Disclaimer: All places and characters belong to JK Rowling and various publishers. No money is being made off this piece of fiction.
Warnings: This story is slash, HP/SS. Rated M, more for violence than any sexually explicit content.
Author Note: If you've been around for several years, you might have seen this fic before. I pulled all of my stuff for various reasons then college and other RL stuff interfered with putting it up elsewhere. So I'm back. This fic definitely detours from canon by book 5. There are currently 7 chapters finished and edited, updates should be on a weekly basis. I originally started this fic for the Dusk til Dawn fest and it was based on this challenge: "Harry gets arrested for soliciting in Hogsmeade. Snape has to pay his bail.
Enjoy!
PART 1
He detested shopping.
Detested it with an intensity usually reserved for Gryffindor students and their aggravating Head of House.
It wasn't the usual things about shopping that set his teeth on edge. Not the lines or the crowds, nor the occasional squalling brat that grated across his ears like the screams of Voldemort's victims. Nor was it the occasional return trip, necessitated by the fact that he'd forgotten the unicorn hoof he'd went out for in the first place.
No, those were the usual problems everyone was dealt in life, and Severus had long since ceased to get angry over such minutia. His energy was better wasted on other endeavors, like scaring students.
What bothered Severus, what truly annoyed him, were the stares. The eyes that dismissed him on first glance only to suddenly dart back, wide with realization as their puny brains kicked into gear. It was the conversations that stopped mid-word and the silences that fell on entire rooms the moment he walked in. Then it was the press of bodies as people crowded around, trying to talk to him or touch him, trying to get some part of him, cause 'Hey, he's one of the Three Great Wizards That Killed You-Know-Who' and being close to greatness is as addictive as being great. They'd crowd around him like flies over a dead body, never quite going away, no matter what he snarled or snapped. The only thing that was worse was if they were reporters, then they'd follow him as he tried to escape, nipping at his heels and yelping questions.
Ugh. It was almost enough to make him pity Potter.
Almost.
The Dark Lord died at Christmas, exactly three short months ago. One would think that the wizarding world would have gotten over that novel occurrence and moved on to something else, but the fanatic attention hadn't died down, much to Severus's disappointment. And despite his desire to do otherwise, he couldn't hide in Hogwarts forever. He needed to make trips into town, buy stuff, have a life - and despite idiotic student notions to the contrary, he did not consider isolation in the dungeons to be any sort of life.
So Severus solved his celebrity problem like the Slytherin he was.
He began wearing facial charms, changing to a different combination each time he went out. Today's pick was shaggy brown hair, light green eyes and a healthy tan, combined with a slight rearranging of his facial structure. The nose tended to give him away otherwise. No one had given him a second glance, not even the group of sixth year students he passed on the main street in Hogsmeade. The girls were examining some recently purchased books on love charms. He made a mental note to confiscate them when he returned to the school. They'd been forbidden at Hogwarts after Potter had been subjected to five of them in one week.
Sadly, his foray into the wilds of Hogsmeade wasn't for the joy of spying on students, but business in the town's less known apothecary. This store was small, strategically located on one ill-used side street. Most of its business dealt with the rarer potions, leaving the everyday business to the larger apothecary on the other side of town.
"Be with you in a minute," a cheerful voice called as he pushed open the old door of the store. Severus squinted through the dingy light and nodded at the teenage witch behind the counter, who was in the middle of weighing out ingredients. She grinned at his nod and turned back to her customer, a pre-adolescent boy. Severus began to turn away, then paused; something about the boy catching his attention. There was something suspicious about him, like he was up to something. The boy fidgeted with the bag in his hands, then a bottle on the counter, his eyes darting about the store in a nervous dance when the clerk wasn't looking at him. He caught Severus watching and quickly looked away, head ducking down and shoulders hunching, trying to make himself smaller, less noticeable.
