Harry Potter was sitting on his bed (his bed!) in Dudley’s second bedroom, staring at the ceiling and wondering what Professor Snape had exactly said to his aunt and uncle to make them be so—well, not exactly nice, but just indifferent.

When his uncle had picked him up from the train, he’d been nervous that Professor Snape’s talk wouldn’t be enough. But his uncle merely grunted at him and the drive home was conducted in blissful silence. Harry made to get into his cupboard upon their arrival at home, but was instead grabbed by the back of his sweater by his uncle.

“What are you doing, Harry?” his uncle asked in a loud, forcibly pleasant voice. His mouth had frozen in some odd grimace and his moustache was twitching wildly.

“I—going to my—“

“Get to your room upstairs, you little tyke!” Uncle Vernon said loudly, pointing up the stairs to Dudley’s second bedroom.

Harry didn’t need to hear it twice. He darted up the stairs as quick as he could run, reaching the room and looking at it in awe.

All of Dudley’s toys had been boxed up and sat at the far end of the room, under the window. There was a much battered nightstand and bed pushed in one corner, with white sheets and a blanket on it, and Harry sat down on it immediately. A bed! His own bed at the Dursley’s! Harry could scarcely believe his luck. Sure, there was a lock on the door from the outside, but he had room to stretch out, here. Not like in the cupboard.

When he came down after laying on his bed in awe for an hour, Uncle Vernon was reading the paper in the kitchen.

“Erm—sir, d’you need me to start on dinner?” Harry asked, and Uncle Vernon jumped.

“If you feel like it!” the man said, clapping Harry on the shoulder in what could be considered a fatherly way, though his eyes were glaring Harry into the kitchen.

Had Snape bugged the house? Harry wondered as he started to slice an onion. He took little peeks around, but he couldn’t see anything. Snape was probably very good at bugging places without people knowing it, though.

It continued like that for the rest of break. He cooked a lot, then went back to his room. He broke the seal on one of the boxes, the one labeled ‘BOOKS’, and read ‘Treasure Island’. He worked on Aunt Petunia’s flower beds and befriended a stray dog that had taken to living in the hydrangeas. He wrote letters to Neville and Hermione and Snape and received letters back. Hedwig came sometimes even without a letter, and Harry would sneak to the kitchen and feed her the leftovers. After about a week, he’d gotten another blanket, one Dudley had decided was too babyish for him. Aunt Petunia had given it to him, proclaiming in a shrill and forced tone that it was ‘just the right gift for our Harry.’

Harry didn’t care how they acted, but the blanket was wonderful. Soft blue with yellow stars and silver moons all over it, and it reminded him of Hogwarts and home. He’d sit on his bed, tracing his parents faces into it, pretending this was his bed at Snape’s house, or where ever he was headed after the Dursleys.

About two weeks through break, Uncle Vernon proclaimed that they should have a nice family walk after dinner. Harry started to clear the dishes, but Uncle Vernon grabbbed the neck of his shirt and pulled him along. As soon as they left the house, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia scowled at Harry, a scowl Harry guessed had been pent in for the whole break.

“Aunt Marge is coming,” Uncle Vernon said, without prelude.

“Oh.” Harry hated Marge. He hated her dog, Ripper, even more. Lulled into a false sense of courage from the stillness of the house, he muttered “She isn’t my aunt.”

Uncle Vernon’s face turned bright red and Aunt Petunia had to latch on to his arm to stop it from swinging back. “Vernon, no, remember—“ she said fearfully, and Uncle Vernon let his hand fall reluctantly.

“Aunt or not, she’s your superior and you’ll treat her with respect!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Or there’ll be none of that—that town hogwash, understand? That—form thingy.”

One of the snobby school owls had swooped down to the table while they were eating breakfast that morning and deposited, in Uncle Vernon’s fried eggs, a permission slip for journeys into Hogsmeade. Though Harry had tried to hide his excitement, he desperately wanted to go, and Uncle Vernon had noticed.

“So—if I’m nice to her—“

“We’ve told her you go to St. Brutus’. It’s—a place where whelp like you ought to go—reformatory. You—you’ll play along with that, mind, or no—no Higglemede.”

Harry almost corrected him, then bit his tounge. “Erm—all right. What—what is this place?”

Harry was handed a pamphlet that had boys with buzz cuts and tough faces making beds and being caned by the headmaster, a man so large he gave Hagrid a run for his money. Harry read it several times, then put it under his bed. He concocted a story—really it was only another pretend, wasn’t it?—and, when Aunt Marge came, he stood by the door, waiting for her bags and hoping he got through the night.

“Still have him then, Vernon?” Aunt Marge boomed after properly hugging her neffy-poo. Ripper barked twice as if to say ‘how horrible.’

“Yes, yes, but the new school’s been working wonders,” Vernon said, nervous sweat popping out over his forehead.

“Oh? What school?”

“Saint Brutus’, top notch, really—come, Marge, sit down, Petunia’s prepared your favorite—“

All Harry had to do was really sit at the table and be sullen. Aunt Marge would snap at him and he would shrug. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done in his life.

He even got through the after dinner talk—all about drunk drivers and dropouts and everything they thought his parents were, and Harry just went away. He thought about his parents in the mirror, pretended he was looking at their picture. He thought of Snape and how nice he was, Snape and his potions lessons and his escape from Privet Drive—

He got through it all, and the moment Aunt Marge left Harry presented the form to Uncle Vernon. He let out a cry as his uncle tore it in two.

“But—I did everything you asked me to!”

“You were cheeky. I told you to show her and us some respect.” Uncle Vernon’s eyes gleamed piggily as he ripped it once more and handed the pieces back to Harry. “Perhaps next year.”

Harry gathered the pieces up and went to his room, where he painstakingly put the form back together with some spellotape he’d borrowed off of Neville.

