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Chapter Three: Stranger Things
The first few lessons went surprisingly well. I had been practicing my Occlumency, more than the good Professor had expected, probably, and it turns out I wasn't that helpless with wordless and wandless magic, either. There were a few rather testing moments when Snape would smirk his menacing Snape Smirks and make some comment or another about my lack of effort or improvement; he somehow always managed to forget any progress I might have made. Eventually, we even started a bit on Legilimency, and I found that it was much better to be the one invading another's mind than to have your own mind invaded.
One specific story comes to mind.
I was having a particularly good day. Ron and Hermione had kissed for the first time and couldn't stop smiling since out of pure happiness. In Ron's state of ecstasy, he gave me his best set of Wizard's Chess. I was sure he'd ask me for it back once the euphoria sunk in and passed, but I was determined to have fun while it lasted. I brought the Chess board down to Snape's rooms and, before we started our lesson, I challenged him to a game.
"Potter, this isn't playtime. We have work to do, and as soon as we finish we can both get back to our own lives. And, despite popular opinion, I do have a life."
"Professor we've been learning non-stop for four months! Can't we just have one game?"
"I don't play chess, Potter, especially not with students, and most especially not with you."
"Thanks. I'm honored."
"Look, Potter, the Headmaster gave us a quota to fill. We only have to have these lessons for a few more months. Can't you survive that time without playing a bloody game of chess with your most hated Professor?"
"You know, sir, that calling yourself that is what gives you that title?"
"No chess. Now pick up your wand."
"One game. I challenge you." I smirked evilly. I knew how competitive the Potions Master was, and I knew that he wouldn't back down that easy.
"One game." He had given in.
"You're going down." I grinned.
"You wish, Potter."
After a most interesting game during which my pawns attacked Snape's with a vengeance and Snape's knight mutilated my Queen so badly her leg flew into the fire, I yelled a triumphant "CHECKMATE!" and laughed at Snape's defeated face.
"I let you win," he said simply, and picked up his wand.
"Oh, you little-"
"Stupefy!" Snape shouted without warning, but I was already used to his dueling habits and before the word was even out of his mouth I had raised my wand to block his spells. We dueled for a bit, and then, exhausted, we called a quits. We sat on his couch and stared into the hearth, each thinking our own thoughts.
"Alright, Potter. Legilimency."
"Are you serious? Professor I haven't had any practice!"
"This is your practice. You need to fight fire with fire. If the Dark Lord plans to read your thoughts, you don't only need to block him; you need to give him a taste of his own medicine and read him like an open book."
"He's more like a horror novel," I mumbled to myself.
"What's that?"
"Nothing, sir. I'm ready, I guess."
Snape walked over to his desk and slowly brought his wand tip to his temple, extracting silvery strands of memories that he didn't want me to see and placing them into his pensieve with deliberate jabs of his wand, forcing them to the bottom.
"Ok, Potter, now on the count of three, say 'Legilimens!' clearly and loudly, thinking about what you want to do. You're going to feel your way into my mind and push past my barriers. Probe with your mind and try to find a weak spot, then push your way in. This first time I won't try to stop you, but don't think I'm always going to be so easy to read."
"Yes, sir," I said, gripping my wand tightly in my right hand. I was a bit nervous about probing this man's mind… I was scared that I would accidentally happen upon something he didn't want me to see, and any progress we had been making on our quest to civil behavior towards one another would be null and void. I was afraid he might hate me again.
"On the count of three, Potter." I hated him calling me that when I had to address him as 'sir' or 'professor' at all times, but he had simply refused to call me by my first name
"We aren't old chums yet, Potter; don't go getting your hopes up about anything. I'm doing this on Dumbledore's orders, and I'll be much the better when this is all over." But he had said 'yet', so that gave me some hope.
"One," Snape's voice brought me back to the matter at hand, "two, THREE!"
"LEGILIMENS!" I cried, focusing my eyes on Snape's beady black ones and made my way into his mind. Immediately, I felt a force trying to block me out, but I pushed passed it. Snape was skilled at occlumency, though, and was almost effortlessly blocking me out. I gathered all my mental strength and fought against his barriers. I felt around in his mind, trying to find the softest, most vulnerable part. Suddenly, I felt a kind of breeze in his head and spotted a crack in the mental walls he had put up against me. I slipped through, right into his memories. I felt him stiffen; I was in, and he was having trouble getting me out.
