"One of Those Quirky, Paradoxical Time-Travel Things"

Chapter Two

"Rochester can travel back and forth in time through the narrative in Jane Eyre," Thursday said.

"He is a Muggle," Snape replied. "I know little of Muggles, and less of their books. Perhaps Miss Eyre has been helping him to do it. It is after all her story, a first-person narrative. Who knows what power she may have within its pages?"

"At any rate she could not change the ending."

"I said within its pages, Miss Next." Snape massaged the bridge of his hooked nose with his thumb and forefinger, frowning as if wearied by a class of first-year dunderheads.

"You ought to eat something," Thursday told him. "At least drink something." She herself was beginning to long for a nice hot cup of tea.

But--"There is only beer," said Snape. "And I want the full use of all my faculties tonight."

"Then why not take a room?" Thursday suggested. "Take a nap. Let me talk with Gandalf. Let me try and contact the Cat."

"Which cat?" Snape asked, with the small bitter sound he had made earlier.

"The Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire," Thursday replied. "The librarian of the Great Library," she explained, as one of Snape's eyebrows shot up quizzically towards his hairline. "How many cats are there?" she continued; and then recalled that the Librarian Cat had once accused her of suffering from cat blindness.

Snape responded with what was certainly a laugh now, despite sounding as bitter and harsh as before. "Oh, there are a fair few," he said; and beginning to tick them off on his fingers: "There is Professor McGonagall in her Animagus form; there is that orange monstrosity belonging to Miss Granger; there is Quidditch--"

"Quidditch?"

"The Slytherin House cat. And Mrs Norris--although I doubt she would do anything to help anyone other than herself or her master. But then there is Puss in Boots, who of course lives for the quest; Mrs Murphy--who despite being a Muggle's cat can talk to humans--"

"Is that why you're familiar with her?" Thursday interrupted, too surprised to mind her manners; and once again she felt like a first year as Snape looked down his long nose at her.

"Miss Next, it is nothing unusual for a wizard to be familiar with a cat--any cat. You do read, don't you--something besides your own novels? Cats are not extinct in your Outland, are they?"

"Erm ... of course not." Thursday peered into the man's eyes, now so nearly level with her own as she and he were both sitting on the bench by the fire. The two Bree-men had finished their pipes and their beer, had taken their leave of Butterbur and of Thursday and Snape, and had gone out into the wild wet night, touching their fingers to the sides of their noses as they left, and giving Thursday broad cheerful winks.

"They won't say anything to anyone," Snape had told Thursday, as if he thought the heat that must surely have reddened her cheeks was embarrassment at the winks as much as the glow of the fire.

"They can't say much; they're generics," she had replied.

"In a magical story," Snape had amended. "They could say a good deal, if they chose to do so. Hence the winks. This is, after all, The Prancing Pony. No one who sees us here will shop us to Jurisfiction."

Thursday had her own doubts about that. Radagast--by all accounts a good man, and a trustworthy one--had broken the laws of magical fiction in order to contact the librarian of the Great Library; could not a generic--who might not be missed in the narrative if he jumped book and who, according to Snape, could say a good deal if he chose to--say a word or two to the Cat who not only ran the Great Library but was a Jurisfiction operative as well?

"You are quite sure," she said now, peering into Snape's eyes, "that wizarding law keeps Jurisfiction out of magical novels as well as their own characters in?"

"Why do you ask me?" Snape shot back. "Why should you believe anything I say?

"Why have you come here, Miss Next? to The Prancing Pony? Do you trust me? And should I trust you?"

Thursday felt a cold shiver go down her spine. In that moment Snape had reminded her of Acheron Hades, the master criminal who had once been a lecturer--a teacher--when she had been a student a good deal older, and supposedly wiser, than a Hogwarts first year. Acheron Hades had enjoyed committing loathsome and detestable acts, for the sake of the acts themselves. He had savoured the taste of wickedness as other men savoured fine wine, or a good tobacco or beer. Hades would have attempted to entice Thursday into a book for his own profit, or pleasure; if he had been at all concerned for his reputation in the Outland it would have been so that people would trust him again, so that he could do more evil ...

Wishing Barliman Butterbur would return to the common-room so that she could at least ask for a cup of tea, Thursday shifted a little on the hard bench, and stretched her legs out towards the fire. "Why do you say the fanfics are not about you, Mr Snape?" she asked.

He did not answer immediately. She looked at him, and saw that he was gazing into the fire, as if into a palantír. Watching him, Thursday wondered what he was seeing in the flickering flames, in the glowing embers, in the smoke swirling up into the great black flue of the chimney. Did he wish for--or dread--a sudden flare-up of green flames where the red-orange ones leapt now? Did he wish to--could he--travel from book to book by Floo powder, as he could from grate to grate within each book in the Harry Potter series? Did he fear the sudden arrival in The Prancing Pony of the Minister of Magic, or an Auror, in a whirl of bright green flames and ash?

Suddenly he made a sound--a sound that could only be called a chuckle. Quiet as it was, Thursday could have sworn she heard the ring of real amusement in it.

But it ended as abruptly as it had begun, and Snape shook his head. He drew a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh; then, without turning from the fire, he spoke. "Will you help me, Miss Next? I don't want to have to ask you again."

"And I don't want to be spoken to as if I were one of your students," Thursday retorted.

Snape nodded. Then he rose to his feet, and stood tall and dark, cloaked in black before the fire, his hair hiding all of his pale face but the jutting nose and the glittering eyes.

No, Thursday thought--"glitter" was too hard a word. Too solid. The brightness in Snape's eyes now was more of a shimmer, as of ice melting, or of tears.

She opened her mouth to speak; and even as she drew breath she heard a muffled pop.

And Snape had Disapparated.

He was gone.

The fire burned on, bright as before, but there was no longer anyone in the common-room except Thursday herself.