Author's Notes:

Cheers to Vaughn for her beta services! All errors are my own, and feedback is always welcome.

“Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive” was written by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics). It was published in the 1940s to a great gnashing of teeth by pessimists the world over and has been recorded numerous times by numerous artists.

For any US readers who haven’t yet succumbed to a Harry Potter-driven obsession with British English: sticking plaster, sticky plaster, or even just “plaster” (UK) = adhesive bandage (US). They are also commonly referred to by their brand names, e.g. Elastoplast (UK) or Band-Aid (US). Accoutrements makes nifty plasters that look like strips of bacon, but Petunia won’t have them in the house. Vernon and Dudley might mistake them for the real thing.

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Insidious

by Grainne

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Chapter Ten: A Harmful Harvest?

Autumn brought a bounty of good fortune to the Dursley family. At least, that was Petunia’s official line; she was determined to, as her mother had used to sing around the kitchen, “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive.”

Petunia tried humming a bar or two as she did the washing up after yet another of Vernon’s potential client wine and dines, but she couldn’t quite remember the tune.

No matter, she thought, scrubbing at a lipstick mark on one of the wineglasses. It’s the attitude that counts.

After all, her roses had taken a first in two categories at the Best Kept Garden Secrets showcase, and she had, indeed, got her name in the papers. She’d had the articles—“Everything Comes up Roses for Surrey Housewife,” plus a few with the inevitable War of the Roses references—framed and mounted on the kitchen wall. She kept the frames spotless, reread the articles daily, and told herself that it did not matter that none of the papers had wanted a photograph.

Nor did it matter that she hadn’t yet been asked to host her own television programme (admittedly a slightly unrealistic expectation—it was bound to take a year or two of appearing on chat shows first), or that, instead of a celebration supper and a chance to rub elbows with gardening celebrities, there had only been a certificate and a cheque in the mail, accompanied by a brief note from the organisers of the showcase offering congratulations…and an assurance that the rumours of a bribery scandal associated with the showcase were patently false.

She’d given the keynote address at the Uppityton Garden Society’s September meeting, hadn’t she? And, based on her success there, hadn’t she received several other invitations to speak or give local garden tours? Wasn’t tea at Yvonne’s a great deal more tolerable these days, now that the other ladies had grown weary of exclaiming over Yvonne’s holiday snaps and instead sought Petunia’s advice? Wasn’t her next door green with envy?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes, Petunia told herself.

And then, of course, there was Vernon’s newfound success. There had been an awful lot of property damage of late—shops being vandalised, cottages and old houses collapsing, barns and outbuildings catching on fire. These events were distressing, certainly, but they were also a boon to those in the building trades and all those who supplied them, including Grunnings…especially Grunnings.

In fact, it seemed like Grunnings’ drills and drill components were everywhere these days—not to mention its new corporate logo, which was turning up at youth football clubs, vocational programmes, and on boxes of tools donated to help rebuild damaged shops. Vernon strode around saying things like, “We’ve got to spend money to make money,” and, “Grunnings is about more than drills; it is a cornerstone of our community.”

Vernon also spent a lot of time “networking” with people in government and business sectors. It seemed that there was no ear in Whitehall or the City to which Ms McMeeve could not gain access (something to do with her previous employment, Vernon said). Quiet weekends were a thing of the past; in fact, it was rare that Petunia saw her husband alone for more than an hour or two between lunch meetings, cocktail parties, dinners, trade shows, and the like.

“She’s right, you know,” Vernon had explained one evening. “I’ve got to put myself out there, create new opportunities. Grunnings can’t grow if we rely solely on custom from our traditional clients, nor if we wait passively for new clients to seek us out. Every day, dear, I’ve got to wake up thinking, ‘today, I’m going to take our drills someplace they’ve never been before.’”

Petunia had grown weary of such talk, truth be told, but she hadn’t complained. And she never would. For, however vulgar the catchphrases, however hectic the weekends, the fact remained that the orders for Grunnings’ products had started pouring in.

