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The welcome feast was over, he had greeted the new, as well as the returning students, and departed on them his rules and expectations as Slytherins, before finally sending them off to bed.
All things considered, Severus thought it went quite well. Especially for his first time.
Thoroughly satisfied, he relaxed back into his favourite armchair, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand and a book on poisons and anti-dotes on the table beside him.
The fire in the hearth of his new quarters was burning leisurely, warming the cold dungeon room.
Maybe, Severus mused, it wouldn’t be so bad—
Knock knock knock.
Or perhaps he had spoken too soon.
He waited a second. Maybe he had imagined it?
Knock knock knock.
No, there it was again.
Sighing, he placed his tumbler next to his book and stood up. Who would bother him at this hour? The students were in their common rooms, probably in a food coma, and ghosts didn’t have the ability to knock.
Maybe it was a Professor? But why would they—? Right, he was now a professor too. Maybe they wanted to see how he was settling in.
With a wave of his wand, the temporary wards he had placed around his room dissipated and he opened the door to… no-one?
He could already feel annoyance build up as he looked left and right and saw exactly no-one standing in the dimly lit hallway. What—
A sniff. A tiny, miserable, sad sniff. And another one.
Oh Merlin. Oh no. Please no.
As quick as it came, Severus’ annoyance vanished and trepidation froze him in place, his eyes staring straight ahead.
“Pr’fessor?” A timid voice asked from somewhere below him. There was a telling quiver to the voice and Severus dared not to look down, lest his suddenly worst fear came to fruition.
There was more sniffling and suddenly, there was a hesitant tug at his robes.
“Pr’fessor?” The voice asked again. For a second, just a tiny little second, Severus closed his eyes as he steeled himself. He had faced the Dark Lord and Dumbledore, had turned traitor on the Dark Lord and lived to tell the tale. He had survived Potter and his foul friends and carved himself a place beside all the snot-nosed Purebloods in Slytherin. He would not be undone by some green-horn student. He was better than that.
He tilted his head down and looked directly into wide, soulful eyes filled with tears.
Oh Merlin. He couldn’t do this.
“Yes?” He asked the young student stiffly. It was obviously the wrong thing to say, because the next moment, the air was forced out of his lungs as the student barrelled into him, its tiny arms wrapping around his middle with a strength no-one so small should have.
Immediately, the sniffling grew into full blown sobs and there was… wetness spreading on his stomach. Yet all Severus could do was stand there and try to comprehend just what was happening here.
“What,” he eventually managed to ask, “are you doing?” But the child ignored his very legitimate question and simply continued to try to climb into his stomach. Also, the arms around him tightened even more. (How?!)
Haltingly, he brought his hands up and, after a second of hesitation, patted its shoulders once, twice, and then tried to pry it off of him.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.
“Why don’t you go to your Head of House?” Severus asked after a while, having given up trying to get it to let go.
For a moment, hope flared up as its sniffles stopped. His hope was squashed again the moment its teary eyes peered up at him.
“B-But you are my-my head of house, P-professor Snape,” it said through its tears and oh. Yeah. Right. That he was… Shit. He could see why it— she would cry. Fuck. He needed a drink.
“Do you want a drink?” He asked her. He needed to be… nice. As a teacher. Offering her a drink counted as that, right? Right?
“Yes, please.” Came the timid reply. Yet, the grip around his waist did not falter.
There was silence for a few seconds, only broken by the hiccuping breaths it— she(!) tried to take.
Finally, Severus patted her shoulder once more.
“You need to let go,” he told her and almost instantly tears were rolling down her cheeks once more, but at least she listened to him this time and let her arms fall to her sides.
Severus turned around the moment he could, quickly sweeping to the other side of the room and as far away from the crying is possible.
He opened his liquor cabinet and took out a second glass, looking at what he had.
“What do you want? Whiskey, Rum, Sc—“
“A hot chocolate, please. My mu- my mum always made me some when I was- when I was sad.”
That halted Severus in his tracks. Hot chocolate? He did not have hot chocolate. How would he even go about making hot chocolate? Should he just… melt down a chocolate bar? That seemed sensible. And it might be a better idea than to offer alcohol to a child… Yeah. Probably. A much better idea.
The student might not be as much of a dunderhead as he had feared. Still, what made her think it was a good idea to come to him?!
Severus made a stocking motion towards the kitchen, before stopping abruptly. He didn’t have any pots yet, and he would certainly not sully his precious cauldrons with chocolate.
