Harry bit his lip nervously as he was marched into "his" room, and the door shut menacingly behind the professor.

"What," Snape started, his voice darker and sterner than normally, "was the meaning of that?" Harry still had his back turned, and smashed his eyes shut. "Look at me when I'm talking to you," Snape snapped, and the chastised child had no option but to obey. Turning around, he glanced up at the irate man, who was glowering down at him. "Answer me, boy," Professor Snape thundered, and Harry winced slightly.

"I dunno…"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I don't know," he said a bit louder, finding his voice in some godforsaken place deep down.

"You don't know?" Snape repeated, clearly very irritated with the whole situation. "Tell me, Mr Potter, has no one taught you how to behave towards your elders?"

"Yes…"

"Come again?"

"Yes, they have." Harry was finding it very difficult to speak properly, and wanted nothing more than to crawl up and hide under his bed. He couldn't do this, though, but was forced to stand completely still and wait apprehensively while Snape decided his fate.

"Then why," he continued, seemingly oblivious to Harry's racing heart, "were you so disrespectful just now?" Harry shrugged, certain he wouldn't be able to put together any kind of acceptable sentence. "A verbal answer, if you please," Snape growled, and Harry groaned inwardly.

"I don't know," he said again, even though he was absolutely sure that this answer would not be received well.

"Mr Potter, I don't know why you believe I will take your cheek, but if you think you can come barging into my quarters like this and behave like some insolent street urchin, then you are sorely mistaken." Harry didn't point out that he hadn't come barging in at all, but that Professor Snape had brought him there. Instead he just stood stock still, and stared at the hem of the professor's robe. "Do you have anything at all to say?" Harry's tongue felt about five times too big, and he couldn't say a word. He wanted to shrug, or shake his head, but he couldn't manage to do either. The complete lack of response did it for Professor Snape, and what happened next caused Harry to blush profusely.

When the child didn't answer or even look up, Snape firmly grabbed hold of the boy's arm, turned him to the side and swatted him once on his trouser clad seat. Harry gasped, but almost certainly from the surprise. It wasn't a very hard smack, and Severus thought he was being far too indulgent with the arrogant child.

"Now, I am going back to speak to Professor Dumbledore. I want you to stay in here, and not get into any mischief. I will be back and speak to you later. Understood?" Harry nodded vigorously, far too embarrassed to look the man in the eye. "Potter…"

"Yes, sir," he whispered, but was still proud he'd managed to make any form of verbal reply.

"Good." He let go of the boy's arm, turned around and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him. Once Harry was alone, he let out a small sniffle. It hadn't hurt, not much. But Snape had been so nice to him, and he'd been so silly and got himself a smack. The memory caused him to turn red again, and he sat down on his bed. The Dursleys had never really wanted to touch him, afraid his "freakiness" might be contagious. Of course, he'd got the occasional smack or cuff, but nothing really worth mentioning. Also, it was normally for the most trivial things, like not cutting the crass quickly enough because the lawn mower was too heavy, or spilling water on the porch when he was washing the car. This time, Snape had reprimanded him for being cheeky. He hadn't really thought he was being cheeky. At almost nine years old, he wasn't entirely sure what cheeky meant, but he had a vague idea.

Sighing to himself, he lay down, stretching his arms to either side of him as he stared into the ceiling. He knew the professors were talking about him, and he wanted so badly to go and listen, but he also knew he couldn't do that. Snape would know, for sure, and after what had just happened, Harry was hardly eager to get into the man's bad books again. After all, he wasn't even sure he was completely off the hook. Best not push his luck.

Huffing quietly, he rolled over on his side and waited for Snape to come and get him. I wonder what they're talking about…

Snape shook his head as he exited the guestroom and made his way back to the living room. The Headmaster had by now made himself comfortable on the couch, and was smiling slightly.

"You and Harry seem to be getting along nicely, even after such a short period of time," the Headmaster observed in a light and casual voice, which Severus thought completely unfitting considering the topic.

"That is what you would call 'getting along nicely'?" Snape replied in a crisp voice, raising an eyebrow as he sat down in his own wing backed chair, his hands loosely clasped in his lap.

"He is only eight, Severus," Dumbledore pointed out softly.

"He will be nine in but a number of weeks," Snape argued.

"It is the twenty-fifth of May, and his birthday is not until the end of July."

"Headmaster, what is the purpose of your visit?" Snape asked, disregarding Dumbledore's entirely off-topic statement.

"I merely wished to make certain our young guest is feeling all right and that he is being well taken care of," Dumbledore responded, his eyes flashing with the slightest warning in the direction of his Potions master.

