Chapter 43: Strength and Conviction

Strength and Conviction

"I had tried to tell you that it was not simply depression." He sent the headmaster another death glare.

"I cannot believe that he continued to smoke after the end of last year – the consequences of this prophecy have been prolific. I fear I have been paying too much attention to Mr. Potter. I have also been guilty of believing that Sage and Harry are more similar that they are. I believed that the gentle guidance that works with Harry would also work with Sage. I should have realized that you know your own nephew better."

"Sage and Potter are nothing alike."

Dumbledore nodded in a slightly sorrowful manner. He paced a few steps in deep thought.

Severus stared blankly forward, content to have his mind begin to clear.

Finally the headmaster sighed deeply, catching the professor's dwindling attention.

"I had hoped for the two of them to get on better I must admit. What consequences that may have for the future, I am not sure. I had hoped that Sage would feel more than a familial obligation to Harry, and Harry simply does not seem to feel any obligation to Sage at all. I must look further into this prophecy, Severus, for I do not understand how the three of you are supposed to stand together. Mr. Potter is simply the odd man in that arrangement."

Severus snorted, "Even more apparent than that, Albus, you have not yet deciphered how Sage is of Merlin's line."

"I agree that I have been overlooking that on purpose. I have no real explanation and have exhausted my resources. Perhaps it was more of a symbolic relation."

"In other words, you do not know how it could be possible." He seemed take pleasure in the fact that the headmaster did not know the answer to something. To be sure, he would not pass up the opportunity to make the man admit it.

"I am afraid not."

A pensive silence covered the room. Severus knew that his line bore no claim to Merlin's blood, neither did the Potter's, or the Malfoy's. There was only one, very direct, line descended from Merlin and there was no fathomable way that Sage could be a part of it.

The headmaster leaned against the cabinet in the corner of the room, rubbing his chin with his hand. He knew Merlin's line better than anyone. Even the smallest twig of a branch, he was aware of. There were far to many prophecies about Merlin's line for any of those wizards to not be kept track of. Sage Snape was not a decendent of Merlin, so far as Dumbledore could decipher.

Suddenly, there was a slight rapping on the door.

Severus almost allowed another bottle to shoot apart as he was jolted out of thoughts but the one person he had not expected to see again that day.

The headmaster was equally as speechless to see Sage standing in the half open doorway. He would have expected Sage to avoid Severus altogether for as long as possible. This was an interesting turn of events, although he had no idea what to make of it.

Sage opened his mouth to say something, but then suddenly noticed Dumbledore's presence and shut his mouth, looking more than a bit uncomfortable. He had not seen the man in the corner and they had not been speaking, so he had believed his uncle to be alone.

"Sorry to interrupt. I, I'll come back later, sir."

The headmaster, hurriedly reached out and took Sage's arm gently, pulling him into the room.

"No, no interruption. I believe that it is of much more importance for the two of you to talk. It is I who should leave." He stopped and looked at Severus, "We can continue this another time."

Severus stared at his nephew as hard as he could, masking the surprise he felt that the boy would confront him again this quickly. His anger was reawakening, but he was also still feeling residual guilt.

Sage looked back at him, his eyes conveying his discomfort and uncertainty.

"If you have something to say get it on with and do not further waste my time. If not, I suggest that you walk yourself straight back out that door. Enough of my day has whithered away on you."

Sage bit up the inside of his mouth, searching for the right words.

"I've been very naïve, sir," he said quietly, feeling that was safe to say to begin.

"Speak up, sounding like a cowering Gryffindor, like Longbottom, certainly is not going to impress me."

"I've been very naïve, sir," he said more clearly, although very fast. "And presumptuous, and impertinent, and stupid." He took a very deep breath, "And pathetic. Because I did not understand anything…anything other than how this impacted me."

"Very well, anything else," he said, impatiently, pretending that what Sage said meant nothing to him. He was, in fact, quite surprised that his nephew had said those things and had meant them. Severus could read sincerity on his face; he did not need to try and push into his thoughts.

