Seven Preposterous Things

Pity has no part in it-
Loosed to take its course, love
is the master- and the variable
certainty in the crosses of
uncertainty-

--William Carlos Williams- A Crystal Maze 1931

The smoke was a decidedly unnerving bile colour and smelled, not of sulphur as one might expect, but rather more like the fine aroma of burning lorry tires. The thunder-like crack that preceded the smoke pouring into Albus Dumbledore's office was indeed portentous and not only for the way it knocked him out of his chair and onto his notably pointed behind with his beard over his head.

He was forced to struggle with his facial hair until he burrowed a hole large enough to see through. A thick black horizontal line could be observed hovering once the smoke cleared, like a cosmic hyphen, and from that line descended a sheet of paper, like the post sliding through a slit in a door that wasn't there.

It was almost time to leave for the welcoming feast. He had best move quickly.

The handwriting was known to the headmaster. He chewed on the edge of his beard that had worked its way into his mouth in the struggle. It was worrying; Severus wasn't the sort one expected to build a time machine. And if this wasn't the work of an illicit time machine he'd eat his beard; although it looked like he was doing that already. But Severus?

It wasn't that it was beyond him, quite the contrary, if anyone Albus knew was capable of building a time machine it was Severus Snape. No, the reason Albus was taken aback was that the situation had to be fairly desperate for Severus Snape to summon up courage to take a risk of this magnitude.

He read carefully, the squirrel in his head that powered most of his decision making process running furiously on its wheel.

He would have to change his plans. Enough to bring about success but not so much that Severus failed to send the note in some alternate future that would spring from his change of plans. The squirrel got a leg cramp.

He suddenly felt inexplicably misty-eyed about sharing a fate with the Potter boy; truth be told, he was more than a bit sorry for both of them.

Minerva McGonagall turned away from the passage leading to the headmaster's office. She had intended to make certain their illustrious head didn't arrive late for the sorting but decided to speak to the house elves about removing cabbage from the school menu instead. She might be a Gryffindor, but she wasn't foolhardy enough to try and reckon with that stench unaided.


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Some ten years in the future, Severus Snape awoke flailing in disoriented terror, his sheets damp with sweat, a puddle of spittle in the corner of his mouth. For some inexplicable reason, he was reassured when his hand grasped a quaint wooden headboard. His eyes fairly rattled in his skull as he tried to figure out where in the bowels of Hell he was, that light should stream in through his window in such a diabolically cheerful way.

It was then that he noted Hermione Granger snoring beside him. He stared at her, nausea and cold chills replacing his earlier wild terror.

What was Granger doing in his bed? Or, worse yet, had he somehow managed to invade her chamber?

He inhaled, trying to slow his breathing before he hyperventilated. The whole place smelled of sex. He'd fucked Granger, then? He shut his eyes and some rather vivid images painted themselves inside his eyelids. She'd fucked him rather?

It seemed like a vivid hallucination but sifting through the contents of his memory now that his brain was congealing into something like a waking state, his recollection did indeed confirm that he was involved in some sort of liaison with Granger.

Married? He double-checked the ring on his finger with the one on hers. He ground his back teeth as he puzzled over it and tried to sort out memory from years of fantasy.

Yes, he was married to Granger. He spent some time waiting for it to turn to shit but that hadn't happened yet. Not that he was guaranteed happiness; it merely meant he was fairly unmiserable for the time being. He'd be up to his nostrils in shit in no time at all, or his name wasn't Severus Snape.

The muddle was gone. He and Granger were hiding from The Dark Lord and posing as Muggles in America. Being a shiftless freeloading git, Severus had brought his bride to share a house with Malfoy the younger and family. Malfoy and his dark little hag had one babe in arms and another on the way.

He felt peculiar to have lost track of his life somehow in his sleep, but it wasn't the first time. It used to happen fairly often when he was an adolescent; still, he wondered if this most recent occurrence could be blamed on either too much drink or too little.

