Better Angels II - Chapter 2

Title: Better Angels II (Working Title)
Author: aonian (formerly lmk05)
Summery: Severus Snape is adjusting to his new life with the Potters.  James is adjusting to the idea that he is responsible for another person.  There are some bumps along the way.  Meanwhile, the world is not a peaceful place.


A Thousand Acts: Chapter Two

The carriage touched down between two sloping hills.  It clattered along a narrow cobblestone path that was set in the middle of the wide valley.  The path led up nearly to the stoop of a modest, two storey house without even a gate or a fence to put off unwanted visitors.  The house looked to be made of wood, not stone, and painted an obscenely pleasant off-white with a bluish trim.  Snape had thought the Potter's house seemed rather small from the inside, but he was singularly unimpressed with the exterior.  The house resembled something that the Malfoys would  store their gardner's family in, if they hadn't had elves.

A bit west of the house and up the hillside Snape could see a row of windows sticking out of the snow covered ground in mounds  -- the potion lab.  East of the house, on the flat valley floor, was a series of free-standing greenhouses, which Snape assumed provided most of the natural ingredients for Mr. Potter's potions.

The carriage rolled up to the front of the house, then stopped.  James opened the door and hopped out while Snape followed a bit more slowly.  He wasn't sure if he should be tending the Thestrals or sorting the luggage, but since he had no orders nor any idea how to do those things, he opted to follow James into the house.

Mr. Potter appeared in the foyer, and grinned widely.  "James!  Good to see you."  He leaned forward and wrapped his son in a hug.  James returned the hug, patting his father awkwardly on the back.  "Good to see you too, Dad.  What did you blow up that you don't want Mum to find?"

"Yes, dear, what indeed?" Mrs. Potter asked sweetly from the doorway.

"What?  I can't just be happy to see my son?  And Severus, how are you?"

Snape resisted the urge to step backwards; he wanted no part in whatever household drama was about to occur.  "Well, Master -- er, Mr. Potter."

Mrs. Potter shot her husband a look that would have done McGonnagal proud.  "We'll talk later, Ben.  Why don't you show Severus his room and I'll look in on supper.  James, be a dear and check in on the Thestrals."

James looked like he wanted to protest but didn't dare, whereas Mr. Potter looked entirely pleased with his assignment.  Probably because he didn't have to go out into the snow.  Which, really, should be Snape's job.

Mr. Potter started walking up the stairs with a come-along gesture at Snape.  Once he was on the upper floor, Mr. Potter said quietly, "Don't worry about Evelyn and I.  She's a lot more patient than she sounds."

Snape nodded, although since Mr. Potter was walking in front of him, he probably couldn't see.  He decided to take a risk.  "Did you really blow something up you weren't supposed to?"

"No."  Mr. Potter led him past the room he had stayed in before, which made Snape's belly twitch with nervousness.  "But I'll have to leave tomorrow on some emergency buisness, which I don't fancy telling her.  At least now she'll be worried about the actual structural integrity of the house, so my leaving won't seem so bad by comparison."

Snape felt the corners of his mouth twtich up.  "Clever."

"After thirty-five years of marriage, you have to be."  Mr. Potter pushed open a doorway at the end of the hall.  Snape was fairly sure it hadn't been there before, but he hadn't been particularly aware of his surroundings the last time he was here.  "This is your room."

Snape walked in.  The room was huge by his standards, although smallish in comparison to even the guest rooms at Malfoy Manner.  It had a large window that faced the snow-covered hillside, a large bed, a wardrobe and a dresser and the smell of fresh paint.  "It's new."

"You needed a room of your own and the guest room has turned out to be useful, so we just built on again.  You can decorate it how you like."

Snape stared at the bed and the window.  The bed was large enough for multiple people and had sturdy posts at each corner.  The window faced the blank hillside, letting any sounds (pleas, cries for help, screams) out into uninterested snow.  His chest began to tighten but he forced his breaths to stay slow and even.  Yes, it was odd to give a slave a bedroom of his own, and unheard of to build one specifically for him, but he'd already decided that the Potters' sanity was questionable.  He was not going to panic over what might be just one more symptom of madness.

"This is...very generous,"  Snape said, although his tone was halting enough that he feared it might be percieved as an insult.

Mr. Potter just gave him a steady look.  "You needed yout own space, somewhere where no one else can go without your permission.  You can ward the door if you like."

