Chapter 9 – Ill Met By Moonlight
Snape sprinkled a pinch of allium salts into the pale green mixture bubbling slowly in his cauldron, stirred twice, and sniffed the contents.
Hmm. More eucalyptus, I think.
He rummaged around among the bottles of various plant essences that he'd pulled from the neat rows on his shelves and set out on his bench; next to the mortar full of ground rosemary, he found the small green bottle he was looking for and poured in a few more drops.
He sniffed again. Just right this time. He corked the bottle, set it aside, and lowered the heat beneath his cauldron. He stirred three more times, and then let it alone, righting the various ingredients he'd set out to use while it simmered.
His potions stores were rigorously maintained, everything carefully labelled and sorted alphabetically and shelved safely away. A place for everything, and everything in its place. He absolutely could not abide not knowing the exact location of any component he might need in his brewing.
He gathered up the last few jars and bottles, sliding them into their places on his shelves. Then he turned back to his cauldron and eyed the pungent substance inside. It was perfect, and he scowled at it.
He could not believe he was brewing a flea repellent.
That's what he got for allowing that mangy, parasite-ridden stray access to his house.
That cat was violating the terms of their agreement. It would keep the rats out, and Snape wouldn't kill it—that was the deal. But no, the nasty little brute was actively stealing into his house now and again; Snape had spotted it dashing to and from the hole in the kitchen, disappearing to who knew where, but always coming back. He suspected that it was using his house as its base of operations—even going so far as to sleep in here. And yet, despite the fact that his sparsely furnished house hardly had anywhere even a cat could hide, he never saw it save for when it crept to and from the kitchen. It was utterly ridiculous.
No—what it was was utterly intolerable. Snape's first instinct upon realizing that his pest control service had turned into a boarder had been to shut the wretched thing out and be done with it; if the miserable animal was going to renege on their bargain, so would he.
…But he hadn't seen a rat in months. He hasn't even heard one. Not a one, not since last Halloween, when that first skirmish between predator and prey had spilled out onto his carpet. So the cat hadn't exactly reneged, it was just taking advantage of the situation, and Snape was forced to admit that in that situation he would have done the same. And really, he was so used to nasty, unwelcome guests by this point that one more was a small price to pay for no more rats.
And so he had gone about his business, dutifully and deliberately ignoring the erstwhile feline, save for a few dirty looks thrown in its direction when he happened to catch it trespassing.
At least, that was how things had been going—up until last evening. He'd been sitting down in his living room with his teacup, listening to the soft summer rains pattering down on the rooftop and plunking against the glass of his windows, quietly reading the paper after his solitary supper. He'd only just started taking the local paper a month or two ago—now that he had the Santiago brat to fetch it for him. After all this time, his Spanish was finally good enough that he felt comfortable reading it, his income steady enough that he could afford it, and his resignation to staying here for a very long time to the point that he thought it might be prudent to keep up with the local news.
News indeed—it read more like a bloody Who's Who of Culiacán Crime. He'd been snorting in disgust over the gushing editorial detailing the very large donation made to the church by the current drug lord, when he'd realized that since he'd sat down, he was itching incessantly as his own arm. And when he felt the next itching sting, he looked down at it in annoyance, instead of just scratching—and there was a flea, biting happily into the flesh of his arm.
He'd stared at it, quite unable to believe what he was seeing, before gathering his wits enough to pinch the little bugger right off and crack it between his nails.
…He had fleas.
…That despicable cat had fleas.
And it was bringing them into his house!
That was out of the question. And so he'd marched straight up to his workroom with every intention of brewing up a very quick and very permanent solution to his problem, one that would eliminate both the fleas and their carrier. But just before he could start, he looked in his greenhouse, and as lively as ever was his venomous tentacula, which he'd been feeding tripe lately—and he remembered the way he'd been stuffing it full of all the rats finding their ways in before the cat had come, and he remembered the tooth marks on his furniture, and the rat droppings on his kitchen floor.
So in the end, while the fleas had to go, he had grudgingly decided that the cat could stay.
And so he was brewing flea repellent. This particular brew was a handy mixture well suited to his situation—it was safe to feed to animals, so his unwanted guest wouldn't be bringing in any more of the pests, but it could also be used around the house to wipe out all the of the cat's diminutive six-legged friends that had already hitched their ways inside. He already planned on liberally sprinkling his furniture and his carpet with it—he was not about to share his house with insects.
Fleas, indeed.
It looked nearly done; the bait was already sitting to the side on his workbench. He'd felt like an idiot, but when the Santiago boy had come by this morning for the grocery list, he'd added an extra item—one tin of cat food. The boy had made no comment about it on either of his visits (and he didn't know how lucky it was for him that he hadn't), but Snape was annoyed anyway and had to restrain himself from explaining everything to the boy anyway, just to soothe his own indignation—he was in no way feeding the wretched thing—he was only baiting a trap. He did not keep pets, nor did he take in strays. This was a business arrangement, and that was all.
Snape popped off the top of the small, flat can with a flick of his wand and dumped the nasty, smelly mass out onto a saucer. His nose wrinkled; well, if nothing else, the foul reek from that revolting paste would cover any odour of the potion. He rummaged in his pocket and came up with a peppermint, popping it in his mouth to mask the stink.
Dousing the fire under the cauldron with his wand, he ladled out just the right dosage for the scrawny little beast, pouring the pale green concoction over the food and mixing it thoroughly. He set it aside, and then siphoned off the rest of the mixture into a bottle with a shaker top.
His workroom was safe; he was sparing with his wards by necessity on the outside of his house, but his workroom was another story, and it was warded and bespelled tighter than a snare drum—nothing got out, and nothing got in—not even fleas. So he went to his bedroom first with his fresh concoction, sprinkling generous amounts of the potion around the base of the walls and at the foot of his bed; it left a pungent but not unpleasant scent in its wake, a fresh, herbal aroma that followed him down the stairs as he went to the kitchen to bait his trap.
He knelt and carefully positioned the plate of potion-laced cat food by the hole in the cabinet, and then stood, looking dourly down at the saucer sitting innocently on the tiles. Even he knew that feeding an animal was the surest way to get it to stay for good. But if it came down to picking between rats, fleas, or the cat, the choice was clear (if necessarily unpleasant).
