How I Spent My Spring Holidays, By Prof. Severus Snape

Chapter Ten: Salazar Slytherin's Bling

Veronica's long fingernails dug into my wrist as she shifted my hand from her waist to her left shoulder. "Uncle Albus," she asked casually, "Am I right in assuming my surveillance job at Spinner's End's over now?"

"Yes, my dear," Dumbledore replied as he picked his way uncertainly through the snow towards his brother.

Fixing me with an unfriendly look, Veronica muttered, "That means I can stop pretending to fancy you."

"So, you're part of the Dumbledore clan, then?" I asked.

She tossed her hair. "I'm Aberforth's great-granddaughter."

"And you're also a member of the Order of the Phoenix?" She nodded mutely. "In addition," I continued, "you appear to be an unregistered Animagus - I assume, when you're not behind the bar at The Jockey, you're the Molloy family's pet -" He smile indicated that I had guessed correctly. I went on, "And you have obtained a wizarding education without ever attending a proper school of magic... Is there anything else I should know about you? Your middle name, for instance?"

"It's Mariah-Suzanne," she said curtly. "But you're wrong about me not getting an education. I was an exchange student at The Salem Witches' Institute."

"Just as I feared," I snapped. It was mortifying. The shame could scarcely be borne. Eight months of my life, my longest lasting intimate relationship, had been wasted with an abominable Mary Sue!

Dumbledore had traversed the mound of snow and was now arguing with Aberforth. "Great-granddad hates to leave a bowling match half-finished," Veronica explained irritably. Fortunately, it did not take the bearded, old nutters long to reach an agreement. Soon they stood side by side, ready to depart, and I braced myself to Disapparate with Veronica.

But then, "Oh no! Wait!" Dumbledore exclaimed. He pulled a small Moke skin moneybag from the violet folds of his robes. "I should first make sure the present is safe," he explained, stuffing the large shoe box into the small purse (which naturally, given its Moke skin construction, immediately shrank back to its original size). "Actually," he held the moneybag out to Veronica, "maybe you should carry it. Aberforth's landings tend to be on the bumpy side." She pocketed it.

Closing my eyes, I heard a faint POP, felt the air squeeze out of my lungs and noticed my nostrils pinch shut. When I reopened my eyes, I observed that the Dumbledore brothers were entangled in a Venomous Tentacular vine. The vine was half obscured by the long, afternoon shadows cast by a tumbledown shed - my shed! Wormtail's slippered feet and thin ankles protruded from the broken door. I was standing in my own back yard.

"This is where I leave you," Veronica said coldly.

"Absolutely," I agreed. "As a casual bit of Muggle tottie you had possibilities. But now that I know you're a witch... well, as a consort for a wizard..." I paused briefly, wondering whether to spare her feelings, but then saw no reason to. "You must realise that we Slytherins have standards you could not meet," I explained.

"Standards!" she sputtered. "Is that what you call it? Uncle told me all about your Slytherin standards - how he asked you to follow your conscience, and you tried to murder him -"

"Of course I did," I hissed. "It was him or me - I told him as much. I warned him not to take me for granted, but he never could understand my ambitions. Did he expect me to die for him like some benighted house-elf? I haven't survived the war this long by clinging to idiotic precepts like loyalty and selflessness."

"And that's your ambition, is it?" she sneered. "To merely survive? So when the apocalypse is over, what then? I suppose you'll crawl out of your foul little viper's nest," she waved her hand at my home, "and inherit the earth?"

"Naturally," I drawled.

Dumbledore thundered, "DIFFINDO!" and finally freed Aberforth's beard from the writhing herbage. The brothers approached us. "Severus," Dumbledore said apologetically, "I'm afraid Aberforth is insisting that you return his wand at once. He wants to go back to the Hog's Head, and he will need his wand to mix drinks with."

Handing the sticky wand over, I advised, "If you expect me to keep doing magic, you'll need to find me another. My own wand's inside, but I dare not use it."

"Ah, yes. The Ministry." Dumbledore understood my dilemma at once. His ice-blue gaze shifted from me to Veronica. "My dear," he began, "if you would be so good as to lend Severus your wand for a short while."

"I want it straight back," Veronica said in a disgruntled voice, while she waved goodbye to her great-grandfather. "And I'm not taking my eyes off him when he's got it." Reluctantly, she produced a stubby wand from the front pocket of her hooded jacket, and gave it to me without meeting my eye. She also took out Dumbledore's moneybag.

The old wizard rummaged in the bag to find the shoe box. He first pulled out a tiny, delicate green glass bottle, which he lay in the blackened palm of his crippled hand and turned over sadly. "Dobby's potion," he remarked softly. "There's still a small dose left." He gave the bottle to Veronica to hold and, after extracting several Sickles, three sherbet lemons, a blue crayon and a bus ticket, found what he was looking for.

"Reeboks Classics," Veronica said approvingly. "Proper stylie! But d'you think Draco will really fall for it?"

"Fall for what?" I wanted to know. "Dumbledore, I can appreciate that you prefer to remain enigmatic, but since you are entering my home I demand to know what is going on. I warn you that Draco's mother and his aunt take an ongoing interest in the brat's welfare. They will notice, eventually, if you harm him."

"I wouldn't dream of harming Draco," Dumbledore said, tucking his moneybag into the folds of his robes and the shoe box up one of his loose sleeves. "The opposite, in fact - I hope to place him firmly on the path to redemption. There is a great deal of good in that boy, you know. For instance, when faced with the choice of killing a man or not, Draco actually chose to refrain from murder." He glared at me over his half-moon glasses.

"He needs to be ready, though," Veronica said cautiously. "He's only been watching the television for eight months."

