Chapter 30

Ministry Visit

"So you are really registered with the star mapping society people?"

Patience smiled lightly at Sarah as she said, "Yes, I am fully registered with the RAS, which means that I am allowed to take on clients."

Eva, who had been staring at the door to the crowded London restaurant as if she were expecting something odd to happen to it, turned back to her friends and asked, "But you are only registered? They didn't offer you the chance to earn your letters then?"

Patience cleared her throat and said stiffly, "Not exactly. They were rather insulting about that, actually. However, Luther is contacting them about it. He wants them to offer me full membership after a probationary period during which they would observe my ability to perform advanced plotting and take readings with the calibrated asterothen."

Sarah jumped up on the end of her seat excitedly, "Patty that is really wonderful! Just think if you were to earn your letters!"

Eva once again pulled her attention back to the group and added, "If that is what you really want, Patience, but I didn't think it was."

Patience shrugged uncertainly, "I don't know. I need to think about it more. It is something that I never expected for myself. You or Elspeth were the ones most likely of us to get their letters."

Sarah added, "I know I never could. I was never gladder than when I left off Transfiguration and Potions after fifth-year. I don't want to write another essay ever again."

Patience continued to fidget with the salad fork as she stared down at her plate. "I don't either. I do not think that I could manage having to study and be pregnant. But Luther thinks I ought to at least see how the Society responds to his proposal."

Eva said in a moody, unenthusiastic voice, "He will bring them round to what he wants. That is how Luther is."

Sarah slipped her arm round Eva's shoulders as she looked at Patience saying, "Do you really want to do all those charts and things though? Do you think you would want to take on a client?"

Before Patience could respond, Eva asked quietly, "I have wanted to ask you that, Patience. How much do you really want to do?"

Patience made a gesture of uncertainty. "I have no idea. Perhaps it would be nice to be allowed to follow star patterns again. I miss it. But I like my life right now, so I don't want to let the Astrocartography take over."

Eva seemed thoughtful as she took a sip of her pumpkin juice. "I talked to my brothers last night about you, actually. I told them that you were going to be registered with the RAS. Neal thinks that Daedalus would better utilise a dedicated Astrocartographer, instead of purchasing our charts piecemeal from the Society. I cannot tell you how useful it would be to my department, actually, because the Daedalus Delivery Protection Charm, our proprietary charm you know, is so tricky that it would really come in useful to have on-staff advice. But Neal and Edward wanted me to ask you before we set it to Father, who would be so thrilled to have you on board that I think he wouldn't take no for an answer."

Sarah cooed softly, "Ooooh, Patty, how utterly perfect is that? You and Eva would work together and everything!"

Patience stopped flippig her salad fork over and looked in surprise at her friend. "Do you really want an Astrocartographer or are you just trying to help me? Because, as much as I appreciate your offer, Eva, I don't actually need to work."

Eva glanced momentarily in the direction behind Sarah and replied quickly, "Your brother is here and yes, I am quite serious about needing an Astrocartographer. When I explain the parameters of our proprietary charm, you will see what I mean. I wouldn't patronise you, Patience."

As soon as Eva had mentioned that Luther had arrived, Sarah looked behind her and called out cheerfully, "Hello, Luther. Are you eating with us, too?"

Patience smiled at her brother, whereas Eva budged up closer to Patience, her chair squeaking noisily in her haste to give Luther a wide berth.

Patience had given up on pretending that she was reading the text on elementary wand work. It was immensely dull and she felt that she was already well past the book's level of complexity. Therefore, she had leant back into her chair and closed her eyes with the intention of taking a short nap until whenever Luther noticed that she was not studying and woke her. However, just as she was beginning to drift comfortably to sleep, she was startled awake by a loud swooping sound coming from the fireplace.

Patience sat up sharply in time to see a long green flame the length of an arm, which was reaching across the floor, retract into the fireplace. Patience gasped in fear and stood up with the intention of investigating the red wax-sealed parchment envelope that was now lying on the rug.

"Don't touch it!"

Patience stopped and looked back at her brother, who had pulled out his wand and was levitating the envelope through the air towards the desk.

"It is almost certainly protected with some charm and might be harmful to touch, Patience." Luther waved his wand, leant in to look closely, then pressed his thumb to the seal, and spoke a long sentence aloud in Latin. The envelope opened and Luther pulled out a parchment from within. "It was sealed to the thumb mark, Patience. It would have burnt your hand if you had picked it up. You ought to think of these things."

