Author's Notes: Apologies to all who found the previous chapter a little
bit over the top. But it had to be done. Heh.
In this chapter, I want to let Mira take over for a bit, and show a little bit about where she comes from, what motivates her, how she relates to being of two worlds and how she justifies it. And what she really thinks of the situation she has found herself sucked into.
Oh, I don't live in New Orleans; I just visit as often as I can. I've got an acquaintance whose mother owns a business in the French Quarter. I was thinking of a city to set Mira's home in, and it had to have a modern as well as older more mysterious aspect to it. Somewhere that the wizarding world could co-exist with modern muggle society. N.O. seemed like a really natural choice. And it was familiar enough to write about without feeling as if I were totally clueless.
Also, regarding Dumbledore. My take on him is that the kind, somewhat eccentric persona that he projects is only a very superficial facet of just what kind of man he really is. He defeated Grindelwald after all! Voldemort genuinely fears him. He's got to be much more than we've seen so far in the first few books. The end of GOF touches on his true potential as a leader and strategist a little, when he is dispatching people to try and forge alliances for the upcoming battle. I really see him morphing from kindly old eccentric headmaster into battle hardened general. My intent with him being a kind of spymaster and as I will show at the end of the story, a puppet master as well, doesn't really conflict with the image of the twinkly eyed old gent we've come to love, but it is just a deeper facet of who he is, a facet of himself of which he has not had the need to call upon for quite some time. He didn't kick Grindelwald's ass by eating candy and giving witty and sage advice. He's one powerful old wizard, and capable of assuming the role of strategist and warrior when necessary. That was peacetime, this is war. And war often brings about a fundamental change in personality in those whom are called upon to fight and lead the troops. I've always felt that he knew what was going to happen and that he gently manipulated situations to allow them to unfold a certain way. A master strategist at peacetime, silently pulling some strings to achieve a desired result. But in the face of the coming battle, he cannot afford to be as passive in his machinations; he had to take a more direct and proactive approach. But he's not maliciously manipulative nor is he coldhearted in his use of people to achieve the means to and end. He simply does what he has to do to get the job done and tries to cause the least amount of harm possible in doing so.
Disclaimer: Nothing recognized from the books or movies belongs to me, it's merely borrowed to play around with for a while, and explore the possibilities relating to the characters and story lines.
Chapter 23: A Sort of Homecoming.
Mira pulled herself from the warm bed and made her way, weak kneed and a little shaky, to the bathroom where she removed the miniature sneakascope from around her neck and took a long hot shower. She towel dried her hair, pushed it off of her face with a headband, pulled the necklace back over her head and went to find some suitable clothes for errand running in her closet. She transferred some items from her robe pockets into a small purse. Dressed and ready to greet the day, she checked in on Snape, who was on his back, one arm raised above his head, sleeping soundly. She sat on the edge of the bed, reached into her bedside table, pulled out a notepad and pen, and wrote him a short note saying that she would be back shortly with muggle clothes for him to wear during his stay in New Orleans. If he wished to grab a shower or bath, the bottle of purple liquid was lavender bubble bath, and the others were labeled as to their purpose, he was welcome to use whatever he needed. She rolled the paper up like a scroll, and quietly tied it to one of the bars of the headboard above the professor's head with the discarded robe sash. He stirred lightly in his sleep with the shift of weight on the bed but didn't wake. She stroked his forehead and quietly got up, shut off the stereo, turned the ringer off of the phone and set the machine to silent messaging, then walked out the door.
Mira took the staircase to the inner corridor that led from the courtyard to the front entrance of the building, and exited onto Royal Street. Passing the window in front of the ground floor gallery, Maggie waved and beckoned her inside. Mira entered the gallery, and was met by her tenant, Magnolia Guidry. Magnolia, or Maggie for short, was a short plump witch with hazel eyes and skin the color of honey. She wore her very dyed, very red, hair in short ringlets cropped close to her head. "Well hello you! Long time no see! Sneaking in before dawn, with a man no less!"
Mira reached out and gave the woman a warm hug. "Hey Maggie, Jules called just after I got in, I guess he heard us moving around upstairs."
"Yep, he had to get up early to go pick up a load of canvas. Oh, you didn't need the car this morning did you? I didn't even stop to think that you might need it."
