As soon as he toted the bucket of water back into the kitchen, Harry looked around to make sure there wasn't some kind of tap that poured out hot water. It made no sense to him - why did Snape have hot water running upstairs in the bathroom and not down in the kitchen?

But then, a lot of things didn't make sense to Harry right then. Why did Snape live in such a poor house in a run-down neighborhood? Snape taught at Hogwarts. Why didn't he have a better house?

Harry paused as he poured water into the kettle over the old-fashioned potbelly stove. Did teachers at Hogwarts make any money? And for that matter, did students pay to attend? Harry thought they must, but he had not given them any money that he knew of. Maybe the bank took out money from his account to give the school. But students had to pay for teachers to make money.

As he went out for more water, Harry tried to remember two years ago when he had attended Muggle school. The teachers there had talked about making money and the different jobs people could have when they grew up. A few parents had come to talk to the class - a banker, a policeman, a solicitor. The teacher had asked if anyone would like to ask their parents to come in and talk to the class. Harry had not raised his hand - he knew Uncle Vernon would not like to come and talk to his class.

Harry began pumping water up and down as he tried to remember his previous teachers. At times, his old life before Hogwarts seemed like a dream. His first year at the wizarding school had been hard, he admitted, but a bad day at Hogwarts was better than a good month at the Dursley's. Though they were some teachers at Hogwarts Harry would have preferred to never see again . . .

Vampyr barked at him, obviously thinking Harry was not moving fast enough.

"I pumping," Harry told the huge black dog. "I can't go any faster."

The dog gave a short bark and looked back at the house.

Harry pressed his lips together as he kept pumping. It wasn't fair. Snape's dog got to do whatever he wanted while Hedwig starved at the Dursley's. Harry knew he had to get back to save her, and if he couldn't - well, it was an awful thought about anything happening to Hedwig, but he would make Snape pay for it.

Snape couldn't keep him forever. And if he tried, surely Dumbledore would do something about it. If he didn't show up for school in September, they would look for him. They had to. And when Snape didn't show up, wouldn't they be suspicious?

Harry turned to go back inside when he heard a familiar hooting above him.

He whirled around and gave a cry of relief when he saw a snow-white owl gliding down towards him. Dropping the bucket, Harry ran to the middle of the yard, waving his arms towards the bird. Hedwig flew down and lighted on his shoulder, hooting gently in his ear.

"You got away," Harry grinned as he stroked his bird's downy feathers. "You got out - you're free."

Vampyr growled as he came close, his ears back against his head and his teeth showing. Harry gasped and quickly shook his shoulder. "Go, Hedwig. Fly away. Go before he gets you."

Hedwig craned her neck down to glare at the dog. She opened her beak and gave a fierce shriek. Harry panicked. Did dogs eat birds? Vampyr looked big enough to eat anything he liked, including little boys and birds.

"Go!" Harry shouted just as Vampyr charged forward.

Hedwig left Harry's shoulder just as Vampyr ploughed into him. Harry fell back with an "Oof!" He caught himself with his hands, but the soft ground didn't hurt too much. He watched in horror as Vampyr tried to bite at the bird. Hedwig kept circling over the dog, flying up to avoid Vampyr's teeth and swooping down to peck the dog on the head.

"No, fly away!" Harry yelled at his bird. "I'll be fine, just go!"

A shrill whistle cut through the morning air. Vampyr dropped back and trotted over to the doorway where Snape stood with an angry expression.

"What is all this noise?" Snape demanded. "I am trying to work, and I told you to get to work as well."

"It's Hedwig," Harry struggled to his feet, watching as his owl landed on a low branch to watch over the garden. "She got away. See, she got away by herself. You were going to let her starve, but she got free."

"Did she?" Snape asked coolly. "Well, if she won't die from starvation, we'll see how she holds up under a killing curse."

Snape pulled out his wand.

"No!" Harry shouted. He ran to his bird, facing Snape with his hands flung out wide.

"Such Gryffindor idiocy," Snape sneered. "Ready to sacrifice yourself to save a bird. How can Dumbledore bear it, knowing his savior is such a pathetic, stupid child?"

Harry held his ground. "You're not going to hurt Hedwig. She hasn't done anything."

