A/N Here's the first part of that Snape/McGonagall go muggle fic I
promised! Thanks to all those who encouraged me to write this fic. For
those who haven't read 'If You Go Down to the Woods Today…', it isn't
necessary to read it first, but the present story would probably make more
sense if you did - it's a standalone plot, but a development of the S/McG
interaction which began in the first story.
---Sainsbury's supermarket, Muggle London, Saturday, 2.05 pm---
"Beans."
"What sort of beans?"
"What is that supposed to mean? How many sorts are there?"
"Well, baked beans, runner beans, green beans…"
"Aren't they the same thing?"
"Are you criticising me? You're always criticising me."
"Well I wouldn't have to if you started getting things right!" Oblivious to the heads swivelling in their direction as their voices escalated, two people stood arguing in aisle 3 of the crowded supermarket. To bemused passers-by, they appeared a fairly ordinary middle-aged couple doing their weekly shop, with all the accompanying frustrations. The woman was smartly attired in a crisp tartan twinset, her hair caught up tidily in a bun, her thin lips compressed in a scowl. The man beside her was younger by some years, but his dark hair showed touches of grey at the temples. He was rather less severely dressed, wearing slacks and an open-necked dark blue shirt. Like the woman, he was frowning.
"Can I help you, sir, madam?" An obsequious young shop assistant came trotting over. "Is there something I can find for you?"
"No." Snapped the man instantly, and
"Beans." Said the woman, simultaneously, glaring at her companion.
"What sort of beans are you looking for?" The assistant trilled. The dark haired man shrugged uninterestedly.
"Ask her, she's the one who wrote the list."
"I think we want baked beans." Said the woman, uncertainly. "But there seem to be so many different types…"
"Just take us to the beans." The man put in with some impatience. The assistant smiled soothingly.
"Certainly, sir. If you and your mother would like to come with me…" This last sentence was a mistake. The man smirked, but his companion bridled, turning furious eyes and almost nonexistently thin lips upon the shop assistant.
"Thank you, I am his *wife*!" The unfortunate assistant cringed, backing hurriedly into a display of buy-one-get-one-free beer bottles.
"I think we are capable of finding the beans for ourselves, are we not, Michael?"
"Oh, of course, Margaret." Replied her husband soothingly, but with a glitter of unfriendly amusement in his black eyes. Margaret turned her back haughtily on the assistant and, seizing her husband's arm, led him swiftly away.
Five minutes later, however, their voices could be heard once more, this time from behind a shelf of spices.
"They don't seem to have any powdered dragon's tooth."
"Of course they don't! This is a mu…a standard supermarket. Not like the *special* shops we have back home!" She added, in a harsh undertone.
"What," the man said loudly, "you mean, back home in *Chelmsford*?"
"Yes, I mean *home* in *Chelmsford* which is where we come from." Now people really were starting to look at them strangely. With a sigh, 'Margaret' grabbed a handful of bottles and packets from the spices shelf.
"These will have to do. Come on now." 'Michael', rolling his eyes, followed her to the till, where she threw the things into several carrier bags, while he produced a credit card and waved it at the pretty, plump cashier, who beamed up at him in a happy, dazed sort of way, clearly having been trained well for her job.
"That'll be fifty pounds and seventeen pence, sir."
"I have this bit of plastic. No actual cash. Though I thoroughly understand the operation of your monetary system. I mean our monetary system."
"That'll do nicely." She took the card, fiddled with it, and handed it back. The man looked surprised.
"Oh, don't you want to keep it?"
"No, sir." Bubbled the cashier. "You'll be needing it, I expect."
"Ah." The curious couple departed together, the man carrying five filled- to-bursting carrier bags in each hand, the woman slipping the plastic card into her small handbag.
---57, The Hideyhole, muggle London, Saturday, 3:35 pm---
"I notice I'm carrying all the bags as usual. Do you have some sort of disease which prevents you from fetching and carrying?" 'Margaret' was opening the white painted door of apartment 57 with a silver key. She ignored 'Michael's' complaints.
"I mean," he went on irritably as they went inside, "we've been pretending to be married for only three days, and you treat me like a house- elf. Fetch this, fetch that, go shopping, make tea, be nice to the muggles, don't curse them…"
"When in Rome, Severus."
