Ron and Hermione had abandoned him within the first week, although Ginny had held out longer before she too had called Harry a jerk and completely disassociated herself with him. She was dating Dean now, although Harry noted with some satisfaction that she didn't look happy with him. He tried to ignore that annoying pang of pain in the pit of his stomach that came about when he saw her and knew that she was no longer his. It is what he had wanted though, wasn't it? He had caused the split up after all with his attitude.

People stared as he moved past them, nose high and smirk on his face. Every now and again he took pleasure in turning rapidly and stomping his foot at a younger student, or at a girl unexpectedly, making her jump. Boyfriends threatened to beat him to a pulp, but Harry always took on the challenge and generally came out the victor, although he always ended up in detention over it.

After the second week of school McGonagall had threatened to remove him from the Quidditch team and Harry had scoffed. They could give him detention all they wanted, but they could do no real harm to him when he was in charge like this. They couldn't kick him out of school because he was the only one prophesied who could defeat the Dark Lord, and he quite enjoyed having the run of the place. The worst they could do was hand him off to Snape, which hadn't happened yet, and even then all Harry had to face was long, grueling detentions that kept him from having to do his homework. Not even Ron knew the truth, that Harry secretly did every one of his assignments, although he rarely turned them in. Sometimes he turned in half finished papers when in reality they were only his first draft, and the finished product was at the bottom of his trunk in his room. What were they going to do? Send a note home to his family? He laughed at the thought. What family?

It was a few days after McGonagall's threat that she came through on her promise and booted him from the team. It had been after he'd been caught drunk up in the astronomy tower by Professor Sinistra, who had gone up there to prepare for a late night class with the third years. Removing him from the Quidditch team was possibly the only punishment that could really hurt him, and it did, although he only allowed his behavior to escalate afterwards. Flying was the only time he felt free of burdens and anger. Flying was the only time he could let himself forget and be free.

Presently Harry was sitting on the grass under a tree near the lake as he skipped Charms class just to show Professor Flitwick who was in charge. After he'd served a ridiculously easy detention the night before and then been told off for laughing through it, he had decided that he just wouldn't go to Flitwick's class for a week, maybe more. It wouldn't hurt his grades any seeing as how he wasn't turning in any of his work anyway, although perhaps turning in O papers and getting an excellent grade on his test after not going to class for a long time would really show the squat little man. It would show him that Harry didn't need him to teach him anything at all, because he could do it all on his own.

Harry had been skipping a few classes randomly, although never Snape's because he hated to put himself through those detentions, and only once McGonagall's, because he hated the look of pity mixed with the stern look she wore while scolding him for missing her classes. He also tried not to skip out on Care of Magical creatures, because he hated to disappoint Hagrid, who had never been anything but kind to him. He wouldn't talk to Hagrid, but he wouldn't skip out on him either.

Suddenly feeling good in the warm sunshine, Harry stretched out and closed his eyes, hands behind his head, wishing he had his broom right now as he imagined himself flying during Quidditch practice with the rest of the team. Probably a good thing that he'd been kicked off anyway. The whole team were a bunch of choosers and losers and he didn't want to be around any of them. Well... except Ginny maybe. She wasn't bad like the rest of them, but he couldn't think on that right now or he might need to do something stupid just to keep control... just because he could.

The sunlight was blotted out suddenly and Harry's eyes snapped open to stare up at a tall silhouette with long black hair.

"What?" Harry spat, closing his eyes again and relaxing again, or at least in appearance. He could get away with anything with the other staff, but not with Snape. The man had been trying to push him out of Hogwarts since the day he'd first set foot off the train, and with his most recent behavior, he was positive the man had petitioned the Headmaster non-stop to have him removed permanently.

"Potter. You are due in Charms." Snape's silky voice held an air of warning that set Harry's nerves on edge, but he kept his eyes closed regardless.

"So?" Mistake number one.

Before he knew what was happening, he'd been roughly hauled to his feet, and in the process had lost his balance and nearly toppled back to the ground. Damn the man was strong. How could he just pick him up like that?

