For Severus Snape, the rest of his year would not be quiet in the least. Severus hated a lot of things in life, but what he hated most of all was children. Happy children. Children living happy, spoiled childhoods reminded him painfully of his own tragic past. His parents who would not and could not spoil him. His father with a drunken hand raised - his mother with a wilted smile and a posture of fear. So when Potter came back from winter break with a handmade Weasley sweater under his robes and an illegal broomstick clumsily hidden and a too-large smile on his stupid face, Snape knew he had to ruin that energy for the lot of these stupid, ungrateful, spoiled brats. Didn't they see that the world was a cruel and horrible place?
Potter had nearly died in his cupboard under the stairs and he didn't look the least bit traumatized by it! Here he was, happily running down the halls and shouting after his friends like his parents had not been murdered by the Dark Lord!
Potter's precious mama (how dare he replace Lily, wonderful, perfect Lily) insisted that the boy's potions abilities were beyond the rest of the first years, although Snape had refused to let the boy move up a level. They had worked out a compromise, or rather Albus had forced the issue and allowed Potter to "independently study" in the back of the classroom, leaving the two to not have to interact at all. While an improvement, Snape was certain leaving the boy alone would give him nothing but free time to mess around and pull pranks and other such nonsense that James would have done had he been granted such an opportunity. Thus Snape made it his mission to keep a very thorough eye on the brat to ensure he was behaving appropriately.
Snape would not admit it to anyone, not even the Dark Lord under Cruciatus, but whenever he watched Potter, he got unnerved. There was something off about the boy. His eyes shone too brightly in an unnatural avada kedavra green. When the professor looked into them he saw Lily's body. He saw the dozens of faceless muggles he'd tormented at the Dark Lord's orders. The feeling left him shaky and haunted. An eleven-year-old child should not put out an effect like that of the Dementors. The strangeness of the Potter child only made Severus angrier.
It was during a Potion's lesson that Snape snapped.
The lesson ended with the bubbling remains of three exploded cauldrons burning holes into the flooring, a cowering Neville Longbottom trapped standing on his chair, ten children in tears - either in pain or in fear of Snape's rage, and six Gryffindors getting a month's detention.
Two days later, Snape started going insane.
"You know, I'll be the first to admit it, I was an ass. But like wow, dude. You let yourself go! What the hell is wrong with you, really? Like you just flat-out bully eleven-year-olds now. Did I give you childhood trauma? Are you messed up in the head because I showed off your underwear that one time?"
Snape was in the bath, enjoying a soak and a bottle of tequila and the ghost of James Potter was floating above him. Snape wiped at his eyes in confusion, getting soap into them and making them burn. As he rubbed fiercely to stop the pain, he heard James Potter's loud laugh in his ears.
"What the fuck?" Snape groaned.
"Fair question," answered the please-God-don't-be-real ghost of his childhood nemesis. The dead man perched himself on the marble countertop, his feet swinging like a child. "I've come back to haunt you for being a dick."
"Please tell me this isn't hell."
"Unfortunately, you are alive." Potter gave him a pitying look. "And you're one to complain, I'm the guy unfortunate enough to have to see you naked."
When Snape was alone, usually in the evenings while he was grading papers or trying to rest after a long day of teaching, Potter's ghost would appear to mock him. Snape had no proof if the man was even real or some potion-fume-addled figment of his imagination. He prayed for the latter.
But his high never went away. Day after day, Potter haunted him, keeping him awake late into the night by knocking over glass bottles and other obnoxious behavior. He was truly a poltergeist after Peeves' own heart. He replaced all of Snapes' liquor with spoiled milk, he turned all his tap water a burning hot or cold and he kept rearranging the furniture in his quarters by half an inch so he would trip or smack his toes against them. He was miserable but it only kept escalating.
Once, he woke in a panic, and found Potter trying to suffocate him with his pillow. He also began to sabotage all of his potions. Unfortunately the man had been skilled enough at potion-making that he knew precisely what ingredients to throw in his cauldrons to make them unsalvageable. He also started following Snape around everywhere. No one else could see him, but Potter was always there. Remarking on his meal choices, mimicking him while he taught, making excruciating, uncomfortable eye-contact while he was in the bathroom. The ghost had no limits and nothing better to do but follow Snape around for weeks.