He left the saucer where it was, where the cat was sure to happen upon it, and went about baptising the rest of his house, cleansing it of its pestilence.
Halfway through his task, he was nearly startled out of his skin by a loud, insistent pounding on the wall.
He barely kept from dropping the bottle in his hand, such was the sudden jolt, but his surprise quickly gave way to furious indignation when he realized where it was coming from.
Where else?
"Greene!" came a muffled, sing-songy voice call from next door, accompanied by more heavy thumps. "Greene—I know you're in there! Now come out, come out, wherever you are! I am in dire need of your expert services!"
That bloody Yank! What did he want now?
He would not go over there. He refused.
Andrews pounded again. "Greene, if you don't get your bony British bum over here, so help me God, I am going to eat every meal with you, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for every day of the rest of your life!"
And he would, too.
Dammit.
Growling with impotent fury, Snape slammed the bottle down on top of the cupboard next to his record player and stormed out the door.
That mincing little high-handed twat, he snarled inwardly as he marched through the puddles in the street to the house next door. Who did he think he was? Swaggering into his house as if he owned it, as if he somehow knew there was nothing Snape could do to stop him without tipping his hand, eating his food, harassing him in the square, driving off his customers, and now dragging him out of his house in the middle of the night. What next? Would he just move in?
He threw open the door in a right froth. "What, Andrews?!" he demanded into the dark of the house. "What is so urgent that you couldn't wait for your little catamite to do it for you in the morning?"
"Blow it out your floppy old he-pussy, Greene, and get in here," came Andrews's voice from the bathroom.
"I don't know what it is that you're doing in there that requires help," Snape said after a moment, "but rest assured that whatever it is, I want no part of it."
"Well, if what you're thinking were in fact the case, I can assure you that you would enjoy every minute of it, but sadly for you, the situation is not nearly that exciting." There was a pause, and Andrews's next words sounded a bit brittle, a bit forced. "What I need is someone with eyes. I knocked over a glass in here and it broke, and I don't have shoes on."
Snape smirked. Oh, how precious. After all the trouble that sorry bastard had put him through, here he was relying on him for help. Perhaps this was worth the visit after all.
"How the mighty have fallen," he purred as he moved through the room. "Tell me, Andrews," he went on as he crossed into the bathroom, "after what I have endured at your hands, give me one good reason why I shouldn't just—" He stopped mid-sentence, his mouth still open in shock.
Andrews was covered in blood.
He was standing by the sink, the porcelain stained a sickly pink in the basin, with clotted red handprints on the edge. His sleeves were sodden and red, smearing pink streaks wherever they touched. His face was spotted and flecked, and Snape could see that his hair was matted with it as well, and droplets were drying darkly on the lenses of his sunglasses.
"Don't mind the mess," said Andrews mildly. "I'm out of tampons."
"What in God's name happened to you?" Snape demanded, appalled.
Andrews smiled, and his grin gleamed white in the darkness. "Nothing," he said.
"Then how do you explain—this?"
Andrews shrugged, and turned back to the sink, twisting on the taps and sticking his blood-grimed hands under the spigot; the water ran red. "I told you, I knocked over the glass."
He gestured downward, and Snape could see the wickedly glistening shards of glass littering the floor all around Andrews's narrow bare feet. Drops of still-wet blood had fallen from him here and there, tiny flowers blooming blackly on the tile where they had landed.
"I don't give a damn about the glass, Andrews," Snape snarled. "What is all this blood?"
"I think you just answered your own question, there, chickabiddy."
Snape ground his teeth. "What happened, Andrews?"
Andrews looked at him. "Ninjas," he said seriously. "They ambushed me. Thousands of them." And then he chuckled, even as it made his hair tremble and dance and catch in the sticky red runnels of the stuff that clung to his cheeks. Then he turned back to the sink. "Are you gonna get the glass, or just leave me here to cut my feet to ribbons?"
Snape stood still, revolted, but he swept out of the bathroom and into the kitchen; he found a well-used broom stashed in the cupboard under the stairs, and he jerked it angrily out and took it back into the bathroom.
Andrews had removed his shirt, revealing a slender torso and two thin arms, one of which was marred with a pale, twisting knot of scars near the shoulder. The ruined, bloody rag of his shirt was tossed carelessly into the bathtub, and Andrews was rubbing himself down with an unpleasantly pink-stained washrag, whistling merrily all the while. He turned his head as Snape approached, and one corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a smile.
Angrily, Snape swept the broom in wide arcs, the glass ringing and clattering beneath the broomcorn, clearing a path across the tile from where Andrews stood to the door.
"Thank you, Jeeves," said Andrews dismissively, going back to his grisly ablutions. "You may go—and don't forget, I'll expect my breakfast piping hot at seven o'clock sharp."
"You will not," said Snape coldly.
Andrews stilled, his head tilted to one side and his eyebrows flitting upwards over the rims of his glasses. "I won't?" he asked, his voice betraying nothing but mild curiosity, but Snape read otherwise in the downward twist of his mouth.
"No," said Snape flatly. "I told you that I wanted no part of whatever you were doing in here, and after seeing you, I can tell that I was understating the truth. I want no part of anything you're doing. Ever."
Andrews turned to face him, the pale skin of his neck and chest smeared with blood in great drying swaths. They regarded each other in silence for a moment, but then Andrews smiled, a slow, dangerous smile. "All righty, then" he said pleasantly. "Suit yourself. If you want to run with your tail tucked firmly between your legs, that's fine by me." He turned back to the sink and picked up the cake of soap, humming quietly to himself.
Snape didn't rise to the bait. He only snorted and swept out of the bathroom and to the front door, which he shut firmly and decisively behind him for Andrews's benefit, and then he hastened back into his own home and locked the door behind him.
He leaned back against it, his head against the rippling wood, thoughtful and wary. What had he been doing?
He had a few guesses, and none of them pleasant. Well, they weren't his problem—no matter what that stupid Yank had gone and involved himself with, Snape was secure in the knowledge that none of Andrews's Muggle "associates" could find their way to him. And if they did show up with somewhat less than friendly intentions, it would likely be to collect Andrews himself for his no doubt well-deserved comeuppance, and good riddance to bad rubbish as far as he was concerned.
His thoughts were scattered to the wind when he flexed his fingers thoughtfully and suddenly felt wetness between them. He looked sharply down at his hands; there was blood on his left, smeared and crusting between his fingers.
