Chapter 18: Black Chaos
January 11, 1996
Severus Snape
Why Dumbledore had insisted Snape go in person was really something he couldn't fathom, try as he might. He could just as easily tell the brat about the lessons by floo or owl post. And by the time Snape had gotten to Grimmauld Place, his clothes were drenched and he was an ice cube. Only stopping to cast a few warming charms, Snape bashed on the door in a rather bad-tempered manner.
It, was as per usual, Molly who opened it, and Snape surprised himself by being a little pleased to see her- and was even more surprised to see that she seemed to reciprocate that feeling, only significantly more so.
Her face cracked into an enormous smile and she leapt at him and stamped a kiss on his cheek. Not seeming to notice Snape's eyes bulge in horror, she gabbed, "Severus, lovely of you to come down, and perfect timing! The boys are just retrieving Arthur from the hospital now!" then, lowering her voice, "I haven't told anyone yet, but I really think Arthur should know who it is he owes his life to. Smythwyke was strutting around like a baby goose so proud of 'finding the cure' and I had to pretend to be grateful to him…"
"Uh, yes, I'm glad that the cure worked, Molly." Snape, having recovered from Molly's assault, slipped past her and into the hall. Although he made sure to keep it showing in his eyes, he could not quench the flicker of triumph he felt at her appreciative words, for it had been an arduous task in finding the anti-venom, and he had barely eaten or slept during those difficult weeks. Arthur Weasley not being dead and thus depriving the Order of a member had been the primary motivation, of course, but it still gave him a warm feeling to know that someone was grateful for his efforts- although it would have been safer to Obliviate her.
"In any case, I am here to see Potter. Dumbledore has some news he has asked me to impart to him." Snape looked around the hall, seeing no sign of the boy.
"Oh, I think he is upstairs, I'll fetch him." The round little woman said airily. "Won't be a mo', dear, just go to kitchen now and I'll make you some tea once Harry comes down?"
"Uhh." Why did he have to get so confused whenever she was nice to him? He swallowed. "I'm afraid I can't stay long- quite busy, if you could just get Potter. AS long as you don't mind, of course." He knew he didn't sound like himself, and he flushed painfully under Molly's amused gaze.
"Get Harry?" a familiar voice rang out behind him, and Snape stiffened. Black.
It was very difficult to quantify the degree of hatred to which Snape felt for the filthy sham of a wizard at that moment. When Black had tried, years ago, to feed him to his werewolf friend, Snape thought he'd reached the highest point. But when he found it was Black who had betrayed Lily to her death, the hatred rose to beyond boiling. Upon the truth being finally dragged out, a lot of that enmity was transferred to Wormtail, leaving just the loathing that remained from the memories of their schooldays and the fresh memories being created by the current abomination that Black had become. But then, that month prior, when the mutt had wheedled his way into being able to show Snape's boggart off to everyone… while maybe Snape didn't have the uncontrollable urge to see the man's soul sucked out through his mouth, being in the same room with him made Snape want either start firing hexes or take to his heels. Snape had been spending a whole month trying to come to terms with the fact that Black now knew what his boggart was, and he still couldn't figure out why bothered him so much. He turned to face the man, who was badly shaved and smelled like an unwashed and slightly tipsy dog.
"What are you doing here, and what do you want with my godson?" Black demanded, clenching and unclenching his fists.
Snape carefully wound his way into the room, and settled into one of the chairs. "That is between myself and Dumbledore. And Potter, once I tell him what I need to. It is none of your concern, so if you would kindly remove yourself…"
"This is my house, he's my godson, and I'm not going anywhere, Snape. As if I would leave Harry alone with a Death Eater!"
Rage burning a hole in the pit of his stomach, Snape lowered his voice so as to keep his anger from exploding in a inelegant manner. "I would have thought after what you were permitted to see last month that you would choose a more appropriate term of denigration, Black."
Black blinked three or four times before realizing what Snape had said. He moved out a chair and sat down across from him. "You think what we saw back there means you aren't a Death Eater? That just means you are dangerous enough to be able to fake a boggart."
