Oh! My! God! I've never laughted so hard in my life.  The bath scene was halerious.  Thanks.  Made my day.  Glad I don't have a magical bathroom.

This part cracked me up:

"The daring Boy-Who-Lived, our hero, rushing to save everyone from certain death, taking as his right to disregard rules, arrogant, conceited –"

"I’m not!" Harry nearly stomped his foot in frustration. "If everyone would listen to me and believe me, I wouldn’t have to save them! I could follow rules and pay attention in class instead of worrying that I might meet my fate tomorrow and give it all up. Well, I don’t care about rules. I don’t care about what Dumbledore says. I’m not going back to the Durleys to rot in their tiny room. I’m going to find a timeturner or fate changer, or something to bring them back, and you can’t stop me, no one can stop me. You think my father was conceited and headstrong, you haven’t seen anything yet, you slimy git!"

That is SO Harry Potter! And Snape's reaction is SO appropriate! Harry, growing up alongside the Dursleys, never learned to trust adults and as a result has the annoying habit of jumping to his own conclusions (mostly wrong), ignoring and breaking any rules and forming the opinion that he, muggle-raised teenager, knows better than any wizarding adult what to do about the wizarding world's problems. Agreed, such an attitude might have helped surviving the Dursleys, but it does him no good in the wizarding world and it is detrimental for his wellbeing. Forget about 'selfesteem'. What a kid really needs is the knowledge that there are adults about whom he can trust to make the decisions and learn from whilst growing up. And this first chapter of yours nails that sentiment perfectly and your Snape effectively reduces Harry The Boy Who Will Save The Wizarding World to Harry The Boy Who Misbehaved And Is Subsequently Punished And Put To Bed. Brilliant!

A word of warning though: spanking might be an effective parental tool, but it is only effective if it is used sparingly. I'm sure Harry will have some... adjustment problems and this spanking won't be the last, but I've read other fanfics in the past where unruly characters were disciplined by older, wiser characters which started off intelligently but ended up in a punishment fest. Ugh. Your first chapter is very intelligently and accurately (from a psychological viewpoint) written. Please keep it that way (no overkill, PLEASE)

Speaking of overkill... (and this is my last comment on this review otherwise I'll be guilty of overkill myself. Of reviewing -grin-) You will no doubt write about the Dursleys in the coming chapters. Now, I've read of LOT of HP fanfic, and nearly all portray the Dursleys as abusive louts who will beat poor little Harry with belts, fists, etc. Now, the Dursleys are abusive. They are guilty of neglect and emotional abuse. But I don't think they ever hit Harry. They are the height of middle-classness and middleclass people think that spanking children, let along hitting them with fists of belts, is lowerclass and nasty. Besides, the neighbours might see. No, they will call the child names, tell it it is unwanted, half-starve it and lock it in a cupboard, but they will never, ever beat it. They put their own child on a pedestal after all. A truly middleclass attitude if ever I saw one. Actually, I feel rather sorry for the Dursleys. Yes, they are horrible people, but they are truly phobic about magic. What would you do if you were phobic about, say, spiders and somebody forced you to look after his pet spider? Would you lovingly cuddle it to your maternal breast or would you lock it in a cupboard, through it some food and hope that if you only ignored it hard enough it would disappear from your life?

So please, if you introduce the Dursleys in your story, please don't make them one-dimensional. You won't have to make them *nice* (because they aren't) but .. well, I really like this first chapter of yours. It is well written and has loads of potential and I am just unloading all my frustrations with fanon attitudes about Harry, the Dursleys and Snape. And speaking of Snape (and this is really, truly the last thing I'll write) please don't make him to fluffy. Snape is such a wonderful character. He is snarky, he is the only one who does not pander to the Boy Who Lived and who'll dare to punish said Boy for breaking rules. He does have a heart and he knows how to handle teenagers (he's been Head of House for more than a decade, after all) But he is not fluffy. Let's be honest; we love Snape *because* he will tell the hard truth. He is strict, cuts no slack, does not suffer fools lightly and will tell you what you don't want to hear if he thinks you NEED to hear it. He is indeed the only one in the whole series who could help Harry become a healthy, happy teenager.

Well, that's my two cents. You said you'd update in two weeks and I can hardly wait.

Oh, for those who are interested: Sever-Us, on fanficion.net wrote a story called 'My Dad'. I really recommend it.

is this a one-shot? cause, i saw on the characters list you had a few people who weren't in here, so i'm thinking ur gonna continue it. i hope so, it was really good. i'm also a fan of the Painful Guardianship, one of my favorites. hope to see more from u.