(no subject)
His mood suggested he had spent the day reading all the wrong things. Perhaps he’d read all the wrong things because of his mood. Either way, he was feeling particularly Gothic novel that evening. His surroundings didn’t exactly help. While Hogwarts was not on a lofty hill in a rolling moor, it was a castle full of dark, hidden places and ghosts. This year in particular, it was a dark place full of dark secrets. He could not now afford to drink and brood in front of a smoldering fireplace in a richly decorated, if moth-eaten, room with no other light. (Hogwarts had no shortage of those) And no curious, brave young woman would be coming to save him from himself.
Just as well. Severus Snape had neither time nor inclination to play Rochester to some naïve young slip, although there was almost always one at the school who tried to cast him as such. He considered himself more Darcy anyway, his Lily Bennett driven off and dead before he had a chance to learn true gentlemanliness. He did not have a mad wife to hide, an inheritance that wasn’t his to ruin, an unfortunate shotgun marriage to arrange, or a debtor’s prison from which to escape. (Wizarding Britain was oddly short on Catherines) He did, however, have a long term, complicated revenge plot to enact from behind his assumed identity and many innocents to secretly protect.
There was, appropriately, a late-season thunderstorm brewing as he slipped into the dark observation gallery hidden above the Great Hall. Peering through the stone rosette grate, he watched the black clouds in the ceiling enchantment spark and roil. He wondered if it would turn to snow. The wind howling outside the windows certainly sounded cold enough. He couldn’t gauge the temperature himself anymore; his very bones were always chilled, as though the earth itself was crying out against the wrongness of Voldemort’s rule. The stones he leaned on warmed in response to his thoughts of cold. He smiled fondly and rubbed the one under his hand, turning his thoughts and his eyes to the students clumping and trickling through the doors.
He wouldn’t normally bother to supervise Dueling Club, trusting Flitwick and the prefects to keep a lid on the hostilities poisoning every student interaction, but the portraits reported some of the Slytherins (his Slytherins! Had he managed to teach them nothing?) talking about needing to put some members of the other Houses in their proper place. He’d asked the portraits to warn Flitwick and the DA as well, but he felt it prudent to be closer to hand than his tower. No need to show himself yet, though. He wanted them to think of him as an absentee landlord, closed up in his office unable to control either faction in the school. The fewer eyes on him, the better he could work. Slughorn clearly needed to be reminded this year required firmer hands on the reins than his past wont.
The entrance of the Not So Golden Trio drew his focus from the Slytherins tucking themselves into a corner. He still wasn’t sure what metal they were made of. The Almost Chosen One, so full of fear he convinced himself everything was impossible; the Seventh Weasley, brimming with confidence and ruthlessness; the Girl Who Saw With Her Heart, wise and utterly disinterested in practicalities. It was almost alchemical, how such opposite groups1 could be working toward the same goal. He hesitated to call them leaden. They were, in their own way, just as brilliant, just as precious. Wary, too. Their wands weren’t out, but Longbottom and Weasley had theirs tucked up their sleeves, ready in an instant. Their eyes flicked side to side, taking in the entire room (at least at eye level). Lovegood trailed a couple steps behind, gaze turned to the places her companions’ missed. She gave Snape a smile and a little wave, which he hesitantly returned. After discovering the gallery, he’d plastered a white piece of parchment directly on the back side of the grate, and, even knowing exactly where it was, he hadn’t been able to see it from the floor of the Great Hall. He had no idea how she could have found him.
Flitwick gave her a puzzled frown from his perch on the high table. Snape was secretly gratified not even Lovegood’s head of house understood her. Although by his count the entirety of the usual participants was there, Flitwick did not shut the doors. McGonagall entered at the first crack of thunder outside. Snape approved of both her presence and sense of timing. The Slytherin knot in the corner quailed at the expression on her face, and Flitwick flicked his wand to shut the doors. The castle gave Snape the image of Amycus Carrow having just been smacked in the face by one of the oaken slabs. He cheered silently and levered himself up to go deal with Professor Thinks He’s A Silverback2 before Dueling Club could be turned into a professorial chest beating session.
Two and some hours after curfew, Hannah Abbot was about ready to wrap up her patrol and retreat to the warmth and light of the Hufflepuff common room. She was glad patrol was quiet, the corridors empty for once. With McGonagall backing up Flitwick, Dueling Club had been tense, but whatever was going to explode hadn’t. The portraits were afterwards full of whispers about Professor Snape cornering Professor Mr. Carrow in the Entrance Hall and threatening to let Flitwick start teaching Dark Arts once a week if Professor Mr. Carrow wanted to horn in on Dueling Club so badly. Most of the DA agreed the Carrows were, on a daily basis, worse than Snape and received the gossip with a grin. The storm was grumbling away outside, but seemed to be mostly past. She thought she might be able to sleep for once, despite the lingering tension pervading the air.
“Miss Abbott,” a sepulchral voice said behind her. Oddly, it was not the voice she least wanted to hear, even though it was right up there on the list. Her heart still dropped into her shoes. Professor Snape brushed past her before she could turn around. “Walk with me.”
