Severus brews a potion, has a tantrum, schemes, is a tea snob, and blatantly examines career-advancing favors, right in front of his patrons, for unexploded plot. I mean bombs.
Basically it's Thursday.
(Horace knew what he was getting himself into. Probably.)
warning: your erratically-humble narrator's head is not like other people's. It is, as you were warned in chapter one, dry-yet-supersaturated, convoluted, and parenthetical, with a chip on its shoulder the size of Hogwarts. Did I say Hogwarts? Let's try 'the UK.' (Also, music)
notes: I'm starting classes this week and am not sure what that will do to my schedule. Naturally, reviews are always inspiring (bats eyes)... seriously, I will try to keep up but I have never had even a part time job while taking two grad-level classes before, and I can't be sure how this will work. It's possible that the next post will be something else rather than a new chapter, not sure.
No Q&A today. It's not just that I got behind on replies; Severus would not be having with this nonsense in his chapter. Also, his chapter is long because... see warning. Also, I have one vote for proceed-as-usual and one for SOP-is-distracting-make-the-interviews-a-separate-thing. YOUR review could make the difference! ;)
Wolfsbane Lab, St. Mungo's, Next Day
"Severus, m'boy, I hoped I'd find you here!"
"You knew you'd find me here, Professor," Severus said evenly, scatter-dropping pinches of powdered sunflower seed-and-moldavite into his cauldron while stirring, slow and steady. Widdershins two DROP-three four five DROP-six deosil two DROP-widdershins two three DROP-four… "As I work here and these are working hours. I am, as you see, working as we speak."
"Yes, of course, I—what on earth is this noise?"
He sighed. Lava would freeze inside the earth's core before he attempted to explain metal to the nonagenarian head of Slytherin House. Even a head of Slytherin that cooed ecstatically over Lily.
Lily was someone even the most traditional wizards could wrap their minds around, whatever her parentage: a proper English rose if you didn't look deep enough to notice the charging erumpent and pig-stubborn streaks (or was that included in the definition?). They could wrap their minds around the music she thought was catchy, too, even the modern drek. Such nice, sweet, soulful little ditties. Lily thought Imagine was the be-all and end-all rather than suitable only as a substitute for sleeping potions.
Or she had thought so. He wondered if she still did. It was almost beyond dreaming that he might be able to find out now; the thought was a tiny, fragile iridescent soap bubble that would pop if he breathed on it.
Yet there it was. Mad. Incredible. Un, one should excuse the expression, imaginable. He wondered if he'd dare to ask her, and if so, whether he'd greedily grab at the next chance or save it for a birthday present to himself. Sometimes one couldn't quite predict oneself in advance, regardless of intention.
Not that it mattered. It was the chance to waste questions on things that didn't objectively matter that mattered, that was the miracle.
They'd played quoting in the hospital. He'd never expected to have that again.
Evan smiled in warm recognition when he quoted books they'd read together, even sometimes referenced them himself when they were alone, but it wasn't the same. Ev hadn't grown up reading them with him, it wasn't a… a twin-language, a dialect, a code. Severus's pureblood friends had a language of implicit connotation they kept trying to share with him, but you had to grow up with a language or be immersed for it to come naturally, for all the connections to be fluid and comfortable.
Severus was getting better, but he'd started very nearly young enough and immersed himself as if his life depended on it. Which it had. It was too late for Ev to learn to have, for example, conversations using only language that skittered across only ten plays because the tragedies weren't allowed, which meant that using The Merchant of Venice or the Taming of the Shrew was going to start an argument.*
She'd let him kick her ankle, and leave her with Evan, who she didn't like any more than he liked her, though at least he'd never been lumped in with Mulciber and Avery (which was another minor miracle. It was probably to do with Ev's general air of this is all very nice but I'd much rather be watching clouds/having a kip/snogging somebody about whom I am currently fantasizing, mmm lazy snogging on the grass). And when Severus had gotten back, she'd still been there, waiting, willing to argue with him. Willing, for once in her life, to listen.
That would be Ev's doing. Making the impossible happen all around him without actually doing anything to make it happen was his genius, and he'd turned it on for Severus despite despising Lily. Obviously there was no such thing as karma: Severus could nearly believe he'd somehow earned Black in a previous life, if those were a truth (surely not Potter; if he'd been evil enough to deserve Potter he wouldn't have come back human at all, let alone with magic), but not Evan. Certainly not both of them. It wasn't sense.
Slughorn was looking at him in plaintive horror. Not because of tempting fate with a disbelief in karma. Slughorn had never shown signs of legilimency. Then… why?
The way thought went faster than sound was occasionally inconvenient. One could so easily lose track.
Right—the Rush. And he'd gone light today, since Belby was in and might come in to check his work. He took a moment to imagine Slughorn's reaction to Deep Purple, but did not allow himself to snort, or even smirk.
"Master Belby believes a strong beat helps maintain stirring patterns over the course of a long stretch of brewing," he evaded impatiently. Of course, Belby's idea of a strong beat was Celestina Warbeck (gag) and, if he felt very daring, the Hobgoblins. Neither of whom had ever apparently even heard of syncopation.
It was too bad Sluggy hadn't come on a jazz day. He probably could have dealt with that, or something brassy and swinging and big-bandish, the sort of music that wasn't for listening to, exactly, but turned brewing into… he wouldn't call it a dance. He didn't dance. Certainly not. Unfortunately for the Slug, Severus had been having trouble sleeping, but not nearly enough to justify taking a potion for it. He'd been really needing the heavy beat these last few days.
DROP-five six deosil DROP-two STOP and NEXT. Pulling heat out of the fire until it felt right, which was a process he'd hardly given any thought to since he was about thirteen, he added, "The player is in the corner. I'd rather you turned it off than down."
Slughorn did, trying not to look too obviously relieved. The silence fell like a hammer, but there wasn't even time to hear any simmering from the cauldron before Slughorn asked, "That was never toasted sunflower seed I smelled there, going into a potion that's all about lunar influence?"
"We're trying it," Severus told him, impatience subsiding in favor of what was, if he was honest (which he wasn't going to be, even in front of his old teacher: too embarrassing), rabid curiosity about what this batch was going to do. "We've been trying a few solar-ruled things to fight the moon-pull, with and without transformational and mediating ingredients. Occasionally fascinating yet, although none useful to purpose yet; remind me later to tell you what happened when we used a gold cauldron and compensated with aconite and sunflower honey and gypsy moth wings, good god."
"Hm!" Slughorn noted. Severus was very mildly relieved to see that he looked genuinely interested. He didn't think Sluggy had even considered using a new textbook in decades, and it had been two to one whether the man knew significantly more theory than the school covered.
"This batch," he went on, "we're using a silicate that's noted for its transformational magical properties in object-enchantment and has had as much interaction with outer space as you're going to find on Earth without using an actual recent meteorite. We're hoping it might bring some mediating qualities since, as you say, it is between a lunar problem and a solar ingredient. And not ameliorated by being in a honey form this time."
He gave it a beat, but Slughorn didn't notice the mel- is the honey root word joke. Of course he didn't. It had been far too much to hope. He didn't even get a suspicious look, let alone a pained one or a groan. Severus sighed, and added, "Only one has to hope it won't work."
"Why's that?" Slughorn asked, blinking the glaze out of his eyes. He'd started doing that more and more once Severus had advanced to NEWT study, but Severus quite simply had no mercy to give in this area. Potions might not be Slughorn's vocation, but Potions Master was his job, right through to the advanced levels, and if he didn't have his craft-mastery he'd had plenty of time to get it. Summers, at least.
And you were not supposed to have to dumb down your homework for your teachers. That Was Wrong.
"We currently believe there to be a limited and nonrenewable supply," he said grimly now, and absolutely did not take any sardonic enjoyment from watching Slughorn need a moment to translate that into the world could run out. No indeed.