"You yourself put him in my care. I promise you I will let nothing harm him," Snape said quickly. The words were sincere. He had no intentions of doing anything to harm the boy. Rather the opposite, but these thoughts were rarely even brought into light in his own mind, much less verbally delivered in front of the Headmaster.

"Thank you, Severus," Dumbledore smiled. "And you are still sure you agree to our earlier deal?" Severus felt very much like saying no. He really didn't. But Dumbledore had, of course, managed to make him say yes, and there was no turning back. He knew the question was nothing but a formality, and that Dumbledore knew that he knew this.

"Yes, of course," he replied hoarsely.

"Well then. I will be off. I expect to see you both around the castle soon."

"I will not let him wander, Albus," Severus warned the elderly man.

"I never implied that you would." With a last twinkling smile, he departed and the door closed quietly behind him. Snape rubbed his left hand across his forehead in contemplation. It was still beyond him how on Earth he was going to manage this. It had been decided in quite the haste, but he knew what it entailed. He knew what would happen eventually. The question was: could he handle it?

It hadn't been long since Snape had left, but Harry was bored. He was lying on his stomach on the bed, his head by the foot of the furniture. He was counting the bricks in the opposite wall, and had got to one hundred and fifty three. The cracks between the stones were beginning to blur, and he had to constantly push his glasses up his nose to stop them from falling onto the floor. What was taking so long? Snape had been there for several minutes; surely he wouldn't let Harry wait much longer! He continued counting, and just as he reached one hundred and eighty six, the door opened. In a haste, he sat up, and everything went black from the jerky movement. He swayed where he was sitting, and stuck his hands out into the air to balance.

"How very amusing," Snape observed coolly as he stood in the doorway, eyeing the child on the bed.

"I moved too quickly…" Harry mumbled.

"So I see." Harry shook his head, and when everything cleared, he turned to face the professor.

"What did he want?" Snape frowned (well, his frown deepened, rather).

"He is Professor Dumbledore to you, young man. And what he wanted is none of your business. You were asked to leave the room for a reason."

"I wasn't exactly asked…" Harry muttered.

"No, you were told. Speaking of which, I want to discuss your atrocious earlier behaviour."

"What does atrocious mean?" Snape nearly rolled his eyes, but refrained from doing so, keeping up his stern demeanour.

"I have had just about enough of your constant chattering and cheekiness. I want it to stop." Harry squirmed under his firm gaze, not really knowing how to reply. Come to think of it, was he supposed to reply at all?

"Maybe your relatives didn't care much about what you did, but you can rest assured, Mr Potter, that I won't accept any disobedience or disrespect."

"They didn't!" Harry argued immediately. "I had to work all the time and they gave me horrible food and I hated it!" For a split second, Snape's eyes seemed to soften, but he checked himself hastily, and composed himself.

"I'm sure you quite disliked it and that they weren't nice to you. However, it seems to me as though they didn't mind your behaviour as much as they worried whether or not you got your chores done."

"It was more than just some chores…" Harry said in a low voice, surprising himself.

"You are changing the subject," Snape said calmly. "I'm not belittling your rather tragic childhood, but you cannot use it as an excuse for your poor behaviour." Harry hated how this man had valid and understandable arguments for all of his opinions, effectively making Harry feel young and inexperienced (which he was, but at eight, almost nine, he felt as though he had lived for ever).

"But you're being unfair," Harry whined.

"Stop your whinging this instant," Snape reprimanded. "It's only ten past ten, and I am in no mood to hear your complaints." Harry pouted, but remained quiet. "Now, come on." Snape turned around and, obviously expecting Harry to follow, the boy trotted after him, having to speed up to a jog to keep up with the professor's long strides.

"Where are we going?" he asked as they left the quarters and walked the same way as the previous evening: through the corridors, up the stairs…

"To the library," Snape answered curtly. Harry didn't mind, though. He hadn't expected an answer at all, as Snape seemed to be in a constantly sour mood.

"Why?" Instead of replying, Snape clamped a hand down around the boy's neck and kept up the speedy pace. Harry sighed silently, and said no more.

After heading through so many different corridors and hallways, Harry felt overwhelmed, and they arrived in the large room that was the library. The boy's mouth fell open. The place was huge, and every wall was covered with shelves of books (excepting the few that had windows in them). There were shelves lined up along narrow passages, they, too, covered in old, dusty volumes. Harry rather enjoyed reading. Whenever he could get his hands on a book at the Dursley's, he'd be lucky. It was an escape, and he could pretend he was somewhere else altogether, completely absorbed in the adventures of pirates, wizards and heroic children.

"Don't touch them," Snape said, having seen the way Harry was staring longingly at the shelves.

"Why not?" Harry asked with a frown, thinking it was very odd to have all these books and not let anyone touch them.

