Thirty one plus one by Hopeless Wanderer

Number II; A trip to the seaside (Fourth time’s the charm)

-Hunger is a psychological desire to consume food. To keep us on our feet and restore the energy we need in order to survive. Despite, being a psychological response to the lack of nutrients, Hunger is a meaningless concept, when there is a golf ball of cancerous cells delicately set atop your Hypothalamus.

The truth was, the tumor prevented me from feeling actual hunger, but my body was having none of that, and in a blatant act of rebellion against the brain, showed the embarrassing symptoms of the psychological effects anyways.

If I were to put it in simpler terms, it was quite similar to watching someone play chess with themselves and losing the game. And not knowing that they were losing it.

It’s an odd feeling, to hear your stomach grumble and feel your mouth water, but not actually realize why. Unfortunately for me the more the time passed, the more the lack of feelings escalated.

“Where are my muffins?” my stomach grumbled in harmony with my voice as I put all of the shopping bags on the kitchen table.

“Be a little patient, Potter.”

The man unloaded the bags on the counter and then turned to face me with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“How did you sleep? No nausea?” Severus’s eyes bore into mine like he was trying to see if I lied or not. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head.

“No. No nausea, no vomiting.” No thanks to Snape. I thought snidely. He would’ve burnt the house down if I had puked in the cottage, just to /sanitize/ the environment. Aunt Petunia would have had a heart attack if she knew about Sev’s cleaning techniques. I swear to Merlin, the man had never heard of bleach in his life.

“What are these?” I pointedly asked, gesturing at the bundle of bags and packets all around us.

Snape made an exaggerated show of taking a brown paper bag out of one of the grocery bags and tossing it on the table.

“Those are muffins.” He pointed at them over his shoulder. “Don’t touch the chocolate one.” I scowled at the back of his head, the man obliviously turned to rifle through the cabinets for tea.

He tugged the tea box out and then went to fill the kettle while I venomously continued glaring at his back.

“I didn’t mean the muffins.” Although I was pissed that he called dibs on chocolate muffins. It never occurred to me before that Snape was the kind of guy who called dibs on anything… I couldn’t have been more wrong. Severus called dibs on /everything/ regardless of my opinion or condition. So much so, that it was somewhat of an inside joke between us.

Sadly it wasn’t such a hilarious trait when you actually had to live with it for four months straight.

“I meant the clothes.” I continued when the potion master didn’t respond.

Severus hummed, leaning against the counter. “That’s easy, compacted articles of fabric we wear to sustain our modesty.” He explained. “I can name each piece of clothing in those bags…”

Another breeze went about the kitchen and ruffled my hair, causing my eyes to squint at the man and his antics. This was highly unusual of Snape, I thought in bewilderment. Acting as if he was immensely amused by messing with me.

Actually, I mused, on a second thought, that wasn’t that unusual.

His behavior was confusing, and irritating. Just the night before, the potion master was raving and rambling about how he couldn’t fit in as a mentor. This morning, he showed up with muffins and clothes.

“Stop this.” I growled. “Why did you buy all of these clothes? And please, for the love of all that is holly, stop the sarcasm.”

The kettle gave out a shrill cry on the stove, another breeze sifted the curtains and mused Snape’s hair. The man straightened his shoulders and leaned down to grab the fussing teakettle. “I bought you some clothes Potter, because you needed them.” He reasoned bemusedly. “You may try them on after having breakfast.”

The chair emitted an indignant squeak as my body lunched against the table in shock. “What? I already have…”

The kettle came down on the table with a hard yet subdued sound. Snape interrupted me with a raised eyebrow. “I’m going to stop you right there Potter,” he held his hand up as I opened my mouth. “Merlin /wept/ at the state of your attire these past two weeks, and frankly, I cannot be seen in public with a teenage boy who looks like a homeless person.”

I mulled my lips for a moment and then shook my head. “But I don’t need these. I already have clothes.” I wasn't the potion master's charity case, or whatever he thought I was to him the morning after our petty argument.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take these compacted articles of fabric and return them.”

Snape's eyes narrowed. “I swear to merlin himself Potter,” he wagged his finger at me. “If I see you wearing the rags I found in your wardrobe again, I’ll ground you.”

“Then what? Do you want to burn my clothes to ashes?”

Snape returned my retort with a stoic face. “I would rather you burn them and I’d assist.” he took a delicate sip of his morning tea. "No wonder you cannot stay afloat, those atrocious shorts you wear are heavier than your head.” before I could even open my mouth Snape leaned impossibly closer.

