Snape Meets With The Montagues, Part I

I don't think it's overstating matters to say I know pretty much everything that goes on around here. I just choose not to do anything about it most of the time. It's a bit annoying, knowing that the students think they're fooling me a lot more than they really do, but not half so annoying as spending all my evenings and weekends in detention with them.

Idly I cast a charm to dust the thumb manacles suspended high over my desk. They originally belonged to Professor Montague, the former Arithmancy professor, and great-grandfather to our current Quidditch captain. When Professor Montague retired, Filch wanted those thumb manacles with a desperation bordering on mania. But Albus thought I would be less likely to mis-use them (and made a point of saying so, twinkling with all his might, to make sure I understood). And besides, I'm hardly going to lose a battle of wills against a Squib.

I remember like yesterday old Montague standing beside me in front of this desk, glaring down at me as if I were still a student. Though he was nearly blind, his glare was still formidable. "How are you going to command any authority?" he demanded, sneering down at me skeptically. "A scrawny little man like you?"

"I'm sure Severus will have no difficulties," said Horace from behind the desk, where he was pulling out various drawers and removing bags of sweets and dusty Potions bottles well past their "best before" dates. He had paused in clearing out the desk to stare at my left arm. Realising I'd caught him, he quickly looked away to levitate another sack of crystallised pineapple to the desk top. "I've already told him if he has any difficulties with discipline, he can talk to you."

Looking back at Professor Montague, I thought indignantly, I'm only little to someone half the size of a mountain troll. But even at the age of twenty-three, I was long experienced at hiding my emotions, and spoke mildly. "Professor Flitwick gets all sorts of respect," I reminded him. "I'm three times as tall as he is, at least."

"Professor Flitwick is in charge of the willowy intellectuals," he said distainfully. "People who brawl over books in the library. Give each other nasty papercuts. The students in Slytherin require...a firmer hand." He slowly folded his arms, drawing attention to his own enormous hands, and peered at me more closely. "Look at you. I could snap your neck like a twig."

"Probably," I conceded politely. "Assuming your hand got that close to my neck. More likely, if it did, you'd be taking the bones in that hand to the hospital wing as if it were a glove full of pebbles. Assuming it's still attached." I smiled ingratiatingly, so that he would know that I was joking, of course.

"Now gentlemen, there's no need for such talk," said Horace, his voice timorous. "We are all allies here."

Continuing to ignore Horace, Montague smirked at me and shook my hand. I didn't wince visibly. "You seem to have the appropriate skills for the job. Though I must say, a half-blood in charge of Slytherin will have old Salazar spinning in his grave."

Young Montague inherited all of his ancestor's thugish brutality and great hulking size, and none of his brains. And now, what few brains he has left seem to be scrambled. Yesterday, he walked into the Great Hall for lunch, or more accurately, he danced, conjuring flowers and casting them randomly at any girls coming within range. Later in the day, I received an owl from Mr and Mrs Montague saying that the Malfoys had informed them that their son was behaving erratically (thanks again, Draco). In no uncertain terms they said they were coming to see me as soon as they could get away.

The Montagues were due at any moment, and I had the thumb manacles polished to a high gleam. I positioned them such that the meagre and indirect light from my one window illuminates them. In the evenings, a couple of well-placed torches keeps them conspicuously gleaming. They conveniently dangle menacingly over students' heads before I sentence them to, say, four hours of evicerating cockroaches.

But now, thanks to Umbridge, my true philosophy of appropriate punishment is in danger of being exposed. Just the other day, I heard one Ravenclaw prefect whisper to another, "Did you notice, Snape never tortures students in detention?" The other one replied, "Of course not, Dumbledore doesn't let him. Dolores works for the Ministry, and not Dumbledore." The first one retorted, "Dumbledore's gone, isn't he??"

Soon, the whole school will know. I could explain to Umbridge that corporal punishment just makes young people angry, bitter, defiant, sarcastic, and incapable of trusting anyone, but the students in my house will just think I'm spineless. And on top of the fact that everybody now knows I'm definitely not a vampire, the students in other houses will fear me less. Eventually, some of them may even start to like me. And if they like me, they'll be coming to me with their problems. I can see it now: instead of evenings spent peacefully sipping tea and marking essays or catching up on my reading while a couple of terrified first years alphabetise my potions' ingredients with quietly shaking hands, I'll be serving my tea to teenagers asking advice on matters I couldn't handle during my own adolescence.

In short, that Umbridge woman is making me look soft.

I could just go blind and deaf until the end of term, noticing only smaller crimes that warrant the usual detentions I have always meted out, and blaming anything retroactive on the Weasley twins. Their sudden departure has paved the way for all sorts of convenient scapegoating.

Take this incident with young Montague, for instance. Happily enough, the Weasley twins are actually to blame for this. All the Gryffindor students have been discussing it quite blatantly amongst themselves. I even heard Miss Granger agonising over telling me what happened so that Montague could receive "the proper treatment." I toyed with the idea of telling her I knew what happened, and that his condition was proving stubbornly resistant to Madame Pomfrey's best efforts. But better to let that pompous little know-it-all suffer a little from the consequences of her self-importance. Maybe it would help her get over that silly obsession with house-elves.

A knock at my door drove these musings from my head. I showed Mr and Mrs Montague into my office.