A/N: this is my first attempt at a fic, and I'm very nervous about it. You wouldn't believe how self-conscious one becomes when offering their work out to the world. Anyways, I have been working on this little plotline for a long, long time, and I hate it when you have to wait forever for updates, and so have postponed submitting it until I have several chapters already written. So some of the material is "out of date," or considered AU because I came up with this idea long before Ms. Rowling came out with OotP or HBP, but I hope you can overlook that and enjoy the story. Any comments/constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!
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Chapter 2: Seeds of Discord Sown
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"Aw, that sounds so sweet!"
"I know… but really, it was no easy task." Her companion looked skeptical. "Oh, the older boys were easy enough to handle, but the twins – Dolly and Ellen, remember –"
"The trouble-makers?"
"—yes, and they were! I could barely keep them out of trouble, let alone tell them apart!"
"Well, at least you were helping out your aunt. That last made five kids, didn't it?" She sounded slightly incredulous.
"Yeah. And there's probably another couple around the corner, which is great. As much of a handful as they were, the twins were adorable; plus, being nursemaid for them for the summer has had so many benefits. You know I want to be a governess after school, and now I've got loads of valuable experience. Don't give me that look! Being a governess isn't a bad job: you wouldn't believe the pay for taking care of some rich snob's kids when they can't be bothered to. And Aunt Molly really did need an extra set of helping hands, and they're not exactly well off financially, so I was just glad to help."
"As lovely as you make it sound, I don't think I'll ever want a large family. In fact, one kid should do very nicely. Oh, over here, Todd!" She waved as her classmate and fellow newly-made Prefect called her name, trying to locate her in order to giver her her schedule. "Thanks!"
The boy in question had dark, tousled hair she imagined hadn't seen a comb yet that morning. "No problem, Lily. Oh, Lynnette, yours should be just a little ways down…" He started rifling through the sheaf of parchment he was holding.
"So, how's being a Prefect going?"
"Fine, fine…actually," here he pulled a wry grin, "the older Prefects seem to like to dump all the busy-work on us 'newbies'."
"Lily, why aren't you doing anything, then?"
"Because her boyfriend's a Prefect, not to mention the fact that every guy in the house past third year is sweet on her, that's why."
She laughed. "Well, being pretty does have its advantages!" She tossed her tresses over her shoulder in a very exaggerated gesture, sticking her nose in the air.
"That's right, m'dear." Another untidy-, dark-haired boy had dropped a quick kiss on the tip of her upturned nose and slid into the space on the bench next to her. "It makes it a lot easier for your boyfriend to say, 'hi,' every morning."
She scoffed, and her friends were grinning. "James Potter, you are a horrible, shallow, pompous git!"
He was unabashed. "Yes, but you know that's why you love me. Anyways, what's your schedule? I've already got mine."
Todd spoke up. "Duh, 'cause you dumped the other years you were supposed to hand out on me. Here's your, Lynnette, and now I've got to go see if I can get the rest of these out by the time classes start. I'll see you two later." He hurried off among short chirps of farewell from the girls to where "Furth, Scott," was enjoying his kippers.
"He tries too hard, that one." James' eyes were tinkling behind his glasses.
"As opposed to you, mate," chuckled yet another dark-haired boy joining them. "You don't try at all. And can you believe we have double Herbology and Transfiguration with the Slytherins? I mean, really, what's Dumbledore playing at? Does he want a homicide at Hogwarts?"
"Hm… 'Homicide at Hogwarts'… that almost sounds like the title of a book, doesn't it?" mused Lynnette. "Besides, you should just be glad you haven't had to double with them before. Lily and I have had double Defense Against the Dark Arts with Slytherins ever since first year."
"Ah, shut up, Lynnette, and leave me to my whining." His tone was playful. "You didn't let me last night, and just look at what happened."
"Oh, yes, before I forget…" Lily reached around from where she had leant against James, and smacked him on the head. "Sirius, what were you thinking? That's got to be the only time in Hogwarts history that Gryffindor's had negative points! Points off before classes even started; we're going to have to work extra heard to get the Cup this year!"
"You know, James, I think I've found you that Beater you were looking for since Perkins left." He was massaging his scalp and wincing.
"Well, it serves you right!"
"Besides," amended Lynnette for her, "we couldn't possibly start an extracurricular activity like Quidditch this year. OWLs are coming up, and we've got to prepare for them!"
