Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Turning the Tables

The nerve!

Severus was still seething twenty minutes after Potter’s aunt had left. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that Potter had sent her over, just to irritate him. He had been waiting for some incident to occur since learning Potter was living over the road, and he was honestly surprised it had taken this long for Potter to succumb to the temptation of making his summer hell.

He almost reached for the Floo powder to further plead his case to Albus, but reasoned with himself that it would look rather petty. It was only a few scones, after all. In fact they had looked rather good, and he was starting to regret not having taken one.

Still. Something needed to be done about that boy. What could he do? It wasn’t as if he didn’t have any ideas, but they were unfortunately all illegal ...

-

“Oh, don’t forget these, love!”

Harry almost dropped his latest wage as Jane pressed a batch of flapjacks into his arms. They were still warm from the oven, making the sandwich bag they were in condensate.

“Oh … thanks.”

He exited the house, trying to get the bag in his pocket without crushing them into mush, and ran into someone.

“Oops, sorry!” he said, then realised who he had bumped into, and his heart went cold. “A-Aunt Petunia?”

She didn’t answer, her eyes fixed on the bag of cake. “What,” she said in a dangerous voice, “is that?

-

“Turn out your pockets!”

Severus heard the shout from his front garden, and glanced upwards. Upon seeing Potter and his aunt in front of Number Eight, his interest piqued.

Petunia Dursley’s voice rang around the street, and other neighbours were peering unabashedly out of windows and doors to see what was going on. Petunia was clutching a bag of something and looked absolutely furious.

“Turn out your pockets!” she shouted again. Potter, seeming very reluctantly, turned them out. Petunia’s eyes bulged as he revealed another bag and a handful of Muggle money.

“Where did you get all this?” she shrieked.

Potter was frozen like a deer caught in headlights, but the Halliwell woman spoke up, folding her arms.

“I gave it to him.”

“I beg your pardon? You gave him all this?”

Mr Digg spoke up. “We all did. You can’t force a child to work for nothing.” Potter looked alarmed at his words, and started making ‘shut up’ gestures, but Digg didn’t get the message. “Nor can you expect someone Harry’s build to live on salad alone, especially not doing physical activity; you’re starving him.”

Petunia’s eyes flashed. “I see.” She fixed them on Potter, who gulped. “So that’s what he’s been telling you all?” No-one spoke. Her tone went from angry to desperate. “Oh Harry, I thought we’d finally moved past that.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“Inside. Now,” she said firmly.

Potter slowly headed indoors. Petunia waited until the door had closed behind him before speaking again.

“I’m so sorry, everyone,” she said, turning to address them all. “He’s a very troubled boy; he’s done this kind of thing before, made people feel sorry for him to con them out of things. He spends most of the year at St Brutus’, but in the summer … Well, we do everything we can, but …”

The neighbours were hesitating, looking conflicted, but Snape had no problem believing this story. It sounded just like something a Potter would do.

“You expect us to believe that?” Mrs Sinclair said with narrowed eyes. “Harry told us that where you last lived, you were the one to turn the community against him.”

“Well of course he would say that! He’s got everyone wrapped around his little finger!” Petunia cried. Severus didn’t often feel sorry for people, but Petunia looked at her wit’s end. His previous assumption that Potter’s relatives had pampered him useless were somewhat shaken. Obviously the Potter genes accounted for even more than he believed. Now he pitied the poor Muggles who were trying to shape the boy into a decent human being.

Perhaps he should help her out. He didn’t normally do people favours, but he could empathise with trying to keep Potter in line.

Severus cleared his throat loudly. “Not everyone, he hasn’t.”

Everyone looked over at him in shock. It was such a rarity when he spoke to anyone in his street, he had them all speechless. He continued.

“I am a teacher at ... Potter’s school. I know the boy pretty well. He’s never yet met a rule he didn’t love to break. Sad to say, even there he has people who have fallen for his … charms … but he’s an arrogant, reckless, manipulative rule breaker who needs firm handling.” He nodded at Petunia, who looked as stunned at any of them. “I think you do the best you can in the circumstances, Mrs Dursley.”

“Th-thank you,” she stammered.

“I didn’t know you worked at St Brutus’, Mr Snape,” Mrs Halliwell said curiously to Severus. He scowled, and chose his moment to retreat inside to the relative peace and quiet of his own home.

