I own nothing! I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters! I just own the Snape family members (except for Severus, of course), and the other OC's.
"Snape, Eileen," Professor McGonagall called out, and everyone's blood froze, including Severus'. He knew for a fact that he didn't father this one, as he hadn't slept with any woman in between Sarabella's fling and marrying Chessie.
The tiny girl hesitantly stepped forward, unsure of herself, and stumbled as one of the others used a tripping jinx on her. she put the hat on her head, trying her hardest to hold back tears.
Ah, another Snape. Tell me child, do you know a man named Severus? No? Well, you must be the child of his missing sister, then. What was your mother's name?
Sarah Snape. I – I'm not in trouble are I? I – I mean, am I? I – I didn't mean to – to hurt them like that it just – it just happened. I didn't mean for them to die when I switched their alcohol for rice wine!
But you wished for the wine to be poisoned?
Y-yes. But I didn't think it would happen! I knew I could do magic, but I didn't mean to do that to them! I feel so bad about it, now… I shouldn't have poisoned them… but it was the only way I could get them to leave me alone! They never let me talk aloud while at the orphanage!
Your mother's brother is on staff. Do not fret. You also have a cousin in the house that he is over.
What's his or her name?
Kiru Snape. I sorted her four years ago. It's a pity your mama… became an angel in childbirth... I recall that she was a very bright half-blood, while your father was a very power-hungry half-blood. For the sake of tradition, and to get you to know your family, I think I know where to put you, especially since your uncle is the head of the house.
"Slytherin!" the hat yelled out, and Severus' eyes narrowed, then widened in shock.
He recognized who this child was now. As soon as all the sorting was done, the food appeared, and the small girl was immediately shut out of any and all conversations at the Slytherin table, and she ate very slowly, only starting after most of the others began eating. Abuse, he diagnosed quickly, and sighed in exasperation at his small relative's abilities and uncanny misfortune of lineage.
After finishing his food, Snape left the feast early, having alerted Minerva to his plans for his trusted companion. Sighing in defeat as he buried his trusty owl of more than twenty years, he flat out refused to use magic, and was extremely unhappy now that his familiar was gone. First almost all of Kiru's, and now his own was dead. He was only grateful that the bird had been healthy up until he died of old age and had remained loyal to him. He'd left even before the prefects, and was now being swarmed by bugs. He heard a slight flapping of wings as he finished, and got a face full of fur and confusion.
"What the bloody hell?" he snapped as the small winged creature ricocheted off his face and fell towards the ground.
With one swift movement of his wand, however, he caught it, and realized that what this tiny creature didn't have was eyesight or coordination. It was – literally – as blind as a bat, and was a bat. He jerked as he realized that the tiny thing hadn't run into him on purpose. No matter how often he used magic to keep it from falling, it just kept coming back and ramming itself into him. He lifted his wand arm, and the tiny creature struggled to latch onto something on his robes. He held his fingers out like a fan, and the tiny creature latched its feet onto his index finger in a frenzied ball of fur, its breathing rapid.
He walked back up towards the castle, banishing the shovel he'd used with his wand and cleaning his clothes after that. He still held his left hand firm for the tiny creature, and held his left arm so that the small mammal could rest and fall onto his arm and not the ground should it lose its grip on him. He knew that familiars were always attracted towards their witches and wizards, but this was ridiculous since the familiar had found him within hours of its predecessor's death and was an infant to top it off!
"Professor, what's that?" a second year asked as he walked into the Slytherin common room, "What's that on your arm?"
"I believe," Severus said thoughtfully, "That it is my new familiar."
"Hermes is dead? Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Professor!" Pansy Parkinson gasped in horror at her favorite teacher's losing his trusted friend and comrade. "H-how? Was he in pain?"
"Yes," Severus said calmly, his face an emotionless mask. "He was healthy until he died of old age a few hours ago. This little one kept ramming itself into me when I was burying Hermes, and I figured I'd see just what the hell this thing was."
"So, what is it?" the second year asked again, and Severus raised his hand to get a closer look.
"Hm, a bat. How ironic," he smirked. "Now, should I call it 'Greaser', 'Dungeon', 'Gannon', 'Kage', or Akuma?"
"Sir, why not choose the name for it yourself? Isn't a familiar tied to its witch or wizard from when it is extremely young?" one of the girls asked.
"Yes, they are," Severus said. "However, this is the first time I have ever seen a familiar this young in all my years. This little bat really does make a mess out of – what the bloody hell now?"
