Chapter Text
Given that it was the second Monday in a row where Severus had been made to come collect Harry from school earlier than he'd anticipated—and given that Snape was covered from head to foot in the contents of Snowdrop Hill's stomach, a fact which he was unable to remedy with magic while in the company of muggles—Harry thought it was rather big of the older wizard to stick around until the emergency team arrived from the nearest hospital.
By then, whatever it was that Snape had done to Snowdrop had worked its magic, and she was lucid and able to answer questions, at least in so far as her teary-eyed state would allow.
When she first came to, her hysterics were brought on principally by the fact that she'd awoken in pain and terrified. The second round had come upon her when she'd wiped her face and her hands had come away streaked with blood. The third wind had been the strongest of all, however, and had begun in earnest as soon as her eyes had registered the shattered china bell that she'd swept to the floor.
While they waited for the emergency services to arrive—Mr. Fowler having sent the class off with Mrs. Murray who hustled them into the gymnasium for the duration—she was unable to be distracted away from the pile of shards.
She had fallen to her knees by the broken porcelain and had painstakingly picked out all of the larger pieces into her hands, then using her wetted fingertip in a vain attempt to ferry some of the smaller ones in alongside the biggest chips.
At the time Mr. Fowler had been conferring with Ms. Shaw, who had by then arrived on the scene, and the school nurse.
The only two who were paying much attention to Hill's attempts to save her tiny porcelain bell were Harry and Snape.
When the team from the hospital arrived—at about the same time as an older woman whom Harry assumed must have been some relation to Hill—the girl was forced by the old lady to drop the pieces and was bodily manoeuvered away from Harry and his guardian in order to be assessed. Even though she was capable by then of standing and walking on her own, they insisted that she lay flat on a wheeled stretcher, and she was escorted out of the building, presumably headed off on her way to a stay in hospital.
Likely, Snape's presence in the classroom was the next thing that would be addressed, and Harry worried at his lip as he considered how it was that Severus was going to worm his way out of this debacle, given that he couldn't exactly speed away in the old, beat up Morris Marina.
As it happened, the wizard had no intention of going anywhere. And though he couldn't take any measures to clean himself off beyond wiping at his face with his sleeves, Harry did watch as he stooped to gather up the pieces of the shattered bell into the same small pouch from which he'd earlier produced the strange stone.
He must have used a bit of magic, subtle though it was, for he somehow managed to collect every tiny sliver and speck of porcelain dust.
"That's the girl you were in a fight with last week."
It wasn't phrased like a question, and Harry knew better than to think it was one, but he answered as though he'd been asked anyhow.
"Yeah, she's the one that tackled Nicky Henderson."
Snape pursed his lips and nodded once, and Harry hadn't a clue what that might have meant, but he wasn't given much time to dwell over it, for not long after Ms. Shaw approached the two after seeing the medical team off.
She stopped short of them and Harry was surprised to see Snape straighten up before her, ducking his head as though he himself were the student standing before her rather than Harry.
Unaccountably, Harry felt rather proud that the headmistress didn't wrinkle her nose up at the smell coming off of him. He was rank.
Aida Shaw did, however, look Snape up and down, her mouth twisting a little bit in an expression which might have meant anything at all.
"It would seem that we're lucky to see you back at the school today, Mr. Snape," she began, clasping her hands before her. "If what the emergency team tell me is true, Miss Hill may well have passed beyond our reach had you not intervened."
Snape didn't look as though he knew what to say, but he did draw himself up to his full height, which had him looking down on the headmistress by a little bit, and he nearly pulled off a dignified figure, had it not been for the fact that he reeked of vomit and his clothes looked like they'd be better suited for the proprietor of a record store.
"I was pleased to be of service." He gave a short nod. "If you wouldn't mind, Headmistress Shaw, I do think I have some questions I'd like answered—"
"I'm sure you understand that given today's events, I'll be rather busy for the rest of the day, Mr. Snape. If you'd like to arrange for a conference with me later this week—"
Harry caught the flash of annoyance in Snape's eyes at having been put off, but he wasn't certain that Ms. Shaw had. It was a look that spelled danger, usually, and Harry grew wary as soon as he saw it. Whatever it was that Snape meant to discuss with the headmistress couldn't be good, and he found himself hoping that it didn't have much to do with him.
"First thing tomorrow would suit just fine for my schedule," the wizard's cool voice returned, sounding like a smooth wave covering for violent riptides.
The headmistress blinked twice in rapid succession, like she'd not expected to be confronted so doggedly.
