It was a frighteningly blabla normal day, and Severus Snape might have been in a equally normal state of mind if it hadn't been for school on the horizon and the fact of shopping needing to get done as a direct scientific result. Severus was a teacher at some weird school he always forgot the name of, and if he were a soiled and dishonest old wheeze, he would lie about liking it. However, Severus wasn't a wheeze, whatever the hell that was, and so he figured he'd just as well go for the gold in this case, so to speak and always be very open about hating his job. He thought he was pretty successful there.

Other things Severus hated included but weren't limited to: ham sandwiches, late night staff parties, Potter-who-should-never-have-traipsed-into-Hogwarts-last-year, and Diagon Alley. The thing Severus hated most about Diagon Alley aside from the way people pushed him to get to so-not-worth-it ice cream stands, was that there were too many people in general. He had talked to them about having a body police on these god-forsaken streets, but some thugs had tried to steal his shopping bag and beat him up for that one. Severus hated thugs. He betted that was what all the extras in those pernicious streets were. Wait, didn't pernicious have to do with attitude?

It was an unseasonably cold day, so Severus spent a long time the morning he was fated to go shopping deciding what to wear and pretending that he had more than three sets of robes plus a burn one. He quit that activity when he realized that the radio alarm blaring in the background was giving him a migraine. Grabbing some double-strength Advil, he left the vicinity and stepped out onto the nippy street of Spinner's End only to realize he was still in his nightshirt.

When he finally reached thug-crowded Diagon Alley, there were more than the usual amount of filler people, which made Severus miffed right off the dumb bat. There couldn't possibly be that many people wanting to do their shopping in one day. For a moment, Severus spaced out on Eyelop's Owl Emporium, thinking of all the better things he could be doing at the moment, things that did not involve Diagon Alley. He stopped that activity abruptly when he realized he couldn't remember anything he'd done that summer aside from eat stale toast and canned peas, courtesy of his lean budget, and owl Dumbledore his application for the Defense job. He'd never gotten anything back, even though he'd sent a reminder owl every other week, not to seem desperate. He'd had to rent the reminder owls too, from some corny overpriced shady business that maxed out his credit card like whoa. Once they gave him a dud owl and then wouldn't let him return it for another; he'd decided to stop after that, and assume Dumbledore had died or fallen down a long set of stairs over the summer, or was ignoring him, which, being one of Dumbledore's favorite activities, seemed the most likely.

Keeping his head down, he pushed his way through the crowds until he got to the potion shop he always got his supplies from. Severus didn't know the name of it because the welcome witch outside stood there and smiled at him every time he tried to pause to read the sign, and it made him uncomfortable.

The bells on the inside of the door tinkled as Severus strode into the shop. Someone must have entered right behind him, because they tinkled again soon after, and he hurried out of the way to scan the shelves. In the end, Severus settled on getting doubles of all the basics, a.k.a. the ingredients first years were always spilling, plus some unreasonably pricy boomslang skin for sixth year advanced potions and a yak's foot, just because. He thought of buying a new gross thing in a jar for the shelves in his office, but this summer was making him destitute and he so didn't need the extra strain. The person checking him out at the cash register babbled to him about how they were having a deal on boomslang skin next week, which really rubbed Severus the wrong way, because they hadn't advertised it in the daily prophet and she'd already stuck his boomslang skin in a newly opened shopping bag, so he couldn't exactly take it out again and hold up the whole dumb line. Severus's credit card was rejected, so he had to dig around in his pockets for the last of his galleons, which just barely fit the bill, so to speak. He turned to leave and nearly walked directly into Lucius Malfoy.

"HELLO, Severus," Lucius boomed at him as though he were hearing impaired. Severus had long ago come to suspect that Lucius himself was hearing impaired, so he no longer took offense to his outrageous volume.

"Hello," Severus said shortly, giving Lucius a crisp smile that made his face hurt. He thought of running, but his bag was already leaving a mark on his arm and he didn't want to jostle it around; plus Lucius might get the wrong idea. He searched for some avenue of conversation, as Lucius was grinning at him expectantly.

"Where is…ah…Draco?"

"I'm so glad you asked that question, Severus," said Lucius barmily, shouldering an obnoxiously large bag that Severus had failed to notice earlier in the horror of the moment. "Draco is at home waiting for a little… surprise."

He winked, even though winks were typically reserved for another party who knew what the hell was going on, which Severus decidedly did not.

"All right," he said. "Well, Lucius, I must…"

"What you must do," Lucius trespassed, waving his arm so that it almost hit Severus in the face, "Is come to dinner with us! We have much to discuss!"

Severus very much doubted that. He was experiencing the strange sensation that his lungs were suddenly deprived of air, not an unusual experience in the presence of any one of the Malfoys.

"What are you doing in a potions shop?" Severus managed, trying to avert the invitation.

"Weeelllll," Lucius said, drawing out the word as though anyone gave a hoot about his answer. "I came in right behind you, actually. I was going to give you my greetings right away, but then I decided to wait and watch you shop. Sometimes I like to see how the poor make it through the day."

Severus stared at him.

"Ah."

"Come with me now!" Lucius said, turning in a flurry of emerald green robes which nearly hit Severus in the face again.

Severus found he had little choice.