The next night, Snape arrived just as Harry was serving up dinner. It was lasagna—Harry had been smelling it cooking all afternoon and his mouth was watering as he served up Dudley.

“I want more than that!” Dudley said, and Harry sighed and put more on his plate. “More!”

“There isn’t any more left.” Dudley looked like he was about the throw his plate in Harry’s face. Instead, he reached over and started to dump the contents of Harry’s plate onto his own.

“Hey, stop!” Harry cried, and he put down the lasagna dish and grabbed onto the plate. “That’s my dinner!”

“Get off it, Potter! It’s mine!”

“No, I’m hungry! Dudley, stop! Ouch!” Dudley had punched him in the ribs, and he staggered back into a chair, glaring daggers at the boy.

“I believe—“ came a smooth voice from the doorway, “—that Potter says that is his dinner.”

Aunt Petunia screamed, while Uncle Vernon dropped his fork to the plate with a clatter, choking on the mouthful he’d just taken. Dudley even seemed a little cowed. Harry spun around, and as soon as he saw the professor a huge smile broke out on his face.

“Professor!” he said happily, but Snape’s eyes were focused entirely on his cousin.

“That is Potter’s food. Put it down,” Snape said, as if he were talking to a spoiled puppy rather than a human being. For a moment Dudley looked uncertainly at the plate. But he was unused to not getting his own way, and so he forged forward.

“My parents paid for this food, I can eat as much of it as I want,” Dudley said, and he scraped the remaining lasagna onto his plate.

“Dudley! Give—give the boy his food back!” Uncle Vernon hissed, then he smiled greasily at the professor. His little piggy eyes kept darting from the man to Harry. “B-boys will be boys, eh, P-p-professor?”

Harry hid a grin as the plate floated out of Dudley’s hand and landed in front of Harry. “Dig in, Potter,” Snape said, and one of the austere chairs from Snape’s office appeared at the side of the table. Snape sat in it and stared at the table.

“If I am to join you for dinner,” Snape said, “It is courtesy to be offered something to eat.”

Aunt Petunia shoved her own plate in front of Dudley and glared at Snape. “Share with the boy,” she snapped, and then she fled to the kitchen. She returned a few moments later with a salad, which she ate quietly, yet disapprovingly.

Dudley had tucked into his food and was staring, his open mouth chewing, and asked “So, who are you, anyway? One of those freaks?”

Snape looked at the boy as though he were merely a squashed Gryffindor on the bottom of his shoe. “Shut your mouth while you’re eating, boy.”

Dudley scowled. “I don’t hafta. This is my house.” He made a point of eating deliberately sloppily, and a chunk of cheese and sauce fell out of his mouth onto the floor. He shoved Harry out of his chair and Harry, focused on his own food and surprised by the attack, toppled downward, smacking his head on the floor.

“Clean it up!” Dudley cried out gleefully, and he aimed a kick at Harry’s ribcage before Uncle Vernon grabbed the boy by his arms.

“Dudley, what did we talk about?”

“But it’s not FAIR!” Dudley cried out, and he started to make that pretend snivelling noise he’d always done so well. Harry got up, rubbing the back of his head, and darted a look at Snape. “I’ve had to be nice to him all summer, and he’s been horrid to me and you haven’t let me fight back! And you didn’t buy—“

“Silencio.” Dudley was suddenly mouthing angry, silent words, and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia immediately paled and rushed to his aid.

“I would leave him that way permanently,” Snape drawled as he reached out and grabbed Harry’s arm, “But I haven’t the time and I really should get going with young Mr. Potter.”

“Go, then,” Petunia said spitefully. “You’re wicked people, to do this to an innocent child.”

Snape, who had seemed perfectly content to leave them with a silent son until the spell wore off, quickly dropped that battle plan. “I—I’m wicked people? For silencing a good for nothing brat? What does that make you, then? Good people, for disposing of trash—“

“He brought bad things upon this house, like you, and we weren’t going to have it! We swore, when we took him in—“

“Now, Pet, leave it—“

“We swore we would stamp that nonsense out of him, make him an honest member of society—“

“Or a crippled one—“

Petunia got up angrily, reached across the table, and slapped Severus across the face. She was trembling with anger and any of the fear she had had was long gone. “Get—get out of my house. GET OUT!” She threw her salad at the professor’s head, and it promptly bounced away from him and instead smacked her in the head hard enough for her to pass out.

Snape raised his wand and Stunned the remaining Dursley. “Potter—“ he said briskly. “Get your things.”

By the time Harry had returned, backpack, wand, and blanket in tow, The Dursley’s were all frozen and propped up in chairs at the table.

“What did you—“

“We’re expected at eight o clock, Potter. We should be off.” With that, Snape swept from the house and Harry, after one look at the frozen yet fearful eyes of the Dursley’s, darted after Snape, out into the dark of Privet Drive.

He caught up with Snape at the street sign and looked up to him, suddenly nervous. He tugged at his big hand me downs self-conciously.

“Those clothes are abombidable.”

Harry ducked his head and tried to re-arrange them into a more satisfactory view. “Sorry, sir.”

“You’ll need suitable clothing for the remainder of the summer. I refuse to allow people to believe I deny you the necessities.”

Harry looked up at him in awe, then back down at his shoes. “Thank you, sir.”

He was so preoccupied with his shoes that, when he heard a whooshing sound, he immediately reacted, throwing himself to the ground. Or trying to.

“Potter!” Snape caught his shoulder in a tight grip. “It’s only the Knight Bus, you foolish boy.”

“But what’s—“

“I shall explain onboard.” Harry shrugged and got on board. Severus stepped on as well, looking back over his shoulder at Number Four. He thought he heard an angry, possessive growl—

But then, nothing. The bus had taken off.