A/N You delightful people, reviewing my story :-) thank you all!!! We're
starting to get to the crux now…remember the action/adventure I promised?
It's coming, it's coming! So is the plot. And plenty more of 'Ted Mason'
and his *lovely* wife…
Chapter Five
Snape was lurking in the lounge of Apartment 57, uncomfortably dressed in a stiff hired suit of a disgusting beige colour. Minerva had refused to allow him to wear black -
"It's a dinner party, not a funeral, Severus!"
Now he waited, waited, waited, the clock apparently ticking but the hands seeming not to move at all; only the occasional mutter or slithering noise from the bathroom convinced him that McGonagall was, in fact, still alive in there.
"How much longer?" He demanded, for the fifth time, rapping loudly on the door.
"Will you have patience, man? We've plenty of time!"
"Minerva, if you don't hurry up we'll need a blasted time turner just to make it for dessert. What are you *doing* in there? It doesn't matter what you look like, it's only the bloody Mont-Streppings, after all. They wouldn't notice if you wore a grenadier's uniform."
"We don't want to look suspicious!" Another ten minutes oozed by, punctuated by mysterious hissing noises. Eventually Snape rapped again on the door.
"Are you trying to give yourself a facelift or something? Hurry *up!*"
"Oh, all right, all right, I'm coming…" The door opened slowly.
"Well it's about…" Snape began, then froze, mid sentence, as McGonagall emerged fully into the light. Astonished, he blinked and gaped like a pimply teenager on a first date.
Minerva looked good - no, *magnificent* was a better word. She wore a shimmering wine coloured dress trimmed with gold, which hugged her slim figure while falling respectably to her ankles. The neckline was just low enough to be interesting, and a glittering silver choker drew attention to the smooth curve of her neck. Her raven hair was not restrained by its usual bun: it was braided and hung down over her left shoulder. It made her look younger. The effect as a whole was truly quite remarkable. She smiled a little self-consciously at Snape's startled face, but all he said, in a dazed voice, was,
"Er…well done."
Hurt, she shot him a dark look. "What is *that* supposed to mean?"
"It means…you look beautiful." He replied without thinking, and her sharp expression melted; she smiled more warmly as she took his arm.
"Thank you, husband."
The taxi dropped them off near the Mont-Strepping…abode…and the pair made their way down the street, looking rather out of place in their finery. They walked arm in arm, as much for mutual protection as to keep up appearances, and despite the lack of rain both carried umbrellas.
As they approached the door of 'Ted Mason's' shop, Snape paused.
"Are you ready?"
McGonagall nodded impatiently.
"Of course. You're acting as though we're both heading to grim, inevitable deaths, Severus. Relax, it's just a dinner party…albeit a rather useful one." But Snape was not soothed.
"I have a bad feeling about this." He muttered. "Something just isn't right…Mont-Strepping knows something, I'm sure of it."
"Well, that's all to the good!"
"Perhaps." But he was worried, and the concern was starting to rub off on McGonagall. Unknowingly she tightened her grip on his arm, searching his pale, frowning face.
"This must be hard for you." She said eventually. "Meeting Mont- Strepping so casually…it must remind you of…" she hesitated as he looked away from her, glaring at the floor.
"Come on." He said quietly. "Let's get it over with."
"Ha ha ha!"
"Hahaha!"
"Ha ha ha!"
Snape poured another glass of wine.
His seventh.
McGonagall, watching him, could not help but sympathise. Agatha Mont- Strepping was not only snobbish, dimwitted and unbearably self-satisfied, but she had the same hideous laugh as her husband - just two octaves higher.
"Well now, Severus." Octavian Mont-Strepping roared cheerfully, chugging down the last of the red wine - a rather good vintage, but neither Snape nor his 'wife' were in an appropriate mood to appreciate it - "time to fetch the port, what, and let the ladies make their way to the withdrawing room, ha ha ha!"
"Quite." Came the potions master's grim reply. For her part McGonagall was deeply affronted. Withdrawing room indeed! How ridiculously obsolete. Nevertheless, it did give Minerva a chance to pump the foolish female Mont- Strepping for information her more wily husband might be wary of revealing. Meanwhile Snape could work on that wily husband, hopefully without resorting to some obscure form of torture which would doubtless give the game away. McGonagall glanced over her shoulder at Snape as she was ushered out of the dining room by Agatha. The Potions Master was pouring yet another glass of wine, and twitching slightly in his seat. Not a good sign, but the situuation was out of Minerva's hands…
"So," burbled Agatha, as the women settled themselves in comfortable chairs in a poky little den which apparently served as the drawing room, "do tell me all about yourself, Minerva! Octavian was so talkative at dinner, we hardly got a chance to speak to one another, but that's men I suppose, hahaha! You're a Muggle, aren't you, now that must be interesting. How *do* you get on without magic?"
