Idyll

Idyll

Afterwards, Snape was to wonder frequently what exactly had gone wrong with the timeturner. Unfortunately he had no way of ever finding out, and the question was therefore destined to irk him (as far as anything in his now extremely contented existence was able to irk him) for the rest of his life. All he would ever be certain of was that one moment he was reaching to pick up the timeturner which some tiresome fool of a student appeared to have left on one of the desks in his classroom, the next he found himself hurled abruptly through time and deposited unceremoniously in the middle of flowerbed.

"Damn," Snape said, spitting out a mouthful of earth. He wondered if he was dead, and (being a man who rarely cherished illusions) looked gloomily around for a vision of James Potter with horns and a tail to appear and begin taunting him about the state of his hair whilst prodding him sporadically with a red-hot pitchfork.

But he was distracted from these semi-concussed musings by the arrival of a pair of feet clad in old-fashioned leather boots, and looking up, saw towering over him a face that almost made him expire from pure shock. It was - impossibly yet unmistakably - the face of Salazar Slytherin: pureblood, school founder, greatest and most effortlessly stylish of Hogwarts' four, and at that moment sporting a pair of gardening gloves and a murderous expression. He had, Snape noticed vaguely, a rather nice moustache.

"You've just ruined my daffs, you clumsy oaf!" the apparition yelled, in a voice which when not shrill with rage must have been attractive and cultured and at the same time endearingly sinister. At the moment, however, it was none of these things, and the throbbing in Snape's head became steadily worse. Realising suddenly that he was still flat on his back, Snape hauled himself painfully into a sitting position and looked bewilderedly about him. He discovered that he was sitting in a well-kept little garden, amongst the wreckage of something which might possibly at one time have been an impressive bed of daffodils. Not that he had ever really known much about gardening.

"But - how - who - where...?" Snape sputtered, before trailing feebly off. Stop babbling, he told himself severely. Pretend that landing head first in plots of earth is part of accepted wizard etiquette. "My apologies, sir," he said at last, with a good imitation of haughtiness. "It was an accident, I assure you."

The man snorted. "Really."

"I was deposited here against my will. I think it was a defective timeturner. Or a particularly blatant plot device. Or a hellish combination of the two."

"Indeed?" the stranger said, with what Snape (an expert in fifty one different types of irony) instantly recognised as expert sarcasm. "A likely tale, I must say."

"You're Slytherin, aren't you?"

"Who's asking?"

"My name is Severus Snape, and I was - am - will be - in your house at Hogwarts, back in my time," Snape said eagerly, standing up and brushing soil off his robes. "I was Head of it, actually."

Perhaps it was the state of Snape's robes, or the spectacular smudge of dirt across his face (to which he was happily oblivious), but Salazar Slytherin did not look particularly impressed by this revelation. On the contrary, he assumed exactly the kind of sneer which would by Snape's century have become such a blatant cliché on the death eating circuit. Watching him, Snape realized without surprise that the man resembled like a forty-year-old, slightly more rugged version of Tom Riddle, whose picture (decked, for some inexplicable reason, in flashing green fairy lights) he had seen hanging in Malfoy manor on more than one occasion.

"And what time is this, then?" Salazar demanded pugnaciously, when he had exhausted the sneer. His tone suggested that any era where Snape would become Head of Slytherin House was bound to be one of degeneracy, chaos, suffering and rich food. And Snape, thinking of the Hogwarts he had just left behind him, could not find it in his heart to disagree.

"About a thousand years in the future, I think," he replied.

To Snape's surprise, Salazar's expression immediately brightened.

"Ah, you'll have met my heir, then!" he exclaimed, looking almost childishly pleased. "I think he'll be in business around then. So what's he like? Does he resemble me? Has he killed anyone?"

"Your heir?" Snape repeated, struggling to remember. The Heir of Slytherin. He had a bad feeling about that title ... as if it was somehow associated with pain and misery and soul-crushing guilt and polystyrene masks which made it infuriatingly difficult to breathe, and ... ah. That was it. He rubbed his left forearm thoughtfully.

"He's alright," Snape said feebly. "Healthy, and all that."

"Gifted?"

"Very."

"Handsome?"

"...To begin with."

"Psychopathic?"

"In the nicest possible way."

"Has he purged the school of all unworthy to study magic?"

An image of Neville Longbottom appeared in Snape's mind's eye. "Not really, I'm afraid."

"I expected as much." Salazar looked suddenly serious. "Rowena said I'd be wasting my time. Smug cow. Anyway, enough of such gloomy topics. How did you say you got here?"

Snape sighed, glad to move away from the dangerous subject of Salazar's gifted and charming descendent. "Well this is the timeturner that -" At this point he reached into his pocket for the object in question, only to draw out a handful of glass shards and sand in its place. "Oh. Bugger."

