On the seventh day since his return to Spinner's End, Harry awoke in a rather turbulent mood. He'd dreamed of being locked in his cupboard again as a small boy, but when he'd peeked through the slats in the grate, he was inside Hogwarts rather than Number 4 Privet Drive, and no matter how much he yelled, no one came to let him out.
The weather matched his temperament, with the skies dumping buckets of rain down hour after hour as he struggled to focus on his Charms essay after breakfast that morning.
He couldn't walk Lucy in such a deluge, but he still dashed over to Eve's house in the afternoon, hoping for a bit of company and a chance to practice the piano. But Eve said that her arthritis was troubling her due to the rain. She invited him in, but it was clear that she wasn't up for company and needed to rest, so Harry made his excuses and snuck over to his mum's house.
He decided to tackle the cellar — he'd definitely be out of view then if Mr. Snape happened to look over at the house, and he was in the mood for some scrubbing. He hoped that good old-fashioned manual labor would take the edge off his frustration and help clear his mind.
So he dragged his cleaning supplies down the rickety staircase, along with the lantern he'd found under the kitchen sink. The light it offered was dim, but it illuminated how filthy the small, low-ceiling room was. There were dusty shelves lining one wall, filled with canned food and preserves that had probably gone bad years ago. Some boxes sat on another set of shelves, and he was eager to explore those one day once he'd gotten the space clean.
Harry set to work, falling into a rhythm of wiping down the shelves, throwing old canned food into a trash bag, and sweeping the floor. The simple, familiar tasks quieted the extraneous noise in his head and allowed him to think about the past few days and their associated emotions.
It wasn't that things were going poorly or that he was unhappy — in fact, he was happier here than any other place in the world besides Hogwarts. He'd only had a few piano lessons so far with Eve, but he loved it already. His progress was slow since he couldn't practice on his grandparents' piano without risking Mr. Snape overhearing, but he'd painstakingly drawn a keyboard on a piece of parchment, and he practiced the simple melodies and scales Eve was teaching him every night before bed.
Speaking of Mr. Snape, the man had been like a ghost for the past several days. Harry had only seen him three or four times in passing, and they'd barely exchanged more than a handful of grunted words. Often, Harry found a solitary plate of food waiting on the table for him at mealtimes, the warmth of the food the only sign that Mr. Snape had been in the room recently.
It made him uneasy, and he found himself tiptoeing around the house, spending as much time outdoors as possible. He could never fully relax, his muscles always tensed in case the tentative truce came to an abrupt end and he found himself needing to protect Hedwig or run away.
But he was used to that, living with the Dursleys.
No, what was troubling him was something else entirely.
He thought back to his dream from the night before — pounding on the flagstones of the castle and pleading to be let out, watching his classmates and professors sweep by without a glance in his direction.
With a sigh, he grabbed the mop and dipped it into the bucket of soapy water that he'd brought downstairs with him.
At the beginning of this week, he could hardly wait for Dumbledore to come back. He'd been worried that the headmaster might send him back to the Dursleys, but that had almost seemed better than being stuck here at Spinner's End. But now that he'd been here for a bit longer…he was starting to realize that he was angry with Dumbledore.
"Why couldn't I have lived here all along?" He muttered, feeling better for having said the words out loud.
Growing up, he'd accepted it as a simple fact that he needed to live with the Dursleys because they were his only option.
But that wasn't true, was it?
Sure, Eve wasn't related to him by blood, and her eyesight was bad. But she was a relative of his, and she'd been wondering about his whereabouts all this time. Harry had a feeling that she would've gladly taken him in and raised him to the best of her abilities, had she been asked. He might've grown up in this very neighborhood, close to his roots. Eve could've told him stories about his mum and his relatives, and in exchange, he would have provided an extra set of hands to help her keep her big house in good shape — not in the way that Petunia used him for chores, but just because Harry would've been happy to help. Maybe Mr. Snape would've taken pity on him at some point in his childhood and told him about magic and Hogwarts, so that he wouldn't have felt like such a freak when his accidental magic showed itself.
Hell, even the Weasleys had shown more interest in him in the past year than the Dursleys had for the past decade. He'd been invited to stay over there for Easter break and the summer holidays, and Mrs. Weasley had knitted him a jumper without ever exchanging more than a few words with him. He knew that money was tight for them, but his very full Gringotts vault was proof that his parents had left more than enough money behind for him to make it to adulthood.
