Loose ends chapter 33 - Teacher
Snape educates werewolves and squibs. Oblique reference to rape and mental illness/ PTSD. PG.
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling (apart from references to Dr Seuss) and I make no claim or profit etc
Teacher
“Professor Snape, Professor Snape, are you okay?”
Eight sets of eyes were close to his face, and eight sets of hands appeared to be prodding him. He closed his eyes, moaning.
“Don’t crowd him, stand back.”
At the older girl’s command, he felt the hands leave him and things were suddenly quiet.
“Professor, would you like me to get someone to help? I can summon Lucretia.”
Her voice was unexpectedly gentle. He didn’t hear that tone often, just occasionally when the younger children were upset. It was disconcerting, he prefered her when she was bossy.
He shook his head, not trusting his voice.
“In that case, you must be okay. You’ll need to prove it to me. Can you open your eyes and sit up properly?”
That was better. That sounded like Matilda again. Snape realise that he was sitting on the floor, arms around his kneess, shaking. He opened his eyes and saw her crouched beside him. The other children were huddled behind, looking alarmed. Red looked like he might cry.
“Do you remember what happened, Professor?”
He frowned. He remembered an explosion. He’d… Merlin, he’d thought they were under attack.
“Red dropped too much mandrake root into his cauldron, and it blew up. You cast some sort of spell over us and then you just kind of fell down and sat there. Rocking and making noises.”
“Spell? Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt us? No, I think it was to protect us. Some kind of shield.”
Matilda tentatively touched his arm. He’d noticed she was very careful about touch, even with the older children. Only the two youngest did she tolerate placing a hand on her uninvited. She stayed away from the men and wore heavy, shapeless robes. She was pretty and blonde and he knew what Greyback would have done to her. But she seemed to cautiously tolerate Snape.
“Professor. Can you get up now? Maybe you should have a rest. Do you need someone to walk you to your room?”
He shook his head again and stood, still rather shaky.
“We will commence again at one thirty,” he said. “I… I will have lunch in my room.”
The children would be there and ready, he knew. They wouldn’t comment on the incident. There had been a number of such moments over the last month or so, and they accepted them as they accepted the quirks of the others. Matilda’s need for space, Red’s epic sulks which if interrupted could turn to explosive rage, Thomas’s tantrums, Lucy’s clinginess. They accepted that some of them were magical, and some were not. They accepted that once a month they would suffer agonising pain and turn into terrifying beasts.
He’d started with some basic spells for the three children who were both magical and old enough. They had one wand between them, and he complained to the Lupin on his next visit. Harry had turned up the next day, taking all three to Diagon Alley and returning with beautiful new wands and far too many sweets for the other children. Then he’d watched Keith, aged fifteen and a muggle, watching from the side and looking utterly left out. He found himself writing to Hermione Granger and requesting a torch, a radio and some batteries. She’d sent that, as well as a mysterious box which emitted beeps and was apparently some sort of muggle game. Magical and muggle alike were completely enraptured.
He tried them with herbology and some basic potions, which the muggle children could do at least part of. Keith had a distinct aptitude, and Snape wondered what the muggle equivalent of potions was.
Chemistry, Hermione had informed him when he found himself writing to her again, and she had sent a chemistry set as well as various extra substances and pieces of glassware. Keith had taken it off into a corner and had returned looking smug. He’d requested a flame to heat his experiment on, and the resulting smoke bomb had forced the clearing of the dining room.
Lupin had reminded him that several of the werewolves that came to the Institute to transform had supportive families or held down jobs, and might be able to help with teaching materials for the children. At the next full moon, he’d approached some of them, and had received in response a quantity of old textbooks both magical and muggle, as well as a series of muggle artifacts which made no sense to him. Nick Miller, who was an electrician and self-employed, did rather better. With Keith and Matilda’s assistance, he wired up a disused barn on the Institute grounds with lights and plugs, and provided a temperamental wind turbine and a rather more reliable but noisy diesel generator. Clarridge sent an old computer, and there was an awful row as Keith decided it belonged to him, as the eldest muggle. Matilda had been barely restrained from hexing him, as she was just as fascinated by the flickering screen.
With Nick teaching a range of practical skills, another muggle werewolf bringing newspapers and teaching them about current events, and Snape teaching potions, herbology, chemistry and various spells, the older children were well occupied. The younger children, however, proved something of a problem. Two were muggles, a brother and sister aged six and nine, and then there was a hyperactive little brat of seven called Oberon, who never left the others alone.
