Chapter Text
Five years ago, Harry didn’t know what his mother looked like. He didn’t know the color of her hair, or how her eyes matched his, or what her smile looked like.
Thanks to Aunt Petunia, he could assume that his mum was white, and therefore his dad must have been brown (though his aunt’s racist comments never did specify what kind of brown) because of the shade of his own skin.
Harry knew that his appearance was just one more thing the Dursleys hated about him, especially because he was the only brown person on Privet Drive and maybe even in all of Little Whinging. Excluding the hired gardeners, of course. Harry had actually assumed that the reason Aunt Petunia always had him working in the garden was that that was just what brown people did. Eventually, he learned that he worked in the garden because he was Harry.
But back to the point, until he was eleven years old, Harry didn’t know what his mother looked like. The first time he ever saw her face was in that beloved photo album Hagrid gifted to him. He’d spend hours in his first year poring over the faces of his parents, imagining what it might have felt like to be held in their arms or to hear their laughs. Two years later, he learned what his mother’s voice sounded like. Or, to be more specific, her screams.
Though the dementors went away at the end of his third year, the horrifying events he heard while under their effect stayed with him. Throughout the summer afterward and the Triwizard Tournament, Harry’s most common nightmare remained a bright green light, a deranged laugh, and the last sound his mum ever made before she died.
Now he had a new most common nightmare.
Logically, Harry knew this was a dream. Sometimes, Harry truly felt like he was back there and couldn’t remember what happened afterward, but more often, he was lucid in these dreams, simply trapped in his memories. The knowledge that it wasn’t real never helped to free him from the terror gripping his body.
The graveyard spread out on all sides around him. The dark, damp grass smelled far too peaceful for a night such as this. Gravestones stretched in rows and rows, disappearing into the darkness. The sky was empty of clouds, the stars shining bright without a moon in the sky. And barely 50ft away, the hunched form of Peter Pettigrew clutched a bundle of cloth in his arms. Cedric stood next to Harry, both of their hands still clasped around the glowing Triwizard Cup.
Harry knew what was coming, but he could do nothing to stop it. He stood, trapped in his body, and watched as the disgusting creature in Wormtail’s arms rasped out, “kill the spare.” The green light that Harry knew so well (that sometimes made him wonder about the color of his eyes) flashed across his vision, and he watched as Cedric toppled to the ground.
Except suddenly it wasn’t Cedric, lifeless on the ground. Suddenly, it was his mother, not in the ghostly form that had emerged from Voldemort’s wand on the night of the true battle, but looking exactly like the woman on the first page of his photo album. A young, brave, happy woman who never expected to die this way.
The body switched to his father. Then Sirius. Then Ron. Lupin. Hermione. Neville. Dumbledore. Ginny. Fred and George, side by side. McGonagall. Molly. Arthur. Dean. Seamus. More and more faces, flashing so fast that Harry could barely see their faces before they switched again. And over it all, high and painful, was the same laughter that Harry heard when he succumbed to the Dementors, the same laughter he heard when he dueled Lord Voldemort in the graveyard last June.
Harry woke up screaming for his mum.
It was a strange thing, having a mother who he knew the name, the face, the voice of, but he never truly knew. Factually, Harry knew that Lily Potter had known her son for over a year. She’d spent 9 months waiting to know and love her son, and she had only gotten to do so for a year.
Harry didn’t think that even counted for him. He didn’t know her. His only memories of his mother came from two of the most traumatic moments of his life. He could still love her, though. Even when he didn’t know her name, even when he only knew her as a lazy drunk who sacrificed herself and her son’s well-being so that she could go on some druggie joy ride with his father, he loved her. He imagined it must be a very hard thing not to love your mother.
So he woke up screaming for her, tonight, rather than Cedric.
Two minutes later, Vernon was banging on the bedroom door. Harry didn’t know why tonight was the night he woke his uncle up, when he had dreamed things like this almost every night of the summer. It was July 28th, and this was the first time he’d managed to rouse the anger of his uncle with all his screaming. He supposed the reasons didn’t matter. They wouldn’t change the hell that was certainly headed his way.
Harry winced as he made his way down Privet Drive, heading towards Magnolia Crescent. Vernon hadn’t hurt him too terribly--the combination of the man’s fear of magic and his desire to keep Harry out of the hospital saw to that--but he suspected that he might have a bruised rib or two, and his ankle twinged with every step. Still, the pain from moving was worth it to get out of that house and find himself some peace and quiet.
The playground had become one of his favored spots this summer. It was generally empty, and when it wasn’t, the only people there were cute kids and their parents, who didn’t care what Harry was doing. Unless, of course, they thought he was some kind of teenage hooligan that might hurt their children, which happened only occasionally. Thankfully, the playground was empty this early in the morning on a weekday, so Harry could sit on his usual swing and just breathe for a while.
He’d had to focus on that more and more this summer. Just breathing. Sometimes, when everything got too much and memories began assaulting him, Harry felt like he might have forgotten how.