"I—"
The man nodded sharply and interrupted her before she could come up with an excuse. "Expect me at eight."
Then, before Harry could say another word to him, Snape strode from the room and disappeared down the hall, apparently intent on returning to Spinner's End without Harry in tow.
Which was really quite rude of him, all things considered, as the school day was only perhaps less than an hour from being finished.
Worse yet, he'd left Harry to clean up his mess for him. Namely, the boy was forced into an impromptu inquisition, trapped between Mr. Fowler and Ms. Shaw as the two teachers needled him for information on just how it had been that Snape knew to show up, where he'd come from, and what on earth it was that he'd done to rouse Snowdrop Hill from her unconsciousness.
Harry hadn't a single answer for them, and by the time the school bell rang, he darted off to heft up his bag onto his shoulders, grabbed Wheat's terrarium off of his desk and fled from the school.
When he made it outside, Severus' Morris Marina was nowhere in sight and neither was the man himself. Evidently, he'd not waited up. Harry was forced to begin his walk home alone.
He'd made it about half-way to the bridge when he heard the pounding of heavy footsteps behind him and he whipped around; his instincts—honed from years of Dudley's Harry hunting—telling him that to ignore the approaching presence might have proven to be a deadly miscalculation.
Halting as he did nearly saw him being barreled into by the fast-approaching form of Nicky Henderson, who had been hot on his heels.
Nicky stopped short of hitting him, but only by virtue of changing course at the last second so that he veered slightly to the left of Harry, his momentum carrying him at least another meter more.
"P-Potter, wait," he panted, doubling over and clutching at a stitch in his side. Harry did so, watching with wide green eyes as the slightly larger boy recovered himself.
Harry had backed up against a nearby building which stood empty, not wishing to feel so exposed. If Nicky took it upon himself to launch an attack just now, there was no one Harry could see that might be available to help him.
Of course, it wasn't so much that Nicky Henderson was a danger unto himself. Henderson hadn't gotten vicious with Snowdrop Hill until the girl had cannoned into him and begun her own assault against his person. He had, however, carried it way too far in getting even.
At last, after moments of huffing and puffing dramatically, Nicky finally caught his breath, though he was still pitched forward, with his hands clutching his knees. "Potter, who was that?"
"Who was who?" Harry asked, frowning. He shifted Wheat's terrarium under his arm so that it rested in the crook of his elbow, the tarantula making its way with leisurely grace to the other side, where Harry's bicep cast a shadow over a soft spot in the corner.
"That bloke that knocked Sharp over! He was all set to run for the nurse and then the door opened in his face. I know you know him, he was talking to you."
"Oh him? That's Severus," Harry answered. He looked around with a sense of mounting aggravation and then decided he may as well continue his trek home. If Henderson followed him, that was his own business. Thus, he began to trot toward the bridge once more, scouting out with his eyes to make sure that he didn't manage to trip over one of the vagrants once more.
With his keen eye he spotted the man he'd earlier stumbled on squatting by the bank of the river, near a couple of other down-on-their-luck sorts. He'd apparently doffed his coat and was lounging with his long johns rolled up along his shins and to the crooks of his elbows out of deference to the early September heat. They were stained yellow all over with sweat and God knew what else. Between the four people, who seemed to be chatting, lay a dog so filthy and matted that he may well have been one large mass of wiry fur. The poor thing's tongue lolled dreadfully, but he seemed happy enough as the assembled group of tramps were taking turns throwing the beast small tidbits of bread crust.
"What sort of name is 'Severus,' anyway?"
Distracted as he'd been, the question startled Harry, and he looked up to see that Nicky had, indeed, kept pace with him. They were now starting in on the bridge, and soon the tramps and their small encampment were out of sight.
Harry shrugged when he found he couldn't come up with an answer. He felt rather annoyed with the question and with Nicky dogging him all the way home. "What sort of name is 'Nicky?'" He asked back, shoving his hand that wasn't holding Wheat deep into his trouser pocket.
"Short for Nicholas, like Father Christmas—" Nicky chirped back in a matter-of-fact tone.
Harry snarled at him, not liking that his unfriendly volley had been ignored, and feeling his face pull into the familiar expression that he'd seen Severus use so many times before. "Shut up—!"
"What kind of name is 'Severus?'" Nicky asked again, apparently unimpressed by Harry's unfriendliness. "He looked like someone from a film or something."
