August 9, 1988
England, Cokeworth
The very next day, Aunt Petunia and I set off for the town of Cokeworth. May the Sage of Six Paths take all these tongue-twisting local names! As I understood it, Aunt Petunia and Harry's mother had grown up in this town. England, as a country, did not appeal to me much at all. It was cold. Overcast. There was hardly any sun. I was horrified when Dudley informed me that this was 'summer' and practically the warmest time of the year. If the 'height of summer' consisted of gloom and fog like the Land of Water, what would the rest of the year be like? I did not even have chakra to help me endure bad weather!
Dudley had been left with a neighboring family whose son was his friend. Yesterday, I had been forced to explain myself to my cousin and promise that I would teach him something too. Fortunately, he had not specified that I had to teach him magic. Training together would be useful for him anyway. It would turn some of his fat into muscle, and no one said that 'charging a bit of magic straight between the eyes of anyone who bullied or insulted him' was forbidden. Besides, who knew what kind of thing this magic was? Perhaps training would allow him to do something after all. My friend Rock Lee had become a ninja despite being unable to use ninjutsu. Something had been wrong with his tenketsu, or perhaps he had too little chakra; I had never understood the exact problem. In the end, the only thing he could use was hand-to-hand combat—taijutsu—and that had not stopped him from becoming one of the ten strongest shinobi of our generation. When Lee used the 'Eight Gates Technique', he could twist even me into knots while I was fighting at full strength.
I had already drafted a training plan for Dudley in my head. Eight was not too late to begin, especially since Uncle Vernon had said that he might send Dudley to boxing lessons in a couple of years. From what I understood, boxing was something like a national sport built around fistfights. It seemed useless, inefficient, and excessively narrow to me, unless the point was purely entertainment.
That morning, Uncle Vernon drove Aunt Petunia and me to London in his car. Harry and I had visited the city before. I still had no idea what Vernon-san thought about his 'magical nephew'. He remained silent, occasionally giving me wary glances through the mirror. Still, like Aunt Petunia, he seemed to approve of the idea of teaching me not to produce strange phenomena out of nowhere.
In London, Petunia-san and I changed buses several times before reaching our destination. At about ten o'clock—I had finally managed, more or less, to retrain this body to sense time—we arrived in Cokeworth. It was a gloomy town with smoking chimneys and foul-smelling air. Sooty, that was the word. Almost none of the greenery that pleased the eye in Little Whinging could be found here. There were faded brown-brick houses, stone pavements, and a heavy leaden sky. The few colorless pedestrians wore dark clothes. Aunt Petunia, dressed in a lovely knee-length blue dress, and I looked completely out of place. Was the whole town enchanted somehow?
London had seemed gray to me too, but at least it had bright shop windows, red telephone boxes, and red buses.
"I think it's here," Aunt Petunia said uncertainly, interrupting my thoughts about the general dreariness of the country into which I had fallen.
We stopped in a narrow alley. It was so tight that if Petunia-san stretched out her arms, her palms would touch the brick walls on either side, both covered in dirty moss.
"This house," Aunt Petunia clarified. As we drew closer, I sensed something like a barrier seal.
I immediately relaxed. First, because I could clearly feel magic. Second, because I could roughly understand its purpose, which meant I had not lost my instincts. Third, because we had found Severus Snape's home, and he was most likely protecting it in this manner. Harry had mentioned Muggle-repelling charms that prevented ordinary people from paying attention to a wizard or his house. It was probably something like that. Still, entering the building without permission would be unwise. A double agent might have prepared all sorts of traps for unwanted visitors. I hoped he also had an alarm barrier that informed him whenever someone entered his territory.
We stopped before a black wooden door. There was no bell or knocker. To be honest, there was not even a handle.
Aunt Petunia showed every sign that the repelling charms were beginning to affect her, so I firmly took her hand.
"Should we knock?" she asked timidly. I nodded.
After several agonizing minutes, the door opened without warning. It startled me because, no matter how carefully I listened, I had heard no footsteps. Definitely a first-rate spy—he walked so quietly!
