As he had anticipated, his guardian had promptly ordered him into the lab for several hours of potion ingredient preparation at his side. Harry had worked contentedly, wondering why his da always seemed to prefer scolding him into the lab rather than accepting Harry's offer to help. Still, the end result was the same, and this way his da didn't get that befuddled look on his face.
After over four hours of pickling, slicing, dicing, and shredding, Snape dismissed Harry and went to his office to collect a pile of papers for grading. Harry got washed up тАУ the jellyfish tentacles tended to squish all over him when he tried to puree them тАУ and settled himself comfortably on his bed with one of the books that Remus had sent him. Harry had gotten rather addicted to the Jasper Goodfellow тАУ Auror of the Light series, and Remus was kind enough to send him a new title every month or so. He toyed with the idea of calling a house elf and asking for a snack, but he decided that in an hour or so, he would go into his da's office and whinge about being hungry. That usually resulted in the two of them having tea together while Snape scolded Harry about not eating properly. Harry grinned. His da really was pretty funny!
Having retrieved his grading and a soon-to-be-needed headache-relieving potion, Snape settled onto the living room couch. He had just finished excoriating the first student's work when his long nose suddenly twitched. What was that?
He sniffed again. Wormwood? Why did he smell wormwood? The only nearby jars were securely locked away in his potions cupboard. Suspicions afire, he drew his wand and stalked towards his supply closet, only to halt in utter shock at the sight before him.
The cupboard had been trashed. There was no other word for it. The doors stood open; one hung askew. Shelves had been swept clean, their contents scattered all over the floor in a malodorous stew. Hours of hard work had been undone in mere moments.
Snape gripped his wand so hard he feared it would snap. Who dared to commit such an outrage? Who would come to his private quarters and destroy his personal property like this? When he got his hands on them тАУ and then he saw the footprints.
The culprit had obviously been unaware that in stepping in the sludge he had created, he had smeared some of the mess on the bottom of his shoes. A trail led out of the cupboard, and Snape, still pale with rage, promptly followed.
The prints were small, indicating one of the younger students, which surprised Snape. He would not have expected a crime of this magnitude from one of the younger children, though perhaps they had been put up to it by one of the older ones. Still, who would do such a thing? Someone from a Death Eater family, sending a message to the traitor? Someone who had felt the rough edge of his tongue and wanted revenge? He couldn't imagine that one of his snakes would be stupid enough to earn his wrath in this fashion, and surely the Ravenclaws would be too bright, the Hufflepuffs too timid, leaving тАУ of course тАУ the Gryffindors. Wood, maybe? He could easily use his Quidditch captain status to inveigle one of the younger students into doing his dirty work. Or perhaps тАУ Snape jerked to a halt as he realized where the trail had led him.
"Hi, Da," Harry said cheerfully. "I'm hungry. D'you think we could have tea?"
Snape blinked at the boy. Harry was reclining on his bed, his stocking feet insouciantly propped against the bedpost, with one of those inane storybooks open on his chest.
Surely no one was that good an actor. But how else to explain the footprints?
Harry looked on in puzzlement as Professor Snape ignored his greeting and instead made a beeline for the shoes he had kicked off when he climbed into bed. Surely his da wasn't annoyed by the fact that he hadn't lined them up neatly?
"How did your shoes come to be this soiled?" Snape asked, holding up one shoe so that Harry could see the goo slowly dripping off the sole.
"Yuk! What is that stuff?" Harry asked, wrinkling his nose. He rolled to his knees and held out a hand for the shoe, which his father snatched back.
"Put on your slippers and come with me. I will show you exactly what it is."
Harry shrugged and obeyed. A moment later, he gaped at the destruction of the supply cupboard just as his father had done. "What тАУ what happened?" he choked.
Snape merely lifted an eyebrow at him, and Harry's mind rapidly connected the dots. He stared wildly from the cupboard to the footprints and then to the shoe still clutched in his da's hand. "I тАУ you think that I тАУ but, but I didn't!" he nearly wailed.
"Then why is there a trail made by your shoes and leading to your bedroom?"
"I don't know," Harry said miserably. "But I didn't do this!"
"So you are suggesting that someone else entered our warded quarters, destroyed my things, and walked in your shoes to your bedroom, all without either of us noticing?" Snape asked, his voice silky. "That seems a more reasonable explanation to you than the idea that you тАУ feeling petulant over some scolding, perhaps тАУ took advantage of my fetching papers from my office to destroy my supplies, then attempted to establish an alibi for yourself by hurrying to your room, not realizing that you were tracking evidence of your crime behind you?"
Harry swallowed hard, his throat thick with dread. Put that way, of course it sounded as if he had done it.
His da leaned close. "Go to your room," he said, his voice low and dangerous.
Harry turned and fled, half-expecting to feel the sole of his shoe crack across his backside as he went. But his da didn't touch him, and he threw himself across his bed, already in tears. This was like being back with the Durselys, with incomprehensible things happening around him.
But he had learned that those events had been what his da called "accidental magic" тАУ things like turning his teacher's hair blue or apparating away from the bullies тАУ and he was supposed to be too old for it anymore. This was that same feeling all over again, only worse, because he hadn't even been upset or angry when it happened. And how did his shoes get smeared with that mess if he hadn't been there? But if he had, then why didn't he remember? He would have sworn that he had been here reading the whole time, but his shoes argued otherwise. They certainly wouldn't have gone for a walk by themselvesтАж
Could he have done it but not remembered? The only thing that made sense was the bizarre idea that he'd been taken over by someone else, who used his body to do something awful, then left him without a trace and without even the sense of time having passed!
Back in the living room, Snape paced back and forth. Clearly, desperate measures were called for, but what? And how? He couldn't afford to ignore this, but neither did he want to make the situation even worse. He considered his options carefully and began to plan.
It was close to an hour before Professor Snape again appeared in Harry's doorway. He regarded the puffy eyed, snot-streaked boy coldly. "Potter, get out here," he ordered sharply.
Harry snuffled and hastened after his da.
"Do you recall what I told you shortly after I agreed to be your guardian?" Snape demanded, looming over the small boy. "Well?"
Harry wiped at his eyes, trying to guess what his father meant. He'd said a lot of things, about how he wouldn't ever really hurt him, and how he was responsible for keeping Harry safe and happy, and how he wouldn't let anyone hurt him again, but somehow none of those seemed likely to be the thing that Professor Snape was talking about right now. Still, better not to admit that he didn't have a clue. "I тАУ I think so, sir," he hiccupped nervously.