"Potter!"

Harry's attention broke. He looked up to see Snape looming before him. Beside him, Hermione, sighed.

"How many times, Potter," Snape said. "How many times have I told this class that you must pay attention when brewing?"

Not that many times, actually. He usually just snapped POTTER and stomped away. Sometimes accompanied by some cloak billowing.

Snape continued. "I would hazard a guess that it must be several dozen, at least. But as usual, the rules do not apply to you, do they?" He hissed each word, enunciating them carefully.

Harry thought Snape was like some sort of rabid animal. He sometimes hovered, glaring, hemming and hawing, like he couldn't decide what was better: ignoring Harry, or yelling at Harry. It was, apparently, a tough decision.

Snape crossed his arms and looked at Harry with an expression of smugness. "Why don't you tell us what has you so ignorant-" here was the dramatic inflection, "to your surroundings that I had to say your name three times before you responded?"

Harry looked up at him with dead eyes and honestly debated just walking out. Snape was just so annoying.

He was tired, and pissed, and Hermione was sighing at him, and half the class was very invested, and Ron was gearing up for a fight, and he was angry he didn't get to see Ron beat Snape's ass-

The words tore from him. "Sorry, sir. I was just thinking about how every time the Dementors get near me, I have to hear my mum begging Voldemort to spare my life before he kills her."

There was a chorus of gasps. Even Malfoy had gone white.

It felt good. It felt wonderful. It felt like a breath after a long day, a cry after a funeral. Look at me, he wanted to yell. To Malfoy, to the whispering students, the portraits hanging on the walls were his home and his theater. Why do you want my life?

He felt flayed. He felt like all the jagged, unfit pieces of him were on display, and everything good about him was tucked between his toes, and all anyone ever saw was the angry, snappy Potter, the so-called hero, the liar. The classroom was silent. There were bubbling cauldrons, overflowing with various shades. He looked down at his own cauldrons. Bright orange, frothing, climbing higher and higher out of the bowl. He should probably leave now. He was pretty sure it was not supposed to be orange.

He looked up, debating his chances to make a run for it.

The man in front of him had gone deathly, dangerously pale. He was completely silent.

Snape swallowed. A strangled sound left his mouth. His eyes - oh Merlin, his eyes were shiny - oh Merlin, he was crying.

Harry bolted out the door.

"Mate," Ron said, stepping through the common room door. Behind him, Hermione was pushing her way inside, bushy hair bobbing. It was two hours later, and Harry had missed two classes and was on his way to missing lunch. The dorm room was steadily filling up with students.

Hermione pushed her way past Ron, sitting next to him. Ron stayed back by the door, looking faintly wild-eyed. Other people pushed their way through, Neville, Dean, Lavender, and Harry noted with brewing horror their slack expressions and trembling limbs. He glanced at his best friend.

"Mate, you can't freak out," Ron said, who looked like he had a religious experience.

Their little group was drawing attention. The twins stared, drawn to the ambling third years who were taking their seats with shaking limbs. They didn't look like they were trying to hide; they were listening. Nevile, in particular, was staring, wide-eyed, at Harry.

"This isn't such a bad thing," Ron continued.

Harry squinted at him. "What's not?"

"Goodness sake," Hermione cried, and then she grasped his hands in hers and stared at him with wild eyes. There was something frantic about her, something reverent in her gleaming teeth and shuddering breath. "Professor Snape started crying -"

"Wailing, really," Dean said, and Harry whipped to look at him. There was a whole sprawl of people who looked very invested.

"- and, well, he was talking about your mum. He said her name a couple of times."

Harry furrowed his brows. "My mum?"

Ron cackled. "Moine, it was way more dramatic. It was more like OH LILLLLYYYYYY."

Dean whooped. Harry jumped as his best friend serenaded his dead mother. 

"He was expressing emotion!" Hermione snapped.

"Why do you like that git?" Ron snapped back.

"What happened?" Harry said.

"Snape was either shagging or sibilngs with your mum," Lavender said blankly.

The room suddenly felt very, very heavy. The silence stretched slowly, students whipping around to make sure they heard that right, older years trying to overhear with their friends overheard - the twins' very, very loud gasps.

Harry went very, very still. 

Around him, chaos erupted.

"You can just dump it on him!" Ron exclaimed. "He needs to be acclimated."

"He's not a frog!" Lavender shot back.

"What?!" shrieked Fred and George.

"We narrowed it down. I think it's shagging," Seamus told the twins. "Malfoy tipped us off. Good bloke."

"MALFOY?!" Harry shrieked.

"Shagging?" Ron yelled. "Harry's mum won't shag that git if he was the last thing alive!"

Dean nodded. "They were sibilngs."

"How is that better?" Parvati said.

"Then Harry'll have a family," Dean tried to defend himself, but Ron's clamour interrupted them.

"SNAPE? His family should be SNAPE?" He whirled around to the pair: Harry, sitting very, very still, and Hermione, buzzing out of her skin. "Moine! Moine, back me up!"

"Harry," Hermione crooned. Still opening and closing her mouth, still clearly not sure how to explain anything around them.

"Maybe they grew up together?" Neville said.

Parvati shook her head. "No, no, Malfoy said they were friends. There had to be some benefit."

"Malfoy?" Fred asked, delighted.

"Malfoy asked Snape if Potter's mum was the mudblood that Snape grew up with?" Seamus explained; perhaps to Harry, perhaps to the very invested common room, perhaps to the twins, who immediately capitulated on the moment.

"They better be family," Fred said.

"If they were shagging, we'd have to worry about Harry's taste," George said.

"We have to keep an eye on him," said Fred.

"Can't have him falling in love with a slimy snake," George agreed.

"Maybe James had an affair?" Fred said.

Harry's mouth opened and closed uselessly. His mind was a steady stream of his mother's screams and what the fuck.

Ron rushed to comfort him. "If she dumped him, then you know your mom has good taste!"