Harry ran through the corridors, half expecting to hear loud footsteps and an angry voice close behind him. The small part of his mind that was still thinking rationally was appalled at how he had spoken to his father and more than a little afraid. However, the rest of him was in too much of a temper to take any heed.

How dare he treat me like that? I was careful! What right has he to treat me like a little child?

Harry snarled and viciously punched a wall as he passed. The angry pain only exacerbated his fury instead of dimming it. His emotions were swirling inside him with such violence that it frightened him a little.

About halfway through his conversation with Snape, he hadn’t been able to control his temper any longer and he had almost flinched as he’d waited for his power to overflow into a fantastical display of accidental magic, but that hadn’t happened.

What had happened was worse.

His magic had swirled inside him like white-hot, molten metal whose container had been shaken, lifting its pressure from all the memories and feelings he’d been tamping down beneath it for weeks beforehand. Everything he had been feeling, but had pushed back, had exploded inside him in that one moment and all he had wanted to do was scream, lash out, hurt something.

Even now, he couldn’t seem to settle his emotions at all, and that scared him more than he wanted to admit. The raging inside of him didn’t seem to want to calm on its own.

Breathing heavily, Harry stopped in the middle of the corridor and stared down at his hand. With several loud cracking sounds, the bones within it set themselves back into place and he cried out from the sudden, sharp pain of it.

It was then that he realised the roaring inside of him had stopped.

Right... Right. He started hurrying towards Gryffindor Tower again. I must have needed to use my magic for it to settle again, as it obviously won’t let itself out while I’m angry without my full permission... Hastily, Harry shoved the resurfacing guilt, grief and anger underneath the warm, magical ‘blanket’ that his settling core had created. He knew it wasn’t healthy, but he couldn’t quite bear to let himself truly feel them just yet.

I want to sleep. I just want to sleep and wake up and find that everything has sorted itself out while I was unconscious.

Harry sighed and pushed into the Gryffindor Common Room behind a couple of lagging Second Years. They tried to stop him, thinking that he was from another House, but he brushed them off easily.  Ha, no one recognises Famous Harry Potter now. I’m glad Snape managed to convince Dumbledore not to announce who I was to the rest of the school.

He shivered a little as he remembered his father’s anger, but couldn’t help but feel that it was all a misunderstanding that had been blown out of proportion. After all, the Snape who had looked after him over the summer had been very different to the Snape who had confronted him today... But that didn’t mean Harry wanted to see him again, just yet. He was still too furious.

And besides... Harry hunched his shoulders a little at the thought. Besides, if Snape hadn’t overreacted, if he hadn’t banned Harry from Quidditch on the spur of the moment, then that might mean Hermione had been right all along, and Harry would never be able to trust the man again...

He wasn’t ready to find out one way or the other just now.

He slowly climbed the stairs to his room, shoved open the door and was suddenly greeted by a loud, shouted “Surprise!” from his dorm mates and Hermione. The room was literally covered in red and gold streamers. Ron must have told Dean and Seamus about Harry’s appearance because they didn’t look in the least bit surprised to see him, and even Neville was smiling widely as he saw him. Ron, however, looked a little worried.

Harry felt his face stretch into a scowl. “Not in the mood tonight, guys,” he grumbled as he moved past them to get towards his four-poster. His temper was starting to rise again, especially as Hermione was now pursing her lips and wearing an ‘I told you so’ expression.

“Fuck off, Hermione!” he snarled as he yanked the bed’s curtains around him. He’d already used proper wandless magic once that night, so he was forced to reach for his wand in order to lock out and silence the rest of the world. He could only hope that the others wouldn’t dare to disturb him as he covered his head with his pillow and longed for oblivion.

Harry groaned and slowly forced his eyes open to the light that had somehow invaded his bed space. With a shock, he realised it was morning.

He reached for his glasses on the bedside table before abruptly remembering that he didn’t need them anymore. Hedwig, who was sitting on his headboard, hooted a soft greeting to him before tucking her head back under her wing. Obviously, she’d had a long night, hunting the local rodent population. Pushing himself upright, he glanced down towards whatever was making a dent at the foot of the bed.

Hermione and Ron were perched on either side of his four-poster, with a pile of brightly wrapped presents settled between them. As soon as Harry’s eyes focussed on them, Ron started to sing in a loud, off-key voice.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday you sodding-miserable-git-who-was-determined-to-have-his-presents-over-a-month-laaate, Happy Birthday to you!”

Ron gave a mock bow and Harry found himself laughing in spite of everything. Even Hermione was giggling a little, though she had been gnawing worriedly on her lower lip the moment before. As soon as Harry’s eyes rested on her, she couldn’t seem to contain herself any longer.

