The trap snapped while I was tending my herb harden. I’d been trying to catch that rat for a week, ever since it moved in behind my refrigerator. It had not seemed to be your usual rat. Once I found it in my bookcase. I couldn’t be sure, since the lights were low, but it appeared to be trying to pry a book off of the shelf. When it saw me, it turned, jumped onto the floor and fled, and the book fell off the shelf -- it was a book on popular culture in medieval times. Another time, I surprised it by flicking on the lights in the kitchen in the middle of the night. It had been in the sink, and it leaped away from me. I couldn’t be sure, since I was a little dazed myself by the sudden bright light, but it seemed to shine as it scurried to its hiding place under the fridge.
I’d cleared out its nest the day before, hoping it would get the message to shove off before it encountered the more forceful argument of the trap. Even the nest was not a typical one of old Kleenexes and eggshells. This rat seemed to like to bed down with dead insects, dried-up plants from my garden, and what looked like pieces of parchment with Latin written on them.
But now, this dirty rat’s parchment-scavenging days were over, and I had to get it out of my house. Dead things are so repulsive. I pried up the bar that had snapped over its head, and gingerly picked it up by the tail, preparing to throw it in the trash can. But then I stopped and looked more closely at the body. I’d never seen a rat before that had a front paw made of silver.
Suddenly there was a flash, and I was no longer alone. Two men stood there, dressed like Renaissance Faire geeks. Both were in cloaks, with elegant silver clasps of red and green. One was older, the other, just out of boyhood. The older man was hook-nosed and sallow-skinned, and he looked as if the sight of me and my kitchen were giving him pain. The younger one slouched and hung back a little; his eyes darted to me, and then rested warily on his companion. A scar was on his forehead. Both gripped slender wooden wands, simply designed, but clearly of fine workmanship.
The older man strode toward me. “I’ll take that,” he said crisply, reaching for the rat. “Oh, no you don’t!” I said, whipping it behind me, where it thunked unpleasantly against my back. He raised his wand, but the younger one stayed him. “Just a minute, Professor,” he said. The older man turned on the younger, and they glared at each other for a moment. “Oh, very well,” he snapped, “you handle it.”
“Ha!” I said. “I knew it was all true. I know who you two are, and I think I know what this rat really is. Or who it is, rather. I mean -- who it was. Guess you two owe me some thanks, eh? I just did with my trap what all your aurors couldn’t manage, eh?”
Snape’s eyes glittered. “Don’t taunt me, muggle,” he sneered. “Yes, you’ve guessed right -- Rowling has been so free about informing on our world that we can’t undertake a simple retrieval without these kinds of confrontations. I need Pettigrew’s body. I’d summon it from you if Potter here” -- he sneered -- would let me. So” -- here he paused, swallowed, and continued in a tone slightly more subdued, “please -- hand me that rat.”
“Ah, one of my life’s ambitions has been realized,” I opined, “to be sneered at by Severus Snape! Is your first name really Severus? I’ve always thought she was a little too forceful with her names. Normal people with diabolical tendencies usually end up with sweet little names, like Herbert or Bob. Funny it’s different in the magical world; I guess people just have cooler names there. Still, there are exceptions -- ‘Harry.’ Why don’t you have a funky name, Harry?”
“Long story--” Harry said.
“--aren’t they all,” I interjected.
“--but we do need the rat. I see that you’re a friend, and I’m sure you want to help us.”
“Diplomatically put,” I said. “But it won’t come so easy. Do you know how long she makes us wait between books, Harry? Years and years and years. I’ve already reserved my copy of Book 7 from Amazon; I just hope it will get here in time for Tim’s college graduation. He turned twelve this year, so it might be a close thing --”
“I can’t help you,” said Harry. “Now, the rat.”
“Not so fast. I think I at least am owed an explanation -- before I unaccountably am unable to remember this little tete a tete. That is what’s coming, isn’t it?”
Snape’s lip curled.
“So tell me, this, Harry -- how did you get Snape to eat out of your hand? Why isn’t he zapping this four-legged piece of trash away from me?”
