Hogwarts. Schoolyear 1993-1994. Halfway through the day, the Teacher's Lounge, also known as the Staff Room, depending on what they were doing there.
Hufflepuffs Pomona Sprout and Charity Burbage were, indeed, currently lounging on the comfortable sofa in front of the open fire, nursing their mugs of linden tea which the Herbology professor insisted would keep the Common Cold away ('No need for Pepper-Up, thank you very much Severus, if you can come up with a brew that does not make you blow like a giant humpbacked whale from both ears, we'll come back to you.' The Potions professor had not refrained from pointing out that the description fitted his colleague's generous proportions; at which she laughed uproariously. Sprout had a good sense of humour and a quick repartee as well: ' Who cares! As long as you aren't called Ahab!' proving as well that she knew her Muggle classics.) and which the Mugglestudies professor true to her name only drank to be companionable, with a huge dollop of honey to help her swallow the concoction.
In the middle of the room, sitting opposite of each other at the oblong staff table, Professors Babbling and Vector were correcting essays, looking a lot like bookends being both thin, dressed in sensible Ravenclaw blue robes with sensible shoes and their hair sensibly done up in a bun, in which Babbling had stuck her wand and Vector had a number of pencils because, sensibly, she used Muggle paper notebooks for her Arithmantic calculations rather than quill and parchment. They both preferred the table over the writing desks of which they had a variety of choice in different sections of the room, one of those currently occupied by the Astronomy Professor Aurora Sinistra who was busy drawing up alternative lesson plans, occasionally yawning. It was unusual for her to be up at this hour but with the pouring rain of the last few days not clearing up her midnight classes had been cancelled for day ones about the effects of constellations on planetary movement. The staff table had the advantage of being huge and therefore suitable for spreading out scrolls, books, ink bottles and quills. Vector and Babbling sat at their own appointed places in their highbacked chairs colour-coded blue according to their former House. Despite all of the Headmaster's protestations that there was no ranking or personal preferences at Hogwarts, he of course presided over the table at the farther end in a golden, throne-like affair. It held no crest marking the former House of its occupant, but the wine-red velvet upholstery was anon too subtle indication that the present incumbent was indeed Griffindor. It was flanked on its right by a chair sporting the Lion Coat of Arms for the Headmaster's deputy who just happened to be Gryffindor and a favorite of his from all the way back to her own time as a student and he her Transfiguration Professor. The Bronze Eagle chair, adapted with a lot of cushions to help its diminutive Head of House see over the top of the table was somewhat in the middle, facing the Hufflepuff Head of House. By tradition, with one brief exception during the tenure of Phineas Nigellus Black as Headmaster, the Slytherin chair stood in splendid isolation at the other end of the table. At present it found itself in between the non-denominational chairs of Filch the Squib caretaker and the rarely occupied one of Madam Hooch who had not attended Hogwarts and usually only came to meetings with Quidditch on the agenda or when new brooms were needed. The reds and the yellows were close to the throne with the blues forming the 'Neutral Zone'. Since most professors sat for life, and, in ghostly Binn's case, the Afterlife as well, the seating arrangements seldom changed, except for that one time in September 1981 when Sinistra as the only other Slytherin professor in residence had taken umbrage that Severus Snape was made Head of Slytherin to replace Horace Slughorn; a position which she felt was rightfully hers. That first staff meeting had been very interesting indeed, with a very nervous Snape all but begging Dumbledore to let her have her way while a furious Sinistra stated her case of senior rights both in age (ten years, but a woman won't tell)and teaching experience (only three, but who is counting?) against him ( Too young, barely out of school , what authority will he have over the students in general, has not taught a single lesson yet, has to prove himself before he can shoulder such responsibility, a half-blood to boot, the House will spit him out!) Dumbledore had calmly pointed out that a Head of House who slept during much of the day and sat stargazing throughout the nights she wasn't teaching, and who on cloud covered nights apparated away with a portable telescope to wherever there were clear skies was not a suitable candidate either or she would have had the position the minute Slughorn had announced his imminent retirement. Sinistra choose to take it out on Snape and had been at loggerheads with the man ever since. It was possibly the only time in living memory that a green chair had crossed the Neutral Zone other than that of the 'Chair Perilous' -as the DADA seat had been dubbed when it had become apparent that had been no teacher able to last the year, reputedly due to a curse. The 1993-1994 very red 'Chair Perilous' was as close to the throne as it could possibly get bar sitting on the Headmaster's lap; and next to it stood an equally red and tripled in size seat, thus 'engorgioed' to accommodate the bulk of the newly appointed Care Of Magical Creatures Professor Rubeus Hagrid. When, at the closing-of-the-year staff meeting Headmaster Dumbledore had told them that the Groundskeeper would be replacing Kettleburn who wanted to spend his remaining years with his remaining limbs in happy retirement there had been a lot of facepalming all along the table; yet that was nothing compared to their reactions when they were told that the next DADA teacher would be one Remus Lupin. Unavoidably the man's Dark Creature Status –a carefully kept secret in the wider Wizarding World though not at Hogwarts were several teachers during the man's own attendancy as a student had suspected something of the sort- became subject of heated discussion when that particular cat was let out of the bag. Filius Flitwick for one admitted that he had been convinced the boy was actually a genderdysphoric girl who had not yet fully transitioned and who suffered very bad periods that explained their regular absences, because he could not conceive of a responsible Headmaster allowing a Werewolf child to attend Hogwarts without informing his staff. At the time the Half-Goblin had already been a Senior Professor of Hogwarts and Head of House to boot, so the fact that Dumbledore had not even seen fit to put him in the loop let alone ask for his opinion shook his hitherto firm support of the man, and for once he spoke up against the Headmaster. He had been seconded by an appalled Burbage who had cried out: "Think of the children How can you let them be trained by someone who is the very definition of his subject!" and even warmhearted Sprout has huge reservations. Dumbledore however managed to calm their fears with his assurances, the defining one being that their Potions Master would be brewing Wolfsbane for every full moon. Everyone noted though that Severus Snape, having agreed under protest, avoided Lupin like the proverbial plague. Despite the rumour running rife among the students that he was after the DADA-position himself Snape had never given any indication of active dislike of whosoever sat on the chair; he had even managed to tolerate -or rather, refrain from strangling- Gilderoy Lockhart last year and that was saying something. With Lupin it seemed to be a personal thing, a subject which the Professors who had already been teaching at Hogwarts during the two men's coinciding schooldays carefully and somewhat shamefacedly steered clear off as they knew very well that Lupin had been part of the Marauder gang that relished in targeting Snape in particular. Knowing that they knew made the Potions Master generally abstain from socializing with his colleagues unless pressed into it. With his acerbic nature and expressive range of smirks, sneers, scowls and glowers for something or someone that displeased him, not limited to the students only, many were secretly relieved that he rarely frequented the teacher's lounge, preferring to do all of his preparative and correcting work in his office.
It therefore came as a complete surprise to see him stride in with his teacher's cloak billowing about him, all the more so because he had first thrown open the door with a bang and wore the look of someone ready to commit homicide. Though the latter was not uncommon on Snape's facies, the drama of his entrance was. He was habitually the most unobstrusive of men, able to make one forget his presence by keeping to the corners and shadows, with the uncanny ability to creep up on miscreant students unnoticed until he was nearly upon them.
