On that first interminable Monday they had been waiting outside the common room door for him. Ron and Hermione had already left for breakfast because Harry had woken up late, and the moment he'd stepped out of Gryffindor tower into the corridor, they had been there. He hadn't even seen them, he'd just felt a blow to his right eye and found himself on the floor with them hanging above him, laughing heartily.

Crabbe and Goyle had been his first tip-off that something wasn't right. They'd given him a black eye on Monday, and it had hurt all day. He just hadn't had time to go to the Hospital Wing to get it taken care of, so all day he'd grimaced every time he smiled or laughed or forgot and touched it. Then the next morning he'd woken up and the black eye had been gone. It hadn't been the first time in his life he'd been miraculously healed overnight, so while it surprised him, he didn't find it odd. Then he'd stepped out of the common room into the corridor and been hit, and found himself on the floor again with the two goons hanging over him laughing.

Two days in a row of getting beaten by Slythern's biggest thugs. Harry had figured they just really had it out for him and wanted to ensure the black eye stuck with him after his miraculous healing. Dudley and his friends were the same way, often waiting in ambush to beat him up or push him to the ground. After a second day of walking around with a black eye, (and oddly, the teachers teaching the same things they had the day before), Harry had gone back to his dorm room to find some solitude. That second Monday had been a truly strange day for him. "Didn't we do this yesterday?" he'd asked his friends in Potions, but Ron had only shrugged and Hermione had shushed him. "Why is McGonagall going over this again?" he'd asked in the class after that.

"You know her, she probably thinks we weren't smart enough to pick it up the first time," Ron had told him.

Then in Charms when Harry had asked yet again why they were doing the same lesson over again, Hermione had told him, "If you take the time to listen instead of talking in class you might actually learn something."

It had been an odd day, but just a fluke, Harry had told himself. That was until the third day when Harry had woken and his eye had again been healed, and Crabbe and Goyle had again been waiting for him outside the common room. That was when Harry knew he was in trouble. They weren't seeking him out day after day to give him a black eye, they were waiting in one spot on the same day, the same day that seemed to be repeating itself, to pummel him and have a good laugh.

None of his friends had believed him, and after the fourth or fifth day he'd started going to teachers to tell them. McGonagall had asked if he needed to go to the Hospital Wing, Flitwick didn't seem to be paying attention, Sprout gave a little laugh and asked if Harry was trying to pull a prank, and even Snape hadn't believed him when he'd gone to him with the issue. "If we were stuck in a time loop Potter, I would know. Time loops are serious magical disasters that are well documented. It doesn't take a genius to figure out when you're stuck in one." The next day the teachers had remembered none of the conversations he'd had with them. Harry had tried for several days to find even a single teacher or student in school who believed him, but hadn't found one until Dumbledore, who seemed skeptical but was at least willing to consider the possibility.

With no help from his teachers Harry had decided to try to break the time loop himself. He had tried going to sleep in the common room instead of his dorm, and in an empty classroom, and even in an empty corridor. He always woke up again in the morning in his bed no matter where he went to sleep.

Harry had tried to stay up all night several times, and he'd tried twice to fly away from the castle, yet at midnight he always blacked out and woke up in his bed, black eye miraculously healed.

When Harry finally gave up on getting out of the time loop he turned his focus instead on making his day better, primarily by avoiding Crabbe and Goyle. Every morning they waited by the entrance to Gryffindor tower. Harry thought to wake earlier and get out of the tower before they arrived, but he had no control over what time he woke up. He always woke at 6:55, too late to catch Ron and Hermione before they left without him on their way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

One day Harry tried to skip breakfast and waited until he was late to his first class, but Crabbe and Goyle had skipped their first class as well to wait for him to give him a black eye.

Another day Harry had used his broom to fly out a window from Gryffindor tower and go directly down to the school entrance and then to breakfast from there, but after his first class Crabbe and Goyle had found him and given him a black eye when he'd gone down to the Dungeons for Potions.

