Snape strolled downstairs at his home at Spinner's End, wondering if he should get a new bookcase for he had more books than he needed or maybe he could just move some to his quarters at Hogwarts?

But he had little on his mind as he entered the living room and sat in a comfortable armchair with a book on Dark Arts in defensive forms and once he'd turned the first page and found his place, there was an odd sound outside his window.

Drawing his wand, the cautious Death Eater-turned-spy stood and made his way towards the sound as the sun was setting and surely no child would dare to be out this late or to throw rocks at his window? The last time they'd done that he'd had snowballs chase them down the street. But it wasn't snowing outside and the sounds there too faint to be rocks.

Snape moved a moth-eaten curtain aside and his eyes went wide as he recognised her outside. He rushed around to the nearest door and flung it open just in time to see the white blur fly past and land on the back of his armchair.

"Hedwig" He said, seeing her more clearly now.

"Lumos" He said and his wand lit up as he didn't care for the lamp in the corner but his blood ran cold as she screeched frantically and her feathery chest was covered in...blood.

Snape strode over to her and checked for injuries but found none. He winced as she bit him sharply and flew back to the doorway.

Somehow Snape knew what she was trying to do: get him to Potter.

Was he injured? Surely, for that was quite some blood and it was still wet even though Hedwig had flown through the chilly air to reach him.

Sparing no more time, Snape left his house, warded it hurridly and kept his wand out at the ready. Hedwig studied him for a moment and than flew off but Snape knew where to go so he spun on the spot and apparated to a street not far from Privit Drive.

--

The houses were all the same, and as he spotted Number Four he saw the Dursleys laughing in the kitchen at the table but the boys were not in sight. Hedwig flew around the back and Snape followed, watching as she pecked on an upstairs window were a light was on but there seemed to be no activity inside.

Snape scowled and concluded that one of the boys was hurt or else Hedwig would not have come to him, since she clearly trusted him to help her owner the same way as he had fixed her wing several weeks ago.

Snape gripped his wand and approached the back door of the house, afraid of what he might find as well as beyond worried about the boys...were they okay?

Snape raised his wand and the back door flew open. Hedwig flew in before him and swept upstairs, screeching the entire way and even though Snape had barely made his presence known...

"That ruddy owl!" Vernon roared. "I'll-"

"You'll what?" Snape growled as he entered the house and the three Dursley's froze.

"Get out of my house!" Vernon yelled but froze when Snape raised his wand.

"Severus" Petunia's eyes were huge and she seemed unable to move or say another word for she recognised the man that had grown from the young boy from her childhood that she'd hated.

Snape glared at them each before walking past and heading up the stairs with a swish of his cloak. He was unsure as to how injured the boys were and wanted to deal with that first.

He saw several closed doors and after finding the bathroom and than the main bedroom, he checked the next only to see a clearly spoiled child's room. Surprised that this wasn't theirs, he moved to the one beside it where Hedwig was pecking at the closed door anxiously.

Snape turned the knob and Hedwig flew in whilst he paused to take in the scene before him; Draco had his head rested on the side of the bed while he sat awkwardly on the floor and Harry lay on his stomach atop the same bed, his glasses cracked and still on his face.

Snape couldn't see how hurt they were or if they had simply fallen asleep. That was when he he saw the blood on the pillow and the tear trails on Draco's face.

"Nnn" Draco winced as Hedwig pecked at his good hand. "M'sorry" He mumbled, barely awake but then he jerked upright, sending a course of pain through his side. He yelped and clutched it before leaning over to check Harry, not once noticing Snape in the doorway as it was darker out now and the man hadn't moved or made a sound.

"H-Harry?"

"Mmm" Harry groaned.

"Are you still sore?" Draco gulped.

"What...you think?"

"Sorry, I just..." Draco's eyes trailed over to Snape as he noticed that the door was open and his eyes went wide. "Professor Snape!" He gasped in shock.

