Petunia set to her enormous plate of Mu Shu pork with gusto. She rarely ate ethnic cuisine, because she didn't know how to cook it, but she had been craving the taste of plum sauce for the past week. Ah, pregnancy. Vernon had accordingly booked a reservation at a mid- to upscale Chinese restaurant for Valentines' Day. Arabella, bless her heart, was keeping the boys company for as long as they needed this evening.
"How is it, dear?" Vernon asked.
"Everything I wanted," Petunia answered, dabbing her lips with a napkin.
"Good."
"How are your dumplings?" Poor Vernon of course did not tolerate spice very well as it gave him heartburn, and had asked their waiter what the mildest menu item was. As he was also unfamiliar with bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and bok choy, which were in almost everything, he had ended up ordering two of the dumpling appetizer plates rather than a regular meal out of an abundance of caution.
"Very good, actually. As you know, I don't usually go for foreign food, but these are quite tasty. I'd be willing to come here again."
"They sell those dumplings in the frozen section at Tesco's sometimes, too," Petunia informed him. "Would you like to try any of mine?"
"Not today, Pet." He eyed her plate of meat and shredded vegetables, and the dish of dark brown plum sauce, with clear wariness.
Petunia chuckled and reached for her water glass. "I'm still amazed you made it to age thirty without ever trying Chinese food. Even I managed to sample it growing up in Cokeworth!"
"Can you picture my dad at this place?" Vernon countered.
To the world, she and Vernon appeared the prototype of the British suburban middle class. Of course, they were exactly that most of the time, if one ignored the existence of magic. But compared to Vernon's father, they were extremely worldly and profoundly open-minded. Petunia looked around, taking in the pretty red, tasseled lamps, the golden dragons on the walls, the wait staff all communicating with each other in rapid Chinese, and the exotic strains wafting through the sound system of some kind of Asian stringed instrument mingled with a voice crooning odd-sounding words she could not understand. She grinned and shook her head. "No, I cannot see Herbert Dursley eating in a place like this. He'd be telling them to switch to BBC Radio 4, complaining about the funny words on the menu, asking what the hell the wooden sticks were for and demanding they give him real silverware." She brandished her chopsticks at him. Neither she nor Vernon were very good at using them, but Petunia had stubbornly refused to give up. She was rolling up most of her food to eat by hand anyways. Vernon possibly had not realized he had the option of asking for a fork. Their waiter had noticed their trouble and tactfully brought them two full sets of silverware when he came to refill their drinks.
"Exactly."
"You've still had eleven years since moving out that you could have tried it."
"Ah, but I was dating, engaged or married to you for seven of those years and never once desired to stray from your cooking, dear Pet. So it was only four years that I might have branched out and tried new things without my parents' influence. And do you remember where I was living when we met?"
Petunia smiled at the memory of their second date. "In an apartment over a chip shop."
"A very good chip shop at that. I rest my case."
"Alright, you win. It was a pretty good chip shop. I wonder if it's still open?"
"It was last time I visited Uncle Ed."
"We should go back sometime."
"It's a bit out of the way, don't you think?"
"Well, next time you're headed that direction for work, maybe you can pick something up for me."
"The chips will be cold and soggy by the time I get them back to you, though."
"Honestly, I was craving soggy chips and ice cream the other day, so I'd take it."
Vernon laughed. "Our little girl's got odd taste, doesn't she?"
"Certainly odder than Dudley's," Petunia agreed. She ran a hand across her belly as she so often did, feeling the growing curve. It was no doubt a coincidence, but for the first time since the positive pregnancy test, she felt a little flutter inside as her baby moved. It was not enough to feel with her hand, but more than enough to feel with her quickening heart. "Vernon! I just felt her! It's her first kick!"
"Really?" Vernon beamed at her. He got up and walked around the table to rest a hand over hers.
"She's settled down again, but I know it was her!"
He hugged her a moment before resuming his seat. "I'd say that's the best Valentine's gift we're ever going to get."
"I'll say!"
"Let me buy you some cake in celebration, or whatever this place sells for dessert."
"Probably a custard or a tart, not cake, but that's fine by me."
"Whatever you like."
