A Likely Story

They arrived outside a block of shabby, soot-covered buildings somewhere in the heart of Muggle London. The street was teeming with Muggles, and he was secretly relieved. He could sneer authentically at them, delaying the moment when he would be alone with this witch, who was making him increasingly uncomfortable.

"How can you stand to be in the midst of so many of them?" he muttered.

"That's half my heritage you're insulting," she replied, not sounding insulted at all. "Besides, I'm close to the Earls Court tube station."

"The what?"

"The Underground. It's the trains that go..."

"I know what the Underground is. What I don't know is why any witch or wizard in their right mind would travel that way." He shuddered at the thought. Of all the loathsome acts he had been forced to perform over the years, at least nobody had made him travel under the streets, furtive as vermin.

"It's no more underground than your dungeon," she argued, fumbling in her handbag for what he presumed were keys. In this part of town, she couldn't even use magic to enter her own dwelling. What a ridiculous waste of time for someone with Auror training.

"A dungeon is private and quiet," he countered. "And you don't have to dress in flimsy Muggle clothes." His Warming Charm was wearing off, and he couldn't re-cast it in front of all these Muggles. A gust of icy wind swept down the street and he struggled not to shiver. "It always struck me that women's handbags are nothing more than an exercise in losing personal belongings you actually have with you."

She opened the door. "You first. You're freezing."

He glared at her but didn't argue, and entered a narrow hallway redolent of boiled cabbage, its walls interrupted by featureless chipped doors, ending at a staircase. He looked up at the ceiling fixture, which was buzzing and flickering, making their shadows look weirdly intermittent.

"Don't they pay Aurors better than this?"

"Nobody who works at the Ministry is paid well enough to afford a nice apartment in London, except maybe the ones taking bribes from Uncle Lucius. This way; I'm on the second floor." She gestured for him to follow.

The light in the upstairs hallway was burnt out completely. Between the darkness and the privacy, Tonks was able to use an Unlocking Charm on the door to her flat.

It consisted of two tiny rooms that were cleaner and tidier than he expected. The larger room was furnished with nothing but a couch that looked old and battered enough to have been stolen from 12 Grimmauld Place, sitting opposite an area he guessed was a rudimentary sort of kitchen, consisting of a few sagging cupboards and a tiny countertop holding a kettle and a microwave. He looked towards the bedroom, where Tonks was packing in a flurry of flying clothes, books, and odd, Muggleish-looking sorts of personal items. He had no intention of going anywhere near the bedroom, but from what he could see, it was barely wider than its door.

"What are you doing?" he snapped. "We're supplying you with clothing, as well as food and shelter. You'll want for nothing."

Her green-haired head peered out the bedroom door. "There's equipment I must bring when I'm on assignment. You could make yourself some tea while you're waiting."

"Isn't your training all the equipment you need? And I've had enough tea for today, thanks," he replied. One could hardly spend more than five minutes with the Headmaster without drinking far too much tea. Speaking of which...he looked around. "Erm...where's the toilet?"

She directed him out of the flat and down the hall to the bathroom she shared with the other second-floor tenants. After using the toilet and washing his hands, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror frowning at his reflection. Muggle clothing made him even uglier than usual, he thought, though the clothing he wore today was innocuous enough: a black denim shirt, black jeans, and a black leather jacket. Everything was too close-fitting, making him look skinnier and his nose bigger by comparison. And those terrible fluorescent lights Muggles used everywhere made his sallow complexion look as green as Tonks' hair. Yes, he knew what fluorescent lights were. He had forced himself to learn about the Muggle world after that day sixteen years ago, when his pureblooded disdain for, and ignorance of, Muggle technology almost resulted in complete disaster. Not to mention that Muggle-baiting charge Mad-Eye Moody was always so smug about.

"Severus? Are you alright?" he heard faintly through the bathroom door.

"You'd better be ready by now," he snapped, sending the bathroom door flying open and stalking down the hallway back to Tonks' flat. But he felt curiously exposed without his swirling black robes, and even looked surreptitiously down to make sure he'd remembered to zip up once Tonks had turned her back.

Tonks had levitated her trunk to the middle of the main room and was contemplating the problem of successfully transporting it back to Hogwarts.

"It's rather heavy," she said. "Maybe we could levitate it, and quickly grab the handles on either end as we Disapparate. Alternately, we could both kneel down beside it..."

