When Harry awoke the next morning, the first thing he noticed was the soreness of his muscles. Soreness did seem strong enough a word to describe what he was feeling. His whole body ached, each muscles crying out in tired, worn pain. Everything felt stretched and pulled and raw.

He turned over, trying not to whimper, and decided right then and there he was not getting out of bed. He could see the morning light lingering through the window, but Harry screwed his eyes shut tightly and stayed still.

Vampyr, sensing he was awake, stood and growled at Harry, a rumbling noise deep in the dog's chest.

"No," Harry said into the side of his pillow, "go away."

Vampyr growled louder.

"No," Harry insisted, still refusing to budge or open his eyes, "I'm not getting up."

The dog gave a sharp bark.

Harry stuck his tongue out.

Vampyr jumped and put his front paws on the bed. The bed gave a creak, and Harry tried to squirm deeper into the bed. The dog began to nuzzle his nose against Harry's shoulder, pushing hard enough to tell him to get out of bed and get ready for the day.

"No, I'm tired," Harry complained as he rolled on his back and pushed himself down into the mattress. "You can bully me all you like - I'm not getting up."

Vampyr barked angrily and began to worry his snout and teeth into Harry's side. But rather than hurt, the dog's movement hit a particularly ticklish area on Harry, and he gave out a scream of laughter.

"St-stop!" he wailed, desperately pushing at the dog's head. "Get away from me. "I'm tired - I'm hurting - I hate you and I want to go back to - stop!"

He tried to scramble away from the dog, and Vampyr kept worrying at him, and Harry soon tumbled out of the bed.

Falling on the hard floor did not help his sore muscles, and Harry curled up on his side, bringing his knees up and tucking his hands against his chest.

"Still not moving," he told the dog. "So you can just -"

"What is this!" Snape demanded hotly from the doorway.

Harry looked up at him, scared for a second. But then his stubbornness kicked in and he put his head back down on the floor. "I'm sore," he said. "I'm not getting up."

"Listen to me, you spoiled brat," Snape ordered, "you'll get up this second if you know what's good for you. You have your chores from yesterday, and a whole new list for today. Get up and get dressed this second."

Harry didn't move.

"Are you stupid enough to want a whipping this early?" Snape asked coldly.

Harry tried to push himself up, but his chest ached and his shoulders throbbed, and he flopped back down. He knew he should make an effort to try again, knew that he couldn't let Snape get to him. Every survival instinct in Harry told him to start moving and get up, but he continued to lay there.

"Get up," Snape gave him a rough nudge, almost a kick, with the toe of his right shoe.

Harry curled into a tighter ball.

"I would step on you," Snape sneered, "but you aren't good enough for me to wipe my shoes on. You're nothing but a disgusting, horrid, worthless little brat of boy whose friends have abandoned him -"

Harry hit the top of Snape's shoe with a fist.

"Ah, there's that Potter rebellion I know so well," Snape said, clearly enjoying sounding just as evil as he could. "No more sulking for you, young man. You just had a taste yesterday of the work that awaits you."

"Well, you mucked it all up," Harry declared, wondering how long he would get to lie on the hard floor before Snape had had enough. "I can't do anything now. You worked me too hard."

"I did no such thing," Snape scoffed. "A wiry thing like you - you can work twice as hard as most boys. But if your weak muscles are the only source of your complaint, I shall fetch a potion for you at once so you can get started."

Snape actually whirled around and left the room. Harry raised his head to make sure he had gone.

Vampyr trotted after his master into the hallway.

Despite aching muscles and sore limbs, Harry scrambled to his feet and half-ran, half-limped to the door. He shut it quickly and turned to rush towards the window. Vampyr gave a bark of angry surprise from the hallway. Harry heard the dog bumping his head against the door, trying to get in, but Harry was already at the window. He fumbled with the latch until he got the window open.

