AN: As promised, here is the last chapter of year 4 that I have complete. I've actually been in the process of rewriting the first 18 or so chapters and putting them into their own stand alone 'book'. Check my profile if that interests you. I think you'll be able to tell which one it is. Thanks to the handful of new favs and follows and to MommaJ24 and the mystery guest for the reviews. Just one more review pushes this story to 450 reviews, so I would be super stoked if someone could leave just one more! Hope you enjoy. I promise I'm still trying to break out of this rut. I just don't know how long it might take.
Moody Ferrets... Err, Malfoys
"A. Ferret."
Severus hated it when Lucius made each word of a statement a sentence in itself.
"I don't know what you want me to do," he sighed while Lucius paced the outside ring of his office, his walking stick tapping with each second step, making it sound as if Lucius had some kind of odd limp, not so unlike Moody. Severus had to swallow a chuckle at the thought and rearrange the amused look on his face before Lucius made it back around to his desk again.
"My. Son. Was. Turned..."
Unable to take it anymore, Severus cut him off. "Into a ferret, as I am well aware, but there isn't much else anyone can do."
He was trying to sooth, already knowing it wasn't going to work. When Lucius wanted to be mad, he proceeded to be good and mad, oftentimes for much much longer than should be warranted. Moody had been dealt with as much as someone could deal with Moody, there was nothing left to do but to move on from the situation.
He started to say as much. "Moody has been informed of his..."
Now was Lucius' turn to cut in. They'd been doing this back and forth for the last half hour. "Why is he still employ..."
"You are asking the wrong wizard," he said, dryly. "I believe the one you want can be found..."
"I already spoke with him. He's insufferab..."
"I know that." He didn't need Lucius to tell him Albus was insufferable. If only Lucius knew just how impossible Albus really was. "What I don't know is, why you're..."
"I just need someone to vent to!"
Severus blinked in surprise. "Oh, well, by all means, vent on."
He hadn't realized that Lucius was just here to let off steam. As head of Draco's house and a school friend to Lucius, he'd assumed Lucius had wanted something more tangible than an ear to bend.
"He's alright you know," he said, knowing that Draco was Lucius' soft point.
Severus had yet to see him fail to get up in arms about anything that might harm his only child. He supposed that any good parent would do that, but, if he was going to be honest, he'd never really expected for Lucius to be a good parent. Although family meant everything to the Malfoys and the Blacks, Severus had assumed that any children of Lucius' would have essentially been raised by a nanny or some kind of au pair, just as Severus knew, Lucius had essentially been. He'd been surprised when Lucius and Narcissa had employed neither for any length of time. He supposed that they'd had to try so long and so hard to conceive Draco, and the fact that they could have no more children had had an effect on how they'd decided to raise the one child they'd been able to have.
"He's physically alright, but who knows the emotional toll that it will have on him?" Lucius stopped pacing and dropped down into a chair. "I've spoken with his house mates, to hear them tell it, the lunatic was blasting him around the courtyard like a rouge Bludger."
Severus had heard that as well, but knew it was probably a greatly exaggerated version of what had actually happened.. With a frown, he searched for some kind of answer. "I believe that, if he's treated as if everything is fine now, than everything will really be fine. With a few days distance, I'm sure he'll be telling everyone about it with embellishments that make it seem as if he didn't have such a bad experience."
"I hope you are right," Lucius fretted.
"Children are resilient," Severus assured him.
"Well, you certainly always were," Lucius suddenly let forth a little chuckle. "All those times with Potter and Black; and I was only here until your second year. You always managed your revenge."
Severus hummed noncommittally, not wanting to take this particular stroll down memory lane. As Lucius had said, he'd only been around while he, Potter, and Black had been younger students, hitting each other with Tripping Jinxes and Hair Raising Hexes. He hadn't been there as the harmless spells had evolved into ever more sinister pranks and plots, especially as Potter had taken more and more interest in Lily.
As that had happened, Severus had started hoping that he might be able to get Potter and Black expelled, seeing as it was obvious to him that they weren't just involved in school hour pranks. Their whispered chatter had smacked of something... more. He'd found out about the werewolf, but had always felt like that wasn't the entire story. Try as he might, he'd never been able to find out much more and thus had never managed to get Potter out of school and away from Lily.
