BFS ENTRY: A Nice Symbol of the Relationship (PG-13; Severus, his parents, his teachers)
Title: A Nice Symbol of the Relationship
Category: Two (11- to 20-years-old)
Characters: Severus, his parents, his teachers
Author: florahart
Beta Reader: inell
Rating: PG-13
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Domestic violence, unwilling pregnancy.
Word Count: 4700
Author's Note: It is Severus's birthday; however, celebration didn't turn out to have much bearing on the theme.
Summary: Severus spends the first part of his birthday watching an ugly situation resolve.
Severus had never liked Slughorn much, but the man had had the requisite streak of ambition, and wouldn't betray one of his own students.
Not that he gave Severus the kind of fawning devotion that he gave the ones he truly thought of as 'his'--the ones that went to his parties and suppers and had the connections Severus profoundly and utterly did not.
Still, he was Severus's head of house, so there was nothing to be done but follow him when he crept into the dormitory and woke Severus at some time not nearly enough past half five on a Monday when he had no formal lessons until ten and could have slept another three hours. Severus made to ask what it was that was so bloody important at this hour, long before the easternmost crags of Scotland's shore went from stark black to pinkish gray, this time of year.
Slughorn, naturally, shushed him and assured him that he would see when it was time, now wouldn't he?
Severus weighed his options and thought that he wasn't (quite) the sort to murder his own head of house, despite the extreme provocation of being got up unnecessarily without a word of explanation (all right, perhaps the provocation was not so extreme, but that didn't make him happy about it), so he pressed his lips together and followed Slughorn down the long corridor and into the alcove that led up toward the headmaster's office.
He didn't ask how it was that they had gained unexpected access again in the first place; this was the sort of thing he'd needed Slughorn's assistance for initially, and it occurred to him now that maybe, just maybe, he had an inkling where they were going. Though why they would do so now was something of a mystery.
He wished he'd put on his boots; the stone floors were chilly and rough under his thin stockings, and while his notably unextravagant upbringing had certainly left him accustomed to physical hardships, it didn't mean he had to like them.
--
The first letter had come late the previous May, and at the time, he'd been torn between shock and curiosity to see his father's rough hand on the outside of a letter that was paper, not parchment.
Initially, he'd thought to simply throw the thing away. He had nothing to say to his father, and the feeling had been entirely mutual since the first time Severus had stood up for his magic. But it was the first time the man had ever contacted him here, and that alone left curiosity outpacing disgust. After breakfast he took the letter--folded in long thin quarters and then rolled and flattened into a sort of paper pillow, as though Tobias Snape had never quite observed anything more about the usual way in which scrolls were formed than that there was some sort of rolling involved--and retreated to the tree under which he often sat, and which he now carefully warded against the unwanted intrusions of Potter and his band of Black (and other) miscreants.
Lily, he would still have allowed in, had she ever come near without the pack of idiots bounding and bouncing around her.
But that was neither here nor there.
He checked his precautions, because being careful with habits was itself a habit that served well, then sat with his back to the trunk and glanced up into the branches. He turned the lump of letter over in his hands several times.
There was nothing for it but to just open it, he supposed at last. He unrolled and unfolded, pressing the cheap lined paper flat, and read the short note.
Boy
I know ya sometimes helped yer mam with unplessantniss, but ya won't have cause from here on.
Severus felt a prickling sweat starting to break out on his back and chest. Unpleasantness? Which unpleasantness? There were many. Won't have cause? He could hear the hard sneer of his father speaking these words as clearly as if he were right here, and somehow the very illiteracy of the text--not that Tobias couldn't read, but he didn't, and it showed in the way he formed letters and words--gave him a chill.
He glanced at his sallow fingers and willed them not to shake, then went back to the letter.
She got nothing to make the stuff from, and yer gonna be a big brother now. She says she won't tell ya cos you'll find it worrying, but I think ya ought to know right off.
Severus crumpled the paper in his left hand and had his wand out to incinerate it before he could even properly form the intent. Then he stilled, nostrils flaring, and smoothed the paper to read the rest. He was still going to burn this, but knowledge was power, and he wanted to know what other nastiness he was supposed to hear.
She says this time she knows better then to make im a freak. Too late for the likes of you, but its about time I had a son. It will be a happy Chrismas for me.
