Two days after the museum break-in:

Blinking drowsily, Clara struggled out of the warm, clinging depths of sleep and yawned. She rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off the residual grogginess left by the Dreamless Sleep potion they had given her the night before, and then pulled her hand back a bit, frowning at the streak of red that traced across the knuckles of her right hand, where Voldemort's blood had splattered two nights ago. She remembered how it had burned, like acid, and shuddered slightly. Molly had given her an ointment for it, but it seemed to have little effect. Shrugging it off, she stood, hastily pulling on her clothes, and made her way downstairs.

She found the kitchen door closed, with muffled voices drifting through it, and Molly Weasley spraying the musty drapes in the sitting room with a disconcertingly ordinary spray bottle. "Good morning, dear!" she said brightly. "You can get breakfast as soon as Albus and Snape finish their little chat in the kitchen, I expect. Best not to interrupt them for now."

Clara took an absurd momentary pride in managing not to shudder at the mere mention of the name. The man frightened her in a way none of the others did, even those she had seen in the heat and fury of battle. "Of course. Can I help you with any of this, Molly? I'm feeling rather useless."

"Certainly, dear, just take care that you don't let them bite you. Nasty little things. You spray them with this." Molly handed her a black spray bottle, and Clara turned it toward the light and frowned at the label.

"Doxycide?"

"Certainly," said Molly briskly, and advanced on the drapes.

Clara found herself having a grand old time hunting the doxies, and Molly kept casting sidelong glances at her and shaking her head at the things Muggles found amusing. One of the doxies dodged Clara's spray, and she had just thumped it soundly with the spray bottle when she heard Snape's raised voice from the kitchen.

"Preposterous! I will not!"

"Severus—"

"Should the woman not be Slughorn's responsibility, Albus? I understand that he had agreed to assume the Potions post."

"He has, yes," Dumbledore answered placidly.

"With all due respect, I was unaware that the Defense Against the Dark Arts post entailed teaching Potions to stray Muggles!"

"This concerns the Order, Severus. Horace Slughorn will make a fine Potions instructor—don't give me that look—but I am not yet certain how heavily to rely on him. I need you for this, my old friend."

"Oh, very well. If you insist on wastefully expending time and energy on this Muggle foolishness, then very well, Albus!" Clara and Molly barely had time to dive out of the way and appear busily absorbed in flushing a few stalwart doxies out of the drapes before Snape stormed out of the kitchen, his black cloak snapping briskly behind him, features set in a deepening scowl.

"Dr. Becket," came Dumbledore's voice from the kitchen doorway, "May I see you for a moment?"

Clara had observed within a matter of hours that the kitchen served as the nerve center of the Order's headquarters. Anyone coming and going usually passed through the kitchen, and it was where members tended to congregate, even informally. It was also where Albus Dumbledore had chosen to hold what he called "a rather important chat," and so Clara found herself across the breakfast table from him, regarding him with a wary skepticism.

"How are you adjusting, Dr. Becket?" he asked in a kindly tone. "I realize this must be difficult for you."

"That's putting it bloody lightly, Professor. Nominal good guys or not, the fact remains that you've kidnapped me, and I'm not happy about it."

His expression clouded slightly, and for an unnerving instant she glimpsed the murky depths beneath the kindhearted, slightly whimsical façade. "Had we not taken you into our protection, Dr. Becket, Voldemort would have. I prefer not to think of what might have happened to you then. Please, trust us and believe that this is for your sake as much as ours." He offered her a smile, and some combination of the weary firmness of his tone and the gentle understanding in his eyes made her nod.

"What is it you want with me, Professor?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, now we're getting to the point. Tea?" He gestured to the teapot which had drifted over from the stove to hover patiently at his elbow. Blinking a bit, Clara nodded again, and gratefully took the cup he poured her. "I'm certain you are familiar with the Third Reich's, ah, occult preoccupation during the Second World War, Doctor?"

"Of course." She sipped her tea, lifting a brow questioningly. "Hitler wanted to establish a mythical background for his Aryan race, and he sought a rather eclectic set of occult trappings to do that with. The Indiana Jones films didn't entirely invent that."

"Indiana J—oh, yes. I remember now." Dumbledore chuckled quietly. "I do hope you're a fan, Dr. Becket."

"How's that?" She regarded him skeptically over the rim of her teacup, looking as though she were doing her level best to hide behind it.

"Voldemort is now undertaking a very similar endeavor—warped minds do think alike, regrettably. His particular interest seems to lie in Egypt's magical history."

Clara frowned thoughtfully. "They do have a rather rich background of occult writings, and penchant for supernatural investitures in their artifacts, if you believe in that sort of—well, but I suppose you do, after all."

