Old Beginnings.
HERE WE ARE.
It's the longest chapter I've written but I intend to make further ones longer; again, it's transitional - so no high speed car chases, casinos and scantily-clad women just yet. It's going to be a long story... I'm currently in the process of trying to find a good fic site to post it.
I actually spent most of my writing time figuring out Marauders-era timelines to make sure I didn't have people there who were meant to have graduated five years ago etc. etc. So I couldn't have my favourite characters like Lucius, Narcissa and Bellatrix (who are all... extremo older than Snape and the Marauders) there. Shmeh.
Enjoy. Comment. If you want.
-----------------------
For your reference:
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Title: Malady of a Prince.
Chapter Title: Old Beginnings.
Chapter: 4/?
Word count: 2 506.
Type: Angst/GenFic.
Rating: G
Warnings: Like... one swear word.
Disclaimer: Do not own.
CHAPTER IV: Old Beginnings
It was a frustrating journey to Kings Cross…
Stuck, once again, next to the car window - only this time with the reassurance that he would not be repeating the drive any time soon - Severus managed to concentrate enough on the expectations of his final semester; not enough to completely drown out Tobias’ obnoxious sing-alongs to the Muggle radio, but enough to get by.
Tobias had been quieter than normal this morning, and despite recently having her wand snapped in two and a son who was losing all faith in her - Eileen appeared… apprehensively joyful. It was an odd combination and one that Severus did not take quite the trusting shine to.
She purposely held him back that morning as Tobias was starting up the car. As Severus hastily gathered up his Hogwarts trunk and made to bustle out the door, she had pulled him back into a tight embrace. After a few moments resistance he merely stood awkwardly on the spot, not feeling the most comfortable person in the world. He wished the damned woman would let go - she had lost her opportunity years ago and they both knew it.
“Take care,” she whispered as she firmly kissed the side of his head. “Don’t let those - those boys believe you’re beneath them. You’re a Prince, like me.”
Severus frowned cynically. It may have been true on his part - but certainly not hers.
“Mmhhmm,” he mumbled, his mouth squashed against his mothers shoulder. She heaved a great sigh and pulled back… her cheeks were wet.
“You’re all grown up, Severus” Eileen said while grasping the lapels of his jacket and wiping the wet patch away. “Soon you’ll be able to move away from here.” Severus frowned; she appeared bizarrely happy about that. He felt rather affronted.
“I suppose” was all he could muster. The car horn beeped a few times from the driveway.
“Need any help with your trunk?”
“No, I’m fine!” Honestly! What on earth had gotten into the woman today? The whole ‘benevolence façade’ was beginning to vex him in a rather significant fashion. “If you’re so concerned all of a sudden, why aren’t you coming to see me off?” he spat out as his anger at her continued to rise.
Eileen tugged on his coat with a great heaving sigh.
“I… can’t,” and she had, once again, returned to her frail tones.
“No, you didn’t really need to answer, mother. But if ever you have the urge to be honest, you could just admit that you aren’t bothered with me”, he grasped the handle of his trunk and began to heave the thing out of the front door. He sincerely hoped that this last semester would last forever.
Before she could get the chance to respond, the front door closed with a vociferous click.
~
“Well you're built like a car. You've got a hub cap diamond star halo… you're dirty sweet and you're my girl…”
Severus momentarily frowned at his father. What on earth did anyone see in Muggle music? You’re built like a car…?
“Bang a gong… get it- What you lookin’ at me like that for?!” Tobias barked crossly, without taking his eyes off the road. “It’s T-Rex! Honestly, you’d think you were from another world…”
That’s because I am, you utter moron. Severus sat back, feeling a wave of pleasure wash over him at insulting his father without his knowledge. The impenetrable mind was a beautiful thing indeed.
“…anyway,” he continued through the silence, music still blaring, “you thought about what you’re going to do after… this thing? S’your last semester isn’t it?” - he typically referred to Hogwarts as if it were some out-of-school hobby that Severus had picked up out of interest. Severus merely shrugged. He did not wish to go into a discussion about Wizarding careers with a complete Muggle dogmatist.
“I know you’ve inherited your mums love of science. Maybe you should go to university and study medicine. You know, proper science, n’all” he prompted. Severus knew he was only trying to get him to rise - and he wasn’t going to give Tobias the satisfaction. He shrugged again, focusing all of his attention on the car vent in front of him.
