Chapter 11: Debriefing

Rose walked by flower planter on her way back to the stairwell and Bast meowed loudly, placing her paws on the planter.

"What is it, Bast?" Rose asked the part-Kneazle.

The familiar meowed, staring at Rose demandingly.

Rose leaned down and moved the plants around and found a pair of round ferret eyes staring at Bast accusingly.

"Oh hey, Uncle Draco," Rose greeted without missing a beat. "Need a ride to Mum and Dad's?"

The white ferret squeaked a reply, and Rose scooped up the ferret and plunked him down into her book bag. Rose continued on her way with Bast twisting in and out between her feet. She drowsily shuffled her way down into the dungeons, passed the Slytherin Common Room portrait, and continued down towards the private living quarters of the Snape Family.

Rose stood in front of the portrait and blearily slammed her hand against the portrait's face.

"Mmffphasswordfflfh," the portrait mumbled.

"Six point zero two two one four one five times ten to the twenty third," Rose grunted, slamming her hand against the frame.

The portrait slung open slowly, making some random comment regarding her parentage. Rose snarled something about magical varnish and birds on fire as she walked past the entrance portal into room. Bast meowed as she padded into the familiar family quarters. Phoenix warbles and random owl hoots, barks, and chirps answered Bast's inquiry.

Rose pulled Draco-ferret out of her bag and placed him on the tea table by the hearth. "Do you want some tea and cookies, Uncle?" Rose asked casually.

Whether she heard Draco's replying squeak or not, Rose fussed with the water kettle and the teapot and placed a small plate of shortbread cookies out on the table in front of the visiting ferret.

A few minutes later, Rose came back with cups and poured tea into both of them. She threw in a couple sugar cubes and poured some milk into each cup and stirred each one. "There you go, Uncle Draco," Rose said as she flopped into the nearby chair with a heavy sigh. "That's mum and dad's favorite blend. I know you like it."

Draco worried on one end of a shortbread cookie with his ferret teeth, tugging the cookie off the tray and closer to the the nearby teacup. He placed his paws on the rim of the teacup and wiggled his whiskers before lapping tentatively at the tea. Apparently the temperature was perfect as he lapped excitedly at the tea, sending tiny ripples across the tea.

"Celandine says I'm too stressed, Uncle," Rose said tiredly. "She says I'm going to end up like Verbena in the hospital if I don't stop worrying about my O.W.L.s." She ran her hand through her curly hair and grunted. She pulled out a muggle plastic zip bag and threw it onto the table. Small green capsules lay within.

Draco sniffed the plastic package and make a series of angry squeaks that sounded like cursing.

"Don't worry, Uncle," Rose said softly. "I'm not stupid enough actually use them. I pretended to take one so she'd leave me alone and spat it out in the rosebushes."

The white ferret sat down on his haunches, whiskers twitching.

"I kept them to give them to Mum and Dad," Rose said softly, eating the cookie in her hand in a few bites and leaned her head back on the chair's back.

The hearth blazed to life with green flames, and Julius stepped out of the fireplace with the elongated stride much associated with his father. His straight black hair framed his face with haphazard strands. Ember had her wings up and fanned as he stepped through, mild flames flickering off her half feathered and half down tail.

Julius' eyes narrowed as he entered the room, eyes flicking from Rose, the teacups, the half-eaten tray of cookies, the pill bag, and the plump white ferret on the table. One of his pale hands gently soothed back the crest feathers of Ember.

He reached over to the tea table and plucked the bag of capsules up and unzipped the bag with his fingers. He wafted his hand across the bag's open mouth and narrowed his eyes, nostrils flaring as he identified some of the scents. The corner of his mouth declared his disgust, and he pressed the bag closed and dropped the capsules back on the table.

"Good evening, Uncle," he said softly, nodding his head to the ferret. He picked up a cookie from the table and stuffed half of it into his mouth, holding it between his teeth.

