Favorite Quotes:

"I assume you've not had breakfast yet?"

Harry shook his head and turned to address the Potions Master. "No, I'll just go get something from the kitchen and bring it back."

Snape started to rise slightly on his bed. "No need; we can have breakfast in my sitting room. It's not my usual habit to spend my summers at Hogwarts but I assume the house elves are still in employ and can deliver a simple enough meal."

"Right. Can I use your-" Harry gestured towards the bathroom. Snape nodded.

When Harry returned it was to see Snape sitting up straight, slightly leaning on the headboard of his bed. He seemed to be breathing a bit heavier than before Harry had left him.

"You know if Madame Pomfrey sees you breathing like that with that bruise on your face she'll only make you go back to the infirmary."

"She can try. Meddlesome woman."

"That meddlesome woman almost put you in your place yesterday." Harry smiled and said, "Besides if she shows up with you looking like that she'll probably think I left you to drown in the tub or something and you had to crawl your way out."

Snape glared at Harry and snarled, "I do not crawl, Potter. If pressed, I can cast a levitation charm and transport myself that way, otherwise walking is my usual method of travel."

Harry laughed and wrapped his arm around Snape's side as he had been doing for the past day. Snape was warm from laying in bed and Harry found himself holding Snape just a bit tighter than he usually did.

If Snape noticed, he didn't say anything.

"Why are we having breakfast in your sitting room when we could just have it in here? It'd be easier for you-"

Snape growled, "What is easy is not always for the best. I have to begin regaining my former strength; I'll not lay in bed a moment longer than necessary and it is my hope that by the end of the week I will be able to return to my laboratory."

Harry helped Snape to stand and allowed the man to lean on him as he took small steps towards his sitting room and then to the straight backed chair by the sofa.

Snape plopped down with none of his usual grace and glared at Harry, almost daring him to say a word. Harry shrugged and sat on the sofa near Snape.

"I need breakfast for two, please," Snape said into midair. Harry was about to question this before a small table, just big enough for two, popped into existence between them. There were two bowels of oatmeal, a plate of toast and a pot of tea sitting on it.

Harry glanced down down at his bowl in disgust, watching Snape pick up his spoon and put his napkin in his lap out of the corner of his eye. He almost managed to wipe the revulsion from his face before Snape noticed, but not quite.

"You dislike oatmeal, Potter?"

Harry looked up from his meal and forced himself to wipe the look off his face. "Er... no, I just really don't like raisins."

Harry watched as Snape frowned and looked down at his own bowl, apparently not even noticing the little bastards had been there at all.

The Potions Master spooned some oatmeal into his mouth, taking a bite. "Raisins?" the professor asked, as though Harry had just said something that made Snape question his sanity.

"Yeah, I mean just look at them... just... ugh," Harry said, emptying his bowl of every raisin he could find and placing them on his napkin.

"Is there any particular reason you're looking on what are essentially dried grapes with such disdain?"

"Well, yeah, how can you like them? They're all shriveled up and dead looking. It's not natural. I mean, if you want to have grapes in your breakfast, have grapes in your breakfast. No need to shrivel them up and have little dead things looking you in the face in the morning."

Snape looked at Harry as though he had completely lost his mind but continued to say nothing as the young man dished out raisins onto his napkin.

"Why does my oatmeal have to be littered with the corpses of dead grapes? Really, whoever came up with them in the first place..." Harry stopped when he realized Snape had been quiet for some time.

He looked up and met the amused eyes of the Potions Master, looking for all the world like he wanted to grin but was holding it back on pain of death. Harry felt his face break into an all out smile.

"Is there any other breakfast food that is insulting to your person or may we eat our breakfast in peace?"

Harry laughed and said, "No, I think I've got them all. Here, if you like them so much you take them." And with that Harry began spooning his discarded raisins in Snape's bowl.

Snape watched Harry shovel food onto his plate in complete shock until suddenly he grabbed Harry's hand with much more force than Harry would have thought he possessed.

