Snape Redux

Snape Redux

By April Grey

Chapter Six – The Lesson

It all belongs to Rowling, except for the parts you don’t recognize.

The portkey swept Hermione away and she was suddenly facing Snape. Her anger about the attack on Privet Drive flared. “You could have given some warning, or at least told me.”

“What nonsense are you going on about?” Snape asked.

“The attack on Harry two nights, or all right it’s after midnight now, so three nights ago.”

Snape went very still, his face like carved marble.

“They attacked Potter?” He sat down on a hay bale. “Is he dead?”

“No. You didn’t know about--? But that means.”

Hermione staggered down onto a hay bale across from her teacher. And then sprung up again, furious. “It was all for naught: you pretending to kill him. You didn’t, it didn’t make a bit of difference.”

“Granger.” He was still quiet, just staring at the ground.

“You weren’t included in their plans. You are an outcast from both groups. You aren’t going to be feeding us useful information. It’s a farce. Voldemort told the Ministry where you were, didn’t he?”

Hermione stared at him with a horrible dread, “You’ve outlived your usefulness, haven’t you?”

“Oh, do be quiet while I think.” He stood up and paced.

Hermione followed behind him. “That’s it, isn’t it? Just one more thing that went wrong?”

He turned to her, his face still impassive. “You are here for a purpose; to learn not just Occlumency but Legilimency from a Master--not some Ministry fop. We will continue according to plan. You say that Potter is alive? Was he hurt at all?”

“No. Just a few bruises.”

“Then nothing has changed. When the Dark Lord summons me, I shall be there. Until then, I wait.”

“Why is it so important that I know Legilimency? What about learning to use my Patronus to deliver Messages like they teach Order members?”

Snape sighed, “If I don’t come back from the next Death Eater meeting, sending me a Patronus won’t do much good. But with Legilimency, you’ll carry on without me. You can use the skill to help keep those idiot friends of yours alive. We will share our information tonight and then it won’t matter what happens to me.”

Had he screamed at her or threatened her, she would have been reassured. His quiet determination to ignore what happened, in order to simply carry on, struck her as tragic, pathetically so.

“I need to clear my mind so that we can begin,” he turned his back on her.

“What about Pensieves?” Hermione looked about her at the barn. It was mostly empty except for bales of musty, old hay.

“Oh, how thoughtless of me. I must have left them at Hogwarts after killing Dumbledore. I should have remembered to take at least one of them with me so that little Missy here could have her privacy.”

Hermione actually felt a bit better. There was the old Snape.

“Perhaps you’d like me to nip over to Hogwarts and ask Minerva to lend me hers? What about the Ministry? D’you think I ought to have a midnight raid just to get myself a Pensieve, as well?”

Hermione kept a straight face. “I only asked, Sir.”

“Miss Granger,” he hissed out her name, “I don’t care for this situation any more than you do. But as we have both passed puberty, I think we can manage without undue embarrassment?”

Hermione thought about the things Harry had seen in Snape’s Pensieve. All the things Snape had forbidden Harry from telling anyone, but he had told Ron and her anyway--most likely because Snape had forbidden it. Those images leapt to the forefront of her mind. She had the sudden thought of a young Snape hanging upside down, dingy knickers displayed to the world. Hermione blushed and stared at the ground. She was so very, very not ready for this.

“It’s not going to be as bad as all that, girl.”

Hermione shut her mind down tight. No feelings, no thoughts. “Go right ahead, sir.”

“It’s not like you’ve lived such a long life that you have things to be ashamed of?” he sneered.

Tears filled her eyes. He was baiting her. Trying to get her flustered so that humiliating memories would float to the top of her mind. Like telling someone to not think of a white elephant, they will think of it all the more for trying not to do so.

She closed her eyes.

“Open your eyes,” Snape commanded.

She did so, but in her mind she entered her Arithmancy classroom at Hogwarts and began doing exercises on a blackboard there, all to Los del Mar’s Macarena.

