The Liber Severi
Liber I - Severus Snape's True Love
Copyright (c) 2001 by Cassandra Houston
Illustrations by Gabriel (http://www.angelfire.com/art/angelgabriel/)
Author's Notes:
Most of the characters within belong to JK Rowling. Amethyst Rayne Black Snape, Lapis Meaker and some others belong to me, Cassandra Houston. I will not accept money for this book, nor any others made with the wonderful characters JK Rowling has created. I am only putting on paper my interpretation and theory of what the Rowling characters may have been like before the Harry Potter series and what they may be like after. I am not trying to insult or steal from Rowling. I am only having fun here.
If you like what you read (and I certainly hope you do), please feel free to forward a copy of this ebook along to friends, family and anyone else who may enjoy its contents.
I must take the time here to thank Gabriel. Gabriel! You are a saint and I am forever in your debt!
I now give you Severus Snape's True Love, the first in the Liber Severi series.
Cassandra Houston
Chapter Ten: Saturday
Saturday morning dawned bright. Amethyst, however, woke up dark. She opened her eyes and drew a deep breath, smelling her husbands' hair as he slept. She slowly untangled herself from Severus, noting as she did that her muscles were very stiff. "We're going to really hurt each other someday." She thought with a grin. She wouldn't have it any other way.
She showered and washed her hair (a twice a month ritual, as her was just too long to be washing every day, magic or no magic). She wrapped herself in a towel and padded, dripping, back into the bedroom, where she found her wand. She walked back into the bathroom, turned, pointed her wand at the wet footprints and muttered, "Sicco". The puddles disappeared. She then put the tip of her wand in her sopping wet hair and murmured, "Exaresco et evolvo" Her hair instantly became dry as a bone and tangle-free from her crown to her feet.
Returning to the bedroom, she saw for a fraction of a second the flutter of wings. Naked, she walked up a floor to the nidus, where she saw the family owls, Acerbus and Atrox glaring at a tiny little scrap of an owl with a note tied to it's leg. Acerbus and Atrox were watching it with great interest as it soared around the small room. Atrox snatched the tiny owl out of the air without leaving her perch, the tiny owl squeaked like a mouse.
"Leave it." Amethyst commanded and Atrox dropped the small owl. Amethyst walked over to it and picked it up. "Hello little winged mouse." She said, examining it. "Give me your charge and leave, before you become dinner." And she took the note from the owl and let it go. It shot out of the open nidus window like it had been shot out of a cannon.
Chuckling, Amethyst opened the note, which said:
Hello,
We will be arriving at twelve o'clock. I just wanted to let you know, since neither Ron nor I can remember if it was eleven or one, so we chose something in the middle. haveto go goingtobe sick
Mione
Amethyst folded the note and carried it back down to her bedroom. She laid the note on the bedside cabinet and turned her head slightly to the right. She listened to the sounds of Severus in the shower a moment and left the room. She crossed the room and opened a large door.
This room was full of bottles, caldrons, books and things floating in jars. It was where Severus made the potions they used around the home. She crossed the room slowly and paused in front of a wall of shelved filled with bottle after bottle of potions and powders. She found the bottle she was looking for and began to reach for it when she was grabbed from behind.
"Sore?" the question was purred in her ear.
Amethyst smiled. She could feel Severus behind her. "Yes. I feel like I was rolling around on roof last night."
"You were." He said and squeezed her. He put his chin on her shoulder. "Looks like we're out." He said, his eyes landing on the bottle Amethyst was going to grab. "I'll have to whip up some more."
He released her and she turned and watched him move to the worktable and begin preparing some more of the muscle relaxation powders. She watched from the end of the long table as his arm worked the pestle. He tossed in various dried leaves and ground them to a fine powder. He stopped and looked at her. He too was naked. He moved to her and put his arms around her again. He kissed her deeply.
"Don't tease." She breathed.
He sighed and smiled. "Very well." He growled. "I can't concentrate for this damnable lunch anyway."