Harry immediately dropped his spoon on the table and tensed as Snape turned his hand over, palm down, and ran a finger over the space between his thumb and forefinger.

I must not tell lies.

Snape held Harry's hand firmly but softly, as though he were afraid he'd somehow open up the old wound if he handled it too roughly.

"Dolores Umbridge?" Snape sneered with all his usual vitriol. Harry nodded, though he noted that Snape was making a statement more than asking a question. "That vengeful-"

Harry tried to snatch his hand away from the man but failed. He had no doubt he could rip his hand away from Snape's grasp but was unsure how to do so without hurting the man. After a moment, he gave up trying to gently pull his hand away and allowed the man to look his fill. He sighed and said, "I'd always kind of wondered if you knew about that. I doubted anything got past you."

Snape's upper lip had curled up enough to actually reveal his teeth, his eyes blazing. "I'm surprised I didn't notice it before, especially while in the infirmary." Harry looked again at the thin white scar and realized that it was actually quite small and light, very easy to miss on casual inspection. "I heard rumors but when no students came forward..." The grip he had on Harry's hand was far stronger than Harry would have thought possible. Snape had his black eyes focused on the thin white scar, running his thumb over it again and again, just as he had the other night in the infirmary.

Though the situation was extremely uncomfortable, Harry couldn't help but notice that the anger shown on Snape's face was, for once, not directed at him. He was upset with the words carved into Harry's hand. As he had that night, the Potions Master ran a potions-stained thumb over it, touching it with a tenderness Harry had never known.

"Why didn't you inform your head of house that this... barbarism had occurred?"

Harry shrugged. "She had her own problems to deal with at the time and... Well, honestly, what could she have done?" Harry's hand was beginning to grow warm in Snape's. The man didn't seem to realize he was still holding it. Harry's arm was stretched awkwardly over their bowls, and Snape's damp hair framed his face as the man kept his eyes on the scar.

Snape sneered and said, "She would have done something about this."

Harry scoffed and said, "Yeah, of course, she would have tried. But, Merlin, Snape even you were on probation near the end there..."

Snape looked up into Harry's eyes and took in the scene at the table- Harry's arm outstretched and his hand in Snape's.

Snape released his hand so suddenly Harry almost dropped it in Snape's oatmeal. Harry's hand felt suddenly cold as he pulled it back across the table.

Snape sneered again and said, "I did not know that had happened. If I had, I would have done something about it. There's a reason we don't use blood quills as punishment- the idea that students can be punished through pain is appalling."

Snape's voice rose throughout his short tirade and his hand, now devoid of anything firm to hold onto, was again shaking.

Harry said nothing and resumed spooning his raisins into Snape's oatmeal. He half watched as Snape put his hand over his eyes and took a deep breath, calming himself. When he lowered his hand it was to find Harry putting the last of the raisins in his bowl.

"Would you please cease contaminating my breakfast, Potter? If your dislike for raisins is so great you can always give them to your bird for lunch. There's no need to go putting them into mine."

Harry laughed and said, "But look, I put them in a snake pattern. You know, add a bit of character to your oatmeal."

Snape looked down and quirked up an eyebrow, as he saw that Harry had indeed made a snake out of the dried grapes. "Yes, you can never have enough personality in your breakfast."

Harry laughed and finally began to eat.

Snape picked up his spoon again as well. "Excellent, Potter. My breakfast now looks as if it is suffering from the plague." Snape shot a glare across the table at Harry but continued to eat his breakfast.

- From 'Pains and Contradictions' by atypicalsnowman

"...Rikoto made a comment on one of the civilian teenage girls.

"Oh, looks like she's ready to seduce someone." He whispered to Yoshi, but Kei overheard.

"How can you tell?" Kei asked the older boy.

Rikoto gave Kei a weird look before answering. "The way she's dressed and keeps looking at certain men."

Kei looked down, but couldn't tell who they were talking about. "I don't see her."

