A/N: Yes 4. I am so bad at letting this story go lol. There is an awful lot of Snape here What can I say, he likes me. Cedric will be in the next update, don't flame me for not letting you know ok? JK Rowling said Olivander was at the forefront of new wand design (or at least thats what Wiki says). I have an idea that could have meant this:
Epi 1: "I never got it." Snape regarded the handsome woman before him steadily. "Where did Pomona get the first cutting from to start experimenting with Vines?"
"Bring your wand," McGonagall demanded needlessly.
Snape blinked owlishly. "Now?"
"Yes now," McGonagall snapped and swept out of Snapes chamber. Snape sighed heavily and rose to follow in her wake.
When Snape caught up, which was no mean feat, he attempted to maintain his dignity while directing McGonagalls steps. "Head for the Tropical greenhouse."
"What makes you an expert all of a sudden?"
"Malfoy said that Hermione was pulled out of class recently – it could be nothing. They were told to meet Pomona at the Tropical house. He has been useful for keeping an eye on her. She has no idea of course."
"They?"
"Longbottom and err Cedric were with her."
"You know young Cedric is mentoring her." McGonagall turned hard right out of the gates and down towards where the greenhouses nestled together like giant chrysalides.
Snape thought wryly about the scene in the stairwell, mentoring - is that what they are calling it now? He been almost willing to show his hand before the staircases got around to complying. It was Cedrics own fault that she got away from his after that.
"Interesting choice," he muttered and followed it up with a patchy, "not a Gryffindor. How very inter-house spirited of you." McGonagall forgot herself for a moment and shoved Snape off the path, his scarecrow robes flapped like an ungainly heron attempting lift-off, while he re-found his footing. "Hardly sporting," he said under his breath as they drew level with the first of the glasshouses. He had, in fact, twisted his ankle and was manfully trying not to limp. McGonagall stormed on, seeking the greenhouse with the tallest profile.
"Helen never spoke about you," McGonagall said suddenly. "Not a word until the morning of the day she died. She said you were wasting away over that pasty faced Evans girl. I told her I'd never heard such rubbish, but she was right wasn't she?" McGonagall didn't add the juicy piece of information about being privy to Helens thoughts about him, it had been an immense effort to keep her Twin from her own crush on the gawky youth with the strange eyes and rare smile.
"Nothing happened," Snape replied dourly. McGonagall gave a sharp laugh, "she wouldn't have given you the time of day. Potter blazed for her, you were only ever in his shade. You never saw it, you never saw anything," she finished bitterly, then twisted the knife. "Potter told her to get you to meet her by the Willow so that he could give Lily his ring." Snapes face darkened, McGonagall gave the blade an extra turn. "She was late wasn't she? Rumour has it they defiled the stone circle."
"Lies!" hissed Snape, catching at her wrist to drag her to a stop. They had already reached the door, McGonagall goaded him to stoke his temper.
McGonagall snorted, "I've seen the inscription on the sentinel stone, the one that looks like a doe and a stag? Unless that was you? Your patronus is a doe isn't it? Did James have you too, bent over the sacrificial stone? I'd heard he was partial to the odd buck?" She yanked open the door to the greenhouse and wrested her arm from his grip. "He's dead, she's dead, they are all dead. We have a job to do."
Snape seethed and spat, "Twins share don't they, did she share me with you? Was it good for you too? Where were you when we were under the Willow?"
McGonagalls reply was preceded the flat of her hand on his face, before she hissed, "you forget yourself, Professor." Snape was momentarily stunned and stared at the woman before him, this was what Helen always looked like, with the light of fire in her eyes as a girl, always pressing his buttons. His blood stirred for the first time in countless years. He pushed her back against the door hard enough to move the glass in its frame and pinned her with her wand hand behind her back, "want to find out first hand?"
McGonagalls shocked gasp was superseded by Ponomas cheery greeting, "Minerva! Serverus! Look, Olivander has made it away from his sweat shop for a visit!" Snape immediately stepped away and turned his back on McGonagall, partially shielding her from the jovial Professor Sprout. Olivander and he shared a chilly nod, "this is not a social visit," he drawled.
McGonagall advanced with her wand before her, "where is it?"
