rakina (rakina) wrote in snape_potter, @ 2009-01-12 21:36:00 |
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Current mood: | productive |
Entry tags: | fic, rakina, rating: pg |
FIC: Tapestry, by Rakina, PG, Chapter 1/?
Title: Tapestry, A Journey in Eight Stages
Author: rakina
Rating: PG for now, possibly rising to R or NC17 later.
Pairing: Eventually Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Warnings: none.
Summary: Harry only has one thing from his parents: a blanket. But his mum and dad were magical, and so it turns out to be no ordinary blanket, after all.
Disclaimer: I am not making any money from the characters which belong to JK Rowling. No disrespect intended. I do, however, lay claim to the plot and original characters.
Chapter notes: This story is AU and therefore there are many OCs (original characters) during Harry's journey. I hope you won't be put off by that, but will give the story a chance. Rest assured this will be a Snarry, once Harry grows up a bit.
Prologue
Chapter 1: Hedwig's
Harry suddenly found himself sitting on the floor in a big room. It was too big to be a normal room; it reminded him of the hall at school where they did assembly every Monday morning. Even though it was night-time it wasn't as dark as his cupboard had been, because there was a light coming from one corner. It was really odd, though. It wasn't a light bulb, not like the one he had in his cupboard sometimes, when Uncle Vernon said he was being generous because Harry had done good work in the garden, or cleaned out the car well. Instead it was a burning torch-thing attached to the wall. He'd seen something like it in a film they'd watched at school about Robin Hood; the Sheriff of Nottingham had lights like that in his castle. Except Harry was pretty sure this wasn't a castle.
Harry pulled his blanket up to his chin, shivering a little, even though it wasn't cold in here. He still had his blanket, and it wasn't caught around him anymore. Harry stroked it a little warily, wondering what had happened and if his blanket had caused it. He'd been in his cupboard, it had been his eighth birthday, and then he'd woken up tangled in his blanket and... he'd got here somehow. It was like magic, except Harry wasn't allowed to use that word. Still, that's what it felt like. Uncle Vernon said Harry should not even think about magic, because magic was a stupid, dangerous word that only freaks used. Harry knew that couldn't be right because there was magic in the books at school, and they weren't books for freaks, but he didn't argue with his uncle, because that meant he'd get a beating.
Harry got to his feet, looking around the room. There were windows high up around the edges of the room. There were benches beside the walls, but the middle was a big open space and Harry had landed right in the middle of it, sitting on a wooden floor. Again it reminded him of his school hall, where they used to do gym once a week, and where they put on plays and discos at the end of term. Harry was just deciding this was probably a school – although not Little Whinging Primary, because even though it looked a bit like it, it wasn't the same – when he heard footsteps. His head spun around as a door opened in the wall behind him.
"What have we here, what indeed?"
A man walked into the hall. He was wearing a long, white nightshirt and carrying another of those torch-things; the man's torch was smaller than the one on the wall. Harry had never seen a man in a nightshirt in real life before – Uncle Vernon wore pyjamas – and he'd only ever seen such a garment in the illustrations from A Christmas Carol the teacher had read to them last Christmas. He didn't know what to say, so he waited as the man advanced on him, the torch held high to get a good look at Harry.
"I suppose you're another new arrival, then, boy. You have no parents."
It wasn't really a question, but Harry managed a nod, feeling very strange. This conversation was like nothing he'd had before. How did the man know he had no parents? Harry could only hope he wasn't one of the freaks Uncle Vernon went on about, even if he did dress oddly...
"Of course not," the man continued before Harry could continue his line of thought. "Well, come with me, young man. I'll find you a temporary bed for the night; tomorrow we'll settle you in with the other boys. Hurry up, now. It's the middle of the night and I need my sleep!"
The man turned and Harry followed. He was an obedient boy whenever ordered to do something by a grown-up – he'd had that knocked into him at an early age. And besides, what else could he do? There was no way back to his cupboard from the hall, and Harry didn't really want to go back there anyway. The one thing he truly owned was clasped in his hand – his blanket – so he had nothing to go back for.
Harry's bare feet slapped on the wooden floor as he hurried after the man, who was moving silently. The wooden flooring continued even when they passed through the door the man had come in by and out into a corridor. The man shut the hall door behind them and continued on. Harry looked down at the man's skinny calves and long, bony feet which were pushed into a pair of brown slippers that made his steps silent. The man had longish grey hair which came to the top of his shoulders. He didn't look very kind, but he hadn't done anything awful either, so Harry decided not to judge him yet.
Things here seemed rather old-fashioned, Harry thought as he trotted along: the nightshirt instead of pyjamas, the flaming torch instead of the kind Uncle Vernon had with batteries. Harry wondered if these people were poor or something, like those poor people in Africa who didn't have modern things. But they didn't have proper school halls in Africa either, Harry thought. It was very confusing. At eight years old Harry didn't know a great deal about the world, having been to very few places except Privet Drive, where his Aunt and Uncle's house was situated, and to Little Whinging school, which was in Prince's Street. They did go on a school trip once to a zoo called the 'Africa Experience', but it wasn't anything like this, so perhaps Harry was mixed up about poor people and Africa after all. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the tumbling thoughts that were all scrambled up inside him.
The man halted and turned to look back at Harry. "My name is Mr Timblett. What is yours, boy?"
"Harry Potter, sir," Harry answered politely.
"Well, Harry Potter, you can sleep in this room tonight," Mr Timblett said, opening a door to his left. "There's a cot over there, hurry and get into it."
Harry walked over and climbed up onto the small bed, which creaked noisily under his slight weight and Harry hoped it wouldn't collapse. It looked like a camp bed; the sort of bed Aunt Marge put him in when they stayed at her house. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had a double bed there; Dudley had a single bed in the guest room, and Harry had been given the camp bed set up in the utility room where Aunt Marge did her laundry and stored things. At Aunt Marge's the primitive bed had been wedged between a mop bucket and a wine rack. But this was much better, as the room, though small, was empty except for the bed and a small bare table beside it.
Once satisfied Harry was settled, Mr Timblett said, "Go to sleep quietly now. I'll fetch you in the morning and get you settled in. I don't want to hear a peep out of you until then. If you need the toilet, there's a po under the bed."
"Th... thank you," Harry called as Mr Timblett left, closing the door and plunging the room into darkness. There were no windows to let in moonlight or starlight. It felt like he was back in his cupboard, except there he only had a mattress and this was a real, if rather small, bed. With a po for a toilet. Whatever a 'po' was, but Harry didn't want to get off the bed and put his hand underneath it. There might be anything under there, and he didn't want to think about it. He was used to going without the toilet for long periods anyway, and he didn't feel like he needed to go urgently. Instead, Harry cuddled into his blanket, assuring himself he was no longer in his cupboard, and nothing dreadful had happened to him.
Harry ran his fingers over the familiar shape of the first image of the boy with the hoop. The boy who lived in Playland. Was this Playland then? Had his mum and dad made sure he got taken from the Dursleys if they treated him too badly? Harry crossed his fingers and hoped so, and his heart was skipping madly as he lay there in the dark, skipping with excitement, or perhaps it was fear, but either way it was so dark, and so late, that soon he was asleep.