Hello everyone! I am not writing this story anymore. RandiWeasley and
redrosey are! Yay for them! I am now merely the editor, by choice. I'm
still going to be writing Koraleigh though, if you read that (and if you
don't go read it. () I just was tired of writing this and felt I wasn't
doing a good enough job. But this chapter is extremely good, not to
mention extremely long for me, well, except it's not by me, oh you know
what I mean! Sorry, I'm babbling. Thanks to everyone for reviewing,
Sailor J-chan/2xH 4ever/Psycho, Padfootfan, No Name LOL, Wowserz!, and of
course my new co-authors, RandiWeasley and redrosey! This chapter was
written by RandiWeasley and she wanted to let everyone know that the /.../
like /p/ etc are phonetic sounds. So, please everyone review!!!!!!!!
The next morning Emmilen awakened very early. She had remembered a very important thing that she'd forgotten to tell her Uncle Sev'rus. She padded down the hall and into her uncle's room. He was still sleeping, moving about in the bed and muttering to himself. But he'd said to wake him if it were important. So Emmilen scrambled onto the bed and bounced on his stomach.
Severus had been entering the throes of a nightmare. Voldemort was intent on destroying a Muggle village, and no one was being spared. Men, women, children, dogs, cats, birds, everything alive was being tortured and killed. He, Snape, was not showing enough enthusiasm for the sport, in his master's opinion, so he was being subjected to the Cruciatus curse as punishment. He was writhing on the ground, refusing to scream, refusing to let the Dark Lord know he was getting to him when unexpectedly the earth beneath him shook and a moderate weight landed roughly on his abdomen. The weight eased as the earth shook again only to be reapplied as the earth slowly stilled. This strange process was repeated many times while his mind tried to fathom the phenomenon at work in the situation. He couldn't figure it out, but decided the best way to stop it was to get the weight away from his abdomen. The next time the weight landed, therefore, he grabbed it in both hands and rolled over so that it was pinned beneath him. Then a child's voice cut through his dream, which evaporated like so much mist.
"OW! Uncle Sev'rus, you hurted me!"
His eyes snapping open, Severus waved a hand to increase the amount of illumination in the room. He found himself atop his five-year-old niece, straddling her legs, his hand pressed on her neck. Moving quickly aside, he reached out and pulled her to a seated position beside himself. "Emmilen, what happened? Why are you out of bed at--" He glanced at the clock. "3:27 in the morning?"
"It's important, Uncle Sev'rus. You said I should always waked you for important things, 'member?"
"Yes, yes, I did," sighed Severus grumpily, wondering if Albus would permit him to retract that offer. He rather doubted it so instead settled for running a hand over his face with a sigh. "What is it?"
"I cannot start school today, Uncle Sev'rus." The child's chin quivered as two tears rolled down each chubby cheek.
"And why might that be?" asked Snape indignantly. He paused. "You're not ill, are you?" He reached out to feel her forehead. Finding it perfectly normal, he wondered 'Did some smart-aleck Gryffindor taunt her with horrid tales of school? If such is the case, I'll have every last one of them in detention until Christmas!'
"Oh, no, sir, Uncle Sev'rus. But I can't go to school without a bookbag and I don't gots one." She sniffled again loudly.
Severus blinked once...twice...thrice. No other statement seemed to be forthcoming. This conversational Quaffle appeared to have been dropped into his arms. He did not feel up to flying with it at all, but there seemed to be no other moves available. The only thing he could think to do was echo her statement. "You don't have a bookbag?"
The child shook her head sadly. "No, sir, none at all. And all the people who go to school here have one."
Running a hand through his hair before pinching the bridge of his nose, the Potions Master closed his eyes before stating in a quiet tone, "You also don't have any school books to put into one."
"It's not just the books, you know, Uncle Sev'rus. There's parchment, ink, and quills as well." She brightened a bit. "I have my coloring books and crayons though. Mr. Albus gave them to me."
Her uncle's head came up sharply. "You will not--and I repeat NOT--be bringing your coloring books to school. I have work for you to do-- important work, not inane animal pictures."