"Who is it from? What is it? Is it the Ministry?"

Luther cast his sister a look of scorn. "Did that look like the normal method of delivery for a letter from the Ministry, Patience? That was Xulopurian magic, therefore quite illegal and completely untraceable. A form of the Dark Arts especially well-suited to a wizard who can control fire without a wand, although not restricted to Promethians of course."

"It is from Severus?"

"Yes, Patience. Clever deduction. Let me read it now."

Patience hovered by the desk, waiting for her brother to explain the contents of the letter. She thought that it must be something serious and possibly very dangerous for Severus to have risked using his magic outside the Wygracket property. Severus had told her that he only used the Promethian powers in emergencies if he were not securely inside his own home and only then if he were quite sure that no one was round to see.

"There is going to be a Ministry raid on the house today for illegal magical objects. Bloody nuisance, since I had intended to finish off that posit for Saluki this afternoon. Naturally, they will not find anything of Snape's, because all that has been safely secured. However, this means I will have to go through my own things and put them in the vault, since I do not have permits for everything. Snape has only just had the warning, but he should be here in time. He must finish his afternoon classes."

Patience remembered the two raids on her parents' home and felt completely overwhelmed at the prospect of another. Her father had forced her to sit on the chair overtop the trap door to one of the hidden cellars, so that the ministry wizards would not cast Reveal Spells on that area of the floor. She had been terrified that she would be dragged off to Azkaban if the hiding place were found.

"W-what will they do? Are you sure that we are safe? Do we really have permits for everything?"

Luther walked over to the fireplace and dropped the parchment and the envelope into the flames. "Quite sure. Snape is not a careless man, Patience. He has permits for every single item that the Ministry will find, including at least a dozen objects that would be illegal to purchase now but are acceptable to have inherited if the permits are in order. My own things might raise suspicions, which is why Snape is contacting us. I'll need to go place them in the vault."

Patience grabbed her brother's sleeve to keep him from leaving the room and asked in a nervous, high-pitched voice, "Well what shall I do?"

Luther frowned as if he did not understand why Patience would be worried. "Nothing. We should have at least an hour before they arrive. That will give you enough time to have Rem do up your hair and change into better robes. Snape will be here to conduct them round the house. They won't touch you, Patience. Snape will make dead certain of that."

Patience let go of her brother's sleeve and stood wondering about the basket full of poisons she had found, which she had hidden in her room from Rem months ago. Did Severus know about the objects that his mother had secreted in her cupboards? What about the books with all the slanderous information, much of it on quite influential witches and wizards? Would that cause trouble if it were found? And what had Rem done with all of the objects that Patience had wanted to throw out? Patience ran hastily from the room to find the old housekeeper and make certain that Luther had not been mistaken about how secure their house really was.

Almost an hour later, Patience and Rem had tucked the last of the phials of xue lien powder into the overstuffed attic vault and Luther was placing a third layer of protective spells on the door, when Wicket appeared before them with a bow.

"Mistress, the Ministry wizards is arrived."

Luther asked harshly, "Are they still outside?"

Wicket bowed again and spoke pointedly to Patience, "Wicket has not opened the door, Mistress. Wicket waits for Rem as Mistress tells him."

"Thank you, Wicket. Rem, I think that we are done here. I suppose you and I should go down, don't you Luther?"

Rem left the room hurriedly, the glint of something sharp and metallic under her crisp white apron showing as she quickly turned in the hall.

"I thought Severus would be here by now. What do we do? He would know what to say to them, but I do not know anything. I'll say all the wrong things and panic."

Luther placed his hand on his sister's back and led her to the door. "I am here, Patience."

"But it isn't your house, so what if they try to ask me things?"

Luther propelled Patience down the stairs, saying, "As I said, I am here and I have full authority from Snape to manage this. They won't have any easy time with me, Patience, so you needn't worry."

As the siblings reached the landing for the second level, Snape was closing the door to his library behind him. Patience broke away from her brother, ran up to Snape, and tossed her arms round his neck saying fretfully, "You took so long. I thought you weren't coming!"

Snape, still dressed in his teaching robes and smelling slightly of the Potions classroom, paused only briefly before peeling away his wife's arms and gruffly replying, "I informed you that I would be coming. Go ahead down, Kent."