"Oh no, it's okay. I won't need it until tomorrow. I've got an errand to run, but I really wanted to get out on foot anyway. I need to go scrounge up some more appropriate clothes for my friend upstairs. I thought Jules might have something he could borrow, and then I thought that Jules's usual choice of attire might be a little too much of a shock to this guy."
"So, you mind telling me who he is? Or are you gonna keep me in suspense?"
"He's from England, a really hardcore wizarding type. A professor at a boarding school."
"So, is he here for business? Pleasure?"
"Well. Strictly speaking, for business. But why bother making the trip if you're not going to at least make time for a little fun, huh? He's kinda freaked out at the whole culture shock thing, but I'm gonna do my best to drag him out of the house for a while."
"Jules said you'd only be here a day or two, why the rush?"
"Sorry, I've got to get back to England as soon as possible. I'm just really here to help run a glorified errand for the headmaster of the school."
"Well, you run along, let us know if you need anything, I'll make sure Jules puts gas in the car before putting it away. I'll leave the keys in the usual spot, on the nail by the staircase."
"Thanks Maggs, I wish I could spend some more time here, but hopefully this spring things will be less hectic."
"Well you be careful girl. I've heard a lot of stuff about what's going on in England, and you be sure to steer clear of it."
"Will do, tell Jules hi for me."
Mira exited the shop and headed towards Canal Street, and the large shopping center on the riverfront. She enjoyed the exercise from the walk. The air was cool, but the sun was bright and warmed her skin as she walked past numerous shops, restaurants, and other assorted businesses in the ground floor storefronts. She could smell the aroma of coffee coming from the cafés and her stomach growled. "Ugh!" She thought. "I hope he's ready to get dressed and leave when I get back, I can't wait until lunchtime to find something to eat."
She entered the large modern shopping center and went to the closest department store. "What to get for him?" She pondered, passing rack after rack of men's sportswear and office attire. It all seemed way too modern for Snape's usual archaic taste in clothes. Suzie had explained to her once that most of the older witches and wizards, especially ones from upper class or well-established wizarding families, tended to isolate themselves more and more from the muggle world. Not needing technology to get by, modern muggle life went on and left them behind and they got comfortable with their outmoded ways of dress and household furnishings.
She decided that the best she could do was to stick to simple things in his usual monochromatic dark color scheme and hope for the best. His socks and shoes would do, as would his belt. On the two opportunities to notice, she had not known him to wear underclothes of any kind, so she didn't bother with that either. She chose a basic pair of black button front trousers, a charcoal gray turtleneck sweater, and on impulse, grabbed a long black leather overcoat off of a rack near the aisle. Expensive, but if he didn't like it, she could perform an alterations charm on it and resize it to fit her perfectly. As she was waiting in line, she felt a tap on her elbow.
Mira turned around and found a tiny, very aged old woman with an armful of shopping bags standing behind her.
"Hi."
"He's not what you think." Said the old woman.
"Beg pardon? Who's not what?"
"Him, the man those clothes are for. He's not what you think he is. He's got a secret, a big one."
Mira looked at the old woman with confusion.
"I just thought you should know dear."
The old woman patted her on the arm and shuffled away, leaving Mira very confused. She would have dismissed it as the ramblings of a senile old woman, except she knew just how wise these supposedly senile old women could be, and it made her think back to the night at Lucy's, when Lucy tried to convince her that the professor was involved with dark magic.
"Miss, can I help you? You're next,"
Brought back to the here and now by the salesclerk, she apologized for zoning out, and paid for the clothes. On the way back to her home, she stopped at a café for a cup of coffee and a croissant, and thought some more about what the woman had to say and what Lucy had suspected. She absentmindedly reached up and fingered the magical bauble that Headmaster Dumbledore had given her. Surely if it worked as he said, it would have alerted her if the professor had intended to do her any harm. What kind of secret could he possibly be keeping from her? Was he married? Did he have a family somewhere? She didn't think so, but who knows, it wouldn't be anything new. She looked at the clock on the wall of the café and gulped down the last of her coffee and headed home. If she got any sense that he was holding back something important, she'd confront him about it. But for now, she had other things on her mind.
