The Watched Pot (PG; Severus, Eileen; 1968 words)
Title: The Watched Pot
Author:
iulia_linnea
Characters: Severus, Eileen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1968
Summary: In the aftermath, Severus has no plan other than a potion.
Disclaimer: This work of fan fiction is based on characters and situations created by J. K. Rowling and owned by J. K. Rowling and various publishers, including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made from (and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended by) the posting of this fan work.
Author's Note: Written as a Category Four entry for the 2023 run of snapecase.
Severus watches the "pot." It cannot be allowed to boil. At his right sits a pot of coffee, black and thick with licorice-disgusting, of course, but one can get used to anything over time, and it makes his throat unclench.
The rawness never seems to fade.
To his left, a pile of academic papers sits, so highly stacked that it precariously sways in the breeze from the open window. Fresh air can't harm what will come to be simmering in his pot on the stand, and he is well behind in his reading.
His reading-it's not as if he can read at the moment. Why has he brought the papers with him into the kitchen? He doesn't know. He's doing a lot of odd things of late. He feels . . . "discombobulated." He has heard his mother using this word, and a stupid one it is, too, and one he is surpised to hear fall from her lips each time it does, but nevertheless, it is a good word in this instance, this neverending instance in which Severus finds himself trying to live, to describe how he is feeling.
Confused, disconcerted, yes, Severus feels discombobulated. His childhood "home" is so different now. Everything is so very altered.
The cauldron-Severus shifts to find a more comfortable position in what has never been a particularly comfortable chair-he has seen ones like it that cost a small fortune! How has his mother come by it?
"You still in there?"
Speak of the devil, and she will appear, Severus thinks, issuing a grunt of assent.
Fuck.
His mother enters the kitchen. Severus knows this by her footfall, her perfume, and the noise she makes as she sets her groceries down on the worktop. He does not look away from the fancy, over-priced pot. He pays no mind to the watering of his eyes.
"It's an old wives' tale, you know," Eileen says.
"What is?"
"That a watched pot never boils. Eventually, with enough time and heat, everything boils."
Severus makes no reply at all; even a grunt is too painful.
Eileen sighs. "Have you eaten?"
"I'm not hungry," Severus grinds out.
Fuck.
"You are," Eilen replies, "but your throat hurts. . . . Soup?"
"I don't feel like cooking."
"I'm going to . . . give you," Eileen says, putting away her purchases, "a mug of broth, which . . . you will sip from . . . whilst staring at that . . . ridiculous cauldron. Where did you get it, anyway?"
Severus' eyes almost stray from the cauldron in question. "What do you mean, where did I get it? I pulled it out of the bottom cupboard by the fridge. It's your cauldron."
"It isn't. I've never seen it before today. I thought you bought it."
"Well, we know someone who didn't, don't we?" Severus manages to say through his pain.
Thinking of his father always brings pain.
Eileen stills. "You know, perhaps he did, before he left, I mean. That pot is exactly the sort of Halloweeny ornamental nonsense he'd have gone for in one of his better moments."
Severus snorts at her words, which he knows to be true, and regrets doing so at once. "Fuck. Fuck, that hurts."
"Then don't do it."
"Fine mother you are," replies Severus hoarsely.
"Better mother than you deserve, dear."
Fuck.
Severus flicks his eyes back to the pot immediately, and he regrets his failure. In spite of his carelessness, the cauldron's fire continues to burn, low, and no steam rises from the potion steeping within it.
"Oh, Severus, please don't provoke me. I don't want to fight before Brosey arrives."
"'Brosey'."
"Yes, and a finer man I've never met. He's nothing like your father was."
"How do you know for certain that it's a 'was' situation with him?"
"Severus," says Eileen, her hands on her hips visible from the corner of his eye, "Tobias is dead. Your 'friends' killed him. You saw them drag him away."
"That doesn't mean-no!"
Severus exclaims as Eileen thrusts her face into his, blocking his view of the cauldron.
"Listen to me, boy," she hisses, and in spite of the situation, Severus relaxes.
He is more familiar with this incarnation of Mam.
"You came here looking for Healing and shelter. You've rearranged my rooms, made bitchy little comments about the changes, been rude to Ambrose, snide about everything-I will not be shown such disrespect in my house by my son, or any man. Never again, Severus. Never. Ever. Again."
