This'll be a breeze!!

“How many gloves do you need??” I asked, picking up two more pairs and throwing them in the basket.

“As many as I can get my hands on” my mother said running to a different section of the store, she always gets like this whenever we come to an apothecary.  

“You already have 6 brand new pairs at home!! It’s like you collect them instead of using them”

“I just like to be prepared.” she said putting six jars of something that should not exist, yet my mother looks at them like they are the answer to life's question.

“Don’t I know it. Anyways, how many more potions do they need??” I asked carrying whatever I can to the shopkeeper.

“They don’t give us an exact number, they just stockpile everything we can make.” I remember the long list of potion orders she got from Saint Mungos. It turns out that healers there contact individual potion masters and mistresses for their supplies which is actually a nice solution.

Who knew the wizarding world does freelancing.

‘Not me I’ll tell ya that much’

“What is taking him so long?” I asked still waiting in line looking out the window of the store for harry. He went to a pet store half an hour ago to get treats for Hedwig and Gabriel. 2 months ago when we came to Diagon alley for some stationary we decided to get Harry his avian companion, and Hedwig flew on his shoulder the moment we ventured a little into the store. 

My avian menace however came to me a little while after that while I was roaming around in London with my grandmother, we were out on a normal stroll and we were walking along Thames talking about nonsense when suddenly I felt a weight on my shoulder which caused me to jump and turn around. When I calmed down a little I saw a blue coloured raven, with brown coloured eyes, bordering on red. Despite my continued effort of making it fly away it didn’t budge. Finally my grandmother said that maybe the raven is of magical descent, which explains why its eyes seem to hold more intelligence than you would find in a normal bird. After some contemplation I told the raven that if it can fly to my house and wait for me then I'll think about keeping it with me. The moment I completed my sentence the bird flew and I thought that it finally went away, but when we reached home we saw the bird sitting on the metal gate of the property, staring at me. And that's how I got an extremely feisty and loose mouthed bird. 

But despite all that it still prefers Harry's company more than mine, and Harry and Hedwig also warmed to the bird in record time. I often find it playing with Harry and Hermione while Hedwig just sits and watches over them.

“You know how your brother gets, they’ll be here in a while. Right now I need you to pick up those Lacewing flies from over there.” my mother said pointing to a cage with glowing flies. After collecting the files I started moving back to my mother in the line when I saw the person who was standing in front of us. From the side, I saw greasy hair and a long pointed nose and youthful face of Alan Rickman. 

‘Holy shit. Is that?-’

Severus bloody Snape!! His hair looks really bad. 

‘Right?!’

They remind me of your 19th birthday

‘Fuck off Mage!!’ 

I thought and went to stand beside my mother waiting to see if there would be any interaction with the Dungeon Bat. A few seconds later finally snape turned around and saw my mother, who also saw him and greeted him with familiarity 

“Hello Severus”

“Chloe. Did Madam Maybell owled you too?” he said in that exact same low whispery tone, eyeing the ingredients in our hands.

“She did, I'm guessing you’re here for the very same reason.”

“I am. Who is this?” he asked, eyeing me. 

“This is my son, Cassius Fall. Cass this is potion master Severus Snape, he’ll be your professor at Hogwarts.” She introduced us, but despite that I couldn't see any emotion on his face. He was really good at occlumency.

“Afternoon sir-” I started to greet him but was interrupted when harry barged in the shop panting and a second later Hedwig and Gabe came in the shop and landed on our shoulders respectively.

“Hey guys! I got those treats for Hedwig and Gabriel! Now can we go to flourish and blotts please??” harry started bouncing up and down and started being a general menace that I've come to love so much.

It's called being a child Cass.

I ignored Mage and went to answer Harry when I saw the shocked look on Snape's face. I immediately connected dots and knew what the problem was.

“Sure, in a minute. First I'd like you to meet professor Severus Snape, he’ll be our potions professor at Hogwarts.” I turned Harry to Snape and introduced him, which caused harry to become all shy, due to how he was acting.

