Valley of the Shadow: Act III

“Now, then,” Horace asked, settling himself comfortably into his favorite armchair—the aubergine, not the bottle-green one he was obliged to keep to make his more House-proud students comfortable. “You said last night you meant to go over the student files; how—what is it, m’boy? You look puzzled.”

“I know you had a desk,” Severus declared, looking around Horace’s office in confusion. “I remember staring at it for hours while you lectured me about what Sirius Black did to the ceiling when we both attended your club. Wasn’t it black walnut?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve got it in here,” Horace agreed airily, patting the little drawer in the side-table. “But I don’t think we shall need it today, do you?”

“I’ve no idea,” Severus said, looking at him as if he’d grown a third eye and lowering himself into a corner of the silvered-charcoal sofa instead of the green chair.

Horace was surprised about that, but he approved. The sofa was immeasurably the more comfortable of the two, and it made Severus’s dull clothes stand out like a still pool on a grey day. The chair would have turned them to mud.

Horace wondered whether to send his congratulations to the Rosier boy or the delightful young Malfoy bride, but made no mention of it. It was possible, and even probable, that Severus simply found armchairs confining and hadn’t thought about how to use the colors to best effect at all. “Well, no matter, no matter. I was asking you how far you’d got.”

“Never started,” Severus admitted, the truculent tilt to his jaw screaming out a refusal to be embarrassed or make excuses.

“Well, I am surprised,” Horace said gently—he was, in fact, but that wasn’t the point. “I didn’t require it of you, of course, but you sounded so determined to make a start.”

“I was,” Severus agreed ruefully. “But to be perfectly honest, Professor, I barely made it to my rooms before falling asleep. I have some recollection of opening the file and looking at words, but I don’t believe that a completed process of reading happened.”

Horace paused, though he knew he’d regret it. “A completed process?” he had to ask.

“Steps in reading,” Severus explained, looking embarrassed, “including exposing words to view, viewing them, comprehending them, and, ideally, placing them into a larger context and fastening them into memory. I’m not entirely sure whether steps three or four happened, but step five most certainly did not.”

After a moment, Horace’s quizzical look forced him to explain, “Yesterday was a very long one.”

When Horace just kept looking, he elaborated, “They kept us at Customs for hours because the Ministry was aware that vampires were on my itinerary, and then... I don’t think I can describe it properly, but coming back into Britain was like… like walking in sleet without a wand or umbrella for hours and the moment you’re back indoors in the warm and suddenly you realize how cold you’d been telling yourself you weren’t, and how much it took out of you.” Which was the damnedest way of describing homesickness Horace had ever heard of. “And then that meeting…”

He didn’t quite shudder, but Horace almost did. “The less said about that the better, I think, m’lad,” he agreed, not unsympathetically.

“And,” Severus complained, taking him at his word, “our guide kicked up the most confounded fuss when we left.”

“Oh? Why was that?” If someone he was responsible for had managed to create an actual international incident, best he knew at once.

“Damned if I know,” Severus said, looking genuinely lost.  He didn’t apologize  to his Head of House for his language, which told Horace something—although he wouldn’t, of course, be too quick off the mark to decide what. “He had some kind of a tantrum at Rosier—called him all sorts of names and said he’d heard about the British Museum and it was just like a heartless English pig-dog to hog everything good that really meant things to other people, and he didn’t stop until his mum showed up and threatened to take all the skin off his back. And Ev—Rosier couldn’t stop laughing long enough to helpme at Customs, even though they were ten times more likely to listen to him than me, and no one would explain.”

Horace stared at him through pained eyes.

The Rosier-Snape alliance had been one of the best-kept nonsecrets in Slytherin during their last years. Perhaps the best-kept: while little Rabastan Lestrange had been discreet while stepping out with his roommate’s inamorato, his discretion had been purely a matter of politeness. Barty’s boy had openly declared that he was a free agent, had made every effort to be seen publicly with everyone including Lestrange who would be seen with him, and overall had made very few bones about hoping the Lockhart lad would take a hint.

Dear Lucius and Narcissa had been positively secretive by contrast, and only by contrast. They had been perfect examples of decorum and certainly never been caught up the astronomy tower, but largely because they’d been four years apart. As far as anyone knew, they very properly hadn’t started seeing each other until Lucius had been out of school several years. He’d squired her about Hogsmeade quite openly.

