"Why did my dad and Sirius hate you so much?" Harry asked, trying his best to get out of eating; the nightmare last night was especially disturbing.

"You are to start reading the charms book that placed on your desk this morning," Snape replied, blatantly ignoring him. "It is the same book that Professor Flitwick has been using for the past eight years. Perhaps if you read ahead, you might actually do decent in your classes this year."

"I do decent!" Harry complained, then scowled at Snape for changing the subject so easily. "And why did they hate you? Was it because you were a Slytherin? Or was it for reason like Malfoy and I hate each other?"

Snape once again took to ignoring Harry, but Harry was determined not to let this go now. It wasn’t just because he didn’t want to eat, he honestly wanted to know why Snape and his father (and his father’s friends) hated each other so much.

"Malfoy was a prat from the beginning. He sprouted out bad words about muggleborn to a complete stranger, me, and then had the nerve to ask whether my parents were wizards or not. And then he insulted Ron and his family – the first people besides Hagrid who was nice to me for years – then threatened me when I said I’d rather stay away from people like him. Is it something like that?"

As Snape continued to ignore him, Harry moved the food around on his plate again, tempted to make Snape angry so he could storm away from the table and go to his room, but he decided against that for two reasons. One, an angry Snape was never a good thing, and two, the prospect of reading more school texts wasn’t very exciting. He would just have to get the information out of Snape some other way, like the man got information out of him so much.

"Black was cruel to me for years before Hogwarts," Snape actually said, angrily of course, while Harry was thinking of what to say next. "As you’ve met his mother’s portrait, I will leave it to you to deduce why."

Harry thought, confused for a second. That still didn’t make much sense.

"Aren’t you a pureblood?" Harry asked curiously. He always assumed so. Ex-Death Eater, a Slytherin . . . it all pointed to pureblood.

"No. Half blood." Irritation rang heavily in Snape’s voice.

"Oh," Harry said, pushing his chair back to leave. That would mean that before Hogwarts, Sirius had a ‘thing’ against anyone but purebloods.

"You will not leave until you finish everything on your plate," Snape said flatly.

"You don’t need to force me to eat like some little kid," Harry complained, sitting down hard and glaring at the man in front of him.

"Obviously, I do. Now eat. And after you are done, you are to read on the sofa in the sitting room."

"Why?"

"Because almost every time I leave to read on your own, you fall asleep. Perhaps if you exhaust yourself, along with clearing your mind before you sleep, you will not have your nightmares."

"Exhaust myself by reading? Yeah, I’ll fall asleep because of boredom!"

"After you read through chapter 7 of the book, which should take you approximately three hours, you will go outside and walk around the outer edge of the yard while I garden, which should expel the extra energy in you. Then you will eat dinner, which I expect you to eat quite a bit because you would have walked for three hours by then, and then you will finish the charms book. I will quiz you before you go to bed."

"Outside?" Harry asked while trying to comprehend what Snape had just told him. "Wait, you planned my day for me? And you expect me to walk for three hours straight?"

"You may run or jog also, if you wish."

"Yeah, but just walk? That would be worse than reading all day!" Harry complained.

"I have thought of that. I have several muggle recordings of muggle novels that you may sort through and pick to listen to while you walk."

"And you want me to read an entire book today?" Harry continued asking.

"Yes."

"Fine," Harry spat and stood up quickly, not liking having his day scheduled like a kid in primary school. Leaving without finishing his meal, Harry went to his room, grabbed the annoying charms book from the desk, and walked haughtily down the stairs to the sitting room, sitting down on the ugly couch soon before Snape walked in and sat in his usual chair, which Harry knew from experience was much more comfortable.

It wasn’t long before Harry started drifting off, despite the pokiness of the couch and Snape in the chair across from him . . .

"Potter! Wake up!" Harry woke the voice speaking and a hand shaking him.

"Eeeh," he whimpered.

"You were screaming," Snape continued when he realized that Harry was awake. "Was this one worse than your others? You have never screamed before."

"I killed ‘em," Harry said, refusing to uncurl himself.

"Killed who?" Snape asked softly, causing Harry to pay attention. Since when did Snape talk softly like that?

"Someone. One of them."

"A Death Eater?" Snape asked, and Harry shook his head as well as he could in his current position.

"Just one of them who were walking around. They were screaming, then they stopped. I didn’t want them to stop because of the hum, so I hit one with an arrow and they started to scream again."

"And you started to scream afterwards?" Snape asked, and Harry gave a small nod.

"The hum was worse than the screaming, and I didn’t want it to be the only noise . . ."

"Perhaps you should go for your walk now," Snape said, pulling Harry to his feet and leading him to where he kept the books-on-tape for him to listen to.