Insomnia.

Since coming to Hogwarts, Potter has actually fared relatively well; he had survived that ridiculous encounter with the troll Quirrell had let into the castle, Severus has managed to stop him short when the Quidditch stands had given way, and now the boy is brought down by insomnia, of all things.

At dinner, Severus quietly eats his meal, cutting his meat and vegetables each into small pieces before eating them, methodically, simply; Minerva, as is her wont, looks disapprovingly at his plate every once in a while, but does not verbally denounce his “dissections”.

“And what train of thought, I wonder, is travelling through that dark head of yours?” Minerva asks. After Quirrell had nearly cried some time in November, when Severus had called him a— What had he said? He recalls he was pleased with his own phrasing at the time, yes: “a pathetic shadow of a man with more turban than character” –Albus had rather tiredly suggested Quirrell sit elsewhere on the table. Now, Quirrell sits with Charity Burbage and Aodh Delaney, and Severus sits between Minerva and Filius, where he might be better supervised. It might embarrass him were it not so funny.

“I’ve never felt my head to be especially dark, Minerva. In the past, people have gone so far as to describe me as pale,” Severus responds dryly, and he hears Pomona’s laugh as he sets his knife and fork down, reaching for his glass and taking a sip of his wine. The stock this year is from a vineyard outside Lyon; Filius had either known the proprietor, or met her, or seduced her, but the actual particulars do not matter. What matters is that the wine is of a decent vintage, is pleasantly acidic, and that most of the staff – barring Severus and Filius themselves – do not like the stuff, which means Severus has no worry that it will soon be depleted. Even now, a few weeks into their second term, there is a great number of bottles left.

“Worried about Mr Potter?” Pomona asks, rather earnestly. Just as Albus sits on Minerva’s other side, she is usually to be found on Filius’ other. There’s mustard on her chin, but Severus doesn’t care enough to point it out. “Poppy said he fainted in your class this morning.” Filius gasps, his hand over his mouth.

“The boy fainted?” he asks, rather alarmed. “What ever did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Severus says, more tiredly than indignantly. “The boy has been having some trouble with sleeping for over a week, and it finally took its toll. He muttered something about flobberworms and dropped like a stone.” As one, the four of them look to the boy. He is talking animatedly with the other Slytherin boys, nudging Draco beside him and saying something inaudible across the table to Theodore Nott. He sees Goyle’s lips move, and then all of the boys – even Crabbe – burst out into laughter that can be heard even from the staff table.

“They’re very close-knit, this year,” Minerva says quietly, approvingly. There’s a ghost of a smile on her face, and Severus knows without asking who she is thinking of; instead of asking, he looks up to the ceiling, where the dark sky outside is beginning to show cloud. It will rain tonight, very heavily, but after that it’s forecast to be clear.

He has a sudden thought of being on the roof of an abandoned factory in Cokeworth and looking up at the darkening sky – how old had he been? Lily had been with him, but they had started Hogwarts by then, so he must have been thirteen or fourteen, perhaps. Lily had complained that her parents wanted a subscription to the Prophet because the weather forecast was more accurate, but then sent her letters every week asking her to explain every other article published.

“You’re talking absolute rot, Minerva,” Filius says, shaking his head so emphatically he nearly loses his balance, but he claws it back. Severus has no idea why the man insists on precariously balancing himself upon piles of books or pillows when chairs have most certainly been designed with the purpose of hosting short men, but he expects it somehow adds to Filius’… Charm. Severus’ lip twitches. “He’s nothing like him! Is he, Severus?”

“Is who what?”

“Potter is nothing like his father!” Severus sees Minerva’s expression betray a note of anxiety, of uncertainty, and he looks over to the boy. “It’s all very well for you to say he’s noble,” Filius continues, “but they’re so different… No, he’s very much like his mother.”

“You just want him to pursue charms,” Pomona says, and Filius laughs, quietly.

