1972-1973: Little Man's Inventions
For the ninth time in a year and a half Snape was riding the Hogwarts Express. He knew lots of people liked travelling, but he most certainly wasn't one of them. Not by muggle means such as trains at any rate. While the Express was considered quite spacious, there wasn't a place to hide from the outside world, and Snape was forced to share a room with vicious little kids for nigh ten hours. And while, unlike last year, he had no reservations to talk with Lily, he wasn't particularly excited about sharing the details of his holidays either.
This was why, when the train finally came to a stop, he was one of the first to hop off and climb into the carriages, eager to reach the castle as soon as possible and get to some quiet place, away from the other students.
His wish was granted, albeit not in the way he had hoped. As he went to take the right turn to the Slytherin dungeons, he almost bumped into one of the people he had least desire to encounter — Madam Pomfrey.
"Mr. Snape," she said, "the Headmaster has asked me to check on you, so if you would follow me..."
Seuthes made no move to do so.
"Sorry, can it wait till tomorrow? I'm rather exhausted right now."
"I'm afraid not," the matron responded and gestured irritably for him to move. Muttering his complaints under his breath, the boy nevertheless complied. There was nothing for Pomfrey to find today anyway.
The infirmary was silent and three floors away from the rest of the student body currently in the Great Hall. Frustrated though he was, Seuthes found it in himself to appreciate the irony of the situation. Getting exactly what he'd wished for, and hating it. He sat on the bed he'd been pointed to and waited for the matron to join him. There was a click as the door was closed and locked behind her. Evidently, she'd learnt her lesson.
"There now, Mr Snape, there's nothing to worry about," she tried to reassure him upon noticing the frightened look on his face. Seuthes, however, wasn't too inclined to trust her; especially after she'd just locked him here like a caged animal, and prevented his only escape route.
The witch extracted her wand and chanted something, the diagnostic charm revealing only bruising on his back from that time he'd tumbled down the stairs. Seuthes' eyes widened in horror. He'd completely forgotten about that. If he'd thought of it earlier, he wouldn't have allowed himself to be steered to the infirmary. He stood up abruptly, stepping closer to the door but still facing the healer.
"Is there any reason you so fiercely refuse to be healed, boy," Pomfrey snapped, clearly exasperated. "Whatever it is you're trying to hide, it is absolutely senseless to continue doing so, when that costs you your health."
Seuthes wasn't convinced. He held the woman's gaze defiantly. Sensing she was getting nowhere with this approach, Pomfrey took a step backwards, and sat on one of the hospital beds.
"Mr Snape, you do realise I am sworn not to reveal anything about you to anyone without your consent?"
The Slytherin raised his eyebrows, but quickly concealed his surprise. Still, he kept his mouth shut.
"Is there any particular reason you wouldn't let me look at your injuries?" the matron asked. Seuthes nodded silently. "And what would that be?"
"I can't tell you," replied Snape for the first time since they'd got here.
"You won't let me, then. How about someone else? Anyone else?" Pomfrey inquired.
"No-one can know."
The words were barely above a whisper, but the matron caught the slight trembling of his voice as he spoke.
"Why?"
Snape was silent for a few long seconds, contemplating whether he should answer the question at all.
"They'd kill me," he whispered at last.
Silence fell upon the room at the uttered declaration. What took Pomfrey by surprise was not only the sentence itself, but the certainty with which the boy had spoken. As though there really was no other way. She had to admit her curiosity was piqued.
Sitting a bit straighter, she beckoned Snape to sit on the bed in front of her. Surprisingly, he obeyed.
"Don't be foolish, child. No-one would try to kill you," the healer said, though she knew much too well how cruel people could be, attacking each other not for who they were, but for what they were. Muggle-borns, half-giants, werewolves... Even among the students, so young and fragile, some of this hatred was already showing on the surface. She should know, she'd been the one mending the kids after such situations for years now.
Seuthes huffed bitterly. I used to think that too, he thought.
Noticing the sour expression on his face, Pomfrey shook her head slightly, thinking. Evidently, the boy firmly believed what he was saying, but how could it be true? Unless some magic bound him not to reveal whatever it was he was hiding, she couldn't think of a different logical explanation.
