A day of events

"Harry you lazy git!" Ron yelled playfully and abruptly awoke Harry by suddenly jumping on his bed just like a small child would-it was most effective.

"Ron!" Harry groaned sleepily and grinned with sleep in his eyes as Ron began to attempt to drag him by his ankles out of bed. If Harry's merciless grip on his headboard had anything to say about it, Harry wasn't budging.

"Come on, we've got Transfiguration mate, easy start with McGonagall teaching." Ron informed as he gave up and fell back onto his own bed, gasping for breath as he put his arms above his head tiredly. Harry grabbed his glasses and put them on and could only raise an eyebrow teasingly at Ron's action, causing Ron to stick his tongue out and make Harry chuckle at his playfulness.

"Not up yet, Harry?" Neville suddenly piped up as he opened the door to the boys dormitories, fully dressed in his school robes and wand in hand. Harry threw his head back onto his pillow tiredly making both Ron and Neville grin.

Deciding he did, indeed, need to get up or he would miss breakfast, Harry muttered a quick cleaning charm that made the tip of his wand glow pale blue. The blue sparkles circled around him before disappearing and leaving him immensely refreshed in the process. Hurrying his pace he threw on his school uniform and robes before noticing that Ron had fallen asleep, fully clothed and ready, atop of his bed. Harry smirked an almost evil smirk and rolled his eyes before stomping over to the other. Neville looked a little nervous but just watched in amusement.

"Ron you lazy git!" Harry managed to shout through a laugh as Ron shot up with a not amused glare. Harry couldn't help but add more calmly, "Not nice being on the receiving end is it?"

XXXX

"Took you long enough, where have you been?" Hermione greeted them with a huff before cutting up her sausage to politely eat it, at their simple shrugs she just rolled her eyes and allowed Ron and Harry to sit on either side of her. "Remember, double potions is our last class."

Harry felt his heart sink at remembering that and his mind seemed to instantly block out Ron's usual names and jibes of the potions master. Risking it Harry looked up, he was on the other side of the table today and so didn't need to turn his head to spot Snape sitting at the staff table directly in his line of vision. Snape seemed to notice it exceedingly quickly and lifted his eyes to catch the person staring, at noticing it was Potter he simply glared in distain before turning back to his meal with complete ignorance.

When does he not? Harry thought sarcastically and mentally decided he would have a glaring match via breakfast next time to see how long they could hold it, he turned his attention back to Hermione and tuned his hearing in to her and Ron's bickering. He was starting to think that if they didn't bicker there would be something terribly wrong with the world.

"Honestly, Ronald, if I wanted a pig next to me I would buy one and plonk it there!" Hermione complained sarcastically as Ron, fork stabbed into a sausage, was biting large chunks off instead of cutting it.

"If I wanted a pristine and girly eater next to me I would plonk Malfoy there, you have too much manners, relax." Ron added with a huge smile and many people on the Gryffindor table burst out laughing at the remark, Harry included since he had laughed whilst drinking his pumpkin juice and had spluttered.

"Ronald Weasley..." Hermione trailed off since her next argument would be severely unserious since the statement had even made her start to crack a smile. Giving up she revolved all her attention back to her breakfast.

Snape finished his rather quickly and was already walking briskly across the Great Hall. Harry noticed how all the students he passed went frightfully silent and, in honest truth, Harry was not surprised. Although no one could deny that for a greasy dungeon bat he did have natural elegant grace with the way his robes always fluttered mysteriously behind him, it was scary at times.

Snape turned his head the smallest fraction in Harry's direction to sneer before slinking away out of the open double doors.

"I've had enough." Harry sighed, motioning to his empty plate after only eating a couple of slices of toast. He was instantly stopped by Hermione grabbing his robed sleeve.

"No...you have not," Hermione stated sternly, like a mother calmly warning a child. "You need to eat properly."

"I'm not a child Hermione and you are not a mother that can boss me about!" Harry snapped unintentionally and he felt her grip falter for a second. "I'll see you later."

Hermione Granger stood up looking absolutely furious and Harry actually felt himself shrink away some what, everyone at the Gryffindor table turned to look and even many nosy others from the other Houses did so as well. Hermione was red in the face and even Ron looked a little wary.