"What?" Harry mumbled from where his face was mostly buried in his pillow.

"What happened?" Snape growled, making the boys flinch and Harry tried to roll upright.

"Nothing" Harry said as he found his voice but could barely speak through the pain and it came out more of a hiss and wince.

"I do not have the time nor patience for your lies" Snape hissed. "Did your uncle do this?"

Draco bowed his head and nodded. "It's my fault, sir" He said quietly. "I broke Petunia's plate."

Snape couldn't believe that this was all the result of a broken plate but ignored it as the boys were clearly in pain.

"Draco, assist Harry. Where are your school things?" He looked around for their trunks.

"Downstairs...in the cupboard" Draco replied, still stunned at the sight of their potions master and was convinced that he was still out of it.

Snape left the room to retrieved the trunks while Draco helped Harry stand up. As he unlocked the cupboard under the stairs he heard the Dursleys whispering to each other and had to use every ounce of control he had not to go in there and hex them all to obliviant.

But as he retrieved the trunks and shrunk them to fit inside his pocket, he spotted an aged piece of paper that read "Harry and Draco's room" and his anger was becoming very difficult to keep under control.

Snape let Draco's owl out of his cage and then shrunk both his and Hedwig's cages before turning his attention back to the boys.

"Escort Harry through the backdoor, now!" He ordered Draco and the boys flinched slightly at his tone but obeyed with Snape leading the way.

Snape strode into the kitchen behind the boys, moving just in time to stop Vernon from charging after them. With a flick of Snape's wand, the beefy man flew backwards and crashed into a chair which crumbled under his weight. Petunia and Dudley screamed but Draco kept leading Harry out for he was beyond fearful of getting in the way...no matter how much he longed to watch.

"This is how you treat your own nephew?" Snape yelled at Petunia. "After what you witnessed when we were young children? And now you do the same horrid thing to them?" He narrowed his eyes to express his most deadly glare, one that only a few have lived to witness.

"Please...don-don't hurt us!" Petunia pleaded.

Snape raised his wand but fought it all the way, for he knew what was going on now...he knew what he'd overlooked and ignored for months. He was full of rage but it wasn't taking calming breaths that caused him to prevent a reason to be sent to Azkaban...it was guilt. He felt regretful for not ensuring that the boys would be safe, for ignoring the signs simply because they faded and for not taking them in to begin with...even if he knew he wouldn't have been able to.

--

"We are leaving" Snape stated as he left the house and approached the boys but wasn't sure how to get them to Spinner's End for all magical methods of transportation were rather risky and he had no idea exactly how injured they were.

"W-where are we going?" Draco asked, shivering slightly against the night air but it wasn't the cold that was causing his shaking; it was fear and the sense of feeling exposed.

"Hold Harry firmly and take my arm" Snape said and the boy obeyed, wincing as he spun on the spot and apparated them to Spinner's End for it was the only way he could get them there fast enough.

Harry let Draco go the moment they stepped inside Snape's house and vomited onto the floor from the combination of apparation and intense pain.

Snape magicked the vomit away with a sour look and lightly shoved Draco into an armchair nearby while he vanished Harry's shirt and examined the marks on his back.

"It was a belt" Draco said while Harry looked like he was fighting conciousness and humiliation.

Snape said nothing for he knew it had been a belt that had done this. He summoned a bunch of potions and forced them down Harry's throat before checking Draco over as well. Snape remained silent as he did his examinations and only handed Draco a potion for the pain and flicked his wand to have bandages wrap around his hand.

Then his attention went back to Harry and saw the boy's eyes falling closed so he quickly conjured a stretcher for him to fall backwards onto. He magicked it upstairs (which wasn't easy due to limited space, but he managed) and entered an empty room. Snape transfigured an armchair into a nice bed and lay Harry on it where he had fallen asleep from the dreamless sleep potion he'd been given.

Draco stood in the doorway while Snape fixed Harry up with bruise balm and bandaged his back and then transfigured his clothes into pyjamas. He turned to the second armchair and it too became a bed for Draco.

