Chapter 2

It was if the last two years had never happened. Severus slipped straight back into survival mode: his mind and body on full alert. Not trusting his senses, he sent out a general detecting spell to asecertain whether an intruder was still in the building. Satisfied that they were not, Severus quickly warded the building against entry. He paused for a moment to consider his options. The first priority was effective concealement before his staff or the aurors, if who ever had done this had alerted the latter, arrived. He briefly considered the possibility that the appearance of the body was some dreadful coincidence that had nothing to do with him personally and then dismissed it. Someone had very cleverly reactivated the muggle alarms.

He had bought himself a little time. The icy calm that had once been his trade mark desended on Severus. Devoid of panic, he cast a series of monitoring charms. The man had been a wizard. He had been dead less than 24 hours. He was the victim of the killing curse and floor and the surroundings revealed no signs of a dual which suggested that he had not been killed in the warehouse. So the body had been deliberately planted. Severus wasted no time on contemplating why his warehouse might have been singled out. Instead, he examined the man's body in great detail, committing his facial features to memory. A through search revealed no identification papers. The only item in his pockets was a key, number 94 with the letters SD on it. Severus pocketed it thoughtfully. He unwarded the main door, transfigured the man into a stone bollard and hovered him outside. The industrial estate was still empty. He added the bollard to a small row that sat between his warehouse and the tyre fitters next door. This, he did with remarkable ease a side effect, he suspected, of the Elder Wand.

Returning to his office he pulled off his cloak and threw it onto the hat stand. He would proceed with his day as if nothing has happened. If the body had been planted, it was vital he kept to his normal routine and aroused no suspicion.

The next few hours were a vivid reminder of the war years. Monotonous routine, although no children this time, with an undercurrent of fear. He knew it was silly to be afraid, no Voldemort would come through the door wielding his wand, the worst it would be was an auror with a quill and notebook. He was unconcerned about the person who had killed the corpse in residence. He would simply slip the Elder Wand into his robes when he got home. It was unlikely they would be a match for him. His fear of the aurors was not that he would be wrongly imprisoned for the crime but that his true identity would be uncovered which would throw a spanner in the works of his new life and make things very difficult for Harry.

Lunchtime. He had spent the morning touring the warehouse floor, talking casually with those involved in the manufacturing process and quietly and earnestly behind closed doors with the few wizards he had employed to develop the product further. He sat at his desk, warded his office door and shrugged off the employer persona he had adopted. Out in the warehouse he was a genial employer, modelling himself on Albus would have been too much but Kingsley he could stomach. The persona helped to distance his new identity from the feared, sarcastic Severus Snape of old. Curbing his tongue when presented with the stupidity of some of his employees was not easy but he did his best.

He had not felt like food that morning but now he wished he had brought something from home. He could not face a trek into town to the central food stalls that had become a daily habit. But perhaps he had better make the effort, he wanted no sign that anything was amiss. He struggled to his feet and reached for his cloak, wishing once again he had imbibed less wine the previous evening. His hangover potion was effective but not all encompassing.

He paused at a tentative knock on the door.

"Mr Damasco?"

Severus licked his lips

"Yes?"

"Mr Mallet and a colleague from the Big Phone company are here to see you"

Severus relaxed, donned his professional persona and unlocked the door

"George how nice to see you. I was just heading out for lunch. Would you care to join me?"

"Sebastian, you're looking well. Lunch would be wonderful. Dolce, Dolce? This is Frank who has been working with me for an few weeks," he gestured to a stick shaped,blond twenty something looking appropriately nervous. "Intern, " he muttered.

Severus nodded politely.

George was a short stout chap with the connoisseur's love of food. It was entirely typical of him to appear unannounced at a suppliers' office just before lunchtime in the hope of an invitation. Severus did not resent this as much as he might have done on another occasion. Mallet would make a wonderful impartial out of town witness to his carefree attitude during a business lunch.

"Why not? My treat" laughed Severus tapping him gently on the back. "Lead on."

During his years with Voldemort, Severus had learnt that the trick to an effective deception was to be the part you were playing. So during their walk to the centre of town and the three hour lunch at Dolce's, Severus was whole heartedly the gracious entertaining business man in search of more orders. Dolce's assisted his performance. It was a modern, light restaurant with colourful tablecloths, cheerful young staff and large sunlight windows. After a detailed discussion about the health of Mr Mallet's wife and the progress of his children, Severus persuaded him to take a batch of their new screen substance, which in addition to mending any cracked screens, added a unique glitter pattern for children which only appeared when the phone was switched off.

