Cheat the Devil

Bernie Taupin, You Gotta Love Someone

Harry opened the door. "Kiss kiss."

Hermione chopped the greenstuff twice more, and set her knife down on the workbench. Then she lifted her head. He was used to that.

"It's not dinnertime yet, surely?"

"Check the clock."

Her eyes went to the Muggle clock beneath the big photograph, rather than the wizarding clock on the side wall, which started to mutter in a tone much like Hermione's when she had to stop work.

"I thought I had hours in hand," she said ruefully, sweeping the leaves carefully into a glass bowl.

Harry waited while she tilted the bowlful into the cauldron bubbling gently on its stand, stirred whatever number of times was required, then lifted the cauldron away and covered it so the contents could steep.

Then she went through the unvarying ritual of finishing up in her Potions workroom: cleaned and tidied away all her equipment and supplies, washed thoroughly, hung up her work robes beside the door, and last of all freed her hair from the severe knot on the back of her head. It sprang loose enthusiastically; in its own way, Harry thought, as self-willed as his. A pity wizards couldn't influence their hair much; few had hair as obliging as Lucius Malfoy's.

He had allowed for this delay in choosing when to remind her. He was not surprised, either, that Hermione celebrated her release from concentration by sliding down the recycled banister he had installed on the broad staircase he had built in their warehouse between the second floor and the first. Their living space was still almost completely open; even the kitchen that had been their second priority after her workrooms had only low walls to enclose the mix of Muggle and wizarding appliances, shelves and cupboards.

Harry slid down the banister after her with absent grace rather than relish.

Hermione started setting the table after a quick glance at the stovetop to see what he had prepared. In theory they shared the cooking, as they did the cleaning. They were ready to tend to dull things like cleaning and bed-making by magic, though Hermione's workroom and equipment was cleaned rigorously by hand, but Harry liked to cook. He claimed it let him think.

Hermione had been surprised to find, after they left Hogwarts and at last managed to set up their fledgling business here, how many household chores Harry could accomplish efficiently while thinking, now that he had peace and quiet while doing so. The results of thinking were usually as visible as the results of busywork, if only in a litter of parchment with diagrams and cramped notes, all of them numbered.

"How's it coming?" he asked her, after hunger had been satisfied and he was putting the covered pot of soup in the cold cupboard.

He had kept back a couple of pieces of chicken; as like as not Ron would drop by later, after whatever evening class the Auror College required. Ron ate with them, or with the twins in their shop, or with Ginny and her employer and boyfriend the Healer of magical creatures. Ron would even eat with his fellow second-year students, or accept an invitation from Kingsley or Tonks, rather than Apparate home to the Burrow and his mother's sole attention much before bedtime. He lived for the day when he could persuade one of his friends in London to rent him a bedroom, and was loudly indignant that Harry and Hermione would not.

"Aren't I your boyfriend?" he would ask, striking an attitude, usually before the kitchen fireplace.

Hermione always said repressively, "No, Ron. No more than Harry is."

"If Harry isn't either, what've you got against letting me stay here then? You have enough room."

Hermione never said, 'You're an Auror, or going to be. The last thing Harry wants is Aurors keeping an eye on him again, wondering if he's going to make you act weird too.'

Nor did she ever say, 'We're not at school now, Ron. I'm not going to let you huddle in this cosy little circle as if nothing's changed. Make more friends, as we're doing. Hogwarts isn't the world.'

What she did say was even blunter, and much harder to refute. "We need every knut we have, Ron, and it's sure we wouldn't get rent from you for long. As well as Harry having to build you a room into the shell. No."

Ron was honest enough to let the request lie for a few weeks, each time, after that. He sometimes said plaintively that if his parents had managed to bring up seven children on his father's Ministry salary, he didn't see why they couldn't lend him enough to cover a room of his own, instead of saying he could use his old room for as long as he needed to.

Hermione had her own opinion of that, and why, with the war over and no need to dedicate her time to supporting the Order, Molly Weasley still hadn't got herself a job. It was not one she planned to share with Ron or any of Molly's hen-pecked, ambitious children, all of them fiercely determined on independence as soon as possible. Ron's complaint about his parents was a ritual rather than a reality; like Molly, he needed something to complain about.

She had been staring after the soup pot, wondering if they had left enough for Ron's long, still hollow legs, and said absently, "If I was running a factory production line I'd be pleased. Since I'm trying to improve the Calming Potion for Dr Withybones, so she can use it on children without worrying, I'm stuck."

