STORY NUMBER TWO: What's in the Belfry? – Part 3

Thursday, July 22, 1999

The next morning, Fred Allsop picked Snape up in his truck and, together with Sam Logan, they drove into Nelson, where the Borough Council for Pendle was located. They were actually a small procession, since Ernie Hackett, Oscar Wainwright, and Charlie Latimer followed in Ernie's pickup truck. They were looking for a little excitement in an otherwise routine existence.

Excitement is a relative term, and all five pub cronies had expectations considerably below the thrill of dropping twenty-two stories in less than four seconds at the Scream Zone at Great America. They were not to be disappointed.

"Are you sure you have title to this property?" the near-sighted clerk asked as Snape struggled with the complexities of completing an application for planning consent. "And you seem to be a bit young…"

The clerk had not noticed the appearance of a tapered rod of rowan wood in Snape's hand, but the other men had, and nudged each other in well-controlled mirth. "I look younger than I am," said Snape, an observation that had the virtue of being true. As he spoke, the wand flicked in the direction of the clerk.

"Ah, yes, I see that now. No offense meant. Now as to the title…"

"We're neighbors come to attest that the property's been in the same family for generations." Latimer spoke with a calm assurance that the others backed up with nods and expressions of assent. "Do we have to draw up a document to that effect?"

"Umm… No, I don't think so. Now are you sure this isn't permitted development? You might not need the consent…"

"There's a wastewater treatment system going in…"

"Of course."

Snape's wand moved again. "We were getting a bit concerned, you see, because of the time. If you'd look at the date on the application…"

The clerk peered closely at the paper in his hand. "Dear, dear," he muttered. "How did that one get by us. You're quite correct; it should have been…" He reached for the receiver of the telephone on his desk. "Half a mo'…"

"You got to tell me where I can get one of those," Allsop whispered to Snape as the clerk began to speak to someone on the other end of the line.

"Brian, old boy? Greg here. Sorry to interrupt your morning, but I'm hoping you have a bit of a free docket today… No, no, not at all… Well, I hate to say so, but it seems we let one slip through the cracks, and… Me, actually, I think… Well, there's no need… I really don't think it will take any time at all, just approve a domestic waste treatment site… Not an inspection, old boy, just a quick look-around so they can get started… Over by Weets Hill… In the office right now – a whole delegation in fact… No, quite nice, very understanding about… Good, good. Thanks Brian, I owe you one."

"He'll be over in a minute," the clerk smiled blandly at the group of men. "He just has to be sure the site's appropriate for whatever system you put in. Don't want to contaminate the local water after all, you know."

"Of course not," said Snape, equally blandly.

A few minutes later, a stocky, mustached man with sandy hair entered the office. "Which client is it," he asked Greg.

"All of them," Greg replied. "The owner is the young man… Mr. Richard Snape, Mr. Brian Smith."

The men shook hands all around. "You've brought quite a support group with you, Mr. Snape."

"Friends of the family," said Latimer. "The lad's come into an inheritance and decided to fix it up. It'll be good to have the place lived in again. We're just initiating him into the world of construction."

As the men piled into the trucks, and Smith into his car, Snape whispered to Allsop, "We need to get there first. He can't see the plumbing that's already there, or he'll get suspicious."

"Can't you just make him see what you want him to see?"

"I'd rather not do any more mind tricks than I have to. The other is easier and has less potential for long-term damage. I only need a few minutes."

"Right you are," said Allsop. He went over to exchange a word with Hackett. "He'll be in front of the inspector. You'll get ten minutes."

"Perfect," said Snape.

With Hackett's truck driving slowly in front of the car on the narrow road, Allsop reached the cottage well ahead of the county official. Snape was out of the vehicle before it stopped moving, the series of spells he needed already worked out in sequence during the ride. The yard and garden became overgrown, the stone dirty and worn, the paint chipped and peeling, one window acquired a long crack, and a few tufts of grass sprouted on the roof. Then Snape dashed inside where he had a bit more time. The most important thing was to remove the plumbing features. After that, a little distress and dirt, the bathroom changed to a storage area, and it was done. Snape ran back outside where the inspector was already checking the slope of the land and its proximity to the little stream below.

"Plenty of room for a proper drainfield," Smith said as he went through a check list. "You have quite a garden here, once you've had time to tend it. You'll want to be especially careful about maintenance. The plants will get lots of nutrients, but an algae bloom could damage them. Can you show me the existing well, and where the plumbing is going in?"

Just to be on the safe side, Snape explained the movement of the doors and the change in the layout of the interior walls while he was showing the inspector the future locations of kitchen and bathroom sinks, tub, and toilet. Smith confirmed that everything came under the heading of 'permitted development' as long as he didn't do anything to the chimney and its existing flues, which he pronounced in excellent condition. It was, all in all, a simple, straight-forward inspection, and Smith drove away twenty minutes later leaving Snape with an official piece of paper that said he could start renovation right away.

It now being around noon, Snape offered to pay for pints all around, and the men drove happily back into the village for a well-earned pub lunch and the opportunity to recount the whole adventure to Morley, Roach, and Ridley, who joined them.

"What I want to know," said Logan morosely after things had calmed down a bit and he was well into his second pint. "is why she didn't use that on us. Couldn't she have waved one of those things at us and tricked us into setting the fire in the wrong place? Or at least have got away?"

The others looked uncomfortable. There seemed to be a general feeling that if Snape didn't need to talk about the fire, they didn't either. Only Logan was driven to revisit the incident, maybe because he'd spent the most time in prison.

Snape took a deep swallow of the ale in front of him, paused, and then sighed. "She wasn't that strong," he said. "Not powerful. Certainly not with mind spells. She was first and foremost a healer, a potions brewer, and a herbologist. And believe me, that's quite enough for one witch."

"I recall," said Bert Morley thoughtfully, "back when our Bill fell from that roof, she needed your help. You were just a lad then – a bit younger than you are now – but she said you had a 'gift' that she didn't have. He was out cold, but you could look in his eyes and see the ruptured spleen."

"I couldn't have healed him, though. Not then."

"You could now," Allsop stated firmly, "if curing people is anything like curing horses."

"We have a remarkably talented healer at the school where I was working," Snape explained. "I learned a lot from her. My grandmother was born knowing it." He traced the grain of the wooden table with a finger. "The police told me that she never woke up… she never got out of bed that night. They probably put a spell on her, too." Then, suddenly, things began to click together, and Snape drained the glass. "You'll excuse me, gentlemen, but I need to get back to the cottage. There's a lot to do before the material comes, on…"

"Monday," said Roach with a smile. "You can start on Monday."

After Snape had gone, the group rounded on Logan. "You have to keep bringing up his grandmother," Hackett chided. "Can't you see he doesn't want to talk about it?"

"You got to stop putting yourself first, Sam," added Wainwright. "You open too many old wounds, and he may leave."

Logan said nothing, but grunted as he drank his beer.

Snape, meanwhile, felt as if he were racing a clock. He tried desperately to shut his mind down as he strode home, but the old locks, bolts, and doors either weren't there or would no longer work at his will. He forced himself to think about other things – the path, the flowers, the wands he was working on – until he was level with his own yard. Then he began calling for help.

