Harry Potter and Something to do with Ravens

The next morning Harry did not receive a return letter, but that was no surprise. He had just sent the letter the night before after all, and it had been rather late.

So, Harry did not get a return letter that next morning. Which made running right into a tall man on his doorstep all the more surprising.

“Hello, you must be Mr. Potter.” The man in black sneered.

“I must be. Who’re you?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“My name is Severus Snape. I’m a representative from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You requested a guide.”

“Do you have any proof? No offense, but stranger danger and stuff.” Harry shuffled his feet a bit at the man’s glare but held strong.

Snape gave a long suffering sigh and pulled a roll of parchment from his pocket, along with the letter Harry had written the night before. He handed the roll of parchment to Harry.

‘Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to receive such a quick reply and have provided a guide, Potions Master and Professor, Severus Snape.

Looking forward to seeing you on September first,

Headmaster

Albus Dumbledore’

Harry looked up from the note. Snape was a tall man with a crooked nose and shoulder length - greasy - hair, his clothes were of high quality but were worn, as if they had seen a lot of use, and his pale yellowed skin was the only break from the dreary black. He reminded Harry very much of the boy in Mr. Moony’s stories - Snivellus Snape - and Harry couldn’t help but hope that they were not the same person, because that would mean many things that Harry did not want to be thinking about in the face of this intimidating man. But, with the way Harry’s luck had been running of late, they were most likely the same person and he would hate Harry for knowing about it, or something else of the idiotic like.

“Well then, hello Professor.” Harry handed back the note.

“I hope you do not need anything, I would prefer to leave as soon as possible.” Snape sneered down at him.

“Nope, I’m ready to go.” Harry said, trying to subtly goad Snape into walking away from the house at a faster pace.

The subtlety fell a bit flat but Snape picked up the pace regardless.

“We will be taking muggle transportation so that you can make your way on your own next year.” Snape informed him as they walked down the street.

“Was that the plan the whole time, or did you just decide that?” Harry asked.

“Excuse me?” Snape whipped his head down to glare at Harry.

“Well you aren’t exactly dressed like a guy who planned to take the tube to London, sir. You look more like you’re heading off to some field somewhere to FLARP or something.” Harry shrugged at Snape’s glare, Harry had a few too many glares directed his way on the daily to be bothered by it at this point.

“What, exactly, is a Flarp and why would the way I dress suggest such a thing?” Under all that anger Harry could hear genuine curiosity, something that he found to be a rare quality to find in others.

“F L A R P, it’s an acronym. People dress up as knights and sorcerers and stuff and hit each other with like sticks and pretend to do magic. I don’t know much about it, I was reading about Basilisks on the library computer and-”

“Basilisks?”Snape interrupted.

“Yeah, it’s a mix between a chicken and a serpent and is supposedly hatched by a cockerel from the egg of a toad, but that’s not the point.” at this point they had reached the train station and had to take a break from their conversation to get tickets and board the train to London.

“Anyway, like I was saying, I was reading about Basilisks on the computer and I ended up falling into a wikipedian loop, and luckily the computer froze around twenty minutes in, but the screen froze on a page about FLARPing.”

“What does FLARP stand for?” Snape cut in.

“Fu- Freaking live action role playing. It’s like live action role playing, or LARPing, but hardcore. So maybe they wouldn’t use wooden swords, they’d use really - alibiet sh-terrible ones, but they’d probably be made of real metal. I saw that sometimes the people pretending to do magic will use smoke bombs and fireworks to make it look like they’re really doing magic.” Harry didn’t even realise that he was talking a mile a minute at this point.

“Speaking of smoke bombs, they’re really easy to make, you know. Not that I’ve ever made any, of course,”

“Of course.” Snape sneered.

“All you really need is like a soup can, some sugar, some potassium nitrate, a fuse, and just like stuff for cooking the insides.” Harry continued, unperturbed.

“You do realise that homemade explosives are illegal right?” Snape looked at him with a very odd mixture of emotions on his face.

