Severus stood in the front of the class, glaring as usual.

“Idiot bunch of nimbiciles, what did he think he was doing?” Severus thought to himself.

As he stalked around the wreckage ravaging his classroom, he began to take stock. It looked as if twelve of the seventeen cauldrons had exploded, including his own cauldron. Why had he agreed to sub for Horace he would never know. He had a feeling when he agreed that something would go bad for the three days he would be in charge of his old department, Potions.

While he knew who the real culprit was, the explosion had started with one of his most loathed students, Harry Potter. He had seen the student who was responsible for this drop the ingredient into Potter’s cauldron, Crabbe. While he was sure that Crabbe was more than a bit touched in the head and not smart enough to know that it would cause such an explosion his partner, Draco had.

“Come to think of it. Draco probably told him to do and the idiotic bloke followed his command.” But he didn’t care about who was the mastermind behind the plan because this just gave him another reason to be able to make fun of Potter once again.

“Mr. Potter, Severus coldly stated. What do you think you were doing when you put that ingredient into your poorly made potion?”

“Sir, err Professor, I-err-don’t know what happened. It just exploded.” Harry sputtered out.

Walking in the most menacing way he could on account of so much potions everywhere. He loomed over Potter, and leaning down over the table until his hair gently brushed Potter’s face.

“Detention, Mr. Potter, double in fact, for lying along with wasting so many valuable potions ingredients and now my time.”

Turning his head sharply, but not straightening up, he whipped his hair across Harry’s face and began to address the rest of the class.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As Harry stood there not moving he began to panic inside, “Oh, bloody hell! MOVE ALREADY! I need to breath!”

He resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to breath at one point or another and opened his mouth to breath and was disgusted to find that if he opened up his mouth the hair would fall in.

“It is going to stink, I am probably going to die of poison. I wish I could tell my friends one last goodbye….”

He closed his eyes, which was good because he was starting to see black dots from not breathing and inhaled in one small breath.

“What the bloody hell?!” Harry thought. Professor Snape, the greasy git of the dungeons, had hair that smelled of lilies.

He wasn’t allowed to think anymore of that as he realized that Snape has turned and was addressing him once again. Not knowing what was said he replied, “What did you say sir?”

“Eight o’clock sharp tonight, you nitwit. Pay attention!”

Harry put his chin down, trying to stay quiet as anger was raging through his soul. It wasn’t his fault that the potions had blown up; he hadn’t even been by his cauldron. In fact, he had been by Hermione trying to figure out why hers had turned a putrid brown color instead of the green his had been.

As the class ended and the students filed out and formed their small groups as always Harry, Hermione and Ron gathered together.

That was a right crummy thing that he did. DOUBLE detention. I’m sorry mate.” Ron told him shaking his head.

Hermione tightly replied, “Well it’s not as bad as it could have been. Harry’s potion could have hurt us all!”

Harry and Ron stopped, staring at Hermione, “What’s your game?! Are you still mad that my potion was better than yours?” In response, Hermione just pushed her chin up, huffed and stalked away as Ron and Harry stood there bewildered and a bit amused.

As he closed his door on the last class and turned to sink into his chair to massage his temples for a bit he heard a slight whooshing sound that sounded suspiciously like the floo. Sighing he went into his office, why the castle hadn’t changed it from the potions classrooms and to the Defense against the Dark Arts floor he still couldn’t understand and instead it had given him another one by the those classrooms. He walked by and saw a piece of parchment sitting on the floor in front of old desk. Goinging around his desk and sinking into his extremely comfortable leather swivel chair he summoned the paper into his hands.

“Accio missive!” As the parchment floated towards him he caught it and turned it over looking to see who had sent it. Dumbledore. Reading it over he groaned and threw the parchment onto his desk in disgust. “Well there went my simple plans of finishing my potions.”

Closing his eyes he began to dissect the day’s events and pull out any important details. As he thought over the 5th hour class of Gryffindor and Slytherin he decided to pensieve that memory to try and figure out what the exact ingredients Crabbe had thrown into the cauldron to cause such an explosion. Walking over to the cabinet he shivered as he remembered how this particular piece of magic had caused such pain in the past year. The incidence of Potter looking through it and seeing his past ugly memories that he wished he could rid his mind of.

Carrying it back to his desk, he sat back down and began concentrating so that he could draw it out. Taking it out, he set an alarm to alert to him if anyone set foot in the outer classrooms.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Harry stalked his way across the courtyard stepping on as many leaves as he could pretending that they were Malfoy’s face.

“It’s not like I could ever actually get back for what he did today. Just look where I am heading right now, a damn double detention. A DDD! How bout just Triple D. Yeah, that’s what I’ll call it from now on. When they ask I’ll just tell them –“Sorry blokes, I’ve got a Triple D!”

Looking up, he noticed that there were a couple of girls that were standing outside of one the courtyard doors. They were staring at his chest curiously enough. “Huh…girls these days. You don’t ever know what’s going on in their minds.”

As he reached the corridor that led to the dungeons he sighed and pushed the doors open and started the descent into his long night.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Gasping as he was pulled out of the memory, Snape muttered to himself. “I will never get used to that. Ugh!”

Sitting back he pondered on what he had seen. He had seen many things. Yes many things, things that I did not particularly want to see he thought shuddering as he thought back Ms. Brown and Mr. Weasley snogging in the supply room.

He had also seen that before Crabbe, yes he had affirmed his suspicions that Crabbe had done it; Potter had had quite a good potion going. Although he would never admit that fact even if he was threatened with death.

Checking the time he realized that if Potter appreciated his life and his freedom then he would be showing up in approximately three minutes.
Turning around he walked back out to the classrooms and muttered a few well placed cleaning spells that he had invented as a young apprentice when his master had left his with dozens of cauldrons each night. As the cauldrons began to clean themselves, he looked around and muttering a few more general cleaning spells on the entire room decided that it was presentable, Horace was not as a fastidious cleaner as he was or perhaps it was because he did not give out half of the detentions that he used to.

Walking into the next room he groaned and his temper flared up again as he took in the mess around him. While it wouldn’t take much to clean up it still angered him to know that sixth years did not care that they could have killed or mortally injured someone. As he lifted his wand to begin the long incantation that would take care of the mess his alarms began to go off.

He checked his pocket watch and realized with chagrin that Potter had decided to go on the wise road tonight and come a whole minute early. He shut the door to the chaotic mess and dimmed the lights and incanted a spell that would lower the temperature about 10 degrees and slipped into the nearby corner of the room.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As Harry entered the classroom he shivered and felt as if the breath had been stolen from him. The room was frigid! How anyone could stand this temperature was beyond him. He looked around, suspiciously of course, searching for a sign of where the greasy git was. Taking a few steps forward he had the sudden urge that comes with any terrible situation, the need to pee.

“Damn…Why does this always happen to me. Maybe if I hurry then I could make it back in time for detention.” Turning on his heel, he started to make his way out of the classroom so he could dash down to the restroom to relieve his bloody bladder. Just as he was opening the door to sprint to the nearest restroom, he heard a noise that nearly made him release his bladder right then and there.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“Mr. Potter, now where do you think you are going? Hmm? I think it would be best if you followed me now.” Severus whispered in his most silky voice sweeping out of his corner as he saw that the boy was going try and cut out of his detention.

Walking into his office, he saw that the boy had stopped and had a peculiar expression on his face. “Well, come now. Quicken your feet! While I would not mind being out all night alas we cannot as I have the night shift.” Striding over to where he kept his tools for gathering potions ingredients he carefully packed the knives, two pairs of dragonhide gloves and several vials into a basket and grabbed another so that they could each have their own. He handed the empty basket to Potter and walked quickly out of the office then turned abruptly around. “Potter, have you flown in the dark before?” Seeing the puzzled look on the imbeciles face he sighed and muttered to himself, “Obviously not. Well tonight will have to be the first.” Turning back around they walked out of the dungeons and into the courtyard outside of the Great Hall.

Summoning two brooms he handed one to Harry and was preparing to mount the broom when Harry spoke up.

“Sir, I know that you intend to fly but I really don’t know how you expect me to see in the dark. What if I run into a tree?” Feeling extremely stupid Harry turned his head and studied the broom intensely.

“Well, well, well Potter! Don’t know everything about the lovely art of flying now do we?” Severus smirked as he took out his wand and uttered an incantation.

Harry gasped and nearly dropped his basket. Everything was glowing! It seemed as if the night had suddenly acquired a gold tint to it that gently glowed. Lifting his hand up to his face he wiggled his fingers, it seemed that it was even easier to see in this light than in the regular daytime. Harry let out a breath and mumbled, “Blimey…didn’t know that was possible!”