"How absurd!" he interrupted, taking out his wand. "You've been spending too much time amongst Muggles. I'll shrink it for you, and you can put it in your handbag."

"No, no!" she said quickly, stepping between Snape and the trunk, hands raised. "I've got a lot of equipment in there that's too magically volatile to be shrunk. Like the Time-Turner, for instance? And then there are the larger items that I shrank in the first place to put into the trunk and if we shrink them further, they'll..."

"I know, I know, they'll disappear altogether." He looked down at the trunk contemplatively. "Just how heavy can the possessions of a Metamorphagus be?" He bent down and grasped one of the handles in order to lift one end of the trunk.

He managed to get it about two inches off the floor when pain slammed into his back as suddenly and severely as if Macnair had struck him with an axe. All strength left his body and he dropped the trunk and sagged to the floor as if all his bones had been removed.

"Severus!" Tonks cried, leaping to catch and lower his body to the floor. "You stupid, stubborn man! Why did you have to try and lift it?"

He wanted to chastise her for calling him stupid and ask her why she had packed what felt like gold ingots from the Black family vault, but all he could manage was a weak, "Ow!"

"Severus." Her voice was very near.

His eyes, squeezed shut with pain, opened. Tonks was on her hands and knees, her face looming close to his.

"I can understand why St. Mungo's is out of the question," she said. "Definitely, the Healers would recognize damage from the Cruciatus Curse. But I think we should Floo to the hospital wing at the school. Do you agree?"

"No," he said, his voice stronger. "The Ministry is watching the fires." Despite the pain, he couldn't help glancing around the flat thinking, where was the Floo connection in a fireplace-less Muggle flat?

"No?" she said, not sounding surprised. "You don't want the Ministry to know you have a bad back?"

"I don't want the Ministry to know why I have a bad back. Dolores Umbridge may be practically a Squib, but she's a clever, meddlesome woman. She's been down in the dungeons several times already since becoming Headmistress, asking how I make this or that potion, and in what quantities. Says Potions are her hobby." From his position on the floor he managed a derisive snort.

Rocking back on her heels, Tonks took out her wand. Grinning, she said, "Maybe she fancies you."

He winced. "I'm in enough pain already." He looked warily at her wand. "What are you doing?"

"I was there the last time you hurt your back, remember? A good night's sleep straightens it out, at least temporarily. Don't get the wrong idea, but I'm moving you to my bed. I'll sleep on the couch. And we'll go back to the school in the morning." She stood in preparation for levitating him, and paused. "Should we inform Albus of the change in plans?"

He shook his head slightly and sighed in frustration. "He'll know we're fine. You should contact Minerva, though, and tell her we've been unavoidably detained in London until tomorrow."

After speaking to Minerva McGonagall, who gave her the oddest look before signing off, she levitated Snape to her bed. He kept his face turned away, but she could see the jaw muscles clenched on one side of his thin face and thought of taking him to St. Mungo's anyway, hang the consequences.

"This will take the pressure off your back," she said, tucking a pillow under his knees. "I have some paracetamol tablets with codeine. Unfortunately, my ex-flatmate took all the pethidine tablets with him but these are decent enough pain-killers."

"Flatmate?" he asked, wondering where a second person would sleep in this tiny place before realizing that the answer was right in front of him. Or underneath him, as it were, in the form of a double bed. They must have shrunk it to get it through the door, he thought.

She smiled wryly. "He was a Muggleborn, and liked his Muggle remedies a little too much, I think; he'd have come back for the rest of his tablets if he weren't afraid of being hexed."

"You would offer a Potions master a Muggle pain remedy?" he said, sounding more weakly outraged than he intended.

She crawled onto the bed beside him and offered him the tablets along with a glass of water, for which she had conjured a bending straw. "I'd offer you a Pain-relieving Potion, but I don't have any, and you didn't bring your Potions kit with you."

Good point, he thought. He really was in an excruciating amount of pain and wouldn't be able to get the restorative sleep so necessary for his back without help. Assuming a reluctant, balking expression, he accepted the tablets. At least they were bitter on the tongue like a good potion and were difficult to swallow even with a lot of water. After about twenty minutes, the pain started to recede from the forefront of his consciousness and his back muscles began to relax. At least there was a bed to sleep in, he thought philosophically. He was no stranger to unexpected circumstances and had spent more than one night in fields, hidden amongst the heather, waking before dawn drenched in dew. Sleeping in an Auror's bed deep in the heart of Muggle London wasn't his first choice, but he was warm and dry and at least nominally safe, and he allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

On the couch, Tonks was not so lucky. Her ex-boyfriend had taken all the furniture when he left, except the bed, which was hers. Sirius was planning on replacing everything in his house once his name was cleared and was only too glad to give her the couch. He and Molly had managed to get all of the dark magic out of it before they gave it to Tonks, but it stubbornly refused to be transfigured, insisting on remaining a lumpy couch that was too short for even a petite Metamorphagus to stretch out on. And no matter how many times it was scourgified, it still smelled of Doxy droppings and stale butterbeer.