"Goodness gracious me, Severus!" professor Sprout exclaimed, dropping the biscuit she was nibbling on ('Oh, hang my figure, at my age it hardly matters anymore! Have one too, Charity dear...you can go on that diet tomorow.') You gave us all a right scare! Having a bad day?" The man ignored her and went to the side-board laden with glasses, jugs of fruit juice and plain water, a complete teaservice, coffeecups, mugs, a biscuitbarrel, a tin of Scottish Shortbread (Homemade? With catnip? Really, Minerva! If you don't want us to help ourselves to what's available, just keep it in your office!") and a jar of garishly coloured sweets ('Please help yourselves, everyone, I can heartily recommend the lemon drops!" "No thank you Headmaster, I am not in need of a sugar-high" " Severus, my boy, it is a myth that an overconsumption of sugar causes hyperactivity!" "You don't say." ) "Hot coffee, extra strong!" he barked out and immediately a steaming coffeepot popped up out of thin air and began pouring into his customised mug ("It is a gift, Severus. You don't scowl at it, you accept it graciously. I came across it in a Muggle shop in Hongkong where I was doing some holiday shopping after a meeting of Herbologists and it just so happened that your thirtieth birthday coïncides with their year of the Snake...yes I know the logo is red but that is the colour of good luck in China. Now why don't you say thank you, Pomona; nicely." "Thank you...it is...most thoughtful." "There, that wasn't so hard was it? Happy birthday Severus". )
"Extra strong, Snape? What was it, Longbottom put you in drag again?" When it came to sneering, Sinistra could match Snape any day and that went for grudge-keeping too. She had been Lupin's staunchest supporter just to spite the Potions Master who was so evidently against the man and she gleefully spread the tale of the Boggart-lesson with the third year Griffindors when she learned of it, never missing an occasion to remind Snape how he- or rather his image which was the form Neville Longbottom's Boggart had taken- had been ridiculed. His return scowl was one of his most impressive yet, but he gave no repartee, which in itself was telling how upset he was, for he had never backed down in a bitching contest with Sinistra. Usually he won. Instead, he took a gulp from his coffee and all but screamed as the burning liquid hit his palate and throat. Sinistra let out a delighted cackle seeing him standing there gasping loudly with his scorched mouth wide open.
All aflutter a most distressed Charity Burbage flew to his side, "Oh Severus you poor, poor thing, those silly Elves must have thought 'hot' meant 'piping hot', here, let me help you..." With an angry growl Snape waived her aside, pulling his wand to apply a cooling charm in himself and fumbling for the vial with Wiggenweld potion that dangled along with many others on his emergency utility belt slung around his narrow hips. Once found he downed it in one gulp and flung himself next to Babbling covering his face with his hands to hide his tears of pain and embarrassment. Tactfully she rose under the pretense of getting some beverages and a plate of sticky buns from the sideboard in order to grant him some privacy to recover. Upon her return she discreetly placed a glass of water in front of him before slipping into Binn's empty seat next to Vector, offering her a friend a sticky bun and taking one herself. Babbling was one of the few on staff who actually got on well with Snape. He had been her star student in Runes during his school days. Soon after having started teaching he had asked her about the possibility of crafting personalized protective runes for his students. It had led to a collaboration in safety measures with the happy result that the young Professor's casualty record was zero (so far) and injuries went down from life-threatening to severe to manageable by the school matron to instant cure if the necessary potions got administered at once. If Babbling's appreciation of the man was mostly professional, Vector for her part seemed to like him for his undeniable wit, no matter how sharp-tongued and often cruelly it was packaged, it being very close and usually surpassing her own impressive range of sarcastic comments to and about her students. However, both had supported Dumbledore in the matter of Remus Lupin, in the sense that they had not opposed him, and that had put somewhat of a dampener on their relations with Snape. Sinistra, whose relations with Snape were of Cold War proportions, continued to stick the knife in: "One would think that our esteemed Headmaster would reconsider allowing to be Head of House a man who scares his students to the point of being their Boggart."
"Scares easily, Longbottom, does he?" inquired Vector drily, "Considering we had a troll and a homicidal maniac for a DADA-teacher running around back in his first year, not to mention last year's people-petrifying monster on the prowl and this year's dementor's hovering around the grounds on top of a mass-murdering Azkaban escapee...I'd say a tongue lashing from a teacher should be the least of his worries. "
"Oh, but our dear colleague here thought it fit to poison the poor boy's toad in front of the entire class, "Sinistra all but purred like a cat that got the cream ànd the mouse, "If someone threatened the life of a beloved pet would that not be your Boggart too?"
"Not that bloody toad again," Snape whispered hoarsely, taking a few careful sips from his glass of water.
"Hardly." Vector shrugged non-committally, " For one I do not have a pet, for two I have far greater fears than of a colleague killing a hypothetical pet..."
"Well, yes, you are an adult with adult fears," Sinistra objected.
"Which at present include the aforementioned dementors and mass-murdering Azkaban escapee, it is a sign of either a very sheltered childhood or a very limited imagination if Longbottom fears only Severus," Vector continued, unperturbed, "Thirdly it is pretty damn hypocritical of Longbottom to whine about his toad when there are at least threehundred different potions with various toad components used, provided by nameless, faceless toads slaughtered to that end..."
"Threehundredseventytwo to be exact."
"Thank you, Severus, for providing the correct number; exactitude is indeed essential in our respective disciplines. As I was saying, fourthly, and finally, I would not be so colossally stupid to bring any pet into a class with volatile potions and a teacher with a volatile temper, no offense."
Snape looked like he very much wished to take offense, yet with a nod acknowledged his colleague's defense of him. Such occasions were too rare to not show some appreciation. "The boy walked into my dungeon classroom with the toad on his shoulder. Claimed he had forgotten it was there, if you please! If it had been Weasley I would have considered it a moronic attempt at a prank and thrown him into detention for the rest of the year, but since it was Longbottom who at least is not given to such pastime I believed him and merely confiscated the toad. When he botched his potion despite my explicit instructions I decided to use the toad as a test-subject to teach him a lesson. On his own head be it if it were poisoned. However the potion wàs well-brewed, but only because Granger was hissing instructions in his ear." He downed his glass angrily.
Vector gave her colleague a wry smile: "Why Severus, I believe you have actually paid the boy a compliment, in your own inimitable fashion; at least he isn't a prankster!"
"His one redeeming feature."
"Be that as it may," said Sinistra who was nothing if not tenacious, "you scare the living daylights out of him."
"I'll say! "called out Sprout who was struggling up from the sofa to join the conversation, "You have my Badgers in tears sometimes!"
"There you are!" Sinistra went triumphant, " Snape's scare-tactics leave a whole generation of students permanently scarred into the depths of their souls. Such a man should not be ..."
"Oh, for crying out loud, you have been flogging that dead horse for years now." said Vector, "all of our souls, scarred or not, are at present in danger of being permanently sucked out if those Dementors run out of control."
"Besides, no matter how delightfully alliterative you decry his teaching methods Severus is head of House and showed his worth already back in '81 during those few days after the fall of You-Know-Who, " Babbling put in her knut-worth, seizing the occasion to mend things with the Potions-professor, "Hé at least protected his charges against the Slyther-hunts while you barricaded yourself in your tower!"
In a huff Sinistra gathered her papers and left the Staff Room narrowly avoiding bumping into Madam Hooch who entered as the Astronomy professor exited.
"Did I miss anything?" asked the Flying Instructor, stifling a yawn. Not waiting for an answer, she headed for the sideboard where the coffeepot still stood with a waft of steam coming out of its spout. "Ooooh, just what the Healer ordered. Have been up flying all night with the Parliament." She poured herself a generous cup. Aside from teaching the first-years how to handle their brooms correctly and being the quidditch coach and referee, Rolanda Hooch took care of the Owlery and its inhabitants. Nothing angered her more than seeing the birds neglected by their owners for whom they were nothing more than a way to deliver mail. She'd release them and fly along in nightly hunts to allow them some exercise. Her affinity with birds of all feathers and particularly owls had given rise to he firmly settled belief among students that Hooch was a descendant of Blodeuwedd, the Woman made of Flowers by the Wizards Math and Gwydion, whose powers equaled Merlin himself. Hooch neither confirmed nor denied this. A woman likes to keep an air of mystery.
