"Fisher—is last week's report ready? Are the records filed?" Williamson demanded, barely through the door.
Fisher, who had come in half an hour early specifically because of the damned report, snapped unexpectedly:
"Since when are you my boss?"
And received the insufferable reply:
"Not yet. Just practising."
"Why you—" came a voice to his left, and someone's spell whistled past Williamson's ear—seven years as an Auror had made him very good at ducking.
The stinging hex caught Fisher instead, and he clicked his teeth in fury.
The department head, opening the door five minutes later, was confronted with a sight that made him question his eyes: his department floor appeared to be occupied by a pack of dogs, except that the bodies were human—everything else, however. His staff were growling, scrabbling with their feet, and someone appeared to be barking.
For one extraordinary moment, he felt an overwhelming desire to join in and show everyone who was really in charge. But the department head, as it turned out, had not reached his position without reason—something about this reminded him of something. And instead of throwing back his head and howling and charging in to prove who ought to be giving orders, he crushed that animal impulse through sheer force of will, threw himself at the fireplace, tossed in a pinch of Floo Powder, and called St Mungo's. Doing his best not to whimper.
The St Mungo's team, responding to Emergency Code Three—assistance for werewolf bite casualties—arrived almost instantly: five men built like wardrobes, only marginally shorter than Hagrid, equipped in bite-resistant gear from boots to gloves. Only once his entire department had been transferred to special restraining stretchers did the head of department allow himself to relax—and a hopeless, bitter howl escaped his throat.
He came to in a small private room with a white ceiling and barred windows. From the adjacent bay came active whimpering. The department head's ear picked out familiar notes—the man he'd been considering for deputy, one Mr Williamson. Gathering his thoughts, he went to the door and tried to call his name—but what came out was a bark.
In response, Williamson howled. And the orderlies came again.
The second awakening was less lively. There was whimpering now—involuntary—no appetite, and then no desire for anything at all, just to sit and be quiet. Or lie with his nose buried in the pillow.
None of them knew that a serious storm was brewing in the St Mungo's wing that now housed the entire Third Department of the Auror Office. The Healers in the Curse Damage wing resembled a thundercloud—partly because they had found no curses on the patients. Well, nothing significant; nothing that could account for collective mental breakdown. A few minor jinxes, a Gossip hex and a Trust charm, stripped off easily—and that was all. Nothing changed. Which was not unexpected. So the Curse Damage Healers were doing their utmost to transfer the valiant Aurors to the Potions Accidents wing.
The Potions Accidents Healers, colloquially known as the "brewers," looked grimmer still and were holding their ground in a circle, demanding evidence that the whole disgraceful situation had resulted from a potion. The only evidence available was two dozen deranged Aurors who appeared to believe they were dogs.
To be fair, a number of Healers on both sides had some sympathy with that view.
It hadn't occurred to anyone yet to consult the Healers specialising in Transfiguration-related conditions and Animagus pathology. A complex discipline, uncommon conditions—and a modest ward tucked away almost at the back of the building. Yes: Sirius Black had been treated there.
***
"You are in my debt for the lives of your loved ones, Madam," Augusta Longbottom read from the note delivered by an unassuming and inconspicuous owl. "Your assistance is needed for the legalisation of the person known to you."
The Iron Augusta gave an approving nod and sat down at her desk, offering the owl a dried-mouse biscuit. While it crunched with evident relish, she dashed off a brief reply.
I fully approve of your timely decision, Mr Snape. When and where? I can open my fireplace for you. Discretion and safety, naturally, guaranteed.
"Good boy," she murmured, tying the note to the owl's leg. "Very timely. Very."
She was already aware that the Third Department of the Auror Office—which handled documents and, not least, tip-offs—had been entirely neutralised by an unknown curse. The real name of her wonderful assistant, and the man who had saved her Frank—well, she was a former Auror. She'd worked it out from the distinguishing details within the first couple of days, without saying a word to anyone, as she had sworn.
Her feelings toward Severus Snape were entirely warm. How else could she feel about someone who, as a Death Eater, had done everything in his power to bring in the most dangerous of his own colleagues—and hadn't flinched? Even if he had somehow learned that the Dark Lord was gone, standing against those particular veterans took considerable courage. Snape unquestionably deserved respect, support, and an Order of Merlin to match hers. No less. And she owed him a debt—remaining in anyone's debt for long was not something she had any patience for.
