Dunderhead - A Harry Potter story: Snape becomes Harry's mentor

Chapter 9: TELL ALL

"Severus my boy," Dumbledore said in a cheerful tone, his voice low and welcoming. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this late night visit?"

"Headmaster, we must talk," Severus answered seriously. He had been wandering the halls in search of wayward students who had dared to venture out after curfew but his mind had been stuck on other matters, namely Potter, and he had failed to notice a couple of Ravenclaw students loitering a mile away from their common room.

"That sounds rather serious. I do hope everything is alright." Said the headmaster, peering at Severus over his half-moon glasses.

Severus looked at his mentor and repressed a sigh and a shiver. Dumbledore always seemed to know when something was not right. "Certainly, headmaster, everything is fine." He said, not completely without a guilty jerk of his head.

"Sit down," Dumbledore suggested. "Some tea, Severus?" Dumbledore was already gracefully pouring two small china cups.

"No, thank you." The Potions professor declined, instead choosing to dive right into the matter at hand. "It concerns Potter," he confessed with cold sobriety.

Dumbledore smiled with resignation. "Again, Severus? Surely you have finished complaining about the boy. He is not so bad."

Severus shook his head. "Potter and I had an... argument." He said awkwardly.

"I see," Dumbledore nodded, though Severus thought that he did not look as though he understood at all. "You wish to have the boy punished for speaking out of turn, preferably expelled?" He quipped, although the usual twinkling mirth, usually at Severus' expense, was not quite present.

"No, not this time. This time... the fault," Severus forced, "the fault was mine." Severus proceeded to tell the headmaster everything that had occurred in his occlumency lesson with Harry.

***

"I see." Dumbledore said with gravity when Severus had finished.

"The boy is impossible, headmaster!" Severus started, feeling as though he was in fight and flight mode. "He dared call me that, that name! That impertinent little bast-"

"Severus!" Dumbledore admonished, halting the man's next word.

"I'm sorry, Albus, but the nerve of that boy! He waltzes into my pensieve like he owns the thing, watches my most private memories, and then he takes advantage of that transgression and spits mockery at me!" Severus was steaming, all guilt had been forgotten for the time being as his mind was dead set on spilling the blasphemy about Harry Potter. The name, Snivellus, gifted to him by James Potter, was a stark reminder of the ritual humiliation that he had been forced to put up with as a student in school.

"I'll have him expelled for this! This is the last straw! Make a fool of me, will he? I ought to- "

"-Strike him?" Dumbledore's tone was stern.

Severus stopped suddenly in his rant. "No, of course not." He said soberly. He shrunk beneath the older Wizard's searching look. Severus looked away, feeling very uncomfortable under the headmaster's calculating gaze. He always felt exposed around the Wizard: nobody read him better than Albus Dumbledore did. As a spy, Severus had learnt discreetness, and now he kept his feelings and intentions deep inside, hidden behind a dark mask of indifference where few could get to them. Albus Dumbledore read him like an open book, and that was without even resorting to Legilimency. "I assume that it was a lapse in judgment?" Dumbledore inquired severely, looking pointedly at the potions professor.

"There was no judgment," Severus admitted. "I lost my temper and acted rashly." He said regretfully. He could not bring himself to meet Dumbledore's eyes and instead focussed his gaze on the lace doilies that decorated the headmaster's desk. He despised those pernickety, frivolous decorations. His line of vision failed to take in the old man's face, but he could tell that Dumbledore's features were lined with disappointment. Those few words, spoken with such passive reprimand, brought the guilt back to Severus harder than any reprimand he had made to himself that evening.