Chapter Two - All About Snakes
A/N : Like a phoenix, I live again. Once again, sorry for any continuity mess-ups, but I'm not going to fix them because they aren't really that important. Snape/Lily drama is yet to come. I also promise this will move fairly quick to when he is older.For now, I'm setting up some story. And a bit of a different spin on the sorting hat . . .
Thanks to everyone who reviewed.
"Snape, Severus."
Professor McGonagall pronounced his name crisply, and he stepped forward, one of the last in the dwindling line of first years at the front of the hall. Everyone in the tables below stared up at him expectantly. His skin crawled, and his stomach leapt up into his throat. There on the three-legged stool sat the hat that would decide everything. Everything that was important to him in that moment.
He had already watched the sortings of the students before him. Sometimes the hat would barely touch a student's head and its decision would be made. Other times it seemed to think more carefully. He wasn't quite sure what went on during these times or how the process worked, but the hat seemed to know instinctively where each first year ought to be.
Cautiously, he approached the stool and sat down. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and plopped the ratty hat on his head, before he could think about whether it was a mistake to do so.
The dingy hat that smelled like an ancient sofa fell over his eyes and plunged his word into a rippling darkness. He could feel the hat sorting through the deepest parts of his head, and felt distinctly uncomfortable. Stripped. He twisted and squirmed, fighting the tickling sensation, but it was a battle he could not win. It wiggled into his skull like a worm into an apple core. A violation he could not seem to prevent.
He willed himself to take off the hat, but the impulse always seemed to melt away just before he could act upon it. His hands remained frozen on the sides of the stool. The terrible probing sensation continued in his mind. And then came the voice that seemed to be pulled from within him, but he knew it was the hat. Another presence beneath his barriers.
He felt naked.
'I see ambition,' The voice purred, but he felt stung, 'I see an insatiable thirst for power, respect . . . acceptance. I also see intelligence. Yes, a vast, calculating, intellect. And an interesting sort of bravery. Not what most would call courage, but-
He lashed out, a fierce crimson emotion bubbling to the surface, 'Put me in Slytherin, you moldy dishrag!'
The hat paused for a moment, 'If that is what you wish, that is what you are.'
The lusty bellow of, "Slytherin!" rang out across the great hall, but to Severus it seemed to be a distant echo outside the walls of his mind.
He couldn't wrench the repugnant hat off his greasy head fast enough. He flung it back on the stool with fumbling, twitching fingers and shied away as if it was a rabid animal, prone to biting. The hall seemed bright and fuzzy after the darkness of the hat, and he was more than a little shaken from the experience. He still heard that whispery voice inside his head, and the rest was a buzz. He barely registered the chorus of applause coming from the Slytherin table. Blinking like a disoriented nocturnal animal, he made his way to the faraway table of faint cheers. He was so dizzy it was a wonder he didn't trip down the steps.
When he reached the table, a sinister looking boy with a lopsided face stood up, "Welcome to Slytherin," He clapped him hardily on the back, knocking the remaining wind from his lungs and forcing his spindly frame into a seat, "You don't look so good."
Severus, who was indeed starting to feel slightly nauseous, sank down til his chin rested on his arms and muttered darkly. Something that sounded like, "Mind rape."
"The hat's not so bad," The lopsided boy shrugged, and continued on to more important topics, "Anyway, I'm Lawrence Lacrem, and this is Linda, Narcissa, and Joseph. We're all in our second year, so we can show you around a bit if you'd like."
Severus managed to spit out his name and a small squeak of a hello before his stomach turned again, and he had to clamp his hand over his mouth. The other four looked at him curiously, but he put his head down, so they continued the conversation they had been having before he showed up, as if he wasn't there.
He never wanted to have another experience like that, ever again. It was like another visit to the muggle doctor's office. His father, being a muggle, had always insisted that each family member should visit a certified physician every year, and not some deluded crackpot with a wand and a jar of dried cockroaches. His mother, who had never been much more than a doormat, simply did as he comanded.
