Rigel Black Oneshots

Worthy Apprentice

Harry walked up to the receptionist and said, "I have an appointment with Master Snape. He would have booked a lab…?"
 
With a nod, the man displayed the register, and after checking and double checking, Harry made her way to lab 5, her heart beating erratically. How was she going to face him? She shook her head. She was Harry. Besides being a little guilty for not telling him about Rigel's duplicity, she had nothing to worry about.
 
Rigel did, though. Harry thought quietly. I broke his trust.
 
She hesitated in front of the door, and when she was about to knock, lost all the fight in her. Come on, Harriet. Dom said, You're so close.
 
I can't. What right do I have to learn under him after all this? What right do I have to let him teach me in pain, not knowing that I was the apprentice he desired all along?
 
The helplessness crawled up her throat and she took a few steps back.
 
Don't be silly! Dom said indignantly, This was what you wanted all along. For him to see you as you. What's done is done, Harriet.
 
"I..." Harry trailed off faintly. She leaned against the wall next to the door and slumped to the ground. There were still a few minutes until 11 a.m.. Snape was probably already in the lab, but she couldn't go in just yet.
 
Unbidden, quiet and pleasant memories caught up to her.
 
"So. What do I do now? You said there was some sort of… formality tonight?"
Her Head of House sat back and folded his hands before him. "Tonight all nine preliminary candidates will be announced in the Great Hall after dinner. You will attend a private gathering with the other candidates while the rest of the school feasts. I will collect you from the Entrance Hall at precisely half past five. Wear formal dress robes."
"I don't have—"
"Borrow from Draco and ask Miss Parkinson to adjust them," Snape said wearily. "And for Salazar's sake don't wear those boots."
 
Harry let loose a soft laugh, then looked down at her legs, which were encased in black shoes rather than boots, and lost her sad smile.
 
"We are in route to the Headmaster's office," Snape informed her without being prompted, "The Headmaster feels explanations are warranted at this time, despite the obvious trauma that has been inflicted upon you and Miss Weasley. If you feel unable to process things at this time, I will, of course, see you excused to the Hospital Wing at once."
...
"One fractured rib, scraped palms, broken ankle, numerous cuts and bruises, and, oh yes, a slice made by a basilisk fang," Snape said sharply, "What were you thinking?"
 
Oh, Professor, if only you knew how much worse I'd gotten myself into.
 
She let loose another half sob-laugh as she imagined Snape's steely eyes and silky voice, "Stupid, reckless, stupid child. You would risk a dementor's kiss for potions tutelage?"
 
But that was all fantasy. Snape would never know that the person he spent all those times with was her. And Harry? Harry would spend the rest of her days being compared to herself… Harry shook herself sharply. This was unlike her. She had to focus and not lose control of her emotions. Her very soul was on the line.
 
She carefully got up, checking her face for tears, and found, to her surprise, quite a few trickling down her unfamiliar cheeks. She wiped them away, and conjured a mirror to make sure no remaining signs of her crying remained. A minute later, she was ready to go in.

***
 

If anyone would ever call another more dedicated to the field than Severus Snape himself, Severus would have either dismissed them as gossipers or critics. It wasn't that he considered himself to be the greatest- no, it was quite the opposite. But that didn't change that he was, at the time, the most dedicated and persevering Potions Master in the world.
 
Until Harriet Potter came along. Severus still was in shock with the sheer amount of planning and gryffindor idiocy that a plot so convoluted as this would have taken. To think Potter and Lily hadn't known- just how good at secrecy was his student?
 
Very, He told himself dryly, After all, you once prided yourself on knowing everything that went on in your dungeons.
 
To think that Aldon and Blaise had come to the conclusion around the same time as him, despite his stronger bond to Rigel, had admittedly hurt something inside Snape.
 
Just how much had he-she- kept hidden?
 
It was because of this that he set an outward directed see-through charm at the door and the wall around it. He wanted to see his apprentice's hidden thoughts- ones that she was bound to hide when she came in.
 
When he saw Harriet Potter come before the door seven minutes early, he barely contained a snort. She stopped, however, looking extremely conflicted. She raised a hand to knock, then seemingly dropped it fast, looking panicked and helpless as she took a few steps back.
 
Severus felt something in his heart clutch tightly, but he couldn't move.
 
"I..." Harriet trailed off faintly. She leaned against the wall next to the door and slumped to the ground, tears swimming through her eyes.
 
Severus knew it was for the better that she didn't know that he knew of her duplicity, but looking at her, tired and crushed as she went over her crimes?
 
The girl let loose a soft laugh and looked down at her boots- no, her shoes. She must have vanished her original pair. She seemed to pull herself together after that, and just a minute later, after Severus had undone all the transparency charms and activated the privacy wards along with other security charms, she knocked, the door opened, and she stepped in.
 
He saw the smallest of flinches cross her face as she entered the ward before her face relaxed and Severus had to stop himself from cursing. He hoped she still wasn't taking Dreamless Sleep.
 
The girl looked at him and for the strangest moment Severus felt she was going to call him "Professor" again and blow it.
 
"Miss Potter." That, at least, he could save her from.
 
She seemed to regain her wits again, "Master Snape. Thank you for agreeing to continue this apprenticeship. I… it means a lot to me. I'm sorry. For Rigel." Her eyes turned intense and earnest as she continued, "We- Rigel really loved potions, Professor, it was why he did all of this- he wanted to learn from you. I'm sorry for all the pain our ruse has caused, I really am."
 
Severus quietly noted that she was only sorry for the pain the lies and secrets had caused, and that she neither regretted the ruse itself nor the trouble it had caused.
 
The smallest of fond smiles crept up his lips, and he repressed it with effort. There was his apprentice, healthy and, if perhaps not whole, still her unapologetic self. He found he could not quite repress the smile after all.
 
"Master Snape?" The girl asked, a little bewildered.
 
"Yes, Rigel?"