The lawn of 4 Privet Drive is at once a marvel of geometric precision and an offense against nature, in Snape's opinion. He follows Dumbledore down the walk to the front door, well aware of the fact that much of the rigid manicuring around them is Potter's handiwork—the boy's memories of his life here (the ones he did not successfully shove to the back of his mind, Snape thinks irritably) are dominated by images of weeding, mowing, and pruning. This awareness only deepens the well of bewilderment in which Snape has been floundering for hours now. Clearly, the boy can focus when he is properly motivated—but there is little chance of Snape being able to provide sufficient motivation, when Potter is so clearly accustomed to harsher masters.

Dumbledore pauses on the front steps and, as though divining Snape's thoughts and the troublesome feelings they have produced, directs a shrewd look at him over his shoulder.

"I beg that you will leave the handling of Vernon Dursley to me, Severus," he says, then gives a small smile. "Feel free, however, to glower wherever you feel it is appropriate."

Without waiting for a response, Dumbledore knocks on the door. In accordance with the Headmaster's directive, Snape arranges his features in the fiercest glower he can muster. It is not difficult, with such inspiration.

A few seconds later the door opens, revealing a tall, beefy man with a large stomach overhanging his belt and a thick mustache as carefully tended as a girl's coiffure. His mouth opens automatically, no doubt in the semblance of some polite greeting that dies on his lips as soon as he takes in their appearance.

"What do you want?" he says, clearly unable to decide what to make of them and settling for a middle-of-the-road rudeness that probably serves him in his dealings with most people.

Dumbledore inclines his head politely. "Good afternoon, Mr Dursley. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of the school where your nephew Harry attends. This is Professor Severus Snape, one of Harry's teachers. We require a word with you."

Even though there is no obvious threat or anger in Dumbledore's tone, Snape knows all too well the effect of that devastating courtesy, which implies the recipient is unworthy, rather than undeserving, of open rudeness.

Dursley's face immediately begins to purple. He must be more perceptive than he looks, Snape thinks—or perhaps he is simply reacting to the mention of Hogwarts.

"Now see here," he begins at once, his imperious tone belied by the nervous way his gaze darts from Dumbledore to Snape and back again, never quite meeting their eyes. "I take no responsibility for anything the boy does outside this house. We made it clear when he started at that place we'd have nothing to do with whatever he gets up to while he's with your lot. He's got some freak godfather somewhere, go and take it up with him."

Dumbledore allows a moment of silence to fall after Dursley's rant, long enough to direct a rather steely gaze at the shorter man. Snape takes the time to wonder how Potter, whose grief at Black's death had been overwhelming by all reports, managed so much restraint as to keep the news of Black's death from his family. Not that the temptation to confide in them would have been very great, Snape imagines, but it interests him nonetheless, being an indication that the boy possesses heretofore unsuspected levels of emotional discipline.

"I am well aware that you have preferred to distance yourself from Harry's concerns, Mr Dursley," Dumbledore says at last, in the same even tone as before. "We nonetheless require a moment of your time. If your wife is home, we should like to speak with her as well."

"She's gone out," Dursley says quickly, then steps back from the door. "Come in then, if you must. Quickly, before the neighbors see you." He is visibly less tense, almost as though, in his mind, the pleasure of denying them something has allowed him to regain the upper hand.

Dumbledore and Snape follow him into a large, comfortably furnished, if rather over-decorated parlor, lined with dozens of family photographs, none of Potter. Dursley walks to the center of the room, then turns, and stands facing them with a look of mingled expectation, impatience, and badly concealed fear. He does not sit down, or invite them to do so. Dumbledore, however, seats himself in a large, comfortable armchair facing Dursley, who, after a moment of resistance, sinks down on the edge of the sofa as though the strength is leaving his legs. Snape comes to stand behind Dumbledore's chair, folding his arms across his chest.

The silence that fills the room then has nothing to do, Snape is quite sure, with Dumbledore organizing his thoughts or thinking what to say. Watching Dursley's face, he suspects that the Headmaster is giving the Muggle a chance to wonder what has brought them here—to examine his conscience, if he possesses such a thing. Dursley's face is growing an even deeper shade of purple, but he does not dare to speak first.

After almost a full minute, Dumbledore begins.

