Harry
Harry wasn't entirely sure how he'd ended up in the care of Professor Snape for the foreseeable future, and wasn't exactly certain that he'd prefer to be in Hogwarts under those circumstances. He vaguely recalled saying something along the lines of preferring to spend the summer with Snape than the Dursley's, and he had a notion that Snape had somehow heard him say that, but how he went from comparing personal nightmares to exchanging them was completely beyond him. He'd been feeling pretty rough, and the Dursley's idea of care and comfort was to hose him off, literally on several occasions, when he was too sick to care for himself and then punish him for it when he was better.
Being in Snape's sole care was a daunting prospect, especially as he still felt pretty rough. Normally Madame Pomfrey was able to make him feel completely better in the space of a night, but this time he'd barely been conscious to say goodbye to Ron and Hermione, and he'd gone straight back to sleep after they left despite the fact that Snape was standing right there glaring at him; something that Harry was sure he'd be paying for at a later date. Snape was a strict teacher, he didn't like Harry any more than the Dursley's did, and Harry had no idea what the mans Rules were. Sure, in class time the Rules were easy to discern and conform with, but out of classes they were extremely flexible and Harry always seemed to come down on the wrong side of them.
The problem wasn't so much that he was staying with Snape as that he wasn't staying with the Dursley's. As little as they loved him, Harry at least knew exactly where he stood. The Rules were the Rules, and even when they changed without notice he could usually fake it well enough to get by until he caught up. He mostly knew what was expected in every situation, he usually knew how to lessen or avoid punishment, and what was expected of him in his pain. He knew how to hide, when to duck and when to stoically bear it. Snape was not above cuffing a student that was misbehaving, and given that he also had access to magic, and all sorts of spells…
Harry would have to learn quickly if he wanted to survive his time here this summer. The older man was very thin, which meant that he didn't consider food a priority, which meant that Harry would be very hungry this summer if he didn't get all of the work that Snape was likely to heap upon him finished. He'd been hungry plenty of times before, but a book he'd found in the library of his old primary school had said that the less food a body has the less it grows. Harry was already the smallest in his year and the lightest of them all too. Even the good food at Hogwarts couldn't completely overcome ten years of … lack was the nicest way he could put it. The fact that he went back to that lack in the summer didn't help, and if he missed too many more meals he'd be permanently shorter than everyone else.
When he next woke it was early afternoon, and Harry got up at once, horrified that he'd spent the day asleep when Snape would have been expecting him. Bad enough that he'd gone to sleep repeatedly on Hermione and Ron when they'd come to say goodbye, without keeping Snape waiting. He found his uniform in the bedside cabinet and got dressed quickly, made the bed again and tucked the pyjamas under the pillow in lieu of knowing where they actually went. Snape would likely be in the dungeons and Harry headed towards them at a scurry, steeling himself for a right telling off.
As luck would have it he ran into his Professor in the foyer as the man crossed from the Great Hall. From the noises in the Great Hall the teachers were finishing lunch, and Harry did his best not to think about food. His stomach was a little iffy at the moment, and he didn't want to disgrace himself in front of the Head of Slytherin.
"Potter! Finished your beauty sleep?" Snape asked sarcastically, and Harry nodded, eyes down as was expected at home when he was being told off.
"I'm sorry Professor," using a title rather than a name was also expected of him, and when he didn't get hexed Harry figured that this Rule was at least similar.
"I hope you don't expect to spend the entire holiday lollygagging around the castle, Potter," Snape informed him darkly, "You'll be usefully occupied while I am burdened with your care. As our school Matron is worried that one as delicate as you should gain adequate rest, we'll start out easily. All holiday homework is to be completed by the end of next week. You will report your progress to me before dinner every evening. I will meet you here. You will also give me your wand – you are not to tax your strength with magic unless I am directly supervising you. As this includes flying I will snap your broom should you so much as mount it."
"Yes Professor," Harry agreed, blushing furiously scarlet at the term 'delicate' as he handed his wand over, handle first. How could Pomfrey say something like that in front of others? She'd said it to him once, while he was waking up after the fiasco with the Philosophers Stone, and he'd been so mortified she'd never mentioned it again. It wasn't his fault he didn't get to eat a lot! It wasn't his fault he was short either.