But he didn't let her go. "Sissy." He raised his voice.
A squeaky voice answered almost at once. "Yes, Master Severus."
"Please make sure that powder finds it's way into the this mornings tea."
"Yes, Master Severus." Sissy squeaked.
Severus kissed his wife again. "Breakfast?" he suggested.
Amethyst smiled, and then frowned. "You mean downstairs?"
Severus laughed and shook his head. "You are something else." He said, looking deep into her eyes.
"No." she corrected. "I am yours."
They dressed and went down to breakfast. Sissy had, as instructed, divided the powder and added it to their morning tea. They weren't large eaters, and breakfast was soon over. They talked about the upcoming day, as they did every morning, but today was different.
"There are about a million Weasleys living in that house," Severus growled good-naturedly. "I notice Hermione didn't mention if only she and Ron were joining us or the entire Weasley family."
"They'll be at least six." She said. "We'll manage any more, fear not, my love."
Severus returned to his workshop while Amethyst went into the bedroom. She took a large platinum brush from a dresser and began brushing her long hair. While she, of course, knew how to prepare her hair using magic, she often brushed her hair with this brush, the only gift from Severus that she'd been able to think to pack when she was rushed from the states. She brushed her hair daily the entire time she was in the United States, save for times she was in an absolute rush and just could not afford the time.
She finished brushing and pulled out her wand. She bent her head back and looked at the stone ceiling. Putting her wand in her hair she muttered "Vieda" and her hair magically braided itself into its usual long and thick braid.
Downstairs an ancient clock struck ten o'clock. She went down to the kitchen and picked a basket. She left the house and walked through the expanse of meadow and into the woods. She followed a narrow path until she came to another clearing. This was a clearing Severus has created when the house had been moved here. There was half an acre of open garden surrounded by four massive greenhouses. She entered the garden and walked through, picking vegetables for the lunch. She filled her basket and returned to the kitchen, delivered the basket to Sissy and moved into the front of the house.
As the clock eleven o'clock there was a knock at the door. Amethyst was standing right there and opened it. Sirius and Harry stood before her, beaming.
She let her brother in and hugged both men when there was a loud tutting from around her knees.
"Mistress Amethyst ought not to be opening doors like a common servant! That is Sissy's job!" It was Sissy, brandishing a finger at Amethyst.
Amethyst raised her eyes towards the heavens and groaned, "I'm sorry, Sissy. I keep forgetting." She said, trying not to smile. "Next time you can get it, unless you would like me to throw my brother and his friend out into the yard and make them knock again."
Sirius laughed and Harry couldn't help but grin. He also couldn't help but notice that this particular house elf was not, as was usual for house elves, wearing a towel or pillowcase or something else odd. Sissy was dressed in a long black skirt and a charcoal gray blouse. Her hair was done in a simple ponytail in the back of her head tied with a pin that looked to be platinum. Her large ears stuck up like antennae.
Sissy tutted again. "You remember, Mistress Amethyst." She scolded before stomping back to the kitchens.
"She always this miffed at you?" Sirius said, smiling broadly.
"Only when I forget my place." Amethyst said.
"Where's that husband of yours?" Sirius said, looking into the sitting room.
"In his workroom." Amethyst said, heading up the front stairs.
"This is some place you got here." Sirius said, looking as they walked. The Snape house was just the side of a mansion. As it was it had six bedrooms all with private baths upstairs and two bathrooms in addition to an additional guestroom downstairs. There was a dungeon deep under the house, which had twice the floor space of the house itself and an attic with almost the same amount of floor space as the house. There was also the nidus, where the family owls lived.
They found Severus tidying up the workroom, which covered half the length of the second floor. He turned at Amethyst's knock.
"Well, if this doesn't make my day then nothing will," Severus growled, seeing who it was. Harry began to shrink away. Severus' moods were infamous.
"He's kidding, Harry." Sirius said.
"No I'm not." Said Severus.
"Yes you are," said Sirius, taking a step forward.
"No, I'm not." Said Severus, taking a step forward himself.