"I wonder, Mr Dursley, if you have ever wondered why, in all the course of Harry's time here in your home, no authorities from the Muggle world have ever come visiting to see about Harry's welfare? I am sure you must be aware that in situations such as his, that would be the normal procedure."

Dursley is silent. He looks stunned, as though Dumbledore's words had been a blow.

"It is because, under wizarding law, the Muggle guardians of wizard children are accountable to agencies in our world for their treatment of their charges," he continues. "However, owing to the peculiar circumstances surrounding Harry's becoming an orphan, I persuaded the relevant authorities to leave the oversight of Harry's placement and safety to me. I, in turn, placed him with you—for the reasons I explained in my letter of fifteen years ago."

Dursley swallows a few times, then speaks in a gruff voice. "What about it?" he says. "Gave him a roof over his head, didn't we? And never saw a penny for it, either."

"You did provide him shelter," says the Headmaster. "And with food and clothing. After a manner of speaking." He adjusts his spectacles. "But we will not address those particular offenses just now. I am rather more concerned with the fact that two days ago Harry returned to school in an even poorer state of health than usual after spending a summer in your home. In addition to the fatigue and under-nourishment we have regretfully come to expect, he had a number of unusual injuries and a rather peculiar explanation for how he came by them. Can you guess what he told us?"

Dursley is rigid now. "I don't care what the boy told you. He's a filthy little liar."

"Is he?" says Dumbledore calmly. "Well, that is possible, I suppose. But as the matter is in some doubt, perhaps we ought to determine the truth of it. Now, let me see..."

Snape watches in rapt fascination as Dumbledore lifts his wand and draws, with the tip, a circle in the air an arm's length away from him, some inches over his head. Murmuring to himself in a language Snape does not recognize, Dumbledore concentrates on the circle until a pillar of smoky light shoots up suddenly from the floor, like a column of boiling water encased in glass.

Dursley gasps, his hands clutching convulsively at the arm of the sofa.

Snape looks from Dumbledore, to the column, where the mist is beginning to resolve in the form of shadowy figures: two people, moving about inside a room—this room, perhaps. They look like the reel of an old Muggle film in the grey and black palette of their rendering, and, though their faces are not yet distinct, he recognizes Dursley's rotund silhouette, and the smaller, slighter shape of a young boy, hard at work polishing a piece of furniture—the coffee table that even now sits to the left of him, Snape realizes.

Snape watches closely until the stooped figure glances up—it is Potter after all, suddenly very still, a look on his face that speaks at once of anger, resignation, and fear. The reasons for this become clear a moment later when a large hand descends on the boy's shoulder and seizes him, spinning him around. It is Dursley, leaning over the mute figure of Potter, and though there is no sound to be heard, it is plain from the older man's gestures and expressions that he is shouting at the boy, who at first seems to make no answer back, then lifts his hands defensively, indicating the table behind him. He has no sooner dropped his hands again than Dursley has lifted one of his own, bringing the back of it down heavily against the side of the boy's face, sending his glasses flying and the rest of him crashing to the floor, narrowly missing the sharp corner of the table.

One look at Dumbledore confirms his suspicions; the Headmaster's features appear to have been carved from stone. He lifts his wand again and the image passes away, to be replaced by others, moving faster now. Hundreds of scenes of daily life in the Dursley house pass before their eyes in the next few minutes, most of them involving Potter and his uncle, though the aunt and cousin occasionally come into view. Most of them ending in some kind of petty violence that the boy does not defend himself from.

"How is this possible?" he says quietly to Dumbledore.

"Very basic sympathetic magic," says the Headmaster, expressionless. "Harry has cared for this house, more so than any of its other inhabitants, and the house has, in turn, come to care for him. I merely invited it to speak; this is what it had to say."

Snape looks over at Dursley, who is no longer purple, but pale, and sweating. A variety of expressions play across his face; fear, alarm, and a trace of honest confusion that Snape understands when he speaks next.

"You're making this up," Dursley whispers. "It's some kind of trick. I never—I may have disciplined the boy, but I didn't—I wouldn't have—"

Dumbledore waits until the last of the images have faded from view, then with a third flick of his wand, the pillar dissolves into so much smoke, sucked from the room by a breeze from the open window. All three men sit in silence for a moment, before Dumbledore speaks again.

