Chapter 1

Severus finished the text to Harry and pressed send. In the first few months there had been lots of frantic texting as Harry had worked to tie up Severus' financial affairs in the UK and find an ingenious way to channel the money to Snape's account in Germany.

Mobile phones were wonderful things. He must admit that their lack of magic forced muggles to be incredibly innovative. He stood up, stretched and placed the phone in a metal box and fastened the lid. He had ruined his first mobile by exposing it for too long to magic. Potter was complaining because he was on his third. Severus was unsympathetic, Harry should have known better than to transfigure it!

Harry had been reluctant to invest in the new technology but Severus had persuaded him that it was the easiest way to keep in touch. He had pointed out that Ginny had been bound to spot a strange owl regularly delivering to the house, a discreetly hidden mobile would not attract attention. But Potter, being the klutz he was, had almost been caught using it and had been forced to flush the first one down the loo! The second one he had transfigured into a book. The third one Potter swore he had safely hidden in a gnome proof box in the garden shed.

"I'm the only one who goes there," Harry had explained in his text. "My time with the Dursleys has left me give an interest in gardening. Every time I see a weed I have strange compulsion to pull it out."

Severus spent a lot of time imagining Harry in his new home. According to Harry, it was a small cottage with two bedrooms not far from the Burrow. Harry's email had described it as "having a 3 inch gap under the front door. So cute but colder than Hogwarts in the winter. Two robes are required to eat comfortably in the dinning room. But Ginny loves it although I could do without all the hearts and flowers in the bedroom."

He had briefly considered going to the autumn wedding, a moth among the falling leaves would not have been out of place. But in the end, he realised it would not be wise. It was too soon. It would put Harry on edge worrying about him and his own heart was only just recovering from his abrupt separation from Harry and others. Distance and time would make it easier to cope. He needed to make his own new world secure before he ventured back into his past.

He had enjoyed the memories Harry had had sent him: Weasley's stuttered best man's speech and Harry's uncertain response which grew in confidence. Arthur Weasley speech had been Gryffindor sentimentally at its worse and Severus was delighted he had been able to roll is eyes in private. Severus was forced to admit that Miss Weasley had done Harry proud and her eyes spoke of love, for which he was thankful. Mercifully none of Harry's memories included Hermione.

Severus headed for the kitchen to make some coffee wondering what Harry would think of his new home when he visited for the first time next month as part of his auror training. A three week internship at the auror offices in central Gottingen. Maybe Harry would think this two bedroom apartment at the edge of Gottingen overlooking the river cute. He often sat on the balcony with a glass of red wine at the end of the day. Severus had come to love the uncluttered open plan space. The bright, plain white walls were a welcome contrast to Spinners' end and Hogwarts and that had helped him move forward. He had put no pictures on the walls. Perhaps Harry would help him choose some. One picture of Harry, charmed to look like a stag stood on the cabinet next to his bed.

It was a warm afternoon so he took his coffee and went to stand on the balcony. He had made it a rule that he should not begin on the red wine until 6pm. The balcony also enabled him to glance down at his office and warehouse on the other side of the river. Harry would be surprised by its size. Indeed he had been surprised by Severus decision to buy the warehouse. Harry had been envisaging a small potions shop in central Gottingen. Something similar to what you might find in Diagon Alley but Severus had quickly realised that was not the future.

To be fair, a potion's shop had been his original plan until he had met the estate agent who had sold him the apartment and later arranged for him to rent the warehouse and office space. Severus had been irritated by the man at first, he was loud mouthed and disorganised. He had kept Severus waiting for 15 minutes when he had come to view the apartment. Severus had been taken by the apartment in spite of the man's blathering. On the way out, the man, Wilhelm Bauer had dropped his mobile phone and the screen had cracked. The man had been distraught, claiming his social life and work would be ruined. Severus had been unsympathetic but as he was interested in the flat he had seized the opportunity to get the man on board and enlist his help in getting the price down. So he had made sympathetic noises, examined the crack and in doing so he had caught his first glimpse of smart phone technology.

That night in his room in the guest house he had begged use of the kitchen and brewed up a special potion using the emergency potions kit he always carried. Fortunately, he had only needed to make a small rectangle of the sticky substance. The next day he had travelled to the estate agent's office and persuaded Wilhelm to allow him to put the substance on the glass screen. Severus did not tell him that he had created the substance, instead he claimed that his brother worked for a mobile phone company and that the substance was in the testing phase. Ten minutes later the sticky substance had reduced the crack to a fine line and Wilhelm's gratitude was overwhelming.

"It is like magic," he had declared.

