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bronze_ribbonsPart 7
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xanthophyllippa. 3. A sweet Minerva/Snape friendship story. 400 words, U, post-War.
By now, they had resigned themselves to Snape’s past catching up with him at least once a year. Its regular reappearance had become almost a bad joke: unduly preoccupied with a Potions puzzle, or distracted by a House crisis, Snape would inadvertently relax his guard a mere fraction and fail to anticipate an ambush or dodge a hex in time. Afterwards, Lupin would assist Pomfrey with patching him up, and McGonagall would devise tasty tidbits and annoying trinkets to cheer his convalescence.
They had come to treat it merely as a nuisance, but when his enemies’ latest effort nearly killed Lupin instead of himself, Snape’s veneer of stoicism cracked. As he kept vigil by Lupin’s bedside, stewing in fury and self-loathing, Snape systematically conjured a series of voodoo dolls and silently ripped them into pieces.
He looked up to find McGonagall watching him. She pointed to the shredded remains of a doll with a hooked nose and black, shoulder-length hair.
“Don’t be an idiot, Severus,” she said. “It doesn’t become you.”
Snape Vanished the entire lot. “This is intolerable, and you are fools.”
McGonagall fixed him with a steely glare. “You are the fool if you think this changes anything.”
Snape’s lips twisted bitterly. “No. No, it doesn’t. You all would have always been better off without me.”
McGonagall retorted, “Severus Snape, if you are even thinking of running away, I will immobilize you in that very chair until you return to your senses.”
Snape buried his face in his hands, too weary and heartsick to fire back a suitable rejoinder. When he looked up again, McGonagall was gone, but a red and gold ledger rested on the corner of the bedside table, its cover emblazoned with her initials.
When Snape opened the book, it revealed a record of every single tea she had hosted since the end of the War – the dates, the menus, the guests, and notes about the conversations. The vast majority of the entries included his name and Lupin’s; he could see the Headmistress’s smirk as she'd jotted down “Sinistra’s icon,” “Thomas’s commission,” and other choice details.
She had already entered the date for the next tea but left the rest of the line blank. Snape stared at the page for a long, long time. Then he Summoned a nearby quill, and after a moment’s hesitation, he wrote Lupin’s name and his own next to the date.
Part 9
For
xanthophyllippa. 3. A sweet Minerva/Snape friendship story. 400 words, U, post-War.By now, they had resigned themselves to Snape’s past catching up with him at least once a year. Its regular reappearance had become almost a bad joke: unduly preoccupied with a Potions puzzle, or distracted by a House crisis, Snape would inadvertently relax his guard a mere fraction and fail to anticipate an ambush or dodge a hex in time. Afterwards, Lupin would assist Pomfrey with patching him up, and McGonagall would devise tasty tidbits and annoying trinkets to cheer his convalescence.
They had come to treat it merely as a nuisance, but when his enemies’ latest effort nearly killed Lupin instead of himself, Snape’s veneer of stoicism cracked. As he kept vigil by Lupin’s bedside, stewing in fury and self-loathing, Snape systematically conjured a series of voodoo dolls and silently ripped them into pieces.
He looked up to find McGonagall watching him. She pointed to the shredded remains of a doll with a hooked nose and black, shoulder-length hair.
“Don’t be an idiot, Severus,” she said. “It doesn’t become you.”
Snape Vanished the entire lot. “This is intolerable, and you are fools.”
McGonagall fixed him with a steely glare. “You are the fool if you think this changes anything.”
Snape’s lips twisted bitterly. “No. No, it doesn’t. You all would have always been better off without me.”
McGonagall retorted, “Severus Snape, if you are even thinking of running away, I will immobilize you in that very chair until you return to your senses.”
Snape buried his face in his hands, too weary and heartsick to fire back a suitable rejoinder. When he looked up again, McGonagall was gone, but a red and gold ledger rested on the corner of the bedside table, its cover emblazoned with her initials.
When Snape opened the book, it revealed a record of every single tea she had hosted since the end of the War – the dates, the menus, the guests, and notes about the conversations. The vast majority of the entries included his name and Lupin’s; he could see the Headmistress’s smirk as she'd jotted down “Sinistra’s icon,” “Thomas’s commission,” and other choice details.
She had already entered the date for the next tea but left the rest of the line blank. Snape stared at the page for a long, long time. Then he Summoned a nearby quill, and after a moment’s hesitation, he wrote Lupin’s name and his own next to the date.
Part 9