Dumbledore was not at breakfast the next morning.
The circles around Severus's eyes were getting bigger and bigger every day. After a full day of teaching lessons and running detentions, he had been summoned to the Dark Lord's circle. That meeting had been quite as fruitless as the last one – the Dark Lord had simply gloated on and on about what they had accomplished over the day.
Severus had reported this to Dumbledore despite its relative uselessness during one of those fleeting moments in which the Headmaster was actually in the castle. Dumbledore had sighed as he listened to the reports of the gloating, and had thanked Severus and walked with him from his office, as he was returning for the fifth time to the Ministry of Magic (he couldn't use the floo network – in Voldemort's small onslaught against the Ministry the previous day, every single fireplace in the building had been demolished).
Severus hadn't slept well in the few hours he had before another round of morning lessons, and now he was sitting zombie-like at the head table, pouring over Hagrid's copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Bad, isn' it?" Hagrid said solemnly, downing his pumpkin juice.
"Mmm," Severus replied noncommittally.
The headline story was about the Ministry. No one had been killed in that attack. Severus, along with most of the students in the Great Hall and all of the teachers reading the Prophet, had skimmed the overblown coverage of the relatively small attack on the Ministry. The Dark Lord had sent Rodolphus Lestrange, Crabbe, and Goyle. They had met most of the Order of the Phoenix. Crabbe and Goyle had been captured. Lestrange had made a lot of trouble and had then escaped. There were plenty of injuries, most minor, one or two serious, but the most damage that had been done was to the atrium fireplaces. If you wanted to know about the Dark Lord's real target on the previous day, you had to turn to page six. There was a surprisingly small piece on Durmstrang, which had been attacked, and which had suffered the brutal murders of its Headmaster and several teachers as well as about a hundred of its students.
A Death Eater whom Severus had come to know well had been placed by the Dark Lord as the new Headmaster of Durmstrang. His name was Igor Karkaroff, and this arrangement suited him well as he was a blasted coward. He would now have only to lord over the remaining students of Durmstrang, treating them badly; teaching what the Dark Lord hoped would become a new generation of Death Eaters.
Surprisingly, although many of the students at Hogwarts had parents or other family members working at the Ministry, most seemed more concerned about Durmstrang. Severus supposed the vicious attack on a magical school made them concerned for their own safety at Hogwarts, which was also what Severus thought Dumbledore seemed so concerned about whenever he had caught a fleeting glance of him over the previous day.
Severus reached the end of the piece and handed the paper back to Hagrid, muttering, "Thanks." Hagrid shrugged sadly and patted him firmly on the shoulder before tucking the paper into an overlarge pocket and leaving the table ungracefully.
"See yeh later, Professors," he called as he stumped from the Great Hall. Severus, rubbing his shoulder gingerly, turned to grab a scoop of scrambled egg and caught McGonagall watching him beadily.
"Minerva," he acknowledged – they hadn't muttered "Good morning" to each other that day.
"Severus," she began intently. Flitwick, who was seated between them as usual leant as far back in his chair as he could, perhaps anticipating another breakfast shouting match. But McGonagall simply said, "I think that in light of this recent tragedy, we should consider talking to Albus about cancelling the upcoming Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match."
"What's the matter, Minerva? Are you worried that my students are quite obviously in better shape to win the match? Worried about a Gryffindor embarrassment?" he said calmly, and then took a bite of his egg.
"No," she said, just as calmly as he had spoken, but her lips had gone thin. "It is merely my belief that the more we can do to lessen the danger to our students, the better. Moreover, cancelling the match would stamp out the rather large opportunity for inter-house competitiveness and division, and that, I think, is something which we have an unfortunate abundance of."
Severus took a moment to chew his egg, and then peered at her, hoping to hide his surprise. "Certainly, Minerva. I have lessons to teach this morning, but before lunch I have a window of time. I was planning to speak to Albus in that window, and if you'd like I shall mention it to him then."
"That would be wonderful, thank you, Severus." She smiled at him. It looked like it was taking her a remarkable amount of effort, but she did so nonetheless. He returned it.
Flitwick looked intensely relieved, and he tucked into his marmalade-laden toast enthusiastically.
During Severus's break he ducked into Dumbledore's office. The door was ajar and Dumbledore was speaking to a woman with short white hair, but he beckoned Severus to join them as soon as he caught sight of him.
"Ah, Minister, this is our new potions master, Professor Severus Snape. Severus, the Minister for Magic."
"Madam," Severus said with a slight inclination of his head, feeling obscenely ridiculous.
Millicent Bagnold nodded in return without really looking at him. "I'll be off, now Albus, I think that takes care of whatnot, eh?" Without waiting for an answer she leapt to her feet and almost ran out of the Headmaster's office.
