Jinx: (sends bottle of fine wine and sincerest compliments to Mr. Gambon and Mr. Rickman over at the corner table)

rabbit: (sends along a basket of chocolate chip cookies, too)

Jinx: (shakes head in amazement) "So, let me get this straight... there are still some hapless souls who are suffering from the notion that Snape is an Evil Murdering Traitor Because HE KILLED DUMBLEDORE!"

rabbit: "...well, yes. Apparently."

Jinx: "Right, that's what I'm saying... Apparently." (winks) "But you know what they say about phoenixes... "

rabbit: "Fascinating creatures... they can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly faithful pets... and can make a Mercy Dash in the middle of the night unto the middle of London into the mazy corridors of the Ministry of Magic In the Nick of Time to gallantly Eat Flaming Green Death in order to save Dumbledore's hide... "

Jinx: "...but in the next book, somehow, Fawkes can't manage to haul his tinder-kindling tailfeathers out a seventh-floor window and just up a little ways to the top of the Astronomy Tower, to enact an identical rescue when the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher demonstrates the expected, job-related aberrant behavior? Riiiiiight... "

rabbit: "...and Dumbledore's last words are, 'Severus… Severus, please...' Not 'Stop,' not 'Wait,' not 'Don't... ' "

Jinx: (merrily) "Dumbledore's familiar is a what-? And the bird's name is pronounced how-?"

Happy Holidaze

from us two foxes to Albus and Severus (who have a lot of Work to do)

and of course to all of you!

rabbit and Jinx

guzzling eggnog and scarfing chocolate chip cookies

It's No Picnic

Chapter 2

On Saturday morning, the upper floors of the Slytherin Dormitory were very quiet.

This was fortunate for Severus Snape, who wasSimply Exhaustedfrom a First Week spent striving with every fiber of his being to excel in his upcoming O.W.L.S. whilst attending assiduously to his new Prefect's duties and anxiously trying to alleviate Narcissa's persistent distress. He had worked himself into such a state that he had grudgingly allowed himself the luxury of sleeping four whole hours and so didn't stir (or mince, or strain) 'til seven.

He felt a little better when he woke– less abstractly doomed– and prised his face out of the text he'd been studying, and yawned, and stretched to shake off the rest of the books with which he'd spent Friday night–

–and froze.

A blond boy in a black bathrobe graced with a Prefect's badge was settled comfortably atop the rumpled quilts, leafing through a battered copy of Advanced Potion-Making.

Lucius Malfoy glanced up from his reading and fixed a jackal's gaze on Snape.

Who thought muzzily, My situation has not improved.

"Good morning," Lucius said lightly. "Sleep well?"

Why me! thought Sev, as he nodded dazedly.

Lucius smiled. "Good."

Sev thought in an outright panic: Oh, NO.

"Why don't you make coffee," Lucius commanded, "and we'll have a little chat."

In a haze of terror, Sev fumbled at the wall of books behind his pillow, until he managed to haul open a hidden compartment mostly filled by a bijou cauldron which he hastily set a-brewing. Forcing himself to keep his back turned nonchalantly upon Lucius, he struggled to Stay Focused on his surroundings and could find no comfort in the sublime scent of Jamaican Blue coffee, although he supposed it was a Good Start to a Last Meal.

Behind him, Lucius languidly flipped pages. Now and again, Malfoy let out an interested murmur.

A kind of bright, white light filled Snape's skull and coalesced into a sort of jellyfish-thing, which drifted down into his belly, where it felt just... Icky. There was no other word for it. It put Snape in mind of a bright, July day, shadowless and stark, in which there was no place to hide–

Sev froze like a squirrel on tarmac as he realized: He knows. His heart tripped over itself most unpleasantly. Lucius knows all about me and Narcissa.

Strictly speaking, this would have constituted a miracle, because Snape didn't understand it At All... and yet here he was, About to Disappear from the Face of the Earth, just because a pretty blonde Witch had looked at him with tears shining in her bright blue eyes, pleading–

"Sev," warned Lucius, "the coffee's boiling."

