Chapter 1

As a warm and comforting wind teased at his greasy black hair, Snape caught a glimpse of a young redhead girl with beautiful green eyes skipping gracefully away from him. She kept looking back and giggling restlessly trying to get him to follow. Running after the girl, Snape spotted a familiar two story house approaching in the horizon.

Once the redhead finally came across the house she impatiently waited for Snape to catch up. When he did, she reached for his skinny hand and gazed into his black eyes. Snape swore he had seen this girl somewhere before but couldn't place his finger on it. Taking her small and delicate hand, he cautiously followed her inside the house.

Memories flowed into Snape as he entered, along with love and hatred. Fear grabbed a hold of him when he noticed that the girl had let go and walked upstairs. Slowly following, Snape saw a blinding green flash followed by a high-pitched scream in the room she had innocently gone into. Peering into the room he saw the familiar redhead girl on the floor, dead.

Sweat beading down his skinny and pale face, Snape woke with a start. This was about the fifth time he dreamt of Lily this week. Glancing down, he noted that this was about the millionth time he fell asleep grading the class's pop quizzes. This would be so much easier if he taught the Defense Against the Dark Arts instead of Potions, but there wasn't a thing he could do about it. A promise is a promise.

Suppressing a long and shallow sigh, Snape continued to grade the papers. Giving Slytherins O's, Ravenclaws and Granger E's, Hufflepuffs A's, and Gryffindors H's was his usual grading system. But something stopped him in his tracks. In messy handwriting on the very top right hand corner was the name Harry Potter. Rage building in him, Snape tried to skip over Potter's quiz or tell him his handwriting is unreadable, not that that's a total lie. But for some reason, he couldn't part his black beady eyes with Potter's name.

Thankfully Minerva McGonagall slammed the door open urgently with a strange favor to ask.
" Severus, I need some polyjuice potion, now!" she exclaimed watching Snape lift his head slowly from the ungraded papers.
" And might I ask why?" Snape questioned coolly.
" Let's just say that I have an errand to run," she replied shivering in the cold room. Seeing his unconvinced expression McGonagall quickly added, " Dumbledore's orders."
"All right follow me," he said calmly, swearing he saw a sly smile slowly creep across her skinny face. Taking one last look at Potter's name, he led her to his potions closet.

With help from McGonagall, Snape looked down the many rows of flasks and beakers full of potions and herbs. Confused, Snape couldn't find polyjuice potion anywhere. He couldn't be out, he just restocked a week ago. Unless… There was only one reason Snape could come up with. Someone must of broken into his collection and stole that and the whole stock of another potion, which was also mysteriously gone. Only one name kept repeating in Snape's mind. Potter.

" I wonder what I got," muttered Hermione under her fast paced breath. The three had been discussing yesterday's Potions Quiz. Ron had stated how hard it was but Hermione went on about how easy it was. Harry never really tried in Potions anymore since he always gets the same grade from the same old lifeless, depressed, crabby, and I-don't-care-enough-to-wash-my-hair teacher. Professor Snape; the scary old guy down the block, the strict and favorite-showing teacher, the guy with the cold and deadly stare, the creepy man who doesn't know how to make friends and cries in a corner in self-pity. He hates Harry and the other Gryffindors, yet he loves Slytherin since it's his house.
Why does Draco always get the O's? Why doesn't Snape like me? I mean who doesn't like me?

"It's obvious what you got. It's always an E, lucky," Ron replied bringing Harry back to reality.
" A- a- an E? Oh Harry do you honestly think- this is horrible!" Hermione stuttered glancing from Harry to Ron.
" Hermione, look. You've gotten E's in Potions before, why-"
" But Harry the semesters almost over!" Hermione snapped.
"So?"
"So, if I get an E that means I'll get that as my final grade!" Hermione exclaimed now tearing up.
"Hermione, don't you think you over-exaggerating?" Harry asked calming her a little.
"Yes, perhaps you're right," she agreed distantly. Just as the three took their seats, Professor Snape slammed open the door and glided across the cold classroom ignoring the eyes following him.

"I'm very disappointed with you," Professor Snape started picking up a pile of papers from his desk. "Here are your quizzes from yesterday." Walking from desk to desk, he passed out paper after paper, failure after failure. Watching Draco's expression was amusing to Harry, until Snape slammed his test on his desk. Confusion and horror came across Harry's face as he saw in bulging ink the one letter he dreaded, a T. It was only a matter of time.

Once he glanced at Ron's grade he was surprised to see the letter D. Hearing Hermione's gasp he saw in utter shock she had also gotten a D. Snape must be furious to give her an A, no less a D. This was really going to hurt her already small self-esteem.

Looking down the many rows of shocked students, Harry noticed that everyone had a big fat D on their papers. Hermione finally got the courage to get up and talk to Snape about the horrid test results. Harry could only make out the word 'mistaken' from Hermione and 'no' and 'clearly' from the Professor.

Sitting back down Hermione put her head in her crossed arms on her organized desk and silently started to cry. Sympathy came over Harry for someone other than himself the first time in months. Here he was worrying about how much Snape hates him, when Hermione was going through her first D. It sounded silly, but grades were Hermione's life and the only thing in her life worthwhile.

"Bloody Hell, what's his problem?" Ron asked unintentionally bringing the attention to himself. That's Ron for you, Harry thought rolling his eyes.
"My problem Weasly? My problem is that someone stole the entire polyjuice potion stock I had. Know something about this, Weasly?" Snape snapped, obviously taking everything he had to keep himself calm.
"No sir," Ron answered nervously looking at Harry to elucidate farther, who in return simply shrugged just as confused as he was.
"What about you Potter? Been snooping around in my business again?" Snape asked Harry with such a tone, it almost sounded like a threat or torment.

"Again?" Harry questioned, answering his question.
"It wasn't you?" Snape asked in pure shock. Harry had a strange feeling that Snape was reading his mind yet again.
"No!" Harry yelled. This was one of the only times Snape would have allowed it, although he most likely wasn't listening. Taken aback, all that he could seem to say was 'Who'. Now confused more than ever, Harry noticed that everyone had diverted their attention from their unfairly graded papers to the commotion. Even Hermione propped her head up and had wiped away the tears from her red eyes and dampened face.

"Bellatrix," Snape muttered angrily, remembering the sly smile on McGonagall face. Sudden whispers filled the classroom like one of his majorly complicated potions filled in a cauldron. Who was this Bellatrix? And how does Snape know her? Only five people in the classroom knew who he was talking about. Harry, Hermione, and Ron all glanced each other with suspicious and I- knew- it looks. Glancing at Neville, he saw fury burning in his dark brown eyes. Moving his gaze across the room Harry saw the fifth person looking nervous and scared, it was none other than Draco Malfoy.