Severus smirked and turned back to his broom and dryly instructed him. “Follow me and do try to keep up. I expect that such a wonderful and accomplished quiddich player such as yourself should manage to be able to do that.”

Flying up into the air he turned to check if Harry was behind him. It wasn’t easy for all wizards to acclimate to lux area. But Potter seemed to have adjusted just fine and was keeping up with him. Wanting to get to the good location for picking he picked up the pace. He really did love riding the broom and missed the days of playing qudditch.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“This is bleeding amazing! I cannot believe this. I thought I would be stuck cleaning that mess that explosion caused today. This is so much better. I wonder what I am going to be doing. Wait, maybe he is taking me out into the forest and leaving me there. He wouldn’t do that, I mean he would but he couldn’t! I am a student and it’s against the rules to even be in the forest.” Realizing that he had blindly followed his most hated professor into the dead of night he cursed and looked around at his surroundings trying to figure out where they could be headed. After a while, he gave up trying to figure it out and looked up to see if he was keeping up with the git.

Surprised he realized that Snape was a bit more than a little ahead of him. “He must be wanting to get there fast. Probably wants to murder me and have time to clear up the mess.” Leaning forward he pressed on a bit and began to catch up with the mental git.

After he caught up with him, he gave up his worried thoughts of what was ahead and decided to just enjoy the scenery.

Severus was keeping a sharp eye out for the prime spot that Hagrid had told him of. Hogwarts really was lucky to have Hagrid as their gameskeeper even though he was a poor professor that almost weekly killed or harmed a student. Severus would have never known about this patch if it hadn't been for Hagrid.

He noticed that Potter had lagged a back a bit but had caught up again and was keeping time with him. Flying for a few more minutes he pulled back and keenly looked around while dropping down to fly lower down. Reaching the clearing that glowed bright in the night he dropped down and got off his broom. Looking over he was pleased to see that Potter was already standing looking expectantly at him but with the same strange expression.

“Is there something troubling you Potter? You eat a bit too many biscuits?” Severus snidely remarked seeing that the boy still had the peculiar look on his face.

”Sir, I really need to splash my boots.” Harry responded trying to not double over and jump about like a five year-old.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Severus frowned, “Well go on then. Just don’t stray to far into the forest. And hurry! We do not have time to spare.” Turning, he knelt down and pulled on his gloves and threw the other pair along with two knives into the basket Potter had put on the ground next to the broom. He got back onto his knees and began to harvest the very expensive and hard to find sopophorous beans that grew in small patches in the forest.

Done with that patch he stood up and began walking gingerly towards the middle of the clearing. Spying a larger patch he carefully stepped towards it and stooped down and began to pick.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As soon as Snape had finished his sarcastic remarks Harry had sped off into the forest to relieve himself. He stopped after going about 10 feet into the forest and turned to make sure Snape wasn’t looking and took care of his business.

As he was standing there, he felt a slight prickle behind his left ear. Reaching up, he slapped at it and pulled his hand back to look. Squashed on his hand was a reddish-orange bug about the size of fly.

“Of course. Just to make this night even better I get to be bitten by a strange bug in the forbidden forest. Lovely, just lovely…” Zipping up his fly he started back to the clearing.

He started walking towards Snape and abruptly paused when Snape called out at him. “Watch where you’re stepping! Stop where you are!”

Sighing Severus stood and watching his step walked toward where Harry had stopped. “I brought you here tonight so that you can help gather sopophorous beans that I need for a particular potion. These beans are very expensive and rare so I was lucky that Hagrid told me of this patch.” Gesturing with his hand at the clearing he continued, “Take care where you walk as the patches are difficult to spot.” Showing Harry what they looked like he walked back over to where he had been and continued gathering. Pausing he turned again and called out one more precaution, “Do not try to gather without the gloves. You will regret it if you do. The juices the beans secrete do not bode well for human contact.” He continued over to his basket and once again began to work.

Looking over his shoulder he was pleased to see that Potter was working as he had instructed.

Harry, carefully this time, stepped almost comically over to where he had spotted a patch. The golden light that Snape had spelled made them easier to spot as they glowed brightly.

Bending over he touched them with one gloved finger. The beans seemed to resist being touched. Getting down to his knees, he winced from an ache in his knees. Ignoring the pain, he grabbed the knife from his basket and began to cut the beans off. Grabbing one, he held it closer to his face. The bean was about a half-inch long with a spikey formation about the edges. “Magical plants are so different than muggle ones.” Thinking back to all the summers that he had labored away in his aunt’s garden he put it back down in the basket he continued to pick and thought back to all of the hot summers. He had to admit that he actually did like gardening and this night gathering was 10 times better than all those sweltering summer days. He continued picking and remembering the beautiful things his aunt’s, though rightfully his, garden had produced until he had gotten to a rhythm of picking, finding a new spot, picking and so on. It seemed as if it had only been 10 minutes when Snape called out to him that it was time to go.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Severus did not enjoy the night. It was too dark and mysterious, while he himself enjoyed being dark and mysterious that was because he could control when he was dark. The dark itself was foreboding and seemed too eager to remind him of all his past mistakes. He especially disliked being by himself in the night. In his childhood, he had always snuck over to Lily’s house during the nights of the new moon after his father had passed out and his mother had collapsed beside him. He would climb the carefully tended rose terrace onto the roof where Lily had left her window unlocked for the night because she expected him.

Realizing that he had become lost in his memories, he pushed them away and began to occlude. After he had pushed away every single thought of his Lilly he grabbed his now full basket and stood. He looked over to where the boy was working and watched for a moment, the boy seemed to be lost in his own world. He wondered for a moment if his world was a happy one or sad as his had been. "What was that?! You hate him..." He shook his head as if to banish any type of sympathy that tried to take hold.

He walked over to where the brooms lay and set his basket down. “Potter, come. It is time for us to go, it is half past twelve.” Not that Severus would mind missing his 2 o’clock morning shift he needed to get the boy back or Minerva would have an embolism.

Potter walked over to where Severus was standing and set his equally full basket next to his. He shrunk the baskets and the supplies so he could fit them in his pocket. Grabbing his broom he jumped on and rose swiftly into the gently glowing golden sky.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“The time really seemed to have passed quickly on the way back. Hmm…” Looking up ahead to where Snape was speedily flying he snickered. “Never would have set him as a speeder. He’s not too bad of a flyer for a fogy. Wonder if he was on a quidditch team? Nah I doubt it, he didn’t seem to much of an outgoing person in his memories.” Thinking back to his occlumency lessons, Harry winced. What he had seen his father and his friends doing reminded him too much of Draco and his mob. As thoughts often did, they turned to the most painful subject possible, Sirius.

While it had been over six months since Sirius died, Harry did not believe that he would ever overcome the guilt that weighed heavily on his conscious every single moment of his life. With those thoughts in his mind, Harry wished for a moment that he were still taking lessons with Snape so that he knew how to occlude these feelings away.

As they drew nearer to the castle, Harry looked over to the place where he loved most, the apple tree on the opposite side of the lake. As they passed over it he wished that he could jump off and stay the night there.

When they arrived at the courtyard where they had first started off 5 hours ago. Harry got off his broom and handed it over to Snape who looked like he wished he could have stayed in the forest as well.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“Finite Incantatum! Well Potter, go back to your dormitory and sleep. Report back tomorrow at 7:25 for the second detention.” With that, Severus turned and headed down to drop off the brooms, baskets and beans in his office. As he walked he couldn’t help but look at the brooms with sadness in his heart. “Stupid boy, if he knew that he had ridden the same broom his mother and I used to race each other on. Although it’s not as if she ever won!” He smiled but it never reached his eyes as he rubbed his finger across the L.E. carved into the end of the broom.

He put the brooms away and relocked the cabinet. Those brooms were one of the few things that he and Lily had shared and they were more precious to him than all of his processions. He turned, dimming the lights, whispered, “Good night, my love!”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As Harry walked past the Great Hall, he was almost tempted to sneak up into the kitchens to grab a couple of snacks. “Nah, I better not. I’d rather not be stuck with detention from Filch as well.” Hurrying up to the dorms, he was surprised to see that all of his roommates were still up. And they did not look happy.

“Oy! What are you all up to? It’s almost two in the bloody morning!” He exclaimed. He walked over to his bed, deposited his wand in the drawer of his nightstand and took off his muddy robes and pulled a pair of pygamas out of his trunk and prepared to go take a shower.

“Well Harry. Why don’t you tell us? We here thinks that it was your fault that 55 points were taken from Gryffindor today.” Seamus looked expectantly at him. “And we think that you should pay for what you did.”

