AN: A big thank you to my new beta, Mark Darcy. And remember to please review, all feedback is appreciated.
Chapter 2
Severus stepped outside of the solicitor's office, cast a Disillusionment spell so as not to be recognized, and walked toward the Slugs and Jiggers Apothecary. He needed to obtain some more bluebonnet petals for the current potion he was working on, and the Diagon Alley apothecary was the most convenient place to get them. As Severus walked he thought to himself about the ad that had been placed. He was looking forward to being finished with the process. He could only imagine the idiot witches who were going to reply to the ad, once again wondering if this was worth the trouble. At least Barker was going to prove useful in sorting through the initial onslaught who responded, and would be able to weed out the truly dimwitted ones.
He was convinced that this was the quickest way he would be able to find a wife who would be a companion and was an intellectual equal. He had attempted "dating" and what a disaster that had turned out to be. After his receipt of his Order of Merlin first class and his tabloid label of the Dark Hero he had witches aplenty. They were after him constantly in the beginning, his notoriety and the residuals from his blood replenishing bezoar weighing heavily in his appeal.
He had taken advantage of it, but quickly tired of spending time with witches who couldn't hold a conversation. And those who were able to string a sentence together usually proved to be more interested in using him either for his fame or his money. He had been used his entire adult life by one master or another and he was never going to be used again. So he had settled back into the recluse lifestyle quickly to avoid them all, but this hadn't stopped them. He started hexing indiscriminately when they appeared on his doorstep at Spinner's End attempting to penetrate his wards.
The last straw was when Rita Skeeter herself had appeared on his doorstep wearing only an overcoat and heels. She had actually managed to get through some of his wards before he blasted her off the step, and used a Sasquatch hex to cover her completely in fur. He heard it took two months for it to wear off, and he never saw her again. However seven months later her unauthorized biography of his life, Snape: Scoundrel or Saint, had been published. Barker had done really well in that instance, the book was in its fifth printing and all the royalties were going straight into Severus' Gringotts vault.
After the incident of Skeeter on the doorstep, Severus decided to move. He had plenty of money and Spinner's End held nothing but painful memories. He obtained a cottage on a parcel of land in Warwickshire and settled into it. There were several outbuildings and a large barn; they served well as storage facilities for equipment and ingredients. The barn itself was where he had set up his laboratory.
Winky stayed with him, the house elf had become very attached to him while he served in the capacity of Headmaster. She had gone so far as to bond herself to him and the "glorious house of Snape as long as she lived." Ha, glorious. She had proven useful in keeping house, and making sure he ate regularly. She loved having a whole property to take care of, and had also become quite adept at caring for some of his plants in his small greenhouse.
As much as Severus enjoyed the quiet, a house elf did not provide adequate company even if she had learned to speak properly. He had discovered that without some form of consistent human interaction, he was lonely. At Hogwarts he was always besieged by dunderheads, students and staff alike. His quarters served as a respite from the sea of idiocy he felt like he was drowning in. At Spinner's end, he simply hadn't had a chance for the feeling to set in. There was always someone wanting his attention, be it witch, wizard or paparazzi. But when the evenings in the cottage grew quiet and still, he felt it. He felt it all around him, sometimes to the point that he would have trouble concentrating on anything in front of him.
Severus definitely wasn't looking forward to the process before him, but he was excited about the prospect of accomplishing his goal. It would be moderately pleasant to have someone to keep the stillness at bay, someone to converse with, someone to make life a bit more interesting, and possibly stimulating. He had high expectations and wanted someone who could keep up with him, someone who would provide comfort, support, intellectual stimulation, and didn't care about his galleons or his fame. It would be a grueling few weeks ahead of him, but worth it in the end.
Severus broke off his internal musings as he reached the apothecary. His thoughts turned back to his bluebonnet petals and the outrageous price that Slugs and Jiggers charged for them. He was hoping to browbeat the proprietor into a lower price, he may be wealthy but there was still no sense in wasting money. Bluebonnet petals were not rare, they were just difficult to harvest and import.
(The flowers grew primarily in the American south, and required 8 -10 hours of consistent sunlight a day and a mild winter to establish a good root system. Also mildly poisonous they had to be purified after their initial extraction from the ground. However they were one of the best natural antihistamines once the poison was extracted. Severus was working on a preventative allergen potion, and the bluebonnet properties would work well if he could just get the formula correct.
Severus stepped inside the apothecary and eyeballed the clerk behind the counter. Upon viewing him she squeaked and ran into the back, a few moments later Jiggers returned to the counter. "Jiggers, I see you have finally got it through your employee's heads that I will only deal with the proprietors of this business."
"Yes, Mr. Snape. After the last 3 clerks quit we thought it best to have them fetch us if you needed something. We can't afford to keep losing them as soon as we get them trained."
"You call that trained. The last one didn't even know a lacewing fly from a fruit fly. She attempted to give me 3 lbs of fruit fly wings, at the lacewing fly price. If she works in an apothecary she should at least be able to get me the ingredients I request in a timely manner."
"Yes Mr. Snape. Now how may we help you today?"
"I need more bluebonnet petals, and I want a decent price on them this time. 2 for a sickle is an outrageous price, they are smaller than a fingernail."
"Well Mr. Snape, they had a bad bluebonnet year in the states. The drought that has been going on for the past 2 years made for a very poor crop. If you add in the price it costs us to procure them and the additional overhead to rehire and retrain staff, I think that you will find it is a very fair price."
"I want at least 6 for a sickle."
"If you want that sir you will have to grow them yourself. I can do 3 for a sickle."
"Five."
"Sorry sir, no deal.
"Fine. Four."
"Once again sir, the best I can give you is 3 for a sickle. If you would like to look elsewhere you will find that is the cheapest you can get, and their supply won't be as fresh as ours."
"Fine, I'll take it. I also need dragon's blood, boomslang skin, and eel eyes; have them charged to my account and delivered to my lab."
"Very well sir. They will be there tomorrow. Mr. Slugs or I will deliver them."
As Severus left the shop, Jerald Jiggers sat on the stool behind his counter, quite pleased with himself. Anyone else would easily get the petals 6 for a sickle, but no one else would cause him to lose clerks every time he came into the shop. Snape was terrible to the clerks; the majority of them had either had him at Hogwarts or were scared of his reputation. He was lucky that Snape hated dealing with any other apothecary and he was willing to pay the higher price once in a while. Jiggers knew that if he always overcharged the dark wizard he would wind up on the wrong side of some nasty hex, he had read about Rita Skeeter's predicament. He was already hairy enough. However, Snape seemed willing enough to pay it once in a while to avoid suffering the inconvenience of breaking in a new apothecary to his personality. Jerald would soon be out of his own supply of blue bonnet petals; he hoped the wizard had completed his formula by then. He didn't want to be the one to tell him that they were out.
