Harry is seven, seven and small, and so very very hot. It’s mid August, the sun is hot and strong upon his neck, sweat runs down his back and soaks his T-shirt. He’s helping Uncle Vernon prune a tree, a thunderstorm knocked a branch out of the big live oak on the line between the Dursleys property and the Hoomplys, and Mrs. Hoomply called and demanded they fix it, and Vernon is in a filthy mood. The unusual heat doesn’t help, his mood is getting worse by the second, and he flings the pruning shears down and watches his nephew trying to drag the heavy branch to the curb by himself.

The idiot child succeeds, and comes back to finish up. Vernon folds the ladder up and directs Harry to take the end and carry it, quite forgetting the shears, and the little boy’s sweat glistening hands lose their grip and he falls hard, scraping the skin off his hands and somehow landing on the shears, giving himself a nasty gouge on the back of his thigh. Blood is running down the back of his leg, his hands are burning, and he looks at Vernon with huge teary eyes, wanting so much for his uncle to care.

Vernon notices Harry has dropped his end, and the man’s tiny supply of patience runs out. “What’s the matter with you now?’

Harry holds out his raw palms and whimpers. He hurts all over, and he wants his uncle to make it all better. Vernon snorts. He towers over the small boy and says slowly

“We took you in after your worthless drunken father and mother were killed. We fed and clothed you. We sent you to school. All we ask is you help out a little from time and time, and you -can’t -even -manage- that-successfully. Instead, you stand there whining like a crybaby over nothing.”

“But my leg is--”

“I don’t want to hear it. You’re as bad as your father, that’s what you are.”

Harry feels tears threatening. One runs slowly down his cheek, and he whimpers a little more.

“Please, Uncle, I’m sorry. Let me help, I won’t whine anymore, I p-promise.’

Vernon doesn’t even look at him. “Too late. Go on, boy, I can’t bear to look at you.”

In the cupboard, Harry blows on his palms while he sobs. He’s a bad boy, he can’t even help because he’s too stupid. No wonder no one likes him! He resolves to be better tomorrow, to be the best boy he can be. The pain is fading but he clings to it. It’s all he deserves.

XXXXXX

Harry couldn’t meet Snape’s eyes. He didn’t want to remember. The memories made him feel strangely itchy. He hadn’t intended to be so shamefully weak. He shoved the small bright sliver of pain the memory had evoked in him, the rage and helplessness, into a small darkened mental chamber and slammed the door with a resolving clang.

Snape watched as the child drifted, clearly debating whether to tell the truth. The boy’s face was like a blank sheet of parchment, his emotions ink carelessly dribbled all over. As he stared, the boy’s left hand drifted up and pinched hard at his right wrist, at the tender fold of skin near the bracelets of Fate. He seemed almost unaware he had done it. The pain calmed the struggle, and he exhaled and turned to Snape.

“I’m sorry, sir. I haven’t felt well lately and--”

Something in Snape awoke and growled. The boy was lying to him. He sat back and waited just long enough for the boy to squirm under his gaze.

“Tell me, if you would, Mr. Potter: How stupid do you think I am?”

Harry twitched in shock. “I-I don’t think you’re--”

“ Of course you do. Otherwise, you would never have told me such an obvious lie. Two lies, actually. You would have made for a miserable Slytherin, Potter. The first rule of lying is to never underestimate the person you’re lying to.”

“But I--”

Snape allowed himself a brief grumble of laughter. “Count yourself lucky, boy, that I thrashed you earlier. Else I would be doing so right now, for your sheer audacity.”

Harry wasn’t sure that ‘lucky’ and ‘thrashed’ belonged in the same sentence. What he was sure of was the fact that he was tired, and hungry, and sore. And angry. Snape had no right to dredge these memories up, to make him feel weak. He had no right to hit him. Most of all, he had no right in invoke Harry’s Mum, whom, he was sure, would never have allowed the greasy, smirking berk anywhere near her son.

“Why don’t you then?” The words spilled out before he could stop them.

“Why don’t you beat the living daylights out of me and send me away? I don’t have to tell you anything. You can’t make me, so why don’t you just SOD OFF and leave me ALONE?”

Snape listened to the outburst with stoic dignity. The boy was panicking because he felt cornered. Snape decided to indulge him until the end of the outburst, then said calmly “Very affecting, Potter. First of all, I have never beaten a child in my life. I simply gave you exactly what you deserved for your bad behavior. Second, I am under no particular imperative to, as you so crudely put it, ‘sod off’. I will desist when I feel you have answered me with honesty and respect, which issues I assure you we will address in the near future. Finally, you are behaving like a three year old, and since you cannot act like an adult, I see no reason to extend you the courtesy of treating you like one.”

Snape pulled his wand from his sleeve and gave it the merest flick. Harry was unable to move, unable even to speak. The body bind felt like being wrapped in the thick grey quilt of Dudley’s, on those occasions that Dudley and Piers had wrapped him in it before throwing him down and kicking him senseless.

Snape accio’d a vial of something lavender, with mellow flecks of mint green. Snape uncorked the vial and easily opened Harry’s mouth. “This, Potter, is Soothing Syrup, often given to children to calm them. Swallow it now, there’s a good boy.”

Harry wanted to be furious, but he felt far too pleasant. The world was hazy and dim, Snape’s voice was very far away, and he was pleasantly surprised to find he could move a little. His eyelids were like lead. He shut them, and within minutes he was sleeping.

Snape breathed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. The Soothing Syrup should not have made Potter sleep. It was becoming clear that the situation was not what it seemed. What to do?

He could let the little brat have his way. Snape, after all, had not stayed alive these long years by minding other people’s business. A curious Death Eater was more often than not a dead Death Eater ere long. Snape’s life was orderly, calm, predictable. His little house was not much, but it served his needs. He had a large library, a warm study, a life quite devoid of nasty surprises. Severus Snape had no use for surprises, nasty or otherwise.

On the other hand, Snape was not a monster. If Potter was hiding something harmful, he wanted to see that the boy got help. He would never voluntarily see a child hurt, never again, and this secret keeping was clearly making the boy miserable.

And he’d meant what he’d said. Lily Evans had been a fine woman, an excellent witch, and the first real friend he’d ever had. He could not think of her without a stab of grief. If he had once thought she might be more to him…time cures us of the idiocies of our youth. She’d married that insolent wretch Potter, who’d never been half good enough for her. He looked at the sleeping boy, who was curled in a fetal position, shivering. Snape transfigured a ruler into a blanket, and covered the child with it. The boy shifted and moaned. A nightmare was coming, Snape could tell. He’d had enough himself, after all.

Without pausing to reflect, he put a hand out and gently pressed his palm to the boy’s head. “Shh, Potter, it’s all right. Back to sleep.”

The boy twisted, and for a split second Snape recalled with heart breaking clarity the smell of Lily’s hair. Some kind of muggle shampoo, something that smelled like apple.

That decided him. He charmed the couch, to assure Potter wouldn’t wake and run away, then put a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace. “Dumbledore’s office” he said as it swallowed him.

He spared a last thought to Harry, trapped in the shell of his own mind, exhaustion staving off the inevitable nightmares. The boy would wake soon enough, and there would be answers.

Severus Snape, former Death Eater, spy, potions master, was on the prowl. Dumbledore was the first stop along the way.