Not so glamerous, but still

by kamion

you may read it and not believe it, but don't Mary sue me

I do remember the day, that when I walked to my new job location, I met a man always at the same time and at the same spot, who looked rather familiar.
I could not place him and that kept nagging at me, so when he passed me, I always turned my head to measure him up from the backside. Well it's not a very courageous thing to do; staring at peoples back in stead of looking them straight in the eye, but he wasn't the type of man that did invite you to look in the face very long. He had something foreboding over himself, but maybe I got that idea by the dark clothing he always wore.
And always the same kind and not particular along the latest fashion lines, when I first saw him it was late summer and the city was still hot and moist, but came winter he wore exactly the same and did not seem to shiver as he did not have seemed to sweat in summer. In stead of going with the seasons he wore something that must had grown on him and could only be characterised as so deadly old fashion that it had became antique. But he matched the spot.
The particular part of town I met this man one of the oldest in the city, it's a covered passage with bookstalls along one side, so the man fitted perfectly into the entourage.
As did the bookseller of the only booth that was always opened at the early hour I passed the spot and also at very late hours, it never was very busy at his collections of dusty and shabby old books of the weirdest subjects.
At first on the way home I browsed a bit through the bookstall, but when you pass them every day you take them for granted and they must have something special at exhibition to stop by again, When they did the money was always tight and the book financial out of reach.
Something made me more obsessed with the dark man in the passage: when I met him he always was two stalls, still closed, away from the stall in business and I about one stall from the opposite side, when we passed each other I turned my head after passing two booths, but four out of five times the man had disappeared. He had a tall stork like stride, but his steps could hardly be that big that he had already reached the end of the passage and turned the corner.
I must say I got quite obsessed with this morning meeting, ever time I would not be surprised I would see him in the company of the 17th century merchant princes like Six or Trip or Bicker, but a closer look showed that his dark wear wasn't the rich black cloth of those golden days. He certainly wasn't a 17th century ghost materialising before my foggy morning and half asleep eye.
But was he actually a ghost vanishing every time into thin air when I looked the other way. I am not much of a believer in ghost stories and besides ghost ought to appear at dark and murky places where something dramatic had happened. Well, to exclude that I search in the Library and the Historical Museum for clues about murders in the passage or alleys in the neighbourhood. The only likely murder victims that could have the urge to haunt that passage were whores from way down the canals, but they should look more contemporary, in the 17th century this wasn't a prostitution area at all, but a rather well to do place of living.
It tried to chat with the bookseller, a real ugly looking man with one drooping eye and the rank of mothballs over him, about the mystery passant. The bookseller was as unfriendly as he looked and not in the mood to talk about other things then the price of his smelly books. He did not seem to be interested in selling books at all, so I imagined he had a pension to live from and a bad marriage with a hag of a wife that chased him outdoors no matter the wetter. Why else sit at a draftee passage every day and scowling off costumers? I feigned some interest in his collection, which was a tough thing to do, because his merchandise was mostly such occult rubbish that it would make the daily horoscope in the newspaper look like rocket science, but as he knew I would not buy a thing, the merchant impatient waited for me to leave.
Only when something really got my interest, his attitude from passive hostile turned to active hostile. I saw a big book with locks and chains fixed to a standard that caught my interest, it was imposing and sinister at the same time, most likely something very old and antique, for the pages were not of paper but of parchment, the illustrations full of dark and broody colours did draw you into the book it seemed. Of course I would never be able to afford such a museum piece, but I wanted to know, just for feeding the curiosity of the cat, what it should cost. Before I could touch it to see for a price tag, the merchant jumped up bewildered shut the book with great force and bellowed that it was not for sale for such dumb mud brains like me.
I was about to sweep his entire merchandise from the tables with my umbrella, but instead I angry turned and bumped into a black wall of buttons and cloth.
"Is – there – a – problem, Mr Peachon?", I heard a slow soft but penetrating voice ask above me. Never noticed the mystery passant was so tall I had to look up, the voice was neither rasping nor lisping, but so different from what one would expect, that listening to it was the only option. I did not only listen, I stared
I stared like a rabbit fixed in a car light waiting to be run over, that face, younger then mine, but lined and lived, the hair, the nose…. It could not be!

"He wanted to touch the book, Mr….."

"Severus Tobias Snape." I said, I almost yelled through the empty echoing passage, before the ugly bookseller could.

"Y're Snape! but but….. You are ….."

"Dead?" he asked with a mixture of mock and nuisance.

