Delivery to The Crow's Nest
For the people who lived and worked on Crouch Street in London, seeing people who weren’t quite average was fairly normal. After all, London was a big city, and big cities had some eclectic folk.
Teenagers having rebellious phases, college students on the verge of dropping from exhaustion, and adults going about their day to day lives all walked along the streets, some of them drawing more attention than others.
Most people did attempt to avoid that sort of thing, of course, but there were certainly a few who didn’t care one way or another.
The residents of Number Eight, Crouch Street, above The Crow’s Nest Cafe, were just such people.
The Hartford family was a strange group, even for the London streets. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that, even if they didn’t want to say it out loud.
The husband, Gideon, worked at the tattoo parlor up the street, and had a look about him that made most people try to avoid his gaze, like his very stare could make them drop dead. His leather jackets and combat boots didn’t help the situation, but he was never not wearing the things.
Fiona, the wife, owned and ran the cafe they lived above, and most of the children on the street were fairly certain she was a witch of some sort. They didn’t have much reasoning other than the fact that she looked like one, and that sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, they would see things float about in the back room of the cafe.
Like magic, they all said.
Then, of course, there was their son, Harry. Nobody quite remembered where Harry came from, or when he joined the family, and the Hartfords weren’t very forthcoming with his origin anyways. Most of the time, they came up with more and more ridiculous excuses, with the boy in question often joining in.
“We found him wandering the streets, actually. Snatched him up and never let him go!”
“Actually, he sort of just, appeared in the house one day. We named him Harry and that was that.”
“They pulled me fully formed out of a flower bed. I’m actually part Begonia.”
Most of the time, those comments simply got a nervous chuckle from the people who asked, and then they never asked again.
But, the boy’s dubious origins were not the only mystery about him. From what the rest of the neighborhood children knew, Harry had never been to school, choosing instead to be homeschooled, reading massive books about whatever subjects interested him that week, and taking quizzes on what the government had decreed to be Mandatory Education for him.
Truth be told, he almost never spent any time with children his own age, choosing instead to be around his parents, or the regulars who came into the cafe to get their coffee.
He had a shaggy appearance, one that matched his parents effortlessly, with his black hair that covered the large scar on his forehead, and the black clothes that he wore even on the hottest days during the summer, it was nigh impossible to deny that the boy was part of the family, even as strange as they were at times.
And while the rest of the neighborhood wouldn’t know it, there was one feature of the family, specifically the son, that would make them even stranger.
Something… A bit magical.
—
“Haz! Can you come help me for a second?” Fiona called from the back room of The Crow’s Nest, causing her son to look up from where he was sat behind the counter. The boy had shaggy black hair that hid his face, reaching down just past his shoulders, and while he was certainly small for his age, he wasn’t as skinny as he was when he first came to live with them five years ago.
“One sec, mum!” Harry called, slipping a bookmark into his book and setting it on the counter, trotting into the back room where he saw his mum standing on the step ladder, trying to hold up a bag of coffee beans that was threatening to spill out over the ground. “...How did that happen?”
“I nicked it, I think. Do you think you could..?”
“Yeah, I got it.” He said softly, a small chuckle escaping him. He held out his hand, looking at the falling bag of coffee beans, and carefully willing it back upright and off of his mother’s shoulders. As he did, he could feel the rest of the beans slowly floating their way off the floor, staying in place a few feet above so they could be directed into the trash once he was sure that Fiona wasn’t going to get a bean related concussion.
Fiona sighed in relief, letting her arms fall back down as she hopped off the step ladder, smiling gratefully at her son.
“Thank you, sweetheart… I was a bit worried that I was about to meet my end.” She snorted, walking over and kissing the top of Harry’s head, letting him lean into the affectionate gesture. He had a small smile on his face as her curls fell over his head, acting like a curtain to shield him from the rest of the world.
It was one of his favorite things about her hair, if he was being entirely honest. The way it was like its own entity, protecting her and whoever she was embracing from the cold stares the other people tried to give them.
“Don’t worry, Mum.” He snorted. “I’m not gonna let you be killed by beans. That’s such a lame way to go. You have to die in an explosion or something, something way cooler.”
“Thank you, Haz. I’m so glad you’re concerned about whether or not I have a ‘cool death’, it’s very comforting.” She scoffed a bit, ruffling his hair as her face split into a wide grin. The two of them headed back out into the main area of the cafe, Harry taking his place on his designated stool, which was right behind the pastry display, once again and grabbing his book, flipping it open and sticking the bookmark between his teeth so he could adjust his glasses. “Whatcha readin’ today?”
“The Outsiders.” Harry replied, pulling the bookmark back out of his mouth.
“You finished your homework for the week, then?” Fiona asked absently as she started prepping the machines.
