Chapter 4
Spike looked over the parchments and sighed.
After his last temporary out with his companion Drusilla, he had decided to come back to his family as a kind of vacation. No vampire but Spike would manage to get responsibility for a human teen because of an ill-timed vacation!
All in all, he had enough of Drusilla and her constant neediness, moodiness and cheating. He wouldn't crawl back to Dru, not this time. He deserved better than that.
Perhaps he just needed something more to do?
There was a promising Slayer in New York. It was too long ago that he drank Slayer blood, he could make a trip there.
Yes, perhaps that was what he needed, a good fight and killing before he came back. And after shaking the family tree up he would find something or somebody else to do to occupy his time.
Severus sat in his new room, his trunk waiting to be opened.
He couldn't really believe what had happened to him in this short time.
2 weeks ago Lily gave up on him because he said one wrong word in the heat of the moment. He tried to apologize but it seemed all this years of friendship didn't mean more to her then one verbal mistake.
And now he was in a different school far away from Great Britain, his peers in Slytherin, the Marauders and Lily.
He could learn whatever he wanted to learn. He had a family Head that had accepted him as part of the family, hadn't even hurt him in any way, didn't say anything slighting because of his looks or his manners or saw it as strange for somebody his age to read as much as he did.
Even with everything else changing back to before, his life in Hogwarts as the strange friendless Snivellus and victim of the Gryffs, the easy acceptance of Spike would have been enough.
He kept waiting to wake up, to find himself back in the dungeons or even his room in Spinner's End, shivering under his ratty blanket.
"Hello. You must be Severus. My name is Michel."
He looked to the door to see the strange boy his age. It was surprising to be addressed in Latin, or Latin with a french accent in this case, but his mother had taught him the language when she was still alive and he understood and spoke it well enough.
"Yes, that's me."
"Madame Valara sent me here, I will be your tutor. Do you want to unpack now or to look around first?"
That decision was easy. "Look around, I think."
He didn't feel very talkative but Michel didn't seem to mind as both went out.
"So, are you a kept or a free one?"
"What?" was the french coming onto him? He hoped not.
An open laugh. "Sorry, that's how we call ourselves. We have two types of students here, the kept and the free. The kept still work on their general education, OWLs and NEWTs, the free are already done with that and can learn whatever they are interested in."
"A free, then."
A small nod as if Michel had expected that
They were looking at a group of students playing footie.
"You are expected to have at least one class of sports or arts independent of your other classes. There exists a complete list of the possibilities so you can decide easier. There aren't any grades for that, this is the way of the school to force you to something recreational."
That got a little grin out of Severus.
"There are clubs as well: Chess, cooking, languages, it doesn't really matter.
They are not mandatory but I don't know anybody who isn't in a club.
The second class you have to go to is household charms and potions. This is expected of every student."
"Household charms?"
Michel nodded. "Yes. This school was founded for the gifted, but they didn't want us to be unable to function outside of our ivory towers. In Vaduz every pupil is expected to learn to function without help. The elves cook but everybody has to clean his own room and clothes. In most other schools that is different."
Severus nodded. To train the students for life after school was a good idea. He could just imagine the reactions if some of his old peers in Hogwarts were told they had to wash their own clothes.
"Do you have a special area of interest? Something you know you will do?"
"Potions."
Michel smiled. "Ah, one of those. Come on, I show you the potions laboratories."
Severus looked over his schedule to see which books he needed next.
The 2 weeks he had been in Vaduz had been wonderful. He could concentrate on what he wanted to learn and didn't have to sit in classes he wasn't interested in.
Another great thing about the school was that he could study magical and muggle science at the same time. The school had contacts to the Universities in Switzerland and the Vaduz' pupils went there by floo. Because of that he would have medi-wizardry and after that biochemistry for his goal to get his mastery in medicinal potions and muggle pharmacy, something he would not have thought possible before.
Michel doubled his studies in magical and muggle too. First of all, his passion astronomy was transferable in both worlds and as a muggle-born he wanted to decide for himself which world he wanted to live in.
Today Spike would be back from his short trip to New York to see if Severus liked his new school.
The vampire had said something about slayers and coats but the teen hadn't really understood Spike's mumbling. He would see when the vampire was back.
As a sport class Severus had decided on fencing. He had the right figure for this sport and fast reflexes.
Not being ridiculed during a physical activity was new for Severus and he already thought about adding a second sport course to his schedule. Life was good.