Harry Potter and the Different Path by Sherza

The atmosphere in the castle in the days before the first Quidditch game (Gryffindor versus Slytherin, no less) was electric. With all four teams on new and improved brooms, and with Harry as the 'secret' (which was known by everyone about three hours after he got on the team), the first match was even more highly anticipated than usual.

Severus bore heavily on his team to play fair, but did not suffer any delusions about them actually doing so. Flint, the Captain, had picked his team with dirty play in mind. No girls, and all the boys outweighed most of their opponents by a good bit. They were essentially flying bricks, especially the Beaters. The Gryffindor team, on the other hand, Severus had to admit was built more on talent. He had no love of the game himself, had never played it, but he'd seen much of the Gryffindor team in action last year, and if Harry lived up to the potential Severus had seen in the flying lesson, Slytherin's chances of getting the Quidditch cup were doomed. And from the way Flint had been driving his team, he seemed to be aware that they were in trouble.

Both Severus and Minerva had been keeping a careful eye on Quirrell. Severus did not like the fact that Harry seemed to consistently suffer headaches only in that class. It made him think that perhaps someone was attempting (poorly) legilimency on Harry. And given that no first year was capable of that art, it left him with Quirrell ... but Harry had mentioned that Quirrell seldom looked right at him. It just didn't add up.

On top of that, he'd caught Quirrell loitering around near the third floor, when he had no need to be there. Even Severus' less-than-veiled threats did not seem to deter the man. Minerva had also spotted him near the third floor once or twice during her rounds. Severus was just glad that the first line of defense was so ... intimidating. Cerberus hounds were not creatures to be trifled with. They were fanatical guard animals, and immune to magic of any kind (insofar as anyone had been able to discover, anyway). As far as Severus knew, the only way to conquer one was to use a physical attack ... which was virtually guaranteed to kill the one attempting it, since the animal had three sets of very large teeth to work with. There were, of course, other defenses, but the first one seemed to be stopping Quirrell in his tracks, for which Severus was very grateful.

The morning of the game dawned bright and clear, and Severus made a point of ensuring he was seated right next to Quirrell. He'd been sticking as close to the man as he dared since taking up Harry's guardianship, putting as much pressure as he could on the man to either scare him off or get him to confess. Quirrell, in his turn, had been trying to evade him, but Severus knew the castle better, and had many years of knowing how to lurk about in shadows on his side, so Quirrell's attempts had been less than successful.

"Quirrell." Severus sneered as he took his seat. He was surprised at the faint flash of ... something ... that flitted across Quirrell's face. Unfortunately, whatever it was had been and gone so fast Severus hadn't quite caught it.

"P-p-p-profes-ssor S-s-s-snape." Quirrel greeted, looking nearly as terrified as a first-year Hufflepuff.

Snape sneered at him, but when the teams were announced, he turned his attention to the field.

HPHPHP

Harry was sure he'd never been so nervous in his life, as the Gryffindor team took to the pitch. He grinned widely when he saw the bedsheet banner that Ron and Hermione had made. Then he got a good look at the Slytherin team and swallowed hard. The smallest of them was practically twice his size!

Flint and Wood were trying to glare each other to death as they shook hands before mounting up. Then again, the rest of the Slytherin team was doing much the same.

Then the balls were released and the whistle blown. Harry lost no time in getting as high as he could as fast as he could, trying to get clear of the main battle. For battle it quickly became. The Slytherins were playing for blood, ganging up on whichever unfortunate Gryffindor had the quaffle in twos and threes, doing everything short of breaking bones and brooms to get the quaffle in their own hands.

By the time five minutes had passed, there'd been as many fouls. Fred and George were having an all-out Beaters battle with the Slytherin Beaters, smashing the unpredictable balls about the pitch like some very demented form of tennis match as all four boys tried to take out the other side's players. The only reason Harry hadn't had a bludger aimed at himself was because their Seeker was keeping so close to Harry that Harry could practically smell the boy's breakfast on his breath, and neither side wanted to knock out or cripple their own Seeker in an attempt to nail the other team's.

