Spring 1987

It had been two weeks since Harry had arrived at the Silvanimus' house. Those two weeks had been spent with daily exercises on how to diminish the forest's influence on him and lectures on the most basic things any protector new. To say that the lessons had been difficult would have been an understatement. As the days passed, Harry became more and more convinced that the forest was not something to be trifled with. Leaving his room always left him shaky and close to tears, it was a struggle getting up each morning, not so much because of the early hour he was expected to raise but more because of the dread he felt at the thought that he would need to leave the room. Severus was always patient with him during those moments, offering comfort and shooting words. And yet, the man was as demanding as Harry had guessed he was. At the smallest sign that the boy was not fighting at the forest's room as well as was expected from him, the Silvanimus sent him back to his room so he could start again.

After breakfast, Severus would lead him towards a small study. There they started their daily lessons. Harry had been given a schedule and they covered a lot of different things, from History of magic to basic maths. In some lessons it was more like Severus was testing exactly at which level he was at while in others he was supposed to memorise everything the other man told him.

Sometimes, while at the Dursley, Harry had wished he could be home schooled. He had thought it had to be wonderful to just stay at home all day, learning a bit from time to time. Reality was another matter altogether. Severus' attention was always on his work and he was not allowed to zone out at any moment during the man's lectures. The few times that had happened, Severus had stopped the lesson and assigned him lines as punishment. If that was bad, worse was the fact that as soon as he was finished they resumed their lessons and Severus wouldn't allow them to stop until they were finished, no matter if they were late for lunch or dinner. Harry learned very soon that it was better to pay attention, that way he would have a few hours free in the evenings.

But that day things were different. It was Monday and Harry was going to start his new school. The boy had thought that he would just keep having lessons with his guardian but Severus had soon disabused him from that notion. He would only go to classes in the morning while the evenings would be devoted to homework and whatever lessons Severus came up with.

Remembering his old school, Harry was not at all excited about the prospect of going to a new one.

Severus regarded his charge curiously. The boy had not complained much about his demanding lesson schedule, which lead him to think that he didn't mind learning all that much. Indeed, the boy was quite smart and they had covered the most important things much quicker than he had expected. And yet, Severus knew from experience that he was not an easy teacher, all his apprentices before Harry had been happy to only have lessons with him in the evenings, learning from muggle school the rest of the necessary things to round up their education. Harry, on the other hand, looked like he was about to send away. His expression was sober and he was barely eating his breakfast.

“Is there something wrong?”

The child looked up, clearly startled out of his thoughts. “Excuse me?”

Severus sipped his tea. “I asked if there was something wrong.”

Harry shrugged slightly but preferred not to answer him. Saying that everything was fine would be a lie, which the man didn't tolerate as he had said many times. On the other hand, he didn't feel like explaining his moodiness to him. While slightly annoyed at his charge' silence, Severus sensed that this was not a matter he could broach while they needed to leave.

“You should go pick your things up, we need to get going, and I doubt you will want to eat that.”

Harry looked at the piece of bread he had been mutilating and nodded in agreement. He was not very hungry anyway.

Ten minutes later, Severus transferred them to an empty street. Harry shook his head slightly. The man had not tree jumped, like the other times, instead they had gone the wizarding way, using something Severus called apparating. Walking out of the street they had appeared at, Harry soon saw his new school. It was much smaller than the school he had gone to before and there didn't seem to be many students. Severus had told him there were only five or six students every year which instead of reassuring him, only made him feel worse. He was sure he would just be an outsider, just like he had always been. His only comfort was that there wouldn't be many people to pick on him.

The taller Silvanimus led him to the small building, he could feel the other childrens' curious stared on him, but he did his best to ignore them. They had to walk up two flights of stairs before Severus stopped in front of a classroom. Knocking lightly, the man opened the door and led his apprentice inside.

“Good morning.”

A young woman looked up from the papers she had been looking through and smiled at them. Harry looked at her shyly. She was pretty, with wavy black hair and kind blue eyes.

“Good morning, you must be the Snapes.”