He was in the kitchen like a shot, scrubbing it away under the water before the tap even had a chance to run clear. A poor epitaph, whoever you were, he thought grimly as the water ran down the black eye of the drain, but that's all I can give you.
He dried his hand on his tea towel and turned—and saw the saucer sitting in the corner by the hole in the cabinet. It had been licked clean, and Snape smirked.
No more vermin in his house.
Good God, but he detested summer in Mexico.
To be perfectly honest, he detested everything in Mexico. But late summer really was the worst.
He'd hated the weather from the moment he'd stepped off the plane. Upwards of ninety bloody degrees was hideous no matter where one was. By midday the whole country was a blast furnace, firing his skin to a cracked pottery brown, leaving his clothes brittle and papery dry, his tongue and eyes glazed and gritty. And that was just the first of the summer.
Here, as the summer wore on, it grew hotter and hotter until it was well nigh unbearable. And then sometime in July, the rains would come.
The sky would open up and drench the town with sandy, scalding droplets that were little better than mud. There would be a tiny respite from the flat dry heat, as the rain would pull down the dust that choked the air, but the storms weren't continuous, no—they would tease him, mock him, and then clear away, and the heat would return, only now it was wet.
He'd thought the dusty misery of the dry heat of early summer had been the worst part of Mexico, until experiencing the hellish joys of the sticky, muggy heat after a summer rain.
Like he was now.
The clouds from the most recent rainstorm had vanished so quickly that there wasn't even the slightest wisp left for shade. So he had no choice but to sit here, boiling in his own clothes in the horrible steam room that was August in Culiacán. This year was so bad that he had actually broken down and bought some of the loose-fitting white trousers that were so popular in this country. He looked and felt ridiculous in them, and he only lowered himself to wear them when he was out of the delightfully chilled bubble of the cooling charms on his house. He scowled down at his ankles poking out of the cuffs; all he needed with a spangled sombrero and one of those awful rugs they wore on their shoulders, and he'd blend right in.
He unenthusiastically finished off the remains of his bacon sandwich. He kept his lunches fresh with a few more tiny cooling charms in his basket, but he could do nothing for himself without rousing suspicion, and so the hot blanket of the noonday sky and the damp press of his sweaty clothes rather robbed him of enthusiasm for much of anything save the frosty thermos of cold water tucked down in the corner (and even that pleasure was muted, what with the flat, metallic taste left by his habitual boiling of anything that came from a Mexican tap). Even the moist green flesh of the guava that he'd brought along (having acquired several of the fruits along with the leaves for his potions stores) failed to rouse his spirits. He ate it anyway, but rather gloomily.
Tossing the peel away on the ground, he sighed and looked up. It was past noon, and probably time for him to cross the street and stake out his afternoon haunt across the way, where he was more accessible to the bar. He popped a peppermint in his mouth in a desultory fashion, and then stood to go.
Some idiot had set up a bead-laden handcart in his way, and he'd been forced to take a detour around it. He scowled at the interloper as he passed; the regulars to the square knew their places, and he always hated it when some newcomer swept in and disturbed the peace. He extricated himself from the knot of sellers in the middle of the square, giving a perfunctory nod to the flower seller near the cafe—Inez something-or-other, he thought her name was—when he caught her eye as he passed, and then made his way to his bench, where it was mercifully shady.
Snape had just settled himself tiredly down in his seat when the sounds of a scuffle reached his ears. He turned and looked down the alley behind him; three laughing, shouting boys were kicking a huddled mass on the ground, and from the sounds it was making, it wasn't hard to deduce that it was another child that they were beating, having cornered him in the crook of the alley behind some crates and a dustbin. Their victim had lost his advantage, and now he had to pay the price; the targets of bullies like those were nearly always able to outrun their tormentors—Snape certainly had—but if they got themselves trapped, then they hadn't a chance against the superior numbers of their foes.
Snape set his jaw and deliberately looked away, but then he heard someone (and he could guess who) give a grunting cry of pain to the cruel shouts and laughing jeers of the others, and he ground his teeth and stood up. The anti-theft and light Muggle-repelling charms would see to his basket, and it was with rising ire than he stormed down the alleyway towards the altercation.
Years patrolling the hallways of Hogwarts looking for miscreants sneaking about after curfew had helped him perfect the art of descending on misbehaving children without their knowing it until it was too late. He was pleased to see that he had not lost the ability with disuse. He shot out a hand and seized the apparent ringleader, who gave a most satisfying jump beneath his fingers. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded in Spanish, giving him a rough shake.
His companions deserted him—typical. The boy who was unable to run was trying to affect a look of tough indifference despite his situation even as he tried in vain to twist away. Snape, unimpressed by his adolescent bravado, stared him into submission. The young thug finally stopped struggling and met his eye with a foolish boldness that was not entirely masking his very real (and quite justified, in Snape's opinion) fear. "He had it coming!" he said.
"Really?" Snape drawled, looking deep into his eyes. "And did you have it coming when your older brother locked you in the wardrobe in the dark when you were seven and didn't let you out all day?"
The flickerings of panic in the boy's eyes blossomed into full-blown terror; with a mighty wrench he escaped Snape's grip and went pounding off after his erstwhile compatriots, running as if the Devil himself was on his heels. He has no idea. Snape sneered at his retreating back, and then looked down at the fallen form at his feet.
The boy they had been kicking was younger and smaller than any of them, by the look of him, and definitely more than a little stringy and ill-kempt. He was shaking his head, trying to throw off the effects of his losing bout, and trying to stand, valiantly wiping his eyes, blood trickling down his chin. Snape huffed in exasperation, reached down, and hauled the boy to his feet by one arm. He looked briefly startled, but his narrow face hardened into an expression of defiance. "Let me go!"
"Don't be an idiot!" Snape snapped.
"I didn't need your help!" he retorted stubbornly.
"Oh, yes, since you were doing such a marvellous job of defending yourself," Snape mocked.
The boy flushed a dark red, and Snape snorted. He didn't wait for the unappreciative twerp to start protesting, just dragged the recalcitrant little pillock by the arm back toward the square and shoved him down onto his bench. "Refusing aid in the face of unbeatable odds isn't bravery, nitwit—it's stupidity," Snape informed him, rummaging in his basket.
"What do you care?" asked the boy sullenly, his ragged fringe flopping limply in his eyes.