Luther continued down the stairs, leaving Patience and Snape in the corridor. Snape seemed to be extremely displeased as he looked at his wife. "What is the matter, Patience? You can't go down looking like you are expecting to receive the Dementor's Kiss."

"All your mother's poisons and the blackmail books, I had to hide them."

Snape appeared quite surprised. "Were those still in there? Rem was supposed to have removed them two years ago. I shall have to speak to her later, but I am glad that you thought of them."

Patience, still standing very close to her husband, asked in a clearly scared voice, "What do I do if they ask me questions?"

Snape looked darkly in the direction of the stairs and said, "You tell them that your husband has forbidden you to say anything without him present. Then I shall guide the interview if they insist on one. You need to make yourself more presentable before you come down. If they saw you now they would think you'd been running through a hedge backwards."

Patience touched her hand to her hair and flushed brilliantly. "I am sorry. I was rushing to hide everything."

"And so they will know immediately if they see you like this." Snape pressed his wife forward so that she began descending the stairs to her own floor. As they approached her door, Snape bent down and said softy in her ear, "They won't be taking me to Azkaban, Patience. You are safe. We shall have several hours to talk when the Ministry wizards have left, as well."

Snape was startled by the hopeful, happy look that his wife turned on him before she lightly squeezed his hand, which had been holding her elbow as he talked, and ran into her room.

Patience sat huddled in the deep leather chair under a heavy woollen blanket, slowly sipping the steaming cup of chocolate in her right hand and staring into the fire. The Ministry raid had concluded almost a half-hour before, but not before she had been questioned rudely by Wentworth Riley, a very close friend of Bobby Fleming. Riley had refused to wait to interview Patience with her husband present, instead putting several very uncomfortable questions to her about her family, her marriage, and her husband.

The Binding Charm had made it impossible to speak truthfully about some of the questions she was asked, but Patience was too scared and overwhelmed to be able to think out plausible, intelligent responses that would safely bypass the charm. Therefore, she had stammered and stuttered, hopelessly unable to cope with the questioning before she had begun to feel dizzy and quite nauseous. Riley, correctly believing that she had something useful to tell, and clearly thinking that such a weak-willed, simple minded girl could be tricked into speaking if pressed harder, ignored her pleas to allow her to sit down or get a drink of water. The result had been unpleasant and embarrassing for her, but had effectively ended the ordeal altogether.

Her overwhelmed nerves and the pressure of the Binding Charm had left Patience at the point of collapse when her brother had entered the room and taken charge of the situation. By the time that Snape swept into the drawing room, Riley had been joined by his superior, who immediately called a close to the investigation, having been forced by Luther to admit that all of the books, magical objects, and Protection Spells on the house were entirely legal with permits readily available for view. The four Ministry wizards were coldly escorted to the door by Snape, who had informed them that they were welcome to return at any time that they felt that had received creditable information about his home, but not before.

Patience had been carefully tucked into the large, comfortable chair in her husband's library by Rem, who had proceeded to delightedly regale her with how cleverly Snape had led the Ministry wizards round the house and how obviously stupid and incompetent the Ministry clearly was. Patience had hardly listened, as she was merely relieved that the drama was over and embarrassed that she had made such a fool of herself, especially in front of Wentworth Riley. It had become clear to her as soon as she had seen Riley that this Ministry raid was a personal attack. She had felt even surer of this when Riley had begun to ask her personal questions quite unrelated to the possession or possible location of illegal objects in the house.

As Patience allowed her mind to wander, she wondered how much longer it would be before her husband came upstairs and just how upset he would still be with her for bodging up things with Riley. He had been furious after the Ministry wizards had left, laying into Luther immediately for having left Patience alone at all. Patience had been glad that Snape had ordered Rem to settle her upstairs where she could rest. However, she suspected that she would get her share of the tongue-lashing when he finished with Luther.

She heard her Crup bark a welcome at someone as the door opened behind her. There was only one person beside herself, who managed to interest Biter. Knowing that her husband must have entered the room, Patience turned her head. Her husband was looking weary and quite pale. Patience started to speak, but was stopped by Snape, who held up his hand to silence her.

"We will not speak of it. I am too tired to have that conversation with you. Tell me instead the results of Van Ussel's test."