“They need the basics, Severus. Reading and writing. And just practice at sitting and focusing. You know, before you came, the only education they had apart from Andromeda and me was caring for the magical creatures. It was quite good for them, I think, like an apprenticeship. But they never sat and had a lesson. Everything was practical. Sara might remember how to read, but nobody’s even tried with Thomas and Oberon.”
“I… I wouldn’t know where to start.”
He found himself asking Lupin for advice more often than he thought he should.
“You could start by reading to them.”
“What am I going to read to them? One thousand magical herbs and fungi?”
Lupin smiled that damned smile again.
“They’d probably love Dr Seuss as much as Teddy does. But actually, I had another thought. Did you know Margaret Hopkins used to be a primary school teacher?”
Snape tried to imagine the slightly mad woman as a teacher. All she ever did was knit hideous outfits for the house elves. And drink. His distate probably showed on his face.
“She finds it hard to cope, Severus. She was turned years ago. All her family was killed apart from her. For a long time, she was the only muggle here.”
“I’m not letting a drunk anywhere near my children, Lupin.”
Lupin smiled.
“No, fair enough. But she doesn’t drink all the time, she just has bad patches. Maybe try talking to her. She’d know something about teaching children to read. She might have some ideas. She’d probably appreciate being asked.”
It had taken quite an effort to make himself talk to the woman that evening, to get past the smell of stale liquor. But her face had lit up with delight. She’d rambled about teaching, without imparting much of use, for the best part of an hour. The next day, he decided to try her in the morning. He requested a hangover potion from Wormwood and tried her at the indecently early hour of ten thirty. She’d been hostile until he handed over Wormwood’s potion, but then she’d been rather more informative in a rather shorter time.
He began visiting daily in the morning. After a few days, she refused the hangover potion. The following week, she asked whether she would be permitted to meet the children. A week later, she had Thomas, Oberon and Sara sitting on a mat in front of her and reciting the letters of the alphabet.
After another week, Matilda had appeared at the entrance to the old barn holding the hand of Octavian Temple.
As the children and two teachers turned to look at him, he began to shake, and looked as if he was about to run. Snape realised that the pair weren’t holding hands so much as Matilda was trying to drag him into the room.
“Come on, Tavi, you can do this.”
With his eyes on Matilda, he stepped through the doorway.
“Come on, Professor Snape won’t bite.”
Snape walked across to the young man. He’d only ever seen him at a distance, as he barely left the dragons.
“Octavian, nice to finally meet you.”
Octavian flinched away from the hand Snape offered.
“Professor Snape, Tavi has a request for you.”
Matilda elbowed him in the side. His eyes didn’t move from his feet, but very quietly he whispered “sir, please, I’d like to learn to read.”
Snape was silenced. It made sense that the Temple boys would be kept illiterate. That would stop them trying to learn any magic they weren’t permitted to.
“Of course, Octavian, you are very welcome. Why don’t you come and meet Mrs Hopkins.”
The young man followed hesitantly.
“Margaret, Octavian would like to learn to read.”
“Of course, dear. Would you like to join the children, or should I make another time?”
“He won’t mind joining the children, will you Tavi?”
Matilda gave him another prod and he nodded, eyes still glued to the floor.
When another two weeks had passed, Snape had been faced with a request from one of the dragon keepers to educate his youngest son, a twelve year old squib who was thoroughly miserable at the local muggle school. Somehow, he was unable to refuse, and he’d instructed the man to owl Clarridge regarding paperwork, since he suspected muggle schools didn’t normally expect students to disappear in the middle of term.
The boy turned up the following week, and the boy’s father handed Snape Clarridge’s pile of paperwork. As he read through the papers, he discovered that Severus Snape was now the headmaster of Arcadia School, Dartmoor, Devon, an ‘all-through school offering a innovative, practical educational approach for children requiring an alternative to the mainstream educational system’. He held the papers in his hand, uncertain of what to do with them. He felt embarrassed. He wasn’t trying to start a school, just help out because that bloody werewolf had asked him to.
Then he looked around and saw what he’d done. The barn walls were decorated with artwork that Margaret had the children doing, there were books filling the bookshelves that Nick had helped the children to build, the floors were stained where potions and experiments had gone wrong. And he realised he liked it. He wasn’t exactly patient with them, a lifetime of snapping and sarcasm wasn’t going to be undone in a few weeks, but they seemed to tolerate it. Just at they tolerated Margaret’s gifts of lurid jumpers and matching hats, although the patterns had improved now they were knitted sober.
