Part Second: The Hart Rampant: Chapter 19

Chapter 19:

At ten minutes to one a.m., Emily was waiting at the Hogsmeade gate. She was nervously pacing back and forth, half-convinced that Snape had changed his mind about this somewhere between his office and the greenhouses, and had gone back to bed and washed his hands of her.

But a moment later, Snape materialised a few paces away, to her intense relief. "Professor? Where are we going?" he asked impatiently.

"St. George's Hospital. It's in Summerstown. London."

"Well and good, but that description won't really help me get there, madam," he said. "Do you perhaps have a map, or directions?"

"Er, no, I thought I was going to go back alone, so... " Emily said apologetically. "Sorry about this, pardon me – " Then she stepped up to him, and very gingerly put her arms around his neck.

A second later, they had both disappeared with a crack of Apparition.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

As Snape watched, his surroundings abruptly changed from the outskirts of the woods around Hogwarts to a small room containing a battered desk and chair. Professor Swain wasted no time in letting go of him and taking a few steps away, in what he thought was perhaps an overly elaborate show of respect for his personal space. He had to be rather hard on many of his students, granted, but he didn't think she had any reason to believe he was in the habit of savaging people with his teeth.

"Emily?" A thin, terrified voice cried out, clearly startled by the sound of Apparition. "Is that you?"

Snape looked up to see a young, dark-haired girl in a loose white gown lying on an institutional-looking metal-framed cot in the room just in front of them. There was a plastic bag half-full of clear liquid suspended from a metal stand next to her bed, which was dripping into a plastic tube at a steady pace. The other end of that tube was attached to the girl's hand with surgical tape. His colleague was at her side in a second, squeezing her untaped hand in reassurance. "Yes, Liria. You knew I'd come back."

"You were gone for a really long time," the girl wailed, fetching up with a long, dry sob and huddling onto Professor Swain's shoulder. Drawing close enough to get a good look at her, Snape noticed that she really was a girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen at most, barely older than his oldest students. She was clearly another Arcadian Faerie, with pointed ears visible through her lank black hair and eyes like huge orbs of unrelieved black. No Glamour that he could detect, so this must be her real appearance.

Snape had seen two healthy-seeming members of her race before, and thus was somewhat acquainted with the extreme pallor that seemed typical of their kind – but this young lady seemed weaker and whiter than skim milk, leaning heavily on his colleague's shoulder, as though sitting up in bed had taken all the strength she had. Professor Swain had said, Someone I know is extremely sick, and her conviction had been such that it had never occurred to him to doubt her word. But that was before he had been able to gauge their patient's condition for himself.

Oh, good Lord.

The dark, pale girl looked like nothing so much as one of the malarial fever patients he had read descriptions of in nineteenth-century novels. She was shivering uncontrollably, but her face and chest were covered with cold sweat, and her hands were trembling as if with a mild palsy. The signs of living with this addiction were also evident on her body – she looked malnourished, famine-victim thin. Her elbows and knees looked sharp, there were deep wells of emptiness around her collarbones, and he could see every finely articulated bone in her hands, and at the back of her neck. Snape had previously thought Professor Swain was of an insubstantial build, but compared to this waif, she looked positively robust.

"Em? Well, that was a lot quicker than I thought." A tall, redheaded woman in Muggle clothes and a white coat approached them from another room off to the left.

"Catherine, Liria, may I present Professor Severus Snape, my colleague, and Potions master at Hogwarts School," Emily said, still holding the girl to her side. "Professor, this is Dr. Catherine Orson, a physician here at St. George's Hospital. And – " she glanced down at the girl, " – this is... Miss Liria." Their patient, whomever she was, did not seem to have a surname. She could have been the lost heir of Faerie or the daughter of illiterate rag pickers.

"Professor," Dr. Orson said, coming forward and shaking his hand in a calm, professional manner. If this woman, who seemed to be a Muggle by all appearances, was in the slightest unnerved by a Faerie and a wizard suddenly materialising in her hospital, she didn't show it in the least. "Thank you very much for coming yourself, sir, especially so late and on such short notice."

"Doctor," he said, returning her handshake with cool formality. He turned toward the girl on the bed. "Miss," he said, greeting her with as much dignity as he could under the circumstances.

"Thank you. I'm really sorry to bother you, sir," their patient quavered. This surprised him – most people he knew would not have appreciated the value of someone else's time while in her condition. Lost princess or rag picker's brat, this child had grace.

They were bothering him, truth be told. Snape would have greatly preferred to still be lying in his bed at that moment, drinking whiskey and reading one of his favourite books, without ever having heard of a Muggle doctor and some little heroin-addicted Faerie in London. But somehow, at that moment, he couldn't find it within himself to take this miserable waif to account for exactly how much she had inconvenienced him. "Quite all right," he replied brusquely, then turned back to Dr. Orson. "Now, Doctor, I'll need a hearth, somewhere to set up a small cauldron... ?"

"This way." She motioned him toward the room from whence she had just come. "Will a large beaker and Bunsen burner do?"

His brows creased. "Pardon me, but what exactly is a Bunsen burner?"

"Come on, I'll show you."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Dr. Orson led him into the makeshift laboratory adjacent to the clinic ward. Snape put his coat aside, opened his satchel, and got down to work.

"I'll need some sort of container for the main mixture, and about five smaller ones for infusions and the like. I trust you have some sterile glucose solution, the sort of thing used for nutritional IVs? Good. Thank you. Now, as to the heat source, the burner you mentioned? If you have more than one of them, this will actually go a great deal faster."

The Bunsen burner was a metal tube with a stand at one end, and an open nozzle at the other, attached to a rubber tube. When Dr. Orson opened a valve of some sort, and then put a lit match to the nozzle – a jet of blue flame sprang up. She could apparently contain the intensity of the flame by opening or shutting the valve attached to the tube. It wouldn't have been of any use for potions which specifically needed to be heated over particular sorts of woods or coals for the proper magical effects to be imbued into the mixture, but for straightforward heating, this sort of thing seemed wonderfully convenient.

"Really quite ingenious," he said softly, fitting beakers into wire stands above the burners. Then he turned back to Dr. Orson. "Now, if you please, madam, I'll need you to step out of the room for about three quarters of an hour or so. I'll send Professor Swain for you when the potion is ready to be administered."

Dr. Orson fixed him with a keen, green-eyed gaze. "Why? I thought I would assist you."

"It's nothing personal, Doctor. But compounding a magical potion in front of a Muggle goes against everything I've been taught about concealing Wizarding magic from Muggles," Snape said tersely. "It's bad enough that you heard Apparition go on. In my world, it's a punishable violation of the law to perform magic in front of a non-magical person."

"Yes, I know," she replied.

"And... I would hate for the Ministry Obliviators to meddle with you in any way," Snape finished.

"Don't worry. You wouldn't be compounding it in front of a non-magical person," Dr. Orson interjected. She held her hand palm up between them, and her lips moved silently. A green branch seemed to grow from her outstretched palm, put forth leaves, buds, and a single scarlet rose, which then withered, and fell to dust, and vanished... all in the space of perhaps five seconds. "There's no one here who can't use magic. I helped devise the composition of this potion, and I've made it from scratch any number of times myself."

