5

The old and the new

Ch 1

She is always hated apparating. Besides, on this day, given what she has to do, taking the bus, like any normal Muggle, seems fitting. The street is long and narrow, the houses on either side casting long shadows in the gloomy light cast by the filtered rain. He doesn't know that she is coming. She could have phoned of course: she knows he has all the Muggle electronics, which is partly why she is there. But for all her hard-won experience, she knows she will need the advantage of surprising him. Fifteen years….

She straightens up. You can do this, she admonishes herself. You must do this. You have no choice. It's either that or…

She raises her hand to knock on the door – there's no bell, she notices briefly – and is annoyed that her fingers are trembling. Three, sharp loud knocks…

The door opens almost right away, almost as if he knew before he heard the knock that someone was coming….the wards, she thinks….he must have set the wards…

His face is blank, impassible. She doesn't know whether to be alarmed or relieved by the lack of sneer, by the void in the dark eyes.

'Professor…or should I say, Headmistress…', he says flatly.

'Professor Snape….may I come in?', she asks curteously.

He lets her in wordlessly, leading her to the small, suprisingly cosy frontroom. He remains standing and does not offer her a chair, letting the silence between them settle, heavy, pregnant with things unsaid and memories unlived.

'How have you been?', she attempts.

He stiffens. 'Come, come…. You aren't here to catch up, after all those years', he cuts in, traces of the old sarcasm she remembers to well lacing his words.

'No, I haven't. I've come to ask whether you would be willing to….'

'No.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I will not return to Hogwarts. Not under any circumstances.'

She looks at him levelly. The years have been kinder to him than she had expected. He has filled out somehow, the planes of his face larger than they were during her Hogwarts years, his hair still dark as raven but no longer greasy, his eyes still large, and dark, and bright, with deep shadows of fatigue underneath – but no longer hollow with dislike, fear and resentment.

'Hear me out. Please.'

'I said no, Professor Granger. Sorry. Headmistress.' This time the sneer is there, unmistakable, and for all that she can actually force him to do her bidding, she feels the need to argue with him as an equal and not to be pushed into reverting to being a scared eleven year old.

'Professor Snape, I don't think that you fully understand…'

'Oh, I fully understand what is going on', he says coldly. 'You were appointed as Headmistress of Hogwarts five weeks ago after Min…after Professor McGonagall's death. The youngest ever at only thirty five years of have an impossible task ahead of you. Standards have declined, attendance is at an all time low in living memory, the staff turnover is much too high….what? Did you think I would not keep up? Then again, it is hard not to keep up, given that whatever you say and do is recorded and trumpeted by the Daily Prophet…And so fresh from the glorious news of your appointment, and on the back of a brilliant career as Deputy Head of the Salem School, you decide to make your mark, don't you? God forbid Hermione Granger should fail at anything….' He stops, his breathing harsher, more laboured, the venom of years of bitterness suddenly pouring forth. 'I have given twenty years of my adult life to Hogwards, Granger. I will not relinquish the peace and solitude I have been fortunate enough to have for the last decade and a half. Now if you don't mind, I have other things to do….'

She shakes her head. 'A month ago', she begins softly, 'two Muggles were killed near the entrance to Diagon Alley. The news were kept…'

'This is one of the most dangerous parts of London, Granger, surely…'

'Headmistress to you, Professor Snape', she cuts in levelly, 'Now then. The news were kept secret from the Magical world. But the murderers were caught on CCTV cameras. It's a device used by Muggles to…'

'I know what those are. Why should we take an interest in…'

'It really would be easier if you did not interrupt'. And there is something in the tone of her voice, something compelling and cold at the same time, which does this time silence him. 'We know that the murderers are magical. The Aurors department has a source within the Metropolitan police. Several sources in fact. Their sources told them that they had recognised the men's faces.' She pauses. She has his full attention now. 'The victims were killed with a gun, Professor Snape. Two guns, to be precise.' She lets her statement ring in the still, tense air.

He remains impassive, but she can almost see the cogs of his sharp, powerful brain turning and moving, processing and analysing. 'I see', he says calmly.

'I'm afraid you don't. This is the fifth murder of that kind this month. Five in once month, Professor Snape. Not magical murders, but murders by muggle means, by magical people, who somehow procured themselves a gun. The murderer in the very first case was arrested a week ago by the Met. By their standards, they discovered nothing untoward in his flat. But by ours….he had a phone – two in fact: landline and mobile. A television. A DVD reader. A computer. Internet access.'