Snape joined her.

He scowled, whether at the music or at her composure she didn’t know, “This is the best that you can do, Granger?”

She noted with satisfaction that he’d left off his usual title of “miss” and seemed less certain of himself than usual. She continued listening to the music, letting her hips sway a little, as she continued onto the next part of the Arithmancy solution.

“So, I am here in your mind, but in an obviously safe place for you. Now, make me leave.”

Hermione imagined a huge fishhook attached to Snape’s back, yanking him out through the window. She brought down the shutters of the room and was alone again, but she changed the music to Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik as she completed the computation with a small smile. He was right, in this place, working on Arithmancy equations, she felt perfectly centered, perfectly at ease.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the barn. Snape was lying in a heap against a wall, covered in hay. Putting her hand to her mouth, she gasped, and ran to him.

“Oh, professor, I’m so sorry. Are you—” she fussed.

“You used unnecessary force, though,” his breathing was a bit unsteady and his thumb wiped a bit of blood from his lip, “though you were in complete control every moment of that exercise.” He pushed her hands away from him and stood up, massaging the back of his head. “You got your hands on a book, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Hermione swallowed. At least the book didn’t have notes scribbled in it from schoolboy Snape.

“Very well, not all beginner’s luck then. You had a leg up.”

“Adventures of the Mind, sir.”

He raised one eyebrow as he studied her, “Do you know what the penalty for having that book is?”

“I,” Hermione blinked, “it was on sale at Flourish and Blotts, no one said a thing.”

“Five years in Azkaban last I heard. They must be becoming desperate to put that little chestnut up for sale.” He exhaled. “Well, that was the Occlumency portion of our class and you are well ahead of the game. You are in control of your emotions and able to guide a Legilimens where you wish.”

“Sir?”

“However, it is much better if instead of kicking them out, you give them what they want, or rather what you want them to have. Are you following me? If you want one to leave your mind then simply provide him with a plausible memory--one close enough to what they are seeking for them to think you have complied. Can you do that, Granger?”

“What were you seeking, sir?” a sudden wave of heat flew over her and she knew she was blushing. When he’d originally entered her dream that first night she’d been kissing a boy. She had even racier fantasies--things she would have liked to do with Ron, and some very intense memories of snogging Viktor Krum the summer in which they had spent some time together. But those were precious things. She’d die before she’d let him see those.

“Good question. You need to be able to create false memories on the spot. You can’t always know what the Legilimens is looking for, but if you keep your wits about you, sometimes you can sense it. We won’t try that tonight. It is advanced work that Potter never even came close to handling.”

Hermione wanted to lash out at him, tell him that he was being unfair to Harry and explain that he’d never given Harry even a remote chance at succeeding. She buckled down those feelings. She was there to learn.

“Right. Legilimency.” Snape sniffed and his jaw twitched. “A Legilimens knows a) what he is looking for and b) forces it out of his victim or c) can plant thoughts in his victim’s mind forcing the subject to believe that something has happened or will happen.

“Are you following me?”

Hermione felt confused, “When you entered my mind just now, you weren’t looking for anything or wishing to plant any ideas, sir? You were just—“

“Having a look see. Most people’s minds are rubbish heaps of conflicting thoughts and feelings. You can nudge them in their trash and they don’t sense you, they just go scrambling for whatever you want or just sit passively back and accept whatever line you wish to feed them.”

“When you worked with Harry, the memories that passed between you were random.”

Snape gave a deep audible sigh and blew out the air. “It is difficult with a subject who hates you to the point where their emotions overwhelm them and they panic. It actually presents a minor defense against the Legilimens.”

“Meaning he wasn’t tractable?” she tried to sound innocent.

“He was a bloody bucking bronco and as stupid and stubborn as a mule!” Snape snorted in disgust. “He’s been that way since a boy.”

“So when you told him not to wear his heart on his sleeve?”

“I said that?”

