Chapter Thirteen-- Half Empty
Valentine's Day, Lily concluded as she got out of her black clothes and into her nightdress, had been a dead loss. Or rather, Anti-Valentine's Day, since that was what she typically celebrated, refusing to be sucked into the sappy elevation of romantic love all around her.
To begin with, there was Potter. Already convinced on regular days that she was destined to be his, he was even worse on Valentine's Day. He was kind of attractive, and amusing, but annoying nonetheless. The roses, the Honeydukes chocolates, the expectation that any girl in her right mind would want to go out with him. So bloody entitled.
Then there was the fact that celebrating Anti-Valentine's Day was no fun solo, ironically enough. Even last year, when her friendship with Severus had grown rather tense, they had laid down their arms long enough to enjoy their usual festivities, which boiled down to playing pranks on each other and whomever else seemed sappy enough to deserve it. There were always a few new tricks up their respective sleeves each year, and certain old chestnuts that had taken on the burnish of tradition. The black roses -- more of a statement than a joke, really -- had always been his perennial standby.
She was definitely losing her resolve, because she had found herself slipping outside when her friends were otherwise occupied and discovering that this year, as every year, the blooms on one of the magically unseasonal rosebushes had been charmed black. She was half-pleased and half-annoyed that, presumably, he had possessed the nerve to do it and that, as always, he had beaten her to it. That was the first problem.
The second was the fact that Severus seemed to fancy Mary all of a sudden. Not that Lily wanted to go out with him -- she didn't even want to talk to him, for the most part. But on Valentine's Day, he had always been hers: the boy with whom she played jokes and made fun of the holiday, as it so richly deserved. Having a back-up was practically as good as having a boyfriend. Better, in many respects.
Instead, he had hung around the entire evening at the traditional Saint Valentine’s Day party with Sam and Siobhan and their random assortment of friends, with the exception of a moment when he came out of nowhere and slammed into Mary, his shoulder catching her right arm as he walked past her, sending her Butterbeer cascading down the front of her blouse. He had been very apologetic and had promptly Vanished it, behaving as appropriately sorry as Mary was appropriately forgiving. Mary rarely suffered fools lightly, but oddly, even with this obvious attempt to get her attention, she hadn't seemed to mind.
She really hadn't seemed to mind. In fact, she'd seemed rather dreamy and distracted for the rest of the evening. When, back in their dorm room, Lily had teased Mary about Severus fancying her, Mary had rather dreamily answered that no, he didn't, and no, she didn't fancy him back, and then had peacefully gone to sleep. She seemed altogether too sanguine for someone who had just been accused of fancying one of the most unpopular boys in the school.
But Lily knew she wasn't just imagining things. For the rest of the evening after the Butterbeer debacle, after all, Severus had always seemed to be looking over in their direction. All year he had avoided looking at Lily or making eye-contact with her, but that night, whenever she was with Mary, she noticed that he was watching them, his dark eyes flicking instantly in another direction when Lily noticed. She was almost sure of it.
She just wasn't sure why she was so jealous.
Part of it, she knew, was probably the showdown with Mulciber that had ended the evening. She had no idea how it had started, but somehow there they were, Severus and his roommate, wands drawn and trained on each other as other students backed away to get out of the line of fire. As Professors Slughorn and McGonagall quickly made their way through the crowd to break it up before it became anything serious, Severus had looked at Mulciber with icy hauteur and had said something that caused the other boy to lower his wand, abashed. And then Severus had turned and walked away, out of the crowd and off on his own, as if he dared Mulciber to hex him when his back was turned.
Lily wished she could believe that it was just Sev’s taking a stand against Mulciber that she was finding somewhat attractive, but unfortunately, Severus’s calm and imperious display of power was no small part of it. For once he seemed nothing like the hapless boy she had always been rescuing. She felt like she didn’t know him.
She also didn’t know his other new alter ego, the bumbling suitor, the fellow who was so desperate to get Mary’s attention that he had resorted to spilling Butterbeer on her to do it. She had no idea what on earth she would do if those two started going out. It seemed impossible, and yet, it had also seemed impossible that Severus would get along with Professor Llewellyn. If Sev could manage that, it was entirely possible that he could manage to charm Mary. Lily held Professor Llewellyn’s opinion in high regard -- he was both brilliant and goofily adorable, the kind of professor Lily would have fancied if she had been the type of silly witch who developed crushes on teachers. It bothered her that Llewellyn seemed to approve of her former friend while she did not, because it left her wondering who was correct, herself or their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. They couldn’t both be.
