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bronze_ribbons[Header info listed with chapter 1.]
Chapter 2
"You!" Draco Malfoy exclaimed, upon being introduced to his new housekeeper. "You work here?"
Pansy Parkinson Barrymore regarded him with unconcealed contempt. "Not all of us had protection during the War, Mr. Malfoy," she said. "It's called not being too proud to survive." Her gaze flickered towards Snape, who had situated himself a few paces behind Draco. "Something with which your companion can identify, I'm sure."
"Better a werewolf's whore than in Azkaban, you mean?" Snape said softly. "He doesn't even compel me to launder his linens, Mrs. Barrymore. Should I convey to him your interest in joining his harem?"
Pansy's lips formed a moue of distaste. "Sir Conrad was a kind and generous employer," she said. "I have fared better than most."
Draco said, abruptly, "Then I will try to be like him." He flushed at Pansy's incredulous stare. "I'm well aware that Snape can't 'protect' me forever, Pansy. I'd prefer not to worry about, say, 'special' additives to my meals or stray implements striking me in the back."
"It's 'Mrs. Barrymore' to you, Mr. Malfoy," Pansy said. "My husband and I will be moving on once your new arrangements are in place."
"New --? But I just got here!"
"We understand that, Mr. Malfoy. As a courtesy to you" -- Pansy lightly but deliberately stressed the word courtesy -- "we are willing to stay for a few weeks more. Provided you hire your new servants in a timely fashion, we will endeavour to familiarise them with the idiosyncrasies of Baskerville Hall before our departure."
Draco still looked stunned. "But . . . where will you depart to? If you'd had any options to begin with, you wouldn't be here at all."
Pansy's expression became even more remote. "We expect to establish ourselves with another household. My husband grew up in York and misses his family. And now, gentlemen, I had best show you to your rooms. Mr. Snape, you may find the library of interest: it opens into the hothouse."
Snape raised his eyebrows. "A . . . provocative arrangement, Mrs. Barrymore."
Draco was blunt. "Was the architect mad? The humidity --"
"The architect deferred to his client's wishes," Pansy said. "In this case, to Sir Roland Baskerville's desire to observe his wife tending her orchids without leaving his desk."
"He must have been quite besotted," Draco said, with a hint of a sneer.
"You might call it that," Pansy said. "When she left him, he set the dogs on her."
Having reached Draco's rooms, Pansy paused at the door, her eyes glittering with malice. "You may also wish to know," she said to Snape, "that Neville Longbottom views the plants in a proprietary light. He is exceedingly fond of them, and has always made a point of tending to them when he visits here."
--O
During the first part of their meal, Snape and Draco ate in silence. Aside from the clink of their silverware against the dishes, the only sounds disturbing the cavernous gloom of the dining hall were an occasional crackle from the logs in the fireplace and the soft but insistent whine of the wind through an imperfectly caulked window. Snape contemplated momentarily excusing himself to fix it, but he was reluctant to flaunt his magic in front of the Barrymores. Moreover, the noise was visibly preying upon his host's nerves to an inordinate degree; Snape was not above deriving a measure of satisfaction from this.
"Does Lupin know you call yourself his whore?" Draco finally said.
"Lupin is not a stupid man," Snape replied, his voice neutral.
"Neither is Longbottom," Draco said.
Startled, Snape regarded Draco for a long moment before replying. "He has mentioned tolerating your company."
"Irene is beautiful," Draco said, flushing.
Oh? Snape thought. Aloud, he said, "A pity, then, for her to be yoked to Longbottom."
"He suits her," Draco said, helplessly. "She blooms when he's by her side."
Oh. "So to admire her at her best --"
Draco shrugged, belatedly feigning nonchalance. "Longbottom isn't nearly as feckless around china as he was around your cauldrons."
"How fortunate for you." Snape sprinkled some salt over his filet. "I would hazard Miss Tonks accounts for too many mishaps as it is."
"Does she know you talk about her like that behind her back?"
"Considering what I say to her face," Snape said, "few secrets remain between us."
Draco distractedly pushed around the remaining chunks of swede on his plate. When Pansy re-entered the room, placing dishes of sorbet in front of them, he snapped, "Why hasn't your husband fixed that window? It sounds like a teakettle."
She said, her voice colourless, "He repaired all the leaks that were noticeable this afternoon, sir. This one must be new. I will send him in after your meal is done."
Draco said, "It's driving me mad, Pansy. Send him in now."
Snape watched Mrs. Barrymore as Draco spoke. Was that a flare of triumph in her eyes at the word "mad"? After she departed, he aimed a stern look at Draco and said, "Your attempt to emulate Sir Conrad leaves much to be desired."
Draco refused to look at him. "After the window's fixed. I can't think with that ghastly noise."
Always "after" something else, Snape thought. And thus, never. Salazar's bollocks, why I ever thought you worth my time --
When Mr. Barrymore entered the room, carrying both a ladder and a box of tools, Snape immediately assessed the man's appearance: he was tall and thin, with a trim beard and pale, all-too-familiar patrician features. As Barrymore walked to the window, Snape heard Draco's sharp intake of breath, mirroring the gasp he had ruthlessly suppressed from escaping his own mouth: the man's hair was black as a raven's feathers, but the face was unquestionably that of a Malfoy.
Severus thought back to Mrs. Barrymore's words about Sir Conrad's generosity. Kindness -- or expedience? Snape mused to himself. We shall have to see.
--O
Two evenings later, having retired to his room, Severus Snape donned a clean linen nightshirt and a dressing gown that had faded from purple to grey. He placed an additional log onto the fire and then sat down to write:
Bugger! Snape stared angrily at the window. Its heavy, musty outer curtains had been closed earlier, presumably by one of the Barrymores, but he had pulled them open again; they fell to the floor as two narrow columns instead of a vast expanse of drab green brocade that had seen far better days several generations ago. He had left the inner sheets of Honiton lace as they were, so as to preserve a semblance of privacy as he composed his words to Lupin. Although his presence at Baskerville Hall was not a secret, he felt less like a sitting target with the panels of intricate threadwork screening him -- however superficially -- from the rest of the world outside.
In addition to contributing to the claustrophobic aura of the room, both sets of curtains reminded Snape of earlier missions that had taken place in rooms featuring excessive quantities of antiquated, over-embellished fabric. He had developed a particular dislike of ornate drapes, rugs, and antimacassars over the years, being all too familiar with how often such fripperies were used to conceal significant stains and structural flaws.