"Slyther-hunts?" Charity Burbage asked tentatively wondering what her colleague had been on about. Being relatively new to the staff, it still felt that there were a lot of skeletons rattling in cupboards she did not know about. She hated arguments and was not sure if she was about to start a new one though the Astronomy Professor had left; it seemed like the subject was a sore and possibly also a delicate one to broach with the Potions professor even if Babbling felt no problem mentioning it.
"Ah yes, before your time, that was," said the Runes professor, " Basically what it says. Self-righteous Gryffs and Puffs, mostly 6th and 7th years, banding together to purge the castle of people they thought guilty of associating with Deatheaters." she took a bite of her sticky bun and started chewing vigorously, not wishing to go into details. Vector had no such reticence. "Mob-rule, torches and pitchforks-style. Anyone who wore the Green was considered a legitimate target, though Blues with the misfortune of having Slytherin relatives weren't spared either. Flitty was his usual hopeless self about it." The Arithmancy professor made a face. Unlike Sinistra she did not mind being passed over as choice of Head of Ravenclaw in favour of a colleague junior in teaching years when the previous incumbent retired at the end of the Sixties, and she respected Filius Flitwick's magical prowess and knowledge, but his excitable, easily distracted and woolgathering nature made him in her eyes unfit for the task. Bullying within the House was even more rampant than between Slytherin and Griffindor.
"I'll say, nasty business it was all-round " Hooch joined the conversation, "Vindictive critters running about to settle scores, not nescessarily related to the war either! I remember air-lifting a couple of kids out of the courtyard where they got cornered. "
"Indeed. Poor old Poppy had her ward filled with victims. Along with Babbles, Pommy, and Kettles we had to rush about stopping fights all over the place 'till Minnie and Dumbles finally reappeared two days later, but Snaps here took the brunt of it."
Snape mumbled something about nicknames. Vector had an unfortunate habit of abbreviating people's names, which he could only tolerate because she did it to everyone.
"Ooh, how horrible!" Charity Burbage grew all misty-eyed in consternation, "I cannot believe that any of my House engaged in such!"
"'Fraid so." Professor Sprout having finally gotten to her feet approached the table and snatched the last sticky bun from its plate. "Those poor children were completely misguided of course. I had to give them a stern talking-to. One should never take other people's faults out on others." She cast a look at the Potion's Professor and chided him gently "Something you are sometimes guilty of, Severus. I hear you are often unfairly harsh on Harry Poter. Isn't it time you let by-gones be by-gones and not allow a schoolboy grudge overcome your professionalism as a teacher?"
Snape returned her chiding look with a foul one of his own. "Have you heard of former Headboy Bertram Aubrey lately? He was the single person who stepped up when Marauder pranking got too far. James Potter and Sirius Black felt he needed a what they no doubt would call a lesson in humility and cast a spell on him –an illegal spell, mind you-hat made his head swell. They laughed it off saying it made him a proper Big-Head Boy. He spent a month in the Hospital Wing and missed his NEWTS. I believe he never quite recovered because he dropped out of Hogwarts entirely. Hufflepuff wasn't he?"
Sprout huffed and puffed a little, protesting that yes, they had certainly gone too far and Aubrey was proof that those of her house had their hearts in the right place.
"The heart is an organ that pumps blood, not sentiment, Pomona," said Snape darkly, "It is a conscience that is required, something Potter and Black were entirely deprived of. If James Potter developed one I never noticed. I suppose you will say that is due to our history and that I let prejudice blind me, but we all know what Black was capable of and I was the only one not surprised. As for Potter, the present one, he is just as arrogant as his father and needs to be taken down a peg or two."
"He is a hero" Charity Burbage cried out" he saved us all from You know who and twice again from Quirrel and the monster!"
"Recklessly and needlessly endangering himself and his little friends" snarled Snape, "and whatever he did back in 1981 is a matter of speculation; who knows what really happened that night at Godric's Hollow? "
"Now there is something for Longbottom to be apprehensive about, as people were last year when they thought Potter was the Heir of Slytherin," Vector mused, "Sharing a dorm with someone capable of taking down a Dark Lord as an infant who had never so much as touched a wand. And I agree with Severus here that the lad has a penchant for rushing into dangerous situations. From what I've gathered he and his two sidekicks take themselves for the Hogwarts version of Famous Five."
"Famous who?" " Never heard of them, how are they famous?" came out simultaneously from the mouths of Burbage and Babbling. Sprout (yes, she knew her Muggle Classics alright!) chuckled, but Vector and Snape exchanged a look, the latter rolling his eyes upwards in exasperation. Hooch hid a mocking grin behind her coffee. Displaying ignorance was a sure way of earning people's disregard if not outright contempt, and she had been around long enough to learn that lesson the hard way.
"Really Bubbles, are you a Muggle-Studies professor? Every kid -at least those who are not Wixen born and bred - can tell you about that series of success-stories of 4 children and their dog getting into all sorts of investigative adventures...they are practically proverbial, hence my analogy."
Charity Burbage blushed slightly. Unlike Muggleborn Vector, she was a pureblood whose chosen profession had come from a fascination with Muggles despite not living among them nor interacting with them, again, unlike Vector who had kept up with her Muggle schooling all throughout her time at Hogwarts and had resolutely gone to Muggle University for a degree in mathematics to complement her talent for Arithmancy. "You can't expect me to know everything about Muggles...the subject is so vast and there are so many of them...books are they? I must look into it, such might be a nice subject for a lesson. Are they adventures set in Space? That seems to be very fashionable with Muggles these days. " she gave a little laugh, "The imagination they have got: fancy that they even claim they set foot on the moon!"
This time, Vector rolled her eyes as well. "They do not merely claim it, they did. July 20th 1969 to be exact. Neil Armstrong, Astronaut from the United States was the one whose foot first touched the Moon's soil. Quote: 'a small step for a man, a giant leap for Mankind', unquote. Half the world sat glued to their television sets to watch this event. Well, excluding ignorant Wixen that is, whose knowledge of Outer Space is limited to the magical influence of Stars, Constellations, Planetary Movement and, of course, the Moon, on events and certain people."
"Good thing Sinistra has left, or she'd never forgive you disparaging her subject" remarked Sprout. "Hers gets more consideration than mine, " said Vector, "I've been arguing for years that basic mathematics be taught at Hogwarts instead of Astronomy in first year. That way there'd be more than 'Claws and 'Slythers in my elective class, the ones who actually had a prior, homeschooled scientific education that is. Granger is the first Lion I've seen in... just about ever. And Badgers, when they come, are invariably Muggleborns who remember their previous education."
"That is another Dead Horse that has been flogged for years, Veccy," said Babbling affectionately, "You will not convince old Dumbles in his lifetime of the need of a solid basis in the exact sciences. Wandwaving rules on his watch. "
"Hear Hear!" said Snape.
"Or McGonagall or Flitwick, whichever of the two succeeds him when the old man finally kicks the bucket." continued Babbling, "Wandwavers both of them. "
"It could be Pomona though..." Charity began tentatively, only to be cut off by the Herbology mistress with a thundering "Merlin Forbid!". Sprout wanted no more out of life than pottering about in her greenhouses, thank you very much, teaching was as far as she would go. "There's a good few years in the old man yet, by the time he retires or goes on to the next great adventure as he so often puts it, young Severus here will have enough experience below the belt to be eligible. My money is on him, if the bets are open. "
Snape groaned and buried his face in his hands again.
"Cheer up, Snaps! Headmastering can't be as bad as teaching the little monsters. Which one got you riled up this time?"
"Believe it or not, a Hufflepuff." Snape sent his best scowl in Sprout's and Burbage's direction, "There always has to be one, doesn't there? I thought I had had my share with Nymphadora Tonks..."