"Yes. Yes, sir. I should not have come back, or at least not yet. You were right about that, there is nothing that I can do for anyone and something could have been done for me there. I never thought about what purpose I had coming back, only that something was going to happen that I wanted to be here for even though I've barely been able to even disarm someone with my magic. I've been doing a lot of stupid things, because I did not think them through rationally enough."

"Perhaps now you will discontinue acting so foolishly? I should not think that I will need to remind you again."

"No, sir, you won't."

"If that's all…"

"No, sir, erm, not really."

Severus raised a threatening eyebrow at him.

Sage continued tentatively, "The thing that I am most ashamed of, sir, is that I never once considered how any of this impacted you or the future – for both of us. I should have done better for you, sir. I just wanted to make sure that you know that I am sorry."

"I suspect you are." There was some piece of his voice that softened.

He nodded.

"As I said before, I am not much interested in your words, they have proven misleading in the past. Your actions will speak for you. We have wasted far too much time already."

"Yes, sir."

"As you have admitted, you should not have returned so brashly, Sage. Now you must learn here some of what you would have learned there. There is no reason for this time to be wasted. Be sure that I am going to be keeping you very busy. Needless to say that there will not be much time for pleasure, just as there would not have been with the druids."

Sage closed his eyes slowly and then opened them a few seconds later. He was smart enough to know exactly what Severus was talking about when he said that he would keep Sage busy. It would better be described as being on restriction, restriction from anything that he might enjoy. Now would perhaps be the best time to formally deal with his uncle finding out about his smoking. That was what the man was alluding to anyway.

"You said that you would deal with my smoking at a later time, earlier today, sir."

At this Severus scowled deeply, as if reminded of something particularly infuriating. His muscles tensed up. He took a breath before he broke another jar on accident and lost a good amount of control leverage with his nephew.

"I despise that you did that after you swore to me, nephew, swore that you would not."

Sage fought the desire to look away. Those were very strong words.

"After today, I do not want to be ashamed of you ever again. You lied to me, and you betrayed your word." He shook his head slightly, "It is my wish to be able to treat you like an adult."

He glared hard into Sage's face, trying to penetrate the icy blue waters of his eyes to head straight for his thoughts. There was not much for him to see. Apprehension, shame, guilt. Sage did not blink, or falter, or look away even though he knew exactly what his uncle was doing. He did not even try to occlude.

Sage had been expecting this, actually, he had been expecting worse. This, however strange it may have seemed, was even worse that being yelled at and getting smacked a few good times all over again. He felt as if he were about to burst from the inside now, instead of from the outside.

"Come here," the Professor said darkly. "Closer."

Sage slowly closed the gap between him and his uncle. He was so close that he could feel the man's temperature rising. Despite the fact that Sage had grown to be only five inches shorter than his uncle, he felt incredibly small. He felt like a child, though it was clear he was not really a child anymore, for so many reasons. There was no going back, or standing still, only going forward.

He knew what was coming, this scene had played for him many times when he was younger. Sage had learned not to make mistakes very early on. Severus had very clear boundaries, and Sage had been childish enough, then, to test them. With this knowledge, he stood looking Severus square in the eye, knowing all too well that his uncle never dealt with the weakness present in looking away.

It dragged out, as it always did. The Professor would glare at him, breaking him with his eyes, making him feel all the guilt and responsibility for whatever wrong he had committed. It was, of course, incredibly effective. Moreso than what had happened earlier. It took the most strength to not look away in those moments, when the guilt became so much that it was difficult to bear. The stoical Potion's master could show his emotions quite well on his face when he chose to. He let the air out of his lungs to prepare for what came next, the lecture.

"You have not only completely disrespected me and every rule within this school, but you have disrespected yourself. I did not bring you up to value yourself so poorly, but I will also not deal with this selfish pitying anymore. You must be much stronger than this."

The tall Professor narrowed his black, endless eyes. "I will not allow you to fail me, yourself, or your father again."

Sage's eyes portrayed the slight bit of surprise he felt. Severus had hit home. They very rarely ever mentioned Sage's father. It was simply too painful for them both.

"Yes, your father. Do you think this is what he would wish from you?"

Sage pursed his lips and nodded. For a brief moment he wondered how his father would have felt about all of this. He concluded that his father was not likely to have been much different than Severus.

