Hermione fidgeted in her seat. She was trying, valiantly trying to restrain herself. She had been trying for ten full minutes, in fact; from the moment the two boys had dropped their bags on the table next to hers in the library.

Finally, she put down her quill, closed the Transfiguration text and pushed back her chair. Someone was wrong in the best school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

~HH~HH~HH~HH~HH~

He'd been forewarned. He had been forewarned.

“I'm an idiot,” Harry sighed, staring into his Charms book.

“Commendably critical point of view,” remarked Theo. “Does that mean you've decided not to self-destruct in an attempt to get a good Potions grade?”

“It has nothing to do with Potions grades,” Harry began resolutely. “He —”

“Harry, you shouldn't blame yourself. That was very unprofessional of Professor Snape.”

From the table in front of theirs, Hermione had had the best view of the happenings in Potions. At first, having swooped upon them in the library, she had been sitting near Harry to offer support he couldn't understand the reason for, but then had moved to Theo's side, so that the two could argue without drawing the librarian's attention.

“Hermione, that's not it. I've told him I want to study Potions. And he just —”

“You've told him and he has acted like that?” Theo looked at Harry incredulously. “It's safe to say you're being counter-productive if you still think you have any chance.”

“It's the principle of thing!” Hermione interjected. “Harry should persist if that's what he wants.”

“Harry wants to override his Head of House, effectively. Principles or not, that is suicidal.”

Harry wondered what in him made people talk about him in third person in his presence.

“It has nothing to do with principles. Professor Snape just doesn't think I'm serious about studying Potions. I have to convince him, that's all,” he said, when it was evident the opponents had come to a glowering stalemate — again.

“My dear Potter, don't put Snape and 'doesn't think' in the same sentence. You'll end up as a potion ingredient. Moreover, there is Malfoy. It looks like he is set to be the teacher's pet, and that way he can cause you a world of trouble. He said —”

“I heard him too, Theo, no need to recap,” Harry interrupted bitterly. “But if I don't have any chance, then Draco has, like, ten percent of it.”

“I wouldn't bet,” Theo replied, dropping his voice and glancing at Hermione suspiciously. “For all the nonsense he spits, his father is on the Board of Governors. No doubt Malfoy the brat runs crying to him the moment Snape tries to say anything like he said to you, no matter that he deserves it and you don't.”

“Oh, I know. I've seen them in July in Diagon Alley — him and his father, I mean. Draco didn't recognise me back there and acted like a right spoiled git. Even Professor Snape then said —”

“Wait, Snape was there, too?” Theo frowned at Harry.

Harry sighed heavily and mentally berated himself, frowning right back at his friend and Hermione for a good measure, “Swear you don't tell anyone what I'm telling you now, all right? You too, Hermione. I don't want... Well, you'll see.”

Both nodded eagerly, leaning closer to Harry, who began to speak.

“I actually met Snape for the first time this summer, when he helped me with shopping for school, — that's a long story I won't go into just now. We ran into Draco and his father, almost, only back then I didn't know them, of course; but the professor apparently did, and managed to avoid them, himself. I thought it didn't bode well. And then Draco and I were at Madam Malkin's, and he didn't recognise me, just like I've said, and boasted how he would be in Slytherin and the usual Malfoy-this-and-that stuff. Later, I asked Professor Snape whether it was true, about Draco sorted into Slytherin, and you know what? He said, 'Unfortunately', and had that expression of — distaste, y'know, like he wished he taught a toad instead.” Harry snickered quietly at the memory.

Theo grinned darkly. “Oh my, that's priceless.”

Hermione chewed her lip in confusion. “But that's prejudice.”

“You don't know Draco,” Harry countered. “Though, I'm not sure if the professor knows him either. He might've been thinking of Draco's father. Anyway, not something to carry tales of.”

“Be that as it may,” Theo was back in his serious mode, “Malfoy didn't manage to get himself into a detention at his first lesson, you have to admit.”

“Yeah.” Harry sighed. The varnished toadstool of a boy hadn't been an idiot and hadn't messed up the most basic potion ever. Sure, Harry had been working with Theo, so the failure was shared, but it turned out his partner regarded Potions practicals as a torture necessary to build one's character and swore he wouldn't be able to drink anything he made himself. Pushing away the Charms and re-capping his pen, Harry fished in his bag for the Potions textbook, but unexpectedly came up with a chocolate bar.

“Stop!” Theo whispered urgently over the table, glancing at Madam Pince. “We haven't tested them yet.”

“I don't care if it's poisoned,” Harry said glumly.

“I knew it,” moaned Theo. “You are suicidal or insane. So, you kill yourself and who do I talk to for the next seven years? Vince, Greg and Malfoy?”

Harry started chuckling in spite of his mood.

“Granger, can you make yourself useful?” Theo continued. “There should be spells...”

“Chocolate is bad for your teeth.” Hermione looked at him with apparent reproach.