Harry looked at me stoically. “Professor Snape and I came to -- an understanding. And I prefer to deal with muggles in a non-forceful manner.”
“Until it comes to my short-term memory, of course. Come, now, Harry, you’re asking a lot of me -- to give up this fine rodent with his curious paw (we have county fairs here in the States, you know, where we could charge a dollar a peep) -- and not only that, to give up so soon my knowledge of all of you. Tell me how you bested Count Dracula here.”
Harry sighed. “All right. I asked for his forgiveness. On behalf of my father. And I agreed to recompense him for all the losses he received from my family, material or otherwise.”
I gazed at him in admiration. “Well done, Harry! Taking the high road, burying the hatchet! -- and making him mortally ashamed of his pettiness, all in on stroke! I’ve always been a great admirer of your high character. Only in a maternal way, of course, you’re much too young for me. So is this what brings you two here -- on your way to a Merlin First Class for some lucky Potions Master? To make up for the one you screwed up for him over the Sirius Black affair?”
Harry stifled a guffaw, but Snape snapped. “Potter, this is taking too long.”
“I still think I’m owed a little more in this matter. After all, my little trap outsmarted all of you--”
“You might as well know that’s no ordinary trap.”
“Hey, it looks ordinary to me. It looks like the same rat trap I bought at the Wal-Mart three days ago. I have dozens of questions about your world that may never get answered, or at least not for a long time. And I don’t mean those obvious ones like who’s gonna get the babe. Now tell me. How did Pettigrew get into Gryffindor -- or WAS that even his house? Is your currency on a gold standard, and is that why economic inequalities exist in the magical world? Do you buy food, or magic it all? Do you have to take some kind of vow of singleness to be on the Hogwart's faculty? Do the laws of physics apply in any way to magic -- or is there a separate law of physics for magic -- or is magic more of a systemic overthrowing of the laws of physics? And why do you have to thumb through books for everything? Don’t you have some means getting information as effective as the internet? I would think you people could do at least as good as Google. Honestly, Harry, with a Magical Google -- “survive,underwater,charm” -- tap tap, your worries would have been over in the Triwizard. And why does Hogwarts have to be such a drafty place? Why do you rely on fireplaces for heating? Haven’t you ever considered furnaces? “
Snape smiled pure poison. “I’m afraid I can’t give you so much information about our world. You’ll have to wait on the lady in Scotland. She has an -- arrangement -- with us, but I can’t disclose, I’m afraid.”
“Paying her off, same as me, are you. I wonder what she did for you. Well, God bless her, she’s given us quite a tale. Too bad I won’t be looking for it on the nonfiction shelf after this.”
“It’s time you gave us the rat,” said Snape. “But I see you still want something --”
“Hey, stay out of my head, Count Chocula, but --yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I’m a busy woman, and this kitchen -- this is an ugly kitchen. And a small one.”
“Very well.” Snape raised his wand. “The cherry wallpaper, I assume? New moldings -- refinished cupboards --more counters --”
“I REALLY don’t like you inside my head, but it is efficient, I’ll admit. And if you could make it bigger on the inside than the outside, I’d be much obliged. Could you make that awful enclosed porch off the back into a dining room? With a big stone fireplace. But it can’t stick way out off the back of the house, or it will mess up my garden. I don’t suppose you could throw in a house elf--”
“No.”
“All right, that will do, I suppose.” I looked at Harry. “Tell her she’d better be writing so fast, there’s smoke coming out of her computer.”
Harry grinned. “I’ll let her know.”
*****
I’m so glad we had the kitchen redone -- it looks so fresh and cheery. And the new fireplace -- it must have quite a draft, because the fire starts so easily. You practically just think a fire, and it lights.
And it just goes to show that not every remodeling project has to be difficult and drawn out. This one didn’t take long at all. The contractors seemed to finish it in -- in no time at all. They were an unusual sort, though, those contractors. In all the nooks and crannies of my new kitchen, I keep finding little messes of parchment and leaves.