Undiscovered by Alexis18

The next day was much the same as the first, endless walking in a dark, damp cave. Harry was not one to be claustrophobic considering how much time he'd spent locked in a cupboard, but he did long for fresh air and the outdoors. He thought about Ron and Hermione and what they were doing at the moment, then he wondered if Hagrid had finally gotten his hands on the green-tailed Moke creature he'd been wanting for weeks. Eventually he was bored enough to attempt conversation with the dour potions master in front him.

"Uh Sir?"

although he couldn't see it, he was almost sure Snape was scowling.

"Yes Potter?"

"How did you find out about this place?"

"Long hours or research and hardwork, something I doubt you've ever done. "

That was a rather biting response but he was ready to be scolded rather than endure the dullness of silence.

"And what did this research entail?"

"Big heavy books that even Ms Granger would find unpleasant."

More silence,

"Sir, Why do you teach at Hogwarts when you could just live in the Manor?"

Even more silence. He waited a little longer this time.

"Did you…"

"Potter! how about this, I shall answer a question of yours if you answer a question of mine? 3 questions each."

Harry pondered for a moment, "Okay but you have to answer it completely, no half-truths."

He didn't trust that Snape would answer completely otherwise.

"Alright but same goes for you, and we both may decline to answer 1 question. You go first."

Harry thought a little longer, he didn't want to waste any of his three questions.

" Have you seen Vol… You-Know-you since his return?" It was a topic he'd thought on all summer and Snape would actually be someone very much in-the-know about Voldemort.

"Yes. He called a meeting shortly after that night in the graveyard," Harry cringed at the mention, "and many after that, I believe unfortunately for us all, he is well and truly back. Does that answer your question?"

Nearly, "What is he planning?"

"I'm not entirely sure, I only know that he intends to steal something from the ministry and is continuing to break Death Eaters out of Azkaban."

Snape had well and truly answered him, it was more than he'd been getting from Sirius, Hermione and Ron put together.

"Alright your turn." He was curious about what Snape would ask.

"Did you ever tell anyone about your home life?"

Ugh, he should've guessed that Snape would ask about this. He'd been so weirdly inquisitive and Harry wasn't sure why. He was a little worried that Snape was just storing up info to taunt him with later but some small part naïvely trusted him.

"Twice and another time accidentally." He hoped that would be enough to satisfy Snape.

"Elaborate." Of course it wasn't.

He tried to speak in an emotionless monotone voice, the same tone he'd use when reading from a history book. "In grade two, there was a teacher Ms O'connely. She kept asking about what my relatives were like and one day I caved and told her everything. She went and confronted my uncle, he told her I was a pathological liar and made up things to gain sympathy, she sortiv' hated me after that."

He subtly shuddered at the memory of what he'd uncle had done that week.

"And the second time?"

"Grade 5. Mr Limbardo. I wasn't allowed to get grades higher than Dudley and he began to notice me purposely failing tests. He kept going on about how I had 'potential' and it annoyed me to the point I told him why 'potential' was completely useless. "

He'd lost his uncaring tone and was speaking bitterly. He quickly replaced it and continued.

"Anyway, he said he was going to fix it, I pleaded with him not to go to my uncle. He agreed and said he'd go to the authorities instead. I'm not really sure what happened to him but he had to fly to Ireland for some emergency, frankly I was relieved."

"What about the accidental time?"

He was beginning to think he got the rougher end of this deal, Snape's answer was not nearly this long.

"The school nurse, I was sent there after a run in with Dudley and Co. She noticed some of the other stuff and put two and two together. She wanted to help but I wasn't willing to say anything, I'd learnt my lesson. Sometimes she gave me bandages and Panadol though, that really was quite nice."

He thought that surely he had satisfied Snape's question and continued on.

"Why did you stop being a Death Eater?"

Even in the dim light he could see Snape tense.

"Ask a different question."

"What? why?"

"Remember our agreement Potter."

Now he wanted an answer more than ever, nevertheless he changed questions.

"Why did you try and save me during first year? During that Quidditch match when Quirrell hexed my broom."

"You are a student and no matter how much I may dislike you, I don't make a habit of letting my students die."

