Chapter Text
"Ten points from Gryffindor!"
The words cut through the classroom like a blade. Travers Whisp’s quill froze mid-stroke; a low grumble escaped him as Snape stripped Gryffindor of ten hard-earned points.
"But that’s not fair, Professor Snape!" another voice dared to protest.
With slow, deliberate poise, Severus Snape turned toward the speaker. A suffocating hush fell over the room. The torches along the damp stone walls hissed softly, and even the scratch of quills died away.
"Ten points from Hufflepuff," Snape said, his voice soft as a whisper and twice as cruel.
"If you wish to debate fairness, Miss Pine, I encourage you to do so during detention — you will have ample time."
Unease rippled through the students. The girl who had spoken drew a shallow breath and lowered her eyes, her burst of courage snuffed as swiftly as it had flared. Snape’s temper was legendary, and today it burned cold.
A shadow slid across Elisabeth Pine’s open textbook. Her pulse quickened. Reluctantly, she raised her head and found herself caught in the professor’s gaze — black eyes, depthless and without warmth. A chill crept down her spine.
His gaze swept the room; not a single quill dared move. With a swirl of his robes, he turned and strode back to his desk. Before sitting, he cast one final, cutting glance at Travers Whisp — arrogant, self-satisfied, the pure distillation of everything Snape despised.
Travers Whisp.
Arrogance wrapped in mediocrity and somehow convinced it was brilliance.
Had the boy been a Slytherin, Snape mused darkly, his days would have been far less pleasant. No one had served as many detentions under him as Whisp. Some had been deserved; others not in the least. Fairness, however, was not among Snape’s chief concerns where the boy was involved.
The first students crept forward, placing their workbooks on his desk with trembling hands. Snape stacked them precisely, his eyes keen, his displeasure quiet and absolute. The bell’s echo fractured the heavy stillness. Chairs scraped hastily; the class emptied like startled birds.
Snape gathered the workbooks beneath his arm and stepped out into the corridor beyond his classroom.
In his office, the familiar scents of parchment and potion ingredients mingled in the stale air. He set the books beside the tottering piles of essays and lowered himself into the high-backed chair. The clock on the shelf ticked with surgical precision.
He should have begun marking — but his hand hovered and did not descend. Always the same — sloppiness, foolish mistakes, thoughts half-formed and easily shattered. How so many of them had clawed their way to seventh year remained a minor miracle of bureaucracy. A faint, sardonic smile ghosted across his mouth. This, mercifully, would be Whisp’s final year. One last season of insolence, and then the boy would be gone. The thought brought a rare, dry flicker of satisfaction.
Dinner, as ever, was a tedious formality. Snape ate in silence, listening without interest to the drift of conversation around the High Table. From time to time, his gaze travelled across the Great Hall — endless floating candles drifting above the long dark tables, their warm light trembling over rows of golden plates, polished goblets, and gleaming cutlery. He chewed methodically, tasting nothing; his eyes returned to the plate more from habit than appetite.
When at last the hall emptied, he rose and went down toward the dungeons — only to find his way intruded upon by Professor Trelawney.
"Oh… oh, Severus, let me see!" she exclaimed, seizing his hand with theatrical urgency.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, summoning patience. Of all the inconveniences life insisted on pressing upon him, Sybill Trelawney remained stubbornly persistent.
She peered at the lines in his palm, her lenses magnifying her eyes to shimmering saucers.
"Ohh… Severus, I see great change approaching. Your gray life will soon be brushed with sudden, vivid color. The dark, cold chambers of your heart will burn with the fire of desire. I see it clearly — the light of love will dance…
dance around you like autumn leaves stirred by gentle winds… softening the stone where sorrow once made its home—"
"That will do," Snape snapped, ice slicing through her final word. "I require my hand back, Professor — unless you intend to divine its escape as well."
Giggling pricked the air. He turned his head sharply. A knot of third-year Gryffindor girls whispered behind their hands, shoulders shaking. Snape’s expression calcified; he would remember them.
Trelawney blinked at him, dazed, while he turned on his heel and swept off. His office door slammed behind him with a hard, satisfying thud.
