Chapter 11: Wizard with A Hippogriff Heart

It was a lazy Saturday morning in the Slytherin dorms. Cool, green-tinged sunlight filtered through the lake-facing windows, bathing the room in a mild, meadow green. Verdant green bedspreads rippled over the floor like a lawn littered with picnic crumbs. The only made bed in the room was Avery’s, where Tivali was tucked under the covers, sleeping like a tiny person. 

Severus was getting his homework out of the way; Wilkes and Rosier had the same idea. They had popped into the Great Hall for toast, returning too fast for the House Elves to tidy, but lost their steam after a solid hour of drudgery, and now they were going through the motions. Rosier seemed ready to join Tivali; he spent the last ten minutes lying still with his Transfiguration textbook over his face. Severus fiddled with the vial of dream potion he kept under his pillow, telling himself he was thinking of ways to improve its formula and not tempting himself with the thought of a good-dream nap in between his Charms essay. Even the Arrows players plastered over the stone walls flew dully, giving a spiritless cheer when a clump of muskgrass passed by the window. 

Wilkes was trying to fight the lethargy in the room like a one man army. His bed was cluttered with textbooks, which he flipped through restlessly, having taken on an impressive course load in an effort to plump his résumé for the Department of International Cooperation. He worked with his pillow positioned in front of his homework like a shield, and he kept glancing to Severus suspiciously as if Severus would cheat on him.

Severus yawned and traded his vial for a quill, taking another stab at his essay. He opened up Carnivorous Plants of the Mediterranean—he didn’t need it for his Charms homework, but he enjoyed making Wilkes sweat over his Potions assignment. Every so often, he would pause his writing to glance at it intently, flip a page back and forth, furrow his brow. Then he would go back to Charms and Wilkes would frantically rifle through his own Potions homework, squinting at Severus’ bed to try to read the library book’s open page. If he could keep this going for another 10 minutes, he bet he could push Wilkes into using his telescope.

“Rosier, come quick!” 

The loud shout from the top of the stairwell snapped their heads to attention.

“Oi! Wilkes! Snape! You’ve got to see this!”

Rosier sat up in his bed and the three of them traded skeptical looks.

“That sounds like Avery,” Wilkes said slowly. Like a single unit, they swiveled towards Tivali, who didn’t so much as twitch her whiskers, then locked eyes in a stalemate, thinking along the same lines. Avery wouldn’t come get them if the Grand Staircase caught on fiendfyre, but he’d save his cat, so he might be shouting for something worthwhile. 

“You’re closest to the door,” Wilkes said, shooting Severus’ essay a hungry, covetous look.

Severus rose leisurely, pocketing his wand and fishing out his dream potion for good measure. There was no fun in fooling Wilkes if his classmate didn’t know he was being fooled, and, emergency or not, he’d had enough of the dorm anyway.

He climbed part-way up the spiral staircase until Avery came into view at the top of the steps, grinning wide.

“You won’t believe it,” he shouted gleefully. “Mulciber’s trying out for the Quidditch team!” 

In an instant, Rosier and Wilkes were behind him, whopping joyfully and shoving their way up the steps with such force they propelled Severus up to the Common Room with them. 

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Wilkes asked breathlessly.

“I didn’t know. I caught him sneaking out early this morning. He told me he was going to the Hospital Wing so I went back to sleep, but he had a second set of robes behind his back.” Avery’s dark eyes held the same triumphant glint as his cat’s when she snuck up on an unsuspecting fish. “And look what we have here.” He gestured across the empty Common Room to the bulletin board where the flyer for today’s Quidditch trials took center stage. “Quidditch pitch?”

Evan and Wilkes dashed to the Common Room exit before the question was out of his mouth.

“Snape?” Avery tilted his head in invitation.

Severus would sooner gut horned toads than watch Quidditch, but, loath as he was to admit it, Hogwarts had started to feel lonely without Lucius to talk to in the Slytherin Common Room. He caught his reflection in the glass looking onto the lake water, and he suddenly found himself transposed inside the lake: green-skinned, desolate, drowning…strangely resembling Moaning Myrtle…

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Why not? Could be a pisser.” 

The pair caught up to Wilkes and Rosier chatting in the corridors and followed the familiar set of twists that led them out the dungeons. 

“I wonder what position he’s trying for.”

“Not Seeker,” Wilkes answered quickly. 

“Right. Regulus plays Seeker.” 

Wilkes faltered slightly in his step. “But Rabastan’s Seeker. He’s the captain.”

Evan scoffed and shook his mop of blond curls. “He’ll play something else this year. Trust me, Linus, Regulus is that good on a broom.” Wilkes glanced at Avery, whose stony silence was a confirmation of its own. “I would’ve suggested we go watch him, but I wasn’t sure if he’s flying today.”

All of Slytherin had heard the news—second year Regulus Black was guaranteed a spot on Slytherin’s quidditch team without trying out. There were already a few disgruntled whispers swearing that Black’s father bought his membership behind closed doors, though you’d never guess from the way Rosier went on about him.

Avery raised his voice just enough to signal a change of topics as they exited the castle, squinting against the bright sunlight. “Snape, have you even gone to a single match since we started school?”

He shrugged, keenly aware his roommates witnessed his disastrous first attempts on a broom. “It’d be a waste of my time,” he said neutrally.  He wasn’t about to tell his Quidditch-obsessed housemates Quidditch is dumb, but he’d made sure that was exactly what his tone sounded like. By the scowls on Rosier and Wilkes’ faces, he’d gotten his message across. 

“Why aren’t either of you trying out? You’re Quidditch mad.” 

“You don’t need to play Quidditch to like the game,” Evan leveled back in that characteristic manner of his. He could say two things at once as easily as Severus could, but none of his double meanings would ever be as cutting, which made them easy to ignore. 

“Besides,” Wilkes sniffed, “last year was hardly good for morale—as you’d know, if you had proper House spirit. Not all of us had the luxury of missing last year’s slaughter on the pitch.”

Typical Wilkes. Already trained for middle management, he’d managed to fit in a personal slight and room for improvement on something that wasn’t Severus’ job and wasn’t even true. There wasn’t a single person in the school with the luxury of missing Potter victory dance through the corridors. He was still gloating that he won the Cup for Gryffindor into the next term, like the tosser couldn’t up with something better to talk about after a whole summer.

“Setting aside Regulus for the moment,” Wilkes continued, “what other position can Rabastan play? He’s got a Seeker’s build and that puts him at a major disadvantage for Beater or Keeper.” 

“Regulus will just have to catch the snitch that must faster,” Rosier shrugged easily.

“Does it really matter?” Avery huffed, and Severus couldn't have agreed more. This whole school cared far too much about balls and broomsticks.

Wilkes priggishly crossed his arms. “It would be nice if Slytherin won the Quidditch Cup this year. We could all use that on our résumés.”

“Do that, Wilkes, and employers will know you’re exactly the kind of prat they don’t want to hire.”

Avery and Rosier laughed, but Wilkes launched into a monologue on the value of meaningless terms like “building community,” “fostering a shared identity,” and “espirit de corps.” Severus supposed it was better to let him tire himself out now than deal with this headache at 40 feet.

His suffering was cut short as the pitch came into view. Severus hadn’t been on it since the final exam of first year’s flying class, but his roommates veered off the path Madam Hooch had once taken them and headed for the nearest stands bedecked with green and silver. They passed under a flaplike doorway, which hid a set of wooden stairs that began to move upwards like a magic-powered escalator under their feet. The second they all stopped on a step, the moving staircase suddenly rocketed them to the top as fast as a piano glissando. 

Severus felt his stomach lurch into his throat. His roommates continued up the stands unaffected while he gripped the railing, waiting for his nausea to pass. Most of Slytherin was either sitting behind him in the stands or down on the field crossing his double vision. Severus leaned over the parapet as a pleasant breeze blew across his face and spotted Regulus Black on the pitch directly beneath him. He was standing on a platform with his arms outstretched and barking orders to a wizard kneeling at his hemline. The sound of his voice rose upwards so clearly, Severus could hear every word. 

“You better not give me the same design as the Magpies’. My father isn’t paying you all this gold to test what you can recycle.”

“Not at all, Mr. Black. You and your father are valued clientele.” 

“Good. I want six sets of robes. I expect we’ll be practicing twice a day as matches draw near—”

If he was going to puke, he would've done it already. Severus pushed away from the railing in disgust and joined his roommates further up in the stands, slipping into the empty space between Avery and Evan. They seemed to be scanning the field for Mulciber, but it was no surprise that they had trouble finding him. The pitch was teeming with wannabe broom-ends dressed in casual robes of different colors. The only students who stuck out were the six dressed in Slytherin team uniforms. They had already mounted their brooms and began warming up by tossing a Quaffle between themselves.

“Hey! There he is!” Rosier shouted, lowering his omnioculars. “He’s two yards left of centerfield. See him?” Mulciber was sitting on the lawn next to a school-owned broomstick, stretching. Wilkes perked up and slipped on a set of powder blue earmuffs that bore the Arrows insignia.

Severus narrowed his eyes. Earmuffs? By the time he realized what was going on, Avery already cast his sonorous charm. 

“Hey, Mulciber! Look who I brought!” The three of them waved to him wearing cheesy grins. Mulciber rolled his eyes, turned his back to them, and carried on stretching.

Severus, meanwhile, was still rubbing his ear to get rid of the ringing. “Blow out my eardrum, Avery. Thoughtful.”

Avery shrugged a shoulder, mouthing the letters to a fake reply. 

“Everyone uses Sonorous charms. You get used to it.”

Wilkes leaned across Rosier, lifting a muff. “How do you expect the players to hear trash talk all the way across the field?” he asked pompously. 

It didn’t surprise him one bit that Wilkes was a heckler. He stood up and repositioned himself in the row behind them, debating whether or not it’d be worth his time to stay. He decided on waiting a few more minutes when Lestrange made his entrance.

“Right, you lot, gather round!” Rabastan yelled to the chatting crowd on the pitch. Behind him, Regulus blew a shrill whistle from his podium, which shut up the last whisperers. “Thank you, Regulus.”

The group drew themselves into a loose semicircle before Lestrange, who paced in front of them, gearing up for a speech.

“This is my second and final year as captain,” Rabastan began. In the stands, a kid in the front row burst into applause without realizing he wasn’t supposed to. Rabastan shot him a withering look, someone elbowed him sharply and the clapping petered out. “I’ve played every position on this team”—typical Rabastan, jack of all trades, master of none—“because I’m a team player. And that’s what this team needs. Team players.” 

The six teens in Quidditch robes puffed up at those words. The math was easy enough: seven players from last year plus Regulus Black equals someone needs to go.

“That means, if you’re a fifth year, don’t bother trying out if you’re going to whinge you can’t make practice because your OWLs are coming up.” That explained so much about Quidditch players. A couple kids fidgeted. “And if you’re a seventh year, get off my pitch.” 

It took a full minute of confusion for the seventh years to realize he was being serious, but once they did, the response was mutinous.

“Fuck you, Lestrange!”

“It’d be a lousy lay with your attitude,” Rabastan snapped back, but anything else he might’ve said was drowned out by a barrage of swears loud enough for Severus to hear through the commotion in the stands. 

His mood increased tenfold. Quidditch might actually be fun. “Do they curse Lestrange out every game?” he asked, maybe a touch too loud and a touch too excited. All the way down from the pitch, Rabastan swerved his head to glare directly at him til the other seventh years blocked his view. 

That was most of the contingent wearing Quidditch robes. They stormed off the pitch with their robes billowing behind them like a single flag of emerald green. Regulus snubbed his nose at them as they passed.

Rabastan jabbed his thumb at them over his shoulder. “Take a good look. That is the reason we lost last year. Selfish people who care about themselves over the big picture.”

The group remaining on the pitch grew deathly somber. They seemed to be collectively holding their breath like any stray movement would draw Rabastan's ire. Rabastan resumed pacing.

“You see, last year, half the old team graduated and we had to put together a brand new team. We’re not repeating failures. Next year, you’ll only need to replace me. I’ll be playing keeper unless someone thinks they can do better.”

No one raised their hand under his hawklike stare.

“Good. Beaters to my left, Chasers to my right. We’re playing a scrimmage. Regulus is going to count who’s scoring goals, who’s landing passes, and who’s nailing those Bludgers. You lot in the stands can help him.”

“No need,” Regulus lifted a hand as the wizard measuring his robes held a clipboard out to him. “I have the eyes of an eagle and the memory of a Pensieve.”

Rabastan shrugged, mounted his broom and kicked off. The rest of the group scrambled after him like lost sheep, about half of them taking to the sky and the rest fiddling with the equipment chest, Regulus taking notes on his clipboard all the while.

The match was a complete shitshow, there was no other way of putting it. Severus didn’t follow Quidditch, but even he could tell Rabastan’s trial format had little to do with the way the game was played. There were 11 chasers trying to throw a single Quaffle into one of the three goalposts Rabastan was defending and 9 beaters knocking two Bludgers into them and each other. Judging by size alone, nearly all the second years appeared to be competing for spots on the team and finding themselves little more than cannon fodder. One player stood out between the 20, the single person remaining from the old team, a girl with a buzzed head and a nose that severely skewed left. She'd been pointed out to Severus once before as a cautionary tale, the girl who earned Madam Pomfrey a reputation for reattaching her noses off-center. Sev couldn’t distinguish if she was genuinely good or everyone else performed that poorly, but no one seemed to be watching Quidditch for the talent. He caught onto the formula very quickly. Half circus, half gladiator battle, wholly entertaining. 

Rosier had been right: everyone used sonorous charms, and his three roommates weren’t even the worst offenders. In the rows ahead of them, a troop of sixth years were passing around a flask, getting louder and rowdier as the day wore on. They got so drunk, they forgot the rules to their drinking game and fell back on cheering vehemently every time a someone fell off their broom. 

Wilkes only beat them on dedication.

“My Gran aims better than you, and she’s blind in one eye!” Wilkes shouted, his magically amplified voice reverberating until it reached its glaring target.

“You know he’s a Beater, right?” Severus said warily. Whatever Wilkes claimed, Mulciber’s aim wasn’t too shoddy.

“Relax. The Bludger’s no where near him,” Rosier grinned, but the grin slid off his face a second later as he and Wilkes dove out of their seats. Mulciber threw his bat at them, though he seemed to regret it right away. Going by the sheepish look on his face, he couldn’t perform a summoning charm. Avery almost fell out of his seat laughing. Rabastan had to come to his rescue. 

“Wotcher, lads,” Lestrange called, hovering on his broom over the pissed sixth years and holding out his hand for Mulciber's beater’s bat. “Keep up the good work, you three. I want to see the same energy for our match against Gryffindor.”

Avery, Rosier, and Wilkes saluted, and Lestrange lobbed the bat in Mulciber’s direction, who easily caught it and smacked an incoming Bludger the opposite way, straight into the stomach of one of the second years. 

