A very wild-eyed Draco burst into my office screaming something about a tombstone. I picked my head up from the desk and hoped I didn’t have ink on my face. I must have fallen asleep while grading essays. Small wonder, they were awful. Draco was ranting about something, I guessed. I didn’t really hear the individual words, but he sounded panicked. He came over to the desk and leaning in, placing his palms on the papers in front of me.
“Did you hear me, Snape?” he shouted in my ear. Well, I could hear him now. “Voldemort’s going to find out about the crushed tombstone! We are going to be killed!” So that’s what’s he worried about. I yawned and stretched, and then looked at him with startled eyes. If he was going go around screaming, I give him something to really worry about.
“I forgot entirely about that!” I bemoaned. I put my head in my hands. “And Voldemort goes to the graveyard every night. Our plan is ruined.”
“WHAT!?” Draco leapt back.
“We’ve failed.” I slumped in my seat. “But I’ll Apparate to Violet’s to see if she has a contingency plan.”
“He’ll murder me,” Draco moaned. “I know it. He’ll find it was us and we’ll be dead.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “He’ll be able to tell who it was by magical residue.”
“Should we run?” Draco asked hopefully. I shook my head.
“And have Dumbledore and Voldemort after us? No, we have to stay here.” I glanced at the clock. “Draco, you’ve got to get to class. We can talk about this later.”
“Are you kidding me?” he yelled. I stood up and gathered papers.
“Bye Draco.”
“Yeah, see you in the afterlife,” he said miserably. With that, he turned and slumped out the door. Good. That should significantly deflate his ego. Stupid boy, to even think I would forget something that important.
Well, actually, I had. I had gotten a cheery message at two this morning; just after we had gotten in and I had fallen asleep. Violet’s head had popped up in my fireplace.
“Hello? Sunshine! Wake up!” she had yelled at my prone form. “You need to get to that graveyard IMMEDIATELY!” Why? To fix an illusion on that dumb massive piece of rock. Oh, yeah and while I was at it; if I would be a dear and clean up the rock remains all over the area, “I’m sure dear Honey Bun didn’t mean to forget,” that would be just peachy.
So at three thirty I got back and graded papers from second years until the ink and words ran together and I was going cross-eyed with the effort. I was not running on much sleep. I usually don’t need much, but all this taking over the Dark Lord position and dealing with a Malfoy for longer than I’d like to see him let alone talk to him.
True, he wasn’t as bad as his father, but he was borderline right now. Someday I’d have to ask Draco if he’d bleached his hair.
It was hard not to laugh at the paranoid blonde. Draco jumped at every sound and I thought he was going to die of fright when The Golden Trio accidentally walked up behind him. In DADA class, Draco was stumbling around hazardously waving his wand around and all together looking like Voldemort was about to pounce on him at any second. I can’t say I felt compassion for him, but I didn’t want him to wet his pants in the middle of class. Once all the duelling was going on around me, I called Draco up to my desk.
“Have you found out anything?” he asked me.
“About?” I prompted. He rolled his eyes and then looked around to see if anyone was paying attention. Nothing like a death threat to make you paranoid.
“You know, the tombstone?” he whispered. “You said you’d talk to Violet.”
“Oh that?” I said nonchalantly. “I dealt with that late last night. I forgot about it this morning. We’re fine; no one knows a thing.”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Draco all but screamed. Everyone look toward the desk. I glared at them and murmuring, they returned to zapping each other with minor hexes.
“I should give you a detention for that, but seeing that you are under a lot of stress I’ll let it fly this time.”
“You knew the whole time?” he said. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“We’ll go to Violet’s after your classes,” I continued, ignoring him. “I have a feeling we’ll have a meeting tonight.”
“How do you know?” Draco asked. I raised an eyebrow.
“When you’ve been a Death Eater as long as I have; you just know.” I said. “Go back to your duelling. I’m sure you have some unresolved business with Mr. Zabini.” That thought pacified him for a while and class resumed normality. I sighed. Tonight would be another perfectly good evening gone to waste. For deposing Lord Voldemort of all things.
-------------------
“What do you think we’ll do after Voldemort’s dead?” Draco asked. I shrugged. We were sitting in an empty fitting room at Violet’s. Well, Draco was sitting. I was pacing up and down, trying to work out everything that could go wrong. And there was so much that could go wrong.
“We’ve got to kill him first,” I warned Draco. “That’s not an easy task. We’ll have some Death Eaters after us and we’ll have to deal with the Order.” Speaking of which, I was going to have to resign from that.
“But putting all that aside, what if I kill Voldemort and what if I gain all the Death Eaters as followers and allies; what are we going to do?”
“Potter’s got to go, that’s one thing,” I said. “Maybe Dumbledore too.” There was a knock on the door and Violet came bursting through.
“Hello!” she said cheerfully. “I brought some coffee!” She gave Draco and me a steaming mug and sat down on one of the chairs next to Draco.
“Why Dumbledore?” Draco asked. “He wouldn’t try anything.”
“What about Dumbledore?” Violet asked.
“We’re coming up with our hit list,” Draco explained. Violet gasped.
“You can’t kill Dumbledore!” she said. We both just looked at her.
“Why not?” Draco asked cautiously. “He’s in the way of World Domination.”
“He’s my grandson,” Violet said. I looked up and she winked at me. I choked on my swig of coffee.
“What?” Draco yelled. “That’s not possible. He’s old and you’re…” he floundered a bit. “You’re married?” he asked incredulously. Violet smiled.
“Not yet,” she said. “But I will be.” She noticed our bewildered looks and elaborated. “My shop doesn’t work like the rest of the world. Time’s kind of an option in here.” Things began to make sense. Well, except the part where she winked at me.
“So… you aren’t exaggerating when you say ‘throughout the ages?’” I asked. She nodded.
“But how…” Draco trailed off and looked down at his arm. I could feel the pain rising from the spot on my arm. He looked at me.
“It’s time,” I said, setting the coffee mug down. Violet clapped her hands delightedly.
“Wait right here; I’ll be right back.” She ran out the door and slammed it shut. We looked at each other again.
“Won’t we be late?” Draco asked. I shrugged.
“Guess it won’t really matter.” I replied. “By the way, we need to get that spell off you.” I rapped Draco over the head. In a moment, he was dark haired Dark Lord. He smiled. Violet did a good job with him. The door opened, Violet was back, holding a small box.
“It’s a Grand Entrance,” she explained, seeing our bewildered expressions. “You just have to throw it down and poof! There you go.” She gave it to Draco who held it like it was some sort of small bomb. “You two have fun now.” I sighed.
“Ready?” I asked, as I prepared to Apparate. Draco shook his head.
“No, but let’s go anyway before I puke from the stress of it all.” He pulled out his wand.
“One, two, three!” I said.
Then blinked.
“You still here?” I asked, still looked at Draco.
“You chickened out,” he accused.
“If you hadn’t have done the same thing you wouldn’t have known,” I pointed out. “Try again. We’re going this time.”
“All right. I’m ready.”
“You got the box?” Violet asked.
“Yes, I’ve got the box,” Draco said.
“Alright, one, two three!”
I Apparated, praying to any listening god that Draco wasn’t still back in the fitting room.