In The Middle

In The Middle

It was the summer holiday. The last of the students had departed the day before, and Severus Snape and his colleagues had celebrated until the early hours in the Hogshead. Before retiring, Severus had magnanimously distributed phials of Sober Up potion to everyone, and he was gratified when everyone shook his hand, apart from Pomona Sprout who had grabbed him in a bear hug and inappropriately squeezed his buttocks before he could extricate himself. The staff staggered away, laughing and telling each other what a great bloke Severus had turned out to be all along.

Headmaster Snape rolled over in bed, snuggling down a bit further under the warm covers. He wriggled his toes happily and sighed, his lips curled up in a smile. He had six whole weeks to do whatever the blazes he wanted. No one could tell him what to do, or force him to attend a meeting, or twinkle at him forebodingly across a desk. He was free. He could decide when to eat, what to eat, what to drink, when to drink, when to get up or whether to stay in bed all day. Right now, Severus had a taste for coffee and a chocolate muffin, so he rubbed his eyes, letting the pale morning light filter through until he felt a bit more awake. He stretched his arms upwards and let the covers fall from his thin torso before he distinctly heard a faint, high pitched giggle coming from the end of his bed. His eyes snapped open and his wand was in his hand and pointing before he had even registered what he was seeing.

His bedchamber was full of house-elves. Three or four deep, they were jammed against each other, peering at him with their large glossy eyes, ears twitching and feet shuffling as they vied for the best view. Some had scaled the furniture and were sat on the top of the large armoire in the corner, and a particularly enterprising pair was actually staring down at him from the chandelier above the bed.

'What's going on?' he asked. He had never seen as many elves in one place, not even in the kitchens. He mentally counted the heads and frowned. He didn't think that Hogwarts even had this many elves. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the room until he found the elf he was looking for.

'Smith,' he said firmly. 'Tell me what the bloody hell you and your cohorts are doing in my room.'

'Headmaster Snape.' The elf bowed low briefly and then stood, placing his hands behind his back before clearing his throat. 'We has decided, sir.'

'Decided? Decided what?' Severus lowered his wand a little but didn't put it away altogether. There was something fishy going on, and it wasn't even Friday.

'You is owing, Headmaster Snape,' Smith said clearly.

A chorus of whispers ran around the room. 'Owing... owing....'

Severus closed his eyes as the sickle dropped. He knew exactly what he owed, and as he acknowledged it, a prickle of magic washed over him, along with a sudden urge to get up and do something.

'The Life Debt,' he said lowly. 'After three years, you choose to collect now?'

It wasn't really a question. The very nature of the debt meant that there was no time limit; it could be claimed at any point. And Severus had to admit, he really did owe the house-elves a huge favour.

***

The night of the final battle, when Severus was bleeding to death in the Shrieking Shack and Voldemort's voice was nothing more than a whisper of a memory in his muddled mind, the house-elves had been doing things. They had made food for the survivors. They had ensured that all of the common rooms were clean, tidy and warm. They had helped with collecting the dead. And in a small room down a flight of stairs from the back of the kitchens, two doors down from the house-elves sleeping quarters, they had consulted with the Keeper of the Books.

The Keeper of the Books was old. He was so old that no living elf knew his name and none dared to ask. He didn't come out of his room. He just read, and documented, and noted, and informed. And he was very busy on the night of the final battle. The names in the Register were disappearing at the rate of speeding Snitches, and as each name faded from one thick, mottled page, it appeared in the Dead Book, which was growing thicker and adding new pages as it went. The books held the names of every single student that had ever been taught at Hogwarts, living or no, and it was really the Keeper that Severus had to thank for the heroic rescue that followed.

The Keeper's room held a map of Hogwarts that would have made the Marauders weep. Every nook and cranny, every hidden passageway, and even the Room of Hidden Things were laid out in detail along one wall. On the next wall were Hogsmeade and its environs, the Forbidden Forest, the Shrieking Shack, and even the tunnel that lead back to the Whomping Willow. Myriad dots glowed around the map. Red for house-elves, yellow for students, blue for professors and purple for the Headmaster. When Tom Riddle died and his yellow dot faded to nothing, the Keeper nodded in grim acknowledgement and waited until his name appeared in the Death Book under the names of Vincent Crabbe and Fred Weasley. He stood then, stretched his gnarly fingers and stepped up to the map, staring through his half-moon spectacles at each remaining dot. He mentally noted each one and then frowned. The Headmaster was alone in the Shrieking Shack and his dot was fading fast. The Keeper whispered softly, keeping his eyes on the map, and watched as the dot suddenly moved from the Shack to the hospital wing, still dim, but still there. He rubbed his eyes, and went back to his books.

