what it was he should have realized, but Snape didn't explain. The wizard just readjusted his cloak and looked at Dudley with a jaundiced eye. "Try to keep your mouth closed, Mr. Dursley," Snape said, rubbing his hands together, peeling away the purple stains into a kind of sparkly dust that vanished into the air. "The effects of the Memory Charm should fade shortly, and what little discretion you possess return. In the interim, follow me. I have a task for you."
"Yes, sir," Dudley said, and then bit his tongue to keep quiet. By the feel of it, he had one more piece of chicken, hidden inside his shirt, and if he could just keep from mentioning it, maybe he'd get a chance to eat it without anyone seeing.