Work Text:
21 August
Harry knocked on the door without looking at the sign, then read it, consulted his watch, and groaned.
Posted office hours for Literature 327 are from Wednesdays one until three-fifteen; for Literature 448D, hours are Thursday mornings from eight until ten-thirty. Students who require an alternate arrangement should, per the syllabi, schedule a specific appointment. Students who arrive outside of office hours without an appointment should be prepared to demonstrate the emergency that requires my attention at their convenience.
--S.Snape.
Well, he'd already knocked. Given Snape's reputation, if he fled, some kind of security feature would just mean men in dark suits would show up in his dorm room to flay him in the night, so he was going to assume just sucking it up and apologizing was probably his best option.
Of course, the door remained closed several more seconds, even though he could hear movement inside, so then he had to choose whether to knock again. He considered it, raising his fist in preparation, then opted against.
Finally, the door opened, and Severus Snape stood in the gap, scowling over his reading glasses and holding the door in preparation for slamming. He said nothing.
"Um, so I didn't read the sign until after I knocked."
"How unfortunate for you." Snape stepped back, starting to close the door.
"No, I mean, um. Sorry, but I really do have a question about the first paper."
"Oh, do go on. I'm fascinated." Snape's scowl deepened. He didn't look fascinated.
"Right. So. I don't think I have enough resources, but I don't really know how to go about finding appropriate other ones? And I know you talked in class about crafting the right question and being specific so the whole paper isn't all one big generalization, which I agree that seems like it would be maybe a little bit pointless although I suppose maybe it's fair for a first paper to be more general and then there would be something to build on but anyway I think my question is too specific because I mean, that's mostly what I need to do, being specific, in my usual classes because computers are all about specificity and clear rules and labels for every aspect of code, but I guess I need to be more general but I don't know how to do that and also I--"
"--have no concept of what the word 'sentence' means?" Snape's scowl, at least, had eased, although now he had an expression of bored and fading tolerance.
"What?"
"I wasn't counting, but if I were to guess how many words you'd put in a row with no apparent break for anything, up to and including oxygen, I would say you had left one hundred behind with no end in sight."
"Oh. Sorry." Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and shrugged. "I need help with finding appropriate resources."
"See? It wasn't so hard to state the problem in one legitimate sentence, now, was it?"
"Right, I just wanted to explain the nature of my problem because it wasn't the one you mentioned in class."
Snape leaned against the jamb and folded his arms across his chest. "I'm gratified to learn you've been listening."
"I have to! I'm shit at this kind of class!"
"With no evidence to the contrary as you have not yet submitted your first paper, I shall agree with your assessment."
"It's not really in my field. I needed the credit."
"How flattering. Now, go gratify and/or flatter the fucking librarians, who are paid full time to help the underqualified locate the materials with which to complete their coursework." He stepped back and slammed the door.
Harry looked at his watch. 3:29. All right then.
4 September
Harry looked at the comments on his paper again and took a deep breath. Obviously, he had to go in and discuss how to fix this, because he needed a decent grade, and getting forty-threes on his papers was never going to cut it.
His info architecture class was out at ten of three, so if he hurried, he could make it to the listed office hours on time, although based on the 43 and the full two pages of scrawled red notes (and a couple hundred other red marks throughout the five pages of his text), he was going to need more than fifteen minutes of the man's time. Well, maybe they could make an appointment for a better time.
Of course, when he arrived, there were two other people loitering in the hall behind the five that had already pressed their way into Snape's office, so fifteen minutes was obviously not going to happen.
On the up side, based on overheard bits of conversation, his 43 was not, in fact, as bad compared to the group as he had feared; the average score had apparently been a 65. However, Snape had been very clear on the first day of the course that he did not agree with grading on any kind of curve. So, yeah, the 43 was pretty bad.
When he finally got inside, it was already 3:19, and Snape looked slightly murderous. Harry sighed. "Um, so would you rather discuss my paper and corrections now, or make an appointment?"
