My third contribution to the Snolidays 2021 winter festival, depicting four moments in Severus’s life.
Fourteen
“A minority in my own house!” Tobias roared, looking like he could turn a table over. “How do you think it feels to come home and listen to all this magic rubbish, day in, day out? Do you know how it feels looking at Carl, knowing his lad will one day take over his shop? A man wants to see a bit o’ himself in his child, dammit!”
Severus might have felt rejected when he was a boy, but he was a teen now, and the fraction of a second when he caught a glimpse of resentful defeat in his father’s eyes disgusted him. If, for reasons that remained opaque to Severus, Tobias wanted to see himself, he needed to look no further than the pub, the line for the dole, at any of the dozens of sweaty, grunting brutes.
In the real world, Severus was a minority, and his mam too, but he, for one, was glad of it: quality over quantity, as far as he was concerned. If he worked hard enough, he knew no one else would see Tobias Snape in him either.
Sixteen
He cast them as fast as he could think them: the toenail hex on Peter, who lagged behind his friends. Impedimenta on James, who was ahead. Sirius tripped over James, and Severus waited for the fourth one to show up from behind him, but he must have been sick again.
Three Langlock spells, Petrificus next, and he got them, he got them, he finally got them.
“Tell me,” he gloated. “Aren’t you … embarrassed, losing even three on one? Aren’t you embarrassed to go after me at all, alone and outnumbered? Do you think it makes you brave? Proper Gryffindors? Do you think your glory will come from defeating one half-blood?”
It felt good – so, so good - watching them trying and failing to get up, trying and failing even to speak.
Finally. Things would be different from now on, he just knew it. One chance to show them whom they were messing with was all he needed, and now he’d got it.
“When someone finds you,” he said, grinning ear to ear, “by all means tell them it was I who defeated you. I wouldn’t mind serving detention with Filch for this.”
Turning a corner and leaving them behind, he saw Lily and her friend, and nodded at them. “Your weird friend looks good today,” he heard the other girl’s voice echoing from the stone walls. He hoped the three-fourths of Potter’s gang heard it too.
Soon enough, he heard a predictable shout - the girls had found them. “What the hell happened to your toes, Peter?!”
Severus quickened his step, his smile not leaving him.
Soon he would be free, and if Lily was the one to find Potter in a state so helpless… that was just icing on the cake.
Twenty
For once in your life, you joined the winning side, Severus told himself. Glorious tales of the righteous few defeating the many were for children, tales usually spun by liars who wanted to use them.
When writing the history books, Death Eaters would make sure to paint themselves as the heroes who defied the odds. Severus just wanted to win, whatever the cost.
He had brewed, he had crafted spells, he had studied his magic; he waited for a chance to prove himself, make a name for himself, to be somebody. He would not disappoint his master, he would not make Lucius look the fool.
“Now, Death Eaters” the Dark Lord cleared his throat and scanned the room. “We have people everywhere, eyes and ears, and dozens of people under the Imperius curse, ready to be our arms and legs. Only one exception remains, and whoever successfully infiltrates it will be honored above all others when the time comes.”
The followers’ collective mouth watered. “Not anyone could help me there - it is a task requiring… subtlety. Patience.”
They were at the edge of their seat …
“The risks are great, but the rewards greater still, I daresay. Who among you would be my spy at Hogwarts, be my eyes and ears, carry word on the great Albus Dumbledore himself?”
“My Lord,” Karkaroff started, “I have some background in teaching, and I believe myself to be the most suitable.”
“Like my noble ancestor, I prize ambition, Igor, but Dumbledore is not foolish enough to hire you. No.”
The Dark Lord’s eyes rested on Severus, father-like and proud.
“I see myself in you, Severus. I believe you can succeed where even I was denied. If you think this is too soon, if you are too scared, tell me now. But if you are ready, if you are prepared, I will look no further.”
Severus’s throat was dry and his head swam.
“I am.”
He was.
The others’ protests rang over one another: he is too young, he is barely an adult, he is a half-blood, he never fought with us-
“Silence!” The Dark Lord commanded. “Do not doubt me.”
Return to Hogwarts? Severus was not so sure he was ready, but then he could scarcely be a worse educator than some of his own teachers, and his true employer only cared about Dumbledore, not about O.W.L results.
He would serve the winning side.
Whatever it took, whatever the cost.
Thirty Seven
With Dumbledore and Mad-Eye Moody dead, and the rest of the Order directionless, Voldemort had as good as won - only he did not know this, and he would remain ignorant, if Severus had anything to do with it. He could still be defeated, as long as he believed Potter was worth it, as long as he considered this boy - mediocrity incarnate, the folly of fame personified - important enough to kill, and only by Voldemort’s own hand.
Despite the mounting evidence that the brat couldn’t be killed by the Dark Lord, Severus could not let him understand that he was the problem, not his wand.
“You must be the one to kill him, My Lord,” Severus cried. “It was this prospect that Dumbledore had feared the most! You know how he loved the boy, and how love made him weak!”