"Draco will be fine," he said, hoping to bring the conversation back to where they'd started. If he had to pick between talking about their former school days and listening to Lucius continue to fret over Draco, he'd pick the latter. "I plan to keep a close eye on him for the next little while, just to make sure of it."
"I appreciate that, Severus, I really do," Lucius said, taking the bait and abandoning the school days conversation. "I'm sure Narcissa will as well."
They sat in silence for a moment. Severus was unwilling to say much more, hoping that this would be the end of everything, as he had some things to do, but knew he wouldn't be able to make much headway on them if Lucius decided to stay.
"Well," Lucius started after a few more minutes. "I'm sure you have things to attend to, and I don't see that I can do much more by staying around here."
He pushed himself up out of the chair while Severus bit back a sigh of relief. Lucius extended his free hand and Severus stared at it for a moment before taking it. It wasn't often Lucius extended gestures of pleasantry or gratitude.
"Thank you, Severus, for keeping an eye on Draco for me," he said, as sincerely as Severus had ever heard him say anything.
"Not at all, Lucius," he replied, shaking his hand, surprised when Lucius added an extra squeeze before letting go.
"Narsissa and I won't forget it," he said, on his way out the door.
Severus breathed an actual sigh of relief as he heard Lucuis' cane tapping away, growing fainter as he made his way down the corridors. He was glad Lucius was grateful to him. Besides keeping an extra eye on Draco for awhile, he'd also had to deal with Moody, when Moody had brought the boy to him after the bouncing ferret incident. Severus' orginal plans for the year had been to avoid Moody at all costs, for as long as possible. It had been to his great chagrin that Moody had barged into his office with the boy in tow not even one full day into the term.
"So, Snape," he said.
"Professor Snape," Severus drawled.
"Ah, yes, how could I forget? Professor Snape. Is this what you teach your House? To shoot spells at someone's back?"
"As I wasn't there, Moody," he said.
"Professor Moody," Moody broke in.
"Ah, yes, how could I forget? As I wasn't there, I can not offer an opinion as to wether or not Mr. Malfoy's behavior is what is expected of a Slytherin or not. I assure you, however, that I shall take this matter into my own hands and determine what, if any, action is needed. I've already heard from Minerva, and as I understand it, you took a bit of action on your own. Action, that some might argue, was unbefitting a Hogwart's professor."
That seemed to take some of the starch out of Moody's sails. He released Draco's arm and shifted uncomfortably.
"Yes, well, old habits tend to die hard. Just keep your students in order, Professor Snape."
With that he turned and clunked out of the room on his awkward wooden leg.
Severus met Draco's eyes. "You have to make smarter decisions, Draco," he said. "Everyone is keeping an especially close eye on our house these days. Especially Moody. We can't afford anything that gives them a reason to look even harder. If your father hasn't told you stories of Moody yet, be sure to ask. You'll understand why he's dangerous to all of us."
With that, Severus sent Draco back to the common room, hoping that he'd be alright once he got back to his friends and normal routine.
He'd been unsurprised when Lucius had arrived by dinner.
Severus knew his warning wouldn't do much to curb the boy's behavior, but hopefully it would open the dialogue between Draco and Lucius about Moody. He'd be sure to ask Lucius, next time he saw him, if he'd told the boy all he should about the old Auror.
With one last sigh, he rolled up his sleeves and pulled a stack of parchment in front of him so that he could start grading. Reaching for his quill, he caught sight of his Dark Mark. He tried to ignore it and the fact that it was most definitely getting darker. That fact could no longer be ignored, nor could he do anything about it. With a hard swallow, he tried to get on with his day.
Over the next week or so, Severus and the other Professor's had their hands full assisting the house elves and Filch in sprucing up the castle. It had been many many years since the wizarding schools had visited and Albus and the Minister wanted to be sure everything was as tip top as it could possibly be. Personally, Severus suspected no one at all would care if the suits of armor were shined or if every last cobweb was chased out of the dungeons, but knew there was no one who would listen to his complaints, so he simply wandered the halls, doing as little as possible to make it look like he was helping.
