It was the topic of choice in the Common Room that night as they clustered around the fire.
“Do you think something has happened?” Brandon Potter asked as he was forced to relinquish his seat, the closest on to the fire, to Mark. “Maybe Madame Snape has…”
“No, that’s not it,” Mark looked to Kay who had been pacing back and forth across the Common Room ever since they returned from dinner. He was about to tell her to come sit with him, his lap was free after all… but was diverted by the triplets who had just been chased out of the girls’ dorms by an angry mob for setting off dungbombs. Being Head Boy had its definite benefits. Being able to cuff the triplets upside the head was one of them. While not a school wide sanctioned method of discipline, Snape didn’t mind if Mark felt the need to box a few ears in the Slytherin Common Room, especially if said ears belonged to the Messrs. Bulstrode.
“Wish I could thrash them properly…” Mark muttered to himself as he finally was allowed the opportunity to return to his seat, only to find that Brandon was once again in it. He lifted the First Year by his collar and dropped him on the floor.
The serpent house, always self-sufficient out of necessity, was starting to flounder without the strong hand of Severus Snape to guide it. While Mark understood their House Master’s need to be elsewhere, he was getting tired of having to put the younger years in their place all on his own.
“Want to go down to Salazar’s rooms?” a pair of arms snaked around his neck. Kay had finally stopped her pacing.
“Only if you tell me what has you all worked up,” he knew his girlfriend’s quirks, one was that she paced when upset about something.
“Transfiguration essay,” she lied smoothly.
He snorted, “if you don’t want to tell me…”
She shrugged, “just trying to figure out why the rest of the Houses keep staring at us like we all have the dark mark pinned to our robes.”
“Easy, because we’re Slytherins, and you know what that means to them,” Mark shot back bitterly. “Our House is smaller than theirs, but has produced the largest percentage of Death Eaters…” he twirled his wand between his fingers, lucky that the angry sparks that shot from it didn’t singe him, “its unfortunate that he had to take on the serpent as his symbol... you’d think that House associations could be dropped after one graduates. I suppose some people will always associate Slytherin with Voldemort. No matter what we do. I think they’ll always hate us…”
Kay snorted, “they’re ones to talk.” At Mark’s raised eyebrow she shrugged again, “we all have the same history books, and Peter Petigrew is in all of them.”
“Check,” Mark acknowledged.
“It might be ‘mate’ if you follow me down to Salazar’s rooms,” she drawled out. “The Baron won’t be back to check on us again until midnight…”
Unfortunately, what was planned as a private escape did not stay private. Not five minutes after they had descended the spiraling staircase, Marcus, Agrippa, and Posthumous came barreling down after them. It took nearly a half hour for the rest of the house to trickle down. While Mark glowered at them all, put out at losing what was supposed to be a quiet retreat Kay couldn’t help grinning at all the Slytherins clustered together by the fireplace. None of the other Houses would be able to fit all of their members in this room, but Slytherin was small enough.
“I don’t blame them,” she whispered to Mark. “You are the Head Boy, and without Snape checking up on us… you’re the one they turn to.”
Mark snorted in disbelief, but mentally cursed himself for the redness that crept up his neck when he realized how serious the pretty Prefect was. “I’m not their House Master,” he reminded her.
“I know, but you do tend to watch out for us.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek, “no one should be alone.”
“We’re not alone as long as we have each other,” Brandon added, grinning even as Mark cuffed him, “you’ll make an excellent Head of House someday,” he assured the seventh year.
Mark smiled in spite of himself, “game of chess?”
Brandon’s grin, large before, threatened to blind the Head Boy.
“Stay close,” Mark grabbed a hold of Kay as she started to wander away, “I need you to be my cheerleader.”
“You don’t need me, you’ll have him beat in fifteen minutes.”
“I know, but I want a kiss for every one of his pieces I take,” Mark claimed his first one then, not particularly caring that half the serpent house was watching.
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Rome, next weekend,” Dierna informed her father as she leaned against his work station holding the letter in her hand.
“I do have my concerns about you traveling alone,” Severus reminded her. “Eight times counterclockwise,” he instructed as he moved aside and began carefully slicing dandelion roots.
“I can apparate on my own,” she insisted.
“I know you are fully confidant of your own abilities…”
“I’ll be fine...”
