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 17

Harry was an early riser by necessity. Classes, Quidditch training or his Aunt Petunia had never really given him a choice. The first two explained themselves, and his aunt didn't believe in lazy mornings, so if she didn't get to sleep in, then neither did Harry.

Despite this, there were days when Harry's internal clock didn't satisfy Snape's standards. On such days, Snape took the matter into his own hands.

"You could just tell me to set an alarm," Harry grumbled, stumbling into the kitchen bleary-eyed.

Anything to not be woken up by Snape's voice projected directly into his room like the world's most terrifying alarm clock. The first time he'd done it, Harry had fallen out of bed in shock.

"That tattered thing you had me fetch alongside your belongings?" Snape drawled into his Daily Prophet.

"It works fine," Harry protested. "I repaired it."

"I'd rather ascertain you are on time myself."

Harry fetched a bowl, a carton of milk and the sugary cereal Snape hated with a passion, and plopped down at the table. "Almost feels like back on Privet Drive," he muttered to himself, drowning his cereal in milk.

Snape set down his newspaper noisily. "Excuse me?"

They'd never really talked about what Snape had seen at the Dursleys all those months ago. Harry assumed it had been bad, or Snape – still loathing him at the time – wouldn't have grabbed his things and taken him in for good. But Harry didn't know the details, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Nevermind."

Snape pointedly didn't turn back to his newspaper.

"It's nothing," Harry insisted. "It's just how Aunt Petunia would wake me up. Back when– Through the door, I mean. By yelling."

Snape looked so offended at being compared to his aunt in any capacity, Harry had the feeling he'd get some use out of his tattered alarm clock from now on after all.

Snape wouldn't tell him where they were going after Harry had finished his breakfast, so he was more than a little put off about being ushered through the fireplace blindly.

"Asphodelus ramosus," Snape said, tossing a handful of Floo powder inside.

If all of Harry's tediously fought for Herbology knowledge wasn't failing him, that was the name of a plant, not a place. A password? Harry hadn't known it was possible to activate the Floo that way.

He shot Snape a disgruntled look, but stepped into the emerald flames anyway.

All of his annoyance evaporated once he stepped out on the other side and was greeted by gray, dungeon-like stone walls.

"Where are we?" he asked as soon as Snape had stepped out of the fireplace beside him.

"Take an educated guess."

Harry didn't know why he'd asked. Already he felt tension melting off his shoulders he hadn't known was there.

"Hogwarts," he said, a soft smile touching his lips. "We're in Hogwarts."

"You dragged me all this way just for more potion's work?" Harry complained, hacking at some lemon balm with a vengeance. "What did I do?"

Snape didn't look up from his cauldron. "Making yourself useful does not constitute punishment."

"This is supposed to be a vacation, you know."

"Quite." Snape passed him another inkberry clipping from greenhouse number 2. "Are you not relaxed?"

Harry examined his dirt-crusted jeans and fingernails. "No."

"A failing on your part, undoubtedly."

"We could have done this at home," Harry grumbled, back in the dungeons.

Snape didn't answer at once. Harry had almost finished cutting up the inkberry by the time he deigned to reply.

"Curious. An hour ago you were thrilled to be back at school."

"That was before I knew we'd be down here the entire time."

"Wait." Harry stared at the ingredients laid out in front of him. "Are we brewing Wolfsbane?"

"Atrocious." Snape grabbed a handful stems of morning glory and added them to the potion. "With how often you've been looking up the recipe, you ought to have recognized it at once."

Harry grinned, not even bothered by the off-hand insult. The grin faded almost as quickly as it had formed. "I thought Wolfsbane was really hard to get right."

"It is. Tremendously so."

Harry dropped the cutting knife like it had burned him. "Then why are you making me help?"

"Don't be absurd." Snape glared at him through the potion fumes. "There is very little even you could irrevocably ruin by cutting up ingredients."

Harry slowly picked the knife back up, figuring that if Snape had wanted to poison Remus, he would have had the entire last school year to do it. He looked up the next step in Snape's handwritten notes and kept cutting.

Just before Harry's next visit to Grimmauld Place, Snape thrust a few tightly sealed potion bottles into his arms with the sullen air of somebody sawing off their own arm.

If he'd had any chance of getting away with it, Harry was sure he would have had him pretend like he'd just happened to pick up a supply of Wolfsbane from the store down the street.

Harry had never been the type to read ahead during the summer, but even he had to admit that what Snape did during his free time was fascinating. Most of it was too complicated for Harry to even begin to wrap his head around, but as long as he didn't ask stupid questions – or too many of them – Snape was willing to walk him through it.

"I thought there were rules to magic," Harry said, having just watched Snape discard his list of potential spell names and cast it nonverbally instead.

(He implied that some spells were easier to cast nonverbally than others, and that this one preferred to go without a name at all. Harry didn't really get it. Snape made it sound like they had a mind of their own.)

"There are." Snape crossed out some of his notes. A wave of his wand returned the chair he'd been using as a test object to its former state. "Though you will find that they are much more flexible than your lessons make them out to be."

"Then why aren't you teaching it like that?"

