A Terrible Temptation

A/N - A little pathos injected into the comedy. Kate\'s influence can be seen in this chapter, she made sure that I didn\'t go overboard :) Thank Kate for talking me out of an angsty ending to the whole story, as well. If this all goes well, you should send her a thank you note. Don\'t forget that MoaningMyrtle\'s stories are wonderful.

Too many to write individual replied today - so group thanks to: LittleBird, Zephyr, Redone, RyianaT, Deeble, Sci-Fi Nut, PiperS, Kiristeen, Helen (I haven\'t read it, but now I will have to), Spaz141, Talene, deblovesdragon, CMW, Carrie, Fury, SnapeLover, Lisa, Laura, Nocturnus, Stellar Snape and Allison of the faeries (I love Princess Bride, but haven\'t seen it in awhile, I don\'t doubt though that my sub-concious picked that up. Thanks for pointing it out.)


Chapter 9 – The First Temptation


Being a hero was nothing new to Severus. Having the whole school acknowledge it though, that was unprecedented. All those years of working in the shadows -- taking risks, saving the lives he could and watching the deaths of those he couldn’t -- had made him feel as though he would never receive any recognition for the terrible agonies he had suffered over the years.

To have people smile as he entered a room, rather than run or cower, was a revelation. To make a joke and have people genuinely laugh, rather than sneer or look uncertain, was intoxicating. To have friends, real friends, who looked up to him and trusted him was everything he had ever hoped for in his life.

Except that it wasn’t him that they liked, not really. They all loved Harry Potter. Severus might wear his body and wave his wand, but he was, in the end, a fraud. A fake Potter, a facsimile of Harry. Inside, he was Severus, and the extreme difference between what they saw and how he felt was becoming rather painful.

“Is there any powdered unicorn horn, perhaps?” Albus asked from where he was working over his own cauldron. With the progress going so slowly, he had volunteered to help Severus run the needed tests in an attempt to speed up the process.

“I’ll check.” Severus hopped down from his stool and marched to his storage cabinet. ”I need to make a run to the apothecary in Hogsmeade to pick up some more ingredients.” Severus called out. He was short of several of the things he needed for testing the twisted lump of metal that Harry Potter had been holding in his hands when he had been found.

“If you give me a list, I will have Minerva or Tonks go pick it up for you, Severus.” Albus spoke gently, but the reminder of his lost freedom was bitter. When he worked here he could forget that he wasn’t in his own body. Despite the precision motor skills that Potter’s hands simply didn’t have, while he was chopping brewing and stirring hitiontions he could pretend that all was right in the universe. Albus’s words destroyed that illusion.

This was becoming an exercise in frustration all around. Oh, certainly he had isolated a number of the components of the potion and he had a general idea of where to go in his research, but the portkey element was stymieing him. Translocation was a complex art. The spells needed to accomplish it were sophisticated -- more arithmancy than just charms.

“Certainly, Albus.” He replied and wrote out a list. There was a lot on it, as he had a great many avenues to pursue. He found the powdered unicorn horn and retrieved it for Albus, fetching some siren hairs for his own brew.

It was a complex problem and it could take weeks to solve. He added the hairs to the bubbling cauldron and briskly stirred it widdershins six times. The potion turned a soft buttery yellow and he nodded to himself at the confirmation of the presence of Giant’s blood. The clock struck nine and Severus cursed to himself and began cleaning up his potion. Albus could remain here for hours but he had to abide by curfew.

He finished cleaning his part of the lab, said goodnight to Albus, slipped out under the invisibility cloak and headed back towards the Gryffindor Common Room. He resisted the urge to take off House points from the snogging couples that littered his path back to the Tower.

He took off the cloak after checking carefully for witnesses and then slipped into the Common Room. He had hoped to be inconspicuous and just go to bed but he was immediately assaulted by half the room. They called him over. There was a group of boys and a few girls who all made a fuss over him and generally acted like hero-worshipping prats.

How did Potter deal with it? A quick accessing of the boy’s memories provided another nasty shock. He didn’t deal with it: Potter hated his fame. Severus remembered James strutting around and preening, doing his cock-of-the-walk impersonation. It had been obvious he gloried in his popularity. He had flashed that Lockhart smile and ruffled his hair at the girls and they had swooned. James had enjoyed it, why didn’t Harry?

