HOUSE BUSINESS

by ardavenport

Professor Severus Snape had just set his classroom of third-year students to brewing a potion that would turn flower petals into parchment when Madame Hooch entered his dungeon.

He was about to assign the students an essay written on the potion-produced parchment; anyone failing in the lesson would have to use a regular parchment that would automatically earn them lower marks. But the flying instructor and quidditch referee informed him that Professor Dumbledore needed to see him in his office immediately. And that she would oversee his class while he spoke to the Headmaster.

Snape briefly scanned the room of thirteen-year-olds, heads bend over their caldrons and books. There were no explosions or ominous odors . . . . yet.

He had no impression of Madame Hooch's potion-making knowledge, but she was a capable witch and a strict disciplinarian, so he was confident that nothing significant would be damaged or destroyed in his absence. He cast a wary eye toward the most obvious potential for trouble, the bench where Potter and Weasley measured out their ingredients, but neither of them looked up from their work. Sighing, accepting the interruption, he nodded to Madame Hooch and only told her that they were to keep their parchments for future classwork. He would announce the essay when he returned.

On his way to the Headmaster's office he noticed that Hogwarts Castle went about its usual daily routine; the characters in the paintings on the walls puttered through their usual inane business, ghosts drifted by overhead and an occasional older student would quickly change course and find another place to go when they spotted him. He took note of who they were for possible future reference, but did not slow down to demand what they were up to.

The last time Snape recalled being interrupted in the middle of a class was when a magical fire had broken out in the kitchens and the house elves panicked, running through the corridors squeaking 'Fire! Fire!'. Obviously, nothing like that had happened this time.

Peeves, the castle poltergeist, zipped by but only cast a wary glance in his direction on his likely mission of mischief. As Head of Sytherin House, Snape never, ever had to worry about Peeves. He could easily send the Bloody Baron, Sytherin House's ghost, to terrify Peeves with a suitable retribution.

Upon ascending the turning spiral staircase up to the Headmaster's office and then entering, Snape immediately deduced what the Headmaster had called him for.

House business.

Katrina Kettleblack, a seventh-year in his house jumped up to her feet from her chair. Striding past Dumbledore's magical artifacts, whirring and clicking on their display tables and cases along the walls, he stopped before the desk.

"You need me, Headmaster?"

Kettleblack did not look him in the eye, but she kept her back straight. Her brown hair was tied back in a tight knot and she wore a cloak that was a bit short over her sagging tan dress instead of her second-hand school robes.

"So sorry to call you away from your class, Severus, but young Katrina here has asked for an immediate leave of absence from the school."

The Potion Master's brows rose. In his opinion, it would have been no loss to anyone if she had left for good after completing her OWL exams at the end of her fifth year. Most of her scores had been merely 'Acceptable'. But her father wanted his daughter to complete some NEWT education to qualify her for a position at the Ministry of Magic. But if he wanted a more prestigious career for her than his own (shop clerk), then he should have sired a more magically capable daughter. But Snape supposed that she could secure a position on the custodial staff, which was about what could be expected with NEWTs in magical history, muggle studies and astronomy.

"And a refund of the balance of her tuition for the year," Dumbledore finished.

That surprised him. It meant that she was not planning on returning. Though her magical talent was sadly mediocre, even he had to admit that she had a Slytherin's ambition. Leaving school likely meant also leaving behind her goal to work at the Ministry.

"She has recently received an owl from her father with rather dire family news and she wishes to return home immediately."

"I see," was his only response. He did not know her family well, so false expressions of sympathy would be pointless. "You need my approval."

Kettleblack nodded curtly. "Yes. I've already packed my things." Indeed, she had. There was a wheeled trunk sitting by a bookcase opposite the desk.

"And you approve, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore nodded, but then he raised one finger. "Provisionally." He benignly gazed up at Kettleblack, but her back stiffened as if he was a tribunal judge.

"I do not mean to pry, but I wish to be certain that it is truly your wish to leave school. I know that you have been very determined to achieve your NEWTs. It would be a shame to abandon what you have worked so hard for."

Tense, she took a deep breath before answering. "Yes, Headmaster. I know. But . . . I would not be able to concentrate on my schoolwork with Mother so ill. And . . . I know my limitations." Her eyes flicked in Snape's direction as she paraphrased one of his lessons that she had accepted, even if it didn't sink in until she came in at nearly the bottom of her class year after year.

"And . . . " Her voice cracked and she paused in a very rare show of weakness for her. "My father needs help with my brothers; they're both underage."

