Part Two: Practicality
Severus Snape was a practical man. There were things you could change (or thought you could change – though nineteen years teaching children the delicate art of potions had given him some views on this) and things you couldn't.
His parents had spent most of his childhood trying one potion after another on him in an attempt to increase his magical potential. He had spent most of those same years learning how to use the skills he had to their utmost potential. Who cared if he couldn't shine in the traditionally powerful arts of Transfigurations and Charms when he could shine in Potions, Arithmancy and Astronomy?
Well, his parents and most of Hogwarts – but he had learned not to care. And really, wasn't that all that mattered?
His peers in Slytherin had spent a good proportion of their time at Hogwarts attempting to attract girls into their beds. Severus, the inheritor of the Snape nose, Snape hair and Milton body – an awkward combination at best – hadn't needed more than one (alright seven) derisive looks to realise that girls, attraction and his bed would never be used in the same sentence except in the negative. Which saved him some time at a later date when he realised he'd rather not have girls in his bed (thank you very much).
And the male homosexual population at Hogwarts was such that he did get laid – several times – before graduation. Which proved that practicality (or at least desperation on his partners' parts) worked just as well as any modicum of romance and idealism.
Severus was a practical man – he prided himself on knowing when to accept and adapt to circumstances beyond his control.
When the war ended and the remaining Death Eaters (him included if only by default since this time his use as a spy had been well and truly destroyed care of the Daily Prophet) were discovered to have lost all their magical abilities, Severus had known what would come. After all, the Ministry would have to be made entirely of fools if they funded research into returning the magical powers of the Death Eaters. Especially as negative-muggles were easier to control and far more susceptible to spells than muggles.
With Fudge a soulless creature somewhere in St Mungos, and Minister Mildweather at the head of the Ministry, Severus had accepted the inevitable.
His letter of resignation had been on the Headmaster's desk an hour after he left (because nineteen years working for Albus Dumbledore had taught Severus several things). A day later, Severus had been safely installed in Snape Manor's sole remaining habitable room and organising the last of his family's House Elves into making the rest of the crumbling structure safe for a negative-muggle.
It wasn't the life he would have envisioned for himself. But then, neither had becoming a spy or fighting in a war. Or come to think of it, growing old with three House Elves and a frog.
And if he woke in the mornings just as the grey wintry sunlight streamed through the cracked glass of the windows just so and remembered that at this time, last year, he had woken up at this time to collect mint touched by the equinox moon –
Well, it was becoming easier to roll over and sleep for several more hours.
He missed –
But dwelling on the impossible was not practical. So – he kept rolling over, because eventually he would stop mentally cataloguing ingredients every time he stepped outside. And eventually, he would stop gesturing for quill and parchment. And eventually, he might even stop thinking of new research he finally had time to conduct. Eventually, Severus knew, he would stop waking up early.
A year passed, and Severus not so much resigned himself as adapted to growing old with three House Elves and the frog that somehow kept getting into his room. It wasn't much of a life, but it was better than being dead – or in a muggle jail, or following Henrik and Jenny Kensington around on a leash (as was the fate of Nott).
Then, one day – sometime in June, Severus woke up and found Harry Potter waiting on the doorstep.
An hour later, an owl nearly knocked him out as it landed and delivered a letter from Albus Dumbledore – who, as it turned out, had a very keen sense of irony.
