The dawn hours were the worst time of day in Hogwarts. Something about the enchantment of night fading away and yielding to the exposure brought on by the sun's earliest rays always possessed Hogwarts' caretaker of a sort of cynical despondency. With the dawn came the Hogwarts kiddies, and with the kiddies came the terrible mess, and with the mess came the awful noise, and with the noise came the intolerable disrespect. Every morning, without fail, the sun heralded the worst that life had to offer.

Those last few moments before the curfew lifted always felt like his last moments alive before facing his hangman. And what had Argus Filch ever done to deserve such tortures? Who had sentenced him to these resounding agonies?

That devil. That woman, Fate. Born without magic, to a pureblooded family that cared enough to keep him but couldn't stomach raising him half in the muggle world. Where else could a poor wretch like himself go? Upon whose charity could he have thrown himself besides that grand patron of wizarding humanity, Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore?

He adjusted his grip on his broom, leaning heavily against it as he watched the last shadows of night recede into the corners and beneath benches and gargoyles. He estimated that he probably had no more than half an hour to sweep the remainder of the corridor before the first early risers would start making the trek out of their common rooms.

Given where he was—on the ground floor, on the opposite side of the castle from the entrance to the dungeons—he suspected it would be those cheerful nitwits the Hufflepuffs he would meet first. They tended to be the most respectful of the students, but they also were effusive with their greetings and he'd just as soon choose to be left alone. It was a guarantee that they'd be chipper this particular morning as well, given that it was a Hogsmeade day. It had finally begun to warm outside the castle, and the first buds of spring were beginning to flower.

It might have been okay had the headmaster not signed him up for chaperone duty. Normally he got to go kip for a few hours after breakfast got underway, but on Hogsmeade days when he was unlucky enough to have duty, he wouldn't see his bed for another eight to ten hours, at the very least. With his eyes already full of grit and the fumes put off by Wodred Wainwright's Wonderful Wood Polish, he knew that today would prove particularly tedious.

"Well, Mrs. Norris? It's past the bell now," he drawled. "Time enough for you to go to the kitchens for some sardines." He grinned down at her tiredly, blinking to relieve the ache in his eyes. "Ga'an now. You can't come all the way out to the village with me. Might as well be that one of us gets some sleep."

His sweet wound around his shins, her crooked tail brushing behind his knee and making him chuckle before she turned towards the stairs that led down a level. Before she made it through the stone archway she paused, her ears pricking and her head turning.

"What is it, my pretty? Seen an elf, perhaps? They're just finishing their cleaning rounds—"

His pet let out a furious hiss which put him immediately on alert, and he readied his broom to use as a weapon once she laid her ears back along her skull, her front legs dipping her into a position that suggested she'd like to pounce.

"Not an elf? No," he crept forward, the bristles pointed out before him as though he were a knight with his jousting lance readied. "No, it'll be one of those nasty little brats," he spoke aloud, half to himself and half to his familiar.

"Alright then," he shouted as he closed in on a broom closet he seldom used. From within he heard the sounds of the mops and buckets knocking about. "Show yourself, and don't think about cursing me or you'll be expelled—"

The door protested as it was opened and a groan issued forth, causing Argus to jump and wave his broom about defensively. He needn't have bothered, for in short order he was treated to a down-turned head of dripping black hair, so disheveled that it covered entirely the face of the boy the hair belonged to. That wasn't a problem for long, however, as the student lifted his head and swiped back the curtain from his features, revealing the face of a seventh year Slytherin whom Argus knew because he was so frequently in trouble.

"Snape!" He barked, dropping his weapon to his side. "The devil are you doing stuffed in a broom closet? You're dripping everywhere—have you gone and gotten my rags all wet?"

Argus stamped his foot when Snape refused to look at him. He had squared off his perpetually sloped shoulders and was glaring balefully down at his much-abused trainers. It wasn't only the boy's hair that was damp, either. His robes clung to him, and droplets of water were trickling down from his sleeves and the hem of his trousers. When he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the caretaker could hear the loud squelches of displaced water in the soles, and when he looked down, he saw that puddles were forming around the Slytherin's feet.

"You look like you just climbed outta the lake," he observed, curling his lip at the young man before him.

Snape didn't answer this either, but his traitorous blush spoke volumes, as did the shamefaced way he ducked his head down and away.

"Speak, boy, or we'll see you spending a few hours on your knees with a brush in the Slytherin team showers, scrubbing the grout 'til it's white as the day it was spackled!"

"For what?"

Argus blinked, taken aback that those were the first words out of the boy's mouth. It hadn't even sounded like a question. The two words were spoken with such belligerence that he felt tempted to bring his broom back up to fend off an attack. Indeed, when he looked at Snape's face, he saw there the stirrings of mutiny. The hatred born of constant mistreatment and unfairness. And it wouldn't matter that Argus was the least of Snape's foes. Filch knew that well enough: as a squib he made a convenient, easy target for venting one's frustrations.

Instinctively, he took two, careful, steps back from the young wizard.

Mrs. Norris hissed in her master's defense, but otherwise stood her ground.

Argus cleared his throat, feeling wrong footed but not entirely sure why. "For curfew violation—"

"It's five minutes past the hour," Snape said in answer, his voice a low growl.

