Disclaimer: I still do not own Harry Potter.

Author's Note: Hello everyone. Thank you all so much for the great reviews. I'm really glad you enjoyed the last chapter.

Yes, I agree that Harry's had a horrible time with adults. I also despised the way Neville's Gran treated him in canon. It seemed as though she only began to love him when he became a fighter just like his parents. There were so many problems with their relationship and I hated how it was portrayed. Augusta Longbottom treated her grandson abominably. I always wanted to explore what it would be like if Neville had a better friendship with Harry.

Anyway, here is the detention chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it.

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When the knock on his office door came, Severus Snape thought he had done everything he could to prepare for the evening ahead. His Occlumency walls were secure around him, and his emotional shields were up. He tried to block out everything that foolish old man had said to him this morning; he couldn't allow himself to travel down the road the Headmaster wanted him to venture down. "Enter," he said, his voice clipped and cold, the tone he had perfected over his many years of teaching.

The door opened, and in walked Potter. Snape saw, from one look at him, that the boy was attempting to do the same thing he was, and to be honest, he wasn't half-bad at it. Only those accursed emerald eyes gave him away; Snape's office was the last place the boy wanted to be.

"You will redo the task I assigned you three days ago," Snape said. "You will clean each cauldron in my classroom to perfection. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," Potter said, his voice just as curt as his teacher's. They both left the office and walked into the classroom, and to Potter's credit, he instantly got to work cleaning the cauldrons.

And Severus, no matter how hard he tried not to, observed Potter more than usual. Damn Dumbledore and his words of wisdom, he thought furiously as his black eyes lingered over the child as he worked. Why does he put such idiotic ideas in my head?

It was the little things that baffled him as he saw Potter at work. Before, he had been under the assumption that the stupid dunderhead had never done a lick of work in his life. It had always taken him so long to clean every cauldron when he'd given Potter this assignment before, and he had always thought it was because of sheer laziness and disrespect for his teacher. Potter knew Snape had better things to do with his time than supervise these detentions, yet he always took an extraordinary amount of time to get the work done.

But now, as Snape watched, he saw that the reason Potter took so much time to do this was because he was a perfectionist. He checked, double-checked, even triple-checked to make sure that there was not one speck of anything left on each cauldron after he cleaned it. There was something in Potter's movements, the way he expertly scrubbed and scrubbed at each cauldron, which suggested that Potter was all too familiar with this kind of manual labor. And, he realized as he continued to observe, Potter never once complained about having to do any of this.

The echo of another student's words wafted back to Snape. "This is house-elf work, Professor," Draco had sneered as a detention from several years ago came to his mind. He'd caught the boy calling one of the Hufflepuff Muggle-borns a Mudblood, and he had taken him aside in private to give him a detention. Of course, the Hufflepuffs thought Snape had let Draco get away with it, but what they didn't know was that the head of Slytherin punished his students in private rather than let others see it.

"Stop whining, Draco. It is unbecoming," Snape had drawled back at the blond during that particular detention. "It is prudent that you understand the consequences of your actions. You are lucky that I was the one to catch you in that altercation."

And indeed, he'd expressed the same sentiment to Draco only days ago, when he'd used that disgusting word again to describe Hermione Granger. Looking back, he knew he should have given him another detention for that transgression, but the truth was, he knew Draco was not emotionally handling the ferret incident well, and he had said the word only in front of Snape this time. But a deeper part of him knew it was no excuse. Just because Snape deeply cared for Draco and felt responsible for his well-being didn't mean he should cut him any slack. Draco needed to realize the ramifications of his actions and words before it was too late.

As his eyes continued to rove over Potter, he was more and more disturbed by what he saw. Why hadn't he ever discovered this before? You know why, a snide voice inside his head sneered at him. You were always too busy seeing James to notice that the boy isn't him. Snape knew that James Potter would not have dealt with this detention well; he would have pulled a Draco, complaining and whining the whole time about how unfair it all was.

After an excruciating amount of time, Potter finally finished his task. "Sir, I'm done if you'd like to check my work," he said, his voice dull and flat.

Snape said nothing in response; his mind was too preoccupied analyzing everything he had seen. He methodically checked over each cauldron, noting that they almost sparkled with how clean they were. Snape felt an uncomfortable pit churning in his stomach, unable to truly grasp what any of this meant yet. "Indeed, you are finished, Potter," he said eventually.

"Yes, sir," said Potter, not letting anything show on his face or in his tone. "May I please leave?"

"Not quite yet, Potter. I have something I must ask you," Snape said. He dreaded this conversation, but he knew this had to be said. It was to do with the security of the school, after all, and it was crucial that he know this now. "How did you discover that Longbottom was in danger last night?" he asked.

It was plain to see that Potter was hesitant to answer. He looked like he was choosing his words carefully. Whatever the answer was, his despised Potions Master was the last person he wanted to tell.

"Potter, this is important," Snape said, feeling the first stirrings of anger inside him since Potter's arrival that evening. This was expected, this was familiar. This might be the Potter he knew, coming back to visit. "Do you not care about the safety of this school?"

Potter blanched at that, his own anger beginning to show in his expression. So unsubtle, Snape thought snidely. So predictable.

