Harry sat outside for a long time until afternoon turned to evening, unsure if he was allowed back in. Aunt Petunia had the tendency to lock Harry out of the house for hours on end back on Privet Drive. Harry would normally just wander around Little Whinging when she did that, though. It was alright, since it meant Harry wasn't stuck at home with his horrid relatives, but on hot days it could get pretty miserable between the thirst and Dudley’s gang. Harry didn't dare leave the garden here, however; Snape seemed to care a little more about what Harry did in his free time, for whatever reason. He didn't feel like getting in even more trouble than usual by leaving without permission. Besides, Spinner's End was terraced, so there was no way for Harry to leave without going through the house.

Eventually, after an indeterminable amount of time, Snape opened the back door. Even though his expression was often difficult to read, Harry could easily tell he was exhausted.

"Dinner," he said curtly, pointing to a steaming bowl of spaghetti on the kitchen table.

"Thank you, sir," Harry said, hurrying over to the table. He hadn't eaten since breakfast and he was utterly famished.

As he started cramming spaghetti into his mouth, Harry noticed that Snape had already left the room. There wasn't any sign of Malfoy, either. It wasn’t like Harry particularly wanted to see either of them, but he did think it was a little odd that nobody else was here eating. Was Snape punishing Malfoy for throwing things by taking his dinner away? That was incredibly worrying, since Snape liked Draco a fair bit more than Harry. What would he do to Harry if he got in trouble? Starve him for the rest of August?

Besides, where had Snape disappeared to himself? So far, all three of them had taken meals together. Harry just thought it was strange that if Snape could avoid Harry at mealtimes, he'd only start doing it tonight. What was he up to?

Harry spent the entire meal pondering these things, but no one returned downstairs before he finished eating. He stood up and quickly washed his plate in the kitchen sink. Even though Snape could clean it in a second with magic, Harry still didn’t think it was wise to leave dirty dishes lying around. After a moment's hesitation, he also made the decision to grab a pear from a fruit bowl Snape kept on the kitchen counter. He slipped it into his pocket. Just in case. 

Since Dudley's hand-me-down clothes were so large there was no telltale bulge in his pocket, but Harry thought it might be better to hide the pear in his food store at the bottom of his trunk, so he made to go upstairs.

He’d just left the kitchen and reached the bottom of the staircase when Snape emerged from the door on the upstairs landing that led to his laboratory. He noticed Harry moving around and stared down at him, frowning as usual.

"Draco has been confined to his room for the evening," Snape explained, jerking his head in the direction of the closed bedroom door. "You aren't to go in there at the moment."

"Alright," Harry said with a shrug. "Er - do you want me to carry on gardening?"

Snape scowled. "Cut the martyr act, Potter. It would be absurd to garden at this late hour!”

Harry thought that was rather unfair, since Snape had threatened to have him working from dawn to dusk if Harry didn’t meet his impossible standards, but obviously didn’t say so.

“I’m sure at the grand age of thirteen you can figure out something to occupy your time,” he said with a sarcastic bite. “Just stay down there. I have an important potion to attend to.”

Harry just rolled his eyes and walked away down the hallway. Snape was back to being his usual, nasty self, it seemed. At least he was staying far, far away from Harry while he did it. Harry walked aimlessly into the kitchen and back again. Snape’s snarky comments unfortunately held some truth - he really didn’t know what to do with himself, especially while in Snape’s house.

In the end, Harry ended up standing in the hallway, staring at the cupboard under the stairs. It didn’t look like the one at Privet Drive. For one thing, there was no grate in the door. Nothing that could provide Harry with weak slits of light to see by when the lightbulb in the cupboard gave out while he was locked inside…

But Harry couldn’t be locked in there. For one thing, there was no lock. Normal people didn’t install locks on cupboard doors to keep their nephews in.

Wizards don’t need regular locks to trap people inside.

Harry angrily shook himself, hating that little voice in the back of his head. Snape was a bastard, but he wasn’t going to lock Harry up in a cupboard. After all, Malfoy had just broken some of Snape’s belongings, and he’d only been sent to his room.

  But Snape favours Malfoy over you. If you did something like that, who’s to say he wouldn’t lock you in a cupboard?

  Well, then don’t throw a massive fit and break his stuff and he won’t do it, then!

