That night, he set the Brat the task of chopping half keg of flobberworms. As before, Potter didn't complain or even look put out by the request, just went right to work. Severus watched as the boy's confidence grew at the task after a few mistarts. It was obvious he had never touched a flobberworm before, but just as obviously, he knew his way around a knife. The first was unsurprising, the latter . . .
As Potter cut one flobberworm lengthwise, then turned it to dice smoothly up the length, Severus stepped up behind him. "Were you a chef in another life?"
Potter's shoulders twitched, but his knife did not pause. "Something like that, sir."
"Explain."
Severus did not mistake the tightening of the boy's grip on the knife, and the way his shoulders were now hitched a bit higher. There was a long pause, in which Severus had to keep a firm hold on his temper, but he knew the boy was gathering his courage, and so he waited. He was rewarded with, "I cooked. For them, from when I was little."
"This would be the same them who starved you."
"I wasn't starved." The knife came down hard on a poor, unsuspecting flobberworm and reduced it to mush.
"Ah."
"I wasn't. Sir." The boy took the few moments of Severus' silence to recapture his equilibrium and quiet his breaths. But there were still spots of color on the boy's cheeks, and the knife was held too tightly for fine work. "Why'd you have to go and say that in front of Malfoy anyway?"
Severus smiled to himself. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"You told him I was injured. You told him I needed to be put back together. Now he knows stuff he that, that he has no right to!"
"I did no such thing."
"Well, you yelled it in front of him. Same difference."
"Mr. Potter. I do not appreciate your tone of voice."
Another twitch, and the shoulders hitched higher. Then a soft, "I'm sorry, sir."
Severus stared at the boy's back for several long minutes, letting the boy get his breathing under control again. Then, in an equally quiet voice, he said, "Draco Malfoy will use any weapons at his disposal in his interactions with others. You would do well to remember that, and that I did not play favorites."
The silence went on far longer this time, and the boy's shoulders relaxed, only to twitch again as Severus moved back a few paces. His startle reflex was rather well honed, for someone who was only terrorized at school as he claimed. There was quite a lot more to this situation, and Severus planned to get to the bottom of it.
Despite his careful scrutiny, and what he thought the silence meant, he was very surprised when the Brat said, almost too quietly to hear, "But I wouldn't use a weapon like that against him."
Severus took a moment to recover from this admission, then sneered at the Brat Who Lived to Confound Expectations. "Then he will always have you at a disadvantage, Potter."
When the boy sighed and made as if to turn around at last, Severus growled, "Get to work! Those flobberworms won't cut themselves."
Later, he had to admit – though he was sorely tempted not to – that he hadn't seen worms diced so well by a student in years.