Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 3
“You!” Aunt Petunia shoved Harry to the side. “You – whoever you are, you are not Albus Dumbledore.”

For a moment, the man looked surprised. “You do not recognize me, Mrs. Evans? Why, of course, I do look years younger.” He grinned.

“So that’s who you are.” Aunt Petunia’s eyes narrowed. “I was warned about your like. Leave my house this instant!”

Harry tried to get through the door – he had to tell Dumbledore about Snake! – but Aunt Petunia grasped his arm in a death grip. “Don’t even think of it.”

And before he knew what happened, she had shoved Harry back inside the house.

She was about to throw the door shut when a black shoe crossed the doorstep.

The next moment, something unbelievable happened. Blue fire sprang up, as suddenly as if someone had set petrol on fire.

“Go into your cupboard, Harry.”

“But - ”

“This was one of those child-snatchers they warned us about on the telly. To your cupboard!”

She was yelling now, and Harry thought it safer to obey.

“You have not seen the last of me”, he heard a booming voice, just before the door fell shut.

Harry drew the cupboard door shut behind him.

Snake was waving frantically. When Harry looked more closely, he could see what was written in the sand.

“THAT’S NOT ALBUS!!!”

“Don’t worry.” Harry reached for the photo.

Something in Snake’s waving his arms made him reconsider. Oh, right, the curse.

He crouched on the bed instead. “Calm down, he couldn’t get into the house anyway”, he whispered. He could still hear Aunt Petunia’s steps outside. “How do you know he isn’t? You haven’t seen him.”

Snake nodded, wiped out the letters in the sand and wrote: “ALBUS IS OLD.”

“Well, yeah, he did say he looked younger ...” And very old people did sound old. If that had not been Dumbledore, then ... who was it? “Magic can do that, right?”

“ALBUS WEARS GARISH ROBES”, Snake wiped that out. “HALFMOON SHAPED GLASSES” Snake waited a bit longer before wiping that out. “AND NEVER TRIES TO FIT IN.”

“Huh. So he’s more of a, you know, typical wizard?”

“VERY.”

“The guy at the door looked more like someone trying to fit in a bit too hard. Black suit and all. I wonder who he was.”

“RICHARD.”

“The man who imprisoned you?” It felt like ice water trickled along his spine. “He knows where you are? Already?” Now that he knew ... the man had called Aunt Petunia Mrs. Evans, like the alias Snake had made him use ...

“MAGIC. HE HAS COME TO HARM YOU. DANGER!”

That was rather obvious, Harry had to admit. He just had hoped magic couldn’t do that. And it did make sense that Richard would want revenge for stealing the photo. “When he tried to get inside the house, there was something like blue fire. Did I do that? I didn’t even want him gone.”

Snake frowned. He didn’t seem to have an answer for that. “MUST HAVE BEEN”, he wrote at last, then wiped it out and wrote. “YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF ME.”

“What? What do you mean? I told you I don’t have any friends I could ask to hide you.”

“BURY ME IN GARDEN.”

“But you just said he could magically find out where you are. And if I can somehow keep him out of the house, you are perfectly safe here. Also, you wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.”

“I LIKE PEACE AND QUIET”, Snake replied.

“If you really want to, I could hide you under the bed”, Harry offered, a bit hurt. “Plenty peace and quiet there. I mean, what if the photo rots? Wouldn’t that kill you?”

“NO. MAGIC.”

“Oh, okay, but still ...”

“EARTH BLOCKS HIS MAGIC. SAFER.”

Something didn’t seem quite right with that. Harry frowned. Was he just thinking that because he really didn’t want to bury his new friend – well, at least Harry had considered him a friend, even if Snake didn’t like him – in the garden?

And then it hit him. Snake hadn’t told him he wanted peace and quiet yesterday, he had told him to go to bed. If earth blocked magic, wouldn’t Snake have told him to bury the photo immediately?

“You are just trying to get me to get rid of you so this evil wizard won’t come after me, are you?”

The annoyed look on Snake’s face said it all.

Harry smiled. “Nice try. I’m not going to do that. Listen, if I’m a wizard, I should be able to free you, right? Without changing places with you, I mean.”

“AS ANY HUMAN CAN” Snake wiped the letters. “REMOVE AN APPENDIX.”

“Hey, perhaps I could remove an inflamed appendix if I had a doctor standing right beside me telling me what to do!” But he had to admit Snake had a point. Just being a wizard probably wasn’t worth that much.

