Disclaimer: Let's keep it simple and straight—if you recognize it, it's not
mine. JKR, along with the very nice people at Warner Brothers, are letting
me play with their toys, so to speak. I promise to clean up when I'm done.
A/N: On the other hand, the characters that you haven't seen before are of my own creation. These include the American Ministry people, Sianna, Aidan, Marion, the Castell family, and any others that might pop up along the way. I do ask that you get permission from me before you "borrow" them, and if I have unwittingly stolen them from someone else, I offer a fervent apology and ask you to please not kill me.
And now, on a lighter note, this is my first fic. I hope it isn't as bad as I think it is, but if what I fear is true, be merciful enough drop me a note telling me to stuff a sock in it or something. The last thing I want is to look like more of a fool than I already am. Well, here you go, enjoy!
Chapter One: Crossing the Pond
Severus Snape meticulously counted the seconds between adding separate measurements of the essence of dandelion, then stirred carefully, mixing the ingredients in a perfect blend. This potion would replenish the hospital ward's stocks, and Snape made sure that it would be as potent and effective as possible. However much the students vexed him, he did not wish any of them dead, especially not at his hands.
A soft knock on the already open door made Snape's head jerk up, and he found Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorframe. At Snape's look, Dumbledore entered without a word. The room was silent for several more minutes, until Snape finally extinguished the fire and left the cauldron to cool. He was thankful that Dumbledore knew not to disturb him while he prepared a potion.
Dumbledore began to speak as Snape cleared his workspace, rebottling unused ingredients and carefully cleaning the knives and spoons. "Good afternoon, Severus. Are you still working on that healing salve for Poppy?" he asked conversationally.
"No, that was the Pepper-Up. It's the last on her list of potions that are running low."
"Of course. Well, I never was any good at Potions," admitted Dumbledore. "But I suppose it is convenient that you have finished your work for her."
"Convenient?" Snape inquired warily.
"Yes, very convenient, in fact," Dumbledore replied vaguely, teasing a question out of his former student.
"What is so very convenient about it?" asked Snape. He knew what the headmaster was trying to do, and he found it much easier to give in to the bait.
"Well, I received a very interesting owl this morning—"
"Was it the owl or the letter that intrigued you?"
"Very funny, Severus. So when I received this letter, I thought that you would be the perfect candidate to solve the problem."
Snape took a seat across from the headmaster and gazed at him expectantly, calmly waiting for him to finish his explanation. Dumbledore stared back for a moment before continuing, "The American Ministry of Magic has detected an unauthorized concealment charm, but they cannot seem to find the source."
Snape gave a short, smug laugh at the thought that the Americans could not even manage to break a simple concealment charm.
Dumbledore laughed a bit with him, then said, "Yes, that's what I thought as well, but apparently this is giving them quite a bit of trouble. They haven't got a clue what they are dealing with."
"Exactly who sent you this letter? The Americans give the impression of being much too arrogant to look outside their own borders for help," Snape asked Dumbledore cynically.
"You see, I have a friend in the Ministry who happens to be head of the Department of Magical Investigation and Law Enforcement. She's quite a liberal actually, and as her department is in charge of this little problem, she saw fit to contact me," Dumbledore answered. "The Minister shouldn't be bothered about a little thing like this," he added with a wink.
"I see," Snape said slowly, quite amused by Dumbledore's contact. "So you want me to go to America and help them? I suppose I could, as I have hit a bit of a break in my work." 'Those Yanks would lose their heads if we didn't go over and tighten the screws every so often,' he thought to himself.
"Good, very good," Dumbledore said, pleased to have caught Snape in a halfway pleasant mood. He hadn't expected such an easy acquiescence. "You'll be leaving tonight, then?"
Snape looked surprised at the sudden departure, but nodded his head. "I don't see why not. I'll leave after dinner. Which is now, isn't it?" he said after glancing at the clock that adorned his wall.
The two men left together in a companionable silence.
