cxcii. of cathedral tunes
The afternoon before the Yule Ball commenced, Severus Snape found himself incredibly busy.
While he imagined his students and colleagues occupied themselves with primping and preparing for the evening, he stood in a barren field somewhere in the middle of Suffolk, wearing a stranger's face.
He hadn't been able to ascertain the exact reason Gaunt had his cronies gallivanting through the area. His intel with the Guardians had always been lacking in some ways, his position too removed from any pertinent contacts working in the Minister's circle. However, the pin he had stolen off a neglectful Guardian several years ago, coupled with vague whisperings, still gave him indications of Gaunt's plans from time to time.
He didn't know what precisely these bottom-feeding political degenerates had been sent to search for and monitor because they didn't know. Though often rash and at times explosive, Gaunt did not make stupid, careless mistakes. He informed his followers only what he thought appropriate and nothing more.
Whatever their designs, Severus had put an end to it in favor of his own purposes.
A final flourish with his wand tied off the rope holding the third wizard against the stump with his two unconscious compatriots. The wizard in question groaned, blood from a busted nose dribbling into his thick mustache, and began to stir. Severus crouched on the balls of his feet, shifting in his stolen shoes, waiting.
Dawn had only been an hour old before McGonagall received confirmation of Gaunt's attendance to the Yule Ball and passed the information to Dumbledore over breakfast, who only needed to glance at Severus for him to understand the Headmaster's thoughts. Gaunt in the school under Dumbledore's watchful eyes was one issue, but managing him among a horde of underage morons requiring supervision was another.
So, Severus excused himself from breakfast, went to his store room, and retrieved a half-liter of unused Polyjuice Potion before sorting through what garbled bits of information waited in his untended mail. He found a prospective name belonging to an untalented hanger-on expected to appear in today's nefarious venture and set to pay the wizard a visit.
Of all the things he'd ever done, breaking and entering, a bit of painless kidnapping, and temporary identity theft were the least of his sins.
The Guardian in front of him rolled his head back upon his shoulder and scrunched his eyes. Slowly, they fluttered open and focused on Severus' face—or, rather, his borrowed face.
"O'Keele?" the man grumbled, the groggy words slurred but rising sharply as his eyes cleared. "O'Keele? What is the meaning of this?!"
He jolted against his bonds as Severus smirked.
"Wh—? Traitor! He'll have your head for this! He'll—."
Without saying a word, Severus stuffed the end of the man's own tie in his mouth and let him get a good look at his face. Then, he Stunned the idiot as he had with the others and stood with a short groan. He took out his pocket watch.
He estimated they would wake again in an hour, and then take another hour to figure a way out of their restraints. Their wands had been snapped and discarded in the weeds moments after Severus ambushed the trio, so it would take them time to get free and return to the Ministry. They would find O'Keele oblivious to Severus' attack and the entire excursion—and, from there, his estimations grew less specific. Depending on how much these dunderheads feared the Minister's reprisal, they would eventually report to him. Gaunt, the penultimate narcissist and paranoid nuisance, would investigate the situation personally.
Severus took the golden pin from his lapel and turned it over in his hand, eying it. Without further thought, he flicked it into the stubby winter grass. Gaunt would deactivate and reissue the pins after running a check among his faithful tonight. Severus would simply have to find another one at a later date.
He cleared his magical signature from the area and started walking, eyes fixed on the horizon muddled by thick clouds. He could feel the Polyjuice wearing off in his extremities, the skin of his feet and hands buzzing and itching. He increased his pace until he deemed himself far enough away from the stump and Disapparated.
The cold slammed into Severus when he returned to the highlands, the sudden fluctuation in elevation causing his breath to hitch and his stomach to tighten. The air escaped him in a harsh white plume. Grunting, Severus grabbed a potion from his pocket and downed it, slipping the empty vial into his robes once more as the discomfort settled. The last thing he needed today was bloody altitude sickness.
His skin crawled as the Polyjuice began to wear off in earnest, and Severus stripped himself of O'Keele's tightening robes and boots, vanishing the lot. He retrieved his own clothes and footwear from the same pocket as the empty vial and returned them to their proper size.
The snow melted under his socks, and Severus scowled.
Fuck Gaunt, he cursed, stuffing his soggy feet into his shoes and dragging on the heavy, black wool of his robes before he began to shiver. And fuck the Order for not having someone with half a brain capable of doing this instead of me!
