Only that it wasn’t an understatement. The house really was very small. Snape didn’t even seem to have a TV.
Dudley would have hated the place.
There was a fireplace, and some free space around it, and everything else was books. Walls and walls of books.
Hermione would love it.
Snape led them up the stairs, to a small room with a bed covered in a dark-green blanket, a wardrobe, a desk and not much else. The only decoration was a large painting of a sallow-faced woman.
“Where’s all my things?” Rose exclaimed.
“In your new room, of course.” Snape put down Harry’s school trunk and broom and opened the wardrobe at the side of the room. “Here it is.”
“What? You can’t make Rose live in a wardrobe!” Harry suddenly could hear his own pulse, his heart beating an angry rhythm.
“It’s like Narnia”, Rose exclaimed. “Come, look, Harry!”
She sounded happy. Why?
“The wardrobe is merely the entrance to her room. I thought it safer to hide it well”, Snape said.
Harry bit his lip and walked towards the wardrobe. He noticed that his hands were trembling.
“Look!”
Instead of the inside of a wardrobe, there was a large, bright room. There were a bed and desk that looked exactly like the ones in the room outside, only the desk was covered in quills and inkpots and a stack of parchment, while the bed had bedclothes with pictures of winged horses. Winged horses that moved.
There was a wardrobe, too, smaller than the one the entrance was hidden in.
“Oh. That’s cool.” He knew he didn’t sound as amazed as Rose expected. His heart was still beating too fast. He felt a bit dizzy.
“I love it! Thank you so much!”
Harry watched, stunned, as Rose launched herself at Snape and hugged him.
And then Snape actually wrapped his arms around her as if this was nothing unusual. “Now, let’s take a look at your brother’s room.”
It took Harry a moment to realize that Snape was talking about him. “I get a room?”
“Obviously.”
Snape went to the painting and did something to the frame. Suddenly, the painting swung to the side like that of the Fat Lady.
Inside was ... the Gryffindor dormitory, only there was just one bed and the window wasn’t where it should be.
Even the desk looked like one of those in the Gryffindor common room.
“The windows of your rooms can be opened, but the window you will look out of is the real one. Do not ask me how it works, I doubt anyone but Professor Dumbledore would be able to understand.” Snape looked at Harry. “You can use it to release your owl. But now, you should change out of your wet clothes. I expect you downstairs in ten minutes.”
With that, Snape turned and left.
Harry just stood and stared at his room. His room.
“Don’t be disappointed. I’m sure Uncle Sev just didn’t want to decorate it without you there.”
“It ...” Harry swallowed. He was not going to cry. “It’s perfect.”
“Oh. Okay. See you later.”
Harry stared at the bed. It was his four-poster bed with the red curtains.
He was home.
It felt like no time at all had passed when there was a knock at the door. “Harry? Are you alright?” Rose called.
For a moment, Harry was confused. What was Rose doing in Gryffindor tower? Oh, right. He went to the door. “I’m okay.”
“Aren’t you cold? You have some other clothes in your trunk, don’t you?”
Harry nodded, but only really started to move when he heard Hedwig flap her wings in her cage. He had to free her, first of all.
After Hedwig had soared out into the grey sky, he took some of the clothes the Grangers had given him out of his school trunk and went back to his room.
It took him a long time to change, as he couldn’t help staring at everything.
How could Snape have replicated the Gryffindor dorm? He had never been there, had he? Dumbledore had helped, that had to be it ... it was all magic, of course, but still ...
**
Not even Potter could have managed to get into trouble in an empty room. It was absolutely impossible. Still ...
At last, Rose ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, making Severus wince every time. He knew it was extremely unlikely for her to be killed by falling down the stairs, but he couldn’t help it. She was all he had left. She ... and Harry.
“Harry is okay. I think. Only he was standing there as if he hadn’t moved at all. His door wasn’t even closed. I thought perhaps he was disappointed it wasn’t decorated at all, but he said he loved it.”
It had been a bad idea to hide the door to Rose’s new room in a wardrobe. But she loved the Chronicles of Narnia, and he had looked forward to seeing her reaction, and had told himself that a wardrobe in a room looked nothing like a cupboard under the stairs. And still, he had managed to retraumatize the boy.
“I see.” Perhaps psychotherapy would help?
Lily had gone to a psychotherapist a few times after the rape, but since she couldn’t tell a muggle that it had involved a love potion, it hadn’t been as useful as it could have. Still, the therapist had said the same things Severus had tried to get through Lily’s thick skull, such as that she hadn’t cheated on her boyfriend, and it had helped a bit.
The only problem with taking Potter to see a therapist would be that any therapist worth her salt would immediately realize the boy hated him. And was justified in doing so.
Sure, muggle authorities were often spectacularly useless – such as in Potter’s case, someone had to have called them, there was no way the muggle primary school would not have noticed – but one could rely on it that even pretty much useless people did their job the very moment you needed them to turn a blind eye.