In short, Severus seemed to have figured out how, in one day, to push all her buttons. She just couldn’t help but wish that those particular buttons were a bit less predictable -- all he had to do, apparently, was turn into an alpha male and demonstrate an interest in her friend.
“You could ask him about the Butterbeer yourself,” Mary had replied with a yawn when Lily had teased her about him. “He doesn’t bite.”
“Really?” Lily had responded, more snappishly than entirely necessary. “I thought the whole school saw the two of you bickering in the hallway outside the Great Hall a few weeks ago.”
“James Potter qualifies as the whole school?” Mary asked wryly. With that she had gathered the covers up under her chin, rolled over to face the wall, and fallen asleep, leaving her roommate blushing and peevish in the darkness.
She wasn’t concerned about Sev and Mary potentially going out, Lily told herself -- she was just missing the better parts of the old friendship, flawed though it was. Mary had, to some degree anyway, replaced her already, and it was Anti-Valentine's Day, for heaven's sake-- that was their holiday, their running joke, something that they had been celebrating together since they were first-years. The black roses, the anti-love poems, the practical jokes on all the swoony couples -- he wasn't supposed to go off and actually fancy someone. Least of all her best friend.
Maybe it was revenge. Maybe he was just getting revenge, or trying to get Lily's attention. But that seemed like a dirty trick, not one the Severus she knew would play on either girl. He had never seemed interested in Mary before. Pleasant to her, even joking and friendly with her, but not like this. Surely it wouldn't turn around overnight, especially not for a holiday that he openly despised. He was hardly some romantic fool.
Then she realised: someone had given him a love potion. It was the only explanation. One of those bloody Slytherins he used to hang out with had given him something with Amortentia in it. It explained the interest in Mary, and it explained the altercation with Mulciber. Severus being Severus, the only thing it had done was make him gaze at Mary a bit much -- and that ridiculous stunt with the drink. A lesser mortal in possession of Severus's fund of knowledge would probably have been on one knee reciting from Shakespeare's sonnets.
It didn't explain Mary, but maybe she was just tired. Lily certainly was, having awakened at an obscenely early hour to study for Charms, since Professor Flitwick had been oblivious enough to set an exam for Valentine’s Day. Content with her hypothesis, she curled up under the covers and fell asleep.
……………………
Over a month into Occlumency training with Professor Llewellyn, Severus finally felt as though he were actually coming along at it. He could feel greater control over his thoughts, a sense that he had not previously possessed of steering himself onto safe pathways and avoiding the treacherous ones, or even just the random and capricious. The discipline had started to spill over into other occasions, other conversations -- he found himself controlling his mind during talks with professors or classmates who couldn’t possibly be practicing Legilimency upon him. It worked better when he was both well-rested and relaxed -- or as relaxed as was humanly possible for him.
Unfortunately, on this particular Thursday evening, he was both tired and tense. He hadn’t slept well since his run-in with Mulciber on Valentine’s Day; he had long since learned how to put up wards about himself when he slept, but while he had so far managed to protect his own personal safety, he had not succeeded in getting an uninterrupted night of rest. And there was little he could do about it. He was now a Mudblood-lover, a traitor, one who, not being with them, must therefore be against them. Limiting his conversations with Mary hadn’t helped, and instead had only apparently hurt and confused the one person who seemed to enjoy his company and who understood his moods and quirks. He had not realised what an excellent substitute for Lily she had become, and now he had essentially cut her off, apparently for nothing. It had been quite some time since he had felt this irritable and alone.
Tired though he was, he had managed to beat Llewellyn to the classroom and was therefore sitting there by himself, too weary and annoyed to pull out a book and make good use of his time. He didn’t want to go through the usual exhausting lesson this evening, but Llewellyn had already arranged to be there at a time when, presumably, he might have stayed home. Severus had long since mentally created an image of Professor Llewellyn’s house -- somewhat affluent, coming down with books, with plentiful leather furniture and elegant dark wood, and warm light from the oil lamps, so different from the dingy furnishings and stark illumination in his own home. Or what had been his home, anyway -- he had recently turned seventeen, and had neither reason nor compulsion to return. In any case, he imagined Llewellyn’s home as something of a man’s retreat, more like a den or office than a home, devoid of the female influence that Mrs. Llewellyn must surely provide. The reality was probably somewhat different.