He looked impressed with the smoke bombs composition, angry that Harry was making smoke bombs and that he kept talking, curious about something, and sad about something else. Harry felt that that was entirely too many emotions to feel at once, honestly.

“Actually, smoke bombs aren’t considered explosives. As long as they aren’t loud and they don’t bother anyone or the environment their perfectly legal. If, for some reason, I really needed to make a smoke bomb I wouldn’t even need to have an adult buy me any of the supplies. Maybe the saltpeter would provide issues, but in a pinch you can just pop some broken up ping pong balls in a soup can and light the fuse. I’m thinking that if you planned to throw it you would need some kind of semi flammable binding material to hold all the pieces together and keep ‘em in the can..” Harry trailed off thinking of what he could use for such a thing.

Snape waited a few minutes to see if Harry would begin talking again, when Harry continued to stare at his lap and mutter unintelligibly Snape pulled out a potions book and started reading.

Once Harry had come to the conclusion that bees wax, or something similar, was the best solution he looked up to see Snape making marks in the margins of the book he was reading while scowling.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked.

“Going over the book I require you to buy for class.” He replied without pausing his marking or looking away from the book.

“Why?”

“Because most of it is wrong.”

“Then why’re you making us buy it?”

“It’s the best you lot will be able to understand. I’ll probably just write the correct version on the board...” He appeared to be saying that last part to himself.

“May I see?” Harry asked hopefully.

Snape looked at him critically for a moment before he sighed and waved his hand over the book, closed it, and handed it to Harry.

Harry opened the book back up to the first page, he spent a few minutes reading the book and Snape’s additions in the margins before Snape cleared his throat.

“Wait a sec,” Harry angled his body and the book away as he quickly flipped back a few pages and then turned back to the page he had just been on, “You say to crush the beetle shells with you blade, the book says that certain metals bring out certain properties, and the potion needs a bronze blade, so are you saying to crush them with the blade... Is it because it would activate certain properties of the beetle better that the pewter, because the pewter is a neutral substance so it wouldn’t mess the potion up, but it wouldn’t help, right?” Harry turned and looked up to Snape, who looked flabbergasted.

“Or is it the act of crushing between two surfaces? The book says that there’s a difference but it doesn’t explain it. A difference between the mortar and pestle and the crushing it with the knife, I mean.” Harry continued, curios as a cat.

“I- it’s both actually.” Snape managed to force out passed his shock.

Harry returned to the book after a few seconds more of reading he reached blindly for the backpack at his feet and pulled out a spiral note book and a pen where he began to start writing down notes.

Snape peered down at his notes and saw that he was mainly just copying down Snape’s own comments and where they had been located.

“What are you doing?”

“You said the book was wrong and from what I can see you’re right. I know I’ll probably remember all this stuff in the margins, but I’d rather not have to test that theory out when I’m making a highly volatile potion within five feet of another living breathing human being, thanks. Killing a kid in my first class sounds like it might be a bit of a bummer.” Harry was too busy trying to write quickly and legibly on a moving train to worry about being polite to a future teacher.

“I imagine that it might be, yes.” Snape mumbled, seeing to go into his own world.

It was quiet besides the scratch of Harry’s pen and the sound of the other people on the train for a long moment. The train began to slow and then stop. The other passengers rushed to be the first one’s off, and when the madness had died down Snape and Harry stood at the same time and made their way off the train. Had either of them been paying attention to the other they would have thought that their similarities were odd and disconcerting, as it was they only realised that they were still together when they both jolted from their thoughts and looked around faux calmly for the other. Only to realise that they had never separated.

Snape then took the lead and wordlessly made his way out of the station and into another, this time to catch a subway train closer to their destination.

After they had boarded the second train of the day Harry returned to his copying, while Snape kept an eye on the people surrounding them in the crowded subway car.

After a few moments Snape felt Harry tug on his sleeve. He looked down to see Harry holding out his note book.

‘We can’t talk about magic right?’ Snape nodded. Harry took back his notebook and gave his own nod before continuing with what he was doing. Though this time Snape took notice of the way Harry kept an eye on all of the other passenger, including himself, using his peripheral vision whilst he read.

