Chapter Seventy-Eight: Sifting the Past

Chapter Seventy-Eight: Sifting the Past

Sunday, 28 March 1999

Gareth looked up when there was an unusually loud thump from above, but then shrugged and returned his attention to the photographs arranged in front of him on the kitchen table at Spinner's End. He had Levitated the boxes up from the basement and set them out in order. The first several were carefully labelled, and the photographs were filed chronologically and then in categories by year. The smaller hard plastic boxes of negatives were likewise labelled and stacked in order; Gareth had left those on their shelf in the basement.

The last few boxes weren't as carefully organized, and they seemed to include photographs that had been taken in nineteen sixty-eight and sixty-nine, which Gareth thought were the last years that the elder Snape had lived with his family at Spinner's End. They also contained some photographs that Tobias had taken in previous years and had made copies of, then just tossed in the closest box at hand rather than filing them between sheets of archival paper as he had done so carefully for so long. Gareth had set those later boxes aside and had started with the first of the boxes labelled 1955.

The pictures in that box were the first photographs that teenaged Tobias Snape had developed himself, and interleaved with the photographs were notes on exposure times, aperture settings, and shutter speed, and the different methods he had used in developing the pictures. Many of the photographs had been taken in city parks, Gareth thought, but scattered throughout were some of his parents in what he presumed was the Snape home. There were also three of an older, white-haired gentleman that were labelled "S. Morgenstern, 1879 – 1957," all taken in September of fifty-six, one which seemed an attempt at a professional-style portrait. Morgenstern was a thin man, not very tall, with a head of thick, wavy white hair, and he looked as though he had likely been quite wiry in his youth. There were four other photographs from that month in which Morgenstern was one of the people listed as one of those in the photograph, along with Tobias Snape's parents, Esther and Botolph Snape.

Esther Snape reminded Gareth of Severus, though she was petite where he was tall, but she had his dark, deep-set eyes and sharp, angular features. Botolph Snape was quite a bit older than his wife, but in each of the pictures, he was either close to her or smiling at her, whether her gaze was on him or not. Gareth had a sense that he felt warmly protective of his wife. Severus didn't take after his grandfather as much; Boltoph's head was rounder, his build, heavier, but he was a tall man, and perhaps some of Severus's height came from that side of his family.

As Gareth looked through the photographs from the late fifties, he carefully refiled each of them. When he reached the summer of nineteen fifty-eight, he began to see pictures of Eileen Prince. In the first few, she seemed unaware of the photographer. In one, she was tossing bits of bread to some of the ducks in one of the parks where Tobias had taken many of his earlier photographs. In another, she was standing beside the pond, holding her hat in one hand as her long dark cloak billowed out behind her; some of her dark hair, freed from its bun by the wind, swept across her face. Tobias must have used a very fast shutter speed to capture the image, since the water of the pond stood in small, sharp, hard waves, and the tree limbs, though bent and swayed, were sharp and clearly defined. Eileen seemed utterly still in the midst of the turbulent wind, standing there looking out across the choppy water.

Subsequent photographs of Eileen were more personal: she was clearly aware of the camera and the photographer, and by November, there was a photograph of Eileen with his parents. They were having tea in the Snape living room. Eileen Prince looked stiff and uncomfortable in the Muggle setting, not as natural and at ease as she had in the park photographs. Esther Snape looked as though she'd just bit a lemon and was trying to hide the fact. Botolph Snape, usually jovial looking, had an artificial smile on his face, and his posture was tight and closed. Gareth wondered what kind of conversation the elder Snapes had had with their son after that social visit.