"Bending the rules is not something one ought to encourage in students who are just learning how to cast magic the orthodox way."

Harry thought of the explosions he'd heard going off in Fred and George's room when he'd visited the Burrow two summers ago and carefully decided not to mention it.

"If you can pick anything to name a new spell, does that mean the words don't actually matter?"

"The words matter as soon as they've been chosen," Snape said. "In recent times, Latin has enjoyed popularity in Britain and many European countries, though there are exceptions. Avada Kedavra, for example, has Aramaic roots."

Harry wouldn't know how to begin coming up with an incantation for a hypothetical new spell. "You said in Britain. Does that mean other countries use different spells?"

Snape scoffed. "Thousands of languages and cultures in the world, and you thought spell casting was homogenous around the globe?"

Harry paused. "If you say it like that it sounds stupid."

But Snape kept talking as though Harry hadn't spoken. He had the same tendency to go off on tangents that Hermione did.

"Magic in its most natural form," he said, "as documented in our earliest records of wizardkind, is much like underage magic today: instinctive, lacking any tools to channel it. There are cultures that do not use wands or any other means of channeling their powers even today."

Harry's brows twitched. "Then why are we using wands if we don't actually need them?"

Snape was picking up his lecture before Harry finished his sentence. "Once tools are ingrained in a magical community, it is all but impossible to turn back." He paused. "Magic, if only ever used instinctively, is typically more powerful, but much more difficult to control. Instinctive magic is highly dangerous to master."

Harry hummed. He thought of the things he'd accidentally made happen when he'd been younger. The thought of an adult wizard with such little control over their powers was alarming.

"Some magical communities adapted by developing an iron will and impeccable mental control," Snape continued. "We adapted by introducing a buffer between our intent to cast and our execution."

"So a wizard way back when picked up a stick, figured 'cool, that's exactly what I've been missing–'"

"Astounding, the way you never fail to make me regret engaging in conversation with you."

"I was gonna ask something."

Snape sighed. "Fine. Do your worst."

"If they were using magic just so up until then," Harry made an emphatic hand gesture that made Snape scowl at him, "how did they figure out how to make wands?"

Snape leaned back, his hands folded neatly. "Wands wouldn't be invented until many, many decades later," he started. "Before wands there were staffs, before that there were talismans, and before that..." he trailed off. "How would you explain how a wand works?"

Harry reached for the wand stored in his jeans pocket, running his fingers over its smooth, wooden surface. "The wood is just the container," he tried, "isn't it? The power comes from the core. Dragon heart string, or phoenix feather, or unicorn hair."

"Those are the cores Ollivander favors," Snape said. "Almost any object has magical attributes. These ones, at least to him, have proven the most efficient."

"You're saying you could make a wand out of anything?"

"Almost any object has the potential to be used to summon and shape magic, but most either do not have the required level of energy or would burn up under the strain. A core needs to be both strong and durable."

Harry took a moment to digest that information. "Isn't it kind of like Potions then?"

Snape drew together his brows. It wasn't yet one of his 'What have I done to have to endure your stupidity' frowns. "Elaborate."

"What you said about magical attributes," Harry said. "You said any object had some. So it's similar to Potions. Like how daisies aren't magical flowers, but you still use them for brewing. So they have some kind of effect, even if it's not obvious."

Snape looked at him like one would at a rollerskating ferret. "I suppose the comparison isn't too farfetched."

"Could you do that then?" Harry scooted to the edge of his seat. "Pick up a daisy and use it to cast a Stupor?"

"No. Its magical potential would be far too weak to craft even the most basic of spells."

"Oh." Harry deflated. He couldn't really think of a scenario in which he would need to cast a spell using a flower, but it would have been a neat party trick.

Snape looked into the middle distance, tapping his fingers. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "However," he stood up to rummage through a nearby drawer and pulled out a feather that looked too large to belong to an owl.

Harry straightened back up, his interest instantly piqued.

"There is a wide range of objects in between wand cores and flowers." Snape held the feather away from his body and muttered, "Lumos."

For a brief moment the feather lit up in Snape's hand. The light died down almost instantly as the feather burned up without producing a spark.

"This was a hippogriff feather," Snape explained, his tone utterly unchanged as though wandless magic wasn't any more exciting than reading the morning paper. "It has not nearly the magical potential of a phoenix feather, but it contains enough for simple spells."

Harry wiped the expression of astonishment off his face with great effort. "I want to try."

Snape sent him a scathing look. "Which part of the underage magic ban does not make it through your thick skull?"

"Not now," Harry said, annoyed, even though that was exactly what he'd meant when saying it. "Back at school."

"Do you intend to spend your free time on something other than studying?"

Harry shrugged. "You're the one who keeps showing me new stuff."

"You're the one who insists on watching," Snape said testily. "I do not remember inviting you."

Everything Snape did at home – creating spells and improving potions and challenging the limits of what magic could do – all of it were things Hermione would be fascinated by. The more Harry thought about it, the more he was convinced the two would get along swimmingly, had Snape not had the sort of personality he did.

It hit Harry when he was reading Snape's old schoolbook. He was far more interested in the notes that were scribbled in the margins than the printed content. Snape-as-a-student hadn't just used the pages to mercilessly tear apart the author's potion brewing skills, he'd also used it to collect unrelated ideas.