In truth, Harry had no idea where the name Severus had come from, so he merely shrugged. He thought he might have heard Snape mention having been named for a river somewhere far south of them once before, but it was hard to say for certain, and he was hardly going to tell Nicky that. Instead, he asked his own question to try and divert from the silly question. "What sort of film?"
"I dunno—like he was in a biker gang or something? Have you seen Escape from New York?"
"No," Harry admitted. He'd truthfully seen very few films at all, and he certainly wasn't up on anything newer that his aunt or uncle might have frowned upon. That would definitely have included any films that would include a character that might have resembled Severus.
"Or like, do you know Bon Scott? From AC/DC?"
Harry paused for a moment and gave it some thought, feeling taken aback. He'd seen Bon Scott (the deceased former frontman of the band), on some of Severus' rock magazines. And on the cover of the tape for Highway to Hell. "Yeah, I guess," he agreed, finally.
"Is he like, an undercover rock star or something?"
Harry resumed walking, growing tired of the inquisition over his guardian. "No."
"He dresses like one."
"Severus likes to wear black, is all." Harry turned to face the boy who was keeping pace with him, walking now in step with one another. "Why do you care, anyway?"
"I dunno," Nicky shrugged, although for reasons Harry couldn't quite name, the boy wizard remained convinced that there was more to it than Henderson would admit.
"They made us all get out except for you, and everyone was talking about it. No one wanted to ask you 'coz you're new and they're... well..." He fumbled a bit, his mouth twisting as he considered his words, "You're the kind of kid to bring a spider the size of your face in to class, and you hang around with the likes of Hill—"
"I do not!" Harry protested, "I only wanted to sit by the trees. I didn't know that that was Hill's spot—"
"And you got in a fight, first thing—"
"I was breaking up your fight!"
Either Nicky had forgotten this, or simply didn't care about the actual facts of the matter, for he shrugged. "No one wanted to ask you, but I don't care, Potter. I thought your tarantula was cool. Don't mind 'em at all, really, spiders. Not like a rat or something nasty like that. You're pretty much alright, far as I can tell."
"Thanks," Harry ground out, sarcasm dripping from the single word reply.
Apparently, Nicky Henderson was either unaware of what the tone meant, or otherwise didn't care about this either. He soldiered on with their conversation without marking Harry's ungracious attitude.
"What was he doing to Hill, anyway?"
Since Harry didn't have much of an answer, himself, he shrugged, hoping that at any moment Nicky might decide to veer off course and head toward his own home, wherever that might've been.
"He saved her life, isn't that enough?" Harry asked, feeling defensive.
"How'd he manage it, though?"
"I don't know," the young wizard answered, this time without a hint of malice. It was true, after all. He hadn't the faintest inkling of how it was that Snape had managed, nor what the cure he'd administered might have been.
"What was Severus doing at the school?" Nicky continued his line of questioning, and it rubbed Harry entirely the wrong way that the other boy would presume to call Severus by his first name. It had taken a while before the man had permitted Harry to in the first place!
"You should call him 'Mr. Snape.'" Harry scolded, his eyes looking anywhere but at the pest by his side. They were nearing the derelict auto shop that was a few streets down from Severus' house.
"Mr. Snape then. How did he know he ought to be there?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know," he answered once more.
Beside him, Nicky stopped walking. He looked around a bit at the empty buildings that lined the street.
"I'm not usually supposed to come this far," the other boy commented, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed their surroundings. "Cynthia—my Mam—would have kittens if she knew I'd gone all the way to co*keworth..."
"Probably you should go home, then." Harry told him, in a matter-of-fact tone. He desperately wanted to be home, himself—to ask Severus the very same questions that Nicky had asked of him—but the muggle boy was holding him up, and Harry didn't quite have the heart to run him off on purpose.
"Right," Nicky nodded, although he seemed curiously regretful over it. "I'll see you tomorrow, Potter."
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Tomorrow."
As Nicky turned tail and made his way back toward the lane which would lead him away from co*keworth, Harry felt a strange emotion that was difficult to place.
It closely resembled disappointment.
He spent the remainder of his walk home noodling over what it was that he should call it, when he realised with a start—upon opening the door to Severus' house on Spinner's End—that he, in a strange way, sort of wished that Nicky had stuck around.
It had been an odd change to have another child speaking to him with no hint of aggression or artifice, and as soon as Harry realised this, he felt a mild sense of shame suffuse him.
He'd spent the entire walk trying to put space between him and his interloper, only to miss the oblivious lad as soon as Nicky Henderson had changed course to go home.
Nicky had said he'd see him tomorrow. If Harry supposed that that was true—well?
