31 January, 1998, 19:00

There were few times in Severus Snape’s life when he was taken by surprise.  

He did not like surprises.  He had learned under the less-than-benevolent pedagogy of his father that surprises should be avoided at all costs, lest they prove to be unpleasant. Which, Severus found, they generally were.  The Gryffindor horde had further driven that lesson home during his school years, culminating in his acceptance of the Mark that ruined his life, leading to yet another nasty surprise.  By the time Severus came to Albus with his piteous pleas for Lily’s life, he had become a master of observation and surprise avoidance in most instances.  He was perfect spy material, and assumed the role with as much ease as a turncoat could feel.  

Why, then, was he now sitting in his own sacrosanct space, Headmaster Snape, Holy of Holies, struck dumb by a simple act of kindness?

It had all started a fortnight ago, with the installation of Mr. Potter and Miss Granger in his former subterranean abode.  He had opened his suite to the two with not only a few misgivings.  Potter was not known for his impulse control, and Granger, swot that she was, was little better.  She had proved that in class with her incessant hand-waving and unladylike twitches when she was not called upon to show off her vast knowledge of everything bookish.  He had expected his life to devolve into a series of tumultuously draining emotional scenes, with Potter scowling and looking put upon, and Granger spouting her bookish, self-righteous version of youthful wisdom.  He expected to be relieved that the two were so far away from the Headmaster’s office.  

What he did not expect was for Potter to have matured, or for Granger to come to the sudden realisation that she in fact did not know everything simply because she read it in a book.

Severus poured a finger of vodka for himself.  The spirits were a gift from Doholov, given for keeping his wife’s niece out of harm’s way whilst the girl studied under the new regime at Hogwarts.  The niece in question, an unremarkable, unpretty Hufflepuff, was thought to be a Squib so long by her family that her Hogwarts letter came as more than a little surprise.  Igor’s wife had been the one to actually approach Severus at one of the many ‘functions’ compulsorily attended by Death Eaters and their families.  She had told him that his intervention on Draco’s behalf had emboldened her to ask him to protect her niece.  He had balked until Bellatrix cast her seething gaze over them.  Severus scooted the woman out of the hall to one of Lucius’ many withdrawing rooms, his grip tight on the woman’s fleshy arm.  Doholov had joined them in a dark flurry of fusty, dated, ermine-trimmed robes, his expression bordering on madness of the inherited variety, not the type brought on by an extended stay in Azkaban.

They had convinced Severus of the exigency of their need, and did not even resort to the use of an Unbreakable Vow as Narcissa had, via the auspices of her lovely sister.  He was simply required to agree that he might intervene if one of the seedier elements (Amycus) of the new faculty deemed that more personal instruction was necessary for the girl.  Severus had only had to step in once, but that one time was enough to ensure that Amycus scuttled out of the girl’s way whenever he happened upon her.

When Severus had issued his statement of policy and consequence, he made it quite clear that it was no mere threat that he made, but a single warning.  Amycus certainly had no compunction about debauching an innocent, but thankfully the man drew the line at losing important bits of his anatomy to do so.

Coming back to himself, he sloshed the clear liquor around in the glass, watching the fluid lick up the side and swirl back down.  Albus had ceased snoring, but Severus knew the portrait was not ready for a discussion of the recent addition to the student body.  

Severus wasn’t sure he was ready to discuss them just yet either.

He took a sip of the vodka, bracing himself for its fiery path as it made its way to his stomach, even as his fingers strayed to the pocket that held the object that had shaken him so much.

It was a simple thing really, a bezoar, given to him by Potter during one of his visits to his former quarters.  Miss Granger had recovered sufficiently enough to have become bored with her enforced bed rest.  Generally, Severus would have simply given the chit a set-down and left her to weep, wail, or whatever it was that young women did when upset.  There was, however, a pitched war ongoing in which the two Gryffindors were deeply embroiled.   So, Severus had taken every book out of the library that he could, and some out of Albus’ own collection, shrunk them and transported them down to his former students.  

Upon his entry into the room he had been surprised to notice Potter sitting at the table on which Severus used to mark essays, poring over several books, taking copious notes.  He had an ink smear between his eyebrows and it was then that Severus finally saw his resemblance to Lily.  That one bit of ink took him back to Lily’s first attempts at using a quill.  She had spent almost a fortnight learning from Severus how to properly care for and cut a quill.  She had mastered the art, but at great cost to many of her frocks, and a massive expenditure of patience by Severus.  

