Just as she was starting to predict his behavior, the term started and things went sideways. Severus did not take to the new schedule well. When she left for class each morning, he would tug at her robes and whine and sniffle. But, Minerva was stern and she refused to be late. Leaving him alone in her quarters, with kids shouting as they passed by the door all day, was entirely too stressful. And, much worse, he couldn't just leave. McGonagall locked the door so he couldn't wander off on his own (he knew, he tried) and so students could not enter her office without her being there first to usher Severus into his own room. Severus was left to pace around the room until he grew bored. And when he was bored, Severus got into trouble.
After the first day of classes, Minerva returned to find every single one of her books taken from the bookshelves and set into a very, very long row that spiraled towards the center of the room, winding around furniture and under tables. She would have been impressed by the sheer amount of effort it had taken if she wasn't so angry at the mess.
Severus clocked her irritated expression immediately and fled to his room; one Floor Conversation later and Severus was Forgiven for touching all the books.
It didn't even occur to her until later that night that she had no idea how Severus had gotten the books off the higher shelves.
On the second day of the classes, Severus took two entire rolls of parchment and tore them into tiny pieces over the course of several hours, leaving piles of paper snow around McGonagall's desk.
On the third day, Minerva woke up extra early to take Severus to Dumbledore's office for babysitting. As Headmaster, Albus had much more free time to devote to making sure Severus either wasn't in a foul mood by the time Minerva was able to return to her quarters or he hadn't turned the place upside down in an attempt to entertain himself.
Albus also had much more candy. Severus Snape had not once accepted Dumbledore's offer of candy as either a student (on the rare occasion he landed in the man's office) or as a professor (when their meetings were much more frequent). But the child happily accepted the offered lemon drop. And the second one. And the third. By the tenth lemon drop, Severus was starting to feel sick; by the twentieth, he was laying on his side on an overstuffed chair. By the twenty-fifth, he vomited on the rug.
Seconds later, Albus had vanished the sick and tutting soothingly while Severus tried his very best not to start crying.
"Too much of a good thing, as they say. I myself find it difficult to stop, even when I know the outcome will never be good."
Severus was not in the mood for riddles, but that was unfortunately the only language Dumbledore spoke. He could not tell if the man was upset with him. Sure, he wasn't yelling or pacing and hadn't raised a hand to Severus at all, other than to smooth his hair out of his face. By all accounts, Dumbledore was perfectly calm and casual.
Severus was still worried. When Albus sat beside him, he shifted all the way to the edge of the overstuffed couch.
"Hm. I think I have a solution." The Headmaster rose and sent Fawkes away with a note in his beak.
About fifteen minutes later, Madame Pomfrey poked her head into the office. Severus jumped at the sound of the door but, upon recognizing the woman, let out a delighted gasp.
"Professor Dumbledore told me you were poorly."
Severus suddenly looked very worried. "I'm okay."
"It's alright if you aren't feeling well," Poppy said gently. Severus did not take the bait; if this was a trick, he would not fall for it. His gaze flickered between her face and the floor, unsure which one was expected of him.
"Okay," he said finally.
"Your hair is so long," she smiled and gently ran her hands along his sides. With regular meals over the last few months, he was less gaunt. His hair had also grown only about an inch, as he absolutely refused to allow anyone to cut it. However, it certainly looked healthier.
"I'm allowed," he said quietly.
"I think it looks lovely. And what a wonderful robe you're wearing. Did you pick this out yourself?"
She doubted it, as she had never known Snape to be fond of the color lilac.
"Yes," he said, because he had gotten dressed all by himself that day. Although he could not recall the woman's name at all, he did have very vivid memories of meeting the woman, and they were entirely happy ones. While she was subtly trying to give him a check up, he was attempting to climb into her lap.
"Well, I think you look wonderful. Are you having fun here with Professor Dumbledore?"
"I saw you before," said Severus, which was not a response to the question she had asked. But he had meant to say it before, and thought that if he didn't say it soon he would probably explode.
To her credit, Poppy did not laugh at the complete non sequitur, although she wanted to. The boy had succeeded in situating himself into her lap and his face was uncomfortably close to hers, his black eyes studying her closely.
"That's right. We met over the summer. Do you like—"
"In hospital," Severus interrupted, "you're a witch. You have potions."
"I do. I bought you another one, in case you were still feeling poorly. Do you want it anyway?"
"Yes," he answered immediately, then shrank a little. "Please, ma'am."
Poppy placed a small vial into his hands. Severus Snape had brewed it at the very end of last term in preparation for the current year, as she tended to go through stomach settling potions like crazy. "There you are. I have plenty of these, so you don't need to be embarrassed to ask for more. Do you understand?"
Severus was not sure he did, so he did not nod or shake his head in response. He only turned the vial over in his hands, wondering what the name of the potion was and what sort of ingredients went into it.
Albus Dumbledore had stepped out of the room during the witch's visit, but had returned just minutes later with an apologetic smile. "I do apologize, Poppy, but your skills are required in the medical wing. It seems there was a potions incident."
