“You wanted to see me, Albus?” Severus Snape stalked into the Headmaster’s office.
“Yes, my boy!” Albus Dumbledore smiled benevolently at him and gestured towards a glass dish on his desk. “Lemon drop?”
Snape merely lifted an eyebrow in contempt. Normally he’d snarl some sort of insult at being offered candy, but he’d made two second year Ravenclaws cry in his last class and he was in a particularly good mood.
“Right, well. I was wondering if you could help me with something. As you know, the Christmas holidays ended two weeks ago. How was your Christmas, by the way? Did you do anything fun?” Snape sighed and elected to ignore the question as he sat down opposite his employer. Dumbledore had many strengths, but getting to the point was certainly not one of them.
Dumbledore, not really expecting an answer, continued on. “Anyway, we’ve run into a problem. Sybill Trelawney went away over the break and has not yet returned to Hogwarts!” He paused for dramatic effect, but Snape simply continued staring at him. “Why do I bother,” Dumbledore wondered inwardly. Snape was really only fun when he was being actively tormented by a ridiculous task. Speaking of - “As the children need their Divination teacher,” Snape scoffed at this but Dumbledore was not to be deterred, “I was wondering if you’d go track her down for me?”
Snape blinked at the old man. “You want me to track down Sybill?”
“Precisely!” Dumbledore smiled at him as he popped a lemon drop in his mouth.
“Albus,” Snape said, speaking even slower than usual, “If I leave to go get Trelawney, you will be down both a Divination teacher and a Potions Master.”
“So we will, my boy, so we will!” Dumbledore’s eyes were starting to twinkle as Snape’s discomfort grew. “However, I’ve come up with a solution! In lieu of potions, the children will learn to make muggle soup with Molly and Arthur Weasley!”
Snape stared at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore stared back and sucked on his lemon drop.
“Albus -” he began but was quickly interrupted.
“You see, Severus, muggle cooking - which, as you know, is distinct from wizard cooking due to its lack of magic and underuse of pumpkins - uses many of the same skills as potion making! This, therefore, will be a perfect substitute to hone the students’ cutting and stirring skills while you are away. It also fixes our meal problem; once Dobby was freed, a number of the house elves thought they should form a union. I had to feed a number of them to the basilisk in order to break it up, and the remaining elves have been struggling to make enough food to feed all the children every night. This way everyone can have soup! And Molly and Arthur will be great teachers - Molly is a great cook and Arthur is obsessed with muggle things, so they’ll make a perfect pair! Not to mention they have children of their own - at least three, maybe ten? I can’t remember.”
Severus stared at his boss, openmouthed. “You cannot be serious,” he finally managed to get out.
The twinkle, somehow, grew. “Of course not Severus!” Dumbledore waited for the younger man to sigh in relief before continuing, “Sirius is dead! You should know that. I’m only myself, Albus Brian Wolfric Grimoire Lemon Drop Daisy Dumbledore!”
Snape, his good mood ruined, stormed out.
Dumbledore turned to Fawkes. “Well, that little display should sour his mood. Can’t have our spies getting too complacent, can we Fawkes?”
Fawkes promptly burst into flames.
“Fawkes,” Dumbledore rolled his eyes, “You can’t just die every time you’re annoyed with me. That’s the third time this week!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It only took Severus three days to catch up to Sybill Trelawney’s tracks. He was, after all, an accomplished spy and a brilliant strategist. She, on the other hand, was an idiot.
Trelawney’s records showed she’d taken a plane (muggle travel was cheaper than booking international portkeys, if you could stomach it) to Ibiza and, from there, hopped on a boat to a neighboring island. When Snape had asked the local shopkeepers about the island, they’d insisted it was abandoned and inaccessible. “Stupid muggles,” he thought as he obliviated the fishermen he’d conned into dropping him off, “can’t even see what’s right in front of them.”
Indeed, the island he’d tracked his wayward colleague to was teeming with life. There were twenty or thirty wizards lounging around the grounds of an old castle which appeared to have been decorated in what could only be described as “a millionaire’s idea of bohemian.” There were multicolored blankets and tapestries on every surface, many holding several people in positions that, were they to be described here, would make the asexual author incredibly icked out. Anyone not participating in, ahem, PG13 activities was dressed in white robes and flower crowns and doing things like playing guitar or gathering mushrooms or wafting incense towards a large group who seemed to be, as far as Snape could tell, taking turns doing unspeakable things to a coconut.
“This is hell,” he gasped. “I must have died in the sea and found myself in hell.”
He stood there, uncertain of what else to do, for several minutes before a familiar voice called out to him.
“Snape? Severus Snape, is that you?”
Snape froze. “It can’t be,” he thought. “Why on earth would he be here??”