Severus looked at him calculatingly, thought for a few moments with his eyebrows pinching together, and the he spoke very calmly and clearly.

"As I cannot seem to get it through to you to not do this again, since you betrayed your word that you wouldn't do it again once already, I feel that it is only fitting that you have a more firm reminder. Perhaps one that will last you awhile longer. Not like a few cuts and bruises."

Sage stared at the quill after his uncle had left him alone in the Potion's classroom. He remembered this quill, also from his younger years of boundary testing.

The last time he had seen it was three years prior, when he had found it within himself to apparate to London and tarry a bit with the muggles, making friends with some of them and engaging in some of their less than admirable activities. Including the one activity that had gotten him into his current mess. He remembered when he finally had managed to apparate home three years ago, he was beyond inebriated. He was positively gone with alcohol and drug induced stupor. Severus had been standing there waiting for him.

Another irony was that he had then endured a rather good beating then before he had spent quite a time with the quill, drilling into his mind 'I will not apparate without permission'.

He tilted his head at his memories, apparently Severus had found the phrase 'I will not: 1.) apparate without permission 2.) associate with muggles 3.) put myself in danger 4.) consume alcohol without permission or until I am of age 5.) smoke or otherwise ingest or consume illicit substances" to be too long to ever stick into his mind no matter how many times he wrote it. Plus the quill just did not work for phrases that long, no matter how much Severus had wished that it did. Strangely, all five of those ideas had stuck in his head, even after all the years.

The quill was charmed, of course, with a useful piece of Dark magic that was very convenient for use in punishments such as these. The user of said quill would not forget the punishment any time soon after the quill had been used. Sage had not been in a hurry to see it again and as he stared at it, he realized that this would be the last time he would see it. He would not make another childish mistake.

His uncle's words reverberated in his head as he thought.

"I trust that you remember what this is. Unlike the other times you have used it, this time I will not supply you with what you must write. I believe, with some thought, you will know what it is you are supposed to write. Of course, I know that you know from previous times when to stop. At that time, I expect you to show me. If what you wrote is not acceptable, you will try again."

Professor Snape was forcing him to think about what he had done in a way that most people would not understand.

The reason why the use of the quill was so associated with Dark magic, was that it was used mostly by those families associated with Dark magic who would value the quill for the other things that it taught the person who used it, other than not to do what they had done to deserve to write lines with it in the first place. The quill forced the person to learn how to deal with pain. And it could be painful, and it was not the type of pain that you numbed to after time, no it was fresh each time the quill touched the paper.

Sage stared at the parchment. What should he write? He certainly wanted to get it right the first time. He did not fancy using the quill any more than he had to.

After a good half an hour of thought, he began scratching away, biting the inside of his lip as he moved along the surface of the parchment.

Four long hours later, Sage put down the quill and stared at his work. He had reached the point where he would be allowed to stop. He grabbed the parchment and the quill and went back to find his uncle.

He knocked on the slightly ajar door to Severus's study inside of his rooms before he opened the door entirely and entered. His uncle looked up at him, critically, before motioning his closer. Sage had held the parchment under his right hand to keep the blood from dripping all over his uncle's chambers. Unceremoniously, Severus jerked Sage's hand forward to inspect it.

His entire hand was covered in thick crimson blood. His uncle rubbed the blood away from Sage's hand with his own hand and narrowed his eyes as he looked at what had been scratched, rather deeply, into it.

"I will not disobey my uncle."

Instantly, Sage knew that he had not written what Severus had wanted. The man pushed his hand back at him and snorted rather indignantly.

"While admirable, that was fairly thoughtless. I had hoped you could do better, Sage. While you would do quite well to remember that line, it was rather another that I wanted you to think of. You can try again tomorrow night."

"Yes sir," he answered quietly.

Severus tossed a roll of gauze at him and then returned to grading his papers.

"And Sage, there will be no healing salves or anything of the sort on that hand. Understand?"

Sage eyed the gauze and then eyed Severus. He was no longer a child, no longer an easy way out of the pain. This was an experience meant to last. Perhaps it was a greater lesson than he had originally thought, and he had completely missed the point.

"Yes sir, I understand."

