A/N: Thank you as always for the kind reviews, and to all who are reading! It means a great deal.


Chapter Six: Remembrall

Harry's insides felt as though they'd been scooped out from him. As he leaned against the stone wall outside Snape's study, all he could focus on was the hollowness in his chest, and exactly how much trouble he'd managed to find himself in. Draco paced back and forth in front of him, his already pale face resembling one of the Hogwarts' ghosts. Harry stared directly at one of the stones making up the wall across from him, but Draco flitted in and out of his point of vision, to the point that he finally snapped, "Do you have to do that?"

"Shut up," Draco shot back, though he stopped pacing and sank down the same wall Harry had been staring at until he was sitting on the ground. "It's all your fault anyway."

"My fault?" Harry couldn't help but laugh. "My fault? Don't be an idiot. You're the one who stole Neville's Remembrall and got on your broom first!"

"And that stupid ball would be on the roof by now if you hadn't jumped in and made everything worse!"

"I told you to give it back!" It was a struggle for Harry to keep his voice below a shout; the last thing he needed was for Snape to show up then and there. "You made it worse by flying off!"

"And if you hadn't chased after me I would have landed before that old bat McGonagall saw us!"

Harry just glared at Draco, sinking down until he was also sitting on the stone floor.

"It's your fault," Draco muttered, almost under his breath, but clearly meant to be heard.

"It's yours." Harry shut his eyes and ran a hand through his hair in a halfhearted attempt to flatten it; even when he hadn't just been airborne it was an impossible task. "We're dead."

"Yeah. We are." Draco paused. "You said you never flew before."

"What?" Harry opened his eyes to find his housemate gazing at him with a strange look Harry couldn't quite identify.

"When I asked you about the Muggles. You said you didn't have a broom. And when we were outside, you said it was your first time doing this."

"And?" Harry wasn't quite sure what he was getting at. "I said that before I flew today. You know how time works, right?"

Draco's nose scrunched as though he'd smelled something unpleasant. "Don't be an idiot. How'd you learn to fly like that?"

"Like what?" Harry asked, but as he did, he thought back to how it felt as he took off... as he shot like an arrow toward the Remembrall... soaring back up, the red orb cool to the touch... He hadn't thought of much beyond how wonderful the moment felt, but now that he looked back on it, he wasn't certain most (or any) of his schoolmates would have been able to do the same.

Draco just stared at him with barely concealed jealousy and anger, and Harry swallowed before saying, "I don't know. I just... flew." After a moment, he admitted, "I liked it."

"Perfect Potter," Draco said in a dangerously low voice. "Couldn't just be content with being famous. You have to be a show-off Quidditch celebrity too."

"Stuff it, Malfoy," Harry shot back. "Seriously, what is your problem? I'm famous because my parents are dead. How would you like it if everyone knew who you were because your parents died?"

"That's not why you're famous." Draco's eyes flitted to Harry's scar, then away.

"I don't know how I did that," Harry said, keeping his voice as level as he could. "And if we keep having this same conversation over and over again we're not going to survive seven years together. Or even this year." When Draco didn't respond, he pushed on. "Anyone else would have punched you in the face twenty times over. I've only done it once."

"If I'm such a monster to poor baby Scarhead, why haven't you punched me again?" Draco shot back but his heart didn't seem in it. At this point it seemed as though he was just arguing for the sake of arguing, and somehow Harry didn't mind it all that much.

Draco was a version of Dudley he could actually talk to. He was an idiot and he his ideas were stupid, but there was something nice about not being punched in the stomach when he argued back. He could actually say his opinions out loud, and sometimes he was surprised by what he'd been thinking all along. It was almost as though he was getting to know himself.

Then again, he thought, if it weren't for Snape, Draco would probably hex him in a heartbeat.

"I haven't punched you again because Snape would murder us," Harry said at last. "Just like he's going to murder us after class ends."

Silence settled over them once again as they pondered their fates. A horrible thought found itself settling in Harry's mind as he played with the sleeve of his jumper. "You don't think we'll be expelled, do you?"

"Don't be daft." Draco shot him a look of scorn, but Harry could sense a bit of hesitation. "They don't kick you out over things like this. Only if you hex a Mudblood or something like that."

"What do you have against Muggles?" Harry asked. "Really, what have they done to make you hate them so much?"

