In contrast to previous ventures into fan fiction (which perhaps explains the number of incomplete stories I have), I have actually made myself an outline. I know exactly how many chapters I'm going to write and have even already written the last chapter and a half plus the epilogue. For once I have the edge over my readers in actually knowing what the ending will be before I write it.
As to the story so far, what do you think? Is Snape in character? Does Samantha resemble a Mary Sue? I'm really trying to keep her out of that as I've fallen into that trap in the past. If you think she's too good to be true right now, I promise, there will be some flaws revealed in coming chapters. You'll also see Snape's infamous temper unleashed as a result. Please read and review! You guys may not know it, but your reviews help to plant ideas in my head as I come to know what you do and do not respond to in the story.
By the way, if you see any glaring typos or completely incomprehensible sentences, let me know. I don't have a beta, so I have to do all of my own editing. It doesn't always end well.
Two weeks later and Samantha was still trying to formulate a plan that would allow her to assuage her guilt and she was no closer to achieving that goal. Perhaps she was just not capable of being as Slytherin as she thought she could. For some reason, she felt a little disappointed when she reached that conclusion. She surmised it was likely because she wanted to find some reason to redeem herself in Snape's eyes, and what better way to do that than to show herself to have the qualities valued by his own house?
"The sorting hat!" She exclaimed aloud in her empty office. That was a habit she'd picked up after her husband died. 'Make that murdered,' she thought ruefully to herself. Having no one to talk to for most of her day prompted her to fill the silence with either music or her own voice. She did think herself slightly mad, but there was nothing to be done for it. It had already become engrained in her daily routine. And now that she hadn't yet figured out a way to listen to her music at Hogwarts (she'd never been particularly skilled in Charms) she began talking to herself with alarming frequency.
She began to think about the idea of being sorted. Surely it would work as well on adults as it did for children. And perhaps it would be even more accurate given that she'd already had time to develop her personality, rather than having it shaped by whichever house she might have ended up in as a child. But did she really want to be sorted? What if she ended up in Hufflepuff? Or Gryffindor? Snape would never let her live it down.
"Well, if nothing else, it would help me choose a team to cheer for at quidditch," she said aloud once more. She was slightly comforted by the fact that she at least spoke in a low voice when she talked to herself. She promised herself that if she started talking in a full voice, she'd go get herself checked out.
With her decision made, she headed to Headmaster Dumbledore's office to ask if she could have a go at the sorting hat. Samantha was glad to find that he was in his office when she arrived. She was terribly impatient once she'd made up her mind to do something, if only because she often found herself questioning any decision she made if she was given too much time to dwell on it.
"What can I do for you, Samantha?" Dumbledore asked as she sat herself down in front of his imposing desk.
"Well, sir, I was wondering if–," she stopped abruptly. "Does the sorting hat work on adults?"
"To tell you the truth, we've never tried it on an adult before. At least not while I've been here," Dumbledore said absently, clearly trying to work out in his mind whether or not it was possible. "I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't work."
"That is what I thought as well, headmaster."
"Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?" He said, sounding childishly excited at the prospect of testing his hypothesis. He plucked the sorting hat from its resting place and turned to Samantha. "Ready?" Samantha took a steadying breath and nodded.
She gasped as the hat came to life the moment it came to rest on her head. 'Well, so far so good,' she thought to herself.
'You're a bit older than I'm used to,' came the hat's blunt opening remarks.
'I'm not that old,' she mentally huffed. 'What do you see?'
'You're as ambitious as they come,' the hat began, clearly in thought. It was a little disconcerting, if she were totally honest. She'd never experienced anything like it and certainly couldn't imagine what it would be like for an eleven-year-old. 'You seem to have achieved nearly all that you have sought and subsequently grown out of much of your self-consciousness, though. Hm, now this is interesting. You're still keen to prove yourself, but I only see one person who you'd like to impress. And I remember him well. Greasy.'
'Hey! Do you mind not insulting him?' She chided the hat, not quite knowing why she was being so protective of Snape to a hat.
'Well, we are bossy, aren't we? I think there's a little more going on here than a need to impress him,' the hat added cheekily.
'If I'd known you'd be so rude, I'd never have decided to turn to you. Will you just get on with it?'
'Careful, I might put you precisely where you do not want to be if you continue harassing me,' it warned. Samantha sighed aloud this time and Dumbledore gave her a look, clearly wondering what was taking so long and why she was looking so exasperated at a hat. 'You're lucky I am not quite so vindictive. I'd say there's no place for you but…'
'But where?' She asked in frustration when the hat trailed off.
"Slytherin," the hat finally said aloud. She was both relieved and surprised. Though perhaps now that she had been assured a place in Slytherin, she would feel a little more confident in pursuing her plan of attack.
"Are you pleased with the results?" Dumbledore asked as he placed the hat back on its stand.
