Owl Occurrences by ChoicesWeMake
Summary: It's Nott who finally surprises Severus by speaking up, small dark eyes strangely intense.
"It's Potter's owl, sir."
Severus eyes Potter with interest, but the boy's lips are pinched tight, shoulders hitched, and he's staring at the ground without saying a word.
Well, well.

In which Severus' night has just got interesting (...if by interesting you mean completely hijacked by one irritating and distraught prepubescent boy).
Categories: Teacher Snape > Professor Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required)
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Out of Character Snape
Genres: Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe, Slytherin!Harry
Takes Place: 1st Year
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 4 Completed: No Word count: 8392 Read: 8310 Published: 04 May 2018 Updated: 16 Jun 2018
Chapter 2 by ChoicesWeMake
Author's Notes:
Okay, so. Hehe. Not a two-shot anymore. I guess this has turned into like, a small companion novella, or something. Lol
Thanks to everyone who's staying with me! :)
The air at the top of the West Tower is high and cold; there's a draft from all the open windows, and a distinctly unpleasant barnyard smell despite them.
The boy, still barefoot, with his school robe wrapped over his nightclothes, makes a beeline for a white snowy owl resting on a low perch in the corner. Clinging woozily to it's perch, the owl is swaying, resting it's head against the cool stone wall. It cooes a little at the boy, looking disgustingly pleased to see him.
Potter's on his knees in front of her, whispering and petting soothingly, hard edges and adrenaline falling away from him like snow melting off a warm jacket.
"It's alright, Hedwig. It's alright," The boy's murmuring over and over, and it's as if he doesn't even remember Severus is in the room.
"Potter," Severus says sternly.
"Sir!" Potter's all urgent and imploring as he turns, and Severus is taken back to see a glimmer in his eyes before he blinks it back.
The word "help" won't pass his lips, Severus knows, but the boy's begging for it all the same, in a way he never would for himself (already, Severus knows this about him).
"She's worse, sir. She's worse than the last time I saw her -"
Severus pulls him harshly away from the owl, steps into take a look at her.
Alright. Alright, he's immediately able to dismiss the wiggling, whinging voice at the back of his head that is so sure that this whole thing was some prank of Potter's to keep Severus out of bed.
The owl peers at him, glassy-eyed and dubious. Severus is used to being the subject of a distrustful gaze, so he ignores it and is reaching out a hand to get a better look at her when she seems to rally weakly, gnashing her beak at him.
"Potter!" Severus snarls, snatching his hand backward, while the boy leaps forward with a startled cry.
"Hedwig, no!"
Severus glances over his pale skin to verify that the beak didn't actually catch him, and looks up to tell Potter to get control of his bloody bird. But the boy's standing, wedged in-between the rather annoyed looking fowl and Severus, body curved protectively over his owl, and the words die in Severus' throat.
"Don't hurt her!" Potter says fiercely, and if the boy was begging earlier, he's not now, aura radiating fight me as much as his small body can project. "She's sick, and tired, and she doesn't know you-"
"There is one person of authority in this room, boy, and it is not you!" Severus grinds out. "Now step away."
Potter draws himself up, guarded. "Only if - I mean, will you promise you won't hurt her?"
Oh, the boy wants him to promise…something dark and painful in Severus scoffs. There's innocence yet; one day he will learn how very little words mean.
"Potter," Severus warns him evenly.
The boy stares at him for a moment, probably fighting every instinct he has, and Severus expects to have to haul the boy away kicking, if not screaming. A little intimidation hasn't gone wrong before...
He's surprised a moment later when the boy lowers his tense stance reluctantly, swallows, lets out a single nod.
There's something new, tentative, in his swirly green gaze, because every other time he's given way to Severus, it's been fear, fear, terror, grown-up authority hurt hurt hurt. Severus is not stupid; the boy has more often purposefully antagonized him than yielded to him, but when he has yielded, that has been his motivation. Placate angry adult NOW, and Severus is all to aware of that particular impulse.
This, for the first time, feels different.
This, for the first time, feels like permission. Like an offering….like a gift. Like two-and-a-half-weeks-ago sitting in Severus' office with a photograph between them and something blossoming unspeakable and new. This, for the first time, feels a little bit like trust.
The thought makes Severus stiffen in alarm, want to take that fragile branch of trust and shove it back at the boy, but all he can do is stand there feeling the slightest bit ill while Potter turns back to crouch by his bird.
"Hedwig, I know it's hard," the boy hushes her, his face so eleven-year-old solemn. "I need you to let him…he's going to help you, alright?"
He pets a finger affectionately down one snowy white wing and she slumps into it a little, giving a feeble, agreeable hoot.
