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"Severus, please," said Dumbledore. "We are all upset and concerned by how Harry was treated by the Dursley's. But you make it sound almost as though James is ... plotting Harry's death!"
Snape stared coldly at the Headmaster for several seconds. Then, he drew his wand and summoned a file from his office to Dumbledore's desk. "The boy's medical records. We have no idea of the full extent of his mistreatment, as wizarding children are more resistant to malnutrition than Muggle children and they also heal bruises more quickly. However, the boy was carried to hospital on three separate occasions for serious injuries inflicted by his relatives. Curiously," he said sarcastically, "at no point did any of the attending physicians forward the incident reports to the relevant Muggle authorities, despite reporting laws that make it a crime for them to fail so to do. If I were prone to conspiracy theories, I might wonder if someone had spent time Obliviating all the doctors and nurses so that the Muggle authorities would not look too closely into Harry Potter's living arrangements."
"Are you seriously suggesting that we knew Harry was being physically abused and actively covered it up?" asked James incredulously.
Snape examined his fingernails in apparent boredom. "I'm not suggesting anything at all, Lord Potter, as I've been rather busy here at Hogwarts and have not had opportunity to investigate the matter to my satisfaction. When time permits, I will take the opportunity to interview his former teachers as well as any medical personnel who examined the boy after his injuries. And if I do find signs of memory tampering, I will be contacting Wizarding Child Services." He turned to face the Headmaster with an icy glare. "And I will also be ... reevaluating my association with this school. It has a history of ignoring the criminality of certain favored students that I had hoped was over and done with."
"How dare you...!" James started before Dumbledore sharply interrupted him. The old man looked almost stricken at Snape's insinuations, particularly those about the school which everyone present knew to be true. His own bias towards Gryffindor and against Slytherin had enabled the Marauders' bullying of young Snape for years and ultimately allowed Sirius Black to evade criminal prosecution for what, in retrospect, was likely a deliberate attempt on Snape's life. That leniency nearly led to disastrous results just a few years later when Black turned and betrayed the Potters.
"Severus," he said, "if it will satisfy your concerns, you have leave to spend as much time as you want next summer to investigate young Harry's upbringing and home life to your satisfaction. As the one who originally identified Harry as a probable squib and also the one who advised the Potters to place him with Muggle relatives, I am willing to accept a great deal of the blame for his suffering. But I do not believe you will find that it was intentional on the part of anyone here. Nor do I think you will find anything as sinister as a plot to actively conceal his mistreatment."
"I certainly hope not, Headmaster. But I distrust coincidences, especially when the stakes are so high. Harry Potter and Neville Longbotton are the two alternative candidates who are capable of fulfilling the Prophecy if the Boy-Who-Lived falters. And not only were both of them subjected to abusive behavior by relatives, they were both also mistakenly identified as squibs despite demonstrating considerable magical power that the entire wizarding world somehow missed. Among Longbottom's recovered memories is one indicating he summoned a favorite toy from a distance of over fifty miles, an extraordinary feat. And in Harry Potter's case, his disciplinary file describes an incident suggesting that he once evaded his cousin's gang of bullying hoodlums by Apparating to the top of a building over a half-mile away."
"That's impossible," said James flatly.
"No, just incredibly rare. Fewer than one-percent of wizarding children have verified incidents of either accidental apparation or long-range summoning. And in most of the confirmed cases, the child grows up to be an exceptionally powerful witch or wizard."
"How is the boy doing academically, Severus? I know he's the top student among the Slytherins in Transfiguration," said McGonagall.
"He is easily the top Slytherin student in his year and consistently among the top five among all First Years. The Granger girl dominates every class she's in except for Herbology, where Longbottom arguably has an unfair advantage due to his family history, but no one else consistently outscores Harry in every class. He had a rough start in some classes, of course, primarily due to being Muggle-raised. I'm certain he'd have done better initially had he been given the kind of early preparation that wizarding children take for granted." James stiffened at the implied insult. "I did notice an interesting detail in his academic files. When Harry was in his third year of Muggle primary, he was given an intelligence test that estimated his IQ to be at least 140. The school sent a letter to the Dursleys offering the boy the chance to participate in an accelerated learning program for gifted students. The Dursleys declined ... after keeping the boy out of school for a whole week allegedly due to illness. After he returned, his grades dropped precipitously, and for the remainder of his primary school days, by the end of each year, he consistently finished exactly one-half a letter grade below his underachieving cousin Dudley."
McGonagall closed her eyes and hissed. "A highly intelligent boy, abused by his relatives and likely threatened with worse if he ever showed up their slow-witted son academically. It's a miracle he never blew up his home or school with accidental magic."
"Which raises yet another question," said Snape. "My understanding has always been that Harry was placed with his Muggle relatives because he was believed to be a squib. I would like very much to know how that determination was made considering the placement was made at eighteen months when accidental magic is still rare. Even a casual reading of his school records indicates at least two other incidents suggesting accidental magic besides the one already mentioned, and we have no idea how often it happened at home."
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