"Nelson! Nelson! There's a good boy! I need you!"

After a moment, Nelson appeared out of the trees. He didn't look happy (though Snape would have been at a loss to explain how he knew), as if he'd been rudely awakened from an early afternoon snooze. Snape lost no time with his instructions.

"Hugh Latimer," he told Nelson. "The one you went to before. Go get Hugh Latimer and ask him to come here. I'll be inside."

"Hoo-oo," said Nelson, rising on silent wings and heading toward the village.

Hugh, once again on duty, understood immediately what the highly excited owl was trying to tell him, got Nick Cranmer on the mobile phone to let him know that he, Hugh, might be out of touch for a while, then biked over to Snape's cottage, Nelson gliding above him all the way.

The front room was pretty much as Hugh expected to find it. Young Snape was lying immobile on the sofa, his face pale and to all appearances lifeless. The low table had been drawn close to the sofa, and the pensieve placed on it. In the pensieve floated a faint, silver thread of mist.

"Are you all right in there?" Hugh asked calmly, as if this was a regular occurrence, which it was becoming.

The mist coalesced. "No, I'm not all right," mannikin Snape retorted. "What's happening to me makes schizophrenia look like a child's game. What took you so long? Boozing it up at the pub whilst on duty?"

"I happen to have gotten here rather quickly." Hugh drew his brows together in an effort to look stern. "You'd better start improving your attitude to us when we come to help you, or you may find help somewhat scarce."

"Are you threatening me! I'm going to report you to the county, you poor excuse for a peace officer! Get me out of here and put me back into that thing!"

"I'm not sure I want to," said Hugh, settling into the armchair and folding his arms across his chest.

There was a moment's silence as pensieve Snape mentally ran through his options. "Why not?" he asked finally.

"I'd like a couple of questions answered," said Hugh, "and I don't think I'll get answers if I put you back." He paused, but there was no rejoinder from Snape. "The first one, how many of you are there?"

"That's a stupid question," Snape said with a sneer. "It's just me."

"No, it isn't. To begin with, he," Hugh gestured toward the unconscious body, "is a lot nicer than you are. Really quite a pleasant young man. You, on the other hand, have a nasty streak to you, which brings me to the second question. Why are you trying to manipulate me and Gillian?"

Both questions had taken Snape by surprise. It was the second that he jumped on. "Manipu..! Are you accusing me of not being honest with you! When haven't I been honest with you!"

"That whole wand business for one. When you asked Gillian to try the wand, you still had yours. That means she wasn't using a complete wand. When I tried it, you made sure the two parts of the wand had been reunited. It wasn't an equal test."

Snape pouted. "I didn't do it on purpose. I was upset at the time – getting stranded for a day and a half in a pensieve will do that to you."

"I'll take your word for it," said Hugh with a bit of a grin. "You may want to try the wand experiment again. What about the first question?"

"Only two, him and me. Except that I haven't noticed that there's a difference."

"Which of you is most like the original?"

"How am I supposed to know! I told you, I hadn't noticed any difference."

"All right," Hugh sighed. "Let's get you back where you belong." He found the physical wand and held it out to touch the pensieve wand. In very short order, Snape was sitting up on the sofa, trying to move slowly so as not to get dizzy. "How are you feeling?" Hugh asked.

"Better, thank you," said Snape. He glanced up at Hugh, who was standing over him. "I hate to admit it," he said, "but you may be right. I don't feel as…"

Hugh waited a moment and then prompted. "As what?"

"It's hard to describe. Nervous, tense, apprehensive… Like something's attacking me, and I have to defend myself against it. Like if I lose control, something bad will happen."

"Why did you lose control?"

"You mean separating like that? I think it was the conversation in the pub. It got around to the day Nana… my grandmother died. I said maybe they'd put a spell on her so that she couldn't wake up once the fire started, and then I remembered that I'd created spells like that when I worked for them."

"Do you think they used one of your spells on her?"

Snape frowned. "That's not possible. She died while I was still in school. I didn't join his organization until after I left school. I wasn't thinking logically on the way home, though. I was thinking that I'd helped kill her. I guess since I was the one they wanted, in a way I did. And I know some of my spells were used against other people."

Both were silent for a moment, and then Snape continued. "I knew it was going to happen this time. All the way home I knew I had to hurry because it was going to happen again. I called Nelson while I was still outside. There was this strange, kind of sweet smell…"

"Oh, really?" was all that Hugh said.

Snape stood up. "As long as I have you here, I have a couple of wands I'm working on. I have to finish them by next Wednesday – full moon, you know. It is still Thursday, isn't it?"

Hugh assured him that it was, and the two went into the kitchen where Snape showed him the handles and shafts of the four wands and the apple bud and unicorn hair.

"From a real unicorn?" Hugh asked, looking skeptical. "Where are there unicorns in Britain?"

"The only ones I know of are in Scotland," Snape admitted. "There may be others."

Hugh laughed. "Scotland. Gillian's going to love that."

Gillian, as it turned out when Hugh recounted to her the events of his day, was more interested in the sweet smell than the wands. They were in the kitchen where she was looking at some of her textbooks, taking down an occasional note in a small spiral pad.

"Phantosmia," she told Hugh. "Phantom smells. Some epileptics experience them shortly before a seizure. It's a kind of olfactory aura. I've also heard of people who had seizures because of neural trauma who exhibited phantosmia just before a seizure. I suppose it makes some kind of sense that his mental/physical splits would have similar warning symptoms. He said he had some control over it?"

"He knew it was going to happen." Hugh leaned back in his chair, staring at the kitchen ceiling, his hands locked behind his head. "I think he realized it while he was still in the pub, rode all the way home on his bicycle, sent his owl after me, and even managed to get out that bowl and lie down on the sofa. He couldn't stop it, but he could delay it."

"And he admits he has two different personalities?"

"Apprehensive, he said about the inner one, the mentality, tense. Like he was being attacked and defending himself. Afraid of losing control."

"The others have hinted that he has a history of being verbally abusive. I wish I could watch him in action. In a classroom, I mean. I wish I knew something about his family background."

Hugh grinned. "That's the trouble with these college students. You give them a basic course in elementary psychology, and they think they have a PhD. Don't probe too much, Gill, my dear. You could cause more harm than good. Hey!"

Gillian had thrown her pen at him. Hugh tossed it back at her, thus initiating a brief but energetic exchange of projectiles that included the pen, a pencil, the note pad, two erasers, and eventually portions of the evening paper wadded into makeshift cannonballs. Then hostilities ceased and peace was negotiated.

"Wait a minute," said Hugh, after Gillian disengaged from the negotiating process in order to fix supper, "maybe you can watch him in action."

"How?" Gillian paused in her chopping of an onion to turn and face him. Hugh had to admit that the picture of his wife in an apron, tears in her eyes and a lethal weapon brandished in her hand was, for him, the iconic epitome of domestic bliss. He allowed himself to take it in for a few seconds.

"Don't they use that bowl thing – that pensieve – to revisit memories? Maybe you could get Harry to let you see one of his from one of Professor Snape's classes. It might tell you something."