“I remember him telling me that, yes sir.”

“You are a dangerous woman, Granger. You’d be better to keep that mind of yours well hidden—it’s a better weapon when they don’t know what’s coming at them. Understood?”

His eyes were boring into her. She snapped closed every shutter on her mind and at the same time launched into his. She didn’t know how or why he’d initiated a duel with her, but she knew it as well as if he’d shouted “en garde”!

She was in the annex. And she was quite sure she’d given him the slip. It was easy having been there before to go to the tiny room. The silver thread was no longer needed. She saw a door, slightly ajar. She barely breathed and kept her mind a blank as she walked forward and gave the door a gentle push. It swung open.

She was in a corridor that ended before an old wooden door. It was dark and claustrophobic in the hallway, and the stones around her seemed to radiate a cold despair. The handle of the door turned easily and she walked out-- onto the Astronomy tower battlement.

The darkness was thicker out there and she could barely make out two people in front of her.

“You have to forgive me. You must. You know I didn’t mean it.” His voice was higher and gentler but it still belonged to Snape.

“Severus, of all the people to use such a term? What would your parents have said?”

“I’d hope at least one of them would have said ‘good on you--do whatever it takes to survive this hell hole.’ Lily, if you hadn’t stood up to James for me, I wouldn’t have been forced to call you that name.”

“You are my friend. I couldn’t let James and Sirius bully you like that. It wasn’t fair; two of them against one with Remus, a prefect for heaven sakes, just pretending it wasn’t happening. And that creepy friend of theirs Peter watching as ever.

“Maybe it’s time to stop hiding our relationship.” Hermione watched Lily’s pale hand stroke the boy’s cheek. “Maybe we can put an end to this stupid rivalry between our houses. I could go to Professor McGonagall. You could got to Old Sluggy—“

“They wouldn’t bother you, you’re popular with everyone, but it would be the end of me.”

“That’s it then, Severus. We can’t be friends anymore. It was great being your study partner. I don’t think I would have passed my Dada Owl without you.”

“And the same for potions. Yes, we helped each other but-” his voice broke down in a sob— “Lily, you mean more to me than that--”

“Obviously I don’t mean that much. Not if you feel you can just keep pretending. I can’t take stand it anymore.” Her voice was filled with hurt. “I don’t like sneaking around.“

Hermione’s eyes adjusted to the dark and she was shocked to see Snape slide down to his knees and grasp Lily around her legs.

“Forgive me. I would have gone mad this past year without you. After mum died…” His entire body started to shake.

Lily looked down and Hermione saw Lily’s eyes glitter with unshed tears. Lily slid down next to him and held him against her bosom, stroking his long hair.

“Severus hush,” she crooned.

His sobs grew worse, and Hermione heard him sniffle, “I can’t lose you. But you must understand when I fight back against James and Sirius my fellow Slytherins respect me. And I can fight them, there’s only four of them. Just try taking on the whole damned house of Slytherin.”

“I don’t know if it’s respect they are giving you then. Not a one of the lot stands up for you when you get attacked. You’re always alone in your duels. Let me stand with you.”

“It’s because I’m a half-blood,” bitterness changed his voice making it sound frighteningly like the voice of the Snape Hermione had grown up with. “I should never have been sorted into Slytherin.”

“Well, we have the summer to put this behind us,” she kissed his forehead.

“I’ll find some way to get around to see you.” He was still sniffling.

“You can stay with my family. There’s nothing to stop you, now. My parents would welcome you. They’d treat you like their own son.”

“St-stay with Muggles? What if word got out to my housemates at Slytherin that I spent the summer with Muggles?” his voice quavered with fear. “It’s bad enough that I grew up in a Muggle neighborhood.”

The temperature dropped and it got darker on the parapet. Hermione felt uneasy. It felt like some sort of storm was brewing.

