“Ten minutes Potter! Not a minute more.” Severus swept from the bedroom, his robes billowing magnificently.

Erin glared after his retreating back and after she had directed many scathing, but totally silent comments at his back—everyone of which was written boldly across her face—she turned back to the sullen teen who was sitting propped against the headboard with his arms clamped tightly around his chest, glaring at his covered knees.

Erin sat gingerly on the side of the bed and put a placating hand on Harry’s arm. When he didn’t flinch it off, she rubbed his arm in a comforting gesture. “I know this is a shock, Harry.”

Harry’s head snapped up and he looked at Erin incredulously. “A shock!” he ejaculated. “You think?” He flung the covers back and sprang out of the bed, his feet encountering warm carpet. Erin regained her feet and watched as Harry strode to the window. He yanked the closed drape aside and glared out into the ink black night. He could see absolutely nothing, not least because he didn’t have his glasses on.

As Erin watched the tension seemed to drain out of Harry and his shoulders drooped. He leaned forward so that his forehead was resting against the cool glass. It felt good against his burning scar. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled without turning around. “I suppose you were corralled into this without being given much choice either.”

“I didn’t have to think very hard, Harry. I wanted to be here for you.” And Harry couldn’t doubt the absolute sincerity in her voice. He let out a deep sigh before letting the drape drop back into place and crossing back to the bed. He stared at Erin intently and she belatedly realised that he didn’t have his glasses on. She wondered how bad his eyesight was.

“Why?” Harry asked. “Not that I’m complaining. If I have to be in prison, I’m glad you’re here with me, but you have to put up with that git too.” He cocked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the door through which Snape had disappeared.

Erin's cheeks reddened a little but Harry didn’t notice. He turned towards the little table standing beside the bed, looking for his glasses. He squinted down at the bare surface and when he didn’t see the distinctive shape, he ran his hand over it just to make sure. “Err…can you see my glasses anywhere,” he asked embarrassedly.

“They’re not here, Harry. Professor Snape transported you here so I suppose he kept your glasses for safekeeping. Dobby put all your things away, but I don’t imagine that he hid your glasses out of sight.” Harry looked up at her and scowled. “Then why didn’t Snape give them back? I suppose he’s got my wand too, the git. His plan is probably to keep me blind and wandless. That way, I wont be able to cause too much trouble.” His voice was bitter.

“I imagine he just forgot about them, Harry,” said Erin in a reasonable tone. “The atmosphere wasn’t exactly conducive to clear thinking after Professor Snape woke you and told you where we are and why.”

Harry looked at her incredulously. “You couldn’t expect me to take all of that lying down!” he squawked. “Being spelled awake after being spelled asleep, again. Then discovering that I’m in a strange room in a strange house in a strange part of the world and being told that I will be here with only that ponce for company for however long he and Professor Dumbledore feel that I need to be isolated from the rest of the world…” His voice had become louder as this diatribe had continued and at the end of it, he deflated again before groaning and throwing himself backwards onto the bed, his legs still hanging over the side.

“Sorry,” he mumbled again.

Erin sat back on the opposite side of the bed and looked down at him. He looked so pathetic, she couldn’t help running her fingers through his fringe, brushing it to the side, exposing his scar as she did so. Harry couldn’t help it, he flinched his head away from her touch. He didn’t like anyone touching the scar, and especially not when it was burning as it had been since he had woken up in the hospital wing two days ago.

Erin clasped her hands together in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Harry scrubbed his hands hard over his face and let out a frustrated, ‘Arrrgh’.

“No, I’m sorry. Sorry for being a total pain in the arse. If it wasn’t for me, you would still be at home in your parent’s house without much of a care in the world, not stuck on some God forsaken Scottish Island in the middle of the bloody Atlantic Ocean with no one for company except a mental kid and a bad tempered git of a potions professor.”

“What happened at Privet drive was not you fault, Harry…”

“Of course it was my bloody fault!” he flared again through his fingers. “Everything that happens until that bastard manages to kill me—because I sure as hell aren’t going to be able to kill him—is my fault. He wants me dead and until that happens, other innocent people are going to keep getting killed.” Harry was having a hard time keeping tears at bay and his voice was thick with them.

Erin swallowed her own distress. She leaned on one elbow and pulled one of Harry’s hands away from his face. “Stop talking like that,” she said angrily. “I don’t know why this horrible, horrible wizard wants you dead Harry, but I do know that you are just as innocent as any of the poor people who have already died. From what I know, he’s been after you since you were a baby. What can a baby have done to make a man want to kill him?”

