Destiny
Time passed. Slytherin was in last place for the House Cup but their Quidditch team was ranked on top thanks to the grim effectiveness of Macnair Captaining from the Beater position. Snape had never been much for Quidditch as a student but found himself at practices as autumn folded into winter, staring up at the soaring team and feeling something like pride. They were scrappy. No seventh man for sickness or substitution. But Macnair ran a tight crew and Slytherin stayed at the top of the House rankings game in and game out.
Which is why it was so annoying to find the quartet of First-Years waiting outside his office. Heads bent together. Whispering. Doomsday caught sight of Snape first and elbowed Percy Weasley.
"Professor!" Percy squeaked. Then coughed, getting his register under control. "Professor, could we speak to you?"
"Could you continue speaking to me," Snape corrected. He wondered, again, if Hogwarts shouldn't offer another curriculum in rhetoric and math, in history and science skills. Astronomy alone would hardly get these students anywhere. They needed diction! Decorum!
God help the First-Year wizards who'd come to Hogwarts from a home-education background. Many Pure Blood families refused to put magical children in muggle schools and so eleven-year-olds were sent to Hogwarts with a piecemeal primary education. Book-learning and esoteric home study. They could identify plants but didn't know much about the history of the nation they'd grown up in.
In that, as in many things, Percy was an exception to the rule. He'd confessed to Snape that he'd been enrolled in muggle schools since he could walk. His father enjoyed the casual interaction of post-day care pick-ups. Would interrogate the muggle parents of his playmates in the workings of their postal system, their work days, their cars. The embarrassment of those conversations had led to a solid educational foundation.
Percy, impertinently, shouldered open the door to Snape's office and led the way inside. "Professor, Keeley overheard—"
"You said you weren't going to drag me into this!"
"You're the witness." Percy glared at the girl. "Keeley overheard Mycah just now. Go on. Tell him what he said."
Snape rubbed his forehead. They'd all be better off a year from now when Macnair graduated and he could stop terrorizing the little ones. "Go on, then."
Keeley glared at the ground. "I'm no snitch."
"You told me!" Percy barked.
"It's different from telling a teacher!"
"Macnair was talking to his Quidditch mates about the match against Gryffindor this weekend—" Percy shot daggers at Keeley as he spoke.
Now that Snape thought of it, part of Macnair's seething hatred at the Weasley might have to do with Quidditch. Charlie Weasley was one of the best Seekers in school history, and Bill had played Chaser until a Bludger to the head last season had spooked him off a broom. It was well-known that the Weasley family was large enough to field a Quidditch team among the siblings, and Percy admitted they regularly did so, playing against wizard neighbors like the Diggorys during school holidays. Everyone in the family was mad for flying. Everyone except for him.
"Lucian Ravensbane was saying that they could outscore Gryffindor easy but that it wouldn't matter because Charlie's too fast."
Gryffindor shared the top of the scoreboard with Slytherin. They didn't put up as many points as the snakes but they won most matches in mere minutes. The Ravenclaw beaters had practically circled Charlie Weasley, but he snaked by their every offense to catch the snitch in seven minutes. A school record.
"And Macnair said not to worry about Charlie because he's already taken care of him."
Snape pursed his lips. "I fail to see what petty infighting about an infernal sport has to do with me."
"You've got to figure out what he means!"
"Odds are, Weasley, he means absolutely nothing. Teenage boys may make grandiose claims but they rarely act upon them."
"But what if he did do something to Charlie?" Percy pleaded.
Snape tried to control his desire to sigh. Tried to rally the teacherly explanation part of himself. "Have you seen your brother today?"
"Yeah! Right before we came here!"
"Did he seem injured?"
Percy glanced at his small cohort of friends before admitting. "Well. No."
"Addled? Impaired? Confused?"
"No! But Macnair said—"
"Fizzy, a word if you have a moment." A loud crack and the house elf appeared in the office. Keeley and Elias both waved at the elf eagerly and he waved back, his long fingers trailing through the air, confused and delighted. "Fizzy, would you be so kind as to fetch Charlie Weasley?" He could send a Patronus but Weasley didn't know his doe. One day some clever muggle-born would have to figure out how to rig phones through the castle so the magic didn't drive the wiring batty.
