Four

Chapter Four

Snape sighed, refilled his glass, and sank back into his chair. While causing Potter to flee was always amusing and a distraction, it didn’t help his current dilemma. Actually, it made it worse. He downed his drink and poured another one. The experiment had been doomed to fail, either way, really. He had gone out of his way to be nice to Molly Weasley this afternoon, and he had absolutely no idea why. But it had been sort of pleasant, in a way. He didn’t know why that was, either. When he was nice to Harry, he had enjoyed making Harry uncomfortable and paranoid. It was, to his twisted way of thinking, fun. But it wasn’t the same as being nice to Molly. It wasn’t in his nature to be nice to someone for no reason, and he generally didn’t do anything without a reason. True, some of the reasons he’d had for doing things throughout his life hadn’t been, well, good reasons, but they were reasons, nonetheless. Taking the Dark Mark, for instance, had been because… revenge, was it? Or something… perhaps he’d just been bored.

Which brought him to his current state of affairs. It was quite possible that he was… bored. After surviving the Marauders, the Dark Lord, Albus Dumbledore, Nagini, and the Wizengamot, his days were now filled with trying to impart knowledge into the emptiest of heads and drinking himself into oblivion at night. But that really had limits in terms of entertainment. And it was petty and pathetic, and he had a headache every morning. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world at large, Snape did realize how pathetic his life truly was. It was just that he hadn’t made plans after the final battle, not expecting to live through it. By his estimation, he and Potter were the two most powerful wizards alive in Wizarding Britain. And he was reduced to this? At least Potter had a powerful, intelligent witch for a wife, and his son. Potter was right (not that he would ever admit that to anyone). He needed to find a girl. Had he really been flirting with Molly Weasley this afternoon? Maybe he should still check himself into St. Mungo’s. She was definitely off limits. But if that niggling in the back of his brain was any indication, it probably didn’t matter. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what that was. He hoped he was mistaken, because if his brain had suddenly taken a liking to Molly Weasley, disaster was soon to follow.

He did have a sort-of “date” scheduled with her next week. Maybe he could just practice talking to women with her. It would be helpful to practice being relaxed in front of someone; it was difficult to do at the castle with the students around and Minerva breathing down his neck. He certainly wouldn’t touch her; she was another man’s wife, for Merlin’s sake. And he wouldn’t actually tell her that he was looking for a girl, either; that would instigate a flurry of matchmaking the likes of which he wouldn’t survive. Using his Slytherin cunning, though, he should be able to ferret out what sorts of things women expected or wanted, and then… what? Approach one at The Three Broomstricks and ask her out? He shivered and finished his drink. It was too horrible to contemplate, so he decided to first test the waters with Molly, and then worry about the rest later.

Running Potter off with an overabundance of politeness had had the added benefit of getting Potter out of his hair quickly. But he’d promised Potter he would inform Minerva that he’d complied with her wishes, and it was best to get that out of the way quickly as well; otherwise, it would get dragged on for days, and there would be lots of, “Severus, you know, he’s very young and used to speaking his mind…” and “Severus, if only you could try to get along with your colleagues better…” It was still early, so he decided to take a stroll to her office instead of Flooing. Floo calls always made his neck throb and that was to be avoided whenever possible. Why anyone hadn’t thought to raise the level of fireplaces to a normal head-height was beyond him.

He passed three couples making out in the corridors and took off an obscene amount of points off Gryffindor and Ravenclaw just to see if it made him feel better. It didn’t. As he arrived at the gargoyle that guarded Minerva’s office, he rolled his eyes and muttered the password, “Gryffindor will take the cup” and began to ascend to her office.

“Severus, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Minerva looked up from her desk as Snape entered her office.

“I hope it’s not too late. I promised Potter I would tell you that he came by and has been properly remorseful and that I accepted his apology for being rude at dinner.”

Minerva looked at him suspiciously. “You’ve been drinking. How do I know you didn’t just hex Potter and dump him into the Forest?”

“Of course I’ve been drinking; I just had a visit from Potter. And yes, you’ve found me out; after all those years of protecting his undeserving arse from his own dim-wittedness, I’ve finally snapped and hexed him and dumped him in the forest for the centaurs to find. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the one that starts these altercations; Potter is.”

“You know I don’t like you wandering the castle when you’ve been drinking. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I’m just trying to protect you from any gossip getting back to the Board of Governors. Why didn’t you just Floo-call?”

Snape simply shook his head slightly. “Can’t.”

“What do you mean you ‘can’t’? Is there something wrong with your Floo connection? I can have the elves—”

“There’s nothing wrong with my Floo connection, Minerva,” Snape ground out. “I don’t like to use the Floo because… ”

Minerva watched in fascination as her normally verbose Potions Master struggled with words.

“Itmakesmyneckhurt,” he finally said in a rush.

Minerva’s eyes widened at this admission. She’d had no idea that Snape felt any lingering effects from Nagini’s bite. Not that he had ever been forthcoming with information, but she wondered what else he was not telling her.

Trying to change the subject, Snape said, “Minerva, it really wasn’t worth penalizing Gryffindor’s Quidditch team. They need all the help they can get this year.”

Minerva was not fooled by Snape’s attempt to bait her off topic.

“Severus, are you alright? After everything you’ve been through, you know there are people you can talk to–”

Snape’s features noticeably hardened, and he cut her off.

“I’m fine, Minerva, thank you for your concern. I’m sure you have many things to do, and I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to let you know that Potter did what you told him to, so please do not punish his House. Good night.”

“Good night, Severus. I’ll see you at breakfast,” Minerva called to his retreating back. She made a mental note to keep an eye on her Potions Master. She’d been expecting a breakdown of some sort from him for years now; she wondered if the cracks she knew were there were finally starting to show.

Taking out his irritation with Minerva on the hapless students who crossed his path, there was a flurry of activity as students scurried this way and that, and he slammed his way back to his own quarters.

A/N: Thanks as always to my betas, sunny33, Ladyinthecloak and Sempra, without whom I would be an ellipse and comma mess.