Looking up to the sounds of a short knock, his eyes swivelled to the time piece on his desk.

Right on time he noted, well then… at least that was something.

He subconsciously schooled his features into a stern expression, in accordance with the frank talk he'd had with himself.

He'd made an error.

A grievous error.

He'd allowed himself to see Lily through her offspring, and it had viciously clouded his judgement.

It simply wouldn't… do to get attached to this boy.

He was James Potter's son as much as he was Lily's, and nothing that could come from that inane buffoon could ever cause him anything but grief.

A plethora of grief.

He realised that he needed to correct that error, in the present moment, and to ensure he never did trespass upon its boundaries ever again.

"Enter" he called out in his silky voice, lazily flicking his wand and forcing a desk and chair to materialise out of thin air and place themselves in the centre of his office.

The door squeaked open, and a thoroughly mutinous looking Harry strode into the office.

"Potter" Snape greeted sardonically, indicating to the awaiting desk.

"Professor" Harry bit out acerbically, throwing himself down in his appointed place with a grace that was entirely less than desirable.

It was the first evening of the Gryffindor's two week stint of detention, and neither of the two wizards in the room were exactly thrilled by their fortnightly forecast of company.

Sighing, Snape shot a deathly glare across the room.

"Would you care to adopt a more courteous demeanour Mr Potter, or should we make two weeks become four?"

It was an idle threat, delivered by a skilled actor.

He no more wanted the boy who lived, or whatever the hell they were calling him these days in his office, any more than he wanted to be there.

There was no need for the boy to know that however, and judging by the widening quality of those damned green eyes, his acting skills were on par with his expectations.

"Sorry Professor" the boy murmured hastily, looking down at the blank desk in front of him with an unpleasant curiosity.

"What uhh…am I going to be doing?" he added nervously, having more experience with Snape's merciless detention procedures than he cared to admit.

Snape merely eyed him wordlessly, before waving his wand with a silent incantation.

Before his eyes, a stack of parchment imprinted with the precise instructions for a vast array of potions appeared on his desk.

"There are ten separate potion methodologies on your desk Potter" the professor murmured lazily, dropping his gaze back to his stack of grading. "Take the first one, and begin writing it out. You will continue to write it out until I dismiss you. You will follow this pattern over the course of your detentions. At the end of the next two weeks, I expect you to be able to execute each and every single one of those potions."

He took a comfortable breath as he arched a brow down at a particularly moronic sentence of one of his hopeless second years.

"Get to it."

With that, the curtain of lank hair practically hid the gaunt face as the potions master scratched angrily at the parchment in front of him.

Silence ensued and Harry couldn't help but stare.

By Snape's standards…this punishment was positively tame. Sure he despised potions, and sure, it was tedious…but it was practically soft in comparison to the many torturous hours of cleaning he had spent in this office.

"Did I stutter, Mr Potter?" Snape suddenly inquired, his voice leaking with a velvety sarcasm.

Jerking out of his reverie, the kid shook his tousled head and pulled the first sheaf of parchment towards him. A fresh scroll and ink suddenly appeared and he quietly got to work.

A supreme silence blanketed the office as the two occupants worked steadily. Harry's mind was drifting off towards the upcoming quidditch season, whilst Snape's was wondering how a person could make it into the fifth year with only the one brain cell evident.

As he started writing out the lengthy potion procedure for the eleventh time, Harry shivered despite himself. He had assumed that the complete lack of a fire in the empty grate on a winters evening was simply to make him suffer. The stubborn streak in him had refused to make his discomfort known, until a particularly gusty draught settled around his collar.

His mind also refused to acknowledge that his hands were now bordering on raw with the bitter chill.

Snape, who had been completely lost in a thankfully passable essay, caught the involuntary movement out of the corner of his eye.

His gaze drifted upwards, and then to the lifeless grate and the now clammy looking boy

He cursed himself.

He, himself, did not feel the cold but it had been pointed out to him on occasion that normal people did.

