Horace Slughorn and the Confederacy of Dunces
AKA: If Severus doesn't kill Albus two decades too early by the end of this chapter, then fandom surely will.

Warnings: Sunlight on some Hogwarts attitudes and practices that should have gotten everybody involved fired.

Relevant-at-time-of-post notes: I hope every one of you is well enough to not be worried, and staying as safe as possible.

I also want to assure you that I'm not dead and have been working on this story fairly continuously. There have been some RL drags on the process, including having what I'm going to assume-but-not-trust is normal Spring being-on-and-off-kinda-sick-for a-month. But the fundamental problem creating this break between chapters is that Severus did not want to be in this fucking meeting to begin with, and also had to be restrained from killing everyone approximately every five minutes and then went off to snarl and throw things for a week or three every time. The other stuff just meant I didn't have the wherewithal to chase him down.

Just a reminder... This is my kindest possible interpretation of the universe and institutions JKR wrote. Not my ideas about how things should have been handled. I'm just trying to look back and say 'what could these people have been thinking, to create the situation we walked into in the books?' I'm assuming good intentions where possible, but that doesn't mean I'm saying what was done was well done.

September 5: Staff room, Hogwarts

"I'm quite sure I shouldn't be attending this," Severus said for the fifth time. Horace wasn't quite dragging him by the collar down the long corridor, but he had felt obliged to maintain a quite solid grip on his arm.

"Nonsense, m'boy," he said (for the third time). "I've told you before, it isn't a senior faculty meeting. All the teachers are attending." This wasn't strictly true, but nobody was going to remind Binns and the flying teachers didn't really count, not being residents. Broom classes had got pushed back a few years ago, in any case, so that guest instructors who had to stop hyperactive eleven-year-olds from killing themselves in midair would know who needed to be most closely watched.

"I'm not a teacher," Severus said unreasonably. "I'm just helping."

Helping wasn't the word Horace would have chosen, but he hung onto joviality by the skin of his teeth. "You work with the students, Severus, so you may have valuable insights—although," he hastened to add, "you might wish to wait and see if any of your seniors have also had them before speaking."

Severus made one of his complicated mouth-movements. It looked grouchy, to Horace's mind, but not particularly as though Severus intended to contest this point.

"And," he therefore continued without pause, "you may need to know of decisions that are made this evening, and I certainly don't intend to sit through all that twice. Once a year is more than enough."

"I thought Professor Flitwick takes the minutes," Severus said dolefully. "Couldn't I just read them after?"

Horace didn't make any noise so unrefined as a snort, but he did certainly make a noise and was quite sure that he would be understood. "If you can get Filius Flitwick to let you see his meeting minutes, you must tell me the trick of it someday, m'boy. Why, I don't think even Professor Dumbledore has been granted that privilege."

"...So," Severus speculated, forgetting to drag his feet in this grip of his sudden horrified fascination, "if someone wants to revisit a point from a previous meeting they have to go ask him and everyone just assumes he won't shade the truth in favour of his own class or house budget because… what, because he's nice?"

In Horace's opinion, about half the staff assumed exactly that, or that a Ravenclaw would be honest by default, without troubling to think about it. Most of the rest understood that if Flitwick did work below the surface in his own favour, there wasn't much anyone could do about it. Not between his position as a Head of House and Albus's liking and respect for him.

Horace himself considered that the budget was safe as houses from manipulations in that quarter because Flitwick liked to feel smug about using cleverness and magic to get around problems lesser beings might have thrown money at. He found the smugness irritating, and Flitwick's enthusiasm did rather make the less-resourceful teachers look bad, but it did free up funds and Horace had to respect resourcefulness.[1]

"I hope it's just because he's nice," the lad continued, contempt for those who got fooled by niceness dripping from his voice, "and not because he's a Ravenclaw, because let me tell you, those bastards are the absolute worst about spiking other people's projects to make sure they publish first, for one thing, not to mention—"

"Good heavens," Horace said mildly, having stopped listening twenty-odd seconds ago. The statue with the flail waved to him as they passed, and he waved back. A passing first-year gasped, but Horace kindly ignored this evidence of unfamiliarity with a magical environment—although he did make note of the face. One had to make allowances for unfamiliarity, and also to make note of who got over that quickly, and whether through the disregard brought by exposure or by making an effort to learn.

"One can always check one's own memory in the Headmaster's pensieve, you know," he pointed out, "if it's important to get something exactly right. Only that never feels terribly efficient, even if it only takes a moment of real time and, as I said, one never wants to go through it again. Besides, he always gives young Minerva a summary for her records in the morning."

"...So he just doesn't want everyone to read his snide remarks about them."

"One can only imagine," Horace said, radiating disinterest. He actually had stopped caring about what those remarks were once he'd come to the conclusion that Flitwick was never going to do anything with them; let the man amuse himself if he didn't intend to publish, rumour-monger or blackmail, why not?

And Horace was convinced. The man had the arrogance of a champion duelist; he either patronized or confronted his annoyances. But for now, it could do Horace's cause no harm to give the impression that he'd given up on information he wanted and turned to sour grapes. Not with a lad who always thought he could do everything better than his elders.

Severus did not choose to play it cool but picked up his pace smartly. His determination to sit where he could see the book and unpick whatever charm Flitwick had put on it to discourage visual eavesdropping wasn't only radiating from his every pore and button-his eyes were bright with it and his wicked glee made his underfed cheekbones even sharper. Horace was tempted to sigh at this malleability and lack of subtlety, but since it meant his junior was no longer fighting a meeting Albus wanted him to attend, it was all for the best.

As Horace went in and set up his bone china cup and squashy armchair next to Silvanus, whose worst fault in meetings was to squirm around in his wide, boxy brown club chair and clack his joints, he was composing a chatty note to the young Mrs. Malfoy in his head, to congratulate her on tricking her protege into a proper taste for gossip and lay the hint that any information she got out of him from this meeting was thanks to Horace. He had to stop and take pity, though, when he noticed Severus hovering beside the door, looking… well.

Anyone else would have looked lost or confused. Severus appeared to believe that the world was playing an unkind joke on him out of pure malice, and to be plotting revenge.

"If you take a cup from the cupboard and put it on the table," Robards said with the helpfulness of the recently-informed, "a chair happens."

Severus looked around at all the mismatched armchairs. The brocade on Albus's seemed to give him a headache. "The chairs were just normal at the start of term meeting," he observed in a voice struggling for mild neutrality.

"These are more comfortable," Flitwick explained.

"In order to be rested for the children's first week, we like to keep the start of term meeting brief," elaborated Albus with a smile Severus appeared to find alarming.

Severus clamped down on his appalled whimper at this threat of a less-'brief' meeting before it could make it down his throat from his eyes. Lifting his chin in an attitude of manful determination, he crossed to select one of the Hogwarts-crested cups Albus kept for guests and new staff who hadn't put in their own yet. Diplomacy, or what Pomona would have called a good faith effort, was most likely what had led the lad to select one with the school's crest rather than the good old serpent rampant, but he could see a few lips pursing in what Horace took for derision at the idea that anyone could ever forget from which House this particular alumnus hailed.

His dilly-dallying on the way up had made them too late for Severus to sit next to Flitwick, so he opted to set it down across the table instead, next to his supervisor's comfortable old plum-coloured teacup with the silver patterns instead of Minerva's regrettable but serviceable tartan one or Digitalin's mug with the maths joke Horace had never bothered to have explained.

Lucky, lucky Horace.

Minerva looked surprised at the soft, shallow-seated grey Voltaire chair that sprouted out of nothingness. Having been in the lad's sitting room, Horace was not. Or largely not. He'd never seen a chair with only one arm before. Possibly Severus thought this would make it easier for him to leave?

He'd learn.

While the last teachers straggled haggardly in, Horace had a nice chat with the new Divination teacher about the Hogwarts food. She hastened to assure him that it was very good, but then added that she wasn't used to so much rich food and it upset her stomach.

Horace expressed concerned confusion as to her definition of 'good,' if her use of this word included things she did not want and which left her uncomfortable.

