They appeared in an alley between a garage and a hedge, safe from prying eyes. Snape immediately let go of the boy, suddenly feeling that he did not want to touch the boy more or for longer than what was necessary. Potter stumbled a few steps to the side and then promptly threw up.
Snape scowled, feeling no compassion. The boy had gotten himself in trouble, as always, and would just have to deal with the consequences. If he didn’t like Snape’s way of helping him then he would just have to make sure not get himself in trouble again. Really, the boy ought to be grateful that Snape was helping him at all!
Turning his back to the boy Snape instead walked up to the end of alley, where he could look up and down the street. There seemed to be no one around, as most people were probably inside eating dinner at this time of the day – much like Snape would have been, had Potter not decided to so rudely interrupt his summer.
- “Wha-what was that, sir?” Potter asked with a somewhat shaky voice as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
His tone short and clipped, designed not to encourage any further questions, Snape answered the boy’s question. He did not turn around as he spoke, instead watching an old lady pass the street with her dog a few houses down, only to disappear into another walkway and out of his sight.
- “Apparation, Potter. One of the fastest and simplest modes of traveling.”
Pale but apparently done throwing up the boy edged closer to Snape, obviously still on his guard as he curiously looked around. A gasp followed when the boy realized where he knew where they were.
- “Hey, this is Wisteria Walk,” he exclaimed. “What are we doing here Professor?”
Anger rising within him again Snape merely gave the boy a cold look and silently raised one of his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected to be taken back home? Perhaps the arrogant boy had assumed that he would get a pat on the shoulder and then be shipped off to the Weasleys or maybe even Hogwarts itself. Well, Snape would happily prove the boy wrong in that case.
He enjoyed seeing the boy pale at the realization that he would have to face the consequences of running away from his relatives. Oh yes, Snape would make sure that those relatives understood the severity of this and that they would punish the boy properly.
- “Escorting you home, of course,” Snape said, allowing the taunt to be evident in his voice. “Wasn’t that what you needed a wizard for, Mr. Potter?”
Immediately the boy glared angrily at him, clenching his hands into fists at his side. It seemed the boy had to force himself to reply calmly, and Snape drank in the suppressed anger. It felt good, somehow. Soothing. Almost enough to make up for the suppressed turmoil that was his own feelings. Almost being the key word.
- “I’m sorry that I bothered you Professor.”
The tone was calm and slightly cold, though the boy put extra pressure on his title, which reminded Snape of the revelations earlier during the summer. He pushed all those thoughts away in favor of sneering at the boy.
- “Lead the way, Potter,” Snape ordered, gesturing to the street.
Though Dumbledore had informed him of where the boy lived Snape did not know the area very well. He would have to rely on the boy to lead him right or find his own way, and since Potter apparently knew where they were Snape would go with the first.
- “You mean you’re not just going to drop me off here?” Potter asked, his voice rising higher than what was usual. Snape wrote the higher tone down to the nartual changes going on in teenage boys.
The boy seemed to pale even further and Snape smiled, in a way which he knew to be more frightening than anything else. He was angry that the boy apparently still expected to be let out of trouble but oh, how he would enjoy making the boy pay for disturbing his summer.
- “I am going to escort you all the way Potter, make sure that your relatives realize how severe this situation is and that you will be properly punished,” Snape said, drinking in the horror struck look of the boy. “After all, we wouldn’t want you to get into any more trouble before the start of the school again, would we?”
For a moment it almost seemed as if the boy would faint right there and then but then the boy just lowered his eyes again and started leading the way down the street. Snape followed, one hand in the pocket of his robe grasping his wand, in case the boy would decide to try anything.
The street they were on was almost painfully ordinary, each house barely differing from the others at all. He could not understand why people chose to live like this, so very close together with barely any privacy or individualism.
They did not speak and Snape was even vaguely disappointed that the boy did not try to plead with him not to make his relatives punish him. Then again, perhaps the boy was planning on what lies he would tell his relatives in order to get himself out of trouble?
Two streets later they were on Privet Drive, which looked just as boring as the other streets had. The boy was still staring at the ground as he led them up to number four, finally coming to a halt on the pavement just in front of his relatives’ house.
