The entire year of Gryffindor boys had a unified scowl across their faces the next morning as they went to their Defense class.

“Think of it,” Seamus said as they headed down the corridor. “We just shove the fat arse’s toad into his robes, bet he screams like a girl!”

Neville clutched Trevor in a sweaty hand, and Harry said “Leave off, Seamus. You screamed like a girl when Trevor jumped into your robes by accident.”

Seamus spluttered that he’d done no such thing, but no one was listening.

Lavender and Parvati had spent all of breakfast primping and gushing. Even Hermione looked a little dreamy eyed, which Harry hoped she would snap out of.

When they arrived at class, Harry was shocked to see a test on everyones desk.

“What? But we haven’t even had a class yet!” Ron howled, and Lockhart shook his head, smiling.

“It’s all common knowledge from the books, my dear boy! Now, hop to it, you’re running out of time!”

Neville and Harry were staring at their tests. They exchanged a look with each other.

“Is he serious?” Harry whispered, and Neville shrugged.

“I think he’s nutters,” Neville murmered back. He scanned down the page and nodded firmly. “Nutters.”

Harry looked down at Hermione, who was sitting in the front row. “How come she’s not sitting with us?”

“Lockhart Fever,” Neville said glumly.

“Boys! No talking during the test, if you please! I know it must be hard, to finally be facing the Gilderoy Lockhart, but try to contain yourselves, hmm?”

Dean, from behind them, muttered “I wish I could contain him. Just shove him in a barrell, no one’d miss him—“

Then they all got to work on their tests.

Seamus merely spent the whole time writing the filthiest answers he could think of: ‘Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition is to try on all his mums underwear and run down the street wearing it.’ The name at the top of his test was Seymour Butts, which Seamus thought ridiculously witty.

Neville wrote answers that restated the question five or ten times.

‘Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition is very secret and ambitious and it will change the world, it is so ambitious and secretive.’

Harry put down answers like ‘If Gilderoy Lockhart has a secret ambition, he guards it so well that no one knows at all’ and ‘Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color is blue, to match his eyes.’ Seamus was reading it over his shoulder, and he snorted.

“Should’ve done what I’ve done, Potter. This’ll give him a kick in the pants.” Seamus brandished his test at the back of Harry’s head.

Harry wrote down for the next answer ‘Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date is receiving a kick in the pants from a twelve year old.’

A half an hour later, Lockhart collected the tests and made distressed noises with his tounge.

“Tsk, tsk. Now, boys,” he said, waving Seamus’ test paper in the air, “Is this really a productive way to spend a Hogwarts education?”

Seamus was sniggering while Ron and Dean shook with barely surpressed laughter. Neville was biting the inside of his cheek in a way that made him look like he was about to have an apoplexy, and Harry had such a firm grip on his quill he nearly snapped it.

“Now, where is Mr—“ Seamus was hitting Harry on the shoulder, and Harry pushed him off irritatedly. “Mr. Butts?”

Seamus was stood up, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.

“He’s just gone to the bathroom, sir.”

Dean piped in, then. “He thought he did really well, sir, he poured over those books of yours all night, reading up.”

Ron had put his head down on his desk and was making funny snorting sounds.

Lockhart looked even more puffed up after that. “Well, I’m sure the boy merely has a faulty memory—full marks for effort! Now, Mr. Butts—“ Seamus, now seated, was cracking up so hard his head hit the desk with a thud, “—should have taken a page from Miss Granger’s book. Miss Granger remembered my dearest ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair care potions—Miss Brown, you were close, but it’s not to rid the world of evil BY marketing my own range of hair care potions, though that may work too, I suppose. But Miss Granger—perfectly done, my dear, perfect! Fifteen points for Gryffindor!”

Hermione looked as though she might faint.

“Know-it-all’s been brainwashed,” Ron whispered, and Harry threw him a glare.

“Don’t call her that. She’s just worried about her marks, that’s all.”

Lockhart had, while they talked, started to give a speech about the dangerous beasts that lurked within the wizarding world, circling a covered cage that rattled as he did so. Harry only payed attention when he heard Lockhart intone in a deep, serious voice “I must ask you not to scream. It may provoke them!” With a flourish, he pulled he cover off the cage to reveal—

Pixies.

Dean let a laugh escape him and Lockhart looked over fondly. “There, there, my boy, nothing to be frightened of!”

“C-Cornish Pixies?” Seamus stuttered out, trying to hold back his laughter and failing miserably. “But—but they’re not—“

Suddenly, before Seamus could finish the thought, Lockhart bellowed “Let’s see what you make of them!” and yanked the cage door open.

It was mayhem, utter mayhem. Harry immediately dove under their desk, pulling Neville with him, while a pair of pixies swooped down and grabbed Ron’s wand out of his robe pocket.