Snake raised an eyebrow. “WITHOUT SCALPEL? YOU HAVE NO WAND.”

“Oh. I need one?”

“NO. TOO DANGEROUS ANYWAY” Snake frowned. “FIND A WIZARD OR WITCH.” He wiped the beach clean. “SEEN ANY ECCENTRIC PEOPLE?”

Harry knew what he meant at once. So all those people ... wow! “Mostly just the people who want to shake my hand or bow to me in the street ... that only happens when Aunt Petunia takes us to London for shopping, though. People with robes and pointy hats, right?” He hadn’t seen any of them around. The Dursleys would probably move away if any neighbour was anything but perfectly ordinary.

Snake nodded. “OR A CRAZY CAT LADY?”

“Crazy cat ladies are really witches?”

“NOT ALL. SOME.”

Harry pondered that. “I don’t know any crazy cat ladies, either. Well, there’s Mrs. Figg, but I don’t think she counts, she’s not crazy, just a bit obsessed with her cats. And she can’t be a witch, I’ve been to her house plenty times, I always have to stay with here when the Dursleys are on holidays.” Or perhaps ... “What kind of things do witches have in their houses?”

“OPEN FIREPLACE”

“Mrs. Figg has one of those, but lots of people do!”

Snake waved impatiently. He wasn’t finished. “JAR WITIH POWDÈR ON MANTLEPIECE.”

“I didn’t exactly look for it. There’s lots of things standing around, there might be a jar on the mantlepiece, too. What is it for?”

“TRAVEL.”

“You mean, to use on a flying broomstick? Mrs. Figg has a vacuum cleaner.”

Snake shook his head. “WHEN YOU SEE HER NEXT?”

“Usually when Aunt Petunia wants to go out, but I can just sneak out and ring at the door. Is there any way to find out if she’s a witch? Without asking?” She was such an ordinary person, Harry could hardly imagine that she was a witch, but then, you never knew. And he really needed to get help for Snake.

“STAY INSIDE. SAFER.”



Harry heard steps approach and sat on his bed, so that one could not see the photo from outside.

Moments later, the door was opened and Aunt Petunia shoved a sandwich into his hands. “Stay here.”

It was very unfair. He hadn’t done anything! She had asked him to answer the door! There wouldn’t have been any weird blue fire if she hadn’t made him answer the door.

But he had someone to talk to, now, so he didn’t really mind being stuck – just the unfairness of it.

He crouched to look at the photo.

“DOES SHE DO THAT NORMALLY?”

“What? Send me to my cupboard? Yeah. She doesn’t normally make sandwiches for me, though.” Harry looked at it. “Oh, it even has bacon on it. I guess the man at the door really upset her, she must have confused my sandwich and Dudley’s.” He bit into it. “I’m sorry, I’d offer to share, but I can’t really get that into the photo, can I?”

“NO. I NEED NO FOOD HERE.”

“Oh, okay.” That was a good thing, since Harry didn’t think there was any food on the island. It looked very wild and lonely.

Snake began working on a new message. “NEW PLAN: IF RICHARD GETS YOU”

Harry swallowed the last bit of the sandwich. “I hope he won’t. What am I to do?”

“SAY I THREATENED”

“Yes?”

“TO KILL YOU”

“Hey, you didn’t do that!”

“IF YOU DO NOT HELP ME.”

Harry frowned. “But why should I say that?”

“HE MIGHT SPARE YOU.”

“I don’t know. He traps people in photos.That’s a pretty evil thing to do. I don’t think he’ll care if I was being blackmailed.”

“PROMISE YOU WILL.”

Harry didn’t really think it would help, but if Snake wanted it ... “Okay, okay, sure, I can do that. But ... will he believe you did that? I mean, he is evil, so if you were evil too ...”

Snake put an exclamation mark behind his latest message.

“Okay. I promise. But he won’t get me. And we still have to find someone who can help you.” What if Mrs. Figg turned out to not be a witch? “I can tell Mrs. Figg about you. She’s nice.” True, she made him look at cat pictures, and it was very boring to stay with her, but the one time she had looked after him when he was sick, she had made hot soup for him and let him lie on the couch. The herbal tea she’d made him drink had tasted horrible, but she had tried to help. And that, Harry figured, was what he needed right now.

“BE CAREFUl. THEY BURN WITCHES.”

“That was ages ago.” But perhaps Snake was right. You never knew.

“CAN SHE TAKE YOU TO LONDON?”

