Here is the next chapter! I took a piece of Snape's dialogue from Philosophers Stone (You'll know which bit!). I hope you enjoy!

Hermione took her seat at the Ravenclaw table, her friends still giggling about Harry. Honestly, Hermione had never understood the fascination some girls had with boys; she hoped she never would. She had seen several girls at her old primary school change themselves for a boy to notice them, and she was quite determined never to let such a thing happen to her.

Padma looked as though she wasn't quite as invested in boys as Lilly and Claire were either; but she was still giggling along. Hermione fought the urge to roll her eyes, they were her friends after all, and decided that she would let it slide. She didn't notice the way her friends all turned their eyes on her.

"Hermione..."

It was Lilly's voice that drew her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah?"

Who's Harry?" Hermione choked on the sip of tea she had just taken. "How long have you known him?" Lilly's eyes were wide with curiosity, and as Hermione looked to the others for help out of the situation, found the same curious look glinting back at her.

"Uh…I met him yesterday, on the train." She looked between the girls, catching the flare of disbelief in Claire's eyes. "And he's just Harry?"

Claire was the first to speak.

"Yesterday? You expect me to believe that? Please, you were making faces at each other, he kissed your hand and you pretty much attacked him in a hug the moment you saw him this morning." Hermione was rather cowed, but Lilly and Padma weren't.

"Hey! Just cause she hugged him doesn't mean they have to have known each other for a long time; leave Hermione alone Claire! Just because you don't have any boys you like you!" Lilly's voice had gotten louder by the end of her sentence, so loud in fact that it had caught the attention of some of the students at the other tables.

"He kissed her!" Claire's face was red as her hair.

"He kissed all of us! How are you in Ravenclaw if you missed that?!" Padma had stepped in. Her voice, though calmer than Lilly's had been, was still loud and actually sounded even more insulting.

Neville, sitting only a few metres away, heard the commotion and turned around. Seeing Hermione sitting between two girls who were yelling at another red faced girl across the table, it became clear that she was stuck in the middle of a fight that she didn't want to be in.

He stopped eating his breakfast as he leaned as far over as he could; trying to hear what was being said. He didn't have to try too hard as the next sentence was shouted for the whole Hall to hear.

"He's the Boy-Who-Lived! Why is he being so nice to a MUDBLOOD?!" The gasps of the other girls were equally loud, and they each grabbed one of Hermione's shoulders. Neville stood up, but Harry was already there.

"How dare you!" Hermione looked up from the table when she heard his voice. He stood there like an avenging angel. "Apologise. Right. Now."

Claire shook where she was standing. She hadn't meant to yell that so loudly, but she wouldn't back down.

"I will not apologise for stating a fact."

"It is not a fact. Hermione is a Muggle-born; she is not a Mudblood, Mudblood's do not exist." Harry was shaking with repressed anger. "I seriously suggest you apologise and then get out of my site." Harry placed an arm around Hermione's shoulder. "C'mon Hermione, you're eating at the Gryffindor table with me." He guided her out of her seat, and looked to the others girls. "You can join us if you want." Throwing one last glare at the girl who had called his Hermione that horrible word, he walked off.

Hermione didn't know what had just happened; she had thought Claire was her friend? More importantly though, what did Mudblood mean? She figured that it was something mean, as everyone around had reacted badly to it.

"H-harry?"

"Yeah Hermione?"

"What does Mudblood mean?"

She felt him stiffen, the arm he held around her waist squeezing her even tighter than it had already been; but it only lasted for a moment. Then he sighed, and his shoulders drooped.

"It means, dirty blood…it's a nasty way of referring to Muggle-borns, of saying that their blood isn't pure." He looked tortured, "I'm so sorry you had to hear that Hermione…you shouldn't have had to."

"I-it's okay Harry. It's not your fault… Thank you for standing up for me." She looked down at the ground. "No-one's ever done that for me before…"

Harry's head snapped up to look at her.

"Hermione, I will always stand up for you. And just so you know, Neville had stood up; he was going to defend you too." Hermione looked into his eyes, and saw the truth. She looked back over at the Hufflepuff table and saw Neville, the sweet boy she had met yesterday, standing up and berating Claire. He was glaring at her, and by the looks of the students around them he was really getting into it.