He goes onto agree, “Well, yes… He’s an intelligent boy. She was nothing short of a genius, of course, but even still.”

“He is like Lily,” Severus says, finally. “Very sarcastic, very sharp-witted. Cannot hold his tongue for his life.” It’s true enough, too. When the boy had first crossed the threshold into the Potions classroom, Severus had bitten at him, quizzed him, but every class after that… The boy had known not to be underprepared ever again. Now, despite himself, Severus almost likes the boy – as much as he can like any child, given their loud and insipid chatter, their tendency to cruelty, their outright stupidity and disrespect for their own safety—

“So like James, too?” It cuts abruptly through his train of thought, sparking anger in him: Severus’ gaze flits to Minerva’s face, which is defiant, as if their ages are momentarily reversed. Minerva, in many ways, had loved James Potter as a son, Severus has come to understand over the years, but he has no patience for it.

“No. Potter was cruel, Minerva.” The reminder is sudden, and rather than feeling bitter or angry on his tongue, it feels quite empty of anything but truth: Severus is no more emotional about this than the drop of gravy remaining on his plate. Reproach shows in Minerva’s face, but it is mixed with indignation, so Severus makes no attempt to continue.

“What are you doing about the insomnia, Severus?” Pomona asks, and Severus glances at her. Pomona isn’t scared of conflict, by any means, but she seems to be the best at defusing it. For a second, Severus almost wishes she had taught Herbology when he had been at school, but Pomona is barely ten years older than Severus himself.

“Poppy prescribed some Drowsy Dragon of the evening.” Filius groans, and Minerva chuckles. Even Severus feels some amusement: every once in a while, the topic arises, and whenever it does…

“That bastard,” Filius grumbles, “thinks he can just make a potion and brand it up and—” Severus smiles slightly, taking another sip of his drink as Filius angrily rattles his fingers against the stone of the table. “It’s unheard of! Obscene! Ridiculous! To develop such a potion and not tell people of the recipe…”

“This is what happens to the charms on broomsticks. They’re released, and after five or so years, the recipes or spell combinations become open to analysis,” Pomona says in an exceedingly reasonable tone. “Or are charms different, Filius?” All three of them turn to look at him, and Filius’ expression crumples as he tries to resolve the issue in his head. On the one hand, he does of course want a different set of rules to govern charms, but on the other…

“Well, I still despise him, either way. And I’ll tell him so the next time I see him!”

“Poppycock!” Minerva says.

“You’re lying,” Severus agrees. How long has it been, he wonders, since the last time Filius had an excuse to rant about Horace Slughorn? Too long. Every time, he finds the very process quite delightful.

“You talk to him every time you see him,” points out Pomona. “And correct me if I’m wrong, Fil, but isn’t the other party supposed to know when there’s a feud going on?” Minerva lets out a sudden burst of laughter, grabbing hold of Severus’ arm to steady herself, and he lets himself grin at Filius’ utterly offended expression.

“It isn’t a feud.”

“All this over a bit of Drowsy Dragon,” Minerva wheezes out, shaking her head. “Honestly…” Their plates disappear, replaced with a few desserts, but the castle knows Severus too well; it doesn’t so much as place a biscuit before him, and he rests his hands upon the flat table before him.

When Severus had first returned to Hogwarts, after his trial in the Ministry of Magic, it had been difficult to adjust. His work before had been at an apothecary on the magical street in Aberystwyth, nestled between the Knight Bus Station and a stationery store, and working as a teacher was something he was plunged into against his will.

He’s been here just under ten years, now, and every year he submits a written resignation to Albus Dumbledore’s office; every year, it is somehow lost, or misplaced, and never outright rejected. Whenever he tries to broach the subject face-to-face, Albus gently assures him it is best for all that he be kept where he might be easily watched… Severus, even after all these years, cannot be trusted, it seems. And who’s to say Albus is wrong? Severus wouldn’t trust himself, were he in the old man’s position.

