Chapter 8: Quite the Slytherin
The world was not designed for night owls, Severus reflected for what must have been the millionth time, having started the day by hurrying through minimal ablutions, skipping breakfast, and dashing -- hungry and more or less unwashed -- off to class. Even had he not spent the night before making use of the Dark Arts to confront even darker purposes, he still probably would have been up until all hours, reading in bed, studying in the common room, or just pondering things he couldn’t change. He had read once that an inability to fall asleep was indicative of a hidden fear of death. If that were the case, Lily, the ultimate morning person, was utterly fearless, and he was an abject coward.
On this occasion, though, he had spent the hours before he finally fell asleep tossing and turning, somehow both angrier and lonelier than he had felt in months. His efforts at controlling the whirlwind of thoughts and the ache in his chest had failed, and he scarcely felt any better the next morning, after so little sleep, and now had a splitting headache to boot. Headaches were for the weak, so going to Pomfrey was out of the question, and suffering through it left him in a phenomenally foul mood. He hardly remembered a word of the lecture in Arithmancy that started his day, and he knew that his notes would probably be useless.
Arriving at the Potions classroom still tired and peevish, he discovered that it was already occupied: a displaced Transfiguration class was being taught there during a period when the room would normally have remained empty. His fellow classmates stood around in the hallway talking as McGonagall finished up her lesson. Severus found a spot removed enough from the rest of them to make it perfectly clear that he had no interest in socialising-- not that anyone particularly wanted to talk to him. Sometimes unpopularity had its benefits.
Apparently word had gotten out, though, that something had gone on in the Transfiguration classroom, because students were standing around talking about it. There seemed to be a great deal of rumor and speculation, which, Severus concluded, was probably a good thing: too much of the truth would not be helpful to him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the person who cast the spell blocking the door may have been a mole trying to thwart the whole thing. In fact, that would probably be the most logical conclusion.
Lily was standing talking to Mary, as usual, and to the pleasant but rather nondescript fellow who sufficed as sixth-year Hufflepuff prefect. She had been spending altogether too much time with him recently, Severus reflected. It was more acceptable than James Potter, but still -- he felt a wave of hatred for Edric or Ethelred or whatever the hell his name was as Lily threw her head back, laughing at the boy’s jokes.
Mary, who seemed less than amused by flirtation that obviously didn’t include her, excused herself and stood there for a second, looking lost. Then, for no apparent reason, she walked away from the chatty crowd and over toward Severus, who immediately resumed his previous pose of feigned attention to his worn copy of Advanced Potion-Making.
It did no good. “Hello, Severus,” she chirped. She said his name crisply and carefully, as if she were afraid to slip up and say something else instead; it did not take much imagination on his part to imagine what that something else might be. Bloody perky Gryffindor. She was the last thing he needed after the night he’d had and the sight of Lily flirting with Ethelred the Insipid across the hallway. Why she had to choose this of all moments to do her good deed for the day was completely beyond him.
''Swimming against the tide?'' he asked waspishly. It had the desired effect: Mary glowered at him and walked away in a huff. If he had any luck, she’d be annoyed enough not to say a word to him for the entire class period, which was precisely what he needed. On the other hand, with the classroom occupied until the last minute and most of the Potions students flooding in at once, it was anyone’s guess with whom he’d be seated, since people were not trickling into class in their usual order.
As the last of McGonagall’s young students exited, there followed, unsurprisingly, a shoving match as people tried either to get their usual coveted seats or to shake things up for a change. Severus slipped quietly into his own customary location and set to work. Lily had actually sat down next to Potter without complaint, which made Severus feel worse than he already had, if such a thing were humanly possible, but on the positive side, the seat next to Black remained conspicuously unoccupied. Probably a full moon. Regardless, it gave Mary somewhere else to go, and Severus a more complete solitude.
Mary, however, gave Black a quick once-over, shot him a withering look, and then walked over and dropped her things down next to Severus. "Snape,” she said, still coldly. “The more intelligent of two evils.”
The more intelligent of two evils. He wasn't sure which he liked better, the compliment or the insult, but either way, he hadn’t expected Freckles to possess that degree of acerbic wit. He was impressed despite himself.