The two kept this up until they were about a foot away from each other. Harry was beginning to get extremely anxious.
They shook hands, warmly and Harry almost fell with the relief. Apparently Severus and Sirius were slowly developing some sort of relationship, albeit a very odd one.
They faintly heard a knocking at the door. Severus took a step forward, but Amethyst grabbed his shoulder. "Don't. Sissy is on the rampage."
Severus shook his head. A minute later the little house elf appeared in front of the four of them. "The Weasleys are here Master and Mistress." She announced, very formally.
Amethyst rolled her eyes, but Severus played along. "Thank you, Sissy." He said solemnly. "I will assume you have shown them to the sitting room."
"Yes, Master Severus." Sissy said, looking as if she would tell Severus off for even suggesting she would leave them standing in the hall.
"You may go then Sissy." Severus said. "I will call you if I need you." And she disappeared before he'd finished the sentence.
In their sitting room, they found five Weasleys. Arthur, Molly, Bill, Ron and Hermione. Hermione looked disappointed and confused. "Is there a problem?" Severus asked, when he got around to greeting her.
Hermione bit her lip. Ron jumped in. "Hermione didn't know you had a house elf."
Severus smiled his familiar cold smile. "Sissy has served my family for the better part of two hundred years."
Hermione couldn't help herself. "That's horrible!" she snapped.
Amethyst stepped forward. "Hermione, you need to learn to control your impulses." She said, her voice ice.
"Sissy!" Severus called, impatiently, his eyes not leaving Hermione.
Sissy appeared in less than five seconds.
"Please explain your circumstances to Mrs. Weasley." Severus ordered.
Sissy looked like Severus had asked her to stab Mrs. Weasley. "It is all right, Sissy. Mrs. Weasley is sympathetic to house elves." He prompted.
Sissy looked at Hermione. "When Master Samuel died, I became the property of his only child. Master Severus." She said, looking up at Hermione. "Master Severus and I have." And she paused, looking behind her to where Severus stood. He nodded once. "We has been friends forever. He presented me with clothes four summers ago, when he came home from teaching at his school. I was devastated, but master Severus said he did not want me to leave, but to know that I could leave if I ever wanted to." And she drew herself to her almost non-existent height and said. "I will never leave Master Severus family. Never." She turned to Severus, who nodded again, and she scurried out of the room.
Hermione covered her face with her hand. "Oh no!" she wailed. "Oh no! I did it again."
Severus said, "Hermione, I never thought the day would come when I would be confessing that your campaign to free house elves would inspire me to free my own. But I did. Sissy has seen after me since before I was born." She lowered her hand and looked at him. He frowned deeply and approached her with a very menacing look. "And if you ever tell anyone, I will see you thrown in Azkaban for putting me under the Imperius Curse." And he winked.
Everyone laughed and relaxed. While pouring drinks, Sissy reappeared and looked at Severus as if he was completely out of his mind. She retreated shaking her head and muttering.
"House elves do not adjust well to change." Severus said, handing Arthur Weasley a drink. "She will still tell both myself and my wife off if we so much as answer the door."
"She told Amethyst she needed to know her place when she let us in," Harry told the Weasleys.
"I had to threaten to go back on my word and throw her out of this house a fair few times." Severus said.
Amethyst chuckled. "I picked up a mop one day and she blasted it out of my hands. That's when we realised we'd just have to get away with as much as she'd let us and not push her too much."
"I'm sorry." Hermione said. "I just have a hard time seeing Severus Snapes house elf staying when she could go."
"I am a docile little kitten compared to my father." Severus said, and then fell silent.
They talked about the reasons they bought the building near the Leaky Caldron over lunch. "I have been approached by the Ministry of Magic." Severus said, "About heading a new department. The Department of Potions Regulations. I agreed on the condition that I am allowed to choose the location of the department and my staff. The building we bought is going to be the headquarters of the Department of Potions Regulations and the Department of Independent Investigations."