Later, he had to explain to Severus that of course he hadn't been really confused; he'd just been attempting to very gently lead her to the conclusion that her lack of faith in the elves' willingness and ability to make her happy would be very insulting to them if they found out, without being so crass as to confront her with the fact that she'd been doing something that would upset them very much. Severus did not seem impressed (or surprised), and informed him that this behaviour was both insulting to the lady and inefficient.

He might have had a point about its being inefficient (though efficiency wasn't really the point of good manners, as Horace would have informed him years ago if he'd ever appeared to be interested), because Horace wasn't able to manoeuvre his conversation as he'd hoped before everyone was seated and Albus was calling them all to order.

"How nice it is to all be together again! I trust we are all recovered from last year, and with this past week under our belts are all prepared for the coming joys and tribulations."

"What happened last year?" Severus asked, not quite quietly enough. Horace, looking at his wide, worried eyes, didn't really blame him for it.

It looked as though several teachers were going to start complaining feelingly (probably about the current seventh-year class, if Horace was any judge; when there weren't any students like Severus, Dai Llewellyn, Bellatrix or Sirius Black, Vivienne Twintrees, or Meredith Mulciber currently enrolled it was always either the fourth years or the seventh years), but Minerva got in first. With a sweeping and not unsympathetic glance over Severus, she explained, "Nothing exceptional, Mr. Snape. Everyone is always tired at the end of a term; I don't believe Professor Dumbledore meant anything more than that."

"Oh," Severus said, looking intensely relieved. "No new class of '79, then?"

Minerva looked as though she wanted to say no new class of '78, either, but restrained herself. "If so, they're biding their time."

Severus hummed, apparently in approval of her unwillingness to rule out the possibility of patient little monsters. "Thank you for explaining, Professor," he said politely.

"Not at all," she replied with unmasked suspicion.

"What was wrong with the class of '79?" asked Robards, interested.

Everyone groaned except Albus, who looked gently sad, Horace, who winced, and Severus, who used one of his more matter-of-fact tones to say, "One of its forms was made up almost entirely of psychopaths and neurotics. Neither of its prefects was in the former category, but one lacked confidence and the other finesse. Once Miss Black had graduated I understand that as good a job might have been done controlling said psychopaths by a mouse riding a minotaur."

Sensing accusing looks pointed his way, Horace explained, again, heatedly, "There weren't any better options." As if Minerva, who had named James Potter as prefect less than a week after he'd committed what was, if rumour was to be believed, the nastiest assault Hogwarts had seen outside of Quidditch season in several decades, oughtn't to have understood promoting the deeply suboptimal best of a bad lot!

Robards looked as if he wanted to talk to Severus more, but Albus said lightly, "It is always a pleasure to reminisce over past challenges, isn't it? Let us now turn our attention to more recent ones, in hopes that we may move through our vital business with enough time left over to—"

"Seconded!" Horace declared before he could waste even more of their evening. Everyone who wasn't new (and wasn't Digitalin, who had over the last four or five years become increasingly vocal in her opinion that there was little point in the teachers of elective classes remaining after the completion of the vital business) also seemed to think it a good point.

"Then, first of all," Albus turned a kind smile on Robards and Miss Trelawney, "how are our new professors settling in?"

"Well, I can see why Crouch thought it'd be a good way to decide whether to set my sights on taking over the Patrol when Coppernet retires or going in for Auror work," Robards said—ironically, if not quite sourly. "The curriculum's a bit, er, scattered, and some of those kids have some mouths on them."

Everyone looked at Severus. Some of them had enough cognizance of the concept of manners to catch themselves and immediately pretend they hadn't. Severus looked back with exactly the bland eyes, slightly uplifted left eyebrow, and ghost of a curl around his lips that he'd used to bend on Horace during any discussion of tool composition, ingredient interactions, astrological influences, or gathering times. As usual, Horace very nearly succeeded in not flinching. At least it wasn't aimed at him this time.

"To say nothing," Robards was going on, "of all the practice in lie-detection I can see I'm about to get over homework and magic in the halls and whatnot."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Albus asked.

"Any chance you could arrange a meeting for me with whoever's been overseeing the OWL and NEWT exams?" Robards asked. "I don't need individual results or specific questions, but it'd be useful to get some idea of how well the group as a whole's been doing in various areas."

"I don't see why not," Albus said, and smiled encouragement for Miss Trelawney to take her turn.

"Everyone's been very kind," she said haltingly, and looked helpless.

After a moment, wherein everyone seemed to slowly realize that they didn't have seven years of experience with her as a student to help them figure out what she wanted, Severus hissed, "So presumably if you need something they will continue to be kind, and wasting their time is poor recompense for that kindness."

Horace stepped on his foot.

"Grade your own appallingly-spelt first-year horrorshow conversion charts, then," Severus retorted, scowling, which he never did to Miss Black. "I have a research errand out of the country this weekend."

"I don't recall if anyone mentioned what your thesis is on," Bathsheba mentioned, friendly and curious and doing a quite good job of glossing over being completely at a loss for how to address him.

"A comparison and cellular-level evaluation of immutable orally-transmitted super-morbid anthro-obligate curses," he replied, as if he suspected a trap but wasn't sure where to look for it.

"Oh!" Bathsheba exclaimed, as though something he'd said before 'curses' had been a real word with meaning. "Then are you going to Romania? Only I have a friend at the Embassy who was having some difficulty with a manuscript of hieroglyphic Luvian, and I said I'd love to take a crack at it but they didn't want to entrust it overseas to an owl…"

"Is there anything you need, Professor?" asked Flitwick of the shellshocked Miss Trelawney while Severus and Bathsheba erupted in a brief haggling fit masquerading as a spurt of mutual enthusiasm over mouldering old books. One might have expected Albus to object to having his meeting derailed, but he just looked pleased Severus was making friends, as he might have put it. Flitwick had a sadistic twinkle in his eye that said in no uncertain terms that he wasn't being kind to Horace so much as bestowing a favour for which he would expect to be repaid, with interest.

That wouldn't fly, of course. Flitwick would have to be satisfied with the girl's gratitude for saving her from Severus's brutal ideas about help-and-run. Horace hadn't been saved at all, even though he'd tried very earnestly to resign.

"I… well… do I have to keep to Professor Imago's syllabus?" she asked. "Only, some of the techniques he was teaching are a bit… advanced. For children," she added hastily.

Horace observed with interest and delight that Severus and Minerva curled their lips and flared their nostrils at her in exactly the same way.

"Come to my office and we'll discuss the matter," Albus said, evidently not drawing conclusions about her competence as automatically as his deputy had. But then, he had interviewed her and didn't have to take anyone else's impressions on faith. "Perhaps tomorrow afternoon?"

She assented a tad too gratefully for dignity, and Albus did her the courtesy of not noticing. "Excellent. And, Professor Robards, you must also come to see me if something else occurs to you later."

"Is it expected to?" Robards asked warily. "Did I miss something other Defense teachers usually ask about, or wish they had?"

"Oh, one never knows, one never knows," Albus said in his best dreamy-and-dotty style.

"One knows," Minerva said dryly. "It's only the first week. Twenty new problems will crop up by Wednesday."

A sour murmur of assent ran around the table, and Albus's moustache quirked. "In which case, it will be most important to ensure our prefects and our new Head Boy and Girl are up to the task, so—"

"Wait a minute," Robards protested. "What about him?" He nodded at Severus. "He's new, too. Aren't you going to ask if he needs help?"

Albus looked inquiringly at Severus. Severus looked like a first-year muggleborn called up to the front of the class to lecture on the colours of flame temperature. He hazarded, "I… have a supervisor to whom I can bring questions?"

Horace patted his arm in congratulations. And was, predictably, glowered at.

"Just so, just so." Albus turned the inquiring look back onto the Heads.

"Mine are all trying to resign now that they're starting to get an idea what OWL and NEWT homework is like," Flitwick said placidly, "but they do that every year."

"Mr. Mistlethwait's jolly good with the little kits," Pomona volunteered. "I think he's struggling more with the Head Boy duties than the prefect ones he was already used to. The rest of the prefects are all right."

"Guenna says the Slytherin prefects are… challenging," Minerva said delicately.

