Snape in the Magic City

Chapter Five

Daisy was so glad to see Priscilla step out of the fireplace that she jumped up from the table and went to give her a hug.

"For Merlin's sake, Daisy, it's not like I Apparated!" Priscilla murmured; but she suffered the embrace and even patted Daisy on the back before pushing her gently away.

Back in Kentucky Daisy had been relieved when at the last minute Priscilla had decided to fly to her parents' house instead of Apparating. Priscilla's WrightFlight broom was built for long distances and high speeds, and with it and a Disillusionment Charm she was seldom bothered by her lack of talent at Apparating. Now, looking past Daisy towards Severus, she spoke quietly again in Daisy's ear. "He hasn't been acting like a Knarzle, has he?"

Daisy shook her head. As she watched Priscilla turn to greet Severus she reflected that "Knarzle" was not the word she would have applied to her cousin right now.

He stood by his chair, looking even taller and darker than he had back in the kitchen at Bat Lick. Rather than cloaking his body, the Muggle jeans and shirt accentuated how lean and muscular he was. His gaunt, unshaven face framed by strands of none-too-clean hair, his obsidian eyes and the thin lips that seemed to twist with contempt even when they curved into a small smile, made him look like a Muggle tough--like a member of one of the gangs that had periodically raided the Fly On Inn until the owner had hired a team of Muggle bartenders and bouncers to keep them out. Daisy felt a shiver pass over her that had nothing to do with the Moon & Faun's Air-Cooling Charm. She wondered if she dared suggest that Severus change into wizarding robes before they went to meet Priscilla's parents.

Then, just as suddenly, the sinister aspect was gone; and Severus was stepping forward to greet Priscilla.

He did not hug her, but any of the Southern wizards and witches who might have happened to notice this new customer just arrived by Floo powder would have observed a meeting apparently as warm and as casual as any in which they themselves had indulged that evening: an exchange of smiles and what might well have passed for a peck on the cheek. Daisy was so flabbergasted by this gesture that she knew she would never in future recall it as an actual kiss, an actual touching of flesh to flesh.

She had seen Priscilla kiss her own parents on only two occasions: the first day of school, when they had said goodbye at the gates of Horndrake Hall, and Graduation Day, when even Muggle parents could enter the school's Quodpot stadium. She had seen her own mother kiss Severus, perhaps no more than twice, as well: the day he had arrived to spend that long-ago summer with his Brightsmith relatives, and the day he had left to go back home.

Actually, Daisy thought now as she and Priscilla and Severus sat down, Sorcha Brightsmith had not so much kissed her nephew as made valiant efforts to do so whenever he had come into her kitchen bloody or bruised or with broken bones from whatever misadventure he and his young cousins had gotten themselves into.

The girls, and several of the boys as well, would come in as tearful as they were grass- or mud-stained; any or all of them holding out or hobbling upon whichever limb had been injured this time. Their own homes might be closer to where the accident had happened, but Sorcha Scamander had trained to be a healer at Piedmont Regional Hospital before she'd met and married Gary Brightsmith.

She'd made all the hurts better, from skinned knees to broken arms, and had sent the kids out to play again with a kiss and a handful of homemade cookies.

All the kids, that is, except Severus, who as well as a scrape or a bruise or a fracture would bear the marks of whatever charm with which he'd tried to heal himself.

"I could do it if I had a real wand," he would tell her; not sulkily, as one of the Brightsmith boys might have said it; but sounding to Daisy like Uncle Emrys trying to bargain with Aunt Bryony. Severus's dark eyes would peer up at Sorcha from his thin face framed by that long lank hair, and he would look down only when she got to work doing whatever she had to do to counteract the jinx he'd performed upon himself.

"Severus, Severus," she would murmur, shaking her head and clucking over him. "Where do you come up with these curses, child?"

Some of what Sorcha did had to hurt, Daisy had thought; but the tears Severus brushed from his eyes had seemed to bother him more than the pain, and mostly because they interfered with his view of what his aunt was doing to him.

"Why'd you do that?" he would ask her, sounding curious rather than frightened or resentful. And Sorcha would shake her head again and turn to Daisy, who was usually the one who had brought Severus to her. Sorcha would smile with her mouth while her brow was still creased in a frown of concentration, and she would say, in the preoccupied tone she always seemed to used about this one of her nephews, "Daisy, honey--add some dandelion heads to that jar of blue powder next to the toadstools and shake it three or four times and bring it to me, please. And then drop a couple of those big brown leaves into my cauldron. You'll like the way they feel, Severus--all nice and slimy!"