"A lovely girl!" Sprout protested, "She is doing very well for herself too, I hear she is training to be an Auror..."
"A klutz who trips over her own feet and who could not brew a decent potion if her life depended on it? They must either be desperate or have lowered their standards in the Auror Department."
"Good flyer, though," commented Hooch. Anyone who flew well was an OK person in her book. Snape muttered something uncomplimentary about middleclass kids who adorn themselves with outrageous hairdoes, noserings and tattoos just for the sake of shocking, use slang and wear ragged clothing when they never had a single day of deprivation in their privileged lives all with the aim to show how cool and badass they think they are.
"She is a Metamorph, "Sprout pointed out, jumping on the hairdo comment of Snape's and ignoring the rest, "Why should she not use that power to change and bring a bit of colour into your class? Come to think of it, that ability must have been a deciding factor in accepting her for the Aurory. Very useful in undercover operations. Didn't she do a rather striking impersonation of you, back in the day..."
"For which she should have been suspended, if not expelled!" Snape all but yelled, "Making a mockery of a professor like that undermines all authority!" he gave a brief hawking laugh that was full of bitterness, "But that seems to become somewhat of a tradition lately, hasn't it? Even the Headmaster indulges. "
"Oh, lighten up, Snape, "said Sprout with a chuckle, "That cracker Dumbledore made you pull with him at the Christmas party and which produced that hilarious vulturestudded hat was just his way of telling you should not be so self-conscious and learn to take a little joke at your expense; he slapped it on his own head remember?"
Snape visibly struggled to keep his expression as expressionless as possible and failed to the point of being an eloquent illustration of the 'if looks could kill' saying.
"Well now, don't leave us in suspense, Severus," Babbling tried to defuse the situation between the two Heads of House. Snape and Sprout, while respecting each other's expertise with their respective fields complementing each other, got along as well as can be expected from a touchy young man and a woman who felt comfortable with herself in any situation even the most ridiculous.; which meant that neither could fully understand the other, leading to clashes that produced sparks both would regret later on. "Who is the unlucky Hufflepuff that tested your patience? "
"Snape and patience are mutually exclusive. Is the child still alive, that is the proper question?" chuckled Hooch.
"I may have a sharp tongue and a short temper but I would not hurt a student."
"Other than their feelings? Ah well, at least we are reassured on that point." Her wink told the Potions Master that Hooch was merely teasing him. She, too, had a volatile temper and very little time for kids who fooled about and whined about people being 'mean' to them. Anyone over the age of five using that word was an idiot in her book.
"Sally-bloody-Anne Perks!"
"Oooh, profanity! She really annoyed you! " Hooch crowed, delighted to hear her colleague fall back into the colourful language of his younger days. As a student Snape used to swear liberally and was often reprimanded for it –by the prim and proper McGonagall, mostly- but he had cleaned up his act an accompanying language since.
"She can be a handfull," conceded Sprout, "You must understand, Severus, she is a Half-blood, they have to straddle both worlds so they tend to compensate for it by making themselves noticed."
"Spare me the amateur psychology, Sprout, I am a Half-Blood and I assure you, I strove throughout my schoolyears to make myself as unnoticed as possible!" the Potions Master stared morosely into his empty glass, evidently reliving bad memories, "For all the good it did me."
"Alternatively, she may be sweet on you," Sprout continued unperturbed, "Trying to catch your attention. Similar to boys pulling girls pigtails and such. "
"Oooh, do I detect a blush? I do! I do I do!" crowed Hooch.
Snape looked even deeper into his glass, evidently wondering if he could crush it like he wanted someone's windpipe; whether Sprout's, Hooch's or the Hufflepuff girl's was still a matter of consideration. When he finally spoke having recovered his composure and usual pallor it was with rigid, clipped tones: " To my limited knowledge of such frivolous matters a female's attention is caught by gifts...flowers, chocolates, jewelry and suchlike. I imagine it working vice-versa as well. Hurting or annoying would, to my mind, have the opposite from the desired effect."
("Has he just admitted that he never..." Babbling whispered into Vector's ear "Hush, Babbles, you know very well our shy boy is chastity incarnate." answered Vector, deliberately loud enough to turn Snape's cheeks red again)
"Details, details, we want the full story!" Hooch clapped her hands in anticipation almost as if clamouring for the full monty as well. Knowing she was going to pester him if necessary for days until her curiosity was satisfied, Snape took a deep breath and growled:
"She was chewing gum. In class. In my Potions class. C-H-E-W-I-N-G G-U-M!" The last came out as a lengthy shriek. Babbling leaned forward and patted his hand. "There now, it can't be that bad...whatever it is. Some sort of Muggle thing?"
"A sweet!" Charity Burbage eagerly supplied the information, "A soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed used initially to maintain oral health. clean the teeth and strengthen the chewer's jaw. "
"Did you swallow a dictionary?" inquired Vector, "I doubt any Muggle would explain it thusly, though it is essentially correct. Gum has degenerated to a sweet, with artificial flavours, to be masticated at length. Absolutely not done in polite company unless you are a very young child. Horrible sight: chewing with open mouth, saliva dribbling..."
"And blowing bubbles. Large pink bubbles." said Snape, with a shudder at the memory of it, " I conjured a bin and told her to spit it out. She spat. And missed. Deliberately." he gestured at his immaculate black robe " She spat at me. A large pink saliva dripping blob on my robe." He cast a furious glance at an apologetic Sprout. The other teachers made noises of sympathy, except for Hooch who almost collapsed in a fit of giggles , demanding a Pensieve –view of the event just to see his face and savour his expression of pure horror.
"Oh..oh my...Severus, you didn't..."
"No matter how unprofessional you may think I am, Pomona, I assure you I did not lay a finger on 'Excessively Perky'".
"Excuse me?"
"That's what one of my Snakes who comes up with the most interesting nicknames calls her...she annoys not just me," said Snape, "But I did not- and will not let anyone-hit her- or anyone else- no matter how great the provocation."
"Could have, should have, probably would have, in your stead," murmured Vector , "That's our Severus, all bark and no bite. How many detentions did you give her?"
"Could have, would have, should have...but I was too aghast to react...I told her to get out. "
"That was probably the outcome she intended," Professor Sprout sighed, "I shall speak to the girl. Strongly, I promise, Severus...oh...oh dear...you forgot, didn't you? It's that time of the year again...Flitwick's annual Goblin War Commemoration. It is your turn to take over his classes today. "
The Potions Master let out a soft moan and looked despairingly at his colleagues, who one by one shook their heads. "Sorry, I have classes." "Ditto", "Scheduled to oversee study-hall, sorry ." "Oh poor Severus, it will work out, you'll see!"
Hooch grinned broadly, " I'm free but, alas, I am not allowed to teach. "
"You can take Sprout's study hall, and she can take that damned Charms class!"
"No can do! Regulations are regulations! " Hooch cackled, every bit the wicked witch from Muggle Fairy-tales, "Once more upon the breach, dear chap! Buckle up and face your fate like a man: all your favourite people: Longbottom, Potter, and Perks!" Hooch too knew her Muggle Classics.
Babbling cast a Tempus Charm, "You have exactly 2minutes to be on time."
"Off you go! We'll keep our fingers crossed for you" said Sprout with a reassuring clap Snape's slumping shoulders. He rushed to the Floo with a snarled, "Witches!" though it could just as well have been "Bitches". They all cackled, even Burbage. With an equally snarled "Classroom 2E"as he threw in a handfull of Floo powder Snape disappeared into the flames, to exit just ahead of the first students filing in.
A quick cleaning charm surreptitiously cast on his robes for the second time that day removed the soot clinging to them. If the Hufflepuffs looked surprised to see him instead of Flitwick they made no comment; but, true to form Potter –late as always- loudly demanded to know why the Charms professor wasn't there to teach them, giving Snape a sense of déjà-vu.
