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"DO YOU DEEM THIS ACCEPTABLE?! DO YOU THINK IT'S NORMAL FOR A PROFESSOR TO ENCOURAGE HIS STUDENTS TO LAUGH AT ME?! I'M THEIR POTIONS TEACHER, IF THEY MELT THEIR FACES OFF BECAUSE THEY DON'T RESPECT MY AUTHORITY ANYMORE, YOU'LL ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME!"
Dumbledore merely shook the head, hiding a little smile under silver strands of hair.
"AND WHO'S TALKING ABOUT LEAVING THINGS INTO THE PAST!? ARE YOU BOTH BLOODY KIDDING ME?! CAN'T YOU SEE HE'S FAKING RECONCILIATION?! YOU BOTH EXPECT ME TO FORGIVE HIM BUT YOU ALLOW THIS?! WHAT FUCKING HYPOCRISY IS THIS?! DON'T EVER EXPECT -"
"Severus!"
Dumbledore had raised his voice. The Potions Master froze, fuming and frothing under rage. As revolted his employee could be, as angry he could come to the Headmaster's Office to vent about his daily frustrations, Severus Snape was a man who put hierarchy into the realm of the sacred. If one of his masters told him to behave one particular way, he wouldn't complain, rather proceed. Well, Snape was a traitor to the Dark Lord and Dumbledore's orders held easy loopholes, yet he would still respect their will. He was known as loyal for a reason; loyalty, true or illusory, was what kept him alive. In a sense, it was this kind of obedience he expected from his students.
Obedience that was largely disputed now that the Tale of the Boggart Snape had reached everyone's ear, since the second day of class, both to the school's great pleasure and Snape's utter wrath.
"Now you cannot blame Professor Lupin to do his job. It wasn't Longbottom's fault that his Boggart was you - rather, I would think it remains entirely on you. The despise you hold against this student is quite legendary, well, only second place to Harry..."
"The boy is a menace Headmaster!" Snape protested. "He won't listen. What's complicated in listening to instructions and apply them? It's as if he's doing it on purpose. This boy should just quit my class."
The Potions Master was driven crazy by the memories of a Shrinking Solution that couldn't turn orange unless botched purposefully.
"Not everybody has your talent in Potionery, Severus."
"Well of course, it'd be too great to have students senseful enough to follow simple instructions... I wouldn't be surprised if cooking was a new to them, the spoiled children..."
"Students are not soldiers in the military Severus."
Snape scoffed. "I don't expect my level for most of them, but I hold the right to have high standards in my class. I do not tolerate leniency. Longbottom hasn't made any progress, maybe he thinks it's funny to be the clown in my class, endangering my students, including himself."
"Severus..."
"So maybe if he realizes that the preparation of a potion is crucial to one's survival, he'd pay more attention. A war is coming, he has to be prepared. I cannot see how somebody can be so utterly incompetent... My students always left with exceptional results, Headmaster, marks higher than the average, as it's to be expected from the best magical school in the world. I arranged my classes to be accessible for anybody who works seriously. My tests are achievable thanks to the modifications to the book instructions I give them - you couldn't find that anywhere else. Students should be lucky they have me as a professor, rather than those frauds in the other schools, let alone that slug fool I replaced... I refuse to have Longbottom ruin my well-deserved reputation."
"Severus."
"Don't you think so, Headmaster? Haven't you told your employees that my behaviour was in line because it always did good to have a serious, skillful teacher with high expectations? A professor with an iron fist?"
"You've got the iron fist but you forget to wear the velvet glove."
It almost rendered the employee irate. It failed to instead. Severus snapped from his gesticulations of outrage. His arms slumped, face shut down, and with a resolute voice, he asked: "Are you not going to do anything about it? It's not right for me to instill discipline in a student from whom I still expect passable results, but when Lupin humiliates me it's also my fault?"
The newspaper held in the Headmaster's hands fell on the polished desk. Behind half-moon glasses, the electric blue eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Why must you take this as humiliation Severus? If you saw me dressed in Augusta's clothes, surely you would laugh the same."
Snape shivered at the thought. Albus smiled with a playful wink.
"Imagine Harry dressed like this... or Neville. Any student you loath. Lupin as well! Or Minerva - don't you see a resemblance?"
"Headmaster, this humiliating, unnecessary prank fell on me. I can't laugh at something that sadly never happened to others."
Albus sighed. It was only Sunday night, two days after the incident. Severus Snape was a very strong man, but at moments like this, it seemed the eccentric professor had been built upon the mentality of a child. Many times a strange immaturity radiated from Severus, during those many nights at the Headmaster's Office when he couldn't hold on the rage Harry, Neville, Heather Will, the Weasley twins and Marcus Flint inspired.
In this instance, Albus couldn't see anything else than a man who couldn't accept auto-derision. If he had laughed the event off - better even, played with the idea of dressing like the Augusta Grannie, people would have forgotten it sooner. Albus decided to one day show the example - in other words dressing like Augusta. Maybe it would teach the Potions Master to relativise?
Maybe the scars of humiliation would cease to hurt in his spy...
"Headmaster" Snape added, "Lupin is a menace. He threatens my authority and range the students to his side. You cannot know - what if he remained loyal to Black like the coward he always was? If the students are not careful, who knows what he could do - luring the students away to eat them like he once tried to - "
"Severus, that's enough."
The man in black tightened his narrow lips. Might as well seal his mouth shut, seeing how Dumbledore once again - again! - dismissed his concerns, ignored his advice.
Always thinking that Lupin, Black, Potter and Pettigrew were in the right, silencing Snape just like this awful night - again this year Snape felt as if time repeated itself. And look where Dumbledore's naivety had led: Black uncovering his thirst for murder, Pettigrew dead from foolish weakness, Potter arrogant and dead along with - the one he'd married to protect -
"Very well. Very well, Headmaster. If that's how things ought to be... I'll be in my quarters."
Severus spun, black robes billowing around the ankles. He opened the door stiffly, closing it behind with slightly too much vehemence.
Snape was brooding bitterly.
"Well, maybe he'd be palatable with a witch's dress on his tight little arse - maybe then Potions would be interesting."
"Isn't that what he asked for anyway? So sad I wasn't there or I would have taken the Boggart by his hair and pulled him around like I always wished to -"
The students were petrified to know Snape was right behind them. 100 points were retrieved from Hufflepuff.