“Macdonald,” he responded, incrementally more pleasantly than before. “Always a pleasure.''
Mary seemed uncertain of how to read his greeting, and after standing considering him for a few seconds replied, ''Please tell me you'd rather work with me than one of those eejits."
"Any day," Severus answered smoothly. And he’d rather work alone than with her, but she hadn’t asked that question.
She shook her head a bit, deposited her supplies next to his on the desk, and went to work, back to the blessed silence that had characterised their partnership of two months. Just when he thought he was off the hook and free to wallow in his bad mood in silence, Mary cut into his concentration.
“Can’t you just let someone be nice to you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Swimming against the tide? ” she said, in a passable imitation of the tight, pissy voice he had used only minutes before. “Give over,” she continued. “I’ve worked with you for two months, and you can’t just accept that I might want to strike up a conversation with you?”
“It’s my experience that people who are nice to me usually want something,” he snapped.
“What could I possibly want from you?”
“What does anyone want? Answers to a homework assignment. A potion that they can’t make themselves. An interesting spell.”
“Quite a high opinion of yourself there,” she answered with light mockery in her voice. “You’re forgetting I could ask Lily for answers, which is as good as asking you. The same goes for any potion I could dream up a need for.”
“Which leaves interesting spells.”
“My brother is an Auror; he’s quite good at those.” She reacted with a hint of pleasure to his thinly veiled expression of surprise. “We’re a large family. Statistically it’s not improbable to have more than one Wizard out of eight.”
“Then I can’t think of anything else,” he responded, “unless you’re seeking a bad reputation through guilt by association. I can certainly give you that.” She surprised him by relinquishing her obvious defensiveness and laughing heartily at this, a rich, throaty laugh. Mary, it seemed, was that interesting variety of Gryffindor: the sort whose bravery tended toward flying in the face of convention. She really didn’t seem to care that she was seen interacting with him and laughing at his comment, which he had to grudgingly respect, since even he had been a slave to public opinion-- Slytherin public opinion, anyway-- until so recently. Besides, good will from Lily’s closest friend could do nothing but help his cause. And it gave him an excuse to talk to someone about Lily.
“So, does Lily have a side line in potions, then? Or does she just do favors for friends?” he asked, as cavalierly as though he were merely making small talk. In reality, it was so bloody thrilling to actually speak Lily’s name to another human being for the first time in nearly half a year that he felt strangely giddy and almost nauseous at the same time. In another life, his references to her had been so casual: “Can’t make it-- I’ll be studying with Lily” or “You go ahead -- I’m meeting Lily for breakfast.” His belief that she would always be a part of his world had been so casual, the fallible heaven he had taken for granted, yet here she was, with no good reason not to talk to him -- hell, her best friend was striking up a conversation with him -- but no sign of budging after a whole summer and two months of school.
On the other hand, he could hardly fault Lily for having higher standards for a best friend, if that’s what he had been, than Mary’s standards for “better than talking to myself in Potions class.” He probably had a long way to go.
Even this thought, however, did nothing to dampen the improvement in his mood that the freedom to talk about Lily had wrought. A ridiculous image suddenly came to him, unbidden, of himself like the boy in West Side Story, running around declaiming his beloved’s name over and over again just for the sheer joy of it.
“Side line in potions? And what’s the smirk for?” Mary’s voice cut in on his thoughts, but she sounded more amused than suspicious.
“Nothing,” he fibbed. “Just the idea of what kind of a potions business Lily would have. I think it would be a failure.” Lily, Lily, Lily... Say it loud and there’s music playing…
He would have to be careful; he knew that, given the opportunity, he could babble on about her for hours at this point, nearly five months of pent-up longing breaking its bonds and bursting forth. And whatever he said would get back to her.
“Why’s that?” Mary asked, a bit more sharply this time.
“Because I think she would talk everyone out of the Potions they were seeking,” he replied, vowing to himself that this would be the last mention of Lily. “You don’t need to use Amortentia, just be yourself -- that sort of thing. You know how bloody optimistic she is.”
Mary laughed again, genuine laughter reflected in a warm smile, rather than a mere polite chuckle. “You’re right,” she answered. “She’s so relentlessly positive about everyone.”
Everyone except him, apparently. Everyone except him.