"…be treated like a bloody slave, yes, I think I get the idea." Severus Snape, for truly it was he, dumped the bulging carrier bags and flung himself down into a battered armchair, gazing around the flat with some distaste. It was fairly small, with little room for pacing, which was a frustration in itself. There was a living room with sofa and one armchair, a coffee table, fireplace and that mysterious muggle invention called a 'television'. The kitchen was a continuation of the lounge - it was small but functional, and Snape despised it. There was also, of course, a bathroom, and to Snape's utter embarrassment and exasperation, a single bedroom. Which meant, naturally, that he slept on the sofa, far too small for his lanky body - Snape had had a crick in his neck for the past two days and it wasn't making his temper any sweeter.
He watched grimly while his partner in this grotesque comedy of errors, Minerva McGonagall, unpacked the various foodstuffs and potion ingredients they had bought, stowing them away in the little kitchen cupboards with annoying efficiency. Blasted perfect Gryffindors.
Snape rose moodily and wandered into the kitchen. Coming face-to-glass with an oval mirror, he glared at his own reflection.
"It just doesn't suit me."
"Hm?" McGonagall was trying to wedge three boxes of rosemary into a space better suited to a pinhead. "What doesn't?"
"My hair."
McGonagall sighed. "What's wrong with it?"
"The grey. It makes me look…old."
"It makes you look a few years older. It was necessary - we don't want to attract any attention by appearing unorthodox in terms of age difference."
"Unorthodox! That shop boy thought you were my mother, for Merlin's sake. You *still* look twenty years older than me, even with those ridiculous contact lenses and the industrial strength bra."
"How dare you spy on my underwear!"
"I *didn't*! Replied Snape, indignantly. "The thought, if you must know, fills me with horror. You were washing the wretched thing in the sink the other day."
"There's nothing shameful in needing a little more support…and speaking of support, your whinging is not making this mission any easier!"
"*My* whinging! What about you? I never heard anyone complain so much about so minor a thing as my harmless little mistake." McGonagall closed the cupboard with a bang, and rounded on her colleague.
"Harmless, was it? You consider volunteering me for this mission a 'harmless mistake'? Have you any idea how odious the prospect of spending three weeks in your company, pretending to be *married* to you, is to me? Why on earth did you ask Albus to send me with you?"
Snape muttered something unintelligible, staring hard at the floor.
"What?" Snapped McGonagall.
"You were the only female staff member I could possibly contemplate pretending to be married to without going insane." There was an awkward pause. Snape looked up. To his amazement, McGonagall was gazing at him with an expression of almost girlish coyness on her usually rigid face.
"Oh, Severus." She murmured, bashfully. "That's very sweet." Snape, embarrassed by both her reaction and the warm, slightly tingly feeling it was giving him, shrugged and tried to pass it off.
"Can you imagine me living here with Flora Sprout for three weeks? She'd be growing things everywhere. Or Madame Hooch? She'd have me in a headlock before the first day was over. I wish you'd stop simpering," he added, "it doesn't suit you."
But McGonagall continued to smile at him. She ushered him back to the armchair.
"Let me make you a cup of tea. You look tired." She bustled off. Snape, leaning back in the chair, wondered whether for the first time in his life he had successively, albeit accidentally, manipulated a woman psychologically. It was an ability that he, along with the vast majority of the male population both wizard and muggle, had all but given up on acquiring - but now, witnessing his colleague's new, soppy, amiable demeanour, he wondered whether he might not turn it to his advantage.
"Minerva," he said pleasantly, as she boiled the kettle, "I was just wondering…"
"Yes?" She purred.
"Well, whether you might see your way clear to letting me sleep in the bed tonight." McGonagall's back, all Snape could see of her, went rigid. There was the unmistakable sound of shattering ceramic.
"I…I don't know, Severus, it's all so sudden…" she turned to him, met his eyes briefly, then bashfully lowered her gaze. "I'm very flattered, of course…"
"What are you talking about, woman?" He demanded. "You've had that bed for two nights, it must surely be my turn by now. That sofa is almost criminally small. I have a stiff neck and my back is aching." He added pathetically.
McGonagall, however, merely snorted. "Is it now." She growled, coldly, pouring a cup of tea. As she headed towards him, Snape held out his hand expectantly, but she ignored him and stormed past into the bedroom, throwing an icy, "make your own!" over her shoulder.
Snape remained in his armchair, bewildered by his colleague's change of mood. He would never understand women, he decided. Bizarre, complicated, mercurial creatures…how on earth would he survive another eighteen days with this one?