Those weren't the only sexual jokes that'd come. Like before, like those times... people would joke about his genitals, the clothes his mother gave him, his long greasy hair and his ugliness. It was easy to ridicule Snape.
He had promised himself it wouldn't happen again, but always, always, Dumbledore was there to deny Snape's dignity. Snape's worth went after everybody else's. Wasn't that what he'd clearly taught him by the tender age of 15?
The Potions Master hadn't realized in his spiteful temper that he had already crashed onto the bed. The heavy blankets were soft, full. It was a delight to bury the face halfway in. However the spy couldn't linger there. As much as he wanted to sleep under forced Occlumency and start a new day with a new plan for revenge, he had to get up. After all, by an ironic twist of fate, he was the one brewing the Wolfsbane to the very "colleague" who'd humiliated him earlier this day. As much as he sought for the cowardly animal to suffer the transformation, he wouldn't risk anybody's life with forgetting to brew the potion. He wouldn't even let Lupin forget to drink it - you never knew if he'd one day try to transform and bite a student for fun. Like Black, the facade of the murderer that everybody fell for. Snape could only find retribution in the sickening ingredients he knew made the potion a pain to swallow.
Snape wished he wouldn't feel so much desperate rage.
And so for the night that followed, the Potions Master brewed, silently, fuming, boiling, thick bubbles meeting the surface only to explode and fall back, surrounded by the thick circular walls of the metallic cauldron. Brewing time was Severus' favourite moment. He found a strange connection with potion brewing. Mastering the preparation, waiting for the new substance to reach a state only to disturb it again, with a swirl of a ladle or the addition of an ingredient. It was control.
He had found that not only Muggles but also many of his students, whatever origins, dissociated art and science. In the Wizarding World, contrary to the Muggle one, the science was subtle, the art exact. A proper realm to itself, reverse and mirror of the common world. He never expected the students to understand what it meant to enter the Inverse, the Other Side. It was foolish to think magic was a convoluted art, foolish to think magic was reigned by the same laws than the usual...
It was known that Potions and Poetry went along very well. Ingredients worked under precise metaphors and delightful irony.
Like the irony that - the potion started to boil incorrectly and Snape spent the rest of the night watching over it just in case. He didn't get a single hour of sleep until the early hours of dawn.
A new day to start.
( ง '̀-'́) ง
When Severus Snape entered the Great Hall to eat breakfast at 7:15 three days later, the colleagues at the table ignored him diligently. The man was wearing heavy bags of insomnia under a stare that'd usually belong to someone about to faint; he had a stern face closed with thin lips, oily dishevelled hair that shone too brightly, dirty with the deposits of potion fumes. You might have thought that somebody would have shown concern, that they'd notice his apparent distraught. But nobody looked for the signs unless when partaking pleasure in his pain, and if a benevolent soul deigned to spot them, they'd ignore it soon after. Sprout behaved as expected. She guessed at the horrible sight of his dark colleague that he was - pathetically - upset from Lupin's earlier success. McGonagall smirked, proud and satisfied, no doubt waiting for a moment to tease her friendly rival. Dumbledore wasn't any different. The other professors, Snape didn't try to know their reactions. Not that they'd take particular care of his arrival. He sat at his usual place at the far end of the Head Table, tremors of exhaustion shaking the coffee swirling around the cup.
Nobody talked to him.
On the contrary, everyone seemed to make the greatest effort to talk the loudest with the bloody werewolf, as if trying to get Snape's attention and remind him that, yes, Lupin had succeeded in humiliating him without paying for it, without any sign that karma would bite back in the future. He had done something to Snape that if Snape had done, everybody would reproach - and not only that, but he was only gaining praise and support as supplement.
Oh yes, Lupin was mild, Lupin was sweet, Lupin made him vomit, the dangerous hypocrite. Snape thought the metaphor very clear: Lupin's form as a werewolf showed who he truly was, a bloodthirsty monster at heart.
Snape'd be damned if he let any student throw themselves in harm's way or, as the proverbial saying went under Lucius' roof since the trip to Paris, se jeter dans la gueule du loup. At that thought, his gaze couldn't stop from drifting to that certain mess of raven hair on the Gryffindor table.
The man was known to have a harsh life. He considered himself deeply unlucky, contrary to the boy he protected, as though all his luck was sucked out to help the Potters instead (unless when it'd be convenient for the ex-Death Eater). He didn't like to wallow in self-pity, oh no; although at the same time, he couldn't help but sour as the hours ticked by. The day that followed was hell. He often caught the students with the shadow of a smirk and a mocking gaze. Such attitude sent his patience flying through the roof too soon. For safety and discipline's sake, he decided essays were in order. No brewing for a week, or the students might murmur taunts on his back, not to mention they'd risk a trip to the Infirmary for carelessness in their experiments. The hours of the afternoon - as well as those of the morning! - became long hours of tests, the atmosphere thick with tense silence. Detentions were served, points were lost, and by the time Snape found himself back to the Head Table for dinner, Professor Flitwick was squeaking protests in defense of his "studious" Eagles. He didn't give him half a mind. He focused instead of maintaining a respectable heart rate. The werewolf's secretive stare made his arm hair raise and his neck prickle.
Snape had done a mistake however. After a quick pause in the dungeons office where he let the satchel of tests slide and hit onto the stone floor, a quick check over the Wolfsbane, and curfew surveillance from 10 pm to 4 in the morning, he slumped on his favourite chair by the desk only to find that hundreds on parchments were waiting for correction. Enough to make a common teacher weep.
A body shouldn't function on a regime of three hours of sleep in three stressful days.
It was only Wednesday, and Severus knew with certainty that he hated his life... and that life had it right back at him.
To be honest, Snape'd had the habit of thinking that if he suffered enough - by his own wand - then he'd seal a pact for the rest of the week not to suffer as much. And while his blood hadn't been the price, he'd one day figure, in retrospect, that maybe the amount of shite he'd lived until then was enough to conjure something that changed his life.
〷 ● ‿ ● 〷
This morning, Snape woke up with a dreadful headache. The veins at the temples were bulging under the pressure. He batted his hands against the nightstand, the blankets, under the pillow. He resorted to an Accio to snatch the wand back. Against the light of the Lumos, his eyes refused to open, as though sealed shut by the daily encrusted tears. Severus yawned and rubbed them. It didn't calm the headache one bit... as well as the odd sensation of a brain at the brink of caving against the skull. Was it the potion fumes of the previous day, was it the accumulation of missed sleeping hours...
