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“YES, Mr Potter? What do you want?”
The child had been impossible in class, arrogant and stupid, just like his father, and now here he was standing in the empty classroom rather than just escaping with the rest of the firsties and Severus felt his guts coil and grip, knew his face was sneering with the rage that filled him, how dare the child stand there as if he had a right to -
“What did I do wrong sir?”
Entire train of emotions and thoughts crashing to fiery ruin Severus asked, “What?”
“I’m ever so terribly sorry for what I did but, if if if you tell me what it is I promise not to do it again, like like like breathing wrong, I’m sorry really I am, do you have a book or instruction list maybe on how to breathe properly? I never knew I was doing it wrong sir, no one ever told me but if there’s a right way then I’ll learn, sir, promise I will!
A short pause while Severus stared at what he now realized was a desperately frightened looking face, lip trembling as they started up again, “And I’m really sorry about not reading far enough ahead in my books. I did read year one all the way through cause it's boring in my cupboard but I’m so stupid.... I never realized I needed all the potions years of books.... I’ll get them somehow, I will sir and I’ll read them all just like you want…..”
To Severus' horror the child kept going! “I might not understand them though, I’m really stupid but I’ll try really hard sir, and and and do I need to do it for all my classes or just yours because potions seems really complicated, and special, it’s no wonder you don’t want me here, freaks don't get to do wonderful things like potions but its a class I have to take so you have to let me in so it’s no wonder you don't like me.”
“I’m so sorry, I can't fix that, I have to take your class!”
“But but but I could sit in the back and never ask any questions and work alone so my being so stupid doesn't hurt anyone else's grade, and I can read all the books over and over so I don’t make it awful to have me here or or or you could just put me and the books in the cupboard like at home so you don't have to look at me cause I know looking at me makes pe.... um…. people….”
The child wobbled on its feet and as if in a nightmare Severus asked, “Have you eaten?”
“Oh no sir, I didn't want to sick up in class.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes sir, terribly.”
“Just like your mother then.”
He was not expecting wondering awed eyes to fix on his face and a breathless little voice to say, “Oh sir, oh sir oh thank you sir, I never knew that. Now I have something new about her to remember at night, I never knew she got sick from nerves like me.”
In sudden interest Severus asked, “What else do you know about her?”
Straightening, putting his hands behind him as if to recite in class the perhaps not so horrible child said, “I know she drank, and that she was selfish, and she died and left me to be a burden on good people, but now I also know she was really smart, had green eyes like my ones, and now I know she got sick when everything is all new and different and scary.”
The nightmare was getting worse now, Severus felt his heart and head pounding in a rhythm he hated, “Anything else?”
“No sir, sorry sir.”
“What about your father?”
Impossibly the child's eyes darkened, face twisting into a scowl, “I know he drank too, I know he was the one driving the car that killed them, I know he was selfish and horrid and awful but….” the child fretfully rubbed at his forehead and said, “Now I also know a dark wizard killed them, and that he was a wizard and it’s so very strange, should I still be angry at them for being selfish and leaving me to be a burden on good people or should I be sad they’re dead?”
“Because if a dark wizard killed them then it might not be their fault they died.”
Looking up from the floor Lily’s eyes stabbed right into Severus’ heart as the child asked, “Was it their fault they died or was it mine?”
His strangled sound must have been read as some kind of question because the child finished the job of killing him by saying, “Uncle Vernon always said it was my fault they drank and died, because I’m a freak and horrible so they drank to forget that for a bit and died, but if a wizard actually killed them was it my fault or was it theirs, cause if it was mine then I’ll go on hating myself for it, and them for leaving me behind when they died but if it was someone else's fault then I’ll start hating them instead.”
“Sir, are you all right?”
Fumbling behind himself Severus grabbed a potion, draining it all in one go, shuddering as it took effect, and then he handed a different one to the child, who said a polite “Thank you sir.” And drained it, at which point he realized he'd given the wrong bloody one to them!
“Oh, oh wow, oh sir, this is wonderful, I feel so much better now, look, my hands have glowy bits on them wheeeee look at them go!”
Suddenly realizing exactly what he’d given the student, Severus simply picked the stoned little thing up and carried him to his office, the child going utterly still and gripping his robes, face pressed into Severus’ neck.
When he tired to set them down in a tiny yet clear voice Harry Potter said, as if to try and pierce through the emotional divorcement potion Severus’d already taken, “Please may I stay here, I’m pretending you love me.”
Somehow he’d managed to give the child not a calming draft but liquid honesty, that indeed calmed but only as a side effect.
Non toxic and totally safe, the initial high swiftly fading, yet it was even more useful than veritaserum, in that it made you feel good, and happy to tell the truth.
“Does no one love you?”
The potion was already given, no reason to not take advantage of it, and he refused to feel bad about asking questions he needed the answers to.