She came back to full attention.

"It's the same old problem, Harry. They commission me to develop something - and that they do it when I'm just two years out of school tells us how very few adequate Potions researchers there are! - then they won't let me experiment properly. They insist on supervising, and I swear, if Withybones cuts out any more of the processes I want to run on the grounds they're a waste of time, I'll throw her commission back in her face! She's a good, kind woman, an excellent Healer, and she knows nothing about Potions development!"

"At least you get to keep the basic fee as well as your supplies costs, if she interferes more than your contract allows. That dodgy lawyer your father put us on to has been the best present he could ever have given the business, when all he intended was to help us convert this place from leasehold to freehold, since it's a Muggle building and a bit hard to lose from their records."

"Mr Howard comes on as a caricature of Shylock, maybe even Fagin, but I wonder sometimes if he's dodgy at all. He's very helpful."

"I think if you looked closely enough, Hermione, you'd find his enthusiasm for his clients' good is greater than his respect for the law."

She shrugged. "From what Daddy says, the wizarding world isn't the only place full of lawyers like that. I'd rather deal with one who cared about his clients instead of for nothing but Ministry regulations."

Harry wasn't as sensitive about references to the Ministry of Magic these days, especially since the Wizengamot replaced Cornelius Fudge with a Minister who had the ability to win and retain broad support from the wizarding community. Minister Fredibert Ingham wasn't worried about Harry Potter, and once he discovered he couldn't exploit Harry's fame, and that Harry wasn't interested in being a public figure, attracting attention away from himself, had let him alone, apart from insisting he show up to receive his Order of Merlin first class. The Ministry itself, however, had changed very little, though Ingham had made a few high-profile reforms in administration.

It still seemed to both of them that avoiding the Ministry's attention was the better path to follow. Harry could never have gone to Auror College, as he had wanted to do when he was younger, without creating a tremendous furore, and resentment among the senior Aurors and teachers and anyone who could see himself losing place or influence to the Boy Who Lived.

For similar reasons, not just expense, they had chosen to set up PearlGate Developments in the East End, as far as they could get from the wizarding centre of Diagon Alley without entirely leaving Old London behind. This abandoned warehouse might soon have been demolished, if Harry under Will Mason's tutelage had not spent two weeks infusing its support structure with magical strength. As it was, they lived almost secretly within a thriving Muggle community, some of whose members were surprisingly not at all ignorant about their world.

At least Harry's hated title didn't surface much these days, except on some anniversaries. This year the reports in the Daily Prophet tended to be further back in the newspaper as the wizarding world cheerfully forgot Harry, along with a good many other people whom the war had visibly cost more. Harry still displayed only one scar; the others, less physical, he would not have made public for the world.

Harry said abruptly, "When I was studying all those architecture texts over at Islington Library, planning the conversion of this place, I sometimes used to go and read other stuff. History of Science, that section was called."

"You discovered the scientific method, Harry?"

Her tone was only lightly mocking. She had much more congenial relations with the Muggle world, after all, and had been given much better teaching there as a child, too, as well as all the opportunity to study that summer holidays had afforded, all denied to Harry.

He grinned back at her. "Of course you'd know about it. I'd been trying to plan my Charms development work according to that sort of iterative, exhaustive approach, even before I knew it had a name, just as you'd like with your Potions work, and I don't get a lot of encouragement either. The whole idea seems to be a blank to the people who think I'm their unofficial apprentice, though Professor Flitwick would recognise it."

He added, "And your patron saint."

"Our former teacher, Harry. We never liked Snape when we were younger, but by the time we left we knew he was good. We didn't know how good. And he might not know the term 'scientific method', but he certainly practises it. It's astonishing how few of his students picked it up from him. As for the older Potions Masters - Harry, it's as if they think they're artists, dreaming things up as they fancy!"

"I don't suppose good artists are all that dreamy either, if we only knew."

More seriously he added, "We did the right thing, setting up our own business, instead of you going to work for St Mungo's, or the Dee hospital in Edinburgh, or me getting a job with the Department of Mysteries. We have to hang on to that independence, no matter how broke we go, or no one will listen to us or let us make any decisions at all, as they do with Ross Holly, in St Mungo's, who must have been one of Snape's best students ever."

"Ross is going mad, keeping them supplied with standard Potions, when he could simply supervise someone else in that work and spend more than half his time on development," she agreed. "It's a pity, but he has those sisters to look after. It's only being able to train Potions apprentices that keeps him sane. He's trapped, until someone else Snape trained, and who understood all his training, gets more influence there.