That surprised Snape; he had thought she had only one brother and he was a squib which was not a surprise for a family of such mediocre magic.

"And they're both squibs. Mother won't be able to school them; they'll have to pass muggle school exams in a couple years."

"I understand that your mother is also a muggle," Dumbledore asked. She nodded.

"Excuse me," Snape interrupted, surprised, "but Kettleblack's records state that he mother is a witch."

"She was," she answered, tight-lipped, before Dumbledore could reply. "But she died when I was a baby and my father re-married. And my step-mother has been every bit as much a mother to all of us as any witch could be." She lifted her chin and glared back at Snape as if daring him to challenge her. Slytherin House notoriously favored Pure-Bloods and her social status in the house was low, but she had learned to never back down from bullies and that had earned her a little respect though few friends among her fellow Slytherin.

He stayed silent. With her father a weak wizard and a muggle mother for her brothers, no wonder they were squibs. It was quite understandable that she had kept secret that her lowly family situation was even more dim than was already known. It was just as well for her to leave Hogworts.

"My family needs me," she finished, turning back to the Headmaster.

Dumbledore bowed his head, accepting her declaration. "I understand that your father has been making inquiries at St. Mungo's about your mother."

Her eyes widened as if he'd snapped at her. "They won't take her," she blurted out. "They say they can't cure a muggle. My father has to take Mother to the muggle doctors and they're even more useless."

"There is always hope," Dumbledore reminded in a calming voice to the suddenly skittish young witch. "But we must be cautious not to let that hope lead us into unwise actions that will harm the loved one we would so desperately wish to help."

Kettleblack's expression turned suddenly suspicious. "Who've you been talking to? Did Madame Pomphrey talk - - - "

"I hope you are not implying that Madame Pomphrey would ever betray a confidence." Dumbledore's voice suddenly hardened and she flinched. "Nor would any of the healers at St. Mungo's." He made her wait a moment, pinned by his glare as solidly as if he'd cast a stunning spell.

"There are others, who care deeply for both you and your family," he finished more gently.

A movement caught Snape's eye; a figure stepping from behind a corner of a cabinet. Another seventh-year student, tall and dressed in neatly tailored school robes in Ravenclaw House colors.

Nora Omburu.

She and Kettleblack had been friends since before they came to Hogworts, though Omburu came from a more well-off family. And they had been study-partners since their first year; Snape was sure that Omburu's help had been the only thing that kept Kettleblack from completely failing any of her classes, especially Transfigurations. And since their fifth year, they had become an 'item'. But since they had never been caught in any amorous teenage indiscretions on school grounds, Snape saw no reason to care about their liaison. Neither girl was especially inclined toward rule-breaking and if they were, together they were clever enough to neither be caught, nor even suspect.

Omburu, her eyes bright and staring straight at Kettleblack, moved forward.

"How could you!"

Kettleblack's shriek made even Dumbledore jump.

"How could you go behind my back!" Any further accusations were choked off into speechless, spluttering rage. Omburu stopped.

"Because I would rather have you hate me than see you hurt your mother. Or see you waste your gold on some charlatan who says he can magic a brain tumor." Her rich alto voice was husky with barely contained control, tears now freely running down her cheeks.

Kettleblack drew in a breath of audible anguish. Then the two girls flew at each other, sinking to the floor in a tight embrace, sobbing.

He had never, ever seen Kettleblack break, no matter what she failed at. He did not care to witness it now.

"Headmaster - - - "

Dumbledore's raised hand cut him off. The older wizard's hard blue-eyed glare over his half-moon glasses pinned him in place as effectively as Snape might silence a misbehaving first-year. He would not be excused.

The two girls wailed and rocked back and forth, clutching at each other as if they feared death itself would snatch them apart. Dumbledore rose, went to them, knelt and touched each girl's shoulder as he spoke softly to them. Snape could not hear what was said between them and he did not care to. His thoughts turned to whatever might be happening in his third-year potions class while he was forced to wait.

Thankfully, the melodrama played out faster than he hoped and with the Headmaster's encouragement, they all rose together. With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore summoned a second chair and the two girls were seated before the ornate desk. Still wishing to take his leave as soon as possible, Snape was thankful that he was ignored and not invited to sit as well.

"Why?" Kettleblack wailed. "Why can't they cure her? We have all this magic, but there's none of it for her. Or my birth mother." She dissolved into more tears and Omburu's slender arms enfolded her again. It was infuriating to watch, but Snape could not depart until the Headmaster excused him.

