Young Ms. Figg Chapter Fourteen: This won't be pretty
If Harry, Ron, and Hermione thought they'd had a difficult Sunday, they had nothing on Snape and Figg. A night on hard iron beds in a muggle jail had not improved either of their dispositions. Severus Snape awoke first and was already prowling tensely around his small cell when Ella Figg awakened a short time later. She kept her eyes closed for a moment bracing herself to face the reality of her situation. She was in jail, muggle jail. Somewhere Harry Potter's Aunt and Uncle were likely dead. The only protection Harry had outside of Hogwarts had likely been destroyed by Death Eaters or Voldemort himself. Meanwhile she and Severus sat on their respective bottoms in muggle cages. She wasn't sure, at this moment, she wouldn't prefer Azkaban.
She hit the thin mattress with her fist and sat up suddenly... and regretted it. Muscles sore from the poor sleeping surface immediately screamed their protest. Ella let out several choice oaths. She heart a disgruntled "humph" behind her and stood to face Snape. He stood, arms crossed, regarding her through the bars which separated them.
"Good morning to you, too, Severus," Ella said, irritably.
He merely raised his eyebrow in reply.
"Good morning to you as well, Ella" she said in a sarcastic growl.
"Sarcasm will hardly help our situation," Snape noted dryly.
"No!" Ella said in mock surprise, "The question isn't what will not help, it is what WILL. Have you come up with any notions while you've been skulking about your cell?"
"No." Snape snapped, clearly annoyed, "We are caged like animals without our wands and with no conceivable way of contacting anyone in the magical community. This much I know and it is precious little comfort."
"And bloody maddening!" Ella exclaimed plunging to her feet, "Damn, damn, damn!"
"Letting your emotions get the better of you will hardly help," Snape noted dryly.
"Oh shut up, Severus! Honestly, you are hardly the one to tell me - or anyone else - about what is best concerning our emotions. At least the rest of us deal with them!" Ella spat.
"Oh I do beg your pardon?!" Snape snapped back, "I at least maintain some semblance of control over my emotions."
"Hardly," Ella snorted, "If anything your emotions control YOU."
"Oh, really!" Snape exclaimed, turning sharply to walk away. Unfortunately, his cell did not provide nearly enough distance. He stood mere feet away, facing the bars separating his cell from the last, empty, one. He breathed deeply grasping for calm. It didn't work. He whirled and strode back to the other set of bars with scarcely two steps.
"You have a great deal of nerve, Arabella Figg," He said in a low voice that trembled with rage. "How dare you presume to know anything about me or my emotions... you of all people!"
"Me of all people?" Ella asked, incredulous.
"Yes, you," Snape hissed, "You and your little gang. You never knew anything about me, any of you -and you still don't. As near as I can tell the only thing you knew is that it was your job to make my life as difficult as possible. And just when I think I'm free every last one of you comes back to torment me yet again! Only Fletcher has the good sense or compassion to stay away!" he spat.
"Oh, so it's all our fault is it? Severus Snape is a sour miserable man who takes out his frustrations on students who have done him no harm because of us? Come off it, Severus!"
Snape had opened his mouth to make his retort when a police officer holding two small trays loudly cleared his throat. Both Snape and Figg looked up swiftly and coloured a bit with embarrassment at being overheard. The officer merely looked at them askance and held the trays out toward the openings in the bars that had obviously been designed for the trays to pass through. The prisoners both walked over, took their respective trays and went to sit on their beds - backs to one another. Without a word, the officer turned and left them.
Instant oatmeal in styrofoam bowls, vending machine coffee, rather old looking vending machine tins of grapefruit juice, plastic spoons and packets of sugar were arranged without thought or imagination on the trays.
"Hmph. Guess they don't get many overnighters," Ella muttered stirring the dyspeptic oatmeal. With a sigh (and a grimace) she put sugar in both the coffee and the oatmeal and had a go at eating. The oatmeal was already lukewarm at best and rather sticky. She only managed to force down a few spoonfuls before turning to the coffee. Fortunately, she had spent enough time with muggles to be used to bad coffee. She downed it quickly and toyed with the idea of the juice. Examining the can closely she could see a great deal of oxidation on the metal and what seemed to be a few flecks of rust. She put the can back on the tray and put the whole lot on the floor next to the cell door.
