Just after midnight, Severus Snape and Harry Potter met eyes. Just after midnight, Harry Potter let out a rather undignified yelp and started to skitter away, and Severus Snape bared his teeth in an animalistic sort of fashion and started to advance. Harry was terrified. Severus was triumphant. Neither one particularly wanted to be in the hut on the rock, and neither one knew anything about the other except that the situation was dangerous.

Severus had longer legs than Harry, however, and one moves faster when walking than when skittering, so it was no surprise to either of them when Severus’ hand shot out and grabbed Harry by the collar.

Harry froze, not moving an inch, and looked up in fear.

“Wha—what do you want?” he asked in a whisper, and Severus almost snarled at the boy.

“You’re to come with me, Potter,” Severus spat, taking cruel pleasure in the look that was blooming in the boy’s wide eyes, “—And I’ll thank you to keep that ignorant trap of yours shut, if you haven’t anything intelligent to say.”

The boy paled and the man smiled dangerously. Harry gulped. He was being kidnapped, like that movie Dudley had been watching in the hotel they’d been in before the hut! He shifted to his knees—the pressure from the collar of his shirt was hurting him, though he made no move to flinch away. “I—go with—sir, please, I don’t—they wouldn’t pay anything.”

Severus blinked once in confusion, then tightened his grip on the boys shirt. “What are you on about, you ignorant boy?”

“The—The Dursleys, they wouldn’t—they’d never pay a ransom.”

The man let out a sharp bark and curled his lip. Harry trembled.

“Isn’t that just typical of a Potter?” Severus spat. “Ransom—you really think you’re that important?”

“N-no,” Harry said softly, equal parts curious and frightened. “But why else would I have to go with you?”

Severus jerked on the boy’s collar and Harry got to his feet quickly. The man reattatched himself to his shoulder, gripping him harder than Uncle Vernon normally did. He seemed about to toss out another biting phrase, but thunderous footsteps from the other room made Harry’s heart sink. Uncle Vernon had awoken.

Severus stared as the largest Muggle he had ever seen and snarled. He didn’t have to deal with the lump. Dumbledore had sent him to deal with the brat only, so Severus wasted no time in producing a wand, which had the effect of making the blobby man’s eyes cross, and stunning him, all without loosening his grip on the whelp’s shoulder.

Harry looked at Uncle Vernon with half-terror, half relief. The man seemed to have just crumpled to the floor, and Harry severely hoped he had been sleepwalking. He darted a look at the man gripping his shoulder.

He was tall, taller than Harry by far, which wasn’t very difficult, but still. He had long hair, for a man, that was greasy and limp and hid his face from view. Harry tugged at his fringe, wondering if he could grow it that length and if that could hide him, if his uncle came looking. Then he looked at the expression on the mans face and decided that, if people left him alone, it was due to the dangerous glint to his darkened eyes and the freezing scowl that made Harry’s back shiver. He was dressed funny, Harry noticed, underneath his cloak. He had on what looked like an old fashioned, poofy-sleeved shirt, vest and trousers, but with a lot of buttons and in very dark colors. He looked a little like the man in one of the videos Dudley rented—the one with the flying car. The man who caught children. It had been Dudley’s favourite movie for a few months, and Harry had always been slightly frightened of the child catcher, which made him even more scared of the man who had a grip of his collar.

Snape’s lip curled as he looked the boy in his grip over. He was short, shorter than Potter had been when they started Hogwarts. Part of him was whispering that he was really was only a little boy and that the reason he was so much smaller than Potter was because he wasn’t really Potter, but Snape silenced that voice with an ease born of years of practice and continued his study. He was impossibly grimy, especially around the face, probably due to sleeping on the floor, and his glasses were askew. One of his eyes had a rather severe bruise on it, while the other looked wide and scared. His hair was rakish and scruffy, worse than Potter—it made Snape clench his teeth, when the boy reached up and fiddled with a tuft of it, as if he were trying to ruffle it in that same arrogant manner as his father. He reached out and slapped the boys hand away and he thought (maybe even hoped) that he would be hurt, or surprised—surely no one dare touch perfect, precious Potter that way! But the boy just pulled his hand down quickly and lowered his eyes to the floor. Snape bit back a snarl.

