The house was pretty much a regular house. His room was small but comfortable, and he’d put most of his things away. He’d let Hedwig out to forage, and she’d zoomed away without hesitation.

The library he’d saved for last. The room was easily the biggest in the house, with bookshelves covering all four walls. Some of the books were magical, but a surprising number were Muggle. On top of one of the Muggle shelves was a stack of records and a small record player.

Harry had seen record albums like that in the past; Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had a record player and a small handful of albums. Once, while he was living in the cupboard, he’d woken at night to low music. Peeking out his cracked door, he’d seen his aunt and uncle, dancing to ABBA. His aunt’s face had been flushed and his uncle wore a soppy grin he’d never seen before or since.

Grabbing the chair from behind the desk, he took it to the shelf and climbed up, meaning to give the records a closer look. His aunt’s records were mainly things from her college days; these looked different. Standing on tiptoe, he pulled out the closest one.

A man in a powdered wig was looking back at him, eyes strangely cheerful, as though he and Harry shared a secret. The title was Italian, or maybe Spanish. The others were the same, though some titles were French, some German, and a few in languages he didn’t know on sight.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. Snape felt edgy; if it was this quiet, then Potter was up to no good. He crept down the hall, prepared to catch Potter at…something, anyway, and opened the door of the library. The brat was standing on a chair, absorbed in something, and Snape felt a mixture of pique and curiosity. The idiot child could break his neck falling off the chair ( and Merlin help him if the floor was scratched). On the other hand, what could interest Potter long enough to keep him still for longer than five seconds?

He walked as softly as possible and came up directly behind the boy. He child was gawking at the music collection, studying the cover of the album in his hand. His lips were moving as though he were trying to puzzle the words out by sound, and that damnable mop of hair was hanging in his eyes, making him blink a little from time to time.

Shooting his hands out, he caught Potter about the waist and swung him down in one quick motion. The child went rigid with shock and didn;t resist when Snape whirled him around.

Harry felt seasick. Snape had swooped in and whirled him so fast he felt like a mouse being pounced on by a cat. He still held a record in his hands, and he found himself facing a Potions Master who looked distinctly displeased.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I just wanted to look at--”

“You could have been hurt, standing on a chair like that. Besides which, you have no call to stand on a chair to look at anything. Everything you should be looking at is eye level to you anyway.”

“I was curious about the records, that’s all.”

“You had no business looking at them, much less touching them.” Snape took the record from the boy and studied it to make sure that no mischief had been done to it. His scowl grew several degrees.

“You never said I couldn’t. I only wanted to see what they were.”

Snape took a deep breathe and counted to ten. Twice.

“I would watch my tone if I were you.”

Harry felt himself getting upset. Snape had no reason to be so bloody mean about things all the time. It wasn’t like he was some baby who was going to get marks on things, or act careless and break them.

“But I wasn’t--”

“Mr. Potter, I don’t care to hear your excuses. We aren’t at school any more; I don’t have to tolerate your disrespect.”

Harry’s sense of self preservation, never strong at the best of times, took this exact moment to go on vacation. Not entirely, but enough that Harry mumbled something that sounded a lot like “ I still have to tolerate yours.”

Snape, besides having a good sense of self preservation, had excellent hearing. It wasn’t long after that Harry found himself facing the corner, Snape’s hands pressing hard on his shoulder. “Do. Not. Move. An. Inch.”

Snape left the boy, trusting he was too scared to defy him directly, and went into the kitchen. He calmly filled the kettle and turned the stove up high. He watched the dancing orange flames and took more deep breaths.

He was occasionally shocked, even after all these years, that the damned things could arouse such a strong feeling in him. He could admit in the honesty of his heart that Potter probably hadn’t meant them harm. The boy was curious, and there were much worse things he could have been curious about in the house. Snape had burned most of it after Tobias died, fed it into the grate, but there was still probably something he had missed that would scar Potter if he found it. He made a mental note to dose the boy with Dreamless Sleep and go through everything with a fine toothed comb to be sure.

That said, the boy wasn’t going to give him cheek, no matter the provocation. Why couldn’t the child ever just leave well enough alone? He had never met anyone with such a limited sense of self preservation, not to mention impulse control. The longer he observed Potter, the more of Lily he could see in him, especially the way he’d cock his head when deep in thought. That sass, though. Pure Potter.

