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“Pack your things.”
Snape arches a brow at Potter’s tone and glances down his nose at the two feckless idiots sitting the other side of Potter’s desk.
Hattery squirms uncomfortably in his seat, eyes downcast in what appears to be genuine remorse, while Cauldsmith sputters, red-faced and incredulous.
“But Professor—”
Potter signs the parchment on his desk with an angry flourish and sends it zooming toward the headmistress’ office with a sharp flick of his wrist. “I’ve recommended a week long suspension—”
Cauldsmith nearly spits. “A week?”
“—and frankly that’s less than you deserve. So,” Potter leans forward in his seat, jaw clenched tight, “pack your things.”
Cauldsmith throws up his arms in a gesture more fitting an errant toddler than a boy of nearly seventeen. “This is ridiculous!”
“Devon,” Hattery murmurs, shoulders curling inwards, but Cauldsmith—spoilt moron that he is—is having none of it.
“No, Miles, it’s—!” He turns toward Potter, gesticulating wildly. “We didn’t mean anything by it—Merlin’s sake, we didn’t even know what it was!”
Potter huffs and squints flinty eyes at the boy. “Is that meant to excuse your behaviour, Mr Cauldsmith? Professor Snape,” Potter barks, and Snape glances down at him from his place stood just behind the man’s shoulder. “On a scale of one to ten,” Potter says, glare fixed on Cauldsmith, “how appallingly stupid is it to consume stolen potions ingredients of unknown origin?”
Snape raises a brow. “A number to which I doubt Mr Cauldsmith can count.”
“Precisely,” Potter says, and Cauldsmith rolls his eyes.
“But—”
Oh, for Merlin’s sake. “But nothing,” Snape interjects. “You broke into my personal stores, stole a controlled narcotic—”
“We didn’t know—”
“—and allowed a student of my house to unwittingly imbibe it.”
“We didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think at all,” Snape barks.
Hattery curls ever further in on himself, bottom lip bitten hard between his teeth, while Cauldsmith has the gall to look unimpressed.
Snape grits his teeth and leans down, placing his palms flat on Potter’s desk. “Did it occur to you,” he murmurs flatly, “to think of Ms Wixley?”
Hattery and Cauldsmith both frown, glancing at one another sidelong before peering back up at Snape, and Snape nearly groans at the sheer idiocy.
“Tell me,” he says instead, “how do you think a fifteen year old girl might feel, first being offered a drink by two boys a year her senior, and then awakening hours later with no memory at all”—he glares back and forth between the boys—“of what had happened next.”
Hattery frowns for a long moment before his eyes go wide and glassy, head shaking spasmodically as the penny finally drops. “W-we didn’t—”
“It doesn’t. Matter,” Snape rumbles, and Hattery drops his chin low, sniffling as he squeezes his eyes shut.
Silence reigns for a short moment, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire in the grate and the nearly audible chain of (ostensible) thought as Cauldsmith prepares to say something monumentally stu—
“Why do you have roofies anyway,” the boy sneers, mouth forming a haughty, hateful curl. “Do you use them on students,” he smirks, “… or just Professor Potter?”
A shrill noise sounds, of a sudden, followed by the snapping crunch of breaking glass as the window behind Potter’s desk cracks down the center like a fault line. The fire sputters out in the grate, and the ambient temperature drops low enough for Snape to see Hattery’s breath as he gasps.
Snape follows the boy’s eyes to Potter, who sits just as he had a moment ago, only now the warm light of the chandelier overhead doesn’t seem to touch him, and his eyes have gone hard and cold, dark in the looming shadows.
Potter places his hands flat on the desk and rises to his feet—calmly, by all appearances, though Snape can feel the buzz in the air, tingling over his skin like radiation. Hairline cracks spread across the window at his back.
Potter glares down at Cauldsmith (who has just enough sense to look moderately terrified), and hunches forward as he grits, “Pack. Your. Things.”
