Advent 2010: December 8: Slytherin Pride
Title: Slytherin Pride
Author: janus
Rating: G
Characters: Severus
Word Count: 465
Warnings: Slytherin's key quality is pride. But other Houses would have different key qualities. This does not make them less, just different. Sprout's title could read Hufflepuff Humanitarians. Flitwick's title could read Ravenclaw Wisdom. McGonnagal's title could read Gryffindor Heroes. These would be different stories, of different Houses with different needs, goals and aptitudes. Slytherin means a great deal to my Severus.
Summary: Severus considers what it should mean to be Head of Slytherin and formulates a program to develop character and feed the characteristics that placed his charges in his House.
Prompt: Severus' first year teaching
Severus thought carefully about his young snakes. This was his goal and his star now; it was all he had left. He thought about Slughorn, and all he should have been to Severus himself, and all he had not been.
Slughorn had been wrong. He had left them alone. He had selected them, had taken them, not for ambition or talent, or anything but for his gain. That was not what it was to be Slytherin. It wasn't selfishness, or fame, it was merit, and it was unity. Slytherin was where one found one's real friends. Slytherin was about being best, being brilliant, about perfection and beyond. Slytherin was about the high beauty and resounding triumph with one's heartfelt kin that was transcendence of... well of everything. This was what they needed. It was this for which each Slytherin yearned.
Slughorn's House had been mean and petty. It had been directionless, with the worst scrabbling for favour and the best standing free and disdainful. Severus had found friends, but that was from his own merit, and almost extra-curricular. It had not been endemic to the House itself, for all his House represented his friends and their unity.
Severus and his friends had worked for the new world. That was not something for the Slytherins now. Not any more. They would all be watched. Any dream for which they all strove together would be suspect. Severus thought with pain of Regulus bright trusting eyes, laughing with joy at promise. Would that ever ring for these young ones?
But the thought came: They are at school.
School was a place to learn, a place to temper magic, to hone it to perfection. It did not need to be a place to attain glory. It was a place to learn to attain it. He would teach them this. He would teach them that they could work together to be glorious, to be best, that they each could use their brilliance and their lights to learn to rise.
The House Cup.
He would explain to them frankly what it meant, what they were really working for, what they were really learning. For honesty and truth was what they deserved. If they understood he confidently expected greatness from them and respected their pride, they would be proud and strive for greatness. They would not wish to lose his faith. He was, after all, of their parents milieu which had begun in this House.
And he gathered them around him in the Common Room on the first day of school. And he told them. And they listened. And they loved him. And they won the House Cup year after year after year. Because they were great, and because they knew what they were doing.
first posted to my dreamwidth account.
Author: janus
Rating: G
Characters: Severus
Word Count: 465
Warnings: Slytherin's key quality is pride. But other Houses would have different key qualities. This does not make them less, just different. Sprout's title could read Hufflepuff Humanitarians. Flitwick's title could read Ravenclaw Wisdom. McGonnagal's title could read Gryffindor Heroes. These would be different stories, of different Houses with different needs, goals and aptitudes. Slytherin means a great deal to my Severus.
Summary: Severus considers what it should mean to be Head of Slytherin and formulates a program to develop character and feed the characteristics that placed his charges in his House.
Prompt: Severus' first year teaching
Severus thought carefully about his young snakes. This was his goal and his star now; it was all he had left. He thought about Slughorn, and all he should have been to Severus himself, and all he had not been.
Slughorn had been wrong. He had left them alone. He had selected them, had taken them, not for ambition or talent, or anything but for his gain. That was not what it was to be Slytherin. It wasn't selfishness, or fame, it was merit, and it was unity. Slytherin was where one found one's real friends. Slytherin was about being best, being brilliant, about perfection and beyond. Slytherin was about the high beauty and resounding triumph with one's heartfelt kin that was transcendence of... well of everything. This was what they needed. It was this for which each Slytherin yearned.
Slughorn's House had been mean and petty. It had been directionless, with the worst scrabbling for favour and the best standing free and disdainful. Severus had found friends, but that was from his own merit, and almost extra-curricular. It had not been endemic to the House itself, for all his House represented his friends and their unity.
Severus and his friends had worked for the new world. That was not something for the Slytherins now. Not any more. They would all be watched. Any dream for which they all strove together would be suspect. Severus thought with pain of Regulus bright trusting eyes, laughing with joy at promise. Would that ever ring for these young ones?
But the thought came: They are at school.
School was a place to learn, a place to temper magic, to hone it to perfection. It did not need to be a place to attain glory. It was a place to learn to attain it. He would teach them this. He would teach them that they could work together to be glorious, to be best, that they each could use their brilliance and their lights to learn to rise.
The House Cup.
He would explain to them frankly what it meant, what they were really working for, what they were really learning. For honesty and truth was what they deserved. If they understood he confidently expected greatness from them and respected their pride, they would be proud and strive for greatness. They would not wish to lose his faith. He was, after all, of their parents milieu which had begun in this House.
And he gathered them around him in the Common Room on the first day of school. And he told them. And they listened. And they loved him. And they won the House Cup year after year after year. Because they were great, and because they knew what they were doing.
first posted to my dreamwidth account.