A/N: Someone tell me what a gillywater is. I'd really love to walk into my local diner and order a gillywater and have an actual answer for the blank stare from the waitress.
A/N: Severus, you jerk! Leave her alone! She said no!
A/N: Are you sufficiently intrigued? Then read on…
Chapter One: 1995
There is a funny thing about time—whenever something unpleasant is coming up in the near future time inevitably speeds up its flow. Whenever there is something exciting in the future, time slows down to a crawl, a barely perceptible current in the water, like the placid surface of a lake. And after a momentous event that is followed by quiet stillness, time flows in disquieting eddies, as if the concussion of the big event stirred the waters into a frenzy. Time goes nowhere, but makes a lot of noise getting there. Time does not flow, but currents move.
There is a funny thing about humans. Whenever time begins to eddy, they wish time would bring them another big event. Even if it is horrible.
But they cannot make it come any faster.
The child must wait for Tom Riddle to make the next move.
* * *
Minerva's problem was simple—today was but one uneventful day, of an uneventful week, of an uneventful month, of a year that had definitely been one of the most eventful in Minerva McGonagall's life. To be more specific: a little over a year ago, an escaped mass murderer after one of her students had evaded justice once again and was still at large. Then had come the fiasco at the Quidditch world cup. Then the Triwizard Tournament, one of the most stressful years of her career, and—should she say it? Or was this whole thing just a delaying tactic to saying the thing that had never been out of her conscious thought for the past month—Lord Voldemort had risen again. Alright, so maybe her problem wasn't quite so simple as she'd tried to tell herself…
And to top it all off, it was raining.
Not being a poetic-minded person, Minerva didn't try to romanticize the torrent that was pouring down upon Hogsmeade's high street. She bent her head into the wind, pulling the flaps of her pointed witch's hat down to shield her eyes. She probably could have cast a large-scale impervious charm on herself which would have made the rain avoid her as if magnetized, but that would have required fishing in her robes for her wand, which would have opened her face up to the gale trying to get in at it. Hogsmeade hadn't had a summer storm like this for ages…
As her mind was definitely not poetic, she didn't consciously try to equate the large raindrops to her mood, or the mood that pervaded the entire Hogwarts staff…Still, for the woman who thought "pathetic fallacy" was a good label on more than one level, the storm was a bit symbolic.
Minerva was a very scientific-minded person. Funny, she supposed, for a witch who devoted her life to the study of magic, that most unscientific and illogical of realities. Still, magic had a rhyme and reason to it—and Minerva's specialty, transfiguration, was mostly straightforward and had set patterns of cause and effect. Even if she still couldn't properly explain to her Muggle father just how waving a wand and muttering an incantation rearranged the atoms and molecules of a thing to turn it into something else. She had actually tried to organize a research team on that once, when she was just breaking in the "professor" title, but then Grindelwald's younger brother had shown up for his piece of the Ministry and the funds had been diverted to defense and the Aurors, though the younger dark wizard had taken only a month to capture and Dumbledore hadn't even bothered to leave Hogwarts. After the panic Minerva had tried again, but interest soon dried up and she realized that most wizards simply did not care.
The atmosphere inside Hogwarts these days was electric. Not in the good, exciting, summer's-just-begun way that always seemed to set in at this time of the year, but in the tense, stiflingly quiet way the inhabitants were full of dread anticipation until the air fairly crackled with unshed static. The storm was exactly what they needed, and precisely what they did not need. The storm meant You-Know-Who had made another move; the too-still atmosphere in the castle school meant the world was still slightly safe.
Minerva shook her head. There was no need to become so worked up over it; the whole thing had been an exercise in metaphorical thinking. This storm was an atmospheric instability over Scotland. The storm she was thinking of wasn't even physical.
This is what happens when you go mixing magic and symbolism.
Through the driving rain, she saw the village pub, the Three Broomsticks, looming up on her right. She hurried forward, a new speed to her steps, and fairly yanked open the door of the pub. As it fell closed behind her, muffling the howl of the wind and the splatter of raindrops, she took off her hat and wiped her face of excess water. It was warm and dim inside, the room lit by candles along the walls. As it was summertime, nearly all the guests were residents of Hogsmeade, and it looked as if Madame Rosmerta, the owner of the place, was having a slow business day. A low murmur of conversation filled the pub, but there couldn't have been more than ten people sitting around the circular tables sipping drinks.
