Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 23 The Slipper
Harry glared gloomily at his empty plate, he had stupidly shovelled the food into his mouth at top speed, unknowing that in just a moment he’d wish he could prolong the meal indefinitely.

“I don’t want it!” he whined, folding his arms across his chest in irritation, mirroring the posture of the man across the table from him. This was so unfair! Father knew how to ruin the best meal in days with one sentence! Wasn’t it enough that he had to drink the horrid blue sludge at the beginning of lunch?

He’d almost burst into tears when the man had announced half an hour ago that until his stomach anxiety was under better control, the boy would be required to take potions to increase appetite and digestion at every mealtime, but somehow he misunderstood the crucial point that there would be one for appetite and another for digestion. Harry bitterly regretted admitting to father how often his stomach felt uneasy about eating, but he didn’t see a way out of it with the man asking questions like some rabid inquisitor.

“The potions are not optional, Harry,” father said seriously, fixing the child with a grim stare. “You’ll take them without a fuss and skip away to play with your friend, or you’ll stay at home with a very sore behind. In either case, you’ll not avoid the potion, so stop being a stubborn dunderhead and drink it.”

Eliot. That had been the man’s leverage from the beginning, Mrs. Wilkinson’s invitation from yesterday. Harry folded his arms on the table, burying his face in them in abject misery. He wanted to go see his friend, but the thought of swallowing another gross medicine was just unbearable!

“But I don’t feel sick anymore!” he wailed unhappily.

“Indeed, you’ve cleaned your plate without my cajoling or threats for the first time since we’ve met,” father said with the air of smug satisfaction. “Let’s make sure there are no pains as your stomach handles your better appetite, shall we? It would be a shame if you had to come back early because of a stomach ache.”

The boy looked up, wiping his tears with a hand. His father was smirking at him in amusement, and he had to admit that after choking down the blue sludge, his tummy had become very eager for the mushroom soup with sandwiches, not giving even a twinge of complaint as he gorged himself. Sighing in resignation, Harry picked up the tiny vial, there was no more than a soup spoonful of the muddy liquid inside.

“And I can see Eliot, if only I drink this?” he checked.

“No,” the man’s face hardened, until it seemed chiseled from ice. “I am not offering you a bribe, Harry. I have no intention of buying your compliance with trinkets or entertainment.”

Father’s nostrils flared, eyes flashing with ire the boy had seen only once in all this time. He shrank back until the backrest of the chair jabbed into his spine uncomfortably, as the man seemed to loom over him, although he hadn’t really moved.

“I have indulged your pouting for long enough, child,” he went on in a dire voice. “You will do as you are told, or your defiance will have consequences.”

Harry ducked his head, fingers on the vial tightening convulsively, he hated it when father cut him off at the knees like that.

“That’s not fair,” he whispered.

“Isn’t it?” the man mused coldly. “You know very well what will happen, if you refuse to take medicine. Must I indulge your foolish whim to be a martyr, Harry? My father used to say that a boy who needs reminders, had not howled for nearly long enough the first time. I didn’t need very many of them while growing up. Do you require a reminder now, child?”

Harry shook his head jerkily, not daring to look at the man, he sounded so matter-of-fact, as though it was a certainty that the boy would receive such reminders, eventually.

“No, sir,” he said in a voice more meek than he had ever used in his whole life. It was a wonder, if he would ever have the courage to speak less timidly again.

Father folded his hands on the table, and watched the boy soberly, waiting. Harry’s hands shook as he uncorked the tiny vial, and gulped the contents hastily. He coughed at the strong minty flavour, but to his considerable surprise it wasn’t bad. Eyes widening, he saw the man give a nod of acknowledgement.

“You and I may debate and negotiate many things, Harry,” father said gravely. “Even argue, and you’ll not incur serious consequences, but your health and well-being will never be one of them. You will take the medicine without a word of complaint for as long as necessary, or I will administer a strapping. I shall not warn you again.”

“I understand, sir,” the boy whispered, thinking that without the potion he’d be curling on the floor with more cramps, he was so tense.

“Good,” father said calmly. “Go to your room, I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

Harry’s eyes filled with tears of betrayal, he had obeyed in the end, but father was going to punish him anyway! He pushed away from the chair, swaying as he trotted from the kitchen, he was blinded by tears by the time he collapsed on his bed. That wasn’t fair! He wasn’t really going to refuse the stupid potion, he wasn’t a complete idiot! Father had no reason to be cross with him!

