Knots - a Snape commission for @snapecentric.
So I recently set up buy me a Kofi, in which @snapecentric bought two for me (and they were delicious, thank you), and to commemorate this first step on my journey and give my thanks, here's the little commission Snapecentric requested (after I offered!).
The prompt: Snape brewing wolfsbane for Lupin. And perhaps having thoughts.
And he does brew wolfsbane for Lupin, but not before there's some ghostly intervention upon the matter, along with some almost-spilled poison.
Here you are, Snapecentric! Cheers!
---***---
It was seldom that Severus Snape hesitated, for he was not a man of tripping or stumbling in and over his thoughts. In truth, he hadn’t hesitated for over thirteen years. His hand hadn’t jumped once, never. He hadn’t even sneezed unexpectedly. It was ridiculous, really, how other people had noticed this long before he did, noticed to the point where he wasn’t really regarded as human any more, just some sort of shell for the spirit of malevolence and vengeance, something which even the ghosts were convinced that he was. That fop of a Gryffindor ghost with the ruff had even remarked under his nose one night that he reminded him of his old executioner. The ghost obviously hadn’t seen him standing against the wall as he glided past with the Fat Friar, splashed against the shadows in his cloak when the nightmares and stifling regret had finally gotten the better of him and wanted to tear out his organs through his mouth in the middle of the night.
Now, staring down at the smooth, cool collection of water inside the iron curves of his cauldron, Severus didn’t blame Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington; he gave him the full, silent credit for making such a keen observation.
Heavens, he thought briefly, the thought a mere spider’s thread amongst the tangle of ropes and knots in his head, he was pathetically meagre. It was sad, quite so - he wouldn’t have looked any better even if he somehow managed to stop his bones from almost poking through his skin through the act of regular eating. He was ugly. It had to be said.
But that wasn’t the reason he tripped and struggled in his tangle of notions as he stared at the cauldron he had set up for this task. He had long gotten used to his own appearance, even with the lack of mirrors in his usual places of being. It was the fact that he was supposed to be brewing wolfsbane.
Wolfsbane. Wolfsbane! Wolfsbane.
Damn the substance.
Severus straightened, tearing his eyes away from his troublesome reflection, then placed two middle fingers aside his temples and tried in vain to soothe their pulsing. No, it wasn’t exactly that. Wolfsbane was useful to many, and ingenious enough for a young Severus Snape to have many times marvelled at the creativity of the witch who had discovered its make-up.
No, it wasn’t the substance itself - it was the fact he was supposed to be brewing it for Remus Lupin.
For Remus Lupin.
For damned, scorched, scratched, blasted Remus Lupin.
Severus Snape wasn’t a man for doing things without feeling nor registering them either, his thoughts and movements one like the body of water in the cauldron in front of him, but tonight, his hands had begun to work without him realising. He blinked at them now, the slender, bony things, littered with pink and white scars and burns from youthful errs and mistakes, as they mashed and crumbled leaves and dropped the right amounts of plants and dead things into the compound, and waved his wand, regulating the purple flames which sprang up beneath the belly of the cauldron and began to caress it so that the liquid bubbled and boiled.
He concentrated again. All was sufficient.
Then his thoughts came back in full force and his fingers clenched as he and the whole process drew to a stop. The blood in his veins pulsed once, painfully hot and jolting. The breath in his throat stilled as the faint, purple glow of the mixture in progress subsided.
Black hair slipped from behind his ears and dangled in his vision as his head bent, thoughts whirled and combined into a pool of festering, boiling red, concentrated somewhere deep within his left breast, lodged painfully between the vena cava and the aorta of his heart as it pulsed and clenched and, against what should have been, kept him alive enough to function.
Perhaps it would have choked him to death and that would have been a merciful end to it all. He was already turning pale. Perhaps there would have been no wolfsbane brewed that night, no werewolf harnessed within the DADA professor, no attempts to chase and catch sleep, if it hadn’t been for the faint sound of one clearing their throat somewhere to his left, that tore him out of the volatile trance and made his fingers loosen on the material of his robes above his chest.
There was another ahem.
“I would strongly advise against that.”
Severus Snape looked up. He fed the paused breath into himself, then released it. Upon seeing the faint, silvery outline of a rather fat and obscenely good-natured looking ghost in a habit, he scowled.
“What are you doing here?”
It came out sharp and strangled, but this room was his office after all, located in what was commonly considered Slytherin Territory by those within the castle walls. Therefore, the Fat Friar had no business in coming into it as a Hufflepuff patron, and Severus had not a single toss to give about the fact that he could simply be passing through the walls for convenience. There were other offices about to conveniently pass through, more than a dozen, in fact - rooms, corridors, blasted broom cupboards, closets - yet the Fat Friar was here, certainly not doing that, but watching him carefully with his eyes shining with the relative complacency of two yellow candles, similar to the ones currently floating above his head.