Eager to get this over with and get back to his real son, Snape snarled and grabbed the boy by the arm to lead him up to the door. Procrastinating was nothing that Snape took kindly to, especially not in a situation like this.
He rang the doorbell and waited impatiently for someone to come open the door so that he could finally go back home. Potter was tense and Snape did not release his firm grip of the boy, sensing that the boy would bolt of he were given a chance.
One minute passed.
Snape knocked the door, figuring that the doorbell must not be working, even though he could have sworn he heard the tune of it from inside.
Another minute passed.
Two minutes.
He knocked again, harder this time. Where were they? Briefly Snape glanced at the boy but Potter seemed as clueless to his relatives’ whereabouts as Snape.
Still no one came to open the door.
- “I-I’m sorry sir,” Potter mumbled finally. “Maybe they have gone out? I could wait here for them to come back, you don’t have to stay.”
- “And give you the chance to run away again? I think not, Potter!”
Potter busied himself by studying his shoes again, while Snape knocked the door again, this time without any real hope that anyone would come open the door. It was tempting to just leave the boy after all if not for the fact that if he did so then he boy would probably avoid punishment altogether.
- “Are you looking for the Dursleys?”
Turning around Snape spotted the one who had spoken. It seemed to be a neighbor, standing by the fence separating the front yard of the Dursley’s from that of the people living next to them.
- “I am,” Snape replied. “Do you happen to know where they are?”
- “Nope,” the woman replied, looking at them closer. “Haven’t seen them for a couple of days actually.”
Briefly the woman shifted her gaze from Snape to Potter. Snape noticed the displeasure as she looked at the boy and couldn’t help but smirk. Potter may be fooling his adoring relatives but it seemed like at least the neighbors knew what a pest the boy really was. Was he lording his greatness over the whole neighborhood? Probably, Snape figured. It would be just the kind of arrogance he would expect from Potter.
- “When was the last time you saw them?” Snape wondered, stepping closer to the woman so that he wouldn’t have to speak so loudly.
- “Three days ago. Saw them all get into the car and I haven’t seen them since.”
Approximately the same time as Potter claimed to have run away from home then, Snape thought. Those relatives of his were probably out looking for him, worried sick while Potter sought some pitiful adventures. It only served to strengthen his idea of the boy and he wondered why it was that no one else at Hogwarts seemed to see it, when it was so obvious that the boy was rotten.
- “Thank you Madam,” Snape said to the woman. “I will have to return at a later date then.”
She nodded, eyeing the two of them silently.
- “Be careful around that one,” she advised him, nodding in the direction of Potter.
Silently he raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to explain her words. The woman seemed to fight to hide her content smile, obviously pleased to be the one to explain things further for the stranger showing up at her neighbors’ doorstep.
- “Watch your pockets, if you know what I mean. That one’s hopeless.” ¨
As little as he had thought about the boy before the words stunned Snape and he glanced down at the boy. Potter was blushing but did not raise his eyes or in any way try to contradict what the woman had just said. Was the boy really that far gone?
- “He’s a thief?” he asked, just to make sure that he had not misunderstood something.
- “Yes,” the woman nodded. “Just a couple of weeks ago he broke in at old Mrs. Johnsons and stole her jewelry. Poor woman never stood a chance, senile and all alone as she is!”
That his mouth did not fall open in shock was only due to his experience as a spy and hiding his emotions. Potter had always been a hooligan in the eyes of Snape but a thief as well? Didn’t the boy already have an obscene amount of money in Gringotts?
- “Are you sure it was him?” he found himself asking, before he could thing further of it.
- “Well, no one could prove it was him that time,” the woman admitted. “But he’s been caught stealing before so who else could it be? Last summer he stole my son’s video games! And that’s not even all of it!”
His headache was definitely growing worse, Snape decided, and he was in no mood to listen to the rant the woman was obviously preparing herself for.
- “I shouldn’t be surprised really,” he spoke, waving a hand to silence the woman. “Thank you for your help but I have somewhere else to be.”
With no further words he turned around and dragged Potter away from the house the same way they had come. Potter struggled to keep up with the pace and stumbled a few times before he dropped one of his shoes. Impatiently Snape let go of the boy, who immediately retrieved his shoe. Apparently even shoelaces were above the Boy Who Lived!
