Chapter Text
‘How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him.’
— Herodotus
The first signs of his madness are startling in their intensity.
Severus Snape sits at the teachers’ table in the Great Hall, wrinkling his nose and casting a dark glance over the rows of students at the house tables. They chatter loudly as they eat, notes float across tables, and cutlery clatters.
The sight of all this hustle and bustle is pure torture. It had been a long time since he had felt so uncomfortable in the midst of so many people. Despite the reprisals they endure from the toad-like High Inquisitor, the children create a carpet of noise that, after all these years, still seems threatening to him. Palpably thick and heavy, almost suffocating.
When a nearby pupil suddenly bursts into a shrill laugh, his fingertips instinctively move to his temples. Lately he has been prone to sudden headaches, but massages never help, no matter how well directed the pressure.
Nevertheless, nothing else seems to offer any relief. He can’t take potions to relieve the pain. If he wants to wander about in a haze, there are more straightforward methods, and Severus has tried enough. The best remedy remains a good night’s sleep, which takes him back to square one. In any case, the days are too noisy to sleep (there is a constant roar inside him, raw and violent, overwhelming his own thoughts). The evenings are too disturbing (alone in his room or surrounded by masked figures in an untraceable lair... it makes no difference).
And the few people who are aware of his situation are far too insincere. He must always be careful, and he can’t allow anyone to dupe him.
His eyes dart restlessly back and forth. From his untouched dinner—some roast in an indefinable, oily gravy—to Dumbledore’s right hand beside him, resting on the table like a gnarled branch. But he will not even cast a glance at the man. Severus refuses to look him in the face, into those bright, all-seeing eyes. He refuses any contact, even though he is sitting right next to the old man. There is something worth avoiding.
However, Severus could have saved himself the trouble, for, as often happens, he is stuck. The very thought causes uncomfortable words to splinter from the roar in his head, and he cannot stop them. And before he has a chance to dodge the razor-sharp fragments or let the tension in his chest crush them to dust, they form a sentence.
You know, I sometimes think we sort too soon.
It is possible that Dumbledore wanted to flatter him, to emphasise his courage, believing his strategy to win him over for good had succeeded—praise, deliberately leaving out the fact that Severus would choose Slytherin if he had to.
And yet he knows better.
His gaze darts again, this time towards a direction as unexpected as it is unwelcome. It climbs up a table leg, crawls across the bright red tablecloth, and pauses at a golden goblet of pumpkin juice. Severus watches as fingers reach for the stem, and he tenses inside.
He had seen those fingers many times, clenched around a quill, trembling, helpless—a reaction to the humiliations the boy endured in the dungeons. Certainly—and yet Severus didn’t need to stare at them like that. Not as he had in class. Not as he is now, as his nerves begin to tingle and quiver in that excruciating way he always makes the owner of those fingers feel.
Because in reality (and this is a fact Severus never tires of stressing), one look at that hated face would be enough—a mirror of the boy’s inner self, undoubtedly completely uninhibited. He knows of no one for whom paying attention to the smallest clues a body can reveal is less necessary. No one who serves his moods up so openly on a silver platter for all to see.
Now, however, the fingers are relaxed. They lift the goblet to a mouth whose shape Severus finds repulsive, tilt it slightly, and the painfully green eyes close halfway as the juice makes its way down. Down a throat, carried by heavy, visible swallows—only an hour before, screams had burst from it, raw and sore. Severus had torn a hole in Potter’s mind and watched as Diggory’s body had slumped to the floor.
It is not as if he liked the boy, or even respected him. Nothing in Diggory’s short life would have been remarkable enough to warrant paying him special attention for more than the duration of a school lesson. That was all it took to discover he had no talent for brewing potions whatsoever. Obviously Diggory didn’t deserve to die for it, and something about the sight of his body threw Severus off balance and made him falter.
He merely hasn’t yet realised what that may have been.
Potter’s focus had apparently been upon those still eyes at the time, the horror only gradually rising within him. From the boy’s mind, Severus can tell that it had taken him a while to understand what truly had happened to Diggory, even though death seemed to follow him like a bloodhound. What Severus saw is not a thought, but a memory Potter always carries with him; an image that gnaws at him. Surely there are worse reasons in the world to prance about and generally do what is forbidden—he is still a child, despite all the loathing he so masterfully inspires.
Severus blinks quickly. Potter puts the goblet down next to his plate and looks over at Weasley, who is laughing at something with his mouth full (even slightly better table manners would have surprised Severus immensely).
But Potter doesn’t turn around—fortunately, Severus’ glare has gone unnoticed. He swiftly lowers his gaze. He can’t afford to be caught. A wrong impression could jeopardise everything he’s worked for over the years.
It could have ended there. A small slip of the eye, nothing more. Caused by a long day that had tugged at him to finally pour images from another mind into the cracks.
Almost.
He tightens the muscles in his legs, ready to jump from his chair and storm out of the hall. He wants to put another night between himself and the report Dumbledore has demanded, to let the noise in his head die down in the dark silence of his room, agitated and shaking with disgust.
But that doesn’t happen. Something has divided his world into two time zones, one before the first Occlumency lesson with Potter and one after. In the process, some of the self-control he so rightfully prides himself on, along with his dignity, has been dragged into the deep chasm between the fractured edges of his ravaged mind.
It’s just a reflex. Potter has distracted him, and now, as a direct result, an impulsive flutter of his eyelids catches sight of a nose that looks like it’s been broken more than once. Then ice-blue eyes, already piercing him with intense scrutiny.
Motionless, he meets Dumbledore’s gaze, which is neither questioning nor probing; it solidifies into a cold, knowing stare that seems to freeze him to the chair. Dumbledore lets this insignificant faux pas build to a pounding echo in Severus’ chest.
Something has shattered his world, and before he’s had the slightest chance to cover up the damage and hide it behind a smooth expression, Potter’s vile, pumpkin-juice-gulping maw has widened the rift. Made it visible and real.
‘Join me in my office after dinner, Severus. I have something to discuss that cannot wait.’
As if he had just issued a cordial invitation, Albus Dumbledore smiles, leans against the high back of his chair, and clasps his hands in front of him. All is well—or at least he wants Severus to think so. But Dumbledore must be aware how treacherous the fact that the smile doesn’t dispel the lurking expression in his eyes is.
No, this almost insignificant instruction is undoubtedly a warning.