Seven Drops and Asphodel Blooms
Summary: When Harry blows up his aunt during the summer, Dumbledore is much quicker to react. Snape finds him far before the Minister does, but his plan of dropping him off with a lecture and half a dozen additional summer assignments doesn't work out.
In which Harry spends the summer at Spinner's End.
Chapter 2
Snape laid out the ground rules of living at Spinner's End after the Minister had gone. There were far less than Harry thought there would be – he'd expected a school-book-length list made up from petty offenses that would have put even Filch to shame.
"You are staying for as long as it takes the headmaster to relieve me of the privilege." Snape's lip curled derisively around the word. "We both know your tendencies to sneak around as you please. I strongly advise you to suppress those urges for the duration of your stay."
Snape didn't go into details, so he probably expected Harry to fill in the blanks himself.
Harry didn't try to argue. What was the point? Snape already hated him, and he didn't need more reasons to make Harry's summer miserable.
Snape swept out the front door with all the fury of a teacher who hadn't expected a student to taint his sight for another few weeks. Harry, not knowing when he'd be back, didn't waste time and set out to explore while he had the chance.
He found a bathroom first, changed into different clothes and drank water straight from the tap. A mirror leaned against the far wall, wedged into a corner like somebody hadn't found a better place to put it. Harry looked inside. His reflection was stretched to a height about two heads taller than he actually was like some sort of bizarre, green-eyed telephone pole.
The mirror giggled. Harry's lips twitched into a faint smile. "Snape definitely didn't buy you," he muttered, trying to imagine the mirror pranking his foul-tempered Potions professor.
The door next to the bathroom was locked. The one after it led to a small room stuffed full with sealed boxes and a handful wooden crates.
The last room on the ground floor was the kitchen. Harry headed straight for the fridge, but found it almost empty. That was just typical, Harry thought grimly. Snape must have wanted to get in a headstart in making his life over the summer living hell.
He found a box of crackers at the far back of a cupboard that looked like it had been forgotten. He ate a handful, drank some more water from the sink and hid the rest of the crackers in his backpack.
That left only the living room. There was the sofa Harry had slept on, an armchair and a low table. A dusty television was set up in a corner, looking like it hadn't been used in years.
Harry wondered what it was doing there. It seemed so... mundane. The only wizard house he'd visited before was that of the Weasleys, and nothing they owned could be mistaken for being ordinary.
The only remotely interesting thing inside the living room was the painting of a landscape that looked like it had come with the building. It showed a beautiful clearing inside of a forest, painted in muted earth colors.
Harry kneeled on the sofa to get a closer look. Now that he was paying attention, he realized that the whisper he'd heard last night was invisible wind ruffling through tiny, acrylic leaves.
Whereas the Burrow was chaotic and brimming with magic down to its very foundations, Snape's home was touched by it in subtle, easily overlooked ways. Harry was intrigued against his will. If it wasn't a sure way to invite Snape's wrath, he would have spent all day exploring the house and discovering its secrets.
Instead, Harry thought of the few rules he'd been given and decided he wasn't bold enough to break one of them and climb the narrow flight of stairs to the first floor.
There wasn't much else he could do, so he rummaged in his backpack for some parchment and his quill. He was aching to tell someone about what had happened. It felt like a lifetime had passed since he'd said goodbye to his friends for the summer.
He could have tried to get some schoolwork done with the few books he'd managed to save, but he didn't think he could concentrate. The rest of them – alongside his trunk, his wizard robes and his broom – were still locked shut in the cupboard under the stairs where the Dursleys had put them at the beginning of the summer.
Harry screwed his eyes shut and rode out a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with his empty stomach. How long would it be until the Dursleys took him back? How quickly would he be able to get his hands on the rest of his books? He had enough to worry about without missing the assignments he was supposed to complete over the holidays.
As hard as he tried, Harry didn't manage to write more than a few paragraphs. Everything still hadn't sunk in, and Harry didn't feel like confessing to his friends just how badly he'd messed up.
Harry kept writing and crossing out words until well into midday. He heard sound from the front door and stuffed all of his things back into his backpack before Snape could round the corner.