Getting to London was definitely possible. “I guess she could. But I would have to have a pretty good reason. It’s not something she normally does.” The truth would be a good reason. If he said he wanted to go shopping ... no, that only ever worked for Dudley. “Anyway, I can make Dudley want to go to London. Then I’d get to stay with Mrs. Figg while Aunt Petunia takes him there.”

Snake nodded. “HOW?”

“You mean, how I get Dudley to want to go to London? Oh, that’s easy. London has the best shops. I just have to think of something he doesn’t have yet, and make him think he can get it in London.”

Now, Snake actually smiled. It was not a very happy smile, but Harry was glad he had cheered the poor man up a bit. “We will get you out, don’t worry.”

There were a lot of things Harry wanted to ask, but in the end, he settled on: “So, this school for magic ... can you tell me more?

Snake nodded. He didn’t write anything, but instead drew something in the sand. A castle, with many towers. Under it, he wrote “HOGWARTS SCHOOL”

“So the school is a castle? And it is called Hogwarts?”

Another nod.

“And you think I can go there? Even though the Dursleys don’t like it?”

Snake nodded again.

“But how?”

“HEADMASTER TAKES CARE OF IT.”

“Are you sure? I mean, the Dursleys think I should go to Stonewall High, and ... you know, if it was Dudley, you could just tell them some nonsense about it being an elite school, but they don’t want me in an elite school, they think I’m a freak ... oh! I know! You could tell them it’s a ... what are those called? A special school for rowdy children? They’d love that, if it cost them no money.”

“YOU ROWDY?”

“I don’t think I am. It’s just that those things happen. You know. What you say is magic. And okay, sometimes I hit Dudley back, but that’s only if he gets me cornered. You haven’t seen him, he’s really fat and a lot stronger than me, I wouldn’t get in a fight with him if I could avoid it.”

“TELL ME MORE.”

“You sure? I don’t want to sound like a crybaby, but ...”

There was a lot to tell about Dudley, and it was so nice to finally have someone who listened.

Harry talked until Aunt Petunia fetched him to do chores.

However, it turned out he didn’t have to do much. Aunt Petunia seemed to want to keep him within her sight at all times.

Which meant that, when he came back to his cupboard after dinner, he had no news.

“Sorry, I couldn’t talk to Dudley. I mean, I could have, but Aunt Petunia would notice what I am trying to do.”


“JUST BE CAREFUL.”

“That’s not dangerous at all. I can do it tomorrow at school.”

Snake nodded.


“Do you think I will find friends at Hogwarts?”

“CERTAINLY.”

“I mean, doing magic won’t be a problem, but my clothes ... I know you said actual friends won’t mind, but I just don’t think I will make a good first impression.”

“UNIFORM.”

“Oh, they have school uniform, of course!” That cheered Harry up – right until he remembered that he had no way of getting one. “I just hope it isn’t more expensive than the one of Stonewall High.”

“I WILL MAKE SURE YOU GO THERE.”

“Thank you! Then I really don’t have to worry!”

Snake made a dismissive gesture, as if it was nothing.

For Harry, it was the world. And there still were so many things he wanted to ask. “Have you asked anyone else for help? You must have been stuck in that photo for quite a while.”

“THREE MONTHS. I ONLY ASKED YOU.”

“Why?” The text next to the photo had said he would ask for help ... and that the one trying to help him would be stuck in the photo instead ... but that was just lies, right? No one who’d imprison someone in a photo could be trusted.

“MAGIC IS SECRET.”

Oh, that again. “So you needed a wizard? But anyone could have written a letter!”

“AND FIND AN OWL?”

“Okay, sending letters with owls is not something normal people do. But that didn’t work anyway.”

“I HAD MY REASONS.”

What reasons might that be? Harry knew he couldn’t look especially trustworthy in Dudley’s old clothes. More the opposite.

Harry was beginning to suspect that Snake was a bit paranoid.

But he could hardly blame someone imprisoned in a photograph for being paranoid. When Mrs. Figg showed him her cat photos, Harry certainly never had suspected she might be trying to trap him inside them.

Snake probably thought he hadn’t been careful enough and was trying to make up for that mistake.

“Can you tell me more about Hogwarts?”

Harry learnt a bit more about the magic school before Dudley’s heavy steps reminded Snake that it was bedtime for young boys.

“Why would you even care”, Harry protested weakly. You’d think someone trapped in a photo would have more pressing problems than bedtime.

“TIRED BOYS CAN’T THINK WELL.”

“Fair enough. Good night.”

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