Chapter 75: A Colossal Misunderstanding
Upon an army of owls, the Christmas cards descended. Munching woozily through her breakfast toast, Lily sorted through the stack she received from her friends close and abroad. Bleary-eyed and rather fatigued, she barely had the will to drag her sorry butt out of bed after all the drinks she had.
Christmas Eve had been a lesson in overindulgence, and by the time Marlene and James had left by Floo powder, Lily had well and truly hit her limit. She didn't even spare two thoughts about the walk back to the castle, a far cry from when the initial step out of the gates had made her philosophical.
She was in bed as quickly as she could kick off her shoes. She couldn't find the will to drag herself downstairs for dinner with the rest of the castle, but thankfully bar food had her cared for in that department. However, any and all Christmas plans with her husband ended with those ill-measured drinks.
Severus had been returning home rather late each evening for several weeks, and with the school curriculum, and Lily's sleep schedule as it was, she had not been able to enjoy his company in any significant way. She was well overdue for some tactile affection after weeks of only meeting during meals and in the occasional passing through the hallways. Any and all affection restrained by the decree of public decency and appropriate staff conduct and behaviour. Students didn't know how good they had it.
At the very least, in the privacy of their own room staff were not bound by any such rules. It was the only advantage she could boast over the youth they presided over, but even then, students could find ways to circumvent the rules when their significant other wasn't a sixteenth-century prude.
That was what Lily had planned for Christmas. In her mind, Christmas Eve was not going to end until she and Severus had spent some quality time together. She had the evening marked on an internal calculator well ahead of time, and she was willing to stay up as long as it took to enact it.
The present she had purchased for this very evening sat at the back of her side of the closet, gathering dust. Predictably, Severus hadn't been the least bit curious as to what that might be. Anything on Lily's side of the closet might as well have been a mysterious artefact of feminine denomination. This morning it had taunted her from that very same spot, reminding her of all her plans that her overindulgence had ruined.
Worse still, Severus never came to bed. Lily woke up to an empty mattress and a neat pillow sitting where Severus ought to have slept. She found him sitting on the lounge that morning after she awoke, sitting in the dark as still as a gargoyle. She assumed he had slept the night on the couch, perhaps driven from the room by the aroma of hop and barley beverages that must have followed her back. But it wasn't hard to imagine him sitting stock still for the entire evening in that brooding darkness.
That foul mood of his still followed him, even now at the breakfast table. And Lily could only think of one reason that dark cloud lingered so. "Sorry. I shouldn't have drunk so much."
Sev did not respond, prompting Lily to think he might not have heard. But before she could try again, he slowly shook his head. "Ignore me. My mood is not aimed towards you."
Lily's eyebrow. "When you say things like that, you know I have to ask."
"You are incredibly nosy," Severus muttered, but without any real exasperation.
Lily grinned, feeling the mood at the table ease marginally. "You know what you signed up for, mister."
Though Christmas could be felt in the decoration down every hall of this magical castle, it really only reached the banquet table at lunch. Breakfast was much of the same fare but with the added twist of wizarding crackers offered in large clay bowls, set intermittently across the table.
Down the other end of the High table, she could see Professor Slughorn offering to play the professors beside him at a cracker. He was in oddly high spirits for a man who, just the other day, had reputedly drunk himself into delirium by mid-afternoon. Lily could barely pick herself up just after the handful she downed.
In the throne-line chair, Dumbledore reached over to take the jovial professor up on his offer, tugging on his end and causing half the hall to jump amusingly at the resultant sound of canon-blast. One of many during this seasonal festivity.
Lily glanced forlornly at the bowl by her plate of ham, eggs and toast, knowing Severus would prefer she not try to tempt him with one. And personally, she would rather not interrupt his meal so he could spare a hand to make the meal more festive. He ate little as it was.
Instead, Lily laid out her Christmas cards, reading the loving sentiments transcribed within from friends near and far. "Mary sends her love. From some place called Phoenix." She paused, wondering if she read it right. "Or she could mean some place in America with phoenixes. Do phoenixes come from America?"
"Africa," Sev answered, not even glancing up at the colourful card of greens and reds. Another static card sent by her well-travelled friend, no doubt picked out from one of those adorable muggle craft stores.
Lily scanned through several more, noting that Pandora never seemed to grasp the concept of a greeting card, having picked one with a basket of moving kittens rather than one actually seasonally themed, and that journalism had really changed Susan's handwriting for the worse. Surprisingly, there was one too from Petunia, or really it was a card with a Christmas theme that was less about the seasonal greetings and more a lecture about choosing cards with a less obscene backdrop. Lily supposed it wasn't the best idea to send Petunia and her husband a card with a heard of sleigh-pulling reindeer, some of which would stop to nibble on the mistletoe leaves decorating the borders of the card.
"Aww, how cute. A joint card from James and Marlene." A family photo with the McKinnon family, with the engaged couple at its centre adorned the face of the card. The scene made Lily feel a pang of longing for the family scene she once had.
It wasn't Severus' fault he did not subscribe to the festivities, having had very little to do with it throughout his childhood. She just wished he was at least available, but even then, that wish came with the knowledge that he had his own reasons for not being there.
Lily glanced sidelong at her husband, watching him sip his dark coffee with a slow deliberate draw. When he noticed her eyes, she flicked him a quick smile and offered a random card from her pile for his attention. "Oh look, we got a lovely card from Professor McGonagall. And another from Hagrid. Goodness, this one seems to be made out of actual reindeer."
Lily grimaced as she set the furry card aside. At the same time, Severus reached for his newly delivered newspaper, tucking the article into his robe as he sipped on his coffee, but in doing so, revealed one last card Lily had not noticed. This one was addressed to Severus first and foremost, and Lily by the title of "plus wife."
It could only be one person.
"Your father sent something!" Lily exclaimed as she fumbled for the seal, only to discover it had already been edged open.
"It's just a seasonal greeting card," Severus stated without an inflection of emotion. One might have thought him unaffected by his tone, but Lily knew him too well to think that could be the case. Severus' relationship with his father was troubling litany of abuse and neglect. It was impossible to believe a lifetime's scars, never mind two, could simply disappear.
