Dumbleore was looking even more twinkle-eyed than usual, and Severus would
felt like throttling him. Severus usually felt like throttling him, with
his cheerful bon homie and his always believing in the best of people – no
matter that that had worked to his advantage – but it was at times like
these that he most feared that his self-control would snap and that he
would be found crouched above the old man's corpse with both hands wrapped
round his windpipe.
"Are you looking forward to the party, Severus?" asked Dumbledore.
Severus was never sure whether Albus was as innocent as he seemed; in another person's mouth that would have been uncomfortably close to sarcasm.
"Of course he is, Albus," said Minerva.
Severus had no difficulty at all in identifying that as sarcasm, because no one in their right mind would ever think that he would 'look forward' to several hours spent in the company of ex-students who he abhorred, and away from the dungeons he adored. Not to mention that the evening wouldn't even have the advantage of the crutch of a haze of Firewhiskey, and that he would be expected to drink Butterbeer all night. He shuddered.
Sometimes he wondered if Lucius hadn't got the best deal, even though he would be spending the rest of his life in Azkaban. At least he wasn't required to teach nor, at the end of a hard day at the chalk face when he wanted nothing more than a cold drink and a warm bath, was he required to make merry with the saviours of the wizarding world.
Albus was still looking at him expectantly, still waiting for an answer. "I expect the evening will be acceptable," he said, biting his tongue to prevent him from treating Albus to a more frank exposition of his views. Minerva would never forgive him for upsetting Albus, and Minerva had a nasty way of making her displeasure felt.
Apparently his answer was good enough to make Albus think that, deep down, underneath this veneer of cynicism, he really was keen on the party, because Albus slapped him on the back, and said, "You never know your luck, Severus, maybe one of the young witches here tonight will take a shine to you."
"I think that's a bit unlikely, Albus," said Minerva, with a broad grin, "he must have taught most of them."
Severus couldn't think of anything witty to say in reply so contented himself with a scowl. The problem was that there was enough truth in that to make the comment sting. He wasn't vehemently opposed to the idea of a female friend; he might even go so far as to say he would be in favour of it, if an opportunity presented itself to him. However, it was extremely unlikely that any opportunity would present itself at a party full of his ex-students.
For some odd reason, seven years of being sneered at and bullied meant that he had about as much chance at chatting up an ex-pupil as convincing Lucius Malfoy that mudbloods weren't all bad. Actually, he stood a better chance of convincing Lucius, as he had always said that mudbloods were good for one thing. No ex-pupil had ever thought he was good for anything.
His scowl deepened, and he dutifully trailed after Albus and Minerva. Sod it, he would transfigure the butterbeer into something more acceptable at the first chance he got and be damned to the other partygoers. You never know, he might actually be popular for once.
The party was as dreadful as he had anticipated. His position, propping up the wall, allowed him a good view of the proceedings. Doubtless he would later get a lecture from Albus on the need to mix, to take part, to be more affable, but it was a small price to pay for his present peace and quiet. There was a certain interest in watching the movements of the crowd, seeing who was talking to whom, and who wasn't talking to anyone: old friendships fractured, new friendships made.
The Potter boy for instance, was talking away to Neville Longbottom and hadn't spoken to either Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger once. He was surprised to find that his hatred of the boy had faded into a dull dislike; he must be getting old. The Weasley brat had never been such an irritant, and the Granger girl – once she had stopped showing the world that she knew the answers to everything – had mellowed into an interesting and scholarly young woman.
He wondered idly what she had been up to since leaving school. He was sure Minerva had told him, but he had a habit of tuning out her effusions of praise over her ex-students. It only served to highlight the fact that, for his Slytherins, not being in Azkaban was about the best they could hope for.
Miss Granger seemed bored; her eyes were scanning the room for something or someone more interesting than Seamus Finnegan who had cornered her. He had been mildly surprised to see Seamus to eager to talk to a girl he had ignored so effectively when she was at school, presumably other than to ask to borrow her homework. Then he had re-assessed Miss Granger's appearance; he could see the attraction.
