FIC: An Attitude Adjustment (PG)
Title: An Attitude Adjustment
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: Three
Character(s): Severus Snape, Argus Filch, Mrs. Norris, Pomona Sprout, Irma Pince, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Lucius Malfoy, original characters
Author: iulia_linnea
Rating: PG
Click to View [Warning(s)]For allusions to PTSD- and grief-related issues, violence, and death.
Note(s): This started out as a Twenty Random Facts Meme entry and kept going in an only somewhat random way. ;P
Summary: As a new professor, Severus experiences an attitude adjustment.
One: Argus Filch is the first one to tell Severus that he's "too nice" to the students. Filch suggests that the young professor apply to Irma Pince for "an attitude adjustment."
The laughter is damning as the Firsties file out. Severus' lower lip trembles, so he bites it.
"Ahem, Professor."
Severus can't help but to start in response to the rough voice behind him. "I didn't know you were in here!"
Filch is holding out a surprisingly clean-looking handkerchief. "Blood."
Even though Severus could spell away his wound and its blood, Filch's small kindness moves him to accept the handkerchief. He nods in thanks.
Filch nods back. "You're too nice to them brats, Professor Snape. You should see our Irma, shouldn't he, Mrs. Norris?" Filch smiles down at Mrs. Norris.
Mrr rrr.
"You don't truly believe that-"
"Oh," interrupts Filch, "she'll see you right. She knows how to deal with brats. Trust me."
Severus doesn't trust anyone, but then, he's not used to anyone being considerate of him, either. "Perhaps I will. Good afternoon, er, to you both."
Two: Sometimes, Severus cries in the greenhouses.
There's an interesting plant, the origins of which are entirely unknown to him, which sends tremulous leaves forth to collect his tears. Severus wants to ask Professor Sprout about the plant, but then she would know he hides in her greenhouses. His courage fails him just imagining his embarrassment at the thought of admitting there's something he doesn't know, and in any case, he's barely managing to dress himself these days. He can't very well attempt to speak to the professor as if she were a person!
Pomona is quite aware of young Snape's intrusions, but she isn't fussed by them. The boy is sad, so much is clear, sad and respectful of her plants. As long as he doesn't interfere with anything, he's free to visit anytime he likes. She tells Argus this.
"He is sad. Why should he be?"
"I think you know that, Argus. He got mixed up with that very Dark and unwelcome wizard."
"The Headmaster sorted all that out, didn't he?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then Snape's all right with me. Dumbledore wouldn't help a Dark wizard, now would he?"
"You think the sun shines out of Albus' arse, Argus," Pomona replies, her tone unusually tart.
Mrr rr.
"Oh, don't you start, Mrs. Norris," says Pomona. "Argus doesn't need you defending his ridiculous ideas about Dark wizardry!"
"Leave my cat alone. She's entitled to her opinions."
Three: Severus and Argus' friendship takes time to develop.
"And what does Mrs. Norris think about that?" Severus asks Filch, one seemingly endless Sunday afternoon, an afternoon during which Argus-yes, Argus, he has to keep reminding himself-has shown him several hitherto unknown to him Hogwartian secrets.
"She thinks mayhap as that there 'lord' might have had one or two decent ideas."
The ghost of Cruciatus sets Severus' nerves to pulsing coldly, fiery hot. He stands abruptly. Mrs. Norris leaps from his lap in annoyance, turns her back on Severus, and washes herself.
Severus' dudgeon is also high. "Then your cat," he hisses, "is a fool!"
Mrrrifff!
Argus is shocked to see Mrs. Norris following Snape and wants to tell her to come back, but he's not sure he has voice enough to call her.
Four: Severus finds taking advice from Irma Pince disturbing.
"They smell fear. They're little monsters, all of them, without exception."
"But-"
"Without exception, I said!"
Irma Pince is as terrifying as she's ever been, Severus decides. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come," his Inside Voice slips up and speaks aloud. "Shit."
"'Shit', is it?" Irma asks, though it's clear she's not really asking a thing. "I remember a Firstie who threw around 'shite' in not quite a whisper."
"I. Am. Hardly. A. Firstie."
"That's better. Save that attitude for the 'children'. You'll need it," Irma tells him.
It's surprising to be thinking about the librarian as "Irma." Severus can't think why when she still scares him as much as she ever has.
"You are the professor, remember that. Don't give the little shits permission to mock you."
"How am I doing that?" Severus demands.
