Chaining

Professor Severus Snape heard the first fifth year Potions students begin to collect at his dungeon door. Not one of them was ever eager to enter early; they tended to throng outside, postponing the eventual and chatting among themselves until they would break free in a mass and file in.

"Justin, what’re you doing here?" the unmistakable voice of Seamus Finnegan hooted outside the door. "Blow up your potion, did you? Or just wanted to see how Gryffindors do it?"

"No, wasn’t me. We chained."

Chaining was Hogwarts slang, from even before Snape’s student days, for causing a chain reaction of potion explosions. Some mixtures were fairly sensitive, and setting one off through carelessness sometimes triggered those nearby, ruining them all. When that happened, those affected would have to repeat their work with the next class to meet - so some Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws would be joining the Slytherins and Gryffindors today.

"Who did it?" Seamus asked Justin, still loitering outside the open door.

"Terry."

"How big?"

"Thirteen of us," Justin answered, and he laughed. "And our last Hogsmeade weekend coming up, so I hope he’s saved his sickles." Tradition was that the chain instigator would buy a round of butterbeers for their victims to make up to them for the extra class time.

"Thirteen...man! Class is going to be full today," Seamus answered.

Some undefined critical mass had built up in the hall, and the students began walking into the room under Snape’s watch. The visitors allowed the Slytherins and Gryffindors to seat themselves first, then filled in the empty spaces, first among the Gryffindors and then wherever they could.

Few choices were available to the students of Snape’s Potions classes. Today, four houses were represented, but all wore nearly the same school uniform, carried the same drab book bags, and bore the same reserved and cautious expressions. As they settled into seats, they extracted identical books, pens, and ink bottles, and they each placed in front of them a wand not of their choosing, for the wand chose the wizard. Nor had the students chosen this class – it was required – and Snape knew that they wouldn’t have chosen him as its teacher, accepting that most of them despised him. By fifth year the students had grasped the hard way that freedom of choice was best left to other subjects. Creating potions was an exacting matter, creativity was discouraged, and straying from directions invariably led to calamity in one form or another. So although no student in this room was aware of it, Snape intentionally allowed his students as much freedom of choice as he could.

If information conferred power, then Snape was a powerful man. He was a careful observer with a meticulous memory. Under his watchful eye, the most trivial choice was analyzed and fitted into the mental dossier Snape gathered on everyone who crossed his path. He filled his days studying those around him, balancing each new observation against those collected in the past. If Snape had been a generous man, he might have shared his discoveries with his subjects – but Snape was not a generous man. Nor was he particularly insightful: he was quick to flesh out who, where, and when, but almost never why. Snape was not secure straying from fact into feeling.

Still, Snape gave his students what choices he could and watched. Like most other teachers, he didn’t assign seats, so the choice of where to sit gave Snape some meager information. Those in the double class of Slytherin and Gryffindor weren’t required to sit apart but had opted to early in their first month. It looked as though Snape had parted them with a comb. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw class was much more blended than this one, although they too had their own form of rigidity, but the split was sharp here between those who claimed to be courageous and those who had to work at it with a little – or a lot – more resourcefulness.

Of course, by fifth year the students had such a rigid system that to sit in someone else’s usual spot was as alarming as trying to usurp their bed. Some of them sat far in the back from their first day at Hogwarts – Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy, for example – and they remained there to this day. The gossip that all three boys’ fathers now called Azkaban home had served to isolate them, and the class flatly avoided seats near them.

Other students had started at the front of the class: Pansy Parkinson was one of those. She was one of the few who remained there past the first week after the tone of the class and its teacher was revealed. Then most of them fled to the back or resigned themselves to sitting closer than they liked.

Granger was another who had begun in front. But a few months into her first year, she had joined the duo of Weasley and Potter, fifth table back, Gryffindor side, and they had held court there since. Over the years, adjoining tables emptied and filled with the fall and rise of Potter’s popularity. Months had passed when other Gryffindors feared him, resented him, or ignored him. Today, the nearby tables were filled, which hadn’t been the case for the better part of this year. But the public redemption of Potter two days ago, from the Boy Who Lied to the Boy Who Lived, had swayed his classmates to again favor him. Judging from the many owls that had crowded Potter’s table, making a mess of breakfast in the Great Hall this morning and bearing hastily scribbled goodwill messages from Daily Prophet readers, they were not alone.