Harry speechlessly looked around the room. Neville was staring at Harry, silently looking like he wanted to speak up but couldn’t. The others just looked at Harry with hatred in their faces and Harry cleared his throat. “Uh, What do you mean? Snape didn’t even take points from me today?! So for what should I pay for? And how?”

Dean burst out, “What’d you think Harry? He probably just took them away after class! And you bloody know what we mean by how!” He advanced on Harry and took pointed his wand towards him and cast a stinging hex.

Not expecting it, Harry practically fell to the floor as Ron and Seamus joined in and cast stinging hexes, jelly-legs, tickling hex and twitching ear hexes. The three of them continued on for about 20 seconds until Harry was gasping and asking for them to stop.

Ron spoke. “Sorry Harry. But we had to do it. We all agreed earlier this evening that you should be taught a lesson to be self-aware of your surroundings so the stupid Slytherins can’t cause things like what happened earlier.” After he finished speaking they all moved back and left the room, presumably to “wash their hands” of what they had done and give Harry time to recover from their attack.

As Harry lay there, he couldn’t believe what had just happened. People he called his friends had just “punished him for something he hadn’t even done. He felt someone gently roll him over and pour something into his mouth. It tasted disgusting but he closed his eyes and drank it anyways. He opened his eyes as Neville started to rub a balm on where Seamus had hit him with his stinging hex. “Geez Neville, those guys really do how to hit a guy! Must have had a good teacher. Oh wait, that was me, should have never taught them.” As he looked up at Neville he was astonished to see that Neville was crying. “Neville! It’s all right! I probably had that one coming to me. I should have been watching my cauldron better. I knew that with Professor Slughorn gone and Snape back today that the slimy Slytherins would try to pull some nasty business. It’s not your fault!” Harry tried to reassure him but Neville just shook his head and continued to rub the balm onto his arms.

Harry sat up, “What’d ya give me Nev? That potion sure did a wonder on me. I’m feeling pretty good.” He smiled at Neville who shakily returned it. “It’s a rejuvenation and pain potion. My Gran sent me it to me last year when I mentioned that my body was hurting after out DA sessions. Guess she was proud that I was learning how to fight because usually she tells me to ‘Become a man Neville!’” Neville said trying to imitate his quite intimidating grandmother was actually quite funny and Harry laughed. “Although, Neville added. “You will definitely feel the pain tomorrow. I always found it was best to go to sleep right away.”

Harry stood and grabbed his dropped pygamas from the ground. “Well, thanks for everything Nev. But I think that instead I am just going to dash out for a bit to try and clear my head. He walked over to trunk and put his pygamas back and grabbed the invisibility cloak instead.

Rushing out before Neville tried to convince him otherwise or the three came back from bathroom he got outside of the portrait and pulled the cloak over his head and began to wander.

As Harry made his way across the courtyard the wind began to pick up. It swept the leaves up against the iron fence and seemed to push the frail boy against it. He trudged through the deepening piles deep in thought. He tripped on an unseen object and softly cursed. “Dunderhead! Can’t do anything right can you?”

He began to snicker as he thought about how his head of house would probably murder him herself if they she knew that he was out here wandering without his wand.

Although the Dark Lord was gone, for almost seven months now, not all his followers had been picked up. In fact, there were quite a few of their children in the school that it was still considered idiotic to walk around by yourself when you were Harry Potter.

“I guess that I should probably head back. Hope my so-called friends don’t jump me again. Not to mention that it’s Snape’s shift tonight.” He wandered over to the side of the courtyard to enter the corridor. It was a bit chilly out and while he really didn’t care if Snape caught him; he just wasn’t in the mood to deal with or give him hell.

He headed toward the third door in the left corridor instead of the Great Hall’s door, the twins had told him of the latest shortcut that they had found. They claimed that it took you over the staircases and dumped you out near the corridor to the third floor.

As he stepped through into the corridor and shut the door he realized that there were no torches lit in this rarely used corridor he began to rant. “Bloody hell Harry! Sure was a grand night to have left behind ones wand but what does it really matter? It’s not like there is anyone left in my life that would miss me. If the wanker, Draco Malfoy, showed up I would be in for a mess.”

He’s still a bit pissed about his father, he thought to himself. His body began to tremor as he thought of three months ago, and the mistake he had made that had cost the life of one of his only real connections to his parents, Sirius. It had also been the night that he had defeated Voldemort, some people had even told him that it must have been karma but he knew the only reason he had been able to overthrow and kill him that night was because he had been overtaken by a feeling that he needed to protect the rest of his loved ones. No one else he loved would ever be killed by Voldemort again.

And while he had only known Sirius for almost two and a half years, he had been the one person in my life that he could truly count on. “My parents had left him to take care of me and I had managed to screw even that up.”

Harry looked up and realized that he had come to a dead end and came to the conclusion that he had ended up in the third floor corridor since he could see light streaming underneath the door.

Opening the door, he noticed that it was not the corridor. No, it was most definitely not the third floor corridor.

Gazing around in wonderment, he realized he had walked into someone’s personal study. But this was no ordinary study; no it was an extraordinary room. The ceilings cascaded 30 feet into the air, four ten-foot long enchanted windows filled the walls each of them showing a different view of seemingly different countries. Bookcases covered the rest of the wall space except for a circular space on the north wall. He couldn’t quite make out what was sitting in the centre of the circular opening but it looked suspiciously like a large pensieve.

Looking up in was just as spectacular because in the centre of the ceiling were magical lanterns that glowed brightly like the sun but not hurting his eyes. While this room was overwhelmingly intimidating it was strangely comforting as the same time as if it were a simple and plain room.

Harry walked along the south end of the room and curiously looked at some of the titles of the books. Not surprisingly, none of the titles were familiar but he recognized some of the authors’ names Merlin, Salazar Slytherin, Godric Gryffindor and strangely Nicolas Flamel. It seemed as if they were in genre order, ranging from Transfiguration to Divinity and Dark Arts to History of Merpeople. As he came to the West wall, it was all dedicated to Potions, Potions and more Potions. Unknown to most of Harry’s “friends” except Hermione and Neville, Harry was an exceptional brewer.

He approached the end of the bookcase and reached out to stroke the spine of one the books, “What the…!” Harry exclaimed as he touched the book spine and it crackled while sending a jolt through his body and made his heart race.

Throwing caution to the wind and curiosity overriding his common sense he grabbed the book of the shelf. “What is this?” Harry wondered as he held it. To his wonderment, it sent a much stronger jolt through his body and caused him to drop the book. He stooped to the ground and leaned down until his face was inches from the book. He had noticed small scrawled writing on the bottom of the book. As he struggled to read the words, his face paled noticeably and his arms began to shake. As he finished reading the statement Harry froze for a minute obviously deep in thought. Abruptly, he jumped up and ran over to the large, magnificent desk presiding in the heart of the room. He grabbed a quill and dashed back to the book.

“I wonder if this will work?” Harry wondered aloud as he gently pushed the quills end into the side of the book. He cautiously opened the tome to the first page where a name was indistinguishably printed under Property of. After it was entirely open, the tome began to emit a glow and wrapped itself around Harry.

“Aghhhhhhhh!!’ Harry screamed as the core of his being seemed to be scrutinized by a being even stronger than Albus Dumbledore. ‘Please LEAVE me ALONE! I am sorry! Please! Stop!” Harry begged to the “empty” and relentless being for the second time that night. After what seemed like hours to Harry while it was only 2 minutes, he felt the being evacuate his body and the glow distended back into the book.

He rolled to his side gasping and noticed that while it wasn’t as bright there was still a glow emulating from inside of the book. Although his instincts were screaming at him to leave the room and never return, he overrode them and grabbed the quill and once again used it to turn the page. He turned the cover and cringed as it flipped open.

Cracking one eye open he gazed down to the page and gasped. Where there was once a strange unreadable name instead read his own signature: Harry James Potter.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In a dark room in the dungeons lay a man that was struggling in his sleep. It was obvious to anyone had they been watching that he in the throngs of a terrible nightmare. It seemed like the man, while obviously strong and fit, was broken.

Gradually, the man known by many names and none of them very kind awoke as his alarm began to ring slowly. “Thank heavens, Severus thought to himself, for the night patrol.” He shuddered thinking about the nightmare that had previously had grasped onto his soul. It wasn’t a pleasant one in any means and it visited often enough.