Severus asked Horace, not particularly at a low volume, "Would it be inappropriate to remark that Shafiq is angry as hell that a teaching assistant appeared in her House to further diminish her authority in the year she expected to be Head Girl and that Yaxley's a bully and an ass and I fully expect him to start abusing his authority no later than the middle of next week, which estimate is highly optimistic?"

"Yes," Horace said from behind his hands, which he had not intentionally plastered over his face. "It would."

"Oh," Severus replied, unbothered (and, Horace darkly suspected, full of evil glee). "Then I won't."

"Why do you say that?" Minerva asked sharply.

He blinked at her in a parody of harmlessness. "I don't say it. I just said I wouldn't say it."

"If you were going to say it," Flitwick asked patiently while Minerva growled, the corner of his mouth and his quill both moving spasmodically, "what would prompt you to do so?"

"A certain tendency towards political emphasis," Severus said, careful but all cooperation. "And the way some of the other Slytherins are wary of him. Also, someone poisoned my usual seat in the common room, but I don't think she was serious."

"...I beg your pardon," Timaeus said slowly, removing his glasses in the sudden silence.

"Well, it wouldn't have been lethal with that delivery method or at any normal dosage," Severus said in the practical voice that (and Horace was so sorry that he knew this) meant he actually wasn't upset. "It was just pobregin sweat. I'd take it seriously if I found it in my shoes, but it takes over a week of exposure to be lethal for even the most vulnerable victims, and the elves clean regularly. It might worsen someone's homesickness for a few days if they sat in it, but as no one's developed a sudden case of limp hair I don't believe any damage was done."

Everyone tried not to look at his hair.

"I didn't sit in it!" Severus said indignantly. "I have a functioning nose, thank you!"

Everyone tried not to look at his nose.

Fortunately oblivious to this, at least, Severus went on, "I don't think she even meant I should. It was just, you know, a pointed remark."

"Poison is a pointed remark," Timaeus repeated, even more slowly.

"I've been doing my work in the common room," Severus explained, and this time the pure evil of his demure smile must have been obvious even to Bathsheba, who'd been (unfairly) lucky enough to get Severus's year in a badger-snake and cat-bird separation and was convinced everyone was having her on about both Severus and Remus Lupin. Horace couldn't quite tell whether he'd misunderstood on purpose. "They dislike the extra supervision. Poor things," he added, dripping sadistic sympathy.

Robards looked at Albus pointedly.

Albus looked at Horace to find out whether he'd known about this.

Horace, who'd had no idea, said placidly, "I'm sure they shall learn to cope."

"If they were really upset they would have raided Professor Sprout's tentaculas," Severus (very) unnecessarily explained to everybody. "And probably ended up plastered to the greenhouse ceiling dribbling blue foam, but the elves haven't mentioned anything like that."

Pomona's mouth hung open, though Horace wasn't quite sure whether it was with horror or outrage.

"You said 'she,'" Robards said slowly. "You're sure about who did this?"

"Entirely," Severus said, "and no one else needs to be. She's already being appropriately punished."

"I haven't noticed any point losses for Slytherin outside of class misbehaviour," Minerva said slowly.

Severus blinked in what looked like genuine confusion. "I don't recall your ever thinking anyone needed to lose points for—"

"No doubt Professor Slughorn has Slytherin House well in hand," Albus ordered in a loud voice, with a look at Horace that said he had better. "However, we have rather a lot to get through, so I shall have to ask you, too, Horace, to bring any difficulties to me directly."

"Of course," Horace smiled. He had, as Albus very well knew, no intention of getting involved unless it got worse than multiple children kicked through the window into the lake (again).[2] Once the discussion had started, he lowered his voice and asked, "Shafiq?"

"She had to do something," Severus said tolerantly. "I took status she expected and embarrassed her, and she's still in an authority position. Which I don't want to undermine, you understand, considering if she loses too much face all the no-hopers will turn to Yaxley for direction."

"You are staff now," he said pointedly, meaning that Severus couldn't let a precedent like that stand.

Severus assured him, "I'm pointedly and delicately Not Bringing It Up and smiling at her at random intervals in an understanding and slightly puzzled—"

"Professor Slughorn?" Albus prompted them politely. "Is there a matter you need to discuss?"

Horace waved at him in token apology. "Just following up, Professor, won't be a mo." He turned back to Severus. It sounded like the lad was trying for a mix of his friends' styles, and Horace really couldn't imagine it. "Demonstrate, m'boy, if you please."

A moment later, Albus was asking him yet again whether anything was wrong.

"No," he said, feeling and sounding feeble, despairing, and badly in need of a drink. "No, no, everything is in order." Or should be so long as Miss Shafiq didn't convince her father she needed a food taster at school.

It wasn't that Severus was wrong to leave the ball on her pitch without forcing a confrontation which would have done no good to either of their standing. But his version of the 'understanding and slightly puzzled' look which worked so well for young Evan left the impression that he was only puzzled over why his victim hadn't fallen over dead yet.

By this time they had almost entirely missed the discussion of the other prefects, which was all right. He knew them all well enough He wouldn't have minded missing the agonizing over the rest of the students, either; it was useful to know which of the first-years had made a good impression on the others, but he'd largely formed his own first impressions on the train, and would have had full and rich opportunities to fill out his ideas about them by the time it would begin to matter.

At least Severus limited his opinionation on the subject of returning students to what was for him a small handful of points no one else had mentioned yet, one of which made Poppy frown and pull out her notebook. Horace was quite proud of him until Albus started to ask about the first years and Severus actually interrupted him to ask whether it was normal for them not to be able to spell or do maths.

To do him justice, it looked to Horace as though the question had been pulled kicking and screaming from his very soul, he was so aghast about it, and probably didn't look to anyone as though he'd interrupted on purpose.

Not but what the former wouldn't have been less embarrassing. A young Slytherin who tried a power play at the wrong moment had made an error in calculation. A Slytherin who let his passions lead him into uncalculated outbursts lacked discipline that he ought to have learned at school. On the other hand, everybody already knew that about Severus, and they had all stopped expecting Horace to be able to make a little gentleman of him years ago.

Quite a few faces, in fact, were regarding Severus with amused sympathy. Only a handful of new professors had escaped being shocked by the state of first-year essays in Horace's memory, and they all either avoided essays entirely or were weak writers themselves. Minerva had been warned ahead of time, and she'd still nearly blown the windows out of her office from the sheer frazzlement electrifying her hair. She'd started wearing it up shortly thereafter, though she'd claimed this more to do with young-Gryffindor poetry and wads of Drooble's stuck to the back of her chair. In either event, Horace had been sorry about it on several counts.

"Very normal," she said now. "The number of students who come in thinking the word 'old' has an E in it…"

"Oh, I expected that," Severus said, turning to her. "What I mean is… look at this." He produced a folded-up bit of parchment from his sleeve and slid it across the table to her.

She scanned it, and sighed. "Yes, well."

In answer to the room's collective look of expectant inquiry, Severus explained, "Weasley can't spell his own name. He's spelt it differently on the Tuesday and Thursday assignments. And there is something deeply wrong with his calculations."

"As Professor McGonagall said," Timaeus reminded him, "it's very normal for students to come in lacking those sorts of skills. I can't tell you how many of my September office hours are usually spent on first years needing instruction in measuring angles and so on."

"I remember, Professor," Severus nodded. "This is different."

Their amused sympathy for his understandable dismay was starting to wear off. "In what way?" demanded Minerva, bristling at his attention to one of her little cubs.

Sensing the lowering tolerance, Severus started to hunch his shoulders, but not to back down. "I must have corrected hundreds of my Housemates' papers as a student," he said steadily. "I've observed that, as a rule, those who don't know how to spell a word and are too lazy to consult a dictionary will write it as it sounds. And those who've learned to spell a word incorrectly will omit a doubled letter or add one that gets doubled in other words, or apply the wrong rule. This is different. Look at this: he's spelt his surname W.L.E.S.A.Y.E. here. No one would hear that name and spell it that way. And look at his equations: they're all wrong, but quite a few of them would be right if you jumbled the digits up. I've never seen anything like this."

