Chapter 18 – Rules and Discipline


AN – Just a head's up, Long chapter! I'm going to write pretty much the same scene from each Snape perspective, so when I switch back to Sev, it will backtrack back to the start of the scene again from his view.


Rules and Discipline

He felt undone himself. Watching his son use one of the nastiest curses that was not an Unforgiveable - his own spell - with the proficiency he had taught the boy the spell for use against fully grown adults trying to murder him or others - aggressively against a Ravenclaw boy in the hallways - was still physically painful a quarter of an hour later.

Another twenty minutes went by, and thankfully there was stillness from the corner. Not that he planned to give his son a reprieve anytime soon. He was still far too agitated to discipline him properly, and he made it a practice of never doing that when he was not calm.

A rapping at the door ripped him from his thoughts.

"Unless it is an emergency, I'm busy!" he barked at the door. "Get a prefect!" He had enough to deal with at the moment; whatever it was could wait.

"Severus, it's Dolores," came that peachy venomous voice from the other side.

Fatherly protectiveness flared up in him, trumping any displeasure he had with his son entirely.

In record time he was up from his desk, hissing at his son, "Yank out your shirttails and toss your jumper by the desk. Come here." Suddenly, the rest of everything did not matter in the very least anymore. His son idiotically nearly killing some monster of a thirteen-year-old, likely put up to it by Carrow, with very little provocation, was inconsequential if this went badly.

Even small possibilities of impending torturous death were more important than doing something fairly easily fixed by magic (if attended quickly enough) in a childish rage.

The boy looked far too put together for the level of temper they probably expected him have displayed, and thankfully his son seemed to instantly find the same understanding with a look of panic, jumping to action to obey and pulling some pieces of hair out of its queue at the nape of his neck too, and then giving his own cheeks a few smart whacks to get some red to them as he wove through tables. He pushed a table cockeyed, then another, and knocked over a few chairs on his way.

"You had best put on a very good act that I am doing and going to do far worse than what she could imagine to do to you," he commanded. Protectiveness rather trumped how angry he was at his son for the moment. If Dolores did not think he was taking care of it properly, she might think to take over the punishment, and that was in many ways disastrous.

The look of horror on the boy's face was well-placed. At least he had his wits about him again.

The last thing Sev would want was Umbridge to take over. Panicking, he quietly said, "Hit me, Dad, hard." For insurance purposes, clearly.

There was not time to discuss it, and pain was relative. This was what was expected, so he obliged his son, then grabbed him by the collar at the back of his neck and pressed half of him face first into the desk with a thud, falling into familiar acts.

"Those chokes and tears you were barely holding back earlier, let them come if it warrants it, and make it look good," he said quietly, before he flicked his wand at the door to open it. Thirty seconds had seemed like it took a long time to them, but Umbridge did not complain as she walked in none-the-wiser.

And with his favorite Carrow too, and now Professor Snape was absolutely positive that it was no coincidence that Carrow had found himself in the dungeons at precisely the right time to try to catch his son. That Ravenclaw boy had hounded Sev for a reason; Carrow had been trying to get a rise out of his son. It probably had not meant to take so long as to get as far as the dungeons. That dolt Forsythe was too stupid to think to be more covert about it; Carrow had thought he would be the one that caught the act. He pushed his seething to the background.

"I see we are interrupting." Umbridge did not seem to feel put out, more like she had arrived at precisely the right time to see the best part.

"We are having a discussion about negligence and rule-breaking in the hallways," he replied, with a deadly sort of calm, that slow, soft roll of his voice that made most students cowering in expectation of what was going to happen.

"And about not directing our temper and aggression out on other pureblooded wizards, I hope." She giggled in her demonic sort of way.

Carrow looked far too pleased.

Instead of answering himself, he gave his son a shake, and he provided in a choked voice from the desktop, "Yes, Headmistress."

She seemed suitably impressed with the answer and the red handprint and drizzle of blood on the side of the boy's face that was visible. She craned her head to give him a good look.

"That was a very nasty curse, Mr. Snape. Not the sort of magic for fighting in crowded corridors."

The professor hated these performances. He hated watching his son do it, putting him through it. Sometimes the better the boy did it, the more it pained. He knew what it took, and thus he silently knew precisely what his son was experiencing. Even as he gave him another shake to provide another answer, no matter how angry he was, he didn't want to hold the child he had never thought to have face first against his desk. Certainly not in front of Umbridge and Carrow.

"It won't happen again, ma'am," that yet boyish voice replied with resilience.

