Gavin wasn't the only younger student to be clearly and openly terrified of him. A pair of second year girls that he had given homework advice to the year before actually screamed when he came downstairs the next morning. One first year even fainted when he stared at them for too long. The only people willing to sit near him at breakfast were his friends and older students who wanted a look at him. If non-fish cuisine weren't such a novelty to him still, he might have even lost his appetite. As it was, the sausage gravy sat heavy in his stomach when he rose to leave and what felt like every eye in the hall immediately turned to watch him.
He was relieved to go to class, because most of his own peers were either wary or judgemental rather than scared. He sat sullenly in his chair, watching all of the seats furthest away from him get filled first. He wondered oddly if this was what it felt like to be Dudley.
When McGonagall called out his name before the lesson, Harry had to resist the urge to sink lower in his chair. Maybe he could turn boneless and just slide all the way down to the floor into a puddle that everyone else would rather jump over than step through. Where was Lockheart when you needed him?
"Mr. Potter!" she called again. Harry shuffled up to the front. McGonagall gave him a look and a thick scroll. "This is your assessment. I trust the Headmaster explained it to you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Take a seat at the table against the back wall. If you don't finish by the end, you may stay after." She hesitated, then put a hand on his shoulder. "Do your best, Harry."
He gave her a thin smile and endured the long and arduous Walk of Stares to the back of the room. A quick silencing charm (a reverse of the kind he used when practising bagpipes) blocked out the rest of the class, and he tried to focus.
He remembered more than he thought he would. Snape had said that organising his memories would improve his ability to recall them, but that had never really been relevant until now. A few obvious gaps showed things they hadn't really gone over, and Harry suspected that Transfiguration had never been one of Snape's strongest classes, but he still knew things that he would have had no clue how to answer if it weren't for the homework he'd been forced to do in the village.
After class was over, and he turned in his completed assessment, McGonagall gave him a practical exam. The nature of his lessons in the village had been theoretical by necessity, and it was clear from her face that he was still far behind in actual spell casting. She dismissed him, and he hoped that his answers on the assessment would clear the wrinkle in her brow.
Ron and Hermione were waiting for him in the hallway. He caught up to them, and they started walking to their next class.
"Why are they all so afraid of me?" he asked, frustrated.
Hermione sighed. "For months, the Prophet has been talking about how important it is that you be found," she reminded him gently.
"They think you're an unhinged felon," Ron said bluntly, tactful as a trolling motor to the skull.
"Thanks, mate," Harry huffed.
"They still believe that you're guilty," Hermione continued, glaring at Ron. "You were never found innocent, only pardoned. Everyone still thinks you did it."
"Did what, exactly? Conjure a Patronus? That's not dangerous. Stupid, maybe, if there's no Dementors around, but it's not dangerous."
"There's also your claim that Voldemort is back."
"He is!"
"That's not the way they see it, Harry." Hermione grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her in the middle of the hall. Cho Chang skirted around them to get into the Advanced Runes classroom, eyeing the group nervously. Ron gave her a belligerent look. "Everyone's too afraid to admit he's back, so they used your apparent criminal tendencies to dismiss the truth."
"There's some of us what know better," Ron added, more gently.
"Like me," said a new voice. All three turned to see Neville giving them a lopsided smile. "I'm glad you're back, Harry."
"Thanks, mate," Harry sighed.
"I'm not the only one. It's an unpopular opinion that people keep close, but I know there's others who believe you."
Harry could only nod, throat tight. The four of them continued walking in silence.
The others had tried to warn him, in a roundabout way, that this was what things were like at Hogwarts these days. It wasn't that he hadn't believed him, but he hadn't really understood what it would be like. He'd been mentally comparing it to last year, when everyone gossiped about him because he was in the Tournament. This was different. They were afraid of him. Truly, genuinely afraid. Second year had been a rough time for Harry, but he'd also been younger. Now, he was more aware of what it meant to be publicly feared. If people discredited him as an insane or delinquent teenager, then he would have no chance of getting them to understand the real danger: Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
His other classes went much the same as Transfiguration. He was amused to find that much of the Herbology lessons Snape had given him centred largely around plants' usefulness in Potions. Charms was a bit of a wash, being so practical, but sometimes the theories he'd studied made it possible for him to get the spells right on a first attempt. Harry had never really grasped magical theory until Snape had sat him down and talked him through it. He'd never really tried. Before Hogwarts, he'd always been good at maths, so Snape had realised that relating certain theories to maths helped make it easier for him to understand. Snape would never be a world-class teacher, but the relaxed atmosphere of the village had lent him the patience that he so often lacked in the classroom.
