Dear Readers,
Thanks for all the feedback and MsInvisFem, thanks for the crit on the last chapter. :)
In this bit –
Shit.
Fan.
Bad.
Bad.
Very, Very Bad.
Enjoy, and as always, please let me know what you think!
Sincerely,
Chaos
~
Like Cats and Dogs
Chapter 12
~
Severus sat on the worktable, observing Emily's work. It was very interesting to see how her technique had matured - she was steady and sure of herself, her hands quick and graceful, her approach measured. It was edifying to watch her on task. One never got a true sense of technique from writing alone.
Most people liked to think of Potions as a very one-size-fits-all discipline, but nothing could be further from the truth. Severus was considered an innovator in the field, willing to experiment with materiel and techniques that many would never bother to try. Emily was apparently delving the very origins of one of the first Magical Arts, employing methods buried by time and combining them with the most modern of innovations.
It also pleased him no end that his rigid insistence on laboratory journaling had paid off – her notes were clear, meticulous and copious.
Emily, in turn, was fascinated and scandalized by his private Restricted Section. Severus was deeply relieved that she did not attempt to open any of the volumes that were chained shut, or held in glass and silver coffers – it could have been messy.
Emily brewed the basic burn remedies, deflating potions, counteragents and antidotes easily. He was very pleased when she managed a complicated Dreamless Sleep potion in combination with a timed-release narcotic analgesic.
It was also quite something to watch her brew a personal stock of potions. Her extraction techniques were flawless! Even the simplest remedy was of interest to him – her private stock of ingredients included items from around the world, material that might only be known to village witch-doctors and shamans. Salves, tonics, dry ingredients for poultices, tinctures, extracts, oils – she had become marvelously adept!
Then again, with those scars, she'd probably had to learn on the fly. It appalled him to think of those girls – his students, for Merlin's sake! – facing down something like a Quetzalcoatl! Furthermore, Severus believed that Lucius knew nothing about it. News of his 'Princess' in a tangle with something like that would have had him in orbit!
Finally, the last potion was bottled and the laboratory cleaned. Emily plucked a few bottles of essential oils from her stock, cut a small amount of beeswax, chose two bottles of oil and put them in the center of the worktable. Severus, who had been about to leave, came back for a closer look. What was she doing?
Water was heated in a cauldron to just short of boiling as she shaved the beeswax into thin slices and put them in a wide glass beaker. Setting the beaker in a wire frame, Emily carefully immersed two thirds of the beaker in the pot. When the wax was melted, Emily poured out a small measure of one light oil and the same of a heavier oil. With a quick hand, she added a drop of this, a drop of that and a few drops of the other to the oils and mixed them quickly into the soft wax.
A salve or balm of some kind, but… oh…
Sandalwood, jasmine, vanilla, cloves, vetiver, patchouli, and frankincense – all gently underlaid by the subtle scent of honey beeswax. For anyone with a refined sense of smell, the complexities of the scent would be alluring, not to mention arousing.
Severus glared first at the salve and then at Emily. What was the little Ravenclaw chick up to now?
Emily simply did the one thing that women had been doing to worry men since Lilith – she gave him the smile that Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini del Giocondo had made famous.
~
Sirius rose and went to answer the call of nature. Remus was using the last day before the start of classes to indulge himself in a long lie-in. Tomorrow he would be awake at six in the morning, preparing for classes, taking breakfast at seven-thirty and teaching from nine o'clock. Classes ended at four in the afternoon, but a teacher was expected to be available to his students from four to six in his office. There would be papers to correct, lessons to plan, students to supervise, parents to deal with, problem children, and staff politics in full force.
Let the man sleep! He'd be running short of it for the next ten months or however long it would take Umbridge to recover. Sirius roamed the grounds, not with anything in particular in mind, just savoring the last golden day of August as he had when he was a boy. He could smell autumn in the air, even if the leaves and grass were still lush and green.
Sirius ambled back into their rooms to find Remus still snoring lightly and the animagus settled on the cool stone floor with a sigh.