"I don't know what, ah, Minerva, lets not do anything rash. Dumbledore knows everything," Professor Sprout backed away from McGonagalls advance.
McGonagall gestured to Olivander in passing, "was he in on it? How much did he pay you?"
"Garrick may have made some suggestions as to which species might give the best results, but it was always very scientific. Everything is documented. Actually the only one that really took off was the 'rubus' spur and he took it to destroy it on Dumbledores instructions once it grew past the first node. It was the last clean cutting I took from Helens wand."
"Why didn't you tell me?" McGonagall said aghast.
"Be honest Minerva, what would you have done it I had told you that part of Helens Vine had survived what you did?"
"Killed it!" McGonagall whispered.
Professor Sprout nodded sadly, realisation dawned slowly for Professor Sprout, Olivander watched for it out of the corner of his eye and backed towards Snape. "The Granger girl," Sprout hissed, "it's her wand isn't it? You've ruined everything. EVERYTHING!"
Olivander hastily put Snape between himself and the furious gardener and backed towards the door, realising with some disappointment that this would be the last time he could source exotic woods without leaving the country. He also resolved to employ a Taster at the first opportunity. If anyone knew how to slip him something 'organic' and extremely detrimental to his health, it would be the green-fingered Queen he was scrambling to distance himself from.
0.0
Snape left with Olivander, they parted company where the path split. Olivander took the wider branch up to the school, Snape branched off towards the stone circle. A few minutes searching showed him what he had been dreading, under lichen, but with the outline still distinct was a row of stags astride or mounting a variety of animals with one notable exception. The last etching showed a stag couchant, looking back over its shoulder towards a small striped cat.
0.0
Epi 2: Lilys wand core was extracted by Olivander and Hermione into a crystalline cube. This is what happened after Hermione left Snapes study.
Snapes study door clicked shut behind Hermiones departing figure. The room reeked of brimstone, grease and nervous sweat. Snape leaned forward in his chair, his gaze never wavering from the clouded crystal cube stranded on his blotter. He cupped both hands around it protectively, as if guarding it from prying eyes.
"Say something to it!" Olivanders excitement made his voice inappropriately loud and his movements jerky. The possibility that the cube might communicate in some way would be magnificent, possibly the pinnacle of his otherwise uneventful history in the Guild of Wandmakers.
Snape hissed between his teeth as Olivander drew near, halting his advance with an unspoken threat.
"You services are no longer required."
Olivander whimpered, whipped by the tone and curled against a future verbal blow, "I just need to know."
Snape raised his cold stare, "leave. While you still may."
"You could keep the money. It would be worth every penny to have this documented and validated by the Guild. Don't you see what this could mean if the cube interacts? I could bring the consciousness of Great Wizards back from the past, my collection alone is quite extensive. Imagine the secrets they could reveal!"
Snape rose and calmly put the cube on the floor. The cube contents swirled unsteadily as if disturbed by the movement. "Every penny," Snape sighed. "Have you ever cared for anything other than yourself?"
Olivander tried to read Snapes pained expression, desperately seeking something as leverage. "My work is everything, its science pushes the boundaries of all our accomplishments. You would barely be able to function magically without it." He gestured to the bridge on Snapes wand. "Imagine if the vine leaves were able to reopen a living wand cleanly enough so that the still living core could be spliced with new stock if it was damaged?" Olivander knew he has lost him the moment that Snapes eyes fell back on the cube, but his dreams carried him on. "Or even if it wasn't! Hybridising a core could be possible for the first time."
"While Hermione is a student here, she is under the protection of the school," Snape murmured. He looked directly at Olivander. "You have seen how alive her wand is. Can you imagine how much it will have advanced by the time she has reached her full potential? How powerful and protective it would be?" Snapes lips took on a wry twist. "I almost wish I were a younger man," he moved to stand immediately before the cube. "My experience of vine-wielders is that they get what they want and to hell with the consequences," Snapes tone turned almost philosophical on the last sentence, but the next was deadly. "Do you really think that she does not know you, for exactly what you are? Leave. Now."
Olivander gripped his bag of tools close to his chest and scuttled towards the door. The bolt drew back for him and the key turned itself, but the door didn't open.
