So this is a short little ficlet written for HPFC Fanfiction Tournaments Competitions. It is rough- very much so- and is something that I'll probably end up re-writing, but it's been lingering in my mind as I've been writing "Hallelujah". According to canon, Snape and Charity Burbage were friends- but how? And why? This is my attempt to explain it.
17 July 1997
It was a truth universally acknowledged, Charity Burbage thought as she screamed and begged and wept whilst slowly spinning over the Malfoys' ostentatious dinning room table, that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
She certainly hadn't- not like this- which was why she was going to die tonight.
Please oh please just let it end… the Cruciatus came at her in sickening waves, the lee of it scorching her nerve endings with volcanic intensity, the crest a bitterly arctic barrage of agony.
Fire and ice; ice and fire…
Then Bellatrix Lestrange gave a particularly fierce cackle, and the world went blessedly black.
When Charity came to, the pain had receded enough to regain control of her thoughts. In a parody of a proper dinner party, the dinning room had filled with people. She recognized most of them; Pureblood society was small enough that she'd had the majority around her own table at one time or another.
But this wasn't to be a dutiful supper of stilted, polite conversation. And rather than a fragrant holiday goose sitting upon the table, it was she who was trussed up and ready for cutting.
She could feel the cold trickle of urine as it dripped from her plaid gardening trousers onto the polished mahogany surface below. Ahhh, she thought with spiteful satisfaction, but I would wager that I am, in fact, rather fragrant at this point. Here's hoping that I ruin the finish on the ruddy table…
There was a subtle, muted shuffle around her, and it took her several more revolutions to figure out what was happening; two more dark figures had entered the room.
"Yaxley. Snape… you are very nearly late." Even as the cold voice of the monster sitting by the fireplace sent chills running down her spine, Charity felt a sudden jolt of hope arc through her.
Severus Snape: a fellow teacher and her friend. A Death Eater as well, but the best kind- a Benedict Arnold. Dumbledore must have sent him, she thought with frantic gratitude. He'll save me. Some how, he'll get me out of this…
That logic only held out through two languid rotations before she recalled that Dumbledore had been dead over a month… by Snape's wand.
Charity could feel herself start to twitch in panic as memories of the last day of the term came flooding back. A crumpled body at the bottom of a tower; children's screams as violent red spells ricocheted of stonewalls.
He'll save me. He won't let me die like this. He is my friend…
Isn't he?
16 October 1996
Charity flung open the door to the faculty lounge and stormed in like a raging hippogriff. Snagging the copy of The Guardian from the side table, she made for the comfort of the sagging settee by the back window. She was halfway across the room when she saw that Severus Snape already occupied the sunlit space.
Oh, naturally that black-hearted bastard would have to be in here, and in my spot no less...
Biting back another oath, she swirled about and sat with a huff in one of the chintz wingback chairs. Closing her eyes for a methodical count to ten, she took a deep, cleansing breath.
Only marginally calmer, she opened her eyes again and read the headline: 'Government to make the possession of handguns illegal in the UK following Dunblane Massacre…'
Right then, I'm in no mood to read about dead school children… she thought, and started to flip through the paper. I'll just do the crossword…
But the G2 section was missing. "Oh, for fuck's sake!" she erupted, the urge to scream like a thwarted banshee warring with a sudden press of angry, frustrated tears. Hearing the settee springs creak and the rustle of newsprint, she turned and saw Snape rising from his place.
"What is the problem, Madame? I can only imagine it quite the conundrum as you swearing like a vicar on leave." The man's voice positively dripped with sarcasm, and Charity felt her temper swell further.
"The problem?" she repeated with forced sweetness. "Well, my mood has not been improved by the endless series of pranks and pitfalls that have been befalling both my classroom and the students heading into it. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would want to target Muggle Studies…"
She let her voice trail off in faux feminine confusion, and was rewarded by the slight flush of anger that appeared on Snape's face as he caught her meaning. They both knew that his Slytherins enjoyed bullying both her and her students, although she could rarely prove it.
