Fic! OMG, Fic!
Jul. 15th, 2008 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rillaliciousFirst of all, welcome home to all the Portus folks on my flist! It sounds like you had a great time!
So, um, it's been so long that I'm all sorts of embarrassed that I have to give excuses about why Chapter 2 is so late in coming, but I do have a really good one this time. I promise.
Newbaby v.4.0 is due to join us in late January of '09. I've been feeling nostalgic lately about that first summer I spent in fandom, pregnant (with the child formerly known as Newbaby) and hiding out from the heat at my computer in the basement. This summer is obviously different: three active kids to keep me on my feet, two jobs, massive pile of volunteer commitments. But I'm feeling that lovely creative pull again, so I'm looking forward to increasing my fanfic output (especially after that pregnancy insomnia kicks in again).
Anyway, we're all over the moon excited, and if any of y'all have any sweet little baby knitting patterns to pass on, feel free to send them my way.
Without further rambling...
Title: The Lives of the Saints
Pairing: SS/HG
Rating: That's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.
Summary: Sometimes death is only the beginning.
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. Making no money.
A/N: I'd like to thank![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellensmithee and butter_cup_ for the read-throughs! And thanks always for reading and reviewing.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Rose Weasley-Carrington, with her father's long legs, and her mother's wild hair, found the entire business of planning a funeral to be counterproductive. Hermione Granger would have done a much better job of it herself.
There had been vast expanses of parchment before Rose's father's funeral, all lined with her mother's slightly shaky, yet still perfectly ordered handwriting: guest lists, seating arrangements, addresses and payment schedules, details of all sorts. Not a single hitch had stalled the proceedings, and Rose had hardly even thought about the work that had gone into it all. It had been therapeutic for her mother
But Rose, by herself, hardly knew where to start. She knew she'd have to find a caterer, probably, for the wake, but before the wake there was so much more to do.
"Oh, hell, Mum," she muttered, dropping the quill. She reached for a rubber band, and pushed her hair away from her face, gathering it in a lazy bun up high on her head. The grey adorned her head in thick streaks now, no longer content to glimmer only briefly, when the sunlight caught hold of an errant fleck of white.
Her mother's hair had long held on to the last vestiges of chestnut, that warm, soft color, that reminded Rose of being a little girl and tangling it around her fingers, pressing her nose into the endless whorls and inhaling. The hint of that color had remained until three months before Rose's father passed away. Rose remembered, with some absurd clarity, meeting her mother at St Mungo's shortly after she received the news. Ron Weasley was dying, and the Healers could do no more for him.
Though she remembered the sadness in her mother's eyes and the straightness of her mother's back that day, what she remembered most was that it seemed the color had been drained completely from her mother's hair. 'This is what grieving looks like,' Rose had thought, breathing in an intangible sadness that expanded in the hallway around them like fog. That moment was frozen in Rose's mind, and she didn't think she'd ever be able to shake it free.
When Ron had finally passed, Hermione was as strong as anyone expected, nodding gracefully at the well-wishers, offering a warm smile to those who took it worse than she. Hugo, every bit his mother's son, stayed late into the night after all the guests for his father's wake had left, cleaning up the mess, and returning Hermione to Rose's house, where she had planned to stay indefinitely whilst they dealt with the selling of her home.
"It won't be all mourning after this. You'll see. I have magic in me yet."
Hermione's last words curled around Rose's ear, hung on the air following every breath. She'd so wanted to believe it was true, that her mother still had many years ahead of her, but her mother's smile had faltered, the corners of her mouth tipping down and drawing Rose down with them. She remembered the way Hermione lifted herself from the sofa that evening, to retire to the guest room, and somehow Rose just knew she'd never hear that voice again.
Though her parents had been as different from one another as Rose could have possibly imagined, it just wasn't right to see one without the other. Rose's mother was not the kind of woman who seemed lost without her man, but there was a palpable hole where her love had been, love that had once been absorbed so readily by Rose's father, and Merlin knew he needed all the help he could get at times.
"I was born old, just to balance your father's eternal youth," Hermione would say. It had been the opposite for Rose and Silas.