"I was not aware that you dictate your teacher's curriculum, Potter," he said silkily, "Should Professor Flitwick perchance have asked for your permission to take a day off for personal reasons?"
"What reasons?"
"The kind that are personal. Now sit down, Potter, and let us begin class. By your leave, of course, "he drawled ironically, "We will study a few simple healing charms..."
Another wave of déjà-vu swept over him as Granger cried out that they had not studied healing charms yet and wasn't that a fifth year class at the very least, or a special NEWT level one for advanced Healing Magic?
"My my, I never thought that I would live the day our resident Know-it-All would complain about learning in advance!" Snape purred, "Perhaps Miss Granger would like to teach the class instead? We could all learn from her expertise if, as I am sure, she will have read all about it." He was, of course, referring to the cute lie Hermione Granger had told her professors back in first year, pretending she had gone after the Troll on the loose just to show off what a brave little Griffindor she was, though anyone observant (like him) would have known she was not present in the Great Hall when Quirrel had come in running crying: "Troll! Troll in the Dungeons!" It was still a mystery to him why Potter and Weasley had not caught her out on that blatant untruth. Surely a Griffindor would not tolerate fake heroism? But when it came to the Lion House he harboured no illusions, and particularly not where it concerned the bushy-haired know-it-all. For all her airs of being studious and obedient she was quite capable of breaking the rules when it suited her, attacking her peers and even her professors. He could not prove Granger had been the one to set his robe alight during that Quidditch match two years ago but Longbottom had told of how she had petrified him – clearly she would draw wand on anyone when she felt it warranted. Yet another thing that should frighten Longbottom far more than his tonguelashings, but the boy was an idiot. Similarly he could not prove that she had stolen from his ingrediënts cupboard, but the fact that she had turned up half-transformed into a cat and that Crabbe and Goyle had been found locked up, drugged and robbed of their shoes proved that someone had brewed Polyjuice to impersonate them, if only partly succesfully. Naturally the Headmaster had waived aside the girl's progressing criminal career with a 'she meant well'. He doubted though that Famous Five would stoop so low in their well-meant investigations.
"Well, Miss Granger? We are waiting with eager anticipation. Just one little quote from 'the Book of Healing Spells'? No?"
"She told you we won't learn about those untill fifth year!" true to form, the third member of the Troublesome Trio jumped up in indignation, "How dare you expect her to..."
"Oh but I dare, mister Weasley, I dare indeed...miss Granger is so full of her own cleverness that she wastes no opportunity to show off...that has led to high expectations among my colleagues. I on the other hand am not impressed by mere parroting book-knowledge. Nevertheless...very gallant of you, very Griffindor, every inch the chivalrous knight in shining armour...modern young witches fight their own battles, Weasley, they will not thank you for treating them like dainty damsels in distress. "
He heard some sniggers coming from the Huflepuff boys –Smith and Macmillan- and confirming nod from Miss Bones and a whispered 'damn right' from 'Excessively Perky' of all people. It certainly perked him up. "Let me see, a detention is in order for Potter once again questioning my authority, along with five points from Griffindor for persisting in being obnoxious; and another five for his sidekicks, each! One would not want them feel left out. Now, let us begin."He turned around to find there was no blackboard to write upon. Damn Flitwick and his happy-go-lucky way of teaching. Fortunately his back was towards the class so they could not see his embarrassment. He conjured the necessary tool plus a piece of chalk.
"Pock."
Ah yes, the old 'rile up the teacher while he has his back turned with nuissome noises that you stop the minute he turn around and repeat'. The critters thought it hilarious to have their professor toll about like a spinning top. He had fallen for it once, and never again. Ignoring it until some other student got bothered about it and kicked up a fuss usually did the trick, with the satisfying side-effect of justifiably taking points from both. Someone was taking the mickey. Well, let them try, he'd impress them with the importance of the knowledge he was about to impart. "Healers work indiscriminately to the benefit of all Wixenkind. Some of you have personal experience as recipients of the Craft," he cast a dark look over his shoulder in Potter's direction, "and given that during your Hogwarts career all of you will no doubt have need of a Healer's attention you would do well to pay it the utmost respect it deserves. There will be no fooling about in this class any more than in Potions, a closely related subject. All expert Potioneers have a solid basis in the Healing Arts..."he whirled to fully face them, "At least those who deserve the title." His sneer left no doubt that he was one such.
While the message –hopefully-sank in their dunderhead brains, he began to jot down names of some well-known healing charms on the board. Just as he had finished writing Anapneo and had started on Emendo he heard it again.
"Pock."
That sounded like something coming down hard on the wooden floor. Someone was determined to be an ass. That someone would be caught in the act and be punished accordingly. Episkey he wrote.
"Pock".
Wandlessly and wordlessly he transfigured the blackboard into a mirror. Rows of smirking faces, the smirk quickly wiped in astonishment with eyes growing large, including those of Sally-Ann Perks, who was balancing on the hind legs of her chair.
"Kindy refrain from such antics, miss Perks, not only are they annoying but dangerous as well. 10 points from Hufflepuff."
A second or two to relish the angry looks of the Hufflepuffs in direction of "Excessively Perky" who lost more points for their House than could ever be gained from passing Sprout a watering can –yes, Pomana really was way too liberal with awarding points, far more than he was for taking them. Another quick transfigurement and he wrote down Reparifors.
"Take parchment and quill, write down what you think these charms are for. The words themselves already give you a clue." Well, that was not entirely a lie, anyone who knew a little Latin could take an educated guess. And Potter, if his brain wasn't a sieve, would remember how Lockhart used one of them on his broken arm. There, let no one say he did not favour the boy. He smirked again, " The results will be interesting. After which I shall demonstrate. "
He would demonstrate on himself of course. A small cut on his hand and an episkey. It would be unprofessional (yes, Pomona, I can be professional though God knows I loathe this job I do only because I was forced into it) to use a student. He might, in his darker moments, feel like strangling one or breaking their bones (he was not such a hypocrite that he would not admit having such evil desires) but if in all his years of teaching he had never ever done so (not even the Beastly Twins, Longbottom, Finnigan or any of the Golden Trio, a testament to his ability to resist temptation) then that meant he was not a physically violent man at heart. In his Deatheater days he had held back on those blessedly rare occasions he was called to participate in a raid and had paid the price for it. Bellatrix Black had taken it upon herself to teach the filthy Half-Blood that if the Dark Lord ordered him to torture a Muggleborn he had to do it. She had called him a spineless coward, and after she had vent her ire on him with multiple Crucios, he comforted himself with the thought that it took true courage not to obey an order that went against the grain, even if it cost him. If only he'd had that same courage at the time to not give in to peer pressure, his own sense of hopelessness (everyone – Lily! believes I am bound for the Deatheaters, I might as well be one)and a spite-driven desire to survive (the rest of the world can go hang :they have spat me out and I owed them nothing) ...but then he would be a dead hero...martyr...no, none of that, he would be dead and forgotten in an unmarked grave, mourned by no-one. For all his faults, for all his mistakes, he was now in a position to do some good, for these children, (these loathsome brats!) or their future, so that they would live without terror. His Slytherin side crept up: what was in it for him? Nothing. Merely honouring a given promise –how Griffindor! - to save the life of a childhood friend who turned up dead anyway. Lily. He could barely remember her face, the sound of her voice...why did he still feel guilty over her death? Like she had once told him, she had chosen her way. She would have been killed in battle eventually. They were not even friends anymore. What had driven him to go over to the other side, her side, and stay there? Guilt, mostly and the memory of the one person who, for a brief time only, had made him feel what happiness was like. Made him feel that he mattered. Perhaps that was what was in it for him now, what kept him going: the feeling that he mattered. Would make a difference.
