Chapter Text
The street was painfully normal.
Severus Snape stood at the end of Privet Drive with his black cloak snapping in the warm summer wind, glowering at the rows of neatly trimmed hedges and identical, boxy houses. He loathed the suburbs. Everything smelled like desperation and lawn fertilizer.
But nothing was quite so repulsive as Number Four.
He stared at it a moment longer, then crossed the street and rapped on the door three times.
A pause.
Then four locks clanked, a bolt scraped back, and the door opened to reveal a horse-faced woman with a pinched mouth and small, suspicious eyes.
“Yes?” she asked crisply, staring at his robes like he was something the cat had dragged in.
Severus gave her the smallest of sneers. “Petunia Dursley?”
She stiffened, recognition dawning in her eyes.
“You— You’re one of them.”
“Astute as ever,” he said dryly. “I’ve come for the boy.”
“What?”
Her voice sharpened into a screech.
Severus stepped forward without asking. “Harry Potter. Where is he?”
Petunia blanched. “He’s in his room.”
“He has a room?” he asked skeptically, his black eyes narrowing.
Her face twisted. “Well, he—he does now. We—he’s upstairs, second door on the left.”
Snape didn’t wait. He swept past her, up the stairs, and found the door she’d mentioned—though the first door on the left had a dozen locks and a cat flap. A cupboard.
Of course.
He paused for one second, jaw tightening, then knocked on the second door.
Nothing.
Then, very softly, “Yes?”
Snape opened it.
Inside was a small, bare bedroom. A bed with a thin mattress. A desk with a stack of old, dog-eared books. A trunk already packed and neatly arranged. And a boy—small, slight, with too-big glasses and messy black hair—sitting very still on the bed, as if uncertain whether he was dreaming.
Emerald green eyes met his.
Harry Potter stared at Severus Snape with something more complicated than awe. It was… hope. Cautious, fragile hope, like a candle held against the wind.
“You’re Professor Snape,” Harry said quietly. “You teach potions.”
Severus blinked. “I do.”
“You’ve brewed Elixir of Life. You wrote the footnote in Advanced Potion-Making, Year One.” His voice was still soft, but fast now. Eager. “You told the Ministry that Wolfsbane Potion could be adapted with centaur bark instead of belladonna, didn’t you?”
Snape froze.
Harry flushed, looking down quickly. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I read a lot.”
A long pause.
“Quite,” Snape said finally. He stepped further into the room, eyes narrowing slightly. “Are you ready?”
Harry looked up. “You’re taking me away?”
“Yes,” Snape said shortly. “Headmaster Dumbledore has asked that I keep watch over you and prepare you for school.”
Harry’s expression lit up like a sunrise.
Snape looked away before it could strike him too deeply.
“Grab your things, Potter.”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy moved quickly, slipping on a faded coat and lifting the trunk with practiced ease. As they descended the stairs, Harry paused only once—at the foot of the cupboard beneath the stairs.
He glanced at it.
Then at Snape.
Snape said nothing, but his jaw twitched.
When they stepped outside, Harry squinted up at him. “Are you going to take me straight to school?”
“No. You’ll be staying at Spinner’s End until the school year begins.”
Harry didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask about where it was or whether it would be safe. He simply nodded.
“Will I get to learn over the summer?”
Snape glanced down. “What sort of learning?”
“Potions,” Harry said immediately. “Magic. History. I’ve read all my textbooks already, but I want to understand how things work.”
Snape stared at him for a long moment.
Then, very slowly, he nodded.
Harry smiled—and the quiet brilliance of it, bright and real and almost painfully grateful, twisted something in Snape’s chest he hadn’t felt in years.
“Thank you, Professor,” Harry said.
He meant it with his whole heart.
And as Severus led the boy away, he found himself already wondering—perhaps against his better judgment—what Potter would be capable of, now that someone finally gave him a chance.