Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 5
The window outside went dark again.Harry heard a door open and close, then steps.

And finally ... “Did you see Harry? No? Oh dear. I so hoped ... Mrs. Dursley will be so angry. The poor boy, he just ran away because he broke a picture frame. I heard the noise, and when I came looking, he was gone, and the broken frame on the floor.”

“A picture frame?” That was Not-Dumbledore. Who was probably the man called Richard Smith. Harry recognized the voice.

“Yes. The photo wasn’t even damaged, but Mrs. Dursley is very strict with him, so he must have been very afraid, the poor dear. If he hadn’t run away, I would offer to buy a new frame, I don’t expect Mrs. Dursley will be back before evening, but I cannot take a bus to town before I find him ...”

“If you can show me the photo, I might be of assistance?”

“Oh! Thank you very much, that would be so kind of you.” Mrs. Figg rummaged in her handbag. “Here it is – be careful with the broken glass. I wrapped it in a kitchen towel right away.”

“You won’t be able to get that kind of frame in a shop”, Not-Dumbledore said. “They don’t make them anymore. But I think I might have a piece of glass that is just the right size at home. I can repair it while you look for the boy, and be back in a hour or so.”

“That would be awfully kind of you”, Mrs. Figg exclaimed. “Then I only have to find Harry. Of course I should leave a note for Mrs. Dursley, just in case she returns earlier ... oh dear, oh dear.”

She said goodbye to Not-Dumbledore and Harry heard her open a door.

“Here we are. I don’t expect he will return, seeing as he has no intention of returning the photo.”

Harry saw Snape write something on the sand, while Mrs. Figg apparently took the photo out.

“You mean, he could make a not-cursed copy? That complicates things. If he wants to make sure only one of them is cursed ... oh dear!

Before Mrs. Figg could worry more, however, her cats meowed loudly, and she bustled away, promising to feed them.

“I cannot believe he fell for that”, Snape muttered.

“You expected me to fall for that fairy tale about me being a celebrity”, Harry huffed.

Snape stared at him. “That again? I thought you had given up that foolish notion. I did not lie to you, and I never had any intention of harming you.”

“You hate me. You as good as admitted it.” Harry bit his lip and willed the tears to stop. With limited success. He had thought he had a friend. It had been stupid, of course. No one liked freaks like him.

“Things are not always black and white.” Snape drawled. “And yes, the irony of saying that while trapped inside a black and white photograph does not escape me. I do admit to having ... disliked your father. Whose almost perfect likeness you are. I might have been ... prejudiced.” He eyed Harry. “For Merlin’s sake, boy, stop crying! You have nothing to fear!”

“I’m not afraid.” And that was true. Snape hadn’t harmed him so far. He was probably saying the truth about that. But ...

“Then you are in pain? Let me have a look at your leg, I might –“

“No, it’s okay.” The bandages seemed to help a lot more than Harry would have thought.

“You are crying”, Snape pointed out.

“Just because – because you’re mean to me.” How childish he sounded! It was embarrassing.

“I am not - ” Snape interrupted himself. “I did apologize for yelling at you earlier.”

“And then you did it again.” Harry hated how whiny he sounded.

“Just because you – that is – I mean ... I was upset because you hurt yourself.”

Harry thought about that. Upset? Not angry? “Why? I can’t help you much from inside here, anyway.”

“As you so shrewdly observed, I am not your father. However, I am a teacher at a boarding school. It is my job to keep children from getting hurt. Perhaps that is why I mind so much.” Snape paced the beach. “Or, possibly, it is just a normal human reaction. Would you not be upset if you saw someone else break his leg?”

Oh. “Yes, but ... that’s just me? Sort of? Or ... nice people?” Dudley wouldn’t be upset. He’d find it funny.

“So I do not fall into your definition of nice people? Because I yelled at you?”

“I guess.” Though if Snape had yelled at him because he was worried, that was ... kind of nice? Only it wasn’t, because being yelled at was very much not nice.

“Be aware that some of the most dangerous people in this world coat their words with sugar, Harry. I cannot claim to be a nice person, certainly not, but you are safe with me. You would not be safe with some people who sound a lot nicer.”

That made sense. Harry knew that Aunt Petunia could be positively sugary sweet to people she wanted something from. Even if she actually hated them. Like Mrs. Figg. Aunt Petunia didn’t think highly of her house that was covered in cat hair, or her unfashionable clothes, but she needed someone who would watch Harry.

And Snape hadn’t asked Harry to steal the photo. He had been very insistent that Harry not touch it. But it was possible he needed someone else to make the magic work properly. Perhaps, if he just asked ... the villains in the cartoons Dudley watched often betrayed themselves if you got them to talk. “The note next to the photo said that you would try to make someone change places with you. But now we are both trapped in here. Why didn’t it work?”