"Oh, but she has," Snape decided. "She belongs to you, and I've made it my mission to destroy everything you love."

"Everything I-I-I -" Harry stammered.

"Yes, everything you love," Snape smiled coldly. "You see, Potter, years ago someone was kind enough to take away everything I loved, to ruin me, to rejoice in my misery. Why kind of man would I be if I did not pass on the favor?"

None of it made a bit of sense to Harry. He had always thought Snape was crazy, but now he was sure of it.

"So move out of the way, and let me deal with your bird," Snape said softly.

"Go, Hedwig," Harry yelled. "Please, fly away." He pushed his hands out at the bird in frantic shooing, and to his relief she flew off the branch.

Harry whirled to watch Snape, but the man did not move to fire off a curse, but stood calmly in the doorway.

"That's really too bad," Snape observed. "You just made it harder on yourself. I'll have to find other ways to make you miserable. Get back to work."

"Fine," Harry went to collect the bucket he had dropped in his excitement at seeing his bird. "At least she got away."

"Oh, yes," Snape scoffed. "Somehow a bird managed to free herself from a locked cage and left a locked bedroom to find you."

Harry looked towards Snape to ask what he meant by that, but Snape was already turning towards the door.

"Start your chores. After the dishes, sweep the kitchen and scrub down the stove, or there will be no lunch," Snape flung over his shoulder.

Harry went to the pump and drew more water.

Washing dishes took longer when he had to heat the water himself. He brought wood into the kitchen next and stoked the fire that had almost extinguished. He watched the water in the open iron kettle, but it didn't seem to be heating at all. He went to fetch more wood and stuffed it in the stove before going out for even more wood, the last of the pile. When he came back, the fire was blazing and water had boiled over the kettle, splashing and hissing all over the black stove.

Harry managed to push the kettle back to a cooler portion of the stove, using a dishcloth around his hands to keep them from burning.

Then he found a chipped mug and used it to ladle boiling hot water into the basin. He poured some cold water into the basin as well so he could put his hands into the water without scorching them.

In all, nearly an hour passed before all dishes were washed, dried, and put away. Tired and wet from splashing all the water around, Harry went to wipe off the table with a rag. Then he began sweeping the floor before going on to scrub the oven. He had to wait until the fire burned out and even then the stove felt very warm under the wet rag as he scoured it.

"What are you doing?" a voice demanded from behind him.

Harry jumped nearly dropping the rag. He turned to face Snape. "I was cleaning the stove, like you asked."

"You can't just clean it with water," Snape told him shortly. "You have to rub it down with blackening powder so it doesn't rust. And the ashes need to be cleaned out. Put them in the ash bucket and dump it outside in the rubbish pile and throw water over it so it doesn't light a spark."

"But I just swept the floor," Harry protested.

"That's too bad," Snape shrugged. "You'll have to do it all again."

Harry glared at him, but he knew better than to argue. Snape was probably going looking for a reason to punish him or deny him food or give him more work.

An hour later, Harry was covered in blackening powder as was a part of the kitchen. The powder stuff looked shiny and pretty in the box, but when he dipped the rag into the box, the loose flakes went everywhere. And once he started rubbing the black stuff on the cloth onto the stove, more powder fell down. Even more annoying, the powder came off the rag in little flakes but when Harry dried to wipe it up, it left long smears of black all over the worn wooden floor.

Fortunately, Vampyr decided to stay out the way and watched from a corner. Harry didn't know what he would have done if the huge dog had tracked the stuff all over the kitchen.

When a clock in the other room chimed noon, Harry heard Snape coming down the hall, and he nearly despaired. It wasn't fair - giving him a job he couldn't possibly complete.

Harry debated between continuing to work or jump up and standing to attention when Snape entered. Rather than do either, Harry settled for staring down at the black smudged floor. He saw Snape's black shoes stop right at the edge of the dirty floor.

"What is the meaning of this?" Snape demanded in a low, ominous voice.

"I'm still cleaning," Harry admitted, continuing to look away. "This stuff is - hard. It goes everywhere."

"You have ruined my kitchen," Snape said. "You deliberately -"

"I did not," Harry stood up, clutching the black rag. "I was cleaning it like the box said, but it went everywhere."

"I guess you didn't want to eat today," Snape observed.