There had been no sudden development, no fundamental alteration in her appearance, but there was a subtle difference in the way she held herself. Gone was the permanent hunch of shoulders braced against the weight of her satchel; instead she stood tall and proud. Gone was the slightly apologetic air, as the poor girl was forced to pretend to be less intelligent, less sharp, less anything than her fellow pupils; she was animated and confident, and vibrant. The hall seemed too small to hold her.
Whatever she had been doing with herself, it had been conducted outdoors, that much was clear; she was tanned. Whether she had always had that really rather attractive physique hidden under her school robes – he would never have looked, the habit of not looking was deeply ingrained – or whether it was something that had developed recently, what was new was the assurance she felt in showing it off.
He realised, with a faint sense of horror, that he had been admiring Hermione Granger's form for some five minutes. It was an even greater shock to realise that she had noticed. Only the fact that there was a wall behind him stopped him from looking behind him to see who she was smiling at.
Apparently it was him, and then she was making some polite excuse to Seamus and heading towards him. He did fleetingly wonder whether she was coming over to slap his face for leering, or even to lecture him on his inadequacies as a teacher. Some people seemed to be able to hold a grudge for years after they had left class. He had lost count of the number of drunken students – they all needed Dutch courage – who had lurched over to him at these parties to discuss his failings.
None of these possibilities fitted the evidence though; you didn't smile warmly at the person you'd caught admiring your chest if you were about to slap them. He could only draw one conclusion. His ex-pupils would be amused to know that he regarded the approach of Hermione, presumably with the intention of at least a light flirtation if not something more serious, with more trepidation than any vengeful student.
He knew what to do with vengeful students, but a potentially amorous woman?
He surreptitiously checked his robes: they were clean and unwrinkled. His breath was fresh. His underpants were clean. His wand was within easy reach. He was ready for anything.
He kept admonishing himself of that fact as he watched her come closer. She paused by the table holding the punch, and collected two glasses from one of the Weasley twins – why Albus had thought that putting those two in charge of the drinks had been a good idea he would never know. Not unless Albus also found Minerva's insistence that they only be allowed Butterbeer as annoying as Severus, and thought the twins could be relied upon to 'improve' things a little.
His glass was still completely full. What could he do with it? He couldn't drink it, he couldn't put it down somewhere without moving – and he definitely didn't want to move – but if he didn't do something quickly there would be an awkward moment of juggling with too may drinks for too few people.
It wouldn't be disastrous but he didn't want to appear flustered.
Inspiration struck, and he surreptitiously cast a charm to relocate the glass to the kitchens, where it would no doubt startle the house elves. A quick wipe of the sweaty palms on the robes, a brief prayer to whatever god was looking over him tonight that he NOT mess this up, and the thought that even if all he got out of this was a decent conversation it would be worth it.
He half expected her to continue past him, but she stopped, smiled again, and said, "Hello, Professor. Would you like a drink? I should warn you though; I think the twins have added a little something to the punch. Vodka, I'd say."
Vodka was odourless and largely tasteless: a good choice for spiking the punch.
"Thank god for that, Miss Granger."
"Please call me Hermione, otherwise I will expect you to deduct house points at any moment."
He opened his mouth to say something cutting, paused, reconsidered, and instead heard himself cravenly inviting her to call him Severus.
There was an awkward silence whilst he racked his brains to think of something to say. It wasn't fair; Miss Granger had always been so full of questions in the past, why wasn't she badgering him for information on something. What could she ask though? Still working at Hogwarts? Still teaching? See anything of your old friends? That's why he hated small talk; it consisted of nothing more than mindless questions to which you already knew the answers. It was dull.
She was on the verge of asking him something, and if it was a comment on the wonderful weather for the time of year he would be forced to say something cutting, and that would be that.
"I read your letter to Potion Master's Monthly last month," she said. "It was very amusing."
That was unexpected. Now he really did wish that he had listened to Minerva. "I didn't know that you had maintained an interest in Potions after school, Hermione," he said cautiously. That was nicely bland, and should tempt further information out of her.
"Oh, I didn't; not really. Charms was always my thing, although I'm sure you disapprove of all the wand-waving involved. My interest came about because I'd had a run in with that Grister woman myself a couple of weeks ago, so Bill pointed it out."
That Grister woman had dared to suggest that Potions should be removed from Hogwarts curriculum as being too dangerous. His dissection of her manifest stupidity had been a masterly piece of invective; he'd almost expected to be challenged to a duel as a result, but her arrogance apparently hadn't reached the heights of thinking that she would be able to beat him in that arena.
"What did she say to annoy you," he asked, both because he was mildly interested, and because he hoped it would give him a clue as to what she had been doing recently.
"As you know, I've been working with Bill in Egypt doing curse-breaking. We brought back some artefacts which have gone on display at the British Museum, including a statue of an ithyphallic Min."
That was one mystery solved – the job – and another one raised: what on earth was an ithyphallic Min?
According to Hermione's description, delivered with faintly pink cheeks, it was a statue of an Egyptian god with an enormous and erect phallus. Miss Grister had objected to its display on the grounds of decency. "Which is silly really, because he's an essential part of one of their creation myths. He's described as 'making love to his hand' and scattering the seed across the sky to form the stars, so it's no good putting him on display with that aspect covered up or even removed."
He winced at that thought, in the same way as almost every man she'd told. Then he was suddenly struck by a thought. "I think I could learn to like the Egyptians," he said. "I think that explains an awful lot about the way the world works."
"What, that it was made by a wanker?"
Hermione had certainly grown up, and with a vengeance; there was still a reflexive desire to deduct housepoints for bad language but that was exactly what he meant, so he merely nodded.
"Personally," she said, "I've always considered the theory that God is a man an adequate explanation for the mess the world is in. Typical man: come the seventh day and he skives off. You can tell he got bored. He probably nipped off through time and space to watch the football."
Severus could tell when he was being baited, and he had been baited by masters; she would have to do better than that. "I would have thought it was more likely to have been Quidditch than some mere Muggle sport," he returned blandly.
He was rewarded with a minute twitching of the lips, before she replied, "I suppose you're right. After all, wizards are even more disorganised than Muggle men."
"Really?" he demurred, not willing to concede the point.
"Oh yes," she said with feeling. "You should try living in the desert with Bill Weasley for six months if you don't believe me. He seemed to think that because I was a girl that somehow I had volunteered to do all the cooking, washing and cleaning."
"I don't imagine that it took you long to persuade him of the error of his ways," he said. "Is Mr Weasley here, or have you left him head down in a sand trap somewhere?"
"He's staying on in Egypt. I started work at the British Museum last week, finishing up the exhibition and starting my research."
Severus's long nose twitched. Research. Something more interesting than teaching short people the same potions over and over again. "What sort of research?"
Hermine gave him a searching glance, and apparently concluded that he was actually interested in hearing about her work. It wasn't as if Snape was renowned for making polite conversation; if he asked, he probably really wanted to know the answer.
"It follows on from my time in Egypt. I'm researching god formation."
Severus raised his eyebrow in surprise. "God formation?"
She nodded. "If you look at Early Egypt there was a process whereby the Egyptians took symbols from the natural world around them, like frogs or crocodiles, or even the Nile itself, and them imbued them with meaning. They were desperate to impose order on chaos, and were willing to believe in anything that would help them.
"All that belief sloshing around sort of gathered in one place, round the symbol, and created actual gods. The problem we have is that no one worships them any more so they are dying out; there's a little known god protection program running in Egypt where people go and pray to them or make offerings to help keep them alive.
"What we're actually worried about though is that, even though Muggles are a fairly irreligious lot these days, they might end up creating new gods."
"What sort of new gods?" he asked. What on earth did Muggles believe in anyway?.
"We've identified three problem areas: money, football and computers. Money isn't really a problem, because there are lots of gods and goddesses of wealth that can slide in and absorb that belief. We thought football was going to be our biggest problem; some of the supporters are quite fervent. But they spend most of their time praying to existing gods about the results, so all that belief is absorbed that way.
"The real problem turns out to be computers. People worship them and adore them, and get obsessive about them; they give them names and personalities; they make shrines to them at work with pictures and little figures standing on them; and because they are always breaking down or eating data, they make very fervent pleas to the machine not to do bad things to their work. We are in imminent danger of creating a computer god, and goodness only knows what effect that could have."
Despite his lack of interest in things Muggle, Severus was fascinated by the thought that they could create gods merely by pleading with inanimate objects. He felt mildly uncomfortable at the number of times he had 'willed' his potions to behave. Were his cauldrons in danger of developing a case of incipient godhood, and what would he do with them if that were the case?
"How much belief does it need to create a god?" he enquired. He had visions of having to lay flowers before his potions equipment before they would agree to co-operate. Obviously his slight worry – after all, if praying to his cauldron would get better results, he was prepared to try it - communicated itself to Hermione, because she laughed and assured him it would take millions of people, believing the same thing very hard to have any effect.
He was curious about how researched God formation, and asked for further information. Hermione was in the middle of a complicated explanation of experiments involving two computers and making offerings to one and using the other one as a control, when he felt an odd twisting in his stomach.
He suddenly felt very hot, and he could feel beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. Hermione seemed to be a very long way away, and had an annoying habit of swaying from side to side. She was saying something, in a very deep, slow voice, about going outside for some fresh air. It sounded like a good idea, so he lurched away from the comfort of his wall and began to struggle towards the door.
Hermione was holding his hand, or his arm, or supporting him, or something; and then he was out in the cold of the night air, and he didn't feel better at all, he felt worse, and Hermione was looking at him with large, puzzled eyes and he wanted to kiss her more than anything, and he realised that the Weasley's had put something in the punch after all. He made a mental note to hunt them down and make them pay, and then grabbed clumsily at Hermione.
Oddly enough she didn't seem to be struggling much, which was a relief really because he didn't think he'd be able to deal with someone who was being uncooperative, and she was warm, and smelt faintly of punch, and tasted of it too.
Then something seemed to hit him very hard, and he was down on the floor, and he could hear Hermione telling someone off for something, and then he released his faint grip on unconsciousness.
"Are you looking forward to the party, Severus?" asked Dumbledore.
Severus was never sure whether Albus was as innocent as he seemed; in another person's mouth that would have been uncomfortably close to sarcasm.
"Of course he is, Albus," said Minerva.
Severus had no difficulty at all in identifying that as sarcasm, because no one in their right mind would ever think that he would 'look forward' to several hours spent in the company of ex-students who he abhorred, and away from the dungeons he adored. Not to mention that the evening wouldn't even have the advantage of the crutch of a haze of Firewhiskey, and that he would be expected to drink Butterbeer all night. He shuddered.
Sometimes he wondered if Lucius hadn't got the best deal, even though he would be spending the rest of his life in Azkaban. At least he wasn't required to teach nor, at the end of a hard day at the chalk face when he wanted nothing more than a cold drink and a warm bath, was he required to make merry with the saviours of the wizarding world.
Albus was still looking at him expectantly, still waiting for an answer. "I expect the evening will be acceptable," he said, biting his tongue to prevent him from treating Albus to a more frank exposition of his views. Minerva would never forgive him for upsetting Albus, and Minerva had a nasty way of making her displeasure felt.
Apparently his answer was good enough to make Albus think that, deep down, underneath this veneer of cynicism, he really was keen on the party, because Albus slapped him on the back, and said, "You never know your luck, Severus, maybe one of the young witches here tonight will take a shine to you."
"I think that's a bit unlikely, Albus," said Minerva, with a broad grin, "he must have taught most of them."
Severus couldn't think of anything witty to say in reply so contented himself with a scowl. The problem was that there was enough truth in that to make the comment sting. He wasn't vehemently opposed to the idea of a female friend; he might even go so far as to say he would be in favour of it, if an opportunity presented itself to him. However, it was extremely unlikely that any opportunity would present itself at a party full of his ex-students.
For some odd reason, seven years of being sneered at and bullied meant that he had about as much chance at chatting up an ex-pupil as convincing Lucius Malfoy that mudbloods weren't all bad. Actually, he stood a better chance of convincing Lucius, as he had always said that mudbloods were good for one thing. No ex-pupil had ever thought he was good for anything.
His scowl deepened, and he dutifully trailed after Albus and Minerva. Sod it, he would transfigure the butterbeer into something more acceptable at the first chance he got and be damned to the other partygoers. You never know, he might actually be popular for once.
The party was as dreadful as he had anticipated. His position, propping up the wall, allowed him a good view of the proceedings. Doubtless he would later get a lecture from Albus on the need to mix, to take part, to be more affable, but it was a small price to pay for his present peace and quiet. There was a certain interest in watching the movements of the crowd, seeing who was talking to whom, and who wasn't talking to anyone: old friendships fractured, new friendships made.
The Potter boy for instance, was talking away to Neville Longbottom and hadn't spoken to either Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger once. He was surprised to find that his hatred of the boy had faded into a dull dislike; he must be getting old. The Weasley brat had never been such an irritant, and the Granger girl – once she had stopped showing the world that she knew the answers to everything – had mellowed into an interesting and scholarly young woman.
He wondered idly what she had been up to since leaving school. He was sure Minerva had told him, but he had a habit of tuning out her effusions of praise over her ex-students. It only served to highlight the fact that, for his Slytherins, not being in Azkaban was about the best they could hope for.
Miss Granger seemed bored; her eyes were scanning the room for something or someone more interesting than Seamus Finnegan who had cornered her. He had been mildly surprised to see Seamus to eager to talk to a girl he had ignored so effectively when she was at school, presumably other than to ask to borrow her homework. Then he had re-assessed Miss Granger's appearance; he could see the attraction.
There had been no sudden development, no fundamental alteration in her appearance, but there was a subtle difference in the way she held herself. Gone was the permanent hunch of shoulders braced against the weight of her satchel; instead she stood tall and proud. Gone was the slightly apologetic air, as the poor girl was forced to pretend to be less intelligent, less sharp, less anything than her fellow pupils; she was animated and confident, and vibrant. The hall seemed too small to hold her.
Whatever she had been doing with herself, it had been conducted outdoors, that much was clear; she was tanned. Whether she had always had that really rather attractive physique hidden under her school robes – he would never have looked, the habit of not looking was deeply ingrained – or whether it was something that had developed recently, what was new was the assurance she felt in showing it off.
He realised, with a faint sense of horror, that he had been admiring Hermione Granger's form for some five minutes. It was an even greater shock to realise that she had noticed. Only the fact that there was a wall behind him stopped him from looking behind him to see who she was smiling at.
Apparently it was him, and then she was making some polite excuse to Seamus and heading towards him. He did fleetingly wonder whether she was coming over to slap his face for leering, or even to lecture him on his inadequacies as a teacher. Some people seemed to be able to hold a grudge for years after they had left class. He had lost count of the number of drunken students – they all needed Dutch courage – who had lurched over to him at these parties to discuss his failings.
None of these possibilities fitted the evidence though; you didn't smile warmly at the person you'd caught admiring your chest if you were about to slap them. He could only draw one conclusion. His ex-pupils would be amused to know that he regarded the approach of Hermione, presumably with the intention of at least a light flirtation if not something more serious, with more trepidation than any vengeful student.
He knew what to do with vengeful students, but a potentially amorous woman?
He surreptitiously checked his robes: they were clean and unwrinkled. His breath was fresh. His underpants were clean. His wand was within easy reach. He was ready for anything.
He kept admonishing himself of that fact as he watched her come closer. She paused by the table holding the punch, and collected two glasses from one of the Weasley twins – why Albus had thought that putting those two in charge of the drinks had been a good idea he would never know. Not unless Albus also found Minerva's insistence that they only be allowed Butterbeer as annoying as Severus, and thought the twins could be relied upon to 'improve' things a little.
