With Grace In Your Heart (2/?) - Harry Potter
Story Title: ...With Grace In Your Heart
Chapter Title: The Moment Of Truth
Fandom: Harry Potter (Marauder's Era AU)
Characters/pairings: Mainly Severus/Laura (OFC), with background Lily/James. Largely focused (in this chapter) on Lily.
Warnings: AU. Um... possibly swearing later on? I don't know, it seems like a very PG fic.
Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Publishing. Laura is my friend Tina's. And the title is from the Mumford & Sons song After The Storm.
So basically, nothing is mine, and nothing makes profits, so all is well.
Summary: Since they first met, Severus Snape's life has revolved around one person; Lily Evans. And she's decided to change all that... by setting him up with someone else.
A totally self-indulgent AU exploring what could have been.
A/N: ...two chapters of the same fic, within a week of each other? That's gotta be a personal best!
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Severus Snape was quite possibly the best Potions partner it was possible to have. Not only because he was the single most skilled student at the art - not only because he frequently produced potions better than Slughorn's exemplars - but also because he was uniquely quiet and unobtrusive. Like Laura, he absorbed himself quickly in the process, rarely looking up from his ingredients and his textbook, except to ask for something he couldn't reach, in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the general hubbub. In short, conversation at their bench tended to be more or less non-existent, and both of them liked it that way.
Today, more than ever, Laura was glad of that. The silence gave her time to think, and, for once, she wasn't wholely concentrated on her own potion.
Lily's request had come out of the blue, or it had certainly seemed that way. And it had been, hands down, the strangest request Laura had ever been made. For a moment after she'd been asked, she'd just gaped, in a very un-Laura way. She hadn't known what she'd expected the Head Girl to ask - she had known she expected it to be something to do with Lily's position. Maybe something about how Severus had been acting this year, colder and more distant than ever, since they'd come back in September. Maybe something about class, even, or about Severus being bullied...
But when Lily had finally spat it out, cleared her throat and said simply, "I want you to ask Snape out," Laura had just been... stunned. Utterly thrown. It was such an unexpected request. But...
"Monkshood, please." Severus' voice interrupted her thoughts. Laura took a second to register that she'd already been mincing her leeches for far too long, and that Severus was several steps ahead of her in the recipe, and quickly put her knife to one side, passing him the yellow flowers. Monkshood wasn't in the original potion, of course, but their experiments had confirmed that it made a significant improvement.
He looked at her for a moment as he took the plants, his brow knitting slightly, as if with concern. For a moment, he looked as though he might ask her something - perhaps whether she was all right, or what was holding her back on the potion - but then he seemed to think better of it, turning away again to light a fire under his cauldron and begin stripping the monkshood.
Laura glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as she scraped the finely-chopped leeches into her own almost empty cauldron. He certainly wasn't what you'd call a catch. True, when he was as absorbed as this, the lines of his face softened slightly, and the loss of that perpetual sneer did a great deal for his looks. And perhaps, if you washed his hair and got rid of some of the oiliness of his skin, he might even not be ugly. But even then, it took a great deal of imagination, not to mention charity, to make him good-looking.
Then again, she'd never been much taken with how people looked. And she liked him. True, until Lily's insane suggestion, she'd never so much as given a passing thought to him in that way, but she liked him well enough. He shared her interests, he could be a surprisingly engaging conversationalist on the rare occasion that he was drawn into conversation, and, above all, they understood one another. They understood the drive for knowledge, the need for experiment and analysis, the near-obsession with order that both shared. It was still a mystery to her how he had failed to be Sorted into Ravenclaw. More than that, he was one of the few people she knew who was as comfortable with silence as she was. Like her, Severus liked to be alone; like her, he valued study over socialising. They had a great deal in common.
Yes, she liked him well enough, even if it was only as a friend. And really, there were much worse ways to spend a date than as friends. Or near-friends, she supposed; she wasn't presumptuous enough to think that Severus counted her as a real friend. To the best of her knowledge, since the incident with Lily in fifth year, there was nobody in the school who Severus counted as a real friend.
