When Harry woke up the next morning, it took him a minute to remember where he was. The sheets were unfamiliar, the bed too wide, the colours all wrong…

But as he sat up and took in his surroundings, the memories of the previous night hit Harry like a ton of bricks.

Snape knew about the Dursleys.

Harry jumped out of the bed like he’d been electrocuted. This couldn’t really be happening, it couldn’t! This was the worst possible thing that could have happened to him! Snape, cruel, hateful, Professor Snape, was the last person Harry wanted to know any of this. In fact, there wasn’t a single person Harry could think of that would be worse than him. Malfoy, perhaps, but he already had all the clues, just waiting to be put together. He as good as knew, too!

Harry tried to take deep, gulping gasps of air, but it felt like Hagrid’s three-headed dog was currently sitting on his chest. He hurried into the bathroom, feeling a bit lightheaded, desperate to get out of Snape’s room. Harry wrenched on the tap and utterly drenched himself in the icy water pouring out. The sharp chill stung Harry’s skin, and helped a little to jolt him out of his panicked musings.

He observed himself in the mirror. As he watched the rivulets of water trickling down his neck, Harry couldn’t help but notice his red, puffy eyes. They were yet another sick reminder of all that had occurred the night before. Harry couldn’t believe he’d actually let Snape, of all people, see him cry. He never cried! It was mortifying!

And now he was going to have to go downstairs and face Snape in the kitchen for breakfast, wasn’t he? Harry desperately wished he could hide in his bedroom instead, but Snape had banned him from there the night before, so he didn’t know what to do. Harry didn’t really feel like pushing things at the minute, considering the weird dynamic shift that had occurred when Snape had taken him home from London. Sure, he was being decent and calm for now, but perhaps disobeying that one rule could be the thing that caused the other shoe to drop. Harry didn’t even dare to go in there for a change of clothes, and reluctantly redressed in the clothes from the previous day. As he tugged off the mysterious pyjamas Snape had conjured for him, Harry abruptly realised these pyjamas were the first he’d ever owned that actually fit him. Something horrid lurched in his stomach.

Harry dressed quickly and descended the staircase, but lingered in the narrow hallway. He really didn’t want to go in there and face Snape. The prospect of it was making Harry’s heart thud and his palms grow sweaty, and he hadn’t a clue why.

He mentally shook himself. You’re a bloody Gryffindor! Grow a pair and get in there already!

It still took Harry a good minute to gather the courage to push open the kitchen door, but he eventually managed to square his shoulders and walk inside. Snape was leaning against the kitchen counter, holding his usual mug of coffee and watching Harry with an expression that was annoyingly unreadable. Harry somehow got the impression that Snape knew he’d been lingering outside and grimaced.

To Harry’s immense relief, Snape didn’t comment on his hesitance. He simply nodded his head and said, “Good morning.”

Harry just nodded back, unsure of how to proceed. He couldn’t help but think that was a stupid thing for Snape to say to him, since this was quite clearly a terrible morning.

“How are you feeling?” Snape asked.

Harry shrugged, feeling like his words had been locked up behind the tight knot in his chest. Besides, he didn’t quite know what he was feeling, apart from intense embarrassment over the previous night’s events. Even if he did have the sufficient words to explain what was going on inside his mind, though, he certainly wasn’t going to talk emotions with Snape.

“Have your injuries healed well?” Snape asked.

Harry tensed at the reminder. “Yes.”

“Do you require any more bruise balm?”

“No,” he said shortly.

“Would you tell me if you did?” Snape asked, arching an eyebrow.

Harry felt his temper rapidly beginning to flare. “If you don’t trust me that much, why don’t you take another look, then!”

Snape either didn’t pick up on the sarcasm Harry’s tone was laced with, or intentionally ignored it. Either way, he moved across the room with surprising speed and lifted Harry’s shirt, scanning his eyes over where the bruises had once been.

“Happy?” Harry hissed. Snape nodded and stepped back as Harry sat down at the table, cheeks burning. He hated the way Snape was treating him - he was acting like Harry was made of glass, or something! What happened to the man that thought Harry was a spoilt, famous brat, and refused to give him a single inch?

Luckily for Harry, that was the end of any further talk from Snape. The kitchen fell into merciful silence. As Harry poured himself a bowl of cereal and started picking at it, he realised why it was so strangely quiet; the chair Malfoy usually occupied was empty.

Harry frowned and turned to Snape. He inclined his head towards the other end of the table. “Where is he?”

“Draco was woken up early,” Snape explained. “He’s currently scrubbing cauldrons in my laboratory as punishment for his behaviour. I can assure you he has been thoroughly reprimanded for what he did to you.”

“Oh.” The reminder of the previous day’s events left Harry fidgeting in place. He swirled his cereal around in the bowl, appetite now completely gone. Snape knew, Malfoy almost certainly knew or had guessed, and everything was spiralling out of control…

“You don’t eat much,” Snape stated. Harry looked up from his bowl and saw the man’s dark eyes were narrowed.