Snape stared at her. It was the most surprised he could remember having been since the day he discovered that a certain lady who introduced herself as a Cambridge folklore professor could also have listed "Faery knight commander" on her résumé.

"Impressive," he said softly. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, you were born a Muggle, Doctor. But you've created your own True Name?"

Catherine grinned at him. "Some people are born with magical ability," she said, nodding in his direction. "And some people go off to the Faerielands and achieve it," she said, indicating herself.

"And I would imagine some of our Muggle-born students would say it had been thrust upon them," Professor Swain interjected, coming up on the both of them. "Anything I can do to help speed things up?"

"Yes, there is." Snape drew a stoppered jar containing a wad of solidified plant resin out of his satchel. "Measure off two even grams of that and then dissolve it in an half an ounce of neutral glucose solution, then keep it simmering – simmering, not boiling – under a constant low heat for thirty minutes."

Snape turned back to Dr. Orson as his colleague fell to work. "Shall I prepare the infusions, then?" she asked. "That would give you time to inactivate the poppy sap."

His response was to put several bottles and a box of fine mesh cloth squares in front of her on the counter. "Excellent idea, Doctor," he said, and began rolling up his sleeves.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Between the three of them, the detox potion was ready in slightly over half an hour. Snape cooled it quickly with a Tepidus charm, then strained it through his finest mesh sieve, lined with even finer cloth mesh, into an IV bag, and performed a Sterilis charm to render the mixture clean and entirely uncontaminated and thus safe to be intravenously infused. Dr. Orson sealed the top of the bag with a heavy metal tie, then carefully squeezed out all the air bubbles. She replaced Liria's glucose IV bag, now much depleted, with the bag of pale yellow detox potion. Snape thought the level of tension in that room lessened palpably as the opiate inhibitor began to drip into their patient's vein.

The sleeve of Liria's hospital gown had slid down to her elbow when the doctor lifted her hand to check the IV needle, and Snape caught a glimpse of the ugly aftermath of any number of injections. The lack of any comfortable padding of flesh on Liria's body made the ropy veins in the insides of her elbows stand sharply out from the muscle and bone, so that the inflamed, sometimes infected tracks of the needle were cruelly apparent. Someone had also been wrenching her around by the arm as well – the imprints of someone's meaty fingers were bruised into her flesh. The sight set off a deep, unsettling pang of recognition within him.

"Stupid needle hurts," Liria said fretfully, looking down at the IV in her hand. She was spending a lot of time hunched onto Professor Swain's shoulder as though his colleague was the only person she trusted in this world or any other.

"Dr. Orson, I have a bit of Numbing Potion, if that will make the IV less uncomfortable," Snape said quietly. "I also couldn't help but notice that the young lady's arms are in rather bad shape, and I also happen to have some Healing Potion with me. I can bring both out, if you could use it."

"I can't describe how great that would be," Catherine whispered back, gratefully. "Could you please?"

Snape disappeared into the laboratory, was back a moment later with bottles of a clear solution and translucent blue Healing Potion. Dr. Orson soaked a cotton pad in the blue potion and applied it to the insides of Liria's arms, making her twitch – "That itches." But thankfully, the flesh healed over, smoothly and cleanly, as though the injuries had never existed at all.

As Snape watched those bruises and lacerations wiped away, something that had been clenched in his chest for a very long time relaxed slightly and allowed itself to be comforted, if only for a moment.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Liria's feverish trembling quickly began to subside, and she relaxed into heavy-eyed exhaustion on his colleague's shoulder as the potion began to take effect. Dr. Orson busied herself with preparing the general anaesthesia. "All right, honey, it's time to go to sleep," she said. "I'm going to need to put you under for about twelve hours, but when you wake up, you'll feel lots better right away."

"Cat – before you do, Liria has some questions about the detox potion," Professor Swain said.

"I just want to know... " Liria indicated the IV bag above her. She looked sleepy, a touch defiant, like a little girl refusing to accept that it's bedtime. "What is that? I know what it does, but... why? I'm sorry to bother you... "

"No, don't apologise. That's a perfectly reasonable question," Catherine said.

"Absolutely," Snape agreed. "It's going into your veins, after all – you should want to know what it is."

Catherine turned toward Snape. "I don't claim to be a teaching physician, so would you mind, sir?"

"All right, I suppose." He went back into the laboratory for the compounding prescription, then crossed to Liria and handed it to her. Then, he pulled up a chair beside her bed. Professor Swain detached herself from Liria's side with a comforting last hug, and left them alone to talk.

"This is a list of the ingredients that went into the potion, and their concentrations. The reason the first component, poppy resin, is present, is to... "

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

He went on to explain it to her, component by component, and every step of the compounding process, in simple, succinct layman's terms. Not for nothing was this man known for the effortless way he could hold a class's attention without so much as raising his voice, Emily thought. Strict, harsh, and terrifying or not, there was no denying that Snape was an expert in his field and an extremely effective teacher.

Catherine started the general anaesthesia once Liria seemed satisfied with the explanation. It began to take effect as Snape finished his description of its effect on her body, and the girl began to nod, groggily apologising to Snape for her inattention. "No matter. You need your rest," he said. His tone was brusque, but it effectively excused her from worrying about perceived rudeness.

His supremely calm and confident manner could not have been more reassuring to anyone, let alone this sick young woman facing an extremely uncertain future. Which was, Emily recalled, exactly the way he had treated her on the night she had burned her hand at Malfeasant – but at the time, she had been in too much pain and felt too embarrassed and self-conscious to notice. She remembered with a sharp pang of self-reproach that she had never thanked him for treating her and for his discretion regarding the elves that weekend.

Snape was not his usual haughty, buttoned-up, black-robed self at that moment; his shirtsleeves were rolled up and his collar unbuttoned. It was now very late at night, and his eyes were red-veined and his usual erect posture was drooping with fatigue. But at that moment, had he needed for her to take an egg away from the biggest, most aggressive Hungarian Horntail in existence while simultaneously dodging flaming arrows and translating Joyce's Ulysses into ancient Urdu, she would have whipped out a flameproof shield and an ancient Urdu lexicon and gotten right down to it.

Catherine stood next to her, also watching Snape explaining the potion to Liria. She turned to Emily with a quizzical expression. "I thought you said this guy was a mean bastard," she whispered.

"Maybe I was a little hasty," Emily replied.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

When Liria was deeply asleep and resting comfortably, Dr. Orson dimmed the lights in the clinic and the three of them withdrew to the laboratory to brew up another batch of the opiate inhibitor potion, the treatment prescription that Liria was to dose herself with for the next six months. They worked at a slower, more relaxed pace now that their patient had no immediate needs.

Dr. Orson handed the bottles of Healing and Numbing Potion back to Snape with some reluctance. "I'd give my eye-teeth to be able to use wizard Healing Potion at this hospital. That stuff is bloody miraculous," she told him. "I wish I could have the whole Wizarding pharmacy at my disposal here. Pepper-Up Potion, Skele-Gro, Healing Potion, Mandrake Restorative Draught, poison antidotes, Burn-Healing Paste, all of it."