Patience, who had assumed that the Healer would have written directly to her husband, said, "He said that the baby is quite healthy, he was very pleased and has recommended several potions for my headaches and the nausea."

Snape nodded in approval and asked, "And the Gender Determination Charm?"

Patience bit her lip as she looked at him nervously. She had dreaded talking to him after he found out, since she did not think he would be pleased to hear the news. "The baby is a girl."

Patience was shocked to see the almost incredulous look of relief pass over her husband's face. "Finally, one piece of decent luck."

"You…you wanted a girl?"

Snape lifted his drooping head and said drearily, "I hoped for a girl, Patience. I knew that if you were having a boy that there would be no hope for it. I would have to bundle you out of the country immediately. A girl I might be expected not to care much about and so we could continue with the plan, but a son…there would be nothing doing, Patience. No matter how unbearable I claimed you to be, not a single person would really think that I would throw you off if you were having my son."

Patience rested her hand on her belly and looked over at her husband, who appeared to be almost dropping from exhaustion. "You didn't tell me that if we had a boy…"

Snape interrupted testily, "There was no need to tell you before the fact. We were fortunate, finally. Your brother has also bought us some luck with his negotiations with the RAS on your behalf. Your sudden, unreasonably fast request for the membership after a ridiculously short probationary period only works to our advantage. It lends credence to my assertions that you have let your one and only talent to go to your head and are mad for a career."

Patience heard his description of her as having only one talent and felt rather crushed. "But I didn't want to take a membership. I do not think that I would be happy doing all that research and spending hours every day trapped in the asterodome. I will hate it, Severus. I had already decided to turn them down when they offered it to me. I only let Luther do what he wanted because I felt insulted by the original offer."

Snape's face darkened and he spoke roughly, biting out each word angrily, "You will accept the final proposal and do whatever work is required of you. Don't be a fool, girl, this RAS membership is exactly what we needed."

Patience's eyes filled with tears as she implored him, "But Severus, I already have an offer to be a dedicated Astrocartographer for Daedalus. Isn't that enough? Please, I would be miserable doing the work for the Society. They would make me spend over four hours a day on the calibrated asterothen. You don't know how exhausting that would be."

Snape's voice became even quieter as he replied furiously, "You will do whatever is asked of you, as I have said. You will not ask questions or make unreasonable objections. Do not test me, Patience. You do not want to make me angry right now. That would not be wise."

Patience watched as her husband stood up slowly from the chair and took several steps to a cupboard on the far wall. He leant against the bookcase as he opened the doors and pulled out a long metal stick that was covered in long spikes. "You will of course inform them of your pregnancy and they will make accommodations accordingly. However, you must appear dedicated and determined, Patience. If I hear otherwise then I will remove you to somewhere safer, where you will have no friends, no shops in which to spend your allowance, no books to read, and little else that you value."

Patience could not refrain from crying as she heard his threat. Yet she hastily dug in her pocket for a handkerchief and tried to swallow back her sobs as soon as she saw the implacable look on her husband's face. He gestured for her to stand and then threw the spiked stick into the air, where it hung overtop their heads spinning. All at once, the spikes shrunk to small bumps, all except one. Snape looked round the room and then reached up to grab the stick.

Patience sniffled and blotted her face as she watched in fascination while Snape walked in the direction that the spike had pointed and once again tossed it up into the air. This time there were five spikes left, all pointing in the same direction. Snape caught the stick with his left hand, placed it half in a pocket, and then moved to examine the large mirror over the fireplace. After several minutes and a half dozen spells cast over the mirror, Snape tapped the glass surface to reveal a three-foot square section of the mirror that now reflected green.

"Oh, what is…"

"Silence."

Snape performed another spell and the greenish cast to the mirror disappeared. He pulled the stick from his pocket and threw it into the air once more. This time, there were no spikes extended.

"That was a quite a risk for them to take. Certainly not a legal Observation Charm. Luckily for us it was visual only. I would not have wanted that conversation to be reported back to anyone."

"What was that?"

"I have just told you. One of the Ministry's representatives placed an illegal Observation Charm on this room."

"But what was that thing you used?"

"I set a Monitoring Charm on the room. This is a tool that tells me about any unusual levels of magic that were used in this room since I cast the Monitoring Charm."

"Are you sure they won't have heard what we said?"

"Yes. That was our third piece of luck, Patience. I do not think that we can expect any more."