"Sit" He instructed and Draco did as he was told, startled by the sudden speech from the man and was still confused as to what was going on. But once Draco had seated, his shirt vanished and Snape applied a potion to his ribs, ignoring his wincing to the pain. Afterwards, Draco was instructed to lie down once he'd been given some dreamless sleep potion as well.

With both boys resting, Snape swept from the room all calm and composed but the moment he'd he entered in the living room, he cast a silencing charm and swore loudly. The amount of self-control he'd shown at that house was beyond anything he'd thought himself capable of...for five more seconds and he would have cursed those horrid muggles and earned himself a cell in Azkaban. Snape was overcome by guilt, regret and anger as he sunk into his armchair and hung his head, letting his hair fall downwards and curtain his face as he closed his eyes in order to regain himself once more.

His wand was placed out of reach on a small table beside him. Snape just ran through his mind the injuries he'd seen on the boys for there had been faint scars or indications that this had not been the first thime they'd been struck for anything. And Draco had said something about breaking a plate? That was the reason? Surely not unless the plate had been worth billions and the boy had thrown it at wall...but how could a simple plate convince that horrid muggle that doing this to the boys was justified and deserved?

Snape took a deep breath and got to his feet, taking to pace the room in order to prevent himself from apparating and properly lashing out at the muggles. But he wouldn't do that; he wasn't about to just leave the boys upstairs even though they were resting and his wards had just been replaced stronger than before.

Snape ran a hand over his face and used a breathing excercise to calm himself in the simular way that he did when he watched fellow Death Eaters torturing muggles.

He got to his feet and made his way back to what used to be his parent's bedroom while pocketing his wand and he pushed open the door slightly more, staring down at the sleeping faces of the boys.

Draco was rolled over on his good side so his back was facing Snape but he could still make out the peaceful look on the boy's face under the short fringe of blonde hair.

Snape glanced at Harry and felt a larger pang of guilt as Lily's son lay there on his stomach and one hand was gripping his sheets tightly. His face was in a slight frown but otherwise he didn't appear to be suffering too badly in his slumber.

Snape reached over and removed the glasses from the boy's face, mending them with his wand and then placed them on a small bedside table between their beds.

He stared at the angelic face and was quite astonished to see that without his glasses the boy looked a great deal more alike his mother and the guilt just came swarming back once again.

Unable to handle it anymore, Snape swept from the room and shut the bedroom door slighly ajar before going back to the living room miserably.

The first thing that Draco was aware of when he was pulled from subconcious was the fact that he was lying on something soft and after moving a hand to feel for Harry, his eyes jerked open and he bolted upright, looking around the room wildly. He relaxed when he saw Harry asleep in the bed across from him aginst the same wall as the door. He also was aware that his side now only felt numb and ached a little, but was much less painful.

Draco frowned and tried to recall that had happened but all he could remember was the guilt, the pain and the shock of Snape showing up...the rest was a blur.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he slowly made his way over to Harry's bed and crouched in front of it to stare at his brother and then he lowered his gaze to the edge of the bed.

"I'm sorry, Harry" Draco said quietly, not trying to wake him but still wished that his brother had heard him for he really felt terrible for letting this happen to him. "We promised to look after each other and I...betrayed you."

Draco rested his head on the bed, letting the sobs rack his form for a moment as he suffered from the regret of leaving Harry behind and then being powerless to help him afterwards.

After a few minutes of venting, Draco got up, wiped his eyes with his sleeve and took in the room's appearance more fully, seeing the dull brown walls and horrid carpet floor. The dust-clouded glass window was mostly covered by moth-eaten and torn, faded black curtains so Draco gazed away from that within seconds. Other than that they had their two beds, a chipped bedside table and a wardrobe with a partially hanging door on one side and the other door had a large crack from top to bottom as well as a missing doorknob. Draco had thought that his and Harry's room had been bad...but this place looked almost haunted.

