Part Second: The Hart Rampant, Chapter 25, Part 1

Chapter 25, Part 1:

What with Harry Potter's abduction, Cedric Diggory's death, the attempted murder of a faculty member, the discovery of a Death Eater spy in their midst, and the return of Voldemort, the week following the end of the 1994-1995 school year at Hogwarts was not an especially festive one. On the Monday morning after that year's Leaving Feast, Hogwarts seemed even vaster and more cavernous without the sounds of students in the halls.

Professor Snape glanced at a line of lugubrious faces when he arrived for breakfast. Professor Sprout and Madam Pince were in the middle of an intense discussion; he overheard part of it as he made his way past them to his usual seat at the High Table –

"... barely come out since the Leaving Feast," Madam Pince was saying.

"She's still hiding in her room?" Pomona Sprout muttered.

"Yes," the librarian answered sourly. "I went up to see her last night. She was very pleasant, like always, but I haven't seen anyone pack that fast since someone said Basilisk within Gilderoy Lockhart's hearing." Madam Pince shook her head sadly.

Snape scowled and made his way to his usual seat at the far end of the table. Someone's discarded Daily Prophet was lying on the table beside his plate, open to a headline that read: "KNOCKTURN ALLEY PLAGUED WITH PESTS."

The accompanying front-page photograph showed villainous-looking wizards running around the dodgy, disreputable shopping street, being harried by wasps, bees, and hornets, and pecked at by crows and pigeons. Inside was a small photograph of the owner of a nightclub called Pasiphäe's, standing helplessly on a chair as massive waves of cockroaches seethed about his feet. Snape pulled the paper closer and skimmed the front-page article – apparently this was happening all over Knockturn Alley, especially in the smaller, less affluent pubs. A place called the Cask of Malmsey had been hit with a nigh on Biblical plague of rats that an employee described as all but dancing the Tarantella on tables.

"Odd, isn't it," Minerva McGonagall remarked in Snape's direction, glancing at the paper in front of him.

"Extremely," Snape muttered, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"There is also an article about a pair of juniper bushes that went berserk outside of an iron forging works near London. They apparently attacked anyone trying to enter the building," came Dumbledore's voice, from Snape's left. The Headmaster had another copy of the Prophet open in his hands.

Snape turned toward him. "Do you think these incidents are related, Albus?"

"Of course." The Headmaster nodded his white head emphatically. "This is clearly the work of the Faery people, who have always wielded great power over the natural world."

"Why do you think they feel so hostile, at this time, Albus?" McGonagall asked.

"Word will have gotten out amongst the Fae community that one of the Fianna, carrying out her King's mission of diplomatic outreach, was attacked by a member of the Wizarding community wielding an iron knife," Dumbledore said, his eyes fixed on the front page of the paper. "They see that as a hate crime, a political crime, perpetrated against Emily because she is one of them. The Fianna military class is highly regarded amongst them, and this incident is far too reminiscent of the Plague pogroms of the fourteenth century, in which the Fae were often tortured with iron weapons. Many Fianna soldiers died during that conflict, as they tried to help their people flee Europe.

"In short, this attack has made the Faeries very angry." Dumbledore folded the paper and set it on the table in front of him, shaking his head. "I fear we have not heard the last from them in this matter."

"Severus?" Madam Pince turned toward Snape. "Emily wanted you to give me the manuscript of her book – she said you would know what that meant... "

"I'll bring it to you as soon as I can," Snape said shortly.

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Snape lingered over the newspaper, picking at the plate of breakfast gone cold in front of him, until all of his colleagues had gone. He glanced up in surprise at the sound of wing beats above him just as he was finishing his coffee – it was late for owl post, breakfast being over.

He immediately recognised the Malfoy family's black eagle owl, which swooped down toward him and dropped a letter into his hands, sealed with the elaborate embossed M. Snape knew before he opened the letter that it would be from Lucius and that Lucius would have a burning question for him –

Severus, old man –

Missed you at the meet-up last Thursday. Where were you? Everyone was asking about you.

Really, cousin, I'm concerned. Your absence that night is not sending the right message at all. I've been putting in a good word for you every chance I get, but an explanation would sound much better coming from you personally. You're putting me rather on the spot here.

You and I need to talk, as soon as possible. How about Wednesday night at eight p.m.? It'll have to be somewhere very out of the way, where none of our usual set will run into us. I'd ask you to visit at the house, but we're entertaining a very important guest at the moment, so no doubt you see my dilemma.

I know this frightful little place called the Fusilier Public House in London. The address is 118 Wilton Row, London, SW1X 7NR, UK. Yes, it's a Muggle place – I do apologise in advance for the stench of unwashed non-magical humanity, but I can guarantee you that no one we know will ever go there, so it's perfect for our purposes. Dress inconspicuously – something you don't mind the barbarians spilling their swill upon.

Try not to worry too much, old man – we'll get this taken care of. If you're in some kind of trouble at work, you know I can help you.

Regards,

Lucius

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Despite Madam Pince's earlier commentary, Emily was not packing quite as fast as Guilderoy Lockhart had upon hearing that he was expected to fight a basilisk. However, she was packing at a very rapid rate indeed, as fast as her injury allowed, and seeing as how she possessed much less by way of hair care products and bales of fan mail than the former Professor Lockhart, she was having a much more productive time of it. Thank the Mother she could just put everything in one small trunk now, rather than using her cumbersome Muggle luggage again. But as she hurried up and down the staircase of her Holding Trunk, stowing clothes, books, and various armaments away in closets and compartments, she might have preferred a straight-out fight against a fearsome monster to this kind of creeping uncertainty and dread.

Emily had known since the moment she set foot on Second-World soil that her race, her religion, her sort of magic, her very species, were very much in the minority here, and the run-around she had received at the Department of International Magical Cooperation when she had arrived to obtain her work papers only hammered that point home the more. The encounter with Professor Snape, in which she had withdrawn completely from him rather than take a chance on being rejected for her otherness, had also underlined this point to her, as had the way he had continually rejected her ever since.

Whether Professor Snape ever would or had rejected her based on her difference from him never really entered her mind at that moment, lost as she was in feelings of persecution. In her defence, however, Emily had in the last five weeks been very intimately betrayed by a long-time friend, believed herself to have been crushingly rejected by a man for whom she cherished genuine tender feelings, been stabbed with an iron blade, seen one student she was fond of senselessly killed and another tortured, and seen the return of a powerful antagonist whose agents had threatened her father when she was but a girl of nineteen. Perhaps self-pity, an intense sense of vulnerability, and the fervent desire to be gone from that place were understandable at that moment.

She had thought, most of that year, that perhaps the British Wizarding society had grown more accepting of Faeries and part-humans – the way that her students and... most of her colleagues had reacted to her had been a pleasant surprise. There had even been bright spots among the Malfeasant set, like Beatrice and Pansy Parkinson, and Draco Malfoy. Even the way she and Liria had been treated in Knockturn Alley had been outweighed by Professor Snape's totally unexpected gallantry that same night.

But to have been attacked by a wizard armed with cold iron, and then to have faced hostile law enforcement officials after she had defended herself, and then for the only person to have come to her aid to be Lucius Malfoy, who a month earlier had tried to learn her True Name... could there have been any worse situation to be in, anywhere? Oh yes, there could be – her father's old antagonists the Death Eaters, and their dread Lord Voldemort, had returned. And let's not forget those dear, murderous Robinett lads back home.

Bloody hell, and she had thought Orc invasions were troublesome.