"Why on Earth does Dumbledore have you teaching, anyway? That seems really dumb. I get you have to atone for your crimes of getting me murdered or whatever, and I'm sure Dumbledore wants to keep his pet on a short leash, but why would anyone let you near children? I'm pretty sure you get off on bullying kids."
"Shut your mouth!" Snape snapped. "Do not act as though you did not treat me the same!" He had made a vow to ignore Potter weeks ago but the constant comments coming from the ghost made him lose his cool often.
"I was an immature child bullying another immature child. Which sucks, yeah, My fault on that bit. But you are now a grown-ass adult man abusing your position of power to bully defenseless children. How is that the same? Do you think Lily would honestly have ever liked you if she saw the way you're acting now?"
"DO NOT say her name!" In a flash, he was standing, toe-to-toe with Potter and red in the face. But the man only smiled and disappeared. Confused, Snape made a circuit around his quarters, checking to see if anything had been tampered with when he felt the temperature of the drop by at least thirty degrees.
"Severus." A soft voice whispered in his ear. Gooseflesh shivered down his body and the blood drained from his face. "Sev - er - us? Is that you?"
"Lily?" he croaked, eyes darting around the room. Silence. "Lily?"
"Yes, it's me." She appeared before him, looking exactly as she did the day she had died. Just like her husband, she didn't look dead and Severus had the urge to reach out and see if he could touch her. His hand trembled as he moved his hand to rest on her cheek. Just before he made contact, she flickered out of existence.
"No! Lily? Lily, please!" He realized with shame that he was crying, and prayed that Potter was not watching this.
Then she appeared across his room and Severus nearly tripped over his feet to stand.
Then she appeared across his room and Severus nearly tripped over his feet to stand.
"Severus. How could you?" The look of disappointment on her face had never been more intense. Not even during their argument in fifth year had she looked this upset. Severus flushed in shame.
"Lily, I'm sorry. I did not know the prophecy was about you - I never would have -"
"Answer this question, Severus. Would you feel guilty if it had not been me. Would you have continued to serve your lord if the prophecy had been about Frank and Alice?"
"I - I -"
"Because I think we both know the answer to that is no, you would not have cared. Do not lie to me and pretend you care for the rights of muggleborns, for the preservation of human rights, for peace, that I fought and died for. I was the only exception for you, the prettiest and kindest of the mudbloods. You would make an exception for me but not for the others. You begged your Dark Lord to save me, with not a CARE IN THE WORLD IF HE HURT MY SON? Do you think I would have ever forgiven you if that had worked?"
She waited for him to say something, to defend himself, but he had no words to explain his actions. He had been angry enough at James, his father, the world, that he had not cared who got hurt. It was true.
"Fine, don't answer me. Your silence speaks volumes, Severus. I can't even pretend that's what I truly care about, since that wasn't even the worst thing that you've done, is it? I did not come here to talk about me.
Did you not get enough retribution, when James died, when Harry was orphaned? Was that not enough pleasure for you? Must you still attack him? He is a child. He has never even met James. How dare you punish a child for the actions of his father.
It would be awful, but understandable I suppose, in the sense that you never got over your childhood trauma, if you were just unkind to Harry. But that is not the case. I have been watching you, these past weeks, and you have been cruel to several of the children. Little Neville is scared of you! Frank and Alice were my friends, they were kind to you as well, and this is how you treat their son? Does this please you, to be hated by children? To strike fear into their hearts? Do you like it, feeling like your father?"
The words flowed from her mouth like a stream of water, rushing faster and heavier as she talked until by the end she was yelling and her vibrant red hair had burst into flames.
Severus had to be dead, because this was hell. This was a pain far worse than anything the Dark Lord had subjected him too. He begged for something as simple as the Cruciatus Curse instead of this. Lily, enraged; Lily, weeping.
"I'm sorry," was all he could muster, but she disappeared.
There were many types of ghosts which could haunt a man. Potter and Lily were both quite literal ones, pouring salt in his coffee every day for the rest of term and dumping buckets of water over his head right before his lessons. But the literal ones were not the type that could slowly kill a man. Instead, it was the deep, rotting shame of a man's actions that festered away at his soul. A man who had needed to feel wanted, supported, appreciated, powerful, and important at the cost of the one person to ever grant him those things willingly, without payment.
Severus wept.
....
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