Draco breathed out heavily and tugged at his pyjamas, whilst wondering where they had come from for they looked new and were dark silver with green buttons; how very Slytherin.

He glanced at Harry once more before deciding to check the place out and see where Professor Snape had gone to whilst hoping that he hadn't just abandoned them.

Draco walked to the door, opened it carefully and made his way down the stairs to find the man was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he had left?

"Not that I'm surprised" Draco mumbled and sat on a two-seater sofa and curled up with a ragged blanket, resting his head back to ponder on what was going to happen now and how the Dursleys were going to to react when they returned.

"Comfortable, Mr Malfoy?" A voice broke his thoughts and his head snapped back down as he jumped. Draco got to his feet hurridly and the blanket slid to the floor as he saw Snape standing there with a potion vial in one hand.

"Sorry, sir!" Draco replied and bit his lip. "I just woke and...wondered where you were."

"As it would seem" Snape nodded, appearing as he always did during his time as their teacher; indifferent and hard to read. "Is Potter awake?"

"No" Draco shook his head, worry overtaking his features again.

"Will he be alright? They...hurt him, for almost an hour sir" He lowered his head, ashamed.

Snape's eyebrows twitched in anger but he hid it quickly before he worried the boy even more.

"He will make a full recovery with the required amount of rest" He answered.

"Are you hungry?" Snape asked and Draco looked at him in surprise.

"I'm okay" Draco lied but his stomach grumbled at the thought of food and gave him away.

Snape raised an eyebrow and nodded towards the kitchen. "Help yourself" He said and turned his back on the boy.

"Um, thanks" Draco was finding it hard to take everything in but headed to the kitchen hungrily while Snape made his way up the stairs and into the bedroom.

--

"Harry" Snape said, seeing the boy was still resting but he had to wake him for his potion.

"Enervate!" He said and aimed his wand, bringing the boy from his slumber.

"Wh..." Harry sat up slowly and looked around sleepily.

"Drink" Snape commanded, holding the vial out to the boy, but he eyed with with suspicion and made mo move to obey.

"It is not poison, Potter! If I wished to kill you I would be more direct" He growled and the boy flinched before taking the vial and drank it down.

"Where's...Draco?" Harry looked around and Snape went to answer but the boy himself appeared at the doorway with his arms full of...was that his food? Snape crinkled his nose as he saw the fruit, raw vegetables and a box of cereal in his arms.

"What is that, Mr Malfoy?" Snape asked as Draco handed an apple to Harry and he took it.

"Food, sir...you said I could have some" Draco replied nervously.

Snape wasn't sure how to respond as he put all his efforts into restraining the urges to go and hex the Dursleys again. He moved his wand and the food flew out of the room to return to his fridge and cupboards downstairs in the kitchen.

"That is not food" He replied and swept from the room to prepare them something they should be eating that didn't look like it had been retrieved by a scavenger.

Harry looked down at his apple-less hand and sighed sadly.

"What happened?" He turned to Draco as the blonde sat across from his on his own bed and looked quite guilty.

"How...how did we get here? Where...?" His head felt a bit dizzy from confusion.

"Snape came and saved us" Draco shrugged. "This is his, erm...house, I think" He glanced around the room nervously until fixating his stare on Harry. "I'm so sorry, for everything!"

"It's not your fault" Harry shook his head.

"But I left you...I couldn't..." Draco hung his head. "Just accept my apology or I won't sleep ever again."

"Fine; you're forgiven for something that wasn't you fault" Harry said, sounding stronger now and sat more upright without needing the support of the bed or his pillows. "But what's going to happen to us now?"

Draco shrugged and lowered his gaze uncertainly. "I don't know" He replied and looked up again, seeing that Harry was mirroring his confusion, fears and curiosity.

Indeed, where to go from here? Surely Snape didn't want them there or wasn't going to let them stay?

If only the boys knew how wrong they were...