Rating:
G
House:
The Dark Arts
Characters:
Albus Dumbledore Sirius Black Severus Snape
Genres:
Angst
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix
Stats:
Published: 09/10/2003
Updated: 09/10/2003
Words: 3,465
Chapters: 1
Hits: 927

Two Down

Rowen Redford

Story Summary:
There is no puzzle more complex than the human mind. On the night after Sirius Black's funeral, Snape receives a visit from the past. And, in a tale of crosswords and cross words, is given some long overdue advice from Dumbledore.

Chapter Summary:
There is no puzzle more complex than the human mind. On the night after Sirius Black's funeral, Snape recieves a visit from the past. And, in a tale of crosswords and cross words, is given some long overdue advice from Dumbledore.
Posted:
09/10/2003
Hits:
927


Two Down

"Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;

Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure" (Byron)

He fell asleep directly after coming back from the funeral.

Not that he had found it dull at all, you understand. What, after all, could be more entertaining than a ceremony to honour a saintly, heroic martyr who happens to be your worst enemy? The sobbing, the regret, the endless speeches...he couldn't think of anything he'd rather have been doing.

There wasn't even any point to it, he reasoned moodily: it wasn't as if they had anything to bury, after all.

Severus had hoped to escape this rather sickening memorial to the dear departed Black, but unfortunately he had been collared by Dumbledore and forcibly portkeyed to the scene. Once at the funeral, various people had listed Black's (fictional) virtues until he wanted to throttle himself just to escape the monotony of it, and then finally it was over, and he was allowed to depart, with a fervent wish that Lupin wouldn't die any time soon, as enduring another such ceremony in the recent future would be intolerable. The only bright spot had been seeing Emmeline Vance again: she had been dressed in her usual jewel green, a single coloured figure against the black-clad crowd; she had smiled briefly at Severus from across the group of people when he arrived, and when Lupin began describing the innate kindness of Sirius Black she had glanced sardonically at him with raised eyebrows.

But despite this silver lining, Severus had returned to Hogwarts in a foul mood, and in an effort to escape the tedious cant of his colleagues, he retreated into his office, where he slumped at the desk, intending to get some lesson plans out of the way so that the day would not have been entirely wasted. But first, he thought, he would have a cup of coffee, do the Daily Prophet crossword. He had earned a bit of indulgence, hadn't he?

So with a sigh, he settled down to a few minutes of (comparative) bliss. The clues were hard, another might have described them as challenging, but Snape merely found them enjoyable. As his coffee cooled forgotten on his lap, he penned solution after solution into the grid in his usual neat hand.

Monster on back of Hippogriff halves ancient wizard? Easy.

Spell condescends to save life? Insultingly obvious.

He had finished, he realised after five minutes. Or almost. The only clue that remained was two down: Resent two wrong letters for minister of magic. Six letters. Well, that was straightforward, wasn't it? Severus stared at the paper in silence. He knew it, and yet somehow he could not think what the right solution was. He scowled, took a sip of coffee, and tried again. Nothing. Resent two wrong letters for minister of magic. It was a simple clue, really. If only he could think of it. Which, it emerged slowly, he couldn't.

Snarling, he flung the offending paper on the floor, and turned back to his papers, intending to plan a particularly nasty lesson for the unsuspecting sixth years who were to do potions NEWT next term (one of whom, he remembered with a feeling of intense and near suicidal depression, was Harry Potter). He would plan a lesson that none of them would forget in a hurry, he thought with an unpleasant smirk.

Instead, as has already been established, he fell asleep.

He didn't realise it immediately, because he dreamt he was sitting at his desk, wondering what would be an appropriate topic for the first lesson of the NEWT potions class, when he looked up and saw that the door to the office had been pushed open. In the doorway stood a slight boy of about fifteen, whose face it took him a few disorientated moments to recognise. He opened his mouth, but for one of the few times in his life all speech failed him.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," the visitor said with a smirk, shutting the door behind him and sitting himself down on the other side of Snape's desk. He grinned in a superior fashion at him, clearly enjoying Severus' expression complete bafflement.

It was then that Severus realised he was dreaming. Because there was no possibility that that boy could be standing looking at him in reality. His features were indelibly printed on Snape's memory, though he was shorter, his hair slightly longer and his expression full of the deep anger it would take many years of suffering to crush into control. He looked straight into Snape's eyes, and the professor felt a jolt of almost electric power at the sudden glance. He had forgotten how much energy, how much potential had lain within the youth. How much there had been to waste...