"You said yourself your relatives are gits," Draco replied without missing a beat. "Don't you hate them?"

"I don't hate them." Harry paused. "Well, maybe a little, but not the way you do people you've never met. And most Muggles are worlds better than my aunt and uncle. Even then, I don't want my relatives to die."

"Why not?" Draco asked this honestly, without any malice, or at least not as much as usual. "You're a wizard. Muggles hate wizards. They want to kill all of us."

"Most of my family already is dead; why would I want even more of them to be? Besides, Muggles don't even know about us," Harry retorted, but more gently than he might usually, given the fact that Snape was going to murder them shortly, and because Draco had wiped that eternal sneer off his face for once. "The Muggles I know, besides my aunt and uncle? They'd love magic. I loved it from the moment I found out about it."

"When did you find out?" Draco asked, his tone light but his gaze intense. "You still haven't told anyone. And your relatives don't like magic? You never said that. Is that why you are the way you are?"

"Few years ago," Harry lied. "And no, they don't like magic. But they're unusual for Muggles, even though they'd bite your head off if you called them that. Most Muggles don't know a thing about real magic, but they write about it, and have films about it-"

"All wrong, I'd imagine."

"Absolutely," Harry agreed. "But to them, it's something they love. Little kids pretend to be witches and wizards. They think it isn't real, but they love it all the same."

Draco shifted slightly on the cool stone floor. "They know we're not real for a reason. We had to go into hiding, or did Hagrid not tell you that when he took you to Diagon Alley? They said we were heretics, and they formed huge groups to kill us."

"When was this?" Harry asked. He couldn't remember there being witch hunters any time in his life before now.

"You don't even know about the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1692?" Draco stared at him. "Do you have any idea how many innocent witches and wizards were murdered? What do you know?"

"1692?" Harry repeated. "That was nearly three hundred years ago! And- look, I'm sorry that happened. That was wrong. Really, really wrong. But Muggles now are really different to Muggles then. And it's not right to kill a bunch of people just because their ancestors killed a bunch of people. Voldemort killed my parents, but I don't want to kill all the Death Eaters' kids."

Draco flinched at the name, and at the implication, but after a long moment all he could say was, "The Muggles started it."

"Centuries ago. The Muggles now don't even remember any of it." Harry closed his eyes, exhausted yet knowing the worst was yet to come once Snape murdered them. "Isn't it time to stop the fighting?"

The bell rang. Draco and Harry stiffened; in the distance barely audible voices could be heard from the direction of the corridor that led to the Potions classroom.

"We're dead," Draco murmured. "He's going to kill us."

Harry swallowed, the image of Snape's face as McGonagall told him in front of the entire Potions classroom what she'd discovered rising to the surface of his mind unbidden. He'd barely said a word, but it was clear he was the most livid Harry had yet seen him. He'd sent them to wait outside his office in a barely audible hiss, and as they'd left his voice returned to normal volume to ask Professor McGonagall her forgiveness for the disturbance his Slytherins had caused.

It was a sixth year Potions N.E.W.T. class, split between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, and the eyes from Harry's house mostly displayed some level of empathy, but it was clear most were trying not to laugh as well. The Ravenclaws, meanwhile, either stared at their books or directly at them with pursed lips.

"They're Slytherins. He won't even punish them," one girl muttered, and Harry started to turn so he could laugh incredulously in her face, but his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he kept walking.

"Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of the class, Miss Erickson?" Snape's voice rang out from behind him, and nearly everyone jumped. Harry hadn't known the man had such good hearing.

"No, sir," Miss Erickson said quickly, and by that point Harry and Draco were already in the corridor, heading toward was was certain to be a judge, jury, and executioner, all played by Snape. And now the bell had rung and what little time they had left was shrinking exponentially.

"It probably didn't help that McGonagall hauled us in in front of another house," Draco said, almost to himself. "He hates it when we do something wrong, but it's even worse when word of it gets out of Slytherin. Image is important to pure-blood famlies, Potter. Not that you would know."

"He's a half-blood; he said so himself. And none of that matters to anyone but you. Besides, he's probably more angry that it's McGonagall who caught us. She's another head of house... he probably felt embarrassed."

Harry and Draco both fell silent as they pondered what embarrassing Snape would result in for them. The hollow feeling in Harry's chest, already at its peak, somehow expanded even further.

"We're missing lunch, too," Draco said, wrapping his arms around himself. "But I'm not very hungry."