Rolling out of bed, he grabbed his heavy robes, wand and shoes. As he headed out into the corridor of the dungeons he started his rounds as he usually did and started with his inspection of the halls of his snakes. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, Snape headed up to the main hall towards the grand staircases and after inspection went on his final walk through the entrance hall and through the west courtyard. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he walked towards the right door that led into a corridor leading back to the entrance hall. As he turned he caught a glimpse of something dark cross his peripheral vision. “Must have been a crow, I thought Filch had gotten rid of them.” Severus thought to himself trying to convince himself. He was certain it wasn’t a crow but to tell the truth he wasn’t in a mood to even discipline a child the dream had wiped out all of his energy. Heading back to the dungeons, all he could think about was his bed and the vial of dreamless sleep that seemed to be calling his name.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The next morning as Severus rolled to his side and whispered the anti-charm to shut off the alarm resounding in his mind he grumbled to himself. "To bestir oneself is easier said than done."

With the alarm silenced, he lay there and his mind took off in a million directions, as most people’s minds tend to do in the morning. Sighing he occluded his mind as his mind began to wander down the most forbidden path.

"I'm so sorry. I am so sorry, my love. Please forgive me! What I would give to tell you!" He lamented as he wiped the lone tear off of his scarred cheek. Getting up he groaned as the wounds from his previous Death Eater lifestyle seemed to break open and cause him fresh hurt.

As he donned his many layers and his heavy teacher robes that let him pretend he was impervious to everything, he straightened suddenly as he remembered the previous night and the strange slip of light that had piqued his attention last night. He exhaled a long sigh, "I suppose I should have investigated that. Oh well, I suppose if anyone has met ones end from their midnight expedition it's my fault."

Severus grimaced as he straightened his robes. "I expect if anything happened I will hear about it at the damned staff meeting later."

He swept out of his quarters and headed straight down to his dungeons to prepare another batch of dreamless sleep. He was running out...again.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When Harry cracked open one of his eyes the next morning he realized that he must have slept through all of his roommates getting up and heading off for breakfast, which was fine with him. He sat up and looked around the room trying to find his shoes.

Shuffling them on, he walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror after he washed his face he noticed that as he touched his cheek it hurt a bit. No, forget that, it hurt like hell. Turning he warded the door against any errant roommates that might walk in uninvited.

Taking his shirt off, he took in his thin chest that looked fine to him for being so scrawny and took of his pygamas pants off standing there in just his johns. Turning back to the mirror, he whispered, "Finite incantatum" and watched wincing every so often as he slowly dropped his layers of glamours, some accidental and most purposely put on.

As he forced himself to look back into the mirror he gasped as he noticed the large bruise that was forming on his cheek and reached up with his finger to trace his old scar that ran up from underneath his right ear to his eyebrow. He was also developing a nice black eye he saw. He took in his chest sighing as he was no longer scrawny he was underfed and skinny, he just could barely eat at Hogwarts from years of going two days without food at the Dursley’s.

Noticing that his chest hurt than usual he reached up gingerly and moaned as he saw three of ribs were once again much more pronounced than all of the others. He had hoped that they had finally healed after almost six months of being away from the Dursleys but alas as usual nothing was working in his favor. For the next ten minutes he took in the rest of the scars, burn scars and the rest of the hurts he had accumulated throughout his short life. That bloody spells they had cast last night plus the strange experience had caused a vast array of damage on his body.

As he recast his glamours and felt them reset themselves on his body he felt a faint emotion that he supposed was hope. "Perhaps that damned book has an advanced potion in it to help fix some of these stupid scars and such. It's such a tire to have to maintain them."

As it was Friday he had a study period right off, he headed down to the library he made a quick stop to the alcove where the book lay in the corner of the abandoned classroom where he had deposited it the night before on his way back. Walking gingerly around the stacks of broken desks and clutter he made it to the corner where he had hid the book. As he stuffed it in his satchel and walked out of the room he noticed that at the end of the hall of was the bane of his existence, Draco Malfoy.

"Damn. Well, if I actually want to get something done I better try to get past the git and his goons." So, stiffening his back and pushing chin out he strode towards the three. "Well, good morning my dear fellow rivals. It seems the fates have brought us together once more. I hope that you had a wonderful nights sleep!"

Watching Malfoy's usually sneering face go from a blank stare to confusion was enough entertainment for his entire week. As Malfoy sputtered and tried to come out with a decent snide remark, he walked by and continued on towards the library.

When he got to the library he walked to the back wall that contained the History of Goblins. "No one ever comes over here; I don’t even think we have a Goblin class anymore. I think Hermione mentioned something about the Goblins having a fit over the misrepresentation of them being greedy?” Setting his satchel down on the table, he took out the book and made sure the coast was clear before he set up a concealment charm on himself and all his books. As he set the book down in front of him he felt a thrill of excitement go through his body.

"There is nothing like opening a book and having no idea what you were going to find in it!" He gently turned over the cover and read the first page, Written by: Alexandra Syanda. ”Well I don’t recognize that name, the name looks a bit familiar. Kind of like the one that was scrawled across this book in fact. Maybe this is her potions diary?”

He turned the next couple of pages and saw that they were filled with dates. Not knowing what they were, he continued on. The very first potion that he came across was labeled: DANGEROUS! Smiling, Harry got out a piece of parchment. He read through the potion and decided that while it was at potion masters level he could perhaps succeed if he tried it a couple of times.

He continued in the same fashion, reading through the pages and writing down the potions that sounded the most interesting to him. For the next hour and half he wrote until he had filled up a foot of parchment.

Looking up at the magical clock, Harry realized with a start that he was going to be late for Potions if he didn’t run the entire way there. Whispering a hasty "Finite Incantatum!" He took the book and carefully put it into his backpack, grabbed the parchment off the table and dashed out of the library.

It was time for Potions and since Professor Slughorn was still out and Snape was still the sub Harry continued sprinting down the corridors to get to class on time. Because everyone knew that even if you hated the greasy git you never skipped or arrived late one of his classes even if he was just the sub. And poor Harry Potter always tried his best to be on time. So as he flew down the hall, his robes doing a poor imitation of Snape's, he made it into his seat before the Professor even came in and began barking out instructions. He sat next to Neville panting and feeling drained from the run, the injuries were really rearing their ugly head today. He groaned as he realized as he looked at the front and saw the list that Snape wasn’t going to lecture today but have them make another potion.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"Pair up! The list is up at the front." As Severus made his way to the front of the classroom he noticed that his least favorite student, Potter was taking his sweet time walking up to the front to check the list. " Do not dawdle Potter. Five points from Gryffindor." As the Gryffindor students groaned and turned to glare at Potter he felt a twinge of surprise at the venom in their glares.

He watched as Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas turned and gave Potter a especially deathly glare. He was surprised to see that Potter didn’t do something rash as he usually did but instead avoided eye contact and seemed resigned. "Oh well, it’s not as if Potter didn’t deserve those glares." Although he had a feeling there was something sinister behind the glares.

He turned away and focused on grading the remaining first year's potion papers that he had assigned two days before. How he loathed reading these uneducated, idiots papers that were filled with spelling and grammar mistakes. "Really couldn’t their parents at least teach them how to spell?"

He looked up once more and saw that all of the sixth years had done one thing right at least; they had gotten into their pairs. He sighed to himself as he held back a yawn and muttered to himself. “This is going to be one bloody long day. I know that those bleeding night patrols are going to be the death of me!” He stood and placed his quill down, preparing to go to his office to check on his dreamless sleep was progressing. Turning he made one more announcement, “If you care for your life, keep your hands to yourself and stay away from one another’s cauldron.” Shooting a glare towards where Draco and Dean were at a table he made sure to make eye contact with Draco. He was pleased to see that Draco still had enough respect to at least blush and look away.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“Of course the git had to pair me up with a Slytherin. At least he wasn’t the one that tried to kill me last time.” He had to admit that he was kind of happy that he was paired with Blaise instead of another Slytherin student. Blaise was probably one of the least malicious Slytherin boys in the room. Blaise sometimes even talked to him and thet had had some civil conversations over the years. Nothing personal, just quidditch, brooms and their owls.

He shuffled over to where the cauldrons were held, looked for one that was the least worn on the bottom and grabbed it. This particular potion was going to be very finicky about temperature so they were going to need a good thick one. He would have rather used his but he had forgotten to shrink it and bring it back down to the dungeons after he had brewed an energy-replenishing potion on Sunday night.

He walked back over to the table where Blaise was waiting with most of the ingredients that they were going to need and gave him tiny smirk to him. “Looks like you’re stuck with me today, Blaise.”

Blaise chuckled quietly, “Sure does. Although I’m fairly sure your potion won’t “explode” today with me around.”

He set the cauldron down and looked over the ingredients more closely. Some of them weren’t going to help them much because they were getting a bit moldy on the edges from not being preserved correctly. He sighed and reached towards his satchel, where he had a shrunken potion kit that held some fresher ingredients.

