Letterorum Incedet

By Angelis-Sensei

AN: Finally! I do an answer to a challenge! I hope you like it. The thought came upon me as I wrote the latest chapter of my other fanfiction, My Supposed Previous Life (chapter 11).

I don't want to deal with Voldemort in this fanfiction, sorry. He's permanently dead. Harry killed him at the Ministry! Huzza! Right?

Chapter 1:

He Burned the Letter...

!-!

By the time the start of the term did approach, Harry only managed to see slight changes. Not enough to merit much attention. His face was slightly thinner and a tad longer, his cheekbones a little higher set, his jaw a little lower. The hair was a bit longer, brushing against his shoulders, more tameable now than ever before. Harry's sight was now correct for the cruddy lenses his relatives grudgingly bought him all those years ago, and his eyes were a very dark shade of emerald – almost black. The shape of the eyes themselves became slanted. His voice was a little deeper; more of a silky undertone to it.

No one seemed to notice any of this. Well, maybe no one. Harry wasn't too sure. The only thing the others noticed was that he was a little shorter than they remembered.

!-!

Where was I? Oh yes...

It was Potions, and in Harry's eyes, he seemed to understand his professor better than ever. Yes, the whole lot of them could be a bunch of "dunderheads" as Professor Snape so elegantly put it their first year. But since when did Snape become Professor Snape? From as far back as he could remember, even in his private thoughts, he had always called the Potions Master "Snape".

Harry was almost bored in Potions class for once. The first day attempting a potion during Double Potionswith the Slytherins he completed it – without Hermione's help, thank you very much – with no fault that the professor could see. The ebony haired man even had someone test it. They fell into a more peaceful state almost immediately. "The Drought of Peace" it was called.

"Mr. Potter," Severus sneered at the youth, a tad disappointed that he brewed the potion correctly without the help of his friend. "Stay after class! The rest of you – get out! Go to your next class. Dismissed!"

Once the teen was alone in the class room with his Potions professor, he looked a bit ashamed of himself for no apparent reason.

"What made you think that you've actually done something wrong, Potter?" the teacher scowled at his student.

"Well... it's just that you've never told me to stay after class on any particular occasion that I can recall... So I thought the worst of it, sir."

Severus was thoroughly shocked to his core by the way his "most hated student" was talking. He never, frankly, expected the young man to be so... so intelligent in conversation. And to show the proper respect to him of all people! What was wrong with this picture...?

Unless it was the letter It had to be!There was no other way that he would be acting this way before him if it wasn't for the letter!

"Cut the act, Potter, I know that this... respect or whatever you're trying to fake doesn't phase me," he looked the other closely, using some subtle Legimancy.

"Sir... This isn't an act! I swear it!" Harry blinked rapidly, controlling himself much to that bewilderment of the professor.

"You must have read the letter that your Mother sent you," he clarified a little.

"I... I'm sorry, sir. I never got the letter, sir." Harry bowed his head, feeling a black- eyed gaze on his head. His hair fell into his face, and he realized that – with some shock – it was already becoming slightly shinny with oil. He gritted his teeth, staring at the lanky locks; he didn't like these new developments.

"Do, pray tell, explain why you didn't? Mine came to me on your birthday... It was from yourMother... She would have made sure that it was sent to those relatives of yours... and hers," he added quickly, folding his arms against his chest, but not looking quite as threatening as he did during the class.

"Well I never even got to open it, sir. I'm sorry... but..." he chocked out, still looking intently at his hair. Something resembling a scowl crossed his face as he thought of his relatives.

"But what, Potter?" the older man urged.

"But I only got to see who it was addressed to when it was getting... burned, sir," he swallowed rather forcefully. "They told me later that it was from my Mother."

"Why, oh why would they deny the famous Harry Potter a letter from his dear Mother?" Severus sneered again, glaring at the dark, oily hair around the boy's face curiously.

"Sir!" Harry whispered urgently, snapping his head up to his professor. "I've... well. I've never been treated kindly in their care! They denied telling me how my parents died until Hagrid showed up and told mehimself! I never knew about magic until Hagrid came to that dingy island in the middle of nowhere to get me! Until they got a hold of my Hogwarts letter, burning it afterwards, mind you, they put me in a closet at the foot of the stairs" Shaking slightly, Harry began to sob, his hands tugging on his hair, his lips thinning as they were pulled into a grimace of utter hatred, his eyes watering at the memories of injustice.

Severus Snape, the most feared professor at Hogwarts, was stunned, yet again. The boy wasn't as pampered and spoilt as he ever imagined! In fact, it was the total opposite! Sighing, Severus stretched out a hand and placed it on Harry's shoulder, rubbing it slightly.

"I..." he knew he was going to regret saying this. Or maybe he wouldn't... after all, and Harry was doing this all on his own, not with the letter's initiative. "I know how you feel.I had a rough childhood myself – my father..." he trailed off, not sure if he should let loose a secret he kept close. If the letter was true and he never doubted Lily.

"My father was a Muggle..." he continued, "and my mother was a pureblood dark witch. She came from a long line of Slytherins... the Princes. She couldn't believe that I wasn't as dark as she and the rest of her family were... She had my father 'beat some sense' into me, you could say." He glanced sullenly at the other occupant of the room.

Harry was looking up into his own eyes with wonderment, some shock, and... a bit of something he couldn't quite place. Were the boy's eyes... black? Severus did a double take, and sure enough, those dark emerald eyes were still there. They weren't anything like what they had been before!

"Sir... I didn't know that you had such an awful –" he was cut off by his Potions professor placing his hand over his lips.

The Potions Master leaned forward and smiled very slightly at Harry, thinking: 'Why couldn't it have been like this before?' He was about to hug the trembling boy, and he had an arm around his waist, ready to do so, when the door opened to his next group of students. 'Oh, shite,' Severus cursed inwardly, pulling away from the student.

fuit continuit...

(To be Continued...)