Aspen in the Sunlight - A Year Like None Other

Harry's glare changed to a stare, then. An incredulous stare. What, Snape was going to pass up an opportunity to humiliate Harry Potter? Of course, Harry reflected, he didn't know what the letter said. Maybe it was something Snape couldn't read out loud in class no matter how much he could hurt Harry with it. Maybe it was from Uncle Vernon and contained some of the foul epithets Harry had grown used to hearing over the years. Phrases like "you goddamned fucking little freak" weren't exactly appropriate, were they? Not even in the dungeons.

At any rate, Snape appeared to have gone off the idea of reading the letter out loud. "Resume your tests!" he snapped as he sat behind the potions counter up front and stared at them. After that, not a sound did they hear except the scratching of quills until one more barked command came ringing through the air. "Pass in your papers!"

Harry's lips twisted as he complied. Of course his grades in Potions were almost always awful, thanks to Snape hovering over him like a crazed bat, taunting him until he could hardly remember which cauldron was his. But this test was bound to set a new record. Could you get a score below zero? It shouldn't be possible, but if your answers were stupid enough, Harry reasoned, Snape might take off sufficient points to manage it.

He began to pile away his schoolwork, wondering why he was even bothering to continue in Potions, anyway. So what if his O.W.L., graded by an unbiased scorer, had been Outstanding? That didn't make any difference to the likes of Snape, and if Harry had thought that past years were bad, well, he just hadn't known how mean and awful Snape could get, had he? Now he did. Snape was determined to get even with Harry for that pensieve incident; it didn't even matter to the man that Harry had apologised at the time, and meant it, or that he'd never breathed a word of what he'd seen to anyone . . . well, except Sirius.

About the only reason he was still in Potions was because he needed it to enter the Auror's programme, and whatever Snape wanted to do to him in class, he couldn't mess up Harry's N.E.W.T. scores. Unlike class tests, official wizarding exams were graded by somebody other than hook-nosed, greasy-haired, just plain mean Potions Masters.

He was just turning toward the door, his school bag draped over one shoulder, when the summons came. "Stay behind, Mr Potter."

Harry reluctantly turned back, catching Ron and Hermione's glances. He shook his head a bit when they looked as though they might hang back to be on hand. Snape was wise to that trick. Might as well just face him down and get the whole thing over with.

"Sir?"

Snape looked up from the exams he was stacking, his features unreadable for all his dark eyes remained intense. Before he spoke, though, he warded the doors with a hissed Silencio, waving his wand in an arc that encompassed all the cracks around the heavy wooden frames. "Aren't you forgetting something, Mr Potter?"

Harry could have scratched his head, he was so baffled. Then it came to him. "Oh, you mean the letter?"

The Potions Master's gaze grew even more intense, if such a thing were possible, but strangely, his voice went soft, and not in that menacing way he sometimes used. He sounded almost . . . sympathetic, though Harry was positive that couldn't be the case. "Yes, I mean the letter, you idiot child. Why haven't you asked to see the headmaster about this?"

Harry swallowed, not really knowing what to answer. See the Headmaster? Why on earth should he do that? What did the blasted letter say, anyway?

"Er . . . I didn't really feel that was called for, sir," he finally offered, then stepped back suddenly when Snape stood to hover over him.

" What did you say?"

"I . . . er . . . well, it just seemed like, er . . ."

"Stop your blathering," Snape suddenly commanded, staring straight down into his eyes. "You're making less sense than usual, Potter, and believe me, that is saying something significant."

Harry just stared back, determined not to admit to the truth that he'd never even read the stupid letter.

Snape gave a long-suffering sigh, and only then did Harry recall what a skilled Legilimens the man was. Even without a wand, or a spoken spell, he'd caught enough of Harry's thoughts to draw his own conclusions. Unfortunately, those conclusions were all too accurate.

"What an ungrateful brat you are," Snape remarked, the comment delivered with level precision, not the biting sarcasm Harry usually got from him. Snape didn't sound like he was trying to make him angry now, he just sounded like he was stating facts. Depressing facts. "A letter from your relatives delivered on Tuesday, and here is it Friday, and you've yet to so much as read it."

"How do you know when I got it?" Harry hotly demanded. "For all you know, it came at lunch today and I haven't had time."

"Credit me with some powers of observation, Mr Potter. You were holding it in your hand the day you commented that I was a 'slimy excuse for a teacher.'"

Harry gaped, then recovered himself enough to hold his hand out. He wished it wouldn't shake. It was ridiculous that he could single-handedly defeat a Basilisk, yet quail before this man. Then again, words could cut deeper than fangs, especially Snape's poisonous words. If there was one thing the Potions Master knew inside and out, it was the art of the insult. "Can I have my letter back, sir?"

"An apology is in order, first," Snape imperiously commanded, crossing his arms. "For that remark."

"Oh yeah, right," Harry murmured, his back taut with resentment. Snape insulted him all the time. When had the professor ever apologised? But if it would get him his letter back, he could do it. "Sorry, sir."

"Like your potions, barely passable," Snape commented. "Ten more points from Gryffindor. All right then, about your letter, Potter. Do you ever plan to read it?"

Harry didn't see what business that was of Snape's, but he also didn't see the point of another argument, or losing more points. "Yeah, right. All right, yes. Fine, whatever."

"I don't believe you," Snape announced, those eyes that could see right through minds piercing him with some sort of dark anger that Harry really didn't understand. "You may have it back on condition that you read it now, in my presence."

Harry clenched his fists. "What's it to you, sir, whether I read my mail or not?"

"Disappointed it's not fan mail, Potter?"

"So much for your powers of observation," Harry retorted, " sir. If you had significant ones, you'd notice that I hate that vapid stuff people send me."

"Let's be clear, Potter. If you won't read your own post, I shall read it to you."

"Oh, just give it over," Harry sighed, feeling defeated. If he wanted anything less than to read the Dursleys' letter, it was to listen to Snape's sarcastic commentary about it. "Fine, all right? I'll read it."

Snape handed him the inky envelope then, and sat down and watched carefully as Harry wandered to a free desk and dealt with the letter.

His hands shook as he took the letter out and smoothed it flat. Even when it was lying there before him, and he was staring at the words, he had the devil's own time getting started reading. Deep down, he didn't want to know what the Dursleys had in store for him, but there was no avoiding it, now.

Sighing, his brows puckering with reluctance, Harry began to read.

Potter, the letter began.

Petunia says she doesn't know where your freak school is, or we'd have sent this the way normal people send post. Arabella Figg heard us talking about needing to reach you, though, and offered us an owl. We never knew she was one of those. Bet you knew, though, and didn't tell us, did you, boy? There ought to be a law.