Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Based on plot and ideas by Bulship you can read them all here on AO3.

Severus Snape and the Next Great Adventure

Part One 

“Severus, my dear one, wake up.”

Snape opens his eyes and immediately stands, realizing that he has no wand and is otherwise unarmed, as he cannot feel the knives he keeps sheathed inside his boots. He is dressed in his Wizarding finest, his true black raw Acromantula silk dress robes, never worn until now, a birthday present two years prior from Narcissa Malfoy.

He was lying on a stone slab, somehow not unpleasantly cold nor uncomfortable. He is not in pain, despite Nagini's devastating attack being the last thing that he remembers. His hand comes away clean from his throat, which also feels whole. He unbuttons his sleeve. His arm is as blissfully clear as if the Dark Mark were never there. The split second he reaches for his magic, it rushes, potent and full of possibilities, into his wand hand.

He now is facing a likeness of his dead mother. It would have been a good impression, except it was massively out of character for Eileen to wear pearly white iridescence or smile that widely, or to smile at all for that matter. The space they are in seems to be made entirely of light. He tries his voice, “Since you are not Eileen, with whom do I share the current misfortune of meeting?” His voice does not sound odd or like he has just had his throat ripped out by an enormous reptile.

“None of that now. I’m still a mother to you, Severus Snape. I am Lady Magic.” Faux Eileen dialed down the force of her smile, approaching him now as a trainer approaches a wild horse. “I want you to know that, despite everything, you have pleased me greatly. You are cunning in your ambition, eminently well-read, fiercely hardworking, ever loyal in your heart, and unusually brave in your magic. You are forever beloved as Headmaster by Hogwarts Castle and have made me most proud.”

"I—" Severus started, pausing to look down at his polished, often repaired dragonhide boots, which were a present from Lucius Malfoy upon the occasion of receiving his Dark Mark. He wasn’t gifted things often. He had even less practice receiving sincerity, never mind meaningful compliments. He took a deep breath and finished his thought: “-find that surprising.”

“Too few of my children, these days, explore both the pale and the dark sides of magic, yet you understand light and shadow like an artist. Too few climb to such heights as you through so many different branches of magic, getting high enough to form a complete picture, a true understanding of the tree of magic’s magnificence. Fewer still venture to create breakthrough spells, revolutionary brews, and elegant new curses—so many accomplishments at such a very young age. Had you had more time and resources, your progress as a wizard may have rivaled Merlin's or perhaps been unparalleled amongst Wixen. But circumstances were not on your side.”

“I wouldn’t have said so, no.”

“You have been impeded, most criminally so, as have many others in recent generations, whilst the spoilt and jealous baby-men claimed dominion over light and dark and did their worst to our world. You’ve noticed how children given every advantage in life may squander it all, or worse, do great harm lashing out with what they have been given. Grindelwald and Dumbledore were the second kind. I favored them both far too much. I had hoped they would heal the rifts between dark and light. They only made it worse. Neither came close to walking his true path.

“Voldemort is a danger now, too, but had so much to offer once. Like you, he lacked stable grounding and responsible care and guidance. He was Albus’ responsibility, literally. Albus never rose to meet any of the responsibilities in his own life. He much preferred meddling in the lives of others.

"Instead of becoming Tom Riddle’s mentor, as it was his literal job to do, and setting a worthy example for him, Albus made an enemy out of jealousy and suspicion while Tom was a child, a boy who knew deprivation and fear but hardly a kind word. Albus didn’t really believe that Tom Riddle was doomed because his father didn’t really love his mother—as if half the wizarding world wouldn’t be doomed if that were necessary criteria—but such convenient philosophies absolved his conscience, allowed him to continue believing that he did no wrong, and knew better than everyone else what to do on every occasion.

“Severus, I need your help to save magic, our whole world, everything in it, including the magically impaired—we all depend on your decision.”

Yes, he was convinced that he was in the presence of Lady Magic herself but couldn’t help but roll his eyes, “You will have noticed that I am rather dead, my Lady. Perhaps had you requested my assistance a tad sooner? What could I possibly do for you now at this late juncture?”

“I’ve spoken at length with Death. We both ask that you return but will respect your decision in this either way.”

“Return? I have given everything I ever had, everything I ever was, to defeat the Dark Lord and assure a victory for the son of Lily Evans. I failed. I never had an opportunity to communicate with Potter to tell him that he needed to let himself be killed, as ridiculous as those instructions are, as if he would have listened to a word of it coming from me. Now, I have nothing left to offer to anyone.

"Even if I were to return, even if I had my health, I would be hunted by both sides of the war. I’ve no allies, no safe house, and no resources left. I cannot defeat him with a well-played game of Gobstones. Even if I could get close enough to him, blast him into dust, somehow, still he will return. I don’t know how. There is a prophecy—

“Horcruxes, Severus. Tom Riddle made six on purpose. The Gaunt’s ring at the old Gaunt place, Hufflepuff’s cup, Slytherin’s Locket, and his own journal, which are all at the former site of the magically impaired Wool’s Orphanage at the moment, Ravenclaw’s diadem in the Elve’s stockroom in the Room of Requirement, Nagini eventually. He accidentally makes a Horcrux out of the infant Harry on the night that Lily is killed. Horcruxes keep him in the world of the living at the expense of his sanity and power. He solved the power problem with the Dark Mark. It is a leech that siphons power constantly from his slaves.”

“”Seven?”

“Harry and his friends destroyed most of those Horcruxes. Had he known to sacrifice himself, had Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra to kill him, then Harry may have succeeded in defeating Voldemort just as Albus had hoped. Harry may have “survived” and returned to the world as well because of his standing as Death’s master, having collected Death’s wand, which was used for years by Albus, Death’s cape, his father’s then Harry’s own invisibility cloak, and Death’s stone, which had been set into the Gaunt family ring, though cleverly he tossed it away again. Such a plucky one! But ultimately, Harry can’t save the world alone. He is born far too late.

“Just a few years after Harry’s largely theoretical, yet prophesied defeat of Voldemort, the magically impaired will breach our secrecy. By the year 2000, there will be no stopping this. The magical world, once exposed, can not stand against technology and vastly superior numbers.

“By 2016, most everything magical in our world, save for those living in the deep oceans, will be killed or enslaved. The magically impaired world will survive our genocides through a time of plagues, wars, threats from their own technology, and disasters on a scale unseen by human eyes before. They’ll have another twelve, perhaps fifteen years, before planet-wide collapse occurs. It will be brought about by the lack of magical anchors left on Earth that help me to stabilize and balance the world, including the Four Elements, which combine in various ways to produce the very fabric of life on this planet.”

“Muggles call it DNA. What could I possibly do to stop any of this from happening?”

“I don’t know. The solution must lie at least partially in the world of the magically impaired. I do know that you understand that world far better than most Wixen and have the necessary skills and the very best chance to save us.

“I also know that you have keen regrets, none keener than your regrets surrounding Lily Evans. I would send you back to your 5th year, just before the Marauders publicly assaulted you, before you called her that bigoted word in a frankly deranged bid to protect her. But I want us to watch that event again, together, Pensieve-style, first. After we watch it and one other of your memories that you have not examined properly, you can give me your answer about going back. Do you agree?”

Severus had examined many aspects of his life both via Dumbledore’s Pensieve and through his own Occlumency, but he had never watched his very worst memory ever again. It was like a massive wound—too deeply wrapped up in his fury, despair, and regret, too shameful to reveal, too painful to examine, a festering blister on his soul. That all-encompassing pain fueled his descent into losing himself as a Death Eater. But he is dead now. If this is to be the hell he’s earned, then he will face it. “Very well, let us watch.”

Lady Magic takes his hand gently and leads him over to an enormous Pensieve, carved with a repeating pattern he recognizes as the plant Dittany of Crete cried upon by mirror image sets of twin phoenixes. It looks very old, settled in place for centuries, but somehow he knows it wasn’t ‘here’ for longer than a minute, if it had existed previously at all.

Watching the events unfold is surprisingly easy. The players are all just children, the same as any other Hogwarts students he’d dealt with on a daily basis. Seeing the Marauders doing their worst inspires in him no pain, no hate, no fear, just a powerful urge to assign them all truly unpleasant detentions. In the boy they target and attack, Severus scarcely recognizes himself. He empathizes with an outnumbered victim, of course, yet also sees his younger self's glaring mistakes—the tactics he doesn’t employ, spells he never casts, and opportunities that he wastes.

When Lily arrives on the scene, fiery, self-righteous, and wand out, he realizes that she too is but a child walking into danger, and his heart clenches. But he also remembers that she is a fifth-year Gryffindor prefect, just as Lupin is. Were they always so ineffectual at keeping order, or were they both simply shirking their prefect duties? Then Lily, still pointing her wand, a deadly weapon, at Potter's chest, seemingly forgets about Severus’ young distress and smiles exasperatedly yet fondly at Potter, who is constantly primping his perpetually messy hair.

He asks that the memory be paused, reversed a few seconds, then restarted. It is no mistake, no trick of old eyes. Lily definitely smiles at Potter, her body leaning subtly toward him just as a real lily leans toward the sun. Severus sees that though her wand is out, she has no intention of using it to defend ‘her friend.' She waves it foolishly, posturing, rolling her eyes as Potter—what a charmer! - extorts her for a date, but she does not make a single move to magically challenge his bullies. He sees that there was no truth to support his former assumption that she had been in danger, needing him to quickly dissuade her from fighting Potter and Black on his behalf. Calling her “filthy Mudblood” had seemed like an elegant solution at the time, a drastic yet effective tactic to drive her off, out of a bad situation, like he had done so many times before for her in Cokeworth. He believed he was saving her and could explain and apologize for offending her later, which only indicated his state of mind at the time. But he sees now that on this occasion, she never required any sort of protection that he could provide for her.

This is just a love game, a mating display, an excuse for two hormonal Gryffindor teens to bicker and flirt. Hadn’t he seen plenty of the same from Granger and Weasley over the years, as he watched over Potter like a protective hawk pretending to be the only predator for miles? His own humiliation and suffering, his and Lily’s shriveling acquaintanceship, for he can no longer properly call it a friendship at this point, are but sparse background scenery for the main event here, which is Potter and Lily’s blossoming romance that would lead inevitably to the birth of Harry Potter and the death of Voldemort.

He knew, even back at that time, that Lily had become too entangled with that pack of bullies who she so passionately defended to him to the point that he, Severus, their favorite victim, had become the true villain of the narrative in her mind, because if only Severus would stop standing up for himself, if only he would stay quiet instead of antagonizing them with his unwanted facts and opinions, if only he would renounce all the other members of his House in public, if only he would take great pains to stay out of the Marauders’ way and hide better, (she probably didn’t know, as he hadn’t, that they were using that blasted map they’d made of Hogwarts to hunt him at every turn), but if only he could stop breathing their air…

Not that he was blameless in school or ever. He’d always had too sharp a tongue, too hot a temper, and an inability to suffer fools. Yes, he had laughed when Mulciber cast Levicorpus on Mary McDonald’s ankle. It wasn’t as if he were amused. If anything, it was nervous, very uncomfortable laughter. He was fully cognizant that McDonald just as easily could have been Lily Evans in that moment—both Gryffindors, both Muggleborns, both pretty redheads—but he hadn’t been willing to start a war with Lyle Mulciber outside of the Slytherin Common Room to help defend any Gryffindor other than Lily Evans, either.

Slytherin House rules had always dictated that Slytherins must present a united front to the school and to the world at large. Their unity was their strength. If they couldn’t have true unity, at least they could have the appearance of that strength. Infighting, grudges, power games, and rivalries all paused as soon as they left Slytherin House through the common room door. No one outside of Slytherin should ever see even a hint of their deep divisions and constant power struggles, or know that he, as a disinherited, dirt-poor half-blood, lived as a despised outcast even within his own house. Few Slytherins ever bothered to acknowledge him, never mind back him up in a fight against the Marauders. Lucius and Narcissa, and later her cousin Regulus, all prefects, had been amongst the rare exceptions.

Mulciber didn’t strip off McDonald’s knickers the way that James Potter had removed his old graying pants for the amusement of the crowd that day, but Severus wouldn’t have put such a despicable act past Mulciber, either, no, not at all. In fact, Mulciber may have done far worse to McDonald had Slughorn not happened upon the scene when he did.

But it wasn’t Mulciber that the Marauders held responsible and decided to punish like deranged underage vigilantes. He was always the convenient whipping boy when they had a problem with someone else wearing green, not that they ever required any excuses just to amuse themselves by making his life more hellacious.

As for Lily, he now could see their shared past with perfect clarity. When they were young, Lily had clung to Severus, for he was her only source of hope, her only whisper of magical knowledge, her only glimpse of the beautiful magical future awaiting her at Hogwarts Castle. As far as he was concerned, Hogwarts was meant to be their escape from their pointless, painful, dead-end Muggle existence in Cokeworth and the start of a brighter, more magical future. Hogwarts was theirs to share, their reward for surviving eleven years of Muggle childhood in bleak poverty, the happy ending ever after to their fairytale, with actual fairies.

But as soon as they set foot on the Hogwarts Express, Lily became entirely surrounded by other Magicals, many of whom, like purebloods Potter and Black, knew far more about the inner workings of the magical world than Severus had carefully gathered from Eileen’s occasional stories, and none of the other first years seemed to be as ugly, as poor, as disagreeable, as dirty, or as greasy and threadbare as he was—always. He didn’t realize it, but he was not at all in any way special to her anymore. If anything, he was the perfect representation of what she should be leaving far behind her—the last remnant of her poverty-stricken childhood in harsh, filthy, rude, stinking old Cokeworth. Their sortings only helped widen a gap that, unbeknownst to him, had already started splitting their childish friendship apart.

He still had his value to her, though. He still existed entirely for her convenience. Both of them seemed sure of it. He was always overjoyed to do it when she needed books or cauldrons carried, a taller reach for the higher shelves in the library, an able potions partner, or a willing study companion for those long hours spent in the library. He was the one person who knew exactly how to explain Golpolott’s Laws so that they finally made perfect sense to Lily. Apparently, he was also a convenient trigger for sending Potter into jealous fits of romantic stupidity.

In summer, it was a different story. Petunia had pulled away from Lily permanently by the end of the first year. Even more so than Lily and himself, Petunia was aces at holding a grudge. Lily really only had him to help her stave off the boredom and oppression of being too young, too poor, and far too clever in a bleak industrial backwater wasteland revolving around a floundering linen mill during a stagnant British economy. Cokeworth sucked the marrow out of people even at the best of times, never mind in a time of cutbacks, closures, strikes, out-of-control inflation, plus record-breaking crime, heroin addiction, and alcoholism.

It wasn’t a good thing to be as pretty as Lily Evans in such ugly surroundings. Even though he was thin, he was always wiry. He was good at Legilimency, misdirection, and using other sneaky magics to discourage roving gangs, desperate addicts, mean drunks, and… far worse. When all else failed, he could take a hell of a beating in order to give Lily the chance to run home unscathed.

He remembers once in the late summer after 4th year picking some bloke’s pocket while getting punched bloody by him. He spent half on a stash of tinned foods—soups, sardines, lard, corn, and beans—for Eileen and him, but she had insisted on sharing it all with Toby. Her husband predictably exchanged the lot for drinks down the pub. Severus spent the rest of his nicked dosh treating Lily to Pink Floyd’s The Darkside of the Moon that she had badly wanted. He never listened to the album until after her death.

But any time they spent together while at Hogwarts was for Lily’s sake, instigated and dictated by Lily. She was never there just for companionship any more and was never there as a special favor to him or because he was important to her. He remembers now that in second year he had asked her several times for her help in figuring out a tricky advanced charm, hoping to expand the space available inside Eileen’s old potion’s case. Lily said she would help but never was able to find the time. Eventually, he had stopped asking her and figured it out all by himself. The next time he asked anyone for their help with anything, he was desperate to save Lily from dying.

“There is one more thing I want you to watch.”

“Very well.”

It was that night when he met Dumbledore, asking for him to save her. Did the old man try at least? To be fair, Albus was never any good at protecting anyone, not his sister, not the Longbottoms, not Lily, not her son. He observes now how Albus plays him like a fiddle, how amused he seems whenever Severus isn't directly watching his face. How old and cruel Dumbledore looks when extorting him for a price for keeping Lily safe. He notices in contrast how very young and earnest he looks, pledging that, in return for Lily’s safety, he will do ANYTHING, which he, in fact, did do quite a bit of, for the rest of his life, despite the fact that Albus had never upheld his part of their bargain, which never had a single thing to do with Azkaban, as far as Severus was concerned.

“Do you see?”

“Yes, I can see everything far more clearly now.”

“How do you feel?”

He takes a deep breath, considering the question, but not because he actually believes that he is breathing at the moment, “Free.”

“Will you return, Severus?”

“I will. But I require real resources, actual assistance this time. If I call—"

“I will come. You may access extra magic as you need it. You may also swear on my name with no fear of being stripped of your magic, no matter what. As my agent on earth, you may use my name to make bargains and recruit allies to our cause as well. I stand with you in this endeavor, Severus. You have other advantages also. You can claim your Prince Heirship at Gringotts immediately.”

“Heirship? I think you are mistaken, my Lady. My mother was disinherited from the Prince Family, years before I was born, in fact. I very much doubt that she was reinstated posthumously.”

“Above all else, the Prince family magic rewards power and ability. You are all your Prince ancestors’ wildest dreams made flesh. Your mother’s status never disqualified you, and neither does your father’s lack of magic. Ask for Ragnok. He is trustworthy and can become an invaluable ally.”

“Why was I never informed?”

“Your mother closed her trust vault right after her seventh year, just before she officially refused to marry Archibald Selwyn. She had the Galleons she owned converted by Gringotts into pounds sterling. She was a babe in the woods with no qualifications, history, or identification. Like many Purebloods, she was discouraged from Muggle Studies. She was unfamiliar with the currency. Her nest egg didn’t last long in the world of the magically impaired, but meeting and marrying your father was no mistake on her part. You prove it by your very existence. You came to the magical world with a Muggle family name. You never had your inheritance status tested then, a mistake even some Purebloods and nearly all Muggleborns make. When you finally opened your own account the year that you started teaching, no familial identity or heirship claim was attached to your vault. The Prince Lordship means wealth, independence, and a seat in the Wizengamot. But Dumbledore knew.”

“Of course.”

“Your trust vault won’t be a panacea but will help you at the start. You’ll need to find ways to grow those existing funds quickly. Don’t be shy about using your magic and knowledge of future events to set up lucrative and mostly passive income streams both in the magical world and in the Muggle one. Again, Ragnok can help. Remember that you will be gathering wealth for the very best of reasons, Severus, that what you are doing will benefit us all.”

“Lady, I wasn’t poor because I am against owning wealth. I was poor because I was often forced to buy expensive ingredients, ones that I couldn’t acquire in any other way without extreme risk, some for the purposes of experimentation, but most just to satisfy the limitless demands of one master or the other. I know this will shock you, but neither one was terribly conscientious about reimbursing me.”

“There is also an enormous Basilisk inside the Chamber of Secrets. You can find the tap marked with the snake that opens it in the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. You’ll want to fly down there instead of sliding.”

“Which may have been worth mentioning if I spoke Parseltongue and could access it.”

“Now you can speak to snakes. You’re familiar with role-playing games, I presume?”

“Spy.”

“Let’s say that starting out in life, you had a full ten points in Temper, but now due to personal growth and Occlumency, you have only seven. I suggest that we take that down to a cool-headed three and place the other four points somewhere more beneficial to your quest. You only have one point in Self-care.”

“I believe that I’d rather be attacked by Nagini again than waste an available point on Self-care.”

“How about this then? You promise to shower carefully and wash your hair thoroughly every day and put at least an additional half hour every week into something that I would recognize as self-care. In return, you can place the four points wherever you think best.”

“All four go to Intellect.”

“Somewhere else.”

“Is intelligence always underappreciated everywhere?”

“Your intellect is already maxed out, Severus.”

“Unlikely.”

“It only means that your potential for thinking, learning, and applying your knowledge is unencumbered.”

“Has anything else of mine reached its maximum?”

"Survival

“Clearly. Not.”

“Consider that ending you required attacking you with a monstrous magical venomous Horcrux snake paired with your own decision to die viewed as a loyal Death-eater in order to give Voldemort false confidence in Death’s wand, which you knew wasn’t his, in order to give Harry an advantage and, of course, to continue protecting Draco. Not to mention that you are getting restarted even without a Horcrux or a set of Hallows. Your Persuasion and Agility are nines, by the way.”

“Another point to both then.”

“Your empathy is at five, up from three.”

“Adequate considering what I’ve been forced to witness and will likely witness in the future. What am I most severely lacking?”

“Charm began at one; now it’s at three. You can be quite charming, but the effort required gives you a stress headache.”

“Make it a four. I will endeavor to stop clenching my jaw when attempting to be less abrasive. I don’t suppose that there is a category for getting a full night of natural sleep?”

“That falls under endurance, which is already at eight. You might benefit from working some magic in or out of your mattress and pillow.”

“Max it.”

“May I remind you that you only have one point remaining, not two?”

“Call it an endurance bonus for having lived and died quite horribly once and agreeing to do more of the same.”

“Oh, very well.”

“Hmm, it would seem my one extra point in Persuasion did not go amiss.”

“You’ll need to get a custom-made wand as soon as you can. Your old one won’t recognize you. Garrick Ollivander won’t have a worthy replacement waiting for you in a box somewhere, either.”

“Shall I pickpocket Dumbledore’s wand when I shove him down the moving staircase, my Lady?”

“I think I’m going to enjoy working with you, Severus Snape.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

Lady Magic resizes his former life’s black silk dress robes and dragon hide boots to fit his newly resized sixteen-year-old frame. Fussing unnecessarily as any mother may be tempted to do, she transforms his hair to be less uneven and more free from split ends, foreign particles, and knots. She whitens and straightens his teeth, which he thinks should hurt somewhat but doesn't.

The Lady mentions that he will return on Saturday morning, a week before the start of OWLS, about three weeks before the event that had formerly ended his ‘friendship’ with Lily Evans. Snape did well enough on all his OWLs but didn’t put as much effort in as he should have in the classes that he cared less about. He looked forward to giving OWLs his all this time. Yes, he’s had more experience but will also have almost no study time to refresh his memory on the courses he took, quite literally, another lifetime ago. That seemed to make things as fair as anything else in life ever is. Lady Magic gives him a motherly peck on the cheek and gestures to a shadowy hallway that turns out to have a rather steep drop-off.

Severus wants to land on his feet like a cat and hit the ground running. He wills himself to fly down rather than just freefall since he’d rather not return to life impaled through the chest on a whimsically decorative cast iron fence post. That would be just my luck. Luck! Surely, I can’t have more than a single point of that?

------------------------

Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!

Chapter Text

He lands softly without a sound, thanks to twin Silencing Charms that are apparently still active on his boots. When he steps out of the Shadow of Death into the early morning light in an alcove between buildings near Gringotts, he is most struck by how effortlessly all of his joints are now functioning. For the first time in memory, he is nearly pain-free. Youth truly is wasted on the young, but it will not be wasted on me, not this time around.

Gringotts, as he had learned by osmosis from being a Slytherin, was a lot more than just a bank. It was the magical world’s window to the Goblin Nation, which existed not only extensively underground but also off in other magical dimensions, according to Filius. If Wixen wanted to do business with Goblins, Gringotts was probably their best, if not their only, option. Goblin artistry and workmanship were the stuff of legends, but it didn’t stop at jewelry, weaponry, and other artifacts. Creativity and precision ran through everything that Goblins did—business, engineering, medicine, law, war, running con games, stand-up comedy, championship dueling—no Wixen did anything quite as creatively as Goblins did with blade-like precision.

Severus admires Goblins in general as quietly as he can manage. I'm sure that Filius was aware of my begrudging respect, especially during our many practice duels. Thankfully, he chalked it up to comradery shown to a colleague instead of calling me out for being fannish or creepy.

In the bank, the lines are long. Several in line ahead of him step aside simply because he happens to be glaring. Honestly, how timid are some people? I’ve met eleven-year-old Hufflepuffs made of sterner stuff. I haven't even started sneering yet, nor have I bared my newly improved choppers at anyone.

When he stalks up to a teller, mere moments later, he requests an inheritance test. The teller obviously notifies someone of this, because another Goblin promptly arrives to escort him to a testing room. He spills the requested blood sacrifice, becomes a confirmed Prince and is added to other family lines, which sadly do not cough up additional heirships or trust vaults with his name on them. He conveys his intention to claim the Prince Heirship and asks to speak with Ragnok.

A minute later a senior Goblin arrives carrying a promisingly plain ring-sized wooden box and dismisses the Goblin’s version of Percy Weasley. The senior Goblin introduces himself as Assistant Chief Ragnok. “Congratulations on your Prince inheritance, Severus Snape. May I ask why you asked specifically for me?”

“A friend highly recommended you. I’m afraid I cannot provide you with more information, as they wish to remain anonymous for now.” Trust is never easy and not something to gift lightly. I need a sense of whom I'm dealing with here, beyond a random Goblin with good references. 

To his credit, Ragnok doesn't seem put off. He only nods and opens the hinged lid of the box, pushing it toward Severus. “This ring, like the Prince Lordship ring, offers protection against the harmful effects of poisons and venoms and also renders inert any mind-altering substances.”

Severus wonders if it would have allowed him to survive Nagini’s venom. He’s always been curious by nature but would rather not test the limits of any piece of protective jewelry in this lifetime, if he can help it. Severus claims his Prince Heirship ring, an oval, ostentatious black opal “eye” inset with a disgustingly large brilliant-cut black diamond iris, enclosed by a row of tawdry third-of-a-carat white diamonds set in platinum. It could be even worse. The ring doesn’t appear to bite, blink, or sing Wagner as a soprano, thankfully. It is still an utterly appalling ring. For the time being, he simply disillusions it.

In January, it will be replaced by the Prince Lordship ring, hopefully a ring that looks far more dignified. If it isn’t, as Lord Prince, I can change them both. And when it comes to making small changes that will suit me down to the ground— Severus answers the question Ragnok has just posed, ”Yes, I officially will be changing my last name to Prince. I am also dropping my middle name entirely.”

Just Severus Prince will do. No one named Severus has any great need for a last name, never mind any middle ones. He decides that looking through his vault can wait until next time. He doesn’t wish to put it off too long since it may contain useful books or even a Pensieve perhaps. For now, he has his gaudy trinket connected to his trust account so that he can start using the money to which he has access. Since I am in a bit of a hurry, feeling a doomsday clock ticking down, and have nothing whatsoever to do with my intense dislike for the ring on my ring, I ask about the possibility of becoming emancipated, being declared an adult, and becoming Lord Prince months early.

“While many lordships do indeed automatically confer adulthood, unfortunately, the Prince Lordship is not one of those. Your family stipulates that you must reach age seventeen to become Lord Prince, regardless of the lack of other Princes and despite any current laws concerning legal adulthood. You could remove that stipulation once you become Lord, of course.”

“Most teens are complete dunderheads. If anything, when I am Lord Prince, I’ll raise the minimum age, not lower it.” Was I still an idiot at twenty-five? Why can I not remember?

“A sensible decision!” Severus can’t tell whether Ragnok is enthused because of his apparent age or because common sense seems so rare amongst Wixen in general.

Ragnok informs him that getting emancipated and declared a legal adult would be possible, as long as he can prove both need and the ability to support himself. His trust vault and impending lordship more than fulfill the support part of the equation. It was up to Severus to supply convincing proof of his need to take such an action.

To that end, Severus requests the necessary forms to lodge an official complaint of child abuse against his Muggle father. While filling those out, Ragnok summons two Aurors, Gibbon and Farley, and Healer Stebbins from St. Mungo's to the office. Healer Stebbins confirms with a preliminary scan that yes, there is evidence strongly suggesting a long history of abuse starting in early childhood. The still skeptical Auror Gibbon asks Severus why he never reported the abuse to anyone at Hogwarts. Why, how fortunate that you asked me, Auror Gibbon.

“I did tell Headmaster Dumbledore. I asked him to remain at Hogwarts instead of returning home two summers ago.” That was the summer that Lily and Petunia were going away to some kind of Girl Guides camp. Spending most of the summer at Spinners’ End without Lily was nearly intolerable, but it had been good practice for what came later. “He asked for a memory as proof that my homelife warranted such an action. He took one and watched it in his Pensieve, returned it, and said no, that I needed to return home.”

The Aurors look at each other. Farley sets up her portable Pensieve, which Severus immediately covets. Gibbon asks specifically for the memory that Severus had shared with Dumbledore and of Dumbledore watching it. He calls it up so that Gibbon can take the memory from him. Why not? This is hardly the first time I’ve had an Auror’s wand at my head. Severus is careful to give them the entire memory, as well as Dumbledore viewing the memory and returning it to him, telling him he needed to return home.

It sounds like a joke that Hooch would have told when she had flown too far into her cups—a goblin, two Aurors, and a Healer all walk up to a Pensieve… He has no interest in joining them there. Healer Stebbins leaves the Pensieve early and sickens up violently into the office rubbish bin. He grimaces when he sees Severus watching him, banishes his vomit, and stumbles through the Floo back to St. Mungo's. Both Aurors emerge after a few more minutes, appearing pale and much more solemn. Looking grave, but at least meeting his eyes, Ragnok calls in yet another Healer, this time a Goblin, who performs a comprehensive scan on Severus and magically records his entire abuse history to add to the evidence that the Goblins will turn over to the Aurors, who would then obliviate Tobias of all his knowledge concerning the magical world, Severus, and the house at Spinner’s End. Farley tells him that they will make certain that Tobias signs over the deed to the house and property at Spinner’s End to Severus and also signs a full confession of some sort to give to the Muggle authorities. He is assured that they will "find" enough evidence of Toby’s wrongdoings to justify a suitably lengthy stay in Muggle prison.

Severus is informed that all his physical damage can be healed but that it will take the Goblin Healer, named Healer Longtooth, the better part of an entire day. He agrees and makes an appointment with her for the Monday after the end of term. Severus also gives Gibbon another memory of Tobias disposing of Eileen’s body in the river behind the house—tying her up like a gruesome Christmas cracker in a yellow vinyl tablecloth weighted down with river rocks. His father hadn’t murdered her per se but had certainly contributed to her death by keeping her too weak with frequent beatings and forced marital rights to fight off even an influenza virus, which almost never affected Magicals at all.

He hopes that they will use her remains to buy Toby serious prison time, instead of letting him out again in six months. Not that Severus truly believes that his father would be capable of anything approaching good behavior even while incarcerated. Hopefully he will pick a fight he can’t win whilst drunk on indignity and prison-made wine. There would be some justice in that.

In return for making their jobs easier, Gibbon and Farley agree to return Eileen’s mortal remains when the Muggle authorities are finished with them so that Eileen can be interred properly with family at the Prince family cemetery at Prince Castle. Perhaps, I will rest beside her there when the universe is finally finished with me as well.

Ragnok is senior enough to recognize Severus Prince as a legal adult under Goblin Law and does so for a small fee, which has the effect of grandfathering him into adulthood in the Wizarding World as well, due to the existing treaties between the two nations. He gives Severus a copy of the official papers, which state the same, files a copy, sends the original to the Prince Heir Vault, sends one copy to Hogwarts, and sends several more copies to various departments in the Ministry.

Once that is all out of the way, and Longtooth and the Aurors have left the office, Severus asks to see a brief overview of both vaults and a description of other Prince holdings and interests. Since he is the closest thing in existence to a Prince Lord these days, Ragnok readily agrees to his request.