She knew she wasn’t going to get an answer right then but she was determined that she was going to find out what this whole mess was about…why a powerful wizard whom it seemed had the power to be anything he wanted had decided that murder and mayhem were the order of the day, and why he would not rest until his unnatural obsession to murder Harry was appeased.

She leaned over and kissed Harry on the cheek before springing to her feet. She ignored the red that washed into his face as a result of her affectionate gesture. “Now come on,” she said firmly. “I imagine eight of your allotted ten minutes have already gone, so you had better get a move on. Besides, Dobby will be upset if his meal goes to waste.

Erin moved briskly to the wardrobe and opened the door wide. “She gestured at his newly laundered clothes which hung in perfectly ironed regimentation or were folded neatly on the top shelf. “Dobby has everything all laid out for you. I don’t imagine you want to go down to dinner in your pyjamas.” She grinned at Harry where he was propped up on his elbows, watching her blurred figure. “You’ll feel better able to cope with Professor Snape if you’re dressed.”

Then she crossed to the door. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

&

When Erin quietly entered the sitting room, she found Severus with a glass of red wine in his hand, gazing into the dancing flames in the fireplace. He had a booted foot resting on the edge of the brick step upon which the fire had been set. He looked up and Erin’s breath caught in her throat. His fathomless black eyes seemed to have captured some of the flames because even though he was now looking away from the fire, the warmth of the flames seemed to be caught in his eyes. His face had also fallen into softened lines, but as soon as he focused on her, his muscles tightened into their habitual stiffness.

Severus reached up onto the high mantel and lifted down another glass of deep crimson wine. Erin’s mouth nearly dropped open in shock, but she managed to fight her automatic negative reaction to his thoughtfulness. She joined him at the fireplace and took the glass, inclining her bright head in thanks.

Severus was mesmerised by that brightness. It was as if the flames were dancing around her head. He wound his fingers tightly into the palm of his free hand. The desire to touch those tresses was almost overwhelming. He still had not touched that hair—ran his fingers through it—and the temptation was bringing him undone. He dragged his eyes away and focused on the real flames again, falling back on his usual behaviour of ill tempered sneers to cover up his preoccupation with all things Erin Hanson.

“So, the idiot child has had his fill of coddling for the time being?”

Erin knew she shouldn’t let him get to her, but she couldn’t help it. Every time he opened his mouth and spewed forth another dose of vitriol, she flared up. She could not remember another person—not even her ex-husband—who had ever wound her up quite as much as Severus Snape did.

“Well, after being verbally flailed by you, a little coddling was definitely in order, I think. In case you’ve forgotten Professor Snape, it is not even three days ago that Harry was beaten half to death; he found out that his aunt and cousin had been killed in a car accident and that most of his neighbours had also been killed when the evil wizard who is after his hide, wreaked vengeance and decimated their quiet suburban street.

“And he blames himself for all of that…blames himself for things that he has absolutely no control over,” Erin added furiously. She took a large gulp of wine to try and calm herself down.

Severus watched her run the index finger of her free hand over her top lip to remove the residue of the ruby liquid which had clung to the delicate pink. The urge to grasp the back of her head and pull her face to his so that he could lick her lips clean was overwhelming, but she spun away from him before he could act on his idiotic impulse.

He returned his eyes to the flames, cursing his infatuation with her. But he quickly looked at her again when she spun back to face him and said in a voice that had lost none of its anger. “And he is just barely sixteen years old! How old are you, Professor Snape?”

Severus held her furious gaze. He stared haughtily down his nose at her because what he wanted to do was grab her and kiss her and showing disdain was his armour…his protection. He was sure that she despised him and he was becoming more and more obsessed with her by the minute. Holding her in his arms today, even if she had been unconscious, had heightened his frustration to an alarming degree. He had not experienced feelings like this since he had been in his teens and the maturing Lily Evan’s had heated his blood to the point where he wanted to curse any other male who came within three feet of her—specifically, James Potter. Indeed, she had been the only woman he had ever felt anything for until now.

And really, why would Erin Hanson ever deign to look at him as anything more than an offensive man with a vicious tongue who had made little effort to date to hide those traits from her? Every time he had opened his mouth to her he had been his usual snide, sneering self. For Merlin’s sake, she had probably never seen anything but a sneer or a snarl gracing his ugly face. And then there was the inescapable fact that she was very fond of Potter, and that combined with the equally inescapable fact that he and the boy were bitter enemies did not make for friendly relations between Severus Snape and the Muggle.