“Because the man who trapped me here is a liar. He told me that getting someone to touch the photo would free me and imprison them in my stead.”

“But there’s no one here but us.” Hadn’t Snape tried it before at all?

“Of course not. I could not have inflicted that fate on anyone. Some foolish boys touched the frame, but nothing happened. I still wasn’t sure if that was because they were muggles – not wizards - so I advised you to be careful ... if only I had not ... he obviously warded the glass especially for such cases, and if you hadn’t broken it ...” Snape sighed. “And I suspected he was lying. He hates me, why would he provide me with an opportunity to escape? No doubt he wanted to present me with a horrible choice, and then force me to live with the knowledge that I willingly sacrificed someone else to save myself – all while still imprisoned here, of course.”

What a monster!

“And you still think he would let me get away if I claimed I had just stolen the photo for fun?” Which was, in Harry’s opinion, much worse than stealing a photo to free someone imprisoned in it.

“As I said, I am not popular. I have done wrong. Mr. Smith seems to be the kind of person who likes to torture people who are ... acceptable targets. He might spare a child. Perhaps he would even be willing to free you if you could convince him that I manipulated you into helping me. You could tell him that it was I who broke your leg, perhaps that would go some way towards persuading him ... However, that should be the last resort. I do not trust him, and we are not exactly in a hurry, seeing as we do not need to eat or drink.”

That made sense. “Yeah, it isn’t worse than my cupboard, and as long as I get out in time to start at Hog-“

Their talk was interrupted by loud banging on the door.

Mrs. Figg walked towards it, then returned. “He found us out”, she informed them. “I don’t know how, but he is very angry, and he is trying to get into the house, but it looks like Dumbledore’s protective enchantments work.”

“I don’t know this Dumbledore fellow!” Harry complained. “Why does everyone else know him?”

“Because Albus Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard of our time”, Snape explained. “After your parents were killed –“

“My parents died in a car accident!” Harry exclaimed, although he had a feeling that the Dursleys might have lied about that.

“So that’s what Petunia told you? No, they were murdered in cold blood, and with no car involved. The details do not matter right now. Suffice it to say it was Dumbledore who decided that you would live with your aunt and her husband. I have come to doubt the wisdom of that decision, but it seems the protections he promised this would grant you are indeed rather useful.”

“So that’s why you asked me for help? Because you thought I would remember him?”

“I had expected him to have visited you, yes. And your aunt knows him. She might not, however, wish to contact him, even in an emergency.”

Harry heard a muffled noise that must come from outside the photo.

“There’s an owl at the window”, Mrs. Figg said. “Poor thing, I wonder - ”

And then, there was a much louder, cracking noise.

“Please excuse my sudden appearance, Arabella”, said the voice of an old man. “It seemed safer to apparate, as the house appears to be under siege.”

“Professor Dumbledore! You got my note?”

“No, I am afraid not. However, I was visited by a very upset owl and went to investigate. Is there a problem with Harry?”

Mrs. Figg sighed. “One could say so. Look at this photo – careful, do not touch it, it is cursed.”

“Oh! Why, that is a pleasant surprise.” The face of an old man with a long white beard, piercing blue eyes and half-moon glasses appeared at the ‘window’. “Hello Harry. Do not get me wrong, I am by no means pleased about your current predicament. I am just glad to have found my potions teacher. How are you, Severus?”

“How do you think I am, you silly old codger?”, Snape grumbled.

“A most ingenious curse.”

“Does that mean you can’t break it?” Mrs. Figg asked.

Harry wondered the same thing.

“Never fear. It is powerful dark magic, so much is true, but there is only one necessary ingredient to break it.”

“Get on with it!” Snape yelled, and Harry had to agree.

“Is it hard to get?”, Mrs. Figg asked, worried.

“It would be in any other situation than the one we fortunately are in. I need the blood of the one who cursed it, and if I interpret the situation correctly, that very man is currently trying to enter the house.”

Snape wrote something on the beach.

“Ah, wonderful idea, Severus. The irony of it will be quite amusing. I shall return in a moment.” The old wizard’s face disappeared.

“What did you write?”

“I suggested a curse whose incantation bears some resemblance to my name. A pun, you might say.” Snape wiped the writing out. “Before you get any ideas, you are much too young to know it.”

“But I can learn it if I go to Hogwarts?”

“When you go to Hogwarts. You will not be allowed to skip school, young man. I will drag you there myself, if needed.”


Dumbledore returned and muttered a spell that, apparently, removed the frame Mrs. Figg had put on the photo. With a feather dipped in blood he drew some arcane symbols on the ‘window’, then took out a wand of dark wood and moved it in the air, muttering incantations.