"You've never given in to the temptation to use a few Wizarding potions here and there?" Snape asked, fitting the bottles back into his satchel.

"Well... okay, I may have dosed a few people with really horrific fractures with Skele-Gro once or twice, without their knowledge," she admitted. "And... maybe I've swabbed a bit of Healing Potion on anaesthetised patients on the operating table. And maybe I let my friend Laurent Collier keep me in Pepper-Up Potion for colds." She gave Snape a rueful look. "If I could claim the patent for Pepper-Up Potion, and then sell it on the Muggle market, do you have any idea how much money I would make?"

Professor Swain looked up from watching a simmering beaker. "If I can't present the three lost works of Shakespeare to the Cambridge literature faculty, you are just shite out of luck, darling," she said, also ruefully.

"Emily, we are talking about the cure for the common cold here, you don't understand what that would mean to us Muggles, my blue-blooded friend. My God, it exists, and I can't tell anybody about it."

"The law is the law, Doctor," Snape interjected, a note of severity in his voice. "I didn't write the bylaws against using magic in front of Muggles, but I'll suffer the penalties if I break them, and so will your friend Collier." He turned toward Professor Swain. "Speaking of which, Professor – earlier tonight, you said that Liria ended up in this condition because 'she went to a doctor in the first place.' Now – if some wizard Healer, or Muggle physician, is overprescribing opiate painkillers to such an extent that his patients are ending up addicted to them, so that they then turn to street drugs in order to satisfy that addiction, there really should be a disciplinary action of some sort brought against him. I'd like to know what the both of you intend to do about this apparently ongoing situation." He fixed his colleague with a steely look. "And I'm afraid 'I can't tell you that' is not an acceptable answer, Professor."

"All right, all right," she said, chastened. "I guess we'll have to tell him, Cat."

"I understand how it must have sounded to you, sir, but the Faery addiction problem here isn't caused by physician or Healer malpractice," Dr. Orson said, with an air of stepping in between them. "The doctor who prescribed morphine to Liria most likely gave her what he thought was the safe dosage her injury warranted – the problem was, he treated her in the same way he would have treated a human, without realising that you simply cannot do that with the Fae. This problem isn't being caused by human error – this situation can occur whenever you introduce an organism into a new environment. Given a millennia, they'll build up a resistance and adapt, but for now, there are dangers. Faeries have to be careful in our world."

"Don't I know it," Professor Swain muttered ruefully. "Remind me to tell you about a little accident I had during a dinner party with a wrought-iron teacup, Cat." She flexed her right hand thoughtfully in front of her.

"I'll bet that hurt like a cast-iron bitch," Dr. Orson said.

"Quite literally. One second I'm having this nice conversation, and the next, I could smell my skin cooking," she said, with a grimace. Then, to Snape's great surprise, she turned toward him and said: "I'm... really grateful for your help that night, sir. I'm sorry I didn't make more of an effort to thank you that evening." Given that she was apologising for not making more of an effort to thank him on the same evening that he had let her know in no uncertain terms that he was furious with her, this was a bit of uncharacteristic humility on her part.

"You're welcome," he said, averting his eyes. Despite the fact that he often longed for thanks and recognition with every cell and sinew in him, the rare occasions on which he received it often embarrassed him. He glanced from Faerie to Muggle, his brows knitting. "But, I'm still a bit confused. How is that iron burn related to Liria's illness tonight?"

"You see, sir, there are substances that occur in your world that don't occur in ours, and when we encounter them here, they can be dangerous to us," Professor Swain explained. "You've already seen what happens with iron, of course. But then there are stimulants. And opiates."

"You would not believe how fast Faeries can get addicted to opiates. A single dose of prescription morphine will, in all likelihood, leave one of them physically addicted to it," Dr. Orson said grimly. "That's what happened to Liria."

"Why is that?" Snape asked her, in consternation.

"No inherited tolerance for it," she replied. "Opiates hit a Faerie like Agent Orange in the virgin rainforest. The effect is devastating." Snape had no idea what Agent Orange was, but from the tone of her voice, he inferred that it was something very toxic and horrible indeed.

"There are examples of the reverse as well," Professor Swain said. "Certain substances that I can shrug off would hit you like a ton of bricks."

"Such as?" he queried.

"Such as – never try to drink all the wine these folks will serve you at their welcome banquets," Dr. Orson muttered, pressing her hand to her temple with an expressive grimace. "That was the best food, and worst hangover, of my life."

Professor Swain smiled drolly at her, then turned back to Snape. "It's like the good doctor said – I can drink alcohol all day every day," she said. "We drink liquor with every meal at home, including breakfast, and my liver can take it. A human who tried to drink like a Faerie would destroy his liver in a year or two. But if I was put on a morphine drip right after surgery or what have you, I would end up going through opiate withdrawal afterward, just like Liria was tonight."

"This isn't the first time you've met one of your countrymen in this situation, is it," Snape asked.

"No, it's not," she replied quietly. "And Catherine sees even more of them."

"So, I got together with a wizard healer friend to adapt a Muggle drug to treat it," Catherine replied. "The reason we had to bother you tonight, sir, was because I treated another heroin-addicted patient earlier this week and hadn't had a chance to get more potion ingredients."

"You worked with a wizard healer? How on Earth did you meet him?" Snape asked, curious.

"I didn't meet him on Earth, actually, I met him in Arcadia," Dr. Orson replied.

"Oh, this is probably a good time to explain to you what a Tithe page is, sir," Professor Swain said, turning back to him. Snape was again surprised by this – he would have thought that she would conveniently forget his question of earlier in the evening. "Every seven years, during peacetime, the Third Kingdom asks seven of the most promising members of the intelligent races of the Second World to spend a year and a day at the royal Court. Catherine here was one of those Tithe pages back in 1978, and while she was there, she became great friends with a student mediwizard named Laurent Collier," she explained. "Now they're probably the two foremost human experts on Faery medicine."

"You are too kind," Dr. Orson muttered.

"Just giving credit where it's due," Professor Swain replied.

The detox potion was now mostly finished; Snape's eyes lingered on his colleague as she re-stoppered bottles and jars and began putting them next to his black satchel, sitting open on a corner of the laboratory counter.

"Actually... why don't you leave the components here, Professor," he said quietly. "I'm sure Dr. Orson can use them. I have more back at school, and none of them were too wildly expensive. I can certainly obtain more."

Dr. Orson looked at him in frank astonishment. "Thank you so much, sir, you've been a godsend tonight," she said, and shook his hand very warmly and respectfully.

"Think nothing of it," Snape replied shortly, both pleased and acutely embarrassed by all this unabashed gratitude. Peripherally, he could see Professor Swain watching him with a keen, searching expression on her face – but she remained silent.

"But if you don't mind, Doctor, I'd like to know how you came up with this opiate inhibitor potion," Snape said, indicating the beakers and components in front of them. "How exactly did you do it?"

