After that first day of class, when the Professor dressed me in his own clothes, he opened accounts for me at Gladrags and Madam Malkin's. I could only buy from a small selection of robes he had pre-approved, and only in the colors he approved of. Dark colors were what he liked – black, navy, grey, and deepest forest green. They were all severely buttoned, with long sleeves that extended past my wrists, just like his own. He said they would protect my skin from the increasingly advanced potions I was brewing. Skirts were always to the knee and full underneath the severe jackets. My teaching robes billowed about me just like his did around him.
The students started calling me "Little Snape" behind my back, when they thought I wasn't paying attention. The words made my eyes crinkle at the edges with a smile that would never quite surface, though it wanted to.
When I questioned him about why he would provide me such a luxury, he would tell me it was part of my wages as his Apprentice. I was not a Legilimens, not then at least, but even I could sense it wasn't the complete truth.
But I didn't push. I decided that if he wanted to offer the small kindness of giving me decent clothes for the first time in my life, I would take it gladly and not argue with him.
What Professor Snape did for me in his office that first day had been a revelation. And, even though he'd clothed me in his own restrictive garments, his harsh and true words had freed some of my long restrained will. Although I was still cutting myself, it stopped being as frequent, and when I told myself that I would not do it, I didn't. Finding my voice again and using it to be my outlet took some of the need away, and the little nagging voice inside my head stopped being quite so insistent, though eventually it did demand its dues to be paid.
At some point during that time he began serving my plate at dinner. He was discreet enough, as to not draw attention from the other Professors – especially from the Headmistress, whose eyes and knowledge of the goings on of the castle were just as sharp as Professor Dumbledore's had been. Once he established a pattern of what I was expected to eat, as he said I was at least a stone underweight, I was allowed serve myself, but only under his watchful eye.
I never questioned it.
I never thought to.
He'd told me from the start he liked control. And I was beginning to learn that I liked giving control to him.
For some reason, it made me feel … free.
I was in my office enjoying a few precious moments of solitude, when I heard his voice through the connection door.
"Miss Weasley, may I have a word with you?"
I turned off my wireless radio and walked into his office. Even as a student, this was a room I loved to visit. Many of my girlfriends had been scared of the grotesque array of specimens that were bottled and displayed around the room, though I wasn't. I thought they were fascinating, even more so now that I knew importance of keeping the varied ingredients on hand.
Even if you didn't look at his collection of pickled animals and plants, his office was not a warm place. It was physically cold, as was mine, since the dungeons were tunneled far underneath Black Lake. Even with the fires we kept burning at all times, regardless of the shifts of the season, it was always cold and dank. The walls held the pictures I remembered from his Dark Arts classroom my 5th year – various pictures of witches and wizards who looked like they were suffering a great deal of pain. I wondered idly if they were taken while the Cruciatus Curse was inflicted, though I never dared to ask. It was a far change from my little office, no bigger than a cupboard, which was covered with pictures of my cheerful, friendly family waving back to me.
He was sitting next to his fireplace in one of the two black leather chairs situated in front of it. He motioned me to sit next to him.
"Tea?" he asked when I took my seat.
"Please," I replied.
He snapped his fingers and Kreacher, the Black Family's house elf and now Harry's, appeared next to him with a sharp crack. I couldn't help but giggle when I saw him dressed in the uniform that all Hogwarts house elves wore. The locket that Harry found in the cave that had once kept Regulus Black's note still hung around his thin, wiry neck.
"What are you doing here, Kreacher? Why aren't you at Grimmauld place?" I asked.
He sniffed and looked at Professor Snape before he answered. The Professor nodded to the little elf. "Kreacher works only for Hogwarts now," he said, his voice even lower and more froglike than I remembered. "Kreacher is no longer welcome at home. Master Harry's Mud-"
"Kreacher," warned Professor Snape.
"Sorry, Master Snape. Master Harry's fiancée says that Kreacher is not needed at Grimmauld Place anymore. She tried to give Kreacher," he paused and visibly shook before he said, "clothes."
I looked at Professor Snape when large tears started pouring out the elderly elf's protuberant eyes. "Why would she do something like that?" I asked. Anger started to pour into my veins as I thought of how many years Kreacher must have lived at the Black Home, dutifully serving multiple generations of the family as well as Harry, and the audacity of that idiotic know-it-all for trying to throw him out on one of his bat-like ears.
"Apparently she still maintains the necessity of the right of house elves, Miss Weasley, and thought it to be hypocritical that she would live in a home that still had one serving," the Professor said, idly looking at his fingernails. "Will you bring us tea, Kreacher, as well as some chocolate biscuits?"
"Yes, Master Snape." Kreacher cracked out the room loudly only to immediately return with the items requested, bowing to both of us. I was surprised his poor, little frail body didn't break in half with the action.
"Thank you, Kreacher. That will be all."
Kreacher bowed again and Disapparated with another crack.
"Did that bitch really give him clothes?" I asked, hastily grabbing a biscuit and shoving it in my mouth before I could say anything else more derogatory about Hermione. Professor Snape had very definite ideas about decorum and appropriate behavior. I wasn't sure how he would take me swearing, even though I wanted to go to the Astronomy Tower and scream out my anger at her.
