Harry woke to something tugging lightly on his hair. He rubbed his eyes and turned onto his side only to find himself face to face with a thin, twig-like creature, which was perhaps five centimeters tall. It had a long, sharp nose and big, glittering black eyes. The creature had latched onto a tuft of Harry's jet-black hair and was tugging on it lightly, as if to test its strength.
Harry fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table. Once he'd slipped them on and could see more clearly, he turned his attention back to the strange little creature.
"Hullo," he said sleepily.
The creature ignored Harry, instead giving Harry's hair a particularly sharp tug. Harry cried out in protest and jerked sharply away, pushing himself into a sitting position on the bed.
"Hey!" he cried. "Knock it off!"
Undeterred, the little creature clambered up onto Harry's pillow, apparently determined to scale all the way back up to Harry's head. Harry, who was not too keen on having all the hair ripped from his scalp, reached down to scoop the small creature up.
The skinny little creature scampered out of his reach, shrieking and clicking and beating it's little fists against Harry's fingers as it struggled to get free.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Harry promised the creature softly.
Without warning, the creature sank its teeth deep into Harry's thumb. Startled, Harry dropped it back onto the mattress. The creature scampered across the bed and slid down Harry's crumpled blanket to the floor.
Still nursing his thumb, Harry clambered down off the bed and onto the wooden floor, intent on following the creature. He crawled after it as scurried toward the far wall, where Harry saw a small cadre of the creature's compatriots were gathered, waiting for him.
"Wait!" Harry cried, but the creature either didn't understand him or was ignoring him.
The other creatures chattered angrily at Harry, and once the most adventurous one had rejoined them, they all darted behind the dresser and out of sight.
Harry sucked on his bitten thumb for a moment, trying to alleviate some of the pain. The creature hadn't broken the skin, but it still hurt a great deal. After a moment, he decided to try to see where the funny little creatures had gone. Maybe they were just hiding behind the dresser….
The large wooden dresser was heavy. Harry tried with all his might to shift it out of the way, but only succeeded in rattling it a little. After a few more moments of giving it his all and failing to move the dresser even a discernible amount, Harry gave up, deciding that he would continue pursuing the little beasts after breakfast. His stomach was growling anyway, and he figured that Snape might be able to tell him more about the twiggy creatures.
Harry headed downstairs, wondering what time it was. He was used to his Aunt Petunia waking him up early now that school had ended for the year, usually with a long list of chores for him to do. But Harry had a sense that Snape had let him sleep in a considerable amount, given what he was accustomed to.
Snape was already sitting at the table in the kitchen, a cup of tea set in front of him and a small black book in the other. He wore the same tight-fitting black ensemble as yesterday, with the cuffs that ended well past his wrists and the high, stiff collar that looked to be almost choking. He glanced up at Harry as he entered into the kitchen, his expression surprised just enough to be slightly insulting.
"Late night, Potter?" Snape inquired mildly, peering over the top of the book at him.
Harry shook his head.
Snape tilted his head at a pile of scones on the table. "Help yourself. There's tea on the stove."
Harry didn't wait for further invitation. He piled three of the scones onto his plate along with a generous helping of the marmalade that Snape had set out and tucked into the meal.
Harry was too busy shoveling scones into his mouth to try to strike up a conversation with his new guardian, and Snape seem contented to sip his tea and read, so for a time they sat in a peaceful kind of silence.
When Harry had polished off his second scone and washed it down with a swallow of tea, he paused and tried to pluck up the courage to speak. Part of him was afraid that Snape was still furious with him for the episode yesterday, and Harry had learned from his Uncle Vernon that it was best to leave well enough alone until he was certain all anger at him had completely subsided. Uncomfortable silence was always preferable to shouting, especially when it was a purple-faced, spittle-projecting Vernon who was doing the bellowing.
But Snape had not raised his voice yesterday, Harry had reminded himself. If anything, his words had grown softer with his displeasure. And now there was hardly a trace of that irritation left.
"What are you reading?" Harry asked.
"A book," Snape replied without looking up.
"What's it about?"
Snape heaved a small sigh of irritation. "The principles governing potion viscosity and uniformity, and their correlation to potency in the finished substance."
Harry didn't really understand Snape's answer, and he didn't know what else to say. "Oh."
They lapsed back into silence for a while longer.
Then Harry asked, "What are we going to do today?"
"I," Snape emphasized, "will be continuing to draft lesson plans, as the summer holiday is short and the beginning of term is fast approaching. You will be finding ways to keep yourself occupied and out of my way. Unless, of course, you are incapable of entertaining yourself, in which case I would be only too happy to find a list of tasks for you to complete."
