Chapter Two
He woke early the next day, not even remotely surprised about his surroundings. He’d discovered himself in Minerva’s office so often that they’d joked on building him a bed.
Severus heaved himself up into a better sitting position and forced the leg brace on, his lips curling at the look of it. He hated it. It made him seem weak and vulnerable.
“Good morning, Professor Snape!” Teddy ran to Severus, his hair long and black, his eyes a sparkling black. Severus let out a rare wheeze of laughter. Teddy looked like a miniature him.
“You can call me Uncle Sev, Teddy, it’s been three years, surely you know that?” Severus’s scar twisted as he gave the boy a smile.
“The students call you Professor Snape,” he returned. “Aunt Minnie wants me to help you get down for breakfast.”
“Ah, so she’s already gone, hm?”
Teddy shrugged.
“I saw her a few minutes ago.”
Marveling at the young boy’s ability to speak so fluently, Severus took his cane and forced himself onto his feet. Pain burst into his hips.
Sometimes, when the agony was especially harsh, he considered leaving. Leaving Hogwarts, and maybe even Britain. He felt like something was always chasing him. Expectations, and such. Who’d want a teacher who could barely walk? Wouldn’t it be so easy, just to move to someplace like America and settle down there, with a completely different name? He had enough money. Although Hogwarts didn’t pay too much, Severus rarely spent anything. He had five sets of the same robes. His potion ingredients were usually shipped to him monthly from the school’s governors. The only thing he ever spent gold on were books.
As soon as the war was over, Severus sold most of the Prince heirlooms. His mother had been the last Prince, and he was therefore in possession of all the things she’d left behind.
So he could move to America, and create a whole new name. Have a completely new life. Who would care, really? Minerva would care, sure, but would she miss him enough to visit him? Would Teddy even remember him?
His only friends were a three year old boy and a woman who’d tried to kill him once. Severus’s heart gripped painfully.
“Uncle Sev?”
The boy’s voice jolted him out of his strange world. He’d completely stopped moving.
“…deranged, that one is…”
“…Horrible Headmaster, even worse as a teacher…”
“…I’ve heard more complaints about him than about that dreadful hat you wear, Amelia!”
“…Shut up, Jules, your dress resembles a trampled daisy field!”
Severus rolled his eyes, hobbling away as fast as he could away from the portraits of the two best friends, although he’d never even seen the two actually not fight.
It took him a long while, but he finally was able to make it to the Great Hall. He collapsed into his usual chair next to Minerva. She gave him a warm smile.
“Sleep well, Severus?”
“Yes,” he rasped in reply. “Thank you.”
“Oh, but I hate seeing you on the chair like that…I know it can’t be comfortable, especially with your leg. Maybe I’ll ask Filius to help me with adding a new room.”
“Really? You don’t have to go through all of that.”
“No, but I want to!” Minerva insisted. “Teddy keeps on hinting that he wants to cuddle with you.”
Severus blushed. One thing that the war had changed was his softness for little kids. Teddy Lupin managed to find his way into his heart.
Speaking of Teddy, the boy crawled into Severus’s lap. Shattered shards of glass dug into his hips as soon as the pressure was felt. Severus flinched, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his cane tightly in his hand. Minerva didn’t miss it.
“Haven’t we told you to be gentle, Teddy?” she chided.
Teddy looked up, his black eyes solemn.
“Sorry, Uncle Sev,” he said softly, giving him a big hug. A few teachers beamed at the sight of it.
Severus Snape, the toughest, coldest man they knew, past Death Eater, past Order member, past spy, War Hero, someone who they didn’t remotely think would be able to love a young boy was actually hugging one.
He didn’t eat his food. Wasn’t hungry. Teddy, however, gobbled up his own eggs and bacon, and stared hungrily at Severus’s.
“Too much,” Severus scolded gently, wiping the boy’s chin.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Minerva demanded. “Come on, Severus, I can’t make Poppy make you eat again. I know eating hurts, but Severus, you look like one of the house-elves!”
Severus flinched under her stony gaze and then forced some food into his mouth.
Breakfast soon ended. The students sat up, chattering excitedly. With dread in his heart, Severus stood and made his way to the dungeons earlier than the other staff. It took him longer than most to make it to class.
“Good morning,” he rasped to his class. “Settle down.”
Two Ravenclaw girls were whispering and giggling, still doing each others’ hair.
“We will be experimenting with Veritserum today.” Severus held up a bottle of it, leaning heavily on his left side against a wall. “Three drops is all you need, and you’ll be spilling your deepest, darkest secrets for the whole class to share. Would anyone like to volunteer?”
Three students raised their hands, eagerness written on every inch of their face.
“Okay… Matthews. Come here.”
