Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters and settings are the property of J.K. Rowling.
Chapter Eight: The Potions Master and the Brat
When Ellie's classmates first heard about Ellie's punishment for skipping Snape's class, they felt it was very harsh. Jamie had even suggested going to Professor McGonagall about it. Ellie shushed them all however, explaining that she was prepared to carry out the punishment.
"I was wrong after all. I shouldn't have skipped the class. He had a right to punish me," Ellie admitted.
"Yeah well, I still think he's a prat," Jamie said. Ellie laughed.
"So do I," she said, grinning.
The Slytherins were in raptures when they heard about Ellie's punishment. Two Slytherin groups had the last class of a day in the potions classroom – the first years and some sixth years. They resolved to make as much mess as possible on those days to pay that stupid Gryffindor out for her treatment of Snape.
Snape himself looked forward to making the brat suffer. He had quickly learned how to push her buttons. A few well-placed comments about her Gryffindor cohorts seemed to do the trick. By the time he was finished with her she would be sorry that she and her blasted eyes had ever come to Hogwarts.
The following day classes seemed to pass by quickly. The first year Gryffindors had no potions class that day, much to Ellie's relief. She would be seeing enough of Snape that night. Sure enough after dinner when she went down into the dungeons to the potions classroom, Snape was standing outside waiting for her. As she approached him, Helen's comments about Snape before their first potions lesson flashed into her mind. In the poorly lit dungeon corridor, the tall pale man in black certainly did look very much like a vampire. Without realising it, she looked up at him in awe. Could he be a vampire then? Maybe that's why he favoured the dungeons (his classroom and office were situated there after all). Vampires weren't supposed to like the light. Maybe that's what made them so pale? Snape was certainly pale – his skin was almost white.
"So is yours," a voice whispered in her head. Her stomach lurched at this, as once again she recalled Mrs. Manning's comment about no one knowing what her father was, and consequently what she was.
Snape gave Ellie one of his coldest stares as she walked towards him. When she stopped in front of him however, he began to frown. She was looking at him very strangely, as if she had just discovered something very fascinating about him. He was glad when the look faded from her face and she cast her eyes towards the floor, now a look of confusion evident in her expression.
Snape cleared his throat. Ellie looked lost for a moment, but then quickly looked at him.
"After you Miss Winterbourne," he said, gesturing to the open door of the classroom. She walked in and he followed, shutting the door behind him.
Ellie's face fell when she saw the state of the classroom. There were greenish brown blobs everywhere – on the workbenches, on the floor, even some on the walls. What on earth had happened here?
Snape seemed to once again read her thoughts. As he offered an explanation for the state of the classroom, Ellie wondered for the second time if it was possible for wizards to read people's minds. She resolved to go to the library and find out at the next available opportunity.
"The fourth year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had some difficulty with their lesson today," Snape said, smirking.
Ellie glared at him for a moment. He was enjoying this, the git. Upon thinking this, she felt like hitting herself, and shot a glance at him to see if he looked angry. He was still smirking however. Good! Maybe he wasn't reading her mind after all.
She got to work while Snape sat at the desk, shifting through rolls of parchment. It took ages just to scrub one blob into nothingness. She'd be here forever! Snape occasionally glanced up from his work, smiling smugly whenever he caught a frustrated sigh.
The hours ticked by, and Ellie was starting to feel very distressed. It was already past eleven o'clock and there were still loads more to do. Tears of frustration sprang up behind her eyes, and she blinked furiously to dispel them. The last thing she needed was for Snape to catch her crying. He would love that. Try as she might a stray tear managed to roll down her cheek. She brushed it away hastily; worried that Snape would see it.
Snape happened to look up as Ellie rubbed her eyes. He saw the tear glistening on her cheek. He began to smile, but the expression on her face made him frown instead. A memory immediately flashed through his mind.
"I can't do it Severus, it's too difficult. I'll never get through this class."
The girl looked at him, her expression a mixture of frustration and distress as she hastily brushed away the small tears that were streaming down her face.
"You can do it Claudia. Don't give up," urged Snape.
Snape shook his head, trying to forcing this memory to the back of his mind, but the sight of Ellie standing in front of him, the same expression of frustration and distress on her face, coupled with the same angry, unwanted tears made it too difficult. He suddenly couldn't bear to be in the same room with her any more.
"That is enough Miss Winterbourne. You may go," Snape announced, standing up.
Ellie looked at him for a moment, puzzled. She then gestured around her.
"But I'm not done yet…" she began, but Snape waved his hand, silencing her.
"I don't know about you Miss Winterbourne, but I don't particularly want to spend the rest of the night in here waiting for you to finally finish the job. I have much more important things to do," he said coolly, sneering at her as he finished his sentence. He reached into his robes and pulled out his wand. After muttering a few words and pointing his wand, the classroom was suddenly spotless.
Ellie was surprised that Snape was letting her off so easily tonight. She had already been warned by Charlie Weasley, and a few other Gryffindor students, that Snape thought nothing of keeping students in detention until well after midnight. His sneering comment about having more important things to do however quickly dispelled the notion that he was doing her a favour. He was obviously as bored as she was.