She tried shortening herself, but body length changes were difficult morphs to maintain and reverted quickly after she fell asleep. She awoke for about the twelfth time to find her lengthening legs pushing her head up against the smelly armrest, kinking her neck painfully. "Lumochronos!" she whispered, and her wall clock's face lit up. She'd gotten no more than a few minutes' sleep, and it was shortly after four in the morning. There was no other furniture to transfigure, and conjuring a comfortable bed was a lot harder than it looked, especially when the witch attempting it was exhausted. She'd only slept about three hours the previous night, and that was more of a drunken stupor than a proper rest. And tomorrow (actually today), she was becoming a major part of the improved security around Harry Potter. It could be the most important assignment of her career and she would be starting it completely knackered. She looked towards the bedroom. How bloody likely was it that Snape would let her sleep in?

She sat up. "Sod it!" she said aloud, and stumbled into her bedroom.

The Potions master was still in the position she had left him. On his back, the pillow still tucked under his knees, he was deep in a codeine-enhanced slumber. He didn't so much as twitch when Tonks crawled in beside him.

When Snape opened his eyes, he blinked in bewilderment for a moment at the sight of a low, cracked plaster ceiling, so unlike the stone ceiling of his dungeon. The light streaming in through the small window told him it was between seven and eight o-clock in the morning, and as he became fully awake, he recalled the events of the night before. Those tablets had helped him sleep longer and more dreamlessly than he had in years. Nobody needed to know that, of course, but if he could just recall where she'd gotten the tablets, she probably wouldn't miss one, and he could analyze it and maybe duplicate its effects in a potion.

But he couldn't just go leaping out of bed. Laying motionless didn't hurt his back, so he tried flexing his shoulders against the mattress. Nope; still no pain. From bitter experience, he knew he had no choice but to get up gradually this morning, gently stretching for a bit, then easing into a vertical sitting position, legs dangling over the edge of the bed for a while before daring to stand.

He recalled Tonks' words of the night before and scowled. Yes, he was stupid to try and lift that trunk but that didn't give her the right to say so. And taking into consideration her drinking binge of the night before last, she was probably still asleep. Nothing like scaring a person into consciousness to put the right flavour on a day.

But first he needed to get up. He began to sweep his arms sideways in order to reach up and stretch his back lengthwise, when his hand touched...who's that?? Instantly his wand flew into his right hand as he jerked his head sideways to see who was in bed with him.

The amount of glossy black hair heaped about the woman's head suggested that it would be extremely long when she stood. Her face was turned slightly away from him, and he regarded it in profile. She was an elegant-looking woman, though her features were too exaggerated for real beauty. And she was a bit spotty, as young women sometimes were. Still, she looked like the sort of pureblood she was not. The resemblance to her aunt Bella provided a convenient excuse for her to morph into an appearance that went better with the combat boots and those ridiculous American-style T-shirts. He filed this observation away for possible future use.

As if she became aware that she was being scrutinised, she opened her eyes. He rolled away from her, intending to slip out of the bed and lower himself to the floor to continue his back therapy, but he ended up bumping into one of the walls that hemmed the bed in on three sides in this tiny room. He tried sitting up in order to crawl down to the end of the bed, but pain in his back stabbed a warning. However embarrassing it was to wake up in bed with a former student, it wasn't worth a day of disability. He abandoned his attempts to remove himself from the bed and remained resting on his side, facing her.

To hide his embarrassment, he met her gaze, directing at her the most hostile obsidian glare he could muster. First years on the receiving end of this glare would wet themselves. She had no expression on her face, but to his chagrin, he could see amusement in her eyes. What was so fucking funny?

She saw all that hostility in his glare and suppressed a grin. So he felt threatened somehow, or probably was just embarrassed, and was trying to take control by frightening her. He was about to find out that Aurors didn't get scared that easily.