Gareth leafed through more photographs, but found only one more that showed all three of them together, this one with Tobias in it, too, a black control in his hand that allowed him to slip into the group and trigger the shutter after having set the aperture, speed, and focus. It was the first photograph of the young man himself in any of the pictures, and Gareth scrutinised it, trying to see the man he'd heard about from Severus. All he saw was a tall, slim, broad-shouldered, dark-haired young man who appeared to be the only person in the photograph who was genuinely happy. He was standing next to the sofa arm, just beside Eileen, who was seated beside her future mother-in-law, with Botolph at the other end, next to his wife. Tobias had on a dark, narrow tie and a knitted argyle-patterned sweater. His hair was short, except his fringe, which was pushed carelessly back from his face. His smile was broad, and his free hand rested on Eileen's shoulder. Eileen's brow looked heavier than usual as she stared into the camera lens, and if she had held a sign in front of her to announce it, it could not have been clearer that she was unhappy to be there.

The next photos were of Eileen alone, or of Eileen and Tobias, and she looked happier in those, and by early nineteen fifty-nine, it was clear that they were a married couple, and there were several pictures of the two on holiday together in early spring, possibly a honeymoon trip. By autumn, she was obviously pregnant. The final photographs from that year showed the living room of Spinner's End, sparsely furnished, but with a small Christmas tree, and Eileen smiling and happy, holding up little baby clothes, Christmas wrapping paper scattered about.

As Gareth expected, the next box, holding the first photos from nineteen-sixty, was almost fully devoted to photographs of the new little Snape. A few of them had "Sammy" written on the back of them, and the date; the rest were labelled "Severus Snape." Gareth had to chuckle when he saw one of a scowling baby that reflected the scowl that the adult Severus sometimes wore. The one surprise, though, was that there were very few photographs of Severus's grandmother Esther holding her new grandson, and the ones that Gareth did find all seemed to have been taken on only a few separate occasions. There were none of Botolph, but Gareth seemed to remember Severus saying that his Muggle grandfather had died before he was born.

Gareth flipped more quickly through the first years of Severus's life at Spinner's End. There was a single photo, taken on Severus's fourth birthday, that finally showed Drusus Prince, Eileen's father. Gareth looked closely at the man. He was a hard man with sharp eyes and an unpleasant expression, and Tobias was a good enough photographer at that point to have captured the cruelty in the lines of the wizard's face, and the possessiveness of the hand on young Severus's shoulder. Severus looked serious, far too serious for a small boy celebrating his birthday. Esther Snape was not present at the celebration.

Gareth found a few more pictures of Esther from the early sixties, but they were all taken in her flat, not at the house in Spinner's End, and Severus was only in a few of them. In one, he was about five years old and was sitting in his grandmother's lap, one of her arms around him as she held a violin up in front of him, explaining something to him as he reverently reached out and touched the satiny wood of the instrument. Gareth smiled. The woman's face was animated, and Severus, entranced, either by whatever his grandmother was telling him or by the violin in front of him.

Gareth sighed and stretched. He was unsure why he felt compelled to go through these photographs, except that there was a part of him that still sought to understand how a boy could grow up to become a man who could cut off another boy's mother's arm. So far, he'd seen nothing to explain it. Many people grew up in families torn by dissension over unsuitable marriages or with one or two unpleasant relatives. Childhood was idealised as a golden time, filled with happiness, familial love, and friendships, but Gareth knew that many, if not most, perfectly normal adults had childhoods that were far from that ideal. Life was always a mix of happiness and unhappiness, kindness and cruelty, pleasure and pain, whether one was a child or an adult; some people seemed to get more than their share of pain in life, but nothing from the photographs gave Gareth any clue as to how the solemn, skinny little boy had grown up to become a Death Eater.

He shook his head. The factors that went into creating the young man that Severus became were likely ones that were subtle, many, and varied, and nothing that would have been captured by one of his father's photographs, Gareth knew that. There were clues there, though, about Severus's childhood and family life. It seemed that Tobias Snape had himself had a fairly close relationship with his own parents, but that after his marriage to Eileen and his father's death some months later, he saw little of his mother, and his mother saw even less of her grandson. Tobias had likely fallen in love with Eileen, quickly smitten by the young woman whom he met in the park, and had proposed marriage just as quickly. He seemed happy in those early photographs, proud of his girlfriend...later, his wife...and apparently unaffected by his parents' less-than-warm feelings about her.

