Lab Coats and Wizard Robes

Chapter Six: Coffee with Dumbledore

The next morning, when Snape entered the Dining Hall, he found Dumbledore already sitting there. He was searching his plate with his spoon.

"Good morning, Headmaster."

The old man lifted his head, but did not turn it to his Potions Master. That was useless.

"Good morning, Severus. How are you? Were you successful in finding your ingredient, yesterday?"

"Yes, I was. I wondered if I could have a word with you today."

"Certainly, you can come to my office right after breakfast."

"Thank you, sir. You have no more food on your plate. Can I serve you something?"

"Oh, yes, please. Could you give me just some more scrambled egg, and a bit of bacon, and some tomato. Oh, and I think I could do with another cup of tea."

Dumbledore sounded like a child who's been asked what he wants for Christmas. Snape helped him with a very straight face, but deep inside he felt a strange pleasure, almost like happiness.

Half an hour later, he stood in front of Dumbledore's door. The password was obvious: "tarte Tatin".

When Snape got into the office, Dumbledore wasn't there. His voice came from the left:

"Is that you, Severus ? I'm in the living-room."

Snape entered the cosy living-room. Out of the large window he could see that yesterday's clouds were gone. The day promised to be cold, but sunny. He said so to Dumbledore, who was sitting in his chintz armchair facing the window. On the coffee table stood a china coffee pot with two matching cups.

"You have your coffee black, do you not?"

Dumbledore took out his wand and had the coffee pot pour the coffee in the cups. Than he magicked the sugar bowl to add a considerable amount of sugar in his own cup. Snape couldn't help being impressed at his precision.

"So, tell me about the Muggle ingredient. What was it called?"

"Hydrochloric acid, sir."

"Ah, yes."

"My quest led me to Cambridge, to an Analytical Chemistry Department."

"Chemistry... Yes, that rings a bell. By the way, Severus, can I tempt you with a slice of this excellent tarte Tatin Molly Weasley made me?"

"No thank you, sir. As I was saying, I was in that chemistry room, and a Muggle woman came in. She started yelling at me. She seemed to think I was a madman, but she knew my name, and she knew Harry Potter's name. She even mentioned the Killing Curse, even if she obviously didn't know what she was talking about. Which means that Harry Potter, so-called saviour of the wizarding community, defeater of the Dark Lord, who claimed that he was so heart-broken that he retired to the Muggle world, could not resist the temptation to get some attention by selling all our secrets to them, which means that he violated the Statute of Secrecy in every possible way. Maybe it was him who invented all those Muggle potions. Maybe he even wrote that article in the International journal of Healing Potions. He's the one who's behind that fungus!"

Potter was always a subject that put Snape in a bad mood. But when he was angry, it really made him lose control. Dumbledore interrupted him.

"Severus, calm down. He did no such thing. Indeed, if he commited a breach on the Statute of Secrecy, so did I."

"What ?"

"Let me explain. A few years ago, when he was still at school, Harry met a Muggle woman who saved him from quite a spot of trouble with his aunt and uncle. She invited him for tea, and after a while, she guessed what he was. She wanted to write about Harry. Needless to say, he was very reluctant to let her do it, so in the end he asked me to step in to reason her. I cam up with an idea: she would write about Harry's life at Hogwarts. She listened to both his story, and mine, and started writing. But the text was charmed so that no one would believe it. Readers would think it was a work of pure fiction. Not even Harry, if he read them, would think it is a true story. We did it because we thought that Muggles, sometimes, would want to dream about a world where they could become invisible, or even have pink and yellow fungus. And we were proven right, too: the books are very popular. The story of Harry's fifth year has just come out, and people are fighting for the books! You see? So the woman in that chemistry room probably had read them, and took you for someone who had read the books a bit too often. So maybe we even gave ourselves a new safeguard against Muggles by it!"

Snape understood, but that didn't mean he liked it. He would rather not think what Potter had told about him. He sipped his coffee in silence, broodingly.

In the end, Dumbledore decided to start on another subject.

"So, were you able to get some, er..."

"Hydrochloric acid? Yes, I've got more than I need now. I should go back to the dungeons to start on the potion, so I think I leave you now. Thank you for the coffee."

"Not at all, Severus, not at all. And good luck with the potion."

"The worst part is over, so I should manage."

Once back on his office, Snape put his cauldron on the fire and started to ready his ingredients. He was oblivious of the fact that, tomorrow, he would once more fall in love with Hermione Granger in the twisted imagination of someone else.

The end