Roots

Chapter Two: "This noise is as much as I can bear."

The water had not boiled yet.

Dried root of Black Nightshade, powdered in his mortar, a rhythmic working of the wrist. Snape knew precisely how fine it needed to be; exactly how it should feel between his fingers. The root was fragrant, a musty earth scent, spicy like a foreign tea. It came from a plant with poisonous leaves, poisonous sap, poisonous flowers, poisonous fruit, but it itself was not poisonous. It could take on an altogether new life and function when dried.

He kept the other parts of Nightshade in his stores as well.

To his cauldron he added the root and three painstakingly measured drops of lion's milk, along with a sprinkling of oolong leaves and a teaspoon of honey. For flavor. This potion was a bitter one, and left an aftertaste. For years he had suffered drinking it straight, gagging and grimacing as it burned down his throat, but recently he gave up his pride and began to sweeten it. He would not admit to anyone that he did this.

From his faintly glowing fireplace, there was a sudden rush of air. "Ah, Severus, I thought you'd be awake," he heard, a ghostly echo. He turned to face the Headmaster's spectral head sitting calmly inside. "A word, if I may have one. In my office." Severus nodded gruffly and Dumbledore's head withdrew, leaving an eddying swirl of soot on the hearth.

The water hit a riotous boil, hissing and spitting deliriously. He scooped out two ladlefuls and stirred each slowly into the mixture. He waved his wand absently at the flames underneath and they died suddenly. After lidding his cauldron, he left his chambers for the Headmaster's office, warding the door thoroughly behind him.

"Severus," Dumbledore said warmly, standing behind his desk. "Have a seat." He swept a hand toward the empty chair across from him. The one beside it was occupied by Pomona Sprout, who was looking faintly smug. Severus sat and snuck a wary glance at her out the corner of his eye before turning his attention to the Headmaster. Dumbledore sat and steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on the broad oak desk. "I don't suppose you'd like a sherbert?" Snape shook his head. The Headmaster nodded. "Pomona tells me that one of her best pupils - one Eleanor Dewey, I trust you recognize the name - is in danger of receiving poor marks in your class, and thus losing her scholarship to this school."

"Yes, and?" Snape drawled irritably.

"And, Severus, I'm told that she requested your assistance." Snape nodded warily. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "And I was wondering what exactly you believe is your job at Hogwarts."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "Headmaster, it is not my job to mollycoddle the students. I present the course material in a linear and accessible way, and the onus to absorb it is on them. If they do not - well, that's their own problem."

Sprout huffed annoyedly. "Similarly, it's not my job to keep digging up Black Nightshade roots and hanging them to dry for you, but I do it because it's the decent thing."

Dumbledore held a hand up to Sprout. "I do appreciate your position, Severus," he said. "However, if one's students are failing to absorb said course material, even after concentrated effort and study -" Sprout nodded vigorously at this. "- Perhaps it is not they who have failed, but their instructor."

Snape drew his spine painfully straight, leveling the Headmaster with a flashing, indignant stare. "You are telling me that I'm - what? - an ineffective professor?" he said quietly, his voice needle-sharp and dangerous.

"I am suggesting, Severus, that perhaps your methods might be optimized if you occasionally made a concession to your students, rather than the other way round."

"I cannot go pledging my spare time - my rare and valuable spare time - to every dim torch in the school, spoon-feeding them their lessons. I'd be forced to give up sleeping, and it's a hobby I rather enjoy."

"I only ask that you accommodate those who come directly to you for help. Which, I take it -" Dumbledore cast a mirthful look at Sprout. "- is hardly a phenomenon that plagues you daily."

Snape's lips thinned.

"Twice a week, Severus, that's all I ask. One hour per session, at any time that suits you. Answer her questions. Seek out her weaknesses and correct them however you see fit. Make an effort to teach her. Consider it a challenge." Severus scowled, digging his fingers into his knees, feeling powerless. The Headmaster rose and smiled pleasantly. "Shall we to breakfast?"