  Snape’s never treated you fairly. He’ll find fault somewhere…

Harry gave an exasperated sigh and smacked his head against the wall behind him, squeezing his eyes shut. The problem with being raised by the Dursleys was that Harry couldn’t just go through life feeling secure in the knowledge that adults wouldn’t lock him in cupboards when he did something they didn’t like. The Dursleys were Harry’s family, after all - he was their nephew, for crying out loud! That was a pretty close blood relation, and even if Harry wasn’t their son, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were the closest thing to parents Harry had ever known.

And they’d locked him in a cupboard for things he couldn’t control.

If Harry’s own family treated him that way, who was to say Snape wouldn’t? A man who truly despised Harry, and didn’t even have the flimsy tie of family to restrain him from truly vile treatment?

So he had to check. Taking a deep, shaky breath, Harry reached out a hand, grabbed the knob of the cupboard door and yanked it open.

It was far smaller than the cupboard at Privet Drive. It was full to bursting, too, with mismatched household paraphernalia. A bucket and mop. An old bottle of bleach with a faded label. Stacks and stacks of empty plastic bags. A few dusty cardboard boxes.

Nothing else could be shoved in there.

Harry shut the door and sank against it, staring at his shoes. He did his best to breathe, but it felt like his lungs had locked up, banning the entry of any oxygen. He was being so stupid. Why did Harry always end up freaking out whenever he stayed at someone else’s house? The same thing had happened at the Burrow last summer. Harry remembered just being so shocked that there were so many people in the house who actually wanted to spend time with him. He should have been happy about that, but for some reason it had evoked such a heart-wrenching sadness in him. He hadn’t been able to properly enjoy it as a consequence.

Then, there was the food. Mrs Weasley was such a lovely woman, and Harry knew intellectually that she wasn’t going to starve him, but he’d just been so hungry. He’d been living off of one stone-cold can of soup a day that he’d needed to split with Hedwig for a long, long time, and when he’d seen all that food, Harry’s brain had just been screaming at him to eat it all, eat it now while it was still there, just in case. In the end, he’d excused himself after the meal to throw up in the loo, unable to keep the rich cooking down. Nobody had heard, luckily, except Fred and George. They apologised profusely - a prank meant for Percy must have made him sick, they’d said. Harry was just relieved they hadn’t guessed the real reason.

Harry didn’t understand why he couldn’t just forget about all of this. He wanted not to think, to ignore all of the crap things that had happened to him while he was at the Dursleys. He wasn’t there, now, was he, so why did he just keep thinking about it? Why did these awful feelings of anxiety always rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune of moments?

In the end, Harry decided the best thing to do was to take himself away from that stupid cupboard and try to distract himself in Snape’s living room. It didn't look like the one at Privet Drive, mostly because of the glaring absence of a television. Harry assumed that was something to do with magic. He vaguely remembered Hermione mentioning something about magical frequencies messing up electricity.

No, instead Snape's living room was completely crammed with bookshelves, floor to ceiling ones without a single gap in the volumes lining them. Unlike the rest of the house, which had a general air of neglect, the books on the shelves were pristine and completely free of dust. Most of them were thick, leatherbound Potions manuals, many in French or Latin which Harry couldn't even read, but he smiled to himself as his index finger ran over Most Potente Potions. Snape loved to rag on Harry's brewing abilities, but he had helped Hermione brew that Polyjuice. He couldn't be completely useless.

Potions books weren't the only topic of research featuring on Snape's shelves, though. There were a couple of novels, including, oddly enough, Pride and Prejudice, as well as textbooks and journals from other areas of magical study. Harry paused his scan of the shelves at the title Manipulation of the Dark Arts. Now that certainly looked interesting…

But to Harry's immense disappointment, when he tried to open the book, the cover wouldn't budge an inch. It was as if it had all been glued together, although Harry had a gut feeling it was actually linked to some more sophisticated magic. Snape, of course, would be able to guess that Harry or Malfoy would be interested in his Dark Arts books and would have locked them up.

All the other Dark-looking books Harry picked up had that same spell on them. Well, at least the first three did. Harry had been on the verge of picking up a fourth book when he realised that if Snape could bewitch the books shut, he could probably hook them up to some kind of spell that let him know if other people touched them. Harry really didn't want Snape to find out he was poking around what essentially was Snape's own personal restricted section, so he dropped his gaze and looked over to the small side table next to the armchair Snape seemed to favour. Behind an extraordinary ugly-looking lampshade was yet another book, which caught Harry's attention because of how simply mundane it was.