"Because I told you not to," Snape replied. "Come along." Huffing, Harry followed the professor once again. They stopped by a large round table in the far back of the room. There was a large fireplace in the wall, and Snape walked up to it, gesturing for Harry to stay back. The boy sat down carefully on one of the chairs around the table, and watched with curious eyes as the professor grabbed some powder from a dirty pot and chucked it into the flames. They instantly turned a startling green, and Snape stuck his head into the fire. Had Harry not seen this before, he was sure he'd run after the professor. His heart sped up a bit, but he didn't move. After Snape had said a few muffled words inside the fire, he retracted his head and stepped back. Not a moment later, a woman stepped through, and briskly brushed off her dress. At first, Harry thought it would be Madame Pomfrey again, coming to check up on him. But it turned out this lady was an entirely different one. She had the air of someone who thought they were very important. She wore black ornate robes and a pointed hat on her head, decorated with small, gleaming black feathers and stones.

"Well, Mr Potter," was the first thing she said, eyeing him up and down. "You certainly are a tiny fellow." Snape shook his head with clear disapproval.

"Is it all right if I leave him here for a while?" Snape asked, and Harry turned a pair of worried eyes on the tall professor.

"Very well," the woman nodded, seemingly a bit reluctant. "But he mustn't touch anything, or run around playing. I will give him a few books to keep him entertained."

"That would be very good, thank you. And I agree. He shouldn't be playing. I think it much more fitting that he sit quietly and read a book or two for a while." Harry quite disliked the way they were speaking of him, as though he wasn't there. Also, even if he did like reading, he didn't understand why he'd have to sit still for ages. It was much more fun playing. And maybe exploring the castle! It seemed to be absolutely enormous. He'd love to roam about the halls and look in all the rooms and-

"Mr Potter!" He snapped his head up and met the eyes of Professor Snape. "I have a few things I need to attend to. I cannot have you trailing after me all day, and so you will stay here, reading quietly. This is Madame Pince; she is the librarian here at Hogwarts. If you want any other books than the ones provided for you, you will ask. Understood?" Harry nodded thrice. "A verbal answer, if you please."

"Yes, sir, I understand," Harry sighed. "But why can't I come?"

"Because you are a petulant child that will make everything take five times longer," Snape replied casually. "Now, behave." And with that, he stalked away from the boy and the straight backed librarian. Harry, feeling uneasy, turned towards the strict librarian. She looked a bit bird-like, with that thin, hooked nose and those sunken, pale cheeks.

"What are you staring at?" she snapped. "What kind of books do you want?" Harry had no idea, really.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. She made an irritated noise through her pointy nose, and rushed off. He wasn't sure what to do, but just sat on the chair. The woman seemed scary and like she didn't want him there at all. He wished Snape would understand this. Then, maybe, he would've let Harry come with him. It was obvious he wasn't truly wanted in the library, and he would much rather follow Snape when he worked than sit locked up in this stuffy room with books. His first impression of the place quickly diminished, and he was left with an odd sort of resentment towards the room.

Just about then, the librarian returned and dumped three books on the table in front of him.

"There you are. I will just around the corner." She pointed in the direction she meant. "Don't wander off. If you want anything, just come ask me." Without waiting for an answer, she turned her back on the perplexed child and stalked off to wherever it was she was going. Pushing his glasses further up his nose, Harry grabbed the closest book and pulled it up to him. On the cover was a picture of what he thought was a dragon. The title read: Conquering the Evil That Is Prejudice. It was written by someone named Newt Scamander, and a quick look at the first few pages told Harry it was about how dragons were misunderstood and that no one should judge them. He wasn't really in the mood for reading anything like that, and so he put the tome aside. The next one was a lot thinner and lighter, and seemed a lot more promising. It had drawings on the cover, of some symbol, a wand, a few skulls, a tree… Harry looked away from the images to read the title: The Tales of Beedle the Bard. He thought it sounded like a strange title for a book, but liked the sound of it and thus opened it. He then realised it was a collection of fairytales, and suddenly, the title seemed fitting enough. That Bard person must've written them, he thought. Looking through the index, he decided on reading the story entitled The Warlock's Hairy Heart, merely because of the amusing name.

There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock, who observed that his friends grew foolish when they fell in love, gambolling and preening, losing their appetites and their dignity. The young warlock resolved never to fall prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity…

Though the story contained a fair few words he did not understand, and almost frightened him at times, he read at an impressive speed, drinking it all in. To think that magical children were told these stories! At the end, he shook his head. It seemed silly to him that the warlock would not want to fall in love. He may only be eight, almost nine, years old, but he was sure he'd fall in love at some point! The thought of such a topic brought to mind his parents. He didn't know much about them, almost nothing at all in fact, but he was absolutely certain that they had been very much in love. Of course, the story had a most tragic and disturbing ending, what with the man cutting out his recently replaced heart and dying with the woman he had fallen in love with, but still. Harry found the tale interesting and enchanting as well as scary and awful. Encouraged by the success of this tale, he started to read the next one: Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump. He was soon deep into the fictive world, noticing nothing around him.