“Sorry I’m late,” Llewellyn announced as he walked briskly into the room, scattering various apologies about a faculty meeting running over. Even to Severus’s cursory glance, the professor did not appear to be at his best. He seemed to be going through one of his paler and thinner phases, which always left Severus checking the cycles of the moon and finding nothing useful. Perhaps he was indeed a werewolf or were-hyena or whatever on earth he was researching -- perhaps he was testing his own prototype of a Wolfsbane Potion on himself. Perhaps. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t good for him.
“Ready?” Llewellyn asked, tossing his satchel aside and planting his lanky form in his customary chair, wand in hand.
“Ready,” Severus replied. None of the usual small-talk tonight, although Llewellyn didn’t seem angry or frustrated -- just tired. On the one hand, Severus was glad that the lesson would be over that much sooner -- Occlumency was always exhausting -- but on the other hand, he recognised in himself a certain disappointment. It seemed that he had come to expect and enjoy an introductory session of chatting about potions research, or Severus’s career plans, or the intricacies of Occlumency, or what Slytherin house was like these days.
“Legilimens!”
Severus had said that he was ready, but apparently he was not, and the memories that came rushing forth were undisciplined and random -- the Slytherin common room, waking up from a bad dream panting, with his heart racing, and then his bedroom at home, with his hands pressed against the cold wall and the frozen windowpane-- he couldn’t seem to get himself away from visions that were vaguely negative and disturbing--
--until suddenly he was back in the Defence classroom. “You’re not at your best,” Llewellyn stated quietly. It was not a criticism; his eyes were kind.
Severus shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
“Nor am I. I suppose it’s just as well, then, isn’t it? Right, then.” Always the optimist, Professor Llewellyn. The glass was half full. Clearly he hadn’t come from a world in which the good things were always on the other side of the window, out of his reach. Unfortunately, Severus was still turned inward, contemplating the half-empty glass, when Llewellyn chanted that bloody spell again-- “Legilimens!”
--back to his old room, again, and once again alone-- trudging back from the park on a day when Lily had thought she would be there but clearly had other things to do -- Christ, couldn’t he do better than this? Or at least, not stuck in the maudlin past of his depressing childhood. He slammed the professor’s inquiry out of Spinner’s End and back to Hogwarts, crudely, inelegantly -- to the beginning of the school year and the humiliation of that bloody coughing spell, and he knew what had to come next, even though everything in him was fighting madly against it--
Suddenly he felt as though he were being rushed down a long hallway and outdoors into the darkness, so dark that his eyes could not adjust to the light and he had to strain to see in a world lit only by the stars and the light of a full moon. This was no longer his memory -- the world in which he stood was one that he had never seen before, even in dreams. It was Davis Llewellyn’s memory, in which he and his friend from the photo were struggling with some sort of humanoid creature. The thing was scrawny and mangy looking, but its eyes were wild and it was fighting with the terror of a caged animal -- all three combatants seemed to be wounded, and there was blood everywhere. Without warning, the animal reared up with an unexpected burst of strength that made Severus step backward, and it ripped what looked like a weapon from Llewellyn’s hand, plunging it into the professor’s arm. Llewellyn cried out in pain and pulled the weapon out, and Severus recognised the glass and metal of a syringe shining in his professor’s hand. “I thought you said this was one of the sickly ones!” Llewellyn yelled to his friend. “But he is,” Jonathan Abeto panted, still trying to restrain the creature. The scene whirled violently away and off to the stone walls of Hogwarts, where Llewellyn was pacing in the faculty lounge and whirling around to turn on Slughorn -- and suddenly Severus was back in the classroom facing a thinner and slightly older version of the young man in the scene he had just witnessed.
“Research,” Llewellyn’s voice said softly and bitterly, but he was struggling to control his breath and looked even paler than before, and his eyes appeared… haunted. There was no other word for it.
“Of course,” Severus replied dully.
“Which is why it’s so important to learn what there is to learn about defence against the Dark Arts, even if only to become a potion-maker,” Llewellyn announced, more loudly this time, with a forced jolliness. “Not that any spells work on the bouda, or any other were-creature for that matter.” Severus nodded solemnly -- he knew that all too well. On that moonlit night the previous year, against Remus Lupin, his wand would have been useless.
“So, did you mean to produce a Petrification curse?” Llewellyn asked.
“No -- no, I didn’t. I’m sorry,” Severus answered. He hadn’t even realised that this was what he’d done.