They stood staring at each other, Argus' watery grey eyes meeting Snape's terrifying black ones in a moment of indecision and ill-resolution.

Finally, Argus relaxed again. He was too weary from a night of patrolling and cleaning to maintain his stern stature for any longer, particularly when it didn't appear as though Snape had been out causing mischief himself. No, on the contrary. It appeared that mischief had found Snape, and Argus was reasonably certain that he knew the name it went by.

"So it is," the squib answered, his mouth thinning into a gash. "What happened to you? Did the squid pull you under for a midnight waltz?"

Snape looked murderous, but he again defaulted to silence. Argus could see from the way his hands clenched into fists at his sides that it was something worse, however.

"Tell me what happened and you can go on your merry way."

"Why? You found me after curfew, I should be home free anyway. Why do you care what happened?"

"We like to know when we should be on the lookout," Argus answered eventually, holding a finger alongside the bridge of his nose. He wished he could say that he'd take Snape's assailants to task and issue punishments, but the headmaster never punished based on he-say she-say testimony. Unfortunately for Snape, that often meant that he was left without recourse for the many assaults he'd suffered over his seven years at the school.

"As though they'd dare to dredge a member of the staff through the lake," Snape scoffed, and then, under his breath: "'On the lookout,' he says."

Well, that explained the what, but the how of Snape arriving in the broom closet was yet unanswered.

"How did you get away? Splashing and whatnot, they couldn't see or hear you runnin' away?"

"They left as soon as I was safely in the centre of the lake," Snape spat, his knuckles turning white the harder he clenched them. He was positively shaking with barely repressed rage. "But I know better than to go to bed after, Mr. Filch. They've caught me out before in the corridor to Slytherin."

"So you camped out overnight in the broom closet," Argus finished for him, sneering. "And didn't think to dry yourself—"

Snape held up his empty hands, his face a mask of enraged humiliation. "Perhaps I could do, if you've any idea of where they hid my bloo—my... my wand."

Argus' mouth firmed up in a grimace. "It'll be just your luck we've got a method for finding lost wands. Elsewise half the students wouldn't have them anymore."

Snape shook his head, apparently disbelieving. "A miracle that any of them have the mental capacity to draw breath."

"Yeah, well you're one of them now, ain't you? So you can just count yourself lucky that the elves know how to locate them within the grounds. Unless... you didn't drop it in the lake, did you?"

"They lifted it off me while I was still in the castle," Snape answered. The boy didn't seem to know whether he ought to be relieved or irritated. "And if it's here it can be found?"

"Never had to have a student send away for a new wand yet. When the elves can't locate it, the headmaster steps in."

The wizard let out a low growl of annoyance. "Doubtless they'll have hid it so well that it takes Dumbledore to find it—"

"That's five points for disrespect, Snape," Filch shouted over him, banging the end of the broom against the stones that made up the floor. "To you he's Professor Dumbledore, understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Filch."

"Good boy." Argus nodded approvingly. He took a moment to give the boy a quick once over, noticing discolouration to his left cheekbone. The caretaker brought his hand up to point at Snape's face.

"What's that? Who's done that to you?"

Without answering aloud, Snape merely frowned at him. They both knew there was no point in saying the names of his assailants.

In response, Filch found himself nodding. "Some bruise paste, from the infirmary. That'll do you right."

Feeling at his cheek, Snape jerked his head once in answer. "Thank you."

"Ga'an and fix yourself back up, Snape. I don't wanna see any more puddles in my hallways this morning." Argus dismissed him with a wave of his hand and then turned his back on the young wizard.

Boys like Snape didn't want someone simpering with sympathy for them. They didn't want too much help, either. Boys like Snape would probably want nothing more than a way to privately change into dry clothing and then have no more said about the incident ever again. Argus could respect that. It was how he'd always been, himself.

The rest of the morning passed without incident. The caretaker allowed himself the luxury of dining in the kitchen for the breakfast meal. Usually he scarfed down a few slices of toast that he prepared himself on his miniature cooker. It was small enough to fit in his cramped flat above his office, and allowed him the pleasure of dining without company. The elves would have brought him whatever he liked, but when it was just he and his sweet, they could enjoy their toast and bangers in companionable silence. On this morning, however, he joined his familiar under the vaulted ceiling of the kitchen, where the smells of everything from bacon to beans filled the air, and the coffee never stopped flowing.

He'd had to stop the elf that continued to top off his mug after the fourth cup, knowing that the jitters he'd get from too much caffeine and too little sleep would make a day that already promised to be bad all the worse.

His dented, tin pocket watch he continued to check with trepidation. The hour he had before he would be made to follow around addlebrained adolescents as they flirted with danger, contraband, and the fairer sex was ticking by, even as he willed time to stop or at least slow down.

They should just ban the whole thing, he determined as he stared at the yellow streaks of yolk on his empty plate. No more Hogsmeade days. Not for anyone. And no more feasts, for that matter. Or Quidditch games.

He didn't see why any of the beastly demons deserved such fun. Life wasn't about fun. Life was about work, and the sort of hijinks the children got up to in the village was not in any way preparatory for a life of work.