"Am I to understand, Mr Snape, that you are suffering from some Dark curse?" she asked at last.
Seuthes pondered the question for a moment, then shook his head. Suffering from a curse, yes, but not the kind of curse Pomfrey was suggesting. This curse she would not be able to heal.
The matron, however, noticed his hesitation at answering her question, and frowned.
"Does anyone know that secret of yours?"
"My parents do."
It wasn't that surprising, really. But it meant that simply knowing of the boy's secret wasn't going to 'kill him', as he'd put it. Pomfrey breathed a sigh of relief at the realisation that the Slytherin was just exaggerating like people his age tended to do. "Is this why they treat you the way they do?" she asked.
"I don't know what you mean," Snape replied.
"Don't take me for a fool, young man," the witch snapped. "I know abuse when I see it. And I realise you don't like it, but I also know your parents hit you, and I can't fathom why you wouldn't let me help you."
Seuthes' face twisted in a fuming expression, but his voice was even as he answered, "As a matter of fact, they don't. I was running to my bedroom, when I tripped and fell down the stairs."
It was Pomfrey's turn to scoff. "You seem to have a habit of tripping over around Christmas, Mr Snape. Come now, at least try something more creative. I didn't believe that last year, and I'm not about to believe it now."
"I thought healers should be able to tell injuries from falling from injuries like the ones you are suggesting," Seuthes sneered.
"How am I to tell, when you won't let me look at them?"
The Slytherin couldn't find a proper reply and when it became evident he wasn't going to respond, the woman spoke again, "Is there any way you would allow me to look at your back?" Again, Snape was silent, and she pushed further. "I've deduced from what you've told me so far that merely healing you won't hurt you, and I am bound by my oath not to reveal anything you wish to remain secret."
"You went to Dumbledore last year," the boy replied sceptically. "How can I be sure you won't go straight to him again?"
Madam Pomfrey at least had the decency to look mildly ashamed of herself. "You have my word, Mr Snape. I'm afraid that is all I have to offer."
The room was filled with silence again. But it wasn't that tense silence from earlier, it was the silence of anticipation — Pomfrey wondering whether Snape would confide in her, Seuthes wondering whether he should.
On one hand, allowing the matron to treat him today would allow her to see his back. It would not only arouse questions, but also bring her one step closer to discovering the existence of a second Snape. If she were to ever see Russ' back... He didn't allow his brain to finish the thought. On the other hand, she wouldn't automatically know their secret, and if Russ took extra care to hide his body, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. And having someone outside their close family know about the situation, having someone they can rely on when there's a problem, it could be very helpful. And very risky. No, Seuthes decided. It wasn't worth it.
"It's not that I don't trust you. But I really shouldn't show you. It wouldn't be fair, and it would put us... me at risk."
His words did nothing but confuse the already confused Madam Pomfrey. However much she thought about it, she couldn't think of a single reason why the boy would refuse treatment, and she couldn't see how that would put him at risk. Let alone put her at risk, for the boy had mentioned us and there was no-one that word could have been referring to, other than her and Snape himself.
She sighed heavily, and nodded. "Go on then." With a wave of her wand she unlocked the door. There was no reason to keep pushing him, if it was causing the boy so much distress. The bruises were almost healed anyway.
She didn't look up as she heard the sound of the door opening and closing. For awhile she sat there, on the cold hospital bed, wondering if she'd done the right thing by letting the boy leave. Perhaps he did need help, help he was, for some reason, too afraid to request.
Madam Pomfrey pushed herself from the mattress and walked over to her office. There, she extracted the folder of files of Class of 1978 in the hopes that it would hold some clues. She set the thick book on her desk, and slumped on the chair behind it. Then flipped first through the Gryffindors, her gaze hovering for a second on Lupin, Remus. The poor boy was already covering a third page with the descriptions of his various injuries from entries once every month. She flipped back to Black, Sirius, staring at that entry from January, 1972. Severus Snape hadn't been the only unfortunate child that Christmas.
Madam Pomfrey sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, and massaging the bridge of her nose. She loved her job, but on days such as this all the suffering of the children in her care was weighing on her, and she felt exhausted.