His tone--the most deadly silky tone imaginable, the tone that could send even seventh-years running for cover--was lost on Emmilen. Snuggling closer, she grabbed his arm. "Oh! What kind of important work, Uncle Sev'rus?"
'Well, at least that seemed to make an impression,' thought Snape, as he continued in a far-less-deadly tone. "You will learn to read, write letters, do basic maths, and handle money--both wizarding and Muggle. You will also be introduced to the basics of science and possibly, if you are very good, be taught to brew a simple potion or two."
"Oh!" breathed the girl in awe. "And what will I do tomorrow, Uncle Sev'rus?"
Fighting down a strong urge to chuckle, the Potions Master regarded his niece with something akin to a proud smile. "You are a Snape, aren't you?" he complimented the child before explaining. "You will do the same each day until the work is mastered, then--" He fumbled to a halt. This was never- ending. This child would not go home at the end of the second term. This child was now HIS! For life!
'What have I gotten myself into?' he cried silently. He raged at Albus for talking him into this. He raged at his younger brother for dying while his child was still a toddler. But, no, it was unfair to blame Kolus. He would accept this responsibility for the love of his brother, the same as Kolus would have done for him, had their situations been reversed.
"Then what, Uncle Sev'rus?" asked the curious voice at his side.
With a deep breath, Snape replied, "Then we may possibly take a short break before beginning next year's schooling."
"OK," replied the girl. "What do we do now?"
What, indeed, at 3:49 in the morning? Snape was about to order Emmilen back to sleep when he noticed the excited and hopeful look on her face. The look he had had when he had first started school.
"We get you a bookbag for school." Climbing to his feet, Severus went to the wardrobe and extracted his old bookbag. Removing the parchments he had stored inside it, left from his school days, he returned to the child. "This used to be my bookbag when I went to Hogwarts. You may use it as your own now. Come along. I shall find you suitable supplies to fill it. You will be expected to study hard and do your very best work at all times."
"Yes, Uncle Sev'rus." Emmilen slipped her hand into his as she slid off the bed and they went in search of the needed supplies.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
All in the Great Hall were highly amused to see the stern Potions Master enter the next morning, trailed by the little girl lugging a black leather bookbag that was two-thirds her size. This unlikely duo made their way to the Head Table, looking neither right nor left. Indeed, Severus knew if he looked, he would see his worst nightmare come true--a nightmare scarier than anything the Dark Lord could dream up. He would see the students smirking at him. No! It was far better not to look. Emmilen, for her part, thoroughly distracted by the bulky weight bouncing around her knees, did not think to look. Therefore, both made the Head Table without meeting anyone's eyes.
"What is this?" asked Dumbledore quietly, as Severus stopped to instruct the child to stow her bag beneath the table before sitting.
"It's my bookbag, Mr. Albus. I start school tonight!" crowed the girl in a voice that could easily have been heard in the North Tower. "I 'splained to Uncle Sev'rus how I had to bring it with me 'cause all these other 'goes- to-school' people bring their bookbags to breakfast and lunch too."
Titters broke out among the students then, and among much of the staff as well.
"Indeed! It was very observant of you to notice that, Emmilen," replied the headmaster, shaking with silent laughter.
Snape shot him a dark look.
"She'll tire of lugging the bag around needlessly soon enough, Severus. Don't worry," chuckled the older wizard.
"No!" replied her uncle firmly. "She set this up as a rule for herself. She will obey it or be punished accordingly."
Dumbledore's laughter died away as the twinkle dimmed noticeably in the cerulean-blue orbs. "We can talk about this later, Severus."