"You're not actually worried about them, are you?" Sirius looked incredulous. "They're a breeze. Overrated, too: teachers just inventing another excuse to get us to do more work." The girls regarded him dubiously. "Don't worry your pretty red heads about it. I know you'll pass with nothing but Os. You're both the smartest people in your year. That's nothing compared to me, of course," he added devilishly. "Ouch! Yep, James, I've definitely found you your Beaters," he groaned petulantly, both sides of his head smarting from the double attack Lily and Lynnette had launched. "I'm off to wake up Remus and Peter, otherwise we'll never make it to Herbology on time. Damn shame having to see those Slytherins so early in the morning." He rose and trudged off, mumbling about "homicidal redheads at Hogwarts…"
James turned to them with a pained expression. "I fear that you have mortally wounded my friend, and for that you must pay!" And he pounced, tickling Lily mercilessly.
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Venomous tentaculi have to be the most retarded plants in the entire world, he thought, wincing as the mediwitch pulled seven-inch thorns from his swollen, purple arm.
Why, in the name of Merlin, would anyone want to create a half-sentient, wholly malevolent, spiked vine? His ruined robes lay in a tattered pile on the end table by the head of the bed, resembling a pincushion more than anything else. They had slowed the penetration of the spikes so that his back, shoulders, and torso had much shallower punctures than his forearms. They had been had been exposed as he'd rolled up his sleeves while working in the peat.
Gryffindors are gits, chased its way around his head as his entire upper body throbbed, swollen and discolored. He jerked as the mediwitch smeared a cold, slimy gel on his newly de-spined arm, and continued to glop it up his arm to cover his shoulder, across his back, and back down his other arm.
"I do believe you can get the rest by yourself, Mr. Snape." With that, the mediwitch handed him the jar of goop and bustled off to her office.
'No, Professor, we didn't see what happened. His disgusting Slytherin-ness must have set it off,' he recalled savagely, wincing as he had to scoop through what felt like a mix between snot and mashed potatoes. He thought they'd been throwing the fertilizer balls at him to annoy him. He'd taken the high road and ignored them. They weren't actually hitting him, anyways, just getting annoyingly close.
That boy is an imbecile. He hadn't realized until it had already lashed out and grabbed him that, while missing him, the fertilizer balls had been pegging the irate plant behind him. At the beginning of the class, when they were entering the greenhouse, Severus had heard him laughing with his gang as they congratulated him on the prank the other night, and so knew that with this boy, it was no mistake. That made his second offense in eighteen hours!
The mediwitch exited her office, coming over to him. "Give that another fifteen minutes to soak in, Mr. Snape, and then you will be free to return to your next class. You should be grateful," she added in a disapproving tone, "that you got off with just a few scratches; there are many more dangerous plants in Hogwarts' greenhouses than the venomous tentacula. Hopefully you will know better than to fool around in class from now on."
He didn't say anything, but his jaw was clenched, and his blood pumped in a way totally dissociated from the effects of the venom in his veins. The injustice of it all stung, and the worst part was that the Herbology professor had caught the boy once near the beginning of the lesson, admonishing him for being careless with the fertilizer ("It's expensive, you know."). 'My fingers slipped,' my arse!
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"Oh, Severus, Transfiguration was simply amazing! Did you know, I was the only one who could make my beetle look like a button?" Narcissa's cheerfulness was entirely wasted on his foul mood. "Granted, it still had its antennae, but it was flat and had the right number of holes!"
He managed a tight smile. "How…lovely."
"But I'm forgetting myself; how was your first class, Severus?"
His tone was sharp. "Don't ask."
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He appreciated what Professors Skeandhu and Dumbledore had tried to do for him, but it was just making life more trouble than it was worth. It was just his luck that both of the sixth year courses he was taking happened to be doubled with Gryffindor. Specifically, doubled with that thug, whose name he had finally discovered (after about the fifth found of pranks) to be Sirius Black.
His fellow Slytherins were hardly supportive, seeming to think he deserved it for being "smarter" than them. The seventh years were even worse, feeling personally slighted when presented with someone who made them feel less secure of their own superiority. To top it all off, the other first years had started to notice that he was the only one not in some of their classes, and he was beginning to feel ostracized.