She tore her eyes from the page and finally turned to the files of the Slytherins, stopping at one Snape, Severus. She'd never actually looked at it before, all notes she took in her notepad were magically transferred to the file of the student they were referring to.
The first page contained a photo on the upper left corner. Beside it was Snape's name, with his date of birth and blood status underneath. His parents were listed as Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince. Madam Pomfrey eyed the second name for a moment, wondering where she'd heard of it, then deemed it unimportant, and read on. Black hair, black eyes, pale skin, hooked nose, possibly broken in the past. The listed height and weight were much less than they ought to have been for a boy his age, but the numbers were most likely accurate. With a sigh, the matron flipped the page.
And stared.
Where there should have been a detailed account of Snape's injuries, the parchment was nearly blank. No trace of records of his swollen face or cracked rib, the only thing written on it were her notes on the boy's split lip and his symptoms from that day when he'd first arrived at Hogwarts. Missing was even Snape's own account of what he'd experienced that day.
Severus' experiments began with a quick research of NEWT Level Potions books. Counterbalancing the effects of ingredients was covered in Sixth Year, but if the Elixir to Induce Euphoria, and that was one of the potions taught by the sixth year book Advanced Potion-Making, was having these side effects, the authors of the book evidently couldn't even follow their own instructions.
That done, he set his cauldron in the corner of the trunk and, after he and Sev had sneaked ingredients out of Slughorn's storeroom for about a week, the Snapes had a quite well-stocked storeroom of their own. A few scales were taped on the wall above the cauldron and the desk, usually used for studying, was constantly covered in Severus' notes or leftover materials after he'd prepared ingredients for another version of the Elixir.
Sev didn't mind. While Severus had occupied the desk and the back of the trunk room, his brother had scattered his own notes on the floor, and filled the bookshelf with a few tomes on Arithmancy and Charms, and a number of Latin dictionaries. He'd tried to bring down a few volumes on Dark Magic, but those were stored in the Restricted Section and he hadn't yet had the chance to sneak inside it.
While both twins were working on their own research when staying inside their hiding place, outside the trunk they were attacked by requests for more Potions tutoring, both by old tutees and new ones. Everyone had received their marks from the exams at the end of first term, and results were blatantly evident. The lessons continued into the second term with more and more students signing up for them. So much so, that Slytherin's House Points skyrocketed after each Slytherin-Gryffindor class Slughorn held. More than once the students had heard the other Heads of Houses attack the plump man with accusations of favouritism, but each time Slughorn pleaded innocence, claiming that he was as shocked by his House's success as the rest of the professors.
It didn't take too long for the rumours to spread and soon it wasn't only the Slytherins requesting lessons. A second-year Ravenclaw had lined up for the classes and Severus had invited him to sit among the rest of the tutees before the grievous mistake had been painfully pointed out by his housemates and he'd let his long hair cover half of his face for a week in order to hide the resulting bruise.
"I don't care for your lessons, half-breed. House rules are House rules and you'd do well to follow them. Lucius was quite clear last year when he told you not to help other Houses earn points," one of the seventh-year prefects had said.
Once word was out, it took but a day for the entire faculty to learn of the Slytherins' activities, and even Dumbledore lent an ear each time the teachers discussed young Mr Snape. He never told them, however, that he'd been aware of the boy's movements for quite some time now, Dilys having dutifully informed him of them.
He was also aware that the boy had stolen a curious combination of ingredients from Slughorn's storeroom and try as he might, he hadn't been able to figure out any potion that would need all of them. The portraits of former headmasters, some of them healers and Potions professors, hadn't been able to help either.
Of course, they wouldn't have been able to figure it out because Severus Snape wasn't using all of them and only them for one single potion. The stolen materials were supplements for the already existing Elixir to Induce Euphoria, and the boy added them separately to find which ingredient would react best with the rest. It took quite a few explosions and many ruined potions, but by mid February he was standing in front of a steaming cauldron filled with what he hoped was a working Elixir without the side effects of the standard potion.
On a cold afternoon a few days later, he was handing Lily a glass of yellow substance, and assuring her nothing bad would result from her drinking it. He'd been empty-handed on her birthday this year too, and while Lily had insisted that he shouldn't worry about it, Severus had not believed her one bit. The potion, though, would be a gift that would make her ecstatic, albeit in an artificial way.