“Which brings us to another matter, why don’t you have your own clothes?”

In a fit of panic and stubbornness I reached behind him into the bag of groceries and drew out the big round chocolate muffin. I contemplated my choices in less than a second before biting off and chewing one third of the said pastry in one go. I swallowed the lump in my throat and fearfully watched Severus's reaction.

Rolling his eyes Snape took the muffin from my hands and took a bite himself, sipping his tea.

“Two can play the game Potter.” he said, seeing the bewildered expression on my face. “Do you want to answer now?”

“I lost a lot of weight, I guess.” he gave me a pointed look. I tried the next available lie on my list.

“Dudley lent some of his clothes and I forgot to give them back.” Severus's eyes darkened.

“All of his clothes?” I cursed under my breath, and returned Snape's 'do I look stupid to you' face with a deadpanned, final repsonse.

“He’s such a generous guy.”

suffice to say...I had to take the clothes in the end.

**

The stormy clouds from the night before were replaced by an unblemished blue sky that day. Two blankets of stormy blue were extended afar, going as far as my eye could see, seemingly colliding with each other at the end of the line of my vision. Blue and flawless, the sky adorned the blazing sun above our heads as Snape dragged me to the porch to try out my new clothes.

He brought his muffins and tea with him and ordered me to bring a blanket along in case the weather got /chilly/. I could see that Severus was still worried about me getting a cold. His concern was understandable, after all, I had spent a profane amount of time puking out my innards under the English rain in a muddy road exactly the night before.

I took the shopping bags in my room and reluctantly inspected the new garments, my eyes widening and my breath catching at the overwhelming sum Snape got for me. He had gotten me a whole new wardrobe completed with winter wear, which seemed like overkill. We both knew I wouldn’t get to live past July.

I humored him and held up a red bland tee-shirt, squinting my eyes at the small size. Sev wasn’t kidding when he said he got these from the children’s section.

Snape’s eyes narrowed as I showed him the new clothes, he nodded with approval and asked me if they were all comfortable. He even made me move around and try out the winter coats (obviously unnecessary-but I didn’t say anything) his eyes gleamed in endorsement as he sipped his tea and told me to scram and pack the new clothes away.

Severus didn’t bring up the Dursleys at all when I finally settled next to him, cradling a small raspberry muffin in my hands. He handed me a lukewarm cup of tea and we gazed ahead.

“I’ll pay you back sir. Those clothes must have cost a fortune.” Mentally I added up the sum and nodded, I had more than enough in my vault, since I barely used the money, and only extracted enough to get my school supplies. The rest were left for Remus.

The man would have my head if he knew I left my vault for him, but deep down, I knew that the only person who deserved to have the key in the name of my late parents was him.

Snape threw me a filthy glare that made my spine quiver in distress. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you just said that Potter.” He drawled out, bottoming up his cup. The wind blew persistently, the smell of salt, seaweed, and water filled my nostrils. I drew in a deep breath, smoothing my hand over the new red shirt and mentally reveling in the soft texture of the cotton under my fingers.

“Sir…”

“I’m not your companion Potter. I’m your guardian and caretaker, it means you are my responsibility. I will provide food, clothes, shelter and entertainment because it’s my job.”

Again, the man neglected to mention the Dursleys and the state of my previous wardrobe. He suspected something, I could tell, but we were both wary of starting yet another fight in tow with the one we had last night.

I flushed in shame as I remembered the things I had spewed out in the heat of the moment. It was mortifying, the things I’ve said last night. I couldn’t stop myself, my brain stringed words and my exhausted mouth spoke them without thinking of the consequences. I was so depressed, utterly beat. I missed Sirius, I wanted to hug Remus, to have them both with me one last time.

I would be with Sirius soon enough, I mused in my head, biting into the muffin with a hum. Its striking taste spontaneously exploded in my mouth, I hummed louder. It tasted really good. I thought with a rush of surprise, washing it down with a big gulp of lukewarm tea.

Severus gave me an amused look, the corner of his eyes only slightly wrinkling. I flushed. I was secretly overjoyed and giddy by the fact that he wasn’t holding any grudges against me since last night.

Alas that I had no idea how many things were going to go wrong because I refused to apologize to this man over the course of our journey. That one time when I forgot to tell him about misplacing my potion after an argument (about two weeks ago as I’m writing this) it nearly cost me my life.

