Severus had watched the boy closely the first few days of term. Last year, he’d made the mistake of no longer spying on the boy, since Quirrell was dead and the Dark Lord vanished once more, and Potter had ended up nearly getting killed by a basilisk. Clearly, the child needed more than just his head of house keeping an eye on him. Not that McGonagall did, Severus thought sourly, she’d practically rewarded the boy when she caught him in any wrongdoing. He’d been honest when he’d told Potter and Weasley last year that he would have expelled them for their flying car. They both could’ve been killed and the wizarding world exposed due to brainless childish antics and Severus wasn’t about to let such behavior continue.

Still, Severus had been surprised at what he’d witnessed during the first week. Potter wasn’t eating. The boy sat at the crowded Gryffindor table during meals and joined in occasionally with what passed for conversation among the other third years but didn’t eat any of the food before him. Sometimes, often at the beseeching look of Granger, he’d take something to eat later but he never ate during the meal. Even during the welcome feast Potter had not consumed more than a cup of tea.

After three days, Severus left the Great Hall when the boy did, following him to see if Potter’s penchant for eating food away from the Gryffindor table was simply an ill-mannered teenage habit or something more serious. He noticed that Potter seemed quieter than he had once been, not so prone to the brash foolishness of the other students around him. But then, Severus had to admit that the boy had never been overly loud although he was certainly just as insufferable as his father had been.

Under his careful watch he saw Potter distract his two friends in a conversation with the Hufflepuff ghost long enough to toss the apple he held aside. Severus’ eyes narrowed in confusion as he studied the covert practiced motion of the boy. What was Potter up to now? After two more meals of which he witnessed Potter discarding food when Granger and Weasley weren’t looking, Severus was more bewildered than ever.

He told himself he was wasting his time and retreated to one of his dungeon labs. The image of Potter refusing to eat came back to him all throughout his brewing, unsetting him. Resolutely, Severus shook his head, focusing on the broiling potion before him. It wasn’t his business what Potter did or did not eat. Who could fathom the minds of thirteen-year-old boys anyway? Soon, Potter would grow hungry and whatever game he was playing would be over.

* * *

The next day he observed Potter in potions class, watching the boy mangle perfectly good ingredients. While earlier his frustration at the boy’s lackadaisical attitude toward brewing would have consumed him, Severus found himself noticing other things. Potter seemed tired. The frames of his glasses were taped along one side and his messy black hair looked as if it had not been cut for several months.

Severus moved through the steam rising from dozens of cauldrons, curling his lip at the sludge in the bottom of Weasley’s cauldron and glancing quickly over at Potter’s work. Appalling, as usual. The burdock root on the boy’s scarred desk was being destroyed by Potter’s inability to properly cut even slices with his knife. Severus turned away, the insult that he normally would’ve given for Potter’s poor work was on the tip of his tongue, but a distracting thought was pushed to the forefront of his mind instead. Had the boy’s hands always been that thin? He supposed that they had. Every year when term started Potter looked a bit unwell, now that he thought of it. The child’s parents had been slender and fair-skinned, but Potter had an unhealthy pallor to him and even with the thick school robe the boy wore it was obvious that he was underweight, in addition to being undersized. And really, was it normal for a teenage boy to still be so short? Weasley towered over Potter and even Granger looked an inch taller than the boy who was now half-heartedly stirring his cauldron.

Severus reflected on the last few days, remembering each time that Potter had refused to eat or had thrown away food. Term had started four days ago and he couldn’t recall seeing Potter eat once. Whatever was going on, it needed to be addressed immediately before things grew worse. A loud bang and a roiling cloud of pungent green fumes erupted suddenly from Longbottom’s table. Severus whipped around, dark robes billowing as he strode across the classroom to inspect the damage, all thought about confronting Potter driven out of his mind by the sight of Longbottom’s pink face and the hapless boy’s half-melted cauldron.

* * *

And now, here Potter was in his office, wearing the most horrid ill-fitting muggle clothing Severus had ever seen. Far too large for any thirteen-year-old, the gray jumper hung off Potter’s shoulder. The sleeves were rolled up ridiculously far just to see the boy’s hands while the unraveled hem fell somewhere past the child’s knees. He could only assume that a belt was holding up the massive ripped jeans that the boy wore.

Potter was gawking at him and for once Severus did not feel that unbearable mix of pain and resentment at seeing Lily’s eyes staring from James Potter’s face. Perhaps it was the apparent thinness of the boy’s face, or perhaps he had never really looked at the child and seen him before, but now he could identify wariness and fear in Potter’s large almond-shaped eyes. There was shame there, but hope as well and Severus stood still and waited, holding that green gaze.

“I don’t –“ the boy closed his eyes and turned his head away, “I don’t know where to begin,” he whispered, his voice tight and ragged. He was trembling slightly and Severus remained quiet.