Teacher instinct pricked, Severus moved a few steps closer to see what he was buying. There were roughly twenty ingredients spread across the counter top and, after a few seconds of mentally shuffling them around, Severus realized they were the ingredients to an aging potion. In fact, it was an incredibly potent goblin aging potion, one that was illegal to sell to human minors. It was renowned for the nasty side effect of reacting with adolescent bodies in such a way as to make reversal impossible. If the brat turned himself into a sixty-year old man, he was guaranteed a significantly shorter lifespan.
Stupid idiotic child. He was probably there on some older brother's command, a brother who wanted to look older to get in a bar, or impress a girl, or some other such nonsense.
It was tempting, but Severus didn't bother with the joy of confronting the boy. Nor did he confront the clerk for her stupidity. He had something better in mind. He quietly made his way to the back of the store where the owner's private workrooms were located, not bothering to consider whether Lucas was in or not. Lucas always worked on Friday afternoons, and the day that Lucas changed his routine was the day that Severus attended his funeral.
Lucas was considered strange, even by wizarding standards. He was the descendant of an insane, but brilliant, potions master who had focused his work on the longevity of house elves. The results of his work were several, thankfully now lost, potions mixed with house elf blood that he used on his children. People in Lucas's family were not only long lived, they had a propensity towards being workaholics and a near obsessive need to take care of people around them. Lucas was gruffer and meaner than most of them, but house elfish behavior sometimes reared its head at the oddest times.
Rather than knock, Severus tapped his wand against the ornate handle on the lab door, knowing that the spells would recognize his wand. The wards collapsed with a hiss, leaving the air scented with cinnamon. He nearly smiled, remembering the first time he had entered this lab.
It had been a dreary Hogsmeade weekend, the kind where the rain seemed to fall from the sky in a persistent bid to soak him to the bone. Mix in the marauders and miserable was pretty much the status quo for the day. So, as he'd done a dozen times before, Severus had wandered into Lucas's store with the intention of hiding in the book section and attempting to absorb as much as he could on potion making. Potions made sense in a world that didn't always function on logic and order. He had long since gutted the Hogwarts library and was starved for more.
Apparently it was a hunger Lucas had noticed. On that fall day, the old man left his lab door open, knowing the activity of a professional lab would draw Severus in. Lucas had let him lurk in the shadows for a good four hours, allowing Severus to watch as he made the standard potions that the apothecary sold. It was a test, to see just how serious Severus was. And after he'd stayed well past lunch, his teenage stomach growling loud enough for even Lucas to hear, the old potions master began quietly speaking, explaining a 'special order' potion that was sold under the counter.
On that informative day, Lucas's labs became Severus's permanent weekend destination, and Lucas expanded his knowledge into areas that Hogwarts teachers had never dared touch.
The sound of glass clinging behind the door's warped wood brought Severus's attention back to the present. He pushed aside the memories and silently opened the heavy oak door.
Dressed in muggle clothes, Lucas was leaning over a boiling cauldron, his waist long grey hair kept out of the way in a practical braid. With barely a glance, his potion-stained fingers dipped into an open jar and added a pinch of dragon bone powder to a vicious orange potion. Lifting a copper spoon, Lucas carefully stirred it and the liquid flared a bright red, then calmed and settled into a soothing purple. Severus didn't recognize the potion, it was probably experimental. His old teacher was always trying something new.
Lucas leaned back from his worktable and smiled in satisfaction, the only reward Severus had ever seen him allow himself before moving on to the next challenge. But instead of continuing as Severus automatically expected, Lucas turned and casually leaned against the worktable, slowly wiping his hands clean on a well-worn rag. "Can I help you?" he asked, his voice wary, professional.
Severus blinked, confused at the odd response to his presence. What was—oh, yes, the charms. Shaking his head at his neglection, Severus brushed his hand across his face in a wiping gesture, murmuring "Revealus temporarus." The charms faded momentarily so his real features could be seen before flickering back on.
