Part 5

Severus stood outside with the rest of the neighbours as they all looked wildly around as they tried to establish where the loud bang had emanated from.

"It must have been an earth tremor," Severus said in a loud voice that quietened down all but the most hysterical of the neighbours. "We must have been near to the epicentre."

A few nods from the confused neighbours and Severus pressed his case home before returning inside knowing that the muggles would believe anything he told them as long as it sounded reasonable. They only saw what they wanted to, something for which he had had cause to be thankful for on various occasions in the past.

Inside the house he knew instantly that Wormtail was not going to buy into the earthquake story.

"What was that noise?" Wormtail asked as he looked out of the window with a worried frown and watched the last of the neighbours return to their houses.

"It was a warning for you from the Dark Lord," Severus improvised. "He's not happy with your lazing around here."

"I've not been lazing around," Wormtail whined as he tried to subtly step to the side and hide the remnants of Severus's luxury size box of chocolate frogs, which he had spent the past hour finishing off.

"The Dark Lord knows otherwise," Severus hissed as he pushed Wormtail aside and saw that there was not a single frog left.

"I'll go tell him the truth," Wormtail said as he moved towards the fireplace and put his hand up to grab the floo powder. "Huh?"

"I put the floo powder away in a safe place," Severus smirked. "And if the Dark Lord wanted to hear from you, don't you think he'd have summoned you for the meeting?"

"Why wasn't I summoned?" Wormtail asked, the thought clearly never having crossed his mind until that moment.

Severus cursed himself silently, knowing that Voldemort had probably meant to summon Wormtail too, and only his temporary insanity had made him forget. He had certainly noticed Wormtail's absence and had questioned it. Thankfully he had bought the story Severus had spun, that Wormtail had in fact known about the Easter Bunny threat and was weaving baskets that were going to be charmed into listening devices and carefully planted into the enemy camps.

Severus smiled to himself as he conjured up the raw materials that Wormtail would need before explaining. With each word he took renewed pleasure in the look of annoyance on Wormtail's face.

"Next time I'm coming to the meeting with you," Wormtail said.

Severus remained silent as he left the room and hoped that Voldemort's sanity soon returned, because in two weeks time he was expecting an audience with the Easter Bunny, courtesy of Severus.

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The next day Severus left Wormtail pulling apart the basket weaving items and called to him a parting shot of "remember you're making baskets and not a nest" as he went outside.

Looking first towards one garden and then another he decided to at least see how many of the neighbours had pet rabbits. If worst came to the worst and Voldemort was still unhinged in two weeks perhaps Severus could get away with using an engorging spell on one of the neighbourhood pets and dressing it up a bit. A couple of ribbons and he'd never know the difference.

Three gardens along the row and he found the first rabbit hutch. Carefully he lifted the latch and the door sprang open.

"Oy, what d'you think you're doing?" a voice yelled from the doorway behind him.

Severus jumped up and turned to face the muggle owner of the house.

"What're you doing to Bugs?" a young girl asked as she dashed around her father and ran to the hutch. "He's trying to steal Bugs," she said as she secured the hutch again and turned to Severus with a glare that would rival Voldemort's.

"You stay right there mister," the man in the doorway ordered. "Gladys, call the cops, we've got a rabbit thief 'ere."

Severus wasn't worried until he reached for his wand and found it was not where he normally carried it. Recalling getting stuck for a moment in the hedge two gardens away he knew that he must have accidentally dropped the wand as he'd crawled through.

"They're on their way," Gladys said as she came to the door too and looked at the captured thief. "Severus?" she asked in shock.

Oh no, Severus thought as he closed his eyes momentarily.

"You know him?" her husband asked in confusion.

"It's Severus from down the road," Gladys explained. "You must have met him Bert. He's lived here as long as I have. We grew up here together."

"You never mentioned an old boyfriend living here," Bert answered as Severus paled in horror and the glare of the young girl turned into an assessing gaze.

"Why were you trying to steal Bugs?" the girl asked, taking a step back and keeping one cautious eye on the hutch.

"Maybe Severus's pet toad wanted some company," Gladys suggested with a sickly sweet smile that Severus found rather alarming. "I'll go call the police and tell them it's a misunderstanding. Won't you join us Severus?"

