Chapter Text
“And I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my wife and five children with my own hands.”
“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage.
Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.”
Euripedes, Anne Carson (trans.),
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripedes
1317
Cokeworth
“But what about Geryon?”
He had asked the question once. Had tucked his long, dark hair behind his ears. It was probably a bit greasy, even then. The other boys would later tell him that doing that, tucking his hair back, makes him look childish. He would immediately stop; he would never do it again. Scowling, he looks up at the teacher who tells tales aloud from Aeschylus to the small flock of children. The old man frowns. (Was he old? He was probably only forty. Greyhaired and blackfrocked, he had seemed impossibly aged to eleven-year-old Severus, back in the days when everyone was divided into young and not-young. Things were simpler then.)
“Child, pay attention,” the greyed monk had said (Severus has long forgotten his name.), “Geryon is the monster of the story, not the hero. This isn’t about him.”
But I want to know, Severus had thought, I want to know how he became a monster. Where did he come from? Why would anyone choose to be a beast? What about them? They had stuck in his craw, the forgotten. He doesn’t understand; it rises like bile in the back of his throat, he is infuriated. But I want to know.
Let me tell you then about monsters; once, there was a boy.
1347
Glastonbury
It is late summer. It’s sitting on that very edge of the end of the hot unwelcome season, on that very tipping point into autumn. The wet, sweltering air lays sick and heavy. The winds, when they do finally come, have a strange coolness on their backs, carrying the promise of winter from their origin. Severus loathes summer, it is hot, it is sticky. His long tunic sticks to him in all the wrong sweat-drenched ways. He peels it from his back, his shoulders. It is wet. Men, he thinks wryly, were never meant to wear wool in August. God, this is a worthless season. He kicks a little at a clump of weeds, irritated and miserable in the heat.
He has always preferred winter.
Glastonbury Abbey is, like most houses of God in Britain, incredibly old. It wears the past seven hundred years in its stones, in its walls. The flagstones he walks on are smooth already. They have been worn down for hundreds of years by men with nervous habits like his own, men who had paced as they fretted. Most of those men, the old monks of the past, were now buried beneath his feet, deep under those very stones. The abbey had been founded in the 7th century and ruined once in the 12th, torn apart then by fire. (Some say the abbey is still older, still wilder. The young novice monks whisper that it had been founded instead in the time of Christ, built by the gnarled hands of Joseph of Arimathea himself. Severus glares when he overhears these rumors, his sharp dark eyes narrowed. He knows they are nothing more than idle lies.)
There are many histories in the structure. It’s comforting to know that he is one of thousands, that he will be a footnote someday in the list of brothers. Glastonbury will march on without him, borne ceaselessly into the future. He loves to lose himself in the walls. He brushes his long, inkstained fingertips against the stone. It is like stepping into the past. (Here, history lays steadily. It creeps into his breath, it gets under his fingernails. He cannot sneeze without tripping over the past.) He has been at the abbey for twenty years. It had been Albus, the old Father Abbot, who had met him in the cloisters on that first day. “ Welcome, child ,” he had said then, “ you are home now. ” Home, long lost and long craved. It is nothing like he had ever expected. Home is not always your address. Instead, it is in the measure of calm that digs into your bones. It is not always a place. Sometimes, imagine, it is a person, a lover, a book, somewhere you have never been. Severus, born and raised far in the north, had never set his heavy bags down until he, young still and tired, had come to the abbey. Home.