"I know, Harry. We're not all that broke, even if you insist on doing everything you can to this place yourself. I think you do it for fun, not just to save money."

She did not mention Harry's vault at Gringotts, nor the interesting artefacts it had proved to contain, as well as the more obvious heaps of galleons. She was determined he should not spend his inheritance on their business, beyond what this building had cost, and he was determined it should remain intact as a hedge against far worse financial weather than this.

Only half jokingly, she realised with a shock of surprise, he commented, "If you could get Snape to join us he'd be invaluable."

Did Harry truly mean he thought he could work with Snape? Each had behaved in a much more civilised way with the other as the war came closer, and then broke over them, learning to cooperate because they had to, to survive, learning to be polite because they no longer had the energy to waste sniping at each other. Battlefield brothers, though never better than opponents in the classroom.

She did not realise how clearly her sadness showed on her face. Her attitude to Snape, and his to her, had changed in her last two years at school too.

She shook her head. '"He'll never break away, Harry. He's convinced he owes Dumbledore too much."

"For exploiting him for twenty years," Harry said rather dryly. "He might never have thought of escape, but there's no reason you can't suggest it to him. We could give him an alternative, maybe more congenial (except for me being here) than a job as Potions Master at St Mungo's, or the Dee."

* * * *

Severus Snape looked over the rows of students scribbling with various degrees of desperation throughout the Great Hall, and thought without pleasure that at the end of this examination week he would be as close as he got to being a free man. No more NEWT or OWL level classes, and after another day or two all the students would go home, leaving him to the peace of the castle.

These holidays, he decided, he would try harder to sleep.

He had had time to sleep these last two years, since the Dark Lord had been defeated. He had had more time for solitary work with his beloved Potions, without direction either from that dead Lord or his living one.

The sleep had been broken by as many nightmares as ever. The fruits of his work were welcome neither to Albus Dumbledore, nor to St Mungo's, nor to the Department of Mysteries.

The Headmaster explained gently that it might be unfortunate if parents had word that their children's Potions professor concocted poisons in his spare time, when he might better be improving his lesson plans. Severus knew he was not the most sweet-tempered of teachers, and did not regret it; but he also knew his teaching was effective, for the few who could learn, and perhaps taught the others kitchen hygiene. His plans needed no additional work.

St Mungo's administrators expressed their shock that a man who had betrayed the wizarding world for so long should dare to try to win approval by fiddling about with known and sacrosanct recipes. How could anyone be expected to trust them, they asked with unnecessary drama, if he was known to be a Potions source. Severus took a little pleasure in coldly withdrawing his current services. The continuing backlash from the Healers he had supplied some rare potions for had not subsided yet.

The Department of Mysteries disapproved of his developing a prophylactic against any of the compulsion hexes. Just go on making Veritaserum for us and the Aurors and so on, there's a good fellow, and stop trying to upset people. Severus went back to Veritaserum, which, however tedious to make, was less painful for questioned prisoners than most other means of enquiry, as well as a more reliable opener of truth.

Severus had listened to this chorus of self-interest with considerable resentment, and settled for keeping Poppy Pomfrey's cupboards well stocked. Poppy had no objection to trying anything new he came up with. A few other acquaintances - he had few friends, and most of those were here, however he hated the place - were glad to be supplied, though those in Britain admitted they had to be cautious in using anything he had developed.

He also persisted with his experiments, knowing that a few independent-minded Healers and Ministry employees would test the end products out when he was satisfied they would help, not harm, and give him some crude feedback about their efficacy.

He wondered if death were the only way out of this closed circle of remorse and inability to redeem his past by contributing to the present.

It would be a defeat, but it might be an end.

Wizards, however, had no more information than Muggles about what happened after death. Severus feared he might choose to become a ghost rather than confirm that there was indeed a judgement to come, when he was not permitted to earn his way free of it save by teaching other people's ill-conditioned brats a subject they did not want to study and were in general incompetent to learn. Even existence as a ghost might be preferable to what he had now.

On the other hand, he could find himself haunting Hogwarts. There might be a certain grim pleasure in it for a little while, but Severus had had quite enough of being powerless. He did not need the absolute loss of power that came with being one of the ghostly dead.

Perhaps, as well as trying to learn to sleep properly, he should leave the castle this summer, rent some country cottage with a good kitchen, and experiment in true peace, without Albus twinkling at him over every meal.

