Step right up, step right up!
It all started with him losing a quill.
He thought it to be a prank, at first; a harmless prank like those every seasoned employee did to their juniors –and mind you, not even the Unspeakables were the exception to the rule.
Severus Snape wasn’t a particularly patient man, but he was eager to let that pass, until he started losing more things.
A blank parchment, meant to fill with a report he hadn’t deigned to begin yet.
A batch of bat wings he kept in his drawer –he had stopped brewing for a living after the war, but he couldn’t resist if he found a good deal on special ingredients.
His lunch, for Merlin’s sake–
It was all innocent though; when he lost his little sketch pad though, things got serious.
It was his guilty pleasure: sketching little things or scenes during the little spare time he had between projects in the Brain Room. It was a good way to express himself per his Mind Healer, since all the years of constant Occluding had made expressing himself too tiresome. And even that unassuming notebook wouldn’t be important. He had drawn his desk, under the window that filled it with light just right during the afternoons. He had drawn one of the maps that showed what happened to the brain when one felt the blues.
And he had drawn her, the colleague with the wild short curls, who had a face filled of freckles and the tendency to bite on her pencil when deep in thought.
When he pondered about it –Hermione Granger always did this, from the first time he had been her professor in class, almost two decades ago. He used to find this annoying, until he understood how it was a gesture that made her feel comfortable when she was so deep in thought, in a manner that matched his own way of shielding himself.
He had thought long and hard about it; when he had drawn a sketch of her face as she chewed on a pencil, he suddenly thought that this sight could match even his favourite landscapes, and the mere notion made him feel ashamed.
And now, the incriminating notebook was gone.
So, he started investigating; the culprit would leave a hint eventually. And so, the man discovered, orange hair.
Fur.
Of course! Their mascot, Hermione’s ugly half-Kneazle, who now lived more times in their offices –Hermione Granger was true to her workaholic self and stayed out of home for so many hours, that she felt the need to bring the creature here and let it be pampered by every menacing witch and wizard on their department.
He even had his own little nest of sorts; and when Severus tried to look in there, he found so many tidbits, as if Crookshanks was a magpie and not a feline. There he found his quill and his parchment (chewed thoroughly), the tie he had used for the bat wings (alas, his precious wings were now probably digested already), but no sight of his notebook.
Instead, he found a page that came from that notebook, scribbled in her familiar handwriting.
Welcome! The Museum of Vanished Things is open twenty-four hours a day. It has quite the collection of oddities, but, if you’re looking to get a particular one back, you’ll get it from the curator, Ms. Granger, who accepts visitors at her office from seven to nine pm.
And, with the most perfect, ridiculous excuse, Severus decided to go find her. Maybe he could treat her to dinner in exchange for his notebook.