New Blood

NEW BLOOD

by Silverfish ~:

II.

"It's just a shame, is all," Daniel was saying as he sipped at the hot contents of his mug. "Nothing is like I know it should be."

Severus Snape was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped up on the corner of his desk. If any of his fellow faculty members had seen him thus arranged, they'd probably drop dead on the spot of shock, and even their ghosts wouldn't be able to equate the vision of a very relaxed Snape having an indepth conversation with a simple non-magic Muggle. To be honest, Snape himself was quite surprised with the ease with which he and Daniel had hit it off, since most people in his life had been nothing but either irritants or dangerous bullies to ridicule him. Perhaps it was Daniel Deschamps' general personality, which was a mixture of patient calmness and a leaning towards the macabre for topics of conversation. More likely, however, was the fact that the rest of the faculty wasn't too keen on him, a point with which Snape could most wholly relate to concerning himself.

He'd never had any experience in his life with non magic Muggles, so Daniel was again a bit of an oddity in this respect, and Snape couldn't help but find his curiosity aroused, especially when Daniel dared to suggest that certain things in the Muggle world were better than in this Wizard universe. Things like coffee, which Daniel was bitterly missing and talking about now.

"You see, the trouble with making a good brew is that it is a very exact science. You cannot use anything but well filtered water, to get rid of extra impurities and minerals which do affect the flavour. The grounds must be grown in good soil, in a sunny, warm climate--never damp--roasted twice before grinding, (however, the best ,of course, come from those beans which *haven't* been ground before hitting the store shelves) hand picked to ensure all beans with blight or improper maturation have been discarded..."

Snape shook his head, disbelieving him. "I can't see how such an imperfect and dare I say, overly long and complicated method can make a better cup of coffee than what the house elves create here at Hogwarts."

Daniel made a face and poured himself another cup of Snape's 'coffee' into a gnarled mug. The way he usually took it was automatically assigned, complete with milk and sugar and scorching hot. He'd been having this particular brew for the past few days now as he'd made Snape's acquaintance, and much as he wouldn't want to admit it, Snape was beginning to enjoy this imposition on what used to be his half an hour of solitude. He'd even gone through the trouble of visiting the house elves himself, and insisting on the brew's creation exactly as Daniel had described it the first time to him, but clearly new instructions would have to be given.

His companion was not happy with Snape's dismissal of his concern. He put the mug down roughly on Snape's desk, sloshing a bit of its contents onto the wood. Snape frowned at it, and wondered if it would leave a ringed stain. Daniel got up and grabbed a large bottle off of one of Snape's shelves, a collection of lizard eyes that swirled around and got a good look at everything as Daniel slammed the bottle on the desk next to his cup of coffee. He leaned on his palms as he clutched the edge of the desk, glaring down all the while at Snape with navy eyes tinged with steel. "You're always telling me how Potions are an exact science," Daniel said. "You have to measure out everything exactly as the potion instructs, am I right?"

"Of course," Snape said, annoyed with Daniel's seeming anger. "Disaster could result if I didn't!"

Daniel sighed and shrugged his right shoulder. He nodded at the jar of eyes. "So, it would be fair to say that if you needed something for your potion, something like a lizard's eye perhaps, all you would have to do is reach into this jar and take out an eye and toss it into a cauldron."

Snape couldn't see the point of this argument. His feet left their comfortable propped up position on the edge of his desk and his posture was now significantly stiffer. He didn't look at Daniel, and he crossed his arms as he said, "Of course, if that's what the potion called for."

"Aha!" Daniel shouted, nearly toppling Snape from his seat with the sudden outburst. He pushed the jar of eyes further onto Snape's desk, pointing out with a quill pen the various eyes swimming about within it. "Are they all the exact same size?"

Snape scoffed, and pushed the jar away. "Of course not."