“No,” he replied shortly. “I don’t. Now, can I be excused?”

“No, you cannot.” Harry, who had already started to get up, froze halfway up from his chair. “Sit back down. We still need to talk, as you’ll recall.”

“I already told you I don’t want to talk about the Dursleys,” he muttered, slumping back into his seat and gripping the edges of the chair tightly.

“Not about that,” Snape said with a shake of his head. “Yet, at least. This is about you running away last night. We need to address it.”

Of course it was. Harry kept his eyes glued to the table as Snape reached into his pocket and slid a thin silver bracelet across the table. There were some odd markings carved into it. “Put this on.”

“Oh?” Harry raised his eyebrows. “Is it our anniversary?”

A low growl rumbled in the back of Snape’s throat. “Potter…”

Harry quickly picked up on the dangerous undertone and slid the bracelet onto his wrist without further snark. As he did so, the carvings in the silver glowed a dark blue, and the bracelet suddenly shrank in size to fit snugly against his skin. Harry attempted to twist it down his arm and over his hand, but it remained stuck. There was no clasp to remove it, either.

“What is this?” he demanded, sticking his arm out.

“A device typically used by witches and wizards who have children with Apparition-based accidental magic,” Snape explained. “It allows the parent to locate their offspring using the corresponding bracelet’s runes.”

He tugged up the sleeve of his dark robes, revealing an almost identical silver bangle around his right wrist. Harry jumped up from his chair, staring at Snape with nothing short of abject horror. “You’ve got a tracker on me?!”

“When you left the garden last time, I told you I’d take measures to ensure you wouldn’t wander off without my knowledge again if you left the property for a second time,” Snape said, crossing his arms. “I am not one to make empty threats. This is for your own safety.”

“I wouldn’t have gone anywhere if you and Malfoy weren’t such bullying gits!” Harry shouted, clenching his hands into fists. He heard the sound of glass breaking as he stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the door behind him as hard as he could. Harry doubted he’d be able to leave the house again - Snape would have almost certainly locked him in after last night. It certainly fit the pattern…

But Harry so desperately wanted to be alone, and he was sure Snape would angrily follow him for storming off no matter where he went. So, he went to the one place in the house that actually did lock: the bathroom. Harry perched on the edge of the bathtub and buried his face in his hands, breathing heavily. He yanked at the tracker until it dug painfully into the flesh of his wrist, and growled in frustration as it still stubbornly refused to budge.

About a minute later, there was a sharp knock. “Open this door immediately.”

Harry scoffed. He wasn’t going to do that for anything.

“I’m not going to ask a second time,” Snape said, his voice low. “If you don’t unlock that door, I will. You have ten seconds.”

Harry didn’t move, and moments later heard Snape sigh loudly. “Alohomora.” 

The lock clicked open and Harry jumped up from the edge of the bathtub and pressed himself against the wall as Snape blocked the doorway with his body, eyes narrowed.

“You had no right to do that!” Harry protested hotly. “You can’t just barge in here! Leave me alone!”

“Are you telling me where I can and cannot go in my own house, Potter?” Snape asked softly. Somehow, Snape managed to be far more intimidating when he was quiet than when he was shouting and raging. As angry as he was, Harry sensed that his patience was running quite low and fell into sullen silence. The blood was pounding in his ears.

“As much as you may dislike it, Potter, we are going to talk,” Snape said in a carefully measured voice. His face was blank, but a muscle in his jaw was twitching slightly. “The quicker you stop running off, the sooner it will be over.”

“Or what?” Harry bit out.

“Well, you have two options,” Snape said, twisting his wand between his fingers. He still hadn’t moved from the doorway. “You can either follow me downstairs, sit down, and have a mature and calm conversation with me, or I will use whatever means necessary to make you sit and listen to me while I talk at you. Is that understood?”

Harry considered shooting back with a ‘you can’t make me’, but then caught sight of the wand in Snape’s hand and remembered he actually could make Harry. He grimaced. If Snape would stick a tracker on him, he could only imagine what unpleasant things he’d come up with next to get Harry to do what he wanted, like a Sticking Charm, or some kind of enchanted leash, maybe…

“Potter?”

“I’ll go down,” he muttered, not looking Snape in the eyes.

“Splendid,” Snape said rather snidely. “Come with me downstairs, then.”

Harry shouldered past him and stormed down the stairs. Snape was hot on his heels - presumably to stop Harry from fleeing again, he thought resentfully. He stopped in the middle of the hallway, and stared into the kitchen. A stiff breeze shifted his fringe, blowing in through the jagged gap in Snape’s sliding glass door. Harry’s heart dropped - that shattering noise he’d heard when he’d stormed out of the kitchen must have been his accidental magic again. Snape held his wand aloft and Harry tensed, preparing for a spell to shoot at him…

But the jet of white light sailed over Harry’s shoulder and lit up the jagged edges of the broken door, causing the glass to slowly grow over the gap, leaving the door good as new. Snape saw him watching and raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I ought to invest in a different kind of door.”