"You cringe. Oh, you do," Irma continues, as if expecting Severus to interrupt her. "You wipe your nose in front of them." Shaking her head, Irma peers over her spectacles. "Are you a Potions master, or aren't you?"
"I have allergies!" protests Severus.
"And I have books, and to protect them, I. Do. Not. Show. Weakness."
"You think I'm weak?"
"Do you still have that madman's tattoo, boy?"
It's like being stabbed in the spine, to hear that voice. "You sound . . . just like her. Just like . . . Mam."
"You are profoundly stupid as well as weak, 'Professor' Snape. The children will eat you alive."
"Why do you sound just like my mother?"
"We are in a library. Look it up."
With that, Irma stalks off in the direction of her would-be homicidal card catalogue, the same one that steals mittens from the younger students and snaps its drawers shut upon patrons' unsuspecting fingers. Severus doesn't know what Argus did to the cabinet to make it less violent after his complaints about it. He doesn't want to know, either-but he can't stop thinking about Irma's words.
Five: Even with a generous budget, it's almost impossible to secure every ingredient one needs to brew the potion that keeps allergies at bay for a year.
The page of the grimoire on which the anti-allergy potion appears is so intrinsically filthy from handling that Severus cannot read the potion's true name; he calls it "Allergy Away." Admittedly, it's an uninspiring name, but he's too "tired" to care.
He can still smell the death on her, the death and the strawberries in her shampoo.
He and Argus talk all the time. They drink together. They take walks. It's almost as if they're friends, and that's rich, isn't it? Not so long ago, to Severus' old friends' way of thinking, Argus wouldn't even have been worthy enough to live in the Brave New World they were going to make. Squibs were less than human, to hear some Death Eaters go on.
Severus stirs the contents of his cauldron and wills his tears not to fall. There is no odd and unusual plant to collect them, and he knows they would ruin his potion.
If he can just stop showing signs of weakness, his students won't giggle at him-and they do giggle! And he hates giggling almost as much as foolish wand waving.
"Foolish wand waving can kill," he says, alone in his laboratory.
That's one thing he does like very much, so much so that it can very nearly make him forget his grief, his fear that he's dreaming not being dead, not being so lonely, not having been such a complete and utter twat as to have followed Voldemort.
"I am an idiot. I don't deserve any of this."
Creak!
"That may be true, but must you winge about it?"
"Irma," Severus says, enjoying the harshness of his tone, "distantly related though we may be, I don't care to be spoken to in that manner. Is that understood?"
He turns to face her. To his annoyance, she is smiling at him. Smiling!
"Well done, Professor Snape! Here's that book you wanted. Do be careful with it."
Severus lets out the breath he realises he's been holding, and then he permits himself the tiniest little smirk to celebrate Irma's praise.
Six: Severus doesn't tell Argus everything.
"Mam used to make Stone Soup."
He's been missing his mother, but he can't admit as much to Argus. He can't tell Argus anything of Lily, either, for so many reasons, so he tells him about his mother's soup.
"She'd trick Da into spending a little drinking money on veg because everyone knew when Mam was making soup. It smelled so good that our neighbours would find excuses to call-which they almost never did."
"Celery?" asks Argus.
"Of course, potatoes, too." Severus smiles. "And carrots, lots of carrots."
"Me mother would scrounge up bones with bits of meat and fat still on 'em. The butcher, he was sweet on her."
"Your father didn't mind that?" asks Severus.
"Oh, he did, but she didn't care. Mum liked her food, and so did we."
"You had brothers?"
Argus grins. "I've six sisters. . . . My brothers, well, they died."
Because Argus says nothing of how his brothers died, Severus doesn't ask. He wants to ask, he realises, but he doesn't.
Argus passes his flask to Severus and tells him, "Stone Soup, there's nothing better."
"Except roast beef," Severus replies.
They laugh, and the fireflies dance in the darkness.
Severus finds himself thinking that it's been, for the most part, a good day.
Seven: The Ministry plagues him from time to time. The Aurors treat it like sport.
"Yes, but if you could kindly explain how you came to be in his service, I think-"
"I am done."
The Auror shuts his mouth so quickly at Severus' abrupt rise and words that there is almost an audible snap!
"And by that you mean . . . ?" Dumbledore says, looking at his Potions master in mild expectation.
"I am done being pestered by the Ministry's lapdogs. Go bark at someone else. I am free. I am employed. And I am done with this charade."
"Now, you listen here, Snape," begins the Auror, whose name Severus didn't bother to take in.
