Chapter Twenty-Two – Ghosting in the Peripheral

Lupin hadn't moved since Snape entered the dilapidated kitchen; he was either asleep or in pain. His untouched breakfast sat in front of his folded arms, a few strands of his greying hair stuck in the bowl as if he'd collapsed there unexpectedly. In stark contrast, Parr had never looked so alert as she worked her way through a ridiculously high pile of toast. Even the sight of food made Snape want to heave, let alone the smell. It took all his concentration to keep his mouth firmly clamped shut against the rising sensation of nausea as he walked over to the sink to get himself a glass of water. How much had he drunk last night? He'd lost track sometime early on, and it had gone rapidly downhill after that.

Parr studied Snape through narrowed eyes as she folded a piece of toast into her mouth with a spray of crumbs. He tried to ignore her as he mentally strained to recall some scrap of memory from the previous night. He'd walked in on Parr and Lupin having a loud debate in the fusty-smelling living room over whether socks should be ironed, which then spontaneously became an arm wrestling match that ended in the window getting broken and Lupin jammed into the fireplace with a wrenched shoulder and a chair leg stuffed down the back of his trousers.

"Are you both drunk?" he'd asked accusingly as Lupin extracted the chair leg and hauled himself up out of the fire-grate. "Do you think that's entirely appropriate right now?"

"Oh, for crying out loud, Severus," Lupin said, dismissing him by flapping a hand at him and collapsing into an armchair in a cloud of ashes. "Chara and I are having a discussion about laundry, that's all."

Snape rolled an empty bottle out of the way with his foot. "Yes, I can see how drinking yourselves into a stupor could make that subject more interesting," he sneered. "Must this discussion involve the both of you yelling at the top of your lungs? It has obviously escaped your memory that we are surrounded by Muggle dwellings, and you're supposed to be avoiding notice, not getting paralytic and destroying the house!"

"Who's paralytic?" Lupin had laughed, rolling a bloodshot eye at him. "Stop being such a stuffed shirt, Severus. It'll give you ulcers."

"Stuff your own shirt, Lupin," Snape had spat back.

"Well, it's giving me ulcers, then," Lupin sighed as Parr laughed heartily from her vantage point: cross-legged on the rickety table. "He wasn't this uptight at school," he told her with a wry smile. He sat up slightly as if a thought had occurred to him. "Oh, no, hang on, yes, he was." Parr laughed harder and tried to stifle it by jamming her face into the crook of her elbow.

"Let's not start the wonderful trip down memory lane," Snape hissed, trying to ignore Parr's muffled laughter off to his left. "Just shut the hell up and stop drawing the attention of the neighbours."

"Aw, come on, Severus, have a drink," Lupin suggested lightly. "It might help you to relax enough to let that pole out."

"What pole?"

"The one that's stuck up your arse," Lupin elaborated, pouring a drink out of a bottle of green sludge and toasting him. Parr had to clamp both hands over her mouth and went red in the face with repressed laughter.

Snape fixed Lupin with a black glare. "Fuck you, you cirrhotic runt!" he announced clearly and turned to leave.

"I win!" Parr shouted gleefully and leapt off the table. "You owe me a Galleon, Remus. Come on, pay up." She stuck her hand out toward him.

"Add it to my tab," he told her and downed his glass of fruity green sludge in one gulp.

Parr blew a raspberry at him in disgust. "One day I'm calling that tab, wolf-boy, so you'd better start winning some bets to try and even the stakes a little." She turned away from him with a prim little sniff and perched back on the table again, fussing at the folded cuffs of her sleeves.

Lupin tilted his head to one side and squinted at Snape, who was still standing in the doorway watching the exchange. He looked back at Parr. "Double or nothing."

"Absolutely not," said Parr and started to comb her fingers through one of her long tresses of hair.

Lupin made chicken noises at her from his chair.

"You'll only regret it, Remus," she sang at him, twisting her hair around her index finger and looking at the ceiling. "He won't do it."

"Then you have nothing to worry about," Lupin said, smiling at her, balancing the heel of one foot on the toes of the other, legs stretched out in front of him.

Parr stopped combing her hair and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I'm going to love being disgustingly wealthy," she said happily before kissing the extended index and middle fingers of her right hand. "You're on!" Lupin refilled his glass and toasted her. They both turned and looked at Snape hopefully.

What were they expecting him to do? He opened his mouth to tell them where they could stick their gambling, but Lupin started to smile broadly as if he'd already won, so he shut his mouth again. Lupin's smile faded as Parr's grew. Snape stepped back a pace out of the door only to have Parr uncross her legs and start towards Lupin again with her palm out. Snape stopped moving, and so did Parr. What the hell was this bet about? They were both staring at him again like he was a circus freak. He composed the sentence carefully before unleashing it on them both with as much venom as he could.

