"And what does Dumbledore say?" Lucius asked in a bored and lilting tone.
"Nothing," Snape said wearily, rubbing his aching temples. "He suggests that we wait until Potter is ready to rise and slay our Lord once and for all."
"Really." Lucius did not appear impressed. "And what will you do?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
Lucius stepped behind him and took his hair in his hands, braiding it neatly. "Come," he said. "Dumbledore is old; his plans have been suspect at best for half of our lives. He places far too much stock in the words of his supposed prophets and wastes time and lives assuming that one day the stars will align and everything will fall into place for him."
"Yet our Lord is continually thwarted by Dumbledore's pet boy."
Lucius sneered at the idea and chuckled softly. "There are reasons, my love, why I think little enough of what he intends to do, also."
"Then why do you continue to obey him?"
"For a time, we were simply moving in the same direction. Now, for habit and obligation, and simply because it disturbs the majority of my enemies to think I am one of his creatures. Why do you continue to obey Dumbledore? Haven't you had enough of his aged idiocy yet, much as you and I both have had more than enough of Voldemort's delusions of grandeur?"
"When we were children, we did foolish things."
"Such as falling in love with those we knew to be utterly wrong for us?" Lucius was wry.
"He was a beautiful boy, wasn't he, before all of this foolishness of wishing to live forever."
Finished with Snape's hair, which now hung in a tail down his back, strands twisted tidily together, Lucius turned to stretch. "Hero worship, I suppose. And now look what's become of him."
"Look what's become of us," Snape said quietly.
"Indeed. Your hair in a braid actually suits you, you know. It does something pleasant with your cheekbones and jaw."
"Oh, come off it.
"When you were a child," Snape added, listening to Lucius rustle through the papers on his desk behind him, "you were troubled that the Ministry was already becoming corrupt, and more concerned with power than the administration of magic. Voldemort intended to overthrow and remake it in his image. And you, young and starry-eyed, were convinced that his way was the best way. And what think you now, of all of this, of how his plans have changed and warped in the last thirty years? When did you begin to believe that muggle-born children were the scourge upon the face of Wizardry, and when did you lose sight of what you cared for when you were young—which, then, was only the magic?"
Lucius stilled, silent except for the hush of breath. "I have never appreciated the idea of magic in the hands of Mudbloods."
"Should they die for it, for nothing more than being born to the wrong set of parents?"
"Done is done, love." Lucius found the sheet of parchment that held Draco's last potions essay and seated himself in Snape's chair to read through it.
Snape was irritated, less so at the man behind him than at himself and his own indecision. "I am tired of watching this occur and being told from one corner that it is the Way, and from the other, that I should wait."
"Then manage Voldemort yourself," Lucius said grandly, eyeing Snape over the edge of the paper. "I have no great tie to His Grisliness. It will be a bit embarrassing when it is over and I must explain at some society function that it was all a grave mistake on my part, or perhaps that I was held in thrall this entire time. Picture opportunity with the family: I will look contrite and abashed, Draco will look up adoringly his father who has joined the straight and narrow, and Narcissa will regard us both with support and long-suffering grace. I own the bloody paper these days, after all."
"You're an idiot, Lucius."
"One of us must be, I suppose."
-
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-
Potter had taken to wearing one of her pins fastened to the lapel of his robe. His friends thought it touching and brave and considered doing similar things, or putting a remnant of her S.P.E.W. memorabilia on their clothes or book bags. It was truly very appalling, in the way that only Potter's notions could be, but it seemed to keep the Gryffindors from bursting into tears at random occasions. They felt, after all, that they did honor to the sacrifice of their former classmates. Buttons, and ribbons, and pins: Snape realized that he was perhaps out of his league when it came to understanding the minds and methods of seventeen-year-olds.
He did find himself glaring at Potter more than usual as the class period wore on. This was his excuse, at least, later when Longbottom's potion exploded and coated the surrounding children in fizzy green goo.
"Tastes a bit like marshmallows," Longbottom said cheerfully, wiping a smudge from his cheek and popping it into his mouth.
Snape stared, unable to fathom the level of stupidity displayed before him. "You blithering idiot," he said slowly, "have you any idea how potentially poisonous and lethal your actions were? I assure you, you are more than adequately fattened up without consuming the poorly produced potions in my classroom. Go and see Madam Pomfrey before you drop dead at my feet, and be quick about it. I don't know how you manage to fail so spectacularly at the most stunningly simple tasks."
Longbottom's trademark crocodile tears stood on his quivering round cheeks as he pushed his chair back and flattened his pudgy hands on the desk. "Well, it isn't as if I've got Hermione anymore to help me, and you don't even care whether I succeed or not, you just want to make fun of me and—and laugh at me, like everyone else."