"I have," Minerva assured him briskly. "Merguirethe Skeeter's writing was quite as bad as this, though I can't speak for her maths skills. And she's writing for the Prophet now. Mr. Weasley will sort himself out as well. He seems," she added approvingly, "a bright young man, and a kind one. I think it's overall quite a good crop this year, Albus."

Severus looked at her for a long moment, his jaw slack enough that Horace was sure someone else's would have been hanging open.

The teachers all agreed with Minerva. This was a bit unusual; normally someone would take this opportunity to complain about a burgeoning discipline problem, usually in Gryffindor or Slytherin. Horace suspected everyone of thinking it would be easier, this year, to take those complaints directly to Minerva or himself.

Privately.

Maybe he was being unfair. His Slytherins had been uncharacteristically reserved outside the common room so far this year. It probably wouldn't last, once the older ones had reassured themselves that Severus wasn't going to toss them off the astronomy tower even without dear Narcissa around to restrain him, but for the moment they were being wary and the younger ones were following their lead.

"Any concerns on your end, Madam Pomfrey?" Albus asked courteously. "The boy who fell in the lake hasn't taken a chill, I trust?"

"The usual bumps and bruises after flying classes," Poppy shrugged, shaking her head with a smile. "I've had a word with the elves about a few special diets, and we'll be needing more nutrition potions than usual. I've also had a word with the weather diviners, and they say the winter will be a cold one. We'll want extra firewood and Pepperup and throat potions, and during the Christmas break we should ask the elves to swap in the extra-thick rugs and tapestries with the warming charms in the classrooms and dormitories-yes?"

To Horace's despair and lack of surprise, this was because Severus was gazing at her with a furrowed brow and a deep frown that demanded, That's it? "I'd like to ask you something privately later, if you wouldn't mind."

She smiled at him understandingly. "Of course, if you like, but no, I didn't and wouldn't."

Severus sat back as though this made sense to him and both relieved his mind and was making him worried about new things. "Thank you. I'd still like to discuss it later."

"I quite understand your concerns," she assured him.

"Well, I don't," Digitalin declared.

"Nothing to bother the whole table with," Poppy assured her, smiling. "Master Snape will be taking over the brewing of some of my supplies, you know."

"As is only right since I've persuaded the students that my title is 'Apothecary,'" Severus agreed, nodding to her with a variant on his poker face that Horace, after years of watching his friends save him from himself, recognized as deep gratitude and moderate adoration for her avoidance of whatever topic he hadn't wanted to bring to light in public.

It was all well and good to have the meeting smoothed over, of course, but Horace did wish people would stop rescuing the boy. Severus was a bright lad even outside his areas of obsession, when he chose to be, and certainly articulate. Horace saw no reason he couldn't learn to fish his own foot out of his mouth, or even learn to stop himself putting it in, if people would just stop feeling sorry for him.

Of course, for someone as difficult to like as Severus, getting people to feel sorry for you without real pity was a real accomplishment, and Horace was quite pleased with him for getting so good at it. But it wasn't the sort of skill he liked to see a clever young thing rely upon. Unreliable, and prone to create debts. Of course, Severus was also, when he chose, more than rude enough to brazenly refuse to acknowledge that sort of debt, but that made ill-feeling.

"But you do have your mastery?" Mona had asked, not so much worried as checking. "No offence, lad, but if you'll be making the medical potions I owe it to my students to be sure, and I need to be able to tell their parents so definitely."

"I do," he assured her, more approving than offended, "within Britain, Professor Sprout, but I'm still working on my international mastery. I prefer not to take full credit for a job half-done."

Horace knew this to be a half-truth at best: a more honest answer would have been that the word 'master' quite simply made Severus sneer, he refused to be addressed as 'mister' as if he were a student, and couldn't, of course, be called 'professor,' since he wasn't one. Horace had refused to be interested in his search for an appropriate title: his policy was to pretend he didn't notice when students were struggling with how to gracefully assert their own status, by way of demonstrating that blithely pretending no such challenge existed was the best way to do it.

"Quite right," Mona approved Severus's sentiment, though she also looked as if she wasn't quite sure what the distinction was and would be coming to bother Horace about it later. He made a note to get some of those little cinnamon-apple cakes she liked for his visitor's cupboard.

"What's wrong with 'Instructor'?" Minerva asked. "That's the flying teacher's official title. It'd be less of a mouthful."

Severus frowned thoughtfully, and admitted, "It hadn't occurred to me. That might work. I already told them, but if I say it was a temporary measure and the final decision came out of this meeting it won't look like me being changeable. Hopefully. All right."

"Very good, very good, that will be most suitable. An excellent idea, Professor McGonagall! Now, as the question of supplies has been raised," Albus inserted himself, smiling kindly at them all in the way that meant you're adorable, children, but in my rooms a lovely trashy novel, a recording of Haydn, and a glass of Merlot await me. "Let us turn to the matter of the budget."

Severus turned to Horace with huge, horrified eyes, and (vehemently) whispered, "Didn't we already do that?!"

Horace patted his wrist, which was yanked out of his reach with a glare.

"Professor McGonagall," Albus went on, mercifully ignoring them. "Does Monday's proposal still look appropriate?"

"More or less," she said. "I've received one or two minor requests for alterations," she glared at Timaeus, "but nothing we haven't got along quite well without up until now."

"We shall have a number of very fine showers this academic year!" Timaeus protested. "Mars will retreat behind the Sun! We may be able to see the Great White Thunderstorm of Jupiter, if Malpernicus's calculations are correct!" [3]

"Who?" Pomona asked blankly.

Digitalin shrugged, and then answered Timaeus's betrayed look, "Sorry, Jerry, never heard of him."

"I have," Severus said, without expression. "From Phil Lovegood."

Flitwick coughed.

Timaeus glared at Flitwick. "Observing Mars's solar conjunction through the corona is quite impossible with our current equipment, and there are several very other fine conjunctions this year for which we shall be able to see, at best, two planets! This December—"

"Aren't the students going to be at home on the 29th?" Severus asked, horrified. Horace supposed it was natural that he kept up on astrological events, since he'd been working on the Wolfsbane potion for years, but sadly suspected that he would have done anyway. "At least, most of them?" He turned to Horace, and accused, "You are not making me stay here all Yule."

"We'll see," Horace threatened, smiling affably. To his relieved delight, Severus blanched.

"It will make a treat for those who don't go home," Timaeus insisted, "And in any case, the one on the first of the month will be even finer! The Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus! And they shan't be able to see them all at once on those infinitesimal—"

"Shouldn't you be able to combine the images from two telescopes with a charm?" Severus asked him, confused.

"That's what I said last year," Flitwick put in. "We tried it, but we mostly got a blur."

Severus frowned thoughtfully. "Did you use selenite? Moonstone?"

"We tried moonstone," Timeaus said. "And obsidian, and opal."

"Oh no," Severus recoiled, appalled. "Not opal. I'd try a selenite lens set in moonstone-set in obsidian would be worth trying, too—washed in a solution of willowbark and rowan berries, for vision. Maybe blackthorn for perspective, or a decoction of fir for clarity. Gorse might be worth trying, to connect the two images…"

"We used their runes," Flitwick said.

"Did you try it in an array?" Severus asked, looking to Digitalin and Bathsheba.

"You leave me out of this," Digitalin said. "I don't see why Jerry shouldn't have had his spyglass six years ago."

Taking her at her word, Severus asked Bathsheba, "What do you think about painting runes with extracts of their trees?"

Timaeus glared again, knowing full well that he wasn't going to get his new telescope until all cheaper lines of experimentation were exhausted, but Minerva smugly refilled Severus's teacup for him. Severus looked as though he now suspected his tea had been poisoned, but nodded polite acknowledgement before looking back at Bathsheba, who looked amused with him and indicated that she had a book he could borrow-or copy, as long as he promised not to write on her copy.

"Most generous," Albus cut in smoothly, "And it sounds a fascinating project! I beg you will all share its progress with me. No doubt Professor Timaeus will wish you success, since I fear that we shall have to limit unnecessary expenditures this year. Now more than ever we must not be caught without resource to meet emergencies."

"There have already been a few unexpected pulls on the Poverty and Orphans fund," Minerva agreed, frowning. "These disappearances—we have several students whose families are, not to ignore their grief, unexpectedly down an income, and a few from the Orkneys are in complete disarray."

