A.N.: I'm back! I should be updating more regularly now. Thanks for all of the well-wishes and comments :)
"Move along, Stebbins, and take those first-years with you. You know better than to gawk at the Shrieking Shack." Snape swept past the group, going to pull a couple of young Hufflepuffs away from the shack.
Hazel stayed further away, telling the students to head back to the village. "It's nothing more than an old legend. The Shrieking Shack hasn't shrieked in a few years now, and even then, it had been quiet for decades. I know for a fact you're running out of ink, Fawcett. Take Stebbins and go get some more. That won't be an excuse for the foot of parchment you have due on Monday. Both of you show the first-years around. There's a sale at Honeyduke's, and I'm sure they'd like to take a look at the new brooms that are out. Nimbus just released a new line."
Pulling a dirt-covered first-year by the collar, Snape returned. The boy quivered in front of them, having been caught trying to break into the shack. "You're a brave one, aren't you?"
"I, I'm sorry, Sir. I'm so sorry." The poor boy looked like he wanted to evaporate. Or like he was about to throw up.
Waving her wand over him, Hazel cleaned the boy off. "Five points from Gryffindor. I admire how well you stick to your house's values, but I would recommend that you go back into town. Bravery without thinking will get you killed. Now don't make me regret not taking more points from you."
"Yes, ma'am. I'm so sorry, ma'am." His eyes were still trained on Snape, who had already established his authoritarian reputation among the first-years. Several of them had learned to fear him in their first Potions lesson. "I'll never do it again."
"Go," Snape offered, both of them watching the boy take off for the village and rejoin his friends. "There is one every year."
"I'm just glad you caught him." Hazel thought back to their school days, when no one dared to approach the Shrieking Shack, not even the bravest of Gryffindors. Well, except for Snape.
A handful of them knew the secret, Hazel included. She had never been in the shack, but she and Remus were close enough that she knew about it by the end of her first year. Occasionally she would walk the Marauders down there when a full moon was coming, making sure that they weren't being followed. In the morning, she would signal that it was safe for them to emerge, in case anyone was watching the Whomping Willow.
Both of them remembered the cruel prank that James had saved Snape from when they were in school, when he very nearly made it into the Shrieking Shack. After that, they avoided the outskirts of Hogsmeade, favoring the shops and The Three Broomsticks.
They began to walk back to the village together, successfully scaring off any daring first-years. "Do you remember the trip here in seventh year before the winter ball?"
"That was the last trip before they were banned," Snape nodded, the two of them turning back onto the main road. Students brushed past them in chattering groups, moving from shop to shop. "Do you mind if we duck into Potage's? I have a list of ingredients to pick up."
"Do you mind if we duck into Potage's? I have a list of ingredients to pick up."
"Sure," Hazel shivered. "Let's get out of the cold. Butterbeer after this, okay?" Snape held the door open for her, the two of them stepping into the potion shop. "I can feel the cold in my bones."
They woke to a few inches of snow on the morning of the last Hogsmeade trip of the semester, but it hadn't stopped anyone. There was a ball to prepare for, after all. A few students had yet to buy dress robes, but most of them were out getting things altered, picking up matching jewelry, or desperately hunting down ties to match their dates' dresses. Others were running around trying to buy last-minute holiday presents as the end of the term rapidly approached.
The two of them, however, were busy hunting down obscure ingredients for a potion that they had been inventing. There were just a couple of ingredients they were missing, but Hazel could only steal so much from Professor Slughorn's stores before she would get caught. And the things they needed were definitely things she would get caught for. A missing bezoar or two would go unnoticed, but Slughorn would be able to tell if he was missing, "Fire seed, Lethe river water, salamander blood, and a bit of an odd one - gunpowder," Snape requested, Potage frowning behind the counter.
As Snape talked to Potage, Hazel drifted off into the rest of the shop. There was a standard line of cauldrons, glass phials, and other equipment, but what she was drawn to was the wall of delicate jars, each of them holding a different pickled animal or plant. The shadowy shelves were filled with slimy, revolting things. A jar full of eyes stood out, Hazel staring into them and half expecting that they would blink back at her.