He parted company with George at his hotel. Mallet was clearly headed for a post lunch nap. Severus picked up the pace and made his way back to the warehouse. He was greeted just inside by Louis, his anxious office manager. He was almost squib like but as a good administrator with an eye for detail he was invaluable. A graduate of Beaubaxtons, Severus had met him during his early days in Gottingen. He has been staying at the same boarding house and had quickly recognised Severus as a fellow wizard.

"The aurors have been searching the warehouse."

Severus paused

"Are they still here?"

"No, they left half an hour or so ago,"

"Did they have a warrant?" demanded Severus

"Yes it covered all the warehouses on the site."

Severus relaxed marginally. He unfastened his cloak and put it over his arm.

"Did they say what they wanted?"

The office manager shook his head. "They ran a lot of monitoring spells here and just outside but they found nothing. A crack down on smuggling again, I expect."

Severus hid his surprise and relief. So their monitoring spells had not picked up his transfigured bollard. "The power of the Elder Wand," he thought ruefully.

"Thank you Louis, I'm sorry work was interrupted"

"That's ok Sir. The guys will get us back on schedule."

"I am sure they will," said Severus genially.

"Was lunch successful?"

Severus nodded with genuine pleasure, pulling an order form from his cloak and handing it over.

Louis grinned, "You're a gifted salesman Sir. I knew that glitter pattern would be a hit. It is great way to get kids to turn their phones off!"

It in spite of his heavy lunch and his anxiety to do something about the addition bollard outside, Severus was careful to stay to his usual time of 5pm. At 1701, he picked up his cloak, bade Louis goodnight and headed for home. He was careful to stroll casually and use no magic although he was sure that the aurors were not following him. His counter surveillance techniques were too good.

Once the door to his apartment was closed, he dropped his casual demeanour and sprang into action. "Accio baking bowl."

It was a poor substitute for a pensive but it was better than nothing. He put his wand to his temple and extracted the memory of this morning's events from entering the industrial estate to the creation of the new bollard. His mind involuntarily went to Albus' advice about it being easier to conduct a clinical examination of a memory when it was no longer in your head.

He played the events of his arrival at the warehouse three times before focusing in on the corpse itself. He studied the man's face carefully but he was certain that he had never seen him before. Satisfied that this was not related directly to his previous life, Severus studied the results of the monitoring spells he had cast. Leaving aside the immediate cause of his death, the man had suffered a large number of injuries of a particular type over his life. As a former servant of Voldemort, Severus had no difficulty in recognising some of these. The man had clearly been in with a bad crowd or had done a dangerous job. But who was he?

Severus exited the memories, he was tempted to pour himself a small glass of red wine but this time he opted for coffee. He stirred it slowly staring at the makeshift pensieve.

"You could ask Harry," said a small voice in his head. "You could send him a copy of your memories and ask him to use the auror's facilities to see if he could track him down. Severus knew from his discussion with Kingsley during his year as headmaster that they had the means of tracking down criminals in Europe.

Severus banished the idea from his mind. He had promised himself long ago that he would not seek Harry's assistance should he ever get into was the very definition of trouble, particularly as he was almost certainly going to have to dispose of the body in due course. Severus shook himself and put the problem to one side. Before he decided what to do with the body, he wanted to know who this man was. If he wasn't going to seek Harry's assistance how was he going to proceed?

Severus closed his eyes momentarily. He supposed that some habits die hard. The solution was obvious. If he had been a muggle, he would have spotted the solution hours ago. His phone. He whipped it out of his brief case and took the key he had found on the corpse out of his pocket. He typed a detailed description into google linking it with Gottingen and began to search. After about 10 minutes he found one that looked a little similar but with a cauldron key ring. He looked it up. Key of safe deposit box central Gottingen bank. Severus banked their himself but didn't have a safe deposit box so he had not recognised the key.

Severus sat back. The key he had found on the body was probably for a bank safe deposit box but maybe not in Gottingen. He tried googling the same thing biut with different German towns. He started with the closest but it was not until he tried Berlin that he hit gold. The Central Bank of Berlin. The key looked an almost perfect match. It was amazing and worrying the range of magical items one could locate on the internet. As they were not recognised as magical, they were often in some bizzare settings.

As Severus prepared for his visit to Berlin, packing his case, brewing extra polyjuice potion, warning Louis, his office manager, that he would not be at work the next day, he thought sardonically of Harry preparing to break into Gringotts. In his case, there was no risk of his impersonation failing. The real owner of the key was not likely to turn up and he merely wanted to check the contents of a box, he was not attempting to take anything away. His aim was to understand who the guy was in the hope that it would give him an insight into who had placed the corpse in his warehouse and what he should do with the body.

