ci. bitter boy
The steam spiraled in enchanted shapes as it rose from the cauldron's simmering brew. Those shapes danced with one another, swooping like sparrows in flight until they ascended to the vent's hood and disappeared. Severus watched the liquid seethe, the low, whispering flame eliciting a fine rim of bubbles gleaming red and glutinous in the torchlight. He'd always found the activity soothing; it was, perhaps, no coincidence for his affinity to be water or for his Occlumency shields to be formed of ice. In his youth, his mother Eileen would brew whenever her husband actually managed to find a job or—as was more common—went to the local, grotty pub. Severus would stand with her at the counter to watch, those fleeting moments steeped in quiet, the tension leaching from their shoulders, their spines.
Until Tobias came home.
He held onto those memories when the house shook with his father's drunken ire, when Eileen cried, when his own chest felt fit to bursting with crackling fury, like brambles twisting around and around his throat until he couldn't breathe through the nasty mess of it all. He wasn't that boy anymore, but occasionally he could feel him hovering in the back of his mind—an uncertain, anxious, angry specter cohabiting his body, a ghost of indents on a parchment left long after the ink's been vanished.
"What is the matter with you, Severus?"Minerva had demanded of him just a few days prior. "You're typically surly, but this is a new level, even for you."
I killed Otho. He didn't tell her, of course—only Albus knew, or was supposed to know, though the old cat sometimes threw a questioning look his way that made Severus feel as if she might understand more than she let on. Severus didn't want her to know. He didn't want her to judge him more than she already did.
He didn't like Selwyn; he'd hated the mewling, pedantic bigot and despised the years spent in close quarters with him, all the times they sat together at staff meetings or Quidditch games exchanging snide, forced quips. Therein resided the bur of his recent attitude. Years of mutual antipathy formed a connection, a familiarity, and that connection had not been purely formed as two Knights or Death Eaters. They'd patrolled together, complained about mutual students, exchanged lesson plans when the occasion necessitated it. Otho had been a cowardly, wretched Death Eater, but Professor Selwyn had been a colleague, no matter how reluctant, and Severus had been the one to turn his wand upon the man and slash his throat.
"How long before you're in my place, Snape?"
He'd kill again before all was said and done, he was sure of it. He still didn't like it.
What does it matter who did the deed in the end? he thought, the bitter edge of his own inner voice not lost on him. The bastard's dead.
Knuckles rapped on the door, too high and firm to be Black or Potter. "What do you want?"
The harridan herself stepped inside, lingering at the threshold to peer into the stuffy, poorly lit potions room. "I'm returning to the school for the evening."
"Fine," Snape replied, eyes still on the seething cauldron. "Do warn me if you decide to strangle Black for her impertinence. At least give me time to fashion an alibi before Albus blames me." She'd spent the last three days discussing things with the girl, the particulars not imparted to Severus, not that he wanted to bloody know. He didn't much care what the girl did so long as she stopped blowing up lamps over people's heads.
McGonagall's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. "You might try to have more compassion for her. It wouldn't kill you."
But it just might. He sneered, and had she been anyone else, he would have delivered a cutting remark about her sanity if she truly expected compassion from him—but he resisted, if only just. "I have a meeting with Albus in an hour."
"Miss Black hasn't had supper yet and I doubt Miss Potter has either."
"Bully for them."
She scowled. "See to it, Severus—and eat something yourself, you're not but skin and bones, boy."
The door slammed shut after the Scottish harpy departed and the Potions Master hurled a hex at it, satisfied by the dark, ugly scorch mark left behind. She's confused me for a bloody nursemaid, he grumbled, stowing his wand away back in his sleeve. His calm thoroughly ruined, Severus finished the batch of Fever Reducer for Pomfrey and threw a stasis spell over the second, more dubious brew left stewing for Slytherin. Stewing lowered the potency without ruining the potion; Severus skirted the line between competency and mastery with Slytherin, not wanting to hand anything to the wizard worth a damn, unable to botch anything without risking his usefulness. As with Selwyn, he had to dirty his hands on a regular basis to appease the Dark Lord, though it never got easier.
Severus dragged his robes back on and tramped through the kitchen, his mood darkening until each step echoed in the stairwell's narrow confines. He stopped short when he saw movement from the corner of his eye and came to stand at the rear window, glaring through the pitted glass at the back garden beyond.
"Stupid girl," he muttered, going for the door.