“What do you want?” he snapped again, refusing to soften his tone.
The ghost tilted his head, and glanced at him from under his translucent, sparse brows.
“And you?” he said quietly, flicking his head towards the cauldron hissing faintly before him, sending the air above it shifting with heat. “Is that what you want, Severus Snape?”
Snape gritted his teeth. It seemed that he was still holding onto his wand. The Fat Friar glanced down at the long, black thing just as he did and sighed.
“You have changed a lot, Severus Snape, and you don’t even realise.”
Severus scoffed to hide the bafflement. Perhaps if he was anybody else, he just might have considered being touched to be taken into consideration by a soul so foreign to his own.
“How regrettable,” he said, cocking himself in a little bow of mocking apology. “And how very endearing to see that you care, oh benevolent spirit.”
The Fat Friar only shrugged, then he glided forward until he was but a few steps away.
“You have nothing to apologise about,” he murmured. “Many things can sadden an old soul, especially one which cannot, sadly, find its way home.”
Severus watched him with his lips twisted. He gave a muted snort and turned away from him, back to what he was meant to be doing before the black inside the walls of his heart finally got the better of him. He picked up a glass bottle full of something that was certainly not meant to go into the cauldron, then snorted again and placed it back with a tink.
The Fat Friar refused to leave, and kept watching him as he struggled and snatched at the reins attached to himself, one of the many knots.
“I take it that you did not offer to aid Remus Lupin with his problem?”
“Do all ghosts have a habit of pretending they know little about the castle’s affairs?” Snape muttered under his breath.
“It’s just a form of making polite conversation,” the ghost said with a kindly smile, then withdrew his hands from his sleeves and pointed into the surface of the potion. “But if you like everything to the point, so be it.”
Severus would have remarked wittily upon eternity clearly getting boring, if he was now to be pestered by the Hufflepuff ghost as a form of amusement, when he followed the point of the stubby finger and felt the reins he had just managed a grip on jerked out of his hands. He froze.
The Friar inclined his head at the image.
“Look at what you would have done,” he said, looking down too, “had I left you alone to be devoured by what you keep and sustain within yourself.”
In the cauldron, in the reflection of the strange, dark, purple pool, was Remus Lupin. His roughened hand was loosely fitted over an empty glass; its surface had cracked under the impact of its consumer slipping from his chair. His eyes were dead. He wasn’t moving, as he lay on the floor, with his veins standing out upon his forehead and neck.
“Poisoned?” the Fat Friar voiced softly, nodding. “It seems so. Not even you would have suspected it.”
Severus broke out of the ice that had enclosed him and felt himself step straight into raging fire instead.
“Garbage,” he managed to spit out, his fingers twitching, but there was nothing to hurt, for his fist would have gone straight through the Friar’s fat head. “My magic has never been let loose without my consent, and I have made wolfsbane so often that-”
“That you wouldn’t have noticed your emotions infusing it with your intentions as you moved without thinking.”
The Friar had the audacity to look him in the eyes. It took a chest-wrenching effort to keep his eyes in place to meet them, which made him even angrier and set his blood on fire.
“After everything, Severus Snape…” the oblivious fool went on, “After all that death, that hurt, that grief… Is that really what you want for him?”
The cauldron exploded, because Severus had turned it over. There was a hiss as the purple flames beneath it were doused by thick liquid, a metallic CLANG, then another, as the container hit the floor. An acrid, sour smell filled the room, thick enough to clog up blood flow and to tinge it red, as the purple goo spread and trickled into the cracks between the stone tiles.
“IS HE THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS SUFFERED?” he yelled for all his renown in keeping emotion in check. “IS HE A SAINT? IS HE WITHOUT FAULT? DID HE NOT INFLICT SUFFERING UPON …”
Upon me? Upon ME?
“...UPON OTHERS?”
The Fat Friar stared down Snape’s wand, whose tip was at his nose, then at him.
“I think,” he began quietly, “that Remus Lupin was one of the better ones in your story. More so than his friends.”
Severus hurled his wand at him. It spat out a fistful of sparks as it clattered against the wall, then flames sprang up upon the stone floorboards as it rolled to a stop, somehow setting them and itself on fire.
“Do not,” he began, his voice trembling as much as his finger pointed at the friar’s face was, “ever, ever mention them to me again.”
Severus clashed at the silvery gaze until he regained some control over himself, then he turned and marched towards where he had cast aside his tool. The flames died down when he approached - the wand that had burned was cool to the touch when he reclaimed it, and it soothed him.
“Remus Lupin was as much at fault as his friends are,” he spat, as he finished brushing his finger along it, then waved it at the cauldron, vanishing the pitiful mess. “He made no move to stop them from making anybody’s life hell.”