He had also muttered a succession of charms to seal the innumerable cracks and gaps in and around the battered panes. While the exercise had eliminated the worst of the drafts from the window, and the fire in the hearth was crackling merrily, the room was still disagreeably cold, and Snape felt dull and groggy. He did not want to resort to a warming charm, however, since his lack of mental acuity was due primarily to sleeping poorly during the past two nights: like any other panacea, warming charms could only address and remedy surface conditions -- not ailments rooted in other infelicities.
Snape turned back to the roll of parchment in front of him. He dipped the tip of his quill into a glass of water, watching its light crust of ink dissolve into black tendrils upon contact with the liquid. He then wiped it dry, dipped it into the well of ink, and tested it:
Much better. Snape didn't think of himself as a fanciful man, but he had a tendency to think of his tools as sentient beings, ones that needed to be treated with care to perform their appointed tasks. The quill felt to his hand as though it was breathing more easily now that he had unclogged it; he hoped it would now encourage his thoughts to flow more fluently onto the parchment. It didn't help that he had always been better at speaking than writing; had Lupin been present, he could have imparted all of his observations and concerns within the span of time he had already squandered in his attempts to begin his missive. He could have trusted Lupin to sift through the chaos of details, reorganising them into the basis of a theory --
Which, Snape belatedly realised, was an assumption he could reasonably apply to his written communications to his lover. He grimaced at himself: old habits died hard, and he had become accustomed to over-organising his reports for colleagues who were careless readers and shoddy thinkers. It was one of the reasons he had fallen so hard for Lupin: although he had known that the man was intelligent, Snape found it both astounding and captivating that, between them, Lupin and Tonks had deciphered enough of Dumbledore's insane plan that they'd refrained from automatically hexing Snape senseless when they'd captured him and Draco. Snape had been even more dumbfounded when he discovered the extent to which they'd harassed and haggled with the Ministry to preserve his rights; he hadn't allowed himself to dream of anyone standing up for him again, ever, let alone two people he'd previously pigeonholed and summarily dismissed as spineless.
The new burden of gratitude was not why he'd become Tonks's friend and Lupin's companion, however; after all, in spite of the debts he'd incurred in the company of Albus Dumbledore or James Potter, he'd never viewed either man as a kindred spirit. But Tonks and Lupin didn't wield their intellectual prowess like clubs, bludgeoning everyone around them with their confounded superiority. Instead, they continued to prove themselves to be wily and watchful, stubbornly refusing to accept the verdicts of conventional wisdom without sufficient evidence.
One night, several weeks before they'd finally bedded each other, Snape had asked Lupin what had changed. Lupin had stared into the fire for over a full minute before replying.
"I'd been wrong -- spectacularly, utterly wrong -- about Sirius. About Peter. About others as well. Damned if I was going to turn you in, not without making bloody sure it wasn't me believing just what someone wanted me to believe. And the more Minerva and I sorted through Albus's effects, the less things added up."
"And Miss Tonks?"
"She's an Auror. She's not supposed to question her orders." Lupin's lips had twisted. "I told her hooking up with me would be dangerous."
"I was under the impression that she'd managed. Her career is still intact, is it not?"
Lupin's smile had been grim. "No thanks to me. Although I apparently serve as a convenient excuse." He'd raised his voice to imitate an officious gossip. "A nice girl like her doesn't just decide to break the rules like that. That Remus Lupin and his filthy notions --"
Snape had snorted. "I've seen her detention records. For that matter, I've seen yours too. It's a wonder you didn't realise you were soulmates years ago."
Lupin had rolled his eyes. "A wonder, perhaps, were we actually soulmates."
Snape had been caught off-guard by the bitterness in Lupin's voice: he'd been under the impression that the transition with Tonks from romance to friendship had been amicable. His uncertainty must have shown on his face, because Lupin had quickly added, in a less brittle tone, "I'm not unhappy about it, Severus. Lovers leave or die."
What a ridiculous statement. "So do friends, Lupin."
"And so do friends," Lupin had agreed. "And Tonks would say I've no right to claim that people leave me. Not when I don't 'let them in' in the first place."
"Is that a point of pride with her? That she got as far with you as she did?"
Lupin had soberly answered, "A man couldn't ask for a better friend. She's seen me weak, and she's seen me kill, and she still brings me pints of Nellie Fortescue's lime-vanilla ice cream, even though I'm the reason random passers-by feel free to call her 'Werewolf's Whore'."
Snape had tamped down the surge of fury he'd felt on behalf of both Tonks and Lupin. Instead, he'd said, "Are you sure she isn't enjoying reasons to lose her temper?"
Lupin's lips had twitched. "There is that possibility, yes." A hint of amusement had crept into his voice as he'd added, "You might have enjoyed seeing what she did to the last bloke who tried to molest her."
"Enough to deter others?"
"For a week or two, anyway."
"She needs more lessons in being too old and too dangerous, then."
"No, she doesn't," Lupin had said. "The berk was in Mungo's for a fortnight."
"That's good," Snape had replied. "Though I daresay the publicity was not."
"Hardly," Lupin had said, turning back to the fire. "And it was tiresome, when we were an item, how people always expected her to speak up for me. Whether they thought I deserved to be with her or not."
Snape had paused, thinking over the previous six months of increasingly intimate conversations and charged silences. In spite of himself, he'd then demanded, "Is that why we do no more than say 'good night'? Because you would find me too tiresome to defend?"
Lupin had whirled around, his eyes suddenly glittering with both anger and desire. "You are already tiresome to defend," he said, his voice vicious, but also with a peculiar tone of joy underneath its rasp. "But it is long overdue from me, is it not?"
Snape had barely been able to breathe. "As it would be," he answered, "were I to become your whore."
Pretending to misunderstand, Lupin had said, "I promise you, you would not find it tiresome in my bedroom."
Following Lupin's lead, Snape had retorted, "You can't make that kind of promise. My jaw aches abominably after two minutes on my knees."
Looking amused, Lupin had asked, "Only two minutes? Whatever happened to Slytherin pride?"
"What makes you think this isn't my master strategy to get out of giving blowjobs?"
The glitter in Lupin's eyes had become even more pronounced. "My experience with other talented Slytherin mouths, of course. How have you forgotten that Blacks are usually sorted into your House?"