Fizzy nodded, cracking away.
Snape turned back to the quartet of First-Years. "Ms. Rosier is correct, Mr. Weasley. Snitching is not appreciated in Slytherin House."
Weasley flushed as bright as his hair. "Macnair's a bully," Elias Doomsday cut in. He was quieter than his older brother but his few pronouncements seemed to have a great weight among the cohort. "And he hides behind his cronies."
"Besides," Percy burst out. "It's not snitching if it's about safety!"
That pulled Snape up short. How often, in his own years as a student, had he kept quiet about the downright malignant plans of the young Death Eaters in Slytherin House out of some sense of duty, of standing up for his side, of not running to a teacher for help? And how well had that worked out for his generation?
Weasley was glaring at him. This child had grown up in the shadow of the Order of the Phoenix. Where the Death Eaters were power-hungry and individualistic, the Order was single-minded in their purpose, united in their cause: Voldemort was a mortal threat. His followers, with their creed of purifying the magical population, represented backwards, xenophobic thinking. Death Eaters abided by old codes of loyalty and duty, but the Order followed codes that might be older still: love thy neighbor. Help each other. We are stronger together.
He turned away from Weasley, locking eyes with the other three First-Years in turn. "None of you have any qualms about helping a Gryffindor?"
"Not just a Gryffindor, though?" Lisa Killgrove was biting her fingernails and staring at the ground but she still answered. "He's Percy's brother."
"And he's nice!"
Lisa cut her eyes towards Keeley. "You just think he's handsome."
Rosier blushed and crossed her arms over her chest. "He was also super nice. He let all of us try his broom. And he made us tea."
"Hagrid made us tea!"
"He invited us to tea!"
"I didn't think he'd let us on his broom," Percy mused. "Bill made us all chip in for it for his birthday last year, since they were both using school brooms. I watched my friend's cats for a couple weeks while they were in Ireland and Dad had to convert their muggle money into proper coins."
Elias nudged Percy's shoulder. "You didn't even get on the broom."
"If humans were meant to fly we'd have wings."
Both boys grinned, their eyes soft and knowing, and Snape, goddamnit, was not at all jealous of the months-old friendship of a couple of eleven-year-olds.
The door to the office opened and Fizzy came in. He was…did house elves chat? He was as animated as Snape had ever seen the creature, all exclamations and gestures, and Charlie Weasley, coming in behind, looked charmed. He liked creatures, Snape remembered. He was always trailing after the giant. Obsessed with magical creatures.
And kind to Fizzy. He thanked the house elf for fetching him, "and for the conversation!" Had Snape always been soft? Or did he just have a soft spot for people who were kind to the one being in the school who ever showed him kindness?
Fizzy glanced at Snape and snapped away. Charlie ruffled his brother's hair but otherwise stayed quiet, his whole body taut with tension. A lion surrounded by snakes.
"Your brother seems to believe that you've been sabotaged in advance of the match on Sunday," Snape said. No use beating around the bush.
Charlie's eyebrows disappeared into his unruly ginger hair. "He mentioned, sir. I didn't think he'd say anything to you."
Snape sniffed. "After hearing this accusation, did you seek out Madame Pomfrey?"
"What? Of course not!"
"Then I'm glad indeed that it was mentioned to me. Mr. Weasley—all of you, actually-—tudents at this school labor under an illusion that all threats, all dangers, are best kept from the faculty. The opposite is true." He raised his wand and felt a strange pang when Charlie Weasley flinched. "Revealo."
Snape opened his mind the way he would in occlumency, but there were so many spells swirling around the castle, so many spells that wizarding families placed on their children. Some sort of tracking charm, some minor healing and shielding spells.
Snape let go of that spell and grabbed another. "Legilimens."
Charlie uttered one choked-off moan and then Snape was inside of the boy's mind, wading through memories. The recent past always loomed large, and Snape knew he was looking for Macnair. He ignored the lessons, the Quidditch practices, even ignored the many, many trips that Charlie seemed to take into the Forbidden Forest, trotting behind Hagrid, amiable as a dog.
