Author: Lucinda
Rated T for teen
Main character: Severus Snape
Disclaimer: Snape (and anyone else you recognize) belongs to JK Rowling. I am NOT JK Rowling.
Notes: set during book 7 (sigh), could be canon.
…..
Voldemort thought that he'd forgotten about the snake. That wretched, malicious, evil snake. An evil snake that happened to be almost thirty feet long and quite venomous. How in the bloody hell could anyone forget about such a creature? Especially not when, in order to keep Dumbledore happy and convinced that he was the Headmaster's loyal, repentant follower, he'd spent hours devising potions to treat the bite received by Arthur Weasley in yet another of Dumbledore's ridiculous plots.
The final anti-venin took almost three hours to brew, and was exceedingly tricky. Quite impressive to have devised and accomplished the brewing in time to save Weasley's life. Few could have managed. He took no small pride in the fact that he had accomplished the task.
As another consequence, he would never forget Nagini.
Severus Snape was many things. He was a Potions Master – something far more than someone who brewed medicines, poisons and excellent mead. He could create new potions, generally without disastrous accidents. He had achieved a Mastery in Defense. He'd received Exceeds Expectations in both Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, and more importantly, had found ways to make use of those skills in his potions work. Runes for safety in his own working areas, and arithmancy as a far neater, safer, and less expensive way to determine probable combinations for specific effects. He spoke four languages, all learned the hard way, though perhaps using legilimancy to help had been just a little bit of magical assistance. He was a terrible teacher, in large part because he loathed children. He was an angry, bitter man who hoarded grudges the way goblins hoarded gold.
But he was not a complete dunderheaded idiot.
Ever since he was eleven, one powerful wizard had meddled and controlled things in ways that, intentional or not, had impacted his life. That wizard had been Albus Dumbledore, a man of many names and titles. When he was seventeen and quite arrogant and foolish, he had shown a dreadful lapse in judgment and pledged himself to the service of Lord Voldemort. He'd spent three years loyally serving Voldemort, though with an increasing level of dismay. The man had promised reform, had promised a new era without the corrosive muggle ways destroying old wizarding traditions, a new era where muggles could no longer torment young wizards, an era where wizards no longer hid from muggles. Protection from his enemies in the forms of Potter and Black had been an added bonus. Except… this reform seemed awfully bloody, an awful lot like terrorism and not very much like helping the frightened young wizards forced to live near muggles. Then he'd learned that MacNair intended to destroy Lily Evans – who would always be Lily Evans to him, no matter that Potter had married her. He'd done something that he'd never expected, seeking out Dumbledore to try to protect Lily. Hoping that someday, when things were better, when magicals no longer needed to fear jealous, fearful, hateful muggles, that Lily might forgive him for his fit of temper after their O.W.L.'s and that unfortunate name that he'd called her. Dumbledore had agreed to try to save Lily, but only if he would become Dumbledore's spy among the Death Eaters.
The meddling old fool. Afterwards, the old man had blackmailed him into teaching at Hogwarts, a place that he'd never wanted to return to after he'd graduated. A place filled with bad memories and resentments, a place that had failed to protect him. An old man that had wheedled and cajoled Snape into doing absurd things, resorting to blackmail when politer persuasion failed. But subtly – it wouldn't do for others to see the Headmaster do something like that, something so… grey. So far from the paragon of Light and Virtue and Sugar that he presented himself as to the foolish masses.
It had grown worse when Potter's spawn had arrived at Hogwarts. To himself, he could admit that he'd handled things poorly. He'd berated and sabotaged the boy as if he had been James Potter, and as if he himself had still been the bullied, unwanted poor Slytherin of his youth, coupled with an abuse of the rules and authority of a Professor. On rare occasions, he had even felt a twinge of guilt about it – attacking James Potter through the proxy of his son. Or perhaps that twinge and churning sensation had been indigestion. He'd been vindictive, spiteful, angry and petty.
Too late he'd learned that Harry Potter – not James back from the dead, but Harry who was not his father – would be the one to stop Voldemort. That the only chance for Voldemort's defeat was Harry Potter. If Harry Potter failed, then Voldemort would remain in charge, and he'd found that having the Cruciatus cast on him was not to his taste. If Harry Potter, against the odds and sense won, then his future would be in the hands of a young man that he'd spent the last six years ensuring hated him. In short, regardless of who won, Severus Snape was doomed.
Then had come Voldemort's plan involving the death of Dumbledore. He'd had mixed feelings about that – while it would change things so that instead of two powerful old wizards making irrational demands on him there would only be one, the one remaining would be the one who was fond of using painful magic. Being forced into the presence of children was, while unpleasant, less agonizing than torture spells.
And then the obsessive pursuit of the fabled Elder Wand. The wand that had been in Dumbledore's possession. The one that had not become bound to Draco Malfoy. When they determined that Malfoy was not the Master of the Elder Wand, Severus had known that his days were numbered, and the number was small. Voldemort had never had much patience with his minions.
Voldemort had two favorite ways to kill. Firstly, he took fiendish delight in casting the Imperius on those nearest and dearest to his intended victim, watching their horror and anguish as their lover, their children, their most trusted turned and killed them. Secondly, he enjoyed setting his snake on people, either a rapid death from blood loss or dying slowly from the venom. Severus Snape had nobody near and dear to him that could be imperius'd and set to kill him. That meant it would likely be the snake.
Nagini's venom was potent, and caused agonizing pain as well as delayed clotting while the wound suffered damage rather similar to acid. Untreated, death could take up to an hour. It took at least three hours to brew the anti-venin, assuming one was in a location with all the ingredients and equipment.
What he hadn't explicitly told anyone was that there was another solution. One that he'd mentioned to his first year students every year that he'd been forced to teach the dunderheads Potions. A bezoar will save you from most poisons. Secretive testing years ago had determined that Nagini's venom was not one of the few exceptions.
What sort of Potions' Master would he be to die from poison? He always carried one, normally two, bezoars at all times.
As he'd expected, Nagini had attacked him, not far from the walls of Hogwarts. The strike, while agonizing and quite messy, was not fatal in and of itself – it would be the venom that killed. Harry Potter's presence was almost as painful as the snake venom.
His vision had been graying by the time he'd managed to swallow the bezoar, half choking on the stone. As he'd leaned against the wall of the Shrieking Shack, his head spinning, body burning, clothing wet with his own blood, he'd tried to regain control of his spinning thoughts. A calming potion and a blood replenisher had helped. Slowly, as the burning ebbed, Severus realized that Harry Potter now thought him dead.
Which meant that if Harry Potter defeated Voldemort, then everyone would think he was dead. Both of the wizards who had bound him to their wills would be dead and he… He could be free.
Free to leave the country, as he'd wanted to do over a decade ago. Free to shut himself away somewhere and do Potions research. Free from teaching children. Almost free from encountering children. And while some might consider him to have done a few things worth remembering, nobody would miss him at all. A dead Severus Snape could be praised for a few valiant acts, but a live one was an unwanted, prickly nuisance. He was neither wanted by or wanting to belong to wizarding Britain any longer.
He could finally leave the country. Start over. As soon as he could manage to stand up.
End Snape's Freedom.