Silent muttering.
When the phrase first bounded through Harry's mind to the forefront of his consciousness, he thought he must be going as barmy as the Headmaster.
That thought made him wonder if he'd receive all of the Headmaster's power as well which in turn made him smirk mischievously until he realized both Professor McGonagall and Malfoy, who were seated across from him and his own master, were watching him suspiciously.
He sobered after that.
Regardless of his opinion on the phrase, he felt it was an apt description of the mandatory dinner in the same room where they took breakfast.
Most occupants were visibly tense and spoke in whispered tones to the people directly next to them. Even Hermione's enthusiasm at the beginning of the meal couldn't crack the chilly air.
Harry's awareness of the tension did not make him immune to it, however.
Sitting straight-backed in the comfortable chair, he was intensely aware of his new Master's gaze shifting to his clothing with more wonder than disapproval.
Not that there was anything specific to disapprove of, but he was the only student wearing the uniform.
His master was only half of the problem. Once Malfoy had decided speculatively regarding Harry was a waste of his attention, he shifted his gaze to Severus. Harry decided the question in Malfoy's eyes mostly dwelt on why was his head of house not more upset by the arrangement. The boy was tapping his fingers along with his excellent pout and looked ready to launch an attack, verbal or physical, upon Severus at any moment.
Harry, for once not particularly cold in the other man's presence, tried to ignore the problems of others and concentrate on his meal.
It worked until McGonagall joined the 'Watch-Fest.' She watched Malfoy. Malfoy watched Severus. Severus watched Harry. And Harry was driven to pointing his head mostly towards the other end of the table.
And that is when he noticed Ron was not watching anything save the contents of his plate. The other teenager looked lonely as his classmates were all preoccupied with their instructors. Harry knew from Neville and Hermione that he'd met with his own master earlier in the day due to an arrangement by Dumbledore.
He wondered what further news could have Ron looking so forlorn. It was easy for Harry to let his thoughts drift off in that direction until the Headmaster's arrival pulled him crashing down to reality.
Sometime since Harry zoned out and the Headmaster's seating, the room had dropped several degrees and yet, he noticed, no one else seemed to take interest in that fact. He pulled his robe more closely together and listened to the Headmaster's outlining of the format to be followed for the year.
Unlike what his own master had outlined and much to Harry's relief, the Hogwarts altered apprenticeship would take no more than three years. The individual pairs were at that time allowed to decide whether or not they wanted to extend the program.
He risked a glance to note his master had maintained a passive countenance. He could not tell the other man's thoughts on the matter.
Secondly, the apprentices were no longer students of Hogwart's; they were instead to be considered junior staff with all the responsibilities and privileges. Harry smiled at this until the Headmaster continued to note that, as junior staff, they were no longer allowed to reside in the student dormitories. They were instead expected to reside in a room adjacent to their master's. They were expected to be ready for the move by tomorrow evening.
Malfoy also possessed a pinched expression.
After that and a few other procedural notes, Dumbledore quieted down to his meal. Harry pushed his food around his plate until they were permitted to leave.
As they stood, a glance from his master told him he was expected to stay. He reclaimed his chair and waited.
"Is there something you required?" Severus asked. Harry's head shot up in confusion until he noticed Malfoy was standing from across the table, pinning a mini-Slytherin glare upon his former head of house. Harry also noted McGonagall paused at the door upon noticing Malfoy's delay.
"How can you agree to let that be your apprentice?" Malfoy demanded, jerking a finger in Harry's direction.
Harry moved to answer the challenge, but Severus' cold hand stopped his movement. His master rose from his chair calmly.
"I assume you are referring to Mr. Potter. Need I inform you that you will be expected to treat all of your fellow junior and senior staff members with respect?" Severus asked quietly.
Malfoy sneered, "You really are no better than a filthy mudblood, aren't you?"
Harry did stand at this. He didn't like Snape, but he was his master. He'd be damned if he let some punk like Malfoy get away with insulting him. Besides, it was a perfect excuse to hex the blond. For his part, Severus' eyes narrowed, but he remained calm.
"Minerva," he called, "perhaps you could take your apprentice aside and explain to him the finer points of holding ones tongue?"
McGonagall had swiftly crossed the room and, to Harry, seemed scarier than she had his first night at Hogwarts. Malfoy barely concealed a flinch when she sidled up next to him.
"What?" Malfoy laughed in his best imitation of his father, "You expect me to kowtow to the whims of some Gryffindor?"
Harry pursed his lips, now the brat was insulting his house and his former head, he reached for his wand. A glance from his master stayed his attack.
