As I begin this chapter, my mother and I are at the beginning of a six hour trip to Indiana that we'll be accomplishing in five, or else. Welcome to the world of college visits, my friends. Well. The good news for you is that I have a laptop, and nothing else to do but write Elfin chapters for you.

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Sigh. This chapter was supposed to be funny, I know. But I just didn't have it in me. Oh. And that reminds me…

Lost: Funny Bone. If found, please contact Bone White Butterfly.

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I have an introduction: Say hi to my official fic-tester, everybody. Her pen name is Alliriyan; I call her "Mell." Every Elfin chapter gets okayed by her before you see it. Make friends with her. She's the girl who knows my address and can hop a plane to come kill me for you if I abandon this story.

Mell: If she abandons this story, I am gonna hunt down all the reviewers from her last pen name, and lead a spamming crusade with their (and your) help. She says some of them are after her blood… : )

I wish I could hop on a plane to America…England's so cold…

ME: "…gulp"

Mell: I get to read Elfin first! Ner ner!

ME: sigh...

Lucius

Severus led Fen off the apparition circle. The stone's glow died as they cleared. Only a moment passed before it flared garnet again and a witch appeared upon it, wreathed in smoky shadow. Her apparition trail wound into the ice blue sky and mingled with the magical haze that encircled the Ministry and coiled towards heaven. Severus kept a hard grip on his charge's shoulder as they moved through the turmoil called the ring of apparition points at the end of the lunch hour. Even on Sunday, the place was a riot of commotion. The only calm of the storm was the courtyard's center. There, he paused and took in the vista of the Ministry grounds as they basked in the noon light. Just beyond the towering miasma, the imposing curved walls of the Wizarding government loomed near as high.

He felt uneasiness creeping in upon him as he craned to eye the cruelly carved rooftops and caught, he thought, an occasional flickering as a gargoyle shifted a clawed wing. He turned to statue at the courtyard's center, where the witch and wizard smiled down at him kindly with marble teeth. Even statues in this place wore two faces. He eyed a group of wizards in the area whose robes and manner marked them as bureaucrats. His grip on Fen shifted. Some part of him feared that these double dealers would recognize one of their own.

"Severus?"

Startled, he looked about, only to find he had already been staring at the speaker for some time.

The lord stepped forward from the group of his fellows. He was a man suited to his surroundings in every respect. His tailored robes complemented the Ministry's dark, imperial walls. His eyes were the color of the sky, a cold blue turned gray by dark, snaking coils of magic. The rest of him could only be described as a pale winter sun.

A wan smile formed on Severus's face. "Lucius," he called.

X X X

"Ah. So it is you," Lucius said gaily, abandoning the arrangement of ministry officials he had been the centerpiece of. "I wasn't sure. You look— It must be the light. I've never seen you in direct light like this before. I can barely recognize you." As Severus shifted, he laughed.

The professor replied in a restrained way, "Yes, well I'm afraid I don't get near enough sun, Lucius. And how is Narcissa?"

"Never more lovely," he was assured. "So what brings you to the Ministry?" Lucius's eyes swept over Fen and flickered before returning to Severus without a word.

"School business," Severus said.

"Ah. And what business does Slytherin house have with the Ministry?"

"None."

Lucius gave Fen a closer, more clinical look. The boy didn't notice, too busy staring straight ahead at a creature who stooped near the lord's knee. The House Elf had folded her hands. Her eyes were downcast in subservient demureness. The line of her clenched jaw stood out plainly in her skeletal face.

Impy.

"What is this school business, then?"

"A new student."

Impy's eyelids snapped back. Impossible, her eyes said. Impossible as there being two suns—blue suns—in eternal eclipse.

Several feet above the silent denial, Lucius looked amused. "In the middle of the term?"

"Yes."

"Him?" Fen was appraised once again after the nod. "But he's far too young. Has the school gone mad?"

Severus was very tempted to answer that question.

"Who is the boy, then?" the lord wanted to know.

The boy's gaze darted up into Lucius's calculating eyes before dropping hurriedly. Impy's lips had thinned to the merest of lines.

"We don't know," Severus answered.

Lucius's attention jumped back to the professor. "You don't know? He isn't Muggle stock, is he?"

"He's Wizard kind."

"Pureblood?"