Severus nodded and pushed Harry slightly in front of him, not taking notice of the boy's reluctance. “Yes, we are, you must be Miss Moran.”

The teacher smiled and stood up. “Yes I am, and I'm happy to welcome a new student to the school, there are few enough as it is.” She motioned towards one of the individual desks placed in front of the teacher's table. “Why don't you go sit down, the other students are going to get here in a few minutes and I am sure they will want to talk to you. They were all curious to get to know you.”

Harry didn't smile, despite the kind words. Instead he turned slightly and looked up at his guardian. Severus looked down at him intently, not really understanding the flat look on the child's eyes. He had expected excitement or maybe nervousness, but there were no emotions at all coming from the boy, which worried him a bit. Maybe they really should have talked about this before. Leaning down slightly, he spoke softly.

“I'm going to pick you up at three, all right? You have lunch packed in your bag.”

Harry nodded slightly. Severus pressed his lips slightly. “Answer.”

The child blinked. “Sorry, sir. Yes, it's all right.”

Seeing there was no sense to remain there, Severus stood up straighter and after nodding goodbye to the woman, he left the classroom. Harry, for his part, sighed and went to sit to the table the woman had indicated. He was sure this was going to be a very long day.

When Severus returned to pick up his charge, he was relieved when he saw him talking with another boy. The other children had already left, but the teacher was still gathering her things. When she saw him, she stopped what she was doing, picked up a few things and motioned towards him.

“Could I talk to you for a minute?”

Severus nodded and after glancing at Harry, who was looking at them warily, they both left the classroom.

“Is Harry in trouble?”

Isabel smiled slightly and shook her head. “Oh, no, the boy behaved himself very well, he's quite polite and after a while, he started to interact with the other children. Although I'm a bit concerned about his reluctance. Most of the time he looks as if he expects something bad to happen. Was he bullied at his previous school?”

Severus blinked. “Truthfully, I don't know, he just came to be into my care and he doesn't easily speak about such things. It would explain about his recent behaviour though. I'll try to talk to him about it.”

Miss Moran frowned slightly. “If Harry just got into your care you may not help me answer a question I have then.”

Severus raised an eyebrow and accepted the paper she tended to him. It was full of mathematical problems and was written in Harry's messy handwriting. What surprised Severus was that most of them were wrong. He had throughoutly tested the child about his knowledge and he had done much better than that. Looking up at the woman standing in front of him, he raised an eyebrow, clearly asking what had happened.

“We were playing a simple game, I do it often enough as I feel it helps the children learn some of the most difficult concepts. They just make two teams and I pose questions, whichever team finds the answer first gets a point. At the end the team with most points gets a small treat from me. While we were playing, Harry answered quite a few questions for his team, and nearly all of them were correct at his first try. When I put them to solve this sheet I expected much better results from him, than what I see here. And it was not like he was goofing off or being lazy or something like that, with such a small class that is easy to pin-point.”

Severus tapped the papers he still held in his hands, a thoughtful frown marring his face. “I don't know what to make of this either, but I will have a talk with the child. I know for a fact that he can do much better than this. The question is, why doesn't he? I'm afraid it might have something to do with his previous guardians.” Looking up at the woman, he nodded slightly. “Thank you for informing me of the problem this soon, it will make things much easier to correct.”

Isabel smiled softly. “Of course, Mr. Snape, it is part of my job. And Harry is quite a bright child, it would be a pity to have to mark his work when I know he can do much better.”

Nodding, they walked back to the classroom where Harry was now sitting on his own.

“Come on, Harry, we're going home.”

The boy reluctantly took his bag and went to stand at his guardian's side. The man's face didn't show any emotion, but that didn't mean he was not angry. Harry knew from experience that a private talk with a teacher never lead to anything good. After saying goodbye to the woman, Severus quickly took them home.

Once there, he looked down at the silent child and motioned in the general direction of their classroom.

“Go wait for me in the study, there are things we need to talk about.”

Harry cringed slightly, which didn't go unnoticed to Severus. The older man took his time to go change into more comfortable clothes, he had a feeling they were not going to get much done in the matters of work today, but this was more important. Once he entered the study, he saw Harry standing in front of the window, looking outside with a lost look.

