For a long, long second, Snape stood there, staring at Harry like he was the worst kind of disease. Within the sleeves of his robes, Snape's hands clenched into fists so tightly they shook. The man looked one second away from throttling Harry.
And then the man's face went blank for a second, before he sneered. "Ten points from Gryffindor for cheating, Mr. Potter. And another ten for being an insufferable know-it-all."
Harry's body went stiff with rage. He managed to control himself, for the most part, but his eyes narrowed.
"Cheating?" he said, his tone almost questioning. "And just what makes you think I am cheating... sir," he added at the end, the tone more condescending than he had ever used when speaking to a teacher. Not that he was even sure this man deserved to be called such.
Snape's eyes narrowed. "It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that you cheated. None of those questions are on the first year syllabus—"
"Then why did you ask them to me," interrupted Harry, drawing shocked gasps from everyone in the room and flared nostrils from Snape. "If this knowledge isn't in the first year course work, then you shouldn't have asked me those questions in the first place. And the mere fact that this knowledge isn't something a first year is supposed to know makes it equally obvious that I didn't cheat, because there is no way I could have known you were going to ask those questions, since it wasn't in the first course syllabus... sir." This time, there was no mistaking the condescension in his tone when he said sir.
Snape's upper lip curled as he grit his teeth. The man looked like he wanted to burn Harry to ash with his eyes.
Harry met the man's glare head on. A part of him knew this was wrong, knew he should back down and regain his composure, but Snape had pushed one button too many. These days, there were very few things in this world that upset Harry Potter, truly upset him.
Accusing him of cheating or calling him a liar was one of those things. Harry Potter never cheated. He didn't need to. Thanks to his eidetic memory he was more intelligent than anyone his age he had ever met, and more intelligent than many people twice his age. He didn't need to cheat to get good grades.
It was also a matter of pride. Harry Potter was a prideful person. To cheat meant to stain ones honor and pride. And he refused to do that. To have Snape accuse him of cheating galled him.
It was during this stare down, where everyone on the sidelines waited on baited breath, that he felt it, that familiar feeling of something trying to poke around in his head. Legillemency.
Harry could barely contain a snarl as he realized Snape was trying to invade his mind. It was one thing for the Sorting Hat to enter his head to sort him into his house. He didn't like it, but he could accept it. It was quite another to have a teacher invading his mind because he was angry at having someone contradict him when he knew they were right.
And Harry was not going to stand for it.
Harry's magic rolled forth as he opened the floodgates to his core. His entire body became saturated in energy, which he compressed into a tiny ball within his mind.
And than he launched the magic at Snape's mind probe.
There was no subtlety in Harry's defense. It couldn't even truly be called defense. Harry's mind and magic bashed into Snape's probe with all the subtle prowess bull in a China shop. It crashed against Snape's mind probe like a middle-aged battering ram bashing against the gates of an ancient stronghold, destroying the probe like it was made of paper. So powerful was Harry's retaliation that the mental attack actually had some adverse physical effects.
Unprepared for such a powerful counter, Snape stumbled as the mind magic smacked him in the face almost literally. The attack burrowed through his mind and drove a spike of pain into his brain.
He hissed, bringing a hand up to his forehead to try and stem the pounding in his skull. It felt like someone had driven a spike through his head. His vision blurred for a second, before snapping back into focus with painful clarity.
Harry watched on, glaring at the man who dared enter his mind uninvited. He didn't know much about the mind arts. In fact, he only knew what the sorting hat had told him. But surely there was some kind of law against invading the mind of a minor? Of a student?
Snape seemed to come to. His body straightened and his hand fell away. Harry watched the man grimacing warily, waiting to see if he would be stupid enough to attack him in some way again. If he did, Harry would show him that he was not one to be trifled with. If he tried anything, Harry would break the man's nose. It wouldn't take much to knock him flat. Harry could probably reach Snape before he even pulled out his wand.
However, Snape did nothing more to attack him. After a moment where the two stared at each other, one wary and ready to attack, the other with an unfathomable expression, Snape turned away, flicking his hand at the chalkboard where a set of instruction wrote themselves.
"Follow the instructions and begin making the potion," he said, his voice distant. He sounded like he was in pain, or suffering from a migraine. "I expect each of you to have a vial filled with the potion at the end of class. Begin now."
There were a few seconds where no one did anything. Everyone switched their gaze from Harry to Snape in confusion and shock. Harry could almost imagine what was going through their minds as they tried to come up with some comprehensible theory on what had just taken place.
He couldn't blame them; he would be confused as well if he'd just watched what amounted to a mental duel between two people.
Snape snarled. "Well! What are you waiting for!? An invitation!?"
That got everyone started. There was a great scraping of chairs as students stood up and made their way to the potions cabinet to grab their potions. Neville also tried to get up, but Harry placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll get them," Harry said, summoning his wand from his holster. Without deliberation he waved it over at the cabinet, and all of the ingredients the instructions called for soon floated above the heads of shocked students and made their way to Harry's and Neville's desk.
Professor Snape eyed the flying potion ingredients, his face carefully blank as he watched Harry begin setting everything up.
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