"What are you doing here?" Snape demanded, his mouth dry. "You're twenty years too late."

"I know," the boy replied, staring at Snape without admiration. He appeared to by trying not to laugh, and yet his eyes glittered with rage. "I was hoping I would grow into an attractive adult," he added, with an affectation of regret, "but I suppose it wasn't to be. You could at least wash your hair, you know."

"Bit rich coming from you, you arrogant little - " Severus began, before realising that it would be ridiculous to begin an argument with his fifteen-year-old self. The psychologist Albus sent him to all those years ago would have had a field day.

"That's right, control yourself," the youth sneered, apparently sensing Severus' struggle. "It's all about control with you, isn't it?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," he said gravely. "Although it does pose one question."

"Which is?" Snape said, not particularly wanting to hear the answer.

"What happens when the control is broken?" the boy asked, staring at Snape. "When all walls finally collapse, and all that anger, all your power is unleashed?"

He reached over and touched Severus' hand, studying him with indecent understanding, utter knowledge of him and his thoughts. For a moment they stared at one another in silence. They were both shaking, Severus realised suddenly.

"Wait and see," Snape said at last, trying to conceal the fact that he was deeply unnerved. His mouth was suddenly dry. "In your future, and my past, the question is answered in excruciating detail. As I am sure you are aware. And now if there is nothing else, Mr Snape" (here the youth grinned at him, and Severus fought to retain his teaching demeanour) "- I would prefer it if you return to the past where you belong and allow me to wake up and begin planning my lesson."

"You teach?" the other asked disappointedly, apparently distracted by the revelation.

"Teaching is a very rewarding career, actually," Severus said defensively.

"Really? You used to think it was the province of fools and failures who were not properly equipped to deal with the real world."

"That was before - " Severus started indignantly. Then he broke off. It would be cruel, not to mention tactless, to tell this fifteen-year-old boy what lay ahead of him.

"Before what?"

"You'll find out. Anyway, what exactly is it you want?"

"You remember... after you finished our defence against the dark arts OWL? By the lake? What they did to us?"

Snape winced. The memory was still very raw. "Obviously."

"You surprise me," the visitor said calmly.

"What?"

"You're not deaf, are you? You don't look old enough. I said: you surprise me. Would you like me to write down what occurred for you? You do not appear to remember it clearly enough."

"What?"

"I know what you've been doing, Severus - do you mind if I call you Severus?"

"Yes, it's unnatural. And what are you talking about?"

"You've been fraternising with them. Lupin, and Black, before he finally snuffed it. Which, by the way, you could have easily have arranged before this."

"I did try, you nauseating adolescent. Or have you conveniently forgotten that? Two years ago I did my best to have Black eliminated. If blasted Potter mark two hadn't stuck his nose in, Black would have been toast a long time ago. Besides, I had to work with them, Dumbledore insisted. It's not as if I've forgiven them or anything."

"You don't seem particularly pleased about what happened. You're not celebrating or anything. You're not even smiling. You should be dancing on Black's grave by now."

"He doesn't have a grave. Just a plaque."

"You should be dancing on his plaque then. Nothing ambitious, a simple tap dance would do..." His expression changed abruptly from facetiousness to pain. "He humiliated us, he made our lives hell, he tried to kill us, for heavens sake, and you have the idiocy to turn up to his funeral. I'm surprised you didn't bring a bloody wreath. What's wrong with you?"

Put like that, it did seem rather inexplicable, Snape thought suddenly.

"I had not choice. Besides, things change."

"Really?"

"That's what Dumbledore says."

"Oh, well in that case I concur utterly," the teenage Snape replied. Severus had clearly had an extensive mastery of irony from a very early age, he realised, because the sarcasm of his former self's reply had a virtuoso acidity to it. Snape felt a tinge of distaste; he had not realised how irritating he could be as a child. He looked up and saw that the teenager was surveying him with similar dislike.

"You're rather pathetic, you know," the teenager said with gentle aversion.

"So are you," Snape pointed out unmoved, not bothering to deny his statement. Most people, he felt sure, would agree with him. Fortunately how he appeared to others had long since failed to interest him.

"At least I'm not Dumbledore's lackey," the visitor retaliated maliciously.

"I'm not his lackey," Severus replied, stung. "I'm not anyone's lackey. I walk alone. As you should be well aware."

The youth sniggered. " 'I walk alone'? Get a grip, Snape, this isn't a play, you know. You sound like something out of a bad romance novel."