Harry's thoughts immediately leapt back to the little creatures who'd awoken him. If he could just find out where they'd gone, or perhaps lure them back out….
His eyes drifted back to his remaining scone.
"I'll find something to do," Harry promised. He snatched the scone from his plate and folded it up carefully in a cloth napkin, already forming a plan in his mind.
"Food stays in the kitchen," Snape told him, eying Harry's neatly wrapped scone disdainfully. "I don't need your crumbs attracting all manner of pests to the house."
Were the little creatures up in his room pests? Harry wondered. They were far too fascinating to him to be anything but a nuisance. He was already making plans for befriending them and learning more about where they'd come from. He suspected that they had to live in the wall space or in the dresser, like mice.
But for someone who'd grown up in a world of magic and spells and all manner of incredible things, Harry supposed that a gaggle of little stick men running about the house, crawling all over you and pulling your hair, might be seen as a pest in need of eradication.
Which made Harry hesitate when it came to asking questions about what the creatures might be. What if Snape insisted on clearing them out? Harry didn't mind sharing his room with them, and he hated the idea that he might not get the chance to fully investigate them.
"What kind of pests, sir?"
"Ants. Beetles. Roaches. Mice. If you wish to eat later, set it aside on the counter there. But you will not starve here, Potter. I'm not so sadistic."
Snape would likely disappear into his lab or his room, Harry reasoned. He could just sneak back down later. So Harry left the scone wrapped on the table and carried his empty teacup over to the sink, where he rinsed it out and dried it carefully, taking twice as long as he needed. It was a force of habit instilled by Aunt Petunia's neuroticism and mistrust of Harry. He'd dropped one of her saucers once, ruining the set. Harry had been locked in the cupboard for a week for that offense.
"Excuse me, er… Professor? Where does this go?"
Nose still buried in his book, Snape snapped his wand carelessly back at the teacup and saucer, which drifted up and stacked themselves neatly in an overhead cupboard far beyond Harry's reach.
"I'm going to go back to my room—"
"You know where you are permitted to go," Snape cut him off, flipping the page, "and where you are not. If you have need of anything, I will be in the lab. Be certain to knock."
"Of course, sir."
Harry retreated back upstairs again. While he waited for Snape to finish his breakfast, he continued to poke around the room, searching for cracks and crevices for any sign of the stick-men. He crawled along the floor, peering under the bed, the dresser, the nightstand—and found nothing but dust, thought he could have sworn that at one point he'd caught sight of a pair of glittering black eyes. He even tried calling out to them, making more promises that he meant them no harm, all to no avail.
Eventually, after Harry had judged that a suitable amount of time had passed, he brushed himself off and slipped down the stairs back into the kitchen. He was certain to creep up along the wall so that he could peer inside first and make sure that Snape was gone. Finding it empty, he proceeded to tiptoe in. After casting another furtive glance around, he snatched the scone and rushed back upstairs.
Once Harry reached his bedroom, he made certain to close the door tightly behind him, then immediately dropped to all fours and peered under the dresser. He carefully broke a small piece of scone off, making sure that it didn't crumble everywhere, and pushed the morsel into the space beneath the dresser.
To Harry's delight, he could hear a scrabbling and faint chattering. Three of the creatures crawled into sight, thought Harry could barely make them out in the shadows beneath the dresser. One seized the crumb of scone and sniffed at it before taking a nibble. It clicked in delight to its comrades, who scuttled forward toward Harry.
Harry grinned, pleased that his plan had worked, and went to break off another piece of scone.
But the scrawny little creatures were devilishly quick, and before he knew it they had already reached what remained of the scone, lifted it up, and skittered off with it. It apparently gave them no trouble, despite being well over twice their size.
Instinctively, Harry tried to pursue them. He flattened himself against the floor and reached a hand beneath, sweeping it in the space, grasping blindly for one of the creatures.
"Come—here!" he grunted.
A sharp pain shot up through the left side of his hand. Harry yelped and scrambled back, knocking his head against the dresser as he did so.
"Ow," he muttered, rubbing the sore spot. Once the dull throbbing had subsided, he peered back under the dresser, only to find that a whole host of the creatures was gathering there, all of them muttering and clicking unhappily.
One of them seemed to be gesturing angrily toward Harry; it jabbed its long, thin, pointed fingers toward him, chittering in a high-pitched voice. Harry watched, transfixed, as the little creatures swarmed out from beneath the dresser, half of them beelining for him, the other half scaling up the dresser.
