Title/Link: More Alike
Team: Appleby Arrows
Position: Keeper
Season 9 Round 3
Task: KEEPER: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: Write about someone trying to put the past behind them.
Bonus Prompts: n/a
Summary: Severus Snape fully expected being able to hate the son of his hated school nemesis, James Potter. But upon meeting the small boy for the first time, Severus realized that they have a lot more in common than he thought. Can he put his own past behind him for the benefit of Lily's son? Warning: Minor allusion to child abuse, alcohol consumption.
Word Count: 2696
A/N: SO! This fic is going to be a bit AU. After all, the theme has Snape trying to put the past behind him.
Thanks to my Captain DaughteroftheOneTrueKing, ScarlettWriter91, LadyLush and the rest of my team for reading through and beta-ing.
I hope you enjoy! :)
More Alike
"Ah, Mr. Potter. Our new celebrity." Severus wasn't sure what made him say it, but his trademark drawl had a slight edge to it. It was the first First Year Gryffindor/Slytherin Potions Class of the year, and Severus was wholly prepared to hate the spawn of James Potter on sight. The brat was scribbling something down, most likely not even paying attention to his introduction. Just like his arrogant father.
He barely looked down at the chicken scratch on the parchment before he swooped in, glaring at the spawn of his most hated nemesis, the sole reminder of not only his childhood bully, but also a reminder of his own failure and regrets. He waited for the admittedly scrawny boy to look up at him, ready to prove how much of a dunderhead this child was.
Lily's bright eyes brought him up short, but he merely scowled harder in response. "Tell me, Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Severus detected panic, and noted how the child averted his eyes. Potter stayed silent. He scowled harder.
"You don't know? Well, let's try again."
The hunched shoulders of the boy were answer enough, proving Severus' initial thoughts correct.
"Where, Mr. Potter, would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?" Severus managed to catch Potter's eye as the boy looked up, swallowing a brief moment before replying.
"I don't know, sir."
"And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Severus pressed, drawing closer, the Potter brat shrinking in on himself for a moment before it looked like he steeled himself and straightened. The Granger girl from beside him was practically jumping out of her seat, her hand waving in the air, eager to prove herself.
Just another know-it-all. There always seemed to be one in every generation.
"I don't know, sir," came Potter's reply. His tone gave nothing away, and it surprised Severus that he minded quite a lot. Wandlessly, nonverbally, he cast, "Legillimens," and dove into the boy's mind. He was immediately assaulted. Potter's thoughts were screaming for help.
I hope Hogwarts doesn't send report cards home. I can't do too well in class. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon will beat me again if I do better than Dudley again. They might even put me back in the cupboard...would they lock me in there? Better not even try. If I don't try, I won't succeed, and I won't get punished.
Drawing close enough to see what Potter had been meticulously writing, Severus saw that it was part of his introduction speech.
Severus had to whirl away, his fury overflowing, and he barely managed to not grit his teeth as he bit out his next sentence. "Pity. Clearly, fame isn't everything." He wasn't sure who he was more furious at: Potter senior for having the gall to not take his wife and child and run to safety, Potter junior for being a physical carbon copy of his father, or the boy's aunt, who clearly mistreated her nephew- much like Severus' own father did to him.
Severus was sure that Tobias Snape had been a kind man, once. After all, his mother had loved him. But magic turned his affections towards Severus' mother sour, much like how Peturnia turned on her younger sister.
But who placed the brat with that horse-faced bully, Petunia? She bitterly resented Lily, and would take all of her frustration out on the child. Which, by what he read from Potter's thoughts, she did. The mention of the cupboard under the stairs was very troubling.
He would need to talk to Minerva and Poppy about screening the children better for signs of abuse. It seemed like they had missed one on their part. He had systems in place for Slytherin, but he wasn't too sure if the other houses did.
Severus started lecturing on the three questions he had asked Potter, and noticed with a scowl that while everyone was hanging onto his every word, not a single student was taking notes, not even Potter or Granger. Turning around, he pinned them all with a stare.
"Well? Why aren't you all copying this down?" There was a scramble for parchment, quills, and ink, and only a few students thought to pull their text on ingredients out. Potter was one of them, but then Severus saw the boy hesitate before pushing the book aside.
