A Little Light Reading

A Little Light Reading

Author: dullastacks

Chapter 1 to 22

Storyid: 6417704

FanFiction.net

Chapter: 1

Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling; I have just borrowed her words. Bolded passages come from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

So, those of you who have me on alert and have checked my profile, probably know by now that my whole story archive got nuked. (There was much need for Calming Draughts around here that day to say the least.) I had no intention of reposting, as I'd gotten a bit lazy and only backed up a few of my stories.

Then, I got the idea to Google my Ffn Name and see if the stories had cached. (No, they didn't - Drat you ffn and your non-caching pages!) However, one of the things that I did find via Google was that someone on a Yahoo group had saved several, up to date, pages from my postings, which means I don't have to rewrite them.

YAY!

So, I'm going to put up what was salvaged (minus my reviews - my beautiful, beautiful reviews!) To that end, there will be updates.

As to She Who Shall Not Be Named... Kreacher has been deployed and there was much Splinching to be seen. (The little bugger really is good at getting blood out of the drapes, you know ;-P ) and the Giant Squid won't need to be fed for a few days.

Severus Snape was many things.

He was a teacher, a Potions Master, a spy, a loyal friend to the few who made it through his defenses, a git... he'd never admit it, but he'd always liked that particular insult. He was meticulous and selfish, and at times demanding and even cruel, though it was rarely for enjoyment, as so many of his students seemed to believe.

If they made mistakes and cracked wise in Flitwick's class, the worst that might happen would be dropping a feather on someone's head. With Minerva, there could be a mass exodus of half formed pincushion mice. But in his class...

In his class, even the tiniest of error, intentional or not, could result in serious injury and irreparable damage to one or more students, not to mention him or the school itself. Scowling at the smallest infraction and demanding nothing short of perfection was practical, and ensured that, at worst, a few cauldrons got melted rather than a few students. He had no choice but to play the roll of "dungeon bat" to keep the lot of dunderheaded innocents he was assigned each year in line.

But, once class was over, and there was no one around to see the veneer crack, it was a different story all together. He could relax in his room, drink his tea, and (the horror) even smile if he felt so inclined. His rooms were secure, and no one other than an elf could get into them without his permission, so it was quite a shock to find a package in green paper laying neatly on his coffee table, bearing a card with "Severus Snape" in large letters. On the reverse, it said simply : "Read Me"

Most people would have reached for it, out of curiosity if nothing else, but not Snape. Thankfully, another adjective that made up his core being was "paranoid", which meant it wasn't easy to sneak up on him. He passed his wand over the package to see if there was anything unsavory attached to it, but found it devoid of magic all together. So, he risked untying the string that bound it to see what was inside.

Most likely, one of his colleagues had remembered his birthday a week past and instructed a kitchen elf to deliver the gift anonymously. One of those rare smiles tugged his mouth - Snape loved books, and the prospect of a new one was always worthwhile.

It was a good thing he was alone because the shouted string of curses he used when he saw the whimsical cover was anything but appropriate for a man in his station.

There, in full color, and something like a child's drawing, was a representation of a scarheaded boy and the Hogwarts Express.

"Potter," Snape sneered with disgust, for in fact, the title on the book's jacket read "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".

A second emotion came after the first - dread.

No one was supposed to know the Stone was hidden within the castle, but obviously, someone did. Who that was, or what it had to do with that detestable child, Snape had no idea, but he would have to find out.

He just couldn't get past the picture on the book to make himself open it. This whole affair reeked of the kind of mischief a certain pair of ginger miscreants loved to pull. Charming a book cover would be exactly the sort of thing they'd think was a great trick to pull on their hated Professor, and everyone was painfully aware of the fact that the twin Weasleys routinely found ways into parts of the castle to which they shouldn't have had access. (Snape never mentioned it, but he suspected they'd somehow brokered a deal with the dreaded poltergeist in the name of common chaos to get them into places they weren't supposed to be. It was a downright Slytherin tactic, especially for a couple of lions.)

The more he thought about it (and the more approval the twins' success purchased from him), the less Snape was inclined to want to read the book at all. It wasn't like the Philosopher's Stone was unheard of, most likely it was a coincidence. He threw it down on the couch, and went to his bookshelf to find something else to pass the time.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WHO LIVED

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Snape scowled.

