Friday.
Potions.
Last class.
Double period.
With teacher that despises him.
Harry wanted to turn invisible before Snape had a chance to spot him amongst his peers. Of course, he isn't fond of Snape's snarky comments nor his unmissable repulsion, but today he's peculiarly repulsed by it.
The whole week has been quite stressful and the term has only begun. The exams are months away from him, yet he's already bombarded by tons and tons of homework, especially essays. Even Hermione seem to struggle, which is odd. Hermione never struggles with it, expect maybe in their second year when she used Time-Turner. How did she had the energy and will to go to all those classes is still beyond Harry.
Both Hermione and Ron seemed in a similar mood to Harry's. Quiet, barely talking, everyone in their own world waiting for the door of the classroom to dramatically burst open.
Malfoy, as usual, spat out yet another insult Harrys way while his goons Crabb and Goyle followed him to where a group of Slytherin's was. Harry wanted to hex him so badly but both Hermione's and Ron's hands were stopping him, looking at him in disapproval.
To Harry, everything seemed so normal and mundane.
The door of the classroom slowly, almost cautiously, opened and there he was, Harrys list favourite teacher – professor Snape. Although, he didn't bother to find Harry amongst the red as he usually does. He just got back inside with noticeably less energy in his walk than usual and stands in front of the board. At least his habit of monitoring the room hasn't change, but his gaze never lingered on Harry, not even for a second.
Snape's change in demeanour rubbed Harry the wrong way. He is, off course, pleased that Snape doesn't seem to notice him, but Harry cannot but wander what caused such behaviour.
He jerked his head to Hermione. She too realized that Snape is acting differently today. Ron also understood that something is going on when he took a look at a board in front of them. The black board that Snape always scribbles top to bottom with his tiny crammed handwriting, writing instructions for that day's potion, stood blank.
Before they could voice their confusion, books landed in front of them without much precision. Hermione opened her mouth to say something to Snape but he was quicker.
"Turn the page to 493." His voice only reached first few rows closest to him. Others eventually found out what potion they were brewing today from other classmates. By that point, students, especially Gryffindors, were having a full-blown conversation amongst themselves. Most of the Slytherins were only exchanging a few words at a time. Malfoy was the quietest of them all.
"Professor" Malfoy tried to out-spoke the loud crowd "aren't you going to tell us what potion we are going to prepare today?"
Snape either didn't hear him or decided to ignore him (which he never does). After all, Malfoy was one of his favourite students. Instead, he just sat in his chair looking absently at the desk in front of him.
So, most of the students took the opportunity to do absolutely nothing for the first time in Potions class while others pressed on with brewing potions like everything was as it always is. Harry, Hermione and Ron were the latter. Harry trying to make the class for himself as similar to how it typically is, Hermione for the sake of knowledge and Ron because the two of them were to occupied to talk to him so he grew bored.
The whole class Snape barely moved a muscle. Whenever Harry looked at him, he was always sittingat his desk, his mind somewhere else. Students didn't exist for Snape and Snape didn't exist for students.
Only few minutes were left before the end of the class and Snape didn't even once swept the class to see their progress. Ones how had already finished with their potions poured them in the vials and put them on Snape's desk. When Harry did the same, he was hoping for any kind of reaction from his potion's teacher, but Snape did absolutely nothing. Not even a quick nod or glance at vial.
Harry felt oddly relievedand even more worried at the same time after he's left the dungeons. He spoke to Hermione and Ron about it, but in the end, they couldn't draw any conclusion as to why was Snape being like this. Snape always seemed like a type of man who could not be easily shaken from his high horse or even if he was, he would never let it show.
With those thoughts Harry went to bed. He couldn't wrap his head around it no matter how hard he tried. Hermione didn't have a single clue or suspicion about what could possibly bother Snape. So how, for the love of everything that's good in this world, could he know?
He couldn't sleep. He couldn't think about anything besides Snape. And he bloody hell couldn't found out why. Why all of a sudden does he care for Snape that much? Or did he always did just never notice it before?
It was clearly pointless trying to fall asleep so he decided to go for a stroll down the castle's corridors. He purposely left his Invisibility Cloak behind. He really didn't see much use for it nowadays since he finally became Animagus. It was also convenient that he was small, quick and black in his Animagus form so even Mrs. Norris had a hard time catching him.
Without thinking about it, Harry ended up in the dungeons. Even his subconscious was thinking of Snape, he thought. Since he's already here, he walked up to the Snape's office and pressed his long ear against the door. He could hear glass clinging of each other fallowed by the loud and fast breading and restless walking. Then it just stopped and everything went silent. And it stayed like that for what felt to Harry like eternity.
He wanted to open the door, but he was afraid of what he would find on the other side of it. Gryffindor in him was sleeping like a baby and he wouldn't be waking up any time soon.
After two quick steps door burst opened. Harry only barely dodged the blow. Snape was rushing down the hall and Harry followed him as stealthy and quickly as he could.
Harry thought that he lost Snape when he spotted him sitting by the lake under the tree. He approached him slowly, while going against his primal instincts, and trying and be loud enough so Snape wouldn't be startled by him. Harry could now be seen in Snape's peripheral vision yet he still didn't notice him. Only when Harry gently bumped his snout against him did Snape realised that he wasn't alone.
Dark green eyes were looking at him with a glow of concern. Its fur was almost invisible under the night sky expect for the red patches scattered all over it.
Fox. Snape was looking at a fox. How did a fox ended up in school grounds? There were some students whose Animagus form was a fox, but none of them were ink black as this one. Was someone trying to pull a prank on him? He didn't think so. Although, foxes are known to be mischievous creatures, but this one didn't look like is up to something. It looked rather curious and somehow worried.
Harry had no idea what to do next. Snape was just staring at him, actually, more like thru him. Right about now, Harry regretted his attempt at… comforting Snape? Merlin, is that really what he's trying to do?
Before Harry could spiral down his train of thoughts, hand touched his head. Warm hand. Snape's warm hand. Harry was a little bit taken aback by this. It makes perfect sense that Snape's hand, just like any other human's, would be warm, yet it surprised him so much that it took him a few seconds to process and understand what just happened.
Snape was absent-mindedly stroking Harry's head. Harry closed his eyes. It felt good, almost relaxing even with sudden twitches in Snape's fingers.
Harry slapped Gryffindor in him awake and plopped himself onto Snape's lap. Snape's whole body was very, very tense and stiff. Harry wasn't sure how to comfort him so he just curled himself up in a ball and lay there slowly and deeply breathing.
Snape's hand followed him and resumed stroking his head. His shallow and shaky breathes slowly became steady and calm. His muscles started to ease up and unwind.
Harry wished he could stay like this forever or at least for a long time, but before he knew sun was rising up the horizon and Snape was nowhere to be found.