And eventually Severus's arm, or leg, or nose, or whatever other part of his body he'd jinxed, would be back to normal, and he would be back outside heading off to some other adventure, as often alone as with the other children.

Later on, usually at night after she'd gone to bed, Daisy would hear her mother telling her father what Severus had done to himself "this time." And Gary Brightsmith would growl, "I know what I'd like to do to that boy's parents"--and Sorcha would say, "I just wish they would leave him here with us, let him live with us, until he gets his letter from Hogwarts."

"If Hogwarts sends letters to little Knarzles like him," Gary would reply.

"Oh, I hope they do!" Sorcha would sigh.

Well, Hogwarts had, Daisy thought now. And Severus had spent seven years there as a student, and nearly three times that number of years as Potions master.

But he had spent other years doing other things. Some of that time he'd worked for Albus Dumbledore, who had become headmaster at Hogwarts just before Severus had started school there.

Would Severus ever have gotten into that kind of work if Dumbledore hadn't been at Hogwarts? Daisy wondered. She sat looking at her cousin, sitting across the table from her here in the Moon & Faun, sipping his second Butterbeer, his wand held lightly in his right hand but looking as potentially dangerous as the rest of him.

And that's what it is, Daisy thought. It's a part of him, and in an instant it can go from being a utensil handy for keeping a tankard of Butterbeer hot, to being a weapon that can curse much more accurately and effectively than all those stick-wands we made for ourselves when we were children.

Of course any wand had the potential to work as a weapon. And any war veteran would certainly think of his weapon as a part of himself. To do otherwise might well be to not survive.

And Severus was a veteran, Daisy reminded herself.

He was a hero.

And I just told him he couldn't use power lines to help a couple of Muggles.

Daisy sighed and shook her head.

"What's wrong, Daisy?" asked Priscilla. "Don't you like the new décor in here?" She raised her eyebrows, which were as black as Severus's and more finely arched.

Daisy rolled her eyes. "I was just thinking there's no redeye gravy on the menu anymore. I was wondering what we could take your parents for supper."

"What you weren't doing was listening. I've just been telling Severus--and you too, I thought--about the generator Richard brought." Priscilla closed her eyes and appeared to be counting to ten: something she did whenever one of her students tried what patience she had.

Daisy glanced at Severus, who cocked an eyebrow that might have meant, What is she doing? or perhaps, Why weren't you listening?

Daisy dropped her gaze to her tankard. It was empty, but she picked it up and pretended to drink from it. She hoped Severus couldn't see that it was empty. She hoped he hadn't seen what she'd been remembering. The only thing about him that resembled the little boy who'd spent one summer at her house was his hair. Apparently he still didn't like to bother with washing it. And she could not imagine tears in those eyes.

Priscilla opened her eyes now, and looked at Daisy as if daring her to not pay attention this time. "Richard brought Mother and Dad a generator," she said. "He filled it up with gasoline. That's the fuel it runs on. It will run for up to ten hours on one tank of gas. He put oil in it, too. The oil will last for around five hours. Then you have to add more.

"The generator will run the refrigerator and the TV and a couple of lamps or the microwave oven. Dad can recharge his cell phone on it. But it won't run all night, because if you don't add oil after five hours the engine will stop. Somebody has to go out and add oil and restart the engine.

"It'll be pitch black out in the driveway at night with no streetlights or floodlights. Richard put the generator in the driveway because he couldn't get it through the back gate onto the patio. It's right outside the garage, but the garage door is down and Mother and Dad can't lift it. Or rather, Dad could, but he's not supposed to, and Mother won't let him. So they'd either have to go out the front door and down the steps and across the front yard, in the dark; or out the back door and across the patio and around the corner of the garage.

"And even though there aren't any trees or limbs down where they'd have to walk, there are spiders this time of year, and they weave those huge webs with those long strands that stretch all the way down to the ground.

"And I wish the moon was full," she finished; and picked up her tankard.

"And her mother won't let Richard drive all the way back across town after dark to add the oil to the generator," Severus added. "There are trees down across the roads, and power lines."