Potter meandered in the withered grass, circling the stone fountain and the single, crooked oak growing in the yard's middle. Muggle lights pierced the evening's misty gloom and provided enough illumination for Severus to see her holding one of her insipidly named golems in her hand, hunting for small insects to feed the creature. A glance overhead showed the clouds thickening, a stray raindrop striking his cheek. He stood on the porch and watched her, finding himself unwilling to intrude on the girl's quiet wandering. She looked pitiful.
He didn't envy Potter her summer so far; both she and Black spent much of their time shut in that miserable hovel, unable to go anywhere at all unless taken for some brief stint by an adult, and a loose group of circulating nannies did not make for a family. They were strangers who barely knew these children, providing only the barest of necessities when their schedules allowed, a simulacrum of care that didn't replace needed affection. With Minerva occupied by Black's issues, Potter had been left to her own devices, and Severus could see the boredom in her, the silent, unvoiced resentment starting to build in her slumped posture. She fed the crimson snake a cricket and faced the blackened, choked waters of the fountain, seeming to stare off into space until a noise Severus didn't hear turned her head to the trees and the gathered shadows. She whispered something.
Marvelous, she's going mad.
"Potter," he said aloud, causing the girl to jump and spin about. "Get inside."
"What? Why? It's not dark out yet!"
Severus bristled. "Because I said so, you insolent girl. Have you a problem with your hearing or is your skull too thick for words to get in?"
Suddenly fuming, Potter glowered and hesitated, the snake twisting around her clenched fist. Severus stepped off the porch.
"I said get inside. Do not make me repeat myself a third time."
She moved, if begrudgingly, her shoulders hiked up by her pink ears. Severus waited with the door held open, glancing about the garden despite knowing nothing could get through the wards, and he shot a dispassionate glance at the girl when she drew level with him. Potter met his glare and sucked in a breath to shout, "You don't have to be such a bastard about it!"
The girl should have given thanks to her quick, Seeker speed, because she was already bolting up the stairs by the time Severus slammed the door shut, and had she been a mite slower, he would have snagged the impudent monster by the ear and dragged her to the basement to clean cauldrons for the rest of the night. Either that, or he'd throw her into the Floo and leave her to Dumbledore. Nervy little bint! Rage curled in his chest like hot air in a balloon and Severus bellowed, "POTTER!" up the stairs, not giving a damn that he woke that fucking portrait on the landing it started its caterwauling. Naturally, she didn't return and he didn't have the time to hunt her down. "If you think you're bored now, girl, I'll have you writing lines until September!"
He stomped back into the kitchens and threw half the bloody canister of Floo Powder into the grate, the coals belching a whorl of green flame that licked over the mantel. Let them get their own supper. Let them starve for all he cared!
Severus exited the Floo in Hogsmeade instead of Dumbledore's office, using the distance to cool his writhing temper lest he do something foolish—like curse the wizard for saddling him with this task in the first place. Why not force Minerva to spend all her evenings in that horrid house? Why did it have to be his responsibility? Why not Dumbledore himself? It wasn't as if they had shuttle back and forth and bend over backward to please a psycho egomaniac like Slytherin. This burden should not be his.
He just wanted to shut himself away in the dungeons and be left alone, goddamn it. Severus was a hateful, despicable man with blood on his hands; why, in Morgana's name, did Dumbledore think him capable of protecting anyone?
The Vow's scarring itched and Severus clawed at his hand as he passed through the school's grounds, muttering darkly under his breath. He let the worst of the anger fizzle before Occluding, given it would intensify the emotion later and he didn't actually want to strangle Potter; maim, perhaps, but not strangle. Albus called out entry into the office and he came through the door, robes snapping as he threw himself into a chair like a sullen student called to task. Albus blinked.
"I thought you were coming by Floo, Severus?"
Gritting his teeth, he drawled, "I did, simply not…this one."
"I see. Is everything well at Grimmauld?"
"As well as ever in that moldering mausoleum with those disrespectful imps."
"Disrespectful?"
"You wanted me here for a reason, Headmaster?" Severus said, cutting the conversation before Dumbledore could delve into the issue and subvert his Occlumency. If he badgered on about it, Severus might start screaming. "If it's a school matter, I believe I've already submitted my lesson plans at the last staff meeting."
Albus allowed the change in topic. "Yes, you did, thank you. They appear quite similar to the ones you submitted last year, and the year before that. If I didn't know better, I would say you're submitting duplicates every term."
"Would I do that?" Severus asked with an expression that passed for innocent. The Headmaster shook his head, beard twitching, and shuffled the papers on his desk. "Tea, Severus?"
"No."
