A Deserving Man

Prologue: An Opening
by Icarus

The summer insects hummed and made a living sound of the heat. The aura of the Wizarding world thrummed with the sleepy pleasure of an afterglow, after the party, after the celebration. It was Harry Potter day. How wonderful. Voldemort was dead, and all credit given to a baby boy who was probably drooling on himself at this very moment.

It made a bitter coda to all those who had sacrificed so much, had actually worked for the end of Voldemort instead of huddling like so many sheep, or burbling in a cradle. Now the grateful sheep danced around and celebrated a baby.

Severus made a sound that was half derisive laugh and half sigh. He always known he'd chosen the wrong side. Here was the proof.

In a typical lack of gratitude, those he had helped didn't believe he'd been a spy. Severus should not have been surprised, but in fact, he was. Even once 'cleared,' one job interview after another turned him away. Severus supposed he had projected Albus's cunning and admitted perceptiveness onto those he represented. It stung to be wrong.

Meanwhile, those he had turned against knew it to be true, with vicious certainty. Knew him, knew that Severus Snape would rather go to Azkaban than cower, whinge, and make excuses for himself. He was no Lucius Malfoy, to survive at all costs. Snape? He'd rather be dead. So it had to be true.

Most of them also guessed he'd enjoyed it. His mother certainly did, as she closed off his access to any of the Snape accounts. Not disinherited, no. Not officially, at any rate.

Severus Snape surveyed the landscape of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a place he had hoped never to see again. He turned from the window and knocked solemnly on the heavy wooden door.

Now Severus had to ask for a favour. But at least the man he was asking owed him a great deal. It felt better than charity.

Albus opened the door to his office himself--no magic charms this time. Very kind of him, and respectful. Albus smiled warmly. Behind him, tea was already made and the table set. Of course.

"Severus. Won't you come in? I've been expecting you."

Finis.

A Deserving Man

by Icarus

The walls of the dungeons dripped with moisture, the humidity of summer sank and cooled, pooling in the cracks and crevices. While outside it was sunny -- probably -- daylight never touched these rooms of ancient stone, older than any other part of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. One could almost feel the ponderous weight of the old fortress bearing down on the walls.

A distant drip of water interrupted the only other sound in the room: a delicate, hesitant scratching of quill on parchment. The scribbling sound paused; then renewed with a kind of erratic staccato rhythm, before it stopped again suddenly.

Those familiar with young Severus Snape's handwriting knew the results would be a tiny jagged scrawl, written at great speed and virtually illegible.

Severus chewed the end of his quill, then bent once more over his task in the potions classroom; his black hair narrowly missed being dipped in the inkwell. Already his desk was littered with half-opened scrolls and crumpled strips of parchment, which appeared to have many scratch-outs and corrections.

The first page had only one word: Syllabus.

'Professor' Snape threw down his quill, ignored the resulting blotch, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. His Syllabus for seven years of classes was due, like homework, by the last staff meeting before the school year. Truth be told, nothing in his previous nefarious career had prepared him for anything like this.

'Professor' Severus Snape. He thought of the title in quotes, as some sort of cosmic joke played on him by an unkind god. He had just turned twenty, yet the misery of his teens had come back to haunt him, manacled him to his past. To his mind, the empty Quidditch pitch still echoed with undeserved cheers for a Head Boy who was now a year dead. Certain hallways made his jaw clench with remembered bullying and cruel pranks - though the worst offender, Sirius Black, was in Azkaban. A sweet thought. At least this one thing in his life had gone well.

The Great Hall still set his teeth on edge. Slytherins bumping into the dark, skinny Prefect -- until he made it perfectly clear he was willing to abuse his authority, flagrantly, to pay them back. It didn't make him popular, that was for the likes of Potter and his crew, but it did earn him a grudging respect, or at the very least cautious distance. Which was close enough.

Fortunately, the potions classroom had no particular memories beyond the burbling of cauldrons and a successful N.E.W.T. exam.

Teaching. Severus winced, and tried not to think which Slytherins, his soon-to-be students, would remember him from his seventh year. While teaching was an honor to Ravenclaws, a duty to Hufflepuffs, and a noble profession to the Gryffindors, any Slytherin knew the truth: it was the mark of a has-been, the last refuge of those whose dreams had come to nothing.

At twenty. And he had nowhere else to go.

Severus reached for the Muggle pack of cigarettes in his top drawer, though he didn't light one, merely rolled it between his fingers. He had purchased the quasi-contraband in Knockturn Alley in a fit of rebellion. This teenage habit of his had deliberately flown in the face of everything his pureblooded family exemplified, though true, it was fairly common amongst the Slytherins of his generation. The 'Muggle' habit was the first thing the Death Eaters had made him abandon. He slipped the pack back into the drawer, telling himself he didn't know how tobacco would react to the residual potion fumes, and returned to his attempt to become a teacher.

Hours later, the sun outside had set, though the potions dungeon remained the same. Severus had given up on being creative and was searching for something, anything, the prior Professor had left behind. He'd found a syllabus. From ten years before. It was out of date, but who cared really? He didn't know why he was trying so hard at this.

The door squeaked open, and Severus glanced up over the candles. His lip curled at this visitor in a combination of embarrassment and anger. If it were Professor Dumbledore -- no, Albus now, he insisted -- checking up on his progress...

The bins pushed through the door first, edged it open further. The rest of the cart followed, and the hideous head of Argus Filch poked around the door.

"Eh. Didn't 'spect anyone in here," he said.

Severus returned to his mangled syllabus. "Yes. One usually finds unattended candles burning in empty rooms."

Filch ignored that and squinted at him, a gesture which made his scars even more grotesque than usual. "You? Young Severus Snape is the new Potions Professor?" he chortled.

Severus favoured him with a steady glare. This echoed his own train of thought far to closely. He decided to pull rank, or else this demon of past detentions would never let him be. "That's Professor Snape to you."

But Filch continued to gurgle gleefully. "Hawhawheeheehee... teacher... Professor Snape to me... oh-ho, that's rich." He nearly choked with laughter. "We'll be seeing the backside of ye right soon enough." He continued to trundle his garbage bins into the room.

"Albus," Severus deliberately used the first name, "seems to think me qualified. What is it you do around here again? Oh, yes... you are the janitor."

Filch's grin faltered, then returned with renewed malice. "Qualified. Albus has a charity project every year. But they never last." He began emptying garbage bins, by hand. Severus wondered at that. It was easy enough levitate bins across the room. Was Filch the back-to-the-land sort, the kind of wizard that insisted they had grown too dependent on magic? "There's a bet on how long you'll last. Minerva," Filch emphasized the first name, "gives you till Christmas."

He rolled his cart back to the door, which he yanked open. "Good luck to ye, Mister Snape. Y'gonna need it."

The door thumped shut behind him.

So. His loving colleagues welcomed him to his face, and then placed bets behind his back. That stung, more than it should have. He didn't doubt Filch was telling the truth; he wasn't known for his imagination. And it fit with Severus' experience of human nature.

He had thought there was nothing more humiliating than being doomed to be a teacher. He was wrong. Being fired as a teacher, with nowhere else to turn, was infinitely, mind-bogglingly worse. The picture of Dumbledore's soulful, apologetic face arose in his mind unbidden, "My dear boy," he would say, "I have done what I could, but, much as I would like to keep you on..."

Severus set to work feverishly. Dumbledore wanted a syllabus? Well, he would give him a syllabus beyond his wildest dreams.

Finis.