"Engorgio," Snape exhorted gently and under his outstretched hands, the cube began to grow, first in width and then, more by height until it was a mere head shorter than him. Olivander stared in fascination as the swirling motes in the cube spun hazily in their prison. The room filled with the muted hiss of white noise. A palm pressed flat on the inside of the enlarged cube, and the hiss rose and fell like a sleeping breath.
"Speak!" squeaked Olivander. The door opened so fast, it caught him hard on the shoulder and he spun wildly from the force of it and an unseen hand forced him backwards into the hallway, but not before he had seen the full figure of a woman drift into focus inside the cube. Her features were indistinct, but he was well aware of who it was supposed to be. All that remained of Lily Potter. The door slammed in his face. "Wait!" he cried, pressing his ear to the keyhole. Above the faint hiss of the white noise came another more distinctive sound, sibilant and distant. "-everus." He rattled the door handle uselessly.
0.0
Snape pressed his own palm to that in the cube, cold seeped through, freezing him to the elbow. The teachings of the Dark Arts always said how the dead seek the warmth of the living and he gave it willingly.
"Lily?" he whispered. A womans form seeped from the swirling mass of white background.
"-everus."
"Lily!" He pressed first his forehead, then the side of his face to the cool, unyielding surface of the cube. Heat fled from him and the flecks of consciousness in the cube became ever more animated, solidifying the figures form. "I need you," he whispered urgently, "I need you to remember."
"-ember."
Snape called his wand to steady himself, the rod was unusually warm under the bridge and he gripped it harder, allowing the warmth in to combat the cold until he felt as if the heat and the cold met in a vertical line down the middle of him. "Show me Helens death." Heat surged across him, the underside of the wand bridge split with a brittle crack, but the stream of magic he could sense felt as sound as ever.
The palm in the cube fell away into a choppy wave of white fragments that crashed against its confines. It collected itself and smashed itself a second time against his hand, cold shot up his arm as far as his shoulder and seized his heart, it took a moment for him to realise that he was shoulder deep inside the cube. His wand burned hot as a fire brand and he held it against the cube to feed it the heat it seemed to crave. Cold fingers crawled up from his heart, rising up his neck and paralysing his face before twisting into his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut against the frozen feeling and saw a wands eye rendition of the scene by the willow.
He saw himself naked and sprawled in the final throes of the rut, captivated by the exquisite ecstasy on Helens face. He saw himself reach out to deflect the threat of Helens strike and how it spent itself against his hasty shield. He saw also, fragments of a second later, a killing strike from beside Lilys wands viewpoint. He wondered, not for the first time, if this was why Dumbledore kept him so close in his confidences.
Helens frame heaved with the shock of the hit, the Vine on her wand lashed viciously at Snapes bare flesh wherever it could reach, lacerating with burrs and thorns broken through the normally smooth bark and he let it, intent on cradling Helens face in his hands. The horror of the light fading from her eyes was reflected in his expression and a feral howl sprang from his image, echoed by his own lips splitting the silence of his study.
Snapes image scrabbled frantically for the orb that she had brought to tease him. He knocked her wand away from her hand to press her palm against the curved surface, even as he clamped her other hand beneath his own against the butt of his wand, ringed with her promise. He called the first of the Dark Arts that sprang to mind, one that would drag an unwilling consciousness from a body into something that would hold it, fitting the tip of his wand to the depression in the base of the orb.
There was already too little left. Helens hand fell from the orb as soon as he released it and only an image of her patronus raced madly within the confines of the glassy sphere.
He had never felt so cold. Something warm dripped down the sleeve of his wand hand and he startled to find only his wand hand outside the cube itself, frozen air forced its way into his chest and came back out barely warmed. A droplet of red, flecked with black ash, slid viscously down the outside of the cube. "Lily?" His voice was a shudder.
"-ever loved you."
Self preservation tightened his hold on his wand, something jagged split the skin on his palm and fire shot up his arm. Snape drew his consciousness in on itself, turned his face away and pointed the wand tip to the cube.
