Welcome to my new fic. Please enjoy and review
The Magician Chapter 1
The school term was starting again and he could feel it. He could feel the time crawling past him in a sluggish and never ceasing pace. Looking at the selection of potential Potions textbooks piled neatly on his desk, Severus Snape sighed and stared long and hard and the bindings. As September had walked quietly to his doorstep, more and more paper and Hogwarts related material had also been shuffled through the door and as before – and as it was every year in fact - Severus Snape would once again be the last one to rubberstamp and sign everything that was required for another year of Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Severus Snape was, as one would put it, a man without a life. It was the simple truth and as he stumbled into his black robes; not without knocking over several small columns of hazardously stacked books, he sighed and resigned himself to living the life of a man who had none. He ate the same breakfast he had eaten when he was alone at home for the past twenty years and read the Daily Prophet twice – once to inform himself of the important comings and goings of the wizarding world, and the second time to solve the crosswords, sneer at the comics and to decode the daily puzzle encrypted within the scores of trivial news that was only ever of interest to housewives – and house elves apparently.
Today the puzzle was particularly difficult – either that or he was having particular trouble with stomaching Wednesday's gossip columnist, Lucy Hayl, who struggled to form coherent sentences and words longer than four. He had barely survived seven years of her potion essays and, unlike many of her other teachers, who regarded her as a "charming" and "witty" student, had rejoiced when she graduated. Minerva was one of the few teachers who had shared his relief and, uncharacteristically of both of them, rendered themselves both severely tipsy on Firewhisky and the smell of her pleasantly burning essays after they recited them out to each other on the eve of her graduation. Two years later when Hayl's unmistakable grammar invaded his reading of the Daily Prophet, Severus Snape was horrified. Minerva McGonagall was only stunned that the Prophet had actually paid to employ Hayl to write for them.
Merlin was born today.
After all that effort, the puzzle was solved. Merlin was born today. After all the ploughing through the interviews with the Chudley Cannons and Hayl's work, all he got was a little piece of trivia that had already been printed on the front cover. Completely exasperated, Severus Snape could not help but chuckle weakly.
The pile of administrative work suddenly loomed over his head. Apparently Dumbledore had charmed the papers to nag him again this year. He should have known that the cunning old man, rather surprised that it had worked the previous year, would have no doubts about charming them again with an even more persuasive spell. Last year Severus Snape had exceeded all expectations and handed in his forms a full twelve hours before the deadline. It looked like this year; Dumbledore was aiming for a full day.
Severus Snape sighed again, as he had been doing frequently all morning and decided to surprise the old man. Dumbledore was going to get his forms an entire week in advance this year.
The next day, Severus Snape slept in until late afternoon.
When he awoke, he found himself at a loss at what to do. So, Severus Snape did a lot of staring. Read the Daily Prophet twice as usual. And, in his first reading he learnt that the infamous Sirius Black had been sighted near the Romanian border. Good riddance he thought as his mouth curled into a snarl. In his second reading he was introduced to a variety of alternative and very interesting uses for dragon blood - a read certainly more worthwhile than yesterday's.
By noon, having re ordered his potions cupboard and dusted his bookshelves, Severus Snape once again found himself with nothing to do. So he settled into his living room's only chair and let his mind wander.
The large, plushy antique was the only seat within the living room thus making it ill-suited to receiving guests – a problem that Dumbledore complained of frequently during his infrequent visits to Spinner's End. But Severus Snape found his living room perfectly amiable and, as it was - being only able to accommodate one person, found it a useful deterrent to ward away the uninvited.
By the time evening crept up behind him, boredom was raging throughout his skull and clawing at his nerves. Restlessness burned though his vessels and a loud angry sound filled his head. He kept tapping his long fingers against the arm of the chair as a way to relieve energy – faster and faster as he focused his ferocious gaze upon a pile of waste paper.
Suddenly the papers caught on fire and the shock of it silenced the buzzing inside of his head.
Although his head was clear again by the time he decided to abruptly stand up and head towards the door, he still suspected wisps of numbness clinging to his mind.
The world outside Severus Snape's little abode at Spinner's End was startlingly chillier, and the fresh air that he inhaled had a bite to it, but after a minute he accustomed himself to it. He was bored still of course, but aimlessly walking around the muggle streets had its own sort of charm.
He unwittingly walked around the block; once, twice and was bewildered to feel a sense of déjà vu when he approached the same tree again. His confusion cleared some of the haze blanketing his mind and also alerted his brain to a body approaching hunger, so he was glad when he realised that the inviting glow of the town's only tavern was quite near.