Only Narcissa Pharisaic seemed unaffected by the anti-Snape disposition of the House – or should he say Houses, as Black had incited a dislike of him through the Gryffindors as well. It was based on nothing more than the fact that Black picked on him, and so he must therefore be a nasty person, or someone who deserved it. His being a Slytherin really didn't help his popularity among the other Houses, either, and most attempts at making new acquaintances or friends usually ended badly. But he had Narcissa's company, even if it was for a selfish purpose and wasn't necessarily what one generally called a friendship. He wasn't going to be picky, though; "house elves can't be choosers" and all that. On this particular morning, she was regaling him with tales of Patty Parkinson and the exposure of her unicorn plushie.
"I mean, really…Patty? She's always such a bitch in class, and it turns out she still sleeps with a stuffed animal. Go figure. She dumped it in the bin to be disposed of with the laundry as soon as we caught her with it, but I bet she'll have it back before going to sleep tonight."
This was the most intelligent conversation she could come up with? And was it so horrendous that someone not even quite in her teens yet took comfort from an inanimate object? "Didn't you ever have a stuffed animal when you were younger?"
"Of course I did. But you give up such childish things. Besides, that's not the point."
"Oh, it isn't?"
"No." She gave him a scathing look. "I'm sure there are others with the same sort of thing, and probably even some older students as well. But she was stupid enough to be caught, and so must suffer the consequences. Those are, at the moment, a bit of embarrassing, but ultimately harmless, ridicule."
Severus thought he might just have gotten a glimpse at the real Narcissa Pharisaic: an astute, observant young lady with a remarkable and ruthless grasp of reality and the way things worked. She was a hundred percent correct, of course; Lucius Malfoy himself could wear a pink tutu and have a house elf sing him lullabies if it helped him sleep easier, as long as no one officially knew. But slip up just once, let one ruffle from the tutu stick out or one note of the house elf's melody linger a moment too long, and it was social suicide. You were caught, game's up, and you've failed the Slytherin way of sneak first, cleverly avoid confrontation (while stabbing them in the back, if need be) later.
As frivolous as Lucius Malfoy in a tutu made it sound, this system was the backbone of Slytherin House's workings, and applied to far more than just nocturnal aids. He'd been there long enough to start to realize and identify some of it. It was no surprise to him that the Slytherins were seen as cunning and ambitious. You had to hide your deepest fears, squash your insecurities, and demolish your weak points while at the same time ferreting out everyone else's. If one of yours were discovered, you'd need some dirt of your own to threaten with and keep them off your back.
It was a ridiculous system, really, if you thought about it. Everyone was against each other and always guarded, constantly paranoid and on edge. It was no way to live, especially for adolescents just becoming adjusted to the world, and was almost an impossible task to keep all fronts, backs, and sides protected. Which was exactly how friends were made. Alliance, rather, as there was really no way to have a "friend" like that; the basis of friendship was trust, and most of the Slytherins didn't have enough to fill a pixie's cap. There was just enough trust between groups of people to form cliques, circles of those who let a select few know more about them freely in exchange for protection against the others. It was a large-scale arrangement of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," instead twisted into, "I scratch your back, you watch mine." Yes, they were ready to turn on each other at the slightest hint of betrayal or double-crossing, but for as long as it lasted, you'd be hard pressed to find a closer, more tightly knit and protective group of people.
Unfortunately for him, his unique curricular arrangement had cost him the opportunity to become part of such a group. His special treatment branded him as different and untouchable as if he had been a leper. However, he thought he was managing well enough on his own. For instance, no one knew that being locked in a small closet could inspire more fear in him than any fantastic beast ever could; or that he was sweet on another first year Ravenclaw; or that, apart from those directly involved, he was taking higher levels of instruction; or, his second most highly guarded secret, that the gobstones set he kept safely locked in his trunk was part of his inheritance transfigured: a beautiful, deadly, dark saber.
His entire family, as far back as was traceable (which was a darn good chunk of time), was born of fencers, and he had been trained in the art of the steel blade just as his forefathers had been. Sometimes, after a particularly horrible day – often a Sirius-filled one – he would take out the gobstones set and undo the transfiguration on it, polishing and caring for it in the night, long after his dorm-mates had fallen asleep. He would sit in the dark, letting the moonlight be the only illumination, contemplating the saber and letting his most guarded secret run through his head, reminding himself and taking comfort in the knowledge of it. Come morning, the gobstones set would always be back in its correct place, and his companions would suspect nothing, and though he knew his day would probably not be very much better from the last, his back would be a bit straighter and his head held a fraction higher.
