Author's Notes: Not a lot of action in this chapter. A little more
background on Mira, and the events that took place at the cottage in
Calais.
Some simple loose translations: Aiguille means needle, Chichiteaux essentially means "prissy".
Disclaimers: Nothing recognizable from the books and movies belongs to me. Not a single shred of it.
Chapter 32: Summer in the City
The storm passed swiftly over the city, bringing a typical hot and sunny summer morning. Mira awoke and found herself tangled in damp twisted sheets. She felt a vague tingling sensation throughout her body; the feeling one has following a mild electric shock. She looked over at the clock on the bedside table; it read ten twenty-eight a.m.
She sat up against the headboard, and looked over at her bedmate. He was sprawled on his stomach, one knee bent up, his forehead resting on one arm, the other dangling off the side of the bed, his wand on the floor beneath his hand. Two tiny potion vials rested on the opposite bedside table, both half empty. One a dark red in color, she remembered that one. It had tasted vaguely of chocolate and cinnamon. She gave an involuntary shudder remembering the effects of that potion.
The red potion was a sensory amplification potion; it rendered the user hypersensitive to tactile stimuli. She was unsure exactly what the dark brown one was for, it wasn't offered to her. She figured it had to do with increasing stamina or energy. From the way the professor was soundly sleeping, the effects were definitely temporary.
"So that was wizard sex." She thought to herself. She wasn't quite sure if she liked it or not. It was all a little bit overwhelming. She liked the levitation part; that was nice. It was as if one were floating underwater, but in mid-air. She didn't know if she liked the sensory amplification potion. Maybe she had just taken a bit too much, because she remembered a strange intoxicated feeling and then pleasure so intense as to be bordering on pain, building up to an explosion of sensory overload that caused her to lose consciousness. There were other things she halfway remembered, but whether they were real or figments of a dream, she wasn't quite sure.
She felt stiff and a little sore, and decided that a long soak in a warm bath was just what she needed to start the day. She quietly got up and went into the bathroom. While the tub was filling, she picked up the silk robes from the floor, rinsed them off in the sink, and hung them on the balcony to dry in the sun. On her way back into the bathroom, she walked around the side of the bed, picked up Snape's wand and set it on the bedside table, next to the potions vials. She untangled the sheet and draped it lightly across his body. He stirred in his sleep, shifted position, and exhaled deeply. Mira pushed his long tangled hair off of his face, and returned to the bathroom and lowered herself into the warm water.
She leaned back, letting the warm water loosen and soothe her muscles. She let her mind wander and thought about the events leading up to the present. The months she had lived with her grandmother, in the cottage near the sea. Having her memories returned to her was a shock to the psyche. Some of them were not pleasant at all. Things she was better off not remembering. She had asked Dumbledore why he didn't just destroy the bad ones and preserve the good ones. He had patted her hand and told her that we cannot have light without dark or the light loses its brightness.
It was more difficult adjusting to the flood of recovered memories than it had been dealing with the events as they had happened. But all in all, she didn't regret having her memories preserved and then restored to her, as they brought a sense of completeness. During those months in Calais, she had a nagging sensation at the edge of her consciousness, something she had forgotten, but she couldn't ever place it. She felt a sense of emptiness, but could not figure out what was missing. In dreams, she had vague misty recollections of a man but she never could see his face, or hear his voice. It was just a wisp of a memory, an unstructured image of a dark man and impressions of emotions: Love and longing.
When the two wizards arrived at Grand-mere's cottage, she recognized the younger one, and the pieces started to come together. She knew there was something important about him, but didn't understand until the memory transfer was complete. And then the memories came flooding back, overwhelming her with emotions. She remembered leaping into his arms, clinging to his robes tightly, and crying for what seemed like hours.
With blessings from both the headmaster and Mira's grandmother, they went to her home in New Orleans for a week to make up for lost time together and to get away from the wizarding world for a bit. This was their second day there. The first was spent awkwardly re-acquainting themselves with each other. And then there was last night.
Mira basked in the warmth of the water and the remnants of the morning- after-glow. She finished bathing, and got up and dried herself off. She wrapped the towel around herself and went into the bedroom, where she found the professor awake and sitting up against the headboard.
"Oh, you're awake?"
"Just for a few minutes. How long have you been up?"
"Not long, just long enough to take a bath."