"No, just a clever potion," Severus had thought to himself as he had graciously accepted the man's gratitude and allowed him to show him the phone's capabilities. Until that point, Severus' mind had been completely focused on the price of the flat but the demonstration had been a revelation and offered a new business model.

Within hours of visiting Wilhelm he was swamped by requests from the estate agent's friends and family and colleagues for the "sticky substance" . Severus was forced to text Harry for an immediate supply of ingredients and proper equipment so he could set up a temporary lab.

Wilhelm got him a much reduced price for the apartment and they identified a warehouse and office space to begin industrial scale production of the sticky substance which Severus named "miraculum". Before long, internet sales took off and a number of well know phone companies were expressing an interest.

Severus put down his book, "The Crimes of Grindelwald: life in the outer crircle" and looked at the clock: 17.50. Another ten minutes and he could have a glass of wine. He put his hands on the balcony railings and gazed out over Gottingen. The problem was, Severus admitted to himself, that he was bored. His first few months had been taken up with survival: finding an apartment, a new source of income, starting the business, hiring employees. All had consumed his energy. The business would continue to consume his time as he sought to refine and develop the new substance and maybe develop variants but he needed an outside interest. For most of his working life, he had been doing two jobs: potions master and Death Eater; Hogwarts Professor and spy for the light; headmaster and spy; headmaster and adopted father of master of the Elder Wand.

He wandered back to the kitchen and muttered a decorking spell on the bottle of French red. As he did so, his eye was caught by a bread bin on the work surface. He poured a glass of red and eyed the bin cautiously.

He flicked his wand at the bread bin and it transfigured itself into a small stand alone safe He eyed it suspiously as he opened it. Inside was a small long thin velvet case. Inside it was a wand. Severus was reluctant even to touch it. This powerful gift of protection from his son was he knew a blessing and curse. In this tranquil town it made sense to keep it locked away out of sight so it didn't attract attention and did not affect his power. However, Severus knew that his mere ownership of the wand had increased his power. He was able to perform complex spells even with his usual wand much more easily that he had done in the past. Keeping it hidden was no long term solution. He had known both previous masters of the Elder Wand. He needed to learn how to control the power that was leaking into him. But there was no Albus Dumbledore here to advise him or Room of Requirement to practice in. He had read all the information available in the public library in Gottingen but most of it was superficial. He needed access to a university library but he had yet to devise a plan which would not draw undue attention to himself and avoided him breaking the law. The latter was crucial to the continued protection of his new identity

He resealed the safe and transfigured it back to a bread bin. Picking up his glass he headed out to the balcony. On the way, he caught sight of a leaflet brought by owl. He paused and looked down at it. He had been meaning to put it in the waste bin. It was an advert for a wandlore society. It's red writing and cartoons moving wands irritated Severus unbearably. The society met every two weeks on a Wednesday in the basement of the Egg and Dragon Public House. He picked it up and stared at it critically. It was normally the sort of gathering that he would pay some serious galleons not to attend, but might there be someone there who could help him? Not that he would confide in them openly of course but perhaps there was someone who could give him some guidance or better still access to the university library and facilities. It might be worth a couple of hours of his time finding out.

He crossed the living room towards the balcony, pausing again in front of the mirror over the fireplace. He had tried removing it but it had been there when he moved in. Someone appeared to have used an unsticking charm. He certainly had the power to blast it off the wall, but he wanted to avoid damaging the paint work. Moreover, catching sight of his new appearance in the mirror was a useful reminder of his new persona. He had largely shunned wizarding society to date but he did not believe he was in danger of being unmasked. He gazed expressionless at his reflection and cursed his subconscious. His looked like a slightly unkempt version of Lucius Malfoy. He had rejected polyjuice potion as a long term aid to his disguise in Gottingen. Prolonged use was not recommended from a health perspective. Instead, he had dyed his hair, lost a little weight and bought some brightly coloured clothes. Contact lenses had changed the colour of his eyes to blue. The clothes had been the greatest sacrifice. He reminded himself of Albus. The disguise was effective enough to survive life in Gottingen provided he did not get tangled up with the aurors who had pronounced him dead. Should he ever return to the UK polyjuice would probably be necessary.

He raised his glass to his reflection. He would visit the wandlore society next Wednesday. If they were uesless bores he could slip away after an hour or so and no damage done.

At 8 o clock the following Wednesday evening 1st September he was sipping another glass of red wine (mediocre) in the bar of the Egg and Dragon. He almost didn't go he had had a busy day at the warehouse working out how they could process a particularly large order from a small firm in Munich, but in the end he decided he needed a distraction from the red letter day in the English wizarding calendar.