"What…? You really are abominably stupid." Snape didn't know how to whistle, but if he did, it would have been a fitting opportunity. "You don't even understand the basic principles of magic, so it seems."
"Watch who you are calling stupid, you-"
"Black, I am in no mood for this. For once in your miserable life, kindly shut up!" Snape hissed, and snapped his head away, glaring firmly at the wall.
Potter chose that moment to make his entrance, although he looked decidedly awkward, as he seemed to feel the chill hanging in the air.
"Sit down, Potter." Snape said curtly, wanting this to be over as soon as possible. But of course, Black had to make it all about himself.
"You know, I think I'd prefer if you didn't give the orders around here, Snape. It's my house, you see."
Snape ground his teeth on his fury, and addressed Potter once more. "I was supposed to see you alone, Potter, but Black-"
"I'm his godfather."
"As you've mentioned, copiously. Goodness, Black, have you nothing else to be proud of?" Snape wasn't in the mood to be charitable anymore. The man was quite easy to wind up- all Snape had to do was point out what a waste of space he was to the Order and Black flushed like a schoolgirl. With a gleeful sneer, Snape then turned to the brat and delivered Dumbledore's missive. The boy looked even more like the elder Potter when he was with Black, so Snape couldn't help feeling elated knowing that for once, he was in a position of power over two 'Marauders' at once. But he kept it as brief as possible. The boy was looking daggers at him- which he'd been doing with increased ferocity over the last month of term- and looked utterly horrified when Snape told him with a raised eyebrow exactly who would be his tutor in Occlumency that year.
But just as he was about to go,Black again decided to throw a tantrum, making out that Snape was going to turn Potter into potion ingredients or something. Snape had to have his say- he wasn't going to resist some easy jabs, which of course got the idiot hopping so mad that he aimed his wand at Snape. At last. That whole time his fingers had been itching to hurl a curse at the man, to get him back for every insult and injury and offense he had given over the last few months, and once Black called him Lucius's lapdog, well… Snape's rather perfect insult finally had the mutt so apoplectic that he turned a beautiful shade of mauve…
"Are you calling me a coward?" Black bellowed.
"Why, yes, I suppose I am." Snape affected an expression of surprise, and prepared to reduce the cretin to a spot of grease.
But Potter spoiled all the fun by trying to pull Black away from him. Afterwards, Snape had to admit it was rather an adult thing to do, but in the end it was all the Weasleys piling into the room that broke up what might have been an enjoyable evening.
Snape passed his eyes over the bevy of red-heads, all mouths agape, and pocketed his wand. He carefully avoided looking at Molly, whose niceness probably had evaporated at the sight of a lowly Slytherin threatening one of her clan. He wasn't going to stay to find out.
"Six o'clock, Monday evening, Potter." His cloak pouring out behind him, he left, and would have slammed the door dramatically had someone not grabbed it.
Snape turned, expecting it maybe to be Molly, but it was Black. The door closed behind him. The street was dark, but sludgy with snow, and the wind was whipping up… Snape's heart sank, the visions of a nice warm fire back in his quarters at Hogwarts faltering.
"What now, Black?"
"I've had enough, Snivelly." He panted, eyes glittering. "The entire Order is in danger, and it seems like I'm the only one who gets it."
"Yes, the Order really is in danger to have a fool like you in its midst." Snape agreed calmly, although Black's expression filled him with disquiet.
"No- you. You're drawing people in, tricking them. And I don't know what your plan is, but you, alone at the school, with Harry, with you…" Black's mouth was working in a curious way, like he was trying to eat cardboard. "And now Kingsley says Dumbledore's going to have us all put your 'Mind Messenger' under our skin, so you can kill us in a single instant… you can't be allowed- I won't let-"
"Calm down, Black." Snape felt a twinge of alarm now. This had gone beyond.
"CALM DOWN?" the man screamed. "You say I can't do anything useful, well, stopping you might be just the most useful thing anyone can do. I have to protect Harry!" and with that, his wand was out, hurling a curse straight at Snape's head.