“Oh no sir, I’m unlovable.”
Well, fucking ouch.
Still holding the child, Severus tried again, once he got his breath back from the gut punch that answer had been.
“What about where you live?” Because Albus had insisted the child was alive and well and being raised properly and it was all a fucking lie because the truth potioned child said with a giggle, “Oh no sir, Aunt Petunia hates me, because of how her sister went away and left her family behind because she was proud and arrogant and married some kind of mucky muck lord kind of person and then died like a selfish horrible sister would do and left her with raising me.”
“And uncle Vernon hates me because I’m a freak and weird things happen around me, and it costs money to feed and clothe and give me space and all I do is take take take and now I’m a super freak of a wizard and he’s gonna kill me maybe this summer, he's usually really careful to only hurt me in ways I can heal from on my own, but I don't think he’s gonna be careful anymore.”
“Dudley has the most reasons to hate me though cause I take his parents attention away from him and that's terrible! I used to try and tell him I didn't want it, was okay to hide me all the time in the cupboard but it’s not enough really to just hide, only if I disappear for always will it be good enough for him.”
“Can I disappear for always do you think? I’m magic so is there a spell I can learn to be invisible and no one to hear me either? I have money now so I could buy my own food oh, like a ghost, I could be a ghost who eats food, how terribly clever of me, that would be perfect sir oh sir thank you, I need to go find that spell, would it be in my books no of course not I need more books would it be in the library do you think or how do I buy books sir, I bet a book store would have it.”
His own potion utterly blown to pieces, strong emotions easily able to overcome the effects, Severus held the child as they struggled to get away, to find a spell to turn them into a ghost in their own home and said, “SPROCKET, I need something light for a child's stomach, please.”
The still struggling child froze as the house elf popped into view with a tray and said, “Hi, what’re you?”
“I iz beings a house elf young sir.”
“You have beautiful eyes, not freaky green like mine but pretty golden brown and so big, and your eyelashes are long and fluttery too, I like that. Can you hear really good you must hear really good because my new favorite person in the entire world just said your name and here you are how does that work did you have food all ready and just had to plate it up or did you make it from scratch with magic oh of course it's magic isn't it?”
The elf licked its lips in concern and left in relief when Severus said, “Thank you Sprocket, that will be all.”
“Oh nooooooo, I didn't get to learn all about them OH sir sir sir is there a book, cause books are so much better than people, I love books cause they never hit me or yell at me or anything, can I really eat it though, I don't usually get anything as nice as this are you sure I’m allowed?”
Having felt the thinness of the child's body now Severus had no doubts at all they didn't often get as good food as the others in that house did, he knew Petunia and Vernon of old, what he didn't know was why on earth Harry Potter was left with the worst possible….
Well, perhaps if he’d been placed with active death eaters it might be worse but only barely, clearly only barely.
His own vow to protect the boy was chewing at him now, but he ignored it to say, “Of course you may, at Hogwarts you are allowed to eat anything given to you or offered at meal times, simply don't eat too much at once lest you make yourself sick, you clearly have your mother's stomach as well as her eyes.”
“Will you tell me more about her sir?”
“Yes, but only after you slowly and calmly eat your lunch.”
Miso soup and a small chicken salad, light and easy on a stomach that must have been churning all night long, just as his and Lily's had done their first week, never mind their first night.
Watching the child eat was strangely satisfying, and when they were finished he had them lie down upon the couch, covered them up with the blanket he often used for quick naps and said, “Close your eyes and listen as I tell you all about your mother.”
It only took a single story, about Lily getting a cat down out of a tree when the were kids for the child to be deeply asleep, and in the cool silence of lunch time in the dungeons Severus began to plan, because he’d been lied to, manipulated and deceived.
And the child wasn't spoilt and happy, he was hungry and injured, mind and heart and body, starved of love and food and security and knowing his world and place within it.
Leaning back with a murmur of thanks for the cuppa that was thrust into his hands by Sprocket who looked at the child and asked, “Willz he beings alright now?”
“Oh yes, my friend, he will indeed be alright now, I vow it!”
Because what was the use of being who he was with the skills he'd spent a lifetime gaining if he couldn't save one small boy?
Settling into plan every step of his saving of Lily’s child, eventually Severus smiled, accepted the sandwich an said, "Sprocket, how do you feel about Japan?"
At the sharp grin of his little friend he nodded and said, "Pack us up Sprocket, make sure to get the boy’s belongings as well, both from here and his relatives home, and I’ll get an international port key made, I know just the safe house to aim for.”
And within three quarters of an hour, both Severus Snape, Harry Potter, and the house elf known as Sprocket disappeared utterly from Hogwarts, and remained untrackable, unplottable, and untraceable for many, many years.
Happy ones, because Severus made sure of it!