Daisy didn't miss the subtle emphasis he placed on the last two words. She sighed, and shook her head again. Why do Muggles make life so difficult for themselves? she wanted to ask. Why do they keep on using electricity when it keeps going out, or off, or whatever it does when it stops working?

Didn't you say something this morning about trees falling on the electricity cables and pulling them down? she wanted to ask Priscilla. Why didn't the stupid Muggles cut the trees down before they could fall? Why didn't they run their power lines through the ground?

She turned to Severus--but she couldn't ask him that question, not after she'd told him not to get all excited about the other power lines: the ones no humans had made or laid; the ones no living humans really understood.

"So . . . we don't need to bring them any supper," she said. "I mean . . . if they can use this micro oven, and the refrigerator. Right?"

"Right," said Priscilla. "They wouldn't eat any food from this place, anyway."

Daisy saw Priscilla glance at Severus, who cocked an eyebrow at her before looking down at his tankard and giving it another tap with his wand.

Priscilla turned back to Daisy. "Richard brought them something for dinner. They've invited us to come eat with them."

"Just 'eat with them'?" Daisy frowned. "They don't want us to stay with them? Help them?"

"Richard was there."

So you didn't ask them, thought Daisy. She didn't blame Priscilla. Richard's attitude towards his little sister's magic had always been even more negative than that of their parents. She wondered if he was planning to defy their mother and come back to put more oil in the generator later tonight. If Mrs. Praten didn't have to worry about him on top of everything else . . . if she and Mr. Praten could have power all night, without having to mess with the generator . . .

"Is Richard staying for supper?" Daisy asked.

"Not if we come." Priscilla gave one of her short, harsh laughs. "And that's what Severus and I were just . . . discussing. Do we accept their invitation to dinner? Or do we give up and go home and let Richard do everything?"

"We accept their invitation." Severus spoke to his tankard. "We eat their food. Their son's food. Whatever Richard's brought them--whatever we're offered--we eat it. We get them talking . . . about Birmingham; about the electricity cut; about the hurricane--about whatever they want to talk about."

He looked up at Priscilla. "Then you stay talking with them--"

He turned to Daisy--"and you and I go and do the washing-up. Without magic."

"And maybe that will help them not be so stressed out," Priscilla put in. "And maybe they'll ask us to stay all weekend."

"So we could help them . . . but not use any magic?" Daisy looked from Priscilla to Severus. Could he be that subtle? Could being a very powerful wizard be of any use in that degree of undercover work?

"Maybe you better check out the Muggle power lines," she told him. "See what would happen if you Summoned some electricity."

"Or rather try to help the Muggle electricians get their lines back up," Priscilla said.

She stood up. "I guess we'll just have to play it by ear. But right now we need to get going, or Mother will start to worry about keeping whatever Richard brought fresh enough to eat."

"Well, just let me run to the ladies' room." Daisy got up from her chair and started towards the sign flashing REST ROOMS on the wall at the back of the Moon & Faun. Then she hesitated, and turned back; and catching Severus's eye she pictured the interior of the boys' rest room back at the Bat Lick Elementary School.

* * * *

They Apparated to Priscilla's parents' house. Daisy had thought that they would go by Floo, but Priscilla would not even consider the idea when Richard might be waiting in the den.

"I was about to fly here," she'd told Daisy, having joined her in the ladies' room, "the way he was looking at me when I moved the screen so I could get into the fireplace."

Her lips had twitched. "And I was doing it by hand. Can you imagine what he'd've looked like if I'd Summoned my broomstick?

"By the way, Pallas is guarding it. She's up on that big rock in the corner of the back yard."

"Good," said Daisy. She didn't care whether Pallas was on the rock, or in one of the trees that grew in the Pratens' yard, but she was relieved to know that her owl had gotten safely back from Scotland. Not that she'd ever doubted that Pallas would. She was just glad that she had.

She and Priscilla found Severus waiting for them outside the men's room. Apparently even Muggle clothes did not slow wizards down to the length of time witches took in rest rooms. And we hurried, Daisy thought. We didn't even brush our hair!

Severus might ought to have shaved, though, she considered.

Oh, well. Too late now.

"Let's go," Priscilla was saying. "Daisy, you remember what the house looks like, don't you? Let's Apparate to the front yard--Dad still had the curtains in the den open when I left, to get the last of the light. You go first, Daisy, and then you, Severus. Maybe with both of you there I'll make it."