Well, that wouldn't be so bad at all, actually.
He found Severus slumped on the sofa, having slid so that his backside barely rested against the bottom of the cushions, and his legs and knees were extended out further than they ought to have been over the dirty floor. He'd draped what looked to be a wet washcloth over the upper part of his face and had folded his hands over his belly.
From the way his thin slash of his mouth was set into a dour grimace, Harry could tell that Snape was either feeling poorly or else was in a horrendous mood.
Thinking that perhaps it would be best if he avoided the man altogether, the boy set down his bookbag near the door and took large, creeping steps forward, his eyes set on the staircase which would lead him to his own bedroom, but there was no disguising the creaking of the floor, nor the way that the hinge protested as he shut the door.
"The polite thing to do when entering the house is to announce your arrival and to issue a greeting of some sort." Snape's voice emerged in a rusty growl, and Harry winced upon hearing it.
"It looked like you were napping," the boy offered back, regretting that he'd evidently disturbed the other wizard.
Severus shook his head with a sigh, the motion dislodging the washcloth from his face so that Harry could see the man's eyes. The bags underneath them were so pronounced that, under any other circ*mstances, Harry might have thought that Snape had been punched in the face. "I was waiting for you to return. I've a bone to pick with you, as it were."
Harry stiffened and felt a tremour run through him at the pronouncement. He was innocent! He knew he was innocent. But he'd have to prove that to Severus, somehow...
"Can I... can I put Wheat upstairs first?"
"Hurry back." Snape instructed him, with a short roll of his eyes.
Not wishing to tempt fate—or Snape's temper—Harry did as he was bid, dashing up the narrow staircase and depositing Wheat in his customary space near the wall of Severus' childhood bedroom. Although he wished he could simply lock himself in with his pet, he knew that to keep Severus waiting would hardly improve on the situation. He forced himself to march back downstairs but held his head high to meet Snape's gaze.
He hadn't done anything wrong. Snape would have to see that...
Harry was dawdling so much that his shoes were dragging and scuffing along the stairs. There were few things he could identify which he'd rather do less than to face Severus in that moment, which was a curious thing, given his certainty that he couldn't pinpoint a way in which he'd fouled up this time around.
He'd been with Snape for a month and a half and even though the man had a dreadful temper, he'd not yet raised a hand to Harry, nor had he done much to punish him beyond enlisting the boy to help with the more disgusting aspects of ingredient preparation—which, privately, Harry very nearly enjoyed.
There was only so much he could do to waste time, however, and ultimately his feet led him back into the sitting room where he faced Snape with his head hung, staring at the rubber toebox of his trainers. What must have at one time been white was scratched, brown, and caked with dirt.
"Harry."
Swallowing, the boy looked up to see that Snape was now leaning forward where he sat on the sofa, his forearms resting on his knees. For all that Harry had feared, the man didn't appear angry, however, and that was enough to allow the boy to straighten up a bit under the scrutiny of those glinting black eyes.
"Harry, can you explain to me which part of what you did today proved most dangerous?"
Harry felt his heart sink. He had done something wrong, after all... and worse yet, Snape had an urgent, serious expression on his face. For him to have been furious and spitting venom might have been preferable to this worried look Severus was currently leveling at him.
"I... I should of picked them so no one could see—then Hill wouldn't of tried to take them off me—"
"No." Snape rebuked him, though without his habitual asperity.
"I should'a told someone when Hill ate the berries I picked—" Harry tried again, stopping when he saw Severus shake his head a bit ruefully.
"Granted, you should have told someone, and that was indeed very dangerous that you left it to chance, but you need to desist from bringing me things to use in potions, full stop, Harry. You must resist this urge of yours to pick up things with which you are unfamiliar, particularly if you don't know the first thing about their properties, either in isolation or when combined in the form of a potion." Snape sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his two index fingers.
"Yew seeds are unimaginably toxic, and they're not in the least bit magical on their own. Just because something is non-magical—or just because it grows in a place that ought to be safe, such as the school yard—does not mean that it cannot hurt you."
"Well, I wouldn't have eaten them!" Harry argued, feeling defensive. He knew better than to pop strange bits and bobs in his mouth. Even Snape hadn't had to tell him that, he thought, wishing he could roll his eyes. He wasn't a complete idiot!
"Not everything needs to be ingested to be dangerous. There are toxic and corrosive substances that can harm you when coming into contact with your skin alone.
