Two more classes that day and Harry could already see it was going to be the best school day of his life – not that he would ever mention that to Ron, not even at wandpoint.

All three Potions classes of the day were the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw combination, the fifth and sixth years. Fifth year class had come next, after the fourth year, and Harry found that it was similar to the previous class – much to his secret delight. At least in the fifth year class, he was learning the needed curriculum for his O.W.L.s. If this kept up, he would literally ace his Potions O.W.L.

He was succeeding in potions. For once, he was actually getting it right – and for the first time since the spell had been cast, Harry almost wished it would continue through the school year. He could avoid Umbridge; he could get the other class work from Hermione and still pass; he could hide from the weird stares the entire school pitted on him; he could avoid hearing those death threats disguised as fortune telling – overall, the pros to being connected at the hip with Snape overpowered the cons.

Who knew?

Well, at least now Harry wasn’t going to complain. While losing Quidditch was a knife in the chest, Harry was couldn’t stop being hopeful now. It was possible that, with the extending of the distance, he could go back to the team in no time at all. He could play Quidditch, excel in his classes, learn more about his Mum, and stay away from everyone.

Win, win situation all around, if Harry were honest with himself.

What had appeared to be the start of a crappy year was now turning out to be better than he could have hoped for – now, he just had to keep it going. In fact, Harry was looking forward to dinnertime when it would be just him and Snape. Maybe the man would want to talk – maybe he would even tell stories about Lily.

The thought of stories about Lily, ones he hadn’t hoped to hear, brought a bright smile to his face. If Harry went about it in the right way, he had all the hope in the world that Snape would soften a bit and open up. Harry could hardly wait! Yes, yes, he had just thought that about Snape. But, hey, it would be worth it.

Unfortunately, all good things seemed to come to an end far too soon.

Fifth year potions had been uneventful. The class had been just as calm and laid back as the fourth year, though Harry didn’t enjoy it as much, since he didn’t have Luna working with him – she’d been really calming and more enjoyable to be around than Harry would’ve first assumed. In the end, he did manage to make a successful antidote all on his own, something he was proud about. He did exchange a few words with some of his year mates, but other than that, there hadn’t been much time. Luna had been the only one to come to class so early.

The start of the sixth year class, however, was far more eventful, in Harry’s mind. It had begun brilliantly. Mainly, it was because there had been one person who had caught Harry’s attention during the sixth year class.

Cho Chang.

He had made such a fool of himself on the train, even if it hadn’t been his fault. Being covered in nasty pus-like goop from some weird plant had not been how he wanted to be in front of a girl – especially Cho Chang. He could still remember the absolute mortification he had felt when she had seen him. Jumping out the train window – yes, while it was still moving – had crossed his mind.

But now, as she entered the room, smiling at her friend, Harry felt a wave of excitement and hope in his chest; warmth flooded there and his cheeks. As she sat down with her friend, she glanced back, catching his eyes. She smiled at him, giving him a cute, little wave with her dainty fingers. Her friend, Marietta Edgecombe, glanced back at Harry and then back at Cho, giggling something in her ear, which made Cho blush slightly. The pair of them once again smiled at him, giggling softly, like all those girls did when they traveled in packs – sort of like wolves, but without the sharp teeth.

Harry had no idea he had an extremely sappy smile on his face – probably a good thing it wasn’t lunchtime.

Thus, during class, Harry was distracted. Of course, Ron would understand. Cho Chang, after all, was a very pretty girl – and pretty girls were much more important than potions. And it probably didn’t help that the potion Harry was working on was of a higher difficulty than he was used to – all in all, it was a recipe for disaster.

It was only when Harry’s cauldron started to smell strongly of rotten eggs, mixed with locker socks that he suspected he had missed something along the way. When it started to smoke, he still didn’t feel too alarmed. However, when the cauldron seemed to tilt to the side, it was then Harry realized his cauldron was actually melting.

The botched potion ate through the bottom of his cauldron, melting through the metal, sizzling out the fire beneath it, and disintegrating the wood of the table. The sludge like liquid landed on the stone floor with a splat. Sparks danced along the floor as more terribly smelling smoke rose upward.

“Potter!” roared Snape.

Harry jumped, startled. He backed up quickly, just as Snape took two long strides towards his table. The man waved an irritated hand at the, melting cauldron, which had frozen in its descent through the table.

“Potter, what is the matter with you?” snapped Snape, glaring at the mess on Harry’s table.

“I, uh…”

“Can you not pay attention for more than an hour?”

The students were staring at him now, their eyes wide as they flicked between Snape and Harry. Their gazes burned; Harry’s cheeks flushed with shame and suppressed anger at the injustice. Everything had been going so well.

“I didn’t—”

“Not even Longbottom could’ve done so much damage in such a spectacular fashion!”

“I’m—”

“Twenty-five from Gryffindor for your incompetence! These are expensive components and now they are destroyed completely due to your carelessness.”

They were so fragile. Those tender, gentle moments between Harry and this man. Just when Harry thought he could do it, that he could be on his best behavior, that he could have a chance at bridging the gap between them, the man had to test him like this.