“Harry.”

The child turned around and immediately went to sit in his own seat. Instead of sitting in the chair behind the desk, Severus waved his wand slightly and conjured a chair just next to Harry's desk. The boy looked warily at his proceedings and tensed even more when he sat down.

Severus took out a paper, which held exactly the same questions as the one he had been given by the woman.

“Answer these questions, please.”

Harry hesitated for a long moment, he clearly recognised the questions, but he couldn't help but wonder what he was supposed to do now. During the two weeks he had been there, Severus had always expected the best from him while he gave him lessons, but the Dursley had nearly beaten into him the fact that he couldn't do well in school. It had become such a habit to answer the questions wrong that he barely noticed any more. In the end, he decided that as they were home, he would do as Severus had told him.

Half an hour, Harry looked up from the last question. He had been aware that the other man had been reading everything he wrote down, something which had made him extremely nervous.

Severus, seeing that the boy was done, nodded towards the paper. “Number five and number seventeen are not quite right.”

Quickly, Harry returned his attention to the paper, in a few minutes he was able to locate and correct the mistakes.

The tall man then stood up and nodded. “Very good. Now explain this to me, please.”

Severus put the other exercises paper in front of the boy. Harry bit his lip, not quite sure what he was supposed to say.

Seeing the boy's problem, the tall Silvanimus changed his question. “Did you answer the questions wrongly on purpose?”

Harry looked down at his tightly clasped hands. “Yes, sir.”

“Why would you do something like that when you can just as easily answer them correctly?”

The boy bit his lip anxiously. “I'm not supposed to answer them correctly.”

Severus raised an eyebrow. “Who said such a thing?”

“Uncle Vernon.”

Severus' eyes turned cold at the mention of the muggle, the more he knew about the man, the less he liked him. “Why did he say that? I would have thought your relatives would want you to do well in class.”

Harry shook his head slightly. “I'm not allowed to do better than Dudley.”

The older man sighed. “And I guess your cousin barely knows how much two times two is.” Bending slightly, he forced the child to look up at him. His eyes were no longer cold, but they held a steely glint in them. “I'm not going to repeat this, so listen very well to me. You are expected to do your best at anything you try to do. I don't care if it is lessons, or something more frivolous, you are to do your best always.” Straightening, he walked to his own desk. “The first thing we'll do every evening will be review the exercises you did in class. Any question, doubt or misunderstanding will be addressed then. After that you will do your homework to my satisfaction and only after that we'll start with the lessons for the day. If you don't do your best during class you will find yourself with absolutely no free time as it will take us quite some time to go through it again. Understand?”

Despite the stern words, Harry was smiling slightly. For the first time he was being encouraged to do well in class, and although the thought of having anyone who cared about his grades was a bit intimidating, he couldn't help but feel relieved. No longer would the other students laugh at him just because they thought he was stupid.

“Yes, sir.”

Severus nodded. “Good. Now, tell me, did you enjoy your day? I'm aware you were not looking forward to going to school.”

Harry nodded. “It was fine, we played a question game in class and the other children didn't mind having me on the team. And then, at lunch time, they allowed me to play with them.”

The older man bit the inside of his cheek, so his guess had been accurate after all. “Why wouldn't they let you play with them? I'm sure they enjoy having another kid around.”

Harry nodded slightly. “The children at my old school never wanted to play with me, they either joined Dudley at Harry hunting or they ignored me, Dudley said he would hurt anyone who spoke with me.”

Severus pressed his lips together. “And what did the teachers do about it?”

The child shrugged. “Nothing, they just talked to each other.”

Narrowing his eyes, the dark haired man shook his head. “They should have done something, no child should be allowed to harass another one like that. I doubt it will happen, but if you ever have a problem with another student you are to tell me at once, all right?”

Harry nodded slightly. “Yes, sir.”

Picking up one of his books, Severus motioned towards the place Harry's book bag was laying. “Get started on your homework, I still want to have a short lesson after you're done.”