Hello, Half-Blood Prince (G)
Hello, Half-Blood Prince
The Divination Tower felt draughty and cold. Sibyll Trelawney was probably the only teacher at Hogwarts still awake at this hour of the night.
With her Tarot spread forgotten at her feet, she sniffed at her cup of almost cold tea and muttered under her breath: “I’ve got a good feeling about this.” She emptied the rest of her sherry into the cup, tossed the bottle aside and fondled the smoky air with her fingertips. “What unspeakable horrors will descend upon us tomorrow, I wonder?”
“Tsk,” she plucked out an invisible karmic flea and frowned at the cards. Traitorous buggers, they never told all the juicy rumours anyway! Instead she reached for her most trusted source of gossip on the dark and dreadful events yet to come: an old, battered copy of Wizard Seuss’ Kneazle-in-a-Hat that had never failed her since the time she was seven and lost her first crystal ball, a blue marble. She chose a random page, turned it upside down and squinted at the text, trying to read each word backwards while adding an ‘ay’ to the randomly selected syllables.
After ten minutes of puzzling over the spirits’ most recent warning she leaned back and grinned widely. “What a peculiar, deliciously morbid premonition,” she purred. “Truly remarkable! Thirty percent chance of showers tomorrow afternoon (those dementors certainly put an end to global warming!), pumpkin omelettes for breakfast in the Great Hall, Mercury in retrograde, a bloodbath, and one life-changing event in the fate of Severus Snape.” Trelawney cackled and rubbed her shivering hands together for warmth. “Excellent, most excellent.”
Sibyll Trelawney wasn’t the only person to stay awake at this hour. Even further below the castle than she was above it, Professor Snape sat in his dungeon office, directing a menacing frown toward no one in particular.
He’d just finished marking another set of essays, and he wondered once again whether it wasn’t he himself whom he punished the most by demanding so much homework from his students. After all, he was the one who had to wade through all their drivel afterwards.
At least his thankless task was done for today. He only had one more thing left to read, a letter. The letter had been brought to his office by a snowy owl that disappeared immediately without even asking a reward for its trouble. He scowled, wondering who’d decided to bother him by post as he broke the scroll’s seal.
Hello, Half-Blood Prince, the letter said.
His eyes widened and both of his eyebrows climbed onto his forehead at once.
I just wanted to say that you’re brilliant at Potions and spells and stuff.
He grunted and kept on reading.
Your notes helped me learn more things than most of my teachers in Defence or Potions (especially Potions!) ever taught me. You also saved my friend from getting poisoned. Thank you for that.
Where did they get his notes? Who wrote this?
I found your notes in my Advanced Potion-Making textbook and I read them all. I think you’re great. Wish I knew who you were so I could tell you that in person.
It had to be a sixth- or seventh-year student, Snape realised. He squinted at the script, trying to recall which one of his Defence students had this handwriting. It looked so familiar.
I wonder what you were doing when you weren’t writing in your Potions textbook. Did you play Quidditch? Which House were you from? Were you ever interested in girls? There is this girl in my House, a year below me, and sometimes I wonder about me and her, but other times I remind myself that it’d never work out. It’s too dangerous for me to care about someone. People I care about always get hurt.
Snape groaned. He was the Head of Slytherin, he had enough tales of adolescent crushes and dark, tormented confessions to last him a lifetime.
My friend says that you are a girl. No way! Only sometimes I wish you were. I bet you’d never let anyone harm you then, what with all the jinxes and counter-charms and antidotes that you know. Sometimes I wish you were taking Potions just a year ahead of me or something. If you were, I’d ask you out on a date. (And I’m not saying that because I’m some desperate bloke who can’t get a girl. A lot of girls seem to like me this year.)
Snape almost dropped the parchment. He shuddered. A hint of colour appeared on his sallow cheeks. A second later he let out a mocking ‘Ha!’ and kept on reading.
But the book is too old, isn’t it? Anyway, you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t a bloke. And I know you are. I don’t know how, but I can just tell.
Snape breathed a sigh of relief.
I don’t really expect anyone’ll ever read this. But I can’t help wondering who you are, or if you’re still alive. I reckon you’re some rich old fellow who’s written tons of books, and even if this letter gets to you, you’ll probably never notice it among all the other mail you get. You were brilliant at spells and potions in school, so you’d have to be famous by now.
Snape let the corners of his mouth curl into a sad smile. Ironic, really. He only knew how to bottle fame and brew glory. But he never found recognition for his achievements in its original form.
My friend doesn’t like you. She thinks you’re evil or something. But I know you aren’t. You’ve helped me more times that I can remember now.
At least he had this letter, this acknowledgement in his hands. No matter what everyone else thought of him, he did help someone. They said so.
Headmaster Dumbledore, who I trust very much, told me something. He said not to go by what other people predict (or say), but that I should think for myself. Make my own choices. So this is my first choice, to write this letter, even if it never gets read.
Headmaster Dumbledore? Something cold and unpleasant twisted in his gut. Snape had a bad feeling about this. Of all the people to write this letter this surely couldn’t be . . .
Thank you
(for all the things I already mentioned and a lot that I couldn’t think of)
Harry Potter
Severus Snape’s first thought upon reaching the end of the letter was: I’m going to kill Albus!
And then I’ll join the Death Eaters, he decided. Hogwarts didn’t pay him enough to deal with the adolescent infatuation of a confused teenage celebrity!
Severus Snape was a man of his word. And if he set out to do something, it was as good as an Unbreakable Vow.
And so he tossed the piece of parchment in the fire and started planning his resignation letter.
As for what happened later, only a Kneazle-in-a-Hat could tell.