He could obliviate muggles, but that would attract ... attention from the magical world, and a death eater really couldn’t afford that. Besides, it might leave some damage. You never knew. It might ruin a perfectly good therapist.
“What is it? Is something wrong with Harry?”, Rose interrupted his thoughts.
“Not more than you would expect. Drink your cocoa.” He gestured towards the steaming mug. His own concoction, something that tasted like cocoa but also had some of the properties of pepperup potion. “You know why he lives with us now. Don’t you have some experience with children from abusive households?”
“Oh! It’s just, Harry is so normal. Most of the time. He never gets angry for no reason, or anything.”
“Ah. You would mostly have seen small children. I suppose ... no one can say with certainty, but one year in a loving family could have given him some resilience ...” He took a sip from his own mug of cocoa. “As for him being normal, you haven’t seen him in my class. He’s a troublemaker.” Though not as bad of one as some of Rose’s temporary foster siblings had been, he had to admit that. And of course it was cast in an entirely different light now ... “He is likely showing his best behaviour so that you will like him.”
“I don’t think – Hermione wouldn’t be friends with him if he was that bad.”
“Be that as it may ... his strange behaviour is likely a reaction to trauma. His relatives made him live in a cupboard. I should have predicted his reaction to your room.”
“A cupboard!” Rose was as shocked as he had expected, and that was exactly why he had not told her the whole extent of the abuse before.
“Don’t mention it to him. He doesn’t want anyone to know. But I think it will help you understand ... he might be surprised at having his own room, even though Miss Granger said he did, eventually, get a proper room.”
“So that’s why he was almost crying when he saw his room?”
“Likely. I suggested to Professor Dumbledore that he would likely feel most at home at Hogwarts.” He himself certainly had. “It is unlikely he was disappointed. Though of course you are right, it does look rather empty. I expect he will fill it with decorations of his own choosing in due time.” Or would the dormitory look make the boy feel he wasn’t allowed to? Perhaps it would have been better to only go with a general Gryffindor look and not copy it exactly.
**
When Harry finally went downstairs, much more than ten minutes had passed. He hoped Rose would talk Snape out of punishing him.
“Have a seat”, Snape pointed towards the empty place on the sofa next to Rose. “How do you like your room?”
Harry sat down. Could he trust this apparent calm? “It is very nice. Thank you, sir.”
“Very well. Drink your cocoa.”
There was a full mug of cocoa in front of Harry. It had gone cold, but still didn’t taste bad.
“You are, I believe, old enough to do chores. What would you like to do?”
Harry almost spit out the cocoa. What he would like to do? Since when did he get to choose?
“Surely, this is not an unreasonable question?” Snape looked at him like he was some interesting specimen of newt in a jar of formaline.
“No, sir.” Harry ducked his head. “I would like to make breakfast.” That was his favourite chore at the Dursleys, because sometimes, Aunt Petunia didn’t look and he could steal a bit of bacon.
Perhaps Snape would decide to sleep longer and Harry could do it all alone.
Snape frowned. “Breakfast at this house is not such a large meal that preparing it could be considered a chore. If you like preparing food, you may assist me with the main meals.”
“Okay.” With Snape there, stealing food would be harder, but on the other hand, he might get away with tasting a bit more than was strictly necessary.
“You may borrow any of the books you can reach while standing on the floor, but not those on the higher shelves. And you better treat them like you treat library books while Madam Pince is watching.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will not leave the house without my permission.”
“Unless it is on fire”, Rose threw in.
“Quite. Also, both of you, carry your wands at all times. Your presence here is secret, but the secret could get out. It goes without saying that you are to only use your wands in an emergency ...” Snape hesitated as if he was about to say something more. “Rose, I am sure you can tell your brother all of the other rules that apply in my house.”
“Are there any?” Rose seemed surprised.
“There always are unwritten rules. I never saw a need to articulate, for example, the fact that you are not allowed to set the house on fire.”
Rose laughed. “I’m sure we don’t need to tell Harry that sort of thing.”
“I should hope not.” Snape stood. “I will fetch your luggage from the portkey point and will be back in about half an hour. Food is in the kitchen.”
He strode to the door and slammed the door shut behind him.
Half an hour? “Wait, if your stuff is here in Cokeworth, why didn’t we fetch it on the way?”
Rose seemed confused. “It’s not here. We left it at the portkey point in London.”
“Portkey point?” Snape had used that word, too.
“Oh, right, you grew up with muggles. A portkey is a mode of transport. You touch it, and the next moment, you are wherever it is spelled to send you.”
“That’s awesome!”
Rose grimaced. “I suppose so, but you have to get to the portkey point first, and of course, they don’t spell portkeys to get people home. It’s like a train, just faster. But Uncle Sev refuses to side-along apparate with me.” Noticing Harry’s confused expression, she continued. “Apparating is much faster. I mean, not really faster, but we could have apparated from the portkey point to King’s Cross, picked you up there and then apparated here.”
“Why didn’t he want to?” Now he remembered, Rose had complained when she had arrived at King’s Cross, too.