The wards over the boar-flanked gates allowed Severus passage, and he trudged up the path toward the waiting doors of the castle.
As he reached the iced steps and used his wand to clear the stones, Severus sensed eyes upon him and straightened, glowering into the courtyard's shadowed arch.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
He heard the crotchety bastard before he saw him, the thump of Moody's wooden leg distinct even at a distance. Severus' lip curled as Moody came into view, and Moody's warped face reciprocated his disgust. His hand twitched as if it wanted to reach for his wand, but he controlled himself.
"Snape," the Auror barked. "Where did you come slithering in from, eh?"
"It might shock you to know it's the beginning of the school's holiday." Severus paused on the lowest step. Beyond Moody, he could see Pomona wrapped in thick robes clearing the snow from the ground while Filius set up the Charms to abate the chill. "I know the Ministry has difficulty telling time, but I had assumed they taught their Aurors how to use a calendar."
"You always think yourself so clever, don't you?"
"When one is surrounded by idiots, clever is a relative term." Severus climbed two more steps. "I am under no compunction to hand out my schedule on a leaflet."
Moody's normal eye narrowed while the haywire magical one settled on Severus with unnerving intensity. "I'm watching you, Snape."
"What a relief. With allies such as yourself, I needn't be so concerned about my enemies."
Without waiting for another word, Severus swept into the castle, his mood blacker than it'd been in the morning, made all the worse by the sight of the nauseating, bathetic decorations for the wretched dance. He swore if he got caught under some bloody enchanted mistletoe, he'd raze half the castle to the ground.
The staff lounge on the second floor was empty aside from McGonagall and the Headmaster, the pair seated at the larger table in the middle of the room, reviewing paperwork of some variation or another. Both looked up when Severus entered, and he threw himself into the first winged chair by the roaring hearth.
"Did you have a successful errand, Severus?" Albus asked.
Severus grunted.
"Excellent."
McGonagall exhaled a short, miffed breath in Albus' direction, then addressed Severus. "A parcel arrived for you during lunch."
"And?" Any owl with a delivery for him would have redirected itself to the owlery where the house-elves attended undelivered post and relocated it to the dormitory or quarters of the respective recipient. The house-elf who tended Severus' rooms in particular knew to place all correspondence in a receptacle that would maintain the integrity of any incoming ingredients—and contain prospective attacks and cursed letters.
It'd been a necessary addition after he lost his first house-elf.
Severus blinked when Minerva flicked her wand at the chair by her side, pulling it out so the package stashed on its seat could rise and float toward him. Severus caught it as if it were a bomb, and his expression must have been a sight because Minerva smirked and Albus struggled to keep his face neutral.
"It was hand delivered by Madam Malfoy. I didn't know you had your friends doing your shopping for you now."
"We are not friends," he snapped as he peeled back a corner of the wrapping to reveal the dark folded fabric within. Dress robes. Narcissa had overstepped, but Severus had no desire to navigate the political minefield of pure-blood etiquette that went into denying or returning gifts. He had his own damn robes, for Merlin's sake.
"Well, I wouldn't know what else to call a woman who buys you clothing."
The glare Severus shot her could kindly be called unfriendly at best.
"Come now, Severus. She was only being thoughtful. I don't imagine you've actually taken the time to buy your own dress robes."
"I see no reason to supplement my wardrobe beyond its current constraints," he retorted.
"A shame. You could use a nice pop of color to liven yourself up."
"I am not a half-brained adolescent attending this pointless event—only an underpaid minion who has to drag them out of alcoves all night."
"Is this a hint that you want a raise?" Albus asked. Severus ignored him.
"You are a representative of Hogwarts, however, minion or no," Minerva told him with a quirk of her brow. "You can't show up in your work clothes, you've mud on the hem. Morgana help us."
Severus didn't think anyone would actually notice if he did, but he had robes—though, granted, he hadn't worn them in quite some time. It wasn't as if he'd changed much over the years. The school bylaws forced the staff to attend biennial physicals, and Severus' weight only ever trended downward in periods of great stress. Otherwise, he weighed the same, down to the last kilogram.
His fingers curled into the soft edge of the parcel as he stood, letting his robes—muddy hem be damned—fall around his legs. "If you'll excuse me."
Severus swept toward the door, intent on the dungeons and his solitude, or what solitude he could find before the evening arrived.
"Severus."
The Headmaster's voice stopped him short, and with annoyance, Severus glanced over his shoulder, expecting a needling word of reprimand or another errand for him to attend.
