A/N: This is a sequel to my other story, What it Is. I strongly recommend that you read that first, though its just a bit vague and confusing regardless. Oh...SORRY. I didn't mean vague and confusing. I meant ~magical~. And this is a bit rushed, I admit it, but it's been sitting around for a long time and I wanted to finish it so I could stop thinking about how it was unfinished. So, here you go. Enjoy, all who read.
A Horrid Man
The students are gone. The castle is empty save for the staff that remains: his old professors, the ones that, as a boy, Severus always suspected never had lives outside of school. There are many things you can say about that pathetic little creature from years past, but a lacking in the art of intuition? Not one of them. He didn't have a girl's penchant, mind you. He wasn't Lil…her. He wasn't her. But he'd been a sensitive, if cynical boy, flayed inch by inch of both skin, which never grew into its potential thickness, and a child's optimism, which Severus can never even remember having.
Hence, here he is, standing over the gently simmering beginnings of a calming draught while Minerva McGonagall thinks herself quite sly in feline form, paws planted at the laboratory's threshold, silently regarding him with luminous eyes.
He's been ignoring her for minutes now, the old bag, but it begins to grate on him, this act of being observed without his express permission, so he says in a cool, mocking tone, "Why, what is this? A mangy old puss creeping at my door?"
Predictable old McGonagall does exactly what Severus knew she would do: she springs to human form, crosses her arms, and says, "You need a smacking, Severus Snape."
Severus smirks. "Are we not peers now?"
"We are colleagues."
"The point remains that I am no longer your student, and the headmaster and the ministry threw out such bestial punishments…what? Roughly fifteen years ago, I believe. Thus, I am led to ask just what is this barbaric and illegal threat you loose on me when it is you invading my personal space?"
She doesn't flinch or fluster. She never has. The old lioness has a face of stone that never crumbles. "I want to know, Severus," she says, her voice as crisp and as terse as it ever was, "just what it is you think you have been doing."
Severus arches a talented brow and gives her a moment to expound upon her demand. She, of course, in the most petulant of Gryffindor fashions, chooses instead to ignore his patience and his courtesy. So, he says:
"Why, Minerva, I'm going to have to assume that you are inquiring about my productivity. I was unaware that although I am not a student, but a professor, and although the school in which I teach has let out for the summer holidays, that I was still obliged to report to the deputy headmistress that I have, indeed, performed some individually-mandated chores today. As you can see, I am in the process of brewing a calming draught for Pomfrey, annoying battle ax that she is. Furthermore, this morning I did, indeed, bathe. I know this is a shock to you, given that your little lions are always muttering disparaging remarks about my personal hygiene and I know they must have learned it from somewhere, but I persist. Teeth? Also brushed. And shortly, I think I will have myself a nice lie-down, as I'm aware that you're presently thinking that my temper is far too short for such a…pretty," he spits the word, "afternoon."
McGonagall looks bored, the bloody fleabag. She's practically yawning, for Merlin's sake.
"Are you quite done with your little tantrum?" she asks, though she waves her hand as if swatting away a particularly annoying fly when he opens his mouth to respond. "What I was referring to, young man, is just what is it you think you are doing with Harry Potter?"
It is cold, this thing in Severus's chest that is slithering snake-like to the bottoms of his feet.
His face remains impassive. He says, "I know not of what you speak, Minerva."
And neither does she, he thinks. Because she couldn't. She couldn't know of the sunless days, of the park and the breeze and the swing, of how empty it is, how dark, how it just happens and how he just…goes. Severus just goes, his feet moving him to Hogsmeade and then there is the pop, the crack and he is there. He is in Surrey under a grey sky, and the children's playthings just creak in loneliness and abandon and he waits, but never for long, and the boy comes.
It is instinct, or it is madness. Either way, Severus has come to the conclusion that not all magic can be summed up in terms of exact science. He has tried to figure it out, to make the connections, to find those energies that link him and the boy, the weather and the empty park, but there is no sense. It is like illness. It is like when he, himself, was a boy, fragile and sleep-deprived, walking in his dreams, waking in his nightmares.
"Don't you lie to me, Severus," McGonagall snaps. "Arabella Figg saw you."
A derisive snort. "That squib has the sight of star-nosed mole." Then, feeling uncharacteristically charitable, "Although I am sure she thinks she saw me."
McGonagall juts her jaw, all the more stern, all the more rigid, into the air. "There are times, Mr. Snape, when we know not where you are. It has happened during the school year. You have not been in your potions lab, you have not been in your quarters, and you have not told anyone that you are leaving."
"Your point, Minerva? Just because you are incapable of finding me, does not mean that I am in the presence of that abominable brat." His bristle is belated, but it comes, and he regards her from an imperious height, "And it is Professor Snape. For the last fucking time, I am no longer a student, nor am I child. When will the lot of you get it through your bloody skulls?"
