Chapter 2 - The Do-Not-Trust List
Suspicion on general principles surrounding him like a shroud, Severus Snape returned to Slytherin Tower. Shoulders drawn up tightly, his long untidy hair covering most of his face, he made his silent way through the Slytherin Common Room. A few students looked at him but no one spoke to him.
That was the way he liked it. People made him afraid. They made him afraid, and that was enough to condemn them all in his eyes. Just stay the bloody hell out of my way and I'll stay the bloody hell out of yours.
Severus entered the bedroom and looked around briefly. No one else there; fine with him. It was time to do a little thinking. He had a school vacation to plan for, after all.
Should he return to the Potter home, or shouldn't he? He knew his heart cried out for an affirmative response, but he had been wrong before. He had trusted the wrong sort before, and had always been burned for it. It always paid to be cautious – especially when you contemplated something that would make you happy. Happy moments were few and far between for Severus Snape.
Well, time to get on with it.
He pulled out his oldest and best copy of Most Potente Potions. Translated from Gitford Haas' Dutch edition and printed in Munich in 1823, it had cost him nothing since he had stolen it from his old man's library. Nasty git never missed it; nor would he miss it now. Few library privileges in Azkaban these days; Severus thought to himself, a nasty little smirk forming on his face. That was a good one!
Pulling his wand out of his sleeve, Sev tapped page 148 four times, and a sizeable parchment appeared on his desk.
It was his Do-Not-Trust List. He occasionally consulted it when making decisions; after all, even paranoids had enemies. Severus smirked again. Another good one. He was the lad for jokes today!
Right up there at the top of the list was none other than Confutatis Maledictis Snape. It was depressing, really, to read the long list of transgressions his father had committed against him -- at least, those transgressions he had dared commit to writing. The list seemed to go on forever, and the last entry had been made only a few months ago. And then -- they had stopped.
The earliest accounts were hearsay from his mother, of course. Da had gotten himself in a heap of trouble when he had taken his infant son to St. Mungo's, complaining that the useless little git didn't seem interested in his toys, or in playing, or doing anything other than lying still and staring into space. Severus sighed. At least he had learned early how to keep his mouth shut. According to Mum, the St. Mungo's healer had then asked Da where the useless little git had gotten a fractured skull.
Well, it had hit the proverbial fan then! Yes indeed!
Snape the Elder had responded that the useless little git had fallen out of his crib, right onto his own bloody head. The healer had pointed out to Da that babies generally didn't launch themselves out of cribs to scramble their brains on hard marble floors, and that a Report would Have to be Filed.
Severus wondered if such a report had ever been filed, and -- if so -- where it had ended up. "In the garbage, most likely," the boy murmured to himself, "along with the rest of my childhood."
That had been the end of St. Mungo's for him. Privately-compensated healers had beaten a steady path to Snape Manor over the years, tidying up all those nasty little injuries caused by that ugly little prat (formerly the useless little git) falling out of trees, falling down staircases, falling off brooms, falling into the fireplace, and so forth and so on, et cetera and et cetera.
All designed, of course, to inconvenience the illustrious Confutatis Maledictis Snape. Couldn't have that. Spare the rod and spoil the child!
Of course, there were healing spells and this and that to toss around when you didn't want anyone knowing what you were up to. The only problem with using the Dark arts for such purposes is that one of these days your bones just might crumble to powder on you. Using glamourie was all right as far as it went, but then again, certain people might just see right through them.
That Albus Dumbledore had been nobody's fool. He had Filed one of Those Reports, but nothing Had Come of It. Well, that hadn't really been the Headmaster's fault, now, hadn't it? He had urged Severus to provide testimony to the Ministry that would have landed Da in a world of hurt back when he was a First-Year, and it would have served him right. Severus had declined, giving Dumbledore no particular reason. Folks like Dumbledore didn't think of what would have happened next if he had. When one's mother's life had been threatened, one kept one's mouth shut. He had more or less learned to ignore threats on his own life, the same way hd'd learned to ignore mirrors.
Severus caught a ragged sigh in his throat as he continued to scan the list. Why hadn't they just given Mister Confutatis Maledictis Snape the Dementor's Kiss right away? That would have been fun. Severus would have loved to have taken the parental unit to St. Mungo's to sit and dribble and drool with the rest of the brain-dead.
How do you like it, Father, he would have asked. If you fall into the fireplace or fall down a flight of steps or fall out of your bed onto the hard floor and gods forbid snap your stinking neck like a twig, they might Have to File a Report.