Moving on to the wall of dried things, she ran her fingers through a stock of unicorn hair, marveling at how soft it was. Slughorn only ever kept a few strands in the storeroom. She'd never seen that much in one place, except for a glimpse of the back room of Ollivander's, where the wand maker worked his magic. A string of dried fairy wings ran over a window, bat wings neatly strung up next to them. Bunches of herbs were drying nearby.
Wandering through the shop, Hazel thought of all of the time they had spent brewing potions in Astronomy Tower, and then in a strange hidden room they had found to study in, the hours they'd hovered over a cauldron, trying to make sure the flames were at just the right height. The momentary panic as they remembered it was time to stir, or the fright when they realized they had forgotten to add something. The careful weighing and measuring and crushing up beetle shells. One of them copying exact measurements in a careful hand, compiling recipes from books Hazel was sure were about to crumble into dust.
"Ready?" Snape reappeared by her side, a bag of ingredients in his hand.
"Yeah. I'm buying, by the way," she mentioned as she wound her scarf a little tighter. Stepping back out into the snow, they rejoined the groups of students squeezing their way past each other on the bustling street. "I owe you for saving me on that Amortentia question. For some reason I completely blanked on whether we were supposed to crush or shred the asphodel."
Amortentia. Slughorn had shown them the potion in their last class, though they had yet to brew it for themselves. It wasn't in the curriculum, but that never stopped Slughorn from showing off the range of things potions had the power to do. "I never had the chance to ask. What did it smell like to you?"
"Ink, rosemary, and something I can only compare to - what's it called? The stuff we store all of the weird things in for potions? Formaldehyde?" They stopped to let a group of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs out of The Three Broomsticks before they ducked inside. "What about you?"
"Fresh linen, lavender, and butterbeer," he smiled as they dusted the snow off of themselves, heading for the bar.
Potage's hadn't changed at all, the two of them greeting Mr. Potage just like they had years before. Leaving with a delicately-packed bag full of different vials, they set off for The Three Broomsticks, surprising all of the students there. Professors weren't a rare sight in The Three Broomsticks, especially those who regularly supervised the Hogsmeade trips. But these two couldn't step inside without setting off a group of Hufflepuffs, who immediately began whispering about how odd it was to see them in the bar, let alone to see Snape actually smile.
"They don't think you're capable of laughing," Hazel told him as they navigated their way to a table in a corner. "I don't think some of them have ever seen you smile, especially the first-years."
Snape smiled into his drink. "There is hardly much to laugh about in Potions class. Nor out in the regular world. I can't help but think that all of these children are living in a bubble, a bubble that is bound to burst soon."
Taking a sip of her drink, Hazel looked out over the pub. He was right. Tables of students were talking and joking together, many of them blissfully unaware of Voldemort's work behind-the-scenes. Between their parents sheltering them from the worst news of Death Eater attacks, the Daily Prophet refusing to report on anything important, and Umbridge censoring everything, most of the students really had no idea what was going on.
It was a day like this when it happened the first time. Full of relief that exams were over, the day after the winter ball, all-out war had erupted. Death Eaters started attacking out in the open. Multiple students received letters at breakfast the next morning, telling them that they would be coming home to funerals instead of the holidays that they had been looking forward to. In one night a generation of Hogwarts students had lost what safety the school offered. More than anything, Hazel had wanted to turn to the table beside hers, but she kept her back to the Slytherins. None of them had gotten the damning letters. And the one person she would have wanted to talk to there had already turned his back on their cause for good.
This time it would be different. They had grown up, they had changed. Hopefully for the better. "I don't want to say you're right," she sighed. "But you are. He's back, and it's just a matter of time." She looked across the table, seeing the same face she had seen here so often back before he had left her for the soon-to-be Death Eaters. This had been their table, the one they always took when they came into Hogsmeade. Sweltering hot or freezing cold outside, Hazel always insisted on stopping for a butterbeer. He would oblige, of course. After he had joined the proto-Death Eater crowd, Hazel and her friends would still end up at The Three Broomsticks, but they never sat in the corner the two of them staked out for nearly four years. "You never told me about those years," she mused. "Between the end of our seventh year and when I ran into you and decided to hang up my Auror badge."
"Perhaps I will one day. Not now. Not quite yet."
"I can respect that," she smiled, raising her glass to her lips before checking her watch. "Fifteen minutes or so and we need to start rounding everyone up."