The Witch's Hair Shirt

Severus Snape pulled himself up from the depths of another time, out of the memories of a person he no longer was. He stood straighter, rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.

Well, that was just about that, then, was it not, he thought ruefully. He knew he was not finished with the remembering but he could stop there if need be. He had done it, returned to it, on the anniversary no less, and beheld the witch when she was still alive. This new day's dawning would be bringing one of those witches from his past into his present, a sister of the Norn Coven come to Hogwarts to teach its children. Every day he donned the hair shirt and was hallowed in its pain, that past defining this present. Now he was ready to be rid of that which he had worn for these nine years. Like the snake who knows only fear and darkness as it sheds its own skin over its head, Snape felt apprehension but longed for renewal.

He was well aware that those who knew him now, in this form he had created from the raw materials of his previous self, considered him to be a dark pillar hewn from nature's strongest stone. Yet, he was not. He was mud and sludge, beset by inner tremors so violent and constant as to shake the very teeth out of his head. He was growing exhausted from holding himself together.

Perhaps the night's exploration and the dissolution it had brought forth would lead into the next stage of the process simmering darkly within him. The hardening. Already he felt a firm calmness at his core which he had never felt before, not the familiar sickly resignation, but a quiet acceptance. He had been a foolish young man full of hatred and fear, broken by the beastliness of others. He himself had been beaten and bent by his own punishing hand; it was taking years to release the brutal hold he had around his own neck.

He took a deep breath and stretched his arms languorously over his head, letting his body follow, rising up onto the balls of his feet and arching his long, lean back.

There were no windows in the dungeons and thus no windows in his private chambers, and he enjoyed that feeling of inward-turning privacy. He had never been one to look to the leaded glass and reflect upon the scene outside as though it had any affect on the scene within. He was in possession of a rare internal clock; and in many ways the seasons and the rhythms of the Earth moved within him as well as around him, his body an astrolabe. He knew without question that the sun was rising, that the day would be grey and dismal and wet until mid-afternoon, when it would be just grey and dismal and cold. The chill was settling on the corpse of summer.

With the long fingers of both hands, he combed through his thick, black hair and felt the cold sweat on his scalp, the skin of his cheeks stiff from his tears. He would bathe and then take a long and lonely walk before breakfast.

Ah, Severus, he berated himself, a lonely walk? Now where had that come from? Years of being his own best company; and still he could surprise himself with observations like those.

He sank into the lukewarm waters of his tub and pondered the thought that he might be lonely.

Another hour, and he was making brisk time around the large lake on the Hogwarts grounds. The sun was settled in the morning sky now, the Pleiades fading. He was surprised at how much energy he seemed to have. He was actually hungry. He found himself wondering when the Norn witch, Katla Freyan, would be arriving. The unknown element of the witch had him curious as to what, if any, role he might have in the unfolding play, for he knew without question that her arrival signaled the next act. The past few years had been the intermission, a time of quiet in the wizarding world, a time of deep mourning as many grieved the losses to Voldemort, the loss of their own innocence. But the grief was not proving to be healing; the world was an open, weeping wound.

He turned towards the school and hesitantly, like a tongue probing an aching tooth, thought back to the hours of conversation he had spent with Dumbledore when they left Hornbjarg together and returned to Hogwarts. No, he had had enough and his mind refused to open another door leading back down into the memories. He wanted respite and he gave himself the permission to seek it out. He would think of those wrenching hours of confession later. Now he was going to breakfast in the Great Hall.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Snape leaned forward in his chair, over his plate, elegantly forking the remains of what had been a very good Eggs Benedict into his mouth. He made a precise sweep of his lips with a cloth napkin, folded it three times and laid it on the plate, which promptly disappeared. Sitting back, a mug of coffee between his hands, he sipped slowly and looked over the rim surreptitiously at the gathered pupils. His own house seemed contained and he let his gaze drift to the Gryffindor table. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he watched the Weasley twins, heads bent very close together, scribbling on a parchment set on the table between them. He had little if no use for the antics and high-jinks of the two boys. They were only second years and had already served numerous detentions with Filch, an arrangement of which Snape was beginning to doubt the usefulness. He thought of the two spending some hours scrubbing cauldrons and filed that away for future consideration. Begrudgingly he admitted they were surprisingly quick-witted boys and he wondered at the application of such minds if their intents were devious in nature rather than comedic. He took a deep drink of the black, bitter brew and mused 'which way turns the screw?'

He watched them share a smile and he scowled deeply.

The shine of them annoyed him and he let his gaze rake up and down both sides of the Gryffindor table, observing the innocence that illuminated each one of its house members. Of course they were courageous; he thought with a tremor of disgust, not a one of them had been marked by Life. When do the blessed become the cursed, he wondered. Some are born marked or struggle through an obscured childhood. Others invite it willingly or have it visited upon them, despairingly. When would these golden, shining children become marred and dulled? He looked away from their delighted faces and down the length of the staff table to where Dumbledore sat, quietly listening to something Minerva was telling him.

The man positively glowed, as if caught in some celestial beam of light. Yet, Snape knew that his was a broken heart intent upon beating strongly in spite of or despite its damage. A heartache that never diminished, the old man had told him, his voice cracking around the hollow truth of the words. For the second time that morning, Snape thought back to their return to Hogwarts nine years ago, the telling of the tales, the revealing of the paths chosen and abandoned. 'We all are wounded by living' the Headmaster had said, with that benevolence only he could make sound honourable and not a tad touched.

Snape looked back at his own house's table and considered each student and how they carried their wounds. All of them wore a murky aura of damage. It affected their dealings with the world and with one another. Snape felt immensely comfortable with their caliginous projections. He looked at the other two remaining tables and did a quick mental tally of what little he knew of these students. He surmised that the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses seemed evenly divided between students who were wounded and those who were not.