Severus slouched in his chair in the staff room, legs stretched out beneath the table, glaring at the several wilting red flower bouquets and heart-shaped doilies lingering in the room. It was over a week since Valentine's Day. Why were they still here? And who had put them out in the first place? Surely not the house elves, or they would have gotten rid of the flowers as soon as they were past their prime. No one had bothered to decorate the staff room or any other part of the castle for Valentine's Day last year, which suggested either Professor Sinistra or Slinkhard was behind it. He got along well with Aurora and did not want to think she'd do something so tasteless. She was young and pretty, though, if not quite so young as Severus himself, so perhaps she had received the flowers from someone she had no interest in and decided to discreetly discard them. He smirked. Or not so discreetly, if Slinkhard had sent them. He wouldn't put it past Slinkhard to provide the ridiculous doilies. Seven months in, Severus strongly suspected Slinkhard had never been in a romantic relationship, and not for lack of trying. The man had peculiar notions on the virtues and natures of peace and love that made Albus' occasional speeches on the subject seem entirely reasonable.
"There's Albus. Let's call the meeting to order," Minerva said briskly the moment the headmaster breezed into the staff room to join the four heads of houses for their monthly meeting. She flicked her wand to direct several piles of parchment around the table.
"All work, no play, Minerva?" Albus asked as he nimbly caught his own stack. It was thinner than everyone else's, Severus noted with displeasure as he straightened up in his chair.
"You know full well the February meeting has a busy agenda and always does." She pulled out an undyed Quick Quotes quill and set it to a blank piece of parchment. "Meeting notes with no flourishes," she ordered it. "First item as always, did everyone review the minutes from our last meeting?"
"Yes, I thought they made unusually good bedtime reading this time," Albus said brightly. "There was a distinct poetic cadence to them that we don't usually end up with. I highly approved."
Severus rolled his eyes and chorused "yes" with everyone else.
"Motion to approve minutes?"
"Seconded," Filius said quickly.
"All in favor?"
There were five assents.
"Motion carries."
"Motion that we all attempt to speak in iambic pentameter for the rest of the meeting?" Albus said hopefully.
Minerva and everyone else ignored him. "Moving on, we've had fewer than usual splinchings or successful apparitions in the first six weeks of the apparition course..." Probably because the instructor, one Wilkie Twycross from the Department of Magical Transportation, was new and bad at explaining the concepts involved. Severus was bored even without trying to pay attention. He fully expected pass rates to decline, but it wasn't his problem to fix but rather the Ministry's, so he didn't much care.
"...We have twelve students taking remedial lessons in various subjects at present, down from fourteen. Progress reports for each are before you..." While glancing through the progress reports, Severus listened with half an ear as Minerva outlined the changes to the remediation plans. He took some pride that only two Slytherins were on the remedial list. There had been five with D and T averages in October. Felix had either tutored or gotten them all into better study groups starting in November without Severus' intervention, probably at Erica's behest, or that of one of the other more ambitious prefects. It was clearly working. Then his eyes widened as he looked through the list. None of the failing students in any house had T-averages in potions this month! Thinking back, he should have realized that before, of course. He'd only given two T's on the examinations in December, and two on homework in January. Well, this was a first. Either he was getting soft, or the students were actually improving. He should probably check some of his older files to make sure his standards hadn't slipped.
"...Detentions and hospitalization rates remain at average. We have survived Valentine's Day with the usual number of love potion incidents and, I am happy to report, preserved our record for timely intervention and thus no sexual assaults for the past six years."
"Three cheers for Mrs. Norris sniffing out the love potions!" Filius said happily.
"She really is a very good kitty, isn't she?" Albus said. Minerva scowled. Severus smirked. She had spent many hours over several summers helping Argus train Mrs. Norris using her feline animagus form, an arduous task no matter how well it had paid off. Unfortunately, Mrs. Norris had taken to the principle that all the students' pets were supposed to be with their owner, in their dormitories, or in the owlery at all times a little too well and now got very territorial with Minerva. Or Mrs. Norris could simply resent Minerva's strict teaching methods and deliberately goaded her, he supposed. He wasn't sure how much the cat could think such things through. All the students hated Mrs. Norris. All the staff except Minerva were rather fond of her for making their lives easier, even though she refused to let anyone but Argus pet her. Albus smiled, eyes twinkling with mischief. "I move that we reward Mrs. Norris with, say, some nice fish. I have contacts at the Mahoutokoro School of Magic who could probably send us sushi-grade salmon or tuna."
"Sushi-grade salmon?!" Minerva half-shouted, shooting the headmaster a withering look.
"The Board of Governors can't fail to approve that expense," Severus said snidely. Pomona covered her mouth but failed to hide her quaking shoulders.
"Really, Albus, plimpies from the Black Lake or good Scottish haddock should be perfectly adequate," Filius said quickly. "Argus always says Mrs. Norris prefers white fish anyhow. I move we give Argus a morning off and an extra couple galleons to take Mrs. Norris to a fish market."
"Seconded," Pomona coughed.
Minerva's lips thinned a little, but she said tonelessly, "All in favor?"
