He rubbed his left arm absently, a nervous reaction made worse by his time in Azkaban. He hated to be stared at, and the man in front of him was doing just so with the utmost scrutiny.
"Let me guess," the man began, "they pulled you out of your cell and brought you straight here?"
Severus nodded, feeling filthy more now that the man had obviously noticed his sad condition.
"This won't work."
"Don't send me back," he said, and hated himself for it. His voice was weak, desperate. They'd be able to make him do anything by just promising to keep him from going back.
The man looked at him, surprise clear on his unlined face and in his hazel eyes. "I... wasn't going to." He grinned then. "I'm sure you have no love lost for the Ministry; truth is there are a lot of us who think they let the aurors get away with too much. I'm not going to send you back just because those fools don't understand what's going on here."
"You're... not an auror?" That was possibly some of the best news he had heard. Especially since he didn't know what was going on here either.
"I'm not. Now let's get you cleaned up. Your training won't go anywhere unless you're in good health, which is something Azkaban doesn't promote. Can you apparate?"
With a shake of his head, Severus looked at the floor. "My license... my wand."
"I suppose we'll have to go by floo then." He took a box from his tidy desktop, then something else. "Here. This will help some, damned aurors." Then he handed a bar of chocolate over.
Chocolate. Honestly, Severus hadn't believed he'd ever see chocolate again.
"It works better if you eat it."
Severus looked at the man, then the chocolate. He quickly shoved the entire thing in his mouth. Merlin, he didn't even like chocolate, but this was maybe the best thing he had ever eaten.
"So you do have the will to live. Good."
It took weeks, weeks in which the Ministry demanded to know why Severus Snape wasn't on duty yet.
"The man was in Azkaban for a year, and you want him to become an animagus overnight? It doesn't work that way. This has to be done properly, or you won't get a spy or a prisoner back; you'll get another for St. Mungo's."
There was a reason the idea of becoming an animagus had never appealed to Severus.
But the Ministry had relented and allowed things to proceed as they had been.
For one month, Severus was under the watchful care of the man he had come to know only as David.
"A spy already then?" David had said as Severus told him about his life at Hogwarts. "I read the reports, of course, but they're usually filled with half-truths. Hard to get the real story out of the Ministry, though... Whatever you think of the man, Winthorpe's trying to change things."
In truth, Severus hadn't thought about it. To his surprise, the words and actions came effortlessly. He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and revealed the Dark Mark there, black. "I was a Death Eater after all. It wasn't... unreasonable what he did."
"What about the others?" David said, only glancing briefly at the mark. "The ones that managed to stay out of Azkaban. Again."
"Like Malfoy?" His lips twisted in disgust.
David laughed. "You just answered my question." He leaned against the desk and crossed his arms loosely over his chest. "So have you ever wanted to become an animagus?"
"No. Too much work for too little reward. It wasn't practical or needed."
A smile crossed David's lips. "Spoken like a non-wand specialist. Let me see... Not a history buff, or interested in Muggles. I'd say either Potions or Arithmancy."
"Potions. And... Dark Arts."
"Does that extend to defense as well?"
Severus nodded. "I've been qualified for that Defense position longer than that twit Sullivan has been alive."
"Sullivan? Who's that?"
"She's the Defense teacher at Hogwarts."
"Shawn Sullivan you mean then."
A nod.
"You have to realize, Severus, that things change," David explained, "especially now. Shawn returned to the Ministry in her capacity as an auror before the school year started."
Severus considered this for a moment, frowning. "I never asked... How long was I in Azkaban?"
"Almost a year and a half." David watched Severus for his reaction, and when he didn't see one, he took action. "I need to run a few errands before we get started. I'll be back in an hour."
Only when Severus was sure David was gone did he allow himself to react. He began to cry.
"Dumbledore, I've got your ex-Potions Master in my care here."
"I had heard he was free, but had no idea what had become of him. I'm most grateful for the information."
"The Ministry's putting him to work, though I don't think he's in very good shape. He just asked today how long he'd be in Azkaban, and his reaction has me worried."
"Oh dear..."
"Aye. Would you mind giving him a friendly face? You know how the Ministry's filled with ham-handed dolts that don't know a thing about compassion."
"Of course, David. When would be most opportune?"
"This afternoon. Two hours I think should be good."
"Very well. I shall see you in two hours." Albus' head disappeared from the flames.
A year and a half. It seemed both forever and nothing at all at the same time. Azkaban had that ability to suck out all sense of time along with any decent memories or thoughts. Though the dementor population on the island prison was much depleted, it didn't tale very many of the creatures to sap the prisoners of hope, especially not one like Severus Snape.
And having to work directly for the Ministry now... There would be no going back to Hogwarts, no more safety... Was it all against him, so high and so heavy, that even the tiniest comfort afforded him by those stone walls was to be ripped away? Just what purpose was there in living now?
"Severus, I'm so glad to see you."
His body stiffened at the sound of the voice. Even after a month, it took effort to allow things like hope to blossom in him. Slowly, not sure if it was real or just another hallucination ready to be sucked away, Severus turned. "Albus?" It would take time to get his voice back to the way it had been when teaching; everything came out sounding meek now.
"My dear boy." Albus crossed the room, his arms outstretched.