Harry fidgeted with his hands. “It really was an accident, I promise -”

“Of course it was.” Snape frowned. “It’s called accidental magic for a reason. You obviously wouldn’t be punished for that.”

Harry scoffed. “Obviously? You’ve had me weeding your garden for like a week because of what I did to Aunt Marge!”

Snape looked away. If Harry hadn’t known better, he’d have said the man looked a little abashed. “That’s different. I had previously been labouring under the misapprehension that the incident involving her was an intentional attack.”

“Why would you think I’d do something like that on purpose?!” Harry hissed, glowering at Snape.

“Because it is highly abnormal to punish a child for losing magical control under any circumstances, and seeing as your relatives refused to have you back I assumed that they were angry with you for an intentional incident of Muggle baiting!” Snape said irritably. “I am now realising I was wrong.”

“Yeah, you were.” Harry bit his lip, reeling from one particular thing Snape had said. “Are you being serious? Other people don’t punish their kids when they do freaky things?”

Somehow, Snape’s scowl managed to deepen. “Of course not! In fact, it is incredibly dangerous for children to be punished over accidental magic, since it can result in the development of an Obscurus.” Harry had no idea what that even was, but it didn’t sound good. “The opposite is often true in wizarding families - accidental magic is generally celebrated as a sign that a young witch or wizard is growing into their powers.”

“Oh.” Try as he might, Harry couldn’t imagine a world in which his relatives actually celebrated his magic, of all things. Doing weird things had been the most brutally punished wrongdoing in the Dursley household. He’d obviously not meant any of his accidental magic as a child, like turning his teacher’s wig blue or ending up on the school roof, but it still merited a punishment because those things were abnormal.

“So your relatives would punish you for accidental magic, then?” Snape asked in a misleadingly placid voice. As Harry was most certainly not discussing the Dursleys, thank you very much, he didn’t dignify that with any sort of response or reaction.

Snape waited in expectant silence for over a minute until he finally seemed to accept that Harry wasn’t going to respond. “So, our discussion. Living room or kitchen?”

Harry glanced through the open living room door and shivered slightly at the awful recollections of the previous night the place brought back. No, he wasn’t going anywhere near that room right now if he could help it. “Kitchen.”

Snape nodded, and Harry walked back inside and took a seat back at the table. Snape sat opposite him and sat stiffly with his hands folded. “Potter…I believe I owe you an - an apology.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“Stop gawking at me,” Snape said roughly. “Yes, I do. I… well, I made no discernible effort to hear out your side of the story when Draco came to me with the necklace incident, and automatically assumed fault on your part. That was wrong of me.”

“Oh.” Harry, who had never imagined himself to be in a position where Severus Snape of all people would apologise to him, wasn’t quite sure how to react. “Thank you?”

“You are therefore not being punished for running away,” Snape added. “Seeing as I drove you to it, as it were…”

“So you’ll take off the bracelet?” Harry asked hopefully.

“Just because you were pushed does not change the fact that you have proven yourself to be a flight risk,” Snape said sternly. “At any rate, a location tracker is a useful tool in case you were to be kidnapped by Black -”

“Why are you so convinced this random mass-murderer is coming after me?” Harry demanded. “It’s ridiculously paranoid!”

“I know it's always a struggle when it comes to you, but do try and use your head, Potter!” Snape said sharply. “You know of Black’s affiliation with the Dark Lord, correct?”

“Yeah - he was Voldemort’s right-hand man.”

“Do not speak his name!” Snape hissed.

Harry rolled his eyes but didn’t press the issue. People could be so stupid about their ‘You-Know-Who’ and ‘Dark Lord’ nonsense.

“While I think right-hand man is a bit of a push for Black’s importance in the cause -” Snape wrinkled his nose, like he’d just caught a whiff of a bad smell, “he was nonetheless a supporter of the Dark Lord. As you’ll recall, you defeated him. I can assure you that Black will not look fondly upon the boy who destroyed his master and netted him a life sentence in Azkaban!”

Harry couldn’t outright agree with Snape on sheer principle, but after thinking for a moment, he could reluctantly see where the man was coming from. Reluctantly. Harry still thought the measures Snape was taking were stupid and paranoid, but he supposed it did make sense for them to assume Black would be after him specifically…

“Even discounting magical threats such as Black, it is still extraordinarily dangerous for a thirteen-year-old boy to strike out into Muggle London alone after dark!” Snape said severely. “What if you had been mugged, assaulted, or otherwise injured? Nobody knew where you were, so it would have been hours before you could have gotten proper help!”