Severus glances past Minerva to the old man, but Albus pretends not to notice him. He is embroiled in an apparently serious conversation with Silvanus Kettleburn, likely about how difficult it is to juggle monsters when you’ve only got one limb left out of four. But then, Kettleburn does seem to soldier on rather admirably, and he’s more of a madman than Hagrid.

Severus stands neatly from the table, taking up the notes he’d set aside when he’d seated himself for dinner. He makes his way forwards, stepping around the table. There aren’t many staff at Hogwarts, but Severus doesn’t feel especially singled out as he steps down from the long table; he often leaves dinner early, and it is no secret that Albus specifically mandates him to attend at all.

“Potter,” Severus says quietly. It is unnecessary for him to speak louder, as his voice easily cuts through the chaos of the Great Hall, and he watches the Slytherins as they begin to stand from the table and filter from the room. Potter turns around in his seat, and Severus looks over his features. The boy is more pallid than usual, lacking the natural warmth to his colouring, and there are grey shadows beneath his bright eyes, showing the difficulty he’s had in sleeping. “You’re out of the hospital wing, I see.”

“Guess you don’t need glasses as much as I do.” Severus Snape, over the course of a great many years, has very carefully formulated a personality he utilizes with students. He neither laughs nor smiles with any of them, lest they get the idea that he is anything but a very irritable man who is somehow being forced to endure their presence (how would they feel, he wonders, to realize that was true?), but for the first time in years, he feels his impassivity under threat. The last time he’d struggled had been three years ago, when young Francis Drummond had bitten a Hufflepuff on the nose, and Severus had wanted to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.

Act, Severus, act, it is urgent that you do something, respond!

Severus doesn’t like to touch his students, so the slap is nothing like those the prefects deliver: he smacks Potter upside the head, and the boy barely even flinches, a grin on his exhausted features. His eyes are wide with surprise, but if anything, he seems invigorated rather than offended.

“Dispense with the cheek, Potter,” Severus says sternly, but the want to laugh is still achingly present, and he forces his expression to remain quite neutral, feeling the slight warmth in his cheeks. Negative emotions are difficult to compartmentalize and ignore – sadness, anger, irritation, even pain, but humour? Such things aren’t so easy to brush aside. He hands over the notes for Potter, and says, “Your work, to be completed by Thursday. I will arrive at precisely 9:30. You will take your potion, you will go to bed, you will sleep. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. Thanks.” Potter says with a little nod of his head. His smile is genuinely grateful, and Severus, not for the first time, finds himself mildly surprised that the boy isn’t scared of him, despite his stern and biting manner. Lucius tells him that Potter’s letters are curious but confident, and Severus cannot help but wonder what upbringing he might have had to create such poise with strange adults. Upon coming to Hogwarts himself, he had no fear of authority at all, but had been uncertain around all the strange figures of the Hogwarts staff… Except Filch, of course, whose biting manner and irritation was much more similar to the adult interactions he’d experienced up to that point. Severus cannot ask, of course, and he merely looks at the boy’s face for a second longer before he takes his leave, making his way from the Great Hall and out toward the staircases.

“Severus! Severus!” He turns, standing still on the landing as his caller catches up to him, having rushed to follow him, and when she stops before him, all easy, willow-limbed grace, she smiles. Sinistra’s dark skin shines in the candlelight, highlighting the strong bones of her cheek and her jaw, and Severus cannot help but think, for a moment, that she looks like a painting.

“Yes, Aurora?” She turns her head back, looking to the next room, where children are beginning to filter out from dinner to return to their common rooms or to the library for an hour more, and she puts her finger on her mouth. The conspiratorial nature of her walk is obvious from a mile away, but Severus doesn’t complain as he follows her up the stairs toward the Astronomy Tower, where her quarters are naturally located. She pulls him to a corridor, reaching into her robes, and for a second Severus has a fleeting fear she’s going to attempt some kind of seduction, but she draws out a copy of a magazine with a flourish. “You’ve taken me all the way up here to admit you’ve a subscription to Wizard’s Staff?” Severus asks, arching an eyebrow, and she makes a vague sound as she flicks through the pages.

