Current mood:	pessimistic
Current music:	REM - Little America
Entry tags:	harry potter

All That I Am
Title: All That I Am
Author: windout
Word count: 3863
Summary: One day, Severus Snape turned up for breakfast and arrived in time to meet his destiny.
Rating: PG for language
Other: Crack, Snarry if you squint, more crack, disregards most (but not all) of books 4-6, and more crack.


Severus Snape enjoyed a quiet life in the dungeons of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Well, as much as Snape could really enjoy anything. No, a better word was “tolerated.” Snape tolerated his existence at Hogwarts Detention Pen of Prostitutes and Degenerates. When he was teaching a class—so long as Neville “Death” Longbottom was not in attendance—Snape was in his proper environment, under controlled conditions, and, therefore, content.

Sometimes, Severus Snape could even claim that he didn’t mind being at Hogwarts.

Snape usually took breakfast in his rooms; however, Dumbledore had insisted that Snape was far too pale and must come upstairs for a meal or two. The Potions Master cared not for such trivial things, and he politely declined. A day later, the insistence turned into an order, and this found Snape trolling the halls at five in the morning. After seventy-five points had been taken from Gryffindor for assorted misdemeanours, twenty from Ravenclaw for loitering, five from Hufflepuff for being annoying, and fifteen points had been given to Slytherin just because, Snape tucked into a light meal of toast, oatmeal, and coffee.

“Good morning, Severus,” Dumbledore said brightly. Snape did not acknowledge the headmaster, but it did not stop the older man from taking a seat beside him. The smug git enjoyed taking advantage of whatever strange act he’d managed to coerce the potions professor into. Thankfully, the majority of the student body was still in bed; there would be few people to mock him until he’d finished his breakfast. Thank Merlin for small miracles.

“Ah, post is a bit early this morning…”

Snape didn’t care about the post (he never got any mail), and stabbed his spoon into the oatmeal for a quick bite (the damn birds inevitably shat in his food when they were around). He was not exactly wolfing his food down, but he was eating a good deal faster than he had been thirty seconds ago. He hadn’t even bothered looking up to see if Dumbledore was correct; the sound of winds whistling through feathers was more than enough to alert Snape to the presence of some sort of a bird in the room.

“Severus, if you’re not careful, you’re going to choke,” Dumbledore chuckled. Snape still did not see the humour in the situation, so another spoonful disappeared into his mouth. Then it happened.

A bird with a wicked sense of humour dropped something in his bowl, causing lumpy, tepid, grey stuff to splatter on his robes and the immaculate table. The stuff on the table just got sucked through the wood for the house elves to take care of. The splatters on Snape’s robes, however, remained stubbornly visible. One of the lumps even began running down his clothes and pooled in his lap.

Damn owls.

“Ooh! Severus, you have a letter!”

On second thought, Snape cursed Dumbledore too. He cursed him to whatever circle of hell would take such a bloody annoying, smug, too-cheerful fool. Damn Dumbledore.

“What a surprise,” Snape said darkly, eyeing the parchment that was sticking out of his oatmeal. A bubble floated to the top of the cereal and popped, covering more of the note in breakfast. It rather looked like a muggle boat about to sink down to the murky depths of the ocean. Snape wished it would.

“Well? Open it,” Dumbledore urged. Snape fought valiantly not to give the headmaster a dirty look, opting instead to glance at the old man out of the corner of his eye. It was almost as though Dumbledore were either dying of anticipation, or knew exactly what the letter contained. Snape was more inclined to think the first one, given that the timing of the letter corresponded with the exact date that Snape happened to take breakfast in the great hall. There were, after all, no coincidences.

He fished the moist note out of the food and flicked a few spots of mush off the paper and inspected the aged, now soggy, envelope. Either the owl was a halfwit and had been trying to reach him for a long while, or something else had happened to it. After a closer look, Snape saw that it was addressed and had a perforated rectangle in the other corner with red scribbles scrawled on it. It was actually postmarked, as though it had spent time in the muggle mail system. The note tugged free of the greying envelope easily. The first thing he noticed about the letter itself was the date in the upper left-hand corner: August 20, 1977. Holding it in pale, shaking hands, Snape began to read.

Dear Severus (Prince),

On 16 August, your father passed away, leaving the majority of his fortunes and titles to yourself. Please return to Memphis, Tennessee to assume your titles and take your father’s place as King.

Anthony Montescue

“So?”

The world came rushing back in, assaulting him with sounds, scents and other sensations. Dumbledore’s simple inquiry echoed in his ears until he wished to clap his hands over them and block the noise out. Instead, tight-lipped and shaking, Snape pushed away from the table, chair scraping against the stone. But before he could escape the hall, Dumbledore’s hand landed on his forearm and latched on with a surprisingly firm grip. Severus found that he couldn’t bring himself to meet the old man’s gaze, not even to glare at him, but that didn’t seem to faze the headmaster a bit.