Sympathy rose in him, a strange creature he hardly knew. He remembered with sudden swiftness his own fear of speaking truths he was afraid others would use against him. He had been cruel to the child for years and now he was expecting Potter to speak when the boy clearly was considering the possibility that Severus’ demand was no more than a ploy to humiliate him later on. Severus grimaced, unsure of how to climb out of the hole he’d dug himself into. He was no good at reassuring children. He couldn’t even explain to himself why he no longer loathed the boy on sight. Those eyes behind broken glasses opened, and looked at him with the forthright curiosity of a much younger child, although the boy lifted his chin in the proud motion of a man facing danger head-on.

“They don’t want me to eat,” Potter said in a surprisingly steady tone. Wariness was still visible in his gaze but so was a sort of relief. Severus kept his expression calm, unthreatening and after a moment Potter continued, fiddling with the enormous sleeves of his muggle shirt, his words leaving him in a pent-up rush. “The Dursleys hate feeding me. They’re always going on about how much money I cost them. They give me what’s left on their plates but Dudley’s started some new diet so there’s not much left when they’re done eating. I don’t have any muggle money to buy food and I don’t dare try sneaking anything from the fridge anymore.”

Shock and a much darker emotion warred inside of Severus as he watched the boy, taking in the almost defiant posture and the vulnerability clearly hidden underneath.

“They starve you.” He stated flatly. Oddly, Potter bristled at that, anger flashing across his face.

“They’re not my family sir, they don’t have to feed me.”

“They are your guardians and as such –“ Severus began but Potter interrupted him boldly, crossing skinny arms defensively over his hideous muggle shirt.

“I didn’t ask to be landed with them and they sure as hell didn’t ask for me! I get by fine without them,” his voice lowered and he turned his gaze back to the dusty stone floor, “it’s just better, if I stay out of their way.”

This was turning into a far bigger problem than Severus had first thought. It took all his skill in Occulmency to keep his face impassive and his temper reined in at hearing Potter rationalize such deplorable actions.

“And how do you get by?” he finally asked quietly.

Potter shrugged in a forced casual motion, his jumper sliding further down his shoulder and pulling at the overlarge gray t-shirt underneath so that the prominent bones of his collarbone were visible, the thinness of his neck suddenly very apparent.

“Nicking things out of bins or the neighbors gardens.” He finally muttered and Severus looked away sharply, rage pulsing inside him. So this was why the boy was so thin and small. For two years no one had seen the mistreatment that was painfully obvious now. He didn’t know who he hated more, the boy’s muggle relatives or himself.

“Why aren’t you eating now?” he demanded harshly and Potter shrugged again, avoiding his eyes and staring instead at a row of bottled ingredients along the wall of his office. “There is plenty of food here –“

“I know there is!” Potter interrupted him loudly once more, “I just – it’s – I can’t explain.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, regarding the boy closely. Much as he disliked being interrupted he could see that there was something Potter longed to say, something truly difficult for the child to speak of. Potter’s cheeks were flushed with shame and he was staring hard at the floor as if hoping he would disappear. Unconsciously, Severus gentled his voice, speaking as he would to a injured animal,

“Tell me,”

“It’s not right,” Potter whispered, running a shaking hand through his untidy hair, “I – I don’t… I’m not good enough to…” his voice trailed off into nothing.

Severus studied him. Potter seemed to be holding himself very still, as if expecting to be laughed at or disparaged. Severus felt only immense pity that years of having to scrounge for food had conditioned the child to think he did not deserve to eat anything other than the scraps left on others’ plates. Beneath the pity was that terrible anger and the part of him that still dwelled close to darkness was longing to find Potter’s relatives and extract some form of justice for what had been done. But then, what would vindictiveness do other than land him in Azkaban? Cursing the boy’s family would be satisfying, but it would not help the boy heal.

He turned, moving back around his desk, seeing the way that Potter flinched at the sudden motion, shrinking away automatically. His anger heightened but he would not allow it to show in his demeanor, the child was clearly unsettled enough at the conversation, he would not frighten the boy or make Potter believe his anger was directed at him. Severus pulled his quill and a scrap of blank parchment close and wrote quickly on it, red droplets of ink dotting the parchment like blood in his haste. He slid the paper toward Potter. The boy came forward hesitantly, slowly picking up the parchment, brow furrowing as he read.

“You want me to come here every day before my first class?” he demanded, his tone too incredulous to decipher whether he was outraged or not.

“And after your last class.” Severus intoned, gesturing to the parchment with his quill. “It is a request, not a punishment,” he continued at the look on Potter’s face before narrowing dark eyes at the boy, “but if you fail to be present at the times stated than you will be serving a real detention, understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Potter said after a long pause, his head lowered, his tone tinged with defiance.

The boy had no idea how pleased Severus was to hear such defiance. Anger, Severus could work with and courage would be extraordinarily important in helping the child recover. Even when Severus had hated the boy he could not deny that Potter was brave. And that was a thought in it of itself, he no longer hated Potter, nor did he believe that Potter hated him, at least not entirely. There was still much left to be discussed but perhaps some sort of truce between them would not be as impossible to achieve as he had once thought.