"Ah, well then. What's on the agenda for today? No sightseeing I hope, it's dreadfully hot, and the only muggle clothes I have are suitable for cool weather."
"Oh, that's right. I forgot. Maybe we can do something with what you already have? Make due as best we can, and get you something new at the mall."
"I've heard enough of my female muggle born students tittering about malls and shopping, and you've another thing coming if you think I would be caught dead in a place like that."
"Fine! Fine. No shopping mall. No department stores, no discount suit warehouses. There's a little tailor shop that's owned by a wizarding family. Robes in the back, men's' classic muggle style clothing up front. It's a little on the old fashioned side, but then again, you like the old fashioned side."
"And just what exactly is wrong with the old fashioned side? Why must muggles continuously re-invent the wheel?"
"I don't know, because they can maybe? Whatever you want, the tailor it shall be. Now, why don't you get yourself cleaned up and let's get dressed before it gets too hot to go anywhere outside."
Mira rifled through her closet and dressed in a simple steel blue linen dress and a pair of sandals. She put her hair up in a loose knot and secured it with her little wand and a matching hair-stick. To the casual observer, they were merely a pair of hair-sticks; even most wizarding folk wouldn't recognize them as a wand and its double. Dressed, she sat on the edge of the bed to transfer her necessities from the pockets of her wizarding robe to a small purse.
Snape was busy performing an alteration charm on his one set of muggle clothing, adding extra hidden pockets to the trousers for his wand and the small case of potions vials he carried at all times. He unsuccessfully tried to alter the turtleneck and managed to only remove the high collar. Disgusted with the whole ordeal, he shoved the sleeves up his arms and crossed them over his chest.
Watching his reflection in the mirror, Mira smirked to herself and got up and handed him her hairbrush with an elastic band twisted around the handle.
"Here, better run this through your hair, and you might want to pull it back or it'll be awfully hot."
Hair brushed and back, he tossed the brush back to her in a not so playful manner. She caught it and stuffed it down into her purse.
"Come on, let's get moving, we'll get something to eat while we're out."
He followed her through the apartment and down the stairs to the front door of the building.
"You still have those sunglasses?"
With a patronizing smile, he pulled them out of his pocket and showed them to her. Mira unlocked the door and Snape cringed from the blazing sun and late morning heat. She locked the door behind them and they set off towards Jackson Square and the little tailor shop.
It was a small storefront, a sign shaped like a spool of thread pierced by a needle was hanging out front. A couple of mannequins wearing very formal men's suits stood stiffly in the front window. Mira opened the door and a soft musical chime sounded from somewhere in the back of the store. It was a very old fashioned sort of a place, a few racks of suits stood against one wall, and the opposite wall held shelves stacked with bolts of fabric. In a way, it was very much like Treadle's Tailor Shoppe back in Hogsmeade. A hunch shouldered old man came from behind a heavy velvet curtain behind the counter.
"Well, well, if it isn't Miss Mirabelle. How have you been cherie? That boarder of yours, Jules, was in just last week picking up some alterations. He said you had run into some trouble in England. Bad situation, that business in England, no?. Good to see you home. Now, what is it that can I do for you this morning, hmm?"
"Good to see you too Monsieur Aiguille. I need to ask a favor. My friend here is in desperate need of some warm weather clothes. He's a professor at the Hogwarts School in England, and I'm afraid he has nothing suitable to wear. Something fairly casual if you please."
"Well well, a Hogwarts Professor? All the way here in New Orleans? How very interesting. Let me see, how soon will you need it?"
"Well. I was kind of hoping you could find something in your stock or whip something up right now. This is the only thing he has."
"Oh dear me. Yes, that is a problem. Let's see what we can do, shall we?"
Old Monsieur Aiguille smiled at the professor and took some basic measurements. He disappeared behind the curtain and returned with an armload of clothes.
"Now, I don't have much on hand, but let's see what we can do for you sir."
The old man held up a tropical print cotton shirt, and Snape shot Mira a withering glare.
"Uh, Monsieur Aiguille, let's stick to the more subdued end of the spectrum, okay?"
"Very well. What exactly did you have in mind sir? Something with a jacket, no? A suit perhaps?"
"Just something simple. Button front trousers and a button front shirt. Black, grays, white for a shirt possibly. Nothing fancy, no prints, no checks, no stripes, no tartans."
