Chapter Text
Section I: And So We Begin
Severus was a thin, weedy kid - he looked like he spent his days hiding and refusing meals. He was very pale, for he rarely saw sunlight. Northern England didn't have a lot of sun, and the smokestacks' fumes obscured what little sun there was. He preferred books to people – for human interaction he preferred to know characters from books rather than live, breathing friends. But Grandpa Livius, Severus could live with. The coolest person Severus knew. He didn't know many. His appearance, that of grabbing clothes of varying sizes off the clothesline at random, and a snarky, better-than-you attitude did not encourage many to make friends of him. He was teased, but it was water off a snake's coils.
When Grandpa Livius came to stay for a week twice a year, Severus thought he finally had someone. He was always sceptical about advice, but this wasn't pat nonsense. This is what Grandfather had lived, really lived, not the self-help hogwash that his father read but never put into use. He smiled as he thought he himself deserved to be in Snarkaholics Anonymous.
Livius had begun to teach Severus Wizard Chess. Sarcastic even at a tender age, he was a little hard to get along with. For Livius, it was nothing that concerned him. He was a Ravenclaw. There were many Ravenclaws peppered throughout the wizarding part of the family.
And so the boy had learned the rudimentary rules of chess; now came the fun part. Chess in silence. By the age of seven, Severus' magic was very evident, much more so than making odd things happen even as a toddler, such as letting the canaries out by magic or opening doors, and always knowing when he was being lied to. That last one gave Livius a strange premonition. Severus had a darkness about him, but also endless hope, if a tortured hope. To be off to Hogwarts. Already he was reading heavy, dusty old books of magical theory. He may have seemed immature but he was very well-read.
The day the boy turned nine, Livius decided to teach him some highly obscure and useful adult wizard magic. They would try over Wizard Chess. Severus had learned the number one rule of time with Livius, his favourite person in his life so far – he couldn't speak of chess-playing aloud, his Grandfather told him, taking out the board and pieces. They were to guide the pieces with mind magic alone. No speaking to the pieces. No mention of the game at all.
This helped Severus a lot. He was learning focus. Control over something small, at least. He wasn't in control of Tobias. He always thought of him as “the second parent” or by his first name. He called him 'sir' but never 'Dad' or 'father'. Livius wanted to see the boy's innate defences.
“Are you ready for an experiment?” Asked Livius Prince. Severus cocked an eyebrow and a sceptical look crossed his pouty nine-year-old face. “Depends on what it is,” Severus said, staring at the snow outside. January 9 and they'd made him a cake which sank in the middle. The chocolate icing was good. His mum gave him a gift certificate to Flourish and Blotts - 15 Galleons! His grandfather said his gift was a game of chess. It would prove useful, he said.
“I want to teach you of a bit of magic so rare...but of course, you have no wand and could not resist me...” Livius was taunting him slightly, and got the result he wanted.
“I can do magic without a wand. Or I could borrow Mum's. I've used hers before. It was so cool...” Severus' eyes were drifting in the memory of such hidden potential. He wanted to live up to it. “I bet I could do it without a wand.”
Livius cocked his eyebrow in the same way. So did Eileen. Livius stood for Muggle-born rights; Eileen carefully forgot to tell Severus that. She found it much like cat vomit on a clean Turkish carpet. Her marriage was the result of a wine-sodden pregnancy, and the maths of conception pointed to a Muggle. Tobias. Resigned to mutual dislike, they married.
“Okay, when I say the following word – Legilimens! – you try any spell you think of to deter me from delving into the channels of your undoubtedly Slytherin mind.”
“You- you think so?” Severus felt like helium was filling his innards and he would float soon. He looked at the board. His turn to play white. A pawn moved two paces.
“You're smart enough for Ravenclaw but you have such cunning and dark wit, and there's no headdress reading “Sarcasm beyond measure is man's greatest treasure!” The 'old man', who was only in his late 50s, quipped, “and how would you get past the doorknocker? It asks deep questions that would not have the many layers of a brooding personality. You tend to pout. You'd stand there forever and a day...unless of course it was logic. You'd get that. But it sticks to metaphors and analogies.”
