Harry passed the week in a horrible parody of his normal routine. He went to the Great Hall for food, he went to classes, he did homework, he went to the library. He laughed and joked with friends; Ron and Hermione even took notice of how much more cheerful he seemed. Only the latter thought to be concerned after a few days of this forced cheer.

For his part, Harry was trying his best to do as he had promised himself-- to forget. To pretend he hadn't just learned from a flippant, cavalier Snape about their shared blood. The fact that he'd learned such a life-changing piece of information from a brief conversation with Snape, where the man had spent as much time insulting Harry as informing him, only aided in his attempts to deny the reality of the situation.

Dumbledore looked like he wanted to talk to Harry. Several times they'd spotted each other across crowded rooms, and something flared in the old wizard's eyes that beckoned to the boy. He ignored it, though. He couldn't bear the thought of talking to Dumbledore and having this all confirmed. The old wizard never summoned him; Harry was thankful for that. At least Dumbledore had some respect for the distance he needed.

And Snape...

He saw him sometimes in the hallways. When he passed the man there was a noticeable chill in the air, yet the Potions Master did nothing to acknowledge him beyond curling his lips into a faint sneer. He no longer glared at Harry from across the Great Hall. He rarely even sat in the Great Hall. When he did condescend to eat among the other teachers, he'd rise and depart as soon as Albus Dumbledore approached the table. Harry would watch the dark form retreat back to his dungeons, all the while feeling the heavy weight of Dumbledore's gaze.

It was in this manner that he passed his time, mind occupied with a flurry of activities, refusing to acknowledge that one, pressing issue. And it was during one of these attempts to block those thoughts from his mind that he failed to notice the commotion around him in the courtyard.

"Harry, come on!" Hermione said breathlessly in his ear, nudging him with an insistent hand.

"What?" He glanced up, looked around. Students were speaking excitedly to one another, streaming out of the courtyard to observe something outside. At his friend's urging, he followed the crowd of students, and soon found himself approaching Hagrid's hut. A crowd of jubilant students encircled a small figure and a rather larger one. Hermione had to stand on her toes to gaze over the sea of heads, and she grabbed his shoulder for balance.

At the focal point of their scrutiny stood the DADA teacher, Professor Meeran. Harry groaned. Not another impromptu demonstration of Meeran's prowess. The Professor had staged at least a dozen of these so far this term, and for some reason the rest of the students would crowd around in awe to watch him perform simple jinxes and spells in controlled situations.

Meeran was waving his wand in a grandiose manner in the direction of a creature that looked like a cross between an elephant and a... he had no idea what the hell else. A sharp, curved beak completed its long snout, and gray skin hung in flabby folds about its powerful body. It trembled in front of Meeran, huddled on the ground, glancing around with large, sad eyes at the crowd pressing in around it.

Harry had a bad feeling about this. Professor Meeran was regarded as some sort of God among wizards due to his invention of some original hexes and curses a few years back. Nothing very major... Most were variations of older curses. But the fact that he was able to do it at all astounded the faculty and students. Personally, Harry didn't see what the big deal was. Someone had to have engineered the original 'jelly legs' and 'avada kedavra' at some point in history.

He could see Hagrid trying to get through the crowd, clearly worried for his precious... whatever the hell that animal was. Hermione dragged Harry closer, face alight with excitement. Harry rolled his eyes and followed, wondering why he seemed to be the only student not utterly fascinated by Meeran's spur-of-the-moment demonstrations of his latest curses.

"It would be better if you calmed down, and stood back, Professor Hagrid," Meeran was saying pompously, gesturing with a flick of his wand for Hagrid to keep his distance. "I would not want you to get hurt. And rest assured, your creature will survive."

"I tell yeh, he's not ter be toyed with--" Hagrid said desperately, gesturing with a meaty fist towards the beaked-elephant.

"I'm simply demonstrating a modification of the impedimenta jinx..." Meeran began, turning a scowl upon the half-giant; he looked away from the creature for the briefest of seconds.

