Horace E.F. Slughorn, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to Minerva G. McGonagall, Hogwarts Representative in Africa
Minerva, the time has come for us to have an earnest conversation about your return to Hogwarts. You know that you belong here, we know that you belong here, there is no question that Belby made a mistake in letting you go and thereby confronting the three of us with jobs we cannot adequately fulfil. Please agree to meet me for a discussion on the future wellbeing of Hogwarts. I am sure you will be able to regain your position as Head of Gryffindor at least, or even become Second Deputy Head. I could very much use some help sorting out some of the more difficult student-related problems. You always seemed to work magic in this particular area, figuratively speaking, of course.
Regards,
Horace.
Minerva G. McGonagall, Hogwarts Representative in Africa to Horace E.F. Slughorn, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Horace, I appreciate the sentiment behind your request despite the insinuation that I am not up to the task of assisting the Ministry and our fine veterans down here with their task of re-building the British Wizarding Army. You will be pleased to hear that things are going exceptionally well, however. I am effecting changes which will hopefully retain most of the 'boyscout-like' elements of the BWA while getting rid of some of the more outdated rules and regulations, including actual war and actual blood-shed.
For this reason, I regret to say, I shall not return to Hogwarts any time soon. I may be tempted to be promoted into a more worthwhile position at a later point, but be assured that I shall not be tempted to accept the position which you so kindly offered me. Certainly, though, not under a headmaster who cannot be bothered to engage in problems of education or at least to secure Hogwarts's social position and dabble in educational politics a little, as Dumbledore has done in his time. Please rest assured that I am very empathic towards your current situation, but perhaps you might consider the possibility of using your wide-ranging influence outside of school to suggest a better suited candidate for the job of Hogwarts headmaster – or headmistress, if you catch my drift. Someone, perhaps, with years of experience, who actually knows the school and the tasks involved in running it?
I apologise profoundly for my bluntness. Apparently, in a world of politics run by wizards in wise, white beards (even Kingsley is growing one, for Merlin's sake!) it is necessary to speak a different language than the one my mother taught me.
Regards,
Minerva.
Horace E.F. Slughorn, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to Minerva G. McGonagall, Hogwarts Representative in Africa
Minerva, I accept your conditions. During our next game of wizard chess, I shall make a few small suggestions to the Minister for Magic. The school governors will constitute our smallest problem. They realised long ago that they might have made a mistake in the assignment of the Hogwarts headship to an outsider. And Malfoy, as I recently heard, won't be too sad to see you leave Africa. But knowing you I feel confident that you have a potential successor in mind already, should you be successful in obtaining the Hogwarts headmastership.
Will you agree to meet me presently, please? There are urgent matters I would wish to discuss with you. Problems of an olfactory kind, for example, and individual students' misconduct.
Horace.
Minerva G. McGonagall, Hogwarts Representative in Africa to Horace E.F. Slughorn, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Horace, I have returned from Africa rather sooner than expected this week, due to urgent family matters. Those, I am afraid, have strict priority with me these days. Let me know when you have come to any kind of noteworthy agreement with Kingsley and Malfoy. Until then, I am afraid there is little I can do for you.
Regards,
Minerva.
P.S.: A few helpful notes, perhaps, so as to prevent the worst:
1) If the Fat Lady won't stop screaming, it is because one of the students has threatened her with a silver knife. Especially 6th and 7th Slytherins have had a tendency to do this ever since her encounter with Sirius Black a decade or so ago.
2) Argus Filch has no magic. This means he cannot enter the Room of Requirement. If the Seventh Floor smells, it is usually because one of the students has put something edible in that room, which is starting to rot.
3) Mr Malcolm Baddock is dyslexic. Like most purebloods, his parents deny the existence of this illness. Apart from the remedial lessons assigned to him five years ago, someone needs to look out for traces of a traditional education with him – after each home visit, if possible.
4) There is a number of students who have been suffering from bad nightmares ever since the so-called Battle of Hogwarts uprooted them all. Among them are Mrs Ginny Weasley, Mr Dennis Creevey and Mr Euan Abercombie. Should any of them require dreamless sleep potions, they must get them no questions asked.
Decision Making
Evening and morning passed without any noteworthy occurrences. Minerva seemed glad to see Severus back in the safety of the time-turner field, yet awkward and reluctant to speak to him about anything personal, though marriage in particular. Severus welcomed it, since he required time to think. Complex Wizarding Adoption, with all that it entailed, seemed a rather drastic step to take, even in his current situation, and while he was sure he would not miss certain aspects of his past at all if they chanced to disappear from his memory for good, other aspects were less… negligible. Who knew, for instance, if he would have become friends with Lily Evans prior to the arrival of their Hogwarts letters, if he had grown up in a pureblood household? Where was it General Snape lived again? London? These things occupied one's mind and gave Severus a permanent headache. He found himself rubbing his temples more than once during the following eight or ten hours, thinking that it was absurd to even consider deleting his entire past from his memory to replace it with a fake identity just for the sake of becoming pure-blood.