So why was Dumbledore so insistent on making him return to the Dursleys when there were other options out there? Why had he left Harry there as a baby and never checked on him or confirmed that his relatives actually wanted him?
He scowled as he scrubbed viciously at a particularly muddy spot on the floor.
Could it be that Dumbledore had some bigger reason or motivation that he hadn't shared with Harry yet? Or did he just not care about him that much?
The warm twinkle in the headmaster's eye had always made Harry feel like he could trust the man, but the past few months had caused him to doubt that.
But as soon as he had the thought, he felt guilty. Professor Dumbledore was one of the greatest wizards alive — who was Harry to question his judgment? At least he got to go to Hogwarts, and at least he had this time right now at Spinner's End.
But a traitorous little voice inside of him — the same one that had cried out when he'd been locked in his cupboard as a child, dismissed by his teachers, and scorned by his peers — whispered that life shouldn't be like this.
With a sigh, Harry wiped the sweat from his forward and stepped back to assess his progress. The room still needed some work, but he wouldn't have time to do anything else today — nor would he find answers to the many questions swirling around in his head.
He grabbed the bucket, deciding to carry it upstairs and empty it in the back garden before heading to Mr. Snape's house.
As he climbed the rickety steps, he anxiously wondered if he'd see the man at all tonight, or if there would simply be a plate of food waiting for him when he returned.
The stair under him creaked particularly loudly, pulling him abruptly from his thoughts. He shifted slightly, and his stomach tightened with a foreboding feeling as the wood beneath him protested. He tried to quickly hop to the next step, but he was too late — the wooden plank supporting his weight snapped in two, and Harry let out a sharp gasp as his right leg plunged through the stair.
He felt a white-hot flash of sensation in his calf and realized with a sinking feeling that pain would surely follow once the initial shock of the injury wore off.
Without hesitating, he yanked his leg out of the hole that had formed in the middle of the stair and hurried up the rest of the staircase, not wanting more stairs to break or for the whole thing to collapse under his weight.
He sank to the floor once he reached the kitchen, afraid to see the damage. The pain was beginning to set in, his nerves sending throbbing waves through his leg.
With a gulp, he forced himself to look, grimacing as he caught sight of a large wooden splinter embedded in his calf. Grimly telling himself that it would hurt worse the longer he waited, he took hold of it and ripped it out.
Instantly, the pain doubled, and he bit down on his fist to keep from crying out — an old trick that he'd learned in his cupboard. He remained curled up in a little ball on the kitchen floor, shaking and trembling like a leaf, until the pain began to subside a bit.
It was still raining, but he could tell from the gray sky that he was going to be late for dinner if he didn't leave soon.
He hobbled to his feet, still feeling a bit shell-shocked, and began limping toward Mr. Snape's house. He tentatively pushed open the front door and stepped inside, relieved to find that the first floor was completely silent. He paused, listening carefully, only relaxing when he heard footsteps overhead in the lab.
Pain zinged up his leg with every step he took, and for a moment, he contemplated going upstairs and knocking on the door to the lab to ask for help.
But then he remembered how the man's eyes had glittered with rage the first night he found Harry in the greenhouse and how he'd been expressly forbidden Harry from going to his mum's house, and he thought better of the urge.
His injury had been caused by his own carelessness, so he'd deal with it on his own, like he usually did. It would be fine — his accidental magic had always helped him heal as a child.
And besides, it certainly wouldn't be the first time he'd tended to his wounds by himself.
"Abysmal," Mr. Snape sneered the next night.
Harry looked up from his dinner, bewildered by the comment and the fact that the man was actually speaking to him.
"Sorry, sir?" He asked carefully. He shifted in his seat, wincing as pain lanced up his leg. He'd tried to clean the wound to the best of his abilities the night before, but it had been hurting the entire day, and it was starting to feel hot to the touch.
"This potions essay — if you can even call it that. What is the meaning of this, Potter?"
The man brandished Harry's half-written essay in his direction, and Harry blinked in surprise.
Mr. Snape had warned that he'd check Harry's summer work to make sure that he was actually doing it, but he'd never commented on it before.
Harry winced as he looked at the rather sloppy parchment — he'd been distracted all morning by the pain in his leg, and he hadn't made much progress on Professor Slughorn's summer assignment.
"I, er, only just started on it, sir. It's a rough draft."
