An Englishman’s Castle

Author's Notes: Despite the chapter title, you will be pleased to know that there is no squid nudity in this chapter, or any other chapter! Thank you for the reviews, and I hope you enjoy this offering as much I enjoyed writing it.

An Englishman’s Castle

A small cloud had gathered in the narrow hallway, impeding the flow of traffic like a piece of ice in a straw. Towards the staircase students wriggled upwards in an attempt to see and tottered on their tip-toes. A running commentary swept backwards and forwards like a tidal wave.
“What’s happening?” a sixth year Ravenclaw asked, piece of toast in his hand.
“Fight!” was breathlessly announced from somewhere in the mob, “Eugene Smith and Alan Ocean!”
The Ravenclaw glanced at his watch and then at his toast, peered for any gap in the huge gathering of students and shrugged. Rocking back on his heels he began to consume the toast rapidly as he waited for the students to finish their fight. Above him the hall clock ticked around to 9 o’clock and chimed over the confused babble of the fight.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” was roared through the hallway once the chimes had finished, “Move NOW!”
The students nearest to the Professor were caught, stupefied by his fury, and he began deducting points immediately. Those closest to the stairs and other corridors melted off rapidly, attempting to avoid the pandemonium that was ensuing as those students in the middle bolted for any available exits, vaulting over their friends and dropping bags in their haste.
When the hallway cleared Professor Snape was standing with two boys, his fingers tightly clamped onto their ears and their faces, mottled with bruises, contorted with the agony of having an ear almost pulled off their heads. His face was twisted into a snarl. Twenty students dressed in black uniforms were lined up outside his classroom door, faces apprehensive.
“I want two feet on the use of bicorn horn and boomslang skin in the Polyjuice potion, and I want it by Friday morning – get out of here!” he snarled at them.
Looking anywhere but at their Professor and the two boys he held, the class sprinted as inconspicuously as possible for the library, nodding and murmuring greetings to Hermione. She was standing in the doorway of the classroom with a quill behind her left ear and a heavy opened book in her arms, looking completely baffled.
“What’s going on?” she asked, peering at the boys, “the second years don’t have a lesson until Thursday.”
“Indeed, your powers of deduction never fail to overawe me, Madame Apprentice. I’m taking these miscreants to the Headmistress.”
“What about your classes?”
Snape exhaled loudly and rolled his obsidian eyes upwards in despair.
“They’ve been cancelled,” he informed her over his shoulders, pulling the boys towards the staircase, “do something useful.”
“What?”
“Sit still and count your bloody toes! Anything! Get a move on Ocean!”
“I can walk on my own!” Eugene Smith whimpered.
“You’re that much of an idiot, Smith, that I doubt it. Now walk quicker.”
Hermione screwed her face up and bobbed it violently from side to side as the boys were marched down the corridor.
“Count your toes…” she snarled in a high-pitched voice, “Do something useful… Bloody pillock!”
Snape didn’t reply, just twisted the ears clasped in his fingers tighter as the boys choked on their giggles. Hermione slammed the door shut behind her and flounced through the office to her desk.
“You two imbeciles will never repeat that, do you understand me? There are several untraceable poisons that I could employ in your dinner to make sure that it is never spoken of again…”
“No Professor!” Ocean whimpered, “Of course not.”
“Never,” Smith assured him.
Snape gave them both a highly smug smirk and hauled them out of the dungeons and up to the Headmistress’ office at top speed. Their shorter legs moved at twice the rate of his but they still had to jump every few steps to avoid stumbling and being dragged along. It was only when they reached the Gargoyle guarding the office that they were released and forcefully pushed onto the staircase, both rubbing their injured ears on the way up.
“Severus,” the Headmistress gave him a predatory, tight-lipped smile as he entered her office, “I was going to come and find you at lunchtime, but as you’re here now -”
“Headmistress, I’m here to discipline a pair of children,” he smirked, “not discuss the dealings of the Ministry. Ocean, Smith – get in here now!”
The two boys entered, eyes focused on the thick carpet beneath their feet. Beneath his shaggy cropping of brown hair Ocean’s ear was pulsing and fluorescent red, while Smith’s hair hung over his face, long enough to obscure the glowing organ.
“Eugene Smith and Alan Ocean, would you care to explain why Professor Snape has brought you to see me?” McGonagall frowned.
There was silence.
“I see. Well then, Professor Snape?”
“Of course, Headmistress. I opened my classroom door at approximately nine o’clock as the class of dunderheads you employ me to teach had failed to arrive. Gathered outside the classroom was a mob of students braying about a fight.”
“A fight? Ocean and Smith, I presume you were involved in this fight?”
The boys nodded miserably.
“I deducted points and accompanied the students to your office, Headmistress. I have no idea what the fight was about, probably some inconsequential trifle of a girl.”
“She’s not a trifle!” Ocean suddenly reared back and yelped, “she’s an angel!”
“I daresay we have no angels currently enrolled, Mr Ocean. However, the name of this girl is irrelevant. You are wizards and young men, and you are expected to resolve your differences without the use of any violence, do you understand? You have disrupted Professor Snape’s lesson and have made fools of yourselves. This girl will not be impressed by your brawling, no doubt. I am hugely disappointed.”