Lily tipped out the card from the envelope, careful not to stain it with the grease on the table from some spilled eggs. It was a plain card with a simple candle painted on the front and the words 'Merry Christmas' printed below. Inside was written nothing more than the words 'To Severus and wife' above pre-printed seasonal greetings. Underneath that, the sign-off was more telling than anything else. Black ink scratched out the first attempt, but it was not enough to disguise the intention. From dad, it would have read, but it was now signed T. Snape.
Glanced sidelong, watching Severus drain his coffee and trying to gauge his thoughts on the matter. "Do you want to keep it…?" she asked, a gauging question.
Severus pushed away his cutlery, allowing them to be swept away by elven magic. "You keep it. It is addressed to the both of us," he said, before making to stand.
Lily's hand shot out to grasp his hand, looking up expectantly a little starved for affection. But after an unspoken squeeze of his fingers, she simply released him. With a small smile, she waved her husband away to his good deeds. His smile was gentle but said not a word more as he swept out the hall to carry on his solemn duties.
Lily wondered how much of his reluctance for public affection was down to the insecurities she had always known him for. Their lives had changed and his insecurities were no longer as they had been, but the result stood the same on public affection.
A kiss or a quick hug was allowable among married staff, Horace had assured her as much during one of their tea and brandy slug-club sessions, though history had few examples of such incidences. But to convince Severus to concede even that much was an uphill struggle at the best of times.
She watched him sweep out of the hall, oblivious to the green eyes that watched after him. But Lily's wasn't the only pair of eyes trailed after the professor from table to door. That Ravenclaw boy stood from his table, his breakfast bowl blinked away by the housekeeping magic of the elves in the castle. With a hurried step, he followed after his professor, unfettered eagerness springing in his step.
It had once been so hard to imagine Severus as a Professor, it was now impossible to imagine him as anything other than one.
The creaking of Severus' vacated chair announced Slughorn's arrival, wearing a paper crown and holding a bouquet of vibrant flowers won from his tug of war with the headmaster. "For you, my dear." The old professor offered his bouquet that suddenly burst into song, their buds dancing by their stalks.
"I'd rather play you for one," Lily counter-offered, taking a cracker from the bowl.
Slughorn obligingly tugged on his end, sending forth another cannon-like boom. Along with a paper crown, a goblet fell out of Lily's end, decorated gaudily with gems that changed depending on how light struck them. Lily immediately tested it out by the rigorous means of pumpkin juice and found the gems would stay a beautiful amber orange.
"Well that makes one wonder what marvellous colours would come out of a classic Bordeaux red," Slughorn mused rather tellingly.
"Well I'll more than gladly offer this goblet for such noble curiosity. My schedule is clear for the day," Lily offered, eager to have some activities lined up for the day, though this time in moderation.
Before Slughorn could respond, McGonagall suddenly interjected from up the table, her brown set and stern, "Horace. What is this I hear about you offering her drinks?"
Lily was taken aback by the den mother's sudden stern appearance. She felt like a chastised student caught making mischief. "Umm…" she mumbled, wrapping her mind around the objection. She was eighteen, and well past the legal age of adulthood in wizarding culture, yet she could not find the voice to defend that fact.
Slughorn found his voice first, but surprisingly it wasn't to defend her. "Dearie me, you're right Minerva. How have I mislaid such an important point? No, Lily my dear. I shan't be uncorking for you. Tea perhaps? Some scones?"
"Well I won't say no to scones..." Lily replied, a little taken aback by the unexpected dual opposition. She didn't think she had been drinking so much as to require an intervention.
"Then perhaps we too can sit down to a cup," McGonagall unexpectedly offered, then added rather ominously, "We have much to discuss, Lily."
Slughorn, however, carried no such weight in his words. "Wonderful! What say you and I have a cuppa after lunch. I'd offer you morning tea but alas, Poppy has been hounding my heels to restock her supplies."
"Would you like my help?" Lily offered.
"Oh would you? That will be sweet of you," Slughorn agreed quite readily, conjuring a scroll from thin-air. Always so very sharing with his responsibilities. "Poppy's sent down a list. If you can give that a good crack, I'll be forever grateful."
Eager to have something to while away her morning, Lily accepted the scroll, tucking away the matron's orders into her robes. "I'll have it filled by lunch."
McGonagall, however, rather than applauding her diligence, fixed her with another stern glare. "Do not overexert yourself, Lily, illness lurks in the cold and draughty depth of the dungeons."
"Oh pish. The dungeons are completely indoors. I think you'll find they're the least draughty part of the castle," Slughorn waved off dismissively. "As too we must acclimatise any young Slytherin to their dungeon home."
"Horace, I think you'll find that Gryffindor lays equal claims," McGonagall uttered bafflingly.
A confusing allegory that Slughorn seemed to be in on. "As much as Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw, I'm sure."
"Regardless, I think we can all agree that it is in Lily's best interest to wrap up warmly before descending," McGonagall insisted, turning back to the dumfounded Lily, her protective den-mothering rivalling the mother-hen that was Severus.
Oddly, rather than double down on his territorial assertions, Slughorn appeared to take the side of his rival-house-head. "Yes, yes. I agree. Do wrap up, Lily. I'll not have you catch your death of the cold."
"How about not have her tackle your tasking?" McGonagall snipped, her stern eyes fixing a glare upon the less than industrious potion master.
To which Slughorn waved away, utterly unaffected by the scorn. "Oh pish. Nothing wards away the cold like a warm fire under a cauldron."
A drop of blood splashed into the surface of the lacquered benchtop. In an urgent motion, Snape snatched his student's bleeding hand and yanked him away from the simmering cauldron.
"Careful, boy!" the professor hissed to the wide-eyed Crouch, releasing his hand back to him. Snape did not have enough hands to tend to the boy's injury while holding him steady.
"Hold steady," he ordered as he fetched his jar of dittany and unscrewed the cap with a tap of his wand. With another swipe of his wand, he applied a yellow smear of the paste across the still-oozing wound across Crouch's palm, sealing it closed instantly.
Pale and wincing, Crouch reached for his dropped knife, its tip stained with blood. "Sorry, I wasn't careful. I spoiled the batch," he murmured, priorities as shaken as he was.