His last class of the day, and the one he was both most looking forward to and dreading, was Potions. He wanted to see Snape again, but wasn't thrilled about getting yelled at. He thought he was prepared for the turnaround, but there was only one way to find out.
When they reached his classroom, he was uncharacteristically holding the door open. Harry gave him a small smile, and winced when he got a savage scowl in return.
Here we go.
When he was seated, he struggled to ignore Malfoy laughing with Crabbe and Goyle in the corner about how Snape was going to eat him alive. Harry hoped, without much conviction, that knowing what Snape looked like at half five in the morning before coffee would make him less intimidating.
The door slammed shut. He winced in spite of himself. Sharp footsteps echoed down the aisle, stopping right behind him. Harry determinedly kept his eyes trained on his work bench. The noise level in the room dropped to sub zero.
"Mr. Potter," Snape finally said sibilantly. "What a… pleasure… to have you with us again."
Harry glanced up at him, searching for some sliver of the man he knew in those cold eyes. He found none.
His mind changed track with jarring speed. During his Occlumency lessons, he had learned to organise his memories according to emotional connections. It had been hard to do this for Snape, as the difference between Professor Snape and the Snape who had become a de facto guardian was like knowing two different people. Now, he'd been actively Occluding his forming memories as Snape had taught him to do, adding them onto those of the village Snape. The callous man before him in this moment, however, was not the person who'd bought a Gryffindor red hoodie for him all those months ago. This was the cruel professor from his younger years. Harry found himself diving headfirst in the separate tunnel of those older memories. This battle of tempers attached with disturbing ease to that collection.
Harry felt his own stare hardening as his mind associated this moment with the Old Snape. "Wouldn't miss it for the world," he said back, distantly surprised at the venom in his own voice.
A muscle in Snape's jaw twitched, and he swept past him. At the front of the room, he made eye contact with Harry again and pointed at a desk that had been set close to his own. "If I had my way, you would be forced to redo your entire fifth year. The Headmaster, however, has decided to give you a chance to prove whether or not you deserve the disgusting licence that has been given you in allowing you to return to Hogwarts." He pulled out the chair behind the desk. "Let us see if whatever hole you crawled into had a library."
Harry grabbed his quill and marched up to the front, hating that everyone would be able to watch him.
Snape left his hand on the back of the chair, and Harry had no choice but to throw himself into the seat. It brought him close to the professor, who leaned down and said in a voice that was obviously meant to carry, "This school is not meant for criminals like you."
"Then I don't know what you're doing here," Harry snapped back.
A choked laugh that sounded suspiciously like Ron came from the students looking on in horror. Snape jerked back. "30 points from Gryffindor!" he growled, eyes blazing. The laughing quickly stopped. "You will stay after," Snape continued dangerously, staring down at Harry from his full height.
Harry gave a tight nod and turned to his assessment without another word.
"What did old Snape want?" Dean asked, tossing a football up and catching it as he laid on his bed.
Harry had been relieved to discover that Seamus was the only one in their dorm who really had a grudge against him. Dean had been cautiously withholding judgement, remembering from the last four years of living with Harry that the "felon" had always hated attention rather than sought it out. Apparently Harry's story (and the shouting match with Seamus that had followed) had done enough to convince him that whatever Harry had become, it wasn't dangerous.
"He's forcing me to come to his office four times a week to torture me under the excuse that he's letting me brew all of the potions I missed while I was gone." That would be their cover for the Occlumency lessons, at least. As soon as the door had shut behind the last student, Snape had shot a silencing charm at it and turned to Harry with a wry smile as he outlined his plan (and wasn't that a one-eighty. He'd gotten a headache from switching his Occlumency track again). "And I have to keep brewing them over and over until I get every last one right."
Seamus twitched but didn't say anything.
"Tough luck," Neville shuddered. "I think I'd rather fail." He smiled slightly. "Might fail anyways."
"I'm sure he'll get his written test back with a nice big 'T' on it," Dean snorted, then fumbled his catch and hit himself in the nose with the football in his haste to correct himself. "Not that I think you bombed it, I mean, just that Snape's gonna fail you either way."
Harry snorted and leaned back on his pillow. "Nah, you're right, I probably missed every question." He rubbed at his temple, trying to ease the pain from his fading headache. Maybe Snape would give him a draught for it?
Seamus snapped his curtains shut. Ron rolled his eyes and Dean chucked his football at them. It bounced harmlessly off the scarlet hangings and rolled under Neville's bed. Seamus didn't respond for a few seconds, then said grumpily, "If Harry doesn't come back, we'll know he's probably in a bottle in Snape's office."
It was hardly a declaration of trust, but Harry grinned all the same.
