LOST PERSPECTIVE 7

PAYBACK TIME

By Bellegeste

Reviews: Yeah, I did say this was a Snape-Neville fic, so I'm trying to use him as part of the detective process. There are clues in the earlier chapters, but it probably only really clicks into place if you re-read it once you know what was really going on... Better not say too much.

Now we cut back to Snape.


Chapter 12:TO THE MANOR BORN

From the cottage to the Manor was a brisk, twenty-minute walk and Snape was feeling warm and invigorated. Unusually for him he had paused only briefly on the high plateau before taking the track down the far side of the hill towards the great house. Branching off the path, he scrambled the last, steep fifty yards down to level ground, actually enjoying the exhilaration - the relief of finding and destroying the fateful book had left him light-headed and reckless. He needed to press on before his resolution failed. Already today he had tackled one ghost from his past; now he was going to confront another.

The approach to the Manor at this time of year was dreary and uninviting. A treacherous, brown sludge of winter-rotted leaves coated the walkways and green-slimed flagstones, clogging in the cracks and corners, layering the tangled borders, trapped amongst the stark stems and spiky autumn die-back like krill caught in baleen. In a few months, Snape knew, rampant weeds would have reclaimed the driveway, repopulated the stonework, thriving on neglect.

Shameful neglect. But there was no one to reproach him for his negligence - except himself. And he had learned long ago to co-exist with his conscience.

Sure-footed, Snape strode to the top of the slippery, stone steps which led up to the massive, oak portal and raised his wand.

"Ouvrez la p- " Then he faltered, letting the wand drop to his side. Did he really want to do this? The flush of energy and determination evaporated into the barley-water sunshine and he hesitated, reluctant to break the seal and open the door.

Why was he here? Now? Today? So, the cottage was temporarily uninhabitable - that was an inconvenience, nothing more. Dourly pragmatic in a crisis, Snape was not given to hysterics; he had seen worse. A number of artefacts had been burned - he would not weep for them. He was neither homeless nor destitute; his quarters at Hogwarts were adequate. As far as the Manor went those were ancillary issues. The fire had changed nothing with regard to his ancestral home. There was little here for him but solitude on a grandiose scale. He would rattle around in the place like Moody's eyeball, constantly looking over his shoulder, checking behind him for lurking dangers in the dark.

When he was a child he had assumed - as children do – that Snape Manor would be his home forever… but that was before… Before he had learned to hate the place. Hate? No, too emotive. Before he had amassed his portfolio of negative associations… that was more like it.

Snape looked up, his eyes skating across the stately Elizabethan façade. It was just a building. A fine example, he was reliably informed by people who valued such things. It was not the building itself that depressed him. He could not blame bricks and stonework for the oppressive weight of obligation that enveloped him whenever he crossed the threshold.

Everything in the house accused him of dereliction of duty - from the cobweb-garlanded candelabra to the mice nests in the tapestry cushions. The portraits - generations of scowling, hook-nosed Snapes - would rouse themselves from their long torpor as he walked by, to doff their hats, greeting him with an air of expectancy which soured rapidly to a cynical and disappointed adieu.

Why was he here? Hovering at the door of his own property - plunged into a brooding reverie? Only minutes ago he had been feeling dynamic and assertive. This place always had this affect on him; it robbed him of impetus, and substituted inertia.

The Manor was a mausoleum to the past, and he had neither the power nor the inclination to restore the dead. It had been lifeless for too long, he reflected, - since before the time of his parents' 'accidental' death.(1) Since the time his mother had retreated into her Potion-induced fantasy land, leaving them mourning her loss in her lifetime. It was not often that Snape allowed his thoughts to turn to his mother, but at one time her presence had permeated the Manor like an exotic French perfume, spicy and exciting. Now the empty halls echoed with her absence.

He couldn't enter the ante-room or mount the staircase without being confronted with some evidence of her influence: the bronze bust of Hecate in the niche on the first landing; the huge, ornately framed over-mantel mirror in the study, transported with much difficulty from her uncle's chateau in the Languedoc, which proved to have acquired a taste for Rabelais - it would comment on one's coiffeur in bawdy French and make lewd insinuations about house-guests which, luckily, few visitors to the Manor were able to translate. After a few years it ceased to matter - no guests were invited. Then there was the Paris porcelain, the Murano glass and ormolu vases in the drawing room, the vibrantly coloured Turkish rugs, an inlaid, enamel and lacquer Chinese cabinet, Koala-skin cushions, a Tiffany-style lantern made out of Paua shell from New Zealand, and the recurring image of her pet pug dog, Rigolo, whose grumpy, crumpled face growled out of more than one dusty picture frame.

