Snape tapped his watch. Potter was two minutes late. He was about to begin eating without the boy when he heard thundering footfalls on the stairs. Did the boy have no skill in subtlety whatsoever?

Snape had left the concealed door to the kitchen slightly ajar, sure that Potter was too dim-witted to be able to find it without help. He had toyed with the idea of letting the boy fumble around for a bit on his own, but Snape’s patience was already wearing thin. It evaporated entirely when the boy strode into the room.

Potter walked over to the table and seated himself opposite Snape, spreading a linen napkin across his lap. He saw the boy inhale the heady scent of Snape’s beef stew, and swallow, as if willing his salivary glands to be patient.

“I thought I told you to wear something appropriate to dinner.”

Potter’s blazing gaze met Snape’s, but he said nothing.

“Well?” Snape demanded.

When Potter did nothing but stare impertinently back at him, Snape’s temper flared. He stood up so fast that his chair toppled over behind him. Leaning forward, he slammed his hands onto the table. Snape could tolerate a lot of things, but disrespect was not one of them. “How difficult is it, Potter, to follow one simple instruction?”

Potter jumped to his feet, his chest heaving, hands clenched by his side. He’d flinched badly when Snape had flown out of his chair, and Snape had registered this, but pushed the irksome behaviour aside as a sign of the boy’s arrogance and eagerness to fight.

 “If you don’t want to follow my simple instructions, then you can go hungry. I don’t want to see you at this table again until you see fit to wear decent clothing.”

Potter picked up the linen napkin off the floor and flung it on the table. Then he stormed out of the room. Snape heard the second floor’s bedroom door slam once again. Gritting his teeth, he settled back into his chair to eat dinner alone.

By mid-afternoon the next day, Snape was livid. Potter had not presented himself at breakfast or at lunch. This battle of wills had gone beyond childish and ventured into the range of downright infuriating. He’d have to put an end to it immediately. He could not believe he’d been saddled with his nemesis’ stubborn, self-important spawn.

“Potter, open this door at once!” He could have used magic, but he wanted the boy’s obedience. To his surprise, he heard the lock click. Snape threw open the door to find Potter standing rigid by the desk. He was wearing the same detestable clothing as he’d had on the day before.

“Stop this childish behaviour at once,” Snape ordered. “Change your clothes and come down to lunch. I will not have you starving yourself to prove some asinine point.”

Potter’s expression flickered, but still he did not move. Snape stalked closer. “What is the problem?” he asked in a dangerous voice.

Potter’s jaw tightened. “I don’t have any appropriate clothes.”

Snape sighed in exasperation. “You forgot to pack them? How convenient.”

“I do not own any appropriate clothes,” Potter clarified through gritted teeth.

“That is a lie, Potter! I’ve seen you wear dress clothes under your robes at school. How do you explain those?” Snape demanded, taking a step closer. Potter leaned instinctively away from Snape but then straightened, determined to hold his ground. He saw the boy’s wand hand twitch as if looking for a weapon.

When Potter did not reply, Snape yelled, “Answer me, boy! I’ve had enough of your games.”

Potter’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Don’t. Call. Me. Boy.”

“Fine. Potter then,” Snape spat. “You expect me to believe…” Snape’s voice trailed off. He had raised his hand to push a wayward lank of hair from his face and Potter had tensed his muscles, as if expecting to be hit. Snape dropped his hand and looked around the small room. He hadn’t believed the boy when Potter had said that his aunt had packed his belongings, but why else would the boy arrive in such a deplorable state with everything in a plastic rubbish bag for a suitcase? Noticing the small pile of clothing stacked neatly on the desk, he said, “Lunch is on the table. Go and eat. We’ll continue this discussion later.”

After Potter had left the room and Snape was sure he’d arrived in the kitchen, he started going through the clothing in the pile. It was all two or three sizes too big for the boy, and all in sorry condition. The fabric was worn and often stained, with rips and tears in various places. Most of the shirts were dark colours, but one light shirt in particular sported suspicious brown stains across the back. A particularly distasteful thought entered Snape’s mind. The Dursleys were unpleasant, righteous Muggles, but surely they wouldn’t… Snape shook his head at his own foolishness. As he was refolding an especially revolting threadbare sweater, he heard the unmistakable sound of breaking glass.

Snape strode quickly out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen. He found Potter with his back against the counter, his hands behind him.

“I’m sorry,” Potter stammered. “I didn’t mean to break it.”

Snape disregarded the shattered glass on the floor and instead studied the guilty looking teenager. “What are you hiding behind your back?”

“Nothing,” Potter replied, too quickly and defensively.

“Let me see your hands,” Snape ordered. When Potter did not respond, Snape said, “Show them to me, now.”

With growing irritation and suspicion, a vile thought entered his mind. “Are you stealing from me?” Snape asked. Potter was a lot of irreprehensible things, but he’d never cottoned him as a thief.

“No!” Harry stated, both shocked and outraged by the accusation.

Snape took a step forward, but then stopped. The water in the sink was an unnatural shade of pink, and a red soaked rag lay on the counter. Looking down at the floor once more, he saw a steadily growing pool of crimson red growing behind Potter’s left leg.

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing.”

The paleness of the boy’s face told another story. Snape yanked out a chair from the wretched kitchen table, and with a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pushed him into it. As Potter sat, he brought his hands in front of his body, protectively leaning over and shielding the injury from Snape’s view.

“It’s nothing,” Potter repeated.

“If it’s nothing, then you won’t mind letting me look at it,” Snape replied silkily.