“It’s time you faced your destiny, Severus,” Albus Dumbledore said quietly. His hypnotic blue eyes held the Potions professor for a solid moment before the headmaster glanced away and returned to his breakfast. Snape took the opportunity presented and strode quickly out of the room without looking back until he was safely in his office once more.

With a huge sigh, Snape sank onto his bed and cupped his head in his hands. Time passed, and he continued to sit quietly. His first Potions class of the day slid by, and Snape missed a lecture for the first time as a teacher. He wished he could say it was because he was pondering the sort of decision that will change a person’s life forever; in truth, he felt sicker than Longbottom did after ruining yet another potion. Snape was never sick.

Had it been any other sort of a formal letter, Snape would have just crumpled it up and burned it. Instead, it was the letter he’d been dreading all his adult life. The one that confirmed his mother’s cruelness when she lied to him his fifth year at Hogwarts. She’d claimed that Tobias Snape was not his real father, which didn’t exactly surprise the fifteen-year old; but when she’d pointed out the other man, he’d refused to speak to her for months. Any one who would bolster his hopes like that only to smash them just as quickly deserved to be shunned as far as Snape was concerned.

Except he couldn’t be sure that his mum was lying. On dark nights when his brain was foggy with weariness, young Severus would drift to far-away places. Sometimes Mr. Snape was there, yelling and cursing at his wife while Severus cowered in the corner. Other times, it was himself and his mum, and another man. These half memories swam at him in lazy rolling waves: he is grabbing at the strange man’s extended finger and swinging the arm back and forth happily; in another, he is bouncing into his arms while his mother brushed hair out of his eyes. Mostly, young Severus just remembered warm eyes and a kind smile. But Snape was only two or three in these scenes, and memories that old couldn’t be very accurate, correct?

If not for the fact that they were there in the first place, Snape wouldn’t be having a nervous breakdown in the comfort of his own private chambers. If it was all a ruse, he wouldn’t be in the throes of a migraine threatening to split his skull in two. Therefore, all the agony and mental anguish he was putting himself through, if he were allowed to indulge in a bit of rational thought for just one second, was really his unconsciousness manifesting its desire not to answer the letter by confusing duty with reality. Not only must his father not be Tobias Snape, but Severus must actually be the heir to a rather large piece of property and a legend of epic proportions.

And now that he was being frank with himself, Snape had to admit that his head didn’t hurt nearly as much. He had quite a lot of questions now, he still felt ill, and the colour of his skin was alabaster-coloured, but he was coming to grips with the fact that Dumbledore—damn that old lunatic—had yet again manipulated Severus into doing what he otherwise would not have done. “Destiny” indeed.

There seemed to be only one solution. Snape still didn’t like it, but it really wasn’t up to him, was it?

***

“Harry, you really should be more concerned about this, you know.”

“Hush, Hermione, I’m doing well in Potions for a change. Snape can stay gone for a lot longer at this rate.”

“Harry’s right, Hermione, the git’s probably just visiting family or something.”

“If you’d all paid attention in class you wouldn’t struggle nearly as much,” Hermione Granger replied sourly. Her dirty look was directed at the pair of boys, but neither looked up so they didn’t care. It was their third Potions lesson without Snape, meaning that the Gryffindors were actually holding their own against the usual Slytherin favouritism. In fact, the only people that Harry Potter had run into that cared that Snape was absent were the Slytherins, and now Hermione too. But Hermione cared about a lot of things that used to surprise him and no longer did. Why wouldn’t Hermione care about a teacher most of the school despised?

“Hermione, we do pay attention; we can’t help that he hates our guts.”

“You should go see Dumbledore and find out where he went,” the girl said matter-of-factly.

It was Ron Weasley who answered, despite not having been spoken to. “But why? We’re actually passing Potions for a change!”

“Because Harry can’t live without conflict.”

Harry shot her a dark look. “Shut up, Hermione.”

“See? You’re picking a fight right now over nothing.”

“Shut up, Hermione.”

“Say you don’t live for conflict then.”

“I DO NOT LIVE FOR CONFLICT!”

The silence in the dungeons was absolute, as though an avalanche had just breezed through and buried the classroom in a thick blanket of snow. Eyes goggled at the sight that was Harry Potter: The-Boy-Who-Defeated-Voldemort-But-Didn’t-Know-How-To-Become-A-Functioning-Member-Of-Society-Afterwards. All eyes, except for Hermione, who was calmly adding bat guano to her potion. Harry’s face got extremely hot from all the scrutiny, so he sunk behind his potions book and pretended to read.