"Dead, no you don't exist, y're a figment of the imagination of that woman in Scotland."

"Oh, one of those again, maybe you are a figment of imagination, Mr…..?"

"Kamjonker. Cornelius Kamjonker." I blurted. "And I am not!"

"Well, well , when you are and existing being, what does you make so sure I do not exist. If I was not you would have walked quite through me, but in stead of that you bruised my chest bones."

The bookseller was still very agitated, ", he wanted to touch the book, you must Oblivate him."

"Oblivate? You read too many of your own crap man!" I yelled at the man who was called Peachon. "There is no such thing as Oblivation or Obliteration Charm or Occlumensy." Now who has been reading too much? Blurting out spell names at random.

"I could Oblivate you to proof it does exist, Mr. Kamjonker. But then you would not remember a thing and we would have that annoying staring again tomorrow. Besides, Mr. Peachon, when Mr. Kamjonker wants to touch the book, he is able to see the book and thereby has the right born to him to touch it."

"Nonsense, Muggles cannot see that thing, even when they break their fricking neck over it, Mr. Thrush."
"That only proofs isn't a Muggle at all and why he is behaving like one is a matter to be investigated."

Snape or Thrush as the bookseller called him measured me up: "any urgent business to go to, that needs to be delayed."

"Yes of course," I hissed, "they expecting me at work, I am late already and I am never, ever late." For weeks I wanted to know who the fellow was and now I knew I wanted out, back to normal. Back to when this Snape was someone nicely locked up in a row of books neatly stacked next to my computers.
Back to when this Snape was a subject of international discussion through the fan network, hotly debated is he was good guy or a bad guy or just a nasty piece of character. The longer I lingered in the cold and windy passage the more I needed a shipload of Haldon to stuff this fantasy back to the place where it belonged. I know what happens when fantasy takes over, I've seen it at my job too often.
But the vicelike grip on my arm wasn't fantasy, it hurt and was real. There was power in the tall and stringy body under that black cloth.
Snape pushed me more or less into the bookstall and slapped his right hand on the big chained book. The dark and dusty back wall of the booth immediately opened as curtain torn in two and new sounds and air rushed in.
There was a small square of cobblestones with an old chipped fountain in the middle, surrounded by shops. There could not be an open aired square here, there was an old hospital building at this place and that had not been rebuild into a modern mall.
Modern it hardly was, the shops were tiny and very, very pittoresk, complete Anton Pieck – like, to refer to the Dutch painter of cosiness and kitsch. To make it even more cosy kitsch like the area was covered with snow! Real snow! It only snows during the hardest of winters and that was not even close to it, just a nasty wintry drizzle outside there!

"OldWiseGate Square, Mr. Kamjonker. The heart and soul of the Wizarding World in this rainy country or in your language EigenWijsPoortsPlein. Broom shop, wand shop, robes, pets and my own pride and modest source of income….."

"Truwain Thrush, Tooverdrancken ende Gedroogde Waeren."The sign over other small and dark shop said in an old fashion spelling and lettering.

"Truwain Thrush?" I asked.

"Yes, I go by that name here as my own name is still sort of contaminated, in spite of the fact that Mr. Potter did all what was possible to clear it. He even named his younger son after me."

"Does he know that you live here?"

"No, I don't share that secret with anybody then the Head Mistress of Hogwarts, not even with my dear own grandmother and I am sure you will guard it too."

"How come, because you Oblivate me as soon as I am outside again?"

"No, Mr. Kamjonker because the knowledge just revealed to you is also spelled. You can scream it from the rooftops, you can write voluminous tomes about it, you can go to court with it, but nobody will believe you are sprouting anything but figments of your imagination, I valuate my peace as you might understand."

And I valuate my sanity or at least that little that's still left to me.

"Was she spelled too? "

"Who?

"Well, She in Scotland?"

"Of course, she is the strongest believer of the idea it is all her imagination. That is why there are so many mistakes in the story she copied from Mrs Skeeter. I take it you know the name Skeeter?"

I nodded, heck hey, read all the books, who didn't know Rita Skeeter, terrible woman, she the source of the whole Potter saga? Who would believe that?

"It also made her very, very rich, so be it; she made a lot of Muggles very happy." Snape continued once inside the tiny, but neat shop, it was the property of a very methodical person, one who left nothing to chance, but released in preparation and organisation. Organisation not for the sake of organisation like a Percy Weasley would, but for the sake of efficiency and practicality.