"Any questions?" Snape asked impatiently when the silence had dragged on long enough to make Harry squirm. Harry risked glancing up, returning his eyes to his Professor's middle when he realised that Snape was watching him very closely.
"Will I stay in the Tower this summer?" Harry forced himself to ask the question clearly and keep his voice respectful. He didn't want to assume that the Tower would remain open for him alone, because that meant he'd be a long way away from Snape's supervision. He didn't want to insult Snape by implying that the man wouldn't offer to host Harry himself, and he certainly didn't want to seem like he was eager to be away from Snape's supervision. Without his wand he'd still be able to move around the castle adequately, though some of the shortcuts he was used to using wouldn't respond unless you magicked them open.
"Frankly Potter I don't care where you sleep," Snape snarled, sounding insulted anyway. His hand gestured roughly behind Harry, and it was all the teen could do not to flinch, "The Tower will not be open, and I frankly do not want you in my rooms either. I believe there's space in the attics. You can see about the arrangements yourself, boy."
"Yes Professor," Harry said to the man's back, wondering if he'd managed to imply that he didn't want to be sleeping near Snape or something, which he didn't. Admitting that was probably a breach of the Rules, though, and guaranteed to annoy Snape either way. He watched the man stride back into his dungeons, and turned to look in the direction that Snape had gestured. As he watched a narrow wooden door appeared in the stonework, and Harry smiled at it. He loved the way the castle could read what her inhabitants needed and supply it. He was convinced that the stairs favoured certain people or circumstances, but he couldn't quite convince Ron and Hermione that Hogwarts was aware of the people who called her home.
Behind the door were three rough steps, a landing with a second door, and then two more steps. He opened the door at the top of the fifth step and entered what appeared to be an attic. The room was round, and the view showed that he was quite high up on the roof, possibly in one of the smaller towers that sprouted off the main spires. He glanced back at the five shallow steps he'd climbed from the foyer and grinned again.
Harry went back to the landing and discovered that the second door led into a bathroom. The fittings were old and worn and tarnished but more than adequate for a single teen to use, and included an enormous free standing bath and shower arrangement. The tub had clawed feet and was chipped along one edge, but otherwise it looked like a brilliant place to soak, and the showerhead was a little crooked, but provided more than enough water when he tested the taps. There was a basin and mirror and a loo behind a screen. There were a few narrow windows set up high in the ceiling, which was full of exposed beams. Harry wiped his wet hands on his now damp robe and headed back into the main room he'd first seen.
This appeared to be a storage room for things that had been damaged. The furniture was usually missing important parts, like legs, tops or backs, and the books and soft furnishings were all either singed or water damaged. There were a fair few stained items as well, including a huge couch sticking out from one wall. It was covered with a dust sheet, and when Harry lifted the sheet cautiously to peer underneath he discovered a stain that covered most of the couch in garish ink; a closer examination proved it to be the sort that Lockhart had favoured. The stain was unsightly in the extreme, which was probably why it was in the attic. When Harry sat on the couch though, he discovered it was the most comfortable thing he'd ever encountered, and when he lay down it was more than big enough to serve as a bed.
The place was fairly dusty, but there was a blanket draped over a chest that was so tattered that Harry had no compunction about tearing it into dusters and getting started on cleaning the place up. He opened each chest of drawers and trunk that he came to; discovering a variety of dented and damaged objects as well as more books than even Hermione could read. They were all in terrible condition though, which would probably incense his book-loving friend. It looked like someone had been collecting all of the textbooks that students had destroyed – either on purpose or by accident – over the years and storing them in here. Most of them were illegible, and he didn't think there was a single one that had all of its pages, or if it did it was missing its cover.
Behind the couch there was a large collection of trunks, and from them Harry selected the least faded, stained or moth-eaten blankets and quilts. He also scored a very comfortable cushion to serve as a pillow, and with his haul he covered the stained couch, converting it into a comfortable nest to sleep in.
There was a desk lying on its side under the smaller window, the one with the view of the hills behind the school. Harry used the burnt, stained, singed and moth eaten books (some of which had multiple combinations of damage) to replace the missing leg. There were in fact so many books that he used them to replace the missing legs of an armchair as well; fortunately the legs were missing from diagonal corners. He found that the larger window, with a view of the lake and Forbidden forest, wouldn't stay open unless it was propped open, and used yet another set of books for that. Hedwig came to find him, and he set her perch up near the larger window, where she settled with a happy hoot.