* * * *

After the students left Severus did not follow up his tentative plan to get away, though he took long walks in the Forbidden Forest in the early morning and evening twilight, gathering potions ingredients. It was peaceful there, and he had an accommodation with the centaurs and the remaining werewolves.

During the day he worked steadily at rebuilding Poppy's stocks, as well as his own. At night, when the dreams forced him out of sleep and he could not face returning to all the ghosts that inhabited his head, whimpering and screaming, or the equally nightmarish hours asking himself what alternatives he could have chosen, he read, catching up on all the publications he had had to set aside during term time.

Albus apparently decided this wasn't good enough.

He said over breakfast, "Perhaps, Severus my boy, you need a real holiday, to leave Hogwarts for a while, to freshen up your spirit for the next year."

Severus wondered cynically what Albus wanted, and thought it would be nice not to be reminded that students, like the seasons, always returned to haunt him.

The Headmaster continued, "It might encourage you, to visit some of your former students who have done well. Take a little tour."

Like Phoebe Darrell, in her grave outside York, who had refused to brew potions for the Dark Lord. Everard Lightfoot, who had agreed, and had been tortured to death by an Auror who suspected those potions had murdered his family. Kester Lewthwaite, a consummate Slytherin, who might be running a successful family business in Diagon Alley, but who had joined the Death Eaters and died in the assault on St Mungo's.

Certainly Severus could take a tour. Graveyards, or memorial stones, were so cheering.

Albus had other ideas, reminding him of some of the survivors.

"Judith Crowley has a good position at the John Dee in Edinburgh. It's not St Mungo's, but it's well thought of. She was one of your earliest students, and one of your most promising. How long since you've seen her? She might have interesting ideas and experiences to share."

That was a relatively cunningly-laid bait. He hadn't seen Judith for about ten years, when she had been far more junior, and she had always done fine work.

"Or Chris Manning; he's in Birmingham, doing some interesting work on newspaper production." Albus reproved Severus's quick grimace with, "It's essentially Potions work, Severus: Applied Potions."

Severus supposed that was true, since Chris was working on paper composition, and variations in inks. He still wrote occasionally, apologetically seeking advice on some arcane issue.

"Then Evadne Sumter runs her own business in Cardiff. It involves more than Potions work, of course, but I'm sure you'd find it fascinating, seeing how what you taught them all can be used in different fields."

Did Severus see a theme here? Judith and Evadne were unmarried, and Chris was gay. Was Albus suggesting that a little sex on the side would quell his Potions master's perceived restlessness, enable him to settle back down in his harness?

As an experiment Severus said thoughtfully, "There's Miss Granger, too, an excellent student." He could not be comfortable saying 'Hermione'; he had not seen her since she had left school, and in his eyes was still his student, and quite untouchable.

He did not mention Draco Malfoy who, though not as good a student, could have become a respectable Potions Master. Draco was carefully not using anything he had learned at school, avoiding controversy and the Ministry's suspicious supervision as far as possible, keeping his slowly-healing father company, and striving to restore their estate and remaining businesses to prosperity. Albus never liked it when Severus slipped off quietly to visit the Malfoys, though he always seemed to know. Draco was not gay, as he made clear despite his heavy workload.

Albus pursed his lips, but the twinkle determinedly maintained itself.

"A little young, perhaps, Severus."

Right on the money.

Then Albus obscured the outcome by adding, "She has some promising plans, I understand, but has hardly had a chance to achieve much. But by all means go to see her too; I'm sure she would welcome a little guidance from you."

'Certainly,' Severus thought with curling lip. He hastily replaced that with an expression of bored indifference, even as he thought, 'A strong-minded young Gryffindor who knows her worth very well, a worth I never could acknowledge; of course she'd be pleased to see me.'

What was certain was that Albus would push this or another plan designed to get him out of the Headmaster's hair and bring him back docile before the end of summer. Severus had better go, somewhere, to avoid being persecuted with all the rigour of Albus Dumbledore's oppressive goodwill.

* * * *

He should never have gone to see Judith. He might have been able to continue thinking of her as a free Potions Master, happy and respected in her calling. She was certainly happy and respected, but her love of order had overtaken her love of experiment, and she contentedly maintained the flawless production of high quality potions for her hospital, without once thinking of how she might improve any, or create new.

She was no more interested in having sex with a stranger from her past than he was, but he had never taken that idea seriously, except as an indicator of the depth of Albus's concern for his own plans.

