Severus stood just at the edge of Privet Drive and simply stared. The uniformity was mind-boggling and disturbing. House after house, made from the same mold, painted the same way, all perfectly groomed. Children played outside only occasionally and on expensive, well-kept toys. And he was expected to live how many days in this Muggle hell? He had gone through how much trouble to get himself into the scrawny, short form that he now stood in?

With a sigh, he set off toward Number 4, knowing that the sooner he got there, the better. He felt uncomfortably like he stood out in the shabby, oversized rags that he currently wore, but both Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin had insisted that they were Harry’s own (and only) Muggle clothes. If Severus found out that they had been lying… Well, the results would not be pretty.

His subjective feeling that he stood out was apparently not so subjective after all, or else it was shared by everyone else in the neighborhood. In the form of Harry Potter, he received sneers, glares, and sideways glances in plenty. What did Potter do during the summer, rob the neighbors? Beat up their children? Sell Muggle drugs? They were looking at him like he was a criminal!

Finally, at long last, he reached Number 4 Privet Drive. He examined the landscaping with narrowed eyes, taking in the fact that it seemed to have recently deteriorated. Had they fired their gardener? Though Snape rarely admitted it, he had been more than competent at Herbology in his younger days, cultivating many of his own ingredients, and he could see that the garden *had* been well taken care of, until perhaps a few weeks ago.

“Boy!” an angry voice hissed. “Stop dawdling and get in here *now*!” Snape's eyes tracked immediately to the door way, where thin, horse-like face was peering at him through an only partially cracked front door. With a sigh, Snape retrieved his (Harry's) trunk from the sidewalk and lugged it toward the door.

"Aunt Petunia," he greeted the woman evenly with a nod, remembering his instructions on who lived in the home and how Harry had been heard to call them. The woman's eyes narrowed suspiciously on him after she slammed the door behind him.

"In your cupboard," she ordered sharply, pointing toward the stairs. Snape hesitated for a moment before beginning to drag the trunk toward the stairs. "Pick-it-up!" Petunia hissed again, and with a roll of his eyes Snape did as he was told. What an auspicious beginning, he thought. I don't even know where "my" cupboard is.

He was about to step onto the first step when he heard the shrill voice again, causing his shoulders to tense in sympathy with his eardrums. "Have you gone completely daft besides your obvious *freakishness*? Your cupboard is, as always, *under* the stairs. And you had better fix how you look before Vernon gets home, or you'll really be in for it. He won't stand for your insolent freakiness."

Snape removed his foot from the stairs and turned to the left, where he could indeed see a small door opening to what was apparently a small cupboard taking advantage of the space under the stairs. There was a lock on the outside, which he unlatched before peering into the dark space. He would have to duck down to get inside, and the space was filled with spiderwebs and scuttling bugs, as well as--a small mattress and a blanket? Now, that was odd, especialy since only the smallest child could have laid on the mattress without curling up, or stood upright in the cupboard for that matter. With a shrug, he shoved the trunk into the cupboard, and then stood up.

"Aunt Petunia?" he called cautiously, not knowing where the woman had disappeared to and remembering that his reception thus far had been less than pleasant thus far.

"Yes, boy?" she sneered, her face peering out of the kitchen now. It had appeared quite quickly--almost as though she had been standing right next to the door.

"Sorry, ma'am, but what were you saying about fixing how I look?" It grated on Snape's nerves to be so respectful to the woman that had shown him only disdain, but he hoped that she would return the favor if she realized that Harry was not acting his usual arrogant self, expecting pampering at every turn.

"You've done more of that *freakishness*. Vernon hardly stood it the first time, and he certainly won't stand it again, even if it does get you back to looking more like your good-for-nothing father instead of a complete stranger."

Petunia was obviously on her last nerves, glaring at him harshly. "Nevermind, boy. I won't take this insolence--I'll let *you* deal with Vernon when he gets home. Now, I have chores for you." She spun on her heels and walked slightly further into the kitchen, only to return with a long list and hand it to him. "Done by dinnertime, or there will be no food tonight."

The kitchen door swung shut, leaving Snape staring dumbly at the list. "Clean gutters; wash windows; mow lawn; weed planters; trim hedges; dust furniture." It was already 3pm! Without magic, not even half of the chores on the list could be finished, and he *knew* that Harry was not in the habit of using magic--this house was warded with more than twice the number of magical detectors as even the most unlucky underage students usually got.