“We have a matter of life and death here,” Theo stated categorically, gesturing at Harry, who felt oddly better and lighter without any sweets.

~SS~SS~SS~SS~SS~

The door opened before he had a chance to knock. A customary offer of tea, which he took, and of candy, which he declined.

“It's been some time since we had an opportunity to talk, Severus. I hope everything is going well.”

“As well as it could be expected, Headmaster,” he nodded, just a touch sarcastic. “Is there anything specific you're interested in favourable proceeding of?”

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and looked out of the arched windows. The deep purple of the dying sky blended in his eyes and his robes. Things whirred and ticked on the numerous shelves.

“I know you for a very smart young man, Severus, and as such, you might be harbouring all manner of suspicion.”

“Should I be?” He inclined his head minutely, composing the expression of detached if caustic curiosity.

“Regarding the student distribution... Inviting you to talk today, I hoped to dispel any doubts you may have, my boy.”

Severus suddenly saw the thread of conversation before him, clear and bright. He made a grab at it before it could go through his fingers phantomwise, as it often happened when talking to Dumbledore. When he spoke, there was slightly more force behind his words.

“Forgive me, sir, but I cannot bring myself to believe the perfect Gryffindor offspring is sorted into the directly opposite House, my House, and there is no design behind it. Unless there is something else to his circumstances I'm not aware of?”

“There isn't, I assure you.” Another silence of clicking and whirring. “And it certainly wasn't a part of any plans. I do wonder about the boy myself.”

Severus lifted his eyebrows fractionally. You don't say. Then the headmaster, who was choosing a candy from the dish, focused on him. It was so abrupt his skin crawled.

“I suppose Harry makes for a very unusual Slytherin, doesn't he?”

There were shadows criss-crossing Dumbledore's face and Severus watched them carefully as he shaped his words.

“Oh, we both know for a fact that whatever the hat decided, Potter isn't a Slytherin. He has no inclination to be.”

“Now, Severus...” But Severus felt he already had a good idea of what constituted the now.

“No, Headmaster. And I don't think it's in my power to change his — ah, — breed, aggravated, no doubt, by his pampering Muggle relatives,” he sneered dismissively. “Who, by the way, don't deem it necessary to answer my owl.”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, and the chair shifted and flowed to accommodate. The glow of lamplight wiped the shadows away.

“You might be judging too quickly. He is but a child.”

“If I'm allowed to point out, sir, I've interacted with a lot of children in my life. Including at least one bearing the surname of Potter. This one is hopeless.”

“And what of his friends? Does he have any?”

“How should I even know?” Severus looked at Dumbledore with open astonishment, but, seeing him still waiting for an answer, shrugged. “I expect it would be difficult for him to build a gang out of his peers. They are either too independent or loyal to Draco Malfoy, who, in turn, isn't one to build a cordial relationship with Potter.”

“Even if his father tells him to?”

“Of Lucius and his plans, I have no idea,” Severus answered honestly. If Dumbledore noticed the answer mismatching the question, he didn't show it.

Instead, he glanced into his tea and said, “It might yet be... For the better, indeed.”

There was no clock in the office, but the window facets were almost completely dark. It will rain tomorrow, Severus thought, tasting an incoming headache. “If that is all, Headmaster, may I please take my leave?” he asked aloud, impatient on a border of disrespectful — not overstepping.

“Of course, my boy. The hour is far advanced: go and take your rest.”

The younger professor nodded and put down his cup, untouched.

.

He stopped and dared to take a breath only on the dungeon stairs; the absence of sound in the sleeping castle was ringing in his ears.

It had been aeons since Severus had occluded so meticulously. He sank down to sit on the steps and dropped his head in his hands.

Of the things Severus learned during his rather short and bleak existence, fulfilling expectations of his superiors was hard-wired. More importantly, giving his superiors a strong impression of fulfilling their expectations, however implicit and subtle they might be. He could discern the layers of meaning in a request and an order, he could tell when the words were perfunctory. It hadn't made him an empathic person, far from it; if anything, it had made him exceptionally good at aiming for the jugular.

And here they were, first Minerva in her misguided optimism. As if he redeemed himself running after the brats for ten months a year, as if his life never happened, as if he could forget everything and start over. And now this.

He could swear upon an appendage of choice — preferably, someone else's — that everything he'd said to Dumbledore had been expected of him. In clear bold print, or close to it. The negative expectation in itself didn't bother Severus, but there seemed to be a positive feedback to it. In much paler lettering, granted: he would've missed it any other day, in any other situation; but not now, and not about Potter. What kind of a plot was afoot this time?

He sat on the cold steps until his thoughts began to go in circles and overlap. And then, from one moment to the next, he saw the giant web he'd become entangled in — the web he hadn't been able to grasp the nature of. Disgustingly simple — nothing more than a cat's cradle suspended between several errors of judgement.