Over the next couple of hours, Severus discovers, amongst many other things, that his heirship vault holds a mere eight hundred thirty-four thousand, six hundred forty-one Galleons and some change. I have dealt with this kind of real wealth as headmaster but have certainly never owned any of it before now. This is at least twenty times more than what he estimates he will need for his next two years of school fees, supplies, and summer living expenses, now that he will be paying for school himself instead of relying on the bare-bones need-based scholarship allowing students like him and Lily to attend. The main Prince vault currently holds nearly ten times the amount in his trust vault in Galleons alone and is constantly being fed by some decent magical investments, many in Spain, Italy, and Canada, plus a silent part-ownership in Twilfitt and Tattings, where he has just decided that he will shop for all his wardrobe needs.

There are many Prince properties, all of which, as heir, Severus now has access to, including the infamous Prince Castle in Devon, which is an ivy-covered ruin at the moment with a small family cemetery but is surrounded by fifty-two acres of rich magical farmland, greenhouses, and a dairy best known for supplying Fortesque’s with fresh milk, cream, butter, and caramel sauce. There is also Prince House in Mayfair; Prince Cottage in Wales on eighteen pristinely wild acres on the coast; Prince Construction Ltd., purportedly based in Hogsmeade, that he has neither heard a word about nor ever seen; the Prince Building, a currently half-rented commercial space facing Horizont Alley with an empty upstairs and a Mind Healer’s office in the bottom half; Prince Grove, sixty-three acres with walnut and cobnut groves in Kent; and an eight-thousand-acre magical sheep farm above soil with vast underground caverns filled with textile loomeries in County Galway, producing copious amounts of the finest wool fabrics, which supply, amongst many others, Twilfitt and Tattings.

There are many more properties abroad, including an acromantula silk farm in the jungles near Umfang in Thailand, also supplying Twilfitt and Tattings; a magical zoo in Korfu; vineyards in Bordeaux, Alsace, Champagne, and the Loire Valley; lemon and olive groves in Amalfi; orange groves with impressively productive apiaries in Valencia, which currently supply Honeydukes their oranges, honey, and beeswax; a beer brewery in Dusseldorf; a magical resort in Davos; a bakery specializing in Kirschtorte in Zug; and a mixed magical and Muggle absinthe consortium in Val-de-Travers. That sounds like a complete headache, and I don’t even drink. How does one even sell something like that?

Most of the properties and businesses are currently maintained and operated by House Elves, of which the all but dearly departed Prince family apparently keeps many, which Severus views as a double-edged sword. Suddenly, a really interesting idea occurs to him. He wonders if it will double the value of the liquid holdings before his supposed 18th birthday, which seems like a reasonable challenge to set for himself. Severus uses some of the money in his shiny new trust vault to acquire all the available house-elves now waiting for good homes. One female house-elf, named Weems, is the only new elf with an actual resume. She is also so very old as to look completely decrepit.

“Hello, Weems. It says here that you are an experienced nanny?”

His question provokes big fat tears, which dribble down the old elf’s wrinkled cheeks. “They said I was too old!”

He is worried that Weems may pass on before ever leaving Gringotts today. He decides to send her straight off to Prince House, as he remembers it is listed as containing both the least number of adult elves (three) and the most juveniles (nine), including three toddlers and an infant.

“They were wrong. Your new duties at Prince House will consist of helping to cuddle and play educational games with the four youngest Elves, helping to teach all the juveniles and adults who wish to learn, and passing along stories to entertain and inform one and all.” How could even Miss Granger object? Weems nods enthusiastically and pops away.

Uncomfortably, the twelve remaining elves are now beaming at him with wide smiles and wet, adoring eyes. He very sternly grills every single one of them about their work histories, sending nearly half off to various Prince properties that probably could most benefit from their specific skill sets. With the remaining seven, who simply claim general household skills, he decides to open a small service business whereby magicals, Wixen or not, who for whatever reason have no house elves available to them, can pay a reasonable hourly fee to have a rather ecstatic elf do household chores for them. He and Ragnok hammer out most of the details and run the client’s contract; they come up with a couple of past Gringotts lawyers for a reasonable fee.

Severus asks the elves to try his new scheme but makes it clear to all of them that they are now members of the Prince family, forever, no matter what. They may go to live at other Prince-owned properties if they find that this sort of hired, outside work is not to their liking. However, all these elves seem very keen to try something so revolutionary, especially if there is even the possibility of lots of work involved for them.

“Those who want your services will first sign a magically binding contract agreeing to respect you as valuable workers and members of my family, under my protection, and will in no way mistreat you as second-class beings or as rental property. They cannot punish you, nor ask you to do any harm to yourselves or to others, nor ask you to break any laws, nor ask you for anything at all that doesn’t fit neatly into the category of housework, as pre-defined in this contract. Failure of clients to honor this contract results in any Elves present leaving their premises and returning home immediately. Contract-breaking clients will be permanently blacklisted from ever again being able to hire your services. Depending on how the contract is broken, there may be other penalties imposed upon them.

“But no matter what, an additional hour of payment will be drawn from their Gringotts vaults. That money will then go directly into a common discretionary fund to cover any extras that you may wish to purchase for yourselves, your family, friends, or your home. This discretionary account falls outside of our regular household budget, which I oversee and will adjust as needed to cover all our household expenses, including everything that you and I need in order to live comfortably.

“In addition to penalties resulting from broken contracts, into your discretionary account, which you collectively will control and oversee, will go one galleon per week per worker. This is non-negotiable, so do not try to take less. What you do with the money in the discretionary account is up to you to decide amongst yourselves. Your new home will be the upstairs of the Prince-owned property at 403 B Horizont Alley, where all of you will reside together and which you are free to set up in any way you see fit, so long as it adequately provides for your necessary home activities and comfort.”

It is, all things considered, a better deal than I got at Hogwarts, especially considering the long list of “related activities” that my teaching job entailed.

The Elves all quickly agree to these terms and also agree when Severus requests that they respond to the arriving job orders listing schedules and addresses where they are to go work. With much less joy, they promise to work only the hours that are assigned, returning directly home whether or not their tasks for the clients are finished. Ragnok and Severus agree that in the future customers may be able to contract for specific tasks or for a weekly or monthly cleaning service, but to start out, they decide to keep it simple and by the hour.

Work orders will come to the Elves by owl from Gringotts, as the Goblins will run the day-to-day operations for a very reasonable monthly administrative fee covering their costs, plus fifteen percent of every payment received from clients. The Goblins will also inform any other bank customers they feel might benefit from being made aware of this new service. Gringotts also gives Severus first refusal of any house-elves that become available for whatever reason and are looking for new homes, which will help to grow the business and also discourage any would-be competitor from using Severus’ innovative business model without protecting or compensating the elves.

The Elves now are quivering with excitement at the prospect of being able to work at different places. One small one named Gizzy suggests calling the new business ‘Princely Helpers,' and everyone, including Severus, is very pleased with that name. Accepting Gizzy’s name seems to embolden the rest considerably. The Elves quickly decide that they must have self-cleaning, bright white uniforms, which they must volunteer to make for themselves rather than chancing accidental dismissals by being presented with them. Each simple sleeveless knee-length tunic will be embroidered with a gold-crowned purple “P” in the front center and have the full name of the business embroidered in small block letters centered under it. On the back the name is repeated with the words stacked and centered in large block letters, easy to read at a distance if the elf is visible and standing still long enough.

The Elves also wish to make magical flyers, which will appear completely blank to Muggles, using the same crowned P emblem and purple and gold colors. They will tack them up with sticking charms in bustling Wizarding hubs like the entrances to Saint Mungo's and the Ministry, the back alley on the Wizarding side leading to the Leaky Cauldron, just outside the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, and on the community board at the Magical Library in London. Gizzy happily explains that they all badly want to do this so that they will always have lots of work to keep them very busy.

Even Ragnok is now grinning with excitement. He seems to expect that a lot of money will be generated by this venture, both for Gringotts, of which he will get to keep a small cut in commissions, and for Severus, who should receive approximately twenty-seven percent of the profits, give or take. Incoming Galleons not supporting the Elves, Goblins, or the Ministry in taxes will funnel directly into Severus’ heir vault, making it the first of its kind, a student account that instead of just dwindling away, actually earns an income, not that Severus won’t be doing any of the work. He suspects that his role as the business owner will take up far more time than he would like. Regardless, he plans on keeping a close eye on it.

When the Elves depart to sort out their new home and start their volunteer projects, the paperwork is finalized. The last thing required of Severus is yet another blood sacrifice and a signature. The requisite blood quill is the stone that kills two birds.

“There are many other pressing matters that I would like to discuss with you, but not today,” Severus says, since he still has much else he wants to accomplish quickly.

“I look forward to it and will personally oversee all Prince interests going forward.”

“I am honored.” Working all those years with Filius, I learned a thing or two. When they both stand, Severus nods solemnly, hands out, palms turned to Ragnok to signify with a lack of weaponry that he considers Ragnok an ally, “May your enemies drown in their own blood, Assistant Chief Ragnok.” Clearly surprised, Ragnok nods back, hands in the correct position, “And may your gold ever increase, Heir Prince.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

Severus only knows of one custom wandmaker who might be in business at this point in time. Of course he operates out of Knockturn Alley. Severus kept his wits and wand about him there even as a competent adult wizard with a larger-than-life reputation and some very significant connections. Now, as far as anyone can determine, I'm just an unarmed teen in robes and boots of such fine quality that many would line up to kill in order to own them. In the Leaky Cauldron, he buys two pinches of Floo powder wrapped up in scraps of parchment paper and uses half to Floo-call Lowman’s Wands. Severus is relieved when Lowman actually answers. When he convinces Lowman that he wants a custom wand and can pay for it, Lowman opens the Floo and lets him slither through.

The custom wand shop is in a run-down lodging with hideous decor. There is a tattered, poorly hand-sewn multi-animal hide curtain hanging from carved bone hooks on a runner between the front shop area and the back end that has a bed, toilet, sink, and cooker that can all be seen clearly through the holes. The front is decorated mainly with wand-related items, which are for sale, and animal parts, which mainly are not, with some notable exceptions.

There are trophy heads on the walls, former pets preserved through taxidermy with brass name plaques, and horns jutting out of mounts on the walls serving as display hooks with all manner of sheaths and holsters hanging off of them. There are repair kits, stacks of polishing shammies, and rawhide bowls full of various wand-making and maintenance products—unguents, oils, stains, and wood-feeding waxes. Near the counter are two scrimshaw-covered stools carved out of probably extinct magical whale bones. The place looks exactly now like it will look some twenty years in the future.

“Who might you be, then, and how did you come to hear about me?” Lowman in the future is a large, very pink man with white curly hair who smiles more than I had previously thought was humanly possible. Lowman now is salt and pepper on top and not quite so large but is still alarmingly pink and just as annoyingly cheerful.

“My name is Severus Prince. Lady Magic told me about your wands in a dream.”

“Did she, now? Well, that was good of her. Here, you wouldn’t be any relation to Eileen Prince?”

“Eileen was my mother.”

“Was? That's—" his smile falters for the briefest of moments, “I’m sorry to hear it, lad. A nice girl was Eileen Prince—well, for a Slytherin, I mean.”

“You were at Hogwarts together then?” Severus had known the man in his former life as a sometimes supplier of hard-to-come-by ingredients but had no idea the man was at school with his mother.

“Horatio Lowman, proud Hufflepuff, at your service.”

“How did you end up here, Horatio Lowman?”

“By way of a commotion a while back involving rare wand cores and endangered creatures. Now, I didn’t kill any of them, mind, so where’s the harm in me not letting something deceased but still useful go to waste, I ask you?”

“I see,” and truly as a former and future Potions Master, he did empathize.

“They said that I was encouraging shady activities, which is a bit rich coming from that lot at the Ministry of Magic, if you ask me. Stripped me of all my worldly goods in fines and then tossed me in the Big A with the Dementors for six months. Good luck. I had some meat on me because I was all skin and bone when I crawled out. Here is where I got back up on my feet.”

Lowman reaches under the counter and brings out a tin tray with a rainbow of raw wood coin-sized discs featuring many different colors and grains of wood. “Just give your wand hand a good wave over that and pick out whichever blanks give you any sort of feeling—pleasant, strange, heat, tingles—it doesn’t really matter.”

Severus waves over and tries to pick out the blanks in order of his strength of reactions to them. He picks out seven.

“Let’s see here, you got Willow, Walnut, Yew, Ebony, Vine, Aspen, and Cedar. That’s a cracking combination! Can you feel any more, Severus Prince?”

“I can feel all these woods. The ones I chose have especially strong resonance and are placed from my left to right in order of the strength of their connection.”

“You can feel them all? Merlin, I expect that you can make your own wand, if you wish, provided that you can master the proper spells sometime today.”

I wasn’t about to advertise my wandless magic ability needlessly to anyone. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a wand at present, which is rather why I’m here.”

“Got a bunch of used wands for sale. Go fish out the best one from the Oliphant leg umbrella stand yon, and we’ll get you started!” Snape handles them all, including a blackthorn shillelagh, a maple chopstick, a lathe-turned English oak furniture leg that would make a very handsome wand for Hagrid, and the sole bamboo umbrella. They all feel terrified of him, but one (he thinks the wand wood might be purple heart, though due to age it is closer to scarlet in color) feels a bit more curious than all the others. He gives that one a shake. It reluctantly coughs out a few sparks and a bit of wood smoke.

“Not a marriage made in heaven then, is it? It’ll do, though.” Lowman shows Severus a spell required to combine woods seamlessly, one to combine cores to best advantage into a single core, one to drill the hidden center cavity that will hold the core, and one to embed the chosen core inside. Severus has always been a quick study when it came to learning new magic, especially from a competent teacher. Now, it seems, he is even more so.

“Well done, lad. I’d say that you’re a genuine natural. Now, the artistry of the wand is mainly dependent on the maker’s will, creativity, and focus. But there is always an element of the unexpected that makes it all the more fun and exciting! It’s like the wand being made has already got a mind of its own.” Severus performs the Combining Wood wand motion a couple more times and then focuses on forming a sleek wand that will fit neatly up his sleeve, feel comfortable in his hand, and resist Expelliarmus, casting his intentions on the pile that Lowman prepared of thin twigs, one each of the woods that Severus had chosen.

“Simul lignum!” The seven twigs seem to curl, coil, and twist together seemingly haphazardly as a bucket of snakes would, creating interesting patterns as they meld and then lengthen, forming first an elegant handle and tapering into a neatly pointed tip. The curls of competing multihued wood grains remind him of an eldritch, many-tentacled entity he once read about in his youth, or technically, a couple of years from now. His new wand seems to advertise that it is not a wand to be toyed with, which he can certainly appreciate.

“Oh, look at her! She’s a smasher, lad! You've got a rare talent, you do!”

“Thank you; the wand’s name is Cthulhu.”

“Oh, Kit Hula, sure! Hello there, Kit! None serve as well as the wand a wizard makes for himself or a witch for herself. Well, you know what I mean.”

“Lady Magic called wizards and witches collectively 'wixen.'"

“Wixen, eh? Yeah, I like it! Now, let’s get on to the best part!!!”

The process continues with wand cores. Lowman does not limit his wands to the three standard cores that Ollivander swears by. The process is much the same. Severus sets the borrowed wand down on the counter and waves his wand hand over another tray filled with many cores he recognizes, since more than a few are also potion ingredients. Some he cannot identify. Two he would be hard-pressed to describe. Only one potential core pulls at him relentlessly. This one he knows well, “Dragon heartstring." My last wand was ebony with a core that came off the arse end of a dead phoenix. I appreciate the irony.

“Popular for good reason! A dragon heart attracts sharp minds. That’s all I could get from a big green Welsh that died of old age last month. Got a lady friend over at the sanctuary.”

Severus successfully casts the spell for carving the hidden center cavity, visualizing it to be just big enough for the heartstring to fit into it without rattling around, which he knows would annoy him to no end. Next, he casts in order to apparate the core into the cavity.

“You’ve done it! You’ve really done it! Well done, Severus Prince! I imagine that Eileen must have been mighty proud of you, lad. Heck, even I’m proud, and I swear I’m not your Da.”

“Not to worry, my father is a Muggle.”

“Bad business with her promised to some leering, poxy old seventy-something. Yilch! Can’t blame her for legging it over to the Muggle world. Glad she found her happiness there.”

Instead of making rude noises, Severus manages to offer a noncommittal hum in response as he returns the Purple Heart wand to the elephant leg stand, feeling its enormous relief as he lets it go. Back at the counter, he embraces Cthulhu by the handle. The feeling is singular, like he’s reuniting with a part of himself that has always been missing; the prolonged shower of sparks seems endless, reminding him of the Weasley twins’ fireworks displays on their chosen leaving day.

“Ever thought about making wands for a living after Hogwarts?”

“I’m rather too partial to potions,” Severus says, pointing the still violently sparking wand down at the hard-packed earthen floor.

“Good, because you could run the whole lot of us out of business.”

When it finally stops, Severus asks, ”How much do I owe you, Horatio Lowman?”

“Nah, you did all the work, lad. I’ve not had more fun in ages. Tell you what, when you come upon magical things out in the wilds—woods that you can’t use in potions, ingredients that strike you as possible cores—you can bring them here to me. I’ll have even more fun teaching you how we test them! Otherwise, let’s just call it even.”

“I doubt that my mother would approve of me taking advantage of her school friend, even though she was a Slytherin. I’ve also learned not to let my debts stretch into the future. I could die later today, never having brought you a single potential new wood or core for testing. So, I must insist on paying you, if only for the materials I used and something fair for your time. In thanks for the knowledge and experience you’ve kindly imparted, I’ll agree to bring you potential woods and cores just as you’ve asked me, providing that I live long enough, of course.”

“You’re Eileen’s son all over, lad—the formal manners, fancy speech, grim outlook, sense of honor, and black humor. She could always make me smile too! We’ll say three galleons then. Does that assuage your high morals?”

“Let’s say five, and you can include that Hebridean Black dragon hide arm holster,” Snape says, pointing to the only black one not stained or painted black hanging on a rail made out of a deer’s leg bone mounted to the wall, for he had noticed that it was marked as costing two galleons and eight sickles. No one accuses him of high morals and gets away with it.

“You got a good eye. By Lady Magic herself, it’s a deal, Severus Prince! I’ll even throw in a jar of my best wood oil and some beeswax polish for Kit!” Severus settles the bill with his ring, then disillusions it again before using the other half of his Floo powder to leave the same way that he came. He’s hardly a daft Gryffindor, after all.

—-------------------

He stows the scrap pieces of parchment that came with the floo powder in his bag. Since it is now nearly noon, Snape treats himself to a Cornish pasty and an orange squash at the Leaky.

Somehow everything just tastes better now. Perhaps I damaged my taste buds while testing experimental potions or by biting my tongue while experiencing Cruciatus within an inch of whatever passes for my sanity a couple times a week. I also have more of an appetite now with no stomach upset. I probably had a raging ulcer for years and never even cared enough to check. Perhaps Lady Magic had a good point, after all. If I start practicing better self-care, my aptitude for it will improve on its own over time, like exercising an atrophied muscle. Maybe that was the whole point of her getting me to make the promise.

On the way, he steps into the Mind Healer’s office in the building that he now owns. Healer Medcalf is with a patient; he discovers from her assistant, Terrel Shunpike, no doubt some relation to the young man Imperioused and unjustly imprisoned in the future. Shunpike tells him that the healer is accepting new patients and that she has an open slot at 4 pm today. Severus takes it.

I'm under no illusions that I am anything even approaching a clinical definition of mental wellness. I also want to find out exactly who is occupying the bottom half of my building. I'm sure I can discover some way in which she has broken her lease if she proves to be incompetent, a charlatan, or both.

-------------------

Thanks for reading! Feel free to let me know what you think!

Chapter Text

The salesperson nearest the door at Twilfitt and Tattings takes one look at the quality of Narcissa’s gifted robes and decides, for the first time ever, that I'm a valued customer in this establishment. For school, he orders a new silk tie in Slytherin stripes, three sets of appropriately green-accented Hogwarts student robes in three different styles, five mid-weight crisp white long-sleeve cotton button-down shirts, five pairs of black silk/merino blend trousers, a handsome black leather messenger bag with a wide comfortable-looking shoulder strap, a sleek black sterling silver-buckled leather belt, two pairs of black leather lace-up school shoes in different styles, a pair of whisper-soft black calfskin slippers enclosed at the heel and toe, two pairs of black pajamas in lightweight silk, two white knee-length cotton nightshirts, a dark green dressing gown in mid-weight silk, ten pairs of silk/wool blend black socks, and ten pairs of black summer-weight cotton boxer briefs.

He also picks up some plain casual collared shirts, four cotton jumpers in variously textured knits, and four pairs of sturdy corduroy trousers—all in a mix of dark solid colors off the rack. He tries on a buttery pair of black leather dress gloves out of the case and buys them. He orders black calfskin dress boots, black Balmoral-style leather dress shoes, dark brown leather loafers, a dark brown leather belt with a bronze buckle, five sets of casual robes in black, navy, charcoal, deep purple, and hunter’s green, and two sets of dress robes. One set is a latter-day Lucius Malfoy-style frock coat and trousers in charcoal and black for day events or business. The other, for occasions and evening wear, is Asian-inspired, in heavy black Acromantula silk crepe with a high collar and cuffs trimmed in Acromantula silk brocade, black on black with a Celtic knotwork pattern.

Severus thinks that is more than plenty to be getting on with but reconsiders and purchases one more item, a set of one piece, black, thick cotton long underwear with silver buttons down the front only, which he takes with him in his new leather tote. The rest he has sent on to the Elves above Mind Healer Medcalf. I settle the bill with my hideous heir ring, realizing that I have missed Seventies’ pricing. Shopping and going to a mind healer really should fill my self-care quota for the rest of the week at least, whether I shower or not. He would shower and wash his hair, of course, since he has promised and wouldn’t want to put a damper on his second chance at life so pointlessly.

He stops by to tell the Elves to expect his orders, finding that his off-the-rack purchases are already there and have been freshly laundered and pressed by them. Two of their uniforms, including the embroidery, are also complete—Gizzy and a short, round male Elf named Eggy are already wearing theirs, but all their uniforms have reached the final stages. The Elves shine under his praise for their neat tailoring and fine embroidery skills.

They are eager to show him their progress on their other projects as well. Three sample versions of the flyers are ready for his choice and final approval. More than a few future seventh-year students are put to shame by the correctness of the spelling and firm grasp of grammar. He chooses the one design he thinks looks ‘cleanest’ to reflect the nature of the service they will provide and then pockets the other two, which he comments also look very accomplished and shouldn’t go to waste.

He tells their enthusiastic faces that they may start by producing one hundred flyers exactly like that chosen sample and may post them with sticking charms in all appropriate places, tonight or tomorrow night, under cover of darkness. They assure him that they will not be seen and that they will leave no litter blowing around. Gizzy then suggests that they could charm all the flyers to stay clean and wrinkle-free and to pop back home if they get thrown away or dropped on the ground somewhere. Then the Elves could replace them upon the next nightfall. Severus agrees and tells Gizzy that she is now in charge whenever he is away.

The other Elves are thrilled for her and congratulate her on being given a longstanding job to do. He decides that he will try to think up longstanding jobs for other Elves in the future. The decor they had chosen so far was what he might expect in an upscale Muggle drug den with lots of unnaturally bright colors everywhere. It all looks very strange to him, but who is he to criticize their art? As long as they feel at home here, it was fine having mattresses directly on the floors, carpets on the walls and ceilings, and a bathtub relocated to the middle of the kitchen. Which is not so strange, really. The kitchen was where he had always bathed as a child at Spinner’s End. Since he can think of nothing else positive to say, he compliments them for moving in so efficiently.

He also inquires whether or not they feel that they will have enough space here. Gizzy assures him that they can fit many more House Elves comfortably, and can expand the inside spaces as needed. Severus had planned to enhance his own purchases but now decides that it would be sheer cruelty to spend time, which he doesn’t have to waste, doing things that would give the Elves both pleasure and purpose. So, he borrows a piece of their intended flyer parchment, quill, and ink, and writes out a long, detailed list of his new purchases and how he wishes each to be enchanted. He also includes the clothes and boots he is now wearing.

Predictably, the Elves are delighted, as though their Christmas morning has come early. He leaves the list, the long black underwear, and the leather bag, requesting that they start on the underwear first after finishing their uniforms. Gizzy agrees to do so and also agrees to deliver the finished items personally to the Elves at Hogwarts on his behalf. Severus hopes that Princely Helpers will take off quickly before these Elves are literally left climbing their carpeted walls for something else to do.

It is just past one-thirty before he leaves them to get on with his day. He cannot remember the state of his end-of-5th-year school supplies but suspects that it is just as grim as it usually was. He knows that he has quills to spare. Severus had always thought other people were insane for buying plain ones. Ever since first year, he raided the Owlery for long fallen feathers, banishing away any owl poo, hitting them with a cleaning charm, and carefully cutting the quill nibs to perfection with Eileen's razor-sharp sterling silver potions knife. He had always shared his quill stash with Lily. He even managed to sell some occasionally when someone lost or broke theirs right before or during classes.

At Scratchy Scribner’s, Severus purchases a thick roll of good parchment, two bottles of quality black ink, several blank books with black leather covers, and lamp black, dark purple, and bottle green sticks of sealing wax. He orders a pewter seal to be made with the Prince family crest, since he didn’t see one in his inventory list at Gringotts, a custom pewter Princely Helpers seal, and some customized gold leaf letterhead for both the business and his own personal use. He shows one of the Elves' mock-ups as an example of exactly what the P emblem should look like on the seal and stationery. The engraver copies the flyer with a Geminio. Severus returns the Elves mock-up to his bag.

Reading it, the engraver says, “What I wouldn’t do to get a House Elf to fix up mine for an hour. Is this service up and running?”

“Yes. Anyone interested may find out about the specifics and book through Gringotts.”

---------------

Severus is right on time for his appointment with Healer Medcalf. Terrel takes him back and introduces him to Healer Medcalf, then retreats and closes the door behind him. Healer Medcalf is a thin, very dark-skinned woman, about thirty, with full lips, large eyes, and high cheekbones. She is wearing a mudcloth-inspired headwrap and robes. Her nails and toenails are silver, as are her rustic-looking bangles and chandelier earrings. She is clearly Squib-born, wearing strappy sandal-style platform ankle-breakers that elevate her almost to his eye level. But, if the additional height of her head wrap is considered, then she stands a bit taller than him. He calculates that she would be about 5' 4'' without the sartorial advantages.

After initial pleasantries, during which he takes care not to clench his jaw, they both sit in facing overstuffed leather chairs near a large, slow-running fountain that he supposes was meant to be soothing and not just constantly remind him that he has a bladder. The room is pale and airy, featuring several abstract artworks in earth tones that strike him as unnecessarily bland. High windows provide both natural light and privacy. There is a large peace lily in a terracotta pot in one corner and a hanging philodendron in a cast iron basket near a window. On the floor is a brown jute area rug over grey bricks that look original to the building.

Between them is a low chrome and glass coffee table. In the center of the table is a pewter tea tray. On it are two glasses and a large glass pitcher of water, with slices of fresh lime floating in it. After being assured that there is a loo available, he helps himself to lime water, trusting the anti-poison charm on his ring as well as the fact that a mind healer is unlikely to poison a patient, especially even before the first session. He finds his drink tart, refreshing, and delicious, a welcome change from the omnipresent pumpkin juice at Hogwarts. On the edge of the table nearest to him is a box of Muggle disposable tissues. He looks beside his chair. Sure enough, a small rubbish receptacle with a plastic bag inside is there, ready to receive them.

“So, Heir Prince, I don’t see too many patients as young as you are. Why did you decide to make an appointment with a mind healer today?”

“First, I’d like to check for listening devices and spells, house elves, Animagi, anyone disillusioned or wearing an invisibility device or spell, as well as Muggle technology.”

To her credit, Healer Medcalf’s eyebrows stay put. “All right.”

Severus quickly and silently goes through his entire catalog of detection spells. Once satisfied, he says, "I also request your permission to ward your office with my own privacy and security spells.”

Medcalf agrees but writes a few words down on her clipboard that he would bet a handful of galleons include the word "paranoid." But so far, both her patience and unflappability have earned her respect from him. When he finishes, she simply asks, “Anything else?”

“Yes, I want you to swear by Lady Magic the following things: that whatever I say in this office will go no further, that you will neither speak of it nor in any other way communicate it nor record it, except by handwritten notes, which you will magically randomly encrypt under a password known only to you, and that you will spell your notes to self-destruct immediately should either of us become trapped, incapacitated, or dead. Swear also that you will not place a memory of our sessions or other conversations into a Pensieve unless I give you my uncoerced permission, and that you will not allow yourself to be placed under Legilimency for such information, and that you will call on Lady Magic to help you to keep all such information relating to me safe from anyone who would take such information from you by force or by any other means.”

Looking up from her note-taking, she says, "I, Carole Leigh Medcalf, swear by Lady Magic that whatever Severus Prince may tell me in this office will go no further. I will not speak of it to another living soul, except Severus Prince, this person who is here in this room with me today. I will not seek to communicate it to any third parties, nor will I record it by any means except my handwritten notes, which I will keep randomly encrypted under a password known only to me, and will spell those notes to self-destruct should either Severus Prince or I ever become trapped, incapacitated, or dead. I further swear that I will never share a memory of our sessions or conversations with a third party, nor will I place such a memory inside a Pensieve, without Severus Prince’s prior knowledge and uncoerced consent. Furthermore, I will not allow any memory of Severus Prince or of our sessions and conversations to be viewed by a third party via Legilimency. I now call on Lady Magic to help me to protect my notes, my memories of our sessions, and this oath from anyone who would take them out of my control by force or by any other means. On this entire oath, I do hereby swear on my magic in Lady Magic’s name. Was that sufficient?”

“Yes, thank you. I am not sixteen. I lived an eventful life and died at 38 in 1998. I am returned here, to my past, put back by Lady Magic into the body of my 16-year-old self.”

“I see. What happened to convince you that this is the case?”

“Lady Magic, will you step in for a moment, please?”

Healer Metcalf starts in her chair when a warm hand lands on her right shoulder. She looks up into a face that she immediately recognizes.

“Hello Carole. He may need you to help him to heal, but he is not delusional, my dear. Nor is Severus in crisis. His behavior may seem irrational, paranoid, and troubling, but he is this cautious and thorough for very good reasons.”

“You look exactly like my mum except that Mum’s a Muggle.”

“She looks like everyone’s mother, apparently.”

“Magically speaking, I’m the mother of all Wixen, my dears.”

“You really are THE Lady Magic. Right, nice to meet you, finally, my Lady. But why? Why would you do such a thing to him?”

“Because Severus has the best chance to save the world.”

“That’s pretty big. A high-pressure job, especially for one person, even if he isn’t just the boy that he appears to be.”

“Now you can help him too by being someone he can talk to, a secure sounding board. You can also help him work through his traumatic past life. Good luck, my children. I trust that you will both accomplish much!” Lady Magic blows them each a kiss and blinks out.

“Stars. Right, well, I can do that, help you, I mean, in this way at least, but I’m afraid our time is up for the day. Okay, it's not. I don’t have another appointment until five, but I do need a little time to process all of this. You are not my typical patient, Severus Prince.”

“No, I’m afraid I won’t be.”

“You can leave by the Floo in the main room and can Floo into the office, if you’d like. The Floo address here is just "Healer Medcalf. " Help yourself to the Floo powder. There’s also no charge for this first consultation. Terrel will be sending your future bills to where?”

