There was no hesitation this time when Snape walked up to Number four, Privet Drive and knocked on the door, only fury pounding his veins. When Petunia opened, he put a foot against the door, preventing her to shut it in his face. 

”Let me inside,” he hissed. ”You don’t want to have this conversation on your porch with the neighbours listening in on us.”

Petunia Dursley made no attempt to fight him, but let Snape past, lifting her chin haughtily. In the living-room, Vernon Dursley rose from the sofa, embarrassed and bewildered at the sight of the furious wizard.

”Vernon, sit down. Don’t interfere. Let me handle this,” said Petunia curtly. Snape slung her a dark look full of contempt. What kind of relationship was this? But he was not surprised. It was so like Petunia Evans to boss people around.

”About Harry,” Snape begun. ”Tell me the truth, Petunia. You knew everything about the magical appendicitis rite from the start, didn’t you? And you tried to manipulate your way to have nothing to do with it. Answer me - didn’t you?” Snape roared the last words in a bout of rage. Petunia was silent at first, but under Snape’s threatening look she shrugged and said:

”You already know that. I grew up with Lily. My sister had her appendicitis when she was six years old. I was nine. Of course I remember. And Lily explained about the appendicitis rite magic later, when she was older and had read about the it at Hogwarts. As if the unnatural stuff involved would ameliorate things! She was trying to make me comprehend. All I understand is that it ruined my life.” Petunia’s voice was cold and dispatching.

Snape started to pace back and fro the length of the room, muttering almost to himself.

”I remember vaguely Lily telling me about it. Christine and Roger were such kind and compassionate parents while I knew them. Both were supporting and proud of Lily. But I remember now that she told me that it had not always been that way…”

Petunia snorted.

”Your father had been afraid at first when Lily showed the - to the uninitiated Muggle - unnatural signs of accidental magic,” continued Snape. ”Roger was distant and disapproving and punished her repeatedly in order to make her stop whatever she was doing. I remember how desolate Lily was when she told me - and a little ashamed of her father for behaving in that way in the past.”

”He should never have accepted the freakiness my sister showed. As it was, both our parents ended up applauding every gesture she made, every step she took,” spat Petunia. 

”Everything changed when she had her appendicitis. I remember now. That’s what she told me. She didn’t have a name for it at the time. We were only eleven and were going to start Hogwarts when she confided in me. She described how her father had brought her to the hospital and tended to her during the whole stay and how it had changed their relationship. Lily explained to you later about the magical bond that forms between the caregiver and the child, then?”

Petunia stayed silent - she had already answered that question. She looked haughtily at Snape whose anger ignited again. 

”Tell me Petunia, did you feel the strings of magic pull at you when you brought Harry to the hospital, but deliberately rejected them, and returned home?” He raised his voice.

”I realised that it would be a catastrophe if either of us brought that child to the hospital. Especially Vernon. I had to stop him. And I, for my part, did not want to take part in any magical rite. That was my choice - it was my right to decline,” said Petunia harshly.

”At the prize of almost killing your nephew? Merlin! What kind of person are you? There’s nothing compelling in that bond. It’s Ancient magic and there is nothing dark in it. I’m sure Lily explained that to you. She knew everything about Ancient magic.” Snape made a pause, a surge of sadness constricting his throat. It was Lily’s perfect understanding of Ancient magic that had made it possible for her to save her son from Voldemort. And at what cost. Snape swallowed. ”Ancient magic only strengthens what is good, unite what needs to be united. By Merlin, Petunia, it was your chance to bond with the boy. Why in heaven’s name did you not go through with it? If you had had trouble accepting your nephew, this was your chance of having a less - spiteful- relationship with him. How could you reject it - on purpose?!”

”How could I reject it? How could I reject it?” shrieked Petunia. ”I was defending my family, that is all. I was not going to let Dudley go through what I had been forced to endure.”

”Petunia, I’ve been trying to explain to you that you can love two children at the same time,” intervened Vernon. Although his huge body occupied more than half the small sofa, Snape and Petunia had all but forgotten his existence. ”Our love for Dudley would not lessen if we took better care of Harry. That’s all I’ve been trying to persuade you of. You must have misunderstood this…”

”I did not misunderstand! I lived this! I saw it with my own eyes!” Petunia burst out. ”Before Lily had her appendicitis, Father was mine. Mine! He was on my side. Lily already had Mother who always defended her. But after Lily had her appendicitis, Father’s attitude changed and he loved her more than he loved me. It crushed my heart, it did.” Petunia’s voice crackled. ”It wasn’t fair. Father no longer saw any faults with Lily, and I was left all on my own. Both my parents loved my little sister better. Do you understand what that feels like, Vernon? To have no one on your side? How can you imagine that I wanted to put Dudley through that? What if you had brought Harry to the hospital and come back adoring the boy? I’ve seen your tendencies to take pity on him, to defend him. I had to quell that sympathy. That’s the least I could do, to spare my own son the suffering I stood myself as a child.”

