Serpentes

by The Demon's Song

Severus' morning began with poorly cooked porridge, an owl delivery of a potions journal he had no intention of reading, and an old friend inquiring brightly, "Did you hear about the dead man, then, Severus?" SSHP slash.

Author's note: This will be slash, meaning a male/male pairing, of the SSHP variety. Please don't say I didn't warn you. :) Otherwise, my usual warnings—these being that Severus did survive the final battle, and that this story will contain original characters (though none of them will enter into relationships with canon Harry Potter characters). Please read and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not, and will never be, mine. Consider me disclaimed, as I only type this out once per story.

Severus' morning began with poorly cooked porridge, an owl delivery of a potions journal he had no intention of reading, and an old friend inquiring brightly, "Did you hear about the dead man, then, Severus?"

Severus paused, a spoonful of lumpy sugar-ridden carbohydrate raised half way to his mouth, and looked at his dining companion. The man was older than Severus, and though Severus was not entirely sure of just how many years separated them, it was enough that the other's hair had already gone white—for wizards, this meant that he was probably at least ninety or a hundred years old, to Severus' forty-eight. Corresponding lines of age creased the face of the man, his weathered skin folded at the mouth and eyes; still more lines had been made by repeated laughter and smiles over long years. With tanned skin and dark brown eyes that looked perpetually amused, despite whatever expression his mouth might make, the man did not look like the sort Severus' former students might expect him to call 'friend.' Indeed, dressed in tropical colors and muggle denim jeans under open, black robes, the man seemed a perfect contrast to Severus—those who knew him might also claim that his personality was a contrast. Severus completed the raise of his spoon, swallowed the mass-produced porridge, and arched one brow. "I presume," he said dryly, "that this is neither some misdirected attempt at humor, nor an academic inquiry?"

The man tapped one set of fingers on the wooden surface of the table impatiently, and waved the other in dismissal. "No, no," he said in an impeccably educated accent, "Severus, you know me better than that."

"Perhaps," Severus conceded. He said nothing more. The other man smiled faintly at him, and, though his eyes glistened in the way they always did when he simply longed to tell Severus something, he, too, said nothing. Severus took this time to complete his porridge and flick through the index of the journal in a cursory manner. Finally, tiring of the silence, Severus pushed both his bowl and the journal aside and said, with no small amount of irritation, "Orlando—," for this was the other wizard's name, "—if you are so eager to tell me, would you cease playing games and simply do so?"

Orlando sat back with a grin and spread his arms wide. Had they not been in the designated eating facilities of the convention hall, in what was called a lounge but was nearer a glorified cafeteria, the older wizard might have carried off the superior look he had tried for. The nearly neon orange of his shirt also dampened the effect. Severus felt his lip twitch upwards, into the nearest form of a smile he would allow, and knew from Orlando's own expression that he had planned to amuse Severus from the start. "During the night," Orlando said at last, "Durahn Locus—you know the chap, he lectured on the newest uses of Cananga odarata during last year's convention—dropped dead, apparently inexplicably. One of his friends found him in his room this morning, after he failed to attend the early-bird bargain sale at Kenning's Cauldrons." He leaned forward, head resting against his elbows, which had come up onto the table despite all rules of propriety, and whispered excitedly, "Of course, merely the fact that his death seems unexplainable does not mean that it was. The first complement of Aurors arrived early enough that no one got a chance to examine the body, but I find it extremely likely that someone merely took the opportunity to try out a new poison. Whoever they are, they are not without skill, that's for certain—nor was Durahn a man without enemies."

"You are a veritable fountain of knowledge," Severus said, turning his spoon about in his fingers while he considered the matter.

Orlando seemed disappointed. "Come now, Snape, I can't even tell if you were attempting to compliment me or chide me for being a gossip." He caught Severus' gaze. "Don't pretend this won't make things more interesting. Imagine the poor Aurors, trying to find a poisoner in a convention full of Potions Masters!" Imagine the Ministry fumbling about and making a fool of itself, was what Orlando implied. The older wizard had been one of Severus' few friends for over eight years, and knew perfectly well that the overall stupidity of the Ministry pleased Severus' cynical tendencies. "Won't this bring a little life to this otherwise dreary gathering, eh?"

