He knew he was different. He had always known, but it hadn't been so obvious until the last few years.

In a way, he almost felt sorry for his mother—almost. She had wanted a little girl to dress up and play dolls with, and instead of that, she had gotten completely the opposite. If he had actually been born a boy, it would have made things far easier on her, but she, like the rest of everyone else, thought he was a girl.

Hell, even he had thought he was a girl at first, but it was just so hard.

He had been rather verbose from a young age, as most Grangers were, and had an opinion about most things before he could even walk. His mother had quickly gotten the message that he didn't want to wear pink or purple, or any of those other disgusting pastel shades that made him feel like a bloody Easter egg out on display.

His mother had compromised with him, in a way. She still got to dress him up, but he got to pick the colours, and those tended toward the dark and demure, with the occasional sprig of something primary added to keep him from "looking like Death's flower girl" (his mother's words).

All, repeat, all he wanted to do as a kid was read books and sit in the floor playing with Legos, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. All his mother wanted him to do was play with dolls, dress up in little outfits and be shown off at tea parties. It would have helped if he'd been athletically inclined, but he wasn't—not really anyway. He liked watching as much as the next person, but he had better things to do with his time than run around and get his head bashed in for fun.

As perhaps an unsurprising side effect; he wasn't particularly comfortable around girls. He didn't know how to relate, how to talk to them, how to make it seem like he was one of them. And when he did try to "mingle" (another mother phrase), he felt like a spy trying to infiltrate enemy lands, more than aware than any wrong move could get him in deep.

It wasn't just that he was a tomboy, because it was more than that. When he was around his male cousins, or even the boys at school, he felt a sense of camaraderie that didn't exist around the so-called "weaker sex" (mother's words). He wasn't afraid to roughhouse or get his clothes dirty; in fact, he almost thought of it as a bonus to get his pretty school dresses messed up. His sense of humour was much cruder than what most girls would admit to, even from a young age.

He couldn't seem to get it into his head why exactly girls were the way the way were, while boys were another, because to him, the lines were much more blurred, much less definite. He had always enjoyed taking things apart to figure out how they worked, but social norms, social understandings didn't work the same way. You couldn't pull apart an idea nearly as readily, especially one that was seemingly held together with hundreds of years of finicky and, at times, idiotic tradition.

Perhaps he could have done all right with how he had been going; a girl in physicality only, a boy in everything else, if not for the negative reactions of those around him. His mother, although somewhat lenient in his younger years, became somewhat tyrannical as he neared the end of his eighth year of life. She had somehow gotten it stuck in her mind that his little exploits were all part of childish fun, but now that he was "growing up," it was time to move on.

His schoolmates, upon learning that they were in fact different from the girls whom they sometimes played with, began to snub him from their games, leaving him stuck somewhere in the middle of the two genders. The girls were worse though. They actively sought him out for ridicule; trying very hard to prove his worthlessness to him through cruel words and crueller actions.

"Freak!" Was an often heard accusation on his way across the playground; one that he heard almost enough to get used to—but not quite, not when he so desperately wanted to believe he was more than the words and opinions of his peers.

There wasn't a day that he didn't spend verbally maligned; that someone did not ask him a derogatory question. Every day he was ostracized, treated like the worst of the worst and frequently threatened with more than just creative insults.

Even his cousins, in the last couple of years before he became a Hogwarts student, even they eventually failed him.

. . .

Severus opened the door and walked into Granger and Bulstrode's room. Bulstrode was awake and standing at the side of Granger's bed, but she quickly backed off when she saw who it was.

"Does this sort of thing happen very often?" Severus asked, quickly settling himself on the side of Hermes' bed and grabbing the boy's hands before they could claw much more damage onto the already deeply scratched flesh.

Wordlessly, Millicent shook her head. Then, in a soft voice, "He doesn't—I've never seen him hurt like this before."

Severus nodded sharply, and then began murmuring encouragements to Hermes to wake up. The boy was still crying, but no longer screaming, and it seemed that the nightmare was beginning to wane.

"Did he say anything?" Severus asked, watching how Bulstrode twitched in surprise at his choice of pronoun.

"Only that he wanted it off, over and over again," Millicent answered softly as she watched her head of house slowly gather Hermes closer to his chest.

. . .

He awoke slowly from the nightmare, strangely content in the sensation of safety, even as the pain continued to ebb at the edges of his consciousness. It was a familiar dream unfortunately. In the beginning, it had simply caused him stress, but as of late, that stress had taken on a physical level of pain.