“What are metaphors and anaglories?” the confused nine-year-old asked, pulling the hair in front of his face back and holding it for a moment, looking at Livius, then let if flop greasily in his face again. Let people scoff that he didn't wash his hair. He could wash it three times a day and it would still be oily. “I thought we were talking about Occlemancy and Legalmency.”
“I won't tell you until you pronounce the names of the spells properly. It does help to know the incantation.” Sarcasm in the last sentence. Severus grinned at his grandfather.
The game had progressed. Severus, playing lightning-fast, had decimated Livius' queen and was splattering the chessboard with the broken bishop he'd just nimbly attacked like a stealthy samurai. Livius smiled at the game but said nothing. “Occlumency. This shields the mind against psychic attack. It shows our thoughts, feelings, images and desperate dreams to those who use it, but it's opposite isn't mind-reading. It is far, far more complex than that.”
“Occlumency, shields from someone stealing mental images from me,” Severus parroted with a sly grin. He always delved into the problem, saw the meaning behind it before anyone else. He couldn't put it in words other that he was smart in seeing things others didn't often pick up on.
“On to Legilimency,” Livius pressed on, amazed by the precocious kid, but not utterly amazed. He knew the little boy was hyper-intelligent, but asocial and what seemed at first glance amoral, until he realized the boy had morals of his own, even at nine years old. “Legilimency is Occlumency in reverse. You can draw torrents of images from others. It is hard to resist; Occlumency is the only true defence against it.
Severus sat straighter, still looking at the chessboard. “Could you see what my next move will be?”
“Did we come together to discuss Wizard Chess? You don't listen...”
“I meant in life. Just because I stared below doesn't mean it was what I was talkin' about. I know we play silently...while jabbering about...may I pronounce it right...Legilimency”
“To work!” Livius said.
“To work,” Severus said, holding an imaginary wine glass in his left hand. Livius rolled his eyes. Severus would roll his eyes but he couldn't bring himself to be so expressive, at least not in that way. There was a teddy bear under the table, held between Severus' ankles. Tobias stalked over, reeking of rum, and attempted to interrupt. “Don't you know you shouldn't be playing with dolls any more?”
“It's not a doll, it's a stuffed animal, and it's the only animal I have. I won't let you take it from me.” Severus concentrated on Confunding his father, but not knowing that was the name of it. Severus looked at Tobias Snape with scorn. To think I'm half of him, he thought. Brr. The spell worked. Tobias looked glazed and dazed, and wandered into the kitchen for more rum.
“Show me this Occlumency and Legitmacy.” Severus pressed. “Will it help me escape Spinner's End?”
“That is entirely up to you,” Livius answered.
“Could it be entirely up to me if I change my name to Severus Livius Prince?”
“Only Muggles do such a thing.” Livius smiled sadly. “As I said before: to work. Now empty your mind.” Severus snorted. “You sound like Dad's New Age stuff.” Then he became all too serious, working hard to free his mind of emotion.
Severus was a natural. By the sixth attempt Severus was able to break free of Legilimency and managed to view a few of his grandfather's thoughts – which came like a wild stream full of salmon. He couldn't catch the salmon, but he could watch them leap.
Next game, maybe Livius would win a chess game. He had before. They had continued to play throughout the “battle” that raged. The game was over, and little Severus had won through sneaky tactics- too subtle even for a Ravenclaw to notice and he wondered what was awaiting him next time, anticipation burning in his veins like Salamander blood on exposed skin.
How much did he need to know? He needed to know everything.
Section II: The Need To Know
Severus had three words that he applied to Livius Prince, and he saw that they really fit instead of just sounding cool. Grandpa was “Interesting ... intriguing ... ingenious!” He had invented Silent Wizard Chess. He even put a silencing charm on the board and pieces because they were not to be distracted by the rook and the knight having it out and smashing the other in two. The pieces also couldn't shout advice. Severus recognized that Grandpa Livius wasn't old; Grandpa was barely 57.