Carefully, he took out his feelings and examined them. Being a dog, his emotions were less complex, and sometimes that was helpful in sorting them out. For a long time, he had no emotions of any sort – good, bad or otherwise. Sirius had lived in a grey, flat world for twelve grinding years. Upon escape, there were only the thoughts of hunting Peter, protecting Harry and avenging James and Lily. Even now, his emotions were either as flat as a calm sea or whipping to hurricane force with very little in between.
He loved Moony. That was a given. He loved Moony as a part of the dearest memories of his life and the last link to that past. He loved Moony as an honest and true friend, someone who had mourned Sirius Black and welcomed him back to the land of the living. Most of all he loved Moony for things that he could not quite put name to.
In the few months that he had been with Remus, something had come to be that was not there before.
For the life of him, Sirius could not say what it was. Yes, he could still look at a pretty face, dream about a lushly female form. Hiding in the Yucatan - in guise as what Muggles called a 'beach bum' - he had been gratified to find that all manner and ages of women still considered him attractive. But even a parade of pretty bodies could not keep the sick greyness at bay for long. He felt nothing for them, not even enough to take one eager volunteer to bed and see if that could crack the not-feeling.
That state only abated with Harry's letters, and then with all the events that followed. But from the moment he stepped into Remus' cottage, the colors had begun to bleed back into his life. With them came emotions – sometimes so overwhelming that he had to become a dog just to stand under the weight of them.
He could not say what had happened to add love and lust to friendship and affection, or if it had always been there. As boys and young men, Remus and Sirius had their share of mooncalf moments with and over the opposite sex, even some awkward experimentation between themselves, but nothing had ever come of it.
Though perhaps in the short time between leaving school and October 31, 1981 – there really had not been enough time for anything to develop. Voldemort was rising in power and it seemed that every week brought a fresh round of atrocities. James and Lily were in the forefront of that battle, as were Remus and Sirius - there had been precious little time for anything other than staying a step ahead of the Death Eaters.
Peter had betrayed more than James, Lily and Harry – he had betrayed countless people both Muggle and Wizard to their deaths.
All that Sirius knew was that an innocent little wrestle over a bag of crisps had ended up with Remus laying Sirius over the tottery kitchen table and vigorously shagging him into a higher state of being.
Remus was right, though. Of all the times they had done it, not once had they had sex in a bed. Sirius twitched as he also took stock of the fact that he had never told Remus that he loved him – not while Remus was awake to hear it. They kissed, touched, hugged, slept together, lay all over each other – but Remus was the only one who ever said, "I love you."
Oh, that hurt. That hurt big.
Then along comes a pretty woman. A pretty, smart woman. One who had no stupid prejudices. One who, Remus told him with awe in his voice, had actually touched him. Remus rode with his arms around her waist, sat hip to hip with her in a small booth in the Three Broomsticks – and she had not been afraid of him, or disgusted by him.
It was no wonder that Remus reacted so strongly to her. As much as Sirius wanted to dislike Emily Mayborne, the fact that she treated Remus as she would anyone else raised her standing in his eyes – her mercenary profession, defense of Snape, and Malfoy lover notwithstanding.
But Sirius wanted Remus, not just for sex or a warm body to cuddle with, but for… keeps. For real. He needed to tell Moony that he loved him, they could work out the details later.
And as a dog, there was no way that Sirius could tell him!
His eyes squeezed shut and a little whine escaped him.
And to be able to tell him meant that Sirius would have to go to Snape.
Sirius went back to his bed, laid down, sighed and closed his eyes.
Sometimes, being a dog wasn't so easy after all.
~
Remus awoke with the sun high in the sky and his stomach complaining about having slept through breakfast. His pleasant tiredness from the night before had translated into a deep, good sleep. Emily Mayborne was good company, and what she could do on that broom!
He'd asked her to show some of her skills to his Combative Magics students and she'd agreed. Even better, they would be teaming up for some of their Dark Arts lessons - something that would make it immeasurably easier for him as werefolk were automatically regarded as being on the order of beasts.