Of course, his petitions to Dumbledore over shuttering the Hogsmeade weekend plans always fell on deaf ears. Or perhaps not so deaf... he had a sneaking suspicion that the old codger was doing this as some sort of punishment for having asked at all. The old man had seemed far too pleased when he'd announced the schedule earlier in the year.

At least those Gryffindor menaces were mostly banned from attending. Pettigrew and Black had been caught a week earlier sneaking dungbombs with the pins pulled into unsuspecting second years' bags. They'd been punished with a week of detentions each and a prohibition on Hogsmeade visits for the rest of their seventh year. That Lupin boy and the Potter brat could still go, but Potter seemed utterly twitterpated by that red-headed bird he'd been sniffing after since he'd arrived, and Lupin without his cohort of idiots was usually smart enough to keep his nose clean. At the very least he'd shaped up since being made prefect, and Potter had certainly done his best to sneak below suspicion after he was made Head Boy.

An appointment that Argus had taken special exception to.

He could scarcely imagine a less deserving recipient of the honour, excepting, perhaps, Potter's lackey, Black.

As the hour drew nearer, he prepared himself to descend into hell—or at the very least purgatory, for if they weren't ill behaved, then he'd very likely be bored out of his skull. At least when the students were being randy, hormonal terrors he was kept entertained.

The first order of business was to stand by the double doors that guarded Hogwarts' entrance and to check names off of the list. There were some third years who still persisted in attempting to join the queue for the village, even knowing that their parents had either forbade it or neglected to sign the consent forms, and then there were others who were not permitted to join in the festivities because the privilege had been revoked as a punishment. Argus took especial pleasure in sending these ne'er-do-wells back into the castle. Once he'd worked his way to the end of the queue, he waited five minutes to give them a head start and followed behind the last group of children. That saw him tailing a quartet of Hufflepuff third-years who were gaily singing the newest sensation of the wizarding wireless airwaves: Bridgette Twinklepuck, whose voice was leaps and bounds more impressive than most of her contemporaries.

Argus would never have admitted to it, but he'd tuned in whenever he knew that she was going to be joining an emcee on a broadcast and marked down the dates she always gave for future performances. Her voice was an absolute treasure: low, soothing, but also powerful and dynamic.

And if Mrs. Norris liked it as much as he did, that only helped matters.

The Hufflepuffs dawdled their way to the village, but that was just as well. Argus wasn't ancient, by any means, but his knees had begun giving him jip once he'd reached the age of forty-five, and he preferred a sedate pace when he was allowed a choice. The students' lollygagging gave him the perfect excuse to take his time and not lose his footing over the rolling, Scottish terrain.

When he reached the village, most of the students had already descended upon the shops and businesses. All he had to do was be present in case of emergencies. In fact, whenever it was Argus on duty, Dumbledore was still obliged to send two members of staff, just as he was whenever Argus was given the day to do as he liked: at least two adults had to be present who were capable of magic, after all.

It made it all the more obvious that Filch was being punished by being sent to oversee the herd of youth, given that his presence did absolutely nothing to increase their safety.

Hell, they always made certain to go to someone more approachable anyway. Even now he saw a queue of students by Professor McGonagall, waiting for her to bestow her attention upon them and their concerns. If he stood next to her as an alternative, it was practically a guarantee that absolutely no one would be lining up to make him into their honourary Agony Aunt.

He had a few errands he could see to while in town. He'd made sure to bring his enchanted knapsack, which was larger on the inside and spelled to weigh next to nothing. It was one of his most prized possessions, and one of the few ways in which magic was still accessible to him. The caretaker decided to begin at the apothecary.

It was his duty to make the purchases for cleaning potions and implements, and he was granted a small monthly stipend for those necessary tools of his trade. Today he had two galleons to play with, which was generous, given the going price for a decent doxycide and some flesh-eating slug repellant were dirt cheap. He'd stopped buying Everklena and other potions brewed under the Stainwright brand, as he'd noticed a remarkable lack of efficacy when used over time, and since he'd stricken those products from the shopping list, he was left with a lot of shrapnel in the bottom of the bag. Stainwright products cost an arm, a leg, and a tail, and the leftover sickles he'd saved on them felt weighty in his coinpurse as he exited J. Pippin's.

Taking a moment to rest his eyes and his joints, he surveyed the street for any trouble. It was a true shame that Mrs. Norris didn't care to leave the castle. He'd have appreciated her company on such an unpleasant outing. On the other hand, he was grateful that his sweet could remain comfortable and relaxed in their quarters. No doubt she'd coerced a helpful elf into bringing her a saucer of fresh cream, and probably a plate of sausages to boot.

Argus couldn't suppress the small smile of fondness the image inspired in his mind's eye. She'd be pleased as punch when he showed her the tiny sachet of catnip he'd bought with the extra knut left over from his purchase. He didn't allow such indulgences all the time, but... it somehow eased his own spirits when he went out of his way to spoil his favourite lady. Things rarely made Argus Filch happy, but anything that Mrs. Norris enjoyed, Argus couldn't help but to enjoy vicariously.

A loud "Ma-aaah-aaah-aaa-maa" attracted his attention, and he looked to the opposite side of the shadowed alley where J. Pippin's had its storefront.