All of this together had made her mind up very quickly – the only choice she had was to get the ever-loving Christian hell out of Wizarding Britain, post-haste. She should never have identified herself as a Faerie outside of school in the first place, should never have gone about with her real face brazenly undisguised by any sort of Glamour – what had she been thinking? She had just been asking for trouble.

Emily now considered herself quite finished here. Gwydion and Dumbledore had asked her to teach a class, not help integrate a society; and now, she had taught that class and was nearly done with grading her final exams and essays. It was high time to leave, to pull the mantle of her people's protective magics over herself and just fade from the sight and the minds of those around her. Forget about obtaining any sort of official paperwork for the next country she arrived in – with the right sort of Glamour, she could have handed an immigration official a Chocolate Frog card and made him believe it was a valid passport from just about anywhere. The sooner she could get off to where no one knew her, or knew what she was, the better.

Such was the lot of the Hidden People in this world, but at that moment, it seemed much more comforting and familiar than any other alternative. Emily had had a world atlas open on her desk for days now, and had been paging through it for likely places where she could vanish. So far, the wine countries of the south of France, northern California in the United States, or the New South Wales coast of Australia were all front-runners as far as a year's stand-in for the Third Kingdom. She was now planning on making a large withdrawal from her Muggle bank account and then finding an out-of-the-way hotel where she could spend a few weeks alone to recuperate from all the physical and emotional wounds she had been dealt this school year. All she wanted was to be completely alone somewhere with no demands being made upon her, where she could stay until she felt like facing the world again.

In short, there are times when even the strongest women look themselves in the mirror and say, This is fucked – I'm leaving, and Emily was having one of those moments.

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This frantic packing and escapist sorts of musings were interrupted at perhaps eight p.m. that Monday evening by the scratch of a little post owl at her sitting room window. Emily took the letter and opened it, immediately recognising Lucius's familiar handwriting:

Darling –

I've heard about the tragedy after the Third Task.

Please, my love, tell me you're all right – you can't imagine how worried I've been.

Can you perhaps see me at home this Wednesday? Everyone will be away at some garden party at Felina's, but I've begged off citing work commitments.

At eleven a.m., touch the enclosed Portkey, and I'll meet you. No one is expected back till early tomorrow morning, and I've the entire afternoon free until half-past seven or so. We can have a nice bit of time together.

I've missed you horribly, darling. Please don't be late – I can't wait to see you.

The Portkey was a pretty little white lawn handkerchief tucked into a parchment envelope – a small, tactful token, as his previous gifts of precious jewels would not have been proper at this time.

Lucius was, as always, the master of the appropriate gesture.

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So Lucius wanted to see him.

It was now Wednesday, the day of Lucius's invitation, and Severus Snape awoke very early.

He had been sleeping poorly ever since Midsummer, falling asleep very late and waking very early and in a state of great anxiety. His eyes fell on his bedside clock – six a.m., but his pulse was pounding, his thoughts were racing, and there was no way he was going to be able to get any more rest. He turned over onto his back in bed, too tired to get up, but too agitated to sleep.

Snape had spent the last two days feverishly speculating and plotting as to the best way to approach this meeting with Lucius, both with Dumbledore and alone. The return of their leader had brought all his old cronies back together, to resume their old ways and further their old agendas. Lucius and the others still thought he had not heeded the Dark Lord's call on the day of the Third Task. Bloody hell, was there any more complicated position to be in than to be Dumbledore's man, and be at the same time the Dark Lord's man among the Death Eaters.

After the affair of the Philosopher's Stone in 1991, after what Peter Pettigrew had seen in the Shrieking Shack in 1993, when Snape had believed Sirius Black to have betrayed the Potters to Voldemort, and Snape had then tried to apprehend Black... Snape could hardly believe that he had gotten away with that. Nonetheless, he knew that his position with the Dark Lord was on the most precarious sort of footing, and if he valued his life, he had better come up with proof of his diligence, and soon.

Snape put his hand over his eyes, massaging his aching temples.

Damn that weak-willed imbecile of a Quirenius Quirrell, traipsing blithely into forests where horrors lay. May all the deities of this world and every other, from the many-named Arcadian Mother Goddess to the Sumero-Akkadian thunder god Zu cast the dust of Quirrell's disintegrated hide into pits of unending torment for allowing Voldemort's spirit to return to this plane. How in the bloody hell was Snape to have known that the Dark Lord himself had taken up residence in Quirrell's body, that he was hiding beneath that smelly purple turban, listening to every word he said? Thank whatever force responsible that he had dealt in ambiguities for so long that nearly every word he said could be interpreted in myriad different ways, depending on his listener's agendas.

And never mind the fact that even Quirrell and the Dark Lord together had still added up to a single absolutely abysmal Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Really, one would think that perhaps sharing a body and mind with the single most powerful Dark Wizard in existence might have broadened the man's body of knowledge at least somewhat. How could anyone lecture on vampires without discoursing on their different supernatural races, and the division of their society into rogues, servitors, and nobility? What a fecking idiot. Snape shook his head direly, grimacing at the carved oak canopy of his four-poster bed.

He lay back and tried to think of plausible lies.

I didn't know you were occupying Quirrell's body, Master, I thought Quirrell coveted the Stone for himself, while I was watching for my opportunity to steal it for you, if you ever returned, which is of course why I offered my services in keeping the Stone safe... I always knew that Black was never your servant, Master, when he escaped from prison I thought myself free to seize the opportunity to destroy my enemy, in the manner which you taught me... I could not leave the Hogwarts grounds when I was called after the Third Task, as my absence would be noted and my cover at Hogwarts jeopardised...

He could still scarcely understand how he had been believed, but then he had always had a gift for telling the Dark Lord what he most wanted to hear. More than likely it was because the Dark Lord had been desperate for reassurance and needed his vantage point within Hogwarts too much. But nonetheless, he was going to have to account for a great deal to a great many people, starting with his own family. He was going to have to explain why he had remained at Hogwarts after Voldemort's first defeat, why he had done no work in developing new poisons since the Dark Lord's fall and had in fact devoted most of his time to developing antidotes, why he had volunteered to protect the Philosopher's Stone... Lucius and Bellatrix especially were going to be curious, very curious indeed.

It was now half-past six a.m. He had thirteen and a half hours to make up another believable cover story about what he had done to advance the Malfoys' – excuse me, the Dark Lord's interests since 1980. He would need to placate Lucius, and through him, the entire organisation – while reporting back any suspicious behaviour on Lucius's part to the Dark Lord. And he was going to have to do it today.

Or if he couldn't get back into his cousin's confidences... after tonight, maybe he wouldn't need to worry too much about anything, ever again.

It hadn't been long since he had last felt the agony of the Dark Lord's punishment, since his former master had pointed his wand at him, and intoned Crucio – and Snape was not looking forward to a repeat performance. A tiny muscle in the corner of his eye jumped when he remembered the times he had endured such punishment before.

Perhaps, mercifully, the next time someone pointed a wand at him, it might even be Avada Kedavra that he heard.

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After some time spent in this sort of sleep-deprived, fatalistic musing, Snape sat up and got out of bed.

His gaze fell on Professor Swain's combat instruction manual on his desk, lying open to the dagger-training section. Yes, he had best get it back to her, and the sooner, the better – given the rate at which she was readying herself to leave, who knew if she would be gone by tonight, and who knew if he would be in any shape to hand it back to her after his meeting with Lucius.