Severus had grown more reflective. If the world was unfair and stank, then it was not a big deductive leap to think that if he was at times unfair or was biting in his sarcasm, he was just reflecting the world around him. He was able to stand straighter, for the burden of guilt had been eased a lot by this dark epiphany. Being nine, he didn't use these words to describe it. He wasn't even sure he was allowed to exist.
Grandpa Livius had discovered something that he sincerely hoped never reached his Mum's ears. Severus was enchanted by the wiles of an unbearably cute Muggle-born witch who had amazing control magically. She did what she wanted on demand, as far as magic goes, or so it seemed to Severus. They played by the playground quite far across the river that was mostly brown and murky. He had a new friend, Lily Evans, but had yet to speak to her. She didn't know Severus existed. He had to ask Grandpa Livius. When he met Livius, he asked if Muggle-borns were real humans, or if they were like his father, whose anger followed him like a mistreated pet? Was it worth risking the Statue of Secrecies? For a girl?
“It's the Statute of Secrecy,” Livius told Severus over a chess board that was being depleted of white figures very slowly and methodically. Livius was playing white this time. Livius grimaced slightly that the boy had such look-ahead in chess, unlike most who would be distracted from the hushed game by the real life problems. Severus was faintly cute, being a kid, but already his nose showed in great prominence, and he had that Prince family sallow skin.
“Her name...is Lily,” Severus breathed the last word. “I want to be her friend. I don't know how to make friends."
Livius winked. “Use that ancient tradition. Talk to her. Accept her life and she will accept yours. Muggle-born. So what! She has the ability!" Livius chortled.
"Don't be yelling about that to Mum," Severus said slyly. “I told Mum that Lily's parents work for the Ministry. It's true. They work for the Muggle Minister of Finance, whatever that is supposed to be. And they have a dog! A Shepherd dog!
Livius was busy concentrating on trying to win. Now he still had two bishops and a knight, the king and two pawns that stumbled across the board as if made intoxicated by lack of sleep. Severus noticed, but talking of chess was taboo. “A German Shepherd!” he impressed upon his grandfather, whose hair was the same raven blue-black of Severus. 'Prince hair.' Eileen had it too. Livius came out of what seemed a daze, yet said as if he had caught everything, “Whatever kind of dog she has... she could have a pekinese and you'd long for it. This Lily sounds interesting. Talk to her.”
“I can't,” griped Severus. “She may be my age but we are so different. She's a ... better ... person than me. She will take one glimpse of who I am and turn tail and run.”
“You said she has a dog, not is a dog. Turn tail...” Livius joked, crinkles appearing near his eyes.
“Are you calling my Lily a bitch?” Severus was on his feet, his shoulder-length hair flying in rage, He leaned toward his grandfather. “Don't, please! I don't care if I have to wait until I'm 17 and can use magic, I'll stop it!" Severus' face was an unpleasant jaundiced colour. "And besides, I'm nine! I can use..."
Livius laughed, further infuriating Severus. “You don't know...what I'm saying. It was a laugh. No such word intended. But the way you inferred it shows you're a little protective of the girl.”
“I know I am. I've done things to her Muggle-Muggle sister when she teases or pushes Lily, from behind my bush. I have been watching for three weeks. She can catapult off a swing and fly.” Severus was red in the face, embarrassment an emotion he was trying to keep undetected.
Livius was concentrating on the match, so Severus went for introspection, watching his grandfather's lips move as he silently mouthed his next strategy.
He didn't like what he was, so he thought he'd tear down his old self and rebuild himself differently. The problem was, he'd used the same bricks. They'd been forced upon him. He was nowhere near close an age to escape Spinner's End, but he had slept under an overpass in a tangle of sheets that were wet and stickily damp and clingy with dew when he awoke. So were all of his clothes. He'd gone home. He'd received one of the worst bamboo-on-the-legs attacks he'd ever 'earned' – he had twelve welts when it was over. When he got big enough, he'd deck Tobias.