And that man was not impressed by not my lack of regret. Yet, the absence of apologies that day in the beach was of no matter and didn’t make a huge difference in the way he treated me. He left me to my thoughts and took out his weird leather bond journal he always carries around and got reading.

I watched Hedwig circle the cottage for a while and enjoyed the April’s cool breeze freshening my face. We stayed in silence long enough for Snape to start asking awkward questions that couldn’t be avoided longer.

We both knew that the ‘elephant in the room’- as most put it- couldn’t be avoided any longer. He cleared his throat, closed his journal and stared ahead.

“Potter, what you said last night…” he trailed off and I pursed my lips. I was adamant to stave off from giving out any apologies to the man. I was still mad at him, even though he brought me clothes and muffins the next day as a decent apology.

Maybe I /was/ a horrible person.

Severus gained back his composure. “Are you tired of staying here?”

My head whipped back to face him in surprise; I thought he was going to give me a good scolding for being obnoxiously rude to him.

“I…” I stared back at the repetitive motion of the waves and paused a minute. The sight was as breathtaking as the first night, or rather, the first time I saw it on the telly. Was I tired of this imagery already?

“I’m not sure.” I replied honestly, crunching the muffin’s (R.I.P- to that muffin by the way- one of the best I ever had-) oilpaper-y wrapper.

“The next destination on your list, it’s in the Surrey. Do you want us to leave the cottage or do you require more time? This place is a good place to stay Potter. A safe haven for many, either during the first war or… onward.”

“Order members?” I gasped, suddenly the burned rug and frayed curtains made more sense somehow. Snape nodded in confirmation.

“Not many know of this place, it was a safe house-is still a safe house- for order members. People who were endangered or in protective custody came here. Funnily enough, your wolf knows of this place too.”

“That’s interesting.” My stomach churned in itself and I turned my head away. If anything, I mused, the new information only unsettled me. I imagined Remus visiting this place after I died, sleeping in the same room as I am now, would he know?

Would he be freaked out to sleep in the same room as his dead godson, or would he even care that I was dead?

My forehead broke out in cold sweat in spite of the chilly wind, my hands tightened around the wrapper.

“If you want to leave I can arrange our trip to the Surrey in a few days.”

“We’re not coming back here.” It wasn’t a question, merely a statement. I already knew the answer.

“It’s better if we don’t Potter. It takes too much time and effort. You cannot afford to lose any more of that.”

Sighing I nodded, eyeing the small specks of sand shifting on the wooden stairs next to my sock clad feet, wishing more than ever to not be reminded of the fact that my life was on a deadline.

It was two hours later when Snape approached me in my room again and asked me to put on my new swim trunks and stop lying around, my eyebrows shot up as I got up, staring after the man with a puzzled expression my face.

Padding to my trunk, I dug in the new clothes to find my new swim trunks-the vastly improved substitute to Dudley’s ridiculous bullying shorts-. Not only did I find a simple black swim trunk in the packages I carelessly had thrown in my stuff before, I also found a red swim cap lying innocently next to a new pair of socks and frowned.

“A swim cap?” I blurted out to Snape as I raced down the stairs, clad in the black swim trunks, my new red tee (which still smelled new) and with the red cap clenched in my hand.

I only caught a glimpse of the potion master’s back before he disappeared outside but I knew he heard me.

“Is there a problem with it?” he mused, eyeing the crumpled cap in my hand.

Shaking my head, I doubled over to catch my breath, gulping the blessed cool air of the April afternoon and wiggling my toes on the scratchy yet damp sand.

“Why did you get me one though?” I asked him with bated breath.

“I’m going to teach you how to swim Potter. So you can properly tick that blasted wish off your list.”

I titled my head to the side. “But aren’t we leaving?” Severus gave me an unimpressed look he always gave me in his classes for ‘thinking I was too smart’. I stared back.

“Not for two days.” He said slowly as if talking to a small child. “Two days is a long time. Come along.”

As was routine, the man unbuttoned his outer robe and neatly rolled up his sleeves as he started walking. I bit down on my lip and followed him, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that learning how to swim was an impossible feat for me. In fact, I had resigned myself to that fact during the first week of our stay in the Shell Cottage.

Whenever I tried, life answered back by dunking my head under water, and sending sudden jolts into my heart as if it was desperate to escape, making my lungs tear themselves apart for a single breath. It seemed like the harder I wanted to be like Dudley (by being selfish and desiring the joys of having a proper childhood) the harder that invisible force of nature pushed me down.

