This chapter became very long (Maybe too long...). It is told from the perspective of Minerva McGonagall. She is one of my favorite professors and I thought that it would be interesting to depict her thoughts of Severus while he was still just one of her students. Minerva is also perfect person to point out Severus´s unusual talent and enlighten us about his background.
It would be great to read some feedback.
-EveryJohn
"The seventh year is very important for your future, Mr. Snape. I recommend you to stay out of trouble and focus on your studies", Professor McGonagall advised.
"If it depends on me, I certainly will, professor", the young Slytherin muttered, not meeting her eyes. Soon after that he left the room.
Not necessarily a lie, Mr. Snape... Yet, trouble seems to find you, Minerva thought to herself. She was well aware of the rumors considering the showdown that had taken place between the seventh-year-Gryffindors and Slytherins on the very first night after the Sorting ceremony. For all she knew, Mr. Snape might not have had any part in it, but she was very much doubted it. Her instinct after over thirty years of teaching told her differently. Whenever something like this happened it usually involved this reclusive Slytherin somehow.
She turned to the window of the classroom and opened the curtains. In couple of minutes, Mr. Snape appeared on the yard. Minerva saw how three Slytherins of his year tried to approach him, but Mr. Snape pushed past them. He had soon disappeared between the rampant rose bushes. The evaded housemates shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads. Then they hurried after Mr. Snape in the direction of forbidden forest where the Care of magical creatures lesson was held.
Before this autumn Minerva had been under an impression, that the pure-blood Slytherins tended to disdain their half-blood housemate. If she had been correct about that, their attitude seemed to have changed drastically recently. She had to admit that Mr. Snape had cleaned up rather nicely during the summer, which might have played a part in his new higher status. According to the rumors he had also made important contacts among pure-blood society.
She remembered Mr. Snape mostly from being always in trouble with her lions. Along the years misters Potter, Black and Pettigrew from Gryffindor had repeatedly made the peculiar Slytherin as the main target of their devious schemes. Needless to say, Minerva had not always been very proud of their antics. A lone Slytherin seemed like a cowardly target. Though, she had come to know that Mr. Snape could give back quite viciously, when given a chance. Sweet Lily Evans had initially defended him as he was her childhood friend, but their inter-house friendship had obviously turned sour some time later. Lily had recently began to date one of Mr. Snape´s previous bullies and was nowadays never seen talking to the boy.
Curiously, Minerva had never thought Mr. Snape as a victim. It was likely due to his sharply lashing tongue. At least verbally the young Slytherin was able to hold his own against anyone. He was such a bunch of contradictions, McGonagall thought, slightly annoyed of this. If she were to be objective, Mr. Snape was clearly one of her brightest students. The boy was sharper than a silver sickle in moonlight. Yet until this day he had seemed to lack talent when it came to the practical part of the transfigurations. Despite Minerva´s efforts her lions had never ceased from making fun of him for this. This semester, however, had started differently. Mr. Snape´s performance was completely unlike his previous school work. From what Minerva had heard from her colleagues, Mr. Snape had aced every single class he had attended on the first week. Students' skills usually never improved quite that dramatically during their last school years. As Mr. Snape´s house head, Horacio, did not bother to do anything, Minerva, curious as a cat, had decided to get to the bottom of it herself.
Mr. Snape had been very tense and seemed to expect some kind of punishment, when she had asked him to stay behind after the class. When she had told that she was interested in his fast progress and wanted to know what might explain it, the boy had shrugged his shoulders. He had dug something from the folds of his school robes. Then he had presented his wand to the professor.
"What does this mean, Mr. Snape?"
"You asked, what explains my progress. Well this is it", the boy had muttered.
"Well, I can see that you have purchased a new wand, Mr. Snape. It was probably high time, but I don´t understand how is that supposed to alone explain..."
"I used my mother´s old wand until now, as you know, professor. It was a hazel wand."
"Yes, I remember it well, Mr. Snape", Minerva had confirmed. She was impatient to know, where this would lead.