“Do you think they would have, if he did?” the Friar said, the disapprovement in his face less infuriating and more amusing, now.
“Oh, it was a very comfortable choice to make,” he said with a smile. “One that guaranteed him acceptance within his circle of abderite friends, and fun for all the damned family into the bargain.”
“Remus Lupin is a werewolf, Severus Snape,” the Friar cut in, firmly. “And as much as I disapprove of their actions, he had nobody but his friends that would go to such lengths to protect him from the rest of the world.”
Something made Severus halt in front of the now-pristine cauldron. He felt his shoulders square, rigid.
“From nothing but misery and pain, he suddenly gained the world,” the Fat Friar continued. “From fear and solitude, he gained friends who would have died for him, should he fall into mortal peril, and who lit up his chest and made it warm, after years of it being cold and quiet. If you were in his position, you wouldn’t have thrown it away for a boy you didn’t even know. To you, your friends would have been the very essence of what made life livable, and any chance of what your intervention could have damaged between you, rendered your actions out of the question.”
Severus couldn’t help it, because he felt as though his back would break if he didn’t - he grasped the edges of the cauldron to keep himself upright and contain the swooping sensation of his organs. His shoulders sagged helplessly. In the slits of his vision, he saw his knuckles going white as he clutched it. His head spun.
“Well then.” he rasped out into the empty cauldron’s echoing belly, feeling completely numb as he remembered his own world getting cold, cold, cold, then dead, and staying like that since without as much as a candle flame to keep him looking for… something. “It’s good that at least some of us had a chance of grasping the world at other people’s expense.”
He was going to be sick. He was going to be sick - he had to sit, but the nearest stool was a staggering three meters away.
He thought the Friar would speak again, but he didn’t, though he felt the silvery presence firm and solid behind him along with the silvery light spilling over the back of his ankles. After a moment, he felt something blocking it and pressing against the back of his legs, which was good, because he sank onto it as soon as his knees gave way instead of onto the floor. At least he managed to uphold some of his dignity.
“Leave,” he managed, from under his hands as he covered his disobedient face, feeling it true and raw beneath his fingers, something he never wanted. “You have accomplished what you sought.”
“Not quite,” he heard him say, gently. “I never intended to hurt you.”
Oh, ah, ha, ha. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Snape never intended anything either. Nobody had intended anything against him, ever.
The ridiculousness of those words was enough for Severus to snicker. It was a hollow, papery noise.
“One of my favourite fairy tales,” he breathed, sitting up, one arm still around himself to keep himself in place. “It makes up for every unsolicited move against me. It’s good that it is repeated so many times, especially recently - perhaps a few times more and I’ll find solace within it. It is everybody’s intention, no doubt. The little scraps they can, they want to offer me.”
He heard an intake of breath.
“I-”
“Spare it and leave.”
“You must-”
“I said, leave!”
After silence had long had its say, Severus spoke again.
“There is nothing you can say that will appease me. Don’t attempt it. I will make the damned potion… It will remain untouched and free from my influence. The werewolf will live another day.”
But the Friar had gone. Severus was alone, and only a single wax candle burning remained, floating above him, the last protester in the hold in saving the room from the inevitable plunge into darkness.
He found himself oddly soft and feeling, and now that there wasn’t anybody to see him like that, he breathed out and made a flailing attempt to sustain it. He sat back, tilted his head upwards, and stared up at the flame, trying to understand what it was like to throb with warmth, for limbs to brush others’ limbs without flinching; trying to taste the yellow and rich that fell in invisible waves upon the vicinity of his office and made it worth using in this late hour.
Perhaps it would taste like rich butter, this yellow light, he thought. Like Mother’s buttered toast.
His breathing was hard and heavy. He dragged a hand down his face and tried to convince himself that it wasn’t helpless and lost, then reached up and plucked the candle out of the air. He held it tight, felt its unwavering warmth bleeding through the cold of his fingers as he grasped it.
Severus stared at it until he could feel his heart beating again. Beating just a little bit, and it was hardly detectable, but beating nevertheless, raw and still moving. There was a pulse in his neck. His fingers were becoming warm.
And against all odds and all darkness, to the tired Severus Snape, this light was somewhat tolerable.
End.
---***---
I really enjoyed writing this - it was fun - and I like wisdom from ghosts. Even if they don't exactly do what they intended to, at the end of the day.
If anybody else wants anything written, I'll set up commissions soon (probably for after Christmas), as well as what I do and don't write. Meanwhile, DM me for more details and you can support my little dreamboat here! (So I can publish my own book and become a full-time creator!! <3)
Become a supporter of Jotemvu today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love.
So, if you fancy a chat with Severus Snape, or any other HP (and other, which I will state later) characters, or want to comfort them, or perhaps witness a conversation between them, or see what they would be doing if in the regency era... DM!
Thank you :) Best!
- Jotemvu ☕