If the man had been actually stupid, that would have been one thing. Severus knew better. In his own ways, he was brilliant, a genuine genius in areas like networking where Severus barely knew the alphabet. He was also, however, so lazy it boggled Severus's mind he was still employed.
No, Evan was lazy. Languid. Evan had found himself (well, been born into, but then made his own) work that let him sit and chat with people all day, which was what he liked to do, and have quite a lot of free time for wandering around finding other people to chat with and get new business from, and sleeping in, and going to working parties he actually enjoyed (the space alien). He arranged his time with ruthless efficiency so that he was never, ever hurried. Languorous, leisurely… graceful, where grace was defined as the quintessence and crossroad of effectiveness and efficiency. Still, like a red-gold swan drifting over quiet sunset waters, no hard-paddling webbed feet, riptides, or swiftly-turning mental gears visible under those serene and sleepy eyes. Feather-bedrock.
But the Slug was lazy like a sloth. He'd picked a job you had to keep alert for, and he just didn't do it. Not really. Severus knew he didn't, because, well, he'd been there. Yes, Slughorn showed up for class and ran it and more-or-less corrected homework, more-or-less on time, but that was about it. He barely kept up with the journals, if at all—oh, he got them, but when Severus, as a student, had borrowed them, they mostly hadn't had any sticky patches or cracked spines no matter how old they were. He hung around the cauldrons of his favorite students in class, instead of paying attention to the reliable safety hazards.
And if he did anything more as Head of House than was set down in the school charter, well, Severus had never seen him do it. Or benefited from it. And Severus's year could have used a little adult intervention.
Or a lot. At the time, he'd thought it would have just made things worse. Now he was out of it and his head had cleared, though, he thought, if the teachers had put their feet down hard enough, early enough, wouldn't the bastards have learned that the bullying wasn't just something not to get caught at but genuinely frowned on?
It hadn't been just Slughorn who didn't rein them in, and they'd had wealth and looks and blood on their side to convince him they were worth not alienating, to tempt him into indulgence. But they weren't the only problem Slughorn didn't bother with, either. He just could not be interested in anyone in whom he didn't see solid potential for the advancement of his spiderweb.
Anyone or anything. It wasn't just the journals he didn't read, Severus was almost sure. He'd seen Slughorn in bookstores. He browsed the new offerings, skimmed everything, walked off without buying, and then made facile references later. It was one of those things Severus had badly, badly wanted to take Lily's approach about and just tell everyone what the man was doing. Loudly.
Only you couldn't do that, if you were Slytherin, because it was a stupid and self-destructive thing to do. Needing to learn not to be stupidly self-destructive was exactly why Severus had been so dead set on one of the cool-toned Houses he'd been willing to light the Hat on fire.
It might have thought sending him to Slytherin was a punishment for setting its brim smoking. He still thought it was an honorable compromise he'd gotten the better of. Even if had put him under the lack-of-care of a man who'd probably been letting his brain rust for at least three decades, possibly six. It had also put him in the actual-care of people worth caring about, who happened not only to have enough power that their care was effective but to know how to use it when he could bear to let them.
Still, Slughorn wasn't actually stupid, beneath the torpor, and when he roused himself he could ask intelligent questions and follow the answers. They talked about the potion for a while, therefore, while Severus worked, because only Gryffs and Ravens and idiots got down to business right away.
Well, and Severus, when he could get away with it. But he was their year's Honorary Raven (there was nearly always at least one, although sometimes they were just intelligent hard workers or obsessed with good marks, not really interested in knowing things.
He thought Lily should have been another, but she'd been too pretty and popular to get labeled a swot, even though she wasn't a great Quidditch fan. Just as Lupin had been too tight with a popular and sporty crowd to be thought of like that, as well as too chronically behind with his work from 'illness').
So, Severus had reigned in (if one could say it without asphyxiating from the irony) solitary splendor. He'd taken advantage of the uniqueness of his position by carefully cultivating his reputation for only choosing to exercise good manners on a highly selective basis, on the premise that everyone thought he was bizarre and unpleasantly uncivilized anyway so he might as well.
In point of fact he had to, and at school had really had to. If he'd tried to use pureblood manners all the time, everyone would have accused him of being a climber. This way, they knew he could polish up when it was called for but wasn't trying to pretend to be something he wasn't. Besides, it saved time in so many, many ways, and anyone he did waste time with (and had a brain) was flattered. Which often saved him effort and trouble as well, and sometimes even money.
Polish was always mandatory with Slughorn, though. He was only interested in you given proof you could conduct yourself in a way that would redound to his credit. So Severus put up with what was, between brewers, small talk.
And with actual small talk, too, wound between the technical questions: Severus asking after his old professors and the Slytherins he knew who hadn't graduated yet, Slughorn asking about Evan and Reg and the Malfoys and whether Severus thought Míngyùe and Xenophilus were going to try for a baby soon.
The thought of Phil in charge of a child, even with Míngyùe to calm him down, nearly made Severus spasm his grip on the sliced sea cucumber and splurt half of it into the cauldron at once. As soon as Slughorn asked the question, Severus had realized that the answer was very likely, because Phil had no sense and Míngyùe had faith and they were both hopeful people who liked bright colors and weren't very interested in nightlife and Míngyùe had been brought up traditionally oh god…
Eventually, though, Slughorn's voice took on that ever-so-slightly-too-casual note that meant getting down to business. "You do sound busy!" he chortled.
"Moderately," Severus agreed, making sure to sound dry rather than suspicious. Deosil two three four DROP-TURN Deosil two three four DROP-TURN…
"I don't suppose you can have had much of a chance to progress on your masterpiece," Slughorn hinted broadly.
Severus's mind went instantly to his Charms project. The suite of memory spells he was calling the Adamantine Slate was progressing nicely, thank you, as a matter of fact, and he would have felt confident in saying so except that he probably wasn't going to submit them either to British Spellcrafters or Internationale Charmsmaîtres Extraordinaire. He didn't have any idea what the Dark Lord was going to ask him to do next, or do next himself.
That being the case, it seemed like quite a good idea not to let on that he'd worked out how to prevent a memory from taking root, or prevent the details from being remembered but allowing the impressions to remain, and was getting (he thought) quite close to being able to sort of box up a memory and put it away until it was wanted. Whether you called it Discretion, like Evan did, Plausible Deniability, or screamed CONSTANT VIGILANCE like that auror who kept popping up behind Lucius in the Ministry and making him twitch, being Slytherin meant you occasionally sacrificed glory to the gods of Not Being A Complete Soon-to-be-Bloody Imbecile.
But Slughorn wouldn't have been asking about his charmsmithing anyway. "The review board agreed to accept my work here in lieu of an individual project," he said, no longer able to keep from sounding wary, "when Master Belby approximated my contribution to the research for them, provided my exam went well and my thesis—"
"Oh, Severus," Slughorn winced at 'thesis,' "you needn't try to get your mastery from IAMB, you know. The Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers—"
Was exactly the sort of organization one would have expected Slughorn to belong to. More of an old boy's club with a potions theme than a potions guild, it put out a publication Severus was physically incapable of reading without ripping in half, hurling across the room, or drowning in red ink. Case in point, their accreditation requirements were pure fluff.
As far as Severus was concerned, an MP was meaningless. He'd gotten that three months after graduation, using a potion he'd come up with in fifth year (he still wasn't resigned to the name 'Draught of Peace,' it was so pretentious, but Narcissa had threatened him with her pointiest shoes), it was pathetic. 'Society' was right; he suspected he could safely have mucked up at least thirty percent of the exam as long as he'd come in wearing clothes Ev and Narcissa had bullied him into and not actually blown up the guildhall.
A BM, now, that was worth sweating for. He wouldn't consider himself a Potions Master until he was a Braumeister, whatever incredibly gaudy nods to networking were (of social necessity) hanging up in his office. The peer review culture in the International Association of Master Brewers was rigorous to the point that Severus hadn't exaggerated when he'd called it a piranha tank. When he'd been particularly good, Belby delegated articles to him for second-eye editing and commentary, and let him listen to the shocked Howlers.
