Severus cursed himself for his behavior at the Order. That girl could get him so wound up…
He could not afford such slip-ups in control nowadays. He had to be careful, ever vigilant. His emotional state was private, as it should be. But his potions assistant could get his temper so flared up…
She had been quiet until the start of term, he had noticed. Stacks of neatly sorted books and ingredients waited for him each morning, and vials of near-perfectly brewed examples waiting each evening. He jotted down some revisions for her every now and again.
Now, as he dragged himself to that god-awful start of term feast – something he would have begged on hands and knees to put spared from- he found himself following a pink clad woman into the Great Hall. She waddled up to the staff table and, most unfortunately, settled herself into the seat beside him. Her perfume was enough to make him gag, ruining the half chewed bite of his perfectly prepared roast chicken. It was hard enough to eat with hundreds of eyes fastened upon his every move, all waiting with baited breath for an opportunity to ruin his evening. Then there was that pair of eyes from down the table that was intense enough to make his skin crawl.
Eleanor seemed pale, and rather jumpy as she picked at her food next to Madam Hooch and Septima Vector. Every now and again he would catch her glancing at him while Dumbledore stood to give his start of term speech. At the announcement of Hagrid's temporary absence, the student body let out a collective sigh. The news would certainly put a damper on Potter and his exasperating friends for a while. Suddenly, the pink woman cleared her throat in the most grating, high-pitched squeak. Slowly he turned to stare at her as she stood and moved in front of Dumbledore's lectern.
Everyone, including himself, turned and stared at the woman who had the gall to interrupt Dumbledore. The amount of pink on her was positively nauseating.
"Thank you Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome," Umbridge began.
Eleanor was staring at the woman, he noted, and watched her for a while as Umbridge went on about some Ministry written rubbish. He only looked away when he could smell the reek of Umbridge's perfume assault his nostrils again. Dumbledore continued where he had left off to a much quieter crowd.
At last, when he was free to return to his quarters, he made a point of avoiding the pink monster in the halls. He needed solitude to collect his thoughts. Sneaking out on Order business would be difficult enough during the school year, but ducking out to answer dark purposes would be tougher still. He had to remain collected, calm, under control. But as he watched the redhead cross in front of him for another staircase, his heart jumped into his throat.
There it was again, that girl getting under his skin.
Snape scowled as he descended into the darker, cooler part of the castle – one so familiar and almost calming to him. This was his sanctuary, where he could toss his thoughts of his distracting assistant and that perfumed eyesore aside. So he settled into his routine. Nestled in a high backed armchair with worn arms, he read until the wee hours of the morning. When he could put sleep aside no longer, he finally allowed himself some rest.
But restful sleep was not what awaited him that evening. Jarred from some dusty corner of his memory, he was drifting through a different Hogwarts. He was young again – though as he dreamt he felt no different, as if he had never aged- and he walked along the chilly corridors bundled up in his Slytherin cloak. There in the courtyard with the fountain was a small group of students waiting for a trip to Hogsmeade. He could see James and his friends tossing snowballs at a younger gaggle of Gryffindors and held onto his book tighter. His eyes leapt to a dainty figure perched on the edge of the frozen fountain. Her red hair was vibrant against the snow.
Lily. All bundled up in a red and gold scarf, she beamed at him. Called to him. He ran to her, heart soaring. But as he drew near, the colour of her eyes shifted from sparkling green to gold.
Snape jumped awake and decided to rise for the day. The tightness in his chest was too bothersome to try and sleep more.
Eleanor couldn't believe Snape had given her all of his first year classes. But after the first day was over, she could understand why. Luckily the first week boasted no victims with anything more than minor cuts and burns, but this year's newcomers were rather dimwitted when it came to potions.
Some mornings when she carried in the day's supplies, Snape seemed more wary than usual. Perhaps, she thought, he wasn't sleeping well. She knew the feeling. Whenever she had the chance, she took the time to go for a morning run in the woods. It felt good to change into a fox for a while, to smell the sweet smells of the plants and feel the leaves and twigs crunch under swift paws. Several times she had run into a girl visiting the cluster of Thestrals – a Ravenclaw in the older potion classes – but took care to keep her distance. But aside from those run-ins, Eleanor was free to run in the dappled sunlight in relative solitude.
One morning she returned from her run to find Filch hammering a sign onto the stone wall by the Great Hall denoting Dolores Umbridge the new Hogwarts High Inquisitor, whatever that hogwash meant. She thought nothing of it until she started noticing the pink menace waltzing around the castle with a clipboard in hand keeping a sharp eye on students and faculty alike.
Twice she had walked past the woman only to feel her hair being pulled sharply up into a tighter bun on the top of her head.
Judging by the discussion at the beginning and end of classes, she was not well liked for going around enforcing dress code. Dumbledore seemed quite distant from the ordeal, from nearly everything that term it seemed. So Umbridge went about on her way with her clipboard in hand.
As Eleanor carried in a big sack of dried horned slugs for Snape's fifth year class, she jumped at the sight of the shockingly pink jumper on the woman entering just before her. The look on Snape's face was unrivaled.
Every face glanced up as the elder woman let herself in. Eleanor tried to sneak around the back to set the bag down.
"Professor Snape, might I have a word?" chirped Umbridge.
With great hesitation Snape replied, "Of course, madam." He stepped in the direction of his office when the woman simply continued on where they stood.
"You've been the Potions Master at Hogwarts for how long now?"
"Fourteen years", he replied coldly.