"Hmmm, the trousers are no problem, here are two pair of linen button front trousers in charcoal that can be altered to fit you right away. Shirts? I don't know, let me see what I have."
The old man sorted through the pile of shirts, sorting them into two stacks. He pulled out a deep blue one and held it up for the professor to see.
"Not quite. Too bright. What's that one there on the bottom, the white one?"
"Aah, yes, here we go. It's a silk and linen blend, very good for hot weather. Not quite white, more of a grayish white, the natural color of the silk."
He handed the shirt to the professor, who held it closer to the light. With furrowed brows, he inspected it in the light, gingerly fingering the shiny mother of pearl buttons.
"It'll do. But can these buttons be replaced with less flashy ones?"
"Not a problem sir. I can put plain unpolished shell buttons on. Give me an hour to do the alterations and to replace the buttons."
"And I shall need a couple of hidden pockets if you please. One to hold a wand, another to hold a small case."
"Very well, no trouble at all."
Mira smiled at the old man and arranged the rejected shirts back in a neat stack.
"Thanks Monsieur Aiguille, we'll see you in an hour."
Mira took Snape by the arm.
"Come on, there's something I want to show you."
She led him through the velvet curtain, which led to a small hallway. To the right was the workshop, ahead was a plain wall. Mira took her wand out of her hair, and tapped it against the wall. The wall transformed into another velvet curtain. Mira pulled the second curtain aside and they entered into a mirror image storefront, except this one was stocked with wizarding robes, and stacks of fancy wizarding style fabrics.
"Remember when I told you that there were very few strictly wizarding places in New Orleans? Well, I'm about to show you the closest thing we have to Diagon Alley in London."
Mira opened the door of the robe shop and they stepped out onto a narrow one-lane alley, which stretched for about a block.
"It's called La ruelle de la sorcellerie. Basically it means sorcery alley. It's in the oldest part of the city. There's only a handful of shops, and less than a dozen residences which have direct back door access to this street. Monsieur Aiguille said about an hour, but we're in no hurry. We've got time to explore around and have something to eat if you wish, there's a small café at the end of the block. There's the robe store, the café, an apothecary, a dry-goods store, a bookstore, and an owl postal center."
Professor Snape stood looking up and down the street, a curious expression on his face. Witches and wizards dressed in a mixture of robes and modern muggle clothes walked up and down between the shops, with parcels in hand, talking in various languages. He recognized French, and of course English, but a few of the languages were very exotic, as were the wizarding folk speaking them.
The alley was mostly in shade; the height of buildings on each side of the narrow lane blocked the sun. He noticed that it was much cooler there, almost pleasant. Even in his heavier winter clothes he was not terribly uncomfortable. Mira rested her hand on his arm to get his attention.
"Look, I know you'll want to check out the apothecary, to see what kinds of potions ingredients we have here that you can't get back home. I need to stop into the dry-goods store to pick up some things to take back to England. Let's meet at the café down by the fountain in say, an hour?"
Mira kissed him on the cheek and headed down the street towards the large dry-goods store, a wizarding "five and dime" if you will. They sold all the everyday necessities of wizarding life: Quills, parchment, ink, commercially bottled potions and tonics, enchanted items for the home, candy, and gift items among other assorted things.
Snape started walking in the other direction, and stopped at the bookstore. He browsed the potions manuals for quite some time, selecting a book on magical plants of the American South; their properties and uses. He was relieved to see that the wizarding stores in New Orleans accepted the same currency as those in England. He asked the clerk where the apothecary shop was located, she pointed to the end of the street, across from the café. He thanked her and exited the shop. He decided to return to the tailor shop and see if his new suit of clothes was ready.
He entered the robe shop started browsing through the rack of robes, looking for something simple, but was having no luck. Monsieur Aiguille came through the back curtain and recognized him.
"Aah, the professor from England. Just one moment, the tailor elf is just finishing with the buttons."
A door creaked in the little hallway, and a small house elf stepped out from behind the curtain with the new clothes over his arm. He was wearing a fancy fringed damask tablecloth, tied around his chest like a toga with a pair of curtain tassels hanging off of his shoulder. The elf gave an exaggerated bow to the professor and handed the clothes to the old man.
"Thank you Chichiteaux, a lovely job as always."
The elf gave a haughty smirk and turned on his heel and retreated behind the curtain with his nose in the air.