Snape slammed the lid shut on his basket with a less-than-satisfying slap of wicker on wicker and glared at him. "I don't," he said coldly, tipping a few drops of dittany on a cloth and shoving it at the brat. "Here—put this on your lip."
The boy gave him an ugly look that Snape returned with interest, but he did as he was told. Snape smirked at the boy's startled expression when the cloth hissed a little upon contact with his wound, and when he pulled it away from his lip, it was no longer bleeding. "Put that anywhere else you're bleeding," Snape directed, and it was with slightly more alacrity that the brat tugged up the leg of his torn jeans and pressed the cloth to the nasty scrape on his knee, and then passed it over the ragged ones marring his elbows.
"Now," said Snape, taking his cloth back when he was done, "next time you find yourself being chased by an enemy, don't be stupid enough to get caught with no retreat."
The little ingrate glared up at him from behind his too-long hair as he stood, but it didn't have quite the force behind it as before. "Now go away," Snape said firmly, propelling him forward with a small shove in his back. The boy meandered off, but he kept glancing back behind him, his gaze half suspicious, half confused. Snape glared at him all the way across the square, where he disappeared down a side street. He snorted to himself as he settled back down on his bench. He glanced around and caught the eye of Inez the flower girl; the nosey twit had been watching him, and when she saw that he was scowling back at her, she actually had the nerve to smile at him.
He hated this place.
Snape was rather surprised to find himself at loose ends tonight. He'd awakened this morning at his usual time and simply gone about his usual morning routine. Well, almost usual—he was exceedingly annoyed with himself when, while he was making breakfast, he realized that he'd pulled out two eggs to fry. He put one away with nearly enough force to break it, outraged that Andrews had so thoroughly managed to insinuate himself in everyday life that he was affecting his routine, even though it had been two months since Snape had told the man that he was to keep himself and his unsavoury activities out of his house. That was unacceptable, and Snape was determined to put him out of his life altogether as completely as he'd put him out of his house.
And so he finished his quiet, pleasantly solitary breakfast, and then washed his dishes and went about his daily business. He brewed a fresh batch of fever reducer, put the finishing touches on a cauldronful of Pepperup Potion that he would trade at the nasty little apothecary across town for fresh ingredients, and he chopped, bottled, and preserved the fresh herbs that he'd gone out for yesterday (that was one aspect of his weekly grocery shopping that he didn't trust to the Santiago idiot).
But he did all of this with such efficiency that he able to finish his usual potions work by teatime. That gave him time to revamp the expansion charms on his greenhouses; it was getting a bit crowded in there, what with his ever-growing flitterbloom upstairs and his over-enthusiastic leaping toadstools down in the cellar. That ate up the rest of the afternoon, but after dinner he found himself with nothing to do to keep himself occupied.
He spared a brief, bitter thought for his now defunct library back on Spinner's End—God knew where its contents were now, no doubt thanks to Potter. But there was no use waxing lachrymose over that particular puddle of milk, and so after a perfunctory perusal of his pathetically tiny selection of scrounged texts (all carefully charmed to look like encyclopaedias), he simply decided to put on a record, sit down with a glass of whisky, and try his hand at a crossword written in Spanish.
He found the grid of black and white squares tucked in the back of last Sunday's paper and liberated it, folding it neatly so he could work it on the back of one of his books. He took the risk of Summoning a pencil from his desk upstairs—no one caught him—and then went about pouring himself a liberal dollop of Firewhisky and rifling through his albums, eventually deciding on Let It Bleed, and staring on Side Two just for the hell of it.
The soft hisses and pops of the needle tracing the record's grooves were familiar and comforting, a constant fuzzy background beneath the first strains of "Midnight Rambler" (to this day he refused to use whatever ridiculous devices the Muggles were passing off for music these days—nothing would supplant vinyl. Although it would probably be easier for him to recapture the grandeur of his former collection if he would just break down and use CDs, whatever they were). He settled in and geared himself up to do battle with his puzzle.
He found, rather to his pleased disgust, that he was not terribly limited by the language itself, aside from some of the more obscure synonyms. No, what consistently tripped him up was his ignorance of Mexican culture and history—and that was a situation that he had no desire to remedy any time soon.
Unfortunately, he soon found that was a serious liability when trying to complete a crossword, so he was forced to give it up as a bad job. He supposed that he would just have to resign himself to re-reading one of his dilapidated old potions texts. He really wished he could afford to take out a subscription to Potions Today—although he wasn't sure if he would take it even if he could afford it, because it would be a rather obvious trail should someone—like Potter—try and track him down.
So he pulled out a tatty old Alchemy text that he'd discovered in a back alley shop in Bruges and thought he might as well re-read that dreadful article on fluid transmutation—he enjoyed finding new reasons to despise it. Perhaps one day he would write up a summary of his complaints and send it to the authors. As the Stones quietly told him that he couldn't always get what he wanted (as if he didn't know it), he settled down in his chair with his book, just in time to be very nearly startled out of it by a gunshot.
He jumped, almost lost his grip on his glass, and then leapt to his feet, his jaw clenched in fury. That bleeding Muggle was at it again! He'd put up some wards with a tad more force behind them after the first time this had happened, so Andrews wouldn't be shooting out his windows any more, but dammit, he was entitled to his hard-earned peace and quiet!
He was going straight over there to set the little swine straight—this instant.
But before he could, he heard something else—a heavy thump, and then a shout—and it didn't sound like Andrews.
He stopped where he stood, his head tilted to the side, and he listened, tense, aware of the familiar weight of his wand in his sleeve.
"He killed Pépe!"
"And now we're gonna kill him, the motherfucker!" And then a great yell of pain and a loud crash, as though someone had been thrown onto a table and smashed it beneath him.
Snape was at his window in four quick strides and jerked open the curtain, just as he heard the sound of a door being slammed open, and he saw a pale, limp body thrown out into the street. Andrews.
Andrews had pushed himself to his knees just before two men descended on him, running out of the open door to his house, where they started kicking him, one of them using a baseball bat to liven the party, dropping him back to the ground with a grunt.
That stupid bastard…
Andrews was still trying to get up, to push himself back up to his hands and knees, to get away from them, when the smaller one slammed the bat down across his back, flattening him again, and the big one hauled back and kicked him in the stomach so hard that he rolled over and curled up into a ball, and the little one raised the bat high.
