HPSS: A Mother's Love CH3

[prowlingthunder]

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Severus Snape was not a man to stand idly by with the students he was responsible for dropping like bricks, no matter how much he'd detested the boy's father. Especially not as he was clearly Lily's son, from the way he'd marched himself into the Great Hall- exuding all of his mother's steely confidance in his step and the same flash of emerald eyes.

 

So when Harry James Potter, savior of the Wizarding World, hit the floor, he was very, very glad he carried smelling salts in his interior pocket. Not because he was James Potter's son, but because he was the son of Lily Evans, and he'd made a promise.

 

X-X-X-X

 

Relief and worry both coiled into an angry, disgusting knot in his belly as his godson helped the Potter boy sit upright; Severus hoped very few of the children present would feel this warrented writing to their parents, and he knew those hopes were not necessary.

 

House Unity was a bond that Salazar Slytherine himself caste even today, and had Potter been in any other house, yes, they would have written home and regailed their sire and dame of what occured. But with Salazar watching, and the spell about to be recaste? He was a Slytherine, and no one in the House would turn on their own.

 

Still, he was glad Lily's son had been placed here for him to watch over. James' son would have been a Gryffindor.

 

Nevertheless, he'd have to talk with the medi-witch to make sure this was only a one-time event. It seemed like it was just taught nerves, but Severus was a Potion's Master, not a healer. He knew how elixers and salves were meant to work, and why bronze or brass cauldrons worked best for what potions and why simple not ornate was demanded for students. He knew how to brew Wolf's Bane, had created a number of new potions unique to only himself, the recipies of which he might write down before his death and gift to his apprentice.

 

Singular. Spreading the formulae for potions like that would be more then a little dangerous. Severus wouldn't risk it. He'd bind his apprentice to the knowledge first.

 

But as far as healing went, Severus knew little more then the average Wizard. Medicine was Poppy's forte.

 

X-X-X-X

 

After the ceremony, where the portrait of Salazar Slytherine was revealed to be quite less a portrait and quite a bit more the medium that housed the Founder's personality, memories and magic, Severus Snape sent the students whole off to bed. Each bracelet still glowed on the wrists of students and faculty alike, but the Seal of Slytherine would fade by morning, less other teachers and Dumbedore alike catch onto the ancient practice; bracelet, then tattoo, then skin. The warmth of his own Seal overshadowed the everpresent chill of the Death Eater's skull and sickly green python, making him feel welcome once more.

 

Salazar was watching him from oil as he examined the back of his hand thoughtfully. He remembered when he was a first year, the first time he'd stepped into the green and silver of the Oroborous bricked into the floor and shoved his hand onto the Cobra's crown.

 

There were no words to the ritual, really; of course, Salazar explained what was expected of the whole House, that they were meant to protect each other, that they were meant to cover for each other, that they were whole heartedly meant to support each other. He'd explained that he was going to each give them a mark that would, invariably, act as a beacon in duress, and as an awareness of familiarity when the necessity of subtufuge arrived. It marked them as family, as a unit.

 

None of that had changed. Nor did Salazar tell them of the bone-deep link between them, a net to lean one one another, to hold them up in support and light-- or to drag them down, should too many fall. A gift and a curse, this Seal. No one dared tell of it, but it was the reason Slytherine graduates stayed friends-- and the reason why, when the weight of the Dark Mark snared one, so many others fell.

 

But so long as none of the little snakes were marked- and with Voldemort, if not dead, at least -missing-, they wouldn't- Snape wouldn't fall again.

 

X-X-X-X

 

Technically speaking, so far as his Pantheon and brothers-in-arms were concerned, his name was Ljang Khu Diskopotiro. It's what would be on his tombstone when he died serving Lady Athena.

 

Visitors from the Greek-dominated society, rare though they were, had a tendancy to call him Aries' Student. Few knew he carried a Cloth now, but those that did called him Afentis Diskopotiro for that reason. Not surprisingly, it was the same reason they called his teacher Afentis Krios, and Shaka was referred to as Afentis Parthena. Agiastirio- Sanctuary -knew them by their holy garments.

 

The people living in the mountain town that Harry had grown up knowing called him Ljang Khu, after his eyes, the brilliant green that they were. Save for one gray-haired old lady who, for some strange reason, had declared him both Very Old- Zhe Drags Rnying Pa- and Lightning- Glog. Though really, she'd strung them together as Zhe Drags Rnying Pa Glog. Which was so very far from polite in any other language that Harry hadn't had the heart to correct her.

 

Aiacos had called him Hariyo that first Christmas they met, and the others had jumped on it. It had become his newfound nickname amongst his newfound friends, and hadn't been that much different then his birth name. He'd enjoyed it emmensely, but less so when Agora had come home from his dive in the Nile and tacked on Pet. Sky. It hadn't even become Green Sky. It had become Sky Green: Pet Hariyo. Very little was more humiliating when one had been studying English for some time.

 

Still, the fact of the matter was that Harry hadn't been called Potter in a very, very long time. How was it at all fair that Hogwarts and it's staff be allowed to call him such a thing, when no one had done such a thing since he'd looked upon his mother?

 

Harry wasn't going to stand for this.

 

X-X-X-X

 

It wasn't a dream so much as it was a nightmare, and Harry clung to it as he picked himself up off the floor. He'd refused to sleep in the odd bedding that was provided, and had instead tucked himself in a corner with Nagini and feel asleep there, comforted by the feeling of stone walls around him as he slept, and that Nagini would poison any who drew too close.

 

He could not say what time it was; due to the fact that he had come all the way from the mountaintop yesterday, he knew his perception of time was less then accurate. Still, he assumed it to be relatively early, because his odd, blond roommate was not yet awake. If Draco Malfoy even woke with the sun.

 

Draco'd never told him what knickers were.

 

Shaking his head, he shifted to let Nagini uncoil from his arms and slither off his shoulders before he dared peek into the strange door that connected them to the next couple's room. It revealed what Harry could only guess to be the Western equivilant of a bathroom, and he resolved himself to spending some time to figure it all out before he left.

 

X-X-X-X

 

Ever since he was young, Harry had always been thrilled to watch the sunrise. It had begun as something wonderful Mu had shared with him; “Did you know, the morning sun tells the future?” While Shishi was visiting, Mu had been relatively trapped in her room with him, and Harry had begun to watch the sunshine smile at him on his own.

 

Harry met it on the school grounds as it reached and stretched over the treetops, face upturned and fingers spread out to meet it. Agiastirio's people had a very unique view of the Sun and of it's rays, as they were warriors of the Lady Athena, not Apollo. As a result, it was welcomed like a dear brother or an honored uncle, owning to Apollo's posistion as Athena's half-brother and the God who's chariot drug the molten orb across the sky.

 

It wasn't until he'd been properly kissed by the morning stroke of warmth that he realised someone else was standing with him and he turned, not in the least mortified by his display.

 

“Just what are you doing?”

 

Erk.

 

“Potter.”

 

“Dgongas dag!”

 

X-X-X-X

 

Later, Severus would reflect and try to understand exactly what it was about him that had made the child run off. His hair? His clothes? Shyness? Right now though, he became aware he needed a few language spells if he was going to have any hope of understanding the random outbursts of half the student body this year.

Severus Snape was fairly certain he had never hated Dumbledore more then he did right now.