“Potter!”

Harry closed his eyes and waited for what he knew was sure to come as the Potion Master approached him from behind.  He’d followed all the instructions for his potion to the T and he couldn’t see how he had possibly done anything wrong.  But he was sure Snape would find something to berate him for, and he was right.

“What kind of dunderhead move was that?  Are you to blow up half the castle?  Adding in the Bezoar before the Lacewig wings could have caused an explosive reaction in the potion.  I’ve half a mind to chuck you out of the class for such idiocy.”

“But sir,” Hermione was raising her hand now.  Ron tried to pull her arm down but she glared at him and wrenched it free of his grasp.  “Sir, he didn’t, I saw him…”

Snape turned on her.  “Ten points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn Granger, and you can just serve detention tonight with your head of house for calling me a liar.  I saw him add the Bezoar first.”

Hermione’s hand dropped and she looked as if she might cry over her first ever detention.

Snape ignored her and turned on Harry again.  He said loudly enough for the whole class to hear, “Let Potter’s detention tonight serve you all as a reminder that foolish carelessness will not be tolerated in this class.”  He sneered at Harry and moved back to the front of the room.

Harry let out the breath he’d been holding.  “Fred offered to stick him to his chair again,” Ron muttered quietly to Harry as he glared at Snape’s back.

Harry only shook his head.  “He’d accuse me of doing it.”

“Well we have to do something!  He’s killing our chance at the house cup!”

“And my back.”  Harry winced at the thought of more long hours scrubbing floors by hand.

“I hate you,” Hermione suddenly said, not even looking at them.

“What?  Why us?  Hate him, he’s the one who gave you detention!” Ron said indignantly.

“No, Harry’s the one who keeps getting in trouble and losing us points,” she corrected him.

“Hey, you saw how unfair he was.  It’s not like Harry’s actually doing anything wrong.  Look at how he took points away from you for being right!”

“Weasley!  Granger!”  They sat at attention as Snape barked out their names.  “If Potter keeps encouraging you to talk all through class I’ll give him another detention and take more points away.  I do not tolerate such insolence in my class!”

Ron scrunched his nose up.  “Stupid prat,” he said as quietly as he could under his breath.  Unfortunately Snape heard the mutter, although he didn’t hear exactly what Ron had said.

“Detention Potter,” Snape said.  “Because you are having a bad influence on your peers.”

Harry stood up suddenly and kicked his cauldron hard, hurting his foot, and stormed out of the room.  If he didn’t leave just then he was in danger of shouting at the evil man.  He’d already gotten his essay back that morning covered in red ink with comments like, ‘Yet another mistake,’ and, ‘did you actually read the text, or are you just trying to annoy me with your stupid mistakes?’

He only made it a little way down the hall when somebody grabbed his arm and forced him to turn and face him.  Harry’s heart sank.  It was Snape.

“I did not give you permission to storm off like a little brat Potter!” he spat at him angrily, albeit quietly so as not to draw attention from anyone nearby.

“I- I’m sorry sir,” Harry stumbled with the words, not sorry at all, but knowing he’d better say it or else he could end up in even more trouble.  In the back of his mind his parents waved their fingers at him for being such a naughty boy.

“You are a foolish, insolent, nasty little brat,” Snape continued to spew out at him.  “If it were up to me you would be expelled.  It is beyond me how you can get away with such behavior in other classes.  Let me assure you that I will be watching you like a hawk, and you will serve as many detentions as it takes to stomp it out of you.”  He still had a tight grip on his arm and all Harry could do was look at the floor and mutter apologies in vain again.

“You will have detention tonight at seven, and another one tomorrow night at seven, and for the rest of the week for your little stunt running out of class.  I will not have you being a bad influence on your peers, do I make myself clear?”

Harry nodded, eyes still glued to the floor.  “Yes sir, ‘m sorry sir.”

Snape let go of his arm and ordered him back into the classroom.

Harry walked off, not wanting to face his peers and friends again after storming out like that.

He sat through the rest of the class in silence, nervous that he might continue to get in trouble for doing nothing wrong at all.  Ron nudged him under the table to tell him whenever Snape was walking by, and he straightened up whenever he did, slumping down on his stool again when he had gone.

By lunch the message had spread to the other first years not to sit by Harry because not only Snape, but apparently other teachers had it out for him too, and anybody associated with him would lose points and get detention.

Of course Harry had yet to get in trouble in any of his other classes, but that didn’t stop the students from spreading rumors, and he and Ron found themselves sitting at desks by themselves without other students even sitting behind them or at desks next to them.  Even at meals Ron and Harry had a small portion of the table reserved just for them.  Fred and George were the only other students who didn’t seem to mind sitting by them, because they were always in trouble anyway, but they had friends of their own in their own year and wanted to sit by them.

“What’s it like having a family?” Harry asked Ron dully that night before his new detention with Snape.

Ron shrugged.  “I dunno, you seen my brothers.  What good are they?  They just sit down there with everybody else.  You had a family though… I mean, where you were before Hogwarts?  You weren’t in an orphanage or anything…”

Harry set his fork down.  He wasn’t very hungry.  Living in an orphanage would have been better than being stuck with the Dursleys… even now living in an orphanage would have been better than breaking his back working under Snape.