"Neither am I," Harry admitted in a rare moment of agreement.

Footsteps filled the corridor, and Harry looked up to see a large chunk of the Slytherin students from Snape's N.E.W.T. class hurrying down the hallway on their way to the common room to grab previously forgotten books, essays, and other excuses before heading to the Great Hall.

"Insane, the both of you. You're, what, eleven?" a broad shouldered boy about ten times taller than Harry asked. Before either could answer, he went on. "Absolutely brilliant. He's going to kill you."

"You're Hogwarts legends and you only just got here," a blonde girl with her hair parted down the middle that Harry thought might be named Pauline added with a laugh, and Harry felt his cheeks flush as conversation erupted around him.

"Snape's going to thrash the living daylights out of them. I haven't seen him this heated since Flint set the library on fire."

"Well, yeah, because his sleeve caught fire when he was putting it out-"

"What did you get last time? For fighting in the common room?"

Harry frantically thought back to the lie he'd told Theo, even though Snape had let them off with only one whack clearly meant to get their attention more than anything else. "Er- twenty-two. With a ruler."

The sixth years all exchanged glances Harry couldn't quite decipher, then jumped back into theorizing.

"Sounds about right."

"Yup, sounds like Snape."

"What d'you think they're going to get? Twenty-two whacks again, or worse?"

"Please, for getting caught by the head of ruddy Gryffindor? Thirty-five at least, or maybe forty."

"Thirty-five? Forty? I once got forty and that was just for looking at him funny. They're getting fifty at minimum."

"It's going to be sixty and no less, I can say that much with absolute certainty."

"D'you think he's ever given anyone a hundred?"

"Today? It's a possibility, especially after their fight last week."

"All right, that's enough," Terence Higgs spoke up. The sixth year prefect who'd helped break up Harry and Draco's fight in the common room had tagged along with his classmates, though until now he hadn't participated in the discussion. "Professor Snape's going to be here any minute. It doesn't take that long to gather his parchment together."

The older students paused, clearly weighing the pros and cons of pushing their time in the corridor. The heavy, unmistakable sounds of Snape's gait in the distance broke through their silence, and they chose to head towards the common room with a few more hushed theories as to just how bad the ensuing reckoning would be.

"Ignore them," Higgs said with a jerk of his head toward the retreating figures. "They're full of it. He'd never whack you that many times." Higgs paused for a moment, then added, "Well, not with his cane, at least."

Harry and Draco's jaws both seemed to have come unhooked as Higgs took off down the hallway, and Harry only barely registered that Snape had reached them until he was practically upon them. Both boys shot to their feet, brushing off their trousers and cloaks as though the state of their clothing would matter once they were dead.

Oh, hell. Sodding, shitting hell, he was angry. Snape's dark eyes dug directly into Harry's, then Draco's, then turned to the closed study door. With a tap of his wand, it swung open, and Snape pointed through the open doorway to the far end of his office, where his desk sat. Harry and Draco hurried across the threshold to the indicated point and stood silently as Snape shut the door and swept past them to his desk, where he proceeded to place the flats of both palms on its surface and lean forward so that his face was close to that of the two nearly trembling boys.

"Since the two of you have arrived at Hogwarts, the two of you have collectively been in my office more times than I'd expect in a year." Snape leaned forward even more closely, the details of his sallow face magnified, his displeasure more intense than ever. "It has been one week."

Harry opened his mouth, a half-formed apology on his lips, but he fell silent at the look Snape fixed on him.

"Do either of you have anything to say for yourself?" Snape asked, turning his head to study both of them. "Anything to explain why you risked your damned necks showing off? Anything to excuse me potentially having to scrape two Slytherin bodies off the lawn today?"

Harry couldn't help but gaze up slightly. He hadn't even thought about the fact that they were in any danger, much less that Snape would focus on that before anything else. The Dursleys wouldn't care at all; they'd probably be thrilled if he did fall off his broom and break his neck.

"You are first years. You had no supervision whatsoever- you could have been seriously injured or worse- because you needed to show off."

"I wasn't-" Harry cut himself off, but it was too late. Snape was staring directly at him, and for the briefest moment it felt as though he could read his mind, but only the very surface of it, and so quickly that Harry wasn't sure if he'd just imagined it.