“Slughorn,” he stated as the professor entered the room, and the conversation ended. His brief good mood had passed, and despondence settled heavily upon him again. Something about Mary’s last statement had hit him hard. Lily tended to look on the bright side about everybody -- she made light-hearted fun of quite a few, to be sure, but she generally tended to like people. Once someone had crossed over to the other side and out of her favor, though, could they ever cross back? And even if she spoke to him again at some point, would it ever again be the way it was before? It was looking increasingly hopeless.
Halfway through the class, Severus excused himself and made his way to the nearest boys’ lavatory, where he locked himself into one of the stalls and thumped his forehead repeatedly with the heel of his hand. What the hell had he been thinking? That he would just stand calmly in the hallway and perform a genteel little Dark spell and make everything happy and good? Of course it didn’t work like that. He was a bloody idiot -- he was like an alcoholic convincing himself he could handle just one sip. Instead of a self-contained little effort for the public good, it had become this rushing, raging beast that he couldn’t control and almost didn’t even want to.
For the last two months he had been a fairly neutral being in the Hogwarts universe, promoting neither good nor evil, letting those battles go on around him. Now, after one stupid Dark spell, his relative contentment was broken. He wanted to do something excruciatingly painful to Avery and Mulciber for putting him in such a position, and something equally awful to the Marauders just because they were a cowardly crowd of prats who thought they were so bloody special. And he wanted to grab Lily by the shoulders and shake some sense into her so that she’d start talking to him again, because of course violent manhandling would undoubtedly help where half-hearted apologies and relatively sincere repentance had failed.
His heroics the night before wouldn’t make her talk to him again, he realised. The moral ambiguity of having done it for a good cause didn’t take away the bitter taste: Lily was the end, but the means did matter to her. No matter what he did, it seemed doomed to fail.
……………………
Days later, when he had returned more or less to his normal degree of melancholy, Severus sat staring at a phrase written on the chalkboard in Professor Llewellyn’s messy writing. He had to look at it a few times to make sure. The Imperius Curse? The Imperius Curse. Or something very like that.
“The Imperius Curse,” Llewellyn stated, settling the point. “The second Unforgivable Curse that we’ll be discussing in this class. The Cruciatus Curse, as we’ve discussed, is a violation of the body by causing intolerable pain. This one is a violation of the will. Both, I believe, can best be combated by means of a prepared mind.”
He walked over to the louder side of the classroom, which quieted down a bit. Apparently Llewellyn was catching on. He continued, “Like many unfriendly spells, the Imperius Curse can be fought. There’s nothing like practice, so I have obtained the permission of the Headmaster and, through him, the Ministry of Magic, to use the spell on each one of you in turn to give you an opportunity to practice fighting an unwanted incursion upon your own free will.”
“Of course, the restrictions upon this kind of thing are considerable. Each of you will be going one by one. Furthermore, this is voluntary: I will not subject anyone to the Imperius Curse against his or her will. I know, I know,” he said cheerfully, looking around and guessing at the nature of the chatter. “Ironic. In any case, at the front of the classroom, as you can see, I have arranged two chairs. Each of you will start in the first chair, over here, and I will order you under the Imperius Curse to walk over and sit down in the second chair, over there. Your job is to remain seated or, at least, to stay as close to the first chair as possible. It will get easier with practice. Any questions?”
Apparently he had been abundantly clear, because there were no questions, not even of the inane “Do we get to practice on each other, sir?” variety that Avery liked to ask just to spice things up.
“Now,” Professor Llewellyn said, clapping his hands together. “Who would like to go first?”
Of course Lily raised her hand, beating out Potter by a mere fraction of a second because she, unlike Potter, was paying attention and not whispering something to a friend. James Potter, unfortunately, was not bad at Defence. Was there anything James Potter was bad at? No wonder he was such an arrogant git. Severus far outshone him in the class, as in Potions, but he usually gave a more-than-respectable performance nonetheless. And after nearly five and a half years of this unspoken battle with James Potter, Severus found that it wasn’t enough for he himself to succeed: James Potter also had to fail. There was probably a very long word for this in German.
