Severus Snape sat quietly in the unassuming room of his Muggle hotel. He did wish for a lounge chair, but he refrained from transfiguring one of the rather plain, straight-backed chairs. No sense in attracting unwelcome attention from … unwanted … quarters. Instead, he sat at the plain table, his elbows resting on the flat surface, fingers steepled before his contemplative face.

To say that the situation in which he’d found Potter was surprising would be gross understatement. Add disturbing – even shocking – and the explanation for the wavering wards became quite evident. Dumbledore’s silver instruments had certainly failed to tell the whole story – merely indicated that the wards had weakened ... again. As a result, Dumbledore had sent Snape to investigate.

The Headmaster’s extensive dossier on Potter’s relatives had made it child’s play for Snape to locate Marge Dursley. A relatively simple matter to then arrange to put himself in her path – and that of her blasted mutt. Although, that first wet trouser leg had proved fortuitous, in the end, as Marge had insisted on reimbursing his cleaning bill – never mind that a simple, though belated, Tergeo had done the trick. To demonstrate that he bore her no ill will (HA!), he had invited Marge to dinner (sans chien, of course), and with a combination of flattery and well-timed flicks of his concealed wand, ingratiated himself into the position of her “boyfriend”, much as the appellation made him want to gag.

His expressing genuine interest and feigned enthusiasm in meeting her family had caused Marge to run off at the mouth about her highly-successful brother (“In drills, you know. Grunnings Drills.”), her socially-adept sister-in-law (“The most charming hostess you’ll ever meet.”), and their incomparable son (“Quite the young man! Takes after his father, naturally.”).

But when Snape had asked if her brother had other fine children, Marge had shaken her head in denial, her lips pursed disapprovingly.

“I shouldn’t say anything, of course, but if you are to meet them, I suppose I had better warn you,” she’d said rather darkly. “They have this … nephew. Ungrateful lout, he is. Dumped on my brother’s doorstep when the brute was just a baby. Vernon and Petunia took him in out of the goodness of their hearts, but is the boy grateful, I ask you? NO! Quite the contrary! And he’s made their lives an absolute misery for nearly fifteen years now.”

That, Snape could believe. Easily.

“He’s the terror of their neighborhood. Doesn’t have any friends, obviously. No decent parents would allow their children to associate with the likes of him. It’s all genetic – bad blood, bad genes, bad attitude. Vernon was forced to send him to St. Brutus’ Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys when the brat was only eleven years old! Incorrigible, I tell you! He lives there during the school term, but they WILL have him home for the summer. Not that he appreciates their magnanimity in the least, the little wretch. Always picking fights with their Dudders and beating up the neighborhood children. Why, Vernon had to get his own son into boxing so the poor child could learn to defend himself properly! Even so, that obnoxious little beast almost got his own cousin killed last summer. Tried to claim it was evil demons that nearly did Dudley in, IF you can imagine! Quite seriously, they should just lock the freak in a padded cell once and for all, and throw away the key!”

Marge had taken several gulps of wine and come up gasping for air.

At the time, Snape had found himself frowning over his salmon soufflé. As badly as he knew Potter to behave at Hogwarts … somehow, the woman must be still be exaggerating. A bit.

But tonight, upon meeting the Dursleys as a family, his opinion had begun to waver.

First of all was the lack of a proper introduction between “Mr. Lawson” and Harry Potter. Not to mention, the Dursleys’ lack of addressing Potter by any proper name. If they addressed him at all, they simply called him “boy” in varying tones of obvious dislike.

Potter himself had remained unobtrusively in the background throughout the evening, separate from the rest of the family. He had set the dining table for five without being told not to include a place for himself, and although Petunia had instructed him what to cook for dinner, Potter had obviously undertaken the entire preparation all by himself, while the Dursleys entertained their guests in the lounge. To Snape’s everlasting surprise, Potter had produced a delightful, tasty, well-balanced meal, even if it killed Snape to admit it to himself.

Then, the boy had served dinner quietly and efficiently, his adeptness at waiting upon his relatives in the dining room certainly acquired through extensive prior experience. The only misstep had occurred later, in the lounge, when his cousin committed the gaffe of dropping his fork on the cocktail table, for which Potter – for some unexplained reason – had unhesitatingly taken the blame.