Rosier and Snape had also, apparently, never once been so much as caught snogging as students. Which was fascinating, since the elves informed Horace they’d tied their bloody beds together three years running and Rosier was reputed to believe he hadn’t studied properly unless he’d left chin-marks on Snape’s shoulder.

The shoulder-studying had struck Horace as overly demonstrative for a lad of Rosier’s background, but he’d quite approved of their joining their beds. There was always the potential for spurts of passive-aggressive spitefulness to flare up in Slytherin dormitories, but when you had personalities like Snape and Mulciber caught up in one room the situation could easily become chronic. And when one of those personalities had a mountain of muscle who was pleased to take orders and the other had fast reflexes, an excellent and sullen memory fueled by far too many books, and a viciously overpowered wand arm with no compunctions about dropping said wand in favor of gouging out eyes…

Horace had started to worry by the middle of the boys’ first year that the situation could turn truly dangerous. He hadn’t thought it outside the realms of possibility that, by the time they were all ready to graduate, it might have turned deadly. Albus had been so bloody certain that he was overreacting, but by the time Horace had nearly decided he was going to have to (shudder) Do Something, Narcissa Black did it instead. And suddenly Snape had a friend in the room where he slept.

In a situation like that, Horace didn’t care what they got up to. As long as he didn’t have to tell Snape’s parents that a classmate had killed the boy in his sleep, and didn’t have to tell Rosier’s parents their heir was caught in Snape and Mulciber’s cross-fire or involved in a pregnancy, he considered that all was well. Or, at least, as well as could be expected. And he’d asked the elves to warn him if the boys ever untied their beds, and they never, ever had.

And yet they’d never sat together at meals, or in classes. They’d spoken coolly and formally to each other in public, and casually in the Common Room, and shouted furiously at each other quite normally at Quidditch practice. Just like any other pair of Slytherin boys. There had been two months when they’d both seemed shaken, and kept close even outside the dungeons, but in seven years that was all they’d showed the other Houses.

In view of this odd restraint, Horace refrained from asking whether Severus thought it at all possible that he’d made a little conquest on the Continent, and just sympathized, “How very vexing,” while pushing his box of crystalized ginger across the table.

“I felt sorry for his mother, primarily,” Severus said candidly, pretending not to notice the ginger. “It’s my understanding that she’s a very well-respected war hero, but everyone seemed to think it quite normal for her to have to run after her son and stop him making an unprompted spectacle of himself.”

Horace’s hand stopped halfway to the pineapple. “And which side was she on in the war?” he asked.

Severus gave him the you-have-three-eyes look again. “Er… on the side of not too many people in her city being killed, outraged, or thrown into prison, Professor.”

“I should keep up that acquaintance, if I were you,” Horace advised him, continuing his reach for the pineapple.

“She is a quite remarkable and experienced witch,” Severus conceded warily, and then added as if someone had kicked him, “and of course I appreciate that she is doubtless well-connected.”

“Doubtless, doubtless,” Horace echoed placidly, popping a crisp and chewy piece of fruit into his mouth. “But I meant with the son, Severus. It’s occurred to me since last night that you could do with some instruction in the fine old art of letting yourself be underestimated.”

Severus shot him an annoyed look, but didn’t bother to say I thought we weren’t talking about last night out loud. He did say, “While, after several weeks in his company, I don’t consider that Mr. Karkaroff is quite so clownish a clod as his countrymen seem to think him, I do believe that the light he’s hiding under his bushel is of quite ordinary lumination.”

Horace wagged a finger at him. “What he is or isn’t isn’t relevant, m’lad. The way he presents himself has left him able to safely throw tantrums that would have serious repercussions for other people.”

Severus sat back and blinked. Looking thoughtful, he asked, “Isn’t that on account of his mother?”

“Oh, connections never hurt,” Horace agreed. “But it’s one thing not to have your foibles prosecuted, and another to have them dismissed under the umbrella of ‘oh, that’s just his way.’”

Severus shot him a startled, speculative look.

“Do try the ginger, Severus, I’m sure you’d like it.”

“On no account,” Severus retorted, continuing to eyeball him.

Which was silly but, in context, flattering, so Horace just chuckled. “Now, as to the files—why on earth did you want them so badly?”

