A/N: Hello…is there anyone there? ANYONE? Oh no, I fear all my reviewers are deceased seeing as I have not haunted the hallways of Fanfiction for SOOOO long, please, forgive me for my wrongdoings! School got in the way and I was unable to continue, but I'm back now! So let's have lots of reviews to remind me why I love Fanfiction so much and why I should carry on updating, like, every week! Although you're probably too p- - - -d with me to bother…

Finally, and long awaited, this week's chapter is dedicated to PadfootROX as they always review just for the sake of it and they are a regular reader of my stories (Padfoot doesn't just rock, you do to.)

And also dedicated to Allergic-To-Sunlight (who knows the horror that is having a long username) who posted the wickedest review ever, she is officially my favourite person in the WHOLE of Scotland; I am very chuffed to be cooler than your ruler. I also totally get what you're saying about the first bit of Breaking Dawn being just like a Fanfiction, I kept on thinking: Haven't I read this somewhere before?

Hope this chappie is a goodun (and worth the wait!)

Disclaimer: Me no owny…

Houses and Hatred

To avoid any more disturbing wake-up calls Harry made sure he was up at the same time as the others. Surrounded by the Marauders had Harry so enthralled at breakfast the previous day that he had barely eaten anything. Today however, now he was slightly more adjusted to his bizarre situation (and now that he was the new go-with-the-flow Harry) he found his appetite had returned, and rather than do nothing but gawk at his father and his best friends as he did yesterday, he concentrated on the delicious array of food before him.

He helped himself to bacon and eggs and began happily stuffing his face, the house-elves of Hogwarts, apparently, had perfected the art of the making the best bacon known to man (or known to Harry at least) hundreds of years ago and hadn't needed to change it since. He helped himself to another plateful of the stuff. Sirius laughed and Harry looked up, Sirius laughed harder and nudged Remus and Peter either side of him, looking meaningfully in Harry's direction. Harry frowned and chewed furiously on his mouth of bacon, which made the three boys laugh harder, finally he swallowed and asked: "What?"

Only that someone said it at the same time as him. He looked at James, who had been sitting next to him, curiously, he looked curiously back.

"It's like looking at twins or something!" Peter said in a slightly awed way.

"Mirror images of each other," murmured Remus quietly, returning to the usual piece of literature he always seemed to have to hand.

"Yeah, you two seem to share a love of bacon, are you sure you're not related to James, Granger?" Harry shook his head and decided not to encourage this vein of conversation, looking around him as if taking in his surroundings. The sky was a light grey today, the sun a faint glow behind the clouds misting the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall; he watched them drift slowly for a while, before turning his gaze to sweep up and down the table.

It was scary how much of his generation he could find in the occupants of the Gryffindor table, here and there he recognised features that would be seen on these people's children: the nose of a Ravenclaw girl he had Astronomy with, the tall stature of someone on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, same hair colour too…his eyes moved to meet a pair identical to his own, they were quickly turned away. Harry wondered whether Lily had decided if she was still angry at him or not, she was probably still unsure about whether he was going to tell people that she cheated, he mused, and then he noticed the kid she was talking too, who had a very distinctive hair colour indeed.

--

/Lily knew she was doing it again, but she wasn't sure whether she cared or not, it was impossibly hard not to watch the new boy, wonder what he was thinking, his face was so expressive so…fascinating, she decided. He scanned his surroundings, gazing up at the ceiling, a pensive look about him. Lily sighed, other boys didn't do that, other boys had trouble looking thoughtful let alone pensive, pensive was usually completely out of range of their brain capacity, yet it seemed to come so easily to Granger.

He was looking up and down the table now, his eyes meeting hers, she flushed and looked away, having been caught in the act of staring at him. She hoped her look could be mistaken for one of annoyance, he might assume she was still angry at him about yesterday. Unfortunately, the situation was quite the opposite, she knew she had brought it all on herself, and since she hadn't had any hilarious jokes at her expense from the Marauders she could only assume he'd kept the incident secret.

She still felt his eyes on her, she wanted to cover up for her staring, and desperately picked the first person she noticed, a little first year with flaming red hair.

"Hey, its William isn't it?" as Head girl she tried to know the names of at least everyone in her house.

The first year blinked, "Bill, actually."

"Could you pass me the toast Bill?"

--

/"Holy hell!" Harry exclaimed. Even without the earring, dragon-hide boots and now being younger than Harry it was unmistakeable who the tiny, red-headed boy was. Harry jumped up and, without thinking, headed towards the end of the table, ignoring the questions coming from the Marauders about what he was doing. He stopped, grinning like a mad-man where the boy sat, oblivious to the looks Lily was shooting him.