Snape beaconed me closer with a hand and I huffed, grasping the hem of my tee-shirt with reluctant fingers. One last time, I thought to myself, just to humor the man who was thoughtful enough to buy me clothes. Think of it as payment Potter, I tried to convince myself.

The sand wiggled under my toes and tickled my ankles as I got rid of my shirt and hesitantly followed the determined man into the serene waves. He grasped my shoulder to steady my teetering balance and together we roved to a suitable spot.

“Put the cap on Potter.” Snape ordered me as he crossed his arms.

The man picked me up with little effort as soon as the cap was clumsily on my head and lowered me on the gentle rocking motion of the water. As was habitual behavior with me these past two weeks, my legs immediately stiffened and my posture went rigid.

“Potter.” The man warned me and I squeezed my eyes shut, my breathing labored. I wasn’t afraid of drowning, or rather, Snape letting me drown. I didn’t even know what I was scared of, so the unwelcome rush of terror might have been the cancer messing with my head.

As always, I was the one who held me back.

“Open your eyes Potter. Open them.” I peeled one eye open, feeling the tip of Snape’s finger holding my light body above water. Was his hand even there anymore? I panicked, twisting my neck to look back at the man.

“Don’t let go!”

“I won’t let go, Potter.” He assured me. “Let your body relax. It’s just water, you won’t drown.”

I straightened my knees but kept my eyes fully closed once again. Instead of panicking even more, I concentrated on the odd feeling of the red swim cap that was keeping my hair dry. It was such an oddity, my mind informed me amusedly. Something about using it made me feel as if my head wasn’t a part of me anymore.

“Good.” Snape’s voice complimented as my body relaxed in his hold. “Now open your eyes Potter and stare ahead. Just look at the sky and nothing else.”

“If you let go I swear-” he abruptly cut me off.

“I won’t. Do as I say.” He adjusted my dry, unstained glasses on my face.

I did as he said, gazing ahead at the pretty blue sky, no cloud in sight, and a small subtle beam of light peaking from somewhere on my right, exactly from Snape’s back. Deliberately chosen so the sun wouldn’t disturb my eyes.

Snape, true to his word, didn’t withdraw his hands from my back even once and instead let me relax into his hold at my own pace.

“Start paddling your legs.” He instructed calmly after a while.

My eyebrows shot up but I was too scared to move. Shit, I cursed, this was new.

The potion master noted my discomfort and sighed. “Potter,” his tone was exasperated. “Kick your legs in a crisscross motion. Paddle your legs so you can move.”

“I’m barely afloat!” my shrill voice exclaimed.

“I’m keeping you up, just do as I say for once you brat.”

I kicked my feet back and forth as hard and as fast I could, splashing gallops of water all over us in small droplets that sprinkled in the air, Snape drew back with a surprised yell as his hair was viciously drenched with salt water. His feather light touch left my back and suddenly I was under water, flapping my legs uselessly.

The water wasn’t too deep at all and I soon tore my way to the surface, spluttering, wheezing and surprisingly enough, laughing. Snape threw me a filthy glare, a sneer forming on his face.

“When I said ‘Potter, paddle with your legs’” he splashed me with his hands. “I didn’t mean kick up a storm.” Another splash of water hit me in the face, the man harrumphed loudly and reached out.

“You splashed me!” I spat the salty water out with a face, eyeing the potion master’s blurry face with my stained glasses, thinking that the man was enjoying this all too much. This had barely ever happened before when he was attempting to teach me.

“I thought that was fairly ob-POTTER!” I giggled, splattering the water directly into Severus’s face again.

“You insolent imp!” the man retaliated my attack, but I was laughing too hard to hit back again. Ron wasn’t going to freaking /believe/ this! I thought with delight. No Hogwarts student would ever believe me if I told them the grumpy potion master was having a water fight with his most hated student and actually enjoying it.

-Even I wouldn’t have believed me if Severus wasn’t here now to confirm the occurrence of the event. Bless his soul, he’s been such a big help recently. (He would argue, but I’m afraid he wrote nearly half of the journals. His memory is uncanny that way.)

I did learn how to swim that day, when we were both completely soaked and in the danger of acquiring various stages of sunburn. Severus did the mature thing that day and tried to teach me how to float by floating himself, and exposing us both further to the brutal afternoon sun. I didn’t mind it, not really. The water was so blessedly cool on our skin that we didn’t even notice.

He helped me on my back again, instructing me to paddle my legs correctly, and then helped me thread the water for another fifteen minutes before shaking his head.