This particular stare was of the I have just been asked why the sky is blue and not by a three-year-old variety. “Well,” Severus said slowly, “because I should like to minimize my missteps.”

“But, my dear boy, why do you think that my assessments would help you to, er, minimize your missteps, as you put it? I’ve never had the impression that we thought about people in particularly the same way.” He selected another piece of pineapple, regarded it thoughtfully—a very nice little crust of sugar there, yes, indeed—and chewed it. “To say the least.”

“Perhaps not,” Severus conceded, very carefully indeed. “But the observations of others, taken in an attitude of appropriate cri—that is, those observations are most useful when one is familiar with the observer and their bia—the general trend of their thou—opinions.”

“Severus,” Horace instructed kindly, “repeat after me, will you? ‘I know what we disagree about.’ There’s a lad.”

“But it’s not about agreement,” Severus disagreed earnestly. “Our differences are about valuation, aren’t they?”

Now it was Horace’s turn to look at him blankly. “Do explain the distinction, m’boy.”

“Well, take Regulus Black,” Severus suggested. “I don’t think we disagree about him, fundamentally. He’s on the bright side of normal intelligence, earnest, hardworking, easily flustered, devoted to his family, generous, easily led, wealthy, well-placed, and without any driving ambition except to do well at what’s asked of him by those he cares about. What would you add or disagree with?”

“Well,” Horace said thoughtfully, “I think I would add that he’s a very good-looking lad. Tall, you know, dresses well but not fussily. That’s a great advantage to a young man.”

To Horace’s shock, Severus very nearly smiled. It was an edgeless expression Horace didn’t recall ever seeing on him before. “And that’s just what I mean. You think first about what people’s available tools are. But the overlap between that question and the question of ‘who are they as people,’ which is to say, what are the motivations and what style of behavior may be expected, is very great indeed. It’s often the very same information, viewed from a different angle. For example, rather than ‘he’s good-looking and that’s an advantage,’ I might have said that he’s anxious to look well and look acceptable, and is less conscious than others in his family of the effects of his natural appearance. He’s less likely to use his looks consciously as a weapon, but he’s not so humble about them as to be delusional.   He cannot be upset by accusations of ugliness, which he would know to be untrue, as he can by being informed that he is poorly groomed or dressed wrongly for an occasion.”

“I think I do see what you mean,” Horace allowed, thoughtfully taking another pineapple.   He wasn’t, at least so far, so vexed by the interview as to treat himself with the best and sweetest; they could still be saved for last. And it was so important to sort through and make the selection without looking unrefined and making one’s fingers mucky.

Not to mention that certain people needed instruction in patience, or hospitality, or status symbols, or indulgence, or all four together with the addition of manners and quite possibly the biological action of consuming solids. He urged, “Oh, do have some tea, at least.”

“We just came from breakfast,” Severus pointed out helplessly.

“Which you didn’t eat, m’boy,” Horace wagged a finger at him. “I don’t want Poppy Pomfrey coming after me on your account, thank you.”

“Because you already know what that’s like?” Severus inquired with a sardonic flick of his eyebrow. He didn’t even let it sink in, much less give Horace time to respond, before he returned to the other conversation. “In any case, yes, I think it’s a matter of… of translation, more than of agreeing or not. And, of course we do draw different conclusions from evidence we agree on. As it’s your House, it’s important I should know what those conclusions will be.”

“Such as?” Horace asked dutifully.

“Well,” Severus said thoughtfully, “I’m not sure I wouldn’t have made Regulus a prefect, in your place. As I think I remarked at the time, none of the other options were any better. But you selected him almost automatically because of his family, didn’t you, sir?”

“The trouble with meritocracies,” Horace explained, pouring him tea anyway, “is that merit is such a subjective measure. Even when someone’s qualities simply shine for all to see, most people tend to think themselves deserving of opportunities they want, and they will argue and make trouble. It stops things getting done. And, you know, Severus, your own experience will show you that it hardly matters who gets the prestige of a position.”