His glass was still completely full. What could he do with it? He couldn't drink it, he couldn't put it down somewhere without moving – and he definitely didn't want to move – but if he didn't do something quickly there would be an awkward moment of juggling with too may drinks for too few people.
It wouldn't be disastrous but he didn't want to appear flustered.
Inspiration struck, and he surreptitiously cast a charm to relocate the glass to the kitchens, where it would no doubt startle the house elves. A quick wipe of the sweaty palms on the robes, a brief prayer to whatever god was looking over him tonight that he NOT mess this up, and the thought that even if all he got out of this was a decent conversation it would be worth it.
He half expected her to continue past him, but she stopped, smiled again, and said, "Hello, Professor. Would you like a drink? I should warn you though; I think the twins have added a little something to the punch. Vodka, I'd say."
Vodka was odourless and largely tasteless: a good choice for spiking the punch.
"Thank god for that, Miss Granger."
"Please call me Hermione, otherwise I will expect you to deduct house points at any moment."
He opened his mouth to say something cutting, paused, reconsidered, and instead heard himself cravenly inviting her to call him Severus.
There was an awkward silence whilst he racked his brains to think of something to say. It wasn't fair; Miss Granger had always been so full of questions in the past, why wasn't she badgering him for information on something. What could she ask though? Still working at Hogwarts? Still teaching? See anything of your old friends? That's why he hated small talk; it consisted of nothing more than mindless questions to which you already knew the answers. It was dull.
She was on the verge of asking him something, and if it was a comment on the wonderful weather for the time of year he would be forced to say something cutting, and that would be that.
"I read your letter to Potion Master's Monthly last month," she said. "It was very amusing."
That was unexpected. Now he really did wish that he had listened to Minerva. "I didn't know that you had maintained an interest in Potions after school, Hermione," he said cautiously. That was nicely bland, and should tempt further information out of her.
"Oh, I didn't; not really. Charms was always my thing, although I'm sure you disapprove of all the wand-waving involved. My interest came about because I'd had a run in with that Grister woman myself a couple of weeks ago, so Bill pointed it out."
That Grister woman had dared to suggest that Potions should be removed from Hogwarts curriculum as being too dangerous. His dissection of her manifest stupidity had been a masterly piece of invective; he'd almost expected to be challenged to a duel as a result, but her arrogance apparently hadn't reached the heights of thinking that she would be able to beat him in that arena.
"What did she say to annoy you," he asked, both because he was mildly interested, and because he hoped it would give him a clue as to what she had been doing recently.
"As you know, I've been working with Bill in Egypt doing curse-breaking. We brought back some artefacts which have gone on display at the British Museum, including a statue of an ithyphallic Min."
That was one mystery solved – the job – and another one raised: what on earth was an ithyphallic Min?
According to Hermione's description, delivered with faintly pink cheeks, it was a statue of an Egyptian god with an enormous and erect phallus. Miss Grister had objected to its display on the grounds of decency. "Which is silly really, because he's an essential part of one of their creation myths. He's described as 'making love to his hand' and scattering the seed across the sky to form the stars, so it's no good putting him on display with that aspect covered up or even removed."
He winced at that thought, in the same way as almost every man she'd told. Then he was suddenly struck by a thought. "I think I could learn to like the Egyptians," he said. "I think that explains an awful lot about the way the world works."
"What, that it was made by a wanker?"
Hermione had certainly grown up, and with a vengeance; there was still a reflexive desire to deduct housepoints for bad language but that was exactly what he meant, so he merely nodded.
"Personally," she said, "I've always considered the theory that God is a man an adequate explanation for the mess the world is in. Typical man: come the seventh day and he skives off. You can tell he got bored. He probably nipped off through time and space to watch the football."
Severus could tell when he was being baited, and he had been baited by masters; she would have to do better than that. "I would have thought it was more likely to have been Quidditch than some mere Muggle sport," he returned blandly.
He was rewarded with a minute twitching of the lips, before she replied, "I suppose you're right. After all, wizards are even more disorganised than Muggle men."
