It probably should not have surprised Dumbledore and McGonagall that Severus Snape would hate taking a bath. But his reaction to the request — throwing himself on the ground and screaming as though he had been hit by the cruciatus curse — was even more unexpected.

After a few attempts to coax him into behaving, Albus and Minerva decided to adopt a new strategy. Considering Severus was absolutely not going to approach the water, they closed the bathroom door and left him shrieking into the tile floor while they reconvened.

"This certainly explains some things," said Minerva, picturing Snape's perpetually greasy hair, "and raises other questions."

Because surely this was the sort of thing one overcame by their thirties? Then again, old habits die hard.

Dumbledore hummed. "Perhaps this is just too many new experiences all at once."

"We cannot allow him to simply not bathe. Even if he doesn't like it, there is no acceptable alternative."

"You can be the stern one," Albus suggested with a smile. Minerva frowned at him.

"Why does it have to be me?"

"Because it comes naturally to you," he twinkled, "and I'm sure you've noticed that he is more wary around me."

That was unfortunately true. The mercurial Severus seemed equally enraptured by Albus and, at literally any movement by the old man, suddenly on edge. Minerva also caused him to flinch at every sudden movement, but he did not keep his dark eyes trained on her the way he did on Albus.

With a sigh, Minerva returned to the Headmaster's bathroom.

Severus had wedged himself, still fully clothed, between the toilet and the wall.

"I want my Ma," Severus sobbed.

"I'm sure your mother would ask you to take a bath too," Minerva said, not unkindly.

"Nuh-uh!"

She just barely contained her laughter from hearing Severus Snape say nuh-uh.

"I'm positive she would," Minerva replied primly. Severus responded by shrieking into the floor again, insisting that his mother would not make him bathe, and Minerva recalled how Snape looked as a student. She decided he was probably telling the truth. "Well, at Hogwarts you must be clean. And we've already prepared the bath for you. Please get in."

"It hurts," Severus wailed.

Minerva clicked her tongue. "It won't hurt you to take a bath. Come on, now."

But Severus did not move. The bathroom had echo-y qualities that made his crying even louder and more upsetting, as though at least five children were crying in unison. It was enough to give anyone a headache.

"Let me at least wash your face. Come here." With a flick of her wand, she had transfigured a hand towel into a small basin which scooped up some of the warm bath water. Even the charm of magic did not stop his meltdown. She, unfortunately, had to drag him from behind the toilet by his ankle. To maintain some sense of modesty, she only removed his robes and left him in a pair of pants.

It was a sensory nightmare. The humid air of the bathroom was heavy in his lungs and the washcloth, admittedly much softer than any single thing at Spinner's End, scratched against his cheek. He felt all at once too hot and too cold; the water on his skin felt prickly and when the cloth was pulled away, the air hitting his cheek was terribly cold in comparison. The woman had a firm grasp on his arm, not painful like his mother or father's but it was enough that his stomach was doing cartwheels with anxiety. All Severus could do was sob as quietly as he could while Minerva ran the cloth over his face and arms, over purplish bruises that were starting to turn green around the edges already. Minerva loosened her grip slightly,

"I wasn't holding you too tightly, was I?" She asked. Some of the bruises, she realized now that she had a good look at him, perfectly encircled his arm.

Severus didn't respond. He was leaning as far away from the washcloth as possible, which would have looked silly if the mood in the room wasn't so grim.

It wasn't until the witch's charmed bowl poured the warm water on his head that he started screaming as if he was being murdered.

This reaction was so extreme and unexpected that Minvera's hold on his arm slipped and Severus took that opportunity to scramble backward until he reached the wall. The boy was scrubbing at his face, trying desperately to get the water out of his eyes.

"It hurts," he sobbed. Thankfully, he had not wedged himself back behind the toilet, but he had put as much distance between himself and Minerva as possible in the confined space.

"Did the water get in your eyes?" Asked the witch, who could not fathom how a bowl of water on one's head could hurt. "I should have told you to close them, I'm sorry."

But Severus hated the feeling of wet hair, and his over-long hair stuck to his face and neck in wet clumps. It was all incredibly overwhelming and, worse yet, he had no idea how to communicate it; if he had been familiar with words like uncomfortable, overwhelming, stressful, he might have used them. Instead, he just moaned and whimpered that it hurt.

Minerva watched him, completely baffled.

"I'm very sorry," she said finally, because there was not much else to say. The reaction felt so strange and overly dramatic to her, but at the same time she did not think Severus was capable of acting in such a convincing way, especially not at his age.