"Well, here you are, all ready. Shall I wrap them or would you wish to wear them out?"
"I'll wear them out if you don't mind."
"No, not at all, you can go behind that screen in the corner to change clothes. I shall be writing up the receipt."
Snape took the clothes to the little dressing area, changed into them and inspected himself in the mirror. His belt and shoes looked fine, and the special hidden pockets were more than satisfactory for his wand and potions case. There would even be room for his old clothes, his book, and his sunglasses if he shrunk them enough. He smoothed the front of the trousers, and unbuttoned the cuffs of the shirt and rolled them up twice, to mid forearm. His hand lingered on the place on his arm where the dark mark once resided. Now, there was just a faint blotchy pale area. Sometimes it tingled lightly, but he no longer lived in fear of it. He adjusted the collar of the shirt, undid a few buttons, decided he looked silly, and re-buttoned all but the top two. He noticed his hair was straying from the elastic band, and he pulled it out. He smoothed his hair down with his fingers, and redid the ponytail, frowning at a few gray hairs, which had recently started to sprout from his temples. He turned this way and that, and decided that he looked pretty good for his age and the level of stress he had lived with for all of his adult life. Not a particularly vain man, not like Malfoy or Lockhart, he was nonetheless fussy with his appearance and always dressed smartly.
Satisfied with his new clothes, he performed a shrinking spell on the old ones, his book, and the sunglasses, and tucked them into one of the hidden pockets of the trousers. He thanked the old man and paid the bill, and set off down the street to the apothecary. He had just enough time to pop in and see what all they had. He selected small amounts of several dried herbs and botanicals he had seen listed in the book he had bought. While the apothecary clerk was weighing and wrapping his order, he wandered to the large front window. Mira was sitting at a table out in front of the café, near the fountain. She was sorting through what looked like a box of quills.
He let his mind wander as he watched her. He remembered the night that Dumbledore brought the pensieve and amulet pouch to his chambers and said it was time to return her memories to her. He had the distinct sensation of butterflies in his stomach the entire time, and his stomach leapt into his chest when the old woman brought her into the parlor. What if the memory transfer failed? What if it was too traumatic and she ran screaming from him? Once the procedure was done and she jumped into his arms, for the first time since childhood, he briefly felt as if everything was right with the world. He remembered when she was packing her bags to leave France; her grandmother took him by the hand and led him into the rose garden. Her words were a little unsettling. No, make that quite unsettling.
Mira's grandmother told him that she had heard of his family, and she knew of his history and how he came to be the potions master at the Hogwarts School. She said that she believed him to be a good man who had made some grave mistakes, but nonetheless she felt confident about sending her granddaughter away with him. Dumbledore had vouched for his integrity and she trusted the old wizard completely. If Albus Dumbledore said that he was a suitable match for Mira, then so shall it be. She kissed him on both cheeks and gave him her blessing. Before they went back into the cottage, the old woman took him by the arm, and with a very serious look on her face, delivered a grave warning. He remembered it well. The round cheeked old witch's demeanor completely changed. Her twinkling eyes narrowed and stared through his soul. She gripped his arm firmly and whispered in his ear.
"I am sure you know that my granddaughter is capable of some advanced spells, even a few nasty curses, do you not? If you ever purposefully and willfully harm or allow to be harmed so much as one hair of her head, I will come after you like Hell itself has been unleashed. She learned those curses somewhere. And it was not from the tutor from Beauxbatons! Do I make my meaning clear?"
He gave an inward shudder. The old woman meant business. He wondered if her cousin's husband, Albert, had also gotten "the speech".
The clerk finished wrapping the potions ingredients and bundled them up in a large paper bundle. Snape paid for the botanicals, shrunk the package to a neat little bundle, and tucked it into his pocket. He left the shop and crossed over to the café. Mira was sitting with her back to him. He slid into the chair across from her.
"Hey, your new clothes were ready! How do you like them? They look great!"
"Yes, they are quite nice, much better than the other ones for a summer afternoon."
Mira reached across the table and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "Have you ever thought of growing a beard? I think you'd be really sexy with one."
He narrowed his eyes and raised a disapproving eyebrow at her.
"Damn! Don't give me the look! It was just a suggestion."
Mira stashed the box of quills in her purse and waved at a waitress.
