Lost Entry II
Aunt petunia ushered us straight to her kitchen, not pausing in the hallway, and not lingering by the living room to greet Dudley, the boy didn’t even acknowledge his mother, deeply engrossed by the telly.
I was so dumbstruck; I didn’t have enough strength to mourn the familiar sights and the passing glimpse of my cupboard under the stairs.
“Seat there,” she pointed at Vernon’s usual chair, and scowled at Severus.
The potion master humored her with a sneer and sank down on the chair, immediately the man leaned back and crossed his arms.
“How kind of you, to invite us to your home Petunia,” he drawled, his words drenched in sarcasm, his expression cruelly impassive. He looked at Petunia the way he looked at a worthless bug, or occasionally Neville.
I shuffled by the doorframe, I wasn’t sure how to simultaneously act around the two of them without causing some big catastrophe, or kick starting the apocalypse, so I crammed my sweaty hands deep in my pockets and just stood there.
Petunia carelessly threw her grocery bags on the kitchen table, her lips were pinched as if she had swallowed a lemon and her eyes were filled with hatred. Hatred that for once wasn’t directed at me.
It was surprising, how much my Aunt could hate another human being more than me or my mother.
“Are you satisfied now?” she spat at him. “Causing a scene and brandishing your /freakishness/ in my neighborhood?”
“Are you?” Severus asked calmly.
Aunt Petunia lurched forward, slamming her hands loudly against the table. “Don’t play games with me Snape,” she threatened. “We’re not toddlers anymore.”
Then Petunia turned to face me, her eyes narrowed and her mouth curled, she showed no outward surprise to my deteriorating body, or my whimsy, thinned hair. She didn’t even looked phased by the new, fitting clothes.
“Boy,” she seethed. “Put the kettle on,”
She sank down in her own seat. “Always you. It’s always you.” She muttered under her breath. I wasn’t sure if she meant Snape or me.
The man was now staring at me; subtly trying to gauge my reactions to the order, I was given.
My legs forced themselves to move by their own accord, walking around the chairs, I reached for the kettle. My back was turned. The other two fell silent and the only sound was the telly blaring gunshots from the living room. I mentally rolled my eyes. The gunshots just about fit the mood settling in the kitchen. There was an eerie calm before both sides started bombarding each other.
“Do you always talk to him that way when he makes tea?” Severus asked Petunia.
My back stiffened, I almost dropped the empty kettle. I held it up higher in my arms and almost jogged to the sink. Being extra careful to avoid eye contact and pretend as if I was deaf.
“The way I handle my nephew is none of your goddamn business Snape. He makes fucking tea because I asked him to.” I’ve never heard her cuss like that before.
Severus remained calm. “Do you talk to your son the same way?”
“Shut up freak, just…just shut up.”
I opened the tap, and filled the kettle; it quivered in my hands as I set it on the stove, my breath unconsciously speeding up.
I had to put a stop to this, I desperately thought and turned to face the potion master.
“Professor Snape,”
He cut me off. “Seat down Harry.”
I gaped at the man. Did he just…? Did he call me by my first name? Was it because he wanted to screw with Aunt Petunia? Did he do it by accident, or did I imagine him talking to me? (That happens sometimes)
Oh, Merlin’s soggy socks…this man was driving me insane. I thought I knew what he was doing, despite the initial shock and Petunia’s obvious misunderstanding, I thought I knew exactly how the potion master was going to play the cards in his favor.
His tragic childhood, or new clothes or responsible adult talks didn’t convince me to admit I was abused, so he was going to make me admit the abuse by witnessing it. How very Slytherin of him.
“Professor…”
“Professor?” Petunia asked in a shrill voice. “You’re his /teacher/?”
“Did you think I just found him on the street and dragged him along? Of course, he’s my student. Unlike you, Tuney, some of us did make something out of our lives.”
She actually snarled at him. “I rather die than be in your freaky shoes Snape.”
“I can safely say the sentiment goes both ways.” Snape shot back impassively. “Harry, come join us at the table now. Surely your aunt can complete the tea.” He didn’t look at me as he said this. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Petunia’s hateful glare.
“You don’t get to boss him around,” She snapped at him.
“You don’t either;” Sev pointed out. “Since you’re not willing to take him back in. he has no reason to move about in /your/ kitchen, in /your/ house to make tea.”
“Harry, come seat. Now please,” I complied, sinking down next to the man.
“Now Petunia,” Severus interlocked his fingers on the table. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“Do what?” my aunt spat out.
