In order to assuage Flitwick and McGonagall, Dumbledore raised all sorts of objections to Snape leaving for good. They needed someone on hand to make potions fulltime; they needed someone for Slytherin house; A change in a housemaster midyear was a much more serious matter than a professor change, and Snape didn't seem to terrorize his own students; and with Dumbledore teaching the NEWT level classes until a replacement could be found, he would need someone to help with the paperwork and grading of the class.
Snape was to be completely separated from the students he had mistreated. Of course no one suggested that Snape apologize to anyone; that would have set a bad precedent; that might have undermined the other teacher's authority; besides, Flitwick and McGonagall wanted Snape to apologize to them, they weren't thinking about how the children felt per se; they were offended by the way he behaved instead of empathizing with the students. It was also a given that Snape's change of status was to be kept quiet; while it would invariably leak out through the students, by the time a reporter heard then it would be old news; and without a colleague's quotes, the story would fall to one of the back pages.
No one wanted to damage Hogwarts' reputation.
If someone were to describe Snape's version of an earthly paradise, it would have bourn a strong resemblance to his current life.
His pre-schooling home life was so full of unpleasant events that he was categorically unable to remember happy events associated with it. Those pleasant memories he retained were associated with his mother, and completely disassociated with where he lived. Therefore since his mother had long since passed away, the only place with which he had happy associations was the school itself.
And for the first time in his life, he was free to reside there without classes. He was neither forced to teach, nor to be bored to tears being taught. In fact barring a few restrictions on his time such as meals, staff meetings, and Slytherin's house's students' needs, all of his time was his own. He was free to spend almost all day on pure research if he wished.
In fact, he hardly had to talk to anyone under the age of twenty, and those were always Slytherin students. He had long since trained his prefects to do most of the work running the house; he only had to interfere in unusual situations.
He was even still being paid his full salary, although that might change if and when they found a full-time professor to take his place. Dumbledore was unlikely to ever send him from the castle for two reasons. The first being that Dumbledore liked taking in strays like Hagrid, and supplying them with a living. The second reason was that Dumbledore used his school to protect people from Voldemort's forces; he kept Trelawney to safeguard the prophesy, and he had always kept Snape to protect him from disgruntled ex-deatheaters and deatheater victims.
Granted, all of the ex-deatheaters at liberty were either still in hiding, had claimed to be spies for the light, or claimed imperious. But those who had bribed a judge into accepting imperious looked askance at the ones who might have actually been spies. Had Snape been outside of the school, Malfoy Senior might have had him mysteriously disappear.
So Snape was not likely to be asked to leave, nor was he allowed to do the things he hated, such as having to teach classes. All in all it was the sort of life he might have dreamt for himself. But that in no way meant he was happy.
Snape was furious.
When the changes were announced at dinner, Dumbledore, Flitwick, and McGonagall considered the whole matter over. So it was quite a surprise to Flitwick when Harry approached him again after class, and asked if it was still alright if Flitwick would behave as Harry's house head, or if Harry could transfer to Ravenclaw.
"But we've removed Professor Snape from teaching you, he can't mistreat you anymore."
"That's great, but that wasn't why I came to you in the first place. I mean that was why I originally went to Professor McGonagall, and I wanted him to stop behaving unfairly, but I didn't ask for him to be removed. I came to you because my head of house is untrustworthy, and doesn't care about her students. Removing Professor Snape didn't change any of that. I don't want anything to happen to her; I just don't feel I can rely on her at all."
"I see. I'm sorry; I'll need a little more time to think about this. Apparently I grabbed the wrong end of the problem."
"I may have inadvertently made a problem bigger. Mr. Potter originally came to me because he was dissatisfied with Professor McGonagall. He had no intention at that time of complaining about Professor Snape. No one has done anything to repair Mr. Potter's trust in his head of house, and with Professor Snape's removal, it looks like it was entirely my own doing, so I'm being seen as much more competent than the deputy headmaster."
"You've had more time than we to think about this problem, so what do you suggest?"
"We can always categorically refuse without an explanation to change anything, but that will lead to future resentment not only with Mr. Potter but with the other students.
"By now, other students are bound to have heard about the story from Harry's point of view, and only those in his house are likely to have heard an accurate version. It seems likely that once we give this rumor some closure by making a decision, other students will come forward with real or perceived problems that seem to them to be similar. Can we afford to allow students to swap houses? Even if we restrict it to those who have a good reason, others will come forward with reasons so that they might move closer to current dating partners.
"And I can't think of a surefire way that Minnie could regain his trust. From what Mr. Potter implied, she hasn't made any progress there. I'm leaning towards the idea of making him an honorary Ravenclaw, giving Minnie time to draw him back into her fold; maybe inviting him to sit at our table, and visit our common room; that sort of thing. Since it isn't official, nor does it mean he could move his bedroom, we'd be less likely to be swamped by requests."
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(Posted Sat, 09 Sep 2006 20:05)
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