“Don’t be,” the professor said. “I forgot to ask you whether you were ready and just took it for granted that you were. Besides, if you have to do something other than actual Occlumency, I’d have to say that’s a rather clever one -- it took me a few seconds to get control over my wand to fight back. Nicely done.”
“Thanks,” Severus said hollowly. There was an awkward pause, and then he asked, “So, sir -- should we go on?”
Llewellyn took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, all joviality gone and the haunted look back. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.” He paused while Severus struggled for an answer, an answer that Llewellyn obviously didn’t expect, as he went on, with the forced cheerfulness again. “Have you ever heard of a Pensieve? Fabulous invention, one that lets you store your thoughts for others to see -- or to keep them to yourself, as the case may be. Perhaps I should ask Professor Dumbledore if I can make use of it -- some of the work that goes along with studying Dark potions can be a bit harrowing. Now -- let’s work on some actual Occlumency, if we can after that. I’m afraid the old Petrificus Totalis charm won’t fool He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named for a second if you happen to run into him. Or any of his followers, for that matter. This might be a good time to come up with a fund of convincing but rather neutral thoughts to use on occasions like these.”
Severus allowed himself to be pulled along into Davis Llewellyn’s attempt at salvaging the lesson. And yet somehow he knew, beyond the fact that the scene he had witnessed had been, indeed, harrowing, there was something about it that he could not quite put his finger on -- something about it that was deeply wrong.
……………………
By the next Hogsmeade weekend, Severus had given up on ignoring Mary. It had been a short-lived experiment, and a failed one, although it left him wondering what he would have done if it had succeeded, for he had, as much as he hated to admit it, actually missed her. Not the deep longing that he felt for Lily -- nothing like that -- but the sense that there had been someone he could talk to who actually knew him, at least to some degree, and who liked him anyway. He had given up quickly, and although Mary had been a bit frosty at first, and had made a few pointed remarks about being on his good side again, she had quickly returned to her old self.
Her old self had been owed the forfeit of her choice from Honeydukes, and so Severus found himself on this Hogsmeade weekend making his way to the sweets shop to meet a girl who wasn’t Lily. It wasn’t anything like a date, but the mere fact of meeting any girl other than Lily was certainly a first. Usually girls avoided him like the plague, with the notable exception of Narcissa Black, who was both beautiful and popular enough to charitably bestow the occasional aliquot of attention upon him without tarnishing her image.
The door closed after him with a jingle, and he walked up to the counter, making sure to take a detour past the table where he could see Mary sitting with Lily and a couple of other girls from their coterie. She was facing away from the door through which he had entered, so he strolled to the other end of the counter, pretending to examine the displayed treats when he actually knew exactly what he was getting, and strolled back just as casually, this time catching her eye and giving her a significant look. It was one thing to fraternize with her at Hogwarts, and another thing altogether to publicly buy chocolates for her at Honeydukes.
Not entirely to his surprise, though, Mary hopped up from her seat, clad in the unabashedly Muggle gear of jeans and an argyle pullover that could have belonged to a boyfriend or older brother, and announced, “Right then, Severus, you owe me. Ready to pay up?”
“To the victor go the spoils,” he answered coolly, and accompanied her up to the counter followed by what he was sure must have been the shocked gazes of her companions. Bloody Gryffindor nerve -- of course she didn’t care whether she was seen with him. He probably cared more about not being seen with her.
As quickly as possible, he purchased the truffles she chose and gave the paper bag to her with a manly handshake to declare to the world in general and Lily in particular that this exchange of chocolate had nothing to do with the fact that he was a boy and she was a girl. Having done so, he turned to walk out the door.
“Severus?” Mary called after him.
“Yes?” he replied, turning back around to her.
She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Never mind. See you in class.”
“Likewise,” he responded formally, and then walked out of the shop by himself. She had been about to invite him to join them at their table, and had then thought the better of it. Her second impulse had indeed been the wiser one. But Lily had sat there, her cheeks flushed from the late-winter cold, her hair tussled by the wind, self-consciously chatting with her friends and painting a picture of herself as one too occupied and too popular to even notice that he was there. After all these months, and with him standing there making small talk with her closest friend. Much and all as he loved her, sometimes he hated Lily for being so unyielding, and this was one of those moments.