She simply stares at him. Is she trying to be intimidating? he wonders, fixing his eyes to her intent gaze. How futile of her! For he is no longer a child to be tyrannized by the adults in his life. Severus Snape stood in front of the most cruel and maniacal wizard in modern history, his tongue dripping with lies that sounded as smooth and pure as water. He faced that wizard's even more powerful opponent, spilling the truths of his atrocities, shamefaced and trembling, but still standing, always standing - Severus won't be overpowered by power, or war, or anyone but Severus himself. Thus, for the deputy headmistress to possess the gall to presume she has any kind of remaining authority over him pertaining to his personal behavior or actions is simply laughable-
Soap. In his mouth. Severus chokes and splutters.
"What…you…McGonagall!" he spits, sudsy saliva flying from his mouth to the stone floor of the dungeon. But it does little. It's disgusting and overpowering, this degrading spell, and he gags, and his eyes become wet and he blinks, tries to control them, but they are willful things, these tears spawned by the physical abuses of depraved cats.
"Whatever it is you are or are not," McGonagall says evenly, watching him as he spits the remaining soap out into the nearest washbasin, "you will mind your mouth around me, Severus Snape. I hope that this has been made abundantly clear to you, as I think we both know I will not hesitate again."
Severus rinses out his mouth, and glares at her in a way he hopes is not overtly sullen.
"As to what you've been doing," the old witch continues, "you should be aware that in the event that you have, indeed, been visiting Harry Potter, the headmaster and myself will be most displeased. You have no business doing so. It is counteractive to the boy's present well-being, and his future relations here at school, and your own position, Severus, if…" she trails off, and her eyes go to a dark place for a moment. Severus knows what she was going to say.
If He returns.
The thought sends ghostly little feet climbing up his spine, and it's all he can do not to shudder.
McGonagall clears her throat, and regains her momentum. "If it comes to pass that you are not only visiting, but tormenting the child—"
"You think so little of me?" Severus interrupts, and to his surprise, feels a pang of hurt in his chest region. He is in the midst of hoping it did not show on his face when he sees McGonagall's hard lines soften considerably. The reflex is instant. "I have better things to do with my time than torture spoilt six-year-olds, you old cow."
The cat's lips go thinner than thin. "You know very well it is hard not to have some anxiety, considering the…combative relationship you had with the boy's father."
"Hard?" Severus scoffs. "It is hard for you to think me above stalking a child? Perhaps you spend too much time thinking of me, Minerva, if these are the worries you've concocted for yourself."
The witch harrumphs. "The headmaster and myself—"
"Are childless old fools with apparently nothing better to do than nitpick at me while the actual children are on holiday. I am twenty-seven years old and I no longer need to be accused, lectured, or Merlin help me, disciplined by the likes of either of you so please mind your own bloody business and leave me alone."
She takes no heed of his command. "Harry Potter—"
"Is with his relatives, just where Dumbledore left him. I have nothing to do with that little miscreant , and it is absurd of you to come barging into my space and repeatedly accuse me of such foul transgressions! I am done with this conversation. Out with you."
She needs not open her mouth for the last word, for the warning look she gives him is lasting, remaining long after she is out the door, and out the dungeons.
It is only days later – four, to be exact – that Severus feels a twinge of something in his gut. He's carefully bottling potions when it hits, the desire for mist against his skin, dark ryegrass beneath his feet. A small boy with green eyes standing at his toes.
He takes as much time as his legs will allow him to self-evaluate, for Harry Potter is not Lily Evans. Harry Potter should not evoke some sentimental fantasy of being nine years old and one of the two people in the only world that matters. Because Severus's world was small back then, before Hogwarts, before he could think of any kind of blood as impure, before old men with big power had him entwined in their fingers, before Marauders and their fiendish tricks, before puberty with its stupid hormones and stupid feelings and its control over his mouth, which said devastating things.
After she came, but before she went, and now she's all gone. It's all gone.
All except Harry.
Self-evaluation over, his legs begin to move him.
The boy does not come.
The playground is here, empty and desolate and creaking in the wind, but the boy does not come. This is the first time; this is the very first time.
The panic that grips Severus is too severe to be overridden by the humiliation that comes with the knowledge that he is, indeed, panicking over a Potter. He waits only minutes more before casting a charm over his robes and heading to Privet Drive.
Number four appears cheerful and well-kept even as the rain begins to fall. The sight of it causes the ends of the potions master's lips to dig down towards his chin, for cheerful houses with sad little boys on the inside are senseless and cruel by nature. Not that Severus's childhood home ever appeared as such, but he's gained a sense of it, this distrust of innocent aesthetics. Like those horrid things Lily used to be afraid of…clowns. Men and women dressed in silly clothes and nonsensical makeup acting in ridiculous fashions in order to emit laughter from children.
But they were terrifying and sinister, and why couldn't people see?
