For the rest of the week, Harry caught up on sleep, did some homework, and enjoyed having some free time to himself. Petunia had taken Snape’s demand for Harry to have “three square meals a day” very seriously, cooking for him breakfast and lunchtime as well as dinner time, offering him seconds and thirds and not taking no for an answer, so he finished each meal feeling uncomfortably full. It was a very weird experience after being constantly hungry for so long.

On Sunday, Harry let Snape know that he would be returning to work on Monday. When he turned up the next morning, Snape looked him up and down and seemed satisfied.

“Been eating well, Potter?”

Too much, if anything, but Harry didn’t bother to say so. “Yep.”

“So I see. You look a lot healthier now. Have you spoken to the Headmaster yet?”

“No.”

“Well get a move on and do it this week. Out of curiosity, how long did it take your aunt to clear up the kitchen?”

“All night,” Harry said. “She wouldn’t go to bed until it was spotless.”

The corner of Snape’s mouth twitched. “Some people never change,” he muttered.

“Pardon? Do—do you know my aunt, sir?”

Snape hesitated. “We’ve met before.” His tone indicated he had no interest in continuing that line of conversation. “Right, today I want you in the bathroom …”

Harry had been wondering when Snape would have him work on the bathroom. He’d been warned on his first day that the plumbing wasn’t working, and since fixing it was beyond Harry’s capabilities, Snape had had to wait to be able to get someone else in to do it. In the meantime, they had been making do with self-emptying chamber pots and self-refilling water buckets. Apparently, however, the wizard plumbers had been on Friday, and now everything was working.

He cleaned the toilet first, eager to stop needing to use the chamber pots. Once it was sparkling, he moved onto the bath and basin. He had just got started when Snape reminded him to have his lunch.

Petunia had bought Harry a lunchbox the size of Dudley’s, and packed it the previous night. Snape raised his eyebrows as Harry opened it to find it filled with chicken and noodles.

“Do you want me to heat that up for you?”

“Oh—yes, please, Professor.”

Snape prodded it with his new wand, and suddenly the food was steaming.

“Thanks, sir.” Harry picked up the fork and began eating.

“I see dinner is no longer just for dinnertime—unless that is your dinner?”

Harry shook his head. “Aunt Petunia’s so afraid of being accused of starving me, she’s been cooking me a main meal every mealtime,” he said between mouthfuls.

Snape considered. “Well, I daresay you could do with the calories.”

“Yeah, plus I’m really sick of sandwiches.”

-

Another week passed. Harry was working hard without exhausting himself, doing his homework whilst keeping some free time for himself, and generally managing his routine well. His aunt was still making him filling meals thrice a day, though they didn’t make him feel as uncomfortably full anymore—his stomach had obviously grown used to them.

Snape didn’t ask Harry any more probing questions about his health or his relatives, but seemed to be keeping a close eye on him nevertheless. In turn, Harry had not raised the subject of Snape’s condition again, though from time to time he found himself thinking about it.

As Snape’s house slowly turned from a dusty wreck into something one could actually live in, Snape began unpacking his possessions from his trunk—or, to be more precise, Harry unpacked most of them. It was expanded far beyond the Hogwarts’ trunks, with dozens of different fold-out compartments, and contained all his clothes, books, potions equipment and more.

He was shelving Snape’s books as Snape directed him when he came across a series of notebooks. He hadn’t intended to look in them, but one fell open, and upon glancing at the page he saw the writing wasn’t in English.

“Is this Welsh?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes,” Snape said. “It keeps nosy students from prying into my personal business.”

“Aren’t there any students who can read it?”

“Probably, but it’s also written in code.” Snape pointed to an empty shelf. “You can put them up there.”

“You’re Welsh?” Harry queried, shelving the notebooks.

“Half.”

Surprised that Snape had actually answered the questions rather than telling him to mind his own business, Harry decided he’d pushed it far enough and continued shelving in silence.

Once all Snape’s books were organised the way he wanted them, they took a lunch break. Before opening his lunchbox, Harry pulled his post from that morning from his pocket—he had been running late and hadn’t had a chance to open it.

The first was a letter from Hermione. Harry had informed her of his job working for Snape now Ron knew, but hadn’t told either the real reason why he had taken it on. He was halfway down her letter when Snape spoke up suddenly.

“Isn’t that a Gringotts stamp?”

Harry dropped Hermione’s letter and examined the second envelope. His heart sank as he saw the Gringotts stamp. What now?

He tore it open and pulled out the letter. As his eyes fell on the word OVERDRAWN, he yelped out a word that, had he said it at school, would have made Snape force him to dissect toads for the whole year.

“Language, Potter! What does it say?”

