Secrets

Sleep did not come easily to Severus Snape. His dreams were discontinuous, disturbing, and too close to reality to allow him any comfort. He often found himself laying awake at night, staring at imagined shapes on the ceiling. On this particular night, he had just awoken from a dream featuring a thin, black haired individual. While he did not know who it was, they seemed familiar. The boy was a recurring character in his dreams. He didn’t know who the boy was supposed to represent, what his presence was supposed to mean. He only knew that there was something hauntingly familiar about him. He projected a certain ethereal shyness and seemed dangerously fragile. Severus’ every thought while awake had recently been occupied with this character. While he didn’t generally hold stock in the arts of divination, he did have the inkling that this dream had some sort of deeper meaning. He had even gone so far as to tell Dumbledore about the dreams, saying that he could hardly concentrate on his job, saying that he woke up nearly every night, confused by the dreams. Dumbledore had merely smiled knowingly and told him that all would be revealed in due time.

“Cursed old man,” thought Snape. He rolled over in bed, determined to get some sleep tonight. He had to put up with loads of incompetent students taking exams tomorrow, and would need all the sleep he could get. As he slipped back into unconsciousness, he could have sworn that he heard a small voice begging for help, praying for someone, anyone to love him.

In his dreams, he wandered through darkened streets, slick with rain. At first, the neighborhood looked ominous, unfamiliar. All of the houses looked similar, as if cast into a mold and then placed along the streets. Each flower was purposefully placed, every fence delicately painted white, every blade of grass perfect. The scenery was familiar to him, though he didn\'t know why. His meanderings led him to a house with lights in the windows. It was the sort of house that appeared in magazines, the sort of house that anyone would want to call home. Snape could imagine the mirth that he would witness inside. A happy family sitting down to dinner, playing board games, eating dessert. The house was full of love, full of everything Snape had lacked as a child, full of everything he had desired. He looked at the house wistfully, and nearly continued his walk. It was then that he felt the sudden need to go into the house. It was irrational, but he thought that there was something to see there.

Up the walkway he went, noticing the precisely placed cobble stones. The door opened for him readily, and why not? He was a wizard, was he not? Not hesitating, he entered the house. The foyer exuded a warm glow, much as he expected. The rug was rich between his bare feet. To his right was a grandfather clock, just about to chime, to his left, a coat rack. The walls were adorned with pictures of a family, all smiling, all doing well. He seethed with envy, recalling briefly his childhood. Shaking his head, he wandered until he saw a large, dining room table. About it sat the three people he’d seen in the photographs, eating and conversing as if they hadn’t a problem in the world. Convinced that there was nothing to see there, he turned around and entered the hallway. To his left was a staircase. As he walked, he hardly noticed a small cupboard with its door ajar. For some reason, the cupboard caught his attention.

“It’s not like I haven’t spent my life in a cupboard under the stairs.” Where had he heard such a phrase? It seemed so familiar. He moved to open the cupboard door, exposing his ears to a sound that he was not expecting. Within the cupboard was someone, something, sobbing.

It was then that Snape woke up. With a start, he heard his alarm charm, telling him that it was time to get up, time to teach ignorant gits. Grumbling, he dragged himself out of bed, knowing that he’d be preoccupied with the dream for the rest of the day. He knew, just knew, that within that cupboard had lain his mysterious, black haired boy.
Snape was practically useless for the rest of the day. He cursed at first years, broke glassware, nearly turned Malfoy into a frog, and spilled polyjuice potion on the Granger girl. And that was before lunchtime. By the end of the day, he’d alienated nearly all of the students, not that this was much of a change. Furthermore, most of his colleagues were more concerned for his sanity than usual. He stormed about the school in a black, distracted cloud, wanting nothing more than to get back to his quarters and decide what, exactly, he was going to do.

After what seemed like an eternity, he was able to return to his quarters. He flopped down on his leather couch, much in the way that a teenage boy would, and began to stare at the flames dancing in the fireplace. There had to be, he thought, a way to figure out what the blasted dreams meant. For some ungodly reason, he cared, and the sooner he solved the mystery, the sooner he could stop. He was sick of caring about someone, especially since it was a person who may or may not exist.

