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Separation Anxiety: A Manual	By : gwendolynflight Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 11170 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Disclaimer: Not mine. If it were mine, this would be in a bookstore, and you'd be paying to read it. See the difference?
Warning: This chapter PG13 for language and themes.
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Worksheet #8: Consumer Tendencies of Corporate America
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The GAP was ridiculously American, even though the pretty girl just inside the door greeted him with an English accent and an English smile: the walls were plastered with actors and models in the upper-middle-class clothing, as though the building itself had achieved pretension. The employees wore nearly the same exact outfits, and all grinned as though the world outside didn't exist. At just after nine in the morning, the attitude grated.
He dodged around a trio of headless mannequins, briefly eyeing them for ideas even as he carded one hand through damp black hair to feel gingerly for torn-edged skin. The change of clothes, just as overlarge as the rags he'd been forced to discard, would continue to mark him in this city, mark him until the same thing happened again. Hence his shopping trip.
"Can I help you find anything?" Another girl asked, lips curved gently, hands clasped before her in a patently helpful gesture. He shook his head, managed a quiet "Thanks, no," and turned back to the sheer wall of denim before him. He probably did need help, as he'd no inkling of his size, but the endless smiling was making him nervous.
"Well, denim is ten dollars off today, if you're interested," the girl continued, before floating away to accost another customer.
Harry grinned wryly to himself. At least he'd happened upon a sale. Bloody fantastic.
Half an hour and ten pair of Boot Fit Vintage wash jeans later, he was no longer so sure about needing help, especially as that same girl kept following him with worried eyes, as though she were absolutely desperate to sell him something. Okay, to be fair, she hadn't started hovering until he'd trto uto use the "Employee Only" ladder. Bit of a mistake, that.
"Can I find you a size?" She asked hesitantly, swooping in (not quite magically) to once again re-appropriate the pair of jeans he was trying to fold. He grimaced, looking down to his shoes for inspiration.
"Well, er, I don't actually know what size I wear," he admitted, becoming extremely irritated that something so seemingly simple as clothes shopping was taking so infernally long. Just because he'd never done this by himself . . .Okay, that was admittedly a point.
The girl was laughing. "I can see that," she said with an honest grin. In spite of his embarrassment, he smiled. "Do you know your height and weight?"
"Er, five-six. Not sure about the weight," he waffled, honestly unsure, having never been allowed near the Dursley's scale.
"Right," she said slowly, apparently sizing him up with her eyes. "I'd say you'd take a twenty-eight thirty, maybe thirty-one. And Boot Fit is all wrong for your legs," she continued as she worked through several stacks of denim. "Let's put you in Loose and maybe Standard, and go from there."
Ah, the names! he wanted to scream as the unfamiliar nomenclature washed over him, and he was promptly chivvied away with an armful of denim. He didn't even want to *think* about how he was going to find a shirt.
In the end he walked out wearing a rather nice pair of jeans --having deliberately repressed any and all style information to preserve his fragile sanity-- and a grey polo layered over a blood red Henley. With a jean-jacket slung over one shoulder, Harry felt ready to face the oncoming English autumn, at least for a time.
The credit card had worked perfectly, and the lady behind the cash register actually seemed charmed when he said his father had sent him into town as a back-to-school treat. Pun intended. Well, at least he had clean clothes again.
So. Shoes. Harry resettled the much-heavier backpack on his shoulders, and looked up and down the crowded street, trying to pinpoint a recognizable shoe store and idly wondering if the clerk would be able to guess his shoe size. The crowd actually streamed around him, and he garnered a few friendly smiles from a maternal woman or three. Perhaps the clothes really did make the man . . .
His musings were interrupted by a brief flash of pain, centered in his scar.
He hissed, hand going to his forehead as the world reeled. Great, first a probable concussion, and now Voldemort was about. Or plotting. Merlin, did his scar *ache*. But it was imprecise, inexact. Voldemort could be around the corner or off killing muggles, his scar didn't differentiate.
Oh Merlin. This wasn't going to work. Harry felt an unfamiliar flush of panic. One that said he *wasn't* helpless, *wasn't* trapped. This time, he could run.
So run he did.
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Worksheet #9: Self-Help vs. Group Therapy
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Moonlight silvered the slate-shingled roof, and limned the jutting chimneys and the odd weathervane. The picture-perfect towers broke the night sky like eerie, out-reaching hands. A single, yellow light flickered in an upper-story window. Wind howled down the night sky with a lonely shiver.
The pea coat might have been the more appropriate purchase, after all.
The broken path had been, curiously, unguarded, affording him easy access to the old mansion; only the family totem served to ward the cobbled walk. He shivered his way to the front door, feeling oddly hesitant for all his days of argument and self-convincing.
"It won't be all that bad," Harry muttered to himself, climbing up the stone stairs with a cringing sort of certainty. "And really, where else would you go," he said to finally clinch the argument, raising one hand to the large, extremely cliched brass knocker--
--and stumbling forward as the door swung inward before his fist could connect. He staggered into curtains of black wool, yelping as he tangled and hit the floor, his backpack rolling into the wall with a dull clunk.