“Your confession.”
She balked, her thin face drained of all color. “M-M-My confession? What the hell are you on about?”
Snape leant back against Uncle Vernon’s chair with ease. “Look your nephew in the eyes, and apologize. Then confess to your shortcomings. Your wretched behavior towards your /sister’s/ innocent child, and then, only then I just might let you live.”
Oh shit, this was going to be awful. I shook off the initial shock that my Aunt was still experiencing and tugged at Snape’s arm, my head hung low.
“Sir there really is no need for-.”
He didn’t shake off my hand off him as he started talking. “If you forgave this blasted woman in your journal, then she gets to do the actual act of apologizing in real life.”
“You-.”
“Yes, I read your entries.” He admitted without an ounce of shame.
“You had no right to do that!”
“I have every right if it concerns child abuse,” he turned to Petunia. “I have something /special/ planned out for your dear husband too Tuney. Such lucky timing that you ran into us. Saved me a considerable amount of time and effort.”
Aunt Petunia was speechless, her mouth opened and closed as her head snapped back and forth between the two of us.
“Go on Mrs. Dursley. Do the right thing,”
“I have nothing to apologize for.” She finally blurted out, regaining some of her anger.
“Yet, your dying nephew found it in his heart to forgive you. Did you know that he’s dying Petunia? Did Albus tell you?”
“He was already living on borrowed time, the fault in his freaky genes aren’t mine.”
“You blasted wrench, how dare you, how dare you sully your sister’s name and her husband’s?” Snape’s anger surprised me. “In front of their child no less. You seem really dim on the uptake don’t you? You’ve seem to have forgotten that I’m a death eater.”
“You know what we do Petunia?” he drawled, his body unconsciously leaning over the table.
“What I still do on a daily basis? I’ve /skinned/ people alive, I’ve boiled them, I’ve starved them until they started consuming their own limbs out of hunger. I’ve burned them from the inside out with nothing but a twitch of my wand. You dare talk that way again and I’ll show you what I’m fully capable of.”
“You cannot hurt me, Dumbledore-,”
He waved her off with a hand. “I don’t care what Dumbledore promised you. I am a death eater and you are a child abuser, and trust me, even the most righteous wizard would take my word over yours. If you live to tell the tale, anyways.”
Aunt Petunia turned to me with flared nostrils and wide eyes. “Boy! Do something! Are you going to let him talk to me like that? We took you under our roof, we-.”
I cut her off as I turned to Severus. “You wanted to prove a point. You did. I admit it, fine. Please stop this now Professor. Uncle Vernon will be home any second now, today’s Sunday. Please sir, I admit it, yes they’ve abused me.”
Aunt Petunia visibly sagged against her chair.
“It’s nice to hear you saying the words Mr. Potter. But you have to mean it.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, it doesn’t matter to me, it didn’t to Dumbledore and it shouldn’t to you.”
“Show me your room,”
“I-what?”
“I won’t harm her permanently if you show me to your bedroom.”
He intensely stared into my eyes and I just knew that he didn’t mean Dudley’s second bedroom. “You don’t mean Dudley’s second bedroom,” my eyes widened at my goof. I didn’t mean to address the room the same way I thought of it.
“No,” Severus’s tone hardened. “I mean the cupboard under the stairs. Go on.”
“How-Just how did you-?” my eyes whipped back to Aunt Petunia’s disoriented face.
I turned my accusing glare to the potion master. He shrugged. “Your aunt needed better barriers to protect her sullied mind. I’m still not done with her,” his eyes narrowed. “But I need /you/ to be done defending /them/.”
I didn’t know why, but somehow my body stood without my mind’s consent and started walking to the hallway, the blasting sounds of the telly blaring behind me, and Severus’s warm hand an instant comfort against my neck.
Petunia trailed after us on shaky legs, her hand rubbing at her throbbing temples. I stood in front of the cupboard, seeing the familiar chips and oddities against the painted wood. Severus was right behind me as I reached out and opened the cupboard.
Even though the small space was shrouded in darkness, I could see various bottles of cleaning agents and detergents with several mops stored in there. My heart clenched as I finally reached out and turned on the lights.
My broken toy soldiers were crushed under the bleach, the ones I had carefully picked up from Dudley after he threw them out hours after buying them. The ones that I slept with every night since I was five years old. My cot, my toys, my crayon drawings, all of them were crushed under the dump Petunia had put in there instead of me.