"No, I don't believe I will. Instead, I will seek legal representation so that I may present your harassment of me to the Wizengamot for that body's assessment and redress."
"So many words from such a big bad Death-"
"ENOUGH."
Dumbledore's order shakes the room, transporting Severus back to another time of questioning, a more serious time. He almost pisses himself.
"Headmaster, I-"
"Am here on my sufferance, but that is at an end. Don't come again, Auror Templeton. You are not welcome here. Professor McGonagall will show you out. Minerva!"
The door to Albus' office opens and McGonagall steps into it from the antechamber, her wand at her side but very much in hand. "All done, then?"
"No, I'm-"
"Yes, he is."
"Very well, Headmaster," she replies. "After you, Mr. Templeton."
The Auror obeys McGonagall immediately, which doesn't surprise Severus. He finds her almost as alarming as he secretly still finds Irma. Almost.
When Professor McGonagall winks at him whilst escorting the now pale Templeton out, Severus feels his knees give way and ends up back in his chair. "Shall we, er, shall we discuss the Board of Governors' idiotic ideas about the Potions curriculum?" he says, and is pleased that his voice remains steady.
"Sherbert lemon?" asks Dumbledore.
Severus raises an eyebrow in profound irritation. "No."
Eight: Severus has an unholy sweet tooth.
"Been readin'," Argus informs Severus, passing him the last slice of cake.
They are sitting in the middle of the Quidditch pitch having a late night picnic, drinking pumpkin juice, and complaining about the students. It's been a perfectly adequate evening.
"Reading what?"
"About, er, the last big baddie, and you know, why he was so very bad."
Severus is quiet. He purposely slows his breathing. He waits.
"You were right, Professor Snape. About what you said. I . . . understand things better, now."
Severus isn't certain what to say to Argus' admission. He decides upon, "Power is . . . difficult to . . . ignore."
Oh, the inanity!
"Even," says Argus, interrupting Severus' thought, "when you're talkin' about a crazy death cult."
"No, he wanted to live forever," Severus tells him.
"Undeath cult, then."
"That's not right." Severus chews, swallows, considers. "I lectured you."
"You told me what happened."
"No, Argus. I lectured you. I haven't even . . . I don't think I've . . . told myself what happened, or why."
"Well," says Argus. "Well."
"Yeah," whispers Severus.
And then, at once, they both say, "Drink?"
They decide that drinking is a fine idea and end up in the kitchens gorging themselves on a wide range of tarts and swilling butterbeer.
It's a Wednesday night, after all.
Nine: The first time Severus makes a student well and truly afraid of him, it makes him sick.
Giggling-Severus doesn't know who it is doing it, but the giggler will be fortunate enough to keep his tongue. His head is splitting. A piece of exploding cauldron struck him last class and he is in no mood for foolishness of any kind, let alone mirth.
"What is so funny, Miss Monroe?"
"I don't know, sir. I wasn't laughing."
"Mr. Edwards?" asks Severus, scanning the students in the back row. "Are you aware of the source of amusement?"
"You sniffed."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Yaxley?"
"You haven't done it in a while, Professor Snape, so someone-"
"'Someone', Miss Yaxley? Yes?"
"Er, someone must have thought it was f-funny, er, sir."
"And your nose is red. And your cheek, er, sir."
"You will," Severus says, to Miss Monroe, "no doubt have heard of the accident."
A hand shoots up.
"Mr. Bledsoe?" acknowledges Severus.
"Is Jenny Banks going to die? I heard-"
"Of course she's not going to die, Jeremy!"
"That will be enough from you, Miss Yaxley, thank you." Severus glares around the lab. "What is funny about my sniffing?"
Even the bubbles in the cauldrons seem to actually simmer down at Severus' question.
"Well?" he presses, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Terrence Smythe seek to introduce a foreign object into Eleanor Yaxley's cauldron.
It is precisely how he came to have a swollen, sniffling nose-and it's dangerous. Yaxley and Smythe might be blown into bits if the boy succeeds in his prank.
"I WILL NOT ABIDE PRANKS IN THIS CLASSROOM!"
And the walls do shake as Severus shouts. He's making them shake to prove a point. He blasts the offending object from Smythe's hand, who clutches it to his body and stares up at Severus in surprise and pain.
"I WILL NOT PERMIT PRANKS!"
"Or foolish wand waving," some unfortunate soul stage whispers.