Instead, Albus smiled. "Thank you."
Severus didn't know what to make of that, and as with anything he didn't understand, it made him suspicious. Eyes narrowed, he nodded, then continued out the door.
xXx
When Severus first spoke to the Malfoys about the Yule Ball, it was under the guise of fishing for information on Gaunt's intentions for the evening. Lucius' esteem varied in the Minister's eyes from day to day, but his essential status in pure-blood society meant Gaunt kept the man close and bent his ear more often than not, and on some occasions, he would impart something viable.
Unfortunately for Severus, mention of the Yule Ball turned Lucius' posh rambling to a supercilious diatribe on the "old ways," and how he liked to think the Yule Ball was representative of a return to those values. Frankly, Severus thought him full of shite. The Yule had once been a time to celebrate the hunt, a time of oath-making and sacrifice. The winter solstice was the night when the Wild Hunt took to the sky, and wizards in ages past would paint themselves in blood emulsions before enacting the yearly rituals to protect their lands and villages from superstitious Muggles.
Covering one's self in velvet and a cloud of perfume was not a return to the old ways. Bloody idiot.
After bathing, Severus ripped open the package from Narcissa and pulled on the dark robes folded therein, giving little thought to the material or the style as he did up the buttons. The outer layer hung differently than his usual choice of robes, needing a brooch and chain to hold them in place, and Severus grimaced at the odd, restraining feel of the chain weighing against his chest.
As an afterthought, he sent a spell at his still damp hair to dry the strands and tie it back as he usually did before intricate brewing. He left his quarters and headed higher for the Great Hall, already hearing the milling voices of the dunderheads he called students. Severus changed directions and used a hidden staff corridor to bypass the horde and reach the hall's side entrance. He slipped through the door.
Filius and one of the visiting professors from Beauxbatons had changed the decor, though what Severus noted most was the collection of small round tables that had replaced the typical ones. Minerva and Pomona stood by the staff entrance Severus had just sneaked through, the former handing off a clipboard to the latter as she adjusted her witch's hat.
"And just where am I meant to sit in this mess?" he drawled as he approached the pair, both Minerva and Pomona glancing in his direction. They blinked and did a double-take. "Well?"
"Goodness, Severus. You gave us a fright."
"Our Potion Master cleans up rather spiffy," Sprout said with an elbow nudging Minerva's ribs. "I don't think I've ever seen you with your hair out of your face, lad."
"You do look quite handsome, Severus—."
"Where am I meant to sit!"
"Don't take that tone with me, Severus Snape! Or I'll transfigure you into the ass you are acting!"
Minerva finally pointed out the proper table where a few other staff members had already found their seats, and he swept over, jerking one of the chairs out. He lowered himself into it, arms crossed, and resolved himself to wait.
It wasn't long before Slytherin joined him, already complaining about one thing or another, not that Severus gave him much of his attention. The background chatter and general ambiance drowned out his bitter, annoyed ranting. Instead, he watched Minister Gaunt as he exchanged snide jabs with Dumbledore at the main table.
Those fools are more frightened of Gaunt than I anticipated, Severus mused, picking up his goblet—only to nearly spit it out when the taste of cheap wine slipped over his tongue. Or they're simple. It would have been better to intercept him before he reached the castle rather than after. Or, perhaps, it took the trio of bound wizards too long to get out of their ropes. Twits.
Severus was so intent on monitoring the Minister, he didn't realize the girl next to Gaunt was Potter until she turned enough to give him a rather odd look. Then she went back to picking on her food like a little unmannered savage, ignoring her date—the Bulgarian Seeker—and his heavy stare.
Severus had no bloody idea how that had come about and didn't care to guess. He picked up his sub-par wine and drank, ordering another.
At last, an owl arrived halfway through dinner and dipped straight toward the main table, landing before Gaunt's plate. The Minister accepted the missive and finally, finally took his leave, and the tension in Severus' neck and shoulders lessened with each step the wizard made toward the exit.
In his milieu of worries, at least that was one less to carry.
Slytherin's head turned to follow Gaunt, just as Severus' had. He couldn't decipher the emotion in those haunting, red eyes, but it seemed contemplative, or perhaps curious. Severus knew Slytherin's spies in the Ministry would be getting an owl before the night was over.
When the dinner ended, Severus didn't hesitate to find himself a spot of wall to lean against, his arms folded against his middle as the band stepped out and the music began. The Tournament champions walked onto the open floor with their dates, and—unbidden—Severus' gaze followed the Potter girl. The dark gray of her robes rippled under the warm light of the candles as she settled, uncertain, in Krum's waiting hands.
