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 8
Not once had it occurred to Harry that he might have visitors over the summer. Because of this, Professor McGonagall's brisk arrival through Snape's fireplace was more than a little startling.
"Mr. Potter." She stepped over the mantelpiece gracefully. "Regardless of the circumstances, I'm glad to see you in good health."
Seeing her outside of school felt roughly like Dudley showing up at Hogwarts for a visit. Still, "It's good to see you too, Professor."
The painting above the sofa had been stormy and gray all day. Its trees bent almost in half from the force of the wind, and the water from the forest spring was murky. While nobody talked, the wind lashing through the leaves was audible.
"Oh, none of that." McGonagall gripped the corners of the frame and gave it a firm shake. The leaves rustled and an acrylic hare hopped out of the frame in alarm. Under McGonagall's strict gaze the wind settled and the clouds cleared away, leaving the clearing sunny.
She then took a seat on one of the armchairs as though she'd done something as ordinary as taking a phone call.
"Professor," Harry said, fighting hard not to stare, "what are you doing here?"
McGonagall raised her eyebrow as though he'd asked a very silly question. "To deliver your list for the next school year, for one thing." She pulled an envelope from her robes and held it out to him.
Harry accepted it, feeling no less confused. "I usually get these by owl."
"Be that as it may," McGonagall said, "I have a responsibility towards you as your head of house. That responsibility does not wane over the summer holidays."
"Oh." Harry had the sudden image of McGonagall picking him up from Privet Drive after blowing up Aunt Marge.
He tried not to think about it in detail. A summer spent with his head of house would have been just as weird – if not worse. In stark contrast to Snape, Harry actually cared about what McGonagall thought of him.
"Then why haven't you come here before? The holidays are almost over."
McGonagall sniffed irritably. "Had somebody informed me of your whereabouts, I would have come much sooner."
She made the mistake of glancing in Snape's direction. He crossed his arms and scowled, looking remarkably like a cat with its hackles raised. "If you expected me to go behind the Headmaster's back–"
"Severus," McGonagall cut him off. "I haven't come to reprimand anyone."
Snape's scowl eased moderately. He took a seat on the remaining armchair and waved his wand in the direction of the kitchen with no immediate effect.
Only the couch was left. Harry hesitated, considering slinking up the stairs while the adults talked, but decided against it. He didn't want to appear rude.
"Have you many house calls scheduled before the beginning of the term?" Snape asked.
McGonagall's eyes lingered on the night sky flowers set up on the coffee table. The flower pot had changed its morning greeting and now read 'Good to see you, Minnie!'
"A few," McGonagall said, a smile touching her lips. "I've just come from one down in Cornwall. The poor thing almost fainted on the spot."
"Care to place an early guess?"
"None worth betting on." McGonagall accepted a cup of tea that floated towards her from the kitchen. Another placed itself beside Snape. "Going by her flood of questions, I wouldn't be surprised if Filius won himself another student."
A third cup landed on the coffee table in front of Harry. He peered inside and grimaced. He didn't particularly care for tea.
"Flimsy at best," Snape said. "They all ask questions."
"Not all of them try to figure out the trick behind their floating sofa cushions."
Snape huffed a breath of air into his tea cup. Harry was shocked to realize that he might have just seen his Potions professor laugh.
"An eleven-year-old sceptic," he mused. "I presume you're used to the parents giving you more trouble."
"Attempting to convince the child instead of their guardians that my invitation to our magical school is genuine was certainly refreshing."
"As you say, Professor," Snape murmured.
Harry realized that while Snape called McGonagall 'Professor', McGonagall referred to Snape by his first name.
His confusion must have been evident, because McGonagall added, "Muggleborn students receive their letter through a faculty member instead of per owl. We offer guidance and explain to them what their guardians cannot."
Harry frowned. "I got my letter per owl."
"Curious," Snape said. "I seem to remember Hagrid telling anybody who would listen that he'd been tasked to deliver your letter personally."
"Sure. After my uncle dragged us into the middle of the ocean so I wouldn't get to read them."
McGonagall's voice was an odd mix of disapproval and something Harry couldn't place. "We had operated under the assumption that your relatives had raised you with the knowledge of your heritage."