Evan had watched him at it once, told him if he was going to make gloating cat in cream faces he should apply them to ice cream or other appropriately lickable targets, and tackled him before Severus had worked out he wasn't speaking entirely literally and stopped looking for the ice cream he thought was about to be shoved into his face (Evan did occasionally shove junk food at him; Severus had never worked out why. Ev liked them and Severus wasn't much interested, and the only reason to eat useless things was for enjoyment, surely).
This wasn't embarrassing; he'd been deeply engaged by explaining life, the universe, and the scientific method to some Austrian twice his age and Evan hadn't even given him a full second to process what he was hearing before hauling him away from the writing desk. Lazy, decidedly. Slow, only when he felt like it.
Sadly, people seemed to be catching on. It had, alas, been inevitable; they didn't at all have the same writing style, even if Severus could more or less copy his hand. Well, once you'd learned to print, learned cursive, and then several years later learned to write in calligraphy with a damned feather, you knew how to learn a handwriting style. Severus was not in favor of anyone other than Evan finding this out about him. Slytherins weren't supposed to know what barreled pens felt like.
They weren't supposed to know cursive, either. When Evan had come home and Severus had told him what the copperplate and Palmer script Voldemort had demanded his forthcoming reports come in were, Ev had looked, for a minute, like he didn't really understand, and then turned a couple of odd shades of pale. He'd spent the rest of the evening sneaking glances at his watch. It was a Family Watch, one of the keeping-track-of-one's-House clocks (Evan occasionally glared at Severus for not being on it and then nagged him about formalizing their relations as if he didn't understand what a reeking, decaying albatross that would hang around his neck, the mule): a coming of age gift from his father.
His father, whose childhood friendship with the Dark Lord was the primary reason they were both twisted up with him in the first place. The Dark Lord, whose blood everyone assumed was the purest of the pure. That evening, Severus had set aside the book they were finishing up in favor of re-reading the Just So Stories. Evan had been interested in that one, not just putting up with it to be lulled to sleep, and he wouldn't have remembered two words in ten.
"MESoP's internationality only encompasses Western Europe," he reminded Slughorn, as diplomatically as he could manage. "You know I've always had an interest in the Eastern and shamanistic styles."
Slughorn waggled a pudgy finger at him. "Fess up, m'boy," he chided playfully. "You're just in it for the challenge."
His mouth quirked. "Not just," he allowed. It was probably a fair cop. "In any case, they'll allow a submission of my work-to-date on this potion when I submit my thesis. But…" he sighed.
Last year he'd expected to be done by now, but Narcissa had needed him. Werewolf access was easy, of course, but that was only half of what he needed. You couldn't trot off to Romania and the Black Forest to research vampires when your best friend's conviction that you were the only thing standing between her and a fourth miscarriage appeared, against all logic, not to be completely insane. And now if he wanted to leave the country, unless things really quieted down, he was going to have to think of something the Dark Lord could get out of it.
"…My research's hit a bit of a roadblock, to be honest," he admitted. After a beat, he added, with dark amusement, "Literally. As in, I just can't get away to do it."
And then he physically took a step backwards: Slughorn's pale green eyes had lit right up, like salted fire. Speaking of which, if Severus had been practically anyone else, he would have burned his elbow under the cauldron at that point. Being himself, he'd charmed his clothes against that sort of thing and so on, and might have had a more peaceful home life if he'd been less 'creepily' fire-resistant himself, but it was no help against the embarrassment.
"Funny you should say that!" his old teacher gleed.
Unsubtle! Severus wailed tragically in the privacy of his head, but dedicated himself to merely looking blandly attentive.
Slughorn paused. "Er—what is it you're looking into again, m'boy?"
Severus was quite sure he'd never asked before, or been told. "Simply put," he started, and managed (he thought) not to even look like he was trying not to laugh when Slughorn's face froze into a mix of relief and skepticism, "the strength of viral curses."
"Good heavens," Slughorn laughed, "that was simply put. A third-year Hufflepuff could understand it. Didn't think you had it in you. Ten points to Slytherin."
"I've graduated," Severus pointed out, but a corner of his mouth tugged up. "And it's summer."
"Does no harm to start off the year with an advantage, eh?" Slughorn winked. "Go on, then, the old man can handle a bit more than that."
"I started off with the conventional wisdom that werewolves and vampires can bite each other without effect," Severus said, not reacting to the suggestion he'd been underestimating his teacher. He'd been watching Slytherins for years, and he knew the difference between false vacuity, actual stupidity, and the grey area of can't-be-arsed. Stir top-deosil infinity signs in with willow-leaves, drop each in after two, stop ninth-cauldron-diameter from rim, do not break surface while stirring until the drop, use eight. "And that they both recover quickly from ordinary curses as well as from physical damage, when they're affected at all."
He had to use measuring clamps for this step; for most potions you could cast a spell to show how far to stir, when it mattered, but this one was just so bloody fiddly it was a stupid risk: any extra magic might introduce a new variable. He'd even insisted the clamps be the same metal as the cauldron throughout, rather than ceramic-washed, although even Belby said that was paranoid of him since the whole point of brewer's ceramic was to be almost universally magically neutral. It was a pity, though, and he grudged the time spent securing them to the lip.
But you had to do it when you needed them, even if Pat didn't think so, because, good morning, extra lumps of metal interfered with heat distribution, you couldn't have them just sitting there the whole time, there was a reason cauldrons were never decorated, always smooth. Also a reason why Pat always had trouble in hour two and could never get quite the right juniper-green shade after adding the powdered moonstone, but tell him that.
"Damnedest thing," Horace agreed. "Most of the vampires didn't want anything to do with our side or Grindelwald's in the war, you know, but the ones who did, nearly everything just washed right over them. Even the killing curses only knocked them out until moonrise."
"I'm not as interested as some in how to classify them," Severus said, stirring carefully, "but one can certainly see why muggles call them 'undead,' with the suspended aging and the body temperature and they way they don't stay down. It's more complicated than that with werewolves, you know," he added, nearly turning to Slughorn in enthusiasm before he remembered he had to actually watch his hands for this step, no leeway possible.
"Oh?" Slughorn smiled.
He nodded. It was irritating when people encouraged him to elaborate when they clearly had no interest in what he was saying, but if they urged him on anyway it was their own fault. And he certainly was not cute, or funny, or whatever that infuriating little smile meant.
"I think it's the more intense lunar influence that gives the psychosomatic effect," he said conversationally, careful not to make his tone severely dry and academic the way he wanted to in response to that avuncular look because it would be juvenile, "although that's going to have to be another paper. But we had one case that was really fascinating, in a disgusting sort of way—one of the werewolves we wouldn't accept as a test subject these days, but this was before we'd instituted the policy of not accepting them if they had, oh, jobs and families and so on."
Slughorn nodded without surprise or confusion. Severus supposed Belby had been keeping him up to date about the side effects problem.
"The man was a veterinarian—he'd been bitten while working as an animal warden, he'd been muggle—and he knew, absolutely knew, that chocolate is toxic to dogs. And, well, this was quite early on, we had a limited budget. More limited. We knew the potion stopped the bloodlust, even if it wasn't good for them and didn't have them spending the night rational yet. So they were transforming at home, once their safe areas had been inspected by the Werewolf Registry. Before that they'd been in DMLE holding cells, so at the time of the change we considered it an upgrade. But the Werewolf Registry doesn't actually give a damn. Certainly not about werewolves, quite possibly not about life. Probably not quite as bitter a bunch as prison guards, but I shouldn't care to do the study."
He really wouldn't. He hated dealing with those people. He could feel their odium, their resentment at the dead-end jobs they'd ended up in, their conviction that there must be something fundamentally disgusting about him (funny, they didn't feel that way about Pat or Míngyùe) for choosing this work when he's had other options, crawling all over his skin. It was as bad as being in a room with Bellatrix, or Potter or Pettigrew, or Da.