Some might not think anything of taunting him or worse while he was in human form, but only someone with a liking for pain would fuck about with an Acquisitor.
Remus had once seen a bust-up between some Ministry types and 'Akkies' that had to be broken up by Aurors – and even the Aurors had looked a little ragged after.
Still, yesterday had been… interesting. On several levels.
Remus rolled out of bed and headed for the loo, scratching himself in various places and yawning.
First, the interesting fact that Sirius was stinking jealous.
Remus knew that Sirius loved him – he could smell it – but Sirius could never say it, letting his actions speak for him instead. But jealousy? Remus never would have figured it. It was oddly… warming.
For himself, Remus had known for a long time that he loved Sirius. From long before the clumsy fumblings of horny adolescents there had been something else that Remus – so used to rejection – had feared to examine too closely.
Remus had mourned Sirius, even before Azkaban when Remus thought that Sirius had been the spy in their midst. To have him now was like having him return from the land of the dead, which he supposed that damned island actually was. Then he had lost Sirius again when he'd had to flee the dementors and England altogether. Remus resigned himself to isolation, keeping to his cottage on Loch Benevian.
The day that Padfoot appeared in a patch of sunlight to pick him up off the floor and tuck him into bed had been Heaven – or Albus Dumbledore - finally answering a prayer.
You never have to say it, Padfoot, just never leave me. That had become his prayer every morning since.
The second interesting thing had been Severus' reaction.
Like Sirius, Severus stank with jealousy. The normally aloof and remote Slytherin had always been of interest to Remus' nose – the spicy musk was as distinctive as a fingerprint – but when one added in Emmy's scent on top of the seething brew of Severus' emotional state…! Emily's clothing had been fragrant with Severus' scent as well, and if Severus' behavior had not been mate-guarding, then Remus had never seen it.
Then there had been Emily herself.
Remus admitted the attraction. She was not afraid of him - she even touched him! Even Madam Pomfrey always smelled slightly afraid when she'd had to tend him, but Emily's earthy scent never so much as veered close to uncertainty. Her contact with werefolk was extensive; apparently her firm had no qualms about hiring 'tainted' people. In fact, one of the Potions Masters whom Emily seemed to revere had done extensive work in developing the Wolfsbane potion.
To the man, Emily could possibly be a very good friend.
To the wolf inside the man, she smelled very good – in a very particular way.
Remus growled under his breath and turned on the shower. Yes, he had made a pass at her, and yes, she had been receptive – yet she turned him aside. Emily was loyal to her she-mate and that was that. He'd take the almost-sisterly kiss on the cheek and the friendship and do so gratefully.
Then there was Sirius, his beautiful and lusty Sirius. Good lord! How he loved to touch him, lick him, bite him and make him squeal…
Remus' anatomy agreed lustily, standing at attention and looking around for someone with whom to share the enthusiasm.
With a sigh, Remus dropped his shorts and got into the shower, thinking that a soapy hand and imagination were a sorely inadequate solution to the problem. If something didn't happen soon, it was going to be Remus who would go begging to Severus!
~
What did one wear to a Governors' Tea? Emily wondered.
She would wear her summer dress robes to the Sorting Feast tonight, but so far as the tea this afternoon, she was clueless.
"Too warm for velvet, too early for silk. Can't wear my field clothing." She turned to Snape, again enthroned upon the nightstand, who had been wearing what she thought of as a feline version of his 'detention face' all morning. "I'm faculty. How does faculty dress? Oh, why am I asking you? You're not only male, you're a cat!"
Turning back to the wardrobe, she nibbled her lower lip as she perused the clothing within. With everything that Missy had packed, there had to be something to wear in here!
Pulling out her black professors' robe, she hung it on the door. Plain black, but of superfine-grade worsted wool that would do for all but winter wear, Emily had added her 'tinsel' – the loops of braided and colored leather that Acquisitors had adopted as an informal set of insignia. To anyone who knew the code, Emily was an newly raised Acquisitor Senior and Invested Member, and that she had been in the firm for six years – three of those years as an Apprentice, three as a Junior. A loop inside the first one disclosed her specialty as Potions and proclaimed her as in a closed partnership.
