Am sadly making no money out of this. I have merely borrowed J.K.Rowling's characters for my own amusement, although I am starting to consider running off with Severus Snape when I've finished the story...
This story did contain slashiness, but I have no idea where that went...
Heh...this took a bit longer than I expected, what with a huge block followed by madly writing some AU random but fun snippets followed by vast reams of coursework to write...
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The Lamb and Flag Passage was a surprisingly quiet and pleasant-looking alley leading back from a pub on St. Giles. About halfway down, there was an old tree, which Snape reached around in order to tap a stone in the wall with his wand. An archway opened, and Snape and Judith stepped through.
The wizarding quarter was sleepier than the Muggle centre of Oxford, and there appeared to be no one about. Leafy shadows played over the worn cobbles, and the only noise was the low murmur of voices from a radio on someone's windowsill. Snape seemed a lot less on edge here, although that could have been contendedness at having finally got rid of Lucius Malfoy.
The house Snape went straight to was old, and looked as if it was falling apart. However, when he knocked on the door it was opened almost immediately by an old man who appeared to recognise Snape.
"Ah, Severus. And this must be Judith. Do come in."
They followed him into a gloomy interior and sat down on rickety old chairs.
"Do you have the Portkey?" Snape asked.
"Yes, but you're not having it," the old man replied serenely.
"This is hardly time to be playing games, Mortimer," Snape said. "I just killed Lucius Malfoy. Voldemort's really not going to be happy with me now."
The old man - Mortimer - raised an eyebrow. "Really, Severus, I wish you wouldn't be so impatient. I was about to say that I've just received new instructions from Albus, which say where you need to go next."
"Can I see them, or is that getting to the point a little too quickly?"
Mortimer handed over a piece of parchment. "Severus and Judith to find Rowling and bring her back to Hogwarts."
"Manchester?" Judith wondered. "Why would she be there?"
"I wondered that myself," Mortimer said. "So I did some research. She's on a signing tour, and will be at a bookshop in Manchester tommorrow."
"So what do we do? Queue up with the rest and then ask her nicely to come back to Hogwarts with us?"
"Judith, we're wizards. We do magic. We'll find a way, even if it is just a Stunning spell on the rest of the shop," Snape said.
Mortimer rolled his eyes. "Never mind, Severus, you've still got a day to come up with a decent plan."
Snape glared. Mortimer winced slightly. Judith laughed. The glare changed direction. Judith still laughed.
"Congratulations, you just withstood a full-blast Snape-glare," Mortimer said, mildly impressed.
"Time to go," Snape said, standing up abruptly. "Give us the Manchester Portkey, Mortimer."
"Don't have it," Mortimer replied. "The last person to use it hasn't brought it back yet. You'll have to walk."
"I have a car," Judith pointed out quickly. The thought of walking all the way to Manchester by tomorrow was a deeply disturbing one.
"With Death Eater tracking spells stuck all over it," Snape pointed out. "We can catch a train or something."
"What, and leave my poor little car to rot? I think not, Snape," Judith replied. "We'll just have to move the tracking spells onto something else."
Snape frowned. "I'll give it a go," he said doubtfully, "but I'm not promising anything. You might as well stop calling me Snape, by the way. My name is Severus."
* * *
As she watched Severus muttering spells over her car, Judith could see the tracking spells, green, stringy and unmoving. This was slightly alarming - she was sure spells were meant to be invisible. She asked him if they were.
"They aren't something you can see," he replied. "Look, this is no good, Judith. We'll have to get a train."
Judith frowned. Of course it was no good. Severus' spells were doing the wrong kind of thing for the tracking spells. She reached out her right hand and touched one of them. It felt slightly tingly. She pried part of one off the car, and then used that to pull the rest of the green stringy stuff off. It came off easily, like plasticine.
Severus started. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Taking the spells off," Judith said, sticking it to a concrete pillar. She peeled the rest of them off, and looked at the pillar. "Now they'll go searching after a multi-storey car park," she said. "Shall we go now?"
Severus frowned, moving his wand over the car with raised eyebrows. "They've gone. What did you do?"
"Peeled them off."
"That's impossible. Well, it ought to be, anyway. The nature of spells means there isn't anything to show up, apparently." He frowned. "I'll ask Minerva as soon as we've finished with all this."
* * *
"Judith! Do you have any idea how to drive this thing?" Severus demanded as Judith changed lanes and nearly crashed into a lorry for what was about the millionth time.
"Calm down, Sev, I know exactly what I'm doing," she'd assured him patronisingly.
"Do NOT call me Sev, and don't patronise me, you stupid little girl!" he roared in return.
"Don't you think you might be overreacting?"
"Don't you think you ought to be a bit more polite?"
"Oh, shut up, you miserable old git."
"Ignorant Muggle."
"Sad bastard."
"Fuckwit."
"Don't swear at me, you pile of rotting shite."