"Do you mind if I squeeze in here?" he asked a surprised looking fourth year who nodded and shifted up so that Harry could seat himself comfortably on the bench, Lily, sat opposite, looked as if she was about to say something but Harry was too busy talking to the red-headed boy next to him.

"Bill, Bill Weasley right?" he stuck out a hand. Bill gawped at him, clearly wondering what in the name of Merlin was a big seventh year doing introducing himself to him.

"Err, yeah…" he looked at Harry's hand carefully, as if it were dangerous, (indeed, it was about four times bigger than his own) and gingerly took it. Harry couldn't help but be surprised at how tiny and child-like the hand felt grasped within his.

"You know this boy?" Lily asked, in a rather irritated tone, Harry noticed, she must've still been angry at him.

"Yeah," Harry replied simply and realising he was probably shaking Bill's arm off, he quickly let go.

"I don't think I know you?" Bill asked it like a question, as if wanting Harry to tell him whether they were, in fact, acquainted or not.

"No, you don't, I'm Harry Granger. Your dad works in the ministry right? Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artefacts or something like that."

"Yeah, that's right," Bill still seemed confused as to how he'd found himself in this conversation. "How do you know?"

"Oh, my best friend's dad's friend works at the Ministry, talks to him about it all the time," Harry tried to keep it as vague and obscure as possible, "Says he's one of the best men the Ministry's got!"

Bill flushed slightly, "He's only just been promoted, he's been trying to get the job for ages now."

"Ah, yes, but apparently he's got a real passion for his work."

Bill's ears went red and Harry wanted to laugh at how much he resembled Ron, it was amazing how a couple of years of success could turn someone into one of the most confident people he'd met.

"Yeah, he loves muggles, mad about them."

"Hmm…I live with muggles, some of the worst people I know, but they're not all bad, of course." Harry was having immense fun, being overbearingly friendly whilst smiling insanely seemed to be having an interesting effect on poor little Bill, the kind of effect Harry could never hope to bring upon Bill of the future. The red-head's ears were getting redder and redder whilst he looked anywhere but Harry embarassedly, at a loss as to how to respond to his last statement. Harry decided to put him out of his misery.

"You play Quidditch Bill?" he asked, knowing full well the answer.

"Yeah, love it."

"Any good?"

He shrugged, "Alright," he answered modestly.

"I'm sure you'll be captain of the Quidditch team someday," he winked at the boy, who looked doubtful but spoke up.

"I've heard James Potter is a great captain though, I'm looking forward to the match coming up." Bill looked decidedly proud that he had produced his longest sentence of the conversation yet.

"James Potter? I share a dorm with him." Harry looked over at the Marauders, who had been watching their interaction the whole time with confused looking expressions, and waved at James, he waved back slowly. Bill looked at Harry in slight awe; apparently James was the 'cool' person to know.

"Actually, talking of Quidditch, we've got a little bet going on in my dorm at the moment, you see, everyone seems to think James is the best seeker at school, but I reckon I can take him." Harry chuckled at the wide eyed looked Bill was giving him. "So tomorrow we're going to have a contest to see who can catch the snitch first. It should be interesting, want to come watch?"

"Sure," a glint of excitement shone in the smaller boy's eyes.

"Great, bring some friends along."

Lily cleared her throat loudly, they both turned to see her glaring at Harry. "Seeing as you are new to this school Granger, I'll warn you that gambling is against the rules."

Harry smiled his most endearing smile and Lily's severe expression actually softened. "Come on Lily, it's only a bit of fun, we're not betting any more than a galleon and it's only between the guys in my dorm and I."

"But at events like this I'm not sure it will stay that way," she explained.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say the 'Marauders' often like to publicise these things and use them to their full advantage, in other words 'profit from them as much as possible.'"

Harry laughed at Lily's dark tone, "Are you kidding? Those guys? They're the most innocent people I know. Nice talking to you Bill." And with that Harry got up and returned to his breakfast, leaving Lily wondering whether Harry could possibly believe his own statement.

/Lily had been more than a little miffed when Granger had decided to find Bill Weasley far more interesting than her. For one, glorious, moment she had thought he was getting up from his seat, smiling dazzlingly, just to talk to her, but no, he had spent the whole time chatting to a first-year he had some obscure connection with. In fact, the only time he had chosen to acknowledge her existence was when she had pointed out what he was doing was against the school rules, and then she had merely been dissolved into a pathetic pile of sludge at that adorable smile of his…

No, said that little voice in her head, which had been growing decidedly fainter at each smile or comment Granger threw her way, not adorable, arrogant and annoying, just like potter, keep repeating that to yourself Lily, just like Potter, just like potter, just like potter, just like potter…But it was no use, the voice finally disappeared with a muffled kind of cry when Lily realised that she didn't resent Harry for chumming up with Bill, she admired him for it.

