Ashe thought she might murder somebody. She just wasn't certain who it would be yet.

Unfortunately, she couldn't claim this was an unfamiliar feeling — it had been something of an honour to be invited to teach at Hogwarts, by the Chief Warlock himself no less, but she'd often had occasion to wonder if agreeing hadn't been, quite possibly, the single greatest mistake of her entire life. She hadn't been struck with disaster, or anything of the like...though she did have far less attention to pay to her own work than she might like, that was a sacrifice she was willing to make (most of the time). Besides, she'd already made her point, there was time enough to explore what she wanted to.

Even if her duties at the school took up far more time than she might like, for pursuits that were less than fully engaging. As much as she did enjoy the Graphic Arts, there was something about teaching the exact same thing over and over and over, year after year, that just got...tedious. There were reasons she tended to sit next to Severus at staff meetings — she didn't have his viciousness, but sometimes she felt they were actually of similar mind when it came to certain things. (Besides, he was funny.) The NEWT students, at least, they were usually entertaining...if sometimes concerning.

Ashe was quite glad none of her more...curious students had managed to blow up Ravenclaw Tower (permanently). She was an awful duelist, Filius would probably kill her.

And, well, it hadn't quite occurred to her at the time that the prestige of holding a teaching post at Hogwarts was partially a political one — the greater part of their compensation came in the form of access to certain powerful individuals, the ability to exercise some minor influence in their country, their actual salary practically an afterthought. Ashe was, to put it mildly, completely unprepared to take advantage of that sort of thing, and simply unsuited to rubbing shoulders with the kind of people in her new social circle. The other professors, fine (most of them), she could handle that — though, it was surreal sometimes that her quirky, ineffectual, pretty much useless boss was the Chief Warlock. (She'd suggested repeatedly they hire on more staff and maybe some counselours, she was not qualified to deal with the issues the students sometimes brought her, it was the twentieth century, Albus, fucking hell.) When the wealthy and the well-connected and the bloody nobility kept writing her and asking for meetings and schmoozing in an effort to get better marks for their children or favours or simply to be seen with her or what else she couldn't even guess, Ashe had no idea how to handle that.

She'd literally had to turn down marriage offers. It was insane.

She'd been about as far as it came from Hogwarts and bloody nobility, okay. She'd been born to the Mistwalker Clans. Her education had come from home schooling, Beauxbatons and an Ollscoil, bloody muggle secondary and university. Before being hired here, Hogwarts and the upper echelons of British magical society had been names to her, they might as well be in a foreign country. No, worse than a foreign country, really — adapting to Aquitania and France hadn't been nearly as bad, magical or muggle. A gulf in class, it seemed, was more difficult to overcome than one of nation.

Since she'd taken this post, she couldn't count the times she'd fantasised about killing people. That Rowle arse on the Board, the one who'd protested over a savage being added to the staff — not a fan of misters, that one. Several bureaucrats from the WEA, when she tore apart the more idiotic of the questions that somehow made it into OWL and NEWT exams over the years — apparently, having a mastery in the subject did not qualify her to judge whether exam questions were unnecessarily confusing or just blithering idiocy. Irritating students by the dozens, the occasional interfering parent — no, she wouldn't accept gold for better marks, no, she wouldn't accept lavish gifts to consider your child for an apprenticeship, no, she was not going to marry your nephew, no matter what kind of offer you make, fucking hell, get out of my office...

She would never actually kill anyone, of course. (At least, not without Severus on hand to help hide the body.) But she couldn't deny she'd fantasised about it more times than she could count. And this time, this time she thought somebody might actually end up dead.

It had started out innocuously enough, months ago — with something so small, she probably could have nipped it in the bud then, might have headed it off had she any idea what would come to be. Way back in April, Lyra Black had skipped on into her office, and asked if she could start right in on sixth-year Runes come September. Ashe had tried to brush her off, but the girl had just grinned at her, started babbling off about some enchanting project she'd been working on, Ashe had only been half-listening.