He took the floo to Berlin. He emerged from the public floos at the railway station and headed for the public toilets where he consumed a dose of polyjuice potion. The Central Bank was quite close to the station, unlike Gringotts it did not have a separate building instead it was located in a branch of the Deutsche bank. There was a regular stream of business through its main entrance. Wizards were directed to a side entrance by means of a trail of illuminated green arrows to which the muggles appeared oblivious. The bank had been damaged during the conflict with Grindelwald and so unlike Gringotts, it was a modern design and the goblins were dressed in sharp blue business suits. Chrome and brightlights were its hallmark rather than oak panels and candles. However, Severus knew enough about the Central Bank to know that appearances were deceptive. It was just as well protected as Gringotts although it was not dragons that lay beneath its floors but enchanted rock that turned to quick sand or crushed or stoned intruders to death.

"Can I help you?"

The scowl on the globin's face suggested that modernisation had not stretched as far as customer service training.

"I'm here to access my safe deposit box?"

The goblin studied the key and muttered a few words. Glowing numbers appeared momentarily on the key ring and then disappeared.

"Safe deposit box 365," he muttered, entering a note in his ledger. "Come."

The goblin slid out from behind the counter and headed for a door to the left of the counters. Severus glided after him.

The room where the deposit boxes were viewed reminded Severus of an auror's interview room: table, two chairs, plain white walls.

"Wait here," instructed the goblin.

Severus sat and tried to appear relaxed. The goblin re-appeared within five minutes which led Severus to conclude that the deposit boxes must be very close. The goblin placed the box, which was the size of a muggle shoebox but made of metal, on the table in front of him. As the the box touched the surface, writing appeared on the table top.

The Goblin gestured towards the instructions. "Knock on the door when you've finished."

Severus waited until he heard the door being secured before he examined the box. It was rectangle, metal and locked. He raised it up slightly. It was much lighter than he had expected and Severus wondered whether this would prove to have been a fool's errand. According to the instructions, he had to place the key on the lock and the box would automatically open. There was a satisfying click and the box sprang open.

Inside it was a wand, three different wizarding travel cards (passports as Potter insisted on calling them) each with a picture of the man he had found in the warehouse but wearing slightly different disguises and bearing three different names. The travel cards had been issued by Germany, England and Poland. There were also details of the bank accounts in those various names. Severus hands stilled and he stepped back from the box lost in thought. He committed the various names to memory. He would not risk taking anything from the box, he could always access it again if need to be. He closed the box slowly and locked it. After a minute's pause, he walked to the door and knocked firmly. It sprang open so quickly, that Severus was sure that the goblin had been listening at the door.

"All finished?" asked the goblin.

Severus nodded politely and accepted the goblin's invitation to precede him from the room.

Within half an hour he was back in his flat in Gottingen. He glanced at the clock, the polyjuice still had ten minutes before it wore off. He put his bag in his bedroom and poured himself a glass of wine. It was only lunch time but he felt he had earned it.

Severus stepped out onto the balcony. It was much warmer in Gottingen than Berlin. He tossed his cloak onto the spare chair, sipped the red wine appreciatively and closed his eyes. There were only two possible conclusions to be drawn from the safe deposit box: the man had been a crook or a spy. The question was which. If he had been the former Severus might be in danger from the man's former associates but the authorities might be less anxious to find him, if the latter the authorities would leave no stone unturned to discover what had happened to him. If he been a crook his best course of action was to discreetly dispose of the body a task Severus had performed many times for the Dark Lord. On the other hand, it would be best to arrange for the body of a spy to be discovered by the authorities, preferably at some distance from Severus with clues encouraging them to look further afield.

Severus spent the next three hours glued to his phone googling all possible contations of the names he had found in the safe desoit box. Of two he found no trace. The third appeared on a business social media platform but belonged to a man who owned a shoe factory in Munich. The photograph on his web page looked nothing like the man in the warehouse or the photo on the travel card. Shortly afterwards, the phone began to go haywire, web pages appearing unbidden and Severus realised he had exposed it to magic for two long. He shut it down and put it in his metal box. If he left it until the morning, the phone would recover.

Severus opened his eyes and looked out across Gottingen. The down side of his isolation was that he had no resources to call on to discover the identity of the body. He sat for a long time watching the sky turn from blue to grey and darkness begin to creep in.

Finally he grimaced and reluctantly concluded that he had no choice but to do what he had been trying to avoid doing since tripped over the corpse: he would have to seek Harry's assistance.