Snark Summer

A/N - I don\'t know how long this piece will end up being, it just seems to be unfolding as I go.

Droxy - so he can. :)

Kate - The contrast makes me smile as well.

Chapter 2 – The Laboratory

Severus watched the two little girls scurry off and cleared the table with a few deft swishes. Minuet’s request to stay with him this summer had come as a surprise. He couldn’t imagine a little girl wanting his company rather than fleeing it, especially one of his students. Weren’t they supposed to live in terror of him? He must have failed somewhere, given them the idea that he actually cared.

He snorted at the thought; he universally despised the student body, though he despised the Slytherins slightly less than the other houses. He liked Draco, if he were being honest with himself, and felt compassion and sympathy for Pansy. His mind twitched away from that thought. Pansy had been taken into protective custody by the Ministry; she was a ward of the state and was hidden from even him -- probably especially from him.

He glanced around the ken, en, making sure everything was in perfect order. He despised an untidy workspace and the kitchen fell into that category for him.

He remembered his grandmother puttering about in this room: the smell of her – lavender and onions - the way she had hummed as she worked, the round face with bright emerald green eyes twinkling, the white hair pulled back into a bun, wisps of hair falling everywhere. Her death had been the last blow; the horrible sense of solitude that had eaten him alive, as he had stood there silent and dry-eyed at her funeral and watched as his father had sneered at the old woman’s memory, had been the last tie that had been cut setting him adrift for Voldemort to catch and draw in.

He had changed nothing in the room since her death, carefully mending the china and linens, preserving the place exactly as it had been in his childhood, his own refuge from his parents and the world.

He swept quickly from the room, alarmed at the maudlin direction his thoughts were taking. Down the stairs and through the root cellar where the potatoes, vegetables and other dry stores were kept, to an iron banded door at the end.

Grandfather, a Potions Master of some renown himself, had set up this lab. He pushed through the door, ignoring the creaking of the hinges and gazed upon his tiny kingdom with pride. It was an oblong room with stone counters that ran the length of two walls, with sinks set into them. Shelves of ingredients on long wooden planks hung above the counters and the center of the room was dominated by the Work. It was not just the day-to-day efforts of the brewer of potions here; it was the true aim of all brewers, the Work itself: Alchemy.

Bubbling retorts, alembics and tubes suspended in midair criss-crossing the table, a mortar and pestle, notebooks covered in the spidery handwriting of three generations of Snapes -- it was his idea of heaven. Or it was once, before last year; before Her.

His eyes burned in memory and he swallowed hard against the threatened tears. He had spent a week just grieving Her loss, writing Her letters that he didn’t expect answers to and reminding himself that he had always been quite good at being alone.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Her when She said She loved him, it was just that he knew She would be far away now, in a place with lots of handsome available men and it was inevitable that She would forget him. She would find some charming, brilliant fellow with a handsome face and great job and he would receive the letter that started “Dear Severus” and ended with “I hope we can still be friends.”

Memory supplied Her face and Her voice, but no memory was sufficient for him now. He ached for Her, burned for Her and wept long into the night. It was sad to think that he wasn’t sure which letter he dreaded more: the ‘Dear Severus’ or the ‘We regret to inform you…” letter; the other stark possibility, considering where She was and what She did there.

Either thought was enough to give him sleepless nights and a propensity to break things. Everywhere but here, in this shrine to purification and the labor of the mind, for this place was sacrosanct.

He set to work, checking substances and adjusting temperatures with persnickety precision. His mind wrapped itself in the work; his body obeying with unconscious grace, creating the movements that were required.

“Uncle Severus?” a piping voice startled him and he turned, almost dropping his beaker. Fortina, her black hair igtaigtails and her green dress covered in sand stood before him with her huge dark eyes looking up at him.

“Are you dying?” He asked severely and watched her eyes go round in fear.

“No. I’m hungry.” He voice trailed off to a whisper at the look on his face and he sighed. The clock on the wall declared that six was the hour. He cleaned his tools and set them aside. A stasis spell kept everything from being ruined by the child’s appetite.

“Very well. We are having ham.” He informed her, as he turned away from the table.

“I don’t like ham.” She replied with an expression that involved her sticking out her tongue and wrinkling her nose.

“Do you like chicken?” He asked with some impatience.

“Yes.” She responded with a happy nod.

“Then we shall have chicken.”

“Fried or baked?” She slipped her tiny warm hand into his large, cold one and looked up at him earnestly as though the question was of utmost importance.

“How would you prefer it?” He was learning this game, if slowly.

“I like fried.” She informed him with decision. He gave her the eyebrow, but she simply clung harder to his hand and leaned against him in a winsome manner. He deduced that the visual effect of an adorable child, slowly starving to death was most effective with the house elves and an excellent way for her to charm adults. Against his will, he found himself charmed, but he fought it tooth and nail.

“Very well, we shall have fried chicken.” He conceded and his reward was a brilliant gap-toothed smile. This was going to be a long summer.