December 20, 1978, London
"Snape? You at an interruptible point, lad?" Eustace Mulpepper called down the basement stairs.
It was a valid question. Some potions could not be left unattended.
"One moment, sir," Severus called up. He turned down the heat on the Bunsen burner, so his current project would not boil over, then hurried to the staircase. He only got a few steps up the staircase when he met Mr. Mulpepper and Evan Rosier coming down.
"Mr. Rosier needs the special potion," Mr. Mulpepper said. "Take care of him, please."
Severus extended an arm to his former classmate and helped him to the stool. Rosier leaned heavily on him, shaking as he limped to the stool. Mr. Mulpepper hurried up the stairs without another word. While he supported Lord Voldemort's goals, he was not a Death Eater, and preferred to maintain "plausible deniabilty." He didn't want to know what his apprentice's other master was doing.
"Crucio'd?" Snape asked unnecessarily. He recognized the symptoms.
Rosier nodded.
"Our lord is not gentle when he is displeased," Severus observed. He kept his tone neutral. Openly expressing criticism of Lord Voldemort was to risk the Cruciatus Curse himself. Going to the cupboard, he fetched out the painkiller he'd had to brew all too often lately. He also got a small bottle of cheap Muggle gin. He poured three tablespoons of the painkiller into a battered mug. "Drink this down as quickly as you can."
Rosier took the mug. He gulped it down, then made a face. Severus poured a generous helping of gin into the now empty mug.
"This will help kill the taste," Severus told him.
Nodding, Rosier took the mug and drank deeply. "That helps," he admitted. "A little."
"You should rest." Severus gestured at the cot in the corner of the basement. "Even with the painkiller potion, only time will ameliorate the effects of the Cruciatus Curse." He did not ask what Rosier had done to displease Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord was quick tempered, and quick to punish any failures, real or imagined. If anything, he was harder on his supporters than he was on his enemies. Severus remembered a line from a book Lee had recommended to him: "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger."
Rosier managed to make it to the cot under his own power, then collapsed.
"Rest," Severus repeated gently. He went back to the potion he'd been working on before Rosier had needed him. Twenty minutes later, he bottled the anti-acne potion - one of the best-sellers at Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary - and put it aside to cool. "Evan? Are you awake?"
"Halfway," Rosier muttered.
"I'm going to go out for lunch. Will you be all right by yourself for a bit?" After Rosier mumbled what Severus took for an affirmative, he asked, "Shall I bring you back anything?"
"No. Don't think I could eat and keep it down."
"Nap if you can. I'll be back soon." Severus went upstairs, informed Mr. Mulpepper that he was going out for lunch, and left the shop. He went down Knockturn Alley to Diagon Alley, and thence to the Leaky Cauldron, the pub that formed the gateway between the Wizarding World and Muggle London. He nodded politely to Tom, the barman, popped into the loo long enough to change into Muggle clothing, and continued out to Charing Cross Road.
Checking to make sure he was not being followed, Severus dashed into Papiernictvo, a stationery shop. He bought two Muggle Christmas cards and a cheap pen from the proprietor, a man with a thick Czechoslovakian accent, and tucked them into his jacket pocket. There were plenty of eating establishments on Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road, but being so close to Diagon Alley, some of them were occasionally patronized by wizards who wanted to go out slumming in the Muggle world. Severus didn't want any curious eyes watching what he was about to do. He wandered the streets of London, turning left, then right, then left again, until he was sure he was in a purely Muggle neighborhood. He went into the Saracen's Head Pub, where he had a dish of stewed eels, a packet of potato crisps, and a mug of lemon shandy. As he ate, he signed the two Christmas cards. On Lee's card, he scribbled a brief note, telling her that he had gotten a job with an apothecary in London and hoping that her classes at the University of Manchester were going well. For Lily's card, he simply signed 'Sev.' He addressed it to Lily Potter, not to James and Lily Potter. He was not about to send a Christmas card to James Potter, not if Minister Bagnold and Lord Voldemort both ordered him to do so.
He glanced around the pub. No other wizards or witches were there. None of the Muggle customers were paying attention to him. That was how he wanted it. No one could see him addressing Christmas cards to a Muggle or a blood-traitor. As a Half-blood, he had to be very careful amongst his fellow Death Eaters. They knew he had Muggle relatives; they didn't know he still kept in touch with any of them. He wondered idly which would distress his colleagues more: sending a Christmas card to his second cousin or sending one to Lily, the Muggle-born wife of one of Dumbledore's pets. The other Death Eaters, especially the younger ones, despised Lily for two reasons. She had been the cleverest witch of their year at Hogwarts, Slughorn's favorite, and was living proof that Muggle-born witches were not only equal to Pure-bloods, but (in her case, at least) superior. And they despised her because she - the dowerless Mudblood, with no family tree important to them - had managed to catch one of the most eligible young bachelors of the wizarding world, when their Pure-blood sisters had failed. Either way, he didn't want them to see him when he slipped Lee's card into a red postbox or when he dropped off Lily's card at the Public Owlery.
It wouldn't just be embarrassing for Severus to get caught. It might be dangerous.
