The door flew open sometime later and startled Harry from his uneasy sleep at the table. He looked around and found an angry Snape standing in the doorway, and a serene looking Luna reading a book in a comfortable looking chair on the other side of the room.

"I did not realize you were in here," Snape said in a tone too calm for the look on his face.

Luna smiled serenely up at him and said, "I was looking for a book when Harry dropped by for a visit Professor. I was just now finishing it." She looked at her watch and then out the window and said, "Just in time too, because I love to see the sun rise over the fields."

Snape sighed then and looked tired, which surprised Harry for some reason. "I suggest you forgo watching the sunrise this morning and get a few hours of sleep. Breakfast will be on the table whenever you wake up."

"Of course, I always do like to sleep early in the morning. That's when nargles visit my dreams." She put her book down and made her way out the door past Snape, saying, "Good morning Professor," on her way out. Harry was supremely amazed at how Snape had treated her and at her calmness of being locked in a room all night. He was also surprised at how fast Snape's demeanor changed once she was out of the room and his sight fell on Harry again.

"The Order has been informed of your whereabouts, and the Headmaster has decided that you will be staying here until further notice." Harry wasn't quite sure how the man could spit out such a long sentence, but he managed and continued on, not losing the acid tone as he went. "You are allowed a ten minute shower in the bathroom down the hall. Then I expect you groomed and back in this room immediately after." From the floor in the hallway Snape snatched up Harry's tattered bag and threw it at him roughly before disappearing from view.

Harry rose, achy from sleeping in a chair all night and made his way to the bathroom, which had a grand bathtub that he would have liked to soak in for days on end had he not been given a time limit.

The hot water felt glorious on his body, and ten minutes really was not enough time to get properly clean and still enjoy the shower, but he managed to get out just in time and dressed in his other pair of pants (which was still ripped in places) and last semi-clean t-shirt. Cold creek water with no soap could only get clothes so clean after all.

Harry had almost forgotten whose home he was in when he was finally dressed and clean, but remembered all too soon as he stepped back into the library and found a bowl of porridge and half full glass of milk on the table beside a tall stack of books and parchment.

Harry stared at the porridge, wondering if it was for him as his stomach grumbled. He'd hate to gain the wrath of the Potions Master again by eating the man's breakfast. He'd just taken a step towards the porridge, just to have a closer look, he told himself, when the man swept into the room and scowled at him.

"As punishment for running away, and then making me drag you back here, you will attend summer school for the remainder of the summer, along with doing chores." He didn't pause for Harry to ask questions and continued. "You will finish each of the books on the table by the start of the next term, and will write a one foot essay on each chapter read. At the end of every five chapters you will write a two foot essay summarizing what you've learned. You are not to leave this room unless it is to do chores, use the bathroom, or go to bed, am I understood?"

Harry looked at the porridge longingly, wondering if he would get fed while he was here, and then back at the man with a scowl set in place. "Yes," Harry said through gritted teeth.

"Your trunk will arrive later today, and I expect you to look presentable after it arrives. I will not have you wearing the clothes you've managed to ruin during your little farce in the real world." He turned on his heel and swept out of the room. When he hadn't come back in ten minutes, and Harry was sure the porridge had gone cold, he sat at the table and gulped it down, hoping that it was his to gulp in the first place.

Summer school, he scowled at the fifteen books stacked before him. He supposed it served him right for letting Sirius die... for putting his friends in danger. Although he knew he deserved a worse punishment, this was at least a start.

With distaste he looked over the first five books... all potions texts, and abandoned the idea of starting with them. The next two were defensive books, and the one after that was next year's Herbology textbook. Once he was done looking through the titles he sorted through the stack and put them in the order he wanted to read them. He was a fast reader and was decent at writing essays. He had to be when he often had five Quidditch practices a week during the term and not a lot of time for homework.

Starting with a defensive tactics book, he settled in for what was sure to be a long summer.

* * *

Severus scowled down at the sandwich and half glass of juice he carried up the stairs to the boy who was ungrateful even for the porridge he had set out for him that morning. Surely the little prince would be too good for the ham and cheese sandwich he had made as well. Severus was sure he'd go up to find the brat lazing around without having done any of the homework he'd set. He was surprised then when he opened the door to find the brat halfway through a book with seven pieces of parchment stacked neatly beside him, covered in the boy's untidy scrawl.

"Lunch Potter. When you are finished you will come downstairs to start your chores." Severus nearly threw the plate down onto the table, but restrained himself as he snatched up the boy's essays and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Little wretch, he told himself. Nobody did essays that fast, and he was sure he'd have to give them back to the brat covered in red ink so that he could do them over again. He put them on his desk in his den and vowed to look them over later. He was still seething that the Headmaster hadn't even given him a choice of where the boy was to stay, and didn't think he could handle any more aggravation just at the moment.