Doing his own part, he snorted and then said, "Oh, you have only just begun to understand how strongly it will never happen again, boy. Such disorder and lack of discipline from my own son. We have not even started to discuss how you disobeyed my rules as well. It is going to be a very unpleasant evening and the unpleasantness is going to linger for some long time."

"Please, sir," the boy plead, falsely.

His son was not generally a pleader. Pain did not scare him enough for pleading, not in some time. Humiliation, shame, or disappointment were far greater punishers for the boy.

"Silence!" he hissed.

He turned back to Umbridge and Carrow. He assumed, since Carrow had come from that side, that he had dealt with making sure that terrorizing little Ravenclaw had not died. His little minion. "Forsythe?" he asked.

"He will be fine. He said your son cast the first spell and started the fight," Umbridge said. "Beyond ending with such…heinousness…that it should only be directed at Mudblood and Blood Traitors."

He shook his son to provide the answer again, "I did, Headmistress." He tried to give her a pleading look, as if wanting her to rescue him from his father. It was truly quite the opposite, no matter how scary his father had been just moments before. But it would be better if she thought he'd much rather be subjected to her than his irate father, because then maybe she'd sadistically leave them alone.

"I am very disappointed in you, Mr. Snape. Not like you at all," the woman said.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Sev choked. It actually was a bit hard to get a deep breath with his chest and face pressed against the desk.

"Not sorry enough," he cut in, to continue to drive the story home.

"Which brings me to the point, Severus," Umbridge said. "With what happened. I must see that he's punished appropriately, you understand."

"By all means, then, stay, Headmistress," he said. Not that there was another option.

She motioned to carry on. He did not like Carrow's expression in the very least.

It was easier if he ignored their physical presence even while having to play to it. Concentrate on what needed to be done, because if they played this off wrong, this entire debacle could be the final debacle. And somewhere in the recesses of his mind, when said final debacle happened, he did not want his son to be able to think their deaths were his own fault. He could not ache his way through that, and did not wish his son to either, never mind the boy's mother, so it fueled his resilience to the situation at hand.

It had been decades now of doing things that he had no actual desire to do. He was very good at it.

"Give me your belt."

The instant tension that went through his son's body told the tale about how he felt about that sentence.

There was a breathy, "Yes, sir."

He took the belt. "Where do you want it, on your shoulders or backside?"

"Always such a traditionalist, Snape," Carrow dared to comment with a chuckle, at his choice of not using magic.

With a deadly growl, he said, "This is about disciplining my son, not your entertainment, Carrow."

"If you cannot be respectful, you do not have to stay," Umbridge said in that sweet voice. "The boy does have duties in case you've forgotten. This is no joking matter, Amycus, there are plenty of places for amused bloodlust especially given your subject."

One bit of sense the woman could make. It wasn't a joke. And it served them exceedingly well that she had some remote sort of liking for his boy. If only because Sev was useful by being the one that could assist him with the vast quantity of required potions.

Meanwhile, he reiterated with a shake to his son, "Well?" After what had happened and the damage his son had done, he did not feel sorry for the boy, per se, but this was not how he would have wished things to go. Certainly not as any spectacle.

"Not my shoulders please, sir…Quidditch." That bit was not an act. But the boy clearly had not contemplated that his punishment was likely to be far longer than the amount of time until their next Quidditch match, less than a week, and that he would not be playing anyway. The choice, however, was made.

He moved his hand from holding his son's neck and the back of his shirt to flat between his shoulder blades. It would look like it was to hold his son still, but he knew he did not need to hold him down. It was actually the easiest way to surreptitiously be with the boy through it. This was not how he habitually punished his son. However, in the face of having to show them something, this was something.

"Surely, he's not going to feel a thing through wool trousers." That venomous voice was grating.

He felt his son tense again under his hand, and for a brief moment, he hoped the boy was not wearing embarrassing shorts. If he had to lay a belt across a smiley face or snitches…

In the end, he did not need to say anything about the unspoken need for his son to drop his trousers to please that toad of a useless woman. He felt the boy move again, then a choke, then a sniffle.

He was standing where he could observe Umbridge's face and perhaps see how little he could get away with doling out, because he did not have the option of 'going easy' in strength, something his first crack illustrated when it was followed by a tremor that went down his son's arms.