“But that’s not true at all!” Severus burst out, scowling passionately. “No one would have listened to me for a moment if your authority—the approval and support of the adult-in-charge—hadn’t gone to my allies. The person with ‘the prestige of a position’ also has the power of delegation, and the power to approve or disapprove behavior with the force of the institution behind them. They’ve been deputized. When you appoint a prefect, you’re saying ‘This person speaks for the school, they represent Slytherin, Hogwarts is behind them.’ It makes their decisions and their opinions close enough to official as makes no difference.”

Horace nudged the tea at him pointedly.

“Appointing Regulus was cruelty,” Severus pressed on, ignoring the cup, “but it was also approval of his personality and his moderation, and therefore, given the other options, I’d agree it was necessary cruelty. But you would also have appointed his brother over Rosier, wouldn’t you, if he’d been Slytherin? Just for being a Black. And then you would have been approving his bullying and his so-called sense of humor, as well as his All Dark Magic Is Black Magic opinions. You would have appointed Mulciber if his family had more standing than Rosier’s.”

“My dear Severus,” Horace said, trying not to sound pitying with a boy who exhaled pride with every breath, “there is a difference between approval and acknowledging the inevitable.”

“There’s no such thing as inevitable,” Severus said flatly with burning eyes that weren’t serpentine in the least. “Not if you catch things early enough. You encouraged Bellatrix Lestrange to think—no, I beg your pardon, she already thought it, but you encouraged her belief that she is a special person of whom everyone who matters will always approve. You encouraged Luke Malfoy to think he can get away with whatever the hell he wants as long as he puts on the right face.”

“But, Severus, she is and he can,” Horace said patiently, taking up his own tea. “She’s a beautiful, forceful, charming, wealthy, self-possessed, and well-connected young lady. He’s a good-looking young man who knows what he wants, knows how to talk to people, and knows how to make money work and speak for him. What use would it be to be the only one denying approval the world will heap on them in haystacks? School is meant to be training for later life, you know.”

Severus gaped at him in outrage.

“Now, Sirius Black and Meredith Mulciber are quite different cases,” Horace went on, shaking his head sadly. “I’m afraid neither of them, talented boys though they both are, possesses the happy gift of… how shall I put it…”

“Having themselves dismissed under the umbrella of ‘that’s just his way’?” Severus asked dryly.

“Oh, dear me, no, Sirus Black has that in spades, as you well know,” Horace shook his head, reaching over to pat Severus’s hand sympathetically. “Let’s say, rather, of convincing others that everything they do is both normal and proper.”

“…I don’t think Luke has that,” said Severus, more dryly yet.

“Well, perhaps not to the ultimate degree,” Horace conceded. “But even those who complain of him the most never try to say he isn’t respectable.”

Severus sat back, crossed his arms, and looked very hard at him. It was a considering look, a dissecting one, and far more comfortable to receive than most of the ones Horace had got while trying to teach Potions to the younger Snape.

He still had to reach for another pineapple to break it up.

“I think I see,” Severus said finally. There was judgment in his tone, but it was judgment contained.

Horace didn’t think Severus really wanted a follow-up question, so he had to ask one. “What do you see, m’boy?”

“You’re a Tory,” Severus said, still with that contained-judgment in his voice and that expressionless face, “and you feel that school’s role is to train people to… to accept and to act at the social level they’re destined for.”

“What’s a Tory?” Horace asked.

Severus waged a dismissive hand. “Desperately simplified, philosophically a supporter of the oli—the gentry.”

“Muggle slang?” he asked shrewdly.

“Political party dating from Charles II,” Severus said, dry again. “It may have qualified as ‘slang’ in the 1660s.”

“Ah,” said Horace, who had dreaded requests to help students with their History revision, back when students still expected him to help them revise. It was so dreadfully dull. “Well, I’m not sure I should put it quite like that, m’boy. Only, there are those who can rise and do well in the world, and those who can successfully plug along in quiet ways, and those who can’t help but make trouble.”

“There’s different sorts of trouble, though,” Severus pointed out, “some of it constructive. And those who can rise and do well will certainly make trouble for others if they’re not taught…” he thought a moment, and shrugged. “If not taught responsibility, and what it means, and how to take it.”

“To be Head of Slytherin is to be a kingmaker, Severus,” Horace told him gently. “It’s not a simple job, and oughtn’t to be. Complex matters always want discernment and judgment.”

“And you wonder why I wanted your notes?” Severus asked. He was still being dry, but now there was an amused glitter about his eyes.

