RIDICULOUS IDEAS

This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and situations elaborated herein.

A/N: Spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers.

A Valentine's Day Ball! Of all the ridiculous ideas Dumbledore had ever come up with, from hiring Lockhart to reinstating the Triwizard Tournament just in time for Voldemort's resurrection, this was – pretty standard really. Only made worse by the invitation to alumni to return for the occasion. What a relief it would be when the man's whimsy was replaced with Minerva's common sense.

Snape's lip curled as he surveyed the overcrowded Great Hall. Even with an expansion spell, it wasn't large enough for everyone and small knots of people spilled in and out of the doors constantly. His head was pounding in rhythm with the cacophony of wailing songs, tapping feet and shouted conversations. Then that girl, that exasperating, inescapable girl, came in with her tall Ravenclaw and her rowdy raucous group of friends. She saw him almost immediately and lifted her arm in a smiling half-wave. He was mercifully close to the secret teachers' exit. He scowled in reply and swept out of the room.

Hermione's mouth twisted into a rueful smile. 'Snape's hating this,' she thought, 'poor old grump.' He still loomed larger over her school-day memories than any other teacher, but his temper no longer had the power to hurt. Ricky had helped her see him in proper perspective, diminished to ordinary humanity. He wasn't the overpowering and overblown Arbiter of Everything she'd wanted to impress, but just a meticulous, conscientious and joyless teacher, simultaneously admirable and detestable, a bad-tempered, bitter-tongued, burdened man.

His tongue had been as barbed as ever at their last meeting, but what a feeling of exhilarating release it had been to catch the barbs one-handed and throw them back at him. After the first few exchanges, he'd been eager to get away. Judging by Charlie's letters to Ginny, he'd already known about this ball when he made that crack about meeting sooner than they'd wish – though their meetings were always too soon for him.

She'd stay out of his way then. Let him go sulk in the gardens, decapitating rose bushes and disturbing young lovers. There were plenty of people who did want to see her: Harry and Hannah, Ron and Susan, Ginny and Neville, Luna, Colin, Zacharias, professors like McGonagall, Flitwick, Vector, Charlie and of course Ricky's friend Roger Davies, who'd replaced Madam Hooch as flying instructor after her death in the final battle.

"Miserable, greasy git," said Ron, who'd seen Snape's reaction to her greeting. "You know, I bet he was just like Malfoy when he was at school. Always flapping his mouth and bullying people."

"It was the other way around actually," Harry said unexpectedly. "My dad and his friends used to bully him. Four against one half the time."

"How d'you know?" Ginny rasped. Her voice was improving, they no longer had to lean closer to hear her, but it was still rough and unpleasing. Neville's hand slid into hers and she leaned against his shoulder.

"Saw it in his memories," Harry muttered. He hadn't told them about his snooping at the time and there was no need to mention it now, but Ron's unconcealed rancour against Snape got on his nerves sometimes. Sure he'd been a horror of a teacher, but they couldn't have beaten Voldie without him. Give it a rest already. "And then I asked Remus and he said it was true."

"True? Four against one? I'd never have thought Remus would -"

"Mainly my dad and Sirius," Harry interrupted Hermione. "Wormtail cheered them on and Remus mostly just watched and never said anything. Like in the Shrieking Shack, remember? And those times when Sirius called him Snivellus in front of us and Remus didn't bat an eye."

"Snivellus!" Ron laughed. "I'd forgotten that. Funny name though. I mean, Snape? Can't believe he ever cried in his life, he wouldn't know how."

"He was a kid once too, Ron," Hermione reproved him, casting a glance back in the direction where her teacher had stood. "Maybe as he got older he learned to turn tears into anger. Maybe that's why he was so explosive all the time."

"Crybaby Snape," Ron guffawed. "I like that."

"Must we always talk about Snape?" Ricky said impatiently, looking down at her. "Sometimes I wonder if the only reason you like me is that I look like him."

Hermione's friends all looked at the floor or sidelong at each other, waiting for the explosion. That must be some kind of joke, right? Ricky couldn't really think Hermione had ever crushed on Snape, could he? Scarlet-faced and glaring, she wrenched herself out of Ricky's arm that had been around her waist and turned on him.

"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "Of course you don't look like him."

Zacharias looked him over and disagreed with his usual malicious tactlessness. He never could resist annoying people.

"He does though. Same beanpole shape, same dark eyes and hair and he even has a hook in his nose. Come to think of it all your boyfriends have looked like Snape. What about Krum at the Triwizard?"

"What about Ron?" Hermione demanded. "He doesn't look like Snape."

"I should hope not!" Ron bellowed.

"He's the exception that proves the rule," Zacharias argued, "though if you broke his nose twenty times and dyed his hair -"

"He'd still never look like Snape," Hannah said firmly. "One of these days your mouth is going to get you in trouble you can't smirk your way out of. Then maybe someone will break your nose twenty times."

There was a general roar of laughter, but Hermione was still fuming.

"That better have been a joke, Richard Alberic Brocklehurst," she threatened. "As if I'd ever think of Snape like that. He's twenty years older than me, for goodness sake!"

More sidelong glances were exchanged. This was not the time to point out the age difference between Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt or other oddly age-assorted couples they knew.

Ricky smiled into Hermione's eyes and she couldn't resist smiling back.

"Sorry love, I didn't mean it. Just me being silly. Come and dance, OK?"

She let herself be pulled away. Ron turned to Harry.

"How does he do that? She used to nag at us for months whenever we teased her and he gives her one smile –"

"It must be lurve," Ginny said cheerfully.

