AN - Public service announcement - I did an oops and cut off the last bit of the last chapter somehow when I updated it, so if you read it shortly after I posted it, best to check and make sure you read the full version from after I fixed it!
Chapter 11
Peace and Quiet, or Not
By the time Sev made it to the safety of his bed on his first night, he decided that his house had some sort of unusual hero worship of his father. The attack by prefects had filled him with a sort of paranoia about over-exuberant Slytherins promising to look out for him like he was a first year. He got that he was small, but he really disliked being patronized, and it was not like he could tell them he came from a dark world that would make them piss themselves. Not because it was rude, but because he was not supposed to talk about those particulars. Otherwise, he would have.
Even days later most of the other students were still curious, though uncertain of him. They were nice to him, but they did not know what to say to him nor him to them, it seemed. His odd class schedule and speculation about his mental prowess seemed to dominate most questions and conversations. He talked some to Scorpius and Albus, mostly about how things were different and a few tame stories, but other than that it was mostly people annoyingly making sure he was fine.
He was alive. That was fine, he supposed. It was day three, and he had escaped outside, wandering further than most bothered to on the grounds so that he'd have some quiet.
He'd spelled his robe bigger and spread it out before laying down on it and opening this world's 4th year Transfiguration book. He read with a sort of bored laziness over what they were covering the next two weeks. It was not even one of his better subjects and none of it was very hard.
He was about to reach for a different book when he was jolted by a chipper voice.
"Hello."
Rolling to the side, he raised his head and saw Albus' younger sister standing there waving at him. Cutely. Little girls did not look cute in his world most of the time; they looked terrified.
"I'm Lily," she said. "Albus' sister. Lily Potter." She smiled and held out a flower she had probably picked from less than fifteen feet away.
He smiled and accepted it anyway, firm in his internal quest to externalize some kindness. The innocence of the gesture warmed him, but he was far too young to even realize what it was that made him like her just then. It was some rare novelty he had never seen, innocence. He might have been drawn to it like a moth to the light.
"You're Severus, right?"
He realized he had probably been staring and not in a becoming way. "Hi Lily. Yes, that's...yes," he replied, starting off rather awkwardly. "I do know you're Albus' sister," he added.
"Can I join you?" She pointed to his pseudo-blanket.
"Yes. Sure." He reached his hand out to take the books she was holding so she could sit down. She looked a little surprised that he did so.
"You have really long hair," she observed, reaching out and touching the braid of black hair that passed his shoulders.
"So do you," he replied as she settled herself down.
She giggled. "Albus ignores me, and Scorpius just stares at Rose when I'm around." She began, clearly not having planned what to say when she came to join him.
He had no idea what she was getting at in the very least. It might have been a more obvious olive-branch to someone else. If his ability to read social situations was better, he might have realized that she was making a comment that he didn't chase her away for being younger.
She continued, "Mum said we should be nice to you and that you're really smart. Scorpius said you're way better than even him at Potions. Dad said you know a lot of spells and have a dragon Patronus."
"Oh...really?" He was not entirely sure how to take compliments either. Not to mention Potions made him think of his father. Did people in this world always talk so much? He almost could not keep track of her questions. "Erm, I do know a lot of spells, and I do have a dragon Patronus. You are very well-informed." A bit of a cheeky smile curled the corners of his mouth.
"So...I thought that maybe I could be your friend," she declared, as if such a thing was just decided.
But it gave him significant enough pause that he had no idea what to say to her. It was bizarre to offer, in his mind, but was it unkind to refuse? Innocence was rather hard to refuse. He stared at her large, watery-in-a-girly-way, green eyes.
After hurting so many things, he was rather hesitant to hurt anyone or anything. He almost felt obligated not to hurt anyone or anything.
"I don't know if I'd be a very good one," he replied, hesitantly, honestly. In fact, he had nothing even remotely similar to a friend who was a girl. He did not really even have friends. Had friends?