The boy was so consumed by his misery that he didn’t notice the door sliding open, and the source of his upset coming in.

“What is the matter with you, now?” the man demanded impatiently.

He looked around, but he was crying so hard that father was only a black blur in the doorway. Harry’s breath hitched for a moment, before he was out of bed and pressed into the furthest corner of the room, watching.

“Have you learned your favourite cat died, or something?” father inquired wearily, stalking closer and giving the child a narrow-eyed look. “Something hurts? Speak up, boy!”

“You’re horrible!”

The man stopped in surprise, his eyebrows shooting up at the child’s outburst.

“Why does that make you cry?” he asked, sounding completely baffled. “I don’t recall claiming to be goodness personified.”

Harry blinked, tears stopping in mid-sob at the peculiar answer. The man heaved a sigh, putting a palm to the child’s forehead and cheeks, as if checking for fever.

“You’re a little warm,” he concluded with a frown. “Are you feeling unwell?”

The boy shook his head automatically, feeling as if he was lost in a sea of uncertainty and confusion. What was going on?

“Are you sure?” father insisted, scrutinising the child from head to toe. “Very well. Come, I’m sure you don’t want to be late.”

It was almost an out of body experience, when the man steered him to the wardrobe, and instructed the stunned boy to choose a change of clothes and pack for his visit. Harry did as he was told, picking out a pair of shorts, pants and a shirt with numb fingers. Father brought a bath towel from the bathroom, and had him pack it all into a small bag.

The boy’s chest ached strangely, heart hammering erratically as father took him by the hand, and led him out of the house. With every step, a heavy weight in his gut seemed to get more uncomfortable. It didn’t hurt, the potion he’d drunk stopped his stomach from twisting into a knot, but he wanted to heave up everything he’d eaten nonetheless. Harry didn’t understand it, it didn’t look like he’d be getting a whipping after all, so why was he feeling unhappy all of a sudden? He loved playing with Eliot, but the sight of Mrs. Wilkinson coming over to greet them almost made him burst into a fit of weeping.

“You look peaky today,” she told him, peering into his eyes with concern. “Have you eaten?”

“He has,” father said exasperatedly, rolling his eyes at their neighbour. “But we had some trouble with stomach aches.”

“Oh, you poor dear,” she crooned, patting his cheek with a wrinkled hand, and nodding attentively to the man’s explanation about the medicine he needed to take before and after food.

Harry ducked his head to hide a grimace, when father pulled two small bottles out of a pocket, and handed them to the woman. They looked like the bottle of syrup aunt Petunia used to give Dudley for coughing.

“He’ll be fine,” she assured father, patting his cheek in the same way she’d just done the boy’s. “Don’t you worry, Severus.”

“Very well,” the man pulled his head out of reach, as if stung by a bothersome fly. “Behave yourself, young man!”

“Yes, sir,” Harry whispered sadly, and just like that father was walking away, doing what he’d avowed never to do!

The boy jumped and looked up with wide, frightened eyes, as Mrs. Wilkinson’s hand smacked his rear unexpectedly. It didn’t exactly hurt, but even so tears stung his eyes.

“Run along, Harry,” she said, pointing towards the back garden. “Eliot’s been driving me crazy waiting for you.”

Harry did as he was told, rubbing his bottom as he went, keeping tears at bay with difficulty. It wasn’t hard to locate his friend, Eliot sat in a plastic chair, swinging his legs impatiently, his face aglow with eagerness to spring from his perch at last.

“You came!” the smaller boy exclaimed in relief. “I thought your daddy wouldn’t let you, grandma wasn’t sure, and she wouldn’t let me go in before you came!”

Harry blinked at the barrage of words, eyebrows raising at Eliot’s state of undress.

“Sorry,” he muttered automatically. “Are you sunbathing?”

Eliot looked at him as if he were mad, before grinning from ear to ear.

“We’re going swimming!” he announced gleefully, jumping up and down in enthusiasm.

Forehead wrinkling in confusion, Harry glanced around, mouth falling open at the sight of a bright orange blown up swimming pool stretched on the lawn. He’d seen things like that on television sometimes, but never anyone having one in real life. Even Dudley didn’t have a pool of his own, and he had everything he wanted that money could buy.