It was during one of these 'cleaning' trips that he discovered the door to his office, which he always charmed shut, was ajar and someone could be seen moving around inside. With his temper flaring, he stalked up and pushed the door wide open before stepping in. Standing in front of his desk with a handful of parchment, was Mad Eye Moody.
"What," he asked in as calm and measured a voice as he could manage, "are you doing in my office?"
The gnarled old Auror didn't startle at his voice, and Severus suspected that the magical eye had been keeping a lookout out the back of his head. He knew Severus was there long before he spoke. He simply finished riffling through the pile of essays that he was holding as he straightened and turned to face Severus.
"Oy, Snape," he said, conversationally in his gruff voice, his spell beaten face twisted into what some might call a smile, but Severus knew it to be a ploy. The two wizards had had their share of run ins over the years. Mad Eye being a very suspicious man who didn't give up old ideas easily. For the first few years after the Dark Lords defeat Severus had noticed that he'd run into Moody while out and about with startling regularity. He knew the old Auror had never really given up the idea that Severus was still working on behalf of Voldemort.
When Moody said no more, and also didn't put down the stack of parchment, Severus asked his question again. "What. Are you doing. In my office?" he asked, adding extra punctuation to the question, hoping it might have some effect. On a student, it would have worked like a charm, but on Mad Eye, it just seemed to be a source of amusement, but this time he at least answered.
"Just the job I was brought here to do," he said gruffly, dropping the pages to the floor where they spread and fanned out like fall leaves.
Severus knew he had done it to try and get a rise out of him. He refused to take the bait.
"I was under the impression that you'd been brought in to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts." he said, dryly, trying not to show how irritated he was that Moody kept right on poking around.
"Hmm, yes, mainly," he said as he made his way over to the shelves on the wall and started shifting jars around, his wooden leg thumping with every other step. "But you know what they say about old habits."
"I also know what they say about breaking and entering," Severus snipped. "I find it hard to believe that Albus authorized anything of this nature."
He finally took the hint and started to make his way to the door, but not before running his hands along the bookcases as he passed them, randomly pulling a few books forward and not pushing them back into the rows when he was done. "Well, I'm just about done here," he said as he tried to push past Severus. Severus pushed himself up very close to Moody's face and hissed,
"You are very done here. As I said, I'm quite sure Albus didn't authorize anything of this nature. I don't expect to find you here again."
"You just watch yourself, Snape. Because I will be. And your old buddy Karkaroff too, when he arrives. Yes, that ought to be quite the interesting reunion, don't you think? Two old friends reuniting after so many years."
Severus declined to answer, he simply stood aside so that Moody could exit. He didn't want to think about Karkaroff right now. If he did, he'd start dwelling on the fact that the old skunk had named him while in front of the Wizengamot as a conspirator in the war. How was he supposed to exist in the same space as the man? He'd tried to turn him in to save his own skin and Severus knew he couldn't do anything about it at the school.
He knew better than to think Karkaroff would put himself in a situation outside of the school for Severus to exact any kind of revenge. Even if he did, and it did happen, as satisfying as it would be, he knew Albus would just ruin it with his blasted moralizing and scolding about his well thought out plans going awry.
"The ones that got away still haunt me, you know, Snape," Moody said as he passed by and into the hallway. He limped down the hall and said over his shoulder, "You've haunted me for a long time, you know. Caused many sleepless nights. Among other things this year, I'm out to prove that you're nothing more than an old Death Eater who can't change his spots."
Severus declined to answer, keeping his face well ordered, as he was sure that blasted magical eye was peering out the back of Moody's skull. He simply stood his ground until the old Auror turned a corner, then swept into his office and charmed the door shut. He was going to have to add on to his arsenal of protective spells around his office and his rooms. Running into Mad Eye inside wasn't something he wanted to do on a regular basis. He didn't truly fear many wizards, but Moody was one to be wary of, if for no other reason than the fact that he was getting even more unpredictable in his old age.
Severus looked around his torn apart office with an annoyed groan. It promised to be another trying year at Hogwarts and for more than just one reason. With a wave of his wand, everything out of place started to move, putting itself back where it belonged. At least with his office back in order he could sit for a few minutes and pretend nothing was off about this year. He ought not get into that habit, though, as it was freshly disappointing every time he had to acknowledge that it wasn't.