But the idiotic Gryffindor’s mistaken assumption that Snape and Marge would be staying together at a hotel, compounded for the worse by his comment about the Dursleys’ guest bed being too small for two…

Snape’s own reaction at that moment had been split between silent fury and unadulterated amusement, but he winced now, remembering Vernon virtually yanking Potter’s hair out by the roots, followed moments later by Marge’s powerful whiplash crack across the slight boy’s face. Bizarrely, Petunia had seemed far more concerned with maintaining the social niceties, rather than caring about the physical abuse being inflicted upon her nephew – her own sister’s child. As for the Dursleys’ son… Dudley had roared unceasingly over Potter’s verbal blunder. The garbled excuses involving references to a disturbed nephew, a juvenile delinquent, and St. Brutus’ fell over each other as the women attempted to reassure “Mr. Lawson” that Potter and his presumed problems were really nothing to do with the Dursleys at all.

The family distanced themselves from Potter both socially and verbally, reinforced by further evidence of ostracism in the absence of framed photographs of the dark-haired boy in what was supposed to be his own home. Their own rotund son was featured prominently on nearly every wall and tabletop throughout the house, but to a casual observer, Potter did not even exist, unless one were to actually catch sight of the boy.

When Snape had excused himself from the garden to visit the bathroom, he had observed Potter struggling to fit the thick mattress on the small bed in the threadbare bedroom, the one with nearly a dozen Muggle locks lining the outside edge of the door. Beyond the laboring teen, a small window appeared to have actual bars affixed to the outside. Without a doubt, Potter must spend a certain amount of his summer holidays imprisoned in his own room. Snape could only frown in puzzlement at the animal flap at the bottom of the door; surely, Potter’s owl did not use it?

The sagging mattress which Potter had dragged down to the cupboard under the stairs was obviously his regular bed mattress. As for the cupboard itself – whatever Potter tried to shrug off, Snape could tell that the cupboard hadn’t only seen use during Marge’s infrequent visits. Despite the recent cobwebs, he could detect indications of long habitation, not the least of which involved numerous shoe scuff marks along the base of the walls, and small, grubby handprints higher up, all the way to the back of the space. Although one might assume that a child could be rudely shoved into the cupboard for a brief time-out, the carefully-arranged broken toys suggested otherwise, since punishment would normally preclude access to playthings. Someone had obviously valued the broken toys as a means to while away long hours of isolation from the rest of the family – while bolted into the cupboard with the ventilation grate on the door.

Sighing heavily, Snape rubbed his tired eyes.

Marge’s comment about Lily … calling her a drunken bitch … Snape had lost control. For the first time in over a decade, he’d allowed accidental magic to erupt, causing the lounge mirror to crack. How he wished he could deliberately split Marge herself into as many pieces. How DARE she malign Lily like that! And where did Marge get the idea the Lily was a drunk? None of the other Dursleys had attempted to correct her, but then again, Marge had also stated that Potter spent the school term at St. Brutus’ Secure Center. Did she know the truth about Hogwarts, or had the Dursleys contrived a believable fiction about St. Brutus’? A fiction which Marge herself believed? Had they also fed her a story about Lily being a drunk? Did … did Potter himself believe it? Petunia had always been a nasty piece of work, but even so…

Snape shook his head, missing the feel of his long black hair swinging against his cheeks. There was really no point in negating the glamours for the duration of his stay in Surrey, but the trimmed blond hair made him feel off balance for some reason.

He scowled, rubbing his temples now.

That business in the shed. With the belt. And Petunia bolting Potter into the cupboard just as Snape was leaving… Did Dumbledore have ANY idea how Potter’s relatives treated him? Little wonder that the wards around Number 4 Privet Drive had weakened. How COULD Potter possibly consider that house his home? Easy enough to understand now – after five school years – why Potter had always stayed at Hogwarts during the Christmas holidays. What kind of Christmas could he have expected here? The Dursleys may have been his relatives, but they hardly qualified as family – not in the heart, where it truly counted. And, more importantly, where the blood wards counted.

Based on Snape’s single evening of observation, Dumbledore definitely needed to fear for the wards at Number 4. A few more blow-ups like those which Snape had already witnessed, and the wards might fail completely. More disturbingly, without warning. For some reason, the wards had previously suffered serious compromise, shortly before the beginning of Potter’s Third Year. Dumbledore had visited Number 4 and attempted to boost the magical power, but he’d expressed concern afterwards, and he began monitoring via his silver instruments from that point on.

Snape now wondered what exactly had happened to cause that severe weakening during that summer before the boy’s Third Year. He’d only heard random talk about Potter “blowing up his aunt” – but now he considered. Had Potter struck out at Petunia? Or at Marge? And why? At the time, Snape had merely sneered at the Boy-Who-Lived and his apparent belief that he could flout Ministry restrictions against the use of underage magic. Now, however, he felt compelled to learn the full story, from either Dumbledore or Potter himself.

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