Because, well, there wasn't any other answer she could reasonably give. One of those arguments she had with Dumbledore and the Department of Education with some regularity involved allowing certain students who'd been given a head start by their families to test out of earlier years — the crux of the argument being that Ashe thought it was perfectly reasonable, but she was forbidden from doing so. Hell, if she'd been stuck in the third-year class for a whole ten months she might have gone completely fucking insane. She'd started to learn basic enchanting when she'd been five, by the time she'd been thirteen she would have been the equivalent of an advanced NEWT student. (She had gotten her Proficiency at fifteen, in fact, entirely on home schooling and self-study.) No case she'd run into here was quite that extreme — the misters did a lot with graphic magic, and the omniglot thing was kind of cheating — but there were other families who considered the absolute basics part of an elementary education, something that was handled before their children were ready for Hogwarts. For some students, she thought skipping a year or two here or there would make things a whole lot easier for everyone involved. But no.

Honestly, Ashe was still trying to convince the Board to even consider making the Graphic Arts — she detested the name Ancient Runes — a core class alongside Charms and Transfiguration and Potions, like it was in other magical schools. No luck on that so far. Bloody self-righteous idiots.

So, even if she'd wanted to accommodate Black, she simply wasn't permitted to. But the hyper little girl wouldn't get out of her office. Just to get her to leave, Ashe had agreed that, yes, if Black got top marks on the OWL exam as a third-year, she could hardly refuse to let her into the NEWT class. And, honestly, Ashe had thought that would be the end of it.

But then the girl had shown up with the fifth-years to take the Runes (and Arithmancy) OWL. And had, Ashe had been told, passed with flying colours — the WEA people who'd gone over it had apparently said it looked less like an OWL exam and more like a mastery student reviewing elementary theory.

In fact, it'd been so advanced the WEA had accused her of cheating. Black had been called into the Department in the Ministry, where she'd sat another exam — a random exam from a random year, pulled out of Records at random. Black had filled it out, surrounded on all sides by enchantments and officials watching her like a hawk. And her work had turned out just as absurdly advanced as the last time.

And, well...Ashe had said she would let her into the NEWT class if she did well on the OWL, hadn't she? And the girl had — twice. She couldn't not keep her word. She really couldn't — the stories that the misters carried fae blood were just stories, so she wasn't actually bound to her word, but she'd been taught to act as though she were since she'd been a small child, so it made little difference. It had taken some arguing to get Minerva to agree to slot the kid in with the sixth years — then another more irritating argument with Albus, an oddly confusing one, she didn't know what his deal with Black was — but finally everything had been squared away. Eventually. After much yelling and wheedling.

She'd immediately stalked over to Septima's rooms to get pissed and vent about how terrible their bosses were. Which was quickly becoming a familiar habit, unfortunately.

And now, months later, it was the first week of classes again. Ashe was sitting at her desk, strewn with open books and scattered papers and parchments, her hair turned into a poofy mess of scattered brown and yellow from running her fingers through it far too many times. It was long after dark — it'd been two in the morning last she'd checked, but that'd been a while ago — and Ashe didn't know what to do.

She might just kill someone. Albus, Black, Severus, herself — she didn't know who yet, but somebody deserved to suffer for this insanity.

The only reason Lily Evans wasn't on the list was because the mad (brilliant) girl was already dead.

Forcing out a long sigh, Ashe pushed herself back in her chair. And winced, hand coming up to rub at her neck — she'd been leaning over her work too long, bloody hurting herself again. She tapped at her desk, activating an enchantment carved into the surface, soft blue spellglow formed into the face of a clock appearing before her. Five forty-seven, fuck. Well, she'd need an I-feel-like-I'm-dying-but-I-need-to-teach-anyway-fuck-me potion from Severus anyway, and he'll probably be awake already, poor insomniac bastard. "Tænsij."

The familiar elf popped into existence next to her chair immediately. "You stayed up working again, Professor, you shouldn't do that on weeknights," she chirped in Elvish, high and soft and quick, the voice of an elf girl barely out of adolescence.

Ashe tried not to wince — not at her tone of (soft) chastisement, just... Most of the rest of Europe might have forgotten what the elves are supposed to be, okay, but the misters had kept old stories alive. Looking on a domesticated elf always made her distinctly uncomfortable. "I need to see Severus," she said, matching the girl's use of Elvish. "Could you warn him I'm coming down?"

