Still tired from studying with Ron and Hermione the night before, and still aching from Sunday night’s Quidditch practice, where Harry was caught off guard and knocked off his broom by a Bludger sent his way by Dane, their new and very tall Beater, Harry made his way slowly down to the dungeons, and Snape’s office after dinner Monday night. Just as with detention the week before, Harry had a sinking feeling in his stomach about spending what he was sure would be hours on end in Snape’s office, grading papers.

Finally at Snape’s office door, Harry found it open, and he entered silently. Professor Snape was already sitting behind his desk looking over what appeared to be the essays from sixth year. With a jolt, Harry realized that his was on top of the pile, and it had red ink all over it.

“Sir,” Harry said when Snape didn’t look up, even though he was sure he knew he was there.

Snape still didn’t look up or give any indication that he knew Harry had said anything.

Harry frowned and looked around himself, bag still slung over his shoulder. If anything, he thought, Snape will probably just fire me right here and I won’t have to worry about him, or studying with Hermione every night either.

“The papers you are to grade are in a pile on the shelf behind you Potter,” Snape finally said. Harry’s head snapped up from the vile full of glowing blue liquid he had been examining from a distance on a nearby shelf.

“Yes sir,” Harry said quietly, moving to take the stack, a little disappointed, and at the same time relieved, although he couldn’t figure out why.

Harry picked up the rather large stack of papers, first through fourth year, and moved to drop his bag and sit down, but Snape looked up, and said, “Potter,” to get his attention. Harry looked up at him.

“The essay you turned in,” Snape held it up to show him, and Harry’s heart sank. Hermione would have a fit if she saw all the red ink all over it, especially after all of the studying they had done the week prior.

Snape unrolled the parchment a little further. “I am finding myself surprised yet again Potter, at your work. It is exemplary. You even made mention of potions from chapters ahead of where you are in the text, as well as from other books.”

Harry sighed in relief, and wished he had caught himself before Snape had heard it and looked up at him again. “I wish to use this as a grading rubric for another class. May I?”

After a moment, Harry nodded. He didn’t care, just so long as he didn’t have to study with Hermione even more.

Snape nodded, and Harry went to take the seat again. “Potter.” Harry paused. “Do not make me regret what I am about to say.” There was a pause, and then, “You are not to let any student, not even Ms. Granger, see any of the assignments you grade. You are also not to discuss anybody’s grade with any student. Direct all comments and questions to me. But,” another pause, “as I know you do not wish to sit in an office with me for any amount of time, you may take those papers and grade them wherever you wish, if you feel you can do so and still follow the rules I have set.”

Harry looked over to him in wonder. “I, I can leave sir?” he asked.

Snape looked back down to Harry’s essay, as if to reassure himself, and then nodded. “Yes.”

Harry looked at the floor a moment, and then back up at Snape. He was already looking at another essay. Suddenly the long hours he had been dreading had now vanished, and he was free to take the papers elsewhere and do as he pleased… he didn’t even have to grade them tonight if he didn’t want to.

Harry separated out the pile into the four years, and took the first year essays and their grading parchment, and slipped them into his bag, and then replaced the other three years back on the shelf behind him.

At the door, Harry stopped a moment, and said, “I’ll bring them back when I’m done sir.”

Snape nodded, and thought to himself, or else, as Harry departed, and the Potions Master was once again left to himself. Wondering not for the first time that day what had possessed him to make the decisions he had in the last week.

Out in the corridor, Harry felt he could positively skip back up to Gryffindor tower if he wanted to, but refrained from doing so, because he knew how foolish it would look if any of the students or staff, especially a Slytherin, saw him doing it.

Knowing that Hermione waited for him in the library, Harry thought about using the papers as an excuse not to study with her if he graded them slowly enough, so he headed for his dormitory instead, knowing that the common room would be too full of students at this time of night to be able to keep his promise to Snape about not letting anybody see any of the assignments.

Harry was happy to find that only Dean and Neville were in their room, both lying on their four posters reading silently.

