Severus sat pensively before the gently shifting flames of the living room fire of Gatehouse Cottage, his attention only loosely focused upon the dry research paper he was reading on the contraindications of Runespoor eggs and Re’em blood. Frowning, he flicked his eyes once again to a small mound of restless energy currently huddled under a throw rug and tucked snugly into the corner of the settee.
From the slight twitchy movements of the boy’s hands on the pages of the Muggle novel he had clutched in his hands, to the fidgety shifting under the blanket, Potter’s body language screamed that some sort of hare-brained Gryffindor scheme was undoubtedly afoot. Not to mention the fact that the infernal child had not turned a page of his book in the past half an hour. Potter was plotting something.
Severus huffed and, giving up his reading as a lost cause for the present time, gathered the parchment in his hands, tossing it down onto a side table with a loud thump. He indulged in a slightly evil grin as Potter gave a startled jerk at the sudden noise. The two regarded each other carefully for a long moment, until the younger wizard allowed his gaze to slip away from the intensity of Severus’s stare.
“Spill, Potter.”
“Wh-Huh?” the boy fidgeted with the frayed edge of the soft green angora throw rug that covered his legs.
Potter closed his book carefully, choosing not to look up at his teacher and it was this seemingly insignificant movement that convinced Severus that the little fool was most definitely hiding something. Severus had noted that the child seemed to have formed some sort of undue fondness for that particular blanket over the past day or two. It was the very one that Aunt Aggie had carefully tucked around the boy after his little episode at Kall Hus, just as Severus had done later that same evening when he had carried him back through the Floo and settled him into his bed in the attic room at the top of the stairs.
Severus felt a strange twinge of some unfamiliar emotion mixed with amusement at the thought that the famed Chosen One appeared to have developed a firm attachment to a security blanket. It seemed that the de-aging potion continued to reveal further vulnerabilities in the boy’s psyche.
“I wish for you to explain to me what it is that has you so distracted this evening,” Severus eventually returned evenly, his gaze never wavering from his inspection of the boy. “And, for that matter, all day today.”
Potter sighed and turned his body slightly so that he was facing toward his teacher, bringing his knees up so that he could hug his legs close to his chest. Severus observed the self-protective posture with feigned disinterest and waited silently for the boy to answer.
“Well, Sir,” the boy began hesitantly. “I was actually wondering about how much time you spent here at Kall Hus when you were my age. Er…I mean, when you were a boy, you know?”
Surprised at this response, Severus did not answer immediately. He lifted his chin a little and regarded the small boy with undisguised suspicion.
“Erm…you don’t have to say. I mean, if you don’t want to. I just – I wondered if you liked it here?”
“Yes,” came the simple response, stated with absolutely no inflection.
“Oh,” Potter seemed to rethink his line of questioning. “So…you must have good memories of those times?”
“Good memories,” Severus repeated the boy’s words slowly, allowing himself time to puzzle out where exactly Potter intended the conversation to go.
“Yeah, I bet you had lots of fun here,” Potter shrugged in a deliberately careless manner and waved his hand at their surroundings as he warmed to his subject. “It’s such a cool place. The house is really old and interesting, and there’s heaps of space in the grounds. Did you come here in the summer?”
The boy leaned forward in anticipation of his professor’s response. His glamoured dark eyes were wide open with undisguised curiosity as he waited. Severus leaned back into his seat and folded his arms.
“Why the sudden interest in my childhood, Potter?”
Shrugging, Harry affected nonchalance. “No reason really. I guess I was just thinking about what the house must have been like back then.”
“Hmm,” Severus returned, still suspicious of the boy’s true motives. “I suppose it was very much as it is today. A little lonely at times, perhaps.”
“Lonely?” the small face creased in consternation.
“Yes, Potter, lonely,” Severus snapped. “I was an only child, surrounded by adults in a huge house. Do you think your Potions Master incapable of such base human experiences as loneliness or isolation?”
“Oh, um. No, Sir,” Potter shook his head and looked away, distant for a moment. Seemingly without any thought, his next sentence slipped easily from his frowning mouth. “I know what it’s like to be lonely, even when there are people all around –“
Clapping a hand to his traitorous lips, the child halted mid-sentence. The surprised moue as he lowered his hand was almost comical to observe. The quiet dragged on as Severus waited patiently for the next question that he was sure could not be too far away. In his de-aged state, Potter’s facial expressions and body language were so unguarded that he could read the boy like a book. It was almost disappointingly easy.
“There weren’t ever any other kids here for you to play with?”
“Cousin Hilde is a good few years younger than I; however, she was an occasional playmate.”
“No other little boys though?” the casual tone was forced.
“Other boys?” Severus frowned bemusedly and then suddenly realised precisely where this was headed. “You saw that boy again, didn’t you?”
Leaning forward, he caught the small chin in his hand and forced Potter to meet his eyes. “The hallucination in your bedroom? The child appeared to you again?”
Potter closed his eyes, his pointed chin firmly caught in the large hand of his professor, and jerkily nodded.
“Why did you not inform me of this detail the moment that your faculties returned?”