"Thankfully," she went on, "whilst Muggle Studies may be considered a 'soft' subject, I am well-versed in Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and can adequately protect the sanctity of my classroom."
Again, she offered him a saccharine smile, eyes making clear her disgust. "Being of a delicate sort of constitution, however, the stress has left me quite on edge." That too was a lie. Charity was many things, but delicate was not numbered among them. Still, her sarcasm seemed to be nettling the man, so she continued in the same vein.
"As I've spent the last hour removing dung bombs from my classroom, it seemed only right to come here and relax… I am quite sure that you understand my frustration upon discovering that not only was someone in my preferred spot, but said person had also completed the crossword."
Charity let her gaze drop pointedly to the newspaper clutched Snape's right hand, the scribbles of blue ink proudly announcing that particular part of the paper had been dealt with.
Snape only sneered, and glided forward until he was looming threateningly in front of her chair. "Well," he intoned slowly, "…nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."
With a sharp tap, he cleared the paper of his marks and thrust it into her lap. One dramatic billow of robes later, he was exiting the room with as much flare as Charity had displayed upon entry.
She couldn't help it; Charity laughed loudly at the absurdity of the situation. There were very few people in the Castle other than her that would be able to understand a Monty Python joke, more or less ape it with any sort of panache. That Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House, had that rare ability was as shocking as it was funny.
Fear, surprise and a ruthless efficiency, indeed… she thought, and bent down to start on the crossword, good humour restored.
A week later, it was he that came storming into the lounge in a full lather. Seeing her curled up on the settee in the sunshine, he shot her a foul glare and started to back out of the room.
"I made a copy of the crossword," Charity said. "Seven down is quite well done, I think."
He hesitated for a long moment before curiosity finally won out. Striding over the side table, he plucked the paper up and read the clue in question.
"A Scottish prick in a fast car, three letters…"
She raised a challenging eyebrow at him as he pondered it. A smirk slid across his face as the answer came to him. "A jag…" he stated with some relish; a 'jag' was not only a type of fast car, but also the Scottish slang for a prick or thorn.
Charity grinned, and tossed him one of her biros. "It's erasable," she said in response to his unspoken query. "Let me know if you get 12 across…"
They fell into a habit of meeting once or twice a week during planning to work on the crosswords together. It was and enjoyable contest, although oddly, neither of them referenced it outside of the faculty lounge. While conversation was sparse, it was not uninformative: the vary nature of the puzzles themselves provided Charity with quite a few insights into the mind of Severus Snape.
"Wrinkled old retainer," he murmured one morning. "Seven letters."
Charity gave a bark of laughter several minutes later as she finally got it. "Scrotum!" she announced with glee.
He rolled his eyes. "Really, woman, display some decorum…"
"Oh, don't be jealous because I figured it out first. Although, as you've got a pair, one would think…"
"As do you…" he muttered, and went back to his paper, a curtain of black hair only half hiding the smile on his face.
25 December 1996
She woke up on Christmas morning to the usual stack of presents; one small package, however, was unmarked.
It contained three crossword books, and two new blue biros.
How ironic, she thought. That's exactly what I got for him…
15 March 1997
Any jokes she had planed on making concerning the Ides of March were swiftly extinguished when Charity saw the sorry state Severus was in.
As usual, he'd beat her to the faculty lounge, and was sitting in the puddle of anemic sunlight allowed by the window. He looked exhausted, almost… beaten. She noted that he hadn't even touched the paper on the side table.
Charity felt her gut lurch, the raspberry biscuits turning sour in her stomach. That they were at war was an open secret; given all the disappearances and deaths, not to mention how bad both he and Dumbledore looked, it did not take a genius to figure that things were not going well and matters were quickly coming to a head.
Who are you, Severus Snape? she wondered, and not for the first time. He had been a Death Eater, and it was assumed by most that he still was. However, whether or not he was Dumbledore's man was the more pressing question...
His eyes had closed, and were it not for the tension running through his thin frame, she would have thought him asleep. Quietly, she sat and began working puzzle.
"Anything good?" Snape said after a time.
"An alarming disclosure of beauty, nine letters."
