MELTING THE FROST
Chapter One: Unpleasant Welcoming

All right, as promised, my first Harry Potter fic (about SnapeSpats, for certes!). I'm sure this storyline is fairly common but I've tried to take a fresh approach. It will be chaptered; this is only the very beginning. Thanks so much to Honoria Glossop for introducing me to this fandom and for being my beta reader and support staff! Now I'll shut up; you read and enjoy. ^^
Harry Potter is, of course, © J.K. Rowling and Scholastic Books.
Rated PG for mild language. So far. ^^
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He couldn't quite settle the twitch in his eye, nor relax the sneer on his face, as he lowered himself into that cushioned rolling chair in the desolate classroom. The stacks of boxes, steamer trunks, parcels towering over him all bore the same inscrutable lettering: "Extra Flasks", "History of Magic, Vols. I – VIII", "Herbs P – U"; it went on and on, all perfectly organised and marked and sorted to the point of nausea. Oh, yes, he could still see that glower in the Deputy Headmistress's face now: "If you don't care to assist us in the festivities, Professor, then perhaps you'd do best to make yourself useful by getting her classroom belongings in order." Humph, get her classroom in order, indeed—Miss Bedelia Flannigan was positively an orderly freak.

But better for him to be here than the Welcoming Banquet. He couldn't bear to see yet another giddy new face rejoicing at their unknown triumph over him, once more, by snatching away the ever-abandoned Defence Against the Dark Arts post. And by that preposterous Irishwoman at that! At first sight of him, she looked as she'd rather spit on him than shake his hand. And then the toads—oh, Merlin, those toads… Falling out of her sleeves, leaping about his shoes, dashing into his cape… He cringed at the very remembrance of it. Disgusting creatures, almost as hideous as the woman herself. The only use toads served him were to be dismembered for his potions.

He flicked a clump of inky hair from his eyes; let his spidery fingers crawl to the quill resting in its well on the desk. The feast wouldn't be over for hours, he knew, and he was in no rush to unpack for her. What, Potions Master wasn't lowly enough an assignment for him? He had to be a house-elf now? He had more important tasks for Dumbledore than assuring Miss Flannigan felt welcome.

Snatching a sheet of fresh parchment from the top desk drawer (and pointedly not looking at the letterhead reading "Bedelia Flannigan, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" at the top) he began to scratch ferociously at it, determined to eke a new verse out of himself before the evening was up. His newest concoction was hardly of worth to him, but was so potentially volatile it demanded only the trickiest of riddles. And he wrote:

A pinch of one desire—
though not the one I hold
from root that fills your belly
and may clog up your soul
Then stirred (in timely fashion
as no other way will do)
Add a cup of this powder
that turns me into stew:
(From a roaring beast that struts
deep inside the sea
I'd be a coward without unpowdered
this inside of me.)
And now you think you're pretty quick
But we're only half through.
You've yet to learn the many things
That this potion can do—

With an irate wave the parchment disintegrated. Total drivel, he chastised himself. Who did he think he was, anyway, trying to cipher a riddle to make a potent new formula for Bottled-Up Passion? Sure, it caught students' attention for the first day of the new term, but he didn't know the first thing about passion—aside from passionate dislike, anyway. Honestly.

Miss Bedelia Flannigan—he always heard the name inside his head in childish singsong tones—had certainly thought so, too. Upon shaking his hand, she just couldn't help but cry out at what an icy palm he had, and—now he was really seething as he recalled the incident—continued to make snappy remarks about him through their tour of the school. "This must be Severus's quarters," she had noted of the dungeons. "It seems the perfect frigid cavern for an overgrown bat." All the other teachers got a great kick out of that, all right. …Well. Come to think of it, he hadn't been the only one singled out by the smarmy redhead; McGonagall, Vector, and even Dumbledore had played brunt of her jokes during the tour, but her jabs at them held considerably more levity, as far as he was concerned. Though maybe he was taking it all a mite too personally.

And quite abruptly he leapt three feet in the air as he was goosed by what might have been a Mackled Malaclaw for all the hurt it caused.

"Poor ickle Snapey's sittin' round on his fat arse, broodin' again, I see! Let's see if I can cheer 'im up a bit, yeh bastard!" cackle the voice behind him. No need to turn around.

"Sod off, Peeves."

"Naughty, naughty! What vulgar words! Madam Pomfrey orter clean yer bloody mouth out!" The poltergeist whipped around to face him with the same dumb grin as ever perpetually haunting his face.

Severus raised an unamused brow. "And here you are pestering the head of Slytherin. I'd hate to think what the Bloody Baron would think of that." The reaction was as hoped; Peeves became more transparent and did his absolute best to assume a reverent demeanor (which wasn't very good at all). "Maybe you'd have more fun at the banquet instead? Hurling food at the new Professor Flannigan sounds more to your liking."

"Bollocks! Dumbledore'd spoil my fun; he always gets me back. I'd much rather be pissing you--" Peeves scowled once more at Snape's warning look. "That is, I think I'll go see if I can't kick Mrs. Norris round a bit." With that, the poltergeist flitted away.

Severus scarcely believed Peeves would pass up a chance to rough up a banquet, Dumbledore or no; he must have taken a bruising from Flannigan himself. Now he didn't know whether to be impressed by the woman, or terrified of her.

