I
When the dust settled after the downfall of Voldemort many people found themselves to be in rather odd and awkward positions. This meant that, particularly among the purebloods, there was a scramble to marry off children and secure assets before anyone could accuse families of supporting Voldemort. In the ensuing chaos many members of respectable half-blood families found themselves being welcomed with open arms into the ranks of families that had previously rejected offers of betrothal from their sons and daughters.
In light of what is noted above it is unsurprising that when Severus Snape joined the Hogwarts teaching staff little more than five years after he had left its halls as a graduating student, amidst the rumors he had been a Death Eater and still practiced the Dark Arts, there was some talk of him choosing a wife from the older students still within its walls. If the gossips had known what they speculated was anywhere near the truth they might have put money on one girl or another.
Many looked at the beauties and saw a wife they thought they wanted and therefore one Snape would want. Others picked his intelligence and looked for students with a mind to match his or ones that shared his love and skill at potions. Others still believed the rumors about Snape's involvement with the Death Eaters and took him to be a power hungry fool who would chose a wife from the ranks of the most powerful purebloods. No one, however, would have put a Knut on Alexandra Wilkinson.
It is not that Alexandra would have made a bad wife, or that she was so totally unlike Snape as to make their union tense and fraught with conflict; it was merely how overwhelmingly shy she was. No-one knew she was pureblood or that her family was every bit as prestigious as the Blacks or the Malfoys, no-one guessed her crippling timidity prevented her from sharing her love of learning with her friends or her teachers, no-one guessed that behind her tip-toeing exterior lay a will of steel and the pure-blood backbone that had given some the strength to stand against Voldemort and others the power-hunger to join him. They saw what they were meant to see and that was perhaps best for both Alexandra and Snape himself.
***
"Oiy! Zandra! ZANDRA!!" the seventeen-year-old male was leaning over the banister of the first floor staircase and yelling rather ineffectually into the throng of students leaving the Great Hall. The girl he was hailing didn't react visibly but she did change her course, heading for the nearest classroom rather than her common room deep in the bowls of the castle.
He slipped in a moment later and the pair embraced quickly, the comforting hug of close friends long separated. "Your voice finally broke Donny, maybe now you'll be a real man." She said when they released, her voice slightly above its normal whisper, showing her ease. There was pause and she turned away, tears welling in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Donny, I hate relying on you all the time, you must be sick of my turning to you with my problems and using you as a shoulder to cry on…"
"Easy, easy. That's more like talk for lovers than friends and you're not my type remember?" He flashed a clearly manufactured smile, showing perfect white teeth. Though his words and voice was teasing his face showed nothing but concern for his friend. "Slughorn?" He asked with a sigh. "You didn't want him to leave." She shook her head, despondent.
"I didn't want him to be replaced. He understood me, he was like me; he hated the limelight but still liked to be in on the action. Professor Snape is..."
"Less understanding, less kind, less likely to be sympathetic, scary, stupid, cruel, mean..." Donny rattled off the list with remarkable ease. That is, until Alexandra gave him a playful shove and he somersaulted over a desk, landing on his feet. He laughed, carefree and she joined in, echoing his laughter with her empty alternative. He winked. "Chin up, doll face," he whispered the remnants of his American accent, strengthened by his time there over the holidays, returning full-force for the typically American phrase. He kissed her swiftly on each cheek and bowed his way out the door, blowing a final kiss as it his head disappeared behind it. She smiled and slid off the desk running after Donny into an empty hall.
She sighed and turned towards the dungeon stairwell that lead to her common room, the after-feast crowds had dispersed and Alex realised with a sinking feeling she ought to be in bed. She raced down the dungeon stairs two at a time. Not for a minute did she believe what Donny had said about Professor Snape but she still wanted to make a reasonable impression, one that wouldn't cause him to think her slow or hate her for her stammering, near inaudible voice.
She rounded a corner and smacked into a wall of Slytherin male. She stepped back to behold the sixth-year Malcolm Davies. Aside from being almost as wide as the corridor itself and just as thick he held a personal grudge against Alex because she had dropped out of her seeker spot on his Quidditch team after he refused to allow her (or any girl) to try out for the more dangerous beating position. She groaned and dove away from the punch he threw at her.
