“Keep it down,” Mark hissed at the four of them, “do you want us to get caught?”
“Watcha worrying about for?” Marcus asked scathingly.
“All we have to watch out for is Filch and that flea-ridden Mrs. Norris…” Agrippa added.
“And they’re easy enough to avoid,” Posthumous finished.
“No, we have a lot more to worry about,” Mark said as he peered around the next corner, shifting the basket of food the House Elves had given them to his other arm, “I just found out, they’re having teachers patrol the halls every night.”
“WHAT?!” the triplets demanded together.
“Keep it down!” Kay shushed them.
“What did they go and do that for?” Brandon asked, frowning.
“Isn’t it obvious,” Sophia said quietly, “to keep all of us safe. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are on the loose after all…”
“We’re capable of watching out for ourselves,” Brandon insisted, “besides, it’s not like anyone can break into Hogwarts.”
Sophia shrugged, “that’s just what I overheard Lupin saying.”
“All I know is that it means there are a lot more authority figures for us to avoid after hours,” Mark said as he shooed the group around the corner and up the rickety wooden stairs that led up to the Astronomy tower.
“It’s a beautiful night,” Kay said as she set down the jug of Pumpkin Juice she had been carrying.
“Gorgeous,” Marcus agreed.
“Perfect, especially…” Agrippa winked at the Prefect.
“If you’re in the mood for romance,” Posthumous elbowed Mark.
“Stop it you three!” Mark snapped, but he did smile in Kay’s direction and offered her a hand down onto the blankets that the triplets had spread on the stone floor, which was still warm from the fall sun that had set shortly before.
The group soon had Sophia practically rolling on the floor she was laughing so hard. They recounted lots of stories about the triplets getting caught out of bounds by Snape. There were stories that had been passed down by older generations of Slytherins. She and Kay couldn’t stop giggling while Mark ruefully told the tale of the time he had thought it would be funny to hang a sign saying ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ up on the Common Room wall. Snape had not been thrilled and had felt it necessary to give Mark a practical demonstration of that saying.
“This is so much fun,” Sophia finally gasped out when she could breathe again.
“We are a House that knows how to have a good time,” one of the other 7th year boys said.
They kept talking for nearly the next two hours, the older Slytherins telling some of their best stories about Snape and Sophia keeping them entertained with stories of Greece.
“What are you all doing up here?!”
The Slytherins all gasped as one and turned around to face the glow of two lit wands. They all looked incredibly guilty.
“Please, try to explain yourselves… it should be interesting,” Sirius glared down at the group of Slytherins who were still sitting on the floor. He was more than a little displeased to see his daughter, no matter how vehemently she protested the relationship, sitting among them.
“I will deal with them Black, they are in my House after all,” Snape surveyed the group with an unreadable expression, never a good sign.
“I’m sure that’ll be real fair,” Sirius muttered, “I’d bet my last galleon you won’t deduct so much as a single point from them.”
“They are in my House Black, I will deal with them as I see fit,” Snape hissed. He jerked his head at his miscreant students and they instantly gathered up all their belongings and made a dash for the stairs. Severus grabbed Mark, who was last in line to descend, “I want all of you waiting outside my office, I will be down shortly.”
“Yes sir.”
Sirius glared at Snape, just as he had expected, just had everyone had come to expect, Snape had let his Slytherins off without so much as a warning.
“He didn’t take off any points, that’s good, right?” Sophia looked around at her Housemates.
Mark sighed, “Snape…”
“Professor Snape,” Kay corrected him as she quickly glanced around, not sure if their Head of House would make a sudden appearance.
“Professor Snape,” Mark started over, “is not in the habit of deducting points from us.”
“Why not?” Sophia remembered all she had heard from the Gryffindors about Snape favoring his own House.
“There are worse things than lost points,” Kay told her, “but, I honestly don’t think we’re going to be in that much trouble…”
“I suggest you walk a little faster,” the Bloody Baron came floating through the wall ahead of them, “if Professor Snape makes it to his office before you do…” he trailed off, “the consequences will be dire.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“I was wondering if you would come back, I was beginning to think that you had forgotten about me.”
“I have some questions for you.”
The tapestry of Salazar Slytherin sighed, “I figured as much. Still, I can’t complain, you are some of the best company I have had in centuries, even if you don’t have time for social calls. Shall I summon Albus?” he gestured to the currently empty frame that was one of Dumbledore’s portraits.
“No, that’s not necessary.”
“Have a seat, ask me whatever it is that you want, although I cannot promise to answer.”
Kamen pulled up a rather battered looking armchair and plopped into it, oblivious to the cloud of dust that it produced, “it’s about the heir of Slytherin…”
“Yes…” Salazar prompted him.
“How can there be one?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Kamen figured that it couldn’t hurt to be polite, “you told me that both of our children were murdered.”
“I remarried.”
“You left that part out last time.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“So… you remarried…” it was Kamen’s turn to do the prompting.
“Yes I did. A lovely girl from the Northern countries. I had gone up north to help with the founding of Durmstrang you know…”
“Why did they need your help?”
“Well, we’d already proven that a school for witches and wizards could work, they heard of Hogwarts and wanted to do it themselves. I had a cousin who lived up that way. It was at her request that I came, and it was in her home that I met my second wife. A pretty little witch she had fostered a few years back. I knew better than to take another Muggle wife… I couldn’t bear to lose my family in that fashion again.”
“Alright, that explains why you could have an heir, but what about Eric?”
“What about him?”
“If Voldemort is your only surviving heir, but Eric is his uncle…”
“Eric is not a descendent of mine. He and his sister were half siblings. They shared a father but it was her mother who came from my lineage.”
“What…” Kamen looked for a more delicate way to phrase his next question than, your descendent is a mass murdering psychopath, what can we do to stop him? “What do you think about Voldemort’s… methods?”
Salazar sighed, “there’s one in every family, he just happens to be much worse than most…”
~~~~~~~~~~
“In, all of you,” the door to Severus’ office crashed open as he strode down the hall to the huddled group of Slytherins.
They shuffled in and formed a straight line, staring straight ahead, in front of their Head of House’s desk.
The door banged shut again, causing them all to jump slightly. But Severus ignored him. He took a seat at his desk and pulled a stack of parchments that were waiting to be graded towards him. He was not in the pleasantest of moods after his conversation with Kamen, and dealing with his delinquents was only going to put him in a worse mood. They could wait.
Sophia fidgeted slightly, but stopped when Kay gave the slightest shake of her head, and made a small hand signal to stand still.
Soon, however, all of them were shifting slightly as the clock on the shelf in front of them continued to tick off the seconds, and then minutes, until finally one hