Author Notes: This story takes place right after HP and the Order of the Phoenix. Even though this scribble is a sequel to my older writing 'Even Old Morose Bats Can Get Soft', I hope it would work as an independent tale also. So if you haven't read/ don't bother to read the prequel, just assume that Snape and Tonks have a shy romance going on, and hop on. I will recapitulate some happenings in any case. At least the first chapter here retells a few details.

My apologies if someone has come up with the same idea; I don't want to copy anyone. It's just somewhat impossible to scan through all the 176586454654^1000 Potter fanfics crammed on the Internet. =/ And, this is pure fantasy, don't take it too seriously. It has nothing to do with the real world after all.

Harry Potter © JK Rowling. The Prose Edda and Heimskringla were written by Snorri Sturlson. The Kalevala was collected and composed by Elias Lönnrot. Popol Vuh was transcribed and translated by Francisco Ximénez.



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Estate of Quetzalcoatl

The sand inside a large hourglass trickled sluggishly through its curvaceous mistress' waist. A few flickering orbs of candlelight had a contest with the crackling fire blustering in the slightly coved fireplace. A fragile-appearing teacup chinked, when a few long, ashen fingers lifted it lightly up, bringing the dish to touch its master's thin lips. Almost one could see the half-drunken Bergamot tea cringe in its delicate vessel as a pair of ominously large, thin nostrils abruptly flared above it.

The poor tea, exposed to such blankly staring, black, hairy cavities as those were. And the gaping maw was equally threatening.

Nonetheless, perhaps it was a better fate to enter the rima oris, than be eternally left to squinch beneath that murky double-menace. Namely, after a bit of wandering in the digestive system's mazes, the tea would eventually reach its free heaven, the toilet. Ah, how serenely it could swim there with the other water molecules and make a few new pals out of miscellaneous chunks blessed with fragrant methane-odor.

The cup was finally set back onto its plate. The gnarled digits previously holding it fluttered away to flip a page of a newspaper their owner kept open on the oaken table. A black-and-white picture of Cornelius Fudge became now endangered to the hollow, atrocious stare of the nostrils of doom. Yet, it was not their fault that the portly short man in the image was fidgeting, bouncing on his heels, mouth twaddling mute gibberish so anxious that he appeared as though he had had thick fog covering half of his face. The answers for the Minister of Magic's behavior needed not to be searched from other galaxies. Already the cover of today's Daily Prophet screeched the bad news with Hagrid-sized letters.

'Second Mass Breakout from Azkaban: Ministry of Magic informs that the Death Eaters that were arrested only a rough two weeks ago have escaped from the wizard prison Azkaban. These highly dangerous criminals include the twice convicted Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy whose services the Ministry highly valued before the shocking happenings at the time aforesaid...'

Below, a line advised the impatient readers to turn to page three, unless they wanted to remain gazing at the large picture of a man in his forties blinking haughtily with his arrogant gray eyes, bearing an expression as though there had been a bucket full of dragondung under his nose. Of course the ministry's major ex-bootlicker, L. Malfoy, had received the place as the ultimate cover boy.

Inside, the sad story of Voldemort's new raise went on and on and on and on. More exhibitions of sullen desperados, the crisscrossing lines of text hooting and tooting about this beginning era of destruction. How the political forces were trying to organize themselves swifter than lightspeed, how the lack of Aurors caused minor brouhaha, how the Muggle population should be taken account... blahblahblah and gobbledygook-blibberblabber. And apparently nobody had seen a swishing cape's corner of the runaways. In one of those agitated pictures, a random ministry worker was gabbling how the Magical Law Enforcement had frantically started searching for any clues of the Death Eaters' current residences.

Oh, so nobody knew... pitiful fools...

The mouth under that violently curving, menacing facial protrusion that had caused such fright to the small teapool, curved into a sarcastic sneer, baring a badly washed, yellow eyetooth.

Surely he knew... at least the semi-regular meeting places, if not the very exact hideouts of the convicted. Had not he seen those swaggering gray eyes only a few hours ago through slits in hood? The high-pitched cackle of the Dark Lord gloating in the background... Hmph. These pathetic pipsqueaks in the Ministry, first denying everything and now suffering from the consequences of their own stupidity.

Surely he knew... and so did the Headmaster. And so did the Order, thanks to his brave work as a spy in this darker than dark game of Life, Universe, and Everything.

It would be appropriate to add also 'more perilous than perilous', and 'more hazardous than hazardous and even a tad more' to the latter definition. Or course, if one wants to be especially specific, the English vocabulary provides an extensive amount of adjectives to depict the sinister tides churning initially in the wizarding world. Also such less refined expressions as 'iffy', and 'ickier than Umbridge' suit lucidly well. In case you would like to manifest the happenings with yet more gregarious and bombastic words, you are recommended to contact William Shakespeare's ghost, address available in the Spirit Division of the Ministry of Magic Headquarters, London.