“Yeah, mum could have been a wonderful scientist if she had bothered to get off her arse and try. Threw it all away on believing that she was a fucking Sorceress - look where that got her, eh? No. You’ll be different, Severus, you’ll be a proper rich doctor, a proper scientist - you could even be a surgeon! That’d show your mum how wrong she was! Dr. Snape, eh!”
Severus’ hands were clenched so tightly that they began to burn.
Tobias didn’t say another word until they reached Kings Cross. Severus, having had just about enough of Muggle culture to last him a lifetime, opened the door and dashed out before the car had even stopped. To his surprise, Tobias had followed him to the boot.
“You’ll only scratch the car, Sev,” he explained as he heaved the Hogwarts trunk out and let it fall to the ground; Severus cringed at the thought of all his delicate Potions equipment inside.
“Right,” Tobias dusted off his hands as if finishing an entire days work. “You’re on your own then, son. When you come back, we’ll have a talk about university.” He clapped him on his back, not without Severus subconsciously tensing up - inches from cursing the man into oblivion, before heading back around to the driver’s side.
Severus breathed a short sigh of relief before dragging his trunk along the gravel and into the station. It was short in both meanings of the word… he soon felt a pang of guilt of managing to free himself from that place, even for just a while, as his mother was now left utterly to her own devices. He could almost feel her grief - in fact, it grew into such an overwhelming sensation in the pit of his stomach that he could have sworn he actually was. It was through pure force that he impelled himself to remember her insistent refusal to accompany him to Diagon Alley and King’s Cross; the way she cowered and closed her eyes as the husband she kept proclaiming to love snapped her wand - the remaining connection to the only world she knew.
There was only one way of dealing with this… and that was to forget it. Soon, he would be completely independent of the both of them and that private hellhole of a house.
Platform 9 ¾ was always littered with families. Mothers and fathers kissing and waving their children goodbye - some with the odd tear or two running down their faces - as if they’d never see each other again. Severus knew virtually none of these people, but he hated all of them.
~
The Hogwarts Express had been on its way for a full twenty minutes before someone opened the carriage door. Severus didn’t bother to look up from his book.
“There you are, Severus!”
“Regulus,” he acknowledged, still deeply buried in Advanced Arithmancy: for the Advanced Witch or Wizard - a subject for which he would be taking his NEWTs this last semester.
“Was wondering if you managed to even catch the train” Regulus said, jumping practically three feet in the air and coming down hard on the seat - greatly distracting Severus from his reading. “We’re three compartments down, come on.”
Severus had returned to his book after shooting an aggravated glance at Regulus’s disruptions. “No thank you, Regulus, I’d prefer to be here as opposed to being forced to listen to everyone’s meaningless holiday stories that no-one actually cares about-”
“I just pretend to care!”
“Why on earth would you bother doing such a thing?”
“Because then people have to listen to me.”
There were so many things wrong with Regulus’s rationalisation that Severus didn’t even bother; he mentally rolled his eyes and flipped the page of his book, detailing intricate numerological charts. To his great annoyance, his silence did not deter the company.
“So how’s life?” Regulus asked, seemingly quite innocuously. Severus shifted uneasily.
“Getting progressively more trying by the second” he mumbled in reply. Regulus did not seem to take the hint.
“Yeah,” he continued, as if everything Severus was saying was simply not reaching his ears. “Had a rather good Christmas. Got a new broomstick from mother and father, top of the range, mind. Wish I could have seen the look on Sirius’s face…”
“Wish?”
“Yeah,” Regulus replied, leaning forward with a growing smirk on his face, “the little blood-traitor ran away - said he couldn’t stand it any longer. Mother’s burned him off the tapestry!”
“Indeed?” this was about the only interesting news to come from Regulus today. Severus allowed himself a moment’s pleasure in imagining Sirius eating from a dustbin before turning back to Regulus. “What you mean your mother burned him off the tapestry? Set him on fire, did she?” he said with a slight smirk.
“The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black,” Regulus said - puffing out his chest slightly and sounding ridiculously pompous. “All the very noble pure-blood families have tapestries, every time a Black is born they are added to the family tree - granted they aren’t Squibs of course. If they turn against the family, mother burns their names off. My family spans back to the Middle Ages; we have no tolerance for blood traitors or anything other than pure Wizarding-”
“I get the picture,” Severus shot back curtly. Snapping the book shut, he folded his arms and looked darkly out of the window at the rolling hills. So that was how all the Slytherins in his year knew he wasn’t be a pure-blood from the beginning; Snape would be the last surname to end up on a Wizarding family tapestry.
