“There once lived a man in the house by the river.”
Isn’t that how good stories start?
But this man is no good. He is no hero. Or even a kind man. He is vicious, petty, and broken.
As ugly on the outside as he is on the inside. Many, far more worthy than him, should have survived the war. Or walked away free to live out their days in relative peace.
But life is rarely fair, isn’t it?
And so, in spite of many who wish he was dead, Severus Snape wakes, sneers into his morning cuppa, does his shopping at Tesco on a Friday night, brushes the chimney soot off his shirtsleeves, and hides old scars.
After all, life carries on, even when you least expect it.
Some nights it seems that, after nearly five decades of surviving, he’s still learning how to live it in peace. Free at last.
It doesn’t come easy.
Still, he makes it work. He raises his collar high over the scar on his neck, even in summer, pulls his sleeves down over his wrists, and never, ever greets the neighbours.
When the post arrives, he Incendios every Howler, a routine since the end of the war.
[The Potter Scandal! Will Ginevra change her surname? How will the children cope. More on page 3]
He still reads the Prophet. The ghastly rag.
He makes porridge or eggs, or sometimes empties a tin of beans on toast. Every week, he brews another dose of Dreamless Sleep in the cellar. Every evening he sweeps the coal dust with his mother’s favourite broom. The unridden, Muggle kind.
The flames in the fireplace have never glowed green. There is no floo powder on the mantle.
He keeps a journal, but never writes about the past. He tries not to dream of it. Even though his Secret is Kept well enough, he meticulously checks the iron locks every night and renews his security spells every other Tuesday.
Until, one day. Everything changes.
The ghost of a stag prances right through his carefully honed defenses into the seclusion of his living room and says in Harry-Bloody-Potter’s voice.
thinking again about what snape’s path might have been without the death eaters/the war. he wouldn’t have been a teacher, but what would he have chosen to do, if he’d had the chance to choose? i feel like making potions is something he’d enjoy (he obviously liked to experiment). or spell making. just thinking about snape becoming the reclusive academic he was always meant to be.
really starting to wonder if people who go “well neville’s PARENTS were TORTURED but SNAPE is his BIGGEST FEAR” just like don’t remember how boggarts are supposed to work or don’t understand how fear works.
because i could do the same thing you know? “well harry’s PARENTS were KILLED but DEMENTORS are his BIGGEST FEAR” or talk about how hermione’s biggest fear is mcgonagall, another teacher. or how lupin’s friends were all murdered by another friend and his biggest fear is still the moon. or like how ron probably knows his uncles were murdered by death eaters but his biggest fear is still spiders.
fear is weird, man. that’s part of what the boggart lesson is meant to show us. do they get so focused on the half-page of neville’s boggart they entirely forget the whole conversation lupin and harry have where lupin admits he thought harry’s greatest fear would be voldemort and harry’s surprised about that? it doesn’t matter that voldemort killed harry’s parents or that he’s tried to kill harry twice by now - for harry, the more immediate thing that freaks him out are the dementors.
neville being scared of snape isn’t because he’s oh-so-traumatized. neville’s clumsy and sensitive and snape is a mean teacher - of course neville’s frightened of him. it’s not great but it’s also not a sign that snape’s an irredeemable abuser either. (if he was, wouldn’t all the children have boggarts of him? wouldn’t lupin have reacted with something other than mild surprise about neville’s admission? if a teacher being a boggart makes them an irredeemable abuser, why are these same accusations not flung at mcgonagall, hermione’s boggart?) neville being frightened of snape over bellatrix - a woman he hasn’t met, doesn’t know, and, at 13 years old, has likely only heard largely censored stories about - doesn’t mean snape is somehow more terrifying to him in general than bellatrix. bellatrix is a far-off boogeyman neville never interacts with; snape’s in his everyday life. if i was going to choose between a terrorist i’d never met - no matter how much they’d personally ruined my life - and the mean teacher i have to deal with every day, i’d choose the mean teacher too.
and boggarts. do not. show you. the single thing you’re most frightened of!!!!! they don’t!!!!!! they show A Fear. and our fears develop as we grow older and our fears change based on what we’re feeling at the moment. there’s a REASON harry’s fear is so different from the other kids (which is, to be frank, the entire point of that fucking scene and the reason why i have to roll my eyes at people making it into Some Huge Neville Thing. neville is background flavor in that scene. he exists to color in harry’s experience omfg like i know we all like minor characters but can we PLEASE remember this is a book).
it’s wild to me that we get this exact example with harry in the same book (and like… the same general portion of the book!!!!) and people still fucking failed to get the message.
