About A Potions Master

Chapter 1

By Pigwidgeon37

To say that the Snapes were an old family would have been an understatement like ‘the universe is big’. In a way, it was true, but it didn’t even begin to describe reality. The Snape pedigree was so long that it lost itself in the mists of pre-Arthurian, pre-Roman and also pre-Celtic history. The family tree was loaded with famous names that could be found in tomes of wizarding history and science—no matter which field. Although a certain talent for potion-making seemed to run in the Snapes’ blood.

They had always been powerful, men and women alike, although they hadn’t always occupied positions of power. There had been times when a Snape didn’t know how to buy food for his children. This, of course, had never prevented any Snape from carrying their mostly raven-black heads high, so that everybody could see their trademark noses.

Had it been possible to translate their family history into a geometrical form, it would have closely resembled a sinus curve. Ups and downs, gently swelling over the borders of centuries, telling of light and dark times, of grief and joy, of errors and wise choices. Tracing this curve, one might notice that in times of economic hardship the family tree had always richly blossomed. During the periods of power and prosperity, the births became few. At the very top of the tree, there was now one single blossom, called Severus.

**°°**°°**

Cassandra Snape stared at her only son in disbelief. “A what?”

“You heard me right, mother. An auction.”

“I…” The tall, grey-haired lady shook her head. “Severus, I certainly have not raised you to enjoy this kind of frivolities.”

“Well, I suppose you didn’t raise me to become a Death Eater either, did you? And I joined Voldemort all the same. May I assure you that I don’t enjoy this auction nonsense more than I do the memories of those years?”

Pitch black look battled with pitch black look. Severus was the first to avert his eyes.

“This is not a topic to be made fun of, Severus. Not even now, after so many years. And why, pray, did you agree to participate in this nonsense?”

“Supposing you mean the auction and not my deplorable career as Voldemort's lapdog, I was going to tell you, mother, if only you had the good grace of letting me finish.”

“Fine,” she clipped, lifting the teapot with a graceful movement of her hand and pouring some more tea for herself and her son, “Then go on. Although I doubt that you will be able to provide a satisfactory explanation.”

Severus heaved a deep sigh. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to turn to his mother for help. They got on well enough since she had accepted and finally forgiven his past errors. And she was the only person he could think of as a possible saviour in this highly embarrassing and awkward situation. He involuntarily smiled when she prompted him to speak by an impatient tilt of her chin, raising her eyebrows. Each smallest gesture belied that he was her son, no point in denying that.

He took a sip of tea before he continued. “As you well know, I am a member of the World Association of Potions Masters—”

She gave him another piercing look. “The last time we met, I distinctly recall that you were Deputy Chairman.”

“Indeed. I still hold that position. Which is part of the problem. You see, at our last informal meeting, the treasurer told us that our financial situation is quite… well abysmal. Not to say desperate. In one word, we need money.”

“Three words.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Those were three words, Severus, not one. How you manage to brew potions if you are so inexact is a mystery to me.”

He bravely withstood the temptation to just scream and smash his teacup against the nearest wall. She would remain utterly unimpressed and remind him that this was very childish behaviour indeed. Which it was, if truth be told. If only she didn’t have that unique capability of driving him crazy by mere nothings. Severus took another sip of his tea.

“As I was saying, we need money. Hence the excellent idea of trying to earn some. It is impossible to raise our membership fee, simply because we want this to be an organization of skilled Potions Masters and not of rich but incompetent idiots.”

“Very wise, if I may say so,” Cassandra Snape observed, “The Ministry has already proved to be an ideal playground for the latter category.”

Her son snorted. “Just as you say. I would, of course, have offered to help out—after all, I don’t lack the means to do so. However, there are two strong arguments against it: Firstly, it would create a precedent. I would spoil them, so to speak, and they would always come to me for money instead of trying to find other ways to get what they need. Secondly, it would put other members, not less talented but considerably less wealthy than myself, into an awkward situation.”

“And thirdly,” Mrs. Snape remarked acidly, “it would be most vulgar to show off your money.”

Severus bowed his head in assent. “That goes without saying.” He took a delicious-looking biscuit. “Mmmh, these are still as I remember them from my childhood days. Is Piggy well, by the way? I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Please do not digress, Severus,” his mother said, frowning at him. “Yes, Piggy is well, and you may go to see her afterwards. But you still haven’t sufficiently explained why on earth it is necessary to hold an auction.”

“It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? The chairman, his deputy and the five members of the steering committee are going to sacrifice themselves, putting themselves up for an auction. We are the best of the very best, so I suppose the affluence of public will be enormous. Albus has agreed to host the event at Hogwarts, by the way.”

Mrs. Snape put down her cup with a silvery ‘clink’, almost dropping the spoon in the process. “Severus!”

He took another biscuit. “Yes, mother?”

“Look at me. No. Straight into the eyes. And now tell me.”