"Hugh Latimer," Gillian cried, "sometimes you can still amaze me. That's a great idea!" She thought for a moment. "How can you get in touch with Harry? We don't know his phone number."

"On the other hand," Hugh pointed out, "that could constitute an invasion of Mr. Snape's privacy."

Gillian snatched up one of the newspaper balls and threw it at his head.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

Mark Savage glanced up from his desk at the mousy-looking clerk who had dared invade his personal domain. "Yes…?" he said in that tone that conveys the idea 'Say what you want to say in as short a time as possible and then leave me alone.'

"Sir, I, uh, wanted to consult you on a little anomaly we're getting. It's sporadic low-scale activity in a rural, predominantly muggle area where there haven't been any magical families for more than twenty years."

"You're Miss Perks, aren't you? How predominant is the muggle population?"

"One hundred percent. At least until the beginning of the summer."

"But there was a magical presence twenty years ago."

"Yes, sir."

"It sounds simple, Miss Perks. It sounds like old families moving back into their former homes. I don't think you need to worry about it."

Sally-Ann sighed. "That's what Harry said. He said there was no point in investigating it."

Savage's eyes sparked with sudden fire. "Potter advised you to leave it alone? That changes the situation somewhat. Miss Perks, if you would like to make a field investigation, you have my permission to do so. Report to me and share your findings with no one else. Most certainly not Potter."

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That very same morning, partly because Hugh had a day off, Mr. and Mrs. Latimer decided to take a stroll out to the west side of the village and make sure that Mr. Snape was recovering from the stress of the day before. They found him, plans in hand, trying to make a list of everything that had to be done, and in what order, when the first of his supplies, including the equipment for the septic system, arrived on Monday.

"Of course I'm all right," Snape told them rather brusquely. "Why shouldn't I be all right?"

"I don't care how many times you do it," Gillian replied, "splitting in two can never be easy."

"Nonetheless, I am fine. I thank your husband for his role in my recovery. If you like, I shall write up a commendation and recommend him for the Victoria Cross, second class. Now if you will excuse me…"

Gillian changed course. "Are those the final plans for the remodeling? Could you show them to me?"

Snape's mood improved at once, and he and Gillian, plans in hand, went through the entire house checking where walls would be moved and, in the largest bedroom, where the new clothes closet would be.

"And in the entry hall, for guests' coats?" Gillian asked.

"Hooks or pegs on the wall," said Snape. "I suppose they could be decorative." They'd ended up in the kitchen where Snape offered coffee and toast, and where Hugh pointed out to Gillian the little row of wands.

"Have you finished one?" he asked Snape. "This one has its handle attached."

"Apple wood," said Snape, doing an imitation of Ollivander at the Triwizard Tournament that was totally lost on Hugh. "Nine and five-eighths inches, unicorn hair core, slightly springy. I haven't tried it yet."

"May I?"

"Be my guest."

"Don't you have to say some kind of spell over it?" Gillian asked. "To start it up, I mean?"

"I don't know," said Snape. "I never made a wand before and all the books I might consult are where I can't get to them." He paused, thinking of the spot in the Forbidden Forest not too far from Hagrid's hut. "Not without help, anyway."

Hugh picked up the finished wand, hefting its slight weight experimentally in his hand. "What do I do?"

"Lets try putting a memory in the pensieve," Snape suggested. "The spell is usually said – or thought, rather – by the person releasing the memory, so all you have to do is remove it. You did something similar with my wand, so it might be a good test of this one."

The three gathered around the low table in the front room, and Snape showed Hugh how to hold the wand against his temple. "Now, I'll think the spell, and you slowly draw the wand away. Keep pulling until the thought is free, then put it in the pensieve."

At Snape's nod, Hugh began the extraction of the silver filament of thought, which came away quite easily from Snape's head. A few seconds later, it floated in the basin. "Well that worked," said Snape. "Would you like to try an actual spell?"

"Sure," said Hugh. "Why not?"

"Probably the easiest is a simple light spell. No special wand movement. Just hold it in front of you and say 'Lumos.'" Snape had high hopes for the Lumos spell. Squibs had been known to produce a Lumos in an emergency.

"Lumos," said Hugh, to no effect. At Snape's coaching he tried to put more authority into his voice. "Lumos," he repeated over and over until interrupted by a popping sound from the yard.

"Company," Snape said, glancing out the window. Then he was on his feet in a panic. "Oh, no! It's that Perks girl coming to check why there's magic here. She can't see me! Look, you be the resident wizard. Small, household magic, that's all you do. If she brings up a place called Hogwarts, admit ignorance because you were home schooled."

With that Snape fled up the stairs to the bedrooms, leaving Hugh still sitting in the front room with the wand in his hand.

Gillian rose and opened the door before Sally-Ann had the opportunity to knock. "We heard you pop in," she said with a smile. "I must admit you've taken us by surprise. We don't usually get guests out here." This was, in fact, true, since Hugh and Gillian's guests normally came to their home in the village.

Sally-Ann was only nineteen, and this was her first field mission. She tried to act in an official manner. "My name is Perks, and I'm from the Ministry of Magic. I'm here to check on some irregular magical activity…"

"Irregular?" Gillian began, but Hugh was already at her elbow.

"Shouldn't you be a bit more cautious?" he asked. "Talking about Ministries like that before you determine who we are. For all you know, we might be…"

"Muggles?" said Sally Ann, who was muggle-born herself and therefore less sensitive to the telltale traces of normalcy that would have alerted a pureblood. "I don't think so. There's been too much magic coming out of this place."

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"This is a high-density muggle area. There hasn't been any magic here for two decades."

"If you know that," Hugh replied, "then you know that this was once the residence of a magical family. I used to play here when I was a child. Look around, Miss Perks. Do you see any muggles nearby? Believe me, neither my wife nor I practice magic around muggles."

Sally-Ann's gaze shifted down to the wand in Hugh's hand. "I hope you don't think I'm a threat to you. You could get into trouble attacking an employee of the Ministry."

"This?" said Hugh, holding the wand up. "Don't worry. I won't use it on you. In fact, it's brand new. I'm just testing it to make sure it works."

"I'm sure Ollivander already did that. He wouldn't sell a nonworking wand."

"I didn't buy it."

Her eyes narrowing, Sally-Ann regarded Hugh with a stern look. "Do you have a license to make wands?"

Now Hugh wasn't a policeman for nothing; he knew when he was being bluffed. "You don't need a license to make wands," he said. He held the wand out to his side. "Lumos!" he commanded. The tip of the wand glowed green; Gillian raised her eyebrows. "I think it needs some more work," said Hugh, disappointment in his voice.

"One more thing," Sally-Ann sighed. "Are there any minors in the family? We have to trace activity around minors."

Gillian put her arm around Hugh's waist. "We haven't been married that long," she said coyly.

Sally-Ann blushed. "All right, then. It doesn't look like you're breaking any laws. Can I have your names for the records?"

"Hugh and Gillian Latimer," Hugh told her. "And if you ever need to return, I'd appreciate it if you were a bit more circumspect. The rest of the community think we're muggles, and it would cause comment if someone saw you popping in like that."

