Help From An Unlikely Source

Chapter 2

Severus Snape was grumbling to himself the whole time as he walked down Privet Drive to the one person's house he never thought he would ever find himself going to. He was on his way to Harry Potter's house the bane of his existence. When Albus had called him to his office saying he had a mission for him he was worried, because he thought it meant he was going to have to go to Voldemort. Now he decided that wouldn't have been so bad. Harry had a way of just grating on his nerves.

When he got to the house that Harry lived in it was just a typical muggle home nothing special about it all. He walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. It took a couple minutes for anybody to open the door. When the door opened he was almost sick just looking at the cow of a man that had to be Harry's uncle. The man was as fat as he was tall. He stood trying to look as nice as he could, but he just can't pull that look off very well, just ask his students.

"How may I help you?" said Harry's uncle looing like he was mad for being bothered.

Severus in his most controled voice said, " I'm looking for Harry Potter."

As soon as the words came out of his mouth Vernon started turning a very unbecoming shade of purple.

Severus just looked at him and said, " if you will just let me in I will check on the boy and be out of your way in no time."

"No, you may not come in my house. One of you freaks is enough, so leave now before I call the police and make you leave."

"Mr. Dursley, you really do not want a fully grown wizard with a bad temper angry with you. It is not a smart move. Now I am coming in, and checking on the boy rather you like it or not."

Severus pushed past him looked around the house, but he didn't see Harry anywhere, so he turned back to Vernon who was looking like a drowned rat.

"Where is the boy?"

Vernon just stood there stuttering about something Severus couldn't even begin to know what.

"I will not ask you again. Where is the boy?"

"H-he iiis ups-stairs."

Severus started up the stairs not even sure which room Harry would be in.He tried the first door but it turned out to be a hall closet. The door right across from the closet was locked so he figured it might be it so he got out his wand and unlocked the door. What he saw when he opened the door had him frozen with shock. Because there in the middle of the floor was Harry Potter curled up in a ball all bloodied and bruised.

He slowly walked into the room so as not to scare the boy. When he got right up on the boy his stomach flipped with disgust that anybody could treat this boy like this. No, he had never really liked the boy but that did not mean he wanted Harry hurt either.

He lightly called out Harry's name to try and wake him up. When that didn't work he put his hand on Harry's shoulder and lightly shook him while calling his name. This seemed to work because he got a slight moan from him. He rolled Harry onto his back so he could see his face, which was covered in bruises and dry blood. It almost made him sick to his stomach to think about what Harry had been through.

Harry's eyes started to open after a moment on his back he looked up and almost screamed he was so startled to see his potions teacher leaning over him. After a few moments he found his voice which was broken and crackly from not using it in several days except to cry from the pain and said, "Professor Snape, what are you doing here?"

"Harry when you didn't answer any of Albus' letters he got worried and sent me to check on you, and now I am glad he did. What happened to you Harry?" Severus asked in the softest voice he had ever used.

Harry looked at him and said, " I never got any letters. I've been locked in here for three days, I think. My uncle beat me when i dropped a plate and it broke, then when he saw an owl arrive, and when I couldn't get up the next day to do the housework."

Severus was sickened by what he had just heard. He looked at Harry and saw that he was almost unconscious again.

He d upd up and conjured a stretcher and then levitated Harry onto it. He looked at Harry again and asked, "where are your school things so I can get them?"

Harry looked up at him and pointed under his bed. Severus went over to the bed and looked underneath, but did not see anything. When he looked back up at Harry for explanations. Harry said, "under the floorboard." by the time he finished that sentence he had passed out again.

He quickly looked under the floorboard, and sure enough there was Harry's invisibility cloak, wand, and his potions textbook. That was all that was there so Severus shrunk the things and put them in his pocket. After checking to make sure that all that had happened was that Harry had passed out again. He started pulling the stretcher with him as he headed back downstairs. By the time he was back in the main hall the fat uncle had been joined by a horse-faced woman and a boy who was twice as large as his father.

Severus was a very angry wizard after seeing whhesehese pore excuse for muggles had done to Harry. He looked at them with such a look of pure hatred that they shrank back against the wall like they had been hit. He said, "where are his school things? I want them now, don't make me ask again."

The uncle reached in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys and went over to the cupboard under the stairs and unlocked it pulling out Harry's trunk and an empty cage. Severus grabbed them then shrank them and put them in his pocket too. He looked at the muggles one last time and said, " do not think you are getting off that easy for what you have done to Harry. Someone will be back, and you will not like it. I promise you that."

He then grabbed the stretcher and left the house not knowing how he was supposed to get him and Harry back to Hogwarts without being seen by half the muggle population.