Beyond Lestrange, a line of Chasers had formed in front of the three unguarded rings. They were taking free shots, Regulus scribbling on his clipboard with new ferocity, but Rabastan didn’t rush to return to his post. His easy smile twitched into a lopsided frown til he reminded Severus of a nightmarish scarecrow looming in a field. 

“Snape, are you sure you’re sitting in the right set of stands?” he sneered. 

So Rabastan had heard his earlier comment.

“Don't you have goals to guard?” 

“Shut it, you git!” slurred a sixth year. “Slytherin’s scoring.”

Lestrange flew off and the tryouts resumed. Severus ignored the three sets of eyes flickering towards him. Rabastan never liked him and never made a secret of hiding it, not even when Lucius had been around. 

“Alright, we’re done here!” Lestrange declared randomly after being hit in the back of his head with a Bludger. “I’ll be speaking to everyone one on one, so no one head to the Hospital Wing before I’m done making announcements.” A small figure prone on the grass gave a dreadful groan. “Uh, unless you’re a second year. All of you are dismissed. O for effort, but try again next year.”

Rabastan dismounted his broom and consulted with Regulus for a decent amount of time while the other tryouts put away their equipment and rubbed their bruises. 

“You lot can hit the showers. Except…Mulciber! I’ll be speaking to you first.”

The row of sloshed sixth years began clapping like Mulciber already made the team. Everyone else in the stands charged towards the front rows to hear better.

“Say Mulciber does make the team,” Wilkes asked Avery as they nudged aside some first years. “Who’ll bring snacks to the matches?”

“Come off it, Wilkes. As if Lestrange and Black are going to pick Mulciber.” But Avery pressed forward towards the railing all the same.

“You’re young,” Lestrange began ambiguously, ignoring the impatient crowd in the stands. “Good stamina, little experience. Good instinct, unrefined technique.” 

“Give us an answer already!”

“You’d be the second youngest on the team after Regulus, but that means the two of you could play on the team together for five years.”

Mulciber, who’d never much warmed to Black last year, nervously looked over at him then. Black gave a small wave, and Rabastan jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“He's going to be captain next year.” The stands erupted into yells and shouts at the news. A third year Quidditch captain was unheard of, especially one who cinched the position before ever playing his first official game. “So what do you think? You think you can work with Regulus?”

Avery's eyes bulged—not that Mulciber was looking. 

“Yeah,” Mulciber agreed, tightening his grip on his broom handle with a forced grin. “Of course." 

“Good,” Rabastan nodded, marking something on Regulus’ clipboard. “We’ll have a lot to work on this year. Proper midgame strategy…anger issues… Who do you think you’d work better with? Eagen or Duffy?”

“Duffy,” Mulciber grinned genuinely this time. He searched the stands for the four of them and flipped them the bird with both hands while Lestrange jotted on his clipboard.  

“Right, send him out.” Mulciber made to leave when Lestrange called him back, his next words icy. “One last thing. You don’t own a broom?”

For the first time since trials started, Mulciber seemed apprehensive. “My dad said he’d get me one if I made the team.”

Rabastan’s eyes narrowed. “I know your dad,” he said at last. “Get it by the end of the week. Shouldn’t be any trouble for you. I want to start training the team for our match against Gryffindor.” 

Mulciber pumped a fist in the air and cleared off the pitch. Now that the second Beater had been all but confirmed, several groups of students made to leave, which clotted up all paths to the staircase, leaving the third years stuck standing in place like everyone else.

“Oi! Who’s that Hufflepuff snooping on our try-outs?” Every head in the stand followed the line of Rabastan’s accusing finger. A couple of leering fourth years near the front row got their wands out, but it was no mystery. The girl in the distance looked like Wilkes with pigtails, the pair shared the exact same button nose and rounded face.

“Wait! That’s my sister.” Rabastan shot Wilkes a look of exasperation as he shuffled to the front of the stands.

“She probably came to talk to me about something.” Wilkes frowned as he said it, getting looks of pity from a few older students. “I didn’t see her at breakfast,” he told Rosier, who gave him a reassuring nod that switched to a look of concern the second Wilkes turned his back. Though the other Slytherins returned their interest to the team selection, Rosier kept his brown eyes trained on Wilkes until he disappeared down the stairs and reappeared outside the pitch.

Wilkes sped towards his sister—Leto or Lysandra—but when he neared her, she said something inaudible that made him turn back to the stands. He went pale, and with a shaky, pointing finger, beckoned Evan over. Rosier could not have been more confused. 

“Take your things,” Avery advised without turning his head.

Rosier fumbled his footing, spun around dazedly, then skittishly picked up Wilkes’ forgotten Arrows earmuffs. He opened his mouth to speak, but departed without saying anything. Severus watched him reappear outside of the stands and run towards Wilkes.

“Mhm. She’s telling him about the baby,” Avery said softly. “Andromeda had a half-blood.”   

Severus glanced back at Rosier and the Wilkes siblings just in time to see Evan break away from the pair. They called his name as he ran off, Linus chasing after him in the direction of the castle.

“We should let them have the room until after dinner, so you can come with me and Mulciber—”

Avery’s words were cut off by a loud burst of applause, whistles, and cheers. Regulus Black had taken to the sky, and Severus had to admit he was good. Unlike Potter, he didn’t showoff with flashy tricks or give himself whiplash by craning his neck in the direction of his admirers. There was something about the way he moved on a broom that was spellbinding. Some of the students who had started to file out of the stands returned to their seats to watch him. Even the tailor he'd been abusing earlier joined in on the applause, waving his hat wildly with an elated smile on his face.

He looked like he left the world behind him. 

Regulus banked as he made a wide arc around the three hoops on the opposite side of the field. He shot across the pitch like a missile, hunching til he lay flat against his broom and still picking up speed. When he reached centerfield, to Severus’ shock, he took a ninety degree turn upwards. Somehow, the broom turned, but Regulus hadn't. He was virtually upright, supporting himself with his hands wrapped around his broom handle and his feet on the broom’s back pegs, climbing higher and higher. As he approached a point at which no eye could follow him against the blinding light of the sun, he tipped, plummeting to earth in a dive which lived up to his broom model’s name, The Shooting Star. Severus didn't register rising to his feet, though he hadn't been the only person to do so. At the last possible moment before crashing to the ground, Regulus pulled up on his broomstick, grazing the tips of his shoes on the grass as he prepared for another lap.

The stands erupted in thundering applause.

“Quidditch is overrated.”

“Y-yeah,” Severus came back to earth far less smoothly than Regulus. None of the Blacks needed to feed their egos, but leave it to Avery to be unimpressed after a display like that.

“Looks like Mulciber will be staying to meet the team,” he said flippantly. Mulciber was on the pitch with a couple of older students Severus couldn’t name. Lestrange stood nearby, watching Regulus with a proud smile spread across his face. “Want to get out of here?” 

Severus did, but he had no plans of filling in for Mulciber while the latter fulfilled his Quidditch commitments. He hadn’t forgotten Avery’s carelessly cast Sonorous Charm. Their walk back to the castle was fraught with a tension he couldn’t explain.

When they were still several yards away from the castle, he spotted Narcissa passing along the windows of the West Tower staircase leading up to the owlery, her head downcast, her face obscured by the golden veil of her hair. The robes he’d received at the start of holiday felt oddly tight around the neck all of a sudden, and Lucius’ words from a year ago rang in his head. Keep Narcissa company while I’m gone. He owed Lucius a favor for the trunk stunt last term, and he’d been given clear instructions vis-à-vis how he could pay Lucius back.

Naricissa must have received the same news Rosier had. He couldn't help but wonder what the cousins would do if, eleven years later, Andromeda’s baby half-blood sorted into Slytherin. Muggle ancestry aside, he or she had two magical parents to his one. The thought weighed on him heavily until they reached the castle doors.

“Do you and Evans live in the same town?” Avery asked abruptly.

The mere sound of Lily’s name prodded him with a stick.

“Yeah,” Severus looked at him sharply, but Avery's expression was bored and unreadable. She’d complained about his housemates last year. She never did explain how she'd come by the term mudblood. His eyes narrowed, trying to guess Avery's game. “We’re friends.”

Avery’s eyebrows rose like Severus belched at his dinner party. “I didn't ask for your life story,” he said cooly, sweeping past Severus through the castle doors but lingering in the Entrance Hall.

Severus didn't have time for whatever this was. Ignoring Avery, he bolted up the Grand Staircase, slowing down once he reached the second floor landing. It was a long climb up to the owlery, but Narcissa was still there by the time he arrived, a lonely silhouette against a sky swallowed up by white clouds. He waited for her to give any indication she knew he was here. This whole situation was starting to feel irritatingly familiar. Although they had spoken to one another plenty since the time Lucius threw them in a room together, they had never sought one another out before.

“Er—hi.” 

Narcissa woke up from her reverie. Thankfully she wasn’t crying this time, but Severus couldn't tell if it was an improvement. She gave him a blank, vacant stare—almost like no one was home. What a time for Lucius to be conspicuously missing from action. 

He was no better at offering comfort than he had been last year and he wracked his brain for how best to go about it.

“Sorry y—” Narcissa’s nostrils flared like someone stuck a skunk under her nose“—you stepped in bird shit,” he recovered quickly. She glowered at him and crossed her arms. Every square foot of owlery floor was littered with bird droppings or the skeletons of small rodents. 

He closed the distance between them, stepping over a mess of regurgitated fur, the skull of a vole, and several pellets he considered coming back to examine in the future. This spot of the castle carried a steep price for privacy, reeking with the smell of soiled straw and the waste of digested meat. It was his first time up here, never having reason to send a letter before nor having an owl to visit. He risked a glance up to the circular stone room’s high ceiling. Most of the birds were asleep at this time of day, except a couple of pygmy owls circling overhead and a very handsome barn owl, which flew to the window ledge by Narcissa’s side. He thought he caught Narcissa addressing him as Alpheratz.

“Sending a letter?” he asked redundantly, spotting an envelope in her hand about the same moment she appeared to notice he didn’t have a letter with him—or parchment, or a quill—and narrowed her eyes.

“To Lucius.” She glared at him like she knew he never sent Lucius a thank you note. In a louder, loftier voice, which sounded a bit like Lily’s, she added, “Do you plan to write him? You missed his birthday.” Her words oozed with judgment and her owl turned its pale, pointy face towards him, seeming to do the same before taking off.

“Er—I didn’t know if he’d have time to write…” Somehow that was the wrong thing to say. Her glare transformed into a dark scowl. He wasn’t sure what he'd said. Was it him giving an excuse? Was it expecting Lucius to write back? 

“He’s abroad,” she said stiffly, and Severus tried to puzzle out whether or not this statement connected with his own comment or not. When he didn’t say anything, Narcissa just rolled her eyes in contempt and turned round to gaze out the glassless window from which her owl departed, her hair blowing in the breeze like golden threads loosed from their tapestry. He could only see her face in profile, but he thought she seemed sad in a way that hit achingly close to home.

He took in the view with her. A trail of smoke rose like a black column in the distance. It was probably Hagrid burning rock cakes in his hut, but the signal fire seemed to take on a life of its own. It felt like the choking smoke from Cokeworth had followed him straight to Scotland, to the one place he should be free to forget Spinner's End. 

Severus fiddled with the vial in his pocket. He planned to give his good-dream potion to Lily. Imagining her delighted face was what kept him from drinking it himself every night, but Lily didn’t need a potion to produce good dreams. And that hadn’t been his original plan.

“You know there's a potion for good dreams?” Narcissa continued to stare out the window at a trio of dotterels in flight. “I invented one over the summer. I tested it and everything.” 

He produced the orange vial out of his pocket. 

Narcissa merely raised her eyebrows, shorthand for, You’re declining a second dose?

“It was supposed to be for my mum,” he said quietly. 

Narcissa held out her palm with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. He no more needed to explain than she needed to elaborate—

“I could use a good dream.”

❀

“I still can't believe you missed Adeline’s birthday party to hang out with Snape!” Hippolyta sighed dramatically. The girls were carving jack-o-lanterns in the Charms classroom. Incidentally, they were also earning Gryffindor back the points the third year boys most recently cost them with the destruction of Professor Flitwick’s decorations (minus Lupin, who'd been in the Hospital Wing). Mary had volunteered all five of them for the task, but pumpkin carving was such a treat, Lily hadn't minded.

“That was two months ago,” Lily protested. It was such an old argument she answered out of habit, paying more attention to her carving than her words. “And that's not what happened.” She shot Adeline an apologetic look over her pumpkin. “I really wish I could've made your birthday, Adeline.” 

“Me too,” Adeline gave her the same bright smile that had long ago wiped away her worries about hard feelings. “We all missed you—but there's always next year! My parents said they can pick you up by broom if yours are worried about Apparition.”

Lily's stomach twisted guiltily. She'd successfully lied to Adeline about why she couldn't attend her party, but she couldn’t see how she could keep making excuses until they've graduated Hogwarts. The truth was, Lily couldn’t risk Adeline’s parents telling her mum and dad about the war. She met them briefly on the platform. A grizzly pair of Gryffindor alumni in the vein of McGonagall, Mr. and Mrs. Fray were the worst sort of parents imaginable: the kind that wanted to befriend the parents of their children’s friends. 

“Tell your parents they’re always welcome to write us. We receive Muggle post in Foxhole.” Mrs. Fray was terrifying, having dropped out of Hogwarts in the middle of her sixth year to fight against Grindelwald's forces on the continent the same year he fell. Lily lost the nerve to do anything besides smile and nod.

“Anything they need, anytime at all. I have plenty of time on my hands, and I'd appreciate the chance to brush up on the Muggle world.” Mr. Fray quit his lucrative job in Bludger manufacturing to better serve the Ministry of Magic in the fight against dark forces.

That pair would devour Mum and Dad like lions. Her parents were checking Cokeworth’s trees for signs of the bowtruckles Lily had written about in her latest letter. And they thought….they thought Lily was doing the same.

“What about you, Mary?” Mary was the only one besides Severus who knew her secret since she was in the same boat, having told no one in her Muggle family about the war on You-Know-Who.

“Sorry,” Mary said quietly, directing her words as much to Lily as to Adeline, “my dad and I always spend the summer holiday flying. It’s our tradition.”

Not in the same boat then. Lily was alone in this one. 

She turned back to her unfinished jack-o-lantern while her roommates gushed over flying the Muggle way. She’d set herself the goal of carving the spookiest face imaginable and chosen a long, slender pumpkin for the task. When she was seven, she tried to carve a face into a pie pumpkin Mum had bought and struggled to cut shapes into the tough skin, but the Softening Charm gave this pumpkin the consistency of custard. She could carve it out of spoons if she wanted.

Lily found the other girls staring at her expectantly. “Hm? Oh, I’ve never been on a plane.” 