Eileen often seemed distracted in the photographs, although in those taken shortly after their marriage when the two were on holiday together, she seemed happy and smiling. In those photos, she dressed in modest Muggle dresses, slightly unfashionably long, coming mid-calf rather than closer to the knee, and in dark colours, making her seem older than her years, or stepped from an earlier decade.

Tobias apparently enjoyed photographing his new wife at any time or place, and had developed them all. Some photographs, particularly those showing her in quiet contemplation or curled in the corner of the sofa, reading, he had developed several times, using different techniques and cropping them in different ways until he found the "perfect" picture of her.

Eileen was by no means a beautiful woman, but in many of the photographs, she was striking: Tobias would use light and shadow to emphasise the contours and angles of her face and create a compelling portrait of his wife, making the viewer appreciate her attractive qualities. There had been many photographs of her pregnant and then of her holding her new baby, and if the pictures did not lie, she had been happy at the prospect of motherhood and happy with her son. Gareth had smiled when he came across a photograph of a smiling, bright-eyed Eileen bathing her small son in a little rubber tub, her delighted gaze focussed on her little boy.

The photographs of Severus in those first months were almost always ones of mother and child, and as he became a toddler, there were more of just little Severus alone, or with his mother in the background, and the father seemed to take joy in watching his son and documenting his growth. By the time that Severus was four or five, there were many pictures that seemed to have been taken on father-son outings, often in the same park where Tobias had begun photographing Eileen several years before. In those photos, Severus reminded Gareth strongly of Eoghan Tyree at the same age.

Gareth presumed that the lack of pictures of Eileen's father did not indicate that the old wizard was never there, but that either Drusus Prince was averse to having his Muggle son-in-law take his picture or Tobias had no desire to photograph the man. Likely, it was a combination of the two.

He went back to the earliest photographs and found a copy of the portrait picture of Shmuel Morgenstern, then he plucked out the photograph of Severus's parents and Muggle grandparents. Gareth considered that one a moment, but then nodded to himself. Perhaps Tobias was the only clearly happy one in the picture, but it was the only one of the four of them together. Gareth then selected one of the early, more candid pictures that showed Eileen and Tobias together on holiday. He quickly rifled through some of the later boxes that he hadn't examined yet, until he found the photograph of Severus and his mother together at the kitchen table, the curled copy of which he had seen on his tour of the house the previous day.

He put those photographs aside to take with him when he left that day, then Levitated the boxes off the kitchen table. He paused. Where to keep them . . . back in their old home in the basement, he thought. With the redecorating in progress, there was no better place. At some point, he would go through more of the photographs and see if he could find one of Severus and his father together, but for that day, at least, he had had enough of sifting through someone else's family pictures. Time now to see what the house-elves had accomplished upstairs.

Severus sighed as he watched Poppy leave the Great Hall after breakfast. She was leaving for her sister's immediately and would be gone all day. At least he had caught her that morning before she had left her rooms, and had spoken with her, hoping to strike before she could make other plans for the evening. He had asked her to come to his rooms when she returned to the castle, and she'd agreed. Since she had seemed to think it might be a matter of Hogwarts business, he had considered allowing her to retain that impression, but decided against that approach.

"It is," he said, "a date, then. If you wish to accept a date with me this evening, I would enjoy spending the evening with you, Poppy. And perhaps we can pursue our competition and I can win our bet."

She laughed. "All right. Yes, I'd like that."

"Do you know when you'll be back?"

"It depends on when our date is," Poppy replied with a smile.

"Eight o'clock," Severus said, trying to make it sound like a definite time and to keep any uncertainty from his voice.

"Good. I'll be sure to be back before that, then." She smiled up at him. "Should I prepare for anything in particular?" she asked.

