DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created
and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited
to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner
Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark
infringement is intended. This is a parody, on which I am not making any
profit.

Author notes: This is the first chapter of a multi-chapter fic. Oh. .
. and it's a Severitus's Challenge fic. Don't run away, it wont be a
"Snape suddenly wants to be dad/loves Harry fic".

This story will include:
some angst (not a tragedy.)
answers for many questions I had about the HP stories!
vampires - of a type before never see.

'Is Sev a vamp' you ask? Sev isn't sure what he is; only that he is
the product of an 'impossible' biological phenomenon. Read to learn more.

Summery: The Dursleys do bloody battle against a severe pest problem,
while a 15 year old Harry Potter begins to wish he'd confided in
someone regarding his odd symptoms. Foreshadowing happens, and we
meet someone familiar.

Chapter 1

Guests at Privet Street

Harry jerked awake, frantically scrubbing at his face. He
sputtered and swiped as tiny legs scurried across his lips.

Suddenly aware of every suspicious itch and tickle on his body,
Harry lurched out of bed, -and slammed painfully into the hard floor in
a tangle of old ratty blankets. Now fully awake, he staggered towards
the light switch, arms waving until he found it. Harry peered
downwards with emerald eyes nearly closed against the painful glare.

"Aurgh!" he cried in absolute horror.

Two black specs were racing up his left leg. He slapped them away,
leaving streaks of his own blood, but he knew there probably were more.
In panic and revulsion Harry bolted down the pitch black hallway and
into the bathroom.

He tried to spot more parasites with the mirror while squinting in
the bathroom's harsh yellow light. When a small tickle run up, over his
ear, and into his messy black hair, Harry yelped and changed tactics.

He stepped into the combination bath and shower and unleashed a
loud torrent of cold water with a turn of the chipped plastic knob.
Harry had just pulled closed the drain, with a plan to loose his
stowaways by complete submersion, when the bathroom door was slammed
open. (And yes, doors can be slammed open. Vernon Dursley made a
habit of it)

Oops. Extreme oops. Dread realization froze him in place like a
stunning spell. How could he have forgotten to keep silent at night
after so many years in this house? Harry's heart jump and his stomach
twinge painfully.

Vernon was going to kill him.

Vernon Dursley filled the doorway. Though his nephew was nearly 15,
Dursley outweighed the boy several times over and loomed nearly two
feet taller. He was obviously tired and fed-up with the nighttime
awakenings he'd endured for various reasons throughout the hectic week.
Vernon wore an expression that his nephew remembered with dread.

How ironic. Momentarily, Harry envisioned the Daily Prophet
headline: 'Boy-Who-Lived Cowers before Muggle!' He would almost prefer
being killed by Voldemort than having the wizarding world gossiping
about his home life'. Almost.

"It's three in the morning!" fat lips sputtered, misting the air
with saliva, "What are you doing, you freak?" Beady eyes took in
Harry's abandoned T-shirt and socks, resting in a spreading puddle
beneath the un-tucked, floral-printed shower curtain. "Get out here.
Now!" Harry stepped hesitantly out of the shower. "Turn it off first,
you little idiot," Vernon gestured wildly at the shower-head. Harry
obeyed. As he stood before his uncle, naked and dripping, Harry wished
he were anyplace but 'home'.

His eyes darted away from Vernon's furious gaze. His own face
looked back at him from the mirror, pale and frightened. He looked
tiny and fragile next to his uncle's bulk.

"What are you doing, making noise in the middle of the night when-"

"I woke up and there were fleas everywhere,-I mean they were all
over me and I was trying to wash them off!" The furious man was not
impressed with Harry's protests.

"I am so incredibly sick of your stupid nightmares!" Harry's uncle
bellowed, his face reddening "There are no more fleas in this house you
stupid-," from the corner of his eye, Harry saw the huge meaty fist
swing towards his head.

He was too late too duck.

The impact of the fist and then the bathroom wall obliterated
Vernon's last word, and Harry slid too the cool tile, bracing himself
for the pain he knew was coming.

Nothing happened.

When he looked again Vernon's eyes were fixed on a familiar dark
speck that had crept from the hall carpet and now moved boldly across
the floor tiles. The tiny animal twitched towards Vernon and vanished.
It reappeared, almost instantaneously on Vernon's stained white bath
robe, and ran up, past the bulging horizon of his stomach.

"Ugh!" Vernon cried and swiped at it clumsily. Then he spotted
another. And another.

"PETUNIA! THEY'RE STILL HERE!" Vernon bellowed, rousing the rest
of the family.

The Dursley's flea infestation wasn't just 'still there'; it was
now much much worse. A few mornings ago, the Dursleys and their
reluctant nephew had left the house for their 'little vacation'.
'Vacation' was what Petunia told the curios neighbor women. In reality
they had spent a couple of nights in a cheap hotel while the carpet
cleaners cleaned all the carpets and the carpets dried thoroughly.

