Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Severus Snape was not a nice man. He was cold, calculating, misanthropic on the best of days, and on the worst thought the world was overdue a nice plague. On any given day he could be found hunched over a bubbling cauldron experimenting with all sorts of volatile and toxic brews, or lambasting errant dunderheaded students for breathing too loudly. His sallow skin rarely saw light that wasn’t torches from the dungeon he resided in under Hogwarts castle, or moonlight from his resource gathering expeditions into the Forbidden Forest. He had always been tall, but his frame these days was gaunt, lack of sleep and skipped meals being the main culprit. Ebony hair hung limp around his face, greasy from potion fumes and lack of care. But Severus wasn’t always such a foul-tempered sod, ugly inside and out. He had dreams and hopes and love once, just like anyone.
Severus’ hair once hung almost to his mid-back, a sheet of silky locks that were pin straight and shiny. His fair skin would pink delicately at innuendos and freckle as he spent the afternoons outdoors, his thin frame trim from endless swimming in the Black Lake. Most thought his voice and eyes were his best features. Both were deep and dark- his voice that regardless of volume made a person sit up and listen, and his eyes would show the endless emotions his face usually hid. Severus, while not handsome, had a curious smirk that would light up his otherwise harsh features when the mood struck. The person most often responsible for his smiles, as rare as they were, was his opposite in nearly every way.
The dark to his fair complexion, the bright laughter to his austere silence. Nearly golden hazel eyes to Severus’ onyx, Gryffindor to Sev’s Slytherin. Riotous, untamable dark curls, a booming laugh, and warm amber skin. The person responsible for Severus’ laughter and smiles, when they could be found, was also the person he held responsible for stealing away all the happiness in his life.
James Potter. Gryffindor’s golden boy, Captain of the Quidditch team and Head Boy to boot.
Liar, cheater, betrayer.
And, apparently, the other father of his son.
If the blood wards designed to keep out relatives were placed correctly (as Cole was informing him was indeed the case), then inside Number 4 Privet Drive was Severus’ child. Harry Potter, the Boy-who-Lived, destroyer of the Dark Lord Voldemort.
“Ava, I need you to figure out how to either get me through these wards without whoever set them up knowing, or bring the boy out here to me.” Severus’ voice a rasping whisper. With his heart in his throat and his mind spinning through the possibilities, he was holding onto his Occlumency shields by a thread, locking down his emotions and errant memories of James Potter that were attempting to surface and distract him.
“Sev, I don’t think I can pull down the wards without someone noticing,” Ava said tightly, her wand waving in looping motions as she focused. “Give me a second, and I’ll show you what I mean.” Stepping back further into the shadows and pulling Severus with her, Ava started mumbling a spell, her wand waving in tight coils and jabs in the air while her other hand almost mirrored the movements, like a conductor. With a final wave in a sharp upwards motion Ava finished her spell, a miniature transparent replica of the wards and Number 4 Privet Drive appearing in glowing lines between the two wixen.
Walking around the apparition Severus couldn’t help being impressed, although he kept any trace of it from his expression. “You really should consider going back for your Masters in Warding, this is exceptional magic. Walk me through the wards on the property, I imagine this is a visual representation of all of them?”
“Got it in one, Sev,” Ava said with a smirk, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. While it seemed simple in construct, the 3D warding scheme she’d displayed was a combination of several forms of magic, and took a lot out of her. “Okay, so if you’ll look here, you can see where multiple sacrificial offerings have been buried around the property, likely small corpses of magical creatures, I’d say mooncalves, given the geometric positioning of the sacrifices, and that mooncalf blood has a mind altering affect.” Ava pointed at several location around the property as well as one that lined up with the front door.
“Then you’ll see the lines that tie from the sacrifices into the ley line, and then one tied to a foci in the house. Looks like maybe a sigil drawing or possibly runes under the stairs? It’s hard to say for sure without seeing it in person. But it’s definitely done in blood, only way they’d be able to keep you out.” Ava paused, took a breath and looked at Sev directly.
“This isn’t normal warding, Sev. This is definitely some dark-bordering-on-Black magic warding. It’s buried under normal wards that intend to mask the look and feel of them, but the way it lashed out at you was serious. These wards are practically toxic too, no one living in this place is going to be very happy or healthy. I can’t image how Harry’s managed to survive. I don’t like whoever might have done these up, this is some evil shite.”
Ava let the spectral warding scheme float between them for a moment longer, the night’s revelations making the silence tense. With a nod Severus stepped back, and Ava cancelled the spell. Turning to look at the house again Severus sighed. This is a bloody nightmare. Black magic wards hiding a secret child in muggle fucking Surrey.
“Can you check if there’s Animagus wards, Ava? I’d like to get a glimpse of the exterior before we go in.” Nodding, Ava quickly cast again.
“You’re good, Sev. People always seem to forget that one. I’ll Apparate back to mine, just two doors down, come directly in when you’re through checking. We’ll figure this out.” With that, she cracked away into the night, and Severus seemed to melt into the shadows around him, his animal form skulking through the side yard and around the back of the house.
Roughly an hour later, while Ava was hunting through one of her warding books for references on blood based schemes and drinking her second cup of tea, Severus Apparated violently into the living room of Number 6 Privet Drive. Outwardly calm, his emotions were roiling.
“I brushed up on my understanding of floriography after you owled me. What’s he’s growing there, with the wards around the place and the amount of blood I smelled about, both buried there and just in general… No child should be living in a house such as that. He’s practically screaming for help, if I understood the message. They have to be abusing him.” Severus paced to the armchairs in front of the fire place and sat, Ava sending a cup of tea floating over to him. Ava studied the stony man for a moment.