While the majority of the books in Snape's shelves were leatherbound volumes with gold-lettered titles, this book was a paperback with the same cover art style of the self-help books and diet guides Aunt Petunia occasionally bought but never read. It even had a photo of a woman with a slightly choppy fringe on the front. Harry knew then this had to be a muggle book, since wizarding photographs always moved. Above the woman was a large, bold-lettered title: A CAREGIVER’S GUIDE TO ADOLESCENT TRAUMA.

Now that confused Harry. This seemed remarkably out of place amongst Snape's other reading material. What was he doing with a Muggle psychology book, of all things? Curious, he walked over and turned over the book to read the blurb.

  Whether you're a new foster parent or a seasoned veteran, this book will help you find new ways to help the children in your care. Whatever background the child you're caring for originates, Dr Stephanie has a number of handy tips and tricks for helping them flourish, in her new novel specifically geared towards foster care of teenagers…

Harry tilted the book to one side and noticed several pages were dog-eared. He flipped to one.

  …displaced teens may lash out, but that is to be expected. Leaving behind everything they've known, including parents or siblings, is an incredibly distressing and traumatic experience that can manifest itself in a number of behaviours…

Harry flipped another page and found it opened to a whole section on 'navigating parental incarceration'.

  Dealing with the implications of a parent in prison can be difficult. Here are some helpful ways to navigate this sensitive area…

It was then that the penny dropped.

Snape had gotten this book to figure out what was going on with Malfoy!

Interest flared up in Harry as he held the book out before him. Snape wasn't the only one who wanted to work out what the hell was going on with Malfoy; Harry was wondering that same thing himself, especially since no one here could be bothered to tell him anything. Maybe if Harry looked through these dog-eared passages, he could start to understand Malfoy's behaviour a bit more.

But Harry had just started flipping through the pages to the next marked one when a chapter title practically screamed out of the page at him, stopping Harry in his tracks. 'CHILD NEGLECT'.

All of a sudden, he was violently slammed back in time, to a memory from Dudley's seventh birthday party.

It had taken place in the garden of Privet Drive. Harry had been hiding at the sidelines while the other children played, because if Harry tried to join in the party games, Dudley would beat him up. It was easier to hide in the alleyway down the side of the house, out of sight and out of mind. That obscured alleyway also had remarkably good acoustics. Harry could easily hear the conversations of the mums on the patio who didn't know he was there listening.

"They neglect that poor nephew of theirs terribly, don't they?" Mrs Lambert clucked.

Harry didn't know what neglect meant, of course, but the world felt cold and sharp as he rolled it around in his mouth. He knew it was a bad thing.

"He's never dressed properly, is he?" Mrs Ashton said sniffily. "They could certainly afford to get him some decent clothes, just look at all the presents Dudley's gotten…"

Harry tugged on the base of his t-shirt and bit his lip. He couldn't help not being dressed properly. He was so scrawny that Dudley's hand-me-downs just always looked so monstrous and ugly on him…

"Petunia doesn't even touch him, have you noticed?" Mrs Smith said in her rather nasally voice. "She fusses over Dudley at the school gates every morning, and he just stands there like a lost little lamb. It's downright strange, I'll tell you that."

"Well, the boy is disturbed," Mrs Ashton said in low, dramatic tones. "You've heard the stories of him, he's a terror! Just imagine what it's like dealing with him at home!"

"But, they don't get like that on their own, do they?" Mrs Lambert murmured. "Maybe if Vernon and Petunia were a little more attentive…"

"Well, how much can you do with brain damage involved?" Mrs Smith asked. "His parents were drunks, I heard. They died in a drink driving accident, while he was in the car and all! I’ve always thought it knocked his head wrong, you’ve seen that nasty scar…"

“Speaking of scars, have you seen Debbie?” Mrs Ashton said, her voice dripping with horror.

Harry had continued to unwillingly listen in as Mrs Ashton, Mrs Smith and Mrs Lambert had gossiped viciously about every other child and parent at that party, saying things that were just as vile as the things they'd said about Harry, but those words still stuck with him to this day. The Dursleys may have been neglectful, but it was Harry's fault, since he was such a terror.

Harry put the book to one side, his mouth bone-dry. All of a sudden, digging into Malfoy's mysterious psychological issues felt far less interesting and more of an invasion of privacy. He didn’t want to act like those nasty, nosy women.

Harry shook himself and moved to the opposite end of the living room. He'd done more than enough thinking about his relatives for one evening, that was certain. Instead, Harry did the only thing he could think of to distract himself - he took out a pencil and paper from his pocket and began to draw.

