Severus Snape was in the sort of bad mood that would have sent one of his seventh year Slytherins running. He wasn’t just angry. He was furious, embarrassed and more than a little bit apprehensive about the cruel ways the students and his colleagues alike would find to use the memory that Potter had spied on. Damn that brat. He stalked to the great hall, dreading having to teach that class. Someone was definitely having a good laugh at him right now, and he was lucky if it was only fate. Most likely that statement included the whole of Gryffindor house at the very least, possibly the there three houses as well. He took his normal seat and looked out over the hall, his eyes pausing on the Potter brat and his gormless fans. They didn’t seem particularly jubilant; perhaps he hadn’t had a chance to tell them yet.
By fifth year potions he was onto that boy. He was making him sweat it out. That brat knew that he would be expecting the information to be shared and he was making him wait. Severus was beyond furious, and the worst bit was that thanks to the boy and his merry morons Albus was gone, and with him his only chance at limiting the damage that Potter was going to inflict. Oh he was going to have words with the old wizard once he returned though, holding onto the information like this had to be evidence that the boy who Albus swore was the epitome of love was going dark. He stalked over to Potters cauldron and nearly gagged at the smell. There could be no reason on earth to wear that much deodorant.
“50 points from Gryffindor for smelling ridiculous” he sneered, then walked away. Only then did he wonder if what he was doing was wise. Surely the crueller he was the crueller Potter would be. But he would not be controlled by that brat. He was like his father and godfather rolled into one. Who knew bullying was hereditary.
By Sunday morning Severus was jumping at shadows. He had always been a little paranoid, it came with the territory of being a spy, but this was getting absurd. Potter hadn’t done anything as far as he could tell, but the previous morning he had dragged the Granger girl off, no doubt planning something horrible, and by the evening they were whispering and giggling. He was certain that whatever Potter was plotting was going to happen soon, and one part of him couldn’t help but be glad. After all, he couldn’t punish Potter for plotting, Merlin knows he’d tried. As he was drinking his morning coffee a nondescript school owl arrived with a letter for him. Cautiously, he removed the note and the owl flew away. He unrolled the note and attempted to read it, no mean feat when it looked like it had been written by a drunken spider ballet dancing across the page.
Professor Snape
Please go to the classroom next to your office after breakfast, you probably want to come alone.
P.s. there won’t be anyone there, I’m not trying to challenge you to a duel or kill you or anything
Now he was confused and concerned. Damn that brat for making him so edgy. It probably had nothing to do with him, even his handwriting was better than this spider scrawl. But why did he want to go alone. Damn that note. Damn the whole situation. What was there to gain if he did go alone? What risks could there be? Who would he bring if he brought anyone at all? Who wrote the damned letter? All of these unanswerable questions ran through his head as he automatically ate his breakfast. He glanced at the Gryffindor table and saw that Potter was happily conversing with his two shadows. They didn’t seem to be paying any undue attention to him which suggested that it wasn’t Potter…or that if it was Potter he was more devious than he had expected, which made the invitation even more concerning. Damn that boy. Deciding that he had better get a Gryffindor perspective on what was most likely a Gryffindor problem he passed the note to Minerva. She looked at it with puzzlement.
“It seems innocent enough” she commented, passing it back. “But in these times who can be sure,”
“What do I do though?” he asked, a little of his frustration surfacing. She looked at him oddly, he never let anything get to him.
“Why don’t you go alone, and I’ll stay at the door. That way we can see who it is but you are still following instructions. Problem solved.” He nodded and mumbled his thanks.
Walking to the dungeons with Minerva by his side he berated himself for his stupidity. He faced the dark lord on a regular basis, lied to him on a regular basis but was unnerved by what was most likely a student prank and had felt the need to get backup from a Gryffindor no less. He knocked on the classroom door. There was no answer, He looked to Minerva, who shrugged, so he le himself into the classroom. He took one look around and gasped.
The room contained a very strange shaped wrapped something and behind it were at least fifty full of large boxes wrapped in green and silver “You might want to take a look at this” he called. Minerva looked around the door cautiously then stepped in
“Oh my!” she exclaimed, then with a mischievous grin added “I didn’t know it was your birthday”
“It’s not!” he grumbled
“Aha, a secret admirer then” he sent a death glare, to which she just rolled her eyes.