"Have you ever familiarized yourself with wandlore, professor? If not, I would recommend for example Wandlore through ages. It is quite easy to read."
Minerva had picked up the hidden thorn directed at her lack of knowledge on this particular field. Yet, as infuriating as it was coming from a student, she had decided to ignore it in favor of trying to vehemently recall, what it was it that the wandlore said about that particular wood-type. She had been quite disappointed to come so short and had paced around until some crumbs of information had finally wormed themselves into her conscious mind.
"Hazel... Hazel wand detects water. With hazel one needs to be careful, because it will easily absorb its owners negative energy. Something about its loyalty to its owner...", she had recalled through effort.
"And it 'wilts' at the end of its master's life", the Slytherin had added dryly.
Professor McGonagall´s eyes had widened. She realized quickly, what that indicated. Last year before the students returned to school, she as well as the other professors, who taught Mr. Snape, had been informed by the headmaster about his mother´s demise. That was a standard procedure for ensuring that the adults could better understand and offer their help if the student was struggling after such a loss.
"You mean to say, Mr. Snape, that your wand has wilted? Lost most of its magical ability?"
"The last of it, anyway", the boy had mumbled.
"How could that be possible, Mr. Snape? I have seen you perform magic several times with your old wand, even fairly recently. Your spell work was never stellar, Mr. Snape, but at this age I know magic when I see it."
"You also saw me perform with a borrowed wand on the day of Transfiguration O.W.L.s, professor. If I remember correctly, you were impressed. One could say, bewildered even...", the boy had stated looking straight at her with his unnervingly black eyes. They had stood there, looking into each others eyes for a while. A group of second year girls had passed the transfiguration classroom and their giggles had carried from the corridor.
She could hardly deny that the performance and eventual final grade of this particular Slytherin had been her greatest shock of that year. She had confided in the charms professor Filius Flitwick about that when they had made their yearly pop in the Three Broom-sticks after the departure of the Hogwarts Express.
"If the wand has performed so poorly for so long, how come..."
"Why did I buy a new wand only now? Naturally, I didn´t wait this long just for the sake of confusing my professors. My financial situation after this summer was better than usual and I deemed a new wand as a necessary investment."
Minerva had squinted her eyes, trying to see through boy´s bravado. "How do you explain the magic, which I clearly saw you perform last year, Mr. Snape. Your mother had already passed away and if what you have told me is true, her wand should have been already wilting?"
"You mean this kind of little tricks?" Mr. Snape had scoffed. He had held his open palm towards the transfiguration books that lied on the desk waiting to be packed. His long pale fingers had pointed towards the books and then... "Accio books", he had muttered and to McGonagall´s shock the pile of books had moved swiftly from the desk, though the air and straight to his waiting hands.
The boy had put them carefully into his weather beaten book bag. "This kind of simple magic is hardly impossible even without a wand. Of course, it needs diligent practice and focused mind, so I´m afraid that most of your Gryffindors would not manage", he had proclaimed. Then he lowered his voice. "My old wand despised me even before her death, professor. It was unreliable. Had I not honored my wandless magic, I would not have had a chance of survival at all."
With so many enemies in this castle, including many of her Gryffindors, the point was valid, but usually even hard work and determination alone would not be near enough to make this kind of precise and seemingly effortless wandless magic to occur, Minerva knew.
"I told you, what you wanted, professor. Now, I need to know if we are finished? I should participate in a Care of magical creatures -lesson any moment now..."
Minerva supposed that she had looked so dazed that the boy had felt the need to remind her. After a few final words, she had given him permission to leave.
"I will go then, professor."
She had paid barely any attention to the announcement and had merely nodded in recognition of the words. She had heard a clang, when the door had closed after the boy
If the student was telling the truth (which was actually all things considered the most logical option, Minerva had to admit), she had completely failed to see his real abilities for seven years. All that just because of wrong kind of wand. Were she and her colleagues really so blind?
