Chapter 1: Denial
It's not like Severus believes in any of that muggle crap- karma, or cosmic justice, or, Merlin forbid, theism- but there is some small, repressed part of his mind that holds a self-sustained concept of morality; therefore he is able to acknowledge, begrudgingly, that even though he hasn't exactly expected the universe to conspire against him to punish him for his misdeeds, he can at least admit that he probably deserves this.
But there are just so many other ways that Severus could have come to suffer something disagreeable enough to be considered his comeuppance, and Severus would have preferred literally any of those other painful, mortifying, bloody possibilities to this.
This being, of course, Potter in Slytherin.
Of which he is Head of House, and to whose students he is socially obligated to not only play favorites but refrain from any punishments at all, let alone the kind of humiliating and unrelenting campaign of spite that he has been plotting out all summer just for Potter's arrival.
It's a nightmare.
He barely makes it through the Welcome Feast without setting Potter's atrocious bird's nest of a head on fire by the force of his glare alone. He doesn't bother to ensure the prefects are orienting his first-years correctly; instead, he stalks out of the Great Hall on Dumbledore's heels. It takes less than two minutes for Minerva to catch up to them, and then they are all arguing fiercely and paying little mind to the curious upper-years they encounter.
"Re-sort him at once," Severus demands without preamble.
"Ah, Severus," Dumbledore sighs in that infuriatingly calm manner. "You know I can't do that."
"Of course you can; you're the headmaster," Severus insists. "And he's Harry Potter. I think the circumstances are extenuating enough!"
"You can't possibly let Potter stay in Slytherin!" Minerva agrees.
"I don't see why not," Dumbledore says genially.
"But- because he's Harry Potter! He can't stay there!"
"If you think Potter belongs in your house just because he's some celebrity..." Severus sneers.
"Oh, don't tell me you're not just as displeased about it as I am," Minerva huffs. She's right; he would vastly prefer any other House at all for Potter, but the arguing, accusations, aspersions seem to have become second nature when he feels his House has been slighted. "A dead-ringer for his father, he is, except for-"
"Don't," Severus says darkly.
Minerva eyes him for a moment, then shakes it off and continues. "It's not that I insist he should be in Gryffindor, Albus- although obviously I believe he belongs there, yes- but Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw would be fine as well-"
"Of course, Slytherin is never good enough-"
"It's not a matter of House at all!" Minerva interrupts, voice shrill. "It's a matter of housemates! How many of those boys he's to be living with are children of Death Eaters, Severus?"
Severus' lip twitches up in a hint of a snarl. "Four of the five," he admits. "And Zabini's no stranger to murder, either, I'm sure."
"They'll eat him alive, Albus!"
"I'm sure young Harry is at no risk from his eleven-year-old classmates," Dumbledore says gravely as they approach the gargoyle guarding his office. "Acid pops."
"It's not just the first-years I'm worried about!" Minerva's voice gets, if possible, even more shrill. "There are plenty of other Dark and allied families whose children in Slytherin are older and more capable of harm!"
"I'm sure Severus is more than able to maintain peace within his own House." Dumbledore sits behind his desk; Severus and Minerva both remain standing, rigid, in front of him.
"I'll curse the boy myself if it means you'll remove him from my House."
"Alas, it's not your will that decides the boy's House but the Sorting Hat's," Dumbledore says, gesturing to the offending article in question.
"I stand by what I said," says the Hat, although nobody actually asked it for its opinion. "Potter will do well in Slytherin."
"Surely there are exceptions to be made if his safety is in question," Minerva pleads.
"Or the sanity of his Head of House," Severus adds.
Dumbledore, infuriatingly, just smiles at them and shakes his head. "Alas, his sorting is final. He is a Slytherin and shall remain so. And Severus, in addition to... other commitments you have made in the past, it is also your duty as Head of House Slytherin to ensure Mr. Potter's safety."
"I won't do this!" Severus snarls.
"Albus-" Minerva tries again.
"His sorting is final," Dumbledore repeats, harder and more firmly than before. His words are final, too.
Severus sweeps out of the office in a blistering rage. He stalks straight to his quarters, abandoning all plans of greeting the new first years personally. No doubt Draco will be disappointed that he can't immediately flaunt his family connections to his Head of House, but Severus will deal with him tomorrow. For tonight, he can't stomach the sight of Potter in a green tie with those green eyes. Instead, he locks himself in his room, downs a preemptive hangover preventative potion, and proceeds to get roaring drunk.
...
Alas, the nightmare of James Potter's son in Severus' own House does not disappear when he wakes, and does not improve throughout the first week of classes. The nightmare of teaching in general does not ease up, either. He has always hated the start of term, but this term is looking to be particularly odious.