“An auror will be accompanying you,” he held up a hand to ward off the outburst that he knew was forthcoming, “only until you arrive at Ptolemy’s lab and for the trip home. You never know where a trap may be laid.”
“I suppose…”
Conversation was still stilted between father and daughter, and so they lapsed into silence while they continued to work. In silence they carried the freshly corked bottles up to Madam Pomphrey, and carefully restocked her supply cabinet.
“Dad…?” Dierna’s voice was strangely high pitched.
“I know,” he answered her unspoken question quietly, “if a siege occurred now, we would lose more people to relatively minor injuries than as direct casualties.” There was no denying, the supply cabinet was alarmingly bare, and growing more so quickly.
The only healing potions they could continue to create were well stocked, but everything else… Even certain food items were starting to become scarce. “Why aren’t the other wizarding governments helping us?” Dierna carefully closed and latched the cabinet.
“Because they see us as a liability,” Severus was bluntly honest. Morgan had always, at least as much as he allowed, been his confidant. She still was. But, he recognized in Dierna enough of himself to be more open than he would normally allow. Besides, as tense as things still were between them, it was one more thing to give his mind a momentary break from dwelling on his own dark thoughts.
“But if they helped us…” Dierna frowned, “wouldn’t it benefit them in the end?”
“Not if they see our cause as a lost one,” Eric rasped as he pulled aside the curtain that hung around his bed. “Not everyone operates on the same set of morals as the idealistic young.”
Dierna scowled at what she was sure was a slight to her intelligence. She was capable of understanding that people, especially ones who were in government, could be less than humane.
“I meant no harm by that,” Eric noticed Dierna’s dark look. “It is merely something that I have had the opportunity to observer many times in the life that I have led. It happened when the last two times Voldemort has threatened us, it happened before there was a Voldemort. War brings out the best in some people, it creates heroes,” he gave Severus the slightest nod at that pronouncement, “it brings out the worst in most. Especially those who are driven by monetary goals, and their own self interests. There is not a single government that is not driven by monetary goals or self interest. Especially one as corrupt as our own.”
“Then who do we rely on for help?” Dierna looked back and forth between the two men.
“Ourselves,” Eric finally answered.
“You should return to your Common Room, it is late,” Severus broke the tense silence that had followed Eric’s reply.
Dierna nodded her acquiescence and said her goodnights, including a brief stop to see her mother, before leaving the Hospital Wing.
“You should return to your Common Room as well.”
“It has been a long time…” Severus reflected.
“Far too long, at least if what the Baron tells me is true. Go on Severus, an old man like me doesn’t need company. Well, your company at least,” he admitted as he watched Poppy cross the room, a slight smile playing at his lips. He managed to draw his eyes away from the nurse, “they need you more than I do at the moment.”
Severus snorted, although he knew that the older wizard was right. After making his own stop by his wife’s bedside he began making his way down to the dungeons. He gave the password to the unmarked space of stone wall that marked the entrance to the Common Room. And it was empty.
He frowned. His initial reaction was a certain level of disappointment. He had been looking forward to seeing his Slytherins, especially as he was finally feeling capable of being there for them. But, that quickly passed as it sank in that it was past curfew and not a single one of them was present. Giving them the benefit of the doubt he walked up and down the hallway of student rooms. Every dorm was empty. He returned to the Common Room, where the only sign of life was the crackling fire. His only company the tapestries…
His eyes narrowed. They wouldn’t dare… Of course the secret had been left with Miss Parkinson, so perhaps they would. He descended the spiral staircase much faster than his students did, his anger growing exponentially as the sound of Slytherin voices came to him from below. Voices that were far too happy and relaxed to suggest that they had ever used the retreat for its intended purpose.
He made his entrance silently and merely stood in the doorway watching. It took several moments for the first student to realize that their House Master was there, and when she did her face drained of all color before she quickly leapt to her feet, pulling her closest housemate with her. It took only a few more seconds after that for every one of the Slytherins to be lined up before their Head of House, who loomed, terrible and angry, above them.
“I would ask what you have to say for yourselves,” he murmured in a soft, deadly whisper, that nevertheless sounded louder than shouting ever could, “but I sincerely doubt that it would be worth my time to hear your pathetic excuses.” He walked up and down the line of students, making sure that every one of them knew his displeasure. Besides being intimidating, it gave him a chance to finish putting his own thoughts in order. “I think that instead of listening to excuses, I shall have you follow me upstairs, where I’ll flog the lot of you!”