As Sally-Ann started back toward the road to disapparate, Gillian called after her. "By the way, you'll be seeing more activity over the next couple of weeks. The house is being renovated, and we're stretching the job out so passersby don't get suspicious."

"Good idea," Sally-Ann called back. "Thank you for your time. Sorry to have disturbed you." And then she was gone.

Snape was back downstairs in an instant. "You were brilliant!" he cried, ushering them back into the kitchen for tea and biscuits. "Masterful! That should keep the Ministry out of my hair for a while. Did you really produce a Lumos spell?"

"The end of the wand turned green," said Hugh. "A kind of phosphorescent green, a glow in the dark sort of thing. It that what it's supposed to do?"

"It's supposed to produce a green light around the wand. I'd say you did very well for the first try."

The Latimers left, and Snape returned to his tasks. He had the bundimun solution to check – it was almost ready to bottle – and food to gather for the jobberknolls. He had to finish the wands. He had to micro-plan the reconstruction of the cottage, and figure out where he was going to sleep while the work was in progress. He was, in short, going to have a very busy weekend.

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Sunday, July 25, 1999

It was late in the morning on Sunday, and Snape was reaching a point where he could do nothing more without leaving home. He needed the right kind of bottles for his cleaning solution. He also needed to take food to the jobberknolls again, but wanted to wait until Sunday services were over and the preacher gone. He'd toyed with the idea of using his work shed as a temporary sleeping area during construction, but decided against it and was now considering a tent – a real tent that would set off no Ministry alarms.

He was in the garden Accioing bugs when he heard the roar of Fred Allsop's truck on the road. It sounded as if Allsop was driving uncharacteristically fast, so Snape rose and went around the cottage to the front of the yard, replacing the lid on his collection jar as he walked.

Allsop was indeed racing toward Snape's cottage. In front of the lawn, he made a tight U-turn so that the truck was facing back toward the village and the passenger door was nearest to Snape. "Get in!" he called through the open window of the cab. "There's been an accident." Snape sprinted to the truck and jumped into the seat. Allsop's foot was pressing the accelerator before Snape even closed the door.

"What happened?" Snape asked. He had a vision of Bill Morley falling of the roof.

"Old Mrs. Wainwright," said Allsop, concentrating on the uneven surface of the road. "She fell in church. They're afraid she's broken her hip."

"Has anyone called for an ambulance?"

"Charlie told Mr. Davidson he was calling them from Ridley's, but they're in Barnoldswick and serve a large area with minimum resources. It'll take them ages to get here, and then they'll likely take her to Blackburn. Faster and better with you, so he got me instead."

They were outside the church. Snape descended from the truck. "Do me a favor," he said to Allsop, "call the ambulance. Even if this is easy, I'd like them to confirm it with X-rays"

"You got it," said Allsop.

The little chapel was quite crowded, more so than it had been for the service. As Snape entered, people began to nudge each other and move aside to allow him through. Mrs. Wainwright was half lying in the aisle where she had fallen, looking as if she were in considerable pain. Rev. Davidson was kneeling by her side holding her hand. Her son, Oscar, was sitting in the pew next to her. Oscar Wainwright noticed Snape first.

"It's going to be all right, Mother," he said. "Look who's here."

"Ah, they found you. Come sit by me," Mrs. Wainwright said. "I've been foolish and taken a tumble. I may have done something to the right leg."

Rev. Davidson looked concerned, but moved to make room for Snape. "Are you First Response?" he asked. When Snape nodded, he said, "You must be a lot older than you look."

Snape didn't reply. Instead he took Mrs. Wainwright's wrist to take her pulse. "A little fast, but strong," he said. "Now let me look in your eyes. I have to check the pupils. There's an ambulance on the way, and you need to keep very still 'til it gets here. Think about the fall… good… now relax and try to empty your mind… excellent."

The image Snape received through his legilimency was sharp and clear. She had been stepping out of the pew box and had twisted as she fell. There was a thin, curved crack in the femur that extended several inches. In muggle hands it might require an extensive operation or a lengthy time bedridden – neither good things for the elderly. "Do you take any medications to prevent blood clotting?" Snape asked and got an affirmative response.

"Here," Snape said to Davidson, "it's got to be awkward for her, propped up like this. If she lies flat, it could shift the bone and maybe cause more damage. Would you move around me and let her lean against you? It would give her more ease." Davidson obeyed. If he had misgivings, he chose not to voice them.

"It would also be better," Snape added in a slightly louder voice, "if we could clear the area. We could use more air, and the lady deserves some privacy."

As the little crowd dispersed toward the door, Snape leaned closer to Mrs. Wainwright. "It may take a while for the ambulance to get here, so we're going to make you more comfortable. I'm going to try a little hypnotism technique if you don't mind."

The old woman took his hands, her fingers resting on the tip of the wand that had slipped into the palm of his hand. "Hypnotism," she said with a wink. "I suppose that's one term for it."

Slowly, softly, his eyes locked with hers, Snape began to croon an ancient tune, like a chant or mantra. There was no question that the effect on his listeners was mesmerizing.

It took the ambulance only forty-five minutes to arrive, which the villagers assured Snape later was quite decent time. It was fortunate for Snape, since it gave him a chance to get some things done.

His first concern was excessive bleeding. Some bleeding was necessary for the fracture to knit, but it also had to clot, something complicated by the pills Mrs. Wainwright took to prevent a stroke. Snape was, however, quite good at staunching blood flow. He had it under control in about ten minutes.

The second concern was the fracture itself, and here Snape had to admit that Pomfrey was much better at bones than he was. It flitted across his mind that he should prepare a bone-setting potion to have on hand, but that might get him in trouble with the authorities if they found he was administering medicine without a medical license. Pushing the thought from his mind, Snape concentrated on inducing the bone to knit.

It didn't take long before Mrs. Wainwright's face began to relax and her breathing to become deeper and slower. By the time the paramedics arrived, she was dozing.

That caused an initial moment of concern. "Is she unconscious?" one of the paramedics asked Rev. Davidson – the man with the clerical collar must be the one in charge.

"I think she's just sleeping," Davidson replied.

"Did you give her any painkillers?" The paramedic knelt beside his patient, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around her arm. (I have to get myself one of those, Snape thought.)

"Nothing," said Davidson. "No one gave her anything. This young man's a hypnotist, though, and it seems to have relaxed her."

"Blood pressure's normal," said the paramedic, "temperature, pulse rate, normal. It doesn't seem to have harmed her. Ma'am? Ma'am, do you think you could wake up for me?"

Mrs. Wainwright opened her eyes, which were bright and focused. "Got here at last, did you?" she said. "It's about time."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"I missed my step getting out of the pew to take communion and fell down. It was a stupid thing to do."

"Are you in any pain?"

"Not as much as I was. It hurt a lot at first, but it's better now. Can I go home?"

"I think it's best we get you into hospital and check you over thoroughly. Just to be sure."

Wainwright, who had been silent all the while, spoke up. "My mother says she's well enough to go home."

"I think it's better she go to hospital," said Snape. "The hypnotism may still be masking some of the pain, and it's always better to be safe than sorry."