Dumbledore was old and weary, and he rubbed his eyes with only one hand. The other hand might have fallen off if he dared apply such pressure to it.
“You fool,” he muttered to himself: if he had not been tempted, he might have lived to see the end of the war. He allowed the stoic facade to crack when he was alone. To see the end of the war after all these years and all this work… he deserved that much, didn’t he? He’d had nothing else to gain from making it his personal business to destroy Lord Voldemort. Then again, one way or the other, to see the end of the war would be to see Severus die. It was so unfair for the old to bury the young, and how much more of this could he take?
For the old to bury the young. Heh. Gellert would have found it deliciously funny. It wasn’t fair at all, and yet in a sense, Albus had done just that: Severus was marked for death as sure as he was, and the odds were still in Riddle’s favour. It would take another miracle, Albus realized, and his only consolation was that miracles were rarely obvious. Of course they were not obvious in the sense that one anticipated them – everybody knew that. But so often, they weren’t obvious even as they were happening, even when they already happened.
He had thought, once, that Gellert’s arrival at the house next door was a miracle. Another wizard, his equal (and really, what were the odds), and a handsome one to boot. He had seized this miracle with both hands. If you hadn’t, you might have still had them. Gellert would have found that funny too. Everyone but Albus thought Harry Potter’s survival a miracle, but Albus knew it was an experiment, and it hardly counted as a miracle when a hypothesis, based on a well-founded theory, turned out to be correct. Dumbledore had always theorized on the power of love and on the power of choice, and Harry’s survival meant evidence. That was all.
The miracle had happened much before, and it looked like nothing much at the time. That a Death Eater could be brave enough to ask his master to spare a mother, the master being the type to murder an infant? That Riddle actually tried to deliver on his promise? For all your disgust, Albus, that ended up saving the world for at least ten years.
The miracle was Severus, not Harry, and again, Albus seized that miracle and never let it go. He wanted to care but he couldn’t afford to, because before long, they would all be dead.
A miracle, that a man so corrupted could love a childhood friend more than his own life. A miracle that a man so broken could face more danger and more death and yet complain only about the dunderheads that grew dumber every year.
Albus had told Harry that the prophecy being overheard had been a tragedy, but he knew the prophecy had waited for Severus just as much as it had waited for Albus himself. Only Severus could make it come true, and only Dumbledore could divine an interpretation that would give Harry and the Wizarding World a fighting chance when all was lost. Though it had not felt like a miracle when it had happened - not at all. It felt like a nuisance. Without his Pensieve, Albus might not even have remembered what the Prophecy had said at all.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dart Lord approaches… said while Severus Snape was approaching. Even Gellert might have found thatjoke to be in poor taste. In the end, Albus, you would have lost your right hand or your right-hand man. Now your right-hand man will lose you. That is all. A minor difference in the grand scheme of things. He closed his eyes.
It would have been easier for Severus to die for not killing me. His allegiance would have been known, at least, and he would have understood why, and I would have been able to help Harry, might have lived to see the end.If I hadn’t met Gellert a century ago, we might not have needed this many miracles.
Dumbledore downed a goblet of the golden potion that kept the curse contained. It went down smooth as fine scotch and warm as hot chocolate. Were it not for all these miracles, Severus might have been a world-famous healer.
Albus sighed, cleared his mind, and prepared himself for another private lesson with Harry.
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.
My first contribution to the Snolidays2021, and also my first fanfiction! I won’t lie, this didn’t go at all in the direction that i meant for it to, but yeah, I’m putting it out in the world.
This is set in 1996 and features Severus Snape and Remus Lupin, with references to Sirius Black and past wolfstar. Sirius doesn’t exactly come off well.