Severus was not accustomed to being apologized to. He stared at her through a curtain of dripping hair.

Defeated, she leaned against the tiled wall and sighed. "I won't wash your hair tonight. Will you let me dry it off for you?"

Despite his insistence that she had allegedly hurt him, and the fact that he had been trying to escape her like a rat in a trap until that moment, Severus crawled right into her arms, sobbing and sniffling all the way. For her own sense of modesty, she conjured a towel around him, and a second one to try and dry off his dripping hair. With a sigh, Minerva settled against the tub as she let him cry. For such a small body, he had a seemingly endless amount; the bath water had grown cold by the time he calmed down.

"Tomorrow, I don't want any of this nonsense. Do you understand?"

Severus looked to her, horrified. "Tomorrow?"

"Respectable folk take a bath every day," said Minerva, and that fact was met with a feral shriek from the boy. If this was how he acted, she could not blame Mrs. Snape for not wanting to bathe her son daily. But, all the same, these things should be done regardless of how unpleasant they were.

Minerva exited the bathroom with her arms full of a distraught Severus, wrapped in a towel and wailing into her shoulder anew. Albus was waiting on a plush couch, a book open on his lap only to give the illusion that he had not been eavesdropping on the entire situation.

"You can be the stern one tomorrow," she said briskly.

Although Dumbledore had many personal rooms, he also had many personal things and not much space to set up a proper bedroom. Plus, he had the many condensed trunks of Severus Snape, the adult, to keep out of sight from prying eyes. But they had set up a bed, because the school was full of those, in his sitting room.

It's a laying down room, thought Severus to himself.

Dumbledore had purchased something pink. He claimed it was more in the purple family, but Minerva knew fuschia when she saw it. He had, though, also bought children's robes of many colors, mostly pastels and all with whimsical patterns on them. Even the pajamas he offered Severus, a nightshirt, was cute. Overly cute. McGonagall expected Severus to protest but he took the offered nightshirt, baby blue with a border of yellow moons and stars on the cuffs and sleeves, with just a furrowed brow, more at being offered clothes than the clothes themselves.

"Pretty." Was all he said. But, secretly, he thought it was in wonderful condition, as far as pajamas went. It did not occur to him that some children wore completely new garments to bed.

Severus Snape, it seemed, only learned to hold grudges later in life. McGonagall expected him to be sour towards her after the attempted bath but, once he had dressed himself, he only watched her with the same apprehension as before. After a supper that Severus had to be coaxed into eating, as he had for lunch that day and the meal the day before, it quickly became clear that there was nothing to be done to entertain the boy. While they could perform simple spells for him again for hours, that was not exactly the preferred way to spend an evening and it would not be a great habit to start. Instead, they let Severus wander the Headmaster's office and look at whatever he wanted. Since he was clearly a very inquisitive child, this could easily take up an entire evening.

But, he also seemed concerned by the fact that two adults were following him around. He very much wanted to touch everything but a miniature war would start in his head each time, the urge to learn and know versus the fear that he was not allowed to touch that specific thing, that it would break or become dirty and the adults would be angry with him. So, the entire evening was spent with Severus excitedly running up to something and nearly touching it, then jumping back as if he was burned. While Dumbledore patiently explained what the thing was, Severus would watch him with wide, nervous eyes...until something else caught his attention. Rinse and repeat, until Severus was too tired to continue running around. When it was clear that he hit the wall, Dumbledore very, very gently (as Severus still flinched when the man got too close) ushered him to the bed they had set up.

"Oh," said McGonagall, remembering the times she had put her own nieces and nephews to bed, "would you like for one of us to tuck you into bed?"

Severus looked perplexed by the offer. Finally, very slowly, he said: "No."

And, all on his own, he shut the door.

A/N: I hope you are enjoying the fic so far. This story is going to take place before/during the events of the first book! Snape had a big role behind the scenes of that story, so I'm excited to see how things will play out when he's not there…actually, he's going to be involved, but in a different way!

I have always imagined that Snape didn't take care of his hygiene as an adult not only because he was never taught how to properly care for himself, but he also genuinely hated it. So Minerva is being a little judge-y, wondering why he never "got over it."

But, she is not totally clueless! I think it would be hard to admit to yourself that someone you know very well had struggled a lot as a child, especially since she did know him when he was in school...I will deal with her guilt later.

If you have any suggestions or things you would like to see, please let me know! This is a very self-indulgent idea and I'd love to indulge others as well.