Snape gave him his best sneer as he replied coolly, "As you wish, Headmaster." The child was HIS niece, after all. He would raise her by HIS rules. And if the old coot thought differently, why, he just had another think coming. So he would inform the older man at his first break of the day.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
The morning passed uneventfully. At luncheon, Severus was amused, and secretly relieved, to note that it had become the babysitter's responsibility to handle Emmilen and her bookbag. The seventh-year did have a lot of assistance, however. It seemed every Slytherin girl from fifth-year up wanted to sit next to his niece and, therefore, earn the privilege of helping her lug the bag over the bench. It had long been decided that Emmilen would eat at Slytherin House's table in case he did not make it to the Great Hall at noon. Oh! He was glad he'd made it that noon though. His niece was--well, she was actually cute carrying that big bag over her shoulder so proudly. 'Wait a minute! Did I just think something was cute? Well, she is a Snape, after all, with our classic good looks. It's not like I'm going soft or anything. I'm merely doing my duty to Kolus, nothing more.' That decided, the stern Potions Master returned to his food, unaware of the uncommon smile resting upon his lips.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
His last period class was just ending as the sitter-of-the-hour delivered Emmilen and her bookbag to his classroom door.
"Who gets the extra knut this week, Miss Stewart?" he asked passing over the fifteen-galleon weekly 'salary'. It still amused him that two of his smartest seventeen-year-old students would agree to accept an amount of payment that would not divide equally between them.
"We put it into a jar and will divide it up at the end of term when it will come out evenly, sir." replied Miss Stewart with a smile.
"Oh, well," sneered Snape, but with much more amusement than malice. "As long as you have a plan for it. We don't want loose knuts floating around, you know. Too much temptation in that." Turning to his niece, he inquired, "Did we decide that most students put their bookbags in their rooms before going to dinner or not?"
"We decided they did, Uncle Sev'rus," said the child in a serious tone, hoisting the bag farther up on her shoulder.
"And you did not try to saddle your sitters with carrying it for you today?"
"No, sir, Uncle Sev'rus." The sitter nodded agreement with the child's words.
"Very good then. Let us go to our quarters, so you can stow it away. Thank you, Miss Stewart."
The startled seventh-year, who had never heard her snarky Head-of-House thank anyone for anything, wandered toward the Great Hall and dinner with a dazed expression. 'Could it be,' she wondered, 'that Emmilen is finding Professor Snape's heart after all these years of us thinking he didn't have one?'
()()()()()()()()()()()()
All too quickly for Severus, but not nearly fast enough for Emmilen, dinner was over and it was time for school.
"Get your bookbag and then come immediately to my office," Severus ordered as they entered their quarters.
"Yes, Uncle Sev'rus!" crowed Emmilen, fairly bounding toward her room. She was in the office, bookbag on her shoulder, before Severus had even laid out the night's first lesson.
"Now we are going to begin one of the most important lessons of your life," Snape informed the wide-eyed child before him. "You are going to learn to read."
"Yes, Uncle Sev'rus," the girl breathed, with a suitable amount of awe in her tone.
Severus pulled from his desk drawer the parchment upon which he had copied the first reading lesson. "Learning to read well includes learning the sounds of the letters and letter groupings which make up the English language. By putting these sounds together, we can sound out the words on the page and learn to recognize them. This is called 'blending'--"
"Blenning," interrupted Emmilen, nodding sagely.
"No. Blending. Blen-DDDD-ing." Sev corrected, putting heavy emphasis on the /d/ sound. "From now on, I shall be correcting your pronunciation so that you may learn to recognize the correct sounds within words. That is blending--/bl/,/e/,/n/,/d/,/i/,/ng/--blending."
"Wow!" commented Emmilen, sounding very impressed. "Can you do that again, Uncle Sev'rus? Please!"
Three more times, Severus demonstrated the blending of the word 'blending.' Emmilen tried it twice herself and would have gladly continued with that activity all hour if her uncle had not rather sternly stopped her and returned her attention to the parchment before them. "This is the letter 't.' Its sound is /t/."
"/p/," said Emmilen importantly.
"No. Not /p/. /t/. /t/, /t/, /t/, /t/," corrected Severus.
"/b/?" hazarded Emmilen, screwing up her face in confusion.
After forty-five minutes, instead of the seventeen sounds that Snape had planned to teach, they had covered only the first three: /t/, /a/, and /n/. Drawing parchment, ink and quill to himself with a small sigh, he wrote: t a n tan a n t ant tan ant "Now you are going to read your first words, Emmilen. /t/,/a/,/n/ blends together to say 'tan.' /a/,/n/,/t/ blends together to say 'ant.' Now let's hear you do it. Come on. /t/..."