But Snape, who had been gripping his own wand from inside his sleeve, whipped it out only in time to cast a shield charm- which he overestimated, knocking Black off his feet. Black stumbled down the icy stairwell, and Snape, surmising the threat to be averted, turned to go, only to let out what must have sounded like a silly shriek when he felt a burning sensation wrapping around his heels. He lost his balance, pain flaring throughout his legs as Black's curse sent ropes of fire up his legs. The agony of melting flesh robbed him of his senses for half a moment, before he came to, and rolled his legs into the snow. He'd only just doused out the flames when Black slammed into him, catching him around the midriff and pinning his shoulders down onto the sleet-frozen cobblestone.
SMACK. Green and purple little balls of light swum across Snape's vision as a fist crashed onto his cheekbone. His head cracked onto the pavement and two or three more blows landed on his face. He thought he heard a voice, a young person calling out… he was too weak… he'd always been too weak. Snape couldn't move, could only writhe to the left and right like an eel. Another blow, glancing his cheekbone but sending his face careering into the cobbles. His lip broke open upon the grain of the stone. Blood poured into his eyes, he couldn't see…
He might have yelled out, or screamed, or something, but within the next moment the weight was gone from his body. Then for the smallest parsec of a second there was no sound but the whistling of the wind… before a muted thud indicated the impact of a body hitting solid matter.
More horror-struck than he could speak, Snape sat up, trying to wipe the blood from his face. Accidental magic? At his age? With his skill? This hadn't happened, not since- Snape stopped that train of thought before another more horrible one replaced it… Lack of control on such a level will get me killed if in the presence of the Dark Lord. Snape wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but he knew it had been him- he'd felt the power building up in his body, but he couldn't remember casting anything.
He patted around blindly for his wand, and once he found it, he cleared away the blood obstructing his vision.
What he saw constituted a bit of an issue... Firstly, Potter was on the landing, staring at Snape in a frozen kind of petrified fascination. Snape stared back, and, Legilimising into the boy's mind, replayed what Potter had just seen. He saw himself splayed out, undignified, squawking and bashing his flame entwined legs into the snow, and then Black had gone at him like a madman… physical process had never exactly been Snape's strong point, but as he watched the man squirm on the ground so pitifully, Snape rather despised himself for it. Then he did scream… why? A scream of helplessness, it almost seemed. Pathetic. The scream carried all the way into the prone man's neck until it was stretched and slashed up into sinews straining against white skin. And then it happened, in the form of a dark, rippling wave of chaotic energy. It broke out of Snape's own body, catching up the mutt in its wake. It sent Black flying back several feet into the air, before crashing into-
Snape scrambled to his feet and raced over to the man, who was unconscious. Potter joined him in a moment, shouting, "What did you DO?"
"It was self-defence." Snape said, but he didn't like the look of Black's white face, a little blood dripping from his mouth. He knelt down at the man's side, and muttered a few diagnostic spells. Head injury. Must have also bitten his tongue.
"This, Potter, is a concussion." Snape mused, as he delved into one of his extension-charmed pockets for a potion.
"Will he be okay?" Potter was frantic, skin almost as pale as his godfathers.
"Oh, yes." Snape frowned. He knew he had the right potion somewhere- he kept a veritable apothecary shop in his cloak. "Actually, concussions are very easy to fix, with the right spell or potion. I don't recall the incantation, but- ah."
He withdrew a little bottle which Potter looked at in distrust. Perhaps continuing the medical lecture would be the best way to calm the boy.
"Anyway, if left untreated for an hour or two, a concussion- which, if you don't know, is caused by trauma to the skull- can lead to memory loss, irrationality, post-traumatic stress disorder, migraines, etcetera, all of which can last for either hours, days, or the rest of your life…"
Potter's eyes widened behind his glasses.
"But don't get your knickers all twisted in concern for your dogfather, Potter." Snape couldn't resist sneering, before jamming the potion down Black's throat. "He won't be any crazier than usual. There will be no ill effects this time. Enervate."
Black's eyes blearily blinked up at him, before jamming into a scowl.
"What did I say, Potter? Looking just like his normal self now." Snape smirked.
"Snape, you-" Black began, angry.
"Don't be foolish." Snape crossed his arms. "You've just recovered from a concussion- if you start another row you will lose. Again."
Black struggled to get up, but fell back with a defeated pant.