"I heard they were talking about starting those departments." Said Arthur, who worked for the Ministry. "Potions regulation is desperately needed, I can't argue that, but I am not so sure about this Department of Independent Investigations. They would have to be very careful who would work in that department."
"Isn't Independent Investigation an oxymoron?" Hermione asked, looking very confused.
Amethyst laughed. "You should have been an American, Hermione." She stopped laughing but continued to smile. "The Department of Independent Investigation will not be run by Ministry Wizards, strictly speaking. They sought out the one person they could think of who could be trusted to resist the Ministry in favour of what is right. They will most likely regret beginning this department." She chuckled.
"So who will be the head of this new department?" Ron asked.
"I will." Sirius said, casually.
Harry, Ron and Bill all choked.
"They wanted someone who was known for flying off the handle?" Bill said, incredulously.
"Yes." Sirius said, simply.
"All by yourself?" Hermione asked, looking concerned.
"Well, no, actually." Sirius said. "I'm going to need a couple of assistants."
Harry and Ron looked at each other, then at Sirius.
"Ron?" Sirius said.
Ron, who had been out of work ever since his brother Percy had fired him for having a cluttered desk, spoke quickly. "I'm there."
"Well?" Sirius said. "Harry, I know you haven't had much to do since Voldemorts' died. You must be getting bored."
Harry gaped. Work with Sirius? That was a simple enough answer.
"Count me in." He said.
Sirius nodded.
Throughout the rest of the meal, during the friendly conversation and wonderful food, Harry thought about the last year or so. He felt that there had been more changes to his world in this one year than almost any other he could think of. The topper was when he turned eleven years old and found out he was a wizard, but this past year was definitely a close second. The biggest surprise, he thought to himself, as Severus and Sirius got into a heated argument about wand cores, was what was right before his eyes. He would never have believed that Sirius Black and Severus Snape could ever get along. And although it didn't appear like they did to the unknowing eye (as Amethyst stood up and told them that if they were going to throw curses at each other they had better take it outside), Harry knew they were getting along splendidly. For them.
Liber I - Severus Snape's True Love
Copyright (c) 2001 by Cassandra Houston
Illustrations by Gabriel (http://www.angelfire.com/art/angelgabriel/)
Author's Notes:
Most of the characters within belong to JK Rowling. Amethyst Rayne Black Snape, Lapis Meaker and some others belong to me, Cassandra Houston. I will not accept money for this book, nor any others made with the wonderful characters JK Rowling has created. I am only putting on paper my interpretation and theory of what the Rowling characters may have been like before the Harry Potter series and what they may be like after. I am not trying to insult or steal from Rowling. I am only having fun here.
If you like what you read (and I certainly hope you do), please feel free to forward a copy of this ebook along to friends, family and anyone else who may enjoy its contents.
I must take the time here to thank Gabriel. Gabriel! You are a saint and I am forever in your debt!
I now give you Severus Snape's True Love, the first in the Liber Severi series.
Cassandra Houston
Chapter Ten: Saturday
Saturday morning dawned bright. Amethyst, however, woke up dark. She opened her eyes and drew a deep breath, smelling her husbands' hair as he slept. She slowly untangled herself from Severus, noting as she did that her muscles were very stiff. "We're going to really hurt each other someday." She thought with a grin. She wouldn't have it any other way.
She showered and washed her hair (a twice a month ritual, as her was just too long to be washing every day, magic or no magic). She wrapped herself in a towel and padded, dripping, back into the bedroom, where she found her wand. She walked back into the bathroom, turned, pointed her wand at the wet footprints and muttered, "Sicco". The puddles disappeared. She then put the tip of her wand in her sopping wet hair and murmured, "Exaresco et evolvo" Her hair instantly became dry as a bone and tangle-free from her crown to her feet.
Returning to the bedroom, she saw for a fraction of a second the flutter of wings. Naked, she walked up a floor to the nidus, where she saw the family owls, Acerbus and Atrox glaring at a tiny little scrap of an owl with a note tied to it's leg. Acerbus and Atrox were watching it with great interest as it soared around the small room. Atrox snatched the tiny owl out of the air without leaving her perch, the tiny owl squeaked like a mouse.