Glastonbury Abbey is deep in the southwest of England in the West Country, the ancestral home of places like Cornwall and Devon. It is the home of ninety-two Benedictine monks. Severus’ brothers. Called in Latin Ordo Sancti Benedicti, they follow the black robes and crooked crozier of Saint Benedict of Nursia. Since Benedict had done that common thing of dying so many centuries prior, they are instead led in his example through the abbot. The people call them the black monks with their long dark woolen habits. They are noticeable wearing their dark scapulars, the color of night, long pieces of cloth which drape over the shoulders in a constant reminder to live devotionally. He is more comfortable in the charcoal-painted uniform, despite the rough fabric, than he ever had been in anything else. (Still, he is always a little surprised to see his reflection in black wool and a scapular; he is not a holy man.) He had come here, had given himself to God, they had not asked much in return. At some point they’re going to demand their pound of flesh, Severus. (He waits; it has been twenty years.)
The situation of the abbey is pleasant, he’s fond of the rolling hills and surreal flatlands that give rise to strange visions. Fata morgana. It is the land that took Arthur in during his death, the land that will (as the stories go) cough the old king right back up again. Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, are buried here at Glastonbury, in little graves south of the Lady’s Chapel. Severus rather likes the strange superstitions, even if he believes in none of them. He goes often to the river Brue. It is past the abbey, around the grove of willow trees, near to the Tor. The air is heavy with humidity and peatstink when it floods, which is often. It rises thick with rainwater and snowmelt, wrapping around the old countryside. No one truly knows how the land took its name. We can look back to other histories, back to the 7th century when it was called Glestingaburg. The suffix, burg , is Anglo-Saxon. It is the first part that is a mystery. Outside the abbey, not far along the canal, is the village of Glastonbury itself. It is small, with dirt paths and dusty windows. Most of the town survives on the thriving wool trade. The abbey gets some of their wool from the village. Most of it, however, they raise themselves.
His fingers pluck at the sweaty tunic. Long, dingy, soot-colored hair hangs in greasy strands about his face. It doesn’t matter how often he washes it, by the end of the day it is ever the same, always oily and slick. His bent nose dominates his features; his mouth is always pressed too thin. Age crosshatches his face, collecting in fine lines under his chin, the corners of his mouth, in the heavy bags of his eyes. He cannot even be called hideous, he knows that, because there is nothing exceptional about him. He is, quite simply, homely and unpleasant. It is infuriatingly dull. His very name, Severus Snape, means severe and austere. What a thing to saddle a child with. He is not sure if he was born to be pitiless or if, rather, his unfortunate name had silently steered him to it.
What a fucking joke.
Severus has mastered the art of walking silently. It was not an accident, he has practiced for years before getting it right. He goes briskly along the corridor, stepping always from heel to ball. He lets the soles of his boots deliberately wear down so that the edges are rounded and buffed, they make no noise now on the stone floor. The hallways are always dark even in full noon, lit only by sconces and candles. They flicker against the long promise of blackness. The abbot’s office is there, at the end of the hall, beyond an odd carving of a phoenix. He knocks on the oakwood door.
“My child,” The old abbot, Albus of Falmouth, peers at him over the wire rim of his lenses. They are a curious invention, brought several years ago by visiting Dominican friars. They had been made for him especially. Careful thought had been given to the grade of the glass, the optics and refraction, by Friar Alessandro della Spina. (Severus is curious, always so curious. He has never asked the abbot if he can try the strange windows on. He knows they are a tool for the myopic, he has a touch of it himself. He wants to know .)
Albus gestures at the armchair before his desk, “Please come in, sit down. Have a sweet.” Severus looks around the room with a displeased eye, perches uneasily at the edge of the upholstered red-gold chair, ready to leave at a moment. He does not reach for the confection (it is, he is quite certain, lemon-flavored).
“I will need you to go on a bit of a journey for me, Severus,” the abbot says, “Forgive me, my son, you know I’d go myself, but we both know I am growing old.” His eyes brim with mirth, “The Earl of Norfolk has a boy, a nephew. He is to be given to the monastery.”
“ Given ? He cannot come to us himself?” Severus hates being told to fetch like a dog.
“I do not believe he comes willingly,” the abbot says. His tone mild, eyes stern.
“Ah, jailed then, for being unfortunate. A second son, perhaps? Lord save us from over-fertile women.”
