The Wizard of Gotham
by Skysaber

Chapter Five

OoOoO

Really, a running joke is what Snivellus deserves to be!

OoOoO

There was a theory, popular among many of Gotham's costumed criminals, that all that really separated the nuts from the normals was one Really Bad Day. Or, as Joker put it, "In my case, one rotten day and a vat of chemicals."

Waking up in the insane mind of Poison Ivy was probably enough to qualify for a Really Bad Day for the personality fragment of a seventeen-year-old Lily Evans, if anything was.

Thus, the struggle for dominance between their personalities took on a far more equal turn.

Then, only a few moments later, everything seemed to calm down, and the redhaired lady patient ceased her thrashing and began to sleep soundly at last. Madam Pomphrey gave a heartfelt sigh of glad relief, then sent word to the Headmaster that everything seemed to be going fine now.

In a cot beside the treasured female patient, on the far side of a redwood tree that was now growing through the floor, Snape kept up a near constant stream of obscenities and insults directed to 'that (censored) Potter woman!' as he submitted to the fearsome itches of having his skin regrown.

He already had appointments to be fitted with magical prosthetics for the leg and missing fingers later that day, and he knew of a magical wig shop in Knockturn where he could get a bargain, but there was no way he was going to be nice about this! Even if Lily couldn't hear him, he was going to tell her off ten dozen ways at least before he even hit his stride!

Then he'd tell her off again once she was awake and could understand him. There was no cursed flytrap to save her now!

He didn't even have to worry about James.

OoOoO

Harley's directions were a bit imprecise, more along the lines of, "Look for the doorman Mistah J replaced with a robot double and had kill all of the cats in the building. Oh! Selina threw him off a roof for that one! She woulda done worse if her pets hadn't been staying with Ivy," than anything those not 'in the know' would be able to follow.

Still, addresses were addresses, and she had managed to give him that much. So he found the place in spite of it being a heavily overcast day along a street of darkened lights (one of the many, it looked like half the town was out of power and they were right at the center of it, but luckily this one was right along the edge of Gotham Central Park, where he lived).

The doorman (who, presumably at one point had been replaced by a robot), was all bundled up in hat, scarf and parka over his usual uniform, although you couldn't see what else he had on through the heavy ski pants and military surplus winter boots. The guy standing in front of the elevator to show people to the stairs (which still worked) had on a Santa Claus costume left over from Christmas, complete with beard.

Both men actually seemed to let their eyes linger with pangs of jealousy over the steaming kettle of warm soup Harry was carrying. The doorman agreed to let him in in spite of not being on any guest lists in exchange for a cup.

He gave the guy in front of the elevator a cup out of pity.

Arriving at the penthouse apartment Harry was stunned. It was freezing up here! You would think that heat rising from the rest of the building would keep it warm. But no, either there was no heat to rise, or the winds from being exposed at the top of the building stripped it all away, as it was colder up there than it was on street level!

Harry knocked twice but received no answer. So, feeling a bit guilty about it and double-checking twice that he had the right address, he pushed on the knob hard so the little metal bit holding the door closed came through the wood of the frame, and let the door swing open.

The lights were out, but he was able to see by the moonlight streaming in through the big patio windows that had to look beautiful for the view, but were probably a big reason why it was so cold up here. The sleet had come down hard enough to crack some of the panes, leaving gaps that whistled and gusted (a problem the greenhouse did not have, as Ivy used bulletproof glass that would stop anything smaller than a Batman trying to swing through it).

At first Harry was surprised by the lack of cat symbols or toys all over the place. He knew that Ivy had plants everywhere, and would have felt terrible for breaking into the wrong apartment, if not for the pair of cat food bowls (rimmed over with frost) and a pet watering thingy (completely frozen).

Venturing further, he found a familiar purple cat costume discarded, soaking wet (and now frozen into a solid piece) in a rumpled pile in the hallway, along with some puddles of ice that must have been footprints.

Thus restored in his confidence that he had the right place, he followed the trail of droplets and icy footprints to a bathroom, where a big, fluffy towel was now cast unceremoniously over the sink, and frozen in patches.

Beside that, the toilet had shattered for the strength of the ice forming in both tank and bowl.

Reaching under the broken throne, Harry turned off the water spigot like his aunt had taught him to do the time they broke theirs while Dudley was chasing him (ineffectually) with a baseball bat. Then, just in case, he did the same for the sink.

Finally, the boy found his way to the bedroom.

