Four years.

“Neville, have you got an extra gurdyroot?”

Four interminable years.

“Haven’t you got your own?”

Not even four years, strictly speaking.

“Well…”

“Merlin’s knickers! What’d you do to it?”

Amazing how long three and just-a-bit-more-than-a-half years could be.

“I haven’t got a clue. My wand sort of slipped and next thing you know…”

“Is that hair growing out of it?

“Bugger. I think it is.”

Three and just-a-bit-less-than-a-half years to go. Surely he could make it another three and a half years?

“Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I expect you’ve ruined that one.”

“I figured that out myself, thanks! Now have you got an extra one?”

“Already butchered both of mine. Just go ask him for one.”

“Are you off your rocker? I’d rather have tea with Volde—oh, all right! You-Know-Who!”

Perhaps OWLs would save him next year. Given the boy’s infuriating good luck, though, he wasn’t about to get his hopes up.

“You’ll get a horrid grade.”

“I’ll get a horrid grade no matter what I do, Neville.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Oh, honestly, Harry, are you a Gryffindor or not?”

“That was low, Hermione.”

“Aren’t you?”

“He insults me every chance he gets as it is! I don’t exactly feel like giving him extra opportunities, thanks!”

“You’re going to anyway if you try to turn that in without the proper ingredients.”

“Having a wee bit of trouble, Potty?”

“Malfoy, shut your great trap before I shove this down it.”

“Harry, stop it! You’re going to lose us House points.”

“I think that’s a given right about now.”

“You can’t lose points just for mistakes.”

“Tell him that.”

Maybe, just maybe, he’d die peacefully in his sleep tonight and never have to see the doppelganger of James Potter sitting in his class again.

Footsteps approaching.

“Professor?”

He looked up from his stack of sixth-year essays with a scowl. Such a glorious future would never come to pass. Fate was squarely on the side of the spawn of James Potter. Which left it to one Severus Snape to try and even the playing field himself.

“What is it this time, Mr. Potter?” he drawled.

He felt a bit of a twinge as the green eyes sparked irritably behind the glasses. Not that he was about to let anything of the sort on to the boy. Whatever those eyes might indicate, he told himself furiously, the impertinent brat was undoubtedly his father’s son.

“Professor, I, uh…that is…”

“Sometime this term, Mr. Potter?”

The green eyes were snapping now. “I need another gurdyroot, Professor.”

“Dare I ask what irresponsible calamity befell the supplies you were already given?”

“My wand just slipped, Professor—”

“I am not about to pander to your innate Gryffindor clumsiness.”

“It was just a mistake—”

“Then perhaps this little incident will teach you to avoid making them in the future.”

“I can’t finish my potion without it,” the boy said through gritted teeth.

“Mistakes are costly, aren’t they, Mr. Potter?”

No answer.

“Aren’t they?”

Potter’s brat just glared at him stonily before nodding curtly, mumbling something that might have been a yes, and stalking back to his workbench. Snape turned back cheerfully to his stack of essays, and scrawled a large “D” on the paper belonging to Weasley, Fred, with relish.

“I. Am. Going. To. Kill. That. Overgrown. Bat.”

“It was dreadfully unfair of him,” Hermione seethed in agreement, dropping her books furiously onto the Gryffindor table. “Especially about the points. Completely wiped out the ones I got in Arithmancy earlier!”

“Not to mention my five from Defense. I knew Snape was low, mind you, but knocking off fifteen points for a potion he wouldn’t even ruddy well let me brew?”

“Snape what?” roared a voice behind them. The two of them turned to see Ron approaching. His right arm was heavily bandaged, and on his wrist was a sort of bracelet—although Harry couldn’t recall ever seeing a talking bracelet before.

“Good thing you weren’t there, Ron, we’d have lost fifteen more. Honestly, I was this close to hexing him myself.” Harry stabbed his fork into his lunch with a vengeance, attempting to make up for not having taken a potshot at his professor.

“Well, wouldn’t that have been a stupid thing to do,” commented the bracelet in a nasally voice. “WEASLEY, STOP MOVING THAT ARM OR SO HELP ME I’LL—much better.”

Ron, who had slammed his fist furiously into the table top, scowled down at his arm. “Hermione, can’t you get this thing off?”

“Did Madam Pomfrey charm it on?”

“She ruddy well did, I can’t budge it, it howls bloody murder if I—”

“Then of course I won’t.”

“Now that’s very sensible of her,” the bracelet said approvingly. “Quite keen for a Gryffindor. You take heed, Weasley!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hermione demanded crossly.

Harry stuffed a forkful of he knew not what into his mouth and mashed it between all his molars as if it had been responsible for his latest torments in the dungeons. “Speaking of that thing, how’s your arm?”

Ron scowled down at it and the bracelet, which despite being a bracelet nonetheless managed to look quite smug. “Madam Pomfrey thinks I oughtn’t to use it for a few days. So she’s gone and charmed this thing on to make sure I don’t.”

“I expect she’s right,” Hermione said primly, ignoring the bracelet’s enthusiastic agreement. “That was a nasty curse you got nailed with. Frankly, I’m surprised Mad-Eye didn’t jump on Nott for using it. I can’t believe that one’s legal to use in school.”

Ron snorted. “In case you’ve not noticed, Hermione, Mad-Eye doesn’t care all that much about a curse being legal. Or have you forgotten our first lesson?”

“Well, no, but that was a spider—”

“What I can’t figure out,” Harry cut in loudly, slamming his fork down, “is what’s got Snape’s knickers all knotted up.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged a glance. “Mate,” Ron said, “his knickers are always in a knot.”

“But he’s been even worse than normal this week,” Harry persisted. “It’s only Wednesday, and he’s already taken thirty-five points. Honestly, you’d think I’d dunked him in a vat of shampoo the way he’s been hounding me.”

Ron stared off into space, eyes suddenly glowing. “Now there’s an image I’ll treasure.”

