Chapter 3 - Snips without Spirals
---------
"Hey," Lily Evans said, tossing down her books on the table and ignoring the dirty looks of the five or six Slytherin hangers-on still finishing their breakfasts.
"Hey," Severus Snape said.
"You look like you haven't slept in a month."
He blinked at her. Why didn't he have the fortitude to just go out and buy a pair of sunglasses to hide behind, like Spirals? "I'm -- all right," he said. "Thank you for agreeing to speak with me."
For such a terror, Severus was really quite fragile in many ways, and she was anxious to set him at ease. "It's my pleasure, Sev. You act like you're not worth it or something!" He dipped his head in that sad way he had, his long dark hair now curtaining his face.
Lily leaned forward. "Hel-lo...anybody home?" she singsonged, hoping to calm his obvious anxiety by smiling into his dark eyes.
She wasn't used to dealing with a person like Severus Snape and suspected that he let very few people see this side of his personality. As fearsome as his magical repertoire appeared to be, she felt she was dealing with a lost little soul so afraid of losing friends that he went out of his way not to make any. He was utterly lost without Britomartis Vox. A few months earlier, his depression had gotten so bad that the Headmaster himself had to take him in hand to help pull him out of it.
"James -- " he began after clearing his throat.
"What has he done, Sev? I'll brain him!"
The Slytherin boy stretched out his hand as if to push her back. "Hold on! He hasn't done anything bad. That's what I wanted to talk to you about! He's -- well, invited me to his home over the Yule Holiday."
Lily's jaw dropped.
"Really?" she recovered.
Immediately, her internal treachery detector went on full alert, her brain crowded with unpleasant images of the Marauders versus Snips without Spirals at his side.
"I -- have a hard time trusting people, Lily," the boy said hesitantly. "I -- don't want to be tricked again. You know what I mean, don't you?"
Recovering quickly again, Lily nodded. "Sure. I understand completely! And you wanted my opinion?"
He nodded. "I used to have Martis to ask, but -- " He dropped his head again.
"You haven't heard from her?"
He shook his head, praying to the gods and anyone else who would listen that his eyes wouldn't begin to water in front of Lovely Lily.
She thinks you're nutters as it is -- if you start blubbing like a baby, she'll get up and walk away and never look at your ugly face again! And who would blame her, after all?
Once he felt back in control, he raised his head and looked into her green eyes with his solemn black ones. "No, I haven't. But that's neither here or there. What do you think of the invitation?" he asked, biting the inside of his cheek out of sheer nervousness.
Lily was quiet for about half a minute, Sev's stomach tightening with each passing second.
"Well, let me think about it, all right?" she asked. "I just want to check a few things out."
"Like if they're setting me up for a particularly cruel prank -- cruel because it's the Yuletide, and cruel because -- "
" -- because your friend isn't with you. Of course." She reached over and squeezed his hand.
He was too surprised to react. He would have loved to have held her hand, if only for a few brief moments. He had no human contact with anyone at all since Martis had been involuntarily transferred to Beauxbatons. He had gotten used to her cheerful affection, and felt his soul dying a little more each day for want of it.
Sensing his mind slipping away into gloominess, Lily took charge. "Well, I must get to Potions, and so must you. Want to partner me today?"
Sev looked up at her, nodding. In spite of what had happened in the Great Hall last term, Lily had no hesitation in continuing to assert that Severus was her friend as well as the best lab partner at Hogwarts.
"Sev -- are you sure you're all right? I think my mentioning Martis upset you, and I'm sorry."
The boy fought a sudden and dreadful urge to cry out in loneliness and bewilderment over Martis' seeming defection and betrayal. She had promised to owl him every day -- and he had heard nothing, after all this time.
Why would she want to stay in touch with a loser like you? She probably has half a dozen boyfriends by now! She only felt sorry for you after all, you clueless git!
His throat tightened painfully. Again, he dipped his head. Just as quickly, Lily grabbed his chin and pushed it back up. His eyes widened.
"No hiding, you! Let's get going, we're late already!" She grabbed a fistful of Slytherin robe and tugged at it to get him moving. Both students got up and hurried through the Great Hall doors just as the House elves began their clean-up in earnest.
By the time Severus walked into the Potions Lab, his emotions had been neatly tucked away and his facial expression set in an undecipherable blank. He was fully composed.
Chillingly so, in fact.
------------
As the weeks and months had passed after Martis had departed for France, Severus had grown more and more desperate in his heart and mind. Why had she broken her promise to stay in touch? His heart ached, and nothing in his life brought him surcease from the constant loneliness he felt.