“Just upstairs. I’m your neighbor and also your landlord.”

“Prince Building! Now see, I would usually welcome you to the office at this point, and you are welcome here, of course, but it just sounds silly to welcome you to your own building. Shall we say, Same time next week?”

“Yes, but I probably won’t be available on every Saturday.”

“No matter. We’ll work something out. It's understandable, what with your... quest."

"A bit Monty Python, isn't it?"

"Too right, and she's the actual Lady of the Lake!" Carole whispers like she is afraid of them being overheard.

Severus chuckles and shakes her offered hand very gently before returning to the waiting room and erecting a privacy barrier. He takes a pinch of Floo powder, tosses it, and says, “Hogwarts, Room of Requirement," dismisses the barrier, and steps through a large fireplace that had just now materialized on this side in an otherwise empty room. The first time he had tried this, he wasn’t sure that it would work, but it was a matter of Hogwarts security at the time.

The identity of a person Flooing into anywhere else at Hogwarts, including the private quarters, is recorded and made available on a list for the Headmaster daily, as Severus discovered when he became Headmaster. Severus changed this temporarily during his tenure so that he was made aware of the various Floo traffic directly through the wards in real time. Try as he might, the Room of Requirement would never permanently add itself, not to the wards nor to the list, since it didn’t have a Floo, until it did. Once it did, he could add that Floo. But it would disappear from the list and the wards as soon as the Floo disappeared from the room. The same problems exist with the door to the room, so he put an identification spell on the actual floor in front of the door to keep track of those entering and exiting from the room. There was nothing he could do if they simply floated above the floor as he tended to do, along with Voldemort.

Albus was either unaware of the problem or simply didn’t care. Perhaps he didn’t view it as a likelihood that he should be concerned about, which is what Severus found most likely. He had noticed that once Albus arbitrarily decided upon such things, he seldom, if ever, reconsidered, even as situations changed, until the poor decision somehow killed someone or otherwise bit Albus on the bum.

Severus heads down to his room in Slytherin. He certainly isn’t going to pretend that he hasn’t been off campus. He isn’t going to volunteer for punishment for it either. He’ll give it his all to talk, cajole, or blackmail his way out of any trouble to prevent wasting time he doesn't have to waste. There is a clock ticking, and he can feel time running out.

In his room, which he shares with three other dead men, Stephus Yaxley, Rhys Wilkes, and Evan Rosier, he finds the stack of off-the-rack clothing now freshly laundered, carefully pressed, and bound up in parcels with brown paper and twine. He undoes the parcels carefully, pockets some of the twine, scrolls the paper, wraps the remaining twine into a ball, and puts the paper and ball of twine into his leather bag, which luckily was the first thing he unwrapped. He checks the enchantments on it and on his clothing to find that the Elves have accomplished them all with more skill and finesse than he probably would have done. His new black long underwear, one new uniform, all his socks and regular underwear, two white shirts, one pair of black pants, his black belt, one pair of black school shoes, two white nightshirts, his dress boots, and many of his new school supplies have arrived and immediately go into his bag. He now has more than enough to be able to rid himself of all his old clothes, which he believes will be necessary.

He starts with his best detection spells to find that all the magic currently on his mother’s ancient school trunk is his own. He dismantles his old wards. He dumps out the complete contents of the trunk onto his bed. He hits the cedar trunk with a new Reparo as it appears to be coming apart at the seams due to age, wear, and various attempts at sabotage from his roommates over the years. He reworks a much simpler, yet more effective, warding array. He also uses cleaning and freshening charms inside and out before putting away most of his new clothes into it, keeping only one complete change of casual clothes, his long underwear, and his new tie in his bag. He takes stock of his old belongings.

All his old clothing, including his previous school robes, shoes, tie, underwear, and socks, are frankly in terrible shape. Since he can’t abide the waste of just banishing them into the aether, he uses a household spell his mother taught him long ago to turn the cloth into a small rag rug, a bit larger than a standard welcome mat. His shoes are cheaply made and Muggle-made of synthetics and were purchased secondhand. They also had a real whiff of Cokeworth River about them. Those he banishes to under Sirius Black's bed in Gryffindor Tower. The mat gets a couple extra cleaning and freshening spells and goes into his bag. There are books, mainly school texts and library books, which he will return tomorrow since he remembers having read them; potion supplies; a pair of noise-silencing earmuffs from Herbology; Eileen’s protective potions goggles, which Sirius Black destroyed in their sixth year; the shampoo and soap that he used to make for himself in the lab; the soap wrapped in Muggle wax paper that Mrs. Evans first used to wrap a sandwich Lily had shared with him before they ever started Hogwarts; and his shampoo in an old glass TCP bottle, which he more recently dug out of the Evans’ garbage just for this purpose. He checks to make sure that the fluted white plastic top is screwed tightly and isn’t leaking.

There is Eileen’s wool money bag made for carrying or hanging on a belt. It contains the pleasantly surprising amount of twelve quid plus a couple of Galleons and some mixed change. He assumes he has been saving up to buy things for Lily, which is where most of his ready dosh always went. On top of selling quills and occasional copies of his class notes, he tutored Purebloods for pay. He generally spent his money on her Christmas present and birthday (in January, like his own), but he also tried to buy her a nice surprise, something that she badly wanted or needed in the summer as well.

That didn’t happen after the 5th year, for obvious reasons. There are a few other possibly useful odds and ends and some sentimental things that he decides are worth keeping for now. They all get cleaning spells and go into the bag. There are many other things that he cannot justify keeping. Things that once held meaning but simply don’t anymore—a yellow Muggle paper serviette, two small sticks bound together with straw, a Muggle soda bottle cap, a small orange pebble, which on second thought he decides to keep as it might be carnelian, useful in some potions. He unfolds a ridiculous note that he and Lily had passed back and forth in the library and doodled all over, which may have had value to the Harry Potter he remembers. Severus hopes the one in this life will not have to clutch at such things to feel some connection to his parents. He hopes that this life’s Harry Potter will simply have to grow up with both his parents by his side.

He strips, hits himself and what he’d been wearing with cleaning and freshening charms, and puts the clothes and boots away into his trunk. He changes into new underwear, spelled self-cleaning and to stay fresh and white; a pair of new summer-weight socks, spelled self-cleaning and to stay fresh, resist holes, stay up, and keep feet cool and dry; a long-sleeve navy cotton jumper that was spelled to fit, to self-clean, and to stay fresh and resist hexes and curses; and a pair of charcoal grey corduroys with all the same enchantments plus a self-mending charm. Instead of his boots, he dons his new pair of school shoes, now spelled to fit, to cushion from impact and friction, to step in silence, and to resist forced removal, scuffing, crushing, dirt, shock, sweat, odor, water, Transfigurations, Hexes, Curses, and Charms not his own or the Elves, with a Stay-tied Charm, and charms for anti-breaking, anti-cutting, and anti-tampering by anyone (not him or Elves) cast on the laces. There were similar spells and enchantments on all his new purchases.

Having taken stock of everything in his trunk, he writes a quick note to Gizzy asking her to buy and deliver to Hogwarts a particular cream deodorant and tooth powder (both of which he had used at times during his previous life when he had no time to make his own in the lab,) a rosewood boar’s bristle toothbrush, a rosewood boar's bristle hairbrush, a wide-tooth rosewood comb, a basic men's manicure set, dragon hide protective gloves, and a dragon hide apron for safer Potions experimentation (in case he needs to do any) and for use in classes and his Potions OWL, and mostly because he always wanted them. He asks her to give the school owl a treat and some water before its return flight, and thinking about it, adds two large bags of Aunt Hortensia’s Healthy Owl Treats to her list, one for himself and one for the elves.

Feeding bacon, even bacon from the magical world, to poor unsuspecting owls was the one habit of Harry Potter’s he found most appalling. Pork fat clogs their circulatory systems. The bacon fat is wrong for purposes of their insulation as well, leaving them less properly insulated and more exposed to the elements than they would be on a diet of only healthy fats from their preferred prey. Also the high salt content of bacon damages their kidneys. Muggle bacon was even worse, with a possible array of synthetic flavors, toxic chemicals for preservation, and even actual carcinogens.

He had tried to get Minerva to have a word about this with Potter, but she laughed in his face, telling him that he saw Potter as often as she did and said he should have his own word. He even tried to get Hagrid to have a word with the boy. It was like talking to a wall. Not only did Hagrid believe that bacon was perfectly acceptable (since owls are wise and love bacon), but he also wanted to talk about the virtues of bacon and how Severus should eat more of it to put a bit of meat on his bones. Then Hagrid had extolled the merits of Potter as a good person so that Severus could stop being so hard on the poor lad. Ultimately, they were all right. Bacon didn’t end Potter’s Snowy Owl.

Severus realizes that while he can’t spend this life trying to control what others do, he can control the nutritional quality of what he and the Prince Elves feed to the Gringotts and Hogwarts owls. They would be getting the best-tasting (yes, he has tasted them) and most nutritionally balanced (yes, he has tested them) owl treats currently on the market. He decides to look into investing in Aunt Hortensia’s business, as he believes it is one of integrity and knows that it has lasting success. The company was still doing business when he died in the Shrieking Shack.

Severus shrinks the trunk and puts it too into his black leather messenger bag, which is now enchanted to weigh six ounces despite what may be inside of it. The bag has unlimited spatial expansion, a constantly updating inventory that he can access inside the bag, protection charms keeping the outside waterproof and nearly indestructible, a charm to keep items inside free from damage, a sorting system so that he can call up something from the very bottom without physically digging around for it, and various wards that he can set to his magic signature, which he decides that it is now time to do right now. Once that is done and everything he wants to keep is stored where he wants it, and the absolute garbage is banished, Severus leaves his rooms for the Owlery. On his way he casts, “Accio a rodent, not someone’s pet!” and when one smacks into his hand, he stuns it quickly and stashes it in the pocket of his cords. He holds the stunned rodent by the tail and asks the parliament of owls, “Which of you wants to fly to Diagon Alley?”

A big tawny-eyed barn owl, with a chunk missing from its right ear and whose beak looks like it is just starting to scissor, edges over to him and sticks out his leg. Severus lets the owl enjoy his unexpected healthy snack first, then uses some twine from the Elves' parcels to secure the note to Gizzy not too tightly around the owl’s foot. He tells the owl the street address on Horizont. “Thank you. Take that directly to the Elf named Gizzy. I’ve asked her to give you a treat and some water before you leave.” The owl nods and makes a little hooting sound as he takes flight.

Severus takes an early supper in the Great Hall, surprising himself by eating all of his portion of haggis, tatties, and neeps, plus a helping of mixed salad greens in an herbaceous vinaigrette, which he is sure he has fully identified by his last bite. That is followed by a large dark chocolate-dipped strawberry, which he cuts into four sections and eats as he ate everything else, methodically, using his knife and fork. He hears the surprise, indirect comments, and speculations regarding his improved hygiene and new clothing but ignores it all, especially the theory that he recently has taken up prostitution.

Returning to the dungeons, as he is walking past his old rooms, his curiosity gets the better of him. He asks the snake carved into the wooden door to let him enter, fully expecting that it won’t. He steps in when, without a pause, the door swings open. It looks the same as when he first moved in here at age 21. He banishes some dust. He checks the lav and shoots off some more cleaning charms. He strips again, putting his clothes back into his bag, which he hangs on the hook behind the lavatory door. He calls forth his soap and shampoo and takes his agreed-upon daily shower, washing his hair. It only takes a couple of minutes. He is not sure why he is still so averse to maintaining decent daily hygiene. He suspects it is because it was so impossible for him to accomplish and so unpleasant to try when he was a child.

At Spinner’s End, they had no indoor plumbing until he installed it himself, upstairs and down on the back wall of the house a couple of years after he started teaching at Hogwarts. He created a proper, if tiny and strictly functional, Muggle-style lavatory upstairs, with a shower no bigger than a coffin, a tiny sink, and, as they say, a bog-standard toilet, and downstairs, a working kitchen sink and adequate water heater. He used magic to accomplish it all but also used all Muggle materials and standards, just in case he ever decided to sell the place or died and someone else sold it. He’d meant to fix up the rest but was always either too busy or too poor to continue.

As a child, there was a shared outdoor lav in the back a few doors down that serviced all the two-ups and two-downs on their side of Spinners End. One toilet, one sink, one shower, and cold water only. The lav was seldom if ever cleaned and always reeked of some combination of stale urine, vomit, and backed-up sewage. There was regularly a waiting line anyway. One of the women at the other end was attacked and killed inside there. The neighbors who lived closer heard but did nothing. It was never a place of cleanliness, comfort, or safety; it was just the best option available. He thinks that just a couple icy cold showers, in cold air, with horrific smells, no windows for ventilation, and no working lights, ruined him forever for wanting to have good hygiene.

After the murder, instead of bathing in there under the icy shower, Eileen would take Severus with her. He carried the empty bucket. They would fill it up from the sink, where the bucket wouldn’t fit. Severus would set it on the floor in front and would use a little magic to direct the flow of the water out of the tap into their bucket. It took ages to fill. Eileen acted as lookout. When he was really little, they used a wooden spoon. She would take the big end, the bowl of the spoon, and walk hunched over, while Severus would hold the little end and walk on tiptoes. If they weren't careful, the handle of the bucket would slide down the handle of the spoon and smash his little finger. The first time he dropped the bucket. They went to fill it up again.

He soon learned to carry it all the way into their kitchen with Eileen with no smashing, sloshing, or dropping. They fetched water together for cooking and laundry the same way. They only had the one bucket. Then one day, when he was about four, he decided that he could carry the bucket full of water all by himself. She let him. They still always went out together to fetch it. He would wait up in his room until Eileen was finished bathing and redressing and would call him down. They would bathe using the bucket and an old rag, drying themselves more or less with another rag before dressing again, usually in their same clothes. They didn’t use soap because they never had any. They could barely find enough money to eat something every day, with Tobias constantly drinking the bulk of his caloric intake with his mill cronies down at the local, spending both his and Eileen’s checks to do so.

Severus would bathe next, using the same water. His mother would give him his privacy too. The whole exercise seemed so pointless, though. I never believed that the icy water would make me feel clean enough to justify suffering the feeling of being wet, naked, and vulnerable in the cold air. It is always inexplicably cold at Spinner’s End. Even in the middle of July at noon, that house is unnaturally chilly and dark inside. If there was ever a dark cloud in the sky, it would settle over that roof. I often wondered if my mother or perhaps her family had cursed the place, but I could never find any evidence of one. I used to imagine that even dementors would have starved and frozen in there.

When he feels certain that every part of his body is cleaner now than it had been, Severus makes sure to shampoo his hair for a second time. I know it helps cut down on my general greasiness due to overactive sebum production inherited from my father, as so much of me seems to be. It will be much worse now that I'm a teen again. He makes circles with his fingertips, working the shampoo across his scalp, getting behind his ears, and all along his scalp line, paying extra attention to all the areas that are easy to miss, and then rinses all the shampoo off just as thoroughly. He rinses for another few seconds under the perfectly warm spray, making sure all the soap and shampoo are rinsed down the drain, and calls himself done. He’s dry again with magic before stepping all the way out of the shower. He hits the shower and bathroom floor with another cleaning and drying spell, redresses, and realizes that he actually does feel miles better than he did before showering. Maybe I will get something out of his new hygiene routine beyond just satisfying my promise.

Severus dries his bar soap off with a drying charm, rewraps it back into the scrap of wax paper, and returns it to his bag. He dries his shampoo bottle, makes sure the top is on tightly, and puts it away as well, and dries the shower. He’s decided that he is going to move permanently into these, his old professorial rooms. None of his roommates will mind having extra space instead of someone none of them have ever liked. He goes back to his shared room. Yaxley is in there reading, ignoring Severus. Severus returns the favor. He shrinks his bed, desk, and chair, hits them with cleaning spells, and puts them into his bag. Back in his rooms, he places the rag rug in front of the fireplace, which is currently unlit, not connected to the Floo System, locked manually, and protected with his best Light ward. He sets up his bed and places the trunk against the opposite wall. He remembers Lady Magic’s comment about his mattress and pillow. He does a Revelo charm to see if it has been cursed. To his great surprise it hasn’t been, or if it was, the curse has since worn off.

He tests his pillow next. It has a Stiff Neck Hex he recognizes by the magical signature as Rosier’s work. He disentangles the hex as carefully as he can so as not to break it apart and carries it on the end of his wand, out the door, down the hall, through the packed Slytherin Common Room, up the boy’s side stairs two flights, and down the hall to the room he has just vacated. He gently finesses the still active hex onto Evan Rosier’s own pillow, adjusting it this way and that until he is certain that it will hold perfectly. Yaxley is still ignoring him, or possibly is just that absorbed in a good book. Yaxley is the only roommate other than himself who appreciates reading books that aren't assigned by a parent or necessary for a class.

When he lived in his rooms as a professor, he had liked having the snake on the door but obviously never interacted with the inanimate carving. He had used a password and Light-sided warding to protect his rooms, but Dumbledore could come and go through those like they didn’t exist. He only ever bothered knocking when he wanted something.

When reaching the door, he has a word with the snake, which animates at the sound of Parseltongue. The snake, named Shasah, readily agrees to guard his door. He tells it to deny access to everyone else, forever. He doubts it will keep Slughorn out or slow Dumbledore down significantly, but it is worth the try. He changes out of his shirt, corduroys, and shoes into his new slippers and an airy cotton nightshirt. He sets up his desk and chair in the corner opposite his kitchen, where his couch used to be. He puts his bed where his old bed was in the bedroom and puts his trunk facing it against the opposite wall.

He hits his bed and his pillow with multiple cleaning and freshening spells. He lies down on it on his back, hugging his pillow tightly. It really isn’t what he’d ever call a comfortable mattress. He transfigures the mattress to be firmer, trying it out in between spells until he is satisfied. It definitely feels better for his back this way, but I can’t predict what it will be like to sleep on it for hours. He tries out the pillow. It seems adequate. He smooths his bottom sheet, straightens his comforter, and fluffs up his pillow, then puts a light compulsion charm on it so that he will feel sleepy for the first five minutes or so after his head makes contact. He could always lift up and lie down again if he needs another five minutes to get to sleep.

He knows that most of the professors set important review topics as essays for the 5th and 7th years leading up to OWLS and NEWTS. He looks through his schoolbooks at his desk to see if he has any work that he needs to finish before Monday. He finds his current list of assignments written on a familiar-looking piece of parchment that he can see light through because it has been written on and then blanked out again for years now, probably. Just to be perverse, he is going to continue using it just to see how much wear he can get out of it next year. He has already written out his potions essay on Wiggenweld for Horace. It is superb—concise, to the point, meaty, insightful, error-free, properly cited, with a logical, well-supported conclusion. It is at least an E by my high standards. Horace will give it an O and gush, especially since I will be dressed decently for the first time in my entire Hogwarts student history.

He finds that he is half finished with an essay on Vanishment for McGonagall. He reads over what he has so far and decides that his draft is what needs vanishing. Blanking it out and starting again is his pride’s only option. In lieu of comparing and contrasting vanishment to conjuring (like his first partial draft did, and surely 90% of the essays that Minnie reads Monday night will do, (most of them probably even more poorly written than his draft),) he writes instead on imaginative ways of using Vanishment Charms in self-defense.

Twenty minutes later he is finished except for some references that he needs five minutes of library time tomorrow to find and cite. His essay should provide her a pleasant palate cleanser between courses of the usual tripe.

Flitwick requested ten inches on the Silencing Charm. Never let it be said that Ravenclaws are lacking in bravery. Severus' good deed for the day is about using silencing charms in conjunction with non-verbal casting for dueling in darkness or when visually impaired. When Severus finishes a solid rough draft, he puts everything away into his bag, ready for the library tomorrow, and decides to try out his newly unhexed and rehexed pillow. He uses the facilities and a tooth cleansing charm as well as a breath freshener. He steps out of his slippers and settles himself onto his much firmer mattress, sets an alarm spell to wake him at first light, arranges his comforter, and drops his head down onto his pillow hexed with a Sleep Compulsion. He is soundly asleep within a minute.

-------------------

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!

Chapter Text

Severus is woken by his alarm spell, feeling magnificently young and healthy, after the best night’s sleep he has experienced maybe ever. He had never managed to get nine consecutive hours before. According to Eileen, he had never slept well even as a baby. As a child, he always felt lucky when he could get a solid four hours, and at times in his life, getting just two had felt like a small miracle.

On his desk are more packages from the Elves. It is clear that the House Elves of Hogwarts know that he has relocated himself. He finds toothpowder, deodorant, a new brush and comb set, and a new toothbrush. He tries them all out in the lav before dressing for the day and puts them away in his bag. He wears a black collared shirt with mossy green corduroys plus his new belt, and since these corduroys are bootcut, he wears his dragon hide boots.

Since it is still early, he drafts a letter to Damocles Belby. In it, he discusses some of “his ideas” concerning possible new avenues for developing lycanthropy treatments with an eye toward finding a cure. Sending the letter can wait until he receives his letterhead, which he hopes will ensure that Belby reads his letter instead of simply tossing it. He wants to strike a balance between knowing far too much so that his letter will seem suspicious and knowing too little so that Belby will write him off, given that he is just a fifth-year Hogwarts student.

Mostly, he wants Damocles Belby to start thinking about lycanthropy now, instead of many years from now. Belby’s contributions to Potions during this time period were fairly trivial in comparison. What is a better-tasting stomach soother or a less itchy hair remover compared to a potion that eases real suffering and saves sanity and lives?

When his draft is done, Severus decides that he will attempt to stay on this schedule of waking early. He decides to add an exercise regimen to his morning routine. Putting on some muscle and increasing his endurance at this age could only benefit him later—no time like the present. He starts with push-ups and manages eleven good ones before his skinny arms simply won’t lift his body off the floor again. Tomorrow he will do twelve.

He put his back against the stone wall and stepped his feet out until he was in a sitting position, thighs parallel to the floor, relying on his legs to hold him in place. He sets a timer spell and just stays as long as he can. After about a minute and forty-five seconds of holding his wall sit, Severus’s left thigh constricts into a charley horse, which doesn’t ease for almost another minute after he has slid down the wall and applied a spell to relax his muscles. Severus concludes that for a sixteen-year-old, he is in terrible shape. He also thinks that he should probably slow down and ease into an exercise regimen rather than testing any more of his physical limitations.

He does a round of crunches and some stretches that he regrets not doing until now. Since he has generated a considerable amount of sweat and sebum, Severus retrieves his soap and shampoo, strips off again, and takes yet another shower. Two in less than 24 hours may be his personal best. He cannot deny that the warm, soapy water feels great on his sore muscles, though. He washes his hair twice and rinses well. Once dry and having dried and put away his soap and shampoo and cleaned and dried his shower, he redresses in the clothes he had just taken off, since they had spelled themselves clean and fresh again. Severus realizes that he has also worked up quite an appetite for breakfast.

He has just finished a very nice omelet and a selection of fresh seasonal fruit and is still enjoying a cup of hot green tea (which he now remembers as being very popular at the Slytherin table—it is green—during his school years, before falling out of favor for some reason about the time he started teaching) when Albus Dumbledore arrives to put a damper on his day.

“Mister Snape, I wish to see you in my office now that you are finished with your breakfast.”

The few Slytherins up this early on a Sunday seem torn between showing their glee at the thought that their least favorite House member was in trouble of some sort and displaying their general disdain for the headmaster.

“It is Prince now, Headmaster. My last name has been officially changed. But of course, I will be happy to join you in your office. I do, however, request that Professor Slughorn be notified and that he join us here first. Then we three can proceed to your office together. Won’t that be nice?”

“I hardly think we need to bother Horace this morning over a cut-and-dried disciplinary matter, Mr. Snape.”

“As I just informed you, my name is now Prince. I officially changed it when I claimed the Prince Heirship.” Severus hears gasps and noises of disbelief all around him but ignores it and presses on. “Calling me anything else but Prince now that I have informed you twice in the same conversation could be legally construed as harassment, don’t you agree, Headmaster? And I disagree concerning Professor Slughorn. I do have the right to request the presence of my Head of House in any meeting with my Headmaster, regardless of the topic or topics to be discussed.

“But if I am to be brought up there to your office on a disciplinary matter, then it is Professor Slughorn’s duty as my Head of House to attend. It states this very clearly in The Official Hogwarts School Student Handbook of Rules, Regulations, Rights, and Responsibilities, published in 1932, under the Student Rights section, which has not been updated since 1927, when Hogwarts' Board decided that the four Quidditch Captains, as well as the eight Seventh Year Prefects, may all have the right to be considered as eligible candidates for the positions of Head Boy and Head Girl. Personally, I think that decision was a mistake. A Head Boy or Girl, formerly a Quidditch Captain used only to competition between houses, would be far more prone to unfairly favor the House he or she captained than would any prefect who had learned objectivity while dealing with students from every house in all sorts of situations.

“But I digress. I think that the rule about a student being able to insist upon the presence of their head when confronting their Headmaster is a very good rule. Perhaps it was created so that students won’t feel unduly intimidated by the one person in the school with the most power over them. It would certainly help to protect a student from some Headmaster with an unsavory agenda, like forcing a student into an Unbreakable Vow against his will just to cover up the Headmaster’s own personal mistakes, don’t you think so, sir?

“I do realize that it has been a while since you were a student here, however. You could look up the current school rules in the library if you wish to refresh your memory. I certainly won’t mind putting this meeting off for another day or two for you to... better prepare.”

Severus takes another leisurely sip of his green tea and is pleased to see that the Headmaster’s mouth isn’t the only one hanging open. People from other houses have stopped eating, and some have wandered closer to the Slytherin table so they can hear better. He feels Albus test his Occlumency shields and gives him back the equivalent of a playful slap across Albus’ Occlumency shields in return, just to let him know he's been caught trying.

“Very well, Mr. Prince. Bring your Head of House to your disciplinary meeting in my office immediately." Albus turns and stalks out of the Great Hall headed for his office. Severus leisurely finishes his green tea, puts an apple into his bag as a healthy snack for later, and drifts toward the dungeons, head high, back straight, shoulders back, unrushed, like he hasn’t a single care in the world, and as if he is somehow oblivious to the cacophony of gossip, speculation, and intrigue erupting all around him in the Great Hall.

He causes his hideous ring to reappear and knocks quite sharply on poor Horace’s door. On his second round of knocks, he hears a faint “Just a moment.” He can almost picture a sluggish Slughorn heaving himself out of a feather bed gifted to him by some grateful Sluggie alumni. Perhaps a minute later, the door opens. Horace is wrapped in a bright green velveteen dressing gown with HS on the pocket, hair standing shock-upright, looking entirely puzzled at why Severus of all people would be on the other side of the door at this ungodly hour.

“I’m very sorry to have to bother you so early, Professor Slughorn. I’m afraid I must ask you to join me in Professor Dumbledore’s office. I’m fairly certain I am about to be expelled from Hogwarts, sir.”

“Come in, come in. Expelled? Why on earth would you be expelled? Why, you’re a model student. You… you didn’t lash out at one of those awful Gryffindor boys, did you, Snape?”

“Oh, no, sir. I remember what you told me. What I did, well, it’s rather hard to explain. You see, Lady Magic came to me in a dream and told me that despite my mother being disinherited from the Prince line, I could still take an inheritance test at Gringotts and claim the Prince Heirship, but that I must tell no one and go straight away. Then I woke up. This was yesterday morning. I tried, sir… I just couldn’t put Lady Magic out of my mind. It all felt so real, so important.

“I didn't want to get into trouble, but I felt compelled to do as Lady Magic said. I flooed from the Three Broomsticks to the Leaky Cauldron and went to Gringotts to request an inheritance test. I know it sounds mad now, but at the time… Anyway, the test confirmed my claim! I got the Prince Heir’s ring, see.” Severus holds the opal and diamond monstrosity up close so that Horace can get a good look.

“Ho ho, Mr. Snape! Lady Magic is on your side, it seems. As am I, as am I, always, of course!”

“I know it is a bit ostentatious, but I also changed my name to Prince, sir.”

“Yes, yes! Quite sensible!”

“I had so many things to do, reviewing tons of properties all over the world and making decisions about investments that will affect lots of other people and what to do with large numbers of House Elves and large amounts of liquid assets. I even started a business because so much money was just sitting doing nothing. I also charged my Muggle father with child abuse, finally. Some Aurors came to take a report. Healers scanned me to confirm the injuries that my father inflicted over the years. They told me it will take them a whole day to fix all the damage he caused me.”

“Yes, that would rather put Madame Pomfrey out of the running. Best to get fixed up by a proper Goblin Healer for that sort of thing.”

Severus nods. “One of the Aurors asked why I’d never made a complaint of abuse against my father here at Hogwarts. I said that I had tried to lodge a complaint with the Headmaster. This was ages ago, sir, before I was even clear about needing to go to my Head of House first. Anyway, I mentioned that Professor Dumbledore had asked me for a memory as proof of my abuse and that he’d watched it and said it was nothing, that I was just fine at home.

“So the Auror, I think his name was Gibbon, (handing Slughorn a good Slytherin Sluggie source for gathering more gossip,) asked me for the same memory that I had shared with the Headmaster. The Aurors, the healer from St. Mungo’s, and a Goblin all watched it in a Pensieve and agreed it was definitely child abuse. Now I’m afraid that the Headmaster will hold it against me for telling everyone that he already knew all about it, sir.

“I'm also afraid because I don’t have a leg to stand on. I willingly left school without telling anyone. That might be excusable if I were a Gryff, but I know by now how it works for us, Slytherins, sir. That’s why I’m so sure he’s going to expel me.”

“But, our answer is clear, Mr. Prince! We will both simply have to remember about how you told ME that you needed to go claim your heirship, and I, of course, gave you MY permission to leave school grounds on Saturday so that you could deal with your important Prince family inheritance matters. You would hardly be the first heir who required some time away from school for such things. Yes, yes, a perfectly reasonable solution! As you know, I am always more than happy to help one of my most promising Slytherins, and helping an up-and-coming Lord to take his rightful place in our world—well, today is quite the feather in my cap! Quite the feather, if I do say so myself! I really couldn’t be more pleased to be of some small service to you.”

“And thank you, Professor, but no, I couldn’t let you risk yourself like that. You are far too important to all of us, Slytherins, really every student here at school. I wouldn’t want to get you into any sort of trouble, not on my behalf.”

“Trouble? Nonsense!! No trouble at all! Why, he’s up there making Mount Olympus out of a niffler hill, if that! I won’t have it! Won’t have it, I tell you! Now then, Mister Prince, regarding the matter of your guardianship—"

“Oh, nothing to worry about there, sir. The Goblins declared me emancipated and an adult according to the Goblin Nation, which the Ministry now has to honor also because of the treaties, you see.”

“Lucky! Yes, a very lucky turn! Well then, Goblins! The Ministry! I simply can’t see how Albus High and Mighty Dumbledore can object, either! Now, just wait out in the hall for a moment so that I can dress for battle. Then, we two Slytherin warriors will deal with the Headmaster together! I doubt poor Albus will find this one a fair fight, Mr. Prince. No, not a fair fight at all!”

“Oh sir, just one more thing has me really concerned. My name change—it won't negate my membership in the Slug Club, will it?”

Slughorn throws his head back, laughing from his jiggling belly, clearly delighted at the thought that the Slug Club is a matter of great concern to anyone, “No, no, Mister Prince, never! Once a Sluggie, always a Sluggie! Oh, I’ve an eye, a true eye! Yes, I do!”

“Thank you, Professor. I’ll go wait out in the hall now.”