Dumbledore, who'd left before the confrontation had arisen, returned to the dining room, all smiles and rainbows.
"Ah," he began cheerfully, drawing the attention of the two pairs, "I was informed of some sort of conflict in the dining room. Is there a problem here?"
Severus withdrew from the table, gently nudging Harry's arm in the direction of the door. "This is a matter perhaps dealt with Minerva and her apprentice directly." He nodded to the headmaster and other professor and left the room, Harry in his wake.
"So you are just going to let him off the hook like that?" Harry asked disbelievingly.
Severus glanced through the side of his eyes as if surprised Harry was still following him. "Draco is Professor McGonagall's responsibility. I was able to postpone his joining the Dark Lord long enough for the madman to croak first, and now, I am not even his head of house. I wash my hands of him."
"I thought he was your favorite student," Harry argued. "Isn't his father your best friend?"
Severus laughed derisively, "Think on this, Lucius hates me more than you ever had. Whether or not I was ever named Draco's godfather means little."
Harry, sour that he'd been laughed at, remained quiet until they'd reached Snape's office. When the man entered without a word and continued to ignore him, he spoke. "What did you want after dinner?"
Severus looked up and quickly back down to the drawer he was searching through.
"Why are you wearing your uniform?" he asked.
Harry, taken with the random question, answered honestly. "They're all I have." He then realized how pathetic that sounded and added onto the statement. "I outgrew my regular clothes from last year. Hermione transfigured these to fit me."
Severus, withdrawing a black leather portfolio that looked similar to one Harry'd seen his uncle with, sized the boy up. "You don't seem much taller."
"I grew two inches!" Harry shot back, annoyed that he was still a good half foot (if he was being generous with his height and stingy with Snape's) shorter than the other man.
Infuriatingly, Severus merely hummed noncommittally in response.
He started jotting down something in his folder, on muggle paper no less.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked curiously.
"Sir," Severus commented. When Harry looked at him questioningly, he elaborated. "Address me as sir or master when asking me a question, particularly when it is clear I am preoccupied with something else. It will make me look more favorably upon answering you." He looked back down to his paper.
Harry rolled his eyes but obliged, "What are you doing, sir?"
"Writing down your measurements," Severus responded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Whatever for?" Harry asked indignantly.
Severus' intake of breath was ominously audible in the quiet stone room. "I realize, Potter, we are not having the best start in our working relationship, but, just so as I'm prepared, do you always ask so many similar questions?" He didn't wait for an answer, "We were speaking about your clothing. I am writing down your measurements. Let us address this as a lesson in deductive reasoning; can you figure why I would record your figures?"
Harry felt his lips try to bend into a grimace, "Yeah, I think I got it."
Severus smirked, "Excellent, then you will have no problem meeting me at the doors tomorrow morning. Nine a.m., do not be late."
-~PULSE~-
Harry returned to his room in a haze of befuddlement. Snape had been oddly out of character ever since their return to Hogwarts. He was still snarky and overbearingly arrogant, but there was a distinctive lack of malice to his various barbs and pricks.
Unfortunately, Harry soon found that missing malice in the company of his first friend and long time roommate. His redheaded friend-fellow practically emanated tension with every deposit of clothing into his large, worn trunk. Harry tried to rouse a conversation from his friend with small talk to no avail.
"Are you really going to leave without speaking to me?" he asked.
The red head glared and continued stuffing the clothes he'd unpacked the night before into his trunk.
"This is probably our last night as roommates," Harry urged. He couldn't conceive of an occasion where they'd be forced together again.
"Good," Ron snapped.
Harry grasped for straws, "Malfoy waited till after dinner to remind us why he's such a great prat."
Ron sneered, "I bet your Master sorted him out well enough."
"What is your problem?" Harry demanded.
"You knew about Snape!" Ron threw a shoe into his trunk. "Don't even try denying it; Dumbledore all but told me before we met with Moody."
Harry scrunched his lips together, "What does it even matter if I knew? It's not like I had a choice!"
Ron threw down his tie, it didn't make as spectacular of a sound as the shoe, "That's not the point. It's always the same. There always is special treatment for Harry Bloody Potter!"
"You're impossible," Harry accused disbelievingly.
Ron climbed into bed and grabbed the curtains. "And you're a bigheaded prat!" he yanked them shut.
Harry rolled his eyes and glanced over to Neville's bed; the other boy had already shut his curtains some time before. He collapsed onto his own bed and forced his eyes shut, hoping tomorrow would indeed be a better day.
-~PULSE~-
Tobias Snape idly levitated one of Malfoy's crystal trinkets several inches above his fingertips. "For all your talk of big plans, Malfoy, you're quite the boring chap." The crystal landed with a thunk into his palm. Malfoy winced.