"After Laurent and I had seen enough cases of opiate addiction, we just both decided something had to be done," she told him. "The theory came from Muggle medicine – there's an entire medical speciality devoted to treating substance addiction. Humans, as you know, also get addicted to opiates, just not anywhere near as fast as Faeries do. My friend Laurent and I studied various Muggle drugs and Wizard potions used to treat it, and we came up with a variant for Faeries through the usual trial and error and guesswork. Our first patient was one extremely brave satyr Laurent had been treating – if anyone has the constitution to take physical extremes, it's one of them. He went on to make a full recovery, and Laurent and I put our potion into broader use.

"What was really difficult, though, was putting it through any kind of clinical trial," she continued. "Many of the Fae patients who could benefit from our help unfortunately have a real aversion to seeking out medical treatment from a human. And then it's hard to get measurable data even from patients who do present for treatment – Faeries really don't like to be studied or quantified, you see."

"Yes, I've noticed," Snape said, only slightly in Professor Swain's direction, and with only the slightest tone of pointed sarcasm in his voice.

"It's hard to study their physiology, because of their social attitudes. Ask one of them for a blood sample and they'll say sure, sounds like a great idea – and then you turn your back, and they'll have vanished."

"Not all of us," Professor Swain protested quietly – more in his direction than Dr. Orson's, he thought. "How many gratuitous x-rays and blood samples have I let you take?"

"You're right, you're right – present company excluded," Dr. Orson said in a conciliatory tone. "It's just happened often enough with other people to be frustrating, that's all."

Snape scowled eloquently, but said nothing. Professor Swain, however, darted a rather uncomfortable look at him, then got up and excused herself, saying she wanted to go check on Liria. He was now accustomed to the way she often made herself scarce the second she took a dislike to the tenor of a discussion, but he restrained any number of biting sarcastic comments in her direction as she left the room.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Dr. Orson followed the direction of his gaze with a rueful little grin. "She's not upset, don't worry," she muttered, aside to Snape. "If she was, we wouldn't be able to see her. That whole 'Oh no, I'm getting pressure from a human, time to disappear!' thing is practically reflexive with them."

"I know," Snape said, through gritted teeth. "And it's damned annoying."

"Yes, it sure is," Catherine agreed readily. "But you see, they think it diminishes their power if outsiders know too much about them. They're so prudish about personal information sometimes it's ridiculous. Put it this way – they've had written language for over three thousand years, and known about our written language for longer than that, but the leading Faery historians think that writing has only really come into common usage in Arcadia in the last six centuries."

"That doesn't seem like that brief of a time to me," Professor Snape said. "The printing press has only been in use since the sixteenth century."

"But humans have had written language in some form or another for five thousand years – and think how many generations that is. Keep in mind, Professor – these people typically live to be over a hundred and seventy – and their life expectancy gets longer all the time. To them, six hundred years is only about four generations. People like Emily and Gwydion, who are willing to teach Fae magic to humans, and employ scholars to keep written academic records, are the really progressive ones amongst them. There are hard-line Faeries out there who think the Fae shouldn't have any contact with humans – they want destroy all the portals and not keep written records at all."

Catherine measured off another two grams of plant resin and began dissolving it in the glucose solution, a reflective look on her face. "Because of the lack of written records, it's hard to come up with any kind of medical history for them as a group. You can pick up some clues from their ballads and stories, though – that's the reason why they started writing language down, you know, is so they could record stories and poems and songs. Some of the earlier tales include accounts of things like plagues, so they've definitely had mass outbreaks of communicable diseases. They're also extremely experienced in using natural and magical remedies to cure injury and disease – they've got their own versions of most of the major wizard and Muggle medicines.

"But Laurent and I both think it's desperately important that someone with modern knowledge of eradicating disease start studying the Fae, and fast. Because, you see, something already has jumped the human-Faery species barrier thousands of years ago. Something benign, but we might not be so lucky with whatever makes it next."

"What is it that's already jumped the barrier?" Snape began to prepare more infusion bags, as a pretence to draw closer to his new colleague, and covertly continue this line of questioning.

"Gametes, Professor – reproductive material. Emily's got a wizard father and a Muggle grandmother. So you see, it's only a matter of time before other organisms manage it too, and some of them might not be so pleasant. You've perhaps heard stories about entire Native American tribes dying off due to infections of chicken pox brought over by European settlers? Of isolated South American tribes dying from influenza? Well, I don't want to see something like... bronchitis kill off their entire civilisation. I also don't want to see, maybe, the white fever, which is their equivalent of influenza, become the next Ebola here."

Snape surveyed the woman beside him with some admiration. "That's a noble endeavour," he replied. "Especially for a very few people to undertake."

Dr. Orson grinned at him and nodded at Emily, who was still bent over Liria in the next room. "We've got a few friends who are willing to help."

"What have you managed to find out so far? I'm still hugely curious as to why Faeries have blue blood."

"My theory was that it's blue because there's no iron in it. When I examined some blood samples, I didn't find any red blood cells, so I do think that's the case. Then I thought that maybe they breathe air for the nitrogen, not the oxygen, but they have the same physical reaction to breathing pure oxygen that humans do, so they must need the oxygen as well. Now I'm trying to figure out how their blood is oxygenated without having the iron atom in it to bond with the oxygen."

Now Catherine was speaking his language – pure science – and Snape was fascinated. "Any theories?"

"Well, they don't really have our kind of haemoglobin. I think their blood uses some kind of fluorine molecule instead of an iron atom, but I'm still working on the exact composition. I'm hoping Emily will give me a blood sample before she goes – she's always been an interesting subject for study because she's got so much human genetic ancestry but still manages to be a fully functional shapechanger."

"'Human genetic ancestry,'" Snape repeated, in a thoughtful tone. "I've known for awhile that Muggles had developed a technology capable of examining DNA, the genetic code of all living things. I was wondering, Doctor – "

"Please, sir, just call me Catherine," she said.

"All right – Catherine," Snape said politely. "I find the idea of being able to examine the... blueprint of life, if you will, to be extremely interesting. Tell me, have you ever examined a Faerie's DNA strand?"

"Yes, when I can actually talk one of them into giving me a blood or tissue sample. I'm no geneticist, I only know what I've learned about DNA analysis from med school, and I can't always get access to the equipment here. But I tell you, this stuff is fascinating. Their DNA is organised exactly the same way ours is, in strands of chromosome pairings. The most humanlike of Faeries, boggins, have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, just like we do. Sidhe have twenty-six pairs. Shapechangers, like Emily, have even more. In some ways, the Fae appear far more genetically diverse than humans, and in others, they're almost uniform."

"How so?" Snape asked, leaning forward with a look of keen interest.

"There are human physical characteristics that you never see in Faeries. Stand a crowd of humans next to a crowd of Faeries, and you'll see that the humans have stuff like beards, hirsutism, epicanthic folds, dwarfism, left-handedness, unattached earlobes, wisdom teeth, male pattern baldness, the tendency towards multiple births that just don't happen with Faeries. For example, Faery twin births are so rare that they're considered a major omen of prosperity to come. As far as I can tell, there has never been a documented case of even triplets amongst them. The tendency to store large amounts of fat or muscle only occurs with trolls and some animal pookas.