She still pulled it off. Cassandra Snape still was the only person on this planet able to cow Severus Snape. Worse, to see straight through him. It was worth a try, however. “Tell you what, mother?”

To his surprise, he received a fond smile, and one beautiful, slim hand reached over the tea table to stroke his cheek. “My darling boy,” she said, her smile deepening when she saw him flinch at the endearment, “Oh, I am not going to take that back. You may be forty-three, but you still are my boy and will always be. Especially when you try to play innocent. It reminds me even more of your childhood days. Sentimentalities aside: Do you really think you can make me believe that people will pay good money only to get the chance of looking at you? Interesting as that doubtlessly is,” she added, looking him up and down appreciatively.

She was, of course, right. Ridiculous to assume even for a moment that she might not immediately detect his sore spot. “Er… no. They will, in fact, pay loads of money for… something else.”

“Really? And what would that be? Severus, tell me that you aren’t selling kisses.”

Now he burst out laughing. “No, mother, of course not. We are Potions Masters, remember? And thus famous for concocting more or less dangerous substances.”

“My dearest son, I am willing to spend as much time with you as you desire, but I am equally unwilling to waste that time by playing cat and mouse, mostly because I fail to be attracted by either of the two roles. Now tell me, or I will leave you here, sulking, and go out into the garden to cut my roses.”

“A weekend at home with the Potions Master, including potions tutoring.”

“Ah.” When Cassandra Snape began to speak in monosyllables she usually was very angry.

“I am sorry, mother, but it was a majority decision.”

“If I had ever held any favourable opinions on democracy they would have been destroyed in this very moment. Are you saying that you will bring a stranger to this house, to spend a weekend here?”

At least her reaction had been foreseeable. Maybe his tactics hadn’t been so bad after all. “Not necessarily.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Just in case you failed to notice it, I am growing more furious by the second, Severus. You had better explain what exactly you mean by ‘not necessarily’.”

“I was simply implying that, if you attended the auction and bade for me, you could make sure you are the one who wins me. It is perfectly legal. Winckendorff’s notoriously jealous wife will be there as well, to ensure she is the one who drags him home.”

Mrs. Snape nodded. “Very well. If that is necessary to ensure my privacy and avoid some nouveau riche traipsing through my home, I will be there.”

Severus took her hand and kissed it. “I would be lying if I said that I’m not eternally grateful, mother.”

**°°**°°**

Sitting in her boudoir later that evening, Cassandra Snape asked herself the same question she had been asking for the past twenty-five years. By now, it lacked the bitterness that had almost suffocated her in earlier times. But the words were the same.

“Where have I failed?”

She had said it aloud, this time, and, startled by the sound of her own voice, looked around the room. There was nobody. Not that she would have expected one of the House Elves to intrude upon her privacy; but with Severus you never knew. The boy had such a way of moving noiselessly and thus appearing seemingly out of nowhere… But she was alone.

By now, it had become a kind of ritual whenever she was in this particular mood: she rose from her chaise longue, went over to the portrait of her late husband and kissed it on the lips. Hadrian Snape smiled down at her, and the frame swung back, revealing a small compartment within the wall. Shoved against its back wall and barely lit by the candles that illuminated the room, there were boxes of various materials: wood, gold, silver, semi-translucent agate. But Cassandra Snape was not looking for those treasures. With the gentle movements of a mother picking up her newborn, she took out a large album, closed the portrait again and, with a smile at her husband, returned to the chaise longue.

The album was bound in black leather, a little battered around the edges. It bore no inscription except for two large, golden S. For some time, she just sat there, staring into the flames of the fireplace, letting her hands glide over the soft material, feeling the indentations of the two gilt letters. Finally, she opened the album.

The first pictures were faded and seemed to have trouble moving. She looked at a younger version of herself—not in her prime anymore, as she had had Severus at age forty-four—who was cradling a tiny bundle in her arms. Just above the crook of her left elbow, a tuft of black hair indicated that the baby’s head was resting there. More pictures, showing Severus with herself, his father, with both…

She scrutinized each of them, in an attempt—which she knew was vain—to detect a change of posture or expression, to discover a particular look in the boy’s eyes, so that she could pinpoint the moment when she had lost him. Not only she. His father had lost him, too, and it had brought about his death. Not that she would ever have mentioned that to her son; Merlin knew that the boy was guilt-ridden enough without that additional weight on his soul. But she knew it. There had been a time when she had hated him for it, would have killed him, even. She had looked at these photos so often, hundreds of times probably, and never been able to understand what had really happened to her boy. She hadn’t needed to understand in order to forgive him. It would have helped her, though, to know whether she had made some dreadful mistake. Of course, he kept assuring her that she hadn’t. Severus was way too keen on putting all the blame on himself. Only it wasn’t an explanation—people didn’t simply ‘go bad’ without reason. Not bad, no. Not really. Severus had never been bad. Temporarily blinded, rather. Which spurned her curiosity even more—who or what had blinded her boy?