But it was just enough time.

With an earsplitting screech, the large creature before him suddenly roared up to life, closing the distance to the teacher in one powerful bound. The frantic Meeran raised his wand. Students cried out in horror, and some of the braver ones shot out stunners at the creature...

But it was too late. One swift chomp of that beak around Meeran's torso, and the Professor went ominously limp. The creature then began to tear at him viciously. The stunners hit it all at once, and it slumped down over Meeran's prone form.

Hermione clamped her hand over her mouth and stared in horror. Harry reached out gently to rub her shoulder, offering what little comfort he could. He felt ashamed that his first thought was a morbid realization he wouldn't be the only one seeing the thestrals next year.

* * *

Most of the students had been cleared away, walking stunned and wide-eyed back to their dorms as the teachers attended to the mess. Hermione departed as well; seeing one of her favorite teachers skewered had ruined her good mood. Harry had the presence of mind to go to Hagrid, comforting the weeping giant as best he could. There was no question the elephant-thing would be put down by the ministry now. And Hagrid was already furious with himself for letting Meeran lure it from its holding area.

After Hagrid retreated to his hut for the day, clearly intending to drink until he passed out, Harry wandered slowly back to his dorm. He passed the scene of the accident again. The animal had been taken away. Meeran's body was being reconstituted by Madame Pomfrey so it could be levitated away relatively intact. Dumbledore observed from over her shoulder with a troubled expression.

Not far from Harry stood Snape and McGonagall, observing the scene.

Professor Snape was watching with a dark, almost smug expression on his face. Harry's stomach flipped unpleasantly; he actually looked satisfied with the turn of events. He knew Snape was an evil git, but this was too much. Meeran may have had his failings, but the man had just died. Snape's smugness was just... very wrong.

Harry caught some of their conversation as he drew nearer.

"... seems the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse is working in overdrive this year," he was noting coldly to McGonagall, who stood ashen-faced beside him.

She shot him a disapproving look. "Severus," she rebuked sternly. "Have some respect."

"I make no allowances for stupidity," Snape said, unrepentant. "He was warned not to provoke that creature."

Harry once heard a wild rumor that Snape himself had cursed the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He was suddenly inclined to believe it. He attempted to move by silently, but Snape and McGonagall both caught sight of him.

"Potter," came Snape's silky voice. "Students were ordered back to their dormitories. Twenty points from Gryffindor."

McGonagall shot him a sharp, cold look. "He was comforting Hagrid." With a strained smile at Harry, "Twenty-five points to Gryffindor for assisting a distraught man."

Snape glared at her, then turned darkly away.

With a shrug, Harry started to walk off again, not wanting to be with either of these people, but McGonagall called him back. "Mr. Potter, while you're here," she turned to Snape, and Harry's insides coiled with dread. "Didn't you wish to ask Professor Snape for something?"

"No," Harry said firmly.

Snape turned back, raising an eyebrow at Harry's irritated voice. "And what did he wish to ask for, Professor?" he asked in that waspish voice. "Since he's clearly incapable of articulating it for himself."

Harry glared at him. "I don't want--"

"He was hoping you might brew a heritage potion," McGonagall told Snape, ignoring the boy. "He's having a bit of difficulty accepting the recent developments. He's told me flat-out that he refuses to believe them."

Harry could have strangled her. Snape's dark gaze crept back over to him, glittering with an unsettling intensity.

"Are you still insinuating that I lied, Mr. Potter?" Snape demanded in a soft, dangerous tone.

Harry met his black eyes unflinchingly. Maybe he was. "Not at all."

Snape's expression grew darker. Harry could have cursed himself for making that eye-contact. The man was a legilimens. How had he forgotten that?

"You realize this will waste several hours of time I could spend better elsewhere," Snape said icily to McGonagall.

"After what you told him, Severus," McGonagall said in a firm voice that held a note of warning, "You owe him this. Perhaps it will be insightful... for both of you."