“Grandpa?” Severus asked, struck by a wonderful, awesome idea “Can you talk to Mum and convince her to either give me away to an orphanage or ... whatever. Um. Get a divorce. Useless Muggle anyway. Never met one that wasn't thick in the head.”
“What about your Muggle-born friend. Are her parents idiots?”
“They all look happy. I'd rather be here with you and Mum than stuck like her with no wizards to talk to. She needs me...” Severus' voice trailed away and he imagined himself taking her hand and leading her somewhere private where they could show each other their magic.
The match was nearly over and Severus grinned. Grandpa Livius was going to win for the first time since Severus really learned the game. Or was he?
His rook zoomed unexpectedly into Grandpa's queen. Severus grinned. He loved to win even if it was no glory and all achievement. He didn't need anyone to tell him he was a chess master in the making. Severus looked at his grandfather. His eyes looked too shiny, his skin a tad too yellow. He looked thin like Severus. First time he'd really taken that in, that he was the image of Grandpa Livius.
“Go to your girl? You have to truly beat me first.” Livius was grinning. He loved posing challenges. Two minutes later, Severus lost his rook. Now! Unseen by the untrained grandfather eye, a pawn became a queen. He was consistently doing that, almost every game. After hopping for a full minute, the king gave into the new queen.
“I think I'd better go and tell Lily who she is.” His stomach swirled as he thought of red hair, green eyes. He was glad he wasn't colour blind and didn't see them as opposites.
“I let you win, as usual.” Livius smirked. “And make sure you let her know who you are.” Livius waved an arm toward the books that stood floor to roof and most of which the venerable Dumbledore would never allow in the Hogwarts Library. So far away.
“Of course you let me win. It never changes. Who am I, by the way?” Severus raised an ironic eyebrow for the millionth time. He looked curious and smug.
“The resident pain of Spinner's End, soon to be the resident pain of Slytherin house.” Severus said it with a crooked smile. Ironic in tone but true in meaning, Livius thought.
“Maybe I'll land in Ravenclaw. Someone told me that the Ravenclaws are too smart to let me into their common room.”
“They are quite right.” Livius reached a hand into his rucksack, and pulled out a Slytherin scarf. “If you're a Ravenclaw you don't want this,” he teased. Severus' mouth was wide open. A Hogwarts scarf, his? His shock became more pronounced. “I haven't tried on that Sorting Hat yet,” Severus observed with disappointment.
“Pretty much, it goes with your mind's desire. If you are unsure or off base, it will sort at will.” Livius was the master of houses and Hogwarts trivia. Severus stood stock still.
Livius couldn't stand Severus' inaction on a day like this. “Come on, put on that admirable scarf and go meet your ... female friend. If she's any decent kid she'll be making sand sculptures by magic. Or bewitching stones to strike ten times as hard...”
And he didn't see her at all until September. School then kept Lily and Petunia at bay. He wanted to teach her about Quidditch and Owl Post and Azkaban and how they'd be Sorted. The fleet of boats. Perhaps he would skip Filch and to some degree Slughorn.
Lily had so much magic he felt inadequate to talk to her. He seized his chance in the final days of the month and made a complete ass of himself. She was so interested that she forgot Petunia's admonitions to stay away from “that Snape boy” who lives down by the river.
Silent chess conversations kept popping into his head. He would tell Lily who he was, and just hope she didn't run in anger like she had the last time.
“Lily?” he asked, coming up on her and pressing something into her hand, “I'd like you to have this.” He pressed a book into her hand. “The Standard Book of Spells Grade One, by Miranda Goshawk.” she whispered. “It's old. It's proof. It's real! Sev! Wow!” She planted a kiss on his forehead, and he burned. “If all else fails with girls, try bribery,” Grandpa Vilnius’s voice came back to him. Severus gave a satisfied smile. If Lily was the end any means to please her was fine with him.
