Work Text:
SNARRY
A short wizarding play.
Setting: A cottage in the English countryside, where SEVERUS SNAPE has been located by the Ministry of Magic’s witness protection program. He sits at his dinner table reading the Daily Prophet. It has been several years since the death of Lord Voldemort. All is well.
Enter HARRY POTTER, the boy who lived.
HARRY: (knocking awkwardly on the open door, holding a steaming casserole) Ah. Hi there. Hi.
SNAPE lowers the newspaper and folds it in half, stares at HARRY.
SNAPE: ...Potter.
HARRY: Yeah. Mind if I come in? I brought casserole.
SNAPE continues to stare at him.
HARRY: I made it myself, actually. It’s probably a bit rubbish.
SNAPE: What are you doing here?
HARRY: (entering the cottage, setting the casserole down on the table) I thought you died. At the battle of Hogwarts. I definitely...told everyone that was the case.
SNAPE: What. Are you doing here?
HARRY: But the other day, at the ministry, I heard Kingsley Shacklebolt mention your name. I thought he was just reminiscing, but when I brought you up, he got pretty shifty.
SNAPE: Shacklebolt.
HARRY: So I just kept pestering him, and he let it slip that you’ve been in hiding for the last nineteen years. In Sussex. Don’t you get lonely?
SNAPE: Get out of my house.
HARRY: (sitting down opposite him) You died. I was there.
SNAPE: Clearly, added age and experience has not made you any less of an oblivious imbecile than you were when you were a child.
HARRY: And living like a hermit hasn’t made you any less bitter and awful!
A beat.
HARRY: How did you survive?
SNAPE: ...Potter, did you truly believe that I, an experienced potion master and supposed right hand man to the Dark Lord for several decades, do not carry with me at all times a small vial of antidote to snake venom? Or that I do not possess the ability to close and heal lacerations on the neck with a flick of the wand?
HARRY: I -
SNAPE: You saw, with your own eyes, my capacity to heal serious damage when I mended the afflictions you caused Draco Malfoy with my own sectumsempra curse. On several occasions throughout your miserable schooling career, you witnessed me create and make use of several antidotes and poisons. You yourself stole from my store cupboard to take gillyweed, and yet failed to notice my walls and walls of potions?
HARRY: Well -
SNAPE: And in despite of all this, after saying your goodbyes and taking my most precious memory before leaving me unconscious, you assumed that I was killed by a snake bite?
HARRY: Have some casserole.
SNAPE: Not only does your idiocy continue to amaze me, Potter, your gall to track me down and bother me with your inane questions leaves me asking myself whether it really was worth the losing the best of my life protecting you from the Dark Lord.
HARRY: Thanks for that by the way. That’s sort of why I’m here. After I saw....everything in the pensieve, I had a lot that I wanted to talk to you about, but thought I’d never be able to.
SNAPE: Why you would think I would want to talk to you escapes me.
HARRY: Thanks. For saving my behind. A lot.
A beat. They both look uncomfortable.
SNAPE: Your gratitude is noted.
HARRY: Although you didn’t really have to be such a git about it.
SNAPE opens the casserole dish and accios a plate and cutlery for himself.
SNAPE: Goodbye, Mr. Potter.
HARRY: I guess it makes sense in retrospect. I’ve thought about it a lot, you know. The way you took out your hatred for my dad on me. I know I look like him, and all, but after everything I’ve learnt about him, I don’t think I’m much like him. Maybe more like my mum. I don’t know.
SNAPE: You are more similar to a overly talkative flobberworm.
HARRY: You really loved my mum.
SNAPE: I am not going to talk to you about Lily.
HARRY: Why not? I have a right to know!
SNAPE: No. You do not.
HARRY: She’s my mum!
SNAPE: It is my life, Potter!
SNAPE reveals his vulnerability with his sudden anger. HARRY looks down at the casserole and spoons himself a mouthful. Chews slowly, not meeting SNAPE’S eyes. The tension is thick.
