E-Bay

Severus Snape rubbed his throbbing temples. The new term was only a single day old and he already had a fully blown stress headache. It was a mystery to him how he was going to survive this school year.

The day hadn't even started off that badly. His first class, third year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws didn't blow up a single cauldron, and the results of their potion brewing was surprisingly acceptable for a first day of school. Not that he would tell them that, of course.

It had all gone downhill from the second class onwards. First year Gryffindors and Slytherins. He would wonder for eternity why on earth Albus always paired those two houses up in his class. They were a more explosive mixture than any unstable potion.

But the class had been fairly docile. Obviously his reputation and his behaviour still did the job. No, it had started when a muggle-born Gryffindor unpacked an invaluable 16th century Smeraldi cauldron. If he didn't possess such a tremendous self-control, Severus' jaw would have dropped to the floor.

"Where on earth did you get that cauldron from, Mr Eckley?" he asked, looming menacingly over the small boy.

"Seven quid on e-bay," the boy said happily, completely oblivious to his teacher's threatening presence.

To hide his lack of geographical knowledge, Severus had refrained from asking the location of that Ea Bay but he was determined to consult an atlas as soon as his classes were over.

He would also check the current exchange rate between Wizarding and muggle money. The last time he had ventured into the muggle world, they had used a currency called "Pound" and the exchange rate had been of about five pounds to the galleon. This "Quid" currency must be a very recent change and it obviously had a very high exchange rate if something as expensive as a Smeraldi cauldron only cost seven quid.

At that particular moment however, he had simply confiscated the cauldron and replaced it with one from his stock, making a mental note to write to the boy's parents, and offer financial compensation for this piece of art.

Later that day, after his first afternoon class, a fourth year Ravenclaw girl had come up to him and asked him if he could take a look at a book that she'd found. His first instinct was to send her to Madame Pince but then a glimpse of the title caught his interest.

"Venena Obitus Rubri", Paracelsus, first published in 1528. This book wasn't a first edition, it was a copy from the early 1800s, but nevertheless very valuable.

At his question where she had acquired this rarity, the girl answered: "E-bay, fifteen quid seventy-one."

Once again this mystical Ea Bay. Severus knew he absolutely had to locate the place and visit it at the first possible opportunity. The fact that the book had been sold for more than twice the price of the cauldron, which should actually be infinitely more expensive, intrigued him, but then again, maybe the dealer wasn't an expert and had failed to recognize the object's true value.

He had asked the girl to leave the book with him so he could have a look at it and to his surprise, she seemed pleased with his request. He decided that he would never understand his students, especially not the non-Slytherins, and the female ones even less than the males.

Now, seven hours of intense research later, Severus was at his wits' end. He had looked through every single atlas, geography book and map in his own collection, as well as the school library, without finding the tiniest reference to this Ea Bay. It was most frustrating.

His study of the A Wizard's Guide to the Muggle World, editions of 2001, 1998, 1995, 1992, 1990, and 1986 had been equally fruitless. None of them mentioned a change to a currency called "Quid". He had found out that not every country in the muggle world used the same currency, and that some European countries, Britain not included, had in 2000 changed to a currency called "Euro". All editions of the guide also gave a list of the muggle currencies used in the countries most commonly visited by wizards. Things like "Yen", "Francs", several different kinds of "Dollars", "Roubles" and many more were indicated, but no "Quid" anywhere on the list.

At that point, Severus concluded that this Ea Bay must be in a very remote area of the world, possibly a tropical island or a place very far north. However, it seemed slightly odd that someone like the Rawenclaw girl would travel this far. He knew her family to be muggle and of financially rather modest origin. The guide pointed out that muggle long-distance transport was generally expensive.

Then it hit him. Both students who had bought things at Ea Bay were muggle-born. Therefore, the place might simply be unknown to the wizarding world. It was even possible that it was not an actual bay, but a shop called Ea Bay. Muggles often tended to have rather weird names for things and places.