"Looks like I'm stuck with you, then," Salazar said, suddenly looking remarkably sanguine about the situation.

"You what?" said Snape, briefly abandoning any pretence at articulacy or comprehension.

Slytherin shrugged. "Well, since you're from my house, I suppose it's only common decency for me to take you in. You'd never survive on your own - this century would eat you alive, quite frankly."

Snape twitched defensively. "I am a perfectly capable wizard, thank you very much. I can look after myself."

Slytherin shrugged again, with a grin that Snape made a note to find irritating at a later date, once he had got over the shock of someone actually smiling at him without malice. "No offence, but you look a bit of a pansy to me. I mean, look how clean you are, for a start. You'd stick out like a sore thumb. Or like an uninjured thumb next to nine sore fingers. Or something."

Snape glared venomously at him, before realizing that the man was actually in earnest. Bad with metaphors, but clearly in earnest.

"But - me - don't - can't...what?" he said, in a miserable effort at coherence. The epithet of clean had thrown him more thoroughly than a punch in the stomach. Snape had been labelled many things in his relatively short, frequently painful and ridiculously complicated life, but clean had never previously been one of them. It was an oddly pleasant experience, he thought confusedly. Standards of hygiene had clearly been much lower a thousand years ago. Without thinking he sat down in the flowerbed again.

"I bet you washed your hair less than two months ago," Slytherin continued accusingly, ignoring the interruption. "And you have all your own teeth."

"Mmm," said Snape thoughtfully, staring up at him. Both facts were undeniable. "I'm not really famed for my dedication to personal hygiene, though, back at home. Most of them there think of me as an ugly bastard, I believe."

Apparently too overcome to consider the likely affect the soil would have on his immaculate green velvet robes, Slytherin sat down beside Snape in the flowerbed, his expression sceptical. "You're telling me that a man of your radiant good looks is considered ugly? That someone of your stunning cleanliness could be regarded as unattractive? Do you take me for a fool? A fool with a sight defect? Well? Well? Is that what you think?"

"No," Snape replied hastily, feeling somewhat less pale than usual. He was not used to being described as good looking. Or being barraged by so many rhetorical questions at once. "I'm not lying. It's true. Most people find me aesthetically offensive. Something about my nose, apparently."

"Really?" Salazar said again, looking at him in surprise. "Your nose?" And as if it was the most natural thing possible, he pulled off one of his earth-stained gloves, and ran a couple of long fingers lightly over Snape's nose, before tweaking it gently. At which point only a great deal of self-control prevented the astonished Snape from emitting an inappropriately high-pitched noise. And he was not given to making high-pitched noises, as a rule. The prospect rather unnerved him.

"I think it's rather distinguished, personally." Salazar said thoughtfully. "Aquiline. The people in your time must have peculiar notions of beauty. But that's all the more reason for you to stay here with me, I suppose."

I am sitting in a flowerbed in the eleventh century discussing my personal charms with Salazar Slytherin, Snape told himself dazedly. The world had apparently done what it had been threatening to do since his school days, and gone completely mad. But it could have been worse, he supposed: after all, it was sixth year Gryffindors and Slytherins today, and if he was inexplicably absent then Dumbledore would have to teach his first class in twenty years...

"Why...why aren't you at Hogwarts, anyway?" Snape asked Salazar finally, more because the man insisted on staring at him in perfect silence, than out of any particular interest. "Aren't you meant to be founding it, or something?"

"I left," Salazar said simply. "As you ought to remember, professor. Your knowledge of the past is clearly abominably shaky. We'll have to remedy that, once you move in. I'm sure there's a lot I can teach you about history. Amongst other things..."

This time the ridiculous sound (something between the squeak of a door hinge and the noise a cat is reputed to make when its tail is stepped on) managed to escape Snape's mouth before he could prevent it. Damn, he thought, uncomfortably aware that he was blushing furiously. Perhaps he was concussed, Snape told himself. Yes that was it - he was bleeding internally, and Salazar - ignorant, olden-day, sexily-moustached prat that he was - would probably be none the wiser until his guest keeled over dead in the flowerbed. The depressing thing was that this scenario would still be more welcome than the day of teaching Snape had anticipated when he had awoken that morning. Salazar said nothing, but treated his companion to the kind of smirk had been passed down amongst generations of Slytherins bent on nefarious activities like a family heirloom, and an evil family heirloom at that. (But this must the original, Severus thought wildly).

"Go on," Snape said with difficulty. Slytherin resumed his explanation, the ghost of a smile hovering around his mouth:

"I had a bit of a fall out with Godric; there was some friction over a bathrobe and a secret chamber and stuff - long story. So I thought I'd come live in the country and spend the rest of my life studying and growing vegetable marrows. It seemed the only logical thing to do."

"Marrows?" Snape repeated incredulously. He was disappointed. There was nothing sinister or glamorous about vegetable marrows. They were the Hufflepuffs of the vegetable world. (Although as far as intelligence went they were probably rather superior to their human counterparts, he reflected wryly).

