The Raven and The Snake

If there was one thing that Snape was the master at, it was pretending like unpleasant things had never happened.

Ariadne marveled at how completely calm he could be while she toiled away endless hours in the dungeons, doing chores. Partly to thank, she was sure, was Sirius Black. That very night Sirius had broken into the castle a second time and this time had appeared over Ron Weasley's bed, holding a knife.

Snape had been first to dive into the hunt. When Ariadne turned up to detention, his mind was elsewhere. She returned to her room to find Snuffles in the corner, looking a little depressed. She could have hugged him forever. She had been sure that Snape would never speak to her or look her the face again, but Sirius Black had taken the majority of his brain power. He scowled at her, but did little else outside of demanding that she do strenuous chores that she was already adept at after being a TA.

The twins feared Snape even more than she did at the moment and hadn't said a word of what had happened. They avoided her in the halls whenever they thought Professor Snape might be around. She didn't blame them.

They had managed to escape Professor Snape's wrath in the wake of her atrocious behavior. She'd done something so embarrassing, even the twins who were normally quite shameless, felt bad. Seeing how furious he'd been with her right after, she wondered if he even remembered the twins had been there. If he did, he saw no point in tracking them down after the fact.

Ariadne kept her head low from there. She was not interested in seeing his terrifying face again. But as she observed his cool manner, she wondered where his limit was. Could the books have seriously exaggerated the way he handled things? From what she remembered, he was quick to temper with Harry Potter. Was he actually much more forgiving than he'd been depicted?

Ariadne soon found his limit. After this second incident with Sirius, the guards around the school had been kicked into higher gear. Professor Flitwick had carried a large picture of Sirius around the school, trying to teach the doors and statues to recognize him and trolls had been sent to guard the portrait that was stationed outside the Gryffindor common room.

She could hardly believe how utterly stupid it was when Draco Malfoy came running into Professor Snape's office, caked in mud and choking that he'd spotted Harry Potter in Hogsmeade. Ariadne had been sitting on the floor of Snape's office, cleaning the grout with a toothbrush when he shot up from his desk to head off Potter.

She waited moved off to the shadows, wondering what he was about to do. He came back a few minutes later with a dirty, red-faced Potter who looked as though he'd just run miles.

Snape looked a little triumphant. Neither of them seemed to be aware of Ariadne who kept her lips tightly shut.

"Sit!" Snape snapped at the boy who dropped into a chair so hard it looked like it hurt.

Ariadne froze against the wall, pretending to be a statue.

"Mister Malfoy has just been in to see me with a strange story, Potter." Snape hissed, pacing a little in front of his desk.

Even Antigone seemed frightened at the moment, she squeezed Ariadne's throat convulsively.

"He tells me that he was up by the Shrieking Shack when he ran into Weasley, apparently alone."

The boy was watching Professor Snape with round eyes, not saying a word in reply.

"Mr. Malfoy states that he was standing, talking to Weasley when a large amount of mud hit him in the back of the head. How do you think that could have happened?"

The boy failed miserably at looking surprised and he said in an unconvincing tone, "I don't know, Professor."

Professor Snape's eyes never the left the boy's face. Ariadne had been on the receiving end of that look not three days ago and she knew exactly how terrifying it was. She was completely paralyzed now.

"Mr. Malfoy then saw an extraordinary apparition. Can you imagine what it might have been, Potter?"

"No," not sounding the least bit convincing.

"It was your head! Floating in midair." Professor Snape snapped in a tone that made the hair on the back of Ariadne's neck stand on end. She was fighting her own instinct to run, but the boy was just sitting there calmly, looking right back at Professor Snape who was as menacing as ever.

"Maybe..." said Harry in his falsely innocent tone. "He'd better go to Madam Pomfrey, if he's seeing things like -"

"What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter?" Snape said in a voice so soft that it would turn any normal person's blood cold. "Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade."

Ariadne gulped slightly, a lump forming in her throat underneath Antigone's body.