“Yep, did that two days ago. I’m also gonna read that book by that French guy we got from the library on Sunday.”
“The one about the mummies? A Voyage Through Eternity, or something like that?”
“Yeah. Looked interesting.”
“Cool. Remember, don’t tell the patrons anything nasty. Except Tilda, you can tell her about all the nasty things you read.” Fiona chuckled a bit, looking over at Harry. “Flip the sign, love?”
“You got it, Mum.” He replied, flicking his wrist towards the sign on the front door to Open, before he settled back in to read his book.
The typical noise that came along with the early morning rush of customers faded into the background as he continued to read, allowing his mind to be consumed by the antics of the two teenage greasers running away after killing a man, and only half snapping out of it every once in a while to hand Fiona one of the pastries from the display.
Absently, his gaze drifted away from his book, drawn by an unexplainable… Presence just outside the shop, and the sudden quiet that filled the air. It made the back of his head tingle a bit, a somewhat familiar sensation that he never quite got used to, and the lack of noise was abnormal for so early in the morning. He looked over at his mother, who was staring out the front windows with a slight frown on her face.
Her eyes flicked to his, before she jerked her head to the side a bit. Harry nodded, sliding off his stool and heading over to stand next to her, his hand coming to grasp the sleeve of her black cardigan, the soft wool familiar in his hand. He looked out around the shop, seeing that most of the morning rush had suddenly left.
What was going on..?
“Mum?” He murmured, looking up at her with a frown.
Fiona, however, was still staring out the front window, her gaze hardening a bit as whatever, or whoever, she was looking at came closer to the shop. The bell above the door ringing made Harry flinch, and she instinctively pulled him closer.
He peered around her body to look at whoever had entered the cafe, and his eyes fell on a tall, pale man, wearing… Admittedly, very strange black clothes. He was wearing a dress shirt, and slacks, but the… Almost cloak-like garment atop them was unfamiliar to him.
He almost looked like a weird, modern wizard. Not quite unlike the people in the strange clothes who had occasionally stopped him for his entire life.
The man walked up to the counter, and as he got closer, Harry could make out his facial features. He had a large, hooked nose, black eyes that seemed to stare into his soul, and a stern expression that he had only ever seen on some of the policemen that patrolled around every once in a while.
He slunk back a bit, hiding behind his mother even more. While he had very much been instructed by his parents to never judge a book by its cover, the man in front of him made him feel a bit uneasy, and he had never been so thankful that he was as small and skinny as he was.
“...What can I get for you today, sir?” Fiona asked, putting on a fake smile as she stared at the man.
“I’m not here for coffee today, ma’am.” The man replied, his voice low. “I’m here to deliver a letter to Harry Hartford.”
“And what sort of letter is this?”
Harry peeked out from behind her to look at the man again, and when the two of them made eye contact, the slight look of surprise on the strange man’s face gave Harry a small boost of confidence, and he stepped out to look him straight in the face.
The man, quickly composing himself, cleared his throat.
“...Mr. Hartford has been accepted to a private institution, and this is his letter of admittance. I cannot go into detail here in your shop. Is there somewhere we can go that is private so I can explain further?”
Fiona frowned a bit, glancing at Harry, who nodded up at her. He was curious as to what this was about, and he knew that his father still hadn’t left for work, so at the very least, he would be there as well. Getting the confirmation she was looking for, she turned back to the man.
“We have to wait for one of my employees to get here to take over for me. Can I get you anything to drink in the meantime?” She asked, her voice taking on a far more pleasant sound. “Our iced lattes are quite popular this summer.”
The man shook his head. “No thank you. I’ll simply wait.”
He gave another odd look in Harry’s direction, before he turned and headed to a table in the back corner. Once he was further away, Fiona looked at her son worriedly, a silent question on her face.
“...I think he’s like me, Mum.” He murmured, looking up at her. “When he got close, it made the back of my head tingle. Like when those other people in the robes would try and talk to me.”
She frowned more, but nodded. “Haz, go wait upstairs with your dad. Tell him what’s going on.”
“Okay.”
Harry wasn’t going to argue with that, hugging his mother around the waist and letting her give him a tight squeeze before he slipped into the back room, shooting one last look at the strange man who had come into the shop.
The buzzing in the back of his head came back even worse when they made eye contact again, and he shivered, rushing the rest of the way and popping the hallway door open to access the stairs leading up to his house. He made his way upstairs, looking around and relaxing when he saw Gid, sitting on the sofa with his sketchbook in his lap.
His dad looked up at him, like he felt the anxiety that Harry was feeling without even seeing it.
“What’s going on?” He asked, setting the sketchbook to the side as a frown crossed his face.
Harry walked over to him, sitting down on the sofa and kicking his shoes off to pull his feet up onto the couch. Gid sat quietly, waiting for him to explain what was happening, and knowing from past experiences that pushing his son to explain would just make him clam up more.