……………………
“There’s your boyfriend, Mary,” a female voice murmured as Severus walked past a group of Gryffindor girls. He ignored them, strode up to his usual seat in the Defence classroom, and sat down. He’d been called Lily’s Death Eater boyfriend for years and had long since learned to ignore the taunts.
Professor Llewellyn, who was usually standing or pacing or chatting with someone with the nervous energy that was so characteristic of him, was instead sitting on his desk, coughing into a handkerchief. A linen handkerchief, with his initials monogrammed onto the corner -- like the worn leather satchel or the tweedy suits, a rather classy throwback to an earlier generation.
“Today,” Professor Llewellyn began. His voice was very soft, almost hoarse. The class kept talking.
“Today,” he said, more loudly this time. The first few rows quieted down, but the rows farther away form his desk didn’t even seem to notice that he was trying to get their attention. Severus was sorely tempted to turn around and tell them to shut up, but resisted the urge. He was enough of a teacher’s pet as it was.
“Silencio,” Llewellyn chanted, and a curtain of silence fell over the astonished classroom. Everyone turned around and looked forward. “Thanks,” the professor went on, seeming genuinely grateful, as if he hadn’t cast a spell over them -- as if they had behaved politely of their own free will. “I’ll be needing your cooperation today, as I’m a bit under the weather. We’ll be discussing the next chapter -- a particular favorite topic of mine, werewolves.” The cough started up again, and Llewellyn muffled it with his sleeve. “If I can stop coughing long enough, that is,” he said lightly, and then waved his wand over the class to lift the silencing spell. A soft murmur went around the room, but the professor remained audible over it.
The lesson was, as expected, fascinating, within certain limitations. Llewellyn discussed the difference between a werewolf and an Animagus, skimmed over the recognition of a werewolf, clearly in deference to Remus Lupin, and spent much of his time talking about the similarities and differences between the were-creature populations in England and Africa, which inevitably led to a discussion of how this particular underground group was being made use of by the Dark Lord.
“Let’s talk about the next lesson, as it will be a bit different from the usual,” Llewellyn announced. “We’ll be working on dueling -- blocking unfriendly spells. I’ve given it considerable thought, and since the Killing Curse is irreversible, the best one can do about it is to avoid being the target in the first place. Obviously that will involve some discretion in choosing the company you keep--” He was interrupted by his own coughing spell, but mastered it and moved on, shaking his head in irritation. “The company you keep,” he repeated. “But since we don’t always have the luxury of choosing with whom we associate, we will be practicing the blocking of unfriendly spells, with the assistance of Professor Flitwick, who was a dueling champion in his time and remains the best on this talented faculty. I have here--” he said as he handed out rolls of parchment to the people at the edge of each row-- “some relevant points from Everhardt’s Practical Skills for the Duelist, with the permission of the author of course, but the original is on reserve in the library, and you’re all invited to read it in its entirety.”
“Sir?” It was Potter.
“Yes, James?”
“I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say thanks, for teaching us practical defence. Much more useful than just reading from the textbook these days.”
Kissing the professor’s arse, as usual. Typical. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for the professor to like Severus; for Severus to be truly content and feel as though he had won, Llewellyn had to dislike the Marauders as well. He dearly wished that this were the case, but their teacher’s response to the three Gryffindors in his class ranged from liking to tolerance, the latter bestowed upon Black, who was one of the class clowns and an all-purpose smart alec. Still, so many of the professors at Hogwarts lit candles at the altar of James Potter that it was good to outshine him at something for once, instead of coming in a close second-- or an equal in skill, but one lacking the good looks and charm and, therefore, the professorial seal of approval.
“Well, when you have seven different teachers for a course, you have a lot of different examples of what and what not to do,” Llewellyn demurred. He could barely finish the sentence for coughing, while the students sat, some amused, some uncomfortable, waiting for him to finish.
When he finally mastered the hacking that shook his thin frame, Llewellyn seemed winded. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmured apologetically. “Maybe I need to go ask Madame Pomfrey for some Pepper-Up Potion after class.” His tone was humorous, but he sounded a bit worried.
“Moving on,” he said, getting up and walking over to the blackboard and starting to cough again on the way. “Or not moving on,” he continued, stopping where he stood. “Since I can’t seem to walk anywhere today.” He was coughing hard now, and seemed unable to stop -- a harsh, dry cough that resounded through the room.