Severus did not ask how he was supposed to know. Instead, he sighed, "It's a possibility. Do you recognize the name Svartálfar?"

Impy's teeth were a sealed wall of enamel. Lucius's head turned to the side slightly. His eyes narrowed, as though scanning thousands of family trees from memory. "I've heard it, but…" The aristocratic lips smiled helplessly. "I can't place it. It's not native British. Of the Continent, perhaps."

"Foreign?" Severus frowned. "Perhaps," he agreed. "There is an odd accent I can't quite place."

Beneath the notice of the two men, a House Elf arched a blonde eyebrow surreptitiously at the subject of the conversation. The boy was standing quite frozen. It took effort to turn his palms outwards and offer the merest suggestion of a helpless shrug. Impy subsided. Fen's gesture hadn't been the same as squeaking, 'Hows the Hell is Little Fen supposeds to control his accents!' but she got the gist.

Erstwhile, Severus had lowered his voice. "You're acting far too cheerful, Lucius. Would you care to explain your suddenly sunny disposition?"

The lord glanced down at Impy, acknowledging her existence for the barest of moments. In that space of time, his face lengthened into a blade of malice. Then he returned his attention to Severus, and it seemed impossible for such an expression to ever have marred such a cheerful countenance. "I'm merely enjoying the weekend and the warm weather,"he confided with a smile. "I wouldn't be here at all if not for that damned H…" He pressed his lips together and rolled out his shoulders, unaware that a House Elf and a small boy had just flinched. "You know, it's not worth talking about on a day like this.

Severus frowned. "I am sorry for the Hippogriff incident."

Lucius froze a moment before smiling thinly. "Yes. Quite," he said, and then chuckled. "Narcissa is still a bit hysteric. I'm afraid she won't sleep until every creature in the Forbidden Forest has been transformed into stuffed animals for the children at Mungo's." He laughed again. "Little witch girls playing tea party with Werewolf dolls stuffed into the chairs; can you imagine?"

Severus didn't laugh, keeping intact the rumor that he had no sense of humor.

Fen remained silent as well. Perhaps the boy's grasp of the English language was weak. It would explain the accent.

Lucius sighed. "Well, I suppose I shouldn't keep you from your business any more than I already have. Give Draco my regards—and Narcissa's, of course." At Severus's nod, he reached forward to clasp the professor's shoulder. "And do come visit us during Yule. Should you manage to escape Hogwarts, that is. That school is a better prison than Azkhaban."

Severus said nothing.

The lord smiled. "Ask Dumbledore for early release on good behavior and come. For Narcissa's sake—and my ears'. If I spend one more holiday season with her bemoaning the lack of intelligent conversation, I'll need to pay Mungo's to reattach them."

Severus finally smiled wryly. It must have been the thought of the holiday season.

Yule.

Elsewhere, a boy felt the senseless pangs of homesickness as he wondered who would sweep up the fallen pine needles now that he was gone. A House Elf looked on with a sympathy that overcame the grotesqueness of her face. The lord let his hand fall to his side and walked away but called over his shoulder, "Come. Severus Snape is always welcome in the Malfoy home." He walked on. The House Elf followed him to a stone circle, rigid and silent, wrapped her bony fingers around an unimportant corner of his gray cloak, and allowed herself to be pulled through the vortex of smoke.

Severus sighed and watched the miasma curl into the sky. He was used to Lucius Malfoy's aristocratic brand of pleasantry, but the man had been far too exuberant—and long-winded. He glanced at the Ministry entrance.

"Don't dawdle," he said to Fen and reached with his hand, only to discover it had been resting on the small shoulder the entire time. He looked down at his charge, who was looking up at him. He didn't realize that the boy had been frozen in that exact position, staring at him, ever since Lucius had said his full name. He merely prodded Fen and strode toward the imposing doors, leaving the elfin child to walk dumbly, finally realizing who the man truly was.

"Sev," Henry's brother, was Severus Snape.

One of the Malfoys' friends.

Draco's Godfather.

Hell.

…You know? I actually meant to get Severus and Fen inside the Ministry building this chapter. This fic is going to get rather long, I think…

Well… It's snowing. And snowing… Snowing so hard I can't see twenty feet in front of us on a well-lit highway as we crawl at the speed of 10 miles an hour. …And it was well over 50 degrees Fahrenheit at noon.

What is wrong with this picture?