If nothing else, she thought, slicing her daisy roots up quickly and dropping them in the cauldron, it would be as good a way as any to spend a Hogsmeade trip.
That settled in her mind, she returned her full concentration to her potion, trying to make up the time she had lost in thought. It wasn't until halfway through the lesson, when both their potions were simmering away, that she turned to her partner.
"Severus?"
"Hm?" He reached over to stir his potion briefly, not looking up at her.
Oh, Merlin. How to even go about this, now her mind was made up? She wasn't exactly experienced in dating, since she was almost entirely uninterested in the whole thing... and Severus was unlikely to be the most receptive to the idea.
She settled for, "It's a Hogsmeade weekend soon," stirring her own potion carefully as she spoke.
"What a scintillating observation," he replied, his voice dry, and reached for the vial of dragon blood on the desk beside him. "I had no idea, with the way the entire school has been buzzing about it."
"Do you plan on going?"
He looked up at her then, one eyebrow arched sardonically as he uncorked the vial. "Laura, when, in all the time we have known one another, have I shown even the slightest interest in visiting Hogsmeade?"
It was a fair point. She had no idea whether he had even given the consent form to his parents. Severus' response to Hogsmeade trips turned apathy into an art form. She suspected he might actually enjoy being almost the only one in their year who still stayed at school on Hogsmeade weekends - and, to a certain degree, she could sympathise. To somebody like him, it must be quite pleasant to be able to wander the corridors in the fairly certain knowledge of no Potter, no Black, nobody to attack him or bother him or break into his thoughts. Still, she soldiered on.
"I thought we might go together." Then, when he didn't respond - just turned back to his potion, tilting the vial to drip in the three drops necessary for the tincture - she cleared her throat and went on, "As a couple, I mean."
That got a reaction. Severus spluttered, doing a rather comical double-take. Almost all of the dragon blood spilt into his gently steaming potion, sending up a cloud of acrid black smoke and turning the light blue liquid an angry, bruise-coloured purple. He coughed, waving away the smoke with one hand, but his attention was no longer on the ruined potion at all; instead, he stared at her, incredulous, for once seeming incapable even of sarcasm. "What?"
Laura was, for the moment, saved from having to answer (and in front of the entire class, who were now staring; it was rare for Severus Snape to make a potion which was less than perfect, much less mess it up as obviously and dramatically as that) by Professor Slughorn, who was clearly as surprised as the rest of the class by Severus' sudden lapse of skill. "Severus, m'boy, what was that all about?" he boomed, moving pondorously down the classroom towards them.
"Nothing, Professor." There were rare spots of colour on Severus' cheeks, faint but visible. His jaw was tight, lending his voice a tautness which sounded unusually genuine. Laura couldn't help feeling bad; she'd clearly caused that accident, and she knew how Severus valued appearances. "I hiccuped while I was pouring the dragon blood, that's all." There was a wave of giggles from some of the nearer benches, where the students were listening avidly. Severus ignored them, extinguishing the fire under his cauldron and looking briefly at the sizzling, foul-smelling potion he'd made. "I'm afraid it's ruined."
"I'm afraid it is," Slughorn agreed, waving smoke aside with one pudgy hand and frowning into the cauldron. "This isn't like you at all, Severus."
"No, Professor." Severus' voice was a study in neutrality. "If you don't mind me staying a little late, I can probably rectify this." He flicked his wand irritably at the bruise-coloured stuff, Vanishing it with a curl of his lip.
"My dear boy! I wouldn't dream of it!" Slughorn clapped him on the shoulder, making Severus' face darken; it didn't take any kind of familiarity with him to know that Slughorn's joviality grated on him. "You're clearly not well. Why don't you go to the Hospital Wing, sit this one out?"
Severus twitched away from the professor's hand slightly, his sneer more pronounced than ever. "I'm fine," he insisted, pulling his cauldron towards him. "Honestly, Professor, I'd rather you just left me to it."