Just as Harry was finishing up the last of his dusting, pleased that the room had cleaned up so easily and also happy that he'd have the quirky space to himself for as long as he was at the school, his own trunk popped into place at the foot of his new couch-turned-bed. He was startled, but not overly worried. Hogwarts and magic were synonymous after all, and it made sense to him that someone knew when he was ready to start arranging his own things.
The Dursley hand-me-downs were in bad shape, and Harry sighed at the thought of staying in uniform all summer. True, the uniform would at least fit him, and Snape would probably be happier to see him in uniform than in the oversized rags that Aunt Petunia gave him, but sometimes Harry wished he had nice clothes like Ron's. A tray popped up on the newly upright desk, and Harry fell to hungrily, sitting on the large trunk and cushion that were doing duty as a desk chair. There was a note on the tray from Snape, to the effect that he would expect to see Harry promptly ten minutes before dinner tomorrow, and that the man had arranged for his meals to be delivered in this fashion for the length of his tenure in at the school. There was another note from the Matron, warning him to come and see her or Snape the minute he felt unwell, which he tucked away as a matter of course.
Finished with his tray of sandwiches, Harry went for a bath, intending to change into pyjamas and finish setting up his desk before he went to bed. He spent the time soaking and wondering how he'd tell the time without a clock, but that problem was solved when he went back into his room and found an old brass windup clock sitting on the trunk that was doubling as his nightstand. Its quiet ticking was a nice background noise, and Harry set his new/old desk up carefully, laying things out just so for the homework blitz that he was to commence tomorrow.
He didn't have any candles, which meant that when the sun went down at nine he went to bed. The couch was an incredibly comfortable bed, and the quilts he'd found were just right to combat the slight breeze that came through the larger window.
He fell asleep to the ticking of his new clock.
0o0o0o0
The days settled into a comforting routine. Harry woke at half six every morning and got up to have his breakfast and get dressed. He then took a short walk around the grounds, ducking back inside before the teachers were up for their breakfast at seven thirty. There weren't many of them around, and from the sound of the comings and goings in the foyer, Harry had the feeling that various tradesmen and visitors were also in the castle. He stayed out of everyone's way, although he wasn't above listening at the door to the foyer now and then, especially if there seemed to be more noise than usual.
Harry's homework was coming on nicely. He'd decided to complete it alphabetically, and was finding that the required work was easier to complete on a full stomach without painful distractions. Hedwig was also very happy to be free to come and go. She'd delivered letters to Ron and Hermione, reassuring them that Harry was fine and staying in a good place, and Ron had sent Errol to Harry twice so far. Harry had thought it best not to mention that he was still at school or that Professor Snape was supervising him, which had made his initial letters fairly brief. Hermione was off travelling this summer, which left Ron to correspond with, though that wouldn't be for much longer.
Mr Weasley had won some sort of Lottery, and the family were celebrating their good fortune with a trip to Egypt to visit Ron's eldest brother. Ron had a new wand as well, and as Errol was far too old to travel from England to Egypt his latest letter had been a curious combination of excitement at the immanent trip and worry that Harry would be out of his reach for the next few weeks. Harry appreciated the sentiment, it was nice to know someone cared, but didn't want to spoil his friend's holiday.
Harry was in the middle of writing a reassuring and congratulatory letter to his friend when the little brass clock jangled briefly. It was in the habit of doing that when it thought he needed to be reminded of something, and when Harry glanced over he realised he was supposed to be meeting Snape in the next two minutes. He put the quill down carefully and capped his ink bottle before clambering off his makeshift chair and heading for the stairs, brushing at his school robes as he went. The slightly musty smell in the tower had faded after five days of having the window open, and Harry had come to really appreciate the isolation. He was his own boss at the moment, though he was sure that once the two weeks of enforced rest was up Snape would have a list of chores a mile long for Harry to complete.
He was not much farther forward in establishing Snape's Rules. The classroom ones still seemed to apply, and Timely Obedience was a given, but beyond that Harry had no idea what would be his best bet to keep the man happy. It bothered him more than he cared to admit. For all his outward shows of bravado, Harry really just wanted a quiet life, which meant Keeping Snape Happy.
With an inward sigh, Harry pushed open the door to the rest of the castle and squared his shoulders for the next ten tense minutes.
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