It took real effort for Severus to stand, his legs just refused to support him, denying that this was all real. "Albus?" he asked again, and felt his lip quiver in a truly embarrassing way as the tears returned with ferocity. Wobbling, his legs finally propelled him and forward into Dumbledore's hug.
"I wasn't sure what had become of you," the old wizard said gently. "I had feared the worst." One gnarled hand moved rhythmically up and down the back of the near-broken man, while the other caressed the raven hair. "What you must have looked like coming out of that place..."
Outside of those comments and the continued soothing noises Dumbledore, there was silence until finally: "I can't come back to teach Potions."
"I know, but don't concern yourself with that."
It was hardly dark outside when Dumbledore put Severus to bed.
"Spared Azkaban the first time around," David said when Dumbledore returned to the cozy sitting room. "That was generous of you."
"Too generous of me, I know you're thinking." With a sigh, Dumbledore lowered himself into one of the worn armchairs in front of the fire. "He was sincere when he came to me about leaving Voldemort. He has never strayed from his commitment to the Light."
David nodded, his expression neutral. "Once a traitor--"
"Always a traitor. You sound disturbingly like Alastor Moody, David. This concerns me." There was a half-hearted smile on the weathered face.
"I do consider that an insult, old man. But I just want you to know..." He was silenced by a dismissive wave of Dumbledore's hand.
"Don't you trust the judgment of your grandfather, David?"
"Don't get sentimental on me. This is a job for me, not charity work."
Dumbledore smiled, though it was tinged with sadness. "Severus needs guidance now, David. I know you will provide that. He needs to be trusted, because he is trustworthy, not because he is the last option. I did my best at Hogwarts, but there were complications to that situation. He didn't fully trust me; he never has."
"And now?"
"I'm not positive. Azkaban can change a person so drastically, but I would be willing to believe he wants someone to be there for him the way no one ever was before. You've been volunteered for it, my boy."
David shrugged casually. "It'll take trust to make it through the hell he has ahead of him. The Ministry wanted him out there the week after they dropped him on my doorstep. Fools. He must hate everything to do with them, and I don't blame him."
"There is little to do," Dumbledore reasoned, "while Voldemort is at large. Training for survival over the intricacies of laws and justice."
"I work for the Ministry," David replied archly. "I know how they don't care about a wizard's right to be treated like a human being."
Dumbledore leaned forward, fixing the younger man with his intense blue gaze. "David, until you settle down and have children of your own, please watch over Severus for me."
Taken aback by the abrupt change in subject, David shook his head, scowling. "I'm not here to be his father figure."
"No, I don't mean that. I've watched him grow, like so many others, from a child into the man he is now. I've watched him battle through so much, and to lose him now... Please help him live, if only for a few more months."
"You're a pessimistic old man."
Dumbledore sighed, a sound with none of his usual life or intensity in it. "No, David, not in this case. I am merely... realistic."
"I need an owl."
David looked up from the Daily Prophet. "I wasn't sure you'd wake up on your own." He ignored the request.
"I need an owl."
After folding his paper, David leaned back in his chair. "For what?"
Severus scowled. "I was not hatched from a crocodile's egg; I do have family that I would like to contact." His voice was tight with displeasure at having to report his business.
"Ah yes, your grandmother."
There was no verbal reply from Severus, though his entire body tensed at the words.
"I read your file. The Ministry is so fond of keeping their files on anything and everyone." David smiled, but it had a difficult time reaching his eyes. "They even have your grades, you know? I can trace your childhood through those. When your parents died and your Transfiguration grade dropped while your Defense grade topped out. That little incident involving Remus Lupin--yes, it's in there--and the resulting disciplinary action." His eyes sparkled in a way Dumbledore's never had. "How did you enjoy your detention?"
Severus growled, baring his teeth.
"You're not even a bump on the Ministry's road to stripping away the personal rights of every witch and wizard under their jurisdiction, and some that aren't," David continued seriously, the smile gone, but his eyes with an even harder edge to them. "You need to get back into the world with whatever tools you have, whatever it takes."
"I don't need a lecture. I need an owl."
David took pity on him, spotting what might have been the beginnings of unshed tears in his eyes. He gave a sharp, high-pitched whistle, and a large horned owl swooped into the room. It landed lightly on David's outstretched arm. "You can use Voltaire any time you wish."
Frowning, Severus removed a scrap of parchment from his robes and approached the owl. After fixing his message to the bird's leg, he whispered the recipient to the owl and watched it go.
"So tell me," David said casually, watching Severus retreat, "why were you so rotten in school?" He didn't receive pleasure from it, but he did get the desired reaction as Severus looked at him with unbridled fury.
"Because I had no choice. Not that anyone ever cared," Severus ground out. "I was just the son of a Death Eater whore after all."
Just a little bitterness there. "Nobody thought that, I'm sure." Gentle without patronizing.
Severus' eyes narrowed and his lips formed a thin, tight line. "Thank you for the use of your owl," he said, and walked away.
Something there, deep deep roots of negative experience at Hogwarts. There was the option to call on Dumbledore, find out what the old man knew, but sometimes it was better to not know and not have someone else's biases clouding the picture. As much as he looked up to his grandfather, David held no illusions as to the man's imperfections. No, this was a mess he'd need to sort out on his own.
TBC
AN: Takes place roughly 4-5 years before initial events in The Coachwhip continuity.