Harry shrugged. "D d don't kn kn know."

"Well, good luck then. Maybe we'll get back to the common room early and then we can play some chess."

Harry nodded and they parted. Ron had been teaching Harry wizards chess, although it had been slow going at first since the pieces didn't take kindly to mangled orders coming out of Harry's mouth. After Ron had threatened to smash them to bits with his wand however, they started to obey Harry, and he had gotten quite good in the last few weeks.

Snape's office door was closed, but light spilled out underneath into the hallway, and Harry was bade to come in when he knocked.

Inside the man was grading a tall stack of essays, and he looked up when Harry entered, and told him to sit down.

"You brought the book?"

Harry nodded and pulled it out.

Severus stood up and moved around the front of his desk. He picked the book up and said, "I will only teach you if you promise to abide by my rules, am I understood?"

Biting his lip, Harry nodded, and Snape continued. "Good. The first rule is that you will no longer use physical gestures when words will suffice. When asked a question, I expect an answer."

With a sigh, Harry said, "Yes s s s sir." He had schooled himself to nod and point and shrug along with a number of other mannerisms if he could instead of using words.

"Secondly, you are to pause before you speak, and think about what you say."

"S s sir?" He didn't understand, he always thought before he spoke, or else get hit by Uncle Vernon for stupid comments.

"You were able to do the Wingardium Leviosa charm without words?"

Harry nodded, and then correcting the gesture at the stern look he received, he said, "Yes."

"Then I am correct in assuming that when you think a word it does not form in your head broken."

"Yes."

"Good. Then you will do as I say, and take the time to think on the words you wish to speak before you speak them. Even if it takes you longer to answer a question, pause, rehearse the word in your mind a few times, and when you feel that you have it down, say it."

Severus waited until he received confirmation that Harry had understood, and then went on, "Thirdly, you will begin to offer information freely in my class. Am I understood?"

"Yes s sir."

"That means you will raise your hand and volunteer information instead of me having to pry it out of you."

"Yes s s sir."

"Good. Now take this and read the first paragraph." He handed Harry the charms book and pointed at the paragraph describing the Wingardium Leviosa spell. This was a page Harry knew well and had almost memorized because he had studied it long and hard in bed at night, and between classes, trying to master the spell without words.

"R r read?"

"Out loud."

He peered down at the page and a rock fell into the pit of his stomach. He loved to read, but the one time he'd been asked to read aloud in front of the class in primary school, the entire class laughed at him and the book was snatched from his hands from the teacher before he finished the first sentence.

"Any time Potter," Snape said impatiently, knowing Harry wasn't waiting because he was rehearsing the words in his head.

Slowly and carefully, Harry set to reading the paragraph, trying hard not to mangle the words. It didn't go well because the more he read, the more nervous he got about it. He kept peering up from the book to Snape, and imagined that he saw the man becoming agitated with him as Uncle Vernon usually did.

Halfway through, Harry stopped and set the book down. "I c c c can't s s s sir."

Snape crossed his arms. "Rule number four: you can and you will."

"Y y you c c can't add r r r r rules!"

The man raised an eyebrow and said, "I am the teacher and you are the student. I will decide how many rules are set, and when they are applied. Now keep reading. You will not leave this office for the night until you have read that paragraph out loud to me twice. Remember to pause and think before you speak.

And so it was that Harry sat and stumbled over his tongue and felt more foolish as the night wore on. It was a full half hour before he had read the four sentence paragraph twice. Feeling exhausted, and thinking that he shouldn't, Harry looked up and said, "D d done s sir."

"Good. Bring the book back tomorrow after dinner. I would suggest practicing reading that paragraph out loud to yourself when you get back to your room, and in between classes tomorrow."

Harry gave a groan and stood to leave. "Yes s sir. Th th thanks."

If Harry had felt foolish reading in front of his Potion's Master, he felt even more foolish trying to read out loud to himself in bed that night, and stashed the book under his bed in a hurry when Dean and Seamus entered the dorm to go to bed.

"Who were you talking to Harry?" Dean asked.

"P p practicing sp sp spells."

"Oh, well keep it up. You'll get it soon." Dean tried to give him an encouraging smile, and Harry couldn't deny that he enjoyed the encouragement. Sometimes he got that at the start of the year from his teachers in primary school, but a few weeks in they always seemed to give up on him, and he wondered when the Potion's Master would give up too. As he sat through three more nights of fumbling over the paragraph in front of the man, he almost wished the man would just give up and save him the humiliation.

On the fourth night, Snape said, "Potter, look at me."

Harry's eyes snapped up from the book, and he thought ‘this is it, he's giving in.' Instead of dismissing him however, the man said, "Repeat after me: Harry."

Well that was easy, he thought, as he rambled off his first name perfectly, "Harry."

"Repeat again: Harry Potter."

"Harry P Potter."

"Now close your eyes and think: Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter. Think it over and over again for a few minutes. When I say ‘go' say it out loud. Ready..."