Still, Severus glanced down at the black shirt sleeve covering his left forearm. Severus Snape was a war hero, an acclaimed pinnacle of so-called nobility during the war, and a cherished figure to the general public, despite Severus' horrified protests of such empty-minded celebrity. He was also a former Death Eater, and was acknowledged as one of the greatest Potions Masters of his time, and he knew these things would not be forgotten by some. He tapped his spoon against his admittedly thin lips to hide the frown they twisted into.

"Quite," he lied.

…

"Potter, the file," Rolf said, stepping into Harry's room without knocking. That was alright, seeing as Harry's door had been open to begin with. Privacy was a bit hard to come by in the barracks, even with an unshared room, but mostly a closed door would be respected as the barrier it was meant to be. Doors open meant no one would take offense at anyone stopping in.

Harry stood from his bed and grabbed a stack of parchment from the other man's hand. "Thanks," he said, already fishing his wand out of his pocket. Rolf took this as an invitation and settled into Harry's only, uncomfortable, chair. Harry paid him no mind, instead pressing his wand to his index finger and murmuring the appropriate spell. His skin sliced neatly, a single drop of blood welling up, and he pressed that droplet gently into a boxed off section of the top parchment. It stained the parchment brown for a moment, then pulsed a light green and promptly disappeared. With a sound like a slightly rusty wheel turning, words began to scrawl across what had once been blank parchment. They filled the first sheet, then dripped like a liquid onto the edge of the second and continued their journey.

"Your chair sucks," Rolf said, mixing American phrases with a slight German accent, and coming out sounding ridiculous. Despite what he said, Rolf seemed to melt into the chair contentedly, sinking until his long legs sprawled across Harry's floor and only the very tips of his blond hair remained above the top of the chair.

"What are you, a cat?" Rolf snorted in reply, and bit out a languid curse in very fluent German. Harry nudged his door shut with one foot and sat back down on his mattress, eyes fixing on the print as he began to read. "You were gone a long while," Harry said, flopping back entirely on his bed, with sympathy in his voice.

"Hard run," the German agreed. "I'm allotted two weeks rest, though we'll see if I actually get it."

Harry turned to the next piece of parchment, discarding the first beside him. "You aren't coming with me?" he asked, then: "Ah. No. I'm doing this one alone."

"Mm," Rolf groaned by way of reply, shifting in the chair to keep it from pressing into one bruise or another. Harry smiled slightly and finished reading in silence. When he was done, he opened the cut on his finger, this time pressing it to a second box on the back of the packet. The whole process then repeated in reverse, with the words fading away until Harry, once again, held nothing more than a stack of blank parchments in his hand. He laid them all neatly on the bed and stood, glancing at the now-sleeping Rolf before crossing to his wardrobe.

Harry dressed automatically. Once, he had needed to think about the complex uniform of his profession; now he dressed efficiently and without undue thought. The basic necessities—comfortable black pants and a black shirt, which were practical enough to make up for their lack of color, as well as his usual arm holster—went on first, followed by the tools Harry preferred—seven of them, three of which could be mistaken for jewelry. This piece, then that. Over it all, when Harry was done, went a robe of blue so dark it could be taken for black at a glance.

Finished, he scooped up the parchment from his bed and cast a look at Rolf. "Siegbert," he said gently. The German let out a low snore in response. "Siegbert," Harry repeated, and shook the other man's shoulder gently. "Rolf Siegbert, go sleep in your own damned bed." When Rolf merely let out a sleepy mutter and rolled over in his chair, Harry relented. The chair would do Rolf no damage beyond a stiff neck, and Harry could always say he'd tried.

With one final glance around his quarters, which fit no other word so well as 'spartan', Harry left the sleeping German where he lay and turned for the door. Shutting it behind him as he went, Harry made for the exit of the barracks.

…

The Raulk-Ridley Potions Conference, named after a Potions Master whose name was neither Raulk nor Ridley, but who had owed debts to wizards of those names, was held annually. It had been held annually for eight years, without fail, in the middle of the summer. The specific location of the conference changed each year—this year, it had been secreted away in a sector of unplottable mountains held by an eccentric Scottish wizard of pure blood, who had volunteered his land only after making sure that any who entered would be unable to share its location without his express permission. Upon this land, an old manor house had been converted into a convention hall, with enough room for precisely six hundred and twenty wizards to stay comfortably within the halls and attached land. Accordingly, seven hundred wizards were now staying both in the manor house, and in tents placed in the surrounding valley, making things a bit cramped. Each of these seven hundred wizards was a Potions Master, with all the attached quirks—disdain for any who did not believe Potions Making a noble Art, a certain smug superiority, and general olfactory unpleasantness caused by spending too much time enclosed in dark, dank spaces with ingredients largely derived from dead things. Of these seven hundred, one was dead for no definable reason.

