Almost a sidebar about entirely different characters — though also characters of "our story." Eventually, nearly central ones. A necessary addition.
By the end of the school year, Severus was wrung out like a dishcloth. Slughorn had landed him in it with that completely unexpected departure — landed him in it badly. He wanted nothing at all, except perhaps to stop breathing. He could, of course, have chosen any one of the dozen vials standing on their own shelf in his safe, taken the contents — and not even St. Mungo's would have been able to bring him back. But he couldn't permit himself that luxury: the vow held him. He had to live at least seventeen more years. Until the boy was standing on his own feet. Cursed servitude to an infant of unknown whereabouts. The foul feeling of not belonging to himself. His fingers curled into a fist with hatred. Not toward the child — what did the child have to do with any of it — but toward the situation, toward himself. A double agent. A double traitor. So what exactly had he survived for?
Though he didn't think of himself as particularly alive in any case. Perhaps that was precisely why the Slytherins had accepted him as their Head of House. He had caught, at the edge of his hearing, how someone — Pusey, he thought, or was it Burke? — had offered condolences on his loss, and he had been ready in that same instant to obliterate the entire common room along with its occupants, but a fraction of a second before doing so, he understood whom the student thought he had lost: his Lord.
He had laughed in their faces then — hoarsely, sharply, for the first time in years. The children (though what kind of children were they, a couple of years younger than him at most) had gone pale and recoiled. And he had felt, with the entire skin of a half-blood who had been beaten many times over, that he had nothing left to lose. He didn't care about the opinion of these petty little aristocrats or all their ancestors, wholesale or retail; he didn't care who thought what of him or said what; he didn't care about danger, and he didn't care about death. The only thing was — how do you not care about the one you so longed to meet, just to say a single thing: "At last."
Such people don't seek attention, but they often become its center. Such people say little, but for some reason they are listened to very carefully. Very carefully. Always.
Having explained, plainly, how and why fools in their ranks would not survive, and softened the end of the harsh tirade with the observation that anyone Sorted into Slytherin could not by definition be a fool, he had demanded from the House unconditional compliance with his law. And it was simple: always stand by your own, and never let anything pass without consequence. His students had drawn their own conclusions, casting tentative glances at their professor.
"In conflicts with other Houses — our people are always in the right?" The adolescent baritone of Mike Reynolds was the opening shot.
Snape gave a single nod of confirmation.
"All problems between ourselves to be settled inside the House only?"
"Bravo, Miss Tuttle."
"Can we do… anything, as long as we don't get caught? And if you…"
"Including me, Mr. Darker," he answered the question before it could fully form. "Reynolds, Tuttle, Darker — prefects, as of today. How you divide your duties is of no concern to me. If you need deputies, appoint them yourselves. Questions? No? Everyone to your dormitories."
The House… revived. Aristocrats, children of Death Eaters, nearly branded by that parentage, children of the defeated, tormented by children of the victors — they had desperately needed something like this. He knew very well what it was to be constantly hounded with no one at your back, and so he had given them that backing. And with it he had overcome all their arrogance — the only thing that had kept them afloat until then. Until him. Now they held each other up. There was only one question he had once put to himself: why had he done it?
He had entrusted the prefects with monitoring behavior and with issuing punishments and rewards; he had, however, also begun holding them fully accountable in turn, which, to his surprise, had only increased the respect in which he was held. The entrance to the common room he had simply enchanted so that at night, without knowing the password, no one could enter or leave. Only he and the prefects knew the word. From that point on, his duties as Head of House had ceased to cause him unnecessary trouble. And the House's points had steadily begun to climb.
Slytherin — his own now — had become a foundation for him as well, a small island of — no, not peace (peace, with children from eleven to seventeen, heaven help us) — simply "his place." Where his rules held. Where his people lived.
His private laboratory had become his home. He had refused to take over the quarters vacated by Slughorn — too far from the dungeons, from his students, and from the laboratory, of course. Its fitting-out had been what partially reconciled him to existence. And so the new Potions professor had acquired a tiny, ascetic bedroom adjoining a spacious office with a respectable working library assembled, by all appearances, by more than old Sluggy alone. The bibliographic wealth passed down to him from several generations of predecessors was the second advantage Hogwarts had to offer.
His colleagues. He regarded most of them neutrally — more often than not, each was simply occupied with their own work, interfering in nothing else. And he rarely had occasion to cross paths with any of them except McGonagall. The Head of Gryffindor he had managed to grow to despise thoroughly over the course of the year. Not because she had done everything in her power to cast doubt on his competence — for that he had only to gesture at Dumbledore: the one who hired me is the one to answer your questions; her opinion was a matter of profound indifference to him. What he could never forgive her was her utterly permissive management of her own House and her blatant bias in every Slytherin-Gryffindor conflict.
