"Oh Harry," Hermione sighs, "you need to concentrate," she laments as the bespectacled boy stares blankly down at the book in front of him. "How do you ever expect to pass if you don't study," she continues crossly, "you can't just sail through life on luck and fame."

Harry grins roguishly at her. "Studying? I thought that's what I had you for," he jokes.

She hits him with one of her books. Hard. "I am not here for you to slack off while I do all the work. You aren't going to learn the material if you don't do the work yourself. Besides, I do not condone cheating," she says primly.

"But you'll look over Ron's work," he mutters.

"That is different. We both know Ron is hopeless when it comes to school. You on the other hand, are just lazy."

She says that statement so firmly, so primly, Harry wants to scream. He bites his lip to prevent any words from coming out. No. No, he is not going there. He never goes there and he isn't going to start now. "Just lay off Mione, I'm having some trouble focusing, that's all."

"You're always having trouble focusing," she replies dryly.

"Short attention span," he shrugs off.

She holds out her hand, "Let's see what you have so far," she commands.

With a sigh, he hands her his essay. He can already hear what she is going to say before she even looks at it. It's always the same.

"Harry," she gasps, "this is atrocious. The spelling alone is bad, but the structure... what you have of it," she shakes her head and begins underlining and making arrows. "It's a good thing I am use to your handwriting, it's terrible. After all these years, I don't understand how you are so bad at this. You're always one of the first to pick up the spells in class. You can repeat something back just fine, but you daydream and you don't take notes and you-"

"Enough," Harry growls interrupting her, "I'm lazy, I get it. I never try hard enough, I'm a horrible student, I can't write an essay worth a damn. Yes. I know. You've told me a thousand times. Well you can stuff your essay and your precious school work, I'm leaving," he says angrily as he packs up and walks out of the library.

He knows Hermione is just trying to help. He knows she's just being a good friend. But she is always on and on about the same things. Sure, it's because he has the same problems, but you would think by now she would come up with something new. He has heard the same thing his entire life. At least she is polite about it. The teachers at his old schools... not so much.

He has always been labeled a trouble child. At the Dursleys, they told everyone he was a thief and a liar. But even if they hadn't, none of the teachers would have liked him. He's always struggled. And not just because of Dudley either. Even when he had time to do his homework, he struggled. Reading and writing were a challenge. He's still not up to level with the rest of his classmates. Not that he'll ever let them know.

He feels as dumb as Crabbe or Goyle some days. At least he can talk correctly. He's better with verbal tests. But when has Hogwarts ever given verbal tests? Try never. So he is going to continue to hear this until he graduates. Then he is finding a job that doesn't include reading. There has to be some of those. Right?

He stomps down to the dungeons, into the formerly empty classroom where he knows his boyfriend will be. As predicted, Draco is sitting at one of the tables, writing diligently. He gives Harry a glance and a smile before returning to his work. Harry sighs and sits across from him.

"Rough day love," Draco drawls.

Harry nods and rests his head on the table. "It's just Mione again," he admits, "I know she's trying to help, but," he sighs again. "Are you almost done?"

"I have to finish Potions and then I wanted to start on my Charms work," he answers.

"Draco," Harry whines, "that's not due till next week."

"And if I start it now, I'll have time for any other work we are assigned prior till then."

"You sound like Mione," Harry complains.

"There's no need to be insulting now. I simply like to plan ahead with my school work. Something you could try, I might add."

"Not you too," Harry grumbles, "This is the reason I left Mione. I don't need another bloody lecture on how I need to focus and apply myself and blah!" he finishes with emphasis. "I'm just so bloody sick of it," he adds.

"Well maybe if you actually tried taking our advice for a change, you wouldn't have to hear it so much," Draco answers, eyebrow raised.

"Shove off Malfoy."

"Malfoy now am I? No need to get prissy Potter, it was only a suggestion."

Harry snarls. "Fine then, I'll leave you to it, shall I?" He gets up and stalks away again.

He wanders the halls, grumbling to himself angrily. He knows they don't mean anything by it. He knows he shouldn't complain. But some days it just gets too much. Everything goes wrong – he can't concentrate, the words don't make sense, the quill doesn't word right. And when that happens, the last thing he needs to hear is that he just needs to apply himself.

All he hears is how stupid he is.

He has had enough of that at the Dursleys, thank you very much. They never had a good word to say to him. Not that he expected them to. They hated him. They always have. He will always be their freak nephew. He is sure that if he was ever actually any good in school, he wouldn't be allowed to be. Heaven forbid he be better than the 'perfect little Diddykins'.