Auror Adrea Corvus rubbed her eyes and leaned against the window of the crime scene. "This is a nightmare."

Her partner, the Auror Mathias Pryce, looked up from casting yet another spell at the open door of the room. "You wake up from nightmares," he pointed out. Then, seeing the sky over her shoulder, he continued, "It's going to rain."

Adrea looked at the corpse and grimaced. "You fill my day with sunshine, Pryce. Got any signature on the door?"

He waved his wand one, final time, and a wave of white light engulfed the door. It faded away immediately. Mathias shook his head. "No." He shoved his wand back into the pocket of his robe and rubbed his hands together absentmindedly. "No magical signatures, no signs of spells, no motive, no means, no cause of death. I don't even know that this can be called a crime scene."

Adrea didn't turn away from the body on the floor, though she would have liked to. She studied it, cataloged little details, and went over everything she knew. His name was Durahn Locus. The body was curled up into a nearly fetal position on the floor, but would probably have stretched to six feet tall in life, or maybe a little taller. He was sixty-eight years old last February. His hair was brown peppered with grey and white, fairly long, and messy, as though he had neglected to comb it for some days, or tossed it about vigorously enough to knot it before his death. He was a known Potions Master of some skill, who mostly created healing potions. His arms crossed his stomach and chest, almost defensively, except there was no evidence of blows or curses falling on him. He had more than a few friends. His eyes were wide, and very blue, and from the picture the file supplied of the body in life, she would have called them compelling. He had, to his friend's knowledge, at least three major enemies. His face was caught, eternally, in what looked like a scream; there was pain in his stiff muscles.

"Damn it, Mathias, this was a crime," Adrea said, and a little chime set off in her gut that made her feel confident in what she had said. "Locus was a Potions Master—if this was suicide, he would have found a painless way to go, he had the technical skill for that. We've checked the body. No organ failures, no heart attack, no diseases, no broken bones, no bruises, even. I would say he was perfectly healthy if he wasn't dead." She took a deep breath and looked back out the window. "So. A crime."

Adrea could hear Mathias moving around behind her. "I know you're right, Corvus. I'd just like a little proof." A series of words issued from his mouth, Latin, standard spells for crime scenes. Adrea knew he'd cast them all once already, and appreciated the double check. "Did you know that Muggleborns are twice as likely to be killed as purebloods, even after the war? Of course, they're twice as likely to commit suicide too. Four times as likely at Christmas."

"Is it Christmas now, Pryce?" Mathias was right—it was going to rain. Adrea couldn't imagine the wizards set up in tents were going to be particularly pleased with that.

"Not for us. Maybe for the Potions Masters attending this convention. I don't know if you noticed, but three of them were talking about analyzing the new poison that must have been used in this murder, and that was while we were walking past them to get to the stairs. They didn't even stop talking as we passed, they were so excited."

Adrea looked down to the ground outside of the window. In the shaded valley of mountains, rolling grass lined the uneven ground, and tents lined the grass. Adrea couldn't see all of them from the angle at which she stood, as she was in the east wing of the manor and the tents stretched around the house from east to west, but she could see at least a hundred tents of various sizes. Some were small, and the standard black, blue, or brown—others were large even on the outside, with such ostentatious flares as enormous family crests sewn into the fabrics, brightly feathered birds tethered to the tents, or, in one case, what appeared to be a genuine fireworks show occurring without pause outside the door. All of the tents would no doubt be larger inside than out, with enough wizard space for two or three people to live comfortably even inside the smallest. She could see, from the fourth floor window she was standing at, various Potions Masters running about between the tents, likely preparing from the upcoming rain. "You realize that if the murder weapon was poison, any one of the seven hundred people here could qualify as suspects."

"Like finding a needle in a needle stack," Mathias, who was not born to Muggle parents, attempted to agree.

"Haystack," Adrea, who had a Muggle mother and a wizard father, corrected idly. "Though a needle stack might be more apt in this situation."

Mathias sighed. "Corvus, come check with me, here. Looking at them won't get the investigation over with any faster." He cast yet another spell. She could tell it was fruitless when the sound of his boot scuffing irritably into the floor reached her. "Adrea?"

"Just a moment," Adrea returned. "There's something—I don't know what, but something—." Mathias didn't contradict her then. She was no Seer, but she was observant.