Tonks rolled towards him and playfully hooked her uppermost leg over both of his. Their two long noses were almost touching. "What would you like to eat, Professor?" she purred.

His eyes widened in astonishment. "What are you playing at?" he hissed with his usual venom, but the sinister effect was quite spoiled by the fact of his being sideways on a bed, pinned down by a sore back and a woman's leg.

"I mean, it's about eight-thirty, and we're missing breakfast at the castle," she added, drawing back slightly to brush some hair out of her eyes, but continuing to meet his glare. Between the enormous nose, the sunken cheeks, the sallow oily complexion, and the disgusting teeth, he wasn't any less unattractive up close, she thought. And was he just too busy to wash that hair? Maybe if she offered to wash it...she quickly banished that thought. There was something oddly compelling about a man so sadistically honest, who really didn't care whether or not people liked him.

And as a person who could change the structure of her face and body at will, she never put much stock in appearances.

"I'm not hungry," he retorted. Indeed, despite his gaunt frame and not having eaten since the day before, those Muggle pants were uncomfortably tight. Then he realized that they weren't tight around the waist, but lower down, where she was practically pressing up against him.

"I don't think I have much to eat here," she said speculatively. "Maybe some eggs."

He resisted a powerful urge to press up against her, reminding himself that he needed to mind his back. He hadn't been with a woman in...best not to dwell on that right now. Of course his morning erection was unusually hard this morning--he desperately needed to pee. Given his usual sleep problems, he wasn't in the habit of drinking twelve ounces of water just before going to sleep, as he had done the night before in order to swallow those chalky tablets. It was just a reflex, after all.

"I think we should go out for breakfast," he said. "I know a place in Hogsmeade."

"I thought you weren't hungry," she said.

"I'm not," he said shortly.

She looked at him with curiosity. His gaze had gotten somewhat fixed. Was he in pain?

Then she withdrew her leg and crawled so fast down the bed she fell off at the end.

"I'm so sorry," she said, scrambling to her feet, her long black hair falling in curtains about her face. "Does it hurt much?" Her dark eyes were wide with concern.

So she thinks it's my back, thank Merlin. "No, not much," he answered honestly. "I just have to get up gradually in order to ease out the...erm...stiffness."

She nodded. "Breakfast in Hogsmead, then. Let me know when you're ready." And she abruptly left the room, bouncing off the doorjamb on each side. But he had caught her eye on the way out.

She was lying.

But he realized, as he was easing himself to the end of the bed and slowly swinging his feet to the floor, that she didn't mind what she'd noticed. After he Accio'd his shoes and muttered a spell that laced them to his feet, he sat at the end of the bed lost in thought.

When he was barely nineteen, at his first Death Eater party, the new Mrs Avery presented him with a whip and her bare bottom to use it on. Happy to try something new, he whipped her bloody, to the delight of the assembled guests. She became the first of many to receive his punishment, to his ongoing bewilderment. Why anybody would desire to be injured and humiliated was beyond his comprehension, but there seemed to be no end to the number of witches who wanted this kind of treatment. The wealthier and more prestigious their families, the worse they wanted to be punished. Eventually, he was able to extricate himself from this role by claiming that he didn't enjoy hurting people who wanted to be hurt, and everyone believed him.

The only pleasure he ever got from it was in recent years, after the rebirth of the Dark Lord. He would be invited to these elegant parties hosted by wealthy purebloods at their luxuriously appointed manors. As he stood drinking in a secluded corner, waiting for the earliest opportunity to leave without giving offense, he would look about for women of a certain age. They would now be dignified matrons in exquisitely-tailored robes boasting of the accomplishments of their husbands and children. As he found them, he would amuse himself by counting how many still likely wore his stripe marks on their arses.

But the unfortunate truth of his life was that he was a dominant man who did not like submissive women, who were the only sort naturally drawn to him.

Tonks was not a submissive woman, so what did she see in him? What in the hell was she thinking, anyway? If he were found out...then again, she knew the risks, and obviously chose to accept them. And Hogwarts was the safest place in Britain. Whatever happened at Hogwarts would stay at Hogwarts.

And dammit, he was tired of being the Slytherin monk.

She peered tentatively into the bedroom. She had changed into her usual day-face and a conservative hairstyle for her, consisting of platinum blond spikes. "Are you ready?"

He nodded. "Almost." He stood and swept past her down the hall to the bathroom.

