Disclaimer: As usual - I own nothing, what else is new.
Author's Note: I feel sorry for Snape after book five, and I have for quite some time. I wanted to give him another fic, don't know why because it would only torment him further, and I decided he would fit into this role.
Note: Remus Lupin is teaching in this but it isn't set in book three. No slash!!!
The Boggart
Chapter One: The Boggart
Remus Lupin is, once again, in the staff room of Hogwarts with his students to practice on a real boggart. And, once again, Severus Snape is in there when he arrives. THIS time, however, it was to Lupin's advantage.
Snape got up to leave when Lupin called him back.
"Severus, wait. I was hoping you could stay and help me with this class."
"I don't think so, Lupin. Boggarts along with other dark creatures are under YOUR curriculum, not mine," Snape sneered, remembering the last time he saw Lupin with a class that were about to face a boggart. He was about to leave when Lupin blocked his path.
"Severus, I have thought my class two of the three ways to deal with and defeat a boggart bu-"
"As fascinating as that sounds," he cut in, "I do not wish to supervise you teaching your class so I suggest you get out of my way. NOW."
"No. You misunderstand me." Lupin took a step closer to Snape who backed away, not wanting to be near the werewolf. "I am not totally familiar with the third as you are. It is an effective but difficult way and I feel my students would highly benefit from it. What I was asking was that YOU demonstrate it for the class."
Snape looked at the students who backed away from their professors glare. Then he looked at the wardrobe next to the door. It shook violently. He looked back at Lupin. "No. I don't have time-"
But Lupin wasn't listening to him at all." I wasn't even sure if you'd be in here at all," Lupin said as he opened the wardrobes door. "Fire away Professor Snape."
Snape immediately whipped out his wand for fear of being attacked by something vicious with sharp claws and teeth. His wand pointed directly at the wardrobe door.
Ten seconds went by with no movement from the boggart. After several more, students were beginning to think it was because their Potions Master wasn't afraid of anything, that the git really didn't have any feelings let alone fears. The suddenly a man stepped out of the wardrobe.
He looked familiar. He was tall with dark brown, perfect hair on his head. He was pale and had dark eyes. He wore navy robes and polished black shoes. Then it spoke, "Severus."
Snape winced. The students were shocked. They were all wondering who the boggart had turned into and were they could find another one to put Snape into his place more often.
"You bastard child. How disappointing you would be to your mother."
It dawned on Lupin and his students who this man was.
"Perhaps I would be if you hadn't murdered her," Snape spat, his voice undeniably shaken. He was quite unaware of the VERY silent class behind him.
"Boy. You know she was worthless to me and my Lord. It is too unfortunate that you were and still are to weak to see that she served no purpose."
"No. She just didn't serve Voldemort's purpose. It didn't matter to you who else wanted her."
"She was worthless," Mr. (boggart) Snape said.
"She wasn't worthless. She was... is loved by her family. Her father, mother, sister, her four brother's, her SON."
"She would not have been a suitable mother for you, boy."
"Well you sure as hell weren't a suitable father, you murdering prick. Was it because you were afraid that she'd stop you forcing the dark mark on me? Or beating me? Or-"
"You are a bastard child and I beat you for good reason. You were an insolent brat."
"I'm SOOO sorry that I didn't want to murder innocent people to make your LORD happy," Snape spat sarcastically, obviously forgetting that this was a boggart and not his actual father. Or maybe he wasn't forgetting and just had to say these things to his father's face, real or not.
"You should be showing off the scars, boy. On your wrists you hide them with too long sleeves and on your neck you hide them with high collars. What disappoints me most is that you didn't even hide the scars with fashionable clothing and, as a Snape, your appearance should be important. The scars were meant to teach you a lesson, boy."
"If I could renounce the name of Snape I would do so gladly and I would proudly show off a scar if only it were I who had killed you."