“Potter, forget everything I told you about swimming. Floating is just impossible for you.” I felt as if I /was/ making progress though, but didn’t argue with the Professor.

He taught me how the breaststroke technic worked as best as he could and helped me in deeper waters (not that deep, sadly, I was still short. Growth spurt never hit me.) To try it out.

His hands never left me, that reassuring touch was always there on my shoulders, or my back, assuring me that my head would always remain above water.

“I would die before letting you off the hook.” The man vowed before repeating the recurring moves.

Breaststrokes were more manually demanding, than simply being held up and staring around, and the act required my sole undivided attention. I tired quickly, but was satisfied with the lopsided results. At least I was moving around in the water by myself then, and I didn’t panic when my mouth was filled with salt water when I gulped down the precious air.

Snape also seemed surprised at my sudden progress, but didn’t mention it at loud. Finally around four in the afternoon we retired to the porch, limbs aching, bellies growling, and with our skins bearing mild unpleasant red hues.

“We never spent more than an hour in the water before Potter. Today we were swimming all day and I forgot to give you the sunscreen. The water, it prevented us from feeling the burns.” The potion master explained calmly as he applied a soothing cool balm to the back of my shoulders. It didn’t even hurt that much, not with my high pain tolerant fused body, Severus assured me that they were very mild and would heal in no time.

“Your neck sir…it’s red, on the back.”

The man sighed in irritation-that was oddly pointed at himself- and headed for the bathroom. “The one time I didn’t use sunscreen...”

That night, I sat in the kitchen and watched Severus prepare dinner for us. I watched the potion master bustle around and mutter odd, unrelated potion ingredients under his breath as he moved from one cupboard to the other, his eyes distant in concentration.

My hair was still damp and my new clothes clung to my body as I sat, Severus lightly scolded me for never drying off properly when he saw my dismal state. I promptly-and cheekily enough- suggested that if he had a problem with it, he could just do it for me himself.

He rewarded my innocent joke with a firm scuffing to the neck and an eye-roll.

I fiddled with the plastic covering on our table and counted the shells adorning the joint walls that led to the hallway, but I mostly watched the potion Professor move about, deep in thought.

He was making pasta, something fairly easy and modest enough to prepare quickly, but filling enough that kept us through the night. I eyed the fresh vegetables set on the cutting board and made a quick decision.

“Do you need any help Professor?” I asked. The man had his back on me, he paused, spared me a quick stoic glance over his shoulder and then turned.

“You can cook?” my lips pursed. Of course I knew how to cook, I’ve been doing it since I was three. In fact, I could make the same exact pasta with a badass Bolognese sauce that had the Dursleys drooling by the time I was eight.

The question wasn’t whether or not I could hold my ground in a kitchen, it was the confidentiality of that information. Did I want Snape to know that I could cook well? It wasn’t fair on the man to take care of /everything/ while we were together.

But on the other hand, he was already suspicious over the tattered clothes and my lack of tact when it came to experiencing new things. He suspected something about my home-life with my loving relatives.

He would only get more suspicious this way. I knew that he was smart enough to have figured it out by now, I knew that not only he was smart enough, but cunning enough to work his way around my tactics and draw it out of me anyways. The fact that I wasn’t ready for it didn’t matter.

It was only a matter of when, rather than ‘if’.

I ran hand through my damp hair, ignoring that few too many strands of hair that came with it and nodded.

“I used to cook a lot when I stayed at my relatives.” There, I mentally nodded with satisfaction. Not bold enough for the man to get skeptical. My pulse quickened as the man’s eyes fell on my fiddling hands.

“Why? Was your aunt incapable of cooking for the family?” another direct question. I cursed, the man was being too straightforward. He wasn’t bound to find out about them this soon. I didn’t know him enough to guess how he would react.

“No.” I answered too quickly. “I just like… I like cooking a lot.”

“And you didn’t tell me that before… because?” he inquired with a raised eyebrow and a demanding posture. I leant back in my seat, staring at the boiling water on the stove behind him.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It never occurred to me that you needed help cooking sir.”

Snape hummed skeptically. “I don’t need help now.” He countered neutrally.

“I know that,” my fingers fiddled with the hem of my shirt. “I just thought it would make things quicker.” And easier for you, I finished in my head. The man had to stay up that night in order to brew me a new batch for tomorrow.

I didn’t know why it didn’t strike me before, but all of the responsibility seemed unfair on the man.