Severus looked longingly at fence he had climbed over and the hedge on the far side beyond before he remembered that Wormtail was back at his house and his company was even less preferable to the muggles in front of him.

"I'd be delighted," Severus replied as he tried to keep the sneer in his voice to a minimum.

An hour later and Severus was bored out of his mind as Gladys recalled story after story of their time growing up on the street as children. Unfortunately most of the things she recalled were not of things they had done together as children, but rather the result of the numerous memory charms that had been cast by his mother on the nosy child who had been forever popping over to the Snape household for one odd reason or another.

The only thing more annoying than the reminiscing of Gladys was the continual questioning of her daughter, Doreen.

"Do you really have a pet toad?"….."It died. Now I have a rat, who bites."

"Why don't I ever see you round here?"…."I work at a boarding school."

"Are you really a school teacher?"…."Yes."

"Why don't you teach at my school?"…."Because I don't."

"What subject do you teach?"…."Er…."

"Can I see your rat?"

Severus smiled to himself at the thought of Wormtail being played with and pulled about by the irritating girl. But no, as tempting as the thought was he had no intention of letting him have the cushy job of being a pet again. He'd had more than enough of that at the Weasley house.

Eventually Severus made his excuses and returned home to find Wormtail had long since given up on the basket weaving and had instead decided to help himself to the six pack of butterbeer.

He had barely had time to throw Wormtail out of his seat before the sound of an owl tapping on the window drew his attention. He opened the window and let in Minerva's owl. He read her note and saw that she was going to be arriving shortly with news from Hogwarts.

"Minerva McGonagall will be here any minute. You'll have to hide."

Wormtail disappeared up the stairs and Severus went to the back door to retrieve his wand before Minerva arrived. He saw that he was too late however and she was coming through the hedge in her cat form, his wand carefully between her teeth.

He stepped aside to let her in and after he had taken his wand back she transformed into her usual self.

"You really should be more careful with that," Minerva said with a shake of her head. "What was it doing in your neighbour's hedge?"

Severus groaned and shook his head.

"We know that Voldemort's planning something," Minerva said, cutting out the small talk that she knew he disliked. "We've started getting some disturbing reports."

"Reports?" Severus asked.

"We received the first earlier this evening about a robbery at the dragon conservation colony. Several dragon eggs were stolen. We suspect that Voldemort is planning on trying to train them to attack which would be disastrous."

"I shouldn't worry about that report," Severus said with a casual wave of dismissal. "What else have you heard?"

"Well we heard from one of our spies working at a muggle tabloid paper that they are running a story about a spate of thefts today at London pet stores. We wouldn't have noticed it except the reporter is sure it is the same gang and the only way they could have got around the city so quickly is with magic. The muggles haven't noticed that but it's only a matter of time. Do you know what Voldemort might want with the rabbits that have been stolen?"

"I'd ignore that report too, if I were you."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Minerva asked as Severus studiously ignored her and looked at the rather hideous portrait of one his grandparents that hung on the wall.

"Severus?" she encouraged.

"Voldemort is convinced that the Easter Bunny is a threat to him," Severus finally blurted out.

He looked at Minerva and watched the expressions flit across her face, disbelief, confusion, understanding and finally the wicked sense of humour that not everyone was fortunate enough to see.

He felt the involuntary twitching of his own mouth and a moment later they were both in stitches as they laughed and Severus filled her in on the details.

It was a couple of hours later when Minerva left and another hour after that before Wormtail ventured downstairs again.

"You sounded like you were having fun?" Wormtail questioned as he scurried around the edge of the room. "Giving away all the Dark Lord's secrets. I don't think he'd be too pleased to hear about that."

"The Easter Bunny is a threat to everyone," Severus said without looking up from the Daily Prophet where he saw that Wormtail had not only started the crossword he normally did himself each evening, he'd filled it in incorrectly.

"I don't think the Dark Lord would see it like that," Wormtail said as he looked through the cupboards for the floo powder and found another mousetrap.

Severus smiled as Wormtail squealed.

Tossing aside the paper he stood up to leave the room, thinking how much nicer it had been when Wormtail had been out of the way. There was nothing else for it, he'd have to start entertaining everyone he knew in the wizard world in order to ensure that Wormtail stayed in the attic.

Severus Snape…Social Butterfly. Somehow it just didn't sound quite right.