“Harry, I expect it’s just a phase,” Hermione said reassuringly. “He gets extra cranky like this every spring, you know.”

Harry paused, chewing more thoughtfully. “You’re right. He does.”

“Maybe he just hates life,” Ron suggested. “All the new leaves and flowers and cute baby birds out there must really make him want to poison something.”

“I bet he sneaks out of the castle at night and feeds kittens to the giant squid,” Harry chimed in.

“Laces trees with Draught of Instant Death.”

“Rips petals off flowers.”

“Smashes bird eggs!” Ron slammed his hand down eagerly to demonstrate.

“WEASLEY! MARK MY WORDS, BOY, IF YOU DON’T WATCH THAT ARM, I’LL SEE TO IT YOU GET DETENTION FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! YOU’LL BE STUCK WITH A HALF-CURSED ARM UNTIL YOU KEEL OVER INTO YOUR COFFIN! AND AT THE RATE YOU’RE GOING I DON’T EXPECT THAT WILL BE FAR OFF! WHY I OUGHT TO—”

“Merlin,” groaned Ron, “it’s like having Mum strapped on my wrist.”

“I’m sure it’ll blow over, Harry,” Hermione said. “It has ever other time. You know how he always gets sort of impatient towards the end of the year and doesn’t pay much attention to anybody.”

He sighed, cutting his gaze up to the sunny ceiling overhead. “Why me?”

The school day had finally spent itself, and Harry was just as happy it had. After the disastrous Potions class, he’d been in a royally foul mood the whole afternoon, especially when he’d gotten to Herbology and discovered that their task for the day was preparing gurdyroots for use in Potions classes. Then in Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid had had them all trying to walk the Blast-Ended Skrewts, which were now nearly rivaling Snape himself for the title of Hogwarts’ Most Fearsome Temper. Sitting down in a corner of the common room to scratch out his Transfiguration essay had practically been a relief. At least one couldn’t very well dwell on Snape when one was attempting to explain the twelve major contributions to the field of External Transfiguration made by Flagellus Scriminius.

Having spent a relatively peaceful hour on that assignment, he flipped to the next one scrawled in his notes.

Explain function of gurdyroot in standard Memory Draughts, 14 inches min., due Friday.

Harry threw down his quill in complete disgust, scowling at the offending parchment. He positively refused to think one more thought about Snape or Potions tonight. Anyhow it wasn’t due for another day yet.

Desperate for something—anything—that would take his mind off the unfathomable ways of his Potions professor, Harry cast his gaze around the common room. Ron was busy inking in his Astrology chart, and Hermione of course was hard at work on the gurdyroot essay. Except for a couple of other students equally buried in homework, the common room seemed to be devoid of distractions—

Then he spotted two figures hunched together near the fireplace, and felt himself perk up slightly. Scooting his chair back from the long table, Harry stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered over, attempting to pick up the hushed conversation being carried on.

“…course it’s safe, double checked the charms myself.”

“I seem to recall you double checking the charms last time.”

“You volunteered to test that time, you great lout.”

“Don’t see me volunteering this time, do you?”

“Scared, are you, Forge?”

“Not as scared as you’re ugly.”

“Oy! That’s your face you’re talking about!”

“And it’s your turn.”

“My dear brother, I do believe you’re sounding more like Percy every day.”

“What’re you lot up to?” Harry asked. Two heads of shaggy, Weasley red hair spun around, and two identical pairs of brown eyes lit up mischievously.

“Harry Potter!”

“Parry Otter! Just in the nick of time!”

“Couldn’t have arrived at a better moment,” George said cheerfully, seizing him by the wrist and more or less hauling him over.

Fred slung an exuberant arm over his shoulders and gave him a resounding pat on the back. “A giant among wizards,” he declared.

“Epitome of Gryffindor courage!” George added with a celebratory flourish of his wand.

“Unafraid to go where no wizard has gone before!” Fred agreed, waving his wand valiantly forward.

“Always willing to help a friend in need!”

Harry had a dire feeling he was going to regret abandoning his Potions essay.

“And has Karkaroff said anything further?”

“He has not.”

“Hmm.” Albus Dumbledore leaned a little further back in his chair, rubbing the rim of his glasses absently with one finger. “One is tempted to hope that no news is good news, but I fear that would be quite foolish.”

“Quite,” Snape concurred. He stood. “If that will be all—”

“Not precisely,” Dumbledore disagreed, motioning him back down in his chair. “I wanted to discuss one of your students.”

Snape scowled, and stood back up. “I am not interested in any further conversations about Harry Potter,” he snapped.

“Severus, if you please, I am.” Dumbledore’s tone was as cheerful as ever, but Snape could see an echo of steel in those twinkling eyes. Stiffly he reclaimed his seat. There was no point warring with Albus Dumbledore when he’d made up his mind.

“And what, precisely, did you wish to discuss?” he said irritably.

“Severus, I realize full well that this is…a difficult time of the year for you, and I certainly cannot blame you. But it is not Harry’s fault that it is so.”

“The boy is every inch as arrogant, as spoiled, and as disrespectful as his father,” Snape ground out. “He requires a firm hand—”

“Deducting fifteen House points for an unsuccessful potion?” Dumbledore said. “That is quite in excess of the offense, Severus. I realize that you had your differences with James and Sirius, but Harry can hardly be held responsible for their actions. There is only one living party who bears any responsibility for what happened, and I believe you know who that is, my boy.”

Snape stared at the wall in stony silence. Dumbledore watched him for a few more moments, and then continued. “I have decided that the fifteen points will be restored to Gryffindor, as well as a further fifteen to compensate for the injustice.”

Snape stiffened sharply, but Dumbledore held up his hand. “Of course I would not do so overtly and subvert your authority. Surely you know me better than that.”

“And how do you plan on doing it without everyone knowing that you have taken a direct hand in the House competition?” Snape demanded.

Dumbledore’s blue eyes twinkled. “Very easily, Severus. You will do it for me.”