Severus always feared that as she grew older, the girl would elicit those same echoing memories so many of her peers stirred, the after images of people from his past, most long since dead. He feared one day he'd look up, and there would be Lily, or that wretch James Potter with the same black hair and sharp, cruel sneer. He'd feared it for years, since the very day he walked into his potions classroom and turned to look at the youngest Slytherin first-year.
But, even now, out of uniform and with the shadow of adulthood pulled over her like a terrifying veil, Severus looked at Harriet Potter and saw nothing of Lily, or of James. It was not the first time he wondered if Lily had wandered out into the woods and plucked her from the Morrigan's nest, this scrawny girl with her thin bones and unruly hair, trailing death and doom and prophecy in equal measure. She was a wild thing who'd decided she'd had enough of chatting with snakes and wanted a go at being a real girl.
Seeing her still terrified Severus, but for different reasons. Each passing day was a day in which Potter grew older, and the comfortable shield of youth wore thin to the encroaching dangers that threatened like an oncoming tsunami. One day, Potter would not be "too young" for the Dark Lord's schemes, and Severus feared that day would be the day they both died.
Everything he tried to save fell to ruin. Dumbledore thought they could protect her, and Severus didn't know how. He didn't. The helplessness rankled.
The music changed, more bodies shifting onto the floor as they swayed to the high shriek of string instruments. Time passed too slowly—too quickly—as he stood there, frozen, unbothered as the revelry unfolded. The inside of his left arm ached with the bitter promise of coming recompense, and it kept him up in the most lonely hours of the night. In the feathered light of dawn, he'd see the Mark swell against his pale skin like a malignant, beating heart.
On his other wrist, a white strand, a glimmer in the sun barely there, fleeting, tentative—.
Severus stirred from his depressing thoughts and turned, scanning the room. He spotted a most unwelcome presence coming his way.
"Severus," Karkaroff whispered as he strode up to the Potions Master's side. His furtive eyes scanned the Great Hall over and over. "Severus, we must speak."
"As I have told you before, we have nothing to say to one another, Karkaroff."
"It is important!"
Severus scoffed and marched away from the wizard. He left via the door he'd entered through, dodging around the band in their wild, artfully ripped attire, stepping out into the corridor so he could find any students who'd wandered out of bounds. Unfortunately, he was not alone.
"It is growing darker," Karkaroff rushed, only the side of his arm being caught by the door when Severus slammed it. He'd been skulking around the school like a cockroach since his arrival, skittering away when too much attention shined his way. Before their argument, Severus and Albus had kept a running bet on how long it would take for Igor to bolt or come begging Albus for protection on his hands and knees. "Have you checked it? Have you seen?"
"It might seem an odd hobby to you, but I do bathe—so yes, I have seen my damn arm, you idiot."
"It's darker! Mine is darker!"
"And why would you think your problems concern me?"
"It will be all of our problems when he returns!"
Severus kept walking, grinding his teeth. He continued outside through the open doors, and the cold reached through the wards like a ghostly hand to brush against his face. The courtyard had been transformed into a winding maze of hedges formed by new rose bushes, and Severus didn't hesitate to take out his wand and blast a path through the wall of thorns.
Karkaroff dogged his steps.
"You cannot think he will accept your excuses—any of our excuses for why we did not go to Azkaban—."
Severus' hands curled into fists, flickers of his past in the air like torn rose petals. The heavy thump of Auror fists, clinking chains dragging on his wrists, the rattling, indrawn breaths of withered creatures—.
Nearly two weeks in prison. Two weeks—all thanks to Karkaroff squealing like a pig. How dare he—.
"I have been trying to speak with you for days—."
"And you haven't taken my avoidance as a clear indicator of my disinterest. A pity." Severus grabbed the back of a student in one of the maze's many cozy alcoves and yanked him backward. "Ten points from Hufflepuff, Stebbins," he snapped at the disheveled Hufflepuff boy, shoving him away. The girl swiftly followed, flushed with embarrassment. "Ten points from Ravenclaw."
The students rushed toward the castle's looming shadow and the glow of the open doors. Severus blasted another rosebush.
