Some of this is mine and some of it is Rowling's and some of it is probably based on things I've read in other fics, (I read a LOT of fanfic.) But an ever increasing percentage of it is mine.
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Chapter Twenty-nine:
"I heard you were leaving us." Severa gave no indication that she had heard the overly sly voice of Ms. Iceradey.
She maintained her brisk pace and continued to head for the dungeons, 'I wonder why they always seem to put Potions in the dungeons.'
*Maybe it's so they don't have to be reminded of the walking dead on the faculty? *
The halls were dark and deserted. Nearly everyone was at breakfast.
"Rumor has it you're going to Hogwarts," the Advanced Curses professor matched Severa's stride.
"Rumor is faster than fact then," they descended the stairs together, "I have not even applied. Yet."
As they moved through the subterranean halls Severa mouthed a rapid and unintelligible string of release charms that disabled the wards (and hexes) designed to block students from entering without her permission. Safely inside the classroom Severa was again bombarded with double-edged questions.
"Who told you that there was a position about to open? What happened to their Potions Master, what was his name? I can't keep all of you strait, you all look the same."
"It comes with the job, there aren't that many of us, and what did you want?" Severa answered with a distracted, almost unconscious openness. It had been a long day and it was only six am. 'Oh, Friday how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.'
"Moody, I want to buy some of your stock. You can't possibly transport it all out of the country. And they can't possibly refuse you. Not with your connections."
The intentionally poorly disguised attempt to lure her into boasting did not have the hoped for reverse psychology effect. In all her twenty-two years at Durmstrang no one had been able to discover how Severa got things done that should have been impossible. Like the time she got the Headmaster's own son expelled. It had become an unspoken competition to see who could get more information out of her. One favorite theory was that she was watched over by a certain person who-must-not-be-named.
"I have no problem selling you anything that you want. As long as I have it in stock…" She did not bother to add a probing look. It would have been lost on the inside-the-box-thinking woman. Severa instead began to unpack and put away the ingredients that she had bought with next week's Ninth Level Potions in mind.
"I am interested specifically in the er- concoction that you used on Dimitry last Winter Solstice Break."
Severa quirked an eyebrow, "I was reprimanded for actually using it on a human. You do remember the favored rumor at that time was that I had to sleep with the entire Board of Administrations to keep my job?"
Not a flicker was to be seen in the midnight gray of Iceradey's eyes and not a hair was ruffled in her painfully tight waist length braid as she shrugged off the warning, "I am not so prone to foolish indiscretion that I would actually use it. The sincere threat is enough."
Pulling out another jar of some sort of slimy larvae Severa double-checked the contents before placing it on a shelf beside several others that looked exactly like it. "How much are you interested in?"
"How long can it remain potent?" Iceradey countered.
"If you leave out the last two ingredients until an hour before you want to use it," she stepped away from the shelf and fussily realigned a few containers.
"How long," as soon as she asked a second time, Iceradey bit her tongue. She had just given away her only card. Severa now knew that she desperately wanted the potion. 'And Moody never sells. It's always a trade, a favor for a debt.'
"It will last at least five years, if mixed. If left incomplete it should have a shelf life of about sixty years. I have one case of it that they didn't find and confiscate."
"What would you want for it?"
Severa thought for a moment, "I have already gotten your assistance in securing my dungeon. I'm leaving soon so I don't expect to need any help with collecting saliva from the Grimwold." She knew that her colleague was going to be less than happy with the deal that she was about to offer, "Your broach."
Iceradey's hand flew to her throat, and the large ancestral broach there, "No. Not even if I thought it was all you would ask for."
"Not the Box Broach, the Trefoil." Severa spoke as though it were of no consequence. "It does you no good as you can not access the stone it holds, and the surplus elixir does me no good taking up room in my cubby."
Iceradey's laugh sounded like falling scree, "Don't think that you can tell me you don't know it isn't a stone. We both know it is a Parramorph's egg, and worth your weight in gold."
Severa glanced at the universal clock on the wall behind her desk, "I have a class in twenty minutes. Was there anything else you wanted?" She sat behind her desk and arranged the few papers she would be handing back to the students. "I ask a Parramorph's egg and I offer you the ability to protect yourself, untraceablely."
Iceradey halted in the doorway, "Untraceably? Then how did you get caught?"
"I forced him to swallow it," Severa puffed at her bangs and hung up her cloak. "He would not open his mouth so I cut a hole in his throat and poured it in." She grinned with over sweetness; the shock on the stiff lipped Professor's face was worth the breach in Standard Operating Procedure.
SOP went something like, Never tell anyone anything.
~
Evening meal was still in attendance as Severa wended her way toward the Physical Education Room.
The PE room was unique to Durmstrang. It was a room within the actual structure of the school, that was magic free. The charms needed to keep a balance of energy between that one room and the rest of the school were incredibly powerful and complex. All of the effort that had gone into it had been well worth it though. Durmstrang was the only school that could boast of graduating Wizards and Witches that could handle anything. With or with out a wand.
She clutched a large three-lobed pin in her hand. Iceradey had broken down and made the trade. As she had expected, it had caused greater resentment to boil out of the older woman, but that didn't matter.
'A viable Parramorph's egg! It is worth more than my weight in gold.'
*Ha, that's in the wandering market, if you could find it.*
'No, I can't sell it.'
*Well you can't hatch it either. That kind of unframed magic is way outside of your range.*
'I need to hide it till I can get it out of here safely.'
