Severus awoke much later in great pain.
He was at first very disoriented. He remembered his inexplicable convulsions of hysteria, and Dumbledore, the very angel of mercy, Stunning him in the Entrance Hall. Now he recognized the high moulded ceiling of the hospital wing. His sides were throbbing excruciatingly and his throat felt sore. He could not move from his position, flat on his back in one of the hard beds, but that was all right: he had no intention of going out to face anyone, ever again.
He stared at the ceiling dispiritedly. Why had he suddenly burst out laughing at the worst possible time in the Headmaster's speech? Had the thought of being found out by Dumbledore pushed him over the edge? Was he completely and utterly mad—or was he just sadistic? Neither thought was appealing.
Heels clicked on the tiles: someone was coming. He did not move his head. In a moment the anxious face of Madam Pomfrey hove into view above him.
"Quiet now, Snape? Got all the laughter out of your system?"
"Am I mad, Madam Pomfrey?" Severus asked, his voice hoarse and rasping from throat fatigue. She frowned, surprised. He went on, "I honestly didn't mean to laugh at the Bones family. It's the truth! So if I didn't mean to do it, but I did it anyways, I must be mad."
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "You're not mad, Snape. I… I'll admit I thought so too, after the Headmaster brought you here and explained your little demonstration—Merlin's beard, you were still shaking and cackling, even while unconscious—but after two hours you started to cough up blood, and that was when I really got worried..." She pursed her lips.
"But at last you spat up what was ailing you."
Madam Pomfrey produced a little glass dish in which rested a little mass of black shreds. "Recognize this? No? Professor Sprout will be disappointed. It's little bits of Alihotsy leaves, Snape, and we found more of them in your food. Assuming you didn't suddenly decide to season your own dinner with hysteria-provoking leaves, it was all a prank."
Severus stared at her. "A prank?" he repeated weakly.
Madam Pomfrey nodded grimly. "And unless I am very much mistaken, the culprit is the other first year whose little 'accidents' with you have caused you both to visit me here nearly ten times in the past two and a half months?"
"Has it been that many?" Severus asked drily. "Potter and I haven't been counting."
"I suppose it was too much to hope that you were coming back for my charming company," Madam Pomfrey said with a sigh. "I told the Headmaster as much—he's speaking with Potter right now."
"But no one will believe that it was a prank," Severus said despondently. "They'll all think I'm mad. No one will speak to me for the next seven years. You might as well ship me off to St. Mungo's insane ward straightaway."
"You're being melodramatic," protested Madam Pomfrey. "You'll be strong enough to get out of bed in a few days, and then you can go back to class and show everyone how perfectly sane you are."
Severus groaned. Then a though entered his head and he voiced it without thinking. "Madam Pomfrey, what's Lupin sick with?"
Madm Pomfrey's eyebrows shot up. "I beg your pardon?"
"Lupin. Lily Evans said he was ill, and he was looking rather poorly... Is it contagious? I wouldn't want to get infected and end up here again."
The nurse put a hand to her mouth and Severus had the distinct feeling she was laughing behind it. "Yes, Snape, it's contagious—in a certain way. But I don't think you have to worry about that."
She shook her head. "You know, I really think you ought to stay away from all this extreme activity, it's taking an immense toll on your poor bones. You broke four ribs last night, for Merlin's sake, and I had to wait until you were finished cackling to mend you because you just kept re-breaking them. Now go back to sleep, won't you? You need your rest."
It had been two days since his ill-timed explosion during dinner. Severus was able to move a little better, but still couldn't get out of bed. He was lying quietly, doing complicated mathematical operations with the numbers of bricks in each wall, when a commotion at the door startled him. He closed his eyes quickly and pretended to be asleep.
Several people were coming in; he recognized the voices of Bellatrix, Petula and one of the Gryffindor girls, Priya Sinque, in the clamour with Madam Pomfrey.
"It's her feet, Madam Pomfrey…" Petula fluttered.
"Sit here, dear, that's it… And you performed what spell on this girl?"
"Oh, I don't recall the name," Bellatrix said carelessly. "Ouch, that smarts! It was just some hair-colour spell, but when she saw it she simply fainted dead away. I thought you Gryffindors were meant to be big on bravery, Sinque?"