The apothecary's neighbor on the opposite side of the alley was old Aberforth's goat pen, which abutted the back of The Hog's Head Inn. There were no fewer than four goats in it presently. One of them lying in a bed of straw, back beneath a small awning, two that were having what appeared to be a heated disagreement over access to the food trough, and one who was doing his level best to climb all the way up the woodpile, where it was stacked near the back door.

Argus stopped by the fence, glancing down at the two goats who were fighting with one another.

"You'd best pay attention to your own side of the manger," he chided, pushing one of the goats' heads away so that they were separated by a few feet. "If I know Abe, there's been food aplenty put out for the lot of you, but it'll do you no good to get greedy."

The goat he'd pushed away took the opportunity to nip at his fingers and butt his hand away with his horns. He lost no time in shuffling back over to continue aggravating his pen-mate.

"I suppose it serves you right if you don't make him back off," Argus shook his head despairingly at the pair. "No doubt Abe won't let you starve, even if you're content to let this bastard eat all of your supper."

He watched them for a few moments more. Mostly because it felt nice to lean his weight against the wooden fence, and also because he had no where else to go in the village but several hours to kill before he could finally begin shouting to all who could hear that it was time to begin the trek back to the castle.

As soon as he made it in the doors he planned to see himself back to his little flat, with his little woodfire cooker, and he'd settle in for a cup of something strong and whatever was playing on his wizarding wireless set. He sincerely hoped that he might catch a Bridgette Twinklepuck performance, but that would really just be icing on the cake. The last he'd checked, she wasn't due to appear on another broadcast for at least another week.

It was a pity. How he could have done with just a few notes off of her sugared tongue...

He began humming one of his favourite songs of hers. Mrs. Norris usually enjoyed it, though he was nobody's idea of a songbird, and he had to wonder if the goats wouldn't like it too.

For the most part they didn't spare him a glance as he attempted a faithful rendition of 'My Heart's Troth,' which at least wasn't a condemnation of his skills. The nasty blighter that had attempted to run his penmate off of the trough grunted, however, and kicked out his back leg at nothing, which Argus took to mean that he was displeased with Filch playing the part of supper-time crooner.

The squib chuckled. "You're worse than the devil himself. What's Aberforth call you, I wonder? We'd've called you Old Scratch."

Old Scratch raised his head. Argus could only assume that the goat was looking at him, though it was always hard to tell with their strange eyes. The beast had had to turn his head to the left to set his sights upon the man before him, and he loosed an eloquent bleat.

"You know what a bastard you are," Filch accused. "All us ol' bastards know what breed we are, don't we?"

The goat continued to stare him down.

"Yeeesss, we know. We know what they say, we do, and it still doesn't change a blessed thing."

The goat scratched several times at the ground with his front hoof and then stomped, tossing his head and bleating some more.

"I hear ye. Want me out of your hair. That'll be us going," Filch snorted, raising his hands in surrender.

The caretaker rounded the corner that brought him out onto the main thoroughfare and was passing by the oaken door to the old inn when he heard a glass shatter inside, followed by heated shouting. He paused, his ears pricked, but still he only loitered by the door.

It hadn't been Argus' plan to step inside. He had a few coins still rattling around in his pocket, but it was just as well that he didn't spend them. Whenever there were funds from the school that went unspent, he didn't figure it hurt any to add them to his own small salary. No, there wasn't much that he saved for, and he wasn't a terribly acquisitive man by nature... but one never knew.

Perhaps, one day, there would be a wand for sale that could respond to levels of innate magic so low that it would be of use to a man like himself. He couldn't help but to hold out hope.

His dream, ever since he had realised that that coveted Hogwarts letter simply wasn't coming, had always been to just not be a squib. His brothers, his cousins, his friends from his village... it was so easy for them to be magical. To let their emotions spill from them in the form of accidental magic... surely there had been some sort of mistake. Whoever was in charge of handing out magic to infants... they'd merely forgotten him. Someday, that mistake would be corrected, or else whoever had done that job was a lazy, good for nothing...

As he'd aged, he had, of course, realised that there was no one coming to kindle magic within his being. That no bureaucrat had that sort of power over him, as he'd fancifully imagined. As the years passed and he remained at home with his widower father, the others went off to school, where the teachers learnt them all the magic they could wish...

And Argus Filch continued to grow like a weed in the shadows. His bitterness had never endeared him to anyone when he'd been a child, when it was easier to forgive a person for being outwardly bitter, but the wound never healed as he grew. Positively no one had any regard for him, now... yet still the ache remained. It was like a rotted tooth in his mouth, always flaring up whenever he tried to do the basic things that constituted living, so that he felt he could never attempt to live well.

Another glass crashed and alarmingly, Argus thought he might have heard Dumbledore's own voice raised to the level of a yell inside. Aberforth very rarely got his dander up, so for one of his patrons to have pushed his buttons in such a way was an exceptional feat.

He was the caretaker for a school of pubescent idiots, which meant that he was at least a little intrigued and entertained by petty drama... and this sounded as though it had to be somewhat good.

With a small chuckle, Argus swung the door open on its hinges. It didn't appear that anyone inside the inn noticed that someone was at the door, for he was able to poke his head in along the seam of the doorframe without anyone at the tables turning their heads to look his direction.