Too many of the older boys believed they were too 'cool' to associate with any of the younger years and there was Harry, already friends with the most popular group in school, and he still found the time to be nice to a younger kid, even inviting him along to something. Although Lily had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps partly Harry just wanted to show off, despite the fact he'd have a hard time doing that if he was going against James. Lily knew nothing of quidditch and detested Potter, but that didn't mean even she couldn't recognise the fact that James' flying was nothing less than amazing. Even outside Hogwarts his abilities on a broom were well known, and despite his high grades most had him down as the next seeker in the national team. She wouldn't be surprised if Black, Pettigrew and Lupin weren't already putting bets on the next world cup.

Yes, even Lily had to admit, no-one could beat James on a broom except James.

Of course, she hadn't factored his son into the equation.

--

Charms was just as noisy and chaotic as it had ever been-scratch that-would ever be. Except this time it was with the Slytherins. This should make for an interesting lesson, thought Harry, wondering how Gryffindor/Slytherin interaction fared in a lesson with so much interaction involved. There was certainly a distinctive divide through the middle of the classroom, the Gryffindors on one side: loud, boisterous and laughing. The Slytherins on the other: muttering, sneaky and smirking. Every now and again one of them would break the murmur with a laugh, though these always sounded cruel, mirthless or sneering.

The two groups ignored each other unwaveringly, apparently not in the mood to antagonise each other today, until Flitwick entered the room. He, tiny as ever, mounted the pile of books on his chair and announced that they would be working in pairs for today's lesson. Immediately there was a flurry of activity as students quickly found a partner, not wishing to be stuck with someone undesirable.

Harry, who had been sitting at a desk surrounded by the marauders, looked around to see them all looking at him guiltily. He realised they had already paired themselves off, Sirius and James, Remus and Peter, leaving him quite alone. He swiftly glanced around the room, in fact, everyone seemed to have paired up. Remus bit his lip,

"Sorry Harry, we could ask Flitwick if we could be in a three-"

"No, that's fine," said Harry cheerily, spotting a solitary, bowed head at the back of the classroom and making his way over to the Slytherin section.

"Oh my god!" exclaimed James, clapping his hand to his mouth, "We haven't even explained to him what bastards the Slytherins all are! He doesn't realise what he's getting himself into!" the Marauders stared after him in shock, it was so ingrained in all of them to hate the Slytherins and be hated back that none of them had comprehended Harry wouldn't know of the century old enmity. Sure enough, Harry was attracting more and more stares as he drew closer to the Slytherins and the figure.

"And of all the Slytherins he could have picked…" groaned Sirius. Harry reached the boy with lank black hair and smiled down at him.

"Hey, do you mind if I'm your partner?" asked Harry pleasantly and the boy raised his head.

Snape.

It was an unspoken law within that lesson that Snape always worked alone. No-one wanted to be his partner (including the Slytherins) and he liked it that way. Snape was unpopular even in future death-eater circles and clearly a loner. And Harry had, happily, obliviously, just broken this law.

Snape's face twisted into a sneer and Harry noticed his hand jerk towards his wand, "Fuck off, Potter," he turned to resume reading the textbook he had in his hands.

Harry chuckled, same old Snape, even if he was slightly more verbal at this age. Snape's head snapped back up when he heard the laugh, he looked at Harry with utmost loathing and fingered his wand again.

"You're mistaken, I'm Harry, Harry Granger, a new student, I started here two days ago."

Snape looked more than furious and perhaps slightly wary he hadn't reached the punch-line of Potters' joke yet, "Piss off, Potter," he hissed, "Do I look like I have time for your stupid pranks?" Harry held up his hand to stem the tide of abuse and silently pointed over to where James was standing with the others.

Snape blinked and flicked his gaze to Harry, to James, and back to Harry again, he opened his mouth, probably to say something venomous when Flitwick called across the classroom.

"Settle down, settle down, Mr. granger would you please take your seat."

Harry automatically occupied the seat beside Snape and held out his hand,

"It's Severus, right?" Severus ignored him, preferring to listen to Flitwick who was explaining something about Combination charms. After the first few sentences Harry shut off, instead eyeing the dark youth next to him with curiosity.