* * *

The Great Hall at breakfast was always bubbling with noise. Owls swooped to and fro overhead, raining papers and packages onto the tables and occasionally into the plates. The students bickered crankily and rambled sleepily and squealed over their mail and grumbled over their schedules, wandering in and dashing out of the Hall at their leisure. Snape had learned over his years at Hogwarts to tune out the majority of the students' aural pollution, but today it irritated him, seeming to jangle right in his ears like a fistful of Sickles dropped on a stone floor. He had slept badly the night before, waking well before dawn and thrashing about uncomfortably before finally forsaking his bed. Brewing was one of the few things that made the time pass quickly for him, so he had spent the dragging pre-dawn blackness bustling over his potion, wishing he had thought to make and drink a batch last night.

He poured himself a mug of rich-smelling coffee from one of the huge carafes on the High Table. As a rule he did not eat breakfast; he was rarely hungry in the mornings.

There was a roar of laughter from the Ravenclaw table. Snape squinted into the melee of breakfasting students. The Weasley twins were hopping back and forth between the Ravenclaw table and their own, guffawing and gesticulating wildly. Typical. Constantly running about and sniggering. No respect for House boundaries, either; they hung around with a small herd of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Fraternizing with the enemy. George Weasley sprinted down the length of Ravenclaw's table, leaning down to speak to one of its occupants. She turned around to face the Gryffindors, and virtually the whole table rioted with laughter. The girl turned back and put her head down on the table, her shoulders shaking violently.

He recognized her, of course. She was the girl who had ruined his day virtually before it had begun. His face bent into a grimace. His free time was seldom and to him it was valuable. At the moment he resented Dumbledore intensely; the man seemed to feel entitled to dole out Snape's leisure hours like sherbert lemons. After a day spent swarmed by students, their ceaseless babble and hostile faces swirling constantly around him, he wanted nothing more than a quiet space, with no eyes on him, no questions needing to be answered, no appointments to keep. His need for privacy was as intense and regular as an appetite, and after each long starving day he disappeared into his chambers to binge. In his rooms he could drink up silence or soft music or the crackle of his fireplace; he could fill himself with his large and precious collection of books, or painstaking, ever-changing lists of herbs and extracts, the seeds of a breakthrough new potion, or simply lazy, spiraling, indeterminate chains of thought, the sound of his own voice in his head.

This new arrangement simply meant one more hour spent hungry, one fewer private hour between the drudgery of class and the emptiness of sleep. He felt bereft, cheated.

* * *

"Elderberries, or Sambucus, are - as you can see - large, dark, and thick-skinned. Eaten raw they are rather tart and very seedy, thus I welcome you to sample your ingredients provided you choke quietly and your death-by-suffocation does not disrupt my lecture." He sliced a glare in the direction of a pair of Hufflepuffs who had been regarding their ingredients with gleaming, tempted eyes. "The berries are used in various banal and non-magical ways by wizards and Muggles alike; they are crushed into jams and jellies, sugared and baked into pies, juiced and fermented into light wines. A sect of nomadic squibs in Eastern Europe known as Gypsies utilize them as a remedy for common colds and coughs. However..." His voice swooped dramatically. "... today you shall see that they are a key ingredient in a complex and nuanced Mood-Elevating Draught not unlike - but far superior to - the Muggle antidepressant medicines. A long-term cycle of doses can be used to help lift the veil of guilt, of loneliness, of grief. Be warned, this is no feeble Pepperup Potion. The preparation of it is as intense and multifaceted as the results. Mixed, stored, or applied inappropriately, it can produce a myriad of unwanted psychological effects. Which is why few bother with it. That, and it has a rather unpleasantly sour taste." He waved his wand at the blackboard, where a detailed, bulleted list appeared. "Begin," he commanded, settling into his chair. The many heads bowed over the many cauldrons, hushed. The whisperings would begin shortly: Hufflepuffs hissing questions at the Ravenclaws, Ravenclaws muttering instructions in return. The Headmaster, Snape reflected grudgingly, was wise in mating the two houses for Potions class, despite the unpleasant by-product of the Slytherin-Gryffindor match. Hufflepuffs generally possessed the concentration and passion, but not the logical or mnemonic skills required of a potions-maker; Ravenclaws as a rule had the memory and the capacity for analytical thought, but regarded the art as a quantifiable, mathematical function, and thus disregarded the subtleties and intangibles that were so important to the process. (Snape knew better than most of his students ever would that the better part of a successful potion was the barely detectable but fully integral aura of magic instilled in it by its maker; correctly proportioned ingredients were not enough, otherwise Muggles would have mastered the field by now. The most important tool in potions-making was not the hand, but the heart. Of course, if the students couldn't figure that out on their own, he certainly wasn't going to shove it down their throats. Some things, in his opinion, could not be learned from a lecture or a text.) Together, the houses made the cold classroom fairly crackle with potential; sadly and predictably, that potential was seldom realized.

