Whelp

'Yes, Master Snape, sir.' The diminutive elf bowed low and disappeared to the kitchen, presumably, with a POP.

After another minute of pacing, Severus could not justify staying away from the boy – or breakfast – any longer, and he headed back upstairs.

Harry was back on the bed, looking down at his hands, which were folded primly in his lap. He had the air of one who was resigned to a particularly unpleasant fate, and did not look up when Severus entered the room.

'Harry?'

Still the boy stared at his hands, but his shoulders hunched the slightest bit. Slowly, Severus moved closer to the bed, but was careful to remain more than an arm's length away. 'Won't you look at me?'

'Not 'lowed,' the boy whispered.

'You are allowed to, here. I'd prefer it, actually, if you looked at me, especially when I am speaking to you.'

The boy's hands were trembling, and then he clenched them into tiny fists, as though trying to keep his fear from showing. And why should he not be afraid of you? Severus berated himself again. After the way you growled at him. 'Please, Harry. Look at me.'

Harry hesitantly lifted his gaze, though his head was still lowered somewhat, peering through the unruly fringe of hair that covered his forehead and bright green eyes. Lily's eyes, he realized with a pang. Lily's eyes, looking already older than even he felt on some of his worst days. What had the boy been through, beyond the terrors of the latest treatment, for such a haunted look to imprint upon his mien?

'Thank you,' he said to the boy. Then, 'I'm sorry, Harry, for frightening you earlier.'

'I wasn't –' The boy cut off his own protests and looked away, and Severus felt a surge of anger in his chest, at the boy's relatives who had reduced the Savior of the Wizarding World to such a state.

'It's all right, Harry.' He tried to keep his voice – and bearing – as non-threatening as possible, and the boy nodded slowly, but didn't turn back to him, as his hands twisted together on his lap.

He was saved from having to say anything more by the appearance of Dappin with a breakfast tray. The house elf settled it on the table by the bed, and from there, Severus handed out food to himself and the boy. Harry and he each had a bowl of porridge, though the boy had a half-sized portion. Severus had coffee to Harry's juice, and there was a platter of lightly buttered toast for the two of them to share. Fresh strawberries and blackberries rounded out the meal.

Harry brought the goblet of juice to his lips, holding it with both hands under Severus' watchful eye. The taste must have surprised him because he looked up suddenly at Severus, then ducked his head again.

'What is it?' he asked the boy, after swallowing a bite of porridge.

'I never had this juice before, sir.'

'It's pumpkin juice,' Severus told him. 'I don't think many Muggles drink it.'

'Muggles, sir?' The boy's voice was very hesitant as he formed the question, and Severus knew this was another of those infernal rules from his old home.

'You are allowed to ask questions, too, Harry,' he said quietly. 'I would prefer that you did, in fact, rather than act out of ignorance. As to your query, Muggles are people who don't know magic. People like your relatives, but also the many people who don't even know that the Wizarding world exists. Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir, um, Father,' the boy said, and took another sip of his juice. But his face was completely blank, and Severus knew there was something off, lurking under the surface.

'Do you have another question?'

'Yes, sir.' The boy glanced at him briefly. 'Are all Muggles . . .' The boy's knuckles were white where he gripped the goblet, and his face maintained the mask of indifference, but Severus could almost feel the tension flowing through the tiny body.

'Are they all what, Harry?' he pressed, although he was pretty sure he knew what the boy would say . . . or what he wanted to say. He had it in his mind that it would help the boy to be able to voice his feelings towards his relatives, but when the boy remained silent, and obviously distressed, Severus did not push further.

'Muggles are like Wizards in some ways,' Severus told him. 'One way is that not all of them are the same. Some do good things, and some do bad. You happened to have run afoul of some of the bad ones.' He didn't say anything about his own despicable choices in the past, or the extremes of emotion that existed in the Wizarding world with respect to Muggles, or those wizards born of Muggles. There was no point to it, not now.

'You have another question?'

'Yes, sir.' The boy hesitated again, and it was a struggle, Severus could see, for him to put his voice to it. Severus waited, with more patience than most would give him credit for, and was rewarded at last. 'What's a wizard?'

----

Harry ducked his head, knowing he'd been wrong to ask. Is father looked so shocked! And no wonder. He shouldn't have asked about wizards. Didn't he know that 'magic' was the worst word he could ever use? Hadn't Uncle Vernon reminded him, again and again, that magic was forbidden, and freakish, and wrong wrong WRONG!

But a moment later, his father cleared his throat. 'A wizard, Harry, is someone who can use magic. Like me, and you.'

'No!' Harry jumped, dropping his goblet and unseating his bowl of porridge. He scrambled back on the bed, farther out of reach. 'I'm not! I can't be. It's freaks who use magic.'

'WHAT??' Harry's father stood, too, and paced to the door, and Harry cowered against the headboard. When his father turned back round, his face was red, just like Uncle Vernon's got before he started hitting. He jabbed a finger in Harry's direction. 'You are not a . . . a freak. I am not a freak. You can use magic and so can I, and so can a lot of other people: wizards, witches, even Dappin and