“Where has it come from?” he asked, staring at the sparkling water in awe.

“Daddy brought it yesterday,” Eliot answered excitedly, bending over the wall of the pool and running fingers through the water. “For my birthday.”

“It was your birthday, yesterday?” Harry asked, but the other boy was shaking his head.

“Not in weeks, yet,” he said sadly, grimacing. “Daddy is going away, again.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, the ache in his chest getting even worse in sympathy for his friend.

Eliot shrugged his shoulders as nonchalantly as he could manage, despite his long face.

“At least we can play in the pool,” he sighed, stretching a hand out to reach the bottom.

“Must I warm your bottom to improve your hearing, Eliot?!” Mrs. Wilkinson scolded, approaching with fists on her hips and eyes flashing lighting.

His friend jumped away from the pool as if he were burnt, folding his hands behind his back to hide that they were wet.

“I’m staying away, grandma! I am!” the boy promised innocently, an impish grin on his face making the effort futile.

“Cheeky brat,” the woman snorted, flicking Eliot on the ear before planting a kiss on his temple. “I’m much too lenient with you.”

“May we go in now, grandma? Please?” he pleaded.

“In a minute,” Mrs. Wilkinson replied, shooting a critical glance at Harry, who stood rigidly at Eliot’s side, his head bowed and white-knuckled fists clenched at his sides. “You, Harry, can go in your panties. Your father brought things to change into later. I’m going for something to read and a cup of tea, you’ll get ready and wait for me, boys, or you’ll get the slipper instead of the pool, and that’s a promise.”

Harry watched the old lady walk away warily, not daring to move yet. Father had him pack a change of clothes, could that be only to get in the pool? He shook his head, he didn’t need a shirt or shorts for that. Under his friend’s demanding stare, Harry started to undress, folding his clothes neatly on an empty chair.

“What does it mean?” he asked softly, keeping his eyes carefully fixed on the worn trainers he set on top of his blue shorts. “The slipper?”

Eliot snorted, rolling his eyes, as if it was nothing to be concerned about.

“That’s just talk,” he shrugged nonchalantly, but his hand trailed to touch his bum, seemingly of its own accord. “She doesn’t do it very often.”

Harry understood, his mood getting even gloomier. He remembered Mrs. Wilkinson saying how she had punished Eliot the other day.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For getting you into trouble.”

He wanted to say more, to explain himself somehow, but Mrs. Wilkinson returned with a cup of tea and a magazine, and the lump in his throat made even whispering impossible.

“Alright,” the woman said briskly, sitting down in a plastic chair. “You may go in, but no fooling around, or you’ll be out faster than you can say sorry.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harry mumbled to his bare toes, but Eliot’s excited shriek drowned his soft words completely. The younger boy snatched his hand, and pulled him around the pool to the small ladder and a slide.

Before he quite knew what was happening, Harry was splashing into the ice cold water, spluttering as he stood up in the middle of the pool. He looked at Mrs. Wilkinson, worried that was too much fooling around to be tolerated, but the woman had her nose in her magazine, paying the children no mind.

“Let’s do it again!” Eliot shrieked with laughter, and Harry’s nervousness gradually melted away over the next minutes, as the boys competed with each other over who could slide the fastest, or make the biggest splash.

The boys spent the next several hours splashing about in the shallow pool, making up different games and giggling like a pair of fools. Harry loved the wild abandon of playing in the water, managing to stop worrying about the adult watching them, even if not very attentively.

About mid-afternoon, Eliot’s grandmother called them out of the pool for tea. She was very particular about no foolish urchins dripping water onto her clean floor, and they ate their cake with tea while sitting on the grass [Harry choked down his potions as prescribed, Mrs. Wilkinson’s grey eyes were as hard as his father’s, and he didn’t dare even grimace].

They were about to return to the pool, when Eliot announced that he absolutely needed his boats and fishes, or they couldn’t possibly play properly. Eliot’s grandmother rolled her eyes, and walked toward the house to fetch the toys, shouting over her shoulder that they were to stay out of the pool, or else.

Harry certainly had no notions of disobeying, but the same couldn’t be said of his friend. The moment Mrs. Wilkinson disappeared behind the wall of the house, Eliot turned a mischievous grin to him.

“Now, we can go diving!”