Harry wanted to stomp his foot. He was hungry and tired, and he had no idea how he would get all the black stuff off his clothes and hands. His face felt itchy and he knew he had black smeared all over his face and probably in his hair, and he hated Snape right then.

"Fine!" he heard himself declared. "I wasn't hungry anyway."

He turned away to scrub at the top of the stove, but Snape snapped his fingers.

"Don't you turn away when I'm talking to you," Snape ordered. "Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

Harry reluctantly turned around, feeling childish.

"Though I don't care if you ever eat again," Snape said carelessly, "I won't have you fainting in the middle of your chores. You have a lot more work to do today, and I won't let you get out of it. We'll have soup for lunch, and you can drink it from the bowl since you are too dirty to eat like a human being."

Snape heated the soup himself with a flick of his wand, but he made Harry sit on his wooden chair and hold the bowl so he wouldn't get blackening powder on anything else. Harry felt good that he could at least sit up and hold the bowl; he had feared for a moment that Snape would make him lap up the soup on the floor beside Vampyr.

The dog got a huge piece of meat, and Harry tried not to watch as Vampyr tore it apart with his sharp teeth in a matter of seconds.

After lunch, Harry was sent back to cleaning. The stove and the floor took an hour to scrub, and then Snape had him start pruning the garden. Harry stood in the middle of the run-down garden while Snape listed the chores to be done.

"The bushes need to be trimmed," Snape pointed to a row of over-grown bushes. "And the pots all need watering. I have fourteen beds of smaller plants for my potions that need weeding everyday along with watering in the morning and the afternoon. All the gardening tools need cleaning, the rest of the wood needs chopping and stacking by the house, and then you can get started on trimming the grass and cutting the vines back from the wall. If you finish early, you can start weeding the around the stone path."

Snape turned and left Harry to stand in the garden of a thousand chores. Harry sighed, scuffing his bare foot on the warm stones. It looked like the garden hadn't been tended in years, and he did not see why he had to tackle the whole garden in one day.

The sun was hot, but fortunately the trees shaded most of the garden so Harry could work without melting from the heat. He rolled up the hem of his trousers, glad he wore a tee shirt, and began trimming the bushes.

Vampyr settled on the old mat in front of the door, preparing to take a midday snooze. Harry sighed as he began gathering up the cut shrubbery. Even with the dog sleeping, Harry didn't dare make a run for it. He had a feeling the dog was only pretending to sleep anyway.

Gardening was not the most tedious chore Harry had ever preformed, but it was probably the dirtiest, after blacking the stove of course. He splashed more water on himself in the process of watering the plants, and the dirt mixed in with the water to coat his clothes with mud. When he got thirsty, he went to the pump and pumped hard, leaning over to gulp at the icy water which spewed out. The water turned his lips numb and ran down his chin and shirt, cooling him instantly.

He began to drag towards the end of the afternoon. His arms hurt, and his fingers ached from pulling up weeds and grubbing in the dirt. He began to get very hungry, his stomach rumbling for food, and he longed to lie back on the warm ground and sleep.

He had an awful feeling that Snape might plan for him to work until nightfall, and if he was still in Britain, that meant until ten at night. He silently cursed the long summer days, wishing it was winter and would get dark at four in afternoon.

Harry started for the wood to chop up, and he passed a window near the door, he stopped to look at himself. He looked awful. His hair was horribly short and sticking out at angles like it had been hacked at with a knife. He was covered in black smudges and mud, and without shoes he looked like the orphan in that book he had read years who lived in a workhouse and traveled all the way to London to live with pickpockets. Snape had meant to belittle and humiliate him - Harry felt certain that Snape had succeeded.

"Why are standing about?" Snape barked from the doorway. "You've been out here all afternoon, and barely completed half your chores. I should have had Vampyr chase you a bit to get more work out of you."

"I've been working," Harry declared, wishing he wasn't quite so dirty and pitiful-looking. "I got all the bushes trimmed and everything watered, and -"

"If I had wanted excuses, I would have asked for them," Snape snapped. "You didn't finish, and it's time for supper. Wash your hands and get in. You have thirty seconds, then I'm feeding your food to the dog."