Sev's roommates had complained -- some out of concern and others out of annoyance -- about his appearance and behavior. He rarely slept and rarely ate. His hair -- which had been admittedly unkempt before -- had gotten downright nasty. He had stopped going to breakfast -- which had progressed to skipping lunch -- until his meagre clothes hung on him. They were pretty sure that he cried in his sleep, though no one really wanted to get close enough to make sure. He had threatened to curse anyone who commented on his physical or mental state; after the Belial incident, Snips' threats were taken very seriously by his Slytherin brothers.
His Head of House, Professor Penderdandis, had come and spoken with him several times, as had Rowena Price, the Slytherin House Mother. Both knew that the boy was in a bad way, yet neither seemed to be able to do anything for him.
Headmaster Dumbledore had been asked to intervene when Severus had stopped going to classes.
-------------
"May I come in?" Dumbledore asked, pushing on the door to one of the dorm rooms in Slytherin Tower. It was already ajar, probably to let some air into the place.
"Severus?"
The old wizard walked in hesitantly. He wasn't afraid of being cursed, as he better than anyone else at Hogwarts had the means at his disposal to combat Dark magic. Rather, he hadn't wanted to alarm the boy.
From the large and motionless lump huddled under the covers of the one unmade bed, he thought he heard a groan.
"Severus? It's me. May I talk with you?"
"No. Please go."
"Everyone is concerned about you."
"Go away."
"They're -- "
Severus broke in, his voice shaking. "They're tired of me stinking up the place. I accept that. Maybe everyone would be happier still if I slit my wrists -- but then, they'd only complain about having to clean up the mess it would make."
Dumbledore darted forward, alarmed. "NO, Severus -- " He whipped back the blanket, revealing the reed-thin boy curled into a tight fetal knot.
"STOP IT!" Severus shrieked, grabbing for the covers. The heartbroken boy lunged after them, and if Albus hadn't caught him in his forward motion, he would have tumbled to the floor head-first. "No," Severus gasped, covering his head and contracting back into a protective ball. "Please let me alone."
"I don't believe I will, Severus," Dumbledore said in his quiet voice. He sat on the edge of the bed, still holding onto him tightly and rubbing the distraught boy's back. "I don't believe I will. I am most concerned about you, and I'm going nowhere until we have a talk."
Still in a knot, Severus shook his head.
"You don't have to hide from me," the Headmaster said, smoothing the boy's long shock of dirty black hair. He sat quietly, gently rocking him back and forth in the hope that his presence would soothe Severus as it had in the Forbidden Forest. "If you need some help, you know who to ask, don't you?"
The boy moaned. How could Albus Dumbledore even touch his loathesome head? His shame was dreadful.
"Come on, now."
Severus peeked up, his eyebrows furrowed. "Why aren't you gone?" he quavered.
"Because you're my boy, that's why," Dumbledore said.
Severus gave a heartwrenching groan. Within seconds, the Headmaster's lap was full of bony adolescent boy well on his way to what the doctors used to delicately call a "nervous breakdown."
Severus clung to the old man and began to weep.
--------------
Twenty minutes passed before Severus really caught his breath, or even raised his head. Dumbledore -- keenly aware of the child's history of abuse -- simply held him as he had in the Forest, mindful of his emotional boundaries and not attempting to begin a conversation until he was ready to talk.
"I miss Martis so much. Why did she have to leave?"
"Her parents didn't share that with me, Severus," Dumbledore said truthfully, still rubbing the boy's back in a soothing gesture. "I haven't heard anything further from either them on Crete or the Vox children here."
"Martis' sisters and brother won't tell me anything," he moaned. "It's like all of a sudden I don't exist -- like I've somehow become invisible. I don't understand it. She didn't want to go! She told me that she would find a way back to Hogwarts!"
Dumbledore kept his own counsel in this regard. Over the past several years, he had received quite a few comments from both faculty and staff members concerning the closeness of the Snape boy and the Vox girl. Hagrid -- meaning well, without a doubt -- had told Dumbledore that the two of them frequently escaped into a small and isolated tower room with a stained glass ceiling. They would be in there for hours, doing gods knows what. They were always together when they weren't in class or in their respective dorms. They frequently hugged one another or held hands. It was obvious that the two teens were devoted to one another.
The Headmaster now remembered a conversation he'd had with Professor McGonagall, ever vigilant as Assistant Headmistress as well as Gryffindor House Mother.
"They're only children," Albus had told her.
"From such children come other children," Minerva had retorted.
Dumbledore now believed that this had been the reason why Britomartis Vox's parents had transferred her to Beauxbatons, although he would find it highly inappropriate for him to inquire. Hogwarts seemed to be out of the picture permanently, and his role was over in connection with Britomartis, at least.