"It's not worthy of being called a rough draft, Potter. The Swelling Solution is a potion that causes swelling," he read in a mocking tone. "This is a waste of parchment."
He tossed the scrap of parchment into the fire, which Harry thought was rather dramatic.
"I'll re-do it tomorrow," he muttered, trying not to sound sullen. The last thing he wanted to do was pick a fight when he was already nursing a secret injury.
"No — you will come to my lab tomorrow and brew a swelling solution. Then you will have no excuse for this shoddy work."
Harry bit back a groan. He was sure Hermione would be dying of excitement to have the chance to brew a second-year potion during the summer holidays. But Mr. Snape was clearly a perfectionist when it came to potions, and there was no way Harry would measure up to his stringent standards. Plus, he was doing his best to avoid the man while he healed.
"Yes, sir," he said through gritted teeth, dread forming a knot in his stomach as Mr. Snape swept away from the dinner table.
Harry tossed and turned all night.
His leg was hurting even worse than the day before, and he was starting to get worried that it was infected. The rest of his joints ached in a way that indicated he was coming down with something. When the sky finally began to lighten, he felt like he'd been run over by a lorry.
He clambered out of bed, changing into a clean set of Dudley's old clothes. The mirror in the bathroom tsked unhelpfully as he examined his wound, which was now looking rather pink around the edges.
He could barely choke down a single piece of toast at breakfast, torn between nerves and the sick feeling in his stomach.
He knocked on the door of the potions lab with about as much enthusiasm he might've felt if he were going to confront another mountain troll or Fluffy.
"Enter," Mr. Snape called curtly, and Harry obeyed, preparing to face his doom.
Mr. Snape was in the middle of brewing, and Harry perked up a bit with interest in spite of himself. The man almost seemed to be dancing as he worked — although Harry was sure he'd hate the comparison. He moved smoothly between his work bench and the cauldron, alternating between chopping ingredients, stirring, and adjusting the heat in a seamless stream of movement.
The potion he was working on was a light blue color, and Harry drifted a little closer, noticing that two other cauldrons held similar-looking mixtures.
Wolfsbane Potion — control, one label read.
Wolfsbane — one pinch of nightweed, the next read.
"What's Wolfsbane?" Harry asked curiously before he could think better of it.
The man flashed him an irritated look. "Potter, this is a potions lab, not a daycare. If you truly wish to discuss potions with me, kindly return when you can ask questions above a primary school level."
The harsh dismissal stung, but Harry filed the term Wolfsbane away for further research. Contrary to Mr. Snape's negative view of him, Harry did actually like potions, and he wouldn't let a few insults deter him from the subject.
"Okay. Er, what should I do?" Harry shifted his weight, trying to take some of the pressure off of his hurt leg.
Mr. Snape flicked his wand, and the instructions for a swelling solution appeared on a chalkboard near Harry.
"Ingredients are in the cupboard behind you. Do try not to blow up the lab."
He quirked a sardonic eyebrow at Harry and then turned back to his work.
Harry waited a beat longer, but apparently those were the only instructions. With a shrug, he opened the cupboard, figuring that the faster he got this over with, the faster he could make his escape.
Gathering up bat spleens, puff-fish eyes, and dried nettles, he carried them over to the lab's second workstation.
He read over the instructions nervously, glancing periodically over at Mr. Snape. Fortunately, the man seemed content to work on his own project and ignore Harry, and he found himself relaxing a little as he started the familiar preparatory actions, lighting his cauldron and crushing the nettles and eyes with a mortar and pestle.
"Your heat is too low," Mr. Snape interjected.
Harry frowned at the instructions. "But, sir, it says a medium-low heat."
Mr. Snape sighed as though Harry was being rather dense. "Yes, Potter, but it needs time to heat up. It's better to turn your cauldron on high while you prepare the ingredients and then lower it when you are ready to proceed."
"Professor Slughorn just tells us to set it to whatever the instructions say."
Mr. Snape rolled his eyes. "That is because Professor Slughorn is teaching a load of dunderheads and has to keep his instructions as simple as possible."
Harry hastened to obey the man's instruction, not wanting to be lumped in with the dunderheads.
Mr. Snape turned back to his own work, but Harry still felt on edge, like his every move was being observed.
As the process grew more complex, however, his worries started to fade into the background, and he found himself concentrating fiercely on the brewing steps and the ingredient preparation.
As he neared the end, he could see that his potion was almost exactly as described in the instructions — a nearly translucent shade of lilac. Immersed in his work, he flinched when Mr. Snape spoke from a few feet away.