“Oi! That’s mine!” Ron howled, but the pixies just giggled nastily and flew around the room with it, sparking people.

Hermione had, at first, started to try to freeze them, but when she saw she was the only one still trying, she gave up and retreated to Harry and Neville’s desk.

Unfortunately, Neville’s ankle stuck out of the protection of the desk, and frighteningly quickly, Neville was no longer there, but floating towards the ceiling shrieking.

“Get me down! Get me down!” he cried out, and Harry felt a sudden roaring of power like ocean waves behind his ears—

Then the pixies were floating, immobilized, through the air.

“Professor, get Neville down!” Hermione cried, and Lockhart just stared at her before letting out a bark of laughter.

“Of course, my dear, of course!” he roared, and he pushed back his sleeves and cried out “Winglaudiam Leviosare!”

The candelabra Neville was hanging from suddenly disintegrated, and he plunged through the air, landing directly on Lockhart.

The Gryffindor boys waited until they were a safe distance out of the room, then Harry and Dean hoisted Neville onto their shoulders and carried him to the Great Hall, cheering.

Professor McGonagall gave them detention for foolhardiness, of course, but Harry thought it was worth it until he showed up to the Great Hall Friday night to find out where he was headed.

He barely stifled his groan when he saw it was Lockhart.

Dean made a noise as well, and Neville just looked petrified, for Professor Snape was there as well.

“Potter,” Snape said, inclining his head downwards. “You’re with me.”

Neville and Harry both looked relieved.

“Oh, come now, Severus! Young Harry and I have a lot to discuss, I’ll take him, for tonight.”

Snape sneered. “And the other two? Come come, Professor, this is meant to be a punishment, not spend time with your fellow fools.”

Lockhart preened at that, seemingly not catching that he was a fool as well, by Snape’s classification. “Well, Severus, you’re right, of course. Longbottom, you’re with me! Thomas—“

“He’ll be with me,” Professor McGonagall said sharply.

The three boys split ways, Neville looking pleadingly over his shoulder as Lockhart tugged him away.

Harry was grateful to find himself in detention with the professor. He made a bee line for the cleaning supplies, for he normally scrubbed out cauldrons or stubborn stains on the desks, and was surprised when Snape grabbed his arm and firmly led him to the chair in front of his desk.

Harry wondered what he had done now, and he remembered the question in reserve, and he looked down at his arm and tugged his robe over it.

Without speaking, Snape produced a potions vial.

“Drink, Potter.” Harry downed it and smiled faintly. It was the same cherry flavor of his other potion, but a different consistancy. So smooth it ran down his throat without swallowing.

“What was that, sir?”

“It’s a diagnostic potion, Potter, don’t you know anything?”

“N-no, sir. What’s it do, sir?

“It’s designed to go through your body and make any injuries or ailments light up.” Harry’s arm suddenly flashed a bright red.

“Oh. But, uhm, I already got checked over by Madam—“

“Be quiet, Potter, and let me conduct my own check over, hmm? After all, you’ve lied to me before—“ Harry looked at his shoes, “—and I won’t have you lying again about personal injuries, you could severely hurt yourself and others. Now hold still.”

Harry’s knee started to glow from beneath his robes and trousers.

“I did that playing in the creekbed by Neville’s house,” Harry said hurriedly. “Really, sir, his gran put a plaster on it and everything.”

Snape just sniffed and kept watching. Harry’s eye started to shine, faintly, and Snape tapped it, making Harry wince.

“And here?”

“I got a black eye.”

“From?” Harry opened his mouth, but Severus cut him off. “The tree, of course.”

Snape neutralized the effects of the potion with a flick of his wand, which made Harry relax. He hadn’t relished the idea of going back to the tower glowing like a torch.

“What happened, Potter?”

“I told you—“ Harry started, and Snape held up a hand.

“I want to know why these—“ he suddenly had a packet of Harry’s letters, “—never mentioned anything.”

Harry fidgeted. “There—there wasn’t much to mention, really. I mean, by the time I wrote you and my arm was broken, I was already at Neville’s, so I didn’t think it would matter, sir. I mean, you can’t fix a broken arm, and all the other times—“

“What other times?” Snape asked, his voice sharp, and Harry shrugged.

“You know, the other times I got in trouble, it was all over by the time I wrote. So, so I just thought that it wouldn’t matter, sir.”

“What did you get in trouble for, then, Potter?”

Harry scrunched his face up and started to play with his shirt cuff. “Uhm…mainly just for cheek.”

“Cheek?

“My attitude. Uncle Vernon said it was, er—not very good.”

“Your attitude.” Snape looked the boy over and wondered what kind of attitude the shy little boy could have. “And that consisted of?”