By Halloween, there had bowing and backslapping and champagne all around, and Vernon had passed his upper management review with flying colours. By mid-November, he’d been promised a pay rise and there were rumours of a massive Christmas bonus.

Come January, Petunia would no longer have to wash the wineglasses by hand, as she would have her new dishwasher with the special racks. She would never again haunt the aisles of the Uppityton Tesco in search of bargains. She would have Highland venison delivered direct to her door. She would eschew plaice for delicate lemon sole and put her name in at the butcher for the first of the winter lambs. She would get in fine brandies by the case. She would have chocolates from Belgium and Switzerland mounded on pretty little silver trays. And when she accompanied Mrs Mountbatten-Woolley-St. John-Blye on shopping trips to London, she would not be a mere spectator...

Petunia was no fool, of course. She knew that it could hardly be a coincidence that Vernon’s—and Grunnings’—fortunes had taken a turn for the better shortly after he’d hired Ms McMeeve. Petunia didn’t doubt her husband’s business sense, but she’d lived with him for nearly twenty years. She was thus familiar with his opinions on a wide variety of subjects, and “We’ve got to spend money to make money” was decidedly not a very Vernon thing to say.

But so what? Petunia didn’t relish her success with the local gardening society any less for the fact that Mr Prince had had considerable input on her speech, so why should she mind if Vernon’s recent success at work was due, in part, to the new secretary? Ms McMeeve seemed content to stay in the shadows, both professionally and personally. Petunia had been suspicious at first, but as time passed her suspicions had eased. Now, Petunia counted Ms McMeeve as just another of the well-deserved blessings that Mr Prince had bestowed on them.

Our dear Mr Prince, Petunia thought, smiling down into the sink full of soapy water.

She hoped he’d be able to come to the Christmas party they were hosting in a few weeks’ time. Although they corresponded via letters, she hadn’t actually seen him in ages. They’d had a lunch scheduled with Mrs Mountbatten-Woolley-St. John-Blye one weekend in October, but he’d cancelled at the last minute. Petunia wondered what sort of crisis—familial or horticultural—had precipitated his absence. She wondered, too (and for the umpteenth time), who his relatives were that he could not give her even the tiniest clue as to where he was staying.

Our dear mysterious Mr Prince, Petunia thought. She pulled the plug and watched the water swirl down the drain. Then she stripped off her rubber gloves, picked up a wineglass, and began to wipe it dry with a fresh tea towel. She didn’t think she’d ever been so curious about someone in her whole life—not even Vernon before they were married. She let out a nervous giggle.

To the hooded figure lurking just beyond the reach of the security light in the back garden, watching the goings-on at number four through the kitchen window, she was the very picture of a contented housewife.

But if that figure had dared to step a bit closer—had, in fact, dared to come all the way up to the window and press his face against it, he would have seen that all was not well with Petunia Dursley, and had not been for some time.

The truth was that accentuating the positive wasn’t as simple as recalling a tune, and that make-up and a smile could not completely hide the effects of ongoing strain. Ever since “that day”—the day of the flower showcase, the day of the letter in the diary—Petunia had found it increasingly difficult to block out thoughts of her dead sister and the world she had belonged to. The simplest tasks and the most casual phrases would set off vivid memories that, in turn, would give rise to a whole host of disturbing questions.

What if it were all real? What if these mad, dangerous people weren’t content to keep their freakishness to themselves? What if there was some lunatic urging them all to rise up? Could the authorities cope, or would it be every man for himself? Vernon was strong, but how could he protect her and Dudley from people who flitted about on brooms and blew up their enemies with mere words and little sticks? How could he protect them from soul-sucking spirits and foul-smelling creatures? How could he protect them from magic?

Petunia tried to ignore the questions, tried to distract herself from the memories, but it was a bit like trying to patch a faulty dam with a box of sticking plasters. She felt as if her defences might crumble at any moment. As a consequence, the worry lines in her forehead had deepened, and her eyes appeared to have sunk further into their sockets. The skin of her lips, beneath the lipstick, was thin and ragged from being chewed upon.

