Sealed With Lies by Alexannah
Summary: Snape puts Harry under a magical leash to keep him out of trouble. But unbeknown to him, Harry has been turned into a vampire, and the leash is causing far more harm than good. Terrified of losing his friends, Harry would rather starve than risk the truth coming out.
Categories: Teacher Snape > Professor Snape, Misc > Keepers of the Snitch Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Dumbledore, Hermione, Remus, Ron, Sirius
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Snape's a Bully, Snape is Controlling, Snape is Desperate, Snape is Mean, Overly-protective Snape, Snape is Stern
Genres: Angst, Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe, Runaway, Spying on Harry! Snape, Vampire!Harry, Vampires
Takes Place: 3rd summer, 3rd Year
Warnings: Suicide Themes, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 21 Completed: No Word count: 32255 Read: 127358 Published: 03 Feb 2015 Updated: 22 Jun 2015
Stop Thief! by Alexannah

Faced with the shelves and shelves of jars, Harry searched them as quickly as he could. It was some time before he discovered a familiar vial.

It was the same distinctive shape as the ones Harry still had in his trunk, and filled with the same colour liquid. He had no doubt that Snape had bought it from the same apothecary. There was only one vial, though—it wouldn’t last him long. Still, every little helped. Harry picked it up—then noticed the label.

Dragon’s blood, it said, in Snape’s writing.

Well, that certainly explained why it was so expensive.

A shout of anger from the corridor made Harry start, and to his horror, he dropped the vial. Blood and glass splattered everywhere. He pulled at his Cloak to make sure he was covered, just as a livid Snape appeared in the open doorway.

“Who’s in here?” he snarled, wand outstretched. His black eyes fell on the mess on the floor, and travelled upwards to where Harry was.

Later, Harry couldn’t explain what sheer recklessness drove him to do it. One moment he was panicking as he could see Snape comprehending that the intruder was invisible and taking aim; the next moment he had forgone magic altogether, lowered his head and shoulders and charged at Snape like a bull.

It was a move that had worked once or twice on Piers Polkiss (the rest of Dudley’s gang were too heavy; Harry had nearly broken his neck trying to headbutt Dudley), and it worked on Snape too, like a charm. The startled man fell backwards with an “Oof!”, and Harry vaulted him before speeding up the corridor.

He might have escaped, had he succeeded in knocking Snape to the ground hard enough. But to Harry’s disappointment, Snape recovered far too quickly. Harry was halfway up the Grand Staircase when he heard the shout, “Impedimenta!

It felt like something had run into him; he stopped dead, then fell backwards down the stairs, finishing in a crumpled heap at Snape’s feet. His Invisibility Cloak was ripped off.

“POTTER! I might have known,” Snape seethed, glaring down at him. Before Harry could move, his teacher grasped him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him upright, before dragging him to his office.

“How,” Snape hissed once he’d pushed Harry into the chair in front of his desk, “dare you steal from me!”

“I wasn’t—” Harry lied desperately.

Don’t lie to me! This is exactly why you need a leash, you intolerable boy! Since you seem utterly incapable of keeping to the rules! You do realise that thievery is not tolerated at Hogwarts, don’t you? How would you like to be expelled?”

Harry couldn’t breathe. Snape looked triumphant. Oh Merlin; he couldn’t be expelled. He couldn’t.

“B-but—I didn’t take anything!”

“You had the intent!” Snape snarled.

Harry’s mind whirled. “You can’t prove that! I—I—” He searched wildly for any explanation; anything. “It was just a … a dare! You can’t expel me just for being in the room!”

Snape scowled. “You are correct—I cannot. But for vandalising my property—”

“It was an accident!”

“Have you any idea how much dragon blood costs, Potter?”

Yeah, Harry thought. Too much.

“Since you did not successfully take anything, I will not take this up with your Head of House.” Harry felt sincerely relieved at that. “However, do not think you are getting off lightly. You have detention with me until further notice; you will repay me for the dragon’s blood; you have lost your House a hundred points; and I will be hanging onto this.”

