Professor Snape was not sure quite what had happened to the Fowley child, but he was determined to find out. He had checked that Fowley had no injuries, before hauling them to their feet and demanding an explanation.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as that.

Fowley had been crying since he had arrived in the bathroom, and the child didn’t show any signs of stopping soon. They seemed to be struggling to get words out. Snape thought about bringing Fowley down to his office, but he could tell that Potter was still outside the door and he did not want to make anything worse with the Second year.

Snape watched the child trying to get a grip, unsure of what to do. Crying children were not usually part of his remit.

“Do you feel able to leave?” He asked, when Fowley seemed to actually be breathing properly.

“Y’ssir” Fowley brought up an arm, prepared to wipe their nose on a grimy sleeve. At the last moment, they caught Snape’s disgusted expression and fished a worse-looking handkerchief out of a pocket instead.

Snape rolled his eyes so that the Slytherin couldn’t see him. He felt a small mental pull as Potter seemed to walk down the corridor which led to the Common room and his quarters. Relieved, he tried to hurry the small child towards his office.

Snape moved forebodingly through the corridors, as always. He sent a small group of third years scattering as he led Fowley around a corner. The three boys looked terrified at the sight of him, no doubt they thought he had been the one to make Fowley so upset.

“Don’t you have work to do?” He snapped. They disappeared up a set of stairs. Fowley got perceptibly closer to him.

“Sir, I’m really sorry about missing class. I didn’t mean to.”

“We will speak in my office.”

Snape thought he heard a gulp from behind him. The little fool ought to know that the Professor was reasonable, by now. Hadn’t he done his best to help the child since they were sorted into his house? He had been irritated with the child for missing the beginning of class. But, if there was a good reason, or they had been detained by Potter, that was another matter entirely.

He held his office door open for Fowley to enter ahead of him. He was glad that he had had the foresight to give his class permission to leave if the bell rang while he was absent.

Fowley settled into the uncomfortable chair Snape kept for students and looked anxiously up at the professor.

“Can I get you anything?” Snape asked, pouring a glass of water for himself. The child just stared at him with wide eyes, so Snape set another glass in front of them.

“Tell me what happened.”

Something about it being an order, rather than a question, spurred the Slytherin into speech.

“I was just trying to go to the bathroom before class, I didn’t mean to be late, Sir.”

“When I left my classroom, it was halfway through the period. Were you late already?”

“No, Sir. I was first out of Charms.”

Snape picked out a piece of scrap parchment from a pile on his desk, he started scratching out what Fowley was saying.

“So you were in the bathroom. How did Mr Potter come to be involved?”

“What do you mean, Sir? He just came in.”

“Fowley, Mr Potter cast some spell while he was in the bathroom, did he not?”

The child frowned, “He conjured some shiny deer thing with horns.”

“That would be a patronus charm.” Snape explained. “Why?”

“I don’t know, ask him.”

Snape sighed. “Was he using it to attack you? You were on the ground when I came in.”

“No, Sir. He just pushed me over.”

“He pushed you?” Snape demanded, standing up. He would show Potter that he did not tolerate bullying in any form. The brat was turning out just like his father. Did Snape really have to keep the boy within his sights constantly to make sure he did not get up to any mischief?

“It’s not a big deal, Professor.” Fowley stood up too, waving his hands. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. He will not be getting away with this. He is obviously targeting my students and I will not allow it to continue. This is the perfect time to stamp out this sort of behaviour.”

Snape strode towards the door, but stopped as he felt a pull on his sleeve. He turned to see Fowley’s eyes fill up again with tears.

“Potter was trying to help me, Sir, honestly. He pushed me to make me get out of the way, so he could get in front of me.”

“He pushed you out of his way?”

“No!” Fowley shouted, frustrated. Snape’s eyes narrowed impatiently, but Fowley forged ahead.

“He was trying to stop some boys, that’s all! He pushed me so I wouldn’t get hit by a spell.”

“Other boys? Where on earth did they come from?”

“They were in the bathroom. They said I shouldn’t be there but they wouldn’t let me leave. That’s why I was there so long.”

“Who were they?”

“I- I don’t know, Sir.”

“You don’t know.”

“No, Sir.”

“What did they look like?” Snape asked.

“I don’t know, Sir.”

Snape considered the child carefully, folding his arms.

“So, you went to the bathroom first thing after Charms. Somehow you were there for all of break, then ‘some boys’ turned up and prevented you from coming to my class before Mr Potter appeared to save the day. Oh, and he pushed you to the floor for your own good. Is that all right?”