"Harry James Potter!" Hermione bellowed and some Slytherin's began to snigger, Harry was overflowing with embarrassment as even all the staff had turned to stare at the scene. "You will sit down and you will eat more, do you understand me!"

"..." Harry was frozen to the spot, completely gobsmacked and embarrassed beyond belief.

Some Slytherin's burst out into fits of laughter and Harry could distinguish the white hair of a certain Draco Malfoy raising an eyebrow and looking thoroughly amused and entertained. He could even tell that Dumbledore had mirth added to his old eyes as he watched with a grin, body quivering in an attempt to not laugh at the Golden Boys'...unfortunate fate.

Locking eyes with Hermione she was glaring at him with her cheeks still flushed with anger, however Harry was starting to think she was also a little embarrassed as well considering they were the only ones standing in the entire Great Hall. Her grip had mercilessly tightened and Harry felt just about ready to pass out with humiliation when Hermione raised an eyebrow expecting him to sit.

Silently, unwillingly, he slowly sat back down with Hermione in unison. He didn't even protest when the genius assertively started to pile his plate with scrambled eggs, two pieces of crispy bacon, three tasty sausages and another piece of toast. Pushing the plate in front of him he began to eat without hesitation or even looking up, for he was sure that he was blushing.

"Well, I think we learned something today, didn't we Ron." Ginny interrupted the silence of the table and the tense atmosphere immediately began to fade away as Gryffindor's grinned madly at the comment. "Always do as you're told by Hermione or you will go through living hell!"

"Ai, can you imagine how the marriage would turn out." Seamus whispered to Dean and the other sniggered at the remark, luckily the only person that had overheard it was Harry and he tried not to smirk as he continued to cut and eat his bacon.

"You can obviously see who would be in charge." Harry decided to lean over and whisper to them discretely making both Dean and Seamus chuckle and nod in agreement without hesitation.

Latter Harry left for Transfiguration with an unusually full stomach and, he had to admit, it felt bloody fantastic! Well, Hermione's always right, Harry thought as he sighed in content with both Ron and Hermione at both his sides. However, he couldn't help but dread his double potions class later, he always did.

XXXX

Before the two fateful classes had even arrived he discovered that he seemed to have a habit of bumping into the potions master at the most unexpected of moments. He had already bumped into him yesterday and he did exactly the same thing today as he was ascending the staircases and Snape had suddenly walked out of the Hospital Wing. The result was another collision and another snide remark.

"Mr Potter, are you so completely incompetent and arrogant that you automatically expect everyone else to put unnecessary effort in moving from obstructing your path? Obviously...you are. Strutting through the corridors as if you own the place, just like your father," Snape had snarled in disgust like the Slytherin he was, onyx eyes angry yet his face completely emotionless. "Five points from Gryffindor and, to make this infuriatingly more interesting, if you end up colliding with me again I will double the deduction of points for every time it occurs. Which, I can promise...undoubtedly...it will."

Snape had then continued on his way with a sweep of his elegant robes and Harry felt just about ready to throttle him, knowing Snape the professor would now deliberately run into him in order to prove his `infuriatingly interesting` twist.

Harry hadn't had Hermione or Ron with him so the scene had had no other witnesses and he had faced him alone. With a hefty sigh showing just how much stress was on his shoulders without Snape's help, he had continued ascending the staircases promptly to go to Defence Against the Dark Arts. The teacher of the subject was Professor Moody and the real one at that, unlike in fourth year where chaos had quickly ensued.

XXXX

Everyone was gathering outside the rotting potion class door, mingling and chatting as if trying to dispel the tense mood that had swept over them. Every potions lesson began like this, with attempts to lighten the mood as much as possible before it did that drastic drop when Snape would let them in.

Harry released a shaky sigh as Ron patted him on the back; even Ron had noticed that Harry was more uptight than usual. Hermione, also noticing, blamed it on his conscience constantly remembering the Occulmency lessons last year. Her delicate eyebrows furrowed as she saw the same look in his green eyes that was becoming common as of late-nervousness.