A/N Reviews much appreciated. I will get around to explaining just what our intrepid duo is doing in muggle London, I promise :-)
---Sainsbury's supermarket, Muggle London, Saturday, 2.05 pm---
"Beans."
"What sort of beans?"
"What is that supposed to mean? How many sorts are there?"
"Well, baked beans, runner beans, green beans…"
"Aren't they the same thing?"
"Are you criticising me? You're always criticising me."
"Well I wouldn't have to if you started getting things right!" Oblivious to the heads swivelling in their direction as their voices escalated, two people stood arguing in aisle 3 of the crowded supermarket. To bemused passers-by, they appeared a fairly ordinary middle-aged couple doing their weekly shop, with all the accompanying frustrations. The woman was smartly attired in a crisp tartan twinset, her hair caught up tidily in a bun, her thin lips compressed in a scowl. The man beside her was younger by some years, but his dark hair showed touches of grey at the temples. He was rather less severely dressed, wearing slacks and an open-necked dark blue shirt. Like the woman, he was frowning.
"Can I help you, sir, madam?" An obsequious young shop assistant came trotting over. "Is there something I can find for you?"
"No." Snapped the man instantly, and
"Beans." Said the woman, simultaneously, glaring at her companion.
"What sort of beans are you looking for?" The assistant trilled. The dark haired man shrugged uninterestedly.
"Ask her, she's the one who wrote the list."
"I think we want baked beans." Said the woman, uncertainly. "But there seem to be so many different types…"
"Just take us to the beans." The man put in with some impatience. The assistant smiled soothingly.
"Certainly, sir. If you and your mother would like to come with me…" This last sentence was a mistake. The man smirked, but his companion bridled, turning furious eyes and almost nonexistently thin lips upon the shop assistant.
"Thank you, I am his *wife*!" The unfortunate assistant cringed, backing hurriedly into a display of buy-one-get-one-free beer bottles.
"I think we are capable of finding the beans for ourselves, are we not, Michael?"
"Oh, of course, Margaret." Replied her husband soothingly, but with a glitter of unfriendly amusement in his black eyes. Margaret turned her back haughtily on the assistant and, seizing her husband's arm, led him swiftly away.
Five minutes later, however, their voices could be heard once more, this time from behind a shelf of spices.
"They don't seem to have any powdered dragon's tooth."
"Of course they don't! This is a mu…a standard supermarket. Not like the *special* shops we have back home!" She added, in a harsh undertone.
"What," the man said loudly, "you mean, back home in *Chelmsford*?"
"Yes, I mean *home* in *Chelmsford* which is where we come from." Now people really were starting to look at them strangely. With a sigh, 'Margaret' grabbed a handful of bottles and packets from the spices shelf.
"These will have to do. Come on now." 'Michael', rolling his eyes, followed her to the till, where she threw the things into several carrier bags, while he produced a credit card and waved it at the pretty, plump cashier, who beamed up at him in a happy, dazed sort of way, clearly having been trained well for her job.
"That'll be fifty pounds and seventeen pence, sir."
"I have this bit of plastic. No actual cash. Though I thoroughly understand the operation of your monetary system. I mean our monetary system."
"That'll do nicely." She took the card, fiddled with it, and handed it back. The man looked surprised.
"Oh, don't you want to keep it?"
"No, sir." Bubbled the cashier. "You'll be needing it, I expect."
"Ah." The curious couple departed together, the man carrying five filled- to-bursting carrier bags in each hand, the woman slipping the plastic card into her small handbag.
---57, The Hideyhole, muggle London, Saturday, 3:35 pm---
"I notice I'm carrying all the bags as usual. Do you have some sort of disease which prevents you from fetching and carrying?" 'Margaret' was opening the white painted door of apartment 57 with a silver key. She ignored 'Michael's' complaints.
"I mean," he went on irritably as they went inside, "we've been pretending to be married for only three days, and you treat me like a house- elf. Fetch this, fetch that, go shopping, make tea, be nice to the muggles, don't curse them…"
"When in Rome, Severus."