The argument continued in this way, and Judith realised she was enjoying it. She wondered what she would have said a couple of days ago if someone had told her she'd soon be driving up the motorway arguing with Severus Snape.
In the silence after they ran out of insults, there was a loud bang and two someones Apparated into the back seat. Severus swung around with his wand in his hand, then sagged and turned back around. Judith glanced in the mirror and caught a glimpse of two identical redheads before she nearly crashed into the car in front.
"Fuck," they said vehemently. "How the fuck do you expect anyone to Apparate into here when you're driving like that?"
"The idea was that no one did," Severus replied dryly. "Whatever possessed you two to try?"
"Professor Snape!" one of them exclaimed. "How good to see you again!"
Severus glared straight ahead. "Why thank you, Mr Weasley. I'm delighted to see you too."
"Which of you is Fred and which is George?" Judith asked.
"You know who we are?" the twin who hadn't spoken before asked.
"How many sets of Weasley twins are there?" she replied. "I've read the books - you do know about the books, don't you?"
"Of course," one said, sounding offended. "We know everything."
Severus raised an eyebrow. "How nice to know. You'll be here to tell us everything we need to know about the Rowling woman, then?"
"Naturally, we'd love to-" one started.
"But it would ruin the entire fabric of reality if we didn't let you find out for yourselves," the other finished. "I'm Fred, that's George, by the way."
George wriggled a bit. "Sure this car's small enough?"
"I'm sorry, I'd have bought a bigger one if I knew random Weasleys were going to Apparate into the back of it," Judith replied. "It's only meant for one, the poor thing."
"So why are you here?" Severus interrupted, sounding as irritated as he looked.
"To help," Fred replied as if it was the most obvious thing on Earth. "Dumbledore owled us."
"I should warn you this is a lot more dangerous than Dumbledore thinks," he warned.
"Oh?"
"He just killed Lucius Malfoy," Judith explained. "We think it may have pissed Voldemort off slightly."
They grinned. "Really? Can we see the body?"
"We left it in a bookshop in Oxford surrounded by lots of confused people," Severus said.
"And someone who was just catching on," Judith added.
"There was?" Severus sounded puzzled.
"The bloke in the Quidditch t-shirt," she said. "He was looking how I felt when I saw Draco Malfoy in the alley."
"Never saw him."
"Maybe it's another thing like the poster."
"What poster?" the twins interrupted simultaneously.
"In the bookshop, there was a poster for the books," Judith said,"and Sev didn't see it until I pointed it out."
"I told you not to call me that," Severus sounded threatening.
"He likes it really," Judith said airily to the twins, "he just won't admit it in front of you."
"Sounds like The Taming of the Shrew," said George, raising his eyebrows.
"You never said it was like that between you two," Fred added with a mischeivous grin.
Judith snorted. "It isn't," she replied. "My purpose in life is to annoy him. What are you doing, reading Shakespeare?" she added quickly, partly because she wanted to know but also because Severus was looking very irritated and about to say something Judith might regret.
"Shakespeare was a wizard," Fred said. "All of his plays were originally set in the wizarding world, but he translated them into the Muggle world to make more money."
Judith yawned. "I think I'm about to fall asleep."
"You drive badly enough awake," Severus said. "We should stop for the night."
* * *
Stopping for the night entailed three rooms in a Travelodge paid for with the last of Judith's money. It was worth it, though, to have some time to herself for the first time since she had met Draco Malfoy and Wotsisface Crabbe in the alley. Since then she had been surrounded by other people, to the point of sleeping on the sofa with Seamus and Dean the previous night. It was surprising that it had only been the evening before that she had found out this reality.
It was still quite an effort to think of the books she was so familiar with as another facet of reality, but having the charaters - no, people - around helped. The twins were just as she had imagined them, and so were most of the others she had met so far, apart from Severus Snape. Severus, although she would never admit it to him in a million years, had always been her favourite character in the books because all the complexities of his life intrigued her. And now, in real life, he was even more complicated than she had thought. Judith was fascinated.
She was about to turn the light out and try to sleep when there was a loud, angry yell from the room next to her - Severus's room. There were running footsteps as she pulled on her jeans under her nightie, and now raised voices arguing, lots of them, some sounding twin-like and surprised. Judith yanked a jumper over her head and went out into the hallway. Severus's door was ajar.
Inside, he had his wand out and pointing at a burly, brown-haired man sitting on the floor looking slighty dazed and more than a little confused. He had a visible lump on the side of his head which he was gingerly prodding. Fred and George had their wands pointed at Severus.
"It's Oliver Wood, you fool!" George was shouting. "If you leave him alone maybe we can find out what's wrong with him!"
* * *
Hmm...so where's this going? Why has Oliver Wood suddenly appeared in a random Travelodge, in Severus Snape's room, of all places? And what's with Judith peeling invisible spells off her car? Answers may or may not be found in Chapter 6 of the immortal saga of Climbing Up The Walls...