He laid down 6 strokes methodically, not letting himself think about it, his silent camaraderie present in his hand on his son's back, which was starting to sweat despite the cold of the dungeon. That was far from enough for Umbridge, and soon the whoosh-crack sound was somewhat distant. He only paid attention to the feeling under his hand and the look on the Headmistress' face to interpret when satisfaction might be met.

It was longer than he would have liked, but escaping permanent damage was more concerning than attempting to cut it short.

When it was over, his son had sweat through the back of his white shirt. He gave him an imperceptible squeeze before he took his arm off him.

"And tomorrow, since I've already had to give you some pain to think about tonight, you are going to feel at least some of what you did to Forsythe," he said to the boy, laying the belt on the desk next to him.

He always made sure his son felt a spell before he taught him to use it, because it was the only way to give such lessons without desensitizing him to the results of such a spell, but a gash on the arm to illustrate it was like a pinprick to what his son had done to Forsythe. It was a lesson they clearly needed to revisit, and he could heal it right away.

To the Headmistress it would hopefully satisfy her desire to make sure the punishment was somewhat equitable with the offense and she would leave them to it. Aside from demanding Sev serve detention with her every Monday night for the rest of term, she left them to it and took Carrow with her.


Sev very deeply understood how important it was for Umbridge to think his father was about to beat the ever-loving crap out of him. They were out for Crucio-level punishment, and not satisfying that was only going to lead to everything being impossibly worse.

While he had been having trouble pulling himself together in the privacy of his space alone with his father, that trouble ended the moment that Umbridge knocked on that door. Sev had a very strong separation of public and private that was ingrained.

He knew he was about to sacrifice himself on an altar of hurt to prevent a lot worse level of hurt, and he wouldn't allow himself to actively think about the worst outcome possible, but it was always there too. Especially in situations like this. It shut down self-pity and guilt very quickly. Death, or worse than death, made everything else very insignificant.

His cheek stung when his father obligingly backhanded him at his request, giving him a nice cut on his lip. The air smacked out of him when his chest and cheek hit the desk. Sev could smell parchment, ink, and earthiness on the wood as his heart hammered away. Then he could smell Umbridge, and then some of the pink of her robes came into view…as did another set of…were those Carrow's shoes? It was part size and part the fact that he had seen the other professor out of the corner of his eyes in the hallway.

The burn that went down his breastbone made him forget to breathe for a moment, and then he felt his breathing could not catch up properly with the pressure on his neck and back. And his face squished.

Sev had never done anything like this with nasty spells before, and he never would have thought to ever be in this position either. He pressed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to focus on what he needed to focus on.

A choke escaped him; he had let it. He made his fake plea, and a piece of him really felt it.

If he answered the headmistress' questions, it was on autopilot alone, hoping it was all over soon.

Unfortunately, it was not going to be over soon.

His father told him to hand over his belt. And that was one of those sentences that you never wanted to hear when you were in trouble. And it was not that it hurt, particularly, because most things hurt far worse; it was embarrassing, and Sev particularly hated that feeling. He probably should have foreseen where this was going, considering he was smush-faced against his father's desk, but his mind had been racing in other directions.

He was, thus, a bit unprepared.

With a sniff to keep the drip from rolling out his nose down his face and onto the wood, he squeezed his hands between the desk and himself and managed to chink open his belt and then pull it awkwardly out of his belt-loops.

Another choke seeped out as he was asked where he wanted it. His mind raced. He would rather them see him get it on his shoulders, but if he did that there was no way he would be playing Quidditch as a beater anytime soon. They had a game in 6 days. Cushioning charms would work for his backside. On his shoulders and he wouldn't be swinging a Beater's bat any time soon. Or helping his father.

After giving his answer, he steeled himself for the sharp sting of embarrassment. He did not yet know how much embarrassment until Umbridge commented on him not feeling anything through his trousers.

His mind raced again. He felt himself start to sweat. His father said nothing. Was he going to say something?

WHAT IF SHE THINKS IT'S GOING TO BE ON THE BARE!

If anything might inspire him to action in the ten seconds since Umbridge had made the comment, it was that thought. Before she thought better and clarified more about undesired fabric being in the way, he pushed just his trousers down and only far enough for the purpose. He would rather that than have her pipe up with her little hem hems. This was embarrassing enough.

Honestly, he would have rather hit himself with his father's Sectumsempra

He felt his father's hand settle between his shoulder blades, a firm, calming presence despite the circumstances. He let out a breath. His father gave him the smallest squeeze with his fingertips, and Sev shut his eyes for a moment. He wished they could not see his face, and then he wished if they were going to see his face that he would not have to make it something worth seeing. If he hid how much it hurt, which he fairly easily could, that surely was not going to inspire the headmistress to leave them to it sooner.