"Pardon?" Severus could feel a tingle in his groin at her question, though he was certain that she had meant the question only in a general way.

"Are we doing something specific that I should dress for?"

"I thought we would stay in, if that suits you. You have expressed concern about my leaving the grounds after dark, and you'll have been out all day..."

"That would be fine. As you've remarked yourself, we haven't had much time to ourselves recently."

"I thought . . . something nice, though." Severus felt on the verge of a stutter, which was absurd. He had never stuttered in his life. Except for a very brief period when he was nine. He got over it by avoiding speaking for four months. He swallowed his nervousness.

"I am sure that spending the evening with you will be quite nice," Poppy said. "Although when I win our bet, it may be nicer for me."

Severus smiled. "You will not win this bet, Poppy . . . Penelope Pomfrey?" he guessed.

Poppy laughed. "So we're starting already, are we? All right, I'll let you go first. But you've eliminated one. Not a Penelope."

"Ah, well, it was just a wild guess, although I do believe you to be as faithful as Penelope," Severus said. "But I have to give you a chance to guess at least once, after all."

Poppy smirked. "Of course."

"So did you have a good time yesterday?" Severus asked. There had been an impromptu party in the Headmistress's suite that evening, but he had declined to attend, and Minerva hadn't pressed him, for which he was grateful. He did wonder, though, if he had made a mistake not to join everyone, since Poppy had been there, as had Quin.

"Yes. You should have come with us last night, Sev. We had a really nice evening. The baby slept through most of it, the little angel, and Remus and Tonks were able to stay until almost ten. Quin was in good form, and I think Gertrude had a good time, too. She stayed longer than I thought she would. She and Albus had quite a good time reminiscing and telling stories about some of their early days teaching at Hogwarts. Mostly to each other, but it was good to see her smiling so readily. Even Alastor seemed relaxed...as relaxed as I've seen him in years, anyway. And Gareth and Remus really hit it off. I don't think they'd really known each other well before that."

Severus nodded, and a peculiar new jealousy rose in him. He did not like the idea of Lupin becoming friends with Gareth. The friend of his early adversaries, best friend of James and Sirius, now a friend of Gareth's . . . Severus gritted his teeth. He forced himself to dismiss his thought that it seemed that he could never have anything without someone else taking it away, and tried not to contemplate Gareth becoming better friends with Lupin than he was with him. It was childish, he told himself, and his relationship with Gareth had nothing to do with Remus.

"Is there anything else? I told Violet I'd be there by nine," Poppy said, interrupting his thoughts.

"No, nothing. I hope you have a good day."

"I'm sure to." She grinned suddenly. "I also will be checking on a bit of a surprise for you . . . looking into its progress, one might say."

"A surprise? For me?" Severus felt cheered.

"Yes, for you, and it will remain a surprise, but it's actually something that I've had planned for you for several weeks now. I'm becoming a bit impatient, myself. I shouldn't even have said anything about it."

"Several weeks? Since before . . ."

Poppy nodded. "Yes, since at least a few weeks before you had your bout of unexpected flirting with me, actually."

"You were planning a surprise for me all that time ago?" Severus asked, puzzled, but pleased. "Why?"

"Because, as I have said to you many times, although I still think you may not completely believe me, we are friends, Sev. Whatever else we may have been or may become, we're friends. And I think that . . . well, I hope you'll like the surprise. It's . . . no, I won't say anything else!" She shook her head firmly. "I will not let myself spoil the surprise for either of us."

Severus smiled. "I might be able to wheedle it out of you."

"No, you won't. Not unless you win our bet and you decide that's your prize. And it would disappoint me terribly to tell you ahead of time. I wish I hadn't mentioned it at all, in fact."

