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Dark limpid pools stared at him over Snape’s polished mahogany desk. The older man steepled his fingertips and said in a low and urging voice, “You can trust me, Mr. Potter. Tell me the truth - how did you get those bruises?”
“Playing,” insisted Harry. He hadn’t endured the Dursleys’ maltreatment for the past few months out of nostalgia. Harry couldn’t rock the boat, not one bit. His defeat of Voldemort in the first timeline had been sheer luck and he wouldn’t dare change things so early on, especially before he’d managed to get his bearings.
It had already been terrible luck that the Hat had Sorted him Slytherin this time around. Maybe Harry hadn’t chanted not Slytherin enthusiastically enough.
The Slytherin Head of House groaned in frustration. “We both know that’s not true. No child is mottled in bruises in various stages of healing from playing.”
Harry pressed his lips together tightly until they resembled a locked purse.
“Very well,” Snape said silkily. “I cannot force you to tell me, Mr. Potter, but know this: you are now under my care. No harm may come to you at Hogwarts and if you ever change your mind and wish to tell me the truth, my office is always open.”
-o-
Being under Snape’s watchful eye at Hogwarts was even worse than it sounded.
When Harry had first been Sorted into the serpentine House, he had assumed bullying would be the worst of his issues. He’d snubbed Malfoy readily enough on the Hogwarts Express and cosied up to Ron’s side as quick as you could say I missed you. The loneliness of Privet Drive had been the worst part of being sent back. Harry could still remember his friends in their aged up bodies, all in the same boat as him, fighting the bloody battle for Hogwarts’ very soul.
Now, it was just him. He’d faced down Voldemort and only had a moment of joy before the world had spun and he’d awoken in his childhood cupboard. Harry hadn’t had a moment’s reprieve before he was back to being skinny and helpless.
I’ll do better this time around, he promised himself, scared of a future without Ron and Hermione by his side. Ron hadn’t spoken to him after his Sorting and Harry didn’t want to paint a target on Hermione’s back. Alone at Hogwarts, Harry fell into his thoughts.
Maybe I can save Sirius this time. He felt guilty at the idea of not saving his godfather but he didn’t want Voldemort to win the war. How big was the butterfly effect of saving his godfather? How did the timeline work - was it rigid or flexible? It was years away and only yesterday but Harry couldn’t bear the idea of being responsible for dooming the world.
“Oi, Potter!” There was Malfoy, as much a prick as ever. He looked young too and that was disconcerting in its own right. “What are you staring at?”
Harry shook his head, already bone-tired. He wasn’t going to get into it with Malfoy this time around. He was too old for this shit.
“Hey! Look at me when I’m talking to you, Potter! Tarantalle-”
“Expelliarmus!”
Malfoy's wand went flying.
Snape of all people was the one to swoop in and save the day. He pocketed the boy’s wand. “You can collect that from my office later, Mr. Malfoy. You should know better than to start fights with your own House.”
Malfoy complained, his face flushed, “He’s not a real Slytherin, sir! He’s conned the Hat somehow and weaseled his way into our dorm!”
Snape raised a single unimpressed eyebrow. “If Mr. Potter had somehow convinced the Hat to Sort him into our esteemed House, is that not an incredibly Slytherin thing to do?”
Harry couldn’t help but laugh at that. Snape wasn’t wrong for saying that, despite all the other things he was wrong about.
Instead of giving him a detention for laughing out of turn, Snape offered Harry a tepid smile. Malfoy stormed off scowling and Harry imagined that he would seek out revenge against him as soon as he had his wand back.
“You didn’t have to do that, sir,” Harry remarked, neither grateful nor ashamed.
“And yet I did.” With nothing more to say, the dour potions professor strode off, gleefully taking points from a Hufflepuff for breathing too loudly as he passed her in the hall.
-o-
The first snow had fallen that morning and Harry was staring at the sign-up sheet for staying at Hogwarts over Christmas. His hand itched to write his name but he wondered if it was the best idea. Despite how awful it would be with the Dursleys, being at Hogwarts would give Snape more time to interrogate him and get under his skin.
For all their unpleasantness, the Dursleys gave Harry the protection of the blood wards. Further, they gave him anonymity over the breaks. They were so wrapped up in their own lives he could do almost anything as long as his chores got done and he stayed out of their eyeline. Terrible guardians that they were, their terribleness meant they neglected to pay him proper attention. Once Harry had decided on his plan for taking down Voldemort with as few casualties as possible, he could easily sneak out of Privet Drive.