He jostled to a start. The Wolfsbane! His classes! When he summoned his mother's old watch, it was 8:23. Clearly the tight schedule was impending him. It was glorious, Snape thought with sarcasm, how not sleeping made you less productive in your work and got you late, whereas answering your bodily needs made you lose even more hours. There was no way to get out of this vicious circle, except to wasting his whole weekend correcting the tests, or making the students brew, and that... wouldn't be possible for a lot of them.
His bare feet shifted to press against the rough carpet of the bedroom. First he had to run to check on the potion. It was okay, softly simmering away. Then he had to pad to the loo. He was then allowed to stretch his sore muscles. There was no use trying to rush on the essays: classes started at 9, there wasn't enough time. Slipping an arm in the sleeve of a tight woollen black shirt, he pondered the reaction of his colleagues at his absence during breakfast. But his mind was too foggy to care about that... Clothes were put on, potions were drunk for the day, a shelf slid aside at the pull of a book; the satchel was filled, shoes on his feet and there he was leaving the room, off to the dungeon corridors.
Thus the day started with the 6th year NEWT students.
The students were left with a revision of the ingredients they'd use for the lesson, instructions on the board, a careful warning, and finally Snape, confident in his experienced pupils, sat on a stool, rummaging through the pile of parchments. One of them was unrolled on the wood of the desk, pinned down, smoothed out. The man took a quill, dipped it in red ink, wiped the excess against the jar, placed it on top of the paper and sighed.
An odd thought traversed his mind, one that hadn't had the opportunity to shape itself for many years.
I don't want to correct them.
...
Severus Snape wasn't lazy. He'd had similar moments of fighting the urge to discard a huge load of work. Yet he had always won over it... well, until then.
His quill found itself frozen over the parchment, dripping red ink at a steady pace, staining the paper.
Come on! he thought, Go on and start it! He feared what the students could think. It was as though his mind had completely left his body and there he was, staring blankly at a paper. A NEWT girl lifted her eyebrows at this sight; for her Potions Master to remain immobile over a copy, either the work was revolutionary, or it was an utter festival of nonsense, which was more likely.
The one who wrote the essay was going to find such a red mess on it... and the professor would be furious.
Damn it, why can't I even focus on what's written? He shook. What must I do to mark the tests, if I can't even lay my quill on it?
Three steps.
The quill was set back on the desk, hands made a pattern on the pile of parchments, a charm was casted. Finally the Professor regained his focus.
Nobody had seen what happened, but the busy class surely heard what was said after: "Holy shit."
Severus Snape didn't lift the eyes to notice how everybody had turned their heads at the usually controlled man, gobsmacked. Not that the man hadn't cursed among his NEWT students, but to do it without restrain?
The Potions Master was grasping parchments, opening them, scanning them and throwing them aside frantically. It was a sight! He wore an incredulous expression that was each paper only reinforced. And on each of them, glittered a fresh red letter with a circle.
"Professor?"
Severus startled.
"Miss Asteria?"
"Are you alright?"
It was only that that he looked around the classroom to find every pair of eyes on him. He frowned and regained a controlled posture.
"Yes I am. Not that I would ask your help if I wasn't..." he answered, setting the parchments back on the desk with calm. "Did I ask you all to stop? You have one hour and thirty minutes to get the potion done and your essay completed. Go back to work."
That which they promptly executed.
~(˘ ▾ ˘)~
The spy had to admit that he had exaggerated at the beginning of the week. It would be untrue to say everybody hated him. The Ravenclaws were mostly thankful for his lessons. A part of the Hufflepuffs was curious about his attitude, but didn't say much. The Slytherins appreciated him, of course, and not because all of them were children of Death Eaters... The Gryffindors disliked him in general. The elder Weasleys were a noticeable exception though. Bilius had been competent, studious, eager, quite pleasurable to teach (even though at the time, he had loathed the idea of Gryffindors that deserved congratulations). Charles had gone to work with the Dragons, for a reason: he excelled far more into sports than in studies. The Charles-era had been a sweet time, the student giving him quite a lot of opportunities to retrieve points for missing homework. Percival Weasley was a little pretentious, and he wondered why he hadn't been Sorted to Slytherin, seeing how he was almost obsessed with studies and had a liking for leadership. Snape didn't like him much, but at least he gave him no surprise.
The Weasley twins had been a catastrophe. However, by the time Snape had met them, he was already trained in the discipline of difficult students. The twins had paid HARD for their shenanigans. As the saying went: "Don't mess with Snape, he can become nasty".
He was proud of it. Not even Minerva had managed to keep them in line like him. There would be no new generations of... "pranksters".
The Professor strolled past the ginger tuft that belonged to a Retard Weasley and climbed the platform to the Head Table.
No, the real moment the Gryffindors had started to hate him had started with the arrival of the Golden Boy.
The epitome of dislike had been achieved early in the first year, as everybody had thought he's be ready to kill a student just to win the Quidditch Cup, there, in plain sight, when in reality it was only the string of his salving magic that'd attached the boy's hand to his broom, 50 meters away from death; followed by his suspicious take of the referee position.
He snarled at the memory of the disastrous, humiliating Hufflepuff match. It still gave him acid.
And then the days he had to surreptitiously check on the boy in case the dangerous hypocrite that was Quirell would try and attack Potter... His leg had taken ages to heal, and he'd had to check on the Quidditch book, that could have been tampered with Dark Magic (oh well... he had to admit it'd been also a good opportunity to piss off the Potter offspring).
So not only had the students started to mistrust him deeply, but his colleagues had left him alone at the staff room, except for a stern Minerva giving him the evil eye.
As though he had neither brains nor honour...
The adults of the school had soon realized how wrong they'd been. Quirell gone, they'd achieved a truce. And when the insufferable pretentious Ravenclaw named Lockhart had come to usurp the role of Defence teacher - abusing his position for personal profit - everybody had united against the student they'd all had taught a few years earlier. Snape had been wholly included in the opposition... praised for knocking off the worthless peacock during the Duel Club. Let the fool absorb the curse, like the dozens of teachers had since Snape's first year at Hogwarts...
And now, would you look at that... A new year when Snape would be ostracized by another fragile-looking hypocrite... One that was more dangerous than a possessed Quirell this time.