These obvious revelations were child’s play for Snape, the observant watcher. He easily saw who were allies and who weren’t, who was in and who was out, and what the pecking order was. He noted over the years how first year friends became fifth year acquaintances, how those who had seemed admirable at first lost their luster, and how those who seemed hopelessly fated as outcasts overcame whatever unseen taint had marked them. Like Longbottom, who had long been eclipsed, but whose star was clearly ascending. Girls who had never given him a second’s time before this year were slowly closing in on him from adjacent tables. But only Snape, and the girls, were so far aware of it. It was merely a part of this long, extended dance of changing partners that seemed to have no pattern. At least to everyone except Snape.

"Today’s lesson is on the board," Snape began. "This potion is intricate, so you will want to pay closer attention than is your usual low norm." That statement was anticlimactic, Snape knew, because today’s extra students spoke to their risk of failure on a grand scale. Terry Boot, yesterday’s triggerman, looked down quickly from where he sat in exile at the far edge of the room.

Snape continued. "Ingredients are listed. You will work alone today. Slugs are in the usual spot," and he gestured with a sweep of his hand, "Begin." With that, he sat down and gathered a bundle of scrolls toward him.

Today’s potion allowed for almost no choices. Snape had positioned the first ingredient, powdered pearl, directly on the desk in front of him. He did this with all valuable ingredients to discourage the more entrepreneurial among the students. Chairs scraped as the students stood up. Some of them like Parvati Patil hurried to the front to be first to reach the soft powder glowing in its bottle under Snape’s deliberate watch. Snape mentally divided those who quickly lined up in front of him between students eager to gain an advantage of time – Slytherins mostly – and those who just wanted to get that part over with.

Others were far more casual in their approach. Lavender Brown began by making contact with any friend that in her opinion she hadn’t been with recently enough, which in her case was measured in minutes. Her behavior reminded Snape of an ant who dashed from sibling to sibling, connecting antennas to exchange chemical messages before darting off.

There were commonly a few who needed extra time to transition. Lisa Turpin always remained seated until she finally caught up to the changed rhythm of the room.

"Waiting for a personal invitation, Turpin?" Snape said brusquely, and he watched with satisfaction her flustered start.

Susan Bones carefully scooped powdered pearl into her vessel and moved away. As Snape watched, other students moved forward and measured the powder, but after five years, their actions were nearly instinctive. Most of them migrated to the shelves that lined the room, gathering each item in the order listed on the board. A few others, to save a return trip, moved to the far end of Snape’s desk to the tray that held the slugs.

Living slugs were not a particularly unusual ingredient in potions. Snape’s approach to them was. Although Snape was not a generous man, he always provided many more of the creatures than the class needed. The tray on which they lay, sedately waiting a fate far beyond their grasp, was also generous – several students at once could stand in front of it. None of the students ever appreciated the choice that Snape had contrived for them. And so while they were well aware of his focus as they poured and scraped pearl powder, they were equally unaware of him as he watched their hands at the tray nearby as they made their choices.

"Hurry up," muttered Crabbe to the Gryffindor ahead of him, who was trying to lift a small slug using a scrap of paper. After five years, most of them didn’t mind touching slugs barehanded, but several still resisted the slimy feel. Snape’s generosity didn’t extend to tongs.

"Just a minute," the girl snapped back without looking up. Successful at last, she moved away, balancing the slug delicately.

Crabbe chose the slug farthest away from Snape, as if a closer approach was dangerous. Well, maybe for Crabbe, it was.

Goyle, next in line, was also a grab-and-go, never looking at the tray but watching Snape like a shoplifter watches a detective.

After years of observing, Snape could predict their choices in slugs almost as easily as their choices in seats. Weasley, for example, came up early, made his assessment lightening-fast, and always snapped up the biggest on the tray as if he feared that someone else was about to take all the slugs and leave him without. Well, he was from a big family of small resources – his choice was too easy to decipher.

