Severus watched the children file into the Great Hall behind Minerva like so many lost and frightened ducklings, his sharp-eyed gaze scanning the first few children in line, fully expecting *him* to be at the front, swaggering and full of arrogant pride like his father. To his surprise, it was Draco he found among the children near the head of the line, not Potter. As a matter of fact, Severus thought, sitting up slightly, he couldn't even see the boy Hagrid had described (looks just like his father, bah!). It was not until partway through the Sorting, when the crowd had thinned, that Severus spotted him, huddling next to the latest Weasley spawn to attend the school.

He was so small. Shorter than all the other children, which Severus found odd, knowing that neither his bloody father nor his mother had been short. He was also painfully thin, and while his robes were clearly brand new, Severus saw that his shoes were anything but new. They were badly worn through and taped together. He had Potter's hair (more pity him), but even from that distance, Lily's eyes pinned him to his seat, wide with an odd combination of fear, hope and awe.

Severus was surprised that when the boy's name was called and the whispering started, the boy didn't seem pleased. In fact, he almost seemed to hunch in on himself, as if disliking the notoriety. The boy sat under the hat for a surprisingly long time. Severus had supposed that he, like Draco, would have been Sorted almost instantly. With his parents, it was clear the boy'd be a Gryffindor through and through. Severus had to fight down a disgusted sneer at the thought. After a minute or so, the hat finally did shout Gryffindor, and Severus allowed the disgusted sneer to appear as the entire Hall exploded into cheers, the Gryffindors, obviously, being by far the loudest.

Severus had an entire week to observe the boy before their first class together, and he spent a good deal of time lurking, watching. And Harry Potter was proving to be ... very unlike Severus had supposed him to be. He'd been dreading these years for the last decade, sure beyond reason that Harry would be the carbon copy of his father, despite all Dumbledore's attempts to reassure him to the contrary.

He had supposed wrongly. Harry seemed ... quiet. He did not interact much with anyone other than the youngest male Weasley. James' brash arrogance was entirely missing. It made it a lot easier for Severus to think of the boy as Lily's son, rather than James'. Not that Harry was exhibiting much of Lily's personality either, come to think of it. She'd not been at all shy. Not that, by the end of the week, Severus quite believed it to be shyness anymore. The boy ate incredibly sparingly, though he managed to hide it by taking 'normal' amounts and then toying with most of it for the entire meal. There were other hints that all was not well in the Potter abode. Small things, to be sure, easily missed. Unless, of couse, you knew what to look for. Which Severus did, both from bitter personal experience and from being Slytherin's Head of House. While abuse in the Wizarding world was rare, as all children were seen as precious, it did still happen, and despite what everyone seemed to think, Slytherin was not peopled solely by purebloods. There simply weren't enough pureblood families left to fill the House every year. Child abuse was far, far more common amongst Muggles, and especially in mixed-marriage households, and abused children, no matter their blood status, tended to end up in Slytherin, having become sneaky and concerned about their own skins, or in Ravenclaw, having retreated from everyone and everything into their books of choice. It made the question of how Potter qualified for Gryffindor most curious. Insofar as Severus knew, Minerva had never had to deal with an abused child in her House.

Finally, it was Friday, and his first class with the boy. Severus swept into the room behind the children and took roll, sneering at Potter when he came to the boy's name, though he regretted the necessity. Draco would mention him being ... friendly ... with Potter to his father for certain, and he wouldn't put it past a few of the others. He gave his usual introductory lecture, and then focused on Potter, snapping a question at him.

Potter responded beautifully. Oh, it wasn't that the boy knew the answer ... there was no way he could, unless he was a Ravenclaw-esque overachiever like the Granger girl, as it was something they'd not learn until near the end of the year. But Potter looked straight at him, which allowed Severus to touch the boy's mind. Not the most legal thing to do, but it wasn't as if anyone would know. He didn't dare do more than the lightest of brushes, but that was more than enough. He caught flashes of an absolutely enormous, purple-faced enraged man, a not much smaller boy with a vindictive, cruel expression on his face, and worse ... a bony, horse-faced woman that Severus recognized as Petunia Evans, despite having not seen her for over a decade. Severus was quietly horrified at that discovery. The boy'd been put with *her*? Was Dumbledore insane? Petunia hated anything to do with magic with a rare, vitriolic passion. And things got worse from there. Flashes of a small, dark space, of hunger and fear and pain and a terrible loneliness.

Severus managed to get through the next twenty minutes or so on autopilot, sneering and swooping about the room and deducting points from Gryffindor. He very much wanted to get Potter alone to talk to him, but the boy, blast him, was keeping his head down and not giving him much of anything to work with directly. Finally, though, Longbottom, who was next to Potter and Weasley, melted his cauldron. It couldn't have been more perfect if he'd had a situation made-to-order.

"You, Potter, why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? Detention, tonight at eight." He snarled. Potter looked both furious and devastated, mouth open to say something until he jerked slightly. Probably Weasley kicking him under the table to get him to stay quiet. Severus shooed everyone out so he could clean up the mess.