Eileen straightens up, a new witch. A witch, full stop-Severus doesn't know her and cannot keep his eyes off her.
"You will behave towards me with civility, or you will get out. Is that clear?"
Swallowing with some difficulty, Severus reaches for his coffee. Eileen moves forward to steady his hand when he almost drops the cup. His sips. He swallows. He sighs his relief.
"Yes. Yes, ma'am."
Eileen smiles, brightening the entire room. It's as if nothing untoward has occurred. It's . . . passing strange.
"Oh, I'm in your way," she tells him, moving out of it.
A knock falls upon the door.
"Brosey!" calls Eileen, as gay as a young girl.
Severus resolves to stay out of her way and continues to watch the pot. It cannot be allowed to boil.
He remembers walking into the kitchen and going right for the cupboard in which the cauldron is kept and realises that there must have been a Compulsion upon the cupboard.
Someone wanted me to find this cauldron. Not Da, and apparently, not Mam. Who does that leave?
Ambrose Crane is his mother's neighbour, a nice man, simple, has never married but keeps, for their area, at least, a splendid garden-"splendid" in that nothing planted in it dies. Crane has a green thumb. He credits, from what his mother has told Severus of his methods, his judicious use of fertiliser.
Is that reason enough for Mam to fancy the man? Severus doesn't know. His mother doesn't explain herself to him and never has. In fact, she's just told him more about herself in the last few moments than she's ever said about, well, anything-save Potions and spells. Mam has always been a teacher at heart.
Severus tries to feel grateful for this, but his throat pulses hot and sharp, his eyes sting, and his ears hear too much of the muffled, happy words that pass between his mother and "Brosey." He does not feel anything much beyond the pain of his injuries, the Dark ones and the childhood ones and the ones of his own making.
I thought I could come home, he thinks. Why? It has never truly been safe. But it is, he tells himself, what I know.
Perhaps that is the problem.
Yes, yes that is the problem.
Severus has never been, he knows, especially imaginative. He develops patterns in his actions and his speech and his thinking; he follows those patterns almost obsessively.
I follow those patterns. Obsessively.
He is not a man who embraces change; hence, the potion on the stove.
Magical grimoires are filled with bullshite, loads of steaming, useless piles of it in the form of draughts to "cure" all manner of ills. It's only rarely that Severus has found something truly new and useful in books of shadow. His tenure of Headmastership was his least favourite time at Hogwarts for so many fucking reasons, but it has given him something: a book of brewing without artifice or ill intent.
The Book of Brewing, without Artifice or Ill Intent is, in fact, the handwritten title scrawled across the cover. It is sitting under all the papers that Severus knows he has no real intention of ever reading.
What would be the point?
Severus has kept the tome upon his person in a secret and protected pocket in his robes since he discovered it in the Headmaster's Section of the Restricted Section of the library. He has not had occasion to brew from it until this very day, and that is why the cauldron before him cannot be allowed to boil.
Not until it is time, he tells himself.
Severus does not want to ruin the potion. It will remake him, a man without memory. Perhaps that will make the physical pain easier to bear. Severus does not know. He only knows that he is heartily sick of being who he is, who he has been, and he knows that he will never change himself without help. As Severus does not trust, he must help himself.
You are trusting a book, he tells himself, which means that you are trusting some unknown potioneer. Is that wise?
Of course it fucking isn't, but Severus is desperate to forget . . . everything.
Through watery eyes, Severus notices the pot grow a bubble. It does not pop. Steam collects in the cauldron.
I need the last ingredient.
Without pausing, Severus yanks a handful of hair out of his head.
"Fuck!"
Forcing himself to stare at the potion, he sees irridescent waves shimmer on its surface.
Good. That's good. It's almost time. . . . Shite.
Is it disrespectful, he wonders, to effect such a transformation in his mother's house? Without telling her?
Do I care?
Severus knows the answer to this: no, he does not. That does make him a horrible son, he reflects, but then, he is long used to being horrible, so it doesn't trouble him overmuch.
"Severus?"
"Fuck!"
"It's fine, Brosey," Eileen calls over her shoulder, before she steps all the way into the kitchen and closes the door. "I know what you're about, boy, er, dear. It's fine, but have you more of a plan than your father did?"
"What are you talking about? Da was murdered to hear you tell it."
"I know it's still difficult for you to accept, Severus, but you tell it to yourself the same way. You just don't want to admit it to me because you feel guilty."