Granger, on the other hand, selected hers with excruciating care as if she was choosing a life partner. Whatever virtues made for slug perfection, Granger identified and weighed them. She would not be hurried, and her classmates had long ago stopped trying, instead moving around her as she deliberated.

Finnegan, who was almost never still, always chose a moving slug. Longbottom preferred his already dead. Malfoy would wait until another student, preferably Gryffindor, was at the tray, then he targeted any slug that the hand next to his had approached. He would snatch it away nimbly using reflexes honed by Quidditch and stride off with a victorious gleam, as if the slug were a snitch.

But Potter...as always, he was notable for his capriciousness. If Potter had a favorite choice, Snape was unaware of it. Sometimes he was first in line, sometimes last. He might begin by gathering ingredients in order, then skip to the tray at random. He chose large slugs, small slugs, the quick and the dead. He didn’t grab and run like Goyle, but he didn’t agonize like Granger. As far as Snape could fathom, he may have been reacting to a signal from that famous telepathic scar of his. Snape couldn’t call him indecisive, for Potter was anything but. In all things, Potter was stubbornly decisive...decisively wrong.

Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, best friends since their first week, strolled up to the tray together, talking easily, oblivious to Snape. The professor didn’t turn his head – he didn’t need to. He could see their hands at the tray and after five years with them, he knew each pair of hands well. They made their choices and retreated to their desk, now including the slugs in their conversation.

Ernie MacMillan and Padma Patil, best friends since last week, followed. The boy picked up a large specimen and made a move to drop it down her collar. She laughed nervously, a little too long and too breathily, and his hand backed away. She made a tentative attempt to lift one slug, although in the past she had never been squeamish, and her admirer gallantly retrieved it for her and marched away, holding the two slugs ahead of him by the scruffs of their necks.

Over the years, Snape had watched countless hands interact at the tray. He was covertly alert to the small movements that sent almost electric messages between those who stood there. He noted their little gestures of camaraderie, aggressive actions carrying warnings, tentative touches like the soft flutter of birds’ wings that signaled interest. Snape was careful never to let on that he saw the messages, for fear that they would end and his information become harder to gather. So he kept silent as he watched the wordless hands speak. A lifetime ago, when he was a student and not a professor, two of those hands had been his.

Potter finally headed toward the front of the room. Weasley and Granger, currently still in the care of Madam Pomfrey, weren’t here, and Potter...well, he too seemed to be somewhere else entirely. He heard little and said less. Snape watched Potter’s approach. The boy stopped at the powdered pearl and began to measure without looking up. The professor watched Harry’s hands steady the bottle and replace it on the desk, and he caught sight of the faint white scars, curving and coiling, that were carved into the otherwise smooth skin on the back of the boy’s right hand. Snape had discovered the newest addition to Potter’s notorious scar collection a few months ago during one of their fruitless Occlumency sessions. When he had first seen the inscribed words, I will not tell lies, and saw their dark creation in the boy’s memory, he was sickened. Potter had never told anyone in the Order, of course, imagining his secrecy was somehow brave and strong. Snape thought it far more masochistic.

Then, just when the professor thought that the interaction at his desk would be uneventful, Potter looked up at him. The fierce stare that greeted Snape was so full of hatred that the older man unconsciously pulled away from it. It took all his will to choke back the words he wanted to shout as he realized that Potter blamed him...him...for the fiasco of a few nights ago. Instead, Snape held his gaze and displayed nothing but contempt in return until Potter broke away and headed for the slugs.

Potter had no right to judge. None. That righteousness was what infuriated Snape most of all, and always had. Saint Potter, always so convinced that he alone saw the truth. He knew that the boy and his friends believed that Snape’s dislike of Harry’s father caused the animosity between him and Harry, but that – like a lot of things – was untrue. What Snape hated most about Potter was that sickening sense of holy crusade that he carried like an eternal flame. Only Potter, it seemed, was worthy enough to chose the knights who would fight the battle. His battle. The rest of the wizarding world could play whatever bit parts he assigned to them, and woe to them if they impeded his noble plans.

