As Potter is to Snape

Chapter 25

"We can keep a secret, Harry," Seamus said as if he were offended.

"Yeah," Dean added, "you can trust us."

Harry looked over to Ron who nodded as he took a seat on his bed, across from Harry's, and pulled Scabbers from his pocket where he had been hiding and let him roam around the bed.

"Alright, well, around the beginning of summer, I ran away from my relatives' house." Harry tried to say only enough to get his point across but without saying much about the Dursleys. "They didn't really want me there anymore. And I guess the Ministry did some sort of investigation and decided that I would be better with someone else. So I got a new guardian the next day, and I've actually been living with him ever since."

"So what's the big secret, then?" Seamus asked. "You got a new guardian. Is he better than your relatives?"

"Loads," Harry answered.

"Well, that's good then!" Dean added. "Aren't you happy with him?"

"I am, but-" He trailed off and Ron shook his head.

"You'd better just say it, Harry. They're going to find out anyway."

Harry took a deep breath. "It's Snape." He mumbled, just barely loud enough for them to hear.

Neville was the first to react. "Professor Snape?" He squeaked, his eyes widened in shock.

"As in the bat of the dungeons, Professor Snape?" Dean asked.

"Rotten luck, mate." Added Seamus glumly.

"It actually hasn't been that bad," Harry tried to assure them just as he had tried to do with Ron and Hermione. But his other three dorm mates weren't nearly as accepting.

"It's probably just an act," Seamus was saying. "He didn't look any different to me during the feast."

"How would you know?" Dean asked with a laugh, "You didn't look up from your food even once."

"Well, he is different," Harry spoke up before Seamus had a chance to say something else. "But you won't really notice it because that's the secret. No one can know that he's my new guardian."

"Why not?" Asked Neville.

"Because it would be dangerous if people found out. What if old followers of Voldemort-" Harry ignored the shivers and gasps at his name, "found out that I was living with him? It would be the same no matter who I stayed with. I'm dangerous to be around." He finished with a sigh.

"Well, I'm not going to say anything." Ron quickly agreed.

"Thanks, Ron."

At that, the others also agreed to keep the secret, though they were less than enthused. They talked for a while longer, asking about each other's summers and such, but ultimately coming back to the subject of Harry and Snape and how he was outside of the castle. Harry told them as much as he could about his time with his new guardian, leaving out the week that Draco had come and anything concerning what had happened with his relatives. He did admit to ruining his broom, and they all wondered how they would fare at the quidditch matches without the use of it. Eventually, though, they all wandered over to their respective beds, and curtains were pulled as the room darkened around them.

***

It was late that evening after Snape had made his beginning of the year speech to his house and after he had set the new Slytherin prefects the task of helping the first years get settled, that Snape had had the chance to really plot what he wanted to happen to the Dursleys. Specifically to one Vernon Dursley. He hadn't decided as of yet, but as he picked up a handful of floo powder from the mantle above his fireplace, he was sure that he would come up with something adequate once he got there. He would floo to the Manor and from there he could apparate to Privet Drive.