A boy went up to him, a rather popular one, Severus knew, and tilted his head back, and waited for the potion to be dropped into his mouth. Somewhat amused, Severus squeezed the bottle three times.
“Well…Matthews, how many siblings do you have?”
The boy frowned for a moment, licking his lips, and then responded in a toneless voice, “Five.”
The watching class clapped.
“Would anyone like to ask him a question? No mean ones, or really personal ones…or any that you wouldn’t like to be asked yourself.”
Some looked disappointed, some merely shrugged, only there for entertainment.
“When’s your birthday?” A breathless girl asked as soon as Severus inclined his head towards her.
“May seventeenth,” he replied.
The girl sank back in her chair, looking crestfallen.
“If only he were older!” Severus heard her whisper softly to her friend. He forced himself not to roll his eyes.
“Right…three more.”
The rest of the day passed uneventfully.
Severus sighed, tilting back in his chair. He reached into his pockets and downed a whole bottle of pain potion.
He was content, sure, here at Hogwarts. But he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was getting chased. In his dreams and in reality.
When he first accepted the position, nearly two years ago now, but not quite fully, he received at least five Howlers a day. He still had a burn scar on his right hand from where he extracted it from the burning flames way too slowly, and then refused to go to Poppy.
The howling words from angry parents still rang in his head.
Traitor. Murderer. Evil. Cruel. Coward.
Severus shook his head, clearing the thoughts.
If you have a problem, find a way to solve it.
That’s what his father used to say. All the time. His case was, well, everything. So he solved it by drinking.
But for the first time, he was going to listen to Tobias. Severus heaved himself onto his feet and forced his way to Minerva’s.
“Severus!” Minerva looked up. “How was your day? I’ve gotten the bedroom arranged, it’s just across from mine. You look tired, love. Sit!”
Severus collapsed onto his usual chair, set down the cane with a clank, and then let out a drawn sigh.
“What’s the matter?” She gave him a motherly smile.
“I don’t want to be a burden, Minerva,” he said softly.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Last year wasn’t easy,” Severus said, not quite meeting her gaze. “You remember the frequent collapses. And I can’t keep on visiting you at night, I-”
“Severus.”
It was so firm that he stiffened. It was all over, he knew. All of it. She was going to kick him out.
“I’m trying to meet all of these expectations,” he blurted out. “And defend myself from what I was. Every time I come here, I think of my year as Headmaster, how I failed. I’m trying to chase away these nightmares, Minerva, but I just can’t run fast enough.”
Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.
“Oh, Severus, no one thinks you failed. Everyone thought you were on Voldemort’s side, sure, but it was in the middle of a war. You did what you could do.”
“But it wasn’t enough. The students who still remember me can’t look at me without hatred or fear. And my health is struggling. Pain potions don’t work as well as you think.”
“Severus?”
He blinked tears out of his eyes, looking up.
“Stand up.”
Startled, he obeyed.
Minerva McGonagall rushed forward. For a moment, he thought she was attacking him, and reached into his pocket. But she slowed into him, putting her arms around him in an embrace.
He couldn’t remember being hugged by her. Or anyone, for that matter. Eileen hugged him on rare occasions, like when he stole one of Tobias’s beer bottles. Of course, he’d gotten a beating for it, later, but she didn’t hug him for that, did she?
Lily hugged him sometimes, when he looked absolutely miserable. But Lily was long dead.
“I love you, Severus, and it would hurt my heart if you left.”
Severus’s eyes welled up again, loving this motherly figure back. They’d had their rough edges in their relationship. But Severus still loved her like she was his mother, and she loved him like the son she never had.
“I love you too,” he breathed out, marveling at the words.
Minerva laughed.
“Take a vacation, if that’s what you want. Take a vacation over the summer. Maybe next year. You deserve it. Go somewhere warm, where the weather won’t hurt your bones. Somewhere like Hawaii. Get a massage, eat to your heart’s content. Read works you’ve never read. Everyone needs some time off for themselves. Even cold professors who are too afraid to show the world that they’re secretly softies.”
Severus blushed, stepping back.
“Thanks, Minerva.”
He took her words seriously. As soon as term was over, Severus booked a trip to the Caribbeans. And he didn’t do it the normal way. He did it the Muggle way.
Now, sprawled magnificently under the warm sun of the islands, Severus looked up from Frankenstein.
Two figures were making their way across the sand. Minerva and Teddy had decided to come along for the journey a week after he’d left, giving him some time for himself but some time together as well. To strangers, they seemed like a funny little family- a grandma, a dad, and a son, or at least that’s what they told the Muggles. Minerva wasn’t too happy with the term “grandma”, however.
Severus was sure that he didn’t want those two people any farther from him. Oh, no, he wouldn’t ever leave Britain. It was certain that he was going to stay at Hogwarts and with the people he loved until the day he died.