Fowley blinked, swallowing hard.

“Yes?”

“Tidy yourself up and go to lunch.” Snape said, giving up. Hopefully Potter would be more forthcoming about the situation although he doubted it.

“I want all Slytherins in the common room by half an hour into the lunch break. I have told the rest of your year, please make sure the message is passed on to the prefects. Tell them they are responsible for making sure everyone is present.”

“Where are you going?”

Snape raised an eyebrow at the child. It was an uncharacteristically forward question.

“Sorry, Sir.” Fowley’s head ducked in embarrassment.

“I am going to have a talk with Mr Potter. He is currently hiding in his room. Obviously he feels he has something to hide.” Or hide from, he thought sourly.

“He really was just trying to help.”

“Just try to get to lunch safely.”

Potter was still in the Slytherin isolation room, so Snape checked in on his class first. He got there in time to see one of his Slytherin girls drop some Wrigglesap down a classmate’s neck. The bell rang and he gave her a detention. He made sure the Slytherins knew where he wanted them to be, before leaving them to tidy up.

Harry sat up on his bed when he heard the knock at his door. Before he could say anything, Snape had come in and was standing over him.

“Is Fowley okay?” Harry asked, concern for the second year overriding the intimidating presence of the professor.

Snape just glared down at him.

“Sir?”

“Fowley is fine, Potter.” One of the muscles in the man’s jaw stood out as he bit back some comment.

“Tell me what you were doing in the bathroom.”

“Well, I needed to… go, you know.”

Snape groaned. “Why is it that everyone is so determined to misunderstand everything I say? I know why you went to the bathroom. What happened with Fowley?”

“Oh.” Harry took a deep breath and explained everything to the Professor. The man’s expression softened somewhat as he went on.

“…and then I turned back around to help Fowley up, but they were crying too much. And then you came in, Sir.”

Snape was silent for a minute, obviously taking everything in. The boy’s story seemed to agree with the one he had heard earlier from Fowley. Potter had even provided some more concrete details about the other boys involved. Snape hadn’t been convinced that Fowley had not invented them as a way to not rat out Potter.

“Third year Ravenclaws, you said?” Snape confirmed, he remembered seeing some students in the corridor earlier. Of course, it was possible that Potter had seen them too.

“I think so, sir. Three of them.”

“Come with me.”

Harry was surprised by the sudden change in Snape’s attitude, he had to scramble to follow the Professor. He was led through the corridors to the man’s office, where he was shown to the student seat.

Snape tapped something on the desk with his wand and instantly two plates of food appeared. He began to eat his pastry quickly. He was halfway through before he realised that Potter had not even picked up his fork.

“Get on with it, boy. We don’t have all day.”

Harry looked up, surprised. In all honesty, he hadn’t expected Snape to make sure he ate lunch. He reached for the cutlery cautiously, watching Snape all the while in case he changed his mind.

Snape snorted, and looked back at his own plate.

When they had both finished, about five minutes later, Snape banished both plates with a wave of his wand.

“What do you understand about Fowley?”

“Sir?”

“Fowley. The first time I saw you both speak was in that Potions lesson yesterday. You seemed to have no idea that they were a Slytherin or what their name was, yet I have not once heard you refer to them with any male or female pronouns. What is your explanation for that?”

“Well I’m not a total jerk, you know.”

“Very well, how did you know that Fowley identifies as gender neutral?”

“I didn’t,” Harry caught the exasperated look on the professor’s face and jumped in before the man started shouting.

“Ginny Weasley mentioned it, Sir. Ron said something about the kid in the corridor once and Ginny was with us. She just said that the kid didn’t like being called ‘he’ or ‘she’ or anything. She said the kid preferred ‘they’ and stuff. Ron didn’t really understand but she kept on at him until he did.” Harry shrugged, “I recognised them, that’s all.”

“Well, Miss Weasley was right. That is what Fowley prefers, and we do our best to accommodate. Unfortunately, some of our students are totally intolerant. We do our best, but Fowley never comes forwards, even if they are being targeted.”

Harry nodded, he understood what that was like. Once you got used to not asking for help, it was hard to accept it when it was offered.

Snape stood up, stretching as he did. He reached into one of his pockets and drew Harry’s wand. He passed it back over the table.

“Here, you may have this back. Your story seems to match Fowley’s, be assured I will be looking into the matter.”

“Thanks.” Harry muttered, taking his wand back and carefully putting it back in his pocket.

