Behind the Mask

Chapter 2 - A potion to endure

I lay my quill down, feeling strangely exhausted. Writing about the past had felt like actually reliving it and I just cannot take more of it at the moment. I decide to give myself a little rest and continue later.

It feels like I am slightly getting weaker by day and I am afraid of running out of time and not being able to finish this story. No, I have to be strong, just a little bit longer. I have to finish it, have to do this last thing for Harry, before I am allowed to finally rest.

I decide to brew myself an Endurement potion and go over to my ingredients cupboard. Mrs. Weasley came by yesterday to refill my potions supply with the more rare ingredients, those few I am not able to cultivate or breed on my own.

With her position as deputy headmistress at Hogwarts it is easy for Hermione to get everything I wish for as I now despise being in places like Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, where large numbers of witches and wizards gather.

They all want to speak with 'war hero' Snape, or buy me a drink and speak about old times. If I wanted to speak about the past I would surely not do it with them.

All of them annoy me at the best, anger me at worst and I do not want to be tempted to use curses on them which I might just maybe regret later. Some of these curses would be unforgivable, if you know what I mean.

I am sneering now, imagining having that stupid Longbottom boy under a nice Imperius, ordering him to stop babbling and be silent for once, as not even age has made up for either his clumsiness or lack of brain.

I am glad for having retired from my teaching position years ago. Longbottom's children will reach the age of eleven soon and teaching them would surely let me loose the rest of my sanity during the first week and have me spend the remainder of the time given to me at St. Mungos as a gibbering fool, a fate I'd rather avoid.

I may have become old, but I never was and definitely never will be a nice man. I have not gone soft with age and I am glad of that fact. It makes the memories and shattered dreams easier to bear.

I carefully choose the things I need for this special potion, a jar of unicorn tears comes in my hand, but I put it back. Later, when this potion will not help me anymore I will have to take them, but for now the Endurement potion will do.

I put the silver cauldron on the heat, lovingly stroking over its worn surface. I've had it since my first day as a teacher and it is still better than anything you can buy now, the world is changing fast and some changes are not for the better. I've never trusted those mass-produced cauldrons, made by magical machines instead of handiwork.

I prepare everything, cutting, slicing, crushing... Familiar tasks, which I remember doing for the best part of my life. When I am finished with the preparation I mix the ingredients in the cauldron, adding them by feeling without needing to count or weigh, now all I have to do is to stir it clockwise for twenty minutes and the potion will be ready.

Brewing potions calms me every time, gives me time to think, while my hands do the things they are trained to do, automatically. I could do it in my sleep; even the most difficult potions are relatively easy for me by now. I take the potion from the fire to let it cool down, while I go in the kitchen and prepare myself some tea.

Hermione, she still insists on calling me professor, even after all these years. It is somehow assuring, something that never changes. She told me her daughter, my goddaughter, is pregnant. I am probably supposed to send Joanne something. I still remember her as a little girl, seeing her for the first time after the war was over. Her red, bushy hair in two tiny braids, playing with a little broomstick. Now she will soon have a child of her own, sometimes it amazes me how fast the time flies by.

After drinking tea mixed with the now lukewarm potion I feel better, it is time to continue my writing...

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Where did I stop? Yes, the blood oath. The years that followed were rather hectic, after Voldemort was defeated, there were a lot of trials for the suspected Death Eaters. Some of them claimed to have been under the Imperius curse and it was difficult to prove that their claim was a lie.

I was indicted myself, but the ministry had nothing to prove their accusations and Albus spoke for me, he had a large amount of influence on the ministry at the time, so I came out of the trial as a free man.

Most of the Death Eaters were send to Azkaban for their crimes and the lucky ones, who managed to escape, kept a low profile, to not draw attention and further accusations to themselves.

The following years, while important to me, have nothing to do with this story, I hope you can forgive me for not writing about them here, I cannot afford to waste more time.

Here is where this story really begins, or sort of. Lily's death would soon have it's tenth annual and the term at Hogwarts started just like every other September.

But for me this term was different than any other. Lily's son was eleven now and would begin his education at Hogwarts. His letter had been sent to him and I was told, that Hagrid was sent to pick him up, to assist him buying his school supplies.

I was terribly nervous that day, something I was not often in my life. I hadn't seen the boy since he was just a baby and now he would be there and permanently remind me of the fact that Lily had chosen James Potter over me. I did not know if I could handle that, without giving the boy a hard time for things he had had no control over.

I sat at the teacher's table, my face frozen in its usual stoic expression, but my palms where sweating and my mind was spinning.

I can still see him, standing in the midst of a long row of first years, talking to a red headed boy that could only be a Weasley. Molly and Arthur must have used some excellent fertilizing charm to have such a large number of offspring.

The first thing I noticed about him was a mop of raven black hair, untidy standing in every direction. The second were his emerald green eyes, Lily's eyes, the glasses he wore did nothing to hide them.

Except for his eyes he looked just like a smaller copy of Potter, he was shorter and far skinnier, but looked like his father nonetheless. It was a shock for me to see that, how could he dare, how could this boy dare to have the eyes of my beloved Lily in the face of James Potter. I hated him from this instant on. I know it was childish, but I was not above such feelings and I hated him for it, for making me feel something, for reminding me, for the fact that he was rich and famous. He looked so innocent, so beautiful and surely knew nothing about how hard and painful life could be.

I hated him for being alive because Lily had given hers to save him, but I would hold my vow, I would protect him, with my life if necessary, that did not mean that I also had to like him.