There were no friends, friends by a normal definition which was not his definition. Nobody knew his truth other than his father, not even Scorpius, and no one knew now. It was daunting to think of that sort of emptiness.
"Dad said you probably never had any, so that's okay. My dad didn't have friends before he came to Hogwarts either. The real Hogwarts, not yours. I don't think anyone would make friends there."
So much was said so quickly, from one thing to the next, that he was not sure how to follow what her meaning was – or if there was one - and he had to wonder if he was always going to be so very lost trying to follow conversations. Any conversation, not just one with a twelve-year-old girl.
If she was going to bring up friends and Hogwarts, he could not help but say, "I lost friends when I went to Hogwarts, actually. My one, not yours." Perhaps that would slow her down a bit.
She looked at him completely perplexed. He felt slightly vindicated that he had managed to confuse her with what he said. She was surely confusing him enough.
"Were they in another house?" Lily asked. "Albus said our gran that I'm named for was friends with your dad, but they were in different houses, and that was really hard then if you were a Gryffindor and Slytherin."
"No, they changed," he replied. "We were all in Slytherin."
"And they did not like you anymore?"
"No, they liked me well enough." He looked away for a moment.
"So...what changed?" She looked up at him through those long, reddish eyelashes.
"They didn't respect life well enough."
"And you didn't like them anymore?"
He looked at the trees, "I pretended to."
"Why?"
"Because where I'm from, Lily, you don't have many choices and you have to pretend a lot."
"But...why did they still like you then?"
He licked his lips, "Because I had to pretend not to respect life well enough too."
Sev could not interpret the look on her face, and he knew very well she could not possibly understand. The adults did not understand. What he did not understand was that she did not need to understand his words at all. Nor did she need any fancy Legilimency or Veritaserum.
Even at her age, she had one thing that he could not hope to understand: emotional intelligence. And it just was her sense that all was not right with him that made her take his hand.
"So, you'll be my friend then?" She asked him again.
He looked down at her hand on top of his and nodded, "Yes." He could not get out more than that. He did not know how. He had never known how. After seeing his mother get upset about what his life had become, he had even closed off from her. It was hard to be a part of anything. Even a friendship. He had not been a part of anything, truly, in a very long time.
He couldn't have been even if he had wanted to be. If he was honest, his conscience and his heart could not bear the thought of what friendship with him could cost someone. There was enough to press upon his conscience and his heart already, and no Time-Turner would help him run from that part of it all. It had been enough to wake up each day and know what awaited him sometime, anytime. And he was reminded that it was not sometime for his parents anymore, it was done.
Now, though, now it was his choice. Much of the danger was gone, even with whatever associates of Voldemort's circle remained. It was nothing to his world. He could choose freely now. There was no danger in letting this little girl be his friend; her eyes would not haunt him at night. He wouldn't have to kill her. It suddenly hurt in a way that made him narrow his eyes and try to push the thoughts away.
Then he decided it just did not matter anymore. She had bulldozed right through him by giving him two things that had been almost wholly denied him his entire life, and all in one fell swoop: friendship and a choice. And she took his hand when he did not know how to reach.
The moment stretched, and almost became awkward, before she thankfully broke the silence and said, "Severus...if there are ever dementors here, do you think your dragon would protect me? All James can get is a mist. He tried and tried after hearing about yours until he was purple in the face."
He could not help but smile. "My dragon would protect those who mean something to me until the very end."
She grinned at him and said, "Because he already has?"
"Yeah," he said, unable to grit out the more proper 'yes.' He was not sure it mattered anymore, not really. His father would never be there to correct his use of language again.
"Dad said you have to be really strong and be filled with loads of love, deep down, to make a Patronus like that at your age. I think that makes you special like him and a very good friend to have." She nodded sweetly at him.
Words were magic, but this day he was learning that lesson in a different way, one he had never been exposed to before.
Sometimes in life, one required a Gryffindor.
