Severus Snape, Potions Master and professor of Hogwarts, Spy of the Light, Brewer of Voldemort's Demise, and unofficial guardian of the Boy-Who-Lived-and-Overcame, looked up from his book with a disapproving frown for the teen leaning in the doorway from the hall.

"You are still to be resting, Mr. Potter."

Another might have flinched at the sternness in the man's tone, but Harry Potter had been residing in the professor's quarters for the greater portion of a year and could detect the hidden note of concern behind the censure.

"I was bored," the boy complained.

Setting his book aside, Snape rose to his feet, crossing the room to take the teen by the elbow as he swayed precariously. The professor guided him over to the sofa. "Sit," he commanded.

Biting back a small smile, Harry obeyed, watching as the man summoned a pillow and positioned it against the couch arm. The older wizard stared down at him until he swung his stockinged feet around and reclined back on the pillow. After tucking a blanket about him, his professor placed a hand on his forehead.

"Sir!" Harry protested, but didn't pull away from the contact.

"I know for a fact that you have books in your room," Snape said reprovingly when he removed his hand a moment later, "some of which you've pilfered from my shelves. You've no reason for being 'bored'. I think, rather, you didn't wish to be 'alone'."

Harry shrugged, not bothering to deny it.

"Hana."

With a crack, a house elf popped into the room. She had dark hair tied back with a ribbon and large honey-colored eyes which were currently fixed upon Snape with adoration. "Potions Master is needing Hana?" she asked eagerly.

"Some hot chocolate for Mr. Potter, please," Snape requested.

"And for Potions Master, too?"

"No. If you must bring me anything, I suppose I will have a cup of tea."

"Mm!"

Harry attempted in vain to suppress his amusement, knowing full well that the only reason the professor had mentioned tea was due to the fact that Hana would have continued to pester him about what he'd like to drink. The little elf was just persistent that way. For his part, Snape settled back into his chair and reopened his potions journal, blatantly ignoring him.

"Professor?" the boy asked after a moment, having succeeded in fighting the grin off his face.

"Yes?"

"Hana's a Hogwarts elf, isn't she?"

"Of course she is. I do not own any house elves," the man replied.

"Well, when I first came here – to stay in your quarters, I mean – she said she was 'almost' your elf," Harry told him. "What did she mean by that?"

"It would seem Hana is uncharacteristically attached to me," Snape responded, his tone matter-of-fact.

"But, why?"

"You would have to ask Hana that."

"Ask Hana what?" the elf in question wanted to know as she popped into the room with a tray. On it was a cup of cocoa and some tea, as expected, along with a plate of cookies.

"Thank you, Hana," Snape said, accepting his tea and waving off the sweets.

"Thanks, Hana!" Harry beamed at her, taking his cocoa in one hand and a cookie in the other. "I was just wondering why you seem so attached to the professor."

"That is easy," said Hana. "It is because Potions Master is Mr. Severus Snape sir." Clearly, she thought this response made complete sense.

"Oh. Uh..." the boy looked at her in mild confusion. "That's it?"

Hana nodded, ears flapping with the motion. "Hana is knowing Potions Master since she was a young elf!" she declared.

"'Young'?"

"Of course, Master Harry!" the elf laughed. "Hana isn't being an adult elf until today!"

Harry sat up straighter. "It's your birthday? How old are you?" The teen belatedly recalled that human women considered such a question rather rude, but Hana didn't seem perturbed in the least.

"Hana is thirty-seven wizard years, today."

"Happy birthday," Harry told her.

The little elf's eyes instantly filled with tears and unconcealed admiration. "Master Harry is the first wizard ever to wish Hana happy birthday! Master Harry is... Master Harry is such a kind, wonderful wizard!"

"Yeah, um... please don't cry!" Harry pleaded, awkwardly patting her arm.