Chapter Title: The Moment Of Truth
Fandom: Harry Potter (Marauder's Era AU)
Characters/pairings: Mainly Severus/Laura (OFC), with background Lily/James. Largely focused (in this chapter) on Lily.
Warnings: AU. Um... possibly swearing later on? I don't know, it seems like a very PG fic.
Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Publishing. Laura is my friend Tina's. And the title is from the Mumford & Sons song After The Storm.
So basically, nothing is mine, and nothing makes profits, so all is well.
Summary: Since they first met, Severus Snape's life has revolved around one person; Lily Evans. And she's decided to change all that... by setting him up with someone else.
A totally self-indulgent AU exploring what could have been.
A/N: ...two chapters of the same fic, within a week of each other? That's gotta be a personal best!
---------------
Severus Snape was quite possibly the best Potions partner it was possible to have. Not only because he was the single most skilled student at the art - not only because he frequently produced potions better than Slughorn's exemplars - but also because he was uniquely quiet and unobtrusive. Like Laura, he absorbed himself quickly in the process, rarely looking up from his ingredients and his textbook, except to ask for something he couldn't reach, in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the general hubbub. In short, conversation at their bench tended to be more or less non-existent, and both of them liked it that way.
Today, more than ever, Laura was glad of that. The silence gave her time to think, and, for once, she wasn't wholely concentrated on her own potion.
Lily's request had come out of the blue, or it had certainly seemed that way. And it had been, hands down, the strangest request Laura had ever been made. For a moment after she'd been asked, she'd just gaped, in a very un-Laura way. She hadn't known what she'd expected the Head Girl to ask - she had known she expected it to be something to do with Lily's position. Maybe something about how Severus had been acting this year, colder and more distant than ever, since they'd come back in September. Maybe something about class, even, or about Severus being bullied...
But when Lily had finally spat it out, cleared her throat and said simply, "I want you to ask Snape out," Laura had just been... stunned. Utterly thrown. It was such an unexpected request. But...
"Monkshood, please." Severus' voice interrupted her thoughts. Laura took a second to register that she'd already been mincing her leeches for far too long, and that Severus was several steps ahead of her in the recipe, and quickly put her knife to one side, passing him the yellow flowers. Monkshood wasn't in the original potion, of course, but their experiments had confirmed that it made a significant improvement.
He looked at her for a moment as he took the plants, his brow knitting slightly, as if with concern. For a moment, he looked as though he might ask her something - perhaps whether she was all right, or what was holding her back on the potion - but then he seemed to think better of it, turning away again to light a fire under his cauldron and begin stripping the monkshood.
Laura glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as she scraped the finely-chopped leeches into her own almost empty cauldron. He certainly wasn't what you'd call a catch. True, when he was as absorbed as this, the lines of his face softened slightly, and the loss of that perpetual sneer did a great deal for his looks. And perhaps, if you washed his hair and got rid of some of the oiliness of his skin, he might even not be ugly. But even then, it took a great deal of imagination, not to mention charity, to make him good-looking.
Then again, she'd never been much taken with how people looked. And she liked him. True, until Lily's insane suggestion, she'd never so much as given a passing thought to him in that way, but she liked him well enough. He shared her interests, he could be a surprisingly engaging conversationalist on the rare occasion that he was drawn into conversation, and, above all, they understood one another. They understood the drive for knowledge, the need for experiment and analysis, the near-obsession with order that both shared. It was still a mystery to her how he had failed to be Sorted into Ravenclaw. More than that, he was one of the few people she knew who was as comfortable with silence as she was. Like her, Severus liked to be alone; like her, he valued study over socialising. They had a great deal in common.
Yes, she liked him well enough, even if it was only as a friend. And really, there were much worse ways to spend a date than as friends. Or near-friends, she supposed; she wasn't presumptuous enough to think that Severus counted her as a real friend. To the best of her knowledge, since the incident with Lily in fifth year, there was nobody in the school who Severus counted as a real friend.