He has been ignoring Potter so far. It's a far cry from the humiliation he had planned but still a notably frostier countenance than the rest of the House receives; he hasn't been able to expand his penchant for favoritism among Slytherins to this particular child and honestly, he hasn't been trying very hard. Let the other professors and the rest of the student body fawn over the Boy Who Lived if they want to; Severus stoutly refuses.
And it's fine, really, because Minerva has been keeping an annoyingly close watch on the boy anyway, as if she truly believes Crabbe or Goyle capable of any spells at all, let alone one strong or sophisticated enough to do Potter any real damage. Draco does seem to have picked a grudge with the boy, but Severus thinks this is for the best, too, because Lucius will not stand for anyone else to usurp Draco in the House hierarchy and so far Potter has spent too much time avoiding Draco to make any meaningful grab for power among the first-years. Severus approves of this, as it serves his dual purposes of avoiding the timesink of Lucius' petty demands and making sure Potter's head doesn't inflate to the size of his father's.
Then Minerva comes sweeping into his sixth-year potions lesson one afternoon with a morose-looking Potter in tow like a half-drowned duckling (and an ugly one, indeed, Severus thinks smugly to himself) and extends an olive branch of the worst sort.
"Severus, a word?" is all she says in front of his class.
"Baddock," Severus growls at the most competent Slytherin in the class. "Make sure none of your classmates blows anything up."
He shuts the door between the students and whatever appalling story of stupidity Minerva is about to recount, crosses his arms, glowers at Potter until he ducks his head, and turns his attention to his colleague with a raised eyebrow.
"Severus," Minerva says tentatively. "I… There was an incident during Mr. Potter's flying lesson."
Severus snorts, utterly unsurprised. "I trust that you're more than capable of doling out any punishment you see fit, Deputy Headmistress."
"It's not- I don't intend to punish Mr. Potter! Several eyewitnesses have confirmed he was attempting to mitigate-"
"If you don't mind, Minerva," Severus interrupts impatiently. "I am sure the class I just left all but unsupervised is mere minutes away from a fatal explosion, so if you could kindly get to the point."
Minerva huffs. "Mr. Potter caught a remembrall less than a foot off the ground after a fifty-foot dive."
Severus merely raises a disdainful eyebrow.
"He's the most gifted seeker I've seen in decades! It would be a travesty not to put him on a team immediately."
Severus scoffs. "I will do no such thing."
"Severus-"
"If he wants to join the Slytherin team, he can try out next year with the rest of his yearmates. I'll not be making exceptions just because Potter is Hogwarts' newest celebrity."
Minerva sighs wearily and crosses her arms. "Maybe you'll just have to see it to believe it," she says, staring determinedly into his eyes.
Despite himself, Severus takes the invitation. "Legilimens," he whispers.
He watches from Minerva's office window as Potters hurtles toward the ground in a tight spiral and Draco drifts to a more leisurely landing a ways back. Potter grasps a tiny glass ball at the last possible minute and just barely averts a crash. It's an exceptionally dangerous maneuver, even for an experienced flyer, which Potter's clumsy dismount suggests he is not. As much as he tries not to, Severus finds himself impressed.
Informing him of Potter's talent seems exceedingly stupid on Minerva's part, especially given that Gryffindor just lost their best seeker in well over a decade and has no promising prospects to replace him. Severus can feel that competitive little nugget of reluctance in Minerva's mind, but more strongly, he senses her concern for the boy; he catches a wisp of errant thought that Potter would do well to make friends in his own House, beyond the Weasley he befriended on the train, and that a spot on the Slytherin quidditch team could be beneficial to him. It's a disgustingly selfless, Gryffindorish sentiment, but Severus can't refrain from taking advantage of it.
He pulls out of her mind and glowers at both Minerva and Potter. He also glowers inwardly at himself for his own avarice. He tells himself that his team already has a seeker and Higgs is half decent. He can't bring himself to believe it.
"Potter," he growls. "You'll meet Marcus Flint and Terrence Higgs on the quidditch pitch tonight at eight PM. Do not be late."
Draco is surely going to resent him for this. Lucius will not be pleased either. Neither of them will hate him more than he already hates himself.
Potter only nods anxiously. Severus sneers at him and at Minerva, then swoops back into his classroom.
From the smell of things, someone added too much powdered bicorn horn to their serenity solution. He spends the rest of class yelling at students and taking points from everyone but his Slytherins.
...
The next day, Flint confirms that Potter's practically a prodigy on a broom. Even Higgs wants him on the team; apparently, he's more than happy to take the open chaser spot and leave the seeking to Potter. Severus is simultaneously thrilled and appalled.