“Any moment now”, Snape warned. “Better get up. Wait.” He slid an arm under Harry, and turned the couch back into a cloak.

Seconds later, Harry landed, rather painfully, on the Dursley’s living room table. It would have been even more painful if Snape hadn’t caught him before all his weight went on the broken leg.

“Couldn’t you have put us on the floor?” Snape grumbled. “Harry is hurt.” He helped Harry sit down on the table, then climbed down.

“Hurt? Oh dear, I thought you were just sick!” Mrs. Figg frowned, concerned.

“A broken leg. He will require a healer.”

“Now, now, Severus, you know we cannot meddle in the lives of muggles. I hear muggle doctors can deal with such injuries quite well. Petunia will want to to take him to the hospital, and -”

Muggles? Ah, non-wizards, Snape had explained.

“And nothing. What I saw during my stay here ... they make him sleep in a cupboard! He cannot stay!” Snape helped Harry onto the couch.

“I will need to talk to Petunia. Still, you will have to agree Harry is safe here.”

“That’s only if Petunia doesn’t kill him by neglect. And regardless, his leg was not broken when she left the house”, Snape drawled.

“It was not? How did he get hurt?”

“I climbed a tree in the photo – you can’t see it, but it is in there – and fell down”, Harry explained. “Just a stupid accident. But please – please, Aunt Petunia will never take me to the hospital if I tell her I broke my leg inside a photo, and I was supposed to lie on the couch all day, so ...”

“Quite a convincing argument”, Dumbledore agreed. “It would be best if Petunia does not notice any difference. Severus, if you would?”

“I? If I thought myself capable of healing him, I would have done so. It is school policy that - ”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, but we are not at school, Severus. And I have quite a lot of trust in your skill.”

“Well, I don’t”, Snape grumbled, but knelt down next to the couch. “You know accidental injuries are not my area of expertise.”

“They tend to be much easier to heal.”

“Fine. Do not move, Harry.”

Harry had not planned to move, anyway. Snape took the trouser leg between two fingers and aimed his wand at the fabric.

The wand did not touch the fabric, but it was cut apart as if with a very sharp knife.

“No broken skin”, Snape muttered. “Very well ...” He trailed his wand over the leg, half humming, half singing a melody that sounded familiar even though Harry was sure he had never heard it before.
It seemed to resonate in his very bones.

“Better?”

Harry touched his leg. The pain was gone. He moved it. Still no pain. “Feels good. Thanks?”

“Reparo.” The fabric of the trousers grew back together. And not only that, the holes that had been in that particular pair vanished, too.

There were so many things Harry wanted to ask, but just as he opened his mouth, he heard Uncle Vernon’s car.

“That’s my uncle”, he said instead. “It, uh, is probably better if he doesn’t meet you.”

“We shall take our leave, then”, Dumbledore said.

Snape cleared his throat. “Harry, I ... you ... I was very impressed by how you engineered things so that Mrs. Figg would come to babysit you. I should be pleased to welcome you in Slytherin House once you start school.”

And then, suddenly, the two wizards were gone.

“Apparating”, Mrs. Figg explained. “I had almost forgotten how jealous I am about that one.” She sighed. “No use complaining, though. Would you like a cup of sage tea now, dear?”

“I don’t really care for the taste, to be honest”, Harry said, feeling that after all he had gone through, he deserved to be spared the bitter tea.

“Yes, I know, but it is good for colds, and you can’t look too happy, dear. If she thinks you enjoy staying with me, she might try to saddle me with Dudley, and I have no idea how I would talk my way out of that.”

“I like peppermint tea”, he offered. “And I can just pretend I hate staying with you. I’m not sick at all, Uncle Vernon just didn’t want to drive me to school.”

The key was turned in the lock. Uncle Vernon had come home.

“Hello Mr. Dursley”, Mrs. Figg opened the living room door. “Your wife is out, something about going to the doctor with your son, I think? She didn’t want Harry to leave the house, since he’s so sick, so I came over.”

“Thank you”, Vernon ground out, but he didn’t sound happy at all. “Did she say when she will be back?”

“I did say I could stay until the evening if I could bring my cats, so I am afraid I have no idea.”

“Hm. You won’t have to stay any longer. I’m sure your cats will want their dinner.”

Mrs. Figg couldn’t have stayed without being rude, Harry had to admit, but he still felt incredibly lonely when, as soon as she had left, Uncle Vernon sent him to his cupboard.

His cupboard that now did not contain a photo he could talk to.
The End.
Chapter End Notes:
Sorry for the downer ending - but you know Harry will go to Hogwarts. :)

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