This is a Harry Potter fan fiction story. Genres: Action/Adventure, angst, drama, fantasy, general, mystery, supernatural. The original story can be found on potionsandsnitches.net username JAWorley
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, alternate universe, corporal punishment, neglect, snape-meets-dursleys, violence.
Summary: A strange connection has Snape and Harry wondering what has happened between them to cause this.
Author's Note: This is a one shot. This story is in present tense.
Reciprocity
He has a strange connection to the boy and is unsure why, but is determined with some finality to find out. He has felt it for some time now, one month to be exact, and it irritates him to always feel the whelp's presence somewhere in the back of his mind. He wonders, as he conceals himself in the entryway of the teenager's private residence, if the insufferable Gryffindor is aware of him at all times as well. He'd better not be, he thought irritably, or there will be no doubt that I will be obliviating him the second this truth is revealed. As curious a feeling as it is to know the truth and deny it, he does it anyway in the hopes that this is just a twisted nightmare his mind has conjured.
It's nearing five am now. Severus has only just arrived under a concealment charm, stealthily charming the front door of the Dursley home silent as he enters uninvited. He has chosen a spot between the wall and the ugly pink vase containing three umbrellas next to the door. No one will step on him or bump into him here.
Why he is here he does not exactly know just yet. He has felt a tug in that one particular place in the back of his mind where the Potter phenomenon resides for days now, and hopes that coming here will finally solve this riddle that has plagued him so. Why are we connected? What has happened to link us in this manner? He has gone over these questions a hundred times already, retracing his steps, taking stock of any vile or dangerous potions or ingredients he has brewed or acquired in the last month that might cause this. Still, he has found no clues.
Severus is suddenly drawn out from his thoughts by a sudden alertness in the place his mind has seemed to reserve just for Potter. How special he sneers. The child is awake. What has woken him this early, Severus intends to find out. The rest of the house is sleeping, but in the past few days... the days since school has ended and the castle has emptied, Severus has been woken each morning at a quarter to five because Potter has woken. If for no other reason than this, Severus intends to end this madness. After nine months of rising early to prepare for his day and going to bed late because he has had to deal with students in detention (namely Potter), he deserves three months of sleeping in. He deserves a whole hell of a lot more, he muses, snorting internally. But no, there would be none who would pay him his dues, and certainly not the brat whose door he has just heard creak open upstairs.
It is a moment before a sleepy Potter appears at the top of the stairs, fully dressed, including the ratty pair of sneakers gracing the child's feet. He descends the stairs slowly, giving no indication he recognizes that his Potion's Master is concealed somewhere near the bottom of the staircase, and Severus is relieved. Surely if the boy knows of the connection, he'd know who is hiding, watching him intently. Severus feels the connection all the stronger the closer he is to the boy. He has hoped through the last month that when the boy went home the connection would break, but this is not the case.
He expects Potter to plop down in front of the picture box the Muggle's watch as they become fat and lazy, or even to sneak out of the house on his way to whatever deviance awaits him today, but is surprised when the sixteen year old goes to the kitchen instead and prepares to make breakfast. Surely not, Severus thinks, as various pots and pans are pulled from cupboards, and plates are set at the table, but it is so. Nine eggs are cracked into a bowl and readied for a scramble before going into the pan, and two more into a pot of boiling water. Faster than he chops ingredients in the dungeons for class, the boy somehow precisely chops up three red potatoes and puts them in another pan with some bacon to fry. Another vegetable appears from the refrigerator and from the smell Severus knows it is an onion. It goes into the pan with the potatoes as well.