"Do you know what 'To Seduce' means? Yoshi asked.

"To ask someone to help you clean." Kei responded. Rikoto and Yoshi just stared at the young boy.

"Who told you that?" Yoshi asked while trying to hide a grin.

"Kotetsu-nii. "

"What did he tell you about it?" Yoshi followed up with.

"Umm. . ." Kei scrunched up his nose in concentration and tilted his head as he thought. "He said that sometimes people seduce others to help them clean their bedrooms. Seducing is another word for asking." Kei looked at the two grinning shinobi and saw that Akemi was still oblivious to the conversation.

"Did he tell you how they clean?" Rikoto asked with a wide grin and moved his eyebrows in a weird way.

"He said that 'When two people go to clean a room the lock the door, strip everything. One person will check everywhere and fill any holes' I think that's because they don't want mice to get in or bugs. Then he said 'They sometimes clean slow and gentle' but that probably so they don't miss a spot. 'Sometimes they clean fast and rough, and clean multiple times.' I think those people need to learn to clean, because they have to keep cleaning again for missing spots." Kei finished.

Rikoto and Yoshi were having a hard time keeping from laughing. Yoshi recovered first and responded to the confused 6 year-old.

"True, but who can say that one person's way of cleaning is the wrong way? Maybe they like cleaning like that. You don't know all the in and outs of cleaning, so you can't judge others. Besides, if everyone is satisfied in the end, then what's there to complain about?" Yoshi asked.

Kei took a moment to think about his sensei's words. "Well I guess if they are happy. . ." he trailed off."

- From 'Newton's First Law' by Barrel of Monkeys

"Dr. Byre's eyes swept the room again. "Ah, Mr. Potter… you continue to make my flashes of foresight both amusing and quite strange."

"It's what I live for, ma'am."

"It's quite odd to find myself saying this, but – for that it might be worth, Mr. Potter, I strongly recommend that you avoid agreeing to an idea proposed to you by someone dressed as a large onion."

Harry opened his mouth, then paused. "A large onion?"

"Yes."

"The purple or white kind?"

Dr. Byre paused in the act of putting on her glasses. "You're actually so likely to encounter more than one kind of large onion that you need clarification? No, never mind, the answer to that is resoundingly yes, of course." She stared into space for a second. "My feeling is the purple kind. Though, they're actually called red onions."

"Got it. Avoid idea-bearing red onions that in reality look more purple than red, even if they're actually called red onions."

She pressed her lips together, fighting a smile. "Yes, Mr. Potter. And do let me know how that works out for you. Please."

Harry tossed out a salute."

- From 'A Different Start: American Harry Prequel' by DarkeStar

"Yeah well," Harry shrugged again. "I never felt human anyways."

"Meaning what?"

"It was in one of Mione's books." Harry smiled sheepishly as he absently stirred at his cocoa. "The Iliad. She'd left it open on the chair and I glanced at it while pretending to work on my Potions assignment." Draco smirked at that. "There was a description in it of 'a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle.' I used to think that maybe I was a chimera."

Gray eyes blinked. "A chimera."

Harry looked up sharply to make sure Draco wasn't mocking him. "Yeah. You know," he gestured awkwardly, nearly knocking his cup onto the floor. "Mixed up between Gryffindor and Slytherin and Voldemort."

"I see." Draco looked solemn. "And, naturally, you concluded that the Dark Lord's presence in your life was synonymous to a goat."