“It's not the same thing as never having been on a broom,” Mary explained quickly, her face flushed with pleasure from all the attention. Lily was only half tuned in to the conversation, enough she could chime in here or there without seeming suspicious or impolite. Adeline was back to talking about her parents’ parents club. They did weekly dinners—Mum would be on pins and needles to join if she knew. And Lily would be out of Hogwarts before you could say never tickle a sleeping dragon. Realistically, any topic could trigger it, Adeline's fear of werewolves, that time a redcap was found near Hogwarts, the jinx on the DADA post. She fashioned her pumpkin a triangular, wide-over-narrow sort of eye.

“—tried your family's moussakka recipe and loved it!” 

“I thought your mum’s always working overtime,” she cut off Adeline to address Nicola curiously. “Have things cooled down on the warfront?”  

“No,” Nicola made an awkward grimace, like she knew more than she was letting on. “My dad’s the family chef. He’s always puttering about. My mum's a tad jealous actually. She’s barely home to eat his cooking, and he's got a menu planned for your parents through Christmas.” 

Lily read between the lines and decided she’d try to pry Nicola for more information later. In the meantime, she worked hard to give her jack-o-lantern a terrifying, crooked mouth.

Beautiful. She whirled around to showoff her menacing masterpiece.

“What do you think?” she asked proudly, raising her arms like a stage magician.

Nicola gave her creation a bland once-over. “You made your pumpkin into Snape?” 

Lily balked, whipping her head between Nicola and her jack-o-lantern once more. “It doesn't look a thing like him!”

Adeline covered her mouth with her hands while Polly rummaged around the room and stalked forward, giggling. 

“Here, I'll help.” She covered the stem with a few petrified bats, so their wings flopped over the pumpkin's sides like hair. Then she stuck a small, curved squash into the jack-o-lantern's giant nose cavity. Lily cringed. The result could only resemble Severus in the meanest of terms, an effigy in the grotesque.

“Uhm…You have Severus on your mind?” Mary suggested politely. 

"Please don't date him,” Polly begged, burying her head in her arms. “I don't think I could stand it if you do!”

Lily clenched her jaw. It was bad enough listening to Tuney’s remarks over the summer. Listening to her friends push romance into every boy-girl friendship was like trying to sleep with a mosquito in your bedsheets.

 “For the ten-thousandth time, we are just friends.”

“That's what you said about George and Greta,” came Polly's muffled reply.

“They’ve been official ever since George asked Greta out to Hogsmeade four days ago,” Mary said solemnly. Her words held an inevitably to them, like Greta and George were as true a match as salt and pepper, bangers and mash, lies and pork pies. 

As the only pair of third years who publicly called themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, Greta and George were fresh gossip, to Lily's chagrin. In the past, whenever someone would remark about her unusually close friendship with Severus, Lily would point to Greta and George’s friendship as a counter, since they were the only other boy and girl who hung out like she and Sev—on their own as two perfectly platonic best friends. Now that Greta and George started dating, she'd dug her own grave with those words.

She didn't know why it was so difficult for people to understand that a boy and a girl could be friends without either of them fancying one another. She swiftly tidied her work station and stuffed her potions knife back into her bag. The problem was that Lily herself couldn’t explain what made a person you wanted to spend every moment with your best friend one day or your romantic partner the next. She knew she didn’t fancy Severus like Polly fancied Sirius, but loads of people said your spouse should be your best friend. She hitched her bag over her shoulder. Her best mate was a boy; he was the boy she liked best, as everyone was so keen to point out. There were no butterflies or fireworks, but was that love or was love a steady feeling, like the warmth of sunlight stretching across your skin on a long summer’s day? 

“—and the two of you'll be marching down the aisle—” Polly hadn't noticed she was leaving, but Lily turned in the doorway, determined to get the last word in.

“After Potter and Black. You know how those two fancy each other.” 

Polly thrust her head up like clockwork. “They do not!”

“Course they do,” she laid on thickly. “They show all the signs, it’s like George and Greta. They’re attached at the hip, they get on better than their other mates, they whisper sweet nothings in each other's ears…”

“No, it's different!” Polly sputtered, but she was unable to articulate why for any reason other than they’re two blokes. She crossed her arms, blind with stubbornness. “They have a brotherly bond.” 

“But Black has a brother,” Nicola rocketed from her chair like the lead detective in a mystery novel stumbling on a big clue. “The Slytherin one, who believes Hogwarts should emulate Durmstrang and close its doors to Muggle-borns.” 

The room turned so tense, Lily reconsidered her departure. Mary and Adeline shot her silent, pleading looks to do something and she wracked her brain for the best thing to say to de-escalate the situation, her feet twitching to wade into action. 

“You can't possibly believe Sirius is like his brother,” Polly said incredulously. “He's in our Muggle Studies class.”

“Polly’s right, Nicola. Siblings can be very different.” Tuney sprung to mind, but Lily wanted to keep her family as far from conversations as possible. “Which goes back to my original point, the bond between Potter and Black isn’t the brotherly sort. Do you treat your brothers like that, can't go two seconds without talking?” Polly made a face, but it brought some needed levity back into the room. Adeline started teasing Polly to try styling her hair like Potter while Nicola returned to carving her pumpkin, contemplative but silent. She headed out the room with a a weight off her shoulders, rather liking the thought of herself saving the day. “See you later!”

On the Grand Staircase, she ran into a smitten Greta and George walking hand-in-hand. Literally. Lily leapt off her flight of stairs before it swung to the castle’s West Wing and crashed into George because he decided to try shuffling left instead of dropping Greta’s hand for three seconds.

She expected an apology, but the happy couple continued up the steps like she wasn’t there, blinded by love to comedic proportions. She shook her head ruefully. Did dating mean two people were suddenly glued to each other's sides? She never wanted to find herself in a relationship like that. At least crashing into George knocked some sense into her, she obviously didn't fancy Sev. She knew that…but then why was the idea of Severus glued to his very own Greta so dreadfully unappealing?

She turned the question over in her mind as she descended into the castle dungeons, the air around her turning dank like a fen, the windows trading themselves for flickering torchlight, the corridors narrowing and the ceilings dipping lower like a tunnel. Hadn't Mum and Dad shared a laugh when they heard some kids have to sleep here! As she searched for Severus, she decided she didn't want Sev to fancy her, but she didn't want to be unfanciable either. It was sweet how George had played Greta's favorite song on his harmonica to ask her on a date. Special. A part of her wanted to receive that special consideration too. And it was that admission that brought her to a door where she was always special. 

“Miss Evans!” Slughorn exclaimed with a jovial smile. “Come in, come in. Severus and I were just talking about the new schedule change for Potions next term. You were saying, m’boy?” 

The door swung open to reveal Severus stiffly seated on the edge of one of Slughorn’s plush velvet armchairs. Lily waved as she plopped into the cozy armchair next to him. His face seemed more waxen than the candle he was sitting near, and he gave her a strained smile that pained his face like a grimace.

She didn't have much time to dwell on it however; her attention was seized by the small animal running across the room and circling her chair. Though it strongly resembled a Jack Russell Terrier, Lily knew it to be a crup by its forked tail. The breed had a bad reputation for being dangerous to Muggles, but it was tough to dislike something so cute and friendly. This one seemed sweet if a tad hyperactive. Every time Sev tried to speak, he was interrupted by loud, exuberant yips, which stopped when Lily picked the crup up and set him on her lap. It immediately jumped to lick her face, its two tails wagging so chaotically, they kept whacking into themselves like colliding windshield wipers.

“Did you get a pet, Professor?” Lily beamed.

“Crup-sitting for a friend. Celestina only trusts little Neptune with a select few. She’s touring, you know, and she’s dreadfully concerned with leaving her crup alone, what with all the…” he trailed off awkwardly. “Ah, Severus. We’d forgotten about you, m’boy.” 

“Er—That is—Professor, I was wondering if…if you’d let me turn in my Potions work outside of lessons next term. In case there are any…problems…”

“What sort of problems?”

“With…other students.” Sev seemed to shrink. Lily was surprised Slughorn heard him. His voice was barely a whisper. 

“Yes, Pomona did mention that the Gryffindor-Slytherin combination gets a smidge out of hand,” Slughorn said gingerly, “but I’m confident my lessons can reign in that rambunctious spirit we find in that merry-making house of lions, hm? No one’s gotten poisoned during the poisons chapter so far.” He slapped his knee as he laughed but a very dark look crossed Sev’s face, one that his Head of House was too absorbed to notice. “Why, ask Miss Evans! She manages to learn plenty.” 

Sev sucked in his lips so tightly he practically gave the impression he was eating them. “That’s—that’s not—they don’t—I—” 

“My two top pupils in the same classroom.” Slughorn smacked his hands together with a glint in his eye. “Nothing gets my blood pumping like some healthy competition!” In the background, Sev seemed to resign himself to the tide of the conversation. He had taken up studying the elaborately carved Occamy eggshell on the desk, his face expressionless. Professor Slughorn winked at her. “My condolences, Miss Evans, but as Head of Slytherin I must root for my own House—”

“We’re friends, Professor,” Lily said as she and Severus glanced at one another with growing smiles. “We’re going to partner up!”

“Ohoho!” Slughorn seemed to swell in his seat, his face beaming so bright his bald head glistened like an exposed lightbulb. “Already undercutting the rest of the classroom—splendid! If I love anything more than competition, it’s collaboration.”

“Speaking of collaboration,” he eyed her shrewdly. “Tell me, Lily, what do I need to do to get Sirius Black into a Slug Club Christmas party, hm?”

Lily was about to retort that he need only extend an invitation to James Potter, but stopped herself in time with a heavy dose of guilt. If those two went, Sev wouldn’t, and he’d gotten new robes this year too. 

“You’d need to make some tough choices, sir. He’s not a Warbeck fan.” She held up Neptune who was making his cutest cruppy-dog eyes. “It’s one or the other.” Slughorn’s lips tugged down in the same disappointed frown Hippolyta made when she first heard Black whinging that the girls played that warbling drivel. 

Neptune whined with him.

Slughorn’s two hands grasped the empty air, as though he were trying hard to hold on to two tugging, invisible leashes. “We’ll think of something,” he muttered as Neptuney yelped in protest. Severus already rose to his feet and padded to the office doorway, so Lily patted Neptune’s head and they bid goodbye to the Potions Professor, ducking out of his office and into the corridor. 

“That crup was adorable,” Lily said lightly. 

Severus muttered a mending charm on the tiny teeth marks at the hem of his robes. “A right little Uranus.” 

“Neptune,” Lily’s lips quirked. Sev gave her a flickering half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He seemed upset back there. 

“How’d your detention go?” she asked delicately. Lupin had called it the four corners detention because he and his three friends had been relegated to four separate parts of the castle. Severus meanwhile, had been sent to the castle grounds. 

“Hm? Good,” he said distractedly. 

“Good enough for a second?” she teased, bumping into his shoulder. Already anticipating he’d say Potter being unable to talk was worth it, she raised her voice a little, in a friendly-advice sort of of way. “You know, if you didn’t hex back, you wouldn’t have gotten a detention at all.”

Severus stubbornly dug in his heels. “Detention was brilliant, actually. Helping Professor Kettleburn on the grounds was fun.” 

If Severus’ voice carried any more venom, he’d have swallowed an adder. Lily sighed, but she didn’t have much to add. Potter and Black liked their detentions well enough. Used the time for gossiping with their magic mirrors. 

Sev had stopped walking. He pulled out what appeared to be a crumpled, faded page of The Prophet and began unrolling it.

“I brought you these.” He held out a bouquet of bluebell flowers.

“Thanks,” Lily said awkwardly. She tried to tell herself this was no different from the other potions-themed gifts Severus had given her over the years—milkcaps and frogspawn, comfrey root and Dubia roaches—but flowers straddled the line. “They’re, uh—” 

“Pretty,” Severus supplied, nodding at the delicate, drooping blue flowers. 

“Yeah.” She swallowed thickly. The bulbs are attached, she told herself as she brushed off mounds of loose dirt from the flower bulbs. It’s a potioneer’s gift.

“And styptic.” 

Tension left her shoulders. “And poisonous.”

“That too,” Sev laughed. He gestured in the direction of a fork in the corridor, pointing down the path opposite from the one that would take them out of the dungeons. “Have a minute?”

“Course. Yeah.” She ignored the nagging voice in her head which sounded suspiciously like Tuney pointing out how much time they spend alone together. He fancies you…There it was again, prodding her thoughts. Every step she took felt like an act of defiance. He. Does. Not. We’re. Just. Friends.

Severus led her past several twists of corridor and behind a red, velvet curtain to a secluded spot she had never seen before. The alcove was entirely empty save for a large painting of an underwater scene hanging on the stone wall. Fleetingly, she wondered why someone kept this section of the dungeon hidden behind a thick curtain. Hogwarts Castle was full of these sorts of minor mysteries.

She turned back to the painting for a clue. It depicted a city, but whether it reflected an actual merpeople dwelling or an artist’s imagination of one she couldn’t say. Though no part of the painting moved, the entire image appeared to ripple if you stared at it long enough, and it emitted a faint melody like the way you could sometimes hear the ocean if you put your ear next to a seashell. The effect was very beautiful—romantic, even. 

She stopped herself. This was not weird. She was making this weird.

“So. Are you doing anything next Saturday?” Sev asked. He seemed breathless and nervous with excitement in a way that made her stomach somersault without the rest of her. 

She feigned a casualness to her voice. “That’s the first Hogsmeade weekend.”

“Hogsmeade. Right.” His smile seemed to grow bigger. “I was wondering…” 

Lily suddenly recalled how George Latchkey asked Greta on a date. Was that what was happening now? Third years were too young for that stuff, weren’t they? Should she say yes? She already had plans for Hogsmeade, but this wouldn’t be their only trip to the village. And what if she says no? Would this moment change their friendship forever? She wiped her palms on the front of her robes, which left behind two unattractive sweat stains. To her dismay, Sev didn’t seem to notice them.

“…if you wanted to come with me to a Hippogriff dissection. Afterwards.”

“What?” Lily croaked, sounding like she swallowed a frog.

“You won’t believe it. I was with Professor Kettleburn in the Forbidden Forest—”

“—Sev, you aren’t supposed to be there,” she said on reflex. This conversation was starting to sound more and more like an odd dream; she’d feel less confused if Sev started quacking. 

“Detention. With Professor Kettleburn,” he reminded her impatiently, but he didn’t have the patience to stay impatient for long. He launched back into his story with a flurry of animated hand gestures. “We were walking by one of the bogs, and we came across a dead hippogriff. Stallion. Perfectly intact. No immediate signs of internal damage. It’s encased in a freezing charm right now in Flitwick’s office. We’re planning to do a dissection next Saturday. And I’ve got us spots!” He was bursting with excitement and struggling to keep his voice low. 

