He ignored the sudden hammering of his heart and said, with all the cool disdain he could muster, "Yes, Potter. Your father was one of them."
The brat's eyes fell. Here it came тАУ the look of contempt or revulsion. The demand to know what Snape had done to incur the elder Potter's enmity. The implication тАУ or perhaps explicit statement? тАУ that such feelings must have been deserved, and therefore Snape was obviously an inappropriate guardian for James Potter's only son.
But instead when they slowly rose, Harry's eyes were wet with unshed tears. "I'm really sorry, Professor. I'm sorry my dad was a bully. He must have been awful, just like my cousin, to pick on you like that."
There was a roaring in Snape's ears. It was incredible. Unbelievable.
If anyone had asked the younger Severus Snape for his fondest wish, it would have been for James Potter and Sirius Black to beg his forgiveness on bended knee. But suddenly Snape saw that for the dross it would have been.
How much better, how much more ineffably sweet, to have the man's only son apologize on his behalf, repudiating his father in the bargain. Now this was truly a Slytherin's revenge тАУ and to make matters even better, he hadn't even had to manipulate the brat to extract it. He had, if anything, taken the moral high road. And still he got his apology. Truly, nothing that could possibly top this moment.
He reveled in the inexpressible satisfaction of the moment, the unutterable sweetness of his revenge, before managing to veil his emotions and nod briefly to the boy. "Apology accepted, Mr Potter." He even managed to add, "Do not think too harshly of your father; boys do foolish things."
"You didn't."
Snape choked and nearly swallowed his own tongue. "What?"
"You didn't gang up on anybody when you were at Hogwarts," Harry said angrily. "You didn't bully anyone. You don't have to pretend my father was something better than he was."
"Potter," Snape struggled awkwardly for words. Suddenly he didn't feel so morally superior. He was, after all, the one who allowed some childish bullying to drive him into the arms of the Dark Lord and commit atrocities a thousand times worse than anything Potter and Black had done to him. "We all do foolish things. Some more foolish than others. You just тАУ you just need to try not to harm others by your actions."
Harry's eyes held both tears and fierceness. "I would never hurt anyone like that. I'm going to protect people from bullies, not become one."
Snape felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. And so it beginsтАж
TBC...
*Chapter 5*: Chapter 5
Harry's eyes held both tears and fierceness. "I would never hurt anyone like that. I'm going to protect people from bullies, not become one."
Snape felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. And so it beginsтАж
Snape dismissed the boy back to his Tower not long after that declaration. Anything else would be anti-climactic. He had informed Potter that after his last class on the following day, he was to report to the dungeons so that the two of them could join Mr and Mrs Weasley for dinner. "Wear your best clothes, Potter," he had instructed. "You need to make a good impression."
Just because he knew that nothing short of a rabid hippogriff would keep Molly Weasley from fostering the child was no reason for Potter to be complacent. The boy had nodded obediently to that, as well as to the repeated command not to mention anything to any of the Weasley boys. It would be up to the parents to decide what and how to tell their brood, and Snape wasn't about to have Potter spill the news prematurely.
The next day, his own classes ended early after a third year Hufflepuff managed to produce a cloud of poisonous gas instead of the Blood Replenishment potion he had assigned. He still wasn't certain exactly what the idiotic girl had done, but he suspected that she'd been too busy eyeing the Ravenclaw boy at the next bench to actually select the right ingredients, let alone combine them in the proper order. No matter, the fumigation spells would clear the air by morning, and only three of the students had ended up at Poppy's.
Snape used the unexpected leisure time to lurk about the Quidditch pitch. The Gryffindor and Slytherin first years were having their first flying lesson with Madame Hooch, and Snape was eager to see if there was any new talent for the House team. The Potter brat's being there was merely a coincidence, he told himself. The fact that Potter had been raised by Muggles and would likely fall off the broom and break something had nothing to do with him. Just because he was now the boy's guardian didn't mean he was expected to, well, guard the boy. Hooch was in charge of teaching flying and it was her responsibility to ensure that none of her students were injured.
Not that she did a very good job, Snape reminded himself darkly, but that was Potter's problem, not his. He was there to look for Slytherin talent, not to protect some Gryffindor brat. The fact that he had his wand in his hand and a cushioning charm on his lips was merely coincidence.
Sure enough, the lesson had barely begun when that plump nitwit Longbottom promptly broke something. Obviously his ineptitude for potions was the rule, not the exception. And Voldemort insisted that purebloods were superior? Obviously the Dark Lord needed to spend some time teaching at a magical boarding school. That would cause him to revise his theory of eugenics pretty quickly.
Hooch hustled the crying boy off to the Infirmary, ordering the remaining students to wait quietly for her return. Ah yes, that was likely to happen, Snape sneered. Take a class full of young dunderheads, give them some broomsticks, remove all adult supervision, and expect them to sit politely. How rational. And the Headmaster rebuked him for his methods of maintaining classroom order.
Maybe if Hooch had beaten a few of them with their own broomsticks before departing, she might have had a hope of being obeyed, but Snape rather doubted it. Sure enough, it took just a few seconds for hostilities to break out, and тАУ perhaps unsurprisingly тАУ it was Malfoy who started it.
Snape's eyebrows drew together. That spoiled little horror. The first day, after the Feast, he had delivered his usual lecture to his entire House about not embarrassing the Slytherin name. He directed his usual, particularly menacing glares at the first years, but at the time, he'd suspected that Draco's arrogance would cause him to require additional persuasion that the rules did in fact apply to him. Now, here was the proof.
The only surprising aspect was that Malfoy's opponent in the conflict was Potter. Snape would have expected it to be Weasley тАУ who better for a pureblood to taunt than an alleged blood traitor тАУ but perhaps Draco couldn't resist taking on the famous Boy Who Lived.
Snape was too far away to hear what the argument was about, but it was obvious that for all his timidity and past abuse, Potter was holding his own against the blond Slytherin. Then, abruptly, the argument escalated and suddenly Draco was airborne and тАУ no! That disobedient little brat! тАУ Potter was somehow in the air beside him. More than that, he was keeping up.
Snape blinked. To his certain knowledge, Draco Malfoy had been receiving special tutelage in flying since his sixth birthday, and now Potter, in what had to be his first time ever on a broomstick, was matching him.
Damn. Snape hated to admit it, but perhaps the brat had inherited something worthwhile from that prat Potter after all. What's more, if he enjoyed flying, then that was one more thing that could be withheld for punishment. Snape smirked at the thought of having another hold over the boy.