Julius shrugged off his apprentice robe and hung it on the peg near the fireplace and shed his shoes, placing them neatly under his robe. He dislodged Ember from his shoulder and placed her with the rest of the chicks sleeping in the nesting box. The other chicks peeped sleepy greetings to their sibling. As if to give testament to her long day, Ember didn't protest as her mother shifted her weight and sat on top of her daughter and closed her eyes.

There was a rustle, and Hermione walked through the entrance portal, her outer robe whooshing behind her. Her eyes were dark and her face expressionless. Prince flew off her shoulder to land by his mate on the nesting box, curling his head around his mate's back. She scanned the room, her eyes flicking from the fireplace, the table, the chair, and then to her slumped daughter, a certain white ferret, and her son.

The mask of detachment that had settled across her face fell away as she let her official job demeanor go. "Julius," she said with a smile. "Rose, you look you should be in bed, daughter. And I see our ferret operative is back with us."

Julius hurried up to hug his mother, a smile creeping across his face like a sun peaking out from a cloud. "Hello, mum," he greeted warmly, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"How are things with Master Ollivander this evening?" Hermione asked with a smile.

"Wonderful, mum," Julius said with a slight bounce. "We made a new core today. Unicorn and narwhal with one hair from kirin mane."

Hermione smiled broadly. "That sounds like an interesting balance of land, sea, and air, Julius. You must be excited."

"It's really finicky, mum!" Julius beamed. "But, I think it will make someone a very special wand."

"Garrick must be very proud of you," Hermione said with a smile. "I know I am."

Julius beamed in response.

"Your father and Wayne are working in the lab and Flitwick and his Heads are doing patrol, Julius, are you hiding away from your House tonight or do you need to get going?" Hermione chuckled.

"I should go," Julius said with a sigh. "Morgan wants me to help him with his Potions homework."

Hermione lifted a brow. "Mr. Danton better not be abusing your friendship for a leg up in potions work."

Julius waved his hands to placate her. "No, mum. He just needs help remembering how many times to stir in either direction on his last potion assignment. He's finally remembered all the ingredients."

Hermione sniffed absently and gave a tight-lipped smile. "Very well," she replied. I suppose helping him not blow up your father's and my classroom is also beneficial."

Julius grinned. "I thought so! Goodnight, mum!" he said as he bounced onto his toes to kiss him mother on the cheek. Julius grabbed his school robe and threw it on, hopped into his school shoes, and hurried out of the room and out of the portal door.

Hermione lifted her brows again as she heard Rose snoring softly in the chair by the fireplace.

Draco hopped down onto the floor with a squeak and bounced towards her. There was a corner of one of the shortbread cookies still in his mouth.

Hermione grinned at Draco, knelt down and pulled the corded port-key out from around Draco's neck. She pulled out her wand, waving it at him with a flick of her wrist, lightly tapping his head with the tip of her wand before she stood up again.

Draco finished off the cookie remnant and grinned at her. "Shortbread cookies are even better when the cookies are almost as big as you are."

"I'm onto you, Malfoy," Hermione chuckled. "You accepted the mission so you could gorge yourself on Molly's shortbread cookies."

Draco put on his best halo look. "Whatever do you mean?"

"They are strangely addictive," Hermione admitted. She pulled the kettle off the hearth. "Tea?"

"Please," Draco answered.

Hermione carried the tea tray out into the next room as Draco followed her. She poured him a cup, habitually putting in the cream and sugar she knew he liked into the tea and stirring it. She fixed her own cup and sat down by the weathered chairs by the fireplace.

"I find it amusing that practically every room in your quarters has a fireplace," Malfoy said as he sipped his tea.

Hermione's lips twitched. "We live in the dungeon, Draco. It is par for the course as they say in muggle golf."

"I did try muggle golf with your father," Draco confessed. "I really don't see the fascination with it. Oddly, my father seems to find it… curiously soothing."

Hermione's eyes widened as she attempted to wrap her mind around the mental image of Lucius playing golf with her father.

Draco seemed to recognize her difficulty. "Yeah, that was my response too." He scratched his head with his hand. "But, who are we to question the odd quirks of our parents?"