After two of the first five couples Snape separated proved to be alumni, he left the rose garden for the lake, not stopping till he'd gone halfway around and left everyone behind. Head bent and teeth clenched, he stared at the ripple of small waves and splashes radiating from its centre. He had about as much chance of ever finding a partner as the giant squid. He'd given up on all that twenty years ago at the start of his spying career.

Faint swish of feet through long grass behind him. He turned, scowling, to find the Defence teacher standing nearby. He didn't mind Marchant in general, his avoidance of personal discussions was preferable to the pushy over-friendliness of previous incumbents, but he didn't want to talk to him tonight.

"I prefer to be alone," he growled at his grey-bearded colleague.

Calm hazel eyes met his unwelcoming glare.

"Don't mind me. I'm sure you can be alone as easily with me as without me," Marchant returned.

Coal-black eyes narrowed and thin lips tightened to a grim straight line as Snape wondered for the first time what was hidden behind the other's cool reserve. Why had the man come to find him in this isolated spot? His hand closed around his wand.

"Why did you follow me?"

A grey head balding at the temples dipped and straightened as Marchant's lips folded, refolded, and then opened in quiet confession.

"I had a wife and a daughter once. They were killed in the First Rising. I came home to find the Dark Mark floating over my house."

Snape's dark eyes flashed a challenge. Was that an accusation or perhaps a prelude to an assassination attempt? If so Snape would be quick to teach him that, retired spy-cum-Death Eater or not, he hadn't gone soft or forgotten his hard-learnt skills.

"Why did you follow me?" he asked again through gritted teeth.

The answer came in a soft, reflective voice.

"There's something I've wanted to tell you and I thought it should be said on neutral ground."

"Well?" the younger man bit off, chin lifted so that his greasy black hair streamed behind him.

Marchant watched in silence, expressions flickering over his mild, pleasant face as he considered his words. Then he squared his shoulders and took a step forward, keeping his hands open and away from his wand. He licked his lips and sucked them in, then released them.

"I forgive you," he said.

"You – What?"

Snape's wand hand wavered and fell. He took an involuntary step back, gulping and staring. Nobody had ever forgiven him, in words or in thoughts, and he'd never asked or expected it. He didn't deserve it.

"I forgive you." Marchant's voice shifted into the broader, deeper cadences of formality. "Severus Snape, I forgive you. Freely and fully, without coercion or reservation. For what you did willingly, for what you did unwillingly, for what you watched and didn't stop, for what you saw and couldn't stop. For knowledge, thought, word, deed and intention." He paused touching his right hand to his heart then slowly extending it. "And this do I swear," he added in an even more deliberate tone, "friendship and faith between me and mine and thee and thine forever."

Snape gawped at him in silence. He took another step back, shaking his head to clear it. His eyes dropped to that patient outstretched hand, then returned to the open honest eyes. He didn't believe it. It must be some kind of trick. A spasm of rage shook him. How dare he mock?

"Legilimens," he murmured and fell into the other's mind. A long moment he walked there, seeing the bodies, the grief, the long painful years of recovery, all leading to this moment. Then he breathed a heavy shuddering breath and pulled his mind away. Still the older man waited, hand and eyes steady.

Snape swallowed several times, blinking at the grass beneath their feet. The blood was roaring in his ears and his chest ached like an abscessed tooth. A Wizard's Oath, a vow of friendship from one of Voldemort's victims? It was too bizarre to be real. Amidst the disbelief was a strong feeling of shame at having doubted this open-hearted man, at having answered his gift by violating his mind. He shouldn't accept – but he couldn't refuse.

"This do I swear," he murmured, reaching out to clasp the offered hand. They both briefly glowed as the Wizard's Oath activated, then they released each other. He stared at their two hands, separate now and showing no sign of what they had just done.

An apology was owing. He couldn't bring himself to say the rusty, unfamiliar words.

"I needed to be sure what I was swearing to this time," he muttered at last.

The grey head nodded.

"Was that how they tricked you into service before?"

Snape looked up and then down again, still half-believing he was caught in a dream. He could say anything now, it wouldn't matter.

"I wasn't tricked, not entirely. I'd like to think I'd have drawn back if I'd understood what I was committing myself to do, but I don't know." He grimaced and confessed, "I was so angry."

"You're still angry."

Snape took another long ragged breath, hands clenching and unclenching.

"I've been angry so long, I don't know how to stop."

"You had strong reasons and your anger has prompted you to many worthy actions, but anger is not a right or a privilege, it's a burden. One you can choose to let drop." Marchant's voice was as clear and unabashed as a church bell.

Snape closed his eyes and opened them again. He'd seen the man's history.

"As you did."

"Yes. I was angry for a long time, for decades," the older man murmured. "Anger replaced my family. It drove me and filled me till I thought I needed it to live. And when I let it go I was empty and dead for years. But I've learned to function without it."

Reality was returning and with it guilt, shame and mistrust. Snape turned away and stared at his hands.

"I'm not you," he snarled.

"You don't need to be."

"I told you I prefer to be alone."

"I'll leave you then. But, Severus, you'll never be quite alone again."

Snape's shoulders hunched and his head bent low as he watched the other man walk back to the castle. The grass was flattened where the man had stood, footprints clearly evident. It wasn't a dream – or a nightmare. Out of the blue, that private man, who'd sat beside him for a year and a half without revealing anything of note, had stripped them both bare and sworn him to an oath of everlasting friendship, had – forgiven him?

Marchant couldn't speak for other victims, he couldn't even speak for his wife and child. He was just a random victim of the war, possibly not even someone Snape had personally wronged. It didn't make sense that he could offer forgiveness, in his own name or in anyone's – and yet something had changed tonight. Black eyes shone wetly and closed. Something had changed.

A/N We're about halfway now. I hope you're enjoying the ride.