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

Chapter Six

"Many miles away the chilly mist that had pressed against the Prime Minister's windows drifted over a dirty river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks. An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water ... "

... and the rustle of some old fish-and-chip wrappings as a chill breeze stirred the tall grass.

This, then, was the right place, thought Thursday, looking around. This riverbank was very unlike the bank overlooking the Greenway outside Bree. This summer's night was as different to that day as ... as grammasites are to phoenixes, she decided.

There was no sign of life.

Good, she thought. If the fox had not yet arrived upon the scene, then it would be a moment or two before the witches Narcissa and Bellatrix appeared.

Thursday turned a page in her TravelBook and began to read again:

" ... a street named Spinner's End, over which the towering mill chimney seemed to hover like a giant admonitory finger. ... "

Thursday crept along the street, past boarded and broken windows, to the very last house. She crouched down in the shadows, careful to keep even the hem of her dark cloak out of the pale pool of light that lay on the cobbles beneath the window, and pressed her ear against the soot-blackened bricks.

She was listening for sounds of life within the house.

What she heard were the sounds of life within books.

As in the Great Library, where wall after wall was lined with books, here, behind the solid bricks of this house, was the hum of voices, the fluttering and creeping and thudding of feathered and furred creatures, the clink of metal on metal, and an intermittent snipping sort of sound, which reminded her of her brothers clipping the hedge in the back garden of their childhood home.

She heard, too, a muffled pop, as of a burning log breaking in a fireplace. It was her cue; and drawing as deep a breath as she dared, she jumped into the pre-chapter backstory.

And into a tiny sitting room, which was furnished with only a shabby sofa and armchair and a rickety table ... and with books. Old, leatherbound books lined the room, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, leaving spaces only for the street door, the window, and an empty fireplace.

The chair and sofa were empty as well. A book lay on the table, the reader's place marked with a strip of what Thursday imagined might be boomslang skin.

But of the reader himself there was no sign.

Radagast! Thursday thought. Where is Snape? We haven't much time!

There was another small pop; and a man appeared in the centre of the room, standing inconveniently between Thursday and the door. He was a small, pale, sharp-featured man, with watery eyes and a nose that twitched and sniffled like a rat's.

"Who are you?" he asked, or rather squeaked: he was so like a rat that Thursday almost looked for a long naked tail snaking out the back of his wizarding robes.

"Where is Snape?" she retorted, in her Bellman's voice.

The man simpered and wrung his hands and all but twitched a nonexistent set of whiskers. "Down the back," he squeaked, finally.

Thursday had grown up enough years ago in Swindon to know that "down the back" was sometimes employed as a euphemism by people who lived in houses that had no indoor plumbing.

"Go and fetch him," she said.

The little man looked more terrified than shocked. "He will curse me," he squeaked.

"Go and fetch him!" Thursday repeated, sounding to herself like the worst--or best--sort of SpecOps agent. She could imagine the back garden that might belong to this sort of house, but if she tried to jump into it without a specific description of it she might well land up streets or even books away.

The man squeaked to himself, and ran a hand over his wispy hair, for all the world like a rat smoothing its whiskers. He turned as if to go--a hidden door opened in one of the walls of books--and Snape stepped from the bottom of a narrow staircase into the room.

This Snape looked nearly a year younger than the man Thursday had last seen on the hill on Roke Island, but he appeared no less gaunt and careworn. He seemed even taller here than he had in the common-room of The Prancing Pony. The top of his head nearly brushed the lamp that hung from the low ceiling, and his long black robes swept the floor as he strode across it to stand before Thursday, between her and the smaller man, who at the appearance of the newcomer had frozen in the centre of the room.

"Who are you?" asked Snape, his voice almost a lazy drawl, but with an edge to it, his eyes aiming a cold, hard look straight at Thursday.

"Thursday Next," she replied.

A black eyebrow rose towards Snape's greasy hairline. "What are you, then? A Seer?" he asked.

Thursday shook her head.

Snape waved a hand, as one might wave away an annoying mosquito; in that motion Thursday saw that he was holding his wand. She had seen the wand once before, in Professor McGonagall's office. She knew all too well that it could be used to destroy more than the evidence of tears. But the way Snape waved it just now it looked less like a Muggle firearm than like a fly swatter.

