Kill or Be Killed

Kill or Be Killed

Chapter One: A Proposal

It was two weeks before the beginning of the next school year at Hogwarts. The teachers had been arriving on and off for three or four days. A slender man with jet black hair stood outside the great oak doors, deep in thought. His grip tightened around the two suitcases in his hands.

'Why do I always hesitate here?' he questioned himself. 'Always like the first time...'

"Severus, you are allowed to come inside the castle," a familiar old, kindly voice from behind him chuckled.

Severus Snape flinched, "I know, Headmaster," he said quietly, caught in a memory. He shifted his grip on his bags and continued up the steps to the castle doors. They opened effortlessly. Snape put down his bags and sighed.

The castle was as it always had been: welcoming. It asked nothing of him. It required nothing from him, but his mere presence. It was good to be in its safety again. He stooped to pick his bags up but they had already been whisked off to his rooms by the ever useful house elves. A slight smile crept over his face.

'Yes,' he thought, 'it is good to be back.'

He turned around to ask the headmaster a question, only to find him gone. "That's Albus Dumbledore for you," he said softly to himself before heading down to his domain.

He looked about his rooms and shrugged. The furniture looked like it had been hit with several cleaning spells over the summer. The elves had tried to make the room more welcoming, but the additions of the warm colors on the walls and furniture were the first thing Severus got rid of. He shook his head and moved into his bedroom. Again, his greens and silvers and blacks were replaced by earth tones and warm colors. Again he quickly changed everything back and then he started to unpack everything he'd charmed into the two small suitcases. Books, clothes, potion ingredients, and various other brick-a-brack all zoomed to their designated places around his rooms.

He stretched and lay down on his bed and looked at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and let his mind set itself to the school. He hated all he had to do outside the school. His work as a spy for Dumbledore was gaining on him. He hated going and playing lap dog to the Dark Lord. He hated it, but kept it all well hidden. He hated brewing the potions the Dark Lord used to cause pain and gain information. He hated the looks he got when he walked down the Diagon Alley. The entire wizarding world, with a few exceptions, believed him to be a Death Eater. Part of them hated and feared him for it, and the others gave him the respect one would give to the king's poisoner. Snape propped himself up on his elbows and looked across his room to where the clock had placed itself.

'Five to noon,' he thought, 'Dumbledore will be having the welcoming luncheon for the staff. I should get up... but then the only new additions to the staff will be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and I'm not inclined to get up only to meet them. Although, I wonder who took the position? After the public revelation about Voldemort, I wonder who was stupid enough to take the post...?'

In the end, his curiosity got the better of him and he changed quickly and headed up to the teachers' lounge, the traditional place for the Welcome Luncheon. Nothing had changed. There were no new teachers. There were just the regular teachers. Severus scratched his head and turned to go, only to run headlong into Dumbledore.

"Ah, Severus, just the man I was looking for!" he greeted the younger man happily.

"Hello, Headmaster," he replied respectfully, "What do you need?"

"The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher hasn't arrived yet, as you might have noticed. He asked me to relay a request if he wasn't here by now." Dumbledore explained.

"What is it?" Snape asked thoroughly intrigued.

"He is planning teaching the upper level students how to resist the effects of certain potions. He is asking for your help when he teaches these lessons."

"Oh," Severus paused and thought a moment. "Why does he need my help during the lessons? He can just brew the potions himself or ask me for them. My presence is not needed during the actual lessons."

"Either way, he requested that you be present. He said he'd explain everything to you when he got here," Dumbledore replied.

"I..." he started.

"Think on it until you get a chance to talk to him." Dumbledore dismissed his answer with a wave.

With that, Dumbledore meandered over to the banquet table and sat to luncheon. Severus looked back over his shoulder and promptly left for the cold comfort of his rooms.

His mind was alive with many questions and scenarios about the new teacher.

'Why does he need my help during classes? Why is he even teaching resistance to potions? Who the hell is he?' Severus thought, while going over his lesson plans for the seventh years. His brow furrowed. 'There is no reason to any of this. Who is crazy enough to be teaching something like that? It is dangerous enough having to deal with it in the real world, but to study it in class...it is brilliant! But still, who is crazy enough to attempt it without knowing what the students are capable of?' Severus wrecked his brain trying to think of possible names. It had to be someone who had once dealt with the Dark Lord. Especially if he tested the students against the potions Severus himself was thinking of. No one knew about the Dark Lords use of potions except those that had fallen victim to it, Dumbledore, and a select inner circle of Death Eaters.

A face kept popping into his head, but each time, Severus pushed it away. There was no way in hell that he would ever give up his evening partying to come and teach. No way in hell.

At least he hoped it was that way.

With that thought firmly in his subconscious, Severus gave up his lesson planning and paced the room, hoping that his gut feeling was wrong. He paced around the room until early morning. He stopped every now and again and picked up a quill to write off a quick note, but each time he decided that not knowing was better than knowing.

And thus the time passed for Severus Snape. The two weeks before the start of classes quickly fleeted away. Still the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher hadn't shown up. And a nice worn spot in Severus' rug had come to stay, as the Potion's Master paced those last hours before the students were due to arrive.

TBC