Wait. He also didn’t have any chocolate here. That might be a problem when making hot chocolate. Mhh…
Turning back to the still sniffling student, Severus asked, “how did your mother make your hot chocolate? Anything I should… adhere to?”
A tiny wobbly smile appeared on the child’s face and her eyes shone with a disturbingly trusting light.
“She always put in some whipped cream to make it really creamy. And- and she put little marshmallows shaped like hearts on top. They’re my favourite.”
He knew he shouldn’t have trusted that innocent light in her eyes. Nothing good ever came of it.
Honestly, heart-shaped marshmallows and whipped cream. Did Severus look like some— some— some soft-hearted rainbow-weaving creature?
Speaking of creature…
“Bilbo!” Severus called. Instantly, a bright-eyed eager house-elf appeared with a crackling pop.
“What cans Bilbo be doing for Potions Master Snapey?” He asked in his high-pitched voice, unaware of the shock his sudden appearance had on the tiny student. A shock that had the fortunate side-effect of bringing the relentless sniffling and tears to a sudden stop.
Ah, blessed silence. Now all he had to do was get this hot chocolate. How lucky that Hogwarts was equipped with eager little elves who were used to sniffling little snot-balls.
“Bilbo, can you bring us a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and… heart-shaped marshmallows sprinkled atop of it?”
The little elf beamed and nodded his head, his floppy ears quivering excitedly.
“Bilbo bes doing so right away, Potions Master Snapey!” Bilbo said with an abundance of enthusiasm. Luckily, he vanished with another pop. The child, however, squeaked in alarm once more.
Severus suppressed a sigh. Just what had he gotten himself into?
“Take a seat, Miss—“ Severus ordered. The girl complied hesitantly. Cautiously, she sat herself on the edge of Severus’ couch and looked up at him with wide, teary eyes.
“Dedworth,” she mumbled. “Eloise Dedworth.” After another second, she hastily added a “Sir!” and fell silent once more. Her shoulders were hunched and really, she looked quite pathetic, hugging herself and sniffling again.
Fortunately, the exact moment in which Severus got once again hit in the face with the fact that he was a teacher now and therefore responsible for this little child! Two steaming cups of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and heart shaped marshmallows, popped into existence.
The child eagerly reached for one, apparent homesickness forgotten.
“Thank you, Professor Snape!” Severus nodded, what else was he to do? “You’re the best!”
Severus twitched.
“What?
He was the— what?
No-one had ever— why should they— he wasn’t the— but apparently— he was the—
Knock knock knock.
Oh thank Merlin!
Severus hastened to the door mere seconds after the final knock rang out. He swung the door open and— oh, he could cry. Full-on heaving sobs that came out of the deepest caverns of his shrivelled heart, not these pathetic sniffles all students were so obsessed with tonight.
Why was there another child crying on his doorstep? What had he done to deserve this? And how could he stop this snot-feast?
Severus stepped to the side and pointed to the coffee table.
“There is hot chocolate.” The child sniffed and looked at him with these huge eyes before giving him a wobbly smile and dashing inside.
Yeah. That was that. Now what?
Severus hesitated before closing the door. What if more of them were out there? On their way and just waiting to ambush him, one after the other?
No. Don’t be ridiculous. Severus sighed and shook his head.
In his living room, the children were sipping their sugary monstrosities and not crying — which was already a vast improvement. Also, they didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave, so… yeah… mhh…
Whatever. So long as they didn’t start the waterworks again and left him in peace.
Severus sat down in his armchair and picked up his book again. The ice in his whiskey had long since melted, so he vanished that without further ado. Now if only he had remembered to get a new drink before he had sat down. Severus would certainly not be getting up again. Alas, it was what it was. Finally, after way too much excitement for just one night, he opened his book and started reading.
…
“What?” Severus snapped, looking away from all these delightful poisons and to the two little children who were watching him with huge, watery eyes, the hot chocolate already half empty and collected nicely in a ridiculous milk beard.
The newer child took a long slurping gulp. It did not grate on Severus’ already frayed nerves. At all.
“Can you read to us, Professor?” Ms Dedworth asked innocently, an angelic smile on her miniature features.
Severus blinked. Could he… read to them? Like he was some sort of— of child cuddling teddy bear! First they ambushed him, then they made him floundering how to make hot chocolate and now they—!