"Stir it fifteen times instead of twelve, Potter," he stated dispassionately.
Harry obeyed, then looked up at the man while the potion simmered.
"Why fifteen times?" He asked curiously.
Mr. Snape steepled his hands, looking like a Hogwarts professor. "Why do you think, Potter?"
He sounded exasperated at having to ask what he clearly considered to be an obvious question, but there was a curious glint in his eyes, like he was challenging Harry to prove himself.
Harry puzzled over the question for a minute. "Well…stirring blends the ingredients together. So…it needed to be blended a bit more?"
Mr. Snape nodded, and Harry reflected with amazement that they'd just managed to have a civil conversation with one another.
It lasted until Harry prepared for the final step — waving his wand to seal the potion at the correct temperature and consistency.
"Potter!" The man barked, suddenly grabbing Harry's upper arm and dragging him backward.
Harry flinched and reflexively struggled against the grip, only to let out a gasp of pain when the sudden movement irritated his leg. Mr. Snape let go of him as if he'd been scalded, and Harry stumbled backward.
"Foolish boy," the man snapped, waving his wand to perform the sealing and then turning to Harry. "Do you have a death wish? You can't follow the most basic rules of brewing?"
"Huh? Sir?" Harry asked inarticulately, shifting in place and trying to keep a pained grimace from his face.
"There's not much point in brewing if you're going to blow your potion or yourself up," the man continued, the lines of his face harsh as he glared at Harry. "Your sleeve was millimeters away from touching the swelling solution. It could've gotten on your skin or caused a reaction with the other ingredients in the potion. I don't care what bizarre muggle fashion trends you are following — you are not to set foot in this laboratory dressed like that again and put my work at risk."
Harry flushed as he looked down at his outfit. He'd never given the matter any thought — he wore his school uniform for brewing at Hogwarts, obviously, and the white oxford shirt was close-fitting enough that it wasn't at risk of dipping into the cauldron.
But he supposed Mr. Snape had a point. The oversized blue t-shirt he was wearing came down halfway to his knees, and the wide sleeves passed his elbows and billowed out in a swath of excess fabric.
"Sorry, sir," he mumbled.
"Go change before you clean up," the man instructed, looking like Harry was giving him a headache.
"Yes, sir," Harry said, fleeing the laboratory and wracking his mind for what he could wear. All of Dudley's shirts were similarly sized, and he'd outgrown his school uniform shirts. After digging through his trunk, he eventually settled on wearing the jumper Mrs. Weasley had knitted him for Christmas.
Mr. Snape gave him a peculiar look when he returned but made no comment. Harry quickly found himself overheating in the thick knit fabric as he began tidying up — it was a warm, sunny day, made even hotter by the closed windows, simmering cauldrons, and potion fumes in the lab. Plus, he was definitely starting to feel ill, and he found himself alternately wracked by chills and feeling like he was about to burst into flames.
"Potter, is this a show of defiance, or are you so lacking in common sense that you truly believe that a jumper is appropriate apparel for this weather?"
Harry was pretty sure there was an insult buried in there, but he was feeling too dizzy to parse it out.
"Sir?" He questioned, willing himself not to sway in place.
"You are also putting my work at risk if you swoon from heat stroke and pass out in a cauldron! Explain yourself, boy."
Harry flushed, looking down at his shoes.
"Er…I don't…really have anything else to wear, sir. My clothes are hand-me-downs from my cousin, and he's much bigger than me."
He felt Mr. Snape's dark gaze boring into him for a long moment, and he braced himself for mocking words. The man muttered something under his breath that almost sounded like his aunt's name, followed by a curse.
"Very well," the man said irritably, flicking his wand and completing the clean-up work that Harry had been doing manually. "I trust you can prepare yourself lunch? We have a change of plans for the afternoon."
Severus wished he could whip out his wand and hex all of the muggles that blocked his way as he strode through the shopping center, the Potter brat in tow.
This was not how he wanted to be spending his afternoon.
But he'd promised to see to the boy's basic needs, and clothing was one of them.
(Traitorously, his mind supplied several images of the odd rags he'd been forced to wear as a child, sewn together from scraps of fabric by his mother to save money.)
Pushing the thought behind his Occlumency shields, he re-doubled his pace.
"Keep up, Potter," he barked over his shoulder. "I haven't got all day."