"So, what? Just drink it?" Lily asked after her friend had told her to do exactly that for the fourth time. He let out a mockingly exasperated sigh. Lily giggled and looked again at the liquid in her hand. "What does it do?"
"See if you can figure it out for yourself."
"You want me to guess just by the colour!" the girl shrieked. "It doesn't even have a smell and I know for a fact there are at least five different yellow potions."
"No, silly, I want you to drink it and then guess."
Finally, Lily relented and brought the glass to her lips, looking up at him curiously at the realisation that the potion didn't taste half bad. Instead of answering her questioning look (what he was fairly certain was just another inquiry as to what the substance did), Severus only promoted her to keep drinking. Lily ran a finger over her mouth to remove the liquid still on her lips. Then smiled. A broad smile that couldn't possibly have been the result of only the Elixir. After a minute of staring dizzily at the air in front of her, she began to giggle and a moment later her giggles turned into hysterical laughter.
The potion was a success. Further inquiry the following day informed the Snapes that there was no trace of any side effects and by the end of the week Avery's owl had already returned from its excursion to Great Manchester.
But Severus wasn't the only one to meet success that month. While he had been working on his potion, Seuthes had tirelessly been skimming through texts on the essence of spells and in the end, it hadn't been the dozens of volumes on Charms and Arithmancy that had answered his questions, but a simple muggle Physics book covering sound waves.
His theory was not proven, but as far as he could tell, it was a sound one, pun not intended. As Flitwick had explained so many months ago, the way magic worked was by colliding with itself in a specific way until it transformed into its final form, the one the caster had intended. What the Charms Professor hadn't explained — and perhaps didn't know — was that just like wand movement, the incantation of a spell was intended to guide the magic to its target, making it easier for it to turn into its required form, and helping it travel the way the wizard was aiming.
Similar sounds, Seuthes had learnt, were in fact similar sound waves and therefore, just like moving the air particles with your wand, moved the air in a specific way to channel the magic. Thus why incantations had to be pronounced correctly, emphasis and all, in order to produce the correct form of magic. It made perfect sense because it explained how wizards had come up with incantations that were nothing if not gibberish at the time. They'd figured out how different sounds affected the magic, and combined them to create a spell. Once a certain spell became popular, over time people started using its incantation in place of the word they'd used for certain actions before its invention.
Seuthes wondered briefly how many spells the wizarding world had lost, how many spells were hiding in plain sight, disguised as normal everyday words. It also stood to reason that similar words produced similar spells, though of that the young Slytherin was not yet certain. He'd test his theory in the upcoming months.
As had become custom for the Headmaster of Hogwarts in the past year, when the weight of the war became too grave for him, he let his thoughts drift to the black-haired second-year Slytherin. Voldemort's attacks were irregular and seemingly random, but they were fulfilling their intended purpose — frightening the population, stirring up trouble. For more than an hour now Albus Dumbledore had contemplated which of the many witches and wizards he'd met throughout his long life would be willing to fight a war alongside him.
Some had already joined the group he'd first founded more than two years ago. The Prewetts, for example, the youngest of whom had graduated last year. Then, there was young Arthur Weasley who, along with his wife Molly, had just recently received the greatest Christmas gift of all — a tiny red-haired toddler named Charles. Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle and, of course, Alastor Moody.
The group consisted of reliable members but was small in number, and they would undoubtedly need new recruits if they wanted to stand a chance against Riddle's increasing force. With each year more and more people joined the tyrant's ranks and perhaps worst of all was the fact that no-one knew for certain who was an ally and who was a foe.
Some were as easy to read as a book. Dumbledore was absolutely certain, for example, that Mulciber Snr, Rosier Snr, Nott and Dolohov were all marked followers. He'd figured as much before the war had even officially begun. Others' loyalties he didn't have as much proof of, but it would be fair to assume that people such as Bellatrix Black and the Malfoys, even their recently graduated son, would support Riddle's ideas.