“Oy Harry." Blaise elbowed him in the side and pointed with his chin. "What’s their game?” Harry looked over to his right where Ron and Dean were standing at their separate tables shooting him dirty looks every so often.

Harry lied, “Not much. Ron’s and Dean are pissed because I am dating Ginny.” He shrugged his shoulders, “You know, you might be wrong about my potion not exploding today. Those two have been right gits this past week.” Harry inwardly shuddered as he remembered the night before.

“Well let’s get started before I get more points taken.” He handed Blaise the ingredients from his kit and told him a better way to chop and mince them up so they would make the potion more potent.

As Harry stirred, chopped, minced and juiced he let his mind wander. He was still so confused about the night before. As he finished juicing the last ingredient and began stirring it slowly 10 times counterclockwise he was on number 9 when a loud explosion startled him. He continued to make the last round then set the stir stick down and looked over to where there was a small billowing cloud by the table Ron and Neville had been standing. He frowned, "poor Nev, he always got so nervous during this class. It doesn’t help that his potions are always blowing up." He winced as he watched Snape, who was wearing a furious expression, stride over to their table and begin berating the two. While he was inwardly happy that Ron was getting what was coming to him he also wished that he could save Nev from Snape.

He turned away from the scene and they began to clean up their area. They were the first group to be done, as he placed the clean knives and juicers back into the cabinets he looked over at Hermione. He chuckled as he took in her frustrated face as she tried to instruct Seamus how to correctly juice the wormwood. She gave up and instead grabbed it from him and did it herself all the while muttering to herself. While he couldn’t hear her he could imagine that she was muttering about “useless, idiotic boys that never pay attention.”

He stepped back over to their table and sat down quietly and waited for Snape to announce that he was coming around to test the potions.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As Severus dropped the strangleweed seeds, the last ingredient needed, and finished stirring the potion he turned down the heat and put a stasis spell on it and turned to walk back into the classroom. As he stepped into the room and turned to make a round to check on the students progress he hadn’t even made it to the first desk when he felt the floor rumble under his feet as the cauldron Mr. Weasley and (of course) Mr. Longbottom blew up. He whipped out his wand spoke out a freezing charm on the flying potion droplets. As they froze in midair and dropped he spun on his heel and strode over to their table.

“Mr. Weasley and Mr. Longbottom, would you care to explain what kind of misguided and carelessness actions you were doing?” Severus asked them in his most deadly quiet voice. He watched with satisfaction as Longbottom’s face lost all colour and his hands trembled as he dropped the melted stir stick onto the table.

“Nu-No-Nothing….Sir! It-It just BLEW UP!” Neville managed to stutter out.

“That much is very evident to me, Mr. Longbottom.” Severus answered.

“Sir, I don’t know what happened. All we did was add the minced beans.” Ron answered, trying to act confident while really shaking in his robes.

Severus turned to glare at him, “Perhaps the reason behind the explosion was that you were supposed to juice not MINCE! You blundering idiot!” Severus yelled as he backhanded the back of their heads. “Read the damned book! Now clean this up!”

He turned, shaking his head. How they were still alive was beyond his reasoning. He felt his stomach rumble and his head start to ache from lack of nutrients and sleep. His last shred of patience, if he had ever had any, had disappeared with that last occurrence; he stalked to the head of the classroom and turned to address the classroom. “You will all be receiving failing grades and a triple detention if I do not find three groups with perfect potions. Mr. Longbottom and Mr. Weasley already count as one failure” With this announcement, he began to make his rounds starting with the most likely pair, Draco and Dean. He spoke after examining it, “One.” Moving on to the middle of the room the next two groups he announced them as failures, he moved to Ms. Granger and Mr. Finnegan’s, “Two.”

Looking up he realized that Ms. Parvati and Ms. Padma were one of the pairs left; the other was Potter and Mr. Zambini. He smirked, out of the five years he new that none of the students in those groups were good enough to make a perfect potion. He walked quickly over to the girls’ table and pronounced it a failure. The students in the room started to fidget and titter as they watched Severus walk slowly to Potter and Blaise’s table. Severus stepped up to their table, and reached for the stick. Smirking he dipped the stick in, he looked down as he stirred it. It was a perfect consistency and as he bent down, it smelled correct as well, this might be the best-made potion out of the room. There was one way to test if it was, he turned calling out. “Mr. Longbottom, come here!”

He summoned a ladle from cabinet and dipped it down into the cauldron. He dipped some out and cast a cooling spell onto it. He handed it to Neville, “Drink it.”

Neville looked at Harry and reached towards the ladle. “But, sir, what is it going to do to me?”

“Did you not read the text Longbottom?” Severus spit out. “Perhaps if you had your potion would not have ended as it had. Now, drink!”

Neville lifted it to his lips and hesitantly drank it. He gasped as it suddenly caused his throat to feel like he was drinking cold water and settled his nervous stomach. “Oh,” Neville sighed. “That was wonderful!”

Severus grimaced, if this potion was perfectly made it was a wonderful experience but only if it was. It is was less than perfect it could be painful to drink. His mind raced, Zambini was a terrible potioneer. He had only made it into this year’s potion class because he was no longer the teacher. He had heard Horace praising Potter’s natural ability with potions this year but Severus had never experienced this in all his years as his teacher therefore this was not possible. “Three.” Severus spit out. “And Potter, another detention for cheating! You are dismissed, now leave.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Harry watched Snape stalk around to each table finally ending with the last two tables, Zambini and his and Pansy and Padma’s. He watched with a neutral expression as Snape smirked at him, he knew that he had made his perfectly because he had in fact made it for himself before. It was a more complex type of stomach soother, used for people that had gone through painful or upsetting experiences.

As Snape announced in a victorious voice that the girls’ potion was not perfect and began to slowly walk over to their table. He saw that Blaise was nervously fidgeting his hands “Must think we are going to fail, ha-ha.” He tried to smile at him but Blaise was just staring at the cauldron.

Harry turned as Snape reached their table and began to test it. When he finished his tests that he had done with all the previous potions he waited for him to announce that it was indeed perfect. Instead he watched as Snape straightened up with a strange expression on his face.

“Mr. Longbottom, come here at once!” Snape barked out.

He felt his jaw drop as he heard Snape tell Nev to come over. He had a bad feeling that he was going to have Nev try the potion out. While he knew that it was perfect, he still knew that Nev would be nervous and scared to try it. He shut his mouth and tried to encourage Nev with his eyes. He watched as Nev slowly drank the potion and his face lost all signs of stress. He knew at that moment without a doubt that it was perfect because that’s how he felt when he drank this potion.

He felt a sliver of pride sweep through his heart as Snape announced it perfect but the feeling was abruptly crushed when Snape told him that he had yet another detention for “cheating.” He slumped down in his chair and muttered to himself “I can’t believe it! I did all the work! Even Blaise saw me do it!” As he sat up to begin clearing the table he heard Snape tell the class to clear the supplies but leave their potions on the tables.

When Snape dismissed them he walked out without even trying to fight the detention. He was resigned to the fact that he was going to have to spend the rest of his life in the dungeon serving out detention. As he slung his satchel over his shoulder he hung his head and continued to walk. He heard Hermione yelling his name but kept walking.

“HARRY! STOP!!!” Hermione yelled as she ran up to him and grabbed his shoulder.

As she grabbed his shoulder, it took all of his strength to keep his knees from collapsing from the jolting pain that went through his body. “What ‘Mione? I need to go see Hagrid then study for the big history exam.” Harry lied barely managing to keep a calm tone.

“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. The potion you made was brilliant, I could tell.” Hermione rushed out. “Wait, what did you just say? About the exam?”

“Yeah,” Harry continued lying. “Weren’t you paying attention? Professor Binns announced that there was going to be a big exam on Friday.” He just wanted her to leave him alone. He didn’t have the strength to deal with her.

“Oh my! I don’t know what you are talking about! I need to go talk to Professor Binns right now! See you later Harry!” Hermione yelled as she dashed off.

Harry kept walking and kicked some leaves contemplating skipping the rest of his classes. “I really do feel bad for doing that to Mione…she and Nev are the only friends I really have left. Oh well, what’s done is done. I better not skip classes though or Mione will be extra put off.”

