The next morning Severus woke with a pounding headache and a mouth that felt like he’d eaten cotton fuzz. Despite this, he was no more or less agreeable than he normally was in the morning. He got up, splashed water on his face, growled at the mirror, brushed his teeth, then remembered that he’d locked Potter in the room next door the night before and became a great deal less agreeable than he normally was, which meant he was barely able to breathe without feeling as though flames should be leaping from his throat.

He stormed next door, muttered the counter charm, and flung open the doorway. Then he promptly snarled for Potter to wake up, only to realize he was snarling at an empty bed.

Potter was not there.

He thought of what Dumbledore would do if he’d lost the boy, though he couldn’t find himself sorry that the boy was gone, only that he would get into trouble for it. He was about to leave the room and firecall Dumbledore when he saw a small foot in a hole-ridden sock poking out from under the bed.

With a great deal of malicious glee, Snape marched over, grabbed the boys ankle, and gave it a hard tug.

The boy slid out from under the bed, waking from what must have been a most uncomfortable slumber, and seemingly oriented himself immediately to his new surroundings. He kicked at Severus’ grip immediately, grabbing at the floor and trying to pull himself under the bed.

Harry had woken up, very disaggreable, to find himself being tugged from his dark, slightly dusty sanctuary under the bed in his room. His head felt thick and his eyes were tired—it had been after midnight when he’d arrived at the inn, remember—but he remembered at once what had happened the night before. The kidnapping, the man locking him in and telling him to be up by eight thirty. He hadn’t a watch, but he supposed this was as good an alarm as any.

Instinctively, he started to thrash in the air, being pulled by one foot, and his hands scrabbled over the floorboards in an attempt to anchor himself. He felt as the professor caught his other foot and pulled him with even more force, his hands still panicked and feeling for anything. He latched on to the leg of the bed with both hands, holding as tight as he could, but Snape just pulled harder and harder. Harry knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer, and he remembered what he did when he was fighting over something with Dudley—his food, mostly—and he did one of the cleverest things in his young life.

He let go.

He let go with such fabulous timing that Snape had just pulled all his strength in for one stupendous tug and the two went flying through the air, man and boy, and fell in a tangle near the fireplace. Harry, who’d been expecting that result, was a little more prepared than Severus, who was not. So when they landed, Harry threw his whole body and all his might forward. He came loose! He landed on his feet and was running, past the door with the melting handle, past the hall where he’d sicked up last night, and he was almost at the stairs—

Severus had not been a Death Eater for nothing. He was only moments behind Harry and he ran only far enough so that he could take good aim and fire off a very tidy Petrificus Totalus.

The boy fell with a crash and Severus walked over to him slowly, panting with effort and with a dangerous look on his face. He took very little pleasure in the wide, panicked state of Potter’s eyes (except to look at the bruise marring his face and wish he had been the one who’d done it) and Levitated the boy back to the room just as Tom poked his wrinkled face up from the stairs.

“All right there, Professor? One of your ingredients get away from you?” the man asked, then chuckled.

Severus gave him a thin, forced smile, asked for breakfast to be sent to his room, and turned to Potter’s room where the boy lay Petrified on the bed.

He closed the door.

Leaving the boy’s legs frozen, he freed the rest of him and immediately lunged at him, wrapping a hand around his throat—not enough to kill him, no, Dumbledore would never stand for that, but enough to scare him. And that seemed a very good idea to the fuming Severus Snape.

“What in blazes do you think you’re doing, you fool?” he hissed. “Do you want to bring the whole bloody inn around our ears?”

The boy glared at him—he certaintly wasn’t as meek as last night, no, not with those eyes, but he was still afraid of Snape. Snape could always tell. “Too right I do! Then you’d have to let me go!” Snape snarled and the boy paled, but kept talking. “Y-you won’t get away with it! I won’t let you! Get off of me!”

“If I have to silence you with magic,” Severus said slowly, “It will be very painful.”

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it into a thin, angry line.

“If you try anything like that again,” Snape said, in that same slow, dangerous tone, like all the violence and hatred in the world need to soak into them before they could leave his mouth. “I cannot be respobsible for the consequences. If you die—“ Here Harry gulped, and Snape allowed a slow, terrible smile to spread across his face, “All the better. I will not bear the blame for it, if you bring it upon yourself.”

“T-t-they’ll put you in gaol,” Harry stammered out. “For y-years and years, that’s what they do to kidnappers!”

“Ah,” Snape said in that same tone, “But they’ll have to catch me, won’t they?”

Harry stayed silent at that, his face pale from fear except for two faint tinges of pink that burned in anger. Just like his father, Snape thought in disgust. The arrogant little rat.

He got off the boy and Harry pushed himself into a sitting position, one hand rubbing at his throat as the other felt at his legs.

“Take it off me,” he said softly. You could hear it in his voice, the hatred and fear, and Snape drank from that like he had drunk from the Firewhiskey bottle the night before and it filled him with that same feeling. He flicked his wand and caught the boys arm as he darted for the door a second time.

“What did I just say?” he said, squeezing Harry’s arm for emphasis.