Harry couldn't suppress a snort.
"Yes," McGonagall agreed with a faint smile. "I'm afraid it was quite the misconception."
Was that all it had been? A misunderstanding? A mistake? Harry tried to imagine what it would have been like to grow up knowing he had magic. He thought of Ron: surrounded by wizards and witches since the day he was born. Watching his parents and siblings use magic as though it was as natural as breathing. Waiting for the day that he, too, turned old enough to join them at school.
He wondered if Hermione's parents had been thrilled to find out she was a witch. Had they buried their noses in books alongside her, trying to learn as much about their daughter's new world as they could? Or had McGonagall needed to convince them, first?
"Has the summer treated you well?" McGonagall gave him a rather dry smile. "Frankly, I'd expected you two would be at each other's throats."
Harry carefully looked anywhere but Snape. There was a pregnant pause.
"We still live," Snape said stiffly.
"Somehow," Harry muttered.
"Do elaborate." McGonagall shifted in her seat without disturbing her tea cup. "I admit I was surprised when I learned where you would spend the remaining summer."
Harry didn't know what she wanted to hear. It seemed impossible to put everything that had happened into words.
"I like the greenhouse," Harry heard himself say.
"The greenhouse." McGonagall sounded vaguely surprised. "Forgive me if I say so, Mr. Potter, but I was under the impression that Herbology is not one of your stronger subjects."
Harry shrugged. "It's different from school."
"How so?"
"Nothing's tried to eat me, for one thing."
Snape made a noise at the back of his throat. "I've had a splendid devil's snare in my possession up until last year."
"Too bad I didn't blow up my aunt the summer before." Too late Harry noticed McGonagall's climbing eyebrows. "I didn't mean that," he said quickly. "I'm really sorry about what happened."
"I should think so." McGonagall paused, her expression unreadable.
Harry felt even more uncomfortable. If it had taken McGonagall half a conversation to realize that something had changed, how long would it take Harry's friends? What about the rest of his classmates?
The frown on Snape's face was more pronounced than only a few minutes prior.
"Professor," Harry said, desperately trying to think of something to change the subject. "Can I ask something?"
McGonagall gestured for him to continue. "Of course."
"What about my permission slip?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"For Hogsmeade. If I'm not gonna stay at the Dursleys' anymore, who's supposed to sign it for me?"
McGonagall took a sip of her tea while Harry tried to contain his impatience. "I suppose this, like many other things, remains to be seen," she settled on, putting down her tea cup delicately.
"But, Professor," Harry's eyes flickered to Snape and back. "Couldn't you sign it?"
McGonagall wouldn't look him in the eyes. "Seeing as I am neither parent nor guardian, I'm afraid that isn't possible."
"But then who–" Harry swallowed down his protests. He wasn't sure what he had expected.
McGonagall pursed her lips. "We shall see."
Even though he desperately wanted to, Harry didn't stop her from changing the subject. She and Snape talked about preparations that had yet to be completed – apparently a swarm of billywigs had gotten lost in the castle that would need to be dealt with to prevent mass levitation among the students.
Harry rotated his tea cup in his lap, forced himself to take the occasional sip and tried not to zone out. Snape's opinion of him was a lost cause, but he didn't want McGonagall to think less of him, too.
"You've been quiet." McGonagall set down her cup. "Is something bothering you?"
Harry held his cup so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "I'm fine."
"I suppose if there's nothing else." She paused as if to give him the chance to change his mind. When he didn't, she sighed and gestured towards the envelope Harry had put on the couch next to him. "You have a week left to acquire your supplies. Have you written to Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley yet?"
"Uh." Harry had sent out his last letters a couple days ago. He was expecting answers any day.
"Do so," McGonagall said. "If they intend to make it in time for the school term, I dare say they're due to return to Britain shortly."
"I'll do that," he said, itching for a piece of parchment to start scribbling fresh letters right away.
Snape rose from his chair at the same time that McGonagall did.
McGonagall paused at the doorway. "I suppose I can deliver the good news to Professor Dumbledore. He will be pleased to learn that you are capable of making it to the school term unharmed."