Well that seemed logical and revealed nothing. Now he was stuck with Snape's question.

"Why didn't you tell Dumbledore why you wanted to stay at Hogwarts over the summer?"

That was hard to explain. "Well I did say that my relatives hated me and I guessed he knew a little bit about what happened, but he explained the blood magic and the fact that I needed it to be safe from Vol.. You-Know-Who. After that I kinda had bigger problems to deal with, I could handle it."

His last question, he decided to take a risk. "Did you know my mother?" He knew they were similar ages and went to Hogwarts at the same time, logic dictated that he might of known of her at least.

"Yes," Harry's heart skipped a beat but he didn't fail to notice the weary sigh in Snape's voice.

"I knew her before we went to Hogwarts, she lived nearby. We were quite close, I was the one to tell her she was even a witch."

Harry couldn't believe that Snape had been friends with his mother. It brought up so many more questions but he could only whisper out one.

"What was she like?" He knew he'd already maxed out his questions but he needed to know. Snape didn't seem to mind him breaking the rule, thankfully.

"She was…. spirited and kind. Lily lit up any room she walked into. She was fiery and impulsive but still managed to be sneaky enough to pull many harmless pranks. Her favourite subject was charms, she would make practically make anything walk, fly dance or sing, including everyone of her school books, and mine, for that matter."

Harry hung onto every word Snape said, he was shocked about the way he spoke about her, like they were old best friends.

"What happened between you two?"

Snape's soft demeanour was gone in a flash, "I believe you well and truly used up your three questions. I however, have one left."

"Why were you in a cupboard when I arrived?"

Harry briefly faltered in his step.

"A different question." He was glad they'd added that rule, he wasn't explaining the cupboard to Snape.

"Alright, how long has your uncle been physical with you?"

The professor really did have a knack for asking hard questions.

"Well he wasn't ever this bad before."

"That wasn't what I asked."

He huffed in annoyance, "Fine, basically for as long as I can remember. It used to just be a few knocks here and there but it escalated."

"And what were the punishments for?"

"You already used your three questions." Unlike Snape, he was not willing to answer a bonus question.

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence and Harry began imagining pictures out of the cracks on the walls to fend off boredom. They walked for perhaps an hour or two before Snape abruptly stopped and Harry half bumped into him.

"Can you hear that?"

Harry strained his ears and listened closely. Yes, there was a sound of something familiar….. water! running water!

"Yes, it sounds like a stream of some sort."

Snape nodded in agreement and they both sped off at a quicker pace enthused by the fact they'd found something.

The noise was getting louder and louder and soon they walked into a cavern with high ceilings and a small stream running down the centre of it. The water gleamed unnaturally and Harry found it very hard to distinguish where the water entered of left the cavern from.

"What do you think this is?"

Snape edged closer to the water and peered speculatively at it.

"An obstacle of some sort. I believe it'd be best not to touch the water, theres some type of magic in it and I'd guess that its not friendly."

Harry silently agreed, it was much to inviting and sparkly to be safe.

"How do you suppose we cross it?"

It would be easy to cross on foot; at most it would only go to their knees but Harry thought that was part of its trap.

"We carefully levitate ourselves using Levicorpus to stop our descent."

Snape walked right up to the water edge and used a small propelling spell to lift himself up, right before he would've landed in the water he stopped himself, hovered briefly in the air, and then propelled forward once more. This cycle repeated about four times before Snape finally allowed himself to fully land on the safety of shore on the other side, looking expectantly at Harry.

Harry walked up to the same spot Snape had and uttered the spells to propel and catch himself. He was not nearly as graceful as Snape had been but it worked nonetheless. It was only when he got to his last descent that he judged it badly and subsequently fell backwards. He instinctively put an arm behind him to catch himself and felt something cool on the very edge of his fingertips.

He froze as he realised he was touching the water and waited for the inevitable pain or torment but, strangely, none came. Tentatively withdrawing his hand he inspected it and found it completely fine. Not even a drop of water as evidence it was ever wet.

