Severus flung down the book he'd been carrying, not caring overly much where it landed. As it was it fell neatly onto his bed, bouncing slightly before stilling. He noted that with faint satisfaction and began to tear at the buttons securing his collar.

The Sorting had been as depressing as he'd anticipated. No new Slytherins that appeared to be worth much, if their self-conscious smiles and shaking hands had been any indication. One girl, 'Davis, Tracey', had even begun to cry! It meant little that she'd waited until she was sitting at the table, mostly out of view. There was as much to be lost showing weakness to a housemate as a member of another house.

He grimaced and pulled jaggedly at the stiff material of the collar, sending that to join the book. His godson seemed the only promising student of the year. Draco had held himself well, smiling and frowning at the appropriate times. He'd shown just a touch too much interest in Potter's sorting, but that was excusable. They were to be rivals, of course. He did well to try and comprehend the boy before going against him.

Severus sat down, exhaling in a way that never did him any good. There was too much around him to be dissatisfied with for him to ever really relax. It was not for lack of trying – at the end of every torturously long day he would sit in this chair and take in the undisturbed silence of his chambers and just try to calm himself. Some days it came closer to working than others, but it never actually did.

He stood again, walking briskly over to his bookshelves. Madam Pince had finally surrendered a copy of one of the library's rarer books, and he only had a couple of days with it before she'd come and raid his chambers to get it back. Honestly, if the staff weren't even trusted with these books, what were they doing in a school library? Severus shook his head. Hogwarts had long ago ceased making sense to him.

For now he would do better to try and get knowledge that was within his reach, rather than indulge his curiosity when all it would be was useless. Severus had put together some notes on the potion he'd been researching for weeks now. It would be enlightening to see how they matched up with what he found in the library book. If he remembered rightly, he'd left them in Élixirs par Cade de D'Ambly...

Someone knocked on Severus' door, and he felt both frustration and dread at the sound. In his experience very little good ever happened at this hour.

But when he put on his best scowl, fixed his collar and opened the door, it was just a student.

"Hello Severus," Potter said, looking up at him with those infuriatingly green eyes. They were Lily's. At least if Potter had taken after his father in almost every other way, he had had the sense to inherit his mother's most striking feature.

"Potter. You've barely been here a day and you're already violating your curfew?"

The boy had the nerve to give a small smile at that. "I wouldn't want to fall short of your expectations," he said and shifted until his right arm abruptly disappeared from the elbow down.

That had stopped surprising Severus months ago. Potter had never kept his possession of the Invisibility Cloak secret, at least not from people that he trusted not to take advantage of it. He'd probably thought that Severus was close enough to Lily that he wouldn't be willing to betray her confidence over something so small. It bothered him that the boy was right.

"I've brought you a letter." Potter held out a crisp white envelope. He didn't say who it was from, but he didn't have to. The day James or anyone else connected to the Potter family sent him a letter was the day he incorrectly brewed a potion.

Severus took the envelope without much more suspicion than he was expected to show. He honestly didn't think this boy capable of harming someone else. At least, not without proper warning. He might not like him, but he knew better than to underestimate Harry Potter. "If there's anything else, Potter..."

"Yes, actually." Heavens, the boy looked more innocent than was believable. A Gryffindor shouldn't try a Slytherin's tricks, any more than a lion could pretend to be a snake. It was ineffectual to the point of being ridiculous. "I was rather wondering what to call you."

He blinked. "My name would be a good start, Potter. If this is an attempt to avoid your curfew-"

"It isn't, really. I just..." Those too-familiar green eyes were uncertain, and went to the floor for a moment before returning to Severus' face. "You've always been Severus to me. It was what Mum always called you, and I don't think either of us really thought about it. But you're my professor now. I don't know what that makes us."

"That makes us," Severus said sharply. "Exactly what you have said. Professor and student. You will call me Professor Snape, and I will call you whatever I wish to."

"Potter's fine," the boy offered, a twinkle in his eyes that Severus would have dismissed as a trick of the light if he hadn't seen it many times before. "I like it. Efficient. Makes me feel like my father's around, particularly when you spit it out the way you do."