“Okay, okay!” Harry snapped. For some reason, Snape’s lecturing had him feeling oddly guilty, and it was making him horribly uncomfortable. “I won’t do anything like that again.”

“No, you won’t,” Snape said sternly. “Although, as I said, I will concede that the incident was exacerbated by my handling of the situation with Draco. Still, if you ever do something that reckless and impetuous again, I promise you I will be far less lenient.”

Harry ground his back teeth and stared pointedly out of the window at the storm clouds building in the sky above. He wasn’t going to respond. Snape was surely trying to bait him again - trying to get Harry to fly into another rage so he had a decent excuse to punish him.

He’s already had loads of valid chances this morning, though, a small voice in the back of his head said. But he hasn't done anything. He's being patient.

Harry ignored this and returned to seething quietly.

“On a similar note, I thought it might be useful to clear up on the house rules,” Snape said when the silence had dragged on for too long.

Ah, here was the nasty git Harry was used to. Of course he was seizing the chance to flex his authority and come up with more impossible standards Harry could never live up to…

“The rules I gave you at the beginning of your stay here still stand,” Snape said, “but I am going to add a new one about meals. You will be obligated to attend all of them, and to clear your plate. I’ve noticed your sporadic dining habits over the last week and that needs to stop.”

He shot a pointed look in the direction of Harry’s abandoned cereal bowl. By now, the cornflakes had dissolved into mush.

“I don’t need to be micromanaged,” Harry muttered resentfully. He wasn’t a child, and even when he had been one, he’d been responsible for his own eating!

Snape sighed loudly and got out his wand. Harry tried to duck away as the man flicked it in his direction, but no painful Stinging Hex or whatever other nasty affliction he’d been expecting befell him. Instead, a strange icy sensation that reminded Harry of walking through Nearly-Headless Nick coated his skin. It gradually began to fade, and a piece of parchment appeared in Snape’s hand which he quickly glanced over.

“As it happens, you do need to be micromanaged,” he said stiffly. “You are significantly underweight, and deficient in a number of key nutrients. This will need to be rectified before it becomes even more dangerous to your health.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“I beg to differ.” Snape placed the parchment in the centre of the table, and his eyebrows rose. A bunch of complicated medical terms Harry didn’t understand swam before his eyes, and he only managed to pick up a few random words and phrases, like ‘iron deficiency’ and ‘bone density’ before Snape took back the document, folded it up and placed it in the pocket of his robes.

“You do not get a choice in this, Potter,” Snape warned. “This needs to be sorted immediately. Call it micromanaging if that’s what you insist upon, but mealtimes are a priority from now on, is that understood?”

“Okay. Whatever.” Snape seemed weirdly insistent about the whole thing, and it wasn’t exactly the worst thing that had ever been asked of Harry. He’d rather be full than hungry, after all.

“I thought it might also be…helpful to know that I will be implementing a number of rules for myself so that we can cohabit with less friction,” Snape added.

Harry shuffled in his seat. “Okay…”

“I will stop insulting you and your parentage,” Snape said. Harry had to hold back a snort - as if that would ever happen!

Snape noticed his reaction, pressed his lips together for a moment, and continued speaking. “If there is another altercation with Draco, I will not automatically take his side over yours, although I would appreciate you making more of an effort to be civil with him -”

“I never start things!” Harry protested hotly.

“Just - please?” Snape said wearily, running his hands over his face. That look of exhaustion made Harry stop with his scoffing and general derision for some odd reason he couldn’t quite put a finger on. “Now, my final two rules. If I do need to punish you for any reason, it will not be a, ah… physical punishment. I will not hit you, deprive you of meals or otherwise injure you as discipline. It will be nothing outside of the realm of what you would experience at Hogwarts, understood? Nothing worse than lines or cauldrons.”

Harry nodded while staring at the cracked kitchen tiles, unable to meet Snape’s eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to hope those words were the truth.

“Finally, I will listen and do my best to help when you open up about your relatives.”

“When?” Harry asked incredulously. “You’re delusional if you think I’m talking about any of that!”

“The more you tell me, the more likely it is that I am able to stop you from ever having to go back to that place,” Snape said quietly.

Harry bit his lip. The prospect of that did appeal to him…but it was a pipe dream at best, wasn’t it? No one was ever going to save Harry from the Dursleys. He had four more summers with them ahead of him, and then he’d finally be free and would never have to speak to them again. He’d already managed for ten years, and now he had Hogwarts as a disruptor. It was bearable enough, but it might not be if Harry engaged in a badly-executed attempt to remove himself from their custody before he was of age.

And, the most key and pressing issue, he would have to tell his troubles to Snape. 

“I can’t trust you!” he said incredulously. “You’ll just tell the Slytherins all about it all and use it against me, I know you will!”