Minerva was aware that wandless magic was possible and had managed a small arsenal of such spells herself. Small children did it intuitively all the time, but focused, controlled magic without wand was far beyond Hogwarts education. She had accounted Mr. Snape´s lack of success in her lessons to poor spell work. Instead his magic had to be extremely powerful for someone of his age.
Minerva knew that she needed to talk to Headmaster about what she had learned today. Meanwhile, she could not help wondering, if Albus had suspected something like this. His attitude towards Mr. Snape had often seemed unnecessarily strict to Minerva. Maybe the old headmaster had his reasons. The boy was after all from unique bloodline. Though, his mother had never showed signs of extreme talent despite being a smart girl. Minerva´s thoughts whirled to over seven years ago, to a forenoon, when she had met the young black-eyed boy for the first time.
/
Professor McGonagall knocked thrice the door of an old rundown house and waited for an answer. She wrinkled her nose. Putrid smell carried from the nearby river polluted by a muggle factory. It was almost midday, but everything seemed dull and colorless under the thick smoke that covered the sky. She saw rusty metal trash laying abandoned in the murky water of a narrow stream. Children playing around should look carefully, where to put their feet and fingers, to not accidentally cut themselves. The few neighbors she had seen on her way there had looked poor and seedy and they had stared her with open hostility. This was clearly not an ideal ground for a young wizard or muggle to grow.
Minerva McGonagall shook her head to get rid of the gloomy thoughts. She would soon meet the parents of a new muggle-born student of Hogwarts and should make as trustworthy and reassuring impression as possible. She corrected her hair and hat and straightened her posture. She hoped that it would go smoothly. There was another house nearby, where she should also visit. Quite a coincidence that two of her future students happened to have residence so close to each other.
After her initial knocks it took a long time for anything to happen. She heard whispering voices inside. Then, finally, a small boy with incredibly big dark eyes cracked the door and peeked out. He looked down, not to McGonagall, and muttered: "We are not buying anything."
McGonagall tried not to smile. "And I am not selling anything, young mister. I just want to know if your parents are home."
"My father is away and my mother is sick. And if you want money, we don´t have it until he gets paid the pension. And it is going to take a couple of days at least." The boy interrupted with a monotonous voice.
"I am not after money I simply want to talk to your mother. And you should look up, young man, when you are talked to", she reprimanded and attempted to touch boy´s shoulder to get him to look at her. The effect was immediate. The boy yelped and recoiled from her touch, but also finally rose his large eyes to meet hers. Then something like understanding flashed in his eyes. He made space and waved for the professor to step in.
"Y-you are one of them, right?" he whispered. McGonagall frowned but nodded without really understanding, what the peculiar child was talking about. Something a kin of mirth brightened boy´s pale face. He turned to the darkness. "Mum! Mum... It´s someone from the school. Not from the normal one but the other school! She wants to talk to you."
"Severus, are you sure? You would not let her in if she intended to harm us, right?" a weak female voice answered him.
"I am sure. Come on, mum! Please, at least speak to her. She needs to talk with you as father isn´t here", the boy demanded impatiently.
A moment later a sick-looking woman shambled to the dim room. The boy had lit an oil lamp on the table and the woman blinked her eyes in its light like an owl in daylight. She had a woolen blanket on her shoulders and it looked like she had been resting. The boy helped her to sit on a stool.
The woman encouraged MacGonagall to take the other stool with a weary hand movement. The boy himself stood, leaning to the wall near the doorway. From the dirty dishes and small oven in the corner, McGonagall was able to deduct that she had been led into the kitchen of the small house.
"Well, Mrs. Snape... I presume that you are Mrs. Snape?"
The woman nodded tensely. As professor McGonagall´s eyes adjusted further, she saw that the woman had rugged, long, black hair and her eyes had dark circles. There was also something familiar in her, but Minerva could not place it anywhere.
"I am here to talk about your son. You must have noticed that young Severus is an extraordinary young man, who can do things that the other children could not ever hope to accomplish..." McGonagall stopped and waited for a confirmation, but was not prepared for, what she heard next.