"I don't need to." Replied McGonagall, trying vainly to keep the edge of utter dislike out of her voice. "I'm married to a wizard."
"Well, quite! Of course." Agatha seemed flustered, realising perhaps that she had asked a stupid question. She didn't let that knowledge prevent her from wittering on with more of the same, of course.
"I do hope I haven't offended you, using the word 'muggle'. Of course us purebloods use it all the time but then, we never think how it might sound to a non-magical person. Perhaps it's terribly rude! I remember once…" she prattled on, telling some bizarre and pointless story about previous encounters with the 'magically disadvantaged'. McGonagall simply tuned out after a few minutes, remaining alert for any useful information while analysing Agatha with all the experience of her many years of teaching. If nothing else, those years had provided a great capacity for judging characters quickly.
Agatha seemed relatively harmless, if rather bigoted. Liable to follow her foul husband in whatever he wanted to do. She could only be dangerous under the instructions of another, but for all that she was not soft- hearted, and like Octavian, there was a certain cunning about her. A definite Slytherin, thought Minerva, then smiled as she imagined the look of horror that would appear on Snape's face if she told him so.
"…but I'm talking far too much, do jump in, Minerva, hahaha! You're very quiet. How did you meet Severus? I've never met him before myself, though my husband knows him by association. Their families are, or rather were, very close…*our* families, I should say, because I'm a Mont-Strepping too of course, hahaha! Octavian is actually my third cousin, but what's a few degrees of relative between purebloods, hahaha!"
I owe Severus a Galleon McGonagall mused to herself. Aloud she said,
"We met through my neice, who is a witch…" sticking to the agreed story.
"Oh!" Agatha jumped in - at least there was little need for dissembling when talking to a Mont-Strepping; one hardly got a chance to speak, let alone lie. "Really? How wonderful. I do think muggle-borns are impressive, they do so well, don't they, considering that they're disadvantaged right from the beginning, poor things! Now once…"
But McGonagall had had quite enough. It was getting late, and she was determined to extract some useful information out of Agatha - she would not allow this dreadful experience to have been for nothing!
"You said," Minerva interrupted firmly, "that your family and the Snapes *used* to be close. Have they entirely lost touch?"
Fortunately, Agatha was far from averse to talking about her family. She seemed quite proud of them.
"Well, it's rather sad, you see, but there was some unpleasantness involving…" she seemed to hesitate, and a crafty look came over her pretty, silly face. McGonagall tensed. She got the feeling that something important was on the verge of being revealed.
"Involving a certain individual whom I am not at liberty to name." Went on Agatha, carefully, obviously not supposed to be saying this but unable to resist the temptation to tell a shocking story. "This person was something of a…er…a political leader, if you like, in our world. His views were strong, but just, and our family, of course, adhered to them, as was appropriate. However the Snapes…well, Livia - she's the matriarch, you see - seemed to think the whole thing rather *beneath* them."
McGonagall blinked. Snape's family thought the Dark Lord unworthy of them? In different circumstances that might almost have been amusing. Then again, it was not really so surprising - McGonagall, thankfully, had never met any of Snape's family, but Dumbledore was acquainted with Livia herself, and could be seen to shudder involuntarily whenever her name was mentioned. And McGonagall had seen the expression on Snape's face on the rare occasions he received an owl - or rather, a hawk - from his estranged grandmother - like that of a child sitting in the dentist's waiting room, while the patient before him is having his teeth drilled.
Realising that Agatha had stopped speaking - a minor miracle in itself - McGonagall prompted quickly,
"This leader you were talking about…is he still in power?" She waited anxiously for the answer, trying not to appear *too* interested. Agatha had opened her large mouth when,
"Ha ha ha!"
Her husband arrived, with a weary-looking, bemused and rather drunken Snape in tow.
"What's this, then, Agatha, telling Minerva all our dark secrets, eh? Go ahead, m'dear, you may as well." Octavian boomed. Agatha simpered and fluttered her long eyelashes.
"I was just saying," Snape cut in, apparently too drunk to note Octavian's curious remark, and slurring slightly, "that we ought to be on our way…s'getting late…"
"I don't think so, Severus." Their host said, unusually quietly.
"Hum?"
"I don't think so. No, you won't be going anywhere just yet."
Snape peered at Mont-Strepping in confusion.
"What?"
McGonagall was also staring at Mont-Strepping, her sharp mind having immediately processed the implicit threat in the man's tone. She forced herself to appear unflurried.