Dammit.
Snape threw open his door without thinking, his wand already in his hand, and as the big one went to swing another kick, Snape swung his wand and snarled, "Stupefy!"
His aim was true, and his spellwork not in the least bit rusty despite his three-year-long duelling hiatus. The filthy Muggle trash was thrown clear across the street by the force of his curse, where he fell and lay in a crumpled heap, unmoving. Snape turned; the little one was just staring, his mouth hanging open, the bat still raised high above his head.
Snape dealt with him in the same manner as his friend before he even had time to blink, felling him like a tree. Then he strode over to the still forms lying in the street and kicked the little one on his back to see his face.
No one he knew, at least—that was something. A look at the other one told him that they were both strangers to him, which would make this considerably easier to deal with.
A heaving noise behind him startled him into whirling around, his wand ready; Andrews was vomiting on the pavement, courtesy of the kick to the gut, no doubt, along with whatever swill he'd been imbibing tonight. Snape gave him a look of disgust before turning back to the two miscreants.
Two quick and expert memory charms later, he stood over them and made a small noise of satisfaction. They would remember nothing of their little escapade, save a whale of a headache and a vague feeling of foreboding that would keep them off this street again.
He turned to Andrews, planning on bundling him back into the house and giving him a similar treatment and washing his hands of the whole business, only to find the man staring straight at him.
He would rather drink the Gryffindor Sixth Years' antidotes than admit it, but Andrews's way of "looking" so directly at him without any eyes unnerved him.
"Stupefy?" Andrews asked suddenly, his usually polished voice somewhat slushy through a split lip, and Snape stiffened, and then sighed, closing his eyes tiredly for a moment before he spoke again.
"Yes—Stupefy," he agreed, cordially enough, and then raised his wand.
"Standard Stunning Spell," Andrews said abruptly, and both Snape's wand and his jaw dropped. "Characterized by a bolt of red light, incantation 'Stupefy,' from Latin, 'to stun.' Low-grade defensive spell, only indirectly harmful. Renders opponent unconscious, duration dependent on the strength of the spell and the accuracy and skill of the caster." Andrews rattled all this off with the air of one reciting from memory as he lay out in the street.
Snape just stared. It was rare that he found himself at a loss for words, but in this case, he had nothing.
He knew.
Andrews's head came up an inch or two from the ground again and turned toward him. "That right? S'been a while."
Snape managed to close his mouth, his ire rising once again. "Get inside," he snapped, striding furiously over to where the idiot lay and glaring down at him.
"Don't know if I can," Andrews replied amiably, laying his head back down on the pavement again and lacing his fingers gingerly across his chest. "One of those boy scouts got me in the leg. Don't know if it'll hold me up." He looked up at him. "Besides, there's a dead body in there—gotta do something about that."
Snape ground his teeth, gave a quick look around, and then raised his wand. "Mobilicorpus."
Andrews gave a strangled shout and started flailing as he rose gently into the air. "Be still, you blithering idiot, and keep quiet!" Snape hissed. "I'm taking you inside!"
Andrews stopped struggling, but remained stiff and tense until Snape dropped him rather unceremoniously in his chair.
A quick look around the place told Snape that he had been spot on with his assessment of the sounds coming from next door. The normally meticulously neat room was a mess; the sofa was crooked, the other chair in the room was overturned, and the long, low table in the middle had been well and truly smashed and was scattered in pieces across the floor, likely by the sudden impact of a body being thrown into it.
A body, indeed. Andrews wasn't lying; there was a dead man sprawled across the floor, his head propped grotesquely up against the wall where the liberal splatter of gore and the trailing smear above his head showed that he had landed where he now lay after flying backwards against the wall and sliding down it—after being shot right in the ear.
Snape moved to stand over the body, leaning down to get a look at him; Andrews certainly never did anything halfway, from the look of the red ruin that used to be the side of the man's head, but enough of his face was still in one piece that Snape found that he recognized him. From across the room, he'd thought he was just another Mexican hoodlum, but now that he could seem him up close, he realized that the face of the big, unshaven brute looked vaguely familiar. He narrowed his eyes, looking at the deep-set, piggish eyes, the thinning hair, the crooked nose—and then he remembered. It was the great buffoon from the plaza last year, the one who'd tried to start a fight with him, only to be thwarted when Andrews broke his nose.
Looked like he'd finally got around to carrying out those feeble threats from that day—although it clearly hadn't gone as he planned it.
"He sounded familiar—anyone I know?" Andrews asked.
Snape grunted. "It's that idiot whose nose you broke. Last summer, back in the square."
"Ah. He carries a torch, I see."
"Carried," Snape corrected him vaguely, prowling about the body to the other side and examining the mess that the bullet had made upon exit. Muttering to himself about Andrews's lack of delicacy in matters of self-defence, he used his wand—no point in hiding it now—to remove the corpse's shirt and wrap the shattered skull with it, and then drag the body outside.
He tied all three of them together with a spell, got a good grip on the knotted cords, and then closed his eyes.
Apparating with someone else in tow was always more difficult than by yourself. It didn't exactly take more effort to get where you wanted to go, but you certainly did seem take a very long time in the nothingness between here and there, as though the load was dragging behind you, catching on something somewhere in the in-between.
He reappeared down a dark alley on the other side of town—not too far from one of his magical stops, actually—a place where he could get quite a few black market items—and dumped his unwelcome burden there. He left them scattered around on the ground, the lot of them reeking with alcohol—they would simply awake to find themselves in a strange place, badly hung over and their friend dead. They could sort themselves out—or leave it to the police.
Snape spun on his heel and reappeared in the alleyway across from his house. Andrews's front room was dimly lit, and Snape quickly crossed the street and went inside.
Andrews was still sitting inside where Snape had left him; his leg was straight out and stiff in front of him, and he was holding his arm close to his body. His entire attitude radiated discomfort, but he was obviously tense and waiting. He turned his unseeing eyes towards Snape when he came in, and he seemed to relax after a moment. "Did you clean up after me?" he asked.
"Yes," said Snape in clipped tones, looking at him for a moment. Then he blew a sharp breath from his nostrils and, with one last wary look at Andrews, he cleaned up the blood and repaired and righted the furniture with a few quick spells, before turning back to regard his neighbour with a critical eye.