"Leave it." Amethyst commanded and Atrox dropped the small owl. Amethyst walked over to it and picked it up. "Hello little winged mouse." She said, examining it. "Give me your charge and leave, before you become dinner." And she took the note from the owl and let it go. It shot out of the open nidus window like it had been shot out of a cannon.
Chuckling, Amethyst opened the note, which said:
Hello,
We will be arriving at twelve o'clock. I just wanted to let you know, since neither Ron nor I can remember if it was eleven or one, so we chose something in the middle. haveto go goingtobe sick
Mione
Amethyst folded the note and carried it back down to her bedroom. She laid the note on the bedside cabinet and turned her head slightly to the right. She listened to the sounds of Severus in the shower a moment and left the room. She crossed the room and opened a large door.
This room was full of bottles, caldrons, books and things floating in jars. It was where Severus made the potions they used around the home. She crossed the room slowly and paused in front of a wall of shelved filled with bottle after bottle of potions and powders. She found the bottle she was looking for and began to reach for it when she was grabbed from behind.
"Sore?" the question was purred in her ear.
Amethyst smiled. She could feel Severus behind her. "Yes. I feel like I was rolling around on roof last night."
"You were." He said and squeezed her. He put his chin on her shoulder. "Looks like we're out." He said, his eyes landing on the bottle Amethyst was going to grab. "I'll have to whip up some more."
He released her and she turned and watched him move to the worktable and begin preparing some more of the muscle relaxation powders. She watched from the end of the long table as his arm worked the pestle. He tossed in various dried leaves and ground them to a fine powder. He stopped and looked at her. He too was naked. He moved to her and put his arms around her again. He kissed her deeply.
"Don't tease." She breathed.
He sighed and smiled. "Very well." He growled. "I can't concentrate for this damnable lunch anyway."
But he didn't let her go. "Sissy." He raised his voice.
A squeaky voice answered almost at once. "Yes, Master Severus."
"Please make sure that powder finds it's way into the this mornings tea."
"Yes, Master Severus." Sissy squeaked.
Severus kissed his wife again. "Breakfast?" he suggested.
Amethyst smiled, and then frowned. "You mean downstairs?"
Severus laughed and shook his head. "You are something else." He said, looking deep into her eyes.
"No." she corrected. "I am yours."
They dressed and went down to breakfast. Sissy had, as instructed, divided the powder and added it to their morning tea. They weren't large eaters, and breakfast was soon over. They talked about the upcoming day, as they did every morning, but today was different.
"There are about a million Weasleys living in that house," Severus growled good-naturedly. "I notice Hermione didn't mention if only she and Ron were joining us or the entire Weasley family."
"They'll be at least six." She said. "We'll manage any more, fear not, my love."
Severus returned to his workshop while Amethyst went into the bedroom. She took a large platinum brush from a dresser and began brushing her long hair. While she, of course, knew how to prepare her hair using magic, she often brushed her hair with this brush, the only gift from Severus that she'd been able to think to pack when she was rushed from the states. She brushed her hair daily the entire time she was in the United States, save for times she was in an absolute rush and just could not afford the time.
She finished brushing and pulled out her wand. She bent her head back and looked at the stone ceiling. Putting her wand in her hair she muttered "Vieda" and her hair magically braided itself into its usual long and thick braid.
Downstairs an ancient clock struck ten o'clock. She went down to the kitchen and picked a basket. She left the house and walked through the expanse of meadow and into the woods. She followed a narrow path until she came to another clearing. This was a clearing Severus has created when the house had been moved here. There was half an acre of open garden surrounded by four massive greenhouses. She entered the garden and walked through, picking vegetables for the lunch. She filled her basket and returned to the kitchen, delivered the basket to Sissy and moved into the front of the house.
As the clock eleven o'clock there was a knock at the door. Amethyst was standing right there and opened it. Sirius and Harry stood before her, beaming.