Drawing had been one of the only things Harry could do for fun as a child. Any of his toys had been broken, discarded things of Dudley's that almost always ended up being broken further when Dudley noticed Harry playing with them. Pencils, paper and crayons, on the other hand, could be easily nicked from school whenever Harry needed them, and the drawings themselves could be hidden under his mattress in the cupboard. He never showed them to his aunt and uncle, of course; Harry had a vivid and painful memory of the time he'd made the mistake of giving Aunt Petunia a scribbling of a dragon when he was little. He'd thought she would have put it up on the fridge, like she did with Dudley's drawings. Instead, she’d ripped it up and threw it in the bin.

Harry always hid his drawings now.

So, he sat alone in Snape's living room, time blurring around him as he sketched away. He'd been drawing the view from his room in the Leaky Cauldron before Dumbledore had so abruptly sent him here, so Harry was doing his best to fill in the gaps from memory. He'd gotten quite good at doing that, since being locked in a cupboard while you drew meant there wasn't a lot to look at for inspiration. He scribbled away, forming the spiralling, cobbled streets twisting between the narrow buildings, the pointed hats of the witches and wizards doing the shopping, the brick arches of the Diagon Alley entrance…

He'd just finished off the distant train tracks when a creaking noise from the door broke Harry out of his focus. He shoved the drawing under one arm and looked up at Snape, who had materialised behind him. As usual, he was frowning.

"What is that?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Harry said a little too quickly, dragging the drawing further away from Snape. Of course, he once again forgot about magic. Snape flicked his wand and the drawing flew straight into his hand.

"Hey, that's mine!" Harry said angrily, trying to grab it back. Snape quickly moved it out of his reach, and a strange expression that Harry couldn't quite read settled over his features.

"I didn't know you drew," he said finally. His tone of voice was odd. Harry was expecting him to immediately begin criticising it like the drawing was a Potions essay, but no follow-up comments came. As a matter of fact, Snape looked oddly spooked, like he’d just seen a ghost.

"Yeah, well you really don't know anything about me, Snape," Harry muttered, still feeling resentful about the stolen drawing.

Snape's eyes hardened and the corners of his mouth twisted downward. He dropped the drawing back on the table.

"Oh, I know plenty about you, Potter," he growled. "Namely about the endless bounds of your disrespect and cheek. What are you even still doing down here?"

"You told me I had to stay down here!" Harry said loudly. How was he getting in trouble for following Snape's rules?

"Keep your voice down, Draco is asleep," Snape hissed, "and you should be, too. It's past eleven. Go."

Right. Snape and his stupid ten-thirty bedtime. Harry snatched his drawing up and stalked away up the stairs, feeling exceedingly glad when Snape didn't follow him up. Harry wasn’t sure if he’d have been able to control himself if that had been the case. As soon as he entered the darkened bedroom, Harry picked up a pillow and punched it as hard as he could, anger surging through him.

Harry was so worked up over Snape's unfairness that it took him well over an hour to get to sleep. The next morning, he awoke with a groan. Every single muscle in his body ached horribly from the weeding he'd been doing yesterday, the bruises from Privet Drive were throbbing with renewed vigour, and his eyes were oddly sticky. He rubbed them before putting his glasses on to check the time.

It was 7:55.

"Shit!" Harry hissed, all tiredness replaced by adrenaline as he jumped up from bed. Sleeping in always earned a punishment from his relatives, and Snape was almost certainly looking for a reason to make Harry's life even more miserable than it already was. Even Malfoy was awake by now, for God's sake! Harry needed to get downstairs as quickly as possible.

He threw on some clothes as quickly as he could, ran down the stairs and skidded into the kitchen, where Snape was frying something at the stove. Malfoy was already at the kitchen table, scowling at the wall. Well, at least someone here looked as miserable as Harry felt. Of course, he quickly noticed Harry’s entrance, and turned his ire upon Harry.

“Great Merlin, Potter, have you ever seen a hairbrush in your life?” Malfoy sneered at Harry’s hair. He self-consciously started trying to flatten it with his hands as Snape finally turned around from the stove. Harry felt his heart speed up, expecting a sharp reprimand for being late to breakfast or something, but Snape's eyes only momentarily glanced over him before he returned to cooking.

Harry slid into his seat at the kitchen table, barely believing his luck. He was still half-expecting Snape to make some sort of snide comment and punish him as he served up breakfast, but nothing of the sort happened. It almost felt too good to be true.

