“Severus Snape,” the unfriendly, though decidedly guarded, scathing voice of Petunia Evans, no, Petunia Dursley, spoke through the foot-wide gap between the front door and its frame.

 “Petunia,” the man said with a curt nod. “May I come in?”

The woman was obviously hesitant, glancing back into the house as if looking for her lump of a husband. A flicker of movement at the door drew her attention to Severus displaying the handle of his wand sliding past the sleeve of his left arm.

“Please do, and hurry,” the woman replied. She opened the door wider and felt Snape slide past her with a small breeze. Her eyes checked the houses on her street, hoping none of her neighbors had seen the man’s arrival. Seeing no twitching curtains, the woman stepped from the frame and closed the door firmly, sliding the dead bolt home into its slot.

Snape was standing in the hallway, appraising the pictures on the wall with visible disdain.

Petunia sniffed haughtily and walked around the man into the kitchen. She turned left to the sitting room, perching on the floral couch. Severus followed her and sat on the matching couch across the table. He looked out of place in his flowing black robes and greasy hair among the pastels and soft woods of the room.

“What is it you want,” Petunia asked. Her horsey neck was used to help stare disdainfully at the man.

“What I want,” Severus started, “is for you to explain why you did not keep to the Headmaster’s wishes in the caring for of Harry.”

The woman’s eyebrow rose. “What are you talking about? We took the boy in from the goodness of our hearts!”

“And you don’t think that caring for a child requires more than mediocre food, an overload of chores, harsh words, and harsher actions? I saw from the many pictures, of which Harry was in none, that you care for your own son very much. Was caring for one poor, defenseless little boy too much for your dried up heart to handle?”

Petunia snorted. “This is coming from you? Severus Snape, the boy who grew up with his own abusive father.”

“At least I had my mother, and Lily,” the man said, sneering.

“Well they cared until they died.”

“Even the fact that Harry is your sister’s son did nothing to you?” Severus questioned, his dark eyes blazing at the jibe to his past and his future.

The woman sitting across from him sniffed, perturbed. “Of course not; you of all people knew how Lily and I were when she was accepted into that school for freaks.”

“You couldn’t even put aside your animosity for the sixteen years Harry would live with you, to give him a decent childhood after the deaths of his parents?” Severus realized he was being hypocritical, but at least he hadn’t aided an unrelated man in the beating of a child.

“He was thrust upon us; neither Vernon nor I could understand why the boy couldn’t go and live with some other freaks. As if Vernon and I would want another child when we were so busy raising Dudley the right way.”

Remembering the sight of the fat child that grew wider rather than up as the years passed caused Severus to sneer again. “So raising a mammoth was your goal all along? I will be surprised if that whale you birthed lives until he is thirty; I would imagine his heart would give out from the stress of pumping such fat-rich blood.”

Petunia’s hand rose to cover her mouth as her eyes widened in horror. She tried to speak up, but Severus cut her down. “Where is Harry? It is time for him, and me, to leave this retched place. His black eyes cut through the room he was in, and he barely resisted a shudder.

Petunia sat strait, and she said, “He’s upstairs in the spare bedroom. However, I think he’ll be staying here, least that horrible man that keeps reminding me of my ‘duty’ to the boy comes back and wonders where he is.”

“Albus?” Snape questioned curiously. He had ignored much of what the woman stated, and had already risen to walk to the staircase facing the front door; he and Harry were leaving soon, if Severus had any say.

The head bobbled on the horsey neck, and Snape felt his skin heat up furiously. So the old man had known of the abuse Harry went through each summer, and yet he still had the boy kept here, under threats no less?

“Forget about Dumbledore. Show me where Harry is, Petunia, or I won't be slow to Imperio you.” Since she had had connections to the Wizarding World through her sister, Petunia knew of the dangers of the Imperious curse and was quick to stand. She stiffly walked around Severus, and mentally cursed herself at the timid creature she had become when faced with danger. As a child, Petunia had been the headstrong older sister, but had grown up when her father mentioned marriage to her.

Petunia’s head shook mournfully at her own changes her life had undergone as she stalked up the steep staircase. “He’s in there,” she told her ex-childhood friend, gesturing to the heavily padlocked door.

“Well, are you going to open the door?” Severus questioned.

“No; Vernon keeps the keys with him now. It’s a pity as no chores are done without his labor.”

Snape glared and pulled his wand from his sleeve. He waved it before the locks, mentally chanting Alohomora and ignoring the flinches from Petunia at the ease with which the door snapped open. The locks dully clunked together as they dropped from their bolts to the floor.

Severus ceased inhaling through his nose when he caught a thick whiff of metal from the room’s interior. Seeing the room was dark, he hastily lit his wand tip, again nonverbal. The blood smell got thicker as he advanced in the room. Severus saw the emaciated figure huddled on the bed, and felt his heart stutter with fear. Was the boy dead? He certainly wasn’t moving, even at the sound of magic as the locks hit the floor in seconds.

“Harry?” he asked the silent room, his voice echoing softly.

The form on the bed moaned and twitched, groaning in pain from the movement. “Oh, Harry,” Severus moaned out as he rushed into the room. He collapsed at the bedside of the not-yet fifteen year old teen and picked up one delicate hand in his own potion-stained one. “I’m so sorry, Harry. Dumbledore would not let me put the adoption papers through the Ministry, so you aren’t my son yet. He claimed the papers needed your signature first. I will do everything in my power to make you mine when we are out of here.” His body was overtaken by tremors; if he wasn’t a Death Eater of Voldemort, Snape would have been sobbing at the sight he was looking at.

Harry was bloody; his back, entirely visible because he had no sheets pulled up and had no shirt on, was covered with lacerations of different sizes and depths. They continued to his front and down his legs.

“You are mine, Harry. This will never happen to you again if I have anything to say about it,” Severus commented, his voice forceful.

“My hero,” Harry replied lightly.

A few moments passed with the only sound of Harry’s labored breathing. Severus’ tears fell gently from his eyes. “If you let me spell you to sleep, you won't feel anything as I Apparate us to Prince Manor and start to heal you, Harry. You do not need the pain the journey and initial healing will bring you.”

“Do it,” the boy breathed out. His body was still trembling, the jerks coming faintly from exhaustion.

“Stupefy,” he spoke gently, making the gesture with his wand. Harry’s tense body relaxed on the sheets, and the breathing evened out as his mind was blank to the world; knocked out, breathing didn’t hurt anymore. “Wingardium Leviosa,” the man told his magic. Harry rose from the bed, hovering a few feet, his body dripping precious blood onto the soggy sheets. Severus hurriedly cast a blood-replenishing spell on Harry so the teen wouldn’t bleed out before treatment began.

Severus gripped his wand tightly, and his magic pushed Harry from the reeking bedroom before him. He followed, and saw Petunia sitting on the floor against the wall. She stood and Snape saw the tears that flowed from her eyes when she saw her nephew. “I’ll be back when he is stable, Petunia. Make sure your obese husband is here, or I’ll hunt him down and kill him in public.”

The woman breathed out in alarm and the tears flowed faster. Her pointy head nodded hastily as Snape walked from sight. She heard the back door open, and knew he was at least taking her nephew from the house without alarming the neighbors. A high-pitched crack was heard, and Petunia’s head fell back against the wall in misery.