He could not really dispute anything that she had just said either. It was all perfectly true. The boy had definitely been through hell, so why couldn’t he, Severus pull his head in? Why couldn’t he be a bigger man and treat the boy decently?

When he was around a helpless or injured Potter as he had been lately, he could admit to himself that the boy’s life was a tragedy and that he did not need any more angst heaped on top of what he had already had to deal with in his short life. When caring for a severely injured Potter, he could envisage himself treating Harry with a modicum of civility in the future. It was not too difficult to imagine himself interacting with the boy in a perfectly reasonable manner. That was precisely how he had felt upstairs, an hour and a half ago when he had touched that scar. Certainly, they did not have to become best friends—Severus couldn’t imagine anything more implausible than him becoming friendly with James Potter’s son—but he could certainly be less acerbic, less snide…less aggressive. And perhaps a lot more grown up.

But as soon as the boy was awake, and most of the evidence of his horrifying experience at the hands of his uncle had been healed, Severus would feel all of the aggressiveness building up again. All he saw when he looked at Harry Potter’s mutinous young face was James Potter sneering at him. And even those green eyes the boy had inherited from his mother did nothing to ameliorate all the old feelings of hatred and aggression because Severus was also angry with Lily for choosing to die when she had had the opportunity to live.

Severus knew he was being totally irrational, and more than a little selfish. Harry had definitely not been responsible for his mother’s choices that terrible Halloween night fifteen years ago. He had been a baby. Lily Evan’s had always been a Gryffindor, through and through and intellectually Severus knew that she would never have stepped aside to allow the Dark Lord to kill her son. Every instinct in her body would have dictated that she stand in front of her child for as long as she could stand. She would have stood in front of James had circumstances allowed it.

Yes, intellectually, Severus did know all of this, but not being a parent—and never likely to be one—he could not project himself into Lily’s place…he could not imagine the fear and protectiveness that had precipitated Lily’s sacrifice that night. And so, he looked at Harry and all is old hatred of James and his anger at and grief for Lily drowned out any other fair and reasonable emotion that he knew he should summon when it came to his treatment of their son.

And now after five years of mistreatment, of unfair punishments and grades, of offensive and snide comments being thrown at him in front of other students, and of denying the boy the opportunity to produce a decent potion in class, Harry naturally hated him now with the same fervour that Severus had hated his father and godfather. And even if Severus could force himself to change his behaviour, what were the chances that Harry would ever be able to learn to trust him? Severus guessed negligible.

How could he explain any of this to Erin? How could he explain that a grudge that went back twenty-five years was the reason he treated Potter the way he did—was one of the reasons why he was such a despicable human being? That was not a story to inspire liking, let alone passion.

He had lost Lily’s respect and friendship because of his inherent viciousness; Potter had goaded him into losing his temper with Lily because he had been ashamed that a girl had felt the need to come to his rescue, making him look even more weak and ineffectual than Potter and Black’s ambush was already making him look.

Sensible, decent men did not go around holding grudges against a child who is totally innocent of any crime other than being the son of his schoolyard enemy and looking too much like that enemy to make letting go of all of the bitterness an seemingly impossible task. Impossible for Severus Tobias Snape anyway, a man who was the product of the mating of a cruel and vicious father and a miserable, weak mother who made little attempt to protect her child from his worthless father.

Eileen Snape, nee Prince, had been no Lily Evans. And though the younger James Potter had had the potential to turn into a Tobias Snape, he had instead matured into a decent man and an adoring father and husband. Yes, James Potter had managed to change for the better, so why couldn’t he, Severus Snape, have grown up and changed for the better?

And now that one of his major misconceptions about the boy had been disproved in such a spectacular fashion—now that he knew that Harry had grown up in a similarly miserable home to himself, tolerance for Harry Potter should come more easily. In fact, Potter’s childhood had been worse even than Severus’s. At least he had always known that he was a wizard…his mother had made sure of that. And she had loved him in her own way, she had just been too weak and ineffectual to stand up to her drunken lout of a husband. As well as being denied any kind of affection, Potter had also been denied his magical heritage for ten years. He had spent the majority of his childhood not even knowing that he was a wizard.

Severus couldn’t imagine what that must have been like.

He was recalled to his surroundings when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and a second later, Erin said, “Harry.”