The faculty normally did not wear such, but it wasn't like she was a real professor.
Well, then, she'd not dress like one, either.
A high-necked ao dai in a deep blue matte silk with long, tight sleeves and embroidered with white plum blossoms went up next to the robe. Hair sticks decorated with dancing mother-of-pearl cranes went in the pocket of the black silk trousers.
And it looked like Snape wanted to give her a year of detentions. What a face!
"I'm not a real professor, why should I dress like one? They'll all know that I'm a fake anyway." If anything that simply made him sterner. "Look, I have to start getting ready, this farce goes off at three and it's already one o'clock!"
Snape stared at her, looked at the clock, then back to Emily. "Merrrow? Now?"
"Yes, now. I have to bathe, get clean, do my hair and face and get dressed. If I don't start now, I'll never be ready on time!" She scooped up a bag full of scrubs, hair treatments, masques and lotions. "Just because I'm not frilly femme every day doesn't mean that I'm not every now and then."
Snape was still staring at her as if she'd grown another head as she shut the bathroom door behind her.
~
Well.
Severus simply sat and blinked at the closed bathroom door, listening to the water run.
Well.
'Frilly femme?' Two hours to get ready for tea? Exotic garb and desecration of professorial garments? A fake professor? Who cared what those pompous fatheads thought? They had as little to do with the day to day running of the school as a frog in a French restaurant had to do with his legs!
Merlin and Taliesin! What next?
Just what was she planning to do with that sinful perfume? That was gilding the lily if he had ever heard of it!
"Ahhhhhhh…" Came the happy sound through the bathroom door.
And oh if that didn't just make him twitch! Why did she have to make such… distracting sounds?
And why was his hearing so good that he could hear Emily now doing something that probably had nothing to do with bathing? Why could he hear smothered moans and soft gasps over the running water?
Why wasn't he getting the hell out of here instead of sitting and listening?
Why did he close his eyes and imagine that it was himself causing her to make those sounds? Picturing his hands on her skin, his mouth feasting upon her delights? Wanting the need that she was trying to alleviate to be for him?
Severus was aware of a low moaning, but it was coming from him as he heard the muffled, bitten-back cry of her release.
Then he was bolting through the bedroom, through the den and out the door - racing down the hallway pursued by the desire for something that he could never, ever have.
~
Remus smoothed his robes nervously as he waited for Emily to answer his knock. His best robes were a little exotic, coming from his last employer, but he hoped that she would approve. Emily struck him as someone singularly practical and no-nonsense, he didn't want her to think he was a primping twit like Gilderoy Lockheart.
Saleh bin Abbahs bin Haami Al-Sabah had been most grateful for Remus' timely removal of an efreet from his London flat and had outfitted him lavishly in addition to paying him.
The bisht – or outer robe - was of the softest black wool and liberally trimmed in wide bands of intricate gold embroidery on every edge of fabric. The dishdasha – which Remus thought of as a very long shirt – was thick, soft, snowy cotton as were the trousers called sirwal. A fine belt in red, black and gold – which Al-Sabah had taken for the colors of Remus bin John bin Lupin Al-Gryffindor's familial House – bound the waist of the bisht and held his belt pouch and wand. From Sirius' approving barks and wagging tail, Remus knew that he looked quite good.
Emily opened the door and Remus felt a grin spreading on his face.
Well. He wasn't the only one sporting exotic plumage, at least. Emily's tunic-dress was an Asian design with flowers in white over dark blue silk, with a high neck and long sleeves. The normally pulled-back chestnut hair was in an elaborate swirl of braids held together with decorated sticks.
"We're going to scandalize everyone there," Emily shook her head mock-ruefully as she picked up her robe.
Remus took the robe from her and held it for her to put on, "Won't be anything new. They'll whisper in corners, but won't say anything to our faces – not to an Acquisitor and a werewolf."
"Toffee opted out?" She shrugged the robe and its decorative trim onto her shoulders with a smile of thanks.