Silas was the sensible one, the deliverer of truths that Rose so willingly failed to consider. He was the rock-steady voice she'd first heard as she staggered into a coffee shop, looking around wildly for Lily, who had been waiting half an hour already. It turned out to be the wrong coffee shop anyway, a fact that only became more apparent Rose searched in vain for her cousin amongst the small tables and plush chairs.
"Unless you've devised a charm to place eyes on the back of your head," Silas Carrington had said that day, his deep voice vibrating against her hair as he steadied her with strong hands on her elbows, "I suggest you try walking forward." His words were kind, and when she turned around he bashfully lowered his gaze, light eyes hidden beneath heavy lids, and Rose forgot that she'd meant to meet Lily at all. Lily, of course, had never let Rose forget it.
"Ellery is here." Rose jumped and grabbed for her quill at the sound of Silas's voice behind her.
"You scared me half to death," she said, twisting in her chair to see him.
Silas smiled. "She's brought Olivia."
"And John?"
"And John."
"Good." Rose smiled. "Tell her I'll be right out."
Silas nodded and closed the door behind him. Rose pushed her quill and notes aside. The arrangements, and daydreaming, would have to wait; Rose's grandchildren had arrived.
~@~@~@~
The grand hall was as magnificent as anything Hermione could have imagined. Everything shimmered, reflecting the light that radiated from everywhere, with great balconies overlooking the main hall below, and continuing on so high that Hermione could hardly tell if it ended at all. It wasn't hard to find her way; the corridors opened up before her as if she were the only spirit here, and hers the only destination. And when she'd reached the grand hall at last, the flurry of sudden spirit activity had caused her pause.
The fey were there, in soft, glowing luminescence, lining tables and balconies, archways and the large dais behind the head table. It was all a bit overwhelming, and Hermione had to remind herself several times to keep moving forward. She could see now why she'd confused these voices with music before, their soothing lilt carrying through the hall like chimes.
She was getting used to drifting by now. It wasn't hard once you got the hang of it. Much easier than flying on a broom. Now that she'd entered the hall, though, she wasn't quite sure where to go. The strange crimson-haired creature was nowhere to be found, and every other being in the hall was preoccupied with conversation or activity. The head table sat empty, and Hermione was not presumptuous enough to choose a seat there. Instead, she drifted off the main aisle to make herself less conspicuous, though no one else in the hall appeared to notice her entrance.
When silence finally fell upon the room, it came like snow, softening the sound, heavy in its own stillness. Slowly the voices faded away until there was nothing left but a thick blanket of quiet.
Then the music began.
Hermione's first thought was that the word 'music' itself was far too vulgar and plain to describe what she was hearing now. Her skin rose in gooseflesh as it vibrated through her, and she felt a strange sort of anxiety as she awaited what was to come next.
The Faery Queen's arrival was nothing less than spectacular, her chariot pulled down the long aisle by fair and slender white horses. Hermione thought that if it hadn't been for the opalescent, shimmery quality radiating from every creature and surface in the room, the faery court would look quite sterile. When the Queen was finally seated at the table, she nodded toward her entourage, and the group of six faeries, each with wide wings that beat slowly in synchronized time, walked out into the crowd, gathering other faeries of varying size, and spirits much like Hermione herself, and leading them to the table.
Hermione was so taken by this commotion, that she jumped in surprise when one of the faeries looped an arm around her back, a sensation Hermione could actually feel, and guided her off toward the table without a word.
"Me?" Hermione said. "Are you sure about this? I've never been here before."
The faery didn't even look in her direction. The hand on Hermione's back was flat and long-fingered, cool to the touch as it steered her toward the head table. Hermione had grown used to moving at an old woman's pace, and even on her short trip from the room in which she'd awoken earlier to the court, she'd glided along slowly. The faeries, however, moved with deliberate swiftness, and if she'd still had a stomach, she was sure that by now it would be turning violent somersaults as they wove through the crowd. The faery pushed her toward a seat near the end of the table, then turned gracefully and strode away.
Hermione took her seat, finding it odd as she wasn't actually capable of 'sitting' and instead just hovered above the chair.
"I suppose you know better than to put any of this in your mouth," said the small faery beside her.
"I should think I'd have a great deal of trouble putting anything in my mouth in this state," Hermione said.
"You might be surprised," said the faery.
Hermione looked out at the spread in front of her, finding that none of it appealed.
"Why am I here?" Hermione asked.
