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Harry passed out in the forest behind the grocery store, next to a large oak tree. The empty alcohol bottle lay beside him on the ground. He was dizzy from drinking too much too fast but it was a nice feeling. The dirt and leaves underneath him felt comfortable. He lay on the ground and let the spins take him away.
Voldemort could have shown up and he wouldn't have cared. He couldn't care about anything. He felt too good. He felt at home, somehow. Comfortable. He no longer cared about what happened to him, or anything at all. None of it really mattered anyway.
Kinda funny, how he always felt most at home when he was passed out drunk in the park at the end of Privet Drive, or now at the roots of some great tree. Maybe this was the most at home he'd ever get, after all. Maybe this was the best he was capable of feeling.
It didn't matter.
He became, after a while, aware of a presence standing over him. It was a familiar dark presence that he had grown used to over the past week: the potions professor. He didn't need to look up to recognize the man. He could recognize the feel of the man's gaze on him, even in his drunken state. The man just stood there in silence, looking down. It would have been unnerving if Harry was sober. But he was drunk, and he had expected the man, and he felt no fear.
"Leave me 'lone," he slurred. "I wanna live here now," he waved his hand at the tree.
"Let's go home, Potter." Snape reached down and pulled Harry to his feet.
Harry tried to twist his arm away. "I don't have a home!" he shouted, pangs of anger obliterating his calm. He pulled away from Snape so hard that he stumbled backwards, and would have fallen if Snape hadn't caught him in his arms. "You don't want me. My family doesn't want me. I don't have a home." He sniffed, but he didn't try to pull away this time. He knew that the only thing he was capable of at the moment was falling. He couldn't even walk in a straight line at this point. His glasses had dropped to the ground but he didn't notice. Snape picked them up and put them in the pocket of his robe. "I miss my cupboard."
"Mmm? What's there that you miss?" Snape had never seen the boy so willing to talk. He was torn between frustration over the drunken idiot and curiosity.
"That's where I lived, stupid! Didn't you know?" he giggled like a schoolgirl. "I'd be forgotten. Sometimes that's nicer."
"Nicer than what?"
"Being remembered," croaked Harry, vaguely.
Snape raised his eyebrows. "Why does it hurt to be remembered?"
Harry had a haunted look in his eyes, as if he was deep in thought. "I'm a freak."
The boy wasn't making sense. Not that Snape had expected him to. Harry was in so state of mind to hold an intelligible conversation. He picked Harry up bridal-style and apparated them back to the manner.
The boy was much too light for his age.
Drunk Potter was like a young child with no filter. Snape may have found it amusing under different circumstances, and if he wasn't so worried. A few hours had passed before Harry had run away and Snape had gone to get him, and already the boy was covered with dirt and scratches and had consumed a dangerous amount of alcohol.
It could have been worse, he supposed. There could have been dementors or death eaters, all things considered. Instead the boy was his own worst enemy. A few hours unsupervised and he had already gotten himself in trouble. Severus would have been angry at him if he didn't partially blame himself for provoking the boy to this. He swallowed every bitter cutting word he wanted to make and instead forced himself to handle the boy gently.
Think of Lily, he told himself. This is for Lily.
He placed Potter on the boy's bed and began to tug off the boy's shirt. Harry grabbed the hem of his shirt and held it down, a whimper escaping his lips.
"'Potter," Severus tried to school his voice and keep it gentle despite his mounting frustration. "You are dirty and hurt. I need to see. You need to get changed. And you have no way of doing these things on your own at the moment. Do you want to go to bed dirty?"
"Nooo," Harry groaned. "If I am so dirty, why you wanna see me naked, hmm?" He wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. "I don' wanna have sex with you."
Snape choked on air. What was going through the boys head to have him leap to such conclusions? "Well, I am glad we are on the same page then."
"Yeah." Harry's grip went suddenly weak and Snape could tell he was bordering on the edge of consciousness. His face was lax and his eyes half-way drooped, seeming to have forgotten his panic from a moment ago. No doubt he would remember none of these happenings the next day, for which Severus was thankful. He didn't want Harry's view of him to be tainted by one night of gentleness. Better to have the boy think he doesn't care and that the man wouldn't clean up after his bad decisions. It would be easier that way for them both. Severus pried Harry's slackening hands away and slipped off his shirt.
He felt, in that moment, like he had been punched in the gut and he was gasping for air but none met his lungs.
The boy's back had raised scars and bruises on it from countless beatings, some of them recent with only half-healed cuts, some of them very old. It was all written on his body like a guide book. And his bones were much too prominent, as if he had been starved.
And Severus, for a second, felt like he was looking at a picture of himself as a young boy in third person. It was like he had gone back in time to see himself, curled up and feebly lying on a large bed. How was it possible that this boy had faced such hardship? How had he been so utterly wrong?
Harry. Harry. The boy that the world failed. The wizarding world's savior, the boy that everyone knew but no one noticed. Snape's mind darted back to the enigmatic letter Draco had left a few days ago.
Severus, please go easy on Potter. He's not who you think he is. Even I misunderstood.
Not just Draco and Severus. The whole wizarding world misunderstood. Harry had fallen through the safety net of the wizarding society. Harry, a boy whom the world professed to need, yet he had the greatest need of all. And somehow he had kept it all a secret, for who knows how long. Who even knew the measures he went through to cover it all up and hide away. He was more sly than a slytherin. And somehow no one had noticed. They had only seen what they wanted to see.
Snape stared at the slight figure of the boy, fast asleep. Harry's chest rose and fell gently with each breath he took. He looked very young and at peace at the moment, as if he had not a single care. Only his creamy white skin betrayed him with angry blue blotches. The scars disappeared underneath his pant line. Snape hesitated for a moment, then gently slid the boy's jeans down.
Severus felt himself panic when he realized the boy was not wearing any undergarments. A quick spell told him that the boy had no further bodily trauma, so at least he hadn't been forced in the few hours he had been gone, as he at first thought. It was a small relief, however. The scars hadn't stopped at his lower back. They covered his buttocks and his thighs as well. Severus had expected as much, at this point.
He rolled the boy over onto his stomach to assess his injuries more closely. He felt nauseous. The only thing that sated him was the thought of revenge on the muggles who had treated a child this way. They would not get away with this. No adult deserved to live after treating a child this way.
Harry began to stir, his deep breathes speeding up and becoming panicked gasps as he awoke.
Snape gently held him face-down with a hand placed between his shoulder blades. The boy was much too drunk to struggle successfully anyway. "Potter, go back to sleep. You're safe."
"No!" Harry cried, thrashing his head violently. I don't want to do this!"
Severus felt his stomach sink at the raw terror in the boy's voice. "Potter, what don't you want to do?"
Harry didn't seem to hear him. "Please, let me up. I don't want to. I changed my mind. Please don't." the boy dissolved into sobs that wracked his frail body.
"Potter, it's just me, Severus." Snape, acting on sudden impulse, picked the boy up and brought him into his lap. "Harry, Harry, it's me, Snape. Calm down. You're safe."
The boy seemed to calm at the sound of his name, or maybe at the feeling of Snape's chest and warm arms around him. He curled up like a lost puppy, and closed his unfocused eyes, his breathing growing calmer.
"Harry, what happened?" whispered Snape, unsure if the boy was even conscious enough to hear him.
"He was so kind to me," sniffed Harry. "I wanted him, so it was my fault, I think."
He squeezed his teary eyes shut, buried his face into Snape's robe, and promptly fell asleep, his fisted hands twisted in the folds of Snape's robes.