Hey Ron,
Y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶l̶i̶e̶v̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶e̶d̶– ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶u̶r̶s̶l̶e̶y̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶– Something happened over the summer. Don't worry, I'm f̶i̶n̶e̶– doing okay.
Remember last year, when the Ministry said I'd be expelled if I did any more underage magic? Well, I did. It was an accident. I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶n̶n̶a̶– I don't know what's going to happen. The Minister was here, and he said there wouldn't be trouble, but it can't be that easy, can it? Do you know if they can still kick me out, even if the Minister of Magic says they won't punish me?
I saw that picture of you in the newspaper. Egypt looks fun.
T̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶u̶r̶s̶l̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶– I̶'̶m̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶S̶n̶– When exactly are you coming back?
Harry's first days at Spinner's End passed very similarly to his time at the Dursleys. Snape rarely came downstairs, Harry rarely left the living room and they spent their time in the relative peace of ignoring each other's existence.
Harry sneaked food out of the (no longer empty) kitchen only at night. He probably didn't need to – Snape wanted to make his life miserable, not starve him to death – but Harry didn't want to risk it. He took as much as he needed, hid some in his backpack for emergencies and kept his head low, otherwise.
He spent a lot of his time watching the neighborhood through the living room windows, but there were only so many times he could muster interest in Mrs. Next Door and the rabid Scottish Terrier she liked letting loose on her neighbors.
Potter made it surprisingly easy to pretend like he wasn't there. He didn't act up. He made no loud noises. Severus barely caught a glimpse of him in the days following the Minister's visit.
It was on day three that Severus realized he'd never seen him inside of the kitchen before. Normally, Severus would have taken this as a blessing. The fewer interactions he was forced to endure until Potter returned to his relatives, the more likely he was to make it to the end of the summer with his sanity intact.
Unfortunately for Severus, he made the tragic mistake of taking a closer look at the brat during one of the rare occasions they spent inside of the same room.
"Starving yourself isn't going to get you away from here any quicker."
Potter startled away from the painting above the sofa. It had decided on a dull, rainy color palette in washed-up blue and gray colors for the day.
"You didn't say–" Potter cut himself off with a scowl.
Not even Potter could be so daft to believe a hunger strike was the best way of getting his way. His skin was a sickly pale shade, and he looked far too thin for someone who was still expected to grow.
Was he trying to get Severus into trouble with Dumbledore over negligence? Or perhaps the food wasn't up to famous Harry Potter's standards.
"Get up," Severus barked on his way out of the living room and tore his coat from its hook next to the front door. He crossed his arms and suppressed the urge to tap his foot as he waited for Potter to make it to the hallway.
He did so, albeit deliberately slowly. "Where are we going?"
"Out."
The brat looked even unhealthier up close. Baggy clothes hung off of his frame, looking like they would fit a boy about three times his size. Severus curled his mouth into a sour frown. Whatever game the brat was playing, he'd have to try harder to make Severus shoulder the blame.
Harry frantically tried to think of something he'd done wrong. There had to be something. Snape and he had done just fine pretending like the other didn't exist – Harry had even allowed himself to contemplate that sitting out his time at Spinner's End wouldn't be quite as bad as he'd feared.
Except now Snape had dragged him out of the house and led him through the town at such a brisk pace that Harry had trouble keeping up.
He hadn't done anything wrong. He'd broken none of Snape's rules. Perhaps Snape had run out of patience waiting for him to step out of line and had decided to go ahead and punish him anyway.
Was Harry going to be abandoned in the streets like some unwanted pet? Snape wouldn't be told off for tormenting him like he did at school, but surely he wouldn't risk Dumbledore's wrath by leaving him to his fate. Right?
The broken street lamps lining the dirty road and the muted stink of traffic fumes did nothing to pull him out of his bleak thoughts.
Harry had barely registered the narrow corner shop a few blocks away from Snape's house when he'd already been dragged inside and into its bread aisle.
Snape glowered at Harry. Harry stared back, uncomprehending.
Snape raised his eyes to the ceiling as though Harry had fallen short of even the limited expectations he'd had of his intellect. "Pick one," Snape bit out. He made the words sound like they'd been torn from him with pliers.
Harry grabbed for something off the shelves without looking. He hadn't thought it possible, but Snape's glower somehow darkened.
