1997
31st of August 1997
Severus Snape paced the circular office like a caged animal. He wanted to be anywhere in the world rather than inside this room. He stopped his pacing in front of a wooden sideboard, and - in a singular outburst of rage - he swung his arm wide, sweeping down all of Dumbledore’s clutter.
The swirling gyroscopic instruments, the astral model, the sneakoscope, a hiccoughing paperweight, the gold-plated wooden caskets - the former headmaster’s possessions sailed through the room and crashed into furniture or bounced off the walls. Snape swept over the sideboard with his other arm and cleared it of the last solitary object - a wooden telescope.
Then, he staggered towards the desk causing shards of class to crunch under his feet. Heaving, he sank onto the straight-backed chair that stood opposite Dumbledore’s armchair. Snape raised both hands and covered his sallow face. His greasy black hair fell over his face and hands and a trickle of blood ran down his hand from where he had cut himself on the glass. A hoarse, agonised sob emerged. Just the one. Then, the new headmaster of Hogwarts was silent.
Even with his eyes closed, however, he could not forget where he was. The familiar smell of wood polish, parchment and sherbet lemons, of Fawkes. The rigid surface of the chair on which Snape had sat countless times. The faint whirring of the planetary model on the desk in front of him.
The stillness was broken by a whisper, then a second, until more than a dozen voices spoke at once.
"Silence!” Snape spat and banged his hand flat on the desk.
The conversations broke off at once, and all the former headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts looked at him.
Snape’s black eyes darted from one to the other. “Silence,” he hissed again. “I don’t want to hear any of your waffle. Not a word.”
Snape wished they would object so he could shout at them, but they just looked. Some expressions were haughty, some scandalised, others pitying. Snape did not know which he despised most. He ground his teeth.
Then, he took a deep, shuddering breath. When had he lost control like this? It must have been years. It was dangerous - lethal, even - for him to become so emotional. Nobody could know. Not the other teachers, not the Death Eaters and least of all the Dark Lord.
And yet. Maybe it was a good thing it had happened. Better here in this room than anywhere else. No damage had been done. He extracted his wand. Hand still shaking, he pointed it at the shards and dented objects that scattered the office. He cast a few non-verbal Reparoes, and within a few moments, the room looked as orderly as if nothing had happened.
Snape propped his chin on both hands and gazed into the middle distance.
“Severus…” a soft voice spoke into the renewed silence.
“Not a word, I said,” Snape flared. “Least of all from you, Dumbledore!”
He pointed an accusatory finger up at the portrait of a silver-bearded wizard with golden half-moon spectacles that hung behind the headmaster’s armchair directly opposite Snape.
“Have you any idea what it is like coming back here? Did you see how Minerva looked at me before she rushed out, Dumbledore? Did you see that? She HATES me!”
The wizard in the portrait sighed. “Minerva will come to know the truth one day, Severus, and she will understand why it was necessary for her safety as well as yours that she-”
“She despises me! They all despise me!” Severus spat. “Even Filius. They are convinced I murdered you!”
Dumbledore sighed again. “Yes, because you played your part brilliantly. I daresay it was to be expected that they would antagonise you. I am sorry Severus, and I greatly value your sacrifice. But only you can protect-”
“-protect the students,” Snape sneered.
"Yes, Severus, indeed. We all here-” he gestured around the room “-admire your great strength of mind and your service to this school.”
A few of the portraits nodded, one or two hummed their approval and an old witch with an ear trumpet exclaimed “Hear, hear!”.
Snape scoffed, threw an irritated glance at his finger and popped it into his mouth to staunch the bleeding.
“Your name will be cleared soon, headmaster,” came Phineas Nigellus’ nasal voice. “And all those scandalmongers will be humbled when it transpires that you are the most righteous of them all.”
Snape gave him a look that would have curdled new milk.
“I think you should celebrate your appointment as headmaster with us, even if the rest of the staff is currently unwilling to join us,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. “I still have a bottle of very fine, oak-matured mead in the bottom left shelf of this desk, Severus.”
Snape scowled at his predecessor, but his expression softened against his will under Dumbledore’s gaze.
“Please, Severus.”
Snape made an irritated gesture. “Oh very well.”
He waved his wand arm in the direction of the glass cabinet that stood next to Fawkes’s empty perch. The doors opened obediently. Snape beckoned and one of the crystal goblets hovered towards him. Snape then bent forward to open the desk and rummage inside it.
“Lumos.” The clink of glass came from the inside of the desk. “There is far more than just the one bottle in here, Dumbledore…”
“Well…” Dumbledore coughed slightly.
Snape’s sullen face reappeared from under the desk. Then, he scrambled back onto his chair and placed a dusty bottle on the desktop. A slight tap with his wand and the cork popped. He poured a few inches of the golden liquid into the goblet and raised it towards the wall of portraits.
