#trigger warning sexual abuse

Summary:Severus Snape never asked for a distraction, but the one he receives the first morning of a new term will have to do.

Rating/Warnings/Tags: T (Physical Abuse; Black Eye; Professor!Severus Snape; Mentor!Severus Snape; Slytherin!Reader; Hogwarts Student!Reader; Implied/Referenced Child Abuse; Implied/Referenced Abuse; Implied/Referenced Sexual Abuse; Anxiety; References to Depression; Lily Evans & Severus Snape Friendship)

Requester:Anonymous

Request:  “Please the one where se*ually and physically abused slytherin comes to Snape for help, without the detailed description of the assault plz. She suffers from anxiety and clinical depression. Snape is cold at first and then gets really protective and angry.”

Tag List: @imaginesfire

Notes: Here’s another request from Tumblr, my first Harry Potter one. I’ve never written a platonic relationship between a student and teacher before (or a romantic one, for that matter)—and oddly this is only the first of a handful of these kinds of requests I have on my list now. I hope that I did a decent job.

Please keep in mind while reading this that some of things Severus says may not be the best thing to say in a situation like this. He’s a wizard, and not a trained Healer at that, so I tried to think of what he might say in this situation instead of what he shouldsay.

“Resourceful” Is Not a Dirty Word

Another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry began just as the ten prior for Potions Master Severus Snape. He ate a meager breakfast as quickly as possible so as to avoid spending any more time than necessary with students outside his house or classroom. He made forced polite conversation with Minerva until she finally handed over that year’s class schedule. And he settled at his desk at the back of the dank, cold dungeon to prepare for his first class in the last bit of peace and quiet he could expect until the Christmas holidays.

True, an undercurrent of anger buzzed throughout his body as he went through his annual routine. A typical year would find him more apathetic than furious before he had to deal with the odious task of teaching. But no matter what Severus did that morning, no matter what path he forced his mind to take, he could not keep his thoughts from turning again and again to the fact that Harry Potter now walked the castle halls. He tried to grit his teeth and bear it by manually writing the instructions for his first class’s assignment on the chalkboard. There was, after all, no reason to take out his temper until the boy himself reared his ugly head, and that would not be for some hours yet. Before that happy time, he had an O.W.L. class of Gryffindors and Slytherins and a gaggle of third-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws to endure.

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of someone unlatch the door to the dungeon behind him. They opened said door only as far as they had to to slip inside, after which they pulled the door shut again with great care.

His hackles raised at once. Potter. The thought was ludicrous. Severus knew that as soon as it occurred to him. Potter would likely struggle to find his first class on time, let alone a place as out of the way as the dungeon. Yet Severus could not shake the feeling he’d had since he first set eyes on the boy at the Welcoming Feast the night before: James Potter’s son would not fail to torment him. James would have seen to that.

Severus spun, his black cloak billowing out ominously around him. The threat of taking points from Gryffindor was on the tip of his tongue when he spotted the actual intruder:

“Miss [Last Name],” he said in his softest voice. No one attempted to sneak up on him and got away with it, not even a member of his own house.

Sensing his displeasure, you frozen in the process of sliding into a seat at the very back of the room. Your expression was difficult to read that far away in the dim torchlight surrounding only Severus. He saw no reason to light the entire room up when only he occupied the dungeon. But one thing he could see very clearly: only one eye sparkling in the flickering flames. Vivid purple and green skin swelled the other shut.

“Good morning, Professor Snape,” you murmured.

He did not return your polite greeting. “I do not harbor students after they have been fighting in the halls. You may hide from Filch in your common room or you may turn yourself in to his tender mercies, but I shall not got involved.”

This being the start of your fifth year at Hogwarts, you ought to have known his feelings on misbehavior quite well. He did not care if Slytherins broke the rules so long as they showed brains enough to not get caught. Coming to him in the hope of help once spotted by another teacher or the caretaker would earn you nothing more than Severus’ ire.