Another draught of the black coffee, it was almost finished.

He looked back at the table of young lions. He had difficulty viewing it with a fair eye. He had been deeply injured by members of that house when he was a student. Injured in ways that had perplexed him at first, then enraged him and now, fifteen years later, perplexed him again. But one thing he had decided was that being Gryffindor had everything to do with what drove his enemies. He had been hated and despised before he had ever come to Hogwarts; he was not a stranger to receiving those emotions. But The Marauders - the stupid name they called themselves caught like a bone in his throat - had hated and despised him with a breathtaking, irrational unfairness. The breadth and depth of their hatred was like a fanged beast, there was no escape from it, and though he had never expected to be rescued, he wondered now, as an adult, if he might have been. The rabid bite of their loathing had infected him until he too frothed and foamed and raged.

He swallowed it all back down, closed his eyes for a brief second and breathed deeply. He had really never been one for self-examination and inner introspection; he accepted that he was a wounded creature. Dumbledore would say he defined himself by his scars. Was this true? The older he grew, the more he was called to chase the worm of doubt through the black hole of his heart and he wondered if it was courage he lacked, the courage to let it go.

He stood quickly, almost violently, pushing the chair with the backs of his legs, standing away from the table. He smoothed down his robes, turned, and disappeared through the staff room door. He wanted to hear something of the Norn Witch.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He had skipped lunch in the Great Hall; the house elves had left him a meat pie on the desk in his office, and he ate it without thought while grading assignments. Now he was back in the classroom and the fourth year Slytherin/Gryffindor students were filtering in, with the agonizingly slow stroll of teenagers. He felt his hands clench into fists inside the sleeves of his robe. The long, sleepless night before was clinging thickly to him.

"I trust that this languishment comes from a particularly heavy noontime meal today? I must speak with the House Elves and request that we return to the tried and true bowl of hot broth and slice of stale bread." Snape stood formidably at the front of the classroom, looking at each student in turn. He nodded as the last one scurried into place.

One of the Gryffindor girls towards the back raised her hand, boldly, he thought. He looked at her severely. "Miss Emory, is this in regards to today's lesson, which, I might add, is already written out behind me?" She shook her head. "Then I suggest that you and your classmates narrow your attentions to the lesson at hand. Immediately."

"Professor Snape, it's not about potions but I just saw a veiled witch crossing the green." A hushed murmur rose from the students.

Snape threw the girl a look of criticism and the students quieted; he walked down between the tables. "And this affected your sense of propriety to such a degree that you felt it necessary to interrupt my class with your thus far pointless observation? Forgive me if I state the obvious, Miss Emory, this is not Professor Trelawney's classroom. You may not blurt out every random thought that flits through your heads in my classroom."

A Slytherin boy snorted.

The girl blushed deeply and he watched her eyes grow wide. "I'm sorry, sir, I just, it was just that I, I have never seen a veiled witch with my own eyes before. I didn't know...I mean, that you wouldn't care." She looked up at him, bold indeed, he admired her silently. "I thought it was something special."

The air thinned between them, the girl's nostrils flaring. Snape spoke softly, "It is, to use your own poetic vernacular, something special, Miss Emory." He sighed and turned to the rest of the students. "On the contrary, I do, indeed care very much, however, I do not appreciate your using valuable class time to inform me of matters of which I am already quite well aware. Best to indulge your feelings of, giddiness, in the hallways or one's common room."

From behind him two Slytherin students snickered.

She nodded and whispered, "Yes, sir."

He walked quickly to the front of the room and turned with a flourish of robes. He gestured at the blackboard behind him. "This is today's assignment. You may thank Miss Emory and her fascinating report for losing you a very valuable four minutes of work time."

He sat heavily in the chair behind his desk. So Katla Freyan had arrived.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He watched her enter the Great Hall and make her way through the seated, staring students towards the staff table. He could not control the beating of his heart; it was hammering wildly, wildly in his chest and echoing inside his ears. He drew in a quick, deep breath and felt the heaviness, the blood weight of the gravamen behind his Adam's ribs.

She was veiled, the hood of a short cloak over her head, a platinum braid just skimming the floor behind her. She was not dressed in Hogwarts robes, but rather the multi-layered skirt and tunic and cloak of her coven in the colors of the Earth and Sky and Sea and Ice. He speculated whether, like the Eskimo with fifty-two different names for snow, these colors even had names in the English language, so heavily did they speak of Iceland. Snow and love and hatred. Birth and death and rain. Surely all human language should boast such wealth in describing the indescribable.

She drew closer. He would control his beating heart, his roiling blood and twisting guts. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. His gaze left her progress and studied the students, most of them mouths agape. Dumbledore was standing now and tapping on his goblet. Freyan walked behind the Staff Table and stood at the chair beside the Headmaster. He smiled down at her.

"If I may have a moment of your attention." He addressed the Great Hall. "Thank you," his voice rang clear. "It is my pleasure to introduce Instructor Freyan. She will be assuming the History of Magic teaching position for the remainder of this school term. We are all very pleased to have her join us and trust that each one of you will benefit greatly from her instruction." He sat back down and the witch sat slowly beside him.

She reached up and pushed off the hood, shrugged out of the open cloak, it slid down behind her. Snape watched as she lifted the veil over the back of her head and pulled the material from in front of her face. It settled into her lap. With a quiet stillness she turned and looked down the long table at him.

He could not think. His heart slowed to fifty-two beats within a minute. He counted each one.

On the fifty-third beating of his heart, she looked away.