The boy had tried to protest that he didn't need new clothes back at Spinner's End, but he'd been strangely silent ever since they'd apparated behind the shopping center — although he was lagging behind now, perhaps out of stubbornness.
"Yes, sir," the boy muttered dully, trotting to catch up. Severus could see a slight sheen on the boy's face, as well as a tightness in his jaw. For a moment, he wondered if the child was ill and trying to hide it, but then dismissed the thought — he'd overheated himself with his jumper earlier and was likely experiencing mild nausea from the side-along apparition.
"Now," Severus instructed as they entered a department store and headed to the section for boys. "I am going to wait here, and you have one hour to pick out five new outfits and a new pair of trainers — that includes socks and undergarments, understood? If you fail to follow these instructions, I will be selecting your garments for you."
The boy blanched dramatically, no doubt at the idea of Severus picking out undergarments, and Severus had to suppress a slight twitch of his mouth.
Merlin, children were so easy to provoke.
"Yes, sir," the boy bobbed his head and set off into the section.
Severus pulled out a potions journal that he'd enchanted to look like a muggle newspaper, and he read an article as he waited, glancing up periodically to find the boy's dark head of hair bobbing through the aisles and then heading over to the changing rooms. Satisfied that the boy was taking his task seriously, he approached when the sixty minutes were up, giving Potter's selections a cursory glance.
The boy had chosen a few pairs of jeans and chinos, and several t-shirts of differing colors.
Severus mused that maybe they'd actually survive until Dumbledore returned after all — the boy hadn't fought or resisted too much, he'd actually followed Severus' directions, and he'd done a halfway-decent job of brewing this morning, even if his potions knowledge was at a laughably elementary level.
They just had to make it through the next half hour of purchasing the items and returning to Cokeworth, and then Severus could retreat to his lab and leave the boy to his own devices for the foreseeable future.
"Choose a jacket, and replace this shirt with a polo or a button-down," Severus instructed, pulling the cheapest t-shirt out of the stack and handing it back to the boy.
The boy chewed on his lip nervously, and Severus noted that he looked exhausted by their brief excursion.
"I'm not sure if that will be in my budget, sir," the boy said cautiously.
Severus frowned. "What do you mean 'your budget'?"
"I only have £200 left, sir. Unless we can go to Gringotts?"
"Potter. You are not paying for these clothes — I am."
Severus felt the entire tenor of the conversation change, and he took back his earlier optimistic thought, which had clearly been a brief moment of insanity.
"What?" The boy asked, shaking his head in denial and taking a step backward. "No, thank you, sir. I have my own money and can pay for them."
Severus rolled his eyes at the boy. He did not have the time or patience to deal with any wheedling and whinging over the matter — he had already expended far too much time and energy on the boy today.
"This is not up for discussion, Potter. I am an adult, and you are a child. We will proceed as I have said."
He grabbed the pile of clothes from the trolley and started toward the till, only to feel a small, impudent hand tugging on his sleeve.
"Please, sir — it's way too much money! I can't accept —"
Severus whirled around, a snarl forming on his face at the brat's presumption.
"Potter!" He spat. "As I stated, this is not up for debate. Kindly remove your hand from my person. It may have escaped your notice, but I am a potions master, and am therefore perfectly capable of affording a few outfits."
"You don't — you don't even like me, sir! Why are you doing this?" The boy wrung his hands in what may have been a display of anxiety — or perhaps a ploy at manipulation, to get his way.
"You are causing a scene, boy," Severus hissed through gritted teeth as the surrounding muggles began looking at the two of them. "I'm warning you, I will cast a silencing charm —"
"I just don't understand why you would pay for the clothes," the boy interrupted again, fortunately lowering his voice a few decibels, his cheeks flushed and his chest heaving, his arms crossed over his chest. "I'm perfectly capable of doing it."
The stubborn set of his jaw reminded Severus of Lily, a fact that turned his stomach. He focused on the familiar head of messy hair instead of the desperate green eyes.
The boy probably thought he was too good to accept Severus' money — just like his arrogant father would've been.
The thought was reassuring, and it helped drown out the small voice in his brain that reminded him that his teenage self also would have resisted if an adult tried to buy him new clothes.
"I am currently responsible for you," he snapped. The boy opened his mouth to argue again, and Severus cut him off. "Enough! Ungrateful child — I have gone to considerable inconvenience to take you in, and this is how you repay me? By scorning my efforts?"
