xlv. penance for petunia

When his arm started to burn, Severus wasn't surprised.

No, Severus was a man of routine and absolutes; the sun rose in the east, set in the west, fire was hot, ice was cold, and Harriet Potter would somehow, some way, wind up in imminent danger.

Before he'd known about the Vow chaining his life to the brat's, Severus had already come to expect the ever-present burning in the summertime. The searing and prickling always increased during the holidays, and for the longest time, Severus hadn't had a single idea why that was. Now, however, he knew why even if he wished he didn't, because Albus Dumbledore would never forgive him for killing Petunia Evans, even if the bitch was abusing her only niece.

Severus sat up from his slouched position in his armchair and the Potions journal he'd been reading when he dozed off slid to the rug. Air hissed through his clenched teeth as he tightened his hand around his wrist and lurched upright, sleep's muddled haze already disappearing, his body and mind trained to wake swiftly—though his heart raced and his footing was less than steady. He grabbed his cloak from the hook by his mantel and hesitated by the Floo.

He knew where he must go. Severus had made sure of that before term even ended; finding Potter's home address had been too easy for Severus' taste. What if Slytherin had gone looking for it? He'd waited all summer for the opportunity to catch Tuney or her fucking husband putting the girl in danger—in flagrante, as it were. Perhaps it was wrong for Severus to have waited at all, for him to gamble with Potter's safety, but he was a Slytherin, not a bleeding-heart Gryffindor; he needed to bring evidence before Albus. The Headmaster could be incredibly thick-headed in these matters.

Abuse, be it against a child or a partner, wasn't common in the Wizarding world, not like it could be among Muggles. Oh, wizards had their own fair share of emotional neglect going on, but pure-bloods had trouble conceiving. When the whole weight of your family legacy rested on a hard-won child's shoulders, you didn't beat that child, and you didn't beat your spouse when they were trained in curses and poisons and knew exactly where you kept your bloody tea. Without evidence, Severus doubted Dumbledore could even conceive of the idea that Petunia might hurt her niece.

Still, Severus hesitated. He hesitated because he feared he might not hold back if he witnessed Petunia hurting Lily's daughter.

"Fuck," he cursed when pain flared again. Severus took a pinch of Floo Powder and threw into the grate, snapping, "Number Eight, Wisteria Walk, Surrey!"

The fire blazed green and he braced himself for the dizzying, spiraling pressure of long-distance Floo travel. When he stepped out of the grate, he did so with a soft gasp, bringing in the smell cabbage and cats, the taste of soot heavy on his tongue and in his throat. A Kneazle perched on the back of a tatty couch growled at Severus, and he slipped his wand into his shaking hand.

The light flicked on, and he managed to not whirl about—though Severus did slowly raise his hands when confronted with an older woman wielding a Muggle handgun.

"Who're you then?" the old Squib demanded, dressed in a fluffy bathrobe with two cats at her feet. She squinted. "…Snape?"

"Madam Figg," he drawled, hoping the crazy bat didn't shoot him on accident. He knew Arabella Figg more by chance than anything else, a distant memory from a decade ago of passing in the Order headquarters, and she probably recognized him by notoriety. He'd been told by Albus years ago that the Headmaster had an agent in play near Privet Drive to watch over the girl, but Severus would've never guessed it was Arabella Figg until he searched the records for the nearest Floo contact to Potter's home. "I've received…intel that the Potter girl might be in danger and have come to verify her safety for myself."

The gun lowered, which irked Severus. Any Death Eater with half an ounce of brain power could buy or cook up a Polyjuice Potion and pretend to be him, but the woman did ask any identifying questions or for any of the old Order passwords. Instead, she appeared momentarily confused and scratched her face, a heavy frown deepening her wrinkles. "Danger? Shouldn't she be off in school?"

Severus lowered his hands and stiffened. "It is August, Figg."

"August?" The woman had the temerity to look at him as if Severus were the one out of his mind. "Oh, it is, isn't it? I remember now. I…I don't believe I've seen Harriet since last Christmas."

He stared. "What."

"When the Dursleys went on holiday. They always leave the dear behind, sweet girl…."

Sweet fucking Morgana, Albus. Did it ever occur to you to check that your nanny wasn't a few beans short of every flavor?