"Thanks" she muttered to him. She made to leave the classroom, and Snape began to follow behind her.
"I shall escort you to the Gryffindor tower. Mr. Filch does not think too kindly of first years wandering the corridors at this time of night," he said, causing Ellie to whirl round, surprised. She looked at him for a moment, as if considering something, and then slowly nodded her head.
Snape and Ellie walked side by side, neither speaking nor even looking at each other. Snape had surprised himself when he offered to escort her. It had come out of his mouth before he had even realised he was thinking about it.
When they reached the tower, Ellie again turned to look at Snape. Her look made him feel uncomfortable. It was as if she was sizing him up.
"Thank you Professor," she eventually said, turning back and walking towards the portrait that guarded the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Snape nodded and turned to leave, but again surprised himself by looking back quickly to make sure she got into the common room safely.
He walked off to his own quarters, feeling disgusted with himself. Just because the brat happened to show a passing resemblance to her mother did not mean he should suddenly go soft on her. He was thankful no else had witnessed that scene outside the tower.
As the weeks passed, Ellie noticed that the potions classroom was never as messy as it had been the first night. On the days when she was in the last potions class with the Slytherins and they made as much mess as possible, she would be surprised to arrive at the classroom after dinner to see that it looked nowhere near as bad as it did when she had left the classroom a couple of hours previously. There was a very good reason for this. Snape now made sure that Ellie had about two hours of work to do at the most. With a wave of his wand, no matter how filthy the last class left the room Ellie would never have to spend hours upon hours cleaning up again. Although Snape despised himself for making things easier for the girl, he concluded that it was a necessary evil. The less time he spent around the girl the better. Perhaps if he only saw her a few times a week in his potions class, and perhaps fleetingly during meal times, he would have been able to build up a wall of defence around himself, and not allow Ellie's likeness to her mother to affect him. Sitting before her night after night however, observing begrudgingly that the brat, whether she was aware of it or not, not only shared a physical resemblance to her mother but also shared many of her mannerisms and expressions, was making it difficult to separate the girl from her mother. Snape had intended this punishment to be torture for Ellie; instead, he found it was torture for him.
Snape dreaded to think what the girl would look like in a few years time. He resolved however to never give her detention again. The less he saw of her after this term was over, the better. It still seemed cruelly ironic that a child he detested so much bore such a striking similarity to a woman who had meant everything to him. It was as if the universe was playing a big joke on him. Only on one point did the girl differ from her mother, Snape thought.
Claudia's sun kissed skin tone had always contrasted starkly with his own pallid complexion. It had used to amuse him when she would intertwine her fingers with his. There was never any mistaking which finger belonged to whom. Ellie however was almost as pale as he was, Snape mused. Snape contented himself with the thought that this child was at least not a blatant carbon copy of Claudia, the idea of taking this comparison of the child with himself further never occurring to him.
Ellie often wondered if perhaps Snape had something to do with the classroom's sudden change from utter chaos on the days she left it after classes with the Slytherins, to mild upset when she arrived after dinner. Who else would be able to make such a difference? If it had been someone else, a helpful Gryffindor perhaps, then Snape surely would have spoken out angrily against the huge difference in the room in the space of two hours immediately. He merely went to his desk however and began marking homework. Occasionally she caught him looking at her, but rather than continuing to stare coolly at her or smirk, as she would have expected, he hastily withdrew his gaze and glued his eyes to the rolls of parchment on his desk.
Ellie was left feeling very confused by Snape's attitude towards her. He seemed to hate her sometimes by the way she sometimes noticed him glaring at her in class or the Great Hall, but he was never as openly hostile to her again as he had been during her first two days at Hogwarts. Then there was of course the matter of the classroom magically tidying itself up somewhat, meaning she usually had very little to do compared to her first detention.
When Ellie had mentioned to Jamie that Snape had escorted her to the Gryffindor tower after the first detention had ended so late, Jamie had felt as puzzled as she did.
"What would he care if you got into trouble with Filch?" Jamie wondered aloud, voicing Ellie's very own thoughts. It did seem strange indeed, not at all what she would have expected from Snape. Ellie felt that there was some mystery surrounding Snape. Certainly he was creepy, and was very nasty to some of his students, particularly Gryffindors, but Elle felt there was something about her that seemed to have a hold over Snape. She began to seriously contemplate Jamie's suggestion that Snape had fancied her mother. The idea had revolted her at first, but it did at least explain some of Snape's strange behaviour to her. Ellie had shown Jamie the framed photo of her mother, as well as the photo album, and Jamie agreed that there was a strong resemblance.
"Wow. You really do look a lot like her you know," said Jamie, whistling in surprise when Ellie handed him the photo. She beamed; glad that Jamie agreed with her, but then noticed Jamie was frowning at the picture.
"What is it?" Ellie asked, and Jamie looked up at her, a confused expression on his face.
