Harry didn’t think he’d ever felt so scared in his life. Someone could have resurrected Voldemort and placed an unarmed Harry staring down the shaft of the man’s wand point-blank, inside a blazing fifty-foot circle of fire full of rabid Acromantulas, and he devoutly believed he would have been less frightened than he was of his Potions professor right now.

Snape shoved him bodily through the door of his office, nearly causing Harry to lose his balance and send his satchel flying. He managed to defy the laws of physics through sheer dread of what might happen otherwise. The floor and the rows of vials on the desk vibrated as the door crashed shut behind him. Harry stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe—the only move he made was to inch his hand towards his wand.

“Sit. Down.” Snape stalked around him and stabbed a finger at the chair opposite his desk. Harry hesitated a moment, which was a mistake.

“I said sit down!”

Harry bolted for the chair. He managed to get his wand out of his pocket in the process, which made him feel slightly better. But only slightly. His stomach was still twisting like a shriveling worm on a sidewalk as he watched Snape deliberately take the chair on the other side of the desk. There was silence for a moment while Snape speared him with a hateful stare. Harry was faintly surprised that none of the glass vials lined up between them exploded from the sheer tension. When his professor finally spoke, his voice was very low and tight.

“I will ask you one more time, Mr. Potter, and I suggest you desist in playing the fool,” he hissed. “What do you imagine in that thick skull of yours you’re doing?”

“Professor,” Harry said desperately, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Snape lurched forward with an ugly glower; it was all Harry could do not to bolt out of the chair and make a dash for the door.

“I will not tolerate this insolence,” Snape hissed. “Get. Rid. Of. That. Hair.”

Harry’s mouth fell open and his hand flashed to his head. “You’re going on like this about my hair?” he demanded incredulously. “What’s my hair got to do with anything?”

“Do not feign innocence to me, Potter!” Snape bellowed. The vials rattled perilously. “You know perfectly well! Whether you have been eavesdropping on conversations between the Headmaster and myself or sneaking into my Pensieve, you cannot possibly have been ignorant if you had the gall to appear in my class on this day with that hair! Now restore it!”

Harry stood out of his chair furiously. “I don’t have any—”

“Sit down or you will find yourself disemboweling toads every evening until the end of term!” Harry dropped back into his chair like a rock, but his eyes were blazing.

“You can’t give me detention just because I changed my hair,” he pointed out angrily. “I’ll take it to the Headmaster.”

If it was possible, the look in Snape’s eyes became even more murderous. “So,” he hissed, “you overheard that conversation also.”

Harry stared at him and decided that some things were simply beyond the scope of human comprehension—things such as the meaning of life, the origin of the universe, and what Snape was blathering on about.

“Answer me, Potter!”

“Why?” Harry snapped. “You don’t care what I have to say for myself!” He snatched up his bag and stormed towards the door. It was locked. Harry pulled out his wand.

“Put it down, Potter—”

Harry gave him a scathing glare over his shoulder. “Alohomora!”

One moment Harry was standing in front of the door. The next second, for absolutely no apparent explanation, Snape’s desk was smashing into his back. His wand flew from his hand, his satchel soared into the far wall and spewed his books and parchments everywhere, but Harry noticed neither of these things. What he did notice was the shards of several dozen glass vials stabbing into his back.

Vials full of unknown magical contents.

Completely ignoring the sudden pain and his lack of wind, Harry instinctively seized the edge of the desk and hurled himself off of it in the direction his momentum led. He caught a brief glimpse of black robes before he smashed right into both Snape and his chair.

Bugger, he thought distantly.

Snape went for his wand as quickly as possible. But not even Flitwick, for all he was a former dueling champion, could have been fast enough. The foolish boy’s Alohomora rebounded off the wards Snape had built around his office and struck its caster in the chest, hurling Potter across his desk full of potions vials—

Rage forgotten in a surge of self-preservation, Snape attempted to vault himself out of his chair as vials full of volatile, half-correct Color Changer Syrups exploded every which way. He was only halfway standing when Potter’s airborne form crashed into him like a human Bludger. Snape immediately fell back into the chair, the right legs of which splintered under the sudden force, dashing professor and student to the floor—Potter was thrown right over him and Snape heard a blunt, sickening smack and a yelp as the boy connected with something he could not see—he could feel a puddle of Color Changer Syrup seeping through his robes from the floor—

Then a shadow lurched across him, and a horrified Snape looked up just in time to see his storage case of potions collapsing on top of both of them.

“Hermione, we’ve got to do something!” Ron hissed. “Harry’s going to be dissected for potions ingredients!”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Hermione said in a quavering whisper, glancing nervously at the door as she set to chopping up ingredients. “Professor Snape is perfectly professional—”

“I said sit down!” the disembodied voice of their perfectly professional teacher roared from within the office.

