Silver and Gold 5/? DH Spoilers
SPOILERS FOR DH



Title: Silver and Gold 5/?
Author: Eriador117
Rating: NC-17, Snape/Harry, other pairings.
Spoilers up to and including Deathly Hallows
Summary: Things are never quite what they seem. Epilogue, what epilogue? ;)
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Potterverse, I'm just playing in it.
Beta'd by Rakina, many thanks :)
Warnings: AU, Angst, Mpreg. There are some other things I am not warning for as it will give away the plot and I myself don't exactly know where the story is going yet.



Earlier Parts

Part Five


Severus stared hard at the envelope in his hands. "Is this some sort of joke, Potter? All of these letters are magically addressed when a witch or wizard turns eleven. They will only ever be sent to the proper address."

"It isn't a joke, Professor. That was the proper address."

Severus searched Harry's face for the hint of a lie or the smirk that would suggest this was some sort of prank. It was the sort of thing James Potter would have found funny. But the young man in front of him didn't look as if he was joking and as the years had passed, Harry was looking less and less like James and more and more like the unique individual he was.

"You're not seriously trying to tell me that you lived in a cupboard?"

"Depends on what you mean by lived, I suppose."

"Well, you had a bedroom, didn't you? A bed?"

"For the first ten years I lived there, no I didn't. I slept in the cupboard and I didn't have a bed, only some old blankets. In fact I spent most of my time in the cupboard; they let me out to do chores, but after they were done I was locked back in. At first, they hadn't even told the neighbours about me, but Mrs. Figg must have let the authorities know I was there, as someone from the education department came round wanting to know why I wasn't at school."

Severus couldn't quite grasp what he was hearing. The boy who survived the Killing Curse, who'd defeated Voldemort while still a baby, the Chosen One – locked in a cupboard and his very existence hidden as if he was worthless! Severus realised he'd seen this cupboard before; in Harry's memories during those disastrous Occlumency lessons.

"I thought it was a punishment," said Severus softly. "That you were a wilful child and you were being disciplined."

"Well, yeah, if you call existing being wilful," said Harry in a low voice.

"Why on Earth would they keep you in a cupboard?" asked Severus. Lily had been a generous warm-hearted woman and although the young Petunia Severus had met had seemed most unlike her sister, Severus was sure she would have welcomed her sister's only son with open arms. Severus thought she would have been delighted to discover her nephew was a wizard. Petunia had been in awe of magic, even going so far as to write to Dumbledore to ask if she could attend Hogwarts too.

"I guess they were ashamed of me. I was a freak, wasn't I?"

"A freak? What do you mean?"

"I was a wizard, I could do magic and they hated magic. They hated anything out of the ordinary. They hated magic with the same sort of mania that Voldemort hated Muggles and half-bloods."

"What? But they weren't violent, were they?"

The boy's silence was all the answer he needed. "Dear Merlin," Severus whispered under his breath and sank back in his chair. He had been a spy for the best part of twenty years and he thought his observation skills were what had kept him alive for those years. How could he have missed what was under his nose all this time? How could any of them? How could he have been so wrong about Harry Potter? Far from being the arrogant, pampered prince – the role Severus had cast him in – Harry Potter had spent ten years locked in a cupboard, and who knew what other abuse had gone on at the one place where he was supposed to have been safe!

"You were abused by the people who were supposed to care for you."

"That's none of your business! It's not as if you care, is it? You'll be telling the Slytherins the first chance you get! Let's all have a good laugh at Potter, such a freak that his relatives tried to beat the magic out of him! He's such a piss-poor wizard he couldn't even defend himself against a couple of Muggles! Well, go on then, tell them! See if I care! No one else does!"

"That isn't true," began Severus, but Harry cut across him.

"It is! Where were you lot when Vernon kicked me so hard in the head I was unconscious for four days? Where was the wizarding world when Vernon burned me with the poker then beat me black and blue with it? Where were you all when I was locked in and starved for days at a time? Where were you when they put bars on my bedroom windows?"

"Harry, I'm sure if someone had known..."

"They did! They did!" screamed Harry. "The whole bloody Order knew and still Dumbledore sent me back there year after year, knowing what the Dursleys did to me! Oh, they all pretended to care, but we know what they really cared about – they just wanted me to defeat Voldemort for them! They threatened Vernon at the train station after my fifth year. Do you want to know what he did to me once he got me back to Surrey?" Harry didn't wait for an answer, but yanked his t-shirt over his head and threw it down on the bed.

"Finite Incantatem," said Harry as he waved his hands across his chest so that the glamour disappeared. Severus should have realised that the boy had been using a glamour as soon as he'd seen the smooth, unblemished chest. No one who'd lived for eighteen years could avoid some sort of minor injury or scarring. But what he saw now wasn't minor in the least. Most of the skin was puckered, as if it had been burned and hadn't been treated properly. There were thin, raised scars which seemed to be from a knife or something else sharp. There were raised, red welts as well and on Harry's belly, just above the waistband of his jeans, was some sort of branding. The words were tiny and Severus couldn't make them out. Harry was so thin that most of his ribs were visible.

"What does it say?"

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. It took him three days to do that, I kept passing out from the pain and he wanted me awake to feel it. The Order promised that they would check up on me every three days, but no one ever did. When Dumbledore told me he was going to take me away on my birthday, I didn't believe him. I'd heard all the promises before."

"But he did collect you on your birthday."

"Oh, yes, but it wasn't to rescue me. He just wanted me to persuade Slughorn to take the teaching job. I was never a person to Dumbledore, was I? He knew all along I had part of Voldemort in me, so I guess he didn't care what I suffered. He probably thought I deserved it. Confronting Vernon just made things worse."

Harry recast his glamour and put his t-shirt back on.

"Harry, why today? Why did you go into the lake today?" Severus tried to keep his voice steady.

"I – it was Fred's funeral. That just made everything seem worse."

"You're very close to the Weasleys, aren't you? Couldn't you have told them what was happening at the Dursleys'?"

"Well, Ron and the twins knew some of it; they knew about the bars on the windows and the locked doors but when they told Mr. and Mrs. Weasley; they just said that Dumbledore knew what was best for me."

Anger at the deceased headmaster flared anew in Severus' breast. Albus had asked so much of both of them.

"I'm sorry," said Severus, reaching out to place a hand on Harry's shoulder. He was relieved when Harry didn't flinch away from the touch.

Harry glanced up at him; his eyes shining with unshed tears. "Yeah? So am I."

TBC