Severus gave Horace the sort of look with which Horace was quite familiar from the three years of potions classes after Miss Black had begun to attempt to teach him basic tact. It meant, you don't have to call on me but if you don't I'll keep staring at you for the rest of the lesson and then corner you after class, and you will not notice me blinking even once.

Horace sighed internally, and gave him a look of friendly inquiry.

At least it was in a low voice that Severus asked, "What do we do about their also being down family members?"

"The prefects will be told to keep an eye on them, and to take them to Poppy and their Heads of House at need, if they don't go on their own," he replied softly.

In a just-slightly-less-low voice, Severus demanded, "That's it?"

"What else is there?"

Severus looked as if he was, slightly, boggling, but only managed, "Perhaps something that doesn't rely on the reliability, stability, compassion, perception, capability, and general give-a-damnitude of—"

"Let's not slander any of our good prefects, Severus…" Horace chided.

"It's not slander if it's true!"

"Is there a problem, Professor Slughorn?" Albus asked gently.

"Yes!" Severus sputtered.

"Not at all," Horace said firmly.

Albus looked politely between them, but Horace raised his eyebrows at Severus meaningfully. He slumped into his chair, folding his arms tightly over his chest. The chair grew taller at the back and seemed to fold in around his rigid shoulders.

Albus looked startled and slightly concerned—which seemed to Horace to be taking that occurrence too seriously. It was unusual for chairs to alter themselves once they'd taken form, but hardly unheard of. Back in the forties, the Charms mistress's had been in constant flux.

Horace did miss her, and her charms, but all things must pass and despite Albus's creased eyebrows there seemed to be a good chance that even a meeting where Severus was apparently outraged by absolutely everything would too, in the end. They were able to proceed without (much) interruption through the discussion of students who hadn't been able to bring all their proper supplies, the scramble over the NEWT classes' schedule now that all the students had finalized their choices, Silvanus and Mona's joint complaint about the continuing fallout of Hagrid's niffler disaster, Pomona's rather half-hearted attempt to, out of loyalty to her team captain, fight with Minerva over pitch availability for a sport whose allure she'd never really seen, and Miss Trelawney nearly fainting over Minerva's vehemence.

"And now," Albus said gaily, clapping his hands, "the festivities!"

A wealth of fruit, cheese, bread, and little pastries appeared with a restrained-for-Albus light display and a gay little flourish of trumpets. Horace clapped in delight that the tedious part of the meeting was over, though he would normally have had a solid first draft of the Christmas party invitations list by this point in the evening and was scarcely halfway done, and reached across Severus for the Stinking Bishop.

As the platter with the delectable morsel passed in front of him, Severus kicked away from the table (had his chair had wheels before?) with one hand over his nose and the other yanking his wand out, yelping, "There weren't dead things on this table before!" He was actually clutching his heart—although, Horace noticed with an internal chuckle, he'd picked the wrong side.

"I told you we shouldn't have that again," Mona told Albus, also covering her own nose while Severus slowly realized that he was defending himself against cheese and sat down again gingerly, with all the offended dignity of a bristling tomcat. "Though I'm sure we all wish he were—not but what I'm sure Professor Trelawney won't do very well—but with all due respect to Inigo, he isn't here, and it's too bad of you to inflict it on everyone else! Just because your nose has been broken too many times to smell it properly…"

"But Horace adores it so," Albus pointed out, smiling at Horace's not-even-augmented-for-effect enjoyment. It didn't taste half as nice without Inigo Imago to share it with, but good memories, good memories. Besides, Severus's face as he tried to decipher and possibly make a grammatical map of Mona's outburst more than made up the difference.

"There's nothing stopping Professor Slughorn having it in his own rooms whenever he likes," Minerva pointed out, wrinkling her nose. "Honestly, Professor Dumbledore, there's no need to ruin the spread for the rest of us."

"You should at least try some from the middle," Horace told her for what had to be the fifth time. "It's delightfully smoky. I'm sure it would go well with your peatier scotches."

"I shall take your word for it," Minerva said, nose wrinkled adorably, and crisply snapped her fingers four times. An elf appeared and, while Horace hastened to cut himself off another dripping wedge or two, she instructed, "Kindly remove the rest of that for Professor Slughorn's personal consumption."

"Jinky is putting it away for the professor at once!" the elf agreed, and poofed away with it.

Everyone watched Horace judgmentally while he made a point of enjoying his two rescued pieces of delicious bread and cheese even though they lacked their usual savour. There was nothing else for it, at this point, but to smile it through. Then Flitwick cast an air-freshening charm in a resigned sort of way.

"Did you have to?" Severus asked Horace plaintively, cautiously lowering the bubble-head charm he'd put up at some point. Apparently his heart rate hadn't slowed from the shock of the sudden cheese.

Which was, when you weren't used to it, admittedly reminiscent of a Quidditch team's changing room after a week-long game in summer when several players had become ill from fatigue, or a new grave that had lain open for a month.

Or at least, he wanted Horace to think it hadn't and feel guilty. His overall body language was back under control, but the hand still plastered over his chest as though he'd forgotten it was remarkably melodramatic, even for Severus. He did look paler than usual, though, so possibly he wasn't putting it on for effect.

Horace would have to remember this strong aversion, though he doubted it would work if Severus felt he had a good reason to ignore an appalling smell. Like creating it on purpose in the stillroom, or simply choosing to be stubborn.

"Take advantage of opportunities as they present, m'boy," he counselled with a smile, patting his stomach, and summoned over the white Stilton with apricots.

Albus waited until everyone had filled their plates, and snapped his fingers again. Long cups of sparkling wine appeared at every place, and then he paused. "Severus, my dear boy, won't you eat something?"

Severus blinked warily at him. After a moment of twinkling blue appeal, he slowly pulled a radish out of a pocket and ate it, with an air of this is all you're getting out of me, you insane hazer.

Albus sighed and let him alone. What he didn't appreciate was that Severus generally reserved that flat-but-not-cold stare with the two raised eyebrows and the very slight quirk at one corner of his mouth for Hagrid, Rodolphus Lestrange, Evan Rosier, and Narcissa Black.

Horace had certainly never received it, but he deliberately avoided bullying his students, even benevolently and for their own good. They worked harder and learned more if you let them carry the burden of convincing you instead of forcing your opinions on them, in his opinion. It was clever of Severus to play hard-to-get with Albus, though he wondered if the lad actually realized what he was doing. Probably not, or he would have been trying too hard.

Filius floated the garlic yarg over to Severus, who sniffed at it, brightened, and started making it into a sandwich with more radish, without bothering to peel off the nettle leaf. Horace supposed Flitwick's flaunting his awareness of Horace's apprentice's taste-together with the infliction of garlic breath-was intended as his punishment for Horace's indulgence in his own preferred cheese. Not that he intended to resist the ginger Wensleydale, or the three luscious bowls of grapes, or that delectable-looking wheel of Red Dragon, presuming there was any of it left by the time it got around the table…

"Is that a joke?" Pomona asked Flitwick uncertainly. Severus looked up with his trademarked paranoid eyes, giving Flitwick a look that said I wouldn't have suspected YOU of making fun of me but since the possibility has been raised you are guilty until proven innocent!

"Is what a joke?" Flitwick asked, taken aback.

"Those are nettle leaves!" she exclaimed.

"They've been cooked," said Severus witheringly, apparently now instead suspecting her of both being stupid about her own subject and of trying to make trouble between him and the part-goblin. A moment's thought ought to have told him that they couldn't both be true at once, but there you were.

Pomona looked helpless. Horace did not suspect her of not knowing that nettles could be eaten safely once properly prepared. She clearly (at least, clearly to Horace; one could never tell what Severus was going to be dense or uncomfortably brilliant about) hadn't intended to make trouble, did not wish to make trouble, and was now realizing that she couldn't explain why she'd thought the idea of Severus eating nettles might be a joke without the evening ending in a massive snit before the alcohol was distributed.

Doubtless also realizing this, Albus tapped gently on his goblet with a cheese-knife, bless him. "Have we all enough on our plates to celebrate and soften the shocks of our report card?" he winked.