"Hana," Snape interjected smoothly, "by referring to me as being 'Severus Snape', did you mean to imply that you knew me before I had my Potions Mastery?" Harry shot him a grateful look, but though he had spoken to distract the elf from her impending tears of gratitude – which were now, thankfully, stopped – the man genuinely wanted to know.

"Mm!" Hana confirmed with a nod, turning to face the Potions Master. "Hana is first meeting Potions Master the winter after she is twenty wizard years."

Snape quickly did the math in his head. "That would have been my final year as a student," he murmured. He gazed at the house elf thoughtfully. "I don't think I remember you."

"Hana isn't surprised," she stated simply, "but Hana is never forgetting that Potions Master is the one who saved her!"

Realization flickered in the man's eyes. "That was you."

"Potions Master remembers!" Hana exclaimed happily, clapping her hands.

"Wait," Harry interjected, "remembers what? What happened?"

"Is it alright if Hana tells Master Harry the story?" Hana asked the professor.

"I was not aware there was much to tell," Snape dryly remarked.

"But there is!" the elf insisted.

The man inclined his head in acquiescence. Smiling happily, Hana perched herself on the edge of the coffee table to tell her story, Harry and Snape listening intently.

0o0o0

"Hana, you is not to be leaving the kitchens alone!" an older elf scolded. She wore an apron fashioned from a tea towel over a dress made with the remnants leftover from the new drapes in the Ravenclaw common room. A handkerchief was used to tie back her brown hair and even a human would have thought she looked every inch the stern mother that she was. "Young elves is not having -"

"'Is not having good control of their magics'," the other elf, who was obviously a lot younger, parroted back at her. The younger elf had short, dark hair which stood messily about her head.

Her mother, whose name was Balla, cuffed her upside the head. "You will not be talking that way to me! And you better stop cutting your hair so short!"

"Hana is liking her hair the way it is!" Hana exclaimed with a scowl, earning herself another smack.

"You is lucky you's a Hogwarts elf, Hana Igo 'n Balla's Child!" berated Balla. "Wizard families would not be putting up with elves which behave like you! You would be having to twist your ears and iron your hands every day! You is not to be leaving the kitchens alone. Understand?"

"Yes, Ma," Hana answered sullenly. Her mother gave her another cuff for good measure before disappearing to tend to her own tasks. The young elf rubbed the spot, even though it no longer stung, visibly sulking. With a snap of her long fingers, a nearby sink filled with silverware.

"Hana's magic is working just fine," Hana mumbled mutinously as she set the flatware to polishing itself. "Being scolded like a little elfling. Ulin is only twenty-three wizard years. He is not being told to 'stay in kitchens!' Ulin isn't being scolded like Hana is."

She went about finishing her tasks with far more racket than was necessary – even for only a half-trained elf – all the while complaining to herself how the other elves her age (and there weren't many) were all treated more fairly than she was.

"Hana cannot wait to be thirty wizard years!" she declared to the table napkins as they were folded. "Then, she would be an apprentice elf no more! Hmph! 'You is not to be leaving kitchens.' 'You is not to cut hair so short.' Ma is always scolding Hana..."

Once she was finished, she looked about the small nook she was in and sighed. The majority of the other elves, she knew, would be busy doing other chores about the castle. All the things that she wasn't supposed to do without supervision played through her mind in an unending, taunting refrain.

Hana was not much different from a human youth, but for the fact that, had she been human, she would have reached her majority already. House elves lived much longer than most wizards, however, and in some ways matured much slower. A twenty-year-old wizard or witch, for instance, would be expected to have already mastered his or her magic, already. Hana's, however, still proved unreliable at times, even failing her entirely in moments when she was anxious or frightened.

Not that Hana or any other youngling elf would admit to such a thing.

No, Hana, like many an adolescent wizard, seemed to believe herself invincible. Which is likely why she thought she could apparate out of the kitchens and back again without getting caught, thus combining two activities she was strictly prohibited from doing by herself.