He opened his mouth to protest to the angry woman who was obviously still in the kitchen, banging around noisily, then realized that perhaps speaking with her at the moment was not the most intelligent choice. Better to get started, he decided with a sigh.

He got the hedges trimmed, and weeded the planters (ignoring the spaces behind the hedges where weeds would be less obvious, for now). The gutters were not going to get cleaned--Snape had no idea how he would even get up there to do such a job, and it would take him far too long to figure it out. The windows needed washing for certain, and the furniture needed to be dusted, but the lawn was clearly in need of a trim too. And here was where Snape's problem came--he *thought* he might be able to recognize a lawn mower, but how to use it? That was an entirely different story. With a sigh, he made his way back to the shed to see if he could figure it out.

Snape was relieved to find that the mower was considerably less complicated than he remembered--just a rotating blade that looked as though it was connected to the wheels, so that it would turn as the mower was pushed. Snape lugged the large and unwieldy, rusted old mower out of the shed and set to work, moving as quickly as he could. Which turned out to be not as fast as he might have hoped. The hot, humid air and the resistance of the rusted blades left him drenched in sweat nearly an hour later--and he had only finished the backyard!

It was a lost cause. The windows were "clean," but so streaky that he doubted the irritable woman inside would accept the job as completed. And Snape quickly realized that without a quick puff of air from his wand, he had no idea how to go about dusting the furniture. He finally settled for bringing the not-so-clean rag that he had used to clean the windows inside and using a dry corner to wipe off as much visible dust as he could on the downstairs furniture. Petunia was still making lots of noise in the kitchen, which left him thankful that no one was around to catch him trying to clean like a muggle.

That is, he was thankful until there was a sudden roaring sound like a herd of elephants approaching. Snape spun in the direction of the noise and found the stairs--and appearing down them at a slow but no less noisy speed, a boy who was larger than any Snape had ever seen. Snape put him at roughly the size of a six month old Hungarian Horntail--and those dragons did not grow slowly. He was so busy gaping at the rolls of fat hanging off of the kid and the fact that he was mobile at all that he forgot to hide the now filthy rag that he had been using.

"*What* are you *doing*?" sneered the baby Horntail (which Snape identified as being Harry's cousin, Dudley). The sad thing, to Snape, was that the sneer wasn't even particularly *good.* He should know, he had spent enough time practicing in the mirror at himself to know what a *good* sneer could look like. Dudley Dursley looked more like he was constipated than anything else.

"Cleaning," Snape responded shortly, turning back to his work as though Dudley were not worth a second glance (which, in his opinion, was true).

"Ohhhh.." replied the boy, and he heard the thundering steps move the rest of the way down the stairs and approach him from behind. "Cleaning. Does that involve *breaking* Mum's china, do you think?" Snape hardly had time to register what the boy was saying before he was shoved bodily into the cabinet he had been dusting. Sharp corners and dull edges pushed into him with painful suddenness, and his upper body's forward momentum carried him toward the delicate decorative dishes displayed on top of the cabinet with horrifying inevitabilty.

A moment later, several dishes and Snape's new, scrawny body were on the floor. Snape felt nearly as broken as the dishes, and moaned in pain as he tried not to look at the damage. Petunia came rushing into the room, blubbering at first. "Oh, my Diddy-Duddykins, are you *okay?! What did the nasty freak do to you?!"

"He--he--he was *threatening* me," Dudley responded in a completely unrealistic stutter. He was too busy grinning down at "Harry" past his mother. "And he *broke* your favorite China, the clumsy freak!"

Suddenly, all eyes were on Snape, and he clutched his stomach where most of the new bruises seemed to be appearing. "What?!" he exclaimed at the angry look he was getting from Harry's aunt. "Surely you don't *believe* that--"

"Are you calling my Diddy-Duddykins A LIAR?!" Petunia roared at him. "You, you, you freak! You're the criminal, and the whole neighborhood knows it. How *dare* you?!"

"Because he *is*," Snape sneered back angrily, not seeing how things could get any worse. "As anyone with half a brain can easily see! I was just minding my business, doing your *chores*," he sneered further, "when he slammed me into the cabinet!"