His wrist ached. Severus didn't have time for coddling nattering Squibs in the middle of the night, and so he swept around, whacked himself on the head with his wand to cast a Disillusionment Charm, and strode out into the muggy heat. He stumbled when he got his first look at the street, though he would've cursed any witnesses to his dumbfounded expression blind before admitting how the sight staggered him. Severus came from the back-end of Cokeworth, where the houses lined up like soot-stained gravestones in the shadow of the old mill, and yet he couldn't have prepared himself for the distinctly Muggle reality of Little Whinging.

Oh, yes, he could imagine Tuney living quite happily in one of these uniform homes with their uniform gardens and plain, ugly letterboxes. Tobias Snape used to watch reruns of The Twilight Zone on the telly when he wasn't too drunk to sit up straight, and Severus had seen images of places like this, surreal middle-grounds extending forever in all directions, the kind of places that could trap a man in his own mind for want of escape. Severus wagered Petunia hadn't realized it wasn't the fifties anymore and women could actually leave their houses if they wanted.

He came through an alley along Magnolia Crescent and stopped at Privet Drive's boundary, concerned the blood-wards Dumbledore swore up and down surrounded the house would push him back—but Severus' concern was for naught. He reached out, found nothing, and with each incredulous step forward along the tepid street he continued to find nothing until he stood on Tuney's walk staring at the brass number "4" on the door.

There are no blood-wards.

Swallowing, Severus dismissed the Disillusionment Charm and stomped up the rest of the path, bringing his fist down hard on the door. He had a difficult enough time keeping his right hand clenched around his wand, so he beat the knuckles of his left raw knocking until the neighbor's curtains fluttered.

"Who in the blazes is that?!" cried a male voice inside the house, loud thumps descending a set of stairs. Lights wavered, and a moment later a corpulent man with a thick mustache, dressed in pinstriped pajamas yanked the door open. Severus was painfully reminded of Horace Slughorn—fat, mustachioed, red-faced—but he shoved that recollection aside as easily as he shoved the man back into his own house. Severus slammed the door behind him.

"What in GOD'S NAME—?!"

Severus flicked his wand in the direction of the man's face, and the Muggle went quiet, eyes never leaving the thin strip of wood. Ah, the Potions Master thought. So Tuney's been telling tales. I wonder what she learned from Lily about wizards like me….

The Headmaster would be furious when Severus told him he'd forced his way into a Muggle house, let alone Potter's, but the insistent burn in his aching limb didn't allow time for Slytherin subtlety. He'd expected the pain to cease once he arrived at Privet Drive, and yet it continued to build in intensity, a rising pressure biting hard into his seizing muscles and bones until he could barely stand it. "Where is the girl?" Severus demanded in a voice that could chill glaciers.

"What bloody girl?!"

Severus jabbed him with his wand and green sparks singed the Muggle's shirt. Light, rapid steps came down the stairs adjoined to the miserable little foyer, and he sneered as Petunia Evans—still horse-faced, whip-thin, and sour—came into view. The woman took one look at the darkly clad wizard in her home and shrieked.

"YOU!"

"Nice to see you again, too, Tuney," Severus said as the woman gawked, revulsion and terror competing for purchase on her narrow face. "But I am not here for pleasantries. The girl's life has been threatened and I am here to check on her."

When Petunia's face adopted the color of curdled milk, Severus' stomach tightened further in dread. Something in the house felt wrong, wrong beyond the lack of wards, something he couldn't place as he took in the cabbage rose wallpaper and the stink of cleaning products. He could taste furniture polish in his mouth. The pictures on the walls didn't move, and he felt as though he were surrounded by portraits of dead bodies. "She's—she's not here."

"Where is she?"

Petunia crossed her arms, her eyes flashing toward her husband, then behind her, toward the stairs. "She's—she's at a friend's."

Fuck this, Severus seethed as he sent a Stunner at the billowing Muggle in front of him and rounded on Petunia.

"Vernon!" she shrieked, moving forward, only to get caught my Severus, his hand curling into a fist on the collar of her nightgown, bringing her head up so he could meet her wide, frightened eyes.

"Legilimens!"

Muggle minds were not like the minds of witches or wizards, another marked separation between mundane and magical. Magical minds had a thin membrane of sorts that, in the head of an accomplished Occlumens, projected a multi-dimensional barrier of the wizard or witch's choice, while Muggle's had no such thing. Severus pulled through Petunia's mind like a swimmer through water, and he detested the woman from the shallows of her being to the deepest abyss of her psyche.