What were a few bruises compared to the fate of the Wizarding World?
A few days later, Snape called Harry into his office for one of their face-to-face meetings. Sometimes they played chess together. Other times, Snape had him rewrite his potions essays. It was bordering on domestic and Harry couldn’t help but begin to feel a fondness for the acerbic potions master. Try as he might to remember the wicked Snape from the old world, in this one he was one of the only people who treated Harry with any kindness. His mind was old but his body was eleven and that left him susceptible to parental attachment.
I wouldn’t fall for his tricks otherwise, Harry told himself unsurely. He wasn’t that starved for affection, was he?
They were halfway through a chess match when Snape said, apropos of nothing, “You haven’t signed up to stay at Hogwarts yet.”
Harry didn’t say anything, preferring to focus on how he would stop his rook from meeting an untimely demise at the hands of Snape’s bishop.
“You are signing up to stay at Hogwarts.”
“Am I?” Harry said at last, looking up at Snape through his eyelashes. “I don’t think I am, sir.”
Snape gritted his teeth so firmly Harry could hear them creaking. “You can’t seriously wish to return to them, can you?” He said them as if the Dursleys were the scourge of the Earth and, sure, they weren’t the nicest, but they had kept Harry alive for the better part of two lifetimes.
Suddenly Harry recalled Snape's dark past. Yes, he'd been on the side of the Light in the final battle but that didn't mean he didn't hold bigoted beliefs, especially this early on in the timeline. “Just because they’re muggles-!” Harry said, offended.
“It’s not because they’re muggles,” seethed the professor. “It’s because you will return black and blue if not worse.”
Harry huffed. Snape was exaggerating. A few sore spots from Dudley's roughhousing or Uncle Vernon’s short fuse wasn’t black and blue.
“Please,” the man said beseechingly.
The word was weighty and it shouldn’t have done anything but Harry felt himself falter.
“Look, sir, I appreciate this.” Harry waved a hand between them. He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “It's good to brush up on my chess but you don’t need to feel like you owe me anything, okay? I really will be fine.”
Snape’s eyes were hooded and filled with the shadows of nightmares past. “I think you truly believe that, Mr. Potter, but I have seen such things escalate. I can’t imagine why you want to return to them." He paused. "If they’ve threatened your compliance just know that I can protect you.”
Harry swallowed dryly. An under nurtured organ in his chest came to life. An adult was promising to protect him from the Dursleys. All of a sudden he wanted to spill his guts and explain that he wasn’t doing this to be a martyr. He had to stay there. Harry was safe from Voldemort there and Voldemort was back.
“You’re not the first Slytherin to step into my office needing help,” Snape continued. “And I have helped them. Your situation is more complex, such that I have discussed it with Professor Dumbledore.” A dark expression overtook the man. “He can’t see past his own nose regarding such matters but if you just say the word, Harry, then I will do this for you. I will remove you from that house.”
“Professor Dumbledore says I should stay there?” Harry could put the dots together between Snape’s emotive ramblings. Distracted by the revelation, Harry fumbled his move.
Snape took his rock. The piece split in two at the bishop’s violent force. “What he thinks doesn’t matter more than your safety.”
Harry shook his head mildly. There was that funny feeling again like the rug was being pulled out from under him. Swimming in his stomach were ravenous piranhas and he winced at the sudden panic in his lungs. I knew I shouldn’t tell Dumbledore, Harry thought. I knew it would only hurt worse to know that he would say I had to stay anyway.
Harry had never told him in the old timeline and he wouldn’t in the current one.
“Thank you, sir.”
Snape’s lips parted for a moment, painfully hopeful. “So, you’ll stay at Hogwarts this Christmas?”
Harry shook his head and was summarily escorted out of the professor’s office.
-o-
It wasn’t even that bad as far as Christmases went. Aunt Marge was on holiday in Majorca so hadn’t gate-crashed the Dursleys on Christmas Day like she usually did to hoover up their chocolates and complain about Harry’s parentage. She wasn't there to encourage Uncle Vernon's more violent tendencies or demonstrate the proper way to use a cane. He stayed silently up in his room and pretended he didn’t exist, just like old times.
Harry managed to dodge Dudley’s fists for most of the holidays and wouldn’t even show up to Hogwarts with a shiner. Yet he still felt guilty under Snape's unerring gaze on the first night back when he ate his weight in Hogwarts fare.
-o-
“It’s only been a couple weeks and you’ve lost weight,” the man remarked, busying himself with potions vials on the stone countertop that lined the wall of his office.