As the paramedics prepared Mrs. Wainwright for transfer to the trolley and then to the ambulance, Snape pulled Wainwright to one side. "Knitting bones is tricky," he said. "I'd feel better if they X-rayed the leg to be sure. I can visit her there and continue the treatment if she has to be admitted, but I'm reasonably sure that she's healed enough so they won't have to operate."

Wainwright nodded. "Whatever you think's best," he said. "She's not going to like it, though."

"Tell her it's her fault for falling in the first place," said Snape, and Wainwright smiled wryly.

A half hour later, Wainwright and Snape were squeezed into Allsop's truck and heading behind the ambulance to Royal Blackburn Hospital. Before they left, Snape had found Wally Hackett and given him the food for the jobberknolls. Wally was smart enough to wait until the curate was gone to his next village before climbing up to the roof of the chapel.

Once at the hospital it became a waiting game, something that neither Oscar Wainwright nor his mother was good at. Bureaucracy, monitoring, waiting for equipment to be free – it was late afternoon before the X-rays were taken and almost supper time before the doctor gave the Wainwrights the news.

"You're very lucky. See this? It's a hairline fracture in the bone. With your osteoporosis I would have expected it to be bigger. We can treat it with a simple cast, but you'll have to be hospitalized until we're sure it's healing properly…"

"Who's going to take care of my chickens?" Mrs. Wainwright demanded.

That evening, upon returning to Weetsmoor and before he could go home, Snape was initiated into the joys of chicken farming by Oscar Wainwright and Fred Allsop. This involved, first, remaking the acquaintance of the little border collie, who was officially Vinegar Tom, but went by the nickname of Vinny. Vinny was by nature a guard dog and enjoyed having Snape to practice on.

After finally making a truce with the dog, Snape got his first lesson with the chickens. They roamed over an extensive, fenced, grassy area where they could eat both vegetation and insects. White, with bright red combs, short legs, and five toes on each foot, they strutted, clucked, pecked gently at each other, and came trotting over the moment Wainwright appeared, knowing they were about to be fed.

"What kind are they?" Snape asked as Wainwright filled bags with feed for the three of them to wear over their shoulders and broadcast to the birds.

"Dorkings. Good for meat; good for eggs. They say they've been here since Roman times. Very old breed."

"What's in the feed?" Snape fingered the dry meal, examining its uneven color and texture.

"Grain, alfalfa, fish meal, oyster shell… Don't know exactly."

"Fish meal? Chickens eat meat?"

"Of course they do. Left to themselves they eat flies, gnats, worms, caterpillars, maggots. A vegetarian chicken is a malnourished chicken."

"Oh," said Snape. "I'll take your word for it."

After the feeding, the chickens had to be herded into the barn. Vinny helped a little, but most of the motivation was provided by the chickens themselves. After all, they did this every day and were used to it. Snape's only problem was the two roosters. Roosters are highly territorial. Fighting comes naturally to them.

The animals now cared for – for Vinny had been fed and taken care of as well – Allsop dropped Snape off at his cottage.

"Will you have time tomorrow to go to Blackburn?" Wainwright asked as Snape stepped down from the cab.

"The first shipment of material is coming tomorrow," Snape said. "Maybe in the afternoon."

"I'll check with you," said Wainwright, then he and Allsop drove away.

It had been quite a day, and Snape was tired. As he settled down to a light supper and a cup of tea, he thought things over. "An apple orchard of some unspecified variety that has seeded itself. I need to go look at that area again. Chickens from an ancient stock. That might not be so odd. For all I know, thousands of poultry farmers all over Britain raise the same breed. Buildings three hundred and more years old. Wild owls that are instinctive messengers. Bundimuns, jobberknolls, and bowtruckles. A copper who can make the tip of a wand glow. I wonder what's special about Ernie Hackett's pigs? Or Allsop's horses? I need to get to bed; tomorrow's going to be another long day."

xxxxxxxxxx

Monday, July 26, 1999

The first truck arrived at 8:30 in the morning with the equipment for the septic system, followed closely by a range of vehicles containing the crew from the pub, all of whom had dealt with this esoteric machinery before. They started poring over the instructions and laying things out on the ground behind the cottage.

Next came the material for the foundations – stone of various types (not a huge quantity since that was one part of Nana's house that could be reused), concrete, mortar, plaster. Another truck brought the pipes and fixtures for the plumbing, yet another the lumber, and a small van supplied panes of glass for the windows. Thousands of nails, dozens of screws, prefabricated doors… By noon deep ruts had been carved into the dirt road and the denizens of Weetsmoor were making bets on just how many hundredweight of material was strewn around the isolated little cottage. A small crowd of mostly young boys gathered around the edges of Snape's property to watch.

Talk about violating the Statute of Secrecy, Snape thought as he joined the men in the back. It's a good thing Perks came Friday and not today. If this gets out I'm going to be in a lot of trouble.

The area for the drainfield of the septic system had been marked out and little flags placed where ditches needed to be dug. "Are you sure?" Snape kept saying as the men told him how wide and how deep the ditches had to be. They were, he was repeatedly informed, sure.

"All right," said Snape, taking out his wand. "Let's get this project going." Pointing the wand at the first of the flags, he cried, "Effodio humum!" and the dirt began to fly.

The digging took about half an hour, but only because Snape was careful and kept asking the men to double check everything. When he was done, Charlie Latimer said, "That's it. We won't need you for a couple of hours."

"Are you sure?" Snape asked for perhaps the ten-thousandth time.

"What we want now," said Latimer, "is a couple of hours of peace and quiet to get this thing assembled. Seems like now might be a good time to go visit Cora."

"Cora?" Snape asked.

"My mother," said Wainwright. "Would it be all right?"

With everyone else insisting that Snape's presence would be a positive hindrance at the construction site, which Snape had to concede was very likely true, he and Wainwright drove off in Allsop's truck to visit Mrs. Wainwright in hospital.

Snape brought the plans for the cottage with him, together with a couple of sketches of what he planned for the elevations and interiors, and he and Mrs. Wainwright entertained each other for a good forty-five minutes while Oscar sat back contentedly and listened.

"It does an old woman good to have someone to talk to," Mrs. Wainwright confided. "You get to the point where so many of your friends are dead, there's no one left to talk to. I've been worried for some time I might fall and no one find me for ages. Silly, because Oscar checks on me every day to see I'm all right. I'm fortunate to have the chickens. Lots of older people have to worry about every penny, whether they'll have enough to eat."

Then Mrs. Wainwright lay back while Snape took out his wand and began the low, soothing chant of the day before. Oscar left them to find the hospital cafeteria.

The doctor, passing through the ward, paused to listen and watch, for Snape hadn't bothered to draw the privacy curtains completely closed. After a moment, the doctor sought out the duty nurse. "That feels a bit like a religious ceremony," he commented. "They're not obstructing her treatment, are they?"

The nurse shook her head. "They were very polite and cooperative when I brought her medications," she told him. "He hasn't touched her or tried to give her anything, and as near as I can tell, he and the son have been advising her to do everything you prescribe. They were even suggesting you take more X-rays."