Hermione’s knife clattered to the floor. Ron dropped his cup of dragon scales, sending them fluttering across his work table. Even the Slytherins jumped fearfully. All eyes snapped over to the office door before being snatched guiltily away by their owners.

“Sure he is,” Ron muttered apprehensively. He began scraping up his dragon scales fiercely. “Great bloody git—”

“MIND YOUR MOUTH BEFORE I SHUT IT FOR YOU, WEASLEY!”

A balled up sheet of parchment pelted the side of Ron’s head. “Weasley!” hissed Malfoy. “Shut that bloody bracelet up!”

“YOU TOO, MALFOY!” screeched the bracelet. “I’LL REPORT BOTH OF YOU TO THE HEADMASTER IF THIS KEEPS UP! DISOBEYING PROFESSOR’S ORDERS AND USING THAT SORT OF COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE! STUDENTS THESE DAYS! HAVEN’T YOUR MOTHERS TAUGHT YOU ANYTHING IN FOURTEEN YEARS? THE BOTH OF YOU OUGHT TO HAVE YOUR MOUTHS SCOURGIFIED! WE’LL JUST SEE WHAT PROFESSOR SNAPE THINKS OF ALL THIS WHEN HE—”

Ron dove beneath his work table seconds before an untold number of hissed Silencio charms converged on the space he’d previously occupied. At nearly the same moment, a terrific explosion rocked the classroom. Students screeched and threw themselves to the floor, ducking behind overturned work tables and dodging flying cauldrons. Red steam was pouring away from Professor Snape’s office door.

Ron glanced at Hermione, who’d gone quite pale. “He’s got wards up around his office,” she breathed, “somebody’s shot off a spell—”

A series of crashes echoed through the door, followed by the squeal of breaking glass, another crash and a yell. There was a brief second of silence…

…And then a tremendous, resounding crash and a veritable explosion of breaking glass. Ron and Hermione flinched in unison behind their work table. Ron glanced down and saw the slit-like mouth of his bracelet working speechlessly. For once it was too stunned to protest as he seized his wand and held it at the ready.

The ensuing silence hung heavier over the class with each passing second. Some students, mostly Gryffindors, began to emerge cautiously from behind work tables. Ron saw Malfoy peering around the edge of his, and snickered despite himself at the distinctly ferret-like look of terror on the Slytherin’s pointed face.

“Merlin,” breathed Neville from the next bench over. “What d’you think Harry’s gone and done this time?”

“I,” Ron said, “have not a sodding clue.”

The room—at least, as much of it as Harry could see—was spinning madly, and his ears were ringing. He must have hit his head on that cabinet or whatever it had been. Steam and fumes from about a dozen shattered potions flasks were clogging up the air, making him cough violently. He could feel a few pieces of glass sticking into his back, being driven in further by the heavy end of the cabinet that had fallen partially on top of him; one arm was trapped beneath him. Where his glasses had got to, Harry had not the faintest. Dimly he felt about the floor with his free hand for them or for his wand.

He finally found the glasses, half-splashed in some sticky greenish liquid. Clumsily he wiped them off on his robe sleeve and slid them back on. He did not much like the details of the view they gave him—smashed bits of vial, puddles of potions in various colors (one of them actually crawling off towards a corner), the remnants of the office chair. Strands of his mutilated hair hung in front of his eyes; it was beyond the limited range of movement his one free hand had to brush it out of the way. Harry made a few attempts to shift under the weight of the cabinet—

Quite suddenly, the cabinet levitated upward of its own accord, settling itself back against the wall where it had fallen from. Harry started to crawl up, but was beset by a fierce coughing fit and nearly fell back over. A hand seized his shoulder and dragged him forcibly to his feet.

“You idiot,” Snape snarled through the fumes. “You clumsy Gryffindor idiot—” His professor’s voice suddenly dissolved into violent coughing. The hand shoved Harry away and into the desk, which he clutched shakily, still coughing hard enough himself to expel a lung. Dizzily he looked around and spotted his wand lying amidst the remnants of the potions vials that had been on the desk. He stumbled over to it.

Snape barely paid Potter’s brat any mind. He brandished his own wand in between racking coughs, Vanishing the fumes as quickly as possible. It slowly became easier to breathe as the air thinned. Feeling more recovered, Snape turned slowly and saw Potter stupidly wiping Memory Draught off his wand onto his robes. The boy looked up at him—and then thrust his wand forward sharply.

“Aguamenti!” he yelled.

A sheet of ice-cold water blasted straight through Snape’s instinctively-cast Shield Charm as if it hadn’t existed and drenched him straight to the bone. He could feel half a dozen potions that had been splattered onto his robes reacting with the catalyst—Color Changer Syrup, Memory Draught, Polyjuice Potion, and who knew what else the bumbling brat had smashed when he knocked over the storage cabinet.

