Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Here's to the holidays and a little extra time to write.
Severus kept his gaze on the cloudy sky—it had been threatening rain ever since he got out here, but he would swear that those clouds were getting even darker as the minutes passed—and tried to pretend that he wasn't cold. He hadn't had any idea what to expect after losing his temper and shouting at Alastor, but he'd been better braced for a blow than Alastor pushing past him, stalking off down the hall into his room, and all-but-slamming his door behind him. The only words he'd spoken at all had been a curt order for Severus to stay where he was.
Severus had been angry enough to go outside immediately in retaliation, but although he'd slammed the front door more than loud enough that Alastor must have heard him, he hadn't received any kind of response. And that had been forever ago…an hour, at least, probably more like two or three.
If he'd been thinking, he'd at least have kept his cloak with him instead of throwing it back down onto the couch before storming out, but no, it was inside, and he was out here. And he wasn't going back in, even if that threatening rain had to be coming soon and he didn't think that he was imagining the dropping temperature.
He pulled his arms tighter around himself. Of course, that begged the question of what he was going to do. He obviously couldn't sit beside the stoop forever. Brian's house was within easy walking distance, but he couldn't just…show up. He knew how to get to London, but he didn't know anyone there that he could go to since it wasn't like he'd magically acquired any school friends recently, and who knew what had happened to the abandoned building next to the apothecary down Knockturn Alley. It might have been destroyed at the same time as the apothecary. Besides, Alastor would be pretty furious if he went there. Lily was still at school, and if Molly and Arthur or Gideon and Fabian were accessible by bus, he didn't know which bus it would be. And anyway, if he went to one of them, they'd just call Alastor. Which meant...what?
"Severus?"
Severus hadn't even heard the door open, and he started at Alastor's voice. The slight movement must have given him away because Alastor's head swiveled in his direction.
"Bloody hell, have you been sitting out here all this time?" He reached Severus in two steps, and then one hand caught Severus by the collar, hauling him up and giving him a shake. "What in Merlin's name were you thinking? You're not even wearing a cloak!"
Severus squirmed, but it would take a lot more than that to break Alastor's grip.
"Come inside before you catch your death of cold," Alastor ordered.
The grip on his collar that hadn't released would be enough to guarantee compliance with that order, and Severus knew it, but he did his best to plant his feet anyway as Alastor began to drag him towards the door. "No."
Alastor stopped, although he didn't look particularly happy. "That's enough. This isn't the place, and it isn't—" he scowled up at the sky as a drop of water landed on his cheek—"it certainly isn't the weather. Come back inside and we can talk." He frowned. "Where in Merlin's name is your wand?"
"Here." Severus produced it automatically and then realized with some annoyance that he could have cast a heating spell for himself easily enough if he'd been thinking.
Alastor nodded slightly and then dipped his head in the direction of the door again, and after a moment, Severus tucked his wand back into its holster and walked in of his own accord. Albeit with Alastor's hand still on his collar, but at least he wasn't being dragged any more. Alastor had said talk so maybe that meant that he was finally going to get some answers. Besides, if he stayed outside, he'd have to cast both a warming spell and a waterproofing spell, and while he had an excellent version of the former, the latter was rather lacking. And he still didn't know what he'd do after that.
It wasn't until he stepped inside and felt the temperature difference—and promptly started shivering—that he realized how cold he must have been outside even if he hadn't noticed it at the time, and he found himself without the energy to fight as Alastor grumbled something and a cloak was wrapped around his shoulders.
Alastor's hand on his back urging him forward was definitely better than an unbreakable grip on his collar, and Severus relaxed a little further when Alastor bypassed the study without even a glance. And then Severus realized that they were passing his room as well, and he shook his head and stopped quickly.
"Severus, enough. Go on."
"I don't want to go back to the Weasleys," Severus said through teeth that seemed determined to chatter. "I want to stay here." Maybe he hadn't wanted to a few minutes ago, but he didn't want Alastor to pitch him through the floo again either.
"What?" Alastor shook his head. "You aren't going anywhere, lad. Well, not unless you want to, I suppose. It's just a bit easier to warm my room quickly with the fireplace right there."
Severus could see his point, he really could, but….
"Would you rather talk in your room?" Alastor asked before he could say anything.
Severus nodded quickly.
"All right, then."
Severus didn't need a second invitation, turning back and pushing open his door. Once inside he climbed up onto his bed quickly, putting his back against the headboard and pulling the cloak tighter around himself. Alastor settled himself beside Severus, leaning his crutch against the wall and drawing his wand. Even through the continuing shivers, Severus felt the temperature rise quickly as Alastor muttered a spell that he didn't immediately recognize.
"That a bit better?"