Seeing Severus Snape up close convinced me once again of his resemblance to Sasuke... if my friend had ever been given the chance to live to this age. My heart stabbed with the unbearable pain of loss, and tears nearly rose to my eyes.
"How may I help you?" he asked with cold curiosity. Then he narrowed his black eyes slightly and studied Aunt Petunia. "Petunia Evans...?"
He seemed briefly confused before shifting his attention to me. What a dissecting stare! I was impressed! If he released a little killing intent as well, I might even have been frightened. Still, I had the feeling he recognized me.
"Come in." He stepped aside without taking his eyes off me, and for a moment I felt like prey voluntarily following a predator. Orochimaru had always radiated something similar.
In addition to being an excellent spy, Severus Snape turned out to be an extremely intelligent man. I had only ever seen so many books together in a library. Shelves stood everywhere, reaching all the way to the ceiling. I would not have been surprised if he had read every one of them, perhaps twice.
"What brings you to me, Petunia?" Snape gestured toward an armchair, and several books flew off it by themselves.
A small bench was cleared for me in the same way.
Aunt Petunia, incidentally, watched the flying volumes quite calmly before perching carefully on the edge of the chair. I settled on the bench and tucked myself into the shadows. That made observation much easier. The only window was rather dirty and let very little light into the room, so most of the illumination came from a strange iron lamp mounted on a long stem.
"You see, Severus," Aunt Petunia answered quietly, "you are the only wizard I know... well enough. About seven years ago, Vernon—he is my husband—and I found one-year-old Harry Potter left on our doorstep. This note was with him, asking us to care for my younger sister's son." Petunia-san searched through her handbag and handed Snape a scrap of thick paper.
He accepted it carefully, read it several times, then frowned thoughtfully and glanced sideways at me.
"Harry has recently begun having magical outbursts again. They happened before as well, especially when he first arrived in our home. I assume the boy was under stress because his parents were gone and his surroundings were unfamiliar. Without a wand, as you understand, dealing with it was difficult, but I managed," Petunia-san stated dryly.
I imagined what that must have been like and found myself impressed. She had apparently managed to hide her nephew's strange behavior from Vernon-san as well. Otherwise, Harry might have been thrown into an orphanage out of sheer fear. For ordinary people, all of this was probably too much.
"After that, there were almost six quiet years, apart from a few small incidents. And we still do not know whether those were magical in nature," Aunt Petunia continued. "But yesterday Harry began flying again, and he did it during a family dinner. Something else happened afterward too." She looked at me. "Harry is no longer a year and a half old. He fully understands the danger posed by his magical outbursts, especially when another young child lives in the same house and does not possess a wizard's resilience. You may tell Mr. Snape what you wanted to say."
"Please teach me to control it. Please help me, sir." I stood and bowed slightly. "I don't want to cause trouble for my family or accidentally hurt anyone."
"Even if I agree, Petunia, you do understand that this will take time?" Severus Snape asked. He seemed somewhat stunned by my statement.
"The schools are on holiday now, so Harry has until September," Aunt Petunia answered calmly. "He can help around the house. Harry is an obedient and careful boy. If you solve my nephew's problem sooner, send a letter and I will come for him. Or, if you prefer, you may bring him to Little Whinging yourself. This is our address." She quickly wrote it in a notepad and tore out the page. "Harry is Lily's son. My sister was your friend from childhood and always spoke well of you. That is why I trust you. I cannot care for Harry's magical needs. You know perfectly well that I am a Squib. Please, Severus."
Aunt Petunia and I had actually developed this tactical maneuver together during the bus ride. It appeared to have worked. Severus Snape curled his lip but accepted the page with the address.
"I will bring him myself. The final deadline is August thirty-first. If nothing works before then..."
"You will succeed," Petunia-san said with a smile, clearly delighted that she had managed to foist me upon a wizard. "Listen to Mr. Snape, Harry."
With that, she nodded to me and to Snape, then left the gloomy house on Spinner's End. I studied my new sensei closely.
Would he show me some kind of kata? Brew a potion? Or perhaps wizards also had suppression seals?