His niece performed that task, if not admirably, at least adequately. So he dismissed her back to her room, stating that her homework was to practice reading that parchment.
"Yay!" cheered Emmilen in his ear. "I have homework just like Miss Melinda and Miss Krista do! Is it a lot, Uncle Sev'rus?"
"For you I'd say it was an adequate amount," responded that individual with a touch of sarcasm, which was fortunately lost on the excited child.
"An adequate amount," she nodded, carefully repeating the phrase as a knock sounded and the door opened. "Hello, Mr. Albus. Guess what? I have an adequate amount of homework!" she announced brightly. "Look!" She ran to him with the parchment. "/t/,/a/,/n/ tan /a/,/n/,/t/ ant tan ant."
"Wonderful! Wonderful!" beamed the headmaster, pulling her to him in a one- armed hug. "Keep that up, and you'll be reading through my library in no time at all."
The child, snuggled into the headmaster's robes, missed the grimace that crossed her uncle's face then, but the older wizard's hawk eyes missed nothing and his expression questioned the Potions Master gently before he bent to kiss the girl's hair.
"Yes, Emmilen, run along," Severus spoke calmly. "Go to your room; read your parchment one more time; put it carefully into your bookbag, then you may play quietly until bedtime."
"OK, Uncle Sev'rus. Goodbye, Mr. Albus." Emmilen picked up the bookbag with a slight groan and struggled from the room. Severus's upraised hand kept the headmaster silent until they heard the girl's bedroom door close.
"What is wrong, Severus?" asked Albus then. "It seems the lesson went well."
"Went well?" gasped Snape, too upset to even sneer. "Went well! What is wrong with the girl, Headmaster? Is she unintelligent, then?"
"Never," gasped the elder, shocked. "Why would you even think such a thing?"
"Then the fault lies with me," sighed Severus deeply, not even bothering to acknowledge, let alone answer, the headmaster's question. "I am an inadequate teacher."
"I have known you to teach very adequately indeed, Professor Severus Snape!" snapped Dumbledore. "Now what do you mean by this behavior?"
Sighing once again, Severus picked up the lesson parchment and thrust it at the older man. "There! That is what the book said she should have learned within the first hour. But what you saw is all she knows. Not seventeen sounds, but three. A lousy three!" He slammed his hand down on the desk and cursed loudly.
"No," calmed Albus, as understanding dawned. "A wonderful three, Severus. Don't you see," he continued at the confusion upon the other's face. "It is far better that she learn three perfectly than seventeen incorrectly. You showed great wisdom by stopping the lesson when you did. Never try to follow a book so closely that you lose sight of the child, my boy. Correct procedures that prevent mistakes are just as important in reading as they are in potion making. Would you throw a seventeen-step potion at your first-years at the start of their first term?"
"Merlin, no!" gasped Severus. "They'd blow up the entire castle!" To himself he added, 'Especially if they were Gryffindors!'
"My point exactly," smiled Dumbledore. "You'd have big problems on your hands then."
Severus resisted the urge to point out that he would be dead after the entire castle had blown up around him.
"No," continued Dumbledore blithely. "Unlearning a mistake and relearning things correctly takes much longer than going a bit slowly in the beginning to be sure everything is understood. A good idea in teaching Potions, Reading, or any subject at all, hmm?" He peered intently over his half- moon spectacles at the Potions Master who was not known for teaching Potions slowly at all. "I heard Mr. Potter got himself put into detention this Saturday for not following the proper steps in making the Barkly- Bannier Potion."
"Yes," sneered Severus. "He came very close to blowing up his cauldron while acting like a complete dunderhead. He added his root of asphodel to a Barkley infusion before properly stirring in his newt eyes. Adding ingredients too quickly seems to be an unfortunate habit of his. One I'm trying very hard to break, I assure you."