Severus T. Snape stared in speechless horror at the headmaster for nearly a full minute.

“Before next Wednesday,” Dumbledore declared, “you are going to award thirty points to your fourth-year Gryffindors. Fifteen of those thirty will be awarded to Mr. Potter.”

“The boy does nothing to deserve the awarding of points,” Snape said flatly. “It will look ridiculous.”

“I have faith in your creativity,” Dumbledore said cheerfully.

“Apparently more than you have in my judgment,” he shot back, storming out of his chair.

“I have the utmost faith in your judgment, Severus. Except on the matter of Harry Potter.”

Snape snorted, shrugging his cloak into its proper position. “I’ll have you know I resent this.”

“That’s to be pitied, my boy. Lemon drop?”

“So…what is it supposed to do, exactly?” In Harry’s more than slightly nervous hand sat what appeared to be a perfectly innocent candy. Knowing Fred and George, it was doubtless anything but.

“Supposed to do? Supposed to do?” Fred clasped a hand over his heart with an expression of mortal anguish and shock. It rather reminded Harry of the time last summer that he’d come down to breakfast in his Snitch pajama pants. Aunt Petunia’d nearly had a heart attack on the spot.

“What the magnificent Lovability Lozenge does,” George corrected him, “is a very complicated little bit of illusory magic positively guaranteed to make your worst enemies adore you.”

Harry eyed him wryly. “Even my worst enemy?”

“Well…maybe not your worst enemy,” Fred agreed. “But anybody a few notches shy of the most evil homicidal dark lord in recorded magical history—absolutely.”

“But what does it do to them?”

“Basically, whenever they look at you, they’ll see the person they love the most,” George announced triumphantly.

Harry snorted. “I don’t think it’ll work on Snape,” he said. “He hates everybody.”

“Hey,” Fred pointed out, “can’t hurt to try, can it?”

“Yes, it can!” a harried female voice objected from the other side of the room. Hermione had stood half out of her seat and was brandishing her quill at the lot of them in her most professorial manner.

“Don’t you think about it for a moment, Harry. Colin Creevey was in the hospital wing for half a week when they tested one of their stupid concoctions on him.”

“It was a modified Puking Pastille,” George confided to Harry. “Might’ve worked a little better than we expected—”

“—But really, it’s not as though that’s a bad thing—”

“—You’d not believe how many OWL and NEWT students we’ve got asking about them—”

“—Positively raking in the Galleons—”

“Honestly, you two!” Hermione half-shrieked. “Peddling about half-tested products without Ministry approval! If I was a prefect—”

“Which you aren’t.” Fred gave her a smug look, and Hermione snapped her mouth shut irritably, crossing her arms.

“Someday, Fred Weasley,” she ground out.

“I’m George,” said Fred. “Really, Hermione, can’t you tell us apart yet?”

“You’re not either,” Hermione barked, flouncing back into her seat and stabbing the quill into her ink well. “You’ve only got two medium-size freckles on the left side of your nose. George has got three.”

A startled Ron looked up from his Astronomy chart, mouth hanging open. Harry nearly dropped the Lovability Lozenge. Fred and George shared an impressed glance. “Merlin,” Fred marveled, “she’s better than Mum!”

“Look, er,” Harry finally said, “I’m not especially sure this is a good idea…”

“Most intelligent thing that boy has said all day,” Ron’s bracelet suddenly chimed in happily. “There’s a lad that knows how to keep himself out of danger. Take note, Weasley!”

Ron snorted, scratching away awkwardly at his chart with his left hand (the bracelet had thrown an almighty fit when he attempted to use his natural writing hand). “You’ve obviously not met Harry.”

“Not that I don’t trust you lot or anything,” Harry added hastily, before either twin could even pretend to take offense. “But you know Snape! He’ll probably knock off about a hundred House points and curse me clear to the hospital wing to boot. Assuming he actually loves anybody.”

“Well…” the twins muttered reluctantly.

“He might have a point at that,” George allowed.

“Fine, then, fine,” Fred said cheerfully, not to be deterred. “Let’s just try it out on one of us, then. Where’s the harm in that?”

Hermione muttered something nasty under her breath and practically stabbed into the parchment with her quill tip. Ron’s bracelet, however, more than made up for her comparative restraint. “WHERE’S THE HARM IN THAT? WHERE’S THE HARM IN THAT? IS THERE EVEN A BRAIN IN YOUR THICK—”

“Silencio!” A yellow jet of light burst out of Harry’s wand, immediately silencing the bracelet, which nonetheless continued to wriggle in comic fury on Ron’s wrist. The owner of said wrist lapsed back in his chair with a sigh of relief.

“Right then,” Harry said, feeling a sudden reckless abandon. “Who shall we try it out on?”

Hermione shot him a death glare. “It’s on your own head, Harry James Potter.”

Harry, in a profound demonstration of his fourth-year maturity, stuck out his tongue at her. “You know, just for that, I think I’ll try it out on you,” he announced.

She gasped, her quill swerving on the parchment. “Don’t you even think about it!”

“Too late,” he said glibly. “How’s it work, I just eat it?” He turned to Fred and George.

“Yep, and make sure you’re looking straight at her.”

“Harry James Potter, don’t you dare—”

With a gleeful grin, he tossed the Lovability Lozenge up and caught it deftly in his mouth.

Hermione shrieked and lunged towards him out of her seat, wand at the ready, only to have Ron seize her with both hands. The bracelet could be heard screeching faintly through the fading Silencio charm.

“Come on, Hermione,” Harry said mischievously, chewing with relish, “are you a Gryffindor or not?”

Ron, who had heard the complete account of the Potions incident, fell back across the table in hysterical laughter, sending an ink well flying. Hermione wrenched her arm free of his grip, her hand clenched furiously around her wand. “I’ll get you for this, see if I don’t,” she practically growled.

“Shush!” hissed Fred and George, who had rapt eyes only for Harry. Even Ron grew quiet as Harry finally swallowed the lozenge. He narrowed his eyes at Hermione, who returned the favor with seething interest.