One day Harry asked Ron and Hermione to stick with him for the whole day. He'd told Ron that Crabbe and Goyle were planning to beat him up, and Ron had promised to not leave his side, but they couldn't be together every moment. No matter how many days Harry tried it, Ron had to go to the bathroom, or was held back after Transfiguration by McGonagall to talk about his bad grade on the previous day's homework, or was pulled aside right after lunch by Lavender Brown, who had set her eyes on Ron that year and was determined to get him to like her. The moment Harry separated from Ron, Crabbe and Goyle always cornered him and punched him in the face. Eventually Harry gave up trying to avoid them, and had gone back to leaving the common room each morning to face them and Crabbe's solid punch to the face.

Harry was lying on his back on the floor just outside Gryffindor tower presently, Crabbe and Goyle hanging over him laughing.

"Yeah," Harry said, wincing at the pain in his eye. "Haha guys, very funny," he said unenthusiastically. "You got me. Again."

The pair walked away, still laughing, and Harry decided officially that Mondays were the worst. Why couldn't they have been stuck on a repeating Sunday, where he could spend his entire day in the tower playing games with his friends? He hadn't gotten a summer holiday, not really, and a repeating Sunday would have been wonderful. But his lot in life seemed to be that he should be stuck on a repeating Monday.

Harry had watched Snape struggle through remembering previous Mondays for weeks. He had tried to tell him several more times, but he always got yelled at, and sometimes was given detention for making things up. Occasionally he skipped Potions, but the dour Potions Master always tracked him down at lunch or dinner to tell him off, take house points and assign him another detention. Harry had decided early on not to skip Potions class, even if he was going to skip his others. He didn't want every Monday to end in detention. That just wouldn't be a fair way to spend the rest of his days... getting punched in the morning and scrubbing floors in the evening. If he had wanted a life like that he could have stayed back at the Dursleys. It surprised Harry then when Snape canceled all of his classes for a day. It wasn't just for a day either, it was for several days. Each day he went to Potions with his friends, and when they saw the notice on the door that Potions was canceled and to go to the Great Hall, Ron whooped and Hermione fretted that they were going to miss out on valuable information that day.

Harry had gone to the Great Hall with them the first few days, because it was something new and different to the same mundane Monday he'd been living over again for weeks, but this too grew boring. He started bringing card games with him so he and Ron could play games instead of study the same material Harry was thoroughly sick of now.

"You two will fail this week's potions and assignments," Hermione chastised.

"No I won't," Harry said.

"But we're missing a day of class, and if you don't study we won't know what we need to to pass the test later this week."

"Hermione, I could ace the test if I was sleeping. I could brew the potion with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back. I could not show up and still get an O."

Hermione just stared at him like he was some bizarre creature she'd never met before. Harry never had such confidence when it came to classes.

"Let's see then," she said. "How many minutes should the potion attenuate in the first stage?"

"Seconds Hermione," Harry corrected, not even looking up at her as he took the cards Ron had dealt to him. "Forty five seconds in the first stage. 59 in the second stage, and four minutes in the third stage. When decanted into a vial you'll be able to see three separate layers of the potion, suspended with three levels of purity. The layer on the bottom will be dark gray, the middle layer will be light gray and the top layer will be light silver."

"The book says thirty seconds for the first stage," Hermione said, surprised he'd given her mostly right information.

"The book is wrong," Harry said. "Snape will snap at you to boil it for fifteen more seconds if you only boil it for thirty."

"How would you know?" Hermione asked. "We haven't brewed the potion yet."

"Hermione, I've brewed it dozens of times."

"How am I supposed to believe you? We've never brewed this potion before and were supposed to do it today."

Harry shrugged, not looking over at her as he handed a card back to Ron to exchange it for another. "I don't know Hermione," Harry said, "that seems like a personal problem. You never believe me when I tell you that today is Monday, that it's been Monday for ages, and that we've done that Potions class over and over again."

"What are you talking about? Did Crabbe hit you hard enough to give you a concussion this morning?"

"Sure," Harry said easily, trying to pretend like he wasn't bothered by her easy dismissal of him yet again, because it had happened so many times already.

