Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries

[Lolua]

Part I: To The Edge and Back

O. Prologue: Hindsight

Severus Snape introduces his task.
A boy saved my life, and so I cannot let go of my hatred.
A man saved my soul, and so I cannot let down my guard.
A child saved the world, and so I cannot let him out of my sight.

1. Weakness

Snape describes his parents, their home, and his first encounter with the Malfoys, which will change his life forever. His deep-seated issues with baked goods come to light.
No matter what I did, no matter how I held it, the biscuit crumbled irretrievably into my lap.

2. Monsters and Masters

Lolua does her JKR impression and sends Snape to Diagon Alley and Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Encounters aboard the Hogwarts Express.
"You had better watch yourself, cousin."

3. Belonging

Snape's Sorting, and the incident that gives him his first friends at Hogwarts. First impressions of life in Slytherin.
"I'm not here to help him, but I might hurt you if you come any closer."

4. Potter, Pettigrew, Lupin, and Black

Do I really have to explain this? Yes, four obnoxious Gryffindors come to Snape's attention in a rather bad way. Year One.
No one had a right to be that obnoxious.

5. All That Glitters

This is the most Quidditch I'm ever going to write. Except maybe for Chapter 5 of part II. Year Two.
Potter zoomed ever upwards, and every Gryffindor held his breath.
"The rest of Potter's body is finally catching up to his head," I remarked with a half smile.
Not one of the Slytherins laughed. Whether they wanted him to succeed or die trying, everyone's attention was fixed on James Potter.
As he passed over the posts and angled the Quaffle in for a goal, the crowd erupted in cheers and buried my head in my hands.

6. Just Give Me A Reason

Snape wins a new friend through another nasty encounter with those Gryffindors. Year Three.
"I still think the game would be more fun if it was called Exploding Snape."

7. The Truth Has Consequences

May be split into two chapters, as there is so much I need to cram in. A double-pronged tragedy strikes Snape's family. You'll want to strangle pretty much everyone by the end of the chapter. It's a bit of a bummer, and certainly life-altering for Snape. Year Four.
"I don' care what yeh say. I'm goin' ter go with yeh."

8. Mind Your Own Bloodline

Oh, the irony.... Snape's new situation in life, the appearance and explanation of "Snape's Worst Memory" from OotP. Year Five.
"Don't call her a Mudblood!"

9. The Secret in the Shack

Erm... if you've read PoA, you can guess what happens here. Year Six.
"You can find out, you know. All you have to do is press the button."

10. Let The Old Punishments Die

Snape forms an alliance with Filch, and wins a partial victory over those Marauding Gryffindors. Year Seven.
"That counts as abuse of his position, wouldn't you agree?"

11. Career Advice

Changes at Hogwarts and a letter from an old friend encourage Snape toward his chosen career path. More Year Seven.
"He handed in his resignation this morning."

12. Graduation

Did you read the title? Good. That's most of what you need to know.
"How could I miss the graduation of my wife's cousin? They were brought up practically as brother and sister."

13. The Dark Arts Job

Snape applies for the DADA post at Hogwarts. He's rejected. In his unhappiness he does something rather desperate. He's even less happy when he finds out who got the job. ;D
Before he rose to answer the call, his hand rested briefly on the table next to his armchair. "This may take longer than I would hope," he said. "I daresay this room has many amusements for a man of your tastes."
I didn't notice the book on the table until he had left the room.

14. Drawn by the Darkness

Snape lands a job and finds himself in debt. Gee, I wonder how that happened.
A wise and far-thinking man, Lucius has always realized that gratitude is an ill-fitting shirt that can chafe and smell if worn too long. He has never depended solely on gratitude, an emotion best-suited to virtuous people.
No, Lucius Malfoy has always relied on money and violence to ensure that he gets what he wants.

15. The Death Eaters

Snape attends a meeting with a slightly different kind of 12-Step Program. We see the lighter side of the Dark Lord's service.

16. Strength

Snape's first mission for the Dark Side.

Sorry to leave you there, but I'll do the rest some other time.

[Lolua]

This post is as yet incomplete... I've been trying to get it done for a couple of days now, and it should be finished soon.

17. Allegiance

Snape's first encounter with You-Know-Who. He takes the Mark. His early experiences as a Death Eater. I might combine this chapter with the next, depending on whether I split Chapter 7 or not. Two weddings occur, neither of which is attended by Snape.
"Many of us have fathers of whom we are less than proud."

The Mark seared into my flesh had grafted me, core to core, to the Dark Lord. When the Mark burned, his essence entered my very bones, shooting pain and purpose from forearm to shoulder and from elbow to fingertip. My joints crackled and my marrow boiled.

18. Dancing in the Dark

The chapter of Very Bad Things. A Weasley family mystery is explained. The thrills of Death Eater-hood compared to the tedium of Snape's post-Hogwarts career.
The rare gift of empowerment over my life had been bestowed on me at last, and in return I owed my gratitude and my service unto death. It seemed a small enough price to pay for the promise of a life worth the trouble of living.

19. Legilimency

The need for information on the forces of Light leads to Snape's nomination to spyhood. His training commences.
"Did you take Divination at all in that school of yours?" she asked, putting on her gloves as if preparing for a particularly filthy task.
"No," I sneered in reply. I didn't know which irritated me more, her condescension towards my Hogwarts education or the way she looked at me like I had just crawled out of a drainage ditch. Although I had seen the same expression on Narcissa Black Malfoy's face a hundred times, I had never before been its recipient.
"Pity," Zuleika said gravely, her heavy accent thickened further with her superiority, "because reading thoughts is very like reading tea leaves: you often have to know what you are looking for before you see it."
While her description had been less than useful, her laughter at my confusion was simply obnoxious.