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling (apart from references to Dr Seuss) and I make no claim or profit etc
Teacher
“Professor Snape, Professor Snape, are you okay?”
Eight sets of eyes were close to his face, and eight sets of hands appeared to be prodding him. He closed his eyes, moaning.
“Don’t crowd him, stand back.”
At the older girl’s command, he felt the hands leave him and things were suddenly quiet.
“Professor, would you like me to get someone to help? I can summon Lucretia.”
Her voice was unexpectedly gentle. He didn’t hear that tone often, just occasionally when the younger children were upset. It was disconcerting, he prefered her when she was bossy.
He shook his head, not trusting his voice.
“In that case, you must be okay. You’ll need to prove it to me. Can you open your eyes and sit up properly?”
That was better. That sounded like Matilda again. Snape realise that he was sitting on the floor, arms around his kneess, shaking. He opened his eyes and saw her crouched beside him. The other children were huddled behind, looking alarmed. Red looked like he might cry.
“Do you remember what happened, Professor?”
He frowned. He remembered an explosion. He’d… Merlin, he’d thought they were under attack.
“Red dropped too much mandrake root into his cauldron, and it blew up. You cast some sort of spell over us and then you just kind of fell down and sat there. Rocking and making noises.”
“Spell? Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt us? No, I think it was to protect us. Some kind of shield.”
Matilda tentatively touched his arm. He’d noticed she was very careful about touch, even with the older children. Only the two youngest did she tolerate placing a hand on her uninvited. She stayed away from the men and wore heavy, shapeless robes. She was pretty and blonde and he knew what Greyback would have done to her. But she seemed to cautiously tolerate Snape.
“Professor. Can you get up now? Maybe you should have a rest. Do you need someone to walk you to your room?”
He shook his head again and stood, still rather shaky.
“We will commence again at one thirty,” he said. “I… I will have lunch in my room.”
The children would be there and ready, he knew. They wouldn’t comment on the incident. There had been a number of such moments over the last month or so, and they accepted them as they accepted the quirks of the others. Matilda’s need for space, Red’s epic sulks which if interrupted could turn to explosive rage, Thomas’s tantrums, Lucy’s clinginess. They accepted that some of them were magical, and some were not. They accepted that once a month they would suffer agonising pain and turn into terrifying beasts.
He’d started with some basic spells for the three children who were both magical and old enough. They had one wand between them, and he complained to the Lupin on his next visit. Harry had turned up the next day, taking all three to Diagon Alley and returning with beautiful new wands and far too many sweets for the other children. Then he’d watched Keith, aged fifteen and a muggle, watching from the side and looking utterly left out. He found himself writing to Hermione Granger and requesting a torch, a radio and some batteries. She’d sent that, as well as a mysterious box which emitted beeps and was apparently some sort of muggle game. Magical and muggle alike were completely enraptured.
He tried them with herbology and some basic potions, which the muggle children could do at least part of. Keith had a distinct aptitude, and Snape wondered what the muggle equivalent of potions was.
Chemistry, Hermione had informed him when he found himself writing to her again, and she had sent a chemistry set as well as various extra substances and pieces of glassware. Keith had taken it off into a corner and had returned looking smug. He’d requested a flame to heat his experiment on, and the resulting smoke bomb had forced the clearing of the dining room.
Lupin had reminded him that several of the werewolves that came to the Institute to transform had supportive families or held down jobs, and might be able to help with teaching materials for the children. At the next full moon, he’d approached some of them, and had received in response a quantity of old textbooks both magical and muggle, as well as a series of muggle artifacts which made no sense to him. Nick Miller, who was an electrician and self-employed, did rather better. With Keith and Matilda’s assistance, he wired up a disused barn on the Institute grounds with lights and plugs, and provided a temperamental wind turbine and a rather more reliable but noisy diesel generator. Clarridge sent an old computer, and there was an awful row as Keith decided it belonged to him, as the eldest muggle. Matilda had been barely restrained from hexing him, as she was just as fascinated by the flickering screen.
With Nick teaching a range of practical skills, another muggle werewolf bringing newspapers and teaching them about current events, and Snape teaching potions, herbology, chemistry and various spells, the older children were well occupied. The younger children, however, proved something of a problem. Two were muggles, a brother and sister aged six and nine, and then there was a hyperactive little brat of seven called Oberon, who never left the others alone.