Daniel pushed the jar forward again, pointing at the eyes with the tip of his quill. The eyes swam in circles and followed it in curiosity. "In my world," he said. "The size, the colour, the shape, the age, the familial line of lizards these eyes came from--all of these things would have to be taken into account to receive as accurate a result as possible. One one hundredth of a difference in any of those things could drastically affect the outcome of any experiment or finding." Daniel gave Snape a lopsided grin. "Seems to me, magic is the more imperfect method if such things aren't important. 'Exact science' indeed."

"Your prejudices hardly explain why you feel the need to debase my career and my life over a cup of coffee," Snape angrily replied.

"I'm not holding any prejudice at all," Daniel said. He picked up the jar a bit more carefully than before and placed it on the shelf he had found it. "I'm merely the stating the obvious facts." The eyes followed him as he sat down in his chair, some circling and dashing within the murky green liquid they lived in to get a better look. "The fact is, everything here doesn't taste right to me. It's like it's freezer burnt or plastic. It's got nothing to do with your life or Hogwarts at all, it's all to do with me, and what I'm used to, which is, I suppose, all those variables making a difference, which in the simpler machinations of magic don't apply."

Snape was definitely perturbed now. Was this man really suggesting that simple Muggle lives completely devoid of magic had some more exacting content than what his world encompassed? He might try and make it all right by telling himself that this was simply the way the facts presented themselves, but as Snape saw it, Daniel was being a bigot. Muggle workings better than magic, indeed. The very concept was preposterous!

"The examples of magic you have seen have been very limited, Daniel," Snape said, keeping his voice dark, and even. "I assure you, magic is far more reaching than making a cup of coffee appear for you out of air. Entire worlds can be made and destroyed, the physical properties of a place manipulated into whatever strikes the wizard's fancy, a person can be forced to perform acts they have no wish to do, incredible pain can be inflicted, and, worst of all, a person can be killed with magic."

Daniel sighed, and sank into the chair opposite of Snape. His lazy, navy eyes were looking on him in what could only be interpreted as pity. "I'm afraid all of those things can be done without magic as well, Severus, in one way or another. I hate to be the first to tell you this, but you don't need a whit of magic to kill a person or cause them pain. I suppose in my world, it's just messier to clean up afterwards."

"Look, if your type of Muggle magic..."

"It's called 'science'," Daniel interrupted, and Snape narrowed his small, black eyes at him.

"If your 'science' is so perfect, then why haven't Muggles discovered our world?" Snape steepled his fingers and pressed them just below his top lip, his eyes filled with victory as he looked on Daniel. He watched intently as Daniel blandly picked up his gnarled mug and sipped a bit of the hot brew within it.

"We have," he said. "There is a theorization that all known outcomes can and do happen, and that we permanently live in a randomized universe, each layer of possibilities invisible to the next and yet affecting the outcome of each. My coworker at the lab, Amanda, she knows about this stuff better than I do. Quantam physics. Fascinating, really." He placed his mug on the surface of Snape's desk again. "It only stands to reason that if science says magic doesn't exist, then of course it *has* to exist in the realm of possibility simply because of its function as a variable."

Snape's steepled fingers clasped together into a solid fist at his chin. "I'm getting a headache," he said, and frowned.

"Granted, there is a lot of cross-disciplines involved," Daniel continued. "An overlay of philosophy meeting scientific thought, if you will..."

He was saved by the opening of his classroom door, and several students noisily making their way in, iron cauldrons clanking against each other. Daniel was now loudly discussing the ramifications of this theory and the unused strands of RNA found even on invertebrates and how this suggests that though the need for the genetic information was forgotten, there is this ingrained need in the map of Life to keep prepared for any possibility--Or something to this effect, by this point Snape's head was ready to split open from a migraine, and right now the less he thought about Muggles and their overly complicated existence the better. "Daniel," Snape said to him, ignoring the odd looks both Potter and Malfoy were giving him, "you have an English class to teach."

"Cor, nearly forgot about that!" Daniel said, and leapt from the chair and into Snape's classroom, where he then made his way through the connecting door to his own, sterile white post. He didn't close the door all the way, and its brightness was a large sliver of white that invaded Snape's rather dark and organic potions classroom.