"As my office hours have ended, as I'm certain you are aware based upon our previous discussion, an appointment will be required."
Harry nodded. "Okay. I was hoping to get started on the corrections, though, so maybe soon?"
"When do you propose?"
"Oh. Um. I didn't bring my calendar."
Snape ducked his chin down to look at Harry over the tops of the rims of his glasses. "You've honestly turned up after office hours to make an appointment, but did not bring what you'd need to do so." His tone was 100 percent you have got to be shitting me, and Harry felt his face heating.
"Um, I got here at 2:55. I just didn't actually expect there to be such a line."
"You believed, given your paper and my comments, that we could complete a profitable discussion in twenty minutes?"
"I dunno. I have zero experience trying to improve this kind of writing, but um, okay. When are you free? I have class from 11:00 to 12:20 Monday through Thursday, your class at 9:00 every day, and then the data architecture class Monday and Wednesday 1:00 to 2:50. Besides that, I mean, I have a work-study job and I tutor--"
Snape snorted. "Tutor?"
"What, I'm good at my own field! I do tutoring for general math and computer science."
"And when are you committed for those things?"
"Can you just tell me when would work that I'm not in class, and I'll figure it out?"
"Perhaps Friday afternoon," Snape said. "I am free after four."
Harry crinkled his nose at the thought of spending his Friday evening--he was pretty sure this was going to be an hours-long activity--but then, at least he didn't have anything else on the calendar for Friday night anyway except the usual weekly gaming session, and yeah, Ron and Neville would give him shit for missing their first session since the release of the new Splinter Cell, but they'd understand. Maybe. If he left them well supplied with Doritos and Dew.
"If it's not a priority," Snape started, "I'm sure next week--"
"No, I was just thinking--I didn't want to say I could make it if I had a conflict, but I don't. It's fine. I'll be here. Or there. Wherever. We could go to a Starbucks or something. I could buy you a coffee for your trouble? Um, or not. Where are we meeting?"
Snape raised his eyebrows. "It's hardly a date, Mister Potter. Do your other instructors propose social settings for your classwork?"
"Uh. My other instructors are all computer geeks. They might agree to meet in the parking lot of one of those, like, Castle Porn superstores if there was wifi available."
"…How lovely for you."
"Not that. Um. Anyway."
"I shall try again: if you were to imagine a group of ordinary instructors, would you anticipate they would propose social settings for your classwork?"
"I'm guessing the right answer is no. I don't really hang with that many instructors most of the time. So, not Starbucks, then, is what I'm getting from this."
"No. We shall meet here. Bring your paper, additional writing materials including a pen or pencil, your book because while I do have a copy, I will be referring to it as well, any notes you've retained from your secondary resources, and a first attempt at repairing the flaws."
"Okay. 4:00 Friday, here, with a ton of stuff and no illusions this is a social event. Got it."
Snape smirked. "Excellent. Good day." He closed the door, actually pushing Harry into the hall, and clicked the lock after him.
6 September
The bus, naturally, ran late on Friday, and Harry found himself puffing his way up the stairs to Snape's office at 3:59. He was pretty sure being late would be seen as utterly inexcusable no matter the cause, and anyway, it was his own fault he'd gone home between class and this meeting, although he did know very well if he'd stayed on campus he'd have gotten sucked into the debate about best approaches to preparing for the annual code competition.
He heard the clock on the quad start to chime the hour just as he lifted his hand to knock.
"Punctuality is a good start," Snape said as he opened the door. "Now to see what else you've got."
Harry nodded and handed over his paper, his attempt at a rewrite, and his notes.
Snape took the stack of pages, went to his desk, and began to read through the lot without comment. Harry stood in the doorway for a moment, then stepped awkwardly into the room and looked back at the door. Closing it seemed weird, but leaving it open was equally strange, and anyway, he felt like he was loitering or intruding, and besides that, he didn't know what on earth to do while he waited. Stand? Sit? Where?