***
Bravo, Augusta, Andrei thought, unfolding her reply. I wonder how long it took her to identify Snape. Though that's not what matters right now. Still—I'd better have a word with her before shoving Severus through the fireplace. He can be mulish, and this needs to go like clockwork.
And he settled down to write a more detailed response—not from Snape, but "from the friend at whose home he has been staying"—to set out everything clearly. Soon Augusta had been fully briefed on the "regrettable modesty," the "unfortunate unsociability," and various other qualities of the young, enormously promising Potions Master, talented Legilimens, competent combat wizard, and generally decent person. Especially since she herself had encountered some of those qualities directly and in the field, and the field had been rather hot. She did, in fact, polish her new Order with a little velvet cloth and think fondly of the sculptural arrangement in her drawing room from time to time.
Andrei was not one to put all his eggs in one basket, so he simultaneously despatched another school owl—to Rita Skeeter personally. Everything had to be proper and public.
***
When Severus Snape found himself quite literally in the embrace of Madam Longbottom—every bit as iron as her reputation—he couldn't even draw breath to protest. In the next moment they were standing together before Rufus Scrimgeour, the young head of the Auror Office, who was also, admittedly, rather promising.
"Here is the young man for whom the second Order of Merlin has been prepared!" the Iron Augusta announced.
Snape barely had time to say hello before she placed a powerful nonverbal Silencing Charm on him and, seizing Scrimgeour by the other arm, swept them both forward in a near-irresistible force of nature, heading directly for the Minister.
The Auror Office would not have been the Auror Office had whispers not begun to circulate—about those two lists. But—where was the Third Department? Gone. Was it worth getting involved? To hell with the lists, to hell with Dumbledore. This was outside their jurisdiction. Though Scrimgeour did send a couple of people after Augusta, just in case.
Watching a small beetle take up an exceptionally advantageous viewing position on the magnificent ministerial curtain, Augusta tugged the still-speechless Snape's arm, bared the Mark, and launched into a paean to "a warrior of the invisible front, a man of genuine courage, who found the strength to acknowledge his own mistakes, to reject the beliefs forced upon him, and to act against those who had 'enslaved' him—clearly because the battle for young minds, especially minds of this quality—"
Did the Minister not know that Severus Snape was the youngest Potions Master not only in Britain but in the world? My goodness, how dreadfully behind the times—what were his secretaries doing, exactly? He really should dismiss them and find people who would actually work rather than warm their seats. And where was the Order, why hadn't they brought it yet? She had said she hadn't done it alone.
No one managed to get a word in edgeways. Least of all Snape. He could only go red and press his lips together—he would have had quite a lot to whisper—and silently thank his ancestors and hereditary complexion for the fact that his redness read, on his face, as nothing more threatening than a healthy flush of youthful modesty. So that when the Order was finally pinned on—silver chain, second class—he had collected himself enough to produce something resembling gratitude. Which was, in any case, all that was required of him. He was careful not to cast any meaningful glances at Madam Longbottom. Merlin preserve him from helping her again.
Scrimgeour's assistants were already writing that the hero had been cleared of all charges, without consulting the charges themselves, or the tip-offs—which, it will be recalled, were all neatly filed in the Third Department, where the St Mungo's team had recently conducted a precautionary disinfection.
Conspiracy? Augusta Longbottom's reputation crushed such thoughts in their cradle. Better not to say it aloud—better, frankly, not to think it. They said she had broken people in interrogation; she probably had Legilimency. No, no. Whispers began that this had been a genuine act of heroism. They spread, finding resonance in many hearts.
"And the main thing—these two actually managed to give those overgrown aristocrats what they deserved."
"Exactly—good on them. Augusta is formidable, of course. Pity she left the Aurors."
"And this Snape lad—whatever you say, he's got backbone. Even if he's barely more than a boy."
"Yes, I suppose. I wouldn't have gone up against the Lestrange trio personally."
"Not even with the Iron Augusta alongside you?"
"Not even then. You? Same? Right then."
"And Snape's still muttering about 'not entirely deserved recognition' and nodding toward our heroic gran—"
"No, decent bloke. One of ours."