"Minerva!" said a warm voice from in front of her, and Minerva looked up to see Rosmerta herself coming toward her, smiling in greeting. She allowed a faint smile in return.
"Good afternoon, Rosmerta."
"I haven't seen you in a good while. Beginning to worry that you weren't coming back!" Rosmerta guided her to the bar, where Minerva placed her usual order for a small gillywater.
"Minerva—if you don't mind my saying so—you could use something stronger," said the younger woman, a slight frown of worry on her face. "Anyone—I know what you're going through…"
Minerva looked up at her sharply. Almost no one knew of Lord Voldemort's return to life, as the Ministry hadn't deigned to let the information slip to the press. Still, Rosmerta lived and worked right next to Hogwarts, the center of the resistance efforts. And if Minerva knew her fellow faculty members—
"Tell me Rosmerta," she said, a wry smile forming on her lips, "how often does Hagrid come here?"
Rosmerta laughed softly, seeing the humor in the professor's question. But she still answered it.
"Quite often. But," she said, her eyes filling with concern again, "you're carrying a load, Minerva, all of you are. Tell you what," she said, eyes growing slightly mischievous. "I didn't hear gillywater. I heard rum." Minerva almost pointed out to Rosmerta that as she owned the Three Broomsticks, she could serve Minerva whatever she wished without getting herself in trouble.
"That's very kind, Rosmerta, but I would prefer—"
"Oh, no you don't," said Rosmerta firmly. She was one of the very few people who would dare talk to Professor McGonagall firmly, and still she rarely did it. "No you don't, Minerva. You need a chance to relax. Now take the rum, sit and chat, and forget all about You-Know-Who for a few hours."
Minerva wanted to add that that was easier said than done, but Rosmerta was on a roll.
"Tell you what—" she leaned in closer, and grinned conspiratorially. "Take it, free of charge."
"Rosmerta, you don't have to—"
"It's alright, Minerva, special deal—all Hogwarts faculty members drink free. Least I can do." Her eyes hardened. "Now take the rum."
Minerva was too tired to argue. She thanked Rosmerta, took her drink, and turned to look for an empty table. Rosmerta was right, the faculty were stressed. And working hard. The rum and chatting would probably do her better than a quick gillywater before hurrying back to the castle. Now where—
"Minerva!"
She gave an inward groan. Of course. They would be here, exactly when she had come, probably for the exact same reasons—
"Hello, Professor Flitwick," she said professionally, hoping to distance herself.
No such luck.
Two minutes later she found herself sitting at a table in the far corner with Flitwick and none other than Severus Snape. She blinked upon seeing him in a pub, and reflected that he had probably had the same reaction seeing her here.
Flitwick gave a deep sigh upon sitting down, which Minerva wished she could mirror.
"Dumbledore left again this morning. Something else in London," he said, saying nothing the other two professors didn't know already. Minerva found her foot twitching impatiently.
"Has anyone heard when he'll be back?" Flitwick looked around the small table, his eyes resting especially on Minerva. She was deputy headmistress, after all.
"Albus is hoping to be back later today," she replied dutifully.
Flitwick sighed heavily again. "I don't like having him leave," he said, "though I know it's for the best. I just can't help thinking what could happen to the castle when he isn't here…"
Minerva's cup of rum concealed her wry half-smile as the irony registered, but she said nothing. If she knew Severus…
Snape cleared his throat. "It worries me as well, professor, especially when only half the staff is left to defend it…" He swilled the liquid around in his cup and stared at it thoughtfully. Minerva thought he'd overdone it, but apparently the sarcasm didn't register with the Charms professor—
"Goodness!" Flitwick exclaimed. "That is true, Severus—hadn't thought—of course…"
"I'm sure Albus would not have left if he thought the school would in any way be in danger—" A sharp kick—yes, a kick—cut her off in mid-sentence.
"However," Severus continued for her, "there really isn't—"
"—any way to be sure," Flitwick finished, downing another large gulp of his drink. "So, I have a few errands to run in town, I shall see you later," he said, standing up and executing a tiny bow that would have looked ridiculous had he not been four feet tall and in danger of looking ridiculous anyway. Laughing at a figure that was both four feet tall and bowing grandiosely was almost a crime.