“Lily, then,” Llewellyn said pleasantly, waving her up to the front of the room. “Keep in mind,” he told her, “that if you do anything to make life even remotely difficult for me in my effort to get you from one side of the room to the other, you can consider that a rip-roaring success. Understood?” Lily nodded. “I don’t expect much, of any of you, the first time around,” he clarified to the class. “As a general rule, you have to learn what this feels like first before you can actually fight it. Knowing the enemy and all. I should add that you may find yourselves with some muscle aches after the effort. And remember, other than that, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you wind up over on the far side of the room seated in the nice leather number they’ve given me to go with this desk--” as he seated himself on the desk, presently bereft of a chair-- “which is actually a very comfortable piece of furniture. Ready, Lily?”
Lily gave the professor a quick, nervous smile and a nod, and sat down in the first chair on the right side of the classroom. “Then let’s begin,” he stated. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again, his expression now serious and his wand pointed directly at Lily. “Imperius! ” he chanted, and Lily stood up in a stiff, wooden manner and took one mechanical step forward. Her face looked determined, but she continued to step forward, one foot in front of the other, Llewellyn following her with an unwavering glance.
Just watching her -- and having a valid excuse to watch her openly was a wonderful thing -- Severus could see how hard she was fighting the spell. She was breathtakingly beautiful when she looked this fierce: she had closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, and she trembled slightly as she stepped forward yet again. Llewellyn watched her like a hawk, obviously ready to reverse the spell if necessary, as Lily was pulled forward through the last few steps and made to sit down heavily into the large, leather chair that awaited her.
“Excellent work! Excellent!” Llewellyn praised her warmly, putting the wand away and walking over to shake her hand. “Go get yourself a drink of water if you’d like -- that was hard work. Top notch, Lily -- next time I probably won’t be able to get you even halfway across the room.”
Suddenly Sirius Black’s voice called out over the murmured commentary and applause of their fellow students: "Make her walk over and kiss Snape. I'd bet she'd manage to fight that."
He couldn't see Lily. Even if he hadn't been suddenly frozen, his stomach in knots, he was still at the front of the room, and she was a few rows behind. There was no way he could inconspicuously turn around to see how she reacted -- not with everyone looking at the two of them -- so he stared down at his hands and planned to deal with Black later. Anything but make it worse for her.
But the scattered laughter ended abruptly, and when he looked up, Severus realized why: Llewellyn's normally pleasant expression had altered to one of controlled fury. "Mr. Black," he intoned quietly, the softness of his voice and formality of his greeting more alarming than even the most violent of Kettleburn's tantrums. "There will be no bullying in my class; you can save that type of behavior for your own time, and ideally not even then. Thirty points from Gryffindor."
A muffled groan went through the Gryffindor portion of the class as Llewellyn said, with false cheeriness, "Right, who'd like to go next? Lily will certainly be a hard act to follow." James Potter volunteered, probably to make up to the other Gryffindors for his best friend, and Llewellyn, with a toughness Severus hadn't expected, proceeded to casually drag him across the room like a rag doll. No one laughed.
The rest of the class went quickly and without incident. Severus had gone after Potter, figuring -- correctly -- that he might fight the Imperius Curse better if he undertook to do so before his anger at Black began to abate. Llewellyn had congratulated him on his efforts -- it had felt like forever, but according to Llewllyn’s timing, it had apparently only been two and a half minutes before Severus arrived at the other side of the room and collapsed on his knees in front of the leather desk-chair rather than allowing himself to be maneuvered into it. No one else had even come close. The big surprise was Pettigrew, who had been, at approximately a minute and a half, a distant second, but much better than most.
The source of Pettigrew’s resolve became clear at the end of the class: apparently he was angry with Llewellyn over Sirius’s punishment. The professor dismissed the class, quietly praised Severus again for “strong work” and then called Lily up to talk to him.
As Severus walked past the Marauders to leave the room, Pettigrew said to Black, "Bloody teacher's pet. What do you expect -- he’s married to a Slytherin, isn't he?" Black didn't appear to be comforted and stalked out of the room unaccompanied by his friends. The moment was perfect; Severus quietly exited and followed him.