Finally, when the quarter-past bell chimed, he concluded awkward sitting was no worse than awkward standing and probably better for whatever they might be about to discuss, so he took a spot in a wooden chair next to a crammed bookcase and began straightening and labeling the stickynotes haphazardly poking out from between most of the pages of his book. This class was well outside his usual scope, but he did want to do well, and he had really tried to approach the assignment seriously.
At 4:32, Snape handed back his papers, having made no marks, and turned the chair toward him. "The topic of this paper as assigned related to our characters' social standing. Explain, then, why you chose to focus on positioning and accessibility of various doors, windows, and light sources relative to our characters' paths of regular travel."
Harry took the papers. "Okay. I noticed that in almost every major scene there was some reference to a window. At first, it just made me laugh, because even though obviously this book was written, like, two hundred years ago, still, I'm not a big fan of Microsoft."
"I… see."
"No, that's not why the paper. That's just why the image caught my attention. I was just thinking, you know, how people move around says a lot about what their options are. Like, people who can just pick up and go, that either means they have the money to buy what they need, or they have a resupply depot somewhere--or both, I guess, if you consider wealthy parents to be a supply depot."
"A supply depot." Snape arched a brow. "I believe I know a number of students, and for that matter nonstudents, whose relationship with their families is rather like that, as a matter of fact. Go on."
"And then I got to thinking about how windows and doors allow movement from one kind of place to another. Mostly doors, but windows are kind of like a different kind of door variable, you know? Because maybe you can go through them, and even if you can't, you kind of can, because you can see what's on the other side and so you can experience something from there even if you can't go."
"I have no idea what a door variable is meant to be, but I'm still willing to be persuaded."
"Right. Okay, so if I want to write code in which I have a number of options, and at some point my user can choose any of them, that's a variable. If you have a bunch of variables that are all ones that are a choice for the same decision, they get this, well, it depends on the kind of choice and what language and all, but you can name your type of variable. This isn't really what the paper is about, just what I was thinking about that initialized the whole concept. So anyway, a door variable in that context would be a variable that you might call when there's a door to be chosen, but maybe if all you wanted to know was what was on the other side, you might pick a window anyway."
"Or you might turn on a light."
"Exactly. And see, I was thinking about how opportunities are like doors. That's not exactly a new way to think about things, but social status is kind of a lot about opportunities, don't you think? Ones you have and ones you can see other people have that you don't. So I wanted to write about how the characters are inside or outside, what they can see versus what they can feel, and so on."
"And yet, you lost me in convoluted prose. Mr. Potter, I am not easily lost, so I surmise the fault lies in the writing, not in my reading, even though the concept you chose to explore is appropriate in complexity and scope for this assignment. Your effort to improve is, in fact, an improvement, but it's also still considerably less clear than your explanation so far--which was not, by stretch of the imagination, a shining light of clarity."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yes, I mean. I'd like to know how to do it better."
"You wish for me to tell you what to write?"
"What? No! I want to write it more effectively, and want you to help me understand how."
"By peering into your tangle of thoughts, perhaps, and seeing what it is that you mean to convey?"
"No, I think I’d prefer we stuck to digital and print media, if you don't mind. Telepathy is too far-fetched, and also unproven."
To Harry's surprise, Snape laughed. Based on the man's reputation, he thought it might actually be unprecedented, but he tried not to look too shocked. "Not much of an artist type, are you, Mr. Potter?"
"Um, no? I passed my design classes, more or less, but that's not really what interests me."
"I see. Well, you must have some reason for taking my class."
"Yes, it's that I needed, technically, credit for a writing class in order to be eligible for an internship I really want. By the time I learned that, most of them were full, and the rest conflicted with my degree coursework. But the guy said since you teach writing as well, and since no one passes your class without being up to writing well enough, he'd count your class as close enough. Taking the graduate-level one seemed like a poor plan, so."
"Do you ever answer a question with only the minimum number of words?"
"Not usually, no." Harry grinned when Snape closed his eyes and shook his head. "Also, you didn't ask a question. You made a statement, which I answered."