Apparently this was one lesson you had not learned. You remained rooted to the spot rather than rushing away at this suggestion. Curious. After all, he made it a point to know the strengths and weaknesses of the students within his purview, and he had never noted you to be unintelligent. Perhaps a firmer hand was needed.

“I also do not appreciate when students come early to proffer their assistance,” he said. “I have no need for the aid of an unqualified witch. Your time would be better spent in the Hospital Wing, Miss [Last Name], and I expect that you will return from there at the proper time for class.”

Such a dismissal could not be mistaken for anything else. He returned his attention to the inventory list on his desk. Only a few lines in, Severus found himself interrupted once more.

“Oh, no, s-sir. I didn’t m-mean to—” The curl of his lips must have made you think better of stammering. You stopped, took a deep breath, and then went on a mite more calmly: “I didn’t come here to disturb you, sir. Or to help you prepare for class.”

“Then what is it that you do want?” he asked.

“Nothing, sir.”

“You would not have sneaked into my classroom while my back was turned for no reason. Spit it out. You are wasting my time.”

An inhale. An exhale. You looked nervously at the door.

“If you expect me to protect you from whomever you are fleeing from, you are sorely mistaken. You must be the one to finish the duels you choose to enter into.”

“I haven’t been fighting at all, Professor!” you protested.

Something about the pitch of your voice rang true. Things added up. He had never known you to pick fights in the corridors. Of course, the more boorish Gryffindors, such as their contemptible quidditch captain, would not care about that if they cornered you alone outside the Great Hall—but even that Severus doubted. Tensions between quidditch teams never rose so early in the term, and only two of the Gryffindors would dare to enrage Minerva before classes even started. What would they get out of doing so by picking on someone like you anyway?

Severus made his slow, calculated way down the aisle between tables to where you sat, back straight and stiff as a wand. Your bruise only grew uglier the closer he drew. Perhaps you knew this, for you ducked your head the moment he stood beside you.

“Look at me,” he ordered, and you reluctantly did so.

Your [color] eyes swallowed him whole. The entire process took a matter of seconds. He found himself standing next to you outside of the heavy door to the dungeon. True to your word, he could see no one in pursuit—and the ghastly muggle wound remained bright around your eye.

So he would need to go farther back.

He followed your memories backward through the morning, though your skipping breakfast, getting out of bed—Severus carefully skipped over your dressing for the day—sulking throughout the Welcoming Feast, and lurking alone in an empty corner of the Hogwarts Express. The black eye never vanished or faded.

“I see,” he said as he exited your mind.

The statement caused the color to drain from your face. “See what? Sir.”

“If you are not having problems with your housemates, I suggest you return to the Great Hall. Fifth year is difficult from the start. You will need your strength to get through my class today.”

“No, please, sir!”

You made a motion as though to grab his sleeve. Did you realize how lucky you were that he did not curse you on instinct for doing so? Severus doubted it. Narrowing his eyes, he took a small step backward and away from your grasping hands. At least you had the grace to look embarrassed for that disgusting display of desperation.

“Please let me stay here until class starts,” you murmured to your feet. “I’ll be quiet. I promise.”

“And how do you intend to keep such a promise?”

“I’ll read my textbook. You won’t know I’m here. Please, sir. Please.”

Upon the second please, you lifted your eyes to meet his again. The mark on your face reminded him unpleasantly of the face he used to see when he looked in the mirror during his days as a student—and more unpleasantly still of those who made his face look that way.

“Why?” Severus asked at last.

“I just…” Taking a deep breath, you plunged forward in as slow an explanation as he thought you could manage, “I don’t want the other students to gawk at me like they always do. Every time I get back from a holiday, it’s the same. I’m tired of it, sir. I just want them to leave me alone.”

I just want them to leave me alone. Yes, he could recall the same words coming out of his mouth once upon a time, and exactly who he said them to, if not who about. He’d had so many tormentors that even staying at the school for Christmas could not keep him away from all of them. Likely you had discovered that yourself over the past five years. What was it that he’d overheard one of your dormmates saying just last September? Something about the red blemishes [L Name] tried to hide as she pulled her robes on in the morning. At the time, Severus had dismissed the conversation as the cattish gossip so typical of fourth-year girls; now he realized it had been something more.