The faery looked at her, irritated, and Hermione imagined she was not the first interloper to wander into the midst of their well-rehearsed theatrics. She was asking a tourist's question, the faery's expression made that clear, but she'd only been here a few hours. And though she detested the feeling that everyone else in the room knew more than she did, Hermione couldn't squelch her own curiosity.
"She wants you," the faery said, and she nodded toward the center of the table, where the Faery Queen sat regally.
Her hair was raven black, the kind of superficial, shiny color that reflected in waves of blue where the light hit it. The Queen's hair was the only thing of darkness Hermione had seen in the Court.
"Is she going to speak to me?" Hermione asked.
"When she feels like it," the faery said. Then with delicate fingers, she raised a cup to her lips and poured out a thick liquid into her mouth.
Hermione watched the remaining theatrics of dinner at the Faery Court attentively, looking for some clue, some indication of the reason she'd been brought here, but the tedium and repetition soon made it clear that this was nothing more than regular Faery business. Still, it was fascinating in its own right.
Dinner finally came to an end and the guests began to file out. One by one they rose to their feet, whether solid or ethereal, and the room emptied. The Faery Queen still had not so much as looked in her direction and finally Hermione herself rose, looking down at her feet. They looked like feet now, recognizable except for their distance from her eyes. She'd spent her final years with the gentle curve of old womanhood shaping her spine, and had grown used to the ground's closer proximity.
She'd become so entranced by examining legs that now looked like legs, and hips that swelled beneath the gauzy shift, that she almost didn't notice that the room was barren of guests save for Hermione and the Faery Queen herself, who was finally looking at her.
"Hermione Granger," she said, and her voice echoed hauntingly, in a manner Hermione was sure was meant to intimidate.
Hermione bowed her head. "Your Highness."
The Faery Queen's expression reminded Hermione of a frigid winter they'd spent in the country, when Rose and Hugo were small. It grew so cold that the entire landscape sparkled white even during the warmest parts of the day, without a single flake of snow.
"You refused to eat a bite during my feast," the Queen said.
"Food doesn't seem to be essential to my existence any longer," said Hermione.
"I suppose that's true." The Queen's dark eyes glistened. "And you wish to know why I've brought you here after your human passing?"
"It seems a reasonable question," said Hermione.
"You are an impertinent guest," the Queen scolded.
"I believe I earned the right to bluntness in my old age," said Hermione.
"You're not old here," the Queen said, and before Hermione could stop herself, she looked down to examine her hands: smooth hands with long, straight fingers and slender knuckles.
"We humans are creatures of habit," Hermione said.
"Infuriatingly so," said the Queen. Then she smiled, and Hermione was almost certain she could hear the sound of bells tinkling in the brilliance of it. "I need you, Hermione Granger, to collect something for me. Something of… the utmost importance to my Court."
"Why on earth would you need me?" Hermione asked.
"Because," said the Queen, "the bloodline you've passed on is more worthy than you can possibly imagine. Come." And she turned and began to float from the room with Hermione following swiftly behind.
Without a word, they proceeded down a long corridor, then into a narrow room, lined with shelves and jars. The room was quite different than the rest of the palace. There were no pristine, sparkling marble walls, or unearthly topiaries of greenery. This room was dark, the only light coming from the twisting, dancing sparks inside each jar. Though it could have been fireflies at first glance, or tiny Lantern Pixies, Hermione sensed something far more sinister in the mesmerizing glow of each jar, marked with a name. Some were clearly English, though many were written in foreign alphabets, or in script that Hermione didn't recognize at all.
"These are human souls," Hermione said, with some degree of horror.
"My collection," said the Faery Queen, smiling benignly. "Each is a soul for which I've had use at some point, or will in the future."
"Where did they come from?" said Hermione.
"Death," the Faery Queen said, and she spoke the word as if discussing an old friend.
"Is this what's to become of me?" Hermione asked.
The Queen appraised her carefully. "Only if you fail me."
Then the Queen's pace became swifter, and Hermione struggled to keep up, following through the door on the far side of the room. As they left, the heavy door clamped shut behind them, but not before Hermione took note of one curiously labeled jar on a low shelf near the exit. And though she had many questions for the Queen on the tip of her tongue, she knew that this particular matter would warrant investigation on her own. The jar at the end of the room was labeled "Severus Snape".