Severus turned fully to look at the boy who had just slouched into the room, his face falling into sullen lines after he shot a quick smile that looked more like a grimace at Erin. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and he stared down at the filthy, boat sized trainers on his feet. Severus frowned. Surely to God Potter’s feet were not so disproportionately large compared to his slight build. But Severus was now inspecting the whole package.

What in the name of Merlin…

“If you thought to irritate me by coming down to dinner looking like you have just foraged through a rag bag, Potter, you have succeeded.”

Harry whipped his head up and glared at Severus. “Actually, sir, these clothes never quite made it to the rag bag,” responded Harry in sarcastic tones. “Aunt Petunia always inspected my cousin’s cast offs before putting them in the rag bag. These…” Harry indicated his overlarge T-shirt and cargo pants that were so long, they fell in concertina folds practically from his knees down to the top of his trainers, “passed inspection, meaning that there weren’t too many holes, and so, they were quite good enough for me.”

Severus lowered his eyes from Harry’s pugnacious face to the overlarge clothes again. They were scrupulously clean and pressed. Severus had caught a glimpse of the chaos that made up the contents of Potter’s trunk in the hospital wing not long after he had arrived there from Privet Drive. These clothes had been laundered since then.

“You cannot be telling me that the only clothes you have to your name originally belonged to that rather enormous blob I saw in the series of photographs at your relative’s home?”

“Professor Snape!” exclaimed Erin, appalled. “Harry doesn’t need reminding that his cousin…”

“Had approximately the same proportions as a Hungarian Horntail?”

Harry snorted and Erin’s mouth snapped shut, the words of censure she had been going to deliver dying in her throat. Harry had actually nearly laughed. “Actually, I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, Professor. I think a Norwegian Ridgeback would be closer to the mark. And in answer to your question, all my clothes except for my robes and school uniform were Dudley’s cast offs.”

“Hmm,” said Severus. He put his glass back on the mantelpiece before walking purposely towards Harry. Erin felt herself tense when she saw the older wizard draw his wand. Even without his glasses, Harry recognised the movement, and he too stiffened, but then he forced his shoulders to relax and he lifted his chin, daring Snape to hex him.

“Well, I’m sorry Potter, but looking at you dressed like that offends my sensibilities and so…” Severus flicked his wand first at the overlarge T-shirt, then the pants and then the shoes. Each time he said firmly, “Reducio.” He kept his wand pointed at each article of clothing until it had shrunk down to a size Snape was satisfied with, and then he lifted his wand. Harry even felt his socks shrink inside the trainers.

Severus nodded, satisfied with his work but then his eyebrows drew together slightly as his eyes fell on the footwear. He pointed his wand again and said firmly, “Turgio!” The trainers didn’t look new by any means after Snape’s attentions, but they were certainly greatly improved. Harry could actually see a blurry impression of white rather than grey-black.

“Err…thanks,” said Harry, and he wondered why it had never occurred to him to ask Hermione to shrink his Muggle clothes when he wore them on the weekends at Hogwarts. Both he and Ron left those sorts of fiddly spells up to Hermione, knowing as they did that their female friend was much better at them than they were. Come to think of it, he wondered why Hermione had never offered. But then he thought that maybe Hermione was being tactful by not mentioning his ill-fitting clothes.

“Here, Potter.” Severus was holding out Harry’s glasses which he had extracted from his robes. Harry took them gratefully and slipped them on, everything suddenly snapping into focus for the first time since he had woken in this house. Harry was just about to ask for his wand when they heard a little high pitched cough.

Erin, Severus and Harry looked around. Dobby was standing in the archway into the dining room. “Excuse me Professor Snape, sir.” Dobby’s eyes were darting between Harry and Severus. Severus raised his eyebrows impatiently and Dobby rushed on, now determinedly keeping his huge eyes on Hogwart’s most intimidating Professor, even though it was obvious that all he wished to do was gaze worshipfully at Harry. “Dobby has dinner ready, sir. Will you be wanting it now or would you be wanting Dobby to keep it warm?”

Severus didn’t deign to answer. He just plucked his glass from the mantelpiece and headed for the dining room. Erin followed him but she gave Dobby a grateful smile. “Thank you Dobby.”

Dobby gave her a shy smile in return which increased in voltage for Harry. He bowed low. “Harry Potter, sir. Dobby is very happy that Professor Dumbledore asked me to come here to cook and clean for you.”

