The Scrapbook
Chapter 3
Disclaimer: To my eternal annoyance, I am not being paid to write fanfiction. If I were, I would quit my job, drop out of school, and spend the next twenty years breeding plotbunnies. Er, anyway. JKR owns the characters and the settings you recognize, and well as what's "really" going to happen. She's very kindly allowed loons like me to play with them, and We Praise Her For It. I seem to recall that the movie people have some sort of rights, too, so genuflections to them as well.
Chapter Description: Entry #2
April 18, 1980, Hogwarts.
From the journal of Severus Snape.
Today has been quite possibly the longest day of my life. It didn't start out all that badly---Esserman managed a Shrinking Solution that did not explode, smoke up the classroom, or crawl out of the cauldron to terrorize his classmates. The sevenths were properly respectful today, which is fortunate for Gryffindor. It has taken, at last count, four hundred and thirty-eight house points to convince them that Sirius Black is not to be mentioned in my class. Bastard.
I am calm now. I am calm.
It went downhill from there. The Headmaster came by after lunch to request that I please not call the first-years "brainless little shit-lickers." He suggests "dunderheads," with a thinly veiled threat that further profanity will result in my promotion to the decorations committee. For the next twenty years.
Dunderheads. Somehow it doesn't have the same ring.
The afternoon was much more tedious with the headmaster's ban on my language. I try to look on the bright side: I will be forced to insult them more creatively, increasing their terror, which is always a good thing, and the loss of my more colorful vocabulary will make it slightly less obvious that my father was a coal miner from Yorkshire. However, the added strain is only increasing my temper. I think I'm developing a tic in my left eye.
Must remember to pick up more willow bark when I'm next in Hogsmeade.
Then there was Miss Mott. My brief conversation with her---possibly the longest ten minutes I have ever experienced---will be burned into my memory as long as I live.
I had office hours tonight from six to eight. I've managed to frighten most of the students away from them, leaving me with a few private hours to read, but there persists of steady trickle of students---Miss Mott among them---who insist upon arriving each night to ask me pointless questions.
She came in, at precisely seven, and proceeded to stare at me with a confused expression on her face.
"Say something or get out, Miss Mott," I said impatiently.
She blushed and looked at her hands. "I have a confession to make, Professor," she mumbled.
My tic came back as I envisioned my classroom covered in black goo.
"I...um...I really like you."
My jaw did not drop open, but it was a close thing.
"That's...ah, that's why I haven't been doing well in class lately. It's not that I'm not studying or not paying attention, or, well, I guess it is that I'm not paying attention because I'm watching you, but I'm not stupid and I really work hard but..."
When had this happened? Half my brain was saying, "What the hell am I supposed to do about this?" and the other half was asking, "Does she have to be in Hufflepuff?" There was also a small part doing a victory dance.
I realized she had stopped speaking and was staring at me with wide eyes. At that moment, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, Hufflepuff or no.
"Uh," was about all I could manage.
"I know you're my teacher, but I've been...watching you, since my fourth year. I even talked to you, right before you left school, not that you'd remember, but..."
She had? It took me a few minutes, but I remembered her---a little blond girl, saying she'd miss me and looking nervously back at a group of giggling girls several meters away before running off. At the time, I had thought it was a prank or a dare---go talk to the big ugly dark wizard---but this new information made it, well, gratifying.
I was thinking she had truly lovely eyelashes when something occurred to me.
"Why are you telling me this?"
She stopped, mid-ramble, and stared at me. A few tense seconds ticked by, during which I noticed that her eyes were actually rather close together. It gave her the vague impression of stupidity.
"I...I hoped you would understand," she said finally. She looked down at her hands, twisting them. "I want to become a mediwitch, but I don't have the marks for it, and..."
She now closely resembled Mad-Eye Moody.
"You wanted me to tutor you? Extra credit, perhaps?" I was starting to get very angry. "Did you not hear what I said on the first day of class? There are no extra projects. There are no special cases. Get out of my office, Miss Mott!"
She squeaked, and ran. The door slammed shut behind her.
With my luck, the Dark Lord will call tonight. Bastard.