Severus was not annoyed. He had been annoyed when he found out the Dumbledore expected him to do the home visit for the Potter brat. Severus was not irritated. He had been irritated when he found out the aforementioned home visit would involve interacting with Petunia Evans and taking the Potter brat shopping. At that point not even reading two full chapters of his Potion Theory book was able to lift his mood. Severus was not even angry. He had been angry when it had taken four hours to track down the dilapidated little hut they were hiding in. As if Muggles were capable of hiding from a wizard who wanted to find them. No, Severus was not annoyed, irritated or angry. Severus was livid.

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting when he knocked on the door of the shack in the middle of night, but it definitely wasn't what he found. The door had opened to reveal Lily's eyes, full of painful hope, in the face of a child far too small for his eleven years and with obviously well-worn clothes hanging off his scrawny frame. And that first moment could easily be considered the high-point of the visit so far (though Severus had every intention of rectifying that). The longer he talked to the boy the clearer it became that his home life was nothing like normal, much less the pampered lifestyle Severus had always envisioned for the Boy-Who-Lived. After all, what normal child wouldn't want to wake their guardians when a stranger shows up in the middle of the night? The boy had clearly been neglected, and, judging by his small frame and tendency to beam at even the hint of a compliment, he was likely malnourished and emotionally abused as well. No one deserved that kind of treatment, not even the Potter brat.

What had shocked Severus the most in the conversation had not been the treatment the boy had received at the hands of his relatives, however. Rather it had been the boy himself. Despite looking like a slightly scrawnier carbon copy of James Potter, especially once he had donned his glasses, (Severus briefly toyed with the idea of getting the boy contacts, for purely practical reasons of course) the boy was nothing like his father. Where the elder Potter had been brash and arrogant, the younger was reserved and respectful. His modesty too had very little in common with James Potter's sense of entitlement, though Severus did not care to speculate how much of the boy's unassuming air was due to a lack of self-worth that had been ingrained into him by his relatives. But beneath the quiet manner there was a spark of life and excitement in the depths of green that was reminiscent of another pair of eyes that Severus had long since given up hope of seeing again. Yes, the thing that had shocked Severus the most was discovering that the Boy-Who-Lived was not the Potter brat, but Lily's son.

In spite of that, Severus did not know what had possessed him to wish a happy birthday to the boy. Certainly classifying him as Lily's son instead of Potter's spawn made the boy less detestable, but Severus Snape did not engage in conversational niceties. He would not-could not consider the possibility that the waif had reminded him of another under-loved boy with dark hair and overlarge hand-me-downs. He was willing to acknowledge the boy as Lily's son, but some things did not bear thinking on.

Now that the boy was safely abed, however, Severus could continue to a part of the night that promised to be much more enjoyable than he had originally expected. Now he got to confront Petunia Evans.

After shutting behind him the door connecting the two rooms of the hut he quickly cast some wards to insure that no noise would escape this room to the one next to it. The boy needed a good night's sleep. In fact, since he had apparently been forced to sleep in a cupboard instead of a proper bedroom, he was undoubtedly back owed years' worth of good nights' sleep. Far be it for Severus to deprive the boy of the first one, especially since Severus would be the one to pay for it when he was forced to take a cranky and sleep-deprived eleven year old shopping the next day.

Wards set, Severus turned a sneer on the two lumps, one significantly larger than the other, sequestered in the bed. After considering a number of different ways to wake the Dursleys, none of them pleasant, he decided that an Aguamenti charm would do nicely. After all, it had been their idiotic plan to try to run and hide that had forced Severus to be out in the rain in middle of the night, it was only fair that they should suffer the same watery fate. The fact that Severus had not actually gotten wet hardly seemed relevant.

Now the Dursleys couldn't have been expecting to be woken wet and sputtering after being doused with water in the middle of the night. That apparently did not mean that the larger lump, Vernon Dursley Severus surmised, wasn't prepared. Seconds after he was hit by the water he was sitting up with a rifle in hand, pointed squarely at Severus. Whatever threat he would have made went unvoiced, however, as a horribly familiar screech rung out "You! What are you doing here?"

Severus turned to the horrified woman and flashed her a smile with more teeth than really necessary. "Hello Tuney. How nice to see you again." Petunia shuddered, making the statement feel quite true to Severus, given the circumstances. "I am here on behalf of Hogwarts to-"

"He'll not be going to that horrid school," she said, cutting him off.

"Do not interrupt me," Severus reprimanded, sounding remarkably like a teacher lecturing a perpetually disobedient student. "I never cared for your opinion before, and I have no intention of starting now. The boy has informed me of his intention to attend and that is the final say in the matter. The only reason I've even bothered to inform you is because you will be facilitating in whatever necessary to make this happen."

"Of course you'll make sure he gets whatever he wants, the son of my perfect sister Lily. Everyone just loved her." Petunia gave him a nasty little smile, and Severus paled at the thought that that foul woman might know about the one thing he held sacred. Sensing her advantage, she pressed "Did you think I didn't know? How could I not, the way you followed my freak of a sister around like a puppy dog. You haven't changed a bit," she finished with a sneer.