The whoosh hit his ears before the crack stung him right through the thin plaid of his grey and black shorts. He sucked in a breath so quickly, he might have burned his cheek on the desk. He clenched his teeth and his arms, one hand grabbing the edge of the desk.

The second whoosh made him tense, and he squeezed his eyes shut again. His father's fingertips gripped him again. It was so hot. He could not breathe.

After the third crack made his eyes water and the forth crack broke his near silence with a sharp hiss of pain.

He did not want them to see him cry, and he could have prevented it if he'd tried, but the sting brought the gloss there, and his father had said to let it come. He simply did not fight it and scrunched his eyes as tears leaked out with the whoosh-crack of five and six.

A gasping breath slowly came in, but in her truly sadistic form, Umbridge seemed to be enjoying it far too much. Her singsong voice veritably demanded at least a round dozen, or maybe even more, by putting some logic that Forsythe would be in the Hospital Wing for what had happened.

"Please, sir," he said against the table. "May I lean on my elbows, I can't breathe."

Really, he wanted nothing more than to hide his face, but it truly was difficult to get air in deeply enough given the situation as well.

His reprieve was granted, and he shifted his elbows underneath him, putting his forehead on his wrists and effectively hiding his face. He balled one hand into a fist with number seven, really agitated more from mounting anger than from pain. Not that it didn't hurt, but that was all very relative when you'd experienced far, far worse.

The air between his arms was hot now that his breath had nowhere to go, and that was a different level of difficult to breathe, but now he could just close his eyes and try to forget Umbridge and Carrow were even there.

At some point, he'd rather lost count of the damage being inflicted, and his pain tolerance and adrenaline rather shushed it all to the background behind clenched fists and jaw anyway. He did not need to worry about giving them a show with his face anymore.

He had a brief thought that sitting through classes was going to be suitably annoying for a long while.

"And tomorrow, since I've already had to give you some pain to think about tonight, you are going to feel at least some of what you did to Forsythe," his father informed him.


Once Umbridge and Carrow were finally gone, the professor rubbed his temples and took a restoratively deep breath. For once the utter silence was suffocating. At least their dramatic performance had the side effect of ridding them of the highly charged state both had been in. He no longer felt like he was too angry about what had happened to deal with his son.

And there they stood for a few moments, easing out of the previous quarter of an hour. He looked at the boy, who was magicking his hair up off his neck, a good bit of it stringy with sweat. His lips were still purplish, his fingers very white, and his face drained of all its colour too. Thought it was hard to tell, he could see his son was still shaky. Stress hit his smaller body much harder.

"One of the elves are going to move your things out of the dormitory, and you will be staying here with me until you can prove that I can trust you. I won't have Scorpius and his friends cheering and congratulating you on this foolish bloodthirsty behavior. You'll leave for classes and meals. No Quidditch, no runs, nothing."

The boy didn't even have a salty look on his face, because he both knew it was coming and that he deserved it.

"Yes, sir…"

"Let me ask you, Severus. How much stronger do you think your magic is than Forsythe? And your knowledge of it?"

"…Considerably, sir…"

"Considerably," he repeated. "And how much stronger do you think mine is from yours?"

He could tell the boy wanted to drop his eyes down. Others probably could never tell the fight the boy had to put up against himself to keep that impassive face, that cool strength that quietly intimidated others, but he had taught his son how to do it, so he could read it so well.

He also knew his son's capability for logic, so he did not need to read the recognition on the boy's face; the boy already knew precisely what he was getting at.

"The same, sir."

"Considerably stronger?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you hold back, knowing you could have made your point with less?"

"No, sir." That voice dropped down to barely audible.

"If you are going to choose to do something like you did, you had best speak up and own your words and actions."

"No, sir, I didn't." It was louder, but there was a shake he could hear to the response.

"Did you consciously decide to use that spell?"

There was no good answer to that question. Both possible answers had consequences. If his son had just randomly used a spell like that, without thinking, they had different problems. If he had decided knowingly, that was perhaps not as bad as deranged as it sounded. Making a bad decision at this beginning hormonal age was one thing, but not having enough control to think to use all the magic appropriately that the boy knew – that he had taught his son – was worse.

"I did, sir." The boy said it audibly enough.

He knew shame in his son when he saw it, and he knew that he was driving it further and further home. He wanted the boy to live with that guilt for weeks; it was better than one day living with a lifetime of it if there was no one to knock some sense into you.

