Disclaimer - Hello, my name is Half-drowned Dracula. I am an ugly fifteen-year-old and I live in Surrey (Yes, that's right, Dursley-ville.) I am sharing this bedroom with my thirteen-year-old sister, because I am trapped at my Dad's house. It is three in the morning and I can't sleep. Does any of that sound like something JKR would say? Didn't think so. Work the rest out for yourself.
Author's Note - Ooh, Lordie, I'm actually trying to write a chaptered fic. Hope this all works out okay. Anyways, I thought I'd centre this on Snape's first ever year teaching, but in the eyes of a Gryffindor, because while most of the fics I've read set around this time were all very good, they were all following a Slytherin character.
So lets have this in a fresh pair of eyes, shall we? I suggest you read my second Author's Note at the end of this, might explain a few of my ideas. Bear with me about the French thing, it will all become clear in later chapters.
Following prompting from the lovely Splintered Star, this chapter has been given a huge makeover. Thus giving me more time to sort out my life before finishing writing the next chapter
Je Ne Sais Pas
By Half-drowned Dracula
Chapter 1 : Quel homme est le Professeur?
"Who's going to take over from Slughorn?" It was the question on everyone's lips ever since we had found out that his leaving wasn't just a rumour. Even we Gryffindor were interested, and I wondered why. The Defence professor changed every year and we barely batted an eyelid. Maybe they were insignificant in our lives.
It was September of 1981, and we sat in our compartment, happily awaiting the beginning of our fourth year, when the professors began treating you less like brainless things and more like real people (or so we had been told). We was us four; we had no dinky little group names, and none of us had special powers or mood eyes; we were just Us: Myself (Maddy); Davine; Hannah and Brandon.
Well, technically, Brandon wasn't part of Us, but he was Davine's boyfriend and the two just came together. It didn't matter that we didn't want Brandon and his horrible dirty yellow hair and puffy lips, because Davine was stuck to him like a limpet and refused to let go. There was always a look of wonder in her grey eyes when she looked at him. I know they say "Love is blind", but for him to have any redeeming qualities, she would have had to wipe out all image of him, and replace him with a picture of someone else.
Our journey passed mainly without incident, a few lost first-years came in to visit (and left terrified), and we talked about the new professor. They would, obviously, be teaching Potions, as was the tradition, just as the head of Gryffindor taught transfigurations. Perhaps being of that house gave you extra skill in the class. That would make sense - my potions marks were abysmal, despite the fact that I had a real interest in it.
It was then that Brandon decided to poke his ugly head in the conversation, uninvited of course, his oily nasal tones grating on my nerves.
"I heard that, whoever they are -" Here he paused and breathed in through his congested nose, making a disgusting sound like the last dregs of drink being slurped from a glass with a straw. He obviously thought he was creating suspense, but really he was making me quite nauseous. "- they were one of Slughorn's best ever students. Really good, like…"
I then decided to block out his speech so it became a buzzing white noise in the back of my mind, like a busy hive on a sunny day, and fell asleep, dreaming of Aurors and Death Eaters and the Muggle who had to be obliviated last week because he found a severed hand from a battle in his field. When I awoke, it was dark outside, and Hannah was shaking me rather vigorously, making her blonde hair snap around violently.
"Get changed -" She was saying, while my groggy brain tried to piece it together "- The train is close to Hogsmeade now." I shot upright, ran down the corridor as fast as I possibly could and got dressed, just in time for the train to stop. On finding Them we accompanied each other to the horseless carriages that drove us to school.
The Great Hall was, as usual, decked out with beautiful floating candles, and a huge starry sky greeted us from the roof. Brandon physically dragged Davine down to sit near his friends at the other end of the Gryffindor table, complaining that he'd been around her friends far too much and he "needed a social life".
I sat on Hannah's left, strangely reminiscent of our sorting, when, terrified, I had sat next to the only person not scowling at me. This turned out to be because of my sister, a highly unpopular Slytherin two years above me, who had made it her mission in life to annoy. The first thing Hannah and I did was look at the teacher's table.
"Which man is the professor?"
"They're both professors, Hannah." I gave a soft sigh and rolled my eyes. I could have sworn she wasn't so dim last year, or even during the summer for that matter.
"No, as in, which one is The Professor?"
"I don't know." At this, we began to examine the two new professors.
The first was a plumpish middle-aged man, who only seemed to come in one colour, and that colour was brown. His eyes were a soft beech, his hair maybe a shade darker. His robe was an unfortunate beige, which only served to emphasise the fact that he was sweating like crazy, darkening rings of moisture were spreading around his underarms and across his chest - he looked rather flustered. The professor that really interested me, however, was the second.
