Post by SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE on Dec 21, 2012 2:39:41 GMT -5
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=width,500,true] [style=text-align: center]  The destiny you will meet [style=font-size: 10px; line-height: 10px; padding: 25px; margin-top: -10px; color: 999999;]It had been four months since Severus had been confronted by Hermione Granger on the detention he had assigned her, only to speak with her candidly for the first time since she settled into Gryffindor house. Four months since Severus began taking direct action in the desperate hope that if he applied himself wholly and completely, he could change the turn of destiny. He had spoken to Harry Potter with an equally candid nature that same day, and not a week later he had begun training the ‘Golden Trio’ in Occlumency, the first in a long road of training the children to defend themselves in a time of war. [/style]The first lesson had been as much a training session for Severus as it had been for the children. Despite the potions accident Hermione had suffered not long before it, and the rather startling moment of sheer kindness he had been faced with as a result, Severus had yet to fully see the Gryffindor students as his own. He had sworn he would treat them like his serpents if only to ensure they would listen and learn what they had to in order to survive this war, but putting it into practice had very few opportunities to come into play. It was one thing to convince himself he would do it, one thing to hold a conversation or two without insults or cutting remarks, but it was entirely another when it came to teaching three young people who had no reason to like him and even less reason to fully trust him. Yet despite their less than friendly history over the past six years, Severus had found himself astonished by the Gryffindor children. He had never taken the effort to get to know them, and though he had seen hints of things over the years it was not until he sat in the Room of Requirement and treated them with the amount of respect and cool direction he graced his Slytherins and N.E.W.T. classes with that he realized they were not entirely terrible children. He had expected many things that day, but eagerness to learn had been the farthest thought from his mind. Oh, Hermione Severus had counted on, but not Ronald. The youngest of the Weasley boys had turned from butting heads with Severus to immediately leaping at the opportunity to learn from him when it became clear they would be training in the arts of war, and that these lessons would not be like what he was used to. For a child who called him the ‘greasy git’ about as often as he did ‘professor’, the transformation had been impressive and somewhat enlightening. Then there had been Harry, who had been modest to the point of foolishness. It was a side to the boy Severus had never seen before – or at least not in a capacity that made him willing to pay attention to it. Harry had taught fifth years to cast corporeal patroni and seemed to have absolutely no concept of how astonishing that was. The fact that he could cast the spell with any skill was incredible enough, but that he had successfully passed the skill on to other students was honestly impressive, not just to Severus but from a sheer academic standpoint. Yet Harry had refused to acknowledge it no matter how much Hermione and Ron threw his accomplishments at Severus, seeming to work as a team to pull Harry out of a shell he had created for himself that Severus had never noticed before. All in all, Severus had come to realize there was a great deal more to the Trio than he had ever given them credit for, and a part of him was pained to know that all of this was quite likely too little too late. Perhaps these skills would see the children through to the end of the war; in that Severus could only pray. Yet regardless of how much he taught them, Severus knew only one thing was certain; he had only one year to do it before these three would be lost to him and forced to face the reality of war. At least, Severus had believed he would have a full year to train the trio to the best of his abilities. He taught them to set memories into pensieves during their first lesson, and how to clear their minds through meditative practices. During their second lesson Severus covered a couple of tertiary shield and disarming spells as well as an effective way to utilize primary disarming spells against furniture and other objects in order to utilize environmental factors to a tactical advantage. The lesson had gone about as well as to be expected of course. The children had taken to the new skills vigorously, and a considerable amount of furniture was destroyed, but all in all spirits had been high and it had been interesting to see the differences in the three. Ronald had been elated at the opportunity to fight and quite possibly destroy school property, whilst Hermione had been eager to learn and dedicated to the cause even if she wasn’t terribly keen on breaking things, and Harry had been determined in a grim fashion Severus recognized with a sickening feeling of understanding. There was once a time when Severus had been equally grim, but determined enough to fight on, though it was not the fact that Harry had taken to the battle tactics with an air similar to Severus’ own at his age that caused Severus to think on it, so much as the realization that Harry was more aware of the meaning of war than his friends. Hermione and Ron would stand by his side no matter what, their loyalty unfaltering as it was, but to them the war was still little more than a nightmare they could control if they concentrated hard enough. Harry knew better, something reflected in the way he fought in that lesson, and it was sad to know that one his age understood war to such a degree. Severus had done little beyond those lessons when the Attack on Hogsmeade had taken place. The nightmares still plagued him even now, warped by what he had done to them in order to shield his true horror from the Dark Lord. They were darker than the reality of matters, as was often the way with memories Severus had been forced to twist for the sake of his role as a spy, and when one took into account how truly terrible things had been in reality, that was saying something. As much as Severus didn’t understand why Lucas had decided to change sides, there was no denying he was in the man’s debt for what he had done that day. Not only had Lucas been paramount in the battle, he had kept Severus from freezing up and failing Harry and Hermione as surely as he had failed Lily and Destin not twenty years ago. He had carried Harry’s bleeding and broken form to Hogwarts as Lucas ran beside him, clutching Hermione’s equally shattered body, expression unreadable but focused. Severus knew, more than anyone, how close they had been to losing Hermione that day. If Lucas had not been there, if he had left as soon as she was deposited in the Hospital Wing – there were so many factors, but the fact of the matter remained that one of Severus’ students was alive thanks to the man who was in many ways Severus’ best friend, and the quandary was that it had brought no sense of peace to the strain between the two men. Severus had thought, in the fourty eight hours he had