She saw Snape had done the same. His oatmeal remained mostly untouched and his juice unopened. He had also only drunk half the coffee. Ella merely shook her head and headed for the chipped sink affixed to the back wall of the cell. She had to let the tap run for a moment before the water looked decent. She splashed a liberal amount of it on her face and patted it dry with her robe sleeve. She looked at the equally decrepit toilet situated in the open next to the sink and feared the worst. Still, something would have to be done... and soon.
"Ah, Er, Officer, Sir?!" She called out. The breakfast-tray officer stood and made his way over to the cell. "Wha'?" he asked lazily.
Ella took a breath and tried to seem a little more helpless and shy than she really was.
"Well, sir, it's the toilet, sir. I'm a woman, you know, and it's out here in the open and I just couldn't, you know. Could someone take me somewhere more private please?"
He regarded her for a moment then said, "Hold out your wrists in front of you."
Ella did as she was told and was promptly placed back in the irons the officers had placed her in the day before. This done the officer unlocked the cell, opened the door and jerked his head. He led Ella to a Ladies room and held open the door. Ella looked from her wrists to him and back into the toilet. He merely shrugged and jerked his head. She'd have to manage.
A full bladder can increase one's inventiveness considerably, so manage Ella did. When she was escorted back to her cell Severus was standing by his cell door. He held out his wrists and was met with a snort of derision. "Not a chance, mister. Only the ladies get taken to a different toilet, you'll have to make do." The officer said with a wicked grin.
Ella didn't think it was possible for Snape's complexion to get paler... but it did. His eyes widened in horror as he watched the officer return to his desk with Ella's handcuffs. He looked at Ella and back to his own exposed toilet. She couldn't find it in herself to be amused by his plight. No matter what she did or didn't think of Severus and no matter how angry she was, she was still horrified for him. She knew that this might be more than his pride could bear.
"Ah, Severus," she said in a voice that was barely a whisper.
"What?" he snapped.
Ella was looking at the floor by now so she couldn't see his expression, "I was thinking that your robes could make a sort of privacy drape. I'm, well, I'm just going to go over here to the front corner of my cell now and watch the officers fill in forms or something." Ella felt her cheeks blazing in sympathetic embarrassment as she made her way to the point in her cell farthest away from Severus' toilet. She kept her back turned and began to hum a little tune. As she heard the rustle of Severus removing and re-arranging the robes worn over his clothing she began to hum louder and tried to think of a tune. Unfortunately no tune came to mind... although some lyrics did.
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty, Hogwarts," she sang, tuneless and loud, "Teach us something please, Whether we be old and bald, Or young with scabby knees,"
The officers seated at their desks looked up incredulously, mouths agape.
"Our heads could do with filling, With some interesting stuff," she sang still louder to an ever-changing melody, "For now they're bare and full of air, Dead flies and bits of fluff," She was singing full-out now, and was definitely a bit flat, " So teach us things worth knowing, Bring back what we've forgot, Just do your best, we'll do the rest, And learn until our brains all rot!" She held the last note as long as possible then listened carefully, half cringing at the possibility poor Snape wasn't done. There was silence. Carefully she turned her head. About half-way round she saw Snape standing silently by the door of his own cell. "Oh thank God," she breathed.
There was actually some color in the poor mans cheeks as he stood stiffly looking straight ahead. Finally, he spoke.
"Arabella Figg, of all the things I've seen and heard you do I'd have to say that performance gives me the most pause."
Stung, Ella turned to face him, a retort on her tongue. Then she noticed the ghost of a smile on his reddening face. "I mean, really, Ella, who memorizes the lyrics to that thing?" She tried very hard not to laugh but it was pointless. She was sputtering with embarrassment, stress, and repressed laughter. Before she knew it she was laughing so hard she had to sit on the floor. She was only able to stop when, with shock, she noticed Severus was also laughing... then she started right back up again.
Finally she was able to take a few deep breaths and turned to Snape, who by now had also lowered himself to the floor. "I daresay, we're hysterical." she said, giggling again. For his part, Snape looked up at the officers who were still staring at them. His face quivered until he finally snorted and dissolved into laughter again. "Oh, I think you're right about that. In any case, I think we've finally convinced them that we're totally loony, don't you think?"
Ella put her head in her hands and found herself dissolving into another fit of giggles.
They had managed to recover enough to seem sane, or at least coherent when the solicitor assigned to them came to meet them shortly after lunch (which doesn't bear description). What he had to say wasn't good. It seemed the criminal charges were only the beginning of their troubles. With identities unconfirmed, they would not be released before trial. With their strange behavior, they might be committed. They were in trouble unless they could prove they were sane. The best way to do that, the solicitor noted, was to start telling the truth about who they were.