In five minutes Potter had come down the stairs, giving the house a close looking over as he went, and in another two he had been set to scrubbing the kitchen floors, sweeping the back porch, dusting inside all of the kitchen cupboards, and cleaning the downstairs bathroom. It was an hour and a half before he finished and Severus sent him back up to the Library to do homework again. This was going to be a long summer indeed, and his patience was already at the breaking point.

* * *

"Hello Harry, reading again?" It had been three days since Harry had arrived, and everyday it was the same thing. Wake up in the tiny, sparse gray bedroom Snape had given him, ten minute shower, bowl of porridge, homework until lunch, chores until about two, and then back to homework until dinnertime which Harry also ate in the library. His only reprieve was at night when he was allowed to lay in bed in the dark without having to do or think anything. Except that he did think and often slept badly, waking in the night with dreams of Sirius being angry at him for letting him die, and Snape pushing him down the stairs and laughing when he fell and injured himself at the bottom. ‘Serves you right you little cretin. You're deplorable.' Harry almost hated sleeping.

"Hey Luna," Harry said, feeling unwell and dejected this morning. "I don't have a choice. He's set me to summer homework."

She looked over the stack of books. Harry had already made it all the way through the two defense texts, and was halfway through a care of magical creatures book now.

"These look interesting. Do you mind if I join you?"

Harry shook his head and motioned for her to sit in the chair across from him.

"It is so nice to have something to do. I've done all of my Hogwarts homework already and the grounds seem to be free of gorgons."

"You're allowed out onto the grounds?"

"Oh yes. There are miles of fields and thickets and streams. They're not all ours of course but I'm allowed to go as far as Glengarry road, and Eloise Midgeon lives there. I've heard that Draco Malfoy lives somewhere nearby too, but Professor Snape says I'm not to go that far and that no one knows I'm staying with him unless they're in the Order."

"Oh," Harry grumbled, trying to get back to his book.

Luna settled in quietly to reading for a while and then pulled a sheet of parchment over to her and Harry's quill. He watched curiously as she wrote exactly a foot in tidy flowing script, and then wrote her name on the top and set it on top of Harry's pile of essays.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked as she replaced her quill back into the inkwell.

"Writing an essay of course."

"But why? You could be outside or doing anything but writing essays."

"I know, but it seems that I'd much rather be in here with you today so that you're not so much alone."

Harry frowned. "I'm not alone."

Smiling she said, "I know, aren't friends wonderful!"

Confused, Harry went back to his work until lunch time, when Snape came up and took in the scene of Luna reading amiably with Harry. He hadn't realized they had been friends previously, and had assumed that Luna had only gone to the Ministry of Magic at the end of the last school year because Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom had gone. He had questioned her extensively about it but had not given her punishment, feeling that the death of her father was enough and he was confused as to why she didn't seem to be mourning his loss.

"Lunch Potter. Chores afterwards. Luna, your roast chicken is downstairs on the kitchen table with a bowl of fruit and pumpkin juice."

"Thank you Professor Snape." She smiled and made her way past him, almost skipping, and Snape glared down at Harry. Harry shrank back, too tired to feel angry. Snape left and Harry hungrily ate his plain ham and cheese sandwich, wondering why he couldn't have what Luna was having too.

Downstairs Harry found Luna waiting next to a mop and bucket and was surprised to find that she wanted to do his chores with him. He wasn't the only one who was surprised, as Snape peered out from the kitchen and watched as Luna mopped with the mop and Harry mopped on his hands and knees with a wet soapy rag.

Had he somehow confounded her into wanting to do menial tasks with him? It was hard to tell. Luna had such a dreamy, confounded look on her face all the time anyway. He would question her about it later, he decided, and went back to cleaning the lunch dishes.

After lunch Luna went back to the library with Harry, where she continued to write essays and Harry watched her with curiosity off and on during his own studies. Things went on in this manner for a few more days, until Harry had read through eight of the fifteen books and had written almost sixty passable one page essays. Some had been given back to him smeared in red ink, and he had taken to giving them to Luna to read over now, because he hated doing the same work twice. As the week wore on, Harry grew more and more restless and at the same time tired and unhappy. The only thing separating this from the Dursleys was the lack of physical punishment, and the fact that Luna was there with him. Still, he'd rather be back on the streets, where he didn't think about not having a family. Strange as it was, being by himself away from everyone was better than being with everyone and being by himself.