Petunia finished drying the last of the wineglasses and threaded the tea towel through the loop above the draining board, her thoughts still fixed on Mr Prince. Wondering about Mr Prince always proved a reliable distraction.

She found it odd that, after all this time, her letters to him still had to go through Mrs Mountbatten-Woolley-St. John-Blye. Surely he knew her to be discreet? And why did he never ring her? He rang Mrs Mountbatten-Woolley-St. John-Blye, apparently; Cornelia sometimes mentioned things he’d said “just the other day.”

It was odd, too, that after countering all of Petunia’s initial reservations about Mr Prince with glowing praise on his behalf, Cornelia hadn’t been more forthcoming about the man. Whenever Petunia tried (delicately) to find out more about Mr Prince’s situation, Cornelia changed the subject or murmured vague platitudes like, “He’s very busy, Petunia. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Petunia was starting to wonder if Mrs Mountbatten-Woolley-St. John-Blye was shielding her from some tragic fact about Mr Prince or…

Petunia had a sudden, horrifying thought. What if it were the other way round? What if Mr Prince was the one needing shielding? What if someone had already, God forbid, told Mr Prince about Harry?

Petunia sagged against the counter. If that were the case, then no wonder he didn’t want her knowing his whereabouts! No wonder he insisted that Cornelia protect his privacy. He was an honourable man, so he’d followed through on his promises vis-à-vis her horticultural education and finding Vernon a secretary, but he wouldn’t want to further their association.

Petunia buried her face in her hands. He must have found out that weekend in October; that was why he’d cancelled so suddenly. How awkward it must have been for him to answer her letters after that—and now she’d gone and invited him to their Christmas party! He’d make some excuse, of course. He wouldn’t want to set foot in her house again…and it was all Harry’s fault.

He’ll ruin everything.

That was what she’d thought just over fifteen years ago, looking down at the wretched bundle on the doorstep.

He’ll ruin everything, she’d thought, shivering, not because of the chill air on her ankles and wrists, but because of the icy fear that had gripped her insides. Everything she’d worked for—her fine solid husband, her fat healthy son, her respectable home—had suddenly seemed in great jeopardy, and all because of one tiny, eerily silent child who’d appeared from a world she’d worked so hard to forget.

And so it seemed again. Furiously blinking back tears, Petunia switched off the light in the kitchen.

The hooded figure in the back garden waited and watched as, one by one, all of the other lights in the house were extinguished. He produced a small notebook and scribbled something in it. Then he turned, padded silently across the grass, leaped a flowerbed and disappeared through a gap in the hedge.

*******

Autumn can be a festive time—a time of good harvest and good fortune, of busy, blustery days followed by cosy nights around a fire—but it can also be a time of loneliness and unease, a lingering malaise before the death of winter.

The neighbourhood round Spinner’s End was more suited to the latter view of the season. The good times—such as they were—had passed; the blighted landscape yielded no crops save rubbish, empties, and animal corpses. The neighbourhood was too quiet to be busy, too mean to be cosy, and even on clear autumn days the daylight that fell on the old mill chimney and the row houses crouched beneath it seemed weak. It was not at all adequate for warming, comforting, illuminating, or any of the other things that light was meant to do.

In fact, though it was only mid-afternoon, the daylight barely made it through the kitchen window of the last house on Spinner’s End. It lingered on the sill, as if uncertain of its welcome, and made a half-hearted attempt to embarrass the table by showing it off as worse for the wear. It might have found a better target in the man sitting at the far side of the table (for he, too, was looking ragged and none too clean, and, being animate, was more likely to be bothered about such things), but the light did not have the strength to reach so far as that.

Wormtail licked each of his four pink fingers meticulously, not wanting to miss any crumbs. Snape had done something to the biscuit tin before he’d left, and the hateful thing had him on rations of two per weekday, three at weekends and holidays. If he reached for another, the lid snapped at him something fierce and welded itself shut. He’d tried magic (and then brute force) to no avail. He’d even tried doing without the real thing by transfiguring bits of cereal packet, but the results had tasted, predictably, like cardboard.