He had to protect them all. The students were too immature, for most of them, too easily fooled by sweet looks, kind words, politeness. Snape knew there were children among all Houses, and particularly the Slytherins, that recognized the truth. Pupils who looked into his black eyes and whispered, silently: I know you. To which Snape's face narrowed, already engaged in torments during the following night. Students who knew what it was like to be Snape and why he was this way, even though he wished they didn't. Students that came to him so they could share a terrible secret.
This dozen of students knew that if Snape didn't trust somebody like Lupin, then there had to be a reason. By the look of loathing he sent his way, they'd know it wasn't a mere matter of lusting after the Defence post, but that the professor occupying it was a problem himself.
Despite this, Severus knew that was not enough, and he feared that one of the oblivious dunderheads would fall into the trap, under Dumbledore's nose. The target most at risk being Harry Potter, that went without saying.
He noticed movement at the vicinity of his vision. Minerva, he noticed, had been calling him for the last 30 seconds. Detaching his gaze from the werewolf, he asked her what she wanted.
"I really wish you would put your animosity aside, Severus..." She sighed. "It's been 10 years. No matter what Remus' friends have done to you, surely you can grow up. It was nothing."
Yeah.
Yeah of course it was nothing.
If it was Snape, it was nothing.
It had been years he hadn't felt resentment towards his former Transfiguration teacher. He had become close to her. They had the same teaching style, after all. If she was the good cop, he was the 'bad' one.
Minerva had been among the few chosen ones benefiting Snape's forgiveness, along with the other Professors and Dumbledore.
Yet forgiving was not forgetting. He'd never forget what it was like. Especially when Lupin was back, Black was running free, and Potter's spawn probably looking for ways to put himself in more danger.
"You are an adult, for Merlin's sake! I do not see why you persist that way."
He snarled at her.
Minerva looked furious. "Well, if that's what you want, Snape..."
She shifted in her seat, looking away, speaking with Septima Vector, the Arithmancy Professor.
Lupin had heard everything, with those werewolf senses of his, but of course he was faking innocence.
Snape burned with the desire to hurt him, to make him pay for the humiliation that ought to ruin his days at Hogwarts this year.
Right then, he wasn't coherent enough to notice what was happening. He only looked into the meal of 1 pm (he had class in half an hour), the light of the sun shining on the empty plate of polished ceramic. He saw a distorted reflection of himself there, and he thought: Look how little it took for your friend to abandon you again. Proud, and contemptuous, deliberately misunderstanding... As soon as one of them is there, everybody looks up to them, and everybody seek to humiliate you again...
His head pounded with the intrusive negative thoughts.
You're jealous. Pathetic, isn't it?
The screech of the fork against the ceramic woke him up from mulling over. There was a reason he'd always had a quirk for Occlumency: to shield himself from the inevitable self-loathing. He forced his hands to cup the bowl of salad (his stomach had shrunk), spooning tomatoes, slices bacon as well as cubes of cheese on the plate, wishing dearly, very dearly, that Lupin could be humiliated, however unlikely it would happen...
The Great Hall was silenced by the long fart that followed.
Several emotions swept over Snape's face, leaving as soon as they came, returning again. The students and the teachers, the ghosts and the portraits, all of them had frozen at the unmistakable sound. The spoon had clattered away as Snape's hand had jerked. Everybody was looking at the Head Table now.
Looking at...
The professor a few seats apart.
Sprout started to blush from the embarrassment. Not that the shade of her face was the strongest. Lupin was positively crimson.
What happened? Snape wanted to ask.
"Looks like no wolf is there to howl you back, Lupin," was what he blurted out instead.
Minerva jerked in his direction, horrified, accusation flashing in the eyes. What she was about to retort was drowned out, however, by the howling that erupted from the tables.
Snape felt almost guilty. He knew he'd done nothing... had he? He buried any compassion deep inside. No, what was stirring inside, was the prickling anxiety the laughing of the young provoked. He hated children laughing. He utterly loathed it. The pointed fingers, the teenagers clapping each other on the back, sliding down their chairs, rolling on the floor, the noisy assault - STOP IT - the hesitancy of some, the ecstasy of the rest, the loath, the humiliation, the shame - I HATE IT -
"Excuse me. I'd rather smell something else than animal shite."
He left the table in a frenzy. He hadn't eaten anything, but it wasn't important. He wasn't in control of his movements. He wasn't aware that he was running, for all the stumbling he made in the way. His hands gripped and slid over the ancient walls, legs like jelly, robes tangling everywhere - hair in the face, and he had to go away, away...
What was happening?
At last the scorching sun blinded his vision, and everything was white-hot. He tripped again, hit a solid column, and was that the tree - that tree? He was trapped in Hogwarts, he was - he'd said that time was repeating itself... Air was barely reaching the lungs because his throat was so tight, flames cold and hot all alike, surely sweating over the tight black shirt... Black blooming before him, a kaleidoscope of colours fluttering like fractals over it...
Thankfully no one saw how he collapsed under the water of the Lake, near the beach, near the trees, out of reach.
When his vision consolidated back and his heart slowed down to an acceptable rate, he focused on the ripples sent by the Giant Squid. The water was troubled. Black hair finally decided to bend under gravity and slid off his shoulders, tips creating hollow dots on the surface, opening narrow paths for the water to fill. Snape breathed fresh air that smelled like mashed grass and slippy algae. He concentrated on the minerals rocking on the gritting sand, how roughly good the grains pierced his palms. He was soaked to the shoes. And when at last, his brow ceased to create droplets of sweat, he sat on the heels and lifted the nose.
Breathing...
Severus hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected Lupin to... fart. He hadn't expected his wish to be granted so easily, instantaneously. He hadn't expected his own reaction at the laughing of the teens in the Great Hall. And there he was.
On the verge of... fainting. He didn't even know if there was a word for this. Syncope? Panic? Either way, he was angry.
He was angry at himself for having reacted that way. Why had he been so weak as to practically flee the Great Hall like that? Why had the giggling triggered him? Why hadn't he been able to Occlude that away?
Why hadn't he enjoyed the humiliation he'd asked for, instead of running to the Lake? If somebody had done this to him, they'd have stayed to witness every delectable bit of the moment. But when he was the one taking revenge, his body couldn't even let him savour the payback?! He'd been ready to torture people mere years ago, he loved getting his revenge, and the laughter of the pupils directed at those who disturbed his class had always been very welcome.
So what was different?
Oh, you know very well the answer... whispered a bodiless voice in his right ear.