“He has nowhere to go, Severus,”
“Another adopted wretch,” Severus bites, “Shouldn’t we cut down on the mongrels we take in?” (He thinks of Thomas Riddle, the sacrist, with his sly tongue and repellent breath.)
“All of them, my son?” Those eyes are ever-sharp over the top of the spectacles. Severus closes his eyes, swallows his burnt pride. He has more respect for Albus than he pretends. Most abbots live in extravagance, despite years of attempts at reform. It had been attempted with the Synods of Aachen, hundreds of years prior, they had tried to cut down on luxury at the abbot’s table, had insisted he dine in the refectory with the rest of the brethren. Overindulgence is not becoming of a monk. But, it didn’t matter. This did not, really, stop the luxury from coming with them. Albus is not like that. He is simple, even kind. (He is a manipulative old sod, good at getting his way with gentleness. Severus pictures him then, as he often does, as a chessmaster controlling the board.)
“Yes, Father.” The abbot’s long white beard scrapes the floor, picking up dirt. You look like Merlin himself. The old man smiles, “It’s not so bad, child. A day’s ride, perhaps.”
Severus sighs, the pinch of a headache forming in his eyes, lodged behind the optic nerve. “Yes, Father,” he says. Yes, Father. He will do as the abbot asks. It is all that the abbot requires. It is easy here; Severus does not ask questions. He pays his rent in the few tasks necessary of him. The sun rises in the east, as it should. It sets in the west, also as it should. The abbey is calm, placid as a pond. He marks the passage of time with the Liturgia Horarum . The eight calls to prayer mark the progress of the day. For all monks, it defines their very existence. (Rise, up with the dawn, get out of bed, brush the straw from your tunic. Go down the back steps, greet the sun with Lauds, that old call to prayer. At six is Prime. Terce, Sext, None, Vespers. The quiet hum of Compline, the eerie midnight of Vigils.)
He closes the oak door behind him and pauses, leans his forehead against the woodgrain. He needs to get more sleep. Always that deep exhaustion, that boneache that sleep just won’t shake. He is so tired. The world is quiet here.
When Severus leaves the abbot, he turns instead to the gardens. He passes through the cloister along the way. The cloister is the center of monastic life. In Glastonbury, it is a long rectangle. The footpaths are laid out in the shape of the cross, each unequal quadrant lined with flowering plants and a fruit tree at the center. The plants ignore him, too busy with their own cycles of living and dying to pay any attention to his cast-off glares. He sees the lady’s-mantle, the columbine, the fountain at the far end. The capitals of the pillars are decorated with scenes not found in any Bible chapter. Wild griffons, apes, naked and bestial men. Some of these appear to evoke the mythology of the untamed Celtic people who had once dominated this land. They had been driven back when Saint Patrick had come to expel the snakes. He had raised the Cross, had spread the light and the Word into these spiderwebbed shadows. Severus knows that, though their names may be forgotten, the old gods cannot be escaped. It is an uncomfortable knowledge that all Englishmen in Celtic lands must bear.
The garden is large. It is situated at the back of the abbey. Neville, one of the novices, is the lead horticulturist. He may be young (it is uncommon to entrust this to a novice) but he has an unusual knack for coaxing growth out of the hard soil, out of too-cold-winters, out of withered roots and desiccated seeds. Severus doesn’t like Neville much, he’s too clumsy, too awkward. He embarrasses Severus just with the fumbling words that fall out of his mouth. Still, the older monk appreciates the skill in the growing. He goes often in the afternoons, between the prayers of terce and sext, and names the plants for himself. There is blackberry, for gout. There’s angelica, to protect against illness and witchcraft. (Some keep it on a chain, tucked against their hearts, to keep witches at bay. Severus is a cynic, he doubts in magic. He doubts, in fact, in everything.) Burdock is kept for the lepers and hyssop for coughs. Hildegard of Bingen, that old saint, that old abbess, had recommended to steep it deeply, to brew it into a tea.