And Snape was carried off to the Second Department—the field operatives—to christen his Order properly. The celebratory drinks had barely begun before the evening turned into a remarkably productive exchange of knowledge: on the application and countering of Dark magic spells, the comparison of offensive and defensive techniques, and Severus found himself discovering that he could actually talk to Aurors, and that they were, it turned out, genuinely interesting people.
For the interesting people in question, Snape proved an invaluable source of knowledge—and given that this knowledge sometimes had a direct bearing on their survival, the evening concluded with mutual goodwill, camaraderie, and a glass of Ogden's. Which was being quietly sipped in a corner half-concealed by a wardrobe by an Augusta who was temporarily displaying a most uncharacteristic degree of modesty—one couldn't leave the boy unsupervised, after all. She was a veteran Auror; she could do inconspicuous when required.
When Snape was offered a second glass, however, she stood up, took him by the arm, and—glass and all—steered him firmly toward the fireplace, not giving Severus the chance to rashly promise he would absolutely come back and finish the conversation at some future date.
***
"Where shall we celebrate your Order?" Augusta enquired, as Severus regarded her with something approaching alarm. "I can offer Longbottom House, but I assume a man of such distinction has a home of his own?"
Snape smiled thinly, picturing his "palatial estate" in Cokeworth, with its demolished fireplace. And then pictured Walburga Black and Augusta Longbottom in it simultaneously. Well—if the house didn't survive, there was little to mourn. He'd only need to collect the books.
But there it was again—and Madam Longbottom had seen it on his face. Augusta's teeth clenched slightly at the thought of Walburga—she decided that was enough of a reaction—and then followed a lecture and a thorough reorganisation of Snape's thinking, including his lower spine, on the subject of the Prince family, of which Mr Snape appeared to be the last surviving member, and really if he felt no pride in his family that was of course his business and quite understandable given the degree of deterioration that had occurred, and his mother had been fortunate in a sense—but the house. What had the house done to him? And everything the ancestors had built up over generations, researched, purchased, acquired by other means—not necessary to specify—it was all sitting there, going to ruin without a hand to tend it. He was to go this instant and put things in order.
Augusta could command. The mention of a library and the journals of professional potioneers was devastating, and Severus had no choice but to march—and not alone. Madam Longbottom appeared to have no intention of releasing him from her custody today.
The Prince house had not yet fallen into disrepair; they were even met by a semi-living house-elf, who fixed enormous tearful eyes—clouded with age—on the arrivals:
"Ma—master? O-o-order of Merlin? Oh, what delicious, what powerful magic!"
"Well, well, sharp old nose," Madam Longbottom said, amused, watching a bewildered Snape. "Do you know what to do next?"
He spread his hands in silence—having apparently got used to that response with her.
"Fine. Let's take stock of the estate."
Two hours later, Severus was the master of a rather substantial villa. The ground floor contained the library itself—from which Madam Longbottom had to physically extract him—three drawing rooms, a reception hall, a dining room, a kitchen, and a cloakroom. The upper floor held the master bedroom with dressing room and bathroom, eight further bedrooms with bathrooms, and a couple of more modest rooms. The long outbuilding contained, naturally, a potions laboratory—and a wine cellar. Outside was a slightly overgrown garden, and from the bedroom window Severus spotted another roof. A cottage? A greenhouse? The building was concealed behind magnificent thickets of holly—the evergreen shrub that in this setting resembled small trees.
"And you were proposing to renounce this?" Augusta asked, with a sharpness that could have given Lady Black a run for her money. "Right, young man—this evening's reception, I'll take care of. Just this once."
Severus's legs nearly gave way.
"All I need from you is a guest list," Augusta said, conjuring a chair to him with a quiet nonverbal spell.
"It won't be long," Severus managed a thin smile at last. "Lipsy—quill and paper."
The house-elf, ecstatic from the tips of its feet to the top of its bald head, rejuvenated by the formal restoration of a master, produced the required items instantly.
"Hagrid, then—the Black family," Augusta pursed her lips slightly, "and the Longbottoms. And none of your Auror friends?"
"Is that—necessary?" Snape asked, looking pained. "Some department head or other?"
"Apparently not. Scrimgeour will manage without. Perhaps someone from the school? Your Head of House? Dumbledore?"
Snape flinched. He had no desire to participate in the event at all, let alone to invite those particular people.