Marauders fans want to complain that Snape dismissed the attack on Mary MacDonald.
What if Slytherins only attacked Mary to get revenge for the Marauders attacking Snape? In the vein of ‘If you hurt one of ours, we’ll hurt one of yours’ they attacked a lone and vulnerable Gryffindor.
If I were Severus, I would have asked Lily why it was so awful for Mary to be attacked while she just shrugged off what was being done to him.
I’m not saying this is the only way for this to happen, just that it’s a possibility.
Or how come Mary MacDonald is always an innocent snowflake? Marauder Stans will excuse Snape’s sexual assault on the grounds that he wasn’t an iNnOcEnT vIcTiM, but by their logic, Mary is a character we can feel sorry for bc she is a paper bag. She isn’t human with real flaws.
Would Marauder stans still care Mulciber tried to do something to Mary if she‘s the type of girl to curse out McGonagall for assigning homework or mock Flitwick for being part goblin or tried to slip Regulus Black a love potion to get her hands on Black family gold? (And before Marauder stans say a friend of Lily’s would never, Lily’s pure friendship standards are reflected in her “best friend“ Severus Snape so we all gotta be consistent. Either Lily is friends with good ppl & is a defender of the innocent or she doesnt have the brains to recognize a racist incel.)
spare me the poor Mary comments bc she isn’t a real character
I want the same energy for poor Bertram Aubrey who is never portrayed as a cute little first year who asked the marauders for directions when they hit him with an illegal head swelling spell. Where r those fics
The Marauders are 100% why I think no one outside Gryffindor really tried to befriend Harry. They’d gotten the 'Don’t trust a Potter’ speech with supporting evidence. Malfoy was the only one with enough social capital (and arrogance) to think he’d be fine.
Bertram Aubrey’s niblings stayed as far away from Harry as possible.
@sneverussape Your tags are exactly what I was thinking!
“I don’t care how much money he has, Edwina, you’re not to keep company with him. I remember his father - harassed that poor Evans girl until she gave in. Such a sad loss to research. She was brilliant at Charms, but you know he dragged the lot of them into danger.”
How may also blamed James for dragging them into open conflict with Voldemort?
right and harry getting into trouble every year wouldn’t have helped his cause. the way seamus acted towards harry in OotP may have actually been the norm outside of gryffindor.
these same parents maybe would have appreciated snape more as a teacher.
“snape is your potions professor, matthias? that little bugger has come a long way, eh! used to top all our exams in my day!”
“i don’t want to hear any whinging from you this year, isabel. if you need any potions tuition you make sure to ask snape. i shall write him if i must.”
Harry’s habit of launching himself straight into trouble wouldn’t have helped his cause at all.
I can see Snape being highly respected as a professor, especially with how hard he had to work to overcome his background and how he was treated at school. And how he kept such good order in his class.
“Wily little bugger he was, brilliant though. Take care to pay strict attention to his lessons, Edwina. It’s not every school that gets a potions master of his caliber. There hasn’t been a serious accident since he took over.”
(I’m beginning to feel a bit sorry for poor Edwina. Her parents seem to only speak harangue.)
yes! i feel like they would have actually been very impressed with snape, being that they had known him in school and would have seen his trajectory, so to speak. was it public information that he was a death eater? even if it was, he’d had dumbledore vouch for him so that would have also turned the tide towards him.
i can see those same parents keeping an extra eye on harry just to say “OH he’s just like his father”. unfair to harry, of course, but in a society like that one, it would’ve been a likely scenario.
(and poor edwina! :))) )
I absolutely love this!! Some parents feeling sorry but also proud and respectful of Professor Snape, knowing what happened to him. Some of them regretting their own bullying/bystander behavior. When they learn he’s a strict/kinda mean professor, “Of course he is… he had to. Had a rough life, poor bugger.” And “It’s Professor Snape!” Or about Harry getting favouritism, “Oh yeah, Dumbledore always favoured Gryffindors, especially the Potters.”
Notice that Harry’s friends are people whose family didn’t seem to know about the Marauders.
Hermione, a Muggle-Born whose family couldn’t know the Potters before she met Harry, and Ron, whose family didn’t know the marauders in person until they were adults.