With the other Heads of House he managed reasonably calm relations. He was irritated by Madam Sprout's sighs, which she produced every time she saw him, along with the odd looks she kept casting his way. He had no desire to find out what her problem was, and so he simply kept his distance. The Head of Ravenclaw was as small as he was unobtrusive, and entirely reasonable in resolving any matter that arose — which, in practice, almost never happened. With the others he had no contact whatsoever: there was no occasion for it. His students, fortunately, had begun managing wonderfully on their own, pulling their struggling housemates up to an acceptable level during the group study sessions that the prefects had built into the House's schedule.
But the one drawback — the single thing that undid all the rest, his torment and punishment — was his students in Potions. It was a daily nightmare, a frenzied spectacle of butterfingers, cloth ears, and block-headedness. They disregarded every instruction; they listened — no, listened was too generous a word — they behaved as though they heard nothing at all. Every day something exploded, and he thanked Merlin when the explosion was only one. And the quantity of ingredients being wasted, not especially valuable ones perhaps, but in such quantities?! No — he loved Potions too well to teach it.
And so today he had written a petition for transfer to the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor. There he could offer these half-wits who called themselves Hogwarts students a curriculum with a fair chance that all of them would reach the end of the year intact, healthy, and relatively uninjured. Why Dumbledore had rejected it, Severus still could not fathom. That he would cope — with his knowledge of the Dark Arts — was beyond question, but then what? He was unable to pick apart the headmaster's verbose meanderings, which were not for the first time making him furious. Why had he agreed to this job at all? He could have walked off and died somewhere, it would have been considerably simpler. Or he might have stayed. But his inborn stubbornness whispered: simple paths are for the weak. And you are not weak. Simple paths are not for you. And there was, it seemed, nothing to say against that.
A stalemate. He couldn't raise a hand against Albus Dumbledore, and he couldn't raise one against himself because of the debt to the old headmaster. The one thing that brought any warmth was the prospect of spending the entire summer in the laboratory. That was where he was heading now, having no wish to listen any further to the headmaster's incomprehensible, lulling speeches or to see McGonagall's gloating face. He would certainly have said something to her. The headmaster had been unwise to seat them nearly side by side at the table. Or perhaps it had been deliberate? Severus had more than once noticed the satisfied gleam in the man's eyes when, after one of their clashes, he proceeded to lecture them both in his office over tea. Though somehow it never quite felt like an attempt at reconciliation, regardless of the Earl Grey or the sweets.
The memory of the end-of-year Heads of House meeting kept running through his mind; he was still trying to extract the rational kernel from the headmaster's speeches — perhaps in vain — to understand why his petition had been refused. He wanted to drink until he forgot. To step away from all these idiotic yet no less painful questions, even briefly. The only trouble was, there was nothing to drink with. Though he could simply place an order to Hogsmeade — yes, he'd do that now, since no students remained in the school. Except that — blocking the door to the laboratory stood the small figure of the most inoffensive of his colleagues. Which was quite unusual.
Filius Flitwick had been watching his young colleague — his own student, not so long ago — all year. Watching, and sympathizing. The boy was still very young, and had been handed the most difficult of Headships combined with teaching what was perhaps the single most complex and dangerous subject in the school. The central difficulty was the one thing impossible to fight: the near-total inability of wizards to work with their hands. His colleague, it seemed, hadn't yet grasped this fully.
While he was considering how best to offer his help, Snape had dealt with his own House with surprising speed. Something of a miracle, really — one wondered how. The one remaining area where the Head of Ravenclaw could still assist his colleague was in cutting off any budding anti-Slytherin sentiment within his own House. That, as it turned out, required little effort — his students' interests lay, as a rule, in entirely different spheres. Gryffindor, on the other hand…
No, he would never understand Minerva. And yet how many years had they been, one might say, friends — since the day each had told the other where the Sorting Hat had considered placing them. To think — they might have stood in each other's place. Now he wanted nothing to do with the scarlet-and-gold House.
A brief chance encounter with Snape, engineered to seem coincidental, had never quite come off. Ravenclaw Tower was too far from the dungeons. And so he had continued to observe. And had gradually found more and more common ground between the small half-goblin, long since a devoted duelist and master of Charms, and the tall, black-and-white Slytherin, the youngest Potions master in England. A fine mind, an excellent memory, and extraordinary analytical ability had, over all this time, led him to certain conclusions. Very important ones. But today — today he had finally arrived at one simple conclusion he had not dared to reach before. He understood that he wanted to save the boy.
"Good evening, Severus. I trust you'll forgive your old professor. Might you have any whisky? Scotch? Brandy?"
Severus shook his head, bewildered.
"Well then—" The half-goblin produced, seemingly from thin air, an enormous bottle of Glenmorangie. "I trust you'll invite me in?"