“To the demise of the Dark Lord,” he intoned.
“Hear, hear!” shouted the witch with the ear trumpet and a rotund wizard with a large bald spot raised the wine glass that had been painted in front of him.
“To your health, Severus,” Dumbledore said.
Snape, who had just raised the glass to his lips, lowered it again and watched the old man with a sober expression.
“You mean generally or just until I have fulfilled my purpose?”
“Severus,” the portrait chided mildly.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Dumbledore. I do not intend to outlive the Dark Lord anyway.”
Dumbledore shook his head. “And why ever would you say that? Once Voldemort is finished and your name is cleared I don’t see why you should not enjoy a long and fulfilling life.”
Instead of a reply, Snape emptied the glass, closed his eyes at the honeyed warmth and poured himself another, more generous swig of mead. He set the bottle on the desk with a little more force than was strictly necessary, smacked his lips and feigned a sudden interest in the planetary model in front of him.
“I mean it, Severus,” Dumbledore persisted.
“Easy for you to talk.”
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”
Snape huffed and reached for the goblet.
“Careful, laddy,” cautioned the portly wizard with a good-natured chuckle.
“Do not lecture me, Barnabas! I do not intend to follow your example and nip the same glass for the next 170 years,” Snape retorted, and Barnabus put down his glass and grumbled something inaudible.
“Well, Severus? Pray tell, why would it have been any easier for me to live a fulfilled life than for you?”
“Because-” Snape burst out and gestured the length of Dumbledore’s portrait, “-because look at you. All honoured and celebrated and venerable as you are.”
“Oh, well,” Dumbledore said cheerfully, “my reputation has been going down the pan ever since I was chucked out of the Wizengamot. And with that new book, Rita Skeeter has written…”
“Nonsense,” Snape interrupted him. “People are going to tattle for a month, and then, they will go back to… how do you know Skeeter has written a book about you? She published it after your death.”
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, she has been threatening to write my biography for years, Severus. Pestering me for an interview, hasn’t she? ‘I will find out everything, Dumbledore. Every last one of your secrets. With or without your help. But if you refuse to talk to me, you rob yourself of the chance to add your own perspective, you know.’ Ha! As if anything I say could discourage Rita from writing the most scathing little essay she could think of. And of course, she would not dawdle having it published once I was dead…” He sighed. “Have you read it?”
Snape made a noncommittal grunt and poured himself some more mead, accompanied by a faint ‘Hmpf’ from Barnabas the Barmy.
“Well? Did you find it diverting?”
Snape waved his hand dismissively before he treated himself to another sip from his goblet. “A whole lot of nonsense, Dumbledore. Not nearly as bad as what she would write about me now that I have become a murderer and taken my victim’s post. Nothing that could damage your reputation in the long run.”
Dumbledore’s smile faded as he looked at his successor.
“Is that what you desire, Severus? To be admired? To receive your daily owl from the Minister of Magic asking for your help?”
“You know very well what I desire,” Snape said venomously. “What I desire is to get a grip and stop pining after a woman who has been dead for almost twenty years and who never wanted me in the first place.”
While most of the other portraits looked embarrassed and averted their eyes, Dumbledore continued to study Snape with compassion in his twinkling eyes.
“You should be grateful, Severus, for your ability to love.”
Snape snorted. “You don’t know what it’s like!”
“What, precisely?”
“To love where it can bring you only hurt, to have your heart carved out each time you see them, to be forever alone and forever reminded of what you cannot have, what you lost without ever having it.”
Snape banged the goblet on the table. “No, worst of all, to keep telling yourself what a miserable fool you are for not letting go, for never being able to stop.”
“Ah.” Dumbledore tented his long fingers in front of him. “Pardon me, Severus, but I know quite well what that is like.”
Snape held his gaze with a stony face, then he pointedly looked the other way.
Dumbledore looked at him for a few more minutes, then he sighed and said, “Would you be so kind as to scratch my nose, Severus?”
Snape looked up. “What?”
“Didn’t you complain for years that I did not trust you enough? Very well, Severus, I will show you something that Rita Skeeter would trade her wand for. Scratch my nose, if you please.”
Reluctantly, Snape walked around the desk, raised his arm and he had barely touched Dumbledore’s nose when the portrait emitted a soft click and swung open. Behind the portrait, a cubical cavity was revealed. It was filled with thick stacks of letters.
Snape’s black eyes widened as they roved what must be hundreds of neatly bundled letters.
“Go on,” Dumbledore encouraged.
Snape reached for a stack of letters in the first row and took it. He stared at it for a long moment.
“What is this about, Dumbledore?” he interrogated the linen backside of the portrait.