"Bombshell," he murmured to her as he stiffly rose and left the room.
He did not return to the room for the rest of the spring.
29 June 1997
Charity walked into the lounge and stopped, the lingering prickles of magic making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Despite the dark feeling, the room was empty and undisturbed, save for a crumbled ball of newspaper on the floor by the settee.
Gingerly, she picked paper up and smooth it out; it was the nearly completed crossword from that day's paper. A single space was left blank, and she read the clue.
"Frank had slightly more than Edith (7)"
Sitting carefully on a chair, she started to parse out the hints. So, she thought, who are Frank and Edith? I can't think of any famous literary or pop-culture couples... Frank, Frank is a common enough name, but Edith… let's see, there is Edith Wharton, Edith Piaf…
Edith Piaf… cabaret singer… famous singers of the 40's and 50's…. Frank Sinatra!
Okay, so we have the Frank and Edith, now what is the linkage?
Glancing down at the puzzle, she saw that the word ended with a 's', and also had an 'e' in the second space.
So what are their most famous songs… La Vie en rose, Come Fly Away with Me… Je ne regretted rien… Regrets, I've had a few…
That's it- Edith Piaf had none- Je ne regretted rien- and Sinatra had more!
Uncapping her pen, she filled in the blank squares with a smile… a smile that rapidly faded as she thought about the actual word, and the man who had filled out the rest of the puzzle before leaving it crushed up in a ball on the floor.
Regrets.
Charity felt sick, all the creeping horrors of the past year suddenly rushing to mind.
What does Snape regret? Something in the past… or something to come?
The next day, Severus Tobais Snape killed Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore atop the Astronomy Tower.
"Frank had slightly more than Edith (7)"
12 July 1997
"Charity, how could you be so daft? So… so…" her brother Alan paused to take in a shuddering breath, "…I can't even think of words to describe how incredibly foolish writing that bloody editorial was!"
Charity felt herself go thin-lipped, and she resisted the urge to really let Alan have it; the only thing that save him was that it was clear that his rage came from concern.
"I wrote the editorial because we are Purebloods, and right now, atrocities are being committed in our names. I cannot stand idly by and pretend that I agree that Muggles are thieves of magic, or are anything lesser than we are…"
"And so instead, you'll make yourself a target?"
She looked away, seeing the innocent faces of her Muggle-born students in her mind's eye, and hearing the screams of frightened children as the Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts.
"Alan… silence is the same as condoning it. I won't just let it happen…" Charity reached out, and grasped his arm. "We're at war. For Merlin's sake, I teach Muggle Studies at Hogwarts- if that doesn't already make me a target, I don't know what will. If I don't speak up, who will?"
Five days later, the Death Eaters came for her while she was weeding her geraniums; Charity's first thought was that it was horridly ironic- according to flower lore, the geraniums indicated that something was sheer stupidity or folly
17 July 1997
Panic had overtaken Charity's mind. As she stared at the impassive, fire lit face of Severus Snape, Charity realized that he could not- or rather, would not- do anything to aid her.
I don't want to die oh please, don't let me die… She could hear herself begging, pleading with Snape to save her, but there was no response from the black-clad man.
A wave of furious anger overtook her then, the raw, breath-taking heat of it rendering her almost blind and deaf to her surroundings.
How? she mentally screamed. How can he just stand there and do nothing?
Then a pale face swam into view: Draco Malfoy.
He was staring at her, eyes full of a numb, resigned horror. The Slytherin had been nothing less than beastly to her, but now, watching her spin, watching her die…
Some of her fury abated. Seeing the reaction of that particular child gave her a curious type of strength.
I will not die begging.
As if from a distance, she heard the chilling tones of Voldemort.
"Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of Wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defense of Mudbloods in the Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and magic. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable circumstance... She would have us all mate with Muggles...or, no doubt, werewolves..."
And those Muggles and werewolves are going to be the ones that take you down! Charity thought fiercely, as the faces of Hermione Granger and Remus Lupin swam into view.
"Avada Kedavra!" There was bright flash of green, and then there was nothing.