Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 1

Harry woke up with a splitting headache. He lazily opened his eyes and slowly sat upright in his bed, noticing in amazement that his head didn’t hit the ceiling. ‘Where am I?’ he mused incredulously. As far as he could remember, the evening before, he had fallen asleep in his cupboard, listening to his relatives’ preparations for Christmas. However, he found himself in a huge room with several beds like the hospital room at his primary school. But he wasn’t at school, and the beds looked very comfortable with red curtains in front of each. ‘No, this looks more than a dormitory,’ Harry pondered, slowly dragging himself out of bed. The walls, as far as they were visible behind the beds, wardrobes, and posters, seemed to be old stone walls like in a castle, and even the smell was completely different from that at home.

Harry hesitantly walked over to the door, feeling relief when he could open it, and anxiously descended the staircase that led him to a most comfortable looking cosy room with a number of sofas and chairs as well as a huge fireplace. Shivering violently in the cold winter air, Harry immediately stepped over to the fireplace, craving the warmth from the open fire.

Where am I? Am I stuck in a dream?’ he mused, glancing around the unknown space. Stepping over to a nearby window, he got a glimpse at a half frozen lake as well as a huge forest, which seemed to continue infinitely. Snow was covering the grounds, and rays of sunlight made the ice on the lake twinkle like little stars. ‘This can’t be real. I’ve never been to a forest, nor do I know a lake except for the small pond behind the park at Little Whinging, where Dudley tried to ice skate before, but it looks completely different from this one here. I must still be asleep,’ he decided, proceeding to curl up in front of the fireplace. Unfortunately, after a while he noticed that he was getting hungry, which was strange, because he was used to not being able to eat for a few days, and he had to use the bathroom. ‘Where is the bathroom?’ he pondered, feverishly looking around. He could only see two staircases, the one he had just descended as well as another one, which he tried to climb up in his search.

However, he only managed to proceed until the third step, before he was thrown back to the floor. ‘Ouch,’ Harry thought, rubbing his backside, before he tried the other staircase, the one, he had come down earlier. He opened all the doors leading from the staircase to large rooms like the one he had obviously slept in, but there was no bathroom. Only when he returned back down the staircase in frustration, he noticed half hidden and hardly recognizable doors right next to each of the sleeping rooms, which led to the bathrooms. ‘Thank God,’ he mused, hurriedly relieving himself, before he returned to the fireplace, curling up on the floor.

Pondering what to do next, he glanced around the room, noticing something that looked like a book lying under one of the sofas. He scrambled onto his feet and hesitantly pulled the thing out from under the sofa, before he returned to his spot in front of the fireplace, hiding his treasure under his pyjama top.

It’s like one of Dudley’s magazines,’ Harry thought in delighted excitement, and after once more confirming that he was alone in the room, he placed the magazine on the floor in front of himself. “The Quidditch Monthly,” he read aloud, frowning as he couldn’t understand the meaning. Hesitantly opening the magazine, he recognized people riding on... ‘No, that can’t be, people don’t fly on broomsticks,’ he told himself, putting the back of his hand to his forehead to assess if he was delirious from a high fever. ‘Probably yes,’ he decided, ‘people in pictures don’t even move let alone fly.’

He hesitantly skimmed through the magazine and was already about to close it when his eyes fell on a headline, ‘Harry Potter, the youngest Seeker in more than one hundred years.’

Oh, that’s a boy, who has the same name as I,’ Harry mused in surprise and watched the boy on his broom dive and catch something with his right hand that looked like a tiny golden ball, causing the children standing around the spot to cheer. ‘It would be great to be able to fly,’ he thought, tiredly turning his eyes to the dancing flames in the fireplace.

Where am I, how did I come here, and how am I supposed to get back home? Plus, do I really want to go home? It seems very comfortable here, but what if someone finds me? I surely am not supposed to be in such a nice place.

Harry was pulled out of his reverie as a hole in the wall, which he hadn’t noticed before, was slammed close and a strict voice penetrated his ears. “Potter, how dare you not to show up for breakfast in spite of being ordered by your Head of House not to miss any meals?”

Harry anxiously turned his head to the dark figure that with a few steps had crossed the room and was now menacingly towering over him. “I’m sorry, sir,” he whispered, flinching back badly when the man grabbed the magazine from the spot right next to his arm.