Snape had winced. He'd known about Lupin's amiable, short-lived affair with Andromeda when it was happening, nearly twenty years ago -- right after Ted Tonks had elected to move into a caravan owned by a trash-talking Veela named Manuela Vimes. And people think Death Eaters' sex lives are sordid . . . Snape had reflected that it was a good thing he hadn't been in love with Lupin back in those days --
And then he'd nearly sagged to the carpet in shock, stunned by the realisation that he wanted even more from Lupin than just an affair. That it hadn't been merely unresolved sexual tension that had had him feeling edgy and pushy and discontent. He'd known for some time that he'd wanted something more than their trips to violin concerts at the Barbican and Royal Festival Halls; more than the mediocre sandwiches and desserts they consumed in cafes on the banks of the Thames; more than their spirited debates over the works of nineteenth-century Belgian masters and the other exhibitions they'd visited in Bond Street picture galleries. He hadn't realised, however, that the something more he'd craved wasn't just sex.
Lupin had seen him go white and immediately helped him to the nearest armchair, confused and concerned about Snape's reaction to his remark but -- thankfully -- not overly contrite. Summoning Hudson, Lupin had gently closed Snape's hands around a warm clay mug of tea before saying, "I don't know what the fuck I said wrong, but I'm all too likely to say it again if you don't -- or can't -- tell me what was so wrong about it."
Snape had shaken his head, silently and desperately informing his heart that it was not allowed to ask for anything, let alone more.
Lupin had searched Snape's face -- an odd, interrogative expression on his own -- before straightening back up with an air of resignation. "Well. I suppose I needed to revise my self-defence spells in any case."
Snape had faked an impudence he didn't feel. "Of course you do. If you don't take proper care of yourself, what would become of me?"
Lupin's smirk was equally forced. "So, guarding your Slytherin hide -- that's my raison d'être? I suppose it's a good as reason as any."
--O
Snape hadn't anticipated being grilled by Tonks about the matter several days later, never mind her reaction. When, over dinner, he repeated Lupin's final words on the subject, Tonks had shrieked, "He supposed!?" and leaped up from her chair as if scalded. After stomping up and down her kitchen several times, she'd plopped herself back down and declared, "You -- him -- you're both idiots. You are his raison d'être, and he knows it."
Snape had rescued the ale bottle she'd nearly sent flying off the table, but nearly dropped it upon hearing her words. "I what --?"
Tonks had leaned forward, looking as though she wanted to jab some sense into him. "You. Yes, you. Do you think he would have agreed to become the Ministry's pet jaws for just anyone?"
Snape had blanched, both at her description and its implications. "How the hell is that supposed to tell me what to think? Wouldn't he have done so for Potter? Or you? Or anyone else in the Order?"
Tonks had said, unsmiling, "Yes, he probably would have. But it's not us he wants, Severus Snape. And it's not us that can go to him, and help him live -- truly live -- with being both a Healer and a hunter."
Snape had snapped, "I can't ask that of him. I owe him too much --"
"Why do you think he can't ask you?" Tonks had shouted. "What do you think it's like for him, wanting you but not wanting to take advantage? Stop acting like you don't have the upper hand here!"
Snape had stared at her, overwhelmed. "I don't. I can't. He doesn't . . ."
"You haven't seen," Tonks had said, calming down, "how he looks at you when he thinks you aren't looking."
"Then show me," Snape had finally whispered. Tonks's eyes had bored unflinchingly into his as he uttered "Legilimens."
--O
Quill still poised above the parchment, Snape reflected that it had been wholly irregular of him to confide in Tonks that evening, but she'd caught him off-guard: conscious both of being her guest and of her extended exertions on his behalf, he hadn't brought along his full emotional armour. When she'd surprised him in the act of closely studying a photo of Lupin on her mantel, he hadn't been able to muster the rudeness necessary to answer or evade her questions.
In retrospect, he mused, his instincts had -- for once! -- identified a true ally before his mind had fully registered the reasons why: Tonks genuinely loved Lupin, and over the course of her own affair with him, her childish, clingy infatuation had matured into a deep yet irreverent affection -- one that she'd extended to Snape even before they'd realised how well they themselves got along. He had come to think of Tonks as what a Black could be like with brains, character, and generosity, and it didn't hurt that Tonks was one of the few people whose sense of humour was skewed as steeply as his. She'd later confessed to him that the reason her attraction to Lupin had intensified was because he'd refused to be shocked by her.
"He laughed at my jokes," she'd said, "so I never thought of him as my mother's age."
"I can get him to smirk at mine, sometimes," Snape had observed, "but I seldom hear him laugh anymore."
"No," Tonks said, sadness overtaking her eyes. "The War took it out of him."
Snape had been momentarily tempted to ask if she blamed him, but he let the impulse pass; even if she did, there was nothing he could do to make amends.
Forcing himself to return to the present, he crossed the room and unlocked one of his trunks, carefully removing a bottle of port. He was not as paranoid as Alastor Moody -- that was no way to live, and no real defence against dying -- but he'd nonetheless thought it wise to bring along a reserve of beverages for private consumption rather than imposing his requests on the Baskerville Hall staff. While it was undeniably their obligation to see to his needs, he thought it prudent to limit the degree to which he might need to depend on them until he could ascertain who, if anyone, he could trust.
He was still unsettled about the Barrymores; he was unsurprised that Longbottom hadn't thought (or deliberately neglected?) to alert him to Pansy Parkinson's presence, but neither had it been mentioned in the dossier. Her disorganised style notwithstanding, it wasn't like Tonks to omit salient details; her handwriting had been absent from the packet's written pages, and he imagined she'd lacked sufficient time to devote to the case thus far, but Snape fully intended to twit her about her subordinates' inferior research and reporting skills the next time he saw her.
He took a sip of the fortified wine, wishing there had been someone to whom he could have entrusted its conveyance to Baskerville Hall via car. It was of an ordinary, inexpensive vintage -- neither too deluxe nor too delicate to withstand the hustle and jostle of travel via portkey or Apparation --- but among Snape's better memories, there was one of a mage from Kent masquerading as a valet at one of the Malfoys' extended parties. The man had insisted with a rather inexplicable vehemence that good port was to be handled as gently as a newborn infant, and even though Snape could readily think of two dozen potions for which he would have insisted on equal care and respect in their decanting, he'd initially categorised Mr. Nurbet as fussy, eccentric, and possibly even senile. The old servitor, however, had later demonstrated a timely and terrifyingly efficient grasp of wandless magic (Snape considered himself highly inventive, but he hadn't known one could do that with an ordinary iron poker), and the techniques Snape had learned that weekend had helped him out of tight jams (to borrow Tonks's vulgar phrasing) more than once in the years since. He was therefore disposed to adhere to Mr. Nurbet's prescriptions regarding the transport and serving of fine alcohol, even though it was seldom actually feasible for him to observe such niceties.