McGonagall fixed them with steely glares and then sighed.
“That will be thirty points apiece for disruption to lessons, and a week’s worth of detention for your public display of foolishness. Now go and join your classmates in lessons, and don’t let me find you up here again this term!”
Professor Snape placed a hand in between their shoulder blades and steered the boys to the staircase.
“Professor Snape, could you remain please? There is a matter of some urgency that needs to be resolved.”
“Of course Headmistress,” he stopped, scowling.
The boys scampered down the staircase, the door thudding closed behind them, as Snape seated himself in front of Minerva’s desk.
“I’ve had another Ministry owl, Severus,” she informed him, tapping a quill against the desk.
“No tea?” he asked, “I’m horrified.”
“Severus! They are sending over a child tomorrow evening. Have you prepared your quarters?”
“There must be some mistake,” Snape carefully schooled his features into shock and a little outrage, “I am only expected to provide for one child, am I not?”
“Yes,” Minerva said slowly, sucking her tongue in annoyance.
“There is a child currently installed in my quarters, acquainting himself with my cat as we speak.”
“Sorry?”
Minerva tipped herself forward and coughed in surprise, the quill dropping from her fingers. Snape gave her a gentle smile as she pursed her lips.
“His name is Humphrey, I believe, although we have not had much time to be acquainted.”
“I don’t believe you, Snape,” McGonagall glared at him, “not for one second. As if that blasted beast of yours would allow anyone near it. Furthermore, I have a feeling this is another of your conniving plans.”
“Madame, the child is there for you to speak with. However, as it is a lovely day, perhaps you will allow me to fetch him and we can take a walk along the lake? The boy could do with some fresh air.”
The Headmistress nodded reluctantly and stood.
“I shall procure the child and we will meet you at the main doors. Until then,” and he bowed a little stiffly before vanishing out of the office.
McGonagall mulled over the possibility of truthfulness as she laced up a pair of sturdy brogues and gathered her tartan cloak around herself. Pacing through the school towards the entrance she thought about Snape’s negligence in leaving a strange child in his quarters unattended, and decided that it was something he would do and therefore, the story was unlikely to be a fabrication. Sighing, she hoped for honesty.
Snape appeared quickly with a form bound up in a thick duffle coat and a woollen, rough hat with earmuffs included. The child reached his waist and followed the lanky form of the Professor a few steps behind, hands thrust into his pockets. Together with a scarf and gloves, the boy could barely be seen.
“Headmistress McGonagall, allow me to introduce Humphrey. Humphrey, you may shake the Headmistress’ hand.”
Humphrey reached out a gloved hand and shook Minerva’s rather stiffly until Snape laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Hello Humphrey. How are you?”
“Unfortunately, the boy has yet to speak. Some deep trauma I would imagine,” Snape hissed quietly at the Headmistress.
“Oh. Erm, well then, shall we walk? Humphrey, this is the Great Lake.”
Humphrey paced a step behind Snape, forcing McGonagall to crane backwards a little to speak to the silent child. Snape seemed highly uninterested, scanning the grounds with his dark eyes.
“The Giant Squid lives here, although you mustn’t worry because he is entirely harmless. The worst he does is dunk a student every now and again, and throw a few things. He acts as a safety mechanism for the lake as well, no drowning or anything,” McGonagall trailed off awkwardly.
Snape paused by the waterfront to pick up a bottle with a tattered label. He rolled his eyes and showed it to the Headmistress.
“Firewhisky,” he grunted, “unoriginal little pigs.”
McGonagall frowned and glanced at the boy who had stopped next to Snape.
“Squid!” she shouted across the lake, reaching back to pat Humphrey on the shoulder, “would you like to see him, Humphrey? I’m sure you would. Squid!”
The water rippled as Snape threw the firewhisky bottle back into the lake. Two long tentacles reached up through the liquid and waved idly from side to side in greeting as a third grasped the bottle that Snape had just thrown. The squid continued to rise until it was wallowing in the shallows.
“Why don’t you throw him a biscuit,” suggested Minerva, digging around in her cloak pocket, “here you are.”
The child didn’t take the biscuit as he was too busy looking at Snape, who in turn was watching the squid. When Snape turned he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder again and told him to take the biscuit and throw it at the squid the boy complied.
The squid snatched the biscuit out of the air and crammed it into its mouth hole, still tossing the empty bottle from one tentacle to another.
“That’s all he does, really,” Snape sneered, “stupid thing.”
Before McGonagall could scold Snape the squid reached up a tentacle and flung the empty firewhisky bottle across the lake, hitting Humphrey on the head with a loud cracking noise. The child fell backwards without a cry and lay on the shingle beach, utterly still.
“Bugger,” breathed Snape, dropping to his knees as McGonagall screamed and lurched towards the child.
The Headmistress ripped the child’s hat off and stopped suddenly.
“Snape!” she screeched, turning to him in fury, “SNAPE!”
The boy lying on top of the stones was quite clearly a wooden child, with the chisel marks still engraved in his cheeks. Curls of tree bark clung to his splintered skull, and his eyes had been clumsily affixed to his head in a hurry.
Snape cursed. There went his brilliant plan.
The Headmistress let loose an inarticulate bellow of anger.