Once in the hallway, he could easily pick out Black's tall form, walking quickly away from the classroom, head down, and turning into a side hallway to get to wherever he was going. He was halfway down the empty passage when Severus cast a non-verbal Expelliarmus and sent his wand flying out of his hand and skittering across the floor.
Black whirled around, furious. "Quite the Slytherin, aren’t you? Doing that while my back was turned." He eyed his wand, but it lay about ten feet from him, and Severus was advancing on him.
"Quite the Gryffindor, you self-righteous bastard," Severus agreed, quietly but savagely. "I learned it from you lot. The only thing I’m missing is three pathetic cronies to back me up." He was closer to Black now, his wand held threateningly. Black backed up against the wall, and Severus closed in.
"Do what you want," Black sneered. "My friends will be here before long, seeing as how I actually have fr--"
"Silencio!" Severus cut across him. "Shut up and listen to me. Leave. Lily. Out of this, " he hissed. Black glared back at him.
"What's going on here?" It was Lupin, prefect pin shining on his robes, galloping in to the rescue like the goddamned Lone Ranger. The scene before him could not have looked good: Black stood backed against the wall, with Severus standing menacingly in front of him, brandishing his wand.
"I'm telling him," Severus said softly from between gritted teeth, "to leave Lily out of this." He lifted the Silencing Charm on Black, but Black, looking both miserable and angry, said nothing.
Lupin considered the two of them, and cast a quick glance over at Black's wand lying on the floor. After a silence, he finally looked at Black and then back at Severus and said, "Fair enough. Have at it." To Severus's shock, he walked away.
Severus could feel all the air relaxing out of his lungs, the tension leaving his shoulders. "Leave her out of this, or answer to me," he said, less angrily this time, and realizing that he sounded a ridiculously macho, like something out of a bad film. Lupin's unexpected reaction had completely flummoxed him.
"Oh, and you're the great expert on treating Lily well," Black replied. "Nice nickname you have for her, Snivellus."
"I'm paying for that," Severus countered. "She shouldn't have to. Leave her alone." He backed away from Black and his own anticlimactic threat, and closer to the main hallway and its crowds.
He expected to be hexed as soon as Black could retrieve his wand and follow him, but Black, who clearly didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing him stooping to pick up the wand, stood without moving, jaw tense, eyes averted.
……………………
Dear Lily, I know we haven’t spoken in months, but--
No.
Dear Lily, I will be surprised if you even read this, but I want to tell you again how sorry I am for what I said to you.
No.
Dear Lily, In case you wondered, the person who stopped the attack on those Muggleborn first-years was me, actually. Please talk to me again.
No.
Dear Lily, I am not much good at writing anything but essays, so allow me to argue (below) in no less than three feet of parchment the thesis that you should speak to me once again, with sufficient evidence, persuasive logic, and correct grammar and spelling.
Definitely not.
“Snape,” a voice called from across the common room. It was Avery.
“Yes?” Severus replied, crumpling the parchment and tossing it into the fire. It was an idea -- a bad one.
“Do you have a moment? I’d like to talk to you.”
Severus picked up his textbook and went over to where Avery sat, and looked at his classmate expectantly.
“So, Snape. Did I happen to mention our recent activity involving the Mudbloods?”
Severus tried to discern what Avery was getting at. His tone held both threat and cajoling, as though he wanted something from him but wasn’t sure how to achieve it. There was a significant chance, though, that Avery suspected that Severus had put a stop to their plan, so he took the cautious route.
“I gathered that you were doing something; I wasn’t aware of the particulars,” Severus prevaricated. He had long since gotten over how fluently and with how few qualms of conscience he was able to lie. It had been a survival strategy in his home growing up and had proved useful in Slytherin: somehow everyone thought that his father was from an inconsequential wizarding family that hailed from near the Scottish border, and he no longer really remembered whether he had put that one out there or just failed to disagree with it.
“It was not entirely successful,” Avery stated flatly. “We have some ideas for another, less ambitious effort that is more likely to succeed, but it does require some Potions work.” He waited for Severus’s response.
“It’s as well, then, that you’re taking Advanced Potions,” Severus said simply.
“You have no interest in being involved?” Avery asked, eyebrows raised.
