Chapter Text
1.
The first floorboard Harry stepped on creaked painfully under his weight. The second gave a whine not unlike a kicked dog. The third made Harry wince in sympathy. He had been thinking, on their way here, that it would be good to be as unobtrusive and as quiet as he could these first few days, lest Snape needed time to get used to having someone else in his actual house, but it seemed the house itself would make that impossible.
The stairs which he took to Snape’s childhood bedroom, now Harry’s bedroom, were much the same: loud. In the bathroom, where he went to wash his hands at Snape’s barked order, the tap gurgled and spat brown-tinted water. Harry had wanted to have a sip of it, thirsty after the journey, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was safe to drink.
The groans and creaks were a comment, he felt, on the sudden change. No one except Snape had lived here in more than ten years; of course the house would react badly to Harry’s intrusion.
‘Have you unpacked?’ Snape called from behind the bathroom door, which made Harry annoyed, because how on Earth was he meant to have unpacked when he’d just come upstairs three seconds ago?
‘No,’ he muttered, and then Snape told him to speak up, and he said no again.
‘Get on with it, then. I’m going out to get groceries. Is there anything you want?’
Harry wanted to go with him. He didn’t like the idea of being alone in a house that didn’t know him. ‘No.’
Behind the door, Snape sighed, as though Harry making no demands whatsoever was a display of bad manners.
With Snape gone, Harry explored the house. He peered into cabinets, he opened wardrobes, he ran his fingers against the grain of the peeling wallpaper in the corridor. In the kitchen, the cups and plates were all from different sets, making Harry think they’d been rescued from the skip or picked up at a charity shop. The fridge caved empty, and since Harry was still unconvinced about the tap water, all he could do was fill the kettle and tried to boil the colour out.
Snape didn’t have proper tea, just teabags. The sugar Harry found in an old mayonnaise jar was clumped into tiny rocks.
He sat on the stairs as he drank the tea. Limescale gritted in his teeth. It had been hot when they’d set out from Diagon Alley this morning, but the droplets of sweat on Harry’s bare shoulders had now begun to cool. A draught came through the house as wind gave a howl outside and the first drops of rain thundered on the cracked glass of the hallway window. Through it, Harry watched as the little street, grey and grimy even in the glare of sun, was sucked out of its colour. A man who looked like he might have been homeless bustled past, an old newspaper spread protectively over his head. The wind blew again, knocking over the empty bin by the side of the road. Two crows descended on it at once, visibly disappointed when no scraps of food came tumbling out.
Now it wasn’t just the floors that were creaking, but the walls, too. The whole house seemed to have turned on Harry, moaning and grunting and blowing cold air through the rooms, doors slamming and windows shuttering in its wake. Harry left the tea on the stairs and ran to shut the windows on the first floor before the storm could wreak havoc on the bedrooms, and this is how he discovered the chill was worse here, even once the windows had been shut. The walls weren’t real, he thought. He stared at the one by the side of his bed and squinted to see if perhaps he could look through the illusion onto the other side.
Shivering now, he remembered with a groan that his jumper was at the very bottom of the trunk he had still not touched. He made his way toward Snape’s bedroom to find something there he could borrow, but found himself stopping short, all at once unsure. Snape wouldn’t mind, one voice in Harry said. No, Snape wouldn’t have minded if Harry had helped himself to his jumpers back at Durmstrang, or even last night when they’d stayed over at the Leaky Cauldron, but those were rules for travelling. People who travelled shared shampoo and snacks and rooms, but normal people in everyday houses had each their own things.
Only Harry didn’t have his own things here. The plates and cups in the kitchen were all Snape’s, and the tea was Snape’s preferred brand, not Harry’s, and even the room Harry was meant to sleep in was Snape’s bedroom, some of his old books and toys still gathering dust on the top shelf, looking reproachfully over the empty space that had been made for him.