"For instance, let us say that you found a leafy green plant, surrounded by a circle of attractive, spiky leaves. Would you have gathered such a thing for me?"
Harry shrugged, "I guess I find things that look... I dunno," he faltered, "like they might not get picked up otherwise?" He fished in his pocket coming away with the tiny grass seeds he'd collected earlier. They trickled out of his fingers onto the floor.
"Grass seed," Snape observed with wry amusem*nt. "Not especially useful for anything, bar some antiquated and rudimentary poultices. In any case, would you have picked the plant I named."
"I dunno, maybe."
"Congratulations, Potter. You have earned yourself a particularly uncomfortable skin rash. Those were stinging nettles."
"I said I didn't know whether I'd pick them—" Harry began to argue.
"What about a tall, umbrella-like plant, bigger than you, yourself? With a coronet of beautiful, vibrant, ultraviolet flowers? Sounds like the makings of a promising ingredient for potions, no?"
This, Harry couldn't deny. He'd be hard pressed to ignore the lure of such a singular specimen. Instead of answering, he shrugged, the movement of it defensive.
"Were you so stupid as to take a harvest from such a plant, you'd have far worse than the skin rash I mentioned earlier. Though beautiful, the magical variety of hogsweed is as dangerous and toxic as its giant, Caucasian counterpart, and unlike the invasive muggle variety, it grows natively in the wilds of Cumbria." Snape sighed, resting his black eyes on Harry with a gravity that felt hard to shake. "Think giant, weeping blisters, Potter. You'd be in need of medical attention, and should it be the muggles that happened upon you, they'd be at a loss for how to properly treat the condition.
"I've seen grown witches and wizards succumb to the wounds from large-scale exposure. You're a boy—do you think you'd fare any better?"
In spite of himself, Harry felt his sinuses beginning to prickle, which always seemed to presage a few tears. He tried to flare his nostrils to ward it off, and reached up a hand to rub underneath his spectacles, but it was to no avail. Feeling like he'd let the man in front of him down was enough to make him wish he could run off and hide, and because that would only disappoint Severus further, his only recourse was to stand and endure Snape's well-placed criticisms.
"I only w-wanted to—"
"I know you only wanted to help, Harry, but I don't know how to be any more clear that I find it anything but helpful to have to rush off in the middle of my day to shove precious—and expensive—bezoars down the throats of muggle girls to save them from your regrettable tendency to stick your nose where it doesn't belong."
Not knowing what else to say to that, Harry picked on the only thing he couldn't understand. "Bezoars?"
"A broad spectrum treatment for most poisons and toxins. Had she eaten more, it may well have failed to work. I can't imagine the muggle emergency team would have managed to arrive in time—you may well have had to watch the girl die in front of your very eyes."
When Harry gasped, Snape nodded in a single, decisive jerk. "How much did she have?"
"Just one," Harry admitted.
"It takes very little to prove fatal, even to most adults. She was lucky. You were lucky. Imagine she had eaten a larger dose and that you knew she'd taken it directly from your hand—"
"Severus..." Harry moaned, ducking his head. His hands came up to rub at his eyes, finding tears there that couldn't be contained.
The silence stretched between them, punctuated only by Harry's stifled sobs. "I think you get the picture." Harry heard, rather than saw, the man rise from where he was seated, then he felt when the man brushed past him, headed into the kitchen.
"What would you like from Rice Bowl?"
It took Harry a few seconds to register the question. When he did, his hands pulled down his face, his incredulous look leaving his eyes staring with widened shock at the man who was standing by the phone.
"I didn't think we could afford take away." Harry answered, rubbing at his dripping nose with the back of one hand. "And I nearly killed Hill—"
"You didn't nearly kill her," Snape answered. "The stupid girl grabbed a strange substance out of your hand and shoved it in her own mouth, without considering the possible consequences which may result.
"In any case," the older wizard paused, rubbing a thin hand over his tired eyes, "I don't feel much like cooking tonight, and one evening ordering out won't make much of a difference."
This ought to have reassured Harry, but instead he found it frightening. Was it the case that Snape had exaggerated how dire their circ*mstances were, or were they in such straits that it no longer mattered whether Snape wasted a few extra quid on a pair of polystyrene boxes filled with Mrs. Padiernos' delectable cooking?
"What do you want?" Snape asked again, lifting the phone off of its base and making to dial out.
"Tocino," Harry murmured, trailing after the man and leaning against the peeling wallpaper that covered the wall by the sink.
"Is that all?"
"I can get more?"