“You need conflict, Harry,” Hermione continued quietly as the class got back to work. “You’re like Captain Ahab with his white whale or Captain Hook with his crocodile—”

“You’re saying I’m a pirate captain and Snape’s some terrible beast?”Harry asked. He had the feeling that giving her the evil eye while still flushed like a guy asking a girl on a date was a bad idea. So he managed—by the skin of his teeth, mind—to keep his tone even and controlled.

“It makes sense doesn’t it? Even since Voldemort was defeated, you’ve had to content yourself with an average life when you’ve been groomed—”

“Blimey, a pirate captain! Harry, that’s so cool! Pirates are awesome mate, and you know that Snape has to be something slimy like a jelly fish or a squid or something,” Ron chimed in.

Harry shook his head with a rueful grin. “I wouldn’t insult the giant squid like that, Ron.”

“Octopus then.”

“Are either of you listening to me? Harry has to see Dumbledore so he can go and find Snape. I don’t think you’re going to last the year if you don’t have some sort of opposing force.”

“What about Malfoy?”

“He’s not enough; he hasn’t exactly been scary since he got turned into a ferret.”

A sigh gusted through Harry’s lips. Hermione was right as usual, and he was again playing a resigned role in this repetitive drama. Just this morning he’d yelled at Seamus for laughing too loudly. He hadn’t really wanted to admit his anger issues, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult to avoid them. “Okay, Hermione.”

***

“Professor Dumbledore, please! It’s getting harder to concentrate on school and I just feel the need to…”

“To what, Harry?” Dumbledore asked politely.

“To…to do…” Harry, before he could control himself, picked up one of the various knickknacks on a nearby shelf and hurled it against the wall as hard as he could. The explosion wasn’t that magnificent, but it seemed to mollify Harry enough so that he could finish his sentence. “I can’t take it, Professor; I can’t focus! I just get these flashes of rage and I can’t concentrate until I yell or I smash something!”

Dumbledore just smiled serenely, which caused the flickering fire in Harry’s belly to roar to life again. He wanted to make Dumbledore show more concern; wanted to make him care that Harry was going out of his mind with rage. Instead of being the usual pillar of strength and knowledge, the old git was just sitting there, smiling at him like Harry was the funniest thing in the world.

“Well?” Harry demanded.

The old professor blinked slowly before nodding and taking off his half-moon glasses to polish them on the front of his robes. Harry wondered if it was so that he wouldn’t have to make eye contact when he gave his answer.

“Well, Harry,” he said calmly. “I supposed Ms. Granger’s already told you why you’re having problems concentrating—”

“Yeah, she has, Professor,” Harry replied hastily. “I need to know where Snape went!”

“Only if you’ll promise me one thing. And you must keep your promise no matter what. Promise me you won’t search for him for at least two months.”

He felt his face contort into what must have been an expression of confusion. Two months? Was there some significance to the two months, eight weeks, sixty days, fourteen hundred and forty hours? What if Harry had an aneurysm before he could get to Snape?

“Professor—”

“Promise me, Harry.”

Two months. Could he make it? It was an awful long time. He would need to channel his anger elsewhere, like extra Quidditch practices or detentions. Some sort of work that didn’t require a lot of thought and could therefore calm his frazzled mind. Harry didn’t think he’d mind the extra Quidditch.

“All right. I promise, Professor.”

“Good.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled in response, as though he were immensely pleased with Harry’s response. “Professor Snape has gone on a very important mission, Harry…”

***

Snape had to admit…after all the bowing and scraping and legalities, the whole process had been a breeze. He’d been confirmed heir with a couple of primitive muggle DNA tests, and the estate and riches had been signed over to him. The only problem was that now that he had everything, it seemed that he was meant to give something back.

If he’d known that, he certainly would have thought twice before claiming his fortunes.

With the house, the money and the media had come a manila envelope containing a small cassette tape. Snape wouldn’t easily forget that dark, sultry voice coming out of the muggle tape deck.

“Severus, I happily give all my worldly things to you, boy, even though you probably don’t remember me. The fact that you’re listening to this tape now shows that you trust me just a little bit, just enough to hear me through. Son, by now, I hope your momma told you what happened all those years ago and if I coulda, I woulda stayed with you guys. Fact a life is that it just ain’t fair. With that in mind, I want you to know…you’re the heir of my possessions; I want you to be the heir of my title too. The King. I want you to take my crown, give the people what they need: that little bit of sizzle in their lives. Shake ‘em up. Give ‘em a taste a what this family can do. If you’re afraid of your duties, don’t worry. There’ll be people waitin’ to help you when you’re ready. I’m proud a you, son. I just wish I could be there to see you in person.

“Take care, Severus…I love you.”

Snape sighed. The tape hadn’t been wrong about the help. It was as though they’d crawled out of the woodwork: people to help him move like royalty, enunciate like royalty, dress like it too. It had been weeks upon weeks of grueling training and now, finally, he was going to make his first live appearance later that day. The more Snape thought about it, the less he wanted to do with the thing. That’s why he couldn’t let himself think about the event for long periods of time.

