Love Thy Neighbour by Alexannah
Past Featured StorySummary: The Dursley family move house, and Harry is horrified to find that they are now living opposite his most hated Potions Master. Between Snape and the Dursleys, will Harry make it to the Burrow in one piece?
Categories: Healer Snape, Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape, Fic Fests > #18 Summer 2015, Teacher Snape > Professor Snape, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Dumbledore, Original Character, Petunia, Vernon
Snape Flavour: Snape is Kind, Snape is Mean, Snape is Secretive, Snape is Stern
Genres: Angst, Drama, Family, General
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe, Snape-meets-Dursleys, Spying on Harry! Snape
Takes Place: 4th summer
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, Physical Punishment Spanking, Neglect
Prompts: Neighbors, Grounded!
Challenges: Neighbors, Grounded!
Series: None
Chapters: 23 Completed: Yes Word count: 39258 Read: 274408 Published: 07 Aug 2015 Updated: 01 Sep 2015
Exposed by Alexannah

Harry took a deep breath and made the step.

 

He was clinging to Snape so hard he was sure he was probably giving the guy some nasty bruises, but he couldn’t help it. Snape made no complaint. A wave washed over Harry’s ankle and he shuddered violently. His ice cream was no longer sitting very well in his stomach.

Snape didn’t urge him further for a while, just kept a firm hold on him, and Harry gripped him back in return. He felt as if he didn’t hang on, he would fall down and be consumed by the sea. He tried to focus on something other than the moving water—like how many clouds he could count in the sky (not many), or how Snape’s hair was blown about his face.

“Another step?” Snape eventually asked.

Harry whimpered again, but nodded. I’m a Gryffindor, he told himself as he took it. I’m supposed to be brave. Oh Merlin I don’t like this—

“Well done, Potter.”

Harry caught his breath. The water was up to his ankles now, not just washing over them every now and then when a wave came. It didn’t help things that the water was freezing.

“One more step?” Snape suggested.

Harry’s nerve failed him, and he shook his head vigorously, stepping back. Snape let him.

“All right, that’s enough for today. That was very good, Potter.”

“Good?” Harry croaked. “I’m a Gryffindor; I’m not supposed to be scared—”

“Being brave doesn’t mean not being scared,” Snape reminded him. “It means facing your fears. Which you have done.”

“Not enough.”

“You can’t expect miracles straight away, Potter. All progress no matter how small is still progress.”

They returned to the table, Snape cast a furtive drying spell, and they put their shoes back on.

“I seem to recall you wished to visit the funfair,” Snape said once they had finished.

Harry remembered, but his stomach was still churning and his nerves were shattered. “I—I don’t think I can, sir. Not now, I don’t feel …” He trailed off, searching for the right words. Snape nodded.

“Very well. Another day it is.”

They returned to the house in silence, and Harry collapsed onto the sofa with no need to be told to rest. Without speaking, Snape put a blanket over him and held a finger over the television power button, giving Harry a questioning look.

“Yes, please.” In truth Harry would have liked a nap, but he was afraid of sea-related nightmares.

He did doze off eventually. His fears were confirmed as he dreamed he was back at the beach, waist-deep in the water. Waves crashed right over his head, swallowing him, and he floundered, unable to breathe, no longer able to find the sea floor. The pressure was crushing him, and he was sure he was going to die—

A crash made him jerk awake, gasping for breath, his heart hammering. He was back in Snape’s house, he wasn’t drowning, he could breathe, there was no water around him.

“Sorry, Potter, did I wake you?”

Still jumpy, he started, and looked around. Snape, it seemed, had dropped a cup of tea on the floor. As Harry’s pulse slowed, Snape repaired the cup and Vanished the spilled liquid with a wave of his wand.

“Nah,” Harry lied once he had got his breath back. “I’m done with sleeping.” He pushed the blanket down and sat up. He looked around for something to keep him awake, and his eyes fell on Snape’s chess set. That would keep him awake.

“Don’t even think about it,” the black king said when he saw Harry eyeing the board. They had quickly got tired of his one-sided matches.

“Professor Snape …” Harry said slowly.

“Yes, Potter?”

“Are you busy?”

“No.” Snape sat down the other end of the sofa with a fresh cup of tea. “Why?”

Harry gestured at the chess set. “Black or white?”

-

Harry’s water exposure therapy continued as predicted. Every morning, when there were less people about, Snape took Harry to the beach and had him step into the sea, a little further each time.

Harry shook and stumbled, and one terrifying morning he had slipped on a seaweed-covered rock and fell, going under. He had screamed, or tried to, his mouth and lungs filling with seawater. He was choking as Snape pulled him up.

“I’m so sorry,” Snape had said, holding Harry secure with one arm and giving him a thump on the back with the other. “I lost my balance too or I would have caught you—”

Harry had gagged and Snape led him back towards the shore.

The next morning Harry refused point blank to go.

“No. I can’t do it. I can’t do that again.”

“Potter,” Snape said, “if you don’t go then all the progress you’ve made will be for nothing.”

“I can live with that,” Harry said stubbornly.