Ah! There was Macnair, stalking the hallway with a pack of his cronies, but Charlie wasn't fixated on the threat of the prefect. Charlie only had eyes for Luke Doomsday, a raised hand, a knowing smile.
STOP!
Snape was hurled out of the memory and back into his office. Charlie Weasley had staggered against the wall, slumped low enough that Percy was trying to prop him up, whispering in his ear. The girls hovered nearby. Elias Doomsday stood between Snape and the rest of the students, dark features set. Mistrustful.
Snape snapped his gaze back to Charlie. "Mr. Weasley, let's step outside for a moment."
"No!" All four First-Years yelled. Charlie shook his head, lips a tight line.
Very well. Snape knew all about having secrets that one played close to the chest. Whatever the boy's affair with Luke Doomsday, it was none of his business. It had merely been the diversion to allow Macnair time for his curse. "I have reason to suspect you've been placed under the Imperious Curse."
Well. That got their attention. All five students blinked at him. "What?" Rosier breathed. "But it's Forbidden!"
"How does Macnair even know the Imperious Curse?"
The answer rose between them, a silent reminder that made Snape's forearm itch.
"I'd know if I was cursed!" Charlie frowned. "Surely?"
Snape glanced at the students. All so young. Even when Defense Against the Dark Arts was taught by a serious teacher instead of the parade of buffoons who'd taken on the class since the fall of the Dark Lord, the Unforgiveable Curses were the stuff of Fourth-Year lectures, not nightmare fodder for the youngest in the school.
"Not necessarily," Snape admitted. "It's the worst part of the curse. You could be behaving entirely normally and then suddenly it's like—"
"Like a voice?" Charlie cut in. "Like a voice in your head?"
Snape closed his eyes. The Unforgiveable Curses had been rampant in the ranks of the Death Eaters. At least with Crucio it was obvious. With Imperio being cast left and right Snape often wondered if he even knew his own mind.
"Have you heard a voice?" Snape asked.
"This morning." Charlie looked shaken. "Jasmine called an early practice, but I begged off. Said I was sick. Any time I tried to get into the air I heard a voice telling me to jump off my broom."
Gasps all around the room. Snape closed his eyes. Then he called Fizzy, he called Dumbledore, he called McGonagall and Macnair. He called Madame Hooch. He called everyone.
.
"Ah, the man of the hour."
Dumbledore's office had finally cleared out and somehow Snape was the only one left in the space. He felt hoarse and dazed, tired as a sprinter. And it had been a sprint. Dumbledore was the most accomplished spell-caster in England and he'd taken Charlie Weasley and gently stripped him of every charm on his person.
(McGonagall had to leave in the middle of the procedure because a hysterical Molly Weasley had tried to floo into her office. Something about a magical clock, and Charlie's hand falling clean off the face.)
Then there was the question of Macnair. Expulsion seemed obvious, Azkaban the next step, but Macnair was sixteen. To expel him would be to send him back to the father who almost certainly taught him the spell to begin with.
Snape had conferred with McGonagall about the problem. This was after he'd sent for Luke Doomsday to take the rest of his snakes to bed (and after he'd pointedly ignored the desperate, longing glances Luke kept sending after Charlie Weasley, still being attended to in Dumbledore's office.) Snape always felt young and silly next to Minerva's composed elegance. She would always be the imperious teacher, he the student dressed in his father's clothes.
"Detention, obviously," McGonagall said. "Suspension from the Quidditch Team. You can strip him of Prefect now."
"Thank goodness."
Minerva nodded. "I knew that would please you."
"All that makes it sound like he was brawling, or caught sneaking out after hours. The Imperious Curse…!"
"I know. It reminds me too much of the old days." McGonagall shook her head. "I can't believe it's already been seven years. A blink and a lifetime." McGonagall twirled her wand absently between her long fingers. "You could take away his wand between lessons. That's what we did, at the height of the War."
It was a drastic step, but perhaps necessarily. Every time Snape thought about what could have happened he felt like he was drowning. As a Death Eater he'd watched scores of school-mates get struck down, on both sides of the war. Now the thought of a student, not even in his House, falling from a broom made him want to burn the whole bloody place down. He really was getting soft.
