Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter. This magical world belongs to JK Rowling and her publishers. No profit is made out of this.

Betaed by Alyson - thank you!!

Chapter 3

Shaun tied a bandanna around his head as he looked himself over in the mirror. It wouldn’t do to go down there without his bandanna and sans scar. Terry and Henry both knew about his lightning bolt scar, and they would certainly say something if it suddenly disappeared.

He would have trouble keeping them from noticing as it was.

Taking a deep breath, Shaun exited his room and entered the kitchen with some trepidation.

Mr. Snape glowered at him for a few seconds but didn’t remark on his abrupt departure. They all finished eating breakfast before Mr. Snape directed the three boys to a room they had not seen before.

“Terry, you shall go first. Sit down on the chair in front of the mirror, and do try to keep your shock and excitement to a minimum.”

Confused, Shaun listened as Mr. Snape ordered the boys to separate areas, each with their own mirror in front of them.

He finally understood what Mr. Snape had meant when he saw a pair of scissors and a comb float into the air before practically attacking Terry’s head.

The comb ran through Terry’s hair a few times to sort out any knots in the hair. A bottle then lifted itself into the air and sprayed Terry’s hair and face with water.

Shaun couldn’t help but laugh as Terry sputtered and coughed as the water continued to spray over his face.

“Ah, yes. Unfortunately, the water bottle can not distinguish which part of the head actually contains hair, so it saturates the entire head.”

Mr. Snape said it all in a calm, reasonable voice, and Shaun looked at the man curiously. Obviously, the man had no qualms about subjecting them to this kind of humiliation. The way the man stated everything in such a calm and completely reasonable tone only served to ignite Shaun’s curiosity.

It was almost as if the man was finding the whole thing amusing but didn’t want to show it.

Shaun certainly found it amusing…

The full implications of what was happening finally hit him and he couldn’t help but sag with relief.

He’d obviously been overreacting when he’d run out of the room earlier. But honestly, he hadn’t known that Mr. Snape would be using magic to cut their hair! Still, he wasn’t regretting his earlier actions. At least Shaun now knew that he was also magical; he just had to learn how to use that magic.

If they had been taken to a real hairdresser, Shaun would still have worried about the hairdresser actually feeling the scars on his head which would bring him back to square one. Now though, he had nothing to worry about anymore.

Shaun looked up when he heard Terry mutter something about ‘can do it myself’ and watched as the boy proceeded to snatch a towel out of the air. Shaun guessed that the thing was about to try to dry Terry’s hair by itself.

Henry was next, but by then they were prepared for the whole fiasco, and Henry kept his mouth and eyes closed as the water sprayed his face.

Henry’s haircut was done much faster than Terry’s had been, as he only had to get his ends trimmed up. Terry had insisted on a whole new hairstyle, commenting that “Since I’m getting a haircut I could just as well get a whole new hairstyle,” and Mr. Snape had allowed it.

Shaun was last, and he watched the equipment floating over with some trepidation. He had always been humiliated by his peers, and this was just another chance for them to do so. Terry and Henry would use every opportunity they had to humiliate Shaun this week, since they didn’t know if they would still be able to do so after that week.

Mr. Snape had explained that one of them would remain with him for an undetermined length of time, but the other two would be sent back to the orphanage with no memories of what had transpired.

Shaun closed his eyes and just concentrated on the hair on the back of his head. The water could spray there all it wanted, but he really didn’t want to be choked with the spray in his mouth or nose.

He heard a sharp intake of breath to his left and opened his eyes.

In the reflection in the mirror, he could see Mr. Snape quickly blanking his expression, but Shaun had still seen the surprise there. Mr. Snape now knew that Shaun also had magic in him.

Terry and Henry had not realized that the water bottle stayed at the back of his head, and Shaun debated on whether or not to let go of the magic keeping the bottle in place.

“Perfectus,” Mr. Snape said as he waved his wand at the bottle.

Shaun gave him a grateful smile but was only rewarded with a sneer. Clearly, Mr. Snape was not happy with him.

The scissors took to his hair. In just a few minutes, Shaun had short spiky hair that stood up at all ends. The back of his head had been cut almost to the scalp with a clipper, then leaving the rest of his hair to gradually lengthen out to short spikes of about two centimeters.

“Now that this tedious task is done, we can actually move on to something productive.”

Mr. Snape suddenly sounded more menacing than he ever had before, and Shaun looked at the man with building panic. This would not go over well.

“Terry, Henry! The two of you have effectively changed one of my rooms into some absurd playhouse – remedy that immediately!”

The two boys in question scurried out the door without protest.

As the door closed behind the other two, Shaun turned to face Mr. Snape’s glowering form.

“Just when were you planning on informing me that you are a wizard?”

****

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose.

He was really not cut out for this. The boy standing before him looked simultaneously terrified out of his wits and defiant.

“I’ll ask again. When were you planning on telling me that you are a wizard, Mr. Petersen?”

“I… er… I didn’t, I wasn’t…”

Severus cursed his fates for sending him a boy with the vocabulary range of a two year old.

“I didn’t know for sure until this morning!”

The boy looked surprisingly out of breath after he’d rushed that out, and Severus directed him to a chair. He didn’t want the boy fainting or anything.

“You weren’t certain until this morning, but you still had your suspicions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did you not come to me with your suspicions? After what I told you yesterday, you must have realized that nothing you have to say could surprise me.”

The boy looked at him incredulously, and Severus was forced to admit – only to himself, of course – that he was not the most approachable person in the world.

“So you were too scared to come to me yesterday. When did you realize for certain that you and I were of the same ‘sort’ and that you are a wizard?”

Severus watched the boy squirm in his seat for a while, glaring down at the brat.

“Er… this morning, sir. I um… I didn’t know… I… scars… didn’t … explain...”

Severus had to bend his head down to hear the boy’s mutterings, but he still couldn’t hear everything.

“Speak up, boy!”

The brat jerked his head up at Severus’s harsh tone, then he cringed back as far as the chair permitted him.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m sorry, sir!”

Severus could feel a headache coming on and really didn’t want to deal with this right now.

“I gather from you barely coherent mutterings that you are a vain, conceited little twit who wanted to disguise some shameful scars and wished them gone. Would you consider that an accurate assessment?”

The boy looked a bit hurt, but he nodded his head.

There was something really strange going on with this boy, and Severus hated him for it. Severus was not someone who could let a new puzzle or mystery go without finding the last missing piece. The fact that this boy had ignited his curiosity did not sit well with him.

“You will refrain from doing any more magic until we have talked it through,” Severus admonished the boy. “There are certain regulations to be adhered to in the wizarding community and until you know them all, you will not do any more magic. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir. No more magic. Got it.”

Severus sneered down at the brat one last time before he swept out of the room.

He had to go see Albus. He couldn’t remember there being a ‘Petersen’ on the list of first years, and as the boy was turning eleven in July, he would have to be on there.

That was another thing Severus had to add to the mystery of Shaun Petersen. The boy looked to be no older than eight or maybe nine, yet the boy was turning eleven in a few weeks.

He would handle one thing at a time, however, and the first order of business was to go and see Albus. They would work things out together from there.

To be continued...
Chapter End Notes:

Perfectus: complete, finished, done /perfect, without flaw.

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