Voldemort could not be allowed to understand that he had already won. Alone behind enemy lines, Severus knew this, and none other. All the might of the Ministry and all the Death Eaters and all their allies and servants could not know it and could not change it. The silent and terrified people who still believed in goodness and in light still had a chance, few as they were, and Severus smiled to himself.
You have always been at your best when you were outnumbered, he reminded himself.
Mother’s Request - New Oneshot [a bit angsty and mild trigger warnings but nothing graphic or so bad, imo]
A very confused school owl hovered slowly over the Slytherin table carrying a letter that had clearly been sent by Muggle post, in a plain envelope stamped “urgent”. Severus felt all eyes on him - the other Slytherins rarely encountered letters tucked in envelopes rather than in rolls of parchment. In fact, the owl had to hold it in its beak, as its claws could not grasp the flat square. It dropped the letter with relief, and Severus put it in his pocket. Curiosity tinged with worry nearly overcame him, but he preferred to open his envelope in solitude.
“Doesn’t your mom know how to send a letter?” Rosier sneered across the table. “I thought you said she was a witch.”
“We don’t have an owl,” Severus apologized. “The mug… the filth sends mail through the post.”
This seemed to placate Rosier, even if Severus secretly thought the Muggle system was better. It required less cleaning, for one, and presented only minor risk of being clawed or pecked at by the postal workers. Still, he wished whoever had sent it could think to be more discreet. His Hufflepuff mother had probably seen Muggle-borns get letters every day, and had no idea how much he stuck out.
Breakfast was followed by electives, where the stream of students from different houses split into separate classrooms. He and Lily and several others who could handle ancient runes entered a small, circular room, and Lily squeezed between him and a Ravenclaw, and glared at the Slytherin who recoiled from her. Severus did not notice the silent exchange: the letter distracted him.
“Did you figure out what ‘mot’ means?” She asked him.
“I think these ones are right to left, and if they are, it means ‘end’ or ‘innocence’, but if you are right, it means ‘death’ or ‘death of’”.
“Great, so if I were to carve this on something, it would make it either innocent or dead?”
“Better than alive and guilty,” Severus muttered, and the professor came in to put an end to their exchange - and to the ambiguity. Both were correct, depending on context, making this rune a highly risky one to misread or carve on the wrong thing.
Severus lagged behind in the corridor, to open his letter in peace.
“Severus dear, I’m sick with a witch’s disease and I need your help. I don’t want anyone else to know, especially not your father. I know it will be difficult, but I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important. Please, brew this for me and send it as soon as you can, it’s essential.”
His eyes travelled down the list of ingredients and instructions above the “Love, mum”, copied out by hand and streaked with tear marks. Many of them were toxic, and the others were agents to mitigate the formers’ toxicity.
What the fuck? Severus asked himself. What sort of illness did you cure with this - and where in Cokeworth might his mother have contracted a magical illness? He left the classroom more distracted than before, wondering where he might get his hands on all these things.
“Accio Snivelly’s letter,” a voice rang, and Severus’s insides froze cold. The three flunkies soon appeared behind James, and Severus protested, “That’s private, you piece of shit!”
“Even your own mother only writes you for potions,” Black jeered. His own mother only ever sent him howlers, but he seemed to delight in trying to guess which of his many violations they might be about, and imitating his mother as they went off.
“How about she stays ill for a bit longer,” James said. “She deserves it.”
“Tear it,” Pettigrew suggested, and Severus had had enough. As James tore at his letter, Severus mended it and made it stronger, and Severus’s charm rendered Potter powerless even against a piece of paper. Furious, they left, muttering a string of curses in their wake. Severus worried more about the letter, though: his mending efforts left it even less clear than before. He skipped lunch to try and solve the world’s worst puzzle with multiple rounds of Reparo, but some pieces were missing and others still made no sense, and he knew he now had no choice but to ask Professor Slughorn for help.
Finally, the day had come to an end, and rather than go to the library to work on his assignments, he crossed to Slughorn’s office.
“How may I help you, my boy?”
Severus wondered if Slughorn had learned his name yet. “My mother sent me this, Sir, but I don’t understand it and Pot - er - Someone’s torn it.”
Slughorn straightened the letter out on his desk and began to read, and Severus watched his jovial features twist in sour concern.
“I will make this for you. Properly, indeed. If you had followed this recipe… I shudder to think of what might have happened.”
“Thank you, sir, but I want to – “
“My boy, I should not be the one to tell you this, but better you heard from me than tried to make this yourself, and better I tell you than you found out from a book what it is you’re making, as I trust that you would.”
Slughorn sighed and Severus’s breath caught in his throat. “Your mother is pregnant, and she wants to get rid of it.”
The ceiling started to spin.
“Don’t think badly of her. Better to do this than to have more babies than you can afford.”
She already had a baby she couldn’t afford, Severus found himself thinking.