Snape's eyes opened, and he looked like he might laugh again, but then instead he scowled. "Impertinent, are you?"
"Often, but honestly, I do want to know how to improve."
Snape pursed his lips, then said, "Start with the introductory paragraph. You've nine long sentences there, and I think you can convey the information in six, a great deal more concisely. Go."
Harry looked at the paper in his hand, then fished in his bag for a pen. He'd expected to take notes, maybe, or listen to some kind of lecture, but if they were going to go hackathon right here in the office, he was okay with that.
2 October
The 59 on Harry's second paper was a marked improvement, but it still wasn't great. However, he sat in the hall outside Snape's office while he waited for everyone ahead of him to clear out, and considered what the first change he should make was. He also double-checked that he had his calendar on him.
10 October
"What, if I may ask, is the internship you're working so hard to qualify for?"
Harry had only just arrived, uncertain if Snape would be in yet, but prepared to wait; however, the office door had been open.
"Web project. Oral history, but my job would be to build the website, design all the blurbs, put up the text that explains stuff. I wouldn’t really be writing much, but just, they want someone who'll notice if the writing is shit, and I really want the project to look good."
"What kind of project?" Snape took Harry's stack of papers and went to his desk.
"Um, first-person veterans' experiences. I mean, local, students here, that kind of thing." He shrugged.
Snape blinked at him and started reading, marking passages as he went.
Last time he hadn't marked anything, so Harry wasn't sure if this was better or worse, but he sat quietly and waited for Snape to continue.
Forty minutes later, Snape closed the door behind him.
30 October
Sixty-three, and dozens of lines marked with marginal comments and crossed-out words. Still lousy, but interestingly, this time there was a note on the top that said, You know how to fix these problems for yourself. Fix them, and then bring me your results. Friday, 4:00.
He didn't know what had brought about the change in Snape's system, but he decided to go along with it, regardless.
Although, tomorrow was the anniversary of his parents' death and therefore his least favorite day of the year, which he usually tried to blot from his mind with liquor; Friday was soon for a rewrite on this one.
Well, maybe the paper would take his mind off things equally well.
He went home, stuck his head out the door when Hermione dropped by to pick up Ron to say he'd be busy for Halloween and to feel free to go ahead and start the play-through on Assassin's Creed--Ron said his crush on his lit teacher was sad, really; Harry gave him the finger and waved as they left--and started from scratch, referring to the original paper beside him as he revised mostly by starting from scratch. He still had the library links for this one, and he checked carefully that his quotes were accurate and well-cited, but the paper itself was hardly recognizable when he was done.
Besides sleeping and going to class, he didn't get much else done--tutoring on a Halloween was usually a wash anyway, and his other job was slowing down as the term wore on--but when he showed up at 4:00 Friday, he felt like he'd improved the paper quite a lot.
1 November
"Moody's project, is it?" Snape asked as he opened the door.
Harry blinked. Moody was a campus cop with a background in military history and law. He wore a patch over one eye, which kept him in the office, at least on paper, but Harry saw him out writing up citations at least once a week. He liked the guy a lot. "Uh. Yeah, actually. Why?"
"That explains why he's sure I won't let you off easy on anything."
"You know him? I mean, okay, probably you know him because he kicks people out of the quad when they're being douchebags and somehow I think you have low tolerance for douchebags."
Snape pursed his lips. "We served together. It was some time ago."
"Seriously?" Harry dug in his bag to get out his original and revised papers and handed them over.
"Is that so unbelievable?" Snape pulled aside the collar of his shirt and showed Harry an ugly, knotted scar around one side of his neck and throat. "I nearly died."
"Looks like," Harry said. "And no, it's not unbelievable, just unexpected."
Snape grunted and took the packet of papers, moving to the desk to read, so Harry wasn't sure if he was supposed to respond further.