“I’m really sorry, sir,” said Harry quickly, hoping to get a word in between Snape’s angry rants. He had to calm the man down as soon as possible. Maybe if he… “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Mediocre effort in my class is unacceptable, Potter,” hissed Snape, his glare at its fullest. Then, his trademark sneer entered his features, his lip curling upward. “Did you think you could get by in my class with your fame? What, the Boy-Who-Lived is too good to pay attention in class? Just like your father, Potter, arrogant, lazy, rule-breaking…”

Then, Harry couldn’t hear the man any more. The words filled his ears like sludge, clogging everything else afterward. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to glare at the man. He just stood there, taking the verbal abuse stoically.

But something cracked in his heart.

Was it because he’d had a little hope for a time – hope that maybe things would turn out better? When Dumbledore had dumped guardianship on Snape, Harry had that glimpse of hope in the darkness – the one where he wouldn’t have to go to the Dursleys; the one where he wouldn’t have to hear terrible insults; the one where he would be treated like a normal human being and not something one found on the bottom of one’s shoes. It’d been such a tiny glimmer of hope beneath the realistic side that said Snape would be just as bad.

Maybe that had been asking for too much. Maybe that had been too arrogant, as Snape always claimed. Maybe people hating him and disliking him was normal. Expecting anything else was foolishness.

But the thing that stung the most was yet again Harry had to be reminded of his family situation – or lack thereof. He would never have a mother. He would never have a father. In his youth, he would never have a family and if Voldemort wasn’t stopped soon, the possibility of Harry having his own future family was just as hopeless.

He was stuck between being the hero everyone expected him to be – or trashed him for being – and between the lost boy with no family.

Hearing those words, the ones about the father he never knew and could never know, hurt more deeply than Harry ever really realized. How could he know? How could he know anything about James Potter? Did Harry really look like him? Did they have the same nose, the same hair, the same eyebrows, the same ears, the same smile – what was the same? What was Harry and what was James? Why was Harry always being confused for his father? Where did James end and where did Harry begin?

And it wasn’t just his father. He had his ‘mother’s eyes’ as well.

Was it the hair? Was the walk? What it the face? Was it those blasted eyes – was he just a carbon copy? What could Harry call his own? Could he not be his own person for once!? He hated this. He was never just Harry.

Boy.

Brat.

Freak.

Potter.

Scarhead.

The-Boy-Who-Lived.

All names he owned, but were never his own.

He was mistaken for everything else but his own self. His perceived faults were echoes of someone else’s. The hatred towards himself was truly for another – but once again, the hatred was blind to the truth.

The injustice was just too much for him. As sound reentered his ears, he could hear the continual abuse about how he was so like his dead father. And Harry couldn’t take it any more.

“You’re so cruel, you know that. You do it so well,” whispered Harry, finding his voice in a lull of Snape’s cruelty. His head was bowed; he could see the charred remains of his potion as it dripped onto the floor. “It’s like you’re an expert. I’m not even a sixth year. I did the best I could.”

The class stopped breathing.

Snape narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?” he whispered, his voice barely above a hiss. “After your deplorable display here—” He motioned to the melted cauldron. “—you have the audacity to say something in your defense?”

Harry’s chest tightened. He slowly lifted his head, looking directly in the man’s dark, furious eyes. The light dimmed as their gaze connected.

“Maybe you don’t care,” whispered Harry, staring at Snape; the hurt threatened to destroy every hopeful, every trustful feeling in his soul. “Or maybe you do it on purpose. Do you have any idea how you make me feel when you talk about him.” Harry’s voice rose upward, power ringing through his tone. “Every time you say something about my father, do you know what I hear? ‘Potter, your father is dead. Potter, you’ll never get a chance to know him. Potter, you’ll never have a father.’ Did you ever think about that?” Harry paused, before he shouted, “Do you even realize just how cruel that is!? How can I be anything like my father when I don’t even know what he was like in the first place! He died when I was a baby! I’m an orphan!”

“Potter—”

He couldn’t breathe; the pain crippled his chest.

“I hate you!” screamed Harry, his chest heaving in gasps.

Then, unable to bear the gaping stares that were drawn towards him, Harry darted aside, nearly knocking over his cauldron, and ran down the row of tables. His body smashed into the door at the end; he flung it open and burst inside, slamming the door behind him with as much force as he could. The deafening crack pierced his ears.

It was the ingredient cupboard.

There, Harry slipped to the floor. He gasped for breath, trying to regain control over his volatile emotions. His eyes burned with the sorrowed fury he felt toward Snape, but he held back any and all tears. He gritted his teeth. Then, as the fury slowly faded away, mortification fell into its place. Harry slipped his legs to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and buried his face into his knees.

He had ruined everything. He’d made a fool of himself in front of Cho Chang yet again and this time he hadn’t needed Neville’s plant to do it for him. He had just rattled off personal things in front of an entire class – the rumors would be all over the school by dinnertime. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, he was. However, he found that he didn’t care about all that as much as he thought he would. No, he had ruined something far more important: Snape would never tell him anything about his mother again.

That thought alone made Harry wish he could cry.