"That is IT!" Petunia shrieked, and Snape felt sure that he would go deaf imminently. "Into your cupboard, *now*, and I will let VERNON take care of you when he gets home!"

Petunia muttered more severely uncomplimentary things about "the little freak" under her breath, staring down at him with chest heaving and waiting for him to pick himself up. Snape, for his part, was staring up at her in shock. Surely she couldn't mean the same cupboard that she had referred to earlier as "his cupboard".. A five year old would hardly fit in there, especially with the trunk in there as well! "But--but--the chores--dinner--" he tried, his stomach growling slightly despite the pain still radiating from the area.

Petunia's eyes widened in fury. "You think we will *reward* you for this behavior?! The chores are far from finished, and now you've broken my favorite China *and* accused my darling little Dudders of being a *liar*!! If you get a meal in the next twenty-four hours, you will be incredibly lucky!"

"Should I 'help' him to his cupboard, Mum?" the whale asked with a nasty smile. Snape immediately saw where he had inherited the smile from when a mirror image crossed Petunia's face.

"That is a wonderful idea, Dudders. He's obviously very *disoriented*," she responded immediately.

Snape had to give it to him, the huge boy could move fast when he really wanted to. A moment later he was being dragged less than gently to his feet, and out of the room--with a slight detour for him to be *accidentally* slammed into the door frame hard enough for him to groan again in pain. "You--you can't starve me!" he demanded as coherently as he could, trying to twist around to see the angry woman. "The Order..! And the Minister..!"

Petunia made her way to the doorway to roll her eyes at him and answer sarcastically, "You've been sooo depressed that you just didn't want to eat anything, don't you remember? Besides, none of those *freaks* are likely to notice anything after a few days--and that *is* all that you will be here for, *right*?"

Only a few days, Snape reminded himself. Only a few days. He'd heard that Muggles could go 40 with no food at all, and wizards even longer than that. Only a few--Dudley shoved him to the side suddenly without loosening the grip he had on his arm, and he saw (first hand, with bruises) that they had reached the corner of the hallway and the kitchen. The cupboard was straight ahead and they had definitely passed the stairs. Suddenly, Snape began to struggle. "You are *not* putting me in *there*!" he exclaimed.

"It's only 'til Dad comes home, Harry," Dudley sneered, and somehow when the boy had his scrawny arm in his iron grip it was much more intimidating. "And if you really want to argue, I'm sure I can invite some friends over for some Harry Hunting tomorrow--it's been ever so long."

Harry... hunting... Snape mouthed the words, puzzled. He didn't have much more time to consider the "offer" though, because suddenly the door to the cupboard had been yanked open, and he was being shoved in, right on top of Harry's trunk, which was taking up most of the floor space. He slammed into the back of the cupboard with a grunt and grimaced at all the spiderwebs he could now feel over his face and in his hair. He had time to catch a short glimpse of the tiny cot once more, and then the door had been slammed shut and it was pitch black.

Snape glared at where he was fairly certain the door was, but restrained himself from banging on it and demanding to be released--he had heard the bolt slam shut, and he knew that his "demanding" was more likely to sound like begging from this position. He would wait it out, just like he did with Voldemort's punishments.

An hour later, Snape was starting to feel very cramped, unable to stretch out in any direction--he had tried them all, and merely gotten shrieked at to "shut up and be quiet, freak!" when he had misestimated the distance to the nearest wall. The "cot" was also not very comfortable--it was lumpy and not particularly soft despite the "mattress" laid on it, and Snape could only get part of his body onto it. He perked up slightly when he heard the front door open, hoping that something was finally going to happen.

"Petunia! Dudley! I'm home!" cried out a loud voice that sounded somewhat familiar--like an older version of the "talking" Horntail. Snape shuddered slightly and hoped that didn't mean that the man rivaled his son in size.

"Dad!" "Vernon!" cried out the two other members of the house. "That *freak* is here, and he was giving me lip," he heard Petunia continue more quietly.

"Well, he's obviously gotten spoiled with those *freaks*.. I'll just have *remind* him how he's expected to behave in *our* house," responded Vernon, and there seemed to be a disturbing amount of sadistic glee in his voice. Snape contemplated for the first time that *perhaps* some of Potter's injuries had actually come from his relatives, as he had claimed. And hoped he wouldn't look so bad when he finally returned to Grimmauld Place.