Hermione shook her head in both agreement and refusal to ponder the mental image further. "Did you find anything while you were ferreting it up?" Hermione asked casually.

Draco shook his head. "There were quite a few 'supplements' going around the student possessions, but none had the scent you gave me before I went hunting."

Hermione looked up as Draco paused, catching a look that crossed his face. "But?"

Draco frowned. "But I did find one trace of it… in the capsules Rose laid on the table in the other room."

Hermione's expression turned dour, her eyes darkened into a color as dark as her husband's.

Draco waved his hand to clarify. "She hasn't taken them. She was given them by someone named Celandine, who is supposedly worried about Rose over-stressing herself. Before she fell asleep by the fire, she told me she was waiting to give them to you and Severus."

Hermione slowly rubbed her temple with her fingertips, massaging her skin with a slow circle. "Celandine… Celandine… Ever since I started teaching, the first names always come to me slower than the last. Hallow I think is her surname. Fifth year. As much as I feel like this shouldn't matter, do you know her family, Draco?"

Draco knew what Hermione meant, even though she did not specifically ask. Hermione wished to know if Celandine Hallow was from a pure-blood family. Minerva had been concerned as to where tampered capsules had come from. Since the contaminated ones had muggle medicines mixed in with them, there had been assumptions that the capsules were being tampered by a muggle-born or half-blood wizard or witch. It was logical to presume that it would take someone familiar with muggle "science" or at least muggle methods to wish to mix two incompatible things together.

Draco shook his head. "I am not familiar with the family name," he answered her. "Father drilled many of the pure-blood family names into my brain as a child, but Hallow was never one of them. However… Hallow does seem like a Wizarding name, does it not?"

Hermione nodded. "It is possible that Miss Hallow is just someone caught in the web of this strange drug rather than someone specifically trying to bring harm to the students of Hogwarts." Hermione narrowed her eyes. "However, if she did intend harm to those she gave those pills to… she would expect Rose to end up like Miss Baylor in the hospital wing."

Draco lifted his head. "Hermione?"

"Hrm?" Hermione looked up from her musing.

"Verbena and Rose are both Slytherin. Is Celandine?" Draco asked.

Hermione looked upward as she pondered. "I do believe she is Slytherin."

"Perhaps that is where I should search next, with McGonagall's blessing," Draco speculated.

Hermione nodded. "I'll relay your report to Minerva in the morning during our meeting and take the capsules Rose saved in with me."

Draco and Hermione looked up as Rose walked into the room like a shuffling zombie. Rose blearily mumbled something incoherent, placed the plastic bag in her mother's hand, wrapped her arms around her mother in a hug, waved at Draco with her fingers, and walked out of the room towards her old room.

There was a dull thump a few minutes later, which Draco and Hermione exchanged glances over. "Well I guess that answers the question of where she'll be sleeping tonight," Hermione said with a small smile. She grasped the bag with the capsules in it, glad that Draco had managed to give her a heads up over it ahead of time. "I wonder how much of tonight she will remember in the morning."

"If she's anything like her parents, she will probably remember all of it and be mortified," Draco speculated as he set down his empty teacup.

Hermione nodded in agreement.

"Well I should get home to Astoria before she wonders if you stuffed me in a chest somewhere and locked it," Draco said as he stood up.

"I could, if it would make her feel better about her speculations," Hermione said with a grin.

Draco waved his hand. "No, thank you. I've had enough mischief today. Let me know if you require my assistance in further adventures."

Hermione nodded. "I will. Thank you for your help today, regardless."

Draco smiled with a small bare of his teeth, looking like a shadow of his ferret self. "A pleasure. And thank you for the tea and cookies. Especially the cookies," he said with a wink.

Hermione laughed, waving him away.

Draco gave her cheeky grin and walked into the adjoining room, disappearing into the floo with a rush of green flames.

