Soul of Ice

34. Birthday Treats

"There is a difference, Abbie, between teaching you and giving you the answers. If I were simply favouring you, I would be giving you Os regardless of the quality of your work. However you're yet to achieve an O in your Alchemy. I want you to do more than simply achieve a high grade; I want you to learn. And one important lesson you must learn is that life isn't fair. There will always be Potters in the world, those who seem to be handed everything on a silver platter. And there will always be those like us, who must work harder simply to be on an equal footing. It's wrong and unjust, but it is how the world works. Besides..." He leant back and folded his arms. "It appears to have taken Potter an entire five and a half years to learn the function of a bezoar. If he sincerely wishes to be an Auror, he will be in for a great shock when he discovers just how gruelling the testing is, even for the Chosen One."

"So... that's a no to helping me with my homework?"

"I didn't say that. I won't help you with your homework for my classes, but since I'm no longer your Potions teacher, I don't see why I can't help you with it now. But I will guide you to the answers; I won't give them."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Abbie said with a smile. She turned her book around on the table to show him the page she was looking at. "Can you help me understand this bit about how veritaserum works? There's a lot in here about brain chemistry I don't quite understand."

Once Snape had talked her through the minute interactions between brain chemicals and potion ingredients, they resumed working in silence, and after a few hours, Abbie piped up, "Hey, Dad, did you write a new speech for the first years this year?"

Snape looked up at her from his desk, frowning. "What are you talking about?"

"You know. The whole 'bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses' spiel you always gave first years in Potions. Did you write a new one for Defence?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "I don't give speeches, Abbie. I teach."

"Did you rehearse it in front of a mirror?" she teased. "Or did you make Pettigrew listen and give notes?"

Snape sighed. "I may as well have had sixteen classes of first years this year for all the good your previous teachers have done. I gave the same introduction to the subject to all classes."

"You're not answering my question."

"You're being irritating. Why are you asking me this? You're here to do your homework, not to pester me."

Abbie shrugged. "I was just watching you work," she said, "and you do everything with such precision, as if you've rehearsed every movement. I wonder if you rehearse your speeches - or are they completely off the cuff?"

Snape rolled his eyes and folded his arms, sitting back in his chair. "If you must know," he drawled, "my first attempt at teaching was a disaster. Remember, I was only twenty-one when I was hired. The majority of students already knew me from being at school myself. They already had their notions of who I was, and they behaved as such. So when first years came in, I was very careful to set the tone of my class from the beginning - to ensure none of them would dare call me Snivellus."

"Twenty-one?" Abbie echoed with a frown. "I thought you were twenty? Didn't you start spying just before Harry was born?"

"Yes, but I wasn't hired here until a year later. But yes, I had already been spying since shortly before you were born."

"Before Harry was born, you mean. My birth had nothing to do with it."

Snape's lips thinned slightly. "Yes. Shortly before Potter was born. I had no idea, of course, that your mother was pregnant -"