"What?" Robards asked bluntly. Severus and young Sybill Trelawney both looked grateful someone else had said it first. Sadly for them, Digitalin just hushed him with an assurance that this would be self-explanatory.

"Aha," Albus said merrily, "you have fallen into my trap and spoken first, Professor Robards, and so I shall begin with Defense Against the Dark Arts. No need for alarm! As a new teacher, none of this reflects upon you."

"That was a trap?" Severus whispered, looking torn between alarm at possibly entering a portion of the evening containing traps and contempt for the idea that what he had just observed might qualify as one.

"No," replied Horace briefly. Severus looked dubious, so he unbent enough to explain, "Opportunism."

"Ah."

"Last year's seventh-year class" Albus read off his scroll, "began their school journey as a group of one hundred and twenty-seven students. Twenty three, you will recall, left after achieving their Ordinary Wizarding Levels in order to accept jobs or apprenticeships, to pursue family concerns and, in two cases, to move overseas. I have had a letter from the Headmaster of Bugarup University, you will be pleased to know, Professor Sprout, informing me that Miss Thistlemark graduated thirty-fourth in a class of over two thousand, despite being bitten by a Whirligig Funnel-Web spider, a Demented Lionfish-dear me."

"It's a jellyfish," Silvanus explained. "Even the muggle variety are poisonous—"

"Venomous?" Severus suggested, apparently completely unable to prevent himself.

"Right," Silvanus agreed, miraculously unoffended—but he had survived five years of Severus, as well as the unrelated loss of several body parts, without apparent trauma. "And the Demented ones are a lot bigger and can freeze the water for a few feet at the surface almost instantly in a five-foot radius. Then they come up from below, and—"

"And thirteen other creatures," Albus said hastily, before Miss Trelawney could faint, "including a were-koala and, er…" He squinted at the page. "Some sort of plant. I am informed that, er, lykoalathropy is not contagious—"

"And also not a word," Silvanus remarked.

"I thought their shapeshifters were closer to our animagi," Minerva agreed. "At least in the transformations being voluntary."

"Headmaster Stibbonson explains in some detail," Albus said vaguely, probably more out of a desire to get on with things than a personal lack of interest in other magical nations' transfiguration traditions. "And goes on to say that—"

"Aren't koalas vegetarian?" Mona asked, frowning. "I remember reading something about their being upset by an invasive colony of Bowtruckles in some eucalyptus groves a few years ago."

"I understand it objected to being stroked without its permission being asked," Albus explained.

"Quite understandable," sniffed Minerva.

"Nasty tempers for cute little buggers," Silvanus agreed wisely. "I keep expecting Hagrid to beg for one as a pet, except they don't spit poison or explode."

"And let us all count our blessings," Albus said in his sagely gracious can we PLEASE get past this tone. "In any case, Miss Thistlemark has accepted a job caring for exotic creatures at a zoo in the American magical nation of Quaker Quinnipea." [4]

"Exotic," scoffed Silvanus. "Mound ants and pukwudgies."

"Of the remaining students," Albus said with light but definite emphasis on not getting even further mired in on this nonissue, "two did not qualify to take their Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests as a result of poor performance on their end of year exams."

"I thought those were nominal," said Severus, eyebrows clanging together in confusion.

"Whatever gave you that impression?" Albus asked him, smiling.

"Well, they've been cancelled before, haven't they?" Severus asked pragmatically. "Lucius Malfoy says his father's class never took theirs, and the newsletters from '66 talk about it."

Having looked up newsletters from before his time got him a series of Looks.

"What? I was doing a history paper on the lycanthropy outbreak."

"Of course you were," Minerva muttered.

"Yes," he said sharply, "of course I was." Moderating his tone, he went on, "Besides, they were rather basic. I thought they were just to keep the seventh years out of mischief."

"Those were exceptional years," Albus pointed out, smiling more twinklingly at 'rather basic.' "The student body was in a prolonged state of anxiety, if not outright panic, for much of them both, and Professor Dippet thought it unfair to make a record when schooling had been so interrupted."

"Quite right, too," Horace agreed. "Employers look at these things, you know, especially at the Ministry, when they don't already know the witch or wizard, and they don't always make allowances where they should."

"As for their being nominal," Albus went on, nodding graciously at Horace, "they are intended to measure whether a student is likely to be able to score an Acceptable. That is why a student who can't pass them is disqualified and invited to repeat the year. Like OWLs, NEWTs are only held once a year, after all, and can only be taken once"

"...Don't you think students should know about this?" Severus asked dubiously.

"We used to make a general announcement," Albus explained, "but when Professor Flitwick took over as Head of Ravenclaw, he suggested we might try only telling the students who were in danger of failing it, and those who have failed in order to explain why they should take their make-up exam seriously. Since then," he said cheerfully, "we've had more students fail on their first try, but the number of nervous breakdowns in spring has gone down by more than half. In this case, we confidently expect a better showing from Mr. Litwell of Ravenclaw now that he has finally been freed from the conviction that he is a spotted titmouse—"

"We really need to do something about these post-Quidditch Cup parties," Flitwick scowled.

"Something like a ban," Severus suggested, scowling harder.

"Rubbish," Minerva snapped. "Although I might point out that not having an open-door policy for them is some defence against sore losers!"

"Not much of one," Severus said, eyeing her askance. Horace gently but meaningfully stepped on his foot.

"—While Mr. Wagtail has elected to start work immediately on his family's crup farm."

"There's a Wagtail in the first year," Severus noted to Horace, with the suggestion of a question about him.

"Third cousins, once removed," Horace said. "The older one was Pomona's, I believe."

"Not in your club," Severus said dryly.

"Not really the sort," Horace shrugged, and ignored Severus's judgmental face. The lad had been nice enough, but thoroughly unexceptional in his mien and manner, and he'd never shown any spark of ambition either to be anything but a dog trainer or to marry well. Nor had his family expected it of him, not being the sort of family with much of a position to uphold. There had really been very little Horace could have done for him, even if he'd been interested.

The new Mr. Wagtail was quite another matter—an engaging and energetic little chap, and already making promising friendships outside his own House. Which, unlike Certain Other Friendships Horace Could Name, did not seem likely to bring down Armageddon on anyone at all. It was early days, of course, but this year's crop looked willing enough to be friendly with each other. No one had started any fights during this first week, at least.

The first week of September in 1971 had seen two fistfights, a 2 AM duel which turned into a 1:50 AM ambush with (probably conjured, given the students involved, though no one would have believed it of such young ones at the time) paint buckets, three sabotaged classes, a stair-tripping incident followed by a serious cursing attempt, and a mid-air game of chicken in the first flying lesson, which had resulted in Snape shattering a picture window with his elbow-shielded face in the process of (successfully) manoeuvring Black Major into getting hooked on the weathercock. They'd all hoped, that Friday night, that the boys had got it out of their collective systems, or would over the weekend once they'd earned enough detention that required cooperation to keep them collectively busy for the remainder of the year. Since then Horace's hairline, which had held solidly to a reasonably low widow's peak since the turn of the century, had retreated three inches.

"Of the students who took their N. E. W. T.s," Albus continued pleasantly, oblivious to Horace's post-traumatic stress and also his hunt for the pastries with the strawberry cream in an effort to shake it off, "None failed to achieve at least one passing grade. Cheating was suspected in only one case, and it turned out that Miss McLaggen of Gryffindor really had simply knocked over her inkwell."

"I could have told them the girl's clumsy," Minerva said, annoyed. "And certainly not a cheat."

"As I recall," Pomona smiled, "you did tell them, Min."

"At length," Flitwick agreed.

"And quite loudly," Albus twinkled. "And now, for our individual triumphs and tribulations! We'll begin, as promised, with Defense Against the Dark Arts. Twenty-eight students enrolled in the N.E.W.T. class—"

"For heaven's sake, Professor, if you keep spelling it out we'll be here all night," Bathsheba groaned.

"Just as you like, my dear Professor," Albus acceded graciously. "Twenty-eight, as I was saying, took the D.A.D.A. seventh year NEWT class, then—a small class, but of course, we had that little difficulty with Professor Dauntless three years ago—and by the end of the year only four had dropped out. The remaining nineteen won a total of twelve Acceptable scores and three Exceeds Expectations."

