Almost Human

Almost Human

Chapter 2

Snuffles

"Will you do something for me?" Draco asked.

"Of course," the Professor said automatically. "What?"

"Can you look after Snuffy? You know, my teapot?" Of course he knew. "Dobby's been feeding him, but he's probably lonely." And the Professor was too, or would be once he wasn't spending all his time with Draco anymore. He was pleased with himself for thinking of putting them together. Snuffy had been a real help when he was lonely. "Oh, and play with him," he added.

"Play?"

"Toss his ball for him. He doesn't fetch, but he sort of waddles after it. When he's done rolling it around with his snout, pick it up and throw it the other direction."

"Why don't you have Dobby bring him down here?"

"Madame Pomfrey says pets are unhygienic."

"Oh. Well, all right."

"He's really easy to take care of. Just feed him--soup, you know. And pet him, and talk to him, and stuff like that."

"Fine," the Professor said stiffly.

Snape had packed up his shaving kit and his books, and the other things he'd accumulated during his stay. They hadn't discussed his moving back to his rooms. He had to do it, but Draco didn't think either of them liked it.

"When do you think I'll be able to go home?" He thought he'd sleep better if he and the Professor were at least in the same part of the castle.

"Home?" Snape asked sharply.

"My rooms, I mean. My rooms here."

"I don't know. The stairs..."

"I just wondered. If anyone had said anything to you." No one was saying anything to him, except that he'd be fine. At some undefined point in the future. "If--this--" he gestured at his legs, "--is going to be for a while...I'm getting tired of lying around."

"You didn't seem to enthusiastic when your Healer suggested a wheelchair."

He winced. "I'm not. But....well, people do live like this."

Snape nodded. "They do. We'll look into it. Poppy and Archon will probably want to keep you here for a while?"

"What's 'a while'?" Draco asked. He knew he was whining a little, but he didn't care.

"A week? Two?" Snape hazarded.

"Two weeks, then. I want out of here in two weeks, whether I'm walking or not." He hoped he would be. Hoped Snape would say he probably would be.

"Very well. We'll tell the Healer that next time he comes."

#

"--And Professor Snape will be returning to his classroom this week." Dumbledore beamed, like he was expecting them all to burst into applause.

No one did, not even the Slytherins. Neville supposed they wouldn't. He felt like he ought to clap, just to be polite, but no one else was doing it, and he was the last person to be glad about Snape teaching again. With Professor Sprout covering Potions lessons, he'd actually been learning things.

"Maybe he won't be as much of a git now," Ron said hopefully.

"What did Draco say?" Neville asked Hermione, "When you went to see him?"

"We didn't really talk about--it. We tried to keep things cheerful."

"Oh." He didn't really want to ask, but he did anyway. "How is he?"

"About like you'd expect," Granger said.

That didn't tell him much.

"You should go and see him," she continued.

Neville shrugged. "Maybe later."

#

Severus seriously doubted that teapots, animate or not, could be lonely. And he was almost certain he didn't care whether they were or not, if they could. But Draco wanted him to look after it, so he didn't have much choice. He stopped in Draco's rooms to fetch it, on his way to his own.

There, the teapot was wandering around, snuffling at the boy's shoes and clothes. It did look as lonely as it was possible for a teapot to look. Which wasn't very.

"Come here, thing," he said, picking it up. The teapot waggled its limbs and spout. "Where's this ball of yours?"

Unsurprisingly, the teapot didn't answer. He looked around halfheartedly. He didn't see anything that looked like a ball. Draco hadn't mentioned what it looked like, either.

He'd ask the House-Elf for it, he decided, and tucked the teapot under his arm to carry it back to his own rooms.

There, the teapot trotted across the flagstones, its feet clattering incessantly.

He really didn't care for pets. And this wasn't even a pet, it was a teapot. A teapot he was stuck caring for until Draco was out of hospital.

Suddenly, he had a wonderful idea. It was a teapot. All he had to do was restore it to its original form, and then transfigure it back into a pet when Draco asked for it!

Feeling very pleased with himself, he transfigured Snuffles into a brown earthenware teapot, and found a clear spot on his shelves for it. He'd dust it from time to time, and then no one could say he wasn't taking care of it.

#

As Snape waited in the Ministry corridor, he thought that this was, perhaps, one of the worst moments of his life.

But that thought triggered an avalanche of memories that were, in fact, far worse. Such as almost killing Draco. Receiving the Dark Mark. Being pantsed by Potter and his gang. Being--

He stood up abruptly and began to pace, as if to outdistance his thoughts.