Snape awoke to bright sunlight streaming in through a gap in the blinds, falling across his face. He made a disgusted noise, shielded his eyes from the glare, and sat up. "Mira." "Mira?" He spied the scroll of notebook paper tied to the headboard with Mira's robe sash. He removed it and read it. "Shit! How could she run off and leave me here in a muggle house when she knows I don't know how anything works." He sat on the edge of the bed, fuming silently to himself, and staring around the room at the muggle items he couldn't easily identify. He recognized a telephone, and of course the basic furnishings. The stereo confused him, but he had remembered music coming from it and figured it was a fancier muggle version of the wizarding wireless. The candles had burned themselves out, and he recognized the pocket lighter. He had confiscated enough of those from students who were caught smoking in the corridors after hours.
He decided to go on and get cleaned up; bathrooms were pretty self- explanatory in either culture. He picked up Mira's crumpled silk robe and sash and carried them into the bathroom with him. Not having had one since his student days, he decided on a shower over a bath. After a false start where he yelped and banged his head on the shower nozzle when the water came out ice cold, he got the temperature right and enjoyed the feel of warm steaming water raining down on him. He opened a tube labeled "body wash" sniffed at it, wrinkled his nose and replaced it in the shower caddy with a sneer. He picked up the bar of soap, sniffed it tentatively, and found the scent to be much more pleasant, and not at all feminine like the fruity pink gel in the tube he had just smelled. He looked up at the large shower caddy, at an array of muggle grooming potions. There was shampoo; he recognized that, although he rarely used it. And he saw something in an identical bottle labeled conditioning rinse. He read the backs of the bottles, the ingredients were mostly synthetic chemicals, but they had some useful herbs and botanicals in them. He let out an exasperated sigh as he placed them back on the rack. "Bloody Hell." He ran his fingers through his hair, letting the water wet it down, hesitated, and then reached for the bottles. "Oh well, when in Rome."
Finished with his shower, he dried off and put on Mira's silk robe. It didn't appear to be something only muggle women wore, and it looked close enough to a wizarding robe to be familiar. He looked for a comb to get the tangles out of his hair, and opened a drawer on her dressing table. "You've got to be fucking kidding!" He looked down at the drawer crammed full of assorted combs and hairbrushes of all shapes and sizes, as well as headbands and other assorted hair accessories. He fished around, and pulled out the most normal looking comb he could find and ran it through his damp hair. He turned his head and looked more closely in the mirror. His hair looked a little less limp and certainly was no longer greasy. "Hmmm, not too bad." But then made a tsk-ing noise. "Who has the time for this rubbish? Men like Lockhart I suppose." He snorted and smirked at the mental image of a disheveled Lockhart being carried away babbling in a straitjacket.
He removed his wand from his robes, which were still folded neatly on the chair in the corner of the bathroom, and went into the main living area of the apartment to wait for Mira. He had seen some books on a shelf near the fireplace and went to see if anything looked familiar. He spied a large cloth bound book with the word "Album" printed in fancy script on the spine. He pulled it off the shelf and opened it. It was a family photograph album. But not wizard photos, these photos didn't move. Some were in black and white, but others in color. He didn't recognize any of the people in the black and white photos, but recognized Mira and her cousin in others. There was one of Mira and an older woman and man, sitting around the table, a birthday cake with lit candles in front of them. These must have been her parents. He saw a photograph of Mira and her cousin, as schoolgirls standing between a stern looking plump woman in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris. That must be the grandmother, he thought. Towards the back, a photograph of the girls in matching satin robes, funny hats on their heads, holding scrolls. And farther back still, a photograph of a pregnant Susan with her hands on her stomach, pointing out how round it was, an uncomfortable looking young man standing by her side. Snape recognized him as Susan's husband. On the last pages were the most recent photos. Mira with a very young Tricia at some kind of a fair. Mira with a man Snape didn't recognize, his arm tight around her waist. Mira with a darker skinned couple, standing in front of several paintings, with the words "gallery opening" written across the bottom. He noticed in the most recent photographs, she didn't have the same smile on her face as in her childhood and schoolgirl photos. He realized that they were taken after her parents died in the Death Eater attack. It had apparently haunted her so badly that she was willing to give up her home to travel to England and live in a culture that was entirely foreign to her. He thought about how hard it must have been for her and if he would even be willing to go into exile in the muggle world if it ever came down to it.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, hastily replaced the photograph album, picked up his wand and walked towards the front door.