Snape’s demeanor completely changed and his arms uncrossed. The man narrowed his eyes in mild concern and then walked up a few step to inspect my face from a closer view.

“Are you that hungry?” he asked blankly. His face though, looked as if there was hint of guilt swimming behind his eyes. I flushed in shame. “I can give you something to keep you until-"

I waved both hands in his face. “No! I just…” shrugging, I hung my head. “Wanted to help.” I finished lamely. Snape didn’t react, he just reached out and handed me the kitchen knife from the counter.

“Here.” He said, nodding his chin at the cutting board. “Take your time and don’t cut yourself.” He slid the cutting board in front of me, and caught a wandering carrot that was rolling off the table. My eyes ogled his strange reaction for a moment and then I examined the knife in my hand.

My stomach chilled with relief as if it was flooded with ice cold water when he finally turned his back on me again and went back to the pasta. My hand was steady as I drew the trimmed carrot near and absentmindedly ended its life by chopping it into small, same sized pieces.

Onions effortlessly followed after and in no time, I was done butchering a decent crop of celery.

We finished the meal in silence, Severus respectfully drew away when I was finished with the vegetables and moved to the stove to make the tomato sauce. He was impressed, I could tell that he thought I was bluffing when I said that I could cook. Tomato sauce was easy enough to still leave suspicion, but at least the man didn’t think I was a total klutz anymore.

We both filled our plates in relative silence and settled down. Snape hummed.

“This is actually not that bad Potter.” He complimented. I returned his dry compliment with a flashy smile. With a full mouth. Severus rolled his eyes.
“We could take shifts now. You could cook two days a week.”

“Alright. I can do that.” It would exactly get in line with the nights the man had to pull night overs in order to brew me those sketchy ‘boosting potions’ and for me, it was better than cooking all the meals, all the time, /and/ do the chores.

Aunt Petunia sure as hell wasn’t lenient when it came to being a proper housewife. I meant myself, by the way, not her. She never lifted a single finger around the house ever since I could properly hold a dusting rag.

(Aunt Petunia? I forgive you. If anyone ever bothers to inform you of the existence of these letters, I just wanted you to know that I do forgive you for all you’ve done to me. It doesn’t seem right to die without clearing out my conscious first. Sorry for dropping off by your doorstep so unexpectedly fourteen years ago.)

I wolfed down the pasta and then dunked it all with a long glass of icy water. I hadn’t realized just how famished I was before taking the first bite. It was understandable since I was unable to feel hungry in the first place until I actually started eating.

The meal was gone in less than five minutes.

Later after dinner, we both retreated to the cozy living room. “Can someone die from hearing a bad poem?” I wondered, clueless as I tried to comprehend the printed words on the book. I could barely make sense of the few lines of poems in the ‘Hitch hiker’s guide’ myself. Seemingly, this Vogon dude was using it as a torture device against my favorite character ‘Ford’ and ‘Arthur’ for some reason I couldn’t quite grasp.

I supposed I had to reread that part again.

Snape raised his head a fraction from his own journal, but didn’t look me in the eye. “Let me guess, you suppose that they could die of ‘internal hemorrhaging’?” he drawled out dryly.

I stared blankly at the potion master’s head and he sighed. “It means internal bleeding. And no, Potter, no one has died of hearing a particularly bad poem yet.”

Before I could open my mouth again he held up his hand. “It’s not possible to throttle your brain with your intestines, no.”

I went back and reread the sections I missed several times to get full meanings of the words, I didn’t mind asking Snape the words or phrases I didn’t know about, but sometimes the man looked at me as if I was insane.

Not stupid for not understanding the words, but /insane/ for asking questions like; ‘is there a full version of Vogon’s poem?’ or ‘How do wizards cope with the destruction of Earth? Could they survive in space?’ Which were pretty good questions in my opinion.

Somewhere around ten he told me to retreat to my room, so he could go to this mysterious basement and prepare my potion for tomorrow morning. I didn’t feel like reading the rest of the book in my own room on the bed, so I closed it with a sigh and headed for the bathroom.

With a flare of grudging respect, I also found a pair of matching plaid pajamas waiting for me in my closet as I finished brushing my teeth in near total darkness.

Snape had thought of everything. And I didn’t get to ask him why, beyond his own ridiculous reasons. I avoided it like the plague because I knew asking him about the clothes would have him asking about their need to be replaced in the first place. It would get real ugly real quick.