Snape made a strangled sort of noise. “I understand we haven’t had the best of relationships, but do you really think I’d use child abuse against you?”

Harry cringed at that word - abuse. He wasn’t abused…

Snape seemed to take his silence as a confirmation and abruptly stood up from his chair and stalked over to the kitchen window. Raindrops splattered against the glass. Harry watched him nervously, unsure of what he was going to do next. Was he going to explode? Was he angry? He certainly didn’t seem happy, but Harry couldn’t try and read his face from here…

“I understand you cannot currently trust me, Harry,” Snape said eventually, voice tight, “but I need you to try. I promise that nothing you tell me will ever be mentioned to anyone outside of a few key adults who need to be apprised of your situation. Excluding that, I will not tell a single soul without your consent. I would never do that to you - never.” 

The amount of strength and vehemence in his tone sent Harry reeling with confusion. Despite the distrust and hatred that came to mind whenever he thought about Snape, it was just so transparently obvious that he really was being sincere. But why?

Harry suddenly remembered that brief, murmured comment from the previous night about Snape’s father. That, more than anything, helped Harry feel assured Snape was being honest. He’d told Harry something truly personal, something he’d never want Harry mentioning to another person, and that meant something.

“This will be the final part of the discussion,” Snape said, and Harry withered slightly inside. “You can go once we address it, if you’d like.”

“I really, really don’t want to talk about this,” Harry whispered, his voice ragged.

“It is important I know, Harry,” Snape said. Back to Harry, he supposed. Snape kept switching names, and it was horribly confusing. “I don’t want to pressure you, but there are some things I need to know immediately.”

“What does it matter?” he hissed. “I’m away from there, anyway! How is any of it relevant? How many times do I have to say I don’t want to tell you, Snape?!”

“It is not all about you!” Snape hissed. “Merlin’s beard, Potter! This constant, obstinate -”

He abruptly stopped speaking and inhaled very loudly through his nose, the angry expression on his face abruptly and unnaturally relaxing into the blank expression he'd described as Occlumency last night. Harry wondered how much effort that front took to keep up.

After a few moments, Snape began to speak again. “You have a cousin, correct?” He said in a tightly controlled voice. “I need to ensure there isn’t an immediate risk to his safety while he continues to reside with your aunt and uncle.”

“Oh, Dudley’s fine,” Harry grumbled. “They worship the ground he walks on, they’d never treat him the way they treat me. He's their actual kid. I’m the abnormal nephew they never wanted to get stuck with.”

A muscle twitched in Snape’s jaw. “Do not refer to yourself in that way.”

“It’s true,” Harry muttered, feeling the usual twinge of hurt that accompanied memories of the difference in treatment.

“Nevertheless, I still must insist we discuss certain things about your life with the Dursleys,” Snape said with a tone of finality. “Your perspective is skewed, and as an outsider to the situation I need to draw certain conclusions, which I can’t do if I don’t have all the relevant information.”

Harry exhaled loudly and gripped the edge of the kitchen table so hard his knuckles turned white. He really didn’t understand how he was expected to manage any of this.

“I am not going to needlessly probe you,” Snape said, walking back over from the counter and retaking his seat across from Harry. “You can open up about the rest in due time. We will stick to a few topics that are linked to immediate safety risks, understood? Just a few questions.”

Harry stared out of the window at the steadily intensifying drizzle and didn’t respond. Snape sighed. “First is the matter of your eating.”

“What about my eating?” Harry said through gritted teeth.

“The lack of it,” Snape said. “How did meals work at your relatives?”

“They worked.” He didn’t see how it was relevant to Snape either way how much or how little Harry was fed. He’d never actually dropped dead from hunger, even if it had felt like he would sometimes. He was just a bit skinny, that was all…

“Harry, there are two ways about this,” Snape said bluntly. “Your eating patterns are incredibly disordered. Either you are choosing not to eat due to some sort of untreated mental illness, or you were raised by people who did not feed you sufficiently, which has altered your hunger cues and affected your relationship with food. Tell me what’s going on so I can proceed accordingly.”

“Fine!” Harry hissed. “They’d punish me sometimes by taking away my meals. Happy?”

“And did they do this regularly?”

Harry thought of that long, lonely summer before second year when he’d been half-certain he and Hedwig would starve to death and didn’t respond. He stared at a nick on the kitchen table, heart thudding horribly.

“I’m presuming from what I read on my diagnostic spell that it was often enough to significantly impact your body weight, then,” Snape said briskly. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Harry didn’t say a word.

“Now, my other question,” Snape said in a softer voice. Harry, who sensed where this was going, tensed. “The injuries I discovered. Who was responsible, and how were they inflicted?”

“If you think I’m answering that you’re thicker than you look,” Harry growled. He was half-hoping his insult would steer the man away from the line of questioning. He had no such luck. Snape seemed immune to his goading.

