Harry had quickly finished all the books that had been given to him by a stranger over Christmas as well as used his new invisibility cloak to sneak around. Harry had a burning desire to discover the identity of his mysterious present giver, though only slightly more that the whole Philosopher's Stone theory.

Potions class began as per usual, with most of the non-Slytherin students dragging themselves inside for another unwanted encounter with Professor Snape. Neville Longbottom made an effort to sit around him, Hermione and Ron as a safety precaution. The Gryffindor students attempting to

"Harry, do you think a fan would have sent you those books?" Hermione whispered, still trying to gather ideas as to who his secret gift giver was.

"Jeez, I hope not! It would be nice and stuff, but overly creepy. I might have ended Voldemort's reign but I was only a baby for goodness sakes - it's not something I set out to do. Also, the person who sent me these must have known that I didn't really have a family. They must have known me well."

She thought about this, "Do you think it might have been Dumbledore?"

"Dumbledore would never have a crow," Ron said, very unchanged in his position about this, "That would be just weird. Whoever this is both a weird person and knows Harry really well. Maybe they can read minds."

"Anyway," Harry was hoping to continue this subject at another time without so many ears around them, "Do you think we should help Hagrid in regards to his current problem?"

To the trio's horror, Hagrid had hatched a dragon's egg. It was a Norwegian Ridgeback he christened Norbert. Now the young hatchling was growing too big and he had to get rid of it.

"Well, we kinda have to? Don't we?" Ron whispered with a worried look, "I mean; my brother really is the only person who can help him."

"I really hope he doesn't set my robe on fire." Harry said with a frown; they knew he wasn't talking about just any 'robe.' They had to sneak out under the invisibility cloak at night to sort this out – something that would get them into a lot of trouble if caught.

The door to Snape's office burst open and out stepped Snape, obviously in a fouler mood than usual. His black eyes were more piercing. His black hair was greasier than usual and there was the smell of overcooked potion on him.

The entire class fell silent. They all feared what Snape was going to do and say to them. For whatever reason, he was unhappy and was going to take his anger out on them. Harry had the suspicion that one of his potions went terribly wrong.

"Class," his voice was snide but not loud, "Time to take out homework."

Harry, Ron and Hermione had completed theirs but Harry quickly noticed that Neville's was only partially completed. He probably had trouble understanding it.

He turned around the class starting with Lavender Brown.

"Why is your homework not completed?"

Lavender was slow to answer; she just looked up at him shyly with her cheeks turned pink.

"…B-b-b-because I just lost it…"

"Well, you should have placed it in a better place. I will not take that as an excuse – 10 points from Gryffindor."

Lavender started crying. Snape paid no attention to this and merely continued checking the class, some of which had previously learnt the hard way about not doing potions homework. Snape stalked though the classroom like a rabid wolf ready to snap. He passed students quickly skimming though their work. He passed some without a word and others he merely shook his head. He nodded at Draco Malfoy's and another Slytherin boy. Harry was pleased when Crabbe and Goyle received detention. When he passed Harry and Hermione he muttered something on the lines of 'Good work.'

He stopped at Neville, who was hunched over his paper like a turtle hiding in its shell.

"Neville Longbottom, let me see your work."

Neville reluctantly pulled out the paper for Snape to see.

Snape frowned and muttered, "Tutt, Tutt, Tutt. I gave all of you an extra week to complete your assignment and you present this. You failed, but of course, that can be expected from you."

This made Harry upset, "Well he did complete some of it. He just had trouble understanding it, that's no reason to be so mean to him."

The whole class gasped, believing that Harry was done for. Snape's pale face turned bright red.

"Well, Mr Evans you have earned yourself a week of detentions - starting here tomorrow afternoon."

There was another gasp from the class. Snape had never given anyone (not in first year) a week's worth of detentions before. The idea of one detention from him was traumatic enough; he didn't even give Neville detentions. Harry realised that he would have to stop standing up for Neville if he didn't want more trouble than he already had. He couldn't help it though.

After that, Snape continued the lesson as if nothing ever happened. Leaving Harry thinking there was much more to Snape than what reached the eye. There was something about him that had an effect on the sarcastic, moody professor.

It was late afternoon and Severus remembered that he had to reorganise the room for detention. He would have much preferred to keep on working on his new experimental alternative Wolfsbane potion but students had to be punished. He didn't take cheek from any of them.

With a no more than a swish of his hand, the smoke that had seeped out of his cauldron and into the classroom instantly dissipated. A second wave of his wand made the classroom more organised and got rid of any bits of rubbish or vandalism on desks. Pieces of used Waddley's Wibblegum stuck under desks were removed. Severus believed that students grew more and more disgusting as time went by.