Harry did his best to ignore the other Seeker and keep a sharp eye out for the Snitch. He thought he saw it once or twice, but it was there and gone again so fast he couldn't really get a fix on it. Finally, though, Harry caught sight of it. Unfortunately, with the Slytherin Seeker this close, there was a good chance the boy would manage to catch the thing before Harry did. He was just lucky the boy didn't seem to see the Snitch himself. So Harry did the only thing he could think of. He fixated on a point well to one side of the Snitch's actual position and took off like a bat out of hell. Of course, the other boy took off following.

But the other boy was no match whatever for Harry in the air. Once Harry was sure the boy was committed to a straight-line race, Harry banked hard to the left and flattened himself to the broom handle, urging every bit of speed out of the broom that he could. The Slytherin Seeker, caught completely flatfooted and on the outside of Harry's turn, took several seconds to get turned around and following him. It was several seconds far too many.

For Harry, the world seemed to cease to exist ... until the cool metal of the Snitch touched his fingers. As soon as he had a good grip on it, the sights and sounds of the world around him returned in an almost painful rush. Half a second after that, Lee Jordan shrieked that he had the snitch, and the Gryffindors went nuts, with the team not far behind them.

HPHPHP

Harry, Severus reflected with resigned amusement, was an even better flier than his stunt during the first flying lesson indicated he might be. He gave the impression of not having a broom under him at all as he swooped around the field in an attempt to evade the Slytherin Seeker and the other players.

But as the game went on, Severus found himself getting more and more distracted from the action on the pitch. Beside him, Quirrell seemed to get more and more tense, frustrated, and dare he say it, angry. Oh, it was not something so obvious as a facial expression, but it was there in the man's body language. But what made Severus' blood go cold was that, right about the time Harry caught the snitch and was surrounded by his jubilant teammates, he felt the faintest prickle of sensation ... in his left forearm. He had not felt anything from the Mark since the day Voldemort got blasted to bits (however that had actually happened). It took all his skill not to turn an enraged look at Quirrell. There was, so far as he could tell, only one real reason for Quirrell to be so angry right here and now, and for his Mark to be prickling at the same time. Harry. It stood to reason that Voldemort wanted the boy dead, and it was making an awful kind of sense, now, why Quirrell was after the stone. But there was a problem. He had no proof. Certainly, there was circumstantial evidence in quantity, but there was nothing concrete that tied Quirrell to Voldemort. And it would take hauling Voldemort himself before Dumbledore before the man believed that Quirrell was working for him. Severus knew it was more than slightly hypocritical to be angry at Dumbledore for a belief that he himself had benefited from, but it irked him that Dumbledore gave so many people so many chances, and point-blank refused to see that some people were simply irredeemable. There were days when Severus thought Dumbledore hoped to redeem Voldemort himself, a thought that never failed to make him snort in disgust.

He was going to have to keep an even closer eye than the thought on Quirrell. He'd originally thought the man was trying for the stone for his own gain ... there were not many that would not be tempted. Even he himself was tempted, though more by the thought of experimenting with the stone and the elixir than drinking the stuff or making himself insanely rich by turning things to gold. He had no desire whatever to live forever, and honestly thought that anyone who wanted to live forever was more than a bit insane. As for the gold ... he was a Potion Master. The youngest in Britain in centuries. Normally, one did not become a Potion Master until one was about the age Severus was now, but he had managed to attain that title just two years out of Hogwarts. While teaching cut into the amount of time he had to invent, refine, and brew, he still had more than enough time to earn nearly double his teacher's salary by supplying St. Mungo's and individual customers with a variety of the more difficult-to-brew potions, especially wolfsbane. Severus was one of only three people in the country who could brew that particular potion, and the only one willing to undertake making it on request. As Severus lived rather Spartanly, a habit developed in his youth when money was a scarce, hard-won commodity, his vault at Gringotts was more than generously supplied with gold at this point.

Severus tailed Quirrell all the way to the other man's office as they left the stands, then glowered at the closed door for a while before turning and heading for his own office to finish grading papers. He'd deal with Quirrell later, Dumbledore be damned.