"He could and did, the lucky bastard." Sirius had been belly-up in his dog bed, snoring lightly as Remus left.
"Professor Snape took himself elsewhere when I was in the bath. He's had his tail in a twist at me all morning, really. I'm worried about him." A small slash appeared between her eyebrows as she took Remus' arm. "Do you think that he's all right? Not ailing?"
With Severus, it's always been hard to tell what he was thinking or how he was feeling unless he was in a complete rage," Remus sighed as Emily shut the door behind them. "Honestly, I'm the last person to ask. Severus and I have a history and to say that I am not one of his favorite people is a massive understatement. But he smelled fine last I saw him."
He smelled as musky as any male about to go out and start marking his territory, but no, nothing physically wrong at all.
They walked up the stairs in silence, Remus simply enjoying the novel sensation on having a pretty girl on his arm. It almost made him feel like a normal wizard. Well, normal if he couldn't smell that itchy scent of curiosity rising through her citrus perfume.
"If I could ask…?"
"Anything."
"Your… he-mate, the one we call Toffee? Why do he and Professor Snape hate each other so, and why does the professor so dislike you?"
Remus nearly tripped on the hem of his bisht. "Perceptive, Emmy, very perceptive. I'd suspect you of having a werewolf's nose. Yes, the one called Toffee… and he hates that name, too… is my he-mate. But as for the story with that, even if I have a part in it, only Severus and S-Toffee can tell you. It would not be right for me to tell their tale." Then he grinned, fair for fair. "Now perhaps you'll answer me one; why does Severus regard you as his private and personal Emily? Yesterday you had his scent all over you."
The reaction was so far from what he expected that Remus nearly took back the question. Emily turned a brilliant deep pink and… cringed? Embarrassment, anger and desire roiled in her scent like a potion about to boil over. Emily stopped his retraction with an upraised hand.
"No. You answered mine. I'll fair up." Taking a deep breath, she settled her back to the stone wall. "I was eighteen. My birthday is on the night of the winter solstice, and my friends decided to have a little party for me on one of the empty floors…"
He got the whole story and was fascinated. Old magic was very demanding – it took no half measures. Passion it required and passion it got. If Emily had been frightened, it had been afterward and only because the passion of a grown man had been completely out of her experience.
"He's always been… never less than proper with me since then. We've had an extensive correspondence – he's had good advice for me, and I think that he liked to know about the places I went and what I was doing."
"He must hold you in very high regard, then." Remus slipped her hand back into the crook of his arm and they resumed walking. He had been right – Severus and Emily had a moment – one that was left unresolved. Even on memory alone, the pheromones were making him dizzy – better to not be alone with her for the time being.
Approaching the conservatory, they could hear a murmur of conversation and paused.
"Wishing we didn't have to do this?" Emily whispered.
"Rather pinch McGonagall's bottom," Remus winked. "Come on. Steely-eyed Akkie. Dangerous werewolf. We can handle a lot of old farts in frock coats and eating petits fours."
As they entered the room, the conversation stopped. The conservatory was filled with faculty in sober robes, older men in the aforementioned frock coats and their politely pastel-swathed wives. Minerva McGonagall looked ceilingward for patience, then came forward with a tight smile and even tighter voice.
"The two newest additions to our faculty, ladies and gentlemen. Professor Remus John Lupin – who is filling in for Professor Umbridge - and Professor Emily Rowan Mayborne – who will be substituting for Professor Snape."
The silence with which this pronouncement met was deafening. Emily gave the room at large a very small smile and a bare nod of her head. Remus followed suit and both moved for the table laden with the house elves' best efforts. People got out of their way with looks of either fright or loathing. As soon as they passed, Remus heard mutters about hiring dark creatures and mercenaries – and that was the best of what he heard.
Emily smiled at him, "Shall I pour? The Lapsang Souchong is excellent." With a light tone, she continued, "You know, almost everyone in this room has had call to use the services of my firm, and every one of them acts as if I were a Knockturn Alley streetwalker. However, like any whore, I have my pride." With quick, precise movements, Emily poured his tea and handed it to him - cupping her hands around his and looking at him in a way that made Remus feel very warm. "If any one of them is as rude to you, they'll find a whole load of dirty laundry turned out in as public an embarrassing a fashion as I can manage."