The ill fated episode had started when Dudley spotted a flea on
himself. Naturally, Aunt Petunia was horrified. After carefully
removing the tiny blood drinker, Petunia commenced striping her
precious, protesting Dudleykins right there in the kitchen, searching
for more parasites (after drawing the drapes lest the neighbors catch
her doing something odd). Harry, who'd been gardening when he noticed
the curtains mysteriously close, had watched the whole hilarious scene
through the almost microscopic crack between them.

Petunia's maternal instincts were proven accurate when several more
fleas were found on Dudley's rotund body. Unsurprisingly, in Harry's
mind, the pests were soon traced back to the newest member of the
family; an enormous stray dog Dudley had joyfully dubbed ' Betsy ' a week
previous.

Betsy appeared to be a hundred and fifty pound white pug dog, if
such a creature were even possible. She had wolf-like yellow eyes and far
too much skin draped loosely over her round body. She was so unlike any
canine he had ever seen that Harry had leapt reflexively away with a
startled shout when she first came trotting into the back yard where
he'd been weeding, several days ago. The white dog had graced him with
a rumbling growl and backed away. The animal clearly didn't want
anything to do with him. Dudley had laughed hysterically and jiggled
into the house at his fastest speed (a slow jog) to share the joke with
his mother.

Harry still half-suspected Betsy of being some sort of little known
and dangerous magical creature. She certainly brought enough trouble
to number four Privet drive.

After the flea discovery the dog was bathed (by Harry of course)
with noxious flea-killing soap. Despite this measure, fleas continued
to show up, one a day or so, for the following week. The Dursleys were
in quite a pickle. Neither Petunia nor Vernon were willing to announce
their somewhat embarrassing pest problem to the neighborhood by having
an exterminator's van parked in the driveway, like a fly in the
jelly.

Petunia's solution was perfect; or so it seemed at the time. Since
the fleas that hadn't been on Dudley or Betsy had all been found on the
carpeting, carpet cleaning would surely fix the problem, by poisoning
or sucking up all revolting fleas and flea eggs! Right? Relevantly,
Petunia would also get the clean carpets she'd been after for years,
ever since her horrid nephew left a big disgusting blood stain in the
living-room. With uncharacteristic acumen, Petunia even convinced her
husband this was all his idea.

Petunia would later be very glad she did.

Due to heavy traffic they'd arrived home late and exhaust after
their vacation'. After nights spent sleeping on sagging mattresses in
a shared room while the neighbors made strange noises, even Harry was
grateful to be back. They hadn't thought to inspect the premises for
parasites before falling into bed.

Harry and his cousin hurried to pack for the second time that week,
while Vernon stood downstairs bellowing into the telephone at an
unfortunate exterminator who apparently didn't work weekends.

Having far less to pack, (mostly the same unwashed clothes he'd
packed the last time) Harry finished first.

As he passed Dudley's room, Dudley flung a pair of pajamas out the
door, onto the blue hall carpet, before starting to throw on his
clothes. In one second, half a dozen crawling black specks had
converged on the pile, which was still warm from Dudley's body heat.
Then more came. They blackened the edges of the crumpled cloth.

Harry shot down the hall, pounded down the stairs, and was out the
door before Dudley was dressed. Harry sat on the step, investigating
his shoes for fleas and wondering just how many little friends Dudley
was accumulating as he stood barefoot in his carpeted room.

Harry, the Dursleys and Betsy spent the quiet hours between 4:00
and 8:00 AM out on the lawn, watching the sun rise and feeding the
mosquitoes. By 8:30 the tiny vampires had wisely retreated before the
blazing heat of the August sun. Their human entrees dared not venture
back into the house.

Harry moved as far as possible from his family without leaving the
yard. He contemplated the situation as he watched them bicker. The
Dursleys first had a few fleas, then they cleaned the carpets, and come
back to a plague. Harry himself was suspicious about the origins of
the plague, so he was astonished that the magic fearing muggles hadn't
pinned this mess on him yet.

In the past they'd often drawn false
parallels between his behavior and any odd or unpleasant occurrence.
Lately, his behavior had been odd, and he was certain the Dursleys had
noticed. Harry was devouring anything eatable he could find at an
alarming rate, even though the Dursleys were feeding him surprisingly
well.

That profound hunger to the point of sickness was something he
hadn't felt since before muggle school, when it hadn't mattered how
healthy he appeared. He had hoped never to experience in again, but at
leased this time it wasn't forced upon him by others.

Or so he hoped. Harry also knew he'd failed to hide the strange
hyperactivity he'd begun to feel each time he ventured outdoors during
the day. He'd concluded that it was caused by the heat of the sun,
though it was certainly a peculiar reaction to overheating. At the
hotel he'd noticed that even standing by the window made his heart
race. The effect was becoming very disconcerting.

The last thing he wanted was to go crawling to Dumbledore to have
some insidious and rare curse lifted. He didn't what to be indebted to
the man, to be humiliated and proven incapable of handling his own
affairs, or to be in the news again. One could certainly live without
the awkwardness of his friend's pity, or the embarrassment of a
complete physical from Madam Pomphery. He winced internally at the
thought. Not to mention the possibility of her or some other healer (a
friend of the Headmasters of course) finding more then they'd been
looking for and making a fuss.