"I have made my overtures to Slytherin, but he will not listen to me, will not grant me an audience. Nor will Gaunt. Severus, he is returning, and if I do not have protection—." Igor broke off as Severus extracted another amorous couple in a decidedly less appropriate state of dress from the stupid alcoves Pomona grew into her maze. Damn her and her maudlin sense of romance. The couple fled, stung by Severus' anger, and Igor continued. "—I'll be killed. You must put in a word for me with Slytherin!"
"Why would I do that?"
"We are friends, are we not? Allies?" Even Karkaroff didn't sound convinced of that, though his mouth kept running. A vein throbbed in Severus' temple. "We've had our differences, of course, and I'm sorry about that, but I'm serious here—!"
Unable to take another second of this conversation, Severus spun on his heels, robes flaring behind him as he grabbed Karkaroff by the throat and jerked him closer. The older wizard let out a thin, reedy breath of fear.
"Then flee, you quibbling pustule," Severus hissed. "You are no ally of mine. I am not the coward who sung for the Ministry and sent the Dark Lord's best to the cells of Azkaban." His lips peeled back to bare teeth in a fiendish smile. "I have done him no disservice."
"You're mad." Karkaroff shoved Severus off with shaking hands. The smell of dread and sweat rolled off of him in waves. "When he learns you've been serving a pretender, he'll kill you."
"Perhaps." Honestly, Severus thought his chances of walking away from the Dark Lord alive hung entirely on his perceived usefulness after Karkaroff and the other free sympathizers threw most of Voldemort's most loyal in prison. He'd bet his life on worse odds before.
"Do you really think yourself so indispensable?" Karkaroff sneered, fear and uncertainty still shadowing his thick, unctuous words. "A second-rate Potions Master crawling at Dumbledore's heels? I am a Headmaster, and if he has no use for me, he will throw you to the wolves!"
"Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Igor?" Karkaroff made as if to step closer, but Severus beat him to it, crowding the shorter man, using his body to hide how he pointed his wand at his throat. "You took the Mark the same as the rest of us. Has your pride abandoned you? Have you spent too long burrowing in at Durmstrang like the diseased tick you are? You shouldn't have shown the wolf your neck if you were afraid he might rip out your throat."
"Severus, please—."
He jabbed his wand into Karkaroff's chest, leaving a smoldering burn mark. "I have already told you we have nothing to speak about. Do not try my patience further. You will not like what happens."
Karkaroff stepped back, tentatively touching the fresh burn marring his expensive robes. Something in his mind must have clicked. Maybe he finally remembered Severus had been initially recruited for his poison proclivity—or he remembered the efficiency the young Potions Master displayed when forced to dismember bodies for the Dark Lord. Whatever he recalled, a flash of terror colored Karkaroff's face, and he departed in the direction of the Durmstrang ship.
"Coward," Severus muttered, wanting nothing more than to turn and follow, to lift his wand arm and curse the wizard until he was soot, until he felt even a quarter of the gut-clenching terror and dread and grief Severus had felt after the Aurors came for him. He wanted to see Igor scream.
Some nebulous, dark part of Severus that had originally drawn him to the power and prestige offered by the Dark Lord was jealous of Karkaroff. It was jealous of the position the bastard had stolen with his surname and a bit of old family money greasing greedy palms. That jealousy grew more prominent whenever Severus had to turn down opportunities from the Guild of Ethical Potioneering and Standards, when he had to shelf personal research projects and give credit to lesser men and women. That part of him wanted to be someone, forever and always.
And then his responsibilities came home to roost on his shoulders, and Severus remembered there was more at stake in this world than his petty desires. In the end, his name would amount to nothing—the only son of a blood-traitor and a mill town worker, a Dark wizard, a second-rate Potions Master with too few projects accredited to his efforts, and it didn't matter. The school would replace him, Dumbledore would find another spy, and Severus Snape would be less than a footnote in than annals of Wizarding Britain's worst civil war.
It didn't matter. He didn't matter. Only—.
His right wrist began to prickle, and Severus stole away the muddled mess of emotions brought on by Karkaroff and the Ball and perhaps a touch too much wine behind the iron walls of his Occlusion. The cold grass and dirt crunched under his boots as he strode back through the maze toward the castle.
He didn't need to go far. In fact, Severus needed only reach the mouth of the maze at the courtyard's end to find the girl hand in hand with her surly date, Slytherin looming over the pair with barely restrained displeasure.
When Slytherin spoke, his tone was at its softest and most dangerous, a voice Severus only heard before his wand lashed out and left him with a new scar. "Mr. Krum," Slytherin said. "Where do you think you're taking my student?"