A snap of her long fingers found Hana in another part of the castle and disconcertingly close to a wall. In fact, the corner of her apron was stuck firmly in the stone. Letting out a nervous noise, she took hold of the terrycloth and pulled, tearing the rest of it free.

Stepping away from the wall, she looked about, abruptly realizing that she wasn't entirely certain of her location. Hana hadn't spent all of her twenty wizard years in the kitchens and elf living quarters, of course, but she hadn't spent very much time in any of the greater corridors, either. (1) Technically, she probably could have returned to the kitchens the way she had left, but she wasn't too anxious to attempt apparition again so soon after nearly disapparating herself into a wall.

As she was trying to decide which way would take her to the nearest stairs, the young elf heard voices coming down the corridor. Soon, three students rounded the corner as they moved in her direction. The tallest boy was the first to notice her, tapping one of his companions and motioning towards the house elf.

"A house elf!" exclaimed the third loudly. He was by far the roundest of the three. "Whatcha doing out here, elfy? Aren't you s'posed to be hiding or something?"

"Quite right," agreed the tall one. "Our house elves never show themselves unless they are called. We civilized folk don't care to look at your kind, elfy. Your ugliness is hard on our eyes."

"Hana is begging the young sirs' pardon, but -" Hana began.

"'Sirs'?" burst out the chubby boy. "Y'mean 'masters', don't you? Have you ever seen an elf with such poor manners?"

"Never," said his friend, shaking his head disparagingly at Hana. "You are a very rude house elf!"

"Hana is sorry!"

"Whatever, just get out of our sight."

Hana immediately snapped her fingers, but nothing happened.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" shouted the chubby one. "I told you to leave! Rather bold, aren't you? Disobeying a direct order – shouldn't you be bashing your head against the wall?"

"Hogwarts elves don't punish themselves that way," the shortest of the three said quietly, speaking for the first time. "The elf's young, too. It's possible her magic isn't fully developed, yet."

"Is that so?" sneered his rotund friend, his tone full of malice. "Well, you know what they say – best to teach 'em while they're young."

Hana squeaked in fear as the wizard advanced on her, landing a kick to her side that sent her flying into the wall.

"Wait! What are you doing?" the short boy demanded, but his protests were lost as his companions fell upon her, kicking and hitting her, hurling insults at her as she cried, unable to summon her magic to help herself.

Hana is going to die at the mercy of these horrible, bad wizards! Hana thought in terror, even as she felt her consciousness begin to slip. Hana should have listened to her mother. Hana is still too young!

"Stupefy!"

It took the young elf a minute or two to realize the assault had ceased, and even then, only when another face appeared in her line of vision. She cringed away from this new danger, though, she hurt too much to move very far. "Don't... hurt..." she pleaded pitifully.

"I won't harm you," the newcomer told her, his tone silky and soft. Hana stared up at him. His skin was pale for a human's, and his eyes were twin dark tunnels. Oily locks of black hair framed his thin face and though his expression was solemn, it was not cruel like the two wizards who had attacked her.

"I don't know what I should do," he admitted after a moment, "how I should help you."

"Take... kitchens," Hana murmured between breaths, her ribs screaming in agony.

The human boy nodded. "I... have to pick you up," he warned. "It may hurt."

"Already hurt... young master."

With great care, the wizard lifted the little elf up in his arms, doing his best not to do her further harm. He would have cast a hover charm on her, but he wasn't certain whether it would work on an elf, though, it seemed very likely it would. Carefully, he made his way down several flights of stairs to the dungeons, the honey-colored eyes of the elf drifting open and shut every few minutes.

"What..." she asked when they were halfway there, "is young... young master's... name?"

"Severus Snape," the boy answered, not certain if the elf had heard him or not as her eyes were closed again.

Hana managed to reopen them with a great deal of effort, studying his face intently in an attempt to fix it within her pain-fogged mind. "Hana... will remember..." Once more, her eyes fell shut and unconsciousness overtook her.