Chapter Two

‘Lovegood? Luna Lovegood?’ Minerva repeated, as though perhaps another Miss Lovegood had slipped unnoticed through Hogwarts in recent years.

‘Do you have a problem with that, Minerva?’ Severus snapped.

‘No, no, not at all,’ she replied, drawing her green velvets about her, and clutching a handful of them at her breast in what he had always suspected was a defensive manner. ‘I would just have expected someone more…’ She trailed off, as though searching for a suitable description.

‘Boring?’ he offered, as he noticed with displeasure that Dumbledore’s likeness had cracked an eye open, where it hung on the wall behind the present incumbent, as though he had only lent her the seat, and was just waiting until she stood up to claim it back.

‘I meant, I would have expected someone more experienced,’ Minerva replied, letting go of her robes.

‘So I can un-teach them all of the rubbish they have learned from others, before starting with a clean slate?’ he asked, refusing to admit to himself that he was using Luna’s reasoning on her behalf.

‘There were no other applicants, were there, Severus?’ she asked, smiling in some sort of petty triumph.

‘Minerva, I even had an applicant from as far away as Wasiland,’ he said witheringly, and not entirely untruthfully, hoping that not only had she forgotten that she knew he’d had no response to the first two advertisements, but that Wasiland did in fact exist, something he had been slightly remiss in checking.

‘And what then, may I ask, was it about Miss Lovegood’s application that placed her above the others?’ the headmistress asked, the hand that had recently clutched her robes, now clutching a teacup instead.

‘She doesn’t annoy me as much as most people do,’ Severus replied, glaring behind her to where Dumbledore had closed his eyes and was pretending to be asleep. ‘Can we get down to her terms and conditions now, Minerva? I would like to get back to my rooms before her damned Nifflers have run amok.’

‘Nifflers?’ Minerva echoed, perhaps subconsciously clasping her rather busy hand around the filigree-bordered Cairngorm stone brooch she wore on her robes. ‘You didn’t mentions Nifflers, Severus.’

He hadn’t meant to mention them either; it had just slipped out, and he only hoped the damned Nifflers hadn’t. ‘They are under control,’ he assured her, much more confidently than he felt.

‘Well, I shan’t keep you then, Severus,’ she said quickly, rising from behind her desk in a cloud of lavender-scented velvet. ‘Ask your new apprentice to come to see me when she has settled in. She may have the suite of rooms that were once mine. Now get rid of those Nifflers, Severus,’ she said with a shudder, making her way to the door, as though to all but shove him down the steps.

‘Thanks, Minerva,’ Luna said brightly from where she had pushed the door open without knocking, as seemed to be her habit, almost sending the headmistress’s slight frame through the opposite wall, portrait of Dumbledore and all.

‘Miss Lovegood, how did you get past the gargoyle?’ McGonagall looked startled, as well she might have, as she steadied herself against her desk; though whether at the familiar address, or the fact that Luna had somehow managed to gain right of entry to the headmistress’s inner sanctum, Severus wasn’t quite sure.

‘Oh, you can call me Luna,’ she replied. ‘I’m staff now; Severus has hired me.’

‘The gargoyle?’ McGonagall repeated, as Severus sat back again, rather enjoying himself, for the second time in as many hours, noticing with no small degree of satisfaction that even the all-knowing old pest in the portrait didn’t seem to know Luna’s… Miss Lovegood’s, he corrected himself… secret access.

‘Oh, the gargoyle,’ Luna replied, as though just remembering the question. ‘Well, he’s made of sandstone… like the rest of the castle. Quite lovely, sandstone is,’ she went on. ‘Did you know that most of the sandstone in the castle came from one quarry on the Isle of Arran? It’s the iron ore that makes it red.’

‘Yes, Miss Lovegood, indeed I did know that,’ McGonagall replied, a bit more tartly that Snape thought she should have. ‘I come from Ayrshire.’

‘Of course you do, Minerva,’ Luna replied placatingly. ‘I had quite forgotten that.’

‘Can we get back to the point, Miss Lovegood?’

‘Luna.’

‘Very well… Luna,’ Minerva went on, and Severus was almost tempted to ask her to remove the hard tone from her voice when addressing his apprentice. ‘How did you get past the gargoyle?’

‘Stone communicates, Minerva,’ Luna replied. ‘If you listen very carefully.’

‘I am perfectly well aware that this castle is sentient, Miss Love… Luna,’ Minerva replied. ‘I was not, however, aware that the gargoyle communicated with the inhabitants of the castle.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t,’ Luna agreed heartily. ‘It’s not permitted to. I believe it was Helga Hufflepuff who set that restriction.’

Minerva sighed. ‘Yes, Luna, it was. Now, if the gargoyle did not communicate with you, and I have not informed it as yet that you are a member of staff, perhaps you would now see fit to let me know how you got past it.’

‘Perhaps the other stones?’ Luna offered. ‘The gargoyle can speak to the other stones. Perhaps they told it that I am a member of staff. If I recall, the walls in Severus’s office are stone.’

Minerva cast a quick glance to Snape, and he wondered just for a moment if she were seeking an ally. ‘That’s true, Minerva,’ he said lazily, secretly quite anxious now to leave the room. ‘Have you secured those Nifflers, Miss Lovegood?’ he asked. That ought to hurry McGonagall along, he thought, as he gave Luna a long look, to indicate to her that she should not attempt to question the “Miss Lovegood” part of his address.

‘Maybe Severus left the stairway open?’ Dumbledore offered his unwelcome two Knuts worth from behind Minerva.

‘I most certainly did not,’ Snape retorted, sensing that now was as good a time as any to make an exit. ‘And mind your own business, you interfering old busybody.’

‘I think that will be all, Severus,’ Minerva said, giving him and Luna thin smiles of dismissal, and drawing Dumbledore a flinty look, as though to suggest that she would turn his portrait to the wall, so he, too, could talk to the stones, if he didn’t stop meddling in what were now her affairs.

Severus was halfway down the steps from Minerva’s office, having been ushered without further ceremony from the headmistress’s presence, with his apprentice skipping a couple of steps in front of him. He was just admiring the way her cloud of hair bounced with each step, now that she had removed her wand from above her head to thread it precariously through a buttonhole instead, when an uncomfortable thought struck him, and he called to her.

‘Miss Lovegood?’ He waited for her to turn at the bottom step. ‘How did you get past the gargoyle?’

‘You left the stairway open, Severus,’ she replied, smiling back at him. ‘I didn’t think you would want to be scolded for such a breach of security though.’

‘Do you make a habit of telling lies to your superiors?’ he asked.

‘I think that if you cast your mind back, Severus, you’ll realise that I didn’t lie,’ she replied. ‘I was quite careful about that.’

‘You didn’t tell the truth,’ he murmured, refusing to acknowledge his own fabrication.

‘Well, not all of it,’ she admitted. ‘It was a good story though, wasn’t it?’

*****