Tansy's face twisted with a displeased pout — probably irritated with ridiculous distractible academics neglecting their health, she knew Severus and Septima also got the occasional lecture from concerned and frustrated elves — but she popped off without a word.

It took a moment for Ashe to decide which papers were most important to the issue at hand, finally collected a short stack, rolled them together into a loose tube. A quick downward glance confirmed she was...mostly presentable. Though, many other mages wouldn't think so — in the first week of classes, when she'd be making first impressions on new third-years, she always made a point to wear jeans, tie-dye tee shirts, and trainers, because the shocked horror on the faces of the little noble kids was hilarious. (She did it visiting her family too, because their disapproval was also amusing, but theirs mostly because she wasn't a teenager anymore and the Seventies were over.) She was still dressed, at least, good enough.

The trek down to Severus's rooms in the dungeons took way too long. Ashe really had to wonder why the castle was so— Well, no, the student population had once been much larger than it was now — the magical population had been larger overall, in fact — the castle was so huge because it had needed to be. It was still bloody annoying getting anywhere, even exploiting hidden passages for shortcuts it was a five minute walk.

Severus answered the door on the first knock, face long and eyes heavy with exhaustion. Though Ashe was by now familiar with how he looked after a long night alone failing to sleep, she expected he'd hardly be recogniseable to the students — the usual heavy robes were absent, instead wearing loose silk lounge trousers, a cotton shirt that, to Ashe's eye, was obviously muggle-made (though other purebloods might not know enough to recognise machine stitching), his hair tied back, which would normally be expected of men who wore their hair as long as his, but Severus never did. Presumably, because he didn't like how it looked, his face did look very different without his hair framing it, more skeletal and his nose was more prominent, though less deathly pale without the contrast. Voice thick with a tired sigh, "Ashe. You do realise what time it is."

"Are you going to tell me you weren't awake?"

"I wasn't, in fact," he muttered. "I was passed out on the chair when that bloody elf popped in and woke me up."

"Oh." Whoops, her bad. Severus had the oddest sleep schedule, but he was usually up by five. Miserable and hating the world, but awake at least. "Well, you're up now, so you might as well let me in. We need to talk about Harry Potter."

Severus's eyes narrowed, glaring at her with a combination of frustration and badly-concealed concern. (His preoccupation with the Potter boy was bloody obvious to her, she didn't know how other people missed it. Maybe just more omniglot cheating, who knows.) He groaned, rubbing at his eyes. "Fine, fine, come in."

He led her inside — Severus's sitting room was dark and plain, the man had very subdued, modest taste — practically shoving her into a seat on a sofa while he busied about a drawer. Poking through potions bottles, judging by the clinking. Ashe unrolled her papers across the low table, chicken-scratch runes and arithmancy covering the surface. She noticed an alchemy journal folded over near an armchair, marked up with yellow highlighter and red pen — he'd passed out going over the work of a colleague, presumably.

When Severus returned, he near chucked a little glass bottle at her, she barely managed to catch it before it smacked her in the face. "You look like shite, Ashe," he muttered before throwing back a potion himself.

Recognising the odd, syrupy, blue-green liquid inside the bottle as his invaluable I-feel-like-I'm-dying-but-I-need-to-teach-anyway-fuck-me concoction, Ashe let out an amused sniff. She didn't actually drink it, though, set it aside to take with breakfast — Severus might be able to down potions this strong on an empty stomach, but they always made her violently ill. "Get fucked up the arse, Severus," she said — in French, but he did speak French. (Well, understood it at least, his accent was atrocious.)

A dramatic roll of his eyes with the only reaction to the cursing. He sank into a nearby armchair, likely the same one he'd been sleeping in not long ago, judging by the placement of the marked-up journal and the empty glass on a side table. "I see you've been busy tonight," he muttered, eyeing the dense runework now spread across his table. "I hope it was something important, to justify waking me up before the crack of dawn."

"Those trackers you had me looking at back in June, they were tied to Potter."

One of Severus's eyebrows ticked up. The potion must be starting to kick in already, there was an intensity to his black eyes that had been absent a moment ago. "Yes. Forgive me for not explaining the particulars of the situation at the time. There were...sensitive matters involved, I hope you understand."