"Jeez, let's order some lunch, maybe a full stomach will mellow you out a little."
Some simple loose translations: Aiguille means needle, Chichiteaux essentially means "prissy".
Disclaimers: Nothing recognizable from the books and movies belongs to me. Not a single shred of it.
Chapter 32: Summer in the City
The storm passed swiftly over the city, bringing a typical hot and sunny summer morning. Mira awoke and found herself tangled in damp twisted sheets. She felt a vague tingling sensation throughout her body; the feeling one has following a mild electric shock. She looked over at the clock on the bedside table; it read ten twenty-eight a.m.
She sat up against the headboard, and looked over at her bedmate. He was sprawled on his stomach, one knee bent up, his forehead resting on one arm, the other dangling off the side of the bed, his wand on the floor beneath his hand. Two tiny potion vials rested on the opposite bedside table, both half empty. One a dark red in color, she remembered that one. It had tasted vaguely of chocolate and cinnamon. She gave an involuntary shudder remembering the effects of that potion.
The red potion was a sensory amplification potion; it rendered the user hypersensitive to tactile stimuli. She was unsure exactly what the dark brown one was for, it wasn't offered to her. She figured it had to do with increasing stamina or energy. From the way the professor was soundly sleeping, the effects were definitely temporary.
"So that was wizard sex." She thought to herself. She wasn't quite sure if she liked it or not. It was all a little bit overwhelming. She liked the levitation part; that was nice. It was as if one were floating underwater, but in mid-air. She didn't know if she liked the sensory amplification potion. Maybe she had just taken a bit too much, because she remembered a strange intoxicated feeling and then pleasure so intense as to be bordering on pain, building up to an explosion of sensory overload that caused her to lose consciousness. There were other things she halfway remembered, but whether they were real or figments of a dream, she wasn't quite sure.
She felt stiff and a little sore, and decided that a long soak in a warm bath was just what she needed to start the day. She quietly got up and went into the bathroom. While the tub was filling, she picked up the silk robes from the floor, rinsed them off in the sink, and hung them on the balcony to dry in the sun. On her way back into the bathroom, she walked around the side of the bed, picked up Snape's wand and set it on the bedside table, next to the potions vials. She untangled the sheet and draped it lightly across his body. He stirred in his sleep, shifted position, and exhaled deeply. Mira pushed his long tangled hair off of his face, and returned to the bathroom and lowered herself into the warm water.
She leaned back, letting the warm water loosen and soothe her muscles. She let her mind wander and thought about the events leading up to the present. The months she had lived with her grandmother, in the cottage near the sea. Having her memories returned to her was a shock to the psyche. Some of them were not pleasant at all. Things she was better off not remembering. She had asked Dumbledore why he didn't just destroy the bad ones and preserve the good ones. He had patted her hand and told her that we cannot have light without dark or the light loses its brightness.
It was more difficult adjusting to the flood of recovered memories than it had been dealing with the events as they had happened. But all in all, she didn't regret having her memories preserved and then restored to her, as they brought a sense of completeness. During those months in Calais, she had a nagging sensation at the edge of her consciousness, something she had forgotten, but she couldn't ever place it. She felt a sense of emptiness, but could not figure out what was missing. In dreams, she had vague misty recollections of a man but she never could see his face, or hear his voice. It was just a wisp of a memory, an unstructured image of a dark man and impressions of emotions: Love and longing.
When the two wizards arrived at Grand-mere's cottage, she recognized the younger one, and the pieces started to come together. She knew there was something important about him, but didn't understand until the memory transfer was complete. And then the memories came flooding back, overwhelming her with emotions. She remembered leaping into his arms, clinging to his robes tightly, and crying for what seemed like hours.
With blessings from both the headmaster and Mira's grandmother, they went to her home in New Orleans for a week to make up for lost time together and to get away from the wizarding world for a bit. This was their second day there. The first was spent awkwardly re-acquainting themselves with each other. And then there was last night.
Mira basked in the warmth of the water and the remnants of the morning- after-glow. She finished bathing, and got up and dried herself off. She wrapped the towel around herself and went into the bedroom, where she found the professor awake and sitting up against the headboard.
"Oh, you're awake?"
"Just for a few minutes. How long have you been up?"
"Not long, just long enough to take a bath."