Lupin stuck his finger in his ear and twisted it. "I'm sorry, Severus, did you say 'galloping knob-rot' or 'rollicking fob-watch'?" He tried to fend off Parr who was diving for his pockets eagerly. "Get off! You haven't won! You haven't even asked him yet!"

"I don't need to, he won't do it!" Parr argued, scuffling with him and making him spill his drink.

"Triple and swap!" Lupin yelled, grabbing her sleeve in a vain effort to stop her from ransacking his pockets.

Parr snatched her arm out of his grasp and leapt back. "Now, that's a challenge!" She rolled her shoulders back and rubbed her hands together. She looked Snape up and down with a measuring expression. "Remus reckons you can't drink four glasses of firewhisky without passing out or puking up."

Snape stared back at her without blinking, turning her statement over in his mind. He should've known that Lupin would have made some comment to Parr about his lack of ability to deal with alcohol...the temptation at ridiculing him behind his back would've been too tantalising for the werewolf to resist. "Quadruple and claim," he challenged smoothly while his brain screamed at him that this was, most likely, an extremely bad idea.

It wasn't until after the sixth glass (or was it the seventh?) that he'd found out that wasn't the bet. Things got very hazy after that and the next thing he remembered was waking up face down on a saggy-springed bed with one boot missing, his sock on his hand, all his clothes on backwards and a rather large bruise on his hip.

Parr had stopped eating toast and was looking at him expectantly. Lupin still hadn't moved from his slumped position.

"What?" Snape spat at her and then had to stifle a moan as the pain from his hangover flared vivaciously through his skull like a hyperactive child on a sugar high.

Parr opened her mouth but was forestalled by Lupin's muffled voice emanating from the pile of creased clothes strewn over his side of the table. "Don't even think about it, Chara."

Parr's shoulders slumped slightly. "Aw, but why not, Remus?"

Lupin lifted his head slightly so that his bloodshot eyes peeked over his folded arms. "We discussed this already, and you agreed not to mention it."

Parr pressed her lips into a thin line before responding in a sulky tone. "Only because you made me."

Lupin barked a laugh and then winced as the pain of his own hangover increased tenfold at the sound. "I can't ever recall a time that I made you do something that you didn't want to do," he pointed out in a strained voice and rested his head back onto his arms.

Parr mulled this over for a few seconds. "Yes, I think that's true," she agreed. "In which case–" She turned back to where Snape was standing by the sink. "–can you do it again?" she asked, a broad grin pasted across her face.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly. "Do what?"

"Chara! Don't!" Remus cautioned sternly, his face screwed up in consternation.

"That thing you did last night with your –umph–" Lupin clamped his hand over Parr's mouth, cutting her off mid-sentence.

"You promised you wouldn't mention it!" Lupin hissed at her.

She pried his fingers away easily. "How can I not mention it? It was the high point of the evening!"

"What are you both talking about?" Snape had a sinking feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with his hangover. They stared at him, wide-eyed. A stupid grin bloomed across Lupin's pasty features.

"Are you saying you don't remember?"

Parr started to laugh quietly in her throat.

The sensation of panic started to rise in Snape's body, and he squinted hard as if it would help him recall the part of the evening they were sniggering about.

"Well, I have to say it was something of an eye-opener," Lupin mused. He frowned at Snape. "Are you sure you don't remember? I know it's burnt on my memory... unfortunately." He brushed his hair back and realised it was soaked with milk and crusted with cornflakes from being stuck in his breakfast bowl.

"Was it before or after the table got broken?" Chara asked Lupin innocently.

Lupin wiped his sleeve across his milk-sodden hair. "Before. After. During." He sighed heavily. "I honestly can't recall; it blended into one long circus act."

"I broke the table?" Snape asked hesitantly.

Lupin passed a hand over his mouth to hide a smile. "No, we all did."

Snape gaped at him stupidly. What the hell had gone on last night?!

"You have to do it again," Parr insisted, eyes gleaming at him. "I've never seen anything like it!"

Lupin grabbed her arm and started to drag her out of the kitchen. "Enough. It's time we were going."

Parr wriggled in his grasp determinedly. "No, I have to see it, Remus! Without the aid of alcohol!" Lupin continued to pull her across the floor and towards the door of the kitchen.

The expression on Snape's face mutely asked the question of Lupin as he managed to wrestle Chara out through the doorway with some force. "Well, let's just say that now I know the reason why you're in Slytherin," the werewolf revealed. The door banged shut behind him, muffling Parr's squawking protests and leaving Snape in a heightened sense of paranoia and utter confusion.

It began as all the others did: with disorientation. Wherever he was standing, it was dark, or perhaps his eyes had not yet become accustomed to such a low light level, because the longer he waited, the more details the surroundings yielded.