He hadn't changed much from that awful memory he had found in Snape's pensive, except there was a dead, worn look in his eyes. It was clear young Severus was tired of this place and these people, he was simply: unhappy. This pained Harry in a way he thought he would never associate with his Potion's master. It drove home to Harry how brave Severus had been to return to a place he loathed so much for Dumbledore and the Order.

When they began practising the charm it seemed Snape had decided to simply ignore Harry, silently pointing his wand at the cutlery they were trying to animate and muttering the spell. It was a hard charm, but soon Severus had the knives and forks ballroom dancing like there was no tomorrow, Harry laughed and poked his wand at a pair of tangoing spoons.

"Wow, you're good at this."

Severus narrowed his eyes in response.

When Harry's attempt ended in the cutlery jumping up and down rather half-heartedly Snape smirked with superiority, the half-smile was wiped off however when Harry laughed again, "Three guesses which out of the two of us is going to get a better mark in their NEWTS."

Severus sighed, slammed down his textbook and drew threateningly close to Harry,

"Look, I know you're a minion of Potter's so why don't you get to the point and humiliate me so I can jinx you into oblivion?" he hissed poisonously.

Harry attempted to look shocked, though he knew his teasing of Snape wouldn't have continued much longer, he shook his head.

"Just because I'm friends with James, just because I look like him for that matter, doesn't mean I'm a complete bastard, alright?"

Severus paused, looking confused, and then sneered again, "You're a Gryffindor, why wouldn't you worship the ground he walks on?"

"You know, when I first came here they considered putting me in Slytherin? Until I insisted they put me in Gryffindor because you lot are all so bloody depressing to be around. Despite what people here seem to think house isn't everything. So what, I'm a Gryffindor, does that mean I can't be nice to you? Or would you prefer it if I was a complete arsehole?"

Severus took a step back changing his threatening stance, looking confused and wary though interested at the same time. "You're not going to hex me and call me Snivellus?"

"I won't if you don't," grinned Harry.

Snape sneered, but he turned back to Harry's uncoordinated cutlery and frowned, "You're not doing the wand movement right," he pointed out.

The lesson progressed and slowly, so slowly it was like getting blood out of a stone, Harry managed to get talking to Severus.

"So, favourite subject?" Harry asked, swinging his legs as he sat in the desk watching Severus now trying to teach the knives ballet. "Actually, don't tell me, let me guess." Harry pretended to be thinking hard, "I bet everyone thinks your favourite subject is potions, because you're really good at it, but what you really enjoy is Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Snape glared at him for what seemed like the hundredth time, true, the boy had yet to crack a genuine smile, or make any kind of expression that could be considered pleasant, for that matter, but it wasn't anything Harry couldn't handle.

"And how," he drawled, "Do you know that?"

Harry shrugged, "I'm good at reading people. The real question is, is it the Dark Arts you enjoy, or the Defence bit?"

/Lily was staring over at Harry and Severus so hard that her cutlery was barely moving. Alice had given up trying to get her attention and started charming the spoons by herself, leaving Lily to contemplate.

First he was befriending younger years, now he was engaging a begrudging Severus in a civil conversation? Harry was turning out to be less and less like James than she had originally thought. He was mature, and kind, unprejudiced and…

"…a dream," she sighed.

Alice glared at her, "What was that?"

"Nothing!" Lily squeaked.

And she was glad Severus seemed to be talking to someone, engaging with the world. Every time Lily thought of Severus her eyes seemed to prick. She hadn't spoken to him since the night outside the Fat Lady when he had apologised for calling her a Mudblood. For a while after that he had kept on attempting to regain her trust, at times begging her to forgive him, but she had simply walked away. It wasn't that she wasn't heartless, he had after all, once been her best friend.

But being Muggle born had used to not matter to Severus, and when he had called her that horrible word, even if it was out of humiliation or misdirected anger, she knew he had truly changed. They were different people, he was an aspiring Death Eater, everyone knew that and Lily had heard the kind of things their obscure cult believed in, they were sadists, and Severus wanted to be one of them.

It seemed the only reason she wasn't seeing the evidence of his new loyalties right before her eyes was because Mulciber, Avery and that crowd had left last year, leaving Severus more friendless than ever since then he had drawn into himself, not even Death Eater friends to hang around with now. She still had a soft spot for Severus Snape, she always would, but now that spot just pained her when she saw what he had become.

Seeing him talk to someone took a weight off her mind, seeing that that someone was Harry gave her great admiration for the new boy.

/Almost as the question had left Harry's lips Flitwick called an end to the lesson. Snape began packing up his things and heading for the door. Harry followed him.

/Sirius nudged James, "Looks like Granger survived," they both looked at Harry packing up his things beside Snape. But all four of the Marauder's jaws dropped when they saw Harry follow Snape out, talking to him.