The kettle screamed. He made himself a cup of oolong almost strong enough to have self awareness, and drank it without milk or sugar. The acrid bitterness and burning heat would have put off another man, but Snape had long since found that there can be meaning in suffering, little nuggets of insight waiting to be dug by a person with sufficient sand to withstand the discomfort and soldier on.

Fortified, he marched back the library. He half expected the boy to have slipped out or something, but he stood ramrod straight in the corner, arms crossed. His fringe was hanging in his eyes, which made him look a bit like a pouting sheepdog.

Snape pulled the desk chair out and sat down on it. “Come here, Mr. Potter.”

Harry had surmised that the command boded nothing good. He briefly weighed his options and decided that, unpalatable though it might be, his best chance was to obey Snape.

Snape got a hold of the boy’s arm as soon as he was close enough. He gently pulled the boy so he was standing on Snape’s right side.

“You are correct that I forgot to mention that the records are off limits. I should not have done, and will strive in the future to remember these things. That said, you were disrespectful to me and behaved foolishly by standing on this chair. Had you fallen, you might have been seriously hurt. I don’t feel as though this warrants serious punishment, but I do feel as though a reminder of the rules, and the need for you to obey them, is in order.”

Harry’s stomach slid down his insides. He expected any number of dreadful things, but not what actually happened. One moment he was standing beside Snape, getting lectured, and the next he the floor was rushing at his face. Something broke his fall, and he was less than pleased to discover something was Snape’s lap. The man grabbed both his wrists in one hand and held them, then brought his other hand down hard.

Snape swatted the boy for thirty seconds before he said anything. He had to admit, the child took it well, squirming but not wailing or kicking. Snape stopped and put his hand on the small of Potter’s back, waiting.

“ Why do adults make rules for children ?” SMACK

“ Oww! Because they want to keep us safe.”

“That’s right. What would have happened, had you fallen? I might not have found you for hours. Do you want a head injury?” SMACK

“ No!” The boy made a noise, like he was strangling back a cry.

“No what?”

“ No sir!”

Snape waited a couple seconds, and then:

“The bigger problem is the respect issue, Mr. Potter. What would happen if I spoke to Professor Dumbledore the way you spoke to me a moment ago?” He swatted the boy twice in the same place.

“He’d dismiss you…stop!”

Snape swatted even harder. “What did you say to me?”

Harry jerked-- it shouldn’t have hurt nearly as much as it did. “Sorry! I’m sorry!“

Snape nodded. This was much better. “As I said, I ought to have remembered about the records. I will make a real effort to do so in the future, but you, young man, will be in this position a good deal if you can’t learn to trust that I make rules for your welfare and respect it, is that understood?”

Harry would have agreed to kiss Pansy Parkinson ( or anyone else) to get Snape to stop, and he signaled his assent by nodding vigorously. Snape whacked him again and said smoothly

“Verbal answers, please.”

“Yes, sir.” He gave a strangely muffled groan like the ones he had been making ever since he’d cried out.

Snape gave him a last half dozen right where he sat. The boy was crying just a little by then end. His tears slowed and then stopped and he lay, sniffling, still on Snape’s lap.

Did the Greasy Got coat his hand in iron? Had he charmed it to make it hurt more? Harry was torn between anger at Snape ( and himself) and a grudging respect. He hadn’t really thought about the risk when he tugged the chair over, but the floor was stone and the chair rather rickety. It’d be just awful to have fallen and broken an arm or something on the first day of hols.

He was less certain about the respect issue. He could see the point, but, in fairness, Dumbledore wasn’t a mean, nasty birk like Snape. Also, even if Snape had been young, he doubted that the man could remember what it was like. Had Snape’s parents also been gits? That would explain a lot. And he hadn’t been that cheeky…

Snape seemed to sense his thought, because he said from above

“ Understand that I let you off lightly. You may feel that you did nothing to merit a spanking, and some would agree, but I myself am a firm believer in the snowball theory.”

“ I don’t understand.”

Snape sighed. “ It means that large problems start as small ones. Most thieves don’t wake up one morning and rob a bank, do they? They start snitching sweets and simply move on from there. I’d just as soon nip this bad attitude of yours in the bud, rather than watch it get you in more trouble than it already has.”

Harry guessed that arguing back in this position was unwise. After a second, Snape grabbed him under the arms and lifted him to his feet. Harry felt a moment of dizziness, and then felt Snape’s hand on his chin, dragging his eyes up. The fingers digging into his jaw decided him; the man had indeed charmed his hand to make it stronger, no mere human hand felt like that.