But Snape’s role in this battle was far more complex than Potter would ever know. His duty, given to him years ago, was to watch. To deceive. To carefully create an identity allowing him to work among and against their enemy. Sometimes it would take Snape months to shape a single illusion that may never pay off. Each stage of the deception came at enormous risk. And then Potter would blunder in, wrecking Snape’s careful work, and everyone would applaud the boy and exalt him like some kind of messiah.

Not this time.

The Dark Lord had finally understood and exploited Potter’s weakness and now our young hero was learning what Snape had known long ago. Potter interfered once too often, had set off a chain he couldn’t stop, and Sirius had died for it. Snape had no love for the wizard, but any loss to their side, especially now that war returned, was regrettable. For Potter, it was far worse. But apparently Gryffindor’s favorite savior couldn’t accept his responsibility for the loss, responsibility that Snape had thought would be obvious, so now the boy intended Snape to play the bad guy in this drama. Again.

Snape wrenched his mind back to the classroom and tried to suppress his outrage. Potter was still standing frozen at the tray of slugs, his mind again far away, until he was jostled back to reality by another student moving beside him. Neither student acknowledged the other, but Snape hadn’t expected them to. From his seat, Snape watched with forced indifference as two pairs of hands began their circling.

"Just grab one this time and get the hell away from me," Snape thought angrily, as the delay became irritating. He was no longer in the mood for petty games of observation. What difference could it make anymore? After this week, everyone in the wizarding world would be facing far more serious choices between Dumbledore or the Dark Lord, good or evil, life or death. Those were the only choices that mattered now. The students in this class were only a little younger than he had been during the first war against the Dark Lord. He knew, and they didn’t, what horrors they were all going to face.

Then he saw it from the corner of his eye, at the far end of the desk, those two pairs of hands at the tray. He saw the careful brush of skin against skin, the recognition of a message sent and received, a statement that said, clearly and unmistakably, "I’ve noticed you. I’m interested."

Snape was astonished, but not as much as Potter was. Harry’s hand jumped back as if the slugs had transformed into snakes, then he seemed to recover enough to grab one before he fled.

Well. It was clear, Snape judged, that even small and unimportant choices disclosed in Potions class still had some consequence. But even though by watching he knew the who and when, he, as usual, couldn’t begin to understand why.

Near the end of class, Crabbe’s potion suddenly exploded and everyone in the room watched helplessly as, one by one, cauldron after cauldron followed until none was left untouched. In some strange way, Snape had expected it all along.

*********************************

Two days later, the same students were back in Potions class with Snape, with the addition of Granger and Weasley who had been released from the hospital wing. The chain set off by Crabbe during the last class had set a new Hogwarts record. No one was happy about repeating the difficult potion, especially when they knew that Crabbe had never embraced the butterbeer tradition at Hogsmeade. It was too late for that, anyway; term ended in two days.

Since being reunited, Granger and Weasley had doggedly shadowed Potter as though he was some Muggle film star bothered by persistent fans. At the moment, however, Snape saw that Potter’s watchdogs were absorbed in a rambling dispute, bickering in their annoying way like a married couple, and Harry slipped away alone. While Potter spooned powdered pearl, Snape deliberately kept his eyes on a scroll in front of him and would not give the boy the relief of eye contact. Potter could play martyr without him, Snape thought irately.

Potter’s hands were back among the slugs, but they weren’t alone for more than a moment. Again, there was a stir of hands and a brush of skin, contact held longer this time but with the same meaning. "I’ve noticed you. I’m still interested." Snape fought and resisted the urge to turn his head toward the two students. He must have shown some reaction, however, because the girl pouring powder in front of him had nervously spilled some on the desk and muttered an anxious apology that he ignored.

Snape covertly watched as this time Potter didn’t jerk away. The boy’s hand held steady, and then, to Snape’s surprise, sent its own message in return with a simple hesitation, then a firm touch, a reply without voice but clear intent.

"Yes."