(A/N: for those of you who're lost, this is the memory...)
"Headmaster, please! I'll do anything!" a younger version of Snape was sitting across from a younger Dumbledore's desk. Dumbledore himself was sitting thoughtfully, stroking Fawkes with one hand and his beard with the other.
"Why is it that you wish to return to the light, Severus? How can I be sure that you won't turn traitor on us like you are doing to Voldemort this very instant?"
"Please, Headmaster, I assure you that-"
"Your assurance means little to me, Severus, until I hear or see undeniable proof that your are as sincere and honest in this as you claim you are."
Snape looked down at his shoes, and started, quietly at first with his voice raising each second, to explain himself to the Headmaster. "I hate him. I hate all of them. I stand there with them, feeling dirty and evil. I deserve to die, and some days I wish I would slipup and make him angry enough to kill me. His Cruciatus curses are said with such ease, it's amazing that they work. All the innocent people whose lives are ruined now, whose lives are over now, they didn't deserve that! And I should sit there and be his lap dog, doing his bidding like the other fools, as if it is the highest honor one could receive? I am pretty far into his circle. He trusts me, I know that. He-he knows about the Prophecy."
Dumbledore gasped audibly. "How does he know? How do you know?"
"He sent me to the Hog's Head that day, knowing you were going to be holding interviews that day. He sent me to eavesdrop, and I heard everything. I went back and told him what I had heard, and he vowed to-to-to-"
"To what Severus? What did he say he would do?" Dumbledore's anger was a controlled whisper. He had stopped stroking his beard and his bird and had sat up in his seat, his hands on the desk in front of him, leaning forward to hear what Snape had to say.
"He vowed to kill the Potter baby. Lily's son. He's going to murder Lily's son."
I felt a strong, very strong force push me out of the memory, out of Snape's mind, and I stood, staring at him. He looked drained, emotionally and physically. He stood, panting, his shoulders sagging with an invisible weight, his eyes shut in some hidden emotion.
"Professor?" I whispered, as if he was ill, "Are you alright?"
"You knew already, didn't you? You knew I sold your parents to the Dark Lord. How did you know?" Snape sat down again, his head in his hands. "I forgot about that memory. I didn't realize how skilled you are in everything I teach you. I underestimated you."
"Thank you, sir. I found out last year. Professor Trelawney accidentally let it slip. I think she was a bit tipsy at the time, though, so don't hold it against her. I knew, and I long ago forgave you because if it wasn't you, it would've been someone else. But if it was anyone else, Dumbledore wouldn't have known, and I would probably be dead."
"That's one way to look at it, I suppose."
"How did you do it?" I asked, taking a seat next to him on the couch.
"Do what?" he looked at me. He was exhausted. He had let down his guard entirely, and his face was no longer impassive. It held sympathy, sadness and regret. There was a hint of something else in his eyes, but at the time I couldn't put my finger on what it was.
"How did you get Dumbledore to trust you? It's obvious that he does; besides the fact that you're the spy for the Light and all that, he's said some things to me this year… well, he really, really trusts you. Why?"
Snape looked affronted. "Do you think he shouldn't trust me?"
"I just want to know why he does. Maybe it will give me a reason to as well."
The Professor sighed. "I can't tell you exactly, Potter, I just know that I've risked my life enough times to prove my loyalty to him. I hoped it was enough for everyone else as well, but then again, I never really care what other people think. The Headmaster knew what I was sacrificing when I suggested I be a spy for the light. He knows what I sacrifice every day just being here. He knows that, if I wasn't trust-worthy, I would have handed you over to Voldemort first chance I got, which, though we don't exactly get along, I don't hate you enough to do."
I sat for a few minutes, thinking over everything in the memory and everything Snape was confiding in me now. That sounds strange, Snape confiding in me. It was a strange experience, his openness. I prayed it wouldn't be the last time, and I prayed he wouldn't put his guard back up the next time I blinked. I looked up and saw his weary face and knew that he hadn't, so I probed on.
"In the memory… you said something about my mother. 'Lily's son', you said. You made it sound like you cared."
The Potions Master rose from his seat and began pacing back and forth before the fireplace.
"When I first heard the Prophecy, I had no idea whom it might be referring to. It could have been any of the order members; I had no clue who was expecting and who wasn't, let alone what month their baby was due to be born! I was doing what I had been told to do, and though at that point already I loathed it, I was afraid for my life. It was cowardly, I admit, and there is so much I regret about my time as a Death Eater, but I choose not to dwell on it because I still have a mission to complete.