At the next stop a man came and sat down next to Harry, sending him a tight smile. Harry immediately closed both books in his lap and handed Snape the potions text, he then scooted a few inches closer to Snape and sent the stranger a small smile.

“The stop after next is ours.” Snape told Harry quietly.

“Cool.”

The strange man seemed to settle a bit after the train started moving away from the station. He relaxed and got comfortable, resulting in his knee brushing - barely - against Harry’s. The boy tensed and pressed himself as close as he could to Snape without actually touching him.

It was then that it came to Snape’s attention that Harry hadn’t touched him once, not that that was something he would have welcomed. Harry had grabbed his sleeve, once, but he had yet to actually touch him. He also noticed that he had not seen Harry so much as brush against someone, in the short amount of time he had payed attention to the boy he had seemed to sway just slightly away from every person they passed. To casually avoid touching anyone else so thoughtlessly - he had been reading a book for Merlin’s sake - spoke of a long period of time spent avoiding physical contact, months or years of it.

The train slowed to a stop once more, and just before the doors closed a heavily pregnant woman bustled onto the train slightly out of breathe. She looked around the crowded subway car and, when she found no open seats, grabbed tightly to the pole closest to her. The woman was obviously out of breathe and in pain, but no one got up to offer her their seat. A look of disappointment flitted quickly across Harry’s face.

“Excuse me miss,” Harry called out, “Would you like to sit down?” He stood and when the woman approached he moved so that he could help the woman sit down.

Snape was shocked to see the boy show such compassion for someone else. James Potter would have laughed at the women at this age. He was also shocked to see him so readily touch the woman to help her. Had he not spent almost a decade as a spy he would have doubted himself, thought he was just over thinking the boys actions. As it was Snape could see that Harry seemed to be more at ease now that he was standing - now that he could run.

“That’s one sweet kid you got there.” The woman smiled at him.

“He’s not mine.” He replied blandly.

“Thank you.” Harry said, smiling cheekily from in front of them.

Snape wasn’t exactly sure which of them he was thanking, but the gleam in his eyes hinted at his words being a dig at the future professor.

Snape wondered why it was that the child seemed to be completely at ease with his back to the half of the train, and then he saw that the entire car was reflected perfectly in the window across from them. He noticed Harry had his hand around something in his pocket. Snape couldn’t convince himself that it was something as simple as a touchstone to help him handle the crowded train, no, something told him whatever the boy had was a bit more on the dangerous side. Maybe it was all the talk of homemade bombs earlier. Maybe it was all the things he had seen the boy’s father hide in his pockets.

Their stop came and Snape was sure to keep a close eye on the boy’s hand. Trust James Potter’s son to find a way to get a weapon in the suburbs. Hopefully it was just a pair of scissors or something of the like.

Harry noticed Snape take an interest in his hands, but he couldn’t bring himself to take his hand away from where it was clutching Willow like a lifeline.

They made their way from the station back above ground. They passed a burger joint, a bookshop, other completely normal stores, and then Snape latched onto his shoulder and dragged him into an alley next to a nasty looking pub.

“What do you have in your pocket.” Snape demanded.

“I don’t know how magic schools work, but I know that teachers in muggle schools are mandatory reporters, so if that’s how you lot do it then you might want to retract that question and be content in your plausible deniability.” Harry said.

“Give it here, now.” Snape said coldly, holding out his hand.

Harry paused for a second before shrugging and plopping Willow directly into his palm. Snape looked disgusted for a second before he recognised the snake, and the fact that it was alive, and all of the blood drained from his face and he held himself perfectly still.

“Mr. Potter, please tell me this is a joke.” Snape whispered.

“No way, this is Willow. Willow, this is Professor Snape. Be nice, I think he might be about to cry.” Harry had a smile on his face the whole time.

At the sound of parseltongue Snape’s eyes widened dramatically, and if it hadn’t been for the snake - Willow - in his hand he might have flinched.