If nothing else, she thought, slicing her daisy roots up quickly and dropping them in the cauldron, it would be as good a way as any to spend a Hogsmeade trip.
That settled in her mind, she returned her full concentration to her potion, trying to make up the time she had lost in thought. It wasn't until halfway through the lesson, when both their potions were simmering away, that she turned to her partner.
"Severus?"
"Hm?" He reached over to stir his potion briefly, not looking up at her.
Oh, Merlin. How to even go about this, now her mind was made up? She wasn't exactly experienced in dating, since she was almost entirely uninterested in the whole thing... and Severus was unlikely to be the most receptive to the idea.
She settled for, "It's a Hogsmeade weekend soon," stirring her own potion carefully as she spoke.
"What a scintillating observation," he replied, his voice dry, and reached for the vial of dragon blood on the desk beside him. "I had no idea, with the way the entire school has been buzzing about it."
"Do you plan on going?"
He looked up at her then, one eyebrow arched sardonically as he uncorked the vial. "Laura, when, in all the time we have known one another, have I shown even the slightest interest in visiting Hogsmeade?"
It was a fair point. She had no idea whether he had even given the consent form to his parents. Severus' response to Hogsmeade trips turned apathy into an art form. She suspected he might actually enjoy being almost the only one in their year who still stayed at school on Hogsmeade weekends - and, to a certain degree, she could sympathise. To somebody like him, it must be quite pleasant to be able to wander the corridors in the fairly certain knowledge of no Potter, no Black, nobody to attack him or bother him or break into his thoughts. Still, she soldiered on.
"I thought we might go together." Then, when he didn't respond - just turned back to his potion, tilting the vial to drip in the three drops necessary for the tincture - she cleared her throat and went on, "As a couple, I mean."
That got a reaction. Severus spluttered, doing a rather comical double-take. Almost all of the dragon blood spilt into his gently steaming potion, sending up a cloud of acrid black smoke and turning the light blue liquid an angry, bruise-coloured purple. He coughed, waving away the smoke with one hand, but his attention was no longer on the ruined potion at all; instead, he stared at her, incredulous, for once seeming incapable even of sarcasm. "What?"
Laura was, for the moment, saved from having to answer (and in front of the entire class, who were now staring; it was rare for Severus Snape to make a potion which was less than perfect, much less mess it up as obviously and dramatically as that) by Professor Slughorn, who was clearly as surprised as the rest of the class by Severus' sudden lapse of skill. "Severus, m'boy, what was that all about?" he boomed, moving pondorously down the classroom towards them.
"Nothing, Professor." There were rare spots of colour on Severus' cheeks, faint but visible. His jaw was tight, lending his voice a tautness which sounded unusually genuine. Laura couldn't help feeling bad; she'd clearly caused that accident, and she knew how Severus valued appearances. "I hiccuped while I was pouring the dragon blood, that's all." There was a wave of giggles from some of the nearer benches, where the students were listening avidly. Severus ignored them, extinguishing the fire under his cauldron and looking briefly at the sizzling, foul-smelling potion he'd made. "I'm afraid it's ruined."
"I'm afraid it is," Slughorn agreed, waving smoke aside with one pudgy hand and frowning into the cauldron. "This isn't like you at all, Severus."
"No, Professor." Severus' voice was a study in neutrality. "If you don't mind me staying a little late, I can probably rectify this." He flicked his wand irritably at the bruise-coloured stuff, Vanishing it with a curl of his lip.
"My dear boy! I wouldn't dream of it!" Slughorn clapped him on the shoulder, making Severus' face darken; it didn't take any kind of familiarity with him to know that Slughorn's joviality grated on him. "You're clearly not well. Why don't you go to the Hospital Wing, sit this one out?"
Severus twitched away from the professor's hand slightly, his sneer more pronounced than ever. "I'm fine," he insisted, pulling his cauldron towards him. "Honestly, Professor, I'd rather you just left me to it."