Harry’s eyes widened as Snape gestured to the Invisibility Cloak. “I have to say, this explains a lot,” Snape said with a glance at it.

“Sir—please—”

“Silence!” Snape snapped. “I am perfectly within my rights as a teacher to confiscate this item. Especially considering its owner tried to take something from me.” Snape glared at Harry even harder. “What was in my stores you were so desperate for, Potter, hmm? Brewing a few illegal potions, are we? If you are, you’re even more stupid than I gave you credit for. Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you poison yourself or blow up half the school.”

Harry bit his tongue and said nothing.

“Well, then,” Snape said, “that brings us back to the leash.”

Harry jumped to his feet. “No!”

“Potter—”

“Sir, please!” Harry said, panicking. “Please don’t do it—give me more detention, take more House points, take all my belongings away—anything! Just please don’t do this!”

“It’s for your own good, you stupid boy.” Snape seized Harry’s arm. Harry squirmed, trying to wriggle out of Snape’s grip, but all he succeeded on doing was causing pain. “Will you keep still, Potter! You’re behaving like a toddler. You’re just going to hurt yourself.”

“You can’t do this!”

“I can!” Snape thundered. “And I will, and the more you fight me, the more restrictions I will put on it!”

Harry stopped pulling away. He hated giving in, but he knew deep down Snape would get the leash on him one way or another. He also knew if he kept struggling, Snape would do good on his threat and stop him being able to go to the Quidditch pitch or something.

“That’s better.” Snape cast the spell, and Harry again felt trapped—but this time the feeling was worse. “You are now restricted only to the areas of Hogwarts that students are allowed to be in, at those particular times. In addition, you are not allowed on the grounds after dark. If you test me, I shall restrict you further. Now go to bed. Straight to bed. If you take a single diversion, I will know.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry whispered, defeated.

-

He struggled to wake up the following morning. For a start, having been awake half the night, he still felt exhausted. Secondly, he was regretting that last, irresistible slice of treacle tart for dinner last night. At least the pain was nowhere near as bad as the first time, though.

Harry dragged himself to the Great Hall, and tried his best to block out the Slytherins swooning across the room and focus on distracting Hermione from the fact that he wasn’t eating any breakfast. Fortunately, the timetables were being handed out, which did most of that job for him.

-

The pain didn’t leave until the end of Transfiguration, but by that time Harry had too many things on his mind to notice much. He followed his friends to the Great Hall out of habit.

“Harry,” Ron said in a low, serious voice once they were seated, “you haven’t seen a great black dog anywhere, have you?”

Rather than answering straight away, Harry busied himself filling his goblet with water, wondering how his answer would be taken. “Well—yes.”

Ron let his fork fall with a clatter.

“It wasn’t an omen,” Harry added quickly. “I mean, it was an actual real, flesh and blood dog. How can that be an omen?”

“I don’t know, Harry …” Ron sounded very anxious. “I don’t like it. How do you even know it was real?”

“I don’t think an omen would lick me,” Harry said with a small laugh. “No, he was definitely real. He followed me around for a couple of days while I was in Diagon Alley, and I gave him some food. That’s all there is to it. I think he must have been a stray.”

“There you are then, Ron,” Hermione said as if that settled it.

“But—” Ron didn’t sound convinced. “That can’t be a coincidence! Harry meeting a dog that looks like the Grim and then it turning up in his teacup—”

“Of course it was,” Hermione scoffed.

“Or,” Harry said with a forced grin, “maybe the tealeaves got confused and were predicting my past instead of my future, and that’s why Snuffles appeared in them.”

Even Ron sniggered.

“Hey, it fits.”

“Yeah … guess it does,” Ron said, smiling hesitantly.

“Honestly,” Hermione sighed.

“And I suppose you have a better explanation?” Ron rounded on her.

“Yes. It’s nonsense.” Hermione propped open her Arithmancy book. “I think Divination seems very woolly …”

To be continued...


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