“Well?” Ron demanded. “What do you see, Hermione?”

“I don’t see a thing,” she told him shortly. “It’s just Harry same as always.”

There was a moment of silence before she suddenly blushed deep red, at about the same time as Fred and George keeled over in laughter. “Harry and Hermione—”

“—Sittin’ in a tree—”

“S-N-O-G—”

“Just you stop it!” she cried desperately, as Harry backed up a step with a suddenly nervous grin. “I positively do not like him!”

Ron, who was looking a tad bit stricken, snickered despite himself.

“No—I meant—oh, you ruddy well know what I meant!” She smacked Ron soundly with her wand.

Harry cleared his throat. “Er—seriously, Hermione, you don’t—”

“No!” She glared at him even more murderously than before. “I am very positively certain that I do not fancy you!”

“Oh?” crowed Fred. “Who do you fancy then?”

She blushed again. “That’s not the point! The point is, your stupid candy doesn’t work! It didn’t do anything—not anything at…all…”

She had turned to face Harry again, and as her voice trailed off, her eyes widened, and the embarrassment and anger disappeared from her expression altogether.

“Hermione, are you all—oh. Erm…” Ron’s voice too trailed away as he followed Hermione’s stare to Harry.

The grin on Harry’s face got rather stiff all of a sudden. Glancing to either side, he saw expressions of first surprise, then mischievous delight morph into being on Fred and George’s identical faces. “What?” he asked warily.

“I told you so,” Ron’s bracelet said smugly, the charm finally worn off.

Ten minutes later, Hermione had gotten over her shock and was smirking triumphantly. For Harry, who was staring in horrified bewilderment at himself in the mirror Fred had been only too delighted to conjure up for his use, the shock was far from over.

“What in Merlin’s ruddy name did you do?” he demanded, jabbing a finger at the mirror and glaring at Fred and George.

Fred took one glance at him and burst into fresh rounds of snickers. George somehow wrestled his face into an expression of appropriate sobriety. “Looks like that magic wasn’t so illusory after all,” he mused, scratching his head with the tip of his wand.

“PUT THAT WAND DOWN! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY WIZARDS HAVE BLOWN HOLES IN THEIR SKULLS DOING THAT? HOW’D YOU LIKE TO GO AROUND WITH A GAPING HOLE IN THE SIDE OF YOUR HEAD FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? YOU’RE LIABLE TO LOSE AN EAR, GEORGE WEASLEY! AND I WON’T BE HELD RESPONSIBLE, YOU THOUGHTLESS—”

“Silencio!” Harry snarled at the bracelet. Then, “Well, how d’you reverse it?”

The twins shrugged. “No idea.”

“Not even entirely sure what it did, mate.”

Hermione was all but glowing as she sat back down to her essay. Her mouth, though firmly shut, was curved in a delighted grin that shouted “Serves you right!” loud as a Howler. Ron was trying very hard not to look as though he thought Harry’s predicament was the most hilarious thing since Malfoy the Amazing Bouncing Ferret. He was not succeeding especially well.

“Will you lot stop laughing and fix it?” Harry scowled. “I can’t very well go to class looking like this, can I?”

“At least it’s stopped growing,” Ron pointed out hopefully. “Maybe it’ll go away.”

Harry pinned him to the wall with a withering scowl.

“S’pose we’d best not count on that, though,” Ron muttered.

It was nearly another ten minutes before Harry could get Fred and George sober enough to attempt any repairs. Unfortunately, the twins’ considerable talents did not extend to the realm of restorative Transfiguration. After several unsuccessful attempts, one of which unaccountably turned Harry’s eyebrows into writhing messes of miniature snakes (“Leave it!” Ron crowed, “Snape’ll love it!”), the twins slumped in defeat.

“Sorry, Harry,” Fred said, sounding as though he might really mean it. “We’re rubbish at Transfiguration.”

Harry threw himself dejectedly onto the floor. There was hardly any point in asking Ron. He’d most likely wind up worse off. And trying it himself was definitely out of the question. “I’m just going to go find Madam Pomfrey tomorrow,” he announced.

“No!” yelped Fred.

Harry sat up with a fresh scowl. “Yes.” He threw a nearby pillow at Fred, who caught it deftly.

“You can’t do that, Harry,” George added.

“She’ll cut us off at the ankles,” Fred agreed, chucking the pillow back at Harry. He nabbed it midair.

“Have you got any idea how much trouble we’ll be in?” George said earnestly. “They might even try to charge us at the Ministry, you know.”

Harry lobbed the pillow and scored a solid hit on George’s head. “Guess you should have thought of that before,” he told him, most unsympathetically.

“Oh, come on, Harry, you volunteered.” George tossed the pillow back at him. Harry ducked; it sailed over his head and struck Ron squarely in the midriff. He snatched at it with an oof.

“…and now you’re throwing things! Just you wait till I tell Madam Pomfrey! You’ll BE IN DETENTION FOR THE REST OF YOUR SCHOOL CAREERS, YOU GREAT LOT OF RECKLESS—”

The bracelet was quickly drilled by three shafts of yellow light as Ron threw up his hands with a yelp. “Will you lot stop throwing hexes at that bracelet?” he yelled in protest, hurling the pillow back at George. “You’re going to hit me sooner or later!”

“Shut your ruddy jewelry up then,” Fred ordered him genially. He tucked his wand behind his ear at a rather rakish angle.

“Seriously, Harry, please?” George said to him.

Harry sighed. “Fine. I’ll go ask McGonagall—”

“NO!!!”

“How in the name of Merlin’s lacy knickers do you expect me to get this fixed, then?” Harry snapped.

“We’ll fix it.”

“You tried that!”

“Oh. So we did.” Four foreheads furrowed thoughtfully for several seconds before, almost in unison, they all turned expectantly towards the study table in the far corner. It was another moment before Hermione looked up.

“What?”

“Come on, Hermione, fix it, will you?” Harry pleaded.