"But, on the other hand, you get a huge assortment of various races with different characteristics among them. Emily's a faun, a deer changeling. You also have satyrs, the Naga, dryads, naiads, all kinds of various changelings. Then you also get pookas, which are sentient animals – their DNA is nearly identical to that of a non-sentient animal. There's less than a one percent difference genetically between a tiger pooka and an ordinary tiger, but somehow pooka can talk, walk upright, have political debates, use tools and weapons, create art, all that kind of stuff. I love animal pookas – imagine knowing a huge fox, panther, eagle, or tiger who can talk, but who still likes to be scratched behind the ears. My surgical assistant in Arcadia was a gorilla pooka and she was the best nurse I'd ever met."

"What race is Liria considered a part of?" he asked. "I'd seen a couple of her sort in Diagon Alley some time ago. I'm curious – they have a very distinctive sort of look to them."

"Liria's a sluagh," Catherine said. "They all have that kind of black and white colouring. You're right, it's a very distinctive look – sluagh get a bad rap a lot of the time. It's not fair, but they do."

"Why is that?" Snape asked.

"Well, the royal family of the Ninth Kingdom is made up of sluagh, and the Ninth is the poorest one of them, and has the worst weather because it's farthest to the north, and the one that's been most beaten down by Orcs. There's all kinds of negative European folklore about them – humans used to say sluagh were the ghosts of dead sinners and such. Also some people think they look sort of scary, what with the chalk-white skin, the black hair, the big black eyes and the low voices. So they're not the most cheerful lot at times.

"But knowing Emily, I'm not surprised that she has a mile-wide soft spot for sluagh." Catherine gave a bitter little laugh and glanced warily toward his colleague, as though she didn't want to offend her by being overheard talking about her.

"How so?"

"She was married to one," Catherine said softly, aside to him. "Her husband Dorien was of the same race as Liria."

"Really," Snape said. "I didn't know that."

"Yes, well... he died, awhile back. It was... " Catherine sighed. "It was hard on her."

"Yes... a mutual acquaintance of the Professor's and mine mentioned that. Probably rather callous of him, all told," Snape said stiffly. "Very tragic circumstances."

"You're telling me," Catherine said with an edge to her voice. She stared down at her hands, the corner of her mouth twisting with bitterness, then looked up. "You know, we're just about finished up here and I am absolutely dying for a cup of coffee, and I know Emily won't go for one with me. I have a coffeepot in my office downstairs. Want to walk down with me and get some?"

"Yes, actually I think I could use a cup about now," Snape said.

"Come on. I'll Obscure you on the way down."

"No need, I'll do it myself."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Catherine's office was extremely interesting – Snape would have liked to spend a few hours just browsing through the books on her shelves. Physician's Desk Reference. Gray's Anatomy. Any number of specialised dictionaries and reference books full of long, long Latin and Greek words. In short, his idea of interesting light reading.

Catherine busied herself with a coffee maker. It looked as though she liked Snape's favourite sort of coffee, the kind of coarse ground Colombian in a French press that produced unbelievably black, oily, flavourful brew. She also took it black.

"I'm sorry, I'm tired, and I still get a little worked up when I think about what happened to Dorien." Catherine said, handing him a steaming cup. "Old Nevermiss was a good friend of mine – we met during the last war. He went on this insane rescue mission once, ended up in my field hospital – he was always in my field hospital. So there he was, half dead with blood loss, two short bow darts sticking out of his shoulder, and all he wanted was to know how Emily was. And then he didn't even get three years with her."

"I'm sorry," Snape said quietly. He felt awkward; clearly Tumnus's death had a great deal of emotional resonance to both Catherine and Professor Swain, but he was very much the outsider here. Beyond the usual I'm sorry for your loss, he had no idea as to what else to say.

"He did not deserve to die like that," Catherine said. Then she coughed, took a moment to compose herself, turning aside to dab at her eyes with a tissue. "I know a lot of people think she should have let the King deal with Jayson, but I don't blame her. If I could use a sword like Emily can, I might have done the same in her position."

"You're the third person I've heard refer to some stigma attached to trial by combat," Snape said with a thoughtful sip of coffee. "I thought it was legal in Arcadia."

"It's legal at Arcadian common law. But in your more progressive kingdoms, it really doesn't happen very often," she told him. "In the Seventh Kingdom, sure, they're all for it, happens all the time, it's practically a spectator sport. But in the Third Kingdom, the majority opinion is that trial by combat should be outlawed. They're moving toward a more modern legal system – you know, guilt determined by an impartial judge, not decided by who's dead after a duel. Gwydion isn't in favour of it being practiced in his kingdom, and Emily usually supports all of Gwydion's opinions. But after Dorien died... I don't think she was exactly worrying about what made for the best social policy."

"And Professor Swain is the King's great-niece, his relative. So if she openly defied his known opinions, insisted on settling the matter herself by a process of law he doesn't approve of... could that be seen as a statement of no confidence in the King's justice?" Snape questioned. He reflected to himself that perhaps there was a reason that the Third Kingdom's sovereign had suddenly decided to send his twice-decorated great-niece off to "the Second World" for a year and a day, other than her competence as a teacher.

"Well... that really depends on whose opinion you're asking," Catherine said, with an uncomfortable look. "I think most people realised that she did it because she was furious, and because she could. She's a Master-At-Arms – there aren't many who could take her, and no one knows that better than she does, believe me. When I was there in '78, I must have seen her systematically disassemble Jayson on the fencing green a million times. I don't know what that little punk was thinking." She shook her head, blowing on her coffee. "I don't think anyone does."

"It's just come to me – I recall Professor Swain saying something about a Muggle friend of hers who served as a Fianna combat medic. That must have been you, correct?" Snape asked. He thought it was high time to change the subject, from the way Catherine's mood took a turn for the morose on the subject of Dorien Tumnus.

"I was a combat medic, yes, but no, I was never in the Fianna proper. My mother is a senior medical officer, but I didn't hold any official rank – I was just a volunteer. They don't let us iron-forging humans in, and never have."

"'Iron-forging humans' – ?"

"Oh, that's just one of the names some of the less human-friendly of them use. Iron-forgers, round-ears, ironbloods. Anything to do with iron is the height of nasty to them."

"I can imagine," Snape said, nodding. "Forgive me – you said your mother is a senior medical officer a moment ago, but then referred to yourself as one of us humans a moment later. And I recall Professor Swain saying something about how the Fae armed forces don't accept human recruits. So... your mother must be a Faerie herself?"

"She is – she's one of the boggin race. But I'm human. Round ears, red blood cells and all."

He just looked at her, his black eyes keen with curiosity.

"Oh, you want to know how that works," Catherine said with a laugh. "Yes, humans can give birth to Faeries and Faeries can give birth to humans – it's all a matter of which genes are dominant. My friend Laurent's mother is a human witch who married a sidhe Faerie – now he has two Fae half-brothers. But my boggin great-grandfather married a Muggle Tithe page, and then their boggin daughter married another Muggle Tithe page, and then their boggin daughter married yet another Muggle Tithe page – my mother and my father. So the Fae characteristics aren't dominant any more."

