He was rather surprised to discover the boy had managed to make his way back into the heart of muggle London.  How this feat was accomplished, he wasn't quite sure.  He was sure that he was going to murder the brat when he finally caught up with him.  Three hours spent going this way and that on the stiflingly hot underground amidst a crowd of irritable people did not make Severus Snape a happy man.

He was also unpleasantly aware that the locator charm on the bracelet could fail at any moment.  The house wards had not lasted two days.  The boy had been wearing the bracelet for over a day.  This was not an encouraging thought, and hence he was forced to follow the urchin as closely as he could without actually apparating on top of him.  The impromptu tour of London was not appreciated.

The pursuit ended at last in London's west, at a small playground beside a row of houses adjacent to an industrial estate.  There, the trail vanished.

Silently cursing the unseen boy, Severus cast an observant eye at his surroundings.  The playground was empty - the swings hung empty and forlorn, the elephant on a spring gazing mournfully back at him. There were no people in sight at all, in fact, only the occasional muggle automobile as it passed by on the main road.  The sound of a violin drifted through the air from a nearby window.  All else was still.

"Mreow!"

Severus looked down to find a grey striped cat looking up at him with slitted yellow eyes.  It blinked up at him lazily.

"Mreow," it said again.

"I don't suppose you've seen the brat, either," Severus commented, sardonically.  It blinked again, and stood, prowling gracefully between the playground and the first house into thin air.

It was Severus' turn to blink.  Frowning contemplatively, he squinted at the spot where he had last seen the cat.  There was the faintest flicker of magic in the air.  A revelation spell revealed nothing.  His frown turned into a glare.

"Mreow?"  The cat appeared once more, looking back at him as though query what was taking so long.  Now Severus could see the outlines of another building as it squashed the playground and house aside to make room for itself.  The cat sat itself down on the doorstep and watched him, its tail twitching.

He moved cautiously towards the house, his senses alert for any sign of the boy.  The voice that carried faintly from within, however, was harsh with age.

"...thought you dead, boy.  Dead!  Do you think they'd care that you're only a youngling?  They'd think you all the tastier for it!"

"Granny!" a young girl squealed in horror.

"He shouldn't have gone alone!"

"But your leg!"

"My leg would have lasted - " the old woman broke off abruptly.  "What's this?" she asked, after a brief pause, her tones becoming increasingly shrill.  "Where did you get this?  Did someone give this to you?  Do you have any idea of what this could do to us?"  

Severus peered through the gap in the curtains in time to see a woman bent with age limping as she dragged the Potter brat down a hallway by the wrist.  The charm bracelet was rather conspicuous, glinting on his bared arm.  A teenaged girl followed them down the hall, still squealing in dismay.

Making his decision, Severus opened the door, locked it behind him, and rushed after them, his wand at the ready.  He was just in time to summon the cleaver from the old woman's hand as she brought it crashing down towards the boy's wrist.

For a single moment time appeared to stand still.

The old woman screamed furiously and rushed at Severus, clawing at his face and hands with her fingernails.  He raised his wand to stun her, but was instantly hampered by the brat once again sinking his teeth where they didn't belong.  In pain and frustration he struck the woman with his free hand, knocking her to the floor.  The girl scampered across to her, huddling over the fallen woman's upper body in a tight ball, still screaming incoherently.  

"Stay where you are!"

Severus glared furiously towards the darkened corner from which the command had been issued, the brat's teeth still clamped painfully onto his wrist.  The retort on the tip of his tongue stilled abruptly as he recognised the muggle firearm pointed at him as a threat.

"Who are you?" the voice from the shadows demanded.  "What do you want with us?"

"I want this brat to stop biting me!" Severus snapped without thinking.

"Mouse," said the voice after a moment's consideration, in a slightly exasperated yet still wary tone .

The brat reluctantly withdrew, crouching protectively in front of the now sobbing girl and the dazed old woman.  Severus glanced at his wrist, confirming that the boy had indeed drawn blood.  'Mouse', the voice had called him.  'Rabid rat' would have been more appropriate in Severus' opinion.

"I repeat: who are you and what do you want with us?"  

Severus turned his sharp eyes towards the corner, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light.  The shadowy figure seemed to be seated, accounting for his lack of height.  The voice sounded too young to belong to a fully grown man, but it was carefully controlled and calm, a contrast to the hysteria of the woman and girl.

"However fast you are with that wand, it's difficult to perform magic with a bullet lodged in your heart."

"I mean no harm," Severus answered carefully, gathering his scattered control tightly to himself.  The youth had recognised him as a wizard, but not as a Hogwarts professor.  The youth had either been schooled elsewhere, or was a squib.  In either case, it made the weapon he held no less dangerous.

"Then answer my questions."  A slight tremor, almost indiscernible.  He was starting to let his anxiety show.

"My name is Severus Snape.  I am a professor at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.  I have come for Harry Potter."

Another pause.  "There is no Harry Potter here."

Severus frowned.  It was either a pitiful attempt to deceive him or the youth truly had no idea that this brat was the saviour of the wizarding world.   "I beg to differ.  The boy who just bit me is indeed Harry Potter."

"How do you know that?"  

"Aside from the fact that I spent seven years at school with the brat's father, whom he markedly resembles, his scar is unmistakeable!"  Severus was rapidly losing what little patience he had.

"His scar?  Which scar?"  Faint surprise and curiosity was evident in the youth's tone.

"The entire wizarding world knows about the scar on the forehead of the Boy-Who-Lived!" Severus snarled.

"You," the old woman was stirring.  "I know you...  Death Eater!"  She struggled with the girl who clung to her, trying to stand and attack Severus once again.

"Gran, wait!"

The woman paid little attention until a wheeled chair rolled out of the darkened corner, and a teenaged boy laid his free hand on her forearm.  His other hand was fully occupied in keeping his gun levelled at Severus.  

"Don't listen to his lies!" the woman wailed, clutching at the boy's hand abruptly, while the girl tangled herself with them both.  The distraction was enough to allow Severus to lunge forward and seize hold of the weapon in the boy's hand.  A single shot fired into the ceiling before he wrested full control from the boy, who slumped forward in his chair.  The girl resumed her screaming.  'Mouse' bit him once again.

"WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT?!!" Severus yelled, infuriated, at the green-eyed whelp who simply glared back and clamped his jaw down harder.  He barely noticed when the other boy sat up straight, fixated as he was upon the younger boy.  He regretted that lack of attention when he heard the boy's next word, directed as it was along the length of his own wand.

"Stupefy!"

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