“Take her back right now.” Snape hissed.

“Oh, that was almost parseltongue!” Willow commented, rising up slightly and giving a hissy laugh.

“Don’t scare him, come here.” Harry held out his hand, but Willow wound herself around Snape’s hand quickly.

“Only if you give me a snack. I’m hungry.”

“She’s such a diva, I swear...” Harry dug around in his bag for a second and pulled out a small jar.

“Grasshopper or a salamander?” Harry reached in and looked at the snake expectantly.

“Salamander!” Willow hissed excitedly.

Harry removed his hand from the jar and in his hand he held a live salamander. Before Snape could react the snake lunged and snatched up the small amphibian and had started to work on swallowing it. Harry reached over and grabbed the snake and deposited it on his shoulders.

“Sorry about that Professor, you did ask for it though.” Harry took a couple shuffling steps away from the tall man and seemed to hunch in on himself.

Snape raised his hand to run it through his hair - the hand that hadn’t held the snake - and as he did he saw Harry tense as if waiting for a blow.

“I hope you don’t plan on walking around with that thing on your shoulders while we get your things. We’ll have to deal with enough attention as is.”

“What do you mean?” Harry tensed further.

“I mean you’re the precious Boy-Who-Lived, as I’m sure you know.” Snape sneered.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Harry asked, starting to anger.

“Oh, don’t play dumb. I know you’ve been living like a prince. Precious Prince Potter riding the wave of celebrity from mummy and daddy-”

“Ex-fucking-cuse me? ‘Precious Prince Potter’ my left arse cheek!” Harry snarled, recoiling as if he’d been burned.

“Oh, please. What, did your relatives take away your dessert for making smoke bombs?” Snape sneered down at Harry.

“Take away dessert? I have to work twenty hours a week to get enough money to buy myself enough food to survive! I’ve had to work for everything I have! My Aunt didn’t even buy me these glasses until the nurse threatened to call child services! My relatives,” He spit the word like a curse,”Have done absolutely nothing for me! Not one thing in their miserable lives! I would have been better off being left in the fucking gutter than with those - those- those freaks!” Harry practically screamed the last word.

Snape opened his mouth to speak, but Harry beat him to it.

“I have to fail all my classes, but not enough that the teacher will want to talk to my relatives! No, that would be encroaching on their precious Dudderduddydunkin’s time! I have to pass, but never better than him. I have to let him copy my work, but I’m not allowed to do my work until I’ve done my chores! I can’t do my chores until I finish ‘detention’ - which is just my cute little way of lying so I can work illegally for some fucking child molester ass motherfucker with a fucking fucked up face! Oh, and I can’t complain because every bite of food I take should have gone to that whale they have masquerading as a child! Everything that they give me I need to earn, because it should all be Dinkydollydudder’s! Not like they get money from the fucking government, not like they get monthly stipends of over three hundred pounds! I work for everything, and it should all be mine anyway! I should be Precious Prince bloody Potter, but I’m not! I’m the weird-o bibliophile that’s too damn scrawny, and too quiet, and too skittish, and why don’t I play with the other kids, and why would I pick on the only kids that were nice to me? ‘Oh Dudley, he would never hurt a fly, yeah that’s him now. Ain’t he cute? Lighting the wings of butterflies on fire sure is a healthy and wholesome hobby to have isn’t it? What do you mean he was the one to beat up those poor boys? No that was definitely you Harry Weighs-Less-Than-30-Kilos-Soaking-Wet Potter!” Harry was pacing up and down the alley yelling and waving his hands around. He turned and pointed at a shell shocked Snape.

“I have no fucking clue what the bloody Boy-Who-Lived is and I don’t give a flying fuck, but you can rest assured that what-bloody-ever twisted you’re knickers like that, with your ‘riding a wave of celebrity’, is probably a crock of lies! Because the closest I’ve ever been to famous is being renowned around school for being the most bullied kid in existence!” Harry finished, breathing heavily.

Snape had almost never been more grateful for a silencing charm in his life. Almost.