Finally, the balding, redhaired, and jolly head popped out from its doorway. "Professor Snape! All ready for you now. I'm so glad I could help."

He did, indeed, look glad Perhaps the pleasure of getting his hands on a new Muggle toy outweighed his distaste at helping a Snape and a Malfoy. Or perhaps he was delighted at having two men from proud families reduced to coming to the likes of him with hat in hand.

Snape entered the cluttered and shabby office, where Arthur Weasley was hastily clearing a chair of its litter of odds and ends. "Sit, sit!" he said eagerly, as if he had just invented the notion of offering a guest a chair.

Snape did. "I must thank you," he said, wanting to choke on every word, "For taking time out of your...busy...schedule to help with this matter."

"Not at all, not at all. It was very interesting. The things these muggles come up with, eh? Did you know, they can make an artificial leg that actually moves, without any magic at all? It's done with e-lec-tri-cit-y." He pronounced the last word as if he were ordering off a menu in a foreign language.

"No one needs any artificial legs," Snape said, with more rancor than was actually called for. "HIs legs are going to be just fine."

Weasley blinked owlishly. "Of course, of course," he said hastily. "Just thought it was interesting, that's all. Now, they have e-lec-tric wheelchairs, but since we'll be enchanting it anyway, I thought a manual one would be best. The e-leck-trick ones are quite heavy, so the levitating charm would be that much more difficult."

"Fine," Severus agreed. There were, of course, wizarding wheelchairs, but since they were needed primarily by the very old, the designs were old-fashioned and cumbersome. He had some vague notion that muggles had something they called sports wheelchairs, and it was in search of one of these that he had enlisted Arthur Weasley's help.

Weasley rummaged through the papers on his desk, and emerged triumphantly wit a glossy paper catalog. "Here we are. Sports wheelchair, aluminium and plastic, collapses to save space--I'm not sure how that works, without magic, are you? Well, it folds up somehow, here, they show you how it fits in the backseat of a car."

Indeed, the picture showed s disgustingly healthy young man showing the wheelchair behind the front seat of the sports car he was driving. He'd have to take that picture along to show Draco, even if it did get him back on the subject of learning to drive.

"It only weighs two and a half stone." Another picture showed a small girl lifting the wheelchair one-handed. "I've talked to several salesmen on the felly tone, and they say this is the best one for an active young person who happens to have a disability!"

Telephone, you idiot, it's called a telephone. Severus had no idea how the man could be crazy about muggles and yet not be able to remember the words for their most ubiquitous objects. But instead he said simply, "I see. Very well."

"It comes in a choice of colors, see here?"

He looked. "The silver."

Weasley frowned. "Are you sure? I thought he'd like the green."

Snape glared at him.

"Righto, then, silver. Now," Weasley looked embarrassed. "This sort of thing doesn't come cheaply."

"Dumbledore, as trustee for his estate, has authorized payment from his Gringotts accounts." He passed Weasley the parchment containing Dumbledore's signature. "How long will it take them to deliver?" He supposed muggle post would be slower then owl-order.

"Early next week." He rummaged again through the rubbish tip that was his desk, and came out with a form headed, "Form 117-B for Speecial Exception to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Statue 223." He sat back, rubbed his hands together, and produced a quill from behind his ear. "Now. What enchantments would you like to put on it?"

"Levitation charm, so he can take it up and down stairs."

"Hm...that'll be a class three...what else?"

"Summoning charm, in case it ends up out of his reach somehow."

"Anything else?"

"Shrinking charm, maybe."

"Very good...Will you be performing the charms yourself?"

"No." Was Weasley mocking him? He'd never been good at charms, and the jokes were easy to make, about how charming he wasn't.

"Who, then?"

"Flitwick."

"Oh, excellent." Weasley wrote that on his form. "He's very good. Kids all love him."

"Yes." And?

"Well. This should go through by the time the wheelchair arrives. You understand that the artifact in question must never be allowed to fall back into muggle hands, that is, is must be destroyed rather than discarded or sold when no longer needed?"

"Yes."

"Sign here. And here."

Snape did, then stood, saying, "Will that be all?"

Weasley nodded. "Molly sends her best."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Her best what?"

"Er...regards, I suppose."

"I see." Molly, clearly, hadn't said any such thing. She'd made it clear the summer before that she'd rather not have him so much as eat food that she'd cooked--which was only insult and not injury, since he'd no inclination to break fast with Weasleys and werewolves, anyway.