Lily couldn’t explain what she was feeling right now. Relief mostly, but there was a sinking feeling alongside it. It couldn’t possibly be disappointment. She had wanted their friendship to stay exactly the same. If she could encase it in a freezing charm, she would preserve it just like this.

He seemed waiting for some kind of response and his face fell when he didn’t get it. “This isn’t your average murtlap dissection. Hippogriff carcasses are incredibly rare.” 

She managed a smile. This whole time she’d been right all along. Nothing was out of the ordinary. 

“Just you and me?” 

He blinked at her. “And Professor Kettleburn, obviously. He reckons between his NEWT students and prospectives in their OWL year, spots will fill up fast, which is why we’ve got to reserve our places.” He looked at her sharply. “I thought you’d be more excited.” He studied her with his dark eyes and she wondered if he found her face as inscrutable as she found his.

“I’m not chuffed it keeled over y’know.” A small crease appeared between his eyes. “You can invite other friends if you’d like—” he said, though he hesitated to name one. They both knew that Lily was preciously low on friends who wanted to be elbow-deep in Hippogriff guts. “Maybe Hippolyta. That’s a Warbeck song, right? 'Wizard with A Hippogriff Heart'?”

Lily kept her mouth shut and fought back a grin. Celestina Warbeck hadn’t written her chart topper imagining a wizard with a blood-soaked hippogriff heart throbbing in hand, but Severus had happily latched onto the association.

“Brilliant! But why all the secrecy?” she asked, gesturing round the space. 

Severus shot a dark look past the curtain and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Kettleburn doesn’t want Slughorn to know, so it has to stay a secret.” 

Lily thought back to her winking Potions Professor apologizing how he’d have to root for his own House if he was forced to choose. “You know Professor Slughorn likes you,” she said wryly. “If he could see you now, after he’d told you how much he loves collaborating…”

Sev’s tone was mercenary. “I’m collaborating with you to not compete against Sluggy.”

“That’s conspiring,” Lily pointed out with a smile.

“Alright. We can call it conspiring if you like. But it’s Kettleburn’s idea and the roots go deep.” Lily must've seemed skeptical because he sighed and brushed back his lank hair. “You don’t know what he’s like with rare ingredients. He’s going to weasel his way into getting all the best parts.” Sev’s eyes flashed darkly. “He’s a snake, Lily. He doesn’t even want to brew with them. He wants to sell them off.”

So this wasn't just a dissection, they were divvying spoils afterwards. Severus really did fancy himself the wizard with a hippogriff heart.

“You know they call old Sluggy ‘sharp-eye Slughorn’?”

She scoffed. “I bet Kettleburn’s the only one who calls him that, and he ought to be more sharp-eyed himself.” She put a hand over her right eye where Kettleburn’s eyepatch would go and lifted her left eyebrow. Sev didn't rise to the bait.

“Bet Slughorn’s got it floating in a jar somewhere, sold off to the highest bidder.”

“Then he’s still taking better care of it than its previous owner,” she shot back. His reply was silky and smug. 

“So you admit he isn’t brewing with it.”  

Lily rolled her eyes, but she mimed zipping her lips shut. 

Sev’s dark eyes glittered in satisfaction. Within a few more minutes, they had named the late hippogriff Charlie Beakit so they could speak of their fine feathered friend in code, and Severus was telling her wicked facts about hippogriffs he’d already read.

“—and it shouldn’t be possible to pump blood through its body fast enough for a six-limb-powered takeoff, but a hippogriff’s heart is stronger than a giant’s.” 

The longer she listened to Sev talk, the clearer it became: the only heart Severus Snape had on his mind was a hippogriff’s. She didn’t know why she let so many people convince her otherwise. There was no danger of Severus seeing her as anything more than a mate and she felt herself slipping back into the comfortable soles of their old shoe friendship. He must have misread the expression on her face because his next words were just as passionate as before and deeply consolatory.

“Honestly, Lily, the keel’s just as good. D’you know it’s permeable? When a hippogriff is galloping on land, its thoracic muscles can magically pass through the bone like it’s not even there. They say it holds the secret to the magic of flight.” Sev sighed longingly, clearly torn between the keel and his own pick. 

Though the conversation had initially blind-sighted her, Lily now had an entirely new reason to be excited for next Saturday. It’d be wicked to have a Hippogriff talon to use in an agility potion. She’d have to do some research of her own, but she thought she’d go for Charlie Beakit’s furcula. She’d experimented with using furculae in place of stirring rods, and the wishbone of a hippogriff had to be extremely magical. After she and Sev made plans to catch up later, she stopped by the library on her way to her dorm. Most of the good books on hippogriff anatomy had mysteriously been checked out (by one person she could guess), but she found decent information in a dusty old edition of Hypogryf Zootomy.  

The Gryffindor Common Room was cozy but crowded when she entered through the portrait hole with a bustling, busy noise-level that made her feel like something exciting could happen at any moment. She planned to head straight up to her dormitory to read in a quieter place, but heard her name called before she could reach the staircase.

“Lily!” Hippolyta squealed from an armchair by the fireplace. “My mum owled and said our hair appointments for next Saturday are set!” 

“Cheers,” Lily beamed, walking over to the large group of third years. She wouldn’t ordinarily have been excited to go to a hair salon, but she wasn’t cutting into her first time exploring Hogsmeade with a boring hair cut just because the salon where Mum took her had closed over the summer. Lily had been assured the hair salon in Hogsmeade was special. In the Wizarding World, hair had the potential to be a potions ingredient, and, as a result, wizards were deeply superstitious about handling hair. The hairdressers in Hogsmeade took great pains to pacify their paranoid clientele no strand of hair from their heads, ears, noses, chins, eyebrows or lips would make its way to a stray cauldron by burning cut hair inside fire pits before your eyes. 

Supposedly, elves did the cutting and a witch or wizard charmed hair into place. They could change colors in an instant, or weave complex braids in a pinch, or have you go from long to short back to long again within an hour. Lily was planning to try on a mustache and with any luck she’d get a photo she could show to Dad. He’d be chuffed they matched.

She took a seat on the squashy arm of Polly’s upholstered chair. 

“Then we’ll try on some dress robes—” Lily nodded. She never liked clothes shopping, but she couldn’t rely on her Mum to buy her robes. 

“So long as we’re not robes shopping the whole time,” she warned, her Frothmore-supervised trip to Madam Malkin’s before first year flashing before her eyes. “It’s going to be my first time in Hogsmeade. I want to check out Honeydukes and Zonko’s.” Robes shopping is a necessary evil, she reminded herself. She hated feeling like the entirety of her magical life fit inside a trunk. She didn’t even have the basics—no wizarding clothes besides her school uniform.

Potter had been looking over at them. She caught him staring at her and gave him a smile—he’d been alright the last time they spoke.

Mary nervously tapped her shoulder, her wispy reddish eyebrows knitted together. “Lily, we’re still going to tour the Wizarding Wireless Network together?”

“Of course! You, me, Mara, Greta and George.” Mary beamed. 

Suddenly Polly’s hand enveloped her left wrist and curled it so her bluebell bouquet was lifted high. “Speaking of plans, I heard Snape took you somewhere private to talk in secret,” she said with wide eyes.

How did she even know?

“Did he ask you on a date to Hogsmeade?” 

Lily rolled her eyes.  “Grow up, Polly. We’re just friends.”

She gasped. “You turned him down! No surprises. I mean, Snivellus—”

“He didn’t ask me to Hogsmeade,” Lily said sharply. She opened her library book to a particularly gruesome diagram. “He asked me if I’d come to Kettleburn’s extra lesson. It’s a hippogriff dissection for NEWT students.”

Despite being proven wrong Polly’s face was etched with triumph. She got what she wanted. A sharp, predatory pair of gray eyes were trained on her from across the Common Room’s roaring fire.

“Leave it to slimy Snivellus to be happy a hippogriff’s dead,” Sirius Black clucked his tongue reproachfully. He and his three friends had stopped their conversation about Professor McGonagall’s Animagus transformation to follow the one between Lily and Polly.

“It was already dead when he found it,” Lily said coolly.

Sirius laid back on his elbows with a bored, regal air. “I didn’t say he killed it, only that he’s happy it’s dead, which you’re not denying.”

“What. A. Creep,” Potter jeered. Peter shivered and nodded vigorously. 

“It’s academic!” Lily said defensively.

“—Is it though?” Sirius interjected. “Are you sure Sniv didn’t mark it on his social calendar?” 

“Yeah, Evans. If Snivellus wants to go somewhere private to show you his little specimen, I suggest you say no.”

Potter wagged his pinky finger and the rest of her housemates howled with laughter. Black and Potter high-fived, their usual double act, but it was the latter Lily addressed. She couldn’t believe she’d been so daft as to believe resident toe-rag James Potter could actually be decent.

“I’m sorry Mummy and Daddy never told you how potions ingredients reach their jars,” she said, and, swiftly recalling his family boasted a number of well-known potioneers, she hoped she could hit Potter where it hurts. “You’re jealous Severus is more talented than you.”

Peter was mortally offended, but Potter seemed to shrug her comment off. “I’m jealous because Snivellus likes crawling inside dead bodies. Him and the maggots.”

“It tracks that Snivellus would prefer to love something dead. Anything with working legs would try to get away.” Black already turned his attention back to his crossword, but Polly was desperate to keep him talking. 

“He could send a werewolf running off in the other direction!” she exclaimed. A funny thing happened next. Potter and Pettigrew, who had been laughing loudest, instantly stopped, and Lupin, who had looked ready to tell his friends to settle down snorted with laughter. The atmosphere had gone strangely topsy-turvy but Lily couldn't put her finger on what had caused it.

“So Snape has a super power,” Lupin said mildly. “Who in the world could have guessed?”

Sirius grinned. “I’d say so, Moony. The grease from his hair must be a natural deterrent. People will be flocking to buy it as a shampoo. Sniv might win himself an Order of Merlin.”

Adeline, who was normally more bubbly than Drooble’s bubbliest Double Bubble Trouble chewing gum, seemed uncharacteristically ready to blow up.

“Werewolves aren’t a joke,” she snapped, pink in the face. “Do you know how many people die from werewolf attacks every year?” Mary looked ashamed of herself and Peter looked ready to chew his own fingers off. “Experts say lycanthropy is the wizarding world’s most threatening disease.” 

“Pox that,” Potter scowled.

Nichola stood up and strode forward, straightening her robes in a way that reminded Lily of Dad adjusting his tie for the office. “Nobody was making light, Adeline. If anybody would know how dangerous werewolves are, it’s Remus.” Nichola clapped him on the shoulder and Lupin practically froze in his chair. “Go ahead, Remus, tell them who your dad is.”

“Oh, I—“ Lupin stammered.

“Remus’ dad is a Ministry hero,” Nichola gushed, her voice catching the attention of several students nearby.

“I wouldn’t say hero—”

But Nichola was already shaking Lupin’s shoulders in fervor. “Tell them what what he said about werewolves! Tell them!” Lupin didn’t get the chance to say another word because Nichola had beaten him to it. “Remus’ dad said werewolves don’t deserve to live,” she announced proudly. “Right to Fenrir Greyback himself!”

“Way to go, Lupin!” a sixth year cheered from across the room. Lily wanted to ask who Fenrir Greyback was, but the whole Common Room seemed to jump into the conversation.

“Lupin’d dad’s right you know,” said a sneering Helen Tokko, a fourth year who was an avid proponent for restarting the school’s dueling club. “Everyone knows the werewolves are joining up with You-Know-Who in droves.”

“Our uncle was killed by a werewolf,” Galvin Gudgeon yelled, looking up from his Quidditch kit and nudging his little brother.

“Savage brutes.”

“The Ministry should round ‘em up and execute them.”

“I’m going into the Department of Reg. & Control after I graduate. I’m going to make some big changes. Bagnold’s been too soft if you ask me.”

“—and that was what they discovered from interviewing the Woking Werewolf,” Adeline tearfully whispered to Mary. “She said they transform back into human skin after the full moon, but the impulse to hunt human flesh still stays with them. They remember it and they dwell on it, and they might fight against it for a number of years, but living with lycanthropy, it’s just a matter of time.”

Someone set off a dung bomb, which stank up the whole Common Room with a smell worse than rotting eggs. Lily thought it was Potter—he’d been staring right at her the whole time—but it’d been Peter. Awfully inconsiderate of him with Lupin so peaky. He and those two lumps he hung out with ought to have helped their friend back to the Hospital Wing.

❀ ❀

Once when Severus had been nine, the night after he'd been kicked out of Muggle primary and Toby threw a strop, he dreamt he was the popular kid in Hogwarts. Dream Hogwarts was all wrong—the tables in the Great Hall were out of order and the Slytherin Common Room wasn’t around the corner from the Kitchens—but the school in his dreams had been a place where everyone wanted to be his friend. He'd never been thick enough to believe that would actually happen, but it’d been a good dream, one that lodged itself in his memory and lifted his spirits until the day he'd gotten his letter. He hadn’t had reason to think back to it til now. 

 This morning he’d woken up with the entire school knowing his name. 

“There he is! It’s him!” 

“—the Snape kid—”

“You think he really killed that hippogriff?”

“Who cares? He’s definitely dissecting it. What a freak.”

The stares and whisperers followed him through the corridors and up and down the stairwells. Breakfast was a miserable affair with no one sitting within a 4-foot radius of him except the Bloody Baron. He pretended not to notice Lily's uncomfortable, apologetic glances from across the Great Hall while kids from the next table over threw kippers at him. Kettleburn had it just as bad. The poor Care of Magical Creatures Professor was trapped. Slughorn sat on the side of his good eye, having switched chairs at the High Table for the occasion. He kept looking over to Severus and smiling wide from under his walrus-like mustache.

His whole day was a heart-pumping blur of dodging jinxes, receiving threats, and getting laughed at. The final straw came when he walked past that hideous caricature of himself as a pumpkin sitting in the Charms classroom getting blown to bits by a blasting curse. 

“Sev!” 

“Weirdo.”

“Gross.” 

“Loser.”

“Sev!” Lily caught up to him and there was no use avoiding her. “I’m so sorry this happened. Potter and his mates heard me telling Polly about the dissection. Somehow she knew we'd been talking in the dungeons and—”  

“It’s alright,” he interrupted. “I'm not cross with you.” He’d kept the bitterness out of his voice, but he caught his reflection in a nearby suit of armor and he hadn't stopped it from twisting his face. A sorry sight he made against its gleaming metal. He was such a sod believing the big difference between him and Lily was the line formed by Cokeworth’s dirty river. “Professor Kettleburn said not to worry about Slughorn knowing. There might be more parts going round now than before. Everyone else dropped out.”