Flint asks for special permission to buy Potter his own broom. Severus adamantly refuses. He'll do just fine on a school broom and he won't allow the brat any more reasons to inflate his overly large head- especially given it's already butting enough with Draco's own not-unsizeable ego.
...
Severus was planning to spend Halloween in the same manner as the last nine years: getting quietly and deeply drunk in the privacy of his own quarters. Instead, he finds himself sprinting to the third floor to head off whomever had the gall and the poor sense to use one of the Stone's own defenses as a distraction from an attempt to steal it. Unfortunately, he assumes that the supposed thief would have already decapacitated the cerberus by now and yanks the door open thoughtlessly in his haste. He pays for that assumption with a nasty bite to the leg, but he does manage to catch sight of Quirrell turning the corner, spotting him outside the door, and abruptly changing course, so at least he's got a suspect.
Figures that someone idiotic enough to employ a distraction sourced from the very location he was attempting to penetrate would also be idiotic enough to waste valuable time raising the alarm about the distraction himself.
As if that's not bad enough, Severus is then tugged back downstairs by Minerva- and therefore must insist that Quirrell accompany them as well, so as not allow him free reign of the third floor- to find that Potter and two Gryffindors chased down the bloody troll for reasons that are not clear from the obvious lie Granger told.
Honestly. He swore to protect one child and the child goes chasing after fully-grown mountain trolls?
Once Minerva has ushered her Gryffindors away, Severus pulls Potter into his office for a good tongue-lashing.
"Do not for one second believe that I bought Granger's obvious lie about your empty-headed heroism," Severus begins. "I highly doubt she, of the three of you fools, went after the troll with a false sense of her own trumped-up self-importance."
Potter glares daggers at Severus, though the effect is highly diminished by the fact that he's a runt even for a first year. "I didn't go looking for the troll," he protests.
"Don't lie to me, Potter," Severus hisses.
"I'm not!" he yells. "None of us went looking for it, okay? Not even Granger. She'd been in the bathroom all day crying so Ron realized she wouldn't know about the troll. We just wanted to find her and warn her about it," he says petulantly. "We didn't expect the troll to find us."
It's almost as pathetic a story as the one Granger told, but as Potter's not nearly good enough to hide a lie from Severus, it's clear that he's not lying. Severus barely restrains himself from pinching his nose, as he refuses to betray such an obvious sign of weakness. He does, however, sigh heavily and let his eyes stay closed for just a second longer than normal.
"Why did you not just alert a prefect?" he grinds out. "Or a staff member?"
Potter, still glowering, falters slightly as if only just realizing that was an option. "I, er, didn't think about it," he admits.
"Obviously," Severus drawls.
The boy opens his mouth several times as if to protest, but either thinks better of it or decides his own weak retorts will do nothing to help his case. Severus watches the thought process with some small amusement.
"You are eleven years old," Severus reminds him. "You have been studying magic for two months. You can barely turn a matchstick into a needle, let alone protect yourself or your friends from dangerous magical creatures. I don't care what delusions of grandeur you think you can live up to as the Boy Who Lived, but I assure you, you're worse than useless in any life-threatening situation. Running in trying to be a hero is much more likely to get you and all your friends killed. Do you understand?"
"It seemed to work out just fine tonight," Potter says belligerently.
Severus rolls his eyes so hard he might see the back of his eye sockets. "Did you not hear Professor McGonagall, Potter? Sheer. Dumb. Luck. I guarantee you, if you ever find yourself in danger again, or believe somebody else to be in danger, you will do no good attempting to resolve the issue yourself. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," Potter mumbles.
"Yes…?"
"Yes, sir," the boy huffs.
"In the future, if you ever do believe you or one of your classmates is in danger, Mr. Potter, what will you do?"
"Tell a prefect?"
Severus again disabuses himself of the temptation to rub his temples. "Good enough," he mutters.
Potter nods his head curtly and turns to leave, then stops and turns back. "Professor?" he whispers.
Severus raises a cool eyebrow at him.
"Er. In the interest of, erm, practical application of lessons…"
"What else could possibly be endangering your health already, Potter?" Severus sighs, though he gestures at Potter to continue.
"Well, now you're the only professor who knows that Granger wasn't at the feast, and I didn't see her at lunch either..."
"I'll send up a house elf."
This statement elicits more confusion than gratitude from Potter, but if he thinks his token acknowledgement of Severus' instructions or his self-serving display of concern for others should have earned him house points, then he is sorely mistaken. Severus stares Potter down until he flees his office.
...