The visit to Chris was much happier. Chris had a partner, and a faithful temperament, and an enormous enthusiasm for the work he was doing for an employer who trusted him. The three of them spent a weekend talking, making visits to Chris's office and workroom at odd hours whenever Chris needed to demonstrate some practical matter. Severus was startled to be invited to meet Chris's employer to present some of the ideas he had come up with, discussing future developments as well as present problems. That took up another two days, and Severus enjoyed them even more.

He particularly relished discovering that someone who knew nothing of him save his wartime reputation would not only listen to him, but valued his ideas, not writing them off because of who and what he was, and intended to allow his employee to implement them. It was also good to know that Chris was not just happy but growing; he wished he thought more of his Slytherins were.

So. One week down. Did he want to visit Evadne, one of the rare good Slytherins, someone who used Slytherin principles to build up rather than tear down? He had not seen her in over seven years, and hesitated to find out what changes the war years and time and having her own way had made in her.

It might be more productive to follow up his own unmeant suggestion of going to visit Hermione Granger. She could remind him of how well he had earned the hatred not only of the wizarding world but also of several generations of students, even the good ones, when they were not Slytherins. Or Ravenclaws, he admitted to himself; they were easy enough to tolerate, when their interest was in Potions.

It took a little while to find out where she was. In the end it was Ross Holly - whom he knew to be gainfully employed but not very happy in it - who told him. Ross had that Ravenclaw brilliance, but a regrettable Gryffindor devotion to duty, doing his unpalatable job to support the sisters who had suffered because of the Dark Lord.

Severus told himself it was time he stopped thinking that kind of thing. There was no need to pretend to be a Death Eater any more, no need to take on protective coloration in attitudes uncomfortably close to those a deprived, unloved, resentful student had felt from his earliest days at Hogwarts and was still inclined to feel. He was supposed to be grown up now, even if he hadn't had much opportunity to grow in a well-rounded way. His lips twisted slightly at the image the words evoked. He knew how thin he was, despite the muscle in body and limbs that sheer self-preservation had required him to maintain.

Merlin. So Hermione Granger and Harry Potter had bought a warehouse in a still-poor area of London's Muggle East End with a view to making a joint living in the development of Potions and Charms. Not in Limehouse, despite the Chinese-sounding name they had chosen for their enterprise. PearlGate. Some private joke of Potter's, perhaps. In his later years at school, and certainly during the war itself, Potter had revealed an excellent grasp of charms, and not just practical, either. Miss Granger had rather earlier revealed her own broad-ranging skills; the curse she had laid on anyone who betrayed their little student army still amused him.

In the meantime, they were making rare and experimental potions on commission, using guaranteed pure materials, most of the plants from their own greenhouse on their roof. He hoped they kept the Disillusionment Charm up properly. No, of course they did. Both had extensive experience of precautions and protections.

How significant was it that they lived alone in the warehouse, together? Ross had said they were not a couple, but they were well-trained in evasion, too, and valued privacy. That, Severus told himself, was no concern of his.

He supposed Miss Granger would be willing to speak to him. Mr Potter might not, though they had been easy enough with each other, in a war comrade kind of way, during the last couple of terms of Potter's schooling.

* * * *

He found that Ross Holly had been before him. His polite Floo call to the address Ross gave him found Harry Potter answering. Severus grimly ignored the ache in his knees and his neck as he peered through the flames at a young man in unabashedly Muggle clothing which revealed a solider body than he remembered, who had a wooden spoon in his hand. He wasn't wearing his glasses. Remedying vision was extremely difficult; what had the boy done?

"Professor Snape!" Potter said, quite cheerfully. "Ross said you were in town. Did you want to speak with Hermione? She'd need to call you back, I'm sorry; she's knee-deep in a potion she can't leave."

Severus Snape heard himself saying, "I wondered if I might visit your establishment."

He added, as fair warning of complications, "Professor Dumbledore thought I should go to see how some of my former students were getting on."

That was definitely amusement on Potter's face.

"By all means. Come to lunch, and stay a while, if you don't mind talking with one or other of us while we work."

Potter added tentatively, "We could give you a bed for the night, if you liked; it can't be very comfortable where you are."

Ross had even told them where their former teacher was putting up. He had indeed chosen it to save money, but he did not set great store by elaborate hired accommodation; somewhere quiet and clean to try to sleep would suffice. Security he could attend to himself, and did, no matter where he was.

Potter must have seen him swithering. He retained that perception he had so painfully and belatedly acquired.