“Sorry, Professor,” Potter stammered, no doubt recognizing a murderous look when he saw one. “You were sort of on fire.”

Snape glanced slowly down. Several smoldering holes were visible on his outer robes. The hem was still smoking. “Amortentia and Felix Felicis,” he muttered, noticing the gold droplets of the latter still bouncing around cheerfully on the floor of their own accord. “A volatile combination, luck and love. But, judging from this utter wreckage, Mr. Potter, not nearly as dangerous as combining anything with you.”

Harry glared and jerked his wand. The boy’s books and parchments began to clean themselves of spattered potion and water and repack themselves into his satchel. “How was I supposed to know about any stupid wards?” he demanded.

“Do not address me in that tone!” Snape flicked his own wand angrily, and a large section of office floor promptly cleaned itself of glass shards and potion. “Had you demonstrated proper respect, Potter, we would not even be in this office, and you certainly would have had no such opportunity to demonstrate your legendary capacity for destruction!”

“Maybe,” Potter bit out, “maybe if you’d listened to one word I said, you’d know I didn’t do anything to make you drag me in here!” The boy fired off a terse Reparo at his office chair; the legs rebuilt themselves and the chair twitched itself upright.

Snape turned his wand on the boy. “Justice will see itself done, Potter,” he seethed poisonously. “You just poured half-brewed Color Changer Syrups from a score of different batches all over that charming new hairdo of yours. Merlin only knows what the unholy concoction will do to you. I have read an article or two about the effects of potions on transfiguration, however, and I thoroughly expect the results to be spectacular.”

Harry glowered at him, slinging his satchel over one shoulder. “Well, you’ll be disappointed, because I didn’t transfigure anything.”

“Haven’t we had enough lies for one day?” Snape snarled.

“I didn’t!” Harry shouted furiously. “Believe me, I’d have transfigured it back hours ago if I could! I tried, Hermione tried, it won’t work! It was probably some ruddy potion or other, I don’t know what it was!”

“You expect me to believe that hair is accidental?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” Harry seethed. Snape suddenly stormed over, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and forced the idiot boy to meet his piercing stare. Ferociously he sifted through Potter’s memories and emotions, much too enraged to care that this was far from an acceptable use of Legilimency. He had had enough of the brat’s lies and impertinence for one day—he would find the transfiguration spell that had been used on Potter’s hair and reverse it if it killed both of them—

An image of the Gryffindor common room suddenly presented itself—Potter speaking with the Weasley twins—a strange-looking candy—Granger shouting in protest—

Damn. The boy was telling the truth.

When this class let out, Severus Snape was going to murder Fred and George Weasley. Disgusted, helplessly enraged that he had been wrong this entire time, he finally heeded Potter’s shouts of protest and released the boy’s hair.

But his hand did not come free. Instead, as he tried to pull it back to its proper place crossed over his chest, Potter’s head came with it. The boy yelped and staggered into him. Apparently this particular misbrewed variation of Color Changer Syrup was of the same approximate consistency as superglue. His hand was hopelessly adhered to the object of his infuriation.

Could his life possibly get any worse?

“Hold still, Potter,” he barked irritably, trying to work his hand loose. There was a sudden sharp pain in the fingers of his free hand. He had managed to cut them on a few shards of vial glass, hanging in Potter’s hair by means of the label attached to them. The boy yelped again as he tore the label summarily out of the morass of red hair and flipped it over to see which of his sixth years had been responsible for this atrocity of a potion.

Weasley, Fred.

Somewhere, in some back corner of his brain, something exploded.

“Will—you—aah!—cut it—out!”

The enraged professor only yanked harder, dragging Potter in a crazed circle around the office, swearing half-intelligible curses and imprecations on the heads of the Weasley twins and on James Potter’s grave. Harry had never heard such a virtuosic display of invective before in his life (not even from Uncle Vernon when Mark Evans accidentally ran a bike into his new company car) but the Color Changer Syrup remained unimpressed; it only seemed to grow more stubborn the more Snape tried to pry his hand free. Half-mad with the need to get his hands off the conniving spawn of James Potter, Snape smashed his free hand flat across the boy’s face and hauled his other backwards with all his might.

Harry yelled in pain and anger. He swung his wand up instinctively and jabbed it into Snape’s hands, the only defense he could think of, realizing a moment too late that he could actually feel his resentment, hatred of his professor and frustration with his predicament boiling through the slender shaft of wood.

There was a flash of light and a minor explosion hurled both of them apart with shouts of surprise on either side. Bugger, Harry thought for the second time. That probably wasn’t so smart.