"So," Snape said once they'd all made decent headway into their meal. "You will both be doing chores today."

Malfoy pointedly refused to look up.

"Potter, you can continue in the garden," Snape ordered. "Perhaps you could deign to actually put some gloves on this time so I don't have to waste potions on a perfectly preventable injury."

Harry nodded and did his best to look like he even slightly cared about anything Snape had to say.

"And Draco." Snape turned his beady black eyes towards the other end of the table. "As punishment for your behaviour yesterday, you will be cleaning this entire kitchen without magic. You will mop the floors, clean the countertops, anything and everything that needs to be done will be done. I'll be writing a list for you."

"I don't know how to do any of that," Malfoy groused, folding his arms.

"I will be here to show you," Snape said briskly. "When the two of you have finished eating, you can get on with it."

Harry finished his food as quickly as possible, eager to get away from the glowering Malfoy who appeared to be on the verge of another explosion. Unlike Harry, he was eating as slowly as humanly possible, probably to procrastinate his chores. Snape seemed highly displeased with this, of course, so Harry was rather relieved to be outside and away from the two of them. He didn't want to be caught in the crossfire of another fight.

Occasionally, Harry glanced up from his gardening and looked through the sliding glass door into the kitchen. Malfoy was, in fact, being made to work. Harry tried to be as inconspicuous as possible while he watched the other boy half-heartedly drag a mop across the kitchen tiles as Snape supervised, occasionally giving some pointer.

The surprises just kept coming. What was this strange world where Malfoy actually faced consequences for his actions? Aunt Petunia would never have punished Dudley for throwing something at Harry…

After about an hour of work, Harry heard the back door creak open. It was Snape.

"I'm going to a meeting," he said. Harry got the vague impression that Snape wasn't particularly happy to be attending this, judging by the depth of his scowl. "I'll be back before lunch. You two boys behave yourselves… if you don't, believe me I'll know."

"Yes, sir," Harry said quickly. He was half-certain that Snape could find out how many times Harry blinked if he so desired.

As the back door shut behind Snape, Harry heard a woman chuckle.

"He's being rather stern with ya, isn't he?" Harry looked up and saw an elderly lady watching him from the other side of the fence. She had flyaway white hair and large, round glasses, which gave her an owl-like appearance. She also had a very strong Yorkshire accent. As they made eye contact, her mouth gaped open slightly before closing into a thoughtful frown.

"You're not…no, you can't be…" the woman muttered, raking her eyes up and down Harry.

"Can't be who?" he asked curiously.

"Would you be of any relation to Lily Evans?"

Harry felt his heart speed up. "Yeah?" he said, feeling a bit confused. How could Snape's neighbour know his mother's name? "She's my mum."

"Ah!" The woman's face brightened. "I knew it! I'd recognise those eyes anywhere…the exact same as Lily's, they are. Absolutely striking."

"Did you know her?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Ah, a little," the woman said with a smile. "Lily lived right around the corner from here, she did. She and Severus were quite good friends, as I'm sure you know!"

Despite himself, Harry's jaw dropped. Snape knew his mum? How would that have ever happened?!

"How is Lily doing, by the way?" the lady asked, unaware of Harry's shock. "I haven't seen her around here in years!"

"She's dead," Harry said, swallowing hard. "She died when I was a baby."

"Oh dear!" The woman's face fell. "I'm so sorry, love. What a shame! She was a lovely girl, she was…"

"Do you think you could tell me a bit about her?" Harry asked hopefully. He knew so little about his mother - all he really had were the photos Hagrid had given him in the album and a couple of stories from his Hogwarts professors who had taught her.

"Oh of course, my love!" The woman beamed. "She was just the sweetest girl, your mother. She used to water my plants for me when she popped round to see Severus. Your mum always had a knack for flowers…my late husband, Robert, well he would always kill the poor things, but I swear Lily could bring them back from the brink of death! She had a real knack for things like that. I'd always give her a couple of my cookies to get her by as a thank you. She'd always say to me, Maureen, it's my pleasure! You don't need to give me anything! But I liked to spoil her a little, I did."

Maureen laughed and sighed a little.

"Warmest heart she had, too," she said fondly. "Always picking up strays! She was ever so kind to young Severus, you know. The other boys round here gave him a hard time, but Lily was always in his corner. She had quite the temper, you know! I saw her slap a boy silly when he tried to poke fun at Severus' clothes once. She was a feisty little thing! I tell you, once Lily made a friend she would defend them to the bitter end."