“Why don’t you take the first bundle from 1945 - it should be on the left in the front row - and swing me back around so that we can look at each other while I elaborate?”
Wordlessly, Snape closed the hidden shelf in the stone wall and reseated himself into the straight-backed visitor’s chair. He laid the thin bundle of letters in front of him. The topmost letter was addressed to Dumbledore himself in a narrow hand: ‘Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Professor for Transfiguration, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’.
“Well, I am unsure where to begin this tale that reaches back… well, bless my beard, almost one hundred years.” He studied his fingers while the other portraits and the wizard on the chair watched him silently.
“You know of course of my legendary duel with Gellert in 1945. And I expect that Rita has unearthed some evidence that we weren’t strangers when I fought him, hasn’t she?”
Snape did not reply.
“Well, we indeed met in 1899 when we were both young and impetuous - I freshly graduated and he expelled during his final year at Durmstrang - and spent a rather wild summer at the end of which he left me in a pretty mess. Grieving, confused, furious and lovesick.”
Snape’s face looked as if he had detected a rancid smell under his long nose.
“That Skeeter woman claims that Grindelwald … killed your sister in a dark ritual.”
Dumbledore smiled sadly. “Does she? Well, it was a bit more complicated and a bit less scandalous than that, but it is true that … that we both are responsible for her death.”
Snape’s black eyes travelled through the room and back to the letters on the desk.
“And you are telling me, that you continued this…” he paused “… friendship while Grindelwald subjugated half of central Europe?”
“Indeed, no,” Dumbledore said seriously. “I was terrified to meet him, I refused to get involved and fight him, see, in the fear of… finding that I still had feelings for him despite what he had done, despite what he had become. I knew I could not live with myself should that prove to be true, so… so I avoided him for more than forty years…”
Dumbledore removed his golden spectacles and passed a long-fingered hand over his weary eyes. “But I never quite stopped…” He did not continue.
“… to love him?” Snape said derisively.
Dumbledore massaged his temple. “Well, at least that’s what I feared it was. I would not say so anymore. But I cannot deny that I was smitten when we met and that Gellert touched something in me that I could never quite overcome.”
“So how does this compare to Lilly and me? We have been friends ever since we were eight years old. You spent one summer with this man. Lilly was kind, generous, brave and sacrificed herself for her son. Gellert Grindelwald was a madman, a murderer. Pardon me for being slightly affronted,” Snape said flatly, earning himself a few indignant comments from some of the other portraits.
Dumbledore cleared his throat. “I wasn’t comparing Gellert with Lilly, Severus, I was comparing us. The feeling of helplessness and foolishness in the face of a fruitless love. Yes, love, Severus,” he added as Snape raised a supercilious eyebrow, “I was smitten as a boy, but I grew to love him as a man.”
“You mean after he had terrorised half the continent?” Snape supplied helpfully.
“The truth sounds more shocking than anything Rita could have unearthed, doesn’t it?”
Snape looked disgusted. “And how exactly did he win you over while he was stewing in Nurmengard, I wonder?”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Well, his first letters were meant as a mere provocation, make no mistake.”
His voice was serious when he continued, “but the prospect of a lifetime in prison changes you, Severus. He craved someone to ground him, someone through whom he could continue to live. Someone to keep him sane. Through me, he accomplished the near impossible. He felt remorse for what he had done. And I craved an equal, a confidant who could never spill my secrets, someone who knew my weakness and my selfdoubt.”
A thick, plush silence hung in the room for a long while, broken only once in a while when a log popped in the fire.
“Anyhow. You are welcome to read our correspondence if you like, Severus.”
Snape looked at the letters on the table with a mixture of displeasure and curiosity.
“It could be instructive to you, Severus, since you are convinced that you are the only conflicted soul of our age.”
Snape pursed his lips.
“Thank you, Dumbledore, for this cordial judgement of my character. I will think about it.”
He stood up without taking the letters. “Good night.”
“Good night, Severus.”
It was very late when Snape skulked back into the study, enveloped in a shabby velvet black dressing gown. The former headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts snoozed in their frames. The fire had died in the hearth, but the moonlight painted long, ghostly rectangles onto the wooden floor and illuminated enough of the room to navigate it without lighting a candle. Snape wrapped the gown more tightly around his thin waist and approached the desk.
“Ah, Severus. I had not expected you for another hour or two.” Dumbledore’s voice did not carry even a trace of sleepiness.
Snape looked up abruptly and found moonlight caught in the long silvery beard and the pair of piercing blue eyes twinkling down at him. He scowled for a moment but abstained from giving a reply. Instead, he lit two candles to provide reading light, removed the cord from around the letters and fanned them out. It was only four blotched envelopes - three addressed to Dumbledore and one reply.
Snape sat on the edge of the desk and, with a last glance at the portrait, opened the topmost letter.