"When the Dark Lord had made his calculations and chose you, I knew just how bad things had gotten. I may have hated James Potter, but Lily was always good to me. Always. I may have called her Mudblood at first, but by the time we graduated, we were good friends. She saw the things in me that no one else did. She always saw the good in people. She knew how obsessed I was with the Dark Arts, and tried to protect me from the fate we both could not deny. Lily was the only one I ever opened up to. If not for her, I don't think I would have even thought about returning to the light. Her life and her death with influential parts of my existence.
"When I heard that she had been killed for protecting you, this inexplicable hatred for you rose up in me, and by the time you came to school, I already had a grudge to hold, but for two reasons. You were James's son, and you were Lily's son. Those were the two biggest excuses I had for my mistreatment of you. I don't deny that you irk me, more than you probably mean to, and I don't doubt that because of how I've acted to you, you hold a little animosity towards me."
I sat in stunned silence, trying and failing to believe his words.
"Good friends? You and my Mum were good friends? You think I WANTED her to die?! Do you think I could have told her to go against her maternal instincts and let me, her year old son, die? DO YOU THIK I WANTED THIS TO BE MY LIFE!?!?! YOU ACT LIKE I LIKE THE ATTENTION, LIKE I THRIVE ON IT! How could I thrive on it if it's all so negative in origin?"
Snape shook his head, something flaring in his eyes, "THIS is why we cannot get along. There is too much history here that you don't understand."
"How can I understand it if I don't know anything about it?" I asked, outraged. I hadn't been ready to see this softer side of Snape. I wasn't prepared to hold a confessional in the middle of his living room. I didn't want Snape to care, or to have ever cared. I wish there wasn't any history at all.
"If you let me tell you, you'll know." Snape crouched down in front of me and looked into my eyes. "There are some things about yourself that you can't change- your eye color, you hair color, the shape of your lips. But one thing you can change is your feelings towards another person. I am asking you now not to forgive every mean thing I've ever said to you. I'm asking you to just listen. I don't plan on telling your bratty arse my entire life story, but I will tell you what I feel you should know. Just promise not to tell Dumbledore that we're wasting our lessons on this."
"Professor, I'm not sure this is such a good idea."
"How about we discuss this over some tea?" He rose again and glided into his kitchen where he fixed the fastest cup of tea I had ever seen. He handed me my cup and sat, sighing loudly.
"Sir, I don't understand. One moment you're my 'most hated Professor', and the next you want to sit and chat over tea about why Voldemort killed my parents? Why do you care all of a sudden? All I did was invade your mind." Yes, all I did. It happens everyday, like the sun rising.
"There is so much that you cannot even begin to comprehend, Potter. Do try to, though, because I'd really like it if we could tell Dumbledore we're getting along so he can stop giving me these looks as if he knows how stubborn I am to hate you."
"So you do hate me".
"With all my heart and soul." Even without the sarcasm in his voice, I knew this was a lie, and smiled to myself with that knowledge.
Snape glanced at the clock and nearly jumped out of his skin. "Did you know it's 2 am, Potter?"
"Oh, shit!" his eyebrow rose at this exclamation, "Sorry sir, it's just that in have to be up in five hours and I still have a certain nasty Professor's essay to write on the Reducto curse and it's uses against Dark creatures."
"Hmm… well you can tell that nasty Professor that I say that no amount of curses can fix that greasy hair of his and why doesn't he take his hooked nose out of other people's business?" We laughed, an awkward thing for the two of us to do together, and it felt oddly normal, as if we'd been doing it for years.
"Oh, it'll be my pleasure," I said, "But I should get going. My friends will start to wonder if I'm still alive down here."
"I'm sure."
I got up and made my way to the door, smiling at the strange turn of events of the night.
"Good night, Professor," I said, opening the door.
"Good night, Harry."
It wasn't until I was halfway to Gryffindor Tower that my exhausted brain registered Snape's use of my first name.
Things were getting stranger by the minute.
A/N: I KNOWW snapes OOC im sorry i SUCK at writing lol and i know things are happening too fast so if u have any tips or w/e plz feel free to share!!! im going to try to slow down a bit and im going to start writing in Snape's POV and also completely in third person. the Horcruxes, the situation with Voldemort and everything else from book six is coming, im just forming my ideas really slowly so BE PATIENT!!!
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