~@~@~@~
So, um, it's been so long that I'm all sorts of embarrassed that I have to give excuses about why Chapter 2 is so late in coming, but I do have a really good one this time. I promise.
Newbaby v.4.0 is due to join us in late January of '09. I've been feeling nostalgic lately about that first summer I spent in fandom, pregnant (with the child formerly known as Newbaby) and hiding out from the heat at my computer in the basement. This summer is obviously different: three active kids to keep me on my feet, two jobs, massive pile of volunteer commitments. But I'm feeling that lovely creative pull again, so I'm looking forward to increasing my fanfic output (especially after that pregnancy insomnia kicks in again).
Anyway, we're all over the moon excited, and if any of y'all have any sweet little baby knitting patterns to pass on, feel free to send them my way.
Without further rambling...
Title: The Lives of the Saints
Pairing: SS/HG
Rating: That's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.
Summary: Sometimes death is only the beginning.
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. Making no money.
A/N: I'd like to thank
ellensmithee and butter_cup_ for the read-throughs! And thanks always for reading and reviewing.Previous Chapters: Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Rose Weasley-Carrington, with her father's long legs, and her mother's wild hair, found the entire business of planning a funeral to be counterproductive. Hermione Granger would have done a much better job of it herself.
There had been vast expanses of parchment before Rose's father's funeral, all lined with her mother's slightly shaky, yet still perfectly ordered handwriting: guest lists, seating arrangements, addresses and payment schedules, details of all sorts. Not a single hitch had stalled the proceedings, and Rose had hardly even thought about the work that had gone into it all. It had been therapeutic for her mother
But Rose, by herself, hardly knew where to start. She knew she'd have to find a caterer, probably, for the wake, but before the wake there was so much more to do.
"Oh, hell, Mum," she muttered, dropping the quill. She reached for a rubber band, and pushed her hair away from her face, gathering it in a lazy bun up high on her head. The grey adorned her head in thick streaks now, no longer content to glimmer only briefly, when the sunlight caught hold of an errant fleck of white.
Her mother's hair had long held on to the last vestiges of chestnut, that warm, soft color, that reminded Rose of being a little girl and tangling it around her fingers, pressing her nose into the endless whorls and inhaling. The hint of that color had remained until three months before Rose's father passed away. Rose remembered, with some absurd clarity, meeting her mother at St Mungo's shortly after she received the news. Ron Weasley was dying, and the Healers could do no more for him.
Though she remembered the sadness in her mother's eyes and the straightness of her mother's back that day, what she remembered most was that it seemed the color had been drained completely from her mother's hair. 'This is what grieving looks like,' Rose had thought, breathing in an intangible sadness that expanded in the hallway around them like fog. That moment was frozen in Rose's mind, and she didn't think she'd ever be able to shake it free.
When Ron had finally passed, Hermione was as strong as anyone expected, nodding gracefully at the well-wishers, offering a warm smile to those who took it worse than she. Hugo, every bit his mother's son, stayed late into the night after all the guests for his father's wake had left, cleaning up the mess, and returning Hermione to Rose's house, where she had planned to stay indefinitely whilst they dealt with the selling of her home.
"It won't be all mourning after this. You'll see. I have magic in me yet."
Hermione's last words curled around Rose's ear, hung on the air following every breath. She'd so wanted to believe it was true, that her mother still had many years ahead of her, but her mother's smile had faltered, the corners of her mouth tipping down and drawing Rose down with them. She remembered the way Hermione lifted herself from the sofa that evening, to retire to the guest room, and somehow Rose just knew she'd never hear that voice again.
Though her parents had been as different from one another as Rose could have possibly imagined, it just wasn't right to see one without the other. Rose's mother was not the kind of woman who seemed lost without her man, but there was a palpable hole where her love had been, love that had once been absorbed so readily by Rose's father, and Merlin knew he needed all the help he could get at times.
"I was born old, just to balance your father's eternal youth," Hermione would say. It had been the opposite for Rose and Silas.
Silas was the sensible one, the deliverer of truths that Rose so willingly failed to consider. He was the rock-steady voice she'd first heard as she staggered into a coffee shop, looking around wildly for Lily, who had been waiting half an hour already. It turned out to be the wrong coffee shop anyway, a fact that only became more apparent Rose searched in vain for her cousin amongst the small tables and plush chairs.
