Packing only took five minutes for Harry. He silently threw his belongings into his trunk, thinking that it had only been a week since he had taken them out. No matter how much Harry had wanted to leave Snape's manor at the time, he didn't think the time would come so soon.
Snape hadn't given him much information on his new guardian at all. He wondered what kind of person would want custody of him without even knowing him. It must be a very kind person, he figured. He hoped he didn't botch it like he did with Snape.
At breakfast Snape was quiet, as usual. However, there was a tension in the air that was unusual. Harry wondered if he was imagining it. The man seemed even more irritated than usual, but he didn't even seem to notice Harry, lost in his own thoughts.
"Uh, sir, may I ask a question?" he broke the silence at last, after a few minutes of poking at his porridge.
Snape looked up quickly, as if startled out of his thoughts.
"If my new guardian decided he doesn't want me will I, you know, be sent back to the Dursleys?" Harry swallowed his dry throat and regarded his porridge as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.
"You will not be going back there. Not ever."
Snape's voice was so stern that Harry believed him immediately.
"It wasn't all bad," muttered Harry. He felt strangely warmed at Snape's words, despite himself. He could almost pretend the man cared.
"Well, I'm sure you enjoyed your run-away attempts and other reckless endangerment between the beatings, but none of these occurrences will be happening again, I can assure you."
Harry nodded, only slightly put off. "Will you, uh, will you tell anyone? It's just, I don't want my new guardian to know. Or anyone at Hogwarts, either. I don't want the slytherins to find out! Or even my friends! Please, sir. Promise me you won't tell!"
"Dumbledore has already been informed," Snape announced gravely. "As for my snakes; it is none of their business what kind of past you have had, though I can assure you that your family life would not be altogether unfamiliar to all of them. Same for your new guardian. That is up to you. As for your friends, it is not my duty to inform them, though I think you should. Friends are there for a reason."
Harry cleared his throat and nodded. He would not inform them! They were the people he cared about most and he didn't want their opinion of him to change no matter what. They were all he had. He couldn't bare the thought of them judging him, even in a pitying way.
An hour passed. Snape had made tea in the sitting room, and Harry sat tensely in his seat, Snape across him. His new guardian would be arriving momentarily, and Harry was nervous. He tried to take sips of his tea but his hands were shaking so badly that some of the hot liquid splashed onto his lap and Snape had to put a cooling charm on him so it didn't burn his skin.
Snape was watching him carefully from under his dark fringe. His mood seemed to be growing worse since breakfast. Harry would have been worried about this if he wasn't so worried about everything else.
"Potter, the floo system has already been set up between the two houses. In two days time I will come for you and bring you back here for the afternoon. You may have felt free of pain this morning, but I need to assess your healing progress once or twice more."
Snape also wanted to check up on Harry's guardian, but he didn't admit this. He suspected that Dumbledore had been going senile for awhile, at least in his character judgment. He didn't trust this new guardian that the old coot had so readily appointed.
An alarm went off, signifying that the wards had been breached, and Harry jumped. His knees hit the coffee table and nearly upset the tea again.
Snape stood. "Stay here and collect yourself. I will greet him and usher him in."
Harry sat for a few very long moments, trying to take deep breathes like Snape had showed him just that morning. He studied the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup and pretended to make sense of them, even though he really didn't have a good imagination or even much faith for that type of thing.
The door opened and Harry sprang to his feet. Snape walked into the room, his robes bellowing characteristically. Behind him walked a man.
It was the last person that Harry expected to ever run into again for it was Jack, from that hapless night seven long days ago.
The man was dressed in a firm-fitted business suit complete with a tie, as if he had just gotten out of the office. He had shiny black shoes on and his gray-tipped hair was styled smartly. He regarded Harry with a warm smile radiating on his face and stretched out his hand in greeting.
Harry stared at the man, his lower jaw unhinged, his eyes as wide as a house elf.
"Potter!" snapped Severus. "Show some manners!"
"It's fine! It's fine!" chortled Jack good-naturedly. He stuck his hand in his pocket and shrugged his shoulders. "The poor child, this whole thing must come as a shock. After all, I never did know Lily had a child, and dear Harry had never heard of me, either! To think we are only meeting for the first time now!"
Harry stared. He was so shocked that his response mechanism seemed to be on pause. Usually he knew enough of how to operate in any given situation to get by, but right now he was at a complete loss.