SNAPE: You made this?
HARRY: Yeah. It’s Ginny’s favourite, actually.
SNAPE seems bemused.
HARRY: Ginny Weasley. Ron’s sister. I married her.
SNAPE: How quaint. I suppose there is now more Potter spawn?
HARRY: Three of them. Lily, and she’s, well. A nightmare. Beater for the Gryffindor quidditch team. James -
SNAPE snorts.
SNAPE: How inventive you are, Potter.
HARRY: Yes, well. James is doing well. Then there’s Albus Severus- then there’s Albus.
HARRY looks chagrined.
SNAPE: ...What did you say the boy's name was?
HARRY: James.
SNAPE: The other boy.
HARRY: Albus. After Dumbledore, obviously.
SNAPE: Mm. And his full name is -?
HARRY: ...Albus Severus Potter.
SNAPE: Don’t mutter.
HARRY: Albus Severus Potter.
SNAPE: You named one of your children after me.
HARRY: No. I named him after a...different Severus.
SNAPE: You know another Severus.
HARRY: Yeah.
Snape looks really pissed off.
HARRY: Well. You were dead. I didn’t really think I’d have to...address it. In memoriam and all that.
SNAPE: You named a child after me.
HARRY: I never planned on having to have this conversation?
SNAPE: Why. Would you do that?
HARRY: (muttering) Dunno. Albus Severus has a nice ring to it. Don’t read too much into it, Snape.
SNAPE: Let me make this perfectly clear for you, Potter, in the hopes that this make get through to even a skull as thick as yours. I have no desire for reconciliation. I have no desire to be acquaintances. I have no desire to pander to your curiousity, or need for catharsis. I do not wish to learn about your offspring, especially any sharing my name because of your misplaced guilt.
HARRY: Are you enjoying the casserole?
SNAPE: You’ve used too much turmeric. Leave, now.
HARRY: Right.
SNAPE rises out of his chair and picks up his plate. HARRY mutters a spell and flicks his wand, causing SNAPE to spill the remainder of his food all down his front. SNAPE gives HARRY a deadly look. HARRY smirks and takes a slow sip from his water. SNAPE mutters a curse and HARRY starts to choke and splutter, spilling his water everywhere.
HARRY: Really? I thought you’d be above childish retaliation, Snape.
SNAPE: (tonelessly) You. Started it.
HARRY laughs incredulously, and levitates the casserole. A stagehand in all blacks with the words ‘The Power of Magic’ written on their shirt runs on to achieve this, by picking up the casserole. The casserole dish ‘floats’ towards SNAPE, who watches coolly and refuses to move. Painstakingly slowly, the stagehand of magic smushes the casserole into SNAPE’s face.
HARRY: Oops.
SNAPE: It seems a bullying streak runs in the family.
HARRY: Oh, come off it! You don’t believe that! You know I’m not James, that I’ve never been James. I named my son after you -
SNAPE: Petrificus totalus!
HARRY stiffens like a plank and drops down to the ground, petrified. SNAPE levitates his glass of water and the stagehand of magic dutifully carries the glass across the stage and pours it slowly onto to HARRY’s face, who is paralysed and looking grim.
SNAPE smirks and sits back down to read the Daily Prophet. After a few moments, he glances over his paper at HARRY.
SNAPE: No. You are not your father. He would have never embarrassed himself as to name his progeny after a bitter old man. Finite Incantanem.
HARRY is unpetrified, and rises shakily to his feet, wiping the water from his face. He looks oddly touched. SNAPE seems awkward. HARRY goes to speak, then starts to laugh at the preposterous situation, and how stupid SNAPE looks covered in casserole. SNAPE almost smiles. Maybe.
HARRY: Do you want to maybe do this again sometime?
SNAPE: Clean this up, Potter.
SNAPE sweeps off stage, leaving HARRY to clean up the entire mess and set. He looks suitably sheepish.