"Look Not at the Things"

by Kelly Chambliss

- / - / -

"We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen."

- -2 Corinthians 4:18

- / - / -

December, 1981

Severus Snape looked at the length of fabric lying on his bed and refused to let himself think about where and how he'd got it. His Death Eater past was past, wasn't t that what Dumbledore was always telling him? Fine, then - - "the past" it was.

As long as Dumbledore didn't say anything about the spoils of said past, then Severus wasn't about to discuss them, either. If he'd got himself an Invisibility Cloak on one of his DE forays - - now so firmly in the past - - he didn't see that it was anyone's business but his own.

It wasn't as if the original owner had any use for it now.

Besides, Dumbledore would probably approve of what Severus was about to do with his cloak, anyway. Hadn't he just been haranguing - - scratch that, make it "urging" - - Severus that very afternoon to get out more?

"You should get to know your colleagues better, Severus," he'd said. "They want you to succeed, and they'll help you if you give them the chance."

As far as Severus had been able to tell, the old man had been serious. He hadn't been twinkling, and his voice had mercifully free of that tone of false bonhomie that he usually employed when he was lying through his false teeth. (Not that Severus had any idea whether the headmaster actually had false teeth. It was just an expression his father had always used.)

Yes, Dumbledore had appeared to be dead serious.

Well, since Severus knew which side his bread was buttered on (another of his father's Muggle clichés - - where was that coming from, all of a sudden?) he hadn't laughed in Dumbledore's face.

But he'd been tempted. The idea that any of his "colleagues" wanted to help him was laughable. "Colleagues" - - fuck that, they'd never be his colleagues. They'd never see him as anything other than a kid, an inferior. Just a few years ago, they'd been his teachers; they'd hated him then, and of course they hated him even more now that they knew he'd taken the Mark. What did it matter that he would give his very soul (assuming he had one) to undo the dark insanity of these last few years? His so-called "colleagues" wouldn't give a damn. They would never believe he had changed, and why should they? He didn't believe they'd changed, so why would they think it of him?

They were the same pathetic, sour bunch of hypocrites now that they'd been during his student years. Acting all butter-wouldn't-melt (his father's words again, dammit), offering to help him prepare for N.E.W.T.s. . . "You've got such a sure touch with plants, Severus," Sprout had said. As if she really cared how a Slytherin did on his N.E.W.T.s. Or inviting him to join the Hi-Wiz-Q Club - - "You've got one of the best Wizarding IQ scores I've seen in years, Mr Snape," Flitwick had said. As if Severus didn't know that Flitwick was just acting out of pity. He knew Severus had to buy his supplies through the Charity Scholarship Fund.

Well, Severus hadn't wanted their pity then, and he didn't want it now. Their hatred - - well, he had that whether he wanted it or not. He saw how McGonagall looked at him in the staffroom - - appraising him, judging him. "Professor Snape," she called him with icy politeness; he saw the name for the ironic insult it was.

And these were the people Dumbledore wanted him to turn to for "help"? Please.

As for "getting to know them better" - - well, now, that could be arranged. After all, he wouldn't want to disobey the headmaster, would he? Not after all Dumbledore had done for him - - like saving Lily, for example? Yeah, right. The only person who had ever mattered to Severus. Dumbledore had said he'd keep her alive, and she had been dead now for six weeks, four days, and thirteen hours.

And Dumbledore had the nerve to say that Severus disgusted him!

"Fine, old man," Severus said aloud (but not too loud; he took it for granted that his quarters were bugged). "You want me to get to know my 'colleagues'? Oh, I'll get to know them, all right. Just watch me."

Then he snapped his fingers and smirked, the way stupid Sirius Blackhead had always done. "Oh, wait, no - - you can't watch me, can you?"

Snickering to himself, Severus picked up the Invisibility Cloak, letting the material slide through his fingers like water, its magical threads warm to the touch. "I'll get to know them," he repeated. "And improve my spying skills in the process. Just what the headmaster ordered, eh, Albus?"

He went into his toilet cubicle to put the Cloak on, hoping he wasn't being naive to assume that not even Dumbledore would install magical surveillance equipment in a crapper.

Then he set out to "get to know" his colleagues.

- / - / -

For a smart man, Filius Flitwick wasn't too bright about his wards - - they took Severus less than four minutes to dismantle.

Flitwick's quarters turned out to be only marginally more interesting than his security system. Severus wasn't sure exactly what he'd expected to find in Filius's rooms, but it wasn't this Spartan, minimalist neatness. Unless he'd charmed most of his personal possessions to be invisible, Flitwick owned very little.

His nearly-empty sitting room was dominated by a grand piano. Lucius Malfoy's family had one of the same well-known brand, so Severus had some idea of how much the thing must have cost. Of course Flitwick made more money than Severus did (hell, everyone made more money than Severus did), but he wouldn't have thought that even a Head of House earned enough to afford something the Malfoys had. Maybe the rumours were true, and Flitwick had goblin blood. If so, he'd get a share of the Gringotts' proceeds.