Snape blinked twice and the children cringed. Even the Slytherins flattened themselves together, wishing to be unseen and unheard in the face of his wrath. Snape, however, found his lips twitching. The combination of the slimed Gryffindors and the idea of Longbottom finally locating a spine was likely the last straw after a month of severe stress on Snape's part.
"Ten points for your cheek, Longbottom, and for destroying my classroom," he said stiffly, stalwartly refusing to notice the clump that dripped from Potter's hair to plop on the table. "The rest of you, go clean yourselves. Assuming you aren't stupid enough to eat it, it shouldn't cause you any undue distress. Report to Pomfrey if you suddenly develop a rash or any other allergic reactions."
He managed to make it back to his rooms before leaning against the door and laughing until his stomach ached. The cat regarded him as if he had lost his mind finally, and he supposed it wasn't terribly far from the truth.
-
-
-
The tea was cold on the desk, beginning to congeal as the days passed. He found himself observing the slow and steady growth of mold with detached scientific interest. He ignored the ache in his arm, the sudden spur of flame that occurred when Voldemort's thoughts turned to him. Papers collected in the bin beside his desk and if it were not for the exuberant house elves, the fire would not have been lit in the grate for nearly a week.
As it was, the cat nudged his hand as he stared at nothing, thoughts growing as thick and cloudy as the tea. He scratched its ears obligingly until it purred, butting its head against his palm. He had, since childhood, managed the bouts of sudden and overwhelming depression by throwing himself more deeply into his work, but none of that appealed to him now.
Voldemort summoned them more often than he had in recent years, calling a meeting nearly every week. Snape had been in his good graces long enough that most sessions passed without any additional suffering other than what was caused by maintaining his façade of loyalty. Lucius plotted something, he knew, but he was, through typical Slytherin politics, excluded from the machinations. They hadn't slept together in most of a month, which was rare enough to draw snide commentary from Narcissa.
Snape's own plan had been to survive, come what may. He supposed there should have been something greater than this, a more encompassing objective than the painful simplicity of instinct. He discovered suddenly that he missed Lucius' hands on his waist more than anyone reasonably should, and that their childhood was so far gone that he could no longer remember the boy he had been, or how it had felt to see the possibility in the dawning of each day.
Angry now at himself, he considered throwing the cup and its contents across the room, but it had been a gift, and one should never be disrespectful of gifts. He dug the nails of his left hand into his skin instead and lifted the pile of essays and reports that needed marking.
Potter alternated between producing poor-quality work and attempting to outdo everyone 'in her honor!' or some other such nonesense. Longbottom's paperwork was ink stained and covered in something that seemed to distinctly resemble the footprints of a frog. Malfoy's tiny spidery handwriting outlined the experiment and following results with the sort of precision that his father demanded and Snape would have admired if he believed it came from the boy's own devotion. The Slytherin class was sadly unremarkable this year, and the Gryffindors were always idiots. The children suffered through Potions because it was a requirement; none of them had any desire for the art. There was a Ravenclaw girl who showed promise, but there was always a Ravenclaw who showed promise—it was a requisite of the house. They were often the only ones who had any lust for academic achievement, but they brewed for the sake of the mark or for the sake of the learning, not for the potion itself—not for the beauty of the poison, or the elegance in each decoction.
The children typically dreamed only of becoming aurors, of fighting the 'evil' that had been ever-present for as long as Snape could recall. Otherwise, there were families such as the Weasleys, who lived scarcely within their means, attempting to eke out an existence as close to muggle as possible, save a few tedious magical exceptions. In the days when the school was created, perhaps the founders had believed in the power of magic beyond simple convenience, in its abilities to surmount and subvert and, in the case of the Hufflepuffs, simply to defeat opposition through tenacity.
The stack of papers dwindled slowly, reforming to his right. His ledger filled itself out obediently, the mark beside each student's name resolving into the updated tally. It was mindless work.
He had been one of the better students of his year, easily topping the Slytherin class and only occasionally being eclipsed by an ambitious Ravenclaw. Schoolwork was logical; it made simple sense. One could be reasonably certain that a potion, brewed properly, would produce the same result each time. He taught the children the same way, with the same methodical diligence, yet the results varied wildly. It had never occurred to him to approach them any other way.
The wicks on the candles needed to be trimmed when he finished. The cat was asleep at his feet, tucked half under the hem of his robes and applying a warm weight to his ankle. Stiff backed and weary, he rose from his desk. He dumped the papers back into the basket to be redistributed to the children on the morrow and sought his bed. The cat, disgruntled by the sudden absence of its pillow, stretched and followed. It leapt heavily up to the foot of his bed and curled, nose to tail, to resume its slumber. Snape undressed and joined it, sliding between the cold sheets and wishing fervently that his bed held more than a small recalcitrant feline.
-
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A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed the story so far; I've received more a response than I expected and I have greatly appreciated it. If you've asked a question, I've done my best to reply to you via email.