This was how Severus learned that 'certified' was a subjective word. Muggle doctors were abhorrent. He much preferred the fast and easy treatment provided by the wand waving crackpots, but nobody was interested in his opinions. His parents had to forcibly push him into the office at every checkup, but they always managed to overpower him in the end. He would come dressed in five layers of clothing, and he still remembered the way he used to shriek and scream whenever the nurses tried to remove even a stitch of fabric. He hated being undressed even more than the poking and the prodding. He had repressed most of those memories now, until he could only remember the way he'd cried. And his shame. The deep, inexorable shame of being exposed.
Gradually, his nausea from the hat ebbed away, and he glanced furtively at the other three tables in the hall. A group of 5th year Hufflepuff girls was distributing a series of hugs to every new arrival at their table, and the Ravenclaws were exchanging handshakes and pats on the back. He spotted the brilliant red hair of the strange girl he met on the train. She was chatting comfortably with a friendly looking crowd of Griffendors. The boy who had smiled at him on the platform was there too, being introduced to everyone at the table. A Black in Griffendor. Mrs. Black would be scandalized.
His thoughts returned to his own table. He was a Slytherin at long last. The house for the clever and cunning. He liked to think of himself as cunning. He liked to think of himself as continuing a sacred family legacy. The fact that he had to command the hat to place him was slightly troublesome. But he didn't want to think about the hat anymore. Surely, it wouldn't have put him in any other house. The other houses were too warm and friendly. He didn't like warm and friendly. And he definitely did not like hugging.
Slytherin was his territory now, and Slytherins hated Hufflepuffs, they hated Ravenclaws, and most especially, they hated Griffendors. He looked again at the table bedecked in cheerful red and gold. Stupid, jovial Griffendors. What right did they have to be so happy? Of course, they were the favored house. The headmaster himself came from illustrious, noble, Griffendor. He resented them already.
Even that Lily girl. That muggle-born belonged with the bleeding hearts.
Further up his table he recognized the sixth year named Lucius Malfoy having an animated conversation with a posse of followers. He spoke with a snide curl in his upper lip, and his subjects seemed to hang on his every word. Severus had met Lucius over the summer in Diagon alley. The blonde boy was brutally handsome. There was a frozen beauty in his sharp profile and a coercing darkness in his lucid eyes. The other Slytherins were powerless to resist. Snakes to the charmer. Severus didn't feel compelled at the moment.
He couldn't hear the details of their conversation, but he heard the words, "Squealed like a pig," and then a roar of hissing laughter.
"He's so cute," Linda whispered to Narcissa.
Narcissa was a delicate blonde girl who looked like a ballerina. More so than usual when she was sitting beside Linda's substantial frame. She threw her head back and laughed, a very indelicate, sneering laugh at those words, "I don't think cute is the right word Linda."
Privately Severus agreed, but he didn't think he'd agree with any word Narcissa would use either. Especially given the fact that her pretty face crumpled into a very unpleasant scowl when she saw that Lucius was busy carrying on with a dark-haired girl who looked to be more his own age. He was starting to wish he didn't have to be privy to this scene any longer, but there was nowhere else to sit at the packed table.
"I thought Bellatrix was going out with Rudolphus," Linda looked at Narcissa for confirmation, "Damn. Your sister gets around."
"She can't seem to make up her mind," Narcissa grumbled, "She doesn't want one flavor. She wants Neopolitan. They'd both leave her be if they knew what was good for them."
Indeed the boy on Malfoy's other side, who looked like the living embodiment of an icicle, didn't seem to find his flirting with Bellatrix at all amusing. That could only be Rudolphus. At least Severus was learning names this way. He went over them in his head, memorizing. Bellatrix. Tease. Lucius. Dangerous. Rudolphus. Spineless. He'd remember them.