Her face crumpled but her voice grew more resolute than ever. “I'm telling everyone I can I'm going!” she said fiercely, but in a flash, her shoulders slumped and she turned towards the suit of armor to stare at her own reflection. “It’s just no one takes me seriously.”

Severus couldn't summon much sympathy for her. No one treated her like a living joke either. He kept twitching his head over his shoulder like a jinx would jet towards him and he finally reached his limit. “I’ll see you later,” he called, taking off so quickly Lily seemed startled. 

“Meet you at the courtyard?” she yelled. 

“Another time!” 

“Murderer! Murderer!” He jerked his head nervously, but it was only Peeves yelling through the corridors and pretending to fly away with a jolly laugh. 

Once classes were over, he rushed to the Slytherin Common Room for a reprieve, nearly walking into the three third year girls. He figured they were still upset over McGonagall vanishing their bunnies— Pallsworth was crying into a handkerchief—but they trained their eyes on him like he was some sort of monster.

“How could you?” Pallsworth sobbed with snot running down her face, clutching onto her two friends, who glared at him with equal viciousness. He didn’t know what their problem was.

“You know hippogriffs eat bunnies?” he sneered. How thick could you get? The three of them shot him looks so steely you’d think hippogriffs were vegetarian and Severus force-fed them rabbit meat through their tears. He stormed towards the stairwell to the boys’ dormitory, but Regulus’ fan club prevented him from going down to his room. The mix of first and second years huddled together outside the first door off the stairs, probably to watch Black model his Quidditch robes or beg to borrow his broomstick. He was going to tell them they couldn't just block the staircase, but their murmuring stopped him in his tracks.

“He has a motive! To master the dark art of unassisted flight!”

Heart pounding, Severus’ eyes flickered to Regulus' door. Dark Arts tutor or not, unassisted flight was impossible for wizards. Wasn’t it?

“—and Kettleburn’s leg makes him slow. Snape would have had enough time to cast a curse.”

“For the last time! He couldn't have killed it before Kettleburn got there because the Kettleburn cast diagnostic spells on it to check how it died.”

“There is one spell that can kill without leaving a trace behind,” the girl speaking gave a pause, but it was genuine fear and not dramatics tying her tongue. “The killing curse.” 

A collective gasp cut through the group.

“Oh, come on!” 

Surprisingly it was Black coming to his aid, but in the most backhanded way possible. 

“He’s a third year. There is no way he could cast a Killing Curse. If he yelled Avada Kedavra at me, he couldn't so much as prick my finger.”

Regulus lifted up the offending digit, and Severus took this opportunity to make his presence known. “Quit blocking the stairwell.” 

His voice was hushed, but the effect was immediate. The group took one look at him and scrambled over each other into Regulus’ dormitory, leaving Black behind in the stairwell with him. He almost resembled his brother with that scowl—the same expression on a different face—but he made no move to draw his wand. He leaned against the stone wall instead, drumming his fingers on his arms. 

“You’ve got everyone fooled that you're a budding dark wizard,” Regulus sneered. “Nice try, but I know what you’re up to, trying to make a name for yourself before my big Quidditch game. Next you'll be telling people you're the Heir of Slytherin.”

What a clueless twat. It was his stupid brother and the three stooges spreading the rumor and that heir of Slytherin tosh sounded barmy. Regulus was too self-absorbed to notice not everything in this school revolved around him and his stupid sport.

He stormed past Regulus to his own door at the base of the stairs, exhausted by the time he reached the bottom step. The sound of animated voices hit his ears and he clenched his jaw. He could guess what they were talking about, dashing his plans for some peace and quiet. The second he twisted the doorknob, the conversation stopped.

“Don’t tell me any of you are dumb enough to believe I killed a hippogriff.” He frantically looked around the room, breathing heavily, but his roommates had unassumingly taken their places. Mulciber was thumbing through his collection of comics. Wilkes was scratching answers into his star chart. Avery and Rosier were engaged in a cutthroat game of Wizard’s Chess in which Rosier’s queen decimated Avery’s castle. Petulantly, Tivali flicked her tail across the board, scattering the pieces. No one spared him a glance.

“Nah. It’d be wicked if you did though,” Mulciber said. “You'd be a school legend.”

Avery sighed, avoiding eye contact with Evan while packing his pawns into their wooden case (assists counted as an automatic loss). “Snape, just blame Kettleburn.”

“I’m not blaming Kettleburn,” he protested heatedly.

“For someone really clever, you can be really stupid.”

“Don’t blame him, just…say he found the body and the dissection was entirely his idea,” Wilkes piped up.

Avery rolled his eyes. “That is literally what I just said.”

“You should chop the head off and leave it in the Gryffindor Common Room. They’d know it's you though…”

“For the last time, I am not blaming Kettleburn,” he repeated, fighting to keep his voice measured. 

“I'd rather be Snape, the Hippogriff Slayer than Snivellus, but that’s just me.” 

Avery shrugged. “Remember we told you so.”

“Alright, alright,” Rosier cut in, putting an end to the conversation. “New rule. No more talking about the hippogriff.” The chess victory had set him back to his usual magnanimous self after a spell of moping around since last month’s Quidditch try-outs. Severus withdrew to his bed, but as he reached for his curtain, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that they all seemed to watch him with a leer.

As far as pranks went, it wasn’t that bad. A dozen jars were stacked atop his bed, each filled with a pamphlet from a charity called Save the Hippogriffs. The jars were helpfully labeled “kidney,” “lungs,” “brain,” “coccygeus” (that would be Wilkes, trying to sound intelligent and failing miserably), “R.I.P. TOM” (that would be Rosier, still unwilling to let that particular mystery drop). Mulciber drew a picture of a dick out of spellotape. Avery, the consummate professional, left no evidence of his involvement.

The four of them sniggered behind him.

“I'm keeping these,” he announced curtly, unscrewing the lids to remove the pamphlets. The one good thing about being around rich bastards was their castoffs were nicer than what he could afford. All the jar lids were charmed to self-seal.

"Consider it a gift,” Rosier said mildly.  

His roommates didn’t think he was a killer. Grand, just grand. Half the school thought he was a joke, the other half thought he was a murderer. Bugger it all. He rather thought he preferred the terrified yelps of the first and second years. Fear got you respect at the very least.

His diffindo sliced the hippogriff photographs tail to tongue, spilling the stacked pamphlet halves over the floor and his bedspread. 

“Dinner?” Mulciber called. Rosier and Avery sauntered to the door.

“Just a sec. So I have Eridanus down as the longest constellation in the sky, but it stretches from Orion to…”

“Dinner, Wilkes.”

Wilkes followed Avery’s line of sight to Severus and back. “Oh, right. Later then.” He hastily packed up his star chart, quill, and inkwell.

“Snape?”

“Not hungry,” Severus snapped, clearing off his bed.

“Suit yourself.” His roommates filed out of the room, Rosier lingering in the doorway for a moment before disappearing. What a bollocking day in the whole crapshoot calendar. With any luck, the school would go back to talking about Hogsmeade and Quidditch and leave him the hell alone. He could survive the week if everyone else went back to normal after the dissection.

He was too agitated to go to sleep, so he busied himself scraping the spellotape off his new jars with his fingernail.

Severus’ week didn't get much better with one exception, which came in the form of a letter from Lucius offering to meet up in The Three Broomsticks at noon. Today marked the first Hogsmeade outing of the school year and the first morning this week where students could talk about something other than the dead hippogriff. The tables buzzed excitedly, with groups of friends chatting about restocking on Zonko's products or visiting Vox Angelica, the record shop where all the older kids hung out, while owls swooped overhead with the post. 

The commotion lulled Severus into believing he'd faded into old news until a dead mouse dropped into his pumpkin juice from the sky. He gave a start in his seat and Wilkes whipped his head around, trembling, “It almost fell into my cup!” A loud cheer rose up from the Gryffindor table. He turned round to see Potter gloating smarmily in his seat, getting congratulated for training the delivery owl.

He took out his wand to try to salvage his permission slip, but Mulciber had grabbed it from the table before the pumpkin juice splashed. He was staring at the form queerly. 

“They make a Muggle give you permission to go to Hogsmeade?” he choked. His voice was low but full of disgust. Severus snatched the paper from his hand and folded it in half. “Blimey, that’s like getting your form signed by Mad Martin Miggs.”

“Yeah, well—a bunch of wizards are a few straws short of a whole broom.” 

Avery studied the pair of them with disinterest. "You didn't need it signed, you know. Slughorn won't check.” Wilkes gasped like he'd have his second heart attack of the morning, but Avery looked past him and perked up. “Rosier, your nanny is here,” he snickered, leaving the table with Mulciber, who fished the mouse out of Severus’ goblet and fed it to another bird.

“She’s fit, mate. Nuttier than a squirrel, but fit.”

Evan scowled as Narcissa appeared, ruffling his hair until it resembled a nest. 

“I don't need a child minder,” he said petulantly, “and you don't need a chaperone.” 

“I want to get our story straight,” Narcissa said flatly, dropping onto the bench in a way only she could make elegant. She looked different, though beautiful as always. After a fashion, Severus decided she'd changed her makeup. 

“Lucius took us all to Honeyduke’s, we all went to the Post Office, then we dropped you off at Madam Puddifoot’s for a date; Linus and I went to Zonko’s. You and I met up at noon. Happy?” 

“Cut out the Post Office,” Narcissa commanded, scrutinizing her reflection in a compact. “The more you add, the less believable it sounds.” 

“But we really are going to the Post Office,” Wilkes blinked, wading into the conversation with the sincerity of a mouse poking its nose into a cheese trap. “I need to arrange a parcel delivery.” 

Narcissa snapped her compact shut. “My parents do not care what you need, Linus.”

“C'mon, Linus,” Rosier said, rising from the table and snatching his knapsack from his cousin's side. “I hope a good shag puts you in a nicer mood.”

“Evan!” she hissed. In a flash, she drew out her wand and with a flare of white light, Evan was clutching his reddened hand. 

“Ouch! Narcissa!”

“Well-deserved,” she tutted, crossing her arms. Evan stalked away from her moodily; Wilkes waved her a tentative goodbye before scuttling along.

Narcissa turned her piercing blue eyes at him as though nothing happened. 

“Severus, I am enlisting your services.” If he didn't know Narcissa better, he might've been intrigued.

“Don't I get a say?” he asked indifferently. She raised her perfectly manicured eyebrows at him.

"You forfeited your chance when you didn't get Lucius a birthday present, so consider this my favor to you. Buy me sweets from Honeyduke’s—nothing disgusting. I hate those Every-Flavored Beans, Cockroach Clusters, Ice Mice, Chewable Bogeys…” She proceeded to list nearly all of Honeyduke’s stock. “Beyond that, buy whatever you want and buy something for yourself too, for the trouble.”

She dumped a handful of Galleons on the table and departed. Severus rolled his eyes, but he scooped them up all the same. It would be nice not to arrive to his meeting with Lucius empty-handed and maybe, if he played his cards right, he could find out what kind of dream his potion had given Narcissa. That was another reason he'd wanted to give the potion to Lily—they could cross-reference observed symptoms and effects.

He caught sight of her then, walking out the Great Hall surrounded by a group of kids in their year, and waved, but she didn't see him over the heads of MacDonald and Latchkey. By the time he joined the swarm of students waiting outside the castle doors, he’d lost all trace of her. He sighed and crumpled his permission slip. While he had no delusions Slughorn would check it for a signature, the inconvenience of needing a second one signed for McGonagall held him back from tossing it. The beady-eyed Deputy Head stood between the trip’s supervising professors, yanking an errant student out of the crowd by their ear here or there and sending them back to the castle to await further punishment. Severus couldn’t exactly complain, certain it kept the students near him weary to pull their wands out of their pockets. He heard his Astronomy Professor’s nasally voice instructing students to form a separate queue for the long-promised Tour of the Wizarding Wireless Network. Meanwhile Professor Rathbone, the new Defense teacher, made no attempts to disguise his hopes that the village gets attacked, the berk. 

At long last, Severus filed into an empty thestral-pulled carriage. The thestrals didn’t seem to register he had gotten on, or, if they did, they waited expectantly for more students to join, not realizing they had picked up persona non grata. He couldn’t get them going before he found his carriage commandeered by Slughorn, who appeared out of thin air and cornered him in his seat like a juicy fly in a spider's web.

“Ah, Severus, my favorite Slytherin potioneer! Could I possibly persuade you to keep the hippogriff’s head and cranium intact? My dear friend Arcturus recommended me his most trusted magizoological taxidermist! She does the most amazing mounts—”

“Horace,” Professor McGonagall bellowed, marching towards their departing carriage with a stern frown. “Good of you to provide extra supervision in the village.”

“Oh, no! No, I couldn't possibly,” Slughorn attempted to back out of the moving carriage, which annoyed the invisible thestrals. They clopped their hooves aggressively, and one gave a shrill, bird-like shriek that startled everyone in its vicinity. “I have too much to prepare, Minerva! The hippogriff dissection is today. I have so many people to fire-call.”

Severus grinned as Slughorn scrambled into the castle, but his amusement was short-lived. McGonagall was sizing him small through her square-spectacles, her lips drawn together in one tight, glaring line.

“Mr. Snape,” she rasped, “your Hogsmeade permission form?” 

He fancied whipping out his wand and setting a tripping jinx on the carriage traces to get the thestrals moving. Perhaps in another life where his father owned a Gringotts vault the size of a swimming pool and his family sat on the Hogwarts Board of Governors for half a century. Instead, he pulled his form out of his pocket, where he'd crumpled it into a paper ball, and hastily smoothed out its wrinkles, placing it in her outstretched hand, his face red like her House banners. She scrutinized it with a deeper frown than usual.

“Do take better care of your belongings. One point from Slytherin for carelessness.”

Professor McGonagall moved aside and he re-crumpled the form into a ball, conjuring bluebell flames and setting it alight to burn in the palms of his hands throughout his carriage ride.

Hogsmeade was better than anything Severus could have imagined. Every thatched cottage had a carved pumpkin sitting outside its doorstep and the High Street had been charmingly decorated ahead of Halloween. Enchanted bats hung from the eaves of roofs, flapping their wings and swooping down on unsuspecting passersby. Dancing skeletons adorned the windows of every shop, sometimes popping half-way out of the glass to scare people. The black mountains beyond the village completed the aesthetic, rising from the earth like an impenetrable, indomitable wall. Severus thought he might have experienced a little bit of what the Founders felt when they built Hogwarts behind those mountains.