Our second new professor didn't come in colours. He didn't even come in tones. He came in black and white. The skin that was showing - his hollow-cheeked face and fragile-looking hands - were hard, cool, porcelain white and his long hair, robes, and - I barely stopped myself from dropping my jaw - eyes were black as raven-feathers. He wasn't handsome at all, his whole face had been taken over by a massively overgrown hooked nose, and the expression settled on his face was so hostile it gave me a headache, daring someone to laugh at him so he could cut them down into painful little shards. But the really shocking thing about this man was that he was young. Seventh-year young, youthful even, but without any of the joy or freshness that true youth brought.
Beside me, I could hear Will, a real seventh year this time, breathing out a near silent "No.", and as I looked around, I could see many of the students in the three years above us doing the same.
Hannah interrupted my thoughts - "Which one's which, d'ya recon?"
I shook my head "I haven't a clue. That one -" I nodded towards the young professor "- looks more Dark-Arty, but that one -" The dull professor "- looks like a Hufflepuff, not a Slytherin."
The sorting started, but I don't think anyone was paying attention to it, we continued chattering and looking bemused and the 5th, 6th and 7th years were whispering conspiratorially, punctuated by the hat making it's decisions.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
We stopped listening at all, and the talking was so loud I was surprised the hat could hear itself think. Will tilted his head toward me, his hair was similar to Brandon's only sandier in colour, and cleaner. For this, I was forever grateful.
"I wish they'd hurry up. How long does it take to sort less than forty midgets? It didn't take this long for my sorting."
I giggled in a horribly dim-witted fashion, then straightened my face.
"What was so "No." earlier?" I whispered.
Will's face went through a variety of emotions in a second, and then he fixed his warm eyes on me and said "That young bloke - if he is who I think he is, well, he's either going to be brilliant, or bloody awful."
"How so?"
"We're speaking hypothetically here, as in, if he is who I think he is, right?"
I nodded.
"Well, if that's the case, then he really is young. Like, not much older than me. If that should happen to be the case, then he was a fifth year when I was in my first. If that's the case, then he's basically a genius."
"And the problem with that is…?"
"Then the problem with that is that he was a bullied loner, so either he'll teach brilliantly, like, everything he knows about whatever he's teaching, which'll be good, or -"
Suddenly I got what he was on about " - Or he'll be a bitter shit intent on making our lives hell."
"Correct, young Madeline. Hypothetically speaking, of course."
"Of course."
I looked back up to the high table, and Professor Dumbledore began speaking.
"Ah, how wonderful it is to see your faces again - and some new ones." He beamed at us in a weird grandfatherly fashion that was quite pleasing. "As per usual I have some announcements to make.
"As always, the Forbidden Forest is out of bounds to all students, and Mr. Filch would like me to remind you that there is to be no duelling in the corridors, and all prohibited items will be confiscated. The list of these items will be up in his office, should you not want to be taken by surprise. Now -"
We all held our breath. He was about to announce our new professors. It was stupidly exciting.
" - this year we have two new members of the faculty. After Professor Kane's tragic accident last year, Professor Davies will be taking over Defence Against the Dark Arts classes."
Professor Davies, the sweaty, beige professor, stood up and gave silly little nods to each of the house tables. It looked rather like his head was on a string being jerked up and down. Lacklustre applause greeted him.
"So, the news I am sure you have all been waiting for -" Dumbledore twinkled. I hated it when he did that, he always looked so paradoxically young and old at the same time. "- Professor Slughorn has, as you probably know, left Britain for warmer climes, so Professor Snape will be taking over both Potions class and the headship of Slytherin house." He gestured at the young professor.
The Slytherin table clapped and whooped, I could see my sister cheering with a bunch of her horrible friends, and someone down the far end of our table shouted 'I KNEW IT!'. Professor Snape stood up, gave an oddly flourishing bow, as though he was afraid of doing one of Davies' freaky little things, and was hamming it up to avoid it. He obviously realised that it was a little strange, because he gave the whole school a Basilisk-esque stare, and his hands twitched into fists at his sides for a second. Still standing, he raised a sarcastic eyebrow and sat down in his chair again, crossing one leg over the other and surveying the scene, daring anyone to mock his weird bow. No-one did.
Grinning, Dumbledore began talking to us again. "Yes, settle down now, or we'll all lose our appetites." He clapped and dropped into his chair, and there was food on the tables that we hadn't noticed before. I grabbed some potatoes before anyone else got to them. They were always the first to go.