“Dear Mr Potter,” Harry read out loud in a shaking voice. “Your account is OVERDRAWN. As such we have been unable to process your transaction to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“Transaction to—?” Snape spluttered. “Potter, you idiot! You never spoke to the Headmaster, did you?”

“I …”

“What possible reason could you have for not doing it? I reminded you multiple times!”

“I-I thought I didn’t need to yet,” Harry stammered, still trying to process what this meant.

Snape stared at him as if he had spontaneously turned purple. “What? Why on earth would you think that? Of all the dim-witted—How did you think you were going to pay your school fees for this year?”

“I thought I already had!” Harry burst out.

“Pardon?”

“When I found all my money was gone—I thought it must have been my school fees that emptied my account! It was the only thing that made sense; Mrs Weasley would have said if I’d got so little in there I couldn’t pay for a book.”

Snape stared at Harry for a moment, processing his words. “Hold on. Start at the beginning. How much did you used to have in your account?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Harry said miserably, “but the last time I looked personally there were piles and piles of Galleons. Must have been thousands.”

“And when was this?”

“Summer before my third year.”

“So—Molly Weasley withdrew for you last summer?”

“And the one before that.”

“And she said absolutely nothing about how much you had left?”

“No she didn’t,” Harry said.

Snape was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Your school fees would hardly make a dent in that. Did you spend much on owl-orders through the last two years?”

“I think I would remember spending thousands of Galleons! I doubt I even spent ten!”

“What about the thousand you got from the Triwizard Tournament?” Snape said suddenly. “Where did that go?”

“I gave it to Fred and George Weasley for their joke shop.”

Snape blinked at him. “You what?”

Harry shrugged. “It wasn’t rightfully mine; I didn’t want it. Or need it. The Diggorys wouldn’t accept it, so I decided to put it to good use.”

“You call funding the Weasley twins good use,” Snape said, sounding horrified.

“People need laughter, especially now. Anyway, the point is, if it didn’t go on school fees, I have no idea where my money’s gone.”

Snape sighed, and glanced down at Harry’s lunchbox. “I think we need to take a trip to Gringotts. Eat your lunch and then we’ll leave.”

“We?”

“Whilst I understand you are in charge of your own account, it might be beneficial for you to have an adult with you.” Snape pointed his wand at Harry’s pasta. “Do you want me to heat that up?”

-

Once they had both eaten lunch, Snape and Harry Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron and made their way to Gringotts.

“Hello,” Harry said to the goblin once they reached the front of the queue. “Um, I want to find out where all my money’s gone.”

“Pardon?”

“I just got a letter saying my account’s overdrawn, but the last time I checked I had piles of money, so I want to find out where it all went.”

“Surely you keep details of transactions,” Snape spoke up.

“Of course we do. Name?”

“Harry Potter.”

The goblin glanced briefly at Harry’s scar before telling them to wait a moment while he retrieved the records.

Harry fidgeted a little while they waited, unable to keep still. Snape cast him a few irritated looks, but didn’t comment. It felt like forever until the goblin came back.

“Here we are.” The goblin dropped a heavy book open onto the counter and started running a finger down the page. “Let’s see …” There was a moment of silence, then he frowned, and then he gave Harry a funny look. “You say you don’t know where your money is?”

“That’s right,” Harry said.

The goblin frowned even deeper. “Mr Potter, your money is wherever you put it.”

“Pardon?” Harry and Snape said at the same time.

“According to this, Mr Potter withdrew every coin from his vault on the first of July this year.”

“What?” Harry exclaimed. “No I didn’t! I haven’t even been here for two years!”

“Well, it’s clearly written here.” The goblin looked back down. “It may be possible a mistake was made. Griphook!”

The goblin who had first taken Harry down to his vault appeared. “Yes?”

“The record says you took Mr Potter to his vault on the first of July to empty it,” the first goblin said. “Is that correct?”

“It is,” Griphook said, looking curiously at Harry.

“No it isn’t!” Harry protested. “I haven’t made a personal withdrawal for two years!”

Snape put a hand on his shoulder. “Gentlemen,” he said, “it seems to me that you dealt with an imposter, rather than the real Mr Potter.”

The goblins looked at each other darkly and began muttering together.

“That means … someone stole all my money,” Harry mumbled, completely in shock.

It wasn’t his own fault he’d gone bankrupt after all. All those long days spent starving and working himself to the bone—and he’d had no reason to be too ashamed to ask for help. He’d suffered for nothing.

“Potter, this is good news,” Snape said.

“What? How can that possibly be good news?”

“Because,” Snape said, “if it was stolen, rather than carelessly spent, there is a chance you may be able to get it back.”

Harry wasn’t sure he dared hope. Though he knew Gringotts had been robbed before, it was so difficult to pull off, whoever had done so had to be clever enough to cover their tracks well. What chance was there of catching the thief, let alone recovering what they had taken?