The signature said nothing of importance, and Severus didn't bother tracing the curves and lines of it with his eyes as he retightened his fist and then tossed the balled paper in the air. Hitting it with the ignition charm was only good practice for wand-eye coordination, and the sparks and bits of ash drifted down around him into the grass.
He glanced about, checking only to see that he hadn't somehow managed to set fire to his favorite tree, then stood and brushed off his arse. He had no intention of answering the letter by post, and if he was going to answer it in person--which he was--there was some planning he needed to do. Ought to know, indeed; the man meant, I thought it would be fun to taunt you.
--
The second letter had arrived on the first of June. It was short.
Severus,
Your father informs me that he has notified you of my pregnancy. I have no time to craft a more reasoned and intelligent letter, so I shall say only this: don't do anything rash. I tolerate him in order that you may do well, and I won't have you fouling that.
Mother.
He'd incinerated that one as well, and spent the evening sulking under his tree. His father had cracked her wand years ago, and for all her strength, she was weak in the specific area of wandless magic, perhaps a function of thought patterns, he'd concluded, or a matter of the way she formed spells. It was one of the reasons he'd worked hard to master the skill himself, in order that he might avoid one day finding himself disarmed and in trouble at the hands of a lesser wizard. He was a Slytherin, and guarding against known threats was an obvious tactic.
He thought about that for a while, then returned to brooding. The letter indicated, as he'd been told many times, that his mother's choice to remain with his father was centered on her love of him, which made him angry. He'd be all right if she left him, and that she didn't seem to understand that frustrated him. They'd argued about it a time or two, and he was certain that she believed this was for the best, but it wasn't.
In any case, even if he didn't need her to smooth any way for him, the reverse wasn't true. Even if she didn't want his help, she needed it, and it was absurd that she would caution him against.
--
The third letter had come two weeks later; it was from the Ministry.
It notified him that based upon serious reports of anti-wizard actions in his home neighborhood, for his own protection, it had been decided that this summer he ought not to return to the Muggle-style household in which he had been raised.
No one would claim to know how such a process had been initiated. Severus concluded it had been one of two ways--his mother, or Albus Dumbledore--and shook his head. He wasn't going to find any answers, and he was, evidently, going to stay in Scotland for the summer. No one left Hogwarts without Dumbledore knowing, unless it was Black and Potter and their pet, but then, probably he knew about them.
Not watching his mother's belly grow with the unwanted child she'd gone to such efforts over the years not to have was, honestly, not a problem; however, if he didn't find a way home over the summer, he wouldn't have the opportunity to end the situation without risking his mother. He thought. He wasn't exactly an expert in women's issues of any stripe, and it wasn't as though the Hogwarts library was heavily stocked in the area of pregnancy management, but it couldn’t be easy on a middle-aged witch to end one so late, especially without adequate access to St. Mungo's or her own bloody wand.
Damn. He was going to have to find an associate.
--
McGonagall was the obvious choice, in many ways. It would infuriate her that any witch was being, or for that matter, had ever been, forced; he'd overheard her make a statement to that effect one Hogsmeade weekend when he'd been loitering in the vicinity of the pub seeing what he could overhear.
However, he was reasonably sure that she wouldn’t hold with committing what probably worked out to be violence against that same witch, whether it was for her own good or not. Which was fair enough; he wasn't completely sure he held with it, despite his unshakable certainty that she didn't want another child and didn't want to subject another one to Tobias's attentions.
The Princes were magically powerful, his mother's odd incapacity with wandless magic aside, and the odds that this child wouldn't be every bit as strong as Severus was were low. He had to do something, and when it came right down to it, he didn't trust McGonagall to follow his lead and wasn't prepared to try to suss out and account for what intentions she might develop on her own. Pomfrey was the same, and Sprout…well, she was worth considering; she probably knew more than a bit about the herb-lore and relevant calculations.
But, he kept thinking. It was coming into the end of June, and the fifth- and seventh-years were deep in preparations for their exams; it wasn't hard to avoid company and spend his time considering alternatives, and until he felt secure in his choice, he would wait. It seemed unlikely to much matter whether he acted in one week or three.
--
The fourth letter was, again, from his father, and Severus spent a day and a half waffling about whether to read it. It would only be infuriating, if it wasn't heart-wrenching, and it wasn't as though he needed any more anger toward the man.
