“You will stop saying such things right now!”

This was the first thing Snape heard, while walking the hallway on the 6th floor. The voice sounded angry, and very familiar. It also came from just around the corner, which Snape knew to be a dead end. He wondered if he should announce his presence to Potter now, or wait. The next thing he heard made him wait.

“Harry, why are you defending that git? After all, he’s been after you since your first class.”

The Weasley boy, hmm? And it was about him?

“Ron, some things are difficul to explain. This is one of those things. Believe me, he deserves our respect.”

Snape frowned at this one. The boy had a funny way of showing it then.

“Harry, I never see you showing him any respect in class. So how can you go and say this then?”

Snape felt slightly disturbed that the Weasley boy had the same thought, but he did wish to hear the answer. Potter sighed.

“Look Ron, it’s expected of me to behave that way in his class. It would perhaps be different if we had Potions with –say- the Hufflepuffs, but we don’t. The Slytherins expect their Head of House to hate and belittle me. They also expect me to be bad in Potions and to hate Snape. They watch very carefully, and those loyal report their findings.”

Snape wondered how the boy knew this.

“Do you know this because of your scar Harry?” Weasley asked.

“Partly,”Potter said. “in some of the visions I hear Death Eaters give their reports to Voldemort. Their children watch very carefully. The more news Voldemort hears about me having arguments, losing points and serving detentions with Professor Snape, the happier he gets. Of course I’d rather have Voldie angry, but when he’s happy he doesn’t curse the Porfessor as much. And it appears to improve the position of the Professor. The higher ranked he is, the more information he can gather.”

Snape’s eyebrows rose. If that was true, it would explain why Potter had been more obnoxious than ever, and why he seemed to be called to more important meetings. Perhaps the boy wasn’t as stupid as he had thought.

“But Harry, why do you still tell me to respect him. It’s just a name I call him.”

“Yes Ron, but since we can’t openly respect the man, we will just do it in a small way. I keep refering to him as Professor Snape, and tone down the way he behaves in class to others, for you know what your mum would do Ron.”

Weasley snickered. “Yeah, she’d send him a howler for breakfast, that’s what she’d do.”

“Exactly. So we just grumble a bit, and don’t tell her the truth. It would cost him greatly.”

Weasley sighed. “I see your point Harry. However, how will you decently learn potions? Every time your potions are barely decent.”

“Don’t worry about that Ron. I’ll figure something out before we have our OWL’s. At least I have the chance to learn much of what can go wrong with Potions. Could practically write an entire book about it.”

They laughed, and Snape was just fast enough to conceal himself when they walked away again.

When they were out of sight, he cancelled the concealment and decided that this conversations was worth reviewing. Perhaps later he would share it with Albus too. He was sure it would prove usefull.