Dinner was unexpectedly delicious. Harry had never thought Snape had a talent for cooking, but then, a potions master could hardly be the kind of person who burnt water.
“Don’t you want to eat any more?” Rose asked, helping herself to a second portion.
Harry glanced to Snape, but there was no telling what the man was thinking. He had a calculating look about him, as if he just waited for Harry to break any of his unwritten rules.
“I don’t know. A bit, perhaps?” If Rose was the one who made him eat more, Snape could hardly blame him, could he?
As he had hoped, the man indeed didn’t comment, even though the portion Rose heaped on Harry’s plate was rather more than ‘a bit’.
When they all had finished their plates and Snape got up, Harry started stacking the dishes.
“Thank you. You may leave, I will do the dishes.”
Had Snape actually just thanked him? It hadn’t sounded very grateful. But Harry wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Yes, sir. Thanks.”
In his room, there was nothing to do, and it was not quite late enough to go to bed, yet.
Harry wasn’t sure if he was actually that happy about not having to do the dishes.
Not that he wanted to spend any more time than necessary with Snape. Did he?
Someone knocked at his door. “Harry! Let’s put up your new poster!”
It was nice, being able to pretend that he was still in his dorm in Gryffindor Tower. But a bit lonely, too.
In Privet Drive, he was used to the loneliness, but in Hogwarts, he had always had at least Ron there with him.
Of course he couldn’t share a room with Rose. Snape would probably have a heart attack if he so much as suggested it. Harry smiled, imagining the reaction. Uncle Vernon went purple when he got very angry – would Snape, too, or would his pale face first turn a healthier colour?
The next day, Snape told them to do their homework.
Rose suggested that they could both use the desk in the middle room. “Then it won’t be so boring.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be in our rooms?”
“This is our room, isn’t it?”
Harry liked having someone there to ask questions, though Rose could mostly just help him with potions. The other essay he had difficulties with was in History of Magic, and she had learnt almost entirely different things.
And of course, he could not help Rose with anything at all.
“I’ll ask Uncle Sev”, she decided after staring at her Transfiguration essay for about five minutes.
Before Harry could say anything she had dashed downstairs.
Minutes ticked by. Harry waited. Wouldn’t her question be answered by now?
Finally, Harry decided to investigate. He got up and sneaked down the stairs, careful to not make too much noise.
Rose was sitting on the sofa, her essay in front of her. Snape in his usual armchair. Both were bathed in the warm light emanating from the fireplace.
“... better not to mention that. Your teacher might not know it, and he is too vain to acknowledge superiority in a student.”
“Good thing I go to Hogwarts next year.”
“Minerva will not mark you down for insulting her vanity, and that is if you even manage to surpass her knowledge, but it remains to be seen if your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is any good.”
Those always seemed to have something wrong about them.
Harry was about to comment on that when he remembered he was just spying. He didn’t belong.
In his haste to escape, he accidentally put his foot on the step that creaked.
They didn’t notice, though, and Harry escaped to his room.
**
“The stairs”, Severus murmured. “Harry must have tried to follow you, and when he saw me ...” It shouldn’t hurt to be hated by the son of James Potter, of all things, but it did.
“Oh, come on, he isn’t afraid of you.”
“Perhaps not. Even so. Has there never been someone you wanted to avoid?”
“Yes, but ... Okay, yes, but that doesn’t mean ...”
“Check on him. I will be in my laboratory.”
**
He would never belong. No one even missed him.
Harry stared out of the window, at the leaden grey sky. Could he get out through the window? Fly away?
“Harry, where are you? Sorry it took me a little longer – are you angry at me?” Rose had come back.
“No, I – I just ...” He gestured towards the window. “The weather is horrible, isn’t it?”
“It really is. At least we still have some homework to do, so we don’t have to waste a sunny day for it.”
The weather stayed the same on the next day, and on the day after that. Harry did the rest of his homework and got somewhat used to life in Spinner’s End.
Snape only paid any attention to him when he helped with meals, the rest of the time, Harry could just as well not have existed.
Which was the way Harry liked it. Not being noticed by Snape was the best you could hope for.
Finally, one morning, the sun peeked through the clouds.
“Can we go to Cherry Bowl Farm today?”, Rose asked while she buttered her breakfast crossaint.
Snape sipped on his tea. “Certainly.”
“It’s a muggle place”, Rose explained to Harry. “Only muggle horses. I know you like flying, but I guess it is safer to start with muggle horses.”
“Yeah, probably. Wouldn’t be the same as riding a broomstick anyway, right?”
“Much more comfortable”, Rose claimed.
Harry wasn’t so sure.
After breakfast, Rose went to fetch her riding gear. “We’ll have to get you a helmet”, she told Harry. “The boots aren’t as important, but I don’t think Uncle Sev will let you ride without a helmet.”
“So we won’t just, uh, ride in circles?” He faintly remembered having been to a fair with the Dursleys once. It must have been one of those times when Mrs. Figg was unable to take him. Dudley had wanted to ride a pony, and Harry had pitied the poor animal, who had to carry the overweight boy around a fenced enclosure twice, before Dudley had decided it was boring.
“We can start with that”, Rose replied, shrugging. “But I’d prefer the forest.”
She ran downstairs. “Uncle Sev, Harry needs a helmet. Can you double mine?”
Dudley, Harry recalled, had not worn a helmet back then. But then, Dudley also wouldn’t have fit into the tight riding boots Rose wore.
When Harry arrived downstairs, Snape handed him a helmet. “Try if it fits.”
It was a bit too wide, and Snape just took it again and tapped it with his wand. “Try now.”
“Now it fits.”
“Good. Boots next.”
“I don’t think I need those?” Shoes were perfectly alright, weren’t they?
“Yes you do.”
The boots were rather too small, and although Harry didn’t complain, Snape tapped them with his wand. “Better?”
“Um. Yes, thanks.”
They made some sandwiches, and only when they stepped out of the door, Harry realized that Snape did not have a car, so how would they get there? By train again?
Snape made a movement as if to hail a taxi, but instead, a bus appeared, so suddenly that Harry jumped. Snape paid the young conductor and herded Rose and Harry towards the back row.
Instead of usual bus seats, there were comfy armchairs, which had the downside that they started moving as soon as the bus did.
Snape pointed his wand at the seats and muttered an incantation.
With the armchair glued firmly to the floor, Harry found it much more comfortable.
“Keep your helmets on, you might need them”, Snape advised.
“You put yours on, then”, Rose retorted.
For a moment, Snape looked like he might reply something, but in the end, he actually put his helmet on.
It made him look rather silly, but Harry managed not to chuckle.
Soon, he realized that he really could need the helmet – the bus driver drove like a maniac. And of course, it was nice to be able to hide his scar.
“Druid’s Oak”, the conductor announced. “Thank you for traveling with the Knight Bus.”
Harry had been too busy clinging to his seat to pay much attention to his surroundings, but when he got out, he saw they were in the midst of a forest.
“We always tell them we get here by bus”, Roes explained while they walked through the forest. “Which is actually true, but at the same time, not really. The muggle bus would take ages.”
Chapter 16