As he sat in through the next two morning classes and the afternoon classes he could not pay attention at all. All he could think about was going back to the library and making a list of ingredients that he would need for his potions experiments. They would be pretty pricey but they would fit into his budget if he didn’t order anything for the following month. Harry chuckled to himself, “I bet Snape would stoke if he found out that I am not the idiotic money-blowing boy that he thinks I am.” As he sat there slumped in his chair, he sat up with a jolt. “Damn, I forgot what time he told me for detention. Wait…did he tell me a time?” Harry swore to himself, he could ask Mione if she had heard him say a time but she wasn’t speaking to him at this moment. He looked over at her and she sniffed and turned her face away and looked out the window. “I guess I’ll just have to make a trip back down to find out. Great.” He sat back, slumped down and tried to listen to Professor Binns drone on about certain Goblin Wars that held no relation to his life or interest.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Severus was hungry and tired but most of all hungry. It wasn’t the empty feeling that you can deal with for a little while. No that time had passed; instead it was to the point that his stomach was dominating his thoughts. Every time he started to get up to order something from the kitchen students interrupted him or another class was starting. He swore at himself, “You are just too smart aren’t you Severus? Deciding to skip lunch and instead working! I want FOOD!”

Dismissing his last class two minutes early he stalked into his office shut the door, threw some floo powder into the fire and waited until an elf stuck his head through. “Will you please send me soup, bread and fresh fruit? Leave it on my desk.” Turning on his heel he went back out to the classroom, grabbed the foot tall stack parchments that he had gotten just from todays classes. He walked back into his office and sighed as his delicate nose took in the delicious smell of cheesy potato soup and homemade sweet bread. He laid the parchment down on the corner and walked around to where the elf had put the food. They had been generous as they always were with him. They had given him an entire pot of soup with the six thick pieces of bread with platter of butter. He grinned as he took in the glorious sight of bananas and slices of mango. “Those elves really are starting to know my tastes!”

He conjured a bowl, plate and silverware. He helped himself to a large helping of soup, two slices of bread and both a mango and banana. He reached for a banana and peeled it. As he took his first bite he couldn’t stop himself from yelling out loud, “MERLIN! I love bananas!” As he ate he allowed his mind to wander and examine his day so far. It had been a moderately successful day even though he had had a terrible surprise from Potter’s potion. “The amount of calm that Longbottom emitted was uncanny, not even my potions have rendered that much peace.” He sighed; he didn’t know how Potter had managed to make such a good potion considering that Zambini was almost as bad as him in Potions. In fact, he couldn’t understand how Slughorn could think Potter was good at Potions at all but that seemed like all he could talk about was the promise that Potter seemed to have and the natural ability like his mother and father had possessed. Well he hadn’t seen that in the years that he had taught him, no not at all. He finished eating his soup and bread and cast a stasis spell over all of it and hovered it over to another table by the wall to save for later. He reached over and grabbed the first 4 inches of the one-foot tall stack and began to read. He sighed as he made corrections and changes to the first years papers. Why they couldn’t learn correct grammar and spelling baffled him.

A couple hours went by and it seemed to Severus that his eyes were going to start leaking his red correction ink. He had finally gotten through the first year’s papers and had moved onto the third and fifth year’s papers. Instead of their gregarious mistakes in spelling they made stupid mistakes such as misinterpreting the text and just plain saying stupid things. That aspect never seemed to leave their papers until they reached the sixth or seventh year when they had either decided to listen to his lectures or find someone that had.

As he made his final markings on a sixth year’s paper he sighed and leaned back into his chair. He reached up to his face and rubbed his eyes and massaged his temples. He had accomplished a lot in the last two hours and he was beginning to get sleepy. “Thank Merlin this was a light day for Slughorn and my classes. I still have detention tonight and I need to look over Potter’s potion more carefully.” He had made the entire class leave behind potions so that he could take the ones that were perfect and give to Madam Pomphry but mostly because he had wanted to examine Potter’s potion more closely. The said potion was now sitting on the same table as his leftover afternoon snack in it’s own stasis.

“BAH!! What I would give to take nap right now!” He rubbed his eyes again and tried to focus back on the tasks that needed to be done. A thought began to creep into his mind as he thought back to when he had been a potion apprentice and had learned to sleep with his eyes open. It had taken him awhile to perfect it but he had, and he had put it to use many times. He looked over at the clock and saw that it was 5:45 he decided that he could fit in a one-hour nap. He sat forward in his chair and grabbed a potions journal and arranged his body so that it looked like he was studying it in case anyone came in. As he began to fall into unconsciousness he thought back to his days of quiddich and the feeling of wind zipping through his hair and stinging his cheeks. He could almost feel his body zipping though the air searching for the snitch.

Almost two and a half hours later, Severus woke up in a start. He thought he had heard something slam. He peered around his study but didn’t notice anything out of sorts but he did notice that it was not one hour but two hours later than when he had fallen asleep. “What?! Damn it all. I though I set an alarm. It’s almost dinnertime. I need to speak to Minerva!”
As he stood he noticed a note on his desk, it was from Potter asking about the time of detention. “Potter came down here when I had been SLEEPING?! Bloody hell, I hope he didn’t know what was going on” He looked back down at the note. Hadn’t he said the time? He thought back, no he hadn’t indeed said the time. Well he would just have to send a response back to Potter at dinner. He hastily wrote down a reply and stuck the note into his pocket as he swiftly stalked up to the Great Hall. As he took his seat next to Minerva he was pleased to see that he wasn’t late in fact he had gotten there in 5 minutes to spare.

As Minerva and Severus talked about who was going to make the list for the supervision of students at Hogsmead. It was always such a pain to make because none of the Professors ever wanted to supervise and had “so many duties” on their day. While they were discussing, Severus kept an eye on the students that were streaming into the hall. He kept an eye on his snakes as he always did and was slightly distracted as he noticed that Crabbe pushed a little first year girl snake onto the ground on purpose. He made a note to talk to both of his snakes and continued to keep an eye on the students and finished his discussion with Minerva. He had of course lost the argument and had to assign the supervising dates.

He turned to look over to the Gryffindor table, as most of the students were already seated and staring expectantly at the tables and talking amongst themselves. He finally spotted Weasley and the other boys that he usually sat with but he wasn’t sitting there. Moving down the table he saw Ms. Granger, Mr. Longbottom and Ms. Weasley sitting together but once again no Potter. “Hmm…I wonder where he is. Of course he is late, he is his father’s son.“ He took out the note and set it down next to his plate and decided to wait till halfway through the meal and look for him again. Halfway through the meal, he once again looked up and down the tables and still saw no Potter. He sighed, “Always have to make things difficult for everyone don’t you Potter. I suppose you thought that you would ransack the kitchen instead of eating what everyone else it.” Taking out his wand, he charmed the note to go back to Potter wherever he was no matter where he was. He wasn’t going to be the excuse for Potter missing detention. He picked his fork back up and reached for his plate that held his dessert. Taking a bite he barely held back a gag. He discretely reached for his napkin and spit into it. He muttered as he drank down most of his wine “Damn those orange salads!”

Going down to the dungeons earlier in the day had been quite an experience. Never had he in his entire life experienced such an awkward situation and he had been in many. Harry laughed as he remembered the strangeness of the situation and sat back to think it over again. Maybe this time he could figure it out.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As Harry walked slowly down the corridors to ask about his detention he wished he could just be done with school already so he could start living his life and never see the Dursleys again. But with his luck he would be seeing them in exactly 124 days when the school year ended and he would be forced to go back to that hellhole. Reaching the door to Professor Snape’s office he knocked twice and stood there waiting. After a minute he knocked again and he thought he heard Snape say something so he opened the door and tentatively stepped in.

Walking up to the desk, Harry waited for Snape to look up at him but instead Snape only sat there reading whatever it was that Potion Professors read.

Clearing his throat he decided that he should just begin to speak. “Um Professor? Professor Snape, I just wanted to ask what time my detention was today because well I didn’t hear it and since I didn’t want to be late I uh thought I would err come ask?”

Waiting for a couple of minutes, he realized that Snape was ignoring him and wasn’t going to answer or he was too engrossed in what he was reading to notice him there. “Snape would do that. Well I guess I could write it down and lay it on his desk so he will see it later. Hopefully in time to let me know…”

He quickly jotted down his note and looking down at the desk he carefully laid it next to the inkpot. He slowly backed out of the room and when he reached the door to the corridor tried as quietly as he could to open it.

When he had slipped through the door he was turning around so that he could very carefully close the door. When he had the door closed, Harry let his breathe out. “Holy Merlin, that was strange.” He shook his head and turned to continue back to the library.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Sitting there, he didn’t notice the time that was passing him by. The only thing that mattered to him at this moment was this journal and every single page that seemed hold even more amazing pieces of knowledge.

*BOOM CRASH*

Startled, he whipped his head up. “Hello? Is everything okay?!” Getting out of his chair he took a step and tripped.

“What the bloody hell?” Harry reached down to his left foot; it had fallen asleep from sitting cross-legged too long. Getting back up he gingerly stepped towards the source of the noise.

