One Day at a Time
Honey Dukes
At the end of my classes for the day I decided to go see Hagrid to take my mind off my nervousness that Tarazet might reappear again. By the time I arrived at his house, Harry, Ron and Hermione were already seated around the table sipping cups of tea and politely ignoring the plate of biscuits in front of them. I couldn't help but think that they looked as though they were the exact same biscuits he had been offering us since the beginning of the year.
"Hello, Liseli," Hagrid smiled when I came in. "Let me grab you another cup. Oh! I just remembered something I was going to tell you. Somebody was looking for you at Hogsmeade the other day." I froze. "He didn't say his name but he was tall with chestnut hair, and very thin."
"He found me," I said icily.
Hagrid heard the change in tone and quickly inquired, "Did something happen?"
"I didn't particularly want to see him," I explained.
"Was that—was that the man that was in the classroom at the end of our class?" Hermione cautiously asked.
I nodded and Ron blurt out, "Who is he?"
I hesitated for a second and decided it would be best to answer honestly. "He's my youngest brother. I hadn't seen him in a very long time, and I would have been more than happy to continue that streak."
"He looked a bit under the weather," Hermione cautiously ventured, and I thought I saw where she was going with this; Tarazet's eyes had the haunted look that only Azkaban prisoners could obtain.
I decided to answer her real question, instead of beating around the bush. Besides, then I could explain that he wasn't in Azkaban for being a Death Eater, even though he was one. "People don't come out of Azkaban exactly looking untouched," I replied. "He just finished serving his fifteen year sentence."
"Only fifteen years? What'd he do?" Clearly not very good at diplomatic skills, our Ron. It was fairly obvious that he remembered Fred and George's statement that I had several brothers who were Death Eaters.
I pursed my lips. "He counterfeited Galleons."
Hermione's eyebrows nearly shot off her forehead, they went so high. "He counterfeited Galleons? But there are all sorts of charms on them to make them impossible to replicate and to make them identifiable."
"He could be clever when he wanted to," I said shortly.
But Hermione pressed the issue "And then there's the whole branch of Goblin magic concerning them, too. I can't imagine how he possibly could have counterfeited Galleons without someone immediately noticing. I mean, he must have used Dark Magic or something."
The conversation was not going the direction I wanted it to, and at this point I was pressing my lips together so tightly I was sure my facial expression looked like I was sucking on a lemon. "I don't know his technique. We were never very close," I oversimplified, "And I'm certainly not going to aide him in criminal activities."
Hermione seemed to realize she had gone a bit too far, for she quickly fell silent. The room was quiet for a moment until Harry spoke, "Fifteen years seems like an awfully long time for counterfeiting."
"Two hundred million Galleons is an awful lot to counterfeit," I said lightly, taking a sip of my tea. And the judge wasn't exactly ecstatic that he gave all of them to the Death Eater cause, I silently added.
Ron's jaw had dropped. "T-two hundred million?" His eyes glazed over and I was sure he was thinking about all he could do with even a hundredth of that amount. Part of me suddenly got the urge to warn Harry that he should avoid Tarazet, in case they crossed paths again, but I quickly decided against it: it was bad enough to be seen with a convicted criminal, I didn't need them to know that he was a Death Eater, too. From across the table, Ron was still looking dreamily into space and I heard the faintest sigh issue from his mouth, "..and a Firebolt, and new robes, and my own textbooks…"
I ate quickly at dinner, hoping to finish before Snape could so much as arrive. Professor Sprout was already there, however, and one of the first things she said to me was "Oh, by the way, somebody was looking for you yesterday at Hogsmeade. Tall, thin fellow."
"Hagrid already told me. Thanks, though," I replied, trying my hardest to appear nothing but cheerful. I wolfed down my food without further conversation, leapt up and started walking back to my quarters.
"Liseli," I heard Dumbledore's soft voice behind me in the stone hallway. He had either followed me out of the Grand Hall, or had coincidentally been walking in the same hall. "I heard you had a rather—ah—unpleasant visitor? Is everything all right?"
I felt my face turn crimson. Now even Dumbledore was talking to me about Tarazet! Must everyone in the universe associate him with me? I quickly stuttered, "Oh, I'm so sorry, professor. I hope we didn't cause too much of a ruckus. I had no idea he was coming, I didn't want to see him, I would've have never allowed him to come onto Hogwart's grounds if I had known—I mean what with security being such an issue nowadays—and really, I swear it won't happen again, and—"
Dumbledore held up a hand to stop me, his blue eyes twinkling. "You misinterpret me. I meant are you okay?"
"Oh." I paused, mildly embarrassed I hadn't understood his question in the first place. "I'm fine, just annoyed at him."