“He says it isn’t safe. That’s nonsense, he apparates all the time and nothing ever happened, but he still says it isn’t safe and he won’t take me.”
Perhaps it really wasn’t safe, or why didn’t the Weasleys do it? “What could happen? Something like a car accident?”
“Something like that, yes. But not exactly, because car accidents can be caused by other people, right? Splinching only happens if you do something wrong.”
“Splinching?”
“Leaving parts of yourself behind.”
Leaving parts of yourself behind? Like an ear or a leg? That did sound very dangerous! “Makes sense that he doesn’t want to take you along.”
Rose shrugged “He’s a hypocrite. I mean, he does it all the time. And it’s not like not having a nose would look any better on him than on me.”
“True.” It would look totally creepy, which Snape probably would mind less than Rose, but Rose probably didn’t realize that Snape liked scaring his students.
“I’ll show you the house”, Rose decided. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
“Didn’t you live in France?” Harry asked as he got up to follow Rose up the stairs.
“Yes, but ... it still feels like home, you know? Uncle Sev doesn’t understand, he hates the house, it’s old and tiny and all, but to me, it’s just where Uncle Sev lives, and it’s great.” Rose opened a door. “The bathroom. This was a bedroom, originally. When the house was built, there was only an outhouse in the backyard.”
She showed him the door to Snape’s bedroom – “Don’t wake him, though, unless it’s a real emergency, he gets cranky” and the attic. “Tons of interesting things, but don’t mention it to Uncle Sev, he would throw everything away if he got around to it. It’s all muggle things!”
They went downstairs again, where there was a kitchen and Rose opened a bread package and took out a slice. “Are you hungry?”
“Just a bit.” Harry hesitated. “Are we allowed to just take bread from the kitchen?”
“Sure, that’s what it’s for.” Rose handed him the slice and took one herself. “Mum and dad say British muggle toast tastes like cardboard, but I’ve always liked it. Reminds me of holidays here.”
Next was the basement. “This”, Rose indicated a door of rough wood planks “is the potato cellar, only it is really more of a potato, carrot and apple cellar. It is also where you find the bottles of water, orange juice and pumpkin juice.” She turned around and indicated a door that looked much smoother. “That is the laboratory, entrance forbidden on pain of death.”
Well, figured.
“Uncle Sev sometimes lets me use it, but I can’t go in while he’s away, and you’d better not disturb him while he’s working, either. You can knock, but never just open the door. He claims something might explode in my face, but really, the only thing that ever explodes there is him.”
Explode. Well, that was one way to describe Snape yelling at you. “So he does get angry at you?”
“Sure. He tries not to, but ...” Rose made a face. “He does have a temper.”
All too soon, Snape returned, carrying a trunk that was even larger than Harry’s school trunk. “Rose, why don’t you go upstairs and unpack?”
When Rose just took the whole thing in two arms and carried it upstairs, Harry realized it must have been made magically lighter. Snape might be hiding some muscles under those wide robes, although he was overall skinny, but Rose ... no way.
Perhaps he could find out what the spell was?
“Follow me.”
This could only be directed at Harry, so he walked after Snape into the kitchen.
Rose had been right, the missing bread was not commented on, perhaps not even noticed.
“You can peel and slice the vegetables.” Snape handed him a wooden board and a knife. “They are in this bag over there.”
Harry went to work. With Snape ignoring him, it wasn’t so bad. He managed to eat quite a few pieces of carrot, and even a quarter of a tomato.
There was an aubergine, too. He couldn’t steal pieces of that, but he would still have to prepare it.
He had just finished salting the aubergine slices when he noticed Snape looking at him.
“What did I do wrong this time?!” It was just like Potions. Always Snape stared at him to find fault.
“Nothing. I just would not have expected ...” Snape shook his head. “You helped your aunt with cooking? I think it is safe to infer that your uncle does not cook?”
Wait, what? Why didn’t Snape yell at him? “Um. Yes. Sometimes I got to do it on my own.” Which increased the number of foods he could eat while no one was looking. “And no, he doesn’t, he just eats.” A lot.
“Yes, he looks like it.”
Had Snape just called Uncle Vernon fat?
Harry hid a smile.
“Now, why don’t you go fetch Rose? The two of you can set the table.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry ran upstairs.
Rose’s door was open, light coming out of the wardrobe, and she was still busy unpacking her things.
She had a lot of things.
“Harry, do you want a Beauxbatons poster?” She held up a poster which showed a very nice building, more like a palace than like a castle, with a herd of winged horses in the foreground. “We get them for free, no idea why, it is not like they need to advertise.”
“If you won’t miss it?” He did like the way the horses moved and flapped their wings. Even after two years at Hogwarts, magical posters still awed him.
“I have dozens of them.” Rose rolled it up and threw it towards him.
Harry caught it. “We are supposed to go downstairs and set the table.”
“Oh, right.” Rose got up. “Let’s go.”
He left his new poster on the desk in the middle room and followed her.
Chapter 15