Severus blinked. "No Os at all?"

"The NEWTs aren't graded on a curve," Digitalin told him, with an air of being pleased to know something the know-it-all who'd made her classes a misery didn't. "Outstandings are meant to be rare."

"My class had nine Outstandings in Defense," Severus pointed out. She seemed to think he was being argumentative, but to Horace he just looked baffled. "With at least five letters of congratulation. It may have been more, but I know about five."

"Your class was practising psychological, guerrilla, total, and, in our more blessed months, cold warfare from the moment it stepped off the train, m'boy," Horace reminded him archly. "It's a more theoretical subject for most students."

"Well that's st—" Severus began to remark.

Horace loudly said, "Try a Kouign-Amann, do," over the rest, shoving a platter in his face, and thought he'd mostly covered it.

Indignantly batting it away, Severus said, "First you mock me for learning to be on my guard due to being under constant attack, then you try to kill me?"

"A meringue, then?" Horace suggested lightly. He wasn't sure, but he thought Severus had taken his strong suggestion to change the subject and wasn't sincerely accusing him of attempted murder by clogged artery on a raw-radish eater who might not even have tipped the scales at seven stone.

"Even deadlier," Robards said solemnly. "Sharp edges where they break, you know." Pomona's chuckle looked more relieved than anything else, but Severus's mouth quirked in what looked almost like amusement, if Horace could credit it.

Albus cleared his throat gently. "Twelve Acceptable scores and three students Exceeded Expectation," he repeated, in the tone of one who was starting to see what sort of year he'd let himself in for but wasn't quite resigned to it yet. "And from this year's sixth year class of two hundred and ninety-four, one hundred and fifteen both passed their D.A.D.A. OWL and have enrolled in the NEWT level class. Let us have a moment of silence for our late colleague, in appreciation for her service to this school."

Horace paid more attention to the spread than his living colleagues' 'report cards.' [5] It was always so tedious to hear that nearly the entire sixth-year class had elected to keep on with Charms. They always did. Not that Horace minded having a smaller class full of students who genuinely cared about the subject, or at least about impressing him! That was just as he liked it. But the reminder of Flitwick's popularity with the students was a bore, and the man always looked so smug when he heard how many NEWTs and OWLs last year's crops had achieved.

Besides which, he thought there was a chance of getting Severus to eat the Red Dragon, once it had been explained to him that there was mustard in it. Not that this would distract the lad from being sniffy about whatever the Potions numbers were (Horace considered that any year with no deaths and no students like Severus was a good one, and did not care in the least about comparing NEWT achievements with easy classes like Muggle Studies) but if he could end the evening without letting any claims Flitwick wished to make on Horace's apprentice go unmatched, he could count the evening a success.

For a moment, he thought he was about to have a miraculous escape: an owl swooped through the window with a letter for Albus, who raised his eyebrows at its contents in what, when you knew him, was not mild amusement but in fact concern and alarm. However, he didn't end the meeting but said, "Professor Sprout, may I impose upon you to finish the announcements? I'm afraid there's been a spot of trouble in Liverpool, and the Aurors are requesting the assistance of myself and Professor McGonagall in a little matter of post-hullabaloo transfiguration."

Severus's sharp, "Liverpool?" rose slightly above the chorus of more general demands for an explanation.

Albus explained, "Some very fine old statues ended up in rather awkward poses. Is there something significant about Liverpool, Severus?"

"I don't know if it's significant in any broad sense that Lily Evans's parents live there," Severus said, causing everyone to sigh or flinch as a learned reaction to any combination of Severus and Lily, "or a current first-year's. But very few wizarding families live there compared to most other British cities, which means that a wizard who wanted to attack only muggles would find it a suitable target—and it's the pounding heart of Muggle music. As Germany was in the eighteenth century. You might as well egg Beethoven's house and then go set Mozart's on fire."

Albus paused. Horace tried not to visibly roll his eyes: Albus wasn't as vulnerable to tangents as Flitwick as a general matter, but he did get so invested in his pet students. "Surely that's something of an exaggeration," he said kindly.

"Understatement," Severus said flatly.

Stevens surprised Horace by speaking up. She rarely did in meetings, when she wasn't petitioning for telly-visions and fancy gramophones and new books. "That's putting it mildly. If the newspapers take it that way, every young woman in Britain—"

"And the United States," Severus interrupted helpfully.

"And India," she agreed. "And Australia, and quite possibly on the moon."

"Mobs?" Severus asked grimly.

"Well, I leave Divination to its professors," she said, grinning at Sybill Trelawney, who ruffled up in alarm like a wet wren at being suddenly the subject of attention. "And all that's settled a bit since they broke up, if not since the 'more popular than Jesus' scandal. But I imagine there'd still be some sort of demonstration. Or fifty. And that Paul McCartney alone would receive enough pairs of undergarments in consolation to make parachutes for the entire R.A.F."

"Gracious," Albus observed mildly. "Well, Professor McGonagall, I see that we had best go at once and prevent the muggle newsagents from finding evidence."

"Certainly," that worthy agreed, arising with a vexed look at the troublemaking Muggle Studies professor and potions assistant.

He'd never had much to do with Stevens—he found her accent gratingly bland and her free and easy manners were, while charming, something of an insult to the entire notion that manners mattered. Besides, although her family was important overseas, they hadn't had any British interests in centuries. Still, if she was going to make an alliance with Severus, he'd have to make an effort to remember her name. It would make stopping Severus making Horace's life harder by allying with her against Minerva much easier if she counted him as friendly.

He thought her first name began with a T. It might have been a B. Something to do with cats. He'd have to look it up—she'd been at Hogwarts long enough that it would be awkward for him to ask anyone.

She hadn't, at least, been at the school for so long that it would seem unnatural of him to shift his attitude now in a more general way; she was quite young and he didn't think anyone would wonder at his setting up play dates between her and Severus. Or rather, young Evan would, but Horace expected him to be reasonable once he understood the situation. He wasn't much the jealous sort, and he'd also want Severus not to commit job suicide by unnecessarily antagonizing Minerva, especially by accident.

And he did wish Minerva would be more careful about letting herself be antagonized, even if everyone fully understood how overly full her workload was and how unwelcome was the thought of being dragged along while Albus was Being Particularly Thorough For His Other Job. Antagonism always got Severus's back up.

He said spitefully (you never could rely on Severus to stay on topic when his ire was up, and shutting him down on something you didn't want to discuss invariably meant he'd conclude you were defensive about it and bring it up at an even less convenient time), "Weasley's almost certainly been hexed, you realize. I thought you'd at least care about it if one of your own students has been hexed in a way that will unquestionably interfere with his schoolwork."

Horace squeezed his eyes shut in despair as she snapped, "You may allow me to attend to my own students, as appropriate, Instructor Snape," and stormed crisply out after Albus.

"I should join them," Flitwick said thoughtfully, and hopped down from his high-legged chair. "Contrary to some Aurors' opinions, charms are generally better than brute-forcing art back into shape with transfiguration; art has been shaped by love or passion, when it's not hackery. Do excuse me, Pomona."

"Albus hadn't done Charms yet!" she protested.

"I already know how my students did," he assured her, and hurried out after the taller pair. To Severus's obvious disappointment, he took the minutes with him.

"I move Filius is disqualified from the awards due to absence," Bathsheba said as soon as he was gone.

"Seconded," Horace and Silvanus chorused.

"Thirded," said Digitalin.

"That's not a thing," Stevens told her.

"I know, but I'm thirding anyway," she grinned. "I heard Albus got his hands on some Wyrm Catcher, and I like a red IPA."

Pomona shrugged. "All in favour?"

It was unanimous except for Severus and Robards, who didn't know what the vote was about, and Trelawney, who not only didn't know but timidly mentioned that she didn't.

"Well," Pomona said, "there's generally a bottle of champagne for the professor with the most students to achieve NEWTs generally and for the most Outstandings, and the same for OWLs. And I don't know what Albus brought this year, but there are also bottles for the most Es, classes with no dropouts from OWLs to NEWTs, and the professor with the most recent graduates who've gotten a job in their field. Oh, and firewhiskey for the professors with the biggest sixth and seventh-year classes, of course."

