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Two Sides Against the Middle by Rose of the West [Reviews - 1]

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone.


“Unbelievable!” Severus was pacing in their rooms again. The winter had passed without significant incident. The protections guarding the Philosopher's Stone had held and no attempts had been made on it. The students had managed to do their work and get a little more educated and were in various stages of study for final exams. Now, with the end of the school year upon them, Severus was thinking over something he had heard from Draco Malfoy and talking to his wife.

“I'm telling you, Severus, this has been a very dangerous school year. Now there's a dragon? I love Hagrid and all, but he needs a little more restraint, doesn't he? What of our daughter?” Emily was sitting on the couch, trying not to get upset, and thumbing through a new issue of Healing Hands Monthly.

“I'm sure she's safe. I'll ask Filch to keep an eye out for this supposed meeting. If it's true we can have Potter expelled and keep the school that much safer, at least.”

“Oh, and then how do you plan to live out your promise to keep the boy safe so he can carry out his destiny, all while teaching here, keeping Hope safe, and staying on the good side of people like Lucius Malfoy?”

“So what do you propose?”

“Find a way to warn Potter to be a bit more careful and circumspect. Don't get him expelled. Life will be easiest for all of us if he's right here where you can keep an eye on him and perhaps train him. Just find a way to get him to be less foolhardy.”

Severus walked over to the couch. “When did you become such a Slytherin?”

“Do you have to ask?” Emily looked up from an article on accidental lovage ingestion.

He looked down at her. She was still dressed in her Healer robes and looked efficient and delicious. “There are several incidents that come to mind.”

“You might as well start with the day I first saw you in the library and decided we should be study partners,” she said. “My plotting days began then. You can think about it when you're discussing other things with Argus. Shouldn't you be doing that now?”

“Hmm, and she even knows how to keep me on task.” Severus kissed his wife. “Will you be here when I get back?”

“Oh, I'm not going anywhere,” she said. For one thing, as soon as she left their rooms, Quirinus Quirrell would leap out of nowhere and start talking to her.

Severus came back several hours later. Emily had left some lights, but had fallen asleep in the midst of what appeared to be some extremely romantic arrangements. He prepared for bed and doused the trail of candles that led from the door of their apartment to the bedroom. Then he slid into bed and pulled his wife close.

“There you are,” said a sleepy voice. “So was there really a dragon?”

“That aspect of the story is unclear. However, Potter, Granger, Longbottom, and Malfoy were all found in one of the towers long after curfew. They have each lost 50 points in house points and will be serving a detention. I've never seen Minerva McGonagall so deliciously furious. Argus is salivating over the various tasks to which he can set them.”

“Longbottom? That sounds exactly like Frank, but not like the hapless creature you've described all year.”

“The boy bears watching. Perhaps he just needs to get away from his grandmother, who, I hear, is a proper dragon herself.”

“That woman comes to the hospital every day to visit her son and daughter-in-law.”

“I don't doubt her many excellent virtues, but truly, Emily, I was hoping to explore some of your excellent virtues.”

“Were there any in particular that interest you?”

“Maybe I should just see what I can find?”

Emily moved her lips close to his, “You shouldn't have to look too hard.”



The detention was carried out in the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid and the children discovered a dead unicorn. The unicorn had been killed. This was a crime so heinous that the adults on staff were aghast. To the Headmaster, who discussed it with Severus, it proved that Voldemort was on the grounds of the school. The Dark Lord must be close to death at all times without his body and in some ways worse than dead. Young Potter had mentioned seeing some creature drinking the blood of the unicorn, which would keep that creature alive but at a terrible cost to his soul. Dumbledore speculated that a soul capable of committing as much evil as Voldemort had done was unlikely to feel further damage at this point.

Other than using the Floo to get to St. Mungo's for work, Emily didn't leave her rooms without Severus these days. She didn't want to meet Voldemort unawares and she felt as though Quirrell was always near her. Meals in the Great Hall should have been a delightful time to speak with the professors and catch a glimpse of her daughter, but she felt as though Quirrell was always staring at her. If she chanced outside the dungeons it seemed as though Quirrell was waiting for her. She always had the sense of something touching her when she was near him, so she took steps to avoid that circumstance. She felt guilty for hoping that the Defense Against the Dark Arts hex would prevent him from returning in the future.

One afternoon Emily was leaving work early to celebrate the end of exams with Hope and Severus. She went to use the Floo but found that it was out of order. Someone had tried to send a patient and an entire enchanted bicycle through it. Therefore she Apparated to the school gates and walked the rest of the way to the family apartment.

As she reached the bottom of the staircase leading to the dungeons, Quirrell bumped into her and backed her into a wall. “Ah, Emily, Dumbledore has left and won't be back until late. I have plenty of time to get what I need. It will be just a few hours, now. I will return to a proper form and then we can be together. You don't know how I've looked forward to this.”

She resisted the sensation but it wouldn't leave her. He was pressed against her, his hands on the wall at either side, but she felt as though other hands were touching her all over. It only took seconds, but it seemed much longer. He released her and ran to the stairs and up them. Emily slid down to the floor but only for a minute. She was horribly exposed in this hallway. There was a place she could go that surely even that horrible man wouldn't find her.

Another man found her, long after dark. After checking at the hospital and looking all through the castle, it occurred to Severus to look for his wife in the library, in the little nook behind the restricted books section. She was sitting there looking much as she had the last time he had found her there.

“What are you doing, Mrs. Snape?”

“It's him, Severus. It looks like Quirrell and most of the time he speaks like Quirrell, but it's him.”

