Out-of-Order Chapter, "Returning Were As Tedious" -- "Take Any Shape But That"
My original plan was to write the chapters to my Snape story in sequence, but I've also found that certain images keep crowding themselves into my head, and I know better than to ignore them. So I wrote what I thought was just a short snippet from one of the later chapters of the story (somewhere around Chapter 15), a pivotal moment in the story. I like much of it, and I'm surprised (and a little scared) at how easy it seems to be to get into Severus's head. Anyway, I've not given this to The Great Beta yet, and I'm certain that I'll have to revise it considerably once I write the intervening thirteen chapters.
But I offer it for what it's worth. The chapter title is, "Take Any Shape But That."
Returning Were As Tedious
Chapter 15 (or so)
Take Any Shape But That
What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm’d rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
Macbeth III.iv.117-125
Severus entered the Great Hall in a bad humor and walked directly to the Head Table, looking neither to the left nor to the right. “Bad humor” seemed to be all he ever felt these days, and sitting next to Quirrell every night during term didn’t make it any better. The man had become irritating to the point of fury; it was like having an insect crawling on a part of your back you couldn’t reach. The twitching, the stuttering, the nervous jumping, and above all the nauseating obsequiousness made Severus want to reach out and slap him. To think, to think, that Dumbledore had elected this insignificant fribble as the Defense Against the Dark Arts master was unbearable, even humiliating. Spending the summer back at Spinner’s End had been at least a minor relief, but as soon as he had returned and seen the idiot’s ridiculously turbaned head he’d been seized with the desire to turn him into the rabbit he already resembled.
And yet - Severus had the nagging feeling that there was something he didn’t understand about the man, something he was missing. The fear and nervousness seemed just a drop too extreme, too constant. It was as if Quirrell was not merely nervous, but actually in mortal fear of something, while at the very same time he seemed on the verge of giggles, as if he knew something terribly pleasing that he wasn’t telling anyone. What could make a man both terrified and tickled? A highly amusing executioner? A playful poisonous spider? (No, that was more Hagrid’s style, he thought sourly.) It aggravated Severus still more that he could not solve this puzzle.
The upperclass students had already taken their seats and the Sorting was soon to begin. Severus knew - indeed, he could hardly help knowing; the staff wouldn’t shut up about it - that Harry Potter would be walking through that door with the other first-years tonight. Harry Potter. Severus had tried not to imagine what Lily’s son would look like, had done his best to avoid remembering that the boy even existed. Part of him had nursed a hope that some accident would befall Harry Potter, or that he would turn out to be a Squib, or that he would reject the wizarding world, or even that Severus himself would somehow become incapacitated before this day. To face Harry Potter would be to face his crime again, to fondle his own catastrophic stupidity and to slash open again the wounds inflicted when Lily died. Another, very different part of him even thought he ought to apologize to the boy for robbing him of his mother. But he recoiled in disgust from this idea.
The Hat went through its customary silly, pointless bit of doggerel and the ceremony began. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the figures who took the seat and disappeared under the Hat. A bushy-haired girl named Granger, who had Ravenclaw written all over her, unaccountably was sorted into Gryffindor; Severus wondered whether a magical artifact could become senile. Draco Malfoy, Lucius and Narcissa’s son, was instantly sorted into Slytherin, as were the sons of Crabbe and Goyle. To Severus’s eye it seemed that young Draco already held the two larger boys in thrall. The blonde boy seemed delighted to be in Severus’s house; Severus wondered whether the feeling would be mutual. Somehow the shorter Malfoy did not give the immediate impression of having either his father’s charm or his wit - but really, what could you tell at this distance? He could barely make out the details of the face.
Then Minverva called the name: “Potter, Harry,” and a preposterous murmur and whisper broke out all over the room, even at the Head Table. Severus stifled a groan and focused his eyes on the spot where the Gryffindor head stood with the Hat. Harry Potter came walking slowly, with obvious trepidation, towards the chair, and Severus got a good look at the side of his face before he sat down.