Pointing his wand in the fires direction, he murmured quietly and a millisecond letter a roaring fire illuminated the stone walls. The warming effect was nearly immediate.

He caught the wondering look being sent at him from the bespectacled eyes and waved a dismissive hand.

"Dampness will set in if a fire isn't lit nightly" he lied brusquely in explanation, before dropping his head firmly back into his grading.

His mind stilled.

Since when did he give explanations to students?

Scratch that.

Since when did he give explanations to Potter?

Scratch that.

Since when did he give an owls hoot about that maddening boy's comfort?

He sighed internally. A couple of months ago and he couldn't have cared if the child had turned into an iceberg in front of him, and now…now it was different.

He cursed himself again.

This situation was getting wildly out of hand.

Lily's face danced in his mind, and he scowled as he tried to push it away. His inner mind scathingly told the beaming woman of his consciousness that his current affliction was entirely her fault.

Her face merely beamed some more before he forced it to fade into nothingness, with one last flash of those piercing eyes.

…those eyes.

They were responsible for so much imbalance in his current world.

They were responsible right now, for the fact that the boy was essentially merely writing lines. Had it been a few months ago, a more original Snape punishment of hammering out nicks and dents in the school cauldrons would have been used.

Without a second thought.

Harry for his part, just about managed to turn his mildly gaping expression back to his own work. Had Snape lit that fire for…him?

He shook his head in derision.

That was ridiculous.

Snape wouldn't care if the sweat on his face literally froze there.

His quill began to scratch out the start of the fifteenth scribing of the now memorised potion method.

Another hour or so trickled by without further interruption, but upon hearing a rumbling from the centre of the room Snape looked up yet again and sighed in exasperation.

"Potter… did you eat before you came here?"

A sheepish expression looked back at him.

"Uhh…no sir, I got caught up with erm…homework, and I would have been late."

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes and this lamest of all excuses, Snape glanced at the hourglass on his desk and the amount of work the boy had accomplished.

He was relatively satisfied with both.

"That will do for this evening" he instructed, "off you go, same time tomorrow night."

Harry didn't need telling twice, and he scrambled to his feet, throwing his bag over his shoulder as he went. His murmured "goodnight Professor" was uttered just as he got to the door… and just as he was stopped in his tracks.

"Potter…"

Heart sinking, the young man turned back and looked politely expectant in the direction of Snape's desk.

"Sir?"

Snape hesitated, and Harry's confusion kicked up another notch.

He couldn't recall a time when he'd ever witnessed the man who had tormented him mercilessly hesitate.

His confusion was soon answered, but only to be replaced by another, stronger, bout.

"Make sure that you…eat something, before you retire" the teacher directed quietly, dropping his gaze downwards, completely amazed that those words had just slipped out of his mouth.

He could feel the confused gaze scorching into his being, and he raised a dismissive hand and tried to regain his usual brusque bordering on menacing, demeanour. Whipping his wand through the air once more, a platter of sandwiches appeared, followed swiftly by a tankard of pumpkin juice.

Harry scrambled to pick them up under the penetrating gaze, his own mind whirring with surprise.

"I neither want nor need Madam Pomfrey in here looking for my blood because you are to asinine to feed yourself Potter… now, get out."

In an attempt to further restore order, he bit out another abrupt order.

"…and remember no quidditch, grounds or anything other than classes and meals. Clear?"

He could sense a presence in the room with him for only a moment more, before a murmured "yes Professor" and a soft snapping shut of the door alerted him to its absence.

The light footsteps could be heard briefly as the kid trotted away from the dungeons and up into the main body of the castle. It was perhaps a blessing in the embryonic stages of change between Professor and pupil that it was only Harry's footsteps that could be heard, and not his thoughts.

When the last sounds diminished, Snape threw down the quill that was resting uselessly in his hand.

Dropping his head into his hands, he groaned to himself in the now private confines of his office.

"You fool."

….

TBC

….