"The televisum?" I asked, totally perplexed. "What's the televisum got to do with it?"

"Everything," Dumbledore replied. "It is a highly effective magical weapon."

I turned on Veronica. "You told me your mate Shireen got that device from a drunken Ukranian lorry driver!"

"And what I neglected to tell you," the woman explained, "is that after Shireen gave it to me, and before I sold it to you, I placed a Stupefaction Spell on it. Every day that Draco watches the television, he gets a little dimmer. Didn't he seem a bit thick to you lately?"

"I thought it was a natural mental state for a youth who spent his days that way," I answered.

"I plan to strike a bargain with Draco," Dumbledore said confidently as he walked up the path to my kitchen door. "If Draco is tractable, the bargain will be easier to reach. But if he is not easily managed, I will still do my best to be persuasive. We must ensure that he gives the locket freely, because I don't relish the prospect of triggering the Thief's Curse that Bellatrix has placed on it."

In two long strides I overtook Dumbledore, reached across him and grabbed the handle of the door before he turned it. "Locket?" I snarled. "The Horcrux locket - the one you were hunting for all last year? There isn't any locket here, you old fool! Don't you think I would've noticed a gold locket with Slytherin's mark just lying about my own house?"

"Severus, I would have expected even you to have had that much perception," he replied evenly. "But I happen to know, from a long and often distasteful series of interviews with Mundungus Fletcher, that the locket is no longer as it once was. Dung stole the treasure from right under our noses. It was gathering dust in the drawing room cabinet at Grimmauld Place at the very time that the Order used that address as our headquarters. However, once Dung took it he could find no market for so unostentatious a piece of jewellery. So he transfigured it into a large pendant of a jewel encrusted clown." Dumbledore craned his neck and peered into the cobwebbed kitchen window, before continuing in a low voice, "Alas, Bellatrix still recognised the Horcrux for what it was. She purchased the pendant from Dung, protected it with a particularly vicious curse, and included it in the bundle of Malfoy family heirlooms that Narcissa sent to Draco."

"You've seen Draco wearing that fugly clown, haven't you?" Veronica asked. She flashed a superior smile.

"He never takes it off," I responded through gritted teeth.

Dumbledore brushed my hand aside and turned the door handle decisively. "So now," he said bracingly, "we go in search of Salazar Slytherin's bling!"

Following him into my gloomy kitchen, I sensed at once that something was amiss. The kitchen sink had been filled with dozens of empty Muggle beer bottles and the table was totally obscured by Muggle pizza boxes. Two of Wormtail's rodent friends were nibbling on the oily cardboard. There was also a peculiar smell of tobacco mingled with something else (reminiscent of scorched Gurdyroot) wafting from the sitting room. Looking through the open door into that room, I noticed that Draco was seated in my armchair with his back to us. But in addition I saw three oddly dressed young men sitting on my sofa, having an animated conversation in a foreign tongue. Dumbledore seemed supremely unperturbed by the unauthorised meeting taking place in my home.

He walked straight in, smiling broadly. Then he lifted his uninjured hand in a gesture of welcome and announced formally, "Respect."

A plump, red faced teenager was perching on the arm of the sofa. His jaw dropped, sending half-eaten crisps spilling onto the front of his white, satin running suit. Then he said, "Bo, bo, bo - D-mal, who's da coffin dodger?"

Draco swung around, nearly unseating himself. "Dumbledore!" he gasped.

"It's good to see you again, Draco," Dumbledore said sincerely.

A stringy boy (who was wearing a Burberry-checked peaked cap and enough gold to turn a Niffler rabid) dragged on a cigarette and looked Draco up and down. "Dumbledore? Dat's the same name as da geezer what you sparked out, innit?"

"Oho," Dumbledore replied (Draco being too flabbergasted to speak), "rumours of my being sparked out are grossly exaggerated."

The third youth, who was swarthy and sporting sunglasses, even though the room was solely lit by the grey tinge of the televisum, pointed at me accusingly. "An' didn't you tell us that greasy minger was goin' to be gone for a couple of days?"

I was about to reply sharply when Veronica nudged me in the ribs and hushed me. She brushed past, sauntering into the sitting room with the air of somebody in familiar company. "What's the crack, Bling-bling Ben?" she asked. She stopped in front of the stringy boy and cadged a puff of his cigarette, which he offered freely. I often observed when I was out with Veronica that she was on friendly terms with half the young men living in the Chatsworth Estate.

Bling-bling Ben leered at her. "We's jus' havin' it large at D-Mal's place, since turnin' over da West Mill End cru this afternoon. They was dissin' Davey J.'s Austin Metro, so we raged on 'em royally."

Veronica lifted an eyebrow and said idly, "Paddy Maguire's in the West Mill End crew, isn't he?"

"For real," Bling-bling Ben concurred. "I ribbed him proper."

"Just seen him down The Jockey," Veronica said, "with your Julie on his knee."

At this news (which I must confess, I barely comprehended) Draco's three associates flew into a fit of anger, kicking over my sitting room table. They resolved to leave at once and seek out young Mr Maguire at the local public house.

"Draco," I said sternly, "you are to stay here."

For once the boy did not argue with me. The reappearance of Dumbledore seemed to unsettle him greatly, and he scarcely said a word to his friends as they stormed out the front door.

After they departed, Dumbledore sat in the middle of the sofa and pulled the shoe box from his sleeve. Draco, still ashen with shock, eyed the box avidly. "You know what these are, don't you?" Dumbledore asked the boy.

"Yeah," he answered.

"They could be yours," Dumbledore promised, "if you are willing to meet my price."