And then there were the potential allies for the Light. Young Longbottom was a skilled duellist and an Auror trainee, and his friend Bayard Podmore was working at the Ministry. Both could very much help the Order's cause. Bayard's brother, Sturgis, though still in his sixth year, had already vocalised his stance regarding Voldemort's movements. On today's Order meeting Dumbledore had instructed Alastor to talk to the older two and see if they'd be willing to fight against Riddle's ideology.
Even the thought of the horrors that might soon befall the country had drained the greying Headmaster and he needed a distraction; something that would keep his mind busy and away from the looming threat.
It had been more than a month now, but he thought back to the conversation he'd had with Poppy at the beginning of the year. He'd instructed her to check on Mr Snape before the students had arrived after the Christmas break, but the report he received from her, while not exactly alarming, was not what he'd expected. She hadn't spoken of the boy at all, at least not directly. She'd only mentioned him in relation to some mysterious problem with records disappearing from the files of the Slytherin, though possibly other students as well. Only, they didn't know if said records had disappeared or never appeared at all. It was an interesting phenomenon and especially so considering such a thing had never happened before.
The good news was that Poppy hadn't seemed as distressed as she'd been last year, which seemed to suggest Mr Snape's situation had improved.
The first spell Seuthes focused on was a spell to mute its caster. He still remembered the hours spent on searching for and practising the Mutanobis Charm. At first glance, the incantation seemed easy enough, but it had proved to be quite difficult. The spell's biggest flaw, however, was its long and winded wand movement, which took ages to perform. Seuthes had no idea how to tell if a spell would be difficult to create or not, but he reasoned that something as easy as silencing someone should not be too laborious.
"Russ," he called one evening. His search for a word that would work as an incantation had so far led him nowhere, and he was hoping that some help might breathe new life into his research. "What's a synonym of 'mute'?"
"Voiceless... Speechless... Are you still working on that spell?"
"Not that kind of mute," Seuthes snapped, annoyed.
"Alright. Stifle, muffle, silence, deaden? Tried those?"
"Yes, I tried them! I'm not an idiot, you know..."
Severus laughed dryly. "You were the one who asked," he said, and went back to his Herbology essay.
Fuming over his lack of any progress whatsoever, Seuthes leaned against the headboard of the bed and sighed frustratedly. After a moment, though, he sat up a little straighter, and looked back at the pile of parchment with all the incantations he'd first marked as possible and then crossed with fat black lines when they'd led him nowhere.
"There's got to be an easier way to do this."
"Leave it, Sev, you're tired. I'll check in the Library tomorrow, maybe there's something that might help."
"I checked already," Seuthes sighed, but this time it was a sigh of resignation.
"You can't have checked everything. Go to bed now."
Severus left his brother shortly after, casting a quick Nox to turn off the lights, and climbing out into the dorm bed.
It was well into the afternoon the following day by the time he finally managed to slip into the Library. And as he did so, he realised he hadn't the slightest idea of where he was supposed to look, nor what he wanted to find. He walked to the front of the room and waited for the librarian to stop writing whatever she was writing and look up.
"Searching for something?"
"Yeah, uhm... Something on, erm, how to create spells?"
The woman raised an eyebrow, but before she could respond, Severus felt a heavy hand clap his back.
"Right time, right place, Mr. Little Man!" a voice boomed behind him, and he spun to face a tall man, whose flaxen hair was beginning to abandon the unequal struggle with destiny.
The man's name was at the tip of Severus' tongue, but he needn't have bothered because the librarian introduced the teacher for him:
"Professor Asumptotos, this is a library, not a Quidditch pitch!"
"Yes, yes, of course, my dear lady, I'm terribly sorry," Professor Asumptotos apologised, catching the irritated woman's meaning, and toning his voice down. "Come now, little man." He pulled Severus to a sofa a few metres away from the desk of the librarian. "I'm all ears, tell me your troubles."
The young Slytherin's confusion must have shown on his face because the professor took one look at him and laughed loudly, quickly casting an apologetic look in the direction the two of them had just come from. "My tremendous apologies, Madam!" He then turned back to the student in front of him. "Well, usually I'm not into that kind of stuff myself, but inquisitive little minds should be encouraged and so, here I am! Do you have a spell in mind? You're not in my classes. What are you? Eleven? Twelve?"
Not sure what answer the man was expecting of him, Severus responded to the last question, "Thirteen."
