The many times Snape could have given Holly detention, but didn't. Side-shot to HEB (née P). Complete!
In first year, she was a snot. Well spoiled and too smart for her own good, Holly Evans Potter was all the things Severus Snape accused Harry James Potter of being. An overconfident attention seeker.
He told her mother so and though Lily desperately wanted to defend Holly, she knew the truth. Severus was basis against Harry, no mistake, though Dumbledore mediated, but Holly was deserving of some scorn.
Or she would have been, had her confidence not been matched with ability.
Still, she wrote to Holly and warned against cockiness. No one liked a brat. Which, actually, she knew wasn't true because plenty of people liked James even at his worst.
Predictably, her behaviour was not swayed by the opinion of a mum miles away.
And yet...
Not once when Holly wrote home did she complain of unfair treatment from any professor, much less Snape whom she, astonishingly, didn't dislike at all. Granted, she didn't particularly like him either, but it wasn't due to treatment. She had a prejudice against Slytherins and, unfortunately, meeting students did little to sway her feelings.
Remus related tales of the child's commentary, well within earshot of Severus, and the man either failed to hear it or purposely ignored it. For his part, Remus reprimanded and did take points once, only once, because it made her cry and from then on she was careful not knowingly speak rudely in his presence.
She also resented him for months.
The point though was that if it'd been Harry badmouthing Malfoy, he would've lost points immediately and Severus would have been the one to do it.
More than that, Holly wasn't above sending simple jinxes across the halls, in plain view of Snape, and he didn't do a thing about.
That she heard from Harry, who was righteously indignant and rather irate because Holly was now aware of the difference in handling and enjoyed testing limits.
So far she'd not hit the line.
"Potter," a warning.
That was all he ever gave her, warnings, because though her attitude was obviously inherited so was her talent for potions and she was, unmistakably, Lily Evan's child.
He never thought of her as Lily Potter, but that was unrelated.
It wasn't favouritism.
At least not consciously.
"Potter," another warning because she wasn't paying attention.
Then he asked her a question she shouldn't have known the answer to, but she did, and he pretended not to notice the way she purposely went cross-eyed just before he turned away. He didn't give her points for the correct answer, neither did he take any away for disrespect.
She deserved detention for backtalk.
She deserved detention for sabotaging cauldrons.
She deserved detention for condemning Hortensia Flint to an hour long tap-dance.
But, he never gave her one.
Her brother got detention for snapping at Malfoy.
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