However, if there was one perk to his training…it was the change in clothing. Where once he’d worn custom-tailored robes with stiff cuffs and concealing fabrics, he now wore looser suits with more intricate designs. His hair had been trimmed and brushed back away from his face. They had wanted to try to cut it short in approved muggle fashion, but he’d put his foot down on that one. On the whole, he didn’t look terribly bad for a Potions’ Master taken out of his natural environment and thrust into a trying situation.

For the first time since his first few years at Hogwarts as a student, Snape could honestly say that he enjoyed waking up in the morning.

***

“Harry, are you sure Snape is going to be here?” Ron asked, eyeing the crowd pressing in around them. There seemed to be more photographers and reporters in the club than young people like themselves, but it wasn’t exactly as thought they could just leave. The tickets to get in the door were $75 apiece and came without mention of what sort of a show it was. Snape may not attend, but Harry wasn’t going to miss out on this hushed show now on principle alone.

“I think he is. Dumbledore is crafty, but he’s not a liar.”

“Dumbledore knows what he’s talking about, Harry, don’t worry. Snape will be here,” Hermione reassured him. As though being constantly being right gave her license to be that confident. Harry wrote it off for the moment, opting instead to check his watch again. 8:05.

“They’re late.”

“Harry—”

“What’s Snape doing here anyway? It’s not as though he’s going to make a potion in front of a bunch of muggles,” Ron interrupted. “I don’t even think Snape’s got much business with music, either.”

“Dumbledore didn’t answer that.” Harry made no attempt to hide the bitterness in his voice. “He just said that Snape went to America to ‘find himself’ or some such rot. He said that Snape would be here and in person at 8 o’clock. I don’t know why.”

“I would have thought it was obvious—”

“Hermione, you thinking something is obvious is like Fang realizing unicorn poop is filling. Harry, mate, if he’s not here in the next ten minutes, I dunno what to say.”

The other boy sighed. “I know.”

“Harry! You’re not angry!” Hermione beamed. “You’re resigned! Don’t you think it’s a good thing Snape left? You’re managing your anger better now.”

Harry just shook his head. “I have to know, Hermione. You said it yourself, he’s my—”

“Blimey…”

Harry blinked before turning to Ron who looked flabbergasted. He was staring at the stage, eyes nearly bugging out of his head. The lights had finally gone down and the crowd was responding with assorted murmurs and noises of confusion. Up on stage was a man with black hair carrying an acoustic guitar. He wore a black suit decorated with rhinestones, musical clefs, and lightning bolts. The black of his hair seemed to meld with the suit, and it framed his face in an oddly familiar way.

When the strange man ever spoke, Harry felt his heart stop in his chest.

“As some of you may know, this is my first appearance and it was important that it be done right. My father would have wanted it that way. That is way I’ve decided to sing the song I have…in honour of him, The King. My name is Severus…Severus Presley, and the song I am going to perform is ‘You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.’”

He took a seat on the stool at the edge of the stage and got comfortable. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought that a) It might be difficult to get comfortable in a rhinestone suit and b) Snape had gone insane. Completely, absolutely crazy. It was almost as though he honestly believed that he was some strange American musician’s son.

“Hermione…what’s obvious?” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Last year, your Potions book. The Half-Blood Prince? I did some extra research. The time period works…Elvis wasn’t a wizard by any means, and he’s a King.”

“You don’t have to say you love me/ Just be close at hand/ You don’t have to stay forever/ I will understand…”

Harry just watched the strange person on the stage. Watched the hands strum the guitar and glide over the frets with a practiced ease. The way the strands of dark hair fell into his face as he sung. This was the man who’d made Harry’s life hell for the past seven years. The man who kept him focused and motivated to be better (than that greasy-haired git).

King Snape.

“I think I am kind of grateful he left,” Harry admitted, unable to tear his gaze away from the spectacle.

“Do you want to leave, Harry?”

The dark-haired boy nodded gravely. Hermione reached out an arm and hugged him close before poking Ron, who was also distracted by the performance. He finally noticed Hermione and Harry—the disturbed as all get-out expression still hadn’t left his face—and quickly turned to leave with them.

***

“Left alone with just a memory/ Life seems dead and so unreal/ All that’s left is loneliness/ There’s nothing left to feel.”

Before Severus had come to America to claim his birthright and his title of King, he’d known contentment. At Hogwarts, contentment was being alone in his rooms with no sunlight to touch him and a cauldron steaming gently with one potion or another. Contentment, but not happiness.

Now, after a dozen performances and another dozen planned, every time he stepped into the spotlight, that same thrill of excitement would slide up his spine. It was invigourating. Alive.

At least none of his students had ever come to see him perform. He could only imagine the sort of disaster that would be.

But no matter. The King, Severus Presley, had a tour to plan.