20. The Dark Lord's Spy

Snape uses his new skills. A chapter of Fairly Bad Things.

21. The Hog's Head

You can probably guess what happens in this chapter... or can you? *smirks*
I was accustomed to the stench of goats; goat's blood and graphorn fumits are fairly common potions ingredients, and the bezoar, while useful as a remedy for poisoning, retains the scent of its former home for months after its extraction.
It was the portentious odor of benevolent power, billowing in alongside the long purple cloak of Albus Dumbledore, that caught me off guard that night.
Not even the scent of my own fear at seeing him could overcome it.

22. The Best and the Brightest

Regulus Black joins and leaves the Death Eaters.
They say that when a man breaks through his own delusions, scales fall from his eyes. Scales do not begin to describe what this revelation brought down for me. It was as if an enormous battering ram had broken through the carefully tuckpointed walls of my subconscious, releasing what I had apparently known all along in a stream of sharp and scathing truth.
I was neither the friend nor the equal of Lucius Malfoy and I never had been.

23. A Chance Encounter

Snape overhears news of an impending birth and suffers a fit of indecision. The breach between himself and the other Death Eaters widens.
It was excruciatingly painful to learn that I really did have a conscience after all.

24. Lured by the Light

Snape hides from himself and from the Dark Lord. Dumbledore finds him and begins the long process of conversion to the side of the Light.
"Hundreds of different phoenixes have perched here, but each one of them has undeniably been Fawkes."

25. Occlumency

Dumbledore teaches Snape Occlumency. He begins to understand the meaning of the word "trust".
"I'm quite impressed by your skills as a Legilimens," the old man remarked. "Fascinating, that you've progressed so far but know nothing of Occlumency , which most wizards learn first."
"Most wizards are not sorted into Slytherin house," I retorted, "where the skill of selling mistruth is prized above all others."
"Hmmm." He regarded me thoughtlfully over his half-moon spectactle. "I was going to say that most wizards do not serve a master who prides himself on being able to pry into thoughts with ease," he said, "but I suppose the former is sadly true as well."

26. Cats Among the Pixies

Fierce fighting and minor triumphs for both sides in the war. Snape begins to think that he has an opposite number: someone spying on the light for Voldemort.
His death had never been part of the plan, and I could not blame myself for it. He had chosen it with both eyes open -- bloodshot with grief, yes, but open nonetheless.


27. Deepest and Most Impenetrable

Snape learns Voldemort's deepest secret, and discovers his true intended course. He relieves his conscience by delivering a critical warning to Dumbledore.
As much as he had taken from me, I owed him my life, and it was this fact, in the end, that breached my deepest and most impenetrable hatred.

28. The Greater of Two Foes

Halloween 1981, the night the Potters die. Old friends and old enemies resurface at a dinner party given by Lucius Malfoy. Dumbledore shares mixed news, and promised freedom comes with a bitter taste.
The absolute coldness was more than the absence of heat; this was heat's inverse, just as piercing and just as painful as the burn of the Mark. As the first wave of shooting agony passed, the pain dulled to the ache of ice against my skin, slowing the blood and numbing the tissues. Before my arm could freeze solid and fall, stiff and useless, from my body, I struggled to roll up my sleeve, breaking off several buttons in my haste. The final button slid easily from its hole, and the bare patch of reddened skin where my Dark Mark had been stared back at me.

29. Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Snape's short stretch in Azkaban. His trial and release. Poor Snape, having to sit in Azkaban with the dementors, then getting sick off the chocolate afterwards.
"Here're your things," he grumbled, shoving a wooden box at me. On top was an enormous bar of chocolate.
"I won't be needing this," I said, trying to hand it back to him.
"Take it, it's the rules. You eat that, you've no cause to sue the Ministry for undue suffering once you're off the island."
"As if this place didn't cause enough 'undue suffering' on its own," I replied, shivering. I wanted to open the box and take out my cloak, but something told me that I shouldn't.

30. Plausible Deniability

Pivotal conversations with Dumbledore and Lucius that begin to set up Snape's role as a double agent.
I had been expecting to have to confront Lucius for two weeks, and when he finally arrived, I was in the process of packing for Hogwarts.

31. The Lesser of Two Evils

Backdraft, riposte, backlash, whatever you want to call it. Just when everyone thought they were safe.... bad things happen to good people. And Roxy, please don't beat me. This was necessary. I promise.
To a zealot like Crouch, the Longbottom boy's involvement was the only logical explanation. For him, Harry Potter would never be the boy who had defeated the Dark Lord.
Still, I think logic had very little to do with it, or Bella would never have agreed to go.

32. Loyalty

Lucius throws a fit. Snape meets with Adriana for the last time.
"I suppose you've heard about my programme?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Congratulations," I replied, uttering the words I had choked on four years ago.
She regarded me expectantly, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her what I really thought.
But of course, she said it for me. "I suppose it's ironic that I'm giving advice when I was never exactly good at taking it."
"An understatement, to say the least," I said mildly.
A sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and I looked away.

33. Responsibility

Despite the objections of some Hogwarts staff members, Snape becomes Head of Slytherin House.
I am sure that in his grand plan, Dumbledore the eternal optimist saw me righting the wrongs of Slytherin house by being an anti-Karkaroff: where he was apathetic, I would be overly involved. I would keep discipline tight and no student's actions would go unnoticed. While I have certainly taken a keener interest in the affairs of Slytherin and of Hogwarts than the lamentable and unlamented Igor Karkaroff, Dumbledore's plan has fallen short of the mark. I am not Albus Dumbledore: I do not have it in me to convince anyone to choose the Light over the Darkness.
Indeed, I do not think I will ever be able to convince myself.