Potter did not move as Snape approached. Snape didn’t doubt that Potter suspected it was him, but still the boy should have checked. Was he truly that blasé about his safety? As if reading Snape’s mind, Potter looked over his shoulder, and then away; the boy seemed resigned to his fate. As Snape got closer, he could see Potter’s wand gripped tightly in the boy’s right hand.

“Not a word, Potter,” Snape hissed as he shoved a jagged rock into the boy’s hand and port-keyed them both back to Spinner’s End.

They landed in the garden behind Snape’s house. Snape frog-marched Potter through the back door and into the sitting room.

Turning the miscreant to face him, Snape dropped his hands before he could give into the impulse to shake the boy senseless. Breathing heavily, he ground out: “Give me your wand.”

“What?” Harry gasped. “No!”

“You obviously cannot be trusted,” Snape seethed, holding out his hand with impatience. It took everything he had not to throttle the boy right then and there, or at the very least, rage at him for being such a bloody fool. “You have ten seconds, Potter, to hand over your wand or have it forcibly removed from you.”

Snape watched as the teen struggled with indecision. In the end, Potter pulled out his wand and thrust it at Snape, resentment burning in his eyes.

“Now, go to your room and stay there until I come for you,” Snape said through gritted teeth.

Potter promptly spun around and left the room. The thumping of his feet on the stairs matched the pounding in Snape’s head. He winced when he heard the door slam. Aiming a well-placed kick at a piece of furniture, Snape vented some of his frustration at the wayward teen before finding and downing a headache potion and a calming draught. It wouldn’t do to interrogate Potter in the mood he was in. He’d rip the boy to shreds and get no answers for his efforts.

Snape paced restlessly around the small sitting room. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this furious. He needed to calm down. Potter was upstairs. Potter was safe. That was what mattered. Not the rage that threatened to boil over into violence. He had to get himself under control. He would not be his father. He would not be Vernon Dursley. He would never hurt a child out of anger. He would never do what had been done to him. And Potter certainly did not need another abusive adult in his life. A little voice in his head whispered: ‘Can you really blame the boy for not trusting adults? Who has he had in his life that he could trust? That he could count on? Who has had solely his best interests in mind? Who has not left him prematurely?’

Snape scoffed. The same could have been said for him when he was Potter’s age.

‘Yes, and look how you turned out¸’ the voice added sadly. ‘A bitter, angry man, middle-aged and alone, death-eater-turned-spy, brewing lethal potions for both sides.’

“Shut up,” Snape hissed. He put his fingers to his head and rubbed his temples, willing the damn stress headache to recede. Potter was enough to drive anyone insane. And whatever the boy’s asinine reasons for running away...

Snape felt the walls and ceiling shudder as Potter slammed the doors to the wardrobe in the small bedroom above. Irritated, Snape yelled toward the ceiling: “Knock it off.” Next he heard the bed springs creak loudly and imagined Potter throwing himself on the bed in a fit of temper.

What reason could Potter possibly have to be angry? After all that Snape had done for him—saving his ungrateful hide more times than he could count. And after all that everyone else had done for him as well—his mother making the ultimate sacrifice, the members of the Order of the Phoenix guarding him night and day. Potter didn’t even know the half of it.

‘Perhaps that is the problem,’ the niggling voice said, ‘no one tells the boy anything.’

“That is neither my decision, nor my concern,” Snape retorted.

‘Isn’t it? You are his guardian.’

Snape scowled. He wasn’t fit to be anyone’s guardian, much less the headmaster’s golden boy and son of his schoolboy nemesis.

‘He’s Lily’s son too, Severus.’

“He has her eyes, nothing more.”

‘He has much more than her eyes. He has her pure, generous heart, her determination, her stubbornness, and her reckless adventurous streak.’

“And no common sense!” Snape bellowed.

‘He is still a child. A child who’s never known a parent’s love, guidance, understanding, or wisdom. You could give him that, Severus.’

“You are out of your mind,” he snapped.

‘I am your mind,’ retorted the voice.

“Yes, well, for your information, I never invited you in.”

‘No, you never would. Your mother left me here as a gift to you.’

“Some gift,” Snape retorted.

 ‘ Just remember what I said.’

Harry sat on the single bed and stared at the door. He felt edgy. The only other time he’d ever seen Snape so angry was when he had entered Snape’s Penseive earlier that year. Today, Snape’s obsidian eyes had blazed with fury, his voice cracking under the strain of trying to keep himself from shouting, or worse. The potion master’s hands had clenched and unclenched at his side, as if it was all Snape could do not to release some of his wrath on the very person who’d caused it. Harry knew it had been stupid to run off as he had. He’d spent all of his time planning his escape, and not enough time thinking about where he’d go once he had managed to get away. His original plan of going to the Burrow had rapidly dissolved when he realized how much danger his unexpected presence would put the Weasleys in. Sighing, he leaned his head back, banging it against the wall a couple of times in frustration.