The public house was located in the cellar below a perfectly respectable muggle bank. A steep flight of stairs led to a vaulted oak cellar with a central space and a range of private booths. He had slipped into a booth near the bar so he could observe society members as they purchased their poison for the evening.

After an hour or so, Severus had decided that the wandlore crowd were a serious disappointment, worse than their flyer had implied. They appeared to have attracted every crank in Gottingen and the surrounding area. There were a group of elderly wizards who had claimed to have fought against (or more likely with) Grindelwald, an earnest young researcher from one of the local newspapers who studied wandlore as a hobby and a group of witches who were clearly looking for husbands. The gathering had been briefly addressed by a wizard on the subject of American wandlore myths. The speaker claimed to be a visiting professor from the USA. In Severus opinion, the only places he was likely to be visiting were the local hostelries

Severus was about to call it a day when a hand touched his arm. It was a young teenager who he had seen carrying soup from the kitchen a few minutes earlier.

"Sir, the landlord wondered if you would step into the backroom for a few minutes?"

Severus nodded hiding his surprise, picking up his cloak he quietly followed the boy through a door at the side of the bar. The door opened on a small corridor leading to an oak panelled private snug with a large fire and a dozen or so chairs. The chairs were arranged in a semi circle around the fire. The occupants were being served by the landlord himself.

In spite of the message, the landlord ignored him. A wizard dressed in black robes who looked like a younger version of a former minister for Magic Severus knew rose to greet him

"Good evening, I am Fudge. Fredrick Fudge."

Severus bowed politely but said nothing.

"I and my colleagues work at the universities of Gottingen, Munich and Berlin. We meet once a month, under the cover of that crowd out there to facilitate an exchange of ideas. Hearing about developments in other subjects illuminates own studies and cast light on new avenues to explore."

Severus bowed politely again but remained silent remembering a muggle phrase his mother had been fond of, "Beware Greeks bearing gifts."

He suspected Fudge was a skilled legilimens as he smiled when the analogy crossed Severus' mind.

"Please sit and make yourself comfortable. We do not invite every stranger who visits the bar next door to join us for a drink. But we do encourage Copo here, he gestured to the landlord, to introduce us to those who appear particularly sceptical of the speakers we hire to keep that lot entertained.

"The gathering next door is a test?"

"Of course, " smiled Fudge. "And Copo here noted that you were sporting a particularly sceptical sneer during our visiting USA professor's speech this evening." He gestured politely to a seat near the fire.

Severus hesitated, conscious that this was no group of fools, before seating himself carefully in the vacant chair. He studied them covertly whilst Copo poured him a drink. In different ways their looks and mannerisms reminded him of his Hogwarts colleagues. Next to him was an empty chair but in the seat beyond that was an middle aged woman a little older than Severus, the ramrod posture and carefully arranged hair reminded him strongly of McGonagall, whilst the man to her right was a male version of Sprout down to the stained finger nails. To the right of the male Sprout was a giant sized Flitwick, marked out by the tiny glasses and earnest expression.

"Now, I would like to ask you about your interest in wandlore, but before that introductions. I am Fredrick Fudge my day job is Registrar at the Berlin muggle university: student enrolment etc. My real job is librarian of the collection of magical books held secretly by the university. "

"Bingo," thought Severus occulmency shields to the fore.

"In my spare time I am writing an up-to-date treatise on wandlore covering recent developments, Grindelwald in Germany and Voldemort in England and other powerful wizards you may have heard of such as Albus Dumbleore."

Fudge looked encouragingly at Severus.

Severus inclined his head. "I am Sebastian Damasco, recently moved here from the UK following the recent war."

"A terrible business, "observed Fudge sympathetically. "Much sad loss of life. You've probably met my second cousin he used to be Minister for Magic."

Fortunately, Severus realised no reply was required.

Fudge gestured to a younger gentlemen, the oversized Flitwick, on his left to introduce himself.

"I am Crassus, I work alongside Professor Fudge in both the Registrar's office and the library, " said the rotund assistant rubbing his glasses nervously on his robe.

"Mr Crassus is a mathematician and helps me manage our university funding "

"Like many of my muggle predecessors, I am working on the Riemann hypothesis," explained Crassus.

Severus nodded intelligently noting that he would need to do some serious research on some muggle academic subjects if he was to appear intelligent. It was unusual in England for wizards to be educated in both disciplines. He remembered Albus commenting that Germany was very different.

"My colleague Trank," commented Fudge "Is a Potions Master and a chemist."

"Unfortunate. That explains those stained fingers," thought Severus recognising the name if not the face, occulmeny shields to the fore.

