Title: The Flight of the Raven
Author: Chaos_Rose
E-mail: lady_rosa_chaotica@yahoo.com
Rating: Safely R for language, adult concepts, behavior and subjects. Not so much for this chapter, but future ones.
Classification: Sorta romance. Sorta angst.
Summary: Read 'Through the Longest Watches of the Night' or this will make no sense.
Author's Note:
Hello, readers!
This is a sequel of sorts, as a good few of you wanted to know what happened to Emily after 'Longest Watches.' I hope that you enjoy.
Chaos
~
The Flight of the Raven
The First Letter
~
At first, when no word came in the summer after graduation, he impatiently set aside his disappointment, telling himself that it was to be expected. The little raven was dancing in the sky of the wide world, what time had she to send word to an old schoolmaster?
Then, at the very end of August, came the first letter, and with it a photograph.
To: Professor Severus Snape – Master of Potions
Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Hogsmeade
From: Miss Emily Mayborne, Apprentice Aquisitor
Gadget, Widget and MacGuffin, Ltd.
Diagon Alley
London
Professor Snape,
Greetings, and I hope that all is well with you. I am sorry not to have written sooner, but the coursework required of Apprentices does indeed make me look back on your classes with longing. I think that you may have gone far too easy on us.
As Apprentices, we are paid a modest stipend and - whatever our financial circumstances – we are required to live within the budget. Missy is suffering, but refusing to complain. She wants to tough this out to prove that she can do it, not just to piss off Lucius. Susan is the easiest with this arrangement. In fact, she is the one of us who can stretch all three stipends into something like comfort. I simply became too used to my trust funds – something that you did warn me about in less than diplomatic terms, as I remember.
In any case, you had asked me to apprise you from time to time on the state of the sky, so I enclose the following photograph. Our flat is on Vertic Alley,a narrow, stepped street near Artistic Alley. I don't know if you have ever been here, but the buildings are all hugger-mugger with floors piled atop one another like a stack of books. I don't yet know about the sky on the other side of the world, but this is what it looks like a little closer to home.
I wish you the best of luck in the new school year, and I will endeavour to correspond more frequently.
I remain,
Sincerely,
Emily Mayborne
The photograph was taken – from what Severus could tell – with the photographer lying flat on her back on the pavement and pointing her camera at the thin ribbon of sky visible between piers of buildings. A pair of house sparrows looped through the picture as he held it, bemused at his strong reaction to a simple note and picture.
He tucked the note and picture back into the envelope and after a moment's debate, slipped it into the warded drawer of his desk. "Thank you, pretty raven."
~
From: Professor S.N. Snape – Master of Potions
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Hogsmeade
To: Miss Emily Mayborne, Apprentice Aquisitor
Gadget, Widget and MacGuffin, Ltd.
Diagon Alley
London
Miss Mayborne:
Thank you for the courtesy of your note and I hope this finds you well. Having you accuse me of being to easy on you as a student and then admitting - twice in one letter, no less - I was in the right about something left me worried that the stresses of life away from Hogwarts might have unhinged your mind.
You have not been accepting potions from strangers, have you?
I thank you also for keeping me informed as to the conditions of your sky. I remember Vertic Alley quite well – and that's all I am going to say about it.
Well, other than, "Do NOT eat ANYTHING from Happy Jack's, I don't care how scraping you are."
Sincerely,
S. Snape
~