There is not always much difference between medicine and witchcraft. In Glastonbury, the home of Arthur, the study of witchcraft is as essential as breathing. They, as warriors of Heaven, study the defenses against witchcraft. How do you identify a witch? Uncast the spell? Destroy the beast? ( Take some gardenias now, here they are, for luck.) Since coming south, Severus has learned that magic is both less here and it is more. It is less edited, it is untamed. It has reached fewer great heights of the witches up on the moors; but in Arthur’s lands, it is capable of so much more. He understands, on rare quiet and indulgent nights, why the southerners are afraid of witches and their black magic. There is something dangerous and obscene about it down in these wild lands.
Severus knows that witchcraft is evil, it is the Devil’s work. He knows a thing or two about it, though he has never practiced. He is the resident expert on the defense against witchcraft, he collects pamphlets and treatises on sorcery and hedge magic. It is key to know how to root out the infection at the source. He knows how quickly a witch should burn. That if you drop a woman in the lake and she sinks, she is innocent. The forest should be watched for strange signs, for toads and for black cats. Look up, further up, with suspicious eyes for clutches of owls in the sky.
He knows the other monks, the younger ones, find his obsession strange. Greasy old bat , they say (he is no favorite among the brothers). He knows that they spread rumors, often meant for him to overhear, whispering among themselves that he himself is a witch, that he is cruel and slimy and there is certainly no doubt that he secretly performs demonic blood rituals. It doesn’t matter, he is fascinated by the stories and the folios depicting the grotesque. He has seen the pamphlets of Baphomet, the Templar heresy. He’s read deeply of how to hunt and identify witches. On late evenings in the scriptorium, he copies them out in his careful spidery hand. The margins carefully packed with painted images of the wretched long-nosed women and their foul demonic companions. Worse still, he is always tempted. What if, he thinks, what if he were to burn patchouli for luck. Would it change anything? He wonders, ever enthralled, about the darkness of witchcraft. How easy it might be to reach out to the Devil, invite him in for dinner. (Curiosity, as always, is his downfall.)
He thinks of his mother too, who had kept her little charms. The wax carving he had kept in his trouser pocket, ages eight to sixteen, the almadel, red and inscribed with the names of the saints. The salt she poured in doorways, the burnt sage, the coin under his pillow and rosemary in his shoe. He knows that the other monks fear witchcraft, they do not understand it. Like a good Benedictine, Severus commits himself to the eradication of witches. Still, there is a small part of him that remembers his mother, her proud face, her dark eyes like the wide expanse of night, who never said I love you in words. She had said it instead with her charms, which she put under his pillow or touched to his forehead. She had said it with a blessing in her old Slavonic tongue, which she had never taught him. He regrets never having learnt. She had loved him, she had to have, he is certain. (He hopes.)
Most of the monks hate Vigils the most. It is the mid-night prayer. The bells peal at two o’clock in the morning. The sky is dark. Dawn is still far away. He grunts, one hand rubbing the bridge of his nose, trying to force the sleep from his eyes. For Vigils, you go down the back steps by candlelight. This prayer is always quiet. It drones. Most of them doze off at one point during the service, their heads bobbing like a seagull on water. Some of the wiser ones suck on peppercorns to stay awake.
He looks up to the crucifix in the apse. It is Romanesque, twelfth-century, made of white oak and gilded, with Christ’s arms wide and eyes open, ever triumphant over death. Believe in Him, Severus, and you will be released. Goddammit, the very act of living is so frustrating. He knows he is made in God’s image; he wonders how God could be so cruel to fill him up with all this curiosity and nowhere to look.
He had struck out from Glastonbury Abbey in the morning. The cook had tucked a bit of bread and water into his bag. He had frowned upon seeing it. It is more than he needs for the day’s journey; Severus Snape has never taken much comfort in eating. It is a simple ride, not far, about a day on horseback.