Snape felt quite sure Mr. Nurbet would not have tolerated any colleague of his disrupting the household's slumbers with the sounds of uncontrollable sobbing. Snape re-rinsed the tip of the quill and set it down before standing up to roll his shoulders and stretch. He was all too accustomed to getting by on too little sleep, but both his body and mind were protesting their relocation to Baskerville Hall. He hadn't wanted to come, the company was uncongenial, and there was Mr. Barrymore's noisy, nocturnal weeping to make sense of. Draco had demanded an explanation from Mrs. Barrymore over breakfast, only to be answered by her baldfaced claim that she'd heard no keening whatsoever.
"If the wailing of the wind bothers you that much," she'd said, "may I remind you that you still have command of soundproofing charms even a child could perform?"
And I suppose the ferocity of the wind accounts for your husband's bloodshot eyes? Snape had fleetingly considered resorting to confrontation or Legilimency to get to the truth of the matter, but after Draco's clumsy interrogation, he ordered himself to wait. It was unwise to engage too many of the Barrymores' defences before he amassed sufficient context to interpret the nuggets of information he hoped to glean from them.
Snape sat back down and lifted the glass of port to his lips once more. The rich, subtly nuanced sweetness of the wine reminded him of where he wanted to be -- back in the rooms he shared with Lupin. Back with their books and coffeepot. Back within the reach of Lupin's strong arms. Back within earshot of Lupin's hoarse yet soothing voice. Snape shook his head, dipped his quill into the well of ink, and set it to the parchment once more.
After detailing his observations of and interactions with the Barrymores, Snape continued:
After blotting the ink with a charm, Snape sliced away the top three inches of the scroll -- those containing his less felicitous efforts at beginning the letter -- and strode over to the fire to toss them in. He was about to cast the parchment into the flames in when his eye caught the flutter of a scrap of paper at the back of the grate; Mr. or Mrs. Barrymore had presumably used it for kindling when they'd built the fire. His mind registering the fact that he could see handwriting on it instead of type, he instantly doused the fire and carefully Summoned the fragment close enough to read it:
Snape snorted, torn between amusement and indignation. Did the Barrymores, or Malfoy, or whoever else might have conspired to hasten Sir Conrad's demise -- did they seriously imagine such a feeble attempt to resurrect the past would strike him as anything other than a derivative joke? Did they believe that he wouldn't have perused the classic reports of Dr. John H. Watson about the Stapleton conspiracy in the region a hundred years before? From all he'd learned thus far about Sir Conrad Baskerville, he doubted the late baronet would have fallen for such a ruse, and the more he contemplated the sliver of stationery, the angrier he became at being thought of as a suitable target for juvenile mockery.
For a moment, he allowed himself to stew in the all too familiar fury of being underestimated: here he stood, a legendary spy and assassin, and yet here he was, forced to squander his time on another generation that couldn't resist taunting him. For this he'd sacrificed half of his magic and most of his sanity? The paper was already near to crumbling into ashes; in the throes of the moment, Snape considered grinding them beneath his heel before storming through the rest of the Hall in order to teach Malfoy and Parkinson a lesson they wouldn't have a prayer of forgetting.
Instead, once his anger dissipated, he Transfigured the parchment he'd intended to cast into the fire into an envelope, eased the charred remains of the message into it, and muttered the spell to revive the fire. Returning to the writing table, he curved the envelope into a "U" narrow enough to slide into the tube formed by the scroll of his finished letter. After pressing his lips to the seam formed by the horizontal edge of the parchment, he warded the scroll with a complex succession of charms.
The task completed, he extinguished the room's lights. He'd planned on snatching several hours' sleep before Barrymore resumed his infernal, inexplicable nocturnal expressions of mourning, but his weariness notwithstanding, Snape felt too restless to lie down. Instead, once his eyes adjusted to the room's unlit edges and contours, Snape Summoned a George III candlestick from the top of a dresser and removed the taper that it held, frowning at the slightly tacky layer of dust that covered the wax.
He then employed the candlestick as a wand, testing its ability to channel elementary spells and then sketching patterns in the air with it as if it were a pen connected to his own wand by an invisible holder. He was determined to train himself to have full command of wand-chaining by the end of his sojourn here, the better to be ready next time a spare wand wandered within range of Lupin's damnable, death-inviting curiosity.
As he practised directing splotches of forest green and silver-coloured talc into the hearth, he watched the candlestick quiver toward the flames as if tugged towards them -- as if it was somehow aware it had been diverted from its core purpose and yearned to return to its true post, even though -- judging from the dust -- its services had not been required in recent memory. Snape ruthlessly continued to twirl the handsome stick through a succession of esoteric exercises, forcing it to emit sprigs of hyacinths and patch a sock and swallow the cobwebs in the northeast corner of the ceiling, but even as he did so, he couldn't help but murmur to it, "I, too, am not where I belong."
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
"You!" Draco Malfoy exclaimed, upon being introduced to his new housekeeper. "You work here?"
Pansy Parkinson Barrymore regarded him with unconcealed contempt. "Not all of us had protection during the War, Mr. Malfoy," she said. "It's called not being too proud to survive." Her gaze flickered towards Snape, who had situated himself a few paces behind Draco. "Something with which your companion can identify, I'm sure."
"Better a werewolf's whore than in Azkaban, you mean?" Snape said softly. "He doesn't even compel me to launder his linens, Mrs. Barrymore. Should I convey to him your interest in joining his harem?"
Pansy's lips formed a moue of distaste. "Sir Conrad was a kind and generous employer," she said. "I have fared better than most."
Draco said, abruptly, "Then I will try to be like him." He flushed at Pansy's incredulous stare. "I'm well aware that Snape can't 'protect' me forever, Pansy. I'd prefer not to worry about, say, 'special' additives to my meals or stray implements striking me in the back."
"It's 'Mrs. Barrymore' to you, Mr. Malfoy," Pansy said. "My husband and I will be moving on once your new arrangements are in place."
"New --? But I just got here!"
"We understand that, Mr. Malfoy. As a courtesy to you" -- Pansy lightly but deliberately stressed the word courtesy -- "we are willing to stay for a few weeks more. Provided you hire your new servants in a timely fashion, we will endeavour to familiarise them with the idiosyncrasies of Baskerville Hall before our departure."
Draco still looked stunned. "But . . . where will you depart to? If you'd had any options to begin with, you wouldn't be here at all."
Pansy's expression became even more remote. "We expect to establish ourselves with another household. My husband grew up in York and misses his family. And now, gentlemen, I had best show you to your rooms. Mr. Snape, you may find the library of interest: it opens into the hothouse."