He skimmed over the pages quickly – he had treated this manuscript with great care, with an academic respect for the amount of work she had so obviously put into it. There were no dog-ears, coffee cup circles, or even worn edges on these pages, and that she could be certain of. She should realise that he at least valued her work. He straightened the pages, then closed the leather folder and got up, and dressed in a plain white shirt and black trousers and his usual boots. He then took a moment to run a comb through his hair and hunt up Luigi Barbasetti's The Art of the Foil from the stacks on his desk, and then headed down to the library.

Madam Pince was supervising a group of house-elves in giving the main library its end-of-the-school-year going-over when he arrived, books in hand. "Irma?" he called. "I've brought Professor Swain's books, as she requested."

Irma glanced up from where she had been painstakingly lessoning a young house-elf as to how one removed chocolate stains from two-hundred-year-old vellum pages, muttering dire imprecations under her breath about students who snacked in the library all the while. "All right. Just put them there, and I'll make sure she gets them," the librarian said, absently indicating the front check-out counter.

He had set down the books and was turning away when Madam Pince called to him – "Wait a second, Severus, I forgot – Emily asked me to give you this letter."

She crossed to her desk and produced a parchment envelope from her top drawer, sealed with the initials EBS. It was addressed, in Professor Swain's handwriting, to:

Professor Severus Snape

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Hogsmeade

Scotland

How strange that just the sight of that envelope made his pulse jump, just for a second.

Despite this anxiety, however, he appeared absolutely composed as he pocketed that envelope, nodded curt thanks to Madam Pince, and left the library.

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Back in the privacy of his own rooms, Snape took a deep breath and opened her letter.

What he expected to find within that envelope – an apology? an explanation? some admission of her less than total indifference to his existence? – he couldn't have said. But what he did find took him completely by surprise – a very official-looking bit of parchment headed SERVICE INVOICE.

She had not mentioned her previous desire to compensate him for his efforts on that night at St. George's since the middle of June, so he had thought she had forgotten, but apparently she had not. He had never gotten around to drawing up an invoice for her – so now it appeared that she had itemised one up for him. On this document, she had listed eight hours of Potions consulting services and expert labour at an exorbitant price per service hour, the same sort of rate one of the leading commercial Potions experts in the field today would have charged. She had figured the wage at time and a half for the rush nature of the job and the late hours worked, and had also compensated him for the fair market value of the potions ingredients he had left with Catherine.

Enclosed with that document was a cheque drawn on a Gringotts Bank account, signed by Emily B. Swain – drawn up for an amount even higher than the vindictively exaggerated amount he had first scrawled down in the Main Library of Magic, that day when he had taken a stab at drawing her up an invoice for his late-night consulting expertise. It amounted to more than two weeks' pay at Hogwarts.

Perhaps this meant that Professor Swain thought his time and ability were valuable after all – extremely valuable, judging from the figure she had come up with – or perhaps she now thought herself free and clear over using him and leaving him behind, having tidily paid him off. Dismissed with an appropriate gift, like one of Lucius's cast-off mistresses. As always, one couldn't tell with her.

One simply couldn't be sure of anything with her.

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Snape spent the better part of a quarter hour poring over that invoice and cheque at his desk, studying them as if trying to sleuth out their composer's real intentions somewhere in the strokes of her pen. Finally, he folded them both up, stuffed them back into their envelope, and unceremoniously shoved them into a drawer of his desk. Then he made his way into his bathroom, took a very hot shower, and took a long, meditative time about shaving.

As he stood bare-chested in front of the mirror, splashing hot water on his face, he noticed that the love bite above his collarbone had completely faded away. He scratched lightly at the spot where it had been, frowning. Yes, it had healed, it was gone. As though nothing had ever happened.

He wrapped himself in his dressing gown and went back into his bedroom, intending to lie down and continue thinking of lies to tell Lucius and perhaps get a bit of a nap. As he passed from the bathroom to the bed, he noticed a pile of crumpled clothing at the foot of the bed: a well-tailored white shirt that he had owned for so long that the cuffs were fraying slightly, and a pair of boots. The boots needed polishing. There was a pair of greying socks stuffed inside one of them.

It occurred to him then that he might never return to this room, after tonight. What would it look like to someone who entered it to clear away the late Professor Snape's effects? How would it seem to someone who came upon his greying socks, left behind after his death? What if old socks were all that someone remembered of him?

He had long since drawn up a will and had it notarised – Snape Hall to his mother's favourite Orcadian historical society; his books, personal potions stores, and all financial assets to be donated to Hogwarts, and a few rare grimoires, talismans, and bits of valuable antiquity were to go to Albus. He had left directions for all of his personal journals and papers to be destroyed unread. His affairs were in order.

Nonetheless, there was no sense that his business on Earth was at all concluded. Somehow, this date to get drinks with Lucius Malfoy was prompting him to think long and hard about all that he had not yet done in what now seemed like his painfully short and uneventful young life.

No, he had things he could be proud of. He had been named Head of Slytherin House while still in his twenties, the youngest person to be appointed to such a position in centuries. He had a highly distinguished record of Potions N.E.W.T. and O.W.L. scores, even if he had to fight tooth and nail to make his students pay attention. He had published a wide variety of academic articles on Potions. He was the possessor of a centuries-old citadel, Snape Hall. He was a respected and trusted colleague and friend to the greatest wizard of the modern age, Albus Dumbledore.

But... perhaps all he would leave behind him were one sometime friend, a dilapidated pile of a house, some pedantic academic articles, a lot of disgruntled students, some greying socks, and a melancholy woman who thought he had ill-used her.

He closed his eyes, calling on an Occlumens's discipline to clear his mind, to focus; but thoughts of all that he had left unfinished in his life continued to plague him.

Most troubling among these concerns was the idea that Emily Swain was going to leave Hogwarts under the mistaken belief that he had maliciously intended to make her feel seduced and abandoned.

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Snape had spent much of that year believing that his colleague had wronged him, wronged him very personally and intimately, and within the first hours of meeting him, no less. But sometime recently, doubts had begun to creep in. He was no longer so sure that he could claim the moral high ground here, after all that had happened in the last weeks of the school year.

In whatever crisis situation she was now facing, and especially in the matter of the murder attempt, one thing was certain – he hadn't helped.

And – oh bloody hell – the worst part was that she had all but accused him of seducing and abandoning her, the day after that ill-fated Midsummer's revel. She said, "Now, my dear colleague, do allow me to suggest that you go find someone else on whom to inflict your insincerity, your trifling, and your games. If you have taken it upon yourself to show me what it is to be seduced and unceremoniously abandoned, you indeed have your revenge. Bravo, really well done." Those words, with their implications of cruel and ungentlemanly abuse of a woman's affections, stung afresh every time he remembered them.

She was wrong, she was damned bloody wrong. She was mistaken; she had to be exaggerating. That's all there was to it – he didn't do things like that to women; he wasn't Lucius for pity's sake. Perhaps the more arrogant and disobedient of his students cordially despised him, perhaps the more fragile-flower types of them were afraid of him, but Severus Snape could say with certainty that there were no women out there weeping their hearts out because he had played them false, thank you very fecking much. Even the first and only woman with whom he had ever had anything even approaching a romantic relationship, some seventeen years before he had ever met Emily Swain, couldn't have said that he had treated her less than honourably. Indeed, there had been one particular instance when he had gotten his face resoundingly slapped for insisting on treating his first love in a decent manner. He wasn't the seduce-and-abandon sort, never had been. (Truthfully, it seemed to him as though he could usually count on this sort of thing happening the other way around, thanks.) The tawdry melodrama of your average self-proclaimed Don Juan was beneath him.