He was so immersed in those thoughts that he did not pay attention until it was too late.
"Croak!"
"Trevor! No!"
A shriek, a thud, a crack and silence. Sally-Ann Perks had disappeared behind her desk, and next to where she had been sitting Hannah Abbott started screaming. In two leaps the Potions' Master was at her side.
"Everybody out!" He thundered "You..."he searched in his mind for someone sensibly obedient who knew how to operate the Floo, " You, Miss Bones, floo Madam Pomfrey to get here at once! At once, Bones!" The urgency in his voice made the girl fly to the grate and throw the powder yelling for the Matron even before it fell in. He concentrated on Perks. She lay there, still, chair upturned, head at an impossible angle, a toad hopping away.
He began the healing incantations, chanting to knit broken vertebra and torn cervical nerves, keeping the heart beating and the lungs breathing...too late! Too late! She was halfway gone already, there was only one way to pull her back from the brink and it was forbidden... Without a further thought he whipped the sharp, goblin-steel knife from his belt - the same knife he had planned to make a small cut with - and slashed open his artery in the left wrist. Dark Magic demanded sacrifice, that was something the 'Light' never realized: Magic was about balance. It never went well if all you did was take without giving back. The greater the sacrifice, the stronger the result... it was only twisted, sick, evil when the sacrifice was another, not one's self... and sometimes the intention was enough...at least he hoped, for he still had so much to do, he could not afford to die for one single child...but that child was on his watch. Another death he could have prevented had he been paying attention. His fault, his guilt, on top of all the other... and so he delved deep into the necromantic sorcery, into that white space between life and dead, and there she was, balancing on one leg on a hop-scotch square, already halfway from earth to heaven kicking the stone to the fifth case...
"Miss Perks. Come back at once."
True to her nickname the child blew him a raspberry over her shoulder.
He went to stand on the first case, Earth, on his left leg and called out again: "Miss Perks, this is not a game. Come back. "
She hopped to the fifth case instead, making to kick the stone to the sixth. There was nothing for it, he too had to play the game. A stone appeared in his hand: warm, glowing pulsing...he threw it on case one, pulled up his robe, and hopped in. "Please let the girl be sensible now..."
"Miss Perks, you must come back!"
"Shan't! "
Damn the girl. He had to continue now, reach her before she got to case 'Heaven'...how did it go again?With which foot did one kick the stone? He had seen kids play Hopschotch on the schoolyard of his Primary, back in Cokeworth. It was a girl's game; boys played conkers or football and with Lily he had only ever talked Magic. The girl...Sally-Ann...shé knew, he had just to follow her example. There she went, diagonally across from him across from him kicking the stone to the' six' with the foot she was standing on, slowly, carefully, avoiding the lines...that was a rule he remembered: if you stepped on the line, or kicked the stone over the line or in the wrong case, you were out. That must not happen. He kicked his own stone, and miraculously, it rolled over to 'two', barely half an inch away from the line.
"Miss Perks, turn back. You are going the wrong way. "
She blew another raspberry and made to move forward, just as he hopped to 2 narrowly losing his balance. He was now next to her. For greater comfort and manoeuvrability, he hitched his robes even higher.
The girl giggled. "Nice legs professor! Remember the rules: if you put your foot on the ground or fall, you are out!"
"I know!" Snape gasped as he bent forward hooking his right foot around his left calf to strengthen his stork-like stance and miraculously managing it without getting it getting caught in the folds of his robe. "So will you...be cast not out of a game but out of life. Forever trapped in Limbo. "
"You mean... like ghosts..?" realisation struck, her strikingly periwinkle blue eyes growing wide. A slight treble entered the child's voice, "am I...I'm dead? As in... Death dead?"
"Is there any other kind?" he gritted out, tucking the ends of his robes in his belt while concentrating hard on his stone. Was it pulsing less? Was its glow diminishing? "Stay put. I'm coming to get you." A single nudge made the thing flip over into third case, a mere hair's breadth away from the chalked line. Not good, not good at all. It gave him practically no room to maneuver. He hopped in, right in the middle of the cipher.
"Professor!"
"Not now Miss Perks, I have to concentrate. It's hard enough without pointless interruptions." How easy it was to slip into snarky teacher mode! Hopefully it would keep her from panicking. She might be 'Excessively Perky', she was still a Hufflepuff. He could not deal with a child having a breakdown at the best of times. This was the worst of times, and it was rapidly running out. Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself as well, he pivoted on the ball of his foot and promptly lost his balance gain, waving about on one leg like a scarecrow in the wind, arms flailing, falling...and a pair of small hands grabbing him, breaking his fall, keeping him steady...
"Gothcha, Professor!"
What Severus Snape thought he would never ever do in all of his life happened then: he caught the girl in his arms with a half-sob of relief and cried out: "One-hundred points to Hufflepuff!"
The lines of the Hopscotch square and both their stones faded away, bright, white light engulfed them ...and the next thing he knew he was lying in a pool of his own blood, his slit wrist healed, a grey-faced Poppy Pomfrey forcing a blood replenishing potion down his throat with in the background a flurry of green St Mungo healer robes, levitating the body of Sally-Ann perks, who gave him a weak but cheeky grin and a wave of her hand: the hand that had saved them.
Epilogue.
In the twenty-four hours he spends slipping in and out of consciousness in Hogwarts's Hospital Wing while recuperating from his ordeal Severus Snape is visited by Aurors with questions, who are ousted by Pomfrey ("You are wearing out my patient! Talk to the headmaster, he will explain!")with a subsequent visit from Dumbledore looking carefully blank, with a whiff of scorn shining through as he shakes his head. "The rumour mill is running wild... half the school believes you have murdered the Hufflepuff child; I do my best to disprove them but... Dark Magic, Severus, my boy? Really?" (Yes, headmaster, really. I should just have let the girl die, shouldn't I° but he does not say it. Of course everyone thinks him capable of murder.)
"It does not help that you were seen with a knife. "
"Tell them I was cleaning it and it suddenly went off". The old man doesn't get it but makes no comment. Muggle humour is wasted on those who spend their entire existence in the Wixen World.
Dumbledore's word is still sacrosanct, and the Aurors depart placated by whatever explanations he gives them. A semi-grateful Sprout pops in. Semi, because she too disapproves of Dark Magic and because she has lost a student: "Those Muggles are so stubborn! Sally-Ann will not return to Hogwarts. She may be paralised from the waist down for the rest of her life, so the Healers from St. Mungo tell me, yet still there are so many magical of tools to help her with that.,.."
"Yes, fancy that, parents not wanting their child to continue studying in the place she almost died. "
"Oh Severus, stop being so sarcastic, they can send her to another school of magic on the Continent instead or even in the Colonies, but no, they want her to lead a Muggle life from now on."
"I imagine the Ministry will 'help' them change their minds."
"I hope so, she was a good student...by the way Hufflepuff is suddenly well in the lead for the House Cup, Someone has awarded us one hundred points! In all my years I don't think anyone ever gave that much in one go. Must have been the Headmaster, bless his kind heart, I asked him and he denies, the lovable old man. "
Magic works in mysterious ways. Severus is too exhausted to relate the truth of the matter. Or too disgusted. He decides to discharge himself but collapses barely halfway to the door of his cubicle. Pomfrey finds him and verbally blasts him with reproaches that make him feel the student again she always seemed to find fault with for ending up in her care. Ugly, dirt-poor half-blood Slytherin students don't deserve a bedside manner when they get themselves hexed, jinxed or cursed every other week; and by fourth year he had learned to deal with his injured body himself. He hates being weak, being confined to the hospital bed, at the Matron's mercy.