The boy tilted his head, looking slightly woozy. Perhaps Severus had used too many words over three syllables for the child's miniscule brain.
"I can pay," the boy insisted again, but his voice sounded oddly weak and faint all of a sudden.
Severus, more than done with the conversation, resumed his path to the till, ignoring the muggles eyeing him suspiciously.
He deposited the pile of clothes in front of the bored teenager, surprised when Potter Jr. didn't immediately appear at his elbow to start berating him or grabbing the clothes.
"Er — is that your son, mister? He doesn't look too good," the employee said, peering over Severus' shoulder with wide eyes.
Severus initially bristled at the implication that he might be blood-related to a Potter. Then he wheeled around, startled to see that Potter hadn't followed him — he was still standing in place several yards back, his eyes unfocused.
Severus swore under his breath.
He was forced to break into an awkward jog to catch the child as he swayed dramatically, abruptly toppled over, and almost cracked his fool head on the tiled floor of the department store.
Severus glared down at the boy as he sluggishly blinked, looking around dazedly at their surroundings.
The shopping trip had been an unmitigated disaster, and thanks to the boy's stunt at the end, they hadn't even managed to purchase the clothes, which meant that Severus would have to repeat this horrible excursion at some point in the future. He'd dragged the barely-conscious boy out of the store and into an alleyway so he could apparate them back to the spare room at Spinner's End.
"Potter," he hissed. "What is wrong with you?"
Honestly, he wouldn't put it past the boy to pretend to faint in order to get his way. Or perhaps he hadn't fixed himself lunch as Severus had requested, and he'd fainted due to hunger — a problem which Severus would not take responsibility for.
"Huh?" The boy mumbled blearily, his eyes wandering from the bookshelves to Severus' face. As his eyes met Severus', he seemed to straighten up and gain some clarity, panic overtaking his expression. "Nothing! 'M fine."
Severus scoffed at this poor attempt at misdirection, and the boy nervously patted his fringe from his seat on the edge of the bed. It occurred to Severus that the boy's arm had been quite warm to the touch when he'd guided him out of the store and gripped him for apparition.
"Very well, if you will not be honest, I will simply have to determine what's wrong myself."
He reached out with one hand to feel the boy's forehead, and the boy flinched back dramatically before he could make contact.
They stared at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds. Severus pulled out his wand and cast a diagnostic spell, his frown deepening when he saw that the boy was running a fever.
The scan also glowed with a warning that Potter was underweight — but Severus had been expecting that. He'd been dosing the boy's dinner with nutritive potions every night since he'd arrived, but it would take more than a week to rectify a decade of poor eating at Petunia's hands.
The reminder of Potter's relatives deflated his ire a bit.
He skimmed through the rest of the scan — there was the curse scar on the boy's forehead, of course, a still-healing scar from a badly broken right arm, and — there. A bright purple glow indicated a recent injury on the boy's right leg.
Before the boy could protest or pull away, Severus grabbed the leg of his too-large jeans and tugged it up a few inches, exposing the boy's calf.
He bit back an oath when he saw the obviously infected wound.
"Potter," he said. "Where did you get this injury, and why was I not informed of it?"
The boy's face was like an open book, and his guilty eyes suddenly reminded Severus of how Lily had looked at him in their third year when he'd gestured to the open seat next to him in Potions and she'd chosen to sit next to Alice Longbottom instead.
"I — I didn't want to bother you, sir. I thought it would heal on its own."
It didn't escape Severus' notice that the boy hadn't answered his first question.
"You went inside the house, didn't you?" He asked slowly, in a voice that had made the students' he'd tutored during his potions mastery cower.
The boy's hunched posture and frightened eyes confirmed the truth.
Wordlessly, Severus lifted his wand and summoned his medical kit from the potions lab. He could feel a vein throbbing in his temple. Any discussion about the boy's transgressions would have to wait — he was at risk of sepsis, which could be disastrous for a child who was already underweight and probably immunodeficient.
"Drink this," he ordered tersely, holding out a vial of sleeping draught.
The boy's hand trembled slightly, but he accepted the vial and threw it back obediently.
Fortunately, it only took about thirty seconds to kick in, and then the boy slumped sideways onto the bed, out cold.
Relieved, Severus shoved all of his anger and irritation under his Occlumency shields and focused on the task of healing the boy.