Snape and Vernon stared at her. 

”Now, Petunia. Christine and Roger loved you and tried to show it to you in every possible way…” Vernon tried to say.

Petunia answered something in a shrill voice, but Snape no longer paid attention. It felt like he had run out of steam. What was there to say to this bitter woman, who had not been able to process her jealousy for her sister in thirty years and who had deliberately put her nephew’s life in danger only because she was determined that her husband should have one single loyalty, which was to her and her son and who could include no one else into that claustrophobic little clan?

All of a sudden, it felt like the walls of the living-room were narrowing in on him. Snape muttered something inaudible, stumbled out of the room and found his way to the exit. The Dursley couple barely noticed his departure and he still heard the quarrelling voices as he shut the door.

It was not until Snape was outside, breathing the slightly perfumed air that found its way into the street from the well-kept gardens of Privet Drive, that he realised that if Petunia Dursley had managed to escape the magical bond of Harry’s appendicitis rite, it was not unlikely that the magic had rebounded on his person instead. 

I carried the boy through the door to the Emergency Room, Snape said to himself. I remained during the whole stay in the hospital. I posed as his father. 

Snape almost stumbled over a small tricycle that some child had abandoned in the middle of the pavement. Merlin, thought Snape conflicted, as he stopped to stare at the innocent object that had hit him on the small of the leg. I’m ensnared in a magical bond with James Potter’s son!

***

When Snape left his room at the inn of Ottery St Catchpole the next afternoon, in order to set off for the Burrow and the scheduled meeting with Albus Dumbledore, he had read up thoroughly on the appendicitis rite and its implications. Snape had still not spent a single night at Spinners End since the start of the summer. Instead, he had transferred a substantial part of his library to the small room at the inn. 

Snape’s first impulse of panic over realising the existence of the bond had disappeared, and he felt more informed and calmer after his research. 

Firstly, the magical bond formed during the appendicitis rite was not a particularly strong one, and just as he had told Petunia Dursley, there were no compelling elements. In the books it said that most wizard parents did not even feel a difference in the relationships with their children, since they had already bonded naturally at birth. The most discussed examples in the books were those of Muggle families with a magical child. Just like in Lily’s case, it was not unusual for Muggle parents to be wary of their children’s divergent behaviour, and in those cases in particular the bond was of importance to rectify the - for the child so harmful - suspiciousness on the parent’s side. The bond would quell any possible animosity and resolve all ambiguity of a parent towards the child and help create a harmonious relationship.

The books also mentioned that since it was not uncommon for children to develop their appendicitis acutely and during the school year, it often fell on the school nurse or a teacher to bring the child to the hospital, before the legal guardians were able to join the child. The bond would in that case persist mainly between the child and the professional representative and would simply show itself in the form of a mildly increased interest and a slight protectiveness towards that particular child on the professional’s part.

Secondly, although his first instinctual reaction had been that of horror, Snape had quickly reached the decision to let his grudge towards James Potter go. He was surprised at how easily he had been able to adhere to the idea of abandoning an animosity that had prevailed nearly twenty years. But he had compared his grudge towards James Potter to that of Petunia Evans towards Lily, and there was no way that he wanted to mimic her bitterness, warped into cruelty. Her behaviour towards Harry disgusted him. To deliberately reject a chance of reconciliation with an innocent child! Snape’s moral fibres vibrated with indignation, but more importantly, his heart bled for the boy he had learnt to know over the past week because he understood that, although the appendicitis had brought matters to a head, this was not an isolated event, but that Petunia’s conduct - her neglect, her abuse of her nephew - had been going on for many years. 

Now that Snape knew the particulars of the bond, he concluded that it was nothing to worry about. Nothing he could not handle. He had once promised Dumbledore to protect Lily’s child. The bond would only make that easier, that was all. Therefore, Snape believed himself calm and composed when he stepped inside the Burrow on the forth day in a row.

Snape was ushered directly into the living-room on the ground floor by Mrs Weasley. He cast an automatic look around the room, but there was no Albus Dumbledore. He raised an inquiring eyebrow at Mr Weasley who stood by the window. 

”Albus is already here. He arrived an hour ago and has been upstairs in company with Harry the entire time,” said Mr Weasley. 

Snape immediately knitted his eyebrows. He admired the great wizard that was Albus Dumbledore, he respected his headmaster and felt an immeasurable gratitude towards the man Albus Dumbledore for what he had done for his sake after the war, but he had always been wary of the old wizard’s propensity to penetrate your inner thoughts and pick up truths about yourself that you might not be ready to acknowledge. He was not sure that Harry was fit for that kind of heart-to-heart chat so soon after his ordeal. The boy’s mutism every time they approached emotional matters worried Snape, as it reminded him all too much of his own tendency to close off as a child.

