That damned dog! Severus Snape thought those words again and again as he walked to his classroom. The cold there would surely help him feel better, and he couldn't wait to sit behind his desk. He didn't like to revise his students' homeworks, but it had to be done, and at least it would allow him to rest his leg.
Everything had gone wrong today. This match should have been a win for Slytherin, especially with Potter as the Seeker for Gryffindor. How could Higgs not catch the Snitch? He had it, right in front of him, while Potter was being thrown on all sides by his broomstick. Even without it, Higgs should have caught the Snitch. How could he lose against an untalented, mediocre, first-year student? He would need a good conversation with Marcus Flint. Snape may not be a Quidditch fan, he may not give a single glance to the Quidditch Cup every time he entered his office, but he preferred the Cup to belong to Slytherin, the only house in Hogwarts that truly deserved it.
He groaned in pain again. Filch should have made a better bandage. Maybe he really should go to the infirmary, but he didn't want anybody, especially not any student that could be there, to find out how he got hurt. Filch, for all his flaws, and especially considering his situation as a Squib, wouldn't tell anybody, teacher or student.
He walked into his classroom, the familiar smell of potions and boiling mixtures soothing his nerves a little bit. Today, Potter was just lucky. The Slytherin team thought they were certain to win and played poorly as a result. Without that, Gryffindor would never have won. The boy might look like his father, he may be as arrogant as James was, but he had none of his talents, none of his intelligence. Severus would find a way to get him expelled from Hogwarts, sooner or later. This was only a matter of time.
"From Death Eater to Potions Master."
The sound of the voice stopped halfway to his desk. This voice... He hadn't heard it in a very long time. His lips were quivering, his mind rumbling in all directions. Even his heart, normally an example of constant cadence, accelerated his beating. He dared not move. He straightened up, to not allow her to see he was limping. She wouldn't see him weak, not for the first time after all these years. Slowly, he turned to look at the origin of this voice.
"Most of your friends didn't get out so easily. Some are at Azkaban, others have been rejected by their community. Very few managed to buy their freedom, and it was only thanks to their money, like your friend Malfoy, that they became frequentable again. But of all of them, it was the most cowardly who got out the best, teaching potions to the students of Hogwarts for the past ten years."
She was staring at one of the shelves in the back of the classroom, her back turned on him. He could see that her arms were crossed on her breasts. Her dark red hair was falling behind her back. She was as beautiful as in his memories, and fierce too. Even by looking only at her back, without seeing her eyes or her face, he could tell it.
"I know what you did."
She knew? Some part of Snape began to feel hope, and it was that part that replied. "If you're talking about what happened..." But she cut him before he could finish.
"What happened today? You mean, you trying to murder my son." Murder her son? What was she talking about? She turned on her heels and faced him. "It must have been hard, wasn't it? Casting a curse on a broomstick to make a boy of eleven fall to the ground. Or getting a troll inside the gates. What an accomplishment it is."
He snapped back to reality. He had to maintain his cover. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said on an even tone.
She laughed. Not a joyous laugh, but one that meant mockery, derision, sarcasm. "You will never change. You've never been good at lying. Or hiding how you truly felt." She could be surprised. "You're lucky I don't have any proof against you. If I did, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Dumbledore would have already sent you to Azkaban." Again, she would be surprised.
She had approached while speaking. Only a few feet distanced them. He could smell her perfume. "If you ever try something again on my son, proof or not, I'm coming for you. And Dumbledore will not be able to protect you this time."
She stared at him with her beautiful emerald eyes. But any love, any attachment she might have for him had not appeared in those eyes for many years. They were cold, filled with hatred. They reminded him of the boy's eyes.
"Is that all?" he asked, remaining impassive.
"Yes, that's all. Stay away from my son." She detached every syllable. She turned away and walked away to the dungeons' door. "You didn't even try to deny it," she added as she left.
Once she had left, Snape let his facade fall off. He groaned again at the pain in his leg, on which he had stood for minutes, and sat on the extremity of his desk to rest. But the physical pain was nothing compared to his internal turmoil. Lily believed he was behind all this. She believed he tried to kill her son today, and even that he brought that troll inside Hogwarts on Halloween. Did she have any idea...?