"Potter," Severus Snape sneered, sounding not at all surprised. "Whatever possessed you to come *here*, of all places?" the Potions Master continued, grabbing Harry's elbow and wresting him to his feet.
Harry stood quiescent in his grip, staring beyond the taller man into the depths of his home.
It looked . . . normal.
A fire burned in a low hearth in the far wall, bracketed by a matching sofa and loveseat in brown corduroy; there was an old, leather chair cattycorner to the couch, and a framed family portrait above the mantel.
Snape apparently decided that Harry was in shock, as he led him with surprising gentleness to the sofa and eased him into the plush cushions. Harry found himself gazing blankly at the fire, now, as Snape took a pensive seat in the old leather chair.
"You're looking . . . well, Potter," Snape said begrudgingly, staring at the boy with something approaching worry in his black eyes. "So . . . why here?"
"You always did get right to the point," Harry muttered, quoting an old favorite rather than stating an obvious untruth. "Not even a "Why ever did you run away from home, Harry?' or a "How did you survive?', professor?"
Snape blinked at him for a moment.
"Unless you have mistaken me for Dumbledore, *Harry*, then I fail to apprehend the relevance of said questions to your arrival at *my* home," Snape said coldly. "But in answer, were I you I would have run away long ago, and you obviously survived through thievery of some kind, not very Griffindor of you, I must say--"
"I am not a *thief*!" Harry growled, finally turning away from the fire to pin Snape with an emerald glare. "And to answer *your* question, I came here because anyone else would turn me in before hearing me out, thinking it for my own good. *You*, professor, hate me just enough to delay. Not forever, I know," Harry said, reading Snape's glare. "But long enough to hear the "why'."
Snape sat back, meeting Harry's eyes coolly, having used the boy's speech to regain his aplomb. He crossed his legs, folded his hands into his robes, and glowered. Harry didn't flinch. Snape sighed.
"Alright, Potter," Snape said with a jaded purr. "I'm curious. What is this latest adventure of yours and why should I care?"
Harry was silent for a moment, staring at his trembling hands where they were clasped together.
"First, answer me something."
Snape nodded, a bit impatient now.
"You said you would have run away?" Harry asked, looking for the confirmation in Snape's eyes. "How do you know? I don't think Dumbledore knows."
"That the Dursleys are the worst Muggles imaginable?" Snape laughed incredulously. "I knew Lilly. Oh, we weren't friends, boy," Snape continued, crushing the hope in Harry's emerald eyes before it could fully form. "But I knew of her. She was your father's girl, later his wife. Of course I knew. And word got around; Hogwarts hasn't changed in that, at least."
"Word about what?" Harry asked hesitantly, dreading the answer.
"Her sister," Snape said ingenuously, with a wicked smile for effect. "Petunia. Little bitch used to mutilate cats and birds, trying to make her own magic." The Potions Master chuckled darkly. "If she'd had a drop of magic blood in her, she would've fit right in with the Death Eaters."
"She *wanted* magic?" Harry asked. "But she *hates* magic, *anything* magic."
"Of course," Snape said with a small, superior grin like papier-mache: hollow. "We always hate what we cannot have."
"Like you hated my father?" Harry asked softly.
Snape's face went still as stone, a bleeding-away of expression. He nodded.
"Like I hated your father."
The fire crackled as a log shifted, making them both jump.
"Do you hate him still?" Harry asked into the new silence.
"No," Snape said, sounding weary and a bit surprised. "I understand him more, now." He passed a hand over his eyes. "Why are you here, Harry?"
Harry blinked. He then decided not to bring up the use of his name.
"I was given some information about my mother," Harry began slowly.
"You didn't pay too much for it, I hope," Snape sneered. "Anything you wanted to know you could have simply asked Hagrid or--"
"She's alive."
Another log popped, loud as a sudden Disapparration.
"And what exactly do you want me to do about it?" Snape asked coldly.
"Help me," Harry said, pinning Snape with feverish eyes. "Help me find her, and ask her why she's been gone."
It was said as though Harry were discussing the weather; in spite of the nervous gleam in his eyes, his voice was a near-monotone. A little too calm. Snape stared at him for a long, silent moment. He swallowed.
"You want to--"
"Help me," Harry interrupted. "No one else will."
"I . . ." Snape said helplessly, still staring at those eyes. Voldemort had looked like this once, when he was known as Tom Riddle. Snape swallowed again. "I'll do what I can, Harry." Thinking sooth him, calm him. Humor him.
Harry slumped back into the couch, the light going out of his eyes and the tension bleeding out of his limbs; he moaned, and for the first time Snape looked past the new clothes.
"You've been hurt," Snape said slowly. Harry nodded.
"Bloody well paid for my clothes, though," he muttered, letting his head drop back.
"Not a thief . . ." Snape murmured to himself, letting the boy drift into sleep, and drawing a number of wrong conclusions as he tried to decide on whom to call: Dumbledore, or St. Mungo's. ***
A/N umm, no offense to the GAP. Really. :)
To be continued in SA Chapter 5: To Keep Me Whole
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- 5
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Separation Anxiety: A Manual