She tried to dodge past him into the corridor behind but he turned with surprisingly fast reflexes and knocked the breath from her lungs with a punch in the gut. Winded she backed away, hissing a hex from clenched teeth. He gawped at her with a brainless smile. She blinked; clearly that was the wrong spell. He shook his head out, removing the effects of the spell, whatever it was. He lunged at her and the world slowed, Imperio-No... Desperation supplied the spell and before it could be stopped her wand reacted. Being quiet, non-verbal spells were easy for her and to even think an incantation was dangerous.
Davies stopped dead. Before his face had shown little intelligence and primal anger was the only emotion visible; now his face was blank with no sign of any intelligence. As the power flooded through her she felt elated: confident, even.
"Davies?" Two Slytherin boys peered round Davies bulk to see Alex standing tall, if unsure, idly turning her ebony wand over in her pale hands. "What're you doing with the Wilkinson chav?"
Alex snarled, enraged. Get them. She thought at Davies, smiling to see her every order obeyed, as he turned on his friends with the ruthless brutality otherwise reserved for Gryffindors. Even as she rejoiced to see Davies and his cronies take a beating from each other a part of her rejected the cruel-mindedness that came with the use of an Unforgivable Curse.
There was her family to consider as well. Despite knowing her family had been in Voldemort's inner circle, what atrocities they had done in the name of purging the Wizarding world of scum, she had never once considered turning them in. Given the multitude of dark magic she herself knew (not just the Unforgivables but other similar spells and potions.) it seemed foolish to turn in her own family some of whom where more hapless and innocent than she herself.
She backed against the wall elbowing someone in the side as she did so, and with an incredible amount of will managed to force out the words: "Finite Incantatem." At once the scene changed; Davies took one wide-eyed look at Alex and fled, grabbing one of his shadows by the scruff of the neck as he disappeared in to the labyrinthine dungeon passages. The other boy, who looked as though he had been elbowed, lay gasping on the ground totally breathless.
"What's going on here?" said a soft, deadly voice. She turned to see the new Potions Master and Head of her House standing disapprovingly in the stairwell behind her. He turned to Alexandra since the guy she'd elbowed in the stomach was still gasping in pain and unable to talk. She struggled with to string a sentence together without mentioning the curse, but gave it up quickly. "Well?" he asked, impatiently.
"She-did... something," the boy on the floor choked. Snape's eyes immediately swiveled to pierce him. "To Davies... made him..." He collapsed into fits of coughing intermixed with tears. Alex moved without thinking, muttering an incantation meant to clear the throat almost silently. Instantly Snape's eyes swept over her. "Attack us. It was high Dark Magic or sommat similar." The boy concluded, now reendowed with his breath.
"Detention, I think..." Professor Snape said silkily, once he realised Alex did not intend to add anything. She nodded, unwilling to protest his ruling with her heart and head so conflicted as to how much she could say. "I'll expect you at my office at 7pm every evening this week."
She nodded and he swept away in a swirl of black cloth, leaving Alex with her unfortunate. He too did not hang around; being friends with those of Hufflepuff stock he darted around her in the direction of the kitchens. She stared after him for a moment, rubbing her head in exhaustion and then she walked off into the depths of the dungeons, the only thoughts in her mind of bed and sleep.
The following morning Donny met Alexandra as she made her way to breakfast. They spent a minute comparing their timetables: Alexandra had chosen to take Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbology and Arithmancy in six year; Donny had Charms, Herbology, Muggle Studies, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. She was pleased with that, given her results were likely to be of no relevance to what she ended up doing.
One of her Slytherin classmates tapped her on the back, as he raced into the Great Hall for breakfast. "Hurry up Wilkinson!" the seventh year called back. "Otherwise all the sausages will be gone."
Donny rolled his eyes "Lucky you managed to come up with that investing in USA business story or we wouldn't be allowed to be friends," he said dryly heading over to join his fellow Ravenclaws. She smiled quietly, her confidence fading as he darted away. She turned to the Slytherin table to join her impatient classmates.