Remus smiled down at her in return, "I'll just look longingly at their necks and lick my teeth."
"McGonagall. Making this way." Emily's eyes darted as she poured her own cup. "Stroll with me to the bougainvillea."
From then on, it was a chase constrained by the walls of the room and their desire not to spill their tea. Finally, they were cornered – McGonagall to the left, a bank of trellis-trained clemastis to their backs and a trio of well-upholstered, petit-fours-eating Governors to their right.
"… though really I don't see why we should suffer that type teaching here and corrupting our children – such people do have their places and should keep well to them. I heard the woman is not only a mercenary, but sexually deviant as well…"
Remus nearly cringed from the scent the man was giving off – not only deviant, but of a type that any self-respecting wolf would kill out of hand – even as he opened his mouth to issue a stinging rebuke. Emily's temper was flaring white-hot and he wanted to preempt any blast that might get her arrested.
Neither of them made it that far.
"Well, Ostrow, since 'that woman' is undoubtedly Emily Mayborne, and since Emily Mayborne is my own daughter's mate, it would seem to follow that you are calling my Artemisia a sexual deviant by extension. Is that not so?" If the room had fallen silent when Remus and Emily first entered, it froze solid at the light French-accented voice.
As if by Appartition, a slender, blonde figure in a chic royal purple suit appeared between Emily and Remus and the group of now whey-faced men. Tall, with her pale gold hair and light blue eyes, Narcissa LeStrange-Malfoy smelled like nothing so much as a vixen about to take out a particularly fat and stupid bird.
"N-Narcissa… h-h-how good to s-see you." Eyes rolling wildly, Ostrow searched the room. "Is Lu-Lucius here?"
"No, he's away on business. Otherwise you'd be picking your fat arse out of the syringa reticulata now." The sweet smile on the doll-perfect face could have iced every cup of tea in the room. "I, on the other hand, merely require an apology at least as public as the insult."
"I won't have it!" Emily's temper reached critical mass, but she never raised her voice. "It would be a false apology and from a hypocrite at that. He'd not be sorry that he said it, only that he was heard saying it by the wrong people. I'd rather settle this in the traditional way." She reached for her wand and the room all but exploded.
~
Severus stared at the fountain and simply tried not to feel much of anything.
It was a mistake to keep up a correspondence with her. It was a bigger mistake to see her as something other than a student. It was a huge mistake to see her as a woman – an intelligent, desirable, sexual woman. Better to see her as the little Ravenclaw chick, to keep her in his minds as the infuriating child she had been than to know her as an adult.
Perhaps he had been wrong to want to see some of the world though her eyes, to know how the sky felt to his pretty raven's wings.
To see the way that Lupin had looked at Emily, to see the way that she had returned the regard was scalding. When Severus thought of her wearing that perfume for the werewolf – and maybe damned little else – part of him just went irrational with jealousy.
"Merrrrrowwwwwl!" he yowled. MINE!
The memory of her in his arms that winter night, pressing against him, kissing him with passion and fire… Severus knew that he should have taken her when she was willing. He should have stamped himself so deeply into her being that she'd never thought to look at another male!
With a hiss he thought of those other males, his feline impulses so overriding his human consciousness that they appeared as mangy toms to his mind's eye. He'd rip their ears! He'd castrate them with a swipe of his claws! Touching his She! He'd teach them better!
With a low rowl he turned his rear-end to the base of the fountain, his tail did a shaking little dance and the air was filled with a pungent scent.
It was time to tell those Toms and that Dog and the Wolf that this Place and the She were his!
~
Sirius lifted his nose to the wind and snarled.
More cat-stink. Snape was on a tear, marking territory and lots of it.
Sirius raised his leg and left a message of his own.
Fuck you, Cat.
