"You must be Harry, Harry Potter, am I right?" Snape drew his cloak around his rail-like body and his long hair covered half his face as he spoke. He could see the anger on the young potter boy's steaming glasses. Somewhere in the distance rang the curfew bell and the sun began to set outside the window.
"Your Severus, somehow your name seems to strike a bell. How did you come to arrive at Hogwarts? No one has ever seen you here before?" Harry sat down beside a statue of a gargoyle and wiped his glasses with his sleeve. "I can't believe Dumbledore really knows your true inclinations. Aren't you deeply versed in the dark arts?" The blood boiling in his face, Severus had to contain his anger as he replied,
"That shouldn't concern you. I'm as loyal to the ministry as you are to your girlfriend, Cho."
The spell Professor Flitwick had placed on the entire student population had only fogged the memory of Severus Snape. He could vaguely remember his early life as a death-eater and then as loyal servant to Albus Dumbledore after that maniac Riddle had destroyed the one thing in all the world that had meaning for him.
He could see Lilly Potters features on Harry's face, and yet the obnoxious confidence and arrogant ways of the boy had forever infuriated him. His quick and clever logic, which seemed devoid of his mother's passion, were clearly derived from his father.
"Don't talk about her as if you know her; is this how rude you were at your old school?" Harry traced his finger along the crack in his glasses, wondering if this obviously powerful wizard could be his class mate or even maybe, a friend. His hand, however had drawn his wand and aimed it at the skinny student.
Severus, also drew his wand and waited...He knew the anger in young Potter was not directly his own, but had been a gift from the man who had tried to kill him. "Harry, I'm new here, I really meant no offense. It sounded like she was a bit ...emotional and I sense it really had nothing to do with you and Ron beating her in the Gryffindor chess tournament yesterday."
Harry tensed up and then laughed, it had most surely been that, he thought. They had celebrated late into the night. Perhaps a little too much, Cho had gone to bed early, declining a moonlight walk to Hagrid's with Harry. He lowered his wand a bit and a flash of silvery blue light danced off of Severus Snape's wand.
Almost before he knew it had happened, the crack in the lens of his glasses disappeared. He lowered his wand, stepping back. "T-thanks, Severus...what a name. That was nice of you. Hermione gets a bit tired of fixing them for me." Harry could see the new student had meant no disrespect and perhaps had only nervously run after Cho in his effort to avoid two angry people. Even he had run up those steps one late night, with his cloak on and it had still sensed him and his gender, sending him rolling down into the lower hall. He thought maybe he would like to get to know this Severus Snape a little better.
"Ron and I are going to the Lake tonight to catch and roast a few frogfish, would you like to join us? We'll get back in time for morning classes."
As he had thought, fixing Harry's glasses in a surprise gesture, had eased the tension between them.
"Going out past curfew, that's 10 points ..." Snape stopped himself; he was no longer his teacher, but a student like Harry. No one, not even the first time he had attended Hogwarts, had ever invited him to do..anything. Perhaps the brief period while Albus and Mcgonnacal work out his proper age, he could discover more about the two boys he had taught so much to in the past few years.
"We leave by broom and fly low to avoid being seen by anyone?" Snape wondered how he was to sneak out this time? He knew he'd only caught Harry a few times, out of the many he'd gotten away with it.
"No. Ron and I discovered a secret passage recently and greased it up a bit ..er, repaired it, Let's go Ron's already out there, and we have 3 or 4 Fishing rods."
As they stepped up to the small door behind an old dusty bookshelf in a corner storeroom, Snape couldn't see how they would be able to get in, much less, walk down through the narrow passage.
Opening the door with a tiny doorknob, Harry grinned at the puzzled expression on his mysterious, new friend's face. "Feet first...after you..."
Severus crawled into the hole and couldn't feel the floor below..."What is this Harry-yyyy ahhhhh..."
He flew down what must have been an old tube used by the Basilisk long before. He flell down and around and up and over like a roller coaster. The narrow tunnel was indeed greased and as fast as he flew, he was unhurt by the cobblestones and bricks along the walls. In minutes he could see a dim light below and then twilight and the edge of the lake just before he splashed into the water's edge. Far above him as he bobbed and choked in the shallow water he could just see Harry fly out of the castle and sail down into the water beside him. Splashing and then swimming up to the shore, They saw that Ron had the fire burning and was starting to gather the gear. He was not alone; Hagrid had appeared from the trees and seemed to be erecting a tent.
"Hagrid loves frogfish stew, and tells a great ghost story. Come on Severus, let's get out of this lake."
Out of breath and vaguely remembering the giant, Hagrid, Severus Snape crawled from the lake and they drew close to the fire to dry their robes. Snape had felt exhilarated by the slide through the castle, and didn't quite recognize the feelings it had evoked. It was, perhaps the first time he had ever experienced the true meaning of the word, fun. He wanted, for some strange reason, to do it again.
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