Had he been here before? He didn't know. Outlines of objects were vaguely familiar, but the complexities foreign as if these objects had only ever been glanced at peripherally. The juxtaposition of the recognisable and the strange was jarring and unsettling, as if one mocked the other merely by existing in such proximity.

Ah, yes, he did know this place. It was the contradiction that jogged his memory. He sighed, slightly irritated. Why was he here? Now. Again. There was nothing new here, no fresh detail, no reason for him to be back in this doorless room. It all seemed such a waste of time.

Ribbons of dust glittered like swathes of minute stars through the dimness. He watched them for a while, but even they had become tedious and uninteresting some years ago. You could only look at the same stuff so many times and pretend that it wasn't dull.

He turned to face the wall behind him where the boarded-up window was. That was where the light that caught the floating dust was coming from. It snuck in through hairline cracks and chinks between the splintered wooden planks, more determined than it had reason to be. It was just a dark room, full of junk. What the hell did it want to get into here for? Maybe they could swap places? He was sick of getting dragged back in here. It was like a vapid person's idea of purgatory.

He bent down slightly to try and peer through one of the cracks. Perhaps there was something more exciting outside, but it was too bright to let his eyes actually see anything. What if he levered one of the planks off?

Inexplicably, a gnawing sense of dread flared up inside him, and his hand stopped midway to the pitted wood. No. He should leave it. The window was boarded up for a reason, but whatever that reason was, it eluded him. He sighed and stepped a pace back, looking forlornly at the window like an option that he'd briefly considered as part of some unrealistic delusion.

There was a slight sound behind him, like the shift of a foot on stone. The dread turned into an icy panic. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here! His nails dug into the palms of his hands until he thought he could feel blood leak out along the knuckles, although it could just as likely be sweat. He didn't dare look to see which it was because he knew that if he moved, whoever was behind him would know he was there.

Idiot! a part of him hissed. You're standing right in front of a badly boarded-up window! How can they not see you?

But in the way of such nightmares, the part of him that was wholly here knew... knew that if he remained completely still, he wouldn't be seen.

How does that even make sense? the conscious fragment persisted. If they can't see you, then why are they coming towards you?

No, no, no, they can't be! He screwed his eyes up tight as if that would hide him even more completely from this... lurker, this intruder that had somehow found their way into this room that had no door.

The air turned thick.

His body turned to stone.

The intruder stopped right behind him.

He couldn't see it. After all, his eyes were shut and he was turned away, but he knew... he felt the intruder reach out towards him with a hand that, when it touched him, would burn straight through him, would sear his flesh straight to the bone and turn him to ash.

If he touches you, this is where it ends.

A finger brushed his shoulder.

Snape sat bolt upright in the chair, almost tipping it backwards. He had to grab at the kitchen table reflexively to stop the chair from skidding across the tiles and dumping him on the floor. The movement slammed his brain against the inside of his skull like an overripe fruit. He doubled over with a groan, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead.

A whole new world of hatred for Lupin opened up to him. He vowed to put a particularly effective laxative in the next bottle of Wolfsbane Potion he gave the bastard. He might even hold him down and force feed it to the moth-eaten stray to make doubly sure he got the full effect.

He reached out towards the kitchen table and stuck a hand straight into a pile of drool. Yes, Lupin was going to spend the next three months on the toilet, crying, and that was just for starters.

Snape raised his bloodshot eyes from the floor and wiped the side of his face with the palm of his hand. How could he feel like this and not be dead? Or not bleeding out of his nose. Or drenched in vomit.

His stomach imploded at that thought, and he stuck his head between his knees. Perhaps he should just stay like this for a few minutes.

Considering how he'd felt after Lupin and Parr had left, he'd thought it unwise to try Apparating back to Hogwarts while sporting a hangover the size of a Quidditch pitch. He'd probably end up in the Black Lake, twenty feet from the surface. So he'd put his head down on the kitchen table to stop the room from spinning and promptly passed out.

He had no idea how much time had slipped by. It didn't seem to matter. If anything, he felt ten times worse than before, and sitting here, bent over with his head between his knees and his hair brushing the floor wasn't helping.

He spent the next five minutes trying to stand up. It took him another five to get out of the kitchen. Even the sound of his feet moving across the threadbare carpet sounded blaringly loud. Judging from the painfully echoing silence, the house was empty except for him and his unnaturally loudly churning stomach.

Snape edged carefully into the doorway of the lounge room, focussing with some difficulty on the pieces of broken table scattered everywhere. He let his head fall forward into his hand. It wasn't the fact that he didn't remember what had happened last night that was the problem. It was that other people did. He rested his shoulder against the doorframe and sighed. Hanging around here at the scene of the crime was just morbid.

Fortunately, he fell over only once on his way out of the house.