He sank into his chair, but his mind refused him peace.
"The light of love will dance…"
"Autumn leaves… softening the stone…"
Snape pressed his fingers to his temple.
As though his life were a poetry recital gone wrong.
"Softening the stone where sorrow once made its home."
Absurd.
Preposterous.
And yet the words clung like burrs, refusing to be shaken loose.
"Utter madness," he muttered — but the images persisted, drifting through his thoughts like the very leaves she had described. Rain began to lash the windows. The night deepened by degrees. When at last he lay down, the darkness pressed close, heavy as wool, and still his mind refused him rest.
"Delusional drivel," Snape muttered into the darkness. "As if the universe had ever shown the slightest interest in improving my circumstances."
He turned from the window and let the night swallow the last of his thoughts.
Sleep, when it finally claimed him, was shallow and without comfort.
Morning arrived gray and unsympathetic.
"She will arrive today," said Dumbledore. "I finally granted permission two weeks ago."
"Which house will she be in?" Professor McGonagall asked, the brightness in her tone at odds with the gray morning.
"Slytherin," Dumbledore replied.
Snape stepped into the staff room in time to catch the word. One eyebrow lifted of its own accord.
Minerva’s smile widened when she saw him.
"Severus, you’ll have a new student in your house starting today," she said, scarcely concealing her delight.
"How thrilling," he replied, frost-dry.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled with private amusement as he joined him.
"Her family moved to England last weekend. She registered months ago. She’s entering her seventh year."
Snape sighed, gaze drifting to the rain-streaked window.
"They might have shown the courtesy to wait until she’d finished her schooling elsewhere."
He made no effort to disguise his disapproval. He left without another word and descended to his classroom, where the long day of Defence Against the Dark Arts awaited. It was the position he had coveted for years — and yet too many of his students met the subject with an appalling deficit of talent and sense.
By the time the final lesson concluded, the light had thinned to a stale pewter. Snape retreated to his office, sat, and drew a rough line through a particularly witless paragraph. A knock broke the rhythm. Without waiting, the door swung inward and Albus Dumbledore entered, genial as a hearth in winter. Behind him stepped a young woman, hesitant on the threshold, as if the room itself might disapprove of her.
Snape looked up. His gaze settled and held.
"This is Professor Snape," Dumbledore said kindly. "He’s your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Head of Slytherin House."
The young woman swallowed — he noted the subtle movement of her throat. Her eyes flickered once to the shelves, once to the jars along the wall, then back to him.
"Severus, this is Miss Abbott. She’s only just arrived. Since I am no longer required, I’ll leave you to your introductions."
He turned to the girl with a soft smile. "Once again, welcome to Hogwarts."
The door closed on the Headmaster’s quiet retreat. Snape rose, unhurried. He approached with his hands clasped behind his back, posture precise as a line of script.
She fidgeted, twisting her fingers in the edge of her jacket. Her gaze wandered restlessly over the room — the clock, the desk, the books — always darting away from him when it dared to meet his.
He circled her once, slowly, assessing. When he stopped before her, the silence thickened.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," Snape said, each word clipped, as though offering hospitality were an inconvenience.
His gaze swept her once more — clinical, assessing.
"I trust you will adapt quickly. Slytherin has little patience for… disarray."
Julie flinched. His voice, low and even, disturbed her in ways she could not name — and yet it drew her, too, like a current in deep water.
Snape observed the ripple of reaction with the same careful attention he gave a volatile potion.
"I’ll take you to the Slytherin common room. The prefects will explain what you need to know. Tomorrow you will attend classes with the rest of the seventh years."
His eyes swept her, a single, efficient inventory.
"You seem unprepared, Miss Abbott. I trust the prefects will remedy that."
Her heart began to hammer an urgent rhythm.
Snape turned; his robes unfurled behind him in a dark billow. For a beat she hesitated, caught at the edge of her uncertainty — then followed.
The corridors arched away into shadow, their stones slick with chill. Torches guttered in iron brackets, throwing brief, wavering light over the passing black of his silhouette. He did not speak, and she did not dare. The castle listened as they went.
They reached the wall that was not a wall.