Snape raised his eyebrows. "A . . . provocative arrangement, Mrs. Barrymore."
Draco was blunt. "Was the architect mad? The humidity --"
"The architect deferred to his client's wishes," Pansy said. "In this case, to Sir Roland Baskerville's desire to observe his wife tending her orchids without leaving his desk."
"He must have been quite besotted," Draco said, with a hint of a sneer.
"You might call it that," Pansy said. "When she left him, he set the dogs on her."
Having reached Draco's rooms, Pansy paused at the door, her eyes glittering with malice. "You may also wish to know," she said to Snape, "that Neville Longbottom views the plants in a proprietary light. He is exceedingly fond of them, and has always made a point of tending to them when he visits here."
During the first part of their meal, Snape and Draco ate in silence. Aside from the clink of their silverware against the dishes, the only sounds disturbing the cavernous gloom of the dining hall were an occasional crackle from the logs in the fireplace and the soft but insistent whine of the wind through an imperfectly caulked window. Snape contemplated momentarily excusing himself to fix it, but he was reluctant to flaunt his magic in front of the Barrymores. Moreover, the noise was visibly preying upon his host's nerves to an inordinate degree; Snape was not above deriving a measure of satisfaction from this.
"Does Lupin know you call yourself his whore?" Draco finally said.
"Lupin is not a stupid man," Snape replied, his voice neutral.
"Neither is Longbottom," Draco said.
Startled, Snape regarded Draco for a long moment before replying. "He has mentioned tolerating your company."
"Irene is beautiful," Draco said, flushing.
Oh? Snape thought. Aloud, he said, "A pity, then, for her to be yoked to Longbottom."
"He suits her," Draco said, helplessly. "She blooms when he's by her side."
Oh. "So to admire her at her best --"
Draco shrugged, belatedly feigning nonchalance. "Longbottom isn't nearly as feckless around china as he was around your cauldrons."
"How fortunate for you." Snape sprinkled some salt over his filet. "I would hazard Miss Tonks accounts for too many mishaps as it is."
"Does she know you talk about her like that behind her back?"
"Considering what I say to her face," Snape said, "few secrets remain between us."
Draco distractedly pushed around the remaining chunks of swede on his plate. When Pansy re-entered the room, placing dishes of sorbet in front of them, he snapped, "Why hasn't your husband fixed that window? It sounds like a teakettle."
She said, her voice colourless, "He repaired all the leaks that were noticeable this afternoon, sir. This one must be new. I will send him in after your meal is done."
Draco said, "It's driving me mad, Pansy. Send him in now."
Snape watched Mrs. Barrymore as Draco spoke. Was that a flare of triumph in her eyes at the word "mad"? After she departed, he aimed a stern look at Draco and said, "Your attempt to emulate Sir Conrad leaves much to be desired."
Draco refused to look at him. "After the window's fixed. I can't think with that ghastly noise."
Always "after" something else, Snape thought. And thus, never. Salazar's bollocks, why I ever thought you worth my time --
When Mr. Barrymore entered the room, carrying both a ladder and a box of tools, Snape immediately assessed the man's appearance: he was tall and thin, with a trim beard and pale, all-too-familiar patrician features. As Barrymore walked to the window, Snape heard Draco's sharp intake of breath, mirroring the gasp he had ruthlessly suppressed from escaping his own mouth: the man's hair was black as a raven's feathers, but the face was unquestionably that of a Malfoy.
Severus thought back to Mrs. Barrymore's words about Sir Conrad's generosity. Kindness -- or expedience? Snape mused to himself. We shall have to see.
Two evenings later, having retired to his room, Severus Snape donned a clean linen nightshirt and a dressing gown that had faded from purple to grey. He placed an additional log onto the fire and then sat down to write:
My dear Lupin,Of all the thundering nuisances that ever embittered the lives of their long-sufferingI write these few lines through the courtesy of'Tis so that I must write. Yet hang me if I know of what, or to what end
Bugger! Snape stared angrily at the window. Its heavy, musty outer curtains had been closed earlier, presumably by one of the Barrymores, but he had pulled them open again; they fell to the floor as two narrow columns instead of a vast expanse of drab green brocade that had seen far better days several generations ago. He had left the inner sheets of Honiton lace as they were, so as to preserve a semblance of privacy as he composed his words to Lupin. Although his presence at Baskerville Hall was not a secret, he felt less like a sitting target with the panels of intricate threadwork screening him -- however superficially -- from the rest of the world outside.
In addition to contributing to the claustrophobic aura of the room, both sets of curtains reminded Snape of earlier missions that had taken place in rooms featuring excessive quantities of antiquated, over-embellished fabric. He had developed a particular dislike of ornate drapes, rugs, and antimacassars over the years, being all too familiar with how often such fripperies were used to conceal significant stains and structural flaws.
He had also muttered a succession of charms to seal the innumerable cracks and gaps in and around the battered panes. While the exercise had eliminated the worst of the drafts from the window, and the fire in the hearth was crackling merrily, the room was still disagreeably cold, and Snape felt dull and groggy. He did not want to resort to a warming charm, however, since his lack of mental acuity was due primarily to sleeping poorly during the past two nights: like any other panacea, warming charms could only address and remedy surface conditions -- not ailments rooted in other infelicities.
Snape turned back to the roll of parchment in front of him. He dipped the tip of his quill into a glass of water, watching its light crust of ink dissolve into black tendrils upon contact with the liquid. He then wiped it dry, dipped it into the well of ink, and tested it:
Mr. Remus J. Lupin
Mr. Remus J. Lupin
Mr. Remus J. Lupin
Mr. Remus J. Lupin, 122b Baker Street, London, NW1 6XE
Much better. Snape didn't think of himself as a fanciful man, but he had a tendency to think of his tools as sentient beings, ones that needed to be treated with care to perform their appointed tasks. The quill felt to his hand as though it was breathing more easily now that he had unclogged it; he hoped it would now encourage his thoughts to flow more fluently onto the parchment. It didn't help that he had always been better at speaking than writing; had Lupin been present, he could have imparted all of his observations and concerns within the span of time he had already squandered in his attempts to begin his missive. He could have trusted Lupin to sift through the chaos of details, reorganising them into the basis of a theory --
Which, Snape belatedly realised, was an assumption he could reasonably apply to his written communications to his lover. He grimaced at himself: old habits died hard, and he had become accustomed to over-organising his reports for colleagues who were careless readers and shoddy thinkers. It was one of the reasons he had fallen so hard for Lupin: although he had known that the man was intelligent, Snape found it both astounding and captivating that, between them, Lupin and Tonks had deciphered enough of Dumbledore's insane plan that they'd refrained from automatically hexing Snape senseless when they'd captured him and Draco. Snape had been even more dumbfounded when he discovered the extent to which they'd harassed and haggled with the Ministry to preserve his rights; he hadn't allowed himself to dream of anyone standing up for him again, ever, let alone two people he'd previously pigeonholed and summarily dismissed as spineless.