He was definitely the worse for wear. His mouth was bleeding, his nose was obviously broken, and blood was seeping from somewhere under his hairline. He couldn't see it, but Snape suspected that there were any number of unpleasant bruises blooming purply beneath his clothing, and possibly a fracture or two that were hiding quietly beneath their blankets of flesh.
One earpiece of Andrews's glasses was twisted and crooked, so they were sitting wrong on his nose, and a sliver of one lens had snapped out, affording Snape a glimpse of the empty darkness beneath.
Andrews would have never looked straight at him if he'd known. Not like he was now, alert and shrewd despite having been kicked in the head.
They regarded each other in silence for a moment, until Snape ground his teeth and moved forward. "Where are you hurt?" he asked brusquely.
Andrews tilted his head a little. "Everywhere?" he said laconically.
"Where exactly, idiot, or would you rather I leave you to your war wounds?" Snape demanded.
Andrews looked off, appearing nonchalant, but Snape could tell he was still on point. "Nothing serious—mostly just aches and pains." He grimaced a little as he shifted. "And they may have broken a rib."
Snape huffed through his nose, annoyed, but raised his wand and verbally cast a simple diagnostic spell. Andrews tensed again but didn't speak; the trails of light that were spiralling over his body and pooling at his injuries made no sound and didn't touch him, but Snape knew from experience that one could feel them anyway, a thousand little pinpricks of energy travelling over you like miniature lightning.
It picked up his older wounds, of course; they lit up a dullish sort of brown. The ones that found his eye sockets gave him very unsettling appearance, glowing flatly from behind his sunglasses. The new ones were bright and red, though, and that was where Snape turned his attention—a broken rib, as Andrews himself had guessed, a surprisingly mild concussion, a good many cuts and bruises.
"What is that?" Andrews demanded, an edge to his voice.
"A simple diagnostic," Snape assured him, blowing out a derisive breath. "Lift up your shirt," he ordered, and Andrews gave him a slightly suspicious frown but did so.
His ribcage looked like a cadre of toddlers had been using it as a canvas, expressing their art with a jar of blackcurrant jam. That would no doubt feel pleasant in the morning—unless Snape did something about it. The lingering light of spell showed him where he needed to work. Broken ribs were easy enough to mend, as long as one was careful, and he made short work of it. A delicate but simple spell on Andrews's otherwise empty head took care of his concussion, and another soothed the myriad of cuts and lacerations he'd taken, as well as easing his stiff leg. Andrews was miraculously and thankfully silent during the whole procedure, but remained tense until Snape pronounced him finished.
"Take off your glasses," he said as Andrews lowered his shirt with an expression of pleased amazement as he realized that he was no longer in pain—an expression that quickly dissolved into one of taut, wary anger. Snape sneered at him. "Your nose is broken—as are said glasses, incidentally. And besides, it's nothing I haven't seen before."
Andrews looked unpleasantly surprised and even angrier; it was with visible reluctance that he reached up and plucked the sunglasses from his mangled nose, and once again Snape looked into the blank hollows in his face.
He'd seen worse. Much worse.
He'd done worse, if he was going to be honest with himself.
But he wasn't here for that—he had a job to do. And he did it, mending the crooked nose and split lip with a word; Andrews looked startled at the sudden lack of pain for only a moment, before swiftly trying to jam his glasses back on.
"Just a moment, Andrews," he grated, and plucked the glasses from his fingers. Andrews went rigid again, and looked as though he were about to fight for them, but Snape ignored him, cast a quick verbal Reparo, and then handed them back with exaggerated care.
Andrews took them and shoved them back on his face; only then did he relax (although not quite all the way, Snape thought). Personally, having the glasses back where they belonged was something of a relief to Snape as well—the gaping holes in Andrews's face were unnerving.
"That's a neat trick," Andrews suddenly said, his voice conversational. "Why don't you do it to yourself? Fix that voice of yours."
Snape was in no mood for his pointless banter. "Explain yourself this instant, Andrews," he said coldly, pointing his wand at his nose.
Andrews gave a half-smile. "All righty—I'll start by telling you to put that stick of yours away—don't even think about wiping my memory."
"I will if you don't tell me how you know about that."
Andrews smiled guilelessly. "No, you won't—because I'm tagged for Memory Modification, as well as all Class 10 Black Magic. You put a spell on me, and you'll find yourself under arrest for violation of the United States International Magical Secrecy Act of 1948." He shifted in his seat, reaching down to pick up a wad of black material crumpled on the floor beside his chair—a pair of trousers. The ones that he wasn't wearing, apparently. He felt around until he found the right back pocket, and he slid his fingers in and pulled out a small black wallet, which he flipped open with the air of one producing pictures of his grandchildren. "I'm CIA. You mess with my memory, and they will find you."
Snape snatched up the badge. There was Andrews, his face cool and blank (and with eyes) in the identification photo. Central Intelligence Agency, it said, the letters CIA emblazoned across it in huge typeface with a typical American lack of subtlety.
"Sheldon J. Sands," he read flatly.
Andrews—or rather Sands, apparently—pursed his lips. "Only my grandmother ever called me Sheldon, and despite the fact that you are just as much of a dried up old bitch as she was, if you ever call me that again, you'll be drinking your morning bacon and eggs through a straw," he said, very matter-of-factly. "It's Sands. Just Sands."
Snape snapped the little wallet shut and shoved it back in his waiting hand; Andrews—Sands took it and tucked it away in the pocket of his trousers before dropping them carelessly back on the floor. "Very well, then, Just Sands," said Snape, "exactly how does that explain your knowing about magic?"
Sands waved away Snape's remark. "They brief us on it—all clandestine agents need to be prepared for any and all situations we may encounter in the field—and that includes you and your wand-wielding brethren." Sands reached into his shirt pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and shook one out and lit it with the accompanying lighter. He inhaled deeply, and then blew it out and upward, and breathed back in his own smoke through his nose. And then he smiled, a smile that Snape didn't like one bit. "So. A wizard."
"Quite," said Snape tersely.
Sands took another drag. "Things are beginning to fall into place now, I think," he remarked. "I'll admit—I never could quite get you nailed down, Greene. You weren't working for the cartels, but you weren't working for the law either, and no matter how you tried to pretend, you weren't just an unfriendly hermit—you are definitely hiding from somebody. All that just didn't quite add up."