Granger turned in her sleep and her hard nipple brushed against his arm. He turned his eyes to her face. Careful not to wake her, he caressed her cheek. As long as his unusual run of luck held, he would not walk away.


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Hermione never thought she'd ascribe motives to people who couldn't control their own bowels but she was sure Baby Phil didn't like her. He straddled his mother's lap, a hank of her shiny black hair in his now fat little fist, and out of the corner of his eye he shot Hermione a disdainful look worthy of Lucius Malfoy. The fact that Malfoy blood now pumped through his little veins was apparent every waking moment of Phil's life. Snape was right, though, he was never going to be anything but unattractive. Still he was unattractive in a Malfoy sort of a way. He wrinkled his nose the same way Draco's mother had at Quidditch Cup the one time Hermione had seen her. Most of his little infantile mannerisms seemed to mirror Draco's. She couldn't decide whether it was a result of spending half the day alone with his father or the potion Severus had given him.

Hermione had precious little first-hand exposure to actual babies before Phil, so she could hardly say whether it was normal for an infant to be so seemingly adult in its expressions or not. Millie didn't seem to think it was noteworthy, so it was probably fine.

He was likely giving her that nasty look because she'd walked him over to the zoo with a bag full of nappies and bottles so his parents could have sex the day before. He tended to hold a grudge. The first time she'd changed his nappy, she'd accidentally pricked him with the pin - it turned out the disposable kind broke him out in a ghastly rash - and he'd screamed bloody murder every time she got within a yard of him for the better part of a week.

Which explained why she didn't watch Phil without Severus unless it couldn't possibly be avoided. Whenever she held him, he seemed to teeter on the brink of screaming.

The rhinoceros saved her yesterday. For reasons known only to himself, Phil was mesmerised by the cow-like grass chewing of the animal in his enclosure. Not sure what else to do, Hermione proceeded to tell him everything she knew about rhinoceroses. When they returned to the house and he caught sight of Millie, he suddenly remembered to resent Hermione for not being his mother and burst out screaming until he was safely in Millie's arms.

The thing was, he was perfectly pleasant as long as he was with one of his parents.

He'd be holy terror in a crèche. Somehow Hermione couldn't see either Drano or Millie signing him up for one. All for the best really.

"Whose baby are you?" Millie said, holding him out so she could look into his eyes. Hermione noted she said this several times a day, as if teaching him by rote. "Who do you belong to? That's right, you belong to me. You're Mummy and Daddy's baby, aren't you? You are Philip Black, and you belong to me, and you're the most precious baby in the whole wide world, aren't you, Philipus Rex?"

Millie ended this display of sentiment with a kiss to Phil's forehead, only it didn't end there, her lips fell peppery from his eyelids to his chin and then, for good measure, behind his ears, where she made what Hermione could only describe as yummy noises. Then she moved on to his little fingers. The thing was Millie did this several times a day and so did Draco. Hermione was almost used to it.

Any of their mutual classmates from Hogwarts would have thought Hermione mad if she described it to them. Or perhaps not.

She wondered if perhaps this was the very beginning of the difference between Purebloods and Muggle-born cultures. Culture being essentially everything humans do, or have, aside from basic biological functions; world view, ego development, social order; none of it was innate, in her opinion.

While Hermione was sure her parents loved her, their idea of love was more on the order of preparing her to live her own life on her own two feet. Millie and Draco's idea of loving Phil meant weaving him inextricably into a web of Pureblood relations even if they were an ocean away and he would never meet them.

It was bound to give a person a different point of view on a good many things.

Hermione watched Millie lift Phil's foot to kiss his tiny sole, the last bit of exposed skin she could reach.