"It is not the brew I held concerns for, Mr Crouch," Snape retorted, siphoning up the blood from the bench and his student's hands. "Ingredients we have aplenty, as too do we have time and further opportunities to attempt this brew. It is your health that we do not have in wasteful surplus. Expose not an open wound to the vapours."
Crouch cast a wary eye to the simmering cauldron whose fire Snape had extinguished, allowing the deep azure brew to curdle in the cold. A morning's work wasted, but only a portion of the prepared ingredients spent. "This potion we are brewing comprises of various toxic components. Exposure to any combination of which would require an extended revision of Golpalott's Third Law."
"I assumed that's why you set out the bezoars," Crouch remarked, gesturing carelessly with his still healing hand to the row of small brown stones set out upon the shelf.
Snape's lips twisted, though he endeavoured to suppress the scowl that threatened at the thought of how once such measures would have been utterly unnecessary for a potioneer such as he. "It would be remiss not to plan for the worst."
"You assumed that I'd royally screw up, huh?" Crouch muttered, not even attempting to hide his own displeasure.
Snape bit back the retort that was forming, his acid tongue threatening naught but hurtfulness. A lifetime of unpleasantness left to unlearn. "Or perhaps it was my own ability that I cannot trust, and that I would rather not risk the worst of the one I asked to take on work that I am already no longer capable of."
Crouch glared despondently at the cauldron in the sink, his hands curling up into straining fists. His frustration palatable.
"Do not feel yourself a failure. This is a difficult task asked of you," Snape assured the boy gently. Far gentler than he might have ever done in the past, but no longer unusual to those he now taught. "This potion is not one I would expect a student to easily brew, even under instructions."
Those fists loosened, as too did those tense shoulders drop. "I feel a failure…" That confession slipped from his lips so softly Snape might have missed it had he not learned to listen with the intent of a spymaster. Vulnerable words from a vulnerable soul.
"Yet I do not feel you the failure for not being able to produce perfectly a potion that no student should have exposure to," Snape reassured. A sentiment the potion master believed. For all the skill of a potioneer, one was still vulnerable to chance and simple mishap. Lily had proven as much with one ill-fated weekend on Wolfsbane.
Crouch stared a moment in silence at the chunks of curdled potion swirl in the flowing sink, eye glassy as he watched the drain suck the gelatinous chunks into the belly of the plumbing. Those grey eyes slowly met his, some unspoken anguish seeming to shimmer upon their surface. "The youngest professor in Hogwart's history, a known alchemical and potioneering genius and slayed a basilisk to boot. And you're barely older than I am. What do you know of failure?"
More than you know…
Crouch dropped heavily onto his stool, teeth gnashing in some familiar emotion of strife. Greater than what he had spoken of. Greater than he might be willing to speak of. Snape could attest for how personal these battles could be.
And how lonely it was to fight alone…
"Does your father make you feel the failure?" A question, asked gently in a tone so coddling soft, yet causing the boy to flinch as if those words were screamed into his ear.
His lips parted but no words came. His grey eyes wide, no longer hooded in his own misery. Snape's words parting that veil, making so vulnerable a soul that did not expect to be seen.
"You once told me he makes you feel very small. I do not pretend to know what that means…" Snape continued, making clumsy attempts at empathy. "Nor will I pretend to know better about this perception you have about your measurement of success and failure, but I can tell you this truthfully. As far as potioneering students go, you are no failure."
"Right. 'Cause you've taught a lot of potions students to compare with," Crouch muttered with a great deal of scepticism and bitterness.
Not that the boy knew, but this was one assertion that Snape could make with a great measure of authority. "One does not get to be so known as a prodigious potioneer and escape the burden of tutoring one's peers," Snape attempted, wrapping his truth in a veil of a lie. A craft he was as expert in as the topic they were discussing. "I can assure you my words are not just empty platitude. You are no failure."
Snape only had a day's worth of observation to go on, but that was enough for him to form an opinion. From the decades of students that passed through his classrooms, few could be considered skilful enough to be mediocre. Too few students possessed the patience and dedication to be truly great at the craft, and fewer still possessed a drive for its perfection.
That Bartemius Crouch's knowledge of the craft was up to date with Snape's standard of seventh year curriculum was success enough, and that he did so in spite of his teacher being Slughorn was just all the more so. Furthermore, there was confidence in the boy's motion, his hands swift in preparation of ingredients; and his knife precise, his accident notwithstanding. He followed instructions, his inquiries clever and never obnoxious, lessons learnt by one trial needing little further correction after the first prompt. Care taken and care given to a craft that required care in spades. The only kind of student that could succeed in the meticulous craft of potions.
"Perfection is a slippery slope, Mr Crouch. One whose path lays atop, not below," Snape said, meeting the child's insistent eyes. "Though a noble pursuit, impossibility is a fight the wise do well to avoid. As too are impossible standards."
An unexpected ripple of laughter sounded from the boy's throat. "You make it all sound so easy…"
It wasn't. It never was. "Your father's sway must hold you intently." But it wasn't fear that held him. At least not fear as Snape understood it. Not the same fear that once held the heart of Snape's childhood. "You appear to fear the disappointment of that man."
Another chuckle sounded, a weary sound. Followed by a sigh, then silence. Snape waited for the words to follow, as he knew they must. Shoulders sagging, too worn to resist, Bartemius Crouch obliged. "I wouldn't even tell him that I'm brewing a potion remotely considered dark magic. Even when I know there's no real mens rea to my action. That's how terrified of his opinion I am."
As head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Crouch was known for his straight and narrow views, and his low tolerance for anything that strayed from that path. Yet the irony was of bitter humour, when that man's one great legacy had been the fate of his son. A fate so many questioned as to how it came to be, when nobody was any the wiser of the darkening of this young heart.
"What will you tell them our project is about?" Snape asked softly, watching the boy, trying to understand.