"He is a wizard. Yes indeed", the woman rasped bitterly. Her black eyes looked endlessly deep and completely devoid of life. She continued. "I hate it, but the boy is what he is. Can´t be helped, can it."
McGonagall was startled and not only by the fact that Mrs. Snape knew about the wizard community. Now that she thought about it boy´s reaction to her arrival had already suggested it. "Mrs. Snape... Did you perhaps already know that your son is magical? And you seem well aware off Hogwarts. He is muggle-born, so how did you...?"
"Not a muggle-born. Half-blood!" the woman hissed with venom and bent angrily forward over the kitchen table.
McGonagall saw in the corner of her eye, how her son twitched uncomfortably and looked at them with concern.
"It is completely unnecessary to act like that with me, Mrs. Snape." McGonagall stood up and was about to chastise the woman further, but her son jumped in, shielding his mother from her ire.
"Don´t hate my mother", he pleaded, "She is... she is very sick today. That is why she sometimes acts like that. She gets easily startled..." The boy blushed to his ears. McGonagall felt her temper ease and sat back to the stool.
"Stand back, Severus", his mother commanded with a shaky voice and reluctantly the boy moved away.
Mrs. Snape awkwardly touched McGonagall´s palm and gave a strained smile. McGonagall interpreted it as some kind of a peace offering. "I´m sorry. I am not... my nerves are not as they used to be", she huffed. "You said that you came for his enrollment. I think, I should believe in you, professor."
Something in woman´s voice and submissiveness triggered a memory in McGonagall. Her hand jumped on her mouth. "Oh, good Merlin", McGonagall heard herself whisper with a trembling voice, "Is that... you, Eileen? Eileen Prince? After so many years?" Whatever she had expected, when she had started her yearly round, this was not it. "You were alive... and here? After you disappeared everyone kept searching for you. For some time your disappearance was all that the Daily Prophet talked about... Your father, Lord Prince, he promised a huge sack of galleons for anyone, who as much as provided a tip that would lead to your discovery. Eventually everyone thought you as dead." McGonagall´s voice wavered. The thought of the young and innocent student meeting her end had been hard to bear. "I... I and the other professors... You need to know, that we mourned you, Eileen."
McGonagall reached to touch woman´s hand, but Mrs. Snape evaded the touch.
Mrs. Snape´s emotional state seemed to have shifted, once again. "You aren´t here to take me back to them? You wouldn´t bring the boy to them either, would you? They won´t want him, anyway. Boy´s father is muggle!" The woman driveled. McGonagall had completely lost the track of what she was talking about, but woman´s fear seemed to only escalate as she spoke. "I am not going back. D-don´t force me return there, professor. Please..."
McGonall didn´t know how to react to this woman, who whimpered like a petulant child. The son squatted next to his mother and took her trembling hands into his palms and rubbed them soothingly. "You know that she will not do anything like that, mum. Professor McGonagall will not take you anywhere you don´t want to go. She is a good witch."
Eileen was hard to reassure. She had clammed to herself and McGonagall could not see her face, but she heard her heart wrenching sniffles. "Did my father send you here?" she finally asked shakily.
McGonagall shook her head in confusion. "No. Of course not. Did you not hear me earlier, Eileen. I never imagined that I would find you, whom I have thought dead until today, here in Cokeworth. I thought that this was a non-magical family with a magical child. Nothing indicated anything else."
To think about it, normally it would have been obvious if someone else but an underage wizard used magic in the same household, but this time there had been no mention of any magic from any other source that the boy.
"You... You have not been using your magic, Eileen. B-but for how long?" McGonagal asked weakly.
The woman, who had once been her diligent student, shook her head.
"For how long, Eileen? Merlin´s sake!"
"F-for a-almost t-twelve years", the woman stuttered and broke into tears.