Once or twice, Harry stumbled over words he didn't recognize, but sounded suspiciously like magic spells.

"This is your old schoolbook," Harry said, giving in to the need to share his epiphany.

"Astute observation," Snape retorted with all the sincerity of telling a five-year-old that they'd drawn a masterpiece.

"It has spells in it."

"Splendid job of repeatedly stating the obvious."

"Have you been doing this since you were a student?"

Snape's expression went blank. When he gave Harry his full attention, he looked stricter than Harry had seen him in a long time. "Do not even think of attempting the same."

"I wasn't going to," Harry protested. "But if you could do it–"

"A foolish habit that nearly cost me my life more than once," he snapped.

Harry's mouth clicked shut.

Snape massaged his temples before continuing, more quietly than before. "I ignored my teachers' warnings – as well as common sense – due to a blend of arrogance and indifference." He paused, letting his words sink in. "I am willing to teach you some of them once back at school. But you will not attempt any of these spells, nor will you attempt to create your own without my presence. Is that clear?"

"Crystal." Harry had plenty of trouble keeping up with his regular school load, anyway. Even had he wanted to, it wasn't like he had the brains for it.

He wondered if Lily'd had similar interests. She'd been smart – that much Harry had learned after reading and rereading her letters to his aunt until he could all but recite them by heart – and going by her enthusiasm for Potions she seemed the type who would have enjoyed experimenting.

Even – especially – at the risk of blowing something up in the process.

She would have liked the twins. Harry wondered how Snape couldn't like them. Fiery red hair, brilliant (if mischievous) minds and a knack for bending the rules – thinking of it, maybe they were a little too similar.

Then again, maybe Harry took after his mother at least in some ways.

They made their way through town in frosty silence. Harry was forced to all but run to keep up, as Snape wasn't making an effort to slow down his agitated stride. He tried to gauge whether it was smarter to start groveling or keep his mouth shut.

He peered at Snape from the side. His expression was thunderous.

Groveling it was.

"This was partly your fault."

Good job, Harry.

Snape's expression would have been funny in any other context. "You blew up my study."

"You left me unsupervised."

"The potion was all but finished. It should have been impossible to ruin."

Harry knew that was not something to feel proud of, and yet, "I live to exceed expectations."

Snape pinched his eyes shut with one hand, not slowing down. They walked in not quite comfortable silence, leaving behind ugly brick houses and cracked sidewalks.

"Where are we going?"

"I've notified the school," Snape told him brusquely. "Someone is going to take care of the mess as soon as the fumes are no longer lethal."

Harry winced. "I really wasn't trying to mess it up."

"I would hope so, seeing as you would have been the first to perish." Snape's scowl, if possible, gained in intensity.

"What's one more near-death experience after all the others?" He shrunk away from Snape's thunderous gaze. "Kidding, kidding."

They reached a nicer part of Snape's home town. Harry thought he recognized one of the street vendors from his ill-thought-out escapade into town during his first stay at Spinner's End. He smartly decided not to mention it.

"But really, where are we going?"

"And there I thought you'd gone and gotten yourself killed." The most annoying librarian in all of Britain clucked her tongue like a disapproving grandmother.

Severus had prayed the entire trip to the library for a miraculous day off, already knowing it would be in vain.

"So," Bardsley said, collecting books from an empty library desk, "how's the kid?"

Potter trailed after him, radiating confusion. Severus carefully did not look into his direction.

"Uh," said Potter, ruining all possible pretense, "do you two... know each other?"

Severus closed his eyes, accepting his fate.

Bardsley's eyes sparked gleefully, reminiscent of a curse-breaker let loose on an as-of-yet unexplored ancient catacomb.

"So."

"..."

"How'd you befriend a librarian?"

"Involuntarily."

"She knew about me."

"..."

"Is that where you kept disappearing to last summer?"

"We're gonna go back to visit, right?"

Snape let out a world-weary sigh and walked faster.

A thunderstorm swept through the town that evening. Snape unplugged the TV and replaced all the lights with candles once it started. Harry remembered that the Dursleys had used to do that, too – something about fuses popping out if a thunderbolt hit too close to the property. Harry had no idea if that could actually happen, especially to a magical house like Snape's.

Then again, Snape's neighborhood (and his ability to dress normally in the muggle world) suggested that he'd been raised among muggles, too. Maybe he was just a little superstitious.

The painting in the living room responded to the storm, changing its color with every window-rattling boom. Harry fetched his blanket from his room and bundled up on the couch in front of it to watch.

Snape raised an eyebrow at the sight of him but made no comment.

Harry listened to the rain hailing against the living room windows as the next boom of thunder drenched the painting in deep shades of blue and purple.

A/N:

Harry: refers to Spinner's End as 'home' for the first time without realizing

Snape, blue-screening:

Snape:

Snape: a-anyway

xxx

also Harry: Hermione and Snape would have the coolest conversations

Harry: Too bad he's like, the worst

xxx

Many thanks to To Mockingbird, Igornerd and flyingcat!

~Gwen