A part of him, though realising that he would always be a half-blood and the prospects of change were nada, wondered if his maternal grandparents possessed a Prince family tapestry. He would be able to ask them himself if he knew where they or any of the Princes were… another ever so graciously accepting intervention on the Snapes part.
“Obviously can’ rival a homeless Sirius, but whadda you get for Christmas?” Regulus muffled voice (stuffed with a chocolate frog, presumably) pierced his thoughts.
“A few things,” Severus lied, suddenly turning towards him with a sullen look. “Are you quite done with this interrogation?”
“Alright, alright, be an arse,” Regulus rolled his eyes and hopped up - finally leaving him in peace.
Seems Regulus has got himself a whole new social circle in his own year this time. Severus thought as he changed into his Slytherin robes. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry about that… Regulus might have been two years younger, but he was Severus’s one of three useful sources of outside information (the two others, Evan and Rodolphus, being in Severus's own year) and was about the only person Severus could stick for more than ten minutes. Twenty minutes with him, however, was most likely pushing it a bit…
He was pleased to find that he was not interrupted again for the rest of the night. Potter and Black seemed more interested in throwing cake at each other across the Gryffindor table while the teachers heads were turned (Black obviously isn't reeling in depression about being left destitute... Severus thought with great disappointment), and Regulus was busy talking to his fifth-year friends. Severus used the time to grab whatever food he could - he hadn’t eaten anything since last night - and idly watched the sorting ceremony out of the corner of his eye.
As the feast began to draw to a close and the students were moving freely about the tables, talking to their friends - an ear-piercing shriek of laughter erupted from the Gryffindor table. A few Slytherins, Severus included, looked over to where Potter and his friends were sitting; a tall, freckled girl was standing above them, her hand hovering over her mouth while they all grinned up at her in the usual insufferable fashion. He may have been overly paranoid, but Severus could have sworn that the girl’s eyes flickered towards him before she walked back to her chattering friends - a group of sixth years by the looks of it.
Before this strange occurrence could confuse him further, however -
“Hullo there, Snape, my lad.”
Severus snapped around to see Professor Slughorn, Head of Slytherin and the Potions Master, eyeing him with an inscrutable expression plastered across his face.
“Hello, sir” he answered as politely as he could. It wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been - everyone had begun to filter out of the Great Hall and were taking no notice.
Slughorn motioned for him to stand.
“Could I have a quick word?”
~
Well, that’s a new record. A Ministry warning before the term has even started! How ridiculous!
Severus stormed into the Slytherin common room, scattering the new first-years who instinctively moved as one solid group during their first few weeks.
“Oy! What did Slughorn have to say?” Regulus called eagerly from one of the leather couches - he had obviously been waiting for Severus to bring news of some imperative tittle-tattle. Severus did not turn to recognise him, he continued storming up the stairs to the boy’s dorms.
“Fuck all,” he spat out behind him. One of the first years giggled uncomfortably in the background.
All of the seventh year Slytherin boys were in the dormitory when Severus arrived. Evan Rosier and Rodolphus Lestrange nodded greetings but no one else acknowledged his sudden presence. He violently pulled the curtains around his bed and got dressed, the letter from the Ministry still left crumpled in his hand. He knew Potter and Black merely wanted to provoke him into fighting that day at Diagon Alley… and even though, in Wizarding terms, he was of age that did not mean he was assured that cursing someone in public would pass Ministry regulations. Even though Slughorn had informed him that Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor, had passed out the very same warnings to Potter and Black - this did not deter him from desiring to extract a hard-hitting vengeance on the pair.
They’ll regret everything they ever did. Soon they’ll all know how powerful I can be.
The sounds of the Slytherin seventh years drowned out his thoughts.
“Got word from Lucius on the holidays…” came Lestrange's boastful voice, muffled by the thick curtains. Severus was intrigued at this revelation, but not enough to keep himself alert. He would hear the same thing at breakfast tomorrow, he was sure of it… especially as the last words he heard included "the Dark Lord...".
His eyes began to ache, and he gradually fell into a deep, uneasy slumber.