I despise following someone walking so slowly. I trail after him all the way to the Gargoyle. Oh, goodness me, what could the password possibly be today… Lemon Drops?

“Lemon Drops,” says Slughorn.

I follow him all the way up to the Headmaster’s office, ready to cast my best shield charm if Horace trips, misses the railing, and falls backward toward me. Luckily, neither Horace nor I die along the way, before he can give me his retroactive blessing for leaving school yesterday, in Dumbledore’s rightfully suspicious presence.

“Now Albus, what is all this I hear about Mister Prince being called in to face disciplinary matters? Just what is it that you think that he has done this morning, before eight o'clock even?”

“Mr. 'Prince' left Hogwarts yesterday morning and was not seen again until evening. You know as well as I where Slytherins go when they sneak out of school, Horace.”

“Mr. Prince did not sneak out of school! He left for Gringotts with my permission early on Saturday morning, thinking he’d be gone an hour at the most taking care of some pressing family inheritance matters, and found, once he had taken up his Prince Heirship, that there were a multitude of family matters all needing his immediate attention. There is no Lord Prince, you do realize.”

“Is this true, Mr. Prince?”

“It is, sir. I’m willing to swear to it.”

“On what? The Dark Mark on your arm?”

I roll up both sleeves past my biceps and turn them over so Albus can have a good look. “My arms are unmarked, Professor. I've no intention of ever becoming Marked. Nor do I sympathize with the Death Eater’s anti-Muggle agenda, regardless of my Muggle father’s frequent abuse of my mother and me. I’ve lived amongst Muggles my whole life. I know that many of them are good people who do good things. Lily Evan’s parents are both very fine individuals and also are magically challenged. There are the bad and not so bad amongst every type of sentient being, in my experience. Even amongst Slytherins, Headmaster. I will also happily swear to all of that.”

“Would you swear on your magic, Mr. Prince?”

“Albus!!! Now, see here—"

“-It’s fine, Professor Slughorn. "I say," but Horace still looks utterly panicked for me, which I can't help but appreciate. "I, Severus Prince, Heir to House Prince, do swear upon my magic in the name of Lady Magic that my body is not Marked and that I have no intention of ever becoming Marked in the future. I also swear that I do not support the Death Eaters’ agenda for Muggles and have nothing whatsoever against squibs, Muggles, or their magical children. May Lady Magic judge me and my oath. May she strip me of my magic if she finds me to be false. Expecto patronum!”

Instead of Lily’s little doe, an unexpected, blindingly radiant dragon emerges, filling up every spare inch of Albus’ office, with parts of it extending beyond the room. Cognizant that there are no Dementors or other obvious dangers, it curls up and lays its massive head at Severus' feet so that he can pet its nose.

Unfortunately, I had been thinking of another day in Albus’ office when Albus had doubted me to a hurtful degree and I had been able to answer his doubt with my Patronus. I realized a split second too late just how unusual it is for a student to cast the charm, even a clever fifth-year. Hardly the end of the world, though, is it? Not yet, at least.

“A dragon! Why, it’s beautiful, Mr. Prince! A Dragon Patronus! Such a powerful Light spell, Albus! Auror level, I believe! A corporeal magical creature Patronus, Albus—how rare and remarkable! Oh, do take 20 points for Slytherin House, Mr. Prince!” gushes Horace.

“Mr. Prince, where is Peter Pettigrew?”

“Pettigrew? "Is he missing?”

“He also disappeared from Hogwarts sometime yesterday and has not been seen since.”

"I’m sorry, sir. I’ve no knowledge regarding Pettigrew's current whereabouts,” Severus sighed, but not too theatrically. “I’ll be happy to swear to that as well on my magic, again, but could I do it tomorrow, sir? I’m just not sure how much more magic I’ve got left in me at the moment.” Which actually is true, just not in the way that Horace and Albus will interpret the statement.

“Never mind, Mr. Prince. I don’t wish for you to overdo it and end up in Madame Pomfrey’s care yet again. I do believe you. I fear that I have misjudged your character. For that, I truly am sorry.”

“For that, I can forgive you, Headmaster. I do, in fact, sir. Does this mean that I won’t be getting expelled today, even though I am still a Slytherin? Being sorted into Slytherin House isn’t a crime, you know. It’s a high honor! We’ve a long tradition of producing some of the finest potioneers, inventors, healers, business leaders, solicitors, Aurors, professors, Wizengamot members, Ministers of Magic, even Head Masters.”

“Hear, hear!” says Slughorn, who actually claps. He had to be just as fed up with the status quo as the rest of Slytherin House.

“I doubtlessly deserve your jabs, gentlemen. Mr. Prince, I know that there is much else for you to forgive me for, but I can only hope that one day you will be able to do so. Perhaps you will even come to trust that what I have done, I’ve done for the very best of reasons.”

Merlin, at least he didn’t say, "for the Greater Good." I may have projected my breakfast all over his Gryffindor-colored office.

“I’ve been told that a seeker of forgiveness must first demonstrate true regret, Headmaster. One must apologize for each specific transgression requiring forgiveness. You could have my complete forgiveness right now for the price of a sincere, detailed apology and your solemn oath that in the future your students will never have to worry about you repeating those same mistakes. Regaining my personal trust will also be possible but would take some time and require blameless behavior on your part going forward toward both myself and others here at school.”

Albus sits quite still for a moment as if considering my words. “I suppose that I’ll have to settle for what I can get.”

“Apparently." I can’t help feeling just a bit disappointed when my first, last, and best olive branch is rejected. "Are we finished here, sir? I do have much left to study for next week.”

“Ah! Yes, of course. You must go and pave the way for your future academic successes. Best of luck to you with your upcoming OWLs, Mr. Prince.”

Severus stands, nods, and with a flick, dismisses his new Dragon which he thinks may be a ghostly representation of Cthulhu, or at least of the dead Green Welsh Dragon who partially still must exist in the wand's core, whose binding with him produced his first feeling of wholeness. Perhaps this is what it is always like to find a familiar, even if mine is a spirit guardian instead of a living companion. I wouldn’t know either way. "Headmaster, Professor, good day."

“If you do hear anything at all about Pettigrew…”

“-I shall be certain to mention it to Professor Slughorn, sir.”

This time it is Dumbledore who sighs in disappointment. “Fair enough.”

-------------------

Thanks for reading! I hope to hear from you!

Chapter Text

Before the library, Severus takes a look up in the owlery. Unfortunately, he does not see the same tawny-eyed owl again. He knows it got his note to Gizzy the night before but cannot say what may have happened to it after that. He has never read nor heard what happens to an Animagus who is killed in their animal form. Does the form remain? Does the corpse revert back to the original form after a time? If that were the case, it is very bad news for the poor school owl to which he accidentally fed an entire Peter Pettigrew.

In the library, Severus returns the books he had checked out, finds and includes the necessary citations, and rewrites his weekend essays neatly, making them all ready to turn in tomorrow. As he is putting his source books away, he notices Frank Longbottom by himself, beating his head on the table. "Problem, Longbottom?"

"Just that I stink at Potions! I'm never going to pass my NEWT practical. I'm never going to be an Auror."

"Nonsense, of course you are. What specifically has you so boggled at the moment?"

"I can't remember how to make all this stuff without a book. I'm just supposed to know that Polyjuice Potion gets how many stirs widdershins?"

"Three times. Now you know."

"Yeah, thanks, I can't do it! I can't even remember what ingredients go in half of the ones we learned this year. It's like—it's like the more I study, the less I can remember! Ugh, I'm such a complete muttonhead."

Severus grabs his poor abused quill out of his fist and makes a list on the blank margin of Frank's notes. "Look, on the NEWT they'll ask that you make two of these eight potions. The rest take too long to brew in the time you have, have really expensive ingredients that the Ministry isn't going to pay for, or both in the case of Polyjuice. You can learn these eight. Write them out step by step, several times each. You can do this. You're going to be an Auror, Longbottom. You're going to be a really good one, too."

"Just these eight? Are you sure?"

"I'm a Slytherin who wants to get my Potions mastery. You think I haven't got this all plotted out?"

"Thank you! Really, Prince, and thanks for thinking that I can be a good Auror. It makes me believe it, too."

"I also know that you can learn eight potions before the practical. Take a walk outside. Clear your head. Then start writing them out. Here, if you are hungry, eat this apple on your walk."

Before returning to his rooms to study for his upcoming OWLs, he made a quick and surreptitious trip to the Elves' storage room on the seventh floor. He thought it might take him a while to find a Horcrux in a room crowded with junk, but spotting the Dark Magic in there was, to his senses, like looking for a massive black tarantula hiding on a plain white wall.

He leaves it where it is and heads for the girl’s lavatory on the second floor. He finds the tap with the snake detail and asks the snake to open the Chamber of Secrets for him. He flies down slowly avoiding all the dirt and debris in the pipe that he can. He eventually lands amidst an amount of bone that surely would have made Lowman feel like a fortunate man.

Instead of risking the noise of kicking through the bones, he hovers just above them. As he passes shed basilisk skin and the occasional fallen scales, he fires off shrinking and cleaning spells and levitates them into his bag. He thought about taking the time to identify and collect some of the animal bones that could be powdered for use in potions, but none of this was going anywhere. Eventually, he arrives at what appears to be a main chamber.

He calls up his new silk school tie from the bag, ties it in a Slipped Buntline Hitch then slips the knot to widen the ring it makes around his neck until it becomes an effective and comfortable blindfold, which he retightens to stay covering his eyes. He reaches out using his magic like a bat uses echolocation to “see” various obstacles and tunnel entrances. He pushes with his senses and finds the mouth of the statue, presumably of Slytherin, and the chamber located behind it where, unless he is very much mistaken, a very large basilisk now slumbers.

He loosens the blindfold and lets it fall loosely around his neck again. Where the entry tunnel in which he is hovering meets the larger chamber, he erects a Ward Wall Maximus so that even he cannot pass through without dismissing it first. He can only hope that it will hold against an angry giant basilisk. The structure itself is also a worry.

The last thing he wants to happen today is to have an entire castle caving in on him. He fires off a few support spells to help reinforce the existing structure. He erects another ward wall behind him. This one is a one-way shield that should keep everything out but him, creating a fallback position that he can also fire spells through. Just in case, he erects another of the same just behind it. Each shield should at least slow down the beast and give him a bit of extra time to act. He erects two more of the same behind that one.

If all else fails, he can always perform Avis Gallus Maximus to flood the tunnel with roosters and use a Lumos Solem to hopefully trick at least one of them into thinking that it needs to crow about the sudden sunrise. He would much rather not need to kill today, though, if he can help it. He blindfolds himself again. He stretches his senses until he “sees” the magical outline of a basilisk and shout-hisses what he hopes a basilisk will recognize as a polite greeting in Parseltongue. He can feel a vibration that suggests that the very large reptile is now awake and speeding toward him. Surprisingly, it does not attack his first barrier.

“Why do you ruin my rest, Speaker?”

“My name is Severus. I was wondering if you like living here, or if you would prefer to live somewhere else in the world instead."

“Severus is a good name. I am Manasa. You came for a reason; you will tell me what it is.”

“Manasa is a good name. I cannot leave you here but do not wish to kill you. You are a magnificent creature, ruler of all serpents, beloved by Lady Magic, whom I now serve. I wish to move you to a place that you will like much better than here, somewhere not cold, where you can sun yourself on warm rocks. In return, I will ask that you share some of your venom from time to time, which will help me greatly with my missions for Lady Magic.”

“You think you can kill me, Severus?”

“I know that, if I am forced, I will try my best, but that would result in one less magical being in the world, regardless of which of us dies today. Perhaps we could both kill the other, Manasa. However it happens, it would be a waste of life and precious magic, serving no purpose for the Lady I serve. I wish to preserve all the magical lives that I can. I think this world needs more magic in it, not less.”

“You are wise. How will you move me to this place of warm rocks?”

“I will shrink you using my magic, making you very small again like a hatchling. I will have to keep you covered so that you do not petrify me or anyone else accidentally, but I will also keep you warm and well fed while I seek out your new home this summer. When I do find it, I will take you there and return you to your proper size. I will make sure you have everything that you need there. This I swear in the name of Lady Magic.”

“You need not cover me. If I am not threatened, I do not need to turn the living into rock. I do not eat rock. I can shield my eyes and still see. It is how I hunt.”

“Do I have your word in the name of Lady Magic that you will shield your eyes and will not harm me nor any others, aside from the prey that I will bring for you?”

“How often will you bring prey?”

“How often do you prefer to eat?”

“A prey every two days. That is how I would eat if I had enough to eat my fill.”

“I will do so. You will eat your fill, Manasa.”

“Very well. I will not bite and will shield my eyes. I will be a threat to none but the prey you bring. You have my word in the name of Lady Magic, Great Mother of all Basilisks. Make me like a hatchling now, and let us leave this place of cold and bones.”

Severus pulled his tie down to fall loosely around his neck. He looked directly into Manasa’s glowing yellow eyes, which now had a slightly milky eyelid covering them. He had counted on Lady Magic to have his back in this endeavor but is relieved that Manasa is a being who keeps her word.

He drops the barrier behind him as well as the one between them. He shrinks her down until she is about ten inches long and then lets her climb up onto his hand and into his sleeve. He hits his sleeve with a warming charm.

“It is good to feel warmth again, Severus.” Her voice, once deep and rumbling to his ears, now sounds high-pitched and squeaky.

Walking back to his rooms Severus summons another rodent that isn’t someone’s pet nor an Animagus. It takes much longer this time, but a good-sized harvest mouse flies into his hand. He stuns it and pockets it for Manasa’s welcome feast. In his rooms, he notices more packages from the Elves. He plans to sort them as soon as he gets Manasa settled. He transfigures a large terrarium for Manasa out of a drinking glass found in his kitchen cabinet and fills a small ceramic baking dish, also from his kitchen, with water, spelling it to stay clean and refill when it goes below 50 ml, placing it where she wants it. He fills the terrarium nearly to the lip of the dish with transfigured sand topped with small transfigured pebbles for added traction.

He sets a large, very flat, transfigured rock into one corner. He puts a self-renewing warming charm on the rock to bring the temperature up to a constant 28 degrees C. He also places a self-renewing area warming charm, which will heat and hold the air temperature inside the terrarium to 25 degrees C. He places Manasa inside, letting her explore, making all the little changes that she needs for her mobility, comfort, and peace of mind. When she is happy to spend time in there, he produces her stunning meal.

“I do not want to eat dead things, even if they are still warm.”

He revives the mouse, which is then devoured in the next second.

“Not for many ages have I felt so full and warm. It is good, Severus!”

“Yes, it is. I need some of your venom, Manasa. It will help me greatly with my mission for Lady Magic. Will you share some with me now?”

“You have taken me out of the cold place of bones, Severus. I will help you to serve the Great Basilisk Mother.”

He spells a potion collection jar to contain Basilisk Venom, wraps a one-way shield across the top to contain splatter, and safely collects venom by having her bite the side of the jar, which is already spelled unbreakable, as all his potion jars are. The amount of venom that she has to donate is massive considering her current size. He estimates that she could fill an average-size Muggle bathtub when not affected by a shrinking charm. It was something to think about. Perhaps she would consent to making larger donations upon reaching her new forever home. It could certainly become a steady source of income and a boon to the world of Potions and Wizarding Medicine.

Unwrapping his packages from the Elves, Severus finds most of the clothing he was awaiting from Twilfitt and Tattings, all of it, in fact, except his evening dress robes. He also receives his brush and comb, dragon hide gloves and apron, both custom letterheads, and his Prince family seal. He uses his personal letterhead to rewrite his letter to Damocles Belby, seals it with dark purple wax and the Prince Family crest, and walks it up to the owlery, summoning a wood mouse on his way that is neither pet nor Animagus. He is relieved to find the same tawny-eyed owl with the torn ear and slightly scissored beak that he had accidentally fed Pettigrew to on Saturday. At least he didn't accidentally take out a school owl too.

"Hello again, I'm very pleased to see you are well. I have a much nicer treat for you this time around. Would you like to fly this to Damocles Belby?" The owl nods and stretches his wings. Severus holds out the stunned mouse by the tail and lets the owl finish it before using twine out of his bag to tie on his sealed letter.

—----------------

The days leading up to OWLs fall into an easy rhythm; he wakes early, exercises, and showers, washing his hair and body thoroughly. He puts on a new set of school robes and eats a healthy yet hearty breakfast in the Great Hall. He attends all of his classes. Since Slytherin House is currently neck and neck with Gryffindor for house points, leaving Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in the dust, he makes a point of answering questions in class and picks up extra points wherever he can. Slughorn, for example, gives him ten for making and delivering a batch of simple calming draught to the infirmary.

He reviews his notes when he has nothing else pressing to do, and when his notes make too little sense, he finds the mentioned topics and reads appropriate books in the library to help make sense of his notes. He even reviews a little for Potions and DADA, both of which he has also taught, yet both of which have changed over the years with new discoveries and the development of new techniques. He considers taking the tests for all subjects, including those he didn’t take classes for but which he has since logged at least some reading and practical experience using. Well, he has never used Divination, but he has certainly read a few books on the subject and definitely has some insights into the future.

His official electives were Arithmancy and Runes. Both are helpful with Potions and Spell creation, his two major interests during his student days. Both also tend to come in handy when solving life's thorny problems. The absolute corker about Albus—he never lets anyone else check his work, ever. Not me, not Babbling, not Vector, not even Minerva. He presents his conclusions and plans like perfect gems that could never be improved upon by mere mortals, never disclosing how they came into fruition. Continually betting your life, or worse, on the hope that someone well over the age of one hundred hasn’t forgotten to carry his one is beyond frustrating, to say the least.

There is no penalty levied for scoring poorly on an OWL beyond not being able to continue in the class if you don’t do well enough. But you can fail an OWL and retake it as many times as you’d like if you are willing to pay to do so. The first time is free for students in school and for those under age twenty who have been self- or home-schooled. You can even take the OWL on Monday and sit for the NEWT on Tuesday, if you really want to show off.

Later in life, Wixen typically only ever mention OWLS and NEWTS they passed with a P or better, never those they have attempted and failed. That is left up to the gossip mill—or a drunken spouse at a cocktail party. He thinks that he should be able to manage a P or better in all the Hogwarts classes he didn’t take. If he felt he couldn't do at least that, he wouldn't take them.

Despite his lifelong interest in Potions, he never took Care of Magical Creatures as a class. He has read many books on the subject and generally spent at least a couple of hours a week foraging in the forbidden forest, crossing paths with many different creatures there. Now, of course, he looks after a Basilisk. He changes her water daily despite the cleaning and self-renewing spells and tidies her terrarium for her upon request or at least twice a day. Every other day, he summons a small common rodent for Manasa’s meal. This, according to Manasa, is ideal for the purposes of the very small Basilisk she is pretending to be now.

He tries to bring her something new at least once per day for her consideration as additions to her terrarium, mainly for purposes of enrichment and engagement. He knows she looked forward to this. Several things he offered, she did not like. A piece of sun-bleached driftwood he found near the lake was “too much like bones.” A petrified shell “spoke of death.” Another flat rock, a real one he found, was simply judged “not a good rock.” A long-leaf dockweed he tried to plant in her terrarium looked "too much like a nest of rivals.”

More successfully, he gifted her a section of soft moss that he replanted and keeps moist, an interesting stick found near Hagrid’s hut for her to climb and burrow under, and a half-round section of bark from gardening debris next to Greenhouse One, which she can crawl under for extra shade or privacy.

She also is very fond of the large garden slugs that plague the pumpkin patch, “all good meat that slides right down with no tickling shells or bones.” He checks if each slug is an Animagus first to prevent any more unexplained disappearances. 

Pettigrew certainly hadn’t ended up as owl food on purpose. I would have preferred to deal with him in some other less permanent manner and would never have knowingly inflicted him on that poor school owl nor any other animal or magical creature. That said, I can not dredge up much regret over my accidental (and therefore entirely excusable) homicide.

Pettigrew, along with me, had a role in Lily’s death. Pettigrew also murdered Mr. Diggory, a Hogwarts Hufflepuff (merely adequate at potions but very strong on theory and a decent essayist.) Pettigrew also brought back Voldemort at the end of Potter’s 4th year. I won’t even start on the quality of his company while at Spinner’s End.

Severus knows he will be a loss to his family and to the Marauders. Yes, he can even empathize with his former and future bullies in this case. He knows what it is like to lose someone considered a friend, after all.

He has also examined the possibility of confessing, swearing upon his magic that it was accidental, and bearing whatever consequences may result. The phrases ‘death wish’ and ‘pointless waste of time' both leap to mind. Perhaps it would give Pettigrew's family and friends some closure, but it could also set back my mission, and I cannot risk that.

—-------------

When OWLs roll around, Severus sits in the very front for every test, and Pandora Abbott, soon to become Pandora Lovegood, sits down next to him every time. She seems to have had the same bright idea about taking every test that Hogwarts offers. They both get odd looks, particularly in the test for Divination, a class that neither of them has taken. Severus finds it particularly poignant when Abbott predicts that she will have a daughter who will still be young as she watches her mother die. She suddenly turns her strange gaze to Severus. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to try to stop it. Some things are just meant to be.”

Very little in my life to date has made me feel like more of a fraud than using bits of useless knowledge of the future to pass a Divination OWL with Pandora Abbot watching me, with large, haunting blue eyes and a soft, understanding smile.

—----------------------------

Just after the last OWL ends, which was the written portion for Defense Against the Dark Arts, Severus relieves his bladder in the boys' lav, washing his hands and face. He removes his student robes and puts them away in his bag. Over his black long underwear, he dons the casual dark purple shirt and black cords that he has been carrying around with him for a couple of weeks now. He hits himself with a cooling charm to balance the warm day and his excess of clothing.

It is a clear blue sky. The kind of day that is entirely too rare in Scotland. Severus has his back up against an oak, with the latest issue of The Practical Potioneer, making some notes for his latest letter to the editor. When he sees the remaining Marauders approaching him. He puts his things away in his bag, then shrinks his bag and sticks it with a Sticking Charm into the pocket of his shirt, which he then buttons. Despite the fact that they have their wands drawn, he meets them empty-handed.

“Where did you take Petey, Snivellous!”

“As I told the Headmaster, Black, I don’t know where Pettigrew is. Whatever has happened to him was not because I harbored any ill will for him. I’ll swear to that on my magic, if it will convince you to move along.”

“Go ahead then! Swear on your magic!”

Severus huffs a breath, takes out his wand, and carefully repeats his same words in an oath. What is the point of lying when you don’t have to? “Lumos,” he says, sounding as bored as possible. He returns his wand to the holster in his sleeve.

"Well, that rather ruins the fun we had planned for today,” says Potter.

“We could get him back for what happened to Mary!” says Black, not unexpectedly.

“Hey yeah, according to Evans, you thought that was all a bit of a laugh. I think she told me that you said that when we were together the other night.”

“You do realize I’m not romantically interested in Lily Evans, don’t you? We grew up together. I’ve known her since we were nine.”

“Let me guess, she’s too Muggley for you? Let’s have a bit of a laugh with Junior Death Eater Snivellous here, shall we?”

“How dare you call me a Death Eater! I call you out for besmirching the good name of Prince. As Heir to House Prince, I, Severus Prince, challenge you to an honor duel, James Potter, Heir to House Potter. We make it formal, without seconds, and Professor Flitwick sets safety wards and oversees it. If you win, I make an unbreakable vow never to join the Death Eaters and never to date Lily Evans. If I win, you make an unbreakable vow to stop bullying and pranking everyone at this school and to stop calling people Death Eaters who are just teens trying to get an education.”

“No can do, Heir Snivelly. I think that Sirius here needs to have some fun right now.”

“So be it. Don’t blame me when all of these onlookers remember that you were too cowardly, too dishonorable to meet me one on one in an honor challenge. I somehow expected more courage from House Potter, not to mention from a Gryffindor.”

“Levicorpus!” shouted Sirius Black, who is now all but foaming at the mouth. Before anything could happen, Severus immediately performed the same spell on his own ankle wandlessly and wordlessly.

“Who wants to see me take Snivelly’s ugly black cords off?” asks Potter. It would seem that the gathering crowd is rather less enthusiastic this time around.

"And, what's wrong with cords?" says Frank Longbottom, who is wearing a khaki pair and has his wand out, with his arms folded in front of him, looking distinctly unamused by the Marauders' antics.

“Leave him ALONE!”

“All right there, Evans?” says Potter, making sure the bird’s nest on his head is looking artfully messy. There’s her smile. “What has he done to you this time? He hasn’t even got his wand out.”

“It’s more a fact that he exists, if you know what I mean.”

“You think you’re funny, but you’re not. Don’t be such an arrogant, bullying toerag, James Potter. Just leave him alone.”

“I will leave him alone if you go out with me. Go on. Say that you'll go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it were you or the giant squid!”

“Ouch, bad luck, Prongs.”

“Expelliarmus!” Severus does have his wand out now; he grabs Black's wand as it sails toward him with his other hand, swings up and back, ends the Levicorpus spell he cast on himself, and just manages to get his feet under himself and stay upright.

“Expelliarmus,” counters James, which would have absolutely no effect either way, but Severus wordlessly blocks the spell.

“Expelliarmus.” Severus says, catching Potter’s wand.

Then he points Cthulhu at Remus, who looks panicked that he is the only Marauder left holding a wand. “Don’t try it, Lupin. Don’t forget that you’re a prefect.”

“Good point, Severus," says Lupin, putting his wand away, while Severus does the same. "I guess that’ll be twenty-five points from Slytherin for wand-fighting on school grounds.”

“Boo!” says Pandora Abbott. Oddly enough, a lot of the other people in the crowd also start booing Lupin, who now looks truly mortified. A few Slytherins start hissing as well, but Severus decides that is just as likely directed at him over their point loss.

"Here, Lupin, since you are the closest thing these two cretins have to a keeper.”

Snape tosses James' and Sirius' wands at Lupin’s feet, turns, and walks back toward Hogwarts. Lily catches up with him at a jog.

“Sev! Sev, that was brill! Did you see the looks on their faces?"

“Hmm.”

“I heard that you claimed the Prince inheritance?"

"Unlikely news travels fast, it seems."

"I thought you said that your mum was cut off from them.”

“She was. I wasn’t, apparently.”

“That’s fantastic, Sev! This summer’s going to be so wild!”

“Lily, I’m not going back this summer. I have work I need to do to get my house into shape.”

“Oh, how well do you think you did on OWLs?”

“Well enough.”

“Me too! Did you really sit the Divination OWL, or was that just Marlene taking the mick again?”

“I sat for all the OWLs. You’ll have to excuse me. Due to your Gryffindor friends, I’m running quite late.”

Severus took the stairs down to Slytherin, leaving a confused Lily Evans in his wake. In the dungeons, Severus tries summoning a rodent, not an Animagus or a pet, and ends up with an enormously fat and probably pregnant red squirrel. He quickly banishes it to the base of the oak tree that he was just sitting under. He tries summoning a mouse without luck. On his third try, he gets a small rat that is neither a pet nor an Animagus, stuns it, pockets it, and returns to his rooms to feed Manasa.

“You are late.”

“Gryffindors.”

“How did you fare in your flying thing ordeal?”

“OWL exam—I did quite well, thank you.”

“Then soon we go to the place of warm rocks, Severus?”

“Just after the next full moon, my school term will end. Then we can leave here and search for your new home. I brought your prey.” He set it inside on the other side of the terrarium to give her some exercise and revived it. It was over in a couple of seconds.

“It is good to eat well and think of the warm rock that I do not have.”

“You have a warm rock, Manasa. I suspect that you have been lazing right on top of it for most of the day.”

“I have one.”

“You haven’t liked any of the other rocks that I’ve brought for you.”

“They were not good rocks.”

Severus asks her to climb into his hand and copies her flat rock with Geminio. He places it exactly where she tells him that she wants it. He adds a self-renewing warming charm to bring the temperature of the rock to a constant 28 degrees Celsius. He gently sets her down on the new rock.

“Yes, a good rock. Now I have two, but I long to feel the sun on me, Severus.”

“Soon.”

-----------------

Thank you for reading! Comments are treasured!

Chapter Text

That evening, Severus, dressed casually, takes his potions journal and notes for his letter to the editor and makes himself available in the Slytherin Common Room. It doesn’t take long until someone approaches him.

"Prince, I just wanted to say congratulations on your successful heirship claim. I can lend you some of my books on the Wizengamot history and procedures if you’d like.” Regulus holds out his hand, and when Severus stands and shakes it, he passes him a note. Severus palms it and both hands, as well as the note, go directly into the pockets of his cords.

“Thank you, Black, much appreciated. I’ll certainly read them if you are offering, but no, I’m not writing your essay for McGonagall on cross-species transfiguration, due first thing tomorrow morning. Best of luck with it.” A few people nearby laugh.

“Can’t blame a Slytherin for trying. Also, for what it is worth, I’m sorry for my brother earlier. He's becoming more of a disgrace to us every day.”

“He’s hardly your fault. I do appreciate the expression of solidarity, however.” Regulus nods and heads toward the boys' dorms.

"Prince now, is it?" asks Mulciber. "I thought you were one of us, Severus. Now you are denouncing the Death Eaters as scum to Potter and his crew?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that I denounced anyone, but now that you mention it, I don't plan on joining the Death Eaters. I've nothing against traditionalist values, mind, especially when it comes to worship or the responsible use of Dark Magic. What I do take issue with is unprovoked violence and injustice toward Muggles and so-called Muggle-borns. We don't get to pick who our family is. Black and I are cases in point. His brother is Sirius Black, village idiot even amongst Gryffindor. My father is an abusive drunk and a Squib who hates magic."

"Muggles are what's wrong with the whole world! They need wiping out!"

"All Muggles aren't the same. It's daft to treat them that way. Do we need to stay separate from them? - Absolutely. Do we need to take precautions against their technology?—No doubt. Do we need to attempt to destroy them or rule over them? No. I doubt that would be possible without killing ourselves in the process.

"We need smarter solutions than the Death Eaters are providing—the same goes for Dumbledore and his ilk. The whole idea of a war between light and dark is ludicrous and wasteful. There are already 10,000 Muggles for every single one of us, and still we would kill each other over trivialities. Even if we united together and stood with the other sentient magical creatures, we are all still vastly outnumbered by them."

"Ten thousand to every one of us?" said Mulciber, "That can't possibly be right!"

"That's a fairly conservative estimate on my part. It wouldn't surprise me if the true number weren't closer to twenty thousand muggles for each one of us. It doesn't matter, though. We need them. They are the Yang to our Yin. They are wonderfully creative and produce amazing music, literature, and art. Their tech is seriously impressive, too."

"They steal magic!"

"They do not. So-called Muggle-born births have nothing to do with the Muggles stealing from us and everything to do with our mistreatment of Squibs. For centuries, we have dealt with Squibs like rubbish and have thrown them away into the Muggle world. Well, eventually two Muggles with Squib ancestry find each other, and magic reignites in their child. Muggle-born are really just Squib-born. They are us, in other words—our long-lost family."

"You cannot possibly know that!" Mulciber shouts, arguing for the minds of the crowd as if he has ever had an original idea, or a single thought not fed to him by his father or the Dark Lord.

"I recently took an inheritance test at Gringotts. I highly recommend them for everyone. I found out that I not only qualified for the Prince heirship but that I am related by blood to most of your families as well, and not only through the Prince line on my mother's side. At least one of my father's ancestors was a Squib. He also passed on family magics and Wizarding family connections to me. Mulciber, you will consider McDonald, Evans, and any other Squib-born student at this school to be off-limits, under the protection of House Prince, under my personal protection. Let them be. Do you understand me? You really don't want me for an enemy."