As soon as his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, it was clear as day why that was.

It was that poor, sodden bastard Snape—though he didn't appear to be quite so waterlogged this time around—making an absolute arse of himself in front of the headmaster's brother as he stood toe to toe with the old barman and argued loudly in favour of his being served a proper drink.

It was unclear who had broken the glasses, or under what circumstances they'd gone flying, but the remnants of the two pint glasses lay in pieces on the old, uneven floorboards.

Bugger all. It was a student, and that meant that one of the chaperones would have to get involved.

Argus withdrew his head and sneered at the door that he'd allowed to close. He then swiveled back on his heel and looked up the street to where he'd seen McGonagall and the other chaperone, the Astronomy professor Paul Frehley. They were both engaged with groups of students. It didn't appear as though they were mediating any crises, and Filch toyed with the idea of pulling one of them away, but doubtless McGonagall would gripe at him over how he ought to have interceded himself, and that useless oddity that was Professor Frehley would trap him into some sort of tangential conversation about the nature of comets or something, and by then it would be too late to help Snape—

And was that what he really wanted, anyway? Usually he was eager to pull out his notepad and begin filling it with citations and detentions, throwing large-scale point loss on top for good measure. When it came to Snape, however...? Well. The boy was an odd one, and Argus couldn't help that the part of him that pitied himself seemed to pity the perennially dour Slytherin boy too.

There was some sort of strange kinship there that he couldn't quite deny, even if it didn't mean anything besides that Filch was generally less keen to dock points or chuck the little menace into detention.

Still, going out and making a fool of himself wasn't what Argus had meant when he'd told the boy just that morning to go and clean himself up.

Like as not, Snape wouldn't take that message too well from the likes of some dame like McGonagall, nor some flighty nincompoop like Frehley. That only left himself.

With that in mind, Argus shoved against the swinging door with his shoulder and made a normal entrance, catching Aberforth's eye as soon as he stepped over the threshold.

The younger Dumbledore brother was standing in the face of Snape's adolescent ire, his expression showing a budding frustration, but mostly the sort of impassive mask that always served to infuriate someone who was trying to bait someone into a confrontation, which was clearly what Snape was attempting to do.

"I've been seventeen for months, and the money is real. I won't be treated like I'm some damned little fool! Just serve me my drink, take the bronze, and we can bring this mess to a satisfying conclusion for each of us!"

It was amazing to a man like Argus—not known for being sure of speech—that a little guttersnipe like Snape could still talk like he did when in such a self-righteous lather. The caretaker grunted and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he approached Snape from behind, noting the boy's rigid posture and wildly gesticulating hands as he did so. Either he'd not regained his wand, or he at least wasn't holding it. That was good.

"What's it going to take, I wonder, for you to cool your heels, boy?" The squib interrupted once he'd reached Snape's side. "You didn't have quite enough to worry about this morning? You weren't in enough trouble without your wand and taken for a dip, so you thought you'd come out to the village and cause a bloody scene?"

Snape jumped a foot in the air and recoiled from him, his pale hands rising up to fend off a phantom attack.

"He doesn't need his wand to cause trouble," Aberforth ground out, crossing his arms over his chest. "But he's not as big as he's wanting to act, either. No, I've seen his ilk before, and will again, after he leaves."

Snape, seemingly recovering himself enough to straighten up again, took a step back so he could face off against the two ganging up on him. Many of the other patrons who had been unapologetically watching the fracas turned back to their steins and glasses. It was likely that Argus' arrival signaled that Hogwarts had finally stepped back in to gather up its lost, rebellious lamb.

Severus Snape was not so easily herded, however.

"I wasn't going to cause a scene. All I wanted was a bit of Ogden's—"

"Where'd you learn a taste for Ogden's!?" Aberforth threw his hands up in the air. "You're about as small as a bloody crup mite! If I were inclined to serve you—which I ain't!—the extent of what you'd need is a warm cuppa milk and straight for beddy-bye—"

"STOP TREATING ME LIKE A CHILD!"

"STOP ACTING LIKE ONE!" Aberforth roared back.

Snape appeared on the verge of hyperventilating, which was interesting, given that—in the absence of direct provocation from the gang of whooping ninnies that had self-styled as The Marauders—he seldom seemed so enraged. Snape, to Argus, had always struck him as the unflappable type. The sort that would one day be the salt-of-the-earth kind of working man that never felt a need to complain, but instead buckled down to get things done. He'd been that way in all of the detentions Filch had overseen for him, at least. The boy never complained and always got his work done in record time and without cutting corners on the quality.

"This ain't about being dunked this morning, is it, boy?"

"Is it heck!" Snape snapped back, his eyes wild. Under his breath words were spilling from his lips.

"...ladgeful, dunderheaded toff..."

Argus frowned at him. "Who're we talkin' bout?"

It couldn't have been himself. No one would have described Filch as a 'toff.' Likely it wasn't Dumbledore either, for he was not the kind to put on airs, and neither did he have a reputation for coming from riches.

In answer, Snape only glared, however, and sullenly crossed his arms over his chest. Apparently, he'd depleted his reserves of overly pedantic vocabulary, and in its absence had decided upon silence as a kingly virtue.

