"Not planning on coming upstairs today, are you?"
He was impressed. He had been on site for two hours and Minerva had only just now come to find him.
"As you can see," he said coolly, gesturing to the boxes all around him "I'm organizing my storage cupboards."
"By hand," she raised one eyebrow in good imitation of him. "I'm sure you would be done in a trice if you used magic. Or perhaps you would prefer me to-"
"Some of these ingredients are quite sensitive to magic, Minerva. I am surprised to find you so ignorant."
Both her eyebrows raised now.
"Powdered dragon scales and bicorn horn are quite delicate and easily spoiled if exposed to magic outside the brewing process. Setting everything by hand is necessary to maintain the integrity of the school's ingredients."
"Indeed, thank you for educating me, Severus." She spoke tartly but he did not like the too knowing look in her eye. "Take your time of course. But I will need you at the first faculty meeting tonight at 7:00."
"I can hardly wait."
The first faculty meeting of each fall term was something of a little party. With no students for another few days, the faculty gathered in the staff room and ate an informal dinner and talked through any start of term notices. Severus climbed the stairs at 7:05 with grim resolution in his heart. If he were late, he would not have to make small talk and then the worst would be over. He heard their voices as he approached the staff room door. Filius's cheerful squeak, Pomona's laughter. He hadn't seen most of these people in years and he felt He had made their lives miserable for a whole year; he had allowed Death Eaters to lord over them. He had ushered Voldemort into the castle on more than one occasion. His mental shields flew higher, and before he knew it, he was filling the doorway. They all turned.
"Severus!" Poppy spoke first and rushed forward to grasp his hand. Filius, Pomona, Septima, and the enormous Hagrid-they crowded his vision, all smiling, perhaps a little nervously, but speaking words of welcome. He knew he was stiff, but he couldn't seem to relax his shoulders.
"Nice of you to join us, Professor." The Headmistress did not sound too scolding. "Now that we're all assembled, why don't we sit down and eat. Severus, come here. I don't think you know John Dawlish." He nodded curtly to the weathered, wiry-haired man standing near Minerva. He knew Dawlish of course, as he was sure Minerva was well aware, from his past run-ins with the Auror office. But neither man made mention of that now. Dawlish merely returned his stiff nod.
"And of course," continued Minerva as though there was no awkwardness to speak of "you haven't yet met Magnolia Collymore, our new muggle studies teacher."
He turned to where she pointed and was shocked into silence. Her eyes were huge and her lips slightly parted as she looked at him. It was her. How could it be her? He heard Minerva's voice continue. "Magnolia, this is Severus Snape, our prodigal potions professor."
"Professor Snape." She reached out slowly for his hand, which he gave her reflexively and they shook. He felt a warmth assault his mental stability and he repressed it with difficulty.
This time Minerva really did seem to notice nothing amiss, but then why would she? Who in their right mind would imagine that the last time Severus Snape had seen this woman, she had kissed him gently and walked away?
They let themselves be parted as everyone took their seats and a number of dishes came rolling through the door held high by some of the school elves. Minerva seemed eager to make him feel welcome and ushered him into the seat beside her. He filled his plate mechanically, not looking at The Woman, fixing his face into a safe arrangement as confusion yielded to terrible understanding and warmth rose to hot anger in his chest. Of course she was a witch! What a fool he had been! How could he have imagined that it had all just happened? That it had been a series of wonderful accidents! Such things didn't happen to men like him.
"Curry, Severus?"
His thoughts were briefly interrupted when Minerva pushed a dish toward him, clearly pleased with herself. He managed a sardonic quirk of his brow and scooped out a helping for himself and managed to lean into his other side and accept Filius's polite inquiries into his new potions laboratory, his plans for the first term, and if he had been doing any interesting research.
"I've been doing a lot of reading, but not much formal research." He tried to engage himself, really. He had always liked Filius well enough, even when he was a boy. And he, like most other members of staff, seemed eager to put him at ease. The little wizard launched into a spirited description of his summer experiments, and Severus let his mind settle again on his anger and discomfort. Had the famous spy been spied on himself? Was she some confederate of Minerva's? Or had she cornered him for some purpose of her own? Had she been hired by the Prophet? Every conceivable explanation horrified him. He thought of the alias he had given her, of the way he had shown off in the perfumery, and only decades of training in the art of concealment prevented him from burning red with shame. He risked a look to the other end of the table. She was deep in conversation with Hagrid, who was laughing heartily. She looked so radically different in witch's robes of indigo with a moonstone pin in her chignon. But the smile was the same, the easy leaning in of her body toward her companion. Then even as he looked, he saw her eyes flicker in his direction and he turned away again at once.