And that left the trembling boy in his arms, who had remained under his care -- even more so since his father's incarceration.
A brilliant student particularly gifted in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions, Severus was nevertheless considered unstable by many at the School. No one had forgotten his summoning of the demon, certainly. His father had pumped his head so full of Dark arts and had so thoroughly terrorized him since babyhood that his emotional development had been permanently warped and stunted.
The boy had more or less been a social pariah since he arrived at Hogwarts at age eleven, even then capable of hexing and cursing with the best of the Seventh Years. His young face had already worn the expression of one who had tasted life and had found it unacceptably bitter. He shied away at the most casual overtures of friendship, and flinched from anyone who might accidentally touch him. The abuse for which he bore no blame had made him quite unloveable.
Britomartis Vox must have been like a heavenly angel to him, ready to love and protect him for all time. Unfortunately for the boy, Martis' parents must have felt that he had failed to meet the standards for an acceptable companion for their youngest daughter. And so -- she had gone, taking a large part of Severus' heart with her.
"My son, I don't know why she left, really. I do feel very bad that she hasn't kept in touch with you. What you must do is remember her, yes -- but don't close yourself off from others who might also like to be your friends."
"There's no one, Headmaster," he replied. "Everybody thinks I'm a total freak."
"I'll bet that when you really think on it, Severus, that there are classmates of yours who wouldn't mind seeing you up and about again. Just for me, would you try to get up today?"
Giving his eyes a final wipe, the child nodded. Depressed or not, he always wanted to please Dumbledore.
"That's the stuff! I'm very proud of you; I know it isn't easy -- not easy at all. Now, let's draw a hot bath and get you cleaned up. I would very much like to see you eating lunch in the Great Hall today. The House elves have made seven different kinds of pies for dessert, and I'll bet that one of them will appeal to you." He gently poked Severus in the middle. "Or maybe two or three of them?"
Severus smiled tentatively, then peeked up at Dumbledore's face. "Is one of them lemon chiffon?" he asked.
The Headmaster laughed out loud, his taste for anything lemony well known to students and staff alike."Naturally," he said. "Well, then! Up, child!" He set him back on shaky feet, and then guided him over to the bathroom.
"I'm afraid I'm out of shampoo," Severus said quietly.
"We'll just use Malfoy's, then. He always buys the best, and I'm sure he'll never miss it."
-------------
"Prongs" certainly hadn't contemplated being waylaid by Lily Evans on his way from Potions to Transfigurations.
"Just WHAT do you think you're DOING?" she cried, taking the boy's shoulder and whirling him around to face her. James looked back at her, thunderstruck. He had no idea what she was talking about.
"Asking Severus to come home with you, I mean!"
A little defensive now, James shrugged. "I feel I owe him, Lily. If you don't think so, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree."
The redhead looked at him through half-closed eyes, trying to discern the boy's true motivations. "And the Marauders won't be coming along?"
"Of course not! I'd consider that a dirty trick, Lily. Why are you interrogating me? I'm only trying to do the decent thing, and you're acting like I've stabbed the kid in the back."
"Well," Lily said, backing down a bit. "It's just odd, considering that you've always taunted each other. It's quite a sudden change of heart, is all."
"That was before I pranked him at the Lake."
"Pranked him?" Lily hissed. "Is that what you call that travesty? It was thoroughly wicked, and I never would have thought it of you."
James threw up his hands and rolled his eyes. "Haven't I apologized at least fifty thousand times to everyone and their cousin? Isn't that what I've been saying? Since we helped him send his old man to jail, he's been a lot better. In fact, he hasn't pranked me once, and I for one have returned the favor."
Lily considered this. The other three Marauders had been involved in subsequent encounters, but James had not.
"Well, I'm sorry if I snapped at you. Snips is a wreck without Spirals. I think a Marauders prank on top of it would -- well, just do him in."
James nodded. "I understand that, Lily. I really do."
She looked at him coolly. "What are you planning on doing over vacation, anyway?"
"Nothing but eating and sleeping, I hope," James said. "Sev's so gloomy and depressed. I thought it might cheer him up. He got on well with my parents, and I'm sure they'd be glad to see him again. Especially my mother -- remember how she kept trying to stuff him full of food when we were there the night we returned from the Ministry of Magic?"
"Ah, yes. The same night you took the Wizard's Oath," Lily reminded him.
"That's right. So, that's all there is about it. And if you don't mind, I'd like to get to class before McGonagall transfigures me into a mountain goat or an ocarina or something. And I would be very happy to eat lunch with you today." He grinned happily at her.
"We'll see," said the lovely and mysterious Lily Evans.