He had stopped going to the Great Hall with them after that on the days when Snape canceled Potions. It was canceled most days, but not all days, and on the days when Snape was holding Potions class now he seemed less interested in teaching them or grading the potions they were turning in than he was in scrutinizing each student, staring at a Slytherin for minutes at a time without blinking before moving on to the next student, and then the next. Harry wasn't sure what the man was doing, but it was making him uneasy. At least Snape never stared at him like that, and seemed content to ignore him, which worked out in Harry's favor when he decided to quit brewing in class and opted instead to sit in the back of the room away from his friends and read a novel. He'd been through five novels now and was starting to enjoy the time to read. He had never appreciated reading for pleasure before, but now that he had the time and was bored, it was something to do. It gave his mind something to think about and lose itself in.

* * *

"Why do you have a black eye every Monday Potter?" Snape asked him, finally turning his attention to Harry on one of the Mondays when he'd decided to hold classes. Harry was sitting in the back of the room reading again, and Hermione was too stressed out about brewing her potion correctly to reprimand him for not doing his schoolwork or to question him about it until class was over.

"Things like this happen on Monday," he said, not looking up from his book as he turned the page. He startled a moment later when Snape's hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed the novel. He gave it a quick look, sneered at it and snapped it shut, tossing it onto the table in front of Harry.

"You have endless days to better yourself, to actually learn something, and you waste your time on reading adventure novels?"

"I haven't had a whole lot of time to waste on reading, sir," Harry said through gritted teeth. He'd gotten used to the man ignoring him on these repeating days and wished he'd continue to do so.

"Answer my question. Why do you have a black eye?"

"Does it matter sir?"

"Twenty points from-"

"Yeah?" Harry asked, feeling a little cocky. If he took points, they'd reappear the next day. And if he took all of Gryffindor's points the next day, it wouldn't matter, because it would always be Monday again and the points would come back.

Snape narrowed his eyes and shook his head. He leaned down and put his hands flat on the table across from Harry and said in a low voice, "Do not think for an instant Potter, that I will let you get away with disrespect to your betters simply because the day is repeating itself. I can make each and every new iteration of the day a new experience in detention just for you."

Harry picked up his book, trying to force his anxiety at the possibility of all day detentions every day for the rest of his life down into the pit of his stomach. He didn't want Snape to know he'd affected him with what he'd said. "I'm in class," he said, teeth gritted so he didn't start shouting and interrupt his friends in their brewing, "isn't that enough?"

"You don't go to all of your classes, only this one, why?"

"Because when I skip, you yell at me and give me detention, so I'm here. If you don't want me here, say so and I'll happily spend the day in the library."

"Wasting your time with silly novels."

"Yeah," Harry said, "that's me, wasting my days away spending my time actually enjoying something for once." He stood up with his book, grabbed his bookbag and made for the door, the eyes of the class following him.

"Sit back down Potter."

He turned and gave a sarcastic salute to Snape as he backed toward the door, "Yes sir, absolutely sir, I live to please you Mr. Snape sir." Then he strode into the corridor and was gone. The class stared after him and at Snape, who was turning several shades of red.

"Potter!" He stormed out after the brat but he was gone. The moment he'd stepped into the long corridor, he must have taken off at a run. If the brat thought he could get away with that kind of behavior he was wrong. He couldn't avoid him because they were all stuck in the castle together and he knew where the boy would wake up every morning and where to find him before he could escape to another part of the castle to hide all day.

Severus had put a lot of thought into what the Headmaster had said about the brat already having attended all of the day's classes numerous times, so it wasn't really skipping out. He had seen that the boy could brew a passable potion for the day, so he had allowed the defiant behavior of moving to the back of the classroom to study. But the brat wasn't studying, he was reading stories. And he knew from Albus that Potter wasn't going to his other classes anymore, only Potions. At least now he knew why.

Albus had been spending time in the last week and a half sitting in on various classes. It was his right as headmaster to do so, to evaluate the performance of the staff, though it didn't happen very often and almost never with seasoned professors. None of the teachers had questioned him then when he stepped into their classes and stood by the door and just watched. The old man wasn't watching the teachers though, he was watching the students. So far Albus had made his way through ninety percent of the classes and had had ample opportunity to observe most of the students to see if he could spot anything amiss. Potter hadn't been in those classes though, so he had asked Severus to take a look at him in Potions. Now he had, but he still had no answers. The boy wouldn't even answer the simple question of why he had a black eye every morning.