She turns the magazine around, showing him the page. On the left side of the spread is the back end of an article about a new hairdresser’s off Diagon Alley, Flockhart’s Locks, but Aurora’s perfectly manicured nail points to a small section of the letters to the editor section.

“Wizard’s Staff should really do a piece on Odhrán Branán. This is the seventh time now that one of his potions has had a spread in Potions Monthly, and that’s absolutely unheard of. He’s a genius!”

Mary O., Dartmouth

You know what, Mary? We feel the same way! We keep asking our friends at Potions Monthly to tell us all about him, but Odhrán Branán is apparently a pseudonym, and they couldn’t tell us about him even if they wanted to! We can surmise than Mr Branán is probably Irish, but there are no Branáns around – it’s a rare given name, and even asking around the communities in Galway & Cork, our reporters have been unable to find a scoop!

If anyone has any tip, please, let us know!

Victor Langley, Editor

Severus snorts, shaking his head, and Sinistra grins widely, showing all of her teeth.

“Think I should tip them off?”

“If you did, I would be doing the same to you, Aurora – from the Astronomy Tower.” She laughs, the sound loud and ringing, and she closes the magazine, fondly patting the cover. The half-naked Quidditch player sprawled across it gives a little giggle, but leans into the touch, and Severus wrinkles his nose.

“You should really publish your essays under your real name, Severus – and your recipes." Aurora had begun to teach at Hogwarts the same year as Severus, a war widow beside him, a war criminal, but to his great surprise she had reached out to him immediately, and despite himself, he’d allowed her to befriend him…

Odhrán Branán had been the ill-conceived result of a drunken night in, where the two of them, so despairing of their equally stupid charges for the year, had played a variation of chess where every piece taken meant one’s opponent took a shot of firewhiskey. Incensed by a particularly idiotic article in Potions Potions!, a smaller publication that had died off in ’87, Severus had written a flourishing and furious response as Aurora had delightedly cheered him on.

The letter was met with approval all across the country, and Severus had begun to use the pseudonym whenever he wished to set aside something useful in a magazine, or encourage a dialogue on a particular subject. The world of Potions is hardly a large one, but it is large enough that a man can utilize a pseudonym.

Severus shudders to think how difficult such anonymity would be in the world of Muggles, given how popular phones seem to be getting in recent years – and this new Internet, too, is something he will remain weary of, no matter how many times Charity delightedly tells him of its merits. His separation from the Muggle world, when he had finally come to Hogwarts, had been a turning point, and he has been glad to escape its complexities since.

Guilt suddenly tightens in him, squeezing his stomach, and he looks at Aurora’s excited expression.

“No,” he says, emphatically, sharply enough that her smile drops slowly away from her face. “I don’t want the fame, Aurora, nor any additional money.” She sighs, softly, lowering the magazine, and looks at him for a few seconds. With Aurora’s deep brown eyes, the duration is uncomfortable, her gaze close to soulful, but he withstands it.

“Alright,” she says, softly. “Sorry.”

A pause.

“You need not… Apologize,” Severus murmurs. He might say something else, tell her he is grateful for her company, that it is a joy to share a secret with somebody as opposed to keeping it to himself entirely, that he could never attach his real name to his creations when he knows he could never pursue Potioneering as he could were he free. Why torture himself, after all, with his name in papers when he will remain stuck here, teaching eleven-year-olds they ought not dip their toes in acid, and failing miserably? “Good night, Aurora,” he decides to say instead, and he makes his way back down to the dungeons.

As soon as he reaches the dungeons, he delights in the cool dampness of the air upon his skin, the sweet comfort of the cold and dark, and he comes to his office. He opens the door, closing it neatly behind him, and there’s a soft sound from his desk.