“They need the basics, Severus. Reading and writing. And just practice at sitting and focusing. You know, before you came, the only education they had apart from Andromeda and me was caring for the magical creatures. It was quite good for them, I think, like an apprenticeship. But they never sat and had a lesson. Everything was practical. Sara might remember how to read, but nobody’s even tried with Thomas and Oberon.”
“I… I wouldn’t know where to start.”
He found himself asking Lupin for advice more often than he thought he should.
“You could start by reading to them.”
“What am I going to read to them? One thousand magical herbs and fungi?”
Lupin smiled that damned smile again.
“They’d probably love Dr Seuss as much as Teddy does. But actually, I had another thought. Did you know Margaret Hopkins used to be a primary school teacher?”
Snape tried to imagine the slightly mad woman as a teacher. All she ever did was knit hideous outfits for the house elves. And drink. His distate probably showed on his face.
“She finds it hard to cope, Severus. She was turned years ago. All her family was killed apart from her. For a long time, she was the only muggle here.”
“I’m not letting a drunk anywhere near my children, Lupin.”
Lupin smiled.
“No, fair enough. But she doesn’t drink all the time, she just has bad patches. Maybe try talking to her. She’d know something about teaching children to read. She might have some ideas. She’d probably appreciate being asked.”
It had taken quite an effort to make himself talk to the woman that evening, to get past the smell of stale liquor. But her face had lit up with delight. She’d rambled about teaching, without imparting much of use, for the best part of an hour. The next day, he decided to try her in the morning. He requested a hangover potion from Wormwood and tried her at the indecently early hour of ten thirty. She’d been hostile until he handed over Wormwood’s potion, but then she’d been rather more informative in a rather shorter time.
He began visiting daily in the morning. After a few days, she refused the hangover potion. The following week, she asked whether she would be permitted to meet the children. A week later, she had Thomas, Oberon and Sara sitting on a mat in front of her and reciting the letters of the alphabet.
After another week, Matilda had appeared at the entrance to the old barn holding the hand of Octavian Temple.
As the children and two teachers turned to look at him, he began to shake, and looked as if he was about to run. Snape realised that the pair weren’t holding hands so much as Matilda was trying to drag him into the room.
“Come on, Tavi, you can do this.”
With his eyes on Matilda, he stepped through the doorway.
“Come on, Professor Snape won’t bite.”
Snape walked across to the young man. He’d only ever seen him at a distance, as he barely left the dragons.
“Octavian, nice to finally meet you.”
Octavian flinched away from the hand Snape offered.
“Professor Snape, Tavi has a request for you.”
Matilda elbowed him in the side. His eyes didn’t move from his feet, but very quietly he whispered “sir, please, I’d like to learn to read.”
Snape was silenced. It made sense that the Temple boys would be kept illiterate. That would stop them trying to learn any magic they weren’t permitted to.
“Of course, Octavian, you are very welcome. Why don’t you come and meet Mrs Hopkins.”
The young man followed hesitantly.
“Margaret, Octavian would like to learn to read.”
“Of course, dear. Would you like to join the children, or should I make another time?”
“He won’t mind joining the children, will you Tavi?”
Matilda gave him another prod and he nodded, eyes still glued to the floor.
When another two weeks had passed, Snape had been faced with a request from one of the dragon keepers to educate his youngest son, a twelve year old squib who was thoroughly miserable at the local muggle school. Somehow, he was unable to refuse, and he’d instructed the man to owl Clarridge regarding paperwork, since he suspected muggle schools didn’t normally expect students to disappear in the middle of term.
The boy turned up the following week, and the boy’s father handed Snape Clarridge’s pile of paperwork. As he read through the papers, he discovered that Severus Snape was now the headmaster of Arcadia School, Dartmoor, Devon, an ‘all-through school offering a innovative, practical educational approach for children requiring an alternative to the mainstream educational system’. He held the papers in his hand, uncertain of what to do with them. He felt embarrassed. He wasn’t trying to start a school, just help out because that bloody werewolf had asked him to.
Then he looked around and saw what he’d done. The barn walls were decorated with artwork that Margaret had the children doing, there were books filling the bookshelves that Nick had helped the children to build, the floors were stained where potions and experiments had gone wrong. And he realised he liked it. He wasn’t exactly patient with them, a lifetime of snapping and sarcasm wasn’t going to be undone in a few weeks, but they seemed to tolerate it. Just at they tolerated Margaret’s gifts of lurid jumpers and matching hats, although the patterns had improved now they were knitted sober.