"A moment, Black." Snape said softly, although he knew that Potter would still be able to hear. "I am actually wondering if the Order should be concerned for your mental state. We hate each other, of course, and I know what you think of my loyalties, even despite recent revelations… but I have to admit, even for you, you went too far this time."
"Too far by giving you that beautiful black eye? I've been dreaming of it for years." Black sneered.
"No, Black. You ought to be smarter than this. And since it is I that is saying that, you know I mean it. There is something wrong with you." Snape was still on one knee by Black's side, but now he got up and bored a depthless gaze into the man on the ground. "It is dangerous. For the Order, for me… you are unstable."
Black hadn't noticed Potter, it seemed. Or maybe he had, but he didn't acknowledge him. He just looked back at Snape, head hanging at an odd angle, a dull look of apathy in his eyes. Then, quite unexpectedly, an almost sob sounded from in his throat. "What would you do, Snape, when after twelve years under the Dementors' thumb, you are locked up in a house of horrors. I can't leave, and no one wants to stay with me. And then, to top it all off, in my own house, Dumbledore sends you to tell my own godson what to do. It's like I don't even exist."
Looking in those desperate eyes, now not quite as crazed, Snape almost felt something. But that was replaced with a smug satisfaction. If Dumbledore was being so blasé with Black, then maybe finally, he had replaced one of the Marauders in the Headmaster's esteem. Not Harry Potter, of course, but it seemed that maybe Dumbledore cared more for his spy than for his kennelled dog.
"Not existing is almost as bad as existing, isn't it?" Snape stared down at him, and then held out a hand. "You might as well get up and go back inside before someone sees you."
Sirius stared at the outstretched hand dubiously. Snape rolled his eyes. He wasn't giving the brute any compassion, just trying to haul his arse off the snow.
Then Potter rushed in, easing his godfather's arm around his shoulders. "C'mon." he said, aiming a half angry, half confused glance at Snape, before heading back into the warmth of Grimmuald Place.
Snape was left standing in the middle of the street, his legs blistering and swelling from the burns and a large bruise forming around his eye-socket. He gingerly touched his nose. Broken.
No matter. But as he prepared to Aparate, his mind kept flicking back to the scene he had witnessed in Potter's head- the shockwave of dark, stormy energy that blasted from his prone, helpless body… and the knowledge that he hadn't intended any of it at all…
It appears I have a problem.
January 11, 1996
Harry Potter
Once he'd got Sirius back inside, Harry settled him down into an armchair in the living room.
"Are you sure you are okay?" he asked for the third time, earning himself a rather cheesed off glare.
"Yes, fine, fine, fine! Now what the ruddy hell happened? One moment I had Snivelly right where I wanted him, and the next-"
"Yeah, he walloped you into a lamp-post." Harry poured Sirius a glass of firewhiskey- since he knew that his godfather would probably reach for it shortly anyway. "Actually, it scared the hell out of me, the way he did it."
Sirius spat a gob of blood onto his handkerchief, and shoved it back into his waistcoat. "Oh?"
"Yeah, so you were whaling into him, and then suddenly there was the rush of… well, it was black, and powerful and it blew up out of Snape and even I could feel it from the landing, I stumbled, and you-"
"Yeah, I kissed the streetlight." Sirius said sourly.
"But then he got up and went over to you, figured out you had a concussion and healed you with a potion."
"You let him touch me?" Sirius began, then, "Wait, he healed me?"
"Yeah, after, you know, knocking you out."
"Huh." Sirius frowned.
Harry bit his lip. There was a lot he wanted to say, but Sirius had just been brought to from a head injury. Harry remembered what Snape had said about a concussion, and had given him a niggling thought that he couldn't quite draw out… he stared at the odd clock on the mantle piece, which had 5 hands, one of which whirred around the clock face so fast that Harry once suspected it had put him into a kind of trance after looking at it too long. Not wanting a repeat, he directed his gaze to the ground. So now he had to learn some complicated magical procedure from Snape, of all people, and after he'd seen his own godfather pummel the man's face into a beefcake. But at least Sirius didn't slash him into ribbons like Snape did to my dad. He thought hotly.