"Severus!" Lucas grinned in recognition and wrapped him in a hug that threatened to break a rib. "What have you been up to, you crazy child!" Lucas squeezed harder and practically lifted him off the floor. Hard to believe the bastard was nearly three centuries old. Damn elf blood.
"Lucas," he groaned, not bothering to correct the child remark, "You know damn well what I've been up too. Now let me go!"
The old reprobate just laughed and released him, watching with amusement as he attempted to smooth out his robes. Lucas's eyes danced a merry blue as he looked him over. "I'm not going to say I told you so," he said, teasingly.
"You better not," Severus grumbled and crossed his arms, feeling petulant and all of six years old: a common occurrence in Lucas's presence.
Lucas was many things to Severus in his youth: teacher, confidant, advisor and general all around pain in the ass. But he was never a shield. He made Severus make his own decisions, good or bad, always saying that the only way that Severus would really learn was in his own way and in his own time. And by paying for his own mistakes.
Unfortunately, the bastard had been right. Severus had to get his head out of the clouds and his perpetual quest for knowledge had to be curbed. Too bad it took a Dark Mark and people dying under his hands for him to figure out that there were more important things in life. But when he did, Lucas was there to point him to Dumbledore's protective arms where he became the teacher and ex-spy he was today.
For that act, Severus was still torn between thanking Lucas … or killing him.
Lucas grinned, looking eerily like a mischievous Sirius Black. "I told you so."
Severus rolled his eyes. "Yes, you did," he grated out. "And yes," he stressed as Lucas opened his mouth to gloat some more, "you were right. It worked."
Things had grown desperate in the three years since Potter's blood had been used to bring Voldemort back to life. Attacks increased, people died and survivors pledged loyalty to the Dark Lord, paying any price to live another day. People went out only in daylight, and when they did, it was in large groups with the worthless notion that there was safety in numbers. Then one day, four months ago, an eager, over-ambitious Auror somehow managed to get himself within the Death Eater ranks. The little fool attacked Voldemort, thinking to take the Dark Lord down himself.
That was the day Severus discovered that the Avada Kedavra curse no longer worked on the Dark Lord.
Stunned silence had fallen over the abandoned hall that the Death Eater's had gathered in. Voldemort, laughing at the Auror's horrified expression, had pulled out his wand and, with a simple elegant wave, fed the fool to Nagini. As the snake had swallowed his prey, alive and trying to scream, Severus had dared to look away, only to catch Voldemort staring at him. There had been a bare flicker of something … predatory in his superior expression that had shown through before Voldemort hid it and turned away. It was so small, that anyone else would have shrugged it off as a figment of their imagination caused by the gruesome display before them. But Severus had not gotten this far in life without being damn observant, and every instinct he owned had its' hackles raised like a cornered street dog.
He'd know then and there that his cover was blown. This chess game between good and evil was in its final moves and he was only a mere pawn trying to take out the black king; a pawn that was about to be removed from the board.
Distressed, he'd reported to Dumbledore after the Death Eaters meeting, then locked himself in his dungeons trying to figure out a plan. He had plotted and paced, wasting the whole night in fruitless effort, and then scared the hell out of the students the next day to vent his frustration. After classes he fled to Lucas's where he spilled everything, hoping for some sort of guidance.
Lucas had calmly listened to it all, then asked a simple question, like they were having one of their old teaching sessions and Lucas was trying to get him to see the obvious himself. "Child, what was the main component used to bring him back to life?"
Severus had stared at him stupidly, trying to order his exhausted mind. "Harry Potter's blood."
"Well then, there's no reason for you to be here," Lucas said simply. He had then stood up, patted Severus on the head and left him sitting at the kitchen table in the dark.
"That was a fat lot of help," Severus finally snarled into the darkness, confused and at a loss. He'd returned home, only to wake up at the crack of dawn with Lucas's statement suddenly making perfect sense. Adava Kedava might not kill Voldemort, but a potion tailored with Potter's blood just might. The greatest source of one's power was also one's weakness. It was a fundamental concept of magic.