The bat took flight and swooped around the common rooms, chasing bugs, but went back to Severus' hand since it wasn't fast enough. It was panting, and was now wining pitifully.
"Can we keep him, dad? Please?" Kiru begged, and Severus glared at her.
"I'd be a fool not to accept a free familiar," Severus said calmly. "You should recall that little discussion with Skullduggery, Kiru. And how often must I tell you, that while we're at school you are to address me just as you would any of your other teachers?"
"Sorry, sir," Kiru said lowly. "Why not choose the name Akuma? It means 'Devil', after all."
"Jiyu," Severus smirked, "Now, first years, step forward. There are rules that you need to know and get in your little heads before I leave, but I shall leave that for your prefects. I will suffice to say that unless Kiru is directly involved in some way with whatever is wrong, or unless it is a dire emergency, I do not wish to be disturbed unless it is absolutely necessary and the prefects are unable to help you. If you have a problem, take it to the prefects, and if they can't handle it then they will bring it to me. Now, listen to the prefects, they will lay down the rules and regulations of the Slytherin house."
"All right, half pints!" the male prefect yelled out. "Listen up! While we're the most hated house in this whole bloody school, which will never go away I can assure you, you will act as one! If you've got a fight, leave it in the common rooms! I don't want any divisions among us to be seen in public, and if we catch it, you will be punished!"
Severus heard no more since he slipped out to go to his private quarters, and Skullduggery followed after him silently. Strangely, the raven was getting along with the DA teacher's new charge, and the exhausted Professor fire called Hermes' healer to get a checkup on the tiny new familiar. Within moments, she appeared in the fireplace, worried over the old owl. Her demeanor changed when she saw the tiny bat, and she gasped audibly.
"Hermes is dead," she stated. "And this little one must be your new familiar, am I correct, Professor?"
He nodded, and the witch immediately began to get to work on the winged mammal.
"I want to say it's a male, but I know it's about a month old, that is probably quite hungry by now, sir. He's probably missing his momma, and will still need to be fed for a couple more weeks, I'm afraid. He can learn to hunt from the owls, I'm sure, if they don't eat him," she diagnosed quickly. "He is more than capable of flying, but was probably too tired from his long trip to do anything more but to get to you. He was probably attracted to you because you were outside attracting bugs."
"Not on my watch, little lady," the raven said perching himself on Severus' shoulder, and the witch took a step back. "I'll show him how to hunt for insects, no problem. This little guy can also learn how to get fruit and other stuff off of Uncle Sev's plate."
"Since you so foolhardily landed on my shoulder, Skullduggery, you may also get a checkup with our animal healer. Healer Smith, this is Skullduggery, my daughter's familiar, and a constant headache when I am trying to grade papers. I know Skull, and he won't let anything happen to Jiyu at all unless he's ambushed with no alternatives," Severus said shaking his head and smirking. "I don't know why he chose her when we were sight-seeing, he just did. You'll have to ask him."
"I already told you, you pea-brain," he said imitating Horace's voice, and Severus laughed.
"Skull, that is the one person that would never, ever, insult me because I was his most prized student in his classes," Severus laughed. "To hear his voice insulting me is the ultimate irony I can think – no, wait, I've got a better one. Skull, you wouldn't happen to know the song called 'I am the Walrus' done by Jim Carrey, would you?"
The healer burst into a fit of laughter and laughed even more as Severus told her his plans for Minerva with Skull acting as bait. After about half an hour, both familiars had a clean bill of health, and the witch had given her former Professor a list of things that the small bat would need until she was able to get back to him. Severus was polite and offered to pay her, but she simply smiled sadly and told him that she'd pay for it for the time he'd saved her life after she'd incorrectly brewed a potion and had to be given an antidote within mere moments in his classroom. She left before he could pay her, and he sighed as he looked at the tiny winged mammal that was smaller than his hand.
"Well, Skull, I think you should head back off to Kiru's room so she doesn't panic without you," he grinned. "Jiyu, you have everything I could have wanted, little one, and I have named you appropriately because you have the one thing that I cannot, and will not ever, be able to have. Freedom. Shit, not again, damn it! I just saw him yesterday, he should know it's the first day of terms!"
"What's wrong, Severus?" Minerva asked as she stepped out into his office from the floo. "Oh, you're being summoned. Hagrid said he saw you outside alone getting assaulted by something. Are you alright?"