"So what was all that about, Sirius?"
Harry looked quickly up. It was Mrs. Weasley, arms crossed against her ample chest, and an angry little pull to her mouth.
"Oh, nothing, nothing." Sirius said. "We were just having a little chat, you know, between old school friends, and then he left behind his, uh, quill, so I went to give it to him."
An intensely suspicious expression hooded Mrs. Weasley's countenance, and she looked dubiously at Harry to confirm. He nodded vigorously.
"Well, I do wish you would lay off Severus." She told Sirius crossly. "He has quite enough to deal with right now, without you adding to his troubles."
"Oh, that's right, Snape is busy saving all our lives and I am just as much good as a bit of stuffed furniture." Sirius reached for his drink and skulled it down. Harry could see Mrs. Weasley's lip slightly curl.
"Well… all that whisky you are choking on is hardly helping anybody, now is it? If you want to do something, you can see about finding more ways to control that horrid Mutasimia beast, since Tonks has decided it might make a useful pet." She snorted at the last part, and Harry, who had been told all about the creature, couldn't help but agree.
But Harry also wanted Sirius to find something to do- it was becoming increasingly more difficult to be around him when he was in his dark moods. "You could firecall Hagrid and ask him about it." He suggested brightly. "He's got loads of experience with big ugly monsters."
"Eh." Was the promising response.
Mrs. Weasley harrumphed loudly. "Dinner is up, if either of you want it." She left the room.
"Blasted woman." Sirius muttered, and poured himself out another glass. Harry watched him with discomfort.
Tentatively, Harry decided to ask what had been on his mind for over several months now.
"Sirius, I found something out recently- don't ask me how, please, but I found out that Snape did something awful to my dad in seventh year to land him in hospital. Did you know about that?"
Sirius squinted into his glass. "Yeh. James never told me how or why, but he was in the hospital for days, and he had a bunch of deep cuts across his skin when he got out. He just said it was Snape. But when I tried to go out and drown the git in the Great Lake, James stopped me. I guess it must have been because of Lily."
"Because of my mum- why?"
Sirius looked strangely uncomfortable. "Oh, she was just a good person. Didn't like to see anyone hurt. Even Snape."
"After what Snape did to him?"
"James had a heart of gold. I don't get it either."
"But that attack, it was evil."
"Yeah, well what do you expect from a Death Eater? Anyway, how did you know about this, did Snape tell you?"
"No." Harry shook his head. "It doesn't matter how I know… it's just that I saw what happened when you were punching Snape and he threw you off… I think he used dark magic, and it was scary, Sirius."
The alcohol seemed to drain out of Sirius's system immediately and his dark eyes snapped into a state of alertness.
"Harry, I want you to promise me that you will always keep your wand on you at Hogwarts. Don't take your eyes off Snape for an instant when you are training with him."
Harry shook his head. It was all too confusing. He hated Snape for what he'd done to his father, but did that mean that Snape was a Death Eater? "You know, Sirius, Snape has actually saved my life a lot of times throughout my years at Hogwarts. I never realized properly until Hermione pointed it out. I reckon if he wanted me dead I would be by now. And he has a Patronus… Is there any chance that he is on our side?"
Sirius avoided his gaze… Harry wished he knew what his godfather was thinking. Talk to me, he felt like wailing.
"Let's go get dinner." Was all the man said, pushing his glass away.
And all the rest of the evening he seemed to be forcing this false exuberance, joking and laughing with the Weasley boys and helping Molly serve up the meal, but Harry could see whenever no one was looking too closely at him that Sirius's eyes would shadow into a depression. He seemed to have taken Snape's words to heart, about him being useless. Harry remembered the raw pain in his voice when he'd said to Snape, 'It's like I don't even exist'.
Harry pushed the peas around on his plate to form neat little triangles as he brooded over the scene out on the street from before. Again and again he replayed it in his mind- the rush of energy blasting out of Snape's body, the confused expression when he got up and looked around… cradling his enemy's head and healing him with a vial of potion.
And then Harry realized what it was that had been niggling away in the back of his mind since that time. Snape had said that a concussion was caused by trauma to the head… '…can lead to memory loss, irrationality, post-traumatic stress disorder, migraines'.