Seeing him again stirred memories of her childhood, snatches of "Sev!" and "That awful Snape boy" flickering by, chased by a girl with apple-red hair and recollections marred by a green-eyed woman's fading laughter.

His own words echoed in Petunia's mind, "Where is she?", and her thoughts winged through a gallery of Harriet Potter's upbringing, a veritable haunted museum that set Severus' teeth on edge.

Dumbledore stood in a pink sitting room with a swaddled infant in his arms. "You must take her, Petunia, for your sister—."

"You're a freak, Lily, a freak!"

Petunia held a black-haired toddler at arm's length and couldn't breathe when curious green eyes stared at her—.

"Listen to me, Tuney! You have to be careful, Voldemort is—."

She couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand the judgmental staring. Out of sight, she needed the brat out of sight—and she saw the boot cupboard. She opened the door—.

"Get up, you worthless girl!"

A child in bedraggled cast-offs stepped out of the black cupboard and stared at the floor, unable to meet her Aunt's gaze anymore—.

Petunia listened to Dudley taunt the girl, flesh striking flesh, a pained cry, and disgust for her own bullying son filled her, twisting to hate because it was the girl's fault, it was always the girl's fault—.

Severus Snape stood in her pristine foyer like a black demon released from Hell, freak, he was a freak—.

"It's real for us, not for her—."

"Where is she?"

Petunia stormed down the steps because her purse had disappeared in the night, and if the girl had stolen it, she swore she'd wouldn't stop Vernon this time—.

Vernon's hands closed around the girl's neck. He'd kill Harriet, kill the green-eyed girl, kill Lily—.

"Should've left her at the orphanage, Pet."

The girl winced when Vernon yelled—.

"Should've drowned her the first night, Pet."

The girl cringed under a raised hand—.

"Should've beat the unnaturalness from her, Pet."

Blood dripped along the girl's chin—.

"Should've left her for the dogs, Pet."

"I want my letter! It's mine, and you have no right—!"

Familiar, swirling script marred a sheet of parchment in a young hand, "I must apologize, Miss Evans, but Hogwarts cannot be attended by non-magical persons—." Goddamn Dumbledore, goddamn the freaks who took her—.

An elderly man in a pointed hat stood in her pink sitting room with condemnation in his blue eyes, stating, "You must take her—."

Petunia stomped down the stairs. She screamed—.

Vernon held the girl off the floor and shook—.

Snakes filled her foyer—.

Severus Snape stood on her threshold like unholy vengeance and she knew this was penance because—.

She stepped into a snake-filled foyer and screamed because—.

The girl sobbed for hours behind the cupboard door and Vernon wouldn't relent. Petunia wanted to open the door because—.

She stared at the milling snakes and the open cupboard door and knew true guilt because—.

Severus Snape stood in her foyer demanding "Where is she?"

Petunia didn't know. She didn't know because—.

Because the girl was gone.

Severus wrenched himself out of Petunia's head and snarled, thrusting her away. Petunia collided with the wall at her back and a framed picture of her precious, porcine son fell to the floor, not that either of them or the obese bastard sprawled on the linoleum noticed. Severus and Petunia stared at one another and breathed heavily.

Of the dozens of photos and frames decorating the walls, ascending the stairwell, disappearing into the lounge, not one showed Potter's face.

"She found a way to that freak school, didn't she?" Petunia asked with a sniff as she broke the silence, one hand clutching the railing, the other on her chest. "You work for him, don't you? You work for Dumbledore—?"

Severus took one step closer, and Petunia silenced herself. He trembled with the need to scream. "It's been over a year. It's been over a fucking year since Potter ran away, and you never said a fucking word! Where is she, Petunia?! You let an eleven-year-old girl run out there on her own and told nobody!"

"That's all you care about, isn't it, Snape? Where your precious Potter is. Too bad she doesn't look much like Lily, eh?" Petunia bared her teeth like a cornered dog. "You couldn't have the mother, so you want the daughter now, is it?"

A muscle in his remaining eye twitched. "Are you trying to provoke me?" he asked, voice calm as arctic waters—though inside he howled, wordlessly furious, seeing again how the fat Muggle throttled Potter while Petunia did nothing, while Snape stood in a castle five hundred miles away staring at his own hand like a bloody fool—.

