Soulsavers

Severus

When he looked at himself from the outside, Severus had to admire - of all things- his tenacious optimism. As graduation drew nearer, he thought of the child he had been, who believed the school would be his escape and protection. Many would have lost faith by then - many had viewed him indeed as pitiful and delusional for harboring such fantasies. But he had known it was real, and he wanted to escape with Lily.

A less determined child, in fact, might have been permanently discouraged after that first humiliating attempt to make friends with Lily, but not he. And when they finally arrived, and Hogwarts had emerged less as a sanctuary and a safe haven and more as a brutal fighting ring, he held on, he survived, he kept getting up no matter how many blows life had dealt him.

He had experienced misfortunes from minor but unrelenting slights to injustices that would have made many a man turn pale, and yet, he had persevered.

He had survived the attack, if stung by the dishonor of having his petrified body dragged out of the tunnel like a corpse. When he tried to think about it, he wondered if it was the werewolf that had frightened him, or Potter's appearance. They’d had lessons on protecting themselves against werewolves, after all… It was the domineering and controlling humans he had always struggled with.

He had survived being silenced, he had survived watching Potter gloat, he had survived the unrelenting punishment for “existing.” The ordeal did not even affect his grades, or if it had, there was no way to tell since they didn’t get higher than ‘Outstanding’.

And now he even managed to make better friends than Lily. He used to feel that without Lily he would be all alone, that no one would care if he had just… disappeared. The thought that he had once reduced himself to begging at the entrance to her common room, risking further humiliation to apologize to her, when she’d retaliated immediately… they should have called it even right then. And yet, even Lily’s recalcitrance did not deter him. He’d recovered, even from that.

And he knew he was, or could be, the most powerful wizard in their year. So when Professor Prewett sauntered into the classroom with a spring in his step and promised to teach them all something very special, something very rare, that not just anyone could teach them, and that only a minority of highly skilled wizards could accomplish, Severus perked up immediately. He had to begrudgingly admit that Prewett was a competent wizard, the lapse of judgment in accepting a perilous position notwithstanding. He felt excited at the prospect of mastering a skill that would put all doubt to rest once and for all.

“Perhaps some of you have already guessed it?” Prewett scanned the room. Severus glanced at Hermione, who seemed to have an inkling.

“I think he’s talking about the Patronus charm,” Hermione whispered to him with an excited smile.

Oh. Right. That.

And it turned out that Hermione had guessed right.

“The Patronus charm is most commonly used as a defense against Dementors and Lethifold, and although Lethifold are rarer and more deadly, I don’t expect you to encounter one in England, so let us focus on the more practical applications, although the theory is much the same. A Patronus is like an anti-Dementor, a shield of hope and faith against the despair a Dementor attack induces in its victim to feed on, which can have long-term effects! Now, I shall be teaching you individually, and if any of you does not feel that they are up to the task today, do not feel pressure – as I have said, it takes many wizards many years, if they can accomplish this at all. But for those who are interested, please form a queue at the door and practice the incantation – Expecto Patronum. I also ask that you think of some happy memories.”

The other students rushed out of the classroom to form a queue, excited to find out if they could accomplish it. Only Hermione remained seated, and she looked at Severus like she was reading a difficult passage.

That charm was showy, unreliable, and in Severus’s opinion, all wrong. Expecto Patronum - I await my protector. What a silly idea. Severus thought back to all the ‘protectors’ life had thrown his way, from his useless mother, whose idea of protection consisted of pre-emptively collapsing into a heap of tears, to Lily, who had (he painfully realized) ‘protected’ him as a form of flirting. Severus had at one time believed that if Lily refused to go out with Potter, it meant she hated him. By now, he finally understood – she did not want to seem ‘easy’. If it had only protracted Severus’s misery, both as a target and in the sense that he had labored under the delusion that he had had a chance, Lily never cared, did she? Some protector.

Besides, how was it fair that the likelier you were to be unaffected by Dementors, the easier it would be, as theory had it, to protect yourself against them? Severus knew other people had a veritable treasure trove of happy memories to choose from, and that Dementors could at worst feed on their memories of a failed grade. He only had the future to look forward to, and if Professor Prewett was to be believed, this didn’t count. He was even disappointed when he saw Hermione standing at the back of the queue that had formed by the classroom.

Expecto Patronum? I await no one. I will protect myself, he thought, and started walking away from her.

Hermione

She had waited a long time for this lesson. Here would be the evidence she needed to prove to Severus that he was not Dark, that he did not belong with the Death Eaters. It would give her an opening to start this conversation on solid grounds.

Increasingly, learning to defend oneself against Dementors grew more important, even for civilians – rogue Dementors had gone and sought victims far away from Azkaban, even as the island prison saw new faces every day, courtesy of Crouch Sr. and his new policies. She had read about it in the paper, though every day she asked herself why spend her limited galleons on her subscription to that rag. But it was indispensable – she had to make sure not to refer to events that hadn’t happened yet. Even if the paper itself was not nearly as diligent as her as regards reporting things that hadn’t happened yet, she had nothing better to go by.

So Hermione felt heartened by the long queue. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter stood together, Lily now beside James, looking at him admiringly as he boasted that he was sure he would be able to cast one. “We’ve already done harder things, hadn’t we, Padfoot?” he nudged Sirius. She almost didn’t notice Snape slinking away.

“Severus, where are you going?” She cried out, louder than she’d intended to.