"Oh." Poppy sounded the perfect mixture of concern and annoyance; of course she did not enjoy seeing students hurt, but it seemed that there was some injury during the first week of classes every single year. Not even a week into term was far too early for her liking. "Of course, Headmaster."She stood and moved to leave, but Severus grabbed her robes with both hands. "I'll come and have tea with you and Professor McGonagall later this week. Would you like that?"
Severus would like that, he supposed, but he would also like her to just stay in the room with him. He had forgotten she existed until minutes before, but now the idea of her leaving again made him anxious.
"I..." he trailed off, unsure of how to explain himself. She smiled very kindly at him and Severus blurted, "I feel bad."
This was not technically a lie; his stomach did still hurt, and now his heart was beating very quickly, as if he had sensed a threat. In any case, Poppy did not seem to think it was a lie at all. Severus still averted his gaze, just in case.
Poppy incorrectly attributed this to shyness; the Snape she knew had always been resistant to admitting if he was hurt. She crouched down to his level, smiling very gently.
"If you take that potion I gave you, you'll feel a lot better. And if you still feel poorly this evening, I'll come back with another one."
Severus made a mental note to say he felt poorly anyway. But he wasn't always great at remembering mental notes.
"Bye-bye." Then, to Albus she said much more quietly, "When you say potions incident, you mean…?"
"It seems nobody reminded Eldridge to have some antidotes handy while brewing fungiface. Just a bit of oversight, I'm afraid."
"Oh, and what are they even brewing that for, in the first week?" She huffed and descended the stairs while Dumbledore went back to his desk.
Severus drank the potion and instantly felt better. He pocketed the bottle, unwilling to part with it even if it no longer contained anything magical, and shyly approached Albus' desk.
"Can I have more candy?"
It quickly became clear that Eldridge Sage was not nearly as talented as his predecessor, but had nearly as much disdain for children. He was not outright cruel or deriding; even worse, he spoke the way a politician would, his voice full of earnestness but the content was hollow. When students came to him with problems, he would assure them he would look into it and simply not do so. He cared very little about the students, their ability to learn, or earning their trust and respect.
"Children have short memories," he claimed in his second week, "you can tell them anything, they'll never know the difference."
The staff room exchanged discreet glances. Snape, who clearly hated children but for reasons unknown to them had decided to teach for over a decade, could be roused to defend students if he liked them or considered them intelligent, or if there was a legitimate concern for safety. At the very least, he liked his subject enough to want to speak about it at length, even if his lectures were rather long and tedious to most students.
Eldridge Sage did not lecture. He told them to open their books to the provided instructions and wandered the room for a bit, and then dismissed himself into the still-charred back room for unknown reasons while the students cut up dangerous ingredients and put them over burning fires. While nobody had been grievously injured this far, that had more to do with the general competency of children than Sage's teaching ability. By eleven, most children knew not to cut their own fingers off and to turn their heads away from exploding cauldrons.
The first exception to this was Neville, whose cauldron exploded all over him during his very first lesson. Sage watched him moan in pain for a smidge too long before dismissing him to the medical wing and telling his students to simply not do whatever Mister Longbottom had.
The general consensus among the students who were not first years was that things were not worse, but they certainly were not any better.
The stone was not as secure as Albus would have hoped, especially because he suspected someone on his staff to take it. He did not know the specifics, of course, but he knew it just the same.
It was all very well to have a giant three-headed dog and various traps, but he needed something...better. Especially since he could not rely on Snape, the clever and cunning man that he was, to help him look into any unsavory characters. Dumbledore was intimidating, yes, but he knew he would easily scare off any would-be thieves before they revealed any important information. Someone like Snape could intimidate without being too frighteningly powerful to dissuade the most determined of thieves.
While he ruminated, Severus entertained himself with books (although he always — distractingly — read out loud, having not learned the art of silent reading yet) or by fiddling with some of the strange gadgets Dumbledore kept in his office. The particularly precious or dangerous ones were smartly kept above his reach. All the while Fawkes (of the fabric variety) was dragged along, usually by a single wing while his body dragged along the floor.
Fawkes (of the flesh and blood variety) was a little offended.
When he was not ruminating, Albus tried to engage Severus in actual conversation, to mixed results. Sometimes Severus was perfectly content to ramble about things, or to listen to Dumbledore explain even mundane facts about the world of magic. Other times, he would fidget and fret, as he suddenly remembered that the whole magic thing was off-limits at home, and he didn't want to know too much just in case his father got upset with him later. He never explained himself, of course, and so Dumbledore was left guessing which mood the boy would be in each day.
He tried, very gently, to peer into his mind to at least find common ground, even if Severus would not outwardly explain himself. And although the boy had met his blue eyes gaze, Dumbledore was only met with a blank stare and a thin veil across his mind. The wizard came to the dizzying revelation that the young boy possessed an innate skill to shield his mind; and although Albus had not been using even a fraction of his abilities, Severus surely had no way of understanding what was happening at all, and yet still managed to react.
"What a talented boy you are," murmured the wizard and, to his surprise, the veil slipped. This was a wonderful piece of information that Dumbledore tucked away.
A/N: The next chapter is called: The Most Unqualified Babysitter. You may be able to guess who that is...
Thank you for reading and thank you for your support! I promise, we'll get into the stone-stealing plot soon! Surely a toddler can't stop Voldemort's plan TWICE.