For ten years, he remained far from her. Dumbledore refused to tell him where she lived. Severus could have found it pretty easily, but Dumbledore forbade him to try. Lily needed time, and she needed her attention devoted to her son. Severus followed the orders, like he always did.
And yet, she was there, only a moment ago. Despite the fact she spent this entire time accusing him of all that had befallen her son, Severus was glad he saw her again after all these years. He had been the first to arrive on the scene at Godric's Hollow. He had ignored the lifeless body of James Potter to go upstairs, and found her and her son. She was bloodied, barely alive. Severus had actually believed she was dead, but when he approached and heard her faint breathing, he examined her, and with a few spells, he healed the worst injuries, those that could actually kill her, especially those inside her body that the human eye couldn't see. When Hagrid arrived later, Severus was gone, but he had made sure that Lily would survive the trip to Hogwarts. Without him, this idiot would certainly have killed her the moment he would have placed her in the back on his motorbike. Severus had not seen her afterwards, not even at Hogwarts while she was recovering.
A tear came out of his eyes. He regained control over himself. He couldn't show weakness, not even alone in his classroom. A student could walk in at any moment and see him. Slowly, his leg still hurting, he stood up and headed to the only person who could help him, and the only person to who he could tell the conversation he just had. When he arrived, it was only to discover that he had made the journey unnecessarily.
"Severus. You should have spared yourself the effort, with your leg. I was about to go and see you," Dumbledore said as he walked inside the headmaster's office.
"Well, I'm here. There's no point in talking about what could have been," he retorted.
"Indeed. Please, Severus, sit." Severus did so. "You look like someone who's been battered by Bludgers for the last two hours."
"You know I don't like your Quidditch references. But yes, I could as well have been."
"I guess then that, aside from the two visits she paid to me, Lily Evans also paid you one."
This drew Severus' attention. "She paid you two visits?"
"She did. The first one right after the game was over. She was angry. I promised her son would be safe here, and look at what happened ever since he came to Hogwarts. And then she returned maybe a half hour later to tell me that you were the one who tried to murder Harry today."
"You know very well that's not true," Severus stated angrily.
"I know it. We both know it, Severus, but the others don't. People have seen you heading to the third floor at Halloween. And someone saw you casting spells on Harry's broomstick during the game."
"Someone saw me?"
"Yes, Severus. They couldn't make out the incantations you were using, but they saw you muttering them and staring at Harry while doing so."
"Who?" Severus had a few good ideas of what he could do to the person who suspected him of cursing that crazy broomstick.
"I'm not going to tell you, Severus. The important is that Lily Evans actually believes you tried to kill her son."
No wonder she believed that, but he would have thought that Lily was brilliant enough to guess what he was trying to do. "I was trying to save the boy."
"She doesn't know that, and she has no reason to believe it either. You never gave her any reason. You even refused to let me tell her the whole truth."
"And this must remain this way," Severus warned the headmaster.
"Well, if you really still want me to never reveal the best of you..." Dumbledore threw his arms in the air. "As you wish, Severus. In fact... the fact Lily Evans believes you're guilty may be of service for us."
"How could it be of service?"
"Quirrell is less likely to suspect I know anything thanks to that. You can continue to keep an eye on him, even watch him very closely. He will not feel as in danger if he thinks everybody believes it was you."
"He knows I suspect him. He knows it since the day of Halloween."
"But he doesn't know that I do as well. Let's give the impression you are the only one suspecting him. It may lead him to make mistakes and reveal his plans."
"Why shouldn't we arrest him right away?"
"I want to discover first why he's so interested with the thing we hid on the third floor."
"My guess is that he wants it for himself."
"Maybe. But we know what this stone is capable of, Severus. And who knows for who Quirrell might be working. I want to discover it, and we won't know for sure if we put him down right away. Let him reveal what are his plans. Put pressure on him. Push him to the brink of collapse, if necessary, but let him reveal his intentions by himself."
