Chapter Eight – Dirty Laundry.

"You motherfucking bastard," Harry yelled, red splotches covering his cheeks, his vein throbbing reminding him nastily of his Uncle Vernon. "How could you?" A second year Gryffindor had come to him in tears after Snape had threatened him in class. Snape remained impassive.

"I had to," he said at last. "The boy needed to learn,"

"Needed to learn what?" Harry felt like he was about to explode, or start throwing things, but then again he didn't want to end up with another broken leg. "And did you have to go that far?"

"Yes I did," Snape smirked. "It's not my fault he's incompetent."

"But it's your fucking job to make him competent," He practically screamed in return.

"If it matters to you so much, why don't you teach him?" Snape paused. "Oh that's right, you're not competent yourself." he sneered. Harry lost it at that.

"Why are you such a cold hearted bastard? What's your fucking problem? You sneaky, slimy, stupid Slytherin." he raged. "You make out like it's such a big effort to do something. So what you were a spy for the Order – you were only a spy because that was the easiest way to get out of his service! If you were smart from the start you wouldn't have followed him to start with!"

"You don't understand," Snape snarled.

"No, you're wrong. I understand full well. I bet you felt big every time you took a report to Dumbeldore, I bet you loved being the one in power for once."

"Be quiet," Snape ordered.

"No," Harry was defiant. "You can't help yourself, can you? Always ordering me about? What do you think I am? A child? Because I can assure you, I haven't been a child since the second you sold out my parents to Voldemort," Snape paled. Serves him right. Harry thought viciously. "But oh no, you don't think about how you hurt me when you did that, you only think about what it cost you and I've had it right up to here," he gestured up somewhere high. "And in the Department of Mysteries, you could've saved Sirius, you could've saved all of us, I know you knew Voldemort was attacking me that day and yet you didn't even fucking tell us. Do you know what that cost?" Harry thought for a moment. "As a matter of fact, you have single handedly fucked up my entire life, even being the one to marry me! You marry me and instead of at least attempting to be friends, you act as though you're some form of Ice Princess!" Harry walked towards the bedroom. "Now I am going to bed." he looked back. "And you aren't going to join me." he paused. "Tomorrow morning, you are going to find that poor boy, apologise to him and award him 20 points to Gryffindor for being incredibly brave in the face of an irate Professor. Goodnight," Harry slammed the door behind him.

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Severus watched Harry leave in a state of schock. Unless he was very much mistaken, he had majorly underestimated the boy. That was a mistake. He conceeded. He had not known the boy had so much hatred for him.

He went into his lab and transfigured his lounge into a bed. Severus fell asleep to the repeated sounds of Harry's criticism. He never knew that words could hurt so much.

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It was well known around Hogwarts that Severus Snape was in an unusually sour mood. No one but Harry knew exactly why, but there was some highly accurate guessing going on.
"Sulking Severus?" Harry asked mildly, eliciting a glare from the grumpy professor.
"No thanks to you,"

In total, 420 house points were deducted by Snape over the course of the day, even Slytherin had lost out.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Minerva asked at Dinner.
"No," Snape snapped as he was prone to doing.
"Are you sure?"
"Do I look it?" Minerva sighed.
"You know Severus, it is normal for people to have arguments," clearly the rumours had reached her.
"It was not an argument, he insulted me and cast unsavoury aspersions," Snape confessed feeling bitter.
"Did any of these have a basis in fact?" Snape glared at her.
"In his deluded mind? Possibly," Severus stared down at Harry who had chosen to eat with the new Gryffindor Quidditch team in an attempt to get to know them. No staff member of Hogwarts had ever eaten at a house table. Evidently, Harry was quite a revolutionary.
"Then why don't you bow your proud head and let him win this time?"
"I am going to pretend I didn't hear that." She nodded.
"I thought you would,"
"Am I that predictable?"
"Honestly Severus, yes"

Snape sighed knowing that it was time to call a truce. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to do something unpredictable..

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A/N : Only had time for a short chapter today, written on post it notes in between consultations. I have some of Chapter Nine written and should be able to put it up later tonight..