The dream always began the same way; he was in his mother's room, dressed in some kind of idiotic frilly display that she insisted on him wearing. She would part and tease his hair until it felt like some kind of horrible hat that refused to come off. The dress would be even worse, full of lace and uncomfortable itchy spots and see-through elements that always made his stomach turn.

Then suddenly, he would snap and start screaming that he didn't want to go to the ball in a costume, and his mother would explain oh-so-calmly that he wasn't in costume.

"Go on, try and take it off," she'd suggest, that knowing gleam in her eye, and he'd shudder at its sight, knowing that things were going to get worse before they got better.

But he'd try, he always try, and that's when the nightmare would start. He'd get off a layer, and find another one underneath; he'd rip the pins out of his hair, only to find that his hair still wouldn't move. He'd try to take a shower, but the water wouldn't work, and people would keep getting in his way, and he'd slide back and forth on the floor in those far too slick shoes and itchy hose until falling apart in the corner of a backroom somewhere.

. . .

"Child?" Severus asked softly when Hermes' breathing changed.

"I'm in Hogwarts?" Was his first question. Hermes' voice shook, and Severus could feel the trembling spreading into other parts of his body as well.

"In the Slytherin dorms in fact," Severus answered calmly, giving a nod to Millicent when she hesitantly began moving forward.

"Hermes?" Millicent's soft voice broke the uncertain silence.

Hermes turned his head from where it was unknowingly buried in Severus' chest, and launched himself forward far enough to grab her arm. He pulled it to where he was enmeshed next to Severus and then proceeded to hold onto the both of them in an unusual demonstration of neediness.

"I'll—I'll be okay in a mo'," Hermes whispered over and over, pressing his forehead back against Severus' chest while desperately holding onto Millicent's arm as though it were his only lifeline.

"You do not have to be, Hermes," Severus soothed, idly checking over the young boy's wounds and deciding that they were superficial enough to delay being healed while they gave him what else he needed.

"I'm not going anywhere," Millicent bravely added, causing Hermes to lift a tear stained face toward her and smile.

"Thanks," Hermes whispered, knowing he'd feel guilty for this later on, but not really able to care yet. There were so many times that he had wanted to be held just like this and hadn't; he simply couldn't bring himself to make them let go yet.

It wasn't just the tormenting that he had endured at the hands of his peers and family. It wasn't just knowing that he could never fit in no matter where or what he did. It was more, there was so much more that he still couldn't put a voice to; past situations that he still could not bring himself to envision, let alone speak about.

Ones that he would almost rather forget about, and get his revenge later on for, if he really thought he could.

. . .

Somehow, it didn't surprise Severus in the least to discover that Harry's cousin was morbidly obese. It fit the equation of everything else he knew about the family thus far. Everything that was denied to Harry was given to the cousin, and everything that the large boy needed in regard to discipline was given to Harry.

It made his head hurt—and his heart, although that was something he preferred not examine in too much length while not in his quarters.

He strode quickly down the children's hospital section of St. Mungo's, heading toward one room in particular. Most of the children on the corridor were muggle, and a good many of them would have to undergo partial if not total obliviates before being allowed to leave.

Perhaps, with any luck, Dudley Dursley would not have to be one of those; although it was unlikely that anyone on the outside would consider it lucky to get out via Severus' plans.

He found a nurse to let him into the boy's room—as a child of criminals, young Dursley's room was locked up tighter than some of the cells in Azkaban.

Inside, he found a charmed window that showed a large field of grass, waving fields and the like.

Probably someone higher up considers the view to be idyllic or peaceful, he snorted silently to himself.

As a boy who was much more familiar with the sights of a city or its surrounding area, that sort of empty view would likely inspire depression and isolation if he were not watched carefully. At least, that's how Severus thought a younger version of himself would have felt, if he had found himself in similar circumstances.

The boy that raised his head from the bed in the centre of the room wasn't nearly as overweight as he had been. Severus knew that most of the healers had not seen such a bad case of purposeful overfeeding in many of the years working in the hospital, muggle and wizarding alike. Certainly, there were any number of accidental magic situations that caused such bloating, but to do it to one's own child in the name of love . . . it was easy to understand why the healers found Dudley's case to be so very worrisome.

"Mr. Dursley?" Snape asked as he swept into the room.

The boy on the bed only grunted and turned away from him.

"Dudley, I believe your name is?" Snape tried again, feeling unusually charitable to this boy locked in a pretty box.

"Got it in one," the boy growled, still not deigning to look at him.

"I'm here to talk to you about your cousin," Snape stated, pulling up a chair and dropping lightly into it.

