Chapter 7

Minerva McGonagall sipped her tea as Dumbledore closed and secured the office door. He took a seat across from her and poured himself a cup. "I suppose that you have a purpose in asking to meet with me other than to join me in tea. I suspect that it might be in regards to a couple of our wizards."

"Indeed. Albus, I am concerned. Surely you notice that Severus is acting totally out of character. I realize that your cousin and he have many interests in common and that it's natural for a man to notice a woman and enjoy her company but something far different is going on between the two of them. He has been acting as if he is fifteen years old. He's not only acting interested in her, he is acting like a child. They are not just spending time together. They are playing like children. They go up at night and drink on the astronomy tower deck. Argus has found beer cans and cigarette butts up there and Severus has not done anything so irresponsible since sixth year, and even then he had the good sense to cover his tracks better. The children will be coming back in three weeks. What are they going to think when they go up to the astronomy deck to have their illicit parties and find their professor up there with your cousin?"

"He has been having quite a time lately. Minerva. What I am going to tell you now, I tell you in confidence. Cookie?" Dumbledore offered the tray. "These are exceptional cookies, it's a muggle recipe that Deborah brought with her. She made these last night and taught the house elves how to make them. They love her, you know. She treats them like people."

"Every person has their own weaknesses, their chinks in their armor. Severus has his as well. When he was a student here a trivial incident occurred, something that we would typically write off as children's horseplay. It traumatized him deeply, and even though it was something that any other child would be embarrassed about and shrug off, it hit him hard, it struck his greatest vulnerability."

"As you recall, Severus came from a deplorable home. His father was an alcoholic, violent at times. At one point the family services department in the ministry was seriously considering removing him but his mother pleaded to keep him; she made all sorts of promises that she would take better care of him and that it would break her heart if they took him from her. She was of the Prince family, a family with some status, and while they had washed their hands of her they had no desire to see her bring further disgrace upon them by having her child removed for neglect. Severus's grandmother was a very persuasive woman. His mother never made good on any of her promises. He lived a squalid life, neglected, dirty, and frequently abused. He arrived her filthy, smelly, and with no decent clothing or home training. We had to use funds from our student aid fund to clothe him and we had to take him aside to teach him basic manners and hygiene-it was something he simply had never experienced at home."

"Immediately he became an object of ridicule. On the train to Hogwarts other children who came from decent homes began to tease him and bully him. That wasn't right of them but they were children and that is how children act toward someone different. Two of the worst were James Potter and Sirius Black. Severus, being the way he is, fought back and that began a cycle of sniping back and forth." To make it worse, the one friend Severus had was Lily Evans. She was sorted into your house while he was sorted into Slytherin. Lily was outgoing and made friends with her entire house, including James and Sirius. Severus was insanely jealous of them and not very good at hiding it. That encouraged them to pick with him more."

"One day, when James and Sirius were tormenting him, James knocked away his wand and levitated Severus. James then pulled his pants around his ankles and they laughed at him. Now, if you recall, Severus was one of our late bloomers, possibly because he had not been well taken care of-he came here quite malnourished and run down. Most of our other boys matured far earlier than he did. They did not let him forget this either. He also had rather dingy underwear. You know yourself from when room searches have been necessary that this pertains to about ninety percent of our boys and quite a few of our girls because they simply will not sort their clothing for the laundry and the house elves refuse to do it for them. But Severus was not thinking about the rest of the boys with their equally dingy underwear. It happened to him, it was all about him. He was helpless, up there in the air with his grey underwear for all to see, including Lily Evans, and mortified, thinking that they were all laughing at his skinny legs and how underdeveloped he was."

"Lily tried to come to his rescue and stood up to Sirius and James and told them to leave him alone. This hurt his pride even further because she had not only seen him so vulnerable but he felt that she was acting as if he were incapable of defending himself. To his mind it was if she was betraying him. So he lashed out at her and called her the worst thing he could think of to call her, a mudblood."

"Lily was shocked and hurt that her good friend would call her such a thing, especially when she was trying to help him. She was a child herself, and immature, as all of them were. She acted as a hurt child will do and would have nothing to do with him after that. When he tried to apologize, she cut him off and refused to hear him out. A few months later, she began dating James."

"Poor Severus," Minerva shook her head slowly. "With all of the other things he had to overcome, that he lost his only friend. So unfortunate."

"Yes. Because with no other friends, Severus began to mix more with the most undesirable of the Slytherin lot, the ones that ended up following Tom Riddle. It was a pivotal point in his life."

"I understand that, but what does this have to do with his acting out with Deborah?"

"Everything. A part of Severus is frozen at that point in time. Look at how Severus has related to women who are attracted to him for his entire adult life. He shuts them out completely and acts as if he has no interest in their company at all, as he tried to do with Lily after she cut him off."

"My cousin has the gift of empathy. She instinctively experiences what others feel, particularly if she has strong feelings toward them. Without trying to seek it out, she found the one gateway by which to approach Severus. He cannot back her down or make her reject him, no matter how nasty he is to her. She comes right back at him or laughs it off and when he's done being angry she lets him back in. She is not only mature enough to know that his anger is directed at her but not rational, but she also knows that he needs acceptance. She's dealing with him as one deals with a child. She encourages him when he is behaving well and doesn't take it to heart when he lashes out. Severus is not capable of dealing with women as a mature man does. He can only deal with them at his own level, that of a boy who is so afraid of rejection that the very thought of it paralyses him and that the only way he can handle the threat is to cut others off before they cut him off."