But then the worry would reassert itself. When Professor Swain left her classroom after their argument, she had the attitude of a woman who believed herself scorned, which was so very out of character for her.

And he could remember so little of Midsummer's night.

It had been a week since their argument, on the same day (he gritted his teeth) she had been stabbed, but what she had said still rankled. He was certain that what she had accused him of was entirely beyond any behaviour he would have allowed himself – but this sense of not knowing was nonetheless disquieting to him. The facts remained thus: He had confronted her over the previous evening, she had upbraided him for using her ill, and then left the castle. And while she was away, someone had tried to kill her. Not only that, but she had had some inkling that the murderous intent was there beforehand, and he had dissuaded her from mentioning her worries to Dumbledore.

No matter what spin one tried to put on those circumstances, they simply did not add up to a flawless picture of perfect integrity for him. Snape couldn't help but wonder now – if he had not confronted her so angrily, perhaps she would not have been prompted to leave the castle... if he hadn't talked her out of telling the Headmaster about "Moody's" odd behaviour, perhaps they would have caught Barty Crouch before the Third Task, and she would never have been attacked.

Now, not only was he unsure of his own actions, he felt guilty as well, and this particular loose end of his life now looked as though it might never be wrapped up.

Had he truly wronged her somehow? Directly, indirectly, through what he had done, or what he had failed to do? The question would not leave him alone. He again absently scratched at the place where his faded love bite had been.

Should he perhaps investigate exactly what had gone on? Snape paused, considering. Well, it might be nice to be sure of something on a day like this, now, mightn't it?

He could think of one method that would reveal the events of Midsummer's night to him in perfect, lucid detail. It was a means that Snape disliked, for he loathed seeing himself in humiliating situations. His hatred of being ridiculed, of having his dignity and control stripped away, bordered on the phobic. It was an issue to which he had been much sensitised by a great deal of traumatic prior experience.

But he had to know what had happened, had to know if he had done anything dishonourable. Merlin knew he could never ask her for more details now. From the way she had sequestered herself in her apartments, and from the rate at which she was reported to be packing up to leave, apparently she had more pressing concerns than listing off the full account of his adventures with Faery nightlife, and how he came to have a love bite on his collarbone, and how she had come round to thinking she was the injured party, after all that she had done to him.

All right – this had to be settled. He had to know, and he knew exactly one way to put an end to these worries. If she wasn't saying, then he would have to find out for himself. Snape made a silent resolution, got up from his bed, got dressed, and then headed down to the Headmaster's office.

"Albus? May I borrow your Pensieve for the day, if you don't need it?"

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So Lucius wanted to see her.

At some time after nine a.m. that Wednesday morning, Emily had taken a break from her packing. Her shoulder was healing fast, but that unfortunately meant that it savagely itched all day and all night. She had been taking Muggle Advil washed down with willow bark infusion, but that wasn't helping much. Now, her injured shoulder was protesting her morning's strenuous activity, and she took the opportunity to bind it more tightly.

For what felt like the twentieth time in the last two days, she glanced over Lucius's letter, lying open on her desk. Today was the day he wanted to her to visit, but her enthusiasm for this meeting had waned considerably.

Damn it, she never should have accepted that dinner invitation with him on the day of her inquest. She never should have told him she would see him again, that it wasn't crucial that she rush right back to the Faerielands. All of the recent circumstances more or less indicated that she was now required to honour his wishes, after all that he had done for her. When one is in trouble, and has been abandoned by every person one believes to be a part of one's support structure, and a man not only gets you an attorney and clothes for your inquest but by all appearances puts in a good word for you with his close personal friend the presiding judge, and then afterward only wants you to allow him the privilege of feeding you a fifty-Galleon supper... well, such a man had some claim to one's gratitude. Not only that, but he had barely so much as laid a hand on her afterward, even though she could still smell the desire on him when he looked at her.

No, in truth, Lucius had been a perfect gentleman about the whole inquest situation. He had been the only person to show up to offer his support – bloody hell, he had been at her bedside when she woke up in the morning. And regarding the episode with the telepathic potion and her True Name... well, his explanation had a shred of plausibility to it, and his apology seemed sincere. The sense of indescribable intimacy imparted by that telepathic bond, the profane thrill created by breaking down all barriers between them had been so intoxicating – she had never felt such lust, such a desire to belong to a man. Perhaps she had led him to believe that she might share her True Name; she had certainly been willing to share enough else with him. He had confided so many of his secret, taboo desires to her, and she had found that so impossibly exciting. Perhaps part of what happened really had been her fault.

The clock on her desk now said ten a.m., and Lucius had asked her to meet him at eleven.

Emily got up and made her way into a hot shower, in preparation to go out.

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Back in his own rooms, Snape set Dumbledore's Pensieve down on his desk.

He hesitated a very long time before taking up his wand, distracting himself with several small tasks. There were books and papers disarranged on his night table. His inkstand needed refilling; his quill was dull. His boots pinched, his collar was oppressive. He needed a cup of tea.

The Pensieve sat on his desk, gently misting and swirling; completely innocent, and terrifying.

Finally, he put the tip of his wand to his temple, concentrated on exactly which memory he wanted – Midsummer's Night revel, the Mushroom Circle nightclub, from the time she and I arrived to the time I went to sleep in my own bedroom – and peripherally saw the silver-white strand of the stuff of his memory forming on the wand's end. When the transubstantiation of thought was done, he dropped the strand into the whirling surface of the Pensieve.

He sat for a long moment, his heart accelerating slightly with dread, but then took a few deep breaths and touched his hand to the surface of his memory.

An instant later, he was drawn down into his own recent past.

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Emily took a long time readying herself to leave the castle, as her injury made her usual sort of preparations for a meeting with Lucius much more work than before. Previously, she had had nothing more to worry about than which lipstick to put on and whether to wear the silk or lace lingerie this evening. She had never before had to take the time to apply Healing Potion and then an elaborate bandage to her left shoulder as part of her toilette routine, and found that it quite slowed matters down.

Her usual coquettish affectation of stockings and garters now seemed too labour-intensive to be endured, so instead she put on a skirt, petticoat, and camisole of soft black spidersilk, and a demure little jacket of bottle-green velvet. No perfume, no jewellery, just black leather ballet flats over her bare feet. This was, she had decided, a purely social thank-you sort of call to an old friend who had done her a very good turn before she left England, and there was no need to dress as though she was going to a torrid assignation with a lover. As far as Emily was concerned, the carnal part of their relationship was well and truly over, and it wasn't as if she would be physically capable of their usual sort of athleticism in this condition anyway.

Yes, she was just going to drop by for an hour or so and thank him for all that he had done for her in the matter of the attack and the inquest, apologise for her part in their falling-out, and make her goodbyes to him before she left. They might even be able to remain friends, after enough time had gone by to dull her indignation over the way he had treated her and to let her forget her sexual passion for him. Maybe ten or fifteen years from now, she might run into him and Narcissa somewhere, at one of the usual spots in Paris or London, and be able to cordially greet them both. Now might even be a good time to keep her promise to Draco, and attempt to persuade Lucius to let her at least try to find the boy a sponsor for the next round of Tithe page selections.

At perhaps five minutes past eleven a.m., Emily left her apartments at Hogwarts for the first time in almost a week, then took the white lawn handkerchief out of its envelope. A moment later, the Portkey deposited her in the rose garden just outside Malfeasant.