When he laughed, I relaxed, but decided not to push my luck.
"She tried, Miss Weasley, but Kreacher is too old and too perceptive to let her do it. When Harry realized what she was up to, he sent Kreacher here," he said, sipping his tea. He frowned. "I suppose he really sent him to the school, but Kreacher decided if he could not serve at Grimmauld Place that he would serve the Slytherin Head of House. I think if I ever left he would come right along with me."
"Why is that?" I asked.
Professor Snape shrugged. "For some reason Kreacher has always seemed to like me, even when I was a teenager and Regulus Black was vetting me to the Dark Lord." He frowned and started to tug on his sleeves, something I'd learned was a sign he was uncomfortable. "Let's not talk about such things, Miss Weasley. That topic of conversation is quite … unpleasant."
Even though was intrigued at the idea of learning more about the Professor's past – I knew so little about him, other than his friendship with Harry's mother – I just nodded in agreement and quickly changed the subject. "Why did you want to see me, sir?"
"We really haven't spoken about your work recently," he said as he slyly grabbed a couple of biscuits for himself after seeing how many I'd gobbled down. "I wanted to see how you felt about how you were doing."
"I think it's going better, sir. I enjoy helping the students; I really think that's what I do best, now that I know how to command their attention and respect," I said slowly. I contemplated the rest of my response before I spoke. "I like developing as well – you expressed your surprise at how well I devised the improvements on Burn Healing Paste."
"Poppy reports that the students who come in with minor burns are healing twice as fast. Your improvements to the original paste will be a breakthrough for its use," he said, giving me one of his rare smiles.
I beamed back at him. "Thank you, sir. Your praise actually means a lot to me."
"Why?" he asked. He cocked his head to the side as I tried to formulate an answer that wouldn't sound ridiculously school-girlish.
"Well, you are the greatest Potioneer in all of Europe," I said, carefully. "Praise from you is like getting a wand from Merlin himself."
He grimaced. "After the way I treated you, when I was Headmaster? My praise could be that important to you?"
I bit my lip and turned away to look at the crackling fire, trying not to think about the past too hard. "You stopped much of the worst of it, didn't you?"
"But I didn't stop all of it, did I?" he said so softly and gently that it made my heart hurt. I felt tears roll down my cheeks which I immediately rubbed away.
"Let's not talk about such things, sir," I said, now tugging my own sleeves. I looked up at his dull eyes, so dull today they almost looked devoid of life. "We can't change the past. The Carrows cursed me and hexed me for sport, as they did many other students. It's over now. Let's not dwell." I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye before as I sipped my tea.
"Would you like to go with me to Black Lake this afternoon before dinner?" he asked. "The Merpeople graciously provide me with Gillyweed for my private stores."
"Of course I would," I said. "Thank you for allowing me to go with you."
He smirked, and we finished our tea in relative silence before he motioned for me to leave his office with him. I watched him swallow a vial of his Throat Repair before removing the wards from his door.
"Sir?" I asked.
Professor Snape turned around before he opened the door. "Yes, Miss Weasley?"
I took a deep breath, and looked at the buttons on his chest. "I forgive you, sir," I said. I couldn't look up into his eyes. I'd contemplated letting him know that I, at least, had absolved him for his actions since that day in my office when I first saw this different side of him - this rare, gentle side that I liked so much. It made me wonder what kind of man he might have been if life had been kinder to him.
I heard his breath hitch in his chest. "You don't know what you are saying," he said in a whisper.
"I do," I said, almost as defiantly as I had been at sixteen. "I know exactly what I'm saying." I took a deep breath and looked up at his face. He looked completely blank, though he was breathing very fast as though he'd just run a marathon.
I started speaking again, and this time spoke the words from my heart. "I forgive you for your actions, as well as your inactions. I forgive you for cursing George by accident. I forgive you for bringing the Dementors to the school." I reached out and tried to take his hand, which he quickly pulled away. "It's for me, as much as it is for you. I was angry with you, for a long time. But now it's gone."
His eyebrows rushed together in a flurry of movement. "My actions brought the Dark Lord to this school. Physically brought him and the stalwart followers to these very grounds. Every single child who died in the Battle of Hogwarts was my responsibility – even your own brother. And still, you forgive me?" He looked as though he might be ill, his pale face turning an even more unflattering shade of white.
I again tried to touch his hand with mine and once more drew it back when he flinched. "You are not responsible for the actions of a maniac. And I still choose to forgive you, whether you are ready to hear it or not."
He leaned against the door and looked at the ceiling. Slowly, the color, or at least his regular pallor, returned to his face and his breathing slowed back to normal. He took a deep breath and sighed before he smirked at me. "Then I suppose I should forgive you for the Bat-Bogey Hex you cast on me during my opening remarks at the Welcoming Feast your sixth year."
I froze, trying to reconcile his change of countenance as well as the change of subject. I also couldn't figure out how he could have known it was me – I'd been too far away from him that night for him to have used Legilimency.
"You just told me," he said. He gave me a very subtle wink before opened the door for me to pass.
"We will talk about this one day, sir," I said as I walked out the door.
"Not if I can help it," he said, quietly following behind.