It seemed that Harry James Potter was every bit the insolent, conniving little cheat that his father had once been, and Severus held the proof in his hands.

After all the nonsense that had occurred since he had stumbled upon Potter in that trick stair—the deadly beasts that stalked the boy, Potter’s meek behavior, and the unpalatable questions about the boy’s home life that secretly gnawed at Snape’s brain—none of that mattered now, because here was evidence that he, Severus Snape, had been right about the brat all along!

He twirled the quill between finger and thumb, positively seething at the audacity of the boy, and took a step forward to ensure that every word of his tongue lashing would reach its mark...

But then the loop of red ribbon floating by Potter’s feet shook menacingly, and Snape was reminded once again of his current limitations. If the Protector was reacting this aggressively, then he must truly be frightening the boy.

Good.

“Out,” Snape finally said, silky smooth. The Gryffindor looked up at that, wide-eyed and confused, and Snape scoffed. Did he truly believe he would not be punished?

“Sir?”

“To the hallway, Potter, or are you so dim that you cannot even understand a simple command?” The boy flushed and dropped his chin to chest as his classmates snickered around him. “Now, Potter! Leave your things; we’re going to discuss your behavior with the Headmaster when class is finished.”

Potter swallowed thickly, very nearly on the verge of tears, and slunk out of the classroom without another word. The Protector’s ribbon, Snape noted, lingered a bit longer, as if to stare him down.

Not to be intimidated, the Potions Master straightened to his fullest height and strode to the front of the class, not sparing a second glance at the invisible creature.

“I want samples of your potions on my desk in twenty minutes!” he growled at the remaining students, who seemed to be trying to puzzle out the exchange between their classmate and their most feared professor. They quieted immediately at the order, but he still felt their curious gazes from time to time.

As he was pulling the ungraded exams from the previous week, he thought he may have seen the red fabric of the Protector trotting out after its charge, but he purposefully averted his gaze.

He picked up the quill again. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn’t a quick quotes quill after all, at least not a professionally charmed one, which would explain why he hadn’t detected it during any of Potter’s exams.

Perhaps it didn’t elaborate on the boy’s words or fill in correct answers, to which Potter’s deplorable test grades could attest, but self-writing quills were still contraband, and therefore, punishable by a month’s worth of detentions.

But then, why bother risking punishment if there was no apparent reward? And where had the delinquent gotten it in the first place? Potter certainly hadn’t charmed it himself, unless he took to studying unassigned textbooks in his free time, an idea which Severus found laughable.

At the back of the classroom, the Granger girl quickly diced several grams of dragon cloaca and slung the fleshy cubes into her pestle. When she met Snape’s eyes, her nostrils flared with anger, and she set to viciously grinding the ingredients with a mortar.

Beside her, the Weasley dunce was attempting to scrape bits of exploded potion off of his robes and back into the cauldron.

Snape narrowed his eyes.

He was surprised that Granger, insufferable know-it-all that she was, endured the company of such dunderheads. Gryffindor loyalty aside,  Potter and Weasley’s complete disregard for the rules and their studies seemed to go against everything he knew of the girl. Surely it irritated her on some level, and yet she allowed herself to be associated with little prats.  Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time he had witnessed a clever witch be led astray.

No, Potter hadn’t charmed the quill  himself, but Severus had an idea of who had.

In fact, now that he’d had some time to rein in his temper, Severus was surprised to find that he could see things more clearly. Loathe as he was to admit it, the Headmaster might have been right on this one matter. The self-writing quill, the horrendous grades, and his own accusations of laziness that night in his living quarters when he believed Potter had refused to help...now that he had the answer, everything else seemed to fall neatly into place.

Harry Potter could not read, at least not very well.

How the boy had even made it through first year courses without it being detected, Severus could not fathom. He took a deep breath and massaged his temples, trying to fight down the nearly overwhelming feeling of guilt.

Nothing was ever simple with this boy.

In the hallway, Harry sat with his knees pulled under his chin and his arms wrapped around his head.

He could hardly believe what had just happened. Sure, he knew that he couldn’t keep the reading problem to himself much longer, but he had hoped he could hint at it after he had taught himself the basics. Never had he imagined it coming out in such a public and humiliating fashion: in front of his classmates and a handful of his worst enemies as he stuttered his way through potions ingredients.

“Damn that greasy dungeon bat and his stupid, rotten Niffle hares,” he groused, rubbing at a pain in his forehead and then swatting at a fly incessantly buzzing around his head.

Malfoy would ensure that news of his humiliation spread around the school by dinner, and then Harry would never be able to face his classmates again!

He rubbed his eyes on his pant leg, and then another thought occurred to him.

Once the professors knew that he could barely read, would he still be allowed at Hogwarts? A wizard who couldn’t read a spell was about as much use with a wand as a squib, wasn’t he? Sure he’d gotten by last year, but just barely and mostly because he’d relied heavily on Ron and Hermione. Would Dumbledore send him back to Privet Drive until he was on par with the students his age?

Fat chance of him improving at the Dursleys’! A new wave of misery swept over him at the thought.

The fly buzzed near his ear again, flew spastically up towards the ceiling, before nose-diving for another go at Harry’s ears, but this time it didn’t make it, as it unwittingly flew into the open mouth of an invisible creature. Harry heard a few wet crunches, and then the irritating fly was no more.

He felt his little monster brush up against his legs with a purr that wasn’t quite like a cat’s, but close enough in Harry’s mind that he imagined a miniature version of one of Mrs. Figg’s cats. He ran his fingers through its wild hair and was comforted in the fact that at least someone, or rather something understood him.

His scar twinged again, and Harry pressed the palm of his hand against it. His forehead hadn’t ached like this in a while, but Snape had been especially rotten. To accuse him of cheating in front of everyone like that, the thought of the man made Harry’s blood boil! When he returned his hand to where his little monster had once been, he was surprised when his fingers met only the cold stone surface of the dungeon floors.

He looked up and briefly spotted the red ribbon farther down the hallway, creeping at a slow pace along the bottom of a tapestry, before it disappeared around a corner.

Harry blinked, suddenly incredibly curious to know what the creature was up to.

“Hey,” he managed in a loudish sort of whisper. “Pssst! Hey you!” But the creature didn’t return.

Potions was going to be over soon, but it was a very rare occasion that the creature willingly separated itself from Harry. What if it expected Harry to follow?

He was just going to peek down the other corridor,  he reasoned as he jumped to his feet and took off after his invisible friend. Unfortunately, he rounded the corner just in time to see the little monster’s red collar crashing into a suit of armor with more force than Harry imagined possible for something of its size. The violence of the collision sent the pieces of the suit flying in all directions, and Harry, worried for the creature’s safety, went wading into the pile of metal to dig out his friend.

He heard a wet crunch as he knocked aside a plate helmet and for a horrible moment, he thought the creature had been injured, but as he leaned in toward the disheveled red ribbon, he caught a glimpse of a large fly’s wing and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Harry couldn’t remember seeing any flies down here before. Were the dungeons usually this infested? If so, Harry thought he’d hate to dorm in Slytherin or Hufflepuff. He’d dealt with more than his fair share of bugs in his cupboard!

Harry carefully lifted the catlike form from the debris and happily clutched it to his chest. If he had looked farther down the corridor, near the abandoned classrooms, he would have seen maggots twisting in the open sore of a rotting hand, which gripped the doorframe and disappeared.

“What’s going on here, Potter?”

Oh crap! How could he explain this without getting into more trouble?

“Well, it’s kind of a funny story.”