"I'll take him from here, Abe," Argus grunted, grabbing hold of Snape's thin arm in a vice grip.

The boy jerked away from him and stumbled towards the bar. "I already paid! At least let me collect my money—"

"My money." Aberforth had strode forward and summoned the spray of coins into his own palm. He then stuffed them into the pocket of his robes. "You broke two'a my glasses."

This earned a scoff in return.

"Then repair them, you dolt—"

"Snape, unless you want the rest of your free hours at Hogwarts filled up with detentions scooping droppings in the owlery, then we're suggesting you hush up."

Around them some of the patrons could be heard muffling their laughter, and Snape appeared panicked and furious to hear it, but Argus paid them no mind.

The Slytherin looked as though he were sucking a lemon, but the threat did shut him up. When Argus went to grab his arm again, Snape pulled away once more, but he did gamely trot out the back door where Argus directed him with an imperious gesture.

To Filch's surprise, Aberforth closed up the bar temporarily, glared around the room—defying anyone present to cause damages to the establishment or to attempt any sort of theft—and followed them out the back door into the goat pen.

In front of them, Snape turned, looking around the space impotently. He'd stuffed his hands down low in his pockets and his shoulders were so rounded that he'd easily lost five inches off his height from his bad posture alone.

"Well?" Argus demanded, rounding on the kid before him.

Snape shook his head, remaining silent. There was a question in his eyes, however.

"Always thought you were smarter than this, Snape. Were we wrong? You're just the sort of nasty brat that Black and Potter—"

The young wizard hissed in fury and reared back. His hands popped out of his pockets and clawed in front of him. All in all, he resembled Mrs. Norris when confronted with a tub of water and a bar of soap.

"Don't like to hear that, do we now?" Argus taunted, taking a step forward and pressing his advantage. "We wouldn't like it if old Filch didn't have our back when those empty-headed numpties come to call and string you up by your ankle again—"

The boy froze, his black eyes wide. "You weren't there—"

"Word gets around," Argus curled his lip. "Did you expect to get away with this, eh? Going about and demanding drinks not allowed to you at a location that's off-limits?"

"No one's ever said that The Hog's Head is off-limits," Snape said, his shoulders tensing.

"Don't serve hot chocolate or pumpkin juice," Aberforth answered with a grunt. "Hard to imagine what a student would order here that Rosy's not got on tap at The Broomsticks."

"You serve Butterbeer," the boy continued to argue.

Aberforth snorted and crossed his arms over his barrel chest. "That's not what you ordered."

"Only because I'm a man and not a bloody thirteen-year-old," Snape snarled. He appeared agitated beyond belief and he kept turning his head about, looking around frantically as though he expected to see someone near. Filch suspected that the boy would've bolted had there been anywhere to go. It seemed that being trapped in one place and with someone breathing down his neck was unimaginably uncomfortable for him.

His observations about Snape's body language proved prophetic. Without considering how he might incur more trouble—and truthfully quite disrespectfully—Snape turned about and began to pace the length of the goat pen, his eyes continually darting to Argus and Aberforth where they stood grouped together by the door.

Old Scratch looked up from where he was hogging the feeding trough and sounded out an indignant bleat. He then tossed his head, knocking his horn against the trough by accident.

This at least caused Snape to pause as he glanced at the goat with distrust.

"Try not to upset him," Aberforth cautioned, though whether this advice was for Snape or the goat was impossible to tell.

It was, of course, Snape who answered, given that he was the only one of the two capable of human speech.

"Why?"

"He'll put you out on your arse, is why," Dumbledore quipped. He took a step back, dispensing with responsibility for whatever came of Snape antagonising his goat, and leaned against the weathered stones that made up the building's back wall.

The boy's lip curled in a truly nasty expression that spoke to uninhibited hatred. To Argus, as an outside observer, it appeared as though he couldn't decide whether to address his grievance to the goat, or to Aberforth, for his eyes rapidly darted between the two.

Old Scratch's head lowered and tossed.

"You arrogant fool," Aberforth drawled, again giving no indication as to whom he was addressing.

The goat was seemingly ginning up for a run and looked to be taking aim at Snape, who now seemed to have the good sense to be worried.

"Aren't you going to call him off?" He asked, backing up with his eyes darting between Aberforth and his pet. "I didn't do anything to deserve—!"

"Seems Lutherfud disagrees."

Snape's overlarge nose wrinkled at this and he glared at the creature before him. The boy was moving backwards now, his footsteps taking him closer and closer to the fence that Argus had earlier been standing at, and his hands were out before him, like he thought he could catch Lutherfud's horns before they managed to gore him.

It only took a bare second for things to go tits up.

From the mouth of the alley came the tinkling laughter of some girl from the school. If pressed, Argus could have identified her as the current head girl.

She'd always been one to keep out of trouble, though not because she'd ever bothered to keep her head down. No, it was always up, sunnily facing the world and its myriad problems with the sort of self-confidence that was possessed only by true leaders. Accordingly, Argus could remember well the way that Snape as a younger boy had followed, taking shelter in her shadow and generally soaking up any small amount of regard that she generously bestowed upon him.