"I'm glad you did. I will look forward to it," Severus said. Perhaps this meant that she wouldn't be thinking about Quin over her holiday, but would be looking forward to the surprise for him. Although, of course, she had planned it before they had become lovers. Still, she was excited about it. Surely that was a good thing. "Have you other plans for the day?" he asked.

"I'm not sure what Violet has in mind. We may drop by to see Ivy and her family...they live just around the corner...and Violet said something about possibly visiting friends for tea. Or friends visiting her." Poppy frowned. "I don't remember precisely. But since I'm going to be going to Geoffrey and Margaret's for Easter dinner next Sunday and everyone will be there for that, I don't think we'll be doing much calling around today."

"And what about Quin?" Severus asked.

Poppy looked puzzled. "What about Quin?"

"I just wondered if you have plans to see him. Not today, necessarily . . . but on Easter or over the holiday."

"I may see him over the holiday. I will likely visit Rosemary and Alroy and see the new baby when he arrives, and no doubt Quin will also be there. So I will probably see him then. We have made no definite plans, though."

"Oh." Severus wished he could come out and ask her whether she would accept another date from the Irish wizard, but not only could he not think of a way to ask it that didn't sound foolish, he wasn't sure whether he really wanted the answer.

Poppy Summoned her cloak from its hook and a small bag from her bedroom. "You know, we all should get together sometime," she said.

"Who?"

"Oh, you, me, Quin, some of the others. Maybe Gareth...you two are quite good friends, I've seen. A smaller group than last night, though. I know you aren't fond of parties. But perhaps we could all go out for a drink over the Easter holiday."

Severus shrugged and opened the door for Poppy. "If you wish. I would not want to . . . impose my company upon you." He sighed.

Poppy snorted a laugh. "That is a peculiar thing for you to say, Severus, just after asking me for a date this evening...and my accepting it."

"Shh." They were stepping into the hall, and he didn't want their conversation overheard. "I meant, if you are going out with Quin," he added softly.

Poppy touched his elbow gently, stopping him. She looked up at him and shook her head. "My thought was that you and I would go out with some others, Severus. I think you'd enjoy it. I would hope you would. And it would be nice if Quin were able to come along and you two became better acquainted. I think you'd find him interesting company. That's all I meant."

One corner of Severus's mouth turned up. "Ah. Indeed. That might be acceptable." He was unsure about whether he wanted to get to know the elder MacAirt, but it seemed to him that Poppy was telling him that she was not dating Quin. Or perhaps she was even saying that she saw the two of them as a couple. And she had just accepted the date with him for that evening, he reminded himself.

"Good. We can talk more this evening, hmm?" Poppy said.

Severus nodded once. He wished he could talk to her right there and then, but they were walking down to the Great Hall and soon would be within earshot of half of the school also on its way to breakfast.

"You have plans for the day, don't you?" Poppy asked. "Yesterday, I heard you say something to Filius about meeting him this morning."

"Yes. We will be practising again. He has been most helpful."

"I wouldn't think that you would need any help in that area, Severus, although I am glad that you will be well prepared."

"Duelling is an art as much as it is a competition," Severus replied. "My previous experience has all been much more practically oriented toward actual combat. Preparing with Professor Flitwick has been valuable. It has provided me an opportunity to practise a variety of new spells and to hone my skills." Despite the progress he had made, Severus still had made no decision about whether he would engage in a wandless duel with Dumbledore, and Flitwick had agreed that Severus could hold off on the decision until a week or two before the duel, and that he would wait to make any announcement about it. Dumbledore had said he would be prepared to duel in either form, so the decision was entirely Severus's.

"You seem to be having a good time," Poppy observed.

Severus nodded. "It has been an enjoyable experience, and conversation with Professor Flitwick can be as invigorating and challenging as the duelling exercises. It has been good to become better acquainted with him."

Poppy smiled up at him wistfully. "I wish you had had these opportunities long ago."

Severus shrugged one shoulder. "It was what it was, as it had to be. I am fortunate for the opportunities I have today, ones I never expected to have." His expression softened as he looked down into her face. "For the opportunity of this evening, most especially."