As he draws near to Norfolk, to Privet Hall, he crosses a small river. He looks at the water. What the water wants is hurricanes and land to run into and back. He stares at his unfortunate reflection, pale as a dead fish, eyes like empty houses. His face stares back from the water. God, you’re ugly. His reflection is shame. It is a measure of his own hate, how he can loathe his own face. His nose (broken, twice) hooked like a pharaoh’s crook in his sarcophagus. His skin, which is pale and horrible and sallow. No one’s skin should be the color of old, dusty paper, of the undersides of snakes, of dead fish, stinking in an alley. His eyes are dull and dark. Black is the plainest of colors (the Benedictines had all agreed, had chosen it for their modest robes). His eyes are nothing remarkable. No one would celebrate them; shadows are all too common.
He looks, he knows, like his mother, who was not English. His mother, born deep in the Carpathian mountains, at the gate to another world. Who had met God through another church in the east. It doesn’t matter that he was born to Cokeworth, to a foul English town and a still fouler English father. The other monks call him The Wallachian, they can smell the distant Slavic blood from afar. He will never be one of them. It doesn’t matter. Cut it out then and restart.
The journey is uneventful and dull. He glares at trees and clouds for lack of anything better to do. Privet Hall is in Norwich, deep in Norfolk in East Anglia. It is thrown out on the other side of the island kingdom, where the North Sea forms the shoreline. It has a long history of resentment and rebellion. The Iceni are from here, who had revolted against the Romans in the year 47, led by their warrior-queen Boadicea. Yet, she had died a hero, her memory carved into statues to be looked at by the ones left. The Romans had built ports and roads, had built up agriculture. This is where the Angles and Saxons would later land, invading in their wooden longships from Scandinavia across the sea. They would entrench themselves and eventually the original inhabitants, the queer Iceni and Brythonic creatures, would be lost to time. By the time the Normans would cross their shores later still, in 1066, the Anglo-Saxons would be seen as the original and rightful inhabitants, never mind that they’d taken it also, so many years before.
The Hall is in the Fenlands, a low coastal plain right on the shore. It is marshy and stormy. The alkaline water gets in everything, miserable with dead things decomposing, returning to dirt and soil, ready to start again. There are many monasteries here that Severus has never had a chance to visit. Crowland and Ely, Peterborough and Thorney. A satisfied smirk crosses his face slightly at the thought of them. They are no Glastonbury, which is paramount. Glastonbury, which may have been built by Joseph of Arimathea, which may have been visited by Christ himself. Glastonbury, where Arthur is buried and will rise again. Glastonbury is special, second only in glory to Canterbury Cathedral, from whence the archbishop rules his flock.
At nine o’clock, as nightfall comes, he draws near to Anglia. A banner rises from the battlement bearing the image of three golden crowns. He draws a breath, steeling himself as he looks over the rise of the keep. It juts out severely from the flat land. Built two hundred years prior by Anglo-Norman nobility, Privet Hall is more of a fortification than anywhere comfortable to pass one’s time. It is of Romanesque design, thick with pilaster buttresses. The town sits in front of the Hall, beyond lay the five hectares devoted to hunting. It is one of the largest hunting grounds in Britain, including a deer park and rabbit warrens which long windows look out over. There is a Norman chapel there, built from local sandstone and from scavenged Roman tiles.
Cross the bridge and pass the gatehouse. Up the long stairway of the forebuilding. He enters through the door, wide and thick walls of brown carrstone rise up above him, reinforced with timbers crossing the ceiling.
“Who is it?” a guard calls.
“Severus Snape, from the Abbot of Glastonbury. I am expected by Lord Dursley.”
“Well, come on then.” He goes then to the depths of Privet Hall. It is late. (He is hot and sweat drips down his chest from neck to navel. He is aching, bonetired.)