As he got to the middle of the library he heard another noise like of parchment in wind. Warily he peeked around the corner of a bookcase, “Oh! Haha…” He laughed as he got saw that the noise was coming from a piece of parchment valiantly trying to get out from being stuck under a large pile of books that had obviously fallen down on it.

Stooping down, he momentarily contemplated whether he should rescue the parchment or leave it for the librarian. Perhaps it was hers? “Oh well, if it’s hers then I’ll just put it onto her desk when I leave.” Grabbing his wand out of his pocket he whispered a quick incantation to put the books back into their “organized” piles. After the piece was freed it immediately flew up into the air and shook itself trying to rid itself of the dusk and took off in a different direction towards the back of the library. “Well I guess that settles what I was going to do with it then. Huh, wonder what it was.”

Turning around he walked back to his desk where his most precious possession waited to be explored some more. Settling back down into his chair, he picked up the book and started to read once again. Not three minutes later, he felt a jab in the back of his head. “Ouch!” Turning around he saw nothing, he stood and crouched down to look under the table. Nothing there. Standing back up he looked down at the table. Sitting there on the journal was that missive that he had rescued earlier.

“Well look at that. Are you still lost?” He reached down and grabbed it before it could fly off again. Turning it over he looked for whom it was addressed to but there was none. Opening it up he immediately saw that it was indeed for him.

Potter,
I am replying to your inquiries regarding detention. Detention starts promptly at 8:00 and since you still owe me one detention it will be another double detention.
Professor Snape

 

Sighing he set the parchment down and picked up his book again but the focus that he had before he had been interrupted. His stomach growled and reached towards his extra plain papers and tore a hunk and stuffed it into his mouth. Sucking on the paper his thoughts began to run away from him and soon he found himself slowly drifting into a memory. It was his earliest memory of being with the Dursleys so he was around 18 months old.

It’s so dark.
I’m so hungry.
Where is Mummy?
Dada?
Tum-tum hurts bad.
Want to cry.
Don’t cry!
Bad man don’t like you.
Crawl to corner close to door and be by the light.
That’s better but I’m still hungry.
There’s a piece of paper on the floor.
Pick it up and decide to put in mouth.
Yuck! Don’t like it but my tum-tum does.
Sucks on paper till it dissolves and tum-tum is full
Lies down with cheek to the cold floor.
I want Mummy.
I want Dada.
Close eyes and tears slip down my cheeks.

Sitting in the library, Harry felt the tears sliding down his cheeks but he didn’t bother to wipe them off. He stood up and gathered his books and stuffed them into his satchel. His stomach growled once more and he grabbed another piece of parchment and stuck it in his mouth. “Damn the bloody detention, if only I could stop by the kitchen.”

Grabbed the parchment that contained his lists of ingredients and potions, he carefully folded it and stuck it into his robe pocket. He turned and began to walk slowly out of the library, careful not to disrupt any stacks of books that precariously surrounded him.

Reaching the front of the library, instead of heading to his detention he turned to head down to the corridor where he would hide the book. After hiding the book, he realized that it was 7:49 and began to stalk down the hall trying his hardest not to break into a real run. When he reached the door that opened into the potion classrooms he was already feeling faint from not eating since yesterday at lunch.

“Shut up, you damned stomach! I can’t turn back now, I’m practically late. Only a minute to spare” Harry straightened his spine and walked through the door. “I hope we do the same thing tonight. It wasn’t half bad.”

“Mr. Potter, Get over here. Now.” Snape’s voice rang out and caused him to jump. When he reached Snape he looked him over a bit more and intrigued by the clothes he was in. The robes were quite tight around his arms and upper body and also potion stained. On his hands he was wearing some rather thick gloves that looked like they had been taken off a live dragon and sewn into gloves but the inside felt like they were made out of the softest material he had encountered.

Without looking up, Snape told him. “Take off your robe and change into the one in the closet and take a pair of gloves as well. Hurry.”

As he changed into the robe and buttoned the last button he was surprised as the robes shrunk to his body. Looking up, he thought he saw a small smirk on Snape’s face as he was continuing on whatever he was doing. He finished putting on the robe and walked carefully over to the table Snape was working.

Snape turned to address “Now, Mr. Potter you must listen to everything that I tell you and follow it to the utmost detail. First, take the bean out with the tweezers. Be careful to grip it tightly, it will be slippery from the solution, don’t let it fall. Set it down onto the table and use the knife with the red handle to cut it down the spine. Next take the half-moon knife and hold down the bean and slide the knife into where you have split it and half it. Next grab the bean and I warn you this is the most dangerous part and the reason for the gloves, hold it down and pick up the black knife.” Holding it up, Snape motioned towards the strange tube that seemed to connect to the sharp point of the knife. “This tube is used to take in the juice from the beans. The juice from the beans is highly dangerous and will cause extreme pain and has been proved fatal so be careful. I don’t need to explain to the Wizarding world how I killed their golden boy.” Snape proceeded to show him two times how to do extract the juice and put it into a small vial.

As he picked up the “Sir, why can’t we just extract it through magic?” He was a bit nervous but he didn’t want to show it to Snape and was trying to keep his hands from shaking.

“If the juice is extracted through magic then it loses the magical quality by a ten-fold. Most potion masters do not dare to extract it for fear of their lives but I am a self-respecting potion master that does not give what you young people call a “half-assed attempt.” I do not expect you to understand what I am talking about since you take every single possible shortcut that is open to you.” Snape snapped at him then turned to him and unexpectantly said, “Your potion today was perfect, how did you cheat? I know that Blaine is not in the slightest way smart enough to make such a potion.”

He sighed and picked up the next bean to cut open, it wasn’t as hard as he had expected. “Sir, I am telling the truth when I say that I made that potion and Blaine is not as bad at potions as you think.” He paused as he held the beans down and looked at Snape’s cold eyes. “I do not lie to you sir. Too much of my life has been spent in lies and I try to stay away from. “ He turned bad to his work and continued working even as he felt Snape’s stare boring into his skull.

Snape turned back to his own work and made no further comment as he thought over what Harry had said to him. “Indeed, it is true that his life had been a lie. Interesting…” Snape continued to muse over his thoughts as he worked. He continued to work until he heard a strange sound, it sounded like a potion gurgling but there were none brewing at the moment, they were all in stasis right now. Snape looked over at Harry and noticed a strange red tinge to his cheeks, which compared to the rest of him made him look extraordinarily pale. Snape turned back to his beans and when the noise sounded again he cleared his throat and turning to Harry said, “Do you know where that noise is coming from?”

Harry felt his cheeks redden even more and nodded his head, “Yes sir, I do know where it is coming from.”

Snape impatiently replied, “Well then, please share with me.”

“From my stomach.” Harry mumbled under his breath.

Turning to fully face him, Snape raised his eyebrows. “And why is your stomach gurgling?”

“I guess I my stomach is hungry.” Harry turned back to his beans and worked for a few minutes. His stomach was hurting and cramping up, maybe if he chewed on some more paper it would hold him over until detention was over. He turned his body until he was angled away from Snape’s view and lifted the outer robe to grab some paper out of his pocket. He grabbed some and stuck some in mouth and was stuffing the paper back into his robe when he was startled.

“Mr. Potter! What do you think you are doing? What did you just put into your mouth?” Snape snapped at him.

Harry felt his face redden and muttered “Nothing sir.”

“I thought you did not lie, Mr. Potter. I beg to differ because I saw you put something into your mouth. Tell me before I make you.”

Harry opened his mouth to snap back at Snape but suddenly found himself unable to move his jaw as Snape had grabbed his jaw and looked inside to see what it was. “Is that parchment? Snape asked him with a look of disgust on his face.

“Yes, it is. Now leave me be!” Harry said trying to keep his temper in check.

“I will not, now spit it out! Why are you chewing on parchment? Are we in the nursery still?” Snape asked, his temper beginning to show its face.

“My stomach was irritated you so I thought that maybe if I ate some more parchment it would make it stop.” Harry mumbled, “Sorry.”

“More? Is this a regular habit? What was holding you back from coming to dinner?” Snape asked, slightly intrigued what had been important enough to keep a teenaged boy from food.

“How...Never mind. I was in the library. Working…on homework.” Harry said, trying to make it sound nonchalant. How did Snape know that he had not gone to dinner?

Snape grunted and abruptly turned to walk to his office. Harry watched him walk away and stood there.

“What is he doing there? Does he want me to keep working?” Harry turned, grabbed his knife and continued to keep working. Five minutes later he heard Snape’s boots clicking on the stones, he kept working on the bean he was working on not paying attention to Snape.

Snape walked up to Harry and waited for him to finish the bean he was working on. He was impressed with how fast Harry had picked it up; he seemed to be a natural. He shook his head. “Mr. Potter, put down your knife and gloves and go to the table back there.”