I knew he was going to find out about the Dursley’s ill treatment of me eventually, and he would surely tell everyone as soon as he has the chance. But for reasons I couldn’t fathom, that fact didn’t faze me in the slightest. If anything it triggered a warm rush of relief in my chest.

Not even Sirius and Remus knew about the extent of their treatment. I would have never told them willingly anyways. Both hadn’t been raised by muggles, so whenever asked, I weaved the same old tale I had been weaving for everyone else; they couldn’t fully ‘understand’ me and my needs. They tried, but we were from two different worlds. That’s that.

They understood that, I’ve mingled enough truth and the right amount of lies and details to picture myself as the typical teenager. A magical teenager struggling with muggle guardians. They understood that they were my real family and the Dursleys were only another obligation. Another thing to check off my list for the sake of my safety.

‘One day we’d all be a big family. You, me and the rest of us.’ Sirius had said. Who did he mean? Besides us? Would Remus or even Mrs. Weasley have a place in there? It never occurred to me to ask those questions when the time was right.

Sirius was never too fond of Mrs. Weasley, but it wasn’t personal. I could tell he was just jealous. He got angry, snappish, when he got jealous. Jealous that Mrs. Weasley and her husband were there sooner than him, as if it was a race. Maybe he was envious over the fact that my prominent authority figures were Ron’s parents first and then he and Remus if an emergency occurred?

The summer before he died, before the world fell apart and I was the only one left standing, I caught him lingering by the kitchen’s doorframe, only in a way that I could see his haunting silhouette on the opposite wall. Molly and I were alone in the kitchen. I knew he was eavesdropping before I could even see the shadow, but Mrs. Weasley had no idea.

It was a mere hour after the Boggart incident, she was clearly shaken up. Her hands were white knuckled around her quivering tea mug, everyone else was either gone or asleep in their respective rooms. I couldn’t sleep, and she couldn’t too.

She made us tea, although neither of us finished the sweet smelling chamomile liquid in the end.

“Mrs. Weasley…” I trailed off, having nothing else to say. Should I apologize? I wondered. Would an apology make a difference? I’m sorry your children are friends with me and I look up to you? I’m sorry that you saw me dead or that you see me as a son?

She raised her mug to take a hasty sip but seemingly changed her mind and set the tea back on the table.

She stared at me as if I was a ghost. “Oh Harry, dear.” She stroked my cheek with a warm soft hand. I smiled awkwardly, my hands tapping on my own mug.

“It was just a boggart.” I blurted out to her, then cursed myself for sounding like a jerk. As I opened my mouth to apologize, she nodded in agreement.

“I’ve heard you’ve had your fair share of those.” She patted my cheek one last time and then chuckled. I flushed at the incident. “Ron told you?” that was strange, Ron barely told his mom anything. Half of the things that we did would have gotten him grounded for the rest of his life. According to him (not that he was wrong).

She shook her head. “Remus told me all about it.”

Oh. My mind drew to a blank. So Remus and she talked? Why did I ever assume that they didn’t? “I guess.” I twiddled my hands. “It wasn’t real though, that’s the good thing about it. Right?”

Her body stiffened, her brows were drawn in an absentminded frown. “I suppose.” She finally said, raising her tea mug again.

I mimicked her movements like a toddler would, not on purpose. But I felt too little in her presence. She held herself back, I felt as if she thought I was obtuse, or couldn’t fully grasp the real terror boggarts emitted. Like a toddler couldn’t look past the lost dessert or a broken toy. She thought I couldn’t get the big picture.

“That’s not the scary part.” I continued while taking a small sip of the hot burning liquid. It burnt the inside of my mouth. It made me feel alive. Her head snapped up. I was all too aware of Sirius standing by the doorframe.

“The scary part is when you realize how easily our fears can come true.” I took another tentative sip, my throat burning pleasantly by the sweetness and the sheer hotness.

She sighed, tears circling in her eyes. She let go of her mug, lunged herself at me, and pressed me in a bone crushing embrace. She smelled like flowers, the treacle tart we just had after dinner and chamomile tea. I sank into the hug.

Her shoulders shook and I realized she was crying. Sirius and I were the only witnesses.

“I-I-I c-c-can-t-t lose them!” the woman wept in my arms. My throat clogged and I hugged her back just as fiercely as she was crushing my lungs.
“I’ll try my best.” I vowed. “I promise I’ll keep them safe at any cost Mrs. Weasley.” She drew back so violently that I almost landed atop of her on the table. Tears were still streaming down her face as her lip quivered.