"But, Eileen, dear child..." McGonagall tried gently when she finally got her voice back. It was hard to digest that someone born with magic might have been surviving without it for such a long time. Suppressing it. Denying it. "Why..? It is really bad for you, Eileen. That kind of thing harms you."
"I did not want him to find us", the woman sniffed barely audibly. This Eileen looked so old and so broken that it hurt to look at her. What on earth had happened to her?
"Why? Who do you mean? If you were afraid of someone, why didn´t you ask help from me or your other professors? Surely your father would have done something."
Mrs. Snape didn´t answer. It was as if she didn´t even listen to her anymore. She had began to tremble and her eyes had turned glassy. Her son shook his head to the professor. "Don´t ask her. She doesn´t want to talk about those things", he whispered. Then he turned to his mother. "Mum. I will make a cup of tea for us. It will calm you down."
The woman batted her eyelids as if awakening from slumber and asked with a quiet, insecure voice: "B-but we don´t h-have any tea leaves... do we?"
The boy smiled to her reassuringly. "Don´t worry, mum. You know that I could cook most delicious tea from the pages of an old newspaper, if necessary."
His mother answered to his smile. "Yes, you really can", she admitted, "My clever boy." Her voice, however, was tired and without real warmth.
/
A moment later the boy had brought in two steaming cups of golden brown liquid. One was for the professor and the other for his mother. His mother hungrily sipped the warm beverage and relaxed in eyes. McGonagall eyed her cup with suspicion. The handle had hit something at some point as it lacked a piece. "What is this? And why don´t you take a cup with me and your mother, Severus?"
The boy nodded excitedly. "I make this quite often, because it helps to calm mother. We call it tea, but actually it´s just dandelions and blackcurrant leaves. It is nothing dangerous. Even Lily likes it..." he shrugged his skinny shoulders. "And I can´t drink with you, right now. We have only two cups as my father broke the third one this morning. I will have some afterwards."
Professor McGonagall sipped the suspicious concoction. It tasted better than she had expected and to her surprise she felt a weak residue of magic on her tongue. Some sort of mild Calming Draught made from common muggle plants. She looked at the boy with new appreciation. His magic had to be strong for someone of his age. The boy had been looking at the professor awaiting for her reaction and blushed slightly. McGonagall smiled and raised her cup. Then she took a long, savoring sip. The small boy practically beamed.
/
"You don´t need to tell me anything, Mrs. Snape. I am not taking you or your son anywhere without your permission, but I am here because Severus is in age of enrollment to Hogwarts. I honestly thought that he was just another muggle-born. I was supposed to come to explain his parents about wizarding world and Hogwarts."
"Could he just not enroll?"
"Why on earth do you say that, Eileen? You know, how important it is to get magical education. He could become danger both to himself and others otherwise. And he is your son. I am sure that he has your sharp mind and thrive for knowledge. It would be shame to not put it to use."
"But... if Severus attends Hogwarts, then he is bound to know about it."
"Who is bound to know?"
"My father. Lord Prince would not want to have anything to do with a half-blood, but maybe..."
McGonagall took a deep breath. "Is this the reason, why you have not used magic for eleven years, Eileen? Were you afraid that it would attract the attention of your father? That he would find you and harm you or your family?"
McGonagall had hit the mark. She knew that instinctively as soon as the words left her lips. Eileen Prince had always been afraid of his father. And who would not have been? Lord Price had been terrifying to them all. In Eileen´s youth her father had been one of the richest and most influential pure-bloods. Elite among elite. Lord Prince was known for being cold and cruel and exceptional. He had expected his only daughter to be just as exceptional and obediently meet all of his expectations. He had had no tolerance for failure or slightest disobedience.
Suddenly this small home, full of dirt and broken furniture, seemed so tiny that it felt suffocating. McGonagall felt dizzy. If she could, she would have charged out from this house and filled her lungs with fresh air. She had to remind herself that she was not some silly girl, who abandoned her responsibilities for the sake of personal discomfort. She forced herself to stay and continue the discussion.
"I see that you have not been in any contact with the wizarding world in all of these years, Mrs. Snape."
