Chapter Three
Severus looked up into the man's face, trying to force the heat- and hex-induced wooziness out of his head as he sought to study his rescuer.
The accent sounded odd, yet familiar – perhaps he'd heard it on the wireless. Whatever it was, it wasn't British. The plants didn't look right, for what he knew of Australia. And he suspected that they were too far South for it to be Canada.
Muggle, farmer, mid-forties... American?
I'm in America? AMERICA?
The thought was nearly enough to make him faint.
He slumped back towards the warm ground, but the man quickly had an arm underneath him, strong and steady, and his sharp gaze looked Severus up and down. Hazel-brown eyes glittered out from under shaggy, sun-bleached, light-brown hair in a weatherbeaten face that Severus thought must be nearly as homely as his own. He wore a long-sleeved light flannel plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows; a round something-or-other sat in one of the front pockets. A hat nearly as worn as his face sat upon his head. His breath smelt faintly of tobacco, though not, strangely enough, of tobacco smoke.
"Where...where am I?" Severus asked, in a voice that sounded like croaking frogs; the heat was making him very, very thirsty.
The man looked down at him and smiled. "In the middle of my bean field, son."
Severus swallowed a little, and blushed. "Erm, sir... but where, exactly, am I?" At least his voice sounded better that time.
"Exactly? Ex-act-ly?" The man looked off into the distance for a moment, before returning to look at Severus with a grin. "You are exactly in the middle of Norway Township, exactly one-and-a-half miles southwest of Bratsberg in Fillmore County, Minnesota, exactly fifteen miles north of the Iowa border, more-or-less forty-three degrees forty-five minutes north of the Equator, and about ninety-one degrees forty-five minutes west of the Prime Meridian in Greenwich."
Severus felt sick at his stomach. "Oh, dear," he whispered.
"Sounds like you're a ways from home, son."
"I am." Severus' eyebrows narrowed in surprise. "How did you know?"
"Your accent, son. And the clothes you're wearing. They were kind of a hint you weren't from around here."
Severus gathered his wits, trying to figure out what to say next.
He was thousands of miles from home, with no way of getting back, and how he was going to deal with this Muggle, he hadn't a clue.
Should he just tell the truth? He didn't feel up to inventing a suitable lie. The Ministry would be upset if he didn't lie – breach of anti-Muggle security and all that. But there was something about this man that made Severus want to tell him the truth, and to hell with the Ministry.
He screwed up his courage, and made his decision:
"I'm – I'm –"
But the heat had been too much for much, and he slumped down again into a faint.
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Something soft was underneath Severus. Soft on top, yet firm underneath. And cool, blessedly cool. After some thought, he realized it was a bed with a quilted duvet or something like it. A soft down pillow was under his head.
He opened his eyes, and saw that he was in a bedroom. His outer robes had been removed, leaving him in his trousers and shirt. It felt good to be free of the robes...
His robes.
Where he kept his wand.
Severus sat straight up in the bed, his heart pumping like mad. He didn't want to try his feet, not yet, so he sat up in the bed and looked around frantically.
Ah, there on the table across from him! Someone had folded his robes neatly, found his wand in the sleeve, and set it on top of the folded pile.
Severus allowed himself to fall back against the pillow. If his wand was safe, he didn't care much about anything else for now.
He looked over to his side, where there was a bedside table. A Muggle wind-up alarm clock sat next to an electric lamp with a slightly frayed brown cloth shade. Closest to him, on a small stone coaster, was a glass filled with water and ice cubes; judging from the size of the cubes and the condensation on the coaster, it had just been placed there a few minutes ago.
Severus reached out a hand for the glass, then brought up his other hand when just the one proved to be too shaky. He brought the glass to his mouth, carefully tilting it up and in. The water felt so good on his parched throat.
He drank as much as he dared – the ice made the water almost too cold -- then, very carefully, set the glass back down on the coaster. He leaned back onto the pillow, and immediately fell back into blackness.
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When next he woke up, it was because of a light noise.
The door to the room had opened with a wooden thunk, and very soft footsteps told of the presence of someone else in the room. Severus stayed still in the bed, his eyes firmly shut, not wanting to betray the fact that he was awake.
The soft footsteps came nearer, accompanied by a slight snuffling, almost as if someone was trying to stifle a sneeze. He heard the gurgle and clink of water and ice as his glass was refilled.
And then he heard something else:
"Peeee-you! You stink like a dirty outhouse," the Mystery Someone said, in a high-pitched, girl child's voice.
Then the soft footsteps went back out the way they came, shutting the door behind them.
Severus waited, listening for all he was worth for any sounds on the other side of the door. Nothing, for now.
As quietly as he could, he slowly got up out of bed. He still felt a bit wobbly, but better than before. He looked towards the table where his robes and wand were sitting.
Something was missing. It took him a few moments before he realized what it was.
The book bag.
They're looking through the book bag, he realized. A cold shiver ran through him.
Severus ran to the table and threw his robes on, then grabbed his wand. He was just about to open the door when, to his surprise, it opened for him.
The weatherbeaten man was on the other side, standing in the doorway. He had a thoughtful look on his face.
"You really are a long way from home, aren't you, son?" he said.