"You attacked her!" fumed Priya.
"She cursed first," Bellatrix countered.
"She never-" Priya began to argue, but Madam Pomfrey said firmly, "Miss Sinque, please! I must ask you and Miss Swipe to leave—you can't disturb my patients."
The Gryffindor girl stomped out, muttering angrily under her breath.
Petula suddenly exclaimed, "Oh no, I left Rodolphus and Maud alone with Potter and his gang!" And she too rushed out.
"You sit tight, dear," Madam Pomfrey sighed, "I'll go look for the unguent." Severus heard her bustle out, tutting to herself, and the hospital wing was quiet.
All of a sudden Bellatrix remarked, "I know you're awake, Sev."
He tried not to flinch. She said angrily, "Look at me right this minute, Severus Snape, or I'll kick you in the ribs—and you know me enough to realize that's no empty threat."
He opened his eyes and slowly inclined his head to find Bellatrix perched on the end of a bed across from him with her bare feet stuck up in the air in front of her. In the next bed lay Lily Evans, unconscious—but it took a moment for Severus to recognize her, because her dark red hair had been turned shocking white.
"Belle, tell me you didn't curse her!"
Bellatrix shrugged. "Can't lie to you."
Severus sighed, and instantly regretted it, feeling his sore ribs rattle. "What happened?" he asked, wincing.
Bellatrix looked away. "She… offended me."
He waited. "She said you were mad," Bellatrix said tiredly, "a 'self-obsessed sadistic snot,' I think it was… But I said, what did she know, she was only a filthy little Mudblood, and she jinxed me, and I jinxed her back—and here we are."
He was curiously gratified. "What curse did she use?" he asked, looking at Bellatrix's feet.
"You won't believe this—the Hotfoot Hex! Looks like she was really paying attention during your first fight with Potter in the corridor. I can't put my feet down now, Petula nearly had to carry me here."
She paused and glanced away, seeming embarrassed. "Look, sorry I didn't come see you sooner, only… there's been a lot of homework in all our classes and we've really been busy."
"You don't do homework, Belle."
"Ye-es… But Petula and Maud and Rodolphus do, and I couldn't very well come by myself, could I?" She made it sound like it was Severus' fault.
"Where-" He hesitated. "Where's Rodolphus?"
Again Bellatrix looked embarrassed. "Now don't get angry or anything, but he's, ah, he's not taking this very well. Astaroth explained to us about the Alihotsy leaves, and I believe him, I really do; but a lot of people don't, and Rodolphus, for some reason, is one of them. He- he says it's a conspiracy."
She looked at him, seeming hopeful for an explanation, but he was damned if he'd break his vow of silence. He knew that Rodolphus wasn't shunning him—that in fact he was afraid his companion in crime had cracked under the pressure of keeping their secret. But talking to Bellatrix about Rodolphus was nowhere near the same as talking to Rodolphus himself—and Severus had never desired that more than now.
"But where is he now?" he asked.
"Oh, first he ranted about Ministry plots and secret societies, then he dashed off to the Owlery."
"He what?" He struggled to sit up. Bellatrix was alarmed.
"Sev, you've got to rest!"
"I've got to go stop him…"
"Why?" she asked.
He paused. "No reason."
Rodolphus must have seized the opportunity to send a message to his father, he thought grimly. The fool! Now it looked like the boys had cracked first. Severus sighed and wracked his brain for something to take Bellatrix's mind off his strange reaction. "Well… Aren't you afraid of what people think of you if you stand up for me?"
"I never care about that," Bellatrix said dismissively. "And even if I did—well, there are times when all we can do is stand by each other."
Severus grinned weakly. "Oh, that's dreadful. I had no idea you could be so trite."
She shrugged. "I can always leave you to fend for yourself."
"No," Severus said quickly. After a moment it occurred to him to say, "Thanks for standing up for me."
She smiled tensely. "What are friends for?"
She shifted herself, awkwardly and painfully, to his bedside, and held his hand tightly until he fell asleep.
When Potter and Black had conceived the nickname "Snivellus," Severus had been an object of rididule. Now he learned what it was like to be the object of a thousand people's staggering hate.