He’d complained to Snape about it in his letters, but he (also predictably) hadn’t received any sympathy. Or additional biscuits. It was one more item in a long list of slights Wormtail had had to endure since his forced residence in Snape’s house.

Wormtail rose, balanced his cup and saucer on top of the growing pile of dirty dishes in the sink, and, casting a last baleful glance at the biscuit tin, went into the sitting room.

The furnishings were dustier than ever, but the books and scrolls strewn across the floor and table bore testament to the fact that, whilst Wormtail might have been neglecting his domestic duties, he was plodding away at the formula for the Living Water. Or trying to, at any rate.

The texts Snape had left were written in various dialects of Old High German or Late Middle Period Gobbledegook and took ages to translate. The more Wormtail worked at it though, the more it became apparent to him that they were only peripheral texts, and that even if he had been up on his East Franconian (or had known without having to look it up that phbludvakke was the old spelling of bladvak), he still wouldn’t have made much progress. And as experiment after experiment in the cellar workroom had ended in foul-smelling failure, Wormtail’s thoughts had turned more and more often to the gaps on the sitting rooms shelves, the vague instructions he received weekly…and the possibility that Snape had set him up to fail.

It was a decidedly good thing, then, that his other investigations in the cellar workroom had been more successful.

Wormtail opened the panel that hid the stairs and stood before them for a long moment, contemplating the rough cloth sack sitting on the landing. It was stained with earth and bulging with odd shapes. He’d brought it up from the cellar only that morning, having finally finished his explorations. Smiling, Wormtail bent down, hefted the sack onto his back and began to climb the stairs.

Despite all of Snape’s threats (not to mention a night kipped down in Animagus form in an abandoned, yet still odoriferous, fox den), Wormtail had not ceased to snoop after the debacle in August. In fact, as soon as Snape had left for Hogwarts, Wormtail had redoubled his efforts. Yes, the Dark Lord had rebuked and punished him, but that was only because he’d been hasty, confronting Snape on what had proved to be such meagre evidence. It was no reason, in Wormtail’s view, not to carry on.

“Never disturb me with anything so trivial ever again!” the Dark Lord had said, flinging the matchbook in Wormtail’s face.

Not traditional words of encouragement, perhaps, but Wormtail prided himself on being able to read between the lines when it came to his master’s wishes. The next time he approached his master, he’d decided, it would not be with a mere matchbook. The next time he approached his master, he would have the evidence of Snape’s treachery all neatly catalogued and written up on premium legal-weight parchment, the artefacts themselves labelled and arranged on a silver tray.


Several silver trays, in fact, if the size of the sack was anything to go by.

Wormtail gained the first floor landing and opened his bedroom door. He went over to the bed and upended the sack onto the duvet in a cloud of dust and rubble. Oblivious to the mess, Wormtail snatched up his pillow and began assaulting its stitching with his teeth. When he’d made a sizeable hole in the seam, he plunged his hand in and brought out a feather-coated bundle—his hiding place for the items gleaned from Snape’s pockets. He added the bundle’s contents to the jumble on the bed and stood back to survey the scene, panting a little from his exertions.

The natural light in the bedroom was better than in the kitchen, but it was still inadequate. Wormtail lit the candles in the lanterns that hung on either side of the bed. Then, muttering to himself, he bent over his discoveries.

Half an hour later, Wormtail had imposed a sort of order on the objects—they lay in piles, at any rate—but he was no closer to understanding what they meant, nor how he might use them in his case against Snape.