More confidently he offered a real invitation. "Pack your bags, come and stay a few days. Ross told you we have plenty of room? And we do have a decent spare bed. You'd have the entire first floor to yourself."

"Thank you."

Severus was still not sure, an hour later, as he paid his bill, why he had accepted.

* * * *

He took care to arrive at a considerate time: well before lunch, but not so early they should need to offer him other refreshments, or leave their work to do the pretty. Potter stood back from their fireplace, a hand ready to aid him if he stumbled, but the polished broad wooden boards were smooth under his feet.

Severus set his bag down - he had not bothered to shrink it, he always travelled light - and looked around quickly. Their kitchen.

He could not help saying disapprovingly, "Is this the Floo address you give everyone, in the heart of your home?"

Potter grinned at him in that irritating way he would probably never forget.

"We opened it for you; it's not usually available for travel for anyone except ourselves, though it's the most convenient for Floo talking."

That was better. He supposed there had to be some balance between security and convenience; Hogwarts leaned one way and most of the wizarding world the other.

Potter added, "Apparition is only possible with our conscious approval, and to a specific, warded, place."

Yes, they too, or Potter at least, were still on a war footing. Good.

"You're happy to wait until lunchtime to eat? Would you like a cool drink?"

It was a hot summer in the streets around Diagon Alley; Severus accepted a glass of pumpkin juice, and Potter poured himself one as well.

Potter showed him to a comfortable looking bed in a corner marked off by one half-wall and a curtain, with a view over the streets one storey below. He quickly showed Severus the amenities, including the old goods lift and the hair-raising circular iron staircase to the ground floor, before leading him up a much more handsome set of stairs. Severus brushed the polished wood banister approvingly. Housekeeping was not one of his interests outside Potions requirements, but he liked the way the handsome old wood showed.

"We slide down it; that helps to keep it polished."

Severus rolled his eyes. Once a student, always a student, evidently. Though that sounded a very practical approach.

Glasses in hand, they went up the stairs. As they passed each floor Potter outlined its use, but he did not offer to take Severus to Miss Granger's workroom. No doubt she was working, as the boy should be.

Then he found out what Potter was doing. On the roof, under its sheets of magically reinforced and supported glass, was the nursery Ross Holly had spoken of. A very respectable achievement for less than two summers' work. Potter tossed back the last of his drink then pulled on a canvas apron and fine but sturdy leather gloves.

Potter showed him the most interesting plants in the nursery, but as he went he used the various tools in the belt slung round his waist, clipping delicately here, nipping there.

"I've harvested the mandrakes," Potter said, "so there's nothing to be concerned about at present; later there'll be other hazards, but not just now."

He paused to adjust some Muggle instrument that seemed to direct water spray from above.

Severus realised that Potter ran this nursery, which promised with further development to be a Potions Master's resource as well as a Herbologist's working garden.

"I thought you were working on Charms development, or studying, at least?"

"I can think anywhere, and I might as well use my hands while I do it," Potter said, which suggested the war had done nothing but refine his ability to concentrate. He added, "I bought one of those quills you can dictate to, you know? Its writing is much better than mine; well worth its price."

Severus accompanied him as he did what was obviously an accustomed round; the quiet, the steadiness, the green smells were calming, and up here neither the Muggles nor their noisy business nor their transport imposed on his senses.

Later they sat for a little while in a comfortable corner, both watching three small red and white goldfish appear and disappear from under the leaves and single flower of a white water lily in a big yellow glazed bowl. That was hypnotically calming; he wondered that Healers didn't keep that kind of thing around.

Severus asked, "The Muggles don't bother you?"

Potter shrugged, "Like us, they're busy people. Of course they gossip, but there's nothing to gossip about here. Just a struggling young business, they know what that's like, though they don't know what we do."

He smiled. "I take our lawyer and a few other locals we've come to know the occasional present from the garden: salsify, just now; it's not easy to grow in the English climate without a greenhouse. It was strawberries earlier, and it'll be raspberries later. I grow more than we can use ourselves, and the goodwill is handy."

Severus nodded thoughtfully. Potter was carefully working the pair of them into the community, for added protection. Obviously they both understood how to manage Muggles, which was surprising now he knew what he did of Potter's desolate upbringing, even worse than his own. Perhaps Potter did not blame all of them for what his relatives had done, even though no one had ever tried to control them.

They lunched not in the kitchen, but at a long table set across a broad window looking over the street.