That didn’t get me nearly as much as the bloody belt did, in the literal sense. Vernon’s worn belt with my dried blood on it was just casually thrown in over the mops, right on top.
Severus was staring at it with the same horror-stricken expression that mirrored mine. I wanted to close his eyes, lunge and take the brown leather belt that I remembered all too well since early childhood, but I was frozen in place. Severus had the perfect view, watching my crestfallen face and Petunia’s indifference and the belt. What did he think of me now?
Humiliation rolled off me in waves as I just stood there and tried to swallow the urge to cry.
“There are…mops, and cleaning-” I struggled to find the right word. “/Stuff/.” I pointedly ignored the belt. He just looked at me.
Petunia sneered at me. “You have your own room upstairs boy, stop the theatrics.”
“The-uh…why did you leave the /thing/? What good does that serve? You didn’t even wash off the blood-” I said it as if I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, which was surprising, since I knew this was exactly the kind of thing Aunt Petunia would do. The very thought of touching me and anything that belonged to me physically irked her. Vernon was too lazy to clean the belt. So they just threw it in here, out of sight.
Like I was.
I probably wouldn’t have been as disturbed by the revelation if Severus wasn’t watching everything from behind. Humiliation fueled my shock.
“It’s my house’s cupboard. I do whatever I want with it.” She spat.
“No, it’s not.”
It wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t just a cupboard. It was where I had lived for ten years, almost eleven if you counted last year. When Uncle Vernon started locking me in the small space, again after I returned home, it was more like a sanctuary to me than a prison.
The maze and the graveyard were so spacious, vast, /outside/, but both felt like an unescapable prison. The cupboard was a comfort, I was locked in, but instead of feeling claustrophobic, the place felt cozy to me.
You don’t leave the symbol of pain and sanctuary in the same place. The bloody belt didn’t belong in my cupboard, just as the bleach and the mops didn’t.
“It’s alright,” Severus, whispered, his voice was very low and I knew that the assurance was only meant for my ears. His hand clasped around my shoulder and held on tight as if he was grounding me, sticking me to the ground.
I thought the tumor was making me over-sentimental; I didn’t get the urge to cry often.
“This is not your worth, you’re not what these terrible muggles say that you are, do you hear me? This was not what you deserved. I want you to know that, to believe in what you say to me.”
Severus was the first person ever, to tell me a thing like that. No one has ever talked to me this way. I supposed the tumor and his words had more impact on me than the abuse was supposed to have.
“I-,” a small, meek sob slipped from my lips like a tiny drop of water from a cracking dam. One part of me wanted to shut him up. The other part wanted me to record his every word and play them again for the rest of my life.
“You don’t deserve to live this way, not when people like the Dursleys get to exist and do horrible things to people.” He turned me by my shoulders, not noticing how the telly suddenly turned off and there was silence. Silence and the sound of me panting for air.
Suddenly it hit me; Snape was right. How was this fair? Why did I have to lose my parents and then live in a cupboard for ten years? Why did they get to do those awful things to me when I was a child? And above all that, why was I dying when I’ve already suffered so much?
Was this justice? To be an orphan, get beaten, emotionally abused, harmed in every way, and then set to gradually die and know that your body is betraying you? How was that fair?
“This isn’t fair.” I breathed, still scrambling for some semblance of composure.
“It’s not,” Severus agreed, but his voice was far, far away from me.
I looked at Petunia and all I saw was hate. All that hate, I wondered how someone could store so much hate and disdain in his or her heart. How could you hate another human being? How could you hurt someone so much for so long and feel no remorse?
Why did I let it happen? Only a few minutes ago I was desperate for her approval, for her silence, for her ignorance so I wouldn’t get hurt. Why did other people let this happen? Why couldn’t they /see/? Couldn’t they know?
Having an epiphany has never felt more like a literal punch to the gut than that moment.
“I want you to understand this now Harry, once and for all.” Severus drew my attention to himself. My chest heaved.
“They treated you badly, no parent nor guardian does this to the children they have under their care. It wasn’t okay- it’s still not. You should be angry, and sad, and you may want to hurt them the way they hurt you. Those feelings are normal; you should be feeling that way. It wasn’t your fault, what they did to you wasn’t your fault.”
However, I wasn’t angry, I didn’t want to hurt them the way they hurt me. I was afraid. I was terrified of the doors that have opened upon me finally admitting the abuse to myself, and I wanted Severus to hug me to his chest like a little child so I could properly start crying. I didn’t need audience; I needed the privacy to vent off.