Potter stared at him through his fringe of black hair for several moments before finally relinquishing his left hand, which was wrapped tightly in a blood soaked towel. Snape raised an eyebrow at the amount of blood. As he unwrapped the towel and saw Potter’s mangled hand, he growled.

“What in Merlin’s name were you doing, child?”

“I was doing the dishes in the sink,” Potter said. “I was washing the inside of a glass with a rag when it shattered. I felt it cut my skin so I yanked my hand out of the water. But I accidentally knocked the other glass off the counter with my elbow.” Harry pulled his hand back. “If I could use magic outside of school, I’d fix it for you,” he murmured.

 “I don’t care about the stupid glasses,” chided Snape in frustration as he got to his feet. He wrapped Potter’s hand in a new towel and raised it into the air. “Keep your hand above your head and wait here while I get my healer’s kit.”

Snape hurried upstairs, more than a little concerned. Snape could heal cuts well enough, but if the boy had severed a major artery in his hand, they’d be making a trip to St. Mungo’s. He found his healer’s kit, grabbed a few more clean towels, and hurried back downstairs.

“What are you doing?” he asked, irritated to find the boy kneeling on the floor with a rag in his right hand, his left hand poking absurdly in the air.

Potter looked up. “Cleaning up the blood. Otherwise, it’ll stain your floor.”

Snape rolled his eyes in exasperation. Grabbing the boy by his good elbow, Snape steered him back into the chair. “I can do magic. It works for cleaning floors and mending broken objects. Now, you need to learn to follow orders. Sit still and rest your arm on the table here while I clean you up.”

Snape filled a glass bowl with lukewarm water from the sink and used a clean washcloth to sponge off the blood. He dripped Essence of Dittany onto the wound to cauterize the arteries and stop the bleeding. The cut was deep and circled the back of Potter’s hand, as well as the side of his palm and his thumb with deep gashes.

Frowning, Snape summoned the broken glass from the sink. Indeed the glass, now half as tall as it once was, was rimmed with sharp jagged edges. Potter must have been rotating his hand inside of it when it broke, thus slicing all the way around. “Bad luck, Potter,” he said, sponging off the remaining blood on Potter’s hand. “Next time, leave the dishes. They can be charmed to wash themselves, you know.”

Glancing up, Snape saw the pained expression on Potter’s face. “I’ll be done in a minute,” Snape murmured. Relieved that the Dittany had stopped the bleeding and no major arteries had been severed, Snape raised his wand and uttered a few healing incantations. Potter’s face relaxed as the skin knitted itself back together. When Snape had finished, he applied an anti-scarring balm to the newly healed cut and wrapped Potter’s hand in gauze.

“Keep it dry and clean, and avoid using that hand for a couple of days. You’ll need to reapply the salve three times a day, and rewrap it with gauze to keep it from scarring. See me if you need assistance.”

Potter nodded.

“Now, drink this,” Snape said, setting a blood replenishing potion in front of the boy, “and then go up to your room and lie down. I’ll bring your dinner up when it’s ready.”

For once, Potter did as he was told without comment. He swallowed the potion in one long gulp, grimacing at the taste, and then pushed to his feet. He took one step, and swayed alarmingly.

Snape grabbed him by his good arm to steady him. Seeing Potter’s sickly complexion, Snape guided the boy back to the chair. The boy’s face had gone nearly translucent, his pulse was racing, and sweat had popped out on his forehead.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Potter uttered.

Snape promptly pushed Potter’s head between his knees, while conjuring a bucket just in case. “Breathe, Potter,” Snape said. “Take slow, deep breaths.”

Potter hung his head, breathing unsteadily. Snape waited for the boy to regain his sense of equilibrium.

“Do you always get nauseous when you lose this much blood?”

“Sometimes,” Potter muttered.

Potter’s answer gave Snape pause. He’d expected the troublesome teen to say that he’d never lost this much blood before. Deciding the boy must be referring to some Quidditch accident, Snape shook it off, until he noticed the faint, but unmistakable butterfly-shaped bruises on the back of Potter’s neck, previously hidden by the collar of the Polo shirt he’d been wearing. Instantly, Snape recalled the two smudges on the front of the boy’s neck that he’d attributed earlier to dirt. Something dark and dangerous uncoiled in Snape’s gut. “Potter…”

Potter looked up, his expression hang dog. Snape reeled in his impatience for answers and focused instead on the situation at hand. The rest could wait. “To bed with you. Do you think you can walk now?”

Potter nodded.

“Let’s take it slow this time, then, okay?”

Potter was still unsteady on his feet and Snape wondered if a trip to St. Mungo’s might be in order after all. As he guided the boy up the stairs by the elbow, he considered his options. Dumbledore had strictly warned against Potter being seen. It was best, the headmaster had said, if everyone believed the boy was still staying with his relatives. Snape could change the Potter’s name and appearance if need be. Just then, Potter stumbled, but caught himself on the stair railing.

“Almost there,” Snape coaxed, guiding Potter up the last few stairs and into the small bedroom. With a flick of his wand, the bed sheets turned themselves back and Potter sat heavily on the bed.

Snape grabbed the top shirt on the pile of clothing and shook it out to reveal a hideous, faded polo that was at least three sizes too big for the boy. Throwing it to Potter, he said, “Here, put this on.”

Potter caught the shirt with his right hand but shook his head.

Growing with impatience, Snape snapped, “The one you are wearing is covered in blood. Now stop being stubborn and put on a clean one.”

“I… “ Potter paused, cleared his throat. “I’ll change in a minute. You can go now. Thanks.”