"Right now, Severus, I'm doing for you what nobody did for me. All it takes is one bad decision. One accident, even, it cascades into others."

For him it had been one word, said in the teenaged, emotional throes of anger and embarrassment. One word that was said to the one person who, given time, might have talked some sense into him or talked someone else into it. He could not think about that right now.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

The boy understood so well that what spilled out was, "I'm sorry, sir."

"I expect you are, especially after Carrow and the belt, and I expect you will feel sorrier yet. I will not watch you make one of those mistakes without making sure you very well understand the gravity and understand just what you make me feel to see you do it, and to have to punish you for it." He paused and gave his son a hard stare.

The boy barely bit his lip and nodded.

"You have never made me so disappointed and infuriated. You paid me a very grave disrespect by using what I've taught you in such a way, in a way that violates my most basic rules about magic; moreover, you did it to hurt someone, to use your power over them. Power you knew you had and willfully misused." He had to take in a long breath. The air was thick with the emotions his son was radiating. At least he knew his son internalized the principles enough to feel so much at once over what he had done, even if he had acted foolishly and impulsively.

He reminded himself that his son was only twelve and only a 2nd year.

Mistakes, though, were not just mistakes. And consequences were not just punishments, they were real lessons for a true purpose. Not just their continued existence, but the boy's continued humanity.

Feeling the burden of fatherhood strongly, he added, "That life they have is nothing. You, at least, have something that is very real. Don't ever envy them their simplicity and macabre pleasure; no matter what it appears to be, it is far, far worse than anything you will ever have to do or bear as you are now."

The boy's charcoal eyes processed and processed, slight movements bearing the mark of his deep thinking. He looked into them into the outskirts of the boy's mind to see if he had to explain further. He did not.

What kind of father would he be to let loose his son in that world, with such powerful knowledge, if he had not shown the boy what real regret looked like? If he was not sure at every moment that his son could make the decision to avoid the sort of pain that nothing could ever relieve? There was no telling. There was only showing. In that case, showing was easier; over the course of many years teaching his son, he had realized more could be taught using a Pensieve and his experiences than any other lessons could ever do.

He caught enough flashes of images from his own memories to know his son was thinking about precisely that.

You will not make the same mistakes.

"I do not remember a day where I was not proud of you, but I am not proud of you today."

The words loosed devastation on his son's face. It was unclear if his shame-faced progeny did not think he needed to reply or if he simply could not find any words. The professor knew he was understood, so he continued the lecture.

"Your control was appallingly dangerous today even beyond your pitiable response to juvenile provocation. You know better. You are stronger. You gave in. You let useless emotions like anger cause all of this! We will revisit that ability in your punishment."

His skills at the insidious lecture knew no bounds, and he knew precisely how to pick the most painful chords in his own flesh and blood. They shared many of the same dislikes as schoolboys; punishing him effectively was not very hard.

"For the school, on top of the Headmistress wanting you Monday nights through the end of term, you will have the month of detention I would give anyone else. Only you are going to stand and stare at the wall each time."

When he handed out a punishment, at least the boy saw fit to find his voice and say, "Yes, sir."

"As to your disrespect and disobedience of my rules, you're grounded. You will spend your free time composing me a treatise on my rules and reasons for having them, analyzing how you've disappointed them. The rest of your time will be spent in my presence, in your detention, doing your classwork, or doing other work until you finish your essay to my approval."

The boy gulped, losing his words momentarily again, fighting instead not to let his juvenile jaw drop in shock and to maintain his composure. Somewhat. Severus knew it would take the boy ages to do such an essay correctly and so did the boy by the way the light drained in his eyes.

"Close your mouth and do not give me that pitiable face. If you use a spell like that, you had best be straight-faced afterward in the face of the consequences. When you use a spell like that, you encourage the same or worse in others, and what do you think could have happened?" He paused only to give a little sound of disgust. "I know you have endured far worse and kept control of yourself, do not disappoint me by not giving me the same effort and respect. You will play my sympathies better by doing as you're told."


AN - Difficult chapter, please give me your thoughts and let me know what you think! I appreciate every one!

J - Fights are super hard to write, so is lots of actions, so I appreciate the feedback that I did it well! Sev got his 'spanking.'

Duj - Mentally in that world isn't possible, so true. He carries around a lot. This chapter was hard, like I said in my last reply, so I hope you enjoyed it and I did it justice!