It was mid-morning before they arrived at the school in the freezing cold. Even though it was Sunday, hardly anyone was outside, though a few brave souls were zipping about on brooms. Nobody noticed the couple in black cloaks striding across the windswept field to the front door.

Snape paused at the front door. "What do you do now?" he asked in a demanding sort of way, as if she were already back in his class, botching a potion.

Tonks shivered and re-cast a Warming Charm. "I go to Minerva's office, and she'll take over from there, giving me robes, showing me to my room, and such."

"And if you run into Umbridge?"

"I tell her I have official business with you and proceed to the dungeons."

"Right." He touched the massive door lightly, and it swung open easily. "It's probably better if you don't follow me too closely..."

"Ah, Professor Snape!" said a falsely sweet voice. "I was just in the dungeons, and none of your students knew where you were. Not even your prefects."

Snape schooled his face to an expression of bland indifference, with just a hint of a sneer. "Headmistress," he acknowledged. "I had to go to London to pick up some Potions ingredients."

Dolores Umbridge stood looking up at him, her short arms folded. "And stay overnight? Without telling anyone? Isn't that highly irregular behaviour from a Professor? Especially a head of house." Her toad-like smile widened. "And it's even more surprising, given your background, that you would bring an Auror with you."

Look perplexed, thought Tonks.

Instead, he scowled fiercely at her, which puzzled her until she noticed the students. To her relief, she didn't see anybody she knew. Nobody was daring to approach or stop and stare openly, but many who happened to be passing through the entrance hall had slowed their progress to a snail's pace and were glancing at them as often as they dared.

Tonks said, "I am here to have a word with Professor Snape, and I happened to encounter him just outside the front door."

Dolores Umbridge's wide smile disappeared as she addressed Tonks. "What a fortunate coincidence, my dear."

Snape evidently had had enough time to think, and said smoothly, "One of my key ingredients was delayed until this morning. My supplier said there was a problem in Damascus. Something to do with Muggle politics...anyway, it was far faster for me to just stay over in London, rather than make two trips in one weekend." He glared at Umbridge. "After all, Saturday nights are free time for teachers."

Umbridge's small, close-set eyes moved between Snape and Tonks. She gestured expansively with one of her short-fingered hands. "I'm sure you are accustomed to Professor Dumbledore's liberal and permissive way of doing things. However, I expect to be informed when any teacher leaves the school grounds. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," he hissed.

Umbridge turned to Tonks, her tone wintry, her expression now positively grotesque. "I am the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. The Ministry would inform me if an Auror was being sent to talk to one of my teachers. Who are you, anyway?"

Tonks stepped forwards. "Madam Umbridge, I beg your pardon. I am Auror Tonks. Did you not receive an owl at breakfast about my visit?"

"Of course not," said Umbridge. "There was no such owl."

"It wouldn't surprise me," said Tonks smoothly. "Things have not been running as efficiently at the Ministry since you left to come here. I remember when you were Senior Undersecretary to the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, when I was a little girl. I must say, your work there inspired me to become an Auror. In fact," she blushed convincingly, "it is a great honour to finally meet you, Madam Umbridge."

The toad-like smile was back on Umbridge's face. "Well, maybe if you could get your supervisor to send something along retrospectively, I can overlook such a drastic oversight this one time."

Tonks nodded with feigned eagerness. "Few understand the importance of properly-completed paperwork, ma'am. People in the Minister's office are always saying how impeccable your files are; that any document can easily be found, however trivial."

Still smiling, Umbridge raised a finger admonishingly. "Ah, but you would do well to remember that there's no such thing as trivial paperwork, my dear. Whatever you do in the field, if it's not properly documented, then it may as well have never happened. Off to the dungeons with you. Be sure and ask Professor Snape lots of questions about his background."

Tonks grinned. "Oh, we already know all about Professor Snape's background, ma'am."

Umbridge giggled. "Yes, lots of documentation there." She waved one of her short-fingered hands dismissively. "Off with you."

After they descended to below ground, Snape cast a Silencing Charm about them as they continued to the dungeons. "If your conversation with Umbridge had continued much longer, I would have had to vomit. And that comment about my background...are you mad?"

Tonks shrugged. "The Ministry file on you is pretty extensive. We know all about you, Severus."

They stopped before a plain wooden door. Snape paused before it, and inclined his head to Tonks, smiling slightly. It was not a pleasant expression. "Know all about me, do you?" He snorted. "I should think not."