“I have called a meeting with my house, you might as well come. It will keep you out of mischief until your next lesson.”

The Slytherin common room fell into silence as its Housemaster entered the room. Snape beckoned the prefects forwards.

“Is everyone here?” Snape asked them.

Blackwood nodded, “Yes, Sir. It took us longest to find Govan, she was up in the Owlery, so we got her lunch down here.” He gestured to a small girl who was eating a pile of sandwiches at a desk by the side of the room. The girl went red and moved to put the food down but Snape waved at her to keep eating.

“I am here to ask you all about Professor Moody. What you say here will stay in this room, unless it is necessary for me to bring it to the headmaster’s attention. Do you all understand that?”

“Yes, Professor.”

Harry was impressed by the chorus from the Slytherins. Obviously they were well used to the man.

“Has anybody noticed anything strange about him, or his teaching?”

Most of the first few years looked confused, but a lot of the older ones were looking at each other.

“He’s been showing our class the unforgivables.” Hocking, the seventh year girl prefect, said. “When we asked, he said he had permission from Dumbledore, but then he started using the imperius on us.”

Others were nodding too. Snape asked for a show of hands to see who had been under the imperius curse, and everyone fourth year and up who was in the Defence classes raised their hand.

“Is there anything else I need to know? What is he teaching your class?” Snape walked up to a third year.

“Defence is pretty normal,” the girl said. “He’s not quite as good as Professor Lupin was, but he doesn’t take any.”

The first and second years seemed to be having fairly normal lessons too.

“But he’s always drinking out of that flask of his,” said one first year. “Shouldn’t you be worried if he’s drinking while teaching?”

“It’s not alcohol.” Harry said before he could think about it. Everyone turned to look at him and he took a step back from the attention. Snape walked right up to him though, so he couldn’t retreat.

“Do you know what it is?”

“Not really.” Harry said, leaning back slightly. “It smells disgusting, whatever it is. Like the worst tasting potion you could imagine.”

Snape frowned. “How often does he drink from it?”

Harry shrugged, “At least once a lesson, he always drinks loads of it at once too, which is a bit weird. Though I guess it does smell bad enough. Maybe it’s some sort of medicine.”

“Professor?”

Snape turned around to look down at Theodore Nott who had stepped forward from where he had been sitting with Malfoy and his goons.

“He really hates us, Sir. You know, those of us whose parents he – uh- knows.”

Malfoy and his friends nodded, along with not a few from the other years.

One seventh year boy frowned, “Actually, sir, he’s been quite nice to me and Kelda.”

“Mr Lestrange?”

“He gives us house points all the time, and he didn’t give me a detention when I set fire to my desk in his lesson.”

“He gave me detention for taking the wrong textbook out of my bag.” Nott retorted. “He obviously hates some of us.”

The bell rang for the end of lunch and the Slytherins waited for Snape’s signal before grabbing their bags and rushing out of the room. The fifth years had a free period and waved goodbye lazily to their housemates. Then Snape barked at them and they too scrambled to get to their bags and set some work out onto the common room desks.

Harry felt very odd sitting in his usual potions seat with Ron next to him. He was having problems focussing on what Snape was saying after working so hard the last couple of days to tune out the Professor’s voice. At the same time, he was trying to explain to Ron, and Hermione at the desk behind, about the strange things Moody was doing.

Twice, Snape took housepoints from Harry, before the boy settled down to do some writing. Ten minutes later, as Snape was demonstrating something at the front of the class, Harry turned to Ron to ask him if there was anything new happening in Gryffindor.

Ron looked like he hadn’t heard Harry, so he repeated his question a little louder.

“Potter, detention.”

“What, why?” Harry looked up with indignation to see the Professor standing in the aisle between the rows of desks.

“You are being disruptive. If you disturb your housemates again, you will have two more detentions.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It is entirely fair, this is your warning.” Snape turned away dismissively, to go back to the front of the class.

Harry growled in frustration. “You old bat, I’m stuck down here anyway. What difference does it make if I have detentions? It’s not like I’m going anywhere. And you weren’t going to let me out of your sight this weekend either, so it might as well be a three day detention.”

Harry heard Hermione groan behind him, and possibly the sound of Neville whimpering as Snape slowly turned back around. Eyes flashing, he stalked back to in front of Harry’s desk, leaning over it to loom over Harry.

Harry thought his heart might burst out of his chest it was beating so hard. His mouth went dry and he wondered what had possessed him to make him say that. Snape stared at Harry for a long moment and Harry found he couldn’t look away.