"What the hell?" Harry spat, feeling a little dazed. Mistake number two.

"What the hell sir!" Snape spat back, surprising Harry that he had used his own language towards him.

"S- sir?" Harry said uncertainly, cursing inside that old habits died hard and five years of schooling had taught him to use the respectful title.

Snape narrowed his eyes at the surprised look on Harry's face, and Harry schooled his face into a scowl again.

"You will address me as sir Mr. Potter, at all times, without question. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir," Harry said through gritted teeth. Did that mean he was allowed to curse after all? McGonagall would never have allowed it. Neither would Mrs. Weasley he remembered as the stray thought crossed the back of his mind unbidden.

"Good. Now get to Charms. Now!"

Harry stood his ground, arms crossed. "No bloody way, sir." Eyes narrowed he half expected the teacher before him to smack him upside the head for his attitude, but he was curious as to what would happen regardless.

"You have detention tonight with me Potter at seven pm."

"For cursing?" Harry queried indignantly.

"For skipping charms." Snape turned on his heel and stalked off, making the sunny day feel more gloomy than it ever should have, and leaving Harry feeling, strange, about the encounter with his Potion's Master.

That was strange, he thought, trying to work out what had happened. He didn't get in trouble for cursing, and he didn't get in trouble for being defiant. Those were things the other teachers had been jumping on him about for weeks now. The only thing he was going to be punished for was missing class though, and even that didn't seem to rankle Snape.

Picking up his bag Harry frowned as he went back into the castle. Snape's class was next and he was curious to see what else the pratt would do.

As Harry sat in the back row by himself, (on the Slytherin side), he thought about sending a gluing spell at Draco again, but decided that the last time it hadn't turned out very well. He didn't like the thought of scrubbing out years old mason jars that had held brains of various kinds of animals all night again. He was sure one jar had held human brains, and he hadn't been properly hungry for days afterwards.

Ron and Hermione resolutely refused to look in Harry's direction, as did most of the Gryffindors, even when Harry waded up a piece of parchment and hit Ron in the back of the head with it.

"Mr. Potter has earned himself a trip to the front of the room," Snape said without looking in Harry's direction. He picked up a three legged stool and set it in front of the blackboard and waited for Harry to move as other people sniggered. Nobody had ever been made to sit in the front of the class before, even after Neville once exploded a cauldron and shrank Snape down to the size of Flitwick.

When Harry hadn't moved after sixty seconds however, Snape turned and said, "Well Potter?"

Harry gave a little smirk and cocked his head sideways. "Not to the front of the bloody room sir."

"Fine," Snape said, not seeming perturbed at all, and Harry wondered if he'd taken a calming draught before walking in the door.

"Class, move your chairs to the other side of your work benches so that you can face Mr. Potter."

Surprise filtered across the faces in the room, including Harry's, before he snatched up his bag and with a scowl strode to the front of the room and plopped down onto the stool.

"Happy?" he asked with a scowl.

Severus made half a step towards Harry and he quickly added, "Sir," stopping the man in his tracks.

"Oh, I am never happy Mr. Potter," he said in a low tone so that only Harry could hear. He then tapped his wand on the blackboard behind Harry and told the class to get to work. Unfortunately for Harry, today's potion was a long and complicated one and the entire class would be spending most of the two hour class looking at the board... and him.

As Draco sent a smirk his way Harry dragged out his cauldron and thought, ‘Fantastic. Just bloody fantastic.'

* * *

The staff had conspired against him, as it turned out. They were now assigning all of Harry's detentions directly to Snape. The man couldn't have been happy about it, Harry thought, having to deal with his least favorite pupil, but Harry couldn't be so sure, because he could not seem to rile the man one way or another, unless he withheld the all important title of ‘sir'. Harry knew, because he had tested him this way and that, until he had run out of ideas.

Monday McGonagall had assigned him detention for failing to turn in any homework for two weeks straight. He scrubbed floors all night in the dungeons.