"Was there something you wanted? Other than insulting me, I mean."

"Watch your mouth, Sev. If I killed myself you wouldn't even exist."

"Neither would you. Sev."

"But you never would have existed. You are a house built on my foundations. And I've come here to remind you of what I promised myself that day by the lake."

"To which promise do you refer? The one to explode the school and turn all the inhabitants into mosquitoes?"

"No. Although that did have style, didn't it?"

Snape felt himself smile reluctantly. The boy was scarcely good looking, but he could be charming enough when he wasn't preoccupied with parading his intelligence.

"I admit, it did have an impressively large scope. I sometimes regret I never did it. I'm sure Potter and co would have taken to life as aggravating pests with astonishing ease. But tell me what you're talking about. Which promise do you want me to keep?"

"You promised to kill them," the boy said with quiet intensity. Snape was unsurprised. He leaned forwards in his seat, his eyes boring into his alter ego's.

"Black?"

"And Lupin. And Potter."

"What about Pettigrew?"

"Oh, him too."

"Yes, it's all coming back to me now," Snape said. That day he had promised to kill them, to break every bone in their bodies, to rip their flesh and tear their skin off in slow strips until they were screaming. To drain them of blood and leave their bodies abandoned in the ground to rot and spit on their graves. Oh yes, he remembered quite well.

The youth was regarding him expectantly. "So now that I've jogged your memory, what do you intend to do?"

"I really said I'd kill them, did I?" Severus murmured. He felt suddenly rather proud.

He looked at Severus-the-younger, and saw that hurt was struggling against fury in his eyes. (Which, it occurred to Severus suddenly, were probably his best feature. He had not realised how expressive they could be. It was strange, seeing yourself from the outside)

"Definitely," the boy said quietly.

"Well, two of them are dead," Snape pointed out needlessly, playing for time.

"I'd noticed. Two down, as it were, and two to go. Two have already come to bad ends, as - "

" - we predicted. I know. And two are still alive."

"For the present."

"Well, quite."

"What do you intend to do?" he asked anxiously, and for a moment he seemed like any other student: nervous, rather insecure but eager to obtain what he wanted all the same.

"I will wait," Snape said. "If the opportunity arises, I will indeed kill Pettigrew. Slowly, if I have enough time. I always loathed the little rat."

His younger self nodded with a conspiratorial grin.

"And Lupin?" he asked eagerly.

Severs decided it would be better to stall him. "I'll think about it. I don't want Dumbledore annoyed with me at the moment, I depend on him. And as you know he's a werewolf, Lupin, which complicates things. Black would crow unbearably if he killed me."

"He's dead," the youth pointed out.

"I should imagine Black to be just as obnoxious in the next world as he was in this one. No, killing Lupin would demand a great deal of time and thought."

His fifteen year old self's expression became rather hurt. "You won't do it."

"I said I'd consider it."

He glared at Snape disappointedly through his curtains of lank black hair; he looked as if he had been betrayed utterly. Which perhaps he had.

"You've gone soft," he said quietly. He was not crying (we learned long ago how futile - how mad - the shedding of tears could be, Snape thought guiltily) but his eyes were full of pain and dislike and disgust. "They - you know what they did - and you - you just sit there. I don't think you even care any more. You've gone soft."

"You're not exactly hard as nails yourself, you know," Snape commented gently, choking back a scathing retort. He felt absurdly protective towards the boy suddenly; he experienced a sudden urge to reach across the desk and embrace him, to murmur there, there, my child, it's alright, you'll live. This will pass. You will be damaged but not broken. But he did not; he remembered in time how reluctant he had been to be touched. How reluctant he was to be touched.

"I will be, though," his teenage self replied. "In the future. People will be afraid, horribly afraid of me. They will cower before me, I imagine. And it will not save them. I have an inkling of what I am capable of." He glanced down at his hands, as if wondering what horrors they were capable of. "Don't bother," he added, seeing Severus open his mouth to argue with him, "you can't change the past, Severus."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"I don't think you hate them at all," the boy said accusingly.

"Oh I do," Snape murmured fervently, staring directly into his own eyes. "I have never stopped."

"It eats at you, hatred, you know."

"I know. Like love, in a way."

"But it's more tenacious, I think. Like a pain, it won't stop. It hurts whenever you look at them."

"I know that as well." Snape's reply was uttered quietly, but his voice was jagged with pain.