She let her brother in and hugged both men when there was a loud tutting from around her knees.
"Mistress Amethyst ought not to be opening doors like a common servant! That is Sissy's job!" It was Sissy, brandishing a finger at Amethyst.
Amethyst raised her eyes towards the heavens and groaned, "I'm sorry, Sissy. I keep forgetting." She said, trying not to smile. "Next time you can get it, unless you would like me to throw my brother and his friend out into the yard and make them knock again."
Sirius laughed and Harry couldn't help but grin. He also couldn't help but notice that this particular house elf was not, as was usual for house elves, wearing a towel or pillowcase or something else odd. Sissy was dressed in a long black skirt and a charcoal gray blouse. Her hair was done in a simple ponytail in the back of her head tied with a pin that looked to be platinum. Her large ears stuck up like antennae.
Sissy tutted again. "You remember, Mistress Amethyst." She scolded before stomping back to the kitchens.
"She always this miffed at you?" Sirius said, smiling broadly.
"Only when I forget my place." Amethyst said.
"Where's that husband of yours?" Sirius said, looking into the sitting room.
"In his workroom." Amethyst said, heading up the front stairs.
"This is some place you got here." Sirius said, looking as they walked. The Snape house was just the side of a mansion. As it was it had six bedrooms all with private baths upstairs and two bathrooms in addition to an additional guestroom downstairs. There was a dungeon deep under the house, which had twice the floor space of the house itself and an attic with almost the same amount of floor space as the house. There was also the nidus, where the family owls lived.
They found Severus tidying up the workroom, which covered half the length of the second floor. He turned at Amethyst's knock.
"Well, if this doesn't make my day then nothing will," Severus growled, seeing who it was. Harry began to shrink away. Severus' moods were infamous.
"He's kidding, Harry." Sirius said.
"No I'm not." Said Severus.
"Yes you are," said Sirius, taking a step forward.
"No, I'm not." Said Severus, taking a step forward himself.
The two kept this up until they were about a foot away from each other. Harry was beginning to get extremely anxious.
They shook hands, warmly and Harry almost fell with the relief. Apparently Severus and Sirius were slowly developing some sort of relationship, albeit a very odd one.
They faintly heard a knocking at the door. Severus took a step forward, but Amethyst grabbed his shoulder. "Don't. Sissy is on the rampage."
Severus shook his head. A minute later the little house elf appeared in front of the four of them. "The Weasleys are here Master and Mistress." She announced, very formally.
Amethyst rolled her eyes, but Severus played along. "Thank you, Sissy." He said solemnly. "I will assume you have shown them to the sitting room."
"Yes, Master Severus." Sissy said, looking as if she would tell Severus off for even suggesting she would leave them standing in the hall.
"You may go then Sissy." Severus said. "I will call you if I need you." And she disappeared before he'd finished the sentence.
In their sitting room, they found five Weasleys. Arthur, Molly, Bill, Ron and Hermione. Hermione looked disappointed and confused. "Is there a problem?" Severus asked, when he got around to greeting her.
Hermione bit her lip. Ron jumped in. "Hermione didn't know you had a house elf."
Severus smiled his familiar cold smile. "Sissy has served my family for the better part of two hundred years."
Hermione couldn't help herself. "That's horrible!" she snapped.
Amethyst stepped forward. "Hermione, you need to learn to control your impulses." She said, her voice ice.
"Sissy!" Severus called, impatiently, his eyes not leaving Hermione.
Sissy appeared in less than five seconds.
"Please explain your circumstances to Mrs. Weasley." Severus ordered.
Sissy looked like Severus had asked her to stab Mrs. Weasley. "It is all right, Sissy. Mrs. Weasley is sympathetic to house elves." He prompted.