He'd detained Potter after class that day – another detention for being a smart mouth – and explained the theory. Potter had watched him with narrowed eyes … then wordlessly stuck his arm out for Severus to draw the first sample. No questions, no accusations, just silent acquiesce. It would have been an off-balancing lack of hostility if he'd stopped to think about it at the time.
Potter then began showing up in his lab at odd hours, never asked for, but always giving blood right when Severus needed it to continue his experiments. He was pretty sure the Boy Who Lived had taken to hiding in his labs to watch him work, hidden under that aggravating Invisibility Cloak. Severus had let him lurk, especially after stacks of homework for his younger classes started getting graded on their own, freeing up his time immensely. And if Severus had been aware of anything, it had been that time was running out.
A Death Eater meeting was called nearly a month later. Severus had left for it with the assurance that the potion was ready; a sample of Potter's blood had begun to deteriorate with only one drop of the white liquid.
Severus, in a fit of sarcasm and desperate hope, had privately named the potion Salvation.
"It worked," he repeated softly to Lucas, still a little disbelieving of the fact that it had worked. There were still nights he awoke in a cold sweat, positive Voldemort was lurking in the shadows to cast his revenge.
Lucas studied him for a second, then just shook his head and turned to bottle his potion. "What can I help you with, child? I know that you didn't walk to the far side of Hogsmeade just to tell me I was right … three months later, I might add. I figured it out myself when Voldemort was declared dead."
Severus ignored the rebuke in Lucas's tone. Yes, he knew he should have visited sooner. "I came to replenish certain ingredients in my private potion stores," he explained, pausing to shove aside thoughts of the past. He wanted to savor this. "But I wanted to warn you that your counter clerk is selling the ingredients of a goblin aging potion to a minor."
Lucas's eyes widened comically and he dropped the empty bottle, which shattered on his lab bench. "Fuck Severus! Why didn't you say so?" he yelled, racing to the front of the store.
Severus smirked and followed, enjoying the all too seldom thrill of catching his normally unflappable teacher off guard.
Now, if only he could do the same to Albus.
"Well, what do you think?" Lucas asked.
Severus watched the young boy tear down the street like he had a dragon on his heels. Or a Dementor, which Lucas had threatened to feed the boy to if he was ever caught in his shop again. Severus sighed in resignation. "I sincerely hope he doesn't end up at Hogwarts. I'll have a devil of a time getting him into the classroom, let alone teaching him anything."
Lucas chuckled evilly as he herded Severus through the store and back into the lab. "But the important thing is he won't be trying something so dangerous any time soon, will he? Anyway, if you get him I'm sure you'll think of something, you always do."
Severus snorted at the certainty, but Lucas knew him well. He was already playing with various scenarios on how he'd handle the boy. "Necessity, the mother of invention," he murmured quietly, more to himself than his teacher.
Lucas just nodded in agreement, though the furrow on his brow showed he was deep in thought as he shut the heavy lab door behind them. He strode over to his workbench and placed a kettle over one of the flames usually used for heating potions. Severus recognized the preparations for tea … which, damn it all, meant hundreds of prying questions into his life that he had no desire to answer.
Lucas held up a warning finger before he could make excuses to leave. "Consider this punishment for failing to inform me immediately about the boy."
Sighing, Severus sank into a chair. The last time he had tried to escape from one of Lucas's 'punishment' sessions, he'd spent a week watching everything he touched, including himself, turn Gryffindor red and gold. Not an experience he cared to repeat, though Minerva would probably get a kick out of it again.
Lucas's voice broke into his brooding. "Severus? Would you bottle that potion while I finish the tea and get this mess cleared away?"
Severus nodded obediently and pulled himself out of his comfortable chair to examine the contents of Lucas's cauldron. He gave the solution an inquiring stir. "I'm not familiar with this one."