Severus found himself turning around, trying to figure out where the curse was coming from. Mulciber and Avery were both laughing softly, but neither appeared to be particularly focused, and neither held a wand. The other students looked appropriately worried. Still, there was a good chance that it was a curse, one like that which the Marauders had used on him at the beginning of the school year. Perhaps his roommates had come up with something that didn’t require concentration and eye contact to maintain. It didn’t seem like something that even Black or Potter would do -- not to a teacher.
Pulling out his own wand, Severus surreptitiously pointed it at the professor from under his desk. “Finite incantem, ” he thought, directing the nonverbal spell toward Llewellyn. The professor kept coughing, doubled over now and clutching his chest, so Severus murmured the spell aloud under his breath this time: “Finite incantem. ”
Again it did no good. The professor staggered over to his desk to brace himself on it with an outstretched arm, but kept coughing. Throwing caution to the wind, Severus stood up and pointed his wand and chanted, “Finite incantem! ” In response, Llewellyn choked out “Sorry” in a hoarse whisper and crumpled to the ground, and the classroom burst into an uproar.
Severus was one of the few that ran up to the front to aid their teacher. “Remus, get McGonagall,” Lily’s familiar voice ordered, sounding worried but authoritative. “She’ll be teaching just down the hallway.” She was right next to him, so Severus forced himself to keep breathing and not to look at her as Remus Lupin quickly stood up and ran out of the room. Lily seemed to be in charge of the situation, as she next passed her hand in front of the professor’s face and turned his arm over as if she were reading his palm, pressing two fingers to the inside of his wrist to check his pulse. Finally, she took Professor Llewellyn by the shoulders and shook him gently, asking him if he could hear her, asking him to wake up. In response, Llewellyn moved slightly and gave a shuddering breath.
Lily was actually brushing against Severus now -- she was shoulder to shoulder with him and didn’t even seem to notice or mind, but the next person she gave orders to was James Potter, the nosy git, who had also run up to the front, pretending to be important. “James, get him some water,” she demanded, and James leaped up and took off with some murmured assent, leaving Lily looking surprised -- clearly she had intended for him to Charm up a glass and use the Aguamenti spell, but James appeared to lack a cool head in a crisis. This left Severus, Lily and the female prefect from Ravenclaw attending to Llewellyn as he started to wake up, with Lily doing all the work and Severus and the unfortunately-named Pandora looking awkward and useless by comparison, but the moment ended quickly. McGonagall hurried into the room accompanied by Lupin and followed in short order by Madame Pomfrey, and the students scattered as the adults took over. Standing briefly next to Lily, Severus was surprised at how much taller than her he had become -- a good half a head -- and then mentally chastised himself for noticing such foolish details when one of the few people who had actually been a friend to him was obviously seriously ill.
McGonagall dismissed the class to the library to study, and the students vacated the classroom as quickly as her tone required. Most of the students, in any case -- Lily stood talking to Lupin, Black and Potter, as well as a few other assorted classmates outside the door of the room, a sight Severus tried to ignore as he exited.
“What’d you do to him, Snape?” Black’s voice called. He sounded angry.
“What did I do to him?” Severus asked, astonished.
“Whatever it was, you weren’t trying very hard to reverse it,” Potter snarled. “I would have thought the golden boy of Defence Against the Dark Arts could have done better than that.”
Before Severus could come back with any one of the retorts that had sprung to mind, Lily did the job for him. “He's not cursed, he's ill,” she snapped. “If either of you had bothered to check, you would have found that he was absolutely burning up, and his pulse was racing. Unless someone has invented a curse that gives you a fever and a hideous cough, I'm going to guess this is something like pneumonia. Good day.” She turned around briskly and walked off before having to address Severus, and he realised that this had nothing to do with him and everything to do with truth and justice, two of the major pillars of Lily’s modus operandi.
Potter looked around defensively at the silent group, and then turned on Severus, demanding, “Well, you'd be the one to come up with Pneumonius, wouldn't you?”
“If I did, I'd test it out on you,” Severus retorted with all the calm superiority he could muster. “I actually like Llewellyn.” Calm superiority had become a favorite tactic in recent months. He slung his pack over his shoulder and walked out without any further formalities.
……………………
After the following class, which had contained a bit too much gossip and chatty concern for any real lesson to be taught, Severus spent a few minutes after class asking questions of the professor to make up for his distraction during the actual lecture, and then made his way to the Great Hall for lunch. To his surprise, Mary was sitting on a bench in the hallway near the doors, and she rose when he walked up, as if she had been expecting him.
“Would you like to eat lunch with me?” she asked.
