The Birds and the Bees

Severus Snape was standing at the bookshelf in his office, furiously flicking through a large, leather bound book, when he heard the knock. Muttering distractedly, he strode towards the door and flung it open. The sight of a scared looking student outside his door seemed to jolt him back into Nasty Professor mode, as his face rearranged itself into its usual disdainful sneer.

'Miss Granger,' he said in a menacing voice, 'I have dismissed the class. What is the reason for this intrusion?'

She swallowed hard and answered him, 'Professor Snape, you forgot to assign a time for my detention.'

As she spoke, he saw that her eyes were fixed intently on his hands. Looking down, he realised that he was still holding the book from his bookshelf. It was a very old, very rare book, and definitely not one for the eyes of students. He thanked Merlin for the lack of identifiable features on the book's leather cover, and shifted it further under one arm. If Dumbledore knew he was keeping it in his office...

'8 o'clock tonight, Miss Granger,' he said shortly and went to close the door, but Hermione was not moving from the doorway. Her eyes were strangely bright as she continued to stare at the book.

'What is in that book, Professor?' she asked in a low voice. He bristled in indignation.

'That is absolutely none of your business, young lady!' he snarled, and the sound of his voice seemed to rouse her somewhat. She blinked and looked up, blushing slightly as she apologised profusely for her question.

'Don't be late,' he snapped, and turned on his heel, striding off to leave her standing in the open doorway. The spark of recognition in her eye as she stared at the book disquieted him. It was not the sort of book that the Head Girl of Hogwarts should have ever heard of. He always knew that no good would come of that girl's insatiable thirst for knowledge. After her display in his class that day, he knew that something was up. Her recognition of the book only fuelled his suspicions. Hopefully he would find some answers that evening...

***

For the rest of the afternoon, Professor Snape sat in his office behind a large pile of unmarked essays. He knew he should be marking then while he had the time, he knew that he would regret it when he had to mark them all the next morning, but just couldn't seem to concentrate enough to read more than a sentence at a time. He sighed, and rubbed his temples.

He felt tired. Worse than that, he felt old, and he hated himself for it. He was not even forty yet. By wizarding standards he was still a young man. He felt like maybe he should be out doing what young men do...whatever that was.... But instead he was sat in this cold room feeling worn and ancient, weighed down by memories.

Memories can be like ghosts, and Snape's memories haunted him. Grotesque, translucent parodies of times past, howled and rattled chains in the corners of his tired mind. His worst memories, though, weren't of the horrific sights he had seen; it was the little reminders of the emptiness of his life that plagued his thoughts and made him cry out in his sleep. Taunts from childhood, an adult life of miserable days teaching, solitary evenings, and nights that dragged on forever. Not gory, not bloody, just reminders of the absolute lack of love in his life.

His life of immersion in the Dark Arts had not scarred him as one might expect; it merely left him feeling strangely hollow. The emptiness he found was a blow. He had been lured into the Dark teachings by his own aspirations of glory and power, and of a life that meant something. Power was to be his way to a life filled with friends and admirers, and Dark Magic was to be his way to power.

Under the guidance of his older and more experienced mentor, Lucius Malfoy, he had spent years studying Dark spells and rituals. Some of them could be found in various old books, but most were passed on by word of mouth. To learn the secrets, you needed to be initiated into a tradition or group. This was where the Death Eaters had come in - a way to gain entrance into a highly secretive world.

It had not been the life that he expected. Instead of exploiting the group for their secrets and gaining some of their power, he found himself being sucked dry to feed the power of a megalomaniac. He was manipulated out of his loyalty, and then his dignity, and received very little in return. Lord Voldemort took his dreams and fed on them, growing more and more powerful as Snape and the other followers grew more and more despondent.

Even the Dark teachings themselves were not what he had expected. There was no definitive system, no straightforward steps to practice. What he got was access to little snippets of magic; spells and rituals of uncertain origin that gave him the feeling that they just weren't for him. They shied away from him, withholding their power. Unlike the conventional magic he had proved so good at in Hogwarts, his Dark magic was still hit and miss.

He had practised diligently, following instructions to the letter, but even some of the supposedly basic spells still proved to be totally ineffective, or had outcomes which were wildly different to those prescribed by the books. Equally likely was that a spell would work perfectly, but have very unusual side effects. Halfway through some of the more complex spells, he would sometimes find his mind becoming clouded with visions of people and places unknown, and he would hear snatches of songs sung in a strange tongue.

He had always been very disturbed by these unwelcome intrusions on his magic, and had conducted months of painstaking research into the origins of the spells they accompanied. His research, though, invariably lead into the realm of folklore, where magical traditions were recorded in songs and stories. His logical mind could make neither head nor tail of such records, and he consequently dismissed them as the uneducated ramblings of a primitive people. All he could do was to keep trying, focussing on the occasional successes he had.

Eventually, the full implications of being a Death Eater became clear, and he panicked. He may not have been a particularly kindhearted or compassionate person, but he had no intention of helping to commit genocide. It was with shame that he ran to Dumbledore for assistance, but that was nothing compared to the shame and lingering feeling of personal debt that came when the old man so graciously absolved his sins.

His new role as a spy rendered any confusion he had about the Dark Arts irrelevant, and so he stopped thinking about it. Life settled down into a rhythm of sorts. Steady and certain but devoid of happiness. He forgot his dreams and began to live for the present; to live simply for the sake of living.

Snape sighed. Reminiscing was always a bad idea, he thought. The past was past. His life had unfolded in a certain way, and all he could do now was accept it. He pushed a strand of hair behind his ear and reached for the pile of essays. Inside his chest he could feel a tiny bubble of hurt. He kept the bubble squashed down, not knowing what he might say or do if he let himself express the aching pain inside him. Better to remain hollow and empty, keeping people at bay with anger and sarcasm. He was far from happy, but his lonely life had become like a shelter. He wouldn't have known how to break out of it if he had wanted to.

He picked up a pen and started marking.