And that Umbridge woman… he felt sorry for her; he had the sense she might have had something of the same sort of shock he had, but just shaking her hand had made him want to run screaming to Dumbledore, Voldemort, anyone for Occlumency lessons, to beg Reg's da and grandfather (who didn't like him) for books. Words like sensitive and empath not only felt wrong and misapplied but made him want to gag. Even if he never told anyone else, though, he couldn't hide from himself that when he'd looked in her sweetly smiling brown eyes his heart had tried to jump right out of his mouth for no apparent reason. All he'd been able to think for a moment through the thundering adrenaline of his pulse was This is Black Plague rage: misstep and you won't die alone.
He mentally shook himself. He wouldn't find out for some time whether he'd succeeded with her (she probably liked keeping people dangling… should they be courting her? Probably, damn), but at least she wasn't here and he didn't have to dwell. "In any case, he got out, and his local bakery had thrown out quite a lot of chocolate cake that hadn't sold that day… or maybe it was still on the display shelves, something like that."
"Oh, dear," Slughorn winced. "But it isn't toxic to werewolves, is it?"
"Nothing but silver and aconite is toxic to werewolves," Severus said flatly. "Well. Not mortally toxic. But he woke up with chocolate all over his face and ran into the clinic in a panic. We told him and told him: werewolves aren't dogs. But he got all the symptoms and was dead a week later."
Slughorn stared.
Severus smiled without humor and went on, "Right up till the next full moon. Fortunately, they hadn't cremated him. Unfortunately, his coffin, how shall I put this, hadn't been completely airtight. I won't go into the details, but the DMLE had to obliviate not only him but just about everyone who saw him until he was, er, sanitized and regenerated, including the mediwizards. They didn't care much from a law enforcement angle; the trauma unit at St. Mungo's asked them to find everyone and offer. It was the nightmares."
Slughorn sidled him a they weren't bad enough to make you accept look of unreadable import. It made his shoulders tighten a knot, but otherwise he ignored it.
"And you think that effect will carry over to curses?"
"Well, I can hardly do a rigorous test of the hypothesis," Severus said dryly, and internally sneered a little as Slughorn's face visibly collapsed in relief. Because, of course, he certainly could, if he was willing to risk lives and use the sort of magic that deserved the reputation the Dark Arts had. It was perfectly possible, logistically, and he was perfectly capable, magically.
And Slughorn knew he was, but now thought his mind didn't work that way, hadn't even gone there. Of course it had gone there. Of course he'd thought of that. He just wasn't mad-scientist enough to feel that the knowledge was worth the damage it would do. Wasn't that why the Hat had refused him Ravenclaw in the first place, because he would have tried to stop other people's experiments for being too dangerous?
Severus's reedwood wand wasn't an Ollivander. Its core wasn't unicorn, phoenix, or dragon, but kneazle whisker. Plunging in when you didn't have to, when there was time to examine and prepare and feel your way carefully… no.
Mam had given him a lot of strange looks on the bus home from getting it, mind. Which hadn't been at all fair, to his way of thinking. He'd ignored the jeering about his hair and his marks and the herbal he'd been trying to memorize and even his clothes, though that had smarted, and his refusal to take a day out of his life to help them sneak into the nearest cinema (not near at all) because they were all completely incompetent. It wasn't till they'd veered towards Yer Mam Wears Army Boots that he'd sighed and put his herbal down and done his best to rip Will Callum's arm and face off.
Not because Mam wouldn't have been chuffed by the image, depressingly complete Gryff that she was, or because he thought the brainless, insufferable, petulant twerps actually understood what they were saying in calling her a camp follower. It was just that there were gauntlets one could get away with high-mindedly sneering at disdainfully in the name of Trying To Behave without painting Mama's Boy and Open Season on one's forehead and also getting it in the teeth from one's father for being a coward and shaming the family more than usual, and then there were the other kind. He knew which were which.
Sadly, simply walking away even from the first sort was always an Open Season sort of thing, unless a sufficiently witty riposte came to mind with excellent timing, and anyway (he'd noticed over the years) people who wanted to pick a fight with him tended to bring enough of their mates to cut off his escape routes. He was not flattered.
(Much.)
"But at any rate," he went on, "nothing's ever been known able to cure vampirism or lycanthropy, or shake them. They don't cure each other, they can't even take each other over. And," he added, turning now because he'd finished with the willow leaves and had a moment to breathe in, his own eyes lighting, "neither of them infect animals, magical or mundane. Or sapient magical beings. —Which is unfortunate, because it would make things a lot easier here at the lab if we could use actual guinea pigs or genuine lab rats."
"Well, that's all true," Slughorn agreed, frowning in an I-don't-follow sort of way.
"And they do infect muggles, squibs, and wizards alike," Severus encouraged him to catch up. When this did not appear likely to happen, he let out a hard sigh, and went on, "So it's possible the intractability has as much to do with the nature of humanity as with the curses. Do you know, it's just the same when I work with slides as it is macroscopically."
Slughorn blinked.
"In the real world," he elaborated impatiently. "I mean, I can expose a muggle or wizard's internal cells to transformed-werewolf saliva and they'll be taken over, but not any animal's. Not even other primates'."
"…No?" Slughorn asked blankly.
"So," Severus nearly shouted, "it's a curse that only affects humans. They both are! which means either that they were crafted to do so or that human cells are natural receptacles for viral curses! Either of which would have profound implications for how we should be going about attempting to attack them!" With great difficulty, he refrained from clutching at his hair or brewing apron or thumping his hands on the workbench. "And I can't find out which it is," he gritted out from between his teeth, "until I can do reasonably intensive study on at least the vampiric curse." He took in a long breath, let it out over a four-count, and then sighed more naturally and reached for the lacewing bottle.
"Why, that's a fascinating idea, m'boy!" Slughorn beamed in his I Couldn't Be Less Interested In What You Just Said But I'm Happy A Smart Lad Like You Is In My Collection voice. Facing away from him again, Severus felt quite safe rolling his eyes. "I'm sure you'll go far with it. And, in fact, that's what I came to talk to you about."
"Oh?" he asked neutrally, and then decided, "No, wait," because at this point the potion needed some very precise temperature changes at very precise intervals. Pat and even Belby usually called him in at this point, although Lovegood could manage it herself eight times out of ten.
Severus suspected that if they couldn't find a way to skip this step, the damned thing was never going to be commercially viable. It needed a brewer as good at temperature magic as he and Míngyùe were, which apparently wasn't as common an affinity even among brewers as he would have supposed. Or possibly a lab with a pet dragon and icedrake to blow over the belly of the cauldron on command. Salamanders were too small, except for one-or-two dose batches, and so was what happened when witches and wizards who weren't hyperpowered skipping mummies like Dumbledore cast heating and cooling charms with their wands.
"I've got the most wonderful opportunity for you!" Slughorn said, beaming again, when Severus had indicated potential distractions were safe again.
"Do you?" he asked, sliding his former Housemaster a look he didn't even try to keep from being jaundiced enough to go unnoticed in a bowl of lemons.
Slughorn pretended not to see it, which ratcheted up Severus's suspicions threefold. "'Deed I do!" he effused instead, and tugged a brochure out of his lapel pocket.
Severus regarded it unenthusiastically. It was sure to be warm and limp with Slughorn's body heat, and would probably smell of his stifling honey-amber-tobacco cologne. It might have teacup stains, or even biscuit crumbs or fallen flakes of crystalized sugar ground into the spine. Potentially with sticky shreds of dried ginger or pineapple, ugh.