Hermione grasped the bag with the offending green capsules in it, her lip curling in a level of disgust she had yet to put words to. Taking in a deep breath, she tucked the capsules into one of her pockets and cleaned off the various tea services around the rooms. She picked up the last shortbread cookie on the tray and munched on it, silently thanking Molly Weasley for her compulsive baking disorder.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Severus stifled a yawn as he finished bottling the last of the batch of potions allotted for Poppy Pomfrey. Wayne was dutifully quilling out labels and placing them on the various flasks and vials they had filled. Severus lifted an eyebrow at the labels as he noticed a distinctive trend into illegibility on the labels.

"Antido…de to Corruptive Poissons?" Severus curled his lip as he looked at the nearby flask. "I'm sure the French fish will enjoy having their own potion against 'corruption' as it were," he commented dryly.

Wayne hung his head, hitting his forehead against the desk with a large yawn. "Sorry, Master," he groaned. "I'll be lucky if I can remember the password to the living quarters shortly."

Severus shook his head as he rewrote another label as "Antidote to Common Poisons" and pressed it on the offending mislabeled flask. "Don't let Hermione catch you committing horrible crimes against penmanship," he said with a quirk of his lip.

"How do either of you write so meticulously all the time?" Wayne fussed as he rewrote a few labels and put them over the horribly written ones.

"I did have a period where I went through the spiky hardly legible writing phase, if it makes you feel any better," Severus said with a tilt of his head. "That got old fast, however, when writing your own ingredient lists and realizing you can't read your own handwriting."

"Somehow I doubt Hermione would ever have illegible handwriting," Wayne said.

"Once," Severus admitted, his expression flickered with the closest to sheepishness his face would ever become.

Wayne furrowed his brows. "Do tell."

Severus hooked his collar with his index finger and loosened it. "I once told her that it didn't matter if she could read my handwriting as long as I knew how to read mine."

Wayne slid his eyes to the side slowly. "I bet that went over well."

"She wrote the entire inventory I assigned her in my own horrible handwriting of the month and then left to the Weasley's for the holidays," Severus recalled.

"She can write in your handwriting?" Wayne sputtered disbelievingly.

"If I've written it, she can imitate it," Severus snickered as his face turned up in an amused expression..

"Is it a spell?" Wayne asked curiously.

Severus shook his head. "Before your time at Hogwarts, we did not share our thoughts as we do now. For her to learn from me, she literally absorbed every nuance of what I taught her. She was unconsciously mirroring my mannerisms long before how we are now."

"Like that thing you do when you're frustrated and you pinch the bridge of your nose?" Wayne asked with a grin.

Severus glared as his apprentice. "Yes. What of it?"

Wayne waved his hands in placation.

Severus inclined his head. "Have you ever watched her teach her Transfiguration classes?"

Wayne nodded. "Quite a few times."

"When she's tired, she teaches like Minerva," Severus said with a thoughtful expression. "And the less her potions class responds to civility, the more she teaches like me."

Wayne chuckled. "You know, I think you're right."

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Of course I am."

Wayne waved his hands again. "I wonder where that will put me in ten years. Who will I teach like?"

Severus' corner of mouth quirked upward. "Hopefully yourself, however, it does not take Merlin himself to see that you're already picking up on both of our mannerisms from time to time."

Wayne ruffled his own hair with his hand. "That obvious?"

"Mmhmm," Severus answered. "You fuss over the phoenixes like Hermione.

"I snap at people who blow up cauldrons like you," Wayne sighed.

"Some would call that a good balance," Severus said with a tight smile. "Do you bare your teeth and bounce back and forth doing a ferret war dance when you're excited?"

Wayne grunted. "So far, I have managed to restrain myself on that front."

"We can't all be my godson," Severus said with a shrug.

Thank Merlin for that," Wayne said as he rubbed his eyes. "I don't really see myself as being a ferret."

"Pine marten, perhaps?" Severus teased.

"No, no, not that either," Wayne replied, waving his hand dismissively.

"Weasel?"

"No."

"Mink?"

No."

"Sable?"

"No!" Wayne interjected.

"Stoat?"

"No."

"Honey badger?"