"As you wish, Dumbledore." He didn't say that with any joy. He would do his duty, nothing more. At least, his distaste for Quirrell would make it easy for Severus to make him feel like a hunted man.
"But... to make you look more guilty and ensure Quirrell doesn't suspect anything about our own suspicions... you will have to change your behavior."
"How is that so?"
"You'll need to change your behavior towards the young Harry."
It was as if the headmaster had thrown a bucket full of icy water straight into his face. "What do you mean, exactly?"
"What I mean, Severus, is that you must stop treating Harry differently from the other students?"
"You mean, stop treating him like the arrogant, impertinent student that he is."
"Severus, we have been over this. You are the only teacher to see this in Harry Potter. This boy is a hard-working student, well-mannered, and he is not less talented than most of his comrades of the same year."
"He is just like his father, but without the talent."
"That is what you want to see. I look at him and I see more of the mother than the father inside. That shouldn't surprise you, since it is Lily Evans who raised him."
Severus chased the idea from his mind. "I am not going to relax discipline on a student because he doesn't like the way I'm teaching. Or because he's too arrogant or susceptible to support my way of teaching."
"Harry is not the problem here, Severus. It is Lily. She truly believes that you did try to kill her son, maybe twice. I can keep her at arm's length, but I need your cooperation. I promised to keep you away from Harry, and to limit your contacts with the boy to within your classroom. We can suppose that Quirrell tried to harm Harry today because it was Harry and Miss Granger who neutralized the troll at Halloween. Which means that both Harry and Miss Granger could be in grave danger. We must stop Quirrell from taking action before a student really dies."
"And so? I don't see the link with the way I handle my students."
"Quirrell must believe that you are afraid. He must feel empowered enough to make a mistake, while you also put pressure on him, without creating suspicions that others are watching him. For that, you must react to Lily's demands. Anyway, I'm afraid that if something ever happens to Harry again, she could really take matters into her own hands and deal with the situation herself... by targeting the one person she believes is behind those accidents."
Severus froze. If Lily truly believed he tried to harm her son, if Quirrell tried again, and Severus ended on the wrong end... He wouldn't be able to defend himself against her. Of course, in a duel, he could measure to Lily, especially today after she spent so many years living among Muggles and not using magic on a regular basis. The problem was, he could never try to hurt Lily. He would let her defeat him, and who knows what she could do once she had control over the situation, thinking he had tried to kill her boy.
"What about telling her the truth?" Severus asked.
"No. As I said, Quirrell must believe that you are the prime suspect. Anyway, I'm not sure Lily would believe the truth, even if it came from me. She still holds you responsible for James' death."
"I tried to save them."
"You tried to save her," Dumbledore corrected, "and it was after you realized she was the target. You wouldn't have come to me if Voldemort's target had been Neville Longbottom and his parents. And I don't believe she would think kindly of you if we revealed you asked the Dark Lord to spare her, but not her husband or her son. Not to mention that you weren't the one to save Harry today. It was the fire on your cloak and the commotion it caused that made Quirrell lose his visual contact and freed Harry's broomstick from the curse."
"Yes, indeed." Snape still didn't know how his cloak caught fire. He had the distinct impression, even certitude that someone started it.
"Now, like I said, you stop treating Harry differently. I'm not asking you to make him your favourite student, that wouldn't serve our goals anyway. But you must give the impression that you're afraid of Lily Evans." Oh, he was afraid of her, but not to the point of stopping disciplining the son of James Potter. "You stop harassing him, you stop diminishing him on purpose before his fellow students, and you stop giving a particular attention to him. I'm not asking you to stop taking points from Gryffindor, you've always done it with all your students. But Harry Potter is now a normal student, without preferential or distinctive treatment. If you really want us to catch Quirrell, and if you really love Lily Evans, you'll do it."
"If you want me to protect him, I will have no choice but to harass him, like you say."
"You know very well what I mean, Severus. Do I have your word? Or must I expect Lily Evans to come back to Hogwarts one day, demanding your head?"
Reluctantly, Snape suppressed his hard feelings about the situation and gave the Headmaster of Hogwarts the answer he was looking for.
"As you wish, Professor Dumbledore."