A strange smell was really what woke Harry. It was an odd mixture of herbal and more stringently chemical, along with a familiar scent that brought to mind a dark, creeping dread. He sat bolt upright and gazed around. Sweet Merlin. He’d passed out in Professor Snape’s quarters. On his couch. He gazed around for any sign of his Potions Professor, figuring he could slip quietly away before the other man awoke. Snape was cranky enough without facing him first thing in the morning, and Harry had no idea what he’d make of his least-favorite student accidentally spending the night.

Harry scrambled for his trainers, and Professor Snape’s paper slipped off his lap and onto the rough flagstones of the floor.

This effectively halted Harry’s motions, because he’d read a great deal of it before drifting off. His mind went back to the points Snape had made, examining the logic in them – and more arrestingly, beholding the beauty of the idea... the idea that the Muggle world and the Magical one were, if not the same, then inextricably intertwined... it appealed to him on a very basic level. Snape had still been speaking in specifics – monkshood and valerian and powdered sulfur – but Harry had no doubt that his professor was going to widen his scope as the paper progressed.

Harry didn’t realize he’d frozen with the laces of one shoe in his hands until Professor Snape emerged from the room off to the right, which Harry had supposed was a bed and bath.

Harry gaped, not only because he hadn’t meant to be caught, but because Professor Snape’s hair was now a startling, bubblegum pink. He turned bright red, trying not to laugh. “Trying out... a new look, sir?” he managed.

“What in the blazes are you muttering about?” Snape growled. “So they’re new robes – odd of you to notice.”

Harry began to realize that the hair was a mistake, and that he would be blamed for it somehow and froze like a deer in the headlights. Still, he had to let his Professor know about the hair before he exited the chambers. “Er... sir...” He pointed a shaking finger at the Professor’s head.

“What? What, Potter, it’s–” Snape caught sight of himself in one of the mirrors that hung for obviously decorative purposes. The expression on his face would’ve been hilarious if not for the fact that Harry knew what was coming next. “Sweet Merlin, what...?” Snape demanded of the room in general, before turning to whirl on Harry. “What. Have. You. Done?!” he growled.

Harry shivered helplessly. “Nothing, I swear! Legilimize me, I didn’t Charm your hair!”

“You know it’s a Charm, though, Potter, and not a Potion? How astute of you, for someone who knows nothing about it...” Snape was advancing, like a snake preparing to strike at its prey.

“I’m serious! Honest! Go on, Professor, look at me, I had nothing to do with it!”

Snape seemed to lose his menace rather abruptly; and, without Legilimizing Harry, he turned to the mirror. “Merlin’s teeth,” he swore.

Now that Harry was out of the path of danger, he felt it safe to laugh. He laughed until his sides hurt as one by one, each of Snape’s countercharms failed. “Oi, someone’s really out to get you, sir.”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t narrow my list of suspects, now, does it?” Snape demanded.

“Oh, yes it does,” Harry said, managing to muffle his laughter as Snape turned to glare at him. “How many people are clever enough to have done it so thoroughly? And to consider this a just punishment, even?"

Snape considered these facts. “Well then, Mister Potter, that leaves three.”

“Three...?”

“You, Draco Malfoy – and Hermione Granger.”

Harry winced. "Pink hair doesn’t strike me as particularly Slytherin...”

“And as you haven’t done it, and as you are correct in your assumption that this is not particularly Draco’s style – no, something painful or humiliating is more that boy’s speed – then that leaves us one person.”

Harry groaned aloud. “Two hundred points from Gryffindor,” he murmured.

“Any particular reason Miss Granger would...?” Snape paused. “Ahhh, I see,” he murmured almost appreciatively. “Very interesting. Your Miss Granger has apparently deduced the source of your argument last night as Draco Malfoy. And, instead of punishing him–”

“She’s decided to blame you, for setting the punishment in the first place,” Harry completed miserably. Then he grinned. “That, or Draco’s sporting a very interesting look, himself, sir.”

“This is all about that ridiculous fight?” Snape scathed, still examining his hair in the mirror.

“Well... and the fact you didn’t give me my assignments over the summer, and booted me out of class.” Harry frowned. “Perhaps it is a Potion,” he mused. “Maybe it’s something she put in your shampoo.”

Snape blinked in surprise, then shook his head. “I assure you, this room is carefully warded... and rather obscure in location.”

Harry’s lips thinned as he thought about the Marauder’s Map. “Hermione’s smarter than you think,” he said, speaking more frankly than he ever had to Snape before. “I know at least one way she could find this room, and she’s awfully clever with countercharms.” He eyed the stormclouds gathering in his professor’s eyes with no small amount of trepidation. “Come on, sir – if it were McGonagall, you’d be howling.”