To his infinite surprise Vector, Babbling and Hooch come sailing in, the unbidden image of the Triple Goddess engraining itself in his mind though he is quite sure that none of them qualifies for Mother or Maiden, and he dare not think of any of them as Crone. Hooch is carrying a basket and plonks a huge gift-box of Owl Pellets on his bedside table next to the get well soon card from Charity that he has not bothered to read: it is pink. He never told anyone that the tangy-tasting marzipan marble-sized balls coated in dark chocolate were his guilty pleasure and somehow the colleague he had least affinity with knew this. Vector graces him with a nod of approval that is as good as a 'well done, that man', and positions herself at the cubicle entrance, blocking a flustered and protesting Pomfrey from entering. Without so much as a by-you-leave Babbling pulls down his covers, lays bare his chest ("Ah good, not too much hair, none on the heart, saves me the chore of shaving you, that does !") and begins to draw healing Sigils in a silvery liquid with a soft fine-pointed writing brush ("Oh, don't blush, young man, you have far too little in the upstairs department and far too much downstairs to interest me " and that brings up a whole lot of other images he really could do without). Hooch cackles and pops a Pellet in her mouth with a wink at Severus that he hopes is not lewd. From her basket she produces a posy of herbs and flowerheads: purple Lavender and Garlic, pale-green Angelica, blue Borage, white Yarrow, bright orange Calendula, red Carnation, yellow Celandine and silvery-grey Mugworth all entwined and bound with a shimmering plaited cord that he identifies as unicorn hair. She begins to chant, no, hum ,no...hoot, a low, vibrating sound. (Blodeuwedd, the woman made of Oak, Broom and Meadowsweet flowers...turn into Owl...of course she would know Animal and Floral magic..." ) and he wonders if she has just obliquely confided in him her true, secret identity deeming him worthy; a gift, surely, far beyond marzipan.
Realizing that what Babbling is doing is the result of their joint research into combining Potions with Healing Runes, he lies there unmoving, submitting himself to the two women's ministrations, basking in the sheer unique feeling of people actually caring enough to give aid unasked for to him, of all people. He who is neither their friend nor their ally; merely a colleague who is hard to get along within the first place. What kind of people are those? ("Friends", his marvelling mind supplies the answer, true friends, and he pushes that thought away for he cannot allow himself to have any with the task that lies ahead of him when the Dark Lord returns; anyone he so much as looked at would be marked for collection to be used as a hostage to his loyalty. Never mind that he doesn't deserve friends in the first place.)
"What on earth...I am the Mediwitch here!" Pomfrey cries out, still trying to get past Vector, growing very red in the face, "He is my patient, what you do is not permissible... primitive magic and sigils? This is beyond ridiculous!"
"Yes, yes, Poppy, it is not what you were taught at 's, this is Old Magic, the kind of thing still practiced in foreign parts where they don't care about distinctions of Light and Dark as long as it wors,. " Vector drawls, "Gues what, Muggles know it too. Doesn't necessarily work for them, but they know it. "
"Besides which it is part of my scientific research, so thank you Severus for being my willing Guinea Pig." says Babbling with a last finishing flourish, completing her set of Sigils. Hooch twirls her bouquet in an all-encompassing gesture over his body, and it is done, the circle closed, the magic working: his exhaustion falls away, his lingering pain as well. He feels buoyantly young, like he has not felt in a long time, if ever. It will not last, but while it does, he savours it.
He is in for another surprise several week later when Charity Burbage hands him a letter from Sally-Anne Perks. It reads:
Dear Professor Snape,
I am so sorry I was such a pest in your class. I wanted to prove not all Hufflepuffs are spineless duffers by going for the biggest badass in school cause everyone said you are up to the eyeballs in Dark arts and that is bad. But you aren't. You warned me what I did was dangerous and I died and you went all the way to the brink to fetch me back though you could have died too. Professor Sprout visited me in 's and she didn't seem to approve you using Dark Arts for that which is as good as saying she'd rather see me dead than alive thanks to you and your Dark Arts. I don't like her anymore.
So thank you, thank you thank you Professor you're the best ever! Mum and Dad think so too! They took me away from the Magical world and I will not be going back to Hogwarts. I'm glad even if I know I will never walk again and in the ordinary world I will be bound to a wheelchair forever. It sucks but not as much as being dead, besides, l'll be learning lots of useful stuff in real school like my old friends from Primary do. Billions of people make do without magic so I can too even crippled cause my arms work just fine and I've got a good enough brain too, there is still so much I can do and so much to live for! I promise I'll do good.
Lots of love,
Sally-Anne
PS Professor Burbage will still be coming regularly to tutor me cause they still think I need better control of my magic before fully letting me go. So I gave her this letter to hand over to you personally.
He cannot remember anyone ever apologizing to him before and walks on clouds for a few days. For once in his life he has done something right. Charity Burbage tells him that 'Excessively Perky 'can't stop talking about him. "She really has a crush on you now, Severus, if she hadn't before! Her knight in shining armour!" At least shé got the right end of the stick, that ethical preference is not worth a child's life.
"Spare me, I am not a Griffindor" he says but he can't help feeling pleased and, dare he believe so, happy. As usual and as expected, it doesn't last. Nor does Charity's appreciation for him .The schoolyear ends with a complete disaster: Black and Lupin in cahoots convincing Dumbledore that Peter Pettigrew was the real Secret Keeper for the Potters and has escaped in his Animagus rat form; because apparently three of the Marauder gang had managed to become so illegally. Not that Lupin, who was fully aware of this ever bothered to warn the proper authorities or Dumbledore, never mind that he too believed Black to be guilty. To make matters worse, the Troublesome Threesome have attacked him without so much as a rap on their fingers. He had been far to decent, having put their unconscious bodies on stretchers –including Black's despite his earlier threat of feeding the man to the Dementors!- and taken them to the Hospital Wing, ignoring his own pounding head. He was certain he had some sort of concussion he'd have to self-medicate again. At least he had managed to get some of his own back by letting 'slip' to his Slytherins at breakfast that Lupin was a werewolf. Within an hour the whole school knew. The man deserved it. He had been out under the full moon all night, anyone out could have been bitten or killed. Hagrid had found him in the morning, licking his wounds (figuratively speaking) on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The Half-Giant had assured them Lupin said he had not et anyone that night. Some assurance that was.
In the Staff Room Burbage accosts him with outrage. "Severus, how could you! That poor man, his career, his life, ruined!" He snarls back in disgust: " He forgot to take his Wolfsbane last night. Think of the children!'" and rather enjoys throwing her own words back into her face.
Then is in for another surprise: Sinistra telling him to not waste his breath, Charity being far more charitable towards Lupin by now, having fallen for the 'I am a poor lonesome werewolf' puppy-dog eyes performance of the man. Which leads to a tearful Burbage exclaiming that he is, too, poor, look at his patched clothes and his chipped teacups.
"Oh my," Sinistra drawls, "Someone has gotten lucky. Can you already inform us of the state of his underwear as well as his crockery or are you merely being discreet?" (Charity turns bright beetroot, Severus sniggers.) "Besides, is he a Wizard or what? Whatever happened to good old 'Reparo' or a couple of decent glamours? "
"He is too proud to hide!"
Sinistra does not relent. "Holding his werewolf status hidden from the proper authorities has not been a problem to him though. Much as I hate to admit it: I should have backed Severus at the start of the year. You are a fool if you think it is his fault Lupin had to resign. He did his duty warning his students of Lupin's status now that the man has proven himself untrustworthy. Besides, no amount of Slytherin parents can force the Board of Governors to do their bidding since Lucius Malfoy left in disgrace, nor can any of the combined other Houses as long as our Headmaster backs his pet Werewolf, given that he is the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and therefore wields serious clout in all matters crime and punishment. I was doing Lunar Observations with my Owls on my tower and saw the beast run across the grounds when he should have been curled up fast asleep like a good boy after drinking the Wolfsbane Severus so diligently brews for him. Face it, Burbage, your charity project is a basket case, and resigning was the one thing that keeps him from being chucked out in disgrace. "
This, and the fact that she calls him by his given name, is the closest he will ever get to an outstretched hand from Sinistra, who refrains from looking him in the eye. She'd likely rather swallow her own precious telescope than admit she had been wrong in her antagonism all those years. A small victory for him that moderately makes up for what he has been through the past 24 hours.