In this chapter, I want to let Mira take over for a bit, and show a little bit about where she comes from, what motivates her, how she relates to being of two worlds and how she justifies it. And what she really thinks of the situation she has found herself sucked into.
Oh, I don't live in New Orleans; I just visit as often as I can. I've got an acquaintance whose mother owns a business in the French Quarter. I was thinking of a city to set Mira's home in, and it had to have a modern as well as older more mysterious aspect to it. Somewhere that the wizarding world could co-exist with modern muggle society. N.O. seemed like a really natural choice. And it was familiar enough to write about without feeling as if I were totally clueless.
Also, regarding Dumbledore. My take on him is that the kind, somewhat eccentric persona that he projects is only a very superficial facet of just what kind of man he really is. He defeated Grindelwald after all! Voldemort genuinely fears him. He's got to be much more than we've seen so far in the first few books. The end of GOF touches on his true potential as a leader and strategist a little, when he is dispatching people to try and forge alliances for the upcoming battle. I really see him morphing from kindly old eccentric headmaster into battle hardened general. My intent with him being a kind of spymaster and as I will show at the end of the story, a puppet master as well, doesn't really conflict with the image of the twinkly eyed old gent we've come to love, but it is just a deeper facet of who he is, a facet of himself of which he has not had the need to call upon for quite some time. He didn't kick Grindelwald's ass by eating candy and giving witty and sage advice. He's one powerful old wizard, and capable of assuming the role of strategist and warrior when necessary. That was peacetime, this is war. And war often brings about a fundamental change in personality in those whom are called upon to fight and lead the troops. I've always felt that he knew what was going to happen and that he gently manipulated situations to allow them to unfold a certain way. A master strategist at peacetime, silently pulling some strings to achieve a desired result. But in the face of the coming battle, he cannot afford to be as passive in his machinations; he had to take a more direct and proactive approach. But he's not maliciously manipulative nor is he coldhearted in his use of people to achieve the means to and end. He simply does what he has to do to get the job done and tries to cause the least amount of harm possible in doing so.
Disclaimer: Nothing recognized from the books or movies belongs to me, it's merely borrowed to play around with for a while, and explore the possibilities relating to the characters and story lines.
Chapter 23: A Sort of Homecoming.
Mira pulled herself from the warm bed and made her way, weak kneed and a little shaky, to the bathroom where she removed the miniature sneakascope from around her neck and took a long hot shower. She towel dried her hair, pushed it off of her face with a headband, pulled the necklace back over her head and went to find some suitable clothes for errand running in her closet. She transferred some items from her robe pockets into a small purse. Dressed and ready to greet the day, she checked in on Snape, who was on his back, one arm raised above his head, sleeping soundly. She sat on the edge of the bed, reached into her bedside table, pulled out a notepad and pen, and wrote him a short note saying that she would be back shortly with muggle clothes for him to wear during his stay in New Orleans. If he wished to grab a shower or bath, the bottle of purple liquid was lavender bubble bath, and the others were labeled as to their purpose, he was welcome to use whatever he needed. She rolled the paper up like a scroll, and quietly tied it to one of the bars of the headboard above the professor's head with the discarded robe sash. He stirred lightly in his sleep with the shift of weight on the bed but didn't wake. She stroked his forehead and quietly got up, shut off the stereo, turned the ringer off of the phone and set the machine to silent messaging, then walked out the door.
Mira took the staircase to the inner corridor that led from the courtyard to the front entrance of the building, and exited onto Royal Street. Passing the window in front of the ground floor gallery, Maggie waved and beckoned her inside. Mira entered the gallery, and was met by her tenant, Magnolia Guidry. Magnolia, or Maggie for short, was a short plump witch with hazel eyes and skin the color of honey. She wore her very dyed, very red, hair in short ringlets cropped close to her head. "Well hello you! Long time no see! Sneaking in before dawn, with a man no less!"
Mira reached out and gave the woman a warm hug. "Hey Maggie, Jules called just after I got in, I guess he heard us moving around upstairs."
"Yep, he had to get up early to go pick up a load of canvas. Oh, you didn't need the car this morning did you? I didn't even stop to think that you might need it."