He left out the door hurriedly, as if afraid to let the castle alone for even long enough to have a drink. Minerva couldn't help but feel relieved—though Severus wasn't known for his conversational skills, Flitwick was (unbeknownst to his students, of course) one of the most absent-minded people Minerva had ever met, and though kind, mostly clueless when it came to picking up on hints.
He would probably not understand her wish to not talk about the danger surrounding Hogwarts this summer.
Severus cleared his throat softly, cutting into her thoughts. She looked up and saw him staring down into his drink thoughtfully again, swirling it around inside its cup. Fascinated by it, really, she thought. People did have their oddities.
"That was really rather uncalled-for," said Minerva in what came out as a more severe tone than she'd meant it to be.
Severus looked up, narrowing his eyes. "That was really a rather unpleasant conversation, professor, and I for one came here in pursuit of leisure."
They regarded each the other coldly for a moment or two.
"Shall I leave?" he asked.
"No," she said, picking her cup—tankard, really—up again and taking a sip. "I'm sorry, Severus. It's really much more pleasant like this."
"I agree," he said, and looked away and out the window, where the rain was falling even harder than before—if that was possible.
"Bit of a strange time for 'leisure,'" Minerva commented, following his gaze. "It looks as if everyone waited until it was miserable outside."
"Symbolic, I suppose," Snape replied, and Minerva flinched slightly, having already gone through this line of thought. Snape gave her a strange look. "Have you ever thought, professor, that perhaps we all have victim complexes?"
No, she hadn't.
"Explain," she said, interested in spite of herself. He nodded and looked back at the rain.
"Well, we all know Voldemort"—Minerva flinched at the name but said nothing—"is risen," Severus continued after a moment. "But it can't be proven. I suppose walking here through the storm is a means of showing the world what we're dealing with."
This wasn't quite what Minerva had had in mind when she left for a drink this afternoon, but it was definitely turning into an interesting time.
He noticed her dubious expression. "Or proving it to ourselves," he added in response to the frown that creased her forehead. "Really, professor, it's more likely to be true than not."
"And you're the psychologist?" she asked in what could almost have been a teasing voice, had she not been Professor Minerva McGonagall.
"Potions master," he replied with more than a faint smile.
"I was aware of that. I fail to see the connection."
"Well, potions, of course, require an immense amount of knowledge on the human condition. Not merely the physical body."
"I suppose next you'll be opening up a free clinic in your office." Her voice had been just a tad too friendly there. Even for Professor Minerva McGonagall.
Severus' eyes registered surprise, but he responded in kind. "Free? Professor, you overestimate my altruistic tendencies. I think twenty galleons per session is reasonable."
She was relaxed enough to give a chuckle, and Snape, obviously surprised and pleased with his comedic success, joined her.
"We probably need a psychologist at the school now," she said offhand, and could have slapped herself.
Snape went back to considering his rum.
The silence stretched into an uncomfortable minute, broken only by the soft sloshing sounds of his drink as it splashed around in its container.
"You don't seem that wet, if you don't mind my prying," she said rather lamely. Anything to relieve the uncomfortable silence.
Was it just her, or did the thin smile he gave her upon looking up have a hint of conspiracy in it?
"Were you aware, Minerva, of the large number of secret passageways in the Hogwarts grounds?"
"I wonder at the sudden change in conversation," she commented dryly.
He said nothing, but looked back at his rum. This was getting quite annoying.
"I had heard of passageways," she tried again, "but was never aware of their locations."
Stop.
That last bit wasn't quite true, but no need to mention this to Severus.
"Well?" Minerva prompted, raising a practiced eyebrow.
"I have often wondered whether the founders four incorporated the passages into their design of the castle, or if they were added by later teachers. Or perhaps if—"
"Are you going to tell me where the passage is?"
"Passage?"
"Really, Severus, for a 'potions master,' you have terrible evasive tactics."
"'For a potions master'?"
"Aren't you our psychologist?"
Severus considered her, gave his tankard one good swirl.
"I was lying. I haven't taken one psychology class in my life." The smile he gave her was definitely too friendly, and Minerva suddenly understood something.
Standing, she returned his smile. But with a professional air. "Forgive me, Professor Snape, but I must be leaving. Good day."
She turned around and was walking back toward the door of the Three Broomsticks before she could see his reaction.
There was no need. She knew what it would be, but nothing she was willing to do would change it.
She was out the door and a good few feet back up Hogsmeade's high street before she realized she'd forgotten her hat.
* * *