For the third time this day, he had to shake himself, before he drifted too far.
Severus snarled. Probably everyone would accuse him of having spiked Lupin's food... he just knew it. When people didn't know why something had went bad, it was him, it was always Snape, the scapegoat. The lonely, oily, ugly one. Minerva hadn't been the exception. Everybody would think it was his way to take revenge. Maybe some pupils, like the trio Gryffindor Fools, would hate him for having done... nothing. And Dumbledore? What would the Headmaster do? Call him in his Office and berate him? Showing how disgusted he was in Severus?
He sighed. What was done was done... and there were things he just hadn't the control over. It wasn't his fault Lupin had farted, just as it wasn't Lupin's that Longbottom's Boggart had been Snape (although Severus always wondered why he hadn't had the idea of using curtains to hide the students' fears from prying eyes...) So now the only thing to do, was to finish the day, continue the classes, and let things come.
The class.
Was to start in 4 minutes.
ヽ ( • ‿ • ) ノ
This evening, he checked the parchments back. Each of them had a mark printed on it. Not any mark either: as he read and analysed the essays' contents, he noticed that those deserving O's had their rightful O's, as well as the E's, etc. It was impressive. And most of all, Severus was left in a state of disbelief. How... how had this happened? He didn't remember correcting those. He hadn't read any of them, he was sure of it. They were the essays that he'd have given on Friday, which was tomorrow. Each of the marks was fair, accurate. The only problem was the lack of annotations. He could just picture that eccentric Ravenclaw girl coming at his desk and ask if anything could be done better...
The big red letters that had appeared on the parchments were quite useless then. It was essential that students learn from their mistakes. He still was late in his work, short of sleep. How was he supposed to annotate all essays piled on the desk of his office in a single night while resting enough? Severus scoffed. That and he still had the Wolfsba -
His fingers had just finished to swiftly brush over the parchments when he noticed more letters appearing on the essays.
"What the fu -"
The door opened.
"Miss Merlion..." he snapped, frustrated that someone had come at the wrong moment. "What are you doing here, entering without permission..."
The baritone voice died on a mild murmur. The girl entering the office in the dungeons was hiding her face, shaking violently, obviously very distressed. You had to be very distressed indeed to come and see the severe Potions Master. It was one of those secret emergencies...
Funny how he hadn't been the only one to panic this Thursday.
The man indicated a chair in front of his desk, ordering the student to sit and regain control. He perused inside the little leather sac suspended at the wide waistband engirdling the robes. An Accio after and he was presenting a flask of Calming Draught to the girl. She drank... dissolving into silent tears.
Severus came to a halt in front of the girl. Her arms were hugging her stomach. Collapsed on herself as she was, the man tucked a finger below her chin and lifted it slowly.
He didn't like it when students cried. He just wasn't sure how to react. Telling them to get control over themselves if they went into hysterics, he could do. Comforting their feelings... He didn't know.
He hadn't had much people comforting him for years. He hadn't wanted it anyway. He'd always rejected it.
So when came the time to take the role of a Professor, especially the Head of Slytherin House, he hadn't been very prepared to welcome snivelling noses to take care of.
He had been surprised at first. It was very obvious he disliked - sometimes hated - children in general. So why would students come over? Why would students of other Houses come to him? Though the event was rare, he'd spent so much time cogitating over the problem, and eventually he'd reached a conclusion. It was really what he'd read between the lines of a Hufflpuff:
"You're not going to ask the others to comfort me... You're not going to force me to stay the night at the Infirmary... You won't force me to speak to those who annoyed me, trying to make each of us apologize... I don't want my class to know how I cried because of them. Or else it means that they won, and they will continue. You won't even try to tell me how everything's going to get better... Because you're honest, sir, and you never sugar-coat your words. I just want it got over with... and I can trust you love any chance to come at gangs effectively."
Each and every time, Snape was lost between maintaining this reputation, or betraying the student's trust. Often he chose the former solution. Indeed, nothing could be done for a student that was beaten at their home (he'd learned that first-hand). As for one that struggled because of their peers... if they came back to his office...
Well, the Headmaster wouldn't do anything, as was the case for most of the professors (that too he'd learned the hard way). It was common knowledge that adults weren't to be trusted. Students were right in not believing Snape able to coddle them.
He still advised the Badgers, Eagles and very rare Lions to harass their own respective Heads of House. If necessary, he'd slip some words of warning to his colleagues, an intense condemning glare shaming their eyes down. He could ignore the student in difficulty in class for the time being. There was a difference between forcing the rebellious to comply under his stare, and making a student cry into hysterics.
On the other hand, he loved to harass the unruly. He was a professional at it. A great opportunity to assign detentions and retrieve lots of points. Filch had thus become honoured to have him as a fellow accomplice to ruin students' experience of school. It came to no surprise that the most brutal of the pranksters came from the Gryffindors.
Oh, how brightly the polished trophies were shining.
Snape had also used these moments to adapt his detentions. Instead of letting the student boil over lines of text, he exhausted them over... physical community work. Any angry student could scrub the cauldrons very hard. As they returned to their dormitories however, not only were they too tired to plan another prank, but the sore muscles in the morning taught them very well how they better not repeat. The boys or girls at fault would reunite, weary in the morning, dispirited, and one of them would mutter: "It's not worth it."
It wasn't even a matter of not getting caught - Snape always managed to spot them.
And if they weren't caught in the act? A simple scan of Legilimency over the student, a graze over their thoughts and a pull of the incriminating memories, were more than enough for Snape to know everything. He invented excuses the same way the students had invented them. He could be short of proof that the pupils were convicted, but it wasn't as if he could tell them he knew they were lying because he'd spied on their minds. Punishments were served, and the Potions Master was said to be unfair.
He owned them nothing.
His best successes remained in the crushing of the most turbulent clusters of the early 1980'ies. Like a hawk, he'd detected the weakest link of the clans; he'd cornered them, asked them to follow him to the Headmaster's office, dragging them by the arm if necessary, and there... Oh, and there, they pissed over themselves. Twice quite literally.
"Please don't expel meee!" they'd cry loudly. "I'M SORRY-Y-Y...!"
It was exhilarating for the Potions Master to see them confess everything... accusing their friends, one after the other, with each splatter of hot tears... There, he'd recall, with a fast beating of the heart, how mere days ago, he'd seen them strutting in the corridors, a fist on the chest, exclaiming that they'd "never let those bloody professors get at them".