To be sure, it was an unusual array of objects. There were twisted bits of metal, a hair elastic, odds and ends made of wood, a ticket for a pawnbroker in Liverpool, decapitated plastic figurines, an old-style Sickle and some sort of Muggle coin pierced and strung together on a length of green ribbon, a pack of Muggle playing cards with lewd pictures on them, an assortment of beer mats, a variety of desiccated plant remains, a handful of shiny stones, a linen bag that smelled disgusting and appeared to contain hair and fingernail parings, animal bones, broken crockery, sachets of ground pepper, strange diagrams wrought in blue pencil, several scraps of parchment with writing on them, and, of course, the matchbook from the Woolley Arms.

The latter, of course, had come from the bundle in the pillow—as had the hair elastic, the pawn ticket, the sachets of ground pepper and one of the written-on scraps of parchment. The rest of the objects had been discovered in various hiding places in the cellar. These hiding places, whilst not being concealed by any magical means that Wormtail could detect, had nevertheless been devised so skilfully that only one who knew that they were there (or one who had all the time in the world and the senses of a rat at his disposal) would be likely to find them. There had been three separate caches beneath the cellar floor, one inside a workbench, and one—the most profitable of them all—in the old coal chute, which had been cleverly sealed from the inside so that it blended with the cellar walls.

After his first, random, attempt, Wormtail tried sorting the objects by material. He created piles for metal, wood, plastic, etc.—plus a miscellaneous category for composite items. As he still couldn’t make rhyme or reason of the objects in this state, he tried sorting them by size, then by colour, then by broken vs. whole, then by animal/vegetable/mineral, all to no avail. His eyes were tired and his back was sore, but he refused to give up.

“Think! Think!” he muttered. “What is old Snivelly up to? What is he trying to hide? What do naked meter maids”—here he held up one of the more salacious playing cards—“have to do with ground pepper?”

The sun had well gone down (and the tallow in the candles, too) when Wormtail at last hit upon the idea of sorting the objects by their potential use in potions or enchantments. This yielded more promising results. The playing cards and the decapitated figurines, for example, could be used in some sort of complex Anatomy-Enhancing Charm, and the diagrams and twisted metal could be part of a crude experiment in alchemy.

By the time the candles guttered and finally went out, Wormtail felt exhausted, but triumphant. Not wanting to upset his carefully constructed classification scheme, he fetched a spare blanket from the trunk at the foot of the bed and felt his way back down to the sitting room. After all of the nights he’d spent in his Animagus form, even Snape’s lumpy old sofa was a luxury. Wormtail crawled onto the sofa, curled into a ball, and fell to dreaming about Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy. They were dressed in naughty meter maid costumes, pelting a cringing Severus Snape with broken crockery, beer mats, and sachets of ground pepper.

It was a pity, really, that on that night—and during all the days and nights that followed—Wormtail never once thought to sort the objects by where they had been found. If he had—and if he had ever bothered being the least bit curious about Snape’s family history—he might not have wasted his time looking up things like what kinds of potions called for balsa wood, oak, and lavender and whether or not broken crockery could be substituted for raw clay in the making of a golem.

For had he paid attention to context (as any good investigator should), he might have realised that, apart from the things discovered in Snape’s clothing, he had stumbled upon nothing more and nothing less than Tobias Snape’s legendary “about fixing cupboard,” Tobias Snape’s stash of things his wife had given him that he’d rather his friends not see, Tobias Snape’s stash of things his friends had given him that he’d rather his wife not see, and the remains of Eileen Snape’s former familiars, twin tabbies who’d died during the terrible winter of 1962-63 and had been buried in the cellar with bouquets of dried herbs.

*******

Snape’s dungeon office did not alter with the seasons. It was impregnable to summer sunshine and winter winds alike, and it was just as dank and dreary in May as it was in November. He might have marked the seasons artificially, as many of his colleagues did, by sticking up the appropriate decorations or keeping a vase filled with whatever could be had off the grounds—at this time of year, perhaps some dried thistles or yarrow—but he didn’t. He disliked displaying anything personal in a space frequently used for meting out punishment and advice to students. The immense stacks of homework piled on Snape’s desk, the new lines etched into Snape’s face—these were the only clues that September had ceded to October, that October had given way to November, and that November was now staring December square in the eyes, preparing to step down.