“Severus, can I ask how-” “No. You cannot. It’s not relevant at the moment, and truthfully I can’t say how this could have- how he could be-” Severus broke off, once again ratcheting down his Occlumency shields, and taking a sip of tea. “I will discover what has happened in time, but first we must see about getting him out of that house. I’ll be going to the goblins tonight. They’re neutral in all wixen issues, and they might be able to clarify some things. I’d appreciate you watching over the house for a bit, I don’t know if my almost crossing the wards earlier would have signaled anyone. I hope I can be back in the morning, but I’ll send a message either way.”
“Of course, Sev. He’s a sweet kid, and it’s late enough now I can’t see anything really happening tonight over there, but I’ll keep watch regardless.” Standing, Ava banished their teacups back to the kitchen, and handed Severus the jar of Floo powder she had tucked into the stones of the mantle.
With a rushed dash of powder and a flash of green flame, Severus left for Gringotts. Hopefully the goblins there would be able to help.
HARRY POV
While Aunt Petunia was in a good mood over the compliments she’d garnered from the garden society ladies, Uncle Vernon was quiet and tense. He didn’t like all the attention the boy had brought to them, even if it was only with flowers. Not wanting to look at the boy or think of him at all, Vernon waited just until Harry had finished preparing dinner before throwing him into the cupboard, locking him in for the night.
“You should know by now not to draw notice, boy! You’ll be silent in there until I think you’ve learned something.” Harry waited until the door was latched closed before wiping the spittle Vernon had spewed at him from his face, finally relaxing his shoulders from where they’d been hiked around his ears since that afternoon in stress.
The Dursleys considered the cupboard to be not only Harry’s room, but a fitting punishment for the child they hated having to house. If they knew that it was really the only place in the house Harry felt comfortable, despite how cramped it was, they would probably make him sleep in the shed. But it was comfortable to him, in a way. Harry had noticed years ago something very odd about his little cupboard; after a horrible evening where Petunia had struck him on the head with a pan for burning something, and he was locked in while bleeding quite profusely, Harry felt himself getting very claustrophobic. The pain in his head made him think the walls were closing in, and it felt like every small sound was screaming in his mind. Feeling overwhelmed and frightened beyond belief, Harry had pushed his bloody hands hard into the back wall of the cupboard, feeling like he had to push away the wall and sound, to make it better. With a pop of pressure that seemed to come from deep in his bones, Harry felt like the cupboard was suddenly quite a bit larger and quieter than it had ever been, and he passed out.
The following morning, when he woke sprawled across a wide floor, Harry panicked, thinking he’d fallen asleep in the bathroom. Sitting up carefully, his head still a bit achy, Harry was hypnotized by the sight. His cupboard under the stairs, normally about a meter by a meter and a half in size, was now about the size of the downstairs bathroom, probably about three times the size it was last night. It looked the same, mostly, with the wall being slanted for the stairs for a bit, but it seemed that the ceiling was a bit higher, and he could move back into the new space several paces.
When Petunia came and unlocked him from the cupboard later that day, Harry was in a tizzy over how he might explain this strange event. But Petunia hadn’t seemed to notice anything different about the space at all. And later, when Dudley had pushed Harry into the cupboard, or Vernon had thrown him in for some offense, neither of them seemed to see it either.
So, with his expanded little room that seemed far more comfortable than it rightfully should be, Harry had a secret place he could be safe. He filled it up with plants and his crafts and trinkets he found outdoors, like curious stones or dried flowers and pinecones. He was able to scrounge up and store away many of the books that Dudley had been given for gifts and had thrown out instead of reading. His favorite rescued book was about a small creature that lived in a hole, and would go on a grand adventure.
Harry liked to imagine he was one of those small creatures, living in his quiet not-so-tiny cupboard under the stairs, and that one day he’d go off on an adventure, leaving the Dursleys and Privet Drive behind for good. It was a nice dream, one Harry thought hard about that day his garden was trooped through, and he was finally noticed by someone, someone that could just tell what his flowers were trying to say. Maybe Mrs. Cole is magic, like Gandalf the Grey, Harry thought with a silly smile, sorting through his pile of castoff clothes from Dudley, trying to decide what he’d make next. Maybe she’ll come back, and take me away to some lovely forest where I’ll meet all sorts of other magic things, and never ever have to come back here. It was a nice thought. A lovely wish that Harry felt deeply. If wishes were magic, then maybe it would come true.
Far from Privet Drive, in a beautiful castle on a dark lake, was an office packed to the very rafters with countless dancing, swirling, and bobbing trinkets. Each one had its purpose, some magic affixed that made them dance about in merry chaos, but they were all to monitor something. One such gizmo, high up on a shelf packed with books and feathers and even an old hat, had moved in spirals for years and years, no change at all in its pattern. It didn’t look like much, just an ever-moving muggle top, shine worn down to a dull pewter. Really it wasn’t extraordinary at all, except for what it was supposed to be monitoring.
Without the notice of anyone living the top just stopped, standing up still and perfectly balanced. It held that way for hours and hours, precariously perched. The office, empty of its owner at that time of night, had no human eyes to see it wobble. No real witness to see it start up again with its spinning, now in reverse, just as the sun rose. No one to see that on that day, something new had started. Something that wasn’t watched and planned and monitored just so, with all the moving parts decided decades ahead. Something that might just, like the top, be able to reverse things from the path they were on.