After a minute, he huffed in exasperation and hitched his step, just one, so she was no longer behind him. She took the hint and stayed beside him after that. He didn’t seem to be walking as fast as usual, his head bowed, hands clasped behind his back. He wasn’t inclined to speak, and she didn’t dare. They wandered seemingly aimlessly for a while. There had been rumors about what a Death Eater’s personal attentions might mean, but, despite the ball of fear lurking in Hannah’s stomach, she found herself not giving them much credence. The man beside her was being neither violent nor seductive. For all the attention he was giving her, he might have forgotten her. He might have been a ghost.
They stopped in front of a broad, tall window on the fifth floor, clear between two stained glass ones. Professor Snape leaned against the casement with one shoulder, beckoned her beside him to look. Strewed across the wet grass under the nearly-full moon, from the castle walls to the edge of the Forest, more than a Quidditch pitch-length wide was a winding sea of red poppies. There had been no hint of them that afternoon. Some of the tension in the air, or perhaps just in her, eased.
“Do you know what day it is, Miss Abbott?” Soft as his voice was, she jumped. The great clock tolled midnight.
“Tuesday. November 11th, sir.” Then she understood. “Armistice Day.” She risked a look at him, then. He was still looking out the window. She never would have guessed. He’d done so well excising any sign of Muggle influence from himself. She tried to picture him in jeans under his robes, like her mother had worn, and couldn’t. “You’re not worried they’ll … catch you? That they’ll, um, understand?”
He favored her with the barest flick of his eye. “No. Poppies symbolize many things. If Professor Binns could ever get over his goblin hang-up long enough to get to the twentieth-century, you would know the First World War was only a minor event in wizarding consciousness. They know nothing of Flanders Field and still believe the Old Lie.”
They stared out the window together until she could hold the question in no longer. “Why, sir? Why this?”
Professor Snape fixed her with an intense stare. She couldn’t have looked away from him if she wanted to. She didn’t want to. “It wasn’t the promised War To End All Wars because some things that should have been forgotten were remembered, and some things that should have been remembered were forgotten.” He leaned in incrementally, almost undetectably. “It seems … relevant to current events.” He kept staring until she could bear his eyes no more and looked away. “Good night, Miss Abbott.” He shifted himself off the wall and was gone. She stayed for some time longer, half wishing Colin was there with his camera, half glad of being alone.
1I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS, OKAY Hermione in DH really made my eyebrow go up. Hermione’s character arc over the series makes my eyebrow go up. So do Harry’s and Ginny’s, TBH. I know Luna, Neville, and Ron would have taken twice as long to get anything done, but I can’t help wondering sometimes if everything would have gone better if they’d been The Team instead.
2Alecto is usually referred to as Professor Even More Dim. Severus considered calling Amycus Professor Neanderthal, but he thought that would be an insult to actual H. neanderthalensis.
Just as well. Severus Snape had neither time nor inclination to play Rochester to some naïve young slip, although there was almost always one at the school who tried to cast him as such. He considered himself more Darcy anyway, his Lily Bennett driven off and dead before he had a chance to learn true gentlemanliness. He did not have a mad wife to hide, an inheritance that wasn’t his to ruin, an unfortunate shotgun marriage to arrange, or a debtor’s prison from which to escape. (Wizarding Britain was oddly short on Catherines) He did, however, have a long term, complicated revenge plot to enact from behind his assumed identity and many innocents to secretly protect.
There was, appropriately, a late-season thunderstorm brewing as he slipped into the dark observation gallery hidden above the Great Hall. Peering through the stone rosette grate, he watched the black clouds in the ceiling enchantment spark and roil. He wondered if it would turn to snow. The wind howling outside the windows certainly sounded cold enough. He couldn’t gauge the temperature himself anymore; his very bones were always chilled, as though the earth itself was crying out against the wrongness of Voldemort’s rule. The stones he leaned on warmed in response to his thoughts of cold. He smiled fondly and rubbed the one under his hand, turning his thoughts and his eyes to the students clumping and trickling through the doors.
He wouldn’t normally bother to supervise Dueling Club, trusting Flitwick and the prefects to keep a lid on the hostilities poisoning every student interaction, but the portraits reported some of the Slytherins (his Slytherins! Had he managed to teach them nothing?) talking about needing to put some members of the other Houses in their proper place. He’d asked the portraits to warn Flitwick and the DA as well, but he felt it prudent to be closer to hand than his tower. No need to show himself yet, though. He wanted them to think of him as an absentee landlord, closed up in his office unable to control either faction in the school. The fewer eyes on him, the better he could work. Slughorn clearly needed to be reminded this year required firmer hands on the reins than his past wont.
