Author note: I offer apologies and the usual excuses for the delay in posting: life, writer's block, laziness, existential crisis, and so on and so forth. I hope that you enjoy this chapter, which wraps up the "prologue" (lol). The next one will cover Harry's arrival at Hogwarts. Please review!

SheilaRegulusBlack: Thank you! Have no fear, I will definitely continue writing, it might (the shred of doubt is wishful thinking) will just be slow come September.

Guest: When I wrote it, I saw Dumbledore's Azkaban comment as making a point that Severus could be somewhere much more unpleasant than employed at Hogwarts, rather than an actual threat. Snape sure didn't see it that way, though. I do think Dumbledore was trying to protect Snape from the curse by not giving him the DADA position. I can't help but wonder what would've befallen him if he had been appointed right away. Rogue Death Eaters? Potions accident? Death by children allergy? I cover the Sirius/Pettigrew thing and the attack on the Longbottoms in this chapter. I decided to write those two as retrospect. I don't know when exactly the attack on the Longbottoms took place, but I think I read somewhere that it was a week or two following October 31st. I don't know if that's official. In any case, that's the timeline I've decided to follow.

Warnings: Swearing

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Return to Normalcy

The Dark Lord was gone, but the evidence of his rise to power still lingered, mostly in the form of Death Eaters who had yet to be caught and an abundance of mourners. Everybody seemed to be grieving the loss of a friend or a family member.

There had been a widely-attended funeral for the Potters. Severus hadn't gone; he didn't think that an ex-Death Eater would be very welcome, especially the one who'd brought the prophecy to the Dark Lord, although the public wasn't aware of that detail, thank Merlin. Later, he traveled alone to Godric's Hollow to visit the grave. Lily and James shared a single, marble headstone. This irked him, for some reason.

There had also been a funeral for Peter Pettigrew, or rather, Peter Pettigrew's finger, which was all that the Aurors could find of the man. Sirius Black had done a good job blasting Pettigrew to smithereens, along with blowing up a street of twelve muggles—the Obliviators had had their work cut out for them, trying to cover up the use of magic from muggle witnesses.

Cornelius Fudge, who worked in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, had reported that Black laughed maniacally after killing Pettigrew, a testimony that cemented Black's guilt. He had been carted off to Azkaban, no questions asked. Those who had been close to Black were still in shock about the fact that he'd pulled the wool over their eyes for so long; Black's pureblood-supremacist parents would have been proud. As for Severus, he got a vindictive pleasure from Black's incarceration, both because of the long-standing mutual hatred, and because the person who had betrayed Lily deserved their lifetime of misery.

More proof of the Dark Lord's continued influence appeared on the front page of the Prophet a couple days after Dumbledore had talked Severus into taking the Potions position.

AURORS TORTURED TO INSANITY BY FOLLOWERS OF YOU KNOW WHO

by Rizzo Stalwart

Further tragedy struck the wizarding world yesterday. Death Eaters, on the hunt for their recently-deceased master, abducted Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom from their home and proceeded to torture them for information. …

Severus didn't need to read the rest of the article. Dumbledore had called an emergency Order meeting the night before, but there was nothing to be done. The Frank and Alice Longbottom were in St. Mungo's, and the Healers said that they would never recover. Their son Neville, the other boy to whom the prophecy might have referred, had been shipped off to live with his grandmother Augusta, Frank's mother.

Naturally, people were outraged. The Longbottoms had been popular in the wizarding community. The news of their permanent mental incapacitation was met with a fury that rivaled their upset at the Potters' deaths. It probably didn't help that there was no triumph to compensate for the attack on the Longbottoms. Even Severus was perturbed, and he had barely known the couple. There was something unsettling, he thought, about somebody being there physically, but not mentally or emotionally. Death would have been kinder for all involved.

Too bad he couldn't think of Lily's death as "kinder" than the alternatives. He continued to berate himself for killing her. Really, the only difference between Black and himself was that Black's fault had been intentional, while Severus's had been inadvertent. The thought didn't give him comfort, not that he deserved any.

"You will find that it is a standard contract of employment, but read it over."

Severus took the parchment and examined it thoroughly. True, this contract wasn't going to be tattooed onto his arm, but he liked to think that he was not as naïve as he had been three and a half years ago, entering any sort of binding agreement without knowing the stipulations first.

"Thank you, Severus," Dumbledore said, once he had scrawled his name. He handed the Potions Master another parchment. "I would like you to sign this as well."

"Contract for Head of House: Slytherin"—Severus nearly dropped the page in surprise and incredulity.

"Head of Slytherin? You want me to be Head of Slytherin?"

"Yes. Did I not mention it when we spoke in November?"

Severus scowled. The Headmaster knew damn well that it hadn't been mentioned. "I'm only twenty-one."

"I am aware, but I feel that you could lead by example."

"You mean the example of what not to do?" His voice was heavy with sarcasm. "How to Fuck Up Your Life One-oh-One, Don't Try This at Home?"