"Is that so? And just why is that, Prince? Sirius Black and James Potter are still walking around, aren't they?"

"James Potter and Sirius Black are useful to my current and future plans. Perhaps the real question you should be asking me is this: where is Peter Pettigrew? Others have certainly asked me that question recently, including the Headmaster. As I said, a peaceful solution, a smarter solution, will always be my preference. For example, I'd prefer it if you would simply refrain from any future acts against Squib-born, if only as a gesture to the friendship between us. " Severus reaches out with his hand. Mulciber hesitates for a moment, then looks in Severus' eyes, sizing up what he sees there. He swallows audibly, reaches out, grasps Severus' hand firmly, and gives it a shake. Severus, just as everyone else in the room, is aware that power has shifted. Severus Prince is now the Slytherin Prince Apparent of his year, for the time being at least. It is always easier to grab power. Holding it and using it well—those are the real tricks.

When returned to his rooms, having sent off his letter to the editor of The Practical Potioneer, Severus reads the note from Reg requesting a meeting in an abandoned classroom on the second floor tomorrow before dinner. Severus rolls his eyes. He destroys the note, walks back out into the hallway, disillusions himself, and returns to the Slytherin Common Room door, entering behind a group of second years scrambling to beat curfew. He enters Regulus' room, crawls into Regulus' bed, and waits cross-legged at the foot of the bed well hidden behind the curtains until Regulus in a grey nightshirt with white piping climbs in. Severus quickly raises a privacy ward before Regulus is even aware of him.

"Comfy?" asks Severus.

"Merlin! Severus. Scare the life out of me, why don't you?"

"The reason for your note might have been too important to wait."

"It is, really, yes. According to Kreacher, they're going to make me take the Mark immediately this summer, by force if necessary."

"Don't go home. Get disowned. No amount of money, status, or familial approval is worth being slave-bonded to a sadistic psychopath who can use the Mark to punish whenever he pleases. There is also a leech component to the Mark, which the sadistic psycho uses to empower himself magically by sucking his slaves' power away."

"Merlin, are you sure?"

"Absolutely. I have impeccable sources."

"You can just say Lucius. I'll never tell. Can you help me? I know you're emancipated. I overheard Slughorn talking about it. He's a horrible gossip, you know?"

"I count on it, and yes, I can help. I intend to help you, in fact. First, I'll need an Unbreakable Vow. I need to protect myself and my own path."

"Write it up. I'll swear it, whatever it is. Couldn't possibly be any worse than a slave leech, right?"

"No, it won't be as bad as that, but you may find out information this summer that you don't want to know and may become involved with things of which you would rather not be a part. I'll need you to agree to being obliviated, should I deem it a necessity."

"Done. Still miles better than the slave leech, thank you very much."

"There isn't much worse, is there? Might you be up for doing a bit of traveling during the holidays?"

"As long as where we go isn't worse—"

"—than a slave leech, I get it. Very well, I'm kidnapping you this summer, it would seem. If there is nothing else pressing, I'm off to bed."

"Night, Sev. I appreciate you being the kind of brother I wish I'd gotten."

"I accept. Now that I'm officially the Half-blood Black brother, just imagine how overjoyed our dear old Mum will be." Even pure silliness is uproariously funny if you are as tired and worried as Reg, it seems.

"Oh Gods, I needed that laugh. Sirius will be up dancing a jig as well; don't forget!"

"Good night, Reg. Don't worry. This will all turn out well."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise that I will do my best to make it so."

"You're going to make our dear old Mum so proud!"

"Yes, if you're not careful, your whole family will end up liking the Half-Blood Black brother the best."

"How about I keep Kreacher and gift wrap all the rest of them for you?"

"Will you be able to sleep now?"

"Mmm, I think so?"

"Sit up a minute." Severus places a sleeping hex just like his on Reg's pillow.

"What was that?"

"A sleeping hex."

"Brilliant

-------

The next day is a Hogsmeade Saturday. Most of the students recovering from exams are eager to leave school grounds early and waste the whole day away having silly fun with their friends. 

Severus is using the day as an excuse to hunt down the very possibly imaginary Prince Construction Company that he now owns according to his Gringotts financial portfolio. The small dark gray building is about the size of a tool shed and has an ornate cast iron bracket in front but no sign attached. He knocks and hears sheer panic from within, something that sounds like nails being spilled on a hard surface, and some sorrowful whimpering. He knocks again, more insistently.

"We cannot be building for you! Nothing! Must go away!"

"I am Severus Prince. You will open this door now."

The door is flung open, narrowly missing his nose. Three Elves in baggy coveralls throw themselves onto the ground at his feet. A fourth hugs around his ankle, crying onto the pants leg of his Navy corduroys.

"You are here! A Prince has come! Oh! We are sa- aved! We are sa- aa-aa- aved!"

"Yes, you are saved. Now stand and introduce yourselves properly."

The elves leap up and form a neat line as if they haven't just been crying and rolling around in the dirt.

"I am Level, Master Prince!" says a small older female.

"I am Lintel!" says a tall, thin male.

"Cornice is my name, Master!" says a larger, more sturdy-looking female Elf.

"I am Buttress, Master Prince! And the dead Elf in the corner in there is Foreman Header!" says an older Elf with hair growing out of his ears.

"I see. When did Foreman Header pass?"

"One year, five months, three days, six hours, and thirty-two minutes ago! Thirty-three minutes ago now! We keep him nice and fresh," says Cornice.

"Header was a good Elf." says Level.

"He knew what to do!" says Lintel.

"He was never stingy giving us work," says Buttress. 

"Which among you has the most experience and skills?"

"Buttress is having the most skills and experience, Master!" says Buttress. The other Elves nod in agreement.

"Then congratulations, Buttress. You are the new foreman of Prince Construction."

The other Elves hug and congratulate Buttress on his new long-term job. They all look massively relieved that someone amongst them is in charge again.

"Now then, Foreman Buttress, what would you and the others like to do for Header?"

Buttress looked truly confused and started pulling on his hairy ears. Clearly the question was still far beyond his pay grade.

"I was thinking that we could lay him to rest in the Prince Family Cemetery at Prince Castle. "How do all of you feel about that?" asks Severus. The only death customs he knew about for Elves were courtesy of the Black Family, and he certainly wasn't decorating with House Elf heads.

Foreman Buttress says, "Level can cut and carve the headstone!"

"Level will!" says Level.

"Lintel and Cornice can build the coffin!" says Buttress.

"Lintel will plane and sand the wood!"

"Cornice will cut the angles and dovetails for the joints!"

"Buttress will supervise and help!" While they get to work, Severus pokes his head into the inside of the tool shed, which is bigger on the inside. In the corner next to a door that he assumes leads to a living area, there is indeed a dead yet fresh-looking ancient Elf who is also smiling, with a hammer still in his hand, seemingly mid-swing. Next to him is the sign that reads "Prince Construction," which looks like it has been desperately torn off its bracket.

"Do you think that Header would have liked to pass his hammer down to another Elf?"

"Oh yes, he loved the hammer Old Lord Prince gave him!" says Cornice.

"Header would like his hammer to be useful again!" says Level.

"Header can not do the work, but Header's hammer can!" says Lintel.

"We will see the hammer and think of Header and Old Lord Prince and will work at our best because they no longer can!" "Agrees," Buttress.

It takes them a while, but eventually the four Elves working together manage to pry the hammer out of Header's cold, dead hand. The hammer is presented by Buttress to Severus, who accepts it as something precious with a reverent thank you.

 
"Since you are Foreman now, Buttress, it seems only right that you be the one of us who carries this hammer."

Severus hands it back to Buttress, who looks thrilled and honored to have it. The other Elves look thrilled for him as well. House Elves didn't really need hand tools at all, but the hammer obviously meant a lot as a symbol of their work and craftsmanship and perhaps as a connection to the Prince Family.

"Gizzy!" 

"Gizzy is here! What can Gizzy do?"

"Could you please ask Apple to make lots of delicious finger foods for after Header's funeral at Prince Castle?"

"Gizzy will! Shall I take you and Header to Prince Castle now?"

"That would be splendid. All of you will follow us, please, when Header's coffin and headstone are finished."

"We will be happy to follow to Header's funeral and bring his headstone and coffin!" says Buttress.

Gizzy shrinks down Header and puts him in the box that once contained the nails now on the floor. She sends the nails to neatly pile themselves on the workbench. She takes Severus' hand and pops them to Prince Castle.

Once there, Gizzy gives the box full of Header to Severus. He sends Gizzy to round up all the other Prince Elves at their various locations. A few minutes later, Apple arrives with the rest of the Elves from Horizont, each bearing trays of tiny sandwiches, tartlets, skewers, scotch eggs, and other easily eaten delicacies. Eggy was last with two pitchers; one was lemon water, clearly meant for him. The other was a lavender infusion sweetened with honey, which seems a great favorite amongst the Elves that were gathering.

About a minute later, Gizzy returns. He asks her to make sure everyone present receives an appropriate flower to toss onto the casket. A few seconds later, he has one in his hand. The Prince Construction Elves also arrive with Header's coffin and headstone. The coffin is beautiful, built of natural Hawthorn burlwood with a high, lustrous sheen. The headstone is Kilkenny blue marble, mirror-polished with a carved hammer motif above the name. Severus compliments all the Construction Elves on their fine workmanship. He transfers Header to his coffin and resizes him. He banishes the nail box.

Severus asks Gizzy if they are still awaiting any Elves from the other properties. Apparently they are all gathered here now. Truly, there are Elves as far as the eye can see. Many of the Elves look excited to be there. Some are there with their children. Some appear puzzled, possibly even confused or frightened. He knows it is time to proceed.

'Welcome everyone! Thank you all for coming. I am Heir Prince. I won't try to meet you all today and remember names. We will save that until I come to visit each of you at home this summer. Today, we are here to honor Header, a fine, wise, hardworking House Elf and like all of you, a most valued member of the Prince Family. I never got the chance to meet Header personally, but I have heard from Cornice that Header loved the hammer given to him by Old Lord Prince. It was a symbol of Header's excellent leadership as foreman of the Elves at Prince Construction. That hammer has now been passed down to Header's protege, Foreman Buttress.

"As Buttress told me earlier, Header was never stingy when giving the others work to do. I know that Buttress will lead by Header's selfless example. I have heard from Lintel that Header was an Elf who always knew just what to do. This is a very fine quality for any elf, one that I hope all of you will strive to cultivate in the future. Now, I will ask each of the elves here who wish to speak about Header to come forward and make a line to my left."

Every elf there, including the older children, moves to stand in the speaking line. Thankfully, they are all admirably brief. Many remember a single good quality of Header's. Some offer a bit of wisdom he had shared with them, like "soft wood is as good as hard wood for some things" or "measure once and cut once." 

At the end, Severus asks Foreman Buttress to see to it that a hole is dug and that Header's coffin is lowered into it. Buttress assigns tasks. The way-too -happy-for-a-funeral Construction Elves fulfill their tasks very efficiently. Severus tosses the flower that Gizzy has provided, a sprig of flowering sage, into the grave on top of the casket. The rest of the Elves do the same, tossing in more sage, meadowsweet, lavender, blooming mint, and fairy flax. Gizzy drops in a sprig of mint and a single pear seed.

When everyone is done and has stepped back, the Construction Elves under Buttress' direction return the dirt to the grave and erect the headstone, which simply reads "Header Prince" under the carved hammer design. Then Gizzy takes his hand, and Buttress takes his other. All the Elves make a circle around the grave, all holding hands. Their joined magic begins to rise, buzzing, pulsing, and cracking, and then it all slowly descends into the Earth, whereupon over Header's grave, a pear tree grows, branching and fruiting and eventually bending under the weight of its fruit. Many of the elves pick a pear and eat it. 

"They will save a seed and plant it so that Header can be remembered at their homes too," explains Gizzy.

Severus nods, steps up to the now-mature Plymouth pear tree, and plucks a pear, biting into its perfectly ripe and fragrant sweetness. He has never tasted one more delicious. He too will save a seed and plant it back at Hogwarts.

The Prince Elves set up a table and bring out more pitchers of the lavender and honey infusion that he decides must be traditional at funerals, if not at all Elf occasions. Severus too has a taste to honor their tradition but goes back to his new favorite, lemon water, soon after. The Prince House Elves spread tarps under the trees so that the Elves can cluster and eat picnic-style in the shade. The juvenile Elves seem to be playing a version of tag, popping in and out to sneak up and tap each other on the shoulders.

After trying all of the finger foods and drinking his fill of lemon water, Severus informs Gizzy and Buttress that he is now returning to Hogwarts to plant his pear seed, but that they should let the Elves visit together until after sunset, when everyone will go home and return to their normal routines. He asks Buttress to assign a Construction Elf to repair and replace the old Prince Construction sign tomorrow.

"It will be done!"

"Excellent, I will write to inform Gringotts that Prince Construction is back in business. Gizzy, please take me to Hogsmeade. " Gizzy took his hand, and they popped back to Prince Construction.

"Now please return to Prince Castle and thank everyone for me for coming, thank Apple and the others for the delicious food, and thank the Prince Castle Elves for their wonderful hospitality and for cleaning up. Then enjoy yourself visiting with the other Elves."

"Gizzy will!"

"Thank you, Gizzy."

It was just past noon when Severus returned to Hogwarts. He wrote a note to Ragnok and sent it off with the same tawny owl who he was calling Lucky in his head. He picked a spot near the lake where students often gathered. He dug a hole, dropped in the pear seed, and covered it over. He directed his magic just long enough for the seed to grow into a young, sturdy, well-rooted sapling.

"May you always find enough to do to keep you pleasantly busy in the next life, Header."

"Header's funeral was really nice!"

Severus whirled and came face to face with Peter Pettigrew. He recognized the magical signature, though. It certainly didn't belong to Pettigrew. Severus raises area disillusionment and privacy charms.

"You little dunderhead. Has anyone else seen you? What are you doing here, and why are you wearing a person I recently fed to an owl?"

"How'd you know it was me?"

"This is not a game. I'm in the middle of something delicate here. I can't have you imploding it all."

"I'm here to help you! Why do you think you got sent here, anyway? Death hates giving up people! I convinced him that this was a really good idea."

"Of course you did. So you know about my mission?"

"Yep! I can help. We can divide and conquer!"

"How are you going to explain Pettigrew's absence for the last three weeks? How do you intend to impersonate him?"

"I met him. I know a little about him from Lady Magic. Mainly, I'm just going to wing it. I don't think the Marauders really pay all that much attention to him. If James does something vaguely noteworthy, I break out the applause. When Sirius says something stupid, I laugh like it's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Remus, well, at least I'll smell right to him because this is Peter's body, or you know, Lady Magic and Death's best copy of it. I'm going to tell them that I was suspicious, so I followed you to Gringotts. While I was waiting for you to come out of there again, a hag grabbed me, stuck me in a cage, and tried repeatedly to feed me to her elderly cat. The cat missed having a kitten a lot more than hunting rats, though, and started carrying me around in her mouth, licking me all the time. The hag thought it was cute and kept us both locked up together. I finally escaped when they were both asleep!"

"Why would a hag be outside of Gringotts in the day, and why would anyone look for a rat there?"

"I don't know! It's possible, though! Right?"

"It sounds like something that could only ever happen to you, Potter."

"They are not going to think about it too deeply. It'll be fine."

"And Dumbledore, McGonagall, will they 'just not think too deeply' as well?"

"You worry too much. It'll be fine!"

"Potter, please leave. You will be nothing but a hindrance and a distraction."

"So, you, um, find me distracting?"

"Of course I do. You are an accident waiting to happen."

"Fine, I'm leaving, for now, but I'm always available to help you out, you know, if you ever decide you need me, for anything. And I just might be back again later anyway, if I get too bored." He popped back out of existence, but Severus now had the unpleasant feeling that Potter, wherever he was now, was still watching.

-------------------

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Chapter Text

With almost two weeks left of school until the Leaving Feast, Severus decides to use his blocks of free time between and after classes exploring Hogwarts as a Parselmouth. He is careful, setting up tight area disillusionment and privacy wards before hissing at snakes carved into the woodwork. He starts inside of Slytherin House and then works his way around the dungeons. When he finds a snake that animates, he lets it babble at him for a bit. Then he asks it questions. What he learns surprises and alarms him.

Apparently, there are now two factions of Parseltongue-animated snakes at Hogwarts. Some, like the ones in Slytherin House and the surrounding dungeons, are unaltered from their original purpose given to them by Salazar Slytherin himself. It seems that Slytherin had set up a Parselmagic defense array that complements the school's defensive wards, somehow, and also acts as a last line of defense should those wards ever become compromised.

According to the animated snakes, however, the array no longer works the way it was intended. Intrigued, Severus begins seeking out other snakes he can interact with outside of the dungeons. The problem is that there are snakes literally everywhere. Far more than he had ever noticed before he started seeking them out. Many of them are hard to spot, too, intentionally blending into complicated designs and floral motifs. Every room and corridor seems to have at least one snake somewhere—carved into an arch, all but hidden in a tapestry, painted into an old portrait, inlaid as a mosaic in a floor. Some snakes are highly detailed, some stylized—just a hint of a snake, really—but some of these hints of snakes are animated also.

Rather than spending his own time searching them out, Severus writes to Gizzy asking for large quantities of individually wrapped sweets that are anything other than lemon-flavored. He also asks her to request a favor from the Hogwarts Elves on his behalf. He makes copies and enlarges five maps of Hogwarts from the plans in Hogwarts, a History. These five are linked together to show a mark made on any of them. With four, he posts one each on a wall near a different Common Room door. He spells those with a modified notice-me-not spell that excludes himself and anyone currently a second year at Hogwarts or below. The fifth map he keeps in his room as a constantly updating master.

He seeks out a couple of first- and second-years in every house, gives each a few sweets, and asks them to spread the word about a secret end-of-term treasure hunt for sweets that he is organizing for the younger years. When a new mark appears on a map, identified with the child's name, a Hogwarts elf checks the location for a new snake and gives one of Severus' sweets to the child who found it. The sweet rewards make a secret end-of-the-year treasure hunt irresistible to the younger years who have had no easy source of ultra-sugary sweets during the school year beyond care packages if they got them, the goodwill of upper years on Hogsmeade weekends, and visits to the Headmaster's creepy little tea parties. Even desserts at dinner, apart from special feast days, are simple and not even overly sweet usually. It must be hard to work up a decent sugar high from blancmange, strawberries and cream, or lemon gelatin. It is hardly surprising when an army of 12-and-unders turns up chomping at the bit to compete to be the first to find a new snake and mark it on a map to win a coveted treat.

Severus is well aware a secret treasure hunt isn't going to stay secret for long. In fact, he attached the word 'secret' to it to make sure that word gets out. He informs Horace about it, framing it as good PR for Slytherin House. Horace, of course, is happy to take full credit for the idea and to get Dumbledore and the other teachers on board, most of whom are pleased to see the younger years getting involved and staying occupied while appreciating the art and history of Hogwarts before heading home for summer. Sprout is in love with the whole concept as a nice balance for the students too young to participate in Hogsmeade trips. She claims next year is Hufflepuffs' turn to host the new 'annual event. 'Next year the secret hunt will apparently take place outdoors and involve the identification of plants in exchange for sweets.

The map in his room filled up in no time with snakes for Severus to question. His treasure hunt also makes him rather popular with many of the younger set, who were always aware of who their true benefactor with the mountain of sweets was. Gaining support and goodwill from them was not his original intention, but it also isn't a bad outcome, either.

Not every snake he talks to outside of the dungeons is from the other faction. Some loyal to their original purpose are in the same area as rogue snakes. The other faction is easy to identify. They talk to him but aren't nearly as helpful, chatty, or forthright. They are cagey when he questions them about their purpose, but some do mention that they work for the Great Speaker. That could only mean that Voldemort had corrupted them. He points this out to a few of them, that their honorable purpose in a school full of innocent children has been corrupted by someone who means to harm children. This clearly bothers them, but they can do nothing to change their new purpose, they say. He asks them each repeatedly how he can change their purpose to benefit the children. One finally answers that he would have to convince the great snake at the heart of Hogwarts.

The next time he comes to chat, he brings Manasa with him, hidden from the human population under his sleeve. She talks to the animated snakes of the rogue faction at length but soon grows frustrated and weary.

"They are not real snakes. Their heads are made of trees and rocks, Severus. I cannot make them see sense. I do not think that I am the great snake they talk about. It would be another of tree or of rock like them, I think."

"Thank you, Manasa, that's very helpful. Would you like to come with me down to visit the place of bones to see this so-called Great Snake and put it in its place?"

"I would like to see this great snake they think is greater than me, but you must keep me very, very warm while I am down there."

He and Manasa descend into the Chamber once again. This time he casts area Shrinking charms on the bones down there to get a better look at the flooring. In the main chamber, Severus finds the great serpent. It coils in the floor mosaic with its tail in its mouth, an ouroboros as large as the main chamber itself.

"You must be the Great Serpent," he says when he finds where its head clutches its tail, aligned with a minor passageway, that he puts on his to-do list to explore one day.

The snake animates. It pulls its tail from out of its mouth. "At last! Thank you, young Speaker, or should I say Headmaster? You have reanimated me, breaking a curse placed on me far too long ago by a Dark Speaker. He twisted my purpose to oversee the school defenses. He pointed nearly half the magical fangs inward at Hogwarts herself, some at the defense professors too, and has undermined the Parselmagic array's ability to protect and heal the school's wards. Now, I can reset us all to our original noble roles as protectors and healers for the School of Four. May children forever rest easier here, as they learn and grow." The snake bows its head to them and makes a rapid full circuit of the floor. When it passes its former position and reaches the mouth of the statue, it bites its tail again and fades back into the floor's mosaic design.

Severus can feel the difference. It is subtle, but somehow the magical ambiance of Hogwarts has altered. It is as if the heaviness he hadn't previously given much thought to had lifted somehow. Hogwarts had never felt dark, but now it felt lighter and brighter.

"He is perhaps great, but not greater than me."

"Of course not, Manasa. No one is greater than you."

"You make sense, Severus."

After, Severus talks to many of the loyalist and formerly rogue snakes. They all confirm that they are returned to their original purposes as guardians and ward healers. It would seem that the current Defense professor, Miguel Rodriguez, a former Auror instructor from Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and one of the most competent of all the DADA professors I've met or trained under, might not be retiring and returning to Tortola this summer, after all.

------------------

The day before the Leaving Feast, Severus receives an Owl at breakfast, as do all the other 5th and 7th years. He retrieves an owl treat from his bag for the delivery owl and takes the fancy ribbon off the bird's foot, stashing the silky white ribbon in his bag. He breaks the seal on the envelope and slides out his OWL marks. I'm most pleased to see that I passed every OWL. True, I'm pushing 40 now, not really sixteen, but I still feel like I've accomplished something academically.

"Prince!"

"Longbottom. How did you do?"

"E on practical, E on written! I'm going to be an Auror!!!"

"Congratulations, you deserve it."

"I—I don't even know how to thank you."

"You just did. You did the work."

"How about you?"

"I did well enough."

"That probably means you took twelve OWLs."

"Thirteen."

"No way! I didn't even know that there are thirteen exams!"

"I wrote and requested to sit the Alchemy exam as a self-study since the class wasn't offered."

"You scored an O, didn't you?"

"I did."

"Self-studying to an O in Alchemy? It sounds... impossible!"

"Dumbledore did it."

"Oh well, if Dumbledore can do it, anyone can, right?"

"Exactly."

"The only person I've ever met with as much drive as you is my mother. She only took twelve OWLs. Listen, I've been courting Alice Smith, and since I now have a clear path to become an Auror, I am going to ask her to marry me. If she says yes, I was wondering if you would do me the great honor of being my best man at our wedding?"

"She'll say yes. And, yes, I'd be honored."

"Thanks! I've got the ring. I'm going to ask her right now!"

The next night, at the leaving feast, Dumbledore gives out his usual random points for miscellaneous, often questionable reasons. James Potter is awarded 20 points for the best Quidditch goal ever, or some such rot. A young woman in Hufflepuff I have no memory of takes 15 points for having the year's best whistle. A Ravenclaw 7th year gets 25 points for the best NEWT scores of her year. Apparently she took eleven, all with straight Os. Severus applauds her achievement.

"Now I must award 25 points, for the twelve perfect Os on her OWLs, to Miss Pandora Abbot of Ravenclaw. Well done indeed!"

Snape stands and applauds. The girl looks serenely unbothered by everyone's attention, which he also views as quite a laudable achievement.

"And now a further 25 points for the most OWLs passed this year—thirteen—with twelve Os and one E in Divination. Well done, Mr. Prince of Slytherin!" There is a smattering of applause, most of it from within Slytherin. Pandora Abbot waves to him, and he nods back.

"And, now that everything is tallied, my congratulations and the House Cup go to… Slytherin House!"

Avery and Wilkes are suddenly pulling him out of his chair. Severus tries not to flail as he is hoisted physically into a seated position onto their shoulders. Someone nearby starts a chant whereby "Prince" is repeated over and over again. He has never felt so popular, or more like he wants to crawl off and be left entirely alone somewhere dimly lit. He also hates that Albus is the reason for him feeling both.

"Decorum, gentlemen, put me down this instant."

To his surprise, they actually do. Persephone Greengrass hugs him. As does Reg, and first-year Ada Fawley, the sharp-eyed little Slytherin who found him more snakes than anyone else did.

-----------

Early on Saturday, June 26, 1976, when everyone is supposed to board the Hogwarts Express at 11am to return home for summer, Severus is already exercised, showered, and packed. He has all his belongings shrunk down inside of his shirt pocket, and Manasa wrapped around his wrist. He is wearing his nicked pair of Herbology earmuffs, his mother’s protective goggles, new dragonhide gloves and apron, and his old dragonhide boots. He feels as ready as he will ever be to take on the Horcrux infesting Rowena’s diadem.

Not wanting to get any closer to it than is necessary, he lengthens an old chipped Quidditch bat that he finds near the door and transfigures a hook onto the end. He finds a hat box and casts a containment spell for dark magic inside the box and lid. He looks around and soon finds half a pair of cat's-eye glasses. He pops out the glass lens, transforming it into a glass bowl. He casts the spell that allows glass to contain basilisk venom and also spells the bowl unbreakable. He levitates the glass bowl into the hatbox. He hooks the crown down off its perch and places it into the glass bowl. He levitates the lid onto the box. He retrieves the bag in his pocket, unshrinks it, takes out brown paper and twine from the Elves' packages, spells the paper impervious, and hits it with the containment spell for Dark Magic. He uses the wrapping spell he often used for Lily’s gifts.

He shrinks the package full of horror and puts it into his bag. He takes off his earmuffs, gloves, and apron, putting those in the bag as well. He knows that there is still every possibility that the repairing Hogwarts wards are sensitive enough during this time to detect the now miniscule level of Dark Magic bleeding off it if the item were properly in the castle instead of this pocket dimension that has its own rules. He calls up a Floo and some Floo Powder to take him directly to the Leaky Cauldron. He has a leisurely Full English (minus the beans) with a cup of strong black coffee that he is sure will make his teeth less white. Before setting off to Gringotts, he performs a teeth cleaning spell, a teeth whitener, and a breath freshener in the loo, marveling at what Lady Magic has managed to do to him.

He asks the teller if Assistant Chief Ragnok is available and is taken to wait for him in a plush leather chair in a comfortably appointed office. Ragnok and several other Goblins appear. They have detected the presence of a very dark object. Ragnok offers a chest for the object carved in Dark Magic- suppressing runes, which is available to Severus to rent for the low fee of ten sickles per day. Severus agrees and puts the package inside it, securing the lid. The other Goblins, who Severus assumes are security, are dismissed by Ragnok.

“Heir Prince, what is that object, and why have you brought it here?”

“Lady Magic said that I can trust you. I will do just that if you can tell me that there are no listening magics or devices, no surveillance of any kind, magical or otherwise, and that our conversation in this room this morning is secure and will be kept strictly between us.”

“Very well, a moment. Nothing seems to happen, but a moment later, Ragnok says, "Our conversation is now secure." I will not betray the trust that you and Lady Magic place in me. Be aware that we have known that you are her agent since claiming your ring, Heir Prince.”

“I am not a young adult. I lived a busy, complicated life and died in 1998 at the age of 38, at which point Lady Magic recruited me as her agent and replaced me into the body of my sixteen-year-old self.”

“What happened to the sixteen-year-old version of you?”

“That I don’t know. Lady Magic found a use for him as well, I trust. Part of my task is to rid the world of Voldemort. In the chest is one of a number of horcruxes he has made. I believe that he has made five. In the future he will make two more unless he is ended by someone before then. I know what form these objects take and approximately where they are but do not know what traps or curses may protect them. I'd certainly expect and prepare for something quite nasty.

“I would like to commission Gringotts to gather the existing other four of these. I have the means to safely destroy them. When he is killed, he will have no Horcruxes left to keep his soul anchored to life and will have no opportunities to return. I can assure you that Voldemort is a great threat to the Goblin Nation. There is no treasure, no source of knowledge, wealth, magic, or power that he does not covet for himself or wish to destroy completely.”

“This may become a costly endeavor.”

“It is in both of our best interests, Assistant Chief Ragnok.”

“What is the rest of your mission for Lady Magic?”

"To topple Dumbledore from power. He is the other major obstacle that the Magical World faces in its quest for continued survival.”

“Dumbledore has been a stone in the kidney of the Goblin Nation for a very long time now. Why do only decent wizards ever die young?”

“I can assure you that some of us who died young also entirely earned it. According to Lady Magic, how the magical world goes, so goes the rest. There are many changes that must occur before the year 2000, or we will be exposed to the Muggles, their superior numbers, and well-developed, well-tested war technologies. The magical world can only survive exposure for so long before we are all killed or enslaved. At that point, magic and life itself will begin to unravel, taking the rest of the planet with it. If I cannot stop this chain of events, this entire world will collapse by 2036, and probably years before then."

“And just what kind of new world would you build in the absence of the Dark Lord and the so-called Light Lord to make sure that what you describe never comes to pass?”

“The magical world must be strong to keep the Muggle world in check. There is only strength in unity. For too long now Wizards have led poorly and at the expense of other Magical Creatures."

“You admit that Wizards ARE Magical Creatures, then?”

“Of course, we are not above you and rely on you just as you rely on us. Our worlds and our magics are different yet interconnected. I would have sentient magical creatures, Goblins, Wizards, Centaurs, Werewolves, Vampires, Elves, Veelas, Merpeople, on down the list, all known as equals, all part of the solutions to our common problems. Unity is strength, and we are only as strong as the weakest among us.”

“This is why you are setting up a self-governing nation for House Elves, under everyone’s noses, including their own.”

“Princely Helpers is hardly that yet. It is a start, a road to independence and self-determination, perhaps. The House Elves have great potential, as you well know. Wizards, in our arrogance, have kept them from achieving what they are capable of becoming. The Dark and Light Lords in power do not trust in symbiosis and transparency. They trust only in compartmentalization, conflict, and control. I want to change that. I propose an Inter-magical Council with one representative from each sentient magical group overseeing everything and answering only to Lady Magic.”

“Well, it can’t possibly be any worse than having two insane warring wizards in charge. I need your permission to run all of this by Chief Udrub. Only he can authorize your Horcrux hunt.”

“Do you trust Chief Udrub?”

“Oh yes, Heir Prince. I trust him and suspect that Lady Magic does, and that was part of the reason at least, that she sent you to me. Chief Udrub is my father. He—Is that a basilisk hatchling?” Ragnok asks, looking down at Severus' little sleeve monster.