In hindsight, the boy knew he should have protested more, he was older, wiser and more experienced, wasn’t he? He should have said no, but the truth was that he had been too intimidated by the younger boy’s insistence, too afraid of upsetting his only friend. Once Eliot’s face tightened with stubborness, Harry capitulated with poor grace, he didn’t much like being called a coward. Surely, trying just once wouldn’t hurt anybody, right? He regretted his acquiescence the moment Mrs. Wilkinson returned with the bath toys Eliot wanted.

“So,” she said disapprovingly, when the boys came up spitting and coughing from their latest dip underwater. “Your hearing has gotten worse instead of better. That’s enough pool, get out.”

Harry was moving before the last syllable was out of her mouth, his heart breaking into a gallop and his insides writhing with fear. Eliot didn’t show the same obedience, however, he folded his arms, glaring petulantly.

“I won’t! I want to play in the pool!” the smaller boy declared angrily. “I didn’t do anything!”

Harry flinched, all the times his cousin said those words flashing through his mind in one instant. He opened his mouth to defend himself, but his friend didn’t go on to blame him as Dudley would have done.

“Dry yourself and dress, Harry,” Mrs. Wilkinson told him sharply, pointing to a chair where his bag and clothes lay. “Eliot, come out, now!”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Harry whispered, stumbling to gather his towel and clothes as fast as possible, wincing as Eliot began to cry in protest.

Mrs. Wilkinson helped her crying grandson dress himself, and then ordered both boys to watch as she began dismantling the pool. Eliot cried harder, protesting that it was a present from his daddy, but his grandmother only grumbled that it was the same story each year.

“Alright,” she sighed, after they watched water pouring out of the pool onto the lawn for a few minutes. “Harry and I are going upstairs, and you will fetch the slipper for me, Eliot.”

The stern command made a breath catch in Harry’s throat, and he wanted to cry, too.

“We were only playing, grandma,” Eliot whined, folding his arms stubbornly. “You didn’t have to spoil the pool!”

“You were playing at defying me,” Mrs. Wilkinson returned sourly. “You will do as I ask, child, and be glad it’s only the slipper.”

Harry’s frantic eyes met the younger boy’s blue gaze fearfully.

“It was my idea, grandma,” Eliot abruptly confessed, bravely trying to protect his friend, who was as pale as death.

The woman smiled slightly, patting the boy on the cheek fondly.

“I know, Eliot, but you both disobeyed me. Now, go.”

For Harry, the walk to Eliot’s room was horrifying, he knew he was breathing too fast, but he couldn’t stop. He wanted to go home so badly, but father wouldn’t want him back after he’d behaved so shamefully, not if he begged on bended knees.

“Sit next to Harry, Eliot,” Mrs. Wilkinson said suddenly, making the boy flinch and blink rapidly, his wide eyes focusing on the single adult-sized gym shoe she was holding. “Have you anything to say for yourselves, boys?”

“Sorry, grandma,” Eliot apologised nonchalantly.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he choked out through his constricted throat. “I won’t disobey again.”

“Don’t make promises you cannot keep, boy,” the woman huffed disapprovingly. “Apologies accepted, but you’re getting the slipper as promised. Bend over the bed, both of you. Side by side, quickly now, you knew what you were doing, so don’t give me that look, Eliot.”

Harry was shaking with stress by the time Mrs. Wilkinson stopped berating them, Eliot stood with a resigned sigh, turned around and lay himself, belly-down, across the mattress. The older boy watched with dry lips for a minute, before forcing himself to assume the same position. He wanted to go home, even father’s belt would be better than this! The sound of the shoe striking something close by made him whimper, but it was Eliot who cried out in pain first.

Harry was sobbing into the bed even before the slipper fell across his bottom, and it seemed to get worse with every following strike, no matter whose posterior was assaulted at the time.

“Alright, ten apiece is enough, I think,” Mrs. Wilkinson announced after an epoch, giving them a pat on the back each. “You may rise. Do you want a hug, now?”

Harry backed away as far as the little room allowed, watching through red-rimmed eyes as Eliot melted against his grandmother, letting her rock him in her lap.

“Are you going to tell mummy?” the boy sniffled.

“You will tell her,” his grandma replied. “You deserve the discomfort after getting Harry into trouble.”

Eliot looked across the room at the older boy with a wan smile.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he whispered.