"If you must," Snape said stiffly.
"I'm looking forward to seeing both of you at school." McGonagall took the front door instead of the fireplace.
"Do you have something to say?" Snape arched an irritable eyebrow, and Harry realized that he'd been looking right at him.
"Nothing." Harry paused. "I never realized that she used to be your teacher, too."
Severus should have never gotten saddled with Potter for as long as he had.
Dumbledore had him play a dangerous game. When, not if, the Dark Lord returned, he was supposed to slide back into his old role, fill his mind with hate and hide the tiny bits of himself that hadn't yet withered away from bitterness. He was supposed to think of Potter and feel nothing but resentment.
He wasn't supposed to know that the boy had interest in Astronomy without an ounce of talent. He wasn't supposed to know that he muttered under his breath and twirled his quill in his hand while concentrating. He wasn't supposed to know that he had a temper and a sharp tongue that matched his mother's.
Once the time came, Severus wasn't supposed to be forced to hide that he knew Potter as anything other than the brat born from his most hated school rival.
When Dumbledore entered the house not long after McGonagall had left, there was no twinkling in his eyes. "Harry will come to Hogwarts with me."
Severus huffed a laugh past the balled-up lump of bitterness lodged in his throat. "After weeks of appealing to you, now you've seen reason."
"You've surprised me."
Severus didn't dignify him with a response. He followed Dumbledore's gaze out of the window.
Potter sat on the grass cross-legged, trying – and failing – to catch the attention of a scrawny stray cat. How it had found its way into the hidden garden, Severus couldn't say.
Potter looked up as though he'd felt the eyes prickling on his skin. He spotted Severus – Dumbledore stood out of his line of sight – and stiffened before offering a tentative nod. The lump in Severus' throat swelled. He didn't nod back.
"It's too late," he muttered.
A pained look entered Dumbledore's eyes. "Severus..."
"If your intention was to complicate everything, you've been successful."
"I'll take him with me right this afternoon."
"Will you," Severus said tonelessly.
"You've repeatedly asked me to."
"And you didn't listen." Severus' lips twisted to draw a rather sardonic curve.
Outside, Potter gave up on trying to win the stray's attention. He picked up the book he'd dropped onto the ground, wiped off his other hand on his trousers and ignored the grass stains.
"Allow me to speculate what will happen, should you whisk him away to Hogwarts now." Severus didn't look away from the window. "He will not understand why you've done it this late into the summer if you haven't thus far, seeing as you will not tell him."
Dumbledore neither confirmed nor denied.
"He will contemplate – even presume – that your actions were caused as a consequence of his behavior. You will topple the tiny piece of stability he's built since the start of the summer." Severus turned his head. "Can you handle his lashing out without losing his trust?"
"How have you been doing it?" Dumbledore asked quietly.
Severus scoffed. "Trust cannot be lost when it was never there."
They kept looking out into the garden even after Potter had disappeared into the greenhouse. The stray leaped onto the brick wall it shouldn't have been able to see. Severus would have to check whether his wards needed to be renewed.
"He's just begun to settle in," Severus muttered. "Take him away, and you will ruin it."
"I never meant for it to go this far," Dumbledore said quietly.
Severus said nothing.
"You will have to play your role better than ever. You will be the first to bear the consequences, should you fail."
"Haven't I always?" The words sounded more bitter than Severus had meant them to be.
They stood in silence.
"Mistakes have been made in the past." Dumbledore's voice was a heavy, weary-sounding thing. "Few of them, I fear, have been as grievous as those pertaining to you."
Words that had been spoken years ago rang in Severus' ears.
He has his mother's eyes.
Lily's son...
You disgust me.
"Few of them have been yours to make," Severus muttered.
It didn't occur to him until later that the sight of the boy no longer made him think of James Potter.
The days passed more quickly as the end of the summer drew near. Snape seemed to have gotten over his foul mood and was, if not pleasant, then at least peaceful to be around.
To the question of whether he was going to come to Diagon Alley as well, Snape answered, "I have errands to run on my own."
Harry simply nodded and went back to writing.