"Antidotes, probably… Well, actually… I already told him it's about antidotes…" Crouch murmured, his face flushing a dark hue in some unspoken shame. "And yet, all he had wrote back was a rebuke. Such a simple thing to need all holiday to accomplish. Was it accolades for my skill in potioneering, or punishment for my lack of?" His eyes downcast, features darkened as if shadows fell across. "I wonder what he would say if I told him it was a dark potion I was brewing? Would he be angry? Horrified? Would his perfectly ordered world crumble beneath his feet?"
Was this the reason of it all? "Do you have rebellion in your heart?"
Crouch glanced up, darkness fleeing from his eyes, his smile sudden and rueful. "I must sound like some silly wilful teenager."
It was an entirely absurd concept that one could fall so far simply because of just a small irreconcilable piece of their life they could not fix, or find peace with. But it wasn't so ridiculous, for Snape had once walked that very path and cast himself into that same darkness for reasons just as ludicrous.
But that was simply how the darkness took them. That insidious seductiveness that preys on a void that most knew not they carried.
Whatever trauma the boy was carrying, whatever resentment he was nursing inside him, it had not yet reached a point where it parted him from his sanity. The darkness that was slowly wrapping its tendrils about this child's throat had not yet begun to strangle him.
In this moment, it wasn't another lecture Bartemius Crouch needed. Not another rehash of the obvious, of the importance of not giving in to that darkness. The boy didn't need another to bear the rhetoric of his father.
The words he needed was not guiding wisdom, but affirmation.
"You are permitted to be a teenager, Mr Crouch," Snape spoke, his voice soft as the tone he thought kindness must take when judgement was without.
The clinking of vials echoed calamitously in the narrow passages of the dungeons. An ear-splitting cacophony spurring Lily onwards into the fresh air and the snow-tinted sunlight of the world above. Emerging into the Entrance Hall with her levitating boxes of freshly-brewed potions, Lily paused to huff a deep chilling breath. There was something about the air after emerging from the dungeons that just seemed a little sweeter.
Christmas Lunch had just started, and with it came the trickle of students that filed through from the nooks and crannies they hid in, mostly from the snow-touched outdoors if the slushy tracks across the stone floors were any indication.
If the scowl on Filch's face could melt snow, spring would have already begun. The caretaker worked a mop down the thoroughfare, grumbling loudly about every mark of that wretched mess that marred his floor. Even as Lily tiptoed by, as quietly as her rattling boxes would allow, the dark glare from the curmudgeon caretaker drew to her presence, as if she had somehow summoned the hoards that stampeded through without wiping their feet.
Even as a fellow staff member, Lily did not seem to make much headway with the caretaker. With only a few brief meetings in the staffroom to even attempt to build relations, Lily blamed it all on lack of opportunity and bad timing, what with how recently Lily had come out of graduation. Filch seemed to naturally hate all students. But even that too wasn't strictly true, as that grumbling caretaker appeared well at ease conversing with Severus, even before he had graduated and donned the robes of a professor. In the end, Lily chalked it all down to her being a Gryffindor, the natural enemy of anything orderly and tidy.
Running footsteps preceded a gust of biting wind, prompting furious squawks from the long-suffering caretaker. Lily paused by the stairs as small bodies dashed past her, seemingly oblivious to the precious load she was ferrying. But there was no denying a first-year's blind excitement. Lily doubted that at that age she would have paid heed to anything other than the new and exciting world around her, especially with magical Christmas assaulting her senses from all directions.
Christmas carols rang from every direction, those magical suits of armour singing at passers-by. The smell of lunch wafted from the great hall, beckoning louder than any lunch bell could. Lily pushed on forward up those stairs, promising her rumbling stomach she'll be dining shortly.
Footsteps from above warned Lily to brace as another two youths rushed downwards. First years at a glance, and already adjusted enough to the rhythm of the school to know which steps to not trust. Little flashes of red announced the passing children as Gryffindors, and not a glimmer of recognition passed between them. Where once as a student leader, Lily knew personally every young lion under her charge, as staff it was a different beast. She kept in mind every name and face that passed her care, but she was no longer a significant mark on their lives.
They were still willing to speak to her, and quite eagerly so. The discovery of her shared surname with their strictest teacher raised a few eyebrows among them, having heard more than once the question of whether she and Severus were actually married muttered between them, as if the possibility of the two being related were as likely. But slowly the truth was learned by all, as too the realisation that beyond a surname neither temper nor tolerance was shared.
Then the questions began, little curious souls seeking stories. And always exclusively about Severus. It made Lily proud to know what a profound impact her husband had on the students both old and new, so many young souls inspired by his growing legend. But this pride brought with it a small twist of jealousy, whenever those seeking stories about Severus wore robes marked with red. He was a mark upon their world now, and she was but a footnote. The hearts and minds of her little lions were no longer hers to guide.
A low draught blew through the hallway as Lily stepped off the first-floor flight, the bracing cold beginning to prickle at her skin with its tiny winter teeth. But even that the wind was wise enough not to trespass on the territory of the school matron. Madam Pomfrey had ensured all the windows were secured against the blustering winds and any possibility of contracting the sniffles while under her care.
Lily made to announce herself when she stepped through the door but seeing the matron busy with a patient, Lily thought better of it. As unobtrusively as she could, Lily ferried the boxes to the entrance of storage room, stacking them on a little bench set in front of the door and waited at the door for the matron's attention. Since every vial had been meticulously labelled there technically was no need to flag down the matron's attention, but Lily honestly never passed down an opportunity to have a little chat with the matron, not when certain pats on the back were deserved.
When she had agreed to take on Horace's to-do-list, she hadn't realised the scroll curled back in on itself. On it was written selection of relatively simple tinctures in such quantities that her morning was but a fleeting afterthought.
Madam Pomfrey noticed her arrival with a glance before returning her attention to her charge. A young Ravenclaw with sandy-blond hair sat by a bed, with his hand held firmly by the school matron. Her once fellow prefect, Bartemius Crouch.
"Dittany closed the wound, and a healing spell has eased away any remnants of a scar," Madam Pomfrey observed as she ran her wand down the boy's open palm. Even from where Lily sat she could see his skin stained yellow with some type of ointment or balm, smeared across a quickly fading scar. "Even healed, your skin will be irritable for a period, especially to the toxic agents in a potion lab. You'll be giving today a rest from brewing."