The headmaster stood up and signaled for quiet. A hush fell over the Great Hall. Severus noticed that Lucius was still carrying on a whispered conversation with a Bellatrix under the steadfast glare of Rudolphus. She laughed softly and tossed her head, purposely making her golden earrings dance in the lights of the hall. Malfoy was looking at her like a starving wolf watching a motherless fawn, and she was enjoying it.
Dumbledore made his speech, during which, he never had Lucius's attention and welcomed all the first years. They sang the Hogwarts song. Severus wasn't going to sing at all, but Lawrence and his group persuaded him to join them in a rousing chorus to the tune of "The Ride of Valkries." It waseasy to let his voice be drowned out by the others.
Then the food arrived. Everybody around him tucked in with enthusiasm, but Severus sulked. He squished his mashed potatoes to a pulp with the underside of his spoon. He jabbed listlessly at his peas and herded them around his plate into the slice of roast beef. He cut the meat into perfect squares with his fork and glommed it in with the potatoes. Then he mixed until he had made a lovely whitish paste. Linda turned, gave him a look of disgust, and averted her eyes.
Nothing could tempt his appetite. Not even all the scrumptious desserts when they appeared. He felt hollow, and he didn't know why. Hogwarts was supposed to fill the space, not make it bigger. What was this hunger for belonging that still burned fiercely in his chest?
He trailed at the back of the line of first years being led to the Slytherin common room, still nursing a growing feeling of discontent. His old friend, loneliness had not stayed back at the train station. Somehow it had followed him and sat heavily on his shoulders, even in the swelling crowd. His classmates seemed to have become infused with merriment, but he couldn't find the same feelings inside himself.
The dungeons smelled metallic and sound clinked off the walls like pinballs in a machine. The first years were beginning to whisper and point with more anticipation now. The older students seemed to find this quite amusing. Lucius was already busy telling a pack of first year girls that they had a real live mummy living under one of the couches that sometimes bit off people's toes while his friends sniggered derisively to themselves.
When they reached the common room, he took it in with one glance. He did not join the revelry that started up, but instead, he slouched up the stairs to his dorm, avoiding conversation with anybody who tried to waylay him. He found his truck already there next to one of the four poster beds with emerald green hangings.
Without even bothering to change out of his new robe, he flopped onto the bed and sank into the pillowy goose down comforter. He'd never felt anything so soft in his entire life. With a slight smile nudging at the corners of his mouth, he pressed his face and fingertips into the squashy material and lay there breathing it in for what seemed like ages. It smelled like fresh laundry and peppermint.
Sleep would not come, so he lay with his eyes open, thinking. All his life he'd believed this school would make him magically happy. His life would suddenly become wonderful in an instant, and he wouldn't suffer any longer. His old wounds would fade away into a mist of the forgotten past, and here he would be talented. Here he would be worth something.
But now he saw that he was no more special than anybody else at Hogwarts. If anything, he would be just as much of an outcast here as he was at any of his other schools. Wizardry wouldn't make him adept at social conduct. Wizardry wouldn't make him handsome or likeable. Wizardry wouldn't make him happy either. The only thing he could hope for was power. Power enough to make people respect him, even if nobody could ever like him. There had to be some way to become powerful.
This thought was so warm and sweet smelling that he wrapped it around himself and closed his eyes at last. When he was powerful, the first thing he would do was make everybody who had ever hurt him pay for their actions. He would turn his father into a mongoose and his mother into a snake and watch them destroy each other. Then he'd set fire to that horrid hat, and anybody who dared to laugh at him.
He felt a small twinge of trepidation as more malevolent thoughts popped into his head unbidden, and abruptly cleared them away. It wasn't right to think such things, no matter how pleasing it was.
But what was right and what was wrong anyway? Lucius didn't seem to think anything was wrong, and Severus craved the attention Lucius received, more than food or oxygen. There was nothing to be done about this desire for the moment, so he lay in the silence and craved.
When at last he slept, he dreamt of a boy with leaping green eyes. They were familiar eyes, but he couldn't recall why, and when he woke the next day, the dream was already forgotten.