Finally, in case it should be news about his mother (surely not; someone with the Ministry would have informed him if she were desperately ill, wouldn't they?), he unrolled the 'scroll,' which was even more ill-formed than the last one, and glanced through the words.
As expected, it only made him angry.
Boy
I think ya been told yer to stay there for the summer. No way ta come back and get in the way now. Wish it was permanint.
Severus cursed under his breath, then pressed his mouth shut. For one thing, it was essentially permanent, as he had no intention of spending five seconds under his father's roof once he was out of school, and for another, if that was the best insult his father could come up with, it was pathetic. Severus lived amongst Slytherins, after all, and was well-practiced at receiving and offering offense.
He incinerated the letter out of spite, then went back into the castle and down the stairs into the cool dungeon. It wasn't hot outside, but he felt flushed anyway, and the chill emanating from the stones was familiar.
--
Naturally, that was the summer that Severus came down with a nasty case of troll-pox. It was perfectly unfair; there were two ways the bloody disease could be spread and he'd got it from helping Sprout with repotting the venomous plants in greenhouse six because as long as he was remaining at the school, he might has well make himself useful (the other, more common, way was sexual contact; he'd have minded that less on general principle, not that he was greatly interested in a tumble with any of the staff remaining on site for the summer and not that he was sure he very much wanted to know how a disease the genesis of which lay among the trolls had come to be spread sexually amongst wizard-kind). Troll-droppings had been belatedly found in the soils with which they were working, and he and Sprout both found themselves quite unwell indeed.
Madam Pomfrey was quite helpful, offering potions against the way his thoughts would scatter (the most frustrating symptom, even beyond the pox themselves) and soothing his fevers--the sodding things came and went in a wildly irregular manner such that one moment he would be reading a dry history of magical theory in France, and the next he'd find the pages had sprung up around him in vivid magenta waves and scrolls, screeching impossible operatic diatribes regarding palindromes and roast mutton (all right, that was just the once; had it been possible to predict the specific insanity, it would have been easier to identify the episodes. Each was more bizarre than the last). It wasn't until late July, three weeks after the illness had first struck him, that he recalled he had intentions regarding his unborn sibling. He shuffled out of the hospital wing and into the library's Restricted Section late at night, candle casting odd shadows that repeatedly left him wondering whether the next episode would involve black-cat phantoms and smoke demons, to see whether he might find anything new to aid in his consideration.
As it happened, it didn't matter. He had been quite careful in all his forays into the stacks, but he was weakened by his weeks in bed and still not completely able to be as mindful as he'd have liked, and before he read a single word, he found himself on the floor, clutching at his ankle with blood welling out between his fingers as a sharp-toothed book skittered back into its cave on the lowest shelf.
It was to be the summer of constant convalescence and persistent pain.
On the whole, it was no worse than any other summer he'd endured.
--
By the time he was fully recovered and no longer under Pomfrey's care it was nearly September, and while he had been entirely unable to access the Restricted Section again (damn Dumbledore; he was of-age, and it was absurd to keep him out of the room), he had managed to find legal materials to read, one place and another, and he was certain he was too bloody late to do anything about the situation.
When Slughorn found him, on the twenty-eighth of August staring blackly at the lake and rejecting offers of whatever the dreadful sugar-clumped candied things were, he was frustrated and furious, and it didn't take as much effort as Slughorn surely could have brought to bear, to get him to tell the story.
And naturally, because he hadn't gone to him first, Slughorn had a reasonably practical solution.
Severus made a mental note to remember, the next time, that if he was well-versed in coping with Slytherins due to long association, it might serve him well to keep in mind that others of his house had similar experience, and were more than capable of developing surreptitious plans on the fly as well.
--
The most complicated thing, after getting hold of the recipe and working through the ingredient potentials and interactions in order to determine whether there was anything he could refine (Slughorn said it ought to be made exactly as per the recipe; Severus retorted that it was his family, and he was bloody well going to do it right) was getting the final version completed in time that he might deliver it himself, at Christmas. He had no intention of returning home for the Easter holidays (he hadn't in three years), but even if he did, his window of opportunity would be quite short, he feared, and the only likely opportunity would be Christmas.
He also spent quite a bit of the time between rounds of chopping and stirring anti-clockwise and crushing--not pulverizing; the effect was notably different--the germinating geranium seeds, working on exactly what he was going to say to his mother. He was reasonably certain she would refuse to allow the draught to be administered, if he were truthful, but she knew him too well for him to lie. And she was every bit the Slytherin he was; it was going to be a fine line, indeed.
