In Which Four Things Happen, but Only One of Them is Actually Mentioned, and Fate gets Really Busy

In three parts of the castle and one part of Surrey, Things were Happening. Certainly, things were happening in all parts of Hogwarts, but only four Things actually took place, and of those four, only one could be deemed Truly Important.

In the Come and Go Room, a small elf (known by her peers as Floopsy) sat nursing her hand, gently rocking back and forth. After all, writing fourteen letters in a row was taxing enough without having to forge the Professor McGonagall, sir's, handwriting and signature on each of them as well.

Floopsy was not required to make fourteen copies of the letter, but she was well known among her peers for being very practical. She'd always thought that it's better to have extra copies when you didn't need them than to have not enough copies when you did. She abided by this policy, even if that meant getting a cramp in her hand.

While most would not deign to even give sitting alone in a room the capital letter of a Thing, let alone the description of Truly Important, most would be right. What made this Thing Truly Important, was not the action or place, but rather the lack of action at a different place.

Because Floopsy sat cradling her hand in the Come and Go Room, she was not in the kitchen fighting to retrieve the cooking sherry from the Professor Trelawney, sir. Because Floopsy did not fight for the sherry, the Professor Trelawney, sir, was able to make her way up to the otherwise uninhabited Headmaster, sir's, office. Because Trelawney was drunk and alone in his office, and because fate has a way of doing things, the Professor Trelawney, sir, managed to trip and break one of the instruments in the Headmaster, sir's, office.

Because of how fate works, the Professor Trelawney, sir, managed to break the one instrument solely responsible for monitoring foreign activity at No. 4 Privet Drive. Any magical presence unregistered with the headmaster would send a little twirly bit going in circles. The instrument would then connect to the houses wards, and take a sample of the foreign magic, searching the sample for intent. If the person's magic seemed to harbor malevolence, the central glass bowl of goo would start spinning and emitting puffs of sulfurous gas, while shrieking a high A-flat. If the magic sample seemed benevolent, the instrument would merely record the occurrence on a post-it note. Unfortunately, the whole thing was now broken and could do none of those things.

Trelawney paused for a moment and stared at the shards of glass on the lurid green carpet. Then she shrugged, swiped Dumbledore's entire lemon drop stash and left the room.

As she returned back the way she came, she learned two things. One, lemon drops do not mix well with sherry, and two, Severus Snape turns the oddest shade of puce when you throw up on his shoes.

Severus stared down at her with his usual look of disdain. Trelawney looked back with her usual air of nearsighted befuddlement. Or would have if she could find her glasses.

"May I help you?" Snape inquired. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he "sarcasmed." Had the words been visible to the naked eye, they would surely have been dripping with sarcasm. They would be lying sodden on the floor in the midst of a small pond of sarcasm.

"Oh, yes. Thank you dearie, much appreciated. When I was in Albus's office earlier I Saw myself interacting with a kind young gentleman. I hadn't expected it to be you of course, but drunkards must not be choosers."

Severus nearly failed to hide his incredulity at her straight face. He also nearly failed to hide his double take.

"When were you in Albus's office?" he inquired slowly as he cleaned off his shoes.

"Just now, of course. Between you and me, some of his decorations are rather odd. I can understand the crystal balls and such, and even the furniture is alright if you like that sort of thing, but the shards of glass and wood on the floor were just begging for someone to step on them. Why, had I not Seen them before stepping into the room, I - Severus? Where did you go?"

Severus had disappeared. Actually, he had walked down the hall behind her, but it amounted to the same thing.

Whilst fleeing the seer and her puddle of vomit, Severus was deep in thought. He was fully aware that Albus had left Hogwarts for the evening to relax with his fellow Wizengamot members at the pub. While normally Albus's two or three hour disappearances were not much of an issue, if it meant that the divination professor was able to get in to his office alone, perhaps they should be investigating additional means of security.

On entering the office, Severus immediately noticed the mess on the floor. Shards of glass, some covered in odd multicolored goop, others gently smoking, lay on the carpet in the middle of a broken wooden framework that seemed to defy physics in its construction. Where the goop had touched the floor, it appeared to have eaten through the carpet and was slowly working its way through the flagstones.

With a wave of his wand, Severus vanished the mess. After repairing the carpet, he slowly inspected the room. It was then that he located the small scattering of lemon drops on Albus's desk.

A shiver went down Severus's spine as he remembered what happened the last time someone had touched the headmaster's candy stash. It had been breakfast on the seventh day of the third month of the Marauder's first year at Hogwarts, and they were showing off their stolen loot at the Gryffindor table. The Headmaster had seen them, and slowly walked over.

His face was carved in some terrible, dark caricature of his normal grandfatherly expression . The typical kindly wrinkles became sharp, and dark and forbidding. The twinkle in his eye, rather than putting one in mind of lucky stars or shiny christmas baubles, instead seemed to remind people of how one errant spark during hay season could set the whole barn on fire. Albus's whole posture screamed menace, and the entire hall stared the way one stares at a bad car crash. If Tinkwinky were there, he might possibly have described the the Headmaster as irretrievably grimdark.

Albus had taken the Marauders out into the corridor, and though the Headmaster had returned several minutes later, smiling and unperturbed, the Marauders were not seen for the rest of the day.

With a small shake of his shoulders, Severus pulled himself back to reality. He decided that no, he would not be mentioning any of this to the Headmaster. He cleaned up the spilled lemon drops, and hurriedly left the room.

As fate would have it, Albus didn't notice anything was amiss until late the next week.