“Not remembering my place. He said Hogwarts—well, he didn’t call it that, but I knew that’s what he meant—he said it’d given me a bunch of bad habits and he had to, to remind me of my place.”

“And how did he do that?” Snape asked silkily. It was all he could do not to march the boy to Dumbledore immediately, point to his arm and scream ‘There’s your proof!’. Watch Dumbledore’s old face pale, watch him grip his desk and promise Potter would never go back, give Severus free reign over the Dursleys for ten minutes. He could tell Dumbledore, he knew, and all this would stop.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“He just—I don’t know. I spent a lot of time in my cupboard. Uhm, and I had to do a lot of chores, and I kept forgetting that I wasn’t in Potions, because I was cooking, and I kept forgetting and asking Neville to hand me things and she’d think I was calling her names.”

“So your uncle merely—sends you to your cupboard when he finds you in the wrong?”

Harry nodded.

“Did you trip over something?”

“What?”

“When he sent you to your cupboard and you returned with a broken arm.”

Harry flushed and looked at the floor. “That—that was an accident. He didn’t mean to—“

“I’ve found it difficult to accidentally break people’s bones when escorting them to a closet.” Snape leaned in. “Come now, Potter, the truth.”

“He—it’s not an all the time thing, it was just the once, and he took me to the hospital—“

“That’s not an answer Potter.”

Harry exhaled. “He was just really mad, that’s all. He just got really mad.”

“Because of Longbottom’s letter.”

Harry nodded. “He thought it came by regular mail and that I’d given other wizards the address. So he just grabbed my arm and I pulled back, cause I was trying to get to my cupboard, but then he grabbed it with both his hands and something snapped. Then he took me to the hospital in London.”

“Why London?”

Harry looked at the floor.

“Potter. Why London?”

Severus, with a sickening feeling in his stomach, remembered the tiny, almost wild, angry, frightened little boy he’d found last year.

“He was going to leave you there again.” The bastard. The utter bastard. He’d kill him. Snape would kill him. It wasn’t even rage that was sinking in to him, just a terrifyingly cold wave of vengence. He would kill them, and he could wait to do it.

Harry gave a small nod. “But I, I got directions and I went to King’s Cross, and I went to Platform 9¾, it was the only place I could think of to go. But they have a Floo Network—have you ever traveled by floo, sir? I didn’t much like it, but I wasn’t about to complain—so I took the Floo to York, then a nice witch apparated me halfway, then I found Neville’s house and I went there.” Harry sent Snape a curious look. “Sir, why do you look so angry? I, I didn’t get lost or kidnapped or anything, I’m fine. What’s wrong?”

Snape closed his eyes and snapped “What’s wrong, Mr. Potter, is that you could have been killed.”

“No I couldn’t, Uncle Vernon stopped right away when he saw he’d broken my arm—“

“Not by him, you stupid boy. You could have been living on the streets again, is that really what you want?”

Harry still looked confused. “But—but I found a way out of it. Isn’t—didn’t that work? Wasn’t that the right thing to do?” He looked a little worried.

“The right thing to do was for you not to go back in the first place, or at least informed me—“

“But it wouldn’t have done any good!”

“I could have removed you from that house long before you were seriously injured—“

“But—“

“You must promise me that if you ever go back—“ Snape swore he would do his best to never let Harry go back, “You will write me the truth. Tell me everything.”

Harry looked up at his professor, and even though he felt nervous and worried and a little scared, something warm started to form in the pit of his stomach. Then he looked down at his arm and tugged on his sleeve to cover it.

He could try all he wanted, but Snape only cared he was hurt because he’d been bad. He would have to try really hard next summer.

“Yes, sir.”

Snape nodded, then nodded again. “It’s nearly curfew, Potter, you should at least scrub one cauldron before you go.” Harry stood up and headed for the cleaning supplies. “And Potter?” He turned back. “A wizard who pulls back on a promise is a very poor wizard indeed.”

Harry nodded, then started to scrub out a cauldron. It had been maybe five minutes before Harry heard a fainst voice come throught the walls.

‘…let me kill…’

“What?” harry said, dropping the cauldron, and Snape looked up from his work.

“What are you doing now, Potter?”

“I just—didn’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Harry knew by the look on Snape’s face that he couldn’t hear it. He didn’t want Snape to think him crazy.

“N-nothing, sir. I’m just a bit tired, is all. I didn’t hear anything.”

Snape looked at him carefully for a moment, then gave a small nod. “all right, Potter, you can go. I shall inform Professor McGonagall that your detention has been served to my satisfaction.”

“T-thank you sir.”

Harry turned and fled the room, running back to Gryffindor Tower so fast that he had very little time to wonder whether he had heard anything or not.