The group of sixth years parted and she slid on to the bench, spearing the last sausage with her fork as she did so.
"Ah, Wilkinson," a boy called Parkinson, the Quidditch captain spoke first, "In trouble already I hear."
She nodded, using her wand to reply with her mouth full. "Davies decided he'd take advantage of my being alone to prove once and for all girls can't beat boys at violent sports."
"You gave as good as you got I hear," Zabini sat beside her, having jostled his way past the gaggle of first years who were staring wide-eyed at her. "Flint's still in the Hospital Wing. Isn't that right Marcus?" he yelled the last comment at a burly first year with a no-nonsense face and clenched firsts spun to face them.
"Are you the one who attacked my big brother?" he grunted, prompting a laugh from the assembled crowd. Alex winced.
"My name is Alexandra Wilkinson." She didn't look up at him, her face red with embarrassment but determined to say her bit, "Your brother got what he deserved." A soft Oooh ran through the assembled crowd. Alex had always been quiet, with few friends even among her fellow Slytherins. There was Zabini of course and Parkinson was never unkind to members of his team but there was little endearing about her and she hadn't the gall to fight her way up the greasy pole.
"SHUT UP!" Flint Jr. screamed angrily "I'll get you one day Wilkinson, I'll get you." He was pushed away by a fifth year and conversation began once more.
"He'd be a good Quidditch player I hear." That was Parkinson, staring dreamily after the boy, his mind clearly 25 feet up in the air. "Which reminds me, Alex, are you going to grace the team with your presence this year?"
She shook her head, reaffirming her mind in quiet but firm tones. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, if you continue to be pushed around by Davies and refuse to let me beat when my record is ten times that of the apes you currently play, I will not be playing for the team this season, the least you could do is respect my wishes."
He opened his mouth to retort and stopped, having been beaten to the bush by a smooth voice. "I think perhaps you should reconsider your position, unless you would like to spend every game in detention."
Alexandra peered round into the critical eyes of Professor Snape. "If you don't mind, sir, I'd rather take the detentions." Unable to hold his gaze, timid as she was, she turned back to her cornflakes.
"Well it's a pity you don't have a choice." She didn't bother to turn back, hearing the swish of his cloak and knowing he was long gone.
Someone whistled softly. "How'd you get on his bad side Wilkinson? I hexed two Hufflepuffs in front of him and he didn't bat an eyelid."
She carefully looked from one intent face to another and whispered: "I cursed Davies last night, a serious curse mind, nothing light."
There was a hushed murmur; Zabini whistled. "Which one? An Unforgivable?" Alex nodded and the group instantly broke up, each one with a relative lingering in gaol or just managing to avoid captivity, each one very aware of the risks if they were discovered discussing such things. Nothing ran thicker than blood as far as the Slytherins were concerned. All or most of the house was related to Alex through various families and the rest could be coerced into helping out should anything happen to her or a relative, even though she wasn't a popular girl and had never been part of the social scene.
"What's his blood status?" Zabini asked from beside her, changing the topic at the drop of a hat
"Half-blood." Parkinson's reply came between bites of a bacon sandwich.
"Yeah... Snape is a fairly Muggle name isn't it?" Zabini gave his reply at top speed, giving Alex the feeling that they were merely engaging in a war over his status in order to avoid suspicions.
"Yeah, but wasn't his mother some potions whiz? A Pierce or something similar." A sixth year interjected. Alex thought of Donny wondering if anyone other than a Slytherin would know or care about such things.
"Ellie Prince?" Parkinson swallowed a mouthful of cornflakes as he mused. "Maybe, maybe..."
"That means he's at least a line of blood traitors, even if he's somewhat pure." That was Zabini, on his high horse on genealogy again. Alex elbowed him into silence and conversation turned to lessons, giving Alex time to finish her meal in silence, once or twice glancing slyly up at the staff table to check on her newly made enemy.