"Ve vere going for a valk, Professor," Krum replied, unmoved by Slytherin's voice. "That is not against the rules."
"Ah." A subtle twist of Slytherin's wrist sparked enough magic to yank the couple's hands apart, and Severus saw the bright pink of a fresh burn on Potter's palm as she cradled it to her chest. "Move along, Mr. Krum."
"Professor Slytherin, I—."
"Shut up," Slytherin snapped at Potter before addressing Krum again. "Return to the dance or move on to your vessel, boy."
Krum hesitated, his gaze jumping between Slytherin and Potter. "Vill you be all right, Harriet?"
"I—."
"Go."
The boy retreated indoors, back to the music and inviting chatter, while Potter remained behind, her elbow suddenly captured in Slytherin's unyielding grip. He hauled her closer, and the girl gasped.
"That hurts—!"
"Shut up," Slytherin snapped yet again, tightening his hold as he leaned nearer the girl's face. "Did you not understand me last we spoke, Miss Potter? I was very clear in my expectations. Do I need to repeat myself?"
Stubborn, the girl said, "We were going for a walk. Can everyone else go for a bloody walk except for me—?"
Her words cut off with a sharp breath, and Severus knew Slytherin must have curled his fingers in, pressing harder.
"Don't swear at me like a filthy Muggle," he told her. "Whatever fleeting association you've formed with Krum, end it. Are my instructions clear enough on this point?" When Potter nodded, Slytherin released her. "Concentrate on your studies. I have expectations I intend for you to meet, and I will be most…unhappy if you continue to misinterpret my instructions."
"I didn't—." Slytherin moved, a slight tightening in his posture, and Potter wisely closed her mouth. "Yes, sir."
"Louder, and with less attitude."
"Yes, sir."
It was here that Severus—heart pounding with discomfort at the all too familiar arrangement—made his presence known. "Professor," he greeted with the same intonation he usually saved for saying my Lord.
"Severus." Red eyes cut in his direction, then away, dismissive. "Escort her back to the dormitories. Miss Potter has enjoyed enough of the festivities."
The girl didn't protest, and she made a passable attempt at keeping her expression blank, if not polite. Severus swept up the wide steps to her side and nodded to Slytherin, who appeared close to hexing them both if another word was spoken. He gestured Potter forward, and they left the Defense instructor there in the spotty moonlight, heading instead toward the foreboding dark of the dungeons.
"Fucking arsehole," Potter grumbled as they bypassed the Great Hall.
"Mind yourself." They came to the top of the steps, and Severus' eyes ran the length of the stairwell and back, finding no one aside from the couples in the entrance hall at their backs. "You did not know who might be listening."
Potter hummed a small, unhappy note of acceptance as they began their descent. The torches flickered to life, illuminating the empty passage. Potter's footsteps echoed louder than Severus', though absent the telling click of taller heels.
For a long while, they did not speak to one another. The tension remained as it had for months now, ever since Severus opened his mouth and screamed his mistakes at the girl in June. Potter kept glancing at him with her brow furrowed like Severus was a particularly annoying puzzle she didn't understand.
"You need to heed what he tells you," he said into the strained silence. "Slytherin is adept at making one's life miserable if he feels slighted."
"I don't see him harassing anyone else! Any of the other—contestants, or whatever."
"They're following behaviors he anticipates from them. You are not."
"Because Merlin forbid Harriet Potter has a date." She stumbled on the bottom step, swearing. "One second—."
Severus stopped to wait, impatient, watching as the girl fixed the trailing hem of her robes through a loop attached to her wrist. He studied the outfit, finding that though the neckline was less than modest, he'd seen much worse in the Great Hall and expected Minerva had been adjusting hems and bodices all night. Narcissa would covet the outfit, having an absurd passion for all things dramatic and expensive. Diamonds and long, rippling trains sent her into raptures.
Severus did not consider fourteen-year-old girls beautiful, but he did think the robes very nice and well-suited to Potter. A classic style that did not make her look like a child trying to dress like an adult.
Potter must have sensed his attention upon her because color tinged her cheeks, and she glared. "My dormmates thought I looked weird, too. Said my robes were old-fashioned."
"I didn't speak, Potter. Don't put words in my mouth."
"You're thinking it."
"Perhaps. Don't scowl, girl. There are far worse things to be than weird, as you put it."
"Like what?"
"You could be normal. Perish the thought."