Snape crumpled Vance’s latest report and added it to the pile on the grate.

Incendio, he thought, pointing his wand at the fireplace. The papers burst into a healthy flame. Snape sheathed his wand and drew near the fire, hands outstretched—at least the demands and complaints of his co-conspirators were good for something.

Vance was more amusing these days than anything else (starting every report with, “I don’t know what you think you’re up to, but I swear that if it weren’t for our esteemed leader, I’d—” and ending with variations on the theme of wishing him a month of Vernon Dursleys), but Narcissa was becoming a downright nuisance. One week she was begging for news of Draco and the next she was chiding Snape for allowing his colleagues to “unfairly punish” her son. One week she was writing charming notes about what a good friend Snape was to their family and the next she was wailing about the Ministry raids and demanding to know how Snape could just stand by and let the persecution of the noble Malfoys continue. Yes, he’d made an Unbreakable Vow to the woman, but he hadn’t married her, for Merlin’s sake. She had no business nagging him.

As for Wormtail, his messages had become more and more bizarre—unctuous and accusatory at the same time. Flattery and complaints were strung together with little or no transition between them; gleeful crowing turned to bitter sniping in the space of a single line. Snape was starting to wonder about the man’s sanity. He’d definitely have to look in on him over the Christmas holiday.

Snape was still standing before the fire, frowning over his myriad troubles, when the flames wavered. Snape blinked. The flames wavered once more, leaped to a great height, and then turned green. Snape quickly composed himself and took a step back, prepared for someone to come hurtling through the fireplace. However, when the flames subsided, only a head appeared.

“Sever—AH CHOO!” Albus Dumbledore sneezed violently.

Snape instinctively reached for his handkerchief—Floo powder often irritated Dumbledore’s sinuses—but he checked himself at the last instant and crossed his arms over his chest instead. He hadn’t had an unsolicited one-on-one with the headmaster in weeks. He would see what the old man wanted before offering sympathy.

“No, no, don’t bother,” he said, as if Snape had already offered him the handkerchief. “I’ve got mine here someplace.”

Snape looked away as the headmaster blew his nose awkwardly, using only his good hand.

“I’ll start again, shall I?” Dumbledore said when he’d finished. “Severus, I have a message, a delivery, and a request.”

“Yes, Headmaster?” Snape said warily.

“I’ve just come from the Bells’. Naturally, they are devastated to be facing the prospect of the holidays with their daughter still in hospital. Katie is not improving as they’d hoped.”

“Professor Dumbledore, I assure you that if there were anything—”

“Severus, please!” Dumbledore interjected. “No one is questioning your actions. Just the opposite, in fact. They hadn’t been aware of the critical role you played in stopping the spread of the curse. They send their thanks…and this.” Dumbledore’s good hand appeared once more and tossed a small package onto the hearth.

Snape eyed it suspiciously.

“Handmade cheese, I believe. The Bells keep goats.”

“Did you check it for poison?”

“Er—no,” Dumbledore said, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “But then, I really don’t think it very likely that the Bells would give you poisoned cheese, Severus—gratitude not being one of the common motives for attempted murder. Of course, if you’re concerned I could just try—”

“You’re assuming the gratitude is genuine,” Snape cut in.

“A bad habit of mine, evidently,” Dumbledore said with a faint smile.

The two men looked at one another for a long moment. Snape was the first to look away. A shadow of worry crossed the headmaster’s face.

“Severus, forgive me. My time and my mind have been much occupied elsewhere of late, and I have not asked you how your project is coming along.”

Snape bent down to retrieve the cheese. He sniffed at it and then crossed to his desk.

“Severus?”

Snape placed the cheese on his desk and started shuffling stacks of parchment.

“Severus, the necklace was a desperate—devilish, yes, but also desperate—attempt. That tells me that the intended scheme, whatever it is, isn’t working. We have some time.”

“Do we?” Snape muttered, still refusing to meet the headmaster’s eyes.