The woman nodded rigidly.
"I do not know how you are going to feel about this, Mrs. Snape, but... Your parents, they are both dead. They have been that way for almost five years. You and your son are the last Princes alive in the whole world. There is no reason to continue hiding and refusing magic because of your father."
The woman swayed. Then she collapsed against the table. A wave of emotions was clearly ravishing her. She looked at McGonagall, blinking furiously and seemed completely lost.
"Th-they are dead? Really dead? My mother and father, Lord and Lady Prince, both? That is... That is an actual fact?"
When McGonagall nodded, the younger woman imitated the gesture. Then she stayed still and silent for a long time, eyes cast at her lap.
"Mrs. Snape... Eileen. Where have you kept your wand? I am sure that a clever student like yourself remembers that there is a simple spell you can use to confirm if what I have just told you is true."
As if still in dream, Mrs. Snape got slowly on her feet and stumbled to the other room. A couple of minutes later she came back with an old hazel wand in her trembling hands.
"Severus... Give me a knife", She muttered. Her son took obediently a huge kitchen knife from the side table and offered it.
"And now your hand", she demanded. Now the boy seemed more reluctant but offered his small hand, nevertheless. Mrs. Snape made a small scratch and took a couple of drops his son´s blood on an unused tea plate and then proceeded to do the same with her own hand. Then she rose her wand and pointed the joined blood and said the simple incantation. "Visor Relavivo!"
Nothing happened. Not a spark of magic. Mrs. Snape seemed at first panicked, then resigned and finally annoyed.
"You do it", She ordered McGonagall. The professor did not like her tone but complied.
The blood gave out dim blue light. Then two light beams formed and reached towards the mother and son. Two. No more than that.
Mrs. Snape huffed with relief and stumbled to sit.
"They really are gone. Thank Merlin for that", she mumbled.
"I don´t understand..." Professor McGonagall stated, "Why did your magic not work, Mrs. Snape? You were familiar with the spell and it should be simple enough."
"Magic... I hate it", she proclaimed quietly. "Better if it never existed! I swore I would not touch a wand ever again. I swore that I would marry a muggle, bring my son up as muggle and live as a lowest muggle for the rest of my life. I never wanted to have anything to do with the wizarding world ever again. If only my son had been a normal kid like all the other boys here. He could have been a muggle. Even an useless squib. But no! He had to be bloody magical and destroy our lives!
Can you imagine it, professor, when I saw my son levitating things by will for the first time it was as if my father´s curse had reached me at that moment. He was but a baby, but clearly his grandfather´s blood already ran in his veins. I cried and cried... and I was afraid every single day since then, that my father would find us." There was deep hatred in Mrs. Snape´s voice.
The son was listening mother´s accusations quietly. McGonagall noticed, how he had turned his head to look out from the small kitchen window. The over-grown black hair hid his pale face but his tense shoulders told their own story. Still, he looked too calm, McGonagall thought. This clearly was not the first time that young Severus had been subjected to this kind of talk. This realization was painful for the professor. How could anyone talk about their child like that? How could anyone hate their magic? It was like hating..."You can´t hate magic, Eileen. It is the same as hating yourself!"
Eileen looked at her with dark, dull eyes. "Shut up, professor McGonagall. You don´t understand me at all! Besides, you did not come to talk about me, did you? You didn´t even know about me. You want to take the boy to Hogwarts? Well, you need mine or my husband´s permission for that. Why should we give it?"
"Mrs. Snape!" McGonagall huffed scandalized, "Don´t talk to me like that! And you should know better than any muggle woman, what it means to deny a magical child the education. You can´t be serious."
Eileen wrinkled her nose and pouted. "Well, we don´t have money and my father surely didn´t testament us the Prince fortune. Education costs."
"Muggle education costs too, or am I wrong about that?"
Eileen was about to say something more but right then they heard the door creaking. There were heavy foot steps at the entry. Then someone closed the same door with quite a strong shove if the noise of it indicated anything.