“I told you,” she said primly, dipping her quill delicately into the ink well, “it’s on your own head.”

“Hermione, really. D’you want to listen to Malfoy mocking him all day tomorrow?” Ron chimed in.

Hermione didn’t look up.

“Look,” Harry sighed. “I’m sorry. I am. Now will you please get me back to normal?”

Hermione put down the quill deliberately and regarded him. “Are you going to help me put up posters for S.P.E.W.?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll even knit you a sweater, just fix it!”

She gave him a bright, satisfied smile, set her essay aside, pulled out her wand, and began scrutinizing the disastrous effects of the Lovability Lozenge with a more studious eye.

But the best Hermione could manage did not do much to improve Harry’s predicament. Miserably he surveyed himself in the mirror an hour later. “You really can’t do any better?” he asked mournfully.

“At least it’s not quite as lurid as before,” she said.

Even the bracelet had to admit that that was true.

Ron spoke up. “It’s really not all that bad, you know,” he said. “Say you’re doing it for the Tournament. House pride and all that.”

“Yeah, Harry, you could just say you felt like trying it out,” George chimed in.

Harry stared dubiously at his reflection. “I guess I could make it to the end of the week,” he muttered. “I can always hex Malfoy if I have to…You do know Snape’s going to kill me, though.”

“What’s this got to do with Snape? It’s none of his business.”

“Like that’s ever stopped him before,” Harry said glumly.

“Just give me a few days, Harry,” Hermione reassured him. She appeared to have mostly forgiven him for trying the lozenge in the first place. “I’ll do some research in the library, maybe ask McGonagall to give me an extra lesson. We’ll get it fixed in no time.”

“I sure hope so, because the longer this takes, the more points Snape is going to knock off.”

Off-hand, Severus Snape estimated that this day was going to find itself a place amongst his ten least favorite days ever. Given that Severus Snape was a Slytherin in love with a dead Gryffindor who had married his worst enemy, and had spent most of his life in service to the two most powerful wizards of the age (one of which was a sadistic homicidal maniac who tortured the people he liked, and one of which was nearly as incomprehensible as God), that was saying something.

And daily classes hadn’t even started yet.

He went to breakfast at the first possible second, ate quickly, and succeeded in escaping to the dungeons before Potter’s brat put in an appearance. The daily routine of finalizing lesson plans did nothing to assuage his temper, however. His hand scribbled out potion instructions for his OWL class on the chalkboard, but his mind would not be distracted from the galling, nightmare-inducing fact that, by next Wednesday, he personally had to award fifteen points to the spawn of James Potter.

After spending an entire sleepless night considering it, Snape had decided that fifteen full-strength Cruciatus Curses would have been easier to tolerate.

Snape had also spent the entire night attempting to devise ways around Dumbledore’s order. For instance, Dumbledore had never said he couldn’t also take away as many points as he awarded. Unfortunately, he doubted the headmaster would appreciate his exploitation of any loopholes. In any case, such an action would only make it obvious to Potter that Snape had been compelled to award him the points. Should Potter realize that, he would be utterly insufferable.

That was to say, more utterly insufferable than he already was.

Nor would it do to hold off on awarding the points until the last possible moment. He was due to attend the Potions Society of Europe’s conference in Paris all next week, and owing to the need to prepare for it his Friday classes were cancelled. Unless he wanted to actively seek the boy out on Friday—which would be just as obvious—he had to award those points today. In class. Fifteen points to one student in one class. And fifteen more to the same house. He’d have to dish out a further fifteen to Slytherin just to keep from looking like a complete fool. Forty-five house points in a single class! His reputation was a thing of the past.

His hands tightened as the word past flashed through his mind. It was a few moments before he became aware of a throbbing pain in his left hand. He looked down and saw the jagged shards of the glass vial he’d been holding stabbing bloody gashes into his palm. Odd that he had not heard it shatter. He calmly cleaned the sharp splinters of glass out of his hand and repaired the damage, grateful for anything that distracted him from what had truly kept him awake the previous night.

It had little to do with James Potter. It had even less to do with Harry Potter. But James had always been a handy target for Snape’s frustration when living, and now that he was dead his son provided the physical target for Snape’s hatred of him. After all, the feather certainly hadn’t fallen far from the phoenix. Besides, deciding that Harry reminded him of James meant that the boy couldn’t remind him of—

He tried to cut off the thought, and failed. Lily.

The lingering pain in his hand paled against the agony that name could inflict.

She might have been alive today. One word less, and you could have saved her life. There might never have been James-and-Lily. Might never have been a Harry Potter to torment him with their memory. Might never have been a prophecy, a Dark Mark, a massacre of a family.

Just one. Damned. Word.

It seemed impossible that life and death, love and hate, joy and misery, could be decided in a single word. Yet, as of today, he’d spent eighteen years haunted by its specter. Looking back, he could scarcely believe how oblivious his younger self had been to the dreadful mistake he was making. In an instant of adolescent foolishness he had lost everything most precious in the world.

Snape sank wearily into his chair, rubbing his temples blearily. How sweet it would be to run after her, follow her through the veil. But he was not coward enough yet to succumb to his own emptiness. Or perhaps, too much a coward.

In any case, he deserved her no more in death than in life. He had wounded her, pushed her away, and betrayed her to her death. James had healed her from the wounds he inflicted. James had pursued her without ceasing for years. Severus Snape might strive to be worthy of her with every breath he drew, but James had died for her. In giving the ultimate gift, he had claimed her irrevocably. She was his, his alone.

And that was what he hated most of all about James Potter.

Snape barely even heard his fifth year Slytherins and Ravenclaws enter for their first morning class.

Harry knew perfectly well that he was being stared at for the entire duration of his march down the Great Hall to his customary spot at the Gryffindor table. It turned out to be easier than he’d expected. After all, it was hardly the first time that he’d drawn stares everywhere he went. Rather reminded him of that first trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid. Except, of course, that this time there really was something wrong with how he looked, but as long as he forgot that he could just pretend it was everyone else that had the problem.