He needed to calm down. Everything was alright. He needed to— yeah. He was calm personified. So calm and serene. Nothing ever fazed him. He. Was. Calm.
“This,” he said lowly, breathing in through his mouth and out his nose. “Is a book about poiso— potions and their usages. I do not own any… baby books.”
Ms Dedworth’s gaze wandered down to Severus’ book for a moment, still held aloft in his hands. Then, wide-eyed, she looked down into her hot chocolate, quiet. The boy, however, continued to stare at Severus with those unsettling eyes of his. They were so… big. And expressive.
It was seriously creepy.
“Can you still read to us?” He asked quietly. “Please, sir. We won’t even complain. And it’s stuff we need to know anyway for our classes, right?”
Severus sighed internally. He might as well read aloud, if only to finally immerse himself in his book and stop the children’s impossible requests.
“Very well,” he drawled. Happy with themselves and their conniving manipulations, the children slurped their sugary concoctions and remained blissfully silent for once, their huge eyes wholly focused on Severus.
xXxXxXx
Some time later, Severus remembered his little intruders. He had gotten immersed in the techniques and reactions described in his book. It didn’t even bothered him anymore to have to read aloud; it even was, dare he say it, soothing. Who would have thought?
But now… Severus looked up. His quarters were far too silent for having two kids in here. The sight that greeted him once he saw them was far more gruesome than anything the Dark Lord had ever done.
It made Severus’ heart try to break out of his ribcage and he worried he might get sick; his stomach had no right doing the things it did.
The kidlets — all four of them (and where did the other two come from? Were they multiplying?!) — were snuggled together beneath Severus’ outer robe he must have left lying around. That, or they had helped themselves to his closet, Severus’ honestly wouldn’t put it past them.
They had it tugged around them like a blanket, their sticky fingers gripping the tough cloth as they drooled all over his cloak and couch, thoroughly knocked out. Their empty mugs were left on his coffee table, under which their shoes had been toed off.
The sight was— no! Nope. No. Severus was so not dealing with this right now.
Snapping his book shut, Severus stood up and swept out of the room. If he, by some kind of ill-fated coincidence, covered the kidlets with a proper blanket, then that was by no account of his own volition and he had absolutely nothing to do with it.
By the time morning rolled around and Severus stumbled out of his bedroom, his living quarters were vacant. The house-elves had already taken care of the empty mugs, so the only sign the students had ever been there was the messily folded blanket slowly slipping onto the ground.
Severus merely swished his wand to righten it and went about his morning.
Last night was never brought up again, but if the younger Slytherin students started to flock to him without an ounce of fear, then that was nobody’s business.
xXxXxXx
Over the years, Severus Snape’s reputation as the intimidating, harsh Potions Master with impossible standards and an obvious bias towards his own house cemented itself thoroughly within Hogwarts.
His colleagues respected him and his brilliance. They saw how, even though dreaded, his classes produced some of the highest OWLs and NEWTs results and ended in far less injuries than the previous years.
Severus was a great, if unnecessarily harsh, Professor. However, his cold, stern, and, at times, openly hostile demeanour didn’t exactly make him approachable. Minerva tried to needle him more than once to spend more time with his charges, to show them he was there for them even with his many, many, many hangups.
If only she knew about the cupboard full of colourful, funnily shaped mugs. Or the heart-shaped marshmallows and whipped cream. The boxes full of chocolate frogs or the heating pads and blankets in his closet.
Minerva had no idea about the female hygiene products he kept fully stocked in a shelf behind a painting outside his quarters, nor about the interventions he forced onto his students regularly when his freshly brewed potions for the morning after emptied too quickly (honestly, it’s like he had never sat these kids down and traumatised them with charmed dolls and graphic explanations, as well as teachings of the contraception charm).
The rumour mill was right about that; Severus took great pleasure in torturing his students. What could he say, it were the little things in life.
Oh yes. By the time Harry Potter was set to start Hogwarts, Severus had quite successfully established himself as the most hated Professor in all of Hogwarts.
Now, sitting in his black winged armchair, legs crossed and sipping black coffee from his ‘World’s Best Professor’-mug (take that, Minerva!), Severus waited patiently for a knock on his door. Next to him laid a book about Charms and how not to use them.
The scent of sweet hot chocolate wafted through the air and soft blankets and pillows were piled on his couch and carpet.
Contrary to his first year teaching, Severus was more than ready to deal with the tiny rugrats.