File this, you bastard. I hate you for killing my life.
Severus briefly wondered what sort of boy he would have become if -- for example -- Mr. Potter or Albus Dumbledore had been his father instead. Twisting his fingers, he now slammed the proverbial lid onto that line of inquiry in a hurry. It would only provide him with a few moments of useless hurt and the chance to go off on a crying jag just when one of his blithering idiot roomates came in jabbering about Quidditch or some girl they fancied.
And next on the Do-Not-Trust List?
Mum, of course. Nice woman. She loved him and he loved her, but she was Weak. If James Potter had been beaten up by some evil savage perverted Dark Arts freak -- if James Bloody Potter had been thrown onto the bloody hard marble floor for crying too bloody much, you could bet that Mrs. Potter would have belted the git right into next week. Severus often wondered whether Mum's own brains had been scrambled at some point. Too many blows to the head, perhaps, accounted for her lapses in judgment.Those crib accidents can be nasty.
Severus quickly scanned the next batch of names, most in a recent hand.
Mallory Phagan - shoved me out of his way going down the hall. Twice.
Sophia Stellamaris - made me trust her then threw it in my face. Made me feel like a bigger freak than I generally do.
Lucius Malfoy - for treating me like I was something that needed to be scraped off the bottom of his expensively-shod foot; for having more money than I have; for being more handsome than I could ever hope to be, on and on ad infinitum.
Mrs. Whatzername Vox - for forcing my Martis to transfer to Beauxbatons.He still wanted to believe that the old battleaxe had also forbidden Martis from owling him, ever. He still wanted to believe that Martis would always be his friend, like she'd promised.
Moira Everts - for making fun of my nose.
Everett Potts - for making fun of my nose.
Cassandra Kariotis - for making fun of my nose.
Greta Bulstrode - for being a pushy cow who sat around picking at her fingernails with her big teeth while I did all the lab work.
Daveigh Morgan - for laughing at me because my clothes were too small.
Willett Gargery - for telling me I was uglier than his ass end.
Next on the list were the Marauders.
Sirius Bloody Black - for treating me like I was his personal whipping boy. For chafing and vexing and goading me as if it was his Mission from God. For being good at Quidditch and good at getting girls to drool all over him and for making it all look so easy. I hate you so much, Sillyass Bloody Black.
Remus Bloody Lupin - for sitting there like a sap watching Black beat the crap out of me. Git should have sold bloody tickets.
Peter Bloody Pettigrew - for dribbling down his shirt front with joy every time ol' Snivelly took it in the teeth. For being a nasty fat porky git who sucked up my fear and pain like it was the ambrosia of the gods.
There it was. The last name.
James Bloody Potter.
Saint James the Incorrigible.
For not falling off his broom and onto his big nose and for not being so afraid of being wrong and for not waking up everyone in the bedroom with screaming nightmares three times a week, at least, until they all wanted to drown him in the well just to shut him the hell up.
James Bloody Potter didn't have any horrors. He had a good home and decent parents. He had apologized and had even taken the Wizard's Oath, not that it mattered much, really, but he had made the gesture. He had apologized repeatedly for hurting Martis. He had also apologized for up-ending Severus, baring his ass to the entire bloody school. Perhaps Remus Bloody Lupin could have sold tickets to that as well.
Snape blinked hard. Those weren't tears, were they? Oh, please. Back to business.
James Bloody Potter had made Snivelly feel welcome in his home, and had let him borrow his old gown (Gryffindor patch be damned!), and had even helped him send his Old Man packing to Azkaban. Bye bye, Da. Happy Yule and May your Soul Rot.
And now James Bloody Potter wanted to spend his Yule Holiday with none other than ugly, sad, pathetic, bashed-up-and-battered-all-to-hell Snivellus Snape. He wanted him to eat chocolate cakes and go to Muggle movies and sleep late and play Exploding Snaps and buy pastries and candy and lie around useless for a whole glorious fortnight.
Severus bit his lip and twisted his long fingers together, not that those gestures helped his decisionmaking any.
He would have liked to ask Martis what she thought of the idea, but Martis was gone. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and clenched them tight. He would have loved to ask Dumbledore but the man would take him for a total idiot if he did, and such a thing couldn't be borne.
I know.
I'll go if Lily thinks it's a good idea.
Lily's name doesn't appear on my Do-Not-Trust List.