Right.

As his luck would have it, since he isn't paying attention to where he is going, he runs right into someone. Bloody hell. "Sorry," he apologizes, "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"That is painfully obvious," a voice drawls.

Snape. Shite. He is the last person Harry wants to see right now. The last person he wants to see ever. Nothing like adding Snape to top off his day. He will make everything so much better. "Sorry Sir," he repeats and hopes the man will let him go with a simple loss of points.

"And here I thought I was going to have to search for someone to categorize my ingredients. How fortunate. This way Potter."

No such luck. He sighs, but follows the Potions Master to the classroom. "Count how many porcupine needles are here," he hands Harry a jar. Harry sighs and carefully pours the needles on the table. Carefully he counts each one, separating them into piles of tens. "One, two, three, four..." he counts under his breath. He can feel Snape's eyes on him.

He glances over and sees that his Professor is slicing some kind of herb. Looking closer, he realizes it's sage. The cuts are smooth and precise. His hands are steady as he puts the herbs in place and cuts them with his knife. Snape has graceful hands. He's always thought so, even when he's being a complete bastard.

Snape looks up at him and Harry quickly looks back down, going back to counting. "One, two, three..."

"Incidentally Mr Potter, I was not the only one looking for you," Snape tells him, "My godson was also trying to locate you. According to him, you stormed off in a huff shortly before."

Harry doesn't say anything.

"He also made mention that the subject of your argument was school work."

He grits his teeth. This is the part where Snape berates his intelligence and calls him a rotten student and a waste of space. A lazy bum just like his Father. But he doesn't, much to Harry's surprise.

Instead, he asks, "Tell me, what are the properties of sage?"

"What?"

Snape rolls his eyes. "I do not believe you were deaf. Answer the question."

Completely bewildered, Harry says, "It's used for... digestive problems like an upset stomach, diarrhea, things like that."

"Good, now what are the properties of ashworm?"

Harry looks down at the needles he should be counting, thinking. He knows Snape had said something about that earlier this week... Absently he spins a needle around. Oh! Right. Acid. "They are able to soak up acid and other harmful chemicals."

"And so what potion would you use both for?"

"Umm... stomach soother or... heartburn?"

"Very good," Snape says and Harry is about blown away. Snape just gave him a compliment? The world must be coming to an end or something.

"Now tell me five potions that require the combination of sage and ashworm and the reasons why."

...And now Harry gets it. This is a test. Bastard. But he can do this. He can show the Potions Master what he is talking about. Slowly, carefully, he lays out the different potions he thinks would use the two. Some are obvious, like the two he just mentioned. But others he has to think about. When he is done, he looks up to see a smirk on Snape's face. Oh no.

But once again, there is another surprise waiting for him. "Very well, I believe you have earned an E on the next essay topic."

Harry blinks at the man. What?

"That was a well thought out analysis, with sound reasoning and good structure. Much different from your written essays."

Harry looks down.

"Now tell me Mr Potter, why is that?"

Harry shakes his head.

"I require a verbal answer."

"Because I'm stupid."

"No, I have just proven that you are not."

"Because I'm lazy."

"No. While I have accused you of being so in the past, that isn't the case, is it?"

Harry bites his lip.

"An answer Mr Potter. Now."

"It is because I'm stupid!" he blurts out, "I have trouble reading. The letters aren't in the order they should be, sometimes they move around, they make no sense. And writing, don't even get me started on writing! It was bad enough with a pen. But with a quill? It's bloody well impossible. I know my handwriting is shite, but it's always been like that. I'm just dumb, that's all," he finishes with a shrug. He refuses to look up. Snape can't be happy with his outburst.

He hears footsteps and hands appear on the table in front of him. He flinches, waiting for Snape to lay into him. "Tell me Mr Potter, have you ever heard of dyslexia?"

I'm ending this here because I have no clue where I am going with this. I mean, obviously Snape is going to help Harry, but... This is just one of those things that just kind of happened. No planning went into this whatsoever. Plus, I know shit about dyslexia. I did some research, but I'm still not comfortable enough with the subject to try and write more on it. Here's the main site I used for said research:
www. dyslexia. com(e) /about-dyslexia/signs-of-dyslexia/test-for-dyslexia-37-signs/ [obviously take out the spaces and the e. because that was the only way I could write com and have it stay)

Also, I'm not saying Harry is dyslexic, but who knows? Maybe Harry is dyslexic.