“I need to know what happened. It’s for your safety.”

“If you need to know so badly, why don’t you just Legilimise me?” he said snidely.

“I will not use Legilimency on you,” Snape said, a hint of frustration seeping into his tone. “And I apologise for threatening you with it yesterday. The only time I would ever use Legilimency on you is if I believed there to be an immediate threat to your safety or the safety of someone else that I could only prevent by going through your memories. This is not such a situation, but I still need you to tell me who was hurting you at Privet Drive.”

Harry squeezed his hands into fists and raised his head to the ceiling, trying to persuade himself into speaking. Snape already knew someone was hurting him, right? If he could just screw up his courage and say who, the tosser would finally be done with all of his probing questions and Harry would be left in peace.

“Did your uncle do that to you?” Snape pressed. “Your aunt?”

“Most of it’s from my cousin, actually,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

“Your cousin managed to do all of that to you?” Snape asked disbelievingly.

“No, not all of it!” Harry shouted. “I still don’t get why it matters!”

“It does,” Snape said simply. “So - your cousin. Does he attack you regularly?”

“Well, he and I aren’t exactly best friends, professor,” Harry ground out.

“He hurts you?” Snape asked. “And your aunt and uncle, they allow this?”

“Well, sir, I’m sure you can answer that question yourself - you certainly have experience favouring one kid in your house over the other,” Harry said scornfully, crossing his arms.

Snape’s face didn’t even twitch. “The current situation with Draco will not be continuing. Now, these injuries. How did he give them to you? They’re rather significant.”

“You want the truth?” Harry said loudly, the aggravation surging. “Fine! Dudley loves beating me up, and I’m never allowed to fight back or I get in trouble. He punches me, he shoves me into stuff, and last week he shoved past me on the stairs, and I fell down them! That’s why I was in such a state."

Harry was being a bit economical with the truth there, admittedly. Shoved past implied something of an accident, and Dudley had more so just pushed Harry while he was halfway up so he tumbled all the way to the bottom of the staircase. He had then applied several sharp kicks to Harry’s ribs as he lay crumpled on the landing, gasping for breath, before slipping out of the door to beat up a ten-year-old in the local park.

Harry was still grateful he hadn’t broken something that day, since the few times in his life that Dudley had actually gone far enough to fracture or break bones, Aunt Petunia felt forced to take him to A&E for treatment. Harry had a theory that she only did that because broken bones made her squeamish, and she didn’t want that on display in the house.

Sometimes, Harry thought he’d prefer to be left with the injuries, though. Going to A&E meant spending an uncomfortable six or so hours in a stinking hospital waiting room with a woman who utterly despised him, all while she hissed threatening comments in Harry’s ear about what would happen if he dared mention that his broken finger was caused by Dudley slamming his hand in a door. That was why Harry only told his relatives about an ailment if he was in a real tight spot. He was fairly certain there had been a couple of fractured ribs caused by Dudley over the years, but he just got on with it and muscled through the pain.

After Harry’s rant, Snape’s expression had turned incredulous. “You fell down a staircase and your relatives didn’t take you to a doctor?”

“Did it look like they took me to a doctor?” Harry yelled, jumping to his feet. He’d been lucky that Aunt Petunia had thrown a bag of frozen peas in his direction after watching it happen! “They never want to admit that precious Dudley can do anything wrong, and I’m not stupid enough to go to them with my problems unless I’m really desperate!”

A dark expression crossed Snape’s face. “I did not realise you were also experiencing medical neglect there.”

Harry shuddered - if there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was that word - neglect. It just reminded him of those awful mums at Dudley’s birthday party, whispering snide comments about brain damage and behavioural issues.

“I’m not experiencing anything!” he said furiously. “I’m not neglected, I’m not abused, none of that! We just don’t get on.”

“Tell me, then,” Snape said, lacing his fingers together. “If you weren’t neglected, give me examples of occasions where you were taken to any sort of healthcare professional.”

“I can, actually,” Harry said defiantly. “When I was seven, they took me to A&E after I fractured my wrist.”

That was the third time the Dursleys had bothered to take him to the hospital, but not from a bone Dudley had broken. That time Uncle Vernon had fractured his wrist, actually. He’d thrown Harry into his cupboard a little too hard and he’d landed awkwardly on it. But it had just been an accident. Aunt Petunia had frantically said that over and over when Harry wouldn’t stop crying, no matter how much she told him she’d give him something to cry about if he didn’t shut up. Aunt Petunia had quickly realised something was wrong, and it had panicked her. After all, Harry didn't normally dare to show signs of tears in front of his relatives, but the stabbing pain in his wrist had been too great for him to hold it in.