But he could breathe now.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
His heartbeat finally slowed down for the first time in hours. Going from the nightmares of reliving the events in the graveyard to the waking nightmare of living with the Dursleys left Harry little time for relaxation. Today, though, having already received a punishment first thing in the morning, he hoped that they might leave him be.
To say the least, this summer had not been kind to Harry. The events of the graveyard were horribly traumatic (even Harry, who despised it when Hermione said he had trauma, could admit that), but he would argue that what came after was almost as horrible as that night. Within 48 hours of the third task, Harry found himself back on the Hogwarts Express, heading for London. He was able to find some solace in Ron and Hermione in the immediate aftermath, but no one in Surrey even knew who Voldemort was. He couldn’t exactly go spilling his woes to his relatives, and it felt wrong to bare his soul to Sirius and his friends through letters. So, here he was. Alone in Surrey, with no idea if the rest of the Wizarding world had finally begun to believe him, if Voldemort was making active attacks yet, or even where his friends were.
Sometimes Harry would suddenly find himself frozen by fear. The irrational, unexplainable fear that Lord Voldemort himself would suddenly round the corner with Avada Kedavra ready on his lips would grip him, and he’d have to spend several minutes talking himself out of a frenzy. He’d been getting much better at doing it himself, seeing as his friends weren’t around to do it for him.
And Harry wasn’t exactly feeling all that positive towards his friends, anyway. They must have known how he was feeling; they’d seen him struggling before they left school, but they barely wrote. All he knew was that they weren’t at their homes anymore, having been moved to undisclosed saferooms. It felt like the summer before second year all over again, except this time there was no Dobby around stealing his mail. It was just his friends leaving him behind.
His last letter from Hermione had gone like this:
Dear Harry,
I know it must be hard to be back with your relatives and away from the order, but it really is for the best. You mentioned in your last letter that you were considering subscribing to the Prophet, and I have to urge you not to. They’re not saying anything useful or true, and I think it would do more harm than good. Ron and I are safe where we are, and you’re safe with the Dursleys. Please don’t do anything drastic.
All my love,
Hermione
So, yeah. He wouldn’t say he was Ron and Hermione’s biggest fan right about now.
Harry spent most of the day in the park and ended up heading back to Privet Drive only when the sun began to set. When he got home, Vernon was seething at the dinner table.
“Boy!” he roared, and Harry briefly contemplated sprinting up the stairs and locking himself in his bedroom. He knew it would only delay the inevitable, but it was a nice fantasy for a moment. In the end, he just trudged his way into the kitchen to face the music.
“One of those freak birds flew in through the window today,” his uncle spat, “and dropped this off for you.” He clutched a now crumpled letter in his hand, obviously wizarding mail due to the parchment paper and lack of stamps.
“I’m surprised you don’t have an owl corpse as well,” Harry drawled without really thinking about it. Vernon lunged slightly as if to get to his feet, and Harry hurriedly took a step back and raised his hands placatingly. “Sorry, sorry. Can I just read the letter? Who knows, you might be rid of me early.”
It was a genuine possibility. The only other time that the Dursleys had received a letter by owl, rather than just Harry himself, was when he’d blown up his Aunt Marge the summer before his third year and been--briefly--expelled from Hogwarts. Any other time, the birds came through his bedroom window. He hadn’t done any underage magic recently, so he was grasping at straws trying to guess what it could be about.
Vernon glared at Harry but, enticed by the idea of his nephew leaving, handed over the letter.
The letter was addressed to Mr. Harry Potter & Family. Odd.
He opened it up and was surprised to find a letter from Arthur Weasley, of all people.
Dear Harry, it read.
I hope your summer has been well and you have been recovering from the horrible events in June. I apologize that you could not be more informed as to our movements this summer, but there is much fear over mail being intercepted, and as you are a minor, you cannot be a full member as of yet. However, due to recent events I cannot disclose in this letter, your housing for this summer must change. Tomorrow at 8 pm, an associate of mine will arrive to relocate you to a new safe house. Please pack all you will need for the new school year. If your family has any questions or concerns, they may speak to him when he arrives, but please inform them that you will be leaving. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Sincerely,
Arthur Weasley
Even in this letter, they were still speaking in code. Harry had to assume that he received the letter from Arthur (rather than Dumbledore or Sirius) because his mail was less likely to be traced and intercepted. Even then, it clearly wasn’t written by just Arthur. The phrasing has ‘Dumbledore’ written all over it. He also refrained from ever saying “the order” and didn’t tell Harry who would be collecting him.
The smoke and dagger communications didn’t matter, though. All of his troubles and ill-will toward the order evaporated in the moment that he realized he would be leaving. Leave the Dursleys, when it wasn’t even August yet! It was a dream come true. For what must have been the first time that summer, a smile spread across Harry’s face.
“What is it, boy?” Uncle Vernon barked. “Give it here!” He snatched the letter out of Harry’s hands. After he took a solid minute to read the letter (he never had been the sharpest tool in the box), he barked out a laugh. “Well, those freaks finally have some good ideas, don’t they? I’ll be telling that hoodoo man who comes to collect you not to bother returning you. More trouble than you’re worth, especially with those episodes this summer. You’re better off staying with your kind.”