Students muttered openly in the halls when he passed by, tripped him casually, shot him dirty looks whenever he dared to raise his eyes from his shoes, hissed "Snivellus" and "Sadistic Snape" loudly at him. He stopped raising his hand in class, not wanting to draw attention to himself.
Once, he had been stopped in the corridor between classes. "Hey Snape!" a Hufflepuff fourth year had called, pushing his way through the crowded hall after him. "I've got something really funny to show you."
Severus paused, wary. A few people stopped to watch. The fourth year had brandished a Daily Prophet and pointed to the headline, 'AUROR FOUND DEAD—KILLER STILL AT LARGE.'
"Hilarious, isn't it?" said the fourth year, glaring at him. Everyone around them started laughing. Severus had turned and fled, tears stinging his eyes.
His fellow Slytherins were uncomfortable, clearly worried about how having a lunatic in their house affected their reputations. Even the teachers were cold to him.
But most of his thoughts were still devoted to his father. The prank had at least dissipated his benumbing stupour, and he had entered the next stage: anger. In a flurry of rage he ripped down the green bed hangings form his four-poster, splattered ink all over his books, tore up his mother's letters; and he would have continued with trashing the rest of the dormitory had Rodolphus, who silently observed Severus' rampage from his own bed, not gotten up and stopped him.
Rodolphus, whom Severus had forgiven for breaking down, because he was virtually the only person who would speak to Severus these days. Rodolphus, whose father had not replied to his frantic letter begging for explanations and exoneration. Rodolphus, would not smile or cry or indeed speak at all, except to answer direct question in a monotone. Rodolphus, who slept every night wrapped tightly in the Invisibility Cloak, though no one could tell except Severus, who knew him best.
They did not take meals with the rest of the school anymore. Severus could not bear the weight of all those eyes. Rodolphus did not agree and did not object; he said he didn't feel any way about it. He simply went to the kitchens and commanded the house-elves to serve them in the Slytherin common room. But when a chunk of stoat pie with soft-boiled glossops materialized innocently on a tray by the fireplace, a mere week after the fiasco, Severus threw a fit and refused to eat anything at all for days afterwards.
Their friends noticed their erratic behaviour and were rendered uneasy by it, but no one stirred themselves to speak to Severus or Rodolphus, not even Bellatrix. Her betrayal did not come as a terrible surprise to Severus, despite her compassionate words in the hospital wing: he always knew she cared more about her social standing than she let on.
Their mothers still wrote lengthy, effusive letters, but it was the first week of December, when the autumn rains had come and gone and the first frost of winter had crept over the grounds, before Rodolphus received a terse note from his father, requesting that the Invisibility Cloak be returned to him.
After long hours mulling over the matter, the boys sent back a message saying that the cloak had been a gift, and therefore rightfully belonged to Rodolphus.
The first real indication that the senior Mr. Lestrange had known their frightened faces in the Hog's Head was that he owled them back with a single word: "Fine."
Nothing more. No ranting, no bullying, not even a death threat. Was he afraid to argue? When Rodolphus saw the note with its one lonely word he burst into tears.
When he stopped crying he tore up the note, threw it in the fire, added a few photos of his family, and screamed that he was going to throw himself in the lake.
Then he calmed down and joined Severus in acceptance and despondency, peppered with episodes of overwhelming rage.
During these episodes Severus and Rodolphus would lash out at their friends, at each other, at complete strangers, sometimes even at teachers. Their mood swings were infrequent but unpredictable, and could be sparked by even the most trivial of offences.
But a more grievous insult was the cause of the loudest and most dangerous of Severus' outbursts.
He was alone in the library, looking for a book on Grindylows in the Defence Against the Dark Arts section, when he heard the voices on the other side of the bookshelf. Standing on the tips of his toes, he peered over the tops of the books at the four seventh years seated at a table, surrounded by parchments and textbooks.
"I'll never memorize all the moons of Saturn in time for the NEWTs," wailed a Gryffindor girl with flaming red hair and an exasperated grimace. Severus knew her from a Ministry Christmas party. Her name was Mandy Prewett, or Molly, or Marla, he couldn't quite remember… In any case she was very pudgy, he thought.