Determined to find out the answer, Severus decided that in the morning he would wake up and stake out the entrance to Gryffindor tower. If the brat came out of his common room with a black eye, Severus could ask him if another Gryffindor had done it or if he had done something stupid like trip and slam his face into something. That had to be why the brat wouldn't tell him... he was protecting a friend or his pride. Either way Severus was going to find out.

Severus woke every morning at half past six. When Monday began to repeat itself yet again he rose from bed, dressed, and hurried up to the entrance to Gryffindor tower. A few students were coming and going from the portrait hole, but not Potter. Weasley and Granger left without him, giving Snape an odd look, and he thought it might be best to disillusion himself in case they decided to go back in and tell Potter that he was waiting outside the portrait hole. No sooner had he cast a disillusionment charm on himself than Crabbe and Goyle came around the corner into the short dead-end corridor holding the entrance to Gryffindor.

"I didn't see him go downstairs with his friends," Goyle said. "He's gotta still be inside."

"Good," Crabbe said, cracking his knuckles. "No witnesses."

Severus narrowed his eyes at the two. They were troublemakers and had been from their first day at school. At least Draco had begun to distance himself from them and was no longer allowing them to trail after him everywhere he went. Who were they here for though? Surely not Potter.

Severus found he was wrong though. A few minutes later the portrait opened and the moment Potter stepped out, Crabbe threw a punch slamming his fist into the Gryffindor's eye, sending him backwards to the stone floor.

"Yeah-" Harry said in a sarcastic tone, lying on his back, "this isn't getting old."

The boy's laughed at him, but stopped when Severus cleared his throat a moment later, canceling the charm hiding him from view. He gripped the neck of both of their robes and said in a cold voice, "Care to let me in on the joke?"

Both Slytherins started stammering while Harry lay on his back on the stone floor and stared up at their predicament in awe. Snape ignored the Gryffindor and tightened his grip on the boy's necks until it was uncomfortable. He would never hurt them, but he wasn't above intimidating them until they told the truth.

"Uh, Potter fell sir. He's clumsy," Crabbe finally managed to get out.

"Is that so?" Severus asked in a menacing tone.

"I guess we must have scared him and he fell over backwards," Goyle added.

"And though he landed on his back, he somehow hit his face, giving himself a black eye?"

Crabbe started stammering again. "Erm, uh, well you see-"

"Enough," Severus snapped, and his tone made Harry jump along with his assailants.

Severus let go of the two boy's necks. "I witnessed the entire asinine incident for myself," he said angrily. "The two of you in particular have been warned repeatedly about bullying other students, both inside and outside of Slytherin. You will be skipping classes for the rest of the day to do detention with Filch."

"But there's a test in Divination," Goyle protested weakly.

"Then you will have to receive a zero for the day."

He gripped the back of both of their shirts and turned them towards the corridor, intending to frog march them all the way to Filch's office. As they began to move forward Severus turned to Harry and spat, "Hospital Wing Potter! If you're not there in ten minutes you'll be serving detention as well."

Harry lay dumbly on his back on the floor, propped up on his forearms as the trio disappeared around the corner and out of sight. What had just happened? Harry really wasn't sure, but didn't fancy serving detention all day with Crabbe and Goyle who would surely take their punishment out on him, so he picked himself up and headed for the Hospital Wing. Didn't Snape understand that this was a repeating day? Had he forgotten again? Crabbe and Goyle would only come back tomorrow, and he doubted the Potions Master would be waiting for them there again. Harry was surprised he'd been there at all. He must have been passing through on his way to the Headmaster's office. That was it. He would never lay in wait to stop Harry from getting bullied, not when Snape was the biggest bully of them all.

* * *

The next Monday, Harry walked out of the common room by himself, expecting to be hit in the face, but Crabbe and Goyle weren't there. He frowned, and looked up and down the corridor, but they were nowhere in sight. Was this finally a Tuesday? Had the loop been broken somehow while he slept? He wracked his brain for what he had dreamt about, but as far as he could tell he had only dreamt of his rotten summer. He always dreamed of his rotten summer these days. At first he hadn't remembered his dreams, but after so many repeating days he couldn't do anything but remember.