“Not at this time, no,” Severus replied calmly, wishing to God that Avery would just leave him alone. The world lately seemed bent on dragging him into activities that interfered with his attempts at renewing his friendship with Lily. The Devil’s Fire had been, in retrospect, a poor idea on the whole, and Severus was even beginning to suspect Professor Llewellyn. Why was Llewellyn so willing to teach him about the Dark Arts and not just about defending against them? Was he some sort of well-disguised Death Eater operative? If so, he was an excellent actor, but now that Severus knew that Llewellyn’s wife was from Slytherin, he couldn’t help wondering about some kind of ulterior motive.
There was nothing ulterior about Avery’s motives. “Really,” Avery said, looking interested. “No interest. Does this have something to do with your Mudblood friend?” He said the epithet “Mudblood” so casually, as if it were a common and necessary term in his vocabulary, but he sneered the term “friend” in such a way that it sounded almost indecent.
“She hasn’t been my friend for some time,” Severus replied. “But I got into enough trouble last year that I would prefer to remain unnoticed from now until graduation, especially until I have some sort of acceptable position secured.” He had prepared this little speech months before; it had just taken longer than expected for his former companions to actually express an interest in why he no longer associated with them.
“I don’t see how this affects your ability to assist us behind the scenes,” Avery answered.
"There’s no such thing as ‘behind the scenes’ at Hogwarts,” Severus responded in an explanatory tone, relieved that he had his plausible explanation ready. “I lack an independent fortune, therefore employment is mandatory. I lack connections, charm, and membership in the Slug Club, therefore excellent marks and something approximating an impeccable record are necessary if I do not intend to spend the rest of my days cleaning toilets. Which I do not."
"You may have other options," Avery said obliquely.
"Not particularly," Severus replied, pretending to be utterly thick. "It's either work or starve. There are limits to conjuring food -- it’s one of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.”
"You know what I'm talking about, Snape," hissed Avery. "You could choose service to the Dark Lord."
''Clearly you mistake me. I'm looking for employment, not servitude,'' Severus answered, as evenly as possible. It was hard to say when, mere months before, he would have jumped at the chance -- back when he had been stupid enough to think that Lily would actually find such a thing impressive.
"You may not have a choice," Avery spat, leaning in toward him so that their conversation remained unheard.
"You may not want to discover what I'm capable of when cornered," Severus snarled, suddenly angry at the possibility of being forced into anything that might drive Lily further away. The spell he had accidentally cast on James Potter back in the spring had taken on shape and discipline over the summer, to the detriment of quite a few flies, and although the person he wanted to become would never use it, he wasn't really that person yet, and didn't quite believe that he ever would be. He wasn’t sure himself what he was capable of when cornered, but he could not rule out that it would involve using Sectum Sempra on Avery.
Avery leaned back but continued glaring at him. "Maybe I do want to find out. What you're capable of might be useful. But you appear to need some help in discerning where your loyalties lie," he said, his voice soft and threatening.
"There will be no help needed -- I've already done that, and my loyalties lie with myself. A true Slytherin makes a poor servant. Go ask a Hufflepuff." Severus picked up his things, vacated the seat without saying goodbye, and was walking away from Avery when what felt like an impediment jinx slammed him forward into the back of a chair, which caught him right in the middle of the breastbone, knocking the wind out of him. Avery had actually had the bloody nerve to jinx him when his back was turned.
Severus spun around, with a crescendo of fury battling with an effort at self-control, pointed his wand at Avery and roared, “Expelliarmus!” as a blast of scarlet light blew Avery backward across the room, knocking the cowardly git’s head hard against the far edge of the mantelpiece.
It could have been worse. It could have been much worse -- bloody and Dark and potentially fatal, and not just a thump on the head. Nonetheless, Severus thought grimly as he contemplated Avery’s unconscious form falling slumped by the hearth as the common room burst into a concerned uproar around them, “At least I didn’t slice him from stem to stern” was not a very convincing defense. For the first time since the blow-up against Lily the previous school year, he was really going to be in for it.
Snivellus and the Head Girl by SeverusSempra
Chapter Notes: Rethinking friends and enemies.
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you so much to my wonderful beta, Sandy (Snape's Talon), for everything, and especially for keeping my spells honest. :) Thank you also to everyone who has written reviews for this-- seriously, they are so helpful.