Dumbledore nodded. "We'll be asking rather a lot of you, I'm afraid. For the present, I'm afraid I have a confession to make." He might have looked sheepish, were it not for the twinkle of mischief in those light blue eyes, and Clara found herself liking him despite herself.

"Dare I ask, Professor?"

"We, ah, borrowed a few items from your office. Egyptian texts which we believe may pertain to certain potions which may be quite helpful to us."

"Hmph, I knew you'd robbed the place!" A smile softened her words.

"I'd like you to work with Professor Snape in translating those and giving us a prototype—I believe you call it experimental archaeology?"

"Er… Professor Snape? But, er… I'd rather, ah… Are you certain that's such a good idea, Professor?"

"Yes, Dr. Becket, I am. Is there a problem?"

The problem, Clara admitted privately to herself, was that Snape simply terrified her, but she could not admit that to Dumbledore. "We, er, rather got off on the wrong foot, I'm afraid."

"I am aware of that, Dr. Becket. I had some difficulty in persuading him as well. Consider this an opportunity to find the right foot, then. He'll be expecting you in the library."

Clara sighed.

She found Severus Snape in the library, a dark silhouette against the reddish glow of the fire in the hearth behind him. He stood rather stiffly at one end of the long mahogany table in the center of the room, one hand resting atop the daunting stack of books before him. Some of them looked suspiciously burned around the edges. Crossing the threshold required an almost herculean act of will; her feet and her gut seemed united in the desire to simply turn and scamper back to join Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen, or help Sirius repairing the creaky floorboards on the second floor, or anything else that did not entail spending time in a room alone with the frightening man at the end of the table. Taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, Clara stepped uncertainly into the room, fighting a losing battle to appear less timid than she felt. He could, she decided, probably smell fear anyway.

"Professor Snape."

"Miss Becket." Snape inclined his head in a barely perceptible nod. "Professor Dumbledore has, against my recommendation, charged me with this... assignment. It will be necessary for me to teach you something of the art of potion-making if you are to be anything but in my way." The clipped formality of his words was only a thin veneer over his distaste. Clara tried to look him defiantly in the eye, but found that he appeared to be haughtily addressing the air above her head. "Although I imagine you will be so regardless of my efforts."

"He believes," continued Snape, "that your lack of any wizarding ability will not impair your studies in the subject." The sneer that lifted one edge of his mouth left no doubt as to own skepticism. "The idea," he went on, "is to get some use out of you, as we are saddled with your presence at any rate."

"Saddled, my arse!" Clara burst out. "You bloody kidnapped me! I never asked you to interfere! You people've derailed my entire career, not to mention what was left of my life, and you have the nerve to stand here talking to me as if I turned up on your doorstep begging you to take me in out of the rain!"

Snape stiffed with sudden rage, his eyes narrowing. "If we are going to attempt this fool's errand, Miss Becket, as it seems we are, you will not interrupt me with any further outbursts. Are we clear?"

Clara regarded him silently, chilled to her very bones by the sheer menace in those black eyes, but too stubborn to intimidate.

"Personally, I suspect that you are wasting your time." He paused, and the gaze that had been directed somewhere over her head and beyond her, as though dismissing her as beneath notice, settled fully upon her, raptor's eyes glaring into her own. "And mine." Clara deliberately squared her shoulders to suppress a shiver and met his gaze, holding it in a silent test of wills that was not – quite – a battle. After a moment that felt to her like a small eternity, Snape nodded curtly and flicked a hand in an almost dimissive gesture at a chair at the far end of the table. "Hmph. Take a seat, Miss Becket. We begin."

Three exhausting, trying, infuriating, and utterly fascinating hours later, Clara emerged from the library shaking her head as if to clear it, her mind still whirling with all she had learned. A few wrong turns down corridors and eventual right turn brought her to the kitchen. where she found Molly keeping an eye on a pot of something-- nothing too foul and wizardy, judging by the appetizing smell drifting across the room-- on the stove, while Ron sat at the table flipping through a magazine. She thought she saw some of the pictures move, and tried not to think about it. Molly turned at the sound of footsteps, features brightening into a smile when she saw Clara. "How did it go, dear?"

Practically collapsing into a chair, she caught a sympathetic glance from Ron across the table and barely suppressed a grin before shifting her gaze to Molly. "Fascinating subject, and there's no denying Snape's brilliant, but he's also the single most disagreeable individual I have ever met."

"Gosh," Ron muttered in awe, "And she's met Voldemort."

AN: The scar doesn't turn out to be terribly significant, it's just going to be one more thing to annoy Snape with by reminding him of Potter.

Next time: Snape pushes Clara too far.