"Well, don't order the whole restaurant," Snape snarled, rolling his eyes, "but I dare say you can order more than meat alone."
Harry came up by Snape's elbow and teeter-tottered from heel to toe and back again. "What else should I get?"
"I'll order us a couple of cartons of rice," Snape decided.
"What's that bread?" Harry asked from the man's elbow. "The one that's good with that stuff?"
Severus scoffed and threw a faintly disgusted look Harry's way. "You expect me to be able to supply the names of both this mysterious bread and unspecified 'stuff?'"
"They were like, little rolls," Harry explained, holding his hands up, cupped around an invisible object in order to show the approximate size. "And they were kind of sweet and crumbly."
"Pandesal."
"That! With that brown stuff—"
"Coconut jam."
"Can we get that?" Harry prodded, hoping he wasn't pushing his luck past the breaking point.
"You realise that eating it with coconut jam isn't exactly traditional?" Snape asked, though he did move then to begin dialing Rice Bowl's number. "You'd be better served with butter."
"You eat it with coconut jam." Harry argued. After all, he'd only followed Snape's lead and had slathered his golden bun with the thick, brown paste after he'd seen Snape do so, a greedy glint having lit up the man's eyes.
"And have a look at my teeth sometime, Potter—trust that you'd do best to avoid eating quite so much sugar."
Anything else Severus might have said on the subject was interrupted by a voice coming across the other end. Harry couldn't quite make it out, but knew it must have either been Mister or Missus Padiernos, asking for their order.
"Placing an order. Take away—" There came a garbled response, and Snape rubbed a weary finger along the bridge of his hooked nose. "Yes. One tocino pork entrée, a large carton of garlic rice, an order of chicken inasal—"
Harry watched as Snape frowned, apparently having been interrupted during his order.
"No, it's not," he began to argue. Harry watched, fascinated, as a deep burgundy began to creep up Snape's neck to gather in the shells of his ears.
"No! I'm—that is to say—no—"
Harry would have sworn he heard a strange mixture of raucous laughter and jocular chirping coming from Rice Bowl's end of the call. He tried to stifle the giggle that wanted to erupt as he watched his guardian scowl at the phone as though the device itself was the thing mocking him, but he didn't quite manage.
That earned him a furious look as Severus passed his eyes over the annoyance in front of him rather than the one who was on the other side of town, apparently mocking him over the shared line.
"Mrs. Pad—Mrs. P—Lola!" Snape snapped, looking harried and upset that he seemingly couldn't get a word in edgewise.
Harry thought he heard more subdued hooting from Mrs. Padiernos as Snape turned his back to him and hunched over the phone as if he wished to hide from Harry's eyes. "And no, that wasn't all—"
Apparently, the woman wasn't going to allow Snape to get away with conducting the order, for she sounded like she was rattling off a list of suggestions as Snape listened impatiently.
"Perhaps the pandesal, we'll not be needing any of the rest."
It seemed like Mrs. Padiernos disagreed.
"That would be superfluous to our needs."
An aggrieved snort met Snape's latest commentary, and Harry thought he might have heard the woman lecturing over vegetables.
"If that's how you'll be over it, then I'll take an order of bibingka—"
"Coconut jam," Harry prompted, in an undertone.
"The boy wants a small container of coconut jam for the bread, Lo-Mrs. Padiernos—"
It seemed now that Snape was enduring another short lecture where the woman was attempting to get the man to substitute something for a vegetable or soup side, but Snape stood firm and insisted that they'd do just as well without. At length, Mrs. Padiernos seemed to have given in, for she quoted the wizard a price and Snape agreed to it, though Harry wasn't privy to what the figure might have been.
Afterwards, Snape hung up the phone and turned to brush past Harry who was still standing near the doorway that separated the sitting room from the kitchen.
He thought he might have heard the man messing with the key ring near the door before Harry was summoned with an impatient bark.
"Coming, Potter?"
Scrambling out to the entryway, Harry peered up at the wizard who had barely paused long enough to wait on him.
"You want me to come?"
Snape shut the door behind them with a loud slam, causing Harry to jump a bit. "You have to earn your keep somehow. You think I'd prefer to play pack mule to all our boxes, myself?"
"No," Harry answered, with a small frown. He followed Severus to where the car was parked, slightly pulled up onto the kerb—which Harry had given up on lecturing the man over, given the way it tended to deflate and damage the tyres—and folded himself into the backseat, still preferring it to sitting in the passenger side.