There were four "aye's." Minerva said, "Abstain."
"We're allowed to abstain from meaningless votes?" Severus blurted. Merlin, so many of Albus' trivial motions he could have voiced his disdain for this year...
"Don't abuse it," Pomona said in a stage whisper.
"Moving on, I do have special notes on several students we need to discuss. Due to the issue with Mr. Prentiss last month, Professor Snape elected to provide additional education to his seventh year class on the nature and risks of intoxicating substances and as a result identified two of my Gryffindors acting suspiciously. Both Mr. Doge and Mr. Adkins later admitted to me a pattern of nightly drinking and weekend binge drinking with another student that was highly concerning. As you all know, I sent all three to the hospital wing last week, where Poppy admitted them for detoxification. Mr. Adkins later owned up to additional use of a muggle substance called Mandrax, which is a kind of soporific." Severus leaned forwards. The main ingredient in Mandrax, methaqualone, he had also identified in the cocktail back in November. Perhaps this was a wider issue than he had thought. "Between Argus, Mrs. Norris, and I, we tracked that drug back to the Hufflepuff dormitories as of last night. Pomona, have you made any progress there?"
Pomona sighed. "Yes. I found the stash inside a hollow in the wall of the girls' lavatory while all the students were at breakfast. I'm almost certain Jane Court's banned item smuggling ring is behind it, even though Mrs. Norris didn't point me towards anything in the dorms themselves. I'll be talking to Jane later today."
"If you tip her off, she'll likely hide or destroy any evidence," Severus pointed out.
"What else can I do? It's a muggle substance, so I can't just do a tracking spell. She or one of her, ah..."
"Minions."
"I suppose that's accurate. A Hufflepuff with minions; Helga must be turning in her grave. Anyway, there wasn't time for Jane to acquire it at the Valentines' Hogsmeade weekend with Mr. Adkins admitting to using it before then, so she or one of her minions must have brought it back from home over the Christmas holidays."
"Well, you're only looking at muggleborns or halfbloods, then," Severus said practically. "According to my research after the Prentiss incident, while Mandrax is favored amongst muggles, it is rarely seen in wizarding circles, even in Nockturn Alley. Purebloods dealing Mandrax would be spreading a lot of other things around first that we would certainly have heard about, and pureblood teenagers deep enough into drug culture to be irresponsibly dealing Mandrax would doubtless also be frequently and obviously intoxicated themselves. The culprit must have gotten it in a muggle neighborhood, one they're very, very familiar with. If you can give me a sample, I should be able to make an aerosolized potion you can spray on the belongings of all your upper year students with one or two muggle parents to figure out who was carrying it. Or using it. Even if Ms. Court never touched the stuff herself, and I'm guessing she isn't so foolish, then one of her couriers or customers may be willing to implicate her if you threaten them with enough sufficiently unpleasant detentions."
Pomona stared at him a moment then shook her head slowly. "I don't know how you deal with Slytherins all the time, Severus. I've never had a problem like this before. I didn't even have my eye on Jane until you and Petrus pointed her out to me!"
"I remember."
"Thank you for the suggestion, Severus," Minerva said. "We will absolutely proceed. It may behoove us to check the upper year dorms in all four houses. I can tolerate student trade in frivolous banned items like Fanged Frisbees, dung bombs, and butterbeer, but potentially dangerous substances like this are unacceptable. Do you have time to brew the potion before Pomona's meeting with Ms. Court?"
"I can take care of it during classes this afternoon. If any of the students manage to guess what I'm doing, I'll give them bonus points and let you know who else might be too-aware of drug dealing at Hogwarts."
The four non-Slytherins shook their heads again.
"Once the Mandrax issue is sorted out, I move we ask Argus to crack down on alcohol smuggling more than usual over the next few weeks," Filius suggested. "Butterbeer to upper year students only, wine to coming-of-age birthday parties only and no more than one bottle, and absolutely no firewhiskey."
"Seconded," Severus said. "It might help Ms. Court to decide intoxicants might not be so lucrative as they first appear."
"We might keep cannabis strictly to the upper years too, then, to get the message through," Pomona added. "It's more popular than alcohol in some circles because it's easier to hide."
"Seconded," Filius said.
"All in favor?" The motions carried unanimously. "That's that. We can talk about next month, then. Firstly, we are all set for Ms. Jones to lead our first ever Hogwarts Electives Q&A session for the second years. Both Albus and I signed off on the proposal, which you all may read in your own time, and we will be reviewing the results of the session at next month's meeting to see how it affects class selections."
"Was this your idea, Severus?" Pomona asked, skimming the document. "It's a good one."