"I am. That hat does need a talking to, though. I wonder if it's quite so rude to the children." Dumbledore laughed in response.
"Tell me, why did you want to be sorted?" He asked. She had a sneaking suspicion that much of the staff were gossips, Snape obviously excluded, and was wary of what she really wanted to reveal.
"Quidditch is coming up. I wasn't sure who I wanted to back," she answered lightly. Well, it wasn't wholly untrue. Dumbledore looked unconvinced.
"And why were you so pleased with being sorted into Slytherin?" He pressed. Skirting this would be a little more difficult.
"Professor Snape would never have let me live it down otherwise. I might have gotten away with Ravenclaw, but I'm not even so sure about that." Dumbledore continued to be dubious and clearly saw her hedging. "Well," she continued, keen to get out of the office, "I must be getting back to work. Those assignments aren't going to grade themselves!" She mentally groaned at the patently guilty tone in her voice, not to mention the outright cheesiness of her choice of words. Dumbledore, magnanimous as he was, let her flee without further questioning.
September quickly faded into October, bringing the cold with it in more than one way. She and Snape continued to maintain a barely cordial acquaintance. They continued to hold monosyllabic conversations at meals, Snape more often than not speaking to her out of the corner of his mouth and almost never turning his head to face her. Brewing was not much more conversationally stimulating. Their only exchanges seemed to occur when Samantha was looking for an ingredient or utensil. Every once in a while, she would listen to him fume about his students. Not having to deal with such explosive combinations of students in her own classes, she never had much to add to these discussions other than randomly placed noises of assent. Of course, they were not so much discussions as they were ranting sessions for Snape.
Halloween was suddenly upon them, with the first quidditch match of the season coming right on its heels. During the Halloween feast, she had vaguely wondered about the wisdom of stuffing children with more sugar than their young bodies could surely handle. She leaned over to Snape to share her observation.
"The number of sweets on the tables makes me wonder if the headmaster, in his lemon drop-induced haze, has forgotten what large amounts of sugar does to children," she murmured. Snape snorted and he clearly appeared to be struggling to contain the laughter that threatened to bubble out of him. He quickly clamped down on his amusement just as he had at the Sorting Feast. Not before, however, a certain blond Slytherin had witnessed the entire exchange.
The Saturday following the Halloween Feast, Samantha had her first experience with the fever pitch of a pre-quidditch breakfast. She'd only ever been to one quidditch match, and that was years back, and had never played herself, not least because she was not very skilled on a broom nor particularly athletic in general. Moreover, Salem could not boast of the same expansive grounds that Hogwarts had and, therefore, did not have a quidditch pitch.
The students were positively giddy. Though it was the Gryffindor and Slytherin match, the high tensions that ran between the two houses made it the biggest rivalry in the school. As such, even the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students were infected with the escalating excitement. The Great Hall fairly buzzed with it. As she looked over the hall, she noticed that most students, save for a handful of Ravenclaws, all proudly wore Gryffindor colors. She wasn't sure if it would have bothered her before, but being a relatively new addition to Slytherin House (even if no one knew it but the blasted hat and the nosy headmaster) she felt slighted by the clear bias. Of course, the nastiness of many of the house's students and, as far as the students were concerned, its illustrious head, didn't exactly endear Slytherin to the rest of the school.
The students quickly cleared out as soon as the players left to ready themselves for the match. She noted with amusement that the first out behind the players were gaggles of girls, clearly vying for the attention of the popular athletes. Snape rose to help herd the students to the pitch, Samantha soon following his lead. Before she could catch up, however, the headmaster called to her.
"Samantha, I have a gift for you," he said as he presented her with a wrapped bundle.
"Really?" She asked excitedly, clearly caught up in the light atmosphere created by the enthusiastic students. She tore open the package to find a Slytherin scarf. "Sir, thank you. This is perfect!"
"Indeed," he said with a sly smile as she immediately wound the scarf around her neck. "Why don't you go join your head of house in the stands?"
Samantha eyed him warily, wondering what he was playing at. Nevertheless, she followed his advice and unsurprisingly found an empty space next to Snape in the faculty box. He glanced briefly at her and followed it up with an uncharacteristic double take. She looked over at him to find him staring at her scarf.
"Any particular reason you've decided to alienate yourself from the rest of the school and probably a good deal of your Muggle Studies students?" He asked sarcastically. She looked down at her new scarf and smiled.
"The headmaster gave it to me," she answered simply. She definitely wasn't going to hand him this news on a silver platter; he was going to have to tease it out of her.
"Whatever for?"
"Well, being a Slytherin and all, I imagine he thought I should have one," she explained as if it were self-evident.
"What do you mean 'being a Slytherin'?" He demanded, clearly confused and not liking it one bit.