Neither boy looked up at Harry as he began setting papers out on his desk to grade. Midway through the third paper however, Dean rose and came to his shoulder. “Wow Harry, lots of work?”

Harry’s head snapped up. “Er… first year papers. Nothing special.”

“Oh,” Dean nodded, but didn’t move back to his bed. Instead he seemed more interested, and contented himself with looking over Harry’s shoulder.”

Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t want to tell Dean to bug off, but he couldn’t have him reading other people’s homework or Snape would probably throw books at him if he found out.

“Oh!” Harry exclaimed, as if he had just remembered something. “I forgot! I’m supposed to meet Hermione in the Library!” He quickly began gathering up the graded and ungraded papers, and stuffed them into his bag again. Dean was forced to step back as Harry did this in such a hurry. “Sorry guys, gotta go or Hermione will kill me for being even later.”

Dean frowned for a moment, but let Harry leave without protest. Having used Hermione as an excuse, Harry now had no choice but to go up to the library, and hope that Hermione and Ron wouldn’t want to watch him grade papers as well.

“There you are,” Hermione said as Harry walked in and plopped down into a chair across from her and Ron. “That was quick. You’re done already?”

Harry didn’t look at her, but shook his head. “No.” He pulled out the stack of first year papers again, and tried to grade the first one, but Ron, just like Dean, was interested in reading what the first years had put down on their essays, leaning over the table and trying to grab one of them.

“Let’s see what little Demetri Harvest wrote on the uses of Dragon’s blood…”

Harry snatched the paper out of Ron’s reach just before he could get at it. “Ron, I’m not supposed to let anybody see what the other students wrote. That’s why I came up here… there’s too many interested people in the common room and dorm.”

Ron looked a little hurt that Harry wouldn’t let his best friend see what he was doing, but didn’t protest. “Sorry mate,” he said quietly, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Harry immediately felt sorry for his friend, but didn’t know what to do about it. “Sorry,” he said quietly as well. And then set about to grading the papers as quickly as he could so that he didn’t have to worry about people trying to see what he was doing.

Half an hour later, Harry was done, and stashing the papers quickly back into his bag. Hermione handed him an obscure potions text she had managed to dig up from somewhere in the very back of the library, and directed Harry to a page somewhere in the middle.

At breakfast the next day, Ron didn’t make eye contact with Harry, and only gave low, one or two word responses to his questions.

“Listen… I’m sorry Ron. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that Snape hardly trusts me. He barely let me out of his office with the papers the other night, and he made me swear not to let anybody see them. I just… didn’t want to sit in his office all night grading. I wanted to be up in the library with you guys instead.”

Ron finally looked up at this, and said, “Ok mate. I understand.”

Throughout the day, Ron spoke a little more at a time, until by dinner, he was telling Harry and Seamus a fantastic story he’d read over the summer about an American Quidditch player who could play any position, and once took on an entire Russian Quidditch team, and almost one the game by himself.

“Don’t listen to him Harry,” Ginny told him from down the table, “He got it from one of those foreign wizard magazines just like the Quibbler… loads of made up junk in there.”

Ron glared down at his sister a moment, before turning back to his ham and potatoes, and saying, “It was still fun to read.”

Harry laughed quietly and took a drink of pumpkin juice, but heard a sort of scraping noise from behind him that made him set his goblet down and dive for his bag as it tried to make a getaway from under his bench. Someone was using magic to drag it away from him. Harry managed to grab it just before it slid away under the Ravenclaw table and a pair of third years holding hands on the bench next to it.

Harry swore and then apologized to the Ravenclaws whose meal he had interrupted. Ron and Hermione were standing now, and Hermione pointed to the Slytherin table, where Draco twirled his wand between his fingers, and gave a little wave. “I’ll have it next time,” he mouthed from across the Great hall. Harry and both of his friends glared, and Harry, suddenly not feeling in the mood for food, strode out of the Great hall, bag in tow.

“Harry, wait,” Ron said. Harry stopped by the marble steps leading to the rest of the mid and upper castle. “Are the essays in there?” Harry nodded, and Ron held out his hand, wanting the bag. Harry didn’t move, a questioning look on his face.