"Whatever your intentions," Snape finally said after a dangerously quiet moment, "They were self-serving and foolish. And to act in such a way in front of Professor McGonagall? I never want to have the two of you brought to me by a staff member in disgrace again, or what you're about to receive will be doubled."

Harry swallowed and glanced sideways at Draco. For a split second he couldn't help but feel for his most loathed enemy, who looked just as terrified as he was. Draco shot him a look back that wasn't exactly warm, but it wasn't a cold one either.

Snape straightened up and pulled open his wide desk drawer. Harry's stomach dropped, expecting him to emerge with the dreaded, previously unknown cane. Instead, the ruler from their last time in the study appeared, and Harry relaxed, but only for a moment. Was it really to be fifty, then? Or sixty? Or, possibly, an actual hundred?

"Come along, then, we don't have all day," Snape said briskly to Harry, gesturing at Draco to move out of the way. "Bend over, Potter."

Oh God, it was happening. Harry was fairly certain you couldn't actually die from a walloping, but his brain was moving a million miles per second. Snape raised an eyebrow and Harry quickly obeyed, bending over the desk. How many whacks was it going to be? Could he survive a hundred?

It turned out to be five, laid down so quickly that by the time Harry had let out a yelp, it was already finished. Bewildered, he waited for the rest, but all he heard was Snape's silky, "Up, Potter."

Harry rose, and quickly found those five swats had been more than sufficient. Buggering hell, that hurt! He moved stiffly aside and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand as subtly as possible as Snape gestured for Draco to take his turn over the desk. That, too, was over just as swiftly.

Then it was done, the ruler returned to its drawer, and the two boys were left with a very cross-looking housemaster staring down at them.

"Sorry, sir," Harry finally mumbled, shifting from foot to foot, Draco mumbling the same.

"Has the ball been returned?" Snape asked at last.

Harry's face flushed, and he quickly pulled Neville's Remembrall from his pocket. "Sorry, sir... I'll return it right away."

"Malfoy will return it," Snape corrected him, and when Draco looked up in horror he added, "With your most profound apologies. Unless you'd like to repeat the discussion we just had?"

Draco shook his head quickly, and accepted the Remembrall from Harry, stuffing it inside his cloak pocket. "I'll do it, sir."

"Yes, you will," Snape said brusquely. "The two of you will go to the Great Hall, have your lunch, finish your classes, eat dinner, then go directly to bed- as you will for the rest of the week."

Dread broke out in the pit of Harry's stomach- he'd just survived a week of early bedtimes with Draco; now they had to do it again, but even earlier?

"Except for one hour on Wednesday evening," Snape said, but he directed it at Draco only. "You are still expected to report to my classroom at that time."

Draco murmured a quiet affirmative, and Harry wondered why he was expected to do so. Did he have a detention Harry didn't know about? He kept his mouth shut, though, as Snape continued to study them.

"You," he said to Draco, "Need to stop antagonizing people who don't share your views. I will not tolerate bullies of any kind, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," Draco said quietly.

"And you," Snape said, whirling to face Harry, "Need to stop taking the bait and risking your neck in the process. You're smarter than that."

Harry mirrored Draco's response, and after a long pause, Snape said, "I don't want to see the two of you here again. Out. You've only missed the first ten minutes of lunch."

Ten minutes? Had it really only been ten minutes since the bell had rung and murder (well, he'd certainly murdered their backsides) been upon them? The two boys hurried out the door and back into the corridor.

"Bloody hell," Harry finally said as they made their way up the staircase to the ground floor, wincing all the while.

"Agreed," Draco muttered, one of the very few times they'd had a consensus on something.

Harry paused, then asked, "Why do you have to go to his classroom on Wednesday?"

"I dunno," Draco said vaguely, then added, "I think it's a detention but he said it's not a detention."

"What'd you do?"

"None of your business," Draco shot back, then added after a moment's thought, "I said something I shouldn't have."

"What did you say?"

Draco didn't answer, and Harry didn't push it, but he did remember offering rock cakes to a teary-faced boy lying face down on his bed just two days before. "It was Saturday, wasn't it? And he walloped you. That's why you were crying."

Draco glared at Harry, who hastened to add, "I'm not going to tell anyone. Besides, he just did the same thing to the two of us. I'm not trying to make fun of you. I'm just asking."

"He didn't wallop me," Draco said. "And I wasn't crying."