"I like to take a light continental breakfast before I open the shop, would you like to share it with me? Snape offered, while with a nonchalant wisk of the wrist he started a fire beneath a kettle. Never taste fairy food, you're stuck forever in Lalaland it blurted in my mind, but in stead of some bewitched fairy cakes, he pulled a paper bag with the print of the same bakery I always bought my rolls from before standing my shift. Obvious we shared a taste and a habit.

"OK, good shop that one, strange we never met there?'

"Different timing, tea? A good cup of tea eases the waiting, I always say."

"Waiting? Waiting for whom?"

"For the Auror or Schout as that is called here, Mr. Peachon must have alerted him by now, it's one of his tasks. It's not every day a straying wizard has found home. The Dutch are not as burocratic minded as the English, but still they like their paperwork organised. He would like to now which school you visited or who educated you."

Well indeed the Auror did, a short thickset man with a round red face and the moustache one missed on Slughorn in the movie, came in huffing and puffing, wearing a kind of midnight blue robe that looked more or less like the uniform of an early 20th century constable, complete with braids and tassels in front of his round chest.
Grimme VanderGrunt he introduced himself, with a voice that was supposed to sound gruff but wasn't and hand rubbing as if he had been walking through snow and frost for hours. He started in Dutch, but a short pointy cough by Snape switched the conversation to English again, the Potion Master clearly had some kind of authority here too, but maybe not enough to have his last roll nicked by this wizard variant of Veldwachter His efforts to live up his name and to look grim and foreboding failed utterly. He asked me all kinds of question about date and place of birth, education and profession, but did not make one notation about it. I failed to notice a Quick Quotes Quill and he did not struck me as someone who had an iron memory.
"You sure he's a wizard, Mr. Thrush?" VanderGrunt scowled at Snape

"Isn't noticing the Portkey not enough evidence? "

"But he looks so unwizardly."

"Mot jij nodig zegge, Bromsnor" I blurted in Dutch, "that's for you to say, Grumble puss."

"Mr. Bromsnor, that is." He retorted. "I fail to see why you, if you are a wizard, never got a letter for Oudewater, we are a very small community, so even without a decent administration your birth should have been noticed and thereby your registration at Oudewater."

"Oudewater?"

"Yes, every Dutch witch or wizard that isn't educated abroad is educated at D'OldeWage; the witch weight house is just the cover up for Muggles. We cannot hide a witchcraft school in the mountains as there are none in this country."

"As I recall." Snape interrupted with the same kind of annoyance as if he was speaking to Longbottom or Potter in stead to the local constible. "There was a big flood in that partular year in England as well in these lands, could it be that something got a bit in disarray that year?"

"Oudewater wasn't flooded."

"No, but chaos was all over the country,"

"That would explain it", VanderGrunt sighed deep as if he just had solved a big mystery.
"Has he been to Stokkemans already?"

"Hello, I am over here, am I wearing the Invisibility Cloak, who's Stokkemans?"

"He knows a lot, doesn't he, wand shop owner, no I guess."VanderGrunt grumbled.

"Oh, I hope he takes plastic, cause I am very low on Galleons."

VanderGrunt just looked puzzled, the joke went ways over his head, and he just stamped muttering to himself into the fresh looking snow, ordering me to follow him across the square that got a little busier with people.
People of normal sizes and of short sizes, it was hard for me to believe I was actually seeing goblins, dwarves of house elves. But the two tiny creatures, bare footed and dressed in a kind of wrapping, obvious were house elves followed very meekly a haughty looking tall wizard, so richly dressed in precious furs that he would put Lucius Malfoy to shame in the competition for arrogance. Only Malfoy had silvery white hair where this wizard, respectfully greeted by VanderGrunt as was bald as an egg. Bicker was a very old name in this town, so a connection with wizards was not that surprising, but he could easily afford a pair of shoes for his servants. And that was what I wanted to say him straight in his face, but VanderGrunt caught me by the shoulder, holding me back, without Bicker even noticing my existence.

"Don't;" he said shaking his head, "if you don't wish to live the rest of your life as a pickled toad... He squash you like a bug."

"But, those elves."

"Those elves are his and they have their own magic to keep warm, they won't thank you for intervening. More over, would you have the advantage of surprise and manage to punch him in the face, the most you can manage with the magic training you lack so obvious, they would jump to defence of their master."