The story came out in fits and starts. Kettleblack's mother had fallen ill at the beginning of the school year and suddenly taken a turn for the worse. She had been given a dismally low 5% chance of surviving her brain illness – muggle healers assigned odds for surviving illness, like betting on quidditch. No one expected her to survive past winter. Desperate for better news, Kattleblack's father had gone to a shady wizard who promised a cure with simple shrinking charms. But the work had to be carefully done and he needed gold to purchase expensive potion ingredients. And more gold could reduce the preparation time.

Half a dozen ways for such an ill-conceived procedure could go disastrously wrong flicked through Snape's mind. This wizard was obviously a charlatan who should be cast into Azkaban without a second glance and his wand broken. But Kattleblack, and especially her father, were swayed the by the smooth-talking fraud who had been communicating to both of them by owl. Desperate, and unable to bring Kettleblack to her senses, Omburu had gone to Dumbledore. It turned out that the girls had shared a room in Hogsmeade over the summer while Kettleblack earned the galleons she needed to pay the tuition for her last year at Hogwarts, gold that she was now willing to pool with her father's meager resources and throw away on a pathetic hope that her Mother's illness could be magically cured.

'Why?' Kettleblack kept asking; Snape wanted to slap sense back into her; she deserved it after making such a spectacle of herself in front of him and the Headmaster; she may have lacked magical talent, but he never thought of her as stupid. Until now. People got ill, they died. Life was not fair. But frustratingly, Dumbledore kept nodding and sympathetically listening to both girls.

He finally lowered his head and took off his half-moon reading glasses.

"How interesting," he said quietly during a lull in the crying. "That we in the magical world resort to such a curiously muggle solution to the problem of failing eyesight." He gazed down at the ordinary glasses he always wore as if they were an exotic artifact. Both young witches, followed his lead, staring at the wireframe glasses with puzzled expressions.

Dumbledore looked up. "You are a student of magical history, Katrina. Please, could you refresh my memory of the last wizard who attempted to devise a spell or potion to cure the common shortcomings of eyesight that require such an un-magical remedy as these," he gestured with the glasses, "even today?"

The girl sniffled and blew her nose on a silvery handkerchief embroidered with a Ravenclaw crest that must have come from her friend.

"Brogin," she admitted. "The Blind."

"Aaaaaah." Dumbledore nodded as if he had not already known this fact. "And I believe she had predecessors, who shared in this goal. Can you please name any of them for me?"

Finally, and belatedly getting control of herself, Kettleblack sniffled again and wiped her eyes on an unsoiled corner of the handkerchief. "Merkle. The Mad." She lowered her head and mumbled. "Fesarius. The Faceless."

"Aaaaah." Dumbledore nodded again. "And there was a Dark Lord who used muggles to experiment with. She would curse them with a whole catalogue of afflictions, including poor eyesight, and then test new spells on her victims to 'cure' them. What was her name?"

"Madame Margliss." Kettleblack kept her head down. Arm around her friend's shoulders, Omburu hugged her and whispered encouragement.

"Aaaah, yes. I believe she fell out of favor with her followers when they found that the 'beneficial' spells she devised did not work the same way on witches and wizards as they did on muggles. Or even squibs."

Kettleblack nodded her head this time before speaking again in a small voice. "They ambushed her with one of her own curses. She was dismembered." She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief clutched tightly in her fist. "They fed the body parts to a dragon."

"Indeed. That was a most gruesome end. And all the records of her spellwork were destroyed in the dragon fire as well," Dumbledore concluded. He then waited until Kattleblack looked up before speaking again.

"So, I feel confident that you are aware of how difficult and delicate it is to devise new spells and charms. Some have spent their whole lives studying and experimenting, creating just one spell or potion that is proven reliable enough to be included in any of our school books. Others, respectable family members of students of this school have also paid, some with their lives, in failed experiments with new spells."

The girl meekly nodded.

"So, I must ask you, if you truly believe that a wizard capable of such amazing new healing abilities would not have a more exalted abode than some anonymous doorway in Knockturn Alley?"

Omburu kissed her cheek as a defeated Kettleblack admitted the truth. Dumbledore let it sink in for a moment before speaking again.

"And that if such spells existed that would cure your mother, they would have been shared with the healers of St. Mungo's Hospital so that all could benefit from the. And not just those with enough gold to pay for it and when they are captive to their most desperate need."

She nodded again.