Snape jumped, and hastily took up a silver spoon bearing the Malfoy family crest, which he used to half-fill one mug with refined cocoa powder; he added to this three drops of the Good French vanilla extract and a generous splash of coffee, before filling the cup nearly to the brim with creme de menthe. He stirred this mixture carefully and then popped open another panel in the wall of tomes, from which he retrieved a heaping handful of miniature marshmallows from a ten-pound sack which was nearly empty.

If he lived to see Tomorrow, he'd have to send for a fifty-pound sack; thus far, he hadn't found anything else the Blazing Budgerigar would eat (and, to his horror, he had discovered that it would drink nothing but the Best vodka). At least the gooey treats shut the shimmering songbird up for entire minutes at a time, and now Sev hoped irrationally as he passed Lucius his snowcapped beverage that the marshmallows might have a similarly quieting effect upon Malfoy.

Lucius took the cup and inspected its curved flank, to which he awarded a curiously raised eyebrow.

Sev realized far too late that he had given Lucius his own Doomed Bunny mug. "Siouxsie gave that to me," he explained hastily, with the dismissive fondness of a very young man who'd recently acquired An Admirer and couldn't do a thing with her.

"Ah," coughed Lucius, exactly like a cougar about to break cover and end a rabbit's worries.

Sev tried not to shiver, and made a really great show of calmly filling his old, worn mug with molasses and coffee. As the cup warmed the cracks began to show glowing crimson words in Gothic script: I am the Dark Lord, tremble now as your heartbeat quickens at my touch.

Snape gulped down half his drink at once, nervously watching Lucius, who was sipping thoughtfully at his own elaborate libation.

Sev endured another relapse into desperate envy of people whose gleaming, cornsilken hair did not get stuck to their mugs.

Lucius intercepted Snape's jealous gaze, and considered him with unblinking scrutiny for some while before drawling, "You have to help me with Narcissa."

For one brief, shining, intensely hormonal moment, Sev thought he might be suggesting a Threesome.

Snape's heart stopped long enough to put on its best suit and neaten up a bit.

Lucius sighed wearily, "Really, she's just Impossible lately."

Are you dumping her? thought Sev, with a kind of horror finding himself ready to catch the rebound.

"All she does is sulk and pout," sulked Lucius, pouting. "She's been going on and on all week long about how I never Listen to her, and I just don't Understand her... really, she's said the same thing a hundred times and I have got the gist of it," he complained. He took a long sip of his drink and then declared dismissively, "This simply can't continue."

Snape asked practically, "Then why don't you just listen to her?"

"Because she's Hysterical. And she's getting inconveniently inventive in her attempts to ensure my attention. Bellatrix taught her that curse of Inseam Reduction over the summer." Lucius scowled.

Sev grimaced sympathetically. Lucius had spent the first half of their last Charms class fidgeting frantically and the second half embroiling his roommates in a clandestine consultation about how to break the curse without aiming a wand at the Afflicted Area.

"So... I need you to brew up something which will calm her down, for everyone's benefit." Malfoy's gleaming, grey eyes narrowed as he studied the walls of books concealing Snape's impressive stash of ingredients. "Prove it was worth my time and effort spent convincing Father to fund your unrestricted account at Borgia's Brews and Blends." Handing back the Doomed Bunny mug to its trembling owner, he snapped, "Be quick about it."

Without another word he left.

Silence filled the narrow bedchamber, like High Tide replenishing a pool hidden amongst sunbaked rocks. Snape felt the Icky Jellyfish Thing hidden in his belly start unspooling stinging tentacles to fill his gut.

He drank the rest of his coffee, hoping to drown it and having no luck at all.

Filling his Second Cup of the Day with a little more coffee and a tranquilizing dollop of rum, he watched apprehensively as his mug blazed with the words: I am the Dark Lord and you are in big trouble.

Snape shuddered, and downed half the brew in one swig, wondering haplessly, Why does every year I spend at this school get worse?