"Why should I? He was awful, an awful man. An awful da."
"I know, but he was yours, and change is hard. And we both loved him."
The tears threaten. Severus threatens them back. They do not fall.
"It was an awful thing as happened, Severus, and even though you were stupid to get involved with . . . those boys, Tobias' death isn't on your head."
Anger and pain shoot through Severus' underfed frame, but he doesn't speak of them. Instead, he asks, "You believe that, Mam? Truly?"
"I do. I do believe it. And Ambrose has told me something that you should know, you know, before," Eileen continues, gesturing at the cauldron.
Severus glances at it. It's still not boiling. He turns back to his mother and waits for her to speak.
"Tobias did come up with that silly pot. It was to be for you one Christmas, years ago, and he left it with Brosey so as not to ruin the surprise."
Remembering the Compulsion Charm on the cabinet, Severus starts and looks at Eileen quizzically.
"Yes, Brosey's a wizard. I only recently found that out."
"I don't believe you." Severus does not believe her-not about Ambrose's being a wizard, but about his own father. "He never, he wouldn't-that cauldron's worth too much drink to-I don't believe it."
Eileen's smile is soft.
Who is this woman? Severus wonders.
Eileen's eyes are soft, as well, as she tells him, "Don't lie, especially to yourself. Of course you believe it. You know that your father loved you . . . in his way."
My father hated himself and the love of his life. My father was incapable of love. I hate my father! I'm glad that he's-
Eileen's words interrupt Severus' train of thought. "I think it's time."
Severus wipes his eyes even though they are dry and turns to the cauldron. Steam is coiling upwards from it; a simmer is starting.
"Almost," he says. "It's almost time, Mam. Are you . . . do you . . . is it okay?"
Eileen moves forward and lays a hand on Severus' shoulder. "I'm not angry, you don't need my forgiveness, and of course it's okay."
Severus doesn't know how to feel as he sees the bubbles form, and because he doesn't know how to think about it, or even what to think about it, he doesn't think at all. He just acts.
Hisssssss!
The hair dissolves at once in the boiling cauldron's contents, and it's his own mother who ladles the potion into a mug before handing it to him to drink.
"Goodbye, my son. I will miss you."
"No you won't, Mam."
And Severus drinks.
Author:
iulia_linnea
Characters: Severus, Eileen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1968
Summary: In the aftermath, Severus has no plan other than a potion.
Disclaimer: This work of fan fiction is based on characters and situations created by J. K. Rowling and owned by J. K. Rowling and various publishers, including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made from (and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended by) the posting of this fan work.
Author's Note: Written as a Category Four entry for the 2023 run of snapecase.
Severus watches the "pot." It cannot be allowed to boil. At his right sits a pot of coffee, black and thick with licorice-disgusting, of course, but one can get used to anything over time, and it makes his throat unclench.
The rawness never seems to fade.
To his left, a pile of academic papers sits, so highly stacked that it precariously sways in the breeze from the open window. Fresh air can't harm what will come to be simmering in his pot on the stand, and he is well behind in his reading.
His reading-it's not as if he can read at the moment. Why has he brought the papers with him into the kitchen? He doesn't know. He's doing a lot of odd things of late. He feels . . . "discombobulated." He has heard his mother using this word, and a stupid one it is, too, and one he is surpised to hear fall from her lips each time it does, but nevertheless, it is a good word in this instance, this neverending instance in which Severus finds himself trying to live, to describe how he is feeling.
Confused, disconcerted, yes, Severus feels discombobulated. His childhood "home" is so different now. Everything is so very altered.
The cauldron-Severus shifts to find a more comfortable position in what has never been a particularly comfortable chair-he has seen ones like it that cost a small fortune! How has his mother come by it?
"You still in there?"
Speak of the devil, and she will appear, Severus thinks, issuing a grunt of assent.
Fuck.
His mother enters the kitchen. Severus knows this by her footfall, her perfume, and the noise she makes as she sets her groceries down on the worktop. He does not look away from the fancy, over-priced pot. He pays no mind to the watering of his eyes.
"It's an old wives' tale, you know," Eileen says.
"What is?"
"That a watched pot never boils. Eventually, with enough time and heat, everything boils."
Severus makes no reply at all; even a grunt is too painful.
Eileen sighs. "Have you eaten?"
"I'm not hungry," Severus grinds out.
Fuck.