"Nothing," Snape said wearily, rubbing his aching temples. "He suggests that we wait until Potter is ready to rise and slay our Lord once and for all."
"Really." Lucius did not appear impressed. "And what will you do?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
Lucius stepped behind him and took his hair in his hands, braiding it neatly. "Come," he said. "Dumbledore is old; his plans have been suspect at best for half of our lives. He places far too much stock in the words of his supposed prophets and wastes time and lives assuming that one day the stars will align and everything will fall into place for him."
"Yet our Lord is continually thwarted by Dumbledore's pet boy."
Lucius sneered at the idea and chuckled softly. "There are reasons, my love, why I think little enough of what he intends to do, also."
"Then why do you continue to obey him?"
"For a time, we were simply moving in the same direction. Now, for habit and obligation, and simply because it disturbs the majority of my enemies to think I am one of his creatures. Why do you continue to obey Dumbledore? Haven't you had enough of his aged idiocy yet, much as you and I both have had more than enough of Voldemort's delusions of grandeur?"
"When we were children, we did foolish things."
"Such as falling in love with those we knew to be utterly wrong for us?" Lucius was wry.
"He was a beautiful boy, wasn't he, before all of this foolishness of wishing to live forever."
Finished with Snape's hair, which now hung in a tail down his back, strands twisted tidily together, Lucius turned to stretch. "Hero worship, I suppose. And now look what's become of him."
"Look what's become of us," Snape said quietly.
"Indeed. Your hair in a braid actually suits you, you know. It does something pleasant with your cheekbones and jaw."
"Oh, come off it.
"When you were a child," Snape added, listening to Lucius rustle through the papers on his desk behind him, "you were troubled that the Ministry was already becoming corrupt, and more concerned with power than the administration of magic. Voldemort intended to overthrow and remake it in his image. And you, young and starry-eyed, were convinced that his way was the best way. And what think you now, of all of this, of how his plans have changed and warped in the last thirty years? When did you begin to believe that muggle-born children were the scourge upon the face of Wizardry, and when did you lose sight of what you cared for when you were young—which, then, was only the magic?"
Lucius stilled, silent except for the hush of breath. "I have never appreciated the idea of magic in the hands of Mudbloods."
"Should they die for it, for nothing more than being born to the wrong set of parents?"
"Done is done, love." Lucius found the sheet of parchment that held Draco's last potions essay and seated himself in Snape's chair to read through it.
Snape was irritated, less so at the man behind him than at himself and his own indecision. "I am tired of watching this occur and being told from one corner that it is the Way, and from the other, that I should wait."
"Then manage Voldemort yourself," Lucius said grandly, eyeing Snape over the edge of the paper. "I have no great tie to His Grisliness. It will be a bit embarrassing when it is over and I must explain at some society function that it was all a grave mistake on my part, or perhaps that I was held in thrall this entire time. Picture opportunity with the family: I will look contrite and abashed, Draco will look up adoringly his father who has joined the straight and narrow, and Narcissa will regard us both with support and long-suffering grace. I own the bloody paper these days, after all."
"You're an idiot, Lucius."
"One of us must be, I suppose."
-
-
-
Potter had taken to wearing one of her pins fastened to the lapel of his robe. His friends thought it touching and brave and considered doing similar things, or putting a remnant of her S.P.E.W. memorabilia on their clothes or book bags. It was truly very appalling, in the way that only Potter's notions could be, but it seemed to keep the Gryffindors from bursting into tears at random occasions. They felt, after all, that they did honor to the sacrifice of their former classmates. Buttons, and ribbons, and pins: Snape realized that he was perhaps out of his league when it came to understanding the minds and methods of seventeen-year-olds.
He did find himself glaring at Potter more than usual as the class period wore on. This was his excuse, at least, later when Longbottom's potion exploded and coated the surrounding children in fizzy green goo.
"Tastes a bit like marshmallows," Longbottom said cheerfully, wiping a smudge from his cheek and popping it into his mouth.
Snape stared, unable to fathom the level of stupidity displayed before him. "You blithering idiot," he said slowly, "have you any idea how potentially poisonous and lethal your actions were? I assure you, you are more than adequately fattened up without consuming the poorly produced potions in my classroom. Go and see Madam Pomfrey before you drop dead at my feet, and be quick about it. I don't know how you manage to fail so spectacularly at the most stunningly simple tasks."
Longbottom's trademark crocodile tears stood on his quivering round cheeks as he pushed his chair back and flattened his pudgy hands on the desk. "Well, it isn't as if I've got Hermione anymore to help me, and you don't even care whether I succeed or not, you just want to make fun of me and—and laugh at me, like everyone else."