Severus' hands are awkwardly gentle as they reach for the sick bird again. Potter's voice a panicky babble in the background as he inspects the fluffy, sleepy bird.
"I try to come up often, and I don't think she's left the Owlery for almost two days. Usually she'll go out and hunt but…I don't know - I couldn't figure out what was wrong, I didn't know what to do -"
Severus turns away from his examination, and the eleven-year-old braces his shoulders, shoving his fisted hands as far down into his pockets as they'll go. Face grim, Potter lifts resigned eyes.
"Is she…will she make it? Is she…" He hesitates.
"Don't be so melodramatic, Potter," Severus says. "Your bird will be fine."
"But - there's something wrong with her. What's wrong with her?"
Merlin help me. "I'd love to spend what little time I have before dawn explaining extensively the inner working of an owl's biology to you, Potter, but maybe this once, you should actually do what you're told without wasting vast amounts of time with your unnecessary questions!"
Potter's chin jerks up, his cheeks flaring with heat, for a moment he looks like he's going to spit out one of those scathing replies he's so well-known for, but then his gaze shifts to his bird, and Severus watches him bite it back.
"Fine." Potter says. "What needs to be done, then?"
When Severus doesn't say anything else, pinning the boy with his eyes, Potter speaks again, his voice not quite steady, but shot through with resolve.
"I mean - just tell me. Tell me what to do to save her. I'll do it, you won't have to do anything, she won't be any extra work for you."
He watches Potter break apart under the silence, watches him collapse and rebuild himself with that temperamental youthful flexibility and a painfully hard-headed tenaciousness. His face and expressive eyes flash through so many emotions, it seems like a toss-up where the features are going to settle.
"Sir, you can't - help me, blast it! Please. Please? Don't let her suffer because of me. You can't just stand there, please, it's not her fault I picked her! You can't just stand there and not help her. You can't."
Potter's mouth sets stubbornly, the edges of his eyes are wrinkling but he's still not crying, not even one tear let loose, you can't, he says, like his very denying of it will make it a physical impossibility.
Part of Severus wants to protest the undeniable pain in the boy's eyes as exaggerated and theatrical - it's not like his bird's dying, after all.
But nobody has to explain to Severus Snape the damage that people can do by just standing there.
It's another harsh beat of nothing, nothing heard but the ruffle of feathers as the owl moves golden eyes to glare at Severus, and the panting breath of the boy in front of her before Severus says anything, trying to quiet the unfamiliarity of things raging beneath his skin. His voice is stony and automatic when he does speak.
"The bird has a slightly bruised wing, which prevented her from leaving the Owlery to follow her normal hunting routine and led to her current condition of dehydration and undernourishment."
Severus pauses, then, "She needs warmth, quiet, rest, food…I have a salve in my laboratory that will accelerate her healing if we wrap her wing with it."
"Can you - will you-" Potters stops, then admits it, voice low, says it like he's confessing to a crime. "I can't think of anything to give - I'll give you something, anything, I don't know what you would want from me-"
He chokes a little, resignation written all over his slumped body.
"A decent potions essay would be a start." Severus says before he can think better of it, the words quick and off-handed.
Potter's messy head jerks to him, eyes incredulous. "What?"
"Honestly, you fool. Do you assume me to be so heedlessly cruel as to allow an innocent-" (well, mostly innocent, that rabid fowl did try to bite his bloody finger off,) "-animal to suffer needlessly and for no reason?"
"Well. I-"
Yes, says his confused gaze.
Severus sniffed. "I may be spiteful, but even I draw lines somewhere. Beside, if I expected pay-back every time I helped one of you sniveling idiots, I'd live life sour and disappointed."
He barely hears the hurried mutter, "And that would be different how?" before Potter says louder, "So you will? Help her?"
"My office would be a suitable temporary place." Severus says stiffly.
Potter nods.
"I'll take her," he says quietly.
He unwraps his school robe from around him, soft and smooth in the dim light, and wraps it around the owl before gathering her up, her white feathers a contrast against the black. Slytherin's green emblem blinks up off the cloak at Severus from somewhere down the owl's chest.
A minute shiver from Potter tears Severus' gaze away. The boy's nightclothes - which now that Severus looks at them, are appalling, is that what the child wears to bed? - are short sleeved and raggedy, offering almost no barrier to the night air. Potter shifts uncomfortably under his gaze.
"You won't have to - sir, I can take care of her." Potter pledges earnestly. "I'll even, I mean, I can find a way to pay you back for anything she costs you."
Ignoring him completely, Severus sweeps his hand out widely.
"Potter, come," he orders, and Potter does.
To be continued...


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