Severus resisted the urge to close his eyes and sigh. Every time they spoke, he seemed more and more like his parents. Not even especially James; he had Lily's cool wit down to a veritable art form. "Yes, well. I'm sure you'll benefit from being out of his company. Was there anything else, or should you be scrambling back to your tower now?"

Potter watched him as if his face were a painting that he rather liked the look of but couldn't quite understand. "Mum may use me as a messenger again," he said lightly.

Oh, goody. More encouragement for her son to break school rules. As if he's not already going to get enough of that from his father. "I'll be looking forward to it." His tone said just how much. "Now would you kindly recognise that I am a professor and you are quite blatantly not in your room when you are required to be? I ought to give you detention."

"But you won't," Potter smiled.

"Not today," Snape replied. "But don't expect my relationship with you to affect how I treat you now that you're a student at Hogwarts. And don't think that your mother and father can rescue you if you manage to fall into trouble here, either."

"Yes, Professor Snape," Potter said, so convincingly that he sounded like one of Severus' third year Ravenclaws. And then he turned and walked away, slipping under his Invisibility Cloak as he did. Severus was dismayed to realise that he couldn't even hear him heading down the corridor. It would be unnerving if Potter had both James' talent for pranks and Lily's sense. The school would be in pandemonium before the year was out.

He shook his head and closed the door. It would be wise not to underestimate Potter's ability, but it was quite another thing to overestimate it. Even if he was the Boy-Who-Lived, he was still a boy. A boy and a student, who would realise before long that fame wouldn't earn him his O.W.L.s. Presuming he even made it that far.

Placing the envelope on his desk, Severus stood slightly away from it and cast spell after spell at the unassuming piece of parchment. They revealed nothing. Lily hadn't tampered it with it, at least not in a way that he could detect magically.

He picked up the envelope and examined it for a moment. Not so much as a crease. It said a good deal about Potter, that he hadn't even been curious enough to read the letter he'd been trusted to deliver. A Gryffindor then, well and truly.

Severus smirked and opened the envelope. Inside were three pieces of parchment, all covered neatly in Lily's handwriting and looking as untouched as the envelope had. The boy must be completely unimaginative. He wouldn't do well in Potions without a suitably curious mind. At the thought of a Potter performing poorly in his classes, Severus found himself almost – almost! – looking forward to them.

He coughed to stop himself from smiling and began to read the letter.

Dear Severus,

I hope this letter reaches you well. I would have sent it by owl but you still haven't released my last one. If you've managed to get it mixed up with the others in that Owlery at Hogwarts, it's the tawny-coloured one that insists on trying to eat its own feathers. I sent it to you a fortnight ago, asking you to treat it, but I know you and I know you must have taken care of it for me and then forgotten to return it.

There are some things I must tell you. As you know, my son Harry is attending Hogwarts this year. I would ask you to take care of him, but I trust you to do that regardless – for my sake, if not his. Albus does not even know what I am about to tell you. He will find out eventually, but I would like you to please hold that off for as long as possible.

We had not seriously entertained the idea that Harry would be sorted into Slytherin, even before he received his scar. James and I expected that he would become a Gryffindor like we were, or even a Hufflepuff. Several months ago, however, we were forced to reconsider our prejudices. And yes, they were prejudices; don't think that I don't understand that I'm insulting that darling house of yours.

Harry was playing in the garden, and when I went out to bring him inside I found him talking to a snake. He's a Parseltongue, Severus. Surely you must understand how serious that is. It has its origins in Slytherin, and when we thought on it there were other signs, signs that said that the idea of Harry going there isn't as bizarre as we always thought.

He is intelligent, far better at reading people than he should be at his age. We taught him how to do so, yes, but he adjusts to people. He smiles when he knows they would want him to, he talks the way they would most like. Merlin, Severus, he met the Malfoys weeks ago and he just watched them and they liked it and I can't...I just can't have him jeopardised like that. If he were in Slytherin he would be in constant contact with people who would want to do him harm. Even you must admit that.

Protect him, please. Slytherin or not, Gryffindor or not, he is my son and I need to know that he will be safe there. I understand that you would not want to show him favouritism and I'm not asking you to. I'm asking that you look out for him, help him when he is in trouble – like I should hope you would do with any one of your students.