That had been a really weird day. Aunt Petunia had actually shouted at Uncle Vernon, who had quickly gone from puce to white when he realised what he’d done. Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen his uncle be that quiet. Aunt Petunia, on the other hand, was more noisy and shrill than ever. She’d been busy screeching about social workers and police and things that Harry was in too much pain to understand or remember properly. It had been six months since the teacher had called social services on his relatives, he realised now. That was why Aunt Petunia had hissed instructions at him from behind the steering wheel to say he’d fallen off the monkey bars at the playground. Harry assumed she was terrified this broken wrist would make them come back, and was desperate to do anything to stop that from happening, even if it involved being nice to Harry.

She’d promised to take him out for ice cream if Harry just did as she said and Harry, who was never allowed ice cream, had eagerly obeyed her. There was another horrid waiting period in a hospital waiting room, where Aunt Petunia had spent the entire time anxiously tapping her foot, glaring suspiciously at the other parents, and barking at Harry if he strayed away from her to touch the toys. The doctor had easily believed the lie and had splinted Harry’s fractured wrist. Aunt Petunia had never actually taken him out for ice cream - she dug up a freezer-burned, half-eaten tub Dudley wouldn’t touch out of the kitchen at home, which Harry clumsily fed to himself left-handed. He hadn’t cared. To Harry, it was ambrosia.

Now, Harry could see it for what it was - bribery. The Dursleys needed to ensure his continued silence. They hadn’t felt bad, they’d just been scared of being found out by the neighbours or social services for the people they really were behind closed doors. Harry had actually gone along with the lie because for once, his relatives were being nice to him. He didn’t have to do as many chores on account of his broken wrist, and his aunt and uncle didn’t lay a finger on him for months. They were too scared. That tended to happen when they went too far; it was as if they were struck by sudden fits of conscience. Aunt Petunia had even started distracting Dudley when he tried to beat Harry up, buying him toys and food. He’d thought that maybe, just maybe, things were finally getting better.

Harry wasn’t stupid enough to think good times like that lasted now. He was older, and so he knew better. The cast had come off, the memory of the night Uncle Vernon had hurt him grew fainter in his relatives’ minds, and he’d turned a teacher’s wig blue during a fit of accidental magic at school. The Dursleys had gone to normal pretty quickly after that, and it had almost been more painful than if they’d never stopped being horrid at all.

"Potter?"

Although Snape had promised not to Legilimise him, Harry couldn’t help his suspicions that Snape somehow knew the details of the incident, even though Harry hadn’t - couldn’t - mention them. Perhaps he’d plucked them from the surface of Harry’s mind. After all, he was scowling something fierce by now.

“Did they ever take you to a doctor for non-emergencies?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn't a lie. They'd taken Harry to the doctor once or twice. It was a bit of a rare occurrence, though. Most of the time, the Dursleys just left him to tough it out. Which was fine, although Dudley was taken to the GP over every little ache or sniffle. They actually cared about Dudley, though, so it was different.

They’d taken Harry along, too, when he and Dudley both had simultaneous ear infections when they were four. Harry shivered - another unpleasant memory. They’d been prescribed antibiotics. Aunt Petunia had sat with Dudley for ages until he took them, coaxing him with cuddles and sweets and toys.

When she was done, Aunt Petunia was tired and irritable. Then, it would be Harry’s turn. She would pin Harry down when he tried to run away and pinched his nose shut so he’d have to open his mouth for air and swallow the nasty-tasting medicine. Harry had been too small to fight back, of course. He'd laid there with silent tears trickling down his cheeks while Petunia growled at him about how whiny and ungrateful he was. He could still feel the ghost of her bony fingers clamped over his mouth, her acrylic nails digging into the flesh of his cheek.

“Give me an example of when they took you, then.”

Harry shook himself. He wasn't four years old now, too weak to break out of his aunt's hold. He was in Snape's kitchen. It was somehow hard to keep himself fixed there when such unpleasant memories were bombarding his mind. He took a deep breath. Snape needed an example so he’d let Harry go. Okay.

But the memory Harry had recalled was so horrid that he couldn't bring himself to give the example of the antibiotics. So, when else had Harry gone? Surely he had? The NHS was free, it wasn't like he was taking away money from Dudley by visiting the doctor…

But he hadn't gone. Petunia didn't bother unless it was something significant - something broken, something that repulsed her enough to take Harry to a doctor so she didn’t have to look at it anymore. Sickness didn’t qualify, since that only affected him. Harry had many memories of lying in his cupboard, coughing, barely able to breathe, sweltering with fever.

No, Aunt Petunia hadn’t bothered to waste her valuable time on Harry.

"They didn't take you, did they?" Snape said, lips pressed into a thin line.

“No, no, they did. Erm… I have glasses, don’t I?” Harry gestured to his face.