The teenager smiled faintly. Then he reached out, and touched Severus' face, his fingers moving over his mouth and eyes as if learning him by heart.

"Think about what I said," he told him gravely. "You owe me a debt, Severus. One of these days you're going to have to start paying it back."

Severus said nothing.

"Well, any words of wisdom before I depart?" the figment asked sarcastically. But Snape could see something like desperation in his eyes. "Any tips to make sure I end up as you? Because naturally I'm dying to."

"Wait," said Severus Snape. His mouth seemed suddenly dry.

"What?"

"Through all the pain, school, our parents - " here the fifteen year old twitched slightly, and Snape felt the same pain as he did, as if there was a cord of feeling linking the two of them, " - whatever life does to you, carry on waiting. Because ultimately you will manage, and unlike Potter and Black, and thousands of others, you will survive."

"For the time being," the boy shot back grimly.

"Look after yourself," Snape told him awkwardly.

"Shouldn't that be 'look after myself'?" he asked teasingly, and vanished slowly, beginning at his feet and fading until all that was left was the top of his dark head, which disappeared in a soft cloud of vapour.

A voice was calling him, he realised. Let it call. He was warm and comfortable, and the painful memories appeared to have deserted him. He would like to stay like this forever...

"Severus..."

Perhaps he should reply to it. In a moment. He was so comfortable as he was.

"Severus."

He was shaken roughly, and feeling rather perturbed and not a little annoyed, Snape woke up. He realised with embarrassment that Dumbledore was standing in front of him, where his younger self had been standing only minutes before. Severus was surprised to see him, he had thought Dumbledore would be too busy mourning Black to visit to him, the least popular and welcoming of all the staff.

"Burning the midnight oil?" Dumbledore asked gently, gesturing to the parchment spread out in front of Severus. Snape realised with a sudden feeling of unease that the headmaster was looking older and more tired than he had for some time.

Severus shrugged. "I meant to."

"Well, don't work yourself too hard, Severus. Moderation in all things."

"I don't do moderation," he replied brusquely.

Dumbledore looked round at the office, which was admittedly rather cluttered dismembered limbs in jars, and said, "So I see."

"Did you want something?" Snape asked defensively. Dumbledore looked about to dispense wisdom of one kind or another, and frankly he wasn't in the mood.

"I wanted to tell you something."

"Well?"

"This has got to stop, Severus."

"What?"

"This feud. The hatred, which began more than twenty years ago. You must see that all hatred can create is more hatred, and more misery for those involved. I think everyone will benefit if you let go."

"But," Snape began in outrage, "after what they did! If I let it go then - "

" - Then they get away with it? Then they win? I think not, Severus. I think in the long run it is you who will benefit the most. If you let go then it is over. You can forget it. Whereas now the memory is still fresh in your mind, and you suffer the same pain over and over."

"Very profound," Snape said stiffly.

"I know," Dumbledore replied. "But it's worth thinking about, for all that. Two of the four are dead, Severus. And a third is worse than dead."

"Two down."

"Exactly. I think it is time that this was finally laid to rest. Think about it, anyway."

Dumbledore turned to go, when his foot brushed against the copy of the Daily Prophet lying on the floor.

"Is this yours?"

Snape nodded.

"Oh, you've done quite well, I see. Only one clue left."

"That always happens," Severus said morosely. "I can do all the others in five minutes, but I always miss the last one. Some self-imposed punishment, perhaps."

Dumbledore studied the page for a moment. Then he chuckled softly.

"Resent two wrong letters for minister of magic. Six letters, ends in e...Not bad, not bad at all. If only everything in the Prophet was of such high quality. I'm surprised you didn't get that one, Severus."

Severus made no comment, and turned back to the parchment he was writing on, refraining from asking if the headmaster had really understood the clue, or whether he was simply being aggravating. He would not beg Dumbledore for the answer if the headmaster wasn't going to tell him, he wouldn't lower himself...

Finally, he could bear it no longer. "Well?" he asked sharply, looking up. "Enlighten a lesser mortal. What's the answer?"

But Dumbledore had already gone, leaving the paper resting neatly at the edge of the desk. Snape reached for it, staring down at the crossword with an expression of confusion.

In elegant, flowing letters, Dumbledore had filled in the missing answer: grudge.

For an instant, Snape stared down at the paper in silence. Rage flickered in his eyes, but his mouth twitched involuntarily. Then the empty dungeon was shaken by the rare, unmusical sound of his laughter.