"Well, it *is* a little late, perhaps we should go. It's been a lovely evening…" she rose quickly. "I'll just get my umbrella…"
Before she could even get out of the chair, Mont-Strepping had taken a wand from inside his jacket.
"Stay right where you are, muggle."
"What…what on earth are you doing? If this is a joke I don't find it funny." Snapped Minerva. Snape was simply staring, aghast, at Mont- Strepping.
"Bloody hell." He mumbled, dropping into a seat beside McGonagall. "I told you!" He hissed in her ear. Minerva scowled at him, then at Mont- Strepping.
"Now listen to me. You have no right to threaten us like this. I don't see…"
"Oh, but you will." Octavian growled. "Don't fret about that. Come on, both of you." He motioned them to get up. Minerva ground her teeth, but there was little she could do without her wand; perhaps if Snape was in any condition to help, there might have been a chance, but he seemed completely dazed. Grabbing his arm she got up and wrenched him to his feet. Mont- Strepping marched them out of the drawing room, downstairs to his shop, and eventually opened a trapdoor in the stockroom.
"Down there." He growled. Snape staggered forward to peer into the darkness.
"Doesn't look very nice." He muttered. McGonagall glared at him. Of all the times to be inebriated…!
"Do as you're told."
"No need to be like that." Snape hiccuped amicably. "We're old friends after all…" he turned glittering black eyes on Mont-Strepping, and added silkily, and with sudden lucidity, "Even if you *did* try to drug my wine…" with a lightning movement, Snape threw himself at their captor. Mont-Strepping gave a shout of alarm, tottered, lost his balance…McGonagall lunged for his wand…neither of them saw Agatha emerge from the drawing room, wand in hand. The female Mont-Strepping cried
"Stupefy!" and Snape froze, then crumpled. Mont-Strepping grabbed McGonagall, thrusting her away from him, before kicking Snape's limp form into the trapdoor. McGonagall watched, horrified, as her colleague vanished into the blackness below, accompanied by a sickening thud.
"Now you." Snapped Mont-Strepping. McGonagall looked from him to his wife, took a tentative step towards the trapdoor, and turned, feverishly thinking of ways to buy some time…but the Mont-Streppings had run out of patience. Octavian grabbed Minerva again, roughly, shoved her towards the trapdoor…she stumbled…lost her footing…and with a last strangled cry, fell into darkness.
A/N Gasp! What will our heroes do now? Please review and tell me what you think!
Chapter Five
Snape was lurking in the lounge of Apartment 57, uncomfortably dressed in a stiff hired suit of a disgusting beige colour. Minerva had refused to allow him to wear black -
"It's a dinner party, not a funeral, Severus!"
Now he waited, waited, waited, the clock apparently ticking but the hands seeming not to move at all; only the occasional mutter or slithering noise from the bathroom convinced him that McGonagall was, in fact, still alive in there.
"How much longer?" He demanded, for the fifth time, rapping loudly on the door.
"Will you have patience, man? We've plenty of time!"
"Minerva, if you don't hurry up we'll need a blasted time turner just to make it for dessert. What are you *doing* in there? It doesn't matter what you look like, it's only the bloody Mont-Streppings, after all. They wouldn't notice if you wore a grenadier's uniform."
"We don't want to look suspicious!" Another ten minutes oozed by, punctuated by mysterious hissing noises. Eventually Snape rapped again on the door.
"Are you trying to give yourself a facelift or something? Hurry *up!*"
"Oh, all right, all right, I'm coming…" The door opened slowly.
"Well it's about…" Snape began, then froze, mid sentence, as McGonagall emerged fully into the light. Astonished, he blinked and gaped like a pimply teenager on a first date.
Minerva looked good - no, *magnificent* was a better word. She wore a shimmering wine coloured dress trimmed with gold, which hugged her slim figure while falling respectably to her ankles. The neckline was just low enough to be interesting, and a glittering silver choker drew attention to the smooth curve of her neck. Her raven hair was not restrained by its usual bun: it was braided and hung down over her left shoulder. It made her look younger. The effect as a whole was truly quite remarkable. She smiled a little self-consciously at Snape's startled face, but all he said, in a dazed voice, was,
"Er…well done."
Hurt, she shot him a dark look. "What is *that* supposed to mean?"
"It means…you look beautiful." He replied without thinking, and her sharp expression melted; she smiled more warmly as she took his arm.
"Thank you, husband."
The taxi dropped them off near the Mont-Strepping…abode…and the pair made their way down the street, looking rather out of place in their finery. They walked arm in arm, as much for mutual protection as to keep up appearances, and despite the lack of rain both carried umbrellas.
