Severus Snape Prepares for the First Day of Class

Severus Snape was actually a morning person. He was sure that very few people who knew him as a teen would believe it. During his teenage years he hadn’t been one, but he’d reverted to one as soon as he had become a professor. It was why he generally did patrols Friday Night, it was the only way he’d be able to sleep in on Saturday, something he’d promised himself to always do once he was free of his father.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy a good cup of morning coffee with his point twenty fifth of a teaspoon of milk, stirred three and a quarter times. The aroma was perfect, and the extra stimulate even potent in the air. He’d made the cup himself, arriving at the Slytherin Common Room before the first student had woken up. He took a seat by the door and awaited the arrival of each student. It was a different method for him, but he wanted to delay his first encounter with Harry Potter.

He’d received a letter from Petunia shortly after the letters had gone out to the new first years, letting him know that Lily’s child was coming for his first year. She’d even included a picture of him with Petunia and her oldest daughter, who was a spitting image of Lily. He’d been greatly surprised at that. Even more so when he’d discovered that she was the namesake of her aunt.

It was that picture that had caused him to take a good look at his past. Seeing what was in effect an image of a younger James and Lily with Petunia put him in a much more reflective mood. Oh, he still didn’t like James Potter, but he could admit that he’d given as good as he’d got. With Harry Potter having been sorted in Hufflepuff, which was never a threat to his house, he wasn’t seeing a reincarnation of James. James would have never been sorted into Hufflepuff. He was too much of a pureblood charging knight in shining armor, a shallow person. Hufflepuffs, he knew, had more depth to them.

Severus knew he’d probably have a few knee jerk reactions when he encountered the latest Potter, but it wouldn’t be the same as it would have been if he’d been one of Minerva’s lions. Pomona kept a much more even kneel with her badgers, though you were to put one of them past their limits, well only a fool angered a badger. Unfortunately, he had way too many fools in his house lately.

He’d been surprised when Draco had been sorted into Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin. It would not be easy on his godson not to be in Slytherin, but he would have to let Draco know that his door was still open. He’d probably need it once Lucius discovered his son’s sorting. Malfoys had been sorted into Slytherin since the first sorting with the Sorting Hat. As a school governor, Lucius was probably going to make it a personal visit, and he was glad that he wasn’t an involved head of house with that one.

As he got through the first tenth of students, Severus reflected that he wasn’t exactly being bold at the moment. He’d heard what happened to the Dark Lord in the Leaky Cauldron, and seen Lucius’s burnt arm, still in the process of healing a month later, when they’d encountered Harry Potter and the Dursley’s. He didn’t want to be the latest Death Eater to end up in with a burning arm.

A couple of fourth-years, Faustus McGee and his ever present best friend Fortuna Falstaff (don’t ever say they were any more or less) entered, and rather than just stopping long enough to get there schedules, McGee spoke up. “Professor, I just heard that they found Augustus Rookwood in a muggle hospital. It seems he got struck by lightning on a rather clear summer day.”

“I see, and what do they say that caused the suppose to be on work release Unspeakable to be smote from above?” Severus asked.

“If my sources are correct, he was last seen attempting to follow a certain family,” Falstaff said. “You know the one, with the recent surprise sorting into Hufflepuff.”

Severus considered the unsolicited information a moment, and decided that it might be advisable to spread a bit more information around. “To those that know Mister Potter, it is no surprise. I grew up with the aunt who raised him, a muggle true, but quite a hard worker believed in family unity. A recent letter that I received has acquainted me to the current circumstances of the family. Petunia has described her nephew as part of the glue that holds her family of eight children counting Mister Potter together. That suggested to me that as long as he did not fall into the regrettable Potter Family tradition of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff was most likely.

“However, a word to the wise, Potter in Hufflepuff is not an easy mark. He will not be easily shaped onto any path he does not consider, and his family will remain paramount in his thinking.”

“And at Hogwarts, your house is your family,” McGee stated. “We’ll try keep the idiots in our year out of the way.”

“You do that, and both of you will be prefects next year,” Severus said. It was an easy statement. The current fourth year in his house was filled with more than its fair share of dunderheads. The only plus he’d found thus far was that their potions disasters usually ended up in sticky messes for detention uses than explosions.

It did not take long for the rest of his Slytherins to file through on the way to breakfast and the Great Hall. No Slytherin was dunderheaded enough to miss breakfast, and if there were someone that did miss it, there would be a good reason, like Miss Belladona’s narcolepsy. Fortunately she’d completed her NEWTs last year, so he wouldn’t be going into the female dorms to find out if she’d fallen asleep again.

Priding himself for finding a way to avoid the encounter with Potter for a while longer, Severus looked down at his own schedule. First class, First Years Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. He went to take another sip of his coffee. He’d already finished it.

There was only one conclusion, the world hated Severus Snape, and he was going to burn this morning.