“What do I do with them?” he asked
“Hmm, what to do with presents. Open them maybe.”
“You know what I meant. They could be anything.”
“There’s only one way to find out and they don’t appear to have air holes”
“ha ha ha” he muttered humourlessly as he carefully reached for one that was laying separately from the others on the front desk. It had a note on top of it and a label on it. The outside of the letter simply said ‘read me’ in that same spider scrawl, and the label said ‘open me’. Minerva read them over his shoulder and laughed.
“Well we can safely say that whoever this is had some experience of muggle culture.”
“What? Why?” She rolled her eyes
“You don’t think people normally give instructions on gifts. They’re an Alice in Wonderland reference. You know ‘eat me’, ‘drink me’” at his blank look she shook her head. “Why don’t you just ignore the cultural aspects then and do as the labels say.” He glared but complied
“Potter” he growled upon seeing the much more familiar writing inside.
Professor Snape
I would like to apologise for my behaviour during my last occlumency lesson and would like to humbly ask you to resume them as I feel that they are of great importance. I had not realised this until stopping them forced me to think about their benefits. I suppose you have to loose something before you appreciate its true value.
I have not shared with anyone what I saw in the pensive…
He stopped reading and turned to Minerva
“Your precious golden boy is blackmailing me into giving him occlumency lessons” he shouted in outrage.
“Mr Potter?” she asked in confusion. “That doesn’t seem like him, nor does it explain the gifts” she took the parchment “Severus, read to the end of a sentence before condemning the poor boy” she scolded in exasperation. He took it back
…nor do I intend to, whether you decide to resume the lessons or not. I found what I saw upsetting to say the least. I have always held my father in great esteem, never having heard anything to the contrary but your memory showed both him and Sirius in a new light. I have visited Sirius and spoken with him about what I saw. You will find a pensived memory of that in the box as well as several you may find interesting. Put bluntly I find what my father and godfather did to you repulsive and I would not condone it by spreading the story around the school as I am sure you expected me to do. Furthermore, I would like to add that I am not James Potter nor will I ever be.
I apologise for invading your privacy. I cannot justify it but I can explain my motivations. I am being given no information regarding Voldemort’s or the orders activities and considering my rather unique situation that is unnerving to say the least. I had hoped to find more information on those topics in your pensive. As I said I cannot justify it, it was impulsive and stupid, and I am sincerely sorry. In an effort to make up the invasion of privacy I have prepared these gifts. I say prepared because they were never truly mine to give, but I still believe that they will be of value. I am not a Malfoy and so I don’t expect to buy myself out of the situation but might I add that in obtaining these gifts I effectively put myself off of food for two days and it was infinitely more revolting than the most foul detention you could serve me (please don’t see that as a challenge).
I once again apologise for my deplorable behaviour
Harry J Potter
P.s. Use gloves to handle the gifts and I apologise for the smell. I used half of Dean’s deodorant to get it off of me, as I’m sure you know since you took points for it
“I’m sorry. Not trying to blackmail me. Trying to kill me perhaps, or incriminate me by giving me stolen goods.” Minerva sighed and took the note from his hands.
“Must you assume the worst of him? This seems like a very adequate apology. And he’s warning you about the gifts so most likely not trying to kill you. Why don’t you take a look in the pensive?” He acquiesced and opened the box, then went into the pensive. Twenty minutes later he re-emerged.
“That was illuminating” he muttered as he sat down at a desk.
“What did he show you?” she asked in concern
“Well,” he responded quietly, looking slightly more pale than usual. “There was a message telling me that he and I were not so different. He put in a memory of mine he saw a few weeks ago of myself and Tobias” Minerva winced sympathetically “then some memories of his relatives” She stared.
“What? Do you mean to tell me there are similarities?” He nodded
“I believe so, as does Mr Potter clearly.”
“I told Albus those muggles were awful. Oh I will kill that man…” she trailed off when she realised she was ranting “so I assume there was another memory he saw. One involving the marauders.”
“Yes. He showed me similar and worse experiences with his cousin from age five to present, with a conclusion at the end that I now had as much dirt on him as he had on me, and that he felt no inclination to share mine.” He sat in genuine puzzlement while his colleague ranted about the pro’s and con’s of various methods of muggle torture, followed by Dumbledore torture. After a few moments the ranting wound down and she turned to face Severus.