"In that case," Severus said to Horace, "I'll excuse myself. I'm not entered in this contest and I have things to stir and criticize."

Horace took this to mean please please please tell me detention is cancelled: I have a date. "Yes, yes," he said indulgently. "Run along, m'boy. Do take some of these brandy snaps back to-work with you. Or some flummery."

Severus considered, looking taken aback by the idea, and said, "I think I will, thanks," almost exactly as if he were a human being, a wizard, and a gentleman.

While he carefully summoned pastries and fresh cherries into a napkin, Robards asked gleamingly, "Didn't I also hear something about a Wagers Closet?"

"Sorry, we did that Monday, after Hagrid showed you lot to your rooms." Robards made a disappointed noise, promisingly showing his colours as exactly the sort of unashamed gossip who would do very well at the Ministry indeed, and Pomona explained, "We used to include new teachers, but it's all in-jokes from last year. Either they didn't get anything out of it or telling all the stories behind the bets took far too long for a school night."

"Even a school night before homework is assigned," Horace agreed. "Mona, m'dear, surely there should be one wee bottle for the most hires facilitated, whether they're in a teacher's own subject or not."

"Albus hasn't agreed to that, ever, and even if I were inclined to change things up behind his back on general principles, which, Horace, I am not, I quite agree with him," she said severely. "These are teaching awards. You get rewarded for your little hobby on your own time."

"And from the individuals involved," Severus said on his way to the door. "Repeatedly."

Horace decided to leave all the homework with him for the next week, instructions from Albus not to interfere with his research jaunts or no. It was the sort of petty retaliation Severus clearly expected from him, and therefore he could get away with it.

By which he meant that Severus would complain and make accusations, but not make them officially to Albus or make Horace watch any more rats being creatively tortured with the heavy implication that if he didn't cooperate it could be people next, and one of those people would be Horace.

With time and distance, Horace had been able to mostly reassure himself that this had been a warning rather than a threat, and was probably a bluff. Dear Narcissa was convinced that Severus had a squashy caramel core, and Horace had not been under the impression that the young ghoul had liked what he was doing.

However, he hadn't let disliking it stop him, so Horace's confidence that it had been a bluff was distinctly limited. He would have to tread lightly and make sure he never made the boy feel truly oppressed or desperate, but he also couldn't afford to let him think he had the upper hand and was free to be disrespectful in public. So, when he was able to catch Severus's eye, he gave him a precisely modulated little smile and was relieved to see the resigned flinch before Severus almost-competently pretended that nothing had happened at all.

"I think I'll scarper, too," Robards said. "I can't win anything either, given the size of my NEWT classes, and I meant to catch up with some friends."

"By which you mean hit wizards," Severus said with a raised eyebrow, holding the door for him.

"It does sound as though my old colleagues will have had an interesting afternoon," Robards agreed, and as the door swung grandly shut behind them, Horace could hear him say, "I was planning on making them stand me rounds after the week I've had, but under the circumstances—"

"Dibs on the Kirschwasser," Bathsheba said immediately—and fortuitously! Horace had more or less run out of ideas for Christmas presents related to runes. A basket of cherry-based treats would be simplicity itself, and impersonal enough to impress her with his thoughtfulness in attending to her likes and dislikes without leading her to believe his interest was prurient. After all, while she wasn't one of the younger teachers, she was still young enough to be his daughter at the least—it wouldn't do at all to give the wrong impression and make things awkward.

"Keep your bloomers on," Pomona flapped an irritated hand at her. She would have been just as blunt with Albus in the room, and perhaps even in the presence of the children. He liked that about her, but did wish she'd refrain from mentioning the disaster that had been bloomers. While less catastrophic than other Muggle women's fashions at the time, they had looked much sillier, and remembering them still made him wince. He supposed muggles had a more difficult time reconciling convenience, modesty, and elegance without magic, but really. Of course, Horace had (unlike Albus) been too young to see the worst offences in person, but he had not been too young to avoid rationals, which looked absurd enough on men, or his elders' furious expostulations on the subjects of whorish muggle flappers and their shameless bare ankles. "With Filius disqualified I have to re-do all Albus's maths."

"Oh, give it here," Digitalin sighed impatiently. She was, Horace, considered, a worse—or rather, even more pure—Ravenclaw than Flitwick. He doubted she'd even stopped to consider that this was incredibly rude, where Flitwick (in Horace's opinion) was generally outright rude only on purpose.

She and Pomona got on quite well, and Pomona didn't take offence easily, but it was rather an insult. Of course, not asking the Arithmancy teacher to handle the maths could also have been taken as an insult, or at least an oversight, and Digitalin was pricklier. But he doubted Mona, who could only be consulted about the health of Silvestrus's houseplants so many times in one term before snapping about what her job did and did not entail, had meant it that way.

"Well," Pomona said, proving him right, "I didn't want to ask just because—"

"That's nice of you, but it'll be faster and after what I've seen of the rising fourth years' summer homework I want to start drinking my winnings immediately. I swear their heads are all made of fairy nets."

With everyone who would mock him for it either out of the room or usefully occupied by violently agreeing with Digitalin about how well students generally retained the last term's lessons, Horace scanned the table for the pineapple upside-down cake. He'd scarcely tasted his cheese, for all its pungency, but the air in the room seemed much lighter with the departures. He thought he'd be able to enjoy the rest of the feast properly now.

1. It was probably in his Head of Slytherin contract somewhere. He might have skimmed the thing once. Contracts were for people who couldn't read a room.

2. To the best of Horace's knowledge, Severus had only ever kicked one child through the window. It had felt like more: young Lockhart was so energetic that any time Horace spoke to him he felt he'd been dealing with several very loud children at once.

3. Jupiter's Great White Spot was observed in 1960, and then not again until 1990.

4. Zeitgeist-wise, the state of Connecticut is to the city of New York as Ware is to London.

Or, for those from neither New nor Olde England (or the tri-state area), it's where New Jerseyans go to try that oxygen thing they've heard so much about on Survivor.

(Except they don't, because getting chased out of the woods you got lost in because your GPS wasn't getting a signal by a retired yachter in a necktie who doesn't even swear is just embarrassing, and you don't want to push the issue because you win zero street cred by getting arrested for trespassing in the Nutmeg State.)

5. And certainly more attention than he paid to Severus becoming judgmental over nobody expecting Binns to attend a meeting where everyone was told about their NEWT students' progress. Fortunately, Severus became so apoplectic at being told that Binns didn't have to attend because he never did anything differently no matter what was suggested to him and also never had any NEWT students that he choked on his outrage and didn't manage to express himself before Albus hastily moved the discussion forward.

Next: A chapter in which Evan pwns the monday-to-friday universe, biddies.

Notes:

1. As far as I can make out from the HP wiki, the MLE is comprised of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad or Patrol, who are like ordinary policemen, and the Aurors, who are like Scotland Yard. Except that there seems to be some redundancy: we get the impression that Aurors go after dark wizards, but it's also the job of specially trained Hit Wizards, who are part of the patrol, to make difficult arrests and deal with emergencies. This seems to be a situation that would encourage interdepartmental squabbling, and I'm sure there's no one who could benefit by taking advantage of that.

2. For the continuity buffs, we're going to say Professor Babbling joined the faculty at the start of the MWPP-class's fifth year. Out of compassion for the newb, the faculty rearranged the schedule so she did not have to deal with the demon combo. After the Incident, the rest of the staff decided that while building character is of course great and none of the Houses are about giving up on challenges, the fact that her students actually learned something justified giving themselves a break by also breaking up the hell-class. Such a miracle that Marauder behaviour improved that year...

3. A lot of you (like my betas) may have been screaming at every single character for not considering the possibility that Bill has the learning difference he and Rita obviously do have in this 'verse. It was known in 1980, but not remotely high in the public consciousness even among muggles, and wizards are canonically behind muggle developments in ethics, sociology, and tech due to not actually valuing development as much as tradition. They also have a completely different medical system, which presumably is also impacted by a resistance to /
TLDR: anyone who wants to help Bill with this is on their own in ignorance... providing they even decide it's their business.