"Oh, I was aware, it was obvious in context." Honestly, Potter mysteriously goes missing and Severus, with his obvious preoccupation with the child, shows up with equations describing disparate trackers tied to both blood and soul, explaining that all three were tracking one person — which was still absurd overkill, she didn't care who they were talking about — setting her the problem of determining whether it was possible to prevent detection by all three simultaneously? Of course she'd known what it was about, it'd been bloody obvious. She'd gotten an answer for Severus as quickly as she had because she'd known exactly why he'd wanted it. "Really now, Severus, you can quit the evil sneaky Death Eater act with me. I've had you figured out since October my first year teaching here. You're not nearly as good an actor as you think you are."

Severus eyes narrowed with irritation. "I'm precisely as good an actor as I think I am. Omniglots are just bloody cheaters."

"Yes, well, that too. My point is, next time you want my help with something, you needn't lie about why." Ignoring the silly man's put-upon huff, Ashe turned back down to her papers, eyes running through the logic behind the questions she wanted to ask. "The trackers. The equations you gave me were the raw enchantment, not constructed from the output of analysis charms. Yes?"

Severus nodded. "I was under the impression that it made no difference for the problem at hand, and the scripts Albus used to enchant the things in the first place were readily available."

It did make a difference, actually, though in a normal situation it mightn't have been a relevant one — given other factors she was now aware of, she knew her solution wouldn't have worked. "You know, I had my first class with Lyra Black earlier today. Er, yesterday, I mean."

"And so you come to join us in our suffering."

Ashe shrugged — Black was a perfectly fine student, she thought. She'd only had her for the one session so far, yes, and while she might have been somewhat disruptive, interjecting with comments and questions more than she'd usually expect (especially for the first day back), they'd been insightful, useful comments and questions, so she hadn't minded. As far as she was concerned, disruptions that furthered other students' learning weren't truly disruptions at all. "At the end of class, she handed over a roll of parchment, smirkingly suggesting I might find the end result of a certain project of hers very interesting. The alterations she made to a ward scheme to block those same trackers, it seems — did Black herself truly formulate them?"

An odd curl had set into Severus's lips, something that couldn't seem to decide whether it were disgusted, impressed, or resigned. "So it would seem. I did tell you the girl was talented, if you recall."

She did. In fact, he'd said Black's raw work very much reminded him of hers, in how inscrutably scattered it appeared from the outside, which she had thought was a very peculiar thing to say — the aesthetics of genius were very similar across fields and among both mages and muggles, she'd found. "Yes, well, I went over her proof, and... She started from analysis charms, I'm certain — there were elements in her description of them that weren't reflected in the original enchantment."

"I'm given to understand minor errors in design are not particularly unusual."

"This wasn't that. These trackers were tied to Potter's blood and soul. The unexpected elements seem to have been due to other magics also bound to the same."

"I'm sure you will approach something resembling a point eventually."

Ashe let out a long sigh, eyes tipping to the ceiling for a moment. She pushed one sheet of paper closer to Severus. "I reverse-engineered the origin of these foreign elements as well as I could."

"You realise I can't possibly interpret this gibberish."

"I'm not surprised," Ashe said, watching him closely, "because I imagine very few people are likely to recognise sacrificial soul magic twisted into a blood ward."

It was hard to tell with Severus sometimes, he had very good control of himself. But she didn't miss the faint twitch, his lips quirking slightly before he again forced his face into impassiveness. "Elaborate."

"I can't tell you much in the way of specifics — ritual and blood magics are hardly my area of expertise. But, however unintentional I believe it was, these trackers were tied into the remnants, a faint echo presenting itself in Black's analysis charms." Ashe pointed at a particular cluster of equations. "These terms appear to describe a familial blood ward. It's difficult to tell from this angle, but it seems to be an offensive ward, and a quite powerful one. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it kills anyone who triggers it."

Severus eyes had gone out of focus, thinking of something else. Whatever it was, he almost looked amused. "I believe it would, yes."