“You’re in luck for the moment, anyway,” Ron informed him as he helped himself to some kippers. “Snape’s already gone.”

Harry risked a glance at the head table. The entire ensemble of professors, with the exception of Dumbledore, was attempting to stare at him without being obvious about it—McGonagall and Flitwick were looking especially flabbergasted. But Snape was nowhere to be seen.

“Thank Merlin for small favors,” he muttered, reaching for a glass of pumpkin juice. Somebody nudged his shoulder.

“Blimey, Harry,” Neville whispered in surprise, “what’d you do to your—”

“Just felt like it,” Harry cut him off tersely. “Thought I’d try it out. Something wrong?”

Neville blinked. “Er—no. I guess not…I mean, if you wanted to, then…” He trailed off into indiscernible mutters and hunched back over his breakfast and Herbology book.

Slightly beyond Neville, Parvati and Lavender were staring at him wide-eyed. Harry stared back at them pointedly. They hastily pretended to have been doing homework the whole time. Unfortunately, he could not glare down the entire Great Hall in one go, or even all of Gryffindor. Harry scowled at his eggs, barely hearing Ron and the bracelet arguing over whether or not Ron could eat breakfast with his right hand.

This was shaping up to be one of his least favorite days ever.

To Harry’s relief, his first professor of the day paid him no attention whatsoever. “Back are you, Weasley?” barked Mad-Eye as the three of them settled into their seats. “Good. Pair up with Finnigan and get back to those defensive charms. Potter, you’re with Thomas, and Granger’s with Nott.”

“Nail him for me, Hermione,” Ron muttered to her. Hermione didn’t look as though she needed much encouraging—her mouth was in a tight line and her wand twitched at her side, as though she could hardly wait to drill Nott with her best curse. Harry was willing to bet his vault at Gringotts it had something to do with the smirk Nott was wearing as he pointed out Ron’s bandaged arm to a fellow Slytherin.

Predictably, Ron’s bracelet did not take well to the practical defense lesson. It very nearly managed to deafen the entire room before Mad-Eye intervened with a silencing charm that kept it blissfully mute for the rest of the hour. Happily, the charm came too late to save Nott, who had been distracted by the bracelet’s screeching and whom Hermione had promptly bashed into the wall with a Bludgeoning Hex.

The three of them waltzed off to Transfiguration in very high spirits indeed, and not even the dozens of strange looks Harry got from McGonagall and the Ravenclaws could dampen his cheer. He even managed to turn his duck into a quite respectable frying pan, if one didn’t mind having a frying pan with a coat of paint that reminded one eerily of a common mallard.

His delight over his feat soon vanished, however. Potions class was next. Gloomily Harry restored his duck to its original state and prepared to leave.

“Mr. Potter, might I have a word?”

Harry looked up in some surprise to find Professor McGonagall standing over his work table. Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he saw Ron and Hermione vanish through the door into the hallway. “Um, I guess,” he said. “But I’ve got to get to Potions…”

“I’ll write you a note.” McGonagall’s expression was the strangest he’d ever seen on her. Harry rather thought she seemed…a bit sad, even.

“Is something wrong, Professor?” he asked. He’d known people would look sideways at him after Fred and George’s handiwork—but this expression he couldn’t fathom.

“I was just wondering,” she said slowly, “if there were any reason in particular you’ve decided to do that.” She gestured at him.

Harry swallowed secretively. “I, er, just felt like it,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could when faced with those keen eyes.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with…your parents?”

Harry looked up, startled. “What?”

“The Weasleys, then?”

“Professor, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She regarded him with a surprisingly kind expression. “Arthur and Molly have told me on more than one occasion that they regard you as a member of the family, Harry,” she told him. “You know that has nothing to do with appearances.”

Harry stared, finally realizing. “Honestly, Professor, I just wanted to—to try it out,” he said lamely. “It’s not got anything to do with the Weasleys.” Well, alright, maybe it did, but not the way McGonagall was thinking… “Or my mum.”

“Perhaps you ought to consider Transfiguring it back before you go to Potions,” McGonagall told him, looking just a little relieved.

Believe me, Professor, if I could, I would. “I’ll think about it,” Harry said evasively. “Is that all?”

He snatched up his bag and dashed out before McGonagall could do more than nod.

Snape’s second OWL class of the day—Hufflepuff and Gryffindor—had just scurried out of the dungeons, leaving their professor to sort through their abysmal efforts at brewing Color Changer Syrups, a building block for their upcoming work in Polyjuice Potions. He picked up one of the sealed vials and examined its contents with a grimace. The thick, sludge-like catastrophe contained therein could not have been farther from the thin, shining liquid he was supposed to be seeing. Indeed the stuff was showing signs of expanding—

With a dismal tinkle, the swelling glob of sludge burst free of its glassy prison. Snape quickly let go before it could do Merlin knew what to his hand and Vanished the mess before it hit the floor. He flipped open his grade book with a sneer and began scrawling a resounding zero next to Grisham, Lily.

For some reason, instead of 0, the quill put down 100. With a snarl, Snape scratched out the first two numerals, doing his best to ignore the entire row of scribbled-out notations that marked every single one of Grisham, Lily’s assignments. You’d think after teaching the girl for five years he’d have figured out that, unlike Lily Evans, Lily Grisham did not regularly rate 100s on her Potions work.

Snape sank into his chair, distantly flicking the vials away with his wand, watching the students funneling in for the next class with his mind years away. She’d been the best student in their year when it came to Potions. Better even than him. Almost every vial she turned in was perfectly brewed. She never made a mistake, hardly ever even showed up late.