"Ah, well then. What's on the agenda for today? No sightseeing I hope, it's dreadfully hot, and the only muggle clothes I have are suitable for cool weather."
"Oh, that's right. I forgot. Maybe we can do something with what you already have? Make due as best we can, and get you something new at the mall."
"I've heard enough of my female muggle born students tittering about malls and shopping, and you've another thing coming if you think I would be caught dead in a place like that."
"Fine! Fine. No shopping mall. No department stores, no discount suit warehouses. There's a little tailor shop that's owned by a wizarding family. Robes in the back, men's' classic muggle style clothing up front. It's a little on the old fashioned side, but then again, you like the old fashioned side."
"And just what exactly is wrong with the old fashioned side? Why must muggles continuously re-invent the wheel?"
"I don't know, because they can maybe? Whatever you want, the tailor it shall be. Now, why don't you get yourself cleaned up and let's get dressed before it gets too hot to go anywhere outside."
Mira rifled through her closet and dressed in a simple steel blue linen dress and a pair of sandals. She put her hair up in a loose knot and secured it with her little wand and a matching hair-stick. To the casual observer, they were merely a pair of hair-sticks; even most wizarding folk wouldn't recognize them as a wand and its double. Dressed, she sat on the edge of the bed to transfer her necessities from the pockets of her wizarding robe to a small purse.
Snape was busy performing an alteration charm on his one set of muggle clothing, adding extra hidden pockets to the trousers for his wand and the small case of potions vials he carried at all times. He unsuccessfully tried to alter the turtleneck and managed to only remove the high collar. Disgusted with the whole ordeal, he shoved the sleeves up his arms and crossed them over his chest.
Watching his reflection in the mirror, Mira smirked to herself and got up and handed him her hairbrush with an elastic band twisted around the handle.
"Here, better run this through your hair, and you might want to pull it back or it'll be awfully hot."
Hair brushed and back, he tossed the brush back to her in a not so playful manner. She caught it and stuffed it down into her purse.
"Come on, let's get moving, we'll get something to eat while we're out."
He followed her through the apartment and down the stairs to the front door of the building.
"You still have those sunglasses?"
With a patronizing smile, he pulled them out of his pocket and showed them to her. Mira unlocked the door and Snape cringed from the blazing sun and late morning heat. She locked the door behind them and they set off towards Jackson Square and the little tailor shop.
It was a small storefront, a sign shaped like a spool of thread pierced by a needle was hanging out front. A couple of mannequins wearing very formal men's suits stood stiffly in the front window. Mira opened the door and a soft musical chime sounded from somewhere in the back of the store. It was a very old fashioned sort of a place, a few racks of suits stood against one wall, and the opposite wall held shelves stacked with bolts of fabric. In a way, it was very much like Treadle's Tailor Shoppe back in Hogsmeade. A hunch shouldered old man came from behind a heavy velvet curtain behind the counter.
"Well, well, if it isn't Miss Mirabelle. How have you been cherie? That boarder of yours, Jules, was in just last week picking up some alterations. He said you had run into some trouble in England. Bad situation, that business in England, no?. Good to see you home. Now, what is it that can I do for you this morning, hmm?"
"Good to see you too Monsieur Aiguille. I need to ask a favor. My friend here is in desperate need of some warm weather clothes. He's a professor at the Hogwarts School in England, and I'm afraid he has nothing suitable to wear. Something fairly casual if you please."
"Well well, a Hogwarts Professor? All the way here in New Orleans? How very interesting. Let me see, how soon will you need it?"
"Well. I was kind of hoping you could find something in your stock or whip something up right now. This is the only thing he has."
"Oh dear me. Yes, that is a problem. Let's see what we can do, shall we?"
Old Monsieur Aiguille smiled at the professor and took some basic measurements. He disappeared behind the curtain and returned with an armload of clothes.
"Now, I don't have much on hand, but let's see what we can do for you sir."
The old man held up a tropical print cotton shirt, and Snape shot Mira a withering glare.
"Uh, Monsieur Aiguille, let's stick to the more subdued end of the spectrum, okay?"
"Very well. What exactly did you have in mind sir? Something with a jacket, no? A suit perhaps?"
"Just something simple. Button front trousers and a button front shirt. Black, grays, white for a shirt possibly. Nothing fancy, no prints, no checks, no stripes, no tartans."
