A/N: Once again thank you all for your continued support! You guys are amazing...hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
A/N: Chapter Warning – Bad language and violence
Chapter 24: Snapped Patience, an Anniversary and Revealed Past's
Hermione headed down to her potions class with Harry and Ron. It had been two days since Draco had walked in on her and Severus. Draco still playfully teased her at every opportunity about it.
Hermione had also recovered from her cold illness, and she was feeling much better and she was happy to be back to her normal routine without feeling extremely tired and achy. However, the same could not be said for Severus.
Severus had not been ill in years but since the return of the Dark Lord, he had been eating less and not taking care of himself. Therefore his immune system was weak and susceptible to illness. He had been taking potions but nothing had helped, he hated that there was nothing that could help a cold and he was like a bear with a sore head, he had no patience for the students whatsoever. At least his current disposition had provided him with entertainment when teaching his classes.
He watched as his fifth year potions class, which included his godson and his Hermione, filtered into the room. He was thankful that this was his last class of the day.
He sneered at his students, it was All Hallows' Eve and his students were excited, and practically bouncing off the walls due to sheer sugar intake, making them even more annoying than normal.
Severus was nostalgic, normally this day brought sadness and guilt to Severus' life but, for the first time, he didn't feel as upset as he normally did and it made him wonder why.
Severus looked up and saw his class looking at him, waiting for him to begin the lesson. He caught the eye of one ray of sunshine and she gave him a secret smile. With a start, he realised that Hermione had been healing his heart and soul just as much as he'd been healing hers, and he had to fight a smile. He didn't want his students to die of pure shock, although the idea was amusing.
He then immediately felt guilty, how could he possibly be even slightly cheerful on this day, he almost felt like he was insulting the memory of his childhood friend and immediately felt angry at himself. He felt conflicted, angry at himself, he was ill and he may have indulged in some whiskey at breakfast, lunch, and in his free period. He was now feeling the effects of such indulgence, and he was ashamed to admit it but, he was unprofessionally squiffy. This was not going to be a good combination.
Without saying a word, he put the instructions and page number up on the board and then signalled to the students to get moving.
The students bustled about collecting their potions ingredients and began brewing. Severus sat in his chair and put his head in his hands, he was burning up, and all he wanted to do was crawl back into bed. He could feel himself falling asleep at his desk, and tried to fight it because he knew that leaving a class, of mostly incompetent students, to make a potion, was an extremely dangerous thing to do.
Hermione noticed that he really wasn't well, and tried to think of something she could do to help him. Draco, who had partnered up with her, had also noticed that his godfather hadn't looked too great and was worried.
BANG!
Severus startled, leapt to his feet with his wand drawn towards the explosion. He had been half asleep and had forgotten where he was; he had heard the explosion and considered it an immediate threat.
The students froze as their professor drew his wand at a nervous looking Neville, who was now pale, and shaking violently, as he noticed that he was about to be on the receiving end of a potential hex.
Severus stalked over to the poor teenager, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
"YOU STUPID, IDIOTIC, WASTE OF MY SPACE. WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL? GET THE HELL OUT OF MY CLASSROOM AND DO NOT COME BACK!" Snape roared at a petrified Neville.
Neville immediately jumped up, without even grabbing his books, or bag, and fled from the room along with several other students who had been terrified by their potions professors' reaction.
In fact, the only ones who remained were Draco, Hermione, Harry, and Ron. The rest of the students had gone; even the Slytherin's had decided that it was too dangerous for them to stay.
"That was fucking uncalled for Snape! You're a foul git!" Ron exclaimed angrily.
The room fell silent as Severus whirled around to face Ron. As Severus began stalking towards Ron, Ron immediately began to realise that he'd fucked up, and had begun to look quite nervous.
"How dare you Weasley! Don't tell me how I should and should not run my classroom. Potions are volatile; I cannot let one student put the rest at risk. You will be lucky to get an overall T on your exams this year, judging by the assignments you have submitted so far" Snape glared at the red head.
Ron glared back, embarrassed that his professor had just revealed to his friends that he was practically failing the class when he had been making out that he'd been doing really well.
Harry and Hermione looked between Snape and Ron, bewildered at first and then surprised that Ron had been lying to them about his grades.
"That will also be 50 points from Gryffindor for your appalling language towards a professor, and your outright disrespect, and you will be assigned detentions until at least after Christmas" Severus snarled at the boy.
The students all remained frozen in place, none of them dared to breathe.
Then, without a word, Ron grabbed his things and angrily stormed out of the classroom.
Harry then lost his cool and turned towards Snape, eager to defend his best friend.
Hermione intervened and halted Harry in his movements and shook her head.
"Don't Harry, here, take Neville's things and give them to him. Then go and find Ron and stop him from doing anything stupid" Hermione ordered Harry.