It was devastating news it seemed, for the young Ravenclaw's face fell. "But the professor expects me back."
The Matron hushed that notion away. "Then I'll send him a message not to wait with such bated breath. And to give his students a break on Christmas Day for Godric's sake."
But rather than looking relieved, young Bartemius Crouch looked all the more frantic. "But… t-this is my project. Professor Snape is counting on me to brew this before holidays end. I need to be there. I need to brew."
"Well, Barty. I'll give Sev an earful if he doesn't give you the time off you deserve," Lily interjected with a smile, and in response Bartemius Crouch almost jumped out of his skin. One would have thought the ear-splitting rattling would have given her away.
The young Ravenclaw quickly recomposed himself. "Madam Snape. I did not see you come in," he uttered as he stood from his seat. A seemingly respectful gesture had he not just snatched his hand from the matron's caring grasp.
That formality wiped the smile off Lily's face. She was not so used to the formality, not when she herself had just been a student and walked these very halls alongside these same fellows. To Severus it was a piece of cake, what with how formal he had treated his fellows in his day to day life. Not even counting how used the whole concept of acting the professional detached professor he must have been, having transitioned into this life straight from the role of one.
"How have you been, Barty?" Lily asked, poignant in her informality. She hated the barriers that being part of staff had erected, friends she once made in the lower years now seemingly held her at arm's length, more so than they ever had when she had been head girl. "I hope my husband's not been working you too hard. He asks a lot, sometimes too much. He doesn't seem to not realise his hobby craft can be somewhat challenging to the rest of us mere mortals." Lily offered sympathetically, knowing exactly what sort of potion master her husband had once been.
"Not at all," Crouch replied, before quickly backpedalling, "I mean, he's setting very challenging work, but I enjoy it."
It was strange to hear such a notion from the lips of another, when Lily had been under the impression that Severus had little patience for suffering fools when it came to his most lorded art, as narcissistic for her to believe. Everything he'd revealed to her since about his tenure in that very role did nothing to dispel that notion. It made Lily all the more curious about these little private lessons Severus had arranged. If the stories she heard from the first years were anything to go by, he could give the mother lion herself a run for her money in terms of strictness and stringency.
Before Lily could enquire any further, Madam Pomfrey bustled forth between the two, charming away the rattling boxes Lily had hefted up from the dungeons. "Trust Horace to do everything to circumvent the need of hefting himself off his behind. But that he'd send you to bring these up in his stead. Now, this is a new level of laziness on behalf of the man."
"Oh, it's not that different from the norm," Lily replied, not quite sure if what she had just said sounded more like excusing the dear old potioneer, or in support of the matron's scathing reprimand. She quickly added, to be certain her words, "I mean. It's fine, really. I brewed the batch, I might as well bring it up."
"Excuse me?" Madam Pomfrey blinked, her expression entirely too stupefied for how much of the status quo this entire arrangement had been. It wasn't the first time Slughorn delegated the task of stocking the infirmary, and personally, Lily thought she had done an admirable job each time. Certainly well enough to not warrant such barefaced aghast.
The matron flung open the lid, rifling through the vials in a motion that was almost a panic. "Skele-Grow too? Horace made you brew Skele-Grow?"
"I know how to make it," Lily offered weakly, uncertain as to why there was such an outcry. The potioneering assistant had proven herself capable in far more difficult tasks in the past.
Pomfrey seemed not in the least reassured with this assertion, instead pulling the girl by the hand. In equal alarm, Bartemius Crouch hopped to the side as the matron deposited Lily into the very same chair that the young man had just vacated.
"How do you feel?" Madam Pomfrey asked, her voice oddly tinged with concern.
"A little confused," Lily admitted as the matron's swept her wand up and down as if an artificer examining a particularly odd trinket.
"Understandable, we do not teach as much about the contraindications of tonics at NEWTs level. I did not expect you to know Skele-Grow is a powerful teratogen. But as a Masterclass certified potioneer, I expect more of Horace."
Lily blinked stupidly. "What's a teratogen?"
"My point exactly. How irresponsible of the man." The matron muttered, relentlessly waving her wand about the confused girl sitting in her charge. "He was so excited that one might have thought him the grandfather. To think, he wouldn't even take the time to take one iota of responsibility for your baby's health."
"B-baby?" Lily started, but as shocked as she was those words of surprise had not been uttered from her lips. Bartemius Crouch stood by the door, eyes wide and staring at some point at Lily's midriff. "Professor Snape's going to be a father?"
In one instant, the world went utterly topsy-turvy for Lily. "Huh?" was all she could weakly utter. "I'm pregnant?" she asked stupidly, a horrified blush threatening to envelope her, before realising she could not possibly be the last one to know.
Seemingly under the belief that the conversation they needed to have was a no-boys-allowed affair, the matron glanced sharply at the equally stunned boy. "Well? If you're all better then off you trot." After the initial startle, the Ravenclaw prefect could not disappear fast enough, with Lily only too guiltily grateful that the young man was too isolated a soul for idle gossip.
"Lily, I know this is no fault of your own, but you're responsible for more than yourself now so you must make an effort to seek all the advice you can about the things you don't know about." Her eyes softened, as too her tone, "And but I recall that your mother had tragically passed during your school years. I don't know what other maternal figures you might have in your life to call on for advice, but I can offer you what I can as a healing professional and a grandmother of two."
"Th-thanks?" Lily muttered, struggling with everything that was happening. "Umm… but… why do you think I'm pregnant?"
"Why, I heard it from Horace, dear." Madam Pomfrey gushed. "And I'm sorry if it's not meant to be public knowledge but we're all so happy for you. Goodness knows we all need a little good news these days."
So it was through word of mouth and not some matronly secret knowledge that had the woman convinced, which came as a relief and a touch of rebellious disappointment.
Suddenly, the conversations with her colleagues this morning began making a whole lot of sense if this was the rumour going around, as well as the unexplained excitement tittering about behind her.
Meeting the eager eyes of the old motherly matron, Lily internally winced.
To Snape, free time had been an unwelcome luxury. Too much time alone with his thoughts invited no good to his mental welfare. Like so many sleepless nights he had struggled with, nights where all he could do was sweep the halls and surrender to his dark brooding. Time too much to dwell.