It's Yaxley. It's one of his Slytherins. It's the last smile he ever sees her wear in his classroom.
Her cauldron explodes into a violent shower of glitter. It doesn't hurt her. It doesn't hurt anyone. But it is as explosive as a grieving man's impotent and as-yet incompletely expressed rage can be, and the spectacle of it causes more than one student to faint.
Severus summons the house-elves to deal with the mess-all of it-and manages to stalk rather than flee the room.
He is violently ill until he loses himself in fitful sleep that lasts for days.
Ten: Albus Dumbledore is a deeply horrible Headmaster in myriad respects.
"You wanted to see me?" Severus stands very stiffly on his stiffs, preparing himself for the worst. He's failed Lily. He won't be there for her son when he starts school. How is he going to protect the boy now?
"Ah, yes. The Board of Governors is at it again, this time with recommendations for the library."
Severus tilts his head as if in question at Dumbledore. "The library?"
"Yes, indeed. Governor Yaxley would like to send Governor Malfoy to discuss the proposed changes and additions. Do you think that wise?"
"To speak to Irma? About her books?"
Twinkling-always fucking twinkling-Dumbledore replies, "Yes, Severus."
"Why are you asking me, Headmaster?"
"I felt like it."
Severus wants to tell Dumbledore that he is the veriest arse because he very much dislikes being played with in this manner, but he doesn't. Instead, he says, "Albus, I think you know that Argus wouldn't approve of anyone interfering with Irma."
"I hadn't thought of that," lies Albus, with some satisfaction.
Severus rolls his eyes. "Good day, Headmaster."
Eleven: In the wake of "the incident," Governor Malfoy's visit is brief.
"Things have been . . . difficult for us all, Professor Snape."
Severus says nothing. What can he say? He terrified a student, a Slytherin student.
Inwardly, he smiles at this, but he's careful not to let his horrified glee show. He knows he scared all his Slytherins, and all the Ravenclaws, too.
"But if you harm a student, any student," continues Malfoy, "you will require . . . correction."
At this implied threat, Severus raises his brows. "I see."
"Good. I'm glad that you do."
"Malfoy, I-"
"Governor Malfoy, to you, Professor Snape. Governor. Don't forget it."
"Arse."
Severus mutters the word, but he knows by the stiffness Malfoy's back takes on as he leaves that he was heard.
He's glad to know it. Malfoy is a lousy duellist.
Twelve: Argus looks after Severus as best he can.
"-and then they went racing down the hall shouting at the top of their lungs with some pride, and all about you."
"What were they shouting?"
"'Our Head of House can trounce your Head of House! Our Head of House is a right strong louse!'"
Severus frowns, past cringing. "That does not sound complimentary."
"You had to be there. They were proud of you and lordin' it over the Ravenclaws."
"Eleanor Yaxley won't speak to me save to say, 'Yes, Professor' and 'No, Professor'. I scared her too badly."
"I s'pose that cured her of her fancy, then?" asks Argus.
Severus feels himself flush. Argus notices and chuckles, but it's not the kind of chuckling that can upset a friend.
"Don't worry, Severus. She'll forgive you."
"Her mother is coming to see me."
"No problem. We'll let Irma greet her." Argus cackles.
"No!"
No, Severus won't permit that. He'll greet Mrs. Yaxley entirely on his own.
"Irma's friend at St. Mungo's says Malfoy's still got writtin' goin' on under his skin. I don't know what he said to Irma, but that catalogue cabinet of hers is a hero!"
Severus is certain that the catalogue cabinet is going to end in fiery splinters, but he doesn't say anything. He regrets that he missed Malfoy's visit to the library.
Thirteen: The realisation that people now interact with him in a straightforward manner rather than coding or barbing their conversation takes getting used to.
Pomona greets Severus warmly and pulls him over to her rose bushes, which are shaking their huge, petaled heads free of flying pests. "Here, Severus! See how they protect themselves? If I can market the mechanism, I'll be rich!"
"You wish to make a fortune?"
"Oh, only to retire on, dear-eventually, that is. I've years of teaching left in me, I believe."
"You wanted to see me?" Severus asks, not really knowing what else to say.
He's not yet as comfortable with the other teachers as he might be. Argus says it will take time, and that he should be patient.
Severus has never quite managed the knack of being patient.
Pomona presses a phial into his hands. "Now that you've mostly given it up, I thought you might want them."
Severus swallows, his throat tight, against his embarrassment. "My tears."