remained awake watching over those two beds, during which he had spoken to Harry about taking the life of another, then later supported the child after a night terror, that he had allowed too many walls to shatter. He took time to rebuild himself, had faced down Voldemort without flinching and shown him the warped reality he had created to keep his position secure. Severus had thought, for a time, that he was once again himself. He had thought that despite the near-deaths of Harry and Hermione, he was not weak to their suffering and therefore could continue to train them without risk to himself or his position. He was so assured that his walls were back in place, that he had blinded himself to reality. His anger with Albus had only just begun to dissipate when the children had disappeared without a trace. First Ronald Weasley, then Harry and Hermione had been taken, then one of his own serpents. The Headmaster had refused to tell him a thing, feeding him the same lines he fed the Ministry and the Daily Prophet, as though Severus was not perfectly well aware of the fact that ‘a trip abroad’ was nothing but tripe on a silver platter. It had been then, as he had all but manhandled the Headmaster in his soaring rage that Severus came to an unfortunate epiphany. He had come to care for the boy. Worse, he had come to care for his two friends as well. Of course, the loss of a Slytherin student made it all the more personal, but nothing would make the damned Headmaster talk. Not Severus’ loyalty, not Molly’s tears or Arthur’s pale faced horror, nor the threats of legal action on the behalf of the Slytherin’s parents would make the Headmaster budge. Then, out of the blue, Ronald had appeared on the Gryffindor table, a flaming sword raised above his head like some medieval vision of an archangel come to mete out the wrath of the gods. Severus had been gobsmacked – there was no other word to do his shock justice – but Albus had taken it in stride. Just as he opened his arms to welcome Harry, Hermione and the young Slytherin as they stepped through the Great Hall’s doors as though they truly had returned from a trip abroad. There was no explanation for it, and staff had been forbidden to question the students on it. As much as Severus itched to know the truth, he had no wish to test the tentative bonds he had created with the trio by pushing them when it had been made known they were not to be interrogated. So instead he had been harsher toward them than he had in months, for though by then they had learned the difference between the show he put on for those reporting back to Death Eater parents and when he was actually giving them instruction or guidance beneath cutting words, he was in truth incapable of finding any other way of expressing how worried he had been. Severus had not expected any of the trio to understand why he was behaving as he was; he had long since come to accept the fact that people assumed the worst in him, and he had no use for the vulnerability that came with attempting to communicate gentler emotions. All the same, he could avoid their lessons no longer – they had been gone for weeks, damn them all – so first Harry had lost points for walking too slowly to his demonstration, which had predictably escalated to detention, and Ron followed instantly afterward for calling Severus a git under his breath for the scene. Severus didn’t wait for Hermione, and assigned her a twelve-inch essay on what one’s Caninaes form indicated about their personality that same afternoon. It may have been a blatant hint to the boys, but not even Severus could deny he’d been rather fierce in the assigning of matters. As such, there was a small part of him that was somewhat ill at ease with the idea of today’s lesson. They would be starting hand-to-hand maneuvers today, which meant he would be a target for the considerable irritability of two teenage boys and quite possibly a teenage girl as well. If Severus was honest with himself, it wasn’t the pending physical violence that unnerved him, so much as the fact that the trio had come to expect a kinder nature from him in these lessons, and as far as he was aware, their trust in him was frail if existent at all. His actions since their return would have done little to convince them that Severus was still practicing the art of treating the three of them with dignity and respect, and if he did not reign in his own irritability then he placed all future lessons at risk by convincing them he was still the greasy git they all despised and the past two lessons had been some form of twisted Slytherin game. Severus was not so detached from the student grapevine to not know precisely how their minds worked in these matters, and it was the most predictable way the children would read into recent events. As much as Severus knew all of this, he had absolutely no concept of how to handle this situation. There were not many people in this world that Severus cared enough about to worry for, and even fewer who would find his concern worthy of anything but disdain or mockery. He had no idea how to face three children he had come to care for like his own Slytherins after they had vanished under his watch, especially considering said children despised him for good reason. He had taught them well to hate and distrust him, and in many ways Severus wished he could go back to the easy days of keeping Lily’s son and his two best friends as far from him as possible, but he knew that neither his conscience nor his oaths would allow him to do so now. Pacing through the Room of Requirement, Severus twitched mats into place with his wand, somewhat restless as a result of his nerves. He was, for a moment, utterly stunned when he almost walked right into the tea caddy the room provided, and it wasn’t until a comfortable chair popped up beside it that he realized the Room was picking up on how utterly distracted he was. Waving everything but a cup of tea away, Severus took it over to the mat he’d been sitting on earlier before he’d set to his pacing. Taking a seat again, Severus forced himself to read while he waited for the trio to arrive, deciding as he did so there was one way to deal with this that was sure to be foolproof – and keep a damn Room from trying to bloody well comfort him. As with Voldemort and Albus, so with the children. He would give them a mask, and simply keep emotion out of the equation. After all, there was no need for them to know that he had been concerned. Such a thing would only make things worse, in the end. Casting Tempus to make sure he hadn’t allowed his thoughts to get the better of him for too long, he saw that there was fifteen minutes still until the lesson was scheduled to begin, which of course meant that Hermione would be here within the next five, and he could expect Harry and Ronald within twenty, as there was no guaranteeing they would be on time, though it was highly unlikely they would dare be more than five minutes late considering how dark Severus’ mood had been since their return from their trip abroad.. tagged; Harry Potter Hermione Granger & Ronald Weasley words; 2575. notes; Dear God the Snape muse for this post! O.O For the love of all things holy don't try to match this post count x.x ORIGINAL TEMPLATE BY LITTLE BITTY PRETTY ONE @ CAUTION 2.0 |