Snape stood impatiently waiting for him to get up and Harry noticed that he hadn't seen his slip up. He was about to explain what happened when he thought better of it; he'd only just put a very small fingertip in it, it had done nothing and really didn't seem to be a cause for alarm. Besides, he could do without Snape scolding him for disobeying for at least one hour.

And so they spent another more time marching monotonously through tunnels, mud and dirt. Harry felt sore, his injuries were flaring up and try as he might, it was getting harder to ignore them. If that wasn't enough he felt kinda…. hot. Like this whole place was just one big sauna that was heated up past its maximum setting. He was going to mention it to Snape but he wasn't sure he had enough energy to uphold one of Snape's vigorous conversations; often their discussions felt like a game of chess and currently, he was in no mood to play.

When Snape made a move to rest for the time being , his shoulders sagged in relief. Even rolling out his sleeping mat seemed to take a momentous effort and he couldn't help his slight swaying. He more or less collapsed onto the thing, not bothering to arrange himself into a more comfortable position.

"Food Mr Potter?" Drawled a voice from next to him.

The thought of eating seemed disgusting and he stomach turned in on itself at the thought.

"I'm good thanks." he didn't feel good but that was besides the point.

***

Severus stared at the boy, indeed it seemed he had absolutely no interest in food, hardly a good sign from a teenage boy. He took a minute to properly study Potter; he seemed pale and weak, face strained in some sort of discomfort despite his eyes being closed. He swiftly placed his hand to the boy's forehead and Potter's green eyes opened widely. His suspicions were proved correct, the boy had a fever.

"What the hell was that?" The Gryffindor stared back as if he'd been violated, Snape fought the urge to snort. All he did was briefly touch the boy.

"You are sick." He was not, and never will be, one to step around the matter at hand.

"No I'm not…" came the grumbled reply.

"How long have you been feeling sick?"

"I dunno…. probably since the stream?"

A bad feeling came over Severus, he hoped he was wrong.

"You did. not. touch the water right Potter?"

the boy's face betrayed him and Snape couldn't help the anger bubbling to the surface.

"For the love of…. Why in merlins name did you neglect to mention this?"

It seemed Potter too sensed his anger and was quick to defend himself.

"It was only the very tip of my finger! nothing happened so I figured it was fine."

"Do you not think it has no relation to your current situation?"

Understanding dawned on the boy's face and Snape felt all the more frustrated.

"How is it that seem to attract trouble like excrement attracts flies! If you had stopped and thought for a moment you might have realised that those waters were obviously cursed and you only needed the smallest of drops to be affected."

To his credit Potter did have the sense to look embarrassed at his oversight and didn't make any retort back.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and contemplated the situation. It was lucky that he had made such preparations in the event that one of them fell ill. Stalking over to his bag, he roughly pulled out two fever reducers and returned to Potter.

"Drink this." he offered one of the bluey/grey vials out towards Potter who eyed it suspiciously.

"What is is?"

"Something that will correct your lapse of judgement."

When the boy made no further move he thrusted it more forcefully towards him "For merlin's sake Potter, its a fever reducer. It won't kill you"

After one more dubious glance, Potter quickly downed it and handed the empty vial back to him.

"It should work within 10 minutes. We will know its effectiveness then."

Potter nodded tiredly and was asleep nearly instantly. Snape sighed very softly to himself; he'd need to monitor the boy's condition, he had no idea how well the fever reducers would work on an illness brought on by strange waters. He decided to take a quick power-nap, grabbing any sleep he could get in the next few hours was vital and now was as good a time as any.

He however, greatly underestimated how tired he was. The apparition and constant walking had taken their toll and he woke up roughly 2 hours later. In fact he was sure he would've slept longer but there was a small noise that brought him out of unconsciousness.

Quickly sitting himself he cast a quick Lumos and looked over to his charge, Potter was shivering violently and very softly murmuring. Severus tried to make out the words but they were completely indecipharal, gently he placed his hand across the boy's forehead and fought the urge to jerk away when it was burning hot.

Concern was now rapidly growing in the pit of his stomach as he took stock of the situation. Deciding to wake Potter he grabbed the boy's shoulders and shook. When this illicited no reaction he shook harder.

"Potter. Potter, wake up."

Slowly green eyes opened, hazy and unfocused.