The woman continued to look at him with a slight frown and her small, rosebud lips pursed into a plump little pout, the open book in her hand forgotten for now. Snape was pretty sure he'd wiped all the drool off his face back at the house, but her expression made him wonder if he was mistaken. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to come here.

He'd been to this bookshop before, but it had been many years ago. The inside hadn't changed much...a lot less dusty and disorganised, but he had no recollection of this woman being here then. He supposed that it was possible that the owner had just relegated the odious task of serving customers to someone else.

Snape cleared his throat and tried not to wince. "I'm looking for literature on theriomorphs."

The woman's eyebrows floated upwards, and she stared at him with her large, blue-green eyes.

Several seconds of unpleasant silence passed, which ordinarily he'd favour as he was usually the one instigating it, but right now he felt that if he stood still for too long, his legs might give out. This woman didn't look like the kind of person who'd welcome a crapulent wizard collapsing in her shop. He gritted his teeth and waited for her to respond. She gazed steadily at him and gave a peculiar cough that went off like an explosion deep in the centre of his brain. He tried not to flinch and stared back. He noticed her eyes flick briefly past his shoulder before refastening on his face.

Snape turned, with only a slight wobble, to find another woman standing a foot behind him. He recoiled in surprise, backing into the shop counter. The second woman seemed more surprised than he was. With the same coloured eyes and hair as the woman behind the counter, she had to be a relative. Her mouth was wider, and her nose bent ever so slightly off to one side, but the similarity was unmistakable. Perhaps a cousin, or even a sister from the apparent similarities in age. He hadn't noticed her upon entering the shop, but it was possible she had been lurking amongst the bookshelves.

It was like having four skewers jammed into his head with those two women staring at him. He tried straightening his coat surreptitiously and cursed himself for not being under better control, hangover or not. He saw the woman in front of him flick her eyes quickly at her relative and shake her head. Then she stepped back several paces, touched two fingers of one hand to her lips briefly and waited, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Arla will show you the appropriate section," said the woman behind him in a voice that was lower than Snape had been expecting out of such a porcelain face as hers. She probably only barely reached his shoulder in height and was finely boned like a bird with shoulder-length, dark blonde hair. He noticed she didn't blink very much.

Arla cleared her throat gently to prompt him. Snape didn't like the idea of the other woman's eyes drilling into his back like augers, but he turned and followed Arla nonetheless.

"We have several works on theriomorphs, mostly by English authors, although there are two or three from the eastern countries, and if memory serves, one by Cuaron that came in from Mexico earlier this week." Arla had the same timbre of voice as her relative, though the latter had said nothing beyond that one sentence since he had entered the bookshop. "Most of the books discuss several theriomorphic lines, but we do have some that handle specific shifters. There's a particularly thorough collection of essays on kemaloids and sobaki, and a two-part tome on ailuranthropes." She turned into a narrow corridor between two imposing shelves and tipped her head back to read the book spines at the very top of the shelf on her left. She edged along the floor on tiptoes. "Is there a specific shifter you need information on?" she asked in a slightly strained voice, wiggling her fingers slightly as she searched for the required section.

"Yes."

Arla turned her head and gazed at him with that slightly surprised expression, waiting for him to elaborate.

Snape stared at her hand. He noticed the nail on her third finger was missing. Arla realised where he was looking and closed her hand into a fist calmly and let it fall by her side. There was a very good imitation of her sister's pursed mouth expression on her face. They had to be sisters...the likeness was too strong for something more distant. The silence stretched out, punctuated only by the sound of Arla's sister turning a page in her book and the muted noise of the crowd outside in Diagon Alley.

Frustratingly, Arla seemed patient enough to actually wait for Snape to extend his response beyond one word. However, he wasn't in the mood for a staring match. Quite frankly, he just wanted to be left alone.

Arla wrinkled her button nose at him and dropped her gaze to the floor. "Ah, well, the books are on the top shelf. I'd get them down, but I'm not able to right now. I think you're tall enough, but let me know if you need a ladder." She swept back around him, eyes still averted, and disappeared around the corner.

It took Snape less than half an hour to discover the bookshop didn't have what he was looking for. However, he was starting to feel better now, the shop was very quiet, and the book of ailuranthropes was quite intriguing. He got some way through it before he realised that it must have passed closing time.

"I'm sorry you didn't find what you were looking for," said the porcelain-faced woman behind the counter as she handed him his change.

"What makes you think I didn't?" he asked flatly, picking the ailuranthrope book up from the counter. Now that he was feeling better, his customary rancour was back.

The woman arched her eyebrow. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Snape thinned his lips. "No."

The woman spread her delicate hands. "QED," she replied with the ghost of a smile and a glint in her eye.

He was glad his headache was gone because it meant he could slam the shop door behind him as loudly as he wanted.