Snape blinked twice and the children cringed. Even the Slytherins flattened themselves together, wishing to be unseen and unheard in the face of his wrath. Snape, however, found his lips twitching. The combination of the slimed Gryffindors and the idea of Longbottom finally locating a spine was likely the last straw after a month of severe stress on Snape's part.
"Ten points for your cheek, Longbottom, and for destroying my classroom," he said stiffly, stalwartly refusing to notice the clump that dripped from Potter's hair to plop on the table. "The rest of you, go clean yourselves. Assuming you aren't stupid enough to eat it, it shouldn't cause you any undue distress. Report to Pomfrey if you suddenly develop a rash or any other allergic reactions."
He managed to make it back to his rooms before leaning against the door and laughing until his stomach ached. The cat regarded him as if he had lost his mind finally, and he supposed it wasn't terribly far from the truth.
-
-
-
The tea was cold on the desk, beginning to congeal as the days passed. He found himself observing the slow and steady growth of mold with detached scientific interest. He ignored the ache in his arm, the sudden spur of flame that occurred when Voldemort's thoughts turned to him. Papers collected in the bin beside his desk and if it were not for the exuberant house elves, the fire would not have been lit in the grate for nearly a week.
As it was, the cat nudged his hand as he stared at nothing, thoughts growing as thick and cloudy as the tea. He scratched its ears obligingly until it purred, butting its head against his palm. He had, since childhood, managed the bouts of sudden and overwhelming depression by throwing himself more deeply into his work, but none of that appealed to him now.
Voldemort summoned them more often than he had in recent years, calling a meeting nearly every week. Snape had been in his good graces long enough that most sessions passed without any additional suffering other than what was caused by maintaining his façade of loyalty. Lucius plotted something, he knew, but he was, through typical Slytherin politics, excluded from the machinations. They hadn't slept together in most of a month, which was rare enough to draw snide commentary from Narcissa.
Snape's own plan had been to survive, come what may. He supposed there should have been something greater than this, a more encompassing objective than the painful simplicity of instinct. He discovered suddenly that he missed Lucius' hands on his waist more than anyone reasonably should, and that their childhood was so far gone that he could no longer remember the boy he had been, or how it had felt to see the possibility in the dawning of each day.
Angry now at himself, he considered throwing the cup and its contents across the room, but it had been a gift, and one should never be disrespectful of gifts. He dug the nails of his left hand into his skin instead and lifted the pile of essays and reports that needed marking.
Potter alternated between producing poor-quality work and attempting to outdo everyone 'in her honor!' or some other such nonesense. Longbottom's paperwork was ink stained and covered in something that seemed to distinctly resemble the footprints of a frog. Malfoy's tiny spidery handwriting outlined the experiment and following results with the sort of precision that his father demanded and Snape would have admired if he believed it came from the boy's own devotion. The Slytherin class was sadly unremarkable this year, and the Gryffindors were always idiots. The children suffered through Potions because it was a requirement; none of them had any desire for the art. There was a Ravenclaw girl who showed promise, but there was always a Ravenclaw who showed promise—it was a requisite of the house. They were often the only ones who had any lust for academic achievement, but they brewed for the sake of the mark or for the sake of the learning, not for the potion itself—not for the beauty of the poison, or the elegance in each decoction.
The children typically dreamed only of becoming aurors, of fighting the 'evil' that had been ever-present for as long as Snape could recall. Otherwise, there were families such as the Weasleys, who lived scarcely within their means, attempting to eke out an existence as close to muggle as possible, save a few tedious magical exceptions. In the days when the school was created, perhaps the founders had believed in the power of magic beyond simple convenience, in its abilities to surmount and subvert and, in the case of the Hufflepuffs, simply to defeat opposition through tenacity.
The stack of papers dwindled slowly, reforming to his right. His ledger filled itself out obediently, the mark beside each student's name resolving into the updated tally. It was mindless work.
He had been one of the better students of his year, easily topping the Slytherin class and only occasionally being eclipsed by an ambitious Ravenclaw. Schoolwork was logical; it made simple sense. One could be reasonably certain that a potion, brewed properly, would produce the same result each time. He taught the children the same way, with the same methodical diligence, yet the results varied wildly. It had never occurred to him to approach them any other way.
The wicks on the candles needed to be trimmed when he finished. The cat was asleep at his feet, tucked half under the hem of his robes and applying a warm weight to his ankle. Stiff backed and weary, he rose from his desk. He dumped the papers back into the basket to be redistributed to the children on the morrow and sought his bed. The cat, disgruntled by the sudden absence of its pillow, stretched and followed. It leapt heavily up to the foot of his bed and curled, nose to tail, to resume its slumber. Snape undressed and joined it, sliding between the cold sheets and wishing fervently that his bed held more than a small recalcitrant feline.
-
-
-
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed the story so far; I've received more a response than I expected and I have greatly appreciated it. If you've asked a question, I've done my best to reply to you via email.