Snape looked down at his new shoes and tugged at the crisp, unfrayed edges of his sleeves.  "Is this one of those things you know from experience?"

"Partly.  But it's also just basic decency.  And, anyway, Evelyn wanted to keep a guestroom for actual guests, which you are no longer."

Snape poked the toe of his shoe into the thick green and gold patterned rug that sprawled across the room.  "And in your family, slaves get brand new rooms and sturdy beds."

"I don't know about slaves, but family gets a place here to call their own, for as long as they like."  Mr. Potter paused.  "Or until I blow the house up again."

Snape jerked his head up, disreguarding etiquette to search Mr. Potter's face.  He found only a sheepish smile that was belied by the honest intensity with which Mr. Potter returned his gaze.  "Family?"  He tried not to let his distrust show.

"Family.  It's not something that we can make legal, of course, but it is something we can make real with time."

Snape dropped his eyes again, letting his eyes follow the ornate gold patterns woven into the rug.  "That's...I don't...Caligulus Malfoy prepared and positioned his brothers and sisters and son to advance his power in the ministry.  I don't even think he saw them as terribly different from me, except that them he had to coddle, bribe and bore with long speaches on the bonds of blood to get them to obey while with me he could just spill actual blood."

"That's...most certainly not the kind of family I'm talking about, here."

Snape gave an ironic twitch of his lips.  "I had assumed that much, sir."

"It's...well, it's not all that easy to explain, not that you're likely to believe me anyway."  Snape must have betrayed his surprise at being caught out, because Mr. Potter said, with reassuring good humor, "You've got precious little reason to trust any of us, I know."

Snape shifted from foot to foot.  "None of you have hurt me.  That...means a lot."

"We'll take that as an encouraging start, anyway."  Mr. Potter gave a nod to the door.  "Now it's time for me to go put my wife out of her misery.  Raul, our house elf, should be up with your trunk, er, eventually.  He'll also let you know when to come down for dinner."  Mr. Potter turned and started to leave, then paused and looked back halfway through the door.  "I'll expect you'll want to unpack and get comfortable here, but you are welcome to move about the rest of the house as you like."

After Mr. Potter had shut the door, Snape stood and stared at it until his eyes began to cross.

---

It only took Snape fifteen minutes to empty his trunk into the wardrobe and drawers.  He used a quarter of the wardrobe and one of the six drawers.  He wondered if one day he would have enough stuff to fill all the drawers, and then shook his head to clear the pointless speculation.

He wasn't left with much to do.  Mr. Potter had suggested that he decorate his room, but even if he had much of an asthetic eye he didn't have rolls of Quidditch posters or paint or much of anything to decorate his room with.  He knew a few half-remembered charms, but with his luck and current state of mind, he'd be lucky if he didn't wind up adding sparkly pink hearts to the new paint job.  Charms was really not his strong point.  He supposed he could transfigure the furniture, but he didn't really see the point.

In the end, he took strips off one of the old, ratty school uniforms the house elves had given him and wrapped one around each of the bed posts, tranfiguring them into simple wooden snakes.  It wouldn't impress McGonnagal and he felt a little strange tearing up something as useful as clothing for something so frivilous.  But he had plenty of new uniforms and the was starting to trust that the Potters wouldn't just take everything they had given him away at the drop of a potions beaker.

Also, if anything was tied around the bedposts, they would have to go around the snakes.  He had enough wandless magic that he might be able to reverse the transfiguration and leave the bindings slack on the bedpost.

That task done, he was back to wondering what the hell to do with himself.  He had brought his school work, but he'd finished most of it before the holidays -- it was amazing how much extra time he had when his master wasn't using him to satisfy urges or gain favor with potential allies, or allowing any other students to make a sport out of him.  He might finish all the coursework he could before Spring, which meant he might be able to nudge the Headmaster into letting him do some kind of independant project. 

Hmm.  Projects required research.  Research required libraries.  Mr. Potter was an inventor, so he must also have a library somewhere in the house.  He'd only seen a few dozen reference texts in the lab, which meant there must be a more extensive library somewhere. 

The Potters house wasn't that big.  Once he found it, he could start looking for anything that might catch his interest.  With one last look at his new room, he went in search books.