Harry stayed silent, drinking in every last detail. He tried to imagine his mother's face from his photographs, fiery with fury as she faced down a bully. Of course, the image was rather tainted by the presence of Snape, sneering in the background.

Snape, who had never once mentioned knowing Harry's mum.

"You two must be rather similar," Maureen commented. "I saw you out here all day yesterday weeding! Do you like to garden?"

"I do," Harry said. It wasn't entirely a lie. Out of all the chores the Dursleys had him do, it was by far his favourite, since it got him as far away from his relatives as possible.

Harry peered over into Maureen's garden. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as Snape's, but it was still a bit overgrown and the flowers were looking rather wilted.

"Tell you what," Harry said with a sudden surge of determination, "let me at your garden. I can water the flowers for you, if you'd like?"

"Oh you don't have to do that, my love!" Maureen protested.

"No, but I want to," Harry said firmly. "I insist."

From what he could tell, Harry’s mother seemed to like Maureen, if she'd taken care of the woman’s plants all the time. Harry really wanted to carry that on. Perhaps it would help him feel closer to her, something which Harry struggled with at the best of times. He had no real memories of his mother, after all.

He walked over to a small, overgrown gate at the end of Snape's garden which allowed passage between the two fences. It took a lot of huffing and puffing, but eventually the gate opened with a noisy screech. The thing clearly hadn’t been oiled or even used in quite a while.

"Thank you very much, young man," Maureen said, putting a hand on her heart. "I haven't been able to properly take care of the poor things in years, I tell you! I'm getting up in the years, and I've neglected them terribly, and there's only so much my granddaughter can do when she stops by to visit.”

"Well I'm here for the rest of the summer," Harry said, filling up a watering can with the hosepipe. "I'd be happy to do it for you while I'm here."

"Oh you're too kind my love, too kind," Maureen said, patting Harry on the shoulder. "Goodness, I haven't caught your name! What is it?"

"Harry," he said. "Harry Potter."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Harry," Maureen said warmly.

Tending to the plants with the background of Maureen's stories was an exceedingly pleasant pastime. She’d led an extraordinarily interesting life, Harry found. She had all sorts of tales from World War II, where she'd worked in an ammunitions factory making bullets for the soldiers. Still, the best of her stories had to be the ones about Harry’s mother. It wasn’t a lot, since Maureen had only seen Lily occasionally over the course of many years, but since Harry had scarcely heard anything of his mother’s childhood, it still felt precious.

Maureen also dropped frequent references to Snape that Harry was too scared to pry into; he didn't want to raise any questions about why he didn’t know that the man he was currently living with used to be friends with his mother. Because what kind of person didn’t tell an orphan that?

Severus Snape, apparently.

As Maureen told him more and more stories, a hot core of anger began to burn in Harry’s stomach. From what she was saying, Snape and his mum hadn’t just known each other - they’d been best friends! How could Snape just never mention that? Harry knew so pitifully little about her as it was, and it was just another layer of cruelty he hadn’t anticipated from the professor. This stung even more viciously than the constant insults and unfair treatment. This was personal.

Eventually, Harry finished watering Maureen’s plants, and ran the lawnmower through her garden, but he decided not to go back to Snape’s house just yet. After all, why should Harry weed the garden of a man that didn’t even have the decency to tell him that he knew Harry's dead mother?

Luckily, Maureen seemed perfectly happy to have him.

“Oh, do come in for a cuppa, dearie!” she said once Harry was done. “I don’t get many visitors these days, and it would be my pleasure after all you've done for me.”

As Harry sat in Maureen’s kitchen while she pottered around, brazenly refusing all his offers of help, he reflected how strange it was that a house identical in build to Snape’s could have such a different feel to it. Snape’s house was all browns and greys and dirty creams, while Maureen’s was filled with colour, and small trinkets, and pictures of her family. It felt far more lived in and homely.

“So, dear,” Maureen said, sitting down with two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits, “I've been going on and on at you all morning, but you haven’t told me a thing about yourself yet! I suppose you live with your father? Is he a nice man? He’d have to have been to marry our Lily!”

“He’s dead, too,” Harry said, his eyes glued to the gingham tablecloth.

Maureen clucked her tongue. “Oh, that’s awful, my love. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “I don’t really remember them. I was only a baby when it happened."