There were two things that instantly caught his eye. The first was a hat-box, discarded and on its side on the floor just inside the door, that had a big copy of that hat the cat was wearing in the book he liked in it.

It looked unused.

Second, and what really caught his attention, was the big lump under a great stack of covers in the center of the bed. Inside that he found Selina, wearing four sets of sweats and a football jersey over that, two cats huddled with her, and in spite of that he could see her shivering and imagined that he saw her lips just a touch blue.

He'd just lifted up the pot of stew to put it next to her and was wondering how to serve her, or if he should wait until she woke up, when a voice intruded on him from the bedroom door.

"And so the wind begins to blow,
first rain, then sleet, and now it's snow.
Through it burglars creep to grasp a trove
But who dares to enter Catwoman's abode?"

A man stepped out into the diminished daylight coming in through the big bedroom windows. He was wearing a greet hat and mask, with a gold question mark on the top of a cane that he held menacingly, but the rest of the man was masked by a comically oversize fur coat, smelling of mothballs. Although he did not know it, that style of coat was last popular in the 1920s, but it was the warmest thing Eddie had been able to find on short notice, stuck in the back of a stage's costume department.

Anything warm that was for sale had already sold. The guy who ran the desk at a Jewish bakery down the street had on a full Nazi WWII winter uniform that had been dredged out of some attic, while the girl who served the coffee had on the woolen pants, fur-lined cap, jacket and boots of one of the British pilots who'd bombed them - and over that she'd thrown a bathrobe.

Harry was very careful not to move as he answered, "Harley called and said Selina might be sick, so I brought her some warm soup. But she wouldn't answer the door, so I broke it, and found her like this."

"So you're Ivy's new henchkid, are you? Jervis told me about you. First thing we've got to do is show you how to pick a lock." Riddler dropped his fighting pose, already having noticed the kid was there with a ladle of steaming warm soup poised halfway to Selina's face. As he watched, she woke up and slurped it down, and the kid began to spoon more to hold under her poor, cold nose.

"I'm not a henchkid any longer. She promoted me to sidekick because I can teleport."

"Oh?" Riddler said with very genuine interest. "That's very interesting. I may have to ask Ivy to let me borrow you for some jobs. But we should be getting Selina out of here in a hurry."

The kid cocked his head and stared at the Riddler in confusion.

"It's the Rule of Three, kid." Eddie went on, prompted by the expression of innocence. "A person can survive three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter (under conditions when you need it - and I'd say this storm easily qualifies), three days without water or three weeks without food. But between the sleet broken windows and the open staircase, the wind is blowing through this place like a haunted mansion, and this apartment doesn't count much for shelter. I came up here hoping to borrow enough cash from Selina to catch a plane ride out of here, but it looks like she needs sunny Florida even more than I do."

Nodding, Harry carefully bundled up the blankets around Selina, leaving the cats in there for the little comfort and warmth they offered, and picked the whole bundle up in his hands, although requiring some careful positioning to keep from spilling her out of his grasp.

Smacking his lips at this admittedly minor display of super strength (the kid looked like a ball of blankets plus two itty bitty legs) Eddie led the way down the stairs. But his plans stopped when he asked the doorman to summon a cab for the airport.

"Don't go there, sir. All flights are grounded. It's the ice, sir."

The Riddler lifted his face to watch the snow coming down and admitted that he'd not been prepared for that. He sighed, and waved the young boy to a safe whispering distance from the doorman. "Well, c'mon, kid. My apartment isn't much better than Selina's, but we can't leave to her freeze like this. I can at least put some cocoa on if I burn a few of Joker's invitations to discover the Final Riddle over at his latest death trap."

The bundled up villain blew on his hands to warm them, then shoved them into his overly furry armpits, not looking forward to the long trip at all.

"But the greenhouse is right nearby, and it's warm." Harry puzzled.

"Warm did you say?" Eddie had a sudden smile, before magnanimously waving him on. "Lead the way, and riddle me this: How does Ivy keep her place warm while the rest of Gotham freezes?"

"You'd have to ask her. But how did you know about me?" Harry asked as they walked toward the cover of those wonderfully concealing fir trees.

Eddie answered as he spun his golden tipped cane, then cut off with a shiver as that motion allowed a breeze to snake inside of his coat. "The first thing you've got to know, kid, is if anyone knows more about the lives of Gotham's elite, and by that I mean the costume wearing set, than Batman, that person is Jervis. The man is an incurable gossip, and generally finds ways to learn anything worth knowing. If you need information on any of us, go to him. Just remember not to put on any hats while you are there. So, what is Ivy up to that she sent her one and only sidekick off to tend to poor Selina?"