For the past few years he'd not seen them together, but at their time of life friendships came and went, and it was nothing he'd not seen before. In Snape's sixth year—the year previous—he could recall a few professors remarking on the change, but Filch had refused to pay it much mind.

Too smart. The boy ought to have been too smart by half to throw his life away over the first girl he caught the itch for.

It was disappointing to be so wrong about someone.

Snape's attention was immediately focused upon the vibrant redheaded girl, and his face was etched with an expression of excruciating anguish as she laughed and play-wrestled with the head boy, Potter.

Filch had had to break the two boys up near to a hundred times, at least. It was one of the reasons why he'd eventually begun to pick sides, favouring Snape more often than not. Potter had a future no matter what. Rich kid with independently wealthy parents? There was no question he'd cut it in the world and be just fine.

Snape, on the other hand, would have to struggle. He'd have to work. Now, a clever lad like that probably could get by on his wits, but if Snape hadn't been half so smart, there was no question that he would have ended up employed as a caretaker or something similar. It was simply his lot in life.

No matter whether he managed to turn his cleverness into a proper career or not, Snape was the type of boy who really grew into a man. As far as Argus was concerned, the only thing that turned boys into men was work.

Backbreaking, unglamorous work. The responsibility of someone depending on you to follow through with doing what you desperately didn't want to do, whether it was a wife and kids or just yourself.

Potter would probably be ever a child by comparison.

In any case, Snape's momentary lapse in attention was the perfect opening for the bedeviled goat, Lutherfud, to lower his head and charge. Having caught the seventh-year off his guard, he handily flipped the boy into the water trough on the other side of the fence.

Snape flew in on his back, and his arms and legs kicked about as he failed to turn himself over. He had been so surprised by the goat's attack that he might well have inhaled a lungful of water, and Argus found himself suddenly consumed with concern that if something wasn't done, the boy would almost certainly drown.

His splashing about drew the attention of the student heads, and they turned their attention in unison to the attraction presented by the thrashing boy whose head and shoulders were stuck underwater with no purchase to rescue himself. It ought to have been simple enough for him to have levered himself up, but he'd fallen in such a way as to have hooked his legs at the knee over the side, with the added challenge of having landed in a long, rectangular trough at a perpendicular angle that had his torso crammed in nearly doubled up.

Snape was well and truly stuck.

To his shame, Argus was paralysed for a moment. The shock of the attack rendered him impotent until he saw Potter running over in great, galloping strides, Evans hot on his heels.

"James! James, get him out!"

"Hold on, mate," Potter called, probably unaware of whom it was he'd be playing hero to. "Hold on—"

Argus jerked to attention then and made haste as best he could across the debris-strewn pen. He had to duck under the top beam of the fence and climb over the bottom, but he eventually managed so that he came upon the boy flailing in the water trough.

Snape's panic was preventing him from swinging both of his legs into the water, which would have allowed him to turn over and stand up straight. He'd kicked so much that one of his feet hooked onto the top beam of the fence and his plight looked even more dire for the mistake.

The Potter boy was still several storefronts away from J. Pippin's, and Argus knew that for the head boy to save Snape from drowning would make their feud burn all the hotter. It felt as though it were incumbent upon him to save Snape himself (which would have been true regardless, as a chaperone, but doubly so to help the boy save face from his Gryffindor rival).

Argus' first attempt was to help the boy manoeuver his hooked foot out so he could get both of the boy's legs disengaged from the rim of the trough, but Snape was proving to be uncooperative, and Filch was beginning to panic when he lost sight of the boy's upper half in the ominously churning waters. The Slytherin boy's hands were beginning to lose much of their momentum and were now making almost lazy passes around; uncoordinated and weak.

Potter was advancing on them, his wand drawn, and Filch was beginning to lose hope when all of the water in the trough vanished into nothingness, leaving behind the clanging rings of Snape's struggles as he banged his fists against the metal sides of the basin.

Frighteningly, he at first made no other noise, but then, after a tense second, he began gasping for breath, looking no more relieved for the water being off of him. He was still trapped and confused, his long black hair plastered to his face and neck, a prisoner damned for death's noose and hood.

"What's going on?" Evans called out, as she attempted to catch up to her boyfriend.

Potter had stopped and was staring at the trough, his face reflecting his uncertainty. The sounds had changed, and Aberforth standing there with his wand out suggested that a suitably magical adult had stepped in to take control of matters, but chaos still reigned in the aftermath of the worst of the danger's passing.

Filch busied himself with attempting to disengage Snape's hooked foot once more, with far more success this time around. Snape had finally calmed himself enough to allow Argus to push and pull him until he was no longer locked into the fence, and when Argus hefted his legs over the side of the trough so he was able to lay in it length-wise and recover himself, he stared up at the sky overhead with sightless black eyes, appearing utterly shellshocked and incapable of speech.

From across the street, Potter shifted on his feet, his hand taking up Evans'.

"Is he going to be alright, Mr. Filch?"

"Right as rain, Mr. Potter," Filch answered with his customary leer. At the sound of the other boy's voice and name being spoken aloud, Snape had frozen, his eyes coming into focus as he glared at the wall of the water basin as though he could see through the corrugated metal to the other side where his enemy stood asking after his well-being.

Potter and Evans didn't have the first idea of Snape's identity. Filch resolved to keep it that way.

