Some of the others had been children of Death Eaters and aspiring servants of Voldemort. Aspiring. Funny that aspiration was the very thing that got them into Slytherin to begin with. His parents' death must have become news in the House, and then he was... what? Fair game? A potential recruit?
David sat back in his chair, the folders open in his lap, and stared into the fire. He tried to imagine... Probably tall for his age, and thin, but not quite awkward. The one magical picture of Severus in the folder was a blank background. Taken at age 12, the boy refused to show himself in it. Pictures taken during a happier time were no doubt kept safely with the grandmother.
Alongside the magical photo was a Muggle picture. The boy couldn't escape from this non-moving version, and he stared sullenly out from it, looking just as miserable as could be expected.
Fair game then, until he had finally battled back, putting everything his mother had taught him to good use. A potential recruit then. An eventual recruit. But when had that line, between potential and eventual, been crossed? For those who knew how to look, the answers were right there, so David turned his attention back to the files.
Grades fluctuated after the deaths of his parents, then rose steadily. Yes, both Slytherin and Ravenclaw potential there, but for all the wrong reasons. Any sort of trouble within Slytherin was not in the school report, so it was only a guess as to what might have happened before the boy had come into his own. Whatever had caused it, that point was very obvious as there were suddenly disciplinary reports all over the place. Hexing other students, out after curfew, in the Forbidden Forest, making advanced and dangerous potions on his own...
Every single thing David read about the boy screamed out as pleas for help. Students half as smart as Severus Snape snuck out after curfew, got into fights, and did all sorts of dangerous magic without getting caught, but he was caught consistently. No one ever picked up this pattern though. Grades remained excellent throughout, and that was perhaps the one thing that prevents his expulsion.
There were also quite a few--not more than five dozen--encounters with a group of Gryffindors. These incidents went beyond House rivalries, and David knew each one added to the decision to join the Death Eaters.Plain old revenge could be a powerful motivator to the proper mind. So escalating pranks and an answer, each escalating in viciousness and humiliation, all to be topped off by the werewolf incident.
Something so serious wouldn't be forgotten though, and given two years to nurse that anger unchecked... A disaster in waiting. Waiting, yes, as there were no more Gryffindor confrontations, just the regular trouble. That made a kind of sense, as disheartening as it was. And then something happened that didn't fit this pattern at all.
Caught out after curfew, outside with another student. No dueling, no hexes though. Just out at night. Detentions given and served. A Ravenclaw, fellow 6th year, name of Alan Zimmerman. Strange. There were no further mentions of this other student, though Snape's behavior curbed for a while. Perhaps...? Perhaps, but Snape's troublesome behavior started again middle of his final year and continued until he left Hogwarts.
Then the joining of the Death Eaters and three lost years. Whatever had prompted him to run to Dumbledore wasn't in any file, and David wasn't sure anyone outside of Snape really knew. And here, Dumbledore's record, not found in any Ministry file. It was certainly a sad tale, but still, David didn't think it was quite complete.
Maybe the grandmother, maybe this mysterious Alan Zimmerman, or maybe just unbearable guilt.
"Tell me," he said aloud suddenly, "about Alan Zimmerman, Severus."
Out of sight, behind the chair and in the shadows, Severus said, "He was a friend." A slight pause. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"Just getting an idea of what motivates you, where you come from, what makes Dumbledore so sure about you." The chair squawked against the hardwood floor as David turned it. He gestured to the files that lay open in his lap. "They tell an interesting story, but an incomplete one."
"A friend, as I said," Severus answered, holding his chin up and meeting the fire-flecked hazel eyes of the other wizard.
"Of course. Naturally, you don't have to tell me anything, but I'm a firm believer in talking things through. The time ahead of you is going to be difficult; not so different from joining the Death Eaters in mistrust and pain.
"I would like this to go as smoothly as possible. I would like for you to trust me; I'm not reporting this to anyone outside these walls."
"He... he was my friend."
David sighed. "That's fine. Maybe you'll feel like talking a bit more later. As it is, I think it's time to get started. It's really not that difficult to become an animagus, or there wouldn't be so many unregistered."
"I always believed it to be a difficult process." Severus looked doubtfully at the potion--roiling and brilliant blue--in his hand. "There is no potion to make someone an animagus."
"Of course not," David said, grinning wryly. "Who would know better than you? But there are potions to help if you know what to expect. No, I'm not questioning your knowledge or ability. The simple fact is that the process is unpleasant, and there are a variety of things one can do to ease it. That's why becoming an animagus without the help of someone who already is one is... unadvisable. If you're interested, I have several journal articles on it. The Ministry always needs their justification for things."
Severus sniffed the potion, careful not to inhale too deeply. "What is this?" The smell, the color, the texture, in this combination were any potion he was aware of.