"Well, that's all right then. A little mumbo-jumbo might help her relax and rest, and that would assist healing. You let me know if they start advocating strange treatments, though."

Later that afternoon, after Snape and Oscar had gone, the nurse returned with the next round of meds. "What's that?" Mrs. Wainwright asked of every pill before she obediently swallowed it. One small white capsule, however, brought the reply, "Your painkiller, dear."

"I don't need any more painkillers," Mrs. Wainwright said. "I'm not in any pain."

"There is nothing salutary about enduring pain," chided the nurse, "and no value in trying to brave it through. If you're in pain, you should let us treat it."

"But if I'm not in pain, wouldn't it be worse to take an unnecessary pill?"

The nurse conceded the point, extracting from Mrs. Wainwright in return the promise to tell someone at once if the pain returned.

"Oh, yes," added Mrs. Wainwright as the nurse was leaving. "I know you hope to start my physical therapy as soon as possible. How about tomorrow?"

xxxxxxxxxx

The septic system was installed and ready for inspection when Snape returned to his cottage. Since they couldn't fill everything until it was inspected, all agreed to call it a day and repair to the pub for some well-earned pints. The next day the real work would begin.

Snape, however, apologized and asked to be excused. He would join them the next day, but at the moment he had pressing business. The truth was that his conversation with Mrs. Wainwright had bothered him deeply. After the others had left, with the sun still high in the summer afternoon sky, he mounted his bicycle and headed southwest to visit Mrs. Hanson.

This time when Snape left his bicycle at the gate and knocked on the door, someone was home. The front curtain twitched a little as that someone checked who was calling, and then the door opened wide. "Richard!" Mrs. Hanson cried, reaching out to hug Snape, but then pulling back a little. "I'm sorry, dear, that's a habit. I used to hug your father. Would you like some tea?"

"That would be very nice, thank you."

Mrs. Hanson chatted continuously as she fixed the tea and got out a couple of biscuits. As Snape listened, he looked around, paying much more attention to the condition of the house than he had the time before. It looked very shabby and untidy. How long had it been since he'd visited before? Three years?

In the pause while Mrs. Hanson warmed the pot, Snape asked, "Don't you still take in boarders?"

"Love you, child, I haven't done that for years now. I haven't the money or the energy to keep the place up, and nobody wants t' live this side of town anymore. You've seen how poor it's got, and there's much more crime than there used to be. I have t' admit I worry from time to time, living alone. But I can't afford t' move, and I haven't anything worth stealing."

"You had a sister, didn't you? In Manchester?"

Mrs. Hanson gave him a shrewd look as she brought the teapot to the table and covered it with a cozy. "I'd have thought your father'd have more important things t' tell you about than the business of an old woman from his childhood."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."

"You weren't being rude. Sit. Tea 'll be ready in a minute." When Snape had seated himself and accepted one of the biscuits, Mrs. Hanson poured the tea. "What d' you know about your great… great grandfather?" she asked.

It took Snape a few seconds to work that out. "Wensley Snape? He was a seaman. He had a wonderful collection of strange things from all over the world…"

"Magical things. D' you know why? It was because he believed in them. He believed in the magic and in all the old stories from around here." She leaned forward. "He wanted a witch in the family, so he found a girl for your… grandfather from over around Weets Hill. Your grandmother could do strange things – when she thought no one was watching. So could your father. He could change channels on the telly without getting up to turn the dial." For a moment she and Snape just looked at each other, eye to eye across the table, neither blinking. "Your 'father' never had any children," Mrs. Hanson continued. "If he had, he'd have told me."

It didn't take Snape more than a second to reach a decision. After all, he'd had a lot of practice lately. "How long have you known?" he asked.

"About your mother? Since before you were born. None of us ever talked t' her about it, of course. Eileen wanted to fit into the neighborhood and did a good job of it. The others gossiped about her. For most, the general feeling was it couldn't be true. If she was a witch, why hadn't Toby a better house and job? About you? The day you set that Neil Phillips back on his seater for hitting your foot with a block."

"I don't remember that!" Snape laughed.

"You weren't but a year old. And then when Eileen had t' take odd jobs, I went over t' mind you. You were always doing little things – snatching stuff from across the room. I never told Eileen for fear she'd think she had to stay home."

They chatted quite easily after that, and Snape explained why he looked so young. He couldn't stay, though, since he had to get back to Weetsmoor before it got dark. As he was leaving, he asked Mrs. Hanson, "If you had the chance to live somewhere else, would you want to?"

"Love you, child, in a heartbeat. Look around you." She indicated the dirty street and the boarded up windows. "Who'd want to live here unless they had to?"

Snape managed to get home before dark and went into his own kitchen to have more tea and think. There were so many things needing his attention. The wands had to be finished tomorrow. The house would be demolished and reconstruction started. Mrs. Wainwright needed attention and healing, and now he had to consider Mrs. Hanson as well. Oh, and jobberknolls. He couldn't forget the jobberknolls.

If I'd known things were going to get this complicated, he thought, going up the stairs to his bedroom for the last time, I think I'd have chosen to stay dead.

xxxxxxxxxx

Tuesday, July 27, 1999

Snape was awake before dawn, his wands finished in time for breakfast. Then he began his final inventory of the house.

Almost all the furniture was transfigured and did not, therefore, have to be removed. Snape had a vague memory that someone had told him the things from the house in Spinner's End were stored somewhere, and he thought he really ought to ask about it. Then again, Mrs. Hanson had some quite serviceable furniture, and he probably should consult her as well.

Both thoughts were shelved for later as Snape transferred books and papers out onto the grass, protected by spells from the environment, along with the soulstone flasks, the pensieve, and his few articles of clothing. Then he remembered that the food was real, and brought it out as well. After that were the jars, vials, and flasks that either held memories or could be used to bottle cleaning potion.

What else was there that was real? Snape extracted bushes from the soil, balling their roots in transfigured burlap, and cut out large squares of turf to go on top of the turf the men had removed the day before to prepare for the ditches. That done, he searched the cottage again from top to bottom looking for something real. There was nothing permanent left.

Once again outside, Snape cast a series of spells that gradually reverted everything to its original form. Roof, walls, floors, furniture, all changed into a haphazard pile of branches, rocks, and rubble, easily removed and dumped beyond the garden.

What was left was the blackened stone foundation and sill. Even the flooring on the ground floor was gone, exposing the partially collapsed cellar. There was everything to do over again.

Snape glanced at the sun. By his reckoning it was ten o'clock. Nine o'clock summer time. Down the road from the direction of the village he could hear vehicles. His work crew was arriving.

As they climbed out of the trucks, vans, and cars, it was clear that the men were not happy to see the burned reminder of the cottage's fate. Sam Logan in particular looked as if he wanted to turn around and go in the other direction. Snape was expecting this and called them over to him.

"I just wanted you to know," he told the men, "that I thought a long time about whether or not I should do this. If there's anybody who wants to honor my grandmother's memory, it's me. But I had a dream a week ago where my grandmother told me what she wanted to do with the house. Then a few days ago I talked to Cora Wainwright, who was a friend of my grandmother's, about what she remembered. Everything tallies. My grandmother, Constantina Prince – Constantina Rossendale – did not like this house. If she had been able to choose, she would have changed it. The plans I have here are a combination of what she wanted and what I need. Where there was a conflict, I stuck to her plan. We're not just building my plan here, we're building hers. If anyone's not comfortable with that, we can postpone the work and take this up with Mrs. Wainwright. Mr. Wainwright, did I show these plans to your mother yesterday in hospital?"