Harry looked like he was about to argue but then noticed the look on Snape's face. He then looked at Hermione, concerned to be leaving his sister in the same room as the unstable man. Harry then turned to Draco and silently asked if he'd watch out for Hermione if Harry left. Draco nodded and Harry hurriedly took off after his friends.
The two remaining students looked at each other before looking back at their professor. Severus had sat down in one of the students' chairs, head in his hands, drained of all energy, and a distraught look on his face.
Both students had no clue what to do, they both knew Severus hadn't been feeling too good, but there was no way that the way he was acting was down to illness alone, there was something else and neither knew what.
"Severus, we're going to take you to your rooms, you need to go to sleep. Do you want any potions at all?" Draco asked gently.
Severus just stared blankly ahead, eyes glazed, and looking rather morbid. Hermione looked at him and deemed it safe to move closer to him, and that's when she smelt it.
"Severus, have you been drinking today?" She asked already knowing the answer.
Severus gave no response and so the pair looked at each other, trying to figure out which steps they needed to take next. They eventually decided to just carefully manoeuvre him to his room and hope that he would sleep off the alcohol, and be in a better mood after some rest.
.
.
.
Once in Severus' room, the two teens sat him on the edge of the bed, so that they could pull back the covers so he could get into bed.
Hermione was preparing his bed, and was asking Draco if he thought they should get Severus a sleeping draught.
"Draco, are you alright? Did you hear what I said about the potions?" She asked him when he didn't respond.
Hermione took a closer look at Draco and noticed that he had a shocked look on his face, almost a frightened look on his face, as he was looking at Severus.
Hermione could only see the back of Severus, so she moved to stand next to Draco to see what he looked so worried about.
Hermione gasped; there was Severus Snape, sat on the edge of his bed, looking straight through his two friends, as if he hadn't even noticed that they were there in the first place. He wore a sad expression upon his face and he was, crying.
Severus had always hated this day. It was the one day a year where he allowed himself to think upon his past, his weaknesses, his regrets, and all the bad, dark parts of his life. He always allowed himself to let his guard slip and wallowed in the unfairness of life.
Hermione knelt down in front of him, hoping that she wouldn't frighten him, and gently placed the palm of her hand against the side of his face and stroked his cheek with her thumb.
Severus seemed to snap back to reality and, for the first time, noticed that he had been taken to his bedroom and that his two favourite people in the world were looking at him with such concern that he was momentarily confused; his brain worked a lot more slowly when he was a bit tipsy.
Then Severus felt the wetness on his cheeks, and was immediately embarrassed that he was crying, in front of his godson and his Hermione. He looked down at the floor ashamed, almost like a chastised child.
"Severus, what's the matter?" Draco asked him.
Severus looked back up at just stared at Draco, trying to form some sort of response but coming up blank.
"What can we do to help?" Hermione added, wanting desperately to help stop him from being in such emotional pain.
Severus didn't know whether it was the alcohol or whether it was just the emotional turmoil, but he turned to look at both of his students and his friends.
"I'm going to tell you a story" he said.
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.
.
The two students looked at him and then at each other before moving to sit comfortably on the bed with Severus.
"When I was a young boy, I grew up in an awful home. My father was a muggle and my mother never told him she was a witch. After they had married and I was born, everything was normal, at least for a while. Then, when I was about five, I started showing signs of developing magic, and I would have episodes of accidental magic. My muggle father was naturally confused, and so my mother told him that she was a witch and that she could do magic as well. My father was extremely angry, and he left the house only to come back sometime later completely drunk and that was when he started hitting my mother and he took her to their bedroom. I don't really know what happened but my mother's screams lasted hours. Eventually, I'm assuming my mother had lost consciousness, my father came out of the bedroom and turned on me and he hit me, kicked me, punched me, he did anything that would satisfy his anger and eventually, I lost consciousness too" he paused in his explanation to take in the expressions of the two unlikely friends.
They were both in shock; they couldn't have said anything even if they had wanted to. They were trying to process what they had been told, in all the years Draco had known his godfather he never suspected that anything like this had ever happened.
Severus looked at the stunned pair and decided to continue, he found it easier when there was silence, almost like talking to four concrete walls and no one to pass judgement.
"As I got older, I would spend as much time away from home as I could. There was a lake that I would often go to, it was beautiful in summer, and the way the trees swayed in the light summer breeze was magical. One day, I was sat by my tree and I could hear a girl shouting, complaining about something. The word 'freak' was being said, I believe, I thought someone had found me and was talking to me, so I stepped out to face whoever it was. I was surprised to see instead, two sisters, one looked upset and the other looked angry. The angry sister saw me and ran for it, but the other sister stayed. We became friends, and I showed her that I was also a 'freak' and would show her minor bits of magic. She showed me her magical abilities and we became firm friends. We found out that we were both going to Hogwarts and we would be in the same year. I had never been happier, she was the one and only friend I had ever truly had" Severus paused again.