Snape folds his arms across his chest, the chill in the room settling into his bones, and watches as Cauldsmith blows out a frustrated sigh and heaves himself up from his chair. He stomps his way across the office, pausing at the threshold.
“C’mon, Miles,” he grumbles, and pushes through the door.
Hattery stumbles to his feet, shining eyes downcast, and makes to follow Cauldsmith.
Just as he reaches the door, he turns around, wringing his hands over his belly. “Pr-Professor Snape?” he murmurs weakly.
Snape glances toward him, arching a brow.
Hattery blinks several times in succession and scrubs his forearm over his reddened eyes. “Can you—” he starts, then primly clears his throat. “Can you tell Eliza that—er, Ms Wixley, that is. Can- can you tell her we didn’t mean—.” He cuts himself off with a sharp sigh and worries his lip for a moment. Then he shakes his head and peers up at Snape with shadowed eyes. “… Can you tell her I’m sorry?”
Snape stares across the room at Hattery, and feels Potter do the same at his side.
After a moment, he glances down at Potter’s desk and dips his head in a nod. “I shall send it along.”
Hattery clenches his teeth and gusts out a sigh. Then he nods once to Snape, and again to Potter, and disappears soundlessly through the doorway.
~*~
Potter flops back into his seat, ice clinking in his overfull tumbler. “God, what did I do to deserve a twat like Devon Cauldsmith,” he grumbles.
Snape snorts. “Shall I enumerate your past indiscretions?”
Potter glares across the desk at him. “Pipe down, you.”
Snape arches a brow and sips at his scotch while Potter scrubs a weathered hand over his face. Condensation forms on the newly mended window at his back.
“Is she alright?” Potter asks after a moment. “Eliza?”
Snape sets down his drink and hums.
Ms Wixley had been in something of a state when she came to him—teary-eyed and discombobulated, scratching at her arms like she’d wanted out of her skin. It had taken Snape barely a moment to draw the link between her state and the wares that had been stolen from his private stockroom; so he’d fed her a calming draught and cast a furtive diagnostic spell before sending her along to Poppy.
“She is shaken,” Snape murmurs, “but unharmed.” When Potter makes no response but for a twitch in his cheek, Snape adds, “She is a Slytherin, Potter.” He takes up his glass, staring at the other man over the lip. “She will survive.”
Potter doesn’t look reassured, and instead rests his forehead tiredly against his palm. “Should I have recommended their expulsion?”
Snape takes another sip, letting the alcohol burn at his tongue for a moment. “I do not believe it was their intention to take… advantage… of Ms Wixley.”
Potter guffaws. “Does that matter?”
Snape tilts his head. “I believe so,” he offers. Then qualifies, “For Mr Hattery, anyway. Mr Cauldsmith, on the other hand—”
“Is an irredeemable shit.”
Snape hides a smirk behind his tumbler. “Just so.”
Potter huffs, shaking his head, and hisses, “He called you a paedophile.”
Snape gives a bitter snort. “Hardly the worst I’ve been called.”
“Yeah, that—” Potter interrupts himself with a sigh and downs the rest of his drink, “—doesn’t make me feel better.”
Snape raises a brow. “It wasn’t meant to.”
Potter gives him a sharp look and reaches for the bottle. He pours himself another two fingers and tops Snape off before the man can protest.
“What’s it for?” Potter asks as he settles back in his seat. “The Let-Lerto-amne—”
“Lefterosti Amnisia,” Snape interjects before Potter can butcher the name any further.
“Yeah, that. What’s it for?”
Snape feels his face go blank, and he sets his glass on the desk. “It is a potions ingredient.”
Potter nods. “Right, but—. But if it can be used as a- as a roofie, and these ruddy children can get access to it—”
Merlin’s sake. “Any tool can be a weapon, Potter,” Snape says sharply. “You, of all people, ought to know that.”