"In the interests of fairness, Mr Dursley, I believe I must acknowledge myself partially to blame for these events." Snape whirls on the Headmaster, an outraged exclamation on the tip of his tongue, but Dumbledore lifts a hand to silence him, without taking his eyes from Dursley. "Being Muggles, you were naturally unprepared for some of the particular challenges of raising a wizard child. You would not have known how to control Harry's outbursts of accidental magic, for instance—though as I understand it, most of those outbursts occurred whilst attempting to defend himself from various members of your family." Dumbledore's voice grew, if possible, a shade cooler. "I had hoped that Petunia's experience growing up with Lily would help her in these situations, but perhaps I presumed too much. In any case, we will never know whether assistance from the magical world would have benefitted you or not, as I did not offer any. I had my reasons, but I expect they would mean little to you.

"Nonetheless," Dumbledore says, just as it looks as though Dursley is on the verge of relaxing somewhat, "there is no excuse for what you have done to Harry. I refer both to the gross physical injuries you inflicted upon him this summer, as well all the lesser cruelties he has endured at your hands over the years."

Dursley is sliding by inches to the far side of the couch closest to the patio door, all the while muttering phrases under his breath that no one can quite hear, such as "out of context" and "exaggerated."

"It may interest you to know that when I told Harry I intended to pay you a visit this evening, he specifically requested that I not use magic against you, or harm you in any other way. You might think on this, and consider how much you have wronged him. A lesser person need only have stepped aside and allowed me to do my worst. You may believe," Dumbledore gives a wintry smile, "that I was prepared to do it."

Dursley's face, which had been reddening again, turns abruptly so white that Snape wonders how much longer he will cling to terrified consciousness.

"In return for this consideration, which gives me some pain, and which you yourself know you hardly deserve, I am offering you a chance to make—partial—amends to your nephew."

"What do you mean, amends?" Dursley demands instantly. Not even his own keen sense of self-preservation seems able to restrain his outrage.

Dumbledore nods, as though Dursley has just agreed to something. "Harry will return once more to your house this summer, for the two months preceding his birthday. He will return in the company of another wizard, to whom you will extend your hospitality—"

Dursley's reaction is sudden, violent enough that Snape's fingers twitch around the handle of his wand, though he does not step out from behind the Headmaster's chair.

"I'll do no such bloody thing!" he roars. "Every time one of you lot come near my family, someone ends up with a tail, or fireplaces explode—I won't have it! I'll turn the boy out first, and the devil can take him!"

Dumbledore has opened his mouth to speak again, but Snape raises his wand first. It feels good, like scratching an itch one has had to ignore for hours. Dursley goes quite rigid at the sight of it, and is quiet long enough for the Headmaster to begin talking again.

"You will not turn Harry out," he says in a voice of quiet but absolute authority. "Not if you wish to remain a free man. Or a living one."

Dursley stares at him, and even Snape gives Dumbledore a quick look. "Are you threatening me?" he whispers.

"Merely acquainting you with facts," Dumbledore answers calmly. "There are those who would kill you without a thought because of your connection to Harry. The magical pact which your wife sealed in receiving Harry into your home has kept you and your family safe from them, no less than Harry himself. It is likely you would be nearly as safe inside a Muggle prison, but between the two I believe I can guess which one you would prefer.

"Well! We will regard that matter as settled then." Dumbledore comes to his feet, smiling broadly and ignoring the trembling Muggle who stands pale and sweating across from him. "Now, Severus, is there anything you wish to add?"

Dumbledore turns an expectant look upon him, and Dursley jerks as though he had forgotten Snape's presence.

The words are out of Snape's mouth before he is aware he has begun to speak them. "I want to see the cupboard." He seeks out Dursley's eyes, watches them widen. "The one where you kept him."

Dursley stares at him, looking as much confused as wary. Dumbledore, however, does not blink.

"Very well," says the Headmaster. "I am sure that Mr Dursley can direct you there. I myself will take some air in the garden. You will find me there when you have finished, Severus."

Dumbledore meets his eyes for a brief moment before turning towards the front door. And though Legilimency does not really work that way, though Snape is sufficiently accomplished an Occlumens to be immune from such casual invasions, he divines the meaning behind that look as clearly as though Dumbledore had spoken aloud. No permanent damage, Severus, it says. I did promise Harry, after all.