"Confringo maxima." The blasting charm showed no effect initially, other than the air Snape breathed was suddenly warm instead of cold. Cracks crazed the cube on all sides and the moment he moved, splinters of glass tinkled on to the Persian rug. Shards coated his hair and shoulders as the cube shattered in on itself. A womans form rose up out of the white, blood splashed over a the breast directly above a heart, Snapes blood. Her hands cupped his shocked face with the warmth of a distant sun, travelled over his shoulders and he felt the brief pressure of a ghostly embrace which lingered over his wand hand before it was gone.
Haunting laughter rang out around the confines of the room as the woman fell to powder around him and a ghostly voice hissed above the sound of grains sliding over one another, "-ever loved you."
"Lily?" Snape shouted. "Lily!"
Louder and vehement, the hissing sounded more like a forest whipped by the wind and the voice took on a bitter, vindictive taint. "She never loved you."
He dropped his wand. The flesh of his palm was torn and sopping with blood, black ash rimmed the wound and he gripped his wrist to try and stem the flow of blood. The bridge on his wand was nothing but blackened dust, beneath it, shining with a dark lustre and coated with his own blood, was a crystalline bridge over the nub of Helens ring bearing a newly erupted, vicious thorn, and encasing it entirely. He wound a handkerchief hastily around his damaged hand and groped for his wand.
His drinks cabinet rattled itself open and shakily poured him a whiskey in a tumbler that flew itself to his desk. He slumped into the leather seat. Lily was gone, destroyed by his own hand and leaving him a final gift in the strange repair of his wand. He wondered if he would ever know if the voice had ever been Lilys.
Morbidly he recalled his actions immediately after Helens death. In despair Snape had evanescoed the orb, although his wand was oddly weakened. Pomona was the one to break the news that Snapes wand would never be the same again and offered Olivanders aid by proxy. Snape had been catatonic for a week, until Lily had come to him and passed on the news she had come to the Willow to share. He had lost both her and Helen. He had been virtually impassive ever since.
Orbs were unexplored territory and to his mind served much as the cube had done. He had asked for the vision of a memory and had it granted. The perspective of the relay had been nothing like his own, it must have been Lily.
Amber liquid coursed down his throat in a choked gulp. Lily had been there in the cube and Helen had forced him to destroy her, or had Helen saved him from beyond the grave? The door handle rattled desperately. Snape smiled grimly and lifted a finger, hiding his face behind the remains of his whiskey while Olivander tumbled to the floor.
"Where is she?" Olivanders voice rose to an impassioned shout. "Where is she? What have you done!" He took in the fragments of crystal and the dust on the floor and heaped them together in his hands, cutting his skin to ribbons. Crystal embedded itself into the cuts and wormed its way under his skin until it was painful for him to close his hand into a fist, or work his fingers at all. "No! no! How could you?" Olivander pleaded. Snape looked on, unmoved.
They had taken every care during the extraction not to touch the fragmented crystalline matrix. Olivander himself had explained how little was understood about how the structure worked or how it would behave against the warmth and fragility of human flesh in its raw form, since it had a marked proclivity for surrounding animal based organic material. The blasting curse had reduced the matrix once again into its raw form. Olivander it seemed had the answer to that question in front of him. Olivander held his ruined hands in front of his face and tried to flex his fingers, finding the movement restricted and excruciatingly painful. "Help me!" he cried, rising to his knees and holding his streaming hands out. Crystals shredded the knees of his pants and fragments twisted themselves into the knee joint. "Professor, please!"
"You will not speak of this."
"Anything," Olivander begged and stopped when he realised Snape was not finished.
"You will convince the Guild to amend its charter. The first female students will be admitted next year."
"But-"
"Your complete collection will be documented and made available for study."
"You don't know what you are asking."
Snape offered the tip of his rod, exposing at the same time the new crystalline segment embedded over the vine ring and its new thorn.
"Agree," he stated in no uncertain terms.
Olivander hesitated, his eyes widened as they flicked over the area previously hidden by an ornate bridge, "your wand?"
"Is better than it has ever been under your care."
Olivander seized the tip, causing the rod to tremble in Snapes grip. "Perhaps we can come to some arrangement?"
Snape lips twitched into the hint of a smile as he said very carefully, "every penny."
0.0
A/N: A stag couchant is the beast lying on its tummy with its forelegs stretched out under its chin. You know who has a stripey cat as a patronus though don't you? Nod with me...