“Do you want a hug, child?” Mrs. Wilkinson asked again.

The boy shook his head, melding his body into the corner even more closely.

“I want to go home,” he pleaded, his voice cracking with strain on the last word.

Lines on the woman’s forehead deepened into a frown of concern, she kissed her grandson’s head and lifted the boy to sit by himself.

“I’m going to give your father a call, alright?” she offered kindly.

Harry nodded mutely, wiping his tears with both hands. He tracked Mrs. Wilkinson with his eyes until the closing door cut his view of her.

“Can’t you stay a while?” Eliot complained. “It’s not like grandma got really mad, it was just ten smacks! I got thirty for lying about your hand, and on the bare, even! Come on, we could play with blocks again!”

He wanted to go home so badly that his stomach ached from anxiety. He sat on his heels, hugging his knees and trying to control his sudden nausea. The fresh sting in his bottom was almost gone, certainly nothing like after his father had spanked him that morning, but something about the punishment terrified him. The wait for his father was impossibly long, and his stomach filled with the terrible conviction that the man would leave him here forever.

When Harry heard his father calling his name from downstairs, he felt as though his heart would burst. He flew down the stairs, barely remembering to say goodbye to his disappointed friend, and threw himself at the glowering man, hugging his middle and crying in tremendous relief.

"What has happened?" The man seethed, but Harry's only reaction to the angry tone was to squeeze him even tighter, burying his head in the man's stomach.

"I want to go home!" He cried, his father stiffened in surprise, but next moment he was lifting the boy up and pressing his head to his shoulder.

"What has happened?!" He demanded, directing his question to Mrs. Wilkinson this time.

Eliot's grandmother huffed in indignation at father's tone, but she recounted the events readily enough, except she told it completely wrong! He could feel father getting furious at poor Eliot and himself, and he cried harder, foreseeing pain in his future, but he was going home and only that mattered!

“Had I known how upset Harry would be, I’d have left his discipline to you, Severus,” Mrs. Wilkinson sighed. “I warned them, though, and both of them must know that I mean what I say, if I’m to mind the two of them again.”

The man paused on his way to the door, piercing the old woman with a scornful eye.

“Don’t be absurd, Marlene,” he scoffed. “You can be sure I wouldn’t hesitate if the roles were reversed, and I wouldn’t be so lenient either. Good evening.”

The boy grew tense as a board as father strode briskly up the path, his relief at going home mingled with fear of the inevitable punishment from the man.

“What possessed you to defy her so, Harry?” father demanded in a growl.

He sucked in a frightened breath, mumbling into the man’s shoulder unwillingly, as quiet as it was, father somehow heard him, snorting derisively.

“That wasn’t very smart,” he said wryly, pushing the gate to their property open with one hand. “Next time Eliot has a brainless idea, you’d better find a way to convince him otherwise, or Mrs. Wilkinson’s slipper won’t be the worst that happens to you, and that’s for certain.”

The boy’s ears perked up at the words, and he raised his head to look at the man, loosening his choke-hold on his neck.

“But not today?” Harry asked cautiously.

Father sighed, pausing to perch on the bench by the door, settling the child in his lap.

“Not today,” he acknowledged. “But you’ll have to learn to be a friend to Eliot, not a sycophant. Do you know what the difference is, Harry?”

The boy shook his head, dropping his eyes to the sun-lit porch. He’d never had a friend before, and didn’t know how to go about keeping one.

“A true friend sometimes says no,” father explained gravely. “He argues for what he believes is right. He can’t be bullied into doing what he thinks is wrong, but he’ll help you even if you’re foolish.”

“Really?” Harry asked doubtfully, he couldn’t imagine Eliot responding well to any of that, but the younger boy had tried to get him out of the spanking, hadn’t he?

“Yes,” the man murmured, bending his neck to kiss the top of the child’s head. “Are you ready to tell me why the spanking upset you so much?”

The boy buried his face in father’s shoulder, tears filling his eyes and shoulders beginning to shake with renewed sobs. He didn’t want to answer, but as the man’s arm wrapped around him tightly, garbled words spilled out of his mouth, seemingly of their own volition.

“I thought… I thought…” he practically wailed. “You w-wouldn’t come b-back!”

“I… See…” father said hesitantly. There was a tense pause, and then he added: “Do you want to help me prepare dinner, Harry?”

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