His gaze went, quite unwillingly, to the stacks of boxes and for a moment he considered doing as asked. (The urge passed.) No, he liked the way the piles blocked him inside the room: they served simultaneously as a reminder that the classroom was still not his, but a comforting barrier from those that would contest it.

Crrrrooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak.

His hand went to the wand tucked inside his cloak, but stopped there. Moving only his eyes, he surveyed the classroom, but his view was effectively barricaded by the columns of packing crates (some looking quite precarious in their leaning). No sign that Peeves had returned, or any of the other haunts, for that matter; at last he called, "Who's there?"

And silence—for a moment. But then a scratching—no, not a scratching, but a flopping about, like a lame creature unable to pull itself to its feet, and slowly it crescendoed, but abruptly faded again. Then there must have been a breeze, for he could swear he saw one of the pillars of boxes swaying.

Hunching his shoulders, he busied himself with a new poem for an anti-bedsores salve he'd conjured up in his head the previous night while falling asleep. But after a few lines, his mind strayed.

When Dumbledore had told them that Miss Flannigan had been hired, Severus was very surprised to find that he seemed the only teacher who didn't recognize her name instantly. He later learned she had come to Hogwarts during his fifth year—not the greatest time for me, he thought ruefully—and that she had risen to be Head Girl of Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws hardly had a place in the DADA post. They needed one not only well-versed in the cunning of the Dark Arts, but one intimately familiar with the trappings of the path of Darkness itself, one who had learned how to escape those guiles, one with the pride to go on despite the Dark Mark forever etched into his arm—

"Oh, hello, Professor Snape. I was going to fetch one of my books to show Minerva, but I see you haven't unpacked my belongings yet."

He ceased to wax poetic and stood up briskly. Leaning back against the arched entrance to the classroom, one pointed boot propped upon the doorjamb, the folds of her prim emerald schoolteacher's skirt reaching just past sickly, knobby knees, was Bedelia Flannigan: the newest scar upon his tortured life. Her frightfully red curls were gathered in the back and tied with a deep green ribbon, and he somehow knew that she'd actually wasted the time to arrange it that way herself instead of using a Hair Charm. One of the infamous Celtic Mudbloods, he had no doubt. A nasty grin festered on her sallow face, and she began to stride around the columns with rehearsed precision as a toad remained perched on her shoulder.

"I'm offended you don't care to join us this evening," she drawled from somewhere behind a stack of steamer trunks. "I never realized what great fun these feasts are without all the students 'round. Flitwick's a hoot once you get a bit of liquor into 'im, tain't he? We really are having a great time, and it's a shame you're choosing to miss out on it. I didn't expect to have such a blast as a teacher here! I mean, I thought we were supposed to be all uptight and stiff!"

"The new term begins in less than a week," was all he said.

As she returned to view she let out a disapproving sigh. "I don't intend to get too accustomed to it, Severus." He bristled at the use of his first name. "But I'm in the manner of thinking we should be enjoyin' the intimate atmosphere of the student-free school, y'know? No, I guess you wouldn't know anything about that. 'Course, you've been here a while, you know these teachers on a more peer-like basis than I do. I mean, some of 'em were here when I was learnin' the craft! It's just new to me, is all—"

"What is it you were looking for?" he demanded. Incessant rambling—another trait topping his list of annoyances.

She drew her freckled face back a bit; the goofy smile vanished. "Sorry. Just one of my books. It's probably right in here, I'm sure I stuck it under this category—Sorry." Bedelia went silent again.

Severus stepped from behind the desk and, drawing his cloak around him tight, drummed his fingers upon his arms. "Why are you apologising?" Indolent Ravenclaws; never quite learned properly how to play at politics…

"Do you care to help me, or do you intend to just flit about asking questions of me all day?" Those damned granny boots clicked impatiently on the stone floor. "Honestly, I've only been here a day and already you resent me—don't look at me like that, I know it as well as you do. Not too slow to make a judgment, are yeh?"

He turned away from where she was hunched over a crate; the toad kept pawing backward to keep from slipping off her shoulder. "You may have been Head Girl in your day, but there's still much you have to learn about Hogwarts. Don't expect the title of Professor to suffice in preparing you."

"Really. Minerva's told me all about yew." Upon snapping the lid back in place, she gathered her skirts and stood up. "Well, I've found me book. I'll be seeing yeh, Professor; sorry for the intrusion." When he turned back to face her, she tried to give a friendly smile and a wave, but they dissipated mid-air. "Right, then." She spun and trotted from the room. She must have been tipsy herself: she had acted far too acquiescent.

Severus cringed as the heavy oak door thudded shut behind her; the chandelier rattled, and the stacks swayed. One crate in particular looked about ready to fall, he'd better scoot it back over—

With the sickening splintering of wood, it impacted against the ground and shards flew everywhere, as did… toads?

Thousands upon thousands of amphibians of all sizes and colours, presumably held under a Sleeping Charm until now, swarmed throughout the classroom, crawling over the desks, spilling onto the shelving, jumping with manic possession for the mere sake of jumping. Their incantations of ribbits and croaks resonated through the chamber in a chaotic chorus. They climbed up his cloak and his trouser legs, entangled their spindly legs in his hair, perched upon every plateau they could possibly find, shrieking all the while. They coated the room, the crates, the floor—the ceiling—and he just stood there amidst the fury feeling his rage grow and grow and grow.

If there had been any doubts still loitering obliviously in Severus's mind, they had surely now been banished: he loathed Bedelia Flannigan with a passion that defied words.

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