"You belong to Mummy and Granny Prune and Uncle Eye and Granddad Phil, you're named for him, and Black Alice would feed you marrow bones if she saw you ‘cause you belong to Black Alice, too, and your Granny Narcissa, if she saw you she'd wrap you up in furs and give you nappy pins with rubies in ‘em," Millie went on, content to stroke Phil as he curled, almost like a puppy, on her chest. "And they'd all say you were the best boy in the whole wide world, because you are."

Hermione tried to imagine herself in Phil's place, growing up surrounded by an invisible web of relatives. It was times like this when the discussions she and Millie had about cultural differences between Purebloods and Muggle-born made themselves crystal clear.

"What do you plan on doing once he's school age?" Hermione asked, suddenly thinking of it for the first time, and wondering if they would be able to perpetrate such a long-term ruse.

Draco turned away from whatever he was doing with the roses. He often seemed to simply stand among them, stroking their leaves and humming under his breath, but apparently the mention of school was enough to disturb his oneness with the vegetation.

"The Academie Laveau has the best grounding in Esoteric Arts on the continent as far as I know, but the Esqueila Azul de Brujo de Talpa is more geared toward Pureblood ways," Draco said, walking towards them to address the matter.

"Not even considering Salem, then?" Severus interjected. He was seated at the patio table, cigarette in one hand, newspaper in the other. Whack rubbed herself aggressively against the toe of his boot. The goat grazed passively on the petunias, tethered as he was to the leg of Severus' chair.

"I was talking about Muggle school," Hermione said.

"That's easy; he's not going," Draco said leaning down to stroke Phil's head protectively.

Millie, so far, said nothing but rather followed the conversation with her eyes slitted. Hermione could tell something was churning inside her head but couldn't predict the exact conclusion she was reaching.

Draco lifted Phil into his arms. "Want to smell the roses?" he said to the baby.

Hermione found it odd the way Draco and Millie addressed Phil as though they expected an answer. As far as she could tell, they had better chance of an answer from Whack.

The aforementioned cat took that moment to leap onto Severus' lap, knocking his paper to the ground. Goat capered forward, hastily chomping at the paper before Severus could reach it.

"Eat the paper; it was utter shit anyway," he said taking a drag of his cigarette. "Your children will attend school or the state will send a truant officer... to the house," he added dramatically.

For a moment the three of them stared at one another and pondered the intrusion of an agent of the Muggle government into their lives. Millie lay back with her eyes shut.

"What if I hex them?" Millie asked, opening one eye.

"And all these years I imagined you weren't a complete moron. Hex, Obliviate, or Confundus a truant officer and our chance of being discovered will increase exponentially. Granger and I both managed to survive Muggle schooling to the age of eleven, your children will do the same," Severus said with a finality that effectively ended all debate on the matter.

"You don't think it will make them all... Mugglish?" Millie said leaning towards Severus.

"I dare say the effect will be quite the opposite," Severus said, pausing to take a drag on his cigarette and look with disdain on Goat, who had just finished off the last of his paper. "They will learn to dislike Muggles with more vitriol than they ever could have gained at their Great Aunty Bella's knee. A few years thrown in with the general Muggle rabble and I dare say the entire Weasley clan would have turned to the Dark Lord's side."

Hermione's curiosity got the better of her. "Why did you go to Muggle school, Severus, your mother was a witch?"

"I don't know," Severus said sharply. "Perhaps she wanted to be rid of me."

Millie screwed up her face for a split instant before settling back to her pretense of sleep. Draco's back was turned, apparently teaching Philip to communicate with flowers, but Hermione saw him stiffen for a minute just the same.

What was she supposed to say after something like that? Severus revealed far more about his childhood than she'd thought he would, but somehow, instead of being a festering scab she could pick at to relieve the poison, he seemed to use it as a kind of trump card. Severus Snape had endured a terrible childhood, a miserable adolescence, and an inconsolable adulthood and managed to use it to his advantage in every argument. With Millie and Draco, at least, all he had to do was lay one ugly memory on the table and all disagreements were withdrawn. Wanker. It was a good thing this time he'd used it on to argue her side or she would have given him what for.