”Don’t worry, Severus,” said Arthur Weasley as if he could read Snape’s thoughts. ”I’ve heard nothing but laughter from the room.” 

At that same moment, the door opened and Albus Dumbledore walked inside with a light hand on Harry’s shoulder. The boy’s eyes glittered merrily and the old man’s twinkled. 

”You made it down the stairs, Harry!” exclaimed Mrs Weasley.

”Only the first four steps,” grinned Harry. ”Then Professor Dumbledore levitated me down.” 

Snape made an expression that looked like something between a scowl and an almost-smile. 

”Hello, Professor Snape!” Harry’s eyes found his teacher at once. 

”Good day, Severus!” Dumbledore approached Snape eagerly and patted his shoulder in what was as close to a hug he knew the young man of high integrity would accept. Dumbledore appeared sincerely glad to see his Potions Master.

”I seem to arrive post festum,” said Dumbledore. ”I’m so sorry, Severus, to have left you impromptu to deal with that letter Harry sent us ten days ago. I had no idea of its implications at the time. Then, when I realised that you had remained at the hospital to look after Harry, I knew everything would work out for the best. I had complete confidence in you, my friend.” 

Well, that was a confidence that he himself could not pretend to have felt at the time, thought Snape with irony, recalling his frustration and indecision during the twenty-four hours at the hospital before Harry had his surgery, but he said nothing, only nodded at Dumbledore. 

”Well, everything has worked out for the best,” Dumbledore said briskly. ”Harry seems happy with his new foster family and will remain here until the start of term. What happens at the close of the next school year is far away and Harry and I agreed that we did not need to ponder upon that just right now.” 

Harry blinked quickly and gave an imperceptible shiver, that probably only Snape noticed, because the boy was smiling brightly at the same time. 

”As to the concerns that you wrote to me about, Severus, I am happy to announce that Harry’s magic is entirely intact. There are no tendencies what-so-ever that he should be waning into a squib,” continued Dumbledore.

Harry’s friend Neville had once explained to him what a squib was, and Harry cast a surprised look at Snape, who, however, drew a shuddering sigh of relief.

”Are you sure, Headmaster?” he asked.

”Call me Albus, please, Severus. We are among friends. You seem to have been especially worried about this. Yes, I’m sure, because I performed a little test with Harry just now during our chat. I don’t think that you noticed, Harry, but I tested your magical sensibility by sending magical energy to different parts of the room and you turned your head in the right direction every single time. Twenty out of twenty. I’m not sure that you are aware of it, but your instincts are there. As for your executive powers, it’s too early to test them so soon after your ordeal, but they usually go hand in hand with the sensibility,” explained Dumbledore. 

”You thought that I might become a squib?” Harry asked Snape with a frown. 

”I… did not know. Because of the abscess formation, the surgeon could not guarantee that he had been able to remove every part of the inflamed appendix - the tissue was so altered, and I simply… had not enough knowledge to say if that constituted a risk or not, for becoming… you know…” Snape spoke hesitantly. 

”Let me relate to you an interesting hypothesis that I have heard of,” said Dumbledore. ”It is not widely spread, but there are some historical evidence to support it. In the Ancient times, many millenaries ago, the wizard phenotype might have been the most prevalent in the human race. The researchers believe that almost every child was born with a magical potential. At that time, surgery had not been invented, or what was used was not safe, but there was no need for it, as the appendix dissociation rite - which is the correct appellation - would pass in a self-healing way. The appendix would simply shrivel and resorb on its own at the appropriate age of the child - which is individual - and the magical powers would be released. But then the historical paradigm of the domestication of animals altered the bacterial colonisation of the human gut drastically. Suddenly, appendicitis became a life-threatening condition and made the wizard population extremely vulnerable. The non-magical human phenotype who kept their appendix intact the entire life had an evolutionary advantage over the magical phenotype, and Muggles started to prevail. The magical community was, in fact, threatened by extinction. Magical children died in mass from appendicitis, or turned into squibs. Only the rare wizard or witch survived, by managing to self-heal and resorb their appendix the ancient way.”

”Merlin,” muttered Arthur Weasley, ”no wonder we have such an ambiguous relationship with the Muggle community.” 

”You’re right, Arthur. There is a strange co-dependency between our two kinds,” answered Dumbledore. ”But what I was getting at was that the apparent truth that an appendix has to be removed by surgery, is in fact a myth. The advances of Muggle technology did, however, ironically, help the wizard community to recover, as surgery became safer. Since the introduction of antibiotics at the beginning of the twentieth century, the wizard community has in fact steadily been growing.”

Harry, Snape, Mr and Mrs Weasley all listened politely to Professor Dumbledore’s history lesson.