The windows swung out over a roof ledge that sloped down for a few feet, but Harry thought he could lower himself by his arms and then jump the rest of the way once he got out as far as he could. He wore only a nightshirt and undershorts, but he would have to risk it.

He had gotten his head and arms out the window when the door opened and Snape charged in with a vial of something red in his hand.

Harry attempted to get out of the window, but he had barely gotten his torso out when Snape reached him.

"The Potter bravado mixed with the Potter brains, I see," Snape observed as he wrapped a hand around the back of Harry's nightshirt. "Did you really think I would let you get away that easily?"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Harry tried to wiggled backwards, but Snape kept him up there with one hand.

"Oh, I think not," Snape decided. He touched the tip of his wand to Harry's back, and suddenly Harry found himself stuck to the broad, flat sill of the window. Not a very dignified position with his head and arms sticking out over the roof and his legs hanging in the room with his rear end sticking up.

He wondered what would happen if he tried to kick Snape, but Harry knew he really wanted to stay alive until the end of summer, and that would not happen if he kicked Snape.

"I don't want you distracted by any other pain," Snape growled as he leaned out the window and forced the rim of the vial against Harry's lips.

Awful tasting, of course, but Harry gulped down the potion and even before he swallowed all of it, he could feel the soreness melting away. He thought about saying thank you or ordering Snape to let him down, but he wasn't sure either would make a difference.

"Disciplinus repetive!" Snape said loudly.

Harry heard something whiz across the room. Then something struck him across the rear end. He cried out before he could stop himself, but the object hit him again. Twisting his body as much as he could, Harry managed to look back to see a wooden hairbrush raising up in the air and coming down to whack him.

"You big bully!" Harry yelled. He knew it sounded ridiculously childish, but he could not think of anything else to say besides swear words, and he knew Snape would not like swearing in the least.

"I would do it myself," Snape noted, "but I better tidy the room since our work boy is so abominably lazy."

Harry gritted his teeth and grabbed onto the ledge of the sill. He told himself he could weather the punishment out. It was just a stupid hairbrush - ouch, that hurt! - and he wasn't going to let it get to him - ow! Not there again! - and he wouldn't give Snape the satisfaction of crying out because - ah, why did it have to be so hard? - that was exactly what Snape wanted.

The hairbrush kept striking, and Harry heard Snape move behind him, probably to watch the brush strike his nightshirt-covered bottom over and over again, the evil bat.

"I'm waiting," Snape said a long suffering sigh in his voice.

Harry winced at another hard smack. How could something so silly hurt so much?

"I can wait here all day," Snape added. "It won't shorten your chore list."

"Okay, okay," Harry hated how weak his voice sounded, "I'm sorry."

"And?"

"And I'll get to work," Harry blinked rapidly, praying he wouldn't start crying and blubbering all over the place like a baby.

"Yes, you will," Snape said with cold satisfaction. He snatched the hairbrush out of mid-air and ended the paddling. Harry felt the sticking spell fade away, and he slipped backwards, his bare feet landing on the wooden floor.

Vampyr rushed forward and snapped viciously at Harry, biting onto the edge of his nightshirt and yanking Harry away from the window.

Ten minutes later, Harry sat on a slightly sore rear in the kitchen, eating porridge and trying not to look like he wanted Snape to burst into flames. He felt anger buzzing at the edges, gnawing at him until he wanted to give into the feeling and scream or knock his bowl to the ground or hit Snape or maybe do all three.

Glancing up, he caught a cold smile of satisfaction on Snape's face. Harry dropped his spoon down in his bowl and crossed his arms.

"Keep eating," Snape ordered.

"I'm not hungry," Harry said stubbornly.

"Let's review something here, Potter," Snape leaned across the table to fix Harry with a cold glare. "And I'll speak very slowly so as not to tax your small brains. I'm bigger than you, and this is my house, and whatever I say is law. So if I want to you work your fingers bloody, you'll do it. If I want you to sit in that chair until your legs fall off, you'll be sitting there. I want to beat you until you're bruised head to foot, I'll do it. And no amount of pouting or mean looks will change that."