Sage eyed the quill again as if he would eye a very intelligent foe. A very intelligent foe in a game of wizard's chess. He had thought a great deal about what he was going to write tonight, because he certainly wanted to get it right this time. He had kept the gauze on his hand so that no one would see, but he knew that the cuts were still fresh, and the top of his hand was one very large black and blue bruise. The cuts would leave when he wrote something different, he knew, but the pain would be there as if he were writing the same thing for the second time.

He tapped the fingers of his left hand upon the wooden tabletops. If this lesson was about more than just his smoking and not obeying Severus's order to never do so again, what could it be about? His answer had to come from the educational part of his punishment: the lecture. He had been over and over his uncle's words and was fairly sure that he had found the answer.

His mind had fallen on the statement, "You have not only completely disrespected me and every rule within this school, but you have disrespected yourself. I did not bring you up to value yourself so poorly."

With his jaw set, Sage touched the quill to the parchment once more, cursing back the pain as he felt a razorblade cut down into the top of his hand. The blood spilt more freely this time, but Sage had a good feeling that if he sought out his uncle one minute before he had sought him out the night before he would be sorry. His uncle would feel no pity when it had been Sage's own fault he had not gotten it right the first time.

So he wrote for four more hours, easily copying the line hundreds of times, or rather cutting it into himself hundreds of times.

He found the punishment oddly satisfying in a way, because it was a very familiar way for Severus to deal with transgressions. It had only been since he had come to Hogwarts that Snape's temper had gotten the better of him, perhaps that was because Sage had ultimately changed as well. Now that Sage was changing back to what he was before he had come to Hogwarts, his uncle was treating him in the same manner.

Professor Snape had always been rather logical about his punishments, severe, but logical. He was often rather dispassionate about it as well, often giving a long, gut-wrenching lecture, rather than yelling. That was also why Sage had found the way Severus acted at Hogwarts so disconcerting. His uncle was never unfair, but Professor Severus Snape was.

As Sage wrote the lines he felt his mind taking him back to memories of before Hogwarts and after Hogwarts. For the first time in a long time, he realized why the two of them had been having so many problems. Well, one of the reasons. It was very difficult for Severus to manage two parts of his life kept separate when they came into such close contact. Sage had been mentee and nephew, but Severus had never seen Sage like he saw the students at Hogwarts. But when Sage came to Hogwarts it became difficult for Severus to deal with him in the classroom, in the classroom full of students that he had been acting a part with for many years. Sage realized that it was as much of an adjustment for his uncle as it had been for him. No longer was Severus his mentor and his uncle, he was his Professor, but Sage was not used to the man in his Professor persona.

The cuts on his hand became increasingly more painful and his mind abandoned thinking about what had been changing and what was now returning to what it had once been. He knew that he had a smirk on his face, a familiar smirk. Dumbledore had done the one thing that would manage to help him return to normal, he had coerced his uncle into treating him as he normally would have, or at least closer to that then he had been. There was one thing that Dumbledore had also reminded him of… that his relationship with Severus thrived upon a mutual respect and a knowledge of position. They had lost that mutual respect, and that was mostly because Sage lost knowledge of his position while under the influence of the inevitability of the prophecy.

He scowled darkly, not too much noticing the blood running down his hand and onto the parchment. It became quite clear that there was only one thing, one thing, that he needed to do in order to return his life to its once rigid set of normalcy. If he showed that he remembered his position and obligation to Severus, the man would return it like second nature.

Severus was very rarely really respected, respected not out of fear, and he was rarely appreciated. Sage had been the one who had filled that gap. He had become, when they were at home, the student that Severus never had in class. Now it became obvious why his uncle had quickly depleted into the worst temper imagineable.

Sage looked down at his hand, suddenly sure that he was along the right lines with what he had chosen to write. He wiped his hand off with the gauze he had removed from it earlier and stared at it.

"I will not disrespect myself or my uncle."

Sage lifted his eyebrows, sounds more like a statement he would value.

He did his best to sop of the excess blood, regarding it lightly. If one thing was more or less true, it was that he had begun to desensitize himself towards pain. After having the excruciating visions for such a time pain was pain, and was simply to be taken with the least amount of emotion possible. Emotion was what made pain, painful.