"You insolent-"
He stopped when Snape raised his wand. It looked, to the students and Lupin, as if he had come to his senses and remembered that it was only a boggart. He swung his wand arm but didn't cast a spell. Instead, he let go of his wand and gave the boggart a full force punch. It wasn't as is the boggart hadn't anticipated anything, it just didn't anticipate a punch, which should have been considerably weaker than a spell. However, Snape was filled with hate for his father who had beaten and scarred him, killed his dearly loved mother, pinned him down so the dark mark would be branded into him and turned him into the hateful man that everyone knew him as. The poor boggart had no idea what he had gotten himself into when he took over Hogwarts staff room wardrobe.
This was the first time, to Lupin's memory, that a witch or wizard had beaten a boggart to a bloody pulp. Snape's fists were flying and his boggart dad was putting up one hell of a fight. Snape had one arm around the boggarts neck and the other was twisting its left arm behind its back. The students cringed when they heard a sickening crunch - Snape had broken his boggart fathers arm. The boggart's left arm was rendered useless, as were the claws it had grow in place of fingernails. The claws on the right arm, however, clawed at every part of Snape that it could get to.
Snape stopped punching when he realised that the boggart wasn't fighting back anymore. It was either dead or too broken to move. Snape stood up and stared at his blood stained hands. His knuckles were tore and robes ripped. His face was bleeding in many places and there was a very nasty cut above his eye. He didn't notice. He just stared at his shaking hands.
He turned around and eventually looked up at the stunned students. Snape seemed to be in a state of shock and kept looking down at his hands. He walked out of the room in a daze.
"Was that meant to be the demonstration? I thought it was impossible to kill a boggart because they had immense strength, don't they?" a student asked.
"Don't be so stupid, Denney. That was hardly part of the demonstration. And yes they do have immense strength and I have no idea how Professor Snape managed to beat it to death with his bare hands." Lupin was as shocked as the students at what had happened. "You all better get to your next class. Your professors might keep you on during lunch to make up the time."
This was answered by low "Yes, sir"'s.
As they say - new travels fast. By lunch time, the whole school knew of what happened with Snape.
Ginny had told Ron, Harry and Hermione. "Snape killed the boggart with his bare hands? I don't believe you," Ron said.
"It's true, Ron. I was there. I saw it myself. Professor Lupin said he's never heard of ANYONE that had been able to beat a boggart even remotely near to death before."
"Wow," Ron exclaimed, half impressed.
"But he was all shaken when he realized what happened. He kept looking at his bloody hands."
The story hadn't changed as it usually would when it spread around the school. It was too interesting to think of anything else and nobody wanted to miss a detail so they told the story in exact detail.
Chapter Two: Look At Him
When Snape's first potions class arrived, he was nowhere to be found. They all sat quietly in their seats and took out their books. They decided to study, in case he came in and murdered them for being stupid. At least they pretended to study. What they were really doing was whispering to each other from behind their books.
"I expect he's not in because of what happened yesterday," Hermione said knowingly.
"Well no fucking duh, Hermione," Ron said. "You know, you have an irritating knack of pointing out the obvious."
"Well," she huffed turning away from Ron.
"It's kinda true," Neville said timidly.
She looked over ay Harry for support.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, Hermione. I have to agree with them."
"Fine then. I suppose I'll go study on my own," she said defiantly. Hermione moved up two tables to sit alone.
"You do that," Ron sneered. The two hadn't been on the best of terms lately. They were nit- picking at all of each others faults all the time.
Over at a Slytherin table Malfoy was talking to Crabbe and Goyle.
"Ehhh... so why isn't Professor Snape here again?" Goyle asked dumbly.
"Yeah. Isn't he usually here to... eh... teach us," Crabbe added, even more dumbly.
Malfoy sighed theatrically. "Because, as I've told you before, Lupin cursed a boggart and set it on Professor Snape who was unaware that he was about to be attacked by a boggart dragon. I heard it was a VERY dangerous kind too and Professor Snape fought it off with his bare hands even though it's meant to be impossible to fight a boggart without the help of others or a wand," Malfoy said proudly.
"Actually," another Slytherin said, "You're right about him fighting the boggart off with his bare hands. The rest, however, you have been misinformed about. Although, I don't doubt that Lupin did it on purpose, he was jealous of Professor Snape I imagine. Lupin asked Snape to demonstrate another way to kill a boggart but Professor Snape refused, he said Lupin should be able to do it himself, but Lupin took his wand and set the boggart on him. The boggart didn't turn into a dragon, it turned into Professor Snape's father."