The Headmaster called a house-elf for his own cup and the Potions Master waited, slouching lower into his chair, turning over his thought like heavy stones one by one. "Tell me; how does Tom's quest for a History professor come?"
Severus snorted. "Abysmal, or so his ranting leads me to believe."
"Oh?"
"He's struggling to find a suitable candidate to propose to the Board. Favor can only get him so far; on paper, they have to be suitable for the position."
"And he cannot find such a person?"
"No." Severus ran his fingertips over the arm of his chair, tracing the design imprinted in the brocade. "As you know, before the Board saw fit for a change, Binns taught the class—and what a farce that was, Albus."
"So Minerva has told me many a time," the Headmaster chuckled, blowing the steam from his doctored tea. "Am I safe in assuming Tom is having difficulty in ascertaining loyalty in those few individuals who progressed to NEWT level in the subject?"
Severus grunted at the obvious conclusion.
"Hmm. Yes, I can see the trouble he would have. A person who's made a study of history would not want to repeat its many mistakes, which is the weakness Tom preys upon." Albus set the tea aside. "We are fortunate Otho saw fit to retire; anything that lessens Riddle's influence over our students is a victory worth noting."
"He didn't bloody retire, Dumbledore. I killed him."
Silence fell over the office, Severus refusing to move his gaze higher than the desk, the weight of a thousand years of magical leadership leering down upon him from the walls. Nothing showed on Severus' face, but self-loathing and indignation warred in his gut, a desire to both bow his head or snarl, to hide or scream, "This is what you've asked of me!"
"I apologize, Severus. I should not have made light of the situation."
"No, you should not have." His hands flexed on the chair's arms, then stilled, a silent sigh leaving his nose. "I would estimate that Slytherin won't be able to produce a candidate for the Board's approval in time, not without spending favors he'd rather keep close. He loses a lieutenant at the school, but it's a minor position and he'll seek to consolidate power in other places. His mind is infinitely more wily than Gaunt's or the Dark Lord's; he'll turn this into a benefit in some way, whether or not we see the immediate effect is another question."
Albus nodded, thinking, running an idle finger back and forth over his chin. "If Minister Gaunt continues to apply pressure to Tom's position at Hogwarts, his next recourse would be to seek personal power, a means to augment his own strength or reach."
"If he changes his mind and seeks a partnership with Gaunt to move against you—."
"He won't," the Headmaster stated, shaking his head. "Not at this junction. So long as we do not force his hand, Tom and the Minister will continue on at odds, and we must continue to undermine and subvert their influences where we can."
"And if Gaunt keeps seeking…allies like the Diadem?"
"That is a far more concerning question, one I fear I do not have an answer for presently, my boy." Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles and leaned into the soft cushioning of his chair. He disguised it well, but Severus detected the shadow of worry in the older wizard's blue eyes, a tension in the weathered lines of his face that had appeared when he lost his arm and hadn't dissipated since. It was a dangerous gamble, playing their enemies against one another without tipping their hand, and Severus had to concede the stalemate would not last forever. The idea of what they would do then kept him awake at night with terror.
"For now, I believe we should capitalize on the opportunity," Albus said, a small smile gracing his expression. "I have a few people of my own in mind for the position, and whether or not Tom holds the Board in his sway, I believe they will have to listen to me for once."
Severus arched a brow. "Anyone I know?"
Albus tipped his head upward, gaze on the ceiling. "Oh," he commented. "Maybe. We'll have to wait and see."
Fuck, Severus groaned in his head. The old codger's found someone I can't stand. Not that it was terribly difficult; Severus hated everyone.
Their conversation turned to less pressing issues, Severus reporting on Slytherin's stray comments in regards to different pupils and former pupils, both wizards puzzling at what nebulous, far-flung plans the Defense instructor might be concocting during the holiday. Dumbledore tried twice to ask about Potter, and twice Severus evaded the topic, wanting to handle the brat's discipline himself. He did have quite a few grungy cauldrons in need of scrubbing and needed to finish the usual foul and degrading ingredient preparation. If Potter wanted to be a rude little pustule, who was he to deny her the odious grunt work?
The Floo flared and Severus almost flinched at the sudden roar filtering through the grate, the sound of many raised voices competing for volume. "Albus!" came the familiar shout of Amelia Bones. Severus sunk deeper into his chair, out of sight, not at all fond of DMLE members. "Albus, quickly!"
The Headmaster leaped to his feet with surprising agility, coming to kneel on the rug before the hearth. "What has happened, Madam Bones?"
Severus spied the witch's floating countenance wreathed in green embers. Her expression was grim.
"Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban."
A/N: Harriet almost died.