At least in the back, there was some protection in the event that Snape's driving tipped them off the bridge into the River Leven, or collided them nose first into an oncoming lorry, or—
Well. It was best not to keep on thinking of disastrous 'might-bes.'
He was much better than he'd been that first day Harry had met him, this was true, but Severus still had very little patience for driving, and even less patience for those unfortunate enough to share the road with them, and Harry sometimes felt as though he only managed to make it through their short trips into town by squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth hard enough that he worried they'd chip. (It was between that and biting down on his cheek or tongue, but then he'd considered what might happen should they wreck, and he'd had the terrifying realisation that it might well have meant biting his tongue off or chomping a hole through the meat of his cheek).
Luckily, Backbarrow was far smaller than Little Whinging, and their trips into town never required them to drive more than perhaps three miles out of their way. That such a short trip could still inspire the levels of terror it did was a testament to Harry's estimation of Snape's skills behind the wheel. That was to say: Harry had no faith in the man's abilities whatsoever.
That seemed to suit Snape just fine, however, and the man hadn't taken any pains to improve his technique since he'd mysteriously stopped his aggressive shifting after they'd left hospital in July.
When they arrived at the tiny car park that Snape appeared to favour, he shooed Harry out of the car with the imperious order that the boy come back with their bags.
Harry's hands were loaded up with a stack of bills—already counted out to the exact number Mrs. Padiernos had quoted Snape over the phone—and was told not to dawdle at Rice Bowl.
As Harry walked away, he sent a few looks back over his shoulder, finding that Snape was sitting in the driver's seat, his arms crossed over his thin chest, peering out into traffic with a mulish expression on his long face.
If the younger wizard didn't know any better, he'd have said the man was sulking, and that he was probably avoiding Rice Bowl's proprietor for all that he was worth. A supposition which seemed borne out by the man's choice of music for their ride: Youth Gone Wild, by Skid Row.
Mrs. Padiernos seemed to agree with Harry's assessment, if her annoyance at seeing the boy unaccompanied was any indication.
She'd lit up at seeing Severus' ward, and then her lips had gradually pursed as she realised that Severus wasn't trailing his own mangy hide in behind the young boy, and as she called for her husband to make haste in assembling their boxes for them, she'd leaned over the counter on one elbow, her eyes rolling to the faltering plaster of the ceiling as she settled in for a chat.
"I expect he told you not to waste any time talking?"
Uncomfortable with lying, but feeling the truth was unkind, Harry's mouth twisted in a grimace as he shrugged.
"Stupid boy—" And then, seeing that Harry's grimace had taken on a pained look, her features softened a touch. "Not you, Harry. 'Rus has a stubborn streak a mile wide, and he comes by it honestly. His mother did too."
Snape never spoke of his mother—or of his father, for that matter—and Harry was painfully curious. It was likely that he'd never be able to butter the man up enough to loosen his lips about the family who'd once lived on Spinner's End, and who knew when Harry would get another chance to talk to Mrs. Padiernos alone again?
As the woman had said: he wasn't a stupid lad. If there was a chance, and if this was to be the only one, he'd be some manner of fool not to ask...
"She did?" Harry asked, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. "Severus never says anything about her..."
Mrs. Padiernos leveled an assessing look at Harry, and then glanced around, as though she suspected Snape of lurking behind the wall that led to the kitchen—although, how he'd have made it into the back of the establishment, behind the counter, was a mystery—and she leaned down to get a little closer to Harry's level, speaking low, even though they were the only two at the front of the restaurant, and Mr. Padiernos clearly couldn't hear over the loud hiss of the wok he was stirring.
"Eileen was a dear, dear thing," she nodded, her face solemn. "I was blessed to know her when she moved to town in 1950 or thereabouts.
"There's not many of us, you know?" Mrs. Padiernos asked, without expecting an answer. "The nearest parish is up in Penrith, and we met on the bus—it didn't run on Sundays, so we often went on Wednesdays because we could still catch a bus back, and go after work."
Harry's face screwed up a bit in confusion. Severus hadn't mentioned whether or not the Padiernoses were magical or not and had only loosely mentioned in passing that they'd been long-standing family friends. On the other hand... he'd also cautioned Harry not to speak of the magical world aloud without his express say-so. "Not many of us what, Mrs. Padi—"
"You will call me 'Lola,'" the woman smirked, having interrupted him. "None of this nonsense that 'Rus has fallen back on. He forgets because he wants to. I remind him of his mother, and as much as he hates that, he can't leave it alone either. I know, because otherwise he wouldn't come in as much as he does."