"Don't worry about her Hermione, Neville will sort her out," Hermione thought it was slightly amusing the way he spat the word 'her', "Let's just have some breakfast."

And so she sat down next to Harry at the Gryffindor table, the others were very welcoming, and she ate.

After breakfast the duo met up with Neville in the Entrance Hall. Hermione instantly hugged him.

"Thank you!" Neville flushed bright red, and Harry grinned at him.

"Uh, no problem Hermione…she was way out of line…" Hermione just smiled at him, then turned to Harry.

"Do you happen to know where our classes are Harry? I know you have Potions and we have Transfiguration, but…" She trailed off, realising that it was much more important for Harry to find his own class than helping her and Neville.

As if reading her thoughts, Harry smiled.

"As a matter of fact, I do know where the Transfiguration class is; dad told me all about the classes before I came. And" He gestured them closer, "he passed along a…family heirloom I suppose you could say, to help me and my friends out." Laughing at their curious expressions, he grabbed their hands and pulled them into an alcove just off the Entrance Hall.

Rifling through his bag, and ignoring the curious looks of his friends, he pulled out what looked like an old, tattered piece of parchment. With a grin, he pulled out his wand.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

The look on Neville and Hermione's faces were priceless.

Lily watched as Harry walked down to the dungeons for his first Potions lesson. She was worried how Severus would react to him…it was no secret to her that he did not like her husband, he had told her that himself just a week before her wedding day. She was ashamed to remember the way she had scorned him, the way she had yelled at him for ignoring her for years and then coming to her only to tell her that she shouldn't marry the man that she loved.

Now, she could understand why he had done that; she had gone and fallen for a man who had tormented him in school, she had defended him enough times to know that James singled Severus out from everyone else. He had only been trying to protect her from someone that he could never see changing.

Lily closed her eyes and thought of Severus; thought of the boy she had met when she was a little girl; the boy who had told her everything that she had ever wanted to hear, the boy who had chased away her older sister when she was being mean to her. When she opened them she was in his classroom. Lily was happy that she had finally mastered the way to travel around and see what was happening; she could affect the world around her when she thought about her intention to help Harry.

Severus was sat at his desk, staring glumly down at a piece of parchment. Moving closing, Lily saw that the parchment was his class list. He was staring at Harry's name.

Thinking hard, Lily opened her mouth.

"Sev…treat my son right…"

Severus Snape jolted up in his desk chair, gazing around his classroom with a sneer. Who dared to interrupt him whilst he was brooding? Then he saw her. Lily. She was standing by a desk, her form was silvery and smoky around the edges, but he could make out enough to know that it was her.

She smiled at him.

"Please…he is a bright boy…"

Was she asking him to treat Potter's spawn nicely? Surely not, he was imagining things. As though she could hear his thoughts, though really she just knew him very well, she reared up to her full height, her hair blowing about her in an imaginary wind.

"You will not treat my son as though he is to blame for my death! He is a child! You will treat him as such!"

Suddenly, she was right in his face. Her silver eyes burning with anger he had not seen in many years. He nodded shakily, honestly frightened by what she would do if he didn't agree. Ghosts and other spirits had been known to mess with the living after all.

She smiled, her expression melting into one of happiness.

"Thank you Sev…"

And then she was gone.

What felt like moments, but was actually several minutes, passed and footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the classroom door. Looking at the clock, he was shocked to realise that it was ten minutes till class began. He stood, and swiftly opened the door for any early students.

He was greeted by green eyes. They were so much like Lily's that he immediately knew who he was looking at; he didn't even need to look to see if the unruly mop of ebony hair was there, as he knew it would be.

He turned and went back to his desk, and Harry took a seat in the first row. Severus was surprised at this; most Gryffindors sat as far back as they could due to the rumours about his teaching style and favouritism towards other houses.

Other students slowly trickled into the room as the minutes ticked by, and at the strike of nine, the classroom door was slammed shut; any student not in the room would not be attending his class today.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began. He spoke in a soft tone, but the class caught every word. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach"

Severus took a moment to observe the Potter boy; he was sitting still, his quill scratching across a piece of parchment. Curious, he stepped forward slightly so that he could see what was being written; he was surprised to see his speech written neatly, word for word.

A student had never written that without prompting before.

"Well, why aren't you writing this down?" His tone was snappish, and harsh. The instant scramble for quill and parchment amused him every time.