She might have still given him what for, but he was leering at her. He might be a wanker, but he was her wanker, and she found herself growing fonder of him all the time. Not just romantically, not just his gut wrenching sexual magnetism, heaven help her, but on a day to day, drab prosaic basis she liked Severus Snape.

She liked her life and her household. Here in exile she was happier than she'd ever been in her "real" life. It was ironic in a way that made her feel more than slightly guilty. It sounded foolish, but she'd never had a friend like Millie and, after the rhinoceros, she thought she and Phil might have reached an understanding.

It shocked Hermione to admit that Draco was likeable too, now that he had a baby on his hip and a no-nonsense witch to keep him in line. Until Phil had come along, he had been arrogant and shallow and, worst of all, needlessly cruel. Now she wondered exactly how she was supposed to expect herself to continue thinking of him as the same twit who'd called her "Mudblood" when she watched him carefully hold Baby Phil up so that he could smell the roses blooming in the back garden, blossoms half as big as his face, and rub his velvety cheeks against the equally soft petals.

He changed nappies without batting an eye. As far as that skill went, she would gladly admit his innate superiority.

She felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle as Severus stepped up behind her, drawing one finger along her arm as he whispered in her ear.

"Are you quite certain we can't phone and tell Shakeleg you've come down with shingles?" he whispered seductively.

"Very much so," she said. "First off it would be a lie; second, it would be ungrateful after he covered for you, and thirdly, it was very kind of him to invite us to celebrate a holiday with his family. I'm looking forward to it."

Severus looked away, as sullen as sullen could be.

Hermione looked down at her watch and then across to Millie, asleep on a lawn chair. She wasn't visibly pregnant yet; as far as Hermione could tell, the only change in her at all was a newfound tendency to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Well, that and the way she seemed to avoid poultry.

She checked her watch again.

"Millie," she said. "Millie... Your program is going to be on in a few minutes. You asked me to remind you."

"I think your mummy fancies Fox Mulder," Draco said sotto voce, presumably to Baby Phil. "Do you think we should tell her he's just a Muggle play-actor? It might break her ickle black heart."

"Buzz off, you knob," Millie groaned affectionately, one arm thrown over her eyes.

Draco closed in until he was posed, towering dramatically over grumbling Millie.

"Still he does wear his clothes well. I wonder where he gets them. You think something like that might suit me?" he said, looking down at Millie, Phil clinging to his neck.

Millie squinted as if weighing his relative powers of attraction.

Hermione chewed her lip to keep from laughing as Draco began, under Millie's cool appraising stare, to literally pose, lifting his chin haughtily and giving her his bedroom eyes as well as puckered lips.

Severus sniggered.

"I don't know, Millie," Hermione said in mock earnestness. "Fox Mulder is top totty, Muggle actor or not. I'm not sure Draco could manage it."

Millie's lip trembled for an instant, then twisted up at the corner.

Draco snorted and turned round to Hermione granting her his best look of disdain. "No vote for you. Shagging gingers automatically calls your judgement under suspicion."

Hermione could have answered with any number of retorts, most of them involving Pansy Parkinson, but it hardly seemed worth the effort, instead she turned to look at Severus behind her.

"I wouldn't say my judgement is suspect, would you?" she asked Severus, darting her eyes toward him.

"From my vantage point your taste seems quite superb," Severus said archly, bringing an index finger to his lips.

Draco squinted, his cheeks going ever so slightly pink.

Severus visibly suppressed a laugh, and Hermione traded a puzzled look with Millie.


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Sometimes Shakeleg reminded Severus of Lucius. It neither dismayed Severus nor warmed the cockles of his reputably impenetrable heart; it simply was what it was.

Had he been born a Wizard...