Seeing Potter with that spark of the his mother, Severus felt his mouth twitch upwards in a tight, tooth-covering smile.  Miss Granger, always quick, laughed, the sound pealing off the stone walls that were not covered by tapestries.  

Potter looked up, opening his mouth, to reveal a very black set of lips and brownish* teeth asking, “What?  What is it?”

Miss Granger gave a mirth-filled look of exasperated commiseration to Severus and then turned her wand on the young man, quickly casting a series of cleansing charms that siphoned off the ink as she answered, “Harry, why can’t you ever learn not to touch your mouth when you write?”

“Oh,” he scowled, as he half-heartedly scrubbed at his lips, smearing them again, then resumed his pursuit of knowledge, an act that in itself that seemed miraculous to Severus.  

The Headmaster began pulling the various tomes out of his pockets, their weight considerable, given that he had only shrunk them, not lightened them.  Irma Pince would have his head if she found he had bespelled them at all, one spell less might let him leave her presence with his life, two he would not dare to attempt.  Irma was more frightening than a hardened Death Eater when it came to her books.  He spread them out theatrically as the Know It All came round the corner of the couch to look at his offerings.  

Potter mumbled something as he shifted his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a forefinger, a thing Severus had seen James Potter do a million times, and suddenly the hatred for Potter was back but tempered with the echoes of Lily that Snape had just seen.  The boy looked up as if sensing the heated gaze on him.  “Sir, there’s something...  I need to say something to you ... privately.”

He shot a meaningful look to his friend who retreated to the bedroom with an armload of books and a warning look on her face, the look directed surprisingly at Severus himself.  It bothered him that she knew what the boy was going to say before he himself did.

“Would you care for some tea, or to have a seat, sir?”  Potter said after a few moments of hesitation.  Severus waved his hand as if dismissing the offer, even as he suppressed his surprise at the boy’s politesse.  Potter had never impressed him as a particularly mannerly young man.

Severus stood stiffly as the boy regarded him, his clear green gaze as assessing and offensive as it had been on that first night of their acquaintanceship seven years before.  Snape asked, “What is it, Potter? “

The boy waited for the door to shut more firmly to the bedroom and then he said, “Hermione doesn’t know about this part, so I’ll say it first.” The boy took a deep, fortifying breath and continued “I’m sorry.  When you were trying to teach me Occlumency, and I looked in the Pensieve...  I shouldn’t have done.  I... uh... I was wrong about... you... a lot of things really, sir, but...  I just want you to know that I’m not my dad.  I wouldn’t have attacked you like that.  I know what that feels like, to be ganged up on.  That’s... that’s all, sir.”

The boy looked as if he would burst into tears and faint at the same time.  Severus reeled, surprised by the boy’s candour.  It was not a pleasant feeling.  Surprises never were. After a serious consideration of the chamber’s walls, he answered,  “I... might have been mistaken also, Potter, about your similarity to... him.”

The boy busied himself with looking at his parchment, straightening the abandoned quill so that it lay across the page in exactly the middle, smudging his fingers with the spare ink in the process.  Severus watched the action with equal interest, anything to quell the bright shame that was now coursing through his body.  The boy had been more of an adult than Severus had acted in the situation.  Severus finally said, “You look a great deal like him, but you have your mother’s...”

“Eyes,”  Potter supplied with an exasperated hunch of his shoulders.  “I’ve been told.”

Severus ventured forward saying more harshly than he intended, “I was going to say, Mr. Potter, that you have your mother’s mannerisms.  She was always quite disgracefully stained when she wrote anything.”

“You knew her well?”  The boy seemed not to be able to temper the longing in his question.  He ducked his head as he asked, his nimble fingers toying with the edge of the book from which he read.

Severus gave a single terse nod.  “I did.”

Potter’s attention turned back to the parchment before he ventured, “I’d like to hear about her sometime, if you wouldn’t mind.  Aunt Petunia... well, let’s just say she didn’t speak too much about her.”