"You'd stand a better chance with just Daisy there," Severus replied. "With two of us looking at the house you might miss it. Or splinch yourself."

Daisy and Priscilla shuddered.

"I'll go, then," said Daisy. She wasn't eager to Apparate in the Pratens' front yard all by herself, but with all the trees there no one would see her unless they were expecting someone to appear out of nowhere. Richard might be watching from the living room--but Pallas would be watching too; and Pallas could handle Richard if need be.

"See you in a minute," Daisy said to Priscilla, and Disapparated.

And Apparated into what sounded like a Muggle construction site.

Daisy knew she was in the right place--there was the Pratens' house, just as she remembered it: long and low, its windows and porch railings gleaming in the dusky moonlight. The tall trees, still in full leaf, loomed like black clouds against the deep blue sky. Would Priscilla call it violet-blue, Daisy wondered; or blue-violet?

She remembered what Priscilla had said about spiders, and slipped her wand out of her sleeve, wishing she could ward off the noise as well as the spiders. Could that be the generator making all that racket? Too bad Priscilla hadn't warned her.

Just as Daisy raised her wand to weave a spell against spiders and their webs, she felt a rush of air on her hand. She ducked instinctively, but before she could mutter "Lumos!" she felt tiny, familiar pinpricks in her shoulder, and a hard little beak began to nibble her earlobe.

"Pallas!" Daisy lowered her wand and put her other hand up to stroke the little owl's feathers.

Pallas probably hooted; but with the roar of the engine--if that was what all that noise was--Daisy couldn't have heard anything else. She raised her wand again to perform an Impervius Charm--and nearly dropped the wand when something much larger than Pallas slammed into her side.

Priscilla grabbed Daisy's arm as she Apparated.

Pallas hooted so loudly that this time Daisy couldn't help hearing her. The sharp little claws dug more deeply into her shoulder, and Daisy grabbed at Pallas with one hand and tried to steady Priscilla with the other.

For a moment the three of them staggered and fluttered and tried not to tumble in a heap on the ground--and just as they sorted themselves out Severus Apparated right in front of them.

He grabbed Daisy with one hand and Priscilla with the other, held them both until they stood steady on their own feet, and then released them with a squeeze that told Daisy he'd rather have shaken some sense into them. His face looked paler than ever in the moonlight, but his eyes blazed like black fire.

"Stop sniggering!" he hissed. "And get rid of that bloody owl!"

"Don't you call her that!" Go on, Pallas, peck him, Daisy wanted to add. Instead she put her hand up to her shoulder to coax Pallas into her palm. "Poor baby," she murmured, as Pallas settled, feather-light and feather-soft, in her cupped hand.

Severus turned to Priscilla. "Is that the generator making all that noise?"

"It didn't sound that loud inside," Priscilla retorted.

"Good," said Severus. "I only hope they can't hear us in there. Shall we go in?" he added.

"In a minute." Priscilla folded her arms across her chest and gazed up at him. She didn't even have to tilt her head back, Daisy noticed.

"Severus," said Priscilla, "Merlin knows I'm not good at Apparating, so I appreciate your grabbing hold of me just now, just as I appreciated that subtly southern welcome you gave me at what used to be the Redeye.

"But just for future reference: I don't like people touching me. And please don't say 'bloody' in my parents' house. They have enough trouble with the word 'magic.'

"I'll go on in now," she continued, "and tell them y'all are here. I thought we could ring the front doorbell like proper visitors--but I completely forgot it's an electric bell."

She slipped her wand out of her sleeve and waved it over her head. "Impervius!" she muttered; and then, "Lumos!" And with her wand-light glowing palely in the dark, she set off through the trees towards the corner of the house and the roar of the generator.

Daisy turned to Severus, trying to see in the tall man the little boy who had been dumped almost literally by his parents on her parents' doorstep.

It had been summer then, and the crickets and frogs had filled the night with their chorus, just as they were doing here, tonight. There had been lightning bugs, too. "Fireflies," Severus had called them. He and the other boys had made wands out of sticks and tried to hex the glowing tails off the insects.

The girls had preferred to climb up into the trees to charm the Clabberts--and the boys had tried to jinx the girls out of the trees.

"Do you remember the moonlight broomflights?" Daisy asked, smiling up at her cousin.

"Yes," he said shortly. "And now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to nip behind that big oak tree."