It had always been funny when she did show up tardy. Snape could see her now—right over there, scurrying in through the door with her head down and bag tucked under one arm. She invariably had a note from McGonagall with her, excusing her lateness, but she’d always fretted that Slughorn would be in a poor mood and take House points anyway. She’d leave her bag at her work table—he smiled, seeing her hurriedly toss it down and burrow through it for her note—and then come quickly up to the professor’s desk and lay it down. He leaned back in his chair, looking into those beautiful green eyes, sparking defiantly behind her glasses…

Wait a moment.

Lily didn’t wear glasses.

Lily With Glasses was looking at him very strangely now. But Snape was too busy realizing that Lily’s jaw wasn’t supposed to have that firm angular line.

Lily With Glasses raised her eyebrows and said, in a voice that sounded nothing like Lily, “It’s a note from Professor McGonagall, sir.”

Potter. The realization drenched Snape like a bucket of ice water. It was Potter.

With Lily’s shoulder-length, deep red hair.

Snape’s hand closed over the note from McGonagall and crumpled it convulsively. His jaw worked furiously. His foot twitched. He wondered faintly if Potter could see the sheer liquid rage boiling out of his every orifice, or if the rest of the class could feel the way the classroom throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

“What sort of sick joke is this?” Snape finally hissed at him.

Potter backed up a step, and gestured nervously at the note. “It’s not a joke! Professor McGonagall—she just held me back a few minutes after class, it says so right there!”

“Do not patronize me, Potter!”

Potter really was an exceptional actor, more so than Snape had given him credit for. That expression of befuddlement almost looked genuine. “Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tried.

“Get into my office,” Snape snarled. Potter stared at him, apparently rooted to the spot. Snape cast an ominous glower and found that the rest of the classroom was staring as well, equally confounded.

“But…Professor, he didn’t do anything—” Hermione Granger began.

“Spare me your babbling, Miss Granger,” Snape snapped. The determined Gryffindor drew a preparatory breath to continue arguing Potter’s case, but Snape snapped up his finger. “Another word from any of you,” he hissed, “and I will deduct fifty points from the responsible party.”

The look of amusement immediately wiped itself off of Draco Malfoy’s face. Gryffindors and Slytherins alike stood in frozen, deathly silence. Nobody so much as twitched, let alone spoke.

“Office, Potter!” Snape jabbed his wand at the boy. Potter slowly started past him towards the office door, as though he were afraid any sudden movement would result in his being cursed.

“Get your bag!” Snape shouted at him. “I assure you, you will not be coming back.” Potter hastily backtracked and scooped up his satchel without daring to glance at his friends. Snape wrenched his office door open and shoved Potter through as he came back, then leveled his wand at the rest of the class.

“Get to work on your assignment, and do not talk!”

He slammed the door behind him.

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.

“He’s dead,” Neville moaned, as the sound of steadily raising voices became audible again. “He’s dead, Harry’s dead, Snape’s gonna kill him…”

“Hermione, we have to help him!” Ron hissed, waving his wand at the door. “Who knows what Snape’s doing to him!”

“There’s wards up, Ron, we won’t be able to get in!” Hermione hissed. Lavender Brown gave a shrill squeak of alarm as somebody yelled unintelligibly inside the office.

Ron desperately looked around the classroom for something that might be able to break through the wards. Bugger it all, if only he knew the sorts of things his curse-breaking older brother did… His eyes suddenly fell on his incoherently stammering bracelet. “Hey!” he hissed. “Bracelet! There’s a student in danger in that room! You have to get us in!”

“Get you in? Get you in? DO I LOOK LIKE A RUDDY GATE KEY TO YOU, YOU STUPID BOY? IT’S THAT SORT OF STUPIDITY THAT WILL GET YOUR THICK SKULL CRACKED SOMEDAY—”

“It was worth a try,” Hermione said consolingly. “But it’s not as though we could take on Snape—”

The entire classroom flinched as there was another yell and an explosion inside the office. One or two Slytherins began inching towards the classroom door.

Silence.

“He’s dead,” Neville said with conviction.

When the silence held for another several seconds, Ron suddenly dashed around the work table with a surge of full-blown Gryffindor recklessness and made for the office door, ignoring the screeching of his bracelet. He got to within five feet of the door when an utterly inhuman howl of fury erupted from the other side.

A Firebolt could not have made faster time back to his workbench than did Ronald Bilius Weasley, spurred on by all his worst memories of werewolves and dragons and acromantulas. And a good thing too, because he’d barely made it back around when the door flew open and Harry Potter soared back into view, landing with a painful thud on the floor at the front of the classroom. The class, which had gone hastily back to pretending to brew potions, winced in concert, but Harry seemed much more concerned with scrambling backward as fast as was humanly possible. He hurled himself away from the door with no regard at all for physical comfort, staring back the way he had come with a look of the utmost disbelief and horror.

His hair, Ron noticed suddenly, was restored to its usual length and mussy black state.

Then Snape stormed into view, and the students abandoned all pretense of doing work. Knives clattered, flasks of ingredients toppled, and gasps were stifled. Hermione ducked behind her cauldron, making a sort of choking noise.

Severus Snape, besides looking as though he had accidentally Apparated into the lake by way of a rainbow, was sporting a head of shoulder-length red hair.

Harry’s mouth was working, apparently in an effort to say something that would save his life, but no sound came. Really, Ron reflected, when a student dyed Snape’s robes every color of the rainbow, drenched them to boot, and then messed with his hair, there wasn’t anything to say. Not even the Boy-Who-Lived could hope to survive this.

Snape leveled his wand at Harry, who froze in a half-crouch. His whole arm was trembling with rage. Ron stood petrified, completely expecting the Potions Master to flatten his best mate with a Cruciatus Curse any instant—

“Thirty points to Mr. Potter for creative spellwork!” Snape screeched.

Every jaw in the classroom dropped.

Never in living memory had Severus Snape awarded thirty points to any House in any of his classes. He had certainly never awarded so many points to a single student at one go—and what was more fantastic still, he had never awarded even a single point to Harry James Potter.

“Full marks to all of you for the day! Five points to everyone! Class dismissed!”

