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Theodore Nott (booksmart_devil) wrote in wished,
@ 2009-10-11 21:57:00

Entry tags:

!1997: 10, !incomplete, severus snape, theodore nott

Who: Professor Snape & Theo Nott
What: Theo's paranoid about the Puzzle box
Where: Snape's office
When: Saturday evening
Warnings:

His father might have tried with violence and a heavy hand but Professor Snape still intimidated him more, inspired more respect than his father could ever hope to. Theo didn't even realise this consciously, it was just something that was and whatever strange kind of father-complex he had about the whole situation, Theo remained unaware of it.

He had the puzzle box in one hand, wrapped in the cloth that it had come in and again in another cloth - he wasn't about to touch the thing with his bare hands and he thought it better that he didn't advertise his strange gift. He hadn't recognised the owl that had brought him the thing and he knew better than to thoughtlessly give in to his curiosity (although it was burning inside him) and the only person he trusted to be able to help him properly with this was the man who's door he knocked at before waiting patiently.

He waited to be called, manners that had been engraved into him being hard to forget.

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in_the_grass
2009-10-20 01:03 am UTC (link)

The time went by slowly for him, as it always seemed to. He despised grading papers - possibly the only thing he detested more was teaching classes. When thirty minutes had passed and only two essays (two relatively decent essays that he could not, unfortunately justify failing) had been moved to the other side of his desk, he looked up again in a slightly less charitable mood.

It seemed impossibly strange that he hadn't yet been disturbed by some sort of inane question. Nott had never been one to make trouble, of course. He was one of the ones who made Snape wonder exactly how the Hat puzzled out the trickier choices. "Well?" he asked, with a note of his usual impatience, as he slapped a third paper down in front of him. Penmanship clearly needed to be added to the first-year course load.

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booksmart_devil
2009-10-20 08:48 pm UTC (link)

Conversely, the time for Theo from studying the box to Snape speaking seemed so short; he didn't even realise how sick he was for some kind of fatherly affection.

He started a little despite himself, his hand withdrawing to his wand, fingers twitching to curl round it, suddenly hypervigilant. "Sir?" He asked, his tone calm and smooth but in a glassy veneer rather than because that was how he felt.

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in_the_grass
2009-10-21 02:23 am UTC (link)

"Progress?" Snape prompted him, not entirely kindly. If the boy had forgotten what he was about for the past half hour, he was going to be cross. Mostly because he wasn't certain what else there was to do, in here - he had thought he had stripped it of anything even remotely interesting to children, ages ago.

And then, it was possible some students didn't need to be encouraged into paranoia.

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booksmart_devil
2009-10-21 08:23 pm UTC (link)

Theo wondered why the professor was showing so much interest in his strange box, but he didn't comment. "I think I know which piece I want to move first, but I haven't finished exploring all other options yet. Sorry Sir." He added at the end, an almost knee-jerk reaction to dispelasing an authority figure. He wasn't gone enough to expect Snape to curse him for taking so long though, the way his father would have done.

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in_the_grass
2009-10-25 12:49 am UTC (link)

Caution was all well and good, but there was something to be said for trial and error. Snape knew as well as anyone that following instructions to the letter would only get you so far. Whether it was a desire to see the boy succeed, curiosity regarding whatever was locked away in the perplexing little box, or just his usual preference for being left alone, he didn't know - but he couldn't quite suppress a suggestion. His mouth tightened as he began scratching out words on the paper lying on his desk.

"So try one, for goodness' sake, and see where it takes you." Pure theory was, as often as not, perfectly useless.

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booksmart_devil
2009-10-25 04:01 pm UTC (link)

Theo flinched a little at the suggestion, expecting something more physical than just a verbal reprimand for taking his time. "Yes Sir." he acknowledged, before moving the part of the box he was 85% sure was the right piece to move first. He moved the next five pieces in quick succession before the pieces interlocked and he realised he'd have to go back a step or two and try another avenue. "I'll have to retry it." he said, expecting punishment for failure.

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in_the_grass
2009-10-25 10:59 pm UTC (link)

"More than once, I expect," Snape replied, without looking up from the paper - which he was happily marking down a grade for a rather egregious misspelling of a word he thought was meant to be precipitous. "It will require patience. Something that complex will involve multiple attempts." - And, to be very clear that that did not constitute an invitation, he raised his eyes briefly to where Nott was sitting across his desk. Patience was a virtue he was more than happy to encourage in the young, but he personally felt as though he exercised enough of it as it was. "Do not feel obligated to verbalize every one of them."

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booksmart_devil
2009-10-25 11:07 pm UTC (link)

"Yes sir. I mean, no sir." As much as Theo would have expected the Professor to tell him when he needed to leave, he also felt that he'd rapidly outworn his welcome. Besides, sitting there and failing in front of the one person he actually cared about not failing in front of was like some kind of slow and outdrawn self-flagellation. Theo may have been a masochist, but even he couldn't take that kind of emotional torture. "Thank you for allowing me some of your time." he said, curling the puzzle box back into the cloth before he stood up. "And thank you for your help." And crap, now he didn't know if he should just say bye and leave or wait to be dismissed... better the latter, more scorn from Snape was preferable to accidentally insulting the potions master.

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in_the_grass
2009-10-25 11:29 pm UTC (link)

Snape nodded. It was the prudent thing to do; by the look of it, the box would take rather longer than the further half-hour he was willing to spend in the company of students. Nott was admittedly less offensive than most of them (if rather jumpy), but solitude was almost always preferable.

"If you need any more, come back tomorrow. And do tell me if you find anything - interesting." He was loath to encourage anyone to saddle him with boring anecdotes, but he did like to keep a finger on the pulse of any student misbehavior (almost surely implicated in anonymous mail), and it was hard to imagine the boy coming up to him to deliver unimportant news. If only they were all so agreeably quiet.

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booksmart_devil
2009-10-26 05:58 pm UTC (link)

"Yes Sir." Theo said, nodding his head but utterly not planning on coming back, even if he did need help. He understood that it wasn't exactly the smartest idea for him to try and deal with these things himself, but he couldn't face coming back needing yet more help. He'd deal with it himself, the way he'd always been told he had to.

"Thank you." he said again, before turning and slipping out the door quiet and unobtrusive as a cat.

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