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Professor Snape had never been able to accustom himself to the transition between real-time and entering the environment of a Pensieve; the initial sense of cold, sucking blackness always made him feel a bit woozy. When he got his equilibrium back, he found himself standing in a long alleyway, bordered on one side by a very long wall covered with ivy and dimly lit by gas lamps and starlight.

He was standing about ten paces behind his own memory-self, dressed in his usual black robes, and Professor Swain, wearing that trailing black silk opera cloak over sleeveless black velvet robes. The giant fellow with the horns emerged from the ivy doorway, and again mistook him for this Lord Trent fellow. He still had not the remotest idea as to who this Lord Trent was, and it was a bit unsettling to think that by some fluke of coincidence, he had a virtual twin somewhere in the Muggle world. Ah well, he supposed this charade had been momentarily amusing and gotten the two of them out of paying the cover charge.

Professor Swain had tried to put a positive spin on the situation – "Really, you ought to consider a career on the stage," said she. Oh yes, he could just imagine his stage career. More than likely he would want to play Hamlet or Macbeth or Iago, and instead be seen as pantomime villains like Don John and earnest buffoons like Malvolio, that did seem to be the way of things in his life. She hadn't needed to throw out that absurd reassurance about how his Muggle double was "considered quite good-looking, in a dark and brooding sort of way", but she probably did intend for it to be flattering.

He followed himself and his colleague down candlelit corridors and stairways and into the cloakroom, and his colleague took off her cloak and then her robe, revealing that scandalous bit of evening dress. Well... he had to admit that it wasn't entirely unpleasant to get another look at her in that ensemble, especially without having to worry that she might take offence with him for staring. He knew that Arcadians came from a warm climate, and their traditional evening dress reflected what textiles were commonly available in their land, and that which was comfortable for the usual weather, but... But. Snape was a heterosexual man, and the sight of a (blonde, athletic, well-proportioned) woman in what amounted to black lingerie and a silky chemise was not exactly repulsive.

The first hour went by just as he remembered it – Professor Swain had greeted Megan Redqueen, the bartender, and let her know that he was to be her guest that evening; a moment later, that annoying blond wanker Alain had run up, apparently with the intention of commandeering his colleague's attentions for the evening. Professor Swain had started talking to her friends, he had rather embarrassingly ordered a cup of coffee in a Faery tavern, which he now knew was about like ordering one's Japanese sushi with a side of Hollandaise sauce. Instead the bartender had gotten him some fine usquebaugh, the memory of which made him idly wonder what the chances were of ordering a bottle of it from somewhere.

Then, right on cue, he had looked up from the bar to see Professor Swain disappear onto the dance floor with her friends in her usual quest to have a lovely time with everyone in any given room other than him. He had then watched the musicians playing and the crowd dancing, impatiently scanning the crowd for Catherine Orson's appearance, but she was of course nowhere to be found. Ah, here was Professor Swain again, breathing hard and looking dishevelled and hoydenish. She lingered at the bar long enough to have a drink, tell him she hadn't seen Catherine either, and tell him he looked miserable. A moment later, she was distracted again. Both Snape and Snape's memory-self watched her go, and the expressions on their respective faces said that they were both just a bit too much of a gentleman to tell the woman that there were times when she had the attention span of a gnat.

And here came that bloke William, with his Boy Who Lived glasses and his Muggle jacket and his sweet pea bouquet, who warbled familiar thees and thous at their hostess and started this whole debacle by ordering "a blue nectar of the Goddess" in front of him. Really, Megan Redqueen and her so-called sweet William were just shameless about their romantic bantering, weren't they – if the man addressed one more word of honeyed hyperbole at the poor girl, Snape thought he was going to be ill. "After seeing the ridiculous lengths you had to go to convince our hostess to spend a bit of time with you, let's hope that she didn't abandon you in a train station," Snape muttered tartly.

Then, of course he had had to become intrigued by this ritual and the fetching way the stuff smelled, and ask about it, and then of course Miss Redqueen had to dangle them in front of him with all her (saucy, dimpled, buxom) might, and then came the fatal moment, when he lifted the glass to his lips – "Don't do it, you idiot," Snape moaned.

But wait – he hadn't before noticed that little vixen of a Megan Redqueen was watching him with such mischievous, avid eyes as he took the first sip, or that she had to stifle a tiny giggle as he put the empty glass down. She was all too glad to pour him another as well. After his third glass, she was grinning ear to ear at him.

"Oh, you little wench," Snape said witheringly to the bartender, even though he knew he was addressing his memory of her, and not the real woman. "You knew what effect it would have on me, and didn't say anything. You think this is funny, don't you – you think this is just hilarious."

The bartender stifled another giggle – apparently, yes, she did think this was hilarious. Even as she continued to wait on other people at the bar, that... that... Redqueen woman was keeping an avid eye on him, with the attitude of one waiting for the payoff of an exquisitely funny practical joke. Snape had once thought that the look on Emily Swain's face, just as she convinced him to doff all of his inhibitions about kissing a complete stranger in King's Cross, was a thing of merry lawlessness, but this redheaded minx made her seem positively mannered by comparison.

Then, Snape saw his memory-self lean back on his seat and shake his head, hard, his thumb and forefinger scratching at the corners of his eyes. He blinked several times, harder; a look of mild befuddlement gradually coming over him. He leaned down and studied the fresh white sweet pea blossoms lying before him on the bar as though he had never seen flowers before. He stared in almost childish astonishment at a passing dryad, who twinkled back at him in amusement. One of those snaky Naga changelings came up to the bar next to him and ordered a mug of ale, and Snape turned and stared at him as well. The snake changeling also peered back, smiling gently, and waved at him, as a grown-up might to a particularly bold and precocious small boy.

Just down the bar, he noticed Megan Redqueen watching his memory-self with her hands pressed over her lips, doing her best to suppress a paroxysm of wild giggling – the look Snape gave her would have made the stoutest Gryffindors wet themselves. "If you weren't a lady, and I weren't a gentleman, Miss Redqueen, I would hex you into oblivion," he snarled.

And, of course, his luck being what it was, Professor Swain wafted off the dance floor and into the seat beside him at just that moment. His memory-self paid absolutely no attention to her whatsoever, intent as he was on watching the Naga changeling, who had taken his ale and gone off to the other end of the bar and greeted that young wizard in the leather jacket and glasses. She stood there next to him for a few minutes, chin propped on her hand, waiting for him to notice her, while he stared around him with an expression on his face not unlike the one Alice must have registered at her first glimpse of Wonderland. And like Megan Redqueen, the dryad, and the Naga changeling, she seemed to think this wondering attitude was rather sweet and amusing.

Then his memory-self had noticed his colleague standing beside him and started showering her with a barrage of questions. He wanted to know what manner of creature the Naga changeling was, he wanted to know if the dryad was a girl or a tree, asked her about everything and nothing. Alain had appeared and was again smarmy and irritating, but once Professor Swain had discerned he had been drinking Seventh Kingdom absinthe, she seemed concerned about him. He and that sod of an Alain had gone a few rounds of sarcastic repartee after Alain tried made a truly pathetic and obvious attempt at baiting him, but Professor Swain didn't seem about to just deposit him somewhere and head off to amuse herself. She seemed to have met people in this state before, and she appeared to have decided to keep a close eye on him while he was in this condition.

And she made this decision none too soon – Snape's memory-self turned away from her and stared out at the exuberant mass of Faeries dancing again. In his highly suggestible state, he was finding this situation overwhelming. Snape always felt most secure behind a carefully maintained self-control, but now that control was gone, lost to some strange force he didn't quite understand. He stared around him, like some innocent who had accidentally wandered into unfamiliar, dangerous, territory.