Severus Snape rolled the newspaper close, carelessly tossing it aside. It was a late morning of July, a random day plashing in the river of time. Even though it was the hottest point of summer, Slytherin's hemi-damp dungeons always retained the atmosphere of a combined cooler and catacomb. Hence the fire was welcome, added to the heavy cloaks and robes and miscellaneous spectacularly billowing batwear the Potions Master habitually wore. The man was finishing his late breakfast, still somewhat somnolent after the previous night's lack of sleep. A fake tufthunter of Voldy-Moldylocks as he was, Snape naturally had attended the major Death Eater soiree that had followed the fleeing of Malfoy and the other cronies. And afterwards, an emergency meeting of the Order of the Phoenix had been called up. Even if fatigued, Severus had had his chance for uber-smug satisfaction, when he had cawed his dramatic report to the few who had been unslumberous enough to Apparate to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Ahh, the glory... Even though fatal danger followed his every sweep, he was awed and important... unlike among the pathetic dunderheaded brats he had to teach here...     

Although the Professor frequently suffered from poor self-assurance, as usually misunderstood geniuses did, he was blatantly egoistic about the subjects he was brilliant at. And of course, it was the very seventh heaven to plash in the distinction afterwards, recall the shocked visages of Alastor, Shacklebolt, Hestia Jones, who still wore hair rollers and fluffy bunnyslippers...

Although, there was the one figure he had missed... Perhaps the little one had not acquired Dumbledore's message...

He momentarily forgot his semi-villainous gloating, as the awareness soared elsewhere. Feeling a tiny tickle at his midriff, Snape's mien softened to a very uncharacteristic smirk, a gentle little simper. Whose odds to appear on that beetle-browed gruntphiz were just the same as Voldemort's Animagus form being a pink polka-dotted butterfly. Nevertheless, that unlikable expression dwelled more and more often on his gaunt, sunken features nowadays, thanks to his uncanny sentimental side that had evolved within the last few months. And now that his petite admired one responded to his feelings, appreciated him as he was, the slushy sloppiness had logically increased. Also, more and more frequently his unfathomable black eyes burned with an odd mellow glint. Nevertheless, he let his threatening, predominant Scowl™ fall aside only when extreme privacy was granted: either five hundred percent alone or with her.

After all, the outer world was supposed to see him as the almighty dark flintheart and ironmind, the sarcastic curl of lip being his only form of smiling. And this wee blossoming romance he had with the most unlikely klutz to clamber on the plains of England, was supposed to be kept as a secret. For the sake of Dumbledore's birdclub, and his venturesome part-time profession as a double-agent amongst the wannabe-Sauron's sidekicks.

His gaze wandered around the somewhat disorganized, spacey dungeon. Two walls were covered sensuously with glass jars, where different kinds of misshapen creatures swam in ickily flavescent fluids, either pickled or undead. One especially large Ladogan Lumpylob-Lumberfish goggled at the greasy-haired teacher with its prominently bulging eyes, involuntarily reminding the man of the kitten plates the former Headtoad Dolores Umbridge had kept in her office. Miscellaneous potionmaking paraphernalia lay here and there, some of them giving light ticking sounds, some oozing differently colored puffs of vapor. In one corner, his messy desk was overflowing with ancient leather-bound books, rags of parchment, one of the latter kinds scribbled so densely with cramped spiky writing that it was a mere wonder one could read it without a microscope. His pupils, used to the deep shadows draping the vaults, lingered a while upon that particular vellum.

He ought to finish the letter... Perhaps she was already waiting for the answer... At least so she had written in her latest reply, that she wished to hear from him...

The smirk curving his thin mouth widened perhaps a millimeter.

She truly liked him... just like her honest eyes had so many times narrated... his sweet graceful nymph, her candor subtler than the strongest Veritaserum, her calm cordiality like the Draft of Peace...

Of course, Severus did not really perceive how Tonks, behind his back, giggled at metaphors like this made of her. In his previous mail, the half-barbaric anti-Lothario had compared her beauty to at least twenty of diverse potions and whatever-neverheard-sludges. Nonetheless, she did like his eccentric ways of cajolery, thus having no words against the slightly mismatched allegories. And, the owl post had been their only coo-channel after the Auror had scampered home from St. Mungo's. By random reasons, they had not faced each other even at the classified poultry premises. In addition, during the Order sessions they would in any case need to toss aside the emotions and set up a major masquerade. Treat each other publicly with stiff formal coolness just like before the notorious kitchen clumsiness that gradually had lead to this mush-oozing loveydovey drama.