Hermione turned around and found herself indoors at Hogwarts. But she was now at the entrance to the infirmary. It was still very dark and hard to make anything out. She walked in and the odors that she associated with the hospital wing stung her nose.

She blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the brighter lighting in the room. She heard him before she saw him.

”Well, Poppy, will you be able to save him?” Albus Dumbledore was standing at the foot of a bed. Hermione stepped forward to look around him.

On the bed lay Snape. He was a few years older than the boy in the last memory. He’d grown to manhood, his face having lost all roundness; it was now gaunt and drawn. He had very long, sleek black hair, longer than he’d kept it when he was her professor, and it was tied at his nape and falling over his shoulder to his narrow chest. Under the blotchy purple marks of a healing potion, she could see the newly grown, pink skin of his lips. It was in stark contrast to the yellow jaundice of his face. His eyes were bandaged.

“I’ve regrown his tongue and repaired his mouth and throat. The stomach will take a bit longer. It didn’t get as far as his intestines or I think he would be dead. His liver will never be the same again. He’ll have to be careful of himself if he stays here as Potion’s Master.”

“You’ve done an admirable job. Do you think I could speak to him? Can he hear me?”

“His hearing should be fine, but the eyes took some damage, probably from the fumes of the acid. Severus? Severus, rouse yourself, Headmaster’s here.” Pomfrey’s normally gentle manner was sharp with concern.

The thin body on the bed writhed as if waking from a deep sleep. “Ah, I,” his voice was low and barely audible.

Dumbledore pulled up a chair and took the young man’s hand in his, “Now, Severus, just listen to me. Don’t try to speak.”

“Kill me. I want… to die,” came his voice a bit louder and terribly hoarse and strained.

“Severus. No more talk like that. You didn’t want to die. You just wanted to hurt yourself.”

“No!”

“You had access to hundreds of poisons, any one of which would have painlessly killed you on the spot.”

“No. I deserve—“

“Stop it.” Dumbledore angry was a terrifying sight. “You chose a slow acting acid deliberately to put you in excruciating pain. You wished to indulge yourself in your guilt. That will stop here and now. Swear to it! I cannot have a suicidal Potions Master.” He gentled his voice, “It wouldn’t set a good example for the children.”

“Lily?” Severus cried.

“She’s dead. James is dead, but little Harry survived.”

“No. Damn him! He said he’d leave her. He--he’d only take James and the brat. I will hunt that--that stinking bastard Volde--mort down and--” In spite of being blind with the bandages over his eyes, Snape was scrambling, trying to get out of bed and fighting Dumbledore and Pomfrey.

“SEVERUS, enough!” Dumbledore held Snape by the shoulders. “There is no trace of Tom Riddle left. Listen to me, I believe that she sacrificed herself to save the babe.”

“No!” He shouted and lashed out blindly, hitting Dumbledore and knocking off his Wizard’s cap.

Madam Pomfrey raised her wand and in a split second, Snape was flat on his back in restraints. Still he fought them. “No. She didn’t have to do that. She could have had more children. No.” Bloodied spittle began frothing at his mouth.

“Headmaster, I wish you hadn’t--” The nurse took out a cloth and wiped the blood from Snape’s mouth. She laid her hand on his brow.

Slowly the life went of the young professor and he crumpled into himself. Turning his face from Dumbledore, he mumbled something. Hermione came a little closer and leaned over him. She could just make out, “Lily,” and then, “why’d you do it, my girl? Didn’t have to get yourself killed. Not for James’ brat. Oh Lily, wasn’t worth it. Not worth it at all.” Then his voice went even lower, “I’ll avenge you, just you see, I will. I will.”

The Witch sniffed and her eyes sparkled with emotion. “I have him on very heavy pain relief.” She lowered her voice, “He didn’t mean it when he said he wanted James and the baby dead.”

“Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he wanted.”

Dumbledore put back the chair, “It is simpler to hate the child and its father, than face the truth that this was the result of his actions. Yes, we shall let him rest. Fix him up and get him back to us quickly. He needs a purpose.”

