The Lesser Good

Far From The Tree

1990.

The large oak tree shuddered and shred what little leaves it still greedily held onto as Professor Severus Snape apparated directly into the side of it.

With a short yelp of pain he swiftly administered a retributive punch into the bark, which did quite the opposite of alleviating his displeasure... now he also had a bloodied gash along his knuckles to contend with. Not even bothering to cast a healing spell over his dripping hand, he stumbled back up into the castle's grounds with the sole intention of going to bed and obtaining an immediate, dreamless sleep with a Calming Draught. Or a sledgehammer to the head. Either or.

Hogwarts castle was all but deserted on this cold midnight, as was to be expected. Snape easily managed to reach his quarters without detection. He flung open the door to his chamber and swiftly picked up the already waiting Calming Draught on his sitting room table with one swift movement. He swigged the entire goblet and flung it angrily to the ground as he reached the second doorway to his bedroom - only just barely bothering to rip off his travelling cloak before collapsing, fully clothed, upon his bed.

He woke up the next morning feeling like his father. It was almost enough to push him over the edge.

"You know this is enough to push me over the edge."

"But it won't…"

Dumbledore's slapdash optimism (or was it nonchalance?) had always made Snape's skin crawl with prickly irritation.

"Do not presume to tell me what will and will not push me over the edge. You haven't been traversing all over the country looking for signs of upheaval," Snape snapped across from the Headmasters desk the following evening. "I could barely walk the distance from the apparation point to my chambers last night. The ache was unbearable."

"Perhaps you should visit the hospital wing? A young man in his prime such as yourself should not be having the arthritic pains of an old coot such as myself," Dumbledore said with an affectionate chuckle. Snape folded his arms and gave a look so dark that he could very well have just summoned over their heads his own portable storm cloud.

"That is not funny."

"If you can't laugh at these things, Severus, what can you do? What can you do?" Dumbledore repeated the second part of his sentence in the most serious tone Snape had heard since their meeting had begun. The two men sat in respectful silence for at least a minute… the elder sipping a cup of lemon tea and the younger glaring at the wall, wishing he'd finish the damn thing so that they could have a proper discussion.

"If this is my prime…" Snape mused out loud. He had to say these things to someone – he would have gone mad long ago if Dumbledore hadn't been there to be his verbal punching bag; he would not dare to lower his guard to anyone in the whole world bar the crazy old Headmaster.

"You should be proud of what you are doing for the Wizarding world; if it is your 'prime' that you sacrifice – it is for the greater good."

Snape was truly infuriated now.

"'Greater good'! What is this greater good you constantly speak of? There has been no major dark wizard activity ever since You Know Who… ever since I turned spy for you," Snape stumbled on those words – the memory still too painful after all these years. "My impact on the Wizarding world is nought. There is absolutely no point visiting key wizarding haunts every week and merely waiting for something to happen – it is something I do not need, nor is it something you need. I shall have no further part in it unless you order me to perform something constructive and useful."

"It is constructive and useful, Severus, though you may not think so. Do you not think preventative measures are preferable over aggressive ones?"

"Of course. However-"

"However nothing," Dumbledore said with a knowing glint in his eye. "I am sure that you know what happens next year don't you?"

How could I bloody forget?

Dumbledore seemed to catch on to his thoughts as he nodded without further explanation. He had won, as he always did, and he knew that Snape knew it. It could not have been any other way… Snape's entire life had revolved around virtual slavery to others; he took endless orders from Dumbledore, did everything he had ever demanded of him, brewed whatever Potions were required for the hospital wing, in preceding years he had done everything the Dark Lord had demanded, he had remained at that God-forsaken Spinners End for decades too long to ensure that his mother didn't commit suicide while within the depths of her manic depression – a condition he could never afford to be afflicted with – and to make certain that Tobias's habitual explosions were targeted upon he himself, and not her… all of this, naturally, perpetually unappreciated by all parties.

Dumbledore had won. Like everyone else. That didn't make the aches all over Snape's body the least better at all, though.

"You are not like your father, Severus."

Snape leaned slowly back in his chair and absent-mindedly popped a lemon sherbet in his mouth – wishing immediately after that he hadn't… the sickly, fizzing sugariness of the damn thing nearly burned his oesophagus away.

"I am spending my life being a worthless, pathetic waste of space. I think that you will find that counters your estimation rather suitably."

Dumbledore shook his head in apparent amazement. "My boy, if that is the way that you force yourself to feel then it is so."

It wasn't exactly the reassurance that Snape was looking for, but then again he shouldn't, and nor did he want to, expect anything else from the Headmaster; arse-kissing sycophants were not held in high esteem by Severus Snape. He crunched down the rest of the offensive sweet in an agonising fashion and pushed the chair out from the desk.

"I shall see you tomorrow at breakfast, Headmaster."

"Very well, my boy. Perhaps you should go to the hospital wing while you're up. These pains don't sound at all fitting even for me, not to mention a thirty year old."

"I am quite capable of taking care of myself, I have done so all my life." Besides, let us not make an even stronger similarity between Tobias and myself through developing various chemical dependencies. The nightly Draught of Peace is bad enough. Snape thought bitterly. He left the Headmasters office without another word.