Title: Collateral Damages
Fandom: Harry Potter, Pre-Potter Years
Rating: G
Length: 1256 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: This is a story that's been banging around in my head for a while, and I'm glad to finally have it out.
Summary: The Dark Lord might have fallen, but there are still casualties in this war.




      The morning round of owls had mostly completed their deliveries, swooping in through the windows of the Great Hall to drop of packages and letters to the students of Hogwarts. The faculty generally received their mail before the students even entered, mostly to prevent any nosy looks and speculation from the student body. It was a system that satisfied Severus Snape. He could read the Daily Prophet in peace, set aside letters to answer for later, and mostly ignore the chaos of sleepy teen-aged children scrambling with forgotten homework or gossiping about who was up too late in the Common Room with someone else.

     He was halfway through the Quidditch report--the Cannons had made the lamentable choice of signing a new Seeker who might have once had a promising career if not for a rather nasty relapsing Conjunctivitis Curse--when a handful of grim-looking owls swept over the staff table, dropping letters. Severus's stomach knotted. He knew the stiff gray parchment and stiff black handwriting of official documents from Azkaban all too well by now. Professor McGonagall looked up from the letter she was reading to see what the owl had dropped.

     "Oh, Severus, not another one," she gasped under her breath. "Who is it this time?"

     Not another one. Of all the Hogwarts Houses, Slytherin had more students with at least one parent in Azkaban. In these months since the Dark Lord's fall, as more of his supporters were rounded up and herded off to the prison, there was a steady stream of letters from Azkaban, informing the families of the death of their loved one. So many of the Dark Lord's supporters had come from the ranks of Slytherin, and so it only followed that most of the orphans would be in Slytherin. Never the pure-blood children--most of their parents were well-connected enough that they had bribed their way to freedom, but there were so many who weren't that fortunate. And now there was another one, joining those ranks of empty-eyed, frightened Slytherins who had lost parents in Azkaban. Severus's hands shook very slightly as he opened the letter.

     "Clarinda Donnelly," he murmured to Professor McGonagall. "She has a sister in Ravenclaw, I believe." They both glanced down the table to Professor Flitwick, who had just dropped a similar letter into his lap, rubbing at his eyes with his napkin. "Their mother Lorina was killed when the Aurors came for their father and older brother. They showed mercy to Hector, they couldn't prove he had done anything more than shout slogans and perform minor mischief, but their father...."

     "I remember Brutus Donnelly," she replied softly. "A nice boy, good with animals. Good heavens, I never knew."

     The Donnellys were nice. Hector had been a year behind Severus in Slytherin, keen on the idea of a world where he and his sisters would be free to fly around on broomsticks or carry a wand openly. No more hiding! Hector had said with some frequency, hopeful and eager. He hadn't had it in for Muggle-borns; Lorina was a Muggle-born witch. Hector just wanted to be free from secrecy, and he had truly believed that following the Dark Lord was the best way to find that freedom. Brutus Donnelly had been more of a hard-liner, but probably not as deeply involved as the papers reported it. He had gone to Azkaban quietly, though, shattered by Lorina's death. It was no surprise that he had not lasted long.

     Severus wasn't ready to break the news to Clarinda, but Professor Flitwick had caught his eye and was getting up, presumably to retrieve the youngest Donnelly from the Ravenclaw table. He stood, and the Slytherin table fell silent. They had seen the owls, but not who had received the letters. Clarinda had seen, though, which two professors had gotten up, and let out a stifled scream. Third-year, Severus's mind raced. Turned thirteen back in March, draws daisies on the margins of her parchments when she's thinking, signs her name with a daisy dotting the 'i'. A sweet enough little girl, who loved flowers and unicorns and sang in the dungeons. A sweet little girl who was going to be another slinking, empty-eyed ghost of a child, who wouldn't sing anymore, who wouldn't draw daisies on her Potions homework anymore, who would only go through the motions of her day.

     Thank whatever miserable deity there was that Professor Flitwick was more than willing to talk to both the girls, reassuring them that they would always have a place at Hogwarts, asking if they knew who would be taking them in now, if their brother Hector was in a position to care for them, did they want to go to the infirmary or have a day off from classes, the usual sorts of things that were said at these moments. Professor McGonagall had appeared by then in the study, writing their excused notes, writing letters to learn when or if funeral services would be taking place, quietly managing the official paperwork. Severus quickly scribbled his signature onto Clarinda's note, then, as he handed it to her, squeezed her shoulder, trying to give any sort of comfort he could manage. She stared up at him, her blue eyes clouded, that emptiness already beginning, dazed and pale.

     Classes had already begun when Severus finally got to his Potions dungeon. There was a bit of carrying on, from the sound of it, the third-year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs having a heated exchange. The last bit that he heard made his blood run cold.

     "Well, I don't understand why they get to skive off classes," a boy was saying grandly. "Their parents want to go off and root for You-Know-Who, they ought to expect that kind of thing to happen."

     "Serves them right, if you ask me," a girl said, almost as grandly. "Who knows how many people got hurt because of them? I mean, I lost my cousin to some of his supporters, but you don't see any of us getting to mope around."

     Severus had heard enough. He slammed the door open, furious. Stupid little prats, did they not think that the Donnelly children would have much preferred to have had their parents? The war was over, the Dark Lord was gone, and the families of his supporters didn't even have the scant comfort of knowing that their loved ones had died defending an honorable cause. How dare these others lord it over the children of Azkaban, the orphans who had no place to call home! Somehow these children were superior in their heroic losses, because they didn't know that they were truly alone, unwanted, unwelcome, uncomforted even by their own kind? The third-years stared at him, guilty (in their minds, clearly) of only having a bit of a chat while their professor was out of the room.

     "Twenty points off for Gryffindor and Hufflepuff both!" he shouted. Oh, it felt good to shout, to take out that rage on something. "Get out quills and parchment NOW, or it's another five." He heard the scrambling behind him as he whipped his wand at the chalkboard, bringing up the quiz he had planned for the end of the week. It was over material that they were going to be covering in class today, but he didn't care. He expected poor grades on it, and he didn't care. He expected a bit of blow-back from both Professors McGonagall and Sprout, and he didn't care. He didn't care.

     None of those parchments would have daisies drawn on the margins.