At least so far.
Suspicion on general principles surrounding him like a shroud, Severus Snape returned to Slytherin Tower. Shoulders drawn up tightly, his long untidy hair covering most of his face, he made his silent way through the Slytherin Common Room. A few students looked at him but no one spoke to him.
That was the way he liked it. People made him afraid. They made him afraid, and that was enough to condemn them all in his eyes. Just stay the bloody hell out of my way and I'll stay the bloody hell out of yours.
Severus entered the bedroom and looked around briefly. No one else there; fine with him. It was time to do a little thinking. He had a school vacation to plan for, after all.
Should he return to the Potter home, or shouldn't he? He knew his heart cried out for an affirmative response, but he had been wrong before. He had trusted the wrong sort before, and had always been burned for it. It always paid to be cautious – especially when you contemplated something that would make you happy. Happy moments were few and far between for Severus Snape.
Well, time to get on with it.
He pulled out his oldest and best copy of Most Potente Potions. Translated from Gitford Haas' Dutch edition and printed in Munich in 1823, it had cost him nothing since he had stolen it from his old man's library. Nasty git never missed it; nor would he miss it now. Few library privileges in Azkaban these days; Severus thought to himself, a nasty little smirk forming on his face. That was a good one!
Pulling his wand out of his sleeve, Sev tapped page 148 four times, and a sizeable parchment appeared on his desk.
It was his Do-Not-Trust List. He occasionally consulted it when making decisions; after all, even paranoids had enemies. Severus smirked again. Another good one. He was the lad for jokes today!
Right up there at the top of the list was none other than Confutatis Maledictis Snape. It was depressing, really, to read the long list of transgressions his father had committed against him -- at least, those transgressions he had dared commit to writing. The list seemed to go on forever, and the last entry had been made only a few months ago. And then -- they had stopped.
The earliest accounts were hearsay from his mother, of course. Da had gotten himself in a heap of trouble when he had taken his infant son to St. Mungo's, complaining that the useless little git didn't seem interested in his toys, or in playing, or doing anything other than lying still and staring into space. Severus sighed. At least he had learned early how to keep his mouth shut. According to Mum, the St. Mungo's healer had then asked Da where the useless little git had gotten a fractured skull.
Well, it had hit the proverbial fan then! Yes indeed!
Snape the Elder had responded that the useless little git had fallen out of his crib, right onto his own bloody head. The healer had pointed out to Da that babies generally didn't launch themselves out of cribs to scramble their brains on hard marble floors, and that a Report would Have to be Filed.
Severus wondered if such a report had ever been filed, and -- if so -- where it had ended up. "In the garbage, most likely," the boy murmured to himself, "along with the rest of my childhood."
That had been the end of St. Mungo's for him. Privately-compensated healers had beaten a steady path to Snape Manor over the years, tidying up all those nasty little injuries caused by that ugly little prat (formerly the useless little git) falling out of trees, falling down staircases, falling off brooms, falling into the fireplace, and so forth and so on, et cetera and et cetera.
All designed, of course, to inconvenience the illustrious Confutatis Maledictis Snape. Couldn't have that. Spare the rod and spoil the child!
Of course, there were healing spells and this and that to toss around when you didn't want anyone knowing what you were up to. The only problem with using the Dark arts for such purposes is that one of these days your bones just might crumble to powder on you. Using glamourie was all right as far as it went, but then again, certain people might just see right through them.
That Albus Dumbledore had been nobody's fool. He had Filed one of Those Reports, but nothing Had Come of It. Well, that hadn't really been the Headmaster's fault, now, hadn't it? He had urged Severus to provide testimony to the Ministry that would have landed Da in a world of hurt back when he was a First-Year, and it would have served him right. Severus had declined, giving Dumbledore no particular reason. Folks like Dumbledore didn't think of what would have happened next if he had. When one's mother's life had been threatened, one kept one's mouth shut. He had more or less learned to ignore threats on his own life, the same way hd'd learned to ignore mirrors.
Severus caught a ragged sigh in his throat as he continued to scan the list. Why hadn't they just given Mister Confutatis Maledictis Snape the Dementor's Kiss right away? That would have been fun. Severus would have loved to have taken the parental unit to St. Mungo's to sit and dribble and drool with the rest of the brain-dead.
How do you like it, Father, he would have asked. If you fall into the fireplace or fall down a flight of steps or fall out of your bed onto the hard floor and gods forbid snap your stinking neck like a twig, they might Have to File a Report.