Before he could make good on that threat, which he had every intention of doing, one green clothed student burst out of line and flung her arms around him. “Oh Professor! You’re back!” Kay was smiling with much more joy than she had in months. After that the flood gates opened. The rest of the students poured out of line and swamped their Head of House, each one trying to cling to him, or offer some happy remark that he was feeling well enough to threaten their hides again.
“ENOUGH!!!” Snape pushed the grinning Slytherins away from him, crossing his arms over his chest to glare at them. It was a bit of a shock to find that he no longer had to glare down at Mr. McKean, whom he was ready to hold fully responsible for all Slytherin misdeeds that had occurred in the past months. The young man was now just as tall as he was.
“It’s good to see you too, sir,” Mark assured him.
Snape glowered at the miscreants, who were still grinning at him. His voice was low and velvety as he issued the order, “every one of you will be upstairs lined up by the time I reach the Common Room.” It was evidence of how well disciplined they had been before Snape’s recent absence that not one Slytherin hesitated before flinging themselves away from their Head of House and either up the stairs or into the room of paintings to make a quicker escape. “Not you,” Snape caught Kay by the ear and followed up the stairs at a slower rate, dragging the unfortunate prefect behind him. “You will find, Miss Parkinson, that discretion is something that I value very highly. You disappoint me.” Kay’s eyes flooded at that, their Head’s disappointment was the harshest of punishments. But, being the good Slytherin that she was she made sure that no tears fell.
“Sir,” Kay finally ventured to speak about halfway up the never-ending staircase, “what are you going to do with us?” she hated to ask, but had to. She’d never seen the professor this angry before… well… almost never… but never at the whole House and never with her in particular. She expected to be ordered back into silence, and so was surprised when she received an answer.
“I am going to cane every single one of you.”
A well-controlled temper never being one of her strong points Kay let out a derisive snort, “and what about you sir?” she snapped. Immediately regretting the tone when her ear was given a particularly violent tug and she was brought to a halt.
“What did you say?” it was the deadly whisper again.
However, this time Kay wasn’t backing down. Momentarily freed from his iron grasp she took a step back so that she could look her House Master full in the face, “and what happens to you for leaving us to our own resources for so long? A lot of them are orphans, in case you’ve forgotten. And for many of the rest of us… our parents are as good as dead… you, sir, are all we have left, and then you abandoned us.” She kept her voice low and even during her speech, but couldn’t quite keep the hurt and feelings of betrayal from her eyes.
The two Slytherins stood and stared at each other for a long time, mirroring each other’s posture, arms crossed, feet placed, firmly, slightly apart, neither one breaking eye contact. If it had come down to a true test of power, the Prefect wouldn’t have stood a chance. But this was a question of honor. “I know I broke my word,” the girl added, “and I am sorry I betrayed your trust, but I am not sorry that in doing so I provided my House with someplace to go when we were lonely. In case you haven’t noticed, the rest of the school ostracizes us already, we don’t need you doing the same thing.”
“You would do well in a Ministry position, if it is ever cleared of infiltrators, Miss Parkinson, you have a strange talent for manipulation.”
“Is that a compliment, sir?”
“It means that none of your Housemates will be punished for what I observed tonight.”
Kay raised an eyebrow, noticing that she had been left out of the not-to-be-punished group. When that didn’t get a response she asked about it flat out.
Snape rolled his eyes heavenward, “I suppose you may count yourself lucky that I am in a forgiving mood. But if I ever catch a single Slytherin down there again,” he pointed back down the stairs meaningfully, “I will know whom to blame.”
“Point taken sir. May I make the rest of the walk up without being dragged along?”
The rest of the Slytherins were comforted to hear their House Master’s laugh precede him and Kay up the stairs. It had a twofold meaning: first, that they had happily escaped chastisement at the formidable hand of Severus Snape, and second, that their Head of House would not be leaving them alone for any extended period in the foreseeable future. It was oddly comforting to know that they could no longer get away with anything they pleased. Mark was especially happy that he no longer had to keep the Bulstrode triplets in order. He didn’t see how Snape handled them.
~~~~~~~~~~