“Very good, very good,” Horace chuckled appreciation for the flattery, which Severus had made sound perfectly sincere without either overdoing it or trying to pretend that Horace’s argument had changed his mind.   He took another pineapple with a better appreciation for its tangy sweetness. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to spend the morning on them, though. Do you think you can do an inventory of the stores and familiarize yourself with the first week’s syllabus by noon?”

“It depends how thorough an inventory you want,” Severus said warily.

“Cautious beast,” Horace smiled. “I should like you to know where everything is and how much we have of it. You should also begin to develop your understanding of the replenishment schedule, but I don’t expect you to have all the expiry dates memorized today, of course!”

“Am I permitted parchment?” Severus asked. Really, if he didn’t stop being so arid all the time, Horace would have to press tea on him rather more forcefully.

“Certainly, m’boy, you may use any system you like only,” he wagged his finger again, “don’t go upending any of mine, if you’d be so good.”

“In that case, do you need me to be done by noon? It would be most efficient to take good notes and do the thing once. But I doubt if four hours will be enough, considering how comprehensive the school’s stores are.”

Horace considered. “Well, I shall leave it to your judgment, Severus, but keep in mind that I do want the project completed today. We’ve an appointment for lunch, and I couldn’t say how long it will go. The afternoon’s project shouldn’t take until supper unless we have to start quite late, but it will take some time and really, m’boy, if you want to look at those files…”

Severus stood. “I ought to get started at once, then. Is there a particular elf I ought to call on for Potions business—to ask for supplies, and so on?”

“No, no, just snap your fingers four times and someone will turn up,” Horace assured him.

He got a funny look. “Four times?”

“It’s very rare for anyone to go above three by accident, or out of temper,” he explained.

“Well, let’s be sure they know to turn up for me while you’re present,” Severus said—dryly, and Horace was not getting accustomed to it. He snapped, and the elf with the nose like a small courgette popped in. “Ah, good. Twilsey, a hard-backed notebook and a dictaquill, please.”

Horace didn’t know whether he or the elf was more surprised that Severus knew its name on sight, but he seemed to have got it right. “And fetch Master Snape a pot of a chilled tisane, there’s a good chap. You can bring them all to the potions storeroom.”

“Professor,” Severus started, exasperated.

“It’s stuffy and dusty in there, Severus, and it is still August, after all.”

“Barely. Technically. This is a stone castle.”

“You’ll want it, I assure you. And you do seem so dreadfully dehydrated.” Severus eyed him suspiciously—aptly, for once—but Horace ignored him, pressing, “Mint? Basil, maybe?”

Severus gave up, and told the elf, “Both, but in a lemon shrub, please, not,” he glared at Horace as if he’d never traveled off the British Isles in his life, “a cold tea.”

Horace smiled affably. “Now do recall, you’re not to do any dusting or replace the labels or anything of that sort. Save all that for detentions.”

“May I spell the glass blue and amber?” Severus asked dismally. “You know it would delay expiration.”

“I do know, Severus,” he agreed placatingly, “but we want the students to learn what ingredients look like. It’s such a help to them when they’re buying their own.   And it isn’t as if there’s a window in the storeroom.”

Severus sighed, and told the elf, “I think that’s all for the moment, then.”

“Twilsey will bring the things to the storeroom directly, Severus Snape,” the thing squeaked, and popped out as silently as he’d come.

“Keys? Wards?”

“Oh, we’ll set up that sort of thing this afternoon,” Horace assured him. “Meet me at the gates at noon sharp, now. And Severus?”

“Bubblehead charm?”

“Dress nicely for lunch, will you?”

Severus’s eyes widened—just a touch, but noticeably. “I didn’t think Professor Dumbledore so formal,” he said, but it was really a rather worried question.

“Oh, we’re not meeting the Headmaster,” Horace assured him, and then reconsidered. “Not as such.”

“But that means he’s still expecting me now!” Severus cried, with more than a hint of accusation. He pelted to the door, racing-broom speed from the first step. His flapping summer mantle nearly got caught in the slamming door, and certainly would have had it been cloak-length.

After a moment to recover from the shock, Horace told the closed door, “I should be happy to write you a note if you like, Mr. Snape,” and snickered—not wholly unkindly, surely—into his teacup.