Severus Snape was not a people person. Whenever he met new people, Severus always ended up insulting them. Even when he tried to be polite it always came out wrong. The thing is, he found it hard not to point out the person's deficiencies. People often misunderstood his advice to be sneering and derogatory insults and that was simply not the case...most of the time. His colleagues have told him that it was not the comments he made, it was the way he said them. Apparently Severus did not understand the art of subtlety nor the relevance of being nice.

Within his quarters, Severus sat down at his desk and pulled out a tall stack of homework. He needed something to take his mind off of Harry. He couldn't think about the boy right now, he couldn't deal with it. Funny, if you think about it. He'd been a spy for a very long time and dealt with innumerable amount of horrid things. Nothing had ever thwarted him. But this, the emotions he was feeling now…it baffled and confused him. It scared him. Frowning deeply and shaking his head, Severus set to work ripping into the first essay that belonged to a 5th year Ravenclaw.

There were very few people in this world Severus trusted, respected or got along with – most of the staff, some old friends and a few Potion acquaintances. Even then, he rarely socialized with them. Severus found recreational activities such as parties and Quidditch, unproductive and pointless. The Potions Master loved his solitude like it was a religion, often refusing invitations to events and preferring to play chess with the Slytherin portraits or studying the latest discoveries in Potions.

In this matter, Severus Snape was all too predictable.

Fifteen minutes later and on his fourth essay, the disgruntled man grunted as he gave paper before him a D. Deplorable! Disgraceful! Dismal! Depressingly unacceptable for the work of a Slytherin! The entire essay was deficient of sound argument and proper grammar. If it had been any other house, he would have given it a T. Then again, if he was in a better mood, it would have certainly been a passing grade. But Severus was not in the mood to hand out passing grades today.

In fact, Severus was in a decidedly terrible mood.

The Slytherin head of house had no tolerance for unruly children or children in general, for that matter. There was only one child he ever cared about and that was his godson, Draco Malfoy. He knew Draco from the day the child was born and have been looking out for him ever since. Although he frowned at Lucius and Narcissia's parenting technique, Severus decided long ago not to intervene. Draco, after all, was not his child.

If there was a child he disliked the most, it was definitely Harry Potter. No surprises there, really. Five years ago the young Gryffindor, wide-eyed and oblivious, came into Severus' life and redefined the word 'dislike'. Contrary to many popular legends, he did not hate Potter, nor did he want to use any of Potter's body parts as potion ingredients. But dislike, oh yes, he had a certain dislike for the boy.

Severus tried his best to focus on the unintelligible scribbling under his nose. But he found himself reading the same paragraph over and over again and nothing was getting through. Frustrated, he slashed a P at the top and moved on to the next one.

Everything was fine until the little Gryffindor nimrod got himself de-aged! By 14 years no less! Everything from that point on, well…he rather not talked about that. Albus talked with Severus after the potion had been administered, linking his awful mood to be in association with Potter's re-aging. Severus denied the hypothesis, told Dumbledore that he had a lot of work to catch up on and promptly retreated into his quarters where upon he fired the assistant and physically tossed him from the lab.

Now, he was giving out a T to the last of the unlucky essays. This was the twentieth T, preceded by fifteen D's, elven P's, nine A's, three E's and not a single O.

An hour passed before Severus slammed down his quill and ran a hand through his hair. Okay, so he was worried. What if the potion did not work? What if it had side affects? The varying conditions and results surrounding an accident is what make these types of potions unpredictable. It is simply impossible for a single potion to take into account all of the possible conditions of an accident. That's why potions like this were rarely brewed and highly unreliable. Also, because de-aging accidents were one in ten million, there was just no way of scientifically testing them.

Trust Potter to hit a one in a ten million chance! Severus sneered inside his own head.

The man had done considerable research on Potter's potion and he believed that it was safe and would work. Even so, what if something went wrong? The Potions Master frowned and fretted and put his fingers to his temple. It would take twenty-four hours for Potter to be re-aged. Twenty-hour hours in which Severus would not eat or sleep, overcome with worry.