Snape felt his back getting more and more rigid as Sands went on. "But now, well, this puts a whole new spin on things." He regarded Snape over the edge of the casually relaxed hand holding his cigarette. "They did keep us up to date on major events in the magical community—both in the US and abroad, you know. That includes some little terrorist dust-up they had back in England a few years ago—and you know, now that I think about it, that would have gone down just before you showed up here, wouldn't it?" And he smiled again, slow and smug. "You back the wrong horse, mate?" he asked, grinning like a dragon, thin lines of smoke curling from between his teeth.
"That is none of your affair," Snape said tightly, but Sands just snorted.
"Oh, but everything and everyone in town is my affair—and that includes you," he said pleasantly, pointing with his cigarette.
"Rather like the little coup dust-up here two years ago?" Snape asked, his voice hard. "Did you back the wrong horse, Sands?"
The smile disappeared from Sands's face. "I didn't 'back' anything—I owned that horse. That whole 'little dust-up' was mine," he said coldly.
Was it indeed? Might that explain your involvement with the Barillos? "I'm hardly impressed—it failed, as I recall," was all Snape said, his lip curling.
Sands smiled, his expression cool. "That's because I wanted it to. I set it up, and I watched it fall." He tapped his ash over the side of his chair and then went on, his voice suddenly snide. "Those idiots in England, on the other hand—they took over all right, but they couldn't make it stick. Now that was what I'd call a failure." He sucked thoughtfully on his cigarette. "Although I can't say I'm surprised—that weirdsmobile in charge of the whole thing sounded like a Grade-A Loony—you know, that one with the made-up name—Voldemort, or something like that."
An icicle stabbed its way down Snape's spine, and he twitched in spite of himself, even as Sands snorted in contempt. "What a dipstick—absolutely no subtlety." He shook his head disappointedly. "Why didn't he just tape a great big 'Kick Me' sign on his nuts? No wonder he got his ass handed to him—and by some kid, no less—Harry something-or-other, what was his name—?"
"Potter," Snape spat, the name wrung from his throat before he was even aware of what he was saying.
Sands paused, raising an eyebrow over the back of his limp hand. "Oh—so you do know something about that?" he asked with feigned surprise. "But you don't seem to be too fond of the conquering hero. That's odd, I must say—I got the impression that everybody over in Britain seems to think that he's just the berries," he said. He looked pointedly at Snape. "With the noted exception of those he deposed, of course."
Snape ground his teeth, furious with himself, but said nothing. To his further anger, his deliberate silence seemed to please Sands just as much as it would have if he'd said anything; Snape could practically hear the gears turning in that manure-filled little head of his. "Well?" Sands asked expectantly, tapping his fingers on his thigh and settling deeper into his chair, wincing as he did so.
"Well what?" Snape asked icily.
Sands flicked his fingers upwards. "Well, are you a good witch, or a bad witch?" he asked mildly, and Snape wanted nothing more than to hex that nasty look of smug complacency right off his face. "I think you owe me a bit of an explanation, here, so I'll know whether I should drop a house on you or not."
"If you'll recall, I just saved your life—I owe you nothing," Snape replied stiffly.
Sands tilted his head for a moment, his lips pursed, and then he smiled again. "Well, if you won't tell me yourself, I guess I'll just have to go through the official channels. We're supposed to report any wizard engagements, you know," he informed him. "But, since you're just an average kind of guy, it wouldn't cause you any trouble if I mentioned you to a few people in high places in my organization. I mean, surely it's not like there's anybody looking for you—not a fine upstanding citizen like yourself."
"Don't you dare!" Snape snarled.
Sands looked extremely satisfied with himself. "You might as well tell me what you're wanted for—if I'm feeling generous, I might be able to offer amnesty," he said.
"I am not wanted by anyone!"
"No?" Sands asked. "I understood that your people were pretty serious about rounding up the remnants of the hostile forces—including the ones who tried to flee to the US."
"I was not a hostile force!" Snape roared, forgetting himself. "They would have all been dead if it wasn't for me! They did their level best to get themselves killed despite my efforts! I was on their side—I was always on their side—even though they were too stupid to realize it, and now all that is behind me, and I just want to be left alone!"
Snape finally managed to stop himself, his breathing short. Sands's eyebrows had crawled up his forehead as he'd ranted, and now he was looking at Snape with a speculative expression. "I think I can understand that," he said after a moment, "but you know, 'alone' is a precious commodity these days—just how is it that you plan to keep it?"
"Because everyone thinks I'm dead!" Snape spat. "And I intend to keep it that way!"
"Ah," said Sands, and disconcertingly, he smiled. "Say no more."
Snape's eyes narrowed. "Sands, I don't care who finds out," he said dangerously, "but if you breathe one word to anyone about me—about anything—I will kill you. I've earned what little freedom I have, and I'm not about to lose it just because some stupid Muggle can't keep his mouth shut and his arse out of trouble. Cross me, and you won't live to regret it."
"Oh, go piss it up a well rope, Greene," sneered Sands, now just looking annoyed. "I don't give a hoot in hell about your little magical politics. If you haven't done anything to me, I have no reason to do anything to you."
They regarded each other in tense silence, before Sands gestured to the chair across the table. "Have a seat."
"No," said Snape coldly.
"Fine, then. Stand. That some kind of magic thing?" he asked mockingly, but Snape thought he heard a thin rill of hostility beneath his blithe sarcasm. Snape didn't answer, and Sands took one last drag before dropping the butt of his cigarette on the floor and crushing it into the floorboards with his sandaled heel. "Well, then—now that all that is out of the way, I believe we haven't been properly introduced—at least, you haven't," he said expectantly.
Snape's first instinct was to say nothing. Sands had obviously deduced that his name was phoney—he'd done the same himself—and he didn't need to know any more than that. But if he didn't tell, would Sands take it upon himself to find out? Did he have access to magical channels? He'd heard about foreign wizards that worked for the government being Traced—it was entirely possible that some foreign Muggles were too, so he couldn't take the chance of modifying his memory. He was stuck with him.
Sands had only seemed to recall the Dark Lord's name, and hadn't even been able to remember Potter's… if he knew his, he could inform someone…but Sands wasn't looking for him, hadn't been sent after him—of that he was finally sure. Sands's being here was just a coincidence, so just maybe if he played along, he would keep quiet…
"Snape," he said shortly.