Harry washed what he could of his hands, wishing he had a bar of soap or a rag. He shook the cold water off his hands and hurried inside. It seemed dark and dim after the sunshine outside, but Harry blinked until his eyes adjusted. His glasses had little flecks of dirt on them, but he could still see.

Supper was a silent affair - they ate without a word. Halfway through the meal, Harry started yawning. He didn't mean to, but he could keep his eyes open much longer, and he could barely make himself keep chewing. He had worked hard at the Dursleys before, but never the whole day straight. At the Dursleys, he had learned to pace himself, to stretch jobs out so he wouldn't be exhausted at the end of the day. But scared of Snape and his big dog . . . Harry yawned again.

"Stop gaping and eat," Snape ordered.

"Okay," Harry nodded. He pinched himself on the thigh, hoping that would wake him up. Even the pain couldn't jar him out of his sleepy state, and he prayed that Snape wouldn't have evening chores for him.

"Lazy boy," Snape sneered. "A little work wears you to pieces, I see. Well, finish the food and you can go to bed."

Harry kept putting food in his mouth and chewing at least twice before he swallowed. He had almost eaten the last bite, when strong hands pulled him out of his chair.

"How did you get so dirty?" Snape asked, not really expecting an answer. "What would your friends say if they could see you now? Dumbledore's favorite boy, a sad-looking waif."

Harry wanted to ask Snape why he kept talking about him being Dumbledore's favorite. Harry doubted that he was indeed the headmaster's favorite, but why did Snape, a teacher at Hogwarts, feel that it was so unfair? Harry wished he could ask or protest, but he couldn't do anything other than yawn his head off as Snape pushed him out of the kitchen and down the hall.

"Arms up," Snape ordered, grabbing the edges of Harry's tee shirt and pulling it off Harry in one rough yank. "Take your trousers off, too, so you don't track mud upstairs. I'll get you some slippers to keep your dirty feet off the stairs."

Harry fumbled with his trousers as Sanpe marched back into the kitchen. Harry grabbed hold of the hall table to help balance as he stepped out of the trousers. He noticed a piece of paper and an envelope on the table.

He saw the Hogwarts crest, the coat of arms with the symbols of the four houses, and Harry just had time to read the top line of the letter - Severus, my dear boy, I am so sorry to inform - before Snape came back in.

"Upstairs," Snape ordered, grabbing Harry by the shoulders and pushing him towards the door. "Go up, take a bath, and get in bed. Any playing around, and I'll see you have the worst night ever."

By the time Harry had washed, brushed his teeth, and pulled on his night shirt, he felt like he had been awake for a week. Every muscle in his body was sore and tired, and it took tremendous effort to climb up in the bed.

He collapsed onto the pillow, pulled up the covers, and snuggled down into the bed on his side. He heard Snape come in, and Harry wrenched his eyes open to see the blurry black shape of the man beside his bed.

"How do you like being the work boy?" Snape sneered. When Harry did not respond, Snape smacked him on the rear. "I'm speaking to you, Potter!"

Harry gave half-groan. He was sure the smack was supposed to hurt, was supposed to make him sit up and pay attention or scare him and make him cry, but Harry felt far too tired. "Don't like it," he muttered into his pillow. "Tired - wanna sleep."

"Hmph!" Snape nodded. "Well, I guess I'm succeeding in making you good and miserable."

Harry would have glared at Snape or rolled his eyes to show he didn't care, but that took too much effort.

"And if you don't finish every single chore tomorrow," Snape threatened, "I'll take a slipper to you before supper. We'll see if a hard hiding helps keep your mind and hands on track."

Snape went on to say some more stern and grim things, his voice deep and sarcastic, but Harry couldn't listen anymore. He closed his eyes and let Snape's voice fade away.

Another smack landed on his rear, but he couldn't tell if it was a listen-to-me smack or you-better-behave smack. Either way, Snape walked away from the bed with a satisfied "Hmph!"

Harry heard Vampyr settled down beside the bed, but Harry was already half-asleep. A few minutes later, he was so deep into slumber that he did not hear Hedwig land on the eave outside his window.

The owl hooted once or twice, but getting no answer, she spread her wings and went to search for mice in nearby fields. She returned right before dawn, but the house was still dark and quiet under the shadows of the tall trees.