Snape had a few moments to think while his classroom settled down into their seats, his small black eyes nervously looking through the partially open door. Daniel's classroom was a sheer monstrosity to Snape, the sterile nature of it disconcerting. It seemed cruel to force the poor man to work in such an environment. Daniel obviously didn't know enough to complain--Perhaps a visit to Dumbledore on Daniel's behalf wouldn't be too terrible a thing to contemplate. Darker walls and a few hopefully non threatening plants would do wonders to make the place more amenable.

As uncomfortable as the room made him, he left the door ajar, Daniel's voice wafting into the potions room at odd intervals, the words 'Quantum', 'Darwin's Theory', 'Paleolithic' twisting through the air like poetry. How strange, when what he talked about was confusing and impossible to understand, and yet Snape felt so drawn to it, regardless of how much of a headache it caused. The subjects themselves, Snape realized weren't what interested him so much as the way Daniel acted when he talked about them, his body animated, a spark of passion steely making its way through dark navy eyes. It was uncomfortable to think that it was this that interested Snape most about the man. Muggle magic, and Daniel too, had all the attraction of the forbidden. He was a moth and Daniel was a flame, and nothing he could tell himself would prevent him from being drawn to him, regardless of how dangerous such an association could be.

Today's lesson required lizard eyes, and Snape got the large jar of swimming eyes that Daniel had used for his example of 'science' versus 'magic'. He drummed his fingers on the lid as he stared at it, the classroom silent and waiting for him to tell them how they were going to be used. He glanced up at his class, at their disgusted expressions as they watched the jar's contents, his mind full of what Daniel had told him.

"You will need four eyes each, and you will reach into this jar and take them out one by one with your bare hands. Be careful, they are Trolling Lizard eyes, and they will bite." He cleared his throat and gave his class one more passing glance before taking off the lid of the jar. "Make sure they are all the same size."

***
Unlike the day, the late evening brought with it a crisis. Dumbledore was sighing heavily as he looked on the cloak Sirius Black had brought to him, Remus Lupin looking pointedly on. Snape hovered near the door, not missing any of the information given, observing as he always did everyone's reaction. Hagris and McGonagall were also present, as was, oddly enough, Daniel Deschamps, though why he needed to be appraised of He Who Must Not Be Named's infiltration into Hogwarts was anybody's guess.

"I'm sorry to have disturbed your slumber," Dumbledore said, his voice ancient and tired. "But what we have here is evidence of a most alarming nature. It is the cloak of a Death Eater, one of He Who Must Not Be Named's followers, and whoever this is, they are in the vicinity of Hogwarts, possibly not far from here in Hogsmeade. We have no idea who they are or even what they look like. Hagris was the one who nearly apprehended the interloper, but lost him in the dark forest. He couldn't see who it was, and the cloak itself has no magical properties attached to it, and it cannot tell us a thing. All I can recommend to all of you is to be extra vigilant. Danger lurks very close to home."

"I'm feeling right foolish that I's never managed to catch 'im," Hagris said, unhappily. He sat his huge bulk down onto a chair, which groaned in protest against his massive weight. He punched his palm with a huge fist. "I woulda flattened IM good if I 'ad."

"You cannot blame yourself Hagris, you did manage to get his cloak. At least the crest hidden in the lining is present, otherwise we would never have known." He unfolded the cloak and turned over the black silk that was the lining around the bottom right edge of the hem, the unmistakable snake and skull crest of Voldemort embroidered in shining silver threads.

"How did you find him?" Sirius Black asked Hagris. Hagris sighed again.

"I was looking for slugs to feed the Pot-bellied griffin I got," he said. "They're a nice treat for her. It's hard to find any near my home, what with all the other things eating everything, I think the slugs have gotten wise to me. So, I headed into the periphery of the dark forest to see what I could scrounge up. And sure as I stepped my foot in there, I saw a cloaked shadow out o' the corner of my eye." He tapped it with a large finger as though to emphasize the point. "So's I pretended I didn't see nothing, and then, when I was picking up a leaf to harvest a slug, I just swung around right fast and clobbered him down with one shove of my arm. He was pretty quick, though, managed to wiggle away from me and then all I was left with was the cloak while 'e took off into the woods, and then did a dissaparation spell. I 'eard him yelling out 'Hogsmeade'."