Their arrogance positively petered out.
Of course the Headmaster would refuse to expel them, but he'd always kept silent over Snape's choice of discipline. He knew his mistakes. He saw them each time Snape managed to break the harassing gangs. He felt them, every time the boy or girl was dismissed and he would try to avoid the accusing pair of glittering black eyes.
This is what you should have done.
His colleagues could protest all they liked, they were forced to note how, soon after his arrival, order was back in Hogwarts. The leftovers of the Marauders were swept under the rug. Finally the teenagers could study in a non-threatening environment.
The bonus of not resorting to physical or life-threatening punishments made him all the more proud.
Snape had lived under war - at home, outside, and at Hogwarts. He knew how to resist, how to fight, how to break.
Comforting a student on the other hand?
And so sometimes, he found himself in front of a weeping one, silently waiting for them to speak.
"I..." the girl's voice wavered. She hid her rosy cringing lips that glistened with saliva, closing her eyelids in a wheezing sob. "It was my Boggart..."
Snape dropped his finger tentatively, patient.
The girl wiped her ruddy nose with the sleeve of her robes. She took a tight breath, won over the urge to explode into another sob... whispered: "It was during Prof... Professor Lupin's class... He was... teaching us about Boggarts and I... they all saw mine..."
At this point, the girl couldn't continue. But Snape already knew enough.
The girl had failed. Everybody would question why, oh why was her Boggart her own uncle. The war had killed too many parents... Most of the time, the Boggart stayed mute. It was rare to hear a "Come on, let's do it, like the animals!" He'd seen the unspeakable flicker before their eyes, living it in flashes at the same time. He preferred to let the memories still. It was too private to temper with.
He sighed. The only good thing was that nobody had connected the dots.
That was a reason why he wanted to teach Defence himself. Too much could be told with the representation of someone's most urgent fear... or their deepest one.
Lupin was a fucking idiot.
( ︶︿︶ )
Thursday night saw Snape perusing over his memories of this last long day. The girl he'd somehow managed to comfort wouldn't be the only one. With the Dementors gliding around Hogwarts, a record would be broken, he was sure of it. The peak of adolescence dancing with the incarnation of depression...
He groaned.
The headache had only intensified under the Calming Draught he'd used for himself. At midnight, he'd started to have elements of his dreams infecting his senses. There was no other explanation. There was no reason he'd call those shifting shapes, simmering lines, fluorescent spots and droplets of the dungeons... hallucinations. Though the latter sound was starting to drive him crazy.
Getting up worsened even more the heavy migraine...
He padded to the tiled bathroom and splashed water across his face.
"You look really bad," the mirror told him. That same mirror was left in fragments as Snape left for his living room.
The bookshelf slid back into place. He crashed onto the comfy armchair. Head rolling on the top, he whined in pain.
Severus Occluded. Meditating had done wonders for the man - though the effects didn't last long into the day. You had to breathe through the nose, fill the bottom of your lungs, even your breathing... become conscious of your own body, squeeze a muscle, then release... Soon he was digging deep into the cushion.
The painful pounding of the head loosened, leaving him with a mere ring of metal around the skull.
Well, there was a way to force someone to sleep...
Merlin forbid anyone noticing the hand trailing up the leg covered by the nightcloth.
( ⊙ ︿ ⊙ ')
The Potions classroom's door was shut behind the last students shuffling inside. Severus strode up to the board.
That damn greasy git.
The voice took him by surprise and he slowly turned on his heel to stare where it had come from. The voice belonged to Harry Potter, damn of Severus' existence. Since none of the Gryffindors surrounding the boy made a move, he settled for cocking his head to the side.
He then wore a twisted smile.
He was rewarded when Potter gripped his desk tighter. Oh but he wouldn't give him the opportunity to release his anger yet. It was better to let it simmer for the two hours that'd follow, making Potter feel helpless. His eyes traveled around the dungeon room to set on the shy plump Gryffindor. Longbottom lowered his eyes. Before last day's events, Snape had wanted revenge. Now that he'd got it, why would he report his anger on the boy? He had to check the mystery of the parchments before everything...
"Turn to page 617."
There was a ruffle of pages and the soft sound of leather covers meeting the wooden tables. The teenagers let their bags hit the floor and Snape was already pointing at the board, where the instructions of the next potion were being written. "Only check on the manual if you have any doubt. During the 20 minutes when the potion will change from orange to beige, I want you to write an essay about its uses, its limits, the dangers of excessive consumption, as well as the properties of the key ingredients. Only," he spun to glare at Granger, "the essentials. You will give me this essay for correction. It will serve as a quick summary of the lesson, in regards to the exams at the end of this year... Beware the fire seeds. Wear your dragonhide gloves when manipulating them."
He felt the need to come at Longbottom's table just before setting them to their tasks.
"Do you understand?"
The boy looked up timorously. "Yes... sir..."
"Was that a question?"
"Uh... I..."
"Nevermind," Snape said hotly. "Could you tell us all what precaution I just gave you?"
Longbottom looked at him dumbly.
Something inside Severus snapped.
The plump, hopeless boy, whose mouth was gaping as though ready to drool, was too much of a reminder to the psychopathic Pettigrew, romanticized for everyone's sensitive ear. He hated the boy to remind him of the other cowardly fool. Potter was like his father, how would Longbottom be any different? He'd given him homework to do for the summer, given him the corrected instructions, specified orally the important changes to follow, and still the boy was failing...
Maybe you should change your tactics.
Snape startled at the hallucinated voice.
Lack of sleep was really exerting on his body.
"I suggest you wear your gloves for the potion of the day, Longbottom, unless you wish to spend the night crying over your skinless hands... No more than four fire seeds. Can you repeat this?"
"Er..."
The senseless babbling grated on his nerves. Really, why was he doing so much effort to help the imbecile? Longbottom would only hurt himself this time... and maybe that'd teach him a lesson...
"Repeat after me. Dragonhide gloves. Four fire seeds and no more... Well?"
"Dragonhide gloves. Five fire see -"
"Four fire seeds. Let's do it again," he murmured silkily, the menace clear in his velvet voice, bending further over the table.
"Four fire -"
"Start with the gloves."
"Uh... Start with -"
The Slytherins were starting to snicker behind them. Snape felt the gazes of several Gryffindors burning his back, but he paid them no mind. The vein at his temple was pulsing rapidly. This student was impossible. A Muggle could have done better.