"Unless you've devised a charm to place eyes on the back of your head," Silas Carrington had said that day, his deep voice vibrating against her hair as he steadied her with strong hands on her elbows, "I suggest you try walking forward." His words were kind, and when she turned around he bashfully lowered his gaze, light eyes hidden beneath heavy lids, and Rose forgot that she'd meant to meet Lily at all. Lily, of course, had never let Rose forget it.
"Ellery is here." Rose jumped and grabbed for her quill at the sound of Silas's voice behind her.
"You scared me half to death," she said, twisting in her chair to see him.
Silas smiled. "She's brought Olivia."
"And John?"
"And John."
"Good." Rose smiled. "Tell her I'll be right out."
Silas nodded and closed the door behind him. Rose pushed her quill and notes aside. The arrangements, and daydreaming, would have to wait; Rose's grandchildren had arrived.
~@~@~@~
The grand hall was as magnificent as anything Hermione could have imagined. Everything shimmered, reflecting the light that radiated from everywhere, with great balconies overlooking the main hall below, and continuing on so high that Hermione could hardly tell if it ended at all. It wasn't hard to find her way; the corridors opened up before her as if she were the only spirit here, and hers the only destination. And when she'd reached the grand hall at last, the flurry of sudden spirit activity had caused her pause.
The fey were there, in soft, glowing luminescence, lining tables and balconies, archways and the large dais behind the head table. It was all a bit overwhelming, and Hermione had to remind herself several times to keep moving forward. She could see now why she'd confused these voices with music before, their soothing lilt carrying through the hall like chimes.
She was getting used to drifting by now. It wasn't hard once you got the hang of it. Much easier than flying on a broom. Now that she'd entered the hall, though, she wasn't quite sure where to go. The strange crimson-haired creature was nowhere to be found, and every other being in the hall was preoccupied with conversation or activity. The head table sat empty, and Hermione was not presumptuous enough to choose a seat there. Instead, she drifted off the main aisle to make herself less conspicuous, though no one else in the hall appeared to notice her entrance.
When silence finally fell upon the room, it came like snow, softening the sound, heavy in its own stillness. Slowly the voices faded away until there was nothing left but a thick blanket of quiet.
Then the music began.
Hermione's first thought was that the word 'music' itself was far too vulgar and plain to describe what she was hearing now. Her skin rose in gooseflesh as it vibrated through her, and she felt a strange sort of anxiety as she awaited what was to come next.
The Faery Queen's arrival was nothing less than spectacular, her chariot pulled down the long aisle by fair and slender white horses. Hermione thought that if it hadn't been for the opalescent, shimmery quality radiating from every creature and surface in the room, the faery court would look quite sterile. When the Queen was finally seated at the table, she nodded toward her entourage, and the group of six faeries, each with wide wings that beat slowly in synchronized time, walked out into the crowd, gathering other faeries of varying size, and spirits much like Hermione herself, and leading them to the table.
Hermione was so taken by this commotion, that she jumped in surprise when one of the faeries looped an arm around her back, a sensation Hermione could actually feel, and guided her off toward the table without a word.
"Me?" Hermione said. "Are you sure about this? I've never been here before."
The faery didn't even look in her direction. The hand on Hermione's back was flat and long-fingered, cool to the touch as it steered her toward the head table. Hermione had grown used to moving at an old woman's pace, and even on her short trip from the room in which she'd awoken earlier to the court, she'd glided along slowly. The faeries, however, moved with deliberate swiftness, and if she'd still had a stomach, she was sure that by now it would be turning violent somersaults as they wove through the crowd. The faery pushed her toward a seat near the end of the table, then turned gracefully and strode away.
Hermione took her seat, finding it odd as she wasn't actually capable of 'sitting' and instead just hovered above the chair.
"I suppose you know better than to put any of this in your mouth," said the small faery beside her.
"I should think I'd have a great deal of trouble putting anything in my mouth in this state," Hermione said.
"You might be surprised," said the faery.
Hermione looked out at the spread in front of her, finding that none of it appealed.
"Why am I here?" Hermione asked.