"He must be familiar with the woods if he risked running further into them," Remus said.

"Not necessarily," Sirius replied. His black brows knitted together. "It's possible that's why he performed the dissaparation spell, he knew he could get out of it at any time. Also, Hagris only found him on the periphery." He looked over at Hagris with dark concentration. "You keep calling this person a 'he'."

Hagrid immediately nodded. "Yeah, he had broad shoulders like, a bit bulky. His voice was pretty deep too. I dun think it was a woman at all, but then one can't be sure of anything."

"That narrows it down to about fifty percent of the Hogsmeade population," McGonagall observed with a heavy sigh.

Snape walked towards Dumbledore's desk, away from his position at the door. His hands were clasped behind his back as he spoke. "Perhaps it would be wise to investigate the area where Hagris first met this 'Death Eater'. He may have dropped something more than his cloak that will give us an idea of who he is."

"He's already dropped an awful lot," Daniel said. He was looking at the cloak in Dumbledore's hands with a hungry expression. He shrugged and scratched the back of his head, an irritating habit that for some reason set Snape on edge. "If you are finished with it, may I have it for a few days?"

Dumbledore stroked his beard, and then bundled up the woolen fabric. "It's a perfectly good cloak, I can't see why not," he said, and gave it to Daniel, who thanked him, and without saying anything to anyone else, not even Snape, he quickly left the office. Sirius and Remus gave each other knowing looks, Sirius nodding in the direction Daniel had left.

"Headmaster, I'm not so sure that man is trustworthy," he said.

"I have to agree," McGonagall shot back. "Always talking about murder, and I have to soothe the fears of my poor first year students every time he's had a chance to give them a daily traumatizing. Poor Dean Chalmers was beside himself with worry the other day, he was convinced his cereal was going to do him in. Honestly, 'cereal killers'--it's terrible the way he teases them!"

Even Hagris was in agreement. "Any man what eats dragons for a lark isn't all there in my book," he said, and tapped the side of his forehead with his beefy thumb.

"If I may say," Snape interjected. "Perhaps we are being a little harsh on Mr. Deschamps."

Sirius and Remus raised twin brows in surprise at this defense coming from, of all people, Snape.

"He has not had the same kind of background we have, and as such has a much different outlook. It may be difficult for us to understand that he lives without the influence of magic, and even our Muggle students have at least had this exposure by being attendees at Hogwarts."

"Professor Snape is right," Dumbledore assented immediately. "We must not let our own preconceptions of how a person like Mr. Deschamps *should* behave colour who he in fact *is*. Right now we have more important matters to deal with than mere gossip. So, Sirius, Hagris--Lead the way to where you last saw this interloper, and if we are very lucky we may discover much more than a quality cloak."

***
The journey into the forest yielded nothing more than some footprints which corroborated exactly what Hagris had said, the steps remaining on the periphery of the forest and then breaking off into nothing at the spot where he dissaparated. Sirius held his wand outstretched before the footprints and shouted "Lumos!" The footprints were much more visible in the bright light, their pattern a haphazard bundle of misplaced steps as the wizard had run from Hagris. Sirius crouched down to get a better look at them, his fingers touching the pattern now sealed in the drying mud. Some of the now light brown clay clung to his fingertips and he brushed them off onto the black folds of his robe, leaving chalky streaks.

"I can tell you one thing," he said. "He wasn't just not used to the forest, I'm sure he's been hanging around in the Muggle world for quite a while. Long enough to see a need to buy their footwear." He gestured to the footprints in the mud again. "These aren't wizard shoes by any means, only Muggles have the sizes of their shoes imprinted on the treads. See here? That circle with the number inside of it--size thirteen and a half. There's also a bit of wear on the heel, you can tell because of how light the treads are. He's been wearing these shoes regularly."

"Curious," Remus said. "What's a Death Eater doing in the world of Muggles? More importantly right now, however, I guess we've narrowed him down a bit further. We just have to look for a wizard with a pair of Muggle's size thirteen and a half shoes."