---

James held on to what he hoped was the reins of the thestrals and led them to their stalls.  He didn't bother trying to figure out where each went since he couldn't see them; if he got it wrong, Raul would fix it when he was done with dinner.  He pulled out a strip of pemican and held it out, palm up.  He felt the soft lips of the thestral on his palm and reached up to scratch between where he thought her eyes should be.  There was a heavy, whuff of air as the thestral expressed her pleasure. 

James followed the head down to the neck and pulled a rag off the stall door with his free hand.  For the next fifteen minutes, he blindly wiped down the thestral, his hands sure and confident from having done this thousands of times before.  The thestral appreciated it, and expressed this by craning her head around and bumping him in the shoulder, which always knocked him off balance since he couldn't see it coming.

He heard the barn door open and his fathers footsteps come in.  "Hey, Dad, what'd you blow up this time?"

He turned around and saw his dad pick up another rag and move towards the other thestral's stall.  "Nothing.  I'm just going to have to leave for a few days."  He started wiping down the other thestral.  James couldn't see him through the wood seperating the stalls, but he could hear just fine.  "Muggles have been getting sick out in Bramshire and the ministry thinks it might be magical in nature, so they're pulling together masters from different disciplines to see if we can figure out what's going on without killing each other.  Should be interesting."

"Uh-huh."

"Oh, come on, it will be a mystery to solve.  It's exciting."

James rolled his eyes.  "Uh-huh."

"Hey, I feign interest when you and your mother go on for hours about throwing a ball through a circle."

"That is interesting.  Quidditch is exciting.  And I am feigning interest."  James finished wiping down the thestral and ran his hand over her coat to make sure he hadn't left behind any wet spots.

"I at least use real words, and frequently more than one of them."

"Uh-huh."  He hoped over the stall door, then turned around and leaned over the the other stall door.  His dad was wiping down the thestral efficiently, but to James it looked like a very good mime show.  "Sometimes  you even use words of more than two syllables, before you fall asleep."

"Well, I do try." 

"I'd feign interest, but then we'd just have the same conversation every time.  And that's boring."

His dad gave the thestral one final sweep, then fed her a bit of mutton.  "We still have the same coversation.  It's just shorter."

James shrugged.  That was fine with him.  He loved his dad, but conversation between the two of them usually ended with one or both of them unconscious.  His father sometimes needled him about having a short attention span, but the truth was that Ben Potter's wasn't any better for things he wasn't interested in.

His dad, finished with the thestral, came out of the stall and herded James back towards the house.  "We added on an extra room for Snape.  Try not to barge in on him like you did with Sirius and Remus.  Knock."

James' mental feathers ruffled at that.  "Hey, they were sleeping on the couch.  It's kinda hard not to barge in on the sitting room."

"Which is why we're keeping the new guestroom as a guestroom.  Your mum thought it might encourage Sirius to show himself for Yule.  We know he's not living at home."

James shook his head as they walked up the steps to the house.  "Sirius and Snape in the same house?  Bloodbath."

---

Snape found books.  Which was kind of like saying whoever discovered dragons had discovered a large newt with bad mornng breath.  He opened the plain wooden door -- everything in the Potter's house was plain, sturdy and well-used -- and found a circular room that spiraled up into a tower of books.  He had to crane his neck all the way back to see the top shelf. 

And that wasn't all that caught his attention.  Above the row of specks that was the top bookshelf was a grey sky, quickly turning dark as the sun dipped towards the hills.  It must have been the same charm as was in the Great Hall, unless Mr. Potter had been lying and had accidentally blown the roof off his library.

It took him a minute to notice the sturdy oak table in the center of the room.  There was also a padded chair next to it and a comfortable looking couch off to the side, with a pillow and a blanket neatly folded.  But what caught his attention was the giant book in the center of the table.

Snape moved closer and was relieved to see the title Index stamped on it in gold leaf.  Inside was a list of, presumably, every title and author in the library, a brief description of the book and the specialty fields involved. 

He could spend seven years here and still have half the library left to read.  He thumbed through the index, titles jumping off the page as texts thought to have been lost or were so rare that they were as good as.  Dark magic books were marked in red ink, with a special note of precations.  Books that he would have needed several levels of approval to even look at if he had tried to access them in the ministry's library.  Not every potions book was on the list, but all of the books that formed the base of potions knowledge and the books that effectively challenged that base were here.