"Oh no, it's okay. I won't need it until tomorrow. I've got an errand to run, but I really wanted to get out on foot anyway. I need to go scrounge up some more appropriate clothes for my friend upstairs. I thought Jules might have something he could borrow, and then I thought that Jules's usual choice of attire might be a little too much of a shock to this guy."
"So, you mind telling me who he is? Or are you gonna keep me in suspense?"
"He's from England, a really hardcore wizarding type. A professor at a boarding school."
"So, is he here for business? Pleasure?"
"Well. Strictly speaking, for business. But why bother making the trip if you're not going to at least make time for a little fun, huh? He's kinda freaked out at the whole culture shock thing, but I'm gonna do my best to drag him out of the house for a while."
"Jules said you'd only be here a day or two, why the rush?"
"Sorry, I've got to get back to England as soon as possible. I'm just really here to help run a glorified errand for the headmaster of the school."
"Well, you run along, let us know if you need anything, I'll make sure Jules puts gas in the car before putting it away. I'll leave the keys in the usual spot, on the nail by the staircase."
"Thanks Maggs, I wish I could spend some more time here, but hopefully this spring things will be less hectic."
"Well you be careful girl. I've heard a lot of stuff about what's going on in England, and you be sure to steer clear of it."
"Will do, tell Jules hi for me."
Mira exited the shop and headed towards Canal Street, and the large shopping center on the riverfront. She enjoyed the exercise from the walk. The air was cool, but the sun was bright and warmed her skin as she walked past numerous shops, restaurants, and other assorted businesses in the ground floor storefronts. She could smell the aroma of coffee coming from the cafés and her stomach growled. "Ugh!" She thought. "I hope he's ready to get dressed and leave when I get back, I can't wait until lunchtime to find something to eat."
She entered the large modern shopping center and went to the closest department store. "What to get for him?" She pondered, passing rack after rack of men's sportswear and office attire. It all seemed way too modern for Snape's usual archaic taste in clothes. Suzie had explained to her once that most of the older witches and wizards, especially ones from upper class or well-established wizarding families, tended to isolate themselves more and more from the muggle world. Not needing technology to get by, modern muggle life went on and left them behind and they got comfortable with their outmoded ways of dress and household furnishings.
She decided that the best she could do was to stick to simple things in his usual monochromatic dark color scheme and hope for the best. His socks and shoes would do, as would his belt. On the two opportunities to notice, she had not known him to wear underclothes of any kind, so she didn't bother with that either. She chose a basic pair of black button front trousers, a charcoal gray turtleneck sweater, and on impulse, grabbed a long black leather overcoat off of a rack near the aisle. Expensive, but if he didn't like it, she could perform an alterations charm on it and resize it to fit her perfectly. As she was waiting in line, she felt a tap on her elbow.
Mira turned around and found a tiny, very aged old woman with an armful of shopping bags standing behind her.
"Hi."
"He's not what you think." Said the old woman.
"Beg pardon? Who's not what?"
"Him, the man those clothes are for. He's not what you think he is. He's got a secret, a big one."
Mira looked at the old woman with confusion.
"I just thought you should know dear."
The old woman patted her on the arm and shuffled away, leaving Mira very confused. She would have dismissed it as the ramblings of a senile old woman, except she knew just how wise these supposedly senile old women could be, and it made her think back to the night at Lucy's, when Lucy tried to convince her that the professor was involved with dark magic.
"Miss, can I help you? You're next,"
Brought back to the here and now by the salesclerk, she apologized for zoning out, and paid for the clothes. On the way back to her home, she stopped at a café for a cup of coffee and a croissant, and thought some more about what the woman had to say and what Lucy had suspected. She absentmindedly reached up and fingered the magical bauble that Headmaster Dumbledore had given her. Surely if it worked as he said, it would have alerted her if the professor had intended to do her any harm. What kind of secret could he possibly be keeping from her? Was he married? Did he have a family somewhere? She didn't think so, but who knows, it wouldn't be anything new. She looked at the clock on the wall of the café and gulped down the last of her coffee and headed home. If she got any sense that he was holding back something important, she'd confront him about it. But for now, she had other things on her mind.