"Fine, you weren't crying. I'm sorry I brought it up." Harry paused just outside the Great Hall doors. "Listen, I meant it when I said we're going to kill each other if we don't call a truce soon. I don't like you, but..."

Draco surreptitiously rubbed the target of Snape's wrath one last time. "Fine. Truce. Unless you're a bell-end, then all bets are off."

It was something, at least, and before Harry knew it they were walking into a Great Hall whose noise level had suddenly dropped. There was still plenty of conversation, but it was clear word of what had happened had spread like wildfire throughout the student body, especially since they'd all gathered in one place immediately afterwards. Draco tightened his lips, strode quickly toward the Gryffindor table, and handed the Remembrall to Neville with a few words Harry couldn't make out. The entire Gryffindor table, all ages, glared at him as he retreated, except for Neville, who just looked perplexed yet open to the apology.

As Draco reached Harry once again, Harry was aware of the eyes shifting over to him. These gazes were more complex- after all, he was a Slytherin who'd flown with Draco when he wasn't supposed to. But he'd done it to get the Remembrall back for a Gryffindor.

Neville stood up, and hurried over to them. Harry froze, just wanting to eat his lunch in peace, ignoring the stares and whispers as he always did.

"Listen, I just wanted to say thank you," he said to Harry, low enough that Draco, who'd continued on to the Slytherin table without waiting for Harry to join him, didn't seem to hear. "I know what some people say about Slytherins, and... you did something really brave. And nice. So, thank you."

Harry's ears flushed. He could feel everyone's eyes on them, including the teachers at the head table. Including McGonagall, whose expression was utterly unreadable. Including Dumbledore who, besides the twinkle in his eye, was just as unreadable as McGonagall.

"You're... you're welcome," he said quickly. "They're not all that bad, you know. Malfoy's probably the worst one, and even he's just a git more than anything."

"Well, listen, if you ever want to sit at the Gryffindor table, there's always a place open next to me," Nevile said. "If you wanted to, that is."

Harry paused, glancing at his own table, which was staring at them both with undisguised curiousity. "Probably shouldn't today, after what just happened... but I appreciate it. And if you ever want to sit with us, you're more than welcome."

A combination of incredulity and fear crossed Neville's face, but he wiped it away quickly. "I'll... think about it. I really will, Harry."

Harry nodded, and made his way to the Slytherin table, where he was greeted by a series of hoots and cheers that the not present Snape couldn't chastise them for, much to the consternation of the other tables. There was only one empty seat left, next to Draco, which he took reluctantly.

"Bonkers," Pansy said as he slid onto the bench with a noticeable wince. "You should've just let Draco have his fun, then he'd be the only one to get hauled off." After a moment, she added, "It was brilliant, though."

"You never told us you could fly like that!" Vincent called out to a chorus of agreement from the first years who'd also been present.

"Draco wasn't bad either," Harry said, with more generosity than he felt, and he felt the blonde boy stir slightly next to him.

"He was all right," Millicent said dismissively, and Harry found himself distracted by the sound of snickers further up the table.

He looked up to see the sixth years from the corridor smirking and craning their heads to look at Harry and Draco. One waved. Harry shot back his filthiest look at them before turning back to the food in front of him, but at the same time he suspected he knew exactly what they'd been trying to do, and in a sense it had worked- if not frightened them half to death in the meantime.

"I'm hungry," Harry said as he reached for a plate of sandwiches, and as Draco replied in the affirmative it hit him that they'd just agreed on two things in less than ten minutes.

Not much, but it was better than how they'd started the day.


After dinner, Severus made his way up the grand staircase to the landing above, then continued on his way to Minerva's study. He hated moments like these, though he supposed things had come a long way from the time in 1982 he'd found himself begging her forgiveness when three of his students had hexed a Muggleborn Gryffindor so badly she'd been in the Hospital Wing for a week. Of course, Hogwarts had been a very different place then, and Slytherin a very different house.

He paused outside her door, fist readied to knock, when she opened it for him, staring at him and at the bottle of vintage port in his hand with a look somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

"For God's sake, are you here to say you're sorry again?" she asked, though she accepted the offered bottle. "You drink too much, by the way."

"Most of it with you," he shot back lightly, and she smiled. "Besides, that's for you and you alone."

"Bribing me to forgive you for something I wasn't even upset with you over? I should give you detention." Minerva studied the label of the bottle, and its year. "My word, Severus. This is unnecessary."