"Hmmm, the trousers are no problem, here are two pair of linen button front trousers in charcoal that can be altered to fit you right away. Shirts? I don't know, let me see what I have."
The old man sorted through the pile of shirts, sorting them into two stacks. He pulled out a deep blue one and held it up for the professor to see.
"Not quite. Too bright. What's that one there on the bottom, the white one?"
"Aah, yes, here we go. It's a silk and linen blend, very good for hot weather. Not quite white, more of a grayish white, the natural color of the silk."
He handed the shirt to the professor, who held it closer to the light. With furrowed brows, he inspected it in the light, gingerly fingering the shiny mother of pearl buttons.
"It'll do. But can these buttons be replaced with less flashy ones?"
"Not a problem sir. I can put plain unpolished shell buttons on. Give me an hour to do the alterations and to replace the buttons."
"And I shall need a couple of hidden pockets if you please. One to hold a wand, another to hold a small case."
"Very well, no trouble at all."
Mira smiled at the old man and arranged the rejected shirts back in a neat stack.
"Thanks Monsieur Aiguille, we'll see you in an hour."
Mira took Snape by the arm.
"Come on, there's something I want to show you."
She led him through the velvet curtain, which led to a small hallway. To the right was the workshop, ahead was a plain wall. Mira took her wand out of her hair, and tapped it against the wall. The wall transformed into another velvet curtain. Mira pulled the second curtain aside and they entered into a mirror image storefront, except this one was stocked with wizarding robes, and stacks of fancy wizarding style fabrics.
"Remember when I told you that there were very few strictly wizarding places in New Orleans? Well, I'm about to show you the closest thing we have to Diagon Alley in London."
Mira opened the door of the robe shop and they stepped out onto a narrow one-lane alley, which stretched for about a block.
"It's called La ruelle de la sorcellerie. Basically it means sorcery alley. It's in the oldest part of the city. There's only a handful of shops, and less than a dozen residences which have direct back door access to this street. Monsieur Aiguille said about an hour, but we're in no hurry. We've got time to explore around and have something to eat if you wish, there's a small café at the end of the block. There's the robe store, the café, an apothecary, a dry-goods store, a bookstore, and an owl postal center."
Professor Snape stood looking up and down the street, a curious expression on his face. Witches and wizards dressed in a mixture of robes and modern muggle clothes walked up and down between the shops, with parcels in hand, talking in various languages. He recognized French, and of course English, but a few of the languages were very exotic, as were the wizarding folk speaking them.
The alley was mostly in shade; the height of buildings on each side of the narrow lane blocked the sun. He noticed that it was much cooler there, almost pleasant. Even in his heavier winter clothes he was not terribly uncomfortable. Mira rested her hand on his arm to get his attention.
"Look, I know you'll want to check out the apothecary, to see what kinds of potions ingredients we have here that you can't get back home. I need to stop into the dry-goods store to pick up some things to take back to England. Let's meet at the café down by the fountain in say, an hour?"
Mira kissed him on the cheek and headed down the street towards the large dry-goods store, a wizarding "five and dime" if you will. They sold all the everyday necessities of wizarding life: Quills, parchment, ink, commercially bottled potions and tonics, enchanted items for the home, candy, and gift items among other assorted things.
Snape started walking in the other direction, and stopped at the bookstore. He browsed the potions manuals for quite some time, selecting a book on magical plants of the American South; their properties and uses. He was relieved to see that the wizarding stores in New Orleans accepted the same currency as those in England. He asked the clerk where the apothecary shop was located, she pointed to the end of the street, across from the café. He thanked her and exited the shop. He decided to return to the tailor shop and see if his new suit of clothes was ready.
He entered the robe shop started browsing through the rack of robes, looking for something simple, but was having no luck. Monsieur Aiguille came through the back curtain and recognized him.
"Aah, the professor from England. Just one moment, the tailor elf is just finishing with the buttons."
A door creaked in the little hallway, and a small house elf stepped out from behind the curtain with the new clothes over his arm. He was wearing a fancy fringed damask tablecloth, tied around his chest like a toga with a pair of curtain tassels hanging off of his shoulder. The elf gave an exaggerated bow to the professor and handed the clothes to the old man.
"Thank you Chichiteaux, a lovely job as always."
The elf gave a haughty smirk and turned on his heel and retreated behind the curtain with his nose in the air.