Pieces of parchment also materialised on the desks with quills and ink beside them. He made sure that there were exactly three pieces of paper for each of the seven students that had detention. They would have to write lines of course, usually related to what rule they had broken.

He would be glad once this detention was over; he wanted to go back to what he was doing…. But there was more to it. He didn't want to deal with Harry in detention.

The boy was turning out to be a rebel. His protection of Neville Longbottom took Severus completely by surprise. His mother would have done something similar. It was in her nature to look after people.

It was four thirty - time for detention but he expected most of them to be late. Typical.

Eloise Midgen was the first to arrive, eager to get her detention over and done with. She was obviously afraid of him – she rarely looked at his face, hardly if ever spoke in class and stirred her small pewter cauldron warily. She was here because the essay she was supposed to have written about healing potions was very unsatisfactory. A typical detention for a Hufflepuff.

Harry came in without a word. He was wide-eyed; he obviously hadn't been in this much trouble with a teacher before. He looked unsure of what to do. His bright eyes met Severus' for a moment and in a glimpse he could see that the detention was unfair. It was unlikely that Severus would be his favourite teacher. He looked at the papers in front of him and frowned.

"Sir, do I have to fill out all the four pages of lines?"

"Yes, Evans. You and Midgen can start now. Midgen, I want you to write on this piece of paper all you actually know on healing potions. Evans, you have to complete your homework here."

Eloise frowned in distain. Harry shrugged; it's what he would have done with his afternoon anyway.

Shortly after came Chrysanthemum Selwyn. He could hear her coming down the stairwell to the Dungeons as she had a habit of talking to people as she walked by. Severus had given her a week's detention for being her usual rowdy and loud self. She was always experimenting with fashion. Today she had blaring magenta hair and sky blue eye shadow. Just looking at her gave him a headache.

Severus gave her instructions to do four pages of 'I must not scream and yell in class like a Cornish pixie being strangled.' He stormed over to his desk and sat down. He was determined to ignore her and her loud, boisterous ways.

Chrysanthemum sat in the desk besides Harry. She instantly turned to Harry, "Hi Harry, I'm Chrystie Selwyn – fifth year. Pleased to meet you. I see you sitting in the common room reading or with your friends from time to time. Snape rarely gives firsties detention – not for a week anyway. You must have pissed him off something shocking. How'd ya get here?"

"Oh, I just stood up for my friend. He didn't like that.

He watched the girl smile. The Gryffindor house supported this kind of behaviour of each other. It really was appalling. He didn't want Harry in their house.

"Well I never. Good on you. Snape's an old …"

"Silence Chrysanthemum! Harry – get back to work."

He could see Chrysanthemum shake her head and place her head down. Harry did the same.

It was a couple of minutes before the late arrivals came. Willow Whatley waltzed in unaware that she was late. Severus was convinced that her body clock was set half an hour late. Long ago back when she was a first year he had decided that Willow was a strange girl, even for a Ravenclaw. She was a silent, absorbed girl whose mind was always buzzing with ideas and stories. Her only saving grace was that she had just enough intelligence to pass her exams. She sat down behind Chrysanthemum and started to do her usual lines, this time it was because she failed to hand in a few essays. It wasn't long before Willow started humming to herself. It was a queer, aimless tune that one would have expected from a small child.

Then came the deliberately lates. The Weasley twins came in followed by a hopeless Hufflepuff misfit that was such a wallflower that Severus did not even bother trying to remember his name. There was the spirit of usual apathy and detestation about them that they reserved for his detentions.

"Hey, What's Harry doing here?" Asked one of the red haired boys.

"He's only a boy, goodness gracious professor." Said the other.

"Silence, both of you. Now get to your lines."

The boys did as he said. Within a couple of minutes of watching the children, his mind wandered elsewhere. His thought returned to Quirrell, he had been paranoid about the man all day. The man was a pathetic wimp. He was supposed to have been an excellent student in the Defense Against the Dark Arts but apparently theory did not translate to practical experience. Yet, Severus felt that there was something sinister about the man. It was only once he took up the post that there had been threats towards the stone's placement in the third corridor. Dumbledore had been right to take the stone out of Gringott's. Knowing Voldemort's pathological fear of death, Severus knew that the Dark Lord would pursue any method possible of achieving everlasting immortality.

It wasn't long before Eloise Midgen came up to him with her paper. He skim read it with the usual apathy that he reserved for reading student's work. It was of acceptable standard. He looked up at the awkward pimply-faced teenage girl with a shrug.