Poppy nodded, but she averted her eyes. "And have you any other plans for the afternoon?"

He was going to try to set a romantic atmosphere in his sitting room, but he didn't want to tell her that. "Nothing in particular. I may go out for a while, myself." He had to see about flowers, and after having had to smooth things over with Pomona when she discovered her rosebush completely denuded of blooms, he considered it best not to seek any in the greenhouses again just yet. He thought he might meet McGonagall in Edinburgh and see if the florist shop was open on Sundays.

"Ah." Poppy glanced back up at him again and added softly, "Take care, then, if you do."

"I have no definite plans. If I do not know my own plans, neither can anyone else," Severus said with a smirk. "Perhaps this . . . experience will teach me to bring more spontaneity to my life. In fact, Professor Flitwick was recently discussing the importance of balancing spontaneity with strategy, or incorporating it into strategy."

It was Poppy's turn to smirk. "Seems to me that you already began practising that spontaneity a few weeks ago."

Severus waved a hand, opening the door to the Great Hall for them. "I could perhaps do well with some encouragement," he said, straight-faced. "Perhaps some . . . coaching. If I knew someone who had sufficient fortitude to take on such a daunting task. And personal experience in the practice of spontaneity, of course."

"One of your colleagues may meet your requirements."

"I believe that I shall have to conduct interviews," Severus said, looking down at Poppy, his eyes smiling. "I shall conduct my first one this evening. If the candidate is promising, I may not need look any further. She seems ideally suited."

"And if the candidate, any candidate, is unsure about the position?" Poppy asked softly, meeting his eyes more seriously.

"I will have to vet any candidates carefully. And if my prime candidate is unsure . . . I can be persuasive," Severus said lightly, though a sense of unease flowed through him. Poppy had just accepted a date with him. Was she having second thoughts, was she unsure about seeing him as something beyond a friend and colleague? She had told him before that she thought their friendship was important, that he should date others, that she wasn't right for him, and they hadn't had an opportunity to discuss their relationship since then, though he thought that she seemed more open to seeing him than she had . . . did she view this date differently from the way he did, did she see it as just . . . an extension of their fling, as nothing serious? He cursed the crowded Hall. He would get no answers to any of his questions until that evening.

"I am sure that with the proper persuasion, the right candidate will be happy to meet your challenge. It is important to find the right one, though, Severus. Don't take the first one to come along who seems . . . spontaneous."

Albus had moved again, this time, sitting between Filius and Helena, who was on the Great Hall schedule for that day. His own seat was still free, but Laura Manning was sitting in the chair to its right normally reserved for Vector. It looked as though he wouldn't be able to sit beside Poppy that morning.

"I believe I am sufficiently discriminating to be able to eliminate inappropriate candidates," Severus said, "and that the right one will be obvious, and so far superior to any others, a lengthy search would be neither necessary nor desirable."

"We can talk more later, Professor," Poppy said as she stopped at the first free seat, just on the other side of Pomona from where she normally sat.

Severus nodded once, bowing shortly to the two witches, then proceeded down to his own seat. Minerva and Caspar Lloyd were engaged in an intense conversation about ancient Welsh poetry. Lloyd was not only a Gryffindor, his first year at Hogwarts coinciding with Minerva's own first year as Head of House, but he had done his second apprenticeship with her father, one of only a handful of masters who had apprenticed with Merwyn McGonagall. Severus bit back a sigh. The two were likely to continue their discussion throughout breakfast; he resigned himself to discussing modern wizarding library science with Laura Walker Manning, which is precisely what he did until David came by and the couple left the Hall together, off for the day to visit their daughter. And now he was watching Poppy leave for her sister's.