Potter’s eyes flutter shut at the chastisement, and he nods solemnly.
Snape breathes a short sigh and softens his tone. “Besides which, the students do not have access to it—or any of the other Ministry-regulated items in my exceptionally well-warded stores.” He sits back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. “Quite frankly, I’m rather impressed with Mr Hattery’s spellwork. Feckless disregard of rules and precaution aside.”
Potter snorts. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to congratulate him once I’ve done wringing his neck.”
Snape huffs. “Potter—”
“So that’s it then? Lefertosi—”
“Lefterosti—”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just- just an ingredient?” Potter asks, raising a brow.
Snape casts his gaze toward his glass, watching the melting ice float atop the amber liquid. “Technically,” he offers at last, “yes.”
He sees Potter go still in his peripheral vision and breathes a quiet sigh. He had hoped—
“‘Technically’?” Potter asks cautiously, and Snape really should know better than to hope by now.
Potter leans forward in his seat, tone circumspect when he asks, “What’s it for, Severus?”
Snape sucks in a short breath. “It… has use in several potions,” he hedges, then acknowledges, “none of which are covered in Hogwarts curricula. Nor have I had cause to brew any of them personally.”
Potter frowns and leans ever forward, folding his arms on the desktop. “Why do you have it then?”
Though it’s the same question Cauldsmith had asked, Potter’s voice is soft and mild, with no hint of accusation to be found. His eyes match the tone, as well: curious, but warm—unwilling to presume anything to Snape’s detriment.
Snape wonders if Potter knows that Snape is entirely unable to resist such kindness.
Any tool can be a weapon.
“It is a remnant,” Snape murmurs, “of my time in service to the Dark Lord.”
Potter, to his credit, only dips his head in a nod, though Snape can see from the furrow in his brow that he doesn’t truly understand.
Snape swallows against the slight tightness in his throat and reaches for his glass. “Lefterosti Amnisia,” he intones. “‘Liberty in Oblivion.’” He takes a short sip to steel himself and settles back into his seat, resting the glass on his knee.
“It’s a benzodiazepine,” he continues. “A psychotropic. Known for its ability to cause… anterograde amnesia.”
Potter frowns. “Anterograde.”
Snape hums. “If taken in the proper dosage, it can prevent one from committing to memory any… heinous actions one might commit in the hours following.”
Snape waits a moment for Potter to come to the appropriate conclusion. For all the man had been a rather awful student, Potter is clever in his own right. Certainly clever enough to find the appalling truth beneath Snape’s opaque language, the cowardice that had urged a young, foolish Snape to scrub away the memory of the—
“Heinous actions you were forced to commit.”
Snape starts and glances up at Potter. The man’s face has gone soft, chapped lips parted on a breath, eyebrows drawn together in the center of his forehead in a show of empathy, of understanding—
Of acceptance.
Snape feels something loosen in his spine, and he breathes out a low sigh, tipping his head forward. “One and the same.”
Potter sniffs and nods, settling himself back in his chair. “Well,” he says gruffly. “Perhaps it’s time to be rid of it.”
Snape raises a brow, eyes flicking to Potter’s. “Oh?”
Potter hums. “You won’t have need of it again, after all,” he murmurs, and his lips quirk. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Snape huffs a brittle laugh at Potter’s put-on bravado. “Oh, will you.”
Potter’s smirk fades to a soft smile, and he slides one hand across the table, palm upward.
Snape sighs lowly and settles his fingers over Potter’s, smoothing them across the man’s lined palm.
He doesn’t tell Potter that the Lefterosti had sat untouched and all but forgotten in his storeroom, relegated to an overlooked shelf. He doesn’t tell Potter that he hadn’t thought of it even once in all the years since Potter had first haltingly asked him to dinner. He doesn’t tell Potter that he no longer desires to forget, but rather to remember in fine detail every moment of the life they’ve since created together.
Snape doesn’t tell Potter this, but Harry smiles like he knows.