"Right." Ashe's finger moved to float over another system of terms; she noticed the shake in her own hand, the weak quiver on her voice. "The terms of its activation, however, are not determined by the blood ward itself. Instead, it appears to be built upon the echoes of a ritual. Sacrificial soul magic, it looks like."

This time, Severus just seemed impressed — his head had tilted somewhat, eyes slightly widened, gone almost intensely still for a few seconds. "You can determine that from Black's analysis charms."

Ashe shrugged. "It wasn't easy. I had to subtract the raw enchantment from her analysis, and reduce the terms to something recogniseable. I ended up with a lot of junk, there were unrelated elements I had to sift through to find anything relevant. By the way, is Potter a legilimens?"

His eyes widened slightly. "He is. I must say, Ashe, I'm impressed. I didn't think it was even possible to pull all that from only the elements attached to those trackers Albus had bound to the boy."

"The blood ward and the ritual, Severus."

"It's no longer of any concern."

"Tell me."

Severus sighed. "I have been told little, you understand, though I have reconstructed events as best I could. The Dark Lord's defeat on Samhain of Eighty-One appears to have been the result of a ritual of Lily's — invoking Adrestia, perhaps, sacrificing herself to protect her son and destroy the man who threatened him. In the aftermath, Albus cast a blood ward using the remains of the ritual as a foundation, tying it to Potter's maternal line. It has come to light recently that using Lily's ritual to define the terms of the ward resulted in serious, easily-exploitable flaws; presumably due to Black's advice, Potter has since broken the ward. It is no longer of any concern."

Ashe let out a short, harsh sigh, cursing under her breath — it didn't come out in English, but she wasn't paying enough attention to what she was saying to be certain what language it was. Rubbing at her face, she muttered, "I was afraid of that."

"I'm certain you'll get to the point of all this eventually."

"I thought you'd be furious with him."

Severus blinked, slow and blank, the only indication he was confused by the apparent change of subject. "With who for what?"

"With Albus, for that travesty with the blood ward."

That didn't seem to make the issue any clearer to him, giving her a long, flat look. "I will admit, I was surprised with his incompetence in the matter, but so far as I can determine it was an honest mistake. I cannot profess to understand the peculiarities of binding such magics in blood any better than our esteemed Headmaster — the bulk of my knowledge of blood magic involves solely internal effects, this is as far outside my area of expertise as his."

"You're looking at the wrong thing, Severus." Ashe let out another long sigh — she really didn't want to have to explain this to him. She was angry enough already, and she hardly needed to give Severus more reasons to despise their Headmaster. "Lady Potter did something that night. I don't know what it was, but it was certainly some sort of ritual sacrificing herself to protect her son."

"Yes...?"

"And Albus twisted the result, co-opting it to serve as a foundation for his blood ward. An ineffectual one, apparently, that makes it even worse."

"And...?"

Ashe sighed. "Don't take this the wrong way, Severus, but sometimes I forget you were raised among muggles. Whatever magics still clung to the boy, Lady Potter traded her soul for them. And Albus in his ignorant bumbling ruined it."

"There was no longer anything to ruin," Severus said, with an easy shrug that proved he had absolutely no understanding of the severity of what she was trying to say. "Whatever protection Lily had given the boy, it had been exhausted in destroying the Dark Lord. The terms of her ritual exchange were over. Albus taking advantage of its lingering echo was extending it, in a way, not ruining it — he didn't do it very well, true, but I'll admit his intentions were benevolent."

"No, Severus, it didn't—" Ashe cut off with a groan, running both hands through her hair. (Didn't matter, the mess wasn't going to get any worse.) "Severus, that is not how high magic works. Either it exists, or it does not. Any echoes Albus detected around the boy would have been whatever protection Lily had assured for him, still in effect. That the terms of the blood ward could have been adapted from the ritual proves it hadn't ended! In twisting what remained into a base for his blood ward, Albus was destroying what Lily had sacrificed her soul to obtain!

"That is simply not done, Severus. You don't... You don't fuck with other people's sacrificial rituals. You just don't! It's... It's sacrilege, Severus. Under the old law, when things like this were still considered, what Albus did laying that blood ward was considered akin to murder, betrayal of the worst kind. It is not to be done."

