Competition: The Ultimate Death Eater Competition Round Two
Prompt: Forever is a long time.
Character: Professor Snape
A/N: I'm not quite sure what happened here; it wasn't what I planned, but I like the results. Reviews make me happy.
Forever is a long time. But not quite as long as eternity at Hogwarts. No one dreaded the start of term more than Severus Snape. It was one thing to be a student there and be receiving your education, free to complain endlessly. It was another thing entirely to be a teacher that doesn't want to teach, teaching students who don't want to be taught with colleagues who think you're a sour, grouchy, friendless man.
It's worse to know that you are.
Still, everyone likes Christmas, right? Wrong. Professor Snape had an unfortunate liking of seeing the horror on student's faces when he assigned them two foot long essays due right before the holidays. He did this every year without fail, and every year he forgot just how miserable grading those essays made him.
Easter break wasn't much better: the little snot-nosed brats stayed at the castle for the most part with only a few exceptions. That meant he had corridor patrols at ungodly hours in the morning or at night and then he had to make sure that none of the brats drowned in the Black Lake or fed a classmate to the Giant Squid. As happy as that might make him, the school board would be absolutely furious and Albus wanted to avoid that.
And so passed the first year of Severus Snape teaching at Hogwarts. In fact, the first ten years of teaching went the same way. Of course, there was the Weasley twin disaster of 1989, which was a low point and the beginning of Slytherin's winning streak in the House Cup in 1984 but beyond that, Professor Snape was stuck in a rat race that seemed to last forever.
So of course he forgot when 1991 came along that this was the year that the Boy-Who-Lived would come to claim his legacy at last. Oh joy. He'd also forgotten that it would most likely fall to him to spend forever protecting the little brat. Professor Snape enjoyed a minute's elation while the boy sat under the Sorting Hat, wondering what the Daily Prophet headlines would scream when Rita Skeeter found out that the wizarding world's savior was a Hufflepuff. (He never considered the hat was debating about any other house—what Potter was clever enough for Ravenclaw? He would certainly not be a Slytherin) Sadly, Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor and the most entertaining minute in the last decade came to an end. He had the same arrogant look as his father, but Professor Snape could not help but look for Lily's eyes that Albus had promised him all those years ago on the eve of her death. It wasn't as if he cared about those eyes, but that didn't stop him from nearly losing his dinner into Quirrell's lap at the sight of them.
Any hope that Professor Snape had of the boy being anything like his mother was completely squashed by the end of the first lesson. He was an incompetent fool who was never going to be anymore then a famous name to the wizarding world, Professor Snape thought smugly later that day. At least he had that thought to comfort himself with. Since the universe hated him, however, the boy proved to be just as good at flying as his father, the great James Potter. Wonderful.
Then there was a troll in the dungeon and Potter and his newly found sidekick Weasley went after it. Professor Snape had a moment of pure joy, thinking that they'd be killed (at the best) or at least grievously injured. That made getting swiped by the blasted three headed dog almost worth it until his bubble was popped and the boys rewarded for their stupidity. Rewarded. The nerve of Minerva! It was an unpleasant evening for Professor Snape, made more unpleasant by it being the tenth anniversary of Lily's death.
When Potter's broom began behaving strangely in the air during his first Quidditch match, there was nothing preventing Professor Snape from allowing the boy to fall. Still, that life debt to James Potter tugged at him as he watched Potter struggle. Finally, he had to do something, so he began a complicated counter-curse. Quirrell was stronger than he could have ever thought—perhaps Voldemort was after the Stone after all! There was no way that Quirrell alone could ever stand against him. The strangest thing happened. His robes caught on fire, but when he went to put them out, the culprit was long gone. Mouth twisted in a frown, Professor Snape turned back to the pitch to find that Potter was once again safely on the broom. He'd even managed to catch the Snitch.
In early May, Professor Snape nearly saw out his desire to expel Potter from the school. He and Granger were caught on the stairs heading down from the Astronomy Tower. McGonagall took points from her own house and Slytherin was in the lead! Had he been a student, he probably would have done something along the lines of an utterly terrifying victory dance, but as he was an adult, he rubbed it in her face at every possible opportunity.
Potter somehow managed to get the Stone and defeat the Dark Lord. Professor Snape couldn't believe that the boy had done it. Hours later, he sat in his office thinking over the matter.
The years passed at a snail's crawl. Time and time again he watched his Defense Against the Dark Arts post go to some fool and time and time again he watched them fail in the end. The Chamber was opened, the Chamber was closed. Remus Lupin was hired. (Fate was just taunting him at this point.) The schoolboy inside Professor Snape could not help himself. He "let slip" about the werewolf's little problem and the parents came bearing pitchforks, forcing Albus to let him go. Barty Crouch Junior, disguised as paranoid former Auror Alastor Moody came and went and Lord Voldemort rose again.
What followed were some very awful years for Professor Snape. One would think that the Dark Lord would not want a teacher in his inner circle, but one would think wrong. Professor Snape found himself grading papers between spying for Albus while pretending to spy for the Dark Lord. It was enough to give any man a headache, but Professor Snape was no ordinary man. Still, the number of headache reducing potions he brewed over the years increased dramatically.
The next year, Albus allowed himself to be vanquished by a pink bag-toting Ministry puppet.
The year after that, he asked Professor Snape to kill him. Things for out dearest professor were just going downhill.
With Dumbledore finally dead and the Dark Lord reigning supreme, Professor Snape thought that he could finally drop the façade and fully join one side once and for all, no choice required. But that blasted portrait refused every attempt to pry it from the wall and with Albus's words in his ear, Professor Snape found himself once again to be a pawn in a much larger game of chess. He did everything Albus ever asked of him, keeping the students as safe as he could without arousing suspicion and all but dropping the Sword of Gryffindor into Potter's lap.
And then came the battle and Professor Snape could not help but think that he was done spending forever with a mask. He'd pretended to be a teacher as surely as he'd pretended to be a Death Eater, and he was done with it all. So when Lord Voldemort called him and he knew that his time was up, Professor Snape walked willingly to him between mutters about how Dumbledore had known that this would happen all along. Curse that old man and the way he treated the world like his personal game to toy with!
The snake pounced and Voldemort was gone, but somehow Potter arrived. His uncanny ability to be wherever Professor Snape wanted him least had remained. As Professor Severus Snape stared into those green eyes that had started him on this long path, he couldn't help but be glad that he did not have forever. Because that was far too long to be spent at Hogwarts.