“Hey, Harry.” It was Ron and Hermione who jerked him from his reverie. He looked up at them and saw not hero worship, but genuine interest -- true friendship. He smiled and extracted himself from the sycophantic Gryffindors.

“Ron, Hermione, so very glad to see you.” Severus couldn’t believe it, but it was true. They grinned at him and the threesome settled in chairs away from the rest with sighs of contentment. Ginny Weasley wandered in and settled down with them, then Neville arrived and plopped down.

Severus couldn’t remember what they discussed -- everything and nothing. They talked of Quidditch, classes and the next trip to Hogsmeade, which Severus wasn’t allowed to go on. There was the quiet warmth of companionship that permeated everything and made the subject irrelevant. Somehow, the topic of their Potions class came up.

“Dumbledore\'s classes are so much better than Snape’s.” Neville sighed with a look of dreamy peace. Severus clamped his mouth shut on a sarcastic reply.

“But we aren’t learning as much.” Hermione pointed out. “Professor Snape may have been horrid, but we learned in his class at a much faster pace and we didn’t have as many accidents.” Severus nodded, gratified by her defense. Albus was a brilliant Alchemist and could have become a Potions Master if he had chosen to, but he had taught Transfigurations for years and didn’t remember all the safety precautions needed to work with a combination of children and highly volatile substances. Severus had developed a sixth sense through the years; he could just tell when a student was about to make an explosive error.

“But he doesn’t yell at me.” Neville protested with his cow eyes gone rather sad.

“But you have blown up more cauldrons since Snape’s been gone than you ever did before.” Severus pointed out in even tones.

“But no one yells at me when they blow up.” Neville was looking rather forlorn now and Severus sighed.

“Neville, what is more important for you to avoid -- getting yelled at or losing a limb?” He asked patiently.

“Getting yelled at.” Neville answered earnestly and Severus wanted to gouge out his own eyes with a spoon.

“Neville,” Hermione’s voice was aggrieved. “People yell at Aurors, you know.” She was giving Neville, whose dream was to be an Auror like his parents, a look that Severus could truly appreciate.

“Yeah, but Snape scares me more than Gran even.” That made Severus pause. He knew Mrs. Longbottom quite well from school social functions. She was a terrifying woman with her vulture hat and a clutch purse capable of doing great damage to a man’s arm when she was annoyed. To be considered scarier than that was quite a feat. He was torn between being impressed with his skill at intimidation and abject horror.

“Neville, how about we ask Professor Dumbledore to set us up a study group and we just do some extra potions work?” Hermione suggested gently while Severus tried to figure out when he became comparable to -- no, worse than -- Mrs. Longbottom. She wore a dead vulture, for Merlin’s sake!

“Do you think it would help?” Neville asked uncertainly. Severus reminded himself for the fortieth time that Neville was the victim of a botched memory charm and it wasn’t the boy’s fault that he was thick as a brick.

“Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt.” Ron pointed out with admirable clarity and intelligence. Severus gave him an approving smile; perhaps the boy wasn’t entirely hopeless.

Neville and Ginny wandered away with Ron to see Dean Thomas’ new broom and Severus leaned in to whisper to Hermione.

“Do you think Professor Snape is scarier than Mrs. Longbottom?” He asked the most pressing question on his mind.

“Absolutely not, nothing is as scary as Neville’s Gran.” Hermione replied with a shudder. “Professor Snape isn’t really scary anyway, he’s just sad.” Severus looked at her in shock.

“Sad?” He watched her frown at him.

“I know you don’t like him much Harry, and I know it’s for good reasons, but he always seems so lonely and unhappy. I don’t think he has many friends.” He was staring at her -- he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. How had she seen that? In what unguarded moment had this incisive mind clothed in a young woman’s body caught him out?

“No, he doesn’t; just Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall.” He said it without realizing quite why he had. He was finding it almost impossible to lie to her suddenly and he was usually so facile at lying.

“I bet he could make friends if he would just let someone in.” She spoke with all the assurance of a seventeen-year-old and he felt a bitter hunger creep into his heart. Had he ever been like that at seventeen? What would she do if she found out that she had befriended Snape? He looked into warm friendly brown eyes and decided that she would never know, if he could help it. The last thing he wanted was her pity. But he found that he did want her friendship, at least for as long as he could have it.