"I told you, we need to wait for the aurors to lose interest in you. A couple days more will be all it takes."
"I want to see my boy," Tobias snarled.
Lucius regarded the man sadly, "And what if he has no wish to see you?"
"What?" Tobias snapped, fingers tightening around the crystal.
Lucius sighed, "I didn't want to bring it up while you were still recovering, but haven't you wondered why Severus wasn't the one to wake you?
"I went to school with Severus. When you fell ill, he forgot about you." Lucius rose from his armchair and settled on the sofa, closer to Tobias. "I saw you as a man reaching out to better himself. You gave your body magic! I made it my lifetime quest to bring you back.
"All Severus did was abandon you."
Tobias shook his head, "Not my boy. He wouldn't forget me."
"He did," Lucius urged gently. "Like most wizards, he has no use for ignorant muggles, which is all you are to him." He placed a cool hand on the non-wizard's. "I know better and so does my lord."
"This Voldemort fellow?" Tobias asked. "What does he care for muggles like me?"
Lucius smiled, "You are no longer a muggle, and the Dark Lord cares only for purifying the wizarding world. You can help him."
Tobias sneered and lowered the crystal to the table, "Sounds too much like Hitler to me."
Lucius chuckled, daintily covering his mouth, "Oh, he is nothing like that, and I can prove it to you. All you need do is teach me to pulse and assist me with my plan."
"And bring back your Lord," Tobias continued. "I still want to see my boy."
Lucius restrained himself from killing the man right then. What sort of mutated muggle dared demand things of a Malfoy? Instead, he plastered on his most sincere, closed mouthed smile, "I understand. I will find out when he travels from Hogwarts."
"When?" Tobias demanded harshly.
"Tomorrow," Lucius snapped and bit his tongue. He smiled once more and continued in a calmer tone, "Tomorrow."
-~PULSE~-
Ron was gone by the time he woke; Neville was absent as well. Harry felt a distinctive emptiness, realizing everything was changing faster than he could manage to comprehend. Today, all of his friends and he were finished as Hogwarts students. In many eyes, that signified you as an adult, yet Harry scarcely doubted he'd ever felt smaller and more insecure. He'd always thought such insecurities would be brought about by the actual fall of Voldemort, not months later by a ripple effect of their past actions.
He rose from bed and pulled on a uniform shirt and slacks. He entered the bathroom and splashed his face with water, chastising himself for being sappy. Yesterday wasn't the last day of life as he knew it. Today was the first day of something new and, he grimaced, exciting.
Severus was waiting for him, casually leaned up against the wall near the doors dressed in the same sort of muggle business attire he'd visited the Dursleys in. The man's hair was neatly combed, and if it weren't for the length, the professor would have no problem passing for a muggle professional.
"Where are we going?" Harry asked as he approached his instructor.
Severus ignored him. "Have you eaten breakfast?" he asked.
Harry lied, nodding the affirmative. He wasn't hungry enough to eat, and his stomach backed his statement wholeheartedly with a queasy flip flop sensation.
Severus wasted little thought as to whether Harry, who'd emerged from the direction of his tower and not the breakfast room, was telling the truth or not. As soon as the boy answered his question, he whirled on his heel exited Hogwarts. Harry assumed he was meant to follow.
Severus set a quick pace where Harry's shorter legs were almost forced into a jog. He led them from Hogwarts to Hogsmead, every so often surreptitiously monitoring Harry's vitals. Dumbledore wanted him to train the boy, he had to start somewhere.
Once in Hogsmead, he headed straight to the small train station.
"Are we taking a train, sir?" Harry asked puzzled. Severus glanced his way, sending a refusal to answer such a question with his gaze as he purchased his tickets.
Complacently, Harry boarded the train after Snape. He just as much preferred a silent, if not criticizing, Snape to a chatty bastard one. Harry doubted he had the energy for one of his usual trades with Snape.
"Where are we headed?" he asked tiredly after the train started moving.
Severus looked from the window, "You need new clothes. As your master, it is my responsibility to provide them for you." He turned back to the window.
"If we stop by Gringott's, I can pay for my own clothes," Harry argued.
"We will visit the goblins later in the day, regardless. However, you will not pay for these clothes," Severus' mouth formed a strangely intimidating smile. "And before you raise your ire, what you will endure before their purchase will more than make up for any monetary exchange." Harry crinkled his brow, waiting for Snape to continue. "You must convince my grandfather of your worth."
Harry frowned but didn't respond. He turned back to his window desolately. It was going to be a long day.