"Nothing. It's just; she looks very young in this picture, that's all."
Ellie took the picture and looked at it. Jamie was right; now that she was thinking about it her mother only looked about sixteen or seventeen, like she should still be at Hogwarts.
"Well, maybe it was taken when she was younger," said Ellie, shrugging her shoulders.
"How old was she, when she… you know, died?" Jamie asked.
Ellie scrunched up her nose, trying to see if see could remember. It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea. The information that Mrs. Manning had given her regarding her mother was still very sketchy, even after the revelation that she had been a witch.
"I don't know," Ellie admitted. Jamie frowned again for a minute, thinking.
"Well," he said at last, "You could always send that Mrs. Manning an owl and ask her," said Jamie.
"Yeah, I suppose so," Ellie said sounding unsure. It wasn't that she didn't want to know. As a matter of fact she was now extremely curious to hear exactly when and how her mother had died. It was just she feared that Mrs. Manning may class all of this as "silly questions" and not tell her. She explained her thoughts to Jamie.
"Well, what about one of the teachers here then? Your mum went to Hogwarts so one of the older ones might have taught her and they might have heard something after she left. You could even ask Dumbledore," Jamie said.
The thought of asking the Headmaster, to whom Ellie had never spoken with personally, seemed terrifying. When Ellie told Jamie this, he laughed.
"Well, you could always ask Snape," he said, a wicked glint in his eye. Ellie nudged him playfully, laughing at the idea.
"Absolutely not!" she exclaimed.
She thought about it some more, and decided that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all to ask Dumbledore.
"He was the one that asked Mrs. Manning to take care of me, so he must know something," she mused.
Deciding to ask Dumbledore was easy. Actually doing it proved very difficult. For one thing, Ellie had no idea where Dumbledore's office was. For another thing, even if she did, she didn't know how to even begin to ask. How would she begin?
"Please Professor Dumbledore, how did my mum die, and how old was she incidentally?" seemed rather foolish in her head.
The end of term was fast approaching, and Ellie had yet to speak to Dumbledore. She began to wonder if maybe the information she wanted was locked away somewhere in the attic back home. She had learnt a simple spell that would open locked doors, so even if Mrs. Manning still kept the door locked it wouldn't be a problem. She would even brave going up to the attic alone again to hunt for information. Ellie knew that if she did use a spell to unlock the door that she might get into trouble, as she wasn't supposed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, but she was prepared to run the risk.
Snape meanwhile was inwardly rejoicing that the term was almost over and he would be free from that brat for a while. If she suddenly decided to not come back to Hogwarts after Christmas Snape felt he would never treat a Gryffindor unfairly again.
About a week before term ended, Ellie was sitting in the Great Hall eating her breakfast while owls glided overhead, delivering post to various students. Ellie had been startled by this practise at first but had quickly gotten used to it. Now she barely noticed whenever an owl would zoom over her head. She had never received a letter herself. She didn't expect to either; who would write to her apart from Mrs. Manning anyway? On this particular morning however, she was shocked when a medium sized tawny owl dropped a letter on her plate.
At first, she was sure it was a mistake, but when she looked closer, she made out the unmistakable spindly handwriting that advertised that this was a letter from Mrs. Manning. She took the envelope and tore it open, curious to see what it contained.
She pulled out a slip of paper and scanned it. It was indeed a letter from Mrs. Manning that said the following:
Dear Eleanora,
I hope you have been behaving yourself at Hogwarts. You remembered I trust, to inform Professor Dumbledore of how well I have taken care of you my dear. As it is almost Christmas I trust that term is ending soon. Please send a letter back with the owl to let me know the correct day and time to meet you at Kings Cross Station. We can go shopping for Christmas presents when you arrive. If Professor Dumbledore happens to ask what your plans for Christmas are, you can be sure to tell him!
See you soon,
Love Auntie Manning
Ellie nearly choked on the piece of toast she had been eating. "Auntie Manning"? Had Mrs. Manning gone mad? Ellie mused over it for a moment, and then had to suppress a laugh when she realised why Mrs. Manning had signed her name in such a ridiculous way. She obviously held some fear that Dumbledore would feel that she was a bad guardian for Ellie, and "come knocking on our fireplace". Ellie chuckled at the image of Mrs. Manning (or should that be Auntie Manning?) cowering before Dumbledore, and for a wild moment considered sending Mrs. Manning back an owl telling her that Dumbledore had been very disappointed when Ellie had outlined to him how she had been raised. Reluctantly she concluded that this would be a bit too mean however, and dismissed the idea.
Ellie now considered the owl that was at the moment pecking at the toast on her plate. Where had it come from? Did Mrs. Manning own an owl then? She had said something about sending an owl to Professor Dumbledore before, so perhaps she did. She had certainly kept it a secret if that was the case. Ellie rushed up to the common room with the owl following her before her classes began and quickly scribbled down the date and time that Mrs. Manning should meet her in London. She saw the owl off out the window and then hurried down to class.