Harry propelled himself backward, trying to get away from the twenty or so creatures pursuing him, but they were far too agile. In just seconds they'd latched onto parts of his trousers and shirt and were already beginning to ascend toward his face. Harry tried to brush them off, but they nimbly avoided him, and one even dug its teeth into his arm as a means of resisting being batted away.
But the creatures climbing all over him were the least of his worries. The other half of the small army had managed to pull the drawers of the dresser open and now, with the aid of a small contingent of their comrades stationed at one of the dresser's four legs, were trying to rock the whole thing and presumably topple it. In a feat that looked to defy physics, the group at the far left leg seemed to be lifting the dresser up and tilting it forward, building up momentum.
Harry redoubled his efforts to rid himself of the little stick men, but there were too many of them and they were too adept at avoiding his efforts.
Suddenly, the dresser pitched forward and crashed to the floor with a deafening thud. Luckily, Harry had retreated far enough to avoid being crushed beneath it.
A shrill, triumphant cry went up amongst the creatures.
There was a loud pop in the hall before the door burst inward, revealing a dour-faced Snape. His sharp glare immediately landed on Harry and the good dozen or so creatures that were still hanging from him.
"Immobulus," he growled. There was a flash of blue-white light, and suddenly all of the creatures were stiff as statues, though their glittering eyes still darted back and forth frantically.
"Good lord," Snape said through gritted teeth, "can I not trust you to be alone? And what did I tell you about food in the room?" He indicated a tiny pile of fine crumbs that was so small it was a wonder he'd seen it at all. "Is it a great pleasure, Potter, to defy me at every turn?"
"I was going to clean it up—"
"You were feeding them. Don't think that is not apparent. As if imps require any encouragement…."
"Imps?" Harry inquired.
Snape gestured with his want to a few of the stunned creatures. "Yes, imps. Some kind of house imp, by the looks of it, though magizoology was never my strong suit…. I'd no idea there was an infestation. You should have said something first thing."
"I didn't know they were dangerous—"
"You didn't know that they weren't dangerous, either. But back to my original question. Why is it that you couldn't heed simple instructions?"
Harry looked down at his feet, unable to meet Snape's eyes. "I just thought… you know, that I could play with them—"
"They are not toys. They, like their pixy cousins, are troublesome pests. Any child would know better than to try to befriend such capricious little monsters…."
"I—I didn't know, sir," Harry stammered. It was beginning to dawn on him that he'd defied Snape and caused trouble twice now. And Snape had vowed that he would ship him off if there were any more incidents….
"I suppose you didn't," Snape grumbled, "living with muggles…. Still. You couldn't content yourself with your playthings?"
"I don't have any."
Snape muttered something under his breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tightly, clearly trying to collect himself. "I assume you haven't been hurt, since there are no tears?"
Harry shook his head into the ground. "I'm fine."
Snape drew a deep breath and, letting his hand fall back to his side, opened his eyes. He waved his wand carelessly at Harry, causing all the still-frozen imps to clatter to the floor like a set of plastic figurines. "Wait for me downstairs while I straighten this up and attend to this infestation."
"You're not going to—to kill them, are you—"
Snape heaved an impatient sigh. "No. I will remove them to the yard and Confound them so they won't wander back into the house and nest again."
That set Harry's mind at ease a little. "Professor, I didn't think it would cause this much trouble, honest. I'm really, really sorry, and I swear—"
"Silence. As disinclined as I am to believe your sincerity, I will make an allowance for your lack of understanding, so long as you know that, from here on out, I expect full, unequivocal obedience. Do you know what unequivocal means, Mr. Potter?"
Harry shook his head again.
Snape leaned down close, lowering his voice to a dangerous whisper. "It means that when I say 'jump', you will ask me, 'how high?'. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then go."
Harry was only too happy that he wouldn't be sent back to the Dursleys. Really, he thought, he was going to have to be more careful. Things had a tendency to get out of hand much more quickly than in the non-wizarding world.
XXXXXX
The damage in the room really was minimal. It was luck that the boy hadn't been crushed beneath the dresser. House imps were not so dangerous to fully grown wizards, but certain species were known to carry off children or play extremely cruel jokes on them. At least, Snape thought, it hadn't been pixies. They might have carried him off and left him in a tree somewhere.
He could hardly blame the boy, as much as he wanted to. Sneaking food into his room was an act of disobedience, but it was hardly an offense that merited casting the child out.