The faery looked at her, irritated, and Hermione imagined she was not the first interloper to wander into the midst of their well-rehearsed theatrics. She was asking a tourist's question, the faery's expression made that clear, but she'd only been here a few hours. And though she detested the feeling that everyone else in the room knew more than she did, Hermione couldn't squelch her own curiosity.
"She wants you," the faery said, and she nodded toward the center of the table, where the Faery Queen sat regally.
Her hair was raven black, the kind of superficial, shiny color that reflected in waves of blue where the light hit it. The Queen's hair was the only thing of darkness Hermione had seen in the Court.
"Is she going to speak to me?" Hermione asked.
"When she feels like it," the faery said. Then with delicate fingers, she raised a cup to her lips and poured out a thick liquid into her mouth.
Hermione watched the remaining theatrics of dinner at the Faery Court attentively, looking for some clue, some indication of the reason she'd been brought here, but the tedium and repetition soon made it clear that this was nothing more than regular Faery business. Still, it was fascinating in its own right.
Dinner finally came to an end and the guests began to file out. One by one they rose to their feet, whether solid or ethereal, and the room emptied. The Faery Queen still had not so much as looked in her direction and finally Hermione herself rose, looking down at her feet. They looked like feet now, recognizable except for their distance from her eyes. She'd spent her final years with the gentle curve of old womanhood shaping her spine, and had grown used to the ground's closer proximity.
She'd become so entranced by examining legs that now looked like legs, and hips that swelled beneath the gauzy shift, that she almost didn't notice that the room was barren of guests save for Hermione and the Faery Queen herself, who was finally looking at her.
"Hermione Granger," she said, and her voice echoed hauntingly, in a manner Hermione was sure was meant to intimidate.
Hermione bowed her head. "Your Highness."
The Faery Queen's expression reminded Hermione of a frigid winter they'd spent in the country, when Rose and Hugo were small. It grew so cold that the entire landscape sparkled white even during the warmest parts of the day, without a single flake of snow.
"You refused to eat a bite during my feast," the Queen said.
"Food doesn't seem to be essential to my existence any longer," said Hermione.
"I suppose that's true." The Queen's dark eyes glistened. "And you wish to know why I've brought you here after your human passing?"
"It seems a reasonable question," said Hermione.
"You are an impertinent guest," the Queen scolded.
"I believe I earned the right to bluntness in my old age," said Hermione.
"You're not old here," the Queen said, and before Hermione could stop herself, she looked down to examine her hands: smooth hands with long, straight fingers and slender knuckles.
"We humans are creatures of habit," Hermione said.
"Infuriatingly so," said the Queen. Then she smiled, and Hermione was almost certain she could hear the sound of bells tinkling in the brilliance of it. "I need you, Hermione Granger, to collect something for me. Something of… the utmost importance to my Court."
"Why on earth would you need me?" Hermione asked.
"Because," said the Queen, "the bloodline you've passed on is more worthy than you can possibly imagine. Come." And she turned and began to float from the room with Hermione following swiftly behind.
Without a word, they proceeded down a long corridor, then into a narrow room, lined with shelves and jars. The room was quite different than the rest of the palace. There were no pristine, sparkling marble walls, or unearthly topiaries of greenery. This room was dark, the only light coming from the twisting, dancing sparks inside each jar. Though it could have been fireflies at first glance, or tiny Lantern Pixies, Hermione sensed something far more sinister in the mesmerizing glow of each jar, marked with a name. Some were clearly English, though many were written in foreign alphabets, or in script that Hermione didn't recognize at all.
"These are human souls," Hermione said, with some degree of horror.
"My collection," said the Faery Queen, smiling benignly. "Each is a soul for which I've had use at some point, or will in the future."
"Where did they come from?" said Hermione.
"Death," the Faery Queen said, and she spoke the word as if discussing an old friend.
"Is this what's to become of me?" Hermione asked.
The Queen appraised her carefully. "Only if you fail me."
Then the Queen's pace became swifter, and Hermione struggled to keep up, following through the door on the far side of the room. As they left, the heavy door clamped shut behind them, but not before Hermione took note of one curiously labeled jar on a low shelf near the exit. And though she had many questions for the Queen on the tip of her tongue, she knew that this particular matter would warrant investigation on her own. The jar at the end of the room was labeled "Severus Snape".
~@~@~@~