Then Dumbledore is gone, and Snape is alone with Dursley, who takes one look at him then shoots to his feet as though anticipating attack.

As though Snape would ever let him see it coming.

"The cupboard," Snape repeats in a low growl. "If you please."

Sweat begins to drip down the man's face. "Why do you want to see that?"

It is a fair question. Snape is not sure himself. Morbid curiosity, perhaps? He has seen it so many times inside Potter's mind that maybe he merely wishes to compare the reality against the boy's perceptions.

Whatever the answer, he feel no inclination to explain himself to this Muggle, so he replies merely by giving a cool smile and tightening his grip on his wand. The man's eyes bulge slightly and he scurries from the room towards the staircase. Snape follows.

The cupboard door is narrow and not tall. Snape would have to stoop quite low to fit through. Potter, on the other hand, has always been small for his age; Snape wonders for an instant whether they had starved him for that very purpose.

"Open it," he says, and Dursley produces a key, although he nearly drops it before managing to fit it in the lock.

The cupboard holds mostly cleaning supplies now. Mops, brooms, buckets, jugs and cans of corrosive cleaners crowd the view, but Snape perceives signs former habitation, if only because he is looking for them. There is a moldy looking grey flannel blanket wadded into one corner, and beside it a tiny heap of broken playthings—a yo-yo with no string, toy soldiers missing heads and limbs. A child's drawing of a flying motorcycle, looking as though it has been wadded up and smoothed out again, is still taped to one wall.

Snape stands there, staring for a long moment. It is Dursley's voice, of all things, that pulls him from his reverie.

"What is it you teach?" says the man, in an almost normal voice.

Snape glances at him, then looks back into the cupboard again. "Potions."

Dursley grunts. "The boy's mentioned you."

Snape does look at the man then, unable to conceal his surprise. "Has he?" he says.

Dursley jerks his head in a nod. "First summer he came back from that place," he says. "Said you'd take it out of him if we didn't let him do his homework."

Snape's mouth twitches, but he does not smile. Not here.

"Look here, Professor—er—Snape—you teach the boy. You have to know he's a troublemaker."

Dursley's tone is strangely affable, almost chummy, as though with Dumbledore gone he feels himself to be in friendlier company.

"What of it?" Snape says shortly, more uncomfortable in the knowledge that he and Dursley might be in any way agreed than he has been yet since arriving in Surrey.

Dursley throws a quick glance over his shoulder, as though afraid Dumbledore might be near enough to listen. Then he leans in slightly. "So—all I mean is—if I've been hard on him, it was for his own good. Boys need a firm hand, you know—and that one was born to be the curse of anyone who comes near him."

Snape turns slowly away from the open cupboard and looks down on the other man. He allows a few seconds for Dursley to register the several inches of difference in their heights before speaking.

"Dursley, I do not care if Potter pissed in your flowerbeds and set your curtains afire. There is no justification for what you have done to him." And then the dam breaks, and all the frustration he was unable to vent upon Potter or Dumbledore comes out as he snarls down on the shorter man. "You stupid Muggle—you have no idea how much depends on the boy—your ignorance may mean the death of thousands, the destruction of—" He cuts himself off, panting, suddenly aware that he may already have said too much. "You had him in your care from infancy," he adds derisively. "Who is to blame for his flaws, if not you?"

Dursley straightens then, a little of the furious pride that had met them at the door seeming to return to him. "All you bloody freaks stick together," he mutters. "I should have known."

It is suddenly too much. Snape's hand shoots out of its own accord, bunching in the man's collar. He shoves Dursley against the wall opposite the cupboard, and jabs the point of his wand into the man's thick neck with a snarl.

"I would kill you now," he says, "if Potter did not have further need of you. Be warned. I have done worse for less cause, and I have not the Headmaster's...prudence."

He releases his grip on Dursley's collar, then takes a step back. Dursley remains standing as though pinned against the wall, afraid to move.

Snape turns to go, then stops and looks back over his shoulder for one last glance inside the cupboard. Then he stops, and stoops, and picks up a toy soldier with a missing arm.

Dropping it in his pocket, he turns and stalks from the hall, in search of the Headmaster.