Harry walked cautiously down to the Great Hall for breakfast, expecting Crabbe and Goyle to leap out at him from around a corner or statue, but they didn't appear to be there. Had they realized they were repeating Monday as well and decided not to chance an all day detention again?

Feeling out of sorts, like nothing was as it should be, Harry sat down at Gryffindor table and found his friends sitting in their usual spots.

"Hermione-" Harry asked slowly, reaching for a muffin, "what was the homework for Potions that's due today?"

"Oh Harry, you didn't do it? The potion we're brewing today has so many steps, and if you don't attenuate correctly at each step you'll get a bad mark for the day!" She seemed stressed about Harry's apparent lack of homework.

"Detrectante?" Harry asked for clarification. "We're brewing Detrectante today?"

"So you did do the homework?" Hermione asked.

"Only if this is Monday," Harry said with a sigh. He was relieved and disappointed at the same time, though he wasn't sure why. Everything was as it should be, because it was predictable Monday as always, but disappointed that there would be nothing new to do or see until a Tuesday which might never come.

"Of course it's Monday Harry," Ron said. "They should start giving us three days a week off instead of just the weekend. Could you imagine if we had Monday's off? We'd never have to dread the weekend ending again."

"Until Tuesday," Hermione said. "You'd take the entire week off if you could."

"Why not? Maybe if they gave us extra days off every now and again I'd be more refreshed when I do go to classes."

"You'd be more refreshed if you went to bed at a reasonable hour," she said.

Harry tuned his friend's out. They'd had this conversation several times already. It didn't always start the same way, and sometimes the phrasing of it was different, but it was always the same old argument.

As he finished his breakfast (wishing the elves would remember they'd been repeating days so he could have something different than oatmeal, muffins and fruit for a change), Harry considered his predicament yet again. There was nothing new to do. The routine was getting older than usual. The only thing different in the last few days was Snape catching Crabbe and Goyle and sending Harry to the Hospital Wing, and Crabbe and Goyle's unusual disappearance from outside the common room that morning. Harry longed for a change, even another small one. Perhaps he'd skip Potions for the day. He wondered if Snape would care. Harry had finished his novel the evening before and wanted to get a new one from the library. It could take him a while to find something he wanted to read, and if he started looking early, he could be well into the book by lunch.

"Where you going Harry?" Ron asked as he rose before his friends were finished eating.

"Library."

"But you'll be late to class."

"I'm not going today."

"What?" Hermione choked out, coughing on a bite of blueberry muffin.

In response Harry only waved, not bothering to turn back to her.

On his way to the library, Harry found another one of those little changes he'd been wishing for, though he wasn't sure what to make of it. Crabbe and Goyle were mopping the floor outside of Filch's office. He paused when he caught sight of them. They were clearly in detention, but for what Harry couldn't fathom since they'd left him alone that morning.

"What did you guys do to get detention before breakfast?" Harry asked.

Goyle murmured something unfriendly and Crabbe held the mop handle toward Harry like he'd like to smack him with it. "We'll get you for this Potter."

"Me?"

Crabbe turned back to his mopping when they heard Filch move around in his office as the door was ajar. "I don't know how you found out about what we were going to do, but we'll pay you back. Just watch."

Harry skirted around the angry pair and hurried on his way to the library. How odd. They didn't seem to remember repeating days, but they still had detention, like they'd had yesterday, and they seemed to think it was because of him. Had Snape done this? Harry wasn't sure, but pushed it from his mind as he made it into the library.

He spent half an hour browsing books in the fiction section and then settled down on the floor between two towering bookshelves. It was quiet here, and as he read, skipping lunch, he found that almost no one ventured down this aisle throughout the day. Madam Pince seemed to be aware he was there, but hadn't mentioned him skipping classes and let him be. Harry was content to spend a peaceful day lost in an adventure novel about a boy living on a world called Cradle. If only he could have spent his summer like this too.