Title: The New Room
Word Count: 4 x 100
Rating: PG
Pairing: None.
Summary: Trespassers ahoy! And a 'thing'.
Poppy stood in front of the door, hesitating. She would just place the thing on the table and leave again or task a house elf to put it there. She didn't even need to be inside the room.
But curiosity won.
She opened the door, stepped into the room. She had never been inside these walls without Severus present, ever-watchful. She had helped him move from his old rooms to this new one, but she never dared look one second longer than necessary.
Now he would probably be as far away from Hogwarts, with Remus, in a safe house somewhere.
The thing in her hand was Severus's, she was sure. Barny, the purple-hued house elf had handed it to her. "Barny founds this when Barny cleans Young Master Severus's old room. Madam Pomfrey puts it back in Young Master's room? Or Barny puts back?"
"I'll do it, Barny," she had said.
The thing was a small carving of a wolf, worn, dusty and a little mossy around the edges. It had fell and rolled into a crack in the dungeon walls, languished in the dark and humid.
She looked around, trying to figure out the best place to put it.
The layout of the room was identical to the old rooms Severus left down in the dungeons. In fact he insisted that everything was arranged the same way. There were heavy dark drapes covering long tall windows, but even then this room still received more light and warmth than down below.
Everything was the same, but not quite. There were glimpses of little children's whimsies painstakingly hidden between the more austere, grown-up things the older Severus collected.
Of course, the staff was mostly responsible for the less serious additions. Gifts given to the newly small Severus, much to his horror.
She recognized the set of children's books, Minerva's gift, bound in sedate leather on his insistence. (Colourful covers disturb my bookshelf!)
The set of Chocolate Frog Cards was from Filius, which Severus kept on his desk in a fine glass box (something from his mother). She noticed that Albus Dumbledore's card sat at the top of the deck.
Did it just wink at her?! Trickeries of light, she thought.
Hagrid's gift, a mischievous-looking unicorn, was carved out of whitewood, half-hidden between Severus's collection of odd-looking bottles.
Poppy carefully placed the wolf carving by the unicorn's feet, mottled brown against white.