"Yes, sir." It was, too. Of course the cloak around his shoulders—Alastor's; the red coloring was pretty hard to miss when he actually looked at the thing—was probably doing just as much, but either way, he wasn't going to argue.
Alastor shook his head. "Aye, and we'll not be starting that again."
Normally Severus would have corrected himself, or, if he was feeling a little daring, repeated himself and received a flick to his nose or forehead in return, but right now he wasn't feeling even a little bit normal so he kept his mouth shut.
Alastor didn't seem inclined to speak either, and the two of them sat side by side in silence for several minutes. "Suppose…suppose this hasn't been the best way to start a holiday," Alastor finally offered.
Severus shrugged and then shook his head. Truthfully, it wasn't the worst start he'd ever had either, but it definitely could have been better.
"It's not…." Alastor shook his head. "There are things that I'm involved in that you don't need to know about. You might not like it, but it's true enough."
"I told you, I don't care about the details," Severus returned. "But it's not fair to keep saying everything is fine when it's obviously not." He could feel his temper rising again as he spoke, and he tried to control it, but it seemed like Alastor was listening this time, and he couldn't not say it. "I'm not a little kid, and I'm not stupid, and you and Molly and Arthur can say it as many times as you want, I'm not going to believe 'fine' just because! Especially when you're gone until all hours and come back hurt and—"
"Enough, lad," Alastor interrupted. "I know you're upset. And I suppose you've a point, all things considered. You are old enough to know a bit about what's going on around you. I expect that you'd hear about most of it at school if nothing else."
Severus hearing things at school tended to manifest more as him overhearing things that had never been meant for his ears, and he usually picked up snippets rather than entire conversations, but if he put his mind to it, he probably could find out just about anything that he wanted to so he just shrugged.
"There's been some trouble lately. More trouble, I should say. As I said, I'm not going to go into specifics, but occasionally little problems that ought to stay little don't, and when we look closer…." He shook his head. "Let's just say that there have been some incidents with just few too many things in common. Nothing that we can pin on any single person, of course. Nothing we can even use to bring anyone in for questioning if they won't willingly accompany us—aside from those caught in the act of course, but they're always low level types, never the sort who could give us something useful—but all of us who have been at this more than two minutes can see it."
"This just started?" Severus asked cautiously, not wanting Alastor to stop talking.
"Started?" Alastor shook his head. "No, no, escalating might be a better word, but this certainly isn't the start of anything new. There have been ties between attacks—again, from things that wouldn't stand up in court, but it's there if you know what you're looking for—going back at least five years. Maybe longer if I went digging around in old case files, but back when I first started noticing oddities the incidents were much less frequent than they are now and it took a bit to put things together. It's the increasing number of incidents—and the escalation of violence levels—that's really been getting obvious in the past year or so."
"Like the attack on Marlene and her sister last summer?" And on Alastor and Gideon and Fabian, not that Severus was going to bring that up.
Alastor's jaw tightened, but he nodded slightly. "Aye, that'd be one."
"What happened yesterday?"
"A trap," he said after a moment. "Several, rather. We're short staffed, which is generally the state of things, nothing new there, but Greenbaum decided to take one of the older apprentices with him to handle what was reported as a Muggle-baiting while his partner took another apprentice and followed up on a different case elsewhere. Unfortunately, the Muggle-baiting turned out to be anything but. Greenbaum took the worst of the initial blast, but it was more luck than anything that Torrence managed to fight her way free and call for help. Clever lass, that one, she'll make full Auror before the year is out, I'd say, but if they'd timed things a bit closer…." Alastor shook his head. "Anyway, half a dozen of us got there in time to salvage the situation and get Greenbaum off to St. Mungo's before he was too far gone. He should be fine eventually—though this might be the incident that finally convinces him to actually take that retirement that he's been hinting about—but cleaning the place out took a lot longer than anyone expected. There were booby traps scattered everywhere. It must have taken days to set up. And as last I heard, no one has found out anything about the Muggles who were supposed to be living there, which is hardly encouraging news."
"What happened to you?" Severus asked.
"Exploding jar in one of the kitchen cupboards." He snorted. "Bit of stupidity on my part, given what else we'd already seen was trapped, and I think diving away from it did me more damage than the explosion did given the fact that the floor was littered with shards from a few dozen other explosions."
"What if it happens again?"
Alastor rubbed his back lightly. "Expect that's more of a 'when' than an 'if', youngling. I can't exactly claim that my job is the safest one in the world, and if I'm right, things will get rougher before we get everyone involved locked up or otherwise dealt with. But I'm a fair hand at keeping myself alive, aye?"
Severus kept his eyes on his hands.
"Can't say I've never lost a piece here or there, I suppose, but I do all right. Got a bit wiser in my old age, even if yesterday wasn't my finest hour when it comes to proving it. And you know that if I get myself banged up, you've a place with Molly and Arthur until I'm back on my feet."