Dumbledore sighed. “It must be difficult without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, but I know you’ve made some progress. The hag said your visits to the Haven are fairly regular.”

Snape looked up, eyes narrowed. “You’ve been checking up on me?”

“Not intentionally,” Dumbledore said. He smiled sheepishly. “Actually, I was trying to hide from Dawlish—I wanted to avoid hexing him again. The Haven was nearby, so…” Dumbledore held up his hands and shrugged. “Perhaps it isn’t polite of Ragnella to gossip, but it is understandable. There is no one else to talk to in that part of the castle, and her duties require her to stay in her frame.”

“As if anyone would welcome a visit from her,” Snape said cattily, trying to cover his discomfort at having just accused Dumbledore of not trusting him.

“Her tone is rather…harsh,” Dumbledore conceded.

Another long moment passed; Snape grew more and more uncomfortable, and Dumbledore, infuriatingly, pretended not to notice.

At last, Snape could bear it no longer. Telling himself that a lie of omission was not exactly a lie, he said, “I’ve been experimenting with adding…well, old memories.” And fingernail parings and the odd eyelash or used plaster that I’ve managed to secure without Potter noticing, but I WILL NOT think about those, he thought.

“Ah. Memories of what—or whom?”

“Lily.” Snape met Dumbledore’s gaze defiantly. The latter smiled.

“What a marvellous idea, Severus. I’m impressed. It…it can’t have been easy.”

Snape inclined his head slightly. Don’t you dare say you’re proud of me, he thought.

“I won’t say that I’m proud of you, as that makes it sound as if I’d expected less somehow, but I must ask—has it had any noticeable results?”

“Has she offered me the clothes off her back, do you mean? Would she entrust me with the life of her first-born? Do I now love Potter as a father is meant to love his son?”

Snape saw the stern look the headmaster was giving him and the sarcasm died on his lips. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“It is difficult to say, Headmaster. I know how I feel, but Mrs Dursley is another matter. After all, she is hardly likely to discuss such personal things with me in her letters. I am only an acquaintance. In fact, she’s never mentioned Lily to me, even in passing.” Snape saw Dumbledore’s brows knit together in consternation, so he plunged on. “But I hope to better gauge her frame of mind over the holiday.”

“Oh?” Dumbledore looked relieved. “Are you invited for a visit?”

Snape selected a small card from his desk. “I’ve been invited”—he held the card up by one corner, as if it were a smelly sock—“to a Christmas party.”

“Excellent!” Dumbledore beamed. “What a wonderful opportunity.”

“Hmm,” Snape said, frowning at the card. It had a border of embossed holly leaves, with clumps of what looked suspiciously like mistletoe in the corners. He’d have to be on his guard.

“And speaking of Christmas parties…”

Snape froze. Ah, yes. The headmaster had mentioned a message, a delivery and a request. Obviously, they had now come to the request.

“Will you be attending Horace’s?”

“I hadn’t decided, Headmaster.” Snape replaced the invitation on his desk.

“Ah. Well, I was hoping that you’d be willing to go and keep an eye on things for me. I hear that one of Horace’s friends is bringing a vampire. Horace assures me that his friend can keep him in line, but I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to have you there as a precaution.”

Snape stared at Dumbledore in disbelief. “Headmaster, there will be students at this party. Do you really think it is appropriate to allow a vampire to attend?”

“Vampires are beings too, Severus,” Dumbledore said firmly. “True, I would not normally encourage their presence at Hogwarts, but it’s Christmas. I think we can afford to be gracious.”

“With the proper precautions,” Snape added darkly.

“Yes.”

“Namely, me.”

“Precisely so.” Dumbledore peered over the tops of his spectacles. “Can I count on you?”

“Good question,” Snape muttered. Then, a little louder, he replied, “Yes, Headmaster. I’ll make sure that the darlings remain unbitten.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “And don’t forget that you are allowed to have a good time, even though you’re on duty. I heard Dexter Saxonby might be coming; he’d be worth chatting to.”