It's the longest chapter I've written but I intend to make further ones longer; again, it's transitional - so no high speed car chases, casinos and scantily-clad women just yet. It's going to be a long story... I'm currently in the process of trying to find a good fic site to post it.
I actually spent most of my writing time figuring out Marauders-era timelines to make sure I didn't have people there who were meant to have graduated five years ago etc. etc. So I couldn't have my favourite characters like Lucius, Narcissa and Bellatrix (who are all... extremo older than Snape and the Marauders) there. Shmeh.
Enjoy. Comment. If you want.
-----------------------
For your reference:
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Title: Malady of a Prince.
Chapter Title: Old Beginnings.
Chapter: 4/?
Word count: 2 506.
Type: Angst/GenFic.
Rating: G
Warnings: Like... one swear word.
Disclaimer: Do not own.
CHAPTER IV: Old Beginnings
It was a frustrating journey to Kings Cross…
Stuck, once again, next to the car window - only this time with the reassurance that he would not be repeating the drive any time soon - Severus managed to concentrate enough on the expectations of his final semester; not enough to completely drown out Tobias’ obnoxious sing-alongs to the Muggle radio, but enough to get by.
Tobias had been quieter than normal this morning, and despite recently having her wand snapped in two and a son who was losing all faith in her - Eileen appeared… apprehensively joyful. It was an odd combination and one that Severus did not take quite the trusting shine to.
She purposely held him back that morning as Tobias was starting up the car. As Severus hastily gathered up his Hogwarts trunk and made to bustle out the door, she had pulled him back into a tight embrace. After a few moments resistance he merely stood awkwardly on the spot, not feeling the most comfortable person in the world. He wished the damned woman would let go - she had lost her opportunity years ago and they both knew it.
“Take care,” she whispered as she firmly kissed the side of his head. “Don’t let those - those boys believe you’re beneath them. You’re a Prince, like me.”
Severus frowned cynically. It may have been true on his part - but certainly not hers.
“Mmhhmm,” he mumbled, his mouth squashed against his mothers shoulder. She heaved a great sigh and pulled back… her cheeks were wet.
“You’re all grown up, Severus” Eileen said while grasping the lapels of his jacket and wiping the wet patch away. “Soon you’ll be able to move away from here.” Severus frowned; she appeared bizarrely happy about that. He felt rather affronted.
“I suppose” was all he could muster. The car horn beeped a few times from the driveway.
“Need any help with your trunk?”
“No, I’m fine!” Honestly! What on earth had gotten into the woman today? The whole ‘benevolence façade’ was beginning to vex him in a rather significant fashion. “If you’re so concerned all of a sudden, why aren’t you coming to see me off?” he spat out as his anger at her continued to rise.
Eileen tugged on his coat with a great heaving sigh.
“I… can’t,” and she had, once again, returned to her frail tones.
“No, you didn’t really need to answer, mother. But if ever you have the urge to be honest, you could just admit that you aren’t bothered with me”, he grasped the handle of his trunk and began to heave the thing out of the front door. He sincerely hoped that this last semester would last forever.
Before she could get the chance to respond, the front door closed with a vociferous click.
~
“Well you're built like a car. You've got a hub cap diamond star halo… you're dirty sweet and you're my girl…”
Severus momentarily frowned at his father. What on earth did anyone see in Muggle music? You’re built like a car…?
“Bang a gong… get it- What you lookin’ at me like that for?!” Tobias barked crossly, without taking his eyes off the road. “It’s T-Rex! Honestly, you’d think you were from another world…”
That’s because I am, you utter moron. Severus sat back, feeling a wave of pleasure wash over him at insulting his father without his knowledge. The impenetrable mind was a beautiful thing indeed.
“…anyway,” he continued through the silence, music still blaring, “you thought about what you’re going to do after… this thing? S’your last semester isn’t it?” - he typically referred to Hogwarts as if it were some out-of-school hobby that Severus had picked up out of interest. Severus merely shrugged. He did not wish to go into a discussion about Wizarding careers with a complete Muggle dogmatist.
“I know you’ve inherited your mums love of science. Maybe you should go to university and study medicine. You know, proper science, n’all” he prompted. Severus knew he was only trying to get him to rise - and he wasn’t going to give Tobias the satisfaction. He shrugged again, focusing all of his attention on the car vent in front of him.