"You wouldn't be," Lucas said as he sealed up the dragon powder jar. "It's an experimental fire repellent potion for the Ministry."
Severus frowned as he began to bottle the potion. "A strange order," he said, not really asking a question, but it had enough inquiry in it that Lucas would answer if he wanted to.
A few bottles flew past his head and gently placed themselves on their proper shelves under the guidance of Lucas's wand. "They want a solution to soak the Auror robes in. Apparently, the standard charms aren't effective for an adequate amount of time under a firefight. I think I've got most of the problems worked out, but I won't know for sure until I conduct another round of tests tomorrow."
Lucas finished up his cleaning and poured Severus a cup of tea as the last bottle of potion was labeled and stored. "Let's take this into my office, I can make a list of what you need while we talk."
The office was, as usual, depressingly bare. Lucas kept it that way, as otherwise he'd use the space to conduct experiments instead of the paperwork necessary to keep his business running. There was the old battered desk, filing cabinets overflowing with parchment, and a small window on the far wall used for owl delivery. It gave an uninspiring view of the brick wall of the building next door and little else.
There was also a large table just inside the door, usually stacked with potions to be delivered by owl. Severus stopped in surprise when he realized that for once in its existence the ancient table was bare of its usual load. Instead it was covered with hundreds of small pieces.
"A muggle puzzle?" he asked in disbelief.
Lucas pulled out his wand. "Close, but not quite," he said and tapped one of the pieces. The colors on all the pieces sprang to life and Severus realized that the puzzle must have been charmed in the same manner as portraits. He picked up one small piece that was covered in a turbulent swirling green. It had a black border that cut across one curved side like a solid scorch mark, which seemed to further agitate the green.
The piece was familiar, in its seeming agitation and old pain. Severus understood it.
The little piece, like the others, was no bigger that the tip of his finger. Severus raised an eyebrow at his teacher. "Just how big is this puzzle of yours?"
Lucas pointed to the box cover as he headed behind his desk to pull out a quill and parchment. The picture, like the pieces, was now animated and depicted a war scene. Severus recognized a battle between two ancient wizarding clans that were the eventual for-bearers of the Gryffindor and Slytherin founders of Hogwarts. A small caption in the corner sized the puzzle at 10,000 pieces.
"You'll never finish it," he commented, and placed the piece between two hand sized sections of puzzle that had already been put together. The piece looked alone yet crowed, like one damaged person by himself who had two large crowds closing in on him from both sides.
"We'll see," Lucas said, and waived him to the chair on the other side of his desk. "Now how are we going to do this?" he asked, then continued before Severus could get in a word edgewise. "I know. For every item you need supplied, you have to answer one question of mine first."
Snape slowly sat in the offered chair, his lengthy order list flashing before his eyes. "There's not the slightest possibility of me just placing an order like an ordinary customer, is there?"
"Nope," Lucas agreed cheerfully as he took another sip of his tea.
It was a sad thing when one knew one's teacher so well. Damn the old goat for refusing to accept any of his orders by owl. It wasn't his fault that a troublesome student had cursed some of his parchment during his first year of teaching to get even for a bad grade. Unfortunately –for Lucas that was –the curse had been set up wrong and just happened to go off when Lucas had received his latest order list. It had destroyed a month's worth of Lucas's work.
The howler that arrived during dinner in the Great Hall had been quite memorable –Albus still reminisced about it –and Lucas had spent every opportunity since then making Severus's life just a little more complicated in retribution. The tea sessions with the probing questions were only one such example.
Severus placed his teacup on the table with a clatter that illustrated his agitation nicely. "Fine," he said, his lip curling in a snarl. "Let's get on with it."
Lucas grinned with wicked glee, then forced his features in to some resemblance of seriousness, though his eyes danced merrily. "I've been reading in the Daily Prophet that you've been shagging every witch and wizard that's shown up at your dungeon door. In your now very experienced expertise, who's by far the best?"
Severus groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
tbc...