"It's all right, dear. We all need a good cry at times, and I know how valuable they can be in potions. You take them. I won't say a word about it."
With a pat on his shoulder, she turns away towards the door and makes for it.
Severus hears laughter. It's not at him. It's more bells than sirens to his ears. He breathes out.
Fourteen: There are perks to being a professor that Severus never knew he wanted. He's still not entirely certain that he does. And yet . . . .
Eleanor the Elder, though Severus would never say something so fucking stupid to a witch's face, has amazing breasts. They are big and soft and warm and press against his bare chest as she snogs him senseless.
For an alarming moment, he can think of nothing but the fact that it is undignified for a wizard in his position-especially this one-to think of kissing as "snogging," but with one clever and creative twist of her wrist, Eleanor Yaxley has Severus thinking about only one thing. One thing. Oh, Merlin.
There is only one thing that Severus needs right now.
Madame Yaxley makes it three things and then threatens him against upsetting her daughter ever again.
Fifteen: House-elves are powerful friends, too.
Severus awakes screaming, screaming and clawing at the air, his skin, his hair.
"You is safe, you is here, you is having nothing to fear."
Someone's singing.
"You is here with nothing to fear, you is safe, safe, safe, your house-elves is here!"
"Blinky?" asks Severus, his throat raw.
"Oh, you is awake. That is being very much better for you, thinks Blinky. Drink of this tea."
Blinky isn't actually asking, and as Severus opens his mouth to question what kind of tea it is, he finds that he must swallow it or choke.
"Good, good, you are good," sings Blinky.
Severus' pain subsides. He wants to be angry. He wants to shout. He wants to cry. He does none of these things.
"You is here with nothing to fear, you is safe, safe, safe, your house-elves is . . . ."
As Severus drifts off to sleep again, he wonders why people always speak of house 'elves' when there is usually only one. But one is more than enough this night.
Sixteen: Severus does tell Argus some things.
"Argus?"
"Yes?"
"Da was . . . cruel to my mother, to Mam, and I . . . I did nothing."
"You," says Argus shakily, "did what you could, what you had to do to stay safe. That's all a mother wants for her children."
Severus doesn't have a lachrymatory on him, so he doesn't cry. Why waste tears?
Seventeen: His private bath is astonishing.
Another perk of professorship about which Severus has been ignorant is that of the ever-changing personal bath; of course, as are so many things, its use is not properly explained to him. No, Hogwarts: A History teaches him that his lavatory will change to suit his every whim if he approaches it correctly.
Everard Prince put his bathing pond to excellent use during the Mer-related difficulties of his tenure. So many merbabies were rejected by their parents that appropriate places to keep the infants had to be created by a great many difficult and costly means until the Headmaster realised that instead of calling for more bubbles, he could instruct his private bathing pond, once a small basin as used by any professor, to grow the plants on which merpeople relied so that merbabies could be safely sheltered within it.
"A pond? Who needs a po-"
Severus closes the book and takes to his bath, never telling anyone, especially Argus, about the changes he makes to his "basin."
Eighteen: Foolish wand waving can kill.
"It was just a joke, a prank! I didn't mean it!"
Severus watches as McGonagall leads away the Third Year, one of her own, and speaks to him in soothing whispers as his brother lies dead in the corridor.
The Hufflepuff student responsible falls silent and stares at the corpse as urine pools at his feet.
Against all logic and expectation, Severus finds himself feeling sorry for the Hurley boy and sad for Baker, who had been excellent at Potions and respectful besides.
"It's a bad business," Argus says.
Severus nods. It is a very bad business, indeed.
Nineteen Severus' dreams aren't always bad, but often, he cannot explain them.
Taking the flask from Argus, Severus asks his friend, "Would you help me if I were hurt?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"I just wondered."
Argus takes the flask back. "You've had enough, I think."
"I don't really like dogs, Argus."
Mrrrrrreeeow?
Severus scratches behind Mrs. Norris' ears. "That's right. Cats are superior."
"Well said!" Argus toasts, and then falls down. "Whoops!"
"Right," Severus says, with a smile. "That's enough Old Ogden's for you."
Twenty: Cats are superior.
"Slytherin played well, Severus. Congratulations."
"Thank you, Professor McGonagall."
"I think you should call me Minerva, don't you, Severus?"
"I think, Minerva," Severus says, feeling all kinds of daring, "that Slytherin will win again."
"Want to bet on it?"
Minerva twinkles as she speaks, and it doesn't annoy Severus at all.