Tuesday Flitwick asked Harry why he hadn't turned in his homework that day with the others (which he had secretly in fact, slipped his homework under Ernie McMillan's as the homework was passed from table to table on it's way to Flitwick), and Harry had told him it was none of his damn business. Harry had to write an essay for Snape until ten pm about not disrespecting staff.

Wednesday Madam Pomfrey gave Harry detention with Snape (which he hadn't known she was allowed to do) for scaring some seventh year girls in the hall.

Thursday afternoon Harry was sent straight out of the Library by Madam Pince and down to Snape's office for mindlessly ripping pages out of one of his textbooks, and Harry spent detention meticulously gluing every page back into place by hand. In his defense he hadn't even realized he'd been doing it. He had been sitting doing his homework in secret and had spaced out he guessed. The next thing he knew he was being shouted senseless and was surrounded by twenty or more pages on the desk and floor.

To round off the week nicely Harry volunteered to walk himself down to detention when he shouted at Ron in Herbology for knocking into him on purpose. Professor Sprout stared at him and Harry said, "Why don't I just go to detention."

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea," Sprout had said, and Harry grabbed his bag and sauntered out of the greenhouses.

Snape was in class seeing as how it was the middle of the day, so Harry opened the classroom door and stood on the threshold, just to be sure he wasn't in the middle of a lecture.

The Professor looked up from the stack of papers before him on the desk and sighed, though none of the first years in the room had noticed that he had done so or that Harry was even there.

"What is it this time?" Severus asked tiredly after he had motioned for Harry to come forward into the classroom and he had come to stand beside the desk, bag over his shoulder.

"Detention sir."

Snape only crossed his arms and waited for a further response. Harry was content to wait him out, except for the fact that the first year students in the room were now looking up to see why there was an older student in the room.

With a roll of his eyes, Harry said, "For shouting at Ron."

Snape pointed at a chair next to a timid looking first year girl in the front row, and said, "You will sit there for the rest of my class and you will take a copious amount of notes. If I find there is anything missing, you will be spending dinner scrubbing toilets."

Harry mumbled something with sir at the end and moved to the seat. The girl kept shooting glances at him, perhaps to see if he'd start barking or stomp his foot at her as he often did older girls, but he brushed his irritation at her glances away. He never bothered the first years. That just wouldn't be fair.

Snape began to lecture up at the front of the room, and Harry began taking notes, though he soon grew bored because he already knew the material, and began adding in other bits of information just to give himself something to do. They were talking about tertiary root systems today, and whenever Snape mentioned a potion one of the roots was in, Harry listed as many of the ingredients to that potion as he could remember, and sometimes added in how long the potions took to brew.

At a little intake of breath next to him, he looked down to see the girl looking at the five pages of notes he had taken in awe, and then back at her own one page. Not wanting her to get into trouble, he tapped her page with his quill to get her attention when she had looked back to his notes again, and realizing that she hadn't been paying attention, she went back to her own notes again. Snape had noticed with some interest that Harry had done this and thus kept the girl out of trouble, although Harry didn't know this, and went back to his notes.

At the end of the class, Harry waited until the first years had hurried out and stood to hand his notes to Snape. The man had wanted copious, so that's what he'd given him. Nine pages of notes. Even Hermione would have been proud, if she'd still been talking to him.

Harry was on his way out the door when he heard the Professor behind him. "Why is it Potter that you insist on getting yourself into trouble, but you become uncharacteristically nice in order to keep someone else out of it?"

He turned and just stared at his Professor. Was being nice uncharacteristic of him? "Well, you know me Professor," he spat, "I'm just that awful boy that's never nice to anyone." And then he left, suddenly angry. True, he hadn't been very nice to anyone, but it was the principle of the thing. No matter what or who he was, he was always somebody else in someone else's mind. Last year he had been perfectly nice, but Snape and the Dursleys had insisted he was just a brat or a freak, or one of any other number of names they had for him. Now he had become who they always said he was, and... Harry paused in thought. And it didn't matter, he told himself. Just keep on and let them think what they want. What do you need any of them for anyway?