Harry thought all the people around him were dumb. His name was Freak, not Harry. They refused to call him Freak. The blonde boy asked him again how old he was.
"Go back if I tell?" Harry almost cried as he asked the most important question in his young mind. Severus sat on the floor and gathered Harry into his lap. The boy allowed it out of fear.
"Harry, look around the room. Everyone here will protect and care for you. We are Slytherin and we take care of our own. You will never go back to that place. I adopted you but a bad man took you away and hid you. You will be safe here, Harry." Severus' voice was soothing and the boy had seemed to relax until the boy used accidental magic to hide from all the people. To be perfectly honest, everyone was expecting something but not what happened.
He had transformed into the tiniest little panther cub to grace humanity. The cub was still in Severus' lap but managed to scamper away and hide in a very small and tight place. The adult Slytherins left in groups to sort through legal and illegal ways to get their hands on the Dursleys. Most of Slytherin decided to camp out in the common room to keep an eye on the newest snake. They were gathered in a circular pattern outside of the small gap the little cub had bolted into. Professor Snape slept in a chair, watching over all of the students. They wouldn't leave the common room until Harry came out of the gap. Severus had excused all of his house from classes for an undetermined amount of time, not explaining why. No one even blinked at the absence.
A few days later, the tiny panther cub weakly made his way out of the gap, turning back into the little boy. A seventh year, Jack Harkness, scooped the child up, kissing the boy's head while another Slytherin summoned a house elf for food. The boy ate slowly from the center of the circle where he had been placed, eyeing everyone warily. They let him see how Slytherins truly acted.
Professor Snape picked the boy up when he stopped eating and placed him on the couch. Harry flipped out, begging not to be hurt. Apparently, he hadn't been allowed to sit on furniture ever. Snape managed to calm the boy before starting to heal him. Many of the Slytherins were more protective of the child after seeing the abuse. Harry had never felt like he wasn't in pain and he trusted the man who rescued and made the pain go away. He allowed the strange man to carry him back into the center of the circle and be on the man's lap, the strong arms making him feel safe. Somehow he knew that this man would never hurt him. He kinda felt like it was true about the people surrounding him. He fell asleep on Severus' lap, comfy and safe for the first time in his life.
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Second Chances
FanfictionHarry Potter, abused and used, is sick of the lies and the pain and the betrayals. He wants to die, knowing that he should have been in Slytherin. Maybe if he had been in Slytherin, he would have been better off. He had the poison made and ready. He...