“Hi, Dobby,” said Harry, embarrassed as usual by the little elf’s effusiveness. “I’m glad you’re here too.” He patted Dobby’s thin shoulder and then entered the dining room to see a table so laden with food, it looked as though it would collapse at any moment. It all looked Hogwart’s delicious, but Harry was afraid that Dobby still thought he was feeding the masses instead of just three people. Harry seated himself opposite Erin who was looking slightly bemused at the amount of food. There was a choice of at least six different main dishes as well as several tureens of vegetables and a choice of boiled, mashed, scalloped and roasted potatoes, as well as chips. There were three tureens of different soups and a choice of crème brulee, apple and rhubarb crumble, strawberry cheesecake and treacle tart for dessert.

“Wow, Dobby,” said Harry with a laugh. “Are you expecting guests?” Severus was sitting with his elbows on the arm of the dining chair and the back of a long index finger stroking his lips. If he was annoyed by the amount of food, he wasn’t saying anything for the moment.

Dobby flashed another toothy grin at Harry. “Oh, no, Harry Potter, sir. Dobby just wanted to make sure that there was something that you liked.”

Harry’s eyebrows climbed towards his hairline. “Umm…thanks Dobby but I’m not really that fussy. There’s not really much that I don’t eat…well, when I've got an appetite, that is…”

Dobby’s ears didn’t have time to droop very far before Severus’s stern voice chimed in. “In future, you will confine yourself to serving one choice of soup, one choice of main, and one choice of dessert. Mr Potter does not have any aspirations to end up the same size as his cousin. Is that clear?”

Dobby’s ears were now flat against the sides of his head and he was wringing his little hands piteously. His huge, tennis ball eyes were rather moist. “Yes, Professor Snape, sir.”

Severus could feel the censure in both Erin’s and Harry’s eyes but he remained focused on the elf. He gestured at the table. “Get rid of everything but the broccoli soup, the roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, carrots, pumpkin and peas, and the crème brulee.”

Dobby approached the table looking so pathetic that Erin wanted to hug him. She had an equally strong desire to smack Severus Snape. The amount of food that was on display was certainly obscene, but the Prince could have been a little less harsh with the little elf. She watched as Dobby clicked his fingers and all the dishes of food except for those that Severus had itemised disappeared. Erin glanced over at Harry who was looking stony faced.

Dobby bowed low to Severus then shuffled off towards what Erin presumed was the kitchen. “Thank you, Dobby,” she called after the dejected little figure. Severus, paused in the act of pouring more wine. He raised his eyes to look at Erin without lifting his head making him look quite sinister.

“You do not have to thank the house-elf,” he said, sounding as exasperated as he did when lecturing students. Erin raised her chin several notches.

“I think there’s always a need to show common human decency,” she said defiantly. She reached for the tureen of soup and began ladling it into bowls, mumbling as she did so. “Not that you’d know anything about that.”

“Elves aren’t human,” he informed her, choosing to ignore the mumbled aside, even though he would have to be very hard of hearing not to have heard it.

Erin passed him a bowl of the creamy, green soup. “No, but I am. And I make it a habit of thanking anyone who does something for me.” She looked at him pointedly. “Just like I thanked you earlier for doing something for me.”

Severus just shook his head as if he despaired for her sanity before concentrating on his soup. Fuming, Erin kept her furious gaze on him as she passed the next bowl to Harry. It was a few seconds before she realised that he had not taken it and she transferred her gaze to him. “Harry?” she said, questioningly.

Harry relieved her of the bowl, but when he placed it on the table, he pushed it away. “Thanks,” he said. “But I would have actually preferred the French onion soup.” Severus glanced up, noticing for the first time that Potter looked extremely put out. There eyes met.

“And not only that, but I prefer roast chicken to roast beef and treacle tart to crème brulee.”

Severus placed his spoon very precisely on the soup plate and then sat back, his hands resting on his flat stomach, fingers entwined. Let the games begin. Erin looked between the two of them anxiously. “You told the elf that you weren’t fussy,” Severus pointed out calmly.

“I said I wasn’t that fussy,” countered Harry. “A choice of two would have been nice.”

“Potter, I know for a fact that you eat anything that is not nailed down…when you have an appetite, that is.”

“Yeah…well, tonight I felt like onion soup, roast chicken and my very favourite, treacle tart.”

“Well…tonight, you have this.”

“Why do you get to make the choice? Why can’t we pick individually what we want?”

“Because you are not at Hogwarts, Potter. And we have only one house elf.” Severus’s voice was becoming tight with irritation. He leaned towards Harry. “You are just being perverse for the sake of making a fuss.”