“I can quite imagine.”  Severus stepped forward again, drawing the chair out from the table and supporting himself on the top rung of the ladder back.  “It is... I find it very trying to speak of... Lily.  She was quite special and I... betrayed her... them... you.” The same tears that had threatened to choke him the night he murdered Albus rose like bile up his throat, threatening to asphyxiate him with their bitterness.  He inhaled deeply through his nose and then exhaled before saying, “I will consider your request.”

“Thanks, sir,” Harry said with a hesitant answering smile, which he quickly quelled.  The two looked at each other for a moment before the boy fished into his shirt pocket and withdrew a familiar object.  “There’s something else, too. I think you need to keep this with you.  I had a dream last night about His snake, and there was a lot of blood.  You were in the Shrieking Shack... I don’t want you to end up like... Sirius.”  Severus rolled his eyes to this statement. Potter forged on, his fingers working nervously over the surface of the stone.  “I know it’s stupid, but just take it.   I know you’ll need it, even if it was only a dream.”

Snape stretched out his hand and the boy dropped the bezoar into his palm.  “You’ll need Blood Replenishing potion, and Hermione says dittany too... and maybe some kind of antidote for snake poison.”

“Antivenin.  Need I ask to which snake you refer?” Severus asked archly as he put the stone in the pocket of his teaching robes.  Potter shook his head as Snape asked with his usual dry tone, “Is there anything else, Mum?”

The boy’s startled eyes darted to Snape’s and then he said, “Was that a joke?”
“Potter...”

“It was.”  Potter said, clutching his chest theatrically.  “I think the world might end.”

Severus rose, covering his amusement at the boy’s cheeky comment with a flurry of black robes and scowls. “Don’t be ridiculous, Potter.  Everyone knows I have no sense of humour.  I sold it away with my soul when I was very young.”

Severus had left his former chambers that evening, his soul a little lighter for the implied forgiveness that the boy had given him.  The crushing guilt that had made him so miserable for so many years had lifted a little, as Lily’s eyes had regarded him still a little cautiously from James Potter’s face.  Perhaps Albus was correct.  Perhaps he had judged the boy too harshly.

Severus looked about the Headmaster’s chambers as he finished his drink.  If Albus was awake he would want the news of the day.



3, February 1998 21:43

Draco had been back at school a month and he had some dangerous misgivings about the Dark Lord’s policies for the wizarding world.  He was looking at two of the enforcers of said policy, both Carrows,  torturing a Gryffindor who was a known half-blood.  When Alecto let up, Amycus would renew the cursing, fortunately not a particular Unforgivable used so fondly by most of his compatriots, merely a series of painful slapping hexes and a genuinely diabolical dizzying jinx.  Finnigan, to his credit only uttered a single stuttered shriek at the inception of  his torture before he clamped his jaws shut. Draco watched in sickened fascination as the boy writhed on the flagstones of the Main Hall, blood bubbling from between his compressed lips, as he obviously bit his cheeks to keep from screaming or alternately, sicking up.  Draco’s fist curled over the wand in his palm, willing the Carrows to leave so that he might take some sort of action for the half-blood.

Draco had doubts.  

He’d had them since the Dark Lord had issued his command to kill Dumbledore.  However, what had given him the greatest, and thereby the most dangerous pause, was the introduction of one guest in particular to the menagerie of detainees housed in the Malfoy dungeons.

Luna Lovegood, Loony to almost everyone who knew of her, had been brought to the Manor only a fortnight ago, after a brief sojourn in the company of his dear Auntie Bella and the unfortunate Muggles she had discovered in her late husband’s ancestral home.  From the girl’s bedraggled appearance and dull gaze, Draco knew that her stay with Aunt Bella had been harrowing.  Lovegood’s features were marked with the same kind of shock that his had been on his first real mission as a Death Eater alongside both his aunt and her late husband.  He knew exactly what the girl felt, even if he had not seen the perverse ways his aunt dealt with the Muggles.  No doubt, Lovegood had spent the entire fortnight fearing that her turn on Aunt Bella’s sadistic wheel of fortune would be next.  

Draco looked at the girl’s shock and was suddenly struck with a longing for the nonsense she had spouted during his brief bits of contact with her on the train and at school.  Her alteration in demeanour somehow made everything that had changed since last June seem all too real.  