“If it were not for the fact,” Snape hissed, “That I would have to accompany you. You would already be on your way to the headmaster’s office. Stand up!”

Harry jumped when the Professor shouted, and slid off his stool.

“You will stand outside the classroom door until I call you back in. You will not slouch or lean against the walls. You will not speak to anyone who comes past unless it is a member of staff, in which event, you will direct them to me. Do you understand?”

Harry blinked, “Yeah.”

Snape glared at him, “What was that?”

“Um, yes, Professor.”

“Good, now get out so I can teach those who want to learn.”

Harry swallowed and hurried out of the room, avoiding eye contact with his classmates.

It was more than halfway through the second lesson of the double period when Snape finally allowed Harry back into the classroom. The room was dead silent and nobody even looked up from their books as the Gryffindor came back in. Snape showed him which questions the rest of the class were already answering and he managed to immerse himself in the work.

When the bell rang for the end of the day’s lessons, Harry smiled wryly at his friends, who shot him sympathetic and horrified looks in equal measures. He could understand why they were so shocked, but after two days of Snape, he was totally fed up of the man always expecting the worst of him. The man was always so angry and quick to judge.

Harry followed Snape up to the staff room, remembering that McGonagall had suggested he do his Transfiguration work up there. With Snape in the state he was in, Harry was more than a little worried about what the man was going to tell the rest of his teachers. Snape hadn’t spoken a word to him since sending him out of the class.

Professors Flitwick and McGonagall were the only others in the room when they arrived. Snape took the opportunity to describe what had happened with Fowley before lunch.

Flitwick looked furious that some of his students had been involved in bullying other students.

“Who was it, Mr Potter?” He squeaked, angrily.

“I’m not sure, Professor.” Harry cleared his throat, he hadn’t spoken in over an hour. “I’m pretty sure they were third years. One smaller guy, and two bigger. One of the bigger boys was pretty handy with a hex, and the little one wouldn’t stop talking.”

Flitwick nodded, “I think I know who you mean, Mr Potter, I will have words with them. Severus, would you like to supervise their detentions, or would you leave it to me?” He glanced up at Harry. “You have your hands rather full at the moment, I fear.”

Snape nodded, “If you would manage their detentions, I can scare them next week and then we can get started on trying to work a little tolerance into them.”

“There will be no issues tonight?” McGonagall asked.

Snape shook his head, “My fourth years are going to keep an eye on Fowley for the evening. They will have the support of some of my prefects as well.”

Flitwick showed Harry to a low table near the staffroom fireplace and bustled around him, casting spells, creating a sound bubble. Snape sat down in a nearby chair, facing away from the boy so that the charm wasn’t pulling them closer. Harry watched as McGonagall walked silently over, until four feet away, when her shoes started clicking on the floorboards.

She handed him a sheet of questions, similar to those he had done yesterday. He pulled out his textbook and opened it to the page with the calculation tables he was going to need. McGonagall raised an eyebrow at all the notes written in the margins.

“I had a bit of a problem with them,” Harry said. “It took me ages to get it.”

She nodded, “It is one of the trickier concepts. We introduce it now to give you time to get used to the theory before your OWLs.”

McGonagall gave him a searching look for a minute, “I hear you did not stay out of trouble.”

Harry smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Professor. It just sort of slipped out.”

“Professor Snape is quite rightfully displeased .He might well report you to the headmaster, but it is more likely that he will just inform the headmaster.”

“Is there a difference?”

McGonagall’s lips were thin, “If you were reported, then the Headmaster would punish you, he might remove Hogsmeade or quiddich privileges. If Professor Snape informs Professor Dumbledore however, he will merely make you miserable for the next couple of days.”

Harry blinked, that didn’t sound good. On the other hand, Snape was going to make him miserable either way.

“I’d rather Professor Snape handled it, Professor. It was him I- erm- insulted, after all.”

“I rather thought you might say that.” McGonagall looked up and over Harry’s head. “I told you Severus, the boy doesn’t believe that the Headmaster would ‘let him off’ if you told him.”

Harry turned to see Snape watching them both from his seat with an angry expression.

“And Potter, Sound Bubbles only prevent sound from travelling one way, so no singing during the meeting.”

The corner of her mouth twitched slightly as she took in Harry’s dumbfounded expression and Snape’s exasperated one.

The door burst open and Professor Moody limped into the room, his wooden leg clumping loudly. Harry didn’t miss the look shared between McGonagall and Snape as the man paused just inside to take a long drink from his hip flask.