Severus saw. He learned to fear clowns because Lily feared clowns. There was no sense in trying to play devil's advocate over the matter because she was probably right to distrust the very notion of them, to feel that tingle at the top of her spine at the very sight of a suit of clashing color, or a rainbow-hued wig of curls, or that blasted fucking red honking nose or-
"You won't be going anywhere until the weeds are out of that garden!" A shrill voice comes from the back of the house, and there's a tingle at the top of Severus's spine because who would Petunia be yelling such words at if not Harry?
"But I have to go now, Auntie! I'll be late for…" Harry's voice isn't so much a whine as a plea. As if life depends on whatever engagement he has sorted out for the nearest future. He catches himself at the end, though, trails off and Severus can practically hear the dread in the silence.
The wizard edges around the house, peers around the brick to see Harry standing next to the flower garden, which is now flowers and mud, swimming in clothes that are fast becoming drenched. Petunia is out of his field of vision, clearly standing warm and dry inside, at the open door from which she shrieks at the boy.
Tuney would, Severus thinks in disgust.
"Late for what?" Petunia's voice lowers and quiets, sounding impressively dangerous as it simultaneously manages to be louder than the pelting of rain against various surfaces of ground. "Late for who?"
"No one, Auntie," Harry lies softly. "I just wanted t'go play."
"Late for who?" Petunia demands again, and then she's stomping out of the house in heels and a pristine dress, grabbing Harry – Harry! – by that atrocious mop of hair and shaking the obnoxious little imp.
The boy, Severus immediately rectifies, as Harry takes the abuse in silence. The six-year-old boy with his mother's eyes.
"What are you doing, you nasty child? Are you lending yourself out?"
A magical child, Severus silently corrects. A special child. Opens flowers in his hands, just like his mother used to.
"I don' know what that means, Auntie." And Severus can hear the tears welling in the boy's eyes. "You're hurtin' me."
"Late for who?" This time Petunia's voice is like a whip cutting through the earth, and she flings the small child into the mud. Harry cries out as he lands, sobs as he lies before her drenched in filth. And Petunia's coming forward, stepping forward, towards this child who is too small, too broken to fight back-
"Late for me," Severus interjects smoothly, though inside he is screaming cruel things at himself regarding his own stupidity and what in the bloody hell does he think he is, anyway, a Gryffindor? Regardless, he steps into view, entering through the back gate without so much as a glance for permission.
Petunia's jaw drops at the sight of him.
"Y-YOU!" she manages in a cold and disgusted fury. Harry, on the other hand, looks overjoyed at the sight of him, Severus notices with a twinge of dread. And something else, something that is both light and heavy at the same time. Something oxymoronic. He's not sure he likes it, not sure at all.
"Yes, me," he replies dryly. "Didn't we just cover this? Now are you quite done proving yourself to be an abusive guardian?"
"How dare you!" Petunia shouts, jabbing the air in Severus's direction with a skinny finger. "It's you who's done this! He's been getting all freaky lately because he's been sneaking off to see you, you horrid boy!"
"My name is Severus," Severus retorts crossly. And, as he is quite finished with people treating him like a child, adds, "And I am no longer a horrid boy, Petunia. I am now a horrid man."
A nervous giggle escapes Harry. Severus looks to him, bewildered, before quickly clearing his throat and addressing the horse-faced wretch once more, "The boy and I will be going now."
Merlin's pants, what am I saying? Perhaps she will refuse. Or the boy, surely…
"We will?" Harry asks, as if he dares not to hope for such a happy ending. Severus would vomit if he could, but he can barely move except to nod, his body moving of its own volition, the same odd motivations that brought him here, brought him to Harry, in the first place.
Tuney, then. Petunia would never allow-
"Good, take him," Petunia spits. "We hate that wretched little monster and we miss our cupboard. Good storage space, that." And she stomps back into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.
Harry looks as if he's going to cry. His lip is trembling, but then Severus is there – how did I get here ? – and kneeling down, and picking the child up, whispering a spell to charm the dirt away.
"P'fessor?"
He is cold, this boy, and shivering in Severus's arms.
Severus responds with a warming spell. Harry sighs happily and tucks his nose into the wizard's neck.
"Are you really going to keep me?"
Severus thinks, No.
Severus says, "Yes. But you are to explain to the deputy headmistress that it was all your idea, and that you think I am extremely personable and not at all horrid."
Harry's legs wind around the wizard's waist, and the weight is warm and beautiful and pure, not at all falsely innocent.
"Not today, anyway," Harry mumbles, as Severus walks him away from Privet Drive, and to their playground, where the rain stops and the mist settles, and grass is dark beneath his feet. Where it all started this time around.
"Hold on tight," Severus orders, and the boy does, doesn't even ask. Just does.
The resounding crack of apparition startles a few stray birds, but not Harry. And they are gone.