“The Muggle methods won’t work on a magical baby, I’m afraid, and if she ingests a poorly-made termination potion she might produce –“ his voice dropped to a whisper – “a Squib!”
Tobias already hated magic, had already made it plain that only his faith kept him married. If he finds out mum had an abortion, he would do her in. Severus turned white.
“And Mungo’s aren’t liberal with their care these days. When you’ve seen as much of the world as I have, you would not judge her so harshly.”
Severus felt no judgment, exactly. He had no idea what he felt. Abortion suggested too many things he did not care to think about, and Slughorn’s words came to him as through spoken through a line with a lag.
“It would have been easier - and cheaper – to use contraception, if you know you don’t want a baby, but you know how these things are!” Slughorn said, forgetting all about his reserve.
“I’m thirteen, Sir,” Severus reminded him, and Slughorn collected himself immediately and sent Severus on his way, assuring him that “I would take care of it, and you can count on me, my boy!”
Severus did not count on Slughorn’s discretion in the least, but he trusted his skills and hoped that if ever Slughorn let slip anything, his inability to remember the name “Snape” would protect Severus. Severus believed himself capable of brewing it, but he knew this was not the time to argue: it would be too hard to focus on the complicated potion while knowing why she needed it to begin with, and if it had to be misbrewed, Severus figured it would be best if the responsibility lay with Slughorn.
Severus could handle things going wrong, but not things going wrong because of him.
He walked absently out of the office and toward the Slytherin common room, his thoughts colliding in his mind. This was the closest thing to independence Eileen had done in a very long time and Severus had no idea what it had meant. Worse, even when attempting independence, she couldn’t actually accomplish it on her own. He hated Tobias, but for the first time, he felt utter contempt for Eileen. He knew for a fact that Eileen could not afford another baby indeed, not least because Severus’s own academic performance would suffer if he had to worry about a brother or sister growing up like he had, and all at once it struck him that none of it was right, and that none of it had been set in stone. Had Eileen thought to do it fourteen years ago… but her decisions left her son with only one dear ambition: Escape, however you can.
The next morning at Charms, Lily passed him a note, using one of her clever tricks. Flitwick was always so impressed with her, he forgot to punish her even when he caught her. “What’s wrong?” It said. He did not like being so transparent.
“Mom’s sick,” he wrote. Lily grew concerned and wrote to him to meet her in the courtyard.
“So?” She asked without preamble. “What’s wrong with her? Is she going to be okay?”
“Slughorn is helping me brew a potion for her. She’s pregnant.” He hoped he sounded matter-of-factly, but Lily’s cheer made her forget all her worries. She covered her mouth and then hugged him.
“A baby! That’s so adorable! I love -”
“She en’t keeping it.”
Lily was crestfallen “Oh. Well, it’s very nice of Slughorn to help!”
“Suppose.” Severus kicked at the ground. “I don’t want a brother or a sister anyway. Enough fighting with just the three of us.”
“Maybe a baby would make them turn things around,” Lily suggested quietly.
“She is turning things around, she en’t keeping it! And you can’t tell anyone either.”
“I won’t,” she promised, and he believed her.
They spent a while in idle chatter (Lily congratulated him on beating Potter and said his head was full of hot air), and suddenly, Severus blurted out: “I hate being a half-blood. Imagine your mother going to you with this.”
“Don’t say that, Sev. The pure bloods are all idiots, and the Muggle-borns have parents too, asking them to divine the lottery numbers. I told dad a thousand times divination isn’t real, but he’s such a Muggle, he doesn’t understand. And no one calls you a mudblood, either, so you should be proud of being a half blood!”
He smiled despite himself. Lily had a good point. Sometimes she knew just what to say… he felt strong and unique and capable when she talked to him. “She’ll be alright, Sev,” Lily promised. “And so will you.”
He thought that Lily would make a good mother one day, and it made him blush profusely, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Are you going to meet me at Honeydukes next week?” She asked next, and Severus wished he could stop time, because they were growing up, and soon they would be too old for sweet shops. And then, he also couldn’t wait for next week, and for a moment he felt a rush of gratitude that his mother hadn’t thought to get rid of him, or had failed to, and that he was a half-blood and not a Squib, and that he came from Cokeworth.
As a student, Severus Snape was actually fascinated by this class which was led by the head of Slytherin. His parents had never told him about it, so he viewed it from a scientific viewpoint and asked lots of questions. This resulted in lots of laughter and teasing from his peers. He quickly learned not to speak up and became incredibly embarrassed by anything and everything to do with puberty.
As a teacher, he now has to give the “birds and the bees & the sex talk”. He loathes it. He teaches the class very scientifically and sticks to facts and statistics. Occasionally a student like himself will innocently ask very personal questions. The students laugh…but mostly because Snape answers so dryly as he turns red FROM HEAD TO TOE.
After class, Snape will pull the child aside and give them a book with more information because it’s what he would have wanted.