It really is a bloody miracle that none of them were killed or seriously injured, and Severus finds himself relating rather too much to Minerva's hope that Potter finds friends outside of Gryffindor. Instead, as if Potter was privy to that very thought and set himself determinedly to the contrary, it seems that the troll incident has somehow ingrained Potter even further with the Gryffindors. It's deeply concerning for Severus's multiple duties to keep the boy out of harm's way, and unseemly to boot. Whatever he stands to gain from Granger's intelligence will surely be overshadowed by her dearth of social capital; that friendship will do Potter no favours in Slytherin.
Not that Severus cares an ounce for something as banal as Potter's standing in Slytherin.
He originally hoped to ignore the boy a bit longer, but alas, he now feels the need to be watching Potter at all times lest he run off again and get himself killed. It's clear that Potter would have done well in Gryffindor; Severus can't escape the bitter thought that he very easily could have been Minerva's problem. But the more he watches critically, the more obviously Potter's Slytherin traits stick out from between his red and gold sidekicks.
Potter seems to come naturally to caution, with the confounding exception of imminently dangerous situations. Severus can see him watching the people around him warily, even anticipating some of the more predictable reactions of his peers. He hasn't yet capitulated to Draco, which is either proof of long-term ambition or sheer Lily Evans stubbornness; Severus has yet to decide which. Inevitably, he's been the target of several hallway jinxes and common room ambushes, but hasn't yet required a single trip to the hospital wing. Severus hopes this is indicative of, if not cunning, then at least a certain agility that might serve him well on the quidditch pitch.
...
This hope lasts approximately five days. Then Potter's broom gets jinxed during his first quidditch match and Severus feels abject panic for the first time in ten years. Now that he knows Quirrell is plotting something for the Stone, he's almost positive it's Quirrell jinxing the broom as well, but he's concentrating too hard on a counterjinx to try confronting him directly. Then suddenly his robes are on fire and by the time he's finished extinguishing it, Potter's swallowed the snitch.
What the fuck.
Only once Potter is safely on the ground and disappearing under a sea of green-clad bodies does Severus take a deep breath and allow himself to process the events of the last ten minutes. He has quite a few new suspicions to bring to Dumbledore, but also concerning is the fact that Severus felt rather heavily invested in Potter's well-being, to a level he definitely did not feel after the troll incident.
It's just different watching it happen live, he tells himself. A reasonable reaction to finding any child's life suddenly and unexpectedly in danger. A shock to find his various oaths and duties called upon during a quidditch match, that's all. He most certainly does not feel anything personal for the boy.
Especially not right now, with the Potter's hair windswept just like his arrogant, attention-drunk father's, basking in the adulation of his peers. It's disgusting. Severus is of half a mind to kick Potter back off the team, quidditch cup chances be damned. James Potter's son, a Slytherin quidditch star? It's a travesty. The only person who could possibly be more horrified than Severus would probably be James Potter himself.
… Hmm.
Now there's a thought.
Potter Senior would be well and truly appalled by these proceedings, wouldn't he?
When he thinks about it like that, Severus feels downright smug about letting Potter on the team. He could even find it within himself to be nice to the boy, if it means converting James Potter's only child into the most quintessential Slytherin to ever bear a snake on his chest.
Severus sweeps off the pitch with renewed vigour to confirm the identity of the person (probably Quirrell) behind this half-hearted assassination attempt, because there's no satisfaction in turning the boy into his father's worst nightmare just to see him fall to his premature death at the next match. He'll have to catch the perpetrator (Quirrell) first, yes, but there's no reason he can't start laying on the House pride now.
...
Severus keeps a careful but unobtrusive eye on the post-match party from the semi-transparent portrait connecting his office to the Slytherin common room. Draco tries his best to humiliate Potter for swallowing the snitch, but the majority of the House is just pleased that he caught it at all. Potter is steadily plied with butterbeer and showered with affection by his older teammates and the boy can't quite wipe his utter shock off his face. If he were any other student, Severus would call him starstruck, but given Potter's own celebrity and hereditary arrogance, he's hard-pressed to figure out why Potter seems so stunned to receive praise from other students.
Theodore Nott presses a Chocolate frog card into Potter's hand, and Tracey Davis sits with them for a bit and shares her bowl of crisps. A loner son of a Death Eater and an unremarkable halfblood for friends won't do much for Potter's place in the inner-House hierarchy (already dead-last due to his insistence on befriending Gryffindors), but Potter seems pleased with their attention nonetheless.
He'll be ensconced nicely into his House by the end of the year, and soon enough, Harry Potter will be the proudest Slytherin of his age. And then Severus will go to Godric's Hollow and laugh about it on James Potter's grave.