In which Severus has a cunning plan to save the world and Narcissa will totally ice you if you ruin her party.

The sun was just beginning to set, but actually it was midmorning in August. It was the long twilight of seventh year that stuttered before him full of dark corners, no starry night. The only star to wish on was the knotwork on this rather stained and frayed bell-pull.

He pulled it, jaw tight.

The rawboned, red-faced, half-blown-dandelion-clock of a man in the worn dragonshide apron who opened the door to him was obviously not the butler. So Severus told him, voice calm enough and even, through a tight throat, handing him a shabby leather-bound portfolio with a compartment that held three vials, "Horace Slughorn's promised me connections in Switzerland and Xi'an, but I want to apprentice with you when you get your grant. This is my work." Then he gave a half-bow, and walked away.

"OI!" Damocles Belby called after him, before he'd gone five steps. "You've got no damn manners, boy!"

"That's right," Severus called back, turning to walk backwards, eyes lighting with the determination that grabs at hope at the bemusement in the man's voice. He'd expected anger, or possibly to have his portfolio chucked at his head. "I've got hands!"

"What're you bringing 'em to me for, all them fancy connections, then?"

"Nearly got eaten by a gormless twirp once."

"So?"

"So I say curses are made to be lifted," he replied, nearly snarling and entirely bright-eyed with determination.

"If you're any good I'll work that cheek right out of you, you snotty little brat," Belby threatened, but he was already holding up the vial of Felix Felicis to the light, with his stained and knobby-boned hands, watching it glimmer, swirling the dark eggplanty velvet of a Teacup Tempest by his ear, and biting back a smile. "My ducks have no time for opinions!"

"You can still reach me at Hogwarts until June," Severus shouted back before apparating away, the fierceness of his adrenaline pressing out of his chest until he thought it might explode into a storm of white feathers, leaking out even into his mouth, "when you decide to say yes!"

That evening there was a gathering at the Black girls' place. It wasn't actually Narcissa's birthday, but they'd spent the half of the summer in Italy, so she hadn't celebrated with her friends yet. Besides which, it was a good excuse to impress the fathers of her male peers with her hosting skills.

Evan had explained matters, when Severus displayed his shocking ignorance and pointed out that she was practically betrothed and she and Luke didn't just drool over each other but actually seemed to get on most of the time. No, he said, her aim wasn't to get out of it. Her job was to get enough good offers over the next year to scare the Malfoys, with the prospect of losing their last little nouveau-riche chance of marrying into really good blood, into as one-sided a pre-nup as possible. Just in case. And, of course, if one was good enough, was better…

That made sense, Severus supposed, and he made sure to gleam at her, when she kissed his cheek in greeting, to whisper, "Ev explained. Bleed him dry." She slapped at his arm in rebuke, but she laughed.

It was an exquisite party—er, mixer—or, no, gathering was really the only word. Thoroughly grown-up, unutterably dull, all shaded in cream and soft chocolate browns. The most fun anyone had all evening was when Bast Lestrange mockingly accused Severus of accepting his robes as a gift, the implication dripping from his tone far too obvious for such a Slytherin do. Severus told him, eyebrow raised, that he didn't know whether to be flustered at the flattering but very obvious lies about his charms or rush to owl the Tartan with the compliment to his transfiguration in hopes of giving her a heart attack before start of term.

It would have passed unobserved, but his slightly tipsy but socially acceptable brother snorted bits of snazzleberry-gouda tart all over the carpet and slapped Severus on the back so hard that he nearly stumbled into the house elf with the tray of mainly-fire-crab things that looked like Faberge eggs in various stages of hatching prawn-dragons.

That, pitifully enough, was the most fun anyone had, apart from enjoying the food and wine at a decorous rate: there were Adults Around acting all patronizingly approving. Anyone trying to relax and behave as though they were at a party with friends got either the evil eye or a kick in the shins from an invisible foot. It was as though Narcissa had eyes in the back of her head, and no one would have put it past her, either.

What one were allowed to do was chat politely. One could even speak with friends if it was Politely, but there was less of a sense of impending blue-eyed doom if one schmoozed above one's age. Most of these conversations were a dizzying dance of finance, politics, and recruitment. Severus knew he'd be able to pick them apart later (if someone lent him a pensive), but they made his head swim when he tried to take part and show willing.

He therefore chose to play himself as a polite and shy lad too modest to clamor for patronage and too autistic to pick up on hints intended to beguile him: a working boy without pretensions.

He wasn't very good at that particular role, he knew. It was the polite that was the problem. He could say the right words in the right order, but never quite in the unobtrusively correct way.

He also knew that no one was going to pick up on his world of bewildered. He was so utterly bad at hiding at how agoraphobic and explosively impatient he got at parties, with people jostling him and breathing fumes in his face and trying to talk to him about inanities when he could have been studying. And everyone knew this about him, would give him despairing and contemptuous credit for showing willing. No one would be surprised or taken aback by the unpolished abruptness of his efforts, or compelled to look deeper and find out how terrifyingly out of his depth he was.

Around him, his classmates were politely inquiring into the workings of various Ministry offices, of boards their parents friends were on, of funds they might consider investing in. They were being politely quizzed about their OWL scores and NEWT classes and Quidditch preferences. Had they thought about taking on any responsibilities after graduation? What measures they were looking forward to voting for? Inevitably, too, they were being given nudging little hints about Friends With The Right Ideas.

Severus knew for a fact that his classmates were all talking on bored reflex and would be moving forward on bored reflex, with the help of their parents' advice and advisors, until the dance became habitual and perhaps interesting if they were lucky. He, as was only to be expected, had a slightly different conversation. Thirteen times. It began with the pressing question of What Was All That About With Young Lestrange, Eh, dipped awkwardly into I Went To School With Your Mother, You Know, Bad Business, That, before finding its relieved way into So I Hear You're Quite The Hand At Potions And (Significant Pause) Charmwork, winding insinuatingly into You Never Know What Sort Of Opportunities Are Out There For A Young Feller With The Right Ideas Who's Good With His Wand.

The pressing question for Severus, which he wasn't allowed to sit down next to Evan on the silk-upholstered couch and ask until Narcissa was starting to look too tired to be party police, was, "May I punch them all in the mouth, please?"

"You do what you want," Evan yawned, hiding it behind a flute of chilled hippocras, "but if I have to bail you out that's your Christmas present spent. Could be your birthday present too, depending on who you hit first."

"I don't care," Severus replied, and he didn't smile, but let the pulse-pounding heat of the morning unfurl in his voice.

It wasn't in Evan's nature to jerk upright, but he did turn his head to Severus, eyes brightening over the yawn, which was a long one. "You did it," he announced, when he could do it without displaying his tonsils to people whose influence he might want to use someday.

"I didn't ask him for an answer today," Severus tells him, "but he's going to say yes."

"Just have to go for that Order of Merlin, don't you," Evan teased languidly with a la, these infants today and their dreams eye roll.

"You can have it to melt down for a wand-handle," Severus dismissed this with a sniff, glowing somber black-light happiness, and spread his hand—stained beyond scrubbing, long, tapered, calloused fingers hinged with large knuckles, a workman's hand pale against his sleeve's smooth, embroidered charcoal-as if it could cradle the sun. "I'm going to save the world."

"You Princes," Ev laughed, squeezing him. "Next party, come in red."

"Well," Severus amended dryly, dropping his hand to shrug more pragmatically, "my corner. From something."