Sissy looked at Hermione. "When Master Samuel died, I became the property of his only child. Master Severus." She said, looking up at Hermione. "Master Severus and I have." And she paused, looking behind her to where Severus stood. He nodded once. "We has been friends forever. He presented me with clothes four summers ago, when he came home from teaching at his school. I was devastated, but master Severus said he did not want me to leave, but to know that I could leave if I ever wanted to." And she drew herself to her almost non-existent height and said. "I will never leave Master Severus family. Never." She turned to Severus, who nodded again, and she scurried out of the room.
Hermione covered her face with her hand. "Oh no!" she wailed. "Oh no! I did it again."
Severus said, "Hermione, I never thought the day would come when I would be confessing that your campaign to free house elves would inspire me to free my own. But I did. Sissy has seen after me since before I was born." She lowered her hand and looked at him. He frowned deeply and approached her with a very menacing look. "And if you ever tell anyone, I will see you thrown in Azkaban for putting me under the Imperius Curse." And he winked.
Everyone laughed and relaxed. While pouring drinks, Sissy reappeared and looked at Severus as if he was completely out of his mind. She retreated shaking her head and muttering.
"House elves do not adjust well to change." Severus said, handing Arthur Weasley a drink. "She will still tell both myself and my wife off if we so much as answer the door."
"She told Amethyst she needed to know her place when she let us in," Harry told the Weasleys.
"I had to threaten to go back on my word and throw her out of this house a fair few times." Severus said.
Amethyst chuckled. "I picked up a mop one day and she blasted it out of my hands. That's when we realised we'd just have to get away with as much as she'd let us and not push her too much."
"I'm sorry." Hermione said. "I just have a hard time seeing Severus Snapes house elf staying when she could go."
"I am a docile little kitten compared to my father." Severus said, and then fell silent.
They talked about the reasons they bought the building near the Leaky Caldron over lunch. "I have been approached by the Ministry of Magic." Severus said, "About heading a new department. The Department of Potions Regulations. I agreed on the condition that I am allowed to choose the location of the department and my staff. The building we bought is going to be the headquarters of the Department of Potions Regulations and the Department of Independent Investigations."
"I heard they were talking about starting those departments." Said Arthur, who worked for the Ministry. "Potions regulation is desperately needed, I can't argue that, but I am not so sure about this Department of Independent Investigations. They would have to be very careful who would work in that department."
"Isn't Independent Investigation an oxymoron?" Hermione asked, looking very confused.
Amethyst laughed. "You should have been an American, Hermione." She stopped laughing but continued to smile. "The Department of Independent Investigation will not be run by Ministry Wizards, strictly speaking. They sought out the one person they could think of who could be trusted to resist the Ministry in favour of what is right. They will most likely regret beginning this department." She chuckled.
"So who will be the head of this new department?" Ron asked.
"I will." Sirius said, casually.
Harry, Ron and Bill all choked.
"They wanted someone who was known for flying off the handle?" Bill said, incredulously.
"Yes." Sirius said, simply.
"All by yourself?" Hermione asked, looking concerned.
"Well, no, actually." Sirius said. "I'm going to need a couple of assistants."
Harry and Ron looked at each other, then at Sirius.
"Ron?" Sirius said.
Ron, who had been out of work ever since his brother Percy had fired him for having a cluttered desk, spoke quickly. "I'm there."
"Well?" Sirius said. "Harry, I know you haven't had much to do since Voldemorts' died. You must be getting bored."
Harry gaped. Work with Sirius? That was a simple enough answer.
"Count me in." He said.
Sirius nodded.
Throughout the rest of the meal, during the friendly conversation and wonderful food, Harry thought about the last year or so. He felt that there had been more changes to his world in this one year than almost any other he could think of. The topper was when he turned eleven years old and found out he was a wizard, but this past year was definitely a close second. The biggest surprise, he thought to himself, as Severus and Sirius got into a heated argument about wand cores, was what was right before his eyes. He would never have believed that Sirius Black and Severus Snape could ever get along. And although it didn't appear like they did to the unknowing eye (as Amethyst stood up and told them that if they were going to throw curses at each other they had better take it outside), Harry knew they were getting along splendidly. For them.