With a soft thud, she closed the album. It was, in a way, hopeless. He was never going to tell her, although she was sure it would do him good. Those weren’t things one discussed with one’s mother. With a wife, maybe, or a lover. Speak of hopeless…

Cassandra Snape rose again and returned to her husband’s portrait. “You know,” she said, “I think I might have a plan for our son.”

Hadrian Snape raised his eyebrows. “And what, pray, would that be? Dare I express the hope that you will not make another attempt at playing Cupid?”

“My love,” she said with a delicate snort, “Do you really see me hovering in the hallowed halls of our ancestral home, with a naked derriere and a golden bow and arrow?”

His face was crossed by a shadow. “You know,” he said, “grateful as I am to have this possibility to communicate with you, sometimes it makes me infinitely sad. When you made this kind of comment while I was still alive, I used to take you into my arms and kiss you. You cannot imagine…”

“I can, my love, I can,” she whispered, touching his cheek. Knowing he didn’t feel it.

He cleared his throat. “Now tell me about your plan,” he said, on a lighter note.

She told him about the auction. “I agreed to help him, of course,” she said. “But I think I might have a look at the bidders. If an acceptable woman wants him, why should I continue bidding for him?”

“Acceptable?” he echoed. “How would you know?”

“Trust my instinct,” she smiled. “It would be such a lovely possibility, don’t you think so? A whole weekend, Potions tutoring, meals, conversation… It should be enough to get matters moving in the right direction, if he is interested.”

He tilted his head. “I see that you have fallen in love with your scheme, my dear. Knowing you, I would waste my breath if I tried to dissuade you. But promise me something.”

Furrowing her brows, she gave him a quizzical look. “And what would that be?”

“Bring her here. I want to meet her.”

“Of course I will. You wouldn’t even have needed to ask.” Her hand flew up to hide a yawn. “I think I have to go to bed now, Hadrian. Good night, and wish me luck.”

“Sweet dreams, my love.”

**°°**°°**

It was good to be home. Surprisingly good, even. For a very long time, Severus hadn’t regarded the Manor as his home anymore. Too heavy was the weight of guilt that crashed down on his shoulders at the mere sight of the building. So many regrets… His mother had never explicitly told him so, but he had it seen in her eyes; that rage, barely contained… He had honestly thought she was going to kill him that night. Back then, he wished she had. Killed him, out of helpless, boundless fury. Because he was guilty of his father’s death. Even if she had never said it aloud.

He knew that she still desperately wanted to know the reason why he had joined Voldemort. Only he couldn’t tell her. Not today, not tomorrow. Never. Would she even understand? Maybe. What was the point in telling her, though? Where was the sense in telling this woman, who still grieved for her husband after more than twenty years, that it had been their perfection that drove him right into Voldemort’s outstretched tentacles? Hadrian and Cassandra Snape. The perfect couple. The perfect parents. Never a wrong word, never a wrong decision. How furious that had made him when he was still a teenager. But would she understand it? He wasn’t sure whether he himself still understood the emotions that had propelled him into the vortex of the Dark.

It hadn’t taken him long to realize the enormity of the step he had taken. Although he had to admit that his father’s death had played a crucial role in his conversion. With time, his mother had realized that as well; her husband’s demise had become less senseless, less absurd, when she looked at it from that point of view. Or so he thought.

For Severus himself, it was different, though. If Hadrian Snape had consciously sacrificed himself, he might have come to accept it, maybe even be grateful. His father had not willingly embraced death, though; he had been captured, and tortured, and killed. A justification ex posteriori was too cheap for him to even consider it. No, he had to live with it, just as he had to live with the weight of all the other lives he had taken on his conscience.

The last war and the years of terror preceding it had made it easier for him to avoid wallowing in guilt and self-hate every day. There had been more important things to do. People to protect, lives to save. Not that those he had saved had tipped the scale in his favour—this was impossible, and he knew it. After the Triwizard Tournament, a new era had begun for him, though. He had to act instead of thinking. His life, more and more at risk, had gained a new sense, and when he had almost lost it he had become aware how much he would regret dying. He had been saved, though, by Black of all people. And he had done his best to deserve what he had been given.

Because he had changed. Certainly, the spots didn’t come off the leopard, and he wouldn’t have wanted them to. But he had raised his head, metaphorically speaking, to look at other people for the first time. He had… friends. Dumbledore, for example. Now that he had stopped belittling himself continually, he was able to accept the old wizard’s friendship. Black… well, that was more of a cautious truce, but they had their moments. Some of his colleagues…

Which brought his thoughts back to the auction. What a mess. Thank Merlin his mother had agreed to come to his rescue. No need to worry. She would never allow anybody to impose on her sacred privacy. Least of all a woman, should any female have the gall to bid for him. He was safe…