Inner Feelings – Outer Shell
(Dismantle the Heart)
All characters and places you recognize are property of J. and pure product of her imagination, I make no profit of it and am using it only for fan made pour out of my heart.
(Am not native speaker, so please pretty please excuse my mistakes as I know there will be lots of them)
XX
Chapter 1
(with dunderheads, official papers and bothersome tasks)
He absolutely disliked summer holidays. The two weeks he was forced from school to spend somewhere „nice" as Albus always said was total pain. His idea of nice was to be in his private lab down in the dungeons without annoying sunlight and buzzing of various insects and maybe once or twice in the week walking after midnight into the Forbidden Forest to collect some of the interesting plants and mushrooms which sprouted there, cut them to pieces and dry them to restock his own supplies.
But no, same as Albus Dumbledore refused to belive that there could be something better than colourfull socks and gifted them to Severus every birthday and Christmas. He also refused to belive that someone might enjoy spending summer in the lab, working.
No….off course not. So Dumbledore had spent Merlin knows how many hours searching all the documentation provided by various books dealing with Hogwarts and Laws and found one tiny idle line at the far bottom of the smallest scroll signing obviously his sentence of doom.
Well not doom alright but it had sentenced him to two weeks in Spinners End „enjoying" holiday away from school, for as he learned every teacher who was residing in Hogwarts during the whole year and was assigned to regular patrols and, as Dumbledore pointed out, was responsible for teaching more than four hours a week has right to spend at least two weeks during summer vacation out of the school and enjoy recondition holiday…..what a crap.
And so now Severus Snape grudgingly returned to Hogwarts with scowl on his face even more profound and only wish in his heart. To be rid of all human beings in the entire school and have his time of peace and silence in his private lab…well private sanctuary to be more precise.
But as we all know, fate is a sarcastic little devil who thrives from the suffering of others and Severus Snape was no exception. And with this in mind the fate decided to throw this well balanced and composed man into a swirl of events which might leave him to be completely different person. But off course Severus Snape was not aware of this twist of fate. Nor was he aware that current headmaster was now in his round office, behind his polished oaken desk and was intently studying the list of names of all those happy first years the school always provided to him in the middle of the summer holidays.
Not did Severus Snape know that Dumbledore's eyes scanned the list twice to be sure that this year there were more muggleborn students than any other year before and his head had worked hard to figure out how to manage all those house calls usualy done only by Minerva.
It was a strange thing really. Usually sometimes during the third week of holiday his large polished oaken desk in the round headmaster office will be literaly flooded with school papers and somewhere among them will be a long, old looking piece of parchment and in it all the names of new students.
Dumbledore have had no idea who provided him with this list, but thought that maybe the school herself was responsible for tracking all potencial students and writing down their names and whereabouts.
Thirty-seven muggleborn wizards and witches this year. And Albus Dumbledore had to smile. This number was three times bigger than previous year and if the tendency is the same, soon the wizarding world will have to deal better with their prejudices.
He scanned the paper and stopped and counted the available staff to do the meetings. Off course it will be Minerva, also Pomona was quite capable of dealing with muggles. Septima Vector should be back from her holidays next week so he assigned her with some names and pondered about next visits.
Sybila was out of question with her….lets say a little unstable character it was not wise to force her among muggles and to deal with children. Same went for Filius. He was nervous whenever in purely muggle society and Dumbledore was not so sure if he was the right choice to go to someone's house and tell them about magic.
There was also Hagrid…but Hagrid was….too obvious. Not the right choice for visits of utmost importance. It happened quite often that parents of all those magicaly gifted children needed to be a little bit pushed to make a right choice and let their children attend Hogwarts and Dumbledore knew that Hagrid was anything but pushy and certainly not smoothly looking, well respected person.
His eyes once more scanned the paper and fell to the locations where all the new muggleborn students lived. St. Hollow caughed his eye and he instantly remembered the one memorable evening when Severus Snape overdosed one of his potions and in quite cheery mood waltzed into his office telling him loudly and clearly how wonderfull was previous evening in the company of…lets say less socialy bound woman…was her name Tess? He was not sure but since Severus had some experience with the location and many experiences of living among muggles his lips twitched upward a bit and with more sparkles in his eyes than was his sparkling usual wrote down: Severus Snape – Carter Misti – July 26th.