Today, surely, would be no different. He would normally assign this potion later in the year, after the students had mastered the basic Pepperup and other mood-managers. However, today he had felt like stumping them, seeing the lost expressions on their faces, and buying himself a little quiet time in the process. He noted with a glint of satisfaction that the Dewey girl was staring worriedly into her cauldron, glancing back and forth between it and the chalkboard. She, like her housemates, had never understood the fine, impalpable aspects of Potions. She had no innate feel or eye for measurement, her timing was imprecise, and she simply didn't a have a passion for it. She was always focused and studious in class, but her potions were a dead giveaway that her heart wasn't in it.

And he was expected to drag her by the hand through her lessons. He narrowed his eyes, framing her in his eyelashes as she bent low to breathe in the steam that danced above her cauldron. He was to spend his time pounding the same rote lessons into her orderly Ravenclaw head, knowing she didn't have a space in the shelves and partitions of her brain for the scarce, nebulous something that was the key to a flawless brew. And a passing grade.

Perhaps he could have a little fun with this.

"Miss Dewey," he said smoothly, souring her name like an insult. "Are you having a difficulty with your assignment?"

"Several difficulties, Professor," she replied, her voice meek but the undercurrent of sarcasm evident. Titters rattled around the room.

"Tell me, do you understand the theory behind this potion? The meaning of its ingredients?" Her eyes shifted uncertainly. "Why don't you explain to me the function of Kappa scale extract, and how it serves as a catalyst for the Elderberry?"

Her mouth opened and closed once, mutely.

"Uh..." she began, looking around at her classmates as if for some silent support. "Well. The Kappa, being an aquatic creature known to drag swimmers to their deaths, is symbolic, of course, of the powerful undertow of depression. Which this potion has been proven to fight. The Kappa's scales, being fishlike, evoke the power of Pisces, the moodiest and most depressive astrological sign. They provide a... counterpoint... to the Elderberry, which is tangy and used in pastries, and thus represents joy and light-heartedness. Therefore, the Elderberry fights a sort of miniature war against the Kappa scale extract, utilizing the powers of sweet, juicy... berry goodness to conquer the bleak, frightening pull of depression, and setting the drinker free of the vice-like grip of their sadness and worry, which would otherwise drag them into the depths to drown." She exhaled sharply, as if with great relief, and raised her eyebrows at him hopefully. A small group of Hufflepuffs were stirred into a weak splatter of applause which was silenced immediately by his hard glare in their direction.

"That, Miss Dewey..." he began thoughtfully, tilting his head as though considering her point. She broke into a nervous smile. "...was truly the most wretched excuse for an answer I have ever received from one of my students. And that includes first years and the infamous Neville Longbottom. If Hogwarts set up special education facilities to accommodate the mentally feeble residents of St. Mungo's, I can assure you it would include them too. Every single person in this class including myself is now a measurable degree less intelligent than they were when they walked in today just for having listened to that diseased tripe you've spewed all over the classroom. And trust me, many of them don't have a wide margin for error in that department. You have stolen something from all of us that we will never get back. Now sit down before you find a way to further damage our already severely traumatized cerebra." Dewey sank into her seat, her shoulders hunched sheepishly. A fellow Ravenclaw, Sutter, gave her a few condoling pats. "By the way," Snape added, rising from his chair and strolling across the room to tower over Dewey. "Your little exercise in blackmail has succeeded, and you've won yourself a little special help from me. Five o'clock, today, in my office. If you are late, I will leave." He raked the room with a sharp glare. The shocked faces told him that he had just ensured that no one else would be asking for his help. He lowered his eyes for a lingering, quenching look at the horror and humiliation on Dewey's face, and swept back to his seat.

The rest of the class passed in absolute silence.