“Do you think all those things he said about me are true?” Harry asked.

“Who?  Snape?  Nah, he’s just got a bug under his skin… a really bad one.  I dunno what his problem with you is.  Even Fred and George said he wasn’t that harsh on other students.”

Harry tried to believe Ron but had a hard time.  Snape’s words just kept playing in his head that he was a stupid, nasty little, insolent brat.  They continued to play through his head as he dragged his feet on his way down to the dungeons at seven.  Snape wasn’t in his office or their regular classroom, and Harry finally found him at five to seven in a slightly larger classroom further down the hall.  A bucket and toothbrush were waiting for him on the floor.  His heart sank even further.  It would take him forever to clean the floor with that.

“It has become apparent that your lack of attention to detail will one day get us all killed Potter.  You will clean every crevice of this floor with this toothbrush until I am satisfied that you are willing to stop being a lazy student and put forth effort into your work.”

Harry didn’t wait to be told to get going, instead he just dropped to his knees and took up the brush, wishing that the floor would clean itself.  He had just touched the brush to the floor when he heard a whoosh, and suddenly the floor was not only clean, but sparkling.  He sat up straight, surprised.

“What have you done?” Snape spat.  He hauled Harry up by his collar.  “Think you can get away with not doing a proper detention?  We’ll see about that,” and then he was dragging him out of the room and down the hallway to another classroom, toothbrush still in Harry’s hand.  Snape threw him down onto the floor and Harry’s knees smacked the stone hard.

“Give me your wand,” Snape ordered, holding out his hand.  Harry pulled the wand out of his back pocket and handed it to the man, who snatched it away.

“Let’s see you clean the floor the proper way now.”

Again Harry touched the brush to the floor, but this time there was no miraculous cleaning done on his behalf.  He didn’t know how the other floor had gotten clean, it just had.  He had never even touched his wand.  Although now that he thought about it he dearly wished he did know a spell to clean floors.  It would help him enormously when he returned to the Dursleys.  The night before Harry was supposed to depart for Hogwarts Uncle Vernon had made him scrub every wooden and tile floor in the house as payment for his long stay there.

As he scrubbed the dungeon Harry remembered Dudley taunting him that last night until he had been sent to bed.  Harry of course had not been given such reprieve and had been told to remain scrubbing the floors well into the wee hours of the morning.  When he had finally crawled into his tiny cupboard, his hopeful, excited mind had not let him get any sleep at all.  As Harry scrubbed at one particularly nasty stain on the dungeon floor, he tried to remember the hope that had kept him awake in his cupboard.  He remembered his excitement at the prospect of going to a school away from Dudley for a year, and the wonderful thoughts of being away from the chores, his cupboard, and his uncle’s fist.  He let the wonderful hope of that night wash over him once again as he realized that he was indeed away from that horrible life.  He had been gloriously bruise free for three weeks now, and had eaten three meals a day ever since he’d gotten to the wonderful castle.  As he moved on to the next stained spot Harry let the feeling of his first full stomach in years fill him again as he thought about the feast that had been laid out before him, and then the treat of getting full meals the next day as well without having to steal from the fridge or trash can.  Yes, he was definitely being treated like a royal prince here to be fed and have such a nice warm bed in such a wonderful room.  It was as if all his dreams of a fairytale ending had come true, and now he was living life in a storybook.

Suddenly Harry was again able to imagine his make believe long lost family.  It didn’t matter that his knees and back ached, or that he had been scrubbing for an hour and a half now, because somehow this was just a step on a long path that would end with him being rescued by some relative who had been searching for him since he had been left with the Dursleys.

Harry didn’t realize it, but Snape was growing angry again as he watched him begin to grin as he scrubbed the floor.  What on earth did the boy find pleasant about this?  Was he just trying to show him up by showing him he wasn’t bothered by the work?  What a cheeky little brat!

“Get out!”

Harry’s head snapped up at the shout to see Snape looking livid and pointing at the door.

“Sir?”

“OUT!”

Harry didn’t need telling a third time.  Smile gone now he jumped up and headed for the door.  Suddenly remembering about his wand, he turned and asked, “Professor you have my-” Before he could finish though, Snape was throwing his wand at him and stomping towards him.  Harry scrambled for his wand and snatched it up off the floor, but before he could head for the door again, Snape had him by the back of his robes and was tossing him out into the hallway.

The door slammed as Harry’s head smacked the wall opposite, and Snape had disappeared.  What had happened?  Harry was confused.  Wasn’t he cleaning the floor good enough?  His head throbbed and he finally realized that it was because his professor had picked him up and thrown him into the wall, hard.  That had not happened to Harry in a long time, and Harry had not thought the thin Potion’s Master strong enough to throw him about as Uncle Vernon sometimes did.  Did this mean that teachers here were allowed to hurt students?  But then again, that was only normal wasn’t it?  Harry had always been treated like this and had come to expect that he deserved it, and that perhaps other adults treated children like this too.  It was his fault really… if he had been thrown than he must have done something to deserve it.