Harry sometimes felt like people expected him to be sadder than he was about his parents, to miss them more. The thing was, Harry didn't actually have anything tangible to miss. The only thing he really knew to grieve about his mum and dad was the life he ought to have had with them. A world of possibilities that had been ripped away when Voldemort had murdered them.

Grief was more to do with the absence of someone from your life, he thought. The pain of someone who you were so used to having around suddenly disappearing. When all you knew was the absence, it didn't hurt as badly. Harry had gone his whole life with that sadness and grief hardwired into his brain. It made it easier to bear when you didn't know any other way.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how did it happen that you lost both your parents so young?” Maureen inquired.

Harry took a sip of his tea, ignoring the fact it was still too hot to drink, trying to buy himself some time to think of a reason.

“They died in a car crash,” he lied. That was the old tale Aunt Petunia had told him when he was younger, and would work well enough here. He couldn’t exactly tell a Muggle woman that they’d been murdered by a dark wizard, could he?

“So who have you been living with all these years?” Maureen asked. “Any of your father’s relatives?”

“No,” Harry said. As far as he knew, James Potter had no living, close relations. “I’ve been staying with my Aunt Petunia.”

“Oh.” Maureen pursed her lips. “I remember her, too.”

From her reaction, she clearly didn’t think much of Harry’s aunt. Seeing as he felt the same way, this only made Harry’s opinion of Maureen grow.

After a brief silence, Maureen cleared her throat. “So why is Petunia letting you visit with Severus at the minute? From what I knew of her, she and Severus didn’t exactly, ah…get along.”

Harry once again raised the teacup to his mouth, further burning his already scalded tongue. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say here. What if Snape had a specific cover story that Harry was going to ruin somehow? He was so secretive about everything, after all…

Just as he put down the teacup, still trying desperately to think up a lie, there was a loud knock at the front door.

“Goodness me!” Maureen said, starting. “I’m not expecting anyone…let me get that.”

She got to her feet and shuffled in the direction of the front door, and Harry’s shoulders sagged with relief. That had been close.

Of course, all that relief immediately disappeared when he saw who Maureen opened the door to.

“Is Potter here?” Snape inquired icily.

“Why, yes,” Maureen said, gesturing behind her. “He’s out in my kitchen! We were just having a cuppa and he was telling me a bit about himself.”

“Was he now?” Snape asked, his beady eyes glaring down the hallway at Harry. He gulped. Snape was visibly fuming.

“He’s really a lovely boy, Severus!” Maureen gushed. “His eyes are the absolute double of -"

“Indeed. He's just a pleasure," Snape drawled, his voice positively dripping with sarcasm as he cut across Maureen. "Potter! Get over here!”

Harry jumped to his feet and ran over to where Snape was standing, not daring to dawdle. The man looked even angrier than he had yesterday following Malfoy's filthy Muggle comment, which was rather frightening to behold.

“It was lovely to meet you, Maureen,” Harry managed. Speaking was a little difficult with Snape standing right beside you looking prepared to begin your slow and painful murder.

“Oh it was my pleasure, love,” Maureen said. She patted Harry on the head, even though he was quite a bit taller than her. “Do come over and have a chat with me again sometime! I get so lonely in this big house, all by myself.”

“I’d love to,” Harry said genuinely. Although, judging by the look on Snape’s face, that was unlikely to happen since Harry was almost certainly going to be thrown into a dark cellar for the rest of his sorry life.

“Goodbye, Maureen,” Snape said, grabbing Harry’s shoulder so hard that his nails dug in and half-dragging him back into the house next door. As soon as the front door slammed shut, his icy yet polite facade disappeared, replaced with a look of utter outrage.

“What the hell were you thinking, Potter?!” Snape said loudly, shaking Harry’s shoulder. He wrenched himself away as the man continued ranting. “There is a mass-murderer on the loose and you just went wandering off without telling anyone where you were! I knew you were stupid, but this blatant lack of self-preservation is shocking even for you!”

“I was only next door!” Harry shouted. He was done with being polite to Snape. The fury at his silence over Harry's mother was practically all-consuming, and he certainly didn’t think Snape was worthy of even the most basic civility.

“Next door is not protected against Sirius Black by my wards!”

“Oh, don't even bother with that!” Harry said with a scornful laugh. “What would some random nutter want with me? You’re just making excuses so you can control me, you stupid git!”

“Don’t you dare call me stupid,” Snape growled. Harry thought that was pretty hypocritical, seeing as Snape had called him the exact same thing not one minute ago. “I know that the famous Harry Potter is used to being able to do what he wants when he wants to, but that ends here. You aren’t in charge, I am.”