Of course, what he did not realize is that telling the truth was the quickest way for Snape and Figg to find themselves in a psychiatric ward. They said nothing and the solicitor advised them to "do some thinking" before he returned the next morning. His visit certainly wasn't very encouraging - except that he managed to get Snape bathroom privileges.
After he left they both sat in silence for a time, back to back on their respective beds, leaning against one another through the bars.
"Perhaps he is right," Snape finally said.
"Excuse me?" Ella replied in surprise.
"Perhaps telling the truth would alert someone in the magical community to our plight. That is, after all, what we most need to do."
"How, Severus?"
"We know our ministry has a relationship with the muggle government. Perhaps if we stated the truth in open court some mechanism for informing the right people might be activated."
"And if it's not?"
"We will discover the particular delights of a muggle mental institution."
Ella sighed but said nothing for a moment.
"I've been going over and over this since we were arrested and there is one thing of which I'm sure: we don't want to wind up in a muggle prison. We would get better treatment in a mental hospital and might have a better chance of finding help or escaping," Ella conceded.
There was a pause. Finally, Snape spoke, "So we are agreed?"
"Yes. Tomorrow we tell them the truth. You're a warlock, I'm a witch, we live in a magical world and teach at a magical boarding school. You brew potions, I ride brooms. Under the correct circumstances we can turn them all into dung beetles."
"That should do it," Snape sighed.
Ella let out a harsh laugh into the silence that followed Snape's acknowledgment.
"What?"
"I just can't believe how quickly and easily we seem to have gotten into a situation where we are, essentially, backed into a corner," Ella said
"I don't suppose you're used to that, are you?" Snape noted dryly.
"What? the whole department of mysteries thing? Severus I did research."
"No, I was referring to a little further back."
"Ah, you mean school," Ella said - a bit softly.
"You and your cronies got pretty used to getting out of all manner of scrapes virtually unscathed and usually unpunished."
"We did. It gave us... how is you like to put it? 'A rather high opinion of ourselves'."
"That's the sort of thing that can get you into a mess like this, Ella. Or worse. I should know."
"I guess you do." Ella said without a hint of reproach in her voice, "Was it awful? You know the whole Death Eater thing?"
Snape did not reply. Ella could feel his back moving against hers as he shifted.
"I'm sorry, I had no business asking that." Ella finally said
"It was." Snape suddenly said. Perhaps he was emboldened by the fact that their backs were to each other, or by the bond of a common crisis. It was doubtful even he knew why. Nonetheless, he spoke.
"It was, as you say, 'awful'. It was also what I had come to believe was my inevitable destiny."
"Inevitable?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Snape sighed. "I was trained from earliest childhood to expect nothing good from my fellow persons... nothing but misery, in fact. Finally I determined that I might as well cause it instead of being the victim of it." There was a long pause. "I was a fool. Causing it only increased it."
Ella didn't know what to say but she felt the overwhelming urge to say something. Finally she settled for, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Snape said sharply.
"Too late, I am. I am sorry for what you've been through, certainly. Mostly I think I'm sorry that I had a part in convincing you to expect nothing but misery from others. Kids are cruel... even when we don't intend to be, we are." Snape said nothing at all in reply. Ella thought she felt a slight tremor but Snape was on his feet upon the instant so she couldn't be sure.
Ella turned where she was sitting to look at him and he was moving sharply back and forth, his face clouded. "Please don't apologize. Believe me when I tell you that I more than made up for anything that was done to me by taking my misery out on others. Some would say I still do."
Ella opened up her mouth to protest but Snape held up a hand. "No. I mean it, I've said too much already and I refuse to discuss it further."
Ella closed her mouth but opened it again almost immediately. "Alright, but just answer me this: if you are aware of this, why do you continue to act the way you do?"
"Ella, it's incredibly complicated. There are good reasons and - I suppose - stupid ones. In any case, it looks as if I'll have plenty of time with the muggle psychologists to figure it out."
"Ptolmey's Ghost, I hadn't thought of that!" Ella exclaimed suddenly.
"What?" Snape said, his brow furrowed.
"I'm such an idiot! Treatment, Severus, they'll be sure to give us some treatment in the looney bin."
"I'm sure we can both fabricate something suitable for discussion with the psychologists."
"No, it's not that. Nowadays mental treatment includes a variety of medications, drugs. If they give us antipsychotics..."
"I see your point." Snape said grimly. Finally, after a few moments pacing he said, "It is probably still our best option."
"I know." Ella said grimly