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said those things and I feel awful now and I was just so worried. I’m so sorry, Harry.” Her words all came out so quickly that they seemed to all run into each other. She stared at him with worried, brown eyes and Harry couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty at how he had treated her the night before.

“I’m really sorry too, Hermione. I should have behaved better as well. Friends?”

She sniffed and nodded vigorously. “Friends.” She quickly darted forward and squeezed him tight before letting go. “Ron said that I was an idiot... and I can see I really was...”

“Hermione, you’re forgiven. Just, in future, don’t try to tell me my own mind. Keep quiet like Ron, despite the fact that you want to say a hundred horrible things against the man. I know he’s a git, but...” Harry broke off as he remembered why he had been so angry last night.

“I understand. I promise I won’t say anything against him and that I’ll listen if you ever want to tell me anything instead of prying.” She looked like she’d just had to hand back a hundred Galleons worth of book tokens to Flourish and Blotts, but Harry could tell that she meant it. Curiosity killed the Hermione...

“So!”

Hermione and Harry jumped at Ron’s loud exclamation.

“Presents!” Ron grabbed one and chucked it at Harry. “You’ve got plenty of time to open them. Everyone went to breakfast early, and judging by your expression last night, we decided that you wouldn’t want to go down to the Great Hall anytime soon.” Ron handed over several napkins filled with all kinds of breakfast foods.

Harry looked down at them and groaned loudly as something else from the night before came back to him.

“Dean, Seamus, and Neville must think I’m such an arse! I mean, they must have worked so hard with the decorations and everything, and then I just threw it back in their faces!”

Hermione gently patted his arm. “Don’t worry. You really did look very upset last night, so I’m sure they won’t mind. After all, they all got out of bed early this morning so that we would have the time to talk to you. On the first day, too!”

“Harry,” Ron said very seriously. “If you don’t open your presents soon, I’m going to have to invoke the best friend’s right.”

Harry stared at him, baffled. “What’s that?”

Ron grinned. “I get to have all your presents by forfeit!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Harry yelped, laughing happily as he tore off the wrapping of the present in his lap.

oooOOOooo

Severus looked down at the myriad of young faces staring up at him and slowly let his lips twist into a smirk.

“Welcome to Slytherin,” he purred softly and watched as the First Years shivered with part-fear, part-awe. He glanced at the older years. “And for the rest of you, Welcome back.” He turned to his eleven new students.

“Good evening, I am your Head of House and Potions Professor. From here on in, you shall all address as ‘Professor Snape’ or ‘sir’. Out of House, I expect you to treat me with nothing less than the highest degree of respect at all times. In a House like Slytherin, you must be aware that Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and even Hufflepuff believe us to be an inferior, possibly unworthy, House. This image of us was conceived through no fault of our own, but through useless propaganda bandied about by the older years, and thus it has been throughout the ages.”

Severus broke off and glanced around the enraptured faces arrayed beneath him.

“It is for this reason that we Slytherins must try their hardest to excel at all times; in lessons, in grades, in behaviour and even in decorum. To be given even the barest notice of being praiseworthy, Slytherins must outclass all other competition. However, this does not mean that you are permitted to hex the Gryffindors so that they can only speak in gibberish for a whole afternoon... Mr Nott.”

The boy in question suddenly found something extremely interesting to look at on the ceiling.

Severus cleared his throat and finished up his speech, “The Prefects; Jacobs, Flynn, Smith and Moon – congratulations, you four – will show you to your dormitories and answer any other questions you might have. In addition, my office door is always open to anyone who wishes to speak with me, and there are a fair number of students who know where my quarters are in the case of an emergency. I shall expect to see you all at least once over the course of the coming term.”

Here, he redirected his gaze to include all the other students as well. “Curfew is at nine o’clock, lights out is at eleven. Anyone found circumventing these rules will receive an automatic detention unless they have a genuinely valid reason.” He softened his tone a little, “However, coming to speak with me is always considered a valid reason no matter what the time may be. Good night.”

He nodded sharply at everyone and swept out of the Common Room, more than ready to call it a night. If only Harry were as easy to deal with as some of my Slytherins... stubborn little nuisance that he is!

After having given himself plenty of time to cool down, Severus was starting to feel more than a little concerned about his errant son. During the summer, he would never have let Harry go off on his own with his emotions running that high.

Severus sighed and vowed that after Harry had had enough time to calm down as well, he would try to speak with him about what was really bothering him. It was clear that there was something else concerning his son other than being angry at being punished. The fact that Harry had refused point blank to talk about the Shadow boy was not a good sign, and leaving something like that to fester would never do any good.

Severus idly wondered if being hard on the boy at this point was the right course of action.

