The next few weeks passed slowly for Harry and his system. Giving him time to adjust, he supposed. Madam Pomfrey brought up the subject of their prior abuse once or twice, but Tom always politely, though firmly, told her that they weren't ready yet, and the mediwitch would nod and let them be, a welcome relief.

She did tell them that their cousin, Dudley, had been placed in protective care. Why this was supposed to be good news, Jay didn't know, considering the boy had been a bullying bastard, but he smiled and nodded in the right places and fervently hoped "Duddykins" would fall off the face of the earth. Preferably into a black hole full of very sharp-toothed monsters. With poison. The smile that crossed his face when he thought of that was positively beatific, and Madam Pomfrey thought to herself what a well-mannered little boy Harry was, and so brave in the face of all his troubles.

But if Madam Pomfrey was willing to let them simply sit there and brood (or colour, she had a great many colouring pages stacked in her desk, and loads of crayons), Professor Snape was the opposite. He wanted them to talk, and to talk at great length about the subjects most disturbing to them. About the Dursleys. About their brief stint on the streets, abandoned in a parking lot. About what Uncle Vernon would do and what Aunt Petunia would say, and on and on until Blue would cry inside and Jay was ready to shove the man into the next century with frustration.

"Lay off," he'd snapped, more than once, and each time, the damnable man would nod and agree "for the moment," and later, he would be at it again, with his prying questions and the peculiar glint in his eyes like obsidian. Tom said the man was trying to read their mind, but that was impossible, wasn't it?

Either way, it made them feel quite prickly and defensive, and they'd end up either retreating to their room with the door closed (and actually hiding either underneath the bed or in the closet), or ever so casually wandering back up to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey never questioned why they were there, but that acceptance made it all the easier to return.

Still. His prying might have made life intolerable at times, but it was loads better than at the Dursleys'. Their rules ranged from "don't breathe too loudly" to "you better have this entire house scrubbed top to bottom by the time your uncle comes home or so help you..." Snape's rules were more like "be in bed by ten o'clock," "drink all your nutritive potions," and "if you have a problem, come to me." It was baffling.

It wasn't until three weeks in, however, that they met one of the...nastier inhabitants of the castle. Argus Filch. The man hated children and seemed to have a particular loathing for Harry. Harry had been crossing the Entrance Hall, ready to find Snape's dungeon rooms once more after a surprisingly hearty romp outside (with a very bearded giant-like man named Rubeus Hagrid), when the man had appeared from nowhere, deep scowl twisting his face.

"You!" the man barked. Harry jumped, fear sliming his throat.

"Yes, sir?" he stammered out.

"Follow me," Filch demanded, his scowl turning even nastier, if that were possible. Harry hurried after him, feeling more and more frightened. Had Professor Snape grown tired of him? Was he to become the ward of this man instead? What was going on?

After a succession of twisting stairs and corridors (making Harry thoroughly lost), Filch stopped before a narrow broom cupboard. The sight of the cupboard brought Freak perilously close to the surface, and Harry found himself trembling, on the verge of a complete breakdown.

"In, boy," Filch said, with a nasty grin. "Clean that cupboard top to bottom."

A more confident boy would have told him to sod off. A more confident boy wouldn't have gone with the man in the first place, not trusting his intentions from his greasy hair down to his yellowed toenails.

But Harry wasn't a more confident boy, Harry was a deeply traumatised boy, and so with a gulp and a shaky nod of his head, Harry found himself locked into a very dim broom cupboard with only a bare lightbulb above his head, a dusty mop, and a bucket half-full of slightly rancid water.

Filch had intended to only lock the boy in for five minutes at most, to give him a scare, and to give himself a good laugh at the brat's expense. But the Headmaster called him away to deal with a twisty problem on the seventh floor and it wasn't until two hours later that the caretaker remembered he'd locked the brat in.

No matter, he thought to himself, sneering as he riffled through his key ring for the right key. Doubt he's done anything but mope and have a fit in there. Maybe wet himself? A particularly evil glint came to his eyes then. Oh, how he liked to make the first years that petrified...

Not even he was expecting the results when he finally swung open the creaky wooden door. The cupboard was sparkling clean, down to the floorboards, but the boy himself was nowhere to be found. Only when he fully stepped inside, peering around, did he spy him, crammed into the farthest corner, in the smallest ball he could make himself, staring into space.

Filch nervously cleared his throat to gain the brat's attention.

"Boy?" he asked. The child's head snapped up, brilliant green eyes catching his.

"Uncle?" the boy said, and Filch was stumped for words.