“False humility will get you nowhere with me, Potter,” he snapped, and a part of his mind wondered if he should find some way to make a distinction between the two—Potter the Father and Potter the Son. But he would rather die than call a Potter by anything but his surname, and Snape thought idly that it didn’t really make a difference—there was no need to make distinctions, he thought, between two people that were so alike that they could be the same.

Harry was confused and scared and so he just stared at the floor and nodded and darted a quick look to Uncle Vernon. Half of him wanted his uncle to wake up and pull him from the stranger’s grip, but another was pleased and relieved and, well, agreeable to leaving him there on the floor. He looked up at the stranger again and weighed his options. He could stay there, with the Dursleys, the only family he could remember—Harry privately wondered if his lack of memory of his parents was because of the frequent cuffs to the head—or he could leave, with a stranger, which they were never supposed to do.

It couldn’t be much worse than the Dursleys, Harry thought, but then bit his lip and retracted the statement. He had a place to sleep and a roof over his head and food, most of the time, at least, and he was getting an education and it wasn’t all that bad except that Dudley teased and Uncle Vernon knocked him up a bit and Aunt Petunia never said one kind word—well, the Dursleys were an alright situation, he guessed, and the only real problem was that they didn’t like him.

Of course, this man didn’t seem to like him either.

He looked up again and almost squeaked in terror at the look the man was giving him. He took a shaky, slight step backward that did nothing except make the man tighten his grip on the boys shoulder.

“I—I think I should stay here, sir,” Harry said quietly.

The man bared his teeth—the most ferocious Harry had ever seen—and Harry’s eyes widened—wider than Snape would have thought it possible for human eyes to go—and gulped.

“Too bad, Potter,” the man said, and Harry felt the grip on his shoulder tighten so that he though his arm might just fall off and suddenly there were colors all around him and he felt nausea rise in his throat and his stomach like when he hadn’t eaten for a few days, and everything was spinning and spinning and spinning and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe deep, but it was hard—

And then he didn’t know anything else until he landed.

He felt his legs give way underneath him and he fell to his knees, looking at the bottom of the mans odd pants, with loads of buttons and funny, button up boots, and Harry suddenly knew that—

“I’m going to be sick!” he gasped out, his face a sickly whitish-green, and he promptly threw up all over the man’s shoes.

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Harry had always known the Dursley’s didn’t like him. It was a little hard to miss, with the chores and the cupboard and everything. It used to bother Harry, but now he expected it as a fact of life. As sure as the sun would rise tomorrow, no one ever liked weird little Harry Potter. Not the Dursleys, not his teachers, not the kids. The only one who ever seemed to vaguely care for Harry was Mrs. Figg, an old woman who lived near him and took care of him whenever the Dursleys went anywhere, and Harry privately thought that was because she couldn’t remember who he was all the time and was just content to pretend he was her son or grandson.

No, Harry was under no delusions that no one on earth except for batty old ladies liked him. But this was something quite different. The man with the cloak not only didn’t like Harry—he hated him. And Harry was terrified.

The Dursleys looked on Harry as something that was always in the way, always, even when he was doing something for them. And when things are in the way, you get them out of the way, which they did, though never in a permanently disabling way. They just tucked him away in the cupboard, or pushed him out of the way, or told him in no uncertain terms to move. Harry felt that if the man had to get him out of the way somehow, he would probably be blasted out of the way rather quickly with that stick he had used on Uncle Vernon.

Harry remembered the look on the man’s face after he’d thrown up on his shoes—disgust. Anger. But most of all, hatred, as if Harry had been ill on purpose, which he never was—he was rarely ill at all. His eyes had made Harry want to run away as fast as he could, and if he hadn’t been so weak kneed, he would have. Instead, he cringed and muttered apologies and pulled into himself so he presented a smaller target and also to ease his still churning stomach.

The man had glared and spat out some funny sounding words and waved the stick and Harry had wondered if he was going to hit him with it—he started to dart out of the way, but the man grabbed the scruff of his neck and suddenly there was a flash of blue and all the sick was gone from the mans boots. Harry found himself being shoved into the arms of a kindly looking woman.

“Set him up in the room next to mine,” the man had snapped, and strode off, still radiating anger.

The woman had been kind, at least. She had taken Harry up to a room with a fire in the fireplace and a warm bed that was just for him, and had run the tap and tutted over him as she stroked his face with a warm cloth.

“Och, the poor wee laddie,” she had cooed in a funny sort of accent. “Was tha’ your first time Apparatin’?

