Better Be Slytherin!

Harry jumped, startled, but then set his jaw. 'I don't like being talked about.'

'I understand.'

'Do you?' Harry turned to glare at the ghost. 'I've been lied about and talked about for ten years. Those stupid . . .' He broke off, not wanting to discuss the Dursleys. At all.

'The Muggles?' the Baron said softly.

A brief nod.

'They lied about you?'

'They said I cheated. Any time I got better grades than that whale of a cousin of mine. I obviously cheated, 'cause there was no other way I could do better than him at anything. He was obviously so superior.' Harry snatched the stopper out of his ink bottle, not even caring that he splattered a few drops of black ink across the table.

'But you never cheated.'

'No! I never did. I didn't have to. Dudders is such an idiot I'd have to try to do worse than him in school.' Harry dropped into the chair and rubbed at his forehead, and the stupid scar that marked him as different. 'Didn't matter, though. They said I cheated, and the school took their side. Always did.'

'Doesn't sound fair,' the Bloody Baron said.

Harry glared at him. 'Of course it wasn't fair. Life isn't. I'm not a child, you know.'

He expected the ghost to make the same protests he'd heard a million times, about how he was too still a child, despite having practically raised himself, and survived the Dursleys, not to mention an attack by a currently disembodied megalomaniac who meant to kill him in nasty ways.

So he was surprised when the Baron merely nodded. 'As you say.'

The quiet agreement quite took the wind out of him, and he stared at the desk, and his hands, clenched together on top of it. 'I . . . I have to work on my Charms essay,' he said inanely.

'You do that, Harry Potter,' the Baron said. 'And please, when you speak to your Professor Snape, remember, he has your best interests in mind.'

He'd heard that before, from teachers, and the Headmaster at his primary school, and even that one cock up involving the school nurse. Too bad none of them had ever meant it. Still, he shrugged in response to the Baron, and got on with his essay.

An hour or so later, the discussion about the overheard conversation was less difficult than Harry had imagined it being.

'How much did you overhear, when you were lurking about in the hallway?' Professor Snape asked him, once Harry had finished his Charms essay, and after Snape had read it over and made some corrections.

Harry flushed. 'I said I'm sorry about that.'

Snape glared. 'That doesn't answer my question.'

Expression settling into a glare of his own, Harry muttered, 'Fine. I heard you say that Professor McGonagall accused me of cheating, and then the Bloody baron said something that made you call someone a manipulating codger. But I haven't cheated, not at all!'

'I know you haven't, Ha -- Mr. Potter. I have been monitoring your school work, have I not?'

Harry's eyes narrowed as he looked at Snape. Had the Professor nearly called him by his first name? Then he shook his head, the uncomfortable feeling of being falsely accused of something making his stomach twist into knots. 'Then why would she say I did?'

'I do not believe she did.' Snape held up a hand when Harry opened his mouth to argue. 'I believe the Headmaster told me she did, so as to make me . . .' His mouth twisted as if he tasted something sour. 'To encourage me to leap to your defense, as a falsely accused member of my House.'

Harry stared at him, and stared some more. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, unconsciously mirroring his professor's stance. His mind was awash with questions, but the only one he could vocalize was, 'What does Quirrell have to do with it, sir?' Snape looked down his long nose at Harry, and raised an eyebrow, and Harry quickly amended his question to, 'I mean, Professor Quirrell.'

Snape nodded shortly. Then he held Harry's gaze for a long moment, as if measuring him. Harry sat up straight, not wishing to be found less than adequate in Snape's regard. Snape nodded again. 'I believe, as does the Bloody Baron, that Professor Quirrell,' Harry noticed the slight sneer that accompanied the honorific when it came from Snape's mouth, but didn't call him on it, 'is working for the Dark Lord. We believe he will try to kill you again. It is my opinion that the Headmaster wants me to keep an even closer eye on you, to make sure that does not happen.'

Harry's hands had started to tremble, and he clasped them together on his desk top. He knew Quirrell was up to no good, and was probably working for the same monster who had killed his parents and tried to kill him when he was just a baby. But to have it spoken so baldly . . . it was startling. Not least because he was unused to people telling him the truth like this. And Snape was, he realized. Snape wasn't holding back to spare his feelings or to pretend the danger wasn't real. Harry was grateful for that, but he was still . . . startled.

'But sir, why didn't he just tell you to do that then? Why be coy about it?'

Snape's eyes flashed with some unnamed emotion, and he turned away in a billow of robes. 'That is none of your concern.'

'But sir!'

'No, Potter. I have told you what you need to know. The rest is immaterial.'

Harry scowled at the man, who had yet to turn back to face him. Snape's hands were clenched into fists and his body was held so tight it looked like he might explode any second. Harry had no idea why, but the reason for