"What the hell? Did you see that?"

James had seen it all right, and was more than a little irritated, "It's nothing, it's just because Harry doesn't know what Snivellus is," he rolled up his sleeves and pulled out his wand, "I think we should go and explain, don't you?"

Sirius laughed, Peter grinned, and Remus frowned, biting his lip as they followed James out of the classroom.

/They were halfway down the corridor when Harry heard James' voice,

"Oi! Snivellus!"

It was as if a switch had been flicked, the students leaving the classroom stopped, and turned to see the scene that was forming fast. Harry looked at Severus, who had frozen, his hand shooting to his wand, and turned to see the Marauders making their way down the corridor to where he and Snape stood.

In about ten seconds the crowd had formed a jostling ring in the middle of which the Marauders, Snape and he stood.

There was silence except for James' taunting voice and Severus' furious breathing.

"Haven't spoken to you in a while, Sevvie, you missed us?"

Snape glared at him with pure loathing, "I'll kill you, one of these days, I swear to god, Potter, I'll kill you." he hissed.

James ignored him and turned to Harry, "I don't think you understand, Granger, the kind of person Snivellus here really is. He didn't tell you himself? How careless of him." James was enjoying this, playing to the crowd, and Harry hated it. He hated the familiar taunting tone, he'd heard that tone before, when he himself had been jeered at in a circle of onlookers, the tone was cruelty.

There was a sudden flash as Snape attempted to hex James but was too slow, and James yelled "Levicorpus!"

Harry felt anger swell up inside him, his father was so stupid. He would continue to taunt Snape. Taunt him to the point that Snape was so bitter that it took the death of the girl both he and James loved to show him the length of his wrongdoings. His eyes flickered to Lily, she was staring at the scene with disgust, disgust at James, disgust at Severus. Snape was hanging upside down, his wand clattering on the floor beneath him. It was horribly similar to that scene by the lake.

"You see Harry," said James nonchalantly, flicking his wand so Severus hit the floor, then flew back into the air again, he continued, punctuating his words with flicks, the thud of Severus colliding with the stone echoing through the corridor. "He is nothing but a pathetic-"

thud

"-slimy-"

thud

"-snivelling-"

thud

"-Deatheater!" James finished with a look of triumph on his face, and look at Harry like he expected him to laugh at a particularly funny joke he'd just cracked.

Harry strode forward and did something he could never imagine himself doing.

He punched his father in the face.

James dropped his wand to grab a bleeding nose and Severus fell to the floor, scrambling for his wand. Sirius had pulled his wand on Harry, but Harry pointed his own at Snape, who had been about to curse an injured James.

"Back off, Severus," he said in deadly tones, "Go to the hospital wing or something."

Snape glared at him, but he must have seen something in Harry's eyes that he did not wish to argue with, because he picked up his bag and walked away, the crowd parting as he went.

Harry turned back to James, "You're an idiot," he stated. " You walk around here like the model golden boy. Smart, funny, popular, good at sports, you think that's what's expected from you, the greatest bloody Gryffindor to ever walk these corridors?" James stared at him, stared round the circle, this had never happened before, no-one had ever called him an idiot except Evans. Everybody else thought he was great, right?

"But," he spluttered "He's a Deatheater!"

"I like you James, you're a cool guy, except for when your ego overtakes your good nature. Where does it say that bullying makes a good Gryffindor? Gryffindor is 'where the brave dwell at heart.'" Harry shook his head at an increasingly stunned James, "And I always thought bullying was the coward's way out. Take my advice James, because if you don't learn to let go of your pride one day it may stop you from getting something that you truly want."

Harry couldn't help but cast a meaningful glance in Lily's direction. And with that he shifted his own bag onto his shoulder and strode off. The tense silence that had surrounded them burst into a clamour of talking at what had just been witnessed, Remus glanced at the other Marauder's. "I'll go talk to him. You get James cleaned up," he said, and followed Harry. Lily, on hearing these words, pushed past them and began pursuing Remus.

James stared at Sirius weakly, blood still flowing from his nostrils, "What…just…happened?" he asked, bewildered.

Sirius shook his head and couldn't suppress a grin,

"I don't know mate. But that was one heck of a punch."

A/N: Yeah! You tell him Harry! Heh. Sorry if this involves some OOC ness, it was really hard to know how to depict Snape, I had to keep on returning to his memories in the last book to try and get it right. As for Harry, bear in mind that he's a lot wiser now after the war, I think the epilogue shows that. Oh, and I've started spelling Lily right now, sorry about that. Review!