"Cheer up, Moll, there are only sixteen of them," said one of the boys soothingly, a skinny Hufflepuff prefect with a mop of blond hair. He was sloppy-looking, Severus decided.
"Saturn has eighteen moons, Nigel," said the other girl severely. She was Emmeline Vance, the Gryffindor Chaser who had been hit with a Bludger in the first Quidditch match against Slytherin. Vance has rather bad acne, Severus thought nastily.
"Has it really? I don't believe you. Enceladus, Iapetus, Telesto, Titan…The boy named Nigel seized an Astronomy tome and began to look it up. "Sixteen, seventeen... You're right again, Vance."
"I say, Molly," said the last student, whom Severus saw was Arthur Weasley, a Gryffindor about whom Lucius Malfoy frequently complained, "can you quiz me on this eckeltricity thing for my test in Muggle Studies tomorrow?"
"Honestly Arthur, I don't know how you can find all this Muggle claptrap so fascinating," Molly said with a sigh. "I think Muggle Studies is a waste of time." Saying this made her gain a few points in Severus' regard, but lost them again when she said brightly, "But of course I'll help you, Arthur, if you really are such a Muggle fanatic. Let's see… Who invented the light bulb?"
"Thomas Edison," Weasley said triumphantly. "Bit of a loony, that one, but quite brilliant—for an American."
"What is the substance placed inside the fie… no, fee… lam… ent?" Molly asked, stumbling on the unfamiliar word.
"Oh, I know this—don't tell me—it's-" Weasley squinted hopefully. "Trunglesten?"
"Close, Arthur, it was tungsten."
"That's what I said!" said Weasley indignantly. "Oh, go on, ask me another one."
"Describe the wiring of an electrical plug."
"Now that's a good question!" Weasley exclaimed. "I'll have to draw a few diagrams to answer this one—blast, where's my quill gone?"
"What, the one you're sitting on?" Vance said, pointing at the end of the quill sticking out from underneath his friend.
"Oh no!" Molly exclaimed.
"Oops," Weasley said sheepishly, pulling the broken feather out from under his rear.
Nigel laughed. "Arthur, did you sit on the quill Molly gave you for your birthday?"
"Careful now Nigel," Vance warned with a grin, "laughing at other people's misfortunes? You don't want to be mistaken for Snivellus Snape!"
Severus' name had the effect of a Full-Body Bind on him. He stared hard at the book he was holding. 'The Grindylow's long, brittle fingers are used to grip their prey and pull them down underwater…'
"Snape! Now there's a loony," Weasley chortled. "I couldn't believe it when he simply burst out laughing in the middle of Dumbledore's speech. Ill-humoured, dry as rot—and completely off his rocker to boot."
"He's not mad, he's bad," Vance countered. "Pure evil, Andromeda Black told me the other day. She knows him, you know, friend of the family or something. He's a real bad egg, she said."
Severus tried not to listen. 'Also called water demons…'
"Run in his blood," Molly said knowingly. "I met him once before Hogwarts you know, and my aunt Bernice says they're all horrible, depraved people—lawless cretins, the whole lot of them."
Nigel chuckled. "I hate him already, and I don't even have a reason!"
"Do you want one?" Severus snarled, stepping out from behind the bookshelf with his wand raised. Before Nigel could react Severus hissed, "Petrificus Totalus!" Nigel went rigid and fell off his chair.
The other three started to reach for their wands, but Severus was faster. Pointing at Vance he said, "Pipilo!" Vance opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out of her mouth was a bird's twittering. She clapped both hands over mouth and chirped in alarm.
Severus turned to Molly and barked, "Serpensortia!" She screamed as a giant snake sprang at her with its sharp, glistening fangs bared.
Then he had his wand trained on Weasley, his wand trembling with his agitation. "Snape…" Weasley said weakly, his arms still limp at his sides.
"Zip it, Weasley," Severus said fiercely. He hardly knew what he was doing, he was so angry. "You want something to laugh at? Rictusempra!" Weasley dissolved in terrified giggles.
"And I hope you choke!" Severus shouted. He shoved his way through the crowd of stunned gathered students and stumbled out of the library, his tears blurring his vision.