Miss Granger had been astonishingly pleased to see him, though after a blush or two she had contained it. He found himself very aware of her. Still only of medium height, still with self-willed curls flowing down her back, but a young woman, not a girl. That was more evident in attitude than in any physical change. She dressed plainly, and in Muggle clothing, like Potter, though much more conservatively than most of the people of her age he could see from their lunch table.

After lunch Potter retreated to his study and Miss Granger - whom he was now striving to call by her first name - took him to her workrooms and showed him round. She was right to be proud of them: clean, well-maintained, excellently designed, and sturdily constructed. That was the more obvious in that all the rooms in this building were created within the shell of space, rather than between existing walls. He discovered Potter had done most of the building work, and between them they were responsible for the design. A couple of parts of her preparation room could have been lifted from his; others were improvements he would long have been pleased to have.

Her workroom was what he could have made his, if it had not been set in form generations ago. Potions work did not change, a great deal, but wizards had acquired some conveniences from restless Muggle inventiveness. He particularly liked the tall-standing taps she could turn on and off without using her hands. He envied her having a sink everywhere one might be useful instead of in a single, somehow uniformly inconvenient, spot. The ceramic plates set into the worktables, on which she rested her cauldrons, were good: table surfaces roughened by burns inevitably caused spills. He also liked the clear, even lighting, and the silk scarf she tied firmly over her hair, offering him one too.

"Does Potter wear one of these, or does he not work with you here?"

He fingered the tight weave, wondering how useful it was.

"He wears it, just as he wears a mask, when necessary. We don't want our lungs damaged, or our eyes, by noxious vapours, and I see no need to ruin our hair either."

She added, "Muggle take much more stringent precautions when they're dealing with hazardous materials, but together we've worked up some reinforcing charms on the headscarves, and made the masks comfortable instead of desperately awkward, which is why so many Muggles hate wearing them."

That was a point, he acknowledged. He had washed his hair scrupulously this morning, having spent yesterday in Ross's large work area, naturally helping him, to be clean and tidy for this visit. He usually managed to keep his hair in a better state in the summers; in term time it invariably came to be too much like hard work, more extra trouble than he could be bothered to take. Miss Granger seemed to have decided on a policy, and to be sticking to it, even if its source was partly personal vanity that a man like him did not need to care about.

He wondered if her preventative measures were easier than the inadequate remedial measures he took, and remembered that Judith, Chris and Ross all took similar precautions. Perhaps he should discuss this with her. It might be something he should teach his students, along with hygiene and proper preparation procedures, which they could apply anywhere.

Right now, however, he was more interested in her current project.

They talked all afternoon, but tinkered with the actual potion very little, concentrating on making notes and exchanging parchments, after he had subjected her records to exhaustive and generally approving review. That approval surprised her.

He sympathised with her difficulties in getting approval for a full range of experiments. If he had not been working for both Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort, he would have faced similar difficulties. His masters had been more interested in results than in supervising his processes, or criticising his use of materials, either. Even so, many of his experiments had been clandestine.

* * * *

That night Potter took what seemed a real interest in the outcome of their afternoon's discussions, and later presented Severus with a problem of his own, apologetic as he seldom was, disclaiming any wish to take advantage of his good will.

The notion that he might be thought to have good will towards anyone made Severus smile derisively, but Potter's dilemma sounded interesting, so he brushed the apology aside firmly and plunged in. Hermione listened contentedly and very occasionally made a point. He did not need to talk about foolish wand-waving here; both of them appreciated the importance of potions. Charms had their place, and it was exhilarating to discuss a point of principle as he seldom could except with Filius or Minerva.

By the time they had a tentative solution in place, each was pleased with the other, and Hermione seemed pleased with both.

They went to bed late. Hermione told him that if he drew the curtains across his window, and the thick black curtain of his fourth wall, the early sun should not wake him, and that the noise from the street would not penetrate the window glass. Potter gave him the details of the charm, based on a standard privacy charm, saying that the particular application was his own. Severus thought he could use it to gain a little peace from his Slytherins, who could be as noisy as any other Hogwarts students, while still able to observe them; Potter offered it to him unasked.

Severus said, "You shouldn't be open-handed; charms development is your livelihood."

Potter shrugged. "The basis is public domain." Hastily he added, to clear Severus's frown of puzzlement, "Anyone can use it. The twiddle on it I did, anyone could."

"If they took the trouble, and adjusted it, and built into it the capacity to adjust it to other situations. Get into the habit of charging, Potter, and charge high, so that people value your work."