"Well, here you are, all ready. Shall I wrap them or would you wish to wear them out?"
"I'll wear them out if you don't mind."
"No, not at all, you can go behind that screen in the corner to change clothes. I shall be writing up the receipt."
Snape took the clothes to the little dressing area, changed into them and inspected himself in the mirror. His belt and shoes looked fine, and the special hidden pockets were more than satisfactory for his wand and potions case. There would even be room for his old clothes, his book, and his sunglasses if he shrunk them enough. He smoothed the front of the trousers, and unbuttoned the cuffs of the shirt and rolled them up twice, to mid forearm. His hand lingered on the place on his arm where the dark mark once resided. Now, there was just a faint blotchy pale area. Sometimes it tingled lightly, but he no longer lived in fear of it. He adjusted the collar of the shirt, undid a few buttons, decided he looked silly, and re-buttoned all but the top two. He noticed his hair was straying from the elastic band, and he pulled it out. He smoothed his hair down with his fingers, and redid the ponytail, frowning at a few gray hairs, which had recently started to sprout from his temples. He turned this way and that, and decided that he looked pretty good for his age and the level of stress he had lived with for all of his adult life. Not a particularly vain man, not like Malfoy or Lockhart, he was nonetheless fussy with his appearance and always dressed smartly.
Satisfied with his new clothes, he performed a shrinking spell on the old ones, his book, and the sunglasses, and tucked them into one of the hidden pockets of the trousers. He thanked the old man and paid the bill, and set off down the street to the apothecary. He had just enough time to pop in and see what all they had. He selected small amounts of several dried herbs and botanicals he had seen listed in the book he had bought. While the apothecary clerk was weighing and wrapping his order, he wandered to the large front window. Mira was sitting at a table out in front of the café, near the fountain. She was sorting through what looked like a box of quills.
He let his mind wander as he watched her. He remembered the night that Dumbledore brought the pensieve and amulet pouch to his chambers and said it was time to return her memories to her. He had the distinct sensation of butterflies in his stomach the entire time, and his stomach leapt into his chest when the old woman brought her into the parlor. What if the memory transfer failed? What if it was too traumatic and she ran screaming from him? Once the procedure was done and she jumped into his arms, for the first time since childhood, he briefly felt as if everything was right with the world. He remembered when she was packing her bags to leave France; her grandmother took him by the hand and led him into the rose garden. Her words were a little unsettling. No, make that quite unsettling.
Mira's grandmother told him that she had heard of his family, and she knew of his history and how he came to be the potions master at the Hogwarts School. She said that she believed him to be a good man who had made some grave mistakes, but nonetheless she felt confident about sending her granddaughter away with him. Dumbledore had vouched for his integrity and she trusted the old wizard completely. If Albus Dumbledore said that he was a suitable match for Mira, then so shall it be. She kissed him on both cheeks and gave him her blessing. Before they went back into the cottage, the old woman took him by the arm, and with a very serious look on her face, delivered a grave warning. He remembered it well. The round cheeked old witch's demeanor completely changed. Her twinkling eyes narrowed and stared through his soul. She gripped his arm firmly and whispered in his ear.
"I am sure you know that my granddaughter is capable of some advanced spells, even a few nasty curses, do you not? If you ever purposefully and willfully harm or allow to be harmed so much as one hair of her head, I will come after you like Hell itself has been unleashed. She learned those curses somewhere. And it was not from the tutor from Beauxbatons! Do I make my meaning clear?"
He gave an inward shudder. The old woman meant business. He wondered if her cousin's husband, Albert, had also gotten "the speech".
The clerk finished wrapping the potions ingredients and bundled them up in a large paper bundle. Snape paid for the botanicals, shrunk the package to a neat little bundle, and tucked it into his pocket. He left the shop and crossed over to the café. Mira was sitting with her back to him. He slid into the chair across from her.
"Hey, your new clothes were ready! How do you like them? They look great!"
"Yes, they are quite nice, much better than the other ones for a summer afternoon."
Mira reached across the table and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "Have you ever thought of growing a beard? I think you'd be really sexy with one."
He narrowed his eyes and raised a disapproving eyebrow at her.
"Damn! Don't give me the look! It was just a suggestion."
Mira stashed the box of quills in her purse and waved at a waitress.
"Jeez, let's order some lunch, maybe a full stomach will mellow you out a little."