She silently opened the solid oak door to the PE room and ducked inside. Moments later she emerged empty handed and unseen.
Chapter Thirty:
Just past midnight Tuesday morning Snape stood, leaning over his sink, brushing his teeth. He had just thrown up and was trying to remove the last of the residual sludge. He spit one final time and reached to put away his toothbrush. Something in the mirror caught his eye.
It was there behind him. Luminous eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Then it was gone.
"So," he sighed putting his toothbrush away, "you're back."
Snape, head down, walked back to his bed. He pulled the covers up to his waist. The mattress shifted slightly, as It crawled up to him. He felt Its cool breath on his face and a slight blue-ish glow filtered through his closed eyelids.
It looked down at him for a few moments then, laying its head upon his chest; it curled up at his side.
His right hand came to rest on Its upturned cheek, "I need to do this."
It closed Its eyes. The universe shrank to just the two of them and the few places they intersected each other. "I know," It hoarsely whispered. "I will fight for you."
"I know." Snape would have cursed the tremor in his voice, if he had heard it.
Again It whispered, "You do not need to lay with him, to banish me."
"It is the only choice I have." Snape spoke softly. "If I lay with him I will be free of you. If I don't…"
"No." Its voice faded, "It is a choice between your body and your mind."
He felt the mattress shift again. Snape lay alone in the dark with his hand over his heart. Eventually he slept.
~
With unutterable reluctance Snape made his way to the dining hall for breakfast. 'I wonder what that Malfoy, meant when he said that he was signing up too?'
*Just hope it wasn't something you missed at a staff meeting. Last time the Headmaster came down to check on things…* He shuddered at the memory of that intrusion, and all it had spawned.
The only seat available was beside Lupin and as Snape sat, to his great vexation, the Were Wolf turned to face him.
"Snape," Remus tried to sound pleasant while addressing the Potions Master. "Haven't seen much of you for a while now." He added softly for Snape only, "Which is strange seeing as we are both living in the dungeons."
Goblet in hand and halfway to his mouth Snape spoke without seeming to pause, "I'm sorry if my lack of presence has given you the impression that you need to speak with me." He took a long drink of wine.
(His was the only glass at the head table that held wine and it was only at his special insistence that he had been granted it.)
"Severus?" Dumbledore broke away from his conversation with Sinistra for a moment, "Do be more kind."
With a smile that should have killed one, or both, of them he turned to Lupin again, "I have been in my classroom and my study," he shot a look at the back of Albus' white head, "Thank you for asking." Immediately he began to eat, merrily spearing a piece of liver.
Remus winced. The message was clear; it could just as easily be him on the end of that fork.
~
'Breakfast could have gone worse, I'm just sure of it. Otherwise there is no reason to keep getting up each day.' He had left early, but now it was time to get up again. 'There always has to be something worse out there, right?'
*Fifth-year potions next, Gryffindor and Slytherin. Can't wait to see what Longbottom comes up with…*
"I'm not going." Snape's voice hung in the air, "I know you're lurking in here somewhere. You go." With that he rolled over and fell back to sleep.
~
Harry was furious. Snape had been focusing on Neville, Practically driving the boy to a nervous breakdown. 'We all know that Neville is already upset because his Grandmother is sick. None of the other professors would ever even think of getting on his case right now.' He was sitting at a lab table, taking out his anger by pulverizing the Orris root they had dried last week. It wasn't working, 'How can anyone be that heartless, that cruel?' His arm was beginning to get sore from the jarring motion, 'The bloody, stupid, greasy, sadistic-'
Long, tapered, fingers touched his desktop and Harry was suddenly aware of a pair of sleeves and torso caging him in.
Snape leaned in further, until the front of his robe just brushed the eternally tangled locks of a very startled Harry Potter and his own hair screened the boy's peripheral vision. "The bloody, stupid, greasy, sadistic, what?" he purred.
Terror. Harry would have marveled at Snape so accurately reading his mind. He would have looked to Ron for help. He might have even run, but terror froze his thoughts before they could become actions. Mentally he struggled to recall whether he had felt this frightened before. 'When that Dementor was about to eat my soul I was very scared.' Sweat trickled down his back, 'When I was tied to the tombstone and Voldemort touched me, and nothing happened to him, I was really scared.'
As Snape bent over Harry, everyone stopped working and shifted around for a better view. Whispered inquiries as to what Harry had said went unanswered by other students as Snape repeated it for them. Breathlessly they strained their ears to catch what the boy who lived would say next.
"Well Mister Potter? What were you going to say next?"
'Is he really daring me?' The subtle challenge in Snape's tone tweaked Harry's Gryffindor nerve. Because he was essentially pinned in place he could not say it to Snape's face, so he stared straight ahead and spoke clearly, "The bloody, stupid, greasy, sadistic, bastard Snape."
Some of the students gasped others gaped. Ron was sure it was the last thing he would ever hear Harry say, and Hermione nearly fainted.
A loud gong-like crash resounded throughout the chamber. "AAAHHK!" Harry shouted jumping from his seat, sure that he was about to die. When he jumped his shoulders connected rather forcefully with Snape's upper chest and the top of his head hit Snape's chin.
He had been turning, something at a nearby cauldron did not look right. With his attention split Potter's spasm-for-life threw him off balance. Snape twisted around as he fell but did not have time to catch himself. His head was thrown back as he hit the corner of one of the stone lab tables. There was an audible snap and he crumpled to the floor.