"I hope you will remind your father of this as well." He sat back in his thronelike chair. "But now you must go to your family. Your tuition will be refunded, in full. And after you have . . . settled your family's affair, I would be happy to write a letter of recommendation for you, in whatever position you wish to seek in the future."

She stared wide-eyed back as his offer sank in. Even without her NEWTs, a recommendation from Professor Albus Dumbledore would be enough to secure her an entry level position at the Ministry of Magic. Snape briefly held his breath, hoping that she would not be so prideful that she would decline the offer. But she was not that stupid after all.

"Thank-you, Professor. That is very generous of you."

Dumbledore lifted a hand toward Snape, finally acknowledging his presence again. "And I'm sure professor Snape her would give you a good reference as well."

Snape let his breath out. At last he knew why his Headmaster had forced his to stand through Kettleblack's pathetic wailing. Her eyes shifted toward him and he saw a glimmer of her usual determination return. He had written letters of recommendation for Slytherin graduates who had fewer attributes. He curtly nodded. "Of course, Headmaster."

Dumbledore benignly smiled up at him and then offered the use of a Hogwarts fireplace connected to the floo network for Kettleblack to return home with, but she declined.

"My family uses our landlady's fireplace downstairs and she doesn't like people arriving unannounced. I'd rather not wait to send an owl."

Omburu immediately offered to accompany Kettleblack home and Dumbledore agreed, giving her leave to return the next day. It was a given that Omburu would be excused from her NEWT-level classes, including potions.

Nothing was said about Kettleblack's weak patronus, a formless light that might not be sufficient to protect her from the dementors assigned to patrol outside Hogwarts' grounds while the escaped murderer, Sirius Black was still at large. With a flourish of his wand, Dumbledore produced a note for them to take to Argus Filch, the caretaker, who would escort them off the grounds so they could apparate to Kettleblack's home.

Snape tried to excuse himself as well, but Dumbledore held up a delaying hand. He did not speak until after the two young witches collected the trunk and left.

"I trust that you will be able to write a sufficient reference for her when the time comes, Severus."

Impatient to return to his class, Snape nodded. "She has far more pride and ambition than ability, but she does apply herself to her work and makes up for her shortcomings with a discipline that is sadly lacking in too many of her classmates."

Dumbledore nodded, accepting his appraisal, and finally excused him.

Snape smelled something burning as he approached his dungeon, but when he arrived, he found that Madame Hooch had already extinguished the flames from three caldrons, two of them belonging to members of House Slytherin and the other was Neville Longbottom's, the one third-year in his class who might have even less magical ability than Katrina Kettleblack. On the other side of the room, he saw Potter and Weasley smoothing out parchments that looked far too similar to Hermione Granger's who was constantly propping up her friends in their schoolwork.

Hooch announced the results of the lesson and his anger flared because it was clear that far more students had succeeded with their parchments than deserved to. Hooch had likely allowed too many of them to help each other (especially Granger with Potter and Weasley) than should be allowed, but he held his tongue. The damage was done and there was nothing to do about it now; he would just have to give more specific instructions to anyone taking over any of his classes. If the need ever arose again. He thanked Hooch for her help and she left.

The students groaned as he assigned the essay and their lazy grumbling annoyed him. What did they expect to do with parchment?

He recalled that back in her third year, Katrina Kettleblack had produced a soggy sheet that would not completely dry. Yet she had refused to accept a 'touch-up' from him to make it into a more writable surface. Then she spent most of the following night laboriously writing out a readable essay on it. He gave her a few points for the effort though he thought her pride was mis-applied.

Snape sneered toward Potter, who hardly deserved Dumbledore's high expectations, and who only used minimal effort to get by. If he had only a fraction of Kettleblack's ambition and discipline, he might eventually become a wizard who could challenge the Dark Lord someday. Or be worthy of his mother's sacrifice.

Thoughts of his beloved Lilly reminded him that they had been friends and studied together in their early years at Hogwarts, not unlike Kettleblack and Omburu. But the young witches' friendship had grown into love and a partnership that looked as if it might last their whole lives. While he had pushed Lilly away with his shortsighted ambition, following a Dark Lord that Lilly had been forced to destroy, nobly sacrificing her own life to save her son.

He found himself staring at the dark empty classroom long after the last student had left. A couple of older students for his next class arrived. Picking up his wand to clean up the mess left behind by the third-years, he also ruthlessly banished any comparison between how his own childhood friendship compared to Kettleblack's.

Life was not fair.

***** END *****

Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to JK Rowling; I'm just playing in her sandbox.