"So you can only volunteer as a field surgeon, and can't join the Arcadian military proper, and be awarded honours and such."

Catherine shrugged. "They made it clear that they appreciated me. I always felt like a fully accepted part of the group, not a member of a despised alien race or something. Hey, I don't like tattoos anyway," she said with a short laugh – but Snape thought he detected just the smallest touch of bitterness. "But then, I was in the Third Kingdom – like I said, they're about as open-minded regarding non-Fae as they come. If I'd been in the Seventh Kingdom, I probably would have gotten treated like monkey shite, if they didn't refuse my help outright. They've never practiced the Tithe in the Seventh Kingdom, put it that way."

"Your time in the war... what was it like?" Snape asked. "I have to admit I'm terribly curious."

"Oh dear Mother, I've got a million stories. I could talk your ear off," Catherine said, with a warning smile.

"Well... we do have three quarters of a pot of excellent coffee left," Snape said, in a leading tone that encouraged his companion to discourse on this subject as long as she wanted.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

By the time they went through that pot of coffee, he was enthralled.

"Emily goes about command completely differently than her mother," Catherine was saying. "Their leadership styles are like night and day. Before a battle, Elaine will be making the grand St. Crispin's Day kind of speeches until you feel like you could slaughter every Orc in the Kingdoms yourself. She's gorgeous, Elaine is, like a marble statue of a goddess or something. Before she's done, you're convinced the sun shines out of her arse. You'd do anything for her.

"Emily, now, she doesn't say anything. No speeches, nothing. She just waits. Nonchalantly polishing her sword the whole time, like there's anything in this world or any other that could make that thing any sharper. Acts like the Orc army is inconveniencing her by picking on her town. Then she makes a single obeisance to the sky, to the Mother Goddess... and starts methodically killing Orcs. Makes it look easy. She doesn't even look to see if anyone's following her onto the battlefield, but they all do. Em's always more willing to do something dangerous herself than have any of her people do it. She takes it really personally if any of them get hurt – it's like she thinks she should be able to protect all of them herself."

Catherine looked at Snape and shook her head wonderingly. "Both of them are really something to see."

"I can imagine," Snape said quietly.

"Ask anybody what they think of Elaine, and they'll rhapsodise about how she's the second coming of Finn Mac Cumhnail, what a great warrior she is, et cetera. Ask anyone what they think of Em, and they only ever have one thing to say."

"What's that?"

"She's committed," Catherine said. Then she roused herself, glancing at the clock on her desk. "Damn, it's past three a.m. – I've got to be to work in four hours. I should head back up to the clinic and check on Liria."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Snape followed her back upstairs to the hidden clinic, where Liria was still deeply asleep, curled up on her side. Professor Swain was sitting on the wide windowsill by Liria's bed. She looked up with an air of having been waiting for them.

"There's a spare bed, sir, did you want to take a nap?" Catherine asked him.

"No, why don't you go ahead," he replied, even though he was so tired his eyes were burning. "I'll just rest here for a bit." He sat down at the anteroom desk and let his head fall forward onto his arms. Catherine turned out the laboratory light, lay down on the second hospital bed and was asleep in an instant.

Snape's gaze was drawn back to where Professor Swain was perched on the windowsill. She was sitting bolt upright, a slender, alert figure keeping watch, silhouetted in the faint light from the streetlamps outside. Regardless of the skimpy evening clothes, there was no mistaking what she was at that moment – a knight standing guard over the charges in her care.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Snape woke up, some time later. It was still dark out, the faded black of an hour before dawn.

He sat up, raking his hands through his dishevelled hair, and rubbed his eyes. Liria and Catherine were both still sleeping. Professor Swain had not moved from her post – if she was tired, nothing in her attitude or posture betrayed it. She glanced at him briefly as he sat back in his chair, the barest acknowledgment of his waking. He returned her glance just as coolly.

He opened the clinic door a fraction and peered down the hall, which was deserted – so he took the opportunity to go back down to Catherine's office, Obscured, and brew up another pot of coffee. There were herbal mint tea bags too, he noticed – he put one of those in a cup of hot water, then brought the tea, fresh coffee, and two mugs back up to the clinic. He poured himself a fresh cup, then crossed to Professor Swain and put the steeping tea in front of her.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Severus Snape had gotten her a cup of tea. Emily glanced at him in faint shock and surprise before picking up the mug – peppermint, spearmint, and a bit of tarragon. "Thanks," she said. "I hope you were able to sleep a bit."

"Perhaps a couple of hours," he replied, leaning on the windowsill next to her and gazing out at the street below.

"Where did you find coffee?" she asked, only wrinkling her nose slightly at the smell.

"Catherine had a coffeepot in her office two floors down – I went down and brewed some," he said. He took another sip from the scalding cup, and grimaced.

"Did the security guards stop you?"

"No," he said. "I made sure no one saw me."

She smiled wryly. "That sounds familiar. It's restful, isn't it?"

He turned an incisive look in her direction. "What do you mean?"

"Knowing that no one can see you."

He frowned for a moment; she waited for some sharp rejoinder. But he only said, "Yes... it is rather restful."

"One of my favourite uses for it is when I want to go to the British Museum and just look at the Elgin Marbles, instead of fending off the advances of some earnestly intellectual university student."

"I am not often importuned by the advances of earnest university students, madam," he replied with only a slight lift to the eyebrow.

"But surely you know what I mean."

"I might, yes. It can be pleasant to go about your business without being disturbed by anyone else. I would worry about abusing the ability, however. I'm now hugely tempted to just disappear every time a situation gets uncomfortable or annoying."

There was a long, very uncomfortable silence, in which Emily contemplated abusing the second form of Obscurantis in exactly the manner Snape had just described.

"I would have thought that you would understand why people use it that way," she said, a touch defensively. "I've seen you at parties – you hate being social."

"And I've seen you at parties – you don't hate being social," he observed dryly.

"More like I don't hate dancing. Whether or not I hate a party depends on the company."

"Fair enough." He shrugged noncommittally, taking another sip of scalding coffee. "So, is that the sort of thing you usually wear to tend the sick?"

Emily glanced down at her black cocktail dress – again, she had completely forgotten what she was wearing. "Ah... no. I was on my way to something else when I ran into Liria. That sort of precipitated a big change of plans."

"Rather a pity you had to miss this... event," he muttered, his eyes on the coffee cup.

"He'll understand," she said, too tired and distracted to judge her words carefully – and a second later, she was desperately wishing that she could rewind time and unspeak that statement. Peripherally she could see Snape's eyes all but burning into the side of her face.

"How kind of him," he said, his voice emotionless.

"It was just a... bit of a date," she said, staring out the window and blushing furiously. "Someone I met at the Ministry Ball." Which was true enough – she had met Lucius at the Ministry Ball, just not for the first time. She had also been introduced to and danced with any number of men at that Ball, so if there was any mercy in the world, he wouldn't try to ferret out with exactly which one of them she had this date.