"The unlearning and relearning taking a bit of a long time for Harry, hmm?" quizzed the headmaster lightly. His eyes held Severus's until he caught the flicker that his message had hit home. Then he continued with a dazzling smile. "Well, congratulations on an excellent first lesson with Emmilen, Severus. That was a very wise thing you did; starting her off slowly."
Then Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard alive, swept from the dungeon office, leaving a stunned but very thoughtful man behind him.
The next morning Emmilen awakened very early. She had remembered a very important thing that she'd forgotten to tell her Uncle Sev'rus. She padded down the hall and into her uncle's room. He was still sleeping, moving about in the bed and muttering to himself. But he'd said to wake him if it were important. So Emmilen scrambled onto the bed and bounced on his stomach.
Severus had been entering the throes of a nightmare. Voldemort was intent on destroying a Muggle village, and no one was being spared. Men, women, children, dogs, cats, birds, everything alive was being tortured and killed. He, Snape, was not showing enough enthusiasm for the sport, in his master's opinion, so he was being subjected to the Cruciatus curse as punishment. He was writhing on the ground, refusing to scream, refusing to let the Dark Lord know he was getting to him when unexpectedly the earth beneath him shook and a moderate weight landed roughly on his abdomen. The weight eased as the earth shook again only to be reapplied as the earth slowly stilled. This strange process was repeated many times while his mind tried to fathom the phenomenon at work in the situation. He couldn't figure it out, but decided the best way to stop it was to get the weight away from his abdomen. The next time the weight landed, therefore, he grabbed it in both hands and rolled over so that it was pinned beneath him. Then a child's voice cut through his dream, which evaporated like so much mist.
"OW! Uncle Sev'rus, you hurted me!"
His eyes snapping open, Severus waved a hand to increase the amount of illumination in the room. He found himself atop his five-year-old niece, straddling her legs, his hand pressed on her neck. Moving quickly aside, he reached out and pulled her to a seated position beside himself. "Emmilen, what happened? Why are you out of bed at--" He glanced at the clock. "3:27 in the morning?"
"It's important, Uncle Sev'rus. You said I should always waked you for important things, 'member?"
"Yes, yes, I did," sighed Severus grumpily, wondering if Albus would permit him to retract that offer. He rather doubted it so instead settled for running a hand over his face with a sigh. "What is it?"
"I cannot start school today, Uncle Sev'rus." The child's chin quivered as two tears rolled down each chubby cheek.
"And why might that be?" asked Snape indignantly. He paused. "You're not ill, are you?" He reached out to feel her forehead. Finding it perfectly normal, he wondered 'Did some smart-aleck Gryffindor taunt her with horrid tales of school? If such is the case, I'll have every last one of them in detention until Christmas!'
"Oh, no, sir, Uncle Sev'rus. But I can't go to school without a bookbag and I don't gots one." She sniffled again loudly.
Severus blinked once...twice...thrice. No other statement seemed to be forthcoming. This conversational Quaffle appeared to have been dropped into his arms. He did not feel up to flying with it at all, but there seemed to be no other moves available. The only thing he could think to do was echo her statement. "You don't have a bookbag?"
The child shook her head sadly. "No, sir, none at all. And all the people who go to school here have one."
Running a hand through his hair before pinching the bridge of his nose, the Potions Master closed his eyes before stating in a quiet tone, "You also don't have any school books to put into one."
"It's not just the books, you know, Uncle Sev'rus. There's parchment, ink, and quills as well." She brightened a bit. "I have my coloring books and crayons though. Mr. Albus gave them to me."
Her uncle's head came up sharply. "You will not--and I repeat NOT--be bringing your coloring books to school. I have work for you to do-- important work, not inane animal pictures."
His tone--the most deadly silky tone imaginable, the tone that could send even seventh-years running for cover--was lost on Emmilen. Snuggling closer, she grabbed his arm. "Oh! What kind of important work, Uncle Sev'rus?"
'Well, at least that seemed to make an impression,' thought Snape, as he continued in a far-less-deadly tone. "You will learn to read, write letters, do basic maths, and handle money--both wizarding and Muggle. You will also be introduced to the basics of science and possibly, if you are very good, be taught to brew a simple potion or two."