“And would you like to explain the sudden interest in my company at a meal?” he asked in return. “I’m hardly welcome at the Gryffindor table.”
She sighed deeply and then responded with disgust, “Everyone thinks you cursed Professor Llewellyn.” He suddenly saw things that had escaped his notice before -- her tense posture, the wand poorly hidden up her sleeve. She had been ready to protect him. He was too annoyed to consider whether he found it touching or comical, but it was certainly one or the other. For now, he was just irritated.
“Why would they think that? Whose stupid bloody idea--?” he asked angrily, and then answered his own question with, “Never mind -- of course. Why would I expect anything else?”
“I can go get you something to eat,” Mary offered, seeming both upset and uncomfortable. “Until Dumbledore makes some sort of announcement about what really happened and gets you off the hook. I’m sure it will be fine by tonight.”
“Bugger them,” Severus snarled. “Let’s go visit him in the infirmary.”
“Professor Llewellyn? In the hospital wing?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Well, is he even there? What if he’s at St. Mungo’s? What if Madam Pomfrey doesn’t allow students to visit sick professors?”
“Bugger her, then,” he answered. “It certainly doesn’t hurt to try. What happened to the famous Gryffindor courage?”
“I just don’t know whether it’s appropriate.”
“You’re afraid,” he teased her.
“I am not,” she snapped. “I’m just…trying to figure out the appropriate thing to do.”
“Since when did you give a damn about what’s appropriate?”
“Too true,” she confessed. “But what if he doesn’t want us to see him when he’s sick?”
Severus couldn’t give the honest answer -- that he had seen him at seventeen, surprising the girl who would become his wife with a first kiss in the middle of some kind of argument. That he had seen him at home in his pajamas, frantically hunting for his academic robes. That he had seen him trying, with limited success, to pin down some sort of beast that was putting up a ferocious and very bloody struggle for freedom, that he’d seen him stabbed by a syringe full of some were-creature’s blood. Research, he had called it. But the tone of voice had been one that Severus had never heard Davis Llewellyn use before.
“I don’t think he’d mind,” was all Severus managed to say. Anything else was not his to share.
“If you insist,” she replied wearily, and then waved her wand in the general direction of Gryffindor Tower and chanted, “Accio truffles!” She then turned to Severus and, with her arm outstretched awaiting, presumably, the truffles he had given her, announced to him, “Rather than dragging my lazy arse up all those stairs, you understand.”
“Donating chocolates to a higher cause?” he asked.
“And trying to maintain my girlish figure without exercise,” she answered lightly.
They waited long enough for a somewhat rumpled paper bag from Honeydukes to come flying down the hallway and land with a thud in Mary’s outstretched hand, and then left the Great Hall and midday nutrition behind them. “Give me one of those truffles,” Severus commanded. “I mean, please. I was ready for that -- whatever it was they were serving for lunch.”
“Toad in the hole,” Mary reported, handing him a truffle and popping one into her own mouth for good measure before folding the bag shut again.
“Toad in the hole,” he repeated after her. “Maybe I wasn’t ready for that.”
She snickered, and they walked on, passing the faculty lounge. As they walked quietly past it, Mary reached out and put her hand in front of Severus, bringing him to a silent halt. He quickly realised why -- there were professors within, and with the door cracked slightly open, she must have overheard a conversation about the very subject that interested them.
McGonagall spoke first, her usual clipped tones reduced to a worried-sounding murmur. She was soon followed by Slughorn. “Well, he has the very person to figure it out right there at home with him!” the Potions professor boomed confidently. “One of the top students in her year, Gemma, one of the top students. She'll be running St. Mungo's before you know it. And one of mine, too! A credit to Slytherin House.”
“Was Gemma in the Slug Club, Horace?” McGonagall asked archly.
“No, no....” Slughorn replied thoughtfully. “She was one that got away.”
Mary cast Severus a knowing look -- neither one of them had been invited to join the Slug Club, and it had once been among their many topics of conversation during Potions class -- and then she yanked his arm, and the two of them continued walking quickly and quietly before McGonagall’s sharp ears could catch the sound of their footsteps.
Snivellus and the Head Girl by SeverusSempra
Chapter Notes: The trouble with having actual friends
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you to my two wonderful betas, Colores (Fresca) and Sandy (Snape's Talon), and to everyone who is still reading this and writing reviews. Sorry it's taking so long! I'll have the next chapter ready soon.