Draco felt the vomit rise in his throat as Aunt Bella, with a sweep of her arm, indicated that he would be the one to further question the girl.  The lascivious glint in her eye told him exactly what line the putative questioning would take.  It also indicated just how public both their humiliation would be.  Aunt Bella’s usefulness as an instrument of the Dark Lord lay in her demented ability to make each situation act as a double-edged sword.  Lucrezia Borgia could have taken lessons from Draco’s dear, mad aunt.

He closed his eyes against the images that rose to his memory.  Lovegood’s tragically trusting eyes turned to him and he knew, at that moment, that whatever the Death Eaters once stood for had long since eroded into a lewd show of power and a licentious quest for titillation of the darkest variety.   

It was when Lovegood looked at him with such confidence that he made his decision.  He didn’t know how he would do it, but Loony Lovegood would remain untouched by him.  After witnessing the depravity that the older Death Eaters so excelled at, it shamed him to bear the Mark that made him a member of the elite in their rebellion.  He wondered if Severus or Father had ever had to carry out such orders.  The thought made him shudder.

Draco demurred only as much as he could in trying to escape the onerous duty his aunt bade him to perform.   He was still, at that point, a boy who only wanted to save his own hide and that of his family.  Lovegood’s fate didn’t matter to him as much as his did.   He was a true Slytherin, without the Gryffindor courage that would cause him to risk his life for no good reason.   It wasn’t until his aunt called Goyle forward to assume the duties that he acted.  Greg’s panicked look convinced Draco that he must act.

Greg was an innocent.  It would not do for him to have to defile the girl as Aunt Bella wanted.  Goyle’s somewhat strange sense of honour would not allow him to act in that manner.  Draco knew that both Greg and Lovegood might end up dead if he himself did not act.

Draco said after affecting a properly superior smirk, “Whilst I’m sure that Goyle would do an adequate job of... questioning... I am not sure the blood traitor’s daughter could withstand his more strenuous methods of interrogation.  I will do it, but I require privacy.  I won’t have my performance hampered by base comments and crass attempts at humiliation.”

Aunt Bella grimaced, but after a quick, black, warning look from Father, conceded, “Very well, ickle nevvie, but I will expect some sort of proof that the deed is done.  No doubt, her father will be most distressed at the thought of his baby girl’s first experience being so... unpleasant.”

With a surreptitiously cast spell from Draco, the girl appeared to swoon and Draco was able to levitate her to the relative safety of his bedchamber.   He loosened Lovegood’s clothing, faked a bloody show on the square of linen provided, and after a suitable time, and a bit of strenuous calisthenics, returned to the library.  Lovegood stirred as he dumped her unceremoniously at Aunt Bella’s feet, and burst into suitably theatrical tears.  Draco was instructed to escort her to the dungeons. and on their way through the Manor, she had squeezed his hand and whispered, “I think you are very brave, Draco Malfoy.”

In that moment, Draco felt pride in his actions.  He had decided to cast his fate to the winds, and declare a behind the scenes war on the Dark Lord and all he stood for.  Draco just hoped that Father and Mother would eventually understand his change of allegiance.  He knew it would be difficult for them to accept that their son opposed their views on the rightness of the cause, but he had to do it.  His honour in the eyes of an mad Ravenclaw, who now resided in his family’s basement, needed to be upheld.

&*&*&

Professor Snape still made Hermione nervous.  He had since the first time she entered his class.  Hermione knew she was an unrepentant swot.  She could no more help that fact than Professor Snape could erase the effects of years of stress on his face. It was, as a more religiously minded person might say, a matter of fate.  It was that he never failed to called her on her blue-stocking tendencies that gave her the greatest reason to fear his notice.

With a nervous fluttering in her belly, she had laid out what she found out about the Founders and their artefacts. Professor Snape observed her from behind a curtain of lank, greasy hair, his legs splayed out before him in the manner of most men who grew tall but never grew into an acceptance of their physical body.  On one of her many educational holidays to France,  there had been a painting of a French soldier from the Napoleonic era in just such a state of repose, his coat and trousers dusty and creased from hours in the saddle, his legs splayed in an attitude of exhausted repose, his expression both weary and alert.  Had the clothing on the figure been entirely composed of black wool and white linen, the artist might have painted Snape, with his Gallic colouring and sinisterly hooked nose.   