The churlishness in the girl's features lightened. Suddenly a short laugh escaped her, a small smile curling Potter's mouth, and the tension clouding the air stopped pressing into Severus' temples. He frowned, and Potter laughed again.
"And what is meant to be so amusing?"
"Nothing, Professor."
"Hmpf." He peered at Potter, half of her face illuminated by the nearest torch, and her wide, green eyes blinked up at him. Looking at her, the abrupt compulsion to speak overcame Severus, and the words came out of his mouth before he realized he'd voiced them. "Your mother adored strange people," he told her, heavy and solemn. "Lily would have loved you, and not because you are her daughter. No, aside from that, and aside from her proclivity for being occasionally vapid and as superficial as any other popular student, Lily had a perduring affection for odd and awkward souls."
Potter's eyes widened, her lips parting. "Is that—is that why you were friends?"
"Yes. I assume so." Severus kept walking. Potter followed.
"Did you—? Um…I mean, did you and mum ever…?"
"Not that it is any of your business, but no, Potter. There was only friendship between Lily and myself." Friendship was a tepid word, but it sufficed. Severus considered lying just to horrify the nosy brat, but he refrained because Lily didn't deserve such idle comments, even in jest.
"If you were friends, I don't understand how…you became what you are."
Severus drew to a stop again, Potter's words thick with too much meaning, too many interpretations. She nearly collided with his back. What you are. A bitter, resentful man? A cynic, a fool, a lapdog? Spy, murderer, poisoner? A Death Eater? That was what she truly meant, and Severus knew what he would tell her, even if he should snarl at Potter to be quiet and leave him be. He knew with absolute certainty, and when he spoke, his voice came calm and quiet.
"Because we weren't friends. For a time."
"Why?"
"I called Lily a Mudblood."
The girl froze. Severus turned, waited for her anger, for the hatred she first shared in his office when he bared his arm for her inspection. Her eyes shuttered, and the lightness therein dimmed while Severus continued to brace himself, waiting for it, wanting it. As if a rot festered inside him, he kept cutting at his own skin no matter the pain, scars, or blood, simply for a chance to rid himself of the poison.
The situation in his office last June had been different. He'd been upset then, harassed by Dumbledore and Slytherin, cornered by the willful girl now standing in front of him. Unlike that day, Severus was not upset, was not out of his mind, or any more harried than usual. He did not yell or shout. He spoke with little inflection and waited for the revulsion to turn on him once more.
Potter stared into his face, unflinching. She tipped her head, and the slant of light gleamed across her lenses like fire caught in the glass.
"Why?" she demanded.
"Because I was angry. And sixteen." Because her father had been humiliating him in front of half the school for existing. Because Lily had rushed over to his rescue and to have a cheeky flirt with the boy actively ruining his life. For an instant, all Severus had wanted was to make her feel as small as he'd felt, as insignificant. The word crossed his mouth, and he'd spent the years since regretting it and making even worse mistakes.
"That's not an excuse!"
Potter's retort echoed in the close confines of the corridor, and Severus would have worried someone would overhear if the dance hadn't been in full swing still. His mouth opened to repudiate Potter for shouting, for having the gall to raise her voice to him—but nothing came to him. Severus shut it again. He exhaled.
"I know."
Potter blinked, taken aback. "What?"
"I am not making excuses. I am not a child, Potter, in need of prevarication. I called your mother a Mudblood, and our association ended for several years."
The girl's face scrunched with upset. "You're such a bastard," she snapped, lashing out, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Potter turned to the wall, one hand coming to pull at the brushed curls of her hair as if she wanted nothing more than to throw that fist in Severus' face and needed something to grab. To steady herself. A few of the delicate white flowers sown between the strands tumbled to the dungeon floor.
Potter took several breaths, her skinny shoulders heaving with the effort not to lose her temper. Severus almost wished she would. After a final deep, lingering inhale, she faced forward again and started walking. Severus remained, allowing the girl to storm off, until—.
"Are you coming or not? You're the worst bloody escort."
Severus hesitated, then followed, puzzled despite himself. "Do stop swearing at me, Potter, lest I begin taking points."
"Frankly, I don't care much about points at the moment, Professor."
They kept on in silence, Severus' robes hissing quietly over the stones, Potter's shoes eliciting small, repetitive taps.
"My mum forgave you," the girl said without looking at him, as if giving her words to the open air rather than to Severus. "My mum forgave you for all the shite you did because of what you're doing now—what you were doing then for Professor Dumbledore, for the war."