I turned to my left to talk to Will again. I liked him, he was so brotherly towards the lower years. "Was it who you thought it was?"
He stared at the piece of lamb on his fork with his warm blue eyes. "Uh-huh. Now let's just all pray that he wasn't so scarred by his years here that he'll take it out on us."
We sat in silence for a bit, listening to chewing, the sound of metal on porcelain and idle chatter. I looked at Snape again, who was toying with some vegetables with an expression of distaste, then back to Will.
"How'd you know he's a genius?" I hoped I didn't sound too sceptical of Will's judgement.
"My Dad." said Will, scraping his cutlery together, not wanting to elaborate.
"Uh-huh…" I tried to egg him into saying whatever he knew. Finally, he sighed.
"He got his Potions Scroll at nineteen. Which makes him the youngest in Europe for something like six hundred years."
"How'd you know that?" I realised that I was starting to sound very, very annoying, to the point of reminding myself of Brandon, who I could see out of the corner of my eye, brandishing his fork in the air, which had a half-eaten sausage on it. Disgusting.
Will obviously felt the same, because he groaned and said "My Dad's got one too. Snape was his apprentice. Apparently he was really eager to get the qualification, he turned up at our house the morning after the leaver's ball, asking about it. At first, Dad was really doubtful, I mean, most people wait until they're about thirty to start on it, get in some practice, y'know?
"But Snape turned up, literally just out of school, eighteen years old, and goes "Can I be your apprentice?" Strange, no? Anyway, Dad took him on, and by the end of the week he was singing his praises. Genius is the only explanation for that."
A sixth-year girl with blonde-brown hair, Janine, looked up from the opposite side of the table from us and joined our conversation.
"Oh yeah. He's only twenty-one now."
I had a mouthful of green beans. "How'd you know that?!" Oh, the questions again. I really was irritating.
"He's already been included in the newest version of Hogwarts : A History. Youngest ever Professor. Before him it was some bloke called Knep, and he was twenty-five. It's weird, to think we were actually in school at the same time as him, passing him in corridors, listening to Slughorn rambling about how he could make this potion perfectly in his first year -"
" - Laughing when he was being humiliated…" Will ended bitterly.
Janine and I both stared at him. We'd never heard him say anything other than nice things to people, and he seemed angry. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"What? I just - Look, I spoke to him a few times, years ago. He seemed like a good bloke, especially for a Slytherin, and he was - hurt, y'know, because no-one took him seriously, and -" He faded into silence, and suddenly, after years of seeing him as my second brother, Will seemed a mystery to me.
Janine looked apologetically at me, and we finished our meals in silence.
Dumbledore released us from the hall, and me, Hannah and Davine trundled back to the common room ("Password?" "Hippogriff") and into our dorm, which now proclaimed us as 'Fourth Year Girls'.
We were joined shortly by the two other fourth year girls (It still sounded odd to me, I was just getting used to being a 'Third Year Girl'), Megan (who, as usual didn't look happy about sharing a room with us) and Emma (who insisted on giving everyone a hug because 'someone in her extended family was Italian'). I may have been excited about the start of the year, and confused about Will, but I was also insanely tired, and dropped off just after midnight, my mind a swirling mess.
Author's Note: It is no longer three in the morning, it's eleven past one, and I'm in my own bedroom at my Mum's place. On a different day, of course, I have no time-turner. But I wish I did.
Much love for whitehound for pointing out silly mistakes, and annoying fandomisms. Howsa Potions Scroll sound? Surely you can't just turn up with a NEWT to get a job at a school - think about in our Muggle world, you can't teach at sixth-form college with an A-level, or at secondary school with a GCSE. Thus my made up qualification.
Anyway, how was it? The whole Will/Snape relationship will come into light later chapters. If anyone reading is a fan of the Belgian Francophone singer Jacques Brel, and recognise the title of this, I applaud your taste, but you're also getting a sneaky peek at what's coming later in the story, and it might not be what you think.
Yes, I want to know all about what you think about this, don't leave anything out. And I particularly want to hear what you think about all of those OCs. Do they fit in? Do they seem real? You know the drill.
And also, what do people eat at meals like the Hogwarts feast? I'm a vegetarian, therefore at these kind of shindigs (word of the week) I get stuck with the 'vegetarian option' which is nearly always either a badly defrosted bean-burger type thing, or a salad. I haven't a clue about food.
If I don't update within a month, I give you permission to jab me with a pointy stick until I bleed, understand?
Anyways, please, please, please review. I promise to reply and explain/answer/debate/be ashamed. I need to work out if it's really necessary to update soon, because I have BIG exams coming up, causing BIG stress.
Review and I love you :D