Her day passed lazily until 7 o'clock. She spent her only lessons, Arithmancy and Transfiguration going over the theory for non-verbal spells, something she had more or less mastered in the two week Christmas holiday in her fourth year. She had not been given homework and many of her fellow seventh years were making plans to sneak out to the kitchens and steal all the elf made wine and any other stores of alcohol that could be found. Now that they knew Snape would be occupied, albeit with Alex's detention, the plan had become more concrete and they intended to actually do it.
"How much longer?" Davies moaned from the couch where he was lolling idly.
Alex checked her watch. "It's five to seven, I should get going," She stood, feeling uncomfortable so close to Davies. "When I know he's settled down to my hour's torture I'll give you a sign."
"How will we know?" That was Zabini, sitting cross-legged on a green, squashy armchair. Alexandra smiled nervously.
"Trust me, you'll know." There was a collective groan from the assembled sixth and seventh years.
"Please not another piece of filthy Muggle trash!" someone yelled from the back of the group. She rolled her eyes.
"Oh come on don't tell me you still haven't worked out how to turn it off!" she exclaimed, gesturing at the Muggle radio she'd bewitched to turn on at her whim. It was her only way of extracting any form of revenge against her fellow students, all of whom had taken advantage of her extreme timidity at one stage or another. Slytherins had blood that ran thicker than water but were more than happy to tear each other apart from within- it was just outsiders that needed to be defended against.
They fell silent, no one wanting to admit he'd tried and failed to operate the device, or that they didn't want it to turn off, which was true for nearly all of them. She sighed, "Well you'll just have to wait 'til I get back." With that she walked backwards through the wall that was the exit to the common room and headed deeper into the labyrinthine dungeons, to her detention with Professor Snape.
When she reached his office she paused, hesitant. She raised her hand and knocked, the impact on the dark wood making a hollow sound. "Enter." His already familiarly soft voice issued from within. The door swung open independent of her actions and she stepped over the threshold. The room was dank and dark, each wall half-covered with shelving on which various jars, bottles and other forms of containers sat. Each contained a uniquely grotesque ingredient or mixture, including several that made Alexandra squirm in revulsion. He seemed to realise this and they spent several minutes in silence before he spoke, giving her time to revel in the unpleasantness of the room.
"If we may begin?" he drawled finally, she spun to face him, realizing too late that she had become absorbed in the complexity of the room and had turned her back on him. He was sitting behind his desk, which was neater than it had been in Slughorn's day, his face merely a constant benchmark of disdain and dissatisfaction.
She nodded, meekly and he continued. "You have demonstrated a continual disrespect for your elders and the rules and traditions of your school. In short you were caught using a form of magic Hogwarts and the greater magical community shuns. As such it is my duty," he sneered, "my pleasure to over the course of the coming week to instruct you in the virtues you lack." He stood, glaring out at her from behind the desk. Alex nodded, what he said was justified and she did not doubt how sincere his intentions were, how easily he would break her, how quickly he would snap, killing her without a second thought.
"I expect a verbal answer from you, if you please," he said icily.
"Yes, sir," she said, meekly, automatically, with the monotonal aspect her voice held when she felt particularly shy or nervous, which was most of the time.
His lip curled, "Your re-education will begin tonight." He gave a lazy flick of his wand and the room wall filled with dirty, scum filled cauldrons that looked like the product of a day of first year potions. "Cleaning potions equipment." Another flick of the wand provided her with an array of cleaning equipment. "Begin."
The work took hours, the only thing comforting her was that her friends were enjoying being thoroughly inebriated and hopefully dancing away to Muggle tunes like Roxanne given she'd turned the radio on as soon as Snape had rebuffed her for not replying verbally and had not yet even considered turning it off.
After a period of time that was well over three hours, he stopped her. She had cleaned well over three quarters of the caldrons, yet he inspected them without comment, a sure sign he was unimpressed. Finally he spoke, "That will do for this evening," He waved his wand and the cauldrons disappeared. "Same time tomorrow." She nodded, mute and left the confines of his office eagerly; keen to see the extent of her classmate's revelry in the face of Muggle music.