"No worry. I've brewed a potion or two in my time. Just drink it and we'll see what it tells us." David's eyes sparkled as he leaned against his workbench, watching his new student.
"I trust you for no good reason, which makes me not trust you." Before David could comment, Severus tilted back the phial and swallowed the blue liquid.
Doubling over and gagging almost immediately, Severus clutched his stomach and shot an accusatory glare at David. Sharp pains were stabbing through him, and though they were in his midsection, they were not originating from his stomach. It was deeper, more like a violent, agonizing portkey, the hook caught on his insides.
"It's not poison. You won't die or even suffer any damage," David said mildly. He was watching very closely.
Dry heaving, Severus fell to his knees. Drool fell from his gaping mouth and puddled in front of him as the violence in his gut grew.
"And there we are, Mr. Snape." There was something close to pride in David's voice. "Now we know what your animagus form will be."
Eyes blurred by tears, Severus looked up to see something resembling a patronus on the floor at David's feet. It was silvery and insubstantial, much like a ghost. It couldn't be a patronus, at least not his own; it took a completely different shape. Also, in contrast to a patronus, there were several wispy tendrils clinging to him, coiled around his arms. They tingled, like raw magic trickling from his skin.
"There's no optimal form, of course," David continued, watching the shape move sluggishly about, "though there are many less than useful ones. Can't very well be traipsing about a gathering of Death Eaters as an elephant, can you?"
"Patronus...?"
"Not a patronus." David kneeled and cupped the wispy serpent in his hands. "This is your animagus form."
Severus wasn't sure why exactly, but he was damned bitter. Of every creature know to Muggle and wizard, he had to be a snake. What was it that made him a snake and not a... a bat? He had been called that often enough. Or a raven, or one of a hundred other things? But no, a snake, just like that annoying name they had called him at school.
Little Severus Snake, didn't have parents anymore, just an old biddy of a grandmother.
"Everything," he whispered. "I did everything to get them to like me."
"It never worked, did it?" David placed a cup of tea on the side table, then sat in a russet armchair across from Severus.
"Never. Nothing I did, no matter how hard I tried to like them..." With pale, trembling hands, Severus lifted the cup and drank from it. After wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he cradled the delicate cup in both his hands. "My family was rich, my mother... should have been accepted. It should have been enough."
"When did it go too far? When did you reach the point you couldn't take it?" David asked as he leaned forward eagerly. Out of sight was a quill recording everything that was said. "When did you fight back and make them fear you?"
After another drink of his tea, no sip here, Severus slumped in his chair and stared into the softly glowing remains in the fireplace. "My third year. I at least waited until we were at Hogwarts, though it was difficult; from the moment I saw them on the train, I wanted to curse them. Worse than that." He glanced at the older man. "I wanted to use Cruciatus on them."
"The other Slytherins?" No judgment, just curiosity.
"Especially them. It was easier to accept it all from the Gryffindors; that's just House rivalry. I didn't have to lay down and let the others step on me." Very calm and controlled now. It had been years, and though it still had power over him, he could control it. The power was within him now in a way it hadn't been in school. Severus smiled with grim satisfaction. "My mother taught me, of course. But before, the determination and will hadn't been there. I showed them the first night in the dorm what the true child of a Death Eater was capable of. Word did get around quickly after that."
"And what happened was kept strictly within the walls of Slytherin." It wasn't much, didn't add a whole lot, but did open up new topics of inquiry.
"Naturally, or I'd be in Azkaban right now with no hope of ever seeing the outside."
"But everyone knew..."
"Some of the Slytherins knew. The rest merely suspected/ I took pride in my reputation after that. It was one of the few things I could." He finished the dregs of his tea.
"More?"
"Please."
David gestured at the eta service, and it floated to Severus' side.
As Severus began to make himself tea, he said casually, "So how are you related to Dumbledore?"
The answer was just as casual. "He's my grandfather."
"The eyes." Severus allowed his tea to get alarmingly dark. "Not the same color or even the same looks, but the same quality. No mistaking that." He sipped and nodded to himself.
"You would have to know him well to get all that just from my eyes." David waved over the tea service to make his own cup.
A wry smile graced Severus' lips just before he sipped again. "Most of my life has been spent in Hogwarts. I saw the headmaster once, maybe twice a week."
"Your famous sarcasm. Not nearly as cutting as I had expected."
"I'm too tired for cutting. The best I can manage is slightly witty with a hint of self-deprecation."
David smiled half way to a grin. "That's perfectly fine. I'm sure you'll be back to your old standard in no time."
Severus nodded in reply, and there was silence between them for a short time.
"I want to ask you something," David said solemnly, setting his cup down and looking intently at Severus.
"I don't want to talk about my mother," Severus said flatly, his cup abandoned as he crossed his arms defensively across his chest.
TBC