He grabbed the second fever reducer from earlier and all but tipped it down Potters throat, there were no protests surprisingly and it warned of how out-of-it the boy truly was.

He would wait the 10 minutes and watch to make sure the fever reducer worked. If not well….he had a back up plan but he rather not use that quite yet.

He relit the fire in an effort to provide some much needed warmth and light, he really hoped this situation would pass over quickly; he'd had enough mini emergencies for a life time, just once he wanted to get away from insolent brats, meddling old men and Dark Lords.

Instead he was stuck in some dreary cave with the spawn of his deceased arch nemesis collecting some weapon Dumbledore wanted to keep from Voldermort. A quick cast of tempus told him it was 11:42pm, without the spell it was practically impossible to tell what time it was down here where there was no light.

He checked on Potter after ten minutes had passed and was dismayed to find that his fever hadn't changed. Perhaps had even gone up a few degrees. He fished out another vial and eyed it distrustfully. A Chattering Elixer, it had very strong healing properties; including numbing pain and maintaining core body temperatures but it also tended to leave its patients a little loose lipped. It was quite often used in St. Mungo's after some procedures and almost all patients had been reported to speak nonesensical sentences and behave in dreamlike states.

He did not want to be stuck with an insane talkative Potter, not at all. But…. his options were limited. Maybe if he just paid the boy no attention he'd just shut up, it gave him enough hope to make a decision.

Walking over once again to the boy he forcefully shook him awake.

"Potter."

The boy came to with the same slowness as before.

"I'm about to give you a potion which will almost definitely rid you of your fever, however you will also feel a little bit…strange. Probably talk about inane things that don't make sense or prattle about whatever floats through your attention span. Ok?"

It took a few moments for the boy to catch up until he finally understood and glared at him with hazy eyes.

"Is there….. any…..…thing, anything else?" he words were slow and deliberate and Severus shook his head indicating the answer.

"Fine."

Severus was doing it with or without consent but he preferred to have it. Glad with the reply, he passed over the bottle of fluro orange liquid and watched approvingly as Potter downed it. 30 seconds later and the results became obvious. Potter's eye were no longer scrunched in pain but glazed and unseeing. His body language that had been pretty much submissive since Severus had first got him was now open and relaxed. He only hoped that Potter would simply use the pain-free time to get some sleep or at the very least, stay silent.

"Brown, black brown." It seemed that his previous hopes were quickly demolished

"Excuse me?"

"This place. The colours, brown black and ber-rrrown, bit boring isn't it?" Severus decided that he would definitely take pleasure in taunting this over the boy later.

"Well we're hardly here for entertainment Potter."

the boy scrunched his nose up in confusion, "Who's we?"

Before Severus could reply Potter continued on "You know Hedwig really is a nice bird. All white and fluffy and and feathery." "Do you have an owl?"

"Yes."

"I bet Hedwig would like him. Or her. Is it a him or her? you know what, it doesn't matter, Hedwig will like them anyway."

Snape stoked the fire with a short burst from his wand simply to give himself something to do. He heard a gasp from Potter and looked over at him curiously.

"You…. how…. what did you do?"

It took him a minute to understand to what Potter was referring to.

"You mean fixing the fire with magic?"

Potter rolled his eyes, "Remember you're not supposed to say magic."

"And why not?"

"Well I'm not too sure, just… don't say it. Maybe men with silver hands will come. Don't like the silver handed man."

Severus sighed as he realised all to well to whom Potter was referring to, hoping to direct the conversation to something more positive he tried a different tactic.

"How are classes going Mr Potter?" never mind that it was summer,

"Classes? ohhhh like Hoggywarts classes. Well I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking what my grades are? what classes I enjoy? how much the staircase moves when I try and go to each class…."

"What subjects do you enjoy?" he went for the question that made the most sense before the boy could ramble on endlessly

"Potions."

His eyebrows hot way past his hairline. To say he was surprised would've been the understatement of the year.

"What? surely you hate potions?"

"Well I hate the class but you asked subject, two verrrrrrryy different things."

"Oh?"

"You see there are subjects I like and classes I hate, and classes I like but subjects I hate."

"And potions falls into the former?"