File this, you bastard. I hate you for killing my life.
Severus briefly wondered what sort of boy he would have become if -- for example -- Mr. Potter or Albus Dumbledore had been his father instead. Twisting his fingers, he now slammed the proverbial lid onto that line of inquiry in a hurry. It would only provide him with a few moments of useless hurt and the chance to go off on a crying jag just when one of his blithering idiot roomates came in jabbering about Quidditch or some girl they fancied.
And next on the Do-Not-Trust List?
Mum, of course. Nice woman. She loved him and he loved her, but she was Weak. If James Potter had been beaten up by some evil savage perverted Dark Arts freak -- if James Bloody Potter had been thrown onto the bloody hard marble floor for crying too bloody much, you could bet that Mrs. Potter would have belted the git right into next week. Severus often wondered whether Mum's own brains had been scrambled at some point. Too many blows to the head, perhaps, accounted for her lapses in judgment.Those crib accidents can be nasty.
Severus quickly scanned the next batch of names, most in a recent hand.
Mallory Phagan - shoved me out of his way going down the hall. Twice.
Sophia Stellamaris - made me trust her then threw it in my face. Made me feel like a bigger freak than I generally do.
Lucius Malfoy - for treating me like I was something that needed to be scraped off the bottom of his expensively-shod foot; for having more money than I have; for being more handsome than I could ever hope to be, on and on ad infinitum.
Mrs. Whatzername Vox - for forcing my Martis to transfer to Beauxbatons.He still wanted to believe that the old battleaxe had also forbidden Martis from owling him, ever. He still wanted to believe that Martis would always be his friend, like she'd promised.
Moira Everts - for making fun of my nose.
Everett Potts - for making fun of my nose.
Cassandra Kariotis - for making fun of my nose.
Greta Bulstrode - for being a pushy cow who sat around picking at her fingernails with her big teeth while I did all the lab work.
Daveigh Morgan - for laughing at me because my clothes were too small.
Willett Gargery - for telling me I was uglier than his ass end.
Next on the list were the Marauders.
Sirius Bloody Black - for treating me like I was his personal whipping boy. For chafing and vexing and goading me as if it was his Mission from God. For being good at Quidditch and good at getting girls to drool all over him and for making it all look so easy. I hate you so much, Sillyass Bloody Black.
Remus Bloody Lupin - for sitting there like a sap watching Black beat the crap out of me. Git should have sold bloody tickets.
Peter Bloody Pettigrew - for dribbling down his shirt front with joy every time ol' Snivelly took it in the teeth. For being a nasty fat porky git who sucked up my fear and pain like it was the ambrosia of the gods.
There it was. The last name.
James Bloody Potter.
Saint James the Incorrigible.
For not falling off his broom and onto his big nose and for not being so afraid of being wrong and for not waking up everyone in the bedroom with screaming nightmares three times a week, at least, until they all wanted to drown him in the well just to shut him the hell up.
James Bloody Potter didn't have any horrors. He had a good home and decent parents. He had apologized and had even taken the Wizard's Oath, not that it mattered much, really, but he had made the gesture. He had apologized repeatedly for hurting Martis. He had also apologized for up-ending Severus, baring his ass to the entire bloody school. Perhaps Remus Bloody Lupin could have sold tickets to that as well.
Snape blinked hard. Those weren't tears, were they? Oh, please. Back to business.
James Bloody Potter had made Snivelly feel welcome in his home, and had let him borrow his old gown (Gryffindor patch be damned!), and had even helped him send his Old Man packing to Azkaban. Bye bye, Da. Happy Yule and May your Soul Rot.
And now James Bloody Potter wanted to spend his Yule Holiday with none other than ugly, sad, pathetic, bashed-up-and-battered-all-to-hell Snivellus Snape. He wanted him to eat chocolate cakes and go to Muggle movies and sleep late and play Exploding Snaps and buy pastries and candy and lie around useless for a whole glorious fortnight.
Severus bit his lip and twisted his long fingers together, not that those gestures helped his decisionmaking any.
He would have liked to ask Martis what she thought of the idea, but Martis was gone. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and clenched them tight. He would have loved to ask Dumbledore but the man would take him for a total idiot if he did, and such a thing couldn't be borne.
I know.
I'll go if Lily thinks it's a good idea.
Lily's name doesn't appear on my Do-Not-Trust List.
At least so far.