A/N: I'll just admit I'm a bad person. Well, I can give a bunch of excuses (and I have aplenty), but I'm not even going to go there. Just hate me. And for all you that may be just coming into this, I'm unreliable as all hell. But on a positive, I'm actually trying to outline this thing, so it won't be so easy to flounder on it.
Fire Angel
Part 4
A fifteen year old Severus Snape was walking back form his first day of classes. He was making his favored trip around some of the more obscure pathways back to his dorm, away from the excited crowds ready to see everybody back from summer. If he was lucky he could make it back to his room without anyone bothering him. With four trying school years interspersed with four more trying summers, he just wasn't in the mood.
Unfortunately for young Severus, four scheming Gryffindor boys didn't plan to make it easy for him. Well, more like 2.75: two thought it was a fantastic idea, another came to give them The Look and tell them how foolish they were being, so much so as to successfully browbeat the forth into agreeing with him. Which is actually mildly out of character for the third, but he was trying to prove a point.
Which brought Remus back to himself, so he redoubled The Look.
"On the first day of classes no less? Do you children ever know when to quit? Of all the other things we could be doing right now. What about Becky?" He made a pointed look at Sirius. The boy jerked a little in his crouched position behind the railing.
"Ah, I haven't talked to her yet since we got back. I wanted to talk to her at the feast but her blasted friends took up all the space," he started to become restless, nearly knocking over the small cauldron he was handling. They can tell they were quickly losing him to BeckyRush. He started to stand up. "I wonder where she-"
"Sirius. Heel." James snapped. Sirius half-sulked as he settled back down. James turned towards Remus with eyes too brown and too innocent. "Now how are we doing our dear Snape any harm? If anything, he should be thanking us." He gave a reassuring pat of the little cauldron. "Besides, Potions seems to be the only thing the little weasel's interested in, at least he would appreciate the desire to see if what we've been working on practically all summer works."
Remus grimaced. Since when did 'practically all' equal at most two weeks? "Yeah, by testing it on an unwilling human subject. I'm sure that's all just dandy in the Potions Ethics handbooks."
"Aw, c'mon Remus, don't pretend a cleansing potion would not be helpful to him. Aren't you curious to see a non-greasy Snape?"
"Severus is not greasy! And he by no means needs that stupid potion. And you know good and well that is not meant for people." Just then he saw the boy in question turn the corner and headed underneath the boys' hiding place. "That's it. I don't know why I thought you two can mature out of this yourselves. I'm taking that stupid-"
"Gay Stall!"
Suddenly Remus had to deal with too much Potter too close. As he was trying to get through James' mock come ons Black got the chance to dump the unsuspecting Snape with the concoction.
The first reaction that Snape had that it was cold. Then his skin began to sting. Bad.
Two loud curses came simultaneously. One from Snape when the pain finally came home, and the other from James when he noticed the steam coming off of Snape's skin.
Before anyone could react, and before Remus could kill them all, Snape made a mad dash towards his room.
Half-blind, he ran and stumbled his way to the dungeons, pointing his wand towards himself and muttering any spells that can lessen the pain.
An ineffective burst of tepid water and gust of air later, he didn't feel the cool blessed sense of relief until he reached his room. He then managed to calm himself down and survey the damage. Well these robes were ruined. His shoes better than store bought.. Ugh, his skin had turned to a raw shade of pink, and if he didn't know any better-
"Severus?"
Curses. There was never a good time to run into this guy.
"What?" Lucius blinked once, and then began to laugh. "What happened to your hair?"
Normally when he wished to emotionally pull away from someone on reaction he'd hunch into himself and hide behind his hair. Unfortunately that just called more attention to his condition, which made Malfoy laugh all the harder.
"Black and Potter," he muttered darkly to the room.
Snape stormed around the room gathering things as Lucius chuckled into a pillow.
"I must say the look does work for you." The hell it does. "They must've had someone in mind when they were trying to make you beautiful." Malfoy straightened up importantly.
Snape gave him a look that even Lucius would admit, only very deep inside him, made him feel like a complete imbecile. "I'm going to the baths," he said gruffly, and stalked out the room.
" . . .Ahh . . ."
Severus Snape knew that that moan came as much from knowing defeat as well as pain. Hm, well now looking at her position on the floor, pain could have had its fair share. Ah, Angelina Johnson, Queen of Grace.