But then, Potter surprised him; it was as if he pushed the anger back inside himself. He turned to face Snape, those damnable green eyes meeting his black ones. "I have ... there's a piece of parchment that I have, sir," he said slowly. "It told me."

Snape nodded, not at all surprised by this admission. "Potter, I would like you to return to your dorm, retrieve the parchment, and bring it here," he said forcefully.

"Why, sir?" Potter asked. Indeed, the Potter Snape knew since he'd started at Hogwarts was coming back now, rearing his ugly, swollen head again.

"Are you truly this imbecillic, Potter?" Snape snarled, feeling his temper snap, and the old, familiar feelings of loathing rushed back in. "Do you have any idea of the implications this parchment could have? If I or any other staff member had had this on hand during Crouch's time here, he could have been discovered even sooner. And if it falls into the wrong hands, you stupid boy, what could happen could be catastrophic. Are you this selfish, Potter? You were in such a hurry to protect Longbottom. Is he all you care about now?"

The expression on Potter's face changed from one of fury to horror in a split second; it was plain to see that he had never thought of any of these implications. The conscience Snape still had left tried to berate him for being so harsh with the boy, especially considering how he looked now, but he dismissed it. If this was what it would take for Potter to get his head out of the rock he'd apparently been living under, this treatment was definitely warranted.

"Yes, sir," the boy whispered, his voice barely audible as he bolted out the door. Snape never thought he'd seen the boy run so fast in his entire life.

Several minutes later, he returned, panting and out of breath. In his hand, he held the piece of parchment that Snape knew he'd seen the year before, the one that had insulted him. He knew, without a doubt, that this parchment had something to do with the boy's father, Sirius Black, and that bloody wolf. Even that pathetic nothing, Pettigrew, may have had something to do with this, Snape thought with a sneer as Potter handed the parchment to him. It was obvious he was hesitant to do so, undoubtedly not wanting to part with a beloved trinket that his father had oh-so-lovingly worked on, but he did it.

"How does it work?" Snape asked, putting the parchment on one of the classroom desks. "I need you to show me, please."

Still hesitating, Potter drew out his wand and held it over the parchment. Reluctantly he said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Snape couldn't help it; he snorted derisively at the childish, juvenile words. It was so like Black and Potter to think up something like this, he thought viciously. Immature, reckless, brutish bastards.

As he watched, a map of Hogwarts made itself known on the parchment, with little dots all over it. And Snape finally, finally understood the secret of the so-called Marauders' success; he finally realized how they'd always seemed to know where he was, how they discovered him even when he tried to make himself scarce, always seeking him out for bullying and harassment. The truth was sitting here now, in front of him. Snape almost laughed bitterly at the irony that it had been Potter's son who had handed it over. James must be rolling in his grave, he thought, finding it very difficult not to smirk.

"And how do you clear it?" Snape wanted to know. "It was blank when you first handed it over."

Potter once again held his wand over the map. "Mischief Managed," he intoned, and the map faded into blankness. Snape almost snorted again. Typical, he thought. So typical.

"Who gave this to you?" Snape then demanded, turning back to Potter. "Who was irresponsible enough to give this to you without understanding what the ramifications of this could be?"

"Er ..." Potter hesitated again, and Snape could see that he didn't want whoever it was to get into trouble.

"Do not lie to me," Snape snarled, glaring at the child sitting across from him. "If you do, I will know. You will tell me who gave this to you, and you will tell me now."

This seemed to cow Potter into saying something. "Er, it was the Weasley twins who had it first," he said, every word being forced out of him. "They gave it to me. Then, that day when I went to Hogsmeade ..."

"You mean, the day your head was discovered there without the rest of your body?" Snape drawled, the fury he'd felt at the child on that particular occasion coming back to him. "The day you disobeyed every rule that was put in place to keep you safe, you ridiculous, idiotic child."

"I know!" Potter burst out, his anger matching Snape's. "I was stupid, okay? I understand that!" Taking a deep breath, he continued more calmly. "Professor Lupin caught me with it, as you know, and he took it from me," he explained. "Then, at the end of the year when he resigned, he gave it back. He said that he was no longer my teacher, so he didn't feel strange about giving it back to me."

Nothing's changed at all, Snape thought, his entire body pulsing with rage. That pea-brained, pathetic, spineless, cowardly wolf. Of course he would do something like that. He was far too sentimental; what an absolutely amazingly stupid thing to do. "This is all the more reason for you to never have this in your sight again," he growled. "I am confiscating it. It is staying with me. This map is nothing more than a security risk. The sheer, pure idiocy of this is astounding."

Snape expected Potter to argue, but the boy surprised him again by saying nothing. His face had gone blank; even his eyes didn't show what he felt. Was the boy truly realizing what this map could have meant if it had fallen into the wrong hands? Was he coming to terms with his own idiocy at last?

"Go, Potter," Snape said, suddenly finding his presence completely unbearable. "Come back here again tomorrow evening at the same time. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir." Potter's voice was back to a monotone as he literally fled Snape's classroom, not looking back.

And Snape was left there, staring at the piece of parchment that made certain incidents in his past all too clear. Closing his eyes and taking deep breaths in order to calm his pounding heart and his throbbing head, he knew that tonight's detention with Potter was only the beginning of whatever was to come.