"No, it was Ms. Jones.'"
"She is an impressive young woman, and a credit to House Slytherin," Albus commented.
"She really is," Pomona agreed. "I'll trade you for Jane. Gwenog seems much more of a Hufflepuff, a real team player."
"On the contrary, Ms. Jones is exemplary of Slytherin's virtues," Severus said drily. "I think you would agree if you got to know her better. Although I will grant you that Ms. Court would have done well in my house, just as Ms. Jones would have dominated yours." A girl of Gwenog's talents and drive surrounded by affable Hufflepuffs rather than recalcitrant Slytherins would have been entertaining.
"Gwenog also talked Severus into starting the new Dueling Club," Filius said enthusiastically. "I saw your duel at the first session, you know, and I must say, excellent job, there. Really took me back to the circuit."
"Yes, it was a near-perfect first lesson, I think," Pomona agreed.
Severus glanced quizzically between the two of them. "Neither of you were there."
"No, but Poppy told us about it, and I simply had to see it, so we went to borrow the headmaster's pensieve. Your use of the Engorgement and Softening charms was truly inspired, Severus! Students always forget about charms when they first start dueling."
"Even Professor Slinkhard had little to complain about after he saw it. He called it a 'remarkable demonstration of pacifist defense.' Indeed, his only criticism was that you gave Ms. Jones points for kicking you," Albus supplied loftily. His eyes were twinkling again. The old codger knew how much Severus disliked Slinkhard's babbling about his nonviolent activism and misguided, overly technical philosophies.
"I laughed at that part," Filius said.
"Have all the staff watched it?" Severus asked, a little miffed to be put on display without knowing about it.
Albus steepled his fingers, probably faking deep thought. He shook his head. "No, I believe Sibyl has yet to see it, as she has not ventured down from her tower in some weeks."
"Wonderful. Next time, I'll sell tickets. One galleon each."
"On the subject of the Dueling Club, I would like a list of techniques covered so that we can gauge how the club affects O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. scores," Minerva said, artlessly redirecting the conversation back to business. Severus nodded curtly. "The next agenda item is career counseling for the fifth years, since sessions are scheduled to start in March. You all now have the updated brochures and prerequisites lists from the Ministry and other participating organizations. The counseling forms themselves are unchanged from last year. Severus, you and I have a meeting scheduled next week so we can go over any questions you might have after you've had a chance to review the material." Severus nodded again. So did everyone else.
"Albus, anything to discuss from the Board of Governors?"
"The earnings of the Christmas fundraiser have been tabulated, and we met the targets for both the scholarship and equipment funds. No other agenda items for us."
"Perfect. I'll start collecting purchasing requests from all the staff, then, so you and I can review them and come up with a preliminary budget for summer ordering for the governors to gut at their leisure. Does anyone have last-minute topics to discuss?" Everyone shook their heads. Minerva reached down and picked up a small box which she set on the table with a metallic tink. "In that case, the last item on the agenda is to congratulate Severus Snape. You have taken to being Head of House Slytherin admirably well this year with very little preparation. You have met every expectation I have set for you as well as several I did not. I commend you on your performance so far."
Severus' eyes widened involuntarily as she spoke, and he had to force his expression back to cold neutrality. Minerva quirked an eyebrow at him and pushed the box across the table. He recognized it as the same brand of biscuits she always gave him for Christmas and his birthday. Albus and Filius gently applauded, while Pomona jostled his shoulder companionly. Slowly, Severus reached out and picked up the box. Funny, this might be the first non-holiday-related gift he had ever received. He put the box in his pocket. "Thank you," he said.
Minerva smiled slightly. "There being no other business, the meeting is adjourned."
Author's note: Petunia's about 18 weeks along, which is a good time for quickening in a second pregnancy (takes longer to recognize the feeling in the first pregnancy). Meanwhile sometimes, Dumbledore's just gotta Dumbledore. I know Mrs. Norris is supposed to be unanimously disliked by all but Filch, but come on, she's a hyperintelligent cat that helps chase down misbehaving students. The teachers have got to love her for that, no matter how much she hisses at them! Mandrax/Methaqualone is also called Quaalude in the US. I don't think it's a very popular drug of abuse anymore, if it's even on the market, but it was big in the 70's and early 80's, looks like. Wilbert Slinkhard is the author of the horrible Defense textbook Umbridge assigned. This version of Slinkhard is basically the "nerdy college freshman" who never matured over the next fifteen years: overly academic, excessively earnest and a little awkward, overly confident in his own impractical opinions, extremely grating on someone of Severus' personality. Thanks for the reviews, and will continue to update on Sundays.