"No and no."

"Wolverine?"

"Nnnnno."

"Greater grison?"

Wayne slumped into his chair. "Now you're just going through the entire Mustelidae family."

Severus tilted his head to the side slightly. "Mmm. Perhaps."

"I'm willing to bet Hermione could turn me into all of the above on her whim," Wayne speculated.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "You would be correct. She is extremely talented in that area."

"You know, back when I was a first year student, Hermione found me sniffling in the hallways just like the new transfer student from Birmingham… Violet… Kincaid? Kincaid sounds right. A group of students from one of the other Houses pushed me down in the hall, scattered my books, tipped my inkwell, and left me sniffling to myself and I hadn't even passed my first week at Hogwarts," Wayne recalled. "She picked up my stuff, mended my quill, magicked the ink back into the inkwell, and led me to the Slytherin table for lunch. I thought that very moment that she was the most magnificent witch in all the world."

Severus let out a soft snort of air through his nose. "She still is." He began to fill the crate in front of him with potions.

Wayne smiled at the Potion Master. "She never let me feel alone for long. Somehow, she would always find a way to get me surrounded by friendly people, regardless of their House. She shared Prince with me like it was nothing, yet to me it was everything. Had she not done that, I don't know how I would have turned out."

Severus pulled the shavings around the bottles and placed the crate on the table by the door. "Do you ever wonder how one small act can change an entire chain of events?"

Wayne stood, brushing his teaching robes into order. He picked up the crate of potions in his arms as Severus held open the door. "Quite often, actually." He walked out the door with the potions crate.

Severus closed the door and warded it. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Minerva hadn't forced me to take take Hermione as my apprentice. If I had driven her away with my stunning effervescent personality… Where would I be? If she hadn't been here teaching that day she helped you… If I hadn't survived the war…"

Wayne half choked on the mention of Severus and a effervescent personality. He had started to walk towards the stairs, but turned around to face his Master. "I don't claim to know how it happened, Master, but I am glad it worked out the way it did."

Severus met Wayne's gaze with a calm expression. "Full circle, Mr. Mitchell," he rumbled lowly. "One day, perhaps, Miss Violet Kincaid may look back on today and say the same of you."

Wayne smiled at Severus, an echo of the young boy with a propensity to create poppy flowers and potion pins reflected in his face. He bowed slightly in silent respect to his Master and turned on his heels and carried off the crate of potions to the hospital wing.

A flicker of movement caught Snape's attention as he stared down the hallway. "Five points from Slytherin for skulking about the corridors after curfew, Aldrich, and five points from Gryffindor for you too, Matthews," Severus growled.

The two chastised students slunk away towards their perspective House dormitories, keeping their heads down.

Severus took in a breath and let it out slowly, turning and gliding down the corridor, his black robe flowing behind him like a flag in the wind.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"Witch," Severus grunted, "Why are you staring at me?" He regarded her with sleepy eyes as she shifted under the bed covers.

Hermione smiled at Severus as she slipped into the bed. "I happen to enjoy looking at you." She wiggled under the comforter and snuggled up close to him, placing her face against his chest and tucking her head under his chin.

"I'm fairly certain you've gone round the bend," he rumbled into her ear with a frequency that seemed to purr directly into her eardrum.

Hermione smiled, inhaling his scent and pressing her face against his chest. "As long as you are here, I do not mind," she murmured.

"What am I, your enabler?" Severus sniffed, burying his nose into her hair.

"Crazy loves company," Hermione retorted, settling in beside him. Within a few minutes, she was already fast asleep.

Severus curved his arm around his wife, his eyes closing as a contentedness surrounded him. Crazy he may be but glad of it.

Within moments, he too, was fast asleep.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/N: Taking a little break from studying the integumentary system. . Wait what? I just watched a kid go by my window on an electric scooter. They couldn't be bothered to stand up on the scooter, so they put a plastic bucket on it and sat down on it as a seat. I'm not sure if they get points for inventiveness or points taken for utter laziness. Maybe it cancels it out to zero.