Harry found himself at the kitchen table, a plate of warm noodles and vegetables before him. Hoppity sat across from him, enjoying a warm cup of tea. She excused herself to take a warm bath.

“Can you see Harry to bed tonight, Severus?”

“Yes,” Snape replied by the icebox, looking at the list of rules as he gathered his own plate of food.

Hoppity did not want to be the one to put Harry to bed early. She thought that he should be allowed to stay up as late as he wanted. If Harry was cranky in the morning, well that was something sugar could fix, right? She didn't want to go against Severus though, according to both him and Harry they had an agreement, something that Harry broke and was in trouble for.

Hoppity thought that Harry should be allowed to get in trouble, be mischievous and make mistakes. That was a part of childhood, right? Severus seemed to want and try to forestall that as much as possible. Maybe after her bath she could have a talk with Severus, when Harry was in bed.

“Goodnight, Harry bean. Sleep well,” Hoppity said, trailing her hand through Harry's hair before turning to leave.

“'Night,” Harry said, a little disappointed that she would not be putting him to bed.

Snape joined him at the table. The Professor took several bites of food, chewing and swallowing carefully.

“You added some rather nice rules.” Snape stated.

“...Thank you,” Harry replied. The praise was unexpected. Did Snape ever praise him? Only that once when he blocked Snape's mind magic this morning. Maybe... Snape was starting to like him?

“I am wondering, however, what you have against cupboards. Something your cousin did, perhaps?” Snape's tone was mild, he was seemingly interested in his plate of food.

Cousin? Harry wrinkled his nose as an image of a fat boy came to mind, loud and rough, and shoving Harry into darkness. Dudley. “I don't know, I guess so.”

“Try to remember...” Snape's voice was long and slow, almost hypnotizing.

Harry almost shivered as a memory of darkness came to the forefront of his mind, pressing himself against a door but not being able to get out.

He didn't like it.

“I'm not hungry anymore. May I be excused?”

“No, finish your food anyway.” Snape said. Harry looked up to see Snape's eyes peering down at him, focused and glinty.

Harry picked up his fork again, and ate some noodles. Snape was acting too interested for Harry's liking.

When Harry was done with his plate, he made to stand up again.

“No- don't stand up, stay there,” Snape said, getting up and taking Harry's plate away. “I don't want you undoing my hard work. I want to put more salve on your sting, and let it dry before you go to bed.”

Harry waited as Snape left to get the poultice from the other room. Snape returned with it and some bandages, then pulled out the chair next to Harry's. He moved Harry so that he could get better access to the bee sting on his foot, and then sat in the chair, lifting Harry's foot to his knee.

Harry watched as Snape peered at the sting and dressed it with more salve, the Professor's expression focused. It made Harry feel nice, like a prized potion.

Harry's foot still hurt a little, and the cool poultice felt good, soothing on his injury.

Snape left it unwrapped to dry. He released Harry's foot, wiped his fingers off on a towel, and then said, “Let me see your arm.”

Harry looked at him warily before stretching his arm out, the crook of the elbow up for inspection.

Snape pulled the arm closer to himself, then took out the small red bottle of scar reducing potion from a front pocket. He had almost forgotten it in the last two weeks, something that he intended to rectify. The scar on the inside of Harry's elbow was still squiggly and red, but less mangled. Since this was a physical wound and not a magical one it could heal. With enough applications the scar would disappear completely, but he was saving those applications to barter for answers to his questions. He had applied the potion four or five times already. That number again would heal the scar completely.

The Potions Professor always gave the boy a choice of whether or not to answer his question. If Harry decided not to answer, he would forfeit the application. So far, the boy had answered everything.

“What was the worst time you were in a cupboard?”

Harry cringed, memories of a large beefy hand coming down on his head to yank his hair and fling him into his cupboard. A large man yelling, his face puce and scary... it wasn't his fault, but he was in there for such a long, long time... and he felt so sick... crawling out of his skin in the hot, sticky darkness... and hungry, thirsty...

“I don't want to answer that,” Harry said, pulling his arm back.

Snape's lips flattened, but his voice was calm and not mean like Harry expected it to be. “Fine, perhaps you will answer this. How did your relatives usually punish you? The relatives you lived with before.”

Harry looked away and held his arm to himself. He didn't like to remember before, but it came to him. The silence of the kitchen and the intensity of Snape's boring eyes made it easier.

“They shouted... a lot. Said bad things. Like...” Worthless. Freak. No he couldn't repeat them to Snape. “They shut me in a cupboard sometimes, locked me in. Let my cousin-” Dudley, “Beat me up. I did a lot of chores. Never got dessert.” Often didn't get dinner either.

“Is that all?” Snape asked.

No, they starved me too. But they didn't, not really. Harry would be dead if they did. He did a sort of half-shrug in answer.

“Did they hurt you?”

Not when Harry ducked, which was almost all the time. “Not besides what you already know... I don't want to answer questions anymore.” He suddenly realized, “Hey, that was more than one!”

