And more under way…
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He searched in his pockets. His robes had lots of them and he brought loads of miniature bottles out of them and set them onto a nearby table. He reached for his wand, and found it after some difficulty, after all there was too much going on in his robes despite the thought of Longbottom, swished it and enlarged the bottles to their true state. Then he turned around to watch Aphrodisia. He really would like to know her true name. For sure it was something trivial like Daphne or some such. He didn't mind. Severus and Daphne Snape are proud to announce... Severus and Aphrodisia Wellercotton-Snape are happy to invite you ... Severus shook his head in utter horror. What had been done to him? Surely there must be something in the air here, that made his mind wander off into shallow depths of degradation he would have never imagined to reach in his most potent nightmares. He would never be happy to invite anyone to anything, it just wasn't in his character. Just like marrying was not in his character.
He sniffed the air suspiciously. Aphrodisia caught him at it and smiled. He couldn't refrain from smiling back, especially not when she set to tend to the bottles as meticulously as he himself had done. He even forgave her that she cleaned them as if they might be soiled coming from him. When she felt his gaze upon her, she smiled apologetically. She needn't have, Snape thought. He had come across few persons who shared his special obsession with meticulous tidiness. Obviously he had happened upon another, in a whorehouse of all places. Life was a mystery, cruel and deceptive.
Well, not when a woman like that smiled and beamed at him and tugged at his hand in a gesture that would have had him mad with vengeance if anyone else had attempted it. He was not the one to take intruding of his private sphere kindly. "Oh, Severus, thank you so much. How wonderful of you to come by and bring the potion. We are in urgent need of it. In fact, so much so, that I have to leave you and bring the bottles to the places where they are wanted, desperately. We are quite overwhelmed with the reception of our humble little idea here"
Snape's face fell. Leave? Had she said leave? But he had only just arrived. And there remained the salary issue. She couldn't leave like that. He felt some of his old temper return and was about to show it, when Aphrodisia said: "Or wait, would you like to see what it does?"
No, he wouldn't, come to think of it. He never had been a voyeur, thank you very much. Well, he never had been much of anything, really. Not when it came to – that. But he didn't want her to leave him. He felt her push onto his hand with a finger, just a little. When he looked up into her face, he was not sure that he glared as best as he could. She smiled like an angel. "You don't have to see any atrocities, though. Trust me."
He didn't trust her, he was no fool. He hadn't trusted anybody for years. Wouldn't begin here of all places and now of all times. But something in himself wouldn't let her go either. "I admit to not having erased a streak of curiosity in myself as much as I should have", he said, reluctantly. She laughed out loud, grabbed his hand harder and dragged him with her. "Well, I see there's hope. Perhaps you haven't erased all other traits of humanity in yourself, either". He did glare at her on that, but she only brushed her left thumb lightly over the crease between his brows and stroked it into oblivion. Magic, indeed. No other person had come so close to him for years, and this woman dared to touch him. Wanted to touch him. Like that was the normal thing to do. And he, Severus Snape, didn't cut her hand off for it. On the contrary. He felt strangely peaceful. And not so strangely attracted. It was weird, for loss of longer words.
He let himself get dragged along. The air sizzled with magic of different kinds. Silencing charms, door-closing charms, libido-enhancing charms. He was sure of the last one. Really sure. He had the feeling that behind every door there were at least two persons, busy, but he couldn't hear a thing. It was very disconcerting. Every moment someone could come out of one room and see him here. And then what was left of his reputation was down the gutter. Well, so would be the reputation of whomever he met here. Severus smiled evilly. This whole business had damaged his brain. He should have thought about it before. He had nothing to fear. He was the teacher, looking for his students. That was his role, had been for years.
"Albus?", he said, when a door opened and a white-haired man bedecked with a long beard and half-moon spectacles and not much more came out. The man looked at him a bit taken aback. "Severus! How good of you to come by – and you're good. Whoever you are, they must have gotten some really helpful ingredient of you. Is that new potion? Thanks a lot. Mr. Potter and I need some more here. See you, dear." And with that the door closed, but only after Severus had caught a glimpse of a creamy white teenage body, who was in shockingly stark contrast to the age of the man he had just seen.
He looked at his guide in horror. "Was that really Albus Dumbledore? Or really Harry Potter?" He couldn't even think the worst possibility. Truly that was an idea too devilish for any Gryffindor to ponder. Even Albus. Setting up a Polyjuice Whorehouse just to have his ways with the real Harry – no, that was surely taking paranoia a bit far, even for him.
She smiled at him, rather mysteriously. She was not only Helena, but the Sphinx. "Who knows? And who should tell? Secret of the trade, really." They walked along a corridor, and up a few steps in silence, and then she opened the door for him with a smile that was much too knowing to be comforting. Not that he needed comfort. He simply was a bit anxious to find assorted Weasleys and more Harrys in the room, but there were only people in pre-Polyjuice stadium, to his utter relief. Well, as far as he could tell. He sensed another faint smile of his hostess, when she introduced him to her employees. "This is Severus Snape, our saviour. He has brought the potion."
"Oh wonderful", one man got up and grabbed one bottle out of the hands of Aphrodisia. "And high time it was. There is a customer who was not amused to hear that he had to wait. His cane was already hissing." He shared a knowing smile with Aphrodisia and with a look on Severus the sense of which he couldn't quite make out, left the room. Aphrodisia gave each of the attendees a bottle, and they left in a flurry of pink and lilac. Severus' mouth curled in disgust, but he found his curiosity was piqued.