Professor Snape was used to being up this late at night. The nightmares from the war caused him to operate on little sleep. So throughout the years he learned to occupy his time with activities during the night.
While at Spinners End he spent most of his time brewing a challenging potion, and sometimes even creating a new one.
When at school he still sometimes does that, but usually he is out patrolling corridors for mischievous and malicious students.
That night he had been stalking for quite sometime before he came across Harry Potter.
The lack of activity earlier in the night caused him to be a little more cold hearted than normal. When he saw a wet and shivering Potter walking down the hall he saw a perfect opportunity to bring the inflated ego down a little bit.
With a cruel twist of his lips he strided forward and roughly grabbed the rule breaker by the arm.
"Potter!", he said, "How dare you believe that just because you are the Savior means you can break any rule we enforce with no reproductions! Minerva may let something like this go for her 'cubs' but I will not stand for your insubordination."
What an entitled little snot, how could he think he could just waltz in and break every rule in the book. Just like his father!
These thoughts had made him even angrier, so his grip on the student became even tighter. His anger at the son of his best friend made him careless. He never noticed the slow drip of blood coming put from under his hand, or the wwince from the young boy. He never noticed the knife slipped carefully back into Potter's robes.
By the time he passed the hallway again the house elves had already been there, erasing anything that could lead to worry.
He dragged Potter to his classroom and forced him to sit still while he graded papers.
He viciously used his red ink on first year's essays. Stupid kids, thinking they can just turn in half done work and still somehow pass.
When he noticed his bloody hand he believed he made a slip up with the ink, and swiftly scourgify'd it away.
Two hours before breakfast he said, "You will stay here and write an essay about why the way you act is wrong. Then I want you to organize the ingredients cabinet. My fist class of the day is cancelled because of flying lessons, so you will have plenty of time. I expect everything to be finished and to an exceptional standard."
With this he stalked out of the room, and with a swoosh of his robes the doors slammed shut and locked eerily.
Harry's POV:
Once the Professor had finally left I decided this was the perfect oppurtunity for my plan to be put into action. I grabbed the parchment and quill Snape left for me to use and got to work on my masterpiece.
After finishing writing I grabbed the ingredients to make the potion I had memorized at this point. I had spent so many nights laying in Gryffindor Tower tracing these ingredients with my finger, imagining the marvelous outcome.
With both of these tasks completed I set to organize the room until everything was in its place and clean. I cleaned slop from the bottom of 2nd year cauldrons. I even graded the rest of Professors papers for him, he didnt know it but I was a potions genius.
I had to make it seem like I had a lower intelligence to keep up the charade of being normal. Hermione was so smart she would never appreciate someone competing with her. Ron, on the other hand, would have been so jealous of my abilities that I would have been scorned by both the people closest to me.
Finally my potion was done simmering and cooling. I carefully filled a single vial and cleaned the rest up. I put all my ingredients back and softly placed the chairs back where they had been originally.
The effects of this specific potion were not immediate, which was why I had chosen it. It would softly lull me into a state of sleep and soon after that my heart would stop.
I chose the potion as opposed to a spell because potions have never harmed me. I remember the many hours laying in the hospital ward being mended by potions. This one will mend my heart, the most broken thing about me.
With this finally done I grasped my saving grace in one hand and swiftly uncorked it. Quickly bringing it to my lips, as if someone would stop me, I swallowed.
I fell like a bag of bricks a stretched out my arm as it had landed under me. I firmly grasped my letter in my other hand and let the rest fall as it may.
In my last moments I thought of the terrible life I had lived and wished for someone, in those early days, to have seen ME instead of Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived. I wish maybe someone would have been able to help.