Severus didn't quite seem to know what to do with that. He just stared at her, for a moment, gaunt face perfectly blank, fingers tapping at the arm of his chair. Finally, after what felt like minutes, he said, "That interpretation of events hadn't occurred to me. I take it you're offended on Lily's behalf."

"I don't know exactly." The situation was so confused and terrible, Ashe wasn't certain what the hell was going on in her head. She was angry at Albus, certainly — that the blood ward he'd invalidated Lily's sacrifice for had apparently been ineffective only made it worse — but she was angry at Evans and Black and Severus too, and she couldn't even explain to herself why. This whole thing was just entirely fucked up. "I can tell you one thing, I wish I never met that cursed Black girl." if she hadn't been handed her damn proof, she wouldn't have any reason for this...whatever this was, confused and furious and depressed...

Also, she had class in a few hours, and she hadn't slept. She hated everything.

Severus almost smiled. "That I can agree with. But so long as we are stuck with her, we may as well take from it what we can."

If that wasn't an obvious attempt to change the subject. Ashe considered refusing to play along, try to drill into Severus's head just how awful this was — he still didn't seem to be taking it seriously, which was baffling, she'd thought he cared about Lily quite a bit — but she didn't want to think about it herself, and she'd never even met the girl. She really couldn't blame him. Besides, it was probably a good idea to let herself be distracted before she really did end up cursing someone. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"What did you think of her work?"

She frowned. "It was quite good. Better than mine, in fact, but I didn't have analysis charms to work off of. She would have had to compensate for the strain on the wards, but it shouldn't have been too difficult to down-tap it out — or just sink it into the reservoir, if the wards are powerful enough that might work." There were advantages to having that much power available, after all.

"I did say the girl is talented. She crafted the alteration to the stadium wards that trapped the rioters at the Cup, you know."

"Yeah, I heard that rumour, but I doubt it. If she were working with a team, maybe, but no one could have channelled the power necessary to integrate those transportation wards without immolating themselves."

"Unless the cursebreaker in question used runic casting to exploit ambient magic into carrying the burden for her."

Ashe opened her mouth to object, then frowned, reflexively running the numbers in her head. "That's...possible. Maybe. Would have still been dangerous as hell, but it's possible."

His lips twisting with a smirk, Severus said, "Lyra Black has little appreciation for what we mere mortals consider impossible. She invented a mobile gate last year."

"Okay, now I know you're fucking with me. That's simply not possible, the magics have to be anchored into the local ambient magic."

"Unless the enchanter draws energy to create a local reservoir."

"Well, I guess. But the materials you would need to use to handle that kind of power, it would hardly be portable. Unless you want to lug around several hundred pounds of stone or wood."

Now he definitely looked amused. "She carries them around in her pockets, actually. They appear to be large sheets of silk, she simply folds them up and puts them away."

"Okay, that's just completely impossible — forget the problem of silk's low channelling threshold, gates can only be made of solid materials. They require a fixed aperture, or the gate will collapse in on itself."

"Perhaps. Though, if one were to use alchemy to fix silk as though it were stone—"

"Son of a bitch." Of course, the silk would still be physically flexible, but if Black could somehow convince the magic it were not... And, if they were bringing alchemy into the equation, silk's channelling threshold could easily be augmented by... It was a practically onerous problem, but theoretically... "Son of a bitch. Have you seen this yourself?"

Severus shrugged. "Indirectly. Black allows her friends to use them, and even keep them temporarily, and I've analysed Zabini's memories."

Right, that would make sense. Everyone on staff knew the Zabini kid was a legilimens, and was being trained by Severus to properly control his abilities — mostly so they would know who to complain at should they suspect Zabini was abusing mind magic — and everyone in the bloody country knew how the Blacks could be about the people they decided to care about. Even Ashe, who'd never even seen a Black before Lyra, wasn't at all surprised by the idea that she would hand out to her friends portable gates, quite possibly a unique invention with no equivalent devices anywhere in the world, presumably ones that led to a family property somewhere, granting a means to bypass wards into private sanctuaries held by the family for generations.

Ashe didn't really have any right to think anyone else mad, given how much of the rest of Britain thought of misters. But everything she'd heard about the Blacks still made them sound fucking insane. Lyra giving Zabini a portable gate wasn't even that high on the list.