"You certainly aren't a witch," he said to her. "Go away. You're in the wrong genre."

"The Council of Genres--" Thursday began--

It was a bluff; and Snape knew it.

"--has no business here," he finished for her. "Jurisfiction has no jurisdiction."

He smiled at her as he uttered the last word, and the smile seemed as catlike as the other man was ratlike. But this was not the teasing grin of the Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire. And the black eyes were more like those of a snake.

"Go away," Snape said again, more emphatically this time. "The story thread is approaching, and I must be ready for whatever it may bring."

"Do you not know what it brings?" Thursday asked. She had learned from the Snape of the post-Half-Blood Prince Bookworld that unlike Rochester of Jane Eyre he could not travel back and forth in time within the Harry Potter books. This Snape was convincingly unaware that he had met Thursday in The Lord of the Rings--but he was also an accomplished Occlumens within this book.

"Do you know what the thread is bringing?" Thursday asked.

"How should I?" Snape retorted. "We are not Muggles. We don't hop about within our story threads as you do."

"What about your Muggles, then?" Thursday asked.

Snape snarled. "They are not my Muggles, Miss Next. I know even less about them than I do about nonmagical books."

Suddenly his black eyes narrowed. "You know what the thread is bringing, though, don't you?"

Thursday nodded, and had to bite back a gloating smile. Snape wanted to know. Occlumens he might be, but ...

Or perhaps he wanted her to know that he wanted to know. From what she knew of him, he would not break wizarding law unless, and until, he had to do so. When the compounded pressures of J.K. Rowling's intention and Albus Dumbledore's need would push him too far ...

"It brings guests," Thursday said.

The eyebrow shot up again. "I am not expecting guests."

"These are not invited."

Snape's eyes narrowed again. "What are you, then?"

"Sent."

"By whom?"

"Radagast."

That made him think, Thursday saw.

But it was the little ratlike man who spoke. "Radagast the Brown?" he squeaked, sniffling and wringing his hands. "Radagast the great wizard, friend of Gandalf, who talks with animals? That--?"

"Silence!" Snape hissed, and gestured with his wand hand at the little man. "He has never talked with you, Wormtail. Has he?" Snape demanded, as sternly as a teacher challenging a student.

"N-n-no, Severus. No. He hasn't." Wormtail sniffled now as if he was about to cry. In that moment he seemed to Thursday as pitiful, as truly sorrowful a man, as Snape had seemed when she had sat with him back in Professor McGonagall's office. Yet she felt no desire to go to Wormtail and hug him.

And with that realisation came the knowledge of what she should do.

She turned to Snape, who was now looking at her again, and, more pointedly, at the street door, for all the world like an impatient operative tapping his watch and jerking his head at her and towards SpecOps' front door.

She smiled up at him, trying to recall all the nice things she'd read about him. How he had hurried across the Entrance Hall to greet Professor McGonagall upon her return to Hogwarts from her stay in St Mungo's Hospital. How he had faithfully, and masterfully, brewed the Wolfsbane Potion every month, for Remus Lupin, but even more for Albus Dumbledore, who had given him his job at Hogwarts, who had trusted him, not only as a member of the Order of the Phoenix but as a teacher of young wizards and witches ... children ...

"I can give us time," Thursday said. "If you can take me out into the garden, or into the kitchen, or upstairs ..."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "'Into the garden'?" he repeated, in a mocking voice. "'Upstairs'? There is nothing upstairs but two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a toilet. Which one of those seems most appropriate to you?"

"A toilet?" Thursday repeated. "But Wormtail said you were 'down the back--'"

Snape curled his lip. "Do you think I could not equip a house like this with modern conveniences, Miss Next? Do you think that even a dark wizard--even a Death Eater--has no desire for all the creature comforts?"

As Snape spoke the last two words, the man called Wormtail shuddered; and at the look she saw in Snape's eyes Thursday felt a cold shiver pass over her.

"The kitchen, then," she said.

Snape nodded. "Come," he said, and he waved his wand at the book-lined wall opposite the window. A hidden door creaked open in the wall, and Snape led the way into a room even smaller than the sitting room and even more bare.