"Oh!" breathed the girl in awe. "And what will I do tomorrow, Uncle Sev'rus?"
Fighting down a strong urge to chuckle, the Potions Master regarded his niece with something akin to a proud smile. "You are a Snape, aren't you?" he complimented the child before explaining. "You will do the same each day until the work is mastered, then--" He fumbled to a halt. This was never- ending. This child would not go home at the end of the second term. This child was now HIS! For life!
'What have I gotten myself into?' he cried silently. He raged at Albus for talking him into this. He raged at his younger brother for dying while his child was still a toddler. But, no, it was unfair to blame Kolus. He would accept this responsibility for the love of his brother, the same as Kolus would have done for him, had their situations been reversed.
"Then what, Uncle Sev'rus?" asked the curious voice at his side.
With a deep breath, Snape replied, "Then we may possibly take a short break before beginning next year's schooling."
"OK," replied the girl. "What do we do now?"
What, indeed, at 3:49 in the morning? Snape was about to order Emmilen back to sleep when he noticed the excited and hopeful look on her face. The look he had had when he had first started school.
"We get you a bookbag for school." Climbing to his feet, Severus went to the wardrobe and extracted his old bookbag. Removing the parchments he had stored inside it, left from his school days, he returned to the child. "This used to be my bookbag when I went to Hogwarts. You may use it as your own now. Come along. I shall find you suitable supplies to fill it. You will be expected to study hard and do your very best work at all times."
"Yes, Uncle Sev'rus." Emmilen slipped her hand into his as she slid off the bed and they went in search of the needed supplies.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
All in the Great Hall were highly amused to see the stern Potions Master enter the next morning, trailed by the little girl lugging a black leather bookbag that was two-thirds her size. This unlikely duo made their way to the Head Table, looking neither right nor left. Indeed, Severus knew if he looked, he would see his worst nightmare come true--a nightmare scarier than anything the Dark Lord could dream up. He would see the students smirking at him. No! It was far better not to look. Emmilen, for her part, thoroughly distracted by the bulky weight bouncing around her knees, did not think to look. Therefore, both made the Head Table without meeting anyone's eyes.
"What is this?" asked Dumbledore quietly, as Severus stopped to instruct the child to stow her bag beneath the table before sitting.
"It's my bookbag, Mr. Albus. I start school tonight!" crowed the girl in a voice that could easily have been heard in the North Tower. "I 'splained to Uncle Sev'rus how I had to bring it with me 'cause all these other 'goes- to-school' people bring their bookbags to breakfast and lunch too."
Titters broke out among the students then, and among much of the staff as well.
"Indeed! It was very observant of you to notice that, Emmilen," replied the headmaster, shaking with silent laughter.
Snape shot him a dark look.
"She'll tire of lugging the bag around needlessly soon enough, Severus. Don't worry," chuckled the older wizard.
"No!" replied her uncle firmly. "She set this up as a rule for herself. She will obey it or be punished accordingly."
Dumbledore's laughter died away as the twinkle dimmed noticeably in the cerulean-blue orbs. "We can talk about this later, Severus."
Snape gave him his best sneer as he replied coolly, "As you wish, Headmaster." The child was HIS niece, after all. He would raise her by HIS rules. And if the old coot thought differently, why, he just had another think coming. So he would inform the older man at his first break of the day.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
The morning passed uneventfully. At luncheon, Severus was amused, and secretly relieved, to note that it had become the babysitter's responsibility to handle Emmilen and her bookbag. The seventh-year did have a lot of assistance, however. It seemed every Slytherin girl from fifth-year up wanted to sit next to his niece and, therefore, earn the privilege of helping her lug the bag over the bench. It had long been decided that Emmilen would eat at Slytherin House's table in case he did not make it to the Great Hall at noon. Oh! He was glad he'd made it that noon though. His niece was--well, she was actually cute carrying that big bag over her shoulder so proudly. 'Wait a minute! Did I just think something was cute? Well, she is a Snape, after all, with our classic good looks. It's not like I'm going soft or anything. I'm merely doing my duty to Kolus, nothing more.' That decided, the stern Potions Master returned to his food, unaware of the uncommon smile resting upon his lips.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
His last period class was just ending as the sitter-of-the-hour delivered Emmilen and her bookbag to his classroom door.