On the other hand, it seemed strange that a muggle place would sell valuable magical objects. The ministry was usually very strict about that kind of business.

Severus shook his head. None of these questions eased his headache in the slightest. The more he thought about it, the less any of it made sense. Either Ea Bay was a wizarding place, in which case it should be somewhere in the books he'd looked at, or it was a muggle place, in which case it shouldn't sell wizarding things. Also, first year muggle-borns usually had a hard enough time just finding their way around Diagon Alley, let alone some obscure place.

Severus decided that there was only one way to solve his problems. He had tried to avoid thinking about it for as long as possible, but now he had to face the hard and bitter truth. He needed to ask for help. And there was only one single person he could think of that might be able to help him and was easily available. Hogwarts' Muggle Studies teacher: Seamus Finnigan.

Mr Finnigan had taken over his teaching position two years ago. Severus had to grudgingly admit that he was a reasonably competent teacher, even though his teaching methods were a bit lax. But at least his classes seemed to have some kind of logical structure, rather than the random mix of unconnected information his predecessor had called a course.

Severus hesitated for a moment on whether he should seek out his colleague straight away, or wait till the next morning, seeing that it was already quite late. But then again, Finnigan wasn't McGonagall. He was young, and surely hadn't retired for the night. Determined to get this over and done with before he changed his mind again, Severus left his rooms.

The dumbfounded look of surprise on Finnigan's face when his older colleague knocked on his door in the middle of the night would have been enough to make Severus' visit worth his while. However, he reminded himself that he wasn't here to study the predictable simplicity of Gryffindor facial expressions.

"May I come in, Professor, or do I have to spend the night standing in front of your door?" he asked with his usual sarcastic bite. Finnigan opened his mouth a couple of times, like a fish out of the water, before stepping aside and gesturing his visitor to enter.

By the time he had closed the door, Finnigan seemed to have regained control over his speech.

"What can I do for you, Professor Snape? It obviously must be quite important for you to come see me at," he glanced towards the clock hanging over his fireplace. "At quarter to midnight."

"Thank you, Professor, I am aware of how late it is," Severus snapped, before remembering that he was here to ask for help. He continued in a more polite tone.

"I have come to ask for your assistance. I have been researching a certain subject for several hours, and am no closer to an answer than before, and I figured that you would be the person most likely to be able to answer my question."

"Ummm, yeah, sure, that's cool," Finnigan replied. "Fire away." At Snape's slightly confused look, he hastily added: "I meant 'That's fine, ask your question'. Sorry, I spent the summer with some muggle friends of mine, and I'm afraid I have taken over their slang." Severus politely refrained from commenting about the "muggle slang" and instead took a deep breath before doing the inevitable.

"Two of my students, a first year Gryffindor and a fourth year Ravenclaw, both muggle born, came to my class today with very expensive magical objects: an invaluable Smeraldi cauldron, and a very old and rare book on poisons by Paracelsus. Both stated to have purchased said objects in a place named Ea Bay. I am however unable to locate this bay on any map or guide book."

He was about to add his problem with the unknown currency when Finnigan broke into roaring laughter. The younger man laughed so hard he doubled over, and had to hold on to the table to prevent himself from falling over.

Whatever Severus had expected, this wasn't it. If there was one thing, he really didn't appreciate at all, it was being laughed at. His face hardened to an angry scowl, and he drew himself up to his full height in an attempt to intimidate Finnigan with the demeanour that usually worked so well with the students.

After seven years as his students and two more as his colleague however, Finnigan seemed to have lost all fear of the threatening Potions master. It wasn't until Severus turned around in a flourish of robes and stalked towards the door that he desperately tried to catch his breath and gasped, "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. Don't leave. It's just..." He was overwhelmed by another fit of laughter.

Severus faced Finnigan again, but remained close to the exit, glaring impatiently at his fellow teacher. Under his stern gaze, Finnigan finally got a grip on himself. Taking deep breaths, he straightened up.