“Wasn’t there anything about Sirius in there? Mr Potter said there would be.” Severus smirked evilly.
“Oh it was in there alright. He ranted at the mutt for about ten minutes solid, and told him that he and Potter were no better than his cousin, and that they would have picked on him at school.”
“Really? Where did he speak with him?”
“Headquarters. I don’t have any idea how he might have managed to get there since Wednesday.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Well aren’t you at all curious what he might have ‘prepared’ for you in those boxes?”
“Perhaps” he admitted with a small smirk, still reeling with relief that Potter wasn’t going to spread his secrets. He fumbled in the pockets of his robes for a pair of dragonhide gloves. He put them on and approached the strangely shaped wrapping gift.
“I shall have to speak with him about his terrible taste in wrapping paper” Minerva commented. Severus just approached the wrapping with mounting dread. The letter did not make this sound like a normal gift.
“Why can’t he just be like Malfoy and buy himself out of trouble?” he moaned “a handmade gift – isn’t that a bit Hufflepuff for your house.” Minerva had a thoughtful look on her face. She moved to the other end of the giant gift and removed a small section or wrapping, gasped then burst out laughing.
“On the contrary Severus. I think his gift is about as Slytherin as possible without gift-wrapping the man himself.” Intrigued now he pulled off the wrapping and gasped. Inside the wrapping was a giant snake skeleton. The top of its head was taller than him.
“He didn’t” he muttered, stepping back in shock.
“It appears he did” Minerva retorted “I must say it’s larger than I would have imagined, and…sweet Merlin look at those teeth”
“Potter killed that in his second year?” he asked in shock. Minerva nodded slowly
“I wouldn’t have fancied trying” she admitted.
“Well its something Malfoy wouldn’t give me” he replied weakly with a huge smile that looked quite out of place on his face.
“Well now that we know what to get you for Christmas” she teased “why don’t you see what else he got you? I know I would like to see if anything can top giving he head of Slytherin Salazar Slytherin’s pet snake’s skeleton.” He nodded and moved to the box with the biggest label.
“Open me and hold your nose.” He read out loud
“That sounds ominous” Minerva laughed pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and covering her nose and mouth. Warily Severus removed the wrapping. Inside was a large crate. He used a cutting spell to get into the box and gasped. There was a bloody chunk of meat in the box with a label on a cocktail stick proclaiming it basilisk heart.
Laughing loudly at the look of pure glee on her colleagues face McGonagall peered in and immediately regretted it when the smell hit her.
“Great Merlin, how did he get close enough to get that? It’s horrible.”
“And here I was about to put it down to Gryffindor bravery.” He retorted
“My lions are known for being brave, not suicidal.”
“Try telling that to Potter” he replied moving to look in the next box. “What is he playing at?” he muttered in bewilderment “They’re gifts, he doesn’t need to sell them to me” he passed the accompanying note to Minerva
One of a kind basilisk fang. Once pierced the arm of the famous boy-who-lived. Aforementioned hero then used this very relic to destroy a possessed diary belonging to none other than Tom Marvolo Riddle (I am lord Voldemort for those no good at anagrams …well I’m not, I’m Harry Potter- I am good at anagrams not Voldemort, who am I kidding I’m neither Tommy had to spell it out for me - literally). Going once, going twice sold to the man dancing around and singing about all the potions he could use it in. WAIT! Don’t grind it up. I could autograph it for you! It would go nicely with my new book ‘Slithering with Slytherin – Harry Potter’s damsel in distress saving adventures’
“That poor boy spent far too long with Gilderoy Lockhart” she told him in mock sadness. “either that or the smell’s addled his brain”
An hour later the positively gleeful potions master had unwrapped all of the gifts.
“So, has he done enough to get those lessons restarted?” Minerva asked with a grin. She had never seen him look so happy.
“I suppose so.” He admitted, still poking at the contents of various boxes.
“I’ll be off then. It appears you’re in no immanent danger here” She turned and walked to the door then poked her head back around it “Oh and if you manage to make anything with unpleasant effects that you might need to test, might I suggest using a toad.” He snorted, having never seen the vindictive side of his colleague before, then went back to his gifts. Maybe Potter wasn’t quite as bad as he had thought.