By the time Sev had made it through one week, he was certain he had spoken more than he did in an entire semester in his old world. The attention was unsettling, and he found himself searching the out of the way places of the castle he used for solitude in his old world. Having a father who knew the castle intimately had been instructive to his survival before, and it was somewhat instructive of his survival now as well. He was trying his best to do something he knew he was supposed to do but had never been able to freely and openly practice: being nice.
He had always wanted to be, tried to be, relatively for his world. He never felt he had lived up to his mother's wishes for his kindness, true or not (his father always assured him not true); teenagers had a way of looking at the world strangely, even intelligent ones. Now, he felt, was his opportunity to try to do that. That did not mean it was easy in a world he did not understand, filled with children who behaved in ways he did not understand, saying things he thought – honestly – rather unworthy of breath.
It was more comfortable around the sixth and seventh years, but they saw him as a kid and to be protected; a veritable horde of seventeen year olds who had more ambitions to patronize him (on accident) in a nearly parental and superior way when he was positively certain he was both more mature and far more experienced than they were. If they thought he did not notice that they preferred him around more when studying or doing work than any other time, they'd be quite wrong in the assumption. That had not taken long.
The juggle of this experience was far beyond even his capabilities for control and composure. He had been prepared for fighting, blood, moral ambiguity, and death in a short lifetime. But unfortunately scores of alter-dimensional, annoyingly benevolent teenagers were going to do him in.
At least in some ways his world was far more conducive to the catharsis of teenaged angst, because if you wanted to rage, that was perfectly normal. Here everyone was whiny, not ragey. They would probably think him both dangerous and deranged if he let it out, but that energy had to go somewhere before he bit someone's head off.
That was the reason he found himself loitering outside the classroom that used to be his father's in his world, but had been passed back and forth between Slughorn and his father in this world.
He waited until some third year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs shuffled out before he slid through the open door. Slughorn was rubbing his eyes.
"The young ones are a wreck on the nerves," the professor said to himself, sinking into his chair behind his desk.
Sev could not help but chuckle, but it seemed to startle poor Old Slughorn.
"Merlin's Beard, Severus, you startled me."
"I didn't mean to overhear, sir," he replied.
"No bother, my boy. What can I do for you?" He dropped his hand away from his face. It was uncanny, always, to see the children of former students, and in his case grandchildren too, so his eyes did fix onto those softened dark features.
"I'll try not to be a wreck on your nerves, sir," Sev replied, with a bit of a cheeky smile. He eyed the samples on the desk and began absent-mindedly rearranging them out of habit. "I've rather noticed that many of the rules here are different, so I wanted to ask you about a few things before I went on and did them."
He probably could have asked any of his housemates, and he was intelligent enough to realize it, so it remained to be seen if Slughorn would realize he was asking him because Slughorn could allow him to do something even if it wasn't allowed.
"Well, go on then. Smart of you to ask."
Sev rarely spoke about himself to anyone, and it was something of a process to learn, but necessity had always been a driving force in much of his learning, so he confronted it nonetheless. As awkward as he might sound. He realized even more in this world that he was strange, even in just how he spoke, so it was somewhat doubly awkward for him.
He took a breath. He never realized how much he would miss how his father could either just sift through his thoughts or downright just read him without doing so.
"It's always been hard for me here. I mean at Hogwarts, in general, not just this one." And he might have rambled onward, trying to make sure he was clear but not having much experience at all expressing his feelings, but he had the mind to take a breath and pause to rein in his thoughts before they kept spilling out. "I've never liked large groups." He continued separating the potions samples. "I've never liked things being really loud."
That was rather evident to Slughorn in the fact that the little Snape was, in general, rather quiet. The staff room was rife with all sorts of talk about their timely newcomer. Having the experience to know to never interrupt a teenaged Slytherin talking about themselves, Slughorn had patience in listening.
The boy continued. "I need to be able to get away, be alone sometimes, and that's really tough. In my world, there was screaming. In this world, it's like an explosion of chaotic noises." None of which were all that familiar to him. "I used to go running in the early morning around the lake, sometimes someone on the quidditch team would come but mostly alone. I spent time on the quidditch pitch too. I would still like to especially now that there's no dementors, just so I can think. Or else I'm afraid I'm never going to sleep here."