"Dragonhide gloves," he said with forced articulation.
"Dragonhide gloves," Longbottom repeated after a beat.
"Four fire seeds."
"Four fire seeds."
"Well then, let's do it all over."
"Uh... Dragonhide gloves and five fire -"
"Do you not know how to count, Mister Longbottom?" Snape snarled, scowling. "Or are you purposefully impersonating a clown to make your friends laugh?" The Gryffindor ought to be thrown out of this class. "Let me tell you it doesn't make much difference to me if you burn your arms up to the elbow. I'm doing this for you, you little fool. Is that too much to ask for a 13 year-old teenager to repeat five poor words?"
Longbottom was blushing crimson, eyes acquiring a glossy shine. Snape's nails grated on the wooden desk in barely restrained fury. Oh by Merlin, someone shake the boy!
"If I told you the class wouldn't start until you managed to repeat those important instructions, would this make you obey for once?"
You fool...
Snape's eyes fluttered strangely for a second.
You will not achieve anything by going at it straightforwardly.
"WHO'S SPEAKING?!" Snape suddenly howled at his back. The closest students jumped in surprise and the gossips died out. Apparently everyone had been discussing about the show of the day...
Won't he ever stop?
He almost broke his neck when sending Potter a scorching death stare.
That's just bullying!
No it isn't, Snape mentally replied. It's the boy... making me stand there like a fool... I ought to give him detention... or empty the Gryffindor Hourglass more... Because really, how else would he be able to teach a class cursed with the Longbottom Syndrome?
And then the next second, he exhaled a deep breath. It was as though all the rage had exhausted itself, like a fire that had consumed all its oxygen. Severus straightened in front of Neville, closing his eyes for a few moments. When he spoke, his voice had acquired a softer tone:
"Very well... If that's how things are going to be... I can't think how someone can be so utterly helpless, so maybe... maybe a new method is in order." The class grew intrigued. Their Potions Master had never shown this kind of attitude to the near-Squib before. It meant no good...
Severus shifted a leg to the side, and loudly: "Everyone start their potions. Do not forget the essays. The ingredients are in the cupboard, as usual... You have an hour and forty minutes. Begin."
Swiftly after: "Longbottom, I have no choice. It seems you are a special case... to which I must adapt, for everyone's sanity. You will brew under my direct surveillance."
Longbottom quavered at this announcement. Really it was as though nothing could be worse than that.
Snape was surprised at himself. He was even more so when, instead of standing right next to the walking disaster, he leant against the stone wall, crossing his arms. Ten minutes after, he was patrolling the tiny cauldrons. Soon enough, he returned to Longbottom's side.
He had grabbed redstone over the fire seeds.
Snape wanted to slap himself.
Without saying a word, he gathered the mistaken ingredient in his hand, conjuring the correspond flask to restore it.
"Come with me."
Everybody stared as the two walked to the big opened cupboard.
"This," Snape started, lifting the flask to the Gryffindor's head, "is redstone. No need to say you were two fingers from blowing your head off. These however..." he grabbed a tiny bottle on the shelf, "these are the fire seeds. They are smoother than the redstone. They often have a single hard edge, and possess an orange hue. Reference is on the bottles' stickers, if you ever happen to doubt about your choice. Is that clear?"
The boy nodded wildly.
"Then again, with your ascertained competences in Herbology, this shouldn't be a problem for long..."
Finnegan choked on his own saliva.
When the boy inexorably started to take the fire seeds bare-handed, Severus deftly took his wrist, causing him to jump.
"Now, what have I said about the dangers of fire seeds?"
The boy's eyes grew big. Of course he had... 'forgotten' them. He knelt to search inside his bag. And then he gasped.
"You've forgotten your dragonhide gloves in your common room, isn't that right?"
The next moment, a pair of spare gloves was conjured; they came from the indefinitely-lost-items chest. "These will do..."
"Thank you sir," Neville stammered.
"Also, that will be five points from Gryffindor."
The lesson proceeded smoothly. In less than two hours, Snape had prevented more trips to the Infirmary than two months among other common classes. The students were returning to their tables after depositing their essays on the front desk when the boy stilled. The Potions Master looked over his shoulder and realized, with an internal gasp, that the impossible had been achieved.
The potion was good. By some miracle, today was the day Longbottom had finally brewed a potion that was worthy of administering to somebody without causing any further harm. It didn't matter much that this wouldn't have happened if the teacher had directed 50% of the process. This cauldron, this vapour, this concoction, were the unmistakable sign that...
"You see Longbottom, with a little more concentration and a firmer hand, even the arts of potion-making is accessible to you."
He swallowed down the 'to an incompetent like you'. Judging by the astonished look the Gryffindor gave him, it was worth it; he'd won many points with the boy. He told him to gather a ladle of the mixture in a flask and bring it to the desk next to the others along with the essay. The bell rang, everything was packed, the students left the classroom for lunch. Severus positioned himself behind his chair, looking over the empty tables.
With a sharp intake of air, he exclaimed:
"What I have done?!"
¯\_( ツ )_/¯
The news of what happened in Potions class spread very fast, like canon powder. The professors at the Head Table couldn't believe their ears. All those who'd been interested in the mockery of the travestied Snape started to shake their heads in incredulity.
"This is the least he could do to Neville..." said Potter at dinner.
"It's a trap. It can't be anything else. Just wait until next class, or the one after, and he'll be back to being the greasy git he's always been. That or he's planning something bigger. It can't be anything else... Right Hermione?"
The ginger boy turned to his friend at the side. She was frowning, deep in concentration. You could hear the brainstorm inside.
"...Right."
"Well that doesn't bother me."
Everybody on the Gryffindor table turned their heads to Neville.
"I'm quite glad of what happened in class... It's the first time I've managed to brew a correct potion! Now if only my essay was right as well..."
"Yeah, but he's still a git. Wait for next time, he'll make you pay for how you made a fool out of him with the Boggart..."
"No no," replied Neville. "No, I'm confident in him... I mean, I know I've always been difficult, that's what my grandma always said - it's kind of him to have tried to be patient -"
"How can you say that?" asked Seamus in a loud voice. "Snape's always been a git to you. He changed once and now you're defending him?"
Neville's cheeks bloomed pink.
"Huh... Yeah."
"You're unbelievable," Ron retorted.
"Just give him a chance - I'm sure it means something!"