He ran with his nose to the ground, tracking The Cat. Fucking Cat. Jealous, nasty, mean Cat. Catch the Cat and piss all over him, that's what he was going to do. Teach that Cat not to stink up the place with musk.
So it went. Every spot The Cat marked, Sirius remarked, chasing him all over the grounds until…
… the little bastard had marked right over Sirius' mark!
And higher up, too! What did he do, stand on a chair?
Remarking as he went, Sirius stalked The Cat. The Cat was going to be very sorry.
Finally, they had worked their way around the whole school and Severus' scent led right to…
Oh, you nasty, greasy little bastard!
At the base of Gryffindor tower, in a space between the rose bushes, was a blot of black with a green collar. He was looking right at Sirius with his tail raised, and stinking, reeking of testosterone and jealousy.
Sirius took a step forward, growling, warning…
The black tail jiggled and a stench of territorial tomcat hit Sirius' nose like a truncheon.
Launching himself at the fleeing cat-arse there was only one thought in the forefront of his canine-mind.
The Cat would pay!
~
Argus Filch was mightily annoyed.
Fine thing for him to be tending to right before the students came back! Bloody animagi who forgot that animal nature was just that and unless actively controlled could turn into…
… well, to be blunt, if you would…
… a pissing match.
Mopping, scouring and deodorizing he'd chased the pair of them three times over the school. When he got a grip on Severus he'd give him a good root in the tail! The other animagi would get his nose rubbed in his own mess after he tossed them both into the coldest water he could find.
"Not enough trouble one two legs! No!" Filch stumped down the hall with his mop, muttering to the air. "Got to go and mix up more trouble and drop themselves in it to the neck!"
"Reeeeoooowwwrowr!"
"Woofwoofwoofwoofwoof!"
"Oh bloody buggering baboons no!" Argus could smell disaster in the wind as surely as if Hagrid was spreading sheep manure on the flowerbeds. Dropping the mop and bucket, the caretaker turned and ran with all speed toward the sounds of approaching mayhem.
Up stairs, down hallways, into four-ways and down the same stairs the chase went. Finally, Argus saw Mrs. Norris chasing after the two hell-spawn and stumbled into a gasping run.
No. Not the Conservatory. No. Oh, Angels and Ministers of Grace…
The Angels and Ministers of Grace were either off having a wee dram or watching in horrified fascination right along with Argus Filch.
The doors of the Conservatory stood open and all the upper-crusty types were standing about like a lot of tea-drinking sheep, eyes open wide and staring at something Argus could not see. The staff to a one was wearing looks of horrified fascination, staring in the same direction and unable to see the onrushing pandemonium.
Down the middle of the room was a long table set with eleventy-ump different types of tea. Set with flowers, white damask linen, and champagne-grape swagged candelabra, the table boasted enough in the way of pastries, sweets, tea-cakes and other dainties to make every maiden aunt in Britain coo. Towers of tea cups and desert plates were placed near each flavor of tea in magically-balanced edifices.
Severus, fleeing headlong through the doors dove under the table, the hem of the ivory linen barely stirring as he passed beneath it.
But the dog…
Even after six years of the Weasley twins – the red-headed spawn of Loki, in Filch's opinion , no matter who their parents were – never had he seen destructive mayhem on such a scale. Even the Slytherin-Gryffindor wars were nothing to compare to it.
Argus Filch plummeted to his knees in awe beside Mrs. Norris.
The dog did not attempt to go under the table.
Nor did he attempt to go around it.
Instead, with a graceful leap, the brown and white animal landed atop the table, and raced his prey to the other end.
Food and dishes flew. Towers of teacups, saucers and plates hit the floor with symphonic crashes accented by the metallic clanging of platters and silverware. Cream and sugar blasted into the air in arcs and whorls of white. Teapots made acrobatic flights into the air, spewing their contents in swirls of amber. The candelabras went flying, their grape garlands smashed to mush.
Filch saw it all in slow motion, knowing it to be an omen for the year to come. As if in prayer, he bowed his head and reverently offered two words to the Gods of Chaos.
"Oh, Shit."
~