She looked still at the tents, trying to consciously recognize whatever small thing had registered as being unusual. They were as she had thought—all the same tents, all the same bustling figures running around. The people below were as varied as the temporary domiciles they were residing within. Though the majority of them dressed in wizarding robes, Adrea could see one or two, as they ducked in and out of tents and scurried about, were distinctly wearing Muggle clothing. Some wore these clothes well, in standard jeans and collared shirts or windbreakers; some attempted to dress themselves as Muggles and wound up wearing garments oriented towards the wrong gender, or the wrong occasion, including one man who seemed to be wearing diving flippers rather than trainers. Even amongst those wearing robes there was diversity to be found in the fabrics—in texture, color, design and quality, there were great differences to be found. One witch was clearly wearing robes that had to be over twenty years old, while one wore a design on the cutting edge of wizarding fashion. Adrea saw robes designed for comfort and others designed to catch attention. Mostly she saw black robes: one, worn by a wizard talking to his neighbor, another on a witch playing what looked to be bagpipes, and there, another, on a figure winding towards the house—

Adrea's hands came up to the window sill, and she gripped tight. That, then, was what had bothered her. She watched the figure below a moment longer, to be certain that she had not been mistaken, and was proven right as the cloak billowed once again. It might have looked black at first glance, but movement caused it to show as the dark shade of sapphire blue it truly was. The color was not luminescent or obvious, but it was distinctive for any who understood what it meant—coupled with the peculiarly graceful, fluid stride of the one who wore it, it could signify only one thing.

"Merlin's balls," Adrea cursed, and she could nearly feel Mathias look up at her in bewilderment. "That is precisely what we didn't need."

"Corvus?" her partner queried, tones of disapproval as well as confusion coloring his voice.

Adrea shook her head, turned away from the window, and responded simply by saying, "Company. The sort that comes complete with feuds over jurisdiction and investigative rights."

To Mathias' credit, he looked blank for only a second or two before understanding dawned on his face. "They sent an Elite already?" he asked, voice denoting that the question was rhetorical.

"Clearly we aren't trusted with this investigation," she said, cracking her knuckles out of reflex. "Never mind that we spent three years in training just like any Auror would be expected to, passed all our courses with noted academic skills and then proceeded to have one of the best damn catch records of any team in the service—clearly we simply lack the skills necessary to solve a murder." Adrea pulled her wand out of its pocket within her robes and set about casting the crime scene spells a third time, her wand motions a little more violent than they strictly needed to be.

Mathias' lips thinned in frustration. "Don't get touchy, Corvus. We're good, but you're twenty-five and I'm only a year older than that." When Adrea looked at her partner, uncomprehending of what he was driving at, Mathias went on, "We're young. Our superiors have to remember that, and take it into account. Combined with the fact that we've never dealt with a case like this—"

"No one has ever dealt with a case like this," Adrea said sharply, voice marginally louder. "Don't tell me you're happy that we're having some arrogant Elite simply waltz in and take this investigation out from under our noses!"

Whereas Adrea's irritation drove her to raise her voice, Mathias, born pure blood, had been trained to display his anger in a quiet, cutting tone; he had told her as much once. Adrea could see that the lessons had been internalized well as her partner bit out, "No. I am not pleased with this turn of events. I, however, choose to be logical rather than irrationally upset over something out of my own control. The Elite will never allow us to remain on this case if we deal with this immaturely."

There was a silence, in which Adrea's scans continued to come up, unsurprisingly, blank, even as her temper cooled. "Sorry," she offered at last, voice very quiet.

"Apology accepted," Mathias said.

Adrea took one deep breath, glanced over the entirety of the crime scene, and then offered her partner an anticipatory grin—smaller, perhaps, than it might have been if she hadn't still been a little ashamed at her own actions. "Shall we attempt to amaze the Elite with our competency and professional standards, then?"

In silence, the two Aurors got down to work.

I hope you enjoyed!

This story is a secondary one to me—meaning I work on my original pieces and my fanfic Sanguine first and foremost, and this one when the time and inspiration strike me. That being the case, updates on this story may be a bit sporadic. Still, I will update when I have a completed chapter, and I won't hold myself to any lesser standards for this fic than my norm—I still plan to make this as flawless as I possibly can.

In the interest of improving my story and writing, then, I also would love feedback from you readers. I write both for myself and for you, and I promise any advice or critiques you care to give will be taken into consideration. That, and reviews make me a very happy little author.