Harry wasn’t sure he’d be welcome back after last time but Snape opened the door for him like they’d never had a falling out.
“Here.” He held out a Nutritive Draught. “This will help speed up the weight gain.”
Harry wrinkled his nose as he chugged the sickly yellow potion. For something meant to help his appetite, it sure wasn’t very appetising!
The next thing the professor handed him was a Bruise Salve.
Harry shook his head. “I’m fine, sir.”
“You don’t have to lie to me,” Snape said bluntly. “I can see you’re favouring your left leg. Is it your ankle?”
“My knee.” On one of the only occasions Harry hadn’t dodged Dudley's raining fists, he’d jarred it on the way down to the floor.
“Let me.” Snape came forward and Harry’s body flinched away. Fuck. An agonising moment later, Snape murmured, “I’m not going to hurt you, Harry.”
“God, I know that,” he laughed, solid as water. “It’s fine.” Harry stared at the wall while Snape rubbed salve into his knee causing the swelling to go down. “Are you done, sir?”
“There’s nothing else?”
Harry sighed. “Can we just play chess? Please?”
“Very well.” A solemn Snape brought out the board and Harry watched him set up the pieces. His heart thudded loudly in his ears, man-turned-boy still incredibly embarrassed by the involuntary flinch. Harry took a seat in the chair across from him and noticed the chair was softer than usual. The bastard must have cast a Cushioning Charm. “White or black?”
“White,” Harry said quickly, knowing by now to take whatever advantage he could get around the sneaky potioneer.
Mid-way through the second game, Snape broached the subject Harry had spent a lifetime avoiding, “I think part of you wants to talk about it. Why else would you show up to my office, bruised and battered? That’s practically asking me to send out the Inquisition for you.”
Harry scoffed. “I’m not bruised and battered, sir. I rolled my knee.”
“Are you seriously claiming it was an accident now?” Snape swiftly castled and then while he waited for Harry to make his move, he took a long sip of the Earl Grey he was nursing. “What next, you ran into a door?”
“I didn’t say that.” Harry made his own move. No matter how long he took to think, Snape always wiped the floor with him. He was almost as good as Ron had been back in the day.
The mood shifted, becoming something cloying and real. One thing Harry liked about Slytherin was the reliance on pretence. His Housemates were fine to play along with lies unlike the Gryffindors who would’ve called Harry on his bullshit.
Not Snape, though. Snape wouldn’t let this go.
“Why won’t you let me help you?” The question wasn’t angry. It was vulnerable. Snape sounded like a man who was dragged down by failure. “I don’t know what they say to you to make you think it’s okay but it’s not. Don’t you wish you didn’t have to go home to them?”
Fuck. I’m not going to cry. Harry resisted the urge to wipe at his burning eyes.
“You don’t deserve to be abused, Harry.” It was so earnest it made him want to throw himself off the Astronomy Tower. What a fool he’d been, thinking they could just play chess. Snape was evil.
“The blood wards,” Harry whispered, so quietly that for a moment he was worried that Snape hadn’t heard him.
“Yes, what about them?”
“The blood wards protect me,” Harry explained, trying and failing to sound reasonable while he was all choked up on wishing things could be different. “I can’t leave even if I wanted to.”
“Professor Dumbledore explained that to me too,” Snape confirmed, the chess game fully abandoned by this point. “I don’t see why sufficient warding cannot be reproduced.”
“They’re from my mum,” confessed Harry. He made himself small by rote, arms wrapping around his waist and knees pulling up to his chest. “They can’t be replicated.”
In an instance, Snape was out of his seat and kneeling in front of Harry’s chair. A hand stroked through Harry’s hair and the boy wasn’t eleven, he was seventeen and he’d won the war, but he didn’t pull away from the touch. Maybe I can pretend for today, he consoled himself, and tomorrow I’ll stop being selfish and needy.
“I will come up with something else,” Snape promised steadily, that hand so soft it made the tears he’d been holding back spill out. “There’s another way.”
“Voldemort’s back, sir,” Harry added, voice finding its footing. He wanted to give in and believe it was possible but he knew it wasn’t. Good things didn’t happen to Harry J Potter and this would be a good thing. So this wasn’t happening. Snape was wrong. He’d be back there this summer with locks outside his door and bars on the window, and this time, there’d be no Ford Angela to free him.
“Dumbledore told me that as well,” Snape murmured. “I stand by what I said. There’s another way.”
fin