Thinking back to the way Snape had dismissed him when they’d arrived back to Snape’s house had surprised Harry, but he knew better than to disobey someone in a towering mood. Even so, the wait for his punishment was killing him. What kind of nastiness would Snape dream up? What pain-inducing potions might the man have in his own home? Harry shuddered at the thought. He just wanted to get this over with. Like a chess match, he wanted to know what Snape’s next move would be so he could make his. Glancing longingly out the window, he studied the barren sky as he had since he’d arrived, searching fruitlessly for Hedwig—his one beacon of hope.

It had taken Snape over two hours to calm down enough to approach the boy. He’d have held out longer but he was starving, and he imagined the teen must be too. They had skipped lunch after all, and it was nearing dinner time.

Snape made his way silently up the stairs. He knocked at the door, but there was no answer. He was not surprised to find the door locked.

“Potter, I am coming in.”

With a wave of his wand, the door opened to reveal a scrawny teenager with messy black hair and glasses that actually fit sitting on the bed, his knees pulled to his chest, arms loped around them. Much to Snape’s surprise, the boy had changed back into the oversized, ragged clothes he had arrived in. He neither said anything nor looked up at Snape’s entrance.

Snape sighed. He’d stay here until he got answers, no matter how long it took. Only after would he allow himself to wring the boy’s neck for scaring the daylights out of him. Breathing deeply to keep his calm, he pulled out the rickety wooden desk chair, spun it around, and straddled it so that he could place his arms on its rounded back. Then he leaned his chin on his hands and studied Potter.

‘Be gentle, Severus. He’s like a wounded animal—lost and in a lot of pain—and likely to bite the hand that tries to help him.’

Snape hissed in his mind for the voice to be quiet.

“Potter,” he said, his voice even. “Please explain to me why you ran off today.” It took all of Snape’s well-earned restraint not to scream at the boy for his idiocy. When Potter did not respond, it took even more of Snape’s patience to wait him out. Yelling and screaming might produce answers, but more than likely, it wouldn’t produce truths, and it most certainly would not build trust.

And so Snape waited. He could wait all day. He had nowhere else to be. As he watched the boy, he let his mind wander. He started running through all of the things he needed to have ready before he returned to Hogwarts in autumn to teach. There were potions to be brewed for both Pomfrey and Dumbledore, entrance exams to be evaluated, lesson plans to be updated, correspondences to be kept...

“I don’t want the new clothes.”

Snape stilled. “What?”

“I don’t want the new clothes you got for me.”

Snape longed to yell: Speak sense, boy! But instead he said, “You prefer the clothes you arrived in?”

“No.”

“Then I am afraid I do not understand.”

Potter pushed himself into a fully upright seated position, crossing his legs Indian-style, and bracing his hands on his knees. Snape watched Potter rub his sweaty palms against the tattered and stained sweat pants he wore. Then the teen’s eyes flashed.

“You hate me. You always have. Since day one when I was taking notes in your class. I was writing down what you were saying and you thought I wasn’t paying attention. You never bothered to actually check though, did you? You were too busy comparing me to my father, a man I can’t even remember.”

Snape kept his face expressionless as he registered the accuracy of Potter’s assessment. The truth wasn’t always welcome.

“So why,” Potter continued, “would you of all people want to help me? Why would you buy me all of these clothes? Why would you take me to get new glasses? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Snape was about to respond when Potter’s next words hit him like a sucker punch to the gut.

“What sort of humiliation are you planning for me as a means of payment? What will I owe you if I accept these things?”

Snape felt the all too familiar Potter-induced fury crawl up his spine. “Owe me? OWE ME?” Snape bellowed, jumping to his feet. “How dare you insinuate that I would do such a thing.” His voice was a vicious snarl. “I have bent over backwards to protect your ungrateful, oblivious hide, put my own life in danger to protect yours, provided you with food and clothing and shelter at cost only to myself. And you accuse me of...”

‘...of being the only man he’s ever known. One who humiliates him and takes pleasure in knocking him down a notch. Really, Severus, what did you expect?’

Snape promptly shut his mouth and ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. He had a lot to answer for in Potter’s eyes; he could see that now. Rightly or wrongly, he knew how inflexible the teen mind could be. He also knew that if there was ever a chance of Potter trusting him, he’d have to address some misjudgements and dispel some misconceptions, and soon. And he’d have to control his instinctive reaction to the insufferable Gryffindor.