He almost starts believing there is a God who smiles on him when after the leaving feast Neville Longbottom seeks him out, or rather, is dragged along to face him by a very determined Hannah Abbott, who kicks him in the shin as he 'hums' and 'hahs' and squirms under the Potion Master's forbidding stare.
"Go on, Longbottom, say it! "
"Sir...it was my faut that Sally-Ann got hurt, if my toad Travor had not jumped in her lap she would not have fallen...and...and..." his bottom lip wobbles and Severus' curls in disgust. Oh, brave Griffindor! Has to be dragged by a girl to admit his idiocy that injured a student for life!
"I'm really very sorry. "
If he were kind, he would say it was as much the girls' own fault for leaning back in the chair when he had warned her of the danger as it was Longbottom's with his damn toad, but he is not and he wishes he could stuff the damn creature down the boy's throat to teach him a lesson; yet words can often be far more effective, so he simply tells him the girl nearly died.
"As it is, Miss Perks will never walk again and has withdrawn from our world for good" (no need to add that she is fine with it) "Of that, Mister Longbottom, you are guilty, and it is something that you will have to live with."
He departs, with a swish of his cloak, fully satisfied.
THE END.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This chapter ran away with me but allowed to highlight the teacher's angle and teh dynamics in between them.
It is absolutely canon that Snape started teaching in September 1981 as Potions Master. The position of Head of Slytherin House used to be Slughorn's and can only go to either a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw professor, Griffindor being excluded for obvious reasons and a Hufflepuff would be eaten alive. However, regardless of their House status only the Potions Master and the Astronomy Professor are mandatory positions for the first 5 years meaning that if, say, the CoMC teacher were to become Head of Slytherin and few or none of the Slytherins take that elective, most would never see their Head of House in class and they'd barely know them. Hence the choice being between Snape and Sinistra and the latter excluded for reasons stated.
It is also absolutely canon that Dumbledore sits on a throne like affair in the great hall, so why not in the staffroom as well?
The whole Snape striding with billowing robes, banging doors open and windows closed is absolutely non-canon, totally Rickman and totally drives me up the wall as it has given Snape the 'drama-queen' label and become standard in fanfiction. At times it is very difficult to stay 'de mortuis nil nisi bene'. Rickman ruined the character.
A sharp tongue is a time-honoured method of putting a student it their place short of dragging them along by the ear (looking at you McGonagall) or banging them against them floor (though fake-Moody who everyone thinks is the real deal gets away with that too, so physical violence against students is not really frowned upon anyway; why is a verbal dressing down so bad then?), so naturally a number of professors will have perfected the art of sarcastic repartee; a very British artform which sadly goes over the head of many readers as well. Students are a bunch of hyenas who prowl on the teacher as their prey, ready to pounce at the slightest hint of vulnerability. The hyena's in my schooldays got the French teacher institutionalised with total mental breakdown yet the same kids shat their pants when facing the sarcastic teachers. What so many readers (read: Snaters) conveniently 'forget' is that all the kids at Hogwarts are armed and dangerous and do not hesitate to draw wand on their peers, and in the case of the infamous Trio, on Snape.
Vae Victis. Winners who previously have been the target of the losers will take their revenge; the mob will rule until the proper restoration of law and order. At Hogwarts, children between 11-20 are armed and dangerous (and will even draw on teachers!); Dumbledore and McGonagall are off dropping babies on doorsteps and joining the festivities in the streets. Which leaves it up to the remaining Professors to keep the mob in check; woe to the perfectly innocent kids in Slytherin or of other Houses with Slytherin and/or Deatheater family members. The kids already happily hurt and humiliate for fun calling it pranks, so what would they do when they get really angry? I leave it to your active imagination what happens during those 'Slyther-Hunts' which are not described in canon but it is inconceiveable that they did not happen.
Snape should be last and least on the list of people Neville could legitimately be afraid of. I'd be more unhappy if my own family who are supposed to love me are the kind that chuck me off piers or out of windows and belittle me because I am not good at something than a schoolteacher I see only a couple of hours a week and that only during my schooldays. Now answer yourself honestly: what teacher should you be more afraid of: the one who gives you a tonguelashing if you perform badly in class and uses your pet as a test-animal if you bring it along, or the one who gives you detention in an man-eating spider-infested forest with a unicorn-killer on the loose, and has you wait on a doorstep between leering trolls? (looking at you again, McGonagall, dropped any babies on the doorstep of awful people in the middle of the night lately? Got her head so far up Dumbledore's arse she can probably peer out at the other end.)
The story of Blodeuwedd is part of the Welsh Mabinogonion. Alan Garner who is a fantasy author vastly superior to Rowling wrote a good book about it: The Owl's Service.
There is no clue as to what house Bertram Aubrey was in or why the Marauders cast the illegal spell on him. I chose to make him the Percy Weasley of the Marauder period. The treatment Percy gets from his own brothers is appalling.
I admit: I detested Tonks from the very first 'wotcher' and Snape's opinion of her reflects my own (as does Sinistra's on Lupin). Don't get me started on her 'pining/moping for her man" or teh idea that she can't do without him when she gets hersself preggers'. She is an insult to real-life modern day women in the police and armed forces and modern femininity in general. I'd respect her more if she kicked Lupin out telling him to go and help the clueless kids in their Horcrux hunt, she has no need of a man to change nappies (besides she also has her parents to help)or go herself. Sadly many readers seem to be of the opinion that nappychanging takes precedence over saving the world.
Hermione's lie in first year served absolutely no purpose: being in the loo is a legitimate reason for absence and she need not explain she was in the loo crying her eyes out over a nasty (but actually true, she is a nightmare know it all bossy attitude) remark of Ron's. Harry and Ron were just as heroic rushing off to warn an absent classmate as they were rushing off after a classmate going after a troll. Why should they get into trouble for Hermione being in the loo? No one will ask if she was there because of them. The lie only serves to make Hermione look more of a brawny Griffindor (which Griffindors don't mind) than a crybaby (she spent hours in the loo crying, and the Griffindor attitude is one of get over it already)
It is canon that Sprout awards points for passing a watering can. The woman is kind and well-meaning. I gave her a sense of humor and a good knowledge of Muggles but she is a little stupid. So is Burbage. And Pomfrey.
It is canon that Snape is not physically violent and held back in his Deatheater days. The movies make him violent (bloody Rickman again?) but in the books the closest he comes to violence is hauling Potter out of the Pensieve and throwing him out, utterly deservedly, with a jar of cockroaches that misses the brat at that, too.
The Hopscotch Square is the most difficult version of the game as you have to keep skipping on one foot from 1 to 10 and kick the stone with that foot from square the square without stepping on the line.
This chapter is dedicated to Ter Horst, the teacher I never had because he fell into a deep depression and was on sick-leave for two years after witnessing a girl die on his watch because, despite repeated warnings it was dangerous she kept leaning backwards on the hind legs of her chair, slipped, and died on impact.
Also dedicated to Quoran Jean Lamb, a devoted Snape defender whose sarcasm is lost on many and who on the flip side does have an irritating tendency to flog a dead horses even if one agrees on principle. Also known as 'Excessively Perky', the nickname inspiring me to write the tale of Sally Ann Perks explaining her disappearance from the pages of Harry Potter. And she even gets to save Snape!