"Becoming a teachers pet, Potter?" Was the taunting remark from behind, Harry mentally groaned at realising who it was way before even turning around.

There they all stood, outside their potions class in the dungeons, the only three standing away from the groups until Malfoy came along with his lackeys. His posh, black, dragon scaled boats clinked on the filthy stone floor as Malfoy approached them with an evil smirk on his face. The only light was that of the fire torches hovering magically above, giving the dark and dank dungeon a very dim light that reflected off of Malfoy's unbelievably pearly white hair.

"You're no better, you bloody ferret!" Ron yelled back, it seemed to be an automatic response by now. The dim light made his ginger hair look red, as red as his rising anger.

"I wasn't talking to you, weasel!" Malfoy growled back through gritted teeth, Crabbe and Goyle snickered in their common places behind the white haired Slytherin. "If my father-"

"You're so whiny! It's always my father this, my father that. My father will know about this, oh, what's he gonna do...throw some conditioner at me?" Ron interrupted as he mockingly threw his hands to his face in pretend horror.

"At least we can afford it you burrowing weasel! You haven't got much to hit me with. Oh, what are you going to do, run me over with your bust up car?" Malfoy retorted and Crabbe and Goyle burst out laughing.

Before Ron could retaliate again the potions door was thrown open abruptly and the bang it made as it hit the cold stone wall made everyone jump with racing hearts. Snape didn't even reveal himself, knowing that the action alone was the signal to enter. Everyone began to slowly file in and Harry could only glare at Malfoy as the white blonde pushed past him.

Swallowing down his annoyance for Malfoy he entered the classroom in hot pursuit with Ron and Hermione hot on his heels.

On passing Professor Snape the teacher had his never tiring glare locked onto him as if threatening him to turn and stare back and Harry felt anger rise with a growl in the back of his throat, one he successfully withheld. With Black eyes still burning daggers into his back he went and sat down in his usual seat near the large black cauldron the three of them normally used, its surface was rough from many years of use and it was cold to the touch.

Harry felt a huge wave of relief wash over him when he finally felt Snape's eyes leave him to torture another target and Ron and Hermione sat down comfortingly on both of his sides. Ron was to his left while Hermione was on his right.

The strong and almost disgusting smell of a recently brewed potion lingered in the air and when Harry looked up at the ceiling he saw an emerald coloured smoke weaving within the dangling chains hanging there. These steel chains covered in brown rust were swaying slightly as if there was a secret breeze, their movements filling the room with their ancient squeaks. Harry felt the back of his nose prickle at the slightly spicy smell and it seemed Hermione and Ron weren't doing much better.

"Today...as your marvellous intellects should have already notified you, we have to concoct an extremely, extremely...delicate potion," Snape informed in his silky tone, voice filled with sarcasm when he had said `marvellous intellects` and had looked directly at Harry. He also seemed to strain the word `extremely` whilst sneering at him as if he was a person of little intelligence. Each pause in his deep, freezing, voice tensed up everyone in the room. "Groups of four...now."

Everyone instantly obeyed and stood up to create their groups, people that took their time were sneered at and in their pure fear they hurriedly picked up the pace. The quick change always seemed to satisfy Professor Severus Snape and he would go to torment someone else with his icy glare, usually always switching his eyes back to Harry regularly making the young male's blood boil feverishly.

Only the Slytherin's were not affected by their Head of House and just made their way to their groups at a completely casual pace. Malfoy being one of them as he managed to slip in a tormenting smirk to Harry as he crossed the room, silver eyes glinting with mischief.

"Retrieve your Outstanding Potions text books, although some in this room still seem to fall in the humiliating category of...amateur...my expectations are unfazed." Snape practically hissed out and some girls near him flinched at his tone.

Harry definitely detected in the atmosphere that even though Snape had his back turned to him that that insult had been entirely aimed at the Potter. Harry felt the grip on his book tighten, his knuckles turning white and his lips tightening. Snape suddenly spun around sharply to lock eyes with him, black robes swishing with the movement with grace the man really shouldn't have.