But, as distracting as the thought of Lyra Black successfully crafting a portable gate was, Ashe wasn't so helpless as to not notice when someone was trying to manipulate her. "What are you getting at, Severus?"

The younger man had the absolute gall to pretend he didn't know what she meant. "You almost sound like you're accusing me of something. I thought you simply might like to know how talented the girl is in your field."

Ashe glared at him, fingers tapping on her knee. For a brief moment, she thought over the odd, sudden turn their conversation had taken, the false casual tone of Severus's voice, the little hints he'd made of Black's particular style over the last several months. It didn't take her long to come up with a theory. An absolutely insane theory, but that wasn't surprising — this was Severus Snape attempting to get her to do something involving a Black student, such should be expected. "You aren't suggesting I take her as an apprentice."

"I'm sure I couldn't possibly tell you to do such a thing."

"Oh, you couldn't tell me, no. That wouldn't be appropriate, would it?"

And now he had the nerve to look amused — this aggravating, self-satisfied arse, honestly, why did she even put up with him. Well, okay, she knew exactly why: the aggravating, self-satisfied arse-ness was amusing when directed at other people. It was just much less fun when she got some of it. "No, it certainly wouldn't be."

"It's not even on my radar, Severus."

"Of course."

The condescending disbelief on his voice just had her glaring at him harder. "What, you think if you poke and prod at me over it I'll take her off your hands for you? I'm not an idiot, I know how many detentions with her you've been saddled with. If I decide to make Black my apprentice, why, she would be my problem then, wouldn't she? Nice try, Severus, but I'm not biting." Even if the idea of a portable gate was distractingly fascinating.

Also, it would be pretty much the easiest apprenticeship ever — Black clearly already knew enough graphic magic to qualify for a mastery, had she the connections or legitimacy to be taken seriously. Ashe would hardly have to teach her anything.

She'd probably end up learning more from Black than the other way around. From the projects Severus had just mentioned, she had a tendency to exploit alchemy and geomancy in ways that likely wouldn't have occurred to Ashe in the same situation. If nothing else, picking up a bit on her technique and thought process could be useful for her own work down the line.

And Black was clearly going to make something of a name for herself, if this was the shite she was pulling off at fourteen. Ashe's name would be on her first few publications, and knowledge that she'd been Black's mentor would get around, which could only be good for her academic reputation. (Not to mention the Noble and Most Ancient House thing, that didn't hurt.) Learning how Black pulled this kind of mad genius off was more important to her personally, but she couldn't deny that that caché could serve her in the future, if just by allowing her to plough through unwanted political shite by weight of reputation alone.

And it was, just, fascinating to think about. What other projects was Black sitting on, that Severus wasn't in a position to know about? If she could pull out impossibilities like a portable gate, fucking hell, it could be anything...

"No, stop it, shut up. I'm not doing it."

Severus raised that single damnable eyebrow of his. "I didn't say anything."

"Right, sorry, I just..." Ashe sighed, rubbing at her face some more — she was so bloody tired. Would breakfast be out yet? She'd like to be taking this potion now, thanks. "Just, drop it, Severus. I'm not in the market for an apprentice." No, that was a blatant lie and they both knew it. In fact, she distinctly recalled complaining to him about all the applicants she'd reviewed over the summer being horribly disappointing. To too many people, the life of an enchanter or an artificer was a profession — or worse, a career — they had no respect at all for graphic magic, didn't approach it like the art it was. That practical, conventional mindset was, just, depressing, she couldn't even imagine being stuck with one of those boring sods for however long it would take.

From what she could tell so far, her awful, traitorous brain pointed out, Lyra Black certainly couldn't be accused of being conventional.

"No, dammit! I'm not doing it."

"It doesn't sound like I'm the one you need to convince."

Her lips twisting with a scowl, Ashe snarled, "Go fuck yourself, Severus."

The smug shite just laughed.

Oh hey, I actually get an excuse to use the headcanon Babbling I came up with ages ago. No way, who'd have thought. She managed to insert herself into two little subplots this year (and onward). The first is obvious, and the second amuses me. —Lysandra