He'd never seen the girl look as small as she did when dangling from Vernon Dursley's squeezing grip.

Severus' wrist had stopped hurting, but the problem had become so much more complicated. He needed to get to Dumbledore. They needed to find Potter.

"That's not going to work, Tuney. Out of the two of us—not counting that useless lump on the floor there, he's only Stunned, you simpering moron—I think you're the pervert. Tell me; did starving an orphan child help relieve your…frustrations?"

Color rose in Petunia's cheeks and tears glazed her eyes. Wisely, she said nothing.

"Life must be so difficult for poor, average Tuney. An abusive simpleton for a husband rutting away at you, an even stupider son well on his way to incarceration, and here you sit in a mid-sized house smelling of mediocrity and aerosol spray. Is this—." Severus flicked a hand toward the house proper. "Everything you dreamed it would be? Is your life so dull you had to abuse your niece for kicks?"

"I didn't—."

"Save your excuses. I'm sure Dumbledore would love to hear what you've to say for yourself after I tell him what you've put his yearly stipend toward."

He hadn't thought it possible, but Petunia paled further and Severus almost laughed, almost let the scathing, incredulous guffaws come bursting out of himself because Petunia Dursley showed more emotion about the money than she did for her missing niece. The absolute gall.

"How could you do this to Lily's daughter?" he demanded, more to release the growing pressure in his chest than to ask for an answer. She didn't have an answer that could possibly satisfy him. "Had you and Vernon died instead, Lily would've—."

"She's a freak," Petunia spat as she straightened and pulled herself from the wall.

"I'm well aware of how you view my kind."

"No, she's a freak, Snape." The woman stepped forward and the Potions Master stepped back, if only to keep desired distance between himself and loathsome woman. "You've met her, haven't you? I can only imagine how that came about—."

"I teach at her school, you sick degenerative—."

"She's a nasty little freak worse than you or—or Lily ever were! Always sneaking about, always whispering in the dark—."

"An abused child locked in a cupboard whispering? My, how very sinister." Severus raised his wand again and as Petunia whimpered and he glared, he flicked it toward the boot cupboard. The lock burst off and struck the wall, the door scraping the obnoxious wallpaper when it flung itself open. The interior looked much as it had in Petunia's insufferable head: cleaning products, buckets, brushes, a hoover. In the back resided what Severus sought, and he kicked aside the bottles full of sterile chemicals as he ducked into the cramped space and yanked the dusty pillow off the cot.

He turned the ratty pillow, inspecting the fabric, and plucked off three black hairs between thumb and forefinger. He found an empty vial in his cloak pocket and stuck the hairs in there, then threw the pillow at Petunia. She caught it on instinct more than anything, and Petunia coughed when a cloud of white dust covered her.

Severus could see the flash of police lights through the covered window, and he grunted as he kicked the cupboard door closed, sealing it with a muttered, "Colloportus." One of the twitch-curtains must've heard Petunia's shrieking. He stared one last time at the bitter, spiteful woman in her nightdress and curlers, her corpulent husband asleep on the floor still. No matter how he tried, he could see nothing of her sister in Petunia—none of Lily's spirit, joy, her mischievous smirk or charming guile. Petunia existed in antithesis to everything Lily Evans—Lily Potter—had ever been.

He had to find Potter. He had to speak with the Headmaster.

"Tell them he fell down the stairs," he said, eyes flicking toward the front wall. "Dumbledore will be in touch. Pray we don't meet again…Tuney."

With that said, Severus turned and strode down the hallway, into the kitchen where Potter had served her family like a house-elf, and out into the private yard. He Disillusioned himself again, and—just as he began to Disapparate—a strange thought occurred to Severus.

If Petunia hadn't been the one to tell Potter how to reach Diagon Alley, who did?


A/N: to everyone wondering why Harriet ran off and left a tent full of her possessions behind; she's barely twelve, and terrified. Cut the poor little numpty some slack.

Yes, I gave Mrs. Figg onset dementia. The information she's been feeding Dumbledore has suffered from that.

I tried to reflect the nebulous quality of Legilimency, since Snape himself says it's not mind-reading. I think it should be rather confusing and scattered, which makes part of being a great Legilimens sorting the mess out into something intelligible.