The silence too, did little to help his world, nor did the solitude. Yet that was all he had wished for. That was all he knew of peace. In that other lifetime, he had even gone so far as to hope that his life, should he have survived the war, would have been simply allowed to be lived out in such a manner. Silence and solitude, as he faced the curse of time.
Though he no longer feared the shadows of his mind, he still loathed any sudden abundance of time when he had nothing prepared. He had his newspaper, but that had always been read alongside his afternoon coffee. On a school day that meant during the fifteen-minute break between classes in the afternoon, when anything productive such as lesson preparation was not needed.
Usually this meant skimming through the headlines, articles filled with the grimmest of news. The progress of the war outside these walls. A pulse he needed to keep a finger on. He ordinarily hadn't the time to read the articles throughout, and honestly, he hadn't any desire to. Unfortunately, free time was all he had today.
On orders of Madam Pomfrey, Crouch had to take the day off, putting their project on hold. An issue Snape had anticipated since the silver blade slipped this morning. He knew too well how tender newly healed skin could be, and how little he trusted the magically healed skin to hold its integrity against the variety of potentially toxic exposures. It was always safer than not to give the flesh time to regenerate naturally on top of magical treatments.
But even so, accepting that this was the best course of action, Snape could not feel cheated by the sudden gift of time. Because of how sudden it came about, he hadn't the opportunity to prepare himself for a void in his schedule, both mentally and practically.
The only company he desired was that of Lily's but she had no idea this gap in his timetable existed. Frustrations elicited through the headmaster's refusal to follow through with his breakthrough led him to a sleepless night. A breakthrough that could relieve no shortage of burden from a young man facing a burdened lifetime.
All Snape had wanted was the company of his wife. It was a comfort she did not know he needed, not that he would ever admit to it. Snape had initially planned to meet Lily at Christmas lunch and suggest some leisure time be spent together. But having found her absent from most the meal, her presence through his ring placing her some place on the floor above, Snape wondered how occupied her day must have been for her to miss a meal she venerated as much as Christmas lunch.
When Lily had finally entered for her meal it was in the company of the school matron. Both ladies settled at the far corner of the table, deep in discussions of what appeared to be an exasperating matter. Even though the young professor desired to keep his wife's company, he committed himself to not to be a burden on his wife's time.
This was how Snape ended up at the table in the staffroom, coffee cup charmed for instant refill, his newspaper spread out before him for ease of handling with the one hand he had. Terrible news decorated the headlines, tragedy and disaster spread throughout the pages, but too soon true news dissolved from the pages to make way for the inane articles. It was perhaps the editor's way to balance the heavy news they must deliver with something light lest they overwhelm their readers, but to Snape it was naught but unnecessary padding. What did he care about the runt of a cruppy litter finding itself crowned best herder in some ridiculous muggle county fair?
Snape sighed internally over the remainder of paper, having little else to do but dreading having to dedicate any mind to the prattling opinion columns. Yet, despite that, Wizarding World News was heads and shoulders above the gossip rag that was the Daily Prophet.
If nothing else, it was a peaceful afternoon spent among silent peers. Professor Karol sat by the fire, silently entranced by the pops and crackles in the lively embers, and in the chair beside was the ghostly form of Professor Binn, deep in slumber and floating half a foot off the cushion of the seat. A gentle rhythmic clack-clack sounded from the corner as a pair of knitting needles worked away at a basket of colourful wool. Already a variety of baby-mittens and colourful onesies lay in a pile on the floor. A charm no doubt left machinating by one absentminded professor or another, and mostly likely intended as a gift for someone's niece or nephew or relative.
Like with all public spaces open to the presence of the more rambunctious houses, the silence of the staffroom could not last. Sprout and Kettleburn were both of Hufflepuff in House and in nature. They entered the room, immediately dispelling peace with their jovial back and forth chattering. But upon sighting their youngest fellow, they both fell silent, causing Snape a sudden rush of self-conscious discomfort.
"Good day, Severus. How goes everything?" Kettleburn asked, his teeth bared in an all-too hearty smile.
Snape glanced up from his paper. "The day is passing slowly," he answered cautious about being too familiar in conversation with people he knew as co-workers for a bare handful of months.
"Ah very understandable that you should be counting the days. Why, the hours must be positively sluggish," Kettleburn nodded sagely, despite his words making not an iota of sense. "Why, it reminds me of our majestic Abraxan mare foaling for the first time last year. A tense twelve months, to be sure."
An unexpected jab of the elbow from Sprout silenced his magizoological counterpart. "Hush Silvanus. As majestic as a winged horse might be, I don't think that's the best comparison for the young man's wife."
"Yet I feel Lily would be nothing if not flattered to be compared with one such creature. However, I'm afraid I do not understand the reference to her," Snape said, easing into the small talk. Though this was not how he planned his afternoon, conversation was not unwelcome with his fellow professors. People he had once respected and was respected in turn as colleagues, now a rapport he needed to rebuild.
"Of course, of course. She's a darling and means so much more to us all," Sprout fussed with confusing enthusiasm.
"Well, yes. I suppose," Kettleburn agreed. "But a thoroughbred Abraxan is nothing to sneeze at either. How many of those majestic beasts do you see this side of the English Channel? I didn't know who was more excited. Me or the paddock's Porlock."
"A dozen if you count those galloping through your head," Sprout retorted. "Far less than the number of expecting mothers we have on staff. Or children to be born within these castle walls."
A slow numbing chill of implication gripped Snape's heart. "Excuse me?"
"Well, I mean. Of course you'd probably want your child born at a proper hospital," Sprout retracted, oblivious to her colleague internal horror slowly unravelling before her.
Kettleburn waved his prosthetic clawed appendage, "Oh pish. Our Poppy is equal to the best of the healers at St Mungo's. Worst comes to worst, I've delivered young from Puffskeins to Hippogriffs. How hard could a human young be?"
"Oh no," Sprout rounded on her fellow Hufflepuff professor. "You're not going anywhere near a baby with your butterfingers and butter claws."