”All that to say,” continued Dumbledore, ”that Harry did not imperatively have to have every ounce of his appendix removed by the surgery. Antibiotics might have been sufficient. He probably shrunk what was left of the organ, as has been done since the evolutionary beginnings of wizard life. I think that you could safely say that Harry has had - how do you phrase it in modern Muggle language? - one hell of an appendicitis,” said Dumbledore, smiling. ”And that we can conclude that it is now safely out of the way. It was just as well that you never told Harry about your worries, Severus.”

Harry nodded and smiled, but Snape could see that the smile did not quite reach his eyes.

”What’s the matter, Harry?” he asked, immediately on alert.

”Nothing,” the boy answered quickly.

”Don’t lie to me, Harry,” Snape entreated sternly. Harry turned his head away.

”I simply like to be told things as they are…” he mumbled. ”I don’t particularly like being kept in the dark about things that are about me, that’s all.”

”You had enough on your mind. I did not want to worry you with my - mere -  speculations when you were recuperating from such a serious condition. They proved to be unfounded anyway.” Snape sounded harsher and more defensive than he wanted to.

”I’m sure that Professor Snape had your best interest in mind, Harry,” said Dumbledore gently.

”You tricked me, too, with the test,” mumbled Harry, the least little bit resentful. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. 

”So, I did,” he confessed. ”That test is designed to be performed without the subject’s knowledge. But I see what you mean, and I will try to remember in the future, that you like to be informed of things.”

”To the utmost possible extent, so will I,” said Snape gravely, sensing that when this boy - who had apparently been ordered around by his aunt all his life - for once managed to express some kind of wish or opinion, he needed to be met with respect from the adults around him. 

Harry suddenly smiled warmly and Snape felt himself catch his breath in a bewildering wave of - was it tenderness for the child? The boy is so like Lily, thought Snape with a pang of regret, he forgives so easily. Merlin help me if I loose his trust like I once lost his mother’s love. You must not abuse these easily trusting people’s candidness.

”So, Severus,” said Dumbledore scrutinising his teacher, probationer and protégé. ”Have you felt the strings of Ancient magic pulling at you, or not?”  Snape was prepared for the question.

”A tad,” he answered nonchalantly. ”I feel slightly more protective towards the boy.” 

Mr Weasley suddenly let out a muffled noise that sounded like something between a sneeze and a violent cough. Mrs Weasley glared disapprovingly at her husband.

”You were saying, Arthur?” Dumbledore turned towards the red-faced man who shook his head. 

”Nothing. Tickle in my throat. I might have caught something while I rode that spell course yesterday. My children made me go on the least horrendous one,” replied Arthur Weasley in a strangled voice. Dumbledore directed his gaze back towards Snape.

”So you feel a tad protective towards Harry?” 

Snape confirmed once again with a dignified nod. He noticed that Harry was staring at him with curiosity, but Snape diverted his gaze as he did not feel ready to answer any questions from the boy about Ancient magic and protective feelings.

”Well, that makes sense. As a professional you should only be the least little bit affected. Good,” said Dumbledore. ”Is this something we are going to notice in acts?” he pressed on, managing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but Snape understood all the same that he alluded to the deplorable way that Snape had treated Harry at Hogwarts during his first year. Snape opted to deliberately misunderstand the headmaster, however.

”I was thinking of offering to tutor the boy,” he said gravely. Dumbledore was not prepared for the suggestion - Snape could tell so from the sudden stillness of the old wizard’s body. Albus Dumbledore usually made small, gracious movements with his hands and imperceptible rocking movements with his trunk, as if he was at sea or as if his body hummed constantly from inside. 

Dumbledore froze for a few seconds only, before he raised an eyebrow questioningly.

”We already started to pass the time at the hospital with tutoring, and it struck me that Harry…” Snape deliberately used Harry’s first name, because there was no way he was going to revert to referring to the boy as ’Potter’ at this stage, and he also hoped by doing so to convince Albus of his sincerity in the matter. ”… It struck me that Harry has grown up in strict Muggle conditions, and that he might need a little guidance in the magical world. Also, I thought that Molly and Arthur have their hands full with supervising the work of their own children. And if I could contribute in some small way…”

Molly Weasley suddenly looked offended and was on her way of saying something when Mr Weasley put a hand on her arm. Dumbledore looked undecided. 

”Under condition, naturally, that Harry is himself well-inclined to accept the idea,” said Snape stiffly, reminding himself that the boy should be included and not manipulated, but dreading suddenly that Harry would decline the offer.

”I’d really like that,” the boy replied promptly and happily, to Snape’s surprise. This did not seem like an area that bothered or embarrassed Harry in the least, as no mutism was hitting him and he was his usual straight-forward self.

”Well,” said Dumbledore, relieved, but still slightly taken aback, ”that’s settled then. All is for the best.”

Snape looked smug, but Molly Weasley’s mouth quirked sourly.