Merlin, it was hard to believe that this giant lump of a boy was the same age as Harry.

"Great," the lump—er, Dudley answered dully.

"Tell me, Mr. Dursley—Dudley," Snape said, putting a tad more menace into his voice.

He could tell that it worked when Dudley turned in his bed to glare back at him.

"Do you hate your cousin?"

Dudley snorted and crossed large arms over his chest. "Hate? Why should I hate the little shit?"

Licking his lips carefully, lest he do something he would regret, Snape leaned back in his seat and levelled a dark look of his own on the boy in front of him.

"Do you think that your father's treatment of Harry was fair?"

"He deserved it," was Dudley's vehement response.

Snape smiled coldly and watched Dudley recoil slightly.

"And if you had been at the receiving end of your father's . . . discipline, would you have deserved it as well?"

Silence. Then, "I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Of course not," Snape continued to smile that cold almost snarl of a grin. "Likely enough, if you had stood up for your cousin, your father's insane treatment would have been passed to you as well. It was only for your survival that you treated Harry the way you did."

"My parents love me! They didn't want that . . . that freak!"

"And how did you feel about him?" Snape cocked his head to the side, outwardly at ease, even though his insides hurt from the tension of keeping himself in check.

Dudley finally looked away again and shrugged. "It's not like he was really a person," the large boy mumbled.

"Mr. Dursley," Snape sighed, "I strongly encourage you never to own a pet."

"I always wanted a dog," was Dudley's softly voiced answer.

"So instead you chose to treat Harry as your pet? Kicking him around whenever he didn't do exactly what you wished?"

"No!" Dudley's eyes were wide. "I didn't want him at all! I just wanted him to be gone! I wanted them to forget about him altogether!"

"Ah, so you do admit that your father had a bit of an unhealthy interest in Harry," Snape pointed out. It was a truth he was already aware of, but not one that he was necessarily comfortable with.

"Always the freak this, always the freak that!" Dudley huffed angrily. "I just wanted him gone! I didn't want him like that."

"Like what?" Snape's eyes were glittering dangerously.

Dudley's shoulders sagged. "Like that . . . hurt like that."

"So your father's treatment began to have negative consequences on him?"

At Dudley's blank look, Snape rolled his eyes and rephrased, "Did the way your father treat Harry cause him to have problems? Not just physical, but mental as well? Did your father's treatment cause Harry to change?"

The plump boy opposite him looked decidedly unwell as he chewed his lower lip and refused to answer.

"I see," Snape's answer was icy as he stood up and walked away from the miserable lump of a boy.

"I just wanted him miserable," Dudley's plaintive voice called out as he opened the door. "I didn't want him messed up."

"Took the fun out of it for you, did it?" Were Snape's parting words over his shoulder.

Dudley didn't answer and Snape closed the door firmly behind him.

. . .

"Hello Tuney," Snape said in greeting down there in the bowels of the holding cells under the Ministry. As a muggle prisoner awaiting the results of trial, Petunia Dursley didn't deserve Azkaban . . . at least not yet.

"Simpering, sneaky Snape," Petunia snarled back; as she pushed her body against the iron bars of her prison cell.

"At least your mind hasn't gone yet," Snape answered, looking in cold disdain over the woman who had lived to make his son's life hell. Her hair was limp and dirty where it lay around her long face, and her clothes were almost as ragged and ill fitting as Harry's had been at one time. It was clear that she had lost weight, but unlike her son, she could ill afford to lose it.

"Just me and my memories, Slimy Snapey," she hissed. "All those people I hate—oh, like you!"

"Funny that we should be in agreement for once," Snape answered coldly, looking at the woman with barely concealed distaste.

"Not that I care, Snake," she spat. "But why are you here? Don't you have someone else's family to steal away from them? First Lily and now my husband and son! You don't have much left to take now!"

Snape stepped right up to the bars and grabbed the miserable whelp of a woman by the neck. "Just one bitch," he growled back, taking no pleasure in the thought that he could kill her without punishment. Anything could be permissible for the Boy-Who-Lived, especially against a known child abuser.

He released her and took a step backward, and reached into an inner robe pocket to pull out a handkerchief before visibly cleaning his hand of her filth.

Coughing now, Petunia dropped to one knee and glared balefully back up at him. "Always one to flaunt yourself in front of the rest of us, eh Snape? Why don't you force me to suc—."

"Silencio!" Snape growled out, casting wandlessly at her. He did not want to hear that phrase out of her mouth.

Turning to the darkness down the hallway, he motioned at the men waiting there to bring him forward.

