When Harry woke, it was because of clattering drifting up from beneath the room he was in. Blinking blearily, Harry wondered for a moment where he was, and then, as his gaze fell upon a pile of dusty old textbooks, he remembered yesterday.

Reaching for his glasses and sitting up, Harry contemplated the situation for a moment. The Dursleys hadn’t come to the train station yesterday. Did that mean they’d gone on holiday somewhere, or had they just not wanted to fetch him? Was he likely to return to an empty house, or was he likely to be denied access at all?

I suppose once I know how the Knight Bus works, I could always use it to get to Ron’s house . . . wherever that might be, he thought. If worst came to worst, he could always see if his old babysitter Mrs Figg would allow him to stay for a day or two.

Shaking the thought away, Harry took the opportunity to study the bedroom he’d been given. It had obviously been Snape’s room when he was younger. The bed was a small single, and a desk, a chest of drawers and a bookcase took up most of the remaining space. The desk was covered in old textbooks and yellowed parchment, and the chest of drawers appeared to be coated in dust, but Harry’s attention was drawn to the bookcase. Instead of holding books, as he’d half expected, it was instead filled with models of horses. Or, he amended, as he knelt up on the bed for a closer look, horse-LIKE figures, at least.

Most of the figures he could see were obviously Pegasus, although he could see a few unicorns and a couple of skinny black horses in the lot, and even a half-horse, half-eagle and a half-horse, half-fish one, too. They were all sizes, colours and poses, and a few were family poses, with little winged foals tucked away behind their mothers.

His Aunt Petunia collected Hummel figurines, so Harry knew better than to even breathe too hard on the collection, but he was fascinated by them, and spent longer than he perhaps should have examining them intently.

“POTTER!” Snape’s voice roared up from below, and Harry startled so much he almost fell off the bed. “If you would kindly stop dawdling, then we can eat and be on our way!”

Our way? Harry mouthed to himself as he hastily stood up and picked up his shoes. Was Snape going out again, too?

Luckily, when he made his way downstairs, the concealed door was standing open. He could see now that the front room looked very dull and dingy, but only because everything was aged and worn. From the sound of it, Snape was in the kitchen, so Harry drifted that way. A stack of toast and two bowls of porridge were on one counter. Snape was at the far end of the room, by the back door, dealing with . . .

“Hedwig!” Harry exclaimed, delighted, as he spotted the snowy plumage over Snape’s shoulder. The owl hooted back, but remained still as Snape removed the pile of parcels from her grip. Turning to place the items on the counter, Snape spotted Harry, and gestured at the bowls.

“Eat up, Potter,” he ordered, gruffly. “The sooner we can get going, the sooner you’ll be back with your family.”

Trying not to let on just how much his heart sank with those words, Harry obediently reached for one of the bowls and the spoon beside it, leaning back against the counter to eat. The porridge was rather thin and watery, but it was probably better than anything he’d be getting for the rest of the summer, so Harry didn’t complain. When he was finished, he turned to the sink to wash the bowl.

“Just leave it in the sink, Potter,” instructed Snape.

Biting his lip, Harry slowly lowered the bowl into the sink and hesitantly stepped back. It had been well drummed into him over the years that anything he used must be washed immediately afterwards, no doubt to cleanse it of his freakishness. On the other hand, Snape had told him to leave it . . .

“Potter!” the professor barked from the other room. Harry jumped and all but ran to the man, who was standing beside the open front door. “Let us be off,” Snape continued, and waved Harry outside.

Blinking in the bright sun, Harry waited on the pavement as Snape shut the door behind them, then turned to tap his wand against it. Looking around as he stepped towards Harry, Snape then raised his wand.

BANG!

With a squeal of brakes, a large, purple bus suddenly appeared at the end of the road, swerving its way towards them. It didn’t seem to care where the road was – Harry could see it climbing the pavement. Incredibly, bins, cars and even houses were jumping backwards out of its way. Harry gaped at it as the purple monstrosity screeched to a halt in front of them, the bus tipping forward so far that for a second he worried it was going to flip over.

“Welcome to the Knight Bus,” a pimply-faced teenager said, standing on the steps at the back of the bus, “emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I’ll be your conductor this morning.”

“You’re always the conductor,” Snape growled, and shoved Harry up the steps and past the youth.

Once on the bus, Harry couldn’t prevent his mouth from falling open yet again. Instead of the usual seats found on buses, this one had armchairs scattered around. And judging by the way some of them were lying on their side or their back, they weren’t fixed to the floor, either. There was a faint tinkling sound coming from above Harry, and he tilted his head back. Through the stairway, he could see the bus stretched three-stories high, and chandeliers swung from the ceiling.