"Those big vegetable things that taste of water?" Snape demanded, in case he had made a mistake and Salazar was using some kind of bizarre olden-day euphemism.

"That's the point," Slytherin replied earnestly, his eyes lighting with the ardency of a true fanatic (an intense expression suited him, Snape thought. He must have looked remarkably attractive when denouncing muggle-borns to the other three founders). "That's what people never seem to grasp: they don't have to taste of water. Properly grown, they ought to be delicious, packed with flavour. Look, you can stay and help me, if you like. It does get a bit lonely here." Looking suddenly pensive, he gestured around him at the surrounding green and idyllic countryside, and the picturesque cottage which was the only dwelling in sight. "And I have an enormous library," he added flirtatiously.

"But..." Snape began. Granted this was the Slytherin, the only man he had ever met who might possibly be able to out-sneer him (for Snape had defeated Lucius Malfoy in a marathon four day sneering contest back in 1987, much to the aristocrat's eternal chagrin), as well as being intelligent, well-spoken, and ... not unattractive, Snape supposed, if he was to be honest with himself. But what of duty, honour, the struggle against evil? What of the ten galleons which Dumbledore had borrowed from him last week and had yet to return?

"I have first editions..." Salazar murmured temptingly. For Snape, he could not have chosen four more seductive words in the whole of the English language (which, given the ease of their communication, had apparently not altered at all since the tenth century, Beowulf be damned). Snape felt a sudden rush of excitement. First editions. New. Untouched. All his, his... he was filled with a sudden lust to open, read, deflower, make rude pencil notes in the margin to annoy twentieth century scholars...

"I - " He was certain there was a very good reason why he should refuse, although at the moment he was damned if he could think of it. Under Salazar's intense, grey-eyed scrutiny, he was finding it difficult to think of anything much at all. "Aren't you evil, or something? Didn't you leave that big snake...thing...at Hogwarts?"

Slytherin shrugged. "Nobody's perfect. At least I don't snore. And a true relationship is built on mutual acceptance, I always think."

They were standing very close together, and before he realised it Snape found himself nodding his assent. "I quite agree with you," he said softly. Which was madness, Snape thought, because he was Severus Snape after all, and agreeing with people - like gardening, and falling in love - was something he simply didn't do.

Slytherin smiled at him, a trace of mischief visible in his eyes (and he really did have an incredibly nice moustache, Snape thought, struggling desperately to suppress a ludicrous and completely uncharacteristic surge of euphoria.) "Well, let's try and sort these daffodils out, then."

*

Snape's mysterious disappearance was received with puzzlement and relief amongst the student body as a whole. The most popular sentiment amongst teachers and pupils alike appeared to be good riddance, Dumbledore noted sadly, as he listened to Filch complain at length about the huge number of champagne corks littering the school corridors recently. Dumbledore himself rather missed Snape: he had been fairly amusing, in his way. No one else was quite so entertaining whilst apoplectic with rage. And poor Harry was at a loss without someone amongst the staff to serve as a hate figure. (Perhaps Fudge could be persuaded to take up the Defence against the Dark Arts post? Or could Flitwick be prevailed upon to drastically alter his image?) Worst of all, the loud parties everyone insisted on throwing to celebrate the event had kept Dumbledore awake for the past three nights in a row. But whilst its side-effects were inconvenient, the affair itself did not baffle him. Being omniscient, Dumbledore was rarely baffled by anything.

He had discovered the volume in the library the day after Snape's departure, lying on a table as if waiting for him. It was bound in battered green leather and was titled Ye Olde Book of Most Ancient History and Stuff. Opening it at random, his eye fell on a passage which seemed somehow important:

And Gryffindor did take the bathrobe of Slytherin for his owne, for he was sore enamoured of its fluffy green softnesse. And Slytherin did becomme wrathful, and did leave a basilisk in the schoole as a pranke. And thenne it was that this same Slytherin didde leave Hogwarts forthwith, and did retreat to the countryside where he didde devote himself to the study of marrows. And withe him went a companion, knowne by somme as Severus the overwhelmingly attractive, on account of his most strange and mysterious clenlinesse and fairness of face (especially his nose, whiche was moste distinguished), and though many soughte the hand of this same manne, he would have nonne but Slytherin, and these two didde live together in happinesse until the end.

And onne his gravestone, this Severus didde have inscrybed these moste mystick wordes:

Enjoy the war, you fools, and good riddance. Dumbledore can have my books, and Lucius my shoe collection. Oh, and Potter, you may be a thousand years away, but you're still a tedious little brat and I hope something heavy falls on your head in the near future. Farewell to you all.

At this point Dumbledore's laughter became so loud that had he not been headmaster, he would certainly have been thrown out of the library for disruptive behaviour.