This isn't my first Snarry Fanfiction…I'm in the process of writing one, but this is going to be a chapter one as well. I got my idea for writing a story like this after watching the movie Patch Adams. The Severus and Harry in my story are going to be in a different setting, meaning that they aren't wizards. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed/am enjoying writing it.

Help Me

Don't own, don't want to, I'd fuck it up.

Hate if you want, but I know you secretly love it.

Chapter I

Doctor Severus Snape walked into the mental institution where he was to begin working for the first time. The tall penitentiary like insane asylum loomed overhead, seeming to promise dread and hopelessness. The tall man sighed deeply, his long, untraditionally black, doctor's coat whished about him in the brutal bitter wind of the middle of winter. He trudged along the extensive side walk leading up to the fortress-like building.

When he walked in the door, he was coldly greeted by the janitor. Doctor Snape was then lead to the front office by a series of arrows and signs.

'Like I'm back in school again, only this time,' he paused as he heard the, possibly, deranged screaming of some unfortunate patient, 'I'm the Guidance Counselor, and the 'kids' are clearly mad.'

As he walked into the office, the old, pudgy-looking receptionist popped her sickly sweet pink bubble gum and completely ignored him as she listened to music through her headphones, attached to an iPod.

Severus waved his hand in front of her face impatiently, hoping for a response and her confirmation of his existence so that he may get in contact with the head of the asylum.

"Yeah, sweetie, I know you're there. Just let me finish up here," she told him in a back country hick voice.

Severus peeked at what she was up to and was thoroughly upset at the fact that she was playing an internet game that would likely take up about five more minutes. Huffing, he took a seat in the corner by the window so that he could see the beginning snowfall.

Somewhere around ten minutes later, the doctor in the office came out. He looked to be about mid sixties with a grey-white hair comb-over and a long haired and obviously well groomed mustache and beard combo about the same color.

"Where is that new psychologist, I told him to meet me at nine o'clock and its ten minutes later!" he ranted.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, you crazy old coot," the secretary told him, loudly popping her gum, "He's sittin' over there in the corner."

Severus Snape stood and briskly walked over to the balding man, holding out his hand.

"I'm Doctor Severus Snape. The one you have the nine o'clock appointment with. I was here on time…but your secretary was busy at the moment, so I patiently waited. Sorry to keep you waiting, sir," Severus told him, introducing himself.

The older man stared at Severus's hand, seemingly debating about what he said was true or not. He turned around, ignored the hand, and walked back into his office.

Severus let his hand drop to his side, a flame of anger igniting deep in his butterfly filled stomach. He was about to follow the man into his office, when the elder walked out, carrying a paper.

Snape stood there, momentarily confused.

"This is the list of things that you are to be doing here. I'm not going to tell you what to do exactly, but I trust, since you do have your Ph.D., that you know what you're doing. Everything should be explained there, if it isn't clear to you the objectives, come visit me. The rules are on the back there, so I suggest that you look over them. And between you me, I understand about the secretary. She's always doing that to me."

Severus tried to wear a face that wasn't as deadpanned as he was feeling at the moment. He took the paper from the man's hand and was trying to decipher why the doctor kept such a bad secretary, when he finally realized that there must be 'something' going on between the two. This thought almost made him wretch in his mouth.

"Alright, I'll show you to your new office, and then you should get straight to work," the man told him.

Severus nodded confirming that he understood the directions given. 'I hope that this job is all that the flyer said it was. Right now, I'm unimpressed.'

He followed the man, past the janitor once more (who still gave him a dirty look) and down a hallway. The overhead lights were the lights that you would find in school classrooms and hallways. They flickered in an ominous way, and a few of them were out for good.

At the very end, which was completely dark, was a blackened cherry wood door that hung on hinges that were silver in color. It still retained its calming cherry-like scent.

"This is your new office and," the man began fishing around in his coat pocket, "this is the key to your office," he told him, presenting the key and pushing it into the palm of Severus's hand.

After that was said, the man walked off, leaving Severus there, staring at his back.

'Perhaps I shouldn't've taken the job after all,' he thought to himself.