He waves his hand around his room. 'As I do, Headmistress. As you can see.'

'Indeed. Professor Snape, the Head of the Aurors department and the Minister of Magic believe that a small group of wizzards have managed to adapt Muggle electronics devices to work in a magical environment, and are arming themselves with guns, to start a new war. I agree with them. Minister Weasley has increased funding for Muggle research, but the fact is that we are utterly, wholly unprepared. Faced with an enemy which can use both the dark arts and muggle weaponry and technology, we are doomed.'

She hasn't raised her voice, confident in the dramatic powers of her words alone, and he begins to feel the first twinges of acute discomfort.

'All this is all very good, Headmistress, but where exactly do I come in?', he parries.

'You too have found a way of making the two worlds coexist. Moroever, not only are you one of the best Potions Masters in the world. You also have almost unrivaled generalist knowledge of all the other fields of magic. We would like you to return to Hogwarts as Potions Master – but just to teach NEWTs. Slughorn's former apprentice, William Johnson, is happy to teach up to OWLs. But you would have a special brief – of working with the department of Magic's Muggle department to make Hogwarts…hospitable, shall I say, to Muggle technology. Electricity, phone lines, internet…and of helping shape all facets of the curriculum accordingly. We would not ask you to take on your old position as Head of Slytherin, unless you absolutely wanted to.'

He shudders. 'You can't be serious', he repeats, his voice dripping with disdain. 'Can you really imagine Hogwarts with electricity? Next you'll be wanting what they call here a ICT room…'

'I have already made plans for that, in fact', she retorts smoothly. 'I have also appointed Percy Weasley, who's inherited his father's love for all things Muggles, as Muggle studies teacher. The subject will be compulsory for all, including at NEWTs. You would be working with him, as well as with the new Charms teacher, Luna Lovegood. You could and would work with Mad-Eye Moody, the DADA teacher….'

'You have it all figured out', he grinds out. 'All the pieces set up, for the delivery of your masterplan…'

'My masterplan', she snaps, irritation finally showing, 'will ensure that the next generations of wizzards and witches can function properly in the Muggle world and can defend our own worlds from this new breed of psychopathic criminals!'

He shakes his head and turns away from her. 'I won't do it. I have given too much already. Two wars…I can't fight in the next one. I don't want to fight in the next one. And I can't go back to the very place where I….I've earned the right to say no, Headmistress…'

'I'm afraid not, Professor Snape', she says sadly. In a split second she has drawn her wand out and before he can react, she utters the words which will change the course of life, once more, for ever. 'Severus Snape, I invoke the Life Debt which you owe me, and bid you to come back to Hogwarts to protect our world from the worst threat which it has known.' The tip of her wand is casting a blue light into the room, which engulfs him and binds him more strongly than ropes.

When the magic dies down, he is left standing before her, his eyes black pools of hatred. 'How could that have happened?' he whispers hoarsely.

Her eyes do not leave his. 'That night….I found you. I went back to the Shrieking Shack and administered first aid. Five bezoars, replenishing potion….that's all it took', she replies calmly, the even tone of her voice belying the torment those memories still bring her after all those years.

He has gone so pale that she fears for a moment that he will collapse in front of her. 'You. It was you. My God. Why did you not leave me to die…'

'Believe it or not, I didn't have it in me to do that. Not after finding out all that you'd done for us.'

For once his mask of impassibility has slipped. 'Why did you not say anything, to anyone?' he asks. 'All these years…'

She shrugs. 'Whatever for? All that mattered was that you were able to crawl out and get help. I made sure of that…'

He laughs bitterly. 'You shouldn't have done it. What good did it do….'

She raises her eyebrows. 'It gave you fifteen years of peace and solitude, Professor Snape.'

'Yes, and bound me to you, irrevocably. As between that and death…', he says bitterly.

She stiffens. 'Well. You can always put yourself to the test. If you fulfill the vow, you survive. If you don't, you die. Your choice. Should you choose the former, I shall expect you at Hogwarts by August 30 at the very latest. Goodbye.'

This time she Apparates away. When she lands into her office, straight away, she finds that her legs are shaking.

Had she lingered in Spinner's End, she would have heard the sound of a glass being thrown against the wall.