Once they were back at Wisteria Walk Snape scanned the names on the mail boxes, trying to figure out in which of the more or less identical houses the person he was looking for lived. He sent a silent thank to Dumbledore, who had insisted on telling Snape all about the protections placed upon the boy once their biological relationship was made clear.
- “P-Professor? What are you looking for?” Potter wondered, following Snape.
Snape chose not to reply as he had already found the name he was looking for. For a moment he just stood and stared at the house, wondering what Dumbledore had been thinking. The old man must be growing senile after all, though Snape had privately suspected so for years, despite his respect for the man.
There was no doorbell by the door so Snape simply knocked on the wood. This particular house seemed more run down than the others on the street; the front yard was unordered and full of weeds, here and there lay parts of half eaten mice and there were even what Snape strongly hoped was a large part of cat-excrements.
A minute or so later they could hear shuffling from inside and the door opened to reveal and old woman. She was older than Snape remembered and she looked too frail for the job the headmaster had given her. Still Snape allowed none of his thoughts to be visible on his face or in his voice when he spoke.
- “Good evening, Mrs. Figg. I was wondering if I could get a word with you?”
The woman, understandably, looked surprised to see whom were standing on her doorstep. For a moment she kept looking between Snape and Potter before she finally pushed the door open further and gestured for the two of them to get in. Potter seemed just as confused, if not even more so, when he followed Snape first into the hallway and then into the living room. The house smelled strongly of cabbage for some reason and there were pictures of cats on the walls.
- “What can I do for you Severus?” Mrs. Figg wondered.
Though he did not like her use of his first name Snape did not correct her, instead choosing to go directly to the point of his visit.
- “I need to know where the Dursleys are,” he told her.
- “They are not where you found Harry?”
- “No, they were not.”
- “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you at all Severus,” she apologized. “I haven’t seen them at all for the last couple of days. I haven’t seen Harry either, so I assumed they were together.”
- “I see. And you have no idea of where they might have gone?”
- “No, I don’t. They usually don’t disappear like that. Well, I guess you could always try that sister of Vernon Dursley, though I doubt they are there. She’s usually the one to come to them, and if I’m not mistaken she was here visiting earlier this summer.”
Potter made a nervous sound and looked like he wanted more than anything for the ground to open up beneath him and swallow him whole. The adults merely glanced at him before continuing their conversation.
- “From what I hear, that visit didn’t go too well,” Mrs. Figg added.
Remembering Potter’s admittance to blowing up his aunt Snape could only agree. It didn’t sound like the first place they would look to find their precious nephew. Not like the last place either, for that matter. Besides that it was getting late and Snape was eager to get back home to his son and their usual evening routine. With a sigh he accepted the inevitable.
- “I understand. I will have to come back later then. Could you please floo call me when they get back home?”
- “You have a floo Mrs. Figg?” Potter interrupted before the woman could reply.
Immediately the attention shifted to the boy, Snape glaring and Mrs. Figg looking first surprised and then smiling kindly at him.
- “Of course I have, Harry.”
Her calm tone seemed to shock the boy into silence again and Mrs. Figg turned back to Snape before she spoke again.
- “As for your request Severs, of course I will! Is there anything else I can do?”
- “May I apparate from your back yard?” he asked.
- “Of course, of course,” Mrs. Figg replied, waving her hand to show that it was no trouble. “The hedges are high enough that no one should be able to see anything strange going on. Anything else?”
- “No, that should be all. I will be taking Potter with me in the meantime.”
- “I see. Congratulations, by the way, to both of you.”
This time Snape was just as confused as Potter when he looked at the squib, wondering why she was congratulating them. She laughed at their questioning looks, gesturing towards a pile of newspapers.
- “I’ve read the news about you,” she clarified. “Father and son. Good luck with your bonding!”
Annoyed Snape stood abruptly, grabbing Potter by the arm again to pull the boy out through the back door and into the back yard, which looked even messier than the front yard had. A cat lay on the veranda and looked affronted at them as they apparently disturbed him.
- “Good evening, Mrs. Figg”, Snape said again, already taking out his wand.
- “It was nice seeing you, Mrs…”
Potter was interrupted mid-sentence as once again Snape apparated them away.