Snape donned his gloves and took up his knife again. He began to work again and waited for the questions.

Harry stood there by the back table staring at the contents on the table. “Sir, err what do you want me to do?”

Snape replied without turning around. “Use your imagination.”

Harry turned back and stared at the tray. It was laden with a huge bowl of soup with two enormous, thick slices of bread with a glass full of what looked like milk. His mouth started watering and he set his gloves down on the floor and sat in the chair in front of the food. He gingerly grabbed the spoon and dipped it in. He brought the spoon up to his mouth but stopped and stared at it. “What if he poisoned it with truth serum or sleeping potion so he can experiment on me or a potion to slowly kill me or turn me into a bug so he can put me into a potion.” He almost dropped his spoon as Snape addressed him again.

“Potter, I did not do anything to the potion. Eat it or come back and work.” Snape said in an irritated voice. Turning around he raised his eyebrows and stared at Harry. Harry looked down at the spoon and sighing stuck it in his mouth.

“Well if I die, at least no one else will have to have Snape as a professor anymore…” As he chewed his soup, he was surprised that it was among some of the best soup that he had ever had. Or maybe he was just that hungry, it was definitely an upgrade from the parchment. He shrugged his shoulders and decided that whatever the reason that he was going to finish it.

Snape watched Harry take a hesitant first bite and then begin to shovel it in as if he hadn’t eaten in days. “Teenage boys…” He shook his head, he remembered those days, even if he didn’t want to. “Potter, calm yourself and conduct yourself as a human being and not an animal.” He waited until Harry had slowed and turned back to his work. Not three minutes later he heard the chair scape against the stones and Harry come up to his side and began to put his gloves again. Snape turned to look at him and then to the food on the table. The bowl, while it wasn’t the smallest bowl but also wasn’t the biggest that he had ever eaten. But it was smaller that most meals he ate, why hadn’t he eaten it all? “Isn’t the soup good enough for you? Why do you snub it?” Snape looked down into Harry’s face and realized, as he looked closer that the boys face wasn’t full and vivid as other boys his age. He was eerily reminded of memories of reflections of himself at this age: the scrawny frame with sharp points and the thin face. As he stared into the boys face, he was taken back to the memories that he had seen in the boys mind during the failed occlumency lessons. The memories of damned Dursleys screaming at him and abusing him. He averted his eyes from Harry’s face and looked down at the scarred table. He didn’t want to think of the Golden Boy in any other way than a spoiled and pampered boy.

“No Professor, on the contrary. It was good, I am just full.” Harry said earnestly.

“What? Was the parchment that good that it filled you up?” Snape sarcastically retorted. He watched as the boy turned away without replying and began to work again.

An hour later, as Harry picked up the last bean and finished it he wondered if they were almost done. He needed to finish his essay for DADA so he didn’t have to worry about it over the weekend. He watched as Snape pushed the cork into the last vial and cleared his throat to ask if they were done it was nearing 10:30.

“Yes Potter. You may leave. Report back tomorrow at 9 am for the final detention…for now.” Snape said, waiting for the groan or angry remark.

“Fine.” Harry said, happy that it would be the last one, at least for right now. He turned on his heel and walked out into the classroom that was still covered in the day’s potions lessons. As he walked by one of the desks he stepped into an especially sticky patch and fell down. Disheveled and embarrassed he scrambled up and didn’t notice as the parchment that had his potions ingredients and the names of the potions that he was going to try on it fall onto the ground. He stalked out of the classroom as fast as he could before Snape could make a snarky remark about his lack of dexterity. He hurried off to the tower before Filtch caught him out after curfew.

After he reached the safety of the Gryffindor tower he sat down in front of the fire to think over his night and rest his feet that ached from standing in the same spot for over three hours. Remembering his strange dinner he was confused. “Was that Snape being kind? Why did he even do that? So confused…” Sitting back, he drew up his feet onto the chair and turned so he was sideways and hugged his knees. He was so tired and still full and the fire was warm. As he slipped into his turbulent sleep he didn’t notice his parchment containing the note about the potions missing.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As he put the last vial in his personal storeroom Snape sighed and walked back out to his messy office. He banished the knives and the extra supplies left over. He strode into the classroom that was still in a disheveled state and sighed, he would leave it for tomorrow to clean up but Slughorn was due back tomorrow. He looked around the room and decided that Longbottom was never going to make it in the world of potions. Ever. As he walked to the back of the room to shut the door that Potter must have forgotten to shut as he ran out he noticed a piece of parchment laying under one of the tables. He smirked as he summoned the parchment to him; he never left forgotten parchment lay on the ground. Some days he found the most interesting notes from students that contained some very interesting things. When he was feeling extraordinarily vicious he would hang the parchment in the hallway with a few well-placed spells so that only the person that wrote it would be able to take it down. It had proved to be a quite funny spectacle at times. Putting the note into his pocket he went around placing a few well needed spells in every classroom until they looked better than when he had come down here.

He went back to his office and sat down. He was still a bit taken back by his earlier examination of Potter’s face and the lackluster look about him. He still didn’t believe the memories that he had seen in Potter’s mind even though he knew that there was no way to lie when someone looked through your mind unless you were an excellent Occlumens, which Potter was not. Shaking his head, he remembered the note in his pocket. Cackling a little bit he pulled it out hoping to the high heavens that it was a good note that would create a great response and high amount of embarrassment. As he smoothed out the note he noticed that the page was nearly full with cramped handwriting, definitely an older student that cared what they were writing. A bit unsteady but very neat and precise and easy to read. As he started to read he was a bit put out that it was just a list of potion ingredients that a student obviously going to order, although some of them were very peculiar. He knew that Slughorn didn’t require his students to use essence of Haglorn. That ingredient was only used in serious ones that most potion masters even stayed away from. He kept reading and almost dropped the parchment as he continued to read on. There was a list of potions that seemed to coincide with the list above of needed ingredients. But these potions weren’t any potions that you could just casually make, most of them were extremely dangerous and in some cases fatal potions. As he ran down the list he noticed several potions that caused purposeful death and two deaging potions one temporary and the other permanent, one to make someone impervious to pain also temporary and one potion that wasn’t familiar in any way. He had never even heard of it. “Who the bloody hell is this? There is no one here that has any level of skill close enough to make any of these potions. How did they even find out about them?” Thinking back to the classes that he had today he ran over any of the possible choices. “Draco, Granger….hmmm no one else” Looking back at the handwriting he realized that it wasn’t familiar in the slightest. Draco had flourishes and graceful almost feminine writing that bespoke of his upbringing and Granger’s handwriting had the pained look of a muggle’s writing mixed with a wizards writing although her writing was very neat and precise it was nothing like this writing. This person, he or she, he couldn’t tell, was definitely brought up as a wizard and obsessed with neat writing and making it legible. While that cut down many of the options he couldn’t think of anyone.

He was still sitting there in front of his fire in his chair deep in thought when he was startled by his fire suddenly glowing green from a firecall. He sat up and looked into the fire, he wasn’t surprised to see that it was Dumbledore. Albus was the only other person that would dare to call on him at such an hour other since the one other that ever did was finally dead and gone.

“My dear Severus! How are you? You are looking drawn, are you still struggling with sleep?” Albus cheerfully asked.

“Good evening Albus. What do you need?” He replied ignoring the questions.

“I was just wondering if you would please come down to my office in the morning for a meeting? I have some very serious matters to discuss with you. It seems that last night around 2:45 a part of the castle was awakened” Dumbledore suddenly became very serious which made Severus’s curiosity peak. Rarely anything made Albus lose his cavalier attitude.

“Of course. What part of the castle?” He asked.

“It seems that it was the study of the great potioneer, Alexandra Syanda. I don’t know if you are very familiar with her creations but she was once a professor here at Hogwarts and while she was here the castle gave her a study that allegedly was enormous and filled with texts and labs…” Albus continued but Snape didn’t hear another word Albus was saying. He could only stare at the parchment that he was holding in his hand.

Yes he was familiar with Alexandra Syanda. He had studied her as a young student at Hogwarts and had tried to replicate her work. But most of all he had searched for the very study that Albus was speaking of.

Every text that talked about Alexandra Syanda’s study at Hogwarts said the same thing. When she realized that she was dying as a result from a failed potion she had placed spells upon it to make so that only until a person worthy of her study could find it and enter it making it their own. People had come from all over the world searching for this trying to find it and prove their worth.

This parchment that he was holding meant that someone had finally done it.

He, Severus Snape, had the next greatest potioneer in his class worthy even of Alexandra Syanda’s study.

Who the bloody hell was it?