Mildew darkened the kitchen walls, more alive than the soot that blackened the bricks outside the house, and flakes of paint and plaster lay scattered across the floor and heaped in the corners. A battered table stood on three legs, the fourth replaced by a stack of books, leatherbound like the ones in the sitting room; and two mismatched chairs stood in front of the places where broken crockery and rusting cutlery lay on the dusty tabletop. There was no stove, but in the space where one might have stood at some point in time sat a huge and dented kettle made of what looked to Thursday like pewter.

Snape shut the door behind Thursday, gestured at it with his wand, and muttered, "Imperturbo." Then, moving towards the kettle, he said, "May I offer you a cup of tea?"

"Thank you."

Snape tapped the kettle with his wand, and a jet of steam shot from the spout. "Scottish Breakfast all right?" he asked.

Was it? Thursday wondered. "I've never heard of that blend," she said aloud.

"Strange," Snape sneered. "My father liked it. And he was a Muggle. Which no doubt you knew," he added, magically righting two chipped cups in their saucers on the table. "Milk?"

Thursday nodded, and at a wave of Snape's wand a cracked jug rose from the table and tilted itself over one of the cups. Milk flowed, looking as white and fresh as if it had just come from the dairy.

"Is all this from an early draft?" Thursday asked, sitting down in the less rickety-looking of the two chairs. Let Snape support himself with his magic, if need be, she reasoned.

Snape shrugged, with his wand holding the kettle above the cups so that the tea pouring from the kettle's spout forked into two streams, each directing itself into one of the cups.

"Some of it may be written verbatim," he said; "some may be only in the core, in the central nub of energy that binds all the books together."

"Including Book Seven?" Thursday asked.

Snape shrugged again, and sat down in the chair across the table from her. "There is a limit to how far we can push the boundaries of magic," he said, and blew gently on his tea.

"Voldemort pushed them further than anyone else has done."

"Do not say the Dark Lord's name," Snape retorted--but almost as if he were reciting an all-too-familiar, little-loved, line.

"Tell me of Radagast," he went on, before Thursday could question him about his Dark Lord remark. "Why should he concern himself with the events of this book? Is there to be a war in the seventh to equal that of the Ring of Power?"

Thursday took a sip of her tea. It was delicious, slightly reminiscent of her mother's own breakfast favourite, but with a hint of malt.

But Snape's eyes were holding her to the question.

She set down her cup, and replied. "There is to be a battle--"

But even as she began speaking, Snape gave his head a shake and muttered a word that sounded like "Muffliato!"

It very probably was Muffliato, she told herself. Snape may have let her tell him he was about to receive more visitors, but he would not let himself listen to future events in this story line, not even when the line was his own.

Thursday waved her hands at him, trying to signal, Right, I've stopped; unblock your ears; now listen, OK?

Evidently her meaning got across, for with another shake of his head and a shrug of his shoulders, like a man trying to rid himself of whining mosquitos, Snape raised both eyebrows and gave her a look that quite plainly said, I'm listening.

"A few minutes ago you asked me if I was a Seer," said Thursday.

"And you told me you weren't," Snape replied.

"But what if I were? Would you listen to me then? If I were Sybill Trelawney, or Firenze?"

"I should be more inclined to listen to Sybill Trelawney."

If you were allowed to hear her out, Thursday added, to herself.

"Not all Seers are witches," she said aloud.

"But as you are neither, what difference does that make?" Snape returned. "You had better get on with what you wish to say, Miss Next--providing it isn't the denouement of this plot--whatever that may be."

He took a sip of his tea. "And Radagast will not be pleased if you fail in your mission."

"Too right."

Again the cocked eyebrow.

Thursday pressed what she hoped was her advantage. "I wish you weren't so legalistic, Professor Snape. I wish you were willing to break one more--minor--wizarding law, in order to--"

She stopped abruptly at the sound of a knock on the door to the sitting room.

Blast! she thought; even as Snape muttered, "Merlin! Wormtail knows better than to meddle with an Imperturble Charm!"

He got up, and moved towards the door, gesturing at it with his wand. "What is it?" he hissed.

"Someone at the front door," came the muffled squeak of Wormtail's voice.

"Ignore them. Get upstairs to your bedroom."