A breeze carried through the dark forest, making all of them slightly shiver against it. The trees were in conspiracy above them, whispering their secrets amongst themselves as the breeze carried their gossip up the thick canopies of dark green and black leaves. "I wouldn't be so confident about that," Snape replied. "There's a good chance he's gotten rid of his shoes by now, he wouldn't be able to hide bulky looking footwear like this for long. It's possible he's even returned to wherever it is he's hiding out in the world of Muggles, he's had plenty of time to journey out of Hogsmeade."

"That may be true," Sirius said. "But whatever it was he was supposed to find here, he failed in the attempt. He'll be back, I'm sure of it."

Remus sighed. "In the meantime we're stuck looking for a wizard with a pair of discarded Muggle shoes and a missing cloak. I'd say half of Hogsmeade. We're no better off than we were in Dumbledore's office."

The gathering of wizards and Hagris made their way out of the dark forest, all of them unhappy with how this had turned out. Remus was walking ahead of them all, hanging beside Dumbledore and insisting that several protective charms be placed at strategic points on the school grounds. Snape wasn't so sure this would be enough, since this was Lord Voldemorte they were talking about, and it didn't matter what kind of 'protection' you thought you had, if he was determined enough to find you and kill you, he'd make quick work of it. No, the best recourse would be to flush out this latest rat, and learn everything that he knew. Right now, such a plan was near impossible.

They parted ways at the entrance of Hogwarts, Snape walking past Sirius and Remus who were still in conspiratorial conversation with Dumbledore, the ancient wizard chuckling at intervals and shaking his head at the suggestion that the school be placed in a protective 'bubble' charm--A horrible idea due to the risk of suffocation, and definitely too drastic for a place that wasn't yet under overt attack. Snape left them and walked alone into Hogwarts, the hallways dark and full of shadows from the scant light given off from the candles lining the walls. He descended a set of familiar stairs and then a few others to reach his dungeon office as well as his living quarters, which was at the end of the corridor that held his potions room.

He was momentarily surprised, however, to see a bright, white light slicing its way through the hall, the dewy walls glistening from its reflection. Daniel's classroom. He paused at the door to see him in his stark white setting, the cloak laid out on a large, metal table before him at the lectern. He was taking large pieces of clear, wide tape, and carefully placing them over the fabric, pulling it off again with precision. He would then place the pieces of tape and their collection of fuzz face up on his desk, and start again with another wide strip. Snape watched him for a while, wondering what madness he was concocting now. If he'd wanted the cloak cleaned, all he had to do was ask and a quick wave of Snape's wand would have done the trick.

He decided against bothering him with this information. Right now, Snape was tired, and his head was full of all kinds of worries that a potions master shouldn't have to deal with, the number one issue in his mind being that of Voldemorte's possible return, and just how angry he would be with his former follower. Spies never had very healthy or long lives, and especially not those who worked as double agents.

He walked a few paces past Daniel's door, and then paused. He rolled up his sleeve, inspecting the mark that lay on his arm, the serpent coiling around the circumference of his flesh. The branding of a Death Eater. It was faded now, but its presence alone gave Snape great pain, its constant reminder of what he could have become had he not been stronger. It was a bitter cause for reflection. Had he been as lazy as some of the others, as complacent and easily appeased, he might have fallen for Voldemorte's lies. But as much as the Dark Arts had attracted him, the forbidden a genuine draw for his passion, he could never descend into what Voldemorte was. Evil was not a power worth gaining the favour of. He was not so soulless to allow himself to reconcile with it.

His steps echoed dully as he walked. Daniel's classroom door suddenly closed, the shaft of white light now effectively sealed away as Daniel worked inside. Snape hoped he hadn't offended him by walking by without at least saying hello. Simple social pleasantries...They had always been his downfall.

He reached his home with tired relief. If morning decided to come, it would be grey and dreary. Better to look forward to the afternoon. For three o'clock, to be precise.

This had fast become the only time of day he felt alive.