"I see," Snape said, and luckily, seemed totally disinterested in pursuing this topic any further.

Catherine stirred and sat up a moment later, bleary-eyed, and raked her hair back from her eyes. She turned toward Snape, sniffing the air. "Where can I get some of that?" she whispered.

"On the counter in the lab," he replied. She came back from the laboratory a moment later, sipping from a coffee cup as though it was the only thing in the world keeping her on her feet. "Thanks for staying, Professor, but I think she'll be all right. You look exhausted, sir – why don't you head home and get some sleep."

"All right. I'd say you have the situation well under control," he agreed, then crossed back into the laboratory.

"You might want to go with him and ask about the consulting fee," Catherine muttered aside to Emily. She nodded.

Snape emerged from the lab a second later, wearing his long coat and carrying his satchel. He then paused by Liria's bed, assessing her condition for himself one last time. Despite his exhaustion, Emily thought he seemed satisfied with his night's work. Finally he turned to Catherine to say his goodbyes.

"It's been a pleasure, Doctor," Snape said, shaking her hand – one eminent colleague to another.

"Likewise, Professor," Catherine replied, in the same tone.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The sky was paling in the east when Emily and Snape reappeared at the Hogwarts gate. A few birds were trilling their groggy morning songs in the trees bordering the path as they made their way up toward the castle.

Snape turned a weary sideways glance at her as they walked. "Is there something further we need to discuss?"

"Well, yes," she said, glad that he had broached the subject. "There's the matter of... the obligation I owe you."

Snape sighed, rubbing the corners of his eyes. "Professor... I'm not fond of either being beholden to people or having them beholden to me."

"I understand that. But you see, where I come from, there is a great deal of significance attached to obligations – not just morally, but karmically and magically – "

"I would appreciate if you would kindly allow me to decide if I require any sort of compensation for my efforts this evening, please."

He crossed the main foyer and headed up the stairs very quickly, so that she had to hurry to keep up with him.

"Well... perhaps you have a consulting fee? I'd imagine people are constantly trying to hire you for potions projects."

"Yes, on occasion I've done some independent consulting here and there," Snape said, very testily, as though the subject was a sore spot with him.

"Then... perhaps you could draw me up an invoice... ?" They had arrived at the entrance to the Slytherin dungeons; Snape paused to listen to her with only the most grudging and threadbare sort of attention.

"Yes, I'll draw you up an invoice, if you really insist," he said. "However, the fee will climb exponentially for every moment you do not immediately vacate these premises, so I can actually try to get some sleep." She suddenly noticed that his eyes really were looking extremely bloodshot and red-rimmed, and his hands were shaky with fatigue – no wonder he was feeling on edge.

"Of course, pardon me," she said, and left him alone.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Emily went back up to her own apartments after Snape took his leave of her, took a quick shower, and changed into some casual clothes. Then she returned to the clinic at St. George's, where Catherine was readying herself for her day's work.

"There you are," she said when Emily returned. "I hope the consulting didn't run you too much."

"Nothing yet," Emily said, shrugging. "He said he'd send me an invoice after he got a chance to rest."

"Okay. Lie down, Em, you look like you could use a nap yourself," Catherine admonished her.

"No, I'm all right. Liria needs someone to watch her, and when she wakes up, we're going to need to figure out what she should do next – there's no way she can go back to her old job."

"What was her old job?"

"Nothing she won't be happy to leave behind," Emily said.

"Em, tell me," Catherine said. "I'm her doctor, remember? And whatever happened to her, you know it's entirely likely that someone else will end up in the same situation, sooner or later."

Emily glanced at Liria, still peacefully sleeping. She looked like the most fragile porcelain doll imaginable, with her black hair mussed against her pillow. "All right, but you can never let her know I told you."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Liria woke up from her long sleep late Sunday afternoon, with Emily sitting beside her. Catherine arrived back at the clinic on her dinner break not long after, with a light breakfast of herbal tea, oatmeal, and fruit. Liria still seemed tired and weak, but she tore hungrily into an apple.

"You know what I've been really homesick for the whole time I've been away? Arcadian breakfasts," Liria told them, spooning up some oatmeal. "When I get back home, the first thing I'm going to do is have a huge breakfast at the Inn at the End of the World. Wheaten porridge with strawberries and cream, heaps of eggs and rashers of bacon, and about a hundred glasses of small beer."

"Ah, when you get home.. ?" Emily's tone encouraged her to elaborate on this plan as much as she wanted.

"Yeah," Liria said. "I thought I'd get to the next open portal, and go back to the Third Kingdom. I can do that, right? I mean, I'll stay if you need me to," she said, looking from Emily to Catherine.

"No, of course you can go home if you like," Emily said immediately.

Liria looked wistfully at Emily. "Can you come with me? Just for awhile?"

Oh... she hadn't considered that. "Well, I have to teach class tomorrow... though I can probably ask them to find a substitute, for an emergency, let me think for a second... "

"I've got an idea." Catherine picked up the phone on her desk and dialled. "Roddy? It's me. Can you come to the clinic at the hospital?"

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Roderick Sellars pulled up outside the hospital on his souped-up Triumph motorbike perhaps half an hour later. He was a tall, magnificently athletic man, with light café au lait-coloured skin, spiky bleached-blond hair, and striking light blue eyes – upon meeting him, most people assumed his unusual looks must be due to interracial ancestry. But that was before the Glamour came off to reveal his real complexion, of a light brown freckled and mottled here and there with ash grey, the pronounced point of his ears, and the startling contrast of his ice-grey hair and eyes. In truth, Roderick was an Arcadian ogre, and his ancestry was half sidhe Faerie, half Fomorian Orc.

"Oi, Emily! Haven't seen you in forever." He hugged her in greeting.

"Nice to see you too, darling. You must be keeping up with your boxing – you look great."

"As much as I'm allowed," he said, with a sidelong glance at Catherine. She muttered, It's for your own good, and punched him lightly on the arm.

"And this is Liria," Catherine said, turning toward the girl.

"Morning," Liria chirped, setting down her teacup. Emily gratefully noted that she seemed in much better health and spirits than she had the previous evening.

"Good morning, Liria, I'm Roderick, but most call me Roddy," he said, shaking her hand. He turned back to Catherine and Emily. "Now, ladies, how can I be of service?"

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

After Catherine and Emily took Roderick aside into the laboratory and filled him in on Liria's predicament, he agreed to accompany her back to Arcadia and get her situated. Emily threw her arms around him and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. "You're a paladin hero this day, my friend. Let me know how I can repay you, whenever there's a need."

Emily took down the address of Liria's rented room off of Knockturn Alley, promising to gather all of her belongings post-haste and bring them to her at the hospital. Roderick volunteered to go with her, in case any agents of Liria's former employers decided to come looking for her. As far as luggage, some of the shops in Diagon Alley would just be opening for a Sunday's half-day of business, so she could get Liria a small Holding Satchel at the Taerdis Co. Luggage shop, one of their ready-made, non-custom models that would hold a large closet's worth of someone's belongings. Also, Liria would probably need letters of introduction – she made a note to draft those as well – and some tradeable commodity to use as discretionary cash.