A strangled sound issued from the older man, and Harry realized that Snape had probably pictured just that.

“Try washing it again, maybe, just with soap?” Harry offered, keeping his voice faint but neutral. He paused. “Or – Muggle dyes aren’t magic. They’re not a countercharm of any kind – so they might work to cover it up.”

Snape didn’t say much of anything, but disappeared back into the bathroom. Sounds of running water emerged; Harry viewed this as a good sign, but wondered what it would do to the man’s mood if nothing altered. He checked his watch and shrugged; still twenty-some-odd minutes until breakfast. Harry flopped back on the couch, trainers abandoned, to read the rest of the paper.

Snape emerged fifteen minutes later, hair dripping onto his robes, looking as though he’d bitten into a lemon. The hair was a mere two or three shades darker.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” Harry said cheerfully. “That means it’ll come out, eventually.”

“Five points from Gryffindor for enjoying this altogether too much,” Snape said sourly.

“Now that’s not even fair!” Harry protested. “Try the Muggle dye.”

“Or a hat,” Snape grumped.

“Or a turban,” Harry said with a smirk. “It looked so smashing on Professor Quirrell.”

Snape glared, then moved to his Potions ingredients.

“I wouldn’t try a magical–”

“Thank you, Mister Potter,” Snape intoned acerbically, “I am quite familiar with both Potions and Magical Theory. I have, in fact, taught both of those classes. I am about to attempt something rather less than magical.”

Harry placed the paper down on the table by the couch and followed Snape curiously as the Professor began removing herbs from his shelves. “What is it?”

“’It’,” Snape said, “is walnut shell, bramble, and powdered blackroot. All potent dyes.” He lit a small fire under a standard-size pewter cauldron and began adding water and copious amounts of each plant. He removed a final jar from the shelf and sprinkled a faintly glittering dust into the mixture. “Iron,” he said, before Harry could ask. “That will set the dye.”

Harry nodded, then watched as the Professor applied the tea to his fluorescent hair.

“How long should it set, then?” Harry asked. “I don’t suppose you’ll make it to breakfast.”

“No, I don’t suppose I will,” Snape said.

Harry thought of saying, now you’ll be cranky, then thought better of it. He liked his head attached to his shoulders, thanks. “I’ll smuggle you some toast or something,” he said, instead.

For a minute, Snape eyed him in surprise. “Do you always do this?” he inquired after a space of silence.

“Do what?”

Harry was treated to the rare sight of his Professor looking uncomfortable and awkward. It had the odd effect of making him look years younger, as Remus did whenever he broke into a genuine smile. “I don’t need your aid, you realize,” he said. He eyed Harry with new suspicion. “What are you still doing here?”

Harry blinked, taking a small step back. “I... I fell asleep,” he said simply.

“And before that...?”

“You know about Obscura,” Harry said. “I thought of you. You were the one who told me about the technique.” Harry’s words seemed relax the other man marginally.

Snape ran a hand through his hair, then grimaced. “Evanesco,” he said with evident self-disgust, pointing his wand at his fingertips. The dye, which was already beginning to turn dark, disappeared from under his nails.

“Well, er, I’m off to breakfast then,” Harry announced uselessly, his cheeks flushing for a reason he could not name. He moved back to the couch to examine the paper. “Uhm, I want to finish this,” he called, placing it back on the table. “Sometime. Okay?”

There was a brief pause. “After your next Occlumency lesson, then, Potter.”

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Harry replied, feeling more awkward with every passing moment. He finally drew on his trainers a bit reluctantly, fiddling with the laces.

A knock sounded at the door. “You’ve got a visitor, sir.”

Snape froze from inside the Potions lab, turning to view Harry with an unreadable expression.

The knock sounded again, more insistently, this time. “Severus?”

“Professor Lupin!” Harry exclaimed, standing and rising to open the door. He wondered if this was a wizard custom he didn’t know about. Maybe the youngest wizard in the room was supposed to do things like open doors for people? He couldn’t find another reason why Snape would still be standing in the doorway of his lab, continuing to stare at him. Harry opened the door at looked up at Lupin with a grin.

“Severus, I–” Lupin paused at the threshold, obviously suddenly catching on to the fact that he was staring at empty space. His gaze flitted down. “Harry,” he said in surprise.

“Hi, Professor – he’s back by the lab,” Harry said.

“All – all right,” Lupin replied, stepping inside.

Harry turned at the door. “I am getting you toast,” he said stubbornly. “Unless you’d like something else better.”