"Who gets the extra knut this week, Miss Stewart?" he asked passing over the fifteen-galleon weekly 'salary'. It still amused him that two of his smartest seventeen-year-old students would agree to accept an amount of payment that would not divide equally between them.
"We put it into a jar and will divide it up at the end of term when it will come out evenly, sir." replied Miss Stewart with a smile.
"Oh, well," sneered Snape, but with much more amusement than malice. "As long as you have a plan for it. We don't want loose knuts floating around, you know. Too much temptation in that." Turning to his niece, he inquired, "Did we decide that most students put their bookbags in their rooms before going to dinner or not?"
"We decided they did, Uncle Sev'rus," said the child in a serious tone, hoisting the bag farther up on her shoulder.
"And you did not try to saddle your sitters with carrying it for you today?"
"No, sir, Uncle Sev'rus." The sitter nodded agreement with the child's words.
"Very good then. Let us go to our quarters, so you can stow it away. Thank you, Miss Stewart."
The startled seventh-year, who had never heard her snarky Head-of-House thank anyone for anything, wandered toward the Great Hall and dinner with a dazed expression. 'Could it be,' she wondered, 'that Emmilen is finding Professor Snape's heart after all these years of us thinking he didn't have one?'
()()()()()()()()()()()()
All too quickly for Severus, but not nearly fast enough for Emmilen, dinner was over and it was time for school.
"Get your bookbag and then come immediately to my office," Severus ordered as they entered their quarters.
"Yes, Uncle Sev'rus!" crowed Emmilen, fairly bounding toward her room. She was in the office, bookbag on her shoulder, before Severus had even laid out the night's first lesson.
"Now we are going to begin one of the most important lessons of your life," Snape informed the wide-eyed child before him. "You are going to learn to read."
"Yes, Uncle Sev'rus," the girl breathed, with a suitable amount of awe in her tone.
Severus pulled from his desk drawer the parchment upon which he had copied the first reading lesson. "Learning to read well includes learning the sounds of the letters and letter groupings which make up the English language. By putting these sounds together, we can sound out the words on the page and learn to recognize them. This is called 'blending'--"
"Blenning," interrupted Emmilen, nodding sagely.
"No. Blending. Blen-DDDD-ing." Sev corrected, putting heavy emphasis on the /d/ sound. "From now on, I shall be correcting your pronunciation so that you may learn to recognize the correct sounds within words. That is blending--/bl/,/e/,/n/,/d/,/i/,/ng/--blending."
"Wow!" commented Emmilen, sounding very impressed. "Can you do that again, Uncle Sev'rus? Please!"
Three more times, Severus demonstrated the blending of the word 'blending.' Emmilen tried it twice herself and would have gladly continued with that activity all hour if her uncle had not rather sternly stopped her and returned her attention to the parchment before them. "This is the letter 't.' Its sound is /t/."
"/p/," said Emmilen importantly.
"No. Not /p/. /t/. /t/, /t/, /t/, /t/," corrected Severus.
"/b/?" hazarded Emmilen, screwing up her face in confusion.
After forty-five minutes, instead of the seventeen sounds that Snape had planned to teach, they had covered only the first three: /t/, /a/, and /n/. Drawing parchment, ink and quill to himself with a small sigh, he wrote: t a n tan a n t ant tan ant "Now you are going to read your first words, Emmilen. /t/,/a/,/n/ blends together to say 'tan.' /a/,/n/,/t/ blends together to say 'ant.' Now let's hear you do it. Come on. /t/..."
His niece performed that task, if not admirably, at least adequately. So he dismissed her back to her room, stating that her homework was to practice reading that parchment.