She felt all heads turning toward her and blushed. But – well, she knew he had a Patronus! Without that Patronus, how would they have found the Sword? “It’s not just against Dementors, you know,” she continued, but her voice didn’t carry that far and she choked up as she always did when she remembered how little time Severus, and so many of the others now thinking up happy memories, had.

 “He’s worried his would be a worm,” Sirius supplied, to general mirth. Remus didn’t laugh.

“I won’t have one at all,” he kicked against the wall. The past had a way of laying it on thick with the irony. She supposed he had good reason to worry, as a Dark creature

“I won’t either,” Lily said. “I’m not powerful enough, I don’t think.” The past seemed to forget irony was a condiment, not the main ingredient – for all Hermione knew, only Severus, Remus, and Lily would ever cast one at all, and here the two of them were, worried they would fail, and the other one did not even want to try. Not that their Patronuses (Patroni?) could save them from the Killing Curse, Nagini’s bite, and whatever had ended up killing Remus and Tonks, but – well – Hermione needed Severus to know he could cast one, and she kept looking aside to see if Severus had changed his mind and come back.

 “Why? Just because you’re a Muggle-born and you’re a… a prefect? Who cares?” James said, looking, for once in his life, like Harry. “Snivellus left, so you know he can’t. Probably because he doesn’t have any happy memories, he’s in all of them.”

Well, that didn’t last long. “Stop it, James,” Lily said. “Just make your own. Then you can teach me.” A dark cloud passed over James’s face, although Lily, oblivious to it, began practicing the incantation.

Suddenly, Hermione remembered she already knew the spell, and that it would seem odd if she picked it up too quickly. She left and figured maybe she could be the one to teach it to Severus, although the thought that it would take the shape of Lily’s Doe pained her. She didn’t think Lily deserved it.

That thought pained her in a different way, too: It was strange to think that Harry had always aspired to emulate people he never knew, and on top of that, had never existed. And to think that Snape could be inspired enough to cast a Patronus based on the memory of Lily Evans, when they’d apparently fallen out to the point that they pointedly refused to look at one another. She had witnessed Harry explaining to Voldemort that Snape had loved Lily nearly his whole life – what the hell had happened?

She hastened to catch up to Severus, who had made it to the courtyard. “Wait!” She cried after him.

“What, you cast it already?” He said as he kept walking.

“Something like that. Why did you leave?”

“This spell is a waste of time, don’t you think?”

“But... don’t you want to know the form of your Patronus?”

“What sort of inane question is that, Hermione?”

She Supposed he was right, it was rather inane. “Why did you leave, if that spell means so much to you?” He asked her, though his inflection suggested an assertion more than it did a question.

She froze - there was her chance to start explaining everything. But then, he would either not believe her or never forgive her, and either way, she would ruin everything.

“I just - I know you can do it! And also, you left me all alone there!”

“What makes you so sure?” He asked without asking, again. “Isn’t that spell all about happiness and hope and cheer? Not exacting my trademark qualities, these are.”

“Not exactly,” she mumbled, her urge to correct her classmate overriding her discretion.

“Oh, go on! they taught you all in your second year, wispy silver kangaroos everywhere, I expect? And on Tuesday you learned how to tell a werewolf, and then you learned how to block the killing curse and cure the Creeping Rot?”

“Yes, and then we made a philosopher’s stone. No, look. I just read it in a book, okay? It’s more about having faith. And knowing you’re doing the right thing.”

He hastened his step again, his gait such that the end of his robes seemed to chase after him, and he looked to her like a broken arrow.

“Faith and the right thing and funny silver animals floating about? Come on, Hermione, grow up. Like these things can protect you?”

“Alright, then how do you intend to defend yourself against Dementors, then?”

“By not being a weak, childish dunderhead, for one. And not making an enemy of them for another. You know they’re allying with the Dark Lord, right?”

Her time was running out. She would only pass as Seventh-year for so long; even the time turner could not give her that many chances to try. How could he want to join them?!

“Severus, you can’t!” She cried, louder than she had intended, certainly shriller. “You can’t join them, you just can’t!”

“You make a lot of assumptions about me, Granger,” he said, his tone menacing. Back to last name basis, too. Every step she took drove her further from her goal. “I am more interested in finding allies, getting rich, and making a name for myself, than I am interested in... cute animals and ‘doing the right thing’; Perhaps you have not been in Slytherin long enough to lecture me on what I can or can’t do.”

As he spoke, Crookshanks, whom Hermione had brought with her, and whom she had allowed to roam free as he knew Hogwarts like the back of his, er, paw, appeared out of nowhere, jumped into Hermione’s hands and hissed at Severus as she had only seen him hiss at Scabbers the non-rat.

“Severus -don’t-”

“Save it,” he dismissed her, and walked away. The conversation had clearly ended. How had he become so cynical? They may have been Slytherins, but he was still only 17!

“So that ugly cat is yours?” Druidia – but who else - said, coming up from behind Hermione and startling her into an unbecoming yelp. Hermione could swear she had never been this jumpy before… Bellatrix. “Figures,” Druidia went on. “You have a type. Ugly, half-bred losers.”

“I do NOT have a type and he is NOT a loser, and you should pay attention in class like you do other people’s business!”

“Sure, you don’t have a type, and he’s not a loser. That’s why you’re about to cry! Toodles!” Druidia sang as she walked past Hermione toward the exit to the grounds.

"I’m not about to –“

But she was. She really was. Oh no. You don’t like him, not like that, do you, Hermione?