Downstairs, a lock turned in the door. A moment later, there was a thud as it slammed close, and then another when Snape supposedly dropped the shopping to the ground. He would have got soaked on the way back, and that would have only worsened the already foul mood he was in. Yesterday, as they made their way from Durmstrang back to England and then all the way to Diagon Alley, Snape seemed in high enough spirits, even when he got seasick and even when the room they rented at the Leaky Cauldron turned out to be haunted. But ever since this morning, he’d been curt and short-tempered and generally odd, and Harry knew he was acting the same but not how to stop.
He hesitated at the top of the stairs, trying to decide if he should go down and help put the groceries away. That was a thing you did, wasn’t it? Children were probably supposed to help put away groceries and set the table for dinner and such things, but were they supposed to do so without being asked, or wait until they were told?
He’d spent too long thinking, in any case, because Snape appeared now at the bottom of the stairway. The muggle shirt he wore was wet with rain. Harry made to move to the side and let him past to the bathroom, but then there was a crack and a muffled swear as Snape knocked over the mug of tea Harry had forgotten about. It spilled and fractured, a chip falling off with a clink.
‘Could you perhaps not leave out traps for me in my own home?’ Snape asked.
Harry fisted his hands tightly, telling himself over and over in his head that it wasn’t a big deal, that it was nothing, that it didn’t matter. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I forgot.’
Snape did not look at all happy with this answer. He cast a spell that got rid of the puddle and fixed the mug and even sent it back into the kitchen to be washed, which, as Harry reminded himself, was the normal thing to do.
‘Have you unpacked your things?’
‘No,’ said Harry, following behind as Snape pushed past him and went into the bathroom. He hadn’t closed the door, so Harry thought it was probably okay to stand by and watch him. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.
‘Then what have you been doing all this time?’
Harry shrugged. He looked at the floor. ‘Nothing.’
‘Having a conversation with you today,’ said Snape, ‘is like trying to get answers out of a muggle hedge.’
Harry tried for a smile. It didn’t quite work. He didn’t move from where he stood in the doorway, though really he should have: if he went into another room, he would not have to speak any more, and this was best because he had nothing good to say. He was afraid if he opened his mouth, whatever came out would make it very apparent that he hated the house and that he wanted to go home, wherever that was.
‘Well? Go unpack.’
Harry went. He stared at his trunk for some time, trying to feel out the shape of his problem and ultimately deciding he didn’t really want to think about it. He threw himself on the bed, which Snape had bought new—and why couldn’t Harry just be grateful and happy about that—and he took to mapping out the stains on the ceiling. Snape would have lain like this when he was Harry’s age. Harry wondered if he had hated this house, too, like Harry did now.
Thunder rumbled outside. It looked like the storm had passed them by, the occasional flash of lightning distant on the gloomy sky. Harry waited for Snape to come up and start on him for not having unpacked, or to call him downstairs for something, but he never did. Though Harry could hear him moving around, putting the kettle on and fiddling with the radio, it didn’t feel like it was Snape at all, only a haunting, and Harry was again alone in a house that didn’t want him.
In her cage, Hedwig gave a hoot. Harry remembered he was cold. He wiggled up the bed until he could pry the blanket from under his butt and fling it over himself. The corner caught his bare shoulder, ticklish.
Maybe Harry should have helped with the groceries. Maybe that was what Snape was upset about, and why he was ignoring Harry now. Maybe he was being punished covertly, alone in his room and not allowed to have tea with Snape or listen to the radio with him. It seemed a strange thing to do and Harry was almost positive it wasn’t the case, and that if he came downstairs of his own volition Snape would make him tea and would share the radio, but he couldn’t quite shake the worry, nor the terrible feeling he got in his stomach at the idea that he’d been here less than a day and already he’d managed to get on Snape’s bad side.
The skies had gone dark when Snape next appeared upstairs. He knocked on the door Harry had left ajar, and he asked, ‘Are you awake?’ as though he was speaking to someone infirm.
‘Yeah,’ croaked Harry from the bed. He sat up to prove it.
Snape peered inside the room, his eyebrows knitting. He sighed. ‘Tell me, Harry, how many times do I have to ask you to do something before you consider doing it?’
‘Huh?’
‘I have told you numerous times to unpack—’
‘What does it even matter—’
‘It matters because I am getting tired of repeating myself—’
‘Why do you care when I unpack? I’ll do it later.’