Professor Swain had then immediately gone to his side, drawing him into a private corner where his distress would not be much observed. He had wrapped his arms around her, shaking, and she was holding his head on her shoulder and was whispering soothingly into his ear. There, you're all right. I won't let anything hurt you, and I'm not going to leave you alone.

Yes, you will, Snape heard himself whisper. He clung to her more tightly, but she had let him, her cheek resting against his.

"Professor? Come on. Let's go somewhere quieter. You aren't feeling well," she whispered back – but thankfully, Snape's memory-self now seemed to be regaining some of his composure. He lifted his head from her shoulder and stared down into her eyes.

"Actually, I thought you said you'd teach me how to waltz," he said, with the air of one issuing a daring challenge indeed.

I wanted to learn how to dance? Snape thought to himself. What is in that absinthe?

Professor Swain seemed as surprised as he was – "Oh, you'd like to try that now?" Well, really, she didn't need to act as blown away as all that – it wasn't as though he didn't think he could dance, he just didn't like dancing, for a wide variety of reasons.

She offered him her hand with a polite bow, and asked: "Professor Snape, may I have this dance?"

And, apparently, he had accepted.

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As the evening continued to unfold, he had to conclude that ultimately, he didn't seem to have embarrassed himself, not that much, at least.

The Fae he had stared at by all appearances had found his behaviour more funny than offensive, and while Snape would have far rather maintained his dignity and decorum, he would take being thought earnestly intoxicated over being thought unforgivably boorish or a fool. Professor Swain seemed experienced in how one looked after people who were "in the arms of the Blue Faerie" – she had instantly noticed when he had a moment of being really alarmed and disoriented and helped him to calm down.

Then she had humoured him at every turn, first acceding to his request to be taught the waltz – and she had a rather disarming way of asking a bloke to dance, he had to admit. Then she had taken him a bit aside and taught him the steps, and after a few minutes, to his great surprise, he had comported himself quite well – even, perhaps, with a bit of panache. The satyr at the harpsichord onstage had noticed the two of them waltzing, and had by no more than a nod of his head let the other musicians know to segue into what Snape figured must be Arcadian ballroom-dance music, some stately composition for harpsichord, violins, flutes, and a low, rhythmic bodhran.

After some time on the dance floor, however, he had another brief moment of sensory overload and wavered on his feet, his hand pressed to his temple. Professor Swain again asked if he wanted to sit down, somewhere quieter, and his memory-self admitted that might be a good idea. So she had taken him off to a darkened alcove with a deep velvet sofa and told him to have a rest. Three glasses of absinthe unfortunately decided to become loquacious instead, and soon he was talking talking talking to her, of 'shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.' She heard all about how Slytherin had won the House cup seven years running, from '83 to '90, and how annoyed he had been with Albus for the Gryffindor-centric shenanigans in '91. Yes, perhaps the Gryffindors had deserved a bit of recognition for all they had done that year, but there was no reason to humiliate Slytherin House in giving it to them, now, was there? He was tired of how his House got blamed for everything, they weren't all a lot of villains and scoundrels, it was not a sin to be ambitious, you know. Did she know that Slytherin's academic record was second only to Ravenclaw's? And since he had become Head of House, it had only improved every year? It wasn't inherently evil to aspire to honours for oneself, or to be proud of one's heritage and where one came from... was it?

"Of course it isn't," Professor Swain said.

"I'm talking too much," Snape's memory-self said, scowling.

"You sound as though you need to vent a bit," she replied. That warm, attentive, everything-you-say-is-fascinating look was back on her face – and three glasses of absinthe were eating that up with a spoon. Truly, if she had any sense at all, she would not have encouraged him while he was in that state, because after that, it appeared that there had been no shutting him up.

But the absinthe had affected him more and more – his words began to slur slightly – and by the time he started declaiming Shakespeare, Snape put his head down into his hands and just groaned.

It looked as though he was indulging himself with a great big wallow in self-dramatising self-pity, declaiming Hamlet's soliloquies paraphrased to make himself the hero – oh by the Merlin's hoary testicles, the whole performance was just cringe-worthy. Not only was his behaviour embarrassing, but his diction and recall were both terrible. He had just absolutely mangled Hamlet's third soliloquy – Neville Fecking Longbottom could have done a better job of it than that. There had to be a special place in Hell for those men who hoped to impress women in pubs by declaiming long, drunkenly butchered passages of Shakespeare. Yes, of course, that was the way one impressed a woman – Lucius Malfoy take note, your reign of terror as Britain's Wizarding world's foremost Lothario is about to end, now that we've all seen a production of the Drunken Shakespeare Follies, courtesy of Severus Snape.

"Oh, pull yourself together, you puling idiot," Snape snapped at himself. Luckily for him, though, only Professor Swain seemed to be paying any attention.

He glanced at his colleague, expecting to see one of her mocking little smiles, private amusement at her colleague making such an ass of himself – but no, she wasn't reacting that way at all. She seemed to know he was being silly and self-indulgent, but was letting him have his say anyway. She was listening to all of these peevish, illogical pronouncements coming out of him with what could only be described as close, sympathetic attention.

"Maybe you should tell this to Albus," she said, when he paused for breath. His hair had gotten into his eyes, and she brushed it off his face with a delicate gesture of her hand.

"And what would be the point of that?" he huffed. "One can never get anywhere with direct appeals, you see."

Finally, mercifully, he had just subsided into unconsciousness onto her shoulder mid-sentence. She had smiled, put her arm around his shoulders, and stayed there with him as a kind of combination nursemaid and pillow. He remembered – this was a holy day for her, a religious festival. She could have been out dancing and carousing with her friends, but no, she was taking care of him, but strangely enough, she didn't seem to mind that in the least.

Now, that was... rather kind of her.

Someone passed by them, a slender woman with leaves in her hair, and glanced down at him for a moment. "Someone's paying his first visit to the Blue Faerie?" the dryad asked his colleague.

"I'm afraid so," she replied, with a rueful grin.

"Poor dear." The dryad chuckled and shook her head. "Ah well, at least he's got you to look after him," she said, smiling, and headed back toward the bar.

Then Catherine Orson appeared out of the crowd. Catherine looked very different than the tired, haphazardly dressed woman he had first met; her short red hair was sleekly coiffed, her lips were rouged and her lashes darkened, and she wore a curvaceous, low-necked black dress and black stockings. A tall, well-built, freckled fellow with silvery hair and eyes, dressed in a Faery silk shirt and black Muggle jeans, was escorting her. The three of them greeted each other warmly – "Cat! Roddy!" Professor Swain ordered a bottle of Third Kingdom wine from a passing waitress.

Catherine bent over Snape, peacefully sleeping on Professor Swain's shoulder. "Professor? Sir?" When he didn't respond, she turned back to his colleague. "Well, someone's really out, isn't he. Didn't he get any sleep since the night we detoxed Miss Liria?"

The Professor's arm tightened around him. "Someone drank at least two glasses of Seventh Kingdom absinthe, without the faintest idea as to what it would do to him," she said, stroking his cheek. That gesture, and the way she was holding him... truthfully, could only be described as careful. Even gentle.

"Ah, got it," Catherine said, as though she was well familiar with this situation. "Let me give you some of my ever-so-famous hangover cure for him before I go. He'll need it."

"The reason why you have never, and will never, pay a cover to get into this place," Roddy said, laughing.