Without any real option, he took it with as much grace as possible, and handed Slughorn the stirring stick. "Five deosil, six widdershins, add a disk of sea bicorn horn every six cycles. Slip them in edgewise, don't let them splash. If I'm not done after three disks switch this out for the willow stirring stick and keep going. The beat's radial, not diametric; don't lose it when you switch." Since putting his music back on was out, he fished out Belby's old metronome and set it ponderously clicking the right time.
"Radial?" Slughorn muttered incredulously. "Merlin's beard."
The swishing sounded slow enough, though, so Severus bent to the brochure. He never had gotten out of the habit of bringing whatever he was reading right up close to his eyes. He couldn't focus if he didn't; anything else going on might catch his attention, even if it wasn't actually moving. Someone Else Tending To His Potion definitely would.
To his utter and complete astonishment, it was for a MESoP conference at which Slughorn was scheduled to speak. He attempted to unfuse his back teeth from each other and unclench his throat. He'd had more control than to clench his fists in the first place.
All right. Don't assume. Yes, it looked as though he was about to be asked to carry Slughorn's bags for the pleasure and honor of being introduced around, and possibly distinguishing himself and embarrassing Sluggy's rivals with a few snotty questions.
But that would in fact have been a wonderful opportunity for him when he was still at school, or even when he'd only just graduated. More than a year post-graduate it wouldn't be one, would infantilize him and make people wonder what was wrong with him that he still needed his hand held. He trusted his old housemaster's sincerity, though, if not his judgment. And for all his faults, Slughorn didn't, as a rule, take advantage of people.
Oh, he'd drive a hard bargain when money was involved, and he could poach with the best when it came to ingredients, but mutual advancement was his game. He wasn't like Lucius, either, for whom the best result was 'we've helped each other, but while I've in fact come out far better than you, you think you owe me.' To Slughorn, the glorious win was 'I've helped you (and gotten some other very personally-satisfactory but not necessarily in any way consequential things done on the side in the process) and you, with your new power, will always love me for it because we both know I don't particularly need anything from you and didn't have to.'
So look again.
Slughorn was, as expected, in the last full-gathering slot, doing his usual screed on Making! Learning! Potions! Fun!
Which Severus had to admit he was good at, both the speech and in practice. Although whether making learning potions was fun was a good idea, given how much fun Certain People had had with practical experimentation at Severus's expense in their class, was another matter. Regardless, it was a good speech, due to being liberally speckled with anecdotes promoting Slughorn's most colorful students and reputedly never the same twice.
Severus doubted he'd ever appeared in it. Lily and Black had, he knew. Which was jannock and jam as far as he was concerned, all copacetic. No one who showed up in that speech ever came to anything in the field, no matter how talented they were. Other fields, often, even usually, but never yet in potions. What got highlighted was playful enthusiasm, usually slapdash and/or with entertaining results. Not a club Severus wanted into.
Lily wasn't slapdash, but Slughorn had just raved about her all the time, only a little to prove he Wasn't Prejudiced, You Know—and, in fairness, she'd had some fairly remarkable accidents when she'd been sure she knew what the instructions were after the first read-through and hadn't bothered to double-check. She was good at potions, but she really did belong in that speech where Severus didn't: her heart was in Charms, and it showed in her methodology.
Apart from the inevitable Slug, the major speakers were an Austrian alchemist (also an IAMB member; Severus had read one or two of her articles in Monthly Stirrings) lecturing on applications for a new copper alloy she'd stabilized (!) and a mugwump with a Grecian name who planned to tell everyone about a black market ring Severus had already heard a great deal about from Rodolphus.
He wondered whether, this being MESoP and since the mugwump was apparently a member rather than a guest-lecturer, the tone of her speech was going to be more along the lines of here is how to protect yourself from being killed and/or arrested, as the Confederation would no doubt prefer, or and should you meet a wizard wearing pink lilac in his hat, absolutely do not tell him that the cinders fly high in Malta for the best discounts, no, no, you must summon a mugwump or auror at once.
The presentations one would have to choose between were the usual convention fare. There were ministry and hospital brewers from various nations teaching recipes whose patent-holders had died that year. Herbalists and researchers would be lecturing on ingredients newly discovered, newly rediscovered, new to Europe, or simply, in their opinions, underappreciated. Younger research brewers, mostly ten to thirty years older than Severus (some people only started working seriously after their children finished school), would be would be camped out on tables in the halls between the lectures, explaining why their projects were amazing without teaching anyone how to replicate them, trying to make a name for themselves.
Standard-issue convention, thoroughly whitebread. The super-gasp-special catch me I'm fainting amazingness must be in the details. He pored over it again. Nothing popped out at him about the subjects of the presentations, and the location was of no use whatsoever to his thesis. Typical of Sluggy to pounce on I can't get away and pretend not to notice that the away-to-where mattered enormously, when it suited him not to notice he was offering something irrelevant to requirements.
Though he couldn't deny that there was something appealing, in a lonely way, about the thought of visiting Devon. It was so tightly snarled up with his mother's family; the city council's coat of arms still had Plantagenet arms on them, under the ship. And if he was feeling particularly ridiculous, one could see if Dartmoor was swarming with Sherlockian muggles. Perhaps even, if he dressed to blend and put on his hometown body language and tuned his voice to someone else's accent and pulled his hair back, have the kind of conversation he absolutely wasn't allowed to have with anyone ever.
Evan's reaction to such a different landscape would be delicious however it landed. He'd certainly enjoy any chance to paint Mesolithic skulls that could be arranged. And the sea.
Probably anything other than posed people paying him to be paint them prettily, come to think of it. Severus thought he'd been getting a bit bored with bend-stretch-turn-thank-you-now-in-whatever-else-you-want-to-be-able-to-wear-please yes-you're-lovely-er-no-I-will-not-be-taking-you-home-but-absolutely-we-can-have-tea-while-I-pick-your-brain-did-I-mention-that-frock-flatters-you-enormously-well-chosen-who-did-you-learn-couture-from-oh-my-what-an-interesting-person-they-sound-you-must-have-had-such-lovely-times-together…
Severus would have been homicidally bored with this routine before he'd gotten through it once. Or just homicidal. Evan was astonishing, or possibly just insane. Certainly he couldn't be blamed for beginning to find it tedious after two years. In that case, however, it was more or less Severus's duty to Wizarding Britain and possibly the galaxy to divert him, and quickly.
Slughorn cleared his throat, a little desperately.
"See the opal in the linen net pouch?" Severus directed without looking up. "Same pace, one deosil, one widdershins, then nothing for ten seconds, repeat for three minutes."
Slughorn muttered something that sounded like playing with an old man.
"The directions are in the stillroom book," Severus said, still without looking up, "red book on the hook, but if you put the stirring on hold to read them now because you doubt me, and foul up my batch, you're explaining it to Belby."
"That's two inches thick!"
"Two and a half, but the paper's thicker than parchment," Severus said, judiciously and absently meticulous.
They'd started off using expanding parchment. It had been very high-quality parchment, too, one of the lab's few luxuries (he hadn't been lying to Umbridge about the coffee-pot, he'd only withheld that his hard-earned competence at reparative spells had let him fix it) With all the alterations they'd had to constantly make, though, even that hadn't held up. A binder they could pop index cards of single instructions in and out of, he'd argued, was more practical. His victory had been contingent on him going into Muggle London to procure these arcane items himself, but that was acceptable.
Someday he'd get up the nerve to talk Evan into going with him when he went for replacements. He was almost sure it would be more hilarious than horrific. He was positive Evan would like him in muggle clothes which weren't over five years old and third-hand at least. He'd thought tailored suit jackets were terribly naughty on Wilkes, Severus recalled. Ev was sure to enjoy black denim as long as he wasn't asked to wear it himself, and Severus did like the secure, armored feeling, as long as he had a long enough coat over, once they left the flat, so no one else could see it being tight…
Yes, that would probably be a good bribe or gift someday. Withhold until appropriate. Today he was dealing with probably less pleasant but potentially more productive nonsense.