Well, it wasn’t exactly like Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon had been the ones to notice he couldn’t see. A teacher at school had realised Harry couldn’t read the blackboard and brought it up. Aunt Petunia had taken him to an optometrist and had bought the cheapest frames available, the ones Harry still had today. Piers Polkiss had called him four-eyes in front of the whole class, and everyone had laughed at him. That final, miserable memory drained the small reserves of patience Harry had been drawing on to get through this, and at last made him fly over the edge.

“What happened to a few questions?” he shouted, his voice oddly raspy. “You’re such a nosy git, you know that?! I’m done with this, I’m not talking about it anymore!”

Unable to bear being trapped indoors for another moment, Harry darted out of the kitchen, through the sliding door and into the garden beyond. He relished the sensation of the rain, which had now turned into quite the downpour. Harry let the cool water pour down his face, breathing hard like he’d just run a marathon. He was fuming. What right did Snape have to be poking into his personal life? Who was he to pull faces at Harry’s upbringing when he’d just spent the last two years making Harry’s life a living hell? He was a right bastard!

He’d said this would help. How was that true? All Harry wanted to do was lock his nasty memories of the Dursleys into a tiny box, push it deep down, and never think about any of it. Instead, he was stuck reminiscing about all these nasty memories from his crappy childhood and feeling awful about himself. Sure, the Dursleys were by no means nice to him, but they weren’t nearly as bad as Snape was making them out to be, right? They couldn’t be that bad, they just couldn’t. Harry couldn't accept it. He couldn’t handle understanding how awful it had all been.

The door to the garden loudly slid open. Harry turned around and saw Snape staring him down, obviously piqued. His nostrils were flaring. Snape pointed at the kitchen behind him with a sharp jabbing motion. “In.”

“I’m good, actually!” Harry called, struggling against the urge to make a rude hand gesture.

“Potter, it is pouring!” Snape said exasperatedly, waving a hand towards the grey sky. “You’ll catch your death of cold!”

“Great! I’d love that!” Harry said contemptuously.

“Get inside before I make you.”

Harry, who was still feeling too annoyed to go within a ten-foot radius of Snape, kept his feet firmly moored to the muddy grass. While he didn’t particularly want to be soaked with rainwater, he felt the need to prove this point.

Snape sighed loudly and jabbed his wand in Harry’s direction. He yelped as his feet seemed to leave the ground of their own accord, leaving him floating in the air. Moments later, Harry shot towards Snape and the kitchen with the speed of a bullet, before he came to an abrupt halt in the centre of the room. Harry made to run back outside, but Snape kept him floating in the air as he locked the door with a wave of wandless magic.

“Why do you insist on keeping me locked in your stupid house?” Harry demanded, trying and failing to look dignified. It was rather difficult to manage when you were floating in the air, he found.

“Because when you decided to leave my ‘stupid house’ you thought it would be fun to spend the rest of your summer with a case of pneumonia!” Snape hissed. He shot a hot jet of air at Harry, ruffling his hair and clothes, which turned warm and dry in an instant. “Somebody needs to keep your underdeveloped adolescent brain in check, since you are clearly incapable of doing so yourself!”

“You let me down right the hell now!” Harry yelled.

“If I do that, will you be rational and calm yourself down, or will you body slam yourself through my back door in an ill-fated attempt to get away from me?”

“I’ll be rational, whatever!” Harry’s feet finally touched the ground, causing him to stumble slightly. He was off-balance. Snape quickly placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. Harry wrenched himself out of reach and the man dropped his hand like he’d been burned.

“I understand you have had a trying day,” Snape said testily, “but you will stop with these ridiculous outbursts immediately.”

“Fine.” It wasn’t the sorry Snape was almost certainly looking for, but if Harry was forced to apologise properly right that minute he knew he’d completely go over the edge.

"As I am making a concentrated effort to be more civil with you, I think it's best if we leave things there for now," Snape said. His face had gone back to the smooth mask from the night before, but Harry could now recognise a slight tightness around his jaw which indicated his annoyance. "We can continue this conversation at a later time, when I am calmer and you are less upset."

"I'm not upset!" Harry shouted. Snape raised his eyebrows, and Harry felt his cheeks heat up. Okay, so maybe shouting that wasn't really proving his point. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I just have a lot to get my head around. This is hard for me. But look, if you're worried about Dudley, don't be. He's fine there."

"From your description, I am willing to believe that," Snape conceded.

"Great. Can I go, then?"

"If you wish," Snape said, taking a step back. “As long as you don’t enter any of the restricted areas, that's fine. Your room is open to you again - Draco is in my lab and will stay there."

“Great. Bye.” Harry instantly began to stalk from the kitchen.

"Harry?"

Why did Snape using his first name always make him stop and listen?

"If you need anything, feel free to come and find me."

Harry curled his trembling hands into fists. "I don't need anything from the likes of you."

  I don't need anything from anyone. I've been taking care of myself for a long time.

But as Harry stormed up the stairs and into the empty bedroom, a small, fragile part of him almost wished he'd answered Snape differently.