Harry looked at him and looked at the ground and swallowed and breathed through his nose. “L-let me go.”

Snape clicked his tongue against his teeth, his smile mocking. “Not when you ask like that.” The boy’s head snapped to his, those eyes burning, and Snape’s smile evaporated and he pulled the boy closer to him. He could feel him trembling in his hand, out of hatred or anger or some potent mixture of the two he could not say. It felt like power in his hands. “I told you last night to call me sir, Potter.”

The boy’s mouth tightened and Snape could see the refusals gathering in his head. He let his hand drift threateningly to his wand, and the boy looked at the ground and muttered, “Let me go. Sir. I won’t do it again.”

Not here, Harry thought in his head. Not until we’re outside and I can run to some police officer.

Snape let go of the boy and Harry darted back to his bed, perching on it and rubbing at his arm.

“I am going to have breakfast,” Snape said. Harry’s stomach growled a little at the thought, and Snape smirked. “I will return in twenty minutes to take you to get your things. I suggest you be ready to go.”

“Things?” What? How? He let himself wonder about the man for a moment, what things he would need while he was in his care, and he shivered. “I—I don’t need things, my things are fine.”

Snape sneered. “Your—things,” he said, disdain dripping off the last word as he looked at the boy, whose shirt wass smeared with dirt and grime and whose pants were torn from the scuffle and both of which were about three sizes too large anyway, “—are disgraceful and abhorent. No self respecting wizard would be caught dead wearing trash like that.”

Harry’s head was spinning. The magic was real, it had to be, all the things he’d seen and that had happened to him, it was real, it was all real—

Snape’s mouth curled and he left the room.

Harry sat down on the bed, hugged himself, and started to plan.

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Never let it be said that breakfasts at the Leaky Cauldron are unsatisfactory. Tom, the owner, puts great stock in the idea that breakfast really is the most important part of the day, and he always sends up a feast worthy of the Hogwart’s tables. There were sausages and bacon strips and toast and eggs and Snape picked at it. He was that sort of eater. He picked at the eggs and nibbled on the toast and poked at the bacon strips disdainfuly with a fork as he brooded.

He knew that, whatever Potter had said in that room, he would not cease his escape attempts. He knew that, if Potter ran from him in Diagon Alley, he would most likely run full frontal into either Lucius Malfoy or Knocturn Alley itself. And he knew that, if Potter ended up there, he would die.

Albus would be dreadfully displeased.

No, something would be needed to keep the boy under control, since threats seemed to roll off his skin like water off a ducks back. Severus nibbled his toast and picked at his eggs and thought and thought and thought.

He had his best idea when he saw the untouched sausages.

Perfect.

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Never let it be said that Harry Potter is an idiot, for though he can be slow on the uptake sometimes, he has always demonstrated a wonderful presence of mind when it matters most. While his stomach rumbled and gurgled and his body shook from fear and supressed rage, he planned. He planned staring into the fire, he planned pacing the bedroom, he planned as he ran the old tap in the bathroom and tried to clean himself up a bit with a flannel.

He knew that, whatever the man intended to do with him, it wouldn’t be pleasant. He knew that, even if he could get away from the man in the town where they were to get his things today, he probably would not get far. And he knew that, even if he did get away, he had no place to go and no funds.

This was not a very good situation.

But still he plotted and planned and thought of anything and everything he could do. He paced the room a million times and bit his lip and washed his face and planned and planned and planned.

He had his best idea right before the man walked in, bearing a piece of sausage sandwiched in between two pieces of crumbling toast.

Perfect.

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Snape pasted an indifferent look on his face as he opened the door, warding the corridor outside in case the boy tried to bolt again. The boy just stood near the back wall, however, his eyes planted warily on Snape and his arms wrapped round his chest. His face bore signed of a recent scrubbing, but Snape put down the little sandwich and marched over, grabbing the boys ear and getting him over to the tap.

“Atrocious, Potter,” he said, and he forced the boy’s head under the sink. The boy spluttered and kicked and Snape held him there quite maliciously until all the boys hair was soaked and sticking flat to his head. Snape was rather pleased of this, though the boy was still spluttering and glaring.

“Barely presentable,” he proclaimed, “But it will have to do.” He went to the table, drying his hands elegantly on the towl near the tap, and gestured to the little sandwich.

“Eat, Potter.” The boy looked at the sandwich, then at Snape, then back at the sandwich. Snape let out an impatient huff. “It’s not poisoned, you fool, I just don’t want delicate little Potter fainting on me.”

“’M not delicate,” the boy mumbled, and then he stuck on a very insincere, “Sir.”

“Nonetheless, Potter, you will eat.”

No way was he allowing Potter out of the room without touching that sandwich.

Harry looked at Snape, then back at the sandwich. “I—I’m not hungry, sir.” His stomach let out a ferocious gurgle then and Snape sneered.

“Ah, yes, that abomidable noise that arose from your stomach backs up your statement. Come, Potter, eat.” The boy made no move. “Eat it!” Snape barked.

No way was Harry touching that thing.