* * * * * * * * * * * When he arrived at the apparition point inside the American Ministry of Magic building, Snape was slightly surprised to find himself in a decidedly unremarkable business building, quite the opposite of its British counterpart. The plain walls of the hallway reminded him of a hospital, as did the industrial lighting. Only the clean, well-polished granite flooring suggested otherwise. At that moment, a very young man, probably an intern or an office assistant, rushed up to him. After affirming his identity, the over-zealous boy whisked him away, heading directly for the lift.
As they traveled upwards, Snape noted the absence of a magical voice to direct visitors to the proper level. 'Perhaps visitors are not so common here,' Snape thought, realizing that the lobby where he had arrived had been entirely empty save for him. The lift stopped several floors up, and the boy got out and escorted Snape down several unremarkable corridors to what appeared to be a meeting room.
A young, bossy-looking woman appeared at the door of the room as Snape and the boy approached. She was petite and round faced, and the upright position of her shoulders gave her a look of authority.
"Ah, here we are. You are Severus Snape, right? Good," she said without waiting for a response of any kind. As she spoke, the intern/office assistant jogged eagerly away, presumably to run errands. The woman's loose chestnut bun bobbed as she turned to lead the way to the table that occupied the room.
"I'm Judy Barlow," she said to Snape, although she faced the other side of the room, "head of the Department of Investigation and Law Enforcement. Call me Judy. And this here is Christopher Tucker, he's leading the team that's been assigned this case," Judy explained rapidly, gesturing towards the middle-aged man already seated at the table.
"I understand you are quite knowledgeable about these concealment charms and such," she said, getting right down to business. "Here, take a seat," she offered Snape. It sounded more like a command; this woman was obviously accustomed to a position of authority.
"That is correct," Snape confirmed, not even slightly off balance from the rather overwhelming barrage of bossy energy that seemed to come from Judy. "I have quite a bit of experience making and breaking these particular types of spells."
"Define 'these types,'" Christopher said in a sarcastically joking manner. "We thought we had experience, too, but this thing has stumped even the best of us." The man seemed a bit calmer than his boss, and gave the impression of being slightly amused with their predicament. A half-smile played across his face, and while he looked Snape in the eye, it was clear that he felt neither intimidated nor challenged by a foreign man's presence.
"Illusion. Tracking. Concealing," Snape responded, taking the question seriously. "I did quite a bit of work with this during the last war." He quickly repressed the memories that had often threatened to steal his concentration of late.
Judy put a pair of glasses on and joined the conversation again. "Well that's good, because apparently this spell is a muddle of all those things. Why don't you go ahead and give him a good briefing, Chris." It was not a question.
At that, Christopher dove into a rather intriguing anecdote involving several very confused owls and a frustrated headmaster.
"Well last June, the dean of an American school of magic tried to send a letter to a Muggle-born wizard in the Southern California to tell him he'd been accepted to their school. But the next day, the owl came back, and it still had the letter. The dean thought the owl had gotten lost, so he sent a different owl to the same kid, carrying the same letter. He was really pissed and confused when the owl came back the next day with the letter in its beak. He got really frustrated, sent another owl out, again with the same results. After he finally realized that the problem wasn't gonna fix itself, he called us for some answers. My investigation team decided to send one more owl, and I followed the bird on a broom. I got some interesting results.
"So the owl went straight towards its destination, like it was supposed to, but about four miles away from the kid's house it just got lost, like suddenly it didn't know where it was supposed to be going," Chris continued. "So, we set up an experiment where we sent out fifteen stealth owls (and these are smart birds) to this kid, all from different directions. What we found was a type of invisible circle, about twelve miles wide, and once the owls entered the 'circle,' they couldn't figure out what to do," Chris stated casually.
Snape was intrigued dilemma set before him. He didn't remember having ever heard anything like this before. "Did you perform any other tests?" he asked, hoping that they had done something that would yield more specific or useful information.
"Yeah, sure we did. We crossed into the circle and tried a series of spells, charms, and hexes. Here's a list of the ones that didn't work." Chris rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Snape. His eyes moved down the list quickly, stopping on one spell in particular. He looked up at Christopher.
"You can't apparate into the circle?" he asked incredulously.
"Nope."
Snape looked back down at the list, which also included Point Me, a spell that caused the castor's wand to point North, and another directional spell that made a wizard's wand point to a previously determined place or person.