"Page two hundred and fifty four," Snape spoke sternly to the class with each little syllable ringing with the warning that he would not repeat it, yet his eyes were focused solely on Harry with his glower. "This infuriatingly delicate concoction is so dangerously volatile in each individual stage that, if someone is stupid enough...which I certify you there is...Successfully accomplishes a single mistake, then your face will be entirely unrecognisable. Do I make myself clear?"

Every student answered `yes sir` as their confirmation. Harry turned his attention to Hermione who had an extremely nervous look on her face as she stared into the empty cauldron, chocolate eyes filled with worry and just staring off into space. Moving his eyes to the added person in their group the golden, short haired, Hufflepuff with her hair in a ponytail tied back by a golden bow-looked just about ready to faint. When Harry switched his green eyed gaze to Ron the ginger looked as white as a sheet.

"You realise what this means right?" Hermione whispered to them suddenly making them all lean forward to listen. "There are 300 pages in total; page 1 to 100 include simple potions in the Outstanding, Exceed Expectations and Satisfactory categories and also has backtracking from previous years. Pages 101 to 200 have medium levelled potions and are only for Outstanding and Exceed Expectations level. Pages 201 to 300 include the highest level and the most dangerous potions, which are solely for Outstanding and Outstanding alone. We are doing page 254...a very intense potion."

"But that's not right, I mean...we've skipped about seventy pages and should still be in the section that does Exceed Expectations!" Harry hissed in disbelief, he was in Exceed Expectations level in potions and if Hermione was right-which he knew she was-he was in some deep trouble.

"You have a double class today; however I would define it as extremely oblivious if you had not discovered this amazingly joyful fact already. Considering the complexity of this potion you have both classes to successfully complete the assigned task, which is two hours for the insufferable people who need it to be simplified. The potion must set halfway through, so hopefully your absorbing little minds can figure out the timings." Snape snarled with a voice just dripping with sarcasm as he unlocked the potions cupboard to allow the students to retrieve the correct ingredients. His long fingered hands made quick work of the lock before marching sourly back to his desk.

"Seems simple enough, the timings I mean," Hermione corrected herself as Harry just gaped at her. "We have an hour to get it halfway ready, we have dinner break which gives it enough time to set, then we come back and do the remaining steps to complete it. Simple."

"Yeah, just one tiny bloody problem...actually getting halfway without losing our faces. Simple," Ron mocked sarcastically. "Considering I still want my mouth so I can eat dinner!"

Harry could tell that the last part was dead serious but couldn't help but crack a smile at his best friend's words. He realised, a little worriedly, that the Hufflepuff looked just about ready to pass out. Obviously Ron's words had the reversed effect.

"I'm sorry Harry," Hermione sighed at him at seeing his obvious distress.

"Why are you sorry? It's that prat that should be, not you." Harry stated bluntly, also a bit louder than he had intended. That was the last little nudge needed.

At calling the frightening Severus Snape a prat in her presence the blonde Hufflepuff just went. Her brown eyes rolled to the ceiling before without warning she just fainted. She just fell backwards. Straight off the bench. Followed by a thud. The other three had little to no time to stop her.

Harry just had his hand frozen in midair. His hand having attempted to grab her. Hermione was just as still as a statue. Her eyes just staring at the girl sprawled across the floor. Ron just blinked.

"What...happened?" Snape asked viciously from his desk, seeming to not move from his position as he noticed the girl was a Hufflepuff. He seemed to have a hunch.

"I think the pressure was a bit too much, sir." Ron replied quietly, eyes not leaving the girl on the floor in disbelief.

Snape cocked a dark eyebrow as he switched his intense black eyes from Ron to the girl and back again, "...Obviously."

Harry felt confused as he swore he heard an extremely quiet mutter of `bloody Hufflepuff's!` from the emotionless potions master shortly afterwards. Snape had snapped his attention back to his marking.

"Just leave her there," Snape drawled before the scratching of his black and raven feather quill echoed throughout the cold room again. "It is such a frequent occurrence from a Hufflepuff."

xXEnd of chapterXx

Alright guys it starts getting serious and tense for a while after this, these past two chapters were light and fun for it is the beginning when nothing is wrong. From this time onwards, things mostly take a negative turn. So please keep reading, this is a Snarry just after all the relevant events, please review and I hope you enjoy!