“...There’s a man like me downstairs.” He said after a moment. “Said he has a letter for me from a school. Mum’s waiting for Lori to get here, and then she’s gonna bring him up so we can all talk.”
Gid’s frown grew even more, the expression all too similar to his wife’s own.
“...Gave you the weird head tingles when you saw him? Like the older woman in the green dress we saw at the store a couple weeks ago?” He asked softly, running a hand through Harry’s hair, lifting his fringe out of the way to see the scar.
Harry nodded a bit, knowing exactly what Gid was thinking about.
Ever since he had started living with his parents, they would occasionally get stopped by oddly dressed people, who seemed to look around in utter amazement at everything in sight. Every single time they were stopped, these strangers would look at his scar like it was the most amazing thing on the planet, and would start spouting off nonsense that made him viscerally uncomfortable. About how it was an honor to meet him, and that he was a hero.
Usually, a well placed glare from his Mum would chase them off, as they would look at her with panicked eyes for a moment before they scampered away, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t freaked out every time it happened.
Hell, it was most of the reason he had started growing out his hair, a simple act of desperation to hide the unsightly scar that made people seem to think he was someone else.
Of course, he knew that his name before he was adopted had been Harry Potter, but he had asked to have it changed when he was adopted, wanting to truly be a part of the Hartford family, but that didn’t mean he felt like it was him.
Harry sighed a bit, rubbing his face.
“Well…” Gid sighed as well, ruffling his son’s already messy hair. “We’ll let him say his peace. If he’s talking out his arse, I’ll scare him out.”
“Or I could ask the snakes in the backyard to bite him.” Harry offered.
“That too. I’ll scare him out, you get the snakes to bite.”
“Perfect.”
—
The start of a new school year at Hogwarts was always something that brought a mixture of excitement, stress, and a vague sense of mystery to the staff, and the castle as well. After all, there had almost never been a year without some sort of incident occurring, whether it directly endangered the lives of the students or not.
This year, however, Severus felt nothing but existential dread, like the slight veil of peace that had settled over him in his positions as Hogwarts’ Potion Master was being rapidly yanked away, and he had absolutely no idea why.
It was like the school itself was anxious, waiting for the other shoe to drop before the year had even begun.
And then, of course, he had been summoned to Albus’ office midway through July, something which was never a good sign. He’d been in the middle of brewing the first term’s medical potions for Madam Pomfrey, and had to stick all of them under a stasis charm in order to prevent them from exploding, calcifying, or otherwise turning catastrophic.
As Severus made his way up the stairs into Albus’ office, he could already hear the almost… Panicked voices from within, and he let out a quiet groan.
The year was heading off to a bad start. He just knew it.
He pushed the door open, walking right into an utter madhouse, and barely jerked his body out of the way as Minerva launched one of the headmaster’s many strange gadgets out the open door with a burst of magic, nearly striking him in the face.
“What do you mean that Harry Potter has disappeared entirely?!” She shrieked, her eyes wide. “How could an almost eleven year old boy just- just up and vanish!”
“It’s outrageous is what it is!” Pomona huffed. “The boy was left with his relatives, and they just abandoned him?”
Severus shared a look with Filius, the two of them deciding to stay silent as their fellow heads of house lost their minds. That is, until Albus turned to address the former.
“Severus, I’m glad you were able to join us.” The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Filius, would you mind filling him in on… Well, what we’ve discovered?”
“Of course, Albus.” The half goblin smiled, making his way closer to the potion’s master and gesturing for him to lean down a bit, which Severus easily obliged. “It would seem that Harry Potter’s name has completely disappeared from the student registry.”
“Albus sent Hagrid out to go and check on the Dursleys, and he returned with a very harrowing tale of how the muggle’s Child Protective Services took away both of the boys under their care, and they lost custody.”
Severus felt a frown form on his face at that. The other professors in the room were mostly purebloods, or were from a much older generation. For them, Child Protective Services was a bit of a mystery, but he knew full well that getting a child fully removed from their guardian’s care was… Not very easy.
“Well. That’s certainly concerning.” He murmured, standing up again as he watched Albus continue to attempt to placate Minerva’s rage, something that very few attempted to do, and even less were truly successful at.
Eventually, the headmaster seemed to give up, and simply levitated the four stacks of letters over to each of the four heads of house.
“These are the last of our muggleborn students for this year.” He said softly as they all grabbed their stacks out of the air. “I trust you all know what to do.”
Minerva huffed at him. “This doesn’t mean our discussion is over, Albus.”
“I’m aware, Minerva, but our duties to our students, current and future, must come first. Please trust that I will put all of my effort into searching for young Harry, and that I will locate him before the month is over.”