"I know that," Harry said, not even breaking eye contact. "It sounds like Malfoy's having halluc-"

"Malfoy is not having hallucinations!" Professor Snape snarled, getting right in the boy's face. "If your head was in Hogsmeade, so was the rest of you."

"I've been up in Gryffindor Tower," Harry persisted with his innocence.

Snape straightened and Ariadne could see a cruel look spreading across his face. This was a little familiar. Like the look she'd received when he'd told her she wasn't allowed to go to Hogsmeade that year, only much more manic. "So, everyone from the Ministry of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences."

Harry remained silent, but Ariadne was frightfully aware of how loud her heart was. It felt like the temperature had risen exponentially. Professor Snape's words were cutting. She agreed that what the child had done was inexpressibly stupid. Sirius Black wasn't a true danger, but they didn't know that. As far as the boy was concerned, Sirius Black was a madman that wanted him dead.

A mad glint came into Snape's eye, much like the day he'd read that Sirius Black was on the loose. "How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter. He too was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers... the resemblance between you in uncanny."

Ariadne flinched slightly. What a low blow. She could hardly believe he was capable of it. He'd been so quick to write off her own poor behavior and here he was, dredging up something from a past the child could hardly be expected to know. This felt like something she shouldn't be allowed to see, but she couldn't look away and she couldn't draw attention to herself. She had no idea what would happen if they suddenly became aware of her presence as an unwelcome observer. She prayed that they wouldn't see her now.

The boy looked Professor Snape dead in the eye and said, "My dad didn't strut and neither do I."

The madness in Snape's eye became more pronounced. He'd touched a nerve and now he was becoming vindictive. "Your father didn't set much store by rules either. Rules were for lesser mortals, not Quidditch Cup-winners. His head was so swollen-"

"Shut up!" The boy was on his feet and Professor Snape had gone still.

Most students wouldn't dare to talk back to Snape. Not while he was on a roll like this. Ariadne clenched her fists, her nails digging painfully into her palms.

"What did you say to me, Potter?" Professor Snape's tone was dangerous.

The boy was yelling now, breathing hard. "I told you to shut up about my dad! I know the truth, all right? He saved your life! Dumbledore told me! You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for my dad!"

Ariadne silently begged the boy to shut up. Of course Dumbledore had whitewashed the truth. Who in their right mind would tell a frightened and grieving child how stupid their parents had been? Dumbledore had clearly meant to encourage Harry when he'd told him that, but just keeping someone alive didn't mean that was the entire story.

Professor Snape's face had turned an extremely unhealthy color and his voice came out in a deadly whisper. Ariadne's nails cut deeper into her palm until she felt warm liquid seeping between her fingers. She couldn't move.

"And did the headmaster tell you the circumstances in which your father saved my life? Or did he consider the details too unpleasant for precious Potter's delicate ears?"

The boy didn't respond. He just stared defiantly at Professor Snape. Foolish child.

"I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father, Potter." A strange look was spreading over Snape's face. This look was more frightening than ever. Nothing Ariadne had ever done had warranted that sort of reaction from him and she felt wrong seeing it.

"Have you been imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you - your saintly father and his friends played a highly amusing joke on me that would have resulted in my death if your father hadn't gotten cold feet at the last moment. There was nothing brave about what he did. He was saving his own skin as much as mine. Had their joke succeeded, he would have been expelled from Hogwarts."

Snape was looking furious. His eyes dropped to the boy's robes for a moment.

"Turn out your pockets, Potter."

Harry Potter looked nervous, but he obeyed. In his dirty pockets were a bag of Zonko's tricks, something Ariadne was very familiar with after spending so much time with the twins and a very old looking piece of parchment that was yellowed with age.

Snape sifted through the bag first, sneering at Potter's pathetic excuse about having been holding onto it since Ron's last Hogsmeade visit months ago. Even Ariadne wanted to roll her eyes. As though anyone would believe that. When Professor Snape touched the parchment, Harry stiffened perceptibly. His eyes widened a fraction. Honestly, child, how could you be so bad at this? Ariadne didn't need to hear his thoughts to know what was happening now. She knew exactly what that parchment was, where he'd gotten it, and what it would do.