The new burden of gratitude was not why he'd become Tonks's friend and Lupin's companion, however; after all, in spite of the debts he'd incurred in the company of Albus Dumbledore or James Potter, he'd never viewed either man as a kindred spirit. But Tonks and Lupin didn't wield their intellectual prowess like clubs, bludgeoning everyone around them with their confounded superiority. Instead, they continued to prove themselves to be wily and watchful, stubbornly refusing to accept the verdicts of conventional wisdom without sufficient evidence.
One night, several weeks before they'd finally bedded each other, Snape had asked Lupin what had changed. Lupin had stared into the fire for over a full minute before replying.
"I'd been wrong -- spectacularly, utterly wrong -- about Sirius. About Peter. About others as well. Damned if I was going to turn you in, not without making bloody sure it wasn't me believing just what someone wanted me to believe. And the more Minerva and I sorted through Albus's effects, the less things added up."
"And Miss Tonks?"
"She's an Auror. She's not supposed to question her orders." Lupin's lips had twisted. "I told her hooking up with me would be dangerous."
"I was under the impression that she'd managed. Her career is still intact, is it not?"
Lupin's smile had been grim. "No thanks to me. Although I apparently serve as a convenient excuse." He'd raised his voice to imitate an officious gossip. "A nice girl like her doesn't just decide to break the rules like that. That Remus Lupin and his filthy notions --"
Snape had snorted. "I've seen her detention records. For that matter, I've seen yours too. It's a wonder you didn't realise you were soulmates years ago."
Lupin had rolled his eyes. "A wonder, perhaps, were we actually soulmates."
Snape had been caught off-guard by the bitterness in Lupin's voice: he'd been under the impression that the transition with Tonks from romance to friendship had been amicable. His uncertainty must have shown on his face, because Lupin had quickly added, in a less brittle tone, "I'm not unhappy about it, Severus. Lovers leave or die."
What a ridiculous statement. "So do friends, Lupin."
"And so do friends," Lupin had agreed. "And Tonks would say I've no right to claim that people leave me. Not when I don't 'let them in' in the first place."
"Is that a point of pride with her? That she got as far with you as she did?"
Lupin had soberly answered, "A man couldn't ask for a better friend. She's seen me weak, and she's seen me kill, and she still brings me pints of Nellie Fortescue's lime-vanilla ice cream, even though I'm the reason random passers-by feel free to call her 'Werewolf's Whore'."
Snape had tamped down the surge of fury he'd felt on behalf of both Tonks and Lupin. Instead, he'd said, "Are you sure she isn't enjoying reasons to lose her temper?"
Lupin's lips had twitched. "There is that possibility, yes." A hint of amusement had crept into his voice as he'd added, "You might have enjoyed seeing what she did to the last bloke who tried to molest her."
"Enough to deter others?"
"For a week or two, anyway."
"She needs more lessons in being too old and too dangerous, then."
"No, she doesn't," Lupin had said. "The berk was in Mungo's for a fortnight."
"That's good," Snape had replied. "Though I daresay the publicity was not."
"Hardly," Lupin had said, turning back to the fire. "And it was tiresome, when we were an item, how people always expected her to speak up for me. Whether they thought I deserved to be with her or not."
Snape had paused, thinking over the previous six months of increasingly intimate conversations and charged silences. In spite of himself, he'd then demanded, "Is that why we do no more than say 'good night'? Because you would find me too tiresome to defend?"
Lupin had whirled around, his eyes suddenly glittering with both anger and desire. "You are already tiresome to defend," he said, his voice vicious, but also with a peculiar tone of joy underneath its rasp. "But it is long overdue from me, is it not?"
Snape had barely been able to breathe. "As it would be," he answered, "were I to become your whore."
Pretending to misunderstand, Lupin had said, "I promise you, you would not find it tiresome in my bedroom."
Following Lupin's lead, Snape had retorted, "You can't make that kind of promise. My jaw aches abominably after two minutes on my knees."
Looking amused, Lupin had asked, "Only two minutes? Whatever happened to Slytherin pride?"
"What makes you think this isn't my master strategy to get out of giving blowjobs?"
The glitter in Lupin's eyes had become even more pronounced. "My experience with other talented Slytherin mouths, of course. How have you forgotten that Blacks are usually sorted into your House?"
Snape had winced. He'd known about Lupin's amiable, short-lived affair with Andromeda when it was happening, nearly twenty years ago -- right after Ted Tonks had elected to move into a caravan owned by a trash-talking Veela named Manuela Vimes. And people think Death Eaters' sex lives are sordid . . . Snape had reflected that it was a good thing he hadn't been in love with Lupin back in those days --
And then he'd nearly sagged to the carpet in shock, stunned by the realisation that he wanted even more from Lupin than just an affair. That it hadn't been merely unresolved sexual tension that had had him feeling edgy and pushy and discontent. He'd known for some time that he'd wanted something more than their trips to violin concerts at the Barbican and Royal Festival Halls; more than the mediocre sandwiches and desserts they consumed in cafes on the banks of the Thames; more than their spirited debates over the works of nineteenth-century Belgian masters and the other exhibitions they'd visited in Bond Street picture galleries. He hadn't realised, however, that the something more he'd craved wasn't just sex.
Lupin had seen him go white and immediately helped him to the nearest armchair, confused and concerned about Snape's reaction to his remark but -- thankfully -- not overly contrite. Summoning Hudson, Lupin had gently closed Snape's hands around a warm clay mug of tea before saying, "I don't know what the fuck I said wrong, but I'm all too likely to say it again if you don't -- or can't -- tell me what was so wrong about it."
Snape had shaken his head, silently and desperately informing his heart that it was not allowed to ask for anything, let alone more.
Lupin had searched Snape's face -- an odd, interrogative expression on his own -- before straightening back up with an air of resignation. "Well. I suppose I needed to revise my self-defence spells in any case."
Snape had faked an impudence he didn't feel. "Of course you do. If you don't take proper care of yourself, what would become of me?"