Severus nodded curtly and headed back towards the door, holding it open for Filius and Pomona, who were both already flipping through the stack of letters. As he let the heavy door fall shut, he heard Minerva’s angered voice rise again, and decided that he was more than happy to allow the two of them to deal with the missing Potter situation.
And he would have been more than happy to continue with that, if he wasn’t sitting across from the Boy-Who-Lived right at that very moment.
Imagine his surprise when he stopped to deliver the last muggleborn student’s letter, and instead of seeing an unsuspecting, unaware child who was so over-excited at the idea of being a witch or wizard that their accidental magic went off and exploded a vase or a picture frame, he saw Harry-Fucking-Potter staring at him from behind a muggle woman’s back.
It had been almost half an hour after he had first seen the boy for the woman, presumably his adoptive mother, to take him up the stairs and into her home after making sure that her employee wouldn’t burn the shop to the ground in her absence. She hadn’t even spoken to him, simply pointed at him, made a ‘come here’ gesture with a finger, and led him up the back stairwell and into the actual house.
After a moment of stilted introductions, where Severus learned that the muggles were named Gideon and Fiona, the four of them sat down in the living room, with Harry between his parents and clutching a green, bird patterned mug of tea in his hands like he would die if he let go of it.
“Well,” Severus said, clearing his throat and sitting up a bit, his own tea untouched on the tray in front of him, before he held out the letter. “I am Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts, the premier school for British witches and wizards-”
Fiona snatched the letter out of his hands and opened it, holding it to the side a bit so Harry and Gideon could read as well, ignoring the spluttering that was coming from the man in front of them.
He had never been treated so… Strangely, by any muggle born or raised student’s parents, ever.
After a moment, Harry nodded a bit, looking at Severus with his curious green eyes. It was strange, because when he first saw the boy, he had been struck with the fact that Harry really did have Lily’s eyes, and that he looked like a miniature clone of her husband.
Now, though… He couldn’t be more different from either of his birth parents. And he didn’t know why that thought was at the forefront of his mind.
“...Will you answer some questions?” Harry asked, his gaze not leaving the professor’s.
“What sort of questions?”
“About the school. About your world. That way I can decide whether I want to go or not.”
Severus’ eyes widened a bit, and he looked at the three of them strangely. “Why wouldn’t you want to go to Hogwarts?”
That was when Gideon spoke up, setting down his mug of tea.
“Harry hasn’t been to school since he was seven years old. He does self study, and tests at the library every week.” He explained. “It’s not a slight against Hogwarts, it’s a slight against schooling in general.”
“Exactly.” Harry nodded, a pleased smile on his face.
“...Ask your questions then, Mr. Hartford.”
Fiona leaned back a bit, watching as her son launched off into his field of questions with an amused smile on his face.
“What do the four animals on the wax seal represent?” Harry asked first, looking at the letter again.
“The Four Houses, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff. The eagle, lion, snake, and badger, respectively. They’re the group of students you’ll spend your seven years at Hogwarts living with and working with in your classes, as Hogwarts is a boarding school.” Severus explained.
“How do you get sorted?”
“I’m not at liberty to explain.”
“Bugger.” The boy muttered, then spoke again at full volume. “So it goes from eleven to… Seventeen-eighteen depending on where your birthday is when you graduate?”
“Yes it does.”
“Is the booklist a requirement or a suggestion?”
“The books listed are required, but you can purchase more at liberty.”
“Do you have to use wands?”
“Unless you can do the incredibly rare talent of wandless magic, I would recommend doing so, otherwise you will be unable to do most of the curriculum.” Severus let out a small huff, not missing the look that the boy’s parents gave each other over his head.
Could Harry do wandless magic?
He was pulled out of his train of thought by another question from the boy in question.
“I think I’ve met other witches and wizards- is there a word for the collective group? Like how the plural of octopus is octopi?”
“It’s wixen, but-”
“Okay, wixen. That’s a funny word.” Harry chuckled. “So, I think I’ve met a bunch of wixen, why do they think I’m some sort of hero?”
Severus froze at that. Of course the boy had no idea of what happened ten years ago, he had only been a toddler, and he hadn’t been raised with the only muggles who would truly know what happened that night.
He stared at the three of them for a moment, before he let out a slow, deep breath.
“Mr. Hartford, what I am about to explain to you is… At best, morbid, and at worst, utterly horrifying.” He said quietly. “However, it is important for you to understand what happened on Halloween night, 1981…”
And as the story was told, he watched Harry’s expression grow more and more horrified, while his parent’s rage became more and more palpable.
Severus very rarely felt fear, but the looks on the faces of Fiona and Gideon Hartford made him very, very glad that he was not on the receiving end of them.
And he would endeavor to stay away from that place for as long as Harry was at Hogwarts.