"…be treated like a bloody slave, yes, I think I get the idea." Severus Snape, for truly it was he, dumped the bulging carrier bags and flung himself down into a battered armchair, gazing around the flat with some distaste. It was fairly small, with little room for pacing, which was a frustration in itself. There was a living room with sofa and one armchair, a coffee table, fireplace and that mysterious muggle invention called a 'television'. The kitchen was a continuation of the lounge - it was small but functional, and Snape despised it. There was also, of course, a bathroom, and to Snape's utter embarrassment and exasperation, a single bedroom. Which meant, naturally, that he slept on the sofa, far too small for his lanky body - Snape had had a crick in his neck for the past two days and it wasn't making his temper any sweeter.
He watched grimly while his partner in this grotesque comedy of errors, Minerva McGonagall, unpacked the various foodstuffs and potion ingredients they had bought, stowing them away in the little kitchen cupboards with annoying efficiency. Blasted perfect Gryffindors.
Snape rose moodily and wandered into the kitchen. Coming face-to-glass with an oval mirror, he glared at his own reflection.
"It just doesn't suit me."
"Hm?" McGonagall was trying to wedge three boxes of rosemary into a space better suited to a pinhead. "What doesn't?"
"My hair."
McGonagall sighed. "What's wrong with it?"
"The grey. It makes me look…old."
"It makes you look a few years older. It was necessary - we don't want to attract any attention by appearing unorthodox in terms of age difference."
"Unorthodox! That shop boy thought you were my mother, for Merlin's sake. You *still* look twenty years older than me, even with those ridiculous contact lenses and the industrial strength bra."
"How dare you spy on my underwear!"
"I *didn't*! Replied Snape, indignantly. "The thought, if you must know, fills me with horror. You were washing the wretched thing in the sink the other day."
"There's nothing shameful in needing a little more support…and speaking of support, your whinging is not making this mission any easier!"
"*My* whinging! What about you? I never heard anyone complain so much about so minor a thing as my harmless little mistake." McGonagall closed the cupboard with a bang, and rounded on her colleague.
"Harmless, was it? You consider volunteering me for this mission a 'harmless mistake'? Have you any idea how odious the prospect of spending three weeks in your company, pretending to be *married* to you, is to me? Why on earth did you ask Albus to send me with you?"
Snape muttered something unintelligible, staring hard at the floor.
"What?" Snapped McGonagall.
"You were the only female staff member I could possibly contemplate pretending to be married to without going insane." There was an awkward pause. Snape looked up. To his amazement, McGonagall was gazing at him with an expression of almost girlish coyness on her usually rigid face.
"Oh, Severus." She murmured, bashfully. "That's very sweet." Snape, embarrassed by both her reaction and the warm, slightly tingly feeling it was giving him, shrugged and tried to pass it off.
"Can you imagine me living here with Flora Sprout for three weeks? She'd be growing things everywhere. Or Madame Hooch? She'd have me in a headlock before the first day was over. I wish you'd stop simpering," he added, "it doesn't suit you."
But McGonagall continued to smile at him. She ushered him back to the armchair.
"Let me make you a cup of tea. You look tired." She bustled off. Snape, leaning back in the chair, wondered whether for the first time in his life he had successively, albeit accidentally, manipulated a woman psychologically. It was an ability that he, along with the vast majority of the male population both wizard and muggle, had all but given up on acquiring - but now, witnessing his colleague's new, soppy, amiable demeanour, he wondered whether he might not turn it to his advantage.
"Minerva," he said pleasantly, as she boiled the kettle, "I was just wondering…"
"Yes?" She purred.
"Well, whether you might see your way clear to letting me sleep in the bed tonight." McGonagall's back, all Snape could see of her, went rigid. There was the unmistakable sound of shattering ceramic.
"I…I don't know, Severus, it's all so sudden…" she turned to him, met his eyes briefly, then bashfully lowered her gaze. "I'm very flattered, of course…"
"What are you talking about, woman?" He demanded. "You've had that bed for two nights, it must surely be my turn by now. That sofa is almost criminally small. I have a stiff neck and my back is aching." He added pathetically.
McGonagall, however, merely snorted. "Is it now." She growled, coldly, pouring a cup of tea. As she headed towards him, Snape held out his hand expectantly, but she ignored him and stormed past into the bedroom, throwing an icy, "make your own!" over her shoulder.
Snape remained in his armchair, bewildered by his colleague's change of mood. He would never understand women, he decided. Bizarre, complicated, mercurial creatures…how on earth would he survive another eighteen days with this one?
A/N Reviews much appreciated. I will get around to explaining just what our intrepid duo is doing in muggle London, I promise :-)