The vial was finally filled and stoppered on the tenth of December, late in the evening after the labs were vacated by the overeager and undertalented Hufflepuff and Gryffindor NEWT hopefuls working to complete their autumn studies before the school vacated for the holiday.
He supposed the unnamed stuff had a shelf-life of perhaps five weeks, certainly no more than six; some of the changes he'd introduced increased efficacy at the cost of longevity. Still, there would be no difficulty; Christmas was but two weeks away. He had just corked the bottle when Slughorn cleared his throat.
Severus turned, saying nothing, and waited for whatever news it was the man was trying to deliver delicately. He pretended not to feel the cold grip of fear in his belly; news delivered delicately was never good news, but showing weakness was always a bad idea.
In fact, the news was less bad than it might have been. His mother had been delivered of a son, as hoped (not by him, nor by her, but Severus felt a moment's disappointment that his father was getting his wish; he'd rather wished it might be a girl just to leave him sonless). The birth had been difficult, and it was expected that she might be abed for some time. Doctors had advised she not attempt to give this child a sibling.
Severus's mouth twisted at that last; clearly his father had only allowed a Muggle healer to attend to her, and just as clearly he had pretended they had no other child.
He expected nothing less, but this didn't make being faced with the actuality feel entirely good.
Slughorn finished his hemming and hawing, then stroked his ridiculous moustache as though he expected Severus to realize he had a suggestion to make. Severus did, of course, realize, but the behavior was annoying, and he hated to do anything which might make it more prevalent. Still, he kept at it until Severus asked him whether he thought this might improve their odds of success.
He was thrilled to be asked, and opined that it did indeed; Eileen would be a great deal more likely to accept the gift without question if she were ill, so as long as she didn't take a turn for the worse--
Severus scowled. She wouldn't, and that was final.
Slughorn pursed his lips and agreed that clearly, it was.
Severus scowled harder. He hated being patronized. Even when he asked to be.
The vial was warm in his hand, and he dropped it in his pocket, then started another identical batch. Just to be safe.
Slughorn, ignored, eventually left him to it.
--
Boy,
His father's third letter said.
My son dont need to know you, so yer ma can just meet you in town. Janey Jaffey ull take her. No need to bother coming out past the mill road. I know you can make yer own place ta stay, so no wingein you got nowhere. You tell her its you have other plans.
Severus sighed and elevated the crumpled ball of parchment a hundred feet in the air before he took aim at it for incineration; if he was practicing, he might as well add difficulty. For one thing, his mother wouldn't but that even if she had pneumonia and had gone stone deaf, neither of which were the case. For another, he was buggered if he was going to let the old man send her into town unwell; she was to be in bed.
After careful consideration, he wrote back, then went back through his words, removing any that would garner accusations regarding his belief in his own superiority (any that were over six letters stood a high probability of being removed). The letter was short, and noted that he would be willing to come out just the once, for a last visit, and to arrange a time in advance in order that Tobias could run away like the coward he was.
He culled that last bit and reworded before posting the letter, and waited for a reply.
It came quickly, and was only a few words:
Fine, dont need doctors breathin down my neck about makin her travel but make it Saturday when I can keep a eye on ya..
Tobias could keep all the eyes he wanted on Severus; actually, he quite hoped he laid a hand on him, too; he was of-age and within his rights to defend himself, after all.
--
Because he hadn't been home in the summer, it had been nearly a year since Severus had last seen his mother, and a part of him couldn’t help but think this would be the last time. He banished that thought from his head and opened the rickety gate. It was Christmas Eve, and he was here to see his mother.
She was at the door when he got to it, her shoulders bent and thin. Well, thinner; Severus took after her, and no one had ever accused him of burliness.
He followed her quietly into the sitting room, rehearsing his speech in his head as they walked, and sat across from her on the threadbare couch. She took the chair next to the fire, and looked as though she needed it.
For a long few minutes they sat silent as Severus realized he had no idea how to begin a conversation, which confounded him. He'd always been able to talk to his mother, no matter how difficult his relationship with his father had been and even when they argued about hers, but now, he couldn't seem to stop thinking of her as weak.