Snape stood frozen for a couple of seconds. He had expected nothing remotely like this from his former professor, but propriety — lowering the wards, he made an inviting gesture, suddenly aware that he hadn't felt emotions this vivid in a very long time: surprise, curiosity, and… anticipation? As though he had suddenly come alive, unexpectedly reminded that he was still only twenty-two.
They settled into chairs at a small table that Flitwick had transfigured from some kind of stand, both summoning armchairs simultaneously. Severus had already equipped himself with four of those, plus a couple of sofas, once he realized how much more convenient it made conversations with prefects and senior students — the size of his office allowed for it.
"Young man, how bad is it — two fingers or three?" Flitwick had already produced the brandy snifters. A master, no question.
Severus, catching on the word bad, pictured the whole bottle — no, a small lake one might drown in. But quickly appreciated the half-goblin's brilliance.
"One, I think. You did want to talk, not to levitate my dead-drunk carcass to St. Mungo's?"
"Well, if you're against my refreshing my Healer's skills by reviving a former student from alcohol poisoning…"
The bottle clinked lightly against the rim, and Severus understood that his former teacher was nervous. Strangely, that steadied him.
"Who am I to object? Pour more."
Flitwick smiled sadly.
"I'm afraid, if we're keeping to proportions, there won't be enough for two."
And caught Snape's startled look.
For some time they simply drank in complete silence.
Snape wanted to knock it all back at once, but his mind, unfortunately, was working far too well, and so he held himself in. Still — he was curious what the half-goblin wanted from him. Was trying to draw close to him?
The little professor smiled, as though in answer.
"Curiosity is your finest quality. Curiosity and intelligence, Severus. To them."
The bottle gave another brief gurgle. Twice.
"Wondering what I want to find out from you? Don't strain yourself, young man. I won't be asking questions — I'll be speaking. Because it's already clear to me that you and I are two of a kind."
Hearing that, Snape very nearly choked.
But the little professor continued, and in his voice ran a bitterness so genuine, so close to Severus's own.
"You, like me, have found yourself between two fires. And simultaneously, the servant of two masters. Like me — a double spy between two irreconcilable sides."
"How do you—"
"Do you really think that with all the xenophobia of wizard-kind, someone would simply allow a half-goblin to teach children?" Flitwick said with a melancholy smile. "Have you seen many of my kind?"
Severus felt as though scales were falling from his eyes. And his colleague continued.
"Yes. I have been a double spy for more than seventy years. And I think you could make use of my — shall we say — experience. Because the way you've been carrying yourself, I must tell you… well."
He waved his hand, poured a small measure of the amber liquid into his glass again, and inhaled the scent with pleasure.
"Is it really all that visible?"
"You have absolutely no idea how to relax, colleague. You won't last long at this pace. Life — forgive the banality — is one, and it is not over while certain obligations remain. I understand correctly?"
Severus gave a grim nod.
"Wearing a dark expression, as you've chosen to, is permissible — even advisable; it's an excellent mask and reasonable cover — but what you absolutely must not do is let it grow into your face."
He took a sip of whisky and went on.
"You and I are pieces on a board, but what piece you will become remains to be seen. You don't want to be a pawn, I'm right? To be something more than a pawn, you must first of all live. That is your duty — to live each moment, because for people like us everything can end at any instant. In the most unpleasant fashion possible, yes."
Snape felt like a first-year student at his first Charms lesson. Seventy years. Seventy — all of them between goblins and wizards. And here he was: alive, smiling, capable of humor and of savoring whisky. And Flitwick had most likely had it harder from the very moment of his birth than Severus ever had. What were seventeen years against seventy? And he still found things to complain about?
"I would consider it an honor to be your student," the words escaped him, though no offer had been made. Nor could one have been — this wasn't a formal magical apprenticeship.
But the quietly smiling Flitwick spoke the full formula — as it was meant to be spoken — taking upon himself, even if only in part, a share of his burden as well. And gave him no opportunity to object, silencing him with a single gesture.
"Professor Flitwick," — the old form of address seemed the most fitting, now that he could speak again. "I ought to tell you—"
Severus stopped. He was obligated to, ought to — but he was not ready for confessions tonight.
"I would be glad to hear my name from you, Severus," his Teacher said — gently, but with quiet confidence, marking out possible boundaries. And with that single phrase, he defined their rights. Equal ones. "Not ready to unburden yourself now — then don't. Perhaps there won't even be any need to. Not about everything, at any rate. Tomorrow we'll work out what actually matters, and the personal — that is why it is personal, because it should remain one's own."
Severus nodded — in affirmation and in gratitude. Something eased, slightly, inside him. Life had to go on.
"And never — do you hear me, young man — never let your hands fall, and never let yourself be cornered," he heard, as though from a distance.
Summer lay ahead. It was long enough.
They would manage a great deal.