“And I haven’t got a right to make a fuss, I suppose? I haven’t got the right to be irritated because I've been spirited off to the ends of the Earth with you as my jailor?” Harry stood and pushed his chair in, gripping the top of the padded back tightly. “Does Dumbledore think that I'm so mental that I have to be isolated away from…” he drew quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “normal people.”

He began pacing up and down. “Why not just lock me up in the mental ward at St Mungos then.” He tapped his scar with a rigid index and middle finger. “Surely this bloody mark qualifies me for the spell damage ward. Most people think I’m mental anyway. Rita Skeeter made sure of that. Not to mention the Ministry.”

Severus banged his hand down on the table—hard. Dishes jumped and pieces of cutlery clinked together. Erin jumped in fright. Harry stopped pacing and stood still, his jaw working as he ground his back teeth together. “That is enough,” ground out Severus. “Nobody thinks you are mental, as you so eloquently put it. You are here so that you have room to come to terms with what has been happening around you lately. But tomorrow morning will be time enough to discuss this, Potter.

“You can go to bed if you're not interested in eating the food that has been left on the table. Miss Hanson and myself will be better able to enjoy our meal without the appetite suppressing presence of a petulant teenager.”

Harry looked at Erin and then back at Snape. Erin had to bite her tongue to stop herself from stepping in on Harry’s behalf. It was quite obvious that Harry was deliberately picking a fight with Snape. She was surprised that the Prince had kept his usually volatile temper under relative control. She wanted to support Harry because she knew that he had had a lot to cope with…hence the reason they were here in the wilds of the Hebrides, but she did not want to block the Prince at every turn. They really needed to work together to help Harry.

So Erin said gently. “Do you want to eat, Harry?”

“No,” snapped Harry, but then he seemed to realise whom it was he had snapped at and he tacked on an embarrassed, “thanks.”

“Then you are excused, Potter. Breakfast will be served at eight AM. I trust a sleep will have improved your manners somewhat,” said Severus with finality. He picked up his spoon again and dipped it in his soup.

Harry stood uncertainly, part of him wanting to storm out, to get well away from Snape, but another part of him wanting to stick around to annoy the git. “How long do I have to stay here?” he demanded.

“Until I think that you are sufficiently in control of your emotions to be around other people.”

“I can be around other people!” exclaimed Harry, outraged. “What, do you and Dumbledore think that I’m going to hex someone? One of my friends?”

Severus’s look said “we are not willing to take the chance.”

“I don’t lose control that easily!” Harry bit out, convinced now that Dumbledore must definitely think he was completely mental. “I'm not Malfoy. He’s the one who pulls his wand on fellow students all the time.”

Severus raised his eyebrows. With a sigh, he put his spoon down again and subjected Harry to his most intimidating glare. “That is a claim that will need proving Potter…”

“You know it’s true. When you took points from me in the entrance hall just before the end of term for having my wand pointed at Malfoy, he was the one who started that…threatened to kill me in fact.”

“You were the one with your wand out.”

“Yeah, that’s because I’m better than him…quicker than him.”

“And you were the one who was caught with your wand pointed at another student,” Severus pointed out reasonably.

“Of course I was,” said Harry, his accompanying sneer almost worthy of Severus himself. “But if it had been Malfoy you caught, I bet you wouldn’t have taken points from him. And you know what else, sir…if Malfoy had beaten me to get his wand out, you would have had to not take points from him for actually hexing another student. Because he wouldn’t have hesitated.”

Harry was getting into his stride now. “And, you would have taken points from me for provoking the shitty little ferret and his warthog sidekicks.”

Severus could feel Erin’s eyes as they slid from Potter to him. He had one eyebrow raised in question. He could have strangled the little pimp. This was definitely going to improve her opinion of him.

“I refuse to sit here, Potter and listen to your beefs against me. I am the teacher and the head of Slytherin house…you are the rule-breaking Gryffindor. Now, before I start deducting points and keeping a tally so that I can subtract them at the beginning of term, I suggest you do as you were told earlier and go to bed.”

Harry felt something brushing against his ankles and he looked down to see Pumpkin slinking in and out of his slightly parted feet. He bent down and scooped her up, bringing her right up to his face and rubbing his chin against the top of her head. Immediately her purrs increased in volume. Some of the anger drained out of Harry as he held the contented feline. He looked at Snape, his eyes empty.

“Good luck trying to take points from Gryffindor when the person you’re punishing is no longer a student at Hogwarts.” And with that little gem hanging in the air, Harry left the room, Pumpkin still clasped in his arms.