A strange grin formed on Potters face making Severus feel a little uneasy. "Yeah who wouldn't like the thought of potions? mixing stuff, making stuff, all the things they can do. It's awesome."

Severus couldn't really find much fault with what the boy said.

"But the class? well that went downhill from daaaaaay 1. Think the teacher already hated me, 'cause I was taking notes and he asked this like, super hard question. For someone who had just found out wizards were real days before, I had no hope. What's his name sss….Snam…..Snap!" he abnoxiously popped the 'p' sound.

Severus felt a very small tendril of guilt hearing the story. Potter had been taking notes? The question had been unfair for first year and he knew it, it was just so hard to see a mini version of James once again placed to taunt him.

"See a class I like and subject I dislike would be Defence Against the Dark Arts. Its fun in class sometimes, mainly when Professer werewolf taught it, but the subject is rather depressing to think about."

"Indeed?" Severus was a little amused by Potter's slip up of Lupins name.

"Yeah, like the fact that I know I have to learn it well cause Voldemort keeps comin' after me and I need to defend myself. I wish I could learn it without my life depending on it."

Severus had to admit it rather did have some logic. Potter seemed to internalise his ramblings for a little bit and it was silent for a few minutes.

Something from before bothered him, it wasn't fair at all to ask while Potter was in such a state but he couldn't help himself…

"Potter, tell me about the cupboard."

The grin from before slid off the boy's face like a flame doused with water.

"My cupboard? well what do you want to know, Wally was a bit weird but you just had to get to know him."

He had no idea what to make of the answer so far, his cupboard?

"Who's Wally?"

"The spider who lived with me in my cupboard. Honsetly, I think there might have been a few spiders but I just called them all Wally."

Absolute dread was going the Severus and he felt a mixture of anger and sadness warring within him.

"You… You lived in a cupboard?"

He wanted to punch something when Potter simply shrugged. "Wasn't soooo bad. Just had to make some friends like Wally."

"Did you sleep in this cupboard?"

Potter regarded him quizzically, like it was the most normal thing in the world "Yes."

"Do you… still live there?" He managed to reign in his temper a small smidgen when the boy shook his head.

"Think they mighta been a bit scared from the notes…. letters" he corrected.

"They had that nice handwriting, Mr Potter, number 4 Privet drive, the cupboard under the stairs." He said the last part of the sentence in an very exaggerated posh tone.

So no one at Hogwarts had noticed the strange address then? He knew they were self writing quills but surely someone would look at the golden boys letter. Another thought quickly occurred to him,

"Are you aware that a Hogwarts's letter is addressed using magic?"

That hazy gaze stared at him.

"No..?"

"How did you think they were written?"

Another shrug, "Not really sure I suppose, later I thought Dumbles wrote them, meant he knew about…."

So the boy picked up on what he feared, Potter thought Dumbledore knew everything and still sent him back there. It was misconception he wanted to correct but Potter would recall very little of this conversation thus making it pointless.

A strange sound came from Potter and Severus finally realised it was giggling.

"You know you're like Batman for real."

He had no clue what that meant "I'm not familiar with this 'Batman'"

"He's a superhero. He wears all black all the time, he has a super deep voice, he has to keep his identity a secret and he fights evil, basically saving everyone."

He figured it was some type of muggle reference but most shocking was Potter placing him in the role of the good guy, surely he was the snarky villain in Potter's story? He was probably taking the incoherent rambling too seriously.

"I don't wanna go back to the cupboard." It was said so quietly that had there been any other noise in the cavern he would've surely missed it. In that instant Potter seemed a lot less like the famous wizard people had such high expectations of and much more like a kid.

It was that sentence that gave him pause, he wasn't quite sure why he said what he said next,

"You won't have to. I promise."

That large grin was back, "Shoulda said bye to Wally then."

Harry's eyes began to close and Severus thought this was time for the potion to actually do its work and get rid of the fever now that the babbling part had mostly ran its course.

"Sleep, you need it."

That pretty much pushed Potter over the edge and he was out almost instantly, but not before one last sentence.

"Night, Batman."

A small tug at the corner of Severus's mouth was his only reaction.