From the artistic treasures to the whimsical souvenirs of her travels, it all testified to her eclectic taste, her vivacity and joie de vivre. Snape's earliest memories of her were of a magnificent, creative creature, continentally passionate, impetuous and unpredictable. The formal gardens had been her personal project. She would sweep through the terraces like a magical Marie-Antoinette, the grumbling gardener hobbling to keep up with her, physically and mentally, as she dictated increasingly ambitious plans for this or that shrub, this tree, that vista… Under her direction the grounds had come to resemble a miniature Versailles. Strolling along the manicured topiary walk, a small, trusting Snape trotting by her side, she would suddenly whirl him around in a burst of exuberance:

"Ferme les yeux, Severus!" she would cry. "Et, voilà!" (2)

And he would open his eyes to see the immaculately symmetrical box hedges transfigured into wonderful green, leafy sphinxes, serpents, dragons…

Or else she would grow tired of the traditional, muted décor congenial to his father, and, with an elegant sweep of the wand, she would transform the dull oak panelling into richly gilded plasterwork, or add decorative, neo-Classical scenes in grisaille, or trompe l'oeil murals of places she had visited when she was a girl. Snape would never know, from one morning to the next, whether he would come downstairs to find himself in a Palladian palace or an Arabian souq. To a child of five it had been like living in a fairytale.

A fairytale without a happy ending.

He cherished the memories but they were corrupted now, spoiled and defiled. At what point had the vitality become violence, the charming eccentricity twisted into craziness? When had the singing turned into shouting? How had that vivacious, fun-loving woman warped into an addicted, vicious, scheming hag? It had sickened him, month by month, to witness the change from a laughing, gentle witch into something bestial - aggressive, abusive and extraordinarily strong. He had hated the madness in her. She would, he had thought, be better off dead. Evidently she had agreed with him.

Snape's schooldays had passed in an agony of anxiety lest someone at Hogwarts should discover the secret; he had kept to himself, shunned company, encouraged no confidences. It had to be James Potter, of all people, who stumbled on the truth. Stumbled on it? Extracted it under stolen Veritaserum. And Snape had endured Potter's taunts and ridicule until the day that arrogant, insensitive bully died. He could not find it in his heart to regret the death of James Potter. Others too had had their suspicions.

"There are some rum rumours going round, Severus - about your family," Lucius had said to him one afternoon. It had been the end of term, after NEWTs, and by then Snape's sights were set on greater challenges, nobler causes… He had denied the rumours adamantly. Only later did he realise that he was being vetted…

x x x

"Damn you, Lucius," he muttered out loud.

Was that why he was here? Did he still, subconsciously, feel compelled to prove himself to Malfoy? Was his impulse to reoccupy the Manor merely an act of self-assertion? In defiance of Malfoy?

Memories could be obliviated, furnishings replaced, colour schemes altered, Pureblood patrimonies reclaimed… Yet Snape had no desire to flaunt or even, really, to avail himself of the trappings of his inheritance. He was not Lucius. He couldn't help but compare himself to his old friend: Lucius had so naturally assumed the mantle of wealth and status; he had perfected the abuse of privilege while cultivating a veneer of respectability in ways which, at the time, had seemed admirable. Snape had strived to emulate him. Even later, after the disillusion had set in, Snape had still envied aspects of Lucius' life: his social poise, his single-mindedness, his family, his marriage, his child…

"Damn you!" said Snape again. Lucius, you've smoked me out of my bolt-hole - what more do you want?

Snape shuddered as a gust of chill wind snatched at his cloak. Pivoting on his heel he checked uneasily in all directions, just in case… then dismissed his apprehensions with a snort. Yet his heart was racing again. He half expected to catch sight of his mother's shimmering spectre, still hauntingly beautiful even in death; still murderously manic. Had he summoned her, unintentionally, with his thoughts? It was impossible. She was banished, eternally, to the Round Tower, warded with the most potent spells he knew. He was imagining things - today he was tense, jumpy; if he shut his eyes he could still feel the squeeze of bony fingers tightening on his throat…

He thrust his hands into his pockets, pulling his cloak more closely about him. It was a stance he abhorred and never failed to rebuke in his students. But the sun too had wrapped itself in a haze of pale lemon cloud and it was cold once you stopped walking. How long had he been standing on these steps deliberating with his doubts? It felt like a lifetime.

End of Chapter.

1 The story of Snape's mother's addiction to potions and subsequent suicide and murder of Snape's father is told in 'Snape's Confession' (Lost Perspective 2). I have tried to continue the French motif here (for the sake of consistency) but without making a thing of it.

2 Ferme les yeux… et voila! - Shut your eyes… ta da!

Next Chapter: GREAT UNCLE ALGIE. Yep, Neville again. The family saga! I hope it explains alot.