A New Snake

Chapter 14

         

Harry was very confused the morning before the third task when he came into the Great Hall for breakfast and saw Dumbledore talking with a few people at the Teachers' Table. But that wasn't what was strange. What was strange was the fact that who he was talking to was the Dursleys. Harry froze where he was walking on his way to the Slytherin table when he saw them. What were they doing here? They hate magic. They would never come here. In his peripheral, he could see the Twins holding Ron back from the Dursleys.

Lily arrived at his elbow, "What is it, Harry? Is something wrong?" That shook him out of his trance and as the four anomalies at the front of the Hall turned to him, he turned to Lily.

"It's nothing, let's just sit. We're drawing attention to ourselves." She nodded and together they made their way to their regular seats. Not a moment after sitting down, Professor Snape came up behind him as said he was wanted in Dumbledore's office. He looked back up to the front table and saw the four were no longer there. He nodded to his Head of House and bid his friends goodbye. He returned Hermione and Ron's concerned glances with a shrug and a resigned look. He saw that Lily noticed this and stood to sit with Hermione. No doubt to ask about it. But he couldn't worry about that now.

All too soon, he was in front of Dumbledore's door, spouting every sweet—muggle and wizard alike—that he could think of. The door opened and he made his way up the spiral staircase with caution. When he knocked, Dumbledore's voice answered, allowing him entry. Upon entering, He saw that Dudley and Uncle Vernon and had taken the two seats and Aunt Petunia was left to stand. He approached her.

"Hey, Aunt Petunia," They hugged. Harry nodded to the other two, knowing that talking to them wouldn't be a good idea. They waited a bit. For what, Harry didn't know until the Potions Master entered. He nodded politely to Petunia and downright ignored the other two.

"What did you need me for, Professor?" Harry asked timidly, worried about their company. He gingerly stood beside his aunt who had a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You are here, Harry, because your Uncle has asked if you could be schooled at home." Harry froze, his body stiff with panic. Hogwarts had become his home, he had gotten comfortable in his new house, and now he had to leave?

"I personally think that that might be the safest thing for you." Dumbledore continued.

"Safer?" Harry said softly, in a broken voice. "No, I won't. Hogwarts is my home. I won't go back."

Dumbledore ignored his protests, "You would, of course, finish this year. You can't drop from the tournament in the last task after all. If you dropped out at all, you'll lose your magic."

Harry scoffed, "I might as well if I'm going back there." He walked out the door until he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, then he began to run. He ran and ran, straight through the Great Hall where Breakfast was still going on, out the front doors, across the grounds until he collapsed against a tree just inside the Forbidden Forest. He hadn't known he was followed until he saw Lily, Hermione, Ron, the Twins, and his Head of House quickly moving towards him in his peripheral. He curled in on himself, back against bark and arms around his legs. He didn't cry. What good would that do? He learned a long time ago that crying only meant dehydration.

Lily reached him first, closely followed by Hermione. "Harry, what's wrong? What happened?" He only buried his face further into him knees. Professor Snape arrived soon after.

"Why is it so horrible for you to go back there, Potter?" He asked, genuine confusion and slight concern, of mixed with a bit of disbelief, showing on his face. Harry looked up at him, face turned pale from dread.

"Do you know legilimency, Professor?" The man looked taken aback, but nodded cautiously. "I can show you my life at the Dursleys, but you have to promise not to go snooping around." Again, the man nodded cautiously. He sat on the ground in front of Harry, legs crossed. Harry leaned tiredly against the tree.

Severus took out his wand, and Harry seemed to be getting his thoughts together, looking thoroughly uncomfortable while doing so. "Legilimens!" Severus was pulled into Harry's mind, but could only see darkness.

"Up, get up!" A voice shouted from what sounded like behind a door or a wall. He heard locks unlocking. A small light hanging naked from the ceiling was turned on, and the man turned to see a child who could have been no more than five years sitting up from an old mattress from a baby's crib. He found himself in a very small room. Cobwebs hung from every corner. On the walls hung pictures drawn with—he assumed—the stubs of crayons on the floor and small pieces of enveloped with a bit of grease or old pieces of food here and there. They'd probably been fetched from the rubbish. He heard the small door beside him unlock, and the small boy, wearing clothes far too big, with a messy haircut and broken and taped glasses. He combed through his hair with a broken off end of a comb and the man saw the confirmation he was dreading. There was a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. The boy was Harry Potter. He watched the boy pull a good sized spider from his holey pair of socks before putting them on and putting on an over-sized pair of shoes.

As he was about to leave, two pairs of elephantine footsteps went down the stairs—which Severus had assumed was above them considering the shape of the ceiling. Young Harry waited until they had passed before he carefully made his way out. Severus followed him to the kitchen where he began preparing breakfast for his three relatives. On the counter beside the fridge, was a long list of chores titled "Potter's Chores" at the top. Everything on the list was hard, strenuous labor. He couldn't imagine most adults being about to complete any one of the tasks in a day without hurting themselves. Not to mention, a lot of it was outside and it was snowing heavily in addition to the foot of snow already there.

The memory changed. Harry was nearly eleven. He was trying to hide a letter with a Hogwarts wax seal from his cousin. Vernon snatched it, saw where it was from and ordered the boys out. The memory flashed through what happened in the next few days up to the moment Vernon decided to leave the house.

Again, it changed. This time, to Harry's second year. He had a small bedroom filled with broken things and unused books. There were bars on the small window and many locks on the door. At the bottom of the door was a cat flap, before which sat an empty bowl and spoon. In an owl cage, which held Harry's owl Hedwig, sat soggy vegetables at the bottom that the owl refused to eat. Just seeing this was bad enough, then he turned and saw the boy wrapping up what must have been an infected sting of some sort. He wrapped it with an old t-shirt. Nothing to clean it and nothing to aid the healing process. Severus threw himself from the depths of Harry's memories.

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