Severus wandered through the commercial district—he didn’t mind magical window shopping— and ignored an old, buzzing memory of a Hat lecturing him on great temptations as he opened the door of Dervish and Banges, the magical instrument shop. A set of wind chimes sounded his entry and the two adults at the counter turned their heads to glance at him before quickly resuming their hushed conversation. They seemed to be the only other people in the shop, the blustery, red-faced customer and the wizened wizard behind the counter in his felt, non-pointed hat. On the inside, Dervish and Banges didn’t look a thing like the rest of  Hogsmeade. Intricately patterned rugs covered the floors and hung from the walls. Almost everything was behind glass and looked expensive, fashioned out of precious metals and adorned with fine jewels. Severus dove down an aisle full of astronomy instruments, brass astrolabes and gold sextants, sophisticated lunar trackers made of pure silver, but the best items seemed to be behind the counter—rare stuff he’d never seen before. The coins in his pocket clinked together meagerly. He wished Narcissa sent him shopping for sneakoscopes instead of sweets.

“You heard it again?”

“The howling?” the wizard at the counter lowered his voice, but Severus still heard him from the end of his aisle. “Yes, on the 12th. I’ll tell you this, all my Dark Detectors went off. The whole shop was a mess, full of noise and smoke, and my Creature Catcher shook til it fell off the shelf.” He shook his head regretfully and the customer made a perturbed noise.

“You still have any of those Dark Detectors, Mr. Zarkub? I’ve been thinking about getting myself a Curse Cincture. Dark times, you know?”

“We’re fresh out,” Mr. Zarkub said apologetically. “I still have a few Secrecy Sensors left if you're interested.” He began to rummage for an item in the back as Severus stole closer to the counter to better view the specialty items designed to sense dark magic. 

“Selling well during war time?” the shopper huffed, counting out a dozen galleons—way too expensive for Severus to afford.

Mr. Zarkub remained silent, gently removing a long golden rod, thin and flexible as a car aerial, from a case and placing it in the shopper’s open hand. The sensor wiggled in his palm, orienting its tip to point damningly to Severus’ sheepish face. He cleared his throat.

“Do those work on Invisibility Cloaks?”

“They do,” Mr. Zarkub said politely. He likely realized Severus was hopelessly out-priced, but paused packing the Secrecy Sensor and gave a kind smile nonetheless. “We carry pocket sneakoscopes in the front.”

Severus turned down another aisle to get there. This one stocked forceps, trocars, osteotomes, double curved needles, the kinds of tools he and Professor Kettleburn would be using for today’s Hippogriff dissection.

Behind him, the customer complained loudly. “Ugh, must be a Hogsmeade weekend. I hate when students take over High Street. Impossible to do any shopping.”

“Little beasts.” The wind chimes sounded behind Filch as he closed the door and hobbled up to the counter. “Mr. Fotheringham, Mr. Zarkub,” he wheezed.

“Mr. Filch, a pleasure!”

“Can’t say the same,” Filch responded, unwrapping about a hundred metal pieces from a parcel. “One of the cretins back at the school nearly ruined this. I hope it isn't beyond repair.” Zarkub bent his head over the fragments, his forehead growing heavy with creases. Filch surveyed the shop like its entire contents were made of thousand year-old wax paper. “You might want to close shop for the day, til the grubby monsters leave. I’d hate to see the kind of damage they could do to a place like this.”

He leaned back til he made eye contact with Severus. Behind him, Mr. Fotheringham and Mr. Zarkub exchanged a furtive glance, neither choosing to mention the excessive damage which befell the shop two weeks ago.

“You should search any student that comes in here in case they stopped at Zonko’s first. Aye, take my word for it. These brats have no respect.” 

Severus might’ve been a test subject for as many Zonko products as Filch had this year, but he took the hint and wandered into Honeydukes to fetch Narcissa her sweets. The shop was packed with more students than sugar, with long lines roping themselves around the till and hordes screaming over a new bestselling product, lollies called shriekers which would shriek bloody murder for as long as you kept them in your mouth. Honeydukes had unveiled it today, especially for the Hogsmeade weekend, and they were flying off the shelves. The stout, smiling witch who invented them carried out the newest tray and instantly found herself swarmed by pushy students.

Seconds later, the whole shop collectively covered their ears. The ear-splitting screeches that pierced the room shattered the glass dome of the giant Drooble Bubble Bank, spilling glass and gum balls over the floor like marbles. Employees fixed the broken glass with a few waves of their wands, but Severus couldn’t shake the idea the sweet sounded like a woman screaming, though the inventor herself stated she modeled her noisemaking charm after the shrieks of children.

The shriekers killed his enthusiasm for browsing and he chose to do most of his shopping on queue, grabbing whatever seemed good enough within arm's reach. Pepper imps, sour sherbets. He figured Narcissa would go for quality over quantity and resolved to get her the box of chocolates with Honeyduke’s golden-grade ribbon, the most expensive product in the shop. To his surprise, the employee at the till made no rude comments or disapproving glances at his hair or nose. He even got a “thank you for choosing Honeyduke’s, sir” with his bag. It felt good after a week of being treated like a murderer.

He had time before he was due to meet Lucius, but Severus set off in the direction of the train tracks to avoid being near any kids licking shriekers. Vaguely, he wondered if those lollies created the noise Zarkub mentioned before dismissing the idea; it wouldn’t explain how the shop’s Dark Detectors were set off. Disinclined to arrive at The Three Broomsticks early, he turned onto the fork in the road opposite the inn, where the road inclined. The speckles of bluish petals in the distance caught his eye, and he began climbing up the slope in earnest. It stood a little above the rest of the village, the type of hill on which a house would sit proudly, yet, for some reason, the area seemed deserted. Confident he wouldn't find another soul up here, least of all anyone from the school, he let his guard down and focused on the vegetation. The area creeped with filmy-fern, overtaking the swaths of wilting primrose weeded with toadrush and buckhorn, all native plants to Scotland. He squinted further up the hill, but he jerked back and let go of his bag when he noticed a shape on the ground.

A body of a small animal lay across the road. Severus’ stomach dropped. Stretched out a yard ahead of him, still and glassy-eyed, was a black rabbit. By the looks of its shiny fur, it had been someone’s treasured pet. Now it showed no signs of breathing. He knelt down beside it and placed his fingers deep in its coat, feeling under its chest cavity. No pulse. 

It was just his luck that he had to come across his second not-potions-related dead animal this month. 

“Oi! You there!” Severus lurched to his feet at the sound of shouting. “Get away from that rabbit!” 

He was going to be known as the bunny murderer. 

“I didn’t do anything to it!” He raised his hands high and abandoned the gesture halfway, reaching for his wand instead. The wizard rushing in his direction from a narrow path twixt the undergrowth could’ve passed for Hagrid’s distant cousin. He was half as large but twice as hairy and his robes were layered with fusty animal skins. In a few long-legged strides, he reached Severus and pushed his matted hair out of his face til a single crazed eyeball peeked through the gray mane. 

“I know yeh didn’t kill Zeus.” The wizard pointed beyond the dense vegetation. “Whatever’s in there done it.”

Behind the broad leaves of a Downy Birch and the thick climbing thorns of a sweet briar shrub, stood a rundown shack which radiated the creeps. Its every visible opening, door or window, was sealed shut by heavy wooden boards. The moment Severus looked at it, he felt as though a hand reached through his chest and squeezed his heart. 

“The name’s Boyce. Hamish. My farm’s down the road.” Out of the corner of his eye, Severus registered Boyce picking up his rabbit’s body and nestling it close. He tried to speak, but his attention was consumed by the ramshackle property. Despite being a stone’s throw away from both the train station and the village’s most popular inn, it hadn’t been marked on any maps of Hogsmeade nor had he heard it mentioned by any of his classmates. He supposed that could be blamed on its level of disrepair, but Severus couldn’t shake the thought that this place was fundamentally different from the rest of the village. Even Dervish and Banges hadn’t deviated from a Hogsmeade cottage exterior. This roof had shingles, not straw, and it was constructed out of wood in its entirety, no stone in sight.

“What is that place?” 

“Might be the meeting place of You-Know-Who.”

It sounded like the punchline of a bad joke but the wizard wasn’t smiling.

“They’re calling it the Shrieking Shack. Appeared two years ago.” He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

You-Know-Who is not inside the Shrieking Shack.

“Can’t be,” Severus muttered. “You mean no one’s said anything about a shack that appeared one day out of nowhere?”

Boyce’s one visible eye widened. “You don’t follow that rubbish in the Prophet, do ya? It’s all the Hogsmeade Herald prints. We’ve had everyone up here. Ol’ Kerr and Fowler and Butchart and Zarkub. Couldn’t even get inside. Trouble is, we can’t get any Ministry fellers to look at it.” 

Severus stepped closer to the Shrieking Shack, surveying it from underneath the birch tree. Boyce didn't seem the canniest of blokes, but Severus met Mr. Zarkub this morning, the esteemed magical instrument maker at Dervish and Banges. He had to think fast. Hogsmeade had the largest population of wizards and witches in the United Kingdom. If no witch or wizard here could figure out how to enter this building after two years, there had to be some strong enchantments protecting it. He knew that much.

“So why’s it called the Shrieking Shack?” His ears rang hollow with the same screams he’d met inside Honeydukes, courtesy of the shriekers. Hadn’t it been howling Mr. Zarkub heard that night his Dark Detectors went off? He said his Creature Catcher rattled til it fell off its shelf and broke. “A banshee?” he asked, knowing it didn’t quite fit even as the words left his mouth. 

“Can’t be. I heard it two weeks ago.” Boyce gestured to himself as if to say I’m still here, but his brow furrowed as he looked down at his rabbit. “This…shrieking. It didn’ sound human. It sounds different during the full moon. There are curses like tha’, wax and wane according to the moon.”  

Severus bent his head, deep in thought. There were, in fact, many powerful curses bulging and receding around the pull of the moon like dancers swaying to a nightfall rhythm. Most of the longevous ones followed that pattern until they killed you. Strange that the Ministry hadn’t sent anyone to deal with so serious a problem for two years. He told Boyce as much.

“That’s Hogwarts property. S’posed to be anyway, but none of the headmasters ‘ave stayed there since Black.” The wizard spat on the ground as he said the name. “Nutters, them Blacks.”

Severus might’ve made a friend after all. He offered Boyce a crooked smile. “One’s in my year. Massive git.”

“You stay away from him. Murderers. The lot of ‘em ought to be fed to dogs.” 

Severus didn’t know how he felt about that. Certainly not Narcissa, though her cousins were fair game. Or perhaps not Regulus either—not before Slytherin’s match against Gryffindor. 

Hamish Boyce crept closer to the property, light-footed despite his size and unencumbered despite holding his rabbit with both hands. Severus trailed after him cautiously, his wand drawn. The neglected front garden, if it could be called as much, looked like the dumping ground of the Whomping Willow, for lack of a better description. He couldn’t think of a good reason for so many broken branches to be strewn over the ground. One quick glance told him they couldn’t have come from the property’s existing trees.

“Black was the last headmaster to set foot on the residence. Rumor has it, he practiced all kinds of curses here. Evil bastard wanted to teach the Dark Arts in Hogwarts. Look at the place, ruined by dark magic. Always leaves traces. Look, the bloody building’s scarred.” 

Severus swept his eyes over the ill-kept exterior. Boyce was crying scars and showing him bruised skin. Boarded windows and rotting shingles weren’t signs of dark magic, but what about the sensation Severus had felt when he first caught sight of the shack, that sharp, prophetic terror that he would die there?

“Now Dippet, his successor, promised Hogsmeade Village he’d tear down the place, but we think he only concealed it ‘cause two years ago, in the summer, tha’ shack appeared out o’ thin air. Whatever enchantments had been hidin’ it must’a worn off.”

Then Boyce committed the cardinal sin of dealing with cursed objects—he touched it. Boyce laid a hand directly on the wood of the exterior wall, patting it as he spoke. Severus held his breath, waiting for a curse to take affect. Boyce should be screaming in agony now, or bleeding from his orifices, or maybe levitating off the ground, but nothing happened. Severus gave it another minute in case it was a subtler curse. He studied Boyce’s lips for foam or drool pooling out the corners, his fingers for discoloration or rigidity. 

Nothing.

“A-ha! Righ’ here, like Fowler showed me.” It had taken Boyce awhile on account of his rabbit's body, but Severus now saw the wizard gripped a partially dislodged, rotting, wooden plank and was shaking it with all his might. His long, tangled mane of hair rocked wildly, but the plank held firm, a signature trace of a protective enchantment. Severus' eyes widened.

Boyce might not be able to tell the difference between his right and his left when it came to dark magic, but Severus would hand it to him. Something was up with this shack. The protective magic on it had to be extremely strong if no one could get inside no matter how hard they tried. There were probably multiple spells layered atop one another to achieve such a feat.

Suddenly, he was struck by an excellent idea. 

He’d read about impossible enchantments before—spells that worked a person’s own intentions against them like a Chinese finger trap. The premise went like this: the more you wanted something, the more impossible it became to retrieve it. The enchantment, founded on the principle that intention fueled magic, turned your own desire for something into a crippling force to act against you. 

It was a very clever enchantment, the sort of spell only a very powerful witch or wizard could perform. 

Boyce had said everyone else had tried to enter the building. Deeply resolving himself to the opposite wish, Severus approached the closest boarded window. 

I don’t want to enter the Shrieking Shack. I don't want to enter the Shrieking Shack. He let the words sink deep into his being. 

My intention is to stay outside the walls of the Shrieking Shack.

He approached the boarded window nearest him. This had to work.

“Hold on! Yer not gonna try tah enter, are yeh?”

“No.” He slipped his wand through a small crevices between two boards. Immediately, it hit glass. He'd gotten around enchantment number one. “Lumos,” he whispered, pressing his face to the slit. He could barely see a thing; the blinding light was reflecting off the glass instead of filtering through it.

It was just as he suspected. There wasn’t a real window here—not one that lined up with the interior of the house anyway. Severus would bet none of the visible entrances into the house matched up with their interior counterparts. Bloody clever! Even if someone figured out this shack was protected by an impossible enchantment, the moment they moved to unraveling the next layer of protection, they’d have fallen back into the first trap. Eager to test his theory, he reached for the door handle next. Normally, a doorknob or handle’d be the most obvious anchor to fix a curse to, but Severus reasoned the Hamish Boyces of Hogsmeade would've gotten to a curse already if one was there. 

He touched the handle. Just like he thought, it didn't turn, as though there was nothing attached to its other side. A wizard less clever would attempt a blasting curse on the door or an unfettering charm on the handle, and find themselves impeded by their own intention, according to the rules laid out by an impossible enchantment. The misaligned entryways, the protective spells… Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep people out of this shack. Why?

Severus felt a hand grip his shoulder and whirled around. 

“I wouldn’t try to enter.”

Looming over him was the enigmatic figure of Albus Dumbledore. The headmaster had been missing from the High Table since the Welcoming Feast, yet here he was nearly two months later, holding a broom in his hand and wearing a traveling cloak too light for the weather. 

“Dumbledore!” Boyce cried with all the jubilation of a small child meeting Father Christmas. “Blimey, good to see yeh, Headmaster. Decided tah come tah Hogsmeade by broom?” 