"Ah, yes," Snape said. "And I suppose you also think that I owe you, Mr. Potter."

"No!" Knowing he'd get nowhere with McGonagall, Harry focused on Snape and said in a harsh voice, "It's really okay. I can do without insight." With increasing urgency, "Really. I've had my fill of insight. You owe me nothing. "

Something shifted in Snape's expression; the tiniest smirk reached his lips as he savored Harry's distress. Shit. He should have known better than to appeal to Snape.

"Oh, if you're truly that eager, Mr. Pott--" A cruel glint stole into his black eyes. "Or should I call you 'Harry'? There are no Potters left in this world, after all."

"'Potter' is fine," Harry said coldly.

"Five points from Gryffindor for contradicting a teacher... Harry," Snape said maliciously, emphasizing the last word as though it were something foul. McGonagall stiffened beside him and shot him a sharp look, but dared not contradict him. "With such sterling enthusiasm, I suppose I shouldn't refuse your request."

"Thank you, Severus," McGonagall said graciously. She shot a pointed glare at Harry.

Harry didn't know whether he'd sooner kill Snape or McGonagall. "Yeah, thanks," he grumbled.

"Go back to your dorm, now, Potter," Snape said brusquely, turning away from him. "Be in my office at six o'clock tomorrow morning."

Harry balked. "Six in the morning?"

Snape shot him one last sneer. "And one night of detention for each minute you're late."

* * *

Severus Snape was not actually a morning person, but he was rather hoping the brat would fail to show, thus giving him an excuse to assign the boy a month's worth of detention with Filch. Unfortunately, at 5:59 a.m., he came stumbling into Snape's office, bleary-eyed and rather scruffier than usual.

Snape raked his eyes disapprovingly over Potter's mangy appearance. He looked like James Potter on a bad day... and that was saying a lot. Snape felt his lips curl in distaste at the thought of his old nemesis, and he had to shake off several fleeting memories before snapping, "What are you waiting for? Instructions are there," he pointed to potions manual lying open on the desk, "Ingredients are prepared in the other room." At Potter's baffled look, he scowled. "Did you think I was going to do this for you, and leave myself open to accusations of doctoring the potion?"

Shoulders slightly hunched, the boy hauled the book over to the waiting cauldron and went about organizing the ingredients. Snape watched him prepare the base, then cut the gillyweed into uneven segments. He made no move to correct Potter until after he'd added the gillyweed to the mixture.

"Start over, Potter," he snapped. "You'll end up with nothing more than a bubbling mess if you don't cut that root into nine even segments, as the instructions clearly state."

Potter glared up at him, then silently retrieved a second stalk. As he sliced, he dug the knife hard into the table; Snape could tell exactly whose face he was picturing. The knowledge amused him.

He waited until the boy had prepared the base again before commenting, "I'm aware of how sloppy and unorganized you are, Potter, but this is a basic potion-- well within reach of even your pitiful abilities."

Potter added the crushed newt eyes in a lump instead of gradually stirring them in.

"Wrong again, Potter," Snape said. "Read your instructions and start over."

Potter sighed, shot him a glare, and then went back to chopping, dicing, crushing. He prepared the base, added the gillyweed, simmered, and was nearly at the newt eyes again, when Snape remarked, "Do you see now why I chose this early hour? I hope I'm not being too optimistic in assuming you'll complete it by the time classes resume tomorrow."

He smirked as the boy grew visibly angrier and stirred the potion in the wrong direction. "Congratulations," Snape said mercilessly. "You've made yet another colossal mistake. Counterclockwise, Potter. Can't you read?"

He heard a growl of frustration, and the boy threw the ladle down with a loud clatter.

"This," he said in a low, angry voice, whirling on Snape, "is the reason I no longer take classes with you."

"You no longer take classes with me," Snape retorted dryly, "because you didn't achieve the necessary test scores."