"Consider it an early birthday present," Severus said, rolling his eyes. "And yes, I'm here to make amends for the actions of my students against one of yours. They've both been suitably punished and it will not happen again." He paused, then added, "And for what it's worth, you should know Potter was was trying to retrieve the ball for Longbottom with some sort of noble Gryffindor-esque intent. He must have inherited it from his parents. Not that that's an excuse for his misconduct."

Minerva paused for a moment as well, then stepped aside and gestured for him to step in. "You're an absolute fool, you know that, don't you? And I'll expect something on my birthday as well. None of this early present nonsense."

"I wouldn't dream of it any other way," Severus said, shutting the door behind him.


Harry and Draco both stretched out across their beds, face down, though nearly all the sting had long since faded to a slight discomfort. The rest of the day had been filled with older Slytherins teasing both him and Draco over their trip to Snape's study, though they were tempered with stories of their own trips there. Their fellow first years wanted to know everything that had occurred in Snape's study, and although Harry had to admit he'd lied about getting twenty-two whacks that first time ("I knew it!" yelled Blaise), they still had a sheen of invincibility around them.

More importantly, they were obsessed with how well he'd flown, which Harry played down as best he could, trying to mention Draco's ability as well, but this was mostly ignored. Harry didn't even want to show any grace toward Draco, not after the way he'd been acting, but he was surprised at dinner when Draco admitted in a low voice, "You're a good flier. Better than anyone our age. You don't have to make it sound like I am too."

Harry stared at him. It was the nicest thing he'd ever said to him. Draco wrinkled his nose at Harry's expression and turned back to his dinner without a word.

And now they were back in their dorm, silently pondering over the reckoning they'd both received.

"Tell me about them, then. About Muggles," Draco said suddenly, his voice partially muffled by his pillows. "What are they like?"

"I've already told you," Harry said, lifting his head and nearly rolling over, but thinking better of it. "Last week."

"Tell me more, then," Draco said, his tone demanding at the start but tapering off slightly by the end.

"All right," Harry responded, then paused. "Where should I start?"

"What are their schools like?"

"Well..." Harry paused, then dove in. "I went to a primary school in Surrey. It was all right. Once I ended up on the roof without knowing how I did it."

"Idiot," Draco said, though his heart didn't seem in it. "That was accidental magic."

"Well, I know that now, don't I? Anyway, there was one teacher whose hair I turned blue, and she could be mean, but she wasn't that bad. There were three stories, and a little garden to the side..." Harry shifted a bit, getting himself comfortable before diving in further.


"You should have seen him," Minerva said, gesturing with her nearly empty glass of wine. "I've never seen a first year fly like that. I've rarely seen a seventh year fly like that."

"And I'm sure if he were one of your students you'd buy him a broom and find a way to sneak him onto the Quidditch team." Severus refilled her glass, and his own. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You would."

"I would never," Minerva said, fixing her most wounded look on Severus. "Do you really think that little of me?"

"Come, now. You'd chew his ear off, maybe give him a detention or two, then it would all be forgotten as Gryffindor finally breaks the Slytherin winning streak."

"I wouldn't," Minerva said indignantly, then paused. "I certainly hope I wouldn't."

"No use dwelling on it," Severus said, smirking slightly at her protests. "We have no way of knowing."

"I suppose not," Minerva said, relaxing, then gestured at the bottle. "This really was unnecessary."

"I knew you'd end up sharing it with me," Severus said unapologetically. "And it's better than if I'd drank it alone." He rolled his eyes at her self-satisfied expression. "I don't abhor spending time with you, Minerva. I hope you enjoy hearing it; I'll likely only say it once or twice more before our lifetimes are up."

"Noted," Minerva said, her smile not lessening.

Severus took a few larger than usual sips of his port, then, in response to Minerva's raised eyebrows, added, "Albus has requested my presence tonight."

"Ah. About today?"

Severus shrugged broadly, a motion he didn't often make but seemed right. "It's impossible to tell with him."

Minerva didn't say anything for a long while, but when she did, it was simply, "You've done well here."

"Hmph. I'm going to assume that's the wine talking and not bestow it with a response."

"Oh, take a damn compliment for once. It's exhausting to be friendly to you," Minerva said, but she was smiling, and much to Severus's disgust, so was he.