"I apologize," he said. "I really didn't mean to laugh at you. It's just that the idea of you, of anyone, looking for e-bay on a map is absolutely hilarious!" When Severus' icy glare turned a few degrees colder, he quickly elaborated.

"As I mentioned earlier, I spent my entire summer with muggles. I still sometimes forget that I'm back in the wizarding world now. You see, in the muggle world, pretty much everyone knows that e-bay isn't a place. Well, not a physical place at least."

Severus looked confused.

"How can a place not be physical?"

"It's complicated," Finnigan started. "I could explain it to you but it'd require a lot of background stuff. E-bay is essentially a 'place' where people sell things. Anyone can sell, anyone can buy, more or less anything can be sold. If you find something you want, you place a bid, and at the end of a certain pre-determined period of time, the highest bidder gets the object."

"If it's not a physical place, then how do people get there to find things, place bids and obtain their purchases?" Severus asked.

"Well, that's the bit that would require the lot of background explanation. Let's just say for now that it is all done by something similar to mail. Seller and buyer never usually meet." Finnigan was obviously struggling with his explanations.

"If this whole Ea Bay thing is only known to muggles, then how come invaluable cauldrons and antique books are sold there?" Severus pointed out. Finnigan looked mildly embarrassed.

"I'm not quite sure, but I have an idea who might have sold this stuff," he admitted. "An old friend of mine, a squib, was clearing out his attic this summer. It was kind of meant as a laugh, but some mates and I suggested he put the stuff up for sale on e-bay. Just to see what would happen." He shrank under Severus' angry look.

"Are you out of your mind, Finnigan? Placing magical objects for sale to muggles?! Do you have the faintest idea how much damage you could have done? How much damage you might actually have done?" By now, the older man was shouting.

"What other objects were sold apart from the cauldron and the book?" Finnigan raised his hands in a gesture of defence or appeasement.

"Only a few more books, none of them magical in themselves, brass scales, a crystal ball and a telescope. That's all. We did make sure we weren't selling anything really magical," he said.

Severus calmed down slightly.

"You could be in serious trouble with the Ministry, Finnigan, you know that," he admonished. Then something else occurred to him.

"On a slightly different note: what currency is used in these auctions?"

This was about the last question Finnigan had been expecting and he looked correspondingly puzzled.

"I'm not quite sure but I think the muggle world's major currencies, pounds, dollars, euros and maybe a couple of others are used. Why do you ask?"

"I was trying to work out how much my students paid for their purchases. However, both paid in a currency unknown to me, and that isn't indicated in any conversion lists either. They called it 'quid', if I recall correctly," Severus explained.

It cost Finnigan a major effort to keep a straight face this time. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to answer calmly.

"Quid is just a colloquial muggle term for the British pound," he said. Severus raised an eyebrow.

"There seem to be quite a few things I don't know about the muggle world. I have to admit that it has been a while since I last paid it a visit."

Finnigan snorted.

"Believe me, you're not the only one. That's one of the reasons why I was happy to take over this class. There's so much wizards should know about the muggle world that they're never told and the so-called 'Guides to the muggle world' are usually a pile of rubbish."

Severus thoughtfully stared ahead for a moment. Just as the silence was about to become uncomfortable, he looked up.

"I would like to learn more about this Ea Bay thing and the muggle world in general," he said. "You deserve some form of punishment for your thoughtless and inconsiderate behaviour. The time when I could give you detention is over, but you are going to spend as many evenings as I demand telling me about these things."

Finnigan grinned.

"Of course, Professor. I wish the punishments back in my old school days would have been this easy. It's definitely better than scrubbing cauldrons with a tooth brush. When would you like to start?"

"Well, I assume tonight is a bit too late for any conversation of educational value. Shall we say tomorrow night? Eight o'clock in my rooms?" Severus offered.

"Tomorrow night it is then," Finnigan agreed. "I will see you then."

The End

Venena obitus rubri means Poisons of the Red Death