“Privet Drive, Little Whinging,” Snape was saying, handing over coins to Stan Shunpike. “Boy!” He gestured to two chairs in the middle of the bus. Hesitantly, Harry took one of them, and then flinched as Snape suddenly brandished his wand at him.

“What—?” he started.

“Sticking Charm,” Snape replied, briefly, sitting in the other chair opposite Harry and waving his wand at himself.

Any other explanation was suddenly rendered unnecessary, as with an almighty BANG!, the bus was suddenly on the move again, this time moving swiftly – although still with no care for actually following the road – through the countryside. The other armchairs around Harry and Snape were all flung backwards, and then forwards, and then side to side, until some of them tipped over, and the rest appeared to shiver almost drunkenly but resignedly.

“Where are we?” Harry gasped, as a hedge just in front of them appeared to scream as it leapt backwards out of the bus’ way.

“Wales,” Stan Shunpike interrupted before Snape could even think about answering. He was leaning casually against the rear of the driver’s area and holding a newspaper. “We’re just gonna let Madam Marsh off first—” There was a retching sound, and then a horrible splattering noise that Harry really wished he hadn’t heard. “—She ain’t feeling too good today,” Stan finished, opening up his paper with a sharp snap. He disappeared behind it.

“I have no idea why Madam Marsh continues to utilise this monstrosity of a bus, when she knows it never agrees with her,” Snape muttered, folding his arms and glaring upwards at the second, or maybe the third, floor of the bus. “Or why she doesn’t think to take a potion beforehand, considering there is an entire range of potions to combat or dispel motion sickness.”

“Perhaps she thinks it’ll be different this time?” Harry suggested.

Snape turned a gimlet eye on him, and Harry shrank back in his armchair. “Madam Marsh has been taking the Knight Bus twice a day, every day, for sixteen years,” Snape pronounced, after he was satisfied that Harry was subdued. “And the same thing happens on every journey. She knows it won’t be different.” He sniffed as the bus came to a lurching halt in the middle of nowhere. “I personally think she does it for the sympathy.”

A green-faced witch who was just staggering down the spiral staircase from the upper floors glared at Snape as she passed him, but Harry had to admit, compared to Snape’s own glares, it was a very weak effort, even taking into consideration that she was ill.

“Next stop, Little Whinging,” said Stan as the witch tottered her way down the steps and off the bus. He had apparently been watching Harry and Snape over the top of his newspaper, because now he lowered it abruptly as the bus took off again with a violent lurch, his gaze fixed firmly on Harry’s face – or rather, his forehead. “Who did you say you were, again?”

“We didn’t,” Snape said, sharply. “You have no need of our names to transport us to our destination.”

Stan’s eyebrows drew together, but he didn’t look in the least bit abashed as he slowly raised his paper again. It was fairly obvious, even to Harry, that he wasn’t reading it.

By the time the bus arrived at their stop, ten minutes later, Severus was muttering imprecations under his breath, and the conductor, thoroughly unnerved by this, had removed himself to the other end of the bus.

“Come along,” Severus told Potter, as he cancelled the Sticking Charm, unwilling to even use the boy’s first name where the conductor might hear him. The adolescent’s ears were all but out on stalks, obviously trying to glean every bit of information about his possible celebrity passenger that he could use as gossip.

Once their feet touched the pavement outside, however, instead of instantly disappearing, the Knight Bus remained where it was. Growling, Severus looked over his shoulder. Stan Shunpike and the driver were peering at the two of them through the windows. Thoroughly annoyed, Severus aimed his wand at the bus and fired off a spell. Giving out a yelp like a kicked dog, the bus jerked into motion and vanished at top speed.

Shaking his head, Severus returned his wand to its holster and turned back to Potter. “Well, which way, Potter?” he asked, examining the neighbourhood. It all looked identical, he realised, with a slight shudder. Now he understood the term “cookie-cutter neighbourhood”.

Potter glanced around, as though getting his bearings, and then pointed to a road heading to the left of them. “Number 4 is that way,” he stated.

Raising an eyebrow – why had Potter stated it that way, rather than just saying ‘home’? – Severus gestured for the boy to precede him along the road.

Strangely, Potter seemed to be . . . dawdling. Severus almost had to pause between each step to ensure he remained beside the boy. And the boy’s small size couldn’t account for that, since he’d managed to keep up with Severus’ stride fairly well yesterday at King’s Cross.

Even more peculiarly, when they did occasionally see someone, that person would almost always, without fail, turn their nose up at Potter and cross the road.