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows at Severus, and gestured for him to sit.
"Uh," Severus muttered hesitantly as he accepted the seat, "Sorry about that."
"Not at all," Dumbledore replied with a brief and almost mischievous smile. "We weren't making much progress anyway. Now, what can I do for you, Severus?"
Severus hesitated again. Dumbledore peered intently at him. "Uh. It was something McGonagall said -"
"Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore politely corrected.
Severus rolled his eyes. "It was something Professor," and he paused to wave his hands around mystically. Dumbledore frowned. "McGonagall said at breakfast."
"Oh dear."
"Nothing like that. She wants to cancel the Quidditch match. She said we have too much inter-house competition already."
Dumbledore leaned back. "Hmm. That would indeed be wise. But the students will be fairly disappointed."
"And?" Severus asked tonelessly.
"You are a new and idealistic teacher, so you don't yet understand the great importance of keeping your students happy. The last time I cancelled a Quidditch match I'm afraid one of my more enthusiastic detractors replaced the coils in my mattress with more than one hundred dungbombs. Quite an ingenious charm, actually."
Severus stared at him. "You think I'm idealistic?"
"Certainly."
Severus continued to stare, so Dumbledore explained, "You are not, perhaps, idealistic in that you became a teacher in order to shepherd young minds into adulthood. But you are idealistic in that you think that your subject is of utmost importance and any student who doesn't show it the same interest in and respect for it that you do is criminally unenlightened or a dunderhead, rather than simply a preoccupied youth. So. You came to my office to ask me to cancel the Quidditch match. Is that correct?"
Severus hesitated once more. "Yes," he said finally.
Dumbledore leaned forward and peered intently at him again. Severus sighed.
"I was – I have… questions."
"Good."
"Well, they're not really questions. They're more like… concerns. No. They're things that I don't understand, and I don't really think I want to -"
"If you didn't want to understand, you wouldn't be asking."
"Maybe if I did want to understand, I'd be asking someone who might actually be able to help," Severus snapped. Dumbledore chuckled.
"All right, go on."
"I was… I was at James Potter's house. The other day. And he gave me coffee, and he started crying, and the cat attacked me, and the kid told me that the cat's name is Tack when it's really Vivien and they have the same face but the kid somehow looks a lot older and he has her eyes and I don't understand."
"Befuddling, indeed," Dumbledore said, and Severus was sure that he was struggling valiantly against a grin behind his deathly serious expression.
"Don't mock me, Dumbledore. I remember - all too clearly – my days at Hogwarts. I remember how James Potter reacted to me, right from the start. I remember how he treated me for seven years at this school. I understood him then. He was a stuffed peacock and a bully. He was like my father, but with magical abilities. He saw something he loathed and he attacked it."
Dumbledore was frowning. "He was also a child."
"He was still hexing me at seventeen." Dumbledore sighed. Severus continued. "I understood him back then. But when he's crying about Bellatrix Lestrange keeping watch outside of his house, or when he's giving me coffee, I can't understand. Those things just don't match with my school day perception of him."
"I might suggest, then, that you consider the possibility that James Potter has changed."
Severus scoffed, and his face appeared twisted and mad as he did so.
"You don't want to think that he has changed, because that poses problems to your slightly closed-minded images of him, and his family, and yourself as well."
"I know that he hasn't changed! Bizarrely, I suppose I got to know him and maybe he got to know me, just by antagonizing each other so often. He is still the same person! Who do you know, who among your friends and acquaintances would you say you understand?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "I'm not sure about 'friends' and 'acquaintances', but I'd say that in battling him for so long, I've gotten to know our mutual friend Voldemort rather well."
"Good. That's good. It's as if the Dark Lord, then, walked in here right now and gave you a bouquet of roses. And there's nothing off about him, he just decided that he should give you roses. Would you be confused?"
Dumbledore gazed at Severus for a moment. "Indeed. And in that case, I believe what I would have to do is reassess my Voldemort knowledge base. I know that he fears death, I know that he has no qualms about killing, even killing the most innocent, and I now also know that once in a rare while he feels compelled to stop by and give me flowers. So perhaps he isn't as bad as I always thought he was."
Severus glared at him. "You're saying then, that he hasn't changed."
"Yes. I'm saying, instead, that there's simply a flower-appreciating side to him that I've previously not had the pleasure of seeing."
"Why, though? Why, after all of this time -"
"Perhaps circumstances have changed. He used to bring flowers to Madame Bagnold, but having destroyed the fireplaces, he must now come to me."
Severus's glare intensified.