Potter quivered with rage and hatred. "It doesn't matter. I would never have taken anything with you. I hate you. You're a... a terrible teacher! And everyone else thinks so, too!"

"Everyone else being you and your little friends?" he said silkily. "Of course, I don't see Ms. Granger fleeing my class. Perhaps you're referring to Longbottom. He seems to be about your mark, isn't he?"

Potter gazed at him levelly for an extended moment. "If you just brought me here to belittle me, why don't you send me away right now?"

"Start again, Potter," Snape replied. "And read your instructions."

He refrained from making any remarks this time, all too aware that his presence made the boy falter. As much as he enjoyed watching Potter cringe, without a class full of witnesses, it lost some of its charm. Plus, he didn't want to spend all of this... tragic day of mourning with Harry Potter.

At least he would finally get McGonagall off his case. Minerva was certainly going to give him hell if he didn't show the damn boy what he wanted to see. Or rather, what he didn't want to see.

He watched the boy work, and admitted to himself that he did have a small amount of curiosity about the boy's real appearance. Clearly somewhere beneath that glamour charm lay a teenager with a good deal of Snape's genetic material. Would he have the infamous Snape nose? Dark eyes? What charm could Lily, or Dumbledore, have used? Glamours seldom lasted so long, or persisted even after the subject began experimenting with magic for himself. Could Dumbledore have renewed the charm periodically?

At long last, Potter completed the potion successfully. Snape gazed down into it with a critical eye, and begrudgingly found very little wrong with it. "The texture is off, but this should suffice."

Potter watched apprehensively as Snape drew out a razor and sliced a small line across his palm. One... two... three drops of blood plopped into the potion. That would be enough. After muttering a quick scourgify for the blade and a healing spell for his hand, he offered the razor to Potter.

"Well?" he said impatiently.

Potter took the blade and clumsily dragged it into his skin. Snape cursed the boy for an idiot when it dug far deeper than necessary and rivulets of blood streamed down his palm and into the cauldron.

Potter grimaced. "Did I damage the potion?"

"No," Snape said coldly. "But you certainly damaged your hand; blood magic rarely requires more than a few droplets."

"Pettigrew used a lot of my blood to resurrect Vold--" he stopped at Snape's lethal glare, and amended, "The Dark Lord."

"Hence my use of the word 'rarely,'" Snape replied impatiently. "Give me your hand."

Potter hesitated a moment before doing so. Snape grabbed his wrist and yanked it closer, attempting a few different healing spells before he found an appropriate one. By the time the wound sealed, he noticed Potter staring at the cauldron, his eyes glazed with shock.

Snape followed his line of sight. Although he already knew the potion would turn clear in the affirmative, it was still mildly surprising to actually witness. Potions was his vocation, after all. Watching the heritage potion confirm their shared blood made it all the more real.

His eyes found their way back to the boy standing before him, and he released the wrist quickly, as though it burned. Potter seemed to come out of his shock at that, and he blinked up at Snape, dazed.

"Is that sufficient proof?" Snape hissed, suddenly very frustrated with the fact that James Potter was gazing back at him, despite the potion confirming the boy as a Snape.

Harry nodded numbly. He took one step back, staring again at the clear liquid, and then made as if to leave.

"Potter," Snape barked, forcing the boy to face him again. Before Harry could react, he leveled his wand at him and bellowed, "Finite incantatem glamourie."

Harry suddenly understood what Snape was doing and yelped in horror. His appearance did not change, but the boy was nevertheless overcome with panic. His hands flew to his face, groping at his nose.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he cried. "Turn me back!"

Snape narrowed his dark eyes coldly. "Nothing happened. The glamour is too strong for that spell, as I thought it would be."

Harry quivered with silent rage. His eyes glowed with hatred. "Don't ever do that again."

"Or what, Harry?" Snape said with a cruel smile.

"Or you'll be sorry," Potter threatened softly. His voice shook with anger. "Stay away from me. I mean it, Snape. Just stay the hell away."