“You think…you think that I…Oh Harry!” this time, she was crying for me and I felt bad again. Sirius shifted anxiously by the door and I prayed that he stayed put. This was possibly the worst time for him to be interrupting us.

“I’m sorry.” I muttered. Her arms got impossibly tighter around my shoulders.

Her breath came out in hitched hiccups, and my neck was getting progressively wetter by her tears. “You’re my son!” she exclaimed tearfully. “I-I can’t lose you too! Didn’t you know that?!”

Sirius and I blanched at the same time.

I saw the silhouette’s hands clench into fists as I went slack in shock. I have never heard her admit that outright. Surely she didn’t mean that? Surely she was just scared and emotional?

I’ve heard Arthur Weasley admit that he looked at me ‘like’ he would at his son, I’ve gotten jumpers every year and gotten scolded along with the others as well. So has Hermione (to a very a lesser extent). But I never actually thought that they thought of me as one of their /sons/.

I didn’t know what to do with the information. So I did the next best thing.

“I knew.” I lied to her, rubbing her back. Sirius left.

Their relationship was never quite the same after that incident, not until Padfoot went and died.

That night, when I slept in my new plaid pajamas, I realized how true my own words were. Fear of an occurrence, of a particular situation, like dying, was worse than fearing a living being or an inanimate object.

Not when you constantly feared and knew how easily they could happen at any time that they couldn’t vanquish. You can’t kill an idea. Death knocks at one’s door out of nowhere, no matter how much prepared you are. Abuse, injustice and war happens, people are afraid of them, but it happens as easily as falling asleep.

At midnight that night, exactly as the clock struck one minute after twelve, my twisting stomach lurched me to a sitting position. I gasped with wide eyes and grunted at the harsh cramps.

It got worse, I felt nausea crawl up my throat and dashed out of the bed, clamping a cold sweaty hand over my mouth. I don’t how I got there in time, but I’m pretty sure I stubbed my toe to the door in the darkness twice. Severus was nowhere to be seen as I heaved into the toilet, he was in the basement. Obliviously brewing me a potion.

The cramping only got worse and the pain was so unbearable, it brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t have my glasses but the tears blurred my vision anyway, my head swam and my intestines turned themselves over in the loving embrace of our toilet. Merlin it was disgusting. Painful, and disgusting.
My throat burned and my stomach tensed as another wave of nausea crashed down over my body, my guts actually /throbbed/ and my chest burned. I had no idea what was going on.

I was alone when it was finally over, hugging the white porcelain relief, my clammy forehead pressed against the tip of the seat as my stomach /burned/ and /burned/ and /burned/.

I crawled back to my room in an agonizingly slow pace. I knew where my glasses were and I had no idea what I had just thrown up. It was too red. Too red to be seasoned tomato sauce, my heart clenched in fright and I felt as if acid drops were forcibly being injected into my system.

Somehow, through the haziness and the minimal light my balcony provided I found my glasses on the night stand and quickly fumbled back to the bathroom. I staggered, felt the nauseating drops of sand and the heavy air cling to my arms as I got back.

Where was Snape? Should I call for him?

Dragging myself to the toilet, my stomach rolled at the gory sight.

“Oh Ford.”

Blood clots. No mistakes about it, there, shining almost black under the moonlight that ruefully streamed from the small window. It was blood.

In perfect ribbon like stripes along with my dinner and whatever else that was in my stomach. I flushed it all down as soon as I gathered my wits, feeling as if the memory should disappear with the blood as well. I felt sickened, I didn’t know why. Why was I sick again? I shouldn’t be sick. Not by definition. I wasn’t sick.

Throwing up blood was pretty much an emergency on the spectrum, and I never had experienced them before. Granted, I had a bad case of nausea last night but, would this be a common occurrence from now? What was even causing it?

I couldn’t tell Snape, telling Snape would equal him shipping me back to Hogwarts. To pain, and misery and poison. To my abhorring oncologist and my doomed ward. Whether my sickness was cancer related or not, I decided grimly as I settled back under the covers, whether these stomach aches meant something and whether they were going to happen again…Snape cannot know.

Because if there was one thing I learnt from Molly Weasley that night was that sharing your fears, your vulnerability, only leveraged the impending terror for so long. The emotion that replaced that original fear… that desperation people get when they realize nothing can be done even though everyone know your deepest fear…

That’s the emotion I hated the worst.

And Snape was wrong; turns out intestines could throttle the brain after all.