Lupin's smirk was equally forced. "So, guarding your Slytherin hide -- that's my raison d'être? I suppose it's a good as reason as any."
Snape hadn't anticipated being grilled by Tonks about the matter several days later, never mind her reaction. When, over dinner, he repeated Lupin's final words on the subject, Tonks had shrieked, "He supposed!?" and leaped up from her chair as if scalded. After stomping up and down her kitchen several times, she'd plopped herself back down and declared, "You -- him -- you're both idiots. You are his raison d'être, and he knows it."
Snape had rescued the ale bottle she'd nearly sent flying off the table, but nearly dropped it upon hearing her words. "I what --?"
Tonks had leaned forward, looking as though she wanted to jab some sense into him. "You. Yes, you. Do you think he would have agreed to become the Ministry's pet jaws for just anyone?"
Snape had blanched, both at her description and its implications. "How the hell is that supposed to tell me what to think? Wouldn't he have done so for Potter? Or you? Or anyone else in the Order?"
Tonks had said, unsmiling, "Yes, he probably would have. But it's not us he wants, Severus Snape. And it's not us that can go to him, and help him live -- truly live -- with being both a Healer and a hunter."
Snape had snapped, "I can't ask that of him. I owe him too much --"
"Why do you think he can't ask you?" Tonks had shouted. "What do you think it's like for him, wanting you but not wanting to take advantage? Stop acting like you don't have the upper hand here!"
Snape had stared at her, overwhelmed. "I don't. I can't. He doesn't . . ."
"You haven't seen," Tonks had said, calming down, "how he looks at you when he thinks you aren't looking."
"Then show me," Snape had finally whispered. Tonks's eyes had bored unflinchingly into his as he uttered "Legilimens."
Quill still poised above the parchment, Snape reflected that it had been wholly irregular of him to confide in Tonks that evening, but she'd caught him off-guard: conscious both of being her guest and of her extended exertions on his behalf, he hadn't brought along his full emotional armour. When she'd surprised him in the act of closely studying a photo of Lupin on her mantel, he hadn't been able to muster the rudeness necessary to answer or evade her questions.
In retrospect, he mused, his instincts had -- for once! -- identified a true ally before his mind had fully registered the reasons why: Tonks genuinely loved Lupin, and over the course of her own affair with him, her childish, clingy infatuation had matured into a deep yet irreverent affection -- one that she'd extended to Snape even before they'd realised how well they themselves got along. He had come to think of Tonks as what a Black could be like with brains, character, and generosity, and it didn't hurt that Tonks was one of the few people whose sense of humour was skewed as steeply as his. She'd later confessed to him that the reason her attraction to Lupin had intensified was because he'd refused to be shocked by her.
"He laughed at my jokes," she'd said, "so I never thought of him as my mother's age."
"I can get him to smirk at mine, sometimes," Snape had observed, "but I seldom hear him laugh anymore."
"No," Tonks said, sadness overtaking her eyes. "The War took it out of him."
Snape had been momentarily tempted to ask if she blamed him, but he let the impulse pass; even if she did, there was nothing he could do to make amends.
Forcing himself to return to the present, he crossed the room and unlocked one of his trunks, carefully removing a bottle of port. He was not as paranoid as Alastor Moody -- that was no way to live, and no real defence against dying -- but he'd nonetheless thought it wise to bring along a reserve of beverages for private consumption rather than imposing his requests on the Baskerville Hall staff. While it was undeniably their obligation to see to his needs, he thought it prudent to limit the degree to which he might need to depend on them until he could ascertain who, if anyone, he could trust.
He was still unsettled about the Barrymores; he was unsurprised that Longbottom hadn't thought (or deliberately neglected?) to alert him to Pansy Parkinson's presence, but neither had it been mentioned in the dossier. Her disorganised style notwithstanding, it wasn't like Tonks to omit salient details; her handwriting had been absent from the packet's written pages, and he imagined she'd lacked sufficient time to devote to the case thus far, but Snape fully intended to twit her about her subordinates' inferior research and reporting skills the next time he saw her.
He took a sip of the fortified wine, wishing there had been someone to whom he could have entrusted its conveyance to Baskerville Hall via car. It was of an ordinary, inexpensive vintage -- neither too deluxe nor too delicate to withstand the hustle and jostle of travel via portkey or Apparation --- but among Snape's better memories, there was one of a mage from Kent masquerading as a valet at one of the Malfoys' extended parties. The man had insisted with a rather inexplicable vehemence that good port was to be handled as gently as a newborn infant, and even though Snape could readily think of two dozen potions for which he would have insisted on equal care and respect in their decanting, he'd initially categorised Mr. Nurbet as fussy, eccentric, and possibly even senile. The old servitor, however, had later demonstrated a timely and terrifyingly efficient grasp of wandless magic (Snape considered himself highly inventive, but he hadn't known one could do that with an ordinary iron poker), and the techniques Snape had learned that weekend had helped him out of tight jams (to borrow Tonks's vulgar phrasing) more than once in the years since. He was therefore disposed to adhere to Mr. Nurbet's prescriptions regarding the transport and serving of fine alcohol, even though it was seldom actually feasible for him to observe such niceties.
Snape felt quite sure Mr. Nurbet would not have tolerated any colleague of his disrupting the household's slumbers with the sounds of uncontrollable sobbing. Snape re-rinsed the tip of the quill and set it down before standing up to roll his shoulders and stretch. He was all too accustomed to getting by on too little sleep, but both his body and mind were protesting their relocation to Baskerville Hall. He hadn't wanted to come, the company was uncongenial, and there was Mr. Barrymore's noisy, nocturnal weeping to make sense of. Draco had demanded an explanation from Mrs. Barrymore over breakfast, only to be answered by her baldfaced claim that she'd heard no keening whatsoever.
"If the wailing of the wind bothers you that much," she'd said, "may I remind you that you still have command of soundproofing charms even a child could perform?"
And I suppose the ferocity of the wind accounts for your husband's bloodshot eyes? Snape had fleetingly considered resorting to confrontation or Legilimency to get to the truth of the matter, but after Draco's clumsy interrogation, he ordered himself to wait. It was unwise to engage too many of the Barrymores' defences before he amassed sufficient context to interpret the nuggets of information he hoped to glean from them.
Snape sat back down and lifted the glass of port to his lips once more. The rich, subtly nuanced sweetness of the wine reminded him of where he wanted to be -- back in the rooms he shared with Lupin. Back with their books and coffeepot. Back within the reach of Lupin's strong arms. Back within earshot of Lupin's hoarse yet soothing voice. Snape shook his head, dipped his quill into the well of ink, and set it to the parchment once more.