The shop VanderGrunt directed me to read the sign, Stokkemans, Creator and Collector of Noble Wands surprisingly in English and not in Dutch as one would expect. The shop owner also was a bit of a surprise. Half expecting an old shrivelled wizard I was introduced to a young pleasant looking fellow with wavy long blond hair. His lean face with a golden hued weekend stubble was handsome enough to pass for a Cedric Diggory, but introduced himself as: "just Joe." Enthusiast shaking my hand and talking about every thing except wands, till VanderGrunt coughed and excused himself making clear that he did not have all day.

"Wands, wands, oh jeah, wands, buying or selling? Such a dull subject wands." Just-Joe grinned boyish. "What kind wand did you use before?"

"Polyurethane and magnet core, 11 inches." I answered with the straightest face possible
Joe Stokkemans bright china blue eye got wide as china saucers, then he bursted into laughter.

"What in Merlin's name can you do with that kind of wand?"

"Stir tea, I think, but not too hot, cause then it melts."

"Or the core gets rusty."

"I'll bet phoenix feather, dragon heartstring or unicorn hair don't bring that risk."

"Ah a connoisseur, at least that's what my honourable grandfather uses exclusively. Awful able man, perfectionist, but a little stuck in tradition, I like to experiment a bit, and maybe I should start with Polyurethane some day. "

"Grandfather? Y're Ollivander's grandson?

"Yes, you know the old geezer? Mother's side, that's where I learned the trade and although my father is Dutch - and a Muggle, I was born and raised in Diagon Alley."

"Didn't know Ollivander had a daughter that explains the English shield."

"Sometimes he himself even doesn't know, so that makes you even, also in age.
First wand, first wand, at your age…. You are how old…. A hundred and fifty? give or take a few decades? "
"He Joe, just because you are second best looking in this shop you cannot sell insults, sell wands instead." I scowled.

"Just kidding, go ahead, try a few, just don't ruin my shop too much, please." He pointed at the opened boxes at the counter and I took the first one available. "Wingardium Leviosa." I bellowed, switching the wand like Herbert von Karajan directing the Ring der Nibulingen. Nothing happened.

"Wingardium Leviosa?" Joe wondered.

"Isn't that the first spell wizards learn?"

"Just switch and flick a bit, when that would have been a wand attuned to you, you would have flattened the shop if not the entire square, better try for something less dramatic."

"This is going to be a long day."VanderGrunt muttered "You boys have fun; I will see you after lunch." Boys? I haven't been a boy for decades. But he had already left, so I continued switching all kinds of wands, long and short, beech, willow, oak, mahogany, ebony, cedar, palm wood, but nothing happened at all.

"This is ridiculous," I said, throwing another discarded wand at the pile, "I am wasting your time, I am wasting my time. I should have been at my job hours ago, I stead of doing decent work I try to direct an orchestra without instruments, sound or music. When I want some Harry Potter merchandise I just order it on the Internet in stead of following the lead of a Snape look-alike. I think we have seen all kinds of wood and all possible cores except Doxy Dung."

Joe Stokkemans pleasant face got very serious, he folded his arms and while leaning against his counter he said:
"So you quite, why quitting, what do you have to loose by putting a bit more effort behind it?"

"How about my job, pretty boy, I may be a century less then your estimate of a hundred and fifty, but that still not make me find jobs just around the corner. When I leave now I might just savage something of the little job security I still have."

"They will never believe you; do you love your job that much?"

"It's a dead end job, but I like it."

"What is your job anyway?"

I told him and he looked really puzzled I liked it. "But, but that's the kind of work Argus Filch is doing and he hates it."

"Probably because he is a Squib among wizard mongrels, but he probably also has more magic in his wrist bone then I in my entire body."

"But you might do a better job then him given the time to adjust, al you need is to find the wand that suits you."

"Sorry Goldenboy, but the party is over, it's time for me to wake up and get to work."

"You can go to your dead end job at any time, Truwain will take care of that, it's his responsibility since he directed you trough the barrier. He will get a Time turner, I trust Truwain."

"You trust Snape, where did I here that before?"

"You are you calling him Snape? Severus Snape died years ago, tragic death as far as I know.
It's not nice to call somebody by the name of a dead person."

The knowledge just revealed is also spelled. Nobody will believe you.
So Goldilocks Stokkemans did not recognise Snape as Snape, why push it further.

"You sounded a bit insulted am I right. May I ask why?"

A shy blush reddened his cheeks. "He is my lover."

"Lucky him." Damn!

"Thank you, I am not his first of course, but try to stay faithful. He already lost two loves before."

"Two?"

"Yes, in England, a girl and a boy, it seems."

Don't tell me: Lilly and could it be Lupin? Lupin died, but so did Snape, but Snape is selling Potions here at OldWiseGate Square. "Did he ever mention names?"