The letter went on for two more pages as Lily prattled on about things that she knew full well Severus would have no interest in whatsoever. It was signed simply with her name: Lily.

Theirs was a strange relationship, not quite friends but not enemies either. They had kept in contact after leaving school, sending each other letters infrequently and Severus making visits to Godric's Hollow three or four times a year. They disliked each other, constantly baiting each other with words and often insulting each other outright. He'd gotten mostly over the crush he'd had on her years ago, and it had made way for whatever it was that they now shared.

They trusted and respected each other selectively. Severus would always test the letters that she sent him before opening them, and he had no doubt that Lily did the same. But she would ask him to care for an owl even as she implied he had no human feeling, and in return he would confide in her how dissatisfied he was with his job before pointing out everything that was wrong with her choice of husband.

This letter left him angry, just as all the others did, as well as faintly in awe. Potter was a Parseltongue. It wasn't a gift deserving of fear as Lily seemed to think, but something to respect and even envy. Even a woman as intelligent as she was showed herself capable of ignorance.

He crumpled the parchment in his fist and then smoothed it out again. Pressing it with a hint of force against the surface of his desk, Severus pulled out parchment and ink to write out his response.

Lily,

You seem to be overlooking the fact that Parseltongue is not but its own nature 'evil' or 'Slytherin', and certainly the two are not synonymous. As it happens the boy was sorted into Gryffindor.

I've sent this with your animal. I'd suggest keeping Black away from your owls in future, unless you want their feathers bespelled to taste like walnuts.

Severus

He barely glanced at it before folding it up and sweeping out of his chambers. The bird should be where he had left it, in the school Owlery. It had bitten him twice when he'd tried to feed it the potion that it needed, and Severus would be glad to see it gone.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It only took Severus a few minutes to come out of his office, which Harry was very grateful for. The dungeons were colder than he'd expected and he had to work not to shiver, in case his Invisibility Cloak moved and Severus realised he was there.

The man walked quickly, and Harry almost stumbled in an effort to catch up with him. After a while he adjusted to the pace and was able to focus completely on being silent. His footsteps were muffled – another of the tricks he'd learned from Sirius – and it was easy to quiet his breathing. The cloak swished gently, but he didn't think Severus would be able to hear that unless he was standing right next to him, and he had made a point of following several metres behind.

If he was right they were headed to the Owlery. Harry didn't know where that was, since the first years had been sent to their rooms after the Welcoming Feast. He'd wanted to send some letters home, telling his parents that he'd gotten into Gryffindor before they heard it from anyone else.

And he'd had that letter to deliver to Severus anyway, so Harry had figured he could get two things done at once. He was taking the chance that Severus would go straight to the Owlery and not anywhere more ominous. He felt fairly safe under his cloak though, and saw this as something of an adventure.

Severus cast a spell that lit up the end of his wand and Harry made a mental note to ask Sirius about it. It seemed a good deal more useful than some of the others he'd taught him. The walk down to the dungeons had been slow and fumbling, and had taken him more than an hour, even after he had run into a very confused Nearly Headless Nick and gotten directions.

After they'd walked down several corridors that all looked much the same, Harry no longer felt cold and was having far more fun than was sensible. He'd suppressed a grin before he realised that no one could see it. At one point Severus looked back and Harry's heart had stopped. Then the man had nodded to himself and turned away again, and Harry had to stop himself from giggling. This was like the games that he played with his father at home.

When they came out of the dungeons Harry saw that there were dozens of portraits on the walls. Since it was late most of them were asleep, although a few were yawning and entertaining themselves quietly. He passed a little boy with a toy airplane who heard his cloak shifting around and blinked at him. Harry smiled, even though the boy wouldn't see it. Maybe he would come back and say hello, when he wasn't busy stalking one of his professors.

It was odd to think that that was what he was doing. It was odd to think of Severus as a professor at all. He looked the same he always had, with his black robes and stern demeanour. He always looked that way, whether he was talking to Lily or James or Remus or Harry himself. Harry wondered if he'd been like that when he was Harry's age. It was hard to imagine.