He wondered if he could convince Mr. Potter to let him do a semester abroad program...in his library.

He glanced around the room again, suppressing the childish urge to spread his arms out and spin until he was dizzy.    He didn't have time for silliness...he only had two weeks to gather as much knowledge as he could from this library.  He needed a plan.

---

James was starving by the time Balty called him in to dinner.  He demonstrated this by sitting down, piling food onto his plate and then shoveling it into his mouth until half of it was gone.

Then he looked up.  His mother was rubbing her forehead, his father was speaking quietly to Snape, and Snape himself looked like he was sitting on a bed of nails.  His plate was still empty.  His eyes were darting around the room, before James' father said something to make his eyes focus back on him. 

"Please," he heard Snape say, but he couldn't make out the rest. 

James' father nodded.  In one motion Snape pushed his chair back and pivoted to the door.  James started to stand at the same time his father did.  His dad noticed and caught his eye, deliberately sitting back down.  "Go on, son.  He's yours."

James followed Snape's path out the door through the kitchen, but Snape was already gone.  His room was the most likely place, so James checked there first but found it empty.  James stood in the middle of the bare room, thinking.

"If I were a sneaky, elusive Slytherin having a panic attack, where would I go?"

The bare walls declined to answer.  James tried again.

"If I were a sneaky, elusive Slytherin who was completely obessesed with potions having a panic attack...?"

The room stayed silent, though James could have sworn one of the snakes wrapped around the bedposts winked at him.

James took a deep breath and chanelled his inner Lupin.  "If I were Snape, I would be in the library because I am an utter boff and completely obsessed with books and anything else that's musty and has tiny print."

Sure enough, the library door was cracked open.  James opened it quietly; not sneaking, but not being dramatic either.  He saw the back of Snape's head, layed against the far end of the couch.  He seemed to be sitting on the floor, knees up to his chest but his head leaned back as he gasped for air.

James circled around the couch to face him, sitting casually on the floor.  He knew Snape saw him from the flick of his eyes and the sharp increase in his already labored breathing. 

"Hey," he said, quietly, before running out of words.  What would his father say?  He didn't know.  What would Lupin say?  He'd probably try to figure out what Snape was thinking.  But Snape didn't seem to be thinking of anything, really, except maybe  of  breathing and not throwing up with fear.

When he'd calmed down, though, James thought that he might be embarassed.  Snape didn't like to show weakness or draw attention to himself.

"It's okay," James promised.  "We're not mad or anything.  We'll just have our elf bring dinner to your room."  He forced a smile.  "They'd bring it here, but dad would have a fit if food went near his precious books."

Snape was tracking him with his eyes now.

"No, I haven't been imperio'd.  Dad and Lupin both sat me down for a talk on trying to imagine myself in other people's shoes."  James thought he saw one of Snape's eyebrows twitch upward.  "I'm not very good at it.  Your shoes are the second hardest.  You don't seem to like girls or quidditch or pranks, so how am I supposed to tell what you're thinking?"

The corners of Snape's mouth definitely twitched.  His breathing was fast but closer to normal, and he was looking at the ground with an expression that wasn't pure terror.

James kept his mouth shut for a good two minutes, not wanting to say something stupid and send Snape back into wherever he'd been.  When Snape finally took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, eyes rising to meet James', James gave a little smile.  "Want to talk about it?"

"Definitely not, Master."

"Good, because I still don't want to hear about it.  And don't call me master."

Snape flinched and swallowed, but said only, "Sorry.  Forgot."

"You going to be okay to go back to the table?  Or would you rather go to your room?" 

"Room."  Snape rubbed his hands over his face.  "I can't...."

"Don't worry about Mum and Dad.  They get it.  Better than me, anyway."

"That wouldn't be difficult, would it?"

"Not so much."  James started to stand, offering a hand to Snape.  Snape flinched but took it.

He let Snape lead the way back to his room.  A tray was already cooling on the desk.  Snape stood until James' gestered him to sit.  James flopped down on the bed. 

He waited until he heard the sounds of utenslis on meat and chewing.  "You really ought to have some posters.  Girls or maybe some Chudly Cannons.  You got a favorite team?"

He heard Snape swallow a mouthful.  "No."

That was a crime against wizard kind, but James, still chanelling his inner Lupin, let it go.  "What about girls?"