"Baby?" Snape uttered hoarsely. His mouth suddenly dry, his mind reeling. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, were we not supposed to know yet?" Sprout asked in a fluster, yet ever so good naturedly.
But Snape only had the mind to gape wordlessly as his voice had suddenly left, and for a moment his mind was blank and void of all thought and critical thinking.
Then slowly the cogs began to turn. Lily's face loomed to the fore of his mind, sullen and withdrawn of late. Realisation on how she seemed to surrender to sleep well before the hour she usually took to bed, of how she had attended Christmas lunch late in the company of the good matron. How just this morning, she had caught his hand before he left the breakfast table, her eyes meeting his with some unspoken inner turmoil.
Everything clicked into place in a terrifying way.
"I'm so sorry for discussing this so openly. I know you're a private young man, Severus." Sprout offered in her kindly manner.
But Snape no longer had any mind for any more discussion. The door was behind him before he knew it, his ears deaf to all explanations or protest.
His anger came, rushing up with the flush on the nape of his neck. This wasn't part of his plans. This wasn't supposed to happen. Lily had promised him.
She had promised.
But the responsibility had been his as much as hers. Since the loss of his hand, Lily had to take the onus of the potion and its application entirely upon herself. And like a lazy fool, Snape had been too happy to relinquish all responsibility. Her memory was not like clockwork, and with only one mind to remember, there was no failsafe for her to fall back upon if she were to forget.
A knot of anxiety and self-blame sat like a knot in place of his ebbing rage. Snape swept down the hall, followed the one singular pull in his mind. The beckoning of his wedding ring to where stood his wife, and perhaps, his unborn child.
The source of the rumour had been Hagrid, because of course it was. An unfounded rumour that spread like wildfire, it could only have come from a man with loose as lips as the groundskeeper. Well-meaning as he was, he had a terrible concept of 'secret,' and even worse it seemed, with rumour.
Slughorn had been the interim between Madam Pomfrey and Hagrid. He didn't last long under interrogation. He was well on the way to intoxication already when Lily called on him after lunch, having followed him down to his office from the Great Hall. Not willing to endure his favourite student's ire, he rolled over on his source like a sack of potatoes.
A little powdering of snowfall coated Lily's head and shoulders by the time she had reached the towering doors of the gamekeeper's hut. Lily announced her presence, and in some part her displeasure by the firmness of her knock, and it wasn't long before a cheery voice answered. "Comin'. Gimme a sec." A clatter could be heard beyond the door, followed by a low canine whine.
The door opened a crack, exposing the gentle giant's red-flushed face. "Ah Lily! What are yeh doing here out in the cold?"
"Well, waiting to be invited in for one," Lily replied with a tired smile. She wasn't angry, not really. That wasn't why she was here.
Pulling the door a little wider, Hagrid beckoned her in urgently, closing the door so quickly and suddenly behind her she thought him cooking a secret inside. And something must have been cooking, for the entire cabin felt a hundred degrees.
"Hagrid, what is with the heat?" Lily gasped as she immediately stripped off her scarf and cardigan.
Lily was geared up in her muggle winter wear, as she hadn't bought any wizarding outfits that could weather winter in Scotland. She kept meaning to visit Gladrags and purchase herself a set of woolly robes and cloak, but those grand intentions went the way all ideas go when waylaid by laziness and forgetfulness and poorly planned Hogsmeade trips.
With a quick gesture, Lily blasted a cold spell throughout the hut, bringing the temperature down to a milder volcanic temperature. "What's with the heat? Are you hatching a dragon egg?" Though she meant the question in jest, some part of her always believed the giant bearded fellow with a proclivity for things with fangs and venom, might very well think a fire breathing man-eating five-cross rated dangerous beast would make an excellent grounds keeping companion.
"I jus' don' want Digger to catch a cold," Hagrid replied as he picked up the quilt his aging hound had struggled out of. With a slow waddle, Digger picking his way around the well-meaning groundskeeper to sit at Lily's temperature-adjusted feet. Lily had never managed to learn how to make the cold stick to her skin like Sev had. As a result her best attempts at temperature spells resulted in an unstable shell about her that occasionally sprung a leak and billowed chilled air with a sound generously likened to Peeves blowing a raspberry.
"I think Digger is offering an opinion on what he prefers," Lily said as she bent down to stroke the old dog around his ears. Digger let out a low appreciative whine as he snuggled closer to Lily's legs and into the path of the cool air flowing about her form.
After banking the fire a smidge with a shovel full of ash, Hagrid dropped into his armchair with a dejected thud. "Yeh right, Lily. I'm smotherin' him," Hagrid relented as he wiped his soot-stained hands on his already quite soot-stained apron. "I jus' get so overprotective o' him. With him being a grand-pap in dog years an' all."
The old canine answered with a low whine as his tail waved to-and-fro. He was so readily forgiving, rarely holding anything against anyone.
"I get that," Lily murmured, suddenly thinking of her dad again. Of how little warning she had of his passing. Misty-eyed, the girl glanced down at the old hound at her feet, running both hands through the good boy's scruffy coat.
"Where are me manners? I've not offered yeh a cuppa." Hagrid bustled over to the stove and proceeded to heat the kettle by his non-magical means. The groundskeeper had been expelled during his school years, resulting his wand being snapped in half and forbidden from overt use of magic. Hagrid never spoke of why it happened, but all Lily knew was that the ruling had recently been overturned. Severus knew why, but of course in usual Sev-fashion, his take on the matter was, "It's not my place to speak of other people's private affairs."
With the clink and a clatter, Hagrid shuffled over with tea tray in hand and two massive mugs of steaming hot tea. Never one to refuse a cup, no matter how unwieldy, Lily gave the aging pup one last loving pat and accepted her bowl-sized tea and saucer. With a low whine, the hound set his snout at the witch's feet, content to enjoy her temperate aura.
Hagrid glanced lovingly at his hound as he sat in the armchair opposite with his bucket-sized mug. "I jus' hope he lives long enough to meet yeh little one. Know when the tyke is s'posed to be born?"
Lily was pulled from her sentiments jarringly by the sudden reminder of why she was there in the first place. "I'm not pregnant, Hagrid." Lily stated, in what was not exactly her gentlest tone.