The Weasleys were shocked when they found Sirius and Severus on the verge of fighting! Molly strongly respects Professor Snape, while she’s exasperated of Sirius. Tonks’ family despised Lupin (and after what he did, no wonder).
Who knows, perhaps in some of the letters that would ask Lupin to quit his Defense Professor post, some came from parents who were already on edge because he was an old friend of James Potterand Sirius Black. Perhaps only then they learned who was the Defense teacher. That he was a werewolf wasn’t the problem in itself, it’s that the werewolf was Lupin… and now they know who nearly killed/infected their friend or themselves on a night at Hogsmeade at the full moon…
The Slytherins particularly enjoy Snape being a dick to Harry, because it’s karma for what his father did to them (their parents) in his time. They also protect themselves in case Harry gets in his head the idea he can bully them like his father used to.
Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin and Hagrid talk good of James and constantly try to make Harry proud of a father who doesn’t deserve this respect. A father who has given him a bad reputation from the start. Those who know his father don’t see Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, but as a potential Dark Lord indeed (just like they thought in CoS). It was easy to think the worst of Harry (like in OotP), to think he was mentally disturbed, and the fact his father was James (“He was a psychopath!” some would say) might have reinforced that idea.
ohhh good point on the lupin issue. i feel like if parents had known it was lupin teaching them DADA at the same time snape was teaching potions, they’d have reacted quite badly. even if they hadn’t known about the werewolf factor, they would have definitely associated him with the group of bad boys that had run the school.
“lupin! remus lupin? buggerin’ merlin, that fellow used to let his mates run circles around us as prefect! you keep a sharp eye, my lad, and never let your guard down. what does your potions master say about it? they were right pillocks towards snape.”
“to be a fly on that wall! listen here, bertram, if those two raise wands at each other, you run the opposite way, is that clear? they’re more likely to kill each other before the year is out and i don’t want you in harm’s way.”
an additional thing that would have set off parents against harry was him being sirius’ godchild. oh my god, could you imagine.
“no wonder that boy’s always getting into trouble. just bred off a bad lot, he is. i don’t care if he smote lord tiddlywinks, gertrude, you stay awayfrom him. i don’t want to hear any nonsense, you hear? your O.W.L.s are the most important thing right now.”
perhaps also why Dumbledore’s Army didn’t seem to have a lot of members from other houses? (apart from the obvious reasoning that jk only had a set number of characters that she kept recycling, but see, even some of the ones that were in the DA weren’t that friendly towards harry and his mates)
This reminded me of how, in Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry, Hermione, and Neville lose 150 points from Gryffindor, putting them in last place, the entire school treats them badly over it.
Harry’s interpretation is that the entire school hates Slytherin and is upset because of Gryffindor not being able to defeat Slytherin. But…
1) Why would Gryffindor be the only house with the potential to win over Slytherin, and thus regarded as the 'saviour’?
2)WouldRavenclaw and Hufflepuff really have a mindset to the tune of 'I’d rather come behind Gryffindor than see Slytherin win’?
Seems likelier that the other students just saw Harry and his friends as Big Trouble - only been at Hogwarts for a couple of months and already they’re ruining their House’s standing, and getting into night-time shenanigans.
And I think this gets reinforced in every book - the majority of the students, both from Gryffindor and from the other houses, default to thinking that Harry is in the wrong, and possibly malicious. Seamus - who is portrayed as a good, loyal kid - shares a bedroom with Harry for years, but has no trouble jumping to the conclusion that Harry is Not Okay, and neither does his mother (who presumably knows about the Boy Who Lived angle).
If James’ legacy had been an extremely positive one, I think it would have rubbed off on Harry, and he’d have had more social capital with his peers, but he doesn’t. It seems like people are ready to view him as Trouble, and the likely source for that would be… people projecting James on him, the exact same way Sirius and Severus do.
International Women’s Day is when you just happen to know that all of your fave men (and masculine presenting individuals) in HP are getting strapped down by their respective partners.
I’m talking Molly and Arthur, Harry and Ginny, Remus and Dora, Lucius and Narcissa, Snape and whoever he happens to be dating at the time, etc.