He wondered why Weasley had bothered to say anything.

Tilting his head, he injected as much venom into his "Good day," as he could manage.

Making directly for the floo points in the lobby, Snape stopped abruptly when the Auror Moody loomed in front of him. He stiffened. "What do you want?" he demanded, not meeting the man's eyes. Or eye.

"Rude little git, aren't you?"

"If I'm not under arrest, I don't have to stand here and listen to this." He tried to step around Moody, who stepped with him and blocked his path.

"I would probably think of something to run you in for," the Auror said.

"Like what?" Snape demanded.

"Like being a rude little git."

"That's not an actionable offense. What do you want, Moody?" If Moody didn't let him go soon, he'd be able to run Snape in for hexing an Auror on Ministry premises, which he was pretty sure was an actionable offense.

Moody leaned against a wall. "Thought now that you weren't pretending to be a Death Eater anymore, you'd be a mite less obnoxious."

"I wasn't aware it was any of your business." Snape relaxed marginally. Moody must not have anything real to talk about, or he'd have gotten down to business by now. And he could hardly start giving Severus the third degree right here in a public corridor.

"I'll be keeping my eye on you."

"How thrilling for you."

"You'd better watch yourself."

Indeed. Now that he'd blown his cover, it would be a hell of a time to start any Seriously Evil Plotting.

"Voldemort doesn't take kindly to spies. Or deserters."

Snape was already saying, "Goodness, that never occurred to me," when the import of what Moody had said sunk in. "You mean, I should watch myself so Voldemort doesn't kill me."

"Yes."

"Not so I don't give you an excuse to kill me."

"Why would I want to kill you?" Moody sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Because you've tried."

"Other than that," Moody said jocularly.

"Can I go now?"

Moody shrugged. "See you 'round."

"Good day."

#

Draco was restless. There hadn't been much improvement in his condition over the last few days, except that he was able to stay awake more. Now and then his legs jerked, or he felt some random sensation, like an icy chill on his calf or warmth in one or two toes. He lay on his hospital bed and stared at his blanket-covered feet, thinking, I'm going to move my foot...now!

Nothing.

He tried again, with similar results.

He was experimenting with his other foot when Snape came in. Immediately, he abandoned the project. "Professor!"

"Draco." Snape thumped him on the shoulder.

"Where've you been?" He asked querulously. The Professor had had a free period that day, and he hadn't been to see him.

"The Ministry."

Oh shit. "What for?"

"Seeing Arthur Weasley."

"What for?"

"That." Snape handed him a magazine.

"You're buying me a Ferrari?" he asked hopefully.

"No."

"Did the Healers tell you something they didn't tell me."

"What?"

"I'm never going to walk again, am I?"

"Of course you are."

"Then what do I need a fucking wheelchair for?"

Snape stared at him. "You asked for one."

"Did not." Draco sulked for a moment.

Snape rolled his eyes and sat down. "You should be ready to return to classes by the time it's delivered. I hope you've been studying the redoubtable Miss Granger's notes."

"I have," he admitted. He'd been bored enough, and there wasn't much else he could do. "So is this a good one?" He picked up the catalogue again.

"The best."

"Good. What about the staircases?" He'd be damned before he'd have anyone carry him around like a pasha.

"Levitation charm."

He looked at the catalogue some more. The illustrations showed young people in wheelchairs engaging in various athletic pursuits, sitting in classrooms, and interacting with the opposite sex. "This is the kind they play basketball in?"

"Is it?"

"Yeah. If I don't get out of it soon, I'll have to invent wheelchair quidditch." What a depressing thought. "In hospital, we used to steal the wheelchairs from the nurses' station and have races in them. That was kind of fun. Bet this one's a lot faster."

"It should be."

Not that being in a wheelchair would be much fun without Lydia sitting on his lap, screaming "You're going down, sucker!" at the competition.

Down where, exactly, she'd never told him.

"How's Snuffles?" Draco asked.

"He's fine."

"Does he miss me? Does he seem depressed?"

"He's a teapot. How would I tell."

"Has he been eating properly?"

"Yes."

"If it's vegetable soup, you have to strain it so nothing gets stuck in his spout. Did I tell you that?"

"Twice."

"And he's using his litter tray?"

"Yes."

"I guess he's all right, then." He wasn't sure how to tell when a teapot was depressed, either.