"You are," Eilen replies, "but your throat hurts. . . . Soup?"
"I don't feel like cooking."
"I'm going to . . . give you," Eileen says, putting away her purchases, "a mug of broth, which . . . you will sip from . . . whilst staring at that . . . ridiculous cauldron. Where did you get it, anyway?"
Severus' eyes almost stray from the cauldron in question. "What do you mean, where did I get it? I pulled it out of the bottom cupboard by the fridge. It's your cauldron."
"It isn't. I've never seen it before today. I thought you bought it."
"Well, we know someone who didn't, don't we?" Severus manages to say through his pain.
Thinking of his father always brings pain.
Eileen stills. "You know, perhaps he did, before he left, I mean. That pot is exactly the sort of Halloweeny ornamental nonsense he'd have gone for in one of his better moments."
Severus snorts at her words, which he knows to be true, and regrets doing so at once. "Fuck. Fuck, that hurts."
"Then don't do it."
"Fine mother you are," replies Severus hoarsely.
"Better mother than you deserve, dear."
Fuck.
Severus flicks his eyes back to the pot immediately, and he regrets his failure. In spite of his carelessness, the cauldron's fire continues to burn, low, and no steam rises from the potion steeping within it.
"Oh, Severus, please don't provoke me. I don't want to fight before Brosey arrives."
"'Brosey'."
"Yes, and a finer man I've never met. He's nothing like your father was."
"How do you know for certain that it's a 'was' situation with him?"
"Severus," says Eileen, her hands on her hips visible from the corner of his eye, "Tobias is dead. Your 'friends' killed him. You saw them drag him away."
"That doesn't mean-no!"
Severus exclaims as Eileen thrusts her face into his, blocking his view of the cauldron.
"Listen to me, boy," she hisses, and in spite of the situation, Severus relaxes.
He is more familiar with this incarnation of Mam.
"You came here looking for Healing and shelter. You've rearranged my rooms, made bitchy little comments about the changes, been rude to Ambrose, snide about everything-I will not be shown such disrespect in my house by my son, or any man. Never again, Severus. Never. Ever. Again."
Eileen straightens up, a new witch. A witch, full stop-Severus doesn't know her and cannot keep his eyes off her.
"You will behave towards me with civility, or you will get out. Is that clear?"
Swallowing with some difficulty, Severus reaches for his coffee. Eileen moves forward to steady his hand when he almost drops the cup. His sips. He swallows. He sighs his relief.
"Yes. Yes, ma'am."
Eileen smiles, brightening the entire room. It's as if nothing untoward has occurred. It's . . . passing strange.
"Oh, I'm in your way," she tells him, moving out of it.
A knock falls upon the door.
"Brosey!" calls Eileen, as gay as a young girl.
Severus resolves to stay out of her way and continues to watch the pot. It cannot be allowed to boil.
He remembers walking into the kitchen and going right for the cupboard in which the cauldron is kept and realises that there must have been a Compulsion upon the cupboard.
Someone wanted me to find this cauldron. Not Da, and apparently, not Mam. Who does that leave?
Ambrose Crane is his mother's neighbour, a nice man, simple, has never married but keeps, for their area, at least, a splendid garden-"splendid" in that nothing planted in it dies. Crane has a green thumb. He credits, from what his mother has told Severus of his methods, his judicious use of fertiliser.
Is that reason enough for Mam to fancy the man? Severus doesn't know. His mother doesn't explain herself to him and never has. In fact, she's just told him more about herself in the last few moments than she's ever said about, well, anything-save Potions and spells. Mam has always been a teacher at heart.
Severus tries to feel grateful for this, but his throat pulses hot and sharp, his eyes sting, and his ears hear too much of the muffled, happy words that pass between his mother and "Brosey." He does not feel anything much beyond the pain of his injuries, the Dark ones and the childhood ones and the ones of his own making.
I thought I could come home, he thinks. Why? It has never truly been safe. But it is, he tells himself, what I know.
Perhaps that is the problem.
Yes, yes that is the problem.
Severus has never been, he knows, especially imaginative. He develops patterns in his actions and his speech and his thinking; he follows those patterns almost obsessively.
I follow those patterns. Obsessively.
He is not a man who embraces change; hence, the potion on the stove.