He was taken back to third year, back in the Shrieking Shack, three Expelliarmuses slamming Snape into the chest, his thin body flying up and his head smashing into the wall. Harry strained to recall if Lupin had cast a diagnostic charm on Snape… No. Harry realised. Lupin had just checked the man's pulse. Then Harry recalled, later, Snape frothing at the mouth, screaming, accusing him of helping Sirius escape, which without knowledge of the Time-Turner was a laughable impossibility. '…can lead to memory loss, irrationality, post-traumatic stress disorder, migraines'.
Holy shit.
Harry slammed down his fork with a loud clang, insensitive to the odd looks the rest of the party sent him.
Did we give Snape a concussion in third year?
January 11, 1996
Severus Snape
It had been his birthday three or so days ago. After staring into the black depths of an empty cauldron for the good part of a half hour, that odd realization floated past him. He was thirty-six. He actually found that fact mildly interesting. But the cauldron's base must have been more interesting, because he didn't shift his gaze. You are wasting time… such a criminal thing to do, really; he knew he'd hate himself for it later. He vaguely remembered he planned to brew the Eye-Sharpening potion, but he'd quite lost himself in an absence of thought. He was supposed to be furiously, frantically wracking his brains to discover why he had had exploded in a frenzy of uncontrolled magic, but the moment he returned back from Grimmauld Place, he found that he just couldn't care.
Move, Snape.
Gingerly, he reached out and laid the prepared ingredients out in order, copper-root, celadine, grindylow blood, poison ivy, powdered moonstone.
He didn't want to think about it, the last time it happened. He didn't want to think about any of the times it had happened.
It was common to children. It should have been allowed, expected. But not when you grew up around Muggles- not when you grew up around Tobias Snape. It was bad. It was wrong. Lack of control had consequences. The marks of those consequences may have even faded from his skin- Snape could not be sure, so many more had replaced them… but the lessons learnt had not faded. When Tobias was screaming at his mother, when he was a tiny little gargoyle of a boy, curled up, terrified, but wanting so badly to stop it all from happening… it wasn't even violent… strange, that his first memory of accidental magic wasn't violent? It was a shield- a protection around his mother. But as always, intentions did not matter, as he would tell his students in later years. Only results mattered. The results were that Tobias thought it was Eileen who had cast the charm, so he broke her wand-hand. It was the first time Severus had ever seen his father hurt his mother. It would not be the last.
The base was boiling, the copper-root, sliced in the thinnest of coins, at Snape's command rising into the air to form a wreath around the cauldron before dropping in all at once so that there was no dissimilitude. It was a very unstable ingredient if not handled carefully; the bubbling liquid gently clouded a pale amber.
It didn't take long before Tobias realized who it was who made the lights flash strangely, who kept casting shield charms, who, once, pulled the carpet out from under Tobias during one of his rages. "You are too old for accidental magic." His mother tried to convince him. Severus was only six. He quickly learnt to stop doing it to prevent physical pain, because nothing made his mother angry like him using magic against his 'defenceless' father.
Celandine, just the petals, held under a stasis charm. One of them was bruised- that would not do. It was almost too delicate to be used in a potion. Almost. He discarded it, vanishing the tiny scrap of vegetation with a crook of a finger. He stirred the petals into the pot, the indistinct but irksome odour flaring up for a moment before dissolving to meet the sweet scent of the copper-root.
'What's that you're wearing, anyway? Your mum's blouse?' He'd been angry. He'd been a child, hurt and embarrassed in front of the first person that he'd ever felt he had the ability to impress. He hadn't meant the tree branch to fall- not that he cared if Petunia had been hurt. But the consequence was Lily. 'You hurt her!' Lily, backing away, looking at him with anger and also… fear? Leaving him…
The grindylow blood- black and thin… a poison by itself, but when used correctly, able to be transmuted into a variety of healing or other useful preparations. This was nearly the last of his stock, for he hadn't harvested any for a while now, although he used to make a practise of going down to the lake and capturing a few of the vicious creatures. He'd keep them in his potions lab and drain them of blood for a few days before rotating them back out in exchange for another one. But there was precious little time these days for all that. The potion sent up a hiss worthy of a Parseltongue and little sparks threatened its surface as the blood dripped in, drop by drop.