He snatched the package out of Harry's hands and moved them into the next aisle. He crossed his arms, tapped his foot and glared until his point came across. Harry took the box of cereal right in front of him.
They made their way through the shop more quickly once Harry had caught on. He tried picking the cheapest of everything without taking too much time – he couldn't have done too terribly wrong, because the furrow between Snape's brows didn't deepen.
When they finally reached the register, Snape slammed down a handful of Muggle bank notes in front of the startled cashier and steered them out of the shop as abruptly as they'd entered it.
Back at the house, Snape made a show of putting away the things they'd brought. "This marvelous invention is called a fridge," he said, slamming down a carton of milk. "Use it."
As if the day hadn't been surreal enough, he proceeded to wave his wand and directed a handful of eggs to crack themselves into a pan. Harry was used to watching him handle severed animal parts and peculiar-looking plants, not… eggs. Standing inside of a kitchen instead of his usual domain of bubbling cauldrons or unidentifiable objects floating in glass jars was perhaps the oddest sight of him Harry had ever seen.
His brain still hadn't caught up with the situation by the time Snape cleaned up the kitchen with another wave of his wand, left the eggs on a plate on the kitchen table and stalked off in as bad a temper as he'd been all morning.
Harry stared after him, thunderstruck. He probably hadn't put anything inside. Right? Surely Dumbledore would have something to say about that. By now, his stomach felt as though a black hole had made itself comfortable inside of it.
Unless Snape had decided to use him as a test subject for some new, slow-acting potion, Harry did indeed survive lunch without being poisoned. He did the dishes by hand and decided to spare himself the headache of thinking about Snape's motives further.
Harry was almost back in the living room when he paused in his tracks. Snape had said it was okay to help himself. He took some of the bread they'd gotten from the shop and slipped it into his pockets.
Hey Hermione,
I hope you're doing well. How's France? I wish I could go sometime. I've always wanted to see another country.
I̶ ̶b̶l̶e̶w̶ ̶u̶p̶–There was an accident with my relatives. Don't worry, n̶o̶b̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶h̶– everything's taken care of, but I'm not with them right now. I don't know when I'll go back.
How much longer are you gonna be in France? Maybe we can meet up at Diagon Alley. O̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶y̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶–
Take care. I'll hopefully see you soon.
Harry was waiting for the other shoe to drop. So far Snape had seemed perfectly happy to ignore his presence, but there must have been something he expected. What if Snape was just waiting for him to figure it out and planned to hold every day he failed to do so against him?
For lack of anything better to do, Harry dug out some supplies from a cabinet he found in the bathroom and started cleaning. The place wasn't especially dirty to begin with, but there was a fine lining of dust on the furniture suggesting that the house had stood empty for months.
There was something soothing about the mindlessness of manual labor. He'd never much minded doing it at the Dursleys; at least while he was working, they tended to leave him alone.
"Potter!"
Harry jerked away from the cabinet he was dusting like it had suddenly sprouted ulcers.
Snape stood in the doorway, his eyes seething. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Nothing," Harry said far too quickly. He winced. "I was just–"
"Cleaning," Snape completed the sentence in a tone that suggested Harry had lost his mind. "My house."
Heat flushed into Harry's cheeks. "You didn't tell me what I should do," he protested. "So I guessed."
Snape rolled his eyes. "If you're truly so bored to resort to housework, may I suggest working on your school assignments. As I'm sure the thought has not occurred to you yourself, I dare say there is plenty for you left to do."
Harry furrowed his brows. "That's not what I–"
"Contrary to popular belief," Snape interrupted, "the summer holidays are not meant to be spent dabbling in laziness."
Harry stopped himself from pressing the issue. He shoved away his irritation and settled for a curt, "Yes, sir."
So Harry spread out his assignments on the coffee table and the couch, meticulously taking care not to drip ink onto the cushions. He did as much as he could with half of his books missing.
Even if Snape was being a git about it, Harry was quietly glad that he wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts having completed none of his assignments at all.
A/N: Still lots of set-up, but also the first interactions! :D Snape is honestly the worst. It shouldn't be this fun to write him, haha.
Huge thanks to my wonderful betas To Mockingbird, Igornerd, JustAnotherOutcast and flyingcat!
Let me know what you think!
~Gwen