Ron tilted his head a little bit, and Harry decided that he was being stupid. He knew he could trust Ron. Harry held out the bag, and Ron took it, and took out his wand. “Obfirmo discidium Harry Potter,” Ron encanted, waving his wand in a complicated little zigzag that ended in a half circle. He gave the bag back to Harry.

“What did you do?” Harry asked him curiously.

“Try to get in,” Ron told him. Harry opened the bag and pulled out the essays, and then slid them back in.

“Yeah?” Harry asked, unsure of what was supposed to happen, or if the spell had even worked.

“Ok,” Ron told him, “Now give it to Hermione.”

Harry did as he was told, and Hermione accepted the bag, and then tried to get into it, but was unable. The seams of the bag tightened, and the brown leather flap on top refused to budge. Ron turned his wand into a knife, and tried to stab the bag, and it wouldn’t even tear or make a mark.

“See,” Ron told him. “Now only you can get in.”

Harry grinned and took the bag back, putting it over his shoulder. “Thanks! Where did you learn that?”

Ron looked down at the ground for a moment, and then he said, “ I looked it up last night after you went to bed… I figured you might need it.”

Harry nodded. “Thanks,” he said again, more quietly this time. Ron and Hermione waited for Harry in the Entrance hall while he walked down to the dungeons and dropped the graded papers off, and picked up the second year stack in Snape’s office. Snape didn’t say anything except to ask how long it had taken him. Harry told him an hour, taking into account the time he had spent in the dormitory, and then walking from Gryffindor tower up to the library.

Back in the Entrance hall, Harry, Ron, and Hermione began their ascent up through the castle towards the library to do more studying.

As with the night before, Harry hurried to grade the stack of papers he had, and then set about to reading whatever Hermione handed him, and taking notes when Hermione scolded him for not doing so.

Confident again that he could do as he had promised, Harry didn’t worry about anyone getting a hold of the papers the next day, until he heard a sly voice behind him at lunch.

“Think you’re smart, don’t you Potter?”

Harry turned around to see Draco sitting at the Ravenclaw table behind him, much to the dismay of many younger Ravenclaws sitting around him.

“What do you want Draco?”

Draco smirked. “I want you to stop trying to play teachers pet to my head of house Potter, because whatever you’re playing at, it’s not going to happen,” Draco paused, and then added, “I’ll make sure of it.”

Harry shook his head and then went back to his sandwich. “Don’t turn your back on me Potter!” Draco said angrily, a little louder, before he realized that there were professors eating in the Great hall as well. Harry turned around again, wishing that Ron and Hermione were not late to lunch this day.

“I’m not playing at anything Malfoy. Don’t worry about me.”

Draco sneered again. “You just wait Potter. You won’t have that job for much longer, and things will be back to the way they’re supposed to be.” With this, Draco stood quickly, and hurried out of the Great hall before any of the professors saw that he was at the wrong table. It wasn’t really against the rules to sit at a different house table, just uncommon, unless invited by a friend from that house to do so.

For the rest of the day, Harry had a paranoid feeling about walking around with the graded essays in his bag, and after Transfiguration directly after lunch, Harry went straight down to Snape’s office and dropped the papers off. He didn’t take a new stack to be graded, leaving Snape perplexed.

That night in the library, Harry opened up a book on potions ingredients most commonly found in Britain and Scotland right away, which drew Hermione to ask, “No papers to grade tonight?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m taking a break. I don’t like carrying them around with me all the time because I can’t leave them in the tower.”

“Oh,” Hermione said quietly. Harry took that response to be, so you don’t trust all Gryffindors now? But ignored it.

A few minutes later, Ron ran into the library and straight to the back where they had chosen a table for the night. “What Ron?” Hermione asked, startled.

“Harry, I think you ought to go back to the tower.”

“Why?”