"You must have been very close to Lily if you never even knew of her child," grunted Snape darkly, seating himself down and waving for Jack to do the same.
"We were childhood friends! That is, before I went to college in Canada and moved away and lost contact with my family and friends here. After Lily's passing I never did keep in contact with Petunia. Most unfortunate, but I was young and reckless and didn't recognize the importance of family connections back then. I am thankful to be back in London and picking up from where I left off."
Snape had been watching Harry out of the corner of his eyes as he politely pretended to give Jack his undivided attention. The boy continued to stand, face blank, staring. Unable to stand it any longer, Snape shouted "POTTER! SIT DOWN!"
Harry jumped as if he was waking from a dream, and then sat down so quickly that Snape, for a moment, thought he had fainted. What was wrong with the boy?
"Please do forgive Potter. He is often tactless when it comes to social charms, yet even I have not seen him this...inanimate… before." He spoke these words pointedly, seeking to provoke a reaction from Harry, who sat as if petrified.
"It is quite all right!" Jack assured again. "This whole situation must be shocking to him. I can hardly blame the poor chap."
Severus stood up stiffly and picked up the teapot. "I will let you two introduce yourselves while I make new tea, as this batch seems to have gone cold." He exited the room. It had been his plan to give Harry some privacy with the man, but the boy didn't seem to be reacting well at all as of yet.
As soon as Snape had left the room Harry realized he had a million questions he wanted to ask, and they all seemed to slip out of his mouth at once, coming out in a long unintelligible sentence. "What-HOW-but why-I mean you-but you weren't-are you really-I don't understa-"
Jack held up his hand palm-first and chuckled. "You sure are full of questions, Harry! Or should I say Carl?" he arched an eyebrow.
"So you do remember?" he mentally crossed that off his list of questions. "But is it true, you are… family?"
"Family is more than blood, Harry. True family is more often found. Though not related to you by blood, I want to make you my family. I always considered your mother family, even if we were distant cousins."
Harry's hands shook in his lap. He didn't realize it until that moment, but those words resonated with him as if he had been waiting his whole life to hear them.
"But..but...your phone number...you never gave it to me…" he choked out the words. That memory was most painful, the way Jack had coldly turned away from the pleading Harry.
"I had heard about you from Petunia a few weeks before meeting you that fateful night. I asked what you looked like, if you looked like your mother, and she only brought up the scar on your forehead and how it looked like a lightning bolt. The night at the club I didn't notice it. Your hair was styled over it. But after we slept together, I smoothed the hair out of your eyes once you had fallen asleep. To my utter shock, you we the boy she had mentioned, the one I had planned to meet! Please don't blame me, Harry. I know I came across as rude, but I was simply so surprised, I did not know how to handle the situation."
Harry stared at him, drinking in the words. His face clouded suddenly, and he shuddered. "But that night… you…" his words dyed out altogether as shame overtook him as the memories came flooding back.
Jack looked at him with a simpering smile as if he was regarding a small child. He leaned in closer to Harry and whispered seductively, "you were lovely in bed, Harry. You were like a wild sex demon, so alluring, a true slut. I was shocked when I discovered your identity, but I have not regretted a single moment of that night."
Harry shifted away from the man, shaking his head. "But I- I don't- I don't remember anything." He thought he remembered Jack pushing his head down and choking him out, but now he wasn't so sure. Maybe it had only seemed that way? His memory of the night had some horrible glitches in it.
Jack's smile turned into a worried frown. "You had a lot to drink, so it's no wonder. It was really my own fault. I shouldn't have allowed you to drink so much, but you seemed to be having so much fun! I am sorry you don't remember the good time that you had, but," he straightened his back, "we can always re-make those memories."
Harry shuddered. He felt simultaneously sick to his stomach, and yet drawn to the handsome man. He wanted to be desired more than anything. He wanted to belong to someone who wanted him, and he wanted a family. The man was attractive and alluring, and yet the man's words left Harry's skin crawling. He had the desire to take a long hot shower and scrub his skin off. What if the man's words were true? Harry had thought that Jack was the villain this whole time. But what if Harry had been a mad sex freak in bed? What if he begged for everything every step of the way and enjoyed it too?
"Just please," begged Harry, "don't tell Snape! He wouldn't approve."
Jack patted Harry's knee in a gesture of reassurance. "Don't worry. No one needs to know anything about us."