But even as he spoke, Snape turned from the door and looked at Thursday.

"The uninvited guests?" he whispered. "From the narrative thread?"

Thursday reached into the pocket of her cloak and brought out her Narrative Proximity Device. It had not beeped a warning, and its face was blank. But in a magical book it might not work any better than a footnoterphone.

She returned the Device to her pocket and looked back up at Snape. "You had better go and see," she said.

He frowned. Then he turned back to the door and opened it.

As he stepped through into the sitting room Thursday leapt up from her chair. She slipped through the doorway just before it closed behind Snape, and made her way to the sofa as he pointed his wand at Wormtail, who was just disappearing up the narrow stairway.

"Muffliato!" Snape muttered, and then, "Imperturbo!" as the door to the stairway closed.

Thursday curled up on the sofa and looked up through lowered eyelids at Snape as he gestured at her with the hand that was not holding his wand but was very clearly signalling, Go! Get out! even as he went to the street door.

Thursday gave him what she hoped was a languidly reassuring smile, and gestured to him to open the door.

Instead he pointed his wand at her. "Evanes--" he started to say--but Thursday put her finger to her lips and shook her head at him, and smiled again.

With a look that was utterly unreadable, Snape pocketed his wand and opened the door a crack.

"Narcissa!" he exclaimed; and he opened the door a little wider, until the light from within the room fell on not one woman but two. Thursday breathed a deep and shaky sigh. The Snape she had met would be less pleased than Radagast--and far more than merely displeased--if she failed him now.

"What a pleasant surprise!" Snape was saying to Narcissa, not sounding altogether convincing.

"Severus," came a strained-sounding whisper through the slender opening. "May I speak to you? It's urgent."

"But of course."

Snape stood back and the two women entered the house. And Thursday uncoiled herself on the couch and stretched, as catlike as she could.

"Severus!" she purred. "Do shut the door, it's beastly outside. And aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

Once again unable to interpret the look he gave her, and not daring to laugh at it, she gave him a smile not unlike the ones she had until this moment reserved for a very few nonmagical--or at any rate nonwizard--men. She rose from the sofa and went to him, wrapping one arm, and a few folds of her cloak, about his right arm. She could not feel his wand anywhere, but she knew no other way to ask him not to use it.

Standing so close to him that she could smell him--a fragrance that reminded her oddly of both the Jurisfiction canteen at Norland Park and her Uncle Mycroft's garden laboratory--she held out her own right hand to the two women.

"Hello," she murmured. "I'm Erata."

Beside her, Snape made not the slightest movement of surprise. Smooth, very smooth, Thursday thought.

The two witches, however, were plainly nonplussed.

Who are you? the pale one's eyes seemed to ask; while the dark-haired one clearly wanted to demand, Who are you?

To answer both women, Thursday moved her free hand (which neither of the witches had taken) to Snape's face, and caressed his cheek, stroking the raspiness of his pre-dawn stubble as if it were silk. The clammy feel of his skin, and the sharp edges of the bones so prominent beneath, half chilled her, and half heated her to a genuine passion. She felt a muscle jerk in his jaw, and for a moment she wanted to blast these two witches--and all the other characters who had neglected and abused and used this man--into a text scrap-heap.

"'Erata,'" muttered the dark-haired witch, the one who had been the second to step into the room. "Are you a Snape?"

"She is a friend," Snape himself replied; and Thursday felt his arm go around her and draw her even closer to his side. She still could not feel the wand he had concealed somewhere within his robes; but now she could feel him breathing. He was no calmer than she was.

She made herself give a little laugh. "'A friend,'" she echoed, and moved her hand along his cheek towards his ear. Her fingers touched lank, limp, slick hair, and she wondered, What kind of shampoo do you use? Or don't you?

She felt his breathing change when she touched his ear. No doubt the witches heard the sudden soft inhalation--but what of it? Thursday asked herself. The sooner these two left, the better. Radagast would very probably congratulate her if she kept Snape from making the Unbreakable Vow; but how well-versed were the wizards of Middle-earth in the craft of seduction? Had they ever strayed as far from their pages as the famous lampoon of their epic?