“How long?” he said in his softest voice.

“Excuse me, sir?” Your single huge eye betrayed your feigned ignorance without any need for him to resort to legilimency this time around.

“How long has someone been hurting you?”

“No one has been…” But you trailed away upon noticing his scowl.

“Do not try to lie to me. We both know you have not been fighting with your fellow students, so where else would you have received such a wound? Let me guess,” he went on over your attempted objection, “someone at home did not appreciate your being sent your acceptance letter.”

Silence. Given how still you kept yourself, Severus expected you were concentrating on not shaking in his presence. He could not see that you so much as breathed.

“Five years, then. At least. That answers my first question. Now on to the next: Who?”

“No one you would know, sir,” you said very quietly.

“A muggle, then.”

“No!”

“Then who? Spit it out, girl! Do you think I care to expose your lineage to your housemates? I have better things to do with my time than facilitate drama for my students.”

Your mouth opened—but only for a moment before your lips clamped shut. Perhaps he should have expected he would have to pull the answer from you millimeter by painful millimeter. He had not wanted to tell Lily, after all, and she mattered to him in a way that Horace Slughorn never could.

“Miss [L Name], I cannot help you unless you talk to me. And if you refuse to talk to me, this begs the question of why you felt it necessary to interrupt my work so early in the day. You have taken up enough of my preparation period. You may not stay unless you begin telling me what I want to know.”

Time passed. With no ticking clock on the wall of his classroom, Severus could not say how long your stare down lasted. He could have entered your mind once more while he waited. Instead, he looked down at you wordlessly. You would leave if you valued your privacy over your pride. It seemed you favored the latter, for in the end you finally replied:

“My father.”

The raw anger he felt at hearing these words must have shown on his face and terrified you far more than any of his threats had that day. You hastily went on:

“He’s not my real father. I don’t know who is. Mum married Edgar while she was pregnant with me, and she left when I was just a kid. It’s just been him and me there ever since.”

“And he does not approve of you or your mother being witches?”

“I think he’s just jealous. He’s a squib, you see. Mum’s family arranged the whole thing before anybody knew, and by then it was too late for her to get out of it. Please don’t tell the other Slytherins, Professor! They think I’m pure-blood. If they knew the truth, between that and my eye and the other bruising, the girls in my dorm would—”

“What other bruising?”

Your face darkened until it reached a shade nearly matching that of your swollen eye. “Things got worse this summer. He—”

Severus held up a hand to staunch the sudden flow of your confession. “I do not need the details.”

“Yes, sir.” Ashamed, frightened, or chastised, you cleared your throat several times before continuing, “Anyway, sir, I just wanted to sit down here in the mornings until my eye fades a bit. Is that all right with you, now that I’ve told you everything?”

Under ordinary circumstances, it would not have been all right with him. He could not risk all the students in Hogwarts starting to believe he would offer them shelter from the harsh realities of life. But as he stared down at you, he thought of his childhood and all the pain and ridicule it had brought him at the hands of James Potter and his merry men. If Horace had offered him respite, would Severus still hate him so? Obviously. The situations were, however, quite different, as Severus doubted Horace had faced a day of adversity in his entire life.

“I will consider your request,” said Severus, “if you also tell me what you plan to do about your situation at home nextsummer.”

“Do?” you echoed.

“Yes, ‘do.’ Do not be dense. It does not become you. No one else is going to ride to your rescue. You will therefore have to rescue yourself.”

“But—But how? I’m not of age! In a few years, maybe I can move out, but until then—”

“That’s not good enough! I have watched you, Miss [L Name], as I watch all Slytherins. You are ambitious, clever, resourceful, determined. That is what makes you a true Slytherin, not whether or not you were raised by a blight upon wizarding society. So what, I ask again, are you going to do about it?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Think then. Have you contacted anyone at the Ministry? There are people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who might be able to offer you assistance.”