“Headmaster, do you think it wise that he stay here?”

“Wise, perhaps not. But we failed Severus once, and we owe him a second chance. Severus has his flaws, but he is not irredeemable.”

Hermione stepped away, feeling sick to her stomach. She felt a tap on her shoulder and jumped. The infirmary was gone, but Lily was there. They were by the lakeside of Hogwarts.

“You’ve got to go now. He’s getting wise to us. I have to hide.”

“Why do you have to hide from him?”

“I’m all that’s keeping him alive. I’m the most human part of him left. Without his memories of me, without his desire for revenge, he’d have hung himself from the rafters of his potions lab years ago. Problem is he keeps taking bits of me out and putting them in a Pensieve. Like he did to his mother. She’s almost all gone now.”

“And once he has gotten the last of you?”

“He’ll never do that. I won’t let it happen. Don’t say that you saw me or Professor Dumbledore here.”

“I’ll have to tell him something,” said Hermione.

“Keep it embarrassing, then he won’t want to know.”

She kissed Hermione on the cheek. “Take care of him. He’s still a better person than he realizes. And make him tell you about it.”

“About what?” Everything went dark and she opened her eyes to find her view filled with Snape’s face staring into hers. He was practically nose-to-nose with her.

“Well?” He moved awkwardly away from her in a way that Hermione found curious. As if he were uncertain of himself.

He doesn’t know what I saw, she thought. “I find it ironic that someone who became Potion’s Master, at one point was not very good at potions. How did that happen?” she tried to sound as guileless as possible.

Snape’s mouth twitched. Hermione threw up her defenses in preparation for another attack. All her emotions she parceled up into various cubbyholes and she hid what she’d learned about Snape in a mislabeled box marked “Ginger Root.”

She felt him grope around in her mind. She presented him with the memory of him on fire at a Quidditch match while blanking the information that it was she who had put him on fire.

Snape pulled back from her mind like he’d been burnt.

“That is enough for the evening,” he said quietly.

“Thank you, sir.”

“The difference between you and Potter is astounding. This proves I was not at fault as a teacher. Potter was an idiot!” his black eyes flashed and his smile was triumphant.

“Yes, sir.” Hermione kept her feelings neutral. It would do no good to let him pick up on the pity mixed with revulsion she was feeling for him.

He sighed. “There are things which Potter needs to accomplish if Voldemort is to be rendered vulnerable to death, true death. There are four lost items, called Horcruxes—“

“Three lost Horcruxes, sir.”

“What,” Snape blinked.

“He found the locket of Slytherin. That leaves only three Horcruxes left. He destroyed Tom Riddle’s Diary, Albus Dumbledore destroyed the black ring of Tom Marvolo—“

“And the night Dumbledore died, he told me he was going for another Horcrux. Of course! So Headmaster and Potter located the locket.” Snape slapped his hands together.

“No sir,” Hermione shook her head. “Someone had gotten to the locket ahead of them and replaced it with a fake. We believe it was Sirius Black’s brother. Which would make sense because the locket showed up at 12 Grimmauld Place.”

“It was there all along?”

“But then it was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher. We think what happened then was that Tonks caught Fletcher and made him turn over the lost property to the Ministry. That’s where Harry found the locket yesterday.”

There was near silence in the barn as Snape digested the information. Hermione listened to the small noises made by the little creatures that lived in the hayloft. She would be surprised if the place wasn’t also infested with some magical vermin, but that would be Snape’s problem.

Snape swallowed heavily and roused himself.

“Off with you then.” He handed her an empty cat food tin.

“Sir? Isn’t there something else?”

“No. Yes. Don’t try and disarm the locket until I’ve had a chance to help. Don’t forget what happened with Marvolo’s ring.”

Hermione was bristling with questions. She swallowed them and decided to wait. Of course they’d need a way to remove the curse before destroying the Horcrux. But hadn’t Lily told her to ask him about something? She gathered her wits about her and said, “When you recruited me was it only to teach me Legilimency?”