Hermione and Draco both wore gentle smiles on their faces. They were happy that a young Severus had been able to find happiness somewhere in his dark life.
"We got to Hogwarts and she was sorted into Gryffindor and I was obviously sorted into Slytherin. It wasn't a big deal at first, we were in different houses but we were still friends. Then she began to make friends in her own house and her friends hated me. In fact they bullied me, called me names, and played pranks on me at my expense. I could handle it as long as I had her" he smiled grimly as he reminisced at the memories.
Hermione was appalled for the young Severus. He was abused at home when he was just an innocent, defenceless child. He was then bullied at school for being different and a Slytherin.
"One day in our fifth year, I was being taunted by her friends again and she stepped in to help me. I was full of pride and my teenage self was angry that she was damaging my ego, and I said something to her, something that I would forever regret and something that deeply upset her. No matter how much I apologised, and tried to make it up to her, she never forgave me. At the same time I turned to the only people who would have me, Lucius Malfoy and his 'friends'" Severus said darkly.
Both teens now felt awkward, Severus' only friend had turned her back on him completely and that had meant that she had indirectly served Severus to the Death Eaters complete with a tidy bow. Severus had sought approval elsewhere and had found the Death Eaters.
'Poor Severus' Hermione thought sadly to herself.
"Then, my dear friend, married my main tormentor and I never really saw her again" Severus finished. He'd only just scratched the surface with this story, but he had begun to feel sleepy and the effects of the alcohol were subsiding now, leaving him with a sense of fear that he had completely opened up and told them things that could blow his entire cover. He was going to have to teach them both Occlumency.
"What did you say to your friend that caused her to turn her back on you?" Draco asked his godfather.
Severus gave a quick glance at Hermione, paled slightly, and looked down ashamed.
"I called her a Mudblood" he murmured gently.
Draco's eyes widened in surprise, his godfather had always been respectful, and had never been prejudice when it came to blood.
Hermione grimaced, having been called that name a few times, she could understand on some level. But to never forgive Severus, for making a mistake, when he had apologised for it and begged for forgiveness. That was slightly tragic, especially where Severus ended up after it.
"Severus, you did something that you didn't mean to do, you made a mistake, and you did something human. You tried to right the wrong, by apologising. If it had been me, I would have been mad, but I would've forgiven you eventually" Hermione tried to comfort a miserable looking Severus.
"Would you though? Truly? Would you ever forgive someone who had said that to you, whether they had meant it or not?" He asked, not fully believing her.
"I forgave Draco" she whispered sincerely.
Severus looked up at her surprised, he hadn't thought about that. Judging by the look on Draco's face; neither had he.
Draco immediately swooped in and gave Hermione a fierce hug.
Severus couldn't help but feel slightly jealous; Hermione had been so forgiving of Draco. He couldn't help but wish that the same thing had happened between him and Lily, in fact, he wished he had never said it in the first place.
"Who was she, the girl? Who were your tormentors?" Draco asked.
"Lily Evans was the name of the girl" Severus said slowly, looking at Hermione once again.
'Lily Evans?' Hermione thought, she recognised that name.
"The tormentors?" Hermione asked gently.
Severus sighed knowing that he would regret telling them all of this in the morning.
"They were Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and James Potter" Severus said.
Both the students gasped in surprise.
"Lily Evans? You were best friends with Harry's mum? And Harry's dad and his friends tormented you?" Hermione questioned, making sure she had it right.
Severus nodded.
"Well no wonder you hate Potter! Your only friend married your tormentor and now their progeny is running around the castle. Like it's being flaunted in your face" Draco remarked, finally understanding why his godfather had it out for Potter.
Severus just nodded.
"That's why you are drinking, and having a difficult day today. Isn't it?" Hermione questioned.
Again Severus nodded and he yawned as he settled himself in his bed, he was ready for sleep.
"I don't follow. What has his history with Potter's mum got to do with how Severus has been acting today?" Draco queried.
Hermione just looked at Draco and shook her head sadly.
Hermione looked back at Severus, and noticed that he was very nearly asleep. She leant down and pulled the covers over him and placed a light kiss to his forehead. She then ushered Draco out of the room and shut the door quietly behind her.
"Today is the anniversary of her death. Today is the day Harry's parents were killed by Voldemort" Hermione told him in a hushed voice, just in case Severus could still hear them.
"Ah, poor Severus" Draco said.
The pair decided to leave Severus' quarters in order to get something to eat. It was the Halloween feast and both students were looking forward to it, even after the morbid insight to Severus' life.