“Oh, sorry, good afternoon professor, I am Harry Potter, nice to meet you” he greeted him and offered him his hand.

“You too. If you’ll excuse me.” quickly shaking his hand professor made a beeline towards door, while offering a hurried goodbye

“Did I say something wrong?” Harry asked mom, turning towards her with a small frown on his face. Which she returned with a small sad smile of her own.

“No love, he was your mother’s friend. And as you know, your hair and eyes are a very close match to her's, he was just surprised.”

“Oh, so was he your friend too?”

“Not really, we were more like casual acquaintances. Severus was a hard person to be around, and as he got older he fell into the wrong crowd.” she told us in a sad tone which would’ve made me sad too if this was the movie snape. But instead this is book snape so fuck that noise!       

“Yes, that is sad. Anyways we should be on our way to the bookstore!” This got me a small glare from her but it turned into a smile, which was directed towards harry.

When we finally reached home Harry went to his room, to keep all his books away and I went with mom to the kitchen to get something to eat when I started thinking how easy it would’ve been with the help of a house elf.

“Mom,”

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t we have a house elf??”

“Why do you need one?” she asked turning to me and giving me a plate of sandwiches 

“I don’t need one, I'm just asking.”

“We had one when I was very little. he passed away shortly after I turned four, after his death we never looked for another one. He was more of a family to us than a servant or help. Just the thought of replacing him is unbearable.” she said with sadness

“I can understand that. What was his name?”

“Deek”

“Deek?” 

“Yeah, apparently great grandma brought him from Hogwarts when she graduated.”

I would’ve loved to meet Deek!!

“That’s nice. So do you need any help with brewing??” I asked her, trying to distract her from sad thoughts.

“I would love to.” she answered with a smile of her own which told me that she knew what I was doing. With that we both went to the basement and started making potions which took the better part of our day. During this we talk about many things like we always do, which is frankly the best part of making potions with her.

“There. Now we just need to wait nine minutes before we?” she asked me looking at me expectantly 

“Add the leech juice and stir clockwise fifteen times.” I answered with assurity which I definitely didn't deserve. 

“Before we take it off the heat and add juice and then stir. You always forget that part of the process.” She gently corrected me and put the ladle down next to the cauldron. 

“Right. So I never asked, What is your Patronus??” 

“Okay what here reminded you of a Patronus?” she asked pointing to the workstation and kept looking at me and the table

“I was just thinking, like what will be my Patronus form.”

“And that’s why you always ruin your potions, you never pay attention.” 

“Alright, lecture later, answer first please.”

“I don’t know, I've never casted it successfully. I know that your grandfather’s is a fox.” she told me to which I just couldn’t stop myself from making jokes about.

“A fox for a silver fox, nice.” obviously the joke was not well received, “sorry”

“Anyways, why have you never been able to cast one?” I asked when she turned to compositor beside the workstation.     

“It was not something I was actively working on really. I never needed it so I never learned it”

“Well you should, voldy will call dementors to his side when he’ll come back. And I will be learning it because..... third year”

“You can always ask dad to teach it to you.” she said, turning towards me and looking a bit concerned about third year.

“I already know the incantation and method, I'll be fine. But Harry needs to learn it in his third year from the defence teacher.”

“Why third year specifically?”

“Because Remus Lupin will be teaching us in our third year. He was James Potter's good friend, so the lessons will be a good chance for Harry and Remus to get close and build a good relationship.”

“I remember Remus, he was a good guy. Why can’t we call him now?” she asked me after giving it some thought.

“Because somehow the topic of Sirius will come out, and I’m not dealing with it.”  

“Fair enough. By the way, what was your Patronus?” she asked me getting a bit excited

“Never tried to cast it in my school time. And I lost the ability during war time.”

“What do you mean you lost the ability?” she asked with a frown

“You need happy memories to cast it. War is anything but happy.” This put the damper on topic, I hate lying to her like this.