"This is acceptable. I will only accept this kind of work in the future."

Eloise simpered and went back to her desk to collect her things. She was smarted than she thought she was. She didn't hesitate to leave.

One of the Weasley twins looked up.

"Sir," He said confused, "But why is Harry here? He didn't do anything wrong."

Severus replied in his usual snide way, "That is not really of any of your concern, is it?"

Chrysanthemum joined in, "Yeah, it's not fair that he gets detention. He's only 11."

He turned to see Harry looking up to him. He looked like he was proud to have the older students stand up for him as he did for Neville.

"In case you haven't noticed, life isn't fair. Now get back to your work."

"But it can be," said the Hufflepuff boy.

"Besides, we've already finished," Said Chrysanthemum, and she brought out her parchment. Surely enough, there were the lines 'I must not be unspeakably rude in class and must listen to my professor' written on the pages. She couldn't have completed it all during the time she was here.

He looked straight into her eyes and saw that she and the others in his detention had come up with a plan. They would right lines before the detention, hide it in their sleeves, replace it with the blank bits of parchment and give it to him. He had a feeling Harry's new found friend Ronald Weasley, had told his brothers about the detention.

Usually he would have made up a spiteful threat, but he didn't. Not because he was ashamed to be beaten by them, he didn't really care about that, but because he didn't want Harry to see him as a brute or an enemy. He would not win the battle this time.

"If you have finished your paper you can leave. Harry has to stay behind."

To his surprise all of the older students got up and left. Even Willow.

"I hope he doesn't hurt Harry," Chrysanthemum muttered to the twins.

One of the twins shook his head, "I don't think he will, Dumbledore would hex him."

They all left to leave Harry alone with him. Severus didn't know what to say to him or really what to do. Harry just sat there looking back at him with a mixture of fear and confusion as to what he would do next. He put a hand to the side of his face to look at him in a pensive way, he expected his professor to do something.

He used small opportunities to find more about the boy with Legimency. He was a bright boy with a powerful sense of morality and justice. He was as good natured as his mother had been. It was her blessing of love that had protected him mentally against the neglect of the Dursleys' as well as shielded him physically away from the Dark Lord. Severus hated Lily's muggle sister Petunia from the moment he set eyes on her when they were children, but he did not imagine that she would neglect her sister's only child. He shouldn't have been surprised; Petunia had left her sister to become a prostitute after their parents had died for no reason other than her own spiteful jealously. He had to think of something, some way to convince Albus to place him in another home. Surely there were better ways to keep him safe than through transferring a spell to his closest blood relative.

These days the boy was contriving with his friends. Severus used the boys mind as a gateway to knowing what he was up to. He and his friends had already found out who Nicholas Flamel was and about the Philosopher's stone. He understood that the children were only concerned with what was going on but it was wrong for them to be involved in adult affairs, especially with things that could put their lives in danger. The old saying was true, curiosity could kill a cat.

But there was no way that Severus could curb this behaviour with chastising. He would just have to protect Harry from a distance. He really hoped that his son would change his mind about helping Hagrid give his new baby Norwegian Ridgeback dragon to Ron's Dragonologist brother Charlie. He didn't want the boy walking around the castle at night. Especially with Dark Lord somehow lurking around the grounds.

He decided to walk over to him and check his work, "Evans, show me your work."

Harry gave him his papers. He took a good look at them. They were good, considering his age. He was glad that the boy had inherited the abilities of his parents.

"These are very good, Harry. You know that."

"Yes sir." Normally he would have been too humble admit such a thing but at the present moment, determined to stand up again to his professor.

"Fine. You can go now." Severus dismissed him with a flick of his hand, "You'll be doing some more work tomorrow. I'll easily think of something."

The boy turned to go. It looked like he wanted to say something but he was conflicted as to whether he actually should.

"Hey Professor," Harry turned to him before exiting the potion's classroom, "I've asked a few people this but they have all said 'no'. Have you known anyone who has a crow or even a raven instead of an owl?"

"Well, Harry. Socially, it's not considered normal to keep a crow. They are associated with death and misfortune."

"Well, that's pretty much what everyone says. But do you know anyone?"

Severus knew what Harry was talking about. He was eager to know who sent him the presents for Christmas. He had once met a dark witch in Germany who had a raven as a messenger but she was of no concern to Harry. He honestly didn't know anyone who kept a crow for a

He replied, "No, Harry. I don't know anyone."

Harry shrugged disappointedly and left carrying his bag filled with books. All alone, Severus smiled. He couldn't quite remember the last time that he had smiled.

A/N: Thanks for reading reviews, favourites and follows are always appreciated and welcome.