Thursday had scarcely begun to consider the question when suddenly Snape turned towards her, and turned her towards him, putting a hand that was neither as gentle nor as tentative as hers had been under her chin and tilting her face up towards his as his mouth came down over hers, not cold and clammy but hot and hard and as fervid as half-fettered fire.

He held her locked in the embrace of lips and arms until she was breathless, her knees trembling so that she sagged against him.

"Really, Snape ... " she heard a voice drawl, dimly, as if through an Imperturbable Charm or a Muffliato spell. The voice sounded both scandalised and amused; and suddenly laughter welled up within Thursday, deep within her, at the very core of her being.

Well, there's certainly a lot more here than a nub, she thought, languishing quite comfortably now against Snape, until with arms like silken-and-iron bands he held her up, standing her on her own two feet and holding her there while he stepped back and looked down at her.

She peered up at him, into his eyes that were as soft as a midnight sky.

"Erm ... " she said. "Perhaps we should ... ah ... "

He lifted an eyebrow, indicating as it seemed the ceiling, above which he had said were two bedrooms.

Thursday laughed again, and resisted the temptation to fall back into his arms. Good job he's wearing robes, she thought; the folds of fabric hid what she had felt that was him and not his wand.

His wand, she thought, and giggled.

"Severus ... "

It was the other witch's voice speaking this time. Thursday turned, as did Snape, towards the two women.

"What can I do for you, Narcissa?" Snape asked.

The two witches exchanged a look. They seemed completely bewildered now. Did no outsiders enter magical books? Thursday wondered. No PageRunners, legal or otherwise? No other rogue operatives? Did wizards not have their own Character Exchange Programme?

"We ... we are ... "

Narcissa trailed off into silence. Thursday had memorised most of this scene as it had been printed; she thought that what Narcissa had been meant to say was, We ... we are alone, aren't we?

But of course they were not alone; they were even less alone than in the printed plot, when Wormtail lurked, present but concealed, behind the hidden door in the book-lined wall.

"You were saying, Narcissa?" asked Snape.

Narcissa drew a great, shuddering breath and turned again to the dark-haired witch, who shrugged and said, "Give it up, Cissy. I told you it was a bad idea, before she--"

The witch shot a glance at Thursday. "Erata, is it?" she asked.

Thursday nodded. She felt Snape's hand grasp hers and squeeze it.

"Would that be with one R, or two?" the witch asked.

"Bella, what are you playing at?" Narcissa broke in. "You're--you're confusing me," she went on; and Thursday saw tears well up in her eyes as Narcissa looked from Bellatrix to Thursday to Snape. "Severus," Narcissa whispered, as tears slid down her pale cheeks. "My son ... my only son ... "

"Draco should be proud," said Bellatrix. "The Dark Lord is granting him a great honour. And I will say this for Draco: he isn't shrinking away from his duty, he seems glad of a chance to prove himself, excited at the prospect--"

At these words, Narcissa began to cry in earnest, tears streaming from the eyes she kept fixed beseechingly on Snape. "That's because he is sixteen and has no idea what lies in store!" she wept.

"Then tell him," Snape replied, his voice cool but sounding to Thursday not devoid of feeling. "Tell him what is in store for a boy at Hogwarts, at his age.

"Tell him about this, if you like," Snape continued. "What you have seen here, tonight."

He drew Thursday to him again, wrapping his arm around her and holding her close but gently. As if on cue, she reached up and kissed the bristly edge of his cheek. She felt his breath catch again--the witches heard it, and exchanged one more, puzzled, look.

"Tell him ... well, I'm sure you can remember what to tell him," Snape said to Narcissa. "Sixteen years isn't all that long, and after all, how does he think he himself got started?"

And Snape moved towards the book-lined wall, drawing Thursday gently with him. She did not resist, nor did she move from his side when he reached into his robes and drew out his wand and waved it at the hidden door.

The door flew open, and Snape and Thursday started up the staircase, which widened to accommodate them side by side as they climbed the stairs.

"But Severus!" Narcissa's voice floated up towards them, faint and trembling, from the sitting room. "What about the Dark Lord?"

"Bugger the Dark Lord," Snape murmured, close to Thursday's ear.

And as she started to giggle, he waved his wand back towards the door, which closed and locked itself behind them.