"It's getting late," Aberforth announced. "We'll see that he gets to the infirmary. I want you two to go do what you're meant to do and herd up the younger years so they're not late back to the castle."

The Evans girl stepped forward, looking self-important and indignant all at once. "It's my responsibility to check on a student who's been injured. And if he's over-indulged then we should really assign punishment—"

"He's not over-indulged," Aberforth drew himself up and scowled down at the two Gryffindors. To Argus' private gratification, they both quailed a bit under the force of Dumbledore's expression. "For him to've over-indulged, I'd've had to've over-served him, and I didn't serve him a glass of water, much less anything stronger."

"Then what—?"

Aberforth, with his arms crossed, nodded his head over to the ill-tempered goat who was now cantering around the perimeter of the pen, tossing his head and exercising all of his rage. His pen mates were watching him warily, but with a sort of tolerance that suggested that they were well accustomed to Lutherfud's fits of pique.

"Er... right," Potter loosed a nervous chuckle. "In that case—"

"Go," Aberforth dismissed them again, far more effectively than Argus would have managed, and the two heads appeared relieved to be liberated from the duty of care. They departed quickly back to the main road, and as their footsteps faded, the fear in Snape's eyes diminished.

When Filch, with his gimlet stare trained on the boy, finally signaled to him with a decisive little nod of his head, Snape blew out a shaky breath and finally pushed himself up to his feet, the movement of it causing the water dripping from him to sound loudly against the metal walls and floor of the trough.

"They didn't know it was me?" He asked, seemingly to nobody. He'd slouched over and folded his arms over his chest, with his hands in his armpits, probably to keep warm. As soon as he'd stood, his eyes had sought the two figures disappearing down the street, and Filch knew that it must have been the Evans girl causing the forlorn expression on the kid's face.

"They've got no idea," Abe answered him, his voice tight. "And you can repay the favour by getting out of my damn trough."

A small frown crossed Snape's face, but he nevertheless did as he was told, bracing his weight with both hands on the rim and swinging a leg over as he shambled over the side.

He swayed as he stood and coughed violently, expelling a bit of water. The violence of his hacking had him holding onto the fence posts for stability.

"If..." he wheezed, between coughs. "If that's all—"

Aberforth strode forward and walloped Snape three times, hard, between his shoulder blades, causing the boy to upchuck even more water with each blow.

"As I was saying, boy. You're a flaming fool. Let them get to you and drive you to drink, then a petty disappointment has you spoiling for a fight with a bloody goat. Have you no sense in that brain of yours?"

Snape's jaw dropped and he glanced around quickly before he began to sputter his incomplete thoughts aloud.

"I didn't... no one drove me to—"

"And now you're attempting to lie when you already showed me your hand the moment you darkened my bloody door. Will your stupidity never cease?"

Snape's faltering tries at speech ended abruptly, and he drew his lips into a tight line. He had ever been a sallow boy with colouring closer to that of a ghost or wight than a proper human being, but now he was flushing scarlet, the red of it creeping up his neck and collecting in the over-large shells of his ears.

"Someone came bearing tales—" Snape began to accuse, his fury only barely contained.

"Did you see another student in there?" Aberforth scoffed, jerking his thumb back at his inn. "No. I don't serve little brats."

"Then you must have seen—" Snape tried again, his breath coming fast.

"I saw it, alright," Aberforth sneered. "You're like a walking pensieve, did you know that? Anyone with a scrap of my perception could've watched the whole thing, right in your mind's eye."

The boy swore softly under his breath, causing Argus to poke him in the side with a barked "Language!"

"A legilimens," he breathed, shaking his head. "You're a bloody legilimens..."

Mirthless laughter met Snape's charge, and when Snape glowered in response, he earned an unsympathetic smirk from the barman.

"And not... not like most of them either," Snape reasoned to himself. "No, you're... you're a natural."

"Come to it as naturally as being a pain in the arse comes to you," Aberforth acknowledged, with a grim incline of his weathered head. "And now I'll wager that you give it a think whenever you come into my damn tavern and try to throw your meagre weight about. I could've thrown you out on your ear. Could've done in a trice, but next time I won't give you the satisfaction of having been kicked out. No, I'll just tell the whole bloody room whatever it is that's brought you rampaging into my damn place of business and laugh along with the rest of the patrons before I let Lutherfud have another go at'cha."

Snape appeared frozen but a tremble ran through his body, either from the threat or because he was rapidly growing cold, clothed as he was in his dripping uniform.

"Or maybe I'll just tell that pretty Evans girl that she's right to be off you for good, and that the next time Potter takes off your clothes in front of your schoolmates it ought to be your shirt he chooses." Aberforth's eyes darted then, meaningfully, towards Snape's left forearm, which spasmed as though an electrical current had been passed through it. "That would offer up whatever conclusive evidence was necessary, wouldn't it?"

"Evidence," Snape panted, his breathing laboured. "Evidence necessary for what?"

Dumbledore curled his lip, exposing a mouth of greying teeth. His disappointment and scorn were writ large on his aged face. The look he gave Snape was so disdainful that Filch nearly felt like flinching in sympathy.

"Necessary to prove what a colossal waste of breath you've chosen to be."