It had been a while since he'd last read A Tale of Two Cities, but he was certain that was NOT how it began.

He reached for another book and opened it to a random page:

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WHO LIVED

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

This time, Snape growled. If the Weasleys were behind this, he'd award them twenty points for ingenuity, then deduct two hundred for vandalism.

He dragged a dusty Potions tome from the top shelf. It was written in Russian, so it couldn't possibly have...

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WHO LIVED

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Forget points. He was going to research obscure potions that required ginger headed boys as ingredients. He'd make them scrub the cauldrons first, then toss them in.

His previous feelings of ease fled quickly.

He was not about to be ordered around by some cheeky students' prank run amok. They certainly weren't going to keep him from reading whatever he chose to read. He'd have them kicked off the Quidditch team! He'd have them restricted from desert! He'd have them expelled!

A cruel smile settled on Snape's face.

He'd have them made their brother Percy's assistants. Oh yes, that was the one. Next to a stint in Azkaban, it was the worst punishment he could devise.

For now, Snape would have to settle for marking essays if he wanted reading material, but tomorrow, Fred and George Weasley would serve as an example of why it didn't pay to get on his bad side. The pair would be talked about for years to come, no doubt, but not for the reasons they expected!

Snape swept back into his office to retrieve a stack of essays, then sat as his table with red quill in hand. At least Ravenclaw essays were generally worth his time.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WHO LIVED

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

He screamed.

Severus Snape screamed like a little girl who'd been frighten by a rat. (Or Ron Weasley with a spider...)

First Year papers.

Second Year.

Fifth.

Ravenclaw.

Hufflepuff.

Gryffindor.

Even his precious Slytherins (the twins would pay for that insult most of all)

Every single piece or parchment started with the same lines, and he had absolutely no doubt who "The Boy Who Lived" was referring to. For now, it seemed, the ginger menaces had won. If he was to get any peace at all, Snape would have to dig in and abide the life story of his hated enemy's Golden Child.

Resigned, he headed back to his sitting room and plucked the book off the couch. After hitting the cover with a satisfying 'Incindio' and watching it burn, he opened to a page that started with words he now knew by heart.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WHO LIVED

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

Ugh. These people weren't normal; they were boring.

Muggle and boring.

And besides a glaring resemblance of Mrs. Dursley to the long buried (intentionally!) memory of Lily Evans' sister, Snape couldn't begin to imagine what any of this had to do with one Harry Potter or the Philosopher's Stone.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.

A cold chill hit Snape square in the back of his neck. Mrs. Dursley WAS Lily's sister, and that didn't bode well for anyone. It sounded like she hadn't changed a whit since childhood.

And most disturbing was the realization that he actually agreed with her on something. James Potter was, so far as Snape was concerned, good for nothing (unless he counted making Lily happy, which he refused to even think about). But if anyone should have been shoved in the closet as a family secret it was Petunia herself, not Lily.

The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street.

Most likely "Hello" followed by a cordial introduction, unless the neighbors' manners were as atrocious as the Dursleys'

The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.

Well, that made a bit of sense. Potter certainly had a knack for getting other children into trouble.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.

High chair?

Snape scowled at the book. Was that what it meant by "small son"? When was this set?

He looked at the chapter title again and blanched.

"Surely it's not THAT day..."

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

"Merlin..."

It WAS that day.

At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.

"Hmph."

Even Potter didn't fling his food like a chimp from the ape house at the zoo. In fact, the boy hardly ate at all, though that was likely due to his choice of seat amongst the Weasley boys and their endless appitites. They were liable to mistake his fingers for sausages if he tried to eat while they were grazing.

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map.

"Well, hello Minerva, whatever are you doing in young Potter's history?" Snape asked out loud. Stupid Muggle book; it didn't even have the decency to answer his question.

For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive - no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.

"Oh yes, Dursley. You go and tell Minerva she's meant to be an illiterate, and I'll be watching to catch the pieces of you left when she's through." Perhaps this book wouldn't be a total waste of time after all.