“No, of course not. This is Manasa. She is a sixty-foot-long, ancient Basilisk. I reduced her down to hatchling size for purposes of transport and feeding. She’s my friend and poses no threat to you. She is another topic that I wish to discuss soon, but not today. Please do speak to Chief Udrub, or let me know when he might be available, if he is willing to meet with me. May your knives stay sharp, Assistant Chief Ragnok.”

"And may your enemies find no cover, Heir Prince."

—---------

Severus checks on the Elves at Horizont Alley. The business is brisk with Elves appearing only to take another Owl order and disappear again. Gizzy has installed a long multi-owl perch at Elf level beside the main window. Owls perch there, accepting Aunt Hortensia's Healthy Owl Treats and water. Some groom themselves and nap before leaving. Gizzy reads incoming orders off like a Muggle chef, assigning the job to an Elf who quickly takes the order form and disappears. She levitates Owl whitewash poo into a container that she explains will be taken to compost at Prince Castle and used for fertilizer in the greenhouses. The pellets, which are mainly compacted bones and teeth, are banished.

“None of us know a good use for Owl pellets. When one is found, the pellets are not exactly in short supply!”

Two more Elves were sent over by Gringotts. Gizzy purchased both using the household accounts and put them to work filling orders. One she introduces as Aglet, returning from an hour of work somewhere. She whispers to Gizzy, who nods and writes something down in a ledger.

“I’m writing down all the stories so you can read them. We all think they will help.”

“Help how? For training purposes?”

Gizzy laughs and says that she thinks I’m very funny. “We are not training! We are spying on places where we work and gathering information to help you and Lady Magic!”

Severus takes care not to let his mouth hang open. It is not his most dignified expression. “How?”

“Oh, we all know Lady Magic! She is the Elf Mother, oldest of all the Elves!”

"Of course she is. On behalf of us both, I thank you for gathering information. Is it all here in this ledger?”

“No! There are two more ledgers in your room!”

“In my room?”

“Yes, we all voted for what we wanted to do first with our discretionary account money. We all wanted to make a room here for you!”

“Gizzy, no, that is not what the discretionary account money should be used for!”

“Of course it is! You said we can spend it on family!”

“I meant for you to spend it on your families.”

“We are all only one family! We all are Princes now! You are our family! We are your family!" Suddenly he sees Gizzy's calm confidence waver. "Am I wrong?”

“No. You are absolutely right, Gizzy. I have clearly been dunderheaded, and I have been bested by your logic. I’d very much like to see my gifted room, please.”

He follows Gizzy into the kitchen, where she gestures to the new door. It leads to a bedroom ensuite they created of their own accord, with their own money, just for him. It is perfect. There is a twin-sized bed made from blonde wood, possibly Arolla Pine, known even among the magically impaired for its sleep-enhancing properties, a blonde wood desk with a golden tan leather blotter and matching leather upholstered desk chair, and a tall blonde wood bookcase with nine shelves, with only two ledgers, one on top of the other, on a lower shelf. There is a space-efficient built-in closet, next to a small basic cream-tiled lavatory with a toilet, a basin, and a shower roughly twice the size of the one he installed at Spinner’s End in his last life. The walls are a warm, creamy off-white in the bedroom, accented with dark purple draperies, towels, and other soft furnishings. There is a blonde and tan hardwood herringbone floor and gold hardware, taps, and accents throughout, or in other words, his room and ensuite are appropriately done in Prince Family colors.

He sits on the bed, which has a blonde wood frame and an upholstered golden tan leather headboard. The mattress is gloriously firm, just as he recently discovered that he prefers. The sheets and duvet cover are fine-quality dark purple flax linen, in plain weave, and are whispery soft. The down pillow is almost identical to the pillow he uses at Hogwarts but is a tad more filled and fluffy.

When he returns into the kitchen to speak with Gizzy, who is still standing in the doorway, he sees many other hopeful faces peeking into the kitchen from behind her.

“Do you like it?” Gizzy asked far too cautiously.

“Come in, everyone, please.”

He waited until they had all entered the kitchen.

“It is perfect. Thank you to each of you. I am so delighted with your magnificent gift to me that I’ll be staying here tonight with my school friend Reg Black to try it out.”

Eggy whoops. Gizzy does a little twirl. Conker claps. Ixum kicks up his heels. Apple and Digby hug. Aglet jumps up and down. Handle laughs, slapping his knees. Pendy wipes away a tear. The sheer joy and feeling of belonging in the room was frankly a little overwhelming. Severus isn’t accustomed to feeling so very welcome, so embraced, in any home he’s ever lived in or visited.

"Gizzy is copying your bed for your friend!"

“Apple is making your dinner!”

“Ixum is setting your place at the table!”

“We are all eating together, I take it?”

“There was a pause, and all the other Elves look to Gizzy, who asked, “You want us all to eat together, with you?”

“I insist upon it.”

“Ixum is setting ten places!”

“Apple is making lots of food!”

Dinner is three succulent baked chickens, of which he eats a thigh and a wing, with broccolini and a salad of shaved carrot, apple, walnuts, and sultanas in salad cream, which was a luxury rarely found in the Snape household. He asks if they are enjoying their work. They all agree that they are, and a few regale him with mad stories of the happenings at the places where they went to work.

Just that morning, Ixum appeared at one address just as the lady of the house got an Owl from her sister and had to leave suddenly. She told Ixum to watch and protect her two-year-old, saying she’d be right back, and flooed away. Ixum watched the child, just as he was told, as the child destroyed the house. Ixum thought he might have to take the child with him when he left, too. Finally, the lady arrived home just at the end of Ixum’s time there. Upset at the state of things, she told Ixum to clean up after the child. Ixum just had time to clean and repair all the child’s messes before he popped away, leaving the house basically in the same state that it was in before he had arrived there to clean.

It is a simple meal, not overly heavy, which is exactly what Severus had wanted. It tastes better for the company and the sense of happy family that Severus has never felt a part of before. Mr. and Mrs. Evans are nice people, but he always felt like a thief at their table. They weren’t the Snapes by any means but didn’t have much to share either, certainly not enough to feed another hungry mouth on even an occasional basis.

At Malfoy Manor, he encountered the opposite problem. Lucius and Narcissa were always, without fail, as good as they knew how to be to him. They had far too much to give. Even gifts they thought were humble were beyond extravagant by his standards. He could never feel at home there amidst the lavish finery, where no expense was ever spared, and where so much of their bounty was just... wasted. He would arrive there already planning his quick exit.

Not long after dinner, it is time for Severus to meet up with Reg at the Hogwarts Express at Station Nine and Three Quarters. When he arrives, Mary McDonald is standing with Lily, speaking to the Evans family. Severus walks up and addresses Mary directly.

“Please excuse my interruption, Miss McDonald. We've never been properly introduced. My name has been recently changed and is now Severus Prince. I owe you an apology. When you were hanged upside down by Mulciber, I laughed thinking that it was nothing more than a harmless school prank. I hadn’t realized at the time how very humiliating, disorienting, and traumatic it is to hang up there helpless until Potter and Black did the same to me and threatened to remove my clothes in front of a crowd.

"I hope that nothing of the kind ever happens to you again, but if it does, I will duel the person or persons responsible. I have let it be known to Mulciber and to the other Slytherins involved that you have the protection of House Prince and that they or anyone else who bothers you at Hogwarts will pay in kind if you are ever again caused emotional distress, physical discomfort, or are detained against your will. The same holds true if your assailants are from other houses.

"This apology is a sincere one. I hope that one day you will forgive me for the lack of empathy I demonstrated in that moment. I am truly sorry for adding to your distress with my tone-deaf laughter. I promise you that I will never again laugh when I see you or any other student bullied in the future. In fact, I will do all I can to stop it. Thank you for hearing me out.”

“Wow, Prince, that’s the nicest apology I’ve ever gotten or ever heard even. Of course I accept it and forgive you for laughing. I can’t help laughing in church sometimes even when nothing is funny, and I know I’ll feel bad after. Don’t remember you being there, to be honest. I know you’ve never bullied anyone, despite being on the receiving end often enough. I’m sorry for what those stupid boys did to you after OWLs. I don’t think you deserved that any more than I did, from Mulciber and that lot. I told Sirius and James the same when they came around bragging about it, expecting all hearts and flowers. I hope that someday you get an apology from them as well.”

“Thank you, McDonald, I do appreciate it. I don’t think I’ll hold my breath. I don’t expect that you’ll receive one from Mulciber, either. Please stay as far away from him as you can. Also, you might want to ask for a heredity test at Gringotts. You can put it on my bill.”

“Well, that’s a fine kettle of fish! I’m your best friend, and you’ve never offered me the protection of your house or put anything on your bill!”

He knew she was kidding, but he couldn’t let the opportunity pass. “I don’t believe anymore that you are my friend, Lily. I saw you smiling at Potter when he had me hanging upside down, humiliating me in front of half the school. I’ve thought about it a lot since then. I don’t think you’ve treated me like a real friend since we’ve been at Hogwarts.

"You’ve used me for the things I can help you with, including making Potter jealous, but you’ve never gone out of your way to help me, ever. You promised that you would help me with Charms in second year. You never found the time. You’ve certainly never helped me drive off Potter and Black to keep me from missing classes while laid up with broken bones in the infirmary.”

“I stick up for you with them! You wouldn’t have been able to get loose like you did last time if I hadn’t been there distracting them. But I could never fight against them, Sev. Pete just went missing! They’re mostly good guys, too, and they’re both Gryffindors like me, so…”

“Being a prefect means that you need to stand up to the members of your own house, even your own friends, when they aren’t following school rules and/or are endangering themselves or others. I got the distinct impression that both you and Potter were using my distress as an excuse to flirt. I don’t appreciate being used. You wouldn’t be smiling now if someone had done the same to you."

"Look, I'm sorry if you're upset, but it really is your own fault!"

"No, it isn't my fault. That's no kind of apology that I will ever accept from you, either. You can take an inheritance test on my bill. You have the protection of my House. If someone ever hangs you upside down by your ankle and threatens to strip you naked, I’ll fight them tooth and nail to help you, Lily, whether it is the Slytherins, Marauders, Death Eaters, or the Dark Lord himself leading a band of monkeys.

"You, on the other hand, weren’t bothered enough by my obvious suffering to fire off an Expelliarmus spell, and this wasn't the first time either. As a prefect, isn’t it your sworn duty to disarm other students engaged in bullying or fighting? So, the way I see it, Lily, you can’t be bothered to do even as much for me, your supposed friend, as you should do for anyone else in the school.”

“I—Sev, don’t be this way. We’ve been friends since we were nine!”

“No. We were friends when we were nine, real friends. Now I’m just a useful acquaintance to you who is about to make himself somewhat less useful. It will be for the best for both of us if we give each other some space this summer. Know that I wish you well, though, always.

"For whatever it’s worth, Potter is an arrogant, childish idiot, a bigot, and a bully, but I think he truly is taken with you and will shape up into a decent person if you put your foot down and tell him to prove himself worthy of you. I can tell that you like him, too, Lils, though I find your taste quite unfathomable. Instead of these silly games the two of you are playing, both dragging me into the middle of it all, maybe you should just tell him to take you out to Puddifoot’s and buy you a cuppa, come the first Hogsmeade weekend next term.”

“You’ll change your mind. I’m not just your best friend; I'm your only friend. We’re your only ride home in case you've forgotten!”

“As I told you at school, I’m not going home. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, I only came over to apologize to McDonald. Sorry to have kept you. Lily Evans, thank you for being my true friend when we were both nine. We’ll always be on the same side, but I need to go it alone this summer. Perhaps we can revisit this discussion again next term.

“Don’t think we won’t be having words about your behavior, Lily Jasmine Evans,” says Mrs. Evans. Lily wisely ducks her head down. “Are you sure we can’t drop you somewhere, Severus? I’ll even ride in the back with the girls and let you sit up front, stretch your legs out?” This is a reference to an old family joke about the Evans' mini—that Sev will have to sit up front and stick his long legs out the window if he wants some proper leg room.

He chuckles dutifully, “No, but I thank you for the very kind offer, Mrs. Evans.”

“However things are with you and the girls at the moment, you’re still part of this family. You’re always welcome around ours. Don’t you forget that, Severus,” says Mr. Evans, who extends his hand.

Severus shakes it. “Thank you, Mr. Evans."

“No, thank you. We appreciate you looking after Lily when we can’t. You’ve always been a good lad. You’re growing up into a fine man.”

"Thank you, sir. How's the delivery job been?"

"Well, it's not the mill. Longer hours, lower pay, mainly night runs, lots of drops all over creation, no help unloading. But I'm getting used to it. I'm luckier than some. Take care; you find something better when you're out of school," he says, and follows after Mrs. Evans and Lily.

"Petunia, don’t let your anger endanger you or your sister, who I know you love. Don't let Lily wander around Cokeworth without you this summer. It isn’t safe for either of you to be out there all alone.”

Petunia purses her lips at me. Just when I didn’t think she would speak to me at all, she says, “Never thought I’d see the day when the likes of you would grow a spine. Maybe you’re not a complete shambles. Still clinging to girly hair, though, I see. At least you’ve cleaned yourself up a bit.” Then she primly turns on her heel and follows the rest of her family, taking short and quick steps, awkwardly hobbling from side to side, trying to balance the pain in her smart-looking, neatly polished, second-hand, black high-heeled Mary Janes that are obviously at least a size too small and are killing her feet, not that she will ever admit it.

“Tuney.”

Petunia stops and turns, looking truly annoyed now. He hits both her shoes with wandless, wordless, spelled-to-fit charms. She looks alarmed at first, then stares down at her feet, flexes them, takes a step, looks back up at Severus, and nods slightly. “Well done,” she says. Then she turns and strides away.

Not for the first time, he realizes that he and Petunia aren’t as different as he’d like them to be. Perhaps that was why Lily had been able to get along with him even when they first met. She was already conditioned to spending all her time with a dour, ruder than necessary, difficult personality. It wasn’t as if he even minded what Petunia was right now, but he had seen what a bitter, sadistic abuser she would become, one who incarcerated a child in a cupboard and starved him to the point of physically damaging his growth. He wonders what, if anything, he can do to help her improve her future self for the sake of her family at least. Maybe some of the changes he needs to make in the world have to start very close to home.

"You didn't forget about me, did you?" says Reg, grinning.

"I'm here, aren't I? Let's get you home. Gizzy!"

"Are you and Master Black ready?"

"We are, thank you, Gizzy." 

That night Severus sleeps in his newly gifted bedroom for the first time. He is watched over by adoring house-elves. Reg, having gorged on leftovers from dinner, is dead asleep on a second twin bed, an exact copy of Severus' own. Between the beds, Manasa rests in her terrarium on the current favorite of her two rocks. Both Hogwarts students hardly stir all night long, which is lucky since Severus has forgotten to hex both of their pillows.

-------------------

Thank you for reading! Your thoughts are always welcome!

Chapter Text

Severus Snape and the Next Great Adventure

- Part Two

When I was a student at Hogwarts, I never paid much attention to what was going on in the Muggle World. But because of my summers, I now have a much better idea of what will happen on the Muggle financial scene than most Muggle brokers do. Might as well put all that future knowledge into play.

Yes, I am aware of the concept of the butterfly effect, but I don’t believe that a single entity buying and selling can reshape an entire market, certainly not someone who is not in power, not famous, and not actively trying to create an impact for the sake of leverage. Perhaps this is pure naivety on my part. There is really only one way to find out.

On this occasion, he leaves Manasa at home so as not to alarm anyone else at Gringotts, and also because he wants to discuss her with Ragnok. Severus is getting more than a little paranoid about how well she currently understands English. He is sure that she recognizes the meanings behind at least a few English words and phrases. He is very careful now about not saying anything that might confuse, hurt her feelings, or otherwise upset her needlessly.

This morning Gizzy told him, when he asked, that she might be able to act as the binder for an Unbreakable Vow on Reg but does not wish to do it. It will bother her too much if a child loses his life because of her actions, even if she were following Severus' orders. He can see her point and told her that he is proud of her for using her own good judgment in the matter. He too does not wish to resort to an Unbreakable Vow, but as much as he wants to trust Reg, he can't overlook the fact that Reg in his old life became a Death Eater just as he had. Severus knows he can't lose sight of the need to protect himself and his mission.

He is well aware that truly loyal Death Eaters might be willing to sacrifice their magic to help the cause and their master. He's seen such inexplicable devotion in action. Bellatrix would have let Voldemort strip her of her magic and use her as a footstool if she thought it would give Voldemort a happier Tuesday. Therefore, he knows that he can't merely ask Reg to swear an oath on his magic. Reg is still a child. He is willing to take the Unbreakable Vow, but Severus also knows that Reg doesn't have much of a choice in the matter, considering his alternative. It is certainly not consent from any angle.

There is always Obliviation, but not being able to remember what happened to him over a long period of time is something that Severus doesn't wish upon Reg either. How else to protect all the knowledge that Reg would glean by the end of summer is the first problem that he brings with him to Gringotts today. The second is a Pensieve. The third, well, that has everything to do with whether or not he could get his hands on a Pensieve or not. The fourth is Manasa and her quest for sunny climes. He also plans to have a look in his heir vault to see if there might be anything useful or interesting in there other than money.

Ragnok appears after a few minutes, actually apologizing for keeping them waiting. He asks if he can offer them food or drink, which they both decline, still stuffed from Apple's croque-madames and cafe au lait, which apparently were great favorites of Regulus when he could get them. According to Reg, Apple's "coughs and croaks" are almost as good as Kreacher's, which Apple took as very high praise indeed. As odd as it seems to Severus after having met Kreacher in his old life, the Elf was somehow renowned as a very fine chef.

As to the security problem, Ragnok offers another solution. "We could implant a Legilimentic protocol. Mr. Black will not be able to tell anyone under any circumstances because if he even thinks about doing so, the information will become forgotten to him as if it never existed, sealed away behind a wall of protocol and encrypted behind it."

This idea was nothing new to Severus. It works very much like an Obliviate, except that the person who puts the protocol in place can also easily retrieve the memories later after the threat has passed. It would have been ideal for Miss Granger's purposes during the war, since all she was trying to hide was information from her own parents so that they wouldn't put themselves at risk. He privately thought that a ten-minute brutally honest conversation could have accomplished as much without causing permanent memory loss as the Obliviations did.

"Keep in mind that Voldemort, Dumbledore, and likely anyone else overly interested in information about me will either be an immensely powerful and skilled Legilimens or, in the case of the Minister, will have the means to contract one."

Severus knows that he can spot an embedded protocol in someone's mind and disable it without ever triggering any loss of information that it protected. He knows that (providing the Dark Lord was having an "on" day and was sane enough at the time) both Voldemort and Dumbledore could do the same, unless the person with the protocol in their head was also an extremely accomplished Occlumens, actively protecting their own mind, which would make the protocol just another hurdle, not the true obstacle to overcome. Reg knew all the basics of Occlumency and was skilled for his age, but either Lord would defeat him on sheer power alone, if they really wanted into his head.

"I agree it would be an issue if the implanted protocol and encryption were constructed in English. I can do it, and I can use Gobbletygook!"

"I hate to break this to you, Assistant Chief Ragnok, but Dumbledore knows Gobbletygook."

"That... would explain a few things."

"I don't know how he learned, but I do know that Filius Flitwick did not teach him and refuses to help him 'keep his conversational skills sharp.'"

"We could find someone fluent in some other language, something really obscure, but that would create another potential security risk," says Reg.

"What if we encrypted it twice using two languages?" says Severus, thinking Parseltongue could keep Dumbledore at bay. But honestly, it wouldn't surprise him if Voldemort had studied both Mermish and Gobbletygook precisely because he knew that Dumbledore knew them.

"That might work. We have a skilled Legilimens here who speaks Mermish," says Ragnok.

"Same problem with Dumbledore."

"No! He speaks Mermish, too?"

"I'm afraid so. He's had to fill his many meddlesome years doing something beyond annoying the Goblin Nation and becoming a sweets connoisseur and bowling champion. Wait! I do know a language that neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort will know or even recognize!"

"Merlin Sev, how in the world could you forget that you learned some obscure language?" asks Reggie, grinning at him.

"It hasn't been a particularly useful language for me in the past, but I can make it work for this."

"Then you construct," says Ragnok. "I will help with the layering and anchoring."

This is how all of Severus' secrets became safely sealed away in Reggie's brain, behind a hidden, language-specific Legilimensic protocol of carefully encrypted Klingon. When they are finished, Severus checks to see how well their work turned out. "Do you remember your name?"

"Yes, Sev, my memory is fine."

"You did not answer my question."

"Regulus Arcturus Black. Can we move on now?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Regulus Black, what would our dear old mother say?"

"Probably something much, much worse, especially if she had my headache."

"Point." Severus hands over a potion from out of his bag to Regulus, who drinks it down. "Except for the headache, I think he is all right," Severus says to Ragnok.

"Relief! Thank you. Your headache potions are glorious. Now can I know what is going on here, exactly?" asks Regulus, handing the vial back to Severus with a grateful nod.

"When we are not wasting Ragnok's valuable time, I'll answer your questions. Right now, we still have much business to conduct. First of all, Ragnok, do you know where I can get a Pensieve?"

"I can offer you the use of a small portable one like the Aurors use for a reasonable fee."

"That would be ideal. Do you have two that I could rent for a reasonable fee?"

"Two could be arranged. May I ask why you or anyone else would need to use two Pensieves?"

"One is for your use. I plan to give you a memory to dissect to formulate a plan of action for tomorrow that will hopefully make you, me, and Gringotts a lot of money. Beyond what we do with the information tomorrow, I don't mind how the information in the Pensieve is used to benefit you or Gringotts or anyone associated with Gringotts, but I expect to remain completely anonymous and still get a 'consultancy percentage' of say fifteen percent on all the other profits generated, plus the use of both Pensieves free for the foreseeable future as a favor from Gringotts to a valued client."

Ragnok snickers, clearly enjoying himself. "Gringotts accepts your terms."

"I also require your services as my broker tomorrow."

"Certainly. How many transactions do you have in mind?"

"As many single trades as you can make that leave me with solid profit after your fees."

"You want my exclusive services as a broker all day, say, from 6:30am to 10pm?"

"Yes. I've been told by other Slytherins over the years that the financial services at Gringotts are second to none. You have people at the Muggle London, New York, and Tokyo exchanges, and possibly at others as well, and can execute orders in real time—futures, currency, stocks, bonds, metals—name it, and you can trade it, I'm assuming, through the use of the Mind Arts."

"Your information and assumptions are exemplary. We also can use Muggle means, such as telex, telephones, and so on, if and when necessary. We have Muggle bankers, solicitors, bureaucrats, and elected officials on the payroll as well as connections to big investors. Lots of ways to spread any otherwise suspicious activities over many different agents to avoid any unwanted scrutiny."

"Is this strictly legal?"

"Reggie!" says Severus, "Ragnok and I haven't asked about, well, anything you do that others might consider... shady."

"Terribly sorry, I withdraw the question."

"No. It is good to be curious when you are so young. The way we operate is not against any laws in the Goblin Nation, which is where you now sit, young Wizard!"

"I'm sorry! I meant no offense, honestly."

Ragnok and Severus both chuckle. "Just messing with you, Heir Black. The Muggle world would certainly take great exception to what Heir Prince is proposing. Certain sectors of the Wizarding World would also. But I'm completely on board with it because the Goblin Nation has nothing against using whatever resources we have or information we know to make gold flow, especially if it benefits not only ourselves but also Gringotts and the Goblin Nation as a whole. It is rather our duty as Goblins, in fact. What Heir Prince proposes, unless I am very mistaken, will benefit those far beyond these walls, perhaps even the whole world."

"If all goes according to plan," Severus agrees.

"Still completely confused over here," says Reg, but at least he is looking amused by the intrigue and his own inability to make heads or tails of it all.

Someone knocks. A Goblin opens the door in front of two more goblins, each carrying a Pensieve. One Pensieve is rather larger than the other, which is a small portable unit much like those in service to the Aurors, which Severus will be taking with him in his bag. They place them, ask for instructions, fill the large one with Pensieve potion, leave another bottle of the potion on the desk, and let themselves out again.

In the larger of the two Pensieves, Severus, beside Reg and Ragnok, watches himself reading the Financial Times, which he recently dug out of a rubbish bin behind the local betting shop the next day when the information within it was no longer considered as useful to anyone.

Severus, who was always starved for things to read and do in the summer, watches himself trying his best to make sense of the patterns he discerned, no doubt fantasizing about what he would do with wealth if he in fact ever had any. Such things became a guilty pleasure in his life during the long, merciless summers in Cokeworth, especially after Lily. He could almost always find a copy in that bin, or if not, left at a random bus stop somewhere nearby. He reads the articles too, of course, but is always attracted back to the columns of letters and numbers—to the patterns, the realities, and the opportunities that they represent.

Later in life, he came to view the stock market as a more respectable yet similarly dangerous roulette wheel—both of which he had wisely avoided. In Death Eater circles, it was far more socially acceptable to mention that one dabbled in futures rather than admitting to having a really bad gambling habit indulged in Monte Carlo if you were the likes of Lucius or in Brighton if you were either of the Carrow twins.

"That date on the newspaper! "You're from the future!" says Reg. "You're still yourself, though."

"Yes, just a lot... older. Things went rather pear-shaped in that timeline. We both died quite horribly, in fact. I'm back again to improve our outcomes and save the rest of the world as well. Would you like to assist Ragnok tomorrow whilst I am under Healer Longtooth's care?"

"That depends," says Reg. He turns to Ragnock. "Do you think I can be of any real help to you, Ragnok?"

"Absolutely! I could also do with the aid of one of your Elves, if you can spare one," Ragnok says to Severus.

"I'm sure that Gizzy will be delighted to learn new things. It will also be good practice for the other Elves to function without her for a day."

As they talk strategy, Severus makes notes about particular opportunities he was aware of and trends, like the falling pound, the extreme heatwave, and the rise of metal prices, he knows should persist beyond the one day, despite how many Gringotts butterflies might come into play. Together they hammer out the beginnings of an investment scheme for the seed money tomorrow that was now just lazily sitting about in his Gringotts trust account. Even if the very worst happened and he somehow lost his entire stake tomorrow, he would still have more than enough money to live on comfortably and finish school, would still have the income stream provided by Princely Helpers, and would still inherit the main Prince vault on his coming birthday in January. Severus was never averse to taking calculated risks when he could afford them, and if the potential payoffs made the risks seem worthwhile. Most of his risks to date involved his life and health rather than mere money.

He had gleaned by being a Slytherin that Gringotts had people—assistants, agents, traders, lawyers, bankers, and brokers in the Muggle World, most of them probably Squibs or Squib-born—who could execute transactions in London, New York, and Tokyo, and possibly on other world exchanges as well, who knew how to cover their tracks using shell corporations and Swiss bank accounts, either by using magic or simply by making their activities less noteworthy to the watchdog organizations that tracked and policed such things—a small intentional loss before a large well-planned gain—that sort of thing. Severus had known many old-school traditionalists who professed that they wanted nothing to do with Muggles but were still happy to turn a profit in the Muggle world whenever they could and were happier still to buy Muggle art, smoke Muggle hand-rolled cigars, and drive secret sports cars to impress younger Muggle girlfriends far too fast on Muggle motorways. Death-Eater hypocrites have a long and storied history. Perhaps he should write the book on it someday.

He would start with 1,000,000 GBP seed money, which was worth more in 1976 than it was worth in 1998; that is to say, a lot of money just to gamble. But his goal was, by the end of the summer, to turn that into many more millions in 1976 money, because he already had plans for how best to spend those millions to facilitate his mission. Tomorrow, however, as Ragnok puts his seed money into play, Severus would be in another area of Gringotts having Healer Longtooth repair the physical proof of years of his father's drunken anger.

"Were there other things that you wish to discuss today?"

"Yes, I want you to look into the possibility of buying a property, the now-defunct Cokeworth Linen Mill where my father used to work."

"Did you want to blow it up, or something?"

Severus chuckles. "I was rather thinking of turning it into a brewery, with a pub and hot pie shop attached."

"Beer, yes! Completely recession-proof! A wise choice! The licensing on that will be tricky, but nothing a couple of well-placed bribes can't conquer. We will negotiate the price with the cost of the license, renovations, and equipment in mind. How long has it been left derelict?"

"Nearly two years now."

"Then whoever owns it will sell it to you for a song. The pub and pie shop won't exactly line your coffers but should significantly improve the community spirit in Cokeworth, which will be a considerable portion of your beer customer base, especially at least at the start."

"Be still, my heart. You have investigated my humble beginnings."

"I do try to learn what I can about all my clients, Heir Prince. Not many are as interesting as you are. Since you have no family remaining in the area, I assume your intent is helping old friends and neighbors there?"

"I have to start somewhere. Cokeworth is what I know. The area seems as needy for decent jobs as anywhere else in the UK presently."

"Indeed. It is hard to find a bleaker place outside of some of the active war zones in Northern Ireland—just some of them, mind. I am interested to watch the effects of your investments there in Cokeworth."

"At least no one is blowing anything up in Cokeworth. Well, not yet anyway. Probably because it would take so long for anyone to notice. The next thing on my list is Manasa. As you know, I own something of a zoo in Korfu. Reg and I will investigate it sometime soon, but I'd like to have options in place if, as I suspect, the zoo isn't suitable for Manasa's needs."

"I'll delegate to a goblin I trust with the job of lining up some potential properties. What are the specifics you and Manasa require?"

"An uninhabited island would be ideal—somewhere with rocks, a beach, lots of trees for shade and to act as convenient camouflage, a freshwater source, privacy, a tropical climate, and ample acreage for game to support an unspecified, enormous, dangerous beast that will happily devour large prey every other day."

"So it really is centuries old and sixty feet long when not reduced in size?"

"About."

"You mean your snake?" asks Reg.

"Yes, my snake."

-------------------

Thank you for reading my story! I'd love to hear from you!

Chapter Text

Reg waits for him in Ragnok's office while a junior Goblin escorts him on the roller coaster ride down to the lowest level and shows Severus to his trust vault. The air in Gringotts' deepest vaults smells of damp stone, rusty iron, and a vaguely almond scent he associates with some poisons and blood magic. Personally, I am fond of marzipan, but in my last life I made a point to never eat it when offered.

They stop before a heavy black cast iron door emblazoned with the number fifty-two in gold. It is overly tall and wide, with a deeply recessed golden lock at the center. He turns his gold key in the heavy yet smoothly balanced mechanism and feels something reminiscent of a tiny serpent striking the back of his hand. The lock clicks open. He wonders what would have happened to his wand hand if the lock hadn't detected the blood of a Prince heir trying to open it.

The door swings open silently. The room immediately lights itself with floating amber witch lights, which seem to make all the gold in the room glow from within. Severus steps in, and since it also opens with the key from the inside, he thanks the Goblin for waiting, says he will be as quick as possible, and shuts the door for privacy.