'Or not,' he didn't say, but Severus heard it anyway, and he kept his head down as he shrugged. He didn't mind visiting the Weasleys, but he didn't want to stay there. Especially if it meant that Alastor was gone.
Alastor cleared his throat awkwardly and then patted Severus' back. "Well, there's no sense in worrying about that now You must be getting hungry, using up all your energy shivering out there in the cold all afternoon. We haven't much in the kitchen, but there ought to be something, and now that your teeth have stopped chattering, let's see what we can scrape together for dinner."
Severus bit his lip as Alastor pushed himself up off the bed and tucked his crutch back under his arm. "Am I in trouble?"
"Hm?" Alastor snorted. "Well, I suppose that you ought to be since I seem to remember telling you to stay where you were, which hardly includes going out and getting yourself half frozen, but I daresay that I could have handled things considerably better as well. Just this once I don't think that we need to worry about it, all right?"
That got a quicker nod. "Yes, sir."
Alastor raised an eyebrow.
"Mean, yes, Alastor."
"That's better. Though, mind, I'd best not hear about you running of to Knockturn or any such foolishness, is that understood? It's no place for young ones to be—or even half-grown ones—and bad day or not, if I do hear about it you'll find yourself taking a meal or two standing when you get home."
Severus nodded quickly. "Understood."
"All right, then."
Dinner was a little odd, more like breakfast than anything else since Alastor had sausage, eggs, and not much else in the preserver, but there was enough to fill both of them and still leave a bit for breakfast in the morning. Not for more than that, but it was enough. And if both of them remained silent as they ate...well, Severus wasn't sure what he was supposed to say, and it wasn't like either of them talked a lot anyway. It wasn't uncomfortable silence, at least.
"I do have to go into the office and do some paperwork tomorrow," Alastor said as they finished and began to clear the table, finally breaking the quiet, "but I ought to be done by lunchtime or so. How about I come home and pick you up and we spend the afternoon in London? We can get lunch at a café or somesuch and maybe stop by that store where your games came from, and then we can go by the market and restock on our way home."
Severus nodded quickly. "That sounds good."
"Actually…." Alastor trailed off with a frown. "Why don't you floo to the Ministry at about noon instead and meet me in the Aurors' Office? No sense in me making a double trip, and that will give me an excuse to be going even if a certain department head tries to keep me around for 'just one more form.'"
Another quick nod. "I can do that."
"Good lad." He set the last of the dishes in the sink. "Do you think you'd be up for a game of chess before bed?"
"I'll fetch the board," Severus said quickly.
Severus checked the clock again. Alastor had said noon, and Severus didn't want to interrupt him while he was working, but breakfast had been forever ago and there really was nothing else in the kitchen. Well, he'd found a box of biscuits in the back of one cupboard, but the things had probably been here longer than he had and were totally inedible. Alastor must have been taking most of his meals in Diagon Alley lately. Well, that or he'd just eaten his cupboards bare and hadn't had time to buy more. Either way, it left Severus hungry. And being bored didn't help. Not that there weren't plenty of books available to read, but the one he'd grabbed wasn't holding his attention, and with only twenty minutes or so left it didn't seem worth going in search of a new one.
He made another quick rummage through the kitchen, added sweet peppers to the shopping list he'd made, and managed to occupy himself until the hands on the clock finally reached quarter-till. At which point he tucked the list into his pocket, grabbed his cloak, and headed for the floo. Alastor had said about noon, after all, and he should stop by and say hello to Gideon and Fabian and Caradoc anyway.
He wasn't usually in Alastor's room unless he and Alastor were going somewhere, and he couldn't help but take a quick look at Alastor's bookshelves as he passed through. He knew better than to approach them, although sometime he'd like to get a closer look at a few of the ones whose titles he could read from where he stood. And there were probably other interesting ones up there too if Alastor would just let him poke around for a little bit. Now wasn't the time, though, and Severus was reaching for a handful of floo powder when he noticed another stack of books beside the bed. Severus felt himself flush as he looked a little closer and recognized one of the books in the stack as the Raising a Young Wizard book that Miss Eustace had given Alastor when Alastor had officially become his guardian. Severus frowned. Actually all of the books in the pile looked like they were about raising children. Five or six of the things, definitely not just the two that he knew that Alastor had been given. Maybe Molly had sent him a few?
He bit his lip and then knelt quickly, picking up the top one and flipping through it quickly. It was pretty obvious that it had been read; in fact, from the bits of parchment sticking out of various pages, they all had been.
He put the first book down quickly in the exact same spot where it had been. Not that he wasn't curious about what kinds of things it said on those marked pages, but even if he wasn't looking at spell books, he didn't know what other spells Alastor had on this room, and he didn't want to be caught snooping. Besides, he was still hungry.
