Escaping Darkness [Book 1 of Through Darkness and Light]

Chapter 6: A Respite

"Mr. Potter, if you would be so kind as to please pay attention, as you see fit?"

Snape sneered down at the young man, who's previously glazed-over look morphed into one of surprise, then instant dislike.

Harry, annoyed, retorted with the first thing that came to mind. "I'm not sure I see such as fit, at the moment," he said flippantly.

Snape's eyes glittered with disbelief. "I will not tolerate such disrespect in my classroom," he spat.

"Well, then, shall we take this outside?"

The class gasped. No one dared say such things to any professor, let alone Professor Snape, the devil incarnate.

"Harry? What are you doing?" The frantic whisper came from Hermione, who's face was pale with shock.

"Ms. Granger, will you be adding your name to the list of points taken from Gryffindor, and for detention?" Snape looked livid, though he kept his tone even.

Harry crossed his arms in seeming boredom. "Oh, don't go taking your anger out on Hermione-"

"Sir," Snape seethed, trying to regain a bit of the respect he had lost from Potter.

"No, just Harry will do. I don't need all that pishposh 'sir' stuff. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted..."

Snape was now standing there, open-mouthed, affronted at this brash display of rebellion.

"You don't need to go taking your anger out on every single Gryffindor. It's no secret that you Slytherins hate Gryffindors, but isn't that rather discriminatory?" He knew he was signing his death warrant, but at the moment, Harry didn't care. He was sick of Snape treating him worse than something that could be found on the streets, usually stuck to someone's shoe. The fact that Snape had helped save his life meant nothing to him; if anything, it was a debt repaid, for his father having saved Snape's life when the two were in Hogwarts together.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor, at this display of such vile insolence, Mr. Potter..."

"Go on, see if I care? Why not take off more, like you so would like to do. And add a few months of detention? You know you want to. Biased son-of-a-"

"One hundred and fifty points from Gryffindor!"

Again, collective gasps. "Harry, quit it!" Hermione pleaded. Harry shot a side glance at her, and huffed.

"That's all?"

"And three months of detention."

"Yawn, Professor."

"Two hundred points."

Harry smirked, but kept his mouth shut. He had sufficiently rattled Snape's cage. The points didn't matter to him. Yes, he would be the most hated person for a while, but he'd go about earning the points back. No, he was satisfied with knowing that he was the only student brave enough to get into a verbal duel with Snape.

And, judging by the quick look around the classroom, he had impressed a good number of students, Gryffindor and Slytherin alike. He caught Draco's eye, and fought back another smirk. The blonde was stunned to the point of gaping, but there was amusement there too. Knowing that he would hear about it later, from both the Slytherin and his two friends beside him (Ron not having said a word the entire time, just sitting there frozen), Harry simply looked up at Snape, who was irate. Then, knowing it would just set the Professor off even more, Harry smiled sweetly. I don't care, the smile said clearly.

Snape looked ready to tear out Harry's throat, but he kept a grip, and twirled away with a flurry of black robes. The man looked up at the clock, then shot a nasty glare towards Harry, before saying through gritted teeth, "Write an essay describing the pros and cons of using a Dreamless Sleep Potion, due tomorrow. No shorter than 20 inches long. Class dismissed."