Harry Potter One Shots

(3) 1 Bitter, 2 Sweet

All rights belong to the author, KellyChambliss

31 August 1997

The sitting room of the headmaster's quarters in Hogwarts was as plain as Severus Snape could make it.

The outer office, with its clutter of portraits and tables and instruments and parchments and cupboards and historical artefacts, he had left untouched - - that space was not his. He was "headmaster" as a temporary figurehead only, and he wanted as little to do with the whole business as possible.

This room, though. . .here he would live as he wanted to live and would please no one but himself.

He stood in the middle of the floor and looked around.

There was a fireplace with long, comfortable settee in front of it. A thick carpet in muted colours. Against one wall were several floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and facing the mullioned windows, a small desk and chair. No other chairs - - he did not plan to allow anyone to intrude on his privacy here, certainly not visitors who would sit and chat.

Nothing else. No wall hangings or pictures, no plants, no messy mementoes - - there was nothing he wanted to remember of the past.

Though Snape had taken over the headmaster's position only two days previously, the house elves had already moved and shelved all his books. He crossed to examine them, and their neat rows gave him the first moment of calm that he'd felt since. . .well, probably since Dumbledore's death. The elves had done a good job: all the titles were in order, all his careful organization retained.

He was just finishing aligning the spines with the edges of the shelves when a "pop" announced the entrance of Gibby, the head house elf of the headmaster's suite. He held a cardboard box in his arms.

"Gibby is sorry for intruding on the headmaster," he said. "But here is one last box, just odds and ends, and Gibby thought he would deliver it himself to check that everything is satisfactory with the move."

"Yes, everything is fine," Snape replied. "Thank you, Gibby. And thank the others." He was unused to interacting with elves - - he'd preferred to maintain his dungeon rooms himself - - but he'd seen enough of the Malfoys' mistreatment of theirs that he wanted to be as different as possible.

Gibby deposited the box on the desk. "Does the headmaster require anything else?" he asked, and vanished with a bow as soon as Snape shook his head.

Driven less by curiosity than by a desire to prolong his solitude for a few more minutes, Snape stepped to the box and opened it.

A few toiletries, two tea mugs, several quills (their nibs stained permanently with red ink), a roll of parchment, and a battered book.

Hogwarts: A History

Slowly, Snape drew out the desk chair and sat down; he wasn't sure his legs would continue to support him. It was a shock, seeing this book again.

It had been years since he'd last looked at it, years since - - he could admit it now - - it had been the closest thing he'd had to a friend.

Almost gingerly, he reached out touch the cover, and it immediately turned into sleek black leather, the silver snake gleaming on the front corner.

He lifted the book from the box and opened it with no little trepidation, but the first leaf, the message page, remained blank. It was here that he'd read his mother's letter on his first night at Hogwarts, all those years ago. It was here that the magical remnants of the Prince family had brought him into their fold, guiding and helping him throughout his student career.

And it was here that they had disowned him.

He could still remember verbatim the last entry he had written, during his final term at Hogwarts.