Potter asked dryly, "As you do?"

He shrugged. "Money isn't very important, and that's all I'm given. It's different for you; you're trying to build, here."

Hermione put in decidedly, "You should be given respect, and gratitude. Does no one?"

He shrugged again. "Some Healers at St Mungo's and the Dee are definitely grateful, and recommend others to come to me for help, but since I have to deal with them through the hospital administrators that makes little difference."

"You don't have to go on doing so." She leaned forward, her brown eyes brilliant.

"I don't, now; I told them -" A little ashamed of the emotion he had brought to that confrontation, he revealed, "I told them to take their contracts and burn them on the end of their wands, and then where to put the wands."

Potter laughed, though Hermione tried to look prim.

"I meant," she explained, "that you need a different sort of contract. Like the ones we have. Most St Mungo's Healers have to have the hospital pay for what they need, of course, and approve its development. Our lawyer explained, though, how very important it was for us not to make contracts with anyone but the Healers. They could then do all the bargaining and accounting with their administrators themselves, instead of dumping it on us."

"On you," Potter put in.

"Yes, well, that's what we do. It means I can concentrate on work, not paperwork. If a Healer wants something from me, he or she has to pay for it personally in some way. It means they have to really want something, not just to fancy how nice it might be to have it, and lose interest part way through."

Severus contemplated that. Then he asked, "Would you introduce me to your lawyer? Some Healers would be happy for me to continue working up what they want, even on those terms, I believe. I swore I would never deal with those office workers again."

Hermione warned, "He's a Muggle."

He stared. "You've told a Muggle -"

That breach of security was breathtaking.

"No, no." She was shaking her head, understanding fully. "Harry would never let me do that, even if I was so careless as to think of doing it. No. Mr Howard's grandmother is a Squib. She married out, and none of her children or grandchildren has magic, but she told them about the wizarding world, and swore them to secrecy. I don't know how my father found out - maybe he didn't, perhaps it was just luck Daddy chose to send us to him - but he knows very well magic exists. He doesn't ask rude questions, and we've given him no details."

Potter put in, "The contracts say nothing of magic, or potions, or specific ingredients. Reproduced on paper instead of parchment, they could be shown in any Muggle court or ministry and rouse no curiosity. You wouldn't need to see Mr Howard, if you didn't want to; we could copy a blank contract for you to use. He might have some useful suggestions, though. You, after all, are an established Potions Master of great, and widely-known, skill. He might help you to make a better bargain, or terms that suit you better than ours would."

He scowled. "Don't mock, boy."

Potter stared. Then he said, "How completely are you immersed in teaching at Hogwarts that you don't know that? Have you never dealt except through administrators?"

Severus muttered, "The Dark Lord agreed developing potions for Healers made a good secondary cover for my working for him, but if he had changed his mind - I couldn't risk exposing them to danger. He might have decided to dispose of them to erase all knowledge of what I did."

"And I suppose Professor Dumbledore didn't want you to deal with them directly either?" Potter challenged.

"He didn't like my doing Potions development for anyone else but him and, of course, the Dark Lord. He said I should concentrate on my duties as a spy and as a teacher. So no, he never gave me any help with that either."

What a relief to be able to say that, to acknowledge that Albus had never given him anything that did not support his own aims.

Hermione said with alarming briskness, "All that can stop, now. While you're here in London, why don't you take the initiative away from them? Make contracts on a new, more equitable basis, to do the things you do best? You're not a spy now; you have no duties, beyond teaching, except to yourself."

He sank back in his armchair, the enthusiasm they had whipped up deflating.

"I owe too many debts. I've done too much, allowed too much, for it to be right to take what I want just for myself."

Hermione evidently planned to argue that, but Potter reached out to touch her hand, and she fell silent.

Potter said calmly, "There's no harm in exploring it, though. After all, those Healers want your services back, and you owe the administrators no favours. It's hardly self-indulgence to go back to creating special potions for hospital use."

The boy should have been in Slytherin. As if that was a new thought. As usual, however, what he said made sense from a Slytherin point of view as well as a Gryffindor's.

"I'll think about it. Thank you." He rose. "You both have work to do in the morning, I mustn't keep you up all night."

He wouldn't get much sleep, despite their kindly precautions for the comfort of their guests, but with them sleeping two floors higher at least he wouldn't disturb them. They had given him something to consider while he lay awake, holding back the nightmares.

* * * *

TBC