Snape awoke to bright sunlight streaming in through a gap in the blinds, falling across his face. He made a disgusted noise, shielded his eyes from the glare, and sat up. "Mira." "Mira?" He spied the scroll of notebook paper tied to the headboard with Mira's robe sash. He removed it and read it. "Shit! How could she run off and leave me here in a muggle house when she knows I don't know how anything works." He sat on the edge of the bed, fuming silently to himself, and staring around the room at the muggle items he couldn't easily identify. He recognized a telephone, and of course the basic furnishings. The stereo confused him, but he had remembered music coming from it and figured it was a fancier muggle version of the wizarding wireless. The candles had burned themselves out, and he recognized the pocket lighter. He had confiscated enough of those from students who were caught smoking in the corridors after hours.
He decided to go on and get cleaned up; bathrooms were pretty self- explanatory in either culture. He picked up Mira's crumpled silk robe and sash and carried them into the bathroom with him. Not having had one since his student days, he decided on a shower over a bath. After a false start where he yelped and banged his head on the shower nozzle when the water came out ice cold, he got the temperature right and enjoyed the feel of warm steaming water raining down on him. He opened a tube labeled "body wash" sniffed at it, wrinkled his nose and replaced it in the shower caddy with a sneer. He picked up the bar of soap, sniffed it tentatively, and found the scent to be much more pleasant, and not at all feminine like the fruity pink gel in the tube he had just smelled. He looked up at the large shower caddy, at an array of muggle grooming potions. There was shampoo; he recognized that, although he rarely used it. And he saw something in an identical bottle labeled conditioning rinse. He read the backs of the bottles, the ingredients were mostly synthetic chemicals, but they had some useful herbs and botanicals in them. He let out an exasperated sigh as he placed them back on the rack. "Bloody Hell." He ran his fingers through his hair, letting the water wet it down, hesitated, and then reached for the bottles. "Oh well, when in Rome."
Finished with his shower, he dried off and put on Mira's silk robe. It didn't appear to be something only muggle women wore, and it looked close enough to a wizarding robe to be familiar. He looked for a comb to get the tangles out of his hair, and opened a drawer on her dressing table. "You've got to be fucking kidding!" He looked down at the drawer crammed full of assorted combs and hairbrushes of all shapes and sizes, as well as headbands and other assorted hair accessories. He fished around, and pulled out the most normal looking comb he could find and ran it through his damp hair. He turned his head and looked more closely in the mirror. His hair looked a little less limp and certainly was no longer greasy. "Hmmm, not too bad." But then made a tsk-ing noise. "Who has the time for this rubbish? Men like Lockhart I suppose." He snorted and smirked at the mental image of a disheveled Lockhart being carried away babbling in a straitjacket.
He removed his wand from his robes, which were still folded neatly on the chair in the corner of the bathroom, and went into the main living area of the apartment to wait for Mira. He had seen some books on a shelf near the fireplace and went to see if anything looked familiar. He spied a large cloth bound book with the word "Album" printed in fancy script on the spine. He pulled it off the shelf and opened it. It was a family photograph album. But not wizard photos, these photos didn't move. Some were in black and white, but others in color. He didn't recognize any of the people in the black and white photos, but recognized Mira and her cousin in others. There was one of Mira and an older woman and man, sitting around the table, a birthday cake with lit candles in front of them. These must have been her parents. He saw a photograph of Mira and her cousin, as schoolgirls standing between a stern looking plump woman in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris. That must be the grandmother, he thought. Towards the back, a photograph of the girls in matching satin robes, funny hats on their heads, holding scrolls. And farther back still, a photograph of a pregnant Susan with her hands on her stomach, pointing out how round it was, an uncomfortable looking young man standing by her side. Snape recognized him as Susan's husband. On the last pages were the most recent photos. Mira with a very young Tricia at some kind of a fair. Mira with a man Snape didn't recognize, his arm tight around her waist. Mira with a darker skinned couple, standing in front of several paintings, with the words "gallery opening" written across the bottom. He noticed in the most recent photographs, she didn't have the same smile on her face as in her childhood and schoolgirl photos. He realized that they were taken after her parents died in the Death Eater attack. It had apparently haunted her so badly that she was willing to give up her home to travel to England and live in a culture that was entirely foreign to her. He thought about how hard it must have been for her and if he would even be willing to go into exile in the muggle world if it ever came down to it.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, hastily replaced the photograph album, picked up his wand and walked towards the front door.