Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Thus began a series of encounters in which Severus was educated – in more ways than one.

He'd felt a surge of something like happiness as he'd handed in his notice to old Mr Haltern and had cleared out his high wooden writing desk at the carting firm. His tedious inky days as a clerk were over.

Instead of spending his time tracking other people's goods and money, he journeyed every morning to the Riddle family's townhouse in a quiet street near Paddington (they were, indeed, doing well for themselves; Westbourne Terrace was respectably middle class).

Mornings were usually spent with Tom Riddle, learning not only wandwork but matters of stage presence and stance. Though Severus at first felt foolish prancing and striding about, he soon came to enjoy the sense of power and control that he felt as he lifted his wand and caused ordinary household objects to do his bidding. Soon he could make his own cape swirl and billow as satisfyingly as Riddle himself.

He also enjoyed helping to create gadgets and gimcracks to amuse the credulous Muggle audiences. He and Riddle began constructing a moving winged horse, gaunt and spectral, made of metal plates charmed together, with glowing red eyes and nostrils through which smoke could pour. Riddle said that it was a replica of an actual magical beast, although he claimed that he wouldn't have been able to make it move quite so realistically as Severus did.

Severus was sceptical. "I find it hard to believe," he said, "that someone as young and self-taught as I could be more skilled at any sort of magic than a man such as yourself. Even I can tell that you're a wizard of uncommon ability."

Riddle had been smiling, and on the surface, his expression didn't seem to alter. But the atmosphere in the room suddenly changed, became chilly, and Severus had to stop himself from visibly shivering. He knew, somehow, that he didn't want to show weakness before this man.

"Nagini!" Riddle barked. Severus assumed the word to be some sort of hex or spell – until he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw, with a thrill of horror, that a great snake had emerged from a basket near the fire. As it passed Severus, it paused and lifted its thick, flattened head to stare at him and flick its forked tongue.

"Come, my pet," Riddle almost crooned, and only after the giant snake had slithered up his arm and across his shoulders did he deign to speak to Severus.

"And now, Mr Snape," he said, in a tone that managed to sound both deadly and genial, "you will tell me, if you please, just how it is that you come to assume that I am 'a wizard of uncommon ability.' You will tell me what you know about me, and you will tell me precisely."

Severus resolutely quelled the flutter of unease in his stomach and answered straightforwardly. "What I know about you, Mr Riddle, is what I have learnt since the night you were kind enough to offer me an apprenticeship. Since then, I've daily witnessed your displays of magic; I would have to be very thick indeed not to recognise your gifts."

His inner voice of discretion told him to stop there, but he ignored it; he refused to let himself be intimidated by some jumped-up stage magician, powerful wizard or not. "But," he added, "your question about what else I know does make me wonder, sir, whether there is something else that I ought to know."

He braced himself for...he hardly knew what, for some sort of angry response, some further indication of the dark side that he had gradually become certain existed in Tom Riddle. His fingers closed round the wand in his pocket, just in case.

But Riddle surprised him by chuckling and changing the subject. "Ah, that apprenticeship was one of my better ideas, my boy," he said, as lightly as if the previous moment's stand-off had never occurred. "Take this wonderful mechanical contrivance of yours. The Muggles will recognise it as a clever piece of engineering, of course, but they'll be deuced if they can figure out how it works. Yet they'll all deem themselves too smart to consider the true explanation – magic. And that, my friend, is the essence of Muggle stupidity. They will always refuse to face the truth, and in that refusal lies our opportunity."

As he spoke, he unwound the snake from his shoulders and held it out like an offering. Severus felt a wave of revulsion but was careful not to show by so much as the quiver of an eyelid that the snake unnerved him.

"This is Nagini," Riddle said, his voice fond. "She has been with me for many years and is quite a member of the family. You should meet her properly, Mr Snape. Come; touch her. She wants to get to know you, do you not, Nagini?" He stroked the large, flat head, and Severus steeled himself to do the same.

The snake felt cool and dry under his fingers, its scaly skin – a shimmering green marked with a pattern of black diamonds – actually rather attractive at close range. Nagini blinked lazily and rubbed the side of her head against Severus's hand; if it hadn't been a giant snake he was thinking of, he could almost have said that she nuzzled him.

"How do you do, Nagini?" Severus said, feeling silly, but Riddle seemed to expect some sort of response from him. To his shock, the huge snake nodded, for all the world as if she had understood him.

"Ah, she likes you!" Riddle said. "I am sure the two of you will be great friends."