Slughorn was fairly sure he never would have gotten that much out of the boy's father at this age and that after four years of teaching him. In retrospect, this revelation might have explained a lot. In the moment, it certainly explained that the offspring had far better adjustment, even if he was just as intelligently awkward, and probably even for a heinous world had far better parenting than the father ever experienced. Whether that was thanks to Hermione or Severus or both would only be a guess.
Sad in a way, but it was not particularly a time for an old man to be maudlin about mistakes.
As to the boy's question, whether it was allowed or not was not actually the question; it was more whether he would be allowed in particular, whether it was allowed of everyone or not.
"I think we can come to an arrangement for you to get some peace and quiet," he qualified first, before, as Minerva said, he scared the boy off and they ended up with a hermit. If the dear headmistress had any qualms of his arrangements, he would just say that it had been she who had suggested it. "Let me ask you something first."
"Sure, professor."
"What potion is this?" he asked, tapping his desk where his samples were now arranged in little groupings. The boy blinked at him.
"A minor healing potion, sir," Sev replied, his brow furrowing. What that had to do with what he said, he had no idea.
"How did you know?"
"I just did, sir. Probably because I can smell the dittany? Or the year of the class narrows it down?"
"And, I presume, this is how you would rank them?" Slughorn asked. His eyes might have had a little glint to them.
"Oh, I shouldn't…force of habit…but yes, Professor."
The boy seemed embarrassed.
"It's fine, my boy. You have a very good eye and nose, although a good deal less obvious than your father's, eh?"
That earned a laugh. Sev did, thankfully, have more of his mother's nose.
Slughorn finally began to reveal his reason for asking, clearly having given some thought to what Minerva said, and if the boy needed quiet…Well, if the boy wanted something special, it was only right Slughorn got something special in return. "If there are two things I know very well about your father, Severus, it is that when trust is given it isn't to be violated, and that safety of the students here was of paramount importance to him; I can guess only more so for his son. So if your father let you do that with dementors out there, I will give you the same trust with good faith that he must have thought you capable of having it."
The solemn nod was evidence enough that he had hit the precise right chord. Of all of them, none of them had known the boy's father well, but Slughorn knew far more than most, and that was useful. The aging Potions master then continued, "I would like for you to do something for me, though."
"What is that, sir?" the boy asked, raising a dark brow.
Coming from that world Horace had not really doubted that the boy would want to hear the terms before agreeing.
"I'm not as young as I used to be. I could use a hand with some things as much as you seem to need to time away from your classmates. You could make some the potions for the mediwitch and manage the stock for me, make sure nothing goes bad." With a pat of his belly, he added quietly, "That higher shelves are a bit difficult."
Sev's lips pressed some to hold back a chuckle. Things were rarely amusing in his world. Professor were rarely amusing.
"I helped my father with those sorts of things too, sir." Although, he suspected Slughorn already knew that. And at their Hogwarts, they went through a lot of potions. "So, could I brew what I'd like to as well then?"
"Certainly, I did tell you I would help further your knowledge if I could, even if class would be a rather silly waste for you. So long as you don't blow us both up, whatever potion or research you like," he added, with a chuckle. After watching him brew the other day, the wee time-traveler was probably safer than most apprentices!
"I didn't learn quickly and live this long because I was hesitant of asking questions, sir." No, he knew the well-placed benefit of asking questions or looking up answers himself. Necessity was a very good teacher.
"Very well, then. I would call that a very beneficial arrangement for us both." And Minerva had rather encouraged trying to stay as close to what was routine for the boy, try to minimize some of what was so obviously as different as night and day.
Special thanks to Duj for the review!
What about all the rest of you? Spare me a moment to at least tell me something you like or what has you reading? There's hundreds of you silent people, and meanwhile I feel like I'm writing for only one of you!
Reviews generally inspire me to write and update faster, wink wink.