"All right, then, Severus. Since I have seen the side of James Potter that you have previously not, I shall take the deep, dark plunge into the pretence of explaining the motivations of someone other than myself. James Potter is extremely loyal to his friends. He values them above everything. He values them at the same level as his wife and his child. Because of this situation in which he finds himself, however, he is unable to contact them. He hasn't been separated this long from his friends, especially from Sirius, since perhaps the first day they met on the Hogwarts Express. This has cost him greatly. And so, he has had to make do. At first, he resisted, likely as strongly as you are resisting now, against the possibility of befriending his old Hogwarts enemy. But time went on, and he found that life is somewhat unbearable without a friend, and so old prejudices were set aside. I think in a similar situation of desperation you too would be more than happy to set aside your old prejudices in order to call James Potter your friend."
Dumbledore sat there, gazing seriously over his desk at Severus, looking for all the world as if what he had just said made perfect sense. He did not seem to understand that he was talking about JAMES POTTER. He sat perfectly still and silent, waiting as Severus attempted to collect and organize all of the incoherent, violent splutterings which he longed to launch at the Headmaster.
It was a long moment, and Severus had just taken a breath to begin when Dumbledore suddenly declared, "I believe, Severus, you are to begin teaching a sixth year potions class in two minutes. You'd better hurry."
Severus stared at him, his mouth slightly ajar around the words he had been about to utter.
"Off you trot!" Dumbledore urged him, nodding to the door.
He took it out on the sixth years.
Severus had meant to drop in on Dumbledore sometime before he was next due to visit the Potters, but in the week that followed the Durmstrang attack, the Headmaster was rarely to be found idling in his office. Indeed, Severus was sure that there were few moments, if any, in which the Headmaster was actually within the grounds of his school.
"Who's there?" It was a blurry, groggy voice, the way the huge oaf's voice always was on a Sunday morning.
"It is I," Severus said in his best "intimidating Potions Master" voice.
"Righ' lotta good that does me," Hagrid complained, wrenching his door open and glaring down at him. "Oh, it's you. Come in, come in."
Severus swept in and stood in the middle of the hut, which smelled like regurgitated firewhisky, which roused embarrassing memories, and stared imperiously up at Hagrid. "Hurry up, I have a schedule to keep to."
"Ooh, a ruddy schedule, have yeh?" Hagrid muttered, rubbing his eyes with one giant hand. "Blasted little…" The rest of his tirade was lost under his breath. Severus rolled his eyes and waited. Hagrid slowly and painfully packed up some eggs and some more wretched turnips into a basket and placed a cloth lovingly over top of them.
"Is that it?" Severus asked sarcastically when Hagrid finally thrust the cursed thing into his hands.
"That's all," Hagrid mumbled. "And nex' time go see them at a decent hour, eh? Or at least be pleasan' when you come callin' early." Without another word he slumped onto his overlarge bed. Severus's lip curled surveying him for a moment, and then he stalked out of the hut, hardly bothering to close the door behind him.
He was disillusion-charming himself as he stepped into the cold. Now for the fun part.
Pomona Sprout, like McGonagall, had been at Hogwarts forever. And, like McGonagall, she wasn't particularly fond of Severus. He thought it best if he wasn't spotted skulking around in her greenhouse.
He undid the protective charms on Greenhouse three's door – Sprout cast them so that teachers would be able to go in whenever they wanted, bless her – and he opened the door just wide enough to slide in through. Whatever Hagrid might say, eight was not the earliest of hours, but it was still dark because of the miserable weather. There would be snow on the ground by that evening. Severus peered into the gloom. Across the aisles of work benches and plants, the venomous tentacula shivered and began to wave slowly, sensing his presence. Something else emitted a small hissing noise, and every plant in the greenhouse seemed to shrink slowly, sheepishly, back to the size he was used to seeing them in the light.
Hmm. Plants were a little bit scary, come to think of it.
Lily was the one who answered the door when he knocked not long after prowling around in the dark greenhouse. She stared right through him, as he was still disillusion charmed, and started when he whipped Hagrid's basket and a small grocery bag into which he had somehow shrunk several boatloads of groceries out from under his cloak and thrust them at her.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm just in a rush."
"Of course," she replied hesitantly, taking the bag and basket from his invisible hand.
"And this is the mimbulus," he said unnecessarily, handling the shrunken plant with considerable trepidation. He was not interested in being stinksapped.
She took it gingerly from him, and then took a step backwards, away from him, into the house. "Are you sure you don't-"
"Quite sure," he replied, feeling like an idiot. "I have classes to teach."
"All right then. Take care."
"I'll see you in two weeks."
He was gone before she closed the door.