Severus raised his eyebrows cooly. Dumbledore had a ready-made lie offered to him on a plate.

“No, Hamish, somewhere much further away.” 

“Been traveling? Whereabouts?”

“Greece. To visit a long-lost friend.” Boyce was too star-struck to notice Dumbledore's clipped tone, but Severus was far more interested in what the Headmaster was doing here, at the door of a run-down, supposedly cursed shack in Hogsmeade, than where he’d spent the past several weeks. No time to change? One point from the Headmaster for carelessness.

“Aye, I’ve lost me a long friend today. I was tellin’ the lad. It’s tha’ cursed shack’s fault. It killed Zeus.” 

Severus started to speak up, but Boyce cut him off mid-inhale, shaking his tangled gray hair. 

“Cursed, I tell yeh! The whole village’s callin’ this place the Shrieking Shack. Doris thinks it’s the work o’ some troubled spirit—”

“I'm strongly inclined to agree, Mr. Boyce. The Hogwarts ghosts have informed me a rough crowd has taken inhabitance within those walls. They steer clear of it, and I suggest everyone follows their example.” Here Dumbledore shot Severus a meaningful glance, but Severus wasn’t having it. He knew that look when someone was enjoying a joke on your expense. The headmaster seemed far too chipper about a subject scaring the residents of Hogsmeade for years.

“Crivvens!” Boyce exclaimed, pulling his rabbit’s body close. “Probably a poor soul tormented to the grave by Black.” His one visible eye widened in horror. “Maybe it was his son, the one he disowned. They never found the poor bairn’s body.”

“I cannot say,” Dumbledore hummed gravely, his voice low. Severus got the sense that the Headmaster was treading in some hot water with that rumor. Boyce was picking up steam. He labored under heavy, rattling breaths and turned to Dumbledore with an air of desperation. 

“Well, what’re yeh thinkin’?” 

Dumbledore’s lips curled upwards in the corners. “The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing,” he paused, “Oscar Wilde.”

Boyce gurned cluelessly. “‘Fraid I donnae that wizard.”

“Muggle playwright,” Dumbledore supplied, clasping his hands behind his back. Severus eyed him shrewdly. This was the airplane incident all over again, and Dumbledore was gambling on the fact that no one in Hogsmeade would question a word that came out of his mouth. His eyes narrowed. What was the headmaster hiding this time?

There was no denying this dilapidated shack was protected by an Impossible Enchantment and Dumbledore himself was one of the few wizards capable of casting a spell like that.

“We’ve been meanin’ to bring yeh out here awhile. Folks only come on account o’ the shrieking. Puts the fear o’ death into yeh.”

“You heard shrieking as well, Mr. Snape?”

Severus looked up, alarmed at being addressed by the headmaster directly. But he supposed everyone in the school knew his name by now.  

“No,” he said dumbly, “I followed the flowers.” The wizards followed his finger to the border of spiky azure florets that stood 4 feet high.

“Pretty blossoms, aren’ they? Now tha’ I think about it, they sprung up ‘bout two or three years ago too.” Boyce rubbed his chin.

“Doubt it,” Severus snorted. “That’s Wolfsbane. The whole plant is deadly. It’s extremely difficult to grow from seed, and, look, it’s the only plant growing in the area that isn’t native to Scotland.” A part of him hoped the Headmaster was impressed, but Dumbledore was staring at him grimly.

“It appears Mr. Snape has identified the cause of your rabbit’s death.” Dumbledore stroked his long beard and drew his wand from the sleeve of his robe. With a simple flourish of his wrist, some of the flowers began to transfigure themselves into thick, sturdy signs that read: “BEWARE POISON monkshood, wolfsbane, aconite, witch’s brew.” 

He regarded the signs very seriously, and after the briefest hesitation, conjured a simple post-and-rail wooden fence. Satisfied with his handiwork, Dumbledore stored his wand away. 

“I put a livestock repelling charm on it,” he told Mr. Boyce genially. “It feels like a lifetime ago since I’ve used it. The incantation slipped my mind.” Boyce was too bewildered to reply, and after a lengthy stretch of silence, Dumbledore belatedly added, “Ten points to Slytherin,” which confused Boyce all the more. He kept whipping his head back and forth between Dumbledore and Severus to the point he appeared to be going in circles. He finally settled his one wide eye on Dumbledore.

“Well, what about what the lad said about wolfsbane? Yeh think someone planted it to hurt me animals on purpose?”

“Or to keep them away from the Shack.” Or to keep people away from the Shack was more like it, but Severus chose not to share that part aloud. Something was fishy about that place, and he didn’t trust the Headmaster not to be involved somehow. For someone who created signs and a fence to keep people away from the wolfsbane, he seemed positively blasé about preventing anyone from trying to enter the building.

Almost like he was certain no one could enter the building.

“It’s a theory.” Dumbledore stroked his beard once more. “Tell you what, Mr. Boyce. I have a dear friend who happens to be a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparition. I’ll owl him to take a look at the property as soon as possible.” 

“Smashin’, Dumbledore! If you could have him up before Halloween, I’d appreciate it mightily.” Dumbledore nodded his head and Boyce beamed. “Whom should I be expectin’?” 

“Lyall Lupin.” 

Severus recognized the family name, but he didn't spare it much attention, nor did he think much of Dumbledore inviting Hamish to join him at the Hog's Head for a pint (per his custom). He kept casting glances over his shoulder at the Shrieking Shack, but he could hardly stay and examine it with Dumbledore lurking nearby. He trod behind the old wizards, and by the time he reached the road, Boyce already went back to his farm, and Headmaster Dumbledore…Headmaster Dumbledore was searching through his forgotten Honeyduke's bag. He'd stolen a sherbet purchased with gold from the same family Boyce accused of filicide.

“A fan of the sours,” Dumbledore smacked his tongue brashly. “A man after my own palate! I can see you're not an Bertie Bott’s fan. Neither am I after a youthful brush with a vomit-flavored bean I mistook for lemon curd. Ah! The innocent mishaps of younger days.”

To his utter bewilderment, the headmaster smiled at him serenely. Severus stuck out his hand for the sweets bag, which Dumbledore handed over to him without reservation. Then the smile melted off his face and morphed into a look of deep concern.

“Mr. Snape, I would advise you to consider carefully the company you keep.” He gestured plainly in the direction of Boyce's farm as though he wasn't about to share a drink with the fool in a pub. Severus realized what he was up to, having sampled the playbook at the Hospital Wing first year. It wasn't going to work. The esteemed war-hero, the eccentric grandfather, the wise mentor. He didn't care which of his faces Dumbledore tried to show him next, he wasn't falling for it. 

“Right. Sir,” he nodded once, ducking his head and stepping forward.

“Seen it all and done it all already?”

“Excuse me?” Sev bristled.

“Not a popular location for Hogsmeade festivities,” Dumbledore said staring him down through his half-moon spectacles. Severus shrank in the wizard’s shadow. Something accusatory hid behind his words. 

“I’m meeting friends.” Dumbledore’s eyes darted around suspiciously like he expected more students to be hiding in the woods. “At the Three Broomsticks.”

“It’s down the road.” Dumbledore pointed his arm in a straight line. “The building has a rather distinctive sign with…three broomsticks.” His tone was light but his face was anything but.

“I could work it out for myself, thanks.” he scowled. The headmaster raised his eyebrows, but tipped his hat instead of commenting. If Dumbledore was really going to the Hog’s Head, they should have been heading in the same direction, yet for some reason, Dumbledore remained behind. If Severus didn’t know better, he’d think the Headmaster was tailing him in turn. At the base of the slope, he glanced back up the hill, but the Headmaster was neither visible at the top nor coming down. 

He chalked it up to one of the many oddities of the morning, but there was no time to dwell on the events of the day, having arrived at a large building unmistakably marked with three broomsticks. It was a popular pub, packed with students and adults alike, clearly catering to drinkers over drunks. There was a large contingent of Slytherins congregating near the far wall of the inn, under a painting of a formidable-looking witch on a broom. Severus recognized a couple sixth and seventh years before spotting Rabastan at the very back, seated at a chair pulled up to the end of a secluded booth and talking to a set of people hidden from view. Narcissa’s osprey-feather bag hung off his chair and Severus caught the glint of Lucius’ gold wristwatch. His heart soared at the sight and he sped up towards the last table, eager to see him, but he stopped short in front of the booth.

It wasn’t Lucius and Narcissa Rabastan had been talking to.

Though they had never met, Severus immediately recognized the witch occupying the table. She resembled Andromeda Black far too much to cast any doubt as to her identity; whatever small differences might have marked their faces rendered the latter a beauty and the former a work of art. Stormy thunderclouds billowed like Bellatrix’s dark curls, pearls shimmered like Bellatrix’s gleaming eyes, cracks cut rock like Bellatrix’s faint sneer. Unlike her sisters, Bellatrix stared at him directly from the beginning with haughty, heavy-lidded eyes. 

His eyes darted between the witch and the dark-haired wizard he didn't know before he pivoted to Rabastan. 

“Where’s Lucius?” he choked out.

“He’s upstairs with Narcissa. And he doesn’t want you to go poking your nose around.” Rabastan smirked around his glass. Severus scowled at him and scanned the inn for a place to sit—as far away from Rabastan as possible—when the wizard behind him spoke up. 

“They’ll join us soon. Please, have a seat. Rodolphus Lestrange. My wife, Bellatrix.”

Bellatrix didn’t break from her conversation with Rabastan at her introduction. Severus lowered himself into the chair Rodolphus summoned to the table, his eyes searching for the staircase all the while, willing Lucius to appear.

“Butterbeer?” 

Severus hesitantly accepted the mug. The entire table was crowded with empty butterbeer glasses as though dozens of visitors had stopped by to pay homage and left. He took a sip from his glass to avoid talking and the sugary drink warmed him from the inside out. With the taste of butterbeer still dancing on his tongue, he decided the elder Lestrange was considerably more welcoming than his brother.

Far from being a year or two above Lucius, the age difference between Lucius and Rodolphus seemed as large as the one between Lucius and himself. Rodolphus had a full beard, which wasn’t long but grew wild, like he’d been trekking through the wilderness for months. His dark hair was so poorly cut, Severus didn’t look egregiously out of place sitting next to him in Lucius' old school robes. Apart from the outfit and a robust mien of health, Rodolphus could have passed for one of the junkies back home that shot up heroin in the park when the sun went down. He even had the tramlines; when he lifted his hand to catch the matron’s attention, enough of his sleeve fell back to reveal faint trails of reddened skin snaking up his forearm.

“I’ve heard you invented a potion for pleasant dreams.” 

Rabastan snickered behind Severus’ back, but Rodolphus’ tone was polite enough. Talking to him he felt a little like talking to a professor.

“Yeah…I’ve heard you think there’s a way to cast a curse without an anchor.”

Rodolphus tilted his chin thoughtfully. “I would frame it…our idea of a magical anchor needs to be redefined. Take a limitative charm like the Trace, for instance.” Severus scooted to the edge of his seat. “It has two broad boundaries, one geographical and one restriction set by age—”

“—not interrupting, are we?” 

Lucius sauntered over to their booth, garbed in robes of imperial purple, ostentatious turquoise and green. His hair was longer than Severus had ever seen it, pulled into a short, neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. Narcissa was close behind him, beaming like a bright ray of sunlight. She slipped past Rabastan to sit next to her sister while Lucius rather pointedly squeezed a chair squarely between him and Rodolphus. It almost made Severus feel like the outsider to a family gathering except Lucius draped his arm along the back of Severus’ own chair and caught up exclusively with him while Rodolphus slid closer to his wife. 

Severus was never one to pay attention to anyone's clothing, but now that Lucius had appeared in robes flashier than the clobber Dumbledore wore, he couldn’t help notice something odd about Narcissa’s family. Mr. and Mrs. Lestrange still wore their traveling cloaks. The robes peeking out from beneath them shared the same dull gray-blue color and Bellatrix’s were noticeably old-fashioned, styled like Mum’s old robes, but of a much finer quality to start with and not as worn.

Strange. He thought they were loaded.

“My round!” Lucius signaled the matron over and she soon returned with a bottle for the table, some fruity-smelling, bubbly drink for Narcissa, and a plate of tea sandwiches, which Lucius set directly in front of him. He was glad because he was hungry, and he helped himself to one eventually since no one else seemed to be eating and the order would go to waste. 

Narcissa grew more animated with every sip of her drink, which she pestered Bellatrix and Lucius to taste. Lucius finally acquiesced, and Severus passed the cup between them. Narcissa smiled at him as he passed it back before turning her gaze to Bellatrix adoringly.

“My sister is a brilliant caster,” she gushed. He supposed he was the only one she could brag to. “Augustus Rookwood asked for her help in the Department of Mysteries.”

Bellatrix eased into a whole-body smirk, leaning back against the upholstery, her lips pulled taut, her chin tilted back. “Rookwood needs all the help he can get.” Severus knew exactly which of her family members she reminded him of. Cocky, conceited, obnoxious. On reflex, he leaned away from her in revulsion, digging into the table with his fingers to root himself in his chair. He wasn't expecting to feel Lucius flex his arm behind his shoulders, though his friend gave no outward sign anything was amiss. 

“Congratulations, Rookwood,” Lucius toasted, raising his glass. He took a sip of his scotch and inclined his head in his future brother-in-law’s direction. “Rodolphus is the worst sort of hedonist—reformed.” Rodolphus good-naturedly shook his head. 

“Severus belongs to the Prince family,” Bellatrix informed her husband in a sly, silky voice. She spoke both his names with distaste, and his hands formed to fists before he could stop himself. He hated how she seemed to know more about his own family than he did.

“I heard something about your family today,” he blurted out, addressing his words to Narcissa instead of her sister to temper his anger. “Some people in the village think your great-great-grandfather cursed the old headmaster’s property on the hill.”

Narcissa grimaced and squeezed more lime into her drink. “There’s a reason we see so little Ministry influence from Hogsmeade witches and wizards,” she said through a sour pout. “They're mistaken, Severus, Phineas Nigellus hated this village. He stepped foot inside the headmaster’s property once, deemed it ugly, uncouth, and uncivilized, and promptly left, insisting on staying at our family home in Islington. He had no business here.”

“I've seen the headmaster’s property,” Bellatrix contemptibly told Narcissa. “It’s in ruins like everything else under Dumbledore's domain. The old coot can hardly manage the school. Grandfather wants to push for his removal again. It’s outrageous! He’s been missing since the Welcoming Feast—” 

“He’s back,” Severus interrupted. “I ran into him on my way here.”

He might as well have poured ice down everyone's backs.

“Heading to the Castle?” Rodolphus asked, in a very focused, intense voice.

“The Hog’s Head. His custom,” Severus shrugged. Bellatrix and Rabastan exchanged an inscrutable look. He decided not to mention that Dumbledore came from Greece.