“So it was,” Snape said carefully, looking at Harry. “Your arm.”

Harry laid it out on top the table again, and Snape leaned over it and gently dabbed some potion onto Harry's scar. The deaged boy watched with interest. Already his scar looked less raised, maybe less red too.

Harry watched as Snape capped the potion and put it away into his pocket. It would be great if Harry could find that bottle, and not have to answer any more of Snape's questions but Harry knew better than to try. Snape was sneaky, and would surely catch Harry, and then Harry would have to sleep in the basement next to a vat of live worm guts and eat them for breakfast. The Potions Master said so, and he rarely went back on his promises.

“I suppose the poultice is dry enough now,” Snape said, and picked up Harry's foot to bandage it.

Harry wriggled his toes as the white cloth was wrapped around his foot. The edges ticked a little, and then Snape was tucking the end under a fold on the top.

“It should be completely healed before morning. Off to bed now.”

Harry stood up and tested his foot. It still hurt. A little.

“Still tender? Alright,” Snape said, and picked him up for the third time that night. Harry was starting to get used to it, maybe. Maybe he even liked it.

---

The next day Harry's foot was healed, like Snape said it would be.

Harry was very glad about that, as he could run and play with comfort during recess with all the other children.

The questions of last night stayed with him, however. They resurfaced in the afternoon when his class was to finish the stories they had been writing for the last week. They got to draw pictures too, and make a little book. Harry wrote his about himself, only a little more fantastical. It wasn't like anyone here would recognize him and what he wrote about. He relished the opportunity to express himself without judgment. His book was actually more pictures than words, but Harry knew what was going on, and that was the important thing.

The star of his story was a little boy named Henry, and Henry lived in the cupboard of a cave of trolls. The trolls were ugly and fat and stupid, and tried to eat everything. Henry talked to snakes and unicorns, and tried to hide from the trolls because they were mean and ugly. Whenever they caught him, they would try to eat him, but Henry was fast and small. When the trolls came for him, he would run away or hide in his small cupboard and then they couldn't eat him. The trolls were so stupid that they got themselves in trouble, and they always blamed Henry.

One day when Henry was hiding, he found a hole in the back of this cupboard. It took him to a land of unicorns. He loved to play with the unicorns, and they loved him so much.

Then a big snake came, and wanted to eat the unicorns and Henry. The snake chased them, but Henry found a MAGIC sword and was going to chop off the snake's head! The snake got scared and slithered away through the hole in his cupboard back to the cave with the trolls! The trolls were so stupid that they thought that the snake was Henry, and they tried to eat it.

The snake ate the trolls instead. This was Harry's favorite part. He drew the snake with three big lumps in its tail and a lazy smile. One of the troll's head was bitten off on the floor.

Then little Henry chased the snake with the sword, but the snake said that it was sorry and that it had just been hungry. It had been too hungry because there was a monster who ate all the food and made all the snakes and animals starve. This was why the snake tried to eat them, but it wouldn't anymore. The trolls had been so fat that the snake never had to eat again for 100 years.

Henry and the snake became friends. Then Henry and the unicorns rode on the big snake. They all found and attacked the giant monster, and then everyone was happy and safe. To celebrate they ate chocolate cake that grew on trees. The end!

Harry Potter had a great time drawing the trolls, and writing their misfortunes. Most of his story had been written already, but he went back and drew more about the trolls and how mean they had been, making more detailed illustrations.

When the teacher came around, Harry explained his story proudly. The teacher said that he had “a wonderful imagination” and that he should keep writing because he could “be a great writer one day.” Harry didn't know about that. He turned back to his work and missed the worried looks his teacher gave him over the content of his story.

One by one, the students got to explain their stories. When it was his turn, he then got to tell it to the class, and everyone listened. He could see admiring looks from Jessica and some of the other students, and jealous glances from Bobby, the classroom bully.

Some of the students thought that his story was gross, or scary, but that was okay. He though that others loved it. Harry was feeling proud, and happy.

At the end of the school day before the bell rang for dismissal, his teacher gave him a folded piece of paper. “Make sure that you give this to your parents, okay? They have a Parent-Teacher conference tomorrow with me, and this is a reminder. Will you give this to your Mommy or Daddy as soon as you see them?”

“Yes,” Harry said, taking the paper.

“Thank you.”

Harry remembered hearing something about a conference, but promptly forgetting about it before. No one had wanted to go to one of those before. They didn't have them at his last school, and he couldn't remember anyone caring about it then, or before. He wsn't really sure what it was about , but he didn't think that it was something for him... but maybe, just maybe Hoppity would want to go! He smiled. Maybe the teacher would tell her how wonderful he was, and how great his story had been. Maybe his teacher would tell her that he was a pleasure to have in class, and that she liked him. Maybe Hoppity would be so proud of him after the meeting that she would take him out for ice cream!

With these cheerful thoughts in mind, he walked down the school corridors until he met up with Hoppity, and handed her the paper his teacher gave him.

Little did he know, that Hoppity wasn't going to be the “parent” who attended the meeting...