Part 6- Moth
Severus slowly made his way up the stairs to the school Owlery, careful not to step upon the hem of his black robes. A klutz in nature, Snape had deliberately covered the unseemly tendency with a swift grace that he hadn’t owned as a child. He, in his own way, had his faults, and being mistake prone was one of them. He despised being weak, and loathed the fact that he was disabled by his clumsiness…and a Potions teacher could not have any momentary “slip-ups” during an experiment, whatsoever. He walked carefully, squinting up to the waiting light at the end of the corridor. Severus’ sharp hearing heard the customary squawks and flapping of wings from the dozens of large birds encased within the cages, and once he had emerged into the large, circular room, all of them turned to look at him. One owl in particular skittered slowly forward and pressed its breast against the cage, peering out at him with its beak poking through the thin wires. It was a slowly graying owl, with soft, dark feathers that were ruffled with age. Bleary yellow eyes stared out at him, and Severus smiled lightly.
The other owls, having made sure that Snape wasn’t anything to concern themselves about, started rattling around within their cages and twittering softly. The noise slowly grew to the normal racket, and Severus took a key out of his pocket. He unlocked the cage holding the old, ruffled owl, and he gathered the tiny creature within his arms, kneeling down upon the floor. The owl gave a feeble hoot, and Severus tapped him on the beak with his index finger. “Hello, Moth,” Severus said, softly, in greeting.
The letter had provoked the potions teacher to wander up to visit his old owl, one of the last tokens of his childhood that remained. He hadn’t visited Moth for a few days, and he guiltily snuggled the owl within his arms, feeling the frail wings and skinny body that was once full and robust with youthful strength with his fingertips. Moth was an old bird, nearly blind and unable to fly anymore, but Severus could never bear to put him down, since he wasn’t in pain, nor did he seem discontent.
Even though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, he had always had a soft spot for birds, ever since he had first gotten Moth. Everyone had owls back when he was in school…it wasn’t very becoming to own a rat, or a cat, as a Familiar. Usefulness had been the most important factor in choosing an animal, and since the children didn’t choose their Familiar very often, the parents or guardian would choose an owl. Severus had gone with his parents to the Owl Emporium, and Moth had poked his head through towards him, twittering and nipping gently at his fingers when he reached for the owl. It had been a small shop when he had been a youth, filled with owls that hooted at each other and peered down upon visitors. It had been dark, foreboding. It had been a large shop to Severus’ eleven-year-old eyes, but even now he realized how tiny it was and how big it had become. Severus had been obsessed with the sleek, black-feathered owl with the big, luminous eyes, and he had begged his parents to purchase him. He kept on returning to the owl to pet his feathers, to let him nip at his fingers…he was expensive, however, and his parents refused at first. Severus’ father hadn’t wanted him to have something like Moth, and they ended up leaving the store without an owl at first. Snape always disliked his father, mostly because he hated anything that even implied weakness. Severus shivered as he remembered the beatings for just falling down, little accidents like spilling a cup of milk, or just saying the wrong thing. Being a child had been horrible, and the escape to Hogwarts had been his light at the end of a dark, long tunnel.
It had been a secret of his mother and he-this owl had been his precious pet, one that had probably been put through more than it deserved, but it had been his friend through the worst of times. His mother had given the owl to him before he had left on the Hogwarts Express, in a silver cage that he clearly remembered. His father had been away on business, and she had gone out and gotten the bird for him. It was one of the rare times in which his mother had defied her husband’s orders to make him happy, and Snape knew that she had eventually gotten her share of pain for giving him an owl like Moth. Severus stroked the soft feathers of his owl, his dark eyes lost in memory as the owl twittered.
A reawakening had begun inside of him, even though he refused to believe it, and it was about to smack him in the face. It meant he would have to believe that there was actually a remnant of his former self, the teenager that could laugh and smile, while pouring ingredients into a cauldron so that it would explode-on purpose. James and he had gotten into enough trouble with putting explosive substances into their cauldrons, along with Sirius, and James’ cauldron was replaced three times before graduation.
Severus made a sudden decision, reaching up and unhooking Moth’s cage from the long pole hovering within the air. It had been long enough for his owl to be sitting up in a tower on his own, and even Severus knew that this owl had lived longer than he should have, and would eventually pass away out of old age. He carried the cage in one hand, Moth in the crook of his other arm, and walked down the stairs. Heavens knew what any of the students would have thought if they had run into Professor Snape carrying a cage and an old, fuzzy owl in his arms. He made his way down to the dungeons, thankful that none of the students were wandering through the hallways. He let Moth creep into his cage as he shut the wire door, carrying it with one hand as he took his long wand out of his pocket, tapping them against the lanterns floating in mid air and whispering a soft incantation so they lit with bright green fire. The light reflected off the shiny surface of his black floor as if green light were reflecting off of water, and he set the cage down upon the desk sitting in the middle of his office. Dissatisfied with the weak light put off by the lanterns, he waved his wand and lit the fireplace. Orange-yellow flames flared up from the depths of the wood, lighting the room, and Moth gave a surprised squawk, fluttering within his cage while giving him a wide eyed look.
Severus took a large pile of books off of the desk, setting them upon the floor as he sat down on the wood chair. He cleared parchments from his students, along with a list of his grades away from the smooth surface, and he unlocked the cage. Moth hesitated before wandering out of the cage, and Severus wrapped the bird in his arms, idly stroking at ruffled feathers. He smelled musty, almost as if he had been a stuffed animal up in an attic too long.
Moth twittered into his ear, and Snape pulled away to look at the old bird. Moth nibbled at his nose, and a ghost of a smile appeared on the professor’s lips.
“Moth…do you remember what I was?” Severus tapped a finger upon his beak, stroking the hard surface. The bitterness and dry sarcasm had been replaced with a long lost emotion of friendship and wistfulness, both of which were alien and ached deeply within his heart. Moth didn’t respond, twitching his wing and then raising it a bit while stretching the long, feathered appendage. Snape nuzzled deeply into the owl’s thin chest, breathing in deeply as his eyes closed. “…I don’t. Not the way that I want to.” It didn’t even occur to him how silly it was to be speaking to an owl, an animal that wouldn’t respond.
Moth let him remember-even though he didn’t want to, sometimes-what being a child had been like. Severus had a tendency to forget that, losing the essence of being innocent in a pool of resentment.
Severus had started to discover his heart again, slowly, but surely.
The most wonderous thing about it, however, was that he was only doing it for Harry, and Harry alone.
(AN: Yow…uhm…if this seemed a little ooc to some people, sorry. I believe that this is Snape when no one’s looking…not even Harry. ^.~ Heh.
AN (added 01-04-02): Having forgotten about Snape’s office, I made some slight adjustments so the office itself would present itself, even though the implications are vague.)