-

Harry listened to everything through the letter box, his heart heavy. He had almost stopped breathing when Snape had begun to speak, and now Harry thought that everyone had bought his aunt’s story. She was good, he had to admit.

Why, why had Snape had to speak up? Why had he had to be there in the first place?

And now he was in big trouble.

When he heard his aunt coming, he hurried up to his room and sat down on his bed, waiting.

She and Vernon burst into his room, fixing him with glares worthy of Snape.

“So.” Vernon’s voice was low and dangerous. He moved around the bed and closed the window before continuing, obviously not wanting the curious neighbours to hear him laying into him. “You’ve been telling tales behind our backs, have you? You’re the reason we’ve been shunned since the moment we arrived?”

Harry remained silent, sure that if he spoke he would only make them angrier, though he desperately wanted to tell them it was no more than they deserved.

“He is,” Petunia confirmed.

“You ungrateful brat! Here’s your aunt and I, working to the bone to make a new home here for all of us, and you have to nerve to sabotage our efforts, turning the community against us, out of spite!”

Harry couldn’t remain silent anymore. “Isn’t that what you did to me back in Privet Drive?”

Vernon hissed in anger and grabbed Harry’s shoulders, shaking him hard.

“You want to be poor starving little orphan boy, do you? Well your wish is granted. You will not leave this room until the end of the holiday. You will have one meal a day and you’re only getting that because I have no desire to explain to your freak school why you starved to death. We will be monitoring all your communications to those freaky friends of yours so don’t think about complaining to any of them how we’re treating you.”

Harry’s heart sank. There went his threat of telling Sirius anything.

Vernon’s eyes narrowed. “Petunia, search the room.”

Oh Merlin. The food.

Harry was forced to sit still with Vernon’s beefy hand on his shoulder while Petunia pulled his room apart. It didn’t take her long to uncover his stash of food.

“Oho!” Vernon’s grip increased further, and Harry winced. “What have we here?”

“You horrible boy!” Petunia said, brandishing the remains of the fruitcake in his face. “When poor little Dudley’s forced to survive on rabbit food, here you are stuffing your face—”

Poor little Dudley?” Harry echoed in disbelief.

Vernon shook Harry again. “Watch your tongue, boy. All this—stuff­—is being thrown out.”

“Vernon …” Petunia said slowly. “Look at this.”

Harry’s heart plummeted further as she picked up his money bag. He hadn’t even thought about hiding that. He still had quite a large sum inside, about twenty Galleons. Petunia tipped it out onto the bed, and she and Vernon gasped.

“Gold!”

“Who gave you this?” Vernon growled, shaking Harry again.

“No-one!”

“Vernon,” Petunia said, turning one coin over in her hand. “I’ve seen coins like this before. It’s what freaks use instead of normal money.”

“So, you’ve been holding back on us, eh, boy? What else have you got stashed away?”

“Nothing!” Harry stammered. He couldn’t let them find out about his Gringotts vault; somehow they’d find a way to claim it for themselves. “It’s just to buy school books and stuff with. It’s not worth much!”

“Still … those are real gold. Must be able to get something for them.”

“No—please—”

Petunia scooped the coins back into the bag, and Vernon took it and pocketed it. “Consider this your payment for the trouble you’ve given us, boy,” he growled. “Now stay. Considering you’ve been pigging out on cakes for the last two weeks, I think you could go a few days without anything. Come on, Petunia.” They withdrew, locking the door behind them.

Harry collapsed on the bed, dejected. Now he was in trouble. No food, no friends, no freedom, no money and no way of getting help.

He sighed, and then spied the window and sat bolt upright.

The door was locked. But the window wasn’t—Vernon had only closed it. Harry wasn’t even sure if they had a key to lock it.

He checked for anyone watching, and opened it up as quietly as he could. It was a tiny window; quite a narrow gap. Underneath the window was the porch roof, which was flat, and a drainpipe ran down to the ground.

Could he possibly escape?

Harry debated for a few minutes, but he felt he had to try and get someone to believe him. He pulled the window up as far as it would go and started wriggling out.

It was a tight fit. He was starting to regret eating all that cake. For a moment he thought he was stuck and the Dursleys would find him wedged in the window, unable to get in or out. But after a minute he managed to tug himself free and tumbled haphazardly onto the porch roof. He waited frozen for a moment, wondering if someone heard him, but no-one came running to see, so he shinnied down the drainpipe and headed towards Number Eight.


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