Ron Weasley had imagined this moment. More than once. Somehow or other, though, his imagination had failed to warn him of the possibility that when it finally arrived he'd be on his way to the loo at half-past two in the morning, dressed in a tatty hospital robe, with no more than a liquorice wand between himself and impending doom.
The liquorice wand drooped.
'I'm quaking in my boots,' said Severus Snape.
Ron's face grew hot. 'You're not wearing boots,' he pointed out. It'd be his ears next. Fuck. Forty-odd years and he still blushed like a boy.
Snape folded his arms, wand-hand outermost. The gesture hoisted his nightshirt to reveal spindly, hairy shins above the slippers and crumpled socks. 'Is there a reason you're accosting me in the corridor with a sweet, Weasley?' he asked.
The blood that had begun to ebb from Ron's ears flooded back. It was almost as embarrassing as the wand. 'Auror Weasley,' he said with as much dignity as he could muster. He crossed his arms, too, and the liquorice wand flopped over his elbow. 'And since there's nothing I could do at this point that would make me look less of an idiot, let's just pretend it's a real wand.' He examined Snape's sallow face down hatchet nose to stubbly chin, and then looked him in the eye. 'I've a few things to say to you,' he said.
Snape flicked a disdainful glance at the limp liquorice, and then, disconcertingly, sighed. 'Let's just pretend you've said them, then, shall we?' he said.
'No. I've got --'
'Oh, for God's sake, Auror Weasley,' Snape bit out. 'You've got your eye on me. You've not forgotten and can never forgive. Twenty years was too good for the likes of me.' He unfolded his arms with a dismissive sweep of his wand, and began to limp down the corridor. 'It's the middle of the bloody night,' he called back, 'and I need to take a piss. Whatever else you think you've got to say will keep.'
Ron's arms dropped of their own accord as he stared after Snape. The liquorice wand had grown sticky, and he twiddled with it. His bladder twinged.
Fuck.
The only sign of Snape in the toilet was a closed stall. A few years before Madam Grundy on the St Mungo's board had insisted all the stalls be enchanted with No-Hear-Um Charms. The MLE had made rude jokes about it for weeks.
Ron braced against the back of his stall and took them all back.
Twenty years.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall Snape as he'd been. The only memory that would stand still for it was that of the in chains as his sentence had been read. Even then, it twisted into something like a healer's homonculus, all nose and hands. A monster to frighten children.
He sighed, waited through the last dribble, and shook himself off. With any luck, Snape would've left, and he'd not have to think about it any more.
He knew better. Truly. It was the eleven-year-old boy in him who jumped and squawked.
'Your wand, Auror Weasley,' Snape said as Ron collected himself. Snape held out the liquorice wand, dangling it from one end by the fingers of his left hand. His hand shook a bit, and it jiggled.
Ron shot him a look. Narrowed black eyes glinted back with a hint of amusement. The wand jiggled again.
'No?' Snape asked. He flipped it into the air and caught it again by the handle as it fell. His exposed forearm was like rope over bone, puckered with purple scars.
The liquorice wand sagged. Snape gave it a flick.
A tiny, bright blue spark flew from its tip, and then vanished with a crack and a whiff of ozone.
'I'll leave it by the sink, shall I?' Snape asked.
He set it down and shambled for the door. Ron found his voice.
'You were one-third right,' he said. 'I'll just let you work out which one.'
Snape looked back over his shoulder. 'Noted, Auror Weasley,' he said. His mouth twisted with a brief, sardonic smile.
The door swung shut.
Ron picked up the liquorice wand, and stretched it between his hands. He imagined himself with Moody's wild eye, and smiled.
'Oh, yes,' he said. 'Constant vigilance.'