With that further extraordinary pronouncement, the Potions Master stalked back into his office and slammed the door with almighty force. Silence reigned. The entire classroom stared at the door as though Petrified.

“Teachers throwing tantrums,” groaned Ron’s bracelet. “I’ve seen it all.”

Harry was still feeling very dazed indeed as he mechanically made his way out of the dungeons.

“Alright,” he heard Ron mutter beside him. “Either I’m Confunded, or Snape’s Confunded. Which is it?”

“Snape awarded me points,” Harry said, voice devoid of expression. “Me. Thirty points. From Snape.”

“Harry, what on earth happened in there?” Hermione demanded, hurrying up behind them. “It sounded like the two of you went to war! Did you—oh, you’ve got glass in your back!”

“Fell on a whole class’ worth of potions vials,” Harry explained dully. His back was probably supposed to hurt, but he couldn’t pay attention to something that trivial after Snape had awarded him points. Hermione briskly whipped out her wand and went to work Vanishing glass splinters.

“You ought to go see Madam Pomfrey,” she informed him. “You’re bleeding, and who knows what you’ve absorbed into your bloodstream.”

“Snape ought to go see Madam Pomfrey,” Ron muttered.

Harry, still incapable of believing his own words, told them the story as Hermione marched both of them into the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey fussed ferociously when she saw him. The bracelet cheered her on merrily as she repaired the cuts in Harry’s back, checked him for absorbed potions, and repaired his robes, which had been torn and stained every color of the rainbow by the vials of Color Changer Syrups.

“Well,” she finally declared, after feeding him several vials of medicines to counteract anything he might conceivably have got into his bloodstream, “I suppose you’re all right to go back to class this time. How’s your arm, Mr. Weasley?”

“I thought you’d NEVER ask,” the bracelet howled. “You’d not believe what this idiot boy’s been up to! Never gave it a moment’s rest! Waving that horrid stick of his around and hitting things and grabbing things and such AWFUL language, his mouth ought to be Scourgified from here to Sunday and back to Wednesday, and Merlin save me if he didn’t actually throw HEXES at fellow STUDENTS—”

“Oh, Merlin’s beard,” sighed Madam Pomfrey. She marched over, and a mile-wide grin burst across Ron’s face as she charmed off the bracelet. It promptly went silent. “My apologies, Mr. Weasley. I thought I’d thrown that one away decades ago.”

Ron stared in amazement. “Isn’t it supposed to carry on like that?”

Madam Pomfrey scowled ferociously. “Certainly not! It was tampered with. Of course, they claimed a Slytherin hit it with a Babbling Curse, and of course they claimed they didn’t provoke him.” She snorted. “As if I wouldn’t know better after five years of James Potter and Sirius Black wreaking havoc on the whole school!”

Ron’s mouth dropped, and then he fired an accusing stare at Harry. “I’m sending an owl off to Snuffles after Herbology,” he declared. Harry just grinned a bit crookedly.

“Now,” Madam Pomfrey said, unwinding the bandages from Ron’s arm and giving it a once-over, “out of my hospital wing, the lot of you! I don’t want to see your face in here again this school year, Mr. Potter!”

“You know, Harry, I reckon you haven’t got to worry about You-Know-Who anymore,” Ron said rather glibly as they walked out towards the Great Hall in search of lunch. “If you can survive blowing up Snape’s office, you can survive anything!”

Hermione gave Ron a rather arch look as they plopped down into their seats at the Gryffindor table. Fred and George were already there, and they both gave a bit of a start at the sight of Harry and his newly restored hair.

Fred whistled appreciatively. “You figured that out fast, Hermione.”

“Of course,” George added before anyone could get an explanatory word in edgewise, “I suppose you did have rather a lot of incentive.”

At this mysterious comment, Harry decided that as bizarre as the story of Snape’s office was, it could wait. “Yeah?” he asked eagerly. “What sort of incentive?”

Hermione turned on him hotly, saying something about how he ought to have learned to keep his nose in his own business by now, but the twins cut her off. “Well, you see, we’ve figured out what happened to your hair,” Fred said brightly.

“Ought to have thought of it straight off, really,” George agreed.

“We’ve still got to tweak the recipe a little, but the long and short of it is, we think the Lovability Lozenge worked after all!”

Hermione went pale, whether with outrage or dread they knew not.

“It actually tried turning you into whatever fortunate bloke it is Hermione loves most!” George announced triumphantly. “Of course, it’s a prototype, so it didn’t work entirely, but…”

“So,” Harry said thoughtfully, “that hair wasn’t just random…” Fred and George shook their heads simultaneously, faces adorned with identical grins of mischief. Harry regarded Hermione sideways, frowned for a moment, and then grinned even more wickedly than the twins as he remembered talking to McGonagall earlier…

“The Weasleys, then?”

“Professor, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Arthur and Molly have told me on more than one occasion that they regard you as a member of the family, Harry. You know that has nothing to do with appearances…”

“So tell us, Hermione,” Fred said cheerfully. “Is it me, George, or ickle Ronniekins?”

Ron spun around to Hermione. Harry could have flown a broom through his gaping mouth.

“I—no!” Hermione was blushing fiercely and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “You’ve got absolutely no right—”

“Oh,” George said knowingly. “Percy, then!”

Harry, Ron, and Fred simultaneously discovered the inadvisability of snorting pumpkin juice out one’s nose.

“You just leave off, George Weasley!” Hermione seized up her books, face red as Harry’s hair had been, and extracted herself from the table and benches. She started to storm away, but suddenly stopped and turned around, leveling her wand at Harry.

“You’re putting up S.P.E.W. posters with me tonight, remember,” she told him testily. “If I was you, I’d run back to Madam Pomfrey before then and make sure that wasn’t an accidental Switching Spell you did on your hair. It’s looking rather greasy to me.”

Harry felt his stomach lurch in horrified panic as Hermione marched triumphantly away. His hand flew up to his hair in raw dread. “Ron! It is my hair, isn’t it? Ron! Check it! Fast!”