Several minutes later, Minerva tapped the side of her glass for attention and called the meeting to order, as it were. First there were the standard announcements. Argus had added to his list of banned items. Irma would like to impose library fines. He began to feel suffocated again.
"I know we have all met, but I would like to formally introduce, or reintroduce, our new members of staff." Minerva gestured warmly down the table to The Woman, and said "we are very pleased to have secured Professor Collymore. She has spent several years in Paris working in the bureau de protections non magique of the wizarding government there. Perhaps I should not add that our own Ministry was keen to get her for their new muggle relations branch, but, as we're all delighted to see, she has found her way here instead where she'll be revitalizing muggle studies, a class which, I'm sorry to say, has been suspended since-since the end of the war."
There was a shifty moment, but Minerva plowed on, a consummate Gryffindor.
"I hope you'll come to me or to my Deputy, Filius, with any questions or concerns you have. We're delighted you're here, Magnolia!" She clapped and the rest of the staff followed suit.
"Maggie, please," said The Woman as she accepted their applause with good composure. "Everyone calls me Maggie."
He seethed.
"And of course," Minerva turned to him, beaming. "Severus has returned to Hogwarts. I know we're all pleased to see him. And I feel quite personally grateful that he's consented to be our potions master and head of Slytherin house again."
Severus thought that Dawlish didn't look especially pleased and only the self-satisfaction of being disliked by a known idiot could have penetrated his current state of mind. He felt a smirk tug his mouth as Minerva continued.
"I know he doesn't want me to go on about him, so I'll just say that you'll be able to find him in Horace's old office should you need him."
He looked at her in surprise as everyone clapped. Damn. He wondered when his personal house elf would arrive.
The rest of the evening was spent in discussion of the new prefects, the quidditch sides for the coming year, and syllabi. There was much laughing and drinking, Hagrid leading the charge as usual. It would have been blissfully unremarkable had it not been for her and for the mortification that swept over him in waves. It was a blessing they were too far from one another to be expected to speak. In any case, he did not look her way again.
When the party did break up and his colleagues began to call jovial goodnights to one another as they separated in the corridor, he didn't hesitate but stalked away immediately, never looking back. He was halfway to the dungeons when he remembered he was no longer in residence there. He skimmed back over the ground floor quickly and headed up to the sixth floor corridor where Slughorn's office, his now, waited for him.
The fire was already burning in the magnificent fireplace when he stepped inside. Slughorn had not taken the velvet couch, a luxurious dark green, or the highly polished mahogany desk. A richly colored tapestry of Oberon, enthroned in the woods, hung on the near wall and at the far end of the over-large room was an enormous window, looking out over the moonlit lake. To the left of this window was the door leading into his bedchamber. The bed, dressed in that same rich green, was larger than the one he'd had before, and the bookshelves were spacious and empty of all Slughorn's possessions. There was a wardrobe in the corner that matched the desk and another door leading off to a beautifully tiled bathroom with a clawfoot tub. No wonder Horace had guarded these rooms so jealously. Severus wasn't sure if they had always been so luxurious or if Horace had left his impression on them. Either way, they were brighter than both his dungeon residence and Spinner's End, with higher ceilings and something more of airiness about them. He'd certainly never had such a view, living, as he had done, underground.
He removed the little matchbox from the pocket of his robes and transfigured his trunk. His possessions seemed meager in the grand space. He shelved what books he had brought and hung up his clothes. When he came to the wrapped jacket, pressed into a corner behind his cauldron, he ripped it from the trunk and threw it furiously into the bottom of the wardrobe. Then he slammed shut the door, stood frozen for one moment, barely a breath, and resumed unpacking, his movements perfectly measured.
In bed an hour later, he stared up at the ceiling and willed sleep to come. Thoughts assaulted him in the quiet: thoughts of the garment conveyor rolling by, his descriptions of Ishiguro, her hand on his arm as she lifted herself up to kiss his face. How readily he had exposed himself! It would be the last time, he resolved, that anyone made a fool of him. He recited in his mind every ingredient and step in the making of Veritaserum until sleep finally took him.