Perhaps the boy terrorises the neighbourhood, Severus mused. Except the passersby didn’t look terrified of Potter; they looked disdainful.

He was broken out of his thoughts by Potter’s abrupt stop. The boy was gaping at a house in front of them. Puzzled, Severus turned his own gaze on it. It looked like all the others around it, except there was no vehicle in the drive, and the place had an air of neglect about it. It also had a sign stuck in the middle of the front garden.

“Potter?” Severus verbally prodded the boy. Potter shook his head wildly, but remained silent. Severus took another look at the sign. ‘For Sale’, it read. Perhaps a friend of Potter’s used to live there, one that he hadn’t realised was moving? Turning his gaze over the house again, Severus’ attention was suddenly caught by the number next to the front door.

A large, black, number four.

A dull buzzing noise filled Harry’s head. His aunt’s house was empty, and there was a for sale sign in the middle of the lawn. Was this why nobody had come to fetch him from King’s Cross? Because the Dursleys had moved? Why hadn’t they told him?

Because they didn’t want to risk having to take me with them, a little voice inside answered.

Stunned, Harry barely heard his professor calling his name again but he certainly felt the sudden claw-like grip that pierced his shoulder as one of the neighbours eagerly poked her head out of her living room window.

“Hello!” she called, cheerily, beaming at them. “Were you looking for someone?”

“We came to see the Dursleys,” Snape replied.

“Oh, my, I’m afraid you’re much too late for that!” the neighbour informed them. “They moved away back in, goodness, back in December. He got a promotion, you know,” she added.

Harry felt Snape stiffen with shock. December. That explained the fifty pence they’d sent him for Christmas. He’d thought it seemed generous of them. Vaguely, he heard Snape saying something to the neighbour, and then suddenly, he was being frog-marched back the way they’d just come.

He only registered they’d stopped moving when he heard Snape utter, “Potter!” in very exasperated tones, as though he’d had to call more than once. He blinked several times, and looked up at Snape.

“Hold tight to my arm, Potter,” Snape said. “We’re going to apparate.”

Again? Harry fought down the urge to argue that he’d really rather not – he didn’t think Snape would appreciate that – and took hold of the arm that Snape was extending to him. One compressed, stretching, whirling eternity later, and Harry found himself on his knees in front of Snape’s house again. He remained there, panting, until he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up again.

“Come along, Potter,” said Snape, in what almost passed for a gentle way. “I have to contact the Headmaster.” Shakily, and still numb from the shock of his discovery, Harry gained his feet and followed Snape inside the house. “Wait down here,” Snape instructed. The man headed for the hidden staircase, paused for a second, and then turned back. “I’m afraid the house has no bathroom, Potter,” he stated, “only an outhouse.”

“An outhouse,” Harry repeated.

“At the end of the backyard,” the professor said, and then turned back to open the concealing bookcase. “I shall be back shortly; do not touch anything on that bookcase over there.” And he gestured to his right before disappearing up the rickety wooden stairs.

Harry turned his gaze onto the bookcase in question, which gleamed a dull red, although he couldn’t tell if that was because it was some kind of wood he’d never heard of before, or if it was covered in protective spells. Deciding instead that he’d better find the ‘outhouse’, he moved through into the kitchen and towards the back door.

‘Yard’ had been an accurate term, he discovered as he stepped outside. Presumably at one point the long, narrow area had been a garden – as evidenced by the fact that the neighbouring houses both had long stretches of grass – but the sod had been torn up and replaced with concrete. However, there were raised brick beds alternating sides down the yard. Various herbs were growing in them. No doubt this was where Professor Snape gained half of his potion ingredients. Down at the very end of the yard was a rickety, old, double shed. One side had a large, gleaming padlock holding it shut, which Harry thought was a bit pointless, considering the rest of the building looked as if one strong sigh would blow it over.

The open side turned out to be the outhouse Snape had told him of. It wasn’t quite a hole in a plank of wood, but it looked fairly close. Most of the surrounding houses had extensions built onto the back of them, and Harry wondered why Snape hadn’t done the same. Of course, he’s not here for most of the year, so maybe there’s no point if it’d only get used in the summer, he thought, willing himself to ignore the state of the outhouse as he used it.

Once done, he trudged his way back to the house, wondering where he would be spending his summer. He couldn’t see his relatives being happy to take him back, even if Professor Dumbledore did manage to track them down.

Harry wandered into the living room to discover Snape standing by the front window, his arms tightly folded, and a ferocious scowl on his face, worse than any Harry had yet seen. To Harry’s surprise, the Headmaster was standing in the middle of the room, smiling genially at him.