The rest of the night mostly consisted of him catching cat naps in between getting up to comfort homesick First Years, as well as one or two Second Years. So, all in all, he was feeling rather worn down by the time breakfast rolled around.

His mood was not improved any when Harry failed to make an appearance in the Great Hall. Severus certainly hoped the food that Granger and Weasley were stuffing into napkins was for his son. Merlin knew, the last thing the brat needed was to miss out on even more meals. He resolved to speak to Harry about that as well, as soon as possible.

He glanced around the staff table and barely managed to suppress a smirk at the sour glances he was receiving. Obviously, quite a few people were still sore that he’d turned out to be the father of the favoured boy-child. Strangely enough, Minerva didn’t seem to be as annoyed as he thought she would be...

No matter. I can still rile her up over the Quidditch scores... especially now I’ve put her star Seeker out of action. Severus felt a sharp pang of guilt as he thought of that and his stomach roiled uneasily. Was I right to punish Harry the way I did? Quidditch was one sure-fire way of cheering him up and he’s been looking so miserable lately... I only meant to confiscate his broom, but he was acting so stubbornly! Refusing to realise the extent of the damage he may have caused!

From the corner of his eye he saw Granger and Weasley leave the Great Hall. But there is no harm in trying to talk to him about it now that he’s had a chance to think...

Severus rose and swept from the Hall himself, mentally preparing for the full day of classes ahead. The fact that he would be teaching Harry’s class fourth lesson made him unaccountably nervous. However, he was certain that terrifying a couple of First Years for the first two hours of the day would make him feel much better. Just because he didn’t have to favour Death Eater children any longer didn’t mean that he would suddenly become a ‘nice’ teacher.

The trip down to the dungeons was made shorter by him veering into several of the secret passageways that he passed. In fact, he arrived in plenty of time to wait and lurk in the shadows as the new First Years trickled into his classroom. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. There truly could not be a worse mixture. It was the same every year; the Gryffindors would be near impossible to control as they would be determined to demonstrate their infuriating bravado and the new Hufflepuffs would be so nervous they wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly.

Severus would be lucky if he managed to force any knowledge into their skulls this first lesson.

In the distance, a magical bell clanged and he strode forward from the shadows, through the open classroom door, and slammed it loudly behind him. Gratifyingly, the whole class jumped, and a couple of the girls even screamed.

“Wands away!” Severus hissed. “You will find no use for your conjuring sticks in my class. The subtle and exact science of potion-making requires a lot more finesse than is expected of you in your other lessons ...”

And so it continued.

The First Years behaved as expected all through the double lesson, behaving with both nervousness and insolence as befitted their House. So much so that the Sixth Years that followed them were a welcome relief. It was gratifying to be finally able to work with students that were actually interested in Potions, even if it was only for a single lesson, which was one of the reasons why Severus made it so difficult to get into the NEWT class.

He gently reached out his magic and briefly brushed it against each of their magical cores. Each and every one of them was capable of shutting him out, but far too many of them did not know what was happening or even noticed his touch.

It was a very effective method of searching out those either plotting mischief or not concentrating – it all depended on how bright their magic was shining. Very bright always belonged to the mischief-makers, whereas a muted core meant that the student was either nervous or daydreaming. Severus had used this method in all his years of a teacher – gaining him the reputation as a mind-reader – but never had he been able to sense the students so clearly before.

He sent a silent prayer of thanks to Lily for removing the Dark Mark, before turning back to his students.

Surprisingly, it was one of his Slytherin girls who started acting up a little in that class, but after a little internal debate, Severus decided not to take House points away. As he’d said the night before, Slytherins needed to stick together.

Instead, he waited until after the class and held her back under the pretence of talking about her OWL marks. When they were they only two in the classroom, Severus warned her in a low voice that she would be serving a rather unpleasant detention if she ever attempted to sabotage another student’s potion again. He then asked her if there was anything that might be bothering her.

The girl stared at the floor and bit her lip, looking so much like his son for a moment that Severus’ heart gave a jolt.

“Miss Adie?” he prompted. When the girl still said nothing, he gave a sharp nod and turned as if to dismiss her. “As usual, I will be in my office tonight if there is anything you wish to discuss at length with me.” He deliberately softened his tone as he spoke his next words, “As Slytherin Head of House, it is expected of me to listen to each and every one of my students’ concerns. Rest assured, you will not be intruding.”

Miss Adie seemed to relax at those words and she bobbed her head politely. “Thank you, Professor,” she murmured before hurrying out of the room, unwittingly opening the door to let Severus’ new Fourth Years in.

Severus couldn’t help but let his eyes sweep over the crowd and briefly rest on the brown-haired boy near the back. His son was avoiding his eyes.

Bugger.