luzuzw.cc 
Harry pretended to pout.
“Except when you pout,” Snape said instantly, and Harry laughed, coming back into the room.
“Okay, sir. Now, can I help? Can I ask questions?”
“You may help,” Snape said, pushing the mortar and pestle at Harry. “And you may ask questions.”
“May I ask why you teach potions and not grammar?” Harry said, starting to grind the green stuff.
“Grind it coarsely,” Snape said. “Then chop the wort, very finely.”
“I thought you said I could ask questions,” Harry muttered as he ground.
“I didn’t say I would answer them.”
They worked for half an hour in near-constant silence before Snape set the final concoction over a ring of very tiny flames and shooed Harry out.
“Go. It needs to simmer, and I have some students to torment.”
Harry went without argument, not missing Snape’s glance of faint surprise at that.
What Snape didn’t realize, Harry thought ruefully as he retreated to his guest chambers, was that sitting alongside the man for half an hour had, once again, left Harry with a little excess … enthusiasm to work off.
* * *
He went back at noon precisely, drank his potion, thanked a somewhat puzzled looking professor, left, found some lunch in the kitchens, then went out onto the grounds for the afternoon. He walked into the hills around the castle, wanting the time and solitude and fresh air to think. He had plenty of ideas, many of them naughty, all of them unlikely, but at least the walk helped him work off some of his energy.
After his hike, Harry retired to the lawn before the front gates, lying on the grass in the warm late-afternoon sun.
“Harry!”
Awakened from a half-doze, Harry rolled over and looked up to see Aidan Muir, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor du jour (as Hermione had taken to calling them in sixth year). He was young, maybe a decade older than Harry, but apparently competent. At least, Snape had said nothing bad about him yet, which from him was a ringing endorsement.
Harry smiled and waved, and Aidan strolled over to flop down beside him. The man wore blue jeans and a sweatshirt, matching Harry’s Muggle clothes and rendering the both of them somewhat out of place at Hogwarts. He was carrying a Honeydukes bag, which he set on the grass between them; he must’ve just come from Hogsmeade.
“I cannot wait until summer hols,” Aidan breathed, propping himself up on his elbows and squinting sidelong at Harry. “How is it going?”
Harry had met Aidan the day he’d first spoken to Dumbledore about asking Snape for a cure; all the staff knew the reason for Harry’s presence, if not the details behind it.
Harry shrugged. “It’s going. Another few days, Snape says, and I should be cured.”
“Glad to hear it.” Aidan smiled. Harry had noticed when they’d first met that he had a well-shaped mouth and sky-blue eyes in a fair face framed by dark brown hair. He was striking up close, though at a distance there was nothing remarkable about his appearance. “No doubt you’ll be glad to be out of his clutches as well.”
Harry asked carefully, “Do you not like him?”
Aidan’s smile never faltered. “I don’t like him. He sees to it, it seems to me, that people don’t like him.”
Ready as he was to spring to Snape’s defense, Harry couldn’t argue with that.
“But I don’t dislike him,” Aidan went on. “He’s civil to me, though not friendly. In fact, I’ve never seen him friendly to anyone. Reserved, polite in a cool way. Never friendly. Considering his history, that’s not surprising. I doubt he ever lets down his guard.”
Harry, recalling the other night, said, “Except when he sleeps.”
Aidan’s brows rose. “Oh. I see you know him considerably better than I’d thought. I apologize if I’ve said anything –”
“No!” Harry blurted, feeling the hot blood rush to his skin. “It’s … I didn’t mean to imply … it’s nothing like that.”
Aidan held up his hands. “Sorry. It sounded … my apologies for misreading your tone.”
Harry shook his head. “It’s okay. I was only saying he’s not as bad as he seems.”
Aidan lay back on the grass, knees bent, legs crossed, hands behind his head. “I didn’t mean to sound critical of the man. I know you and he worked together to destroy Voldemort. His reputation as a potions master, of course, goes without saying. And I’ve gleaned that the headmaster has the highest regard for him – though I admit I wonder why he didn’t give Severus my position when the last DADA teacher left. I understand Severus wishes to teach this course.”
“That’s the accepted wisdom,” Harry said, “although I’ve never heard Snape actually say as much.”
Aidan glanced at Harry. “You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”
Harry grinned ruefully, flopped back onto the grass. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Ah,” Aidan said thoughtfully. “It’s none of my business, of course, but is Severus … er …”
“Fond of me?” Harry said sarcastically. “I don’t know. He’s a tough nut to crack.”
“That I can believe.”
A bell sounded from the castle and Aidan groaned.
“I have to get back.”
Harry got up too. “I’ll walk back with you.”
Aidan fished in his Honeydukes bag as they returned to the castle. “Chocolate frog?”
Harry chuckled, accepted one. “Thanks.”
* * *
On the way back into the castle they noticed a number of students hurrying along the corridors in the semi-furtive manner of kids rushing to see something illicit. Harry and Aidan exchanged a look and trotted after.
The focus of interest was one of the outer courtyards – really the remains of a ruined hall, nothing more than tall crumbling walls and several support columns standing in the middle of what was now a grassy field, supporting only sky.
As they reached the arched doorway, Harry caught the telltale whiff of ozone and grabbed Aidan’s sleeve to hold him back as a spell whizzed past to explode against the stone beside them, a spatter of blue fire that scorched the wall but did no other damage. A chorus of student-voiced “oohs” followed.
The two wizards darted into the ‘room’ and spread out.
About a dozen older students stood ’round the periphery watching. A black student with dreadlocks (Gryffindor, Harry noticed) sent a jelly-legs hex toward the other student, a pale boy with wild red hair (not a Weasley, interestingly enough, but a Slytherin Harry didn’t know), who blocked it wildly. The spell flew toward some of the watching students.
Harry whipped out his wand as Professors McGonagall and Snape came into the ‘room’ from the other side and stopped.