“Anyways, why don’t you try it? We still have 6 minutes before the potion is ready.” She looked at me for a second and then took out her wand and cast the spell which made a small shield in front of her but I could see that maintaining it took a lot out of her. So the moment she stopped, I immediately grabbed her and took her to the chair. 

“Maybe the memories you’re using are not happy enough?” I suggested.

“Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I'm just not powerful enough.”

“Power doesn’t really play much here. Harry taught an entire group of mixed years in a few days.” This caused her to look at me in surprise. Obviously this is not an easy spell, and teaching it to a bunch of children is a big achievement.  “Maybe try to use the first time you were with dad??” I suggested to her with a sly smile, but I got a sad smile of her own which got me a bit concerned.

“It was not exactly a happy memory.” she answered slowly after a few seconds. ‘That does not sound good. Like at all’

“What do you mean it was not a happy memory?” 

“It was the day he left to get something that Riddle hid. He said that there is a possibility that it was the last time I will ever see him again. He was right.” she answered with tears running down her face. 

“So you’ve only been with him once?” I tried joking, because that is the only thing I can do.

You really can’t comfort someone

“That’s your take away from that?” She asked me as if I was an idiot, but I did get a small sad smile from her.

“Sorry. But I know what it was” 

“The object?”

“Yeah, by the way I need to ask you something, and don’t take this the wrong way but why were you with him? From what I know you are against Riddle but yet you were in a relationship with a death eater-”

“HE WAS NOT A DEATH EATER!!” a powerful shockwave of pure, cold magic came from her, freezing everything in her immediate surroundings, the floor around her and half of the workstation was covered in a thick layer of ice with mist floating up from it. If I’m not mistaken then this is Peverell magic. This is also the first time I've ever heard her raise her voice. And god damn she’s scary.

I can see that this is a sensitive topic. But this is something that i can’t not ask questions about, so I just stood there and asked her slowly

“Did he not take Tom's mark?”

“His mother forced him to!! It was not his wish!! Sure some of his views aligned with that fucker, but he never wanted that.” she answered with sadness and anger. I could see that she was trying to control her emotions but it was too much and soon she started crying. Slowly I moved towards her and hugged her, and in return she held onto me tightly.

“I’m sorry,” I told her once she calmed down.

“It’s fine. It's just not fair to him when people call him a death eater when he gave his life trying to do the right thing.” she said sadly with her head in her hands. 

“Life is rarely fair, but we’ll clear his name, don’t worry. Let’s take it off the heat” I assured her and pointed to the cauldron, which got me a small watery smile in return so I counted it as a win. She worked in silence while I got everything defrosted, after a few minutes she turned towards me once the potion was all done. 

“Your father was a good man, a good man who was under a lot of pressure. Never forget that”

“I won’t” I can see that she loved him very much.  

“So what was it? What was the object?” she asked after a few minutes.

“A horcrux.”

“What's that?” she asked curiously

“Something that shouldn’t exist” I don't exactly want to offer that piece of knowledge to anyone who doesn’t already know about it.

“That doesn’t really answer my question” 

“They are objects created by a very dark and heinous ritual that can prolong your life while taking a very heavy toll on you.”

“Is that how tom is still alive”

“Yes,” I answered gravely.

“So you have to destroy them before he can die properly?” she asked, understanding the problem here.

“Yup, and there are 6 pieces right now. Including the one dad went to destroy.”

“So he failed?” she asked with a sad defeated expression.

“Nah, he gave the horcrux to kreacher. And left a fake in its place.”

“Who is that?”

“Black family house elf.” I told her with a smile, because now she knows that regulus really died trying to protect the world. And with that we started working in the silence beside one another. Until Harry came down.

“What are you making?” he asked, looking at the cauldron simmering in front of us.

“Medicine for bruising. Want to help?” my mother asked with a small smile which was returned with a blinding one of his own.

“Yes”