"The Little Weasley found it out quicker than anyone else," Snape mused.
"Brother watching out for brother."
"A lion in a pack of snakes." Snape glanced at Minerva. "What if we brought more lions in? Yes, yes, it'll be detention until Macnair graduates and restricted wand use, but I don't want to send yet another Slytherin out into the world feeling bitter and betrayed."
He told Minerva of his plan. Halfway through his explanation she disappeared into Dumbledore's office and came back with the other interested party in this proposal. She put the Sorting Hat on Snape's head. And had him explain it all again.
.
FIVE YEARS LATER
Harry pulled on his robes and was grateful for Ron reaching around, easy as can be, and straightening it all out for him. "You really were raised by muggles, weren't you?"
Harry shrugged, ducking his head. "Guess I never knew any different. Well. I guess I knew I was different, but…"
"Accidental magic must have been scary." Ron laughed knowingly.
Harry looked at this new boy with amazement. He felt like no one had seen him quite as clearly in his whole life. School had been full of Dudley's cronies, the teachers disliking him on sight, the other kids giving him wide berth because of his too-big clothes and taped glasses and Dudley's rumors. Hagrid had been a savior but not this gangly, tentative friend.
"Everything's been scary," Harry admitted.
And Ron didn't laugh at him, or even make a joke. He nodded, thoughtful. "When I was little one of my older brothers was sorted into Slytherin. Percy. Maybe you saw him at King's Cross?"
'The one wearing green?" Harry tried to remember what Hagrid had said about the Houses. "Isn't…isn't Slytherin full of…" he didn't want to say what Hagrid had said, not if they were talking about Ron's brother.
But Ron seemed to know what he was going to say. "Mum went mental. My uncles…" Ron shrugged. "Mum and Dad were never in the War. Not like your parents were."
Harry's eyes widened. "Your parents knew my parents?"
"A little? I could write to Mum and see for sure. They didn't go to school together or anything, but Pure Blood families always know each other. Anyway, Mum hated Percy's Sorting. She thought it was dangerous for him to be in Slytherin. A whole lot of bad apples, and he'd be dragged down with them. And, mate—" Harry had never been anyone's mate before, it was silly how much he glowed at the word, the easy familiarity of it. "I was so scared. Scared to be put in Slytherin."
"I don't think I want to be there, either," Harry admitted.
"Ah, your parents were Gryffindor," Ron said, as if this was common knowledge. Harry, who had heard perhaps three accurate facts about his parents in his whole life, most of them from Hagrid in the last week, hoarded this information like fold. "But that's what I'm trying to say. Percy was Sorted into Slytherin. And it was…fine. Better than fine! Percy's a Prefect this year. It's sort of because of him that the Exchange started."
"The Exchange?"
"We'll still get Sorted," Ron said. "Though I still don't know what that's like. Fred and George swear it's fighting a troll but you can't trust the twins. We'll get Sorted but with the Exchange you could petition to go to another House for a year. Fred and George tried to get into Hufflepuff but it's quite popular on account of being next to the kitchens. Charlie's boyfriend Luke spent his Seventh Year in Gryffindor. Apparently there's more rules this year, since last year Oliver Wood—he's the Quidditch Captain—tried to go to Ravenclaw to steal some tactics. But it's really encouraged. Lots of Ministry applications are requiring an Exchange year." Ron glanced around their little compartment, even though it was just the two of them. And Scabbers, asleep on Ron's lap "If I don't get Sorted into Slytherin I might go for a year down the line. Their Common Room is supposed to be wicked! It's under the lake!"
Harry mulled this over. "So…it's not permanent? Where we end up?"
"Not anymore." Ron was stroking the rat, glancing at Harry from underneath his fringe, looking shy for the first time since they'd met. "I'd still like to end up in the same House? Maybe? Though Draco's right, you being Harry Potter and all you should probably be friends with…"
"You," Harry said, firmly.
Ron flushed and started telling Harry every rumor he'd ever heard about the Sorting, and they tried to parse out the secrets together, and Harry's life as a non-magical muggle receded as he sped towards a castle, and a Sorting, and his destiny.