"Dumbledore allowed me to try out the sorting hat. It put me in Slytherin," Samantha answered with a triumphant, and just a touch haughty, grin.
"Did it really?" He asked with an amused smirk. Samantha was glad that she'd finally gotten him to string more than two words together when speaking to her and even more delighted that he appeared pleased that she'd been sorted into his house. She gave him a crooked smile and nodded.
"It did. Though not without being rather rude about it," she added moodily. "The damned thing said I was old." A bark of laughter escaped from Snape before he could stop himself. Luckily the teams had just flown out from the locker rooms and the roar of the crowd covered his indiscretion. It did not, however, escape Samantha's notice. And if anyone asked why her cheeks were so red, she could just chalk it up to the cold.
As Madam Hooch walked onto the pitch to begin the match, Samantha leaned over to Snape to inform him that he would likely be bombarded with a barrage of questions as the match progressed. He appeared to sulk for a moment, but took it with remarkably good grace.
"Do you not have quidditch where you come from?" He asked, watching as Madam Hooch released the bludgers. The blighters did have a mind of their own and it did one well to keep an eye on them.
"Where I come from? You make it sound like I'm from another planet," she scoffed at him, her attention likewise on the proceedings on the pitch. Snape smirked.
"May as well be," he muttered, though not so low that Samantha knew he'd meant her to hear it. She nudged him with her elbow in response. To their collective surprise, he merely snorted at her childish reaction.
She was surprised at how violent the game was. She certainly didn't remember it this way. Then again, she doubted that the teams she saw play held anywhere near the same animosity toward one another as did Gryffindor and Slytherin. She noticed that while Snape was not quite so vocal about his support (she had quickly found herself yelling at both teams), she could practically feel the tension radiating from his body. Being so close to him, she also heard more than one gasp as he saw players on both sides fall to what she was sure should have been their certain death were it not for strategically placed, if somewhat weak, cushioning charms.
It was a tense game. The chasers kept the scores relatively close, leaving the outcome of the match up to the seekers. They were nearly an hour and a half into the game when it became clear that Harry Potter had spotted the snitch. He raced down toward the pitch, narrowly missing two bludgers along the way. Chasers and beaters scattered as he flew toward them with no mind to slow down for anything or anyone in his way. Draco was soon on his tail, the two boys shortly thereafter neck and neck in their pursuit of the small golden orb. It was immediately evident that Harry was the better flyer, but the quality of Draco's broom somewhat made up for his natural deficiencies.
Samantha could swear she'd held her breath for a full minute as she watched the two race toward the ground only to pull up at the last minute. She could feel Snape tense next to her, relaxing only slightly when it became clear that they would not crash head first into the pitch. His eyes held a fiery intensity as he followed the movements of the seekers, his cheeks were flushed, and his parted lips showed his breathing to be elevated. Samantha found herself captivated by the sight for a moment before hearing both cheers and groans from those around her. She looked up to see an elated Harry Potter grasping the snitch, waving it around triumphantly as his team circled him.
"Bloody Potter," Snape muttered grumpily. "Never bloody fails."
Samantha was amused by his reaction. He reminded her of her husband every time his favorite football club had lost a match. It was also an oddly humanizing response. Not that she thought him inhuman of course, but sports were such a normal activity and Snape was, well, not exactly normal, and nor did he seem to be the athletic type. His grumpiness over his team losing a match was both petulant and typical of every man she'd ever known. Why that warmed her, she hadn't the faintest idea.
The two walked along the perimeter of the swarm of students returning to the castle to either celebrate their win or commiserate in their loss. Along the way, Samantha babbled on about the match. The nearly two hours of brutal quidditch she'd just witnessed had her adrenaline operating at full tilt. She hardly noticed that Snape, though no longer moody, was not paying much attention to her.
"I had no idea it was going to so violent, Professor," she continued, oblivious to the fact that he had stopped dead in his tracks.
"Severus," he said suddenly, looking as though he'd surprised himself. Samantha finally noticed he stopped and whirled around to look at him.
"Sorry?" She asked, barely able to hear him over the excited chatter of the students.
"Severus," he said again as he caught up to her. "Call me Severus."
"Oh," she replied dumbly, a warm smile coming over her face. She held out her hand with a smirk. "Very well, Severus. Samantha, pleased to meet you."
Snape took her gloved hand and gave it a firm shake. "Charmed, I'm sure." Samantha laughed until she was nearly in tears. Given that she was already wound up in the aftermath of the match, their light banter made her positively light-headed. And, much to her delight, it seemed to be rubbing off on him.
They walked back to the castle in companionable silence, though amused glances continued to pass between the two. Their good humor continued through lunch and throughout the rest of the day as Snape allowed himself to be used as a sounding board for Samantha's research.
Yes, her plan was moving forward quite nicely, if she did say so herself.