"Yay!" cheered Emmilen in his ear. "I have homework just like Miss Melinda and Miss Krista do! Is it a lot, Uncle Sev'rus?"
"For you I'd say it was an adequate amount," responded that individual with a touch of sarcasm, which was fortunately lost on the excited child.
"An adequate amount," she nodded, carefully repeating the phrase as a knock sounded and the door opened. "Hello, Mr. Albus. Guess what? I have an adequate amount of homework!" she announced brightly. "Look!" She ran to him with the parchment. "/t/,/a/,/n/ tan /a/,/n/,/t/ ant tan ant."
"Wonderful! Wonderful!" beamed the headmaster, pulling her to him in a one- armed hug. "Keep that up, and you'll be reading through my library in no time at all."
The child, snuggled into the headmaster's robes, missed the grimace that crossed her uncle's face then, but the older wizard's hawk eyes missed nothing and his expression questioned the Potions Master gently before he bent to kiss the girl's hair.
"Yes, Emmilen, run along," Severus spoke calmly. "Go to your room; read your parchment one more time; put it carefully into your bookbag, then you may play quietly until bedtime."
"OK, Uncle Sev'rus. Goodbye, Mr. Albus." Emmilen picked up the bookbag with a slight groan and struggled from the room. Severus's upraised hand kept the headmaster silent until they heard the girl's bedroom door close.
"What is wrong, Severus?" asked Albus then. "It seems the lesson went well."
"Went well?" gasped Snape, too upset to even sneer. "Went well! What is wrong with the girl, Headmaster? Is she unintelligent, then?"
"Never," gasped the elder, shocked. "Why would you even think such a thing?"
"Then the fault lies with me," sighed Severus deeply, not even bothering to acknowledge, let alone answer, the headmaster's question. "I am an inadequate teacher."
"I have known you to teach very adequately indeed, Professor Severus Snape!" snapped Dumbledore. "Now what do you mean by this behavior?"
Sighing once again, Severus picked up the lesson parchment and thrust it at the older man. "There! That is what the book said she should have learned within the first hour. But what you saw is all she knows. Not seventeen sounds, but three. A lousy three!" He slammed his hand down on the desk and cursed loudly.
"No," calmed Albus, as understanding dawned. "A wonderful three, Severus. Don't you see," he continued at the confusion upon the other's face. "It is far better that she learn three perfectly than seventeen incorrectly. You showed great wisdom by stopping the lesson when you did. Never try to follow a book so closely that you lose sight of the child, my boy. Correct procedures that prevent mistakes are just as important in reading as they are in potion making. Would you throw a seventeen-step potion at your first-years at the start of their first term?"
"Merlin, no!" gasped Severus. "They'd blow up the entire castle!" To himself he added, 'Especially if they were Gryffindors!'
"My point exactly," smiled Dumbledore. "You'd have big problems on your hands then."
Severus resisted the urge to point out that he would be dead after the entire castle had blown up around him.
"No," continued Dumbledore blithely. "Unlearning a mistake and relearning things correctly takes much longer than going a bit slowly in the beginning to be sure everything is understood. A good idea in teaching Potions, Reading, or any subject at all, hmm?" He peered intently over his half- moon spectacles at the Potions Master who was not known for teaching Potions slowly at all. "I heard Mr. Potter got himself put into detention this Saturday for not following the proper steps in making the Barkly- Bannier Potion."
"Yes," sneered Severus. "He came very close to blowing up his cauldron while acting like a complete dunderhead. He added his root of asphodel to a Barkley infusion before properly stirring in his newt eyes. Adding ingredients too quickly seems to be an unfortunate habit of his. One I'm trying very hard to break, I assure you."
"The unlearning and relearning taking a bit of a long time for Harry, hmm?" quizzed the headmaster lightly. His eyes held Severus's until he caught the flicker that his message had hit home. Then he continued with a dazzling smile. "Well, congratulations on an excellent first lesson with Emmilen, Severus. That was a very wise thing you did; starting her off slowly."
Then Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard alive, swept from the dungeon office, leaving a stunned but very thoughtful man behind him.