It was the Black Rooster.
The same face - the very same. The undisciplined hair, the glasses, the skin tones, the mouth, everything. It was as if Severus had been transported back to the day of his own Sorting and once again faced the eleven-year-old James Potter, the damned Gallo Nero, that posturing, strutting, arrogant, pampered, spoiled, bullying - Severus took a deep breath and controlled himself. Here was nothing to concern him. Here was only a copy of the Black Rooster, probably just as unbearable, but just a boy, after all. Severus was Potions Master, Head of Slytherin; this boy was not worthy of his contempt. If he had anything of his execrable father in him it was probably only the looks.
The Hat took longer than usual to sort Potter, and in the end it was to Gryffindor he went. Severus was hardly surprised; the famous Potter recklessness was probably inherited too. He snorted to himself, wondering what he would have done if the boy had been sorted into Slytherin; now that would have been a disaster, to have a little James Potter under Severus’s own care. He had always enjoyed giving the Slytherins whatever advantages were within his power, given the prejudice and almost united feeling of the other houses against them; but it would have been hard, very hard, to give any such preference to this one.
He was distracted from further attempts to examine the boy by Quirrell’s bleating, inane comments about how wonderful it was that Harry Potter was finally here and how he had had the “privilege of meeting the lad” at The Leaky Cauldron. Severus barely noticed when the umpteenth Weasley was sorted into Gryffindor with such utter predictability that no bookmaker who knew his business would have taken a single wager on the matter. He saw the Potter boy look up at him midway through the meal, and felt a snarl forming on his face of its own accord.
The rest of the meal progressed without much incident, and Severus dutifully attended the Slytherin common room to see that the first-years were properly ensconced. Draco Malfoy managed to smirk, sneer and simper simultaneously when he met Severus, but Severus withheld judgment.
But the next day was different, and far worse.
As it had been time out of mind, the Gryffindors and Slytherins had double Potions together. Severus swept into the room with his usual suddenness, to see what his students were made of. He was used to being disappointed by the shallow minds, narrow imaginations and thin nerves of his students, and didn’t really expect anything different from this group. When he came in they all jumped predictably, and he settled down to something like comfort with the contempt he planned to pour over them. Let them see whether they had what it took to thrive, or even survive, with a teacher who actually expected things of them.
He began with his customary opening lecture about the superiority of Potions as a discipline and an art, and was about to begin on introductory principles and ingredients, when he had the misfortune to look up. The Potter boy was looking right at him, and he could see the face full-on, and at a much greater proximity than the night before.
Lily’s eyes.
Lily’s eyes, down to the precise shape and every last fleck of color. Lily’s eyes, staring at him out of the Black Rooster’s face.
He could not believe it. He should have known, he should have anticipated -
Catching himself, he covered his shock and rage by baiting Harry about what he knew, or rather, didn’t know, about Potions. The boy sank further and further into his chair, obviously knowing himself outmatched, knowing that here he was the worm. “Fame isn’t everything,” taunted Severus, and the Slytherins tittered appreciatively. Severus was able to recover his self-control and pursue the rest of the class without giving away any discomfort.
When the students left, he sat down at his desk and put his face in his hands.
If the Fates had conspired to create an image to horrify, to enrage, to humiliate him, it was this one. Here was the proof, the undeniable, inexorable, damnable proof, that Lily had been won by the Gallo Nero. That they’d been together. That (Severus felt his gorge rise) - that he’d had her. The images flooded irresistibly into his head, tormenting him: Lily and the Black Rooster, together, entwined. He wanted to retch. Every memory he had of Lily, every sweet thought, every wistful, hopeful, boyish daydream, was stained, as if by excrement, with the image of the two of them together. This image he would not be able to escape, now: Every time he looked at Harry, he’d see Lily’s eyes in James’s face. Every time he taught his double Potions, every time he passed the boy in the corridor, he’d be reminded of how utterly, eternally, irreversibly he’d been defeated by that creature. His failure stared him in the face.
And he’d be looking at it for at least the next five years.