Snape’s eyes narrowed. He’d almost forgotten in his excitement over the Horcrux. What had she been doing in his mind? Ignoring his anxiety, he replied, “Well, you said I didn’t have any information to pass on to you. You were wrong.

“Two Death Eaters have been assigned to locate a half dozen Neolithic sites. As best as I can tell, Voldemort intends to draw on the residual power of the site to increase his own power to defeat Potter.”

“I can help, there.” Hermione kept her voice gentle and unexcited, matching Snape’s mood as best she could.

“No, you can’t.”

“I’ll ask permission to use the Hogwarts Library. There must be some information to break—“

Snape rolled his eyes. “I am an expert in the Dark Arts. And there are no books, not at Hogwarts and not in all of Wizarding Britain that discuss taking energy from an ancient site and making it your own.”

“You-you can’t mean that,” Hermione spluttered.

“I do. Any such book would have been available to me. It does not exist.” He was staring at her, daring her to disagree with him.

“How did Vol—Voldemort find this spell then.” She was shocked, but shouldn’t be, at the idea of something not being available in Great Britain--she was aware that the Wizarding Community in many ways was backwards and insulated.

“He spent some time in Albania. Schools such as Durmstrang think nothing of teaching the Dark Arts, and there are no paternalistic, zealous Ministries of Magic throwing people in jail for practicing the Dark Arts, either.”

“Yes, sir.” Hermione sighed. That made perfect sense. In Great Britain the Dark Arts were looked down on and so had a certain evil appeal to the rogue Wizard. Through Viktor she knew that this was at least in part cultural prejudice. There was a difference between the use and abuse of Dark Arts that he’d explained to her on several occasions. Were the Horcruxes another example of that? Would it be possible to make a Horcrux without murder? That’s the sort of thing, Viktor would argue, that the British always made out to be worse than it needed to be.

She knew what her next course of action was and kept it under lock and key in her mind. From that night forth, Snape would be searching for any signs of weakness in her defenses. She would not disappoint him by letting down her guard.

“Use that portkey, one week tonight, same time. And get rid of that book. It wouldn’t do for my best Occlumency student to wind up in Azkaban.”

Hermione had never heard that note of pride in his voice before. She was beginning to understand how much teaching had meant to him. He wanted to be loved and respected, but if he couldn’t have that then fear would do.

Hermione Apparated.

Snape was able to hold out for two seconds after she left before collapsing to the ground. He didn’t know what she’d been at. To his disgust, she was already as good an Occlumens as Dumbledore and Snape had not taught her a damned thing. Her skill at Legilimency was bordering on the surgical. She was some sort of freak of nature. Well, that wasn’t news. She’d been the object of constant gossip in the Teacher’s Lounge for years. How any Witch managed to hold as much information in her little head as that girl was a marvel.

But the marvel was over, Snape recognized that she used the Loci Method: a technique found in the ancient Roman text Ad Herennium. The technique had fallen into obscurity when the copying spell had come to the Wizarding World and the printing press invented in the Muggle one. The burning of Giordano Bruno at the stake for heresy also added to the marked decline in the popularity of the technique.

He had thought he’d have the upper hand with her, only to miserably stand by and feel emotions creep throughout his body with nary a memory to hook them on. What was she doing to him, inside of him, during the session? He couldn’t even begin to guess. He crawled to the nearest hay bale and managed to pull himself up.

Shaking all over, he realized that it would take all of his courage to let her anywhere near his mind again.

AN: Well, that was a longer than usual chapter and we are now more than 50% along in our story. Reviews are down so I feel absolutely no guilt in slowing down my normally juggernaut writing pace. Maybe two chapters a week instead of three?

No biggy!

Thank you for reviewing: LittleBird, Firewall and IdeaRevolutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic#History_of_Mnemonics