Severus seemed to finally get that, he stared into my glazed eyes and slightly nodded to himself. He briefly let go of my shoulder but then wrapped both of his arms around me and put my face against his chest. I almost died of an instant heart attack right then. Snape-bat of the dungeons Snape- DID NOT do hugs.
“I did the best I could.” Petunia gritted. “Spoiling the freak undermines everything I’ve done for him when I easily couldn’t have done them.”
“You were keeping the thing you beat the child with in the place where he slept the majority of his childhood. That’s by far the most disgusting thing I’ve seen you do Petunia. Do shut up.”
“I will deal with you and your whale of a husband Petunia. Never underestimate my threats nor my promises.” He said over my head, shifting us so we were facing away from my aunt.
“You, boy,” the potion master called, and I realized he was addressing Dudley, who was sort of standing there in the living room and silently gawking at us while his hands covered his bottom.
“Go upstairs in your room and lock the door, let a single peep out and I will have more than a pig’s tail for you.”
“Mom-.”
“Go Dudders, go and lock the door, call your father, tell him-,”
Severus smoothly interrupted her. His chest vibrating against my head as he spoke. “Tell him he’d better hurry and not waste our time any more. We do have other plans today.”
Dudley scurried past us so fast my hair shifted by the breeze it caused, he stomped his way upstairs and soon his door slammed shut with a loud bang. Severus was rubbing circles on my back to help me breathe, but I found that I couldn’t. He was actually causing more harm than good, but I didn’t have enough air to tell him that.
“Make yourself useful while your husband gets here Tuney. Bring him a glass of water, he’s obviously distressed.”
“You won’t hear the end of this you slimy bastard! Once Dumbledore knows what you’re doing he would come for you himself.”
Severus’s hand momentarily stilled on my back. “Well, you better pray he gets here before I’m done with you.” He drawled. “Don’t make me start things early Petunia, you might just get the burn of my rage and I saved that for your husband.”
I heard my aunt stride back to the kitchen and then Severus and I were alone in the hallway. I didn’t mind our position in the least, his clothes smelled of a peculiar mixture of herbs that I found very comforting and his hand steadied me without me having to stagger for balance.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be done here soon.” I had no idea what he meant by that. I knew he wasn’t going to kill them, killing the Dursleys wasn’t even an option, but I knew whatever he had in store for them wasn’t going to be pretty.
“Don’t hurt them please,” I gasped out and he frowned.
“This was unplanned, I’m sorry Harry. I meant to come over at night when you were asleep. Our run-in with your aunt this morning was accidental.” He didn’t sound regretful for that in the least, but he sounded sorry for causing me distress.
Petunia returned with the water, and grudgingly thrust the brimming glass to the potion master who caught it with grace.
Just as he was about to draw me away from his chest to hand me the glass the front door slammed open, and a fuming Vernon stood in the doorway, looking bloated and purple in the face.
“Vernon!” his wife cried out in relief.
“You UNGRATEFUL FREAK!” Uncle Vernon growled as he pointed a meaty finger at me. He charged at us.
Severus promptly let the glass fall form his hand and drew his wand out with no hesitation, “Stupefy.” Vernon dropped head first to the floor. Petunia screeched as she saw her falling husband and ran to his aid.
I stared at Snape with wide eyes as he surveyed the muggle couple. He tugged me close to his side and calmly took me to the living room; he sat me down on Petunia’s hideous floral couch and intensely stared me in the eyes.
“This won’t take long. Do you understand?” he said softly.
“I will be upstairs with your relatives for a while, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have cast a spell with you in the room. Can you stay here for a few minutes?”
I couldn’t talk; I couldn’t even will my face muscles to move. Snape concernedly touched my forehead and narrowed his eyes. “Here,” he reached for an afghan that was draped over one of the couches and nestled it around me.
“Is it better now? I think you’re going into shock.” He said this mostly to himself.
“Just close your eyes and rest, I will be back very soon.”
I didn’t want to close my eyes or rest and I didn’t want him to leave me to go and punish my relatives, I wanted him by my side so I could cry on his shoulder as I watched my childhood crumbled under cleaning products and then get the hell out of this place and never return. However, I couldn’t say any of those things to him, so I just dazedly watched as Severus strode back into the hallway.
Petunia screamed something intelligible and suddenly there were no sounds, only the stairs creaking occasionally and then there was nothing. I was alone, shivering in silence and gazing into nothingness.