He didn’t know what the man had done to it—drugged it somehow, he supposed, with poisons or something. He knew that sort of thing could happen—Dudley watched the telly too much for Harry to think otherwise. And he seemed so eager for Harry to eat it when before—before he’d said that if Harry died, he wouldn’t mind terribly.

That settled it. No way was Harry touching that thing.

Snape picked up the sandwich and walked to the boy. He thrust it into his hand, the toast leaving crumbs, and gave another snarl. “Eat it!”

Harry shook his head. “N-no, I’m fine,” he said, and he took a step back. Then another. Snape followed him, until Harry was back against the wall, his mouth turned to the side and squeezed shut as he shook his head furiously.

Snape had lost patience. He grasped Harry’s head, turned it so it faced him, pinched the boys nose shut, and shoved the sandwich into his mouth.

A fog was filling up Harry’s brain, and he started spitting out everything, the sandwich and all, and the fog got a little thinner and then refused to budge. It was as if he was barricaded in, and he started throwing himself into the walls of his mind, but it didn’t do any good.

“There,” he heard that filter through. “That’s better. More your usual brain capacity, eh, Potter?”

His mouth wouldn’t move fast enough for the response, so he glared and tried to beat the barriers down, but they wouldn’t go.

“Stop panicking, boy, it’s a simple potion any fourth year can brew. Simply gives you something else to think about so you’re not trying to run away the whole time.

Harry’s mouth wouldn’t move unless he concentrated really hard.

“Whuh—“ he started, and then he took a deep breath and tried again. “Whuh-re’re yeh taking me?” His voice was slurred.

“I told you, Potter—to get your things. Don’t talk, you’ll just tire yourself out.” He felt something happen to his forehead, then he was following Snape out of the inn and to somewhere else.

The whole day was a blur of Harry throwing himself into removing the fog and failing. He got clothes, he could tell, and books that he had to carry that were heavy, and in one place someone kept shoving something into his hand, then taking it out again.

“—The First Year textbooks, sir—“

“—not making another trip…this one?”

“—three Galleons, please—“

Little snippets were coming through his mind all day, and when he heard them he fought tooth and nail to get out. It was only after he had exhausted his strength and was lying limply in his mind that he noticed a thing, hairling rip in the fog.

He pounced on it, a supernatural, furious force fueling him and tore at it, pulling down with his hands until the whole thing was shredded. He felt his processes come back to him then, moved his mouth and wiggled his fingers and tested his legs.

Snape was to the left of him, bartering for some disgusting, slimy thing in a vial, and Harry stayed still for two seconds, then turned and ran.

He ran as fast as he could, but his whole body was drained after his fight with the fog and his eyes hurt so he stumbled to freedom, more, lurching and darting and weaving in between odd people and runny shops. He could hear Snape behind him so he put in another burst of speed—

It was useless, of course. Snape caught him by the arm and spun him around. No one in the crowd paid much notice—they were near the Leaky Cauldron, so Snape dragged the boy back to his room, but the boy was fighting him tooth and nail, now—

There was no use. He had gotten all of Potter’s necessary items. The boy could go hang now, for all Snape cared. He locked the boy in the room again, cast a silencing spell, and, using the Hogwart’s owl that was perching on his bed, sent a message to Dumbledore.

What am I to do with the boy now?

The message was delivered and returned extraordinarily fast, the bird looking all worn out, and Severus read the note and cursed.

Bring yourself and the boy to Hogwarts immediately. There are matters to discuss.

Albus

Albus always did have his spies, Snape thought, and he sighed.

To Hogwarts, then.

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Harry screamed once he was thrown into the room, a scream of anger and fear and overwhelming hatred. How dare that man drug him and pull him around after him! Harry pounded his fists against the door, tried to lower himself out the small window, threw the chair against the wall, but no one heard. No one came.

Not until the man came through the door, wand out, and tossed a funny looking cloak at him.

“I—I’m not going anywhere with you!” Harry yelled. “I hate you!” He threw himself at the man, only to be rebounded by an invisible shield and landing awkwardly against the wall.

“Oh, you’ll go, Potter,” the man hissed, taking strides and standing over him. He reached down and grabbed the boy’s arm, yanking him to his feet. The boy was almost crying, Snape saw, and he felt that same way as earlier. Power in his hands. “You’ll come, and if you say one word—one syllable to the headmaster, well—“ A cruel smile and a tightening grip on his arm showed Harry it wouldn’t be pleasant.

“The Headmaster,” Snape drawled, “Can do things to people you can’t even imagine.”

“B-bet he wouldn’t drug me!” the boy yelled, and he twisted in Snape’s arms. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“Not a chance,” the man said, and Harry kicked him hard in the shin. “Don’t you dare,” Snape snarled, and Harry thrashed out again.

Snape fumbled into his pockets and pulled out a stoppered vial—really filled with streeler blood, but the boy would never know the difference. “If you don’t stop this,” he snarled, “I will force this down your throat and we’ll see what it does.”

Harry’s kicks stopped. “I—I won’t eat anything.”

“Fine,” Severus said. “But you’re coming to Hogwarts.”

Harry had his plan, he told himself as he pulled away from Snape. He had his plan, and after that it would all be all right.

To Hogwarts, then.