"Fine," Severus snarled, clutching his dark mark in pain. "I'm fine. Jiyu just startled me, that's all."
"Jiyu?" the witch asked in confusion, but stared at her colleague's new familiar in amusement and forced herself not to laugh. "A bat? Do you realize the irony of this, Severus?"
"Yes, yes, I know," he hissed. "The greasy bat of the dungeons has a bat for a familiar. I know, it's not that funny, Minerva. I've still got to make sure that Jiyu gets the right fruits and insects that he needs to survive."
"Here," the older animagus said as she transfigured Hermes' old perch into a new nest for the tiny bat.
Severus stared at it. it was oddly shaped, and had a bar hanging over a circular nest lined with grass and hay, with quite a few of Hermes' feathers mixed in. he was fairly certain that his bat was a male, but the healer had been unable to diagnose the gender, if he recalled correctly, which he wasn't. His little bat was a female, and its momma hadn't abandoned it – it had been eaten by an owl.
"Thank you, Minerva," Severus said softly as he took the tiny rodent over to its new nest. "Here, Jiyu, your new nest. Come on, little one, stop being a coward." Hesitantly, tiny step by tiny step, the bat repositioned itself onto the next, but the metal was too slippery for her little claws to handle and she fell into the next of hay and feathers.
"It's not a problem, Severus," she smiled. "I'm sure you'd have done the same if I was in your shoes and you were in mine."
"Indeed," he scowled. "Well, how did the students react to my being Defense Teacher? Were there any other complaints from your house after the feast?"
"Oh, yes," she frowned. "I almost had to hand out detentions. A large number of them accused you of being a Death Eater and putting the headmaster under the Imperius curse."
"I'm hoping I can put a stop to his insane idea," Severus said, but froze suddenly. "Wait, that's – I can't believe – why didn't I see it before? Kiru can use the same song on the headmaster that she did on Frank and Alice Longbottom about a month ago! She already knows his plan, but if she were to be the one instead of me, she could play a different song to help out or something!"
"No, Severus," the headmaster whispered through the fire. "Could the two of you come up to my office? I need to talk to you both about this upcoming school year."
Within moments, they stood in front of him and he was reviewing his plans for the Order and defeating Voldemort. Snape brought up his idea, but it was immediately shot down by his boss saying that in order for Voldemort to come out of hiding, he needed to believe Dumbledore dead and that meant that Dumbledore had to die after Severus hid all the Horcrux artifacts around England for Harry to find next year. Severus knew that Kiru would know all the locations, and that she would help guide them, but that Ron would have to be gotten rid of for good if this was all going to work.
"Severus, let the Weasley atone for what he's done," the old man said quietly, "If not for the young ones and the Weasley family, for Harry and Hermione. Besides, it is only fit and fair that the young one get his own fair chance to redeem himself, just as you have had my boy."
"Get rid of Horace," Severus snapped. "One person calling me 'my boy' is enough, but if he calls me that one more time I will hex him into oblivion with Kiru helping me. And I will personally ensure that he gets humiliated in front of the entire school, headmaster, so if you find Skullduggery interrupting your little speeches, could you let him carry on, if you would, please? He knows not to interrupt you, I made sure."
"Very well, Severus," the headmaster said with a mischevious twinkle in his eyes. "Does this have anything to do with his ability to speak and mimic? If so, then I would appreciate if he did not do anything to insult me."
"He won't," Severus grinned evilly as he left the office, passing Slughorn as he went down. "Horace."
"Severus," the old man said, "I'm so terribly sorry to hear about poor Hermes! Are you alright, my boy? Can I help you in any way? A new familiar, perhaps? Help grading papers while you look for one?"
"I appreciate the offer," Severus said icily. "But a familiar found me while I was burying Hermes on the grounds. Jiyu is resting on her perch in my private quarters. At least, I think Jiyu is a female."
"Oh? What is she?"
"You'll see," Severus smirked as he continued onwards. "Good night, Horace."
"Good Night, Severus," he said wistfully. "Oh, could you rejoin me at the Slug Club meetings, my boy?"
Severus decided to pretend he never heard this last part of his mentor's farewell. He almost shuddered to recall that his mentor was the one who'd taught Voldemort everything he knew, without even realizing what he'd been doing at the time.
"Would you ask the same of Tom Riddle?" he retaliated, and Slughorn paled as the new Defense Teacher walked away.
Yeah, I know I said that before, but I changed my mind. Hades – I'll try to use that sometime.