"That you did, and discussed them no end, too!"

"Did she seem content with the plans?"

"That she did. She said Mrs. Prince would love it."

"There," Snape told the men. "We're not just doing this for me. We're doing it for my grandmother, may she rest easy."

The first job was the cellar. Snape let the more experienced men debate the issue, then dug where they told him to. He cut the supports and beams to the lengths they told him to, watched as they laid them in place, then drove the nails in at the places and angles they told him to. In a way he was doing most of the work, but with magic, it was a stretch to call it work.

By late afternoon they had enlarged the cellar, laid down the ground flooring, put in the ground level plumbing, set the cellar steps, and prepared the sills to receive the wooden walls. All was going very much according to plan.

"Where are you going to spend the night?" Hugh Latimer asked, having dropped by on his bicycle to evaluate the progress.

"Drat! I forgot to get a tent. I'll have to transfigure one."

"Or you could stay with us. Gillian said I should ask you."

There was no contest. After making sure the books and papers were impervious to weather, and packing the soulstone flasks and pensieve to take with him, Snape mounted his bicycle and followed Hugh into the village.

It was Snape's first time inside one of the homes in the village proper. Hugh took him upstairs to an office that doubled as a guest bedroom, the third bedroom being used for overflow storage. "Gillian brought a lot of her things when she moved down here," Hugh said by way of an apology. We haven't sorted out yet exactly what stays and what goes."

"When you do, you can have both an office and a guest bedroom," Snape pointed out.

"Probably not," said Hugh with a smile. "More likely an office and a nursery. We haven't been married quite a year yet, but we'd both like a family."

This was going above and beyond what Snape wanted to discuss, so instead he inspected his new temporary quarters. The first thing he noticed was something that looked like a desktop television and a large, rectangular metal box, both pale gray. "Is that a computer?" he asked, bending close to examine them.

"It is. You see that little box there? That's a modem. It connects me to my electronic mail and to the world wide web. It goes through the phone line, so I have to be careful. Don't want to miss incoming phone calls, you know. The biggest help is the word processing. It's so much easier than on a typewriter."

"I've never seen one before."

"Maybe I'll show you how to use it."

"Could I get one in the cottage?"

"Not without electricity. And no mail or web without a telephone line. I am afraid you're stuck in the stone age out there."

They went downstairs where Gillian was cooking supper. "Why don't you show him our poor excuse for a garden?" Gillian told Hugh. To Snape she said, "We can use all the help we can get."

The old stone houses of the village were not built up against each other, so the Latimers' garden went around both sides of the building as well as the back. It had an irregular shape, as did just about everything in Weetsmoor, with the bit on the west side being very narrow, the bit in the back somewhat wider, and the northern section going to the corner where two streets intersected in a curving T. A low stone wall marked the boundary with the neighbors' gardens.

"You're right," Snape said, noting the two sickly looking trees, the patchy grass, and the scraggly bushes. "This needs help."

"We'd like to have herbs and vegetables in addition to some flowers, but landscaping hasn't been high on our list of things to do."

"I take it this isn't the old family home."

"No. The Carters lived here. Then Grace died about five years ago – she was my father's cousin – and Reggie the year after. Their children had already left the village and had no plans to return. It was empty until I moved in the year before last around Christmas. I'd just decided to ask Gillian to marry me, you see, and needed a place."

"And you haven't done a thing with the garden."

"Not one blessed thing."

Over dinner, after polite general conversation, Gillian swung things around to the topic she was most interested in. "This school where you used to teach," she said, "what's it like?"

"It's this big old castle in Scotland," said Snape. "Just under three hundred students and a dozen teachers. A few other staff members."

"What did you teach?" This was from Hugh.

"Potions, mostly. Then Defense against the Dark Arts for a year. Then my last year I was headmaster."

"I'd love to see it," said Gillian.

"That's not possible," Snape explained. "It's protected against, eh… outsiders. If you even managed to locate where it was, all you would see was a ruined, derelict castle with 'No Trespassing' and 'Warning – Danger' signs around it. It's not open to the general public."

"'No Trespassing' and 'Warning – Danger?'" Gillian laughed. "Maybe I have seen it after all. You've got about a twenty-five to one student/teacher ratio. That's not too bad."

"Less, and the students do a great of independent study, so actual lesson time is minimal. The problem is the paperwork. In Potions I taught two hundred twenty students for a total of eighteen hours a week, but grading the weekly papers took nearly forty hours. Plus supervising and counseling – I was head of one of the houses."

They were interrupted by the doorbell. Hugh went to answer it, and a moment later brought Oscar Wainwright into the dining room. Wainwright looked immensely pleased with something.

"I thought you might like to know," he said. "I got the doctors to take another set of X-rays, and that crack on the femur is gone. There's nothing wrong with the bone. They've got a whole roomful of doctors trying to explain why the two X-rays match in all ways but that crack. They're keeping her for tonight, and they'll take another set in the morning. If there's nothing wrong then, she'll be coming home." He shifted his feet self-consciously. "I wanted to thank you," he finished bluntly, then left without waiting for a reply.

"My goodness," said Gillian. "That's the most I've heard out off Oscar in one breath since I got here. A veritable speech."

"I'm honored," said Snape. "Vinny and the chickens will be very happy as well." The subject of Hogwarts was dropped for the moment, and the dinner ended in a perfectly normal fashion.

"Hugh," Gillian said as she cleared the table. "Do you think you could pop over to Ridley's? I need more milk for tomorrow, and some butter. Is there anything you particularly like for breakfast… It seems odd to be calling you Mr. Snape right now."

Snape agreed. "Richard really is my first name, but no one ever called me that. My colleagues at school called me Severus, my middle name. My house mates when I was a student called me Sev. My parents called me Russ."

"What would you prefer?"

"Russ is good. No one in the wizarding world knows me by that name, so it would do no harm if it slipped out."

"Is there anything you'd like for breakfast then, Russ?"

"Why don't you let me go to Ridley's and do the shopping? I could pick up the milk and butter, and then get what I want as well. I'd like to help out, as long as I'm staying."

A few minutes later, Snape was in the little grocery store selecting a tin of kippered herring and debating with himself whether or not to get ham and lemons for eggs Benedict.

"So you're rooming with the Latimers during construction," Ridley said as Snape checked the price on a tin of sliced ham. "Do you think it'll be done in less than two days?"

"Two days?" said Snape. "You have an exalted idea of my talents. I'm hoping by next Monday."

"That'll be awkward," Ridley said.

"I don't see… Why?" Snape asked, the ham momentarily forgotten.

"They haven't told you, have they?"

Snape shook his head.

"Today's Tuesday the twenty-seventh. Thursday's their first wedding anniversary. I don't know what Hugh and Gillian were planning, but if it was me, a house guest wouldn't be part of it."

