kbinnz - Harry's New Home

He would normally have set his Slytherins to scrubbing cauldrons, but he could hardly do that while the three Gryffindors sat at nearby desks working on their essays. So instead, all five children were industriously scribbling away, and Snape had to cast his own cleaning spells on the cauldrons. As if he didn't have better things to do! It was all Potter's fault.

And Minerva's. She had pointed out that being restricted to the Common Room with all their friends wasn't precisely an onerous penalty for the Trio, nor one conducive to working on their punishment essays. And since neither Granger nor Weasley had access to a private bedroom the way Potter did тАУ though Potter's was (thanks to Albus) so chock-a-block with toys that it was no more punitive a site for banishment than the Common Room тАУ it was only sensible for the three to spend their time on restriction under the supervision of a professor. And, McGonagall had said with a steely glint in her eye, since she had already spent the last three evenings supervising them, it was now his turn.

In vain had he protested, arguing that they were in her House. She had turned a deaf ear and promptly at seven, the three little miscreants had appeared on his doorstep. His two snakes had followed closely and тАУ much to Snape's irritation тАУ were visibly relieved to find Gryffindors present, knowing full well that their Head of House wouldn't be nearly as stinging in his invective when there were non-Slytherins within earshot.

They had underestimated his menacing hiss, however, and before sending them to their desks, he rendered both of them ashen and sweating with a low-voiced lecture about what would happen if they were ever again so foolish as to fail to live up to their House values. Now though, an hour later, they were displaying the resilience of youth and beginning to glance up from their papers and exchange winks and cautious signals with the Gryffindors.

Snape again wished he could bang his head on the wall. His Slytherins were being corrupted by those blasted lions. Normally, Slytherins were either too sulky at being punished or too embarrassed at having been caught to do much during a detention other than the assigned task. They were anxious to get their punishment over with and escape, so that they could then pretend the whole thing had never happened.

By contrast, Gryffindors (probably because they received so many detentions, Snape thought sourly) seemed to view them as a social opportunity. These dratted lions obviously didn't consider their restriction a shameful indignity, and they were sending sympathetic glances over to his snakes, along with funny faces to try to cheer up the gloomy second years.

To Snape's intense annoyance, it was working, and instead of wearing tearful expressions of misery, his students were now stifling giggles. Even Snape had to admit that Weasley's ability to simultaneously cross his eyes, wiggle his ears, and curl his tongue resulted in anтАж unusualтАж expression. Still, this was his dungeon, and students were here to suffer.

He brought his hand down hard on his desk and the students jumped and paled. "Does anyone find anything amusing about their punishment?" he asked silkily. "Anything at all?"

A hasty chorus of "No, sir" met his ears, and he gave each child a glare before returning to his own work. He was gratified to hear one of his snakes give a little whimper of terror as she turned back to her paper, but his gratification was short lived.

"Don't worry," he heard Harry whisper тАУ the boy had absolutely no sense of stealth. "I know he sounds mean, but he's really nice. Honest," he insisted, having obviously received a look of disbelief from the Slytherin. "Even his smacks don't hurt. Well, not much anyway. But he won't do anything to you except yell a bit an' that's only 'cause he wants you to do well at school an' stuff."

Snape was too paralyzed with horror to react for several seconds. By the time his brain processed what that horrible brat had just done to his laboriously crafted reputation, it was too late. He raised his head to see his Slytherin giving Harry a grateful smile, her sense of relief palpable, while Harry and the other Gryffindors smiled back. The other Slytherin watched, obviously trying to work out whether Harry's words were some kind of devious plot, worthy of a fellow snake, or the straightforward reassurance they appeared to be.

"Potter!" He finally managed to get his vocal cords to work, and he prepared to verbally eviscerate the little snot once and for all. That should effectively remove any doubt as to his "niceness".

"Yes'r?" Harry answered innocently, bringing up his eyes to meet Snape's.

That emerald gaze sent Snape back in time, and once again he found himself helpless before it. "No talking during detention," he managed to growl.

"Y's'r. Sorry, sir," Harry replied apologetically, then turned his attention back to his essay.

Snape muffled his groan. Gryffindors. He was beset by Gryffindors. It was no longer enough that he had to deal with Dumbledore and McGonagall; now that he had a ward who was a Gryffindor, he could no longer isolate himself amongst Slytherins outside of classes. No, Harry naturally enough counted many Gryffindors as his friends, and he was showing an alarming tendency to make friends in the other Houses as well. At least Harry had also formed a friendship with Draco, and that had in turn brought in some of the other Slytherins. Still, Snape knew with a dreadful sense of foreboding that it was only a matter of time before he would have to play host to Hufflepuffs and the rest in his own home.

At least the Malfoy scion was rubbing off on the others. In class the other day, Longbottom had actually managed a sharp retort in response to an insult from Parkinson, and the Weasley brat was showing a surprising talent for scheming. Also, Draco's influence (along with his well-honed self-preservation skills) would ensure that none of the pranks the little monsters were doubtless plotting would be directed against Snape or his classes.

Of course, if Snape had to be honest, it wasn't the juvenile Gryffindors that were really driving him crazy. After so many years of teaching, he was more or less immune to the students. No, it was the mutt and the werewolf whom he wished he could obliterate. What had he been thinking to assist those idiot Marauders? Gryffindors тАУ especially those two тАУ should be drowned at birth. But no, he had helped them out, and that morning, matters had come to a head.

Snape glowered and tried to remind himself that, after all, his plan had been successful. The Aurors had been completely baffled by Black's escape, and the hue and cry had almost entirely died down within a few weeks. Fudge wasn't about to have his administration's failures widely publicized.

A few days after the escape, when he had judged it safe, Snape had arranged to collect Lupin from a caf├й in Italy. In retrospect, that had been a mistake, as the waiter had all too obviously thought he was picking up the werewolf for an illicit tryst, and he had had to endure the man's infuriating winks and nudges and romantic sighs. Bloody Italians.

He had taken Lupin to the Prince family home where the wolf and dog had fallen upon each other in a nauseating orgy of self-recrimination and tears. Things only got worse when Remus had tried to express their gratitude to Snape. The Potions Master had barely escaped being hugged (hugged!) by both Marauders. He shuddered at the memory. He would have had to use some kind of scouring hex on his skin if that had actually come to pass.

Black had then further irritated him by making an annoyingly speedy recovery, although that at least had enabled him to get started on the Dursleys more quickly than Snape had expected. But that too had proved disappointing. Harry's relatives had been no match for the Marauders.