“I don’t get to do what I want!” Harry yelled.

“Oh, please!” Snape snapped. “I’ve seen you! Precious Potter, running around at night like he owns the castle, breaking rules like it’s a hobby, believing the whole wizarding world needs to be saved by a thirteen-year-old boy… you’re so arrogant, just like your blasted father.”

Harry crossed his arms and glared at Snape with all the venom he could muster, too furious to even speak. He hated Snape so much. He was the worst.

“Go to your room!” Snape ordered, pointing a finger at the staircase. “You aren’t to leave. And from now on, let me make it explicitly clear that you are banned from putting a toe off of this property, understood? You aren't to so much as look in the direction of the neighbours, and if you dare to disobey me again I will happily chain you to the house if that's what it takes to keep you here!”

“Fine!” Harry shouted, clenching his hands into fists. He stormed up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door shut so hard that it rattled. He furiously kicked the frame of his bed before throwing himself on top of the covers. The unfairness really rankled. Not only had Snape kept Harry in the dark about knowing his mum, he was now barring Harry from the one woman available who could actually tell Harry things about her! It was downright cruel.

Realising that he was still filthy from all the gardening, Harry sighed and jumped up from the bed, kicking his muddy trainers off. He obviously couldn’t shower, since Snape had confined Harry to the bedroom, but a change of clothes would probably stop him from feeling quite so wretched.

Harry had just taken his shirt off when he heard the bedroom door bang open. He turned around and locked eyes with Malfoy, who had frozen in the doorway.

“Hey! I’m changing here!” he shouted indignantly. “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking? Get out!”

Instead of apologising and leaving the room, (like a normal person would, in Harry’s opinion) Malfoy just stood there with his mouth agape.

“What happened to you, Potter?” he asked, his eyes drifting down Harry’s torso. With an unpleasant jolt, Harry suddenly realised that all of the injuries Vernon and Dudley had given him that summer were on full display.

“It’s - it’s nothing!” he stammered, crossing his arms defensively over himself, feeling horribly exposed. “I… I got into a biking accident. Yeah. And if you tell Snape about it, I will murder you in your sleep. Seriously, Malfoy, if one word of this gets out, I will end you.”

“Okay, okay!” Malfoy said, holding his hands up and looking mildly alarmed. “Calm down, Potter! I wasn't going to anyway… I'll just come back in bit, then.”

He finally left the room, shutting the door behind him. Harry quickly threw a shirt on and collapsed against the side of his bed, before he buried his face in his trembling hands. Harry's heart was beating a frantic rhythm against his ribcage, and no matter how many shallow, rasping breaths he took, he couldn't stave off the feeling of light-headedness or the ringing in his ears.

Malfoy had seen the bruises. Would he believe the lie Harry had told him? If he didn’t everything would go so horribly wrong, Harry just knew it. If he worked out that the Dursleys had caused them, Malfoy would tell all of his Slytherin friends, and they’d laugh at him mercilessly. He’d tell Snape, who would have even more material for his Potions lesson taunts. Harry could practically hear them already. Poor little Potter, can't even defend himself from his Muggle relatives…

Worst of all, it could even get back to the Dursleys, who would definitely not be happy if they thought Harry had been spreading facts of their private family life around. His mouth turned dry at the mere prospect. Harry still remembered what had happened when a teacher had been concerned about some finger-shaped bruises on his arm and had called a social worker to check in on the Dursleys. They’d branded Harry a liar, of course, because what kind of well-to-do family like the Dursleys would hurt a child? No, Harry was just their disturbed, traumatised nephew who had whacked his head a little too hard in the car crash that his parents had died in. Sure, they’d stopped hitting him for a while after that, too scared of being caught, but the Dursleys were adept at expressing their fury in ways that didn’t necessarily leave a mark. He’d been locked in his cupboard without food for over a week after the visit.

Even when the Dursleys hit him, Harry had never actually thought they’d cause him irreparable damage. That long, long period without food, though? That had been the first time he’d been truly convinced the Dursleys were going to kill him. The incident had been second only to that awful summer before second year. If anyone found out again, Harry was almost certainly in store for a truly hellish summer when he was forced back to that awful place.

Everything was going wrong, and Harry didn’t know how to keep everything under control anymore. No matter how much he tried to calm himself down, nothing worked; the panic was too great. He felt like he was balancing on a tightrope, and at any moment, he could fall off into the murky depths beyond, right to his doom.