Fantôme is a large cat. She is not fat, by any means, but is muscular and broadly built, with broad whiskers and unusually long teeth, with big paws and eyes the colour of mercury. But for her black socks and the black pad of her nose, she is completely white in colour, with thick fur and a ruff about her neck. There’s Kneazle in her, Severus has no doubt, but how much, he doesn’t believe he will ever know.

When the mouser Lucius had for his greenhouses had a litter, two of them had died, and the other two he had kept for his pantry and the gardens: the fifth and final of them, the nastiest of them, he had placed in Severus’ lap – unfortunately for him, the cat had gone into labour some weeks before his birthday, and Lucius had immediately decided Severus would prefer a cat to the cauldron he had asked for.

“Hello,” Severus says mildly.

Fantôme stares resolutely at him, her silvery eyes reflecting the light in the room.

“I presume you’ve eaten?” She licks her lips, and then delicately begins to groom her left paw, which he takes as a yes. Moving forwards, he puts forth his hand, and immediately she bites him, but she doesn’t do it hard. These days, she doesn’t even draw blood, though his ankles and feet remain scarred from the days when she did. He roughly scratches at her neck and her cheeks, listening to the rumbling purr that comes from deep inside her, like the diesel engine of his father’s old car.

Taking the cat up in his arms, he feels her immense weight – she must be thirty pounds or so, at least – and looks to the clock over his office desk. It is approaching eight o’clock, meaning he has an hour and a half to work before Potter must be sent to bed with his Drowsy Dragon. Filius had been so furious, but in all honesty, Severus had been rather surprised at the business sense Slughorn had shown in branding the stuff as he did, and it is a genuinely serviceable product. The only other commercial potion Poppy will buy is Skele-Gro, and she had taken up Drowsy Dragon at Severus’ own recommendation, as it had less addictive properties than most of the sleeping brews he could brew himself.

Even after nine years, he has yet to deduce what precisely it is about Horace Slughorn that Filius finds so detestable – perhaps, he thinks vaguely, Slughorn beat him once in a duel. Doubtful, but possible.

Fantôme goes limp in his arms, her head dropping against his shoulder, and she looks up at him. Lucius had told him three years ago that she would begin to look at him with love in her eyes, but Severus doesn’t know that he sees love. Can cats feel such things? Severus doubts himself capable of the act, so why a Kneazle bruiser with blood on her toes?

“Do you love me?” he asks, sternly. She gags, and before she can spit her hairball onto his chin (which she has managed before), he drops her straight onto the ground. She lands on the tiled floor of his apartment corridor, coughing wildly, dramatic little slattern, and Severus steps over her and into his kitchen.

With a flick of his wand, his kettle begins to boil, and as he waits for his coffee to be ready and for his cat to quite finish retching, he sinks into the armchair behind the stove and closes his eyes. It flickers into action, warmth pleasantly drawing over his knees and the side of his leg, and he tips back his head.

He will work on his Tincture of Light this evening, he thinks – a sort of activated paint that provides a soft glow when it’s dark, to be painted along doorjambs and the like. The potion is surprisingly complicated, and he enjoys working on it, theorizing on different ingredients to be used, but then— No.

Grimly, Severus remembers the pile of first year essays waiting upon the desk outside, and just for a moment, he lays his head in his hands, presses their heels into his brows, wishes he could scream, or yell, or cry.

The cat comes in with her tail high, and she curls up in the other chair beside the fire. He watches her as she closes her eyes, enjoying the heat as much as him. “But you don’t have to grade children’s drivel, do you?” he demands, bitingly. Fantôme opens one eye, giving him a withering look, and then closes it once more.

Oh, for the life of a cat, he thinks, tiredly, and he sighs.

After a moment’s pause, he makes himself a coffee, and steps out into his office to grade the papers. What else can he do, after all?

He brought this all upon himself.