"I actually am here on business, Tuney," he told the furious, but now wary woman. With a twitch of his wand, he ended the spell on her voice and nodded once again to the darkness.

Out of nowhere, the two aurors and their prisoner stepped into the weak light next to Petunia's cell.

"Dudders!" Petunia screamed, reaching thin arms out the bars to try and reach her son.

"Mummy!" Dudley was visibly shocked by the state of his mother, although he did not stop from going up to her and letting himself be hugged.

Severus gave them a moment or two of sentimental gushiness, and then he spoke again.

"The Ministry," he began, getting both Dursleys' attentions easily with his coolly spoken words. "In all of their great wisdom, have decided that in the face of such obvious and clear evidence of neglect in regard to their great boy saviour—that would be Mr. Potter to you, Dudley—that the business of punishment shall be chosen by the boy's new guardian."

"What do you m-mean, punishment?" Dudley asked in a stutter, his eyes wide again.

Snape was somewhat surprised that the boy had been able to follow his statement well enough to get something out of it. If not for the utter cruelty of young Dursley's actions, he would have almost thought the boy would have made a good Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Brains were clearly not part of the package, or so it seemed.

"Why, punishment for what the harm your mother and father committed against your cousin," Snape answered coldly, his dark eyes shining with barely restrained malice.

"The freak! All of this is because of him!" Dudley screamed, throwing himself forward to try and strike Snape.

Easily sidestepping the boy, Snape let him plummet to the ground and then turned around to speak while looming over him. "You hadn't gotten that through your thick head yet?"

"He's just a freak!" Dudley's voice cracked with emotions, and behind Snape, he could hear Petunia's own miserable weeping. "He didn't count for anything, not like real people!"

"Not like you, Mr. Dursley?" Snape asked in a low voice, before crouching down and hauling up the great monstrosity onto his feet. He shoved the boy back toward his mother and stalked toward them both.

"As it happens," Snape stated more calmly than he would have thought himself capable of, "I am Harry's new guardian." Petunia gasped. "And I get to decide what happens to the both of you."

"Did you know," he started in a conversational tone, while glancing at the aurors to see that they were still with him. "Did you know that potions can be used to do many great things that muggle medicine cannot even begin to conceive of?"

No answer, but then again, he hadn't really expected one. Not from these.

"Indeed, back five hundred years or so ago, a potion was developed to ensure that Wizards could not favour one child too harshly over another? Hm, yes. It caused quite a scandal, if I remember my history correctly. You see, in those days, if one child were to be discovered a squib—that is non-magical—then they would often be taken off and killed secretly. Or worse yet, treated no better than a house elf, or slave, Mr. Dursley." His black eyes took in the frightened countenance of the boy in front of him, but refused to show him pity.

"Family equality, equality among siblings," Snape waved a negligent hand. "A quaint idea perhaps, but nothing really worth getting into a tizzy about, correct 'Tuney?" His smile was utterly without mirth.

"That—That boy is no child of mine," Petunia spat angrily, her eyes shining with bitterness.

"And that's the interesting part about magic," Snape retorted, clapping his hands together and inwardly delighting in the flinch that it caused in the two in front of him. "Raised in the same household with only you and Dudley as relatives, Harry's magic recognizes you two as family. Perhaps equality in blood would perhaps be a better description of this potion," he added thoughtfully as he put his hands behind his back and began to stroll up and down the small space in front of the cell.

"Sins of the father transfer to the other," Snape spat out, twiddling with his wand as he moved. "Pain sought is pain wrought," he smiled again and Petunia flinched at the sight. "You don't have to worry about him dying, 'Tuney."

Petunia's hands clamped down tighter around Dudley's arm and the boy squeaked at the sudden pressure.

"Ultionem mater," Snape whispered, directing his wand at Dudley's massive stomach. His words were the last piece of the spell that activated the potion that the boy had unknowingly ingested earlier that day.

"What did you do!" Petunia screamed at him, grabbing her boy and trying to turn him around.

Snape flicked his wand again and opened the gate to her cell. Instantly she rushed out and took Dudley's head in her hands.

A somewhat bewildered expression stared back out of the boy's once sullen eyes.

"Dudders?" Petunia was patting his face, smoothing his hair back. "What happened? What's wrong? Talk to your mummy!" She very nearly screamed again.

"Where are we mummy? I wanna go home," Dudley whispered, squeezing his arms around Petunia desperately.

Snape wanted to simply leave, but he knew that Petunia would round back on him eventually.

"What's wrong with him!" Petunia finally asked, stalking over to him with Dudley trailing meekly behind her.