Dumbledore smiled. "That's good to hear. If there's every anything you need to talk about, Liseli, I always have an open ear." And with that he bade farewell and strode back towards the Great Hall, leaving me to stand there and wonder what he actually meant.
After that I started avoiding the Great Hall at meal times. I didn't want to have to talk about Tarazet with anybody else. I'd send to the kitchen to have food brought to my quarters, or I'd walk down myself and chat with the House elves. One such day, a rather cloudy Saturday, I was having brunch in my room when I heard a knock at the door. Nobody had ever visited my room before, and when I swung aside the painting, a rather unpleasant site greeted my eyes.
I resisted the temptation to say "What are you doing here?" and instead curtly said "Good morning, Snape. What can I do for you?"
He walked into my room (without being invited in, I might point out) and stated, "Some of the professors were worried."
I pursed my lips. "About what?"
"You haven't been at any of the meals in almost a week," he replied.
"I've been eating in my room," I said tersely, and indicated my unfinished brunch, which he had interrupted. "Did the other professors send you?" I asked, somehow doubting that he would visit me of his own will.
"My quarters are the closest to yours," he drawled.
"Well, your timing's poor, I was just about to leave for Hogsmeade," I lied.
"With your brunch half eaten?" he raised an eyebrow.
I glanced at the plate and then said confidently "Yes. Now if you'll excuse me," and I left my room through the portrait hole.
He left with me, though, and started walking next to me. "You need to work on making up believable excuses," Snape said disinterestedly, and I felt a twinge of annoyance at him condescending to me.
I was sure that he had told the professors he was going to talk to me, and that he wasn't going to leave until he accomplished whatever it was he had said he would. Fine, I thought. That doesn't mean I'm going to make it any easier for him. He can follow me all day until he gives up.
"I'm going to Honey Dukes," I announced.
He raised his eyebrows again. "Somehow I imagined your tastes would have—ah—matured by now, Colburn."
"It's not for me," I sneered at him and his condescending voice. "If you must know, I'm planning on giving my students candy, and then making a point about how they should know how to check unknown food for curses."
"Cursing your students? I'm impressed," and for once his words agreed with his tone of voice; he did sound impressed.
"I'm not going to actually curse them," I rolled my eyes.
"Why not?" At first I thought that he must be being sarcastic, but then I realized that he was honestly asking.
"Because—because, there's an awful lot of ways that could go wrong," I replied, surprised that I had to answer such a question.
"As long as it's a simple curse, and you have the counter-curse or antidote on hand, anything that goes wrong is easily remedied. Besides, the students will remember the lesson much better, get more first hand experience," he drawled.
Hm. He did make a point. "Still," I hesitated.
"Try the 'Aegrus Venter' curse," he replied immediately. "It has both a counter-curse and an antidote, which I can brew," his voice had less of the disinterested edge than it normally had.
We entered Honey Dukes and I had to keep myself from laughing. The sight of Snape, brooding, imposing Snape, in long black robes, standing in a colorful candy shop while young children ran around was beyond amusing. "I was thinking Chocolate Frogs, or something," I stated. "Do you think the charm on them would interfere with the curse?"
"I doubt it," he said distractedly. He was looking at a package of Cockroach clusters.
"Oh, students would never eat those," I explained, now in a rather light-hearted mood. "Seginus and Matar, my oldest brothers, tricked me into eating one when I was little. They're disgusting." Snape started looking at the Acid Pops next to them, and it struck me that Snape may have never walked into Honey Dukes before; he had the look of someone thrown into an entirely new situation.
I finally settled on a very large box of Chocolate Frogs, and left the store carrying it in a bag with a shrinking charm on it. We were walking back to Hogwarts when I heard a voice behind me happily yell "Liseli!" I froze where I stood and turned around. "Liseli!" the man cheerfully exclaimed again. He had chestnut brown hair, light blue eyes, and was slightly overweight. A 3 or 4 year old girl with blonde hair and blue eyes was holding his hand and walking with him as he approached me. "Why I haven't seen you in forever, Liseli. What a pleasant coincidence running into you here!" Coincidence, I thought acridly. Sure. He looked at Snape, who had the beginning of a sneer on his face. "And let's see, Severus Snape, am I wrong?" the man said cheerfully.
"I'm sorry, I—" Snape started in an icy voice.
"Oh, you must not remember me. No worries, no worries. I was Head Boy while you were at Hogwarts, but there are an awful lot of students at Hogwarts. I'm Deneb Colburn, it's a pleasure to meet you."
…
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A/N: Thank you very much to Berry64, PollyWantCookie, argyle owl and Mywaychan for reading and reviewing! Each and every review is greatly appreciated.