But if he did, then why in fuck's name was he teaching at Hogwarts? Severus would have resigned in an instant if he'd had some other way to support himself. This just confirmed what he'd always thought about Flitwick - - pleasant enough, but mad as a tick.

He spent a minute picturing Flitwick sitting at the piano of an evening, playing, his little hands moving across the keys, his little feet touching the pedals that Severus could now see were raised high off the floor. Did it relax him? Was he any good?

Severus had no idea, really, what good piano music even sounded like; he'd rarely heard any, good or bad. It wasn't like the Malfoys actually played their instrument; it was just for show. There'd been a battered upright in the corner of the pub Severus's da had frequented, but the only time it was ever used was when old man Boyle got drunk and maudlin and would pick out "The Mountains of Mourne" with two fingers while sobbing about the old country. Pathetic.

Well, whatever. Severus didn't really care what Flitwick did in his spare time. He turned his back on the piano and moved instead to a small roll-top desk against the far wall, intending to look through any papers he might find. You never knew what might be useful; knowledge was power.

But then caution reasserted itself. Flitwick might have untraceable wards on his desk, the way Severus did on his, and in any case, anything important would be charmed to look like old copies of the Prophet or something. Even hapless fourth-years managed to put concealing charms on their dirty magazines; no one left sensitive material out in the open. And besides, what could old Flitwick have to hide, anyway? A boring little man who actually enjoyed talking history with Binns in the staffroom. There was nothing of interest here.

- / - / -

Pomona Sprout's rooms, which he visited a few days later, weren't much better. They were so full of plants and incubator pods that he wondered why she bothered with personal rooms at all; she might as well just sleep in corner of Greenhouse Three and be done with it.

Irma Pince's rooms smelled like a musty old library, and if she had any books on dark magic or any copies of Philosophy in the Wizarding Bedroom, by the magical twin brother of the Marquis de Sade, Severus couldn't find them.

Silvanus Kettleburn's quarters were exceptionally tidy and more sweet-smelling than one would have expected, given the amount of time the man spent among animals and manure; Severus suspected an air-freshening charm.

He no longer tried to tell himself that he was searching the staff's private rooms as a way to spite Dumbledore or to hone his spying skills. The truth was, every moment he spent under his Cloak, looking at other people's lives, was a moment that he didn't have to spend in his own life, didn't have to think about Lily or be constantly aware of the Mark on his arm that burned even when it didn't. Every moment under the Cloak was a moment that he could look away from the total fucked-up mess that was his existence.

Yes, he was as pathetic as old man Boyle playing the piano in his cups, but he didn't give a shit. The Invisibility Cloak let him be someone else, someone other than a stringy, ugly failure, and for a few short minutes, he could breathe.

- / - / -

It was not long after the Christmas holiday that Severus paid his first visit to McGonagall's rooms. He'd been saving her for last. He'd always been curious about her, even in his student days, though it was curiosity mixed with a sort of loathing: she was Head of hated Gryffindor, after all, and he had been both compelled and repelled by her in equal measure. He'd been put off by her prim, high-collared exterior at the same time that he'd wanted to know what lay behind it.

He still didn't trust her - didn't trust any of them - but McGonagall intrigued and infuriated him more than the others. She still called him "Professor Snape," greeted him by name every morning, asked nosy questions about his weekends and his thoughts on Quidditch and how his classes were going.

"Why does she talk to me like that? Have you set her to spy on me?" Severus demanded of Dumbledore during one of the weekly "chats" the old man insisted on having with him. Keeping tabs on him, Severus knew. "If you don't think I'm up to the Potions job, feel free to sack me."

"If you don't think I've been more than fair to you, Severus, feel free to berate me." Dumbledore was smiling, but Severus didn't miss the steel in his voice.

So it was to be like that, was it? Severus was expected to grovel and be grateful? Well, why should that surprise him?

"I have not asked Minerva to spy on you," the old man continued, "or to do anything with you. But let's turn our minds to this puzzle, shall we? Why would a colleague speak to you in the staffroom or at breakfast? Make casual conversation with you?" To his smile he added his annoying twinkle. "Can you think of no reason?"

Severus shrugged. "I don't know," he said.

"Don't you? Well, I have a theory. You'll find it far-fetched, no doubt. But I do think it's possible - just possible, mind - that she's trying to be friendly."

"Why would she?" Severus demanded. McGonagall was at least twice his age, and a Gryffindor, and probably thought of him - if she thought of him at all - the same way he thought of his own students: as a snot-nosed, irritating burden. And in his case, he was burden who had turned around and joined the Death Eaters.

"Why in Merlin's name would she want to be friends with me?" he asked again.

"Why, indeed?" replied Dumbledore. His benign expression immediately told Severus that the old man was making fun of him. "Perhaps you could ask her."

"And perhaps you could go fuck yourself," Severus thought, but not too strongly. He wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to use Legilimency without permission, for all that he swore he never would.

No, Severus didn't intend to ask McGonagall anything, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to find out things about her. The very week of his conversation with Dumbledore was when he decided that the time had come to penetrate the spinster's lair.

So to speak.