When nobody replied, Harry rolled his eyes at Lupin and slipped out the door.

By the time Harry had reached the Great Hall, his good cheer had evaporated. Upon entering, he caught sight immediately of Ron and Hermione. Ron had his hand surreptitiously next to Hermione’s on the table – he wasn’t holding her hand, just placing it close enough to hers so that they were touching. Hermione’s eyes were red-rimmed, and Ron looked pale and grim.Harry tried to escape their notice, making immediately for the Slytherin table and Draco Malfoy. 

Draco didn’t say anything at first, merely nodded at Harry. After a couple of minutes of silence, he eyed the Gryffindor Table from across the hall. His grey eyes found Harry’s green ones, examining him. Draco gave a small frown and went back to eating.

Harry couldn’t decipher Draco’s meaningful glances, and was too tired to extend himself to do so. He slumped in his seat, messing about with the food on his plate. After a moment, he placed his fork down. Draco raised a pointed eyebrow, and this time the unspoken message was quite clear.

Harry speared an asparagus and contemplated it, then used it to point to Draco. “You know, I can’t figure you.”

“I’m an enigma, Potter.”

“You used to seem very straightforward,” Harry told him.

Draco regarded him shrewdly. “So did you.”

The blonde boy turned back to his own plate; Harry snuck half of his food under the table while Draco was distracted, flushing but feeling oddly triumphant. Draco hadn’t voiced his concerns as a command, so Harry wasn’t even disobeying him, strictly speaking.

Harry smuggled several pieces of toast off of the table and wrapped them in a napkin, sticking them in his cloak. It was, in a way, his own fault that Professor Snape was missing breakfast – if Hermione hadn’t been upset on his account, she never would have done the charm. He felt he had to at least attempt to make up for this, despite his professor’s dislike of ‘aid’, as he termed it.

Draco eventually struck up a conversation about Potions and their work for the next week or so, comparing mental notes and discussing possible questions for the first exam. His voice was free of its usual ring of entitlement, and was slightly quieter than usual – just as it had been after he’d taken the cloak, Harry realized.

“Speaking of Professor Snape,” Draco said, “I wonder where he is?”

“Oh, Hermione hexed him,” Harry said, figuring Draco would extract the information out of him eventually – better to do it now, and on his own terms.

As he’d suspected, Draco was too flabbergasted by this information to take charge of the conversation.

“She charmed his hair a bubblegum pink,” Harry added, and, again as suspected, this just-as-shocking bit of information stalled the other boy again. “He’s using a dye with plain old physical properties to fix it, but it’s going to take awhile to set.”

“How do you know that?” Draco demanded.

“I was the one saw it first,” Harry said. “He hadn’t looked into a mirror before leaving...” Before leaving the bathroom, although Harry didn’t take great pains to point that out. “You can bet he rushed right back in once I mentioned it to him.”

Draco snorted. “So he used a Muggle dye? Ridiculous. Just cast the same charm on Granger and see how she gets rid of it.”

“Well, obviously, if he knew which one it was, he’d know how to get rid of it already. Snape’s not stupid, you know.”

“You don’t have to cast the proper charm,” Draco insisted, rolling his eyes. “Cast any charm that turns the girl’s hair pink, and she’d immediately assume that Snape figured her out and hexed her back: the first words out of her mouth would be the proper countercharm.”

Harry quirked a smile; this was an incredibly elegant solution, and very Slytherin. He never would’ve come up with it, himself, he was reluctant to admit.

“What – you didn’t think of that?” Draco demanded, but his voice was teasing. He already knew the answer.

Harry shoved him negligently with one hand, and Draco snickered under his breath, rubbing at the side of his arm and looking wounded. “Just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean you have to resort to violence,” Draco said with mock-fussiness.

Harry knew better than to question the other boy’s moods – instead, he took advantage of the unexpected kindness, was kind in return. Harry was slowly realizing that it was his way – he tended to mirror his behaviour towards others after how they behaved towards him. He always hung back and observed people when he could, and modeled his actions accordingly. Dudley was a prime example.

So was Snape.

Harry looked up at the staff table, where Dumbledore’s smile twinkled at him. Professor McGonagall still had a foreboding, thunderous expression when her eyes lit on him – if he read her right, it would all change to smiles once Quidditch began. But Professors Snape and Lupin were still missing.

Harry shrugged. It had to be something important for Professor Lupin to show up first thing in the morning, before breakfast, even – apparently it had required a real chat.

It didn’t mean anything was really wrong... still, a nagging feeling clouded his thoughts and dogged his footsteps all the way to the dungeons.