He walked out of his uncle's study looking more perplexed than perturbed. He rolled the gauze over his hand absent-mindedly, and went to go back to Gryffindor tower. That line had not been satisfactory either, and Sage was beginning to think that he might not have a hand left if he couldn't smarten himself up to what Severus was looking for.

The frustrating thing was that he knew that Severus had made it clear what he should write, in what he had said to Sage, or else the entire thing would have been entirely unfair and Sage would learn little from it. There was a point and he knew that there was. His problem was that he was beginning to feel that the problem Severus was most interesting in remedying was not the problem Sage had first believed it was. No, Severus was not ultimately concerned about Sage smoking, he was concerned about something bigger, but Sage had not identified this bigger issue yet. He had thought it had to do with respect, but now he knew it didn't.

He was now thinking that what he should write had nothing to do with Severus. He walked out into the cold hallway of the dungeons and headed to the stairs. He sighed, contemplating, for the third time, what he was going to write the next evening. He took the steps as if they were nothing, two at a time, eager to lay on his bed, stare at the ceiling, and come to a final conclusion about what was going to end up etched into his hand.

He turned the corner at the top of the stairs and bumped into something solid, that had seemed as if it were heading from where Sage had come. His eyes fixated immediately on Karkaroff, standing there looking rather disturbed at who he had bumped into. Sage chastized himself for not paying more attention. He glared at the inept Death Eater, with the ferocity of a man who knew he was dealing with someone possessed of inferior magical capabilities.

Karkaroff attempted to have a hand at the typical staring game. Most from a background such as Sage's or Karkaroff's would have been a difficult opponent, but Karkaroff was not what would have been labeled a powerful Dark wizard. Sage would have had more challenge staring into the grey eyes of Draco Malfoy.

Without breaking eye contact, Sage narrowed his eyes and slashed through the silence, "What a pleasant surprise to find you lurking about he castle at one in the morning, and alone as well. Fortune finds me."

Karkaroff blanched, but recovered, "I presume that students are not allowed to be walking these halls after a curfew that, no doubt, has passed."

Sage scowled, "You have no authority, Karkaroff, within these walls, so far as I am concerned. Until I am told differently, my presumption is that you are the one who does not belong in these halls, or within the castle. Dumbledore is not fond of your type."

"He is fond of your uncle," the man sneered.

"My uncle is more of a crafty man than you are."

Karkaroff was losing the verbal battle, so he put the ball into a different court.

"It is I who is fortunate to find you alone, young Mr. Snape. Something I have dreamed of since the announcement of the school champions."

Sage stepped up closer to the man. Unafraid.

Slowly and deliberately he hissed as quietly and as threateningly as possible, "Don't tempt me Karkaroff. I have seen it. I know why you show fear in your eyes. It is becoming clearer, darker. My uncle showed it to me. I don't suppose anyone would mourne your death." He paused.

Karkaroff was growing paler and paler, his eyes narrowing with anger.

Sage continued, "I would not want to be you, because when the Mark burns black again, you are going to be hunted down, tortured, and killed. An ineffectual Death Eater, a boot-licker, who flapped his tongue when he ought not have. Perhaps it would be better for you if I just ended it right now, eh? The Dark Lord would be pleased, pleased with what I could do with you." He whispered the last sentence into the the man's ear like sweet venom.

"You go too far, boy."

"Do I? And what are you going to do about it. Rat on me?"

Karkaroff took a step back and drew out his wand.

Sage snorted before Karkaroff had a chance to cast a spell. "What are you going to do with that on a Magi!"

Even if his wandless magic was for shit much of the time these days, nobody really knew that, and it did strike him as hilarious every time someone drew a wand on him when he didn't even need a wand. Especially in these instances when it came as instinct, when he needed it.

Karkaroff's face turned as white as a sheet when he realized that he could not cast a spell. He shook his wand with fury. Sage discreetly held his good hand up, trying to hold the spell againt Karkaroff without the man knowing how much he was straining.

He would not be able to keep it up long, and he knew it would not be good to have an all out duel with the man in the middle of Hogwarts. He was relying on his powerful words and Karkaroff's fear of him as a Magi to get him by.

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