‘What I struggle to understand is why you cannot do it now.’
Harry got off the bed, stomped over to the trunk and kicked it open. Then, he fell to his knees by the side and began flinging his clothes out onto the bed with as much force as he could muster.
‘What exactly are you doing?’
‘Unpacking. Since you care about it so much.’
He could almost hear Snape grind his teeth. ‘No. Leave it. I’d prefer not to row with you on your first day here.’
He turned to go.
‘No, I’ll do it!’ Harry said quickly. The next T-shirt, he took out normally, and even folded it before placing it on the bed. ‘Look, I’m doing it, aren’t I?’
It must have come out whinier than he’d intended because Snape’s face darkened. ‘Will you stop acting as though I’m terrorising you?’ he demanded. ‘Leave the bloody trunk and come downstairs. We’re getting takeaway. I cannot be bothered to cook tonight.’
Snape ordered Indian, which Harry had never had. The Dursleys hadn’t got takeaway very much, and when they did, Harry wasn’t allowed any. The food turned out to be thick and spicy and buttery, and Snape had to keep refilling Harry’s water glass so he could keep up with the thirst it stirred in him. If Harry had been cold before, he was now sweating again. His favourite, he decided, were the long strips of a bready sort of pancake that came apart in his fingers and left them feeling sticky. He lathered them in the thick, spicy sauce, trying to catch it on his tongue before it dripped on the table.
This should have been exactly the sort of thing Harry had wanted. He’d been looking forward to the summer so much, he would have died of embarrassment if anyone knew—he’d been imaging how he’d arrange his new room, and how he’d find the best spot for his shoes by the front door, and how he’d do all these things with Snape that normal people did in their homes, like drinking tea and buying groceries and eating and whatever else. But now that it was happening, it wasn’t nice at all, not even the treat that Harry thought getting takeaway was surely supposed to be, and it felt like the two of them didn’t even know each other but had ended up in the same place by mistake.
There was a chip in Harry’s plate, which he worried with his thumb to give his hand something to do. He was done now with the food, but Snape wasn’t yet. When they’d eaten together at Durmstrang, Harry would have always waited for Snape to be finished before he got up and left, but that had been when he was just coming over for a visit. Now that they were supposed to be living together, the rules might be all different. What was the normal thing to do? At the Weasleys, everyone left the table whenever they wanted, but there were a lot more people there. At Moody’s, Harry mostly ate alone, and then he’d go do the dishes after. Was he meant to do that here, too?
Snape waved his wand. The chipped-off edge of the plate became smooth again, though it was still caved in a little. When Harry glanced up at him, he thought Snape looked embarrassed, and Harry felt immediately very stupid for having drawn his attention to the chip. He’d taken care, before, not to linger on anything old or damaged in the house, mindful that Snape might feel bad about it, and there he went, mucking it up in a moment of carelessness.
He cleared his throat. ‘I’m a little tired,’ he lied. ‘Can I go shower?’
Snape nodded. It was stupid, but Harry felt like maybe Snape hated him now.
Even if Snape didn’t hate him, the house certainly did. The moment Harry started the shower, icy cold water cascaded on him from above, making him stagger back and yelp loudly, the sound high and awful in the cramped little room. Snape ran upstairs to see what had happened and banged on the bathroom door like he thought Harry was being choked out by the shower hose. He sounded extremely annoyed when Harry told him he was fine.
‘You need to give it a moment,’ he instructed gruffly through the door. ‘Let the cold water out first, then go in.’
Harry did, though it took an awful long time. He didn’t stay in for long, having found he didn’t like having his bare feet on the bottom of the tub. It wasn’t dirty or anything, it just wasn’t Harry’s tub—and it didn’t even feel very much like Snape’s tub, either. When Harry looked at it, he thought only of Snape’s parents washing up in it once upon a time, their bare bodies touching the porcelain, their feet wiggling their toes as they stepped out onto the bathmat, and the idea of his body touching where some stranger’s body had before struck him as horrible.