"Oh come on!" Potter spat back, crashing a glass of water on the table. "It's Snape we're talking about. Obviously he hasn't forgotten what you did - look at what he's done to Lupin! He's just waiting for the right moment to strike... harder than ever before."
Neville fell silent. He threw a glance to the end of the Head Table, which was empty. The Potions Master was about to miss his lunch. Then he looked back at the vindictive emerald eyes.
"That's rude of you to always think the worst of Snape, after everything he's done to protect you."
Potter straighten in his seat as though he'd just got slapped.
"I've heard about how he saved you in first year Harry... Had I been in your place, I'd be more grateful. Have you ever thanked him?"
Hermione took her chance, smiling: "He's right Harry. When I always tell you you exaggerate about Professor Snape..."
"Hermione, not you too."
"Yes me too."
"He's a bully!" cried Ron. "It doesn't matter if he saves us, he takes pleasure in humiliating us."
"If you cared about doing your homework in time, Ronald Weasley, maybe you would get less Dreadfuls on your tests. And you Harry, if you concentrated on your cauldron rather than him -"
"That's not my fault - he's always there behind my back, watching me -"
"He's only trying to see if you're doing right -"
"Ah! As if."
Neville swallowed the forkful of roast potatoes and roastbeef before adding:
"Well I understand. It's not easy to have me as a student -"
"Oh come on..." Harry interjected.
"No really! I don't know what's up with me but it's obvious that, er... Well, have I told you my family feared that I was a Squib?"
"So what?" Ron said in a mouthful of sausage. "That's not a problem. You're a Wizard, if you don't understand Potions, that's his fault. It doesn't matter how you don't do well in class... The other teachers are okay, why would he be different? How wait, I remember, he's a Slytherin - the Head of Slytherins actually - maybe that's something to consider?"
"Funny how you never side with me unless you talk about Snape. I never recall you taking my side when people were making fun of me in class, unless when it was convenient for your stance."
People around Neville froze to hear better. Some of them tried to speak, but Neville shut them, bitter:
"You always despise me behind my back. How's that so different from Snape? At least he's honest, and he does try to help me - aside from Hermione of course. Last time you were more upset from losing points rather than how I felt about the class - you two had been too focused on what Malfoy was talking about instead."
"What's your point?"
"No point in particular... Just some things to be reckoned... right?"
The Snape Discourse died quickly enough on Neville's part. Hermione tried to argue in the Greasy Git's favour, but she was ignored, her arguments invalid as she was a teacher's pet who always put too much confidence in adults.
Shortly after, a door at the side of the Head Table opened, and in a billowing of black robes, strode a hasty Snape, arrogance etched on his lines. He sat, chest puffed out, brow furrowed, tapping the table with the cutlery before setting on the food which had just appeared. People were sending him odd looks. Finally, it was Minerva who spoke first, to Snape's great dismay.
"So... What's gotten to you, Professor Snape? First the prank at the table, now helping Longbottom - what is on your mind? Is it all because of the incident in Defense class?"
He exhaled through his nose, unimpressed by her approach. He gulped the peas.
"What makes you think I have anything to do with Lupin's call of nature?"
"Don't play innocent with me, Severus Snape," she retorted with a light fist on the table. "We all know you are behind this. That was very childish of you by the way. Childish, petty and improper from a Professor. Pathetic, might I say."
"You've got no proof."
"You just gave me one."
"I said... that I have nothing to do with what happened yesterday... But if you don't believe my word, Professor McGonagall... Then the problem's only up to you. Merely considering in a new light how weak the trust you put on me is... especially for a Gryffindor who swore to be fair."
"Don't try to escape the subject!" she replied, piqued, pride hurt. "And don't try to put the blame on me."
"Mmh."
The man closed his eyes against the blinding light of the candles. He considered looking at the sky up ahead, which was still very bright in the summer early night, including at this hour in Scotland. That was his life. Being a double-agent didn't make things any easier as well...
Though sometimes, he pondered whether the indecipherable masks he wore were not his new true colours instead.
He was reduced to this. He trusted Dumbledore, and for all his mistakes, he admitted he rather liked the old coot... Minerva, his former teacher and now his friendly rival, was the closest thing he had for a acolyte... Narcissa, Lucius were there... some colleagues like Aurora, Flitwick, Pomona or Hagrid as well.
But he'd lived first-hand the cold consequences of Dumbledore's calculated choices. The dinner was the very picture of his relationship with Minerva... The Malfoys were all pretense and interest... his colleagues were such shallow company...
Severus knew his place.
How could he change that without blowing up his cover?
It was necessary, but it - hurt - all the same.
"You talked about revenge, Minerva, didn't you?" Severus opened an eye to look sideways. She was frowning, lips tightened like the stern woman she was. Obviously she was indignant by Snape's actions. Her face however, let him see that she was relieved he would finally talk. He barely felt his hand lower next to his plate. He cleared his throat subtly.
"The best revenge I could have against your new favorite colleague - Lupin" she startled at that - "was to compete on who was the most effective professor. I am not stupid. If Longbottom doesn't improve because he's been too frightened by the eventuality to be proven a hopeless Wizard - a Squib, in other words... You know how Augusta's hand all but destroyed the boy's confidence, which makes it more difficult to teach him... Well, when I heard all Longbottom needed was a little bit of supervision, I seized the opportunity. It would be in everyone's best interest for the boy not to endanger his partners. I cannot afford to be indulgent with your Gryffindors, mainly because of Draco and his kind. But maybe I can make... an exception, in my teaching habits. For him."
Minerva's eyes glistered.
"Only... for him. Don't expect me to coddle all of your children. And for Merlin's sake," he added in an exasperated sigh, "don't you dare thinking I've developed a soft spot for all the lost puppies in the school. Is that settled?"
Minerva regained her composure.
"Why, yes. Thank you for your confidence, Severus. Bon appétit.
Slytherins were all suggestion and misdirection. McGonagall might accept his inquiry, it was evident, by the absence of her usual tense posture, that she thought completely otherwise. The seeds had been planted. Soon enough, the Head Table regained its usual dinner gossip. There were flashes of smiling lips, enthusiastic hands, clattering cutlery and amused twinkles. There were knowing looks.
And just like that, Severus Snape had won back years' worth of staff camaraderie.
¯\_( ⌣̯ ̀ ⌣ ́)_/¯
The wine glass shattered on the ground.