"Really?" he demurred, not willing to concede the point.
"Oh yes," she said with feeling. "You should try living in the desert with Bill Weasley for six months if you don't believe me. He seemed to think that because I was a girl that somehow I had volunteered to do all the cooking, washing and cleaning."
"I don't imagine that it took you long to persuade him of the error of his ways," he said. "Is Mr Weasley here, or have you left him head down in a sand trap somewhere?"
"He's staying on in Egypt. I started work at the British Museum last week, finishing up the exhibition and starting my research."
Severus's long nose twitched. Research. Something more interesting than teaching short people the same potions over and over again. "What sort of research?"
Hermine gave him a searching glance, and apparently concluded that he was actually interested in hearing about her work. It wasn't as if Snape was renowned for making polite conversation; if he asked, he probably really wanted to know the answer.
"It follows on from my time in Egypt. I'm researching god formation."
Severus raised his eyebrow in surprise. "God formation?"
She nodded. "If you look at Early Egypt there was a process whereby the Egyptians took symbols from the natural world around them, like frogs or crocodiles, or even the Nile itself, and them imbued them with meaning. They were desperate to impose order on chaos, and were willing to believe in anything that would help them.
"All that belief sloshing around sort of gathered in one place, round the symbol, and created actual gods. The problem we have is that no one worships them any more so they are dying out; there's a little known god protection program running in Egypt where people go and pray to them or make offerings to help keep them alive.
"What we're actually worried about though is that, even though Muggles are a fairly irreligious lot these days, they might end up creating new gods."
"What sort of new gods?" he asked. What on earth did Muggles believe in anyway?.
"We've identified three problem areas: money, football and computers. Money isn't really a problem, because there are lots of gods and goddesses of wealth that can slide in and absorb that belief. We thought football was going to be our biggest problem; some of the supporters are quite fervent. But they spend most of their time praying to existing gods about the results, so all that belief is absorbed that way.
"The real problem turns out to be computers. People worship them and adore them, and get obsessive about them; they give them names and personalities; they make shrines to them at work with pictures and little figures standing on them; and because they are always breaking down or eating data, they make very fervent pleas to the machine not to do bad things to their work. We are in imminent danger of creating a computer god, and goodness only knows what effect that could have."
Despite his lack of interest in things Muggle, Severus was fascinated by the thought that they could create gods merely by pleading with inanimate objects. He felt mildly uncomfortable at the number of times he had 'willed' his potions to behave. Were his cauldrons in danger of developing a case of incipient godhood, and what would he do with them if that were the case?
"How much belief does it need to create a god?" he enquired. He had visions of having to lay flowers before his potions equipment before they would agree to co-operate. Obviously his slight worry – after all, if praying to his cauldron would get better results, he was prepared to try it - communicated itself to Hermione, because she laughed and assured him it would take millions of people, believing the same thing very hard to have any effect.
He was curious about how researched God formation, and asked for further information. Hermione was in the middle of a complicated explanation of experiments involving two computers and making offerings to one and using the other one as a control, when he felt an odd twisting in his stomach.
He suddenly felt very hot, and he could feel beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. Hermione seemed to be a very long way away, and had an annoying habit of swaying from side to side. She was saying something, in a very deep, slow voice, about going outside for some fresh air. It sounded like a good idea, so he lurched away from the comfort of his wall and began to struggle towards the door.
Hermione was holding his hand, or his arm, or supporting him, or something; and then he was out in the cold of the night air, and he didn't feel better at all, he felt worse, and Hermione was looking at him with large, puzzled eyes and he wanted to kiss her more than anything, and he realised that the Weasley's had put something in the punch after all. He made a mental note to hunt them down and make them pay, and then grabbed clumsily at Hermione.
Oddly enough she didn't seem to be struggling much, which was a relief really because he didn't think he'd be able to deal with someone who was being uncooperative, and she was warm, and smelt faintly of punch, and tasted of it too.
Then something seemed to hit him very hard, and he was down on the floor, and he could hear Hermione telling someone off for something, and then he released his faint grip on unconsciousness.