Control became even more important once he'd truly lost her forever, at the end of fifth year. But the fury of emotions surging through him made him lose control more than once- Mulciber ended up in a well when he decided to mock Severus just a little too much about his 'break-up with the Mudblood'. Another accident he didn't care personally about… just for the consequences. The Slytherin gang took it upon themselves to teach the arrogant half-blood just what happens when they get ideas above their station. But the bruises were worth it. After that they accepted him- losing the Mudblood helped restore him in their favour, they'd told him. And Mulcibar needed a bath anyway, they added.
Poison ivy- Snape stroked it contemplatively. He pulled back and gazed at the rash now flourishing over his skin, little tiny reddened blisters that blossomed up and burst within almost the same instant. A defensive and angry little plant… but extremely useful. He ran his fingers over the ivy again. Stupid. He shook his head and dropped it into the potion- the ivy twisted and melted away, its harmful power rendered useless.
But of course, it wasn't the last time that it happened, try as he might. There was still that time in seventh year… even now he shuddered.
The lights were dark in the potion lab, but even had they been entirely snuffed out, Snape would still be able to see the moonstone powder, for it glowed with the same tranquil calm of its eponym. It was expensive, but far too useful to be able to remove from the syllabus in Hogwarts. He always felt a heavy sense of regret whenever it was time to allow his brat-students to get their grubby hands on it. A pinch was all that was needed, just to gently sprinkle it over the burbling surface… he carefully lowered the temperature, letting it simmer… gently, softly… it was now a rich, deep auburn, like the feathering of a rooster's flank.
And then the final time, after he'd controlled it for two years, even in the height of emotional turmoil and fear… Severus had thought it was gone- he thought his magic had been purged of immaturity and weakness. But the night of Lily's death saw such a destructive explosion of magic… such that he'd never done in his whole life. When Dumbledore found him in the morning, there was nothing in his quarters that was not broken. The old man hadn't said anything, only looked around the room, at the splinters that were once a wardrobe, at the shards of glass that were once a mirror, at the scorched and charred remains of a carpet, at Snape, slumped in the middle of a broken table, with scratches all over his face and arms and with robes a shredded mess… Dumbledore could only raise his eyebrows.
The potion would need to stay gently simmering for 16 hours, at exactly the same temperature. Self-stirring cauldrons were a magnificent invention, let people say what they will. Snape cast the appropriate charms to allow the potion to simmer in stasis. It was a pity… he'd been working to develop that potion for the good part of a year, a distraction from the growing heat of the returning mark on his forearm. Upon being ingested, it gave the ability to see in the dark with the same perfect clarity of daylight, and in addition to that, it increased the eyesight ability to about ten times the standard capacity. But no good could possibly come of it anymore, for it had been consigned over to the use of the Dark Lord. Snape had to withdraw his name from the Symposium. That wasn't going to happen anymore.
The flow of memories dried up as he set his potion aside, and he forced himself to clearly think upon the events that had just occurred at Grimmauld Place. The conclusion he had to draw based on his previous experience was not accepted without a decent portion of shame. Accidental magic was a sign that his emotional control was off. But how? Even back in the Shrieking Shack two years ago, this had not happened… and he'd been a virtual wreck of rage and spittle by the end of the evening, extenuating circumstances aside… How could Black's attack have provoked such an unbalanced response?
But whatever the means by which this ailment had occurred, Snape knew he had to seek a remedy. Control is the key. I have let myself become vulnerable, open to too many different emotions, unfit, out of practise emotions. There isn't time for this.
Mouth set into a narrow line of determination, he reinforced his Occlumenic shields, even though he was alone. Those gates would stay up- continue to stay up, until he knew that he had regained control.
It was long past midnight. He had to sleep… it was his last precious day before the term would start again… and also his last day without knowing that some of the most dangerous, most deranged humans he'd ever known would soon be roaming free across the countryside. The Azkaban breakout was to happen tomorrow evening, and Dumbledore had said he was to do nothing to stop it.