"Severus, language," Dumbledore chided. "I mean that you may be able to help those who, shall we say, might otherwise be caught by the intrigue of the Dark Arts."

"I'm not the coddling type."

"I'm not asking you to coddle, merely guide."

"I am not a good person."

Dumbledore nodded is head to one side—Perhaps, said the gesture. "But you will protect them."

Severus's scowl turned into a glare. Nevertheless, he took the quill again and angrily scrawled his signature at the bottom of the Head of House contract. Azkaban, he thought, might be preferable.

Severus hated teaching. He hated reading inane essay after inane essay, giving up hours of his time to grading. He hated that the students had no respect for the subject of Potions: Never mind that a mistake could literally kill you before you even realized your error, they found it boring. He hated that Slughorn had apparently taught these children nothing: One boy thought that Polyjuice Potion was a misnomer, that it was actually a type of transfiguration—needless to say, Severus had given that paper a T.

Most of all, Severus hated how out of his element he felt. What did he know about teaching or safeguarding children? Clearly, Dumbledore was off his rocker, if he thought that appointing Severus was a good idea. He was only four or five years older than the seventh years—they had already been second years when he'd graduated. It made matters worse that he'd come in halfway through the school year; the students were already used to Slughorn's lax standards, and were likely resentful that this new teacher barely older than them was much less forgiving.

Therefore, the only way that Severus had figured he could make the students respect him was to strike the fear of God into them, something that proved to be not hard in the slightest and that he found he rather enjoyed. In his first class, he berated multiple students for not following the instructions, which he wrote on the board, since he knew firsthand that the textbooks were awful. The class was subdued after he took large quantities of House points and described, in vivid detail, how the innards of third-years might benefit some of the experimental potions he was working on.

He wasn't quite so harsh when it came to his Head of House duties, although in that case, he didn't have to worry about acids, gasses, or combustion, which made his job a little easier. Still, he immediately made it clear that he was not going to tolerate any sort of misbehaviour, anything that would fuel the prejudice against Slytherin House. When some of the students had decided to test his authority, he'd given them a good tongue lashing, and made them scrub cauldrons and chop disgusting potions ingredients for a week. After that, they seemed to realize that Severus was not to be trifled with.

"Would you consider it unprofessional if I sent Howlers to parents?"

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Yes," he said, "I believe I would. Why do you wish to send Howlers to parents?"

"Because the parents have been sending Howlers to me. Apparently some of the rug-rats have been complaining about my teaching, not to mention the issue of me being a Death Eater."

"Well," said Dumbledore, completely disregarding the second half of Severus's statement, "your classroom demeanour is perhaps a touch harsh-"

"None of the dunderheads have blown up, have they?" Severus interrupted, recalling a particularly vivid incident from his own sixth-year NEWT class, in which one of the students had had to be sent to the potions accidents ward at St. Mungo's. "It's more than Slughorn managed. There were plenty of injuries in his class."

"Still"—Severus noted that the Headmaster didn't dispute his comment on Slughorn's safety record—"it wouldn't be remiss if you, ah, spoke less acerbically to them."

"I'd rather force-feed them slow-acting poison," Severus growled. Saying it felt good, even if it wasn't wholly true; he wasn't going to put himself at the wrong end of the law again for something so impulsive.

Instead of rebuking him, Dumbledore looked amused, eyes twinkling. "Enjoy your Howlers."

By the end of the schoolyear, Severus found that he was something akin to friends with Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Poppy Pomfrey, and Aurora Sinistra. Whereas some of the faculty were openly hostile, McGonagall and Flitwick had approached him with cautious friendliness, and Pomfrey and Sinistra had soon followed. Severus didn't see the harm in it; all of his other "friends," except for Lucius Malfoy, were in Azkaban.

Lucius had achieved his pardon by claiming to be acting under the Imperius Curse. This wasn't true, but it had fooled Wizengamot, which was all that mattered. Lucius had written to Severus not long after he'd been released, bemoaning the fall of the Dark Lord, congratulating Severus on gaining the protection of Albus Dumbledore, and inviting him for a visit—"Cissa would love to entertain company, and you must see how big Draco is getting!"

With the Dark Lord gone, potions research and the occasional social call to Malfoy Manor became the height of excitement in Severus's life. He was surprised at how much he welcomed the normalcy.

Still, Dumbledore's words—The Dark Lord will return—lurked in the back of his mind. Although this wasn't the only thought that kept him up at night, it was the most prominent. The prospect of going back to that place of hell where he'd spent the past few years was a terrifying thought, and he'd had enough terror to last a lifetime. Of course, he wouldn't have a choice, if the Dark Lord came back; once you took the Mark, you were singed on for life.

But Severus continually reassured himself that, for now, everything was fine—or, rather, that things could be worse. He would devote himself to keeping Lily's son alive, once the boy came to Hogwarts, and to the cause for which she had fought so hard. It was the least he could do for her.