Harry frowned, still worrying and careful not to spill Selina out from her cocoon of blankets. "Some guy came and attacked us, then he and his hench took her away."

"Oh?" The Riddler sensed here both a puzzle to be solved and a potentially dangerous situation they could be waltzing into. Then again, if it was still a WARM and dangerous situation, then he could cope. "Not the Bats, then, if he had a hench. So was it someone I should know?"

Harry shrugged. "All I know is he wore a costume and called himself The Headmaster."

Eddie's professional interest was piqued. "So, did he play any mind-tricks on our precious poison petal?"

Harry nodded, at first firmly, then doubtfully. "I think so. She tried hers on him, and mentioned later that she'd never seen anyone resist harder. Then he said a few things and made our flytrap give up the henchman it had eaten. Then she went away with him... and hasn't been back."

Eddie was nodding. "Hmm, I'll let the word out among the other Rogues that a new face has come to play, and see if anyone knows anything. Trying a plot against another Rogue isn't unheard of for a first scheme, but it is daring. If this Headmaster fellow can pull it off, then he bears watching. Being a better mind-meddler than Ivy is already a noteworthy accomplishment, as is getting one of her plants befuddled, and it could serve us well to be on our toes."

Arriving at the Greenhouse and entering, Eddie cast his giant fur coat aside and stood basking in the returned warmth taking the pins and needles out of his nose and fingertips, while Harry ordered the plants to unwrap Selina and put her in the tub for a warm bath and soak.

OoOoO

A few days later

Snape, walking across school grounds on his new artificial leg and cane, took a moment to pause and examine the hole in the hospital wing where a three hundred foot tall giant redwood, thirty feet around at the base, had grown out of his own leg before being removed and transported safely to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Grumbling loudly and sharply, he was about to go inside and resume his duties as Potions Professor when he felt two distinct taps on his shoulder.

Spinning around, ready to tear strips off the hide of whoever had disturbed his walk, when he saw a tree branch of the Womping Willow, stretched out to about twice its usual length, just before it reared back and slapped him hard across the face, knocking out many of his remaining teeth and sending him sprawling, slipping across the dew-slicked lawn (odd for afternoon), and off the cliff into Hogwart's lake.

The tree might well have rumbled in satisfaction as his screams cut off with a loud splashing sound.

OoOoO

As the storm had broken over Gotham, and Batman had Mr. Freeze once again on ice in Arkham, a redhaired woman emerged from a fireplace, in a flash of green fire, from a brick building on Park street, then sauntered easily across the street to the greenhouse hidden deeply among those trees. Once there, she took out her wand and immediately began to unshrink packages, smiling a pleased grin as she unwrapped the dozen healthy saplings she'd grown off cuttings taken from the Whomping Willow at Hogwarts.

And that Devil's Snare! How ever had she lived without it?

They'd have places of honor in her greenhouse. Dear me, it was almost getting time to expand the old place! Certainly she couldn't let Hogwarts have bigger greenhouses than her!

She had a reputation to maintain!

A part of her couldn't suppress a giggle at Professor Pomona Sprout. Poison Ivy hadn't had so plant-oriented a name before becoming a criminal. Some part of her was sure that woman had changed her name to suit her career, just as she had, and the rest wanted to giggle herself silly over all of the plant names she'd found at Hogwarts.

Back to unpacking. Last came boxes and bags, everything that once belonged to Lily Potter that her friends had been able to save from the house. The strictly magical stuff she left in the carefully warded trunk it all came in for perusal later, if she ever felt the need. But there were additional boxes and things inherited from the estate of Lily's parents, when they passed away, that presented a 'muggle friendly' picture of Lily's life and included everything from essential identification papers such as driver's license and passport on over to including the memorabilia of a long and well-lived life, such as class notes, elementary school papers, grade reports and letters.

Putting the various certificates and photos aside, she began looking around for a small, black-haired little boy.

Not finding him, she went to go listen to her messages.

OoOoO
Author's Notes:

Ah. One of the dangers to this type of story is getting ahead of yourself, in this case writing scenes that I absolutely HAVE to use, but that don't occur anywhere in the story yet and I can't get to without a good bit of building up to that point.

Sigh, and they're some really good material, too.