Magical grimoires are filled with bullshite, loads of steaming, useless piles of it in the form of draughts to "cure" all manner of ills. It's only rarely that Severus has found something truly new and useful in books of shadow. His tenure of Headmastership was his least favourite time at Hogwarts for so many fucking reasons, but it has given him something: a book of brewing without artifice or ill intent.
The Book of Brewing, without Artifice or Ill Intent is, in fact, the handwritten title scrawled across the cover. It is sitting under all the papers that Severus knows he has no real intention of ever reading.
What would be the point?
Severus has kept the tome upon his person in a secret and protected pocket in his robes since he discovered it in the Headmaster's Section of the Restricted Section of the library. He has not had occasion to brew from it until this very day, and that is why the cauldron before him cannot be allowed to boil.
Not until it is time, he tells himself.
Severus does not want to ruin the potion. It will remake him, a man without memory. Perhaps that will make the physical pain easier to bear. Severus does not know. He only knows that he is heartily sick of being who he is, who he has been, and he knows that he will never change himself without help. As Severus does not trust, he must help himself.
You are trusting a book, he tells himself, which means that you are trusting some unknown potioneer. Is that wise?
Of course it fucking isn't, but Severus is desperate to forget . . . everything.
Through watery eyes, Severus notices the pot grow a bubble. It does not pop. Steam collects in the cauldron.
I need the last ingredient.
Without pausing, Severus yanks a handful of hair out of his head.
"Fuck!"
Forcing himself to stare at the potion, he sees irridescent waves shimmer on its surface.
Good. That's good. It's almost time. . . . Shite.
Is it disrespectful, he wonders, to effect such a transformation in his mother's house? Without telling her?
Do I care?
Severus knows the answer to this: no, he does not. That does make him a horrible son, he reflects, but then, he is long used to being horrible, so it doesn't trouble him overmuch.
"Severus?"
"Fuck!"
"It's fine, Brosey," Eileen calls over her shoulder, before she steps all the way into the kitchen and closes the door. "I know what you're about, boy, er, dear. It's fine, but have you more of a plan than your father did?"
"What are you talking about? Da was murdered to hear you tell it."
"I know it's still difficult for you to accept, Severus, but you tell it to yourself the same way. You just don't want to admit it to me because you feel guilty."
"Why should I? He was awful, an awful man. An awful da."
"I know, but he was yours, and change is hard. And we both loved him."
The tears threaten. Severus threatens them back. They do not fall.
"It was an awful thing as happened, Severus, and even though you were stupid to get involved with . . . those boys, Tobias' death isn't on your head."
Anger and pain shoot through Severus' underfed frame, but he doesn't speak of them. Instead, he asks, "You believe that, Mam? Truly?"
"I do. I do believe it. And Ambrose has told me something that you should know, you know, before," Eileen continues, gesturing at the cauldron.
Severus glances at it. It's still not boiling. He turns back to his mother and waits for her to speak.
"Tobias did come up with that silly pot. It was to be for you one Christmas, years ago, and he left it with Brosey so as not to ruin the surprise."
Remembering the Compulsion Charm on the cabinet, Severus starts and looks at Eileen quizzically.
"Yes, Brosey's a wizard. I only recently found that out."
"I don't believe you." Severus does not believe her-not about Ambrose's being a wizard, but about his own father. "He never, he wouldn't-that cauldron's worth too much drink to-I don't believe it."
Eileen's smile is soft.
Who is this woman? Severus wonders.
Eileen's eyes are soft, as well, as she tells him, "Don't lie, especially to yourself. Of course you believe it. You know that your father loved you . . . in his way."
My father hated himself and the love of his life. My father was incapable of love. I hate my father! I'm glad that he's-
Eileen's words interrupt Severus' train of thought. "I think it's time."
Severus wipes his eyes even though they are dry and turns to the cauldron. Steam is coiling upwards from it; a simmer is starting.
"Almost," he says. "It's almost time, Mam. Are you . . . do you . . . is it okay?"
Eileen moves forward and lays a hand on Severus' shoulder. "I'm not angry, you don't need my forgiveness, and of course it's okay."
Severus doesn't know how to feel as he sees the bubbles form, and because he doesn't know how to think about it, or even what to think about it, he doesn't think at all. He just acts.
Hisssssss!
The hair dissolves at once in the boiling cauldron's contents, and it's his own mother who ladles the potion into a mug before handing it to him to drink.
"Goodbye, my son. I will miss you."
"No you won't, Mam."
And Severus drinks.