* * *

The timid knock came at five minutes before five. Snape smiled faintly to himself. "Enter," he ordered. The door creaked open slowly and Dewey crept inside. Snape stared at her just long enough that he knew he had unnerved her, even though she didn't look away. Then he returned to the assignments he was grading without inviting her to sit down. He was mildly surprised that she didn't make a move toward the chair anyway; in his experience, her generation understood little of the unspoken courtesies.

He graded quickly and with a measure of flourish, slicing deadly red gashes through with his quill, exaggerating the motions for her benefit. She needed to comprehend immediately and thoroughly who ruled these sessions. As long as he held the reins firmly, he could make this a little easier on himself. He kept an eye on the many-armed clock on his desk. At five o'clock exactly, he set down his quill.

"I suppose you'll want a seat," he said neutrally. She studied him for a moment, then edged cautiously toward one of the chairs that faced his desk. He couldn't recall seeing her in one of his chairs before, but he had no doubt that she had heard stories of the terror that generally afflicted their occupants. They were rarely filled by anyone but students awaiting punishment.

He leaned forward, folding his hands on his desk. "Kappa scales are protected by a thin sheen of a very basic and primitive variety of magic that repels water. This magic, when removed from its natural environment, can take on other properties depending upon its surroundings. For example, when combined with the bile of an immature Buckboar, it can create a powerful antiseptic that will protect a wound from microbial invasion." Dewey was suddenly rummaging through her bag for quill and parchment, as though she had only just realized that the lesson had already begun. She spread her parchment on his desk, and he noted with an inward smirk that she seemed to be trying to take up as little space as possible. Her tongue flicked out over her lips, an unconscious gesture of concentration, and Snape reared back a bit in horror.

"Miss Dewey, why in Merlin's name is your tongue that color?"

Her eyes widened and she bit her lip hard, an aborted giggle sounding from her throat. "Well, Sir -"

Snape whipped a hand through the air, silencing her. "Never mind, Dewey, I'd rather not know." She lowered her eyes to her parchment, and Snape continued where he left off, staring warily at her with his head turned to one side as he spoke. "When combined with Elderberry, the protective magic reacts with a mild stimulant contained in the fruit, which in nature serves as -"

Dewey interrupted him, clearly pleased that she could think of something to contribute. "- as an insect repellent. It shuts down the central nervous system of any insects that try to extract the..." she trailed off weakly, quieted by Snape's cold glare. "I'm sorry, Professor," she said meekly, and bent over her parchment, frenetically scribbling notes.

She did not look him in the face again, even after he ended the lesson at precisely six o'clock. She scurried out the door with her head down, thanking him in a near-whisper. Snape leaned back in his chair, relieved, feeling lighter now that he was alone.

He ate supper at the High Table in his usual stony silence, acutely aware of the indefinable itch of Dumbledore's pointed gaze on him. Dewey, he noted smugly, was absent from the Ravenclaw table.

In his chamber that night, free to do what he wanted, he realized there was nothing he wanted to do. He wandered from his soft, worn armchair to a bookshelf to the fireplace and back again, restless and unfulfilled. The day felt wasted, heavy, disconnected, like a sleepless night. He felt as though he wanted to say something, to break the silence and clear his head. But even if there were someone there to listen, what would he say? He kept his mouth shut. He had learned long ago that he preferred the press of silence to the sound of his own voice echoing unheard and unanswered off the dungeon walls. A soft whine sounded from the hallway outside his door, then faded away. He held his head high to listen. Another brief keening, then silence. Probably some trysting students. The location of his living-quarters was not well known among the students, and couples in heat were known to descend into the basement to rut, thinking it empty and safe. He swept to his front door, mentally preparing for a confrontation, quietly undid the wards, and pounced quickly into the corridor outside.

It was empty. He stood in his doorway listening for a long moment, hearing only the eerie drip of condensation off of the ancient stone walls, before turning, slightly humiliated, back into his anteroom. The place seemed even more still, even more quiet, after such a disturbance.

Finally he undressed, feeling defeated, staring blankly at a spot above the mantle. Unlidding his cauldron, he poured a shot of his Nightshade mixture, now viscous and room-temperature, and tossed it quickly down his throat. The tea and honey did little to improve the taste. A thick, dull drowsiness fell upon him, like a wool blanket dropped over his senses, and he buried himself in his bed, falling into a sleep that he could only hope would be dreamless.

This chapter's title is a lyric from "This Wicked Tongue" by PJ Harvey.