A long, thin hand grabbed Snape’s elbow and turned him around to face the voice.
“Severus! It is you!!” Snape still stood frozen, completely at a loss for how to proceed before the man in front of him kissed both his cheeks and pulled him into a hug.
“How on Earth did you find me, Severus? I thought I was so clever in hiding my tracks!”
Snape sputtered. “M - master, I -”
“Oh, nevermind,” the Dark Lord chuckled, throwing his arm around his spy, “I assume Dumbledore sent you? I know you’ve been spying on me for him, you cheeky boy.” Snape felt faint. He tried to deny, to grovel, to do anything that would keep his cover from being blown, but Voldemort simply laughed and pulled him along. “I would have killed you for that a few weeks ago, but now I simply can’t be bothered to care! All of this war and torture and killing mudbloods - none of it is nearly so important now that I’m one of The FoldTM!”
Snape, surprised to find himself both alive and uncrucioed, muttered blankly “The Fold?”
“Yes!” Voldemort exclaimed, pulling Snape into a building so packed with incense that his eyes began to water, “The FoldTM! It’s our little family here on this island, we follow The Guru and his teachings and it’s absolutely changed my life!” Snape blinked, thinking vaguely that a group of white British people probably shouldn’t be titling anyone as “guru” before suddenly finding himself in an impressive throne room.
“Guru!” He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named called out, “We have a new family member!”
But Snape, ever the good soldier, found his attention instead drawn to the woman on the side of the throne. “Sybill!” he yelled, thankful to have something his brain could comprehend, “What are you doing here? You were supposed to return to work weeks ago!”
Trelawney blinked at him. “Severus?”
Snape groaned and rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sybill, I was sent here to fetch you. Why didn’t you return to -” his eyes suddenly registered what he was seeing and he swiftly found himself averting them “GREAT WIZARD JESUS, SYBIL, WHERE IS YOUR TOP?”
Sybil thought for a moment. “I believe I left it in the dining hall,” she finally answered before shrugging and returning to the plants she’d been watering when Snape entered.
Snape felt a friendly arm reach around his shoulder. “It’s alright, Severus,” a vaguely familiar voice comforted, “The FoldTM can be a lot to take in when you first arrive!”
Snape turned towards who he could only assume was “the guru.”
“Oh,” he grumbled, “It’s you.”
The blonde man smiled at him charitably.
“I thought you’d lost your memories?” Snape groused.
“I did, Severus,” Gilderoy Lockheart explained, gently guiding his former colleague towards one of the many floor cushions. “And when that curse hit me, it unlocked my mind. You see, Severus,” he continued, settling himself cross legged across from the feared potions master, “I was, not that long ago, just like you.” Severus rolled his eyes, but Lockheart continued.
“I was caught up in the trappings of wealth and fame, playing a part to impress whatever fans I thought would pay me affection - just like you play your part to impress whatever master will give you attention.” Gilderoy watched his words hit, the usually stoic dungeon bat suddenly fidgeting. “But I’ve found a better way, Severus. I live here now on this island with The FoldTM, and they follow my teachings. But my teachings aren’t complicated. They are simply - Love.”
Snape looked up at him. “You’re… a love guru?”
Lockheart smiled. “Yes, Severus. I teach love. Regularly. Multiple times a day.” He watched as Snape noticed the rather substantial bulge which his thin white robe did little to cover. “And, if you want, I’d be happy to teach you, too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nearly a month after Severus left on his mission, Albus Dumbledore found himself sitting across the desk from Molly Weasley as they both enjoyed his new stash of orange creme saver candies (Albus was quite fond of them, and hoped fervently that nothing would make them suddenly and inexplicably disappear off the shelves in the next millennium). “So, Molly, you said you had heard from Charlie?”
“Yes, Albus,” she said, “His letter was rather vague, but he insisted that he’d seen Severus Snape and that, while he was fine, we shouldn’t expect him back. I’m not sure what he meant by that - surely, even if Snape was detained, we should expect him back eventually.”
Dumbledore twiddled the end of his beard. “Hmm. Molly, this letter from Charlie - it didn’t happen to come from Ibiza, did it?”
Molly looked up in shock “How on wizard Earth did you guess that?”
“I was afraid so,” Albus said as his eyes drifted upward, the silence expanding between them as he sucked thoughtfully on the delicious candy.
Molly, worried for her second (or was it third? she couldn’t quite remember) oldest, pushed for more information. “What does it mean, Albus?”
“It means,” the headmaster sighed, crunching on the last bit of his snack, “that I shall have to find a new potions professor. It seems the love guru has struck once again.” And with that Dumbledore turned to tend to his phoenix, which had just burst into flames, leaving Molly to bewilderedly pocket a few more sweets on her way out.