“Appa—appy what?” Harry asked weakly. The woman let out a disappointed noise.

“Apparatin’, boyo, when you poof from ‘ere to there by magic.” Harry had just looked at her and wondered if he was dreaming, or if he’d cracked his head.

“I—magic’s not real,” he whispered, but he didn’t know if that was true anymore and he felt lost and scared.

The woman let out an outraged cluck and bundled him into a hug. “Oh, the poor little pigwidgeon! Raised by Muggles, his first time Apparatin’ wi’ tha’ no good Professor—“ she gave him another hug and smiled. “Well, don’ ye worry, it’s all over now. What’s your name, duckie?”

Harry looked at her and gave her a small smile. He’d never been called ‘duckie’ before. “Harry,” he said shyly.

“Well, Harry, I’m goin’ to fetch ye some night clothes and then I’ll leave ye to some rest.” She ruffled his hair and then made a dead stop, staring at his forehead. He wondered if he’d gotten another bunp there, or if she’d just never seen such a queer scar.

“Blessed Virgin Mary,” she breathed. “Are ye—“

“That will be enough, Priscilla,” came a cold voice from the doorway, and Harry paled and the kind woman merely stammered and edged away.

The tall man looked down at Harry, his face like stone except for his eyes, which were blazing and terrifying. Harry swallowed and stood up.

“I want to go back to the Dursleys,” he said, his voice shaking. “Please.”

After all, he may not be liked there, but at least he wasn’t hated.

Snape ignored him and started to talk. “I will no longer brook any disrespect from you, Potter,” he said icily. “You will address me as sir, or professor. Tomorrow I expect you to be awake, washed, dressed, and ready to leave the inn by eight thirty. The sooner I’m done with this the better.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Harry said, his voice getting a little stronger, fueled by fear and a little anger. He’d just been taken from his home, probably drugged or something, and that—it wasn’t nice! He felt tired and his head pounded and all he wanted was his cupboard and to be making sausages tomorrow for the Dursleys. Better, he decided, to know where you stood and have the necessities than not know anything. “Please, let me go. I don’t want to be here!”

“What did I just tell you, Potter?” the man spat, and he took four steps forward until Harry started to faintly shake.

“S-sir,” Harry said belatedly.

The man assessed him for a moment, then turned and left the room. Before he left for good, however, he turned back and gave Harry a withering look.

“You will find, Potter, that I do not dote on rude, arrogant, stupid, selfish little boys who don’t know their place. And, on this little adventure—“ he said the word like it meant journey to hell, “—if you cross me, you will not enjoy the repercussions.”

He left then, and closed the door, and Harry waited a moment too long before running to it and pulling at the handle. As if by magic, it melted in his hands, and Harry pounded on the door for a few minutes before giving up and going back to his bed.

He stared at it for a few seconds, then crawled under it and took off his shoes. He fell asleep there plotting ways to get away from the professor the next day.

He wasn’t with the Dursleys anymore, and he wasn’t going to let that man take him anywhere. He was on his own now, he supposed, and that meant he had to look out for himself. No more playing it meek so that he wouldn’t get in as much trouble. No more trying to see what the man wanted. Harry was going to do one thing—survive.

It was what he did best.

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Severus had never hated one person more than he hated Potter. He was all Potter’s now, his mother and father’s worst traits all meshed into one intolerable being. He was seething—he was fuming—he was about to go into the room next door and rend the child limb from limb. How dare he! How dare he?

After pacing his room angrily for about ten minutes, he went and let some of his anger out on that worthless maid and the boy himself. Then he returned to his room, drank a good half a bottle of Firewhiskey, set the bed curtains on fire (they were red) and kicked the bed seven times. Then he collapsed into a chair, staring into the fire, and wondered what the hell he was doing with a spoiled little brat on some damnable mission from Dumbledore, drunk and with a fierce headache and the faint smell of vomit in his nose.

He wished he’d brought the Christie novel.

Something wasn’t fitting right here, he knew that. He sensed it in the back of his mind, some little things that he just couldn’t put his finger on. It made him antsy and uneasy and he took another shot of Firewhiskey to make those niggling little thoughts go away. After a few more shots, the fire was pleasantly blurry in front of him and all he could think of was the years of revenge he had to take out on Potter.

After all, he thought with a sharp smile, it was what he did best.