Part III: A Welcome Visitor
It had been a while since Livius had come to call, but come he finally did. Severus' early twelfth birthday party ended in a game of chess, what may be the final game that Severus would play silently with his grandfather. The board was as silent as a Muggle chessboard- perhaps even more so, as the pieces moved soundlessly across the black and white surface of the smooth pressed board. It was not an expensive thing; it had come from the corner shop that used to operate when Tobias Snape was ten years old and had bought it with his allowance. He had never even opened the box. Livius Prince and his grandson Severus had exchanged quite a long and knowing look when the board had been found five years ago. Livius had transfigured the pieces. Even at seven years old, Severus had looked down upon who those people he considered to be intellectual inferiors. Grandpa Livius was not among them.
He loved his grandfather, and he loved the flowing red flames that was Lily's hair, but beyond even them he loved Hogwarts. The only reason to return home was to spend the holiday with his grandfather. It meant he was free, and he was far more studious at the school than he had been at home, even with the home library that could rival the Restricted Section at Hogwarts. But he needed to know things, on the day that was his last for the holidays. He had to return to Hogwarts before his birthday, but the early celebration at home was only truly worthwhile if there was a silent chess match.
His friend Lily joined them to watch the chess game. He had taught her to play at school. She was terrible at chess, at least so far. Lily was another bright light at Hogwarts. Severus loved the way her mind worked so intuitively. In his twelve-year-old mind she was ''cunning and quick-witted.” Lily resented the word 'cunning', not believing that it described her at all, but Severus was shrewd enough to know that it applied to her every bit as much as it did to him.
The problem with Hogwarts, as with primary school, was that he had enemies. Hopefully Grandpa Livius could tell him how to deal with bullies. With most of the cases at school, once he confronted them, they fell silent. James Potter and Sirius Black seemed to take it as a challenge. Not easy to hex? Then go after them to keep boredom at bay. Feel powerful in how angry you can make someone. Severus knew if he never rose to their bait they'd leave him alone.
He wasn't one to pass up angry retorts and hexes of his own. Madam Pomfrey said, “Gotta be cool, have we? Don't come complaining to me.” This she said as his eyebrows grew over his mouth, and Potter sat in the next bed with arms shrunken into what looked like wilted asparagus.
But he was at his party, and the chess game was looming nearer, and Severus thought he might let his grandfather win. Or was his grandfather letting him win? Grandpa Livius was such a good Occlumens, he'd never know. He wanted to know about the Sorting too, to tell him what the Hat had said, things he would repeat only to him...and Lily.
“If you would befriend darkness, and defy all the odds, to win in light at the end, if only against your free will, with all your determination and cunning, and oh yes, you will, then better be ...
SLYTHERIN!”
Severus had no clue what these words really meant. The subtle Hat had Confunded his ears. Bullies and the mystery Hat, that was what concerned him. Not his birthday. He could care less what 'number' he was. He stopped caring about such trivial things when he'd found the important elements of life: love and power.
He did not need to exert power over anyone but himself. He knew that all along. The power he wanted was personal. It was escape, it was inner strength, it was learning how powerful silences can be. It was confrontation of the things that held him back, and how to glory in small things like Potions marks but not get carried away with glory. That was for lesser beings, especially the vainglorious nature of some of his fellow Slytherins, and the big-headed Gryffindors, and the oh-so-snooty intellectuals of Ravenclaw. These thoughts, he thought even to himself, were ridiculously advanced for twelve.
So be it! If he really was headed for light down a dark path, why take this path at any other place than Hogwarts?
And so it was that Severus knelt on the ground opposite his grandfather, for what he knew would be the final time. There was no spell to cure cancer. Tears stung his eyes and his throat grew tight as his white pieces matched those opposite him. Livius' unnaturally yellowish and pale skin was contradicted by the look of warmth in Livius' eyes, the eyes that understood all too much.