"I hate you," Harry spat out. "More than my family!"

Snape blinked, a little taken aback. "What does that have to do . . . with anything? You and your Muggle family do not concern me."

"Why do I have to stay here?" Harry asked, not wanting to tell Snape about life with his relatives. At best, Snape wouldn't care, and at worst, he would act pleased that the Dursleys treated Harry so terribly. "Why can't you find someone else to help work?"

"Because I have you for free," Snape answered smugly. "And I find immense pleasure in the idea of you scrubbing my floors and pruning my gardens all summer."

"You can make me work, but you can't make me do a good job," Harry said, knowing he sounded childish. "I'll ruin your floors and - okay, okay! I'll do a good job!"

Snape had risen from his chair threateningly, but he stopped.

"You give me any attitude, and I'll chain you to the house."

Harry could picture Snape doing just that, securing a long iron chain around his leg and bolting it to the house, making Harry drag the chain all around the garden. Didn't Snape have any neighbors that Harry could ask for help?

"Finish your food and get to work," Snape ordered, taking Harry's silence as consent for obedience. "Wash the dishes, and then I want to see you scurrying around the garden quickly or I'll give you another potion to counteract the first and you'll be sore again."

"Already sore," Harry muttered as he picked up his spoon again.

Snape finished eating and got up to go, but Harry looked up and hesitantly raised his hand.

"This isn't class, Potter," Snape snapped. "And even if it were, you never show me any respect there either, so what is it?"

"Why is there hot water upstairs but not down?" Harry asked, making his voice calm and level.

"Because there is - end of story."

"But if I had hot water," Harry explained patiently, "I could get through washing quicker."

"And if you never came to Hogwarts, I could live in peace," Snape retorted.

There was just no reasoning with the man, Harry decided.

After breakfast, Harry went outside to get wood and started the long chore of washing dishes. When he finally got to soaping the dishes in the wash basin, he saw Hedwig flutter outside on a low branch of the huge tree.

Harry glanced over to the corner where Vampyr dozed in the corner with his eyes open a crack. If he could get a message on a scrap of paper outside to Hedwig, the owl could fly it to Dumbledore. Of course, if Snape caught him, it would probably mean . . .

Harry shuttered silently. He dreaded the thought of getting spanked again. He was almost twelve, and that seemed far too old an age to be smacked like a little child. He remembered seeing toddlers getting their hands slapped when they wandered into the streets, and at primary school, other children complained of getting slippered or strapped by parents for misbehaving. Harry had listened to the woeful tales of the other children, privately thinking that they didn't have it so bad. Yes, Belinda had been spanked when she decided to run away from home and the police found her two miles away, lost and crying. Yes, Gordon had been paddled when he disobeyed his mother and played near the railroad tracks, nearly getting killed by the train. At the time, Harry thought they deserved what they got, and he had wondered what it would be like to have parents that wanted to keep him safe and punished him for disobeying safety rules.

But now, in the rustic kitchen of Snape's house, Harry thought that spanking was one of the worst ideas ever conceived, and he wished whoever thought up punishing anyone that way could know just how much it hurt. The thought of ever being trapped over Snape's knee or the window sill made Harry want to cringe, and the idea of Snape's hand or that wretched hairbrush coming down again was almost enough to send Harry into a panic.

But would it be worth risking Snape's anger to get away, even if it meant a harsh punishment while he waited?

Harry realized he was chewing on his bottom lips in worry. He stopped and continued washing dishes, looking as innocent as possible whil his mind churned.

If he could just find some paper and something to write with . . .

As he turned from the basin to reach for the dish towel, he spotted the tin of blackening powder. He grabbed the towel, a white towel with green edging. He went to the counter, laid the towel out flat, and eased the top of the tin off.