Harry honestly couldn’t care less about what Vernon thought of him and ‘his kind.’ He was just happy to leave.
“I need you to open the cupboard,” he told his uncle. “I’ll need to pack my trunk and bring all my books with me.”
Vernon actually laughed, left the room, and tossed the key to Harry almost good-naturedly. Harry thought this might have been the first time they were both happy at the same time.
“Have at it, boy. I don’t want your freak stuff in my house any longer than necessary.”
As Vernon lumbered upstairs, presumably to tell Petunia about their newfound fortune, Harry walked to the cupboard. He felt strange, all of a sudden. Logically, he believed that he would likely be back here the next summer, but something in him saw this as the end. The last time he would encounter the cupboard, the last time he would leave Privet Drive. Giddiness rushed through him.
On a whim, as he removed his trunk and broom from the small space, he also grabbed his two army men and the little drawing he had tucked away beneath one of the loose floorboards. The Dursleys had never allowed him to keep any of his childhood drawings--in fact, if they encountered them, they often ripped them to shreds--but Harry had managed to secret away one. It was of a snake. The snake was solid green, curving across the page with messy scribbles jutting out over the lines of its body. He’s taken a black crayon and given it little dots for eyes and a smile instead of a tongue on its mouth. He’s also drawn criss-crossed black lines along the back to make diamond-shaped scales. Harry had been immensely proud of his work--the teacher called it exemplary for the first grade--but he’d known by the age of 7 that the Dursleys would destroy any art he brought home. He’d had to hide the drawing in his pants to get it home, then quickly buried it away in his cupboard where his relatives would never see it. Harry loved his little snake, and he decided the safest place for it now would be with him on his travels, wherever he might go.
He dragged his belongings upstairs with him, not trusting Dudley to leave them alone if he’d left them in the hall. His ribs ached by the time he made it up the stairs.
Back before Harry had gone to Hogwarts, his injuries had always healed remarkably fast. Not when it was a scraped knee or something like that--those healed normally. However, when Harry was seriously injured by his uncle or Dudley’s gang, be that a split lip, bruised ribs, or a sprained ankle, he found himself healed overnight. This only made the Dursleys angrier when they realized, and the abuse would often worsen until he started faking those injuries until they would have ‘normally’ healed.
The summer after his first year at Hogwarts, the magical healing stopped. The first time Vernon beat the shit out of him (aka the first night he got back), Harry woke up the next morning expecting to feel at least mostly healed like normal. Instead, the injuries were just as bad as the night before. When it proved itself to not be a fluke but instead the new normal, Harry began to formulate a theory.
See, before a witch or a wizard gets their wand, they often exhibit accidental magic. Moments like when Harry made the glass disappear in the zoo or when Neville bounced after his uncle dropped him out the window came from bursts of magic within a child, unable to truly control their magic. However, once a wizard began to train, those moments of accidental magic stopped happening. Wandless magic was incredibly rare and difficult, even though some people were able to do it when they were 8 or 9 years old. The moment when Harry blew up Aunt Marge was such a rarity that the Ministry didn’t even consider that it might have been accidental magic, assuming that Harry, like most other people, was unable to have magical outbursts without a wand now that he was educated in magic.
It seemed like that moment with Marge was a fluke, however, because no matter how much Harry tried to heal himself after a beating, he was left to heal like a Muggle over the summer.
So here Harry was, every inch of his body aching as he finally dragged his trunk over the threshold of his room before collapsing on his bed. It sure had been one hell of a day.
A little under 24 hours later, Harry paced the living room frantically as the clock ticked past 7:45 pm. His mind was spinning with theories about who he would be living with.
It didn’t sound like he’d be living with the Weasleys, but maybe Mr. Weasley was living separately from his family because he worked with the Ministry and they needed to stay safe. But Mr. Weasley had said “he” in his letter about who would come to get Harry, so it couldn’t be Mrs. Weasley. The best-case scenario would be living with Sirius. Harry had no idea if he even had a house yet, though, and he doubted Dumbledore would allow Sirius to come out in the open like that. Maybe Lupin was coming to pick him up, and they’d both be living with Sirius? What were the other options? He sincerely doubted he’d be living with Alastor Moody after the events of the last year, and he couldn’t even imagine Dumbledore having a house. Did the headmaster just live at Hogwarts over the summer, or was that stupid of Harry to assume?
The clock hit 7:55, and a knock sounded on the front door. Harry practically bounced across the room, honestly overjoyed to see whoever it was on the other side. No matter what, they were taking him away from the Dursleys, and that was all that mattered. He heard Vernon’s lumbering steps entering the hall, accompanied by the sharp click of Petunia’s heels, but he raced to reach the door first. A wide grin stretched his cheeks to their limits as he threw open the door.
And the smile fell right off his face.
Shrouded in darkness, fog swirling around the hem of his long, dark robes, face as dour as ever, and hair casting cruel shadows across his face, stood Severus Snape.