The entrance of the Not So Golden Trio drew his focus from the Slytherins tucking themselves into a corner. He still wasn’t sure what metal they were made of. The Almost Chosen One, so full of fear he convinced himself everything was impossible; the Seventh Weasley, brimming with confidence and ruthlessness; the Girl Who Saw With Her Heart, wise and utterly disinterested in practicalities. It was almost alchemical, how such opposite groups1 could be working toward the same goal. He hesitated to call them leaden. They were, in their own way, just as brilliant, just as precious. Wary, too. Their wands weren’t out, but Longbottom and Weasley had theirs tucked up their sleeves, ready in an instant. Their eyes flicked side to side, taking in the entire room (at least at eye level). Lovegood trailed a couple steps behind, gaze turned to the places her companions’ missed. She gave Snape a smile and a little wave, which he hesitantly returned. After discovering the gallery, he’d plastered a white piece of parchment directly on the back side of the grate, and, even knowing exactly where it was, he hadn’t been able to see it from the floor of the Great Hall. He had no idea how she could have found him.
Flitwick gave her a puzzled frown from his perch on the high table. Snape was secretly gratified not even Lovegood’s head of house understood her. Although by his count the entirety of the usual participants was there, Flitwick did not shut the doors. McGonagall entered at the first crack of thunder outside. Snape approved of both her presence and sense of timing. The Slytherin knot in the corner quailed at the expression on her face, and Flitwick flicked his wand to shut the doors. The castle gave Snape the image of Amycus Carrow having just been smacked in the face by one of the oaken slabs. He cheered silently and levered himself up to go deal with Professor Thinks He’s A Silverback2 before Dueling Club could be turned into a professorial chest beating session.
Two and some hours after curfew, Hannah Abbot was about ready to wrap up her patrol and retreat to the warmth and light of the Hufflepuff common room. She was glad patrol was quiet, the corridors empty for once. With McGonagall backing up Flitwick, Dueling Club had been tense, but whatever was going to explode hadn’t. The portraits were afterwards full of whispers about Professor Snape cornering Professor Mr. Carrow in the Entrance Hall and threatening to let Flitwick start teaching Dark Arts once a week if Professor Mr. Carrow wanted to horn in on Dueling Club so badly. Most of the DA agreed the Carrows were, on a daily basis, worse than Snape and received the gossip with a grin. The storm was grumbling away outside, but seemed to be mostly past. She thought she might be able to sleep for once, despite the lingering tension pervading the air.
“Miss Abbott,” a sepulchral voice said behind her. Oddly, it was not the voice she least wanted to hear, even though it was right up there on the list. Her heart still dropped into her shoes. Professor Snape brushed past her before she could turn around. “Walk with me.”
After a minute, he huffed in exasperation and hitched his step, just one, so she was no longer behind him. She took the hint and stayed beside him after that. He didn’t seem to be walking as fast as usual, his head bowed, hands clasped behind his back. He wasn’t inclined to speak, and she didn’t dare. They wandered seemingly aimlessly for a while. There had been rumors about what a Death Eater’s personal attentions might mean, but, despite the ball of fear lurking in Hannah’s stomach, she found herself not giving them much credence. The man beside her was being neither violent nor seductive. For all the attention he was giving her, he might have forgotten her. He might have been a ghost.
They stopped in front of a broad, tall window on the fifth floor, clear between two stained glass ones. Professor Snape leaned against the casement with one shoulder, beckoned her beside him to look. Strewed across the wet grass under the nearly-full moon, from the castle walls to the edge of the Forest, more than a Quidditch pitch-length wide was a winding sea of red poppies. There had been no hint of them that afternoon. Some of the tension in the air, or perhaps just in her, eased.
“Do you know what day it is, Miss Abbott?” Soft as his voice was, she jumped. The great clock tolled midnight.
“Tuesday. November 11th, sir.” Then she understood. “Armistice Day.” She risked a look at him, then. He was still looking out the window. She never would have guessed. He’d done so well excising any sign of Muggle influence from himself. She tried to picture him in jeans under his robes, like her mother had worn, and couldn’t. “You’re not worried they’ll … catch you? That they’ll, um, understand?”
He favored her with the barest flick of his eye. “No. Poppies symbolize many things. If Professor Binns could ever get over his goblin hang-up long enough to get to the twentieth-century, you would know the First World War was only a minor event in wizarding consciousness. They know nothing of Flanders Field and still believe the Old Lie.”
They stared out the window together until she could hold the question in no longer. “Why, sir? Why this?”
Professor Snape fixed her with an intense stare. She couldn’t have looked away from him if she wanted to. She didn’t want to. “It wasn’t the promised War To End All Wars because some things that should have been forgotten were remembered, and some things that should have been remembered were forgotten.” He leaned in incrementally, almost undetectably. “It seems … relevant to current events.” He kept staring until she could bear his eyes no more and looked away. “Good night, Miss Abbott.” He shifted himself off the wall and was gone. She stayed for some time longer, half wishing Colin was there with his camera, half glad of being alone.
1I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS, OKAY Hermione in DH really made my eyebrow go up. Hermione’s character arc over the series makes my eyebrow go up. So do Harry’s and Ginny’s, TBH. I know Luna, Neville, and Ron would have taken twice as long to get anything done, but I can’t help wondering sometimes if everything would have gone better if they’d been The Team instead.
2Alecto is usually referred to as Professor Even More Dim. Severus considered calling Amycus Professor Neanderthal, but he thought that would be an insult to actual H. neanderthalensis.