- From 'A Change In Perspective by Roozette

Borrowed from Shiinmaru-dono

You're a 90's kid if:

You can finish this 'ice ice _'
You remember watching Doug, Ren & Stimpy, Pinky and the Brain, Bobby's World, Felix the cat, The Tick...AAAAAAAH Real Monsters!
You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCHE!"
You just cant resist finishing this . . . "Iiiiiiin west philidelphia born and raised . . ."
You remember TGIF, Step by Step, Family Matters, Dinosaurs, and Boy Meets World.
You remember when it was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons.
You got super excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school.
You remember reading "Goosebumps"
You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school.
You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence . . . not
If you remember seeing hot tub bubbles make bubbly sounds before every music video on VH1.
when everything was settled by rock paper scissors..or bubble gum bubble gum in a dish...eeny meeny miney mo...and even better daddy had a donkey inky binky bonky.
You used to listen to the radio all day long just to record your FAVORITE song of ALL time.
"Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" was both a game and a TV game show.
Captain Planet. He's a Hero.
You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green ranger, were meant to be together.
You remember when Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis became popular.
You always wanted to send in a tape to America's Funniest Home Videos . . . but never taped anything funny.
You remember watching Home Alone 1, 2 , and 3 . . . and tried to pull the pranks on "intruders"
You remember watching The Magic School Bus, Wishbone, and Reading Rainbow on PBS.
You remember when Yo-Yos were cool.
You remember those Where's Waldo books.
You remember eating Warheads.
You remember watching the 1st Batman, Aladdin, Ninja Turtles, and 3 Ninjas movies.
You remember Ring Pops.
You remember drinking Surge, and Tang.
If you remember when every thing was "da BOMB!"
When they made the new lunchables so that you could make pizza AND tacos.
You remember boom boxes vs. cd players.
Making those little paper cootie-catcher things, and then predicting your life with them.
You played and/or collected "Pogs"
You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet, or Nano and brought it everywhere.
. . . Furbies
Saved By The Bell was the coolest show ever!
You haven't always had a computer, and it was cool to have the internet.
And Windows 95 was the best.
You watched the original cartoons of Rugrats, Power Rangers, and Ninja Turtles.
Michael Jordan was a king.
YIKES pencils and erasers were the stuff!
All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand.
You remember when the new Beanie Babies and Talking Elmo were always sold out.
You collected those Beanie Babies.
Mortal Kombat was awesome--the game and the movie
Carebears
Gak was the coolest stuff invented.
Lambchop's song never ended.
The old dollar bills.
Silver dollars, which were cool to have.
You remember a time before the WB.
You collected all the Troll dolls
You had to read Weekly Reader's in class.
If you even know what an original walkman is.
You remember wanting to sit on the orange Nickelodeon couch.
You've gotten creeped out by "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
You know the Macarena by heart.
"Talk to the hand" . . . enough said
You always said, "Then why don't you marry it!"
You remember trying to collect all 150 original pokemon cards but never could and if you did you thought you were all that!
You remember Highlight's magazine.
You went to McDonald's to play in the playplace.
You remember playing on merry go rounds at the playground.
Before the MySpace frenzy . . .
Before the Internet & text messaging . . .
Before Sidekicks & iPods . . .
Before MIKE JONES . . .
Before PlayStation2 or X-BOX . . .
Before Spongebob . . .
Back when you put off the 5 hours of homework you had every night.
When light up sneakers were cool.
When you rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.
When gas was 0.95 a gallon & Caller ID was The new thing.
When we recorded stuff on VCRs.
When we called the radio station to request songs to hear off of our walkmans.
When gameboy was a brick.
You did MASH to figure out your future
When you weren't cool unless you had a Starter jacket.
Way back.

Before we realized all this would eventually disappear.
Who would have thought you'd miss the 90's so much!
Post this in your profile if you remember these days . . . .
or if you smiled at one of these things.

Borrowed from Shiinmaru-dono

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.
I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.
I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.
I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.
I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.
I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.
I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.
I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.
I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.
I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me.
I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.
I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.
I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.
Re-post this if you believe homophobia is wrong. Please do your part to end it.

Borrowed from Shiinmaru-dono

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, liposuction and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that
hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy
behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has
legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed
at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites,
and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were
allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun
marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay
couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to
marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs
more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight
parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like
ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country.
That's why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model
at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents
to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could
never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to
cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans...

Copy this to your profile if you believe in legalizing gay marriage!