(Piffle, he mentally amended, with a very private smile, slightly ashamed of himself.)
Something in the actual presenters, then? He was familiar with a few of the names, even knew some of them, for a given value of 'knew.' Had even been to school with one or two of the British ones, mostly Ravenclaws…
…No.
Hm.
Without really thinking about it, Severus pulled out his wand and did a silent guarded-summoning charm. A moment later, his copy of Nature's Nobility had made its way out of his office and into his hand (without breaking any glassware. The accio was, like most popular spells, overrated). It was always a good idea to keep the latest edition handy, in case someone trickily-allied came into the office.
He flipped rapidly through the pages, checking against the presenters, and then closed the book. He'd been right. It wasn't just 'mostly' Ravenclaws. Other than Slughorn, it was all of them.
"Professor Flitwick's been gloating?" he inquired, sliding Slughorn an amused eyebrow.
Possibly nothing in his life had ever gotten him in more trouble than being addicted to that vexed, impressed look. He tried, he really did, but it was his absolutely favorite one on a human face, and sometimes he just couldn't help himself.
He generally didn't like people to look proud of him, which was something that he gathered made other people feel good (Belby had suggested he try this on Pat and Míngyùe and praise them a lot). Proud was patronizing, suggested he'd been set up for a victory or pushed into it, although he didn't mind it from Narcissa because she was usually faking a bit to save face and she knew he knew it. Or from Mam, because of course she had made him, to a point, so fair enough.
Evan had long since been officially reclassified as 'space alien,' so if there were expressions on his face that Severus preferred, that wouldn't have counted even if he hadn't been blatantly cheating by playing havoc with Severus's chemistry. Really it wouldn't. When he acted normally proud of Severus, it was because Severus had learned something Ev had taught him, and that was acceptable. More usually his version of 'proud' fell somewhere between 'warmly astonished,' 'warmly satisfied without surprise' and smugly proprietary with embarrassing snuggling of Severus's arm and smirky looks at passers-by, who were generally eyeballing them with raised eyebrows.
This made Severus want to die a little, and he didn't think it was ever going to convince anyone that Ev was in his right mind for throwing in his lot with an ill-bred mudblood of no connections who had to work, but, well, Ev was rich enough to get classed as eccentric rather than insane, so he was safe enough. And as long as Severus allowed his abject humiliation to show, he didn't look like a gold-digger or make Evan look like a gullible fool.
But Slughorn was Slytherin, and thought Severus was his, in a way, and he could turn on a dime. He beamed almost at once, rolling easily from crestfallen disappointment at having his surprise ruined and/or his secret uncovered to pleasure at Severus's cleverness. Then he turned again, all just-slightly overblown and very conspiratorial pathos. "You do see we have to uphold the honor of the House, m'boy?" he coaxed.
Severus didn't groan or scrub his eyes out loud. Yes, he did have House pride, but good grief. He just pointed out, pragmatic and unmoved, "I don't see what I could have to do with it. Neither the Wolfsbane potion nor my thesis is complete, and the convention's roster is. Besides, between Narcissa's baby and Regulus's anxieties," which was to say, because of doing as-yet uncompensated favors for Blacks, and that wouldn't be lost on Slughorn, "I suspect I've more than used up my quota of personal days for the summer."
And took his place at the cauldron back, utterly indifferent. And raveningly curious to see what Slughorn's next move would be. Evan had explained this to him years ago: when there are roadblocks you can't get past, if someone else wants you farther down the road for their own reasons, removing the obstacles is not a favor they are doing for you, Spike.
"Now, now," Slughorn waved a pudgy finger at him. One of these days he was going to bite that thing off, see if he didn't. "You're overstating it a bit, Severus, aren't you? Belby tells me that even if you lot here aren't satisfied with the potion, it does what it's meant to well enough that the Ministry's happy with it, isn't that right?"
"THE MINISTRY HAS ITS HEAD UP ITS ARSE!" he howled, helplessly knee-jerk. Figuring he might as well be Kissed for a basilisk as a wyvern (and he couldn't have stopped himself anyway; the Slug's twenty-odd stone had right well set up camp on one of his most hair-trigger buttons), he stormed on, "QUITE ASIDE from the fact that AS YOU CAN SEE this damned thing takes ALL SODDING MORNING to brew ONE BATCH of it and you CAN'T PRESERVE IT and you can only make so much at one time and THEY HAVE TO TAKE IT EVERY DAY THE WEEK OF THE FULL!"
Slughorn dodged the emphatic sweep of his jade stirring stick with what Severus might (might) later acknowledge was unexpected agility for a wizard of that age and weight. "I can see it's tedious to brew," he offered soothingly.
"YOU LOOK AT THAT!" Severus shouted, and pointed with the stirring stick (and what he would later acknowledge, curled up on Evan's shoulder in belated humiliation which he would decline to explain, to have been unnecessary dramatic flair) at the stillroom book. "SECOND PAGE!"
He hurled ingredients into the cauldron with unnecessary-but-not-problematic force and clockwork precision while Slughorn read down the page he'd indicated, the one with the list of the current formulation's known side effects. There was some concerned tsking.
At this point, the footsteps outside finished their rapid but reluctant approach, and Ranjit Patil very unwillingly stuck his head into the lab. "Everything all right, Snape?" he asked, full of dread. "Hullo, Professor."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Pat—"
"MUTATING SILVER-ALLOY ALLERGIES!" Severus shrieked, flinging a hand out in furious appeal to Pat, Irony, and any gods, saints, or dead wizards that were inclined to look kindly on underdogs (underwolves?) or hapless craftsmen, fully aware he was wild-eyed as a blown horse and unable to do anything about it.
"Yes, they're a problem," Pat agreed, and wisely fled.
"Oh, dear GOD," Severus added, in what was actually a far more reasonable tone of voice, if only comparatively, "are you making tea in my stillroom?!"
"I do think you could use a cup, Severus, don't you?" Slughorn asked mildly.
Severus made a miserable aargh noise, but took the cup when it was pressed on him. He was going to have to scrub out the #2 copper cauldron with alcohol and distilled water later even before the sterilizing spell, because tannins were insidious, but he couldn't argue. At least Slughorn hadn't found any sugar to shovel in. Because that was how he added it. Not in spoonfuls. With shovels. Not even garden trowels, but the sort muggles used for snow removal and undertaking.
(Evan called them Just Soup Spoons, Sturm Und Drang, No One's Making You Drink It, but Severus felt that such dire offenses against tea deserved enough extravagance to draw attention to them. You couldn't expect Evan to understand that. He could taste when tea had gone wrong, but he couldn't be relied on not to boil the water or use cream. He thought tea bags were convenient and tea balls were brilliant, and had had the gall to act confused when Severus had screamed in horror and banned him from the kitchen. It was just possible that this had not been an act, although Severus was trying not to admit this to himself. If Evan could decide not to mind Severus's face or entire personality, god knew why, Severus could overlook a few minor blasphemies.)
"Now, Severus," Slughorn began in the special I'm-being-jovial-and-sensible voice Severus heard so much of that infallibly made him want to reach down people's throats to yank their lungs out their mouths.
Mostly because it was amazingly hard to argue with. Dumbledore's who-me-snide courtesy was practically candy, it was so much fun. He knew he was being a prick and was delighted when you pricked back, and if you remembered it was a game you didn't lose—no one lost—so that was all right. People who used this voice generally believed themselves, or at least were highly invested in you behaving as though you believed them. As Evan would have said, yeurgh.
"I quite see why you're frustrated with the potion," his old teacher went on soothingly (ha!), "but what has it got to do with the Ministry?"