"Thanks, both of you," Liria said as they readied themselves to leave.

"Don't worry, honey, your job now is to finish breakfast," Emily told her. "We'll take care of the rest."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

One of the first spells Catherine Orson had learned during her time in Arcadia was the Giortaigh charm, the Faery equivalent of the Wizard Reducio spell. Now, her favourite method of dealing with the problem of limited parking at the hospital was to drive to work, stop her silver Mini Cooper in some deserted part of the hospital parking structure, and miniaturise it to the size of a Hot Wheels toy. Then she would put it in her bag and be on her way.

Parking had been especially bad in the hospital personnel lot that day. When Emily met her at the coffeehouse across the street from the hospital that Sunday evening, Cat was running her little car in a long, noodling circuit around the café table, making vroom vroom sounds under her breath.

"I shouldn't play with it when it's tiny," Catherine said. "It's really easy to put dents in it. And when I bring it back up to normal size it's going to have fingerprints as tall as I am on the roof. But it's just so cute like this."

Emily laughed and took the seat opposite her at the table. She wore jeans, her leather peacoat, and her usual Glamoured human visage – the waitress who appeared to refill Catherine's coffee cup and take her order for a pot of decaf vanilla jasmine tea never batted an eyelash at her.

"So they're off," Emily said, with a weary, but joyful, smile. "They're staying at a Glastonbury Tor bed and breakfast until the portal opens Thursday night. She took on a Geas from me never to take any more heroin."

"Nothing like a magical karmic oath to keep people from relapsing," Catherine said, then grinned at Emily. "By the way – Hello, how are you? Haven't seen you in a while."

"Yes, didn't have much time to talk last night, did we," Emily agreed, blowing on her tea. "I wanted to tell you, I like what you've done to your hair. You look pretty as a redhead."

"Thanks," Catherine said, regarding her across the table with a keen green gaze. "And the freshly shagged look is really agreeing with you. Does wonders for your complexion."

Emily stared down at her teacup, blushing furiously. "Is it that obvious?"

"In contrast to the last time I saw you, hell yes, it is," Catherine said. "And that was some dress you showed up in Saturday night. What's his name?"

"You don't know him," Emily said. This was more or less the truth – given Lucius's distaste for Muggles, Catherine probably hadn't exchanged two words with him while they were both at Court.

"Which of course means, None of your business, Cat," her friend said, with a quirked eyebrow.

"It's not that it's none of your business, it's just that it's nothing especially deep, is all," she said, embarrassed. "It's by necessity temporary. I'm going home at either the end of the school year or in September."

"Does he know that?"

"Yes. I don't think he ever really counted on being introduced to my friends, put it that way."

"Well, I'm not going to say you shouldn't have a bit of a nice, cheap, superficial fling while you're here," Cat said, grinning. "I know I did plenty of flirting with some of the locals in Arcadia."

Emily grinned back. "Come off it, Dr. Orson, you cut a swathe through the Court swains like a scythe through a wheat field."

"Hey, that was only my ceremonial duty," Cat said, very virtuously indeed.

"Ceremonial duty, eh? You're still doing your ceremonial duty now, it seems," Emily said dryly. "I did notice that you called your own number to get hold of Roderick."

This time it was Catherine's turn to blush. "Well... he's not got a lot to do right now. I had to pretty much forbid him to do any fighting or even sparring until his eye heals completely. If his retina gets permanently detached, he'll end up half blind, and no boxing title is worth that. I told him flat out that if I have to refer him for one more cryopexy, I'm not his doctor anymore."

"You said you won't be his... doctor anymore? Is that how one spells girlfriend these days?" Emily demurely leaned her chin on her hand, looking at her friend as though she was telling the most fascinating tale in the world.

Catherine stared at the café ceiling for a long moment before replying. "Okay, he's not the most conventional-looking man in this world. But he's an athlete – his body is like something carved in marble," she said with a low whistle. "Yes, I know he's an ogre. I know damned well that his father was an Orc raider. But Roddy himself is the most tender and caring man you can imagine – there is no doubt in my mind that Liria is one hundred percent safe with him looking after her."

"I don't doubt it either," Emily said.

"Some men, you know, they have bad fathers, but that just makes them all the more conscientious when it comes to treating their own women well," Catherine said. "To him, the best revenge he can have for what his father did is to make his own woman feel cherished and cared for. I'm not kidding, Em, he gets up early every day to make breakfast for me before I go to work."

"I'm happy for you," Emily said quietly. "No, screw that – I'm jealous."

Catherine put down her coffee cup and took Emily's hand in both of hers. "Stop it," she said. "You're going to be happy again."

"Thanks," Emily said, almost inaudibly. "So... what do you think we should do about the part-human brothel?" she asked a moment later, with an air of wanting to change the subject. "We'll need to have someone keeping a regular watch there, and in Knockturn Alley."

"Not to worry – I already got in touch with Lord Puck," Catherine replied. "He and his vassals are taking care of that personally."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Later that night, two extremely well-dressed men were admitted into the lavish front saloon at Pasiphäe's.

They were very nearly a study in opposites – one huge, one tiny. The taller fellow, dressed in extremely sharp black dress robes over a finely tailored frock coat, had immense shoulders and brawny hands, with freckled, light brown skin, and a large, bullish head set on an equally brawny neck. The redhaired part-giantess on staff turned an appraising eye on him immediately.

His companion was under five feet tall, with merry, crinkly eyes, and luxuriant grey hair. He wore an elegant fur coat and a heavy, engraved medallion on a substantial chain around his neck, both made of what looked like burnished gold. Anyone observing them closely would have immediately noticed that the huge man was very deferential and polite to the smaller one; something about them suggested some very important personage with an associate, or perhaps an executive bodyguard.

Pandarus eagerly came forward to meet them at the bar, all but rubbing his hands together in anticipation of wealthy new customers with money to spend visiting his establishment. "Yes, my good sirs, what can I get for you?"

The smaller man hopped up on a barstool with amazing dexterity and twinkled pleasantly at the proprietor. "Have you any dandelion wine, good sir?"

"Dandelion wine, eh? You gentlemen have fine taste, but it'll cost ye. Transportation fees, ye know. Let me see what I can scare up for ye." He bent down to rummage under the bar.

But when he straightened up and turned back to the two patrons at the bar, a bottle of dandelion wine in hand, they had both vanished entirely.

Left in their place was a glittering, intricately made dagger, stabbed upright in the gleaming wood surface of the bar – stabbed so firmly that it would later take two brawny men with carpentry pliers to remove it. That dagger pinned a letter to the bar – a very official-looking letter, written in a flowing, calligraphic hand:

BE IT KNOWN

That the Fae WILL NOT TOLERATE Your Trafficking in the Miserie of Our People.

Any Destitute or Chemically-Dependent FAERIE

Who Enters This Establishment Seeking Employment

Shall From This Hour Forward Be Given This Call Number:

011-48-555-1212

For AID and ASSISTANCE.

We will be watching.

IGNORE THIS WARNING AT YOUR OWN RISK.