So the hangover powder was Dr. Orson's creation, then. Snape felt a pang of embarrassment about his initial distrust of the little packet of medicine on his night table – he knew Dr. Orson to be an accomplished compounding apothecary, and her headache medicine had been truly efficacious. Given his own tendency toward tension headaches, he would have been interested in knowing exactly what went into that powder and how it was compounded, if she didn't mind telling him.

The three of them sat about drinking wine and discussing Liria's condition, and her return to the Faerielands, in depth and at length – Snape was glad to hear all the details. This Roddy fellow had apparently escorted Liria home and gotten her a job with a friend's parents, and he described how the girl had cried with happiness and hugged the nearest tree when she had gotten there, and how much she had enjoyed her first meal at home, a great big breakfast at some place called the Inn at the End of the World. When Professor Swain said that she would have liked to see Liria take third helpings of porridge and small beer, Snape had to admit that he wouldn't have minded seeing that either.

Some time later Catherine and Roddy had gotten up and taken their leave of Professor Swain, and moved off toward the dance floor, but she stayed behind with him, as he continued to sleep on her shoulder. At some point he moved a bit and slid into her lap... and she had just gotten him situated comfortably and let him rest. Alain came by to tease her once or twice, suggested they play a capital joke by Transfiguring up a pair of ass's ears for Snape while he slept, but she wouldn't let him.

After awhile, Snape saw himself wake up, pouting and rubbing his eyes and looking embarrassingly like a sulky little boy who had just roused from a nap. Professor Swain again stroked his hair out of his eyes and smiled at him. They started talking again – another of those nonsensical conversations in which he talked in peevish non-sequiturs, and she soothed him by listening sympathetically and unconditionally giving him his way in everything. (Bloody hell, she really had met a few people in this condition before, hadn't she.)

Only this time, he had kissed her. Just reached up and pulled her down into a rather long and explicit snog, as though it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world, as though he had every right to expect that this woman wouldn't mind it in the least.

And she hadn't objected. No, actually she looked as though she was quite enjoying it.

Snape was aghast. Absolutely, jaw-droppingly, pulse-stillingly aghast.

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Lucius was waiting on one of the rose garden benches when Emily arrived at Malfeasant. He was dressed in an elegant charcoal-grey silk shirt and matching at-home robes, his pale hair loose around his shoulders. He immediately came forward to meet Emily when she arrived, taking her hands in his, and putting only the softest, most brotherly sort of kiss on her cheek.

He then studied her face for a long moment, grey eyes narrowing. "You're using a human Glamour," he said. "Get rid of it. You shouldn't have to hide yourself from anyone, ever."

"I really do prefer this now," she said shortly.

"There's no one here but me," he gently reminded her. "And your real face is so much more beautiful." He leaned down and put another very soft kiss on her cheek, as if to illustrate that point.

"Let's just say some bastard with an iron knife has made me a bit self-conscious about my face at present," she replied.

"All right, if you insist," he said mildly. "I'm so glad to see you, darling. You can't imagine how I've been worrying ever since I saw you in hospital – the last thing you needed was to go home to that terrible tragedy at work. How have you been? Healing all right?" he asked, his brows drawing together in concern. "It was your left shoulder, if I recall correctly?"

"Yes, the back of it, here." She held her hand just over the bandage for a moment.

"I'll be careful not to jostle you, then." He took both her hands in his again, looking down at her face with fond commiseration. "You look lovely, by the way. Perhaps a bit more fragile than usual, but very lovely."

Emily blushed – she would have said she had looked peaky ever since the attack, but she rather liked the sound of fragile, especially spoken in such tender tones, and when soft grey eyes and silver-blond hair looked so fetching in the late morning sunlight. He had not yet let go of her hands, seemed to have all the time in the world to just stay there with her – and suddenly all this kindness was making her throat feel tight and her eyes misty.

"Thank you," she said, her voice not quite quavering, and averting her eyes shyly. "It's lovely to see you too."

"Thank you for agreeing to see me," he said. Then, he seemed to intuit that her emotional state was just as fragile as her appearance at that moment and wordlessly enfolded her in his arms, taking care not to jar the injured shoulder. It was very much the sort of embrace a father might give his injured child – and it would have taken a much stronger woman than Emily Swain to resist him at that moment.

After the attack, after all that had happened at the end of the school year, truthfully, Emily would have given a great deal for someone to give her a long, comforting hug, and he seemed happy to do just that. Given the choice, she would have preferred to be comforted by any one of many other people she loved more, and she couldn't have said that she would ever be able to trust Lucius again, but he was at that moment warm, gentle, and kind, and for now, that was enough.

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Emily had originally thought that her visit would last perhaps an hour, but then Lucius had unexpectedly had the house-elves prepare a marvellous lunch for the two of them at noon, at a white-draped table just under the rose garden terrace, and as she had forgotten breakfast and the garden was in full, fragrant bloom, she hadn't been able to resist spending some time lingering over a bite to eat. There were various sorts of luscious French artisan cheeses and fresh brown baguette, a light, savoury vegetable soufflé, slices of roast breast of pheasant in a creamy, herbed sauce, a profusion of exotic fruit, and copious amounts of champagne.

He gently assisted her into her chair with fond, brotherly solicitousness, and after the week she had had, she couldn't help but feel grateful for it. At one point, when a too-vigorous attempt to cut into a quince twinged her shoulder, he had gotten up and insisted on doing it for her himself.

"So how was the end of the year at Hogwarts?" he asked, passing a china plate of quince slices across the table.

"Thank you. The feast was dull as tombs," she replied. "Everyone was depressed over losing Cedric."

"Yes, that was a shame about the Diggory boy," Lucius said, shaking his head. "I know his parents – Amos is such a good sort. Draco told me that the Leaving Feast was the dreariest event he'd ever attended, but then the boy's never been fond of Leaving Feasts."

"Really? I wonder why," Emily asked, looking up curiously.

"Well... " Lucius's lip curled slightly – "that old scoundrel of a Headmaster always finds some way to pinch honours from Slytherin at the last second; he's gotten absolutely notorious for it. At the end of ninety-one, he let the Slytherins believe that they had won the inter-House competition, even went so far as to have the Great Hall decorated with Slytherin colours – and then awarded some last-minute points to Gryffindor that took the House Cup right out from under them. You should have seen Severus afterward – he was positively fuming."

Emily remembered Professor Snape's hurt and indignant account of the same events, in the Mushroom Circle. "I can imagine," she said.

"Really, I don't know how Dumbledore gets away with so openly favouring Gryffindor House – he was a Gryffindor himself, back in the day, you know. But he's really at his worst in the way he discriminates against those he sees as the 'haves', if you will. But then of course we all know the man is one of your militant anti-Establishment populists – he loves his poor little underdogs so much that he doesn't see why everyone else shouldn't be delighted to devote all their time to furthering their interests, the same way he does. Call me insensitive to the needs of the less fortunate if you will, but I don't see why my boy should have to spend all his time apologising for the accident of his birth. Certainly I've let him know that it's vulgar to brag, but he shouldn't have to be ashamed to come from a family that's managed to earn a little something over the years and hold on to it. I think you and I both know that a lack of means doesn't automatically confer tremendous virtue on a person, any more than having means does.

"You know, though, Emily – " Lucius leaned toward her thoughtfully, " – that's probably why he washed his hands of you over the matter of your inquest – he probably figured someone with your kind of resources and family name should be able to take care of herself."

Emily stared down at her plate, her lower lip quivering slightly. "Do you really think so?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Lucius said, with a look of grim commiseration. "I can't think of any other reason why he'd fail to support you, when he so ardently supports all of his other professors in just about everything. Just last year, there was a situation where a Hogwarts professor had to appear at a hearing over an incident in which the Care of Magical Creatures professor was showing a hippogriff to his class and the creature went berserk and mauled one of the students. Dumbledore was there with the man and supported him absolutely."