"And you have absolutely no idea what the cause of all this is?" he asked, already anticipating the answer.
"No...but we sure as hell know what it's not," Chris offered cheerfully.
"We won't solve this by process of elimination..." Snape mumbled to no one, apparently not registering the sarcasm of the statement.
Suddenly he realized that it was past eleven o'clock in England, and he had been working all day. His eyes drooped imperceptibly, and he knew he should get to bed before he fell asleep on the table.
"I believe I have an idea of what we are working with," he lied, trying to end the meeting quickly. "If you don't mind, I would like to retire for the day, as this will take a bit of thought. We can travel to the area tomorrow. Now, if you could show me where I will be staying..." he suggested.
"Of course sir," Julie responded compliantly, and she got up to lead him out of the room.
* * * * * * * * * * * Snape, try as he might, could not concentrate on the riddle of the concealment charm. His mind insisted on reliving the last years of the first war, much to his annoyance. He drifted back to the vulnerable time between Hogwarts and true adulthood, the time when his loyalties had remained susceptible to influence. Too many had assumed that he would, of course, fight for the Light, just like his idolized older brother, who was already a trusted and respected member of the Order of the Phoenix by age twenty-one.
'Aidan...' Snape thought, trying to force back memories of love and admiration for his sibling. 'Why should I love him? All the bastard ever did was run away, abandon the cause he was supposedly devoted to. The stupid coward couldn't handle a little loss...as if the rest of us never suffered.'
'That's not all he did, and you know it,' the other, slightly less bitter side of his mind argued. 'He was the only one who ever cared for you, give him some credit at least.'
'He relinquished any credit he had earned the day he left England,' Snape told himself with finality, trying to end the train of thought before it got out of control. 'And he obviously didn't care as much as he led us to believe, since he apparently had no trouble leaving me. '
By this point, Snape had become quite disgusted by the selfish and querulous thoughts that filled his consciousness. He flipped over and blew out the candle rather more forcefully than necessary, then busied his mind by listing the ingredients in Wolfsbane until sleep finally swept over him. Fortunately, the night's thoughts did not pursue him into his dreams.
A/N: On the other hand, the characters that you haven't seen before are of my own creation. These include the American Ministry people, Sianna, Aidan, Marion, the Castell family, and any others that might pop up along the way. I do ask that you get permission from me before you "borrow" them, and if I have unwittingly stolen them from someone else, I offer a fervent apology and ask you to please not kill me.
And now, on a lighter note, this is my first fic. I hope it isn't as bad as I think it is, but if what I fear is true, be merciful enough drop me a note telling me to stuff a sock in it or something. The last thing I want is to look like more of a fool than I already am. Well, here you go, enjoy!
Chapter One: Crossing the Pond
Severus Snape meticulously counted the seconds between adding separate measurements of the essence of dandelion, then stirred carefully, mixing the ingredients in a perfect blend. This potion would replenish the hospital ward's stocks, and Snape made sure that it would be as potent and effective as possible. However much the students vexed him, he did not wish any of them dead, especially not at his hands.
A soft knock on the already open door made Snape's head jerk up, and he found Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorframe. At Snape's look, Dumbledore entered without a word. The room was silent for several more minutes, until Snape finally extinguished the fire and left the cauldron to cool. He was thankful that Dumbledore knew not to disturb him while he prepared a potion.
Dumbledore began to speak as Snape cleared his workspace, rebottling unused ingredients and carefully cleaning the knives and spoons. "Good afternoon, Severus. Are you still working on that healing salve for Poppy?" he asked conversationally.
"No, that was the Pepper-Up. It's the last on her list of potions that are running low."
"Of course. Well, I never was any good at Potions," admitted Dumbledore. "But I suppose it is convenient that you have finished your work for her."
"Convenient?" Snape inquired warily.
"Yes, very convenient, in fact," Dumbledore replied vaguely, teasing a question out of his former student.
"What is so very convenient about it?" asked Snape. He knew what the headmaster was trying to do, and he found it much easier to give in to the bait.
