AN: Just a short little story while I trash out plot lines for my longer epic. All recognizable characters and plot lines (including the shameless Blind Banker reference that I just couldn't resist) belong to their respective creators.
Severus Snape, Potion Master extraordinaire, terror of the Hogwarts dungeons, cunning double agent, and protagonist in what was possibly The Most Tragic Unrequited Love Story in the History of the Wizarding World (he had Rita Skeeter to thank for that one) looked about the shop he was currently in and scowled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he wondered to himself why he was still there.
... Ah yes, the orpin rose.
The gaudy red-and-gold boxes stacked from floor to ceiling along one wall of the shop, with glass counters in front displaying odd plant (and the occasional animal) parts on shiny red fabric and lit up by bright fluorescent spotlights had him backing towards the opposite wall in an instinctive response to its ostentatious Gryffindor-ness. The wall to which he turned for refuge, a floor-to-ceiling collection of dark wood drawers, each labelled with a series of carved and gilt characters in an Asian language, was much more his style, though he thought the gilt was rather unnecessary. He sighed and mentally cursed his luck for having been forced into entering this particular shop with its overenthusiastic proprietor...
Severus had, to his great surprise, woken up on a sunny morning in a bed in the Hogwarts hospital wing (he had rather expected a shadowy countryside, with perhaps a great golden gate hidden somewhere to be discovered), to be ambushed by Poppy Pomfrey with rather painful hugs and torrents of tears. He listened to the account of the end of the War and Harry's triumph with considerable relief, which turned rapidly to horror when he learned that Harry had apparently taken it upon himself to proclaim Severus' innocence and romantic history to the whole Wizarding world. He endured a month in the hospital wing under the strict, though now often teary, eye of Poppy, and gritted his teeth as Minerva, Pomona, Filius, Molly Weasley, and even Sybil Trelawney of all people, separately visited to gush over their misunderstandings and his heartbreak. After his release from the hospital, he took to hiding in his old quarters in the dungeons which had miraculously survived nearly untouched, and went only once to Spinners' End, just to ensure that the house was still standing. He never went into public, and there he was thankfully aided by the decision to close Hogwarts for a year to repair the extensive damages it had sustained during the Battle.
Severus, however, was not of the disposition to remain idle for long. As his mind gradually grew tired of the exercise of self-blame and regret, or alternately the imagining of the various detentions he might put certaininterfering busybodies who had brought him back to life and made him a hero through, he started considering the various options of what to do with the remaining time he had unexpectedly been given. He wasn't particularly skilled at rebuilding magical castles, and he certainly wasn't about to join the media circus, which eliminated most of his options outside of Hogwarts. So, he turned once again to his old skill - Potions.
With a year of free time and virtually unlimited resources for the procurement of Potions ingredients (a conciliatory gesture from Minerva, poorly disguised under the excuse of 'contributing to rebuilding the Wizarding economy'), Severus began to experiment with Potions. He had been experimenting with a new Calming Draught, which was certainly needed after the terrible events of the past year - one which would act by actually reduce the damage caused by mental trauma rather just as a sedative - when he realised that he needed a new ingredient. The blooms of the orpin rose would, he calculated, have a magnificent calming effect on the mind, and furthermore, act as an antidote to the loss of appetite and general interest in life that is so characteristic of the emotionally troubled. The only hitch was that the orpin rose is a rather rare plant that only grows in cold, mountainous climates - the Himalayans, to be exact. Severus had looked through the mail catalogues of every apothecary in Great Britain, and several from continental Europe, only to fling them into the fireplace (or at Mrs. Norris) in disgust. He contemplated personally going to the apothecary in Diagon Alley, but shuddered. He was trying to, over dinner, manipulate Minerva into going down on his behalf, when Pomona overheard, and mentioned that the orpin rose wasn't very obviously a Magical plant (unlike the mandrake, for instance) and that he might perhaps find it in Muggle herb shops. The rest of dinner was spent teasing Severus about the possibility of his newfound celebrity having made its way into Muggle London.