"No and I did not ask."

Then I won't tell, that knowledge obvious also is spelled.
"Give me another wand." I said instead.

"If you insist" The boy said. "we have been through the usual stock. I will try to find something normally not for sale. Joe disappeared into the little office behind the shop and after some rumbling around and a "ah, there you are." he came back with a wand that was not stored in the usual box other wands were stacked in. It was far from impressive, no fancy decorations or rich curls and swirls, rather plain. But when I touched it felt warm and alive like a living being, something that was full of energy that want to get out and be set free.
I gave it a careful swirl and it felt good, I gave a more powerful swirl and sparks streamed from its top. Not very much, not very impressive either, certainly no Fourth of July kind of fireworks. But it sparkled. I performed magic with a real magical wand.

"Disappointed?" I asked the sceptic looking young wand seller.

"No, not at all, this is the first wand I made and I always thought it a failure, but it is a fully functional wand after all, only I don't think your capacity for magic is very strong."

"Just bloody weak, you mean in plain English."

"Yes, and sorry I would have liked to please you with helping you discover to be a powerful but untrained wizard. I have not the same eye and experience as my honourable grandfather, but I recognise the difference between potential strong and potential weak wizards or witches."

"So much for Mary Sue or Larry Mo conquering the Wizarding World, hands tied and with a smile and a song... Look, dear boy, I've lived all my life as a Muggle, the rest of it at an almost Squib-like Wizard I will survive too."

"You are not angry with me?"

"No, I want to buy this one, what's it made off anyway?

"Cherry and Rose, Diricawl feather, 12 inches."

"Diricawl? That's a dodo! Raphus cucullatus! Well my wizarding career is obvious as dead as a dodo too before it even started, how appropriate. How much?"

"Keep it, it's a gift. I cannot guarantee you will ever use it, so having you pay, would be ripping you off."

"I cannot accept that. I hate charity."

"OK. Symbolic price would be the equivalent of a Galleon, real price five. You pay me that Galleon and when you have learned to make full use of it the other four in about a year. And realising you don't have Galleons in your pocket, we ask Truwain what's the exchange rate in Euros. Deal?"

"Deal." Only downside of it was that I did not have any legit excuse to be in the boy's company any longer. I could easily fall in love with this wizarding piece of sunshine on a dark winter's day. But the real lover of him must have sensed something. Snape (or Thrush, if he wanted to be called that) appeared with a watch like kind of device on a long chain.
Joe Stokkemans almost jumped him, throwing an arm around his waist and pressing himself close to the dark foreboding wizard, who only just revealed his love by a slight smile.

"Seven turns, and you will be at the same time we met this morning again, only slightly later, we would not take the risk you bump into yourself as you bumped into me.
You then can go on with what you planned to do this morning."

"As if nothing happened, because you will make it feel like nothing happened."

"No, , trust me."

Now where did I leave that button, "I Trust Severus Snape." Because I did and he kept true to his word. It all did feel like a dream, I walked to my job in the grey morning light of winter in a kind of dreamlike haze, nothing new about that, bought my morning rolls as usual at the bakery show as usual. And got the usual well wish to make it a beautiful day. Relieved the night watch as usual, made breakfast for the clientele as usual and heard the chef harp about things to change as usual. Did all the things I did as usual, only played with my new won wand about every minute possible. Sometimes it sparked again. When someone asked about it, I lied having bought it at E-bay, for which the chef took a few house points in the esteem he held me in. How could he, he did not even know in what House I belonged, I even did not know.
In the week that followed I wrote to Oudewater to find out and was pleased to get an answer and not an order to get me into an asylum. Only the answer was not very pleasing, I got a brusque answer that I was too old and too untalented to ever visit the fine Dutch institute for the educating witchcraft and wizardry, signed by Godewald Bicker.
He did notice my existence after all. The Dutch Wizarding world indeed is a very small community. In one morning you could meet half of it and make an enemy for life. Over the weeks the chef got major irritated by the fact that I never let my Diricawl-wand at home or out of reach or sight. I could still not do anything with it. That was a good as well as a bad thing, performing magic among Muggle was of course as severely restricted here as in England, no need to explain it, but there were moments I thought a mild Crutiatus would be appropriate.

Last night I got a letter by owl again, not from Snape or Stokkemans as I sort of hoped.
It was from Scotland, by a certain McGonagall, how did she know I ever existed, but she had taken the trouble to tell me that Filch is bound to retire.....