He took his usual seat and said, "Just, most of the soldiers I know, which obviously isn't everyone but it's kind of a bunch of people, all either went into law enforcement of some kind or a technical field to use their training as a civilian. Except, um. Well, some of them didn't deal very well with their experiences."
"They cracked up, you mean. PTSD, shell shock, whatever you want to call it." Snape picked up his pen and started writing. "Some of us chose to channel our experience differently. Has Moody told you what his actual military service comprised?"
Harry frowned. "Not specifically?"
Snape looked up, offering a broad and somewhat humorless grin. "He was my unit commander, and while it's not my place to tell you what he did, I was, for lack of a more precise term, a spy."
"Cool. Except for how that was probably pretty dangerous." Harry waited for Snape to go back to his paper, but he didn't, so he added, "All right, I'll bite. How is being a lit professor channeling your experience?"
"Being a spy," Snape said immediately, "is all about manipulating the story. Telling only the details you care to let show, and obscuring the rest. In many ways, that's what the military does overall, although opinions differ as to the extent to which that's a positive influence in the world. I think, on balance, that it is."
Harry wasn't sure what to do with that. "Okay?"
"And your opinion is?"
Harry shrugged. "I think there are great and shitty aspects, and all of them leave their marks in different ways. On the politics, and on the people. Some of the secrets we keep are kept to protect people, and others are kept to allow jerks to hide their jerk-ness. Why?"
"No reason." Snape went back to drawing arrows and slashing through words in Harry's paper.
27 November
Harry didn't know what to do about office hours. His paper had, to his surprise, a passing grade on the first go, although a passing grade alone, at this point, would hardly retrieve his course grade from the cellar.
But, his habit had become: get the paper back, go see Snape. And yes, the first couple of times had been painful, but honestly, he'd come to look forward to the meetings. Snape required him to explain himself clearly, and when they disagreed, even though he pushed his point of view firmly, still, he took Harry seriously despite his lack of actual expertise with the subject matter.
He had to admit, based on this and also an honest recounting of his recent (extremely explicit) dreams, Ron's assessment was looking more and more accurate.
Which was a little scary, but also kind of thrilling.
Mostly. Also scary.
His CIS scores were slightly lower this term than usual, mostly because he didn't have a lot of time to polish his stuff up enough to move it from adequate to elegant--everything he'd turned in had done what it was supposed to and all, but style points mattered at least a little to Shacklebolt in particular--and he'd eventually had to drop the work-study job (tutoring paid better anyway), but it all seemed pretty worth it. He'd never worked this hard for a C, anyway.
He looked at the paper again, surprised all over again that his comparison of Mr. Hyde and The Hulk had passed any degree of muster, then sighed and put it away, getting out his C# book and paging through it.
At 3:05, he put it away and went to see Snape. Because he wanted to. A lot.
"Your paper has, as I recall, a passing score," Snape said as he opened the door.
"I know. I mean, I'm reasonably decent at arithmetic. But still, I want to improve it."
"Do you?"
Harry shrugged.
Snape regarded him for a moment. "Why do you care about veterans and their stories?"
"Because they're worth telling," Harry said. He pushed his hair up off his forehead and added, "And because I only have pretty fragmented memories of mine. Shrapnel."
Snape stared at the jagged scar. "You're the least obvious veteran I've ever met."
"I'm not sure if that's a compliment, but I'm choosing to take it as one. I know. The up side of not remembering is I don't have much trauma. The down side is, the memories might show up any old time, and then I might, as you put it, crack up, run screaming for the hills, whatever. Meanwhile, I do remember the training they gave me before they ever put me out there, but that's mostly the mechanical side of computer engineering stuff. Here, I'm learning the code parts to go with it."
Snape considered that for a moment. "This has nothing to do with your grade in my class, and won't, ever. But tell Moody if he hires you, I'll do it."
"What?"
"He's been pestering me to record my perspective for three or four years. I haven't until now met anyone I was willing to tell it to, so."
Harry set down his bag and dug out his paper. "Yeah, okay, let's work on my grade anyway. Also, Moody's manipulative as shit, you know. Good guy, but he likes to get his way. He probably hoped for this outcome."