Morgana was no help, of course. It seemed that she had resolved to give him as much space as possible for a change so as to enforce more communication between her mother an him - which had the effect of putting Severus under immense pressure and making him actively try and rush his decision.
"I don't want to. Well, I do, but not under these circumstances. There is no alternative. She gives no alternatives. There must be. There could be… oh, very well then. After all, what would I miss?"
In the end, he decided that there was a Pensieve he could refer to with regard to things he might miss. He pondered endlessly over questions of which magic to utilise in order to find all those memories which were precious to him and of how to define these memories in the first place. The thought struck him that it might be worth gambling a little by putting certain aspects or even the entirety of his past into the Pensieve and hiding it from Vesta McGillivray's watchful eye, so as to retrieve everything later and gain the privileges of that new life, but with knowledge of the old one.
The Pensieve let him down, however, at least with regard to memory retrieval incantations, and he eventually settled for staring endlessly at a few memories of Lily Evans in her final years which he had stored away a long time ago so that they would stop messing with his brain while he was at work and busy getting her offspring to conform. Too lazy to use his wand, he just prodded the silvery liquid with his finger a little, making it swirl, and tried to recall the exact sensation he had had at the various occasions that appeared in the swirling mist here and there. Once again, he noted, his body did not react at all to the magic with which it was presented, which felt good and unusual at the same time. Something was missing, he thought, though he could not put his finger on what exactly it was.
He became bored of his pondering quickly, but the Pensieve provided good enough entertainment and distraction for the moment.
This was Lily in her final Hogwarts year paying the library a brief visit. He thought he remembered it having been weeks, even days before NEWT week. He, Severus, had been sitting in one corner of the library, by himself, Lily in the other. They had not been on speaking terms.
Then there was Lily in the second floor corridor, going through her notes, not even seeing him anymore – she had increasingly overlooked his presence, Severus remembered, upon hooking up with… him.
The Pensieve permitted a close look at James Potter, conjuring a magnificent, silver-white Patronus in the Defence classroom. The teacher at the time, one Professor Shoma Dutta, gave it a bored side-glance and noted something down on a piece of paper, evidently finding this no special achievement among Potters numerous other deeds. Severus turned his face away in disgust... and became aware of Morgana's beaming one, hovering inches away from the tip of his nose, almost touching his shoulder with her chin as she was peering into his Pensieve with interest and obvious amusement.
"Gosh, isn't that James Potter? Aw, just look what his Patronus turns into! Looks like something that could shag your Patronus, eh, Severus?"
The Snape moved violently away from her, almost knocking over the Pensieve as he did. He pointed his wand at her chest in blind horror, trying to make himself calm down and to stop his thoughts from racing. She had seen his memories. She had looked at his Pensieve without invitation or permission. Only the most impertinent, dim-witted people… but not even Potter, at the time, had been brazen enough to do it in Severus's presence!
Morgana raised both hands, looking shocked and a little appalled. "Sheesh, I was just looking!" she said good-naturedly. And, more loudly, with a false quiver in her voice, "Toke, save me! Your patient is having a nervous breakdown."
On cue, Toke's podgy figure appeared on the doorstep, holding a carrot in his left hand and a small pot of sour cream in the other.
"Can't right now," he said, chewing, showing no intention of any further moving towards them. "But if you provoke him long enough, he'll have you dangling under the ceiling. Believe me, I know."
Severus looked back and forth from one to the other, his wand still up, but sinking slowly as the two were speaking. It was hard to take yourself seriously when other people were so obviously not.
"How would you know anything about my Patronus?" he therefore spat at Morgana, forcing himself to keep the peace.
"Saw it," said the witch. "When you were like sixteen or something. Remember when there was an infestation of Dementors in the Forbidden Forest? I didn't break the curfew for weeks!"
"I remember," said Severus darkly, "though for different reasons." And then, to Toke, just because he was there and so was the adrenaline which had dealt with Morgana's sudden appearance: "And what are you doing? Are you on a diet or are you trying to come out of the closet?"
Toke's broad smile vanished from his round face in a way to which Severus had become pleasantly accustomed in recent months. No one's mood switched so satisfyingly quickly as Toke's. The nurse seemed born to be taunted. Not many people had this gift.
"I happen to like carrots – for eating!"
"You are one strange specimen of Slytherinkind," Severus mumbled. "Are you here for a therapy session then, or for bodily pleasures which only Morgana can bestow?"
"The former, actually," said Toke thinly, regaining his dignity faster than usual. "And just for your information, Morgana and I have officially ended our relationship. But since we're discussing bodily comfort, I wouldn't mind a little more of that than usual during the session, if you would be so kind. No jinxing St. Mungo personnel this time around, please."
"I didn't say I wanted any therapy today," remarked Severus. "I am quite busy, actually."
"Told you," said Morgana triumphantly, turned to Toke. "He needs to sort out his feelings."