He put the key into the lock and he heard a faint click as the lock was undone. He opened the door, worried about what he would find inside. Instead, he found himself quite at home with the room decorated in solely ebony black, emerald green and bright silver.

He suddenly turned around, to stare out the open doorway.

'I could've sworn that someone was staring at my back…I'm never wrong about my feelings.'

One long week later

Severus was now calling his first session in his office with the patients on the hallway he was on.

Apparently his office was once the living quarters of one of the patients sitting in the room with him, but he was moved to accommodate Severus.

Snape looked around the room at all the faces that stared at him.

"Who are you?" one of the men spoke, his face contorted into a cruel smile.

Severus mentally rolled his eyes but kept an impassive face plastered on.

"Severus Snape. But you may only call me Dr. Snape, sir, or Mr. Snape."

He looked around the room, investigating the faces that were present. All of them had their attention turned toward him, except for one man. He actually looked quite young, too young, to be in the same group as the rest of the men.

"Why did you come here, Dr. Snape?" another man asked, mimicking the same cruel smile as the first man.

"I needed a job," Severus told him quickly.

Still, he noticed, the young man would not turn and look at him, but remained staring out the window as if all the problems would go away if he stared hard enough at it.

"If you don't mind terribly, I would prefer it if everyone faced me or there fellow group members," Snape commanded, his voice cool, even, and unbroken.

Still the man wouldn't turn around.

Snape closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. So far, this wasn't going as planned.

"Harry doesn't listen to anyone. He's stubborn, he is. Yup, and he don't talk neither. Except in his sleep, when all he can do is scream, cry, and whimper 'I'll be good I promise! I promise I'll be good! N-no! I promise!'!" another man spoke.

This man had tattoos covering both of his arms, was a bit chubby, and very gruff.

'So that's the boy's name. Harry.' He looked down his list of people that he was to counsel. All of there information was there. 'Potter, Harry. I'll have to read more into him. Get his files.'

When Severus looked up, he noticed that Harry had turned around and was staring at him, his eyes clearly holding nothing. Snape nearly gasped when those stunningly emerald green eyes seemed to bore into his, looking into his soul.

Harry scowled and turned to face the man that had informed Severus if Harry's name and some obviously personal information. There was a split second look of pure unadulterated loathing before he turned back to looking outside.

Snape was stunned to see such adult-like emotions in a boy! He was still a boy right? No. Someone who could hold such emotions at this age wasn't a boy anymore, but a man who was stripped of their innocence at a young age.

Severus was sent reeling into his past memories. He recognized Harry's eyes. He had almost the same eyes at his age, though Harry's seem darker, with many more secrets. Many more lies. They were just entirely darker than his had ever been.

"So I want each of you to introduce yourselves to me and your peers," Severus told them trying to seem unnerved. "We'll start with Harry."

Harry's head slowly turned around with the stunning green eyes trained on him, his face betraying nothing, his eyes betraying everything. He then turned his head to stare back outside, in a way that almost said that he really couldn't talk, or he thought he couldn't.

"Harry?" Snape asked, eyebrow lifted, "Why this impertinence?"

Harry grabbed at a pen and paper on his lap that Snape hadn't seen before. He wrote something down quickly and then threw the pad at Snape.

Snape was barely given enough reflexive time to catch the pad before it hit him in the face.

Glancing down he read the page: "You already know my age, and everything else you need to know is in my folder. What have you been doing for the past week Dr. Snape? Playing around in your new office and not reading up on us before the first meeting? You've come unprepared. Not a good habit. I suggest that you do something about it soon. Procrastination can always get people hurt later on in life."

Snape mentally grimaced. The boy was right. He did come unprepared.

"Thank you for the suggestion, Harry," Snape answered coolly.

Harry nearly smirked at the man; instead, the edge of his lips twitched as he gracefully caught his notepad as it came sailing back before setting back down on his lap and turning around to look outside again.

Snape felt his insides quake with anger. What was with this boy?

"Do we have to stay for this meeting? I want to get back to my non-existent life," one of the men asked.

"No," Snape answered curtly, "No. Meeting adjourned. Harry, I would like to see you in my office."