Bonus Chapter - Snape and Umbridge
I must not tell lies.
The words stood out on the back of the boy's hand, bright red and bleeding. Snape glanced into Harry's eyes. He looked infuriatingly similar to his father, but his eyes - Lily's eyes - stared back at him, full of fear and an unspoken plea.
"I see," he said, "Will you wait for me outside the office, Potter?"
"Mr. Potter is not excused from detention!" Umbridge shrieked. Her voice always reminded Snape of a banshee's wail.
"You misunderstand me. There is something I wanted to discuss with you. Something I would prefer a student not hear."
He was a man who had looked Lord Voldemort in the face and told blatant lies in the service of Dumbledore, and yet it took every ounce of his self-control to remain calm while gazing at Dolores Umbridge. The Dark Lord may have been Evil incarnate, but there were times when Snape thought he and Umbridge must be cousins.
She banished Harry from the office, slamming the door shut behind him with a wave of her wand.
"Well, what is it, Severus? What can be so important you thought it appropriate to interrupt my punishment of Mr. Potter?"
Snape ignored her question, turning away and murmuring "Muffliato" while waving his own wand over the door. It afforded him an opportunity to regain control of himself. Turning back to Umbridge, he knew his expression would betray nothing.
"Forgive me, but Potter has a nasty habit of eavesdropping," he said smoothly, "And I do not want him to hear what I have to say to you."
"Well?" Umbridge repeated with impatience, "Go on! Get on with it!"
"Very well… First, I must congratulate you. I used to pride myself on striking fear into the hearts of my students. It was not a successful class if I hadn't reduced one of them to tears. But you… You have sunken to depths I could never imagine. I do not think your methods would be capable of any person with their soul intact. Minister Fudge could not have chosen a more cold, ruthless, and power-mad person to act as his surrogate."
Rather than react with storming rage, a wicked smile overspread Umbridge's face. Perhaps she was considering what a pleasure it would be to fire another of Dumbledore's professors.
"You needn't go so far, Severus," she said demurely, "I was merely inflicting a punishment proportional to Mr. Potter's offenses. You yourself have condemned him as a rule-breaker and a liar. I am merely trying to correct these behaviors, where you and your colleagues seem to have failed time and time again."
Snape only heard the first half of this speech. "Proportional?" he repeated, "Then you believe corporal punishment… Actually forcing the boy to cut his own flesh… Is an appropriate punishment for having given one interview?"
"An interview full of vicious lies! Lies that were meant to undermine the very power of the Ministry!"
"No, just Fudge's authority, which you believe is your own. You have no real power, Dolores. You follow people who have more prestige than you. You flatter them and bow to them and wear their laurels as if they were your own. But you're nothing more than a conniving, insecure, petulant harpy. In this way, you're no different from the parasites who chose to follow the Dark Lord."
The corners of Umbridge's mouth were now twitching with anger, "And all this for Potter? You don't even like the boy!"
"You're wrong," Snape said quietly, surprising even himself with this simple admission, "I won't try to explain to you what that boy's existence means to me. Someone like you would never understand… But this is not what I wanted to tell you. I merely wished to say that if you ever do anything to harm Harry Potter again… If you so much as pluck a hair from his absurdly untidy head… I will personally see to your destruction."
"You dare to threaten me! I'll have your head for this, Severus! You'll be sacked… No, I'll write to the Minister! You think that pardon Dumbledore obtained for you was enough? Well the Ministry granted it, and it can be taken away! I'll see you in Azkaban for this… this…"
"I think not," Snape said with his same imperturbable calm, "You see, you won't actually remember any of this."
"What…?"
"Obliviate."
A clouded expression came over Umbridge's face. Her mouth, which had been tight with outrage a second before, became slack, making her look more like a massive toad than ever. Snape kept his eyes trained on her vacant ones, his wand pointed at her. Umbridge would not remember his threats, but it felt good to have said them.
"Harry Potter has completed all of his detentions to your satisfaction," Snape stated, "Wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes…" Umbridge said in a flat voice, "Completely satisfactory…"
"He never called me to your office. I spoke with you about the extra vials of Veritaserum you requested. This was all we discussed. Do you agree?"
"I used it all…" Umbridge replied, "To question the Potter boy… It will take time for you to brew more…"
Satisfied with these results, Snape stepped closer toward Umbridge's desk. She had an open letter to Fudge sitting within view. It seemed to detail a plan for ousting Headmaster Dumbledore from his position for good. Snape made a mental note of these contents to report on later, then broke away from Umbridge, leaving her to recover from her daze in her own time.
The boy was waiting in the hall when Snape emerged, sitting on the floor with his arms resting against his knees.
"What happened?" he asked, scrambling to his feet, "Am I going to be expelled?"
His bright green eyes were so very like his mother's, it was often painful to look into them. Rather than be confronted with that earnest stare, Snape turned away, sweeping down the hall as he replied, "Not today."
"But what did you say? Do I still have to…"
"I performed a simple memory charm," Snape explained, judging it better to deliver the news quickly, "Umbridge is under the impression that you have already served your detentions. I would advise you to remain on her good side, moving forward. My next attempt may not be as successful."
This was entirely true. Of his many skills, Memory Charms were not his strongest. He had been effective in this attempt, but he could not guarantee that this would always be the case. Even now, he questioned how long it would be before bits of Umbridge's fractured memory returned. He had made a mistake in saying so much to her, but at the time, he couldn't stop himself.
"Professor… I don't know what… When she asked me to write lines, I thought… I have to thank you…"
If staring into Lily Evans' eyes, alive again through her son, was too painful for him, hearing James Potter's voice giving him thanks was unbearable. Snape put a stop to it immediately.
"Hand, Potter."
He snatched the boy's wrist, taking a second look at the cuts that ran across the back of his hand. He had the benefit of knowing what he would see this time, and was not caught off-guard as he had been in Umbridge's office. Looking over the wounds, he was relieved to see they were not as bad as he first surmised.
"I have some essence of murtlap in my office that should clear this up. Since you will no longer be serving detention, we will see to this, then continue our practice of Occlumency."
Harry looked less than pleased. He must have considered that he was trading one form of punishment for another. Snape didn't blame him. He was already wondering if practice so soon after the scene that just took place was a wise decision. Fortunately, Potter was making such abysmal progress in his study of Occlumency, he doubted whether any of his own memories would be revealed again.