No, Severus had to amend that, had Shakeleg been born a Wizard in the UK, he most certainly would have been a Slytherin. Or perhaps Severus was imagining things, projecting, because he did not dislike him. Still it remained that he wasn't like most of their other co-workers. And it could in fact be the case that Severus liked him precisely because there was something to Shakeleg that had more in common with a pureblood Wizard than might be surmised from plaited hair and a t-shirt emblazoned with the legend "Too Drunk to Fuck."

Stepping on the gas as the light turned green and giving Hermione a sideways glance, he considered the question, finally settling on the fact that Shakeleg's every word was shaded by his habit of leaving three or four unspoken.

Case in point, he'd invited them to "come around in a couple of Thursdays," as though it were a vague open-ended invitation, when in fact it turned out to be a rather specific invitation to a rather large holiday with family.

And now they were following Shakeleg from Millie's beloved Central Market, not to Shakeleg's home, but rather to the home of his grandmother, Maison du Shakeleg if you will. The whole thing made Severus slightly more tense than usual, in much the same way Whack-the-Cat would be more tense than usual were she to be stuffed in the industrial blender he used at the bar.

He could see Shakeleg looking in his own rear-view mirror and laughing. The sadistic shit.

Severus mouthed the words FUCK YOU clearly, making certain Shakeleg saw him.

Shakeleg laughed even harder.

Hermione patted his thigh and gave him a hopeful smile.

"I'm sure it will be perfectly pleasant," she said, squeezing his knee. "He is your friend."

"So you insist on saying; the only reason I agreed to this is your ceaseless nagging," he said.

Granger's smile took a turn for the worst. "I reminded you that if you did not accept his offer you might be obliged to fill in for him some time in the future."

"Hence my use of the word ‘nagging'," he said, keeping his eyes on Shakeleg's green Chrysler Imperial.

"I said it once. Not even you can construe me saying something once as a form of coercion. Not credibly at least," Granger said, still squeezing his knee, though a bit harder than before.

"That and the prospect of a free meal," Severus admitted.

"All right, Diogenes," she said with a smirk.

"Do you think me a cynic?" he asked, turning his head, suddenly.

"Do you think I'm female?" Granger said.

"I know you are female, having had some first hand exploration of the area in question," he said.

"Much the same way I arrived at knowledge of your cynicism," Granger said, opening the glove box. He hated it when she did that; it was a bugger to shut again.

Undeterred she removed his torch and flicked the switch with her thumb. "Now you can go looking for an honest man," she said, shining a circle of light on the fabric that hung slack on the roof of the car.

"You're a very silly person, Granger," Severus said, turning sharply, unsure whether or not he wanted to let on that he enjoyed her silliness. A little.

"No one, in my entire life, has ever accused me of being silly," she said in a way that reminded him of Minerva a bit.

"They obviously weren't paying attention," he said, raising his brow at her in the way he had come to realise had a certain effect on her.

Instead, she sighed loudly and rested her forehead against the dashboard; beneath her dandelion mop of hair, he heard a muffled, "I s'pose you're right."

Bugger. He'd said something wrong. He ground his back teeth wondering how long she was going to be cross with him, as well as exactly how he'd transgressed.

Friendly bickering was one thing, but he'd rather not have an altercation with his wife in front of Shakeleg's family.

She didn't say anything else until they arrived in the outlying patch of dirt known as Midlothian. Shakeleg's grandmother could not rightly be described as easily located. First Shakeleg led him off the highway onto a series of twisting gravel roads followed by muddy ruts in an unmown field.

Shakeleg's granny lived in a largish Airstream trailer. Maison de Malfoy it was not.

His own Gran, Lizzie, had stayed in a fairly dilapidated Airstream trailer before she got her council tenancy. Seeing it made him feel inexplicably better, warmer, more welcome, than all the ancestral manses Abraxas Malfoy's new money could buy.

Granger, on the other hand, looked a bit stunned.

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Author's Note: Thanks once again to Shiv for betaing like the knife wielding fiend she is