“We know Quirrell has been working for the Dark Lord all along, but Emily...”

“I don't care what you say, Severus, it's him. Maybe it was Polyjuice, or transforming spells, I don't know. It's him.”

“You might say it was him. He lured Potter into the room where the stone was hidden and died. It's unclear exactly what happened, but Quirrell is dead and Potter is unconscious. Hopefully when he wakes, Albus can get a more detailed story from the boy.”

“It must have been right after I saw him. He leaned me into a wall and told me we would finally be together. Then he ran up the stairs.”

“Emily, you know I hate when you sit on the floor. Come, let's go to our rooms.” He took her hands and lifted her up, pulling her out. “You're chilled straight through,” he said, putting an arm around her and walking her through the library. “Let's get you into a warm bath and give you some brandy, maybe something to eat...”

“What about Hope? We were supposed to celebrate the end of the school year.”

“She's in the common room. It looks like Slytherin will take both cups again this year, depending on the outcome of Gryffindor-Ravenclaw this weekend. I can't wait to see Minerva at the Feast. She thought they would do so well with Potter, and he's laid up in the hospital wing.”



Harry Potter was sure Professor Snape hated him when he saw the look that professor gave him in the Great Hall during the Feast at the beginning of the school year. He must absolutely loathe Harry. After all, Snape had looked at Harry so hard that his scar hurt. Harry had pressed his hand to his forehead and turned away from the pain.

Had Harry maintained eye contact, he would have seen a look of longing and uncertainty flash across the professor's face. He might also have seen a red gleam within the folds of the turban worn by the professor sitting near Professor Snape. Instead he would carry the combined impression of Professor Snape's dark look and the pain in his forehead as a single event for years, not shaking the impression even after he was shown how false it was by the author of that pain himself.

Harry's friends told him that Snape had been casting the hex that nearly toppled him from his broom during the first Quidditch game. They didn't realize that the professor was merely performing a counter-hex to one being cast by Professor Quirrell. They assumed that the fire caused the hex to stop when in reality bumping Quirrell down accomplished that. Again, even though Voldemort himself told Harry the truth, Harry still believed that Professor Snape was evil.

Headmaster Dumbledore saw all of this and more when he interviewed the boy after he awoke from his ordeal. He discussed it with Professor Snape. The two decided to adopt this aversion the boy had as the best means of Snape keeping an eye on Harry Potter without causing the sort of comment that would give away the professor's true allegiances. This suited Severus fine as he could not see himself developing a relationship other than animosity with the boy.



Professor Snape's gloating over winning the House Cup was short lived. In a speech the head of Slytherin found to be a bit high-handed, the Headmaster awarded enough points to move Gryffindor from the bottom of the house standings to the very top. He had to begrudgingly admit that the points awarded to Granger were appropriate. He had devised a very complicated riddle for the potions trap guarding the stone and having it solved by a first year showed remarkable skill in the child. He wasn't so sure about the points awarded to Potter and Weasley. The points awarded to Longbottom for standing up to the other three were perhaps a bit low. The worst part of the End-of-Term Feast was having to shake McGonagall's hand as if it was just fun.

The Head of Slytherin had to content himself with just the Quidditch Cup this year. He carried it to the dungeons and placed it in its home in his study. After straightening a few loose papers and grimacing at the pile of O.W.L.s paperwork he would have to attack soon, he wandered down to where his wife was packing for the summer. The Snape family would split the summer break between Severus's house on Spinner's End and visiting Margo in her London home. If Emily was successful in persuading her husband, they would get a week at a beach resort, too.

“Can't leave soon enough?” asked Severus.

“Mum will meet Hope at Kings Cross, but we're expected to be there for dinner tomorrow night. Then it's off for some family time. I can't wait for it to be just the three of us with no possessed professors, trolls, three-headed dogs, or anything else I have to worry about.”

“It wasn't so bad.”

“It was pretty awful, and you know it. When did we ever have a year like that, since the time we were students?”

“It would appear that the Dark Lord is trying to rise back up. That makes for extenuating circumstances.”

Emily sat down on the bed. “Why couldn't he just be dead and stay that way?”

“Dumbledore tells me that you know the answer to that as well as anyone else.”

“I really know nothing at all.” This was partially true. Emily knew it had to do with Harry Potter and the night his parents were killed but didn't bother to unravel the rest of the allusions the Headmaster had made. He made her promise to examine the boy again at such time as Voldemort was believed to be finally gone, and she had promised, but she shrank from too much knowledge.

“Do we really have to go to a beach resort, Emily?”

“I need to see some color in my daughter's cheeks. She's been so isolated and forlorn here. She's repulsed by her house mates but doesn't feel comfortable making friendships outside of Slytherin. I wish the hat could have picked Ravenclaw.”

“It's just as well she's in Slytherin. Some day there may be expectations...”

“Does everything in our life have to be with an eye to what may happen in ten years? Is this what it means to be married to a Slytherin?”

“I could show you what it means to be married to a Slytherin, if you can spare the time.”

Emily shivered at the sound of his voice and looked around the room. “I think the rest can wait until tomorrow morning.”

Severus took that as his opening and dashed across the room. Just as he reached her, his wife said, “This doesn't mean the beach question is over. We're going.”

“Do I have to watch men ogle you in a bikini?”

“I think my two-piece days may be over. You could always do some of the ogling yourself,” she replied.

A demonstration of sorts proceeded.

*******

Two Sides Against the Middle by Rose of the West [Reviews - 1]

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