The storm eased off but the rain did not pause. Harry lay in bed a long time, listening to Snape moving around the bathroom, and to the patter of rain on the windowsill, and he thought even the weather didn’t feel like summer at all. The dark of the bedroom pressed down on him as he tossed and turned, and slept briefly, and woke again to a room he did not at first recognise, and which smelled all wrong.
He glanced at the alarm clock on the desk. It was one of the old ones, set in brown plastic and with the little boards inside that fell to show a new time, like a departures board at a railway station. It was past one now. Harry’s legs and arms ached from the restlessness of this lying about. He didn’t think he could ever sleep again.
On tiptoes, he made his way out of the room and down the stairs. He wouldn’t risk putting the kettle on, but he was pretty sure Snape had brought home juice from the shops, and snacks, too. He would have a very quiet feast downstairs, maybe even turn the TV on if it was connected. At the Dursleys, he’d sneak out sometimes when they forgot to lock him in overnight, and he’d watch horror flicks and old black-and-white films on mute, making up the dialogues for them that he muttered to himself in a whisper. He remembered feeling very grown-up whenever he chanced upon a film Dudley would never have been allowed to watch. He narrated the most gruesome, horrible plots for those. He hadn’t done any of that in years.
Only when Harry came downstairs, he discovered Snape sitting on the couch, doing that very same thing.
What looked to be a made-for-TV action film cast a blue glow on Snape’s impassive features. Though he wasn’t actively narrating it, Harry thought it was still odd for Snape to be watching a made-for-TV action film in the middle of the night. Even odder was that he would do so with the sound off. Harry had always thought only children did that.
Snape must have thought it was odd, too, because when he saw Harry, for a moment he didn’t say anything.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Harry whispered. It felt wrong to use his normal voice.
‘No,’ Snape whispered back. ‘Me neither.’
He didn’t order Harry back upstairs, so Harry took a couple of tentative steps closer and finally sat on the couch next to him. He’d seen Snape in night clothes before, but it was a new thing to see him like this in his own house that wasn’t also Harry’s house. It felt like he was doing something wrong, breaking some unwritten rule, just by looking.
Staring determinedly at the screen, he tucked his knees close and nestled himself into a ball. It made him feel just a little better, like maybe he wasn’t going to cry, but then Snape put an arm around him, and Harry couldn’t help it anymore.
He buried his face under Snape’s shoulder to muffle the sounds, but in the silence of the night and the muted TV set it did not help very much. He hated everything, he thought, right now: this house, the rain, Snape, and the whole of this day because nothing was going like he had dreamed it would.
‘I’m sorry,’ he sniffled through the tears. His whole face was itching.
‘What for?’
‘Not—not unpacking when you told me to,’ Harry said. ‘And not helping you with the groceries, and forgetting the mug on the stairs, and shouting in the bathroom, and everything.’
Snape’s fingers tightened on the back of his neck. Harry shoved his hands under Snape’s arms and clasped them behind his back, thinking dimly that Snape couldn’t hate him if Harry was holding onto him like a small child.
‘Very few good things have ever happened in this awful house,’ said Snape. ‘It makes me angry to see you here. It is not the kind of place I would prefer for you.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ Harry argued weakly, cringing when Snape scoffed at this. ‘I mean, it’s nice that it has a TV. The Weasleys don’t have a TV, and Moody neither. And there’s a lot of really old things, like that alarm clock in my room, and that lamp there, and the really old toys and things—it has this vintage sort of style.’
‘A vintage style,’ Snape repeated. ‘You should consider a career in real estate.’
Harry sat back a little to wipe the itchiness off his cheeks. ‘This charming Cokeworth property,’ he intoned, ‘is equipped with, uh, a unique home security system—a set of extremely creaky floorboards have been installed by the front door—’
‘And should the burglar find his way in, mugs with scalding hot tea have been strategically placed on the stairway.’
Harry bit into his own wrist to stop laughing. On the TV screen, a woman in a lab coat was peering worriedly through a microscope.
‘Do you know what this film is about?’ Harry asked.
‘I have no idea whatsoever.’
‘I’ll tell you. If you want.’
‘Please.’
And for the rest of the film, Harry did, though he had to nudge Snape a few times and remind him to keep his eyes open.