My dear Lupin,
The Trifling Affair requiring my presence in Devon is, as expected, demonstrating his ability to try the patience of a saint. It will not surprise you to learn that his congenital sense of entitlement and terminal inability to set aside his ego have already succeeded in alienating the postman and the chimney-sweep, thereby compromising my already limited opportunities to canvass local opinion for insights concerning Sir Conrad's demise.
As for the Baskerville Hall staff . . .
After detailing his observations of and interactions with the Barrymores, Snape continued:
Tomorrow we are to be occupied with a number of potentially informative activities. In the morning, the Trifling Affair and I will be riding with a local antiquarian to Barnstaple to visit its markets and shops. I am told I will find competitively priced ingredients unique to this region on Butchers Row, and Draco's priority will be to obtain a replacement pair of boots. The pair he brought may have been suitable for prancing about Hogsmeade, but all too swiftly demonstrated the flimsy quality of their construction this morning, the left boot instantly coming apart at the seams when one of its straps snagged upon an exposed root during our walk around the perimeter of the estate.
His Would-Be Majesty also expressed considerable displeasure over his newspapers, which had been arriving at the breakfast table in spectacularly poor condition, such that some of the articles were wholly unreadable. While I concur that this was wholly unacceptable service, I am displeased with the Petulant and Irate Trifling Affair's approach to addressing the situation, which was to incinerate the papers on the spot and berate the delivery service (whose representatives naturally claimed to know nothing about the tattered state of the papers, and even suggested that feral animals or hostile neighbours might be to blame). Upon instructing the PITA to turn over future editions of the paper to me, he informed me that he had cancelled the subscription altogether.
In summary, I have seen little evidence that the manners of the PITA have undergone the improvement to which Longbottom testified. It may be worth considering, however, that the interactions I have witnessed thus far have been with primarily with Muggle men -- Mrs. Barrymore being the exception -- whereas the clientele of the White Leaf is predominantly female and predisposed to fawn upon haughty-featured men who exhibit even the slightest soupçon of charm in their direction. There is also the probability that the PITA exerts himself to behave with more consideration and propriety when in the presence of Dr. Longbottom, who he apparently finds notably attractive. Dr. and Mr. Longbottom are to stop by the Hall for tea tomorrow afternoon, and I cannot in good conscience absent myself from it, even though I actively dread the prospect: it should go without saying that Longbottom and the PITA are dolts, and Dr. Longbottom cannot be such a prize if Mr. Longbottom was the best she could do. These are the wages of my sins, Lupin -- that, having elected to waste the prime of my life in the company of imbeciles, I now needs must fritter away its decline among them as well.
It is my hope that Miss Tonks and her minions will resolve the mysterious aspects of Sir Conrad's demise with all due speed. The sooner the Trifling Affair can be left to his own petty devices, the sooner I can return to you, the better to ensure the continuation of your presence during aforementioned decline. I know you, Lupin, and while I know you are fully capable of taking care of yourself, I also know that you don't, and should you manage to get yourself hexed or killed through sheer carelessness, I will be exceptionally cross and devise some means of persecuting your ghost across the remainder of eternity.
Yours,
Severus
After blotting the ink with a charm, Snape sliced away the top three inches of the scroll -- those containing his less felicitous efforts at beginning the letter -- and strode over to the fire to toss them in. He was about to cast the parchment into the flames in when his eye caught the flutter of a scrap of paper at the back of the grate; Mr. or Mrs. Barrymore had presumably used it for kindling when they'd built the fire. His mind registering the fact that he could see handwriting on it instead of type, he instantly doused the fire and carefully Summoned the fragment close enough to read it:
Please, as you are a gentleman, please burn this letter, and be at the gate at ten o'clock.
L. L.
Snape snorted, torn between amusement and indignation. Did the Barrymores, or Malfoy, or whoever else might have conspired to hasten Sir Conrad's demise -- did they seriously imagine such a feeble attempt to resurrect the past would strike him as anything other than a derivative joke? Did they believe that he wouldn't have perused the classic reports of Dr. John H. Watson about the Stapleton conspiracy in the region a hundred years before? From all he'd learned thus far about Sir Conrad Baskerville, he doubted the late baronet would have fallen for such a ruse, and the more he contemplated the sliver of stationery, the angrier he became at being thought of as a suitable target for juvenile mockery.
For a moment, he allowed himself to stew in the all too familiar fury of being underestimated: here he stood, a legendary spy and assassin, and yet here he was, forced to squander his time on another generation that couldn't resist taunting him. For this he'd sacrificed half of his magic and most of his sanity? The paper was already near to crumbling into ashes; in the throes of the moment, Snape considered grinding them beneath his heel before storming through the rest of the Hall in order to teach Malfoy and Parkinson a lesson they wouldn't have a prayer of forgetting.
Instead, once his anger dissipated, he Transfigured the parchment he'd intended to cast into the fire into an envelope, eased the charred remains of the message into it, and muttered the spell to revive the fire. Returning to the writing table, he curved the envelope into a "U" narrow enough to slide into the tube formed by the scroll of his finished letter. After pressing his lips to the seam formed by the horizontal edge of the parchment, he warded the scroll with a complex succession of charms.
The task completed, he extinguished the room's lights. He'd planned on snatching several hours' sleep before Barrymore resumed his infernal, inexplicable nocturnal expressions of mourning, but his weariness notwithstanding, Snape felt too restless to lie down. Instead, once his eyes adjusted to the room's unlit edges and contours, Snape Summoned a George III candlestick from the top of a dresser and removed the taper that it held, frowning at the slightly tacky layer of dust that covered the wax.
He then employed the candlestick as a wand, testing its ability to channel elementary spells and then sketching patterns in the air with it as if it were a pen connected to his own wand by an invisible holder. He was determined to train himself to have full command of wand-chaining by the end of his sojourn here, the better to be ready next time a spare wand wandered within range of Lupin's damnable, death-inviting curiosity.
As he practised directing splotches of forest green and silver-coloured talc into the hearth, he watched the candlestick quiver toward the flames as if tugged towards them -- as if it was somehow aware it had been diverted from its core purpose and yearned to return to its true post, even though -- judging from the dust -- its services had not been required in recent memory. Snape ruthlessly continued to twirl the handsome stick through a succession of esoteric exercises, forcing it to emit sprigs of hyacinths and patch a sock and swallow the cobwebs in the northeast corner of the ceiling, but even as he did so, he couldn't help but murmur to it, "I, too, am not where I belong."
Chapter 3