Snape was tempted for a moment to write to Dumbledore and complain that the boy was too much of a menace, and that his presence was disruptive. But even as he'd briefly considered such a plan of action, the image of Dumbledore's penetrating eyes had leapt to mind, filled with disappointment and accusation. Snape had, after all, given his word to protect the boy. If he could not handle caring for one child, James Potter's son or not, what could he say about the strength of his commitment to that promise?
That didn't mean that he didn't intend to teach the boy a lesson.
After righting the dresser and gathering the entirety of the stunned imps—almost fifty in all, which was an impressive number—in a spare shopping bag, Snape went to seek out his young ward.
He found Harry sitting quietly on the love seat, body bowed over his knees and his hands clasped tightly in front of him. It seemed that he, too, was aware that there would be consequences for his disobedience.
"Follow me," Snape commanded brusquely, heading outside into the backyard.
Harry trotted along behind him, still looking fairly kowtowed for the time being.
Snape led him to the far back corner of the yard where there stood a four by five foot enclosure. Inside were a good dozen flobberworms, long brown creatures of about ten inches that continually produced a foul coat of mucus. Snape kept them because the mucus served as a versatile potion thickener, and tended to work best, he found, when freshest. But the enclosure was small for the number of flobberworms he kept, meaning that the mucus secretions tended to build up and needed to be scraped out every few weeks or so.
"They're… worms?" Harry asked, though for once his tone wasn't one of wonderment. He sounded rather disappointed.
"Flobberworms. A fascinating magical creature for you to play with." Snape gestured to the rusted metal spatula that he left beside the cage for cleanings. "Since you cannot stay out of trouble on your own, you can spend the rest of the morning de-sliming their pen."
"Do they bite?" Harry asked warily.
"They are toothless, and before you ask, no, the mucus is not toxic. No need for gloves."
Harry stared blankly at the worms, his lip wrinkled slightly in disgust.
"Well?" Snape demanded. "Get to it. If you work quickly, you may finish in time for lunch."
Harry snapped out of his daze and bobbed his head at Snape before retrieving the scraping tool.
Satisfied that the boy was taking his chore seriously, Snape headed back into the house.
He would have to find the boy something to play with. It wasn't a question of kindness; no, it was a matter of damage control. There was no telling what destruction Potter's next little misadventure might cause.
He doubted he had anything in the house that would suffice. Even in the attic… and he had no interest in venturing up there and sifting through the clutter, not to mention all the memories. There was a reason he kept that area of the house shut off.
Perhaps, he thought, it would be possible to work a simple enchantment on an ordinary object as a provisional measure, something that would hold the boy's attention until they could make a trip into town somewhere. Perhaps Diagon Alley, he thought. He was running low on stock anyway, and he preferred the supplier there to the ones he'd used elsewhere, especially Hogsmeade. Though an outing with the Potter boy was doubtless going to be a migraine in and of itself.
Snape returned to his study and the stacks of notes upon his desk. He was nearly finished with the syllabus for his third year potions class, though he was starting to doubt, as he always did, that the reading and classwork would be too much for his students. Not that what he had prepared was unreasonable, of course. It just seemed that the students themselves were growing increasingly incapable of rising to the challenges presented to them.
His eyes swept over his desk, as if he would find some object there that could serve as a plaything. But there was nothing save a few well-worn copies of potions manuals, his notes, a pot of ink and quill, and a stack of fresh parchment.
Parchment. It was better than nothing. If only he'd been a touch more talented with Transfiguration… but that had never been his strong suit. No, his specialty had been curses, hexes, jinxes, and the art of potion-making. And Dumbledore would likely not appreciate him giving the Potter boy a hexed object as a toy, or a heavy sleeping draught to sedate him.
Snape took a moment to pluck the spell from his memory, then, the tip of his wand against the blank parchment, muttered, "Animembranus." A shower of silver sparks fell down onto the parchment and soaked into it, like ink. The parchment crumpled into a ball, folding into itself and shifting gradually until it had reformed as a small dragon, complete with ink eyes and a snout.
The parchment-creature blinked its eyes up at Snape, shuffled its wings a little, then tipped its head back and let out a little roar.
Snape smirked. He couldn't help but feel a little pleased with himself. Let Potter chase after that for a while, he thought. "Occideri membranus," he pronounced, tapping the dragon once more. It stilled in his palm, its eyes fading away again.
Snape set it gently beside his ink and settled back into his chair. Now, where had he left off? Ah, yes, developing an essay topic on the properties of brimstone. Something to discourage students from regurgitating the textbook in its entirety, perhaps even encourage a handful of them to make use of the library….