The child looked sad, and resigned, but then the Weasley boy nudged him, and Severus saw Potter straighten again and force a smile on his face. It was believable to most, but to others who knew, and who were practiced in that same smile…
Lily's green eyes stared up at him, and Severus was startled to find that he had been staring. Waving his wand as he broke eye contact, chalk writing suddenly filled the blackboard, covering the topics for the class period.
The rest of the class period was filled with quills scratching on parchment as Severus lectured about the different ingredients they would be using that year and their basic properties. The homework was the same that he's given for the past ten years. Pick three ingredients and write 18 inches on them, including how they react with other ingredients and preparation techniques.
There was a large amount of grumbling from nearly the entire class, but Severus noted that Potter kept his head down, and gave another false smile to the redhead next to him as Weasley joined the complaining. Severus couldn't help but internally scoff.
Didn't these dunderheads realize that 18 inches was a page and a half of writing, if they were to use Muggle paper? The whole lot of them were spoiled, and he couldn't help but grumble to himself about how this newer generation of students had it much easier than he had when he attended Hogwarts as a student.
Except for the boy, a voice in Severus' head pointed out, and Severus scowled harder as he dismissed the class. He had no desire to sit and ponder the situation of the Boy Who Lived, who was only famous because he survived and his parents hadn't. Severus knew he had to protect Lily's son with all that he had, his vow would ensure it, but how far did that vow stretch? Just from Death Eaters and the Dark Lord? Or did his vow extend to child abuse in a home that was supposed to be safe for him?
The next class period he had with the Potter Boy was Wednesday, and they spent it with more note taking and lectures. Severus spent the whole hour just going over the specific ingredients and preparation techniques for the potion they would be attempting on Friday. The class mercifully sat in silence as they took notes, but Severus noticed a few of the Gryffindors were passing notes back and forth between the aisles. He made a note to separate them for when they were at their workstations next class period. There could be no distractions when brewing potions.
A loud bang echoed in the corridors of the dungeons, interrupting Severus mid lecture and causing several of the students to jump. Potter, in particular, Severus noticed, had flinched at the loud noise, more than jump like his classmates, and when his wide-eyed, panicked stare met his own, Severus couldn't help but once again touch the boy's mind with his own to check his mental state.
Severus saw he was in a memory, and one that had tarnished edges. This memory had a very powerful emotion attached to it, he noticed, so he chose not to dive too deep. He might get lost otherwise, and he didn't have the time to pull himself out if he got trapped.
Before him stood the most obese, angry man he had ever seen. Behind the man, Severus saw that the house looked so commonly muggle, from the baseboards to the pictures on the wall, to the noise of the television in the other room. There were no pictures of Harry at all.
"I-I'm sorry Uncle Vernon! It won't happen again!" came Potter's voice, and Severus could feel the child's terror.
"It better not! Stop cheating to get better grades than Dudley! You're just a stupid little freak who doesn't deserve school anyway!" The man, this Uncle Vernon, slipped his belt out and wielded it like a weapon, slapping the belt buckle in his palm as if readying it. A quiet sob came from Potter as the man advanced on him.
And then Severus was back in his classroom, barely a second having passed, and they all heard Filch's voice screaming at Peeves, who had wreaked some havoc in the halls. Weasley nudged Potter, which thankfully snapped the boy out of the flashback he had been trapped in.
The rest of the class period went by quickly, and Severus couldn't help but keep an eye on Potter, using his sneers and scowls as a cover. Throughout the class period, however, Severus saw Potter perk back up. Surrounded by good friends, the boy seemed to recover quickly enough.
Later that night, as Severus lounged in his armchair in front of the fireplace with an untouched glass of Firewhiskey in hand, his mind couldn't stop replaying what he had seen in Potter's head earlier. He got the impression that the incident from earlier wasn't an isolated occurrence, and he was sure that if he took a look at Potter's back, it would be nearly identical to Severus's own. Staring into the fire, absently swirling the Firewhiskey in his glass, Severus let his mind wander.
The house was dark, which was how Tobias Snape preferred it after coming off of a bender. Everything was quiet, beside his drunken father's snores. Too quiet. Lily's parents had picked him up from the station and dropped him off at home, when they realized neither of his parents were coming to pick him up. The hug he gave Lily was long, and before they parted, she promised she would call every day. He nodded, his throat too closed up to talk properly.
Entering the dark, quiet house, Severus first noticed Tobias asleep on the couch, glass bottles littering the floor and table. The usual sounds of his mother puttering around in the kitchen were gone, and Severus felt a stab of fear in his heart. What had happened to her?