Several days later, Severus found himself walking down Shaftsbury Avenue in Muggle attire (a long-sleeved black shirt and black jeans, obviously), tired, dehydrated, and irritated. He had started with several Muggle pharmacies, which were replete with at least two dozen varieties of the Muggle equivalent of Calming Draughts, but devoid of actual plant or animal parts. He then tried Muggle markets, both the super- and normal varieties, but found nothing more magical than rosemary and coriander. Where, he had exasperatedly asked a grocer, would one find for sale plants that are not vegetables? The man gave him an odd look and gruffly told him to try a plant nursery. Or perhaps those herbalists in Chinatown, if that's the kind of thing he was looking for. Now was he going to buy anything or not?
London's Chinatown was concentrated around Gerrard Street, parallel to Shaftsbury Avenue. As Severus turned onto Gerrard Street, he felt as though he was in a different London, with bilingual street and shop signs and the odd pavilion here and there. He walked past a glass storefront displaying porcelain cat figurines in all sizes and colors waving - oddly enough - their front paws, and what was apparently the entrance to a quadrant of apartments (with a suspicious-looking dark-haired man examining in minute detail a bright yellow, somewhat rain-soaked phone book abandoned at the door, and his stocky blond companion looking on with amusement from the side) before spotting a shop with piles of what looked like plant roots piled on a table right outside - the same shop that we found him in at the beginning of our story. So he proceeded to the shop, and stepped in cautiously. A strong smell - spicy, sweet, a little bitter, a little musky, unusual but fragrant - washed over him. The scales and even more piles of plant roots on the counters made Severus feel more at home than he'd ever felt before in a Muggle shop. The shop was apparently deserted.
At length someone emerged from the rooms at the back of the shop. A wizen little man, Asian in appearance, looked Severus over shrewdly through his owlish glasses before giving him a smile. How are you? he asked in heavily accented English. Before Severus had any chance to answer his greeting (not that he was really the greet-storekeepers type) or to explain his business, the old man started analyzing his 'illnesses', ignoring Severus' attempts at protest. Not feeling well, eh? Hardly surprising, judging from how you look, though it was rare to have someone like you visit the shop, if you know what I mean. But then, the NHS, for all their modern science, still can't treat everything, that's a fact. Now, let's see, thin, gaunt, sallow - poor appetite, not sleeping well? Strength's been worn down over a long time, that's clear. Need something to build your strength back up. There is too much of both water and fire in you - that's been affecting your appetite and sleep, and probably causing the oily hair as well. Now, how is work? Are you very stressed? Stick out your tongue... Ah, I see. And give me your wrist... Don't be shy; I'm just taking your pulse... Ah, I know just the thing to help you feel better. Wait. With that, the man returned to the back of the shop with surprising energy and speed, ignoring Severus' protests that he was just looking for one plant.
In any other situation Severus would have left the shop immediately, getting as far away from the apparently loony old man and his Wall of Gryffindor as quickly as possible. But there was something about this little old man, frail and harmless though he appeared, that made Severus unable to bend him to his will or even protest convincingly. Against all his natural inclinations he was co-operating, however unwillingly, with the old man. And so Severus tarried, unable to make up his mind. He picked up roots at random, at first giving them only cursory examinations as his mind debated back and forth, but eventually his mind began registering the different shapes, colors, smells and feels of the plant parts with increasing attention. He had never seen most of these herbs, which certainly do not seem magical in any way, before, yet he supposed they must have some function. He was wondering if any of them would be useful in his potions when the old man re-emerged. Not in a hurry, are we? Good, because I've just set your medicine in boil... It's hard for many to boil their own medicines at home, so here we do it for you. Then you can bring them home and drink. They'll help. Interested in the herbs? Here, let me tell you about them...
An hour later, Severus stepped out of the shop, having been near-coerced (or so he tells himself) into drinking one dosage of a brown, violently bitter liquid, and carrying a bag containing a dozen more dosages, to be drunk twice a day. There is a conspicuous absence of any trace of orpin rose in the bag - the shop did not have it in stock, Severus was told, but the shop might order it for him, and he can come back in a week to collect it. Severus, though, was in a surprisingly benign mood as he walked towards Piccadilly Circus - his objective was in sight, he had been introduced to many new herbs which could provide new directions for his own potions, and he had spent the last hour being treated as neither Scum of the Earth nor War Hero, but just another average person. It was a role in which he didn't have to act, to be on constant guard, to have his sensibilities scraped raw in one way or another. It was, in short, a new sensation, and one which he quite liked.
He began planning a trip for Muggle London for the next week.