“With giving up? That does not sound like you, Potter. Usually you are a tenacious little br—boy.” Harry had a feeling Snape had been going to end that statement differently. “Of course, it doesn’t make a difference to me either way, but I would have thought the Famous Harry Potter wouldn’t have wanted to live in the knowledge that he was beaten by a water phobia.”

“It hasn’t beaten me!”

“Then prove it,” Snape said promptly.

“Fine! I’ll do it!” Harry paused, and frowned. “I know what you did there.”

“Well I would hope so. It was hardly my most underhand technique; even you aren’t that dim. Now put your shoes on.”

-

Harry’s progress was the sea level at knee height. He was still far from being able to go that deep without clinging onto Snape like a limpet or shaking as if he was a dog trying to dry himself, but Snape was optimistic about how far he had come. Harry personally felt no less afraid of the water than he had when he started; if anything he was more terrified the more time he spent in it. The nightmares were continuing, and Harry frequently woke up gasping, under the impression he had been drowning.

Apart from that, though, life was surprisingly good. Since admitting that the employment was a farce to keep the Dursleys off Harry’s back, Snape had not been setting Harry any work tasks. He seemed to feel that confronting his fears every morning was enough to be going on with, and let Harry spend the rest of the day how he liked.

Things between them were also improving. Until the first day on the beach, conversation had been pretty limited to what they or Harry were doing. But now they had both come clean, it felt much more easy-going between them. They talked about crosswords and Quidditch and all sorts of random things.

One day, Snape said he needed to get some groceries, and Harry offered to come and lend a hand.

“You want to come?”

Harry shrugged. He was actually rather touched that Snape had been willing to trust him in the house on his own—proof that things really had been changing—but he would still like to get some fresh, non-sea air. And he did slightly miss helping Snape out. “Yeah. Another pair of hands can’t hurt, can it?”

“I suppose not. Come on then.”

They walked to the supermarket and Snape, more experienced, took the trolley, while Harry did the running up and down looking for things on the list.

“We need something for tonight,” Snape said with a glance at the list as they turned into the fish aisle. “You pick, I’m not fussy.”

Harry grinned. “Really?” Snape just gave him a pointed look, and he started looking at the shelves. There was so much choice, he wasn’t used to choosing what he liked. At Hogwarts the choices were limited, apart from the start and end of term feasts, in which he usually ate a bit of everything and gave himself a stomach ache the next day.

“Potter,” Snape said, starting to sound impatient.

Harry’s eyes fell on the packs of prawns, and he grinned, grabbed one and hurried back to the trolley.

“Prawns?” Snape’s lip curled slightly.

“You said I could choose. Don’t you like them?”

“So I did. And no, I don’t. But you can have them if you want them; I’ll choose something else for myself. Put them in.”

“Thanks Professor!”

There was no more dispute until, in the tinned foods aisle, Snape discovered they had missed cheese, and sent Harry back. Harry retraced their steps, picked out a block of cheddar, and was just about to leave the aisle when he stopped dead.

Before he could turn and hurry in the opposite direction, Petunia turned to see him standing there.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at Mr Snape’s house!” she snapped.

“I—I—” Harry was saved from formulating an explanation as Snape, apparently seeing what was taking Harry so long, rounded the corner. He immediately plastered a benign smile on his face, but Harry knew now it was false.

“Ah, Mrs Dursley. Good day. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Petunia’s eyes narrowed at Harry. “What is he doing here? I thought you were going to keep him under—”

“I do,” Snape interrupted. “Mostly. But I am in rather a hurry so I utilised him for helping me with the shopping. Potter knows if he tries anything I’ll make him eat a live toad.”

Harry grimaced, shuddering.

“Potter, sometime today.” Snape’s voice hardened. Harry hurried to put the cheese in the trolley.

“Well, I must get on, Petunia. See you later.”

“Yes ... see you,” she said slowly. Harry could feel her eyes on his back as they turned the corner.

“That was close,” Harry muttered.

“Yes. Too close. We’re going to have to keep up appearances until we get back home.”

“I think she suspects something,” Harry said, biting his lip.

“Don’t worry about it, Potter,” Snape said firmly, and looked back down at the list. “Vinegar’s up that end.”

-

That night, Snape cooked the prawns in a garlic sauce for Harry, and a salmon en croute for himself, and for the first time in the entire holiday, the two of them held a proper conversation at the meal table.

“So you don’t like prawns?”

“I’m not overly keen on shellfish at all,” Snape said, with a contemptuous glance at Harry’s plate.

“I don’t like mussels,” Harry said thoughtfully. “But it’s about the only thing I don’t like.”

“Oh really? There’s no other foods you dislike?”

“Well … I’ve rather gone off salad. Not that I ever loved it, but it was okay with other food. I’ve gone off grapefruit too, I think. I like other fruit though. Especially strawberries.”

“They are rather good,” Snape agreed. “Especially with cream.”

“Ooh, yes.” Harry giggled and Snape actually smiled a little.

“How are the prawns?”

In truth, Harry was regretting asking especially for the prawns, because they didn’t taste like he remembered. In fact they tasted a bit odd. Maybe it was how they were cooked? Perhaps Snape had put some weird herb or something in the sauce.

“They’re delicious, Professor. Thank you.”

He didn’t like it much, but to be polite finished it all, not wanting to offend Snape after all he had done for him.

The End.


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