"I know. He probably also expected me to notice and refuse. I'm gambling this is a surprise anyway."
Harry laughed. "This is part of that spying thing, isn't it?"
"No. Comment."
11 December
Snape didn't give a final, so all that remained was the last paper, due Friday in class. In thirty-six hours. Ten pages, and it would all be over.
Harry stared at the blank screen and tried to figure out what the hell he wanted it to say. The topic was, as usual, fairly broad; he'd concluded Snape liked to require his students to choose a specific point of view nearly without guidance, and then defend it. His classmates all thought the guy was a nightmare, cutting and rude, and to an extent, Harry agreed; however, he also suspected that was only a persona. Well, no, Snape's actual personality was pretty caustic, but underneath was wicked humor and Harry thought the words were only actually cruel when students were assholes. Which was probably fair enough.
Finally, he flipped through Vanity Fair one more time, set it aside, and started typing.
16 December
Harry looked at the space where the sign had been all term (at present, there was only a 3x5 notecard indicating that between terms no regular office hours would be held, obviously, please email for inquiries), then knocked on the door.
He could hear movement inside again, but the door remained closed for several seconds.
He didn't knock again, but rather, tried the handle, which turned; the door was open. "Snape?"
"Potter."
"Done grading?"
Snape looked up from between two stacks of papers. "I'm certain the answer to this question need not be spoken aloud."
"Sorry. Actually, I wondered about that--you must spend a seriously ridiculous amount of time grading papers. Do you sleep?"
Snape shrugged. "Occasionally."
"So, as you noted the other day, this has nothing to do with my grade, but can I bring you a cup of coffee while you work?"
Snape arched a brow. "Why?"
"The cheap answer is, you said you'd do the project but you'd only talk to me, so we have preliminary discussing to do."
"What's the expensive answer?"
"I want to have coffee with you."
"That one's cheaper. Fewer words, way less overhead."
Harry chuckled. "Yeah, but it was scarier to say. Also, can I bring you a cup of coffee while you work?"
"Are you bringing one for yourself?"
"Does my answer make a difference to yours?"
Snape looked back down at the paper he was marking. "Different question: do you mean to stay while I drink it?"
"Um, yes? I'm not sure how I would have coffee with you while being absent. I mean, okay, Skype, but--"
"Yes."
"Yes, Skype?"
"Yes, I've already turned in your grade. I did that one first so as to preclude any possible conflict of interest. Not that it looks any better, but I find that ethics are mostly a personal matter, and mine are satisfied."
"Did I pass?"
"Does it matter?"
"Nope."
"Yes."
"Yes, pass?"
"Yes, coffee."
Harry grinned. "Great. Back in twenty."
"Also, yes, pass. Barely. By the skin of your teeth. Tell Moody he's welcome. Also, Becky and Amelia are much more complex than your analysis."
Harry nodded. "I thought they might be. Maybe, after you're done, you can help me improve my paper?"
"Is that what we're calling it?" Severus stood and put on his jacket, leaving his pen on top of a paper that was folded over to the third page.
Harry looked past him at the paper and then at the jacket. "Um."
Snape arched a brow in challenge.
"Well, actually, I really do want to talk to you about my paper, because it's my last chance. After that, though…"
Snape nodded. "Then let's get the paper out of the way over coffee." He plucked Harry's paper out of the pile, handed it over with a 74 circled at the top, and pushed Harry out the door. "After that, anything's on the table."
Harry smirked. "On the table? I think Starbucks would probably object?"
"Smartass. …I have a table in my kitchen."
Harry laughed. "Do tell."
"No such luck. You'll have to come see for yourself." Snape locked the door, and followed Harry down the hall to the stairs. "Besides. In the time it will take to fix your paper, Starbucks will probably throw us out at closing anyway."
"What, now you go hard on me?" He heard the words come out his mouth and flushed.
Snape snorted. "Yes. That. Exactly."