"Oh," said Snape. "Thank you for the head's-up. I take it that it would be extremely tactful if I found a place I had to be Thursday night."

"It might," Ridley agreed.

The next day they started on the ground floor. There wasn't much that had to be done with the kitchen walls or the massive fireplace structure, since they were ancient stone and had survived the fire basically intact. The men divided into pairs to work on the cellar steps, the finishing off of the kitchen walls – which would also be the exterior wall of the study and hall – and the framing of the panels for the interior walls of the front room. They had decided on double framing for purposes of insulation.

Snape was kept very busy with lifting, cutting, and nailing charms, and quickly learned the differences between posts, studs, beams, and joists. The only area where he had previous experience was with the stringers, risers, and treads of the stairs, having built his own in the house where he'd grown up.

Mrs. Ridley provided a picnic lunch, and midway through the afternoon Oscar brought Mrs. Wainwright around with a monstrous plate of cookies and pitchers of lemonade. They finished the day with the ground floor pretty much framed in, and after victory pints in the pub, Snape went back to the Latimers' for the evening.

Plotting her course carefully, Gillian once again brought the dinner conversation around to a description of Hogwarts which Snape provided only to be asked questions about details he couldn't answer. 'Pretty high,' it transpired, was not an adequate response to a question about the ceiling in the Great Hall.

Thus it was that Snape was brought around to the point of using the pensieve and a memory to satisfy Gillian's curiosity, and actually believed that he himself had come up with the idea. After some careful thought, he pulled a memory strand from his head and placed it in the pensieve.

"I can't guarantee this will work," he told the Latimers. "I have no information on the ability of muggles to see pensieve images." With that, he tapped the pensieve with his wand.

The Great Hall at Hogwarts rose to the surface of the basin, its hammerbeam roof studded with stars and wisps of drifting clouds. The four long house tables were full of black-robed, pointy-hatted children, except for the seats nearest the staff table, for this was the first day of the school year and the Sorting was in process. Snape manipulated the scene with his wand to show it at different angles.

"The one in the center, long silver beard, is Albus Dumbledore. The tall witch reading the names is Minerva McGonagall. You see me at the end of the table. You know Hagrid. The little old fellow on the other side of Dumbledore is Flitwick. I'm sure you understand how there might be some speculation on his ancestry. The students sit by houses. There's Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and the last table is Gryffindor."

"A door?" Gillian asked. "A door shaped like a griffin?"

"No. Just one 'o,' d-o-r."

"Oh, griffin d'or. Golden griffin in French. It sounds like a heraldic device."

"Maybe it was," Snape said. "When Hogwarts was built, people didn't yet have last names. It's very possible that Godric had a golden griffin on his shield."

The sorting was nearing an end. "Ginny Weasley," McGonagall called, and a young, familiar red-headed girl came forward to put on the Sorting Hat, which immediately called out "Gryffindor!"

"Look, Hugh. That's Ginny. Harry's friend. Where's Harry in all that crowd?"

"Potter and his friend Ron, Ginny's brother, missed the train that day and arrived late. In a moment Professor Dumbledore is going to send me out looking for them. They flew up in an enchanted car." Sure enough, shortly after mountains of food materialized on the tables, the bearded headmaster rose and whispered to the Potions master, who left both his seat and the Hall. The image in the pensieve faded out.

"That was very nice," Gillian said. "Wasn't that nice, Hugh? Can you show us one of the classrooms?"

"My own classroom wasn't typical since it was down in the dungeons…"

"Dungeons? What for?"

"It's colder there. Better for preserving the ingredients. If you like…"

Another memory strand went into the pensieve. This was a NEWT-level class with students from all the houses, all excellent potions brewers. Snape pointed out to his audience the cupboards stocked with ingredients, the braziers, the equipment for weighing and measuring… but what Gillian watched was the black-gowned figure that moved between the cauldron stations, commenting on the fineness of chopped seeds, checking the temperature of a brew. Professor and students were of a type, all focused on the task at hand, all equally passionate for the perfection of the product they were making. Kindred spirits. No sign of impatience or temper, no sign of bullying or manipulation. Gillian filed this in a corner of her mind and put a mental question mark next to Harry's name.

Snape went on to other scenes – the Great Hall at Halloween and Christmas, McGonagall's classroom, and Trelawney's, the view of the lake from the castle hill, a fast-moving game of Quidditch that Hugh wanted to keep watching, the Whomping Willow.

Suddenly it was late, and time to go to bed. Wishing the Latimers a good night, Snape went up to the guest room. He was feeling rather good, the excursion around Hogwarts having been enjoyable even for him. Being able to chose which memories to watch helped. The only problem nagging at him as he drifted off to sleep was that he hadn't yet come up with a good reason for staying away from the Latimer house the next evening.

He was sure, however, that before the moment arrived, he would think of something.

By the next morning, he had it.

"I hope you won't think I'm being a terribly rude houseguest," Snape told Hugh and Gillian over breakfast, "but I may have to abandon you after today's work is done and go up to Hogwarts."

"That would be a disappointment," said Hugh with a perfectly straight face. "We were looking forward to your company this evening."

"Does that mean you'll be gone for the night?" Gillian asked. She didn't look directly at Snape, but her cheeks were tinged with a faint rose color as she took a bite of the eggs Benedict he'd prepared for them. "This is wonderful. I've never been able to manage a hollandaise sauce."

"The trick is the proper temperature," Snape said. "The problem with this evening is that today we're framing the exterior and load bearing walls of the upper story. I have some furniture from my old home – not in great condition, I admit, but some of it serviceable – but they tell me it's in storage at Hogwarts. I can't go there during the day because someone might see me. At night, Hagrid can help me get into the storage area, and I can check what I can use, take measurements… I'm sure Hagrid will let me stay with him afterwards. I would feel guilty disturbing you at one or two in the morning."

"Will you be here for dinner before you leave?' Gillian was already mental preparing the table for a candlelit supper. She loved candles.

"No, I have a couple of other chores to do. I'll be leaving directly from the construction site."

As he was going out the door, Gillian asked, "Don't you need to take things? An overnight bag?"

"I'm a wizard," Snape said with a smile. "I can transfigure a toothbrush out of twig. I'll probably go right to the site tomorrow morning, so I'll see you tomorrow evening."

After he was gone, Hugh put his arm around Gillian's waist, and they went into the kitchen to do the washing up and to plan the rest of their day.

"He's a sweet young man," said Gillian, tying on a apron. "And in that memory we saw, where he was teaching, he was fine – quite good, actually. I wonder what Harry and Ginny, well mostly Harry, have against him."

Hugh had a towel ready for drying. "He's not so nice when he's in that pensieve bowl. Quite sarcastic, in fact. Rather nasty, especially to Harry and Hagrid. When I asked him about it last Thursday, he said he hadn't noticed his behavior was any different."

"So I need to see him in a different class, a different situation."

"I doubt he'll give you one of those memories."

"I can ask the others."?

"Not today, though, I hope," said Hugh, interfering with the dishwashing by a repeat of the hand/waist motion.

"Not today," Gillian agreed, and Snape was totally forgotten for more than twenty-four hours.

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