His immediate impression is that his vault is a library stretching back further than he can see, stacked from floor to 15-foot ceiling with shelves made of dark wood ornately carved and lined not just with books but also occasional relics. There are the journals of his ancestors dating back to the first Prince. Priceless volumes on every type of magic imaginable that are neatly shelved by alphabetical category, making them easy to find. Cut crystal jars marked with the names of ingredients long presumed extinct, like Egyptian Blue Lotus and Lamb's Succory Root, stand beside considerable quantities of incredibly rare or hard-to-get ingredients like Time Sand, Vampire Fangs, and Phoenix Tears. There is even a half ounce or so of Basilisk Venom, which he would certainly add to for the sake of future heirs. Dark and cursed artifacts are held inert behind shimmering wards. In the very center sits a rococo-style desk and chair set, its dark wood gilded and polished, nearly obscuring the beautiful natural wood grain. On the desk is a carved horn circular stand, decorated with an ancient hunt scene, set in gold. Levitating just above it is a sphere, perhaps made of black smoke or shadows, which rotates slowly clockwise. Beside the sphere was a gold-tasseled scroll, which he nudged open with his wand in order to read it. In an elegant looping hand, written in blood, he reads:

We know you not, but once were you.
The Prince Orb waits for your review.
this deathless mind our memories keep,
which hold the keys to mysteries deep.
Here, what we sow, one day, will grow.
What we did see is yours to know.

So teach yourself our knowledge old
yet learn anew what you behold,
for when you breathe your final breath
you make your copy cheating death,
returning all you did absorb
back home to fill the Princes' Orb—

all our answers for your asking,
your own heir's tool for future tasking.

Apparently, the Prince family was a wellspring of dreadful doggerel, which surprises me not one bit. From the shadows, a movement catches my eye. I draw Cthulhu, first thinking that I was not alone in here, soon realizing that the man I thought was standing in a hallway to my left is not a man in a hallway at all, just a life-sized portrait in a door-sized frame. The man whose likeness is preserved in paint is thin-faced with sharp features and black irises, familiar enough, though I never met him in person.

"Eilios Severus Prince, I presume?"

"At least you're not a Muggle or a complete idiot. You certainly are quick with a wand."

Severus found that he was in no hurry to sheath Cthulhu either. He was also quite content not to respond.

"How is your mother?" his grandfather's image finally asks after a ridiculous attempt at staring him down.

"She died, not long before you did."

"My condolences. From what did she pass?"

"A mélange of abuse, poverty, and the flu."

"Stubborn, so stubborn was your mother. That...life was never what I desired for her."

"No, you wanted to sell her to a seventy-year-old lecher, apparently."

"No! Is that what she told you? I wanted Eileen to marry well! Selwyn was no lecher, not by that point. He was impotent, frail, and already dying from a blood curse. Eileen only needed to become with child, producing an heir—male or female, it didn't matter to the Selwyn Family who accept female heirs. Your mother would have been wealthy, respected, well-cared for, and powerful—a successful Selwyn matriarch widow with all the power and freedom that she wanted. Selwyn couldn't afford to be picky. All he asked for was a pureblood child to keep the Lordship out of his grasping brother's hands. Any male pureblood lover would have done for fathering that heir. Your mother knew this. There was an old Selwyn family ritual that he found to transfer proper Selwyn blood into any pureblood child under age two. Selwyn's own blood was unsuitable for a blood adoption, you see, because of that curse, which is why he was sure it was his own brother's doing in the first place.

"The arrangement wasn't ideal, perhaps, but neither was Eileen. She relished being the very antithesis of pleasant, sociable, or easy company. She wouldn't even try to be the sort of girl who turns heads and attracts people to her. She wasn't a great beauty but wasn't particularly hard on the eyes in her day. She would never make any effort to fix herself up, though, wouldn't emphasize her best physical features, and would let the elves do up her hair and that. She refused every beauty potion ever offered to her. Her mother had given up trying to get her into the pretty, popular fashions. Eileen clung to her plain robes and flat shoes in sensible colors. The girl wouldn't even wear jewelry or flowers!

"Everyone in the household tried to teach your mother to dance at some point. I tried waltzing her around with her bare feet on my shoes. She would squeal and laugh, having a fine time. She loved to dance like that with me—but she wouldn't be led and simply refused to remember any traditional steps. Your mother wouldn't deign to hold a conversation if she didn't want to be a part of it, never mind mingle, flirt, or feign some interest in a young man. Early on, there were a couple of unfortunate souls with similarly limited options who stepped up, but each of them walked away knowing exactly what Eileen Prince really thought of him. Is there anything more cruel a woman can do to a man than to tell him the truth about himself?

"T'was a pity that she was born a girl, really. That brand of cantankerousness could have been a boon in a male heir. I did miss her, Severus. We feared she was dead. Her disappearance and the grief it caused destroyed your Grandmother's health and led her to an early grave as well. You simply can't imagine the disappointment, the horror, the heartache when we learned that she was hiding from us, that she'd married that Muggle rubbish!"

"Squib rubbish, actually."

"Cold comfort!"

"No. Just a fact, Grandfather. Why are you here in the trust vault?"

"I ordered my personal House-Elf, Bixley, to put me in here, a foolish notion of a dying man, perhaps. I knew that you weren't of age yet. I hoped to be able to size you up properly before you took the Lordship. Make sure that you have something of us Princes in there, blended up with all the rubbish. Are you skilled at anything besides quick-drawing your wand?"

Severus put his wand away. He silently silenced the portrait and said, "I've been complimented for my dancing. My mother taught me the waltz, the quadrille, the polka, the mazurka, the galop, and the foxtrot. She was very light on her feet. A shame that you never got to know her better." He conjures a dust tarp out of all the dust in the vault, which drapes itself over, completely covering the framed portrait from his view.

That should constitute a sufficient answer to the question posed.

Every book that wasn't behind a ward because it was cursed went into Severus's bag. He left all of the rare and unstable potion ingredients after making a thorough list of what was there. He made another list of which artifacts were present. He'd have to inquire about what each was; he thought he'd rather talk to his grandfather again than chance dealing with the orb but didn't want to spend the time today with Reg waiting and the Goblin standing just outside the door. He took a healthy amount of galleons, perhaps a hundred, and dropped them into Eileen's now bottomless money bag so that he wouldn't be entirely reliant on his ring to pay for things. Thinking about it, he took another hundred or so to have converted into quid. In his old life he had learned the wisdom of keeping Muggle money available for emergencies and other inconvenient occurrences.

Severus left, locking the door behind him. He stood in line for a moment until the people in front of him could notice him and move and changed about half his Galleons into GBP. Then he went to retrieve Reg from Ragnok's office. The two of them were still discussing plans for tomorrow.

"Have you hammered out your game plan?"

"I'm ready. You can't even imagine how much I appreciate this opportunity. When I was young, I used to watch my father brokering trades, wondering how much gold could possibly be made in one day of trading. I never thought I'd get a chance to find out."

"You and Reg should each get a broker to copycat the transactions that you make for me tomorrow."

"How much would I need to set up a brokerage account?" asked Reg, clearly excited about the idea.

"I could set one up today with only a thousand galleons to fund it."

"Oh, I don't think I have that much spending money left."

"I'll lend you the thousand. You can repay me after tomorrow when, theoretically, you have much more than that."

"Thanks, Sev. That means I'm in!" says Regulus.

"Usually, I would never copycat a client's trades, but this is a very unique opportunity. You obviously don't mind, so I'm in too! But Reg, we will have separate brokers and a different outcome. We should still do well, but there will be lag times between what I execute and what the brokers watching me execute."

"Can't we just pool all our money and let Sev pay you instead of you and I paying two separate brokers? Then we can divide all the profits according to what percentage we each put into the kitty."

"That seems sensible. I'd prefer you both get the full benefit since you two will be working hard for fifteen and a half hours tomorrow whilst I laze about in the care of Healer Longtooth."

"We can divide the fees the same way," says Ragnok.

"We are not dividing the fees. I will pay all of those. I also insist that you, Reg, and Gringotts each take 2 percent of my total earnings after your shares and the fees. It is my thanks for your efforts tomorrow on my behalf. Don't argue this. It is non-negotiable."

"I wasn't going to argue. Were you going to argue, Reg?"

"No, I was going to flash my best smile and say thank you again. Thanks, Sev! Hey Ragnok, what's 2 percent of a million?"

"A house."

"For most people, perhaps, but he's a Black. It may cover your winter wardrobe this year."

"Oh, well, either way, thanks, Sev! I think you should adopt me. I'll be Prince Heir for you, and you can pay for everything!"

"Huh, well that is something to consider. Could Reg be emancipated, and could I adopt him? I am a legal adult even though I'm officially only a year older."

"A year and three months!"

Severus chuckled. "Yes, the three months definitely sells it."

"You'd have to prove the need to be emancipated."

"Not a problem."

"As for being adopted by a young adult, I see no problem with it, though obviously others will. Of course, if you agree to and undergo a blood adoption, as would be necessary to qualify as a Prince Heir, there isn't a thing that anyone can do to contest it. The two of you would be family. The Blacks may try to charge you with line theft, but it wouldn't hold up, I don't think. He still retains Black blood after all but also gains Prince blood. They can disinherit him, but if they do, they have no ability to claim line theft. He can certainly stand as Heir to more than one House. Just to make sure I'm right about all this, we need to run it by an actual lawyer first. Are you sure that you are ready to leave your home with the Blacks, Reg?"

"Yea- oh."

"What have you had second thoughts about?" Severus asks.

"Kreacher! If I leave permanently, I'd never see him again."

"Could he get someone to give him clothes?" asks Sev.

"Kreacher is a House Elf, then? That's a good plan. Any Elf who comes to Gringotts looking for a new home will first be offered to Heir Prince per our agreement with his Elf cleaning company. Make sure that Kreacher knows to come here and not to Hogwarts." 

"You have an Elf cleaning company?"

"Yes, currently you are living in it."

"Oh! I thought they were just—I don't know—busy shopping, or something."

"Some people have jobs, Reg. I know the concept is a lot to take in," Severus teased.

"I know that! Don't you dare call me a dunderhead again. I'm not dunderheaded. You're the dunderhead! I thought you told me everything there was to tell? Now I come to find out that you've got a company!"

"There is much to tell. I will tell you everything you want to know when we have the time."

"Do you think that Kreacher can get himself discharged?" asks Ragnok.

"Maybe. He's really smart. He's always had a way with our dear old mum. Honestly, I think she likes Kreacher better than anyone else, even Father. He might do better to try to get discharged by Father, who isn't as fond of him. He does love Kreacher's Lièvre à la Royale, though. I'm wondering how either of them will survive without Kreacher. I doubt Father could figure out cooking. I don't think Mother even knows where the kitchen is."

"Can you get word to Kreacher?"

"I don't know. He used to send me letters every couple of days at Hogwarts. That's how I found out about Mother's plans for me. I don't want to go knock on the door in case they won't let me leave. I suppose we could send an Elf with a message asking him to come meet me somewhere safe and neutral that wouldn't implicate you in my disappearance if they started asking him questions after."

"They probably won't ask."

"True. He's not even a person to them, I don't think, and he's worth the lot of them, including Sirius."

"You should talk to the Princely Helpers Elves. They may know quite a few good tricks for getting dismissed, considering that they all managed it," said Ragnok.

Severus nods. "First we should see Weems at Prince House. She's ancient. She has likely seen every House Elf trick in the book several times over by now." Severus hopes that she is still breathing as well, not just being kept fresh like Header.

----------------

Thank you for reading! Feel free to let me know your thoughts. Or, you could just say hi!

Chapter Text

Prince House has an eerie feeling, like all the many members of an extended Prince Family have just stepped out for a moment. There is not a speck of dust to be found here. The silver is shined to a mirror polish. Sunlight streams in through window glass so clean inside and outside that birds doubtlessly fly into it and die. There are flowers picked fresh daily and artfully arranged in a mammoth crystal vase facing the grand front entryway. The air itself in this home smells like a flower garden planted to cultivate tantalizing scents.

In sharp contrast to the picture-perfect home, the Elves, especially the children, look desperately unhappy, uncomfortable, and unwelcoming. Nevertheless, they line up immediately. Even the older toddler stands at attention. The three oldest children are holding the three youngest in arms too thin and far too pale. They introduce themselves and also the babes they hold. Of all the Elves present, the most miserable-looking one by far is the oldest child. Her name is Dewdrop. I recognize that particular expression of teen misery she wears, having seen it on my own face in the mirror during my first life. In contrast to the sparkling cleanliness of the house, the Elves in general look less than pristine. They wear—I suddenly realize that I do not see Weems and immediately fear I will be presiding over yet another impromptu funeral today, but there are clearly four adults present. The two females look about the same age, but one, the better dressed of the two, is meeting my eyes with a familiar fondness.

"Weems?"

"Heir Prince remembers me!"

"I came to speak to you today but almost didn't recognize you."

"I am working hard all day looking after children! The work I love is making me young again."

"How does that happen exactly? When I saw you last, you looked quite ancient."

"Oh, I am not that old! But there were no children to take care of at my last house. The children I used to change, bathe, dress, and teach all grew up, got married, or moved out on their own. So I had little to do there except help out the other Elves when I could with the household chores and such, but with fewer members in the household to look after, there was less work for all of us. So one day the mistress said, 'Weems, you are looking very tired. Go and rest now.' Then the master said, 'Weems, you are looking ill. Go stay in bed until you are better.' I did what they said and started wasting away! Then they said I was too old and sent me away. But you saw that I still had purpose, and now I work hard again looking after these babies, teaching the young Elves, and telling stories to everyone like you said to do. I am very happy to be here and a part of Prince House!"

"Maybe that's what happened to Mother's mind," said Reg. "Left with not enough work to do herself, since she orders everyone else about incessantly."

"And the rest of you? Do you feel that you have enough work here?"

"I do!" said Dribbs. "The garden and greenhouse keep me hopping! There is always something else that needs digging, planting, watering, or trimming!"

"I work hard to keep the house clean and fixed up with Derby! We have our children to take care of, too. We are always staying good and busy here!" Derby grins, agreeing with Doily's statement enthusiastically.

"I will talk to Weems for a moment. Then I will tour the rest of the house, but I will need a guide, so for today, Dewdrop is in charge of being my tour guide." Dewdrops flashed a small pleased smile as she was congratulated on her task by her family.

"You wanted to speak to me privately?"

Severus raised a privacy and silencing ward. "Yes, Weems, we have a problem that we think you may be able to help us solve."

"I am happy to help! What do you need?"

"Reg wants to become a part of the Prince family but he does not want to leave the House Elf who raised him with his old family who are frankly not good people. We are looking for a plan to get his old Elf Kreacher presented with clothing so that he can become part of the Prince family as well. We wondered if you had good ideas on how Kreacher could get himself discharged from service on purpose."

"I don't know. I didn't do it on purpose and certainly wouldn't suggest that Kreacher follow my path. He might waste away before those bad people even notice. I'm sorry I can't help you more, Master Prince."

"Please don't let it worry you, Weems. We still have a house full of once-discharged Elves at Horizont to ask as well. I'm certain we will find a workable solution."

"I know Kreacher. He is a good Elf. I hope it all works out for him to come home to the Prince family with Young Master Black."

"Thank you, Weems." Severus drops the privacy and silencing wards. "Reg, would you like to hold the baby, little Duffle here, whilst Dewdrop shows me around?"

"I would be honored to hold little Duffle!" Duffle makes a little nonsense vocalization as he settles into Reg's arms. "You don't say, old chap! I had heard that but didn't believe a word of it! Duffle, do you like funny faces? Watch this one!" Reg crosses his eyes and touches his nose with the tip of his tongue. Duffle points up at Reg and gurgles. Reg gurgles right back.

"Ah, a real meeting of the minds, I see."

"Bye Severus! Wave bye-bye to the unfunny and way too serious fellow, Duffle! Say, bye-bye! Bye-bye, now!"

--------------------------

There is at least one small fresh floral arrangement in every room. The dining room table has a fresh floral centerpiece about eight inches tall and as wide that runs nearly the entire length of the table, which seats sixteen, with hundreds of tiny witch lights interspersed amidst the abundant flowers and greenery.

Prince House is not a hulking monster of a house like Grimmauld Place but is quite large. There are three levels above ground, seven staircases, and eleven bedrooms, each with an ensuite, plus the master suite. There is also a library with a detached study, a billiards room, a very basic potions lab, the ward room, a ritual room in the basement, a playroom in one of the four attics, a parlor, two sitting rooms, and a greenhouse with a riot of flowering plants, most of which are currently in bloom. It is located in the exact center, surrounded by the rest of the house on four sides and closed off by four sets of French doors. The kitchen is at the back of the house next to the lounge.

Both back rooms let out onto a small outdoor flagstone patio area and garden. The entire space is maybe fifteen meters square, with a koi pond, a fountain, a bench swing, and a potting shed, all surrounded by a high stone wall draped with climbing roses, star jasmine, and honeysuckle. There is a small patch of lawn in the middle of the garden surrounded by paths and raised beds. There are many varieties of flowers and several different kitchen herbs in pots near the kitchen door. This is a family house. He has absolutely no urge to try to make it anything else. He expected company, but the other Elves did not follow them out, and Dewdrop awaits him just inside the lounge.

"Do you often use the swing?" He asks her when he had sufficiently inspected the garden.

"No."

"Do you prefer playing inside?"

She shrugs. "I suppose."

"Would you like a job?"

Dewdrop gasps, "Really? A real job?"

"What would you like to do?"

The excitement is immediately gone, and she looks very sullen again. Teenagers.

"What do you most enjoy doing? Do you not wish to say? How many guesses do I get?"

Dewdrop giggles. "I know I'm not supposed to touch the books in the library, but... I do. I'm always careful with them, but I like to read."

"Why are you not allowed to read?"

"Oh, I'm allowed to read—the Prophet and the boring old school books up in the nursery. I'm not supposed to touch the real books in the library, though."

He had toured the library and had been surprised that there were no cursed books in there, and nothing very dark even, for that matter. He suspected all dark, cursed, rare, or especially valuable tomes, like first editions or signed copies, were kept in the Lord's vault at Gringotts. "Why can't you touch the books in the library?"

"Huh, well, I don't know. I only know that we Elves aren't supposed to touch them, not even just for dusting."

"You know, the old Lord Prince probably made up a lot of really silly and now completely outdated rules. Your next job for me today is to help me to learn which rules need changing. From now on, Elves are expected to touch the books in the library and may read them all if they wish."

"Can you do that? Change the rules?"

"No one will stop me. Would you care to help?"

"Yes! I would love to help change all the stupid rules around here!"

Severus brought out of his bag a quill he'd had the Horizont Elves spell self-inking, some spare parchment, and a black journal to use as a clipboard. "Number one, elves can and should touch books in the library and read them as they like. What's number two?"

"Elves can play and sit in the garden swing too, not just work out there and pick flowers to bring in!"

"In the garden, Elves should work, play, sit, swing, or lie down in the grass and sun or look at the stars as they see fit. What is number three?"

"Elves can make a vegetable garden and don't need to eat edible flowers all the time!"

"Elves may plant or buy out of the household funds anything they wish to eat. They may also keep chickens that will eat an excess of edible flowers."

"Elves can play with all the toys in the playroom, not just read the old schoolbooks!"

Severus imagines getting them some Muggle darts and encouraging the young Elves to toss them at his grandfather's portrait for fun. It would certainly serve him right. "Yes, Elves can play all they like with the toys in the playroom." He writes it down and makes a mental note to check to see if it is sufficiently stocked with toys and games for all ages. "What else?"

"Well, that's probably enough, I suppose."

"Is it? Are you happy with what you are wearing?"

"No," she says very quietly as if admitting to a heartbreakingly shameful thing.

"Elves shall make themselves and their families new uniforms and wardrobes as needed, spelled to fit, self-mending, and staying clean. Where do you sleep?" He asks this as he writes.

"We all sleep out in the potting shed."

"Show me, please."

There is one main room, which seems to be just a neatly kept potting shed, plus a small spotless loo with a utilitarian toilet and sink. There is no shower or bath.

"Where is your bedding?"

"Stored away in that big flowerpot."

Severus looks. There are many muslin and burlap flour, grass seed, coffee bean, and other various dry goods bags shrunken down to approximately the size of a matchbox and stored in there. He had no doubt it got very cold at night even during summer months. Muslin and burlap sacks left a lot to be desired as far as warm and comfortable bedding went. They could change them with magic, but he doubted very much that they did. It probably felt disrespectful not to use exactly what they were given. Dewdrop's dress was also a muslin flour sack with arm and head holes cut out and blanket stitched, sized to more or less fit. It looked worn, sad, and not particularly very clean. All the elves looked less than tidy except for Weems, but even her clothes looked like they needed a good wash. He well knew how easy it was to work all the time and let go of your appearance. It took a toll on self-confidence and self-respect.

"Where do you bathe the children?" Dewdrop just pointed to the tiny sink. Which had a large bar of laundry soap upright in a flowerpot next to it.

"I take it that Elves aren't allowed to use the bedrooms and bathrooms inside the house?"

"Not yet, we're not!"

Severus smirks and nods. He adds to the growing list a new rule that permits this.

"What are the other three attics used for?"

"Storage."

After a quick inventory of the playroom, Severus checks out the suitability of those attic storage spaces. In the end he decided to have the Elves convert two adjacent bedrooms on the second floor into Elf living space. The two ensuites gave them two full bathrooms, with two bathtubs and two showers, to share. He also made it clear that they were welcome to use any of the other bathrooms in the house. When he presents his plan, they want to remove the existing bedroom furniture entirely but keep the mattresses and bedding, which they then copy to cover most of the available floor space in the room. They set up a rustic kitchen area for themselves around the fireplace, which became free-standing when the wall between the two rooms was banished. The resulting Elf space is warm and homey and seems to make them all very happy.

"Feel free to decorate it however you would like." He allotted them the same amount that the Horizont Elves had spent on carpet. They all smiled adoringly. He also allocated 50 galleons per year to be spent on new games, toys, art supplies, and kids' books for the playroom and let Weems know she could buy new textbooks out of the house account. He told them that all workers would be receiving a gallon per week into a discretionary fund that they could collectively decide to use for additional improvements to make them more comfortable and happy here. He read out all the new rules, which pleased them all, especially the children and Weems.

"Thank you for helping me put Prince House in order, Dewdrop. You have done an outstanding job."

"You are welcome!"

"It occurs to me that this house has a fine library yet no librarian to look after it. I think that you would be an ideal choice for that job."

"You mean I get to take care of the books?"

"Indeed, you will care for them, keep track of them, and make certain that they return to their correct places. You must spell them to resist damage and repair them whenever necessary. You also must keep the library clean, tidy, and dusted. You will have a monthly budget for upkeep expenses and the purchasing of new books that you think the library needs. You will find the logical places to put them and will expand the shelves and space as the library grows. You will be expected to do quite a lot of reading, too, of course. The entire library and everything in it will be solely your responsibility. Do you think you would like this job?"

"Oh yes! I will like it very much, Heir Prince!"

"Then it is settled."

The other Elves are overjoyed for Dewdrop for receiving her first job and the permanent position as librarian. Even some of the little ones hugged and congratulated her.

"Ah, and here is our list. I expect you to make this look nice and legible on a poster and display it prominently in the library and to keep it updated so everyone will be able to come to the library to check the Prince House rules as necessary."

"When you came, I thought you'd make everything worse for us, even though Weems kept telling us that you were good and wise. I thought it would be like when the Old Lord Prince was here, and all of us were afraid all the time. I'm glad Weems was right and I was wrong."

"I'm sorry that my grandfather wasn't a better person, Dewdrop."

"For as long as I can remember, I was told he could never see or know about me or the other children."

"He's dead now, and good riddance. All of you and I are all that is left of the Prince family now. We are free to feel comfortable, safe, and at home here."

"The master suite is ready. Are you going to stay?"

"No, not tonight. Reg and I have much that needs doing. We will come back to visit later this summer and will try to stay longer next time."

"When will you and Reg come back again?"

"Whenever you least expect us, no doubt. If you wish to reach me—do you have an owl here?"

"No, Old Master Prince didn't like them either. When he had to send a letter, he sent Mother to the Owl Post in Diagon Alley or made her hand-deliver his letters."

"You took care of your siblings whenever your mother was working or away."

"Yes. I had to keep up silencing charms so we wouldn't be heard and rein them all into the hiding game so they wouldn't run wild and be seen. It was hard sometimes, but it wasn't awful. Mostly I was just petrified of making a mistake and putting us all in danger."

"It was a lot of responsibility for someone so young."

"Yes, it was."

"Then I think that you should spend at least an hour a day doing something pointlessly fun with your siblings, like a noisy game of tag in the garden, or exploding snap, or trying out all the board games in the playroom."

"Okay, I can do that. Actually, I was thinking about a children's story hour out in the yard on nice days. Weems and I could take turns reading, or we could do different voices for the different characters."

"That just sounds like yet another part of your job as a librarian. You'll have to try harder to have pointless, bookless, silly fun, I'm afraid."

"Okay, I'll try really hard to do something pointlessly fun that doesn't involve any books, too."

"What do you think about the idea of converting the potting shed and outside loo into a small owlery, potting shed, and outside loo?"

"Will you write to us?"

"I will, and you can write to me. Perhaps you will think of more stupid rules in need of changing."

"And, I can use the owl to order books!"

"And I thought I was obsessed with books."

"You probably are too, then."

"Yes, I probably am as well."

"Aren't books wonderful!"

--------------------------

Before they left for Horizont, Severus caught Doily on her own in the great kitchen and asked the burning question.

"Doily, why was old Lord Prince unaware that you and Derby have children?"

"Oh, Heir Prince, we are bad elves! We were not supposed to have children. Old Lord Prince forbade all the Elves at all the properties, but we wanted our babies so much. So we had our babies and never told. All the other Elves knew. They never told. All of them helped us. When I was having a baby and couldn't cook and clean, Mibsy from Prince Castle would come and cook and clean for me. When Old Lord Prince would go to Gringotts, Maisy from Galway would pop in and take the children for the day to Ireland. Goblins don't list Elves at properties in Ireland, and if they are not in the house here, they don't list them here either. SO when Old Lord Prince looks at this property, he sees only three good adult Elves here and no bad Elves and no children."

"That rule now has changed. You will have to let Dewdrop know so that she can add it to the official list. Any Elf is a gift and a blessing from Lady Magic herself. You and all other Prince Elves may have all the babies that you wish. We will make sure that we can provide for them everything they will need to thrive, grow, learn, and find their purpose and happiness."

"Weems was right! She said you had a kind heart and a wise mind. I don't think the Old Princes would approve of you because you are so very different from them, but we are very happy to have you as our Heir Prince!"

"So far I am not terribly impressed by the old princes either, but I am very pleased all of you are part of the new generation of the family with me."

--------

They returned to Horizont in time for tea and sandwiches in the kitchen with Gizzy and Apple. The other Princely Helper Elves would pop in and have a quick bite before heading off again to another hour of their clients' housework. Apple and Gizzy were taking turns making sure all went smoothly in preparation for Apple taking over for Gizzy tomorrow whilst Gizzy and Reg were assisting Ragnok to make them all hopefully much better off financially. Apple seemed to be looking forward to the new challenge.

"Ladies, we have a question for you and the other elves." says Reg, "If an Elf wants to be dismissed from service, what is the best way to convince a master or mistress of the house to present the Elf with clothes?"

Both Elves gasp, clearly disturbed by the prospect of getting dismissed from any job on purpose.

"Sometimes, it just happens," says Apple.

""Sometimes there are too many Elves in a house and not enough work to do!" says Gizzy.

"Are there other common reasons why Elves are dismissed?" asks Severus.

"Sometimes a mistress or master isn't pleased with the quality of the work or with the Elf's appearance," said Gizzy. "Eggy was given clothes because his old master didn't want to be shorter than his House Elf." This made Reg smile at him, clearly very amused since Eggy would have to grow an inch or two to be mid-sized by House-Elf standards. Who had owned Eggy? Filius Flitwick's even shorter cousin?

"I did hear about an Elf named Grishy who was unhappy because he was lonely, being the only Elf there," said Apple. "He was given clothes because he became very clumsy on purpose, always tripping and spilling at dinner, always dropping and breaking fine things. He was given clothes. I don't know what happened to him after, though, whether he got another position with other Elves for company like he wanted, just faded away, or went wild like some Leprechaun, running around crazy in the woods scaring people. Oh, I remember an Elf who went crazy too. She wouldn't do anything but stare off into the distance or stare at walls. They gave her clothes real quick and pushed her right out the door."

"Play-acting dementia might be a good option for Kreacher," Severus says to Regulus.

"At Grimmauld Place? How would anyone ever notice?" asks Reg.

----------------

As soon as Kreacher hears the Mistress and the Mistress's crazy niece plotting against Master Regulus, Kreacher feels all the loyalty he holds for the Mistress curl up and die. Kreacher writes to the young Master at Hogwarts School right away to warn him. Young Master is good and kind, only a child still. Kreacher will not let the Mistress force that evil leech brand now eating on her niece's magic onto Master Regulus no matter what Kreacher has to do to stop her.

At the same time, Kreacher realizes that he would not see Master Regulus again so long as Kreacher stays here. Since he is bound to the house by Master and Mistress he would need to be given clothes by one of them to be able to walk away. Then perhaps Kreacher could see the young Master again at least one more time. Even that one time would be worth the effort and uncertainty that would follow. Kreacher is not a young Elf. He has skills and is an especially talented cook, but whether that would be enough to give Kreacher a future, Kreacher couldn't say. He knows it doesn't matter as much what happens to Kreacher after. He would still make the same decisions either way. Only Master Regulus's future matters.

Kreacher knows that being crazy isn't looked down upon in the Black family. It is a simple fact of life. However, it is one thing for the Blacks in the family to be mad and out of control and quite another for a servant, especially one that they rely upon for most everything. He knows that the Mistress likes and trusts him far more than the Master likes or trusts him, but he also knows it is more dangerous to disappoint the Mistress. If she sees through Kreacher's plotting, she will turn on Kreacher like an angry snake. So Kreacher decides that the Master is his best and perhaps only chance for being given clothing.

Kreacher starts small—when Master Orion is sitting reading the Prophet in his study that morning, Kreacher silently strips off and makes love to the tall, dark, and handsome glass-enclosed bookcase that locks with the silver key on Master's watch chain. Master says nothing but does exit the room after the foreplay and about halfway through to the crescendo. Kreacher sings Yuletide music sitting in the hallway with his back against the door outside of Master's bedroom at 3:30 am that night. Every night after, he sings a little louder. Kreacher rearranges Master’s socks into ominous runic patterns permanently stuck across the library floor. He replaces Master’s nightly whiskey in his cut crystal carafe with lemon oil furniture polish. Kreacher says when Kreacher is asked why, "Kreacher wants to make Master's complexion clean, shiny, and conditioned! Psst, lemons are the Dark Lord's favorite!"

Kreacher is often discovered by Master whispering to the house-elf heads mounted on the wall in the drawing room. He sometimes laughs at their very witty jokes, sometimes argues with them about whether or not he should kill all the neighbors on the street, and sometimes cries because they will not stay out of his poor head when he tries to concentrate on his work! When Master Orion finds his favorite quill nibbled to splinters, he questions Kreacher, whose eyes track flies only he can see. He picks up all the chewed bits. "I will wash your dirty spoon, Master." Kreacher says with a polite smile, his teeth and mouth blue-black from the quill's ink. When Master randomly passes the parlor later, he sees Kreacher climbing the velvet curtains using his left hand and his toes with a frying pan in his right hand. "Here, doxy dox! Kreacher is making yummy doxy pudding tonight for afters!" Orion frowns. He has noticed that the help is acting a bit strangely as of late. He must remember to have a word with Walburga about it. 