“Ah, too engrossed in enjoying your fame, Potter?” the man, who was dressed in black robes, sneered.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harry replied in a hardly audible voice. “Where am I, sir?”

“That’s enough of your insolence, Potter,” the man bellowed. “Follow me!” With that, he strode out of the comfortable room in a fast pace, his robes dramatically billowing behind him.

As fast as he could Harry followed the man through the unknown corridors of what seemed to be an immensely huge place, wondering all the time, ‘Who is that man, and why does he know me? I’m sure I’ve never met him before. He seems a bit like Uncle Vernon, but he’s too tall to be him in disguise.’

All of a sudden, the moving pictures on both sides of the corridor fell into his eyes, causing the boy to stop dead in his tracks, before he noticed that the black man was already out of sight. ‘Oh no, I have to hurry,’ Harry mused, trying to catch up with his guide to no effect. A few minutes later, he stood alone in a huge hall, noticing several normal sized doors as well as two large front doors. Choosing one of the front doors, Harry stepped out onto the grounds, recognizing the place as the one he had viewed from the window in the room with the fireplace.

It was bitter cold and lightly snowing outside, so Harry quickly made his way back into the still cold halls of the castle. Just before he reached the entrance doors, from the corner of his eye he caught a movement further down the hill and saw a large man of about three times the size of Uncle Vernon steadily move into his direction, pulling an extremely large Christmas tree behind him.

Before a terrified Harry could find an adequate hiding place, the man had spotted him and cheered, “Hello Harry, I’m glad you’re here. Can you open the door for me, please?”

“Which door?” Harry queried frightened, throwing the man a hesitant glance. ‘Is that a giant?’ he mused, feeling very uncomfortable.

“Of the Great Hall of course,” the man replied gently, causing Harry to hurriedly make his way over to the other side of the hall, following the large man’s finger, which pointed to one of the large doors. “Thank you, Harry. Come, let’s have breakfast,” he was told and anxiously followed the man to the far end of an enormous Hall, where about a dozen people were sitting around a large table eating breakfast.

“Ah, Hagrid, Harry,” an old man, whose resemblance to Father Christmas nearly caused Harry to go into shock, greeted them friendly, and Harry hesitantly sat down on one of the empty chairs, right next to the man, who had called him down from the other room earlier, glad to have found the man again.

Harry uncomfortably shifted in his seat, not used to being allowed to sit at the table together with people. Only when the tall man next to him hissed, “Eat, Potter, or do you need a special invitation?” he hesitantly took a slice of toast, slowly munching the delicious piece of bread that was still surprisingly warm.

Anxiously looking around, he noticed that apart from himself only adults were present at this breakfast, but he didn’t know anyone, nor did the other people’s conversations enlighten him as to where he was and what he was supposed to do. ‘They sound as if they were all teachers, and they’re wearing strange clothes,’ Harry mused. ‘Did the Dursleys put me into an orphanage over night? Probably that’s it,’ he decided after pondering the thought for a few minutes. ‘The only question is why there aren’t any other kids around, but anyway they’re supposed to tell me something, aren’t they?

Harry curiously looked around the huge Hall, wondering if it didn’t have a ceiling. ‘It looks as if it was snowing, but the snow doesn’t come down here,’ he observed in surprise and amazement when the dark man’s silky voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Potter, be in time for lunch. I’m not going to invite you personally again, and Professor McGonagall will only be back in time for dinner. Don’t forget that you have to serve detention with me tonight after dinner.”

Throwing the man an anxious look, Harry replied in a hardly audible voice, “Yes, sir,” while he began to panic inwardly. ‘Detention? Dudley sometimes has detention at school, but I never had that, and is this a school here? Maybe the Dursleys didn’t dump me in an orphanage but that school for criminal boys Uncle Vernon spoke about before,’ he mused, feeling absolutely terrified at the thought, while he slowly followed the adults out of the hall.

Harry slowly trailed back up the staircase he had come down earlier when he had followed the tall man. However, he had no idea, where the room with the fireplace was, and finally strode aimlessly around the empty castle.

Chapter End Notes:
I’m not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes or help me to correct them.

All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.

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