That's when Severus snapped. Within moments Petunia found herself staring down the business end of his wand. "I've changed quite a bit Tuney, something you will find out if you dare utter another word. I can do far worse things than dropping a tree branch on you. Things far worse than you could ever imagine, if I thought you had the brain capacity to actually imagine anything in the first place."

Dursley, who would not stand for people pointing weapons at his wife (or who was maybe just tired of being ignored), finally spoke up. "Get out! You are breaking and entering and now threatening my wife, and I will not stand for it! We want nothing to do with your kind, so you lot stay away from my family." The rifle, which had dropped to the bed sometime during the preceding conversation, was once again pointed squarely at Severus's chest.

Severus favored the waste of space and food (a rather large amount of it on both counts) with a contemptuous glare. "Do not think you can frighten me Dursley. I have known people who would kill you sooner than look at you, and that's without knowing what a miserable excuse for a human being you are. I very much doubt you have what it takes to kill a person, and if you were to try I can promise you that you would long regret the day you did. I do not, however, have any intention of leaving a potentially dangerous weapon in the hands of a complete idiot."  Severus then flicked his wand away from Petunia and toward the rifle, resulting in an empty-handed and confused Dursley.

"As I was saying," said Severus, taking advantage of the Dursleys' thunder-struck silence to continue, "the boy will be attending Hogwarts. Anything you do or say to try to change that will only be a waste of your and my time. And I highly recommend you do not waste my time. Now that my official business is taken care of, though, I do have something else I wanted to discuss with you. Specifically, your appalling treatment of your nephew."

"I don't know what that ungrateful little sod told you, but we treat him just fine. Keep a roof over his head and keep him fed and watered, the boy's got nothing to complain about." Severus was nauseated to learn that he and Dursley both referred to the boy in the same way, and Severus found that he was quickly running out of appellations for him. Clearly "the boy" was out, and Severus had no intention of calling Lily's son "Potter" any more than necessary. "Lily's son," on the other hand, would reveal more about Severus than he was willing to give away. "The Boy-Who-Lived" was completely unwieldy and unacceptable despite being the least ridiculous of most the other names Severus could come up with. It seemed there was no help for it then-

"Harry has clearly been mistreated. My guess at this point is neglect, malnutrition and abuse."

Petunia's gasp of "You dare," was drowned out by Dursley's roar. "I've had enough! You break in, threaten my wife and then accuse us of child abuse? I'll admit that I've thought a good beating might cure the boy of his strangeness, but I've never taken a hand to him. We took him in out of the goodness of our hearts when he was left on our doorstep, and I will not have anyone saying we hit him!"

Severus stared at the man's huffing form, clearly unimpressed. "If you are quite done? You are very lucky I already suspected there was no physical abuse, since I have no reason to believe either of you if you told me the sky was blue. Know that if I had thought Harry had been physically hurt this conversation would have gone very differently. Just because you didn't beat him, however, does not mean that Harry wasn't abused both mentally and emotionally. And let me assure you, this behavior will stop, or else things will become very unpleasant for you. If I had my way Harry would be immediately and permanently removed from your clutches, and the two of you would be locked up for a long time for what you did to him. I lack that power, unfortunately, so instead I will be insuring that your treatment of him improves drastically. Henceforth he will be treated not as a burden, but as a welcome member of your family. He will be afforded the same rights and privileges as any other member of your family, and any punishments will be comparable to ones his cousin receives. Have I made myself clear?"

"Fine," Petunia snapped, but with an evil glint in her eyes while she said it. Severus nearly scoffed at that, if she thought she could outwit the Head of Slytherin she was sorely mistaken.

"Good. Now, since I don't trust either of you any farther than I can throw him," Severus said with a nod toward Dursley's massive bulk, "I will have Harry send me weekly reports on how you are treating him. If I am not happy with what is written in his letters, you will know. If I have reason to believe that you are forcing him to lie about how you are treating him, you will know. If I don't receive a report, you will know. And if any of these things happen or I have any reason to suspect that you aren't keeping your word, then I suggest you pray for mercy from any deity you think might listen, as I will be the first in a long line of people who will offer you none."

Severus leveled a glare at the Dursleys, to make sure the threat had properly sunk in. Dursley had gone very pale, muttering something that sounded like "Mimblewimble," and Petunia looked deflated, the evil glint gone from her eyes. Satisfied, Severus decided it was time to conclude this conversation. "Fortunately that ends my business with you tonight. I hope to never see either of you again." Then, with a quick flick of his wand he put the both to sleep with a spell that would end after he and Harry left the next morning. That accomplished he left the room, dropping the silencing wards as he went, and returned the front room of the hut. Reaching into his pocket he pulled the shrunken bed he had had the foresight to bring and returned it to its normal size. Hopefully he'd be able to get some sleep in before taking Harry shopping tomorrow.