“Just, go.” Trusting their friend, Harry and Hermione picked up the books that belonged to them, and hurried back to the sixth year boy’s dorm. Inside, they found Harry’s things strewn from one end of the room to the other. The drawers from the desk he shared with Ron were broken and lying on the other side of Harry’s bed, and torn papers were everywhere. Harry’s clothes were torn to pieces and some were hanging from the top of his and Neville’s four posters as if somebody had tossed them over their shoulder and they had landed there.

Hermione put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my.”

Harry scowled. “This is why I didn’t take any papers to grade tonight. I knew Draco was going to do something.”

“But he can’t get into our common room,” Ron said quickly.

Harry shook his head, “He can do anything he wants to with the right password. How long do you think a first year would hold out against a nasty sixth year Slytherin who only wanted one password?”

Ron swore loudly, and Hermione ignored him, saying, “We need to tell Professor McGonagall so we can get the password changed.”

“Brilliant,” Harry said angrily, “and what about my clothes and the rest of my homework?”

Just then Dean and Seamus walked in, and both said, “Bloody hell,” at the same time.

“What happened here?” Dean asked.

“Draco,” Harry said, picking up one of his shirts, which wasn’t fantastic to begin with considering it had come from the Dursleys, and was too big for him anyway. He threw it at the only thing still right side up, his trashcan, and plopped down on his messed up bed.

“What the heck was he looking for?” asked Seamus, motioning to Harry and Ron’s smashed desk drawers.

“Just to get me in trouble,” Harry sighed, grabbed up his book bag again, and said, “I’ll be back.”

“Where-” Hermione began to ask, but Harry just repeated that he would be back.

Down in the dungeons, Severus Snape sat back with his feet on his desk, happy that he had just finished grading the last of the papers he needed to, knowing that Potter would finish up the third and fourth year papers in the next couple of days. At first he hadn’t agreed with the Headmaster’s suggestion that he hire the Gryffindor to help him, but now, twenty sickles a week seemed a very small amount to give the boy for the free time the Potions Master had gained. The money was coming from the Hogwarts vault in any case, which happened to be the largest vault in Gringotts.

Severus almost felt that he could fall asleep in his quiet office at that moment, with no worries involving grading or classes, when Potter suddenly strode in, looking more unhappy than he had seen him in the Shadowland just after they had appeared there.

Snape watched as he walked straight over to the shelf where his stack of papers to grade were kept, took the next two years assignments, and roughly put them in his book bag. “Sir,” he said curtly, and moved for the door again.

“Wait Potter,” Snape told him, taking his feet down from his desk now, and his hands from behind his head.

Harry stopped. “Sir?” he asked, trying to put on the politest tone he could, seeing as how he was not angry with Snape, but instead his favorite Slytherin ferret.

Snape eyed him cautiously a moment, as if judging in what kind of dangerous mood Harry had worked himself into. “You didn’t take papers earlier, but now you take two stacks. May I enquire as to why?” he stated calmly.

Harry looked directly into his eyes for a moment, and his anger at Draco ebbed a little bit, but he wasn’t sure why. Instead, it was placed with a feeling of helplessness instead that he didn’t understand, and most desperately wanted to go away. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt since they were stuck in Shadowland, and before that, when he was being cornered by Uncle Vernon, who had had his fists clenched, and teeth bared.

“Not going to tell me?” Snape asked after a few moments of silence. Harry didn’t look up at him again, but shook his head.

Snape watched him for a moment more, but then waved him away. “Off with you then. You have until Friday to finish those, it’s only Wednesday now.”

Harry didn’t wait for him to say anything else, and instead exited quickly.

When he was out of the dungeon, and halfway up to Gryffindor tower, Harry stopped and leaned against a wall to think. What was wrong with him? He was filled with a kind of fire he was so angry with Draco, and then the next second he was thinking about getting the hell beat out of him by his uncle? He wasn’t scared that Snape was going to curse him or anything, not like when he was a first or second year, but some kind of fear filled him now. Harry struggled with it for a moment longer, and then tried to push it aside and away from his thoughts. The sick feeling in his stomach subsided slowly, and then was gone entirely. Harry shook his head, and then continued back to Gryffindor tower.