Yes only one visit, but even this would relive his shedule and to be honest with himself, Albus Dumbledore knew it would be extremely difficult to persuade Severus to even do this one visit.
XX
If the fate could grin, but we all know that fate does not have a mouth, it would grin like Cheshire cat or more. Maybe roll on its back and with all four legs sretched towards distant stars would purr in pure bliss of his devious little scheme. But as we also know that fate does not have four legs not even back we have to asume that it only thought devious little happy thoughts and followed with its intent gaze the path of poor Severus Snape as he grudgingly apparated before well guarded Gates of Hogwarts and to be fair towards the fate it did not event splinched him. Because even something like fate does have a nudge for fair play.
XX
Severus Snape dragged himself tiredly through many corridors and staires down into the dungeons and into blisfull silence of his private quarters. He undid the wards and slipped behind the painting of some empty country with only very large and very broken stone bridge connecting two sides of a large ravine.
It was a good feeling to be home, because he never felt like at home when in Spinner's End and to spend the forced holiday somewhere else, as Dumbledore once suggested by the seaside or at some tropical island was something utterly ridiculous. He unbuttoned his dark wooly cloak which he wore even in summer when outside temperatures were at the point of not bearable anymore. Only few people knew about cooling charms which could be sticked to the pieces of clothing and with them making the hot summer hell which was outside from dawn to dusk into pleasant spring mornings.
He never bothered telling this trick to his colleagues and smirking watched them dripping sweat from breakfast to dinner and constantly complaining that their private quarters were hotter than melted chocolade surpise which was available in Honeyducks.
He only threw his things onto the couch and was just reaching out for glass and bottle of Ogden's Firewiskey when the loud cracking of flames made him spun on his heals and face the fireplace.
„Severus, welcome back. Will you be so kind and visit me in my office?" the voice of Albus Dumbledore said from emerald flames and before Severus had time to actually snap back and tell him to stuff it the flames died out and he was forced to march up there and hear probably how wonderfull it had been at the Hawaii beaches or some similar story which was landed onto his ears every year when he returned from his…vacation.
XX
„Ah so good to see you Severus. Lemon drop?" Albus Dumbledore offered him the usual sweets and flashed one of his utterly ridiculous smiles.
„No thank you." Severus only drawled and seated himself in outrageous armchair which played in every possible colour and was…mind you…. stripped.
„How was your summer Severus?" Albus asked and popped one lemon drop into his mouth and conjured two glasses and one bottle of pumpkin juice.
„Acceptable."
„I certainly hope you weren't holled up in your house…."
„Can we please get to the point? I have shedules to prepare." Severus interupted this little chit-chat and pierced his dark eyes into Dumbledore.
„Always in the hurry. Ah well I have a little assignment for you." Dumbledore smiled and pushed officialy looking documents over the table towards his friend.
„What assignment?" Snape asked and eyed the papers.
„This year's attendace of muggleborns into our school seems a little higher and since we don't have that many teachers who are actually able to deal with this matter I've allowed myself to assign you with one house call. All the details are in the papers."
„Pardon me…." Severus stared at the papers as if they might turn into a venomous snake and bite him any minute. „I have to do a pick up? A pick up of some dunderheaded elven year old kid and on top of that explain to him and his family that he is about to attend Hogwarts?" Severus used his most evil of scowls.
„Exactly that is what I am saying." Dumbledore smiled.
„Are you out of you mind?" Snape raised his voice. No this was going right against his wishes. He wanted peace and silence in his lab, to brew some potions, restock his supplies of herbs and maybe restock the school medical supplies of pepper-ups and restorative draughts and then prepare shedules for the next months teaching all those idiots who never wanted to learn anything about potions. He certainly did not want to go to some drag in …. his eyes flashed to the papers and found the location…some drag in St. Hollow and house call anyone.
„I am sorry Severus but there is really no other option, we simply don't have anyone else and Minerva can't do all the house calls alone." Dumbledore replied calmly and started to play with his beard.
„Hmpf." Severus replied, grabbed the papers and without bothering himself with permition walked briskly towards the fireplace, threw inside a handfull of floo powder and with one last sneer disappeared in emerald flames.
And Severus could not probably know that fate in that exact moment almost fainted from it's brilliance and maliciously watched how the events will unfold themselves.