Potter shrugged and then warily opened his eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“Indeed?” Severus stared at the boy, the hot feeling of his displeasure building rapidly in his gut. “Honestly, Potter, your behaviour confounds me at times. Do you not realise that I am currently attempting to follow all possibilities in order to unravel the complete mystery that is your current reaction to the Aetate Mutatio? I instructed you to inform me of any unusual symptoms! Do you not think that your tiny little brain fabricating the existence of another human being might qualify under that heading?”
Abruptly, Severus released Potter from his grasp and stood to his full height, pacing angrily to the notebook that he had earlier left lying open on the dining table.
“Hours of my time painstakingly reviewing every step of the brewing process! Thorough diagrams mapping your body chemistry and key markers of your immune system! Records of every minute observation of your condition following a seizure!” He whirled and waved the notes in the boy’s pale face, punctuating his speech with a small thrust of the notebook and drawing ever closer to Potter in the process.
“These are my notes on your condition. Look carefully at them, Mr Potter,” he tossed the notebook into the boy’s lap with a disgusted grimace and resumed his irate pacing.
Severus often found that a little physical activity was useful in regaining control during a fit of pique. It was a habit formed through Aunt Aggie’s intervention during his childhood. The woman had never had much patience for his anger-induced tantrums and had always insisted that he ‘work it off and cool down that temper’ through engaging in some sort of physical activity. This had usually involved a quick swim in the lake during the summer months. Severus snorted to himself. He was well past the age of slogging through his angst in a lake swim. Additionally, the depths of winter were not the best time to go for a quick dip.
“He wasn’t fabricated.”
Severus abruptly paused in his travels across the living room at hesitant note of the soft voice.
“At least, I know that he isn’t an imaginary person.”
“What in Merlin’s name are you babbling about now, Mr Potter?”
“The boy,” Potter looked up at him with an odd expression of both fear and wonder. The notebook Severus had tossed at him remained unopened on his lap.
“Of course he was fabricated! Do you see any other little boys living here at the cottage?”
“Well, no. But that boy is…was a real person.”
“And how precisely do you know this to be fact?”
Potter gripped the notebook tightly in both hands and drew it defensively to his chest. “Because, Sir, that boy…he was you.”
***
Samuel Pritchard was the sort of man who lived for his work. A social worker for the Surrey branch of the Children and Family Court for the past 12 years, it was Samuel’s role to check the facts of any case of potential abuse that was to be brought before the magistrate. He took a great deal of pride in his meticulous attention to detail; after all, it was on his advice that the final ruling was made, and Samuel preferred to think that he always did his very best to ensure that justice prevailed.
His latest case had him scratching his head. The family he was currently investigating just seemed so…ordinary. There was no evidence of substance abuse - a decent regular income apparently kept them all in middle-class comfort - and the house was immaculately kept.
Admittedly, the teenage son was unhealthily overweight, but there was a health-plan in place for the boy to lose weight and the boy’s parents seemed to genuinely dote on their roly-poly son. All of this was in order. The one missing piece in the puzzle was the nephew.
On the surface, his absence from the family home over the Christmas holiday break seemed legitimate. The lad was away at an exclusive boarding school in Scotland and, according to the neighbours Samuel had interviewed in the course of his investigation, it was apparently usual for him to spend the holiday at the school. Samuel had been in contact with the Headmaster and it was confirmed that the Potter boy was currently in Sweden undertaking private tuition in Chemistry with a renowned professor in the field. An extra-curricular tour of this nature must have cost a great deal of money and Samuel found it impressive that the school was willing to extend such opportunities to its outstanding students. Clearly the Dursleys spared no expense on the education of their young ward.
The Headmaster of the school in question had waxed lyrical about the boy’s potential and had described Harry Potter as an exceptional student who held a great deal of promise in both athletic and academic pursuits. Understandably, Headmaster Dumbledore had expressed genuine concern over the reasons for Samuel’s phone call. Well-versed in dealing discreetly with such matters, Samuel had reassured the man that it was all a routine affair and had gently dissuaded him from arranging the face-to-face meeting that Mr Dumbledore had so clearly desired.
The call had ended amiably enough, with Samuel promising a follow-up call in the new year and the Headmaster agreeing to contact Samuel’s office upon the Potter boy’s return to Scotland from his accelerated Chemistry course in Sweden.
It was this information that seemed decidedly at odds with the description of the boy that he had been given by various residents in Privet Drive, Little Whinging. In fact, most seemed to be of the understanding that young Potter attended St Brutus’s Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys. It was most perplexing, given that this institution did not, according to Samuel’s extensive and rigorous research, exist.
Another glaring anomaly in the Harry Potter case file was the fact that there was little evidence in the Dursley home that the boy had ever even resided within its walls. There were no photographs of the child on the walls, his bedroom was freshly painted and clean, but bland and impersonal to the point of looking like a staged room. The cupboards in the room contained no personal effects at all, not even an old pair of trainers or a discarded toy.
No, something was most definitely not right in this case, and Samuel intended to find out exactly what it was.
Chapter 9