Chapter 21: Before the Hunt
The rest of the school year passed by at an alarming speed. Hermione had to be scolded a couple of times for nipping at students who tried to cheat during semifinal exams, but there were virtually zero attempts during the finals themselves. Severus noticed this was an abnormality with a rather smug smirk when he was sitting at the Head Table at the final feast, listening to the other professors grumble and complain about the number of shiftless cheaters who had been given detentions and were forced to retake the test by themselves with the knowledge that they'd only get partial credit and a mark would be placed in their permanent record.
"How did you escape Scott-free?" Minerva wanted to know. She'd only had a handful of cheaters compared to the others, but it was obvious that she was impressed.
"Interesting choice of words, Minerva. I had help," Severus said with an amused chuckle as he stroked Hermione's head.
Hermione couldn't speak in otter form, but she still understood that he was praising her. She squeaked happily and rolled on her back, demanding belly rubs for payment.
"Perhaps I should get an otter," Minerva muttered to herself.
"Or, if you'd like, perhaps Hermione will come and nip at your students until they behave if I ask her nicely," Severus mused, taking a sip of pumpkin juice and finding Minerva's shocked expression intensely amusing.
She narrowed her eyes, as though trying to decide whether or not he was joking.
"Hmph. It might make up just a little for having lost the House Cup to you this year," Minerva scoffed.
"Weren't you the one taking fifty points each for those girls who created a love potion epidemic and brought half your House to blows over who could date them?" Severus snorted loudly, "It's not exactly hard to win when my students know that my eyes are everywhere and that otter teeth are painfully sharp. They behave because I have a well known habit of nipping shenanigans in the bud. Painfully."
Minerva knocked her head back, swallowing her juice in one angry gulp.
"Need something stronger," she grumbled, her normally proper dialect slipping. "Dern kids are goin' ta be the death of me."
"What's wrong, Minerva?" Professor Sprout had appeared at her arm with a concerned look in her eyes.
"Oh Pomona!" Minerva cried, throwing her arms around the surprised Herbology professor, "I do not know how I shall survive a year without that big, shiny cup in my office! Come by my quarters after the train leaves and I shall share a tall glass of fire whiskey with you in solidarity!"
Pomona first looked bewildered and then shared a knowing look with Severus over Minerva's shoulder as the other professors stared and some of the students began to point and chatter amongst themselves.
Severus smirked back. He knew, from the various evening visits from the other professors, that they'd been hoping he'd win and throw off Gryffindor's infuriating ten year House Cup winning streak.
Even though he'd miss gardening with Professor Sprout and playing cribbage with Flitwick (who was utterly convinced that the muggle game was the most clever thing he'd learned in recent memory), or spending evenings with Professor Burbage talking about working-class muggle life and the different types of poverty that one could endure, he was equal parts excited and wary about his journey ahead. Excited, because this was the first time he truly felt like he would be making a difference and righting a wrong. He would not be alone. Hermione would be by his side. Wary, though, because if the Diadem Horcrux was any indication, they could very well lose their lives trying to destroy the remaining pieces of Voldemort's soul. He also knew that if Dumbledore ever got a whiff of the truth, Severus was unsure what terrible thing would happen.
He simply knew it would be worse than anything he could imagine.
Professor Burbage stood and excused herself early and his thoughts turned to their friendship, which had surprised him, though it wasn't hard to see Hermione's hand in it, considering how many times he found her curled up in the late-afternoon sun in Burbage's office. Severus knew that she had to meet her parents up north by the time it got fully dark, which required taking an earlier train from London. Though he'd grown closer with the other Heads of House, Professor Burbage was the only member of the staff that he considered a good friend.
She was like an older sister who he could talk about some of the things that he felt he couldn't bring up with the others, who mostly grew up in Wizarding households. Charity had grown up in a very puritanical household in the country, so she knew the pain of living so simply and being forced to do hard labor at a young age. Luckily, though, her parent's working farm supplied them with everything they needed to live comfortably, though their means were meager, and Charity did not have any idea of the dangers of alcoholism, thanks to her parents' teetotaler attitude. She went pale when she heard some of the stories Severus told about his father, but she never offered judgment.
"It seems strange, but I still loved my father, even though I hated that side of him," Severus confessed one evening over tea, feeling grateful as Hermione snuggling firmly against his chest with a sympathetic squeak. "It was like another man, no...more like a demon...simply took him over. He never remembered in the morning, but we could see that he had some idea from the bruises or the welts and it was obvious he was so ashamed that he couldn't look us in the eye for days after. Still didn't stop him from boozing it up the next time."
It was soundly agreed that Wizarding households were at least shielded against the worst effects of being poor, which made it truly hard for most to understand that even a middle class muggle lifestyle was far more subject to the cruel whims of the market than the power that ran through a wizard's veins.
Severus looked out at his students and the Great Hall at large, wondering if the prejudices could be destroyed by destroying the soul pieces for good, or if the problem was not truly Voldemort but the ease with which people seemed willing to follow anyone with a charismatic way of speaking and a promise to reward an arbitrary group of people by harming another group and making them the scapegoat.
In fact, as his eyes darted over the four hourglasses at the back of the room, he realized that that everything he knew about life was based on trying to avoid conflict that was thrust upon him. No matter how small he made himself, the random circumstances of his birth made him a target. It was only his abilities that made others show him favor. The moment he stopped being useful, they were content to throw him on the rubbish heap. The only thing that he was simultaneously most proud and ashamed of was that even at his lowest, he could never quite bring himself to take his own life.
Severus was a survivor, and there was something that rejected the thought of ever giving in easily, regardless of the consequences.
His parents had died because of him, but it had taken him far too long to see the truth of it. The others said it was his father's fault, but he knew that his father never drove erratically while sober.
And the muggle autopsy had shown no sign of alcohol in his father's body.
He could see how the other Death Eaters looked at him. Like he was a lapdog with a chemistry set. He was isolated and used for what he was good for and nothing else.
Why had it taken overhearing that godforsaken prophecy and learning that the Dark Lord was willing to kill as many infants as it took based on some half baked seer's word?
It was that same part of him, the one that forced him to fight to survive, no matter what terrible fresh hell he found himself in.
Glancing at Dumbledore, he couldn't help but remember that fateful meeting when he finally realized that if he stayed where he was, it was only a matter of time until Voldemort came up with a reason to kill him, no matter how well he obeyed.
He let Dumbledore think it was about Lily, accepted whatever abuse the old man had in mind for him, and never questioned it.
It was, afterwards, nowhere nearly as bad as the neglect and abuse he grew up with or the pain of Voldemort's wrath. And it wasn't nearly as painful as the shame of not having come sooner.
Severus hated it.
As much as he resented the scheming old man, he knew that he could never be the sort who could change the world for the better.
He was a survivor but he had no experience with the business of thriving.
Hermione nipped his finger with a distressed squeak and he sucked in a sharp inhalation of breath at the pain of it as it brought him back to himself. There were hardly any students left in the Great Hall and most of the other professors had left the table.
He was absentmindedly pushing an egg yolk around on his plate. Hermione gave him a hungry look and he shrugged to let her know that she could have it.
She gulped it down, her eyes half closed with a sign of contentment.
"Come on, then, Hermione," Severus said, standing and stretching his arms with a wide yawn, "Adventure awaits."
Hermione squeaked excitedly, and, for the first time, Severus didn't have to know the words she was saying to know her thoughts exactly.
His lips turned up slightly at the corners of his mouth and he picked her up gently. He draped her carefully around his shoulders like a living otter stole before striding briskly towards the gates of Hogwarts, Hermione squeaking merrily all the way until they both vanished with a resounding crack.