"And finally, "said Fudge, "This is Professor Ladestock our historian: German Roman history and also German wandlore. She is at the University of Gottigen"

Profesoor Ladestock gave a stiff nod, which Severus mirrored.

"I am offended Fredrick," said a voice behind Severus. "Hardly finally."

Severus turned his head. It appeared to be a night for shocks. Behind him was a small blond woman the image of Narcissa Malfoy.

"Ah Calista, my dear, Always ready to make an entrance."

"Where is everyone else Fabula and Coactor never miss a night out!"

"Wine tasting society," said Fudge with a disapproving sniff.

"Trust them not to miss a free drink!"

Fudge gestured for her to take a seat next to Severus. "Calista is our ancient language specialist. Very useful as many of the texts about wandlore are in ancient Egyptian."

Unlike the others, Calista proffered her hand. "Calista Dives specializers in Greek, Latin, sancript and a variety of ancient magical langauges"

Severus located his manners and shook her hand politely. "Sebasitian Damasco."

"So what has encouraged you to join us?" asked Calista before Fudge could recapture the conversation.

Severus set out his cover story in standard terms. He came from an obscure Scottish wizarding, settlement, he had had a potions shop (not a potions mastery), family killed in war with Voldemort, decided on a major change of scene away from difficult memories. (This was usually enough to prevent inquisitive strangers inquiring further.) To this, he added a life long interest in wandlore sparked further by the Voldemort conflict and the rumours that had emerged in England. He had settled in Gottingen and set up a business. He did not dare use legilmency in this company but he could sense a vague unease emanating from at least one of the group.

"What's the name of our company?" inquired Fudge.

"Mircaculum" replied Severus.

"Wand related?" asked Calista.

Severus shook his head. Calista looked as if she would like to question him further but fortunately Fudge intervened.

"Time is getting on and we were going to hear from Professor Trank this evening."

For the next 45 minutes, Severus attempted to mask his growing fascination with Trank's account of his work and its' relationship to powerful wands. He outlined his theory that powerful wands changed the chemicals in a wizard's body thereby effecting their power. Severus, trained potions master though he was, did not understand all the detail of a subject heaped in muggle terminology. He was dying to ask a large number of questions but he limited himself to one.

"Have you any theories about how a wizard could shield himself from the growing power?"

Trank looked surprised.

"My dear Sebastian, most people would ask how to enhance it!"

Fortunately, Trank did not seem to expect a response after a moment continued.

"I suppose it would be possible to mitigate its effect by some sort of potion, should an owner wish to do so."

He saw Calista glance at him curiously.

Severus slipped away shortly afterwards thanking Fudge for the evening and accepting an invitation to the next meeting. He sensed that Calista had hoped to speak to him again but he was not in the mood for probing questions. Once he reached his flat, he poured himself a measure of his custom made hangover potion. The red wine had been of acceptable quality but he had sipped a little too much of it to avoid being expected to speak too much. Casting off his outer robe, he headed for bed.

It was much too soon when his alarm charm sounded: a small bell at the side of his bed rang itself, The bell got larger and larger the longer you stayed in bed. Severus levered himself out before it had reached the size if a handbell.

Shower and coffee he thought to himself: large coffee and bread and cheese. It was on days like today that he missed the Hogwarts' breakfast and the house elves that made it. A brisk early walk to his warehouse would be not be without benefits.

Gottingen was not a busy commuter town, so at 7.30am the street of houses converted into flats was not busy. There was a tired looking woman walking a small dog that growled at Severus suspiciously but apart from that it was deserted. He turned left after the end of the road towards central Gottingen, before turning right again toward the river and his warehouse.

The warehouse was part of small industrial cluster (estate it would have been called in England) where small and medium sized firms owned storage facilities, distribution centres and workshops. Few customers visited Severus' warehouse which was a rather boring rectangular brock building. He usually met prospective clients in one of the town's hotels or restaurants. The industrial estate itself was quiet. An odd worker opening up was about it, many did not begin work until 9.30 or later.

Severus' caretaker usually opened up but he was not at the site until 8am so this morning Snape would do it himself. The fresh air and activity was balm to his alcohol stimulated system. He opened the lock with a traditional muggle key and punched in the code to turn off the muggle alarm. Only a handful of his workers were wizards so it made sense to reinforce the business cover by traditional security devices.

Congratulating himself on remembering the code in his slightly hazy state, he stepped through the internal double fire door and onto the factory floor. He paused, instantly sober, wand in hand. The factory itself was silent, and the main floor was in semi darkness as the shutters remained closed. However, on the floor a few metres from the firedoor lay a body.