“Oh, no, sir!” Tears sprang to your eyes. “I can’t ask anyone for help. I didn’t even want you to find out. What will some random Ministry official think? They’ll laugh at me.”

“Such a viewpoint is narrow-minded and foolish to a startling degree. Asking for help is utilizing resources. Did I just not tell you that doing so made you a Slytherin?”

You gave him a hesitant nod. If he let you go now, you would surely promise to owl the proper authorities and never do so. Your tormentor would have free rein whenever you went home until such a day came that you could bring yourself to leave. Who knew what he could escalate to if allowed that kind of freedom? Severus needed to get you acting now.

“Very well. We will forgo the Ministry for the time being. How will you go about fixing your problem by yourself, then? I am sure that you are fully capable of doing so.”

“No, I’m not! Professor, even if I were as smart as all that, I can’t use magic outside of school. You know that.”

“Except in life-threatening situations, I believe the rule goes. It seems to me that you are more in need of the reminder than I. Be that as it may, you don’t need to use underage magic to brew a potion, now, do you?”

An eager light dawned in your eyes as the suggestion sunk in. He could see your imagination unfurling with a hundred different plots at the very idea. Though he did not necessarily disagree with the sentiment behind these plans, he did feel it was his burden as your head of house to dissuade you from the messier ones.

“You cannot kill him with a potion, much as the man might deserve it. That would attract the authorities, both magic and muggle. But you could use your skill in potions to keep yourself safe for the duration of the summer,” he said.

Safe. You mouthed the word rather than say it allowed, savoring the weight and taste on your tongue. Two of your fingers lifted to gently prod the blackened corner of your eye.

“What potions, sir?” Your tone sounded much more confident than it had all day. “Please tell me. I’ll study them. I’ll know them by heart before I get back on the train.”

“I will do better than give you a list. I will teach you myself.”

Your jaw went slack in a truly deplorable display of shock. Severus chose to be relieved you did not hug him instead of frustrated at your surprise. It was unusual for him to invite students for private lessons, especially for students doing adequate work in his class. A few seconds went by before you were able to control yourself enough to say, “Thank you, sir.”

“It will not be easy,” Severus warned. “I expect you to do exactly as I say exactly when I say.”

He allowed you a pause to accept this condition. You did so with a quiet nod.

“Very well. First of all, you will be here in my classroom an hour before class begins each week, starting next week. Arrive late, and our agreement will come to an end at once.”

“Yes, sir!”

“I also have one other condition.”

The happiness dancing in your eyes faded somewhat. “Yes, sir?” you asked guardedly. As though he would ever put you in the same position as that sorry excuse for your so-called “father.”

“You allow me to escort you to the Hospital Wing this morning. I cannot allow your current appearance to distract the rest of the class, now, can I?”

At first, he could tell that you wanted to argue. Accepting help from him was one thing; showing anything to Poppy would be quite another. Most students at Hogwarts knew she didn’t ask questions about whatever magical maladies plagued them—then again, this was not a magical malady. Perhaps you knew his presence would stave off any attempts on Poppy’s part to get to the bottom of things, because after a moment of mental struggle you said:

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good,” Severus said as he went to the door. He made it all the way there while you remained rooted to the spot. “Come along. Unless you want to run into your dormmates on the way.”

With a start, you stood, grabbed your book bag, and rushed right past him into the hall. Severus stopped only long enough to lock the door behind you both. Then the two of you headed side by side toward the stairway leading to the higher floors of the castle.

A tremendous waste of his time, taking a fully-functioning teenage girl to seek medical attention? Undoubtedly. But staying nearby to make sure you didn’t run off before Poppy finished with you did keep his mind off the imminent arrival of one Harry James Potter. And was it truly a waste of time to help one of his Slytherins get through a nasty childhood like his? As Severus watched Poppy tut over your black eye, he thought not—although no one would ever hear him admit it out loud.

‘The Witch Doesn’t Burn in this One’ by Amanda Lovelace