"Because they think the project's a success as is," Severus hissed like the teakettle Slughorn hadn't used (and what if it hadn't been sterilized properly?! Of course Severus had, but what if he hadn't been the one to use it last, or, or… had developed bad habits since Slughorn had last seen him?), but did manage not to wave his cup around. "You look at that thing," he indicated the stillroom book, "and consider what I just told you about having to brew it ahahaha-'just' seven times a month if you can make the first batch of the day big enough for your purposes. Look at the ingredients on the workbench. Done your cost analysis? Good. Now do a cost-benefit analysis from the Ministry's point of view, balancing that amount for every, oh, ten werewolves or so against public sentiment regarding werewolves."
"…Hm," Slughorn agreed, frowning.
"Exactly. Now do a cost-benefit analysis from a brewer's point of view, balancing time and materials against what most werewolves are likely to be able to pay if the government doesn't fund distribution. Note while calculating time that you absolutely cannot work actively on any other potion while working on this one; it's a ball-and-chainer at nearly every stage, and the simmer and automatic-stir periods aren't long enough to do more than make a cuppa or, more likely, prepare more of ingredients you used more of than you expected to because it wasn't acting right at that stage at that dosage and you'll need to put in more of the same later. But you generally need a second pair of hands anyway."
Nearly as quick at metallic arithmetic as Lucius, Slughorn nodded, "I see your point," after only a moment's calculation.
"Right," Severus confirmed crisply. "Viable neither commercially nor as a Ministry program. Potentially possible for some if the Ministry subsidized part of the cost, but unless werewolves become a great deal more employable quickly, only in theory built on highly unstable castles on unusually thin air. And that's only my first point."
"Of course it is," Slughorn murmured in mixed exasperation and fondness, both soggy with nostalgia. False nostalgia, too, because Severus had it on good authority that no one was ever fond of anything he wrote while they were reading it. Even when he was using his clearest handwriting and not calling them names and making a real effort not to use words of more than three syllables more than twenty times a foot.
"The other one is, let's assume it does miraculously become financially practicable. The side effects… they build, and some of them are permanent, or at least long-lasting. Including the personality changes. Which means that apart from all the physical difficulties, they'd be left with a choice of going monstrously mad one night a month, when everyone expected it and they were able to make themselves secure, or going mad to an unknowable degree for the rest of their lives, all the time or sporadically, no way to predict it. And if not mad, not themselves. Maybe never themselves again. I know which I'd pick."
"Madam Pomfrey's complained to me of your pain tolerance," Slughorn noted in an I'm just saying voice.
"I wasn't born with it," snapped Severus, shoulders hunching defensively. "One adapts. But whether everyone would make the same choice I would or not, not everyone would make the other."
He looked drillingly at his old teacher, waiting for an argument. Slughorn just waited for him to go on.
"So… you know the Ministry. Am I wrong to think they'd either drop the project or make it illegal not to take the stuff if they didn't get swarmed with requests? To think that any werewolf who didn't take it when it was available would be facing bad, bad consequences?"
"Possibly not," Slughorn admitted.
"And what do you think the packs who were already angry enough to give up on the idea of being Wizarding-British do then," he asked, very softly. "The ones who resent the way we treat them already. When they see the ones who try to cooperate dulled and crippled and made even less. Forced to it. Or hope snatched away. Either way. What do they think of us then, Professor? What do they do about it?"
"You should take up telling ghost stories for a living, m'boy," Slughorn chuckled uneasily.
"Mm." Severus let his face, gaze fixed on a future he did not want, fall into what he suspected was one of its more unnerving little smiles. "That is what it would be, in the end, wouldn't it?"
Slughorn spooked hard enough to slop tea over his hand, and put his cup down firmly. "Then raising awareness sounds like quite a good thing, don't you think? The pressure of international public opinion never did any project any harm." He stopped to think about it.
"…That wasn't terrible," Severus supplied helpfully.
"Any project that wasn't terrible," Slughorn agreed. "Come, now. I can make it right with Damocles, and the convention roster's no trouble. Someone's always dropping out of these things. Say you will."
Severus hesitated. His old Housemaster was absolutely right, as far as he could see (no surprise; Slughorn usually was, about politics), although he was probably lying to the anti-charity-case about the roster. Britain was one of the most xenophobic European wizarding communities, Evan said. An excited question or two from one of the countries that was less invested in clinging by its fingernails to an outmoded caste system could only help him. Especially since those countries tended to be the plusher and more powerful ones.
Besides, he could use a few days away from his schedule. It would give him some time to look into Reggie's thing. Quite possibly without even having to dodge Potter, if he arranged matters carefully.
But he couldn't just go ahead and say yes, certainly he'd spend a week out of town, why not. The Dark Lord would eat his face.
Anyway, he wouldn'tjust say yes to what was turning into a mission of persuasion until he was assured that Belby wasn't a better choice for it and didn't want to do it himself. And that Evan and/or Narcissa were going to be able to write him a guideline-script. Because damned if he knew how to even start with something like this.
Finally, he said, "I'll think about it. If Master Belby tells me yes, as well as you, I'll think about it." If he was allowed, no consideration would be needed. But the cover for asking permission served him well, left him looking reluctant, left Slughorn under no impression that Severus would come out of this in even social debt.
"I won't say that's all I can ask," Slughorn beamed broadly, his pale eyes twinkling as his fleshy cheeks bunched. "But it'll do for a start." He had enough sense not to underline how little time there was in which to decide. Severus could read, and the pressing deadline was Slughorn's own fault for asking him so close to it.
"Oh, Salazar's sake," Severus said irritably, turning all the way back to the cauldron he'd been absently stirring, "don't smile like that, it makes you look like Professor Dumbledore."
"A compliment if ever there was one!" the irritant beamed even wider, and floated off like a technically-but-not-contextually small plum-colored cloud.
"I'll have to work harder, then," Severus muttered sourly into his cauldron, and reached with a sigh for the aconite.
He always wanted Evan horribly every time he spent too long with Slughorn, wanted him in the leaden hollows of his chest and the aching of his finger bones, in the offended solitude of his palms and face and ankles where an Evan should have been carelessly wound around him, in the unguarded prickling between his shoulderblades. He wanted to owl him right now, to write, Spent the morning with a quiet nightmare I will never, never let happen to you.
But he knew what Evan meant with all his It Doesn't Work When You Do It Out Louds. Some enemies you had to hit in the face repeatedly until they decided you weren't worth it and sauntered away. Some of them you had to lay silent siege to, shun, starve out.
What Evan turned into on his own—what he'd been when Severus had met him—that cold, apathetic, polite pureblood, drifting and disengaged and (in the eleven-year-old Severus's opinion) barely human… It was intolerable and not allowed. And what you did about it was…
…Was whatever his very strange brain did on its own when Severus was around; Severus wasn't actually at all clear on that bit. But they didn't talk about it, because there wasn't anything to talk about. Not because it wasn't worth talking about, but because it was an absence rather than a thing. He just got bored, or… or, or something. Cooled off and… drifted.
It had been very upsetting every September and January. Even though Severus was always lead-eyed from taking the overnight train south to King's Cross to meet the northbound express (it was an outstandingly stupid system, in his opinion; he didn't see why Northerners and Scots who wanted to couldn't come up the night before to spend the night at the Three Broomsticks and meet Hagrid in the morning, if the Hogsmeade station was so panicky about security. It wasn't as if everyone met everyone on the damned train; even firsties sorted themselves into compartments, not as randomly as most of the adults fondly and brainlessly imagined, and mostly stayed there) or otherwise not feeling well in the autumns.
There was nothing like seeing one's best friend with the vacantly smiling eyes of a porcelain doll from a horror movie where fond you're hopeless laughter should have been to make one feel one's summer hadn't been all that bad. Bones were just bones.
People had said Severus looked like a vampire in his school robes, but Evan had felt like one after holidays. His body was body-temperature, perfectly normal to the touch, but you couldn't quite believe it, looking at him. He radiated chill, worse than people did when they were trying to explain with their expressions how deeply they held you in contempt. Severus had been prepared to despise, abhor, and potentially destroy himself trying to rip Evan's parents' throats out for that.
