Kay_ aka_Ari (kayakaari) wrote in severus_sighs, @ 2011-10-02 14:19:00 |
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Current mood: | exhausted |
Entry tags: | challenge, drabble, event: anniversary 2011, member: ari, rating: g |
Title: Marginalia
Author: kayakaari (aka Ari)
Pairing: Severus (No pairings, sorry)
Rating: G
Word Count: 1348
Warnings: None though I may simply be desensitized.
Summary: Was Snape really a hero or a Death Eater who kept a secret list of his crimes?
A/N: These characters all belong to JK Rowling, I’m just borrowing them. Thank you to my beta, Selkie. I made a few changes on my own so any other errors are mine, the preciousss.
Auror Harry Potter stood anxiously at the entrance to a storage room in the dungeons of Hogwarts. Headmistress McGonagall had informed him that today, a month before the 5th anniversary of the final battle, they were ready to sort through his things. Snape’s things. The heroic former Headmaster and recipient in absentia of the Order of Merlin First Class would be the focus of this year’s celebrations and the event organisers had requested some of his mementos for an exhibit. Since Harry was Snape’s loudest supporter, Minerva had said, it was only fitting that he not only choose the items but also be allowed to keep a few souvenirs for himself.
Harry couldn’t imagine that many of Snape’s possessions would be worthy of keeping unless they were images of Harry’s mother. Snape had never seemed to be a man of many possessions. Nevertheless, people were morbid and would no doubt look upon the possessions of the tragic hero with reverent awe simply because the owner had died.
As Harry sorted through the seventh trunk full of books he found himself wondering if the man had possessed anything other than books. He turned to throw a book onto yet another pile when a photograph fluttered from its pages.
Harry retrieved both the book, ‘Alchemy through the Ages’, and the photograph. It was a Wizarding photograph of Severus and Eileen Snape. Eileen’s image glared at him but Snape’s eleven-year old face appeared to be smirking at him shyly. Or maybe coyly because Harry simply could not reconcile Snape with shy. He flicked through the book hoping for more photos but found none. As he thumbed through the pages, his eyes flickered over the mounds of books all over the room. How many had photos hidden between their pages?
Out of the corner of his eyes Harry saw the spidery handwriting he knew so well on the pages of the book in his hand.
368 - head lopped off by rogue bludger (would need to fool witnesses. Fake head, perhaps a golem...)
369 - turned into a canary, eaten by Mrs Norris. (Must ensure that Minerva doesn't get to bird first, dratted old puss!)
He couldn’t imagine what the words meant. He shrugged his curiosity off and turned to the books in the seventh trunk – it was easier than thinking of tackling the piles around the room. He found only one other photograph – it was of a former Slytherin, his wife and newborn child, none of whom Harry recognised. But Harry found quite a few more of the numbered scribbles, each almost more horrific than the last.
Harry wondered what they meant. In his mind’s eye he saw the scribbles in Snape’s old potions textbook.
56 - eyes poked out with a rusty spoon (presented on a platter or crystal phial?)
57 - brains scrambled with a broken wand (definitely presented in crystal or cut-glass phial to capture light and create haunting prisms).
At the time Harry had speculated that his Half-Blood Prince was referring to his potions, then, after Snape killed Dumbledore, he convinced himself that it was a list of gruesome acts that Snape, the Death Eater, had committed. Now he wasn’t sure what to believe. In the last five years he had convinced himself that Snape wasn’t as dark as he had thought, that Snape was some secret, romantic tragic hero. But the man had become a Death Eater of his own free will, hadn’t he?
Four books and a dozen horrific acts later, Harry was beginning to question his continuous praise of Snape over the past half a decade. What kind of monster could be responsible for such a list? The highest number he had found to date was ‘733 – mauled to death by a werewolf (Lupin? Easy enough, the beast is mindless without my potion.)’ It was clearly a list but a list of what? Harry was beginning to suspect that it was a list of people Snape had murdered.
Who had been the seven hundred and thirty-third person that Snape had killed using Remus? But no, he couldn’t have killed anyone, he had made the Wolfsbane every month, hadn’t he? But the items in the list were undated and Harry simply could not be sure. His heart ached; he had wanted to believe in the good in Snape so badly. He continued his search, hoping for answers.
His search seemed fruitless until, in a well thumbed copy of ‘Confronting the Faceless’, Harry found an old undated note from Dumbledore chiding the Potions Master for having picked a fight with Lockhart. It was the scribbles on the inside back cover of this book that made Harry begin to doubt himself once again.
624 - skull removed by Lockhart when he tries to cure your headache (it would take nothing to fool that idiot and everyone would believe him capable too!)
625 – brain rotted after listening to Lockhart’s tales (should be self-explanatory!
The list of ways to die at an incompetent Lockhart's wand numbered 101 and was scribbled on three feet of folded parchment hidden in the back of the book.
Harry decided to take a break for the evening and discussed the list with McGonagall and Hermione. Neither could decipher the meaning any more than him. The next day, however, Hermione joined him and decided to create some order to the words. Using a Self-Writing Quill, she copied every numbered item Harry found and sorted the list in order.
“Harry,” she called into the quiet of the afternoon a week later. “I still don’t know what these are but I’ve noticed something. This list of items all relating to Lockhart gave me the idea and I think I see a pattern. Speaking with Minerva and some of the other professors, they recognize some of the items on the list as modified versions of errors made by various DADA teachers over the years. For the most part, there are only two or three per professor. Of course, not surprisingly, Lockhart’s 101 is more than 2 dozen times the total number of ways to die at the wand tips of a decade worth of DADA teachers Snape considered pathetic. Still, I don’t think any of these items describe real deaths.”
“So it’s a list of ways to die?”
Hermione shrugged. “It seems so.”
*** SeverusSighs***
Arriving home after that year’s celebrations, Harry rushed to retrieve his pensieve. At the Severus Snape exhibit, a voice from the shadows had taunted him as he lovingly caressed one of the items from the list.
“As unobservant as ever, Potter. You claim to have re-visited my pensieve memories hundreds of times over the years. Is it all lies? How many times can a man look without seeing?”
He had not found the owner of that voice but he felt almost one hundred percent certain that it was Snape’s voice. As the voice had spoken, Harry cast lumos into every nook and cranny but the voice was clearly being projected from elsewhere. Only Hermione’s glares and Ron’s firm grip on his arm had kept him from making a spectacle of himself and chasing the voice of the dead.
Going through Severus' memories for the thousandth time since he’d gotten them and the third time that night, Harry finally tore his eyes away from the people and examined the surroundings. In that memory of Snape and Lily’s first trip to Hogwarts he noticed the book in the young boy’s hands. For the first time ever, he deigned to pay attention to what Snape was reading. Looking at the open page he read the childish scribbles in the margins of ‘Hogwarts: A History’.
Ways for Mother and me to run away from Tobias - 1001 Ways To Fake Your Own Death
Appear to have
1 - Drowned (allows bits of clothing to wash along a river bed?)
2 - Burned into a pile of ashes (Tobias was fascinated about that story of spontaneous combustion he'd heard of in the pub).
3 - Kissed a dementor (Tobias and the other Muggles probably wouldn’t get that one...)