Chapter 3

Chapter 3: You don't know Me!

Summary: Snape gets a shocking confession. 

You Don’t Know Me!

Harry sat slumped in the Potions classroom staring at the desktop sullenly. Snape has dragged him in after catching him and Draco fighting in the corridor. Of course, Malfoy was sent to the Hospital Wing, and he was dragged into the classroom. Greasy hair git! He had thought that going away to school would be a break from the abuse he got at the Dursleys, it was, but he got it verbally from one of his teachers. He heaved a sigh and waited for Snape to return. Ron and Hermione tried to wait for him, but Snape made them go to dinner. He was starting to get hungry and hoped this would be over soon, so he could eat. Maybe even visit Professor Lupin before he had to go to the common room and do his homework.

Harry kept his eyes firmly on the desk when Professor Snape re-entered. Snape walked over and stood in from of Harry staring down at him. Harry kept his head down and refused to say anything. Snape finally broke the silence.

“Well Mr. Potter, you caused a great deal of damage to young Mr. Malfoy.”

Harry stayed silent.

“Just like your father,” Snape sneered down at him.

Something in Harry snapped at those words. He jumped to his feet and started yelling, “Stop it! You know nothing about me, just as I know nothing about my father!” He stood panting and glaring at his Professor.

“Oh come off it Potter. Everyone knows that you are a pampered Prince, waited on hand and foot by your relatives,” Snape said scathingly.

“Pampered? Pampered! Does pampered mean growing up in a boot cupboard as a bedroom until my eleventh birthday? Does pampered mean doing all the cooking and cleaning since the age of four? Does pampered mean whenever I do accidental magic, I get beaten? Does pampered mean being hit and starved if I don’t finish a two-page chore list? Does pampered mean not knowing your name until you start primary school because you thought it was freak? Does pampered mean that you thought your father was a drunk and your mum a whore, because that was what I was told.” Harry stood there crying. “If that is pampered, then I guess I am.”

Snape stood there in stunned silence staring at the boy. He was shocked at what he had just heard. This abused boy that everyone believed was a pampered Prince, loved and spoiled by his family was anything but. He could see the truth in his eyes and hear it in every word. Without conscious thought, he walked around the desk to the boy and pulled him into his arms.

Once the shock wore off that he had yelled at his teacher, he was shocked all over again that the dreaded Potions Master was hugging him. Everything he had been bottling up inside broke, and he started sobbing,

Severus held the sobbing child in his arms, giving him the comfort and support he needed. He swore then and there that the child would not be going back to that house. He would take the boy himself and the “greater good” be damned!