"Bugger off Millicent. Your lies are pathetic and your face is giving me split ends."
Millicent stuck her nose in the air and walked off to her own desk. Just then Pansy Parkinson turned around to face Malfoy.
"Actually, she was telling the truth, though you're not wrong about her face," Pansy whispered.
"You're kidding!" Malfoy looked astonished.
"Nope. And you should have heard what he was saying to his dad, well, the boggart anyw-"
"And just how would you know?"
"My cousin was in the class at the time. Snape was saying that his dad forced him to take the dark mark, he didn't want to because his dad had killed Snape's mother. Apparently she was apposed to the Dark Lord. Snape was saying that he would love to have been the one to have killed his father and whished he wasn't a Snape. AND it sounded like he was against the Dark Lord, himself," Pansy was still whispering.
Malfoy sat back, astonishment playing on his face. "I wonder what my father would say to this."
Snape wasn't seen all Saturday and the news of Thursdays events had spread like a bush fire. There were rumours that Voldemort had found and was torturing Snape. Lupin didn't believe these rumours because the Order would have found out before any student, but he couldn't help but worry about where Snape had got to. He knew Snape could take care of himself... but against Voldemort and his Death Eaters?
Saturday went by slowly for Lupin. Even Dumbledore hadn't heard from Snape.
"Don't worry, Remus. He'll soon show up, safe and sound." But Remus could tell that his old Headmaster was jus as worried as he was, if not more so.
Remus smiled, thanked Dumbledore and left for bed.
He couldn't sleep that night and went to breakfast early - 7.30am.
When he got to the Great Hall he was surprised to see Dumbledore and McGonagall already sitting down.
"Why are you two up so early?" Lupin asked.
"The house elves informed me that they were making pancakes today and I simply couldn't wait," he replied cheerily.
Remus looked at McGonagall for her excuse. "I had an earl night and as they say 'Early to bed, early to rise.' Why are YOU up so early, Remus?"
"Couldn't sleep," he answered honestly. He sat next to McGonagall. Only Dumbledore ate while they sat in silence.
Fifteen minutes later the doors opened and in strode Severus Snape. He looked at the three at the table and sat and his own - three seats away from Lupin.
Dumbledore greeted him with a cheery "Good morning, Severus. How have up been" while McGonagall and Lupin shared worried looks. Dumbledore was answered with a gruff "Fine."
Lupin watched Snape eat for a while. He had never seen Snape eat as much as he was now - he usually ate very little at any time of the day. Lupin took a deep breath and walked over to Snape.
"Ahem," Lupin started.
Snape stopped eating and looked up. "What do you want, Lupin?" he demanded.
"If it's any consolation, Severus, you have my deepest apologies and-"
"I have spent the last... I don't know... FORTY hours being tortured by Voldemort. I'm tired, pissed off and in immense pain, so no - your apology is of no consolation to me, so you can take it and shove it up your arse." With that Snape got up and strode (limped) out of the Great Hall.
Neither Dumbledore or McGonagall had heard the exchange between the two men but both got the gist when Snape left leaving a very upset Remus Lupin behind.
Dumbledore walked over to Lupin who was at the door looking at Snape's back. "Don't feel too bad, Remus. You know what he's like... he'll never except help unless he was dieing and physically unable to stop the person from helping him. But look at him Remus... he can hardly walk. It will do no good to go after him now, but do go after him. He feels his pride has been wounded so give him time to straighten himself up and appear more presentable. He doesn't think much of himself when his robes are ripped and dirty. Even I can't get through to him and I fear that you may be his last hope."
"What do you mean?"
"He fells the need to shout at you for what you have done. He has no need to shout at me so he simply cuts me out just like everyone else. In shouting at you, he is communicating. Let his shout and he will soon talk."
Remus stared at the now empty corridor where Snape had been. When he finally looked back, both his old professors were gone. He shook his head and went back to his room before the students came down.
What do you think? Please review!!!
There is a second part to this that I thought should be a separate story. It's called The Boggart 2