He dropped his bag on the ground with a loud Thump and he winced, immediately turning to keep an eye on his father.
The man was waking up.
"Boy!" he called from the couch, and Severus, for a moment, hesitated as he considered fleeing. "BOY!" Severus flinched, before shuffling forward, his father sitting up on the couch groggily. Severus tried to keep his scowl off of his face at the state his father was in, but at the responding glare and scowl on Tobias' face, he knew he had been unsuccessful. "Don't give me lip, boy!" Tobias shouted, reaching forward and boxing Severus on the ear so hard, he collapsed to the ground. His ears ringing, Severus barely heard his father continue talking. "That mother of yours is out shopping right now. She should be back soon to start dinner. Until then, I want you out in that yard scrubbing the siding. It's needed a good wash all year!"
Picking himself up off of the floor, Severus went to go do as he was told, leaving his bag and trunk by the front door. His mother did not come home that night, nor ever again, and the last bit of light left at home had faded away.
Coming back to himself, Severus drained the entire three fingers worth of Firewhiskey in the attempt to let the alcohol scrub his mind clean. His own abuse at the hand of his father, he knew, had a part in how much of a bully he had been back in school and even now with his students. While the Marauders had bullied him, he had given back as much as he got, and wasn't blameless. And as much as he hated Potter for taking Lily away from him, he realized that his own actions helped drive her away.
Bitter tears rolled down his face, as he realized that his plan to hate the son for the sins of the father would hurt both of them in the end. The Potter boy, Harry, needed people protecting him and loving him, to get him out of his abusive home life. He needed adults to break the cycle. Severus could spend all night speaking of what-ifs, of how Harry would have acted had he been raised by his father, by his mother. But that wasn't a possibility anymore. And the promise he made to the memory of Lily to protect her son burned in his breast, where his magic laid, his heart constricting at the thought of failing in his self-imposed duty.
He had to leave the past behind, for the sake of Harry's future.
This cycle of pain and misery would be broken with him, Severus vowed. This now wasn't about James, or even Lily, may she rest in peace. Harry needed someone, and even though the students considered him dour and mean, Severus would have to step up. He couldn't bear to let another child go through what he had. Not if he could help it.
Their first double period Potions class was on Friday, first thing in the morning, and Severus was not in the mood to deal with anyone's shenanigans. Today, the students would be brewing a Potion to Cure Boils, their first potion, today. After reading names off and pairing people with who he thought would best benefit from each other— namely Longbottom being carried by Granger— Severus swept through the room, nearly breathing down the necks of his students, his eyes flashing from one cauldron to another in the attempts to keep them all in check. Why he had to be in charge of so many students at one time when their cauldrons could blow up at the slightest provocation had always been a mystery to him.
Severus lurked over Potter and Weasley's shoulders, watching as they added in an ingredient after stirring clockwise the appropriate amount of times. He saw Potter— Harry, he amended—grab his next ingredient, and then hesitate.
"You are correct, Mr. Potter. Continue, quickly," Severus commented, startling both boys. Harry dropped in the next ingredient and Weasley stirred counterclockwise three times before the potion turned the correct shade of blue, with pink smoke beginning to drift lazily above the cauldron.
"Now we take it off of the heat," Severus heard Potter mumble, and Weasley nodded before putting out their flame and moving the cauldron to the table top. Severus backed off from the students' workstation and went back to surveying the class.
Minutes later, Potter approached him with a properly filled and labeled flask. Severus accepted it and put it in the holder on the front of his desk.
"Good work today, Potter. Keep it up," Severus said before the boy could turn away, and he witnessed how Potter seemed to fill with happiness before he nodded at his teacher.
"Thank you, sir," he replied respectfully, a smile on his face, before he headed back to his seat. This time, he did take his book out, and began to read ahead, much to Weasley's chagrin.
Between James Potter's looks and Lily Evans's eyes, Harry Potter was filled with so much history that he didn't know about. Severus knew that for the boy to grow and flourish, he needed to be his own person, and after growing up in a household like the Dursley's, Harry needed others to tell him as much. And as Severus made his new vow, his old one crumbling away under the weight of his new intentions, he knew that he would do everything in his power to keep Potter safe: from the Dark Lord, from the Dursleys, and from anyone else who would do the boy harm.
It was the least he could do to break the cycle.