“Who?”

Dumbledore held up his withered hand. “Fellow who makes the blue goo. If you get the chance, please thank him for me—you know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Horace is planning to get the man drunk and wheedle the formula out of him.”

“Shall I keep an eye on that too, sir?” Snape said wryly.

“Oh, Dexter is a grown wizard. I’m sure he can handle himself.” And with that, Dumbledore’s head disappeared, and the fire returned to its normal colour.

Snape’s cheeks, however, remained flushed.

He returned to his seat and attempted to mark a stack of third-year essays, but his thoughts flitted from subject to subject. Dark Arts, Draco, vampires, Vance, potions, Potter, Muggle parties, mistletoe, goat cheese, blue goo, handy wizards, the headmaster’s hand, the headmaster’s health, lying to the headmaster…

Snape put down his quill and rubbed his eyes. He took a few deep breaths. His heart rate slowed, but he still felt agitated and miserable. He wanted a drink. Or several.

Snape normally curtailed his alcohol intake whilst he was at school. He was a teacher and a role model of sorts, and being such called for dignity and precision. However, sanity was sanity, and preserving said sanity was worth a little degradation and imprecision, was it not?

Certainly no one could fault him for the odd tipple. After all, the castle was filled with Trelawney’s empties, and no one save Umbridge had ever called her on it. Dumbledore tolerated Hagrid’s occasional binges, and he’d even congratulated Hooch upon hearing the rumour that she’d had a Muggle alcopop named after her. Besides, Snape would be much more discreet.

He might even enlist Fleagle’s aid—get the creature to procure him a bottle or two from Dippet’s legendary wine cellar. It was rumoured to be hidden somewhere off the kitchens, and Snape would bet his size two silver cauldron that the house-elves knew where it was. Where else could those mysteriously ancient (and excellent) bottles that graced the Christmas feast every year come from?

Snape leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, remembering his very first feast as a teacher at Hogwarts—the novelty of sitting at the staff table, of being allowed wine, of not having to watch his back whilst he ate…

Not that he’d been able to eat much. He’d been terrified at the time, not to mention guilt-ridden. Dumbledore had patted his hand at the end of the meal and whispered something about house-elves and asking nicely and after-hours food deliveries to staff quarters.

Snape opened his eyes.

“Fleagle!” he called. A split second later the house-elf arrived, a tub of silver polish in one hand and a rag in the other.

“Yes, perfesser?” the elf asked, wide-eyed.

Snape held out the package of goat cheese. “Could you find me a wine to go with this?” he asked.

The house-elf grinned. It Vanished the rag and polish and took the cheese from Snape’s hand. “Oh, yes, your perfessership! I think I know just the woozy thing.”

“I am forever in your debt,” Snape said. When he saw the horrified look on the house-elf’s face, he added quickly, “Metaphorically speaking.”

Fleagle blinked.

“So, not really,” Snape clarified.

Visibly relieved, the house-elf smiled again. “Anything else for your sirness?”

“Perhaps some biscuits and f—” The pain in Snape’s left forearm took his breath away. He clutched it to his chest.

“F-fish?” the house-elf ventured, looking worried.

Snape shook his head. What now? he thought. Why now? I haven’t been summoned in months. The pain seemed worse than ever, but perhaps he’d merely forgotten how bad it could be.

“Fiddleheads? Fondue? French beans?” Fleagle continued to rattle off foods starting with F. At last the house-elf said, “Fruit?” and Snape nodded.

“Is sir okay-dokey?”

Snape gritted his teeth. “Fine,” he managed. “Put everything in my quarters. For later. And tell…tell Dumbledore I have an urgent errand to attend to. Urgent errand. Got that?”

The house-elf nodded, eyes wide. “The Dumblehead. Urgent errand. Cheese in quarters. Fruit for later. Wine and thingies.”

Snape nodded again and waved the house-elf away. As soon as it had gone, he let loose with an entirely un-food-related F-word.

*******