As they approached the door of 'Ted Mason's' shop, Snape paused.
"Are you ready?"
McGonagall nodded impatiently.
"Of course. You're acting as though we're both heading to grim, inevitable deaths, Severus. Relax, it's just a dinner party…albeit a rather useful one." But Snape was not soothed.
"I have a bad feeling about this." He muttered. "Something just isn't right…Mont-Strepping knows something, I'm sure of it."
"Well, that's all to the good!"
"Perhaps." But he was worried, and the concern was starting to rub off on McGonagall. Unknowingly she tightened her grip on his arm, searching his pale, frowning face.
"This must be hard for you." She said eventually. "Meeting Mont- Strepping so casually…it must remind you of…" she hesitated as he looked away from her, glaring at the floor.
"Come on." He said quietly. "Let's get it over with."
"Ha ha ha!"
"Hahaha!"
"Ha ha ha!"
Snape poured another glass of wine.
His seventh.
McGonagall, watching him, could not help but sympathise. Agatha Mont- Strepping was not only snobbish, dimwitted and unbearably self-satisfied, but she had the same hideous laugh as her husband - just two octaves higher.
"Well now, Severus." Octavian Mont-Strepping roared cheerfully, chugging down the last of the red wine - a rather good vintage, but neither Snape nor his 'wife' were in an appropriate mood to appreciate it - "time to fetch the port, what, and let the ladies make their way to the withdrawing room, ha ha ha!"
"Quite." Came the potions master's grim reply. For her part McGonagall was deeply affronted. Withdrawing room indeed! How ridiculously obsolete. Nevertheless, it did give Minerva a chance to pump the foolish female Mont- Strepping for information her more wily husband might be wary of revealing. Meanwhile Snape could work on that wily husband, hopefully without resorting to some obscure form of torture which would doubtless give the game away. McGonagall glanced over her shoulder at Snape as she was ushered out of the dining room by Agatha. The Potions Master was pouring yet another glass of wine, and twitching slightly in his seat. Not a good sign, but the situuation was out of Minerva's hands…
"So," burbled Agatha, as the women settled themselves in comfortable chairs in a poky little den which apparently served as the drawing room, "do tell me all about yourself, Minerva! Octavian was so talkative at dinner, we hardly got a chance to speak to one another, but that's men I suppose, hahaha! You're a Muggle, aren't you, now that must be interesting. How *do* you get on without magic?"
"I don't need to." Replied McGonagall, trying vainly to keep the edge of utter dislike out of her voice. "I'm married to a wizard."
"Well, quite! Of course." Agatha seemed flustered, realising perhaps that she had asked a stupid question. She didn't let that knowledge prevent her from wittering on with more of the same, of course.
"I do hope I haven't offended you, using the word 'muggle'. Of course us purebloods use it all the time but then, we never think how it might sound to a non-magical person. Perhaps it's terribly rude! I remember once…" she prattled on, telling some bizarre and pointless story about previous encounters with the 'magically disadvantaged'. McGonagall simply tuned out after a few minutes, remaining alert for any useful information while analysing Agatha with all the experience of her many years of teaching. If nothing else, those years had provided a great capacity for judging characters quickly.
Agatha seemed relatively harmless, if rather bigoted. Liable to follow her foul husband in whatever he wanted to do. She could only be dangerous under the instructions of another, but for all that she was not soft- hearted, and like Octavian, there was a certain cunning about her. A definite Slytherin, thought Minerva, then smiled as she imagined the look of horror that would appear on Snape's face if she told him so.
"…but I'm talking far too much, do jump in, Minerva, hahaha! You're very quiet. How did you meet Severus? I've never met him before myself, though my husband knows him by association. Their families are, or rather were, very close…*our* families, I should say, because I'm a Mont-Strepping too of course, hahaha! Octavian is actually my third cousin, but what's a few degrees of relative between purebloods, hahaha!"
I owe Severus a Galleon McGonagall mused to herself. Aloud she said,
"We met through my neice, who is a witch…" sticking to the agreed story.
"Oh!" Agatha jumped in - at least there was little need for dissembling when talking to a Mont-Strepping; one hardly got a chance to speak, let alone lie. "Really? How wonderful. I do think muggle-borns are impressive, they do so well, don't they, considering that they're disadvantaged right from the beginning, poor things! Now once…"
But McGonagall had had quite enough. It was getting late, and she was determined to extract some useful information out of Agatha - she would not allow this dreadful experience to have been for nothing!
"You said," Minerva interrupted firmly, "that your family and the Snapes *used* to be close. Have they entirely lost touch?"
Fortunately, Agatha was far from averse to talking about her family. She seemed quite proud of them.