"The Care of Magical Creatures professor – you mean Hagrid?"

"Yes, the very tall fellow, that's the one. The teacher was so clearly negligent it would have been impossible for any reasonable person to pretend otherwise, but there was Dumbledore, all but holding his hand all throughout the proceedings. And your situation was the exact opposite – you were so clearly in the right, and had so much more at stake than just the life of some pet creature. Not to mention he has to know that Faeries are still uncommon enough in this world to make a legal proceeding involving an Arcadian subject rather complicated, especially when a death is involved."

"But... the Third Task was going on, he might have been busy... " Emily said, in what she herself thought to be a rather lame tone. She had been fond of Dumbledore, admired him in much the same way she did Gwydion, and was still clinging desperately to hopes that he was better than Lucius had described. But somehow, Lucius's opinions made so much sense to her and explained so much of what had happened.

Lucius looked unimpressed. "If someone who worked for me was on trial for her life and could benefit from my testimony, no sporting event could have kept me away from it," he said, in a tone of delicate scorn. "I should consider it only my duty to someone who depends upon me. But you know – " he leaned toward her, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper, " – it's probably for the best that he didn't turn up at court that day. In my opinion, his idea of support would have hurt your case more than it would have helped."

"Why so?" she asked, dismayed.

"Well... I'll not deny Dumbledore was a force to be reckoned with, back in the days when Grindelwald was terrorising the Wizarding world – my father often told me the story of what went on then. They even wanted to make the man Minister of Magic, some time back, and he might have been a good one, if it weren't for some of the prejudices he holds. Dumbledore's always been an ardent populist, a real 'rob from the rich, give to the poor' sort, a self-styled champion of the less fortunate and the disenfranchised. Honestly, the man can't decide whether he's a school headmaster or a social worker, it seems to me.

"Every so often he'll take up another project in the form of some societal outcast he's trying to rehabilitate – that rather simple part-giant fellow who teaches Care of Magical Creatures is a perfect example. Not only that, would you believe that last year he actually hired a werewolf to teach classes, allowed the fellow to live on school grounds without any sort of chains or holding cell? His idea of compensating for the fellow's handicap was to order Severus to spend hours toiling to make a potion to counteract it. No overtime in it for him, of course, but the Head of Slytherin should be delighted to do it as a philanthropic gesture, there's a chap. And just as you'd expect, despite all these precautions, by the end of the school year the fellow got out, morphed to his werewolf form, and terrorised some students."

Emily stared at him in horror. "He didn't bite anyone, did he?"

"No, but that was due to pure dumb luck, from what I heard," Lucius said, shaking his head direly. "If the creature had mauled or bitten my son or any of my friends' children, I tell you, I'd have given the school governors no rest until Albus Dumbledore was in the dole line. Really, one can scarcely feel safe with some of the undesirables Dumbledore keeps trying to help, at the expense of our children."

"What happened to the werewolf?" Emily asked, concerned.

"When the fellow came to himself, he resigned from his position – probably the best thing he could do, all told," Lucius said, grimacing. "I feel for the man, truly, he didn't ask to get lycanthropy, of course. But when one has that sort of handicap, one has to make allowances for it in one's life. One simply can't expect to be able to live like someone who doesn't, and anyone who thinks otherwise is criminally naïve, no two ways about it.

"So you see... in light of all the unpleasantness that came out of Dumbledore's... social work project sort of employees last year, it's probably for the best that he didn't turn up to support you, and we were able to take care of you ourselves." He reached across the table and gently caressed her hand. "If a stolid old lad like Tibernius Solon had gotten the idea that you were one of Dumbledore's pet projects, it might not have gone so well for you, if you know what I mean."

"You really think so?" Emily couldn't believe it; she would have thought so much more of Albus Dumbledore. One of her heroes was being revealed as not only a frail human being, but something of a mountebank, and it hurt her to hear it.

"Well... they did rule against his friend Hagrid in the matter of the hippogriff, last year," Lucius said mildly. "It's disappointing – no matter how much we all admire the man, he just seems intent on destroying his own reputation, and I've not the foggiest idea why. Maybe he's just getting on in years, and doesn't want to admit it to himself – my father had a few irrational spells of that sort, in the years before he passed on."

"I see," Emily said quietly, her eyes downcast. The mention of a leader's judgment failing as he reached advanced age was setting off pangs of unnamed worry in her – ever since the 3022 Peace had been signed, she had seen the strain of that conflict taking its toll on King Gwydion's already tenuous health. It frightened her to see her world's foremost authority figure faltering, and these reports of Dumbledore's well-meaning folly were filling her with the same sort of anxiety.

"By the Mother, what a sad mess this year has turned out to be," she said, downing a healthy swallow of wine. "Ah well, I suppose there's a bright side – I'll never get bawled out by Professor Snape ever again, that's a comfort. He really outdid himself at the end of the year, is all I'll say about it, but words cannot describe how pleased I'll be to never, ever see him again."

She turned toward Lucius, expecting a bit of sympathy regarding "that miserable crustacean" as per his usual wont – but instead, he slanted a heavy-lidded little smile down at his wineglass. He glanced off into the distance as though reflecting on some very satisfying secret indeed; then leaned forward and gently laid his hand over hers again.

"Well, if it's any comfort to you now, darling – I can assure you that you'll never have to worry about him again," Lucius said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. "I know you didn't want me to say anything to him about the way he treats you, but now I really insist. It just so happens that around eight o'clock tonight, I'm going to be meeting up with my extremely ungentlemanly cousin Severus, and I'll make my feelings clear on the matter around that time."

"Really? I didn't realise you were meeting with Professor Snape tonight," Emily said.

"Yes, I'm just meeting him for a drink tonight at some beastly little Muggle place in London called the Fusilier Pub," Lucius said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"A Muggle pub?" Emily asked, now very curious indeed. "You mean to tell me that there's some force on Earth that has actually induced you to set foot inside a Muggle drinking establishment?"

Lucius rolled his eyes. "It's nothing, dear, just some family business dealings that have to be kept very hush-hush for decorum's sake, I'll not embarrass you by airing our dirty laundry. Suffice to say you're not the only one he's irked of late, and he needs to account for himself a bit. But tonight I'll make it a point to let him know exactly what I think of how he treats my dear friend Emily. I promise you, after my ever so tactful and considerate way of dealing with him, you'll never have to worry about him hurting your feelings again, my love. It's the least I can do for you."

Emily almost laughed – it sounded as though Snape had not seen eye-to-eye with him in some financial dealing, and the way Lucius could be so brazen about sex and so coy and prudish about money sometimes amused her. Ever since he had talked to Mrs. Rosier for her, Emily had well realised that Lucius's tactful, considerate way of dealing with people probably amounted to veiled threats and heavy-handed bullying, but somehow she couldn't find it within herself to defend Snape too passionately.

"Lucius, you don't have to," she said. "I wish you wouldn't. It's not like we'll ever run into each other again."

"I know, but it's the principle of the thing, you see," Lucius averred, very stoutly indeed. "There's a certain sort of behaviour one expects of a gentleman, especially in the way he treats women and family, and Severus has not been a shining example of either this year. I want to let him know exactly what I think of his behaviour this year – and I want to do something for you. You've had enough go wrong for you of late without him adding his usual sort of charm to it, and I want to see you happy again."