Always

Chapter 7

"Wow. So what happened?" Harry asked eagerly, touched that his friends would risk getting into trouble to check on him.

"They tried to pry the bars off your window and your uncle threw a fit and ended up falling out of the window." Severus sounded quite delighted by that aspect. "Unfortunately, he is fine."

Harry snickered at the thought of how horrified his relatives would have been at seeing a flying car. Uncle Vernon falling out the window was just priceless. "How did you find all this out?"

Severus took a sip of his tea. "When Mr. and Mrs. Weasley found out they were concerned about you and wrote to Professor Dumbledore early this morning. He wrote back only to tell them that you are fine and staying here at Hogwarts and will write to them when you can."

Harry nodded. "I'll definitely be writing to Ron soon then. And I thought I could maybe visit Hagrid and fly on the pitch for a bit?"

"Of course you can, after you have spent some time working on your summer homework." Severus said smoothly. He raised an eyebrow at Harry's surprised look. "Forgot about that did you?"

"Uh, yeah. But I have the rest of summer to do it." Harry rationalized.

Severus frowned. "You will work on your homework every day until it is finished Harry. There is only a month of summer left. You will also leave your work out for me to check over and if I do not think it is up to standard then you will be redoing it. Understood?"

"But..." Harry trailed off at the look on his dad's face. "Yes sir."

Severus nodded. "You may also write your letter but no flying until an assignment has been finished and I look it over. I would also like to have you spend some time in the lab with me working on potions. I never gave you a fair shot at it during class and I would like to remedy that."

Harry pondered that for a moment. He had actually been looking forward to potions until that first class. After that he hadn't bothered to try that hard, figuring it didn't matter if the teacher hated you. He smiled. "I'd like that."

Severus looked pleased. He then summoned a potion to the table and handed it to Harry. "This is a nutritive potion. I would like you to take it once every day for the time being to help counter the malnutrition caused by your relatives."

Harry swallowed it and grimaced. It tasted disgusting! He ignored Snape's amused look as he quickly swallowed a gulp of pumpkin juice to get rid of the flavor. After breakfast, he helped clear the table and they had just finished when there was a knock at the door.

"Good morning Minerva." Severus greeted the stern looking witch, gesturing for her to enter.

"Good morning Severus." Professor Mcgonagall said stiffly. She looked over at Harry and her eyes widened a bit. "Good morning Mr. Pott-"She stopped.

"Mr. Snape." Severus corrected her.

"Yes, so I have been told." Professor Mcgonagall said slowly, glancing from Severus to Harry. "He certainly does resemble you."

"Is there a problem?" Severus asked in a tense voice.

"It is just a lot to take in. He looked so much like James and to think him and Lily were never even together..." She took a deep breath. "Of course, the important thing is that you know the truth now. Hopefully this means you will stop your unfair attacks on the boy and taking Gryffindor points right and left."

Severus's glare deepened at the reminder of how he had treated his son. "Yes, and now I will be able to keep a better eye on him so that he does not end up in so much danger during the school year." He snapped.