Snape's fork met his plate with a clatter.  "What about them?"

"Do you like them?"

Snape had turned around in his chair to face him.  "Not any less than I like boys.  Where is this conversation going?"

James shrugged.  "Nowhere, I guess.  You really don't like girls?"

Snape tugged at the cuffs of his robes.  "Why should I?  The only reason I wasn't castrated at thirteen is because I am apparently one of the few male slaves who has live sperm -- an unfortunate effect of centuries of inbreeding.  If I mate with a female it's because she's borrowing me from my master or because she's a breeder.   It won't be my choice, either way."

"Fuck."  James couldn't think of anything else to say.  "Bloody fucking hell."

Snape kept his eyes on his hands.  "And if it were my choice, I'd rather just be left alone.  I have no desire to do that to someone else."  He glanced up, eyes flicking over James' face before focusing back on his hands and James realized he was hearing as close to a plea as he was probably ever going to get from a non-panicking Snape.

"Okay, I know you're having trouble with the trust bit, but we are really not going to rent you out or breed you.  Seriously."  Well, so much for his inner Lupin.

Snape didn't say anything.

"And, anyway, you don't always get a choice with liking girls either.  Sometimes it just happens.  One minute you're talking to your best friend and the next minute a pair of legs...or above the legs...walks by and there goes your speech and coordination and good sense."

"That's never happened to me."  Snape said, with hardly even a trace of smugness.

"Heh."  James sat all the way up.  "We'll see.  But my point is, it's not a choice.  Hell, sometimes the more they hate you the more you like them."

"Lily seems to hate you less of late," Snape offered.

James accepted the shift in topic.  "Yeah.  Years of hard effort paying off."  He peered around Snape to his plate.  "You going to eat that?"

Snape picked a fork and pushed his chicken around with it. 

"I mean, like, actually put it in your mouth and chew."

Snape stared at his fork.  Deliberately, he used it to skewer a piece of chicken and bring it to his mouth.  His jaw worked once and then he gulped as if he were dry-swallowing a stone.  He immediatly looked as if he wanted to be sick.

"I know the chicken was a little dry, but it wasn't that bad, I didn't think."

Snape shook his head.  He sipped some water, refusing to meet James' gaze.

"Are you allergic to chicken?  You look like I just made you swallow Thestral dung."  No response from Snape.  "Come on.  If you hate chicken we can get you something else."

"It's not the food itself,"  Snape said, finally.  "It's...."  He trailed off.

Oh, hell.  "This is going to be one of those Lucius was a sadistic psychopath things, isn't it?"

Snape's eyes flicked up towards his.  "That's...the most apt, if vague, description for it.  Yes."

"How can I fix it?"

"I don't think...time.  I hope."  Snape interlocked his fingers, squeezing his hands together until they went white.  "When I was home with Lucius food was...something I had to pay for.  For awhile.  Until Lucius got bored with the games or his father stopped him and the house elves could sneek food to me.  Usually lasted a week or two every summer, except last summer."

James cocked his head, remembering the condition he'd found Snape in at the begining of the school year.  "He didn't...Oh, you mean he never got bored and his father never did anything."

Snape shook his head.  "It wasn't continuous -- Lucius still had to work, of course -- but the house elves couldn't help me and food...I never ate without giving up something in return."

"If I asked you what you had to give up, will it ruin my appitite for the rest of the month?"

"I don't know."  Snape thought for a few seconds.  "Maybe."

"Then let's not chance it."  James felt a peculer sensation that reminded him of Remus tapping him forcefully on the back of his skull.  "Er, unless you want to talk about it that is."

"No."  Snape relaxed his hands, then leaned back in his chair.

"Will you be able to eat alone?  Or maybe I could send up a house elf?  They could pretend to be sneaking it to you.  Murky would love that...he likes to play spy."

"That's...."  Snape rubbed his hands over his face, sighed and then sat up straight.  "I think I'll be all right once I'm alone."

That was the most polite, 'get the hell out' James had ever recieved.  "Okay.  I'll just bugger off before your food get's completely cold."  He slid off the bed and went to the door.  Before closing it behind him he said, "I'll see you around.  Find me tomorrow and I'll show you where the quidditch stuff is."

Snape did not look sufficiently excited about this, but he nodded politely.  "Good night and...thank you."