Professor Snape's legilimency wasn't half as good as hers since he wasn't naturally born with it like she'd been. She had to actively work to keep peoples' voices out, where he had to work to look within. Even so, neither of them needed that ability to see the boy was hiding something.

Professor Snape smoothed out the full piece of parchment on his desk and leaned over it with his wand. At first, the parchment did nothing, but then words began appearing. From her vantage point, Ariadne couldn't read the exact words and there was no way she was moving just to read it.

Whatever was written was bad. Both of them had stiffened. Professor Snape was slowly looking more and more furious while the boy began to cringe.

After a long moment of staring at the parchment, Professor Snape straightened and went to the fireplace. He threw a handful of powder into the flames so that they turned green and called for Lupin. The boy clearly had no idea what was going on, but Ariadne was cringing harder into the wall. The last thing she wanted was for there to be more people.

Lupin came a few moments later, his eyes roaming politely over them. He spotted Ariadne, but before he could properly acknowledge her, she shook her head violently, jarring Antigone. She pleaded with him with her eyes not to say a word. Professor Snape had forgotten she was here and Potter never seemed to have noticed.

"You called for me, Severus?" Lupin said politely, ignoring Ariadne to her great relief.

Professor Snape directed his attention to the parchment and Lupin's face went oddly blank. He wasn't the best actor by any stretch, but he was at least better than the boy. He pretended to be absolutely unaware of where the parchment had come from, snaking it away from Snape's grasp.

Ron Weasley burst into the room a moment later, claiming that the things in Harry's pockets had all come from him. He was breathing hard and she didn't doubt that he's run here all the way from the Shrieking Shack once he'd guessed what was happening.

Lupin took the boy's unexpected appearance to end the conversation, taking both of the boys and the parchment with a flimsy excuse regarding an essay.

Ariadne remained frozen. Professor Snape, still looking furious sat down at his desk, staring angrily at his closed door. He hadn't even been able to properly punish the boy.

Ariadne was afraid she would need to remain there for the rest of the day. She was starting to shake a little, struggling to remain entirely unnoticed now that she was alone with Snape.

After a long while he stood up and much to her horror, looked around. His eyes landed on her. Her stomach turned so she had to fight being ill, her eyes wide with terror.

He stalked toward her slowly. Each step felt as though it was taking hours. She squeezed her eyes shut, biting her already sore lip, fists shaking at her sides.

He was towering over her now. Antigone poked her head through Ariadne's hair, peering up at Snape curiously. Snape's hand touched Ariadne's face, lifting her chin so her face was tilted toward his.

She opened her eyes and tried to look apologetic. His face was frighteningly composed as he looked at her. She held as still as she could, waiting for whatever more he was going to do.

Professor Snape reached slowly for one of her hands, still holding her chin in one hand. He pulled her hand up so it was on the same level. He uncurled her fingers, looking at the nasty, crescent cuts that were still bleeding a little. Her fingers caked in a small layer of dried blood.

He tutted quietly. "You've made quite a mess of your hands, Miss Black."

A shudder ran down her spine. She looked into fathomless eyes. Without meaning to at all, the wall she'd built years ago around her mind suddenly disappeared. He didn't need to utter a spell for her, that wall had been a dam and now her thoughts came flooding out uncontrolled.

She understood what had happened between him and the boy. She understood way more than she should be able to. His eyes widened. She sympathized with him. She could still picture that photograph she'd shown Sirius where an awkward young Snape had tried to look over the heads of his fellow students so he could look at little Lily Evens who would eventually grow up to marry James Potter. She had seen the shape of his patronus when he'd protected her and she'd felt his reaction to the boy's patronus on the field.

She felt an overwhelming amount of guilt. She hated that she'd disappointed him with her ridiculous behavior. She completely adored him and looked up to him. She loved him...

Professor Snape recoiled from her, releasing her. He turned away with a deft motion toward the door. "Get out."