Being a wizard and a recluse by nature, Severus Snape had little contact with the muggle town he lived in and hence the fact that he and this tavern owner were casual acquaintances was very surprising. But like the many other surprising little traits about Severus Snape, it simply was.
Jack George, the resident owner of the Green Dragon was a simple, charming fellow, who, being humble and amiable by nature was, understandably, casual acquaintances with everyone who ate at his tavern. Probably more than many other owners, Jack not only did, but loved to interact with his customers and often served them himself - despite the fact that he never lacked college students in need of a little pocket money to work as his waiters.
Tonight would be a special one because tonight, because Jack George had a little treat for his customers and the unsuspecting Severus Snape. Tonight, magic was going to grace Jack George's locally famous stage.
Severus Snape brushed off the warm evening air and entered the tavern ripe with conversations drifting through the space. He took a seat at the bar, knowing that Jack George's tables would be filled on a performance night – a night he had unintentionally walked in on and decided to order whatever the week's special was. For a person without any dietary restraints it was always advisable to select whatever Jack George's undeniably brilliant tastebuds cooked up because the man was, in Severus' and many of the Green Dragon's other frequenter's opinion, a culinary genius. The man sadly however, had no creative talent for names, another widely accepted fact and caused Snape to wince as the waiter took his order for a plate of 'pool-of-onions' and a side of 'smashed cow'.
Severus Snape's dinner was delicious. Whatever doubts the name of the dishes may have risen; they were, as usual defeated by the utter wizardry of Jack George's skill as a chef. And as he sat on the bar sipping his glass of wine he briefly debated leaving before the performance started, but as the lights dimmed, he resigned himself to stay and perched himself comfortably on the stool.
A woman with Albus Dumbledore's dazzling eyes took to the stage, gave a little bow in response to the wolf-whistles and proceeded to announce that she had a talent for magic.
"Tonight," she began in her sultry voice.
"Be prepared to have your worlds challenged! Tonight! I will show you reality as you have never experienced before! Tonight, I will blow your minds with my spectacular magic!"
Glitter burst out of the Green Dragon's every crevice as the audience clapped wildly. Severus Snape, the wizard, could not help but chuckle.
For her first act she called up various audience members and asked them for certain personal items. And when they could not find them, she smiled and produced them from a cloud of sparkles. Before letting the audience member back into the crowd, she also either presented the volunteer with a rose or a practical joke. One man returned to his seat with a loud farting sound. After the audience burst into laughter, the woman took the Whoopi cushion and transformed it into a little bird with another puff of glitter.
In her second act, she performed an array of card tricks and proclaimed to be able to drink a shot of vodka from underneath a black hat. The glass was certainly void of any liquid except for a few drops when the hat was lifted, but if she actually drank it, even the wizard couldn't precisely determine.
In the next part of her show, she cut Jack George into thirds and escaped from a box skewered with knives. In her fourth act, Severus Snape raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes.
The woman, in her lace and colourful and revealing layers began to talk of a man named Uri Geller.
"Are you guys ready to have your worlds rocked?" she challenged in her seductive voice.
After the crowds elated cheering subsided to silence, she gave the crowd a mysterious smile and passed around a silver spoon.
"Who can bend this spoon?"
"Who would like to try?" she yelled.
A couple of women tried to bend it and after them a couple of bulky males. The final member to test the spoon was a scrawny physics student who pitted the spoon against the leverage given to him by the chair.
The spoon did not break.
The magician smiled again and took the spoon from the student after planting a kiss on his cheek.
"Watch, my friends!"
"Do you guys tonight not think reality would bend itself for a pretty woman like me?" She asked the crowd in a joking, flirtatious manner.
The audience responded with loud laughter and more fervent cheering.
"From you now, I ask complete silence, for I need it to fully concentrate my spiritual energies. Total silence! Will you grant it to me?"
Her voice resonated through the tavern and a deathly silence quickly descended.
The woman's eyes emitted an eerie electric glow as the lights bounced confusingly off the metal spoon. She held up the spoon between her two hands and without looking once at the audience as she usually did, let go of the spoon.
In between the space of her hands, the spoon was suspended within mid-air.
But what shocked Severus more was when the spoon began to bend - the very spoon that previously no amount of strength had managed to bend.
The silver spoon withered in a slow, snake-like motion between her hands and, gleaming under the stage lights, it enchanted the audience.
Her blue eyes blinked, and, as if her hold over the crowd's silence had suddenly been severed, they burst into applause.
The spoon, misshapen, dropped to the floor and was forgotten there as the woman's serious demeanour was replaced by her original, cheery disposition.
Her colourful robes fluttered over the stage as she bowed multiple times to the audience and in her final trick, vanished off the stage in another puff of glitter.
thanks for reading.