"He'd come in more, only..." Harry trailed off, remembering too late that he wasn't meant to be telling the woman about Severus' money woes.
Lola's keen stare told him that she may well already be aware, and Harry felt his face flush, remembering in that moment that he was already wearing the fruits of the woman's charity in his school uniform.
"'Rus isn't nearly as secretive as he thinks he is—not to me. Not to his Lola." She shook her head and rolled her brown eyes with a tiny sneer of exasperation. "He is the same boy he was fifteen years ago—too proud by half. Again, just like Leenie."
"What are there not many of, Lola?" Harry prompted, leaning both of his palms on the counter and rocking back and forth on the soles of his feet.
Lola's eyes crinkled at the edges as she laughed. "Well, at least in this neck of the woods: Catholics. But more specifically, Filipinos."
"Severus is Filipino?" Harry asked, his eyebrows rising over his rounded eyes. "He looks—"
"He looks like his countrymen. Or, in point of fact, like his father," Lola said with a languid shrug. "Tobias had strong features, and Leenie was only half-Pinay herself, but Severus got her hair and eyes, even if he got his Da's ilong," She informed him, tapping one red-lacquered nail against her nose for emphasis.
"If you worked in Backbarrow and had to make it to the church at least once a week, it couldn't be on Sundays, so she and I met for the first time when we were headed up to Penrith for services."
"Are there more Filipinos in Penrith?" Harry asked, his fingers tapping out a tempo on the laminated counter.
"Hah! No—probably there are some in Carlisle, but ours was the only family in these parts. Granted, we have a rather large family," she chuckled. "In any case, I thought I'd known of all of us around the lakes, but Eileen proved that wrong, so it's possible there are more."
"Is that why Severus doesn't wanna call you 'Lola?' 'Cause maybe he has one already?" Harry speculated, his mouth twisting in apology.
This earned a snort from the woman. "'Rus doesn't want to call me 'Lola' because he thinks he's a man grown who doesn't need to be mothered anymore, and, more than that, he imagines it's something to be embarrassed of. According to Eileen, his own Lola wanted nothing to do with them after she'd gone off and married Toby. Didn't approve of him, she said."
"His Gran didn't like him?" Harry asked, feeling his jaw drop open. He knew he wasn't any sort of expert on family... but it seemed especially cruel to be treated as disposable by one's own grandmother.
"Doubt if she ever met 'Rus. She didn't care for 'Rus' father, Tobias. Eileen ran off from some posh plot down near Cheltenham and met Toby in Birmingham where they both found work. Then Toby was hired on at Reckitt, here in the town where he was born and raised, a few years before 'Rus came along, and instead of breaking it off, they talked some priest into marrying them. That's how she found herself all the way out here in this pile.
"Eileen wasn't the sort for making many friends, either." Lola shook her head, her aged mouth firmed up into a grim little line. "She didn't want to accept help from anyone, and charity might as well have been a dirty word.
"Even so, when 'Rus came along, and the little mite didn't have any clothes that fit, or when they'd run out of money for meat, she'd bring him to me and he'd stay with Lola for a week or so," she said, patting her own breast. "Grew up alongside my Louie like he was his own brother—called him 'Kuya' and everything."
"What's kuya mean?" Harry asked, finally seeing an opening to answer a question he'd saved up since he'd last seen Lola.
"It means 'older brother.'"
Frowning now, Harry recalled how the woman had insisted that Snape was his own 'kuya,' and felt himself more confused than ever.
"'Ney!" Mr. Padiernos barked from the back, "'Rus' order is ready!"
Lola rushed off then and returned with a greasy, brown paper bag, stapled shut at the top. She pushed it over the counter at Harry who took it, juggling it a bit as the heat from the boxes inside bit at his fingers.
"I know 'Rus said he wasn't ordering vegetables, but there's a box of steamed sprouts in there that I expect you to eat, and if you can make that stubborn ox eat a few too, you'd be Lola's little hero," she beamed down at him, a bit of a twinkle coming into her eye. "If you can, get him to have those before he starts in on the bibingka, or else there'll be no turning back for him."
"Thanks, Lola," Harry chirped back, giving a clumsy salute as he pushed the bills across the counter to her.
"And don't put too much jam on those pandesal—you'll end up with teeth as bad as your kuya's."
"That's what Severus said," Harry rolled his eyes, but also offered up a tiny grin in response as he pushed the door open with his backside and shimmied out into the alleyway. "Bye!"
"We'll see you later," the woman called back to him, with a little wave of her fingers and a grin.