Harry closed his eyes and did as he was told, thinking this to be a ridiculous exercise. Just when he thought the word go would never come, Snape said very quietly, "Go," and Harry said, "Harry Potter."

Immediately his eyes snapped open and surprise registered in them. "Harry Potter," He said again, and he couldn't help but notice that surprise registered in the dark eyes before him as well.

"Harry Potter," he said louder. He had never said his full name without a stutter before. In fact, it had taken him many years to say his first name without a stutter.

"Harry Potter! Harry Potter!" He jumped up, Charms book falling to the floor and ran from the room, too excited to break his train of thought as he searched out his friend many floors above him.

Five minutes later, panting and out of breath, Harry burst through the portrait hole and shouted excitedly, "Harry Potter!"

People looked up in awe, not understanding what was going on until Ron burst down the stairs to the boys dormitories and said, "Harry?"

"Harry Potter! Harry Potter!" He said it a little more quietly, suddenly feeling the eyes on him, but with no less excitement.

Ron seemed to realize the revelation and laughed. "You did it!"

"Harry Potter!"

"Did what? What's all the racket about?" A stressed looking seventh year rumbled down the stairs behind Ron, wondering what had interrupted his studies.

"He can say his name without the stutter," Ron said proudly of his friend, and then the others in the room understood too, and some laughed at Harry's excitement while a few clapped.

Harry followed Ron up the stairs and laid in his bed all night whispering to himself, "Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Harry Potter." And in his dreams, he was a normal boy for once, able to do whatever he wanted.

* * *

Severus stretched and stifled a yawn as he poured himself a cup of black coffee in the staff lounge. He grumbled about the lack of sugar and cream, and thought bitterly, another Monday, another pity Potter meeting. It was worth helping the boy, he convinced himself, if only to get back to normal staff meetings where Filch complained about troublemakers and Binns slept through the whole thing, drooling ghostly saliva down his old tunic.

He sat in the more comfortable of the old overstuffed chairs as he watched the other staff filter in sleepily and begin to chat. Of course nobody ever deemed him worthy of chatting with, he thought bitterly as Albus walked in and sat in a large fluffy looking purple chair he had just conjured out of thin air.

"Good morning Severus," he called across the room to the man. The other staff stopped talking, understanding this to be the start of the meeting.

"If you insist Headmaster," Severus said, and took a sip of his coffee.

"What news from Slytherin? Did I hear right that seven of your students have been doing non-stop detention with Argus?"

"They were found levitating a first year upside down after hours."

"Oh? And what first year would this be?"

Severus sneered over at Madam Pomfrey. She knew damn well which one it was.

"Oh do tell Severus," Minerva piped in. "Nobody informed me of the incident."

With an audible grumble, Severus said in a low voice, "Harry Potter."

"Ha!" Minerva slapped her leg in glee and pointed at him. "So you admit it was your students tormenting him?"

Eyes narrow, he said, "When caught in the act I do as demanded of me, which is why they are in the middle of a fourteen day stint cleaning toilets all night."

The woman seemed to grow a satisfied smile as if she had planted the seed long ago and had waited until it had been watered to sprout it's ugly little head out of the ground.

"Speaking of the boy," Professor Flitwick said suddenly, a finger in the air, "do you know what I heard?"

Oh bloody hell, Severus thought, here it came. Somebody had found out he'd been helping the boy. He should have made that rule number six that he wasn't to tell a soul, right after rule number four: No running screaming from the room, no matter what the circumstances.

"I heard his stutter has been getting better!"

"Really?"

"How so?"

"How do you know?"

"Well I heard from a Gryffindor Prefect that he burst into the common room last week shouting his name! Not just Harry, but Harry Potter! And he had no stutter!" McGonagall nodded here to confirm the story that she had also heard from Percy Weasley and a number of other students.

"And how did that happen?" Pomfrey again, and this time she was giving a suspiciously knowing glare at Severus, although nobody noticed.

"Well I heard that friend of his, Ronald Weasley has been helping him," Flitwick supplied.

"Oh really?"

"What a wonderful boy."

Severus snorted, as if this were a rich assumption, which it was, and Minerva looked over at him. "Something to say Severus?"

He rolled his eyes and said, "No, by all means continue making assumptions, I am ever so pleased to take part in another Potter Monday."

She gave him a smug glare and the meeting went on, eventually moving on to the Weasley Twins, who had somehow come up with yet another secret stash of Fanged Frisbees, which had now all be spelled to attack Filch, his cat, or Severus, no matter whom they were thrown at.

At the end of the meeting, not daring to bring it up in front of the others, Severus waited until he and Albus were alone in the room. As he moved for the exit, Severus said casually, "If anybody cares at all, the boy's grades in Potions have increased dramatically."

"Which boy Severus?" Dumbledore had an amused smile on his face.

He rolled his eyes at the man and said, "The Potter boy. The boy that will be the death of me someday."

"Only if you let him Severus," Dumbledore smiled as he walked out of the room.

"Only if I let him," Severus muttered under his breath, and headed out to meet his NEWT class.