“Disgraceful,” Lucius drawled, “but it will be difficult to oust him from his post with all the changes underway at the Ministry. Undoubtedly, he'll explain his extended absence on the Ministry’s international travel delays.”

Rodolphus bit back a smile. “Somehow I doubt he received the same treatment. Bella and I were detained for hours.” 

“Barty Crouch,” spat Bellatrix, “exercising his promotion to Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in all the wrong ways.” With a flick of her wand, she poured herself a generous helping of scotch. Severus expected her to nurse it for the taste, but she took a swig like it wouldn’t burn her throat. He checked Lucius’ face to see his reaction, but he seemed at ease, almost like he was glad she wasted his money. 

Narcissa suddenly stretched out her arm, like she wanted to hold hands with Lucius but they sat too far apart to touch. “This is why we’ve moved up the wedding to the summer,” she told Bellatrix emphatically, gracefully letting her arm drop. “Who knows if Lucius’ relatives in France will be able to travel if the Ministry keeps tightening our borders?”    

Bellatrix suppressed a roll of her eyes, but her husband sent Narcissa a conciliatory smile. 

“I’m sure Philo would find a way around border restrictions for the family of his godson.” He turned to Lucius. “I heard a rumor that you skipped detainment.” 

“Friends in high places,” Lucius purred, though he lifted a hand in a show of modesty, “however, our situations cannot be compared, different destinations, different lengths of travel, and even I could not be dispensed from having my purchases seized by the Department of Law until further notice.” He took a small sip of his scotch. “I was fortunate to get exemptions for the live animals.” 

“Live animals?” Narcissa sobered up quickly. Her frosty stare was back, which Lucius immediately noticed. "You didn't mention that in your letters.”

“You'll love them,” Lucius backpedaled. “It’s a mated pair of pure white peafowl I purchased in Java, the most magnificent of creatures.” 

Rabastan looked as thrilled as Narcissa angry. “You're gonna have a flock,” he crowed, laughing into his glass, suddenly in high spirits. 

“No, they're two males.”

“I take it you've named them?” 

Lucius’ smile was back. “Albus Dumbledore.” Bellatrix and Rodolphus grinned and even Narcissa erred with the slip of a smile. “Naturally I was inspired. And, Albus Dumbledore's Lover, he's the more aggressive of the two.”

“Lucius, Rodolphus and I will have to entertain you with stories of our own travels.” Bellatrix’s thin smile momentarily disappeared behind her glass, but she seemed to find the flavor wanting when it sat on her tongue. “I can promise to find you a more demanding diversion than fowl.”

Lucius inclined his head at his soon-to-be sister-in-law. “I look forward to hearing about it.”

“Perhaps tonight,” Rodolphus suggested “We were hoping you wouldn't mind having us for an extended stay.”

“It's almost your anniversary,” Narcissa cut in, raising her voice slightly, “Bella.” She cast her chiding gaze from her sister to her brother-in-law. “Are you not finally opening your home in Peak Park? And where have you been traveling that you couldn't find an elf to shave your face and cut your hair?”

“I'd also like to know.” For the first time since Andromeda's disappearance, Rabastan appeared to have taken Narcissa's side, to Severus’ disappointment. This was turning into a domestic. He didn’t want to be part of a family row, relieved though he was to discover Rodolphus was a mild bloke. Lucius had told him no one was forcing Andromeda to marry Lestrange, but now Severus had seen it with his own eyes.

“Cissy," Bellatrix pacified, “There will be time enough for these questions over the holiday.” She laid her hand over Rodolphus’, a gesture which seemed temper Narcissa and Rabastan alike. “Lucius, we were hoping to use our visit to speak with your father.”

For the first time today, Lucius seemed perplexed. “I’m afraid I must disappoint. He has joined my mother in Paris. You’re welcome to await his return at the Manor, but they are expecting me to join them for the New Year.” He glanced from Narcissa to Bellatrix. “Your parents are hosting me for Christmas.”

Severus finished the last bite of his sandwich and brushed the crumbs off his fingers. “Who’ll take care of your peacocks?” 

“Don’t you have a hippogriff dissection to get to?” Rabastan’s tone was mocking, but Severus jolted, searching for a clock.

“It’s a quarter to two,” Rodolphus said, consulting an ornate gold wristwatch which seemed so incongruous with the rest of him, it seemed to belong to another person. 

“I should get going,” he told Lucius, rising from his chair. “I have to help Professor Kettleburn set up. I called bags on the heart and we're divvying parts from there.” 

“Swot,” Rabastan muttered under his breath, but to Severus’ delight, the git went ignored. Everyone else at the table had something good to say about the dissection, even Bellatrix.

“At least that school is offering something educational. Horace’s influence, no doubt.”

Rodolphus turned to his wife. “Bella, which part of the hippogriff would you choose for a last round’s pick?”

“The femur,” she answered without a second thought.

“The femur?” Rabastan repeated incredulously, flicking a toothpick off the table. .

“The femur,” Bellatrix’s voice rang with an unshakable confidence. “Young giants use them to club one another because they don’t shatter upon impact and they're strong enough to damage giant skin.”

“Who are you planning on clubbing?”

“That’s not the point,” Bellatrix said humorlessly, showing off her canines as she skewered Rabastan with her dark eyes. “I would select it for security alone. You’d be hard pressed to buy an authentic hippogriff femur; most suppliers try to sell you horse and, as it’s usually sold powdered, you wouldn't know until you tested it.”

Severus wished she’d said something dumb, but she'd made an excellent point. Of course horse femurs and hippogriff femurs would be constitutionally different, hippogriff skeletons were pneumatic like a bird’s. He hadn't even considered taking the femur. There wasn't much written about hippogriff femurs for potions, but their scarcity probably explained why.

“Best of luck with your studies,” Lucius smiled widely, clapping him on the shoulder. “Rabastan, do me a favor and see Severus out.” 

Severus and Rabastan both choked on the words. It was hard to tell which of them spoke first. Their shouts came simultaneously.  

“I can walk myself!” 

“He can walk himself!” 

“No Sirius,” Bellatrix raised her eyebrows, though she didn't seem the least bit surprised. “Oh dear. What will I tell Aunt Walburga?” 

“He's in detention. Not so different from someone else I recall," Narcissa winked coyly. Bellatrix seemed to make a show of pondering the words, circling her finger on the rim of her glass, wandlessly, wordlessly forming a mound of ice in her scotch. Narcissa swatted her hand away playfully. “What’s another Hogsmeade trip to Sirius? Aunt Lucretia took him once a week in August.” 

“No!” If Lucius thought he could pull a repeat of locking him in a room with Narcissa, it wasn't happening.

“Rabastan, see him out,” Rodolphus repeated with an air of finality. Severus grabbed his bag, hoping to lose Lestrange the second they exited the inn door. Hogwarts carriages were passing through the streets now and he only needed to cross ahead of one. He leapt forward and felt himself pulled back by the extra fabric of his robes.

Severus spun to knock Lestrange’s hand off his back. ”Don't touch me!” he huffed.

“As if I would want to, you little bugger,” Rabastan shouted back. Severus slipped out his wand, training it on Rabastan’s feet, but before he could cast his hex, Lestrange whipped out his own and jabbed it into Severus' chest, a look of fury darkening his face. 

“Don’t try me.” A carriage of Slytherins rolled past, and Rabastan banged on its door. “Oi, you lot, get this scruff back to the Castle.” 

“The hippogriff killer?” The girl inside the carriage seemed to change her tone quickly. "I mean, whatever you say, cap.” The carriage door opened and Rabastan practically threw him inside. Severus found himself sitting across from a pair of Quidditch players. He recognized Duffy’s browline glasses and Cynisca Wright’s left-leaning nose. They kept to themselves most of the way, Cynisca addressing him once. 

“What kind of name is Snape anyway?” 

“English for ‘none of your business’.”

He made to stow away his wand, but his pocket felt more stuffed than he remembered it being. He reached inside, and, to his immense surprise, felt a number of Galleon-sized coins between his fingers. Dumbfounded, he withdrew a fistful of gold and still felt loose coins rolling in his pocket. There was a note too, 

How much does a good dream potion cost? Should you sell me access to the recipe, I have time to brew.

- L.M.

He couldn’t keep the humongous grin off his face. Lucius had a slick switching spell. And now he'd have an excuse to write.

“Blimey, tha’ wean really wants to rip open a hippogriff.”

Severus leapt out of the carriage and made a beeline for the pumpkin patch. He could see where Professor Kettleburn had set up camp by fashioning a tarp against one wall of Hagrid's hut to form a makeshift tent. Judging by the sound of Professor Flitwick's voice and the puddles round the area, they’d already gotten the hippogriff inside and started on thawing it. Severus joined them in the tent, preparing Professor Kettleburn's instruments and setting up his zootomical diagrams while the professors finished casting drying charms on the carcass. Flitwick showed him the drought charm and set him on the puddles as Professor Kettleburn readied an expanding scale. Together they weighed the creature.

“One thousand seven hundred thirty-nine pounds!” Flitwick exclaimed exuberantly. It was really a credit to his hovering charm; he lifted the hippogriff once more with his swish-and-flick so Severus and Professor Kettleburn could reposition it on its slab. Slughorn bumbled through the door flap a few minutes later, after all the work had been finished, holding a bottle of uncorked champagne.

“Silvanus, we simply must celebrate. Don't trouble yourself, I’ll conjure the glasses. Stay and try some, Filius. I sampled it myself.”

"I really should be going,” Professor Flitwick squeaked. 

"Stay! Stay!" Slughorn entreated, pouting beneath his oversized whiskers and pressing him with a glass.

“Stay,” Professor Kettleburn repeated, his one eye pleading and haunted over Slughorn’s shoulder.

“Perhaps until my students arrive,” Flitwick said kindly, accepting a flute of champagne. “You should be proud, Silvanus. I have a few in my House who are positively excited for such advanced training before they embark on their careers.” 

Severus' stomach twisted in resentful knots. Where were all the students excited for the hippogriff dissection when he was being called a hippogriff killer in the halls? Cowards.

“I've been impressing upon my NEWT students this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.” 

Severus stepped aside as much as he could, but the tent was small so a single movement put him next to Slughorn, who cuffed him round the shoulders and brought him so close he could smell the alcohol on his professor’s breath.

“Severus, m’boy. Look at these flight feathers!” Slughorn crouched over the hippogriff carcass and surreptitiously extended a folded wing. “They’ll make a handsome quill, don't you think? I dare say I haven't seen a more beautiful shade of strawberry roan in Scrivenshaft’s. It’ll be twelve galleons a feather at least.”

Where was Lily at a time like this? 

Gradually, a few students drifted in one by one with the hoods of their cloaks pulled low, shielding their faces. All of them were older than Severus, and he summoned no sympathy for them when they revealed their apprehensive, nervous faces.

—maybe squeamish too, Charlie Beakit was laying ventral side up like a massive pink corpse in a casket. In death he was fierce, his massive talons curled in on themselves like sheathed knives, his heavy hooves large enough to crush a human head, his steel-colored beak razor-sharp and deadly. Professor Kettleburn hobbled forward, and Severus searched the tent for Lily.

“Now, if we could all step a tad closer. We’ll begin in a few moments. I would like to demonstrate the depluming charm—” 

“Wait!” Severus cried, desperately willing Lily to appear. “Wait, there’s still one more person.” Professor Kettleburn seemed startled by his outburst and Slughorn used the moment to pluck some strands of hair from the hippogriff’s tail, shooting Severus a covert thumbs up. “Just, don’t start the actual dissection!” 

He scrambled outside of the tarp and circled Hagrid’s hut, hoping against all odds that Lily might be hidden behind one of Hagrid's giant pumpkins. He ran further up the path, expecting to see no one but getting a smile instead.

“I hope I’m not late!”

“I-I didn't think you'd come.” 

“Honestly, Severus.” Narcissa rolled her eyes. “After Bella’s ringing endorsement, how could I not? You know Lucius would be here if he could. He’d love to own a hippogriff wishbone, but between us, I want to gift it to him to send his fowl a message.” 

They walked back to the tarp slowly, Severus trying to stifle his own disappointment. Narcissa wouldn’t run the distance and he had another motivation for slowing their return—periodically glancing over his shoulder to check if Lily might be hurrying down the path from the castle. He couldn't imagine why she didn't come. Maybe she had to go to the Hospital Wing or maybe Rathbone jinxed them and there really had been some trouble in Hogsmeade.

He hung his head miserably, flinching from surprise when Narcissa lightly placed her hand on his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t concern myself with popularity, Severus. This might come as a great shock to you, but my great-great grandfather had a reputation for being the least popular Headmaster in Hogwarts history.” 

Great shock was the overstatement of the century. Narcissa had no idea Phineas Nigellus was about to become a whole new level of unpopular.

“True visionaries are seldom well-liked, but Hogwarts is not the be-all and end-all of the Wizarding World. Why, imagine all the witches and wizards who sorted into Hufflepuff and were so ashamed of themselves, they left the school that night to avoid disgracing their families.” 

Half of his face curled in a wry smile. Narcissa hadn't always hated Hufflepuff House, but she’d viciously go after it at any opportunity ever since her sister eloped with that Tonks bloke.

“You’re a bonafide little scholar,” she cooed. She sounded like she was addressing a toddler and his ears burned from embarrassment. Was that how Lily saw him?

“I’m very impressed by your love of learning. I know a boy who is ungrateful for dark magic books,” Narcissa sniffed.

Severus hoped she wasn’t repeating that to Black. He and his friends would love another laugh at his expense. They reached the makeshift tent and Severus paused in front of the tarp flap, trying to scrape together his dignity. 

“You sure you can handle it?” he asked the most mature, professional-sounding voice he could muster. “There’s going to be loads of blood—and we’ll be opening the bowels to see what it digested.”

Narcissa tossed her hair over her shoulder in one fluid gesture. “Severus, please. I attended my first family house elf beheading when I was four.” She leaned down so her lips were level with his ear. “And, no, we do not wait for the house elves to die of natural causes first.”

His eyes went wide as Narcissa brushed past him into the tent. Black family house elf beheadings—Slughorn’s dear friend Arcturus recommending a magizoological taxidermist—those industrial grade, rat-arsed wankers! They painted him as the most vile reprobate in the school, and pot-pissing Sirius Black was decorating his bedroom with the heads of his bloody House Elves! He was so enraged he could scarcely move. His breaths came shallow and erratic, but he forced himself back into the tent before Potter and Black ruined this for him too. 

“Mr. Snape!” Professor Kettleburn beamed. “The wizard of the hour! Ready to make the first incision?” He scrubbed a hand down his face and grabbed the knife. 

He found out why Lily never showed later. She stayed with her friends in Gryffindor Tower after McGonagall sent an urgent message straight to Hogsmeade. 

Nichola Santos’ father went missing.