A Knarl Can't Just Accept What It's Offered

“Who said anything about stealing a body?” Snape asked. “Perhaps if you weren’t such a know-it-all, you’d have asked the Potions master if such a thing were even necessary, which it is not.”

My voice was sugary. “If you’d care to explain, dear Potions master?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a great deal, and I realise that the flaw in my potion was that it did not select a body for me. I am certain that I can design another potion that will transfer me now to a particular body. All we need is a bit of that young man.”

He’d worked this out in his head? In the space of two days? The man was a Potions genius. I couldn’t help but be a bit excited.

“Like Polyjuice, you mean?”

“Yes, there would be certain similarities. However, as I’m sure neither of us are eager to delay, you’ll be happy to hear that, with the necessary inclusion of an ostrich egg in this potion, it shouldn’t take any longer than two days to brew.”

“The difficulty,” I pointed out, “is getting a bit of the body. Somehow, I doubt the wards around dead wizards are of a level I could break.”

We put that thought to stew in the back of our minds while we set to work on assembling Snape’s potion. He really is a genius. Snape told me particulars about what he expected to happen while we worked. Apparently, he wouldn’t remember his life as Snape. That was one of the first things that had attracted him to reincarnation—the fact that few people claimed to be able to remember their past lives. He had arranged it so that he would have enough of his new body’s memories to get by as that individual for as long as necessary. His greatest fear had been that he would be placed as a Muggle.

“Not that it would really have mattered, as I wouldn’t have remembered anything about magic, but such a thing is bound to distress a person.”

“How could you have been reincarnated as a Muggle? Isn’t magic an intrinsic part of a wizard?”

Snape shook his head. “Like a physical or mental ability, it’s tied to your body. It’s not as much a part of who you are as wizards like to think. It’s only as much a part of you as any other talent. Being a wizard is like being an incredible singer—of course it affects who you are, but it isn’t one of the things at the root of what you are. That’s why there’s really no excuse for our widespread inability to get along with Muggles.”

I tried not to be distracted by thoughts of conducting breaking research on wizarding DNA.

Meanwhile, brewing with Snape was proving to be far more fun than I would ever have thought possible. Being with Snape was more fun than I would have thought. We got on well together. I was, surprisingly, going to miss him.

“It’s true, Hermione. Sickening as it is—”

“—you’re more than a little fond of the old bat.”

The potion was simmering away on its second day, and I was frying up some breakfast, when the post owl delivered my paper. There was an engaging photograph on the front page from the International Wizarding Chess Finals. I reached for the paper, wondering if Ron—

“A photograph!” I shouted. “Snape, will a photograph work?”

“You needn’t shout, Miss Granger! I’m right here!”

“Sorry. Will a photograph work?” I asked again.

Snape thought. My breakfast sizzled.

“You know, Miss Granger,” he said, “I think it will.”

“Yes!” I shrieked, throwing my arms up in victory, forgetting that I still held onto the frying pan. Egg, potato, and ham plastered my ceiling. I laughed.

“Breakfast is cancelled! We’ve got a potion to finish!”

Severus Snape, true to form, did not hesitate to burst my bubble.

“Clean up that mess, Miss Granger,” he said irritably. “And do not think I’m going to let you go without breakfast when you’re working on such an important potion; I shall not.”

I was about to object, when I remembered that he did have that ability to move my body as his own. He hadn’t since that first day, and it had slipped my mind that he could. Most considerate of him, really. I cleared the ceiling with a wave of my wand and selected two new eggs.

“Of course, it won’t work half so well as a bit of the man would,” Snape told me. “The influence will be somewhat weaker. I may, I’m afraid, take on some of my old characteristics, and may possibly have foggy senses of recognition toward things and people I knew.”

I smiled. I wasn’t going to let him know that that was fine by me.

It was an easy thing to get Luna’s permission to take some pictures. For the sake of appearances, I took several of the place. Gregory and Luna were good enough to allow me to take pictures of them at work, too.

“I can’t imagine being with a guy who didn’t even call me by my first name,” I said to Snape as I snapped photos of our target corpse.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Snape. “It doesn’t matter. And who said that they’re together?”

“They’re dating,” I told him. Really, it was obvious. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed immediately. If Gregory weren’t the one behind Luna’s sparkling little engagement ring, I was a bowtruckle.

“Speaking of which,” I said, trying to sound casual, “isn’t it high time you started calling me Hermione? I’m not in school anymore, you know.”

I tried to keep my hands steady as my camera clicked in the resulting silence.

Finally, Snape said, “We’re not together, Miss Granger.”

“No! Of course not! But—”

“We’ve got all the photos we need, I think. Shall we head back?”