I felt ridiculous, and uncomfortable in my skin, the sound of my breathing was very, disturbingly loud in my ears in the tense silence. It wasn’t the normal kind of silence; it wasn’t a natural kind where all mouths were shut as the world went on about its business. The room was devoid of /any/ sound, which made my breathing sound like angry storms and dark clouds rumbling in the tiny living room.
Part of me was in denial, not ready to believe that any of this was happening. Severus knew Aunt Petunia, Severus knew about the cupboard under the stairs because he saw it in her mind, he knew that uncle Vernon used to beat me around because he saw that too and he knew that they weren’t sorry in the least.
Most importantly, he was doing something about it, somewhat even solving it, hopefully not by killing them, but still. He didn’t react the way other adults did; he didn’t run to the nearest authority figure in charge and then stand by the sidelines to watch them do nothing.
He took the matters in his own hands, in the literal sense.
No one screamed. There was no tortured moans or pleading going on upstairs, in fact, the lack of sound was so profound that the use of a rather potent silencing charm wasn’t even questioned. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t seat around and let Severus hurt her and her husband in silence.
Sometime later, there was a loud thud above my head and then the sound of something sliding against the floor and then dragged to the stairs. I got up on shaky legs and went to the hallway, my mouth wide open as my relatives trailed down behind Severus.
“Let’s take this to the living room,” he told me gravely. Quickly, I scrambled back into the living room, the afghan almost causing me to trip.
Petunia and Vernon were both red faced, with disheveled clothes and mused hair, their eyes were wide in a mix of fear and indignation as Snape gracelessly let them slump on the floor, in front of the couch.
He gestured me to seat down. “Your Aunt and Uncle wanted to have a few words with you before we finished up. Is that alright with you?”
I nodded. Snape gave a subtle nod to my relatives and with a jostle; I realized that they hadn’t been silenced by force or magic. What had the potion master done to them?
Vernon bristled as he turned his eyes on me. The vein on his forehead was almost on the verge popping. “Boy.” He grunted and I instinctively took a step back.
“Address him properly or I chop your bits off, Dursley,” Petunia let out a little squeak.
Vernon straightened up on the ground. “You said-.”
“I know exactly what I said. Apologize to him now.”
He seemed to struggle for a moment, looking back and forth between the potion master, and me Vernon’s face suddenly turned into a deep shade of purple.
“Don’t even think about it Dursley,” Severus sneered at him menacingly before the man could open his mouth and spew off insults. “You either stay muted or talk properly. Do try and hurry.”
“Just take him! Take that freak and leave us!” Petunia screeched.
“Ugh, Petunia, you never learn.”
This was getting me nowhere. “Um, sir. It’s okay, really. They don’t need to do this.”
Severus nodded. “You’re right, they don’t need to. They have to.”
Vernon grounded his jaw as he stared at me. “He’s right,” he pointed at Sev. “We owe you an apology.” My mouth fell open.
“For not letting you freeze to death on our doorstep the night they left you here, boy. We should have let you die so we didn’t have to go through the embarrassment of having someone like you around in our normal family.”
“Vernon-.” Petunia whimpered with fear. I was transfixed on his face, my ears hearing but my eyes not really seeing him.
Severus didn’t stop him.
“We should have fucking strangled you with the pillow Dudley passed on to you so we wouldn’t have to put up with your trail of death following us around for all these years. Look at you, boy; you think I don’t see it? You look like shit and it’s getting worse, whatever’s killing you? I’m glad it’s getting the job done-.”
Vernon shut up instantly, his face bloating and redder than before, his beady eyes violently moved to stare at the potion master. My head whipped around and I saw Severus narrowing his eyes as he intensely glared into Vernon’s eyes.
“Turn him into a slug.” I quietly said, breaking Severus’s concentrated gaze into Vernon’s mind. I was surprised at how casually he used his mind Occlumency as a torture device.
The potion master paused. “He deserves more.”
“I’m not the judge of that. Just turn him into a slug so he cannot hurt anyone else with his words.”
(Applaud my self-righteousness, I don’t think it happens as often as I like.)
He nodded at me once.
“Go wait outside.”
I never saw the Dursleys the same way again.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Warnings for; explicit language, mild gore and violence, Child abuse, physical abuse, Emotional abuse, child neglect, cruelty, improper use of Occlumency, and unreliable narrative
Lost Entry II
Chapter End Notes:
I didn't want to spend time on the Dursleys any more than I had to, mostly because the story features the aftermath of the abuse and not the action itself, and also because I liked their time with Severus to be from his perspective, so the upcoming chapter does glimpse at that.