"Well, it's rather sad, you see, but there was some unpleasantness involving…" she seemed to hesitate, and a crafty look came over her pretty, silly face. McGonagall tensed. She got the feeling that something important was on the verge of being revealed.
"Involving a certain individual whom I am not at liberty to name." Went on Agatha, carefully, obviously not supposed to be saying this but unable to resist the temptation to tell a shocking story. "This person was something of a…er…a political leader, if you like, in our world. His views were strong, but just, and our family, of course, adhered to them, as was appropriate. However the Snapes…well, Livia - she's the matriarch, you see - seemed to think the whole thing rather *beneath* them."
McGonagall blinked. Snape's family thought the Dark Lord unworthy of them? In different circumstances that might almost have been amusing. Then again, it was not really so surprising - McGonagall, thankfully, had never met any of Snape's family, but Dumbledore was acquainted with Livia herself, and could be seen to shudder involuntarily whenever her name was mentioned. And McGonagall had seen the expression on Snape's face on the rare occasions he received an owl - or rather, a hawk - from his estranged grandmother - like that of a child sitting in the dentist's waiting room, while the patient before him is having his teeth drilled.
Realising that Agatha had stopped speaking - a minor miracle in itself - McGonagall prompted quickly,
"This leader you were talking about…is he still in power?" She waited anxiously for the answer, trying not to appear *too* interested. Agatha had opened her large mouth when,
"Ha ha ha!"
Her husband arrived, with a weary-looking, bemused and rather drunken Snape in tow.
"What's this, then, Agatha, telling Minerva all our dark secrets, eh? Go ahead, m'dear, you may as well." Octavian boomed. Agatha simpered and fluttered her long eyelashes.
"I was just saying," Snape cut in, apparently too drunk to note Octavian's curious remark, and slurring slightly, "that we ought to be on our way…s'getting late…"
"I don't think so, Severus." Their host said, unusually quietly.
"Hum?"
"I don't think so. No, you won't be going anywhere just yet."
Snape peered at Mont-Strepping in confusion.
"What?"
McGonagall was also staring at Mont-Strepping, her sharp mind having immediately processed the implicit threat in the man's tone. She forced herself to appear unflurried.
"Well, it *is* a little late, perhaps we should go. It's been a lovely evening…" she rose quickly. "I'll just get my umbrella…"
Before she could even get out of the chair, Mont-Strepping had taken a wand from inside his jacket.
"Stay right where you are, muggle."
"What…what on earth are you doing? If this is a joke I don't find it funny." Snapped Minerva. Snape was simply staring, aghast, at Mont- Strepping.
"Bloody hell." He mumbled, dropping into a seat beside McGonagall. "I told you!" He hissed in her ear. Minerva scowled at him, then at Mont- Strepping.
"Now listen to me. You have no right to threaten us like this. I don't see…"
"Oh, but you will." Octavian growled. "Don't fret about that. Come on, both of you." He motioned them to get up. Minerva ground her teeth, but there was little she could do without her wand; perhaps if Snape was in any condition to help, there might have been a chance, but he seemed completely dazed. Grabbing his arm she got up and wrenched him to his feet. Mont- Strepping marched them out of the drawing room, downstairs to his shop, and eventually opened a trapdoor in the stockroom.
"Down there." He growled. Snape staggered forward to peer into the darkness.
"Doesn't look very nice." He muttered. McGonagall glared at him. Of all the times to be inebriated…!
"Do as you're told."
"No need to be like that." Snape hiccuped amicably. "We're old friends after all…" he turned glittering black eyes on Mont-Strepping, and added silkily, and with sudden lucidity, "Even if you *did* try to drug my wine…" with a lightning movement, Snape threw himself at their captor. Mont-Strepping gave a shout of alarm, tottered, lost his balance…McGonagall lunged for his wand…neither of them saw Agatha emerge from the drawing room, wand in hand. The female Mont-Strepping cried
"Stupefy!" and Snape froze, then crumpled. Mont-Strepping grabbed McGonagall, thrusting her away from him, before kicking Snape's limp form into the trapdoor. McGonagall watched, horrified, as her colleague vanished into the blackness below, accompanied by a sickening thud.
"Now you." Snapped Mont-Strepping. McGonagall looked from him to his wife, took a tentative step towards the trapdoor, and turned, feverishly thinking of ways to buy some time…but the Mont-Streppings had run out of patience. Octavian grabbed Minerva again, roughly, shoved her towards the trapdoor…she stumbled…lost her footing…and with a last strangled cry, fell into darkness.
A/N Gasp! What will our heroes do now? Please review and tell me what you think!