"No, no—I really don't think we should trouble such very busy—individuals."
Madam Longbottom, mercifully, gave him an understanding nod.
Severus's head was spinning—and it wasn't entirely the Firewhisky, though the warmth spreading inside him was helping him come to terms with reality in some small way. No—it was simply too much, more than he deserved. Though he desperately wanted to explore all of it. The internal struggle was apparently visible on his face—the mask of composure hadn't had time to set—so Augusta took on the role of kind grandmother and did not regret it. The grandson, it turned out, was genuinely promising. What a pity the old Princes hadn't lived to see it.
In the end, the passion for knowledge won out over the last residual doubt, and Severus quietly accepted the unexpected inheritance that had fallen into his lap. Only then did a thought occur to him: how exactly did Madam Longbottom know all this so thoroughly?
After his dealings with Hagrid, and then with Lady Black, Severus had grasped—and tried to inscribe firmly in his mind, where there was ample room—the simple truth that if it was embarrassing to admit ignorance by asking, one might suffer the ignorance for a lifetime. And so he finally put the principle into practice.
The answer was entirely straightforward: the Longbottoms had been suppliers of plant materials to the Prince laboratories and potions workrooms since some century or other. Certain distant branches of the two families—both once formidable—had intermarried; others had feuded, there always being something to divide; but close relations had run through the centuries. And now, it seemed, they would continue in a rather fine way.
Snape still had some reservations about "fine"—but had he spent all that time with Regulus and Hagrid for nothing? They needed intelligent, powerful wizards, and Augusta Longbottom was self-evidently both. In the end, most of his classmates had had two grandmothers, and some of those grandmothers hadn't got on particularly well with each other. Which had never prevented the grandchildren from enjoying what each could offer.
The house in Cokeworth—he could leave without a backward glance. This one, he would not let anyone destroy.
***
That evening, around the table in the largest drawing room, a rather peculiar company had assembled. Besides the new master of the house and his self-appointed grandmother, the fireplace delivered: a half-giant dressed and presented almost as a dandy—very large—holding Harry Potter in his arms; Lady Walburga Black with her sons, whom the house-elf introduced with such reverential enthusiasm that he nearly choked on his own announcement; werewolf Remus Lupin; and the Weasley couple, who, in the elf's opinion, were behaving quite outrageously—bouncing in their seats and repeatedly threatening to bolt home to their children. As if they had no house-elves to supervise, really. Honestly.
Molly, as it happened, was first to break—jumped up and kissed Snape on both cheeks, congratulated him on the Order, and asked to be let go. What could he do, particularly since Molly had not entirely shed her pre-baby figure yet—just as Hagrid had predicted—she had delivered, rather magnificently, a daughter.
Soon Arthur followed his wife, then Lupin and Sirius drifted after him.
I think we may finally have our artefact-making partnership, Andrei thought, watching the two elderly ladies saw and stab at each other with their eyes. Time to peel someone away, and in general—we've overstayed. But still. Augusta. I wouldn't have expected it. Though when you think about it, in the tight little world of Island wizardry, herbologists and potioneers simply couldn't avoid crossing paths regularly.
"Congratulations again," he said, winking at Severus and pushing back his stool—there being, naturally, no chairs his size, and Transfiguring one had felt like too much effort. "A certain someone needs to fully come to himself, I think, and get properly acquainted with—" He looked around the room and left the sentence unfinished.
"Yes, thank you for the congratulations," Severus rose along with his departing guest and partner. "The small difficulty is that now I have four enemies in Azkaban and precisely one year to prepare."
"Not you alone, young man—we," Augusta corrected him with an arch of her brow. "I shall take offence."
"Do you doubt that in a year I'll have you prepared to teach my niece and her family the correct way to live? That is, I hope, a comment on your own capabilities rather than mine?"
"May I dare to hope, ladies," Andrei addressed them both, "that you'll bury the hatchet?"
"Hope rather that we'll sharpen new ones," Walburga said, with a thin smile.
"For Severus to use, I imagine," Augusta nodded in agreement.
***
The following morning, the Daily Prophet sold out faster than freshly baked rolls—an emergency reprint was ordered immediately, and then another.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore raised his cup of excellent tea to his lips and unfolded the newspaper.
The author modestly submits that it is entirely clear to all readers what his fate with that cup of tea turned out to be…