It dawned on him suddenly. He could use a modification on a Floo Powder spell to figure out if the house really existed. If it did, well, he’d be transported there, and could figure out what was in the cupboard under the stairs. If it didn’t, well, he’d just have to rig the spell to take him to somewhere safe, like Hogsmeade. He was excited, suddenly, having figured out a way to solve the mystery. Rousing himself, he began gathering supplies to cast the spell. He would need Floo Powder, of course, and some unicorn’s hair, as well as some snake’s blood. Once he acquired all of the supplies, he mused over how to tell the spell where to take him. He had no idea where this place was. All he had was an image of a street with cookie cutter houses lining it. That could easily be any street in England, or the world, for that matter. He thought hard on the dream, trying to pinpoint the most exact location. Finally, he settled on using the image of the cupboard under the stairs. He would imagine the cupboard under the stairs and the mysterious boy that it contained.

Satisfied with this strategy, he threw some of the mixture into the fireplace and took his place in the flames. He closed his eyes, and imagined the scene from his dream in as much detail as he could muster. The stairs were to his left, and made of a warm colored wood. There was a fireplace straight ahead of him. Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation about his middle, as if he were being pulled offstage by a cane. He knew he was going somewhere. He only hoped that it was somewhere real.

After a while, the sensation around his middle ceased, and he warily cracked open an eyelid. He found himself in a dark room. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he realized that it had worked. He was standing in the great stone fireplace in the mystery house. Excited, he stepped out onto the hearth and looked around. Except for the lack of light, everything was just as it had appeared in the dream. The photos on the wall featured three happy individuals. The rug was rich and soft looking. Straight ahead, to his right, was a staircase, made of honey colored wood. Rather uncharacteristically, Snape began to feel afraid. He wasn’t sure what he would find here, wasn’t sure that his mystery boy even existed. Casting an invisibility spell, he stepped off the hearth and began to wander the house. Everything looked idyllic, and yet he could tell that something was amiss. He headed towards the staircase, towards the door to the cupboard under the stairs. Unlike the cupboard in his dream, this one was locked. This surprised him somewhat. Nevertheless, he cast a spell to open it. It was dark in the cupboard too.

“Lumos,” he whispered.
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The darkness faded away slowly, his wand emitting a warm, glowing light. His eyes explored the cupboard eagerly, taking in every detail. He noticed the tattered papers on the walls, the piles of rags on the floor. Carefully, he stepped into the cupboard. It was larger than he had thought it would be, as it stretched the entire length of the stairs.

Snape examined the walls of the cupboard carefully, seeing that the papers on the wall contained poems, stories clipped from the newspapers, and drawings done by a small child. He looked away from the walls and examined the contents of the cupboard. He noticed that what he had dismissed as a mound of rags appeared to have a human form to it. Nearly shaking, Snape walked over to the lump, careful not to disturb anything. Hesitantly, he reached down and removed a ratty sheet. He gasped.

Under the sheet lay a battered boy with black hair. He was far too thin, he was sleeping, and he wasn’t just some mysterious boy. He was Harry Potter. Anger surged through Snape as he looked upon the boy. Clearly, he was being mistreated. Bruises covered his body. He stank as if he’d not washed in many days. “I can fix that,” thought Snape. He whispered a cleansing spell and the stench vacated the small room. Unable to contain himself, Snape cast a spell permitting him to view the last forty eight hours of the boy’s life.

The horror that flashed before his eyes was unspeakable. Beatings had been followed by rapes, rapes followed by more beatings. The boy had scrounged around for drugs, trying to make his life more bearable. He had begged for mercy, begged for love, and been tortured by his family. Visions of the boy serving the family breakfast flashed before his eyes. He saw the aunt throwing out perfectly good food, saw the boy get smacked when he attempted to sneak some from the garbage. By the end of it, Snape was seething with rage. Before he could think, he had grabbed the boy into his arms and ran out of the wretched house. As soon as he reached the end of the walkway, he apparated into Hogsmeade, careful to not wake the boy. Then, Snape ran as fast as he could to Hogwarts.