“Yeah, mum could have been a wonderful scientist if she had bothered to get off her arse and try. Threw it all away on believing that she was a fucking Sorceress - look where that got her, eh? No. You’ll be different, Severus, you’ll be a proper rich doctor, a proper scientist - you could even be a surgeon! That’d show your mum how wrong she was! Dr. Snape, eh!”
Severus’ hands were clenched so tightly that they began to burn.
Tobias didn’t say another word until they reached Kings Cross. Severus, having had just about enough of Muggle culture to last him a lifetime, opened the door and dashed out before the car had even stopped. To his surprise, Tobias had followed him to the boot.
“You’ll only scratch the car, Sev,” he explained as he heaved the Hogwarts trunk out and let it fall to the ground; Severus cringed at the thought of all his delicate Potions equipment inside.
“Right,” Tobias dusted off his hands as if finishing an entire days work. “You’re on your own then, son. When you come back, we’ll have a talk about university.” He clapped him on his back, not without Severus subconsciously tensing up - inches from cursing the man into oblivion, before heading back around to the driver’s side.
Severus breathed a short sigh of relief before dragging his trunk along the gravel and into the station. It was short in both meanings of the word… he soon felt a pang of guilt of managing to free himself from that place, even for just a while, as his mother was now left utterly to her own devices. He could almost feel her grief - in fact, it grew into such an overwhelming sensation in the pit of his stomach that he could have sworn he actually was. It was through pure force that he impelled himself to remember her insistent refusal to accompany him to Diagon Alley and King’s Cross; the way she cowered and closed her eyes as the husband she kept proclaiming to love snapped her wand - the remaining connection to the only world she knew.
There was only one way of dealing with this… and that was to forget it. Soon, he would be completely independent of the both of them and that private hellhole of a house.
Platform 9 ¾ was always littered with families. Mothers and fathers kissing and waving their children goodbye - some with the odd tear or two running down their faces - as if they’d never see each other again. Severus knew virtually none of these people, but he hated all of them.
~
The Hogwarts Express had been on its way for a full twenty minutes before someone opened the carriage door. Severus didn’t bother to look up from his book.
“There you are, Severus!”
“Regulus,” he acknowledged, still deeply buried in Advanced Arithmancy: for the Advanced Witch or Wizard - a subject for which he would be taking his NEWTs this last semester.
“Was wondering if you managed to even catch the train” Regulus said, jumping practically three feet in the air and coming down hard on the seat - greatly distracting Severus from his reading. “We’re three compartments down, come on.”
Severus had returned to his book after shooting an aggravated glance at Regulus’s disruptions. “No thank you, Regulus, I’d prefer to be here as opposed to being forced to listen to everyone’s meaningless holiday stories that no-one actually cares about-”
“I just pretend to care!”
“Why on earth would you bother doing such a thing?”
“Because then people have to listen to me.”
There were so many things wrong with Regulus’s rationalisation that Severus didn’t even bother; he mentally rolled his eyes and flipped the page of his book, detailing intricate numerological charts. To his great annoyance, his silence did not deter the company.
“So how’s life?” Regulus asked, seemingly quite innocuously. Severus shifted uneasily.
“Getting progressively more trying by the second” he mumbled in reply. Regulus did not seem to take the hint.
“Yeah,” he continued, as if everything Severus was saying was simply not reaching his ears. “Had a rather good Christmas. Got a new broomstick from mother and father, top of the range, mind. Wish I could have seen the look on Sirius’s face…”
“Wish?”
“Yeah,” Regulus replied, leaning forward with a growing smirk on his face, “the little blood-traitor ran away - said he couldn’t stand it any longer. Mother’s burned him off the tapestry!”
“Indeed?” this was about the only interesting news to come from Regulus today. Severus allowed himself a moment’s pleasure in imagining Sirius eating from a dustbin before turning back to Regulus. “What you mean your mother burned him off the tapestry? Set him on fire, did she?” he said with a slight smirk.
“The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black,” Regulus said - puffing out his chest slightly and sounding ridiculously pompous. “All the very noble pure-blood families have tapestries, every time a Black is born they are added to the family tree - granted they aren’t Squibs of course. If they turn against the family, mother burns their names off. My family spans back to the Middle Ages; we have no tolerance for blood traitors or anything other than pure Wizarding-”
“I get the picture,” Severus shot back curtly. Snapping the book shut, he folded his arms and looked darkly out of the window at the rolling hills. So that was how all the Slytherins in his year knew he wasn’t be a pure-blood from the beginning; Snape would be the last surname to end up on a Wizarding family tapestry.