Sands's face showed no sign of recognition at the name, and Snape relaxed marginally. "Suits you," he simply said. "More than that Greene thing, anyway—where'd you dig that up?"
"Probably from the same bin of blandly anonymous pseudonyms in which you found 'Andrews'," Snape replied sardonically.
Sands just snorted, but didn't deny it and just sat in silence. But still Snape didn't leave, rather taking the previously offered chair after a moment's hesitation. He couldn't leave, not yet—not with Sands knowing what he did, not without some assurance of his own safety.
He didn't get it; the next thing Sands asked when he roused himself to speak was a blunt, "So—how did you die?"
Snape sucked in a quiet breath and glowered across the table before answering, "I was murdered."
Sands bounced his eyebrows appreciatively. "Good one—very professional," he said, his voice friendly.
Snape harrumphed, and then asked, "Does your getting shot qualify as the same?"
Sands's face wasn't quite so friendly now, and he gave him a rather hard look for a moment before replying. "Oh, mine was just the run-of-the-mill lost in the confusion sort of thing. MIA, and all that," he said, acting nonchalant. "A neat little stamp on the file and that's that. Not a big nice funeral with much mourning weeping and beating of breasts like you no doubt garnered."
"Hardly," Snape said dryly.
"Hmm—more of a party, then?" smirked Sands.
"With Potter no doubt leading the chorus of all my ex-students."
"Oh, you were a teacher!" Sands said delightedly, and Snape cursed himself. "That explains why you're so pissy all the time."
"Then what's your excuse for being a complete ass every minute of the day?" he snapped, angry that every detail of his past suddenly seemed to be bubbling to the surface, now that he had a waiting ear.
Sands was undaunted. "I worked for the government—it's what we do."
"And you were no doubt a star employee," Snape sneered.
"The best," he said proudly, but with an undercurrent of dark amusement.
Snape quite honestly never quite knew how to deal with Andrew's—Sands's irrepressible pleasantness in the face of insults to his person, so he tried a different tack. "Well, with a name like Sheldon, I can hardly fault you for embracing your inner idiot."
Sands scowled, obviously put out, his face creasing into that irritating pout of his, and Snape felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "Laugh it up, chucklehead—I'll have you know that my name was an inspiration to me," said Sands loftily. His voice dropped, and he leaned forward, smiling nastily across the table. "I had the highest civilian kill rate in my year." Then he leaned back again and added nonchalantly, "What else could I do to make a reputation for myself as a field agent with a name like Sheldon?"
Snape shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "I don't imagine that anything you endured could have been much worse than growing up in a poor mill town with a name like Severus."
Sands stilled, and then raised his eyebrows, nodding his head. "You win—it sucks to be you," he conceded.
You have no idea. Snape growled in his throat. "Name or no, I hardly feel that you lived up to your boasted reputation if you let those three incompetents sneak up on you," he said nastily.
Sands glared. "They caught me with my pants down," he said sulkily.
Snape glanced down at the pale, knobbly knees shining whitely in the moonlight, and sneered, "I fail to see how it could be otherwise, given that they're on the floor."
"These pants," Sands said, tugging at the elastic of his baby-blue shorts, pulling the waistband out and letting it pop back into place. "Even CIA agents have to pee. Fortunately for me," he went on, "I keep a gun in the toilet tank."
Snape blinked at him. "I see," he said.
There was a silence; Sands was sitting quietly, his fingers drumming incessantly on the edge of his chair. Snape looked down at his fingers, laced between his knees.
"So," Sands inquired suddenly. "Speaking of water from the toilet, all that new-age holistic snake-oil you've been hawking in the square—that stuff's legit, huh? Just like magic?"
"Exactly," Snape replied.
Sands tapped his lip with his index finger. "Including that crap you give José for his old gunshot wound?"
Snape regarded him for a moment, his eyebrows lifting of their own accord. "Yes," he said slowly.
"How much do you extort out of him for that stuff?"
Snape snorted. "Three hundred pesos—and it's hardly extortion if it relieves his pain for a month," he shot back.
"Hmm." Sands didn't say anything else.
Snape glanced around; there was no clock in this house, but it had been nearly nine when he'd first heard the sounds of the altercation, and he imagined it was nearing ten, if not past. Tomorrow was Friday—he had to go out in the morning, and he wanted to go home and go to bed.
He looked at Sands. The man was sitting quietly, his expression pensive. Snape hoped that he had made it more than clear that he knew Sands's motivations were entirely personal, and much in the same vein as his own. "I have no desire to involve myself with the Muggle affairs of this area," he said delicately into the silence.
Sands raised an eyebrow. "I hate wizards," he said blandly. "I avoid them if I can. Them and their stupid shadow government."
"Then we just might be simpatico after all," said Snape smoothly, and Sands laughed.
"I told you so," he said smugly, and Snape snorted.
Snape rose to leave; as he neared the door, Sands spoke again. "I'm not done with you," he said, and Snape turned, his back stiffening, but Sands merely said, "I'm not fully recuperated yet—that was quite a beating I took—I'll be needing room service. Breakfast, seven o'clock."
"I am not bringing you breakfast!" Snape said, outraged.
"Fine, then," Sands huffed. "I'll come over and get it myself. I will haul myself bodily out of bed, dragging my bum leg, crawling on my sore arm, bleeding to death from my lip, and probably puncture my lung in the process, so you don't have to cross the street."
"That is perfectly acceptable to me," Snape sneered.
"Okay—but don't expect me to bring you any lasagne tomorrow night," Sands replied, fishing out another cigarette from his shirt pocket.
"What lasagne?"
"I'm teaching Chiclet how to make it—and if you want any, you'll just have to haul your sorry self over here and get it yourself, now won't you?" Sands said.
"So it would seem," replied Snape.
"Glad to see we understand each other—now get out of my house."
Snape made a noise of disgust and let himself out, giving the door a very satisfactory slam behind him as he went. Oh, but the gratitude was overwhelming. He saved that stupid Muggle's skinny arse, and what thanks does he get? He decides to start stealing his eggs again.
Oh, well. At least he wouldn't have to cook dinner tomorrow.
Author's Note: Homage to The Wizard of Oz.
Be sure to check out our aside Debriefing, wherein you'll find out just how Sands learned about magic.