Kreacher desperately wants to see Master Regulus and is sad when he does not come home at the end of his school term, but Kreacher is also glad. It means that Master Regulus had received his letter and made other plans, probably with a school friend. He hopes that Master Regulus is safe and happy wherever he is, but just about anywhere would be better for him than here. When Regulus does not arrive home as he was specifically ordered to do by the Mistress in her last letter, she screams at Kreacher, the master, and at her own portrait. She immediately burns Master Regulus off the Black Family Tree and commands that the Master disown Master Regulus and revoke his right to inherit. The Master says that they should wait. Give Master Regulus a chance to rethink his decision. The Mistress would not have it. When she tells the Master he must go the next day to Gringotts to disown the young Master, Kreacher starts doing what he can to give the young Master back some of his inheritance.

 
Kreacher also escalates his own efforts. He serves Master breakfast tea with Orion's own toenails floating in it. "Kreacher knows they are delicious and thought Master might appreciate the extra crunch." Master simply asks for a non-crunchy cup. Kreacher thinks perhaps he is being too subtle. When he serves Master his second tea, the scalding liquid spills onto Master's groin. "Kreacher is sorry, Master," he wails, eyes deliberately unfocused. "The teacup looked right-side-up in Kreacher's head!" Kreacher starts to cry so that snot runs down his face and hangs threateningly from his chin. "Kreacher is confused! Kreacher will punish himself. " Kreacher crawls forward until he is curled up in Orion's lap, which is still very warm and wet with spilled tea. Kreacher puts his thumb in his mouth, rocking back and forth, sobbing even harder now.

"There, there," says Orion, carefully not touching the dirt- and snot-covered Elf with his hands. Later, when he has returned from Gringotts, Orion finds Kreacher dusting his study with a dead rat. When questioned, Kreacher insists that "Kreacher made the Black Family a new feather duster, Master."

By late morning, Kreacher wears a cape hand-sewn from Walburga's lace knickers. He spends nearly an hour hopping up and down in it on Master's bed as Master is dressing for lunch. At lunch, still wearing his cape, Kreacher explains that his use of dirty dishes to set the table is due to the fact that Kreacher has forgotten how to clean things. " The Master must show Kreacher how again," Kreacher says, but Orion is similarly at a loss. By teatime, Kreacher is whining that he is possessed by the ghost of Regulus Arcturus Black, who holds his father responsible for his recent death. Kreacher demands Orion's key to the main Gringotts vault as compensation. Walburga, pale with rage, fires an Avada Kedavra at Kreacher, who blocks it with a tossed sterling tea tray. Orion, half-convinced that Kreacher has been possessed by his own disowned son's vengeful ghost, hurls his silk cravat at Kreacher like a desperate exorcism.

As Kreacher scrambles for the tossed floaty fabric, his heart pounding, Walburga tries to AK him yet again. Kreacher ducks the neon green spell, which hits her own portrait instead. As his fingers catch hold of the cravat, Kreacher disapparates to the steps of Gringotts, leaving behind the Blacks in chaos, with not a single clean dish in the entire house.

Kreacher is placed into a well-lit but mostly empty closet at Gringotts. Kreacher stands in it, still wearing his cape and now with Orion's silk cravat tied quite elegantly around his skinny neck, trying not to worry about what might happen to him now. He is standing there for perhaps half an hour before a young Goblin opens the door and asks that Kreacher follow him. The Goblin leads Kreacher to an office door, knocks, and opens the door.

"Kreacher!" When young Master Regulus rushes to him, kneels, and pulls him into a big hug, Kreacher suddenly knows that this new insanity that Kreacher is living was worth every effort.

------------------

Thanks to all who comment and send kudos. It's all appreciated!!! Thanks for reading!

Chapter Text

"Kreacher! You're here. You're really here! I can't believe it. We've been doing our heads in trying to think up a way to get you out of there, and here you are! I told you he was really smart, Sev! Oh, Kreacher, I'm so glad that you found a way to get presented Father's cravat. However did you manage it?"

Kreacher is happy to explain it all in graphic detail and even act out portions of it. The three of them find the old Elf's tale and his telling of it quite entertaining.

"Kreacher had to see Master Regulus again. Kreacher has saved part of young Master's inheritance and had to deliver it to him safely." Kreacher pulls on a thread on the hem of his filthy loincloth, and cut precious stones, mainly one-carat or more diamonds and emeralds, pour out into Ragnok's plush carpet. When the last gem falls by virtue of gravity alone, Kreacher dislodges several dozen more by shaking his legs and thrusting his pelvis vigorously while hopping leg to leg in circles. Severus would never have witnessed anything quite like it had the Weird Sisters not played Hogwarts that Yule.

Moments later two junior Goblins arrive with a box and begin the unenviable task of scrambling around on hands and knees, plucking gems fallen from out of Kreacher's filthy loincloth, and placing each retrieved stone carefully into the box. It wasn't as horrible as working in the mines, but Severus did wonder what the two of them could have done to deserve this job.

"Kreacher freed them from their curses, pried them from their setting prisons, and replaced them with bits of broken mirror and colored wine bottle glass, Master."
 

"That is just a cold betrayal that will leave Mother smarting forever. Good work, Kreach!"

"The Mistress betrayed you first, scheming with your cousin Crazy Bell to Mark you as the Dark Lord's slave with a magic-sucking brand. Kreacher had to stop her, so he wrote and told. Kreacher could not prevent the young master from losing his inheritance, but Kreacher could give Master Regulus back some of it this way."

"Thank you for always looking out for me, no matter what. Hey! We can use some of these stones right now to buy you from Gringotts!"

"No, no young Master! You must not spend your precious wealth on Kreacher, who is old and useless! Kreacher does not want to be your burden! Kreacher will return to the closet here. Master Regulus must give Kreacher no more thought and have a happy and free new life and never take the Dark One's Mark. That is all that Kreacher wishes."

"Kreacher, I have a contract with Gringotts that gives me first refusal of all Elves who end up in that closet. You are not a burden to Regulus. You are more precious than jewels to him because you are his true family. You are far from worthless in your skills and experience as well. I have it on excellent authority that you are, amongst other honorable things, a legendary chef, revered even amongst other Elves. Therefore, I will be buying you and presenting you to Regulus here as his early birthday gift. Happy Birthday, Reg."

"Now I feel terrible! Last January I only got you a box of stink bombs from Zonko's, and really, those were meant more for my errant brother anyway. So thanks, Sev. Just get me something small next year, and I'll try hard to find you something especially nice!"

"No need for anyone to purchase Kreacher. There is clearly a strong familial bond between you, Reg. Gringotts is most happy to be able to reunite a valued client with your misplaced Elf. I'll make certain that the contents of the box are placed into your vault. Each gem will be cleaned, itemized, and estimated. Also, when you mentioned your interest in being adopted by Heir Prince, I took the liberty of removing your biological parents from accessing your trust account on the basis that I suspected that they posed imminent dangers to you and were neglectful of their parental duties at best and possibly actively abusive.

"Having heard further evidence in Kreacher's testimony today, and due to his additions to your individual wealth, which is more than sufficient to see you through to the end of your school years, I can confirm that you have satisfied the ability to provide for yourself and have proven the need to become emancipated. You are now recognized as an emancipated adult by Gringotts and the Goblin Nation and, due to the treaties between our nations, are now also legally an adult in the Wizarding World. Appropriate paperwork will be filed with the necessary departments within the Ministry and Hogwarts School and will be placed inside your vault for safekeeping. Gringotts will also retain copies. Upon your biological parents' passing, you will be eligible for the Black Heirship and Lordship again because the person who made the request also requested that his request get shredded by doxies somehow, but his wife could never know, which Gringotts was happy to honor. Whether or not you wish also to become a blood-adopted Prince to stand as Heir Prince once the current Heir Prince takes the Lordship will be entirely up to the two of you, as is proper."
 

"Thanks, Ragnok!" said Reg, gifting him with his very best smile.

"Yes, Ragnok, thank you very much," said Severus.

"Pleased that I could help."

"Gizzy!"

"Gizzy is here!"

"Kreacher, go home with Gizzy," says Regulus.

"Show Kreacher to the bathtub at Horizont, please, Gizzy, and ask the other elves to help Kreacher find everything he needs to get settled there. He will be attending and protecting Regulus and travelling with us to the various properties this summer. Kreacher, would you like to use the Horizont Elves' extra fabric and supplies to make yourself a new uniform, one truly befitting of Master Regulus and of your many years of experience?"

"Kreacher would, Lord Prince."

"Just Heir Prince at the moment, or Severus."

"You are Lord Prince. What others call you, Kreacher doesn't care."

"Fair enough, please yourself then. I've certainly been called far worse."

"Kreacher knows all those nasty names, but while you are being a good friend to young Master, Kreacher will not be calling you those."

"Isn't he just the very best!" asks Reg, grinning.

"Clearly. Thank you for what you have done for Reg today. It was very brave," says Severus.

Kreacher only nods and looks to Gizzy.
 

Gizzy grabs Kreacher's scrawny wrists and pops them away.

"Any other news since this morning?"

As a matter of fact, we tracked down Tanty Cokeworth, great-great-grandson of the founder of the town and the current owner of the defunct Cokeworth Linen Mill. I had one of our Squib agents float a tentative, very low-end offer of cash in hand, so low that I expected him to be insulted yet still willing to haggle. Instead he tossed the keys to our agent, took the cash, said he would have been willing to sell for half that, and asked what and where to sign. Congratulations and condolences; for 12,000 pounds, you own an industrial ruin on a toxic cesspool of a river in a dying town and now owe tax rates last assessed in '73 on it to the local authority. The good news is you could probably get the 12,000 back just by selling off scrap metal on the property."

"Gizzy!"

"Gizzy is here!"

"I just bought a derelict linen mill in Cokeworth. Would you ask all the elves at all the properties who are looking for more to do to not be seen but to secure the property with wards and area notice-me-not spells in order to clean up the site without hordes of non-magicals taking notice?"

"Gizzy will! Can Gizzy do anything else?"

Severus thinks a moment. "Please also ask one of them to clear out Spinner's End, to shrink everything in there and stick it all in boxes. Mark them Spinner's End and move the boxes to Prince House. Put them in one of the three storage attics. I'll sort through them some day, possibly in my next life at this rate. Thank you, Gizzy." She pops away again.

"Do you intend to revamp the mill property entirely by magical means?" asks Ragnok

"Maybe not entirely. Non-magicals do make excellent water treatment and filtration devices, or so I understand. Does Gringotts have construction connections willing to work in both worlds, also utilizing the magic-impaired's materials, building codes, and technologies?"

"Absolutely! We can provide structural analysis, Goblin engineers to fix problems, architects to design from scratch, and digger crews to construct secret underground facilities. We can also provide Muggle-appropriate props—like lorries, tenting, scaffolding, security fences, and bored-looking Squib tradies on smoke breaks wearing hard hats and steel-toed boots. We can organize inspections, permits, insurance, and press releases—we could do anything you need, or all of it, for the right price!"

"Then I hope that your efforts tomorrow will make certain that I can afford your fine services, Ragnok."

"I'll certainly do my best for you, Heir Prince, or does Kreacher have you preferring 'Lord' now?"

"From you? I prefer Severus."

"Severus, then. Do try not to give poor Healer Longtooth too hard of a time. Leave everything else to Reg, Gizzy, and me."

"We're going to be brilliant! We've got your back, Sev," says Reg.

"I'm certain that my fate, and the fate of the entire world, couldn't be in better hands tomorrow."

"Merlin! No pressure then!" says Reg.

"None at all," agrees Ragnok.

"You'll have to register your complaints with Lady Magic," says Severus. "Nothing to do with me."

----------------------

Next, Severus calls Gizzy and has her pop both of them directly into the mill site, purportedly to oversee the Elf activity there, but really, Severus just wants to take a good look at the place again and assess its current state of disrepair. When they arrived, the warding was already well underway.

Apparently, for Reg, Ragnok's comments about the state of the mill and surrounding Cokeworth did not paint a clear enough picture of the situation. "Oh ew! What is that horrific odor? Did the entire town drown themselves in the river four days ago? No, they didn't, because not even that would account for this stench! You actually lived near here? It's a giant foul-smelling rubbish heap! Why on earth would you spend perfectly good Galleons to own more of this? Have them check your head tomorrow to see if your brain is still attached in there."

"You see rubbish and smell Cokeworth, whilst I see opportunity and smell my home since birth."

"Where is the opportunity? Buried underneath all the stinky rubbish? Seriously, Severus, this plan is unnecessarily savage and convoluted even for you. If you feel this badly for your old neighbors, well, I can't blame you, since they are living here, but can't you just throw some gold at them and tell them to go find somewhere that smells better? To be fair, that has to be almost anywhere not in the throes of some kind of epic war or international disaster."

"Money does them no good, I'm afraid. What they need are steady jobs. We are all of us more like Elves than most of us realize, Reg. We want purpose, to feel useful. We need schedules and limited downtime to stay productive and engaged. We all are better people when we are too busy than when we are too idle. We want to work hard and enjoy it. We want our daily efforts to feel appreciated and important somehow."

"Personally, I think I could be happy just lazing on a beach somewhere, well, providing it is somewhere clean and pretty that doesn't make my nose want to murder me for making it smell something like this."

"If you lazed about for longer than a brief holiday, you'd go madder than your brother."

"You're possibly right about that. I do get bored rather easily. That's why I enjoy your company so much, I think. You are always up to so many different things all the time that you are never bore in the least."

"Boredom is for people who have insufficient intellectual pursuits or no capacity for them."

"Now, now, no calling me a dunderhead again, Severus. I love runes, obsess about them, possibly. I do dream about them often. I'm good with them too, especially for my age—but I can't have a laugh with a rune. Can't buy it a butterbeer. Can't take it on an adventure."

"Now you sound like a Gryffindor."

"Oh Gods, I do! I sound just like a Gryff! Maybe I should get my brain checked as well. Help! I think this air is making me delirious!"
 

Severus pulls Cthulhu and fires off a Bubble-Head charm. "Oh sweet relief! You know, I don't think you're breathing in air at all right now—just vapors from their stinky Muggle chemistry. I feel like I understand you so much better now, though. Nothing like your old town to make a person really appreciate the joys of nice clean potion fumes. Perhaps now that my nose isn't engaged in a mutiny, I can view this place a little more objectively."

The mill is fairly typical of the era, Victorian architecture, built of red brick now the color of blood through the permanent addition of soot, and somehow well-graffitied in places non-magicals shouldn't be able to reach. The features that set this particular mill apart are the twin waterwheels, one in an outbuilding and one in the main mill building, that fed power to every floor up to the top to run the machinery through a system of gears, pulleys, and belts. The main mill building was a four-level industrial cathedral with soaring ceilings and arched windows, which now look more like rows of broken teeth. The inside by the main doors smells strongly of human male urine. There are beer bottles, some smashed against the brickwork and others just scattered about. Inside, the ground level of the structure has quarry-cut stone floors with carved grooves to provide durability and traction despite wetness and humidity resulting from processing flax. There are vertical cast iron supports mimicking Doric columns set against the brick walls that together hold the weight of the upper floors, also with cast iron openwork grating covered in squares of quarry stone. Many of the stones are now chipped and cracked, and a few are missing entirely.

On the ground floor nearest to the door are the time clock, offices, his and hers lavatories, a cafe-style break room with a food prep station, some vending machines, and a water fountain. Most of the interior walls built here, plus the yellow fiberglass and metal scoop chairs and lino countertop and tables, date to the 1950s. On the back wall, the stairs up to the higher levels are circular and cast iron, with a black enamel overcoating. They are ornate, built to last, and original to the building. Beyond this entry area is a very long open room where, on the river side, there are loading bays where the dried flax was off-loaded from barges on the river. This dried flax went onto the now broken dumbwaiter system near the stairs to the top floor for storage and to start the first steps of processing into linen. The majority of the space is taken by large rusting metal looms, which were all powered from a drive shaft at the rear of the building going up through the ceiling into every level and distributing power to every floor, efficiently running all the machinery in the building by waterpower, which was free, except for maintenance and repair of the equipment. The looms wove the finished linen thread into bolts of linen cloth, which were then moved to outbuildings for dyeing, further processing, storage, or shipping to buyers.

The next level up, the first floor, is all about spinning wet flax into thread or yarn. There are spindles and bobbins everywhere, most with coils of linen still attached. Nothing has been put away. The spinning in progress merely stopped when workers present were told to vacate the building because they no longer worked here, as the mill was closing. His father had been one of them. Oh, by the way, wave goodbye to those counted-on work benefits and retirement pensions. Metal spinners continue rusting in place. On the wall nearest the stairs, pigeons nest in the broken body of the dumbwaiter, which had once moved large quantities of materials easily from floor to floor.

On the second floor the woody debris from the stalk was removed to reveal the inner fibers in a process called combing. These were sorted into long fibers called "line," ideal for making fine linen clothing, bed sheets, lace, tablecloths, and handkerchiefs, and "tow," the short fiber used for coarser linen products like tents, sails, rugged trousers and outerwear, toweling, stuffing for bedding, and all things more rustic and affordable. Tow linen had been particularly important for military use during WW1 and WW2. 
 

At the top, dried flax was stored and 'retted,' or soaked, so that the individual plant fibers inside each stem separated, thus starting the process to turn the flax fibers into linen. Then the flax stalks were broken apart in a process called 'scutching.' The scutched flax was then moved down a floor for 'combing' and further processing. The ceiling here was mostly glass, and all of it was now broken. One window had a large jagged piece that looked like it would fall and skewer anyone walking under it at the time. Severus made Reg stand behind him on the stairs, then pointed Cthulhu at that broken skylight window. "Reparo!" It was intensely satisfying to see that much glass flying upward and melding into place.

"Okay, objectively, having looked around a bit, I still wouldn't give you a single knut for all of it. Are you knocking down these ruins to build something nice here?"

"Oh no, it has to stay looking exactly like a linen mill, at least on the outside—restored, improved certainly, but it must look basically the same." 

"I'm really having trouble caring at this point, but I'm going to ask anyway. Why?"

"Because it is a symbol of times gone by. People here are very invested in the past when Cokeworth and the natural fiber fabric industry had their heydays. Older people especially remember that more prosperous era very fondly—not because it was really that good for them or for workers in general, but because it is now over and they don't have to struggle through it again. I chained myself to the past in my last life. I won't repeat that mistake in this one. The few bits that were good are magnified in memory out of all proportion. All the bad, except perhaps the very worst bits, gets swept under the rug of forgetfulness easily enough. The younger generation was raised hearing these stories about the mills and the glory days.

"For most, the future is frightening, even though it will mostly likely deliver just more of the same for most people, well, until they die. Few people realize that now, right now, is the only time that should matter. The present is the only time that taking action is even possible." Unless you time travel. "So, the mill must look comfortably enough like the mill in their memories and stories, instead of looking like some scary future that they don't wish to face. It is the only way for them to accept the changes that will happen at this mill in the present."

"That actually makes sense. How did you figure that out?"

"I'm from here. I understand Cokeworth like you understand growing up in the Black family."

"Do we all have to have these desolate and horrid childhoods, Severus, in Slytherin, I mean? Can't people just be born sufficiently ambitious and cunning, without yearning so hard for something better than what they have and deciding to make it happen no matter what?"

"That remains to be seen. It has not happened yet, not in my experience."

--------------------

When they return home to Horizont, Severus dispels Reg's Bubblehead charm. The Elves greet them and welcome them both home. Kreacher, no longer looking grimy, is already decked out in his new uniform. He wears a crisp white shirt and jodhpurs, both in the same heavy cotton cloth as the Princely Helper uniforms. The shirt has buttons down the front, poet sleeves, fullness at the elbows, and gathering at the cuffs, which are edged with fine silk lace from Walburga's best knickers, and has a stiff, pointed, high buttoned collar tied up with Orion's white silk cravat, the long ends of which are tucked into a vest in the same deep purple linen fabric as Severus' bed linens and drapes. On his feet are knee-high buttoned leather boots in golden tan—the same leather as his upholstered desk chair and headboard. Severus is reminded of the jockey Willie Shoemaker, but from much later in Willie's life.

"You look very distinguished, Kreacher," says Severus.

"I'll say! You look more dashing in Father's cravat than Father ever has."

Severus really can't agree but wisely keeps his opinion to himself.

"Kreacher has spelled his uniform to stay clean and to self-repair as the others have, Master Regulus."

"Good work, Kreach!" Kreacher beams under Regulus's praise. "Something smells delicious. What's for dinner?" asks Reg.

"Kreacher is teaching Apple to make Hachis Parmentier, and we made enough for everyone!" says Apple excitedly.

"My favorite! You'll love it, Sev! Like cottage pie, sort of, but better!"

"I look forward to it. I do want to take a shower first, however."

"You can go first. I'm going to tell Kreacher all about our smelly adventures in Muggle Cokeworth."

"Just keep in mind that Cokeworth is about the worst that the non-magical world has to offer."

"Well, of course, I did look into the Muggle part of King's Cross once. It looked and smelled much nicer than Cokeworth."

"If that is the extent of your experience in the non-magical world, then I'm taking you to shop at Harrods the day after tomorrow. We will eat at Veeraswamy on Regent Street before we return with dinner for everyone else."

"Eat? Out there? Really? Better than a slave leech?"

"Yes, and we will bring home heavenly Indian cuisine for the Elves to enjoy to give Apple and Kreacher an easy night. The experience will be much better than a slave leech, I can promise you."

That evening the Prince Elves, Kreacher, Regulus, and Severus all sit around the table enjoying Kreacher's remarkable Hachis Parmentier, with seared cubes of beef ribeye, onions, carrots, haricot vert, and mushrooms, all perfectly cooked to tender in a red wine sauce, topped with luscious fluffy clouds of whipped potatoes sprinkled with a really good gruyere and baked until golden brown and crispy on the edges. It is miles away from all the cottage pies Severus has known and loved. Kreacher, with Apple's help, has elevated a humble comfort food into a richly complex, perfectly balanced, and deceptively elegant meal. Their results are universally praised at the table. Upon tasting it, Severus felt the urge to applaud them, so he did. Everyone happily cleaned their plates and each enjoyed a slice of the strawberry tart—with fresh strawberries on airy and just slightly sweet pastry cream in a crisp golden brown crust—that they made for pudding.

"May I ask what's with the lemon water? Is this a Muggle thing?"

"I recently tried limewater at my mind-healer's office. I liked it but decided the limes were too sweet and decided that I'd prefer water with lemons instead. I find it very refreshing."

"You see a mind-healer?"

"Yes. During the day, she's in this very building, directly downstairs."

"Sev, would you mind terribly introducing us? I don't want to end up like the rest of my family. Do you think she could help me prevent that?"

"Yes, I believe she can, and of course I will introduce you. I think it is a fine thing that you wish to care for your mental health. You can make an appointment before we go shopping the day after tomorrow. I only request that she take the same vow of privacy for you that she has taken for me so you can feel free to discuss everything, including your stay here with me this summer."

"More privacy is good, right? Too bad I can't get my family to come there, too. The Blacks alone could keep her practice solvent forever. Do you not mind, then, about people knowing?"

"I am too old to start caring what people think of me, Reg."

"I don't think you ever cared, though, and believe me, I could die of envy."

"Availing oneself of mind-healing is not shameful. It is simply another form of self-care."

"Point. But nobody talks about it either."

"We just have."

"Yeah, but it's just us. You wouldn't mention it on the floor of the Wizengamot. Well, maybe you would, just to make a point. Most people definitely would not."

"Yet the Wizengamot will talk to death about relying on blood superiority for hiring, outlawing dark magic, deporting Muggleborns to the middle of the ocean, mandating or banning this or that religion, arresting everyone in Knockturn Alley on suspicion, further restricting the rights of creatures, raising taxes on the poor, selling the Forbidden Forest to Abraxas Malfoy for game hunting, eliminating Slytherin House, doing away with scholarships, and closing down Hogwarts altogether. To me, talking about any of those things in public should be considered far more shameful."

"I'm so proud! You have been studying the Wizengamot books I lent you!"

"Reg, if you decide to see Dr. Medcalf, feel free to keep the matter to yourself. I certainly won't tell anyone. Neither will Medcalf or Shunpike."

"Who's Shunpike?" 

"Her receptionist."

"But you will tell people that you are seeing her."

"Is that a problem for you?"

"I don't know! I worry! Don't you worry that it will undermine your credibility?"

"People who will use it to discredit me will grasp at any straw. If not that, it will be that I came from poverty, that I am a Half-blood, that I'm younger than they are, that I'm a Slytherin—all of it put together is nothing that a spot of dueling can't counter."

"Will you teach me this summer?"

"I suppose that I have a thing or two that I could show you."

"Far out, my main man, as the Muggleborn say."

"Do they?"

"I think so? Far in, maybe? It's all rather disorienting, all their inside chatter and cultural palavering. I'm never quite sure what they are on about, and I never know what to say in response, so I'll just try to think of something until they walk away thinking I'm an idiot or too prejudiced to speak to them properly. Maybe I should try the honest approach: "Hello, I'm Reg. Please don't hurt me, even though I was raised by bigoted elitists who want to kill you. I know I'm a Slytherin, so you already hate me, and we have nothing at all in common and nothing to talk about except revising, the weather, and quidditch, which I don't play and don't know much about, but please be my friend anyway? What do you think?"

"It wouldn't work on me, and I'm already your friend. Remind me to also take you to a record store. It will do you a world of good."

"Records? As in ledgers, or histories?"

"As in music."

"Why not just call it a music store?"

"Because it is the Seventies. The record, particularly the album, is still king."

"You've lost me completely."

"You'll see. It will be better than a slave leech, before you ask."

-----------------------

That night, Severus dreams. The newly renovated mill is about to reopen, but he hasn't had the chance to see inside it yet—and cannot get in, because Harry Potter, sitting on his blasted broomstick, is blocking his way. 

"Let me pass."

"Nope! "You didn't say the magic word," says Potter, messing with his hair most annoyingly, pushing his glasses up his nose bridge, and staring at Severus openly, eyes wide and lit with inner mirth. "Do you want to guess what the magic word is?"

"Avada Kedavra?"

"Not even close!"

"I refuse to believe that my mind is dreaming you, here, in my way. Are you actually here, bothering me whilst I sleep?"

"Um, what do you mean by 'actually here'?" asks Potter, stretching his back, flexing his muscles, messing with his ridiculous hair again, and generally doing a stellar impression of his nitwit sire.

"Potter, get out of my mind."

"Hey! I just wanted to say hi! Lady Magic thinks you're doing a really great job, by the way. So do I! Thanks for taking Kreacher in, and thanks for getting him to wear something other than that grotty old loincloth. Good work banishing it sneakily, too."

"You are welcome. Goodnight, Potter."

"Harry! That is the magic word, by the way—it's Harry."

"Fine, goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, Sev! Can I call you Sev?"

"It would appear so, since you just have."

"Oh, well, yeah. Goodnight, Sev! Good luck tomorrow."

"Thank you, and once again, goodnight." Bothersome twit! He really isn't much in the way of a nightmare, though—comparatively.

If Severus dreamt anything else that night, he thankfully does not remember it.

-----------------

First thing in the morning, even before breakfast, Severus and Reg arrive at a special floo in Gringotts. They are technically a few minutes early, but Ragnok and Healer Longtooth are already waiting for them.

"Gizzy!"

"Gizzy is excited to be here!"

"Please go with Ragnok and Reg and do your best to assist them today. Thank you, Gizzy."

Reg gave him an awkward one-armed hug. "Take good care of him, Healer Longtooth," Reg said over his shoulder.

"I will use all of my skill for him, young one. Try not to worry. It will not help either of you today if you do. He will be feeling much better when next you see him."

Reg and Gizzy follow Ragnok to his trading room, and Severus follows his healer. He is taken to a ritual room where he disrobes and climbs onto a slab not unlike the one he woke from to meet Lady Magic. It was a plain, rectangular, perfectly smooth altar, possibly made of obsidian or possibly onyx. The two stones look similar and share many magical properties. Surprisingly, it was not cold nor uncomfortable. Severus settles and stretches his arms out to the sides as Longtooth requested.

"Sleep" was the last thing Severus heard before coming abruptly awake with no sense of any time passing. He sits up, realizing that he is fully dressed again. There are now four chairs clustered on the left side of the slab nearest the door.

"See, I told you he would wake up again," said Healer Longtooth.

"What time is it?" asks Severus.

"Nearly midnight! How do you feel?" asks Reg, grinning at him a little manically.

"I feel—" Severus turns his head left and right, arches his back, flexes both hands, stands, bends over keeping his legs straight, and touches his palms to the floor, "like whatever exorbitant price you charged me was well worth it. Thank you, Healer Longtooth."

"No need to worry about a few thousand Galleons now, Sev. Ragnok was brilliant! He turned your one million pounds into 37 million before 11 o'clock this morning, when we had a ten-minute break for brunch. What was the final total?"

"One hundred forty-two million, after fees and the six percent you wanted to split evenly between Gringotts, Reg, and me."

"One hundred forty-two million, three hundred seventy-seven thousand, nine hundred and twelve pounds and three pence!" says Gizzy.

"I went all in whenever I could. The more invested, the easier it is to make more money. You can also lose more, but armed with your foreknowledge and my Goblin luck, I didn't."

"And your skill! He really was amazing! I wish you could have been there to see," says Reg.

"You were a great help today, Reg, as were you, Gizzy."

"Gizzy enjoyed it, Master Ragnok!"

"How did Gringotts do?" 

"Well enough that my father wants to meet with you to thank you personally. To be fair, he would have met with you anyway. Now, he is looking forward to it. You'll also receive the 15 percent commissions from the profits that Gringotts made today using your information, just as we agreed. That could be even more than I made you today. I'll review your account first thing tomorrow and have those numbers broken down for you. All the day's profits were converted back into Galleons immediately. The pound is far too volatile now to count on it retaining value, even compared to other Muggle currencies."

"Did you have fun?"

"I enjoyed every moment of it, Severus. It was exhilarating and deeply satisfying, a childhood fantasy come to life. I'll never forget today. I thank you for making it possible. The money I made and my success today will impact my career and change my life forever. I'm afraid I have also become something of a hero for many young Goblins."

"And some not so young ones, judging by all the looks of awe and admiration you were getting at the office," says Reg.

"How often would you like to do more of the same?" asks Severus.

"Anytime Well, maybe not tomorrow. Tomorrow, I think I will need an early night. Once every couple of days, all summer? Keep in mind my results may vary. Foreknowledge doesn't improve timing or manage market volatility. I may even lose your next million pounds' worth of seed money."

"Well, it's only money. There, I've always wanted to have enough money to say that. I'll give you the next few days' worth of memories right now, then we can all go home."

-------------------

It seems like a strange thing to do—to sleep all night, then all day, and then have a cup of hot pea soup and a cool green salad, shower, and then go to bed—but that is exactly what Severus does because he is luxuriously exhausted. Reg, who is snoring now, didn't even bother showering, saying he'd take one tomorrow morning. As Severus lies there, basking in his sweet pine-scented, Elf-created, perfectly comfortable bed, he realizes that he is pain-free from the top of his head to the tips of his toes for the first time since he was a small child, if even then. He is also well-fed, which was not always the case, and is very comfortable, which he never remembers being during his childhood at Spinner's End. He also has enough money and freedom to do literally anything that he wants. All of that put together results in a very odd feeling in his chest he has no word for at first. He closes his eyes and ponders what it could be, turning it over like a puzzle to see it anew from various angles. Suddenly his eyes pop open again in the darkness. He thinks this feeling currently residing in his chest might be what hope feels like.

------------

Thank you for commenting, kudos-ing, or just reading this story! As always, I'd love to hear what YOU think! You lovely folk who have commented on this story are so fun! and always have the best input! and have taken my head places it didn't even know it wanted to go! You have helped this story become better than it would have been -so thank you each and every one!!!