"Well, I received a very interesting owl this morning—"
"Was it the owl or the letter that intrigued you?"
"Very funny, Severus. So when I received this letter, I thought that you would be the perfect candidate to solve the problem."
Snape took a seat across from the headmaster and gazed at him expectantly, calmly waiting for him to finish his explanation. Dumbledore stared back for a moment before continuing, "The American Ministry of Magic has detected an unauthorized concealment charm, but they cannot seem to find the source."
Snape gave a short, smug laugh at the thought that the Americans could not even manage to break a simple concealment charm.
Dumbledore laughed a bit with him, then said, "Yes, that's what I thought as well, but apparently this is giving them quite a bit of trouble. They haven't got a clue what they are dealing with."
"Exactly who sent you this letter? The Americans give the impression of being much too arrogant to look outside their own borders for help," Snape asked Dumbledore cynically.
"You see, I have a friend in the Ministry who happens to be head of the Department of Magical Investigation and Law Enforcement. She's quite a liberal actually, and as her department is in charge of this little problem, she saw fit to contact me," Dumbledore answered. "The Minister shouldn't be bothered about a little thing like this," he added with a wink.
"I see," Snape said slowly, quite amused by Dumbledore's contact. "So you want me to go to America and help them? I suppose I could, as I have hit a bit of a break in my work." 'Those Yanks would lose their heads if we didn't go over and tighten the screws every so often,' he thought to himself.
"Good, very good," Dumbledore said, pleased to have caught Snape in a halfway pleasant mood. He hadn't expected such an easy acquiescence. "You'll be leaving tonight, then?"
Snape looked surprised at the sudden departure, but nodded his head. "I don't see why not. I'll leave after dinner. Which is now, isn't it?" he said after glancing at the clock that adorned his wall.
The two men left together in a companionable silence.
* * * * * * * * * * * When he arrived at the apparition point inside the American Ministry of Magic building, Snape was slightly surprised to find himself in a decidedly unremarkable business building, quite the opposite of its British counterpart. The plain walls of the hallway reminded him of a hospital, as did the industrial lighting. Only the clean, well-polished granite flooring suggested otherwise. At that moment, a very young man, probably an intern or an office assistant, rushed up to him. After affirming his identity, the over-zealous boy whisked him away, heading directly for the lift.
As they traveled upwards, Snape noted the absence of a magical voice to direct visitors to the proper level. 'Perhaps visitors are not so common here,' Snape thought, realizing that the lobby where he had arrived had been entirely empty save for him. The lift stopped several floors up, and the boy got out and escorted Snape down several unremarkable corridors to what appeared to be a meeting room.
A young, bossy-looking woman appeared at the door of the room as Snape and the boy approached. She was petite and round faced, and the upright position of her shoulders gave her a look of authority.
"Ah, here we are. You are Severus Snape, right? Good," she said without waiting for a response of any kind. As she spoke, the intern/office assistant jogged eagerly away, presumably to run errands. The woman's loose chestnut bun bobbed as she turned to lead the way to the table that occupied the room.
"I'm Judy Barlow," she said to Snape, although she faced the other side of the room, "head of the Department of Investigation and Law Enforcement. Call me Judy. And this here is Christopher Tucker, he's leading the team that's been assigned this case," Judy explained rapidly, gesturing towards the middle-aged man already seated at the table.
"I understand you are quite knowledgeable about these concealment charms and such," she said, getting right down to business. "Here, take a seat," she offered Snape. It sounded more like a command; this woman was obviously accustomed to a position of authority.
"That is correct," Snape confirmed, not even slightly off balance from the rather overwhelming barrage of bossy energy that seemed to come from Judy. "I have quite a bit of experience making and breaking these particular types of spells."
"Define 'these types,'" Christopher said in a sarcastically joking manner. "We thought we had experience, too, but this thing has stumped even the best of us." The man seemed a bit calmer than his boss, and gave the impression of being slightly amused with their predicament. A half-smile played across his face, and while he looked Snape in the eye, it was clear that he felt neither intimidated nor challenged by a foreign man's presence.