He finished up his last school assignments. Snape found less and less things to criticize, so he supposed he couldn't have done too badly on them. Hedwig brought him Ron and Hermione's replies, and all too quickly the agreed date had arrived and Snape and he headed for London.
Snape teleported them the same way he'd brought them to Spinner's End back at the beginning of summer (the sensation wasn't any more pleasant). Harry had just enough time to panic about being seen with his Potions professor by his fellow students when Snape stopped in the middle of the Muggle street.
"You will find the Leaky Cauldron after the next turn," he said. "I trust you know how to access Diagon Alley?"
"Uh..." Harry thought back to what Hagrid had done the summer before last. "By tapping one of the bricks with your wand."
"Three up and two across. We will meet here at half past noon." Snape looked at him properly for the first time and wrinkled his nose. "Have you no better fitting outerwear?"
"You've seen Dudley." Harry shrugged. His friends had never cared about his oversized clothes.
Snape let the matter drop with an irritated twitch of his brow. "Half past noon," he repeated. "Don't take any longer."
That was already more time than Harry had expected to get. He didn't make Snape ask him twice before steering towards the Leaky Cauldron, relieved that Snape let him go on his own.
Almost as soon as Harry stepped foot into the alley, he narrowly avoided being barreled over by a wildly swerving broom and the harried shop employee chasing after it.
At once, he felt something inside of his chest lighten.
He tried an ice cream flavor at Fortescue's he'd never heard of before, examined a new kind of self-rolling Gobstones and greeted three of his Hogwarts house mates before he even spotted Ron and Hermione.
Once he did, it felt like coming home almost as much as stepping through Hogwarts' giant wooden gates.
Hermione immediately went in for a hug. "Harry! How are you?"
"You didn't really spend the summer at Snape's, did you?" Ron hiss-whispered in lieu of a greeting.
Harry's good mood shriveled up like a botched essay in the common room's fireplace.
"Can we not do this here?" Harry kept an eye out for other Hogwarts students. He didn't want anyone overhearing details of his summer adventure.
"Let's move," Hermione murmured. "It's crammed today. Trust me, nobody's gonna be able to hear you."
Hermione was right. Diagon Alley was packed with students and parents – half the population of Hogwarts seemed to have decided to get their school supplies at the last possible opportunity.
Harry desperately tried to think of what to say to make the summer sound less dramatic than his letters had made it sound. He'd never told his friends that by the end, Snape had been... not as bad as Harry had thought he'd be.
"Come on, spill." Ron looked more serious than Harry had ever seen him. "You were messing with us, right? There's no way they actually carted you off to Snape's."
"Afraid so." Harry pressed together his lips and accepted the inevitable.
"Nevermind him." If Ron was looking serious, it was nothing compared to Hermione. "What about your relatives? You said you got into trouble, but you never said why."
"Blew up my aunt and made a run for it while she floated underneath the ceiling," Harry said tersely.
Ron barked a laugh while Hermione looked scandalized. "It's not funny, Ron!"
"Did they get her down?" Ron grinned, ignoring Hermione's look of outrage.
"I guess they must have." Harry shrugged. "I didn't stick around."
Ron sobered up. "That's tough, mate. A summer at Snape's? They'd have been more merciful if they'd kicked you out."
"Don't say that," Hermione snapped. "Accidental magic is no joke. His aunt could have gotten seriously hurt." She turned to Harry. "It was accidental, right?"
Annoyance flared up. "No, why?" Harry said tonelessly. "I love to torment my relatives with my awesome magic powers. It's not like that's ever gotten me into trouble before."
"That's not what I– This is serious, Harry."
"I noticed."
"Seriously, man." Ron put a hand on Harry's upper arm. "Are you okay?"
Harry went still underneath the touch. He knew that if he told them anything about his time at Spinner's End, they'd want to know everything. "I'm fine. I just can't wait to be back at school."
"You're lucky you get to keep going at all," Hermione said, frowning. "You already have a record from last year."
"You know that wasn't me."
"The Ministry doesn't." Hermione steered them towards Flourish and Blotts despite carrying several huge bags filled with books already.
"Like they'd try to get rid of the Boy Who Lived," Ron said. "Now if I'd blown up my aunt, they'd have needed to duel my mom for the honor of kicking me out into the streets."