"Not many credentials coming in, were there?" Umbridge made a little note on her clipboard.
Snape simmered silently in the bluish light. Eleanor knew that while he remained stony faced on the outside, he was probably envisioning what it would be like to hex that furry jumper down her throat. Or at least she was.
"You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, is that correct?"
"Yes," Snape sneered, his lips curling into a deeper scowl.
"But you were unsuccessful?" she asked feigning pity.
Oh the tempest brewing in his eyes as Snape stood there unmoving. "Obviously."
Eleanor bit her lip to contain her laugh. The tension in the air was palpable. She heard the Weasley boy snicker at his table.
"I see." More scribbling on her clipboard, somehow deafening amid the two dozen bubbling cauldrons. "You seem to have applied regularly for the post. Is that right?"
"Yes," said Snape quietly. The colour drained from his lips and Eleanor was sure she could spot the vein in his temple pulsing irritably.
"And do you, Mr. Snape, have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused your request?"
The woman had a death wish. Eleanor nearly took off the tip of her finger with her small silver knife as she stared at the pair, waiting for Snape's reaction to see how long his restraint would last.
"I suggest you ask him," he replied icily.
A strong smell of burning rubber emanated from Potter's cauldron, sending those in the vicinity to gag. It lingered after Snape vanished it with a quick wave of his wand. Umbridge glanced over as she questioned Pansy Parkinson, her quill gliding over her clipboard like a hot knife through butter.
As Eleanor began scooping up slugs for the class, her heart sank as she realized Umbridge was making a beeline straight for her.
"And you are…" she glanced at her notes, "Eleanor Bristow, is that correct?"
This late in the year and she still hadn't remembered her name? Eleanor nodded as she handed a scoop of dried slugs to the nearest table. Potter's potion stink was strongest over here, assaulting her nose like troll sweat.
"And what is it you do," Umbridge glanced down at the slugs, "exactly."
"Dumbledore hired me as a teaching assistant. I teach the first years, and assist Professor Snape. I am studying Potions extensively through Hogwarts."
"You were a Quidditch player, were you not? Not much of a background for a potions assistant," Umbridge pinched her lips together with a disapproving frown. "Is it?"
A blush of indignant anger burned in her cheeks as Umbridge trotted out of the room, quill whizzing across her clipboard once more.
Snape smacked Weasley across the back of the head with his book, letting out a satisfying echo in the quiet dungeon and instantly putting an end to the boy's sniggering. Eleanor grinned to herself. It was a pity he hadn't done that to the pink menace herself.
Every evening as it grew colder outside, Eleanor would find Snape slipping out of his office as night fell. She would be sweeping the classroom, or cleaning out a cauldron and there would be the telltale creak and click of the door. He never said a word. Despite being part of the small Order meetings in Dumbledore's office – along with Minerva and Snape- she often got the feeling her mentor and Professor Dumbledore left out a good deal of information, such as where Snape would disappear to so often.
Though it seemed he tried to keep up his intimidating front, every now and again Eleanor would get a glimpse of him hunched over looking exhausted and quite rattled. Exhaustion was something one could hide for so long.
In a streak of sheer stupidity, Eleanor snuck out on Snape's heels one night as he left. Keeping her distance, she followed him out of the castle into the chilly night air. Once out onto the grounds, she shifted into a fox to keep her footfalls silent. Snape appeared completely oblivious to her trailing behind him all the way to the boundaries of Hogwarts's enchantments, where he promptly disapparated into the night.
A little disappointed, and still very curious, Eleanor sat at the edge of the woods and listened to the creatures stirring in the dark. Some time later she decided she had stayed enough and started back for the castle when she heard a crack rattle the trees behind her. Snape had reappeared and was swiftly walking in her direction. Ducking behind a tree, Eleanor curled up in a little hollow and waited for the man to pass by. He appeared fine, albeit with a sour expression on his face, but fine. Satisfied, she followed him back inside at a distance and made for her room, body rushing with nervous excitement that she hadn't been found out.
Eleanor curled up under her covers, busy pulling her hair back before she went to sleep. Her curiosity wasn't satiated by this evening's little escapade. Where was he going, she wondered. Her eyes caught sight of the copy of the Prophet she snagged from Snape's desk - unintentionally of course - peeking out from the small pile of laundry in the corner of her room. Unfolding the aged paper carefully, she spotted the little marks beside certain articles.
One was larger and darker than the rest, as if his quill had spent some time hovering in that spot. There were stains in the paper, making some of the ink run, but the image was very clear beside the bold headline: Potter Family Murdered, Boy Lives On.
This was the copy announcing the fall of Voldemort. She remembered seeing this same paper tossed around the Ravenclaw table when she was a student. Her father still rifled through a copy during her holiday later that year, though he claimed it was for a very interesting article on alternative wound healing for sensitive skin.
The picture showed a crumbling cottage from Godric's Hollow. Glancing over the copy below it, she spotted three names: James Potter, she remembered him as the Quidditch player from Gryffindor who was a couple years ahead of her; Harry Potter, a name everyone knew; and Lily Potter.
Lily Potter.
Ella's eyes traced the letters, memorizing them. Snape's Lily was Potter's long deceased mother. It had to fit. Voldemort's fall occurred around the same time she found him in Dumbledore's office. Her fingers crunched the pages as she shoved the paper away. The photo of the decrepit home glared at her motionlessly, except for a small plant in the bottom corner that was caught in the tiniest of breezes.