XXXXX
Harry was proud of himself for not gagging. The sheer amount of mucus layered in the cage was astounding, and it seemed that, as hard as he tried to chip away at it, there was still more of the wretched substance beneath. This, he decided, was worse than any task that his Aunt Petunia had given him.
He tried his best to work diligently, but it was not easy labor, and between the heat of the summer sun and the ache of his arms, he found himself slowing more and more as the morning wore on. He started having to take small breaks every fifteen minutes or so just to rest his tired arms.
Thankfully, the flobberworms were slow-moving and easy to shift out of the way—though they were not the most pleasant of things to touch.
Harry only had one small corner of the pen left to do when Snape at last returned to check on him.
His eyes swept over the cage once, flickered to appraise Harry, then roved back over the cage a second time. "Have we learned our lesson?" Snape asked coolly.
"I promise to listen from now on—"
"Good enough, then. But know that I can think of plenty of other equally unpleasant tasks for you to perform, should we have this kind of misunderstanding again. Now go get washed up."
Harry was just glad that he wasn't going to have to finish. He hurried upstairs into the washroom and began scrubbing down, making sure that he removed every last fleck of the disgusting mucus. Idly, he wondered if finding himself coated in odd substances was just part and parcel of the wizarding life.
There was a sandwich waiting for him on the table by the time he made it back down into the kitchen. Snape sat in his usual spot, a newspaper open before him.
Harry stopped in his tracks. The pictures—one of a smoking witch in front of an overturned cauldron, another of two figures zooming around in the air on broomsticks—were moving!
"How are they doing that?" he blurted out.
Snape looked up at him, startled. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more articulate than that if you want an answer."
"The—the pictures—they're moving around—"
Snape's face wrinkled in confusion as he turned the paper to glance at the front page. "Of course they're…." But he stopped short and rolled his eyes. "Our photos are a bit more interesting than your muggle photos."
"That's incredible," Harry whispered. He tried to make out the name of the newspaper—the Daily Prophet. "Is it all pictures, then?"
"If developed using the proper solution."
Harry sensed that Snape was getting sick of all the questions, so he turned his attention to his sandwich. He was starving anyway, and thirsty. It was a good thing that Snape had also set out a large glass of water for him.
"Is there any interesting news today?" Harry asked after a few minutes through a thick mouthful of sandwich.
Snape's lip curled back, likely from the few sandwich crumbs spraying forth from Harry's mouth. "Mouth shut while you're chewing."
Harry swallowed and mumbled, "Sorry."
They lapsed back into silence, and it became apparent to Harry that Snape wasn't about to answer his initial question.
"Are there any other children around here?"
Snape exhaled heavily. "I'm certain there are a few, though I don't go around door to door making a head-count."
"Children like us? Or muggles?"
"There are few like us who live in this neighborhood." Snape spoke as if he regretted that he and Harry were lumped together in the same category.
Harry couldn't help but feel a bit stung by Snape's tone. Maybe he was even less welcome here than he'd originally thought. The prospect was disheartening.
It had been silly of him to think that anything had to be better than the Dursleys. Though still, he thought, he hadn't been locked up yet. Still, he wished that he hadn't been so reckless during his first day in his new home. Maybe Snape wouldn't have been so fed up with him if he hadn't caused so much trouble.
He ate the rest of his meal without venturing another word, barely tasting the food as it slid down. Twice he had to sip a little water just to swallow past the tight lump forming in his throat.
As he was depositing his plate and glass in the sink and preparing to go hide in his room, Harry heard the flutter of paper behind him. At first he thought it was simply Snape shaking out his newspaper, thought the rustling was curiously soft.
He turned to find a little dragon that looked to be made of paper sitting on the table, sniffing delicately at a stray breadcrumb.
Snape folded up his paper and pushed his dish aside. "Something to keep you amused," he said simply. "Would it be too much to assume that this will keep you out of mischief for the remainder of the day?"
Harry couldn't take his eyes off of the little dragon. "Yes," he agreed. "I mean—no, I'll—is it a real dragon?"
"It's a simple charm, but it should exhibit most of the same mannerisms—albeit, rather tamer. Be careful not to rip it or you'll damage the enchantment."
Harry couldn't resist. He scooped the creature up and cradled it delicately in his hands. It lifted its head toward him and blinked its inky eyes, then made a soft keening sound. Without warning, it crouched, wriggled its bottom like a playful cat, and sprang into the air, flapping its elegant paper wings. With a few steady beats it had soared off into the entry hall and up the stairs.
Harry turned to Snape, a wide grin splitting his face. "Thank you—this is amazing!" And with that he tore after the dragon, still smiling from ear to ear.
Chapter 3