He jumped when Severus started murmuring to himself. Walking a little closer, Harry could make out some of the words: 'she always does this to me...not as bad as everyone likes to think...Potter's influence...'

More of the usual, then. Harry relaxed and fell back again. Severus had always said when he had a problem with something, although he liked to think he was subtle about it. There wasn't anything he could say that Harry probably hadn't already heard.

The murmuring stopped abruptly. A few seconds later Harry heard footsteps, and Percy came around a corner. His back was as straight as ever and he twirled his wand absently. When he saw Severus he stopped and ducked his head. "Good evening, Professor Snape."

"Weasley. Is it really necessary for the prefects to be out on patrol this late at night?"

"I would say so, sir. At least the first night of the year. Some of the first years don't know about the curfew, or don't think it will be enforced," Percy said. He took his duties very seriously; the twins had already told Harry as much. "We all planned to go to bed ourselves at ten-thirty. By then we should have caught everyone."

Severus was silent for a few moments and Harry knew he must be thinking about Harry and his Invisibility Cloak. Well, it wasn't their fault that they couldn't see him. They weren't going to go around casting Revealment Charms all over the place, so there really wasn't much they could do.

"Of course. I'll leave you to what you were doing." Severus didn't sound nearly as condescending as he normally did. Maybe he rather liked Percy, or it was treatment he reserved for Harry's family.

"Thank you sir," Percy said and walked by them, twirling his wand like a baton.

Severus watched him go before heading off again. The rest of the walk was rather uneventful, except for once when they were going up some stairs and Harry stepped on his cloak and almost pulled it completely off. Fortunately his first instinct was to freeze, and he was able to reach down and adjust the cloak so that it didn't get in his way. Severus didn't seem to notice and just went on obliviously murmuring to himself.

Finally they came to the Owlery. It was incredible, with hundreds of birds roosting in individual spaces that went all the way up to the ceiling. They twittered to each other and occasionally one would fly across to another, loosing feathers that floated down. Harry was careful to avoid them, since they would rest on top of the cloak and tell Severus that there was something there.

He waited patiently for Severus to fetch an owl. It didn't appear to be very fond of him, and tried to bite him more than once. Severus just muttered darkly at it, attached his letter to its leg and sent it off with instructions on where to go and who to give the letter. He saw it off and then made to leave the Owlery. "Good riddance," Harry heard him say, and then Severus was walking back the way they'd come, presumably back to his chambers.

Harry slipped off the cloak and saluted him when he was sure he wouldn't see. Then he pulled his letters from his pocket, folding them gently in an effort to get rid of the more obvious creases. He'd pushed them deep into his pocket so that Severus wouldn't see them and get suspicious.

A school owl would do. He beckoned for one and it flew down to him, landing on his arm and looking at him inquisitively. Harry smiled. "You couldn't hop onto my shoulder for a bit, could you? I just need to look over my letters." It trilled and did as he'd asked. He rewarded it with a quick rub underneath its neck.

Taking out his wand, he touched it to the letters and said the words that would allow the owl to pass through the wards on Godric's Hollow. Harry didn't know why Severus hadn't had to do something similar, but whenever Harry used an owl that didn't belong to him or anyone else in his family he had to use this spell.

The letters glowed faintly red for a moment and then returned to normal. Satisfied, he tied them together and then to the owl's leg. "Godric's Hollow. Please give these to Lily or James Potter, or Sirius Black, or Remus Lupin. No one else," he said. "Thank you."

The owl hooted and flew up and out the window. Harry watched it go. They were really very beautiful creatures, and friendlier than others that he'd met. One day he wanted to have his own. It would be brilliantly white, so that he could see it flying on a night like this.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Notes - This was very much a filler chapter. It's my birthday tomorrow and I'm turning eighteen, which people seem to think is very important. Between my friends and my family I couldn't find the time to do this chapter properly. I also had to overlook a few details that I know I'd gotten wrong - my French, for example, is abysmal! Owls don't eat walnuts, so don't try feeding them some, and Invisibility Cloaks are complicated things that I'm sure I got wrong in some way or another. Just assume that Sirius is brilliant enough at magic that he makes owls like the taste of walnuts and anything else is on me. Despite that I'd love it if you left a review. :)