"My priorities, rather," said Severus bitterly.
"Anything we can help you with?" enquired the nurse. Severus frowned.
"I doubt it. Or do you have any experience with memory alteration, alternate lives, alternate universes…?"
Toke frowned and Morgana shook her head. "Why?"
"Because that's what I'll be dealing with if I decide that I want your grandmother to support Minerva's and my marriage," said Severus darkly, and he told them about the prospect of a complex adoption. It did not take long, since they were both purebloods and familiar with the concept. "And the worst that could happen," he therefore concluded therefore only a few moments later, "would be that I change so thoroughly that Minerva will hate me and refuse to go through with the marriage. The alternative is no better, though, as you can probably imagine, because how could I go against your grandmother's wishes in this?"
Morgana shrugged, looking unconcerned.
"Same way my dad did, I should say," she remarked. "Same way my mum did when going her own way. It's really quite easy."
Severus stared at her uncomprehendingly.
Morgana let her hand slide into Toke's pocket and extracted another carrot. "It all boils down," she said wisely, "to whether you agreed to this marriage for social reason or for personal ones. You can marry mum and be happy ever after without grandma having a say in it. But you can't be in society without her blessing. That's probably what she wants to teach you, too. Happened to me as well. I took the former route, if you hadn't guessed. As did mum."
"Yes, yes, I've heard the stories," mumbled Severus absently.
Morgana chewed her carrot. "And?" she said. "Social or personal reasons?"
"Personal ones," Toke whispered into her ear, just loudly enough for Severus to hear. "Don't ask. He is being very shy about it."
"Livius Toke!" said Severus warningly, "you will not sprout any rumours of this kind right in front of my nose!"
"But you are in love?" probed Toke, strangely unembarrassed. Morgana's bad influence, no doubt. Severus glared at him.
"Shut your insolent mouth!" he decided to say. "Another attempt to get involved in my personal affairs and I will introduce you to an entirely new dimension of bodily displeasure."
"Hey!" snapped Morgana as Toke virtually shrank away from sight behind her square frame. "Watch who you threaten, lovebird!"
Severus scoffed at her, stowed away his wand angrily, took his Pensieve under one arm and made to leave the room. Wise men ended debates like this before they turned into fights. With Morgana, his wisdom regularly failed him, Severus found, but he could still attempt to be the wiser of the two of them. Or three, if you counted Toke.
"My take on marriage is none of your business," he therefore said loftily, "I shall continue my considerations in the solitude of my bedroom now, if you don't mind. There is much to contemplate."
"Or, of course," said Morgana, talking not to him but to the tartan curtains at the other side of the room, "you could use granddad's What-If Device."
Severus stopped in mid-track. It seemed impossible that he could have heard this one right.
"Your grandfather's What-what Device?"
Morgana grinned. "It's a sort of time-turner like thingy he discovered by accident during his studies," she explained. "It creates a fictional scenario of the past by means of deploying the multiple universe theory… I'm not sure exactly how it works, but that's how granddad explained it."
Severus continued to stare at her, uncharacteristically open-mouthed, his eyes narrowed in bewilderment and disbelief.
"A fictional scenario… of the past?"
"Yeah," said Morgana, munching her carrot again. "Neat, hu?"
"That is nonsense," replied Severus firmly. "Such an item does not exist. It should, by rights, not exist. I would have heard of it if such an item existed."
Morgana shook her head.
"Granddad never made it public. As I say, it was an accidental discovery. He says there are too many weird things people might try with this device, so he'd rather keep its discovery to himself. It's the act of a noble and wise man, you know, rather than someone seeking nothing but their own social and financial profit."
Severus narrowed his eyes. He had a sudden suspicion that he was only beginning to discover the kinds of magic stored away under McGillivray Manor's roof. If he was guessing correctly, Lady McGillivray would probably want to use this highly serviceable item to devise an artificial past for him. And if she used magic to create a family background for him, he could use magic to have a look at what such a background might look like before he made his decision.
"Didn't you tell me he chucked it away and forgot about it?" enquired Toke suddenly from behind Morgana's back, pulling Severus from his musings. She elbowed his rib, making him moan slightly, which made her turn around and kiss him on the forehead. Severus blinked.
"I was under the impression," he said, sounding politely unimpressed, "that the end of a relationship might entail an end to your annoying habit of exchanging public signs of affection at any convenient point in time."
"Not that you could tell what the beginning or the end of any relationship might look like," snapped Morgana malevolently, kissing Toke again, this time on his lips. "But then, your idea of relationships is probably completely and boringly conventional. This is not so with the two of us, right, Toksey? We don't let society dictate whether or not we love each other, relationship or not."
The nurse managed a lopsided, half-embarrassed smile. It was hard to say what he thought about the arrangement, only that he was not entirely opposed to the kissing and the closeness.
"Anyway," said Severus impatiently, aggressively uninterested in these matters. "Where is this device, and how can I use it?"