***

Severus sat behind his desk and stared gloomily back at the delegation of elves that were now crammed into his office. He had finally persuaded them to leave him a little dignity in allowing him to dress, but that was as far as it went. There was still no coffee, still no muffin. To Snape's utter horror, the house-elves were on strike.

'Let me get this straight,' he said with a dramatic sigh. 'You won't do any work around the castle unless I get Hermione Granger to repeal the 'Law for House-Elf Rights and Liberty'? Even when the students return?'

'That is it, Headmaster, sir.'

'You can't do that,' Severus said with a smug grin. 'You have to do what you're told by the Headmaster, which is me. So I am telling you that you will continue your duties.'

'The Headmaster is right, sir. We does what you tells us. But the Owing is a greater power.' A new voice, old and gravely, came from the back of the gathered crowd, and there was a collective gasp from the other elves. Many sank to their knees in supplication, and the crowd parted to let the old elf through.

Severus leaned forwards and stared. This house-elf looked even older than Kreacher. His skin hung in soft, grey folds, and large tufts of white hair sprung out of his ears and eyebrows. He was so short that the top of his head stopped at the edge of the large desk, but when he looked up and met the Headmaster's stare with his own, Severus knew he wasn't speaking to an ordinary elf. A pair of half-moon glasses sat on the end of the house-elf's long, pointed nose, but the eyes behind were sharp and knowing. If Severus didn't know better, he might have suspected there was a touch of the goblin about him. He felt as if the elf was seeing into his very soul, and it was quite disconcerting.

'Have we met?' Severus asked. To his surprise, the elf chuckled.

'Not in the flesh, Headmaster. But I is knowing you, Severus Snape. Just as I is knowing every boy-child and girl-child at Hogwarts School.'

Severus was non-plussed, but he schooled his features carefully. 'What do I call you?'

The elf narrowed his gaze slightly. 'They call me The Keeper.'

'The Keeper? The Keeper of the Books?'

Severus sat back and his mouth fell open. He had thought the Keeper was just a myth. His mother had told him fairy stories about the Hogwarts house-elves as a child, and of a secret room where a very old elf sat surrounded by books and was by far the cleverest elf in the whole of the world. He had thought it just make-believe, a story to take his mind off the horror that surrounded their reality. But here was the proof that it was no fairy tale.

'Did you meet my mother?' he whispered.

'Eileen Prince I knew.'

The elf snapped his fingers and Severus felt a pull of magic. He was suddenly not at his desk, but somewhere beneath the castle. An ancient wooden door stood open before him, and he had to bend to walk inside. The Keeper sat at a large table in the centre of the room, and candlelight flickered around the walls. Severus stared at the walls. The maps were half in shadow, but he knew immediately what he was looking at. He turned to speak, but the elf was holding out an ancient scroll to him. An old, purple ribbon was tied around the middle, and he took the scroll and opened it carefully. As he rolled out the cracking parchment, ink started to appear in spidery lines, and Severus realised he was looking at a very old family tree. Without thinking, Severus sat down in the chair that appeared behind him and smoothed the parchment with a shaking hand. He stared at the name at the top of the page in puzzlement.

'This is the family tree of Helga Hufflepuff,' he said in a whisper.

The Keeper said nothing but pointed a knobbly finger to the lower end of the tree, past whole generations of Pureblood families, some of which Severus didn't even recognise. The strand that he had been shown, however, was very familiar to him. The Prince bloodline had all but disappeared at the time of his mother's birth, but there she was, Eileen Prince, the last female member of a bloodline that subsequently ended with Severus himself. That he was related to Helga Hufflepuff was a revelation in itself. That she was responsible for bringing the house-elves to Hogwarts in the first place was something he had always known, but now he felt the weight of family responsibility. What would Auntie Helga expect of her great-nephew, sixty-nine times removed?

He started to tremble and almost didn't notice when a rough hand grabbed his, and he was rudely taken back to his office, where he landed less than gracefully back in his chair. The house-elves were still there, lolling around on various bits of furniture, and as Severus looked up to the top of the bookshelf he realised that one was actually wearing the Sorting Hat. He started to laugh hysterically at the total absurdity of his life. He had a feeling that nothing would ever be normal, and as he wiped the tears from his face, he spoke to Smith and the Keeper with a voice far more sure and confident than he really felt.

'What do I have to do?'