How much did he need to know? He needed to know everything. Everything was now limited by that nasty element of life called death. It was just one element. Why did it hurt so much, both the manner of Grandpa Livius' death and the death of most of the happiness inside him? He had Lily now ...yet sometimes he sensed he never had her, never fully. She was his opposite, even, in so many ways. She watched from the ground, her eyes settling first on Severus' face, then Livius', then back again.
White moves first. First thing he'd learnt about chess. And it began. “Tell me, if you can, a few things before I have to go back to school. Why do people feel like they need to rule others?”
“Because they feel insignificant if they don't. They have to idea of who they are. That they can be loved without needing to get it from the trivial sufferings of others.” Livius said, again amazed by how astute the kid was. Perhaps if he had encouraged the boy to be a Ravenclaw...
Livius remembered how the Sorting Hat had wanted him to go to Slytherin, but he he didn't want to be in the same house as his sister, so she'd stayed alone in the dungeons, and he went off to Ravenclaw Tower, second choice. He wondered himself what he was ... who he was ... if he was loved. He looked at the face of his grandson. That was love in there with all the curiosity and apparent snide disagreement. However a closed look fell on Severus' face again, that was never quite enough to conceal the frustrated hope he had in him. So much for inscrutability. The boy would have to hone that skill.
There was a silence as the queen-side castle moved in to the open on Livius' side, the black piece moving smoothly as a boat in still waters. “Another question, grandson?”
“How did you deal with bullies at school? How are you supposed to defeat them?”
“Defeat them with a silence as powerful as I have cast over these chess pieces. Not this little Muffliato Charm, which you may take as your own. Not Silencio. A different type of charm altogether. Don't respond unless it is worthy of you to respond.”
Severus looked outraged. “That's impossible!”
Livius smiled. “Then you have a problem, don't you?” He couldn't keep the irony out of his voice. Nor did he want to. “You've chosen defeat over victory, As long as they have power over you, they win.”
He grinned into Severus' mutinous face. Then Severus' face collapsed. He looked faintly tortured. “Maybe if I'd been in Ravenclaw I'd be able to understand you. I don't understand that. I can't begin to 'get' that.” He sketched quotation marks into the air at the word 'get'. “There's a lot of things I don't 'get' either.”
Lily made to move but Severus looked away from her, “I don't get why you have to die. You're barely old. Not even with grey hair. It's unfair. If anyone should die, it's me. The Hat said ... it said ... “if you would befriend darkness, and defy all the odds, to win in light at the end, if only against your free will, with all your determination and shrewd cunning, and oh yes, you will...”
“You trust a Hat? Go with your instinct, your instinct, always. Think. Are you a bad person?”
“No!” snapped Severus at the same time as Livius, and then Lily agreed.“No!”
Then he said, “It's not bad to be a Slytherin, if that's what you mean, though I wonder sometimes. Then I see even bigger asses in other Houses. It's not about the Hat.” Severus thought far ahead of his words, yet his words were still coming in a rush, very unlike him. “It's about death. It's about life. Nothing is fair, I love school, and I love Lily, and I love you, and one day none of that will be there anymore.” He looked closely at Lily. “Most likely,” he added. “And I can't play or have fun because that's just giving in, it's weakness, to play off little wants.” He shrugged. “Everything is trivial, almost nothing has any meaning. Why bother?”
Livius stared at the depth of his grandson. Was his imminent death going to lead the boy into despair? It sounded it. Or perhaps he lived this despair every day. He stared into the glimmering black eyes, and tried to see that strangled hope. It was still there, he could sense it. Having Tobias as a father hadn't knocked all the stuffing out of him, Eileen had as least stopped him short of that.
The game was still being played. The tension between the three was palpable.“Who will I play chess with when you are gone?”
“Are we speaking of chess or are we speaking of a mentor?” Livius asked. His queen moved dramatically across the board, capturing a knight.
“Both.” Severus had the king in check.
“I would suggest ... Albus Dumbledore.”
Severus nodded soberly. He forgot. He broke the silence.
“Checkmate.”