Privately, Severus had his doubts. But then the snake opened its mouth a trifle, and he could have sworn that she grinned.

~~~~~

The afternoons Severus spent with Mrs Riddle, improving his Charms and Transfiguration skills, or with Narcissa, learning to brew potions.

He found that he both enjoyed and was unsettled by Charms and Transfiguration lessons. They often required him to be very close to Mrs Riddle as she guided his wand arm or corrected his swish-and-flick, and though her behaviour was always quite proper, even prim, he frequently found himself thinking completely inappropriate thoughts about the firm bosom that occasionally pressed against his back, or shivering with pleasure at the touches of her hand against his.

She wasn't arousing him on purpose, of course she wasn't, but he couldn't help noticing just what a fine figure of a woman she was, tall and regal, with lovely curves of waist and breast that he thought could only partly be explained by a well-designed corset. As to what that corset might look like...no. He did not let himself think of it. At least not while Mrs Riddle was still in the room.

And then came the day that she fitted him for his set of stage clothes. They were to be Transfigured, of course, from older clothes, and she stood close to trace the outlines of his body with her wand, letting it imprint his dimensions into her Transfiguration spells. She knelt to measure his inseam, and the sight of her dark head bending so close to his crotch... To his horror, Severus felt an erection grow.

Mrs Riddle paused, and he could tell she'd noticed, even though the thickness of his wool trousers.

"Enjoying the view?" he snapped before he could stop himself; channelling embarrassment into anger was something he'd been doing since childhood.

"Don't flatter yourself," she snapped back, straightening at once and glaring at him. Her eyes sparked with her own anger, and her lifted chin revealed her pale neck, and it was all he could do not to grab rough hold of her and kiss her. That would shock her, the old cat.

But then, as if she felt the heat between them, she stepped away and said mildly, "Such things happen, Mr Snape. Nothing to be ashamed of. If you'll call for Beckley before you leave today, he'll have your new suit waiting. You'll need to return it to him every fortnight so that I can re-charm everything. Yes, Transfigurations are only temporary," she added, seeing his surprise.

Then she smiled. "But don't worry. I won't need to measure you again."

And she was gone before Severus could decide whether her final comment was a relief or a disappointment.

The evening clothes, duly delivered by Beckley, were the equal of those worn by any posh gent in the dress circle; that night, Severus spent an hour standing in front of the cracked mirror above his lodging-house washbasin, practicing swirling charms on his new cape of sapphire silk.

Lessons with Narcissa were less fraught (if also less interesting in certain ways). He found he had a gift for potions, and she was quite skilled at them, too. They could create scents that would cause the Muggle audiences to laugh harder, applaud longer, feel more excited; they could create ways to change their own appearances with just one draught.

It was a heady power, and he enjoyed working with Narcissa. But unlike with Mrs Riddle, he felt no spark of attraction to the languid, icy prettiness of Miss...was her name actually Riddle? He realised that he didn't have any clear idea of her real position in the household. She lived in; Riddle called his "daughter" while on stage, yet his wife Minerva had said she wasn't Narcissa's mother. Perhaps Riddle had had an earlier marriage?

"Who are you, really?" Severus said abruptly to Narcissa one day as they stood over steaming cauldrons. "Are you Riddle's daughter?"

Narcissa laughed, a hearty sound quite unlike her usual silvery trill, so he assumed it represented genuine amusement and not affectation.

"Gracious, no," she said, arching her long neck in that way she had and touching elegant fingers to the complicated arrangement of her fair hair.

"His niece?"

"No. No relation."

Severus waited, but when it became clear that she intended to say no more, he felt a strong flash of irritation. He'd had just about enough of these people and their cryptic coyness. Being mysterious was all well and good in the "act," but if he were going to stay with them, he needed to know what lay behind the façade. He was going to get to the bottom of this bizarre ménage, if he had to brew a truth potion to do it.

"What are you, then?" he demanded roughly of Narcissa. "And what in God's name are they?" He let a jerk of his head indicate the Riddles.

Narcissa gazed at him, unruffled; it seemed to be part of her personal "act" never to allow herself to appear agitated. Finally she gave a soft sigh.

"My parents are Muggles," she said. "Titled Muggles. When they found they had a magical daughter, they were...well, let us simply say that they were not pleased. My father's affairs with servant girls were merely life as normal, but a odd magical child who sometimes spontaneously caused strange occurrences – that was a potential scandal. So they sent me away, to a school for girls. Not a pleasant one. I...did not care for it, and when I was fifteen, I ran away. Tom Riddle found me and brought me to live with him and Minerva. They taught me magic, I discovered I was quite good at it, and now here we are."

Narcissa's delicately-shaded pauses told Severus almost as much as her actual words. That there must be a great deal more to the story was obvious, but he'd learnt enough for now.

"Here we are," he said. "Quite."