But once they'd all spent some time in the same room together and Evan's parents had seen that the zombie started thawing into Ev more or less the moment Severus started flailing and snarking at him—that their placid, charming, flat-eyed model child smiled and groaned like a human person and smacked and hauled Severus around like any boy would do with a friend—it had become very clear very quickly that they'd been at their wits' end for years.
In the end, Severus had in fact had to take his life in his hands and shout at them before they'd stop offering him money (stupid, stupid money; even now he couldn't think about it without the part of him that was never getting out of Spinner's Row kicking him, quite aside from having had to sit down with his arms over his ears and hyperventilate afterwards over bellowing at House Black-Rosier) to live with Evan, almost as a job. As if he were some parasoled lady's devoted companion from out of Lily's Austen novels (only better armed (and snarlier)).
The only reason he hadn't hexed them was because they had, despite offending him in very nearly every other possible way, managed not to suggest that they thought of him in gigolo terms. It had only been the roofs they were trying to manage, not the beds. In fact, Ev's mother had still been nearly-subtly trying to convince him to date other, wealthier, purer, more easily manipulated people with more reliable diction and no embarrassing inclinations towards manual labor or making important people feel insulted. Toffs.
Evan's mother simply didn't care about Severus's feelings (he could respect that), but Mr. Rosier might not even have noticed. It was hard to say. As far as Severus could tell, he was as bland as Evan looked, only caring about even art and the pureblood agenda because his father and wife and old school-chum Voldemort cared and why not, you had to do something with yourself, didn't you?
Severus saw what that self-same tepid ghoul lurking in wait inside his friend could grow into every time he saw Slughorn. Amiable, facile, manipulative as all hell, less than terrifying only because of the complete lack of energy, imagination, or personal ambition.
It made him ache to be pinned, warm, blue eyes in his and strong, warm hands cupping his face, rocked slow and heavy and safe. To feel in every part of him, mouth and marrow, blood and spine, right down to his fingertips and the tops of his feet, that Evan was there, really there, awake and focused and able to care about things. Doing so.
If he were selfish, he could have that. But he wanted (he always did, after he'd been talking to the Slug for a while) to promise Evan, make sure he knew that Severus would never let that happen to him. And he couldn't do that with safe. Safe was what they did when he deserved something or needed a lift, not when Evan did.
No Greeks tonight. Or different Greeks. Aristotle, even, if he really needed to be riled up; Severus had been saving spontaneous generation to hit him with on a really special occasion. This might not be a calendar-occasion, but it felt right. They'd be arguing miracle versus transfiguration versus just plain wrong until three, until he thought he was too exhausted for anything, and then Severus would take him apart. He'd cram all the feelings and ideas the world had ever had into that blandly blithe don't-know-what-I'm-missing until the moron who'd punched him because he'd spent his life too hollow to know the difference between passionate terror and being hacked off was never defeated by his own storms or emptiness again.
As he added handfuls (not pinches, with a batch this big) of this and that prepared ingredient, and adjusted the temperature, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred, Severus thought about his shopping list. He could just see what looked good at the fish market and work from there, pick up some limes and decide between the herbs and spices once he had a fish… or some prawns, do something spicy and Spanish with them. He wanted Ev remembering he'd been raised all over Europe while they talked about the conference, wanted him thinking internationally.
Some peaches and fresh basil to make a sangria of the wine, maybe, depending on what he came out of the fish market with. Or a limeade would be just as easy and quicker, and he'd still want basil for that. Maybe a dash of elf-wine vinegar, for that extra bite and complexity.
And a quite large stick of sealing wax, and one of those little spoons for it. Blue would make Evan feel shown off to advantage, or maybe turquoise. He did like to preen about how the Prince colors set him off, the red bringing out the sun and fire in his hair, the blue turning his eyes even brighter and nearly green. Severus liked to call him a peacock, but only because if they pretended it was about vanity it was possible to talk about it, in public, even, without other people knowing he was clinging to Ev's silly, soppy drivel like a stuffed bear.
Also because Ev had that thing about the Malfoy birds he wasn't as over as he liked to pretend he was. Severus was a very helpful person.
It wasn't his fault sweetening potions usually ruined or changed them.
…Did they do sealing wax in smells, or was it just candles? He could improvise, if not. God knew Evan had enough essential oils, to 'create moods' for Ev's clients and put in the bath. There had to be dozens if not hundreds in that wizarding-space cabinet in the bathroom. Ev had even made most of them himself and for his own use, so he'd probably like whatever Severus decided he could stand (Ev was quite good at making scents by now. So good that opening some of the undiluted vials was like being punched in the nose by a fistful of highly aggressive herbs that had been sucking up a Strengthening Solution).
And maybe he could find a few yards of lace ribbon, not so nice that he'd feel badly about (de)spoiling the craftsmanship, quite broad and preferably on the scratchy side. Or nice would be all right if they could tell him how to clean it without having an elf or ruining it. Black, if possible, finding blue being unlikely, but he could fix that, himself, too, if necessary. Anything else Ev might turn out to not know he'd been wanting they could rig up at home.
The cauldron wanted more aconite. This time, the dried and pounded kind. It was nice having Phil Lovegood's spouse on staff so they didn't have to go out and pick the stuff under a dark moon themselves. And almost no one believed that sort of thing mattered these days, so you couldn't get an honest supplier for love-of-the-craft or money. But Phil would believe any damned thing, as long as no one else did, and he could make time for her.
Three, two, one, sprinkle generously. Deosil two three lapdog fur two three fur… and three and four… and twelve. Flame to 1200°C, commence semi-vertical stirring deosil. Two more hours to go. …But, ha! Slughorn was gone now!
He turned the soundproofing spell and the music back on.
What happened to our innocence
Did it go out of style?
Along with our naïveté
No longer a child
Different eyes see different things…
Er. "Next."
…The most endangered species
The honest man
Will still survive annihilation
Forming a world
State of integrity
Sensitive, open and strong
…Right, so he was clearly going to have to never listen to this album again. And possibly shatter the music ball and obliviate himself. It was his own fault for picking up something Mam had 'happened to mention' that Da had grunted at her that he ought to listen to since it had come out around his birthday. Translation: 'the boy and I don't get each other presents any more and he'll like it.'
Which wasn't entirely 100% wrong, just disastrous. Just like Da. He was even better at getting Severus in trouble than Severus, Potter, Black, and Pettigrew were (Lupin was the weak, enabling, bending with the current sort of evil; he didn't start trouble himself) all put together: Da could do it from 240 miles away without getting off the couch. Maybe the other songs would be all right?
There are those who think
That they were dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them
They weren't born in Lotusland
All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate
Kicked in the face
You can't pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill!
Charming. This, before he had to go ask the Dark Lord for time away! By all means, let's not think of pink elephants.
Fine. He hadn't been in an O-Fortuna-and-Beethoven-on-steel-and-glass mood before (the Flailing Fwoopers were vastly and unsurprisingly underappreciated), but now everyone was going to have to fucking live with it.
* This was because both of these plays, while horrifying rather than funny to anyone with the tiniest scrap of a postmodern or even modern social conscience, were officially comedies. Therefore anyone who pulled a line from there in desperation or by accident could nearly-legitimately contest a foul. One won one of these squabbles by being the one Petty—er, Petunia chucked a book or bottle of nail varnish at. The randomness and complete merit-deficiency of this system had ensured no hard feelings. Theoretically. In practice, Severus usually won, which Lily at least pretended to find irritating, and when he didn't, winning didn't make her feel better about it. Severus occasionally wanted to tell her that he didn't know what she was sulking about: Petty's books were fluffy in both content and composition and the bottles were quite small and light and didn't smash dangerously jagged when employed offensively. However, he not only had more sense than that but didn't want to go where that conversation would end up.
Next: It's difficult to know how to react to finding one's least favorite couple in the universe having a punch-up on one's porch. Evan is sure he will be up to the challenge. ^_^