It seemed to Harry that the Dursleys had been fearful of him
recently, particularly Dudley who was being almost polite, and he
wondered if they had been threatened by someone at school.
If so, no one had bothered to tell him. He felt an ungrateful,
probably irrational burst of anger at the thought. Nobody told him
anything!

He wondered if something seriously wrong was happening to him, or
in him. Perhaps, as much as he loathed the idea, it was time to
consider owling someone about it.

As the sun rose, Harry's heart began to pound. Unwanted adrenaline
was burning in his vain, as though he'd recently bashed his thumb with
a hammer, or seen something horrific.

The exterminator from BugDestroyed arrived at #4 Privet Street at
9:45. He was a young man no more than 20 who had Weasley orange hair
and reminded Harry strangely of Fred (or George of course). Too
exhausted to be hyper, Harry was now becoming lethargic. With effort,
Harry pushed up his glasses on his sweaty nose and discerned the Weasley
freckles as well.

Max, as he introduced himself, informed the Dudley's that carpet
cleaning had been a mistake. The fleas had left eggs, and the
shampooing was no detriment to these eggs at all. Rather, the moisture
had allowed them to mature and metamorphosis.

Harry was feeling poorly. The hyperness he'd expected had come
with sun and then abandoned him quickly, leaving a racing pulse that
refused to go away. He had a hunger headache, too. Harry pushed
himself to his feet, with a steadying hand on the tree's rough trunk
until the dizziness stopped. He made a dash from the dappled shad of
leafs to the solid shadow of the house. Max spoke on, and the Dursleys
watched his like an asp's hypnotized pray.

"You shouldn't feel too bad about it," the young man was assuring
the Dursleys solemnly, "We get a case like this every few years. It's
easy to underestimate fleas and other pests. They're such durable and
amazing creatures!" Max grinned, glancing each Dursley in the eye as
if to share his enthusiasm. His eye's turned to Harry, and seemed too
linger there a moment.

Harry was to far away to read the young man's face. Harry knew
he'd become over-aware of staring since his appearance in the magical
world, and he couldn't decide whether the ingenuous redhead had
recognized him. Could he be a Death eater? A self-respecting death
eater wouldn't allow himself to be seen like that, right? Even by
muggles?

His head pounded with pain and the hunger had transformed
into nausea. He couldn't think. He knew it was the sun. A distant
part of him shouted 'arm yourself!' and 'send an owl to Dumbledore
immediately!' He was too tired.

Harry tried to breathe slowly, even breaths. Could fifteen-year-old
wizards get heart attacks? It seemed to Harry then, that he really knew

very little about the wizarding world. He knew so little . . . and might

not be around to learn more.

Max was 'thrilling' Aunt Petunia with more information on
what was obviously one of his favorite creatures. "After hatching, the
maggots ate dust, which is mostly dead human skin cells with plenty of
protein in them, as well as anything else digestible that wasn't picked
up by the carpet cleaners.

It doesn't matter how good the cleaners
were; There'd still be plenty! With the right level of moisture,
abundant food and no predators, most of the thousand or so eggs from
each female survived," he explained with a touch of awe. "I'm surprised
you didn't notice them the minute you stepped in the door!" He had the
air of a young person who has already discovered his life's passion.

For once in his life, Harry was profoundly happy to spend summer

alone in his small uncarpeted room. The few fleas who found their way

in wakened him immediately. His family members were not so lucky.

Dudley was the worst afflicted. Harry did not look forward to sharing

a back seat with him on the way back to the hotel.

Dudley was peering at Harry strangely. The great lump wobbled towards

Harry. He reached out and seemed about to touch Harry's sweaty hair.

Dudley looked oddly concerned.

"You're not about to croak on us are you Harry, and get us in trouble with

the . . . wizards?" he asked quietly. That was rich. Dudley tortured him for

years, started the whole flea mess, and now asks how Harry's doing!

'I'm dieing,' he imagined responding, but opening his mouth would be

too much work. The sun was beating down without mercy. A lawnmower

started up across the street, and the reverberation in his head was

crusio-like. He glared at Dudley, who stepped back as if startled.

Satisfying. Dudley stared openly.

Harry suddenly realized that there was a darker place only a few feet

away. He crawled to the lush peony bushes along the house. He could

see the shady, narrow gap between their stalks and the building.

He crawled in.

Cool dark leaves rustled over him. Stalks were tight against him like arms.

It was wonderful . . . the mosquitoes found him . . . he didn't care. Harry

put his cheek to the cool earth and slipped into dreaming.

To Be Continued . . .

Next Time: Severus isn't feeling very good ether, and we
discover some of his best kept secrets including his belief that he is
dying! (but we know better, because this is the beginning of a story in
which he will be a main character) we also encounter Filch, and a
shopkeeper who knows more than he should.

Please Review!

Tell me what you like, what you don't like, and what you think
will/should happen!