She had decided long ago that had the professor been nearer her age, she might have indulged herself in a crush on him.  He had an air of unkempt danger about him, regardless of how well he dressed, or how much he groomed himself.  Even now, her heart gave a little lurch at seeing the shadow of a beard on his face, the strain lines around his mouth, and dark circles under his eyes.  In those features, he was very much like Harry, though she knew better than to express the sentiment aloud.   Both of them might decide to practice their hexing skills on her.  

The thought made her smile, and to cover her mirth she said in her most annoying swot voice, “So, we have the Ravenclaw diadem somewhere in the castle.  Harry says the diary he destroyed in second year was one, and you destroyed the locket.  You have confirmed that Nagini is another.  So, that leaves two Horcruxes yet to find.   From the accounts Professor Dumbledore left, one is the Hufflepuff cup and the other is...” Professor Snape flinched as Hermione finished heavily, “Harry.”

“Once again, Miss Granger, you have regurgitated what you’ve found in a book,”  Professor Snape’s voice whipped through the silence.

Harry exclaimed, “She’s not done yet!”

Hermione shot Harry a swift look of thanks as she continued, “I believe the diadem is in the Room of Requirement, but in its function as a Room of Forgetfulness.  Professor, Harry and I need to get in there and search for it.  That’s why I called you down here so late.”

&*&*&

It was hours past curfew and Draco found himself scuttling back from the makeshift infirmary in the Room of Requirement.  Padma and Parvati Patel were the chief Healers in their version of triage, and whilst Draco had only recently become familiar with the two in that role, he had brought too many patients to them already.   

The trip from the room was a circuitous one, navigated in the back corridors of the school, where he would be less likely to encounter the Carrows, Filch, or Snape.  It was fortunate that Draco had spent so much time trying to catch Potter in wrongdoing during his early days at the school, otherwise he would not know that the portion of the hallway he now traversed came out just beyond Snape’s former quarters, and only a bit away from the Snake Pit.  Draco turned the corner that would take him past the aforementioned quarters, and heard a door opening further up the hallway.  He sank back into the shadows, into an alcove that had been cut from the stone in earlier days, to accommodate the ancient siege engines that protected the castle from lawless Muggles and various wizarding warlords.  

He watched as Snape stepped outside the door speaking to a person just out of Draco’s vision.  The murmured conversation did not matter as long as Draco remained undiscovered.  Draco waited for what seemed like an eternity for the low conversation to end and the Headmaster to make his exit.  He peeked around the smooth surface of the stone, and could just see the dim interior of the room.  

It was then that Draco knew he had made the right choice.  He knew, if he played his cards just right, he would have a powerful ally, but he would need some assurance that his own role in opposition to the Dark Lord would be noted for posterity to aid him and his family after the war.  A true Slytherin would never do anything without assuring his own safety first.  It was the primary tenet of the unwritten Slytherin code.

Potter and Granger stood in the light cast by Snape’s wand and Granger touched Severus’ arm as she said something earnestly to him. Snape inclined his head and nodded, his usual scowl replaced by an openness that Draco had only seen on Snape’s face in the presence of his Snakes.  

As Potter fidgeted beside her, he heard Granger say, “Be careful, Sir.”

“Yeah, you’re too important to muck about and get caught,” Potter added without the usual animosity that had marked his interactions with Severus.

Snape gave an impatient shift of his shoulders as he said, “Do not venture out of these rooms until I call upon you.  I mean this, Potter.  I won’t have my role compromised because you have an attack of Gryffindor foolishness.”

Potter gave a small laugh, but Draco heard the tension in the boy’s tone even as he said with a cheeky grin, “As long as you don’t get an equally foolish streak of Slytherin treachery.”

“Good night, Potter, Miss Granger,” Snape said in an exasperated tone.  “Get some rest, else Poppy will have my head.  We have a great deal to accomplish before we can retrieve the object.  I will contact you again tomorrow evening... “

After the door closed and Snape warded it from the outside, he turned on his heel and strode back towards Draco’s hiding spot.  Draco sank back in the niche, casting a non-verbal Disillusionment spell on himself, hoping he would not be discovered before he had time to secure his plans.  Snape walked past the alcove, pausing as he peered into the darkened space before he strode onward.

It was only after his footsteps receded fully that Draco made his dash to the dorms.  He had a great deal to do before he confronted Snape about his two very problematic guests.