"Illusion. Tracking. Concealing," Snape responded, taking the question seriously. "I did quite a bit of work with this during the last war." He quickly repressed the memories that had often threatened to steal his concentration of late.
Judy put a pair of glasses on and joined the conversation again. "Well that's good, because apparently this spell is a muddle of all those things. Why don't you go ahead and give him a good briefing, Chris." It was not a question.
At that, Christopher dove into a rather intriguing anecdote involving several very confused owls and a frustrated headmaster.
"Well last June, the dean of an American school of magic tried to send a letter to a Muggle-born wizard in the Southern California to tell him he'd been accepted to their school. But the next day, the owl came back, and it still had the letter. The dean thought the owl had gotten lost, so he sent a different owl to the same kid, carrying the same letter. He was really pissed and confused when the owl came back the next day with the letter in its beak. He got really frustrated, sent another owl out, again with the same results. After he finally realized that the problem wasn't gonna fix itself, he called us for some answers. My investigation team decided to send one more owl, and I followed the bird on a broom. I got some interesting results.
"So the owl went straight towards its destination, like it was supposed to, but about four miles away from the kid's house it just got lost, like suddenly it didn't know where it was supposed to be going," Chris continued. "So, we set up an experiment where we sent out fifteen stealth owls (and these are smart birds) to this kid, all from different directions. What we found was a type of invisible circle, about twelve miles wide, and once the owls entered the 'circle,' they couldn't figure out what to do," Chris stated casually.
Snape was intrigued dilemma set before him. He didn't remember having ever heard anything like this before. "Did you perform any other tests?" he asked, hoping that they had done something that would yield more specific or useful information.
"Yeah, sure we did. We crossed into the circle and tried a series of spells, charms, and hexes. Here's a list of the ones that didn't work." Chris rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Snape. His eyes moved down the list quickly, stopping on one spell in particular. He looked up at Christopher.
"You can't apparate into the circle?" he asked incredulously.
"Nope."
Snape looked back down at the list, which also included Point Me, a spell that caused the castor's wand to point North, and another directional spell that made a wizard's wand point to a previously determined place or person.
"And you have absolutely no idea what the cause of all this is?" he asked, already anticipating the answer.
"No...but we sure as hell know what it's not," Chris offered cheerfully.
"We won't solve this by process of elimination..." Snape mumbled to no one, apparently not registering the sarcasm of the statement.
Suddenly he realized that it was past eleven o'clock in England, and he had been working all day. His eyes drooped imperceptibly, and he knew he should get to bed before he fell asleep on the table.
"I believe I have an idea of what we are working with," he lied, trying to end the meeting quickly. "If you don't mind, I would like to retire for the day, as this will take a bit of thought. We can travel to the area tomorrow. Now, if you could show me where I will be staying..." he suggested.
"Of course sir," Julie responded compliantly, and she got up to lead him out of the room.
* * * * * * * * * * * Snape, try as he might, could not concentrate on the riddle of the concealment charm. His mind insisted on reliving the last years of the first war, much to his annoyance. He drifted back to the vulnerable time between Hogwarts and true adulthood, the time when his loyalties had remained susceptible to influence. Too many had assumed that he would, of course, fight for the Light, just like his idolized older brother, who was already a trusted and respected member of the Order of the Phoenix by age twenty-one.
'Aidan...' Snape thought, trying to force back memories of love and admiration for his sibling. 'Why should I love him? All the bastard ever did was run away, abandon the cause he was supposedly devoted to. The stupid coward couldn't handle a little loss...as if the rest of us never suffered.'
'That's not all he did, and you know it,' the other, slightly less bitter side of his mind argued. 'He was the only one who ever cared for you, give him some credit at least.'
'He relinquished any credit he had earned the day he left England,' Snape told himself with finality, trying to end the train of thought before it got out of control. 'And he obviously didn't care as much as he led us to believe, since he apparently had no trouble leaving me. '
By this point, Snape had become quite disgusted by the selfish and querulous thoughts that filled his consciousness. He flipped over and blew out the candle rather more forcefully than necessary, then busied his mind by listing the ingredients in Wolfsbane until sleep finally swept over him. Fortunately, the night's thoughts did not pursue him into his dreams.