A part of him, though realising that he would always be a half-blood and the prospects of change were nada, wondered if his maternal grandparents possessed a Prince family tapestry. He would be able to ask them himself if he knew where they or any of the Princes were… another ever so graciously accepting intervention on the Snapes part.
“Obviously can’ rival a homeless Sirius, but whadda you get for Christmas?” Regulus muffled voice (stuffed with a chocolate frog, presumably) pierced his thoughts.
“A few things,” Severus lied, suddenly turning towards him with a sullen look. “Are you quite done with this interrogation?”
“Alright, alright, be an arse,” Regulus rolled his eyes and hopped up - finally leaving him in peace.
Seems Regulus has got himself a whole new social circle in his own year this time. Severus thought as he changed into his Slytherin robes. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry about that… Regulus might have been two years younger, but he was Severus’s one of three useful sources of outside information (the two others, Evan and Rodolphus, being in Severus's own year) and was about the only person Severus could stick for more than ten minutes. Twenty minutes with him, however, was most likely pushing it a bit…
He was pleased to find that he was not interrupted again for the rest of the night. Potter and Black seemed more interested in throwing cake at each other across the Gryffindor table while the teachers heads were turned (Black obviously isn't reeling in depression about being left destitute... Severus thought with great disappointment), and Regulus was busy talking to his fifth-year friends. Severus used the time to grab whatever food he could - he hadn’t eaten anything since last night - and idly watched the sorting ceremony out of the corner of his eye.
As the feast began to draw to a close and the students were moving freely about the tables, talking to their friends - an ear-piercing shriek of laughter erupted from the Gryffindor table. A few Slytherins, Severus included, looked over to where Potter and his friends were sitting; a tall, freckled girl was standing above them, her hand hovering over her mouth while they all grinned up at her in the usual insufferable fashion. He may have been overly paranoid, but Severus could have sworn that the girl’s eyes flickered towards him before she walked back to her chattering friends - a group of sixth years by the looks of it.
Before this strange occurrence could confuse him further, however -
“Hullo there, Snape, my lad.”
Severus snapped around to see Professor Slughorn, Head of Slytherin and the Potions Master, eyeing him with an inscrutable expression plastered across his face.
“Hello, sir” he answered as politely as he could. It wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been - everyone had begun to filter out of the Great Hall and were taking no notice.
Slughorn motioned for him to stand.
“Could I have a quick word?”
~
Well, that’s a new record. A Ministry warning before the term has even started! How ridiculous!
Severus stormed into the Slytherin common room, scattering the new first-years who instinctively moved as one solid group during their first few weeks.
“Oy! What did Slughorn have to say?” Regulus called eagerly from one of the leather couches - he had obviously been waiting for Severus to bring news of some imperative tittle-tattle. Severus did not turn to recognise him, he continued storming up the stairs to the boy’s dorms.
“Fuck all,” he spat out behind him. One of the first years giggled uncomfortably in the background.
All of the seventh year Slytherin boys were in the dormitory when Severus arrived. Evan Rosier and Rodolphus Lestrange nodded greetings but no one else acknowledged his sudden presence. He violently pulled the curtains around his bed and got dressed, the letter from the Ministry still left crumpled in his hand. He knew Potter and Black merely wanted to provoke him into fighting that day at Diagon Alley… and even though, in Wizarding terms, he was of age that did not mean he was assured that cursing someone in public would pass Ministry regulations. Even though Slughorn had informed him that Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor, had passed out the very same warnings to Potter and Black - this did not deter him from desiring to extract a hard-hitting vengeance on the pair.
They’ll regret everything they ever did. Soon they’ll all know how powerful I can be.
The sounds of the Slytherin seventh years drowned out his thoughts.
“Got word from Lucius on the holidays…” came Lestrange's boastful voice, muffled by the thick curtains. Severus was intrigued at this revelation, but not enough to keep himself alert. He would hear the same thing at breakfast tomorrow, he was sure of it… especially as the last words he heard included "the Dark Lord...".
His eyes began to ache, and he gradually fell into a deep, uneasy slumber.