Sinking his right forefinger into the powder, he lifted it out and began running his finger over the towel, writing in jagged letters. Help - At Snape's. Harry.

Harry had barely finished the Y in his name when he heard footsteps in the hall.

"Potter, what is taking so long?" Snape's voice boomed from the hall.

Harry rushed towards the door, clutching the towel. He turned the knob, yanked the door open, and ran into the yard.

"Hedwig," Harry waved the towel frantically, "take this to Dumbledore - take it to Dumbledore!"

Hedwig flew out of the tree, her talons open wide to get the towel. Harry didn't dare look back; he knew he would see Vampyr rushing for him with Snape close behind. He thrust the towel as high as he could.

"Take it, Hedwig," he yelled. "Take it to Dumble -"

"Accio towel," Snape commanded from far behind.

Immediately, the dish towel yanked itself from Harry's grip and flew into Snape's outstretched hand.

"What have we here?" Snape asked in a truly diabolical voice. "Rather than a message in a bottle, we have black smudges on a towel. ‘Help - At Snape's. Harry.' What on earth could this mean? Is our guest reluctant to continue his visit?"

Harry's heart pounded hard in his chest. He knew he could not make it to the tree in time to climb up, not with Vampyr watching him a few feet away. Snape was going to beat him half to death - Harry could only imagine the pain of it, and to his horror, he felt tears stinging his eyes.

"Perhaps the best thing would be to kill his owl," Snape said to the dog. "That would discourage these horrid attempts to leave his gracious host. What do you say, Potter? Fancy cooking your owl for supper tonight?"

"No, please," Harry rushed forward a few steps. "Don't hurt Hedwig. I wanted Dumbledore to know where I was so he wouldn't worry."

"Don't lie to me," Snape hissed. "You nasty, filthy, little liar, making my life miserable just like -" Snape broke off angrily.

Silence fell over the garden. Harry didn't know if he should start weeding the garden like nothing had happened or beg for mercy or brace himself for punishment. He felt almost relieved when Snape snarled,

"Fine! You're tired with a few chores? Suppose we put you in a new role? That of the wretched little schoolboy who does nothing but study under his relentless tutor all day everyday."

Snape pointed his wand at Harry, and Harry felt his clothes change. He glanced down to see himself wearing knickerbockers that fell just over his knees, a crisp white shirt with a brown waistcoat over it, and brown leather shoes. He looked like he had just stepped out of a Muggle movie about the 1800's. Harry barely had time to glance up in horror before Snape seized him by the arm.

"All right, let's go have a lesson," Snape growled.

Harry caught sight of Hedwig flying back up to the tree before Snape dragged him into the house. Snape marched him into the shabby parlor room and shouted a spell Harry had never heard before.

All at once, the room began to transform: the sofa turned into an old-fashioned wooden desk with an attached wooden bench, one of the chairs became a rigid table, and the faded paper on the wall behind the table turned into a wide blackboard with a wooden trough filled with chalk. The other furniture disappeared save for a single chair behind the table. The only things that did not change were the shelves of books.

Snape shoved Harry into the desk before walking up to the table. Upon the table rested an inkwell, a copy book, loose sheets of paper, and a wooden pointer about three feet long.

"Very well," Snape seized the pointer in his hand and whirled to face Harry, "let's have no more nonsense."

Snape swished the pointer down through the air, and it hit the top of Harry's desk with a terrifying thwack. Harry jumped, thankful his hands weren't on the table.

"Since I will not let you play tardy from my class, I suggest we study Muggle-related material today. Give me the present tense of the Latin word for study in both single and plural forms. Then we can move onto irregular words."

Snape looked every bit the stern tutor as he stood before the board, even more so than he had at Hogwarts as the Potions Master. Harry realized that Snape's clothes had changed to a suit of shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and long trousers, all in black including the buttons.

And in that moment, Harry knew Snape must have gone (as Ron would say) completely barking mad.