"The reason this 'out of character' behavior is becoming apparent to you is because for so long Severus has been very effective at preventing any woman from approaching him by being rude and miserable to them. It's worked well. Most women will simply move on if they are attracted to a man and he behaves as hatefully as Severus does. But Deborah is not threatened at all by him. When he pushes, she pushes back, just as hard, and when he stops acting out it is all over and done and settled and never mentioned again. Her husband was not an easy man to live with, but he was a good man. She is remarkably strong."

"I didn't know she was married. What happened to that?

"He was killed in battle. Her husband was a vampire-it was considered quite shocking. He was a friend of her father's when the vampires and wizards began working together. They fell in love and married with her father's blessing, despite a great deal of outcry in the wizarding community. Ian was literally killed in front of her. He was the commander of the vampires who were fighting a rogue uprising. As his second, she assumed leadership of the vampire forces. That is how she became the only wizard to lead the vampire nation in war. She is a hero to the vampires, a wizard who they hold as one of their own."

"That is amazing and sad. But why is she here trying to 'fix' Severus?"

"She didn't come here to fix Severus. She did not know that Severus existed when I asked her to come, she only knew that I was asking for her help, as a distant relative. Severus just happened to be here. Once she met him I suspect that she was attracted to him because they share some of the same interests and because his behavior piqued her curiosity. But she does have feelings for him. He's not a project, she genuinely cares for him. And now that she does care about him then by design or by instinct she's approaching him on the level he must be approached on."

"I can see that now, but Albus, what is going to happen when the students return? I cannot see the two of them behaving outlandishly when they arrive. It simply wouldn't be acceptable."

"No, it wouldn't. I feel that neither one of them is totally insensitive to appearances. If it becomes a problem I will speak to both of them but I suspect that Severus is unwilling to allow the students to know that much of his personal life, now that he finally has one. Deborah is going to be staying on with us as an assistant professor for the coming term. I've asked her to help with a few classes. She will be teaching some advanced courses. I offered her Defense Against the Dark Arts, but she refused, on the grounds that Severus has been asking for that class for a while now and it wouldn't be right for her to take it. So she will be working with that professor and also we will be adding an adult class in wandmaking, which will in reality be a training class for our own people for the war which we both know is inevitable."

Deborah sat in Dumbledore's office. "Since I'm going to be staying on at Hogwarts, I'd like to know a little about that item." She indicated the Sorting Hat. "I've heard that it sorts the students into their houses."

"Yes, it does. We place it on a new student's head and the hat tells us where they would be best placed. It's a remarkable magical artifact."

She put her teacup down. "Albus, if I asked the hat, would it tell me which house I would have belonged to if I had come to Hogwarts? I'm just curious. I know that each of your houses has it's own personality and I would love to know where I would have belonged."

"We could try. I've never known of it to have been done and now that you have mentioned it, I am curious myself." Albus retrieved the hat from it's shelf.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Severus entered and said "Pardon me, I didn't know that you were busy. I need to speak to you later at your convenience."

"No, come on in, Severus. We're about to conduct an experiment. We're going to see if the sorting hat will sort Deb. This will be interesting. You may wish to see this." Snape took a seat and watched intently.

Albus approached Deborah, who lifted her head straight and squared her shoulders. The hat began to speak.

"This one is not an untried youth. She is brave and protective, and seeks to shield the weak. She would do well in Gryffindor. But she is sly and she will act in less than a noble manner to achieve a noble cause. She is secretive in some ways. She is naturally attracted to dark things. Slytherin would be a good place for her. But she also….."

The hat continued to think of one reason for Slytherin then another for Gryffindor for several minutes. Snape checked the time; the hat had been trying to sort her for nearly ten minutes. Deborah raised her hand, which was silly but somehow felt right. "Sorting hat, may I ask a question?

"It is not the thing that one usually does, but you may ask."

"You seem to feel that I am equally suited to two houses, is that correct?

"That is so."

"Since that is so, would it be appropriate for me to indicate the house that I would feel most at home with?"

"That would be correct."

She thought for a moment. Then she stated, "In that case, I prefer Slytherin."

"Slytherin!" the hat announced.

She handed the hat back to Albus. "I can't be in one of your houses because obviously I am not a student. But it's good to know where I would have been. She looked back at Snape. "What do you think, should I have been a Slytherin?"

"Yes."

Albus patted her on the shoulder. "Imagine, one of my cousins a Slytherin. Who would have thought such a thing? But since you're going to teaching with us this term, this may end up being a blessing. Severus, didn't you tell me that you would prefer not to deal with certain female issues that arise in your house?"

"I did and I would be most grateful if Deborah would handle them. I dread such things." He turned to Deborah, "So, you're going to be teaching?"

"A bit. I'll be assisting in DADA and any other area where a professor requests my assistance, and I'll be teaching an adult class as well. Something new that Albus has thought up. I will leave you two now, but he can fill you in." She turned to Dumbledore. " Thank you for the tea, cousin, and for the use of the sorting hat. It was fascinating."