Summary A little exchange between our favorite Potions Master and his student. Takes place at Grimmauld Place between 5th and 6th years.

Disclaimer HP and it's characters are not mine. Spoilers through OotP.

When I came down to the kitchen I found Professor Snape sitting at the dark wooden table, reading a copy of- of all things!- the Quibbler. I grinned to myself, imagining our fearsome Potions professor believing in things like crumple-horned snorkaks. I made my way past him to the teapot, still hot from the previous user. I poured a cup for myself and turned to ask him if he would like some as well. But he had folded up his paper and was staring at me, his dark eyes inscrutable. I stared back at him until I was horribly uncomfortable at his perusal. I was about to turn away when he barked out a name.

"Rita Skeeter." I furrowed my brow at him. I didn't ask how he'd known. He was a spy after all.

"That was a trick worthy of a Slytherin." From anyone else it would have been an insult but from the Slytherin Head of House it was high praise indeed. I felt a flush of pride fill me and I couldn't hide a pleased smile. Professor Snape frowned at me.

"Such obvious pride in your cleverness is not." He said devastatingly. I felt the smile slide from my face. He stood up and turned on his heel to leave.

The words ripped out of me before I could stop them.

"Why are you always so nasty to me? What did I ever do to you?"

He turned back to me. He surveyed me from head to toe as though I were an unappealing bug that had turned up in his dinner salad. I felt a flush rise in my face again and I glared at him. He only smiled unpleasantly and held up one long finger.

"You stole supplies from my office. You and your silly friends hexed me unconscious. You repeatedly defy me in class by whispering answers to Potter and Longbottom." He ticked off his points on his hand. " You did not come to me last year when you thought that Sirius Black had been captured, and instead put your own life, as well as the lives of several younger students, in jeopardy. Need I go on Miss Granger?"

I knew I should keep quiet. He was right about most of what he said. I had stolen from his office. I had hexed him, along with Harry and Ron. And I was always helping Neville and Harry with their potions. But it was the last thing that I could not let pass.

"That's not fair!" I said angrily. "It wasn't like we deliberately kept you out of it. We just didn't…" I trailed off, realizing how lame the excuse was.

"You did not think of me." He finished for me, raising an eyebrow. "And here I had thought you were intelligent."

It was an insult and it stung.

"Since when did you think Mudbloods like me were anything?" I spat out bitterly.

The question hit its mark. Professor Snape drew himself up and his pale face looked even paler, his lips pressed into a tight line.

" I never did." He said in a very soft voice.

"No of course not. Why would you care about Mudbloods when you were so popular with your own kind?"

As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I had gone too far. I had poked and prodded Harry until he explained to me why Professor Snape had stopped giving him Occlumency lessons. He had explained what he had seen in the Pensieve, how Sirius and James Potter had mocked and tormented the young Severus Snape and how no one had stepped in to stop it or help him.

Professor Snape's eyes had gone wintery cold. I felt sick.

"I'm sorry." I said. "That was a really horrible thing to say." I looked up into his closed face. There was no trace of emotion in it but I knew that what I said must have hurt him. I stepped closer to him. An apology was not enough. I knew something of him, something embarrassing that he wished to keep hidden and in his Slytherin mind that was a power over him he could not accept. The only way to make it right was to give him the same power over me.

"When I first came to Hogwarts I was terrified that no one would like me. The first half of the year I hid out in the third floor bathroom during breaks so that no one would see me."

It was not enough, not nearly embarrassing enough to make up for what I knew. I wracked my brain for something more excruciating.

"Viktor Krum broke up with me because I wouldn't sleep with him. He said I was frigid." No, that wasn't near enough. And now Snape was looking at me coldly, ready to turn and walk away. There was only one more thing…He turned away from me to leave and I blurted out my darkest secret desperately.

"I've always been attracted to my Potions teacher." He turned back to me and there was a look of triumph on his face.

"Really, Miss Granger." He drawled. "As though I care about your school girl secrets."

But the look he gave me before he left was one of understanding. A secret for a secret. And I trembled to think what he would do with my confession if I ever betrayed his.