One itty bitty glitch existed in the pen-pal business. Snape's personal mail owl. Day by day it became surlier, apparently feeling that it was deeply insulted when obliged to transfer to and fro all those love letters dripping with honeyed sugar. Pigeons and pink doves were supposed to be the couriers of idiotic sap-scribbles, not this darkly proud bird. Till this day it had yet troubled itself to deliver the posts, but also the petulance had increased exponentially. Often it is stated that pets resemble their owners, and this case was not an exception. The black, constantly frowning owl of unknown breed, with a disproportionately large, hooked beak, had even considerable physical similarity to the Potions Master. Nonetheless, mostly the sameness was mental. In the Owlery, the animal always sat alone in the darkest and hindmost corner, sulking and scowling mutely at its fellow residents. A quiet morose loner it was, but extremely loyal to its owner, even though suffering from occasional mood swings.

*****

Severus' sentience glided back to the present day. The silence in the ancient castle was almost unreal these times, since the squealing tiddlers and miscellaneous superfrogs had been shooed out. Even the adult population had widely decreased, as most of the professors had tiptoed to spend their summer holidays elsewhere. Of course, always there were a few elisions: Hagrid could be seen pottering around the grounds, Trelawney occasionally drifted down from her psychedelic dimensions and could randomly be spotted trying to predict the forthcoming deathday of some ghost... Common fact was of course that specters should not be able to die twice, but everything was possible when it came to the fraud Seer. 'Beware of the doom that looms beneath the moon, in the moor when a cow moos' had been her latest, foully rhymed advise to Sir Nicholas, whatever that was supposed to mean then. And for everyone's misery, Sibyll had become very proud of this new hyper-poetic prediction, and repeated it virtually to everyone she came across. Even the Giant Squid.

Other permanent Hogwarts lodgers included of course the batmaster himself. Approximately fifteen years Severus had lived in the Slytherin dungeons, almost never leaving his murky chambers for a longer period than a couple of days. And even the idea of him playing beachball on Hawaii, wearing a lei and a t-shirt bearing the label 'I ♥ Ohana', was so out-of-character that one should have been convicted to Azkaban for even picturing such mind-warping illusions. Thus it was very adequate to find his abnormally large nose glued to some complex potions recipe even in the deepest summertime. Indeed, he had recently made some extravagant success on the fields of this art. One dark and shadowy night -which is somewhat an unnecessary depiction since nights in the Great Britain are usually dark and shadowy due to the globe's inclination- Snape had, by a curious experiment with Polyjuice Potion and minced Ent bark, come across some intriguing results. It seemed that thus he was able to prolong considerably the drink's effect. The original gunk allowed the swigger to play chameleon only a pitiful hour, whereas this upgraded version's spell might last for days with the same dose. At the moment, this project was Severus' most mollycoddled cosset alongside with his aforementioned dream-cherub.

Then there was McGonagall, who usually grabbed the harnesses of this stone colossus for the summertime and became the Deputy Headmistress. This year, however, the happenings had shaped themselves differently. Dumbledore had severely tossed all the holiday whoopee aside, and remained at Hogwarts to lead the Order and stealthily guard the Scarhead Wonderboy from baddy boo-boo Voldykins. And, it was definitely a high advantage that Albus was present. The ol' sly snakeface was vehemently plotting new schemes to increase his power. Something had to be badly clicking with his dark aura, if a single skinny teen boy was able to throw aside his most forceful curses. And as the self-proclaimed evil rulers cliché-like tend to chase all kinds of hoodoo bric-a-brac to boost their strength, Lord Thingy was no exception. The Philosopher's Stone had been flushed down the toilet, but always the abysses of this world concealed more objects of blazing power. Like small golden hoops that could rule other similar hoops... yet, if the holders were not strong enough with might, those attracting circular gadgets would -in the worst case- drain them into stinking schizoid lurkers talking in third person...

Nonetheless, the Dark Lord born from of J.K. Rowling's pen was not after Lord of the Rings merchandise. His evil red gaze had been targeted to a mystery from beyond a thousand years. A tangled saga almost utterly forgotten, and regarded just as firm as the thin film of ice autumn's first frost creates onto water's surface... However, he appeared to have his reasons to believe in the shady legend's accuracy. It was one of those classical tales involving a culture clash, robbery, and the fall of a grand city, all this mess revolving around a mega-magical thingamabob, forged by one of the most powerful sorcerers the archaic Indian cultures of Mexico ever had known.

The lost estate of Quetzalcoatl alias Kukulcan... And that this inheritance might not be lost for forever, after all...

*****

Snape finished ruminating the pumpkin pastry he had been absent-mindedly chewing the last half an hour. A faint knock coming from the office door had burst the bubble of drowsy stillness.

TBC. Comments?