Though for this situation it'd be hard to really fault her with clumsiness; it's not easy to be randomly put from a seated position to one that had no chair with zero forewarning without embarrassment. The potions professor himself lucked out from his own indignities by help of a low table and a corner. The brief stumble never happened by the look on Snape's face.
The only luck that Angelina seemed to have was that her head barely missed the side of the staircase.
Snape was treated to a sight that he hadn't seen since the end of Angelina's 'awkward stage' around forth or fifth year: a mess of brown limbs and robes. Except instead of looking upon a head full of beads/various metallic/ribbons and a skinny body just starting to hint at the woman it would become he saw medium short black hair falling around pursed lips and an expanse of leg that would almost be provocative if they weren't so inelegantly placed. And instead of looking embarrassed or rueful she just looked irritated. Snape went up to her prone form.
"Ah, who was I to doubt the judgment of Albus in his waning years by choosing such a promising aide? Excuse me while I go fetch my funeral robes."
Dark eyes shot up to glare at him, but by the face she was making he was afraid he couldn't give himself full credit for it. She grumbled as she picked herself up off the floor.
"He did that on purpose . . ." she huffed.
"Well technically, my dear, that was Fawkes," Dumbledore's voice chuckled behind him.
Angelina's eyebrows went up to her hairline, and as he turned around he found out why.
The Headmaster himself wasn't physically in front of them, but he represented himself in the best way he knew how: crazy. He somehow made a facsimile of himself out of the materials off of a small table, the blue and white table cloth made a good version of his hat and beard and two glass vases making for odd, googly eyes. Severus sighed at the spilt water and lilacs
"Albus where are we?"
"Why, my dear boy, you're in a house."
Albus went on before Snape could've said anything really not nice. "And a lucky thing we found this house too! This ought to keep you safe for awhile. Or at least until we can figure out something better."
The two took a quick look over their surroundings. The place looked like a simple two story house, with at least one fireplace, an upstairs and the hintings of a kitchen behind them. Snape looked back at Albus.
"This is a safe house? I don't recall this being mentioned at a place to lie low from danger."
"It wasn't," Dumbledore responded jovially. "I just found it again. I thought I lost it."
"You just remembered the location of it?" Angelina asked, curious.
"Oh no, I never forgot the location of the house; it just wasn't where I left it."
Oh. Okay.
Well, that smacked of something that he'd answer in his own time or never at all. Snape's lips thinned as he crossed his arms.
"Okay Albus, what's my sentence?"
Dumbledore actually grew more somber. Snape admits that he's at best around 83 percent accurate on when the Headmaster will switch from silly to serious. He half expected him to say something smart.
"If there could be an easier way to keep you safe life would be a lot simpler for us all. But all things considered there could be worse arrangements. I must be brief now but my instructions aren't that complicated: This house will change locations every three days. The most important thing is to be in the house on the third day, but it would be wisest to be inconspicuous at all times. During the transition phase this safest place to be in would be the second bedroom upstairs. As of now I'm not quite sure of what day it is on; you may want to wait until the first transition happens before you leave. And trust me; you'll know when that happens.
"But most importantly: try to keep safe you two. I have faith in you both and hopefully this shelter will work in your favor but sometimes three days can be very long indeed. This house will be disconnected from all common magic trafficking, and I would soon disconnect this communication for now, so if there are questions you may ask them."
Angelina squashed the odd notion of raising her hand. "Headmaster, what about our clothing and belongings? We've hardly had the chance to get our things. Are we supposed to get them locally?" Where's 'locally'?
How does a figure made up of tablecloth and glass vases managed to look sheepish?
"Well, ahem, a lot of things you'd be looking for would already be upstairs. Ah the spell will be wearing off soon. Goodbye for now, you two, and good luck."
Before either could get in a word (and for Snape I'm sure it would have been plenty a word) the table top neatly resembled itself, flowers and water neatly in place.
Jeez, it's been so long the first people who read this probably left the fandom. I am so sorry. God bless all of you that read the story. I do actually appreciate it. A lot. Apologies. Apologies to all. If one person still shows a speck of interest in this story I will not pull another stunt like this. I mean, a third time? That's just tacky. Specific thanks to ShanniC, Evilevergreen, Fredsonetrueluv, angelface, Yoshi, and Nadrek. Wherever you guys are, thanks for leafing this one through.