Minerva and Caspar were now discussing the subjunctive mood. In no mood to enter into a conversation about translating verbal inflections...let alone from a language with which he was only familiar from unpronounceable road signs...Severus looked down the table. Albus had left, but Flitwick was still there, speaking with Helena. They might be discussing something of greater interest to him, and something he actually knew something about. Severus picked up his cup of coffee and moved down to sit on Helena's other side.

"Good morning, Severus," Flitwick greeted brightly.

"Hi, Severus."

"Professor Flitwick, Ms Benetti." Severus nodded. "The Headmistress and Professor Lloyd are discussing the subjunctive mood. I trust that you are not?" He quirked a brief smile, raising an eyebrow.

Helena laughed. "No, far from it."

"We were just discussing the magical currents that flow around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade," Filius said.

"Filius was just explaining how the Four Founders chose the location for Hogwarts based on the flow of the magical air currents at the time, and how they've shifted over the centuries."

"We don't know precisely how much the change in their paths has affected owl correspondence, but one estimate put it at as much as a twenty minute increase in the time that it takes to send an owl from London to Hogsmeade. Personally, I think that the change in the currents' paths has been offset by the increase in the strength of the primary current. In fact, it may even take less time than it did, depending upon how quick-witted the owl and how keen its ability to find and stay with the current."

"Have you ridden the currents around here, Severus?" Helena asked.

"Picked up one or two on occasion," Severus replied.

"I was thinking about trying to follow one all the way out...well, not all the way, of course. I don't want to end up in . . . in Bermuda or Greenland or someplace!" she said with a laugh. "But I thought I'd take a ride and see how long I can stay with the currents. Just over land, though. I'd Disillusion myself and the broomstick, just in case it passes over a highly populated Muggle area, and wear my chameleon cloak, as well, so I could do it during the day and really see the scenery."

"That sounds enjoyable," Severus said.

"Would you like to come along? I was thinking of doing it Easter Sunday, actually."

"Easter Sunday . . . I am not sure." The idea appealed to him, but he had planned to be at the castle that day, since there would be so many other staff members away visiting family for the holiday. He also didn't want anyone...particularly Poppy...to believe that he was romantically interested in the Flying instructor. A day long outing with Helena might give the wrong impression to the true object of his affections.

"Well, let me know if you can. I'm on schedule for breakfast that morning, but I thought I'd leave right after that. And if you think of anyone else who might be up for the jaunt, invite them. It doesn't have to be Sunday, either. We could do it on the following Monday, if that's better."

Severus nodded. For a few more minutes, the three talked about broomstick flight, magical currents, and the intercontinental broomstick race coming up in July, then Filius set down his napkin and pushed his breakfast plate away. "Ready, Severus?"

"When you are."

"I thought we should practise indoors today. The weather looks a bit threatening," Filius said, gesturing toward the Charmed ceiling and its overcast sky.

"Fine. In the come and go room again?"

"What about somewhere in the dungeons?" Filius suggested, hopping down from his chair. "I remember a large room on the northern end of the lowest dungeon. I believe it's still there."

Severus nodded, remembering the room. "It hasn't moved in about ten years. It's not far from where it was when I was a student. That would be fine. Shall we go directly there?"

Filius patted his wand pocket. "I have all I need! We can stop by your rooms on the way down if you'd like to fetch anything yourself."

"I have some notes in my office that I want to go over with you. We can stop there first," Severus replied. He stood. "It was good to see you, Helena. I will let you know about next Sunday."

"Good!" She grinned. "I think we'd have fun."

"Indeed. Have a pleasant day."

With her responding good wishes for his day, Severus left the table and accompanied Flitwick down and out of the Great Hall, on his way to try out some of his new wandless spells.

NEXT

Chapter Seventy-Nine: Atmosphere Title subject to change

Severus proceeds with his plans for the day, and both Filius and Gareth lend a hand.

Rated T.

Characters: Severus Snape, Filius Flitwick, Gareth McGonagall, Siofre Tyree, Johannes Birnbaum, Eoghan Bertrand Tyree