Severus Snape was a man of few expressions, to put it gently, scowling, more scowling and frowning were the only expressions the general public saw, a least now. In his childhood, many would have laughed at that idea, he was a bit more open, especially to darling Lilly.

He had smiled and laughed in her presence, he was in love with that ginger witch ever since his 9th year of living. He had thought in his early years that they would have a fairy tale-esce marriage and life, long and happy. But then came along Potter and maturity.

Even when she married his childhood bully he still loved her with his whole being, the proof being his patronus, a doe. When she died….he was devastated to put it simply, his whole world literally crumbled. His only reminder of his dear Lilly was the Potter boy, a child born from his enemy and true love; you can easily tell there was some emotional duress from that.

He was always cold and cruel, it's severity growing as he grew and all who knew him knew of it. He was infamous for it. He made a few students a near living hell if they did not please him as people and students, a few targets were Potter, Longbottem, Haggisborn and Chilrhaf, with the new students here more would be joining the ranks of his targets. A potential target being the boy sitting right in front of him, with those two weasel creatures at his hips, the three grinning like this was some sort of festival!

This was his class, with it's dark and moody lighting, and his books on the wooden shelves! This was his classroom! Not some entertainment room with blinking candles and new extreme violin music! ((AKA the equilvent of discos and rock and roll in the wizarding world, at least in my opinion (: ))

At least the boy got in class on time, unlike about 82% of his class, and seems to have all his supplies, and has his elbows not on the table, and…..Well, the boy might be not as bad as he first seems, although this could all be a ruse give a false impression…. Ah, here come the Slytheinens, at long last. Most likely they were stopped by a teacher and unable to get to class on time.

One Slytheinen, thinking that Snape is not able to see it, takes Sigma's Potion book and throws it in the rubbish bin. Sigma just looks at the girl from the corner of his eye, gives a small grin to her and goes and grabs it from the rubbish. However Snape has an eagle's eye and sees everything. He is surprised by the boy's reaction, he thought he would be angry, as he seems to wear his heart on his sleeve, not for him to put on a not obvious 'poker' face, as the Muggles said. This boy is starting to rise from the depths of Snape's target list.

As everybody arrives he commands everyone to open to page 598, to review the First Year knowledge of potions and their ingredients. He fires off a few questions from the book to get the children started, only 19 out of 32 students raise their hands! And only 7 are his darling little serpents! Disgraceful, he would have to work overtime to save this group of students.

He then fires off facts not reviewed in the books, but taught last year. Only 9 hands are up, Girger, Westal, Uther, Fernerab, Theyea, Harris, Smith, Destol and Sigma's hands were up. 2 children were merely guessing, Snape thought. So in reality 7 students remembered and one of them didn't even go to Hogwarts last year.

Now the parts that most dreaded, the current year, not yet learned questions about potions and their ingredients.

The ones whose hands are up are…..just Sigma? No one else? What? Oh curses and chants, he would have to teach many, many things this year. He asks the hatted boy this,

"What do the leaves of the Arachea Orchid do?"

"They give vivid hallucinations of spiders or other arachnids to the victim or victims of the potion which has this ingredient."

"What is the catalyst for this potion and what's the name of the potion?"

"The catalyst is Draha Mold and the potion is called Scorpion's Kiss, or Spider's Peck."

Hmm…the boy is good, probably took a look at his lesson plans, how about a random question from a sixth year text book?

"Very well, what are the Thasgausilius Leaves, where do they grow?" The boy blinks, his smile falling slightly but then shakes his head, smiles and answers,

"The Thasgausilius Leaves are not leaves at all, they do not grow ether. They are a form of Hippocampus scale that form when a group fossilizes in Hopstone, forming leave like patterns which give them their name."

Snape was truly and utterly stunned.

Even as a boy who read diligently and knew practically everything in Potions, it was only in his third year that he knew that fact, and here stood a boy, with two pets in class chewing on his clothes, messy hair, a grin which stretched from ear to ear and a ridiculous hat plonked on his head who knew that, and didn't even go to Hogwarts last year!

As he was about to say something witty and Snape like, (Not at all, all he would have done some very embarrassing sputtering) the signal for end of class was made as well as the end of the day.

The class practically ran out, he has to fix that soon, and only Sigma stayed to receive homework and to say goodnight, then walking out slowly, with the weasel things galloping at his heels.

Today was the day when Severus Snape had a new expression.

And expression of utter, and true confusion.

Thank Merlin's curly beard no one saw that.

((I'm back! I am SOOOOOOOO fricken sorry for that hiatus, I really, really, really, really am. Those who comment/ review I give a slingshot and a few pebbles so that they could hit me and hopefully release their rage. Bring it!))