He hated himself for that, pressing his lips together in self-recrimination as he sat there. The topic of her decision to remain with Tobias was one on which they'd never agreed, but he'd always believed that she could leave if she so chose. He didn't understand why she hadn't chosen to, in all these years, and he suspected he never would, but despite the fact that he couldn’t make very much sense of the female psyche in general, nor of his mother's motivations, even he knew quite clearly that having been effectively forced to bear a child didn't make her any less than she had ever been.
Finally, he wet his lips and looked up.
She interrupted before he managed a word, telling him about the baby, about how different he was to Severus.
Severus snorted, supposing this child was cooperative and unparticular, but to his surprise, she laughed. No, she said. That was you, Severus. This one is loud. Physical and demanding. Wakeful and fussy and surly as the day is long.
It's a mystery why that was funny to him, as well as why it loosened his recalcitrant tongue, but half an hour later, he'd given her both the vial and the story; she knew his potions skills were unmatched and he could see that she believed it to be just (and only) what he said: a potion to give the baby a leg up in the world, with their father none the wiser.
She had been a Slytherin once, too, and she knew the value of taking advantage.
--
He'd returned to school promptly upon leaving his father's house, certain he'd just seen Spinner's End for the last time. The baby had been squalling upstairs as he'd gone, and his mother had been, if not precisely smiling, standing at the door, her lip quirked up on one side as he'd taken his leave.
He'd only hoped her promise was good; there was no likely way for him to know for certain, at least, not in a timely manner.
Until now.
Slughorn told him, as they climbed the stairs, that while Minerva--Professor McGonagall--typically viewed the list quarterly--at the new year and spring, summer, and autumn--just in order to be aware, he had cleverly distracted her the week prior, and made certain she hadn't had the opportunity since.
Severus nodded, though as he'd made his gift several days before the calendar had turned, he wasn't certain why it ought to matter. Still, it would be a relief to see it.
The list, bound into a great book, was tucked into the high deep shelf, its earliest pages soft with age and frayed to dust around the edges as he turned it over. The pages were newer, in the back, and less likely to crumble when he lifted the cover. The last few pages were blank yet; someone must have added some recently. Severus paged toward the front carefully until he came to a page with fresh lettering on it.
His new brother was the second-to-last name currently in the book; his class would enroll in the autumn of 1988, and apparently the Warringtons had a child that would have been his contemporary, were he to continue as a wizard. Which, apparently, he still was. He scowled. She hadn't given him the potion, then, or his father had found it, or--
The old tower clock clanged the hour, and before Severus's eyes, Julian's name vanished, and 'Warrington' wavered and slid upward on the page.
He glanced up at Slughorn, who shoved a fat hand into his fat waistcoat and looked inordinately pleased with himself, then handed Severus a tidily-wrapped parcel which had had no business fitting into anyone's coat unseen. Perhaps Slughorn was some odd variant of metamorphmagus, able to create a parcel-sized hole in his thorax.
Severus lifted a brow, but took the parcel and untied the knot.
Inside, he found a cloth-covered bundle and a card.
Severus,
Your friend dropped by and suggested you might like to know when I was giving Julian his strengthening potion. I agreed it was a good idea, so I shall do it first thing in the morning on the date of your birth. You were born at a minute past six, and I like thinking of you passing on good fortune at the same moment. I think that will make a nice symbol of the relationship between the two of you.
Happy birthday, Severus. He also suggested you could use the enclosed as you end your formal schooling, and I allowed him to assist in its selection, as I am unable to travel at this time.
Love,
Mother
Severus read through the letter twice, then unbundled the rest of the parcel.
The gift was undoubtedly from Slughorn; the set of small cauldrons was ornate--useless decoration was neither Severus's style, nor his mothers--and designed to look rich, rather than accomplished.
Still, he did need them; the set he'd brought with him to school originally was long gone, and the individual pieces he'd cobbled together were wearing rather badly. He offered his thanks, and glanced back at the book.
Julian's name remained gone.
Severus didn't like children (a near-terminal situation for a boy at boarding school), but the finality of his actions made his chest feel cold. He'd made his own brother a Squib, and one day, he'd probably lose the only parent he could still claim over it.
He thought--he hoped--it was worth it.
Slughorn thumped him on the back and offered more hearty birthday wishes, obviously only now claiming Severus as one of his collectibles, and Severus managed a thin smile.
It was his birthday, and if the man wanted to invite him for honeyed cakes and rich puddings, he deserved and would take them.