Severus didn't reply. His right hand twitched in its sleeve.
"I fancy she knew better than I do, considering she actually understood you," Potter grumbled. They neared the entrance to the Slytherin common room, and Severus readied himself to leave. "You know, Professor Dumbledore once told me guilt is a bottomless currency until you find your pockets empty and have to find something else of yourself to give away."
They reached the blank stretch of wall barring entrance into the common room, flanked between two nondescript tapestries. "What on earth are you on about, Potter?"
She gave the door the password, and the wall parted. Inside, Severus could hear the voices of younger children who hadn't attended the event, still up despite their blatant curfew.
Potter looked over her shoulder as she addressed him, and their eyes met.
"It means you shouldn't try to make me angry just so you can go on feeling guilty. You can't be guilty forever, and I don't want to carry a burden my mum let go of years ago. Sometimes, you can have forgiveness if you're willing to ask for it."
Severus could only stare.
"G'night, Professor."
"…Good night, Miss Potter."
xXx
On the morning of the twenty-fifth, Severus sat at the single long table in the Great Hall stirring his tea, staring into the middle distance without much thought given to the chatting staff or the lone few students who lingered after the Yule Ball. Slytherin had gone off to pester one of his other retainers, and Severus had opened his obligatory gifts from the families of his students. He had nothing to consider but the idle swirl of liquid in his cup and his own troubled mind.
You can't be guilty forever.
Severus stirred his tea.
The morning lay undisturbed like fresh powder upon the white snowdrifts—until the crow arrived.
It came in through the open slots by the rafters where the usual owls entered, black wings spread wide as it soared to the table's head. It landed by Severus' hand, and he recoiled on instinct, eyes narrowed at the suspect bird and its hastily wrapped parcel.
Dumbledore, on Severus' left, sipped his pumpkin juice in thought. "I do believe that is Harriet's messenger."
The bird hopped closer to Severus' empty plate, its dull, milky eyes fixed on his face. "Severus Snape!" it cawed.
Aware of the Headmaster's attention, Severus took the offending package and stuffed it into a robe pocket. The crow disappeared, and Albus chuckled.
Later, in the privacy of his quarters, Severus took the package out again and turned it over in his hands, brow furrowed. He tucked one finger under the parchment wrapping and tore it free, exposing the front of a book. Severus blinked at the tatty, second-hand Muggle novel, and questioned why the fuck Potter would post him a weathered edition of The Silmarillion.
Severus had, in fact, read the book in his youth when there'd been fewer demands upon his time and he'd needed distractions from his own mind. He couldn't fathom why Potter would give him her copy, but he nonetheless began to read it again, content to sit by his hearth for one afternoon and forget the world was going to hell somewhere outside of the cold, stolid dungeons.
He still did not understand Potter's motive until he neared the book's end, when his stomach began to complain for lack of food, and his eyes ached from reading in the weakening firelight. He came upon the section entitled Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, and therein he found Potter's untidy quill marks encircling two brief passages. He leaned forward in his armchair and read aloud.
"'Of old there was Sauron the Maia….He became the greatest and most trusted of the servants of the Enemy…and for long if he willed he could still appear noble so as to deceive all but the most wary.'" Severus frowned as he turned a page. "'When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue and did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds….Eönwë commanded Sauron to return to Aman and there receive the judgment of Manwë. Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation, for under Morgoth his power had been great. Therefore when Eönwë departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil.'"
There, in small letters crowding the margin, was an untidy but familiar scrawl spelling the words, "No one is beyond redemption but for those too cowardly to seek it."
Severus closed the book. He sat long into the night with a strange gift from a strange girl in his hand, the inside of his left arm burning, though the weight of his right felt curiously light.
A/N: Chapter title is from Dickinson's 320, "There's a certain Slant of light," a poem alluding to the heaviness of despair as is caught and displayed by the weakness of winter sunlight. "There's a certain Slant of light, / Winter Afternoons – / That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes –."
The Silmarillion passages are paraphrased for the narrative (From page 307). Bit of Tolkien lore for those who don't know; Sauron/Gorthaur, the bad guy from the Lord of the Rings, was given the chance to surrender after his boss, Morgoth, was defeated in the First War, and it's speculated he genuinely desired to repent, but was such a bloody coward he ran instead. The whole Lord of the Rings plot-line wouldn't have happened if he'd returned to Valinor to beg forgiveness.
McGonagall, gasping: "Severus, you have ears—!"
Snape: "STOP IT."