***

The Ministry was buzzing with people when Severus stepped out of the Floo. He mentally drew himself inwards in the hope that his passage would go relatively unnoticed, and followed the signs to the lift. He stepped in after a particularly rotund and sweaty wizard with a personal hygiene issue, and held his breath until he reached his floor. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was set away from the main Ministry offices, for obvious reasons. Severus was grateful that the Beasts Division was even further away than where he was headed. He'd had enough encounters with dangerous animals to last him ten lifetimes. He found the door marked Beings Division and entered as if he did so on a daily basis. There was a large reception area with doors leading from it, and on the wall behind the desk was a large mural of various 'beings' that were classified X or XX by the Classification Department. Severus wondered how he should classify Hermione Granger, but chose to reserve judgement.

The blonde witch behind the desk looked up at him with a wide smile. 'Headmaster Snape, how nice to see you again, sir.'

Severus squinted down at the girl's ample cleavage then slicked his eyes back to her face. 'Brown?'

'That's right. Well, by rights it's Weasley but I kept my maiden name for work purposes,' she replied in an almost conspiratorial whisper.

'You mean you don't want to be hexed by Granger every time she has to be reminded that you stole her fiancée three weeks before her wedding day?' Severus smirked at the pink spots that flush the cheeks of Lavender Weasley, nee Brown. 'That's either very Slytherin or very cowardly of you. It is the estimable Ms. Granger I am here to see, so if you could hurry that along?'

'Yes, Professor Snape.'

This time the witch didn't even look at him, and privately Severus felt rather pleased.

Ronald Weasley was carving out a successful career as a Quidditch commentator for the wizarding radio's sports channel, 'By The Balls', and to all accounts, his exploits before marrying the strumpet were now something of legend. That he was meant to be with Granger at the time hadn't seemed to matter to him, and if the Prophet was to be believed, she had been the last to know. On the other side of the infernal triangle, Potter and the female Weasley were married and had gone travelling for a year or two before settling in Godric's Hollow. He was working as an Architect or Interior Designer or some such and had even worked with Draco on the rebuilding of Malfoy Manor. The way Granger had been treated by Weasley and his bit of fluff was bad enough, but because she was who she was, and they were who they were, the Prophet had made headlines of the story even when it should have been lining the bottom of a bird cage. Sometimes he felt that of all of the Golden Trio, Granger had been given the shitty end of the stick.

'She'll see you now. Second door on the left.'

Lavender Weasley, nee Brown, pointed along the left hand corridor, and Snape nodded with a smirk as he strode towards the door. He rapped briskly, and heard a familiar voice bid him in. Thrusting the door open, he was about to do his best to tell the Granger girl exactly what she needed to do to change the house-elf law and that she should do it immediately, if not sooner. But the sight that met him seemed to rob him of the ability to close his mouth, let alone speak.

Hermione Granger's office was large, even by wizarding standards. It was sleek and pristine, lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves in white, each shelf crammed full with books. Behind the glass-topped desk was a huge picture window, charmed to show a real time moving image of Hyde Park, and the whole room was carpeted in deep lilac shag pile. It was quite simply the most beautiful office he had ever seen, but it wasn't this that made his jaw drop.

Leaning against the desk was a vision of womanly beauty Severus had only ever read about in his mother's old romance novels. Her figure was most definitely hour-glass, her legs shapely and her ankles adorned with deliciously sexy black stiletto heels. She wore a red pencil skirt that hugged her like a second skin. Her shirt was crisp, clean white, with a perky collar and one too many buttons opened at the neck. There was the briefest hint of white lace and cleavage, covered just slightly by lustrous waves and tumbles of tamed and well cared for tresses in a deep shade of chestnut brown. Her skin was flawless, her eye make-up barely there but effectively accentuating her large, brown eyes. Her lips were slicked with peachy gloss, and as she caught his eye and smiled, she dazzled him with her beautiful teeth and the little dimple that leant a cheeky lilt to her stunning mouth. She was moving towards him now, her hips swaying, her shirt stretching across her chest and she walked. She held out a perfectly manicured hand, and he took it without thinking. Her grip was warm and firm and his fingers tingled beneath her touch.

'Headmaster. It's so lovely to see you looking so well. I imagine the school holidays have something to do with that? I've ordered up some coffee, and I brought in some home-made muffins. I hope that's acceptable?' She grinned at him, and he noticed the flecks of amber in her eyes and the bronze streaks in her hair. He knew he should say something, etiquette demanded it off him.

'Weasley was a bloody fool,' he said with a sigh.

Which wasn't what he had wanted to say at all.