Hagrid blinked several times before his dark eyes drawing wide. "Yeh not?"
"No, I'm not," Lily stated trying her best to set her bubbling annoyance aside. By the way gossip spread among school staff, this was bound to take a lot of follow up with the faculty to set the record straight.
"Oh," was all that Hagrid managed as he blinked his dark beetle-like eyes. For a moment it seemed the good groundskeeper was at a genuine loss for words as red creeped up across his cheeks from his bushy beard.
"How did you get it into your head that I was?" Lily asked with a tone of mild exacerbation. "I don't think I've even mentioned anything about the topic. We've certainly not had a conversation about it."
Hagrid muttered into his beard, so abashedly, "I jus' thought… At breakfast, yeh were talkin' about Snape being the da' so I thought…"
Lily blinked, feeling red creep up the back of her neck, realising exactly how this misunderstanding came about. Light hearted teasing over breakfast, taken out of context. Then the giggles came. Such a ridiculous situation it was, for such a small offhanded comment to be taken out of context and blown so totally out of proportion.
A relieved smile peeked from Hagrid's bushy beard. "Yeh not mad?"
"Not mad," Lily gasped between her bubbles of laughter, wiping away the tears that beaded in the corner of her eyes. Old Digger lifted his head curiously, but soon laid back down, placing his snout gently at the girl's feet.
"Didn't mean to tell anyone neither. Jus' Horace and I had a Christmas drink together. I must've somehow mentioned it," Hagrid muttered sheepishly. He took a long draw from his bucket of tea, seeming to use that time to shake off his embarrassment.
"What a silly thing to have come about through such a small misunderstanding," she finally muttered, her breath sounding a sigh of exhaustion as her laughter died away. "Help me set the story straight, alright? I've already explained things to Poppy and Horace but it seems the grapevine's taken over the entire vineyard."
Hagrid was quick to nod, upsetting his mug of tea held in his saucer-sized hands as he done so but seemingly oblivious to the near-scalding liquid spilt onto his trousers. "I'll make things right. I'll make sure everyone knows yeh not got no buns in no ovens."
"Appreciate it," Lily replied, returning to her own cup for a relieved draw of her own tea, relieved that things appeared to have been resolved in an apparent painless fashion.
But it appeared she had counted her luck too soon.
As thick as the heavy oak doors to Hagrid's hut had been, the knocks that rained upon it was enough to cut clearly through the low muted howl of the blustering winds. Knocks forceful enough to paint the similarly gale-force emotions behind them.
There was no doubt who would step through the doors when Hagrid unlatched the deadbolt from the door, even without added confirmation by a magical wedding ring. Severus stood in the swirling snow, his poignant nose noticeably reddened by the biting cold and stirring winds. It seemed he had been in such a hurry to stake out into the winds that he had neglected to swathe himself warmly in his proficient magical warmth.
His black eyes scanned the hut, no doubt struggling against the dimness of the fire-lit hut after stepping in from the blinding white of swirling snow. But when those black eyes met those of Lily's, she felt a chill prickle at her neck that had nothing to do with the windy draught or her own inexpert cooling charm.
Though he wore no discernible expression on his face, his eyes could not mask the heavy emotions raging within. He had heard, and she knew that he heard, the moment he stormed to Hagrid's hut in such a fluster. A scenario she had hoped to avoid and reasonably thought that she might owing to his own less than sociable personality.
Lily reflexively shirked back at Sev's approach, expecting to be met with rage. Though none of this was fault of hers, if he believed what was said, then he would believe she had betrayed another promise to him. A promise no longer meant what it once had to Lily, for she had learned its true weight from her husband's truth. A devotion that she could never hope to live up to, but one she could never again knowingly betray.
Lily had expected anger, justly placed, or otherwise. But what she got, was anything but.
Severus knelt before her, his breath coming in heavy as if he had run his path to find her, his presence jolting the dozing hound from his resting place at Lily's feet. His one hand laid upon hers, to hold her tightly yet tenderly in his grasp. His black eyes peered upwards to meet hers, even when she turned away by instinctive yet unearned shame. But when she met those eyes she saw no anger held within, instead an earnestness that made her heart flutter.
"This wasn't how I wanted this to happen…" Severus muttered, his voice soft, but without accusation. "I wanted our child to be born in a world where he could step outside without fear of that evil that marked our lives. I did not want our child to be born into this world of uncertainty."
"Sorry," Lily apologised, an automatic response despite not owning a whit of fault in any of this.
Perhaps worn by his exertion, or the emotions no doubt roiling within, Severus said not a word more of conflict or strife. Instead he took his hand from hers, a moment that seemed too poignant with disappointment, only to have him lay that one hand tenderly upon her still-flat belly. Their eyes met, his black eyes hard in the glow of the orange firelight. As fierce as the promise they held.
"I will care for this child, and be the father you expect of me."
Lily felt tears well up in her eyes. This was the man she had married. This earnest, caring and all too noble man. And if it weren't for Hagrid awkwardly standing by the door, staring in awkward horror at the mess he created, Lily might not have come back to her senses at exactly where they stood on the matter.
Severus was in the midst of unbuckling his cloak, a movement he had gotten proficient with using one hand and slung it about his wife. With a wave of his wand, he levitated away the cumbersome cup and saucer and dispelled the cold charm from lily's midst. The dozing hound at her feet whined unappreciatively, already annoyed at having to share his proximate space with the new intruder.
Not knowing even where to begin to rectify the situation, Lily stood as she was bade, lead towards the door. Hagrid was all too obliging, holding the door open wide despite the flurry of snow he let in and the soon to be wet-mess that would have to deal with. The sheepishness that radiated from Hagrid glowed like a lit match, at the very least his cheeks certainly did.
The groundskeeper silently mouthed "I'm sorry," as Lily stepped past, no doubt extremely contrite for his role in this absurdity. Lily, in return, could only grimace.
A/N: Oh Christmas. A happy time for family dramas.
A thank you to my Beta readers Sattwa100 and cookeroach for your work on this chapter.
Next Update: Saturday 4th January 2019
Chapter 76: Victory of Reason
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe and do not seek to profit in any way, shape or form from this fan work.