"Will you quit it?" Hermione spat.
"Will you quit harping on about it?" Ron fired back. "Harry just spent half the summer in hell, and you're trying to tell him it could have been worse, actually."
"That's because it could have been! Aren't you worried what will happen next? He's fine for the school year, but what about next summer? If his relatives aren't an option, where's he gonna stay?"
Harry felt more nauseous with every word.
"He'll stay with us," Ron shrugged. He looked at Harry and added, "You already know my room. I know it's not big, but we can make do."
"If the school even allows that," Hermione countered. "They might have other pl–"
"So, Harry," Ron interrupted, "have you seen the new Firebolt yet? It's wicked."
Hermione glared at him. "We're not finished. Harry could be in actual–"
"Yes, we are." Ron took a sharp turn, away from Flourish and Blotts. "Come on, shop's this way."
Ron and Hermione bickered the entire way, but luckily moved on to other topics. The nausea in Harry's stomach settled. He could almost pretend it was just another regular summer.
"What's that one for?" Ron said, in the middle of a tirade about the ridiculous amount of books Hermione had bought.
Harry followed his gaze and spotted a book at the top of Hermione's bag that didn't look like it belonged in a magical school.
Hermione bent down to check what they were looking at. "Just a French textbook."
"A what." Ron stared at her as though she'd sprouted another head.
"I tried to learn the basics for my vacation," Hermione explained, "just enough to get by. The middle school I was enrolled in before my letter came offered French classes. It's a shame I don't get to take those anymore..."
"Oh yeah." Ron rolled his eyes. "You get to learn how to fly a broomstick and hex people, but it's a shame about those French lessons."
Harry jumped at the new topic. "So you'll keep studying it?"
He'd never needed to learn another language. Dudley'd had Spanish lessons during his first year of middle school, but he'd thrown such a tantrum about the class being too hard and the teacher being too demanding that Vernon had terrorized the school until they'd let him drop out.
"I don't see why I shouldn't," Hermione said. "It would be a waste to just stop. I wonder if Hogwarts offers any extracurricular language classes... There's plenty in the magical world – Mermish, or Gobbledegook, or–"
"Percy speaks goblin," Ron interrupted. "Said it would look good on his resume. Something about internal affairs appreciating multilingual employees."
"Oh?" Hermione's eyes sparked in interest. "He really speaks Gobbledegook?"
"Probably not," Ron admitted. "He tried to strike up a conversation with the Gringotts goblins once, but they just kind of glared at him. He said his accent must have been too strong, but I'm pretty sure he was just saying gibberish."
The last days of the summer passed in a blur. Harry felt odd lazing around in the greenhouse or glancing at the painting in the living room, knowing that once he'd left for Hogwarts, he wouldn't see either ever again.
It took him much longer to finish packing than he'd expected. Once everything other than his broom and Hedwig's cage was stored in his trunk, Harry sat on the bed he'd slept in for the past several weeks and looked around. The guest room had never looked especially homely, but seeing it as empty and impersonal as it had been when Harry had first moved in made a lump form in his throat.
Leaving for Hogwarts had never felt anything short of ecstatic. This time, Harry had too many thoughts swirling around his head to make sense of them all.
He spent a long time contemplating the key to the wardrobe lying on his bedside table. For reasons unknown even to himself, he finally slid it into his trunk alongside a new batch of robes and the last of his school assignments he'd found underneath the coffee table in the living room.
Snape accompanied him to London the next day. King's Cross was packed with people as usual, but Snape dropped him off and left before they could run into anybody from school.
Harry stepped through the barrier and picked out a compartment on the train with almost half an hour to spare. He spent the remaining time waiting by peering out of the window and scanning the crowd on the rapidly filling platform for familiar faces.
Looking out at his classmates, Harry realized that this was it. The summer was finally over, and his time at Spinner's End had officially come to an end.
A/N:
Ron: tries to cheer up his friend by dunking on Snape like they always do
Harry:
Harry: So! French?
Many thanks to To Mockingbird, Igornerd, JustAnotherOutcast and flyingcat!
Let me know what you think!
~Gwen