"Thirteen!" Professor Asumptotos exclaimed and sent a worried glance in the direction of the librarian, having realised his voice had once again risen in volume. "Well then, next year I'll expect you in my classes. Arithmancy, I mean, little man, that's my thing. That's what you'll need to make your spells. Tedious work, if you ask me, but some have a knack for it. Never been my cup o' tea, though, sadly. Tedious, as I said, but Arithmancy helps somewhat."
The man clapped Severus' back again and went to exit the Library, but the Slytherin caught up with him just as they passed the doors.
"How does it help, sir?"
Asumptotos stopped and turned around, once again looking down at the small boy.
"One of the branches of Arithmancy, it is. Channelling, I mean. Calculating what the spell does to your environment, how it works, that sort o' thing."
"And potions?"
"What of potions?"
"Does it help? With inventing potions?" Severus specified.
Professor Asumptotos placed a huge hand around the Slytherin's shoulders, pushed him back inside the Library, and led him to a section on Arithmancy.
"This," he explained, gesturing to a row of thick books, "is what you need, little man. No experiments, though, you understand? Unsupervised, I mean."
Severus nodded silently and as the man retreated back to the exit, called after him, "Thank you, Professor!"
Turning back to the row of books, Severus read the first few titles. Numerology and Grammatica was followed by Basic Spell Dictionary and Numbers of the Future. His eyes skipped a few more boring titles to land on Computing Ingredients. He grabbed that and the Spell Dictionary, tucked them in his bag, and went to the fourth floor for the due lesson with third– and fourth–years.
By the time he entered the trunk he'd completely forgotten about his visit to the Library, and it would've stayed that way, had it not been for Sev's complaints, "You didn't find anything, did you?"
It took a second for Severus to figure out what his brother meant by that, but when he did, his face lit up as though he'd been attacked with the Cheering Charm. He pulled out the two books, and tossed one of them in Sev's direction.
"A dictionary?"
"Open it," Severus prompted and watched as the other boy picked up the book and opened it on a random page. Curious, Severus stepped closer and peered at the text.
The page was filled with a list of spells, each accompanied by a string of letters, numbers and other strange symbols he couldn't understand. Seuthes, though, must have thought of something because he sprang to his feet, extracted another tome from the bookshelf, plopped back on the mattress, and started scribbling something on its margin.
"Care to explain what you're doing?" Severus asked.
Sev didn't respond. Not until he'd finished writing down whatever he had thought of. Then, pointing at the dictionary, said, "Here, look. Each spell — then a number and an X. That's the number of times the magic crosses itself. Then another number and another symbol. Λ and Γ — those are the two types of angles for a single collision. Ζ and Π are for two collisions; Δ, Σ and Μ are for three. And this," he pointed at a winded formula in the book from the shelf, "is how you calculate which sounds to use for the incantation."
Severus couldn't say he understood any of it, but nodded as though it all made perfect sense, and sat on the chair, his own book in one hand.
In less than a fortnight Seuthes had the spell half-done. 'Muffliadu' he'd called it, and it was quite fitting, seeing as it almost contained the word "muffle". What he'd been unable to do with the incantation alone, he'd compensated with the wand movement. And though it wasn't perfect, it was good enough that it disrupted the caster's words enough for them to be barely recognisable.
It was late one night in the end of March that he recited the spell over and over (not for any specific reason, just for lack of a better thing to do), and as he said it for perhaps the twentieth time, the word slurred a bit to form what would become his very first invention — the Muffliato Charm. It happened suddenly and Seuthes reacted spontaneously, extracting the copy of Advanced Potion-Making from his brother's hand, scribbling down the incantation on whatever page Russ had been reading, and then rushing out the trunk, out the dormitory, out the common room and onto the Hogwarts grounds, where he finally let out an ecstatic cry, a sense of accomplishment washing over him.
AN: One of the main things I wanted to accomplish with this story was propose an explanation of how magic works. My Physics Professor pointed me to spectrograms and how you can recognize a sound just by looking at its visual representation, and even tell if the sound is stressed or not. I thought it a cool way to explain why it's "LeviOsa, not LeviosA," though I'm not sure I managed to describe my idea adequately... You'll be the judge of that