He cleaned and disinfected the wound, and removed a small wooden splinter that had probably been interfering with the boy's ability to heal. Then he spelled a course of antibiotic and pain-relief potions into the boy's stomach, rubbed a numbing salve onto the injury, and wrapped it with a clean dressing.
He cast a monitoring spell on the boy and left the room to clean up. Then he went to his lab, purely out of habit. He pulled out the ingredients to make a new batch of the potions he'd used in order to replenish his kit, but he found himself unable to concentrate, which had been an extremely rare occurrence in his life — until the past few weeks.
With a sigh, he found himself returning to the office to confirm that the boy's condition was holding steady. It was foolish — his monitoring spell would alert him if anything changed.
And yet — Severus suddenly found himself mistrusting his own magic. He'd set a spell to alert him if the boy entered the Evans family's house — but he hadn't been alerted.
Therefore, he hadn't given the boy's whereabouts a second thought in the past week.
How had the boy been getting around Severus' spell?
He narrowed his eyes as he considered the problem, dragging the desk chair over so he could sit next to the bed and monitor his charge.
The answer hit him as he looked up, his eyes catching on the window across the alleyway. He tried to avoid looking out this window, even now, still half-expecting to see his friend grinning and waving at him, her red hair flaming in the afternoon sunlight.
Lily.
Of course — she'd set some sort of wards over the house, and she'd always been much better at Charms than he was. He'd been aware of that fact ever since Mr. and Mrs. Evans had died — he'd tried to go over to the house once, a strange impulse during his early days of grief — to smash the place up, perhaps, or go sit in Lily's room and drown his sorrows with a bottle of firewhiskey.
But he hadn't been able to get through the wards.
And now, her protections probably superseded Severus' own spellwork, allowing her son to pass in and out of the property undetected.
Severus wished he could ask her how she'd done it. It was a brilliant bit of spellwork — a way to keep her family safe from those who wished them harm.
Including Severus.
He sighed, returning his gaze to Lily's son, watching the boy's chest rise and fall evenly. Annoyed by the tumultuous experiences of the day, he summoned his research journal and did his best to immerse himself in his theories for the Wolfsbane potion for the next few hours as the boy slept.
He found himself thinking that he would need to deal with the boy's disobedience once he was well, that much was clear. No matter how the boy wanted to justify it, he'd gone somewhere unsafe and gotten seriously injured from it, and then he'd hidden it from Severus.
But the question was how to deal with such misconduct.
Tobias would've beaten him with a belt for disobeying, and then he would've left Severus to wallow with his untreated wound.
"Let the pain be a lesson to you, son," the man had often said after beatings, the smell of cheap beer pungent on his breath.
It infuriated Severus that the boy's presence was stirring up such memories.
He didn't want to be like Tobias, that much was certain.
But then who would he be? It wasn't as though he had any other role models to emulate.
He sighed, massaging his temples where he could feel a headache forming.
Potter began to toss and turn near the four-hour mark, which signified that he was due for another course of potions. Severus began pulling out the necessary vials, expecting that the boy would wake soon.
But he was still startled when a quiet, "Sorry," rang out on the other side of the room.
The boy was watching him when he turned around, his expression hazy from potions and sleep.
"Sorry," he repeated meekly when Severus swept across the room. "I know…I know you told me not to go over there, and I disobeyed you."
Severus' irritation with the boy flared again at the reminder of the boy's transgression.
"I didn't even know her name was Lily," the boy continued in a whisper.
Severus cleared his throat. "Enough of this nonsense. Take your potions. We can discuss your disobedience later."
The boy shook his head, his expression determined. "My aunt always told me that she and my dad were drunks and low-lifes, and they died in a car crash. I never knew she was a witch until Hagrid told me when he brought my Hogwarts letter."
Somehow, Severus had the impression that the boy would never speak this openly about his relatives were it not for the potions lowering his inhibitions.
"So…you can punish me however you want," Potter continued earnestly, "but…I have to go to the house. It's the only thing I have left of her. It's the only thing I've ever had of her."
The boy seemed to lose all his energy after this little speech, collapsing back against the pillows and finally grabbing the antibiotic potion from Severus' hand.
Severus remained silent as he watched the boy take all of his potions and then drift off to sleep again.
Twilight had fallen, the rising moon casting a beam of light across the room. Severus found himself struck by the memory of the night he and the boy had first met — each of them weeping for Lily's loss.
Now the boy grieved because he would never remember — and Severus grieved because he did.