When Snape had left the child in the library, he let out a sigh of relief. The boy wasn't being a nuisance on purpose, he knew this, but he was sill a tiring one to have around. And to think, he wouldn't escape now… Shaking his head, he made his way towards the Headmaster's office. He felt he needed to speak to the man, and was also sure that Albus would have a thing or two to say to him.

Muttering the password through gritted teeth, the gargoyle grinned and leapt aside. Taking the rotating stairs two at a time, he was outside the door in no time at all. Before he even had the chance to knock, it opened itself, slowly, to reveal the elderly Headmaster sitting behind his desk, his nose almost touching the parchment he was reading.

"I was wondering when you would turn up here," he observed, not looking up.

"I'm sure you were," Snape muttered, closing the door personally before walking up and sitting in one of the chairs in front of the large desk. Dumbledore finished reading whatever it was, and looked up with a small, serene smile, just like the one he almost always had pasted on his face.

"What did you do with young Harry, may I ask?" Dumbledore enquired.

"I left him with Madame Pince in the library. He should be reading," he added, emphasis on should, as he wanted to make it known to the Headmaster that he did not, really, expect the child to obey.

"Ah, yes, the comfort of a good book. A very good choice of occupation, I believe," Dumbledore said with a small nod.

"Headmaster-"

"Severus, allow me to speak," Dumbledore interrupted, holding up a hand to silence the younger wizard. "I trust you have not yet spoken to Harry about… future arrangements?" What a delicate way of putting things, Snape thought icily.

"No, I have not," he replied honestly.

"Ah, I thought so," Dumbledore nodded. "It was quite evident in the boy when I saw him this morning. Though I must say, he seems very comfortable with you."

"Perhaps a bit too comfortable for his own good," Snape said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, well, children do adapt quite quickly," Dumbledore responded breezily. "Now then. I have just now received papers from the Ministry."

"Papers?"

"Yes, for temporary guardianship."

"Temporary? I was under the impression that you wanted-" Again, Severus was cut off by the Headmaster:

"Let's see how it works first," he said in a haste. "Until his ninth birthday, we will do like this. After that, we shall see what happens." Was there, then, maybe, some hope of his getting out of this?

"But I trust your intentions are still to make me go through with this?"

"You did agree," Dumbledore pointed out softly.

"I didn't have much choice," Snape replied sharply.

"But you still agreed," Dumbledore argued in his very own placid way. "I really do believe it to be best for Harry," he continued. "He needs someone who will be able to support him and bring him up properly regardless of his fame and his previous home."

"And you honestly believe that I am best suited for this task?" Severus asked, even though he had asked this several times the previous evening.

"I do," Dumbledore nodded. "I know that, despite your firm and cold exterior, you do care for the child and that he will be safe in your hands."

"I will not mollycoddle him, Albus," Severus warned.

"If I thought you would, I would not have left him in your care. He needs guidance, Severus, and someone to stand behind him."

"I will not be standing behind him in all his mischief," Snape stated resolutely.

"Severus, please," Dumbledore said reproachfully. The younger of the two sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"You have to understand that is turning my life upside down, Headmaster," he said after a moment.

"Of course I understand this. But the entire staff of Hogwarts is here to help you, and I am sure that there are several other people who would be more than willing to help. The Weasleys, for example…"

"No," Snape said hotly. "No, if he is going to live with me, he will not be sent to them, getting all sorts of ideas into his head."

"I would have thought it'd be good for him, meeting some other wizarding children. Children that wouldn't judge him or look up to him because of his fame." Severus snorted. Having said this, Dumbledore handed the official papers over to Severus, who read them in silence.

"And all I do is sign?" Dumbledore nodded.

"We need the Dursleys signatures, too, but I will fix that. Best not take Harry back there."

"Yes, best not…"

"Well, I believe you have other things to do than sit here with me," Dumbledore said brightly. "Go get dear Harry. Show him around the castle. Oh, and tell him about what will happen."

"I have to tell him?" Snape asked in clear annoyance.

"I believe that would be best, yes," Dumbledore confirmed. "Good day, Severus."

There we are, chapter four complete!
This was quite a lot easier to write, even though I did have to change most of it from the original idea of the chapter in itself... But it turned out all right, and it contains what I wanted it to contain.
Please tell me what you think!

Ivy