"Wrong?" Snape's eyebrow quirked of its own volition.

"What did—what was that thing you said! What did it do!" Petunia screeched breathily.

"Ultionem mater?" He asked in a mild voice, his expression calm but his eyes turbulent with barely suppressed emotion.

"THAT!" Petunia flinched as she heard the words again, almost as if she thought he would curse her as well.

Snape stepped backward from her spitting range before answering. "Nothing more than what you deserve, dearest 'Tuney. Loosely translated, it means revenge of the mother," he suddenly hissed, leaning over her like a frighteningly large creature of the night. "Your Dudley has no more wrong with him than my Harry!"

And with that, he motioned for the aurors to stay with the distraught mother and her son as he strode out of those dark recesses and back into the sunlit world.

. . .

Date: 8 December, 1991
House: Slytherin
Student Name: Harry Potter
Lives with: As head of his house, I am now his official guardian, per Slytherin bylaws (and by choice).
Siblings: None
Ongoing infirmary report: He is taking a variety of nutritional potions with each and every meal, and he will continue taking a full body soak in essence of murtlap every week in the infirmary bathroom until the holiday break. At that time, we shall re-evaluate.

Roommates: Vincent Crabbe and Blaise Zabini.
Blood status: 1st generation pureblood (as per the new rules; half-blood via the old rules)
Magic levels: Powerful
Last owl received from: The ministry on 7 December, 1991, informing him that his aunt's trial had concluded in his favour

Ongoing impressions: 'My peace after the end of a very long week.'

Severus: Do you feel different than you did at the beginning of the school year?

Harry: [He is curled up next to Severus after another jubilant entrance]. Feels . . . feels like . . . [his forehead scrunches up in thought] . . . like I can says what I means more than I could befores. You know, earlier like, when I was theres and not heres.

Side note: 'Strangely enough, that made a great deal of sense.'

Severus: [He nods and takes Harry's nearest hand]. Do you like your life here?

Harry: [With a wide grin, he nods enthusiastically]. Safe, safest heres.

Severus: [In a rougher voice]. Are you happy here? With me?

Harry: [With a strangely serious expression, as though he is trying to make a great effort to be completely present]. My . . . my uncle's families—both of thems, Auntie and Dudley, but also Auntie Marge . . . they, they hated me. [He frowns]. My Severus, my Papa Pa, my 'Fessor Snape . . . [He rubs his face down the side of Severus' arm]. They likes me. [He smiles]. Don't have to try so much. Don't have to hate me so much. Not so angry. Not so sad. I likes it here.

Severus: [With a relaxed expression, he pulls the boy up into his lap]. I like having you here. [His voice is very soft].

Harry: Miss Mary says that Father Christmas won't forgets me again this year!

Severus: I should think not! And did she say why he forgot you before?

Harry: Saids that Santa can't finds me without a fireplace. [He nods happily as he jerks his head toward the fireplace in the middle of the room]. Dursleys didn't have one, that's why he forgots me.

Side note: 'Oh Miss Mary. I shall have to find you a worthwhile Christmas present.'

Severus: I hope we can make this Christmas very memorable for you.

Harry: [Nodding again as he looks trustingly up at Severus]. Does my Papa Pa want anythings 'specially?"

Side note: 'There was a time in my past when I would have desperately wished to have been asked this very question.'

Severus: [With a sly smile]. Perhaps my very own Harry?

Harry: [With a laugh]. But you has that! Tell your Harry, please?

Severus: Hm. What do I want?

Harry: [He nods].

Severus: Perhaps my very own Harry would be willing to draw me a picture?

Harry: In a card maybes! [His expression is hopeful as he looks back up at Severus from his position on his lap].

Severus: In a Christmas card, then! [He laughs suddenly].

Harry: [He giggles in reaction to the unusual sound]. You sounds like Father Christmas. You dids.

Severus: [With a faux frown]. But where is my belly?

Harry: [He claps his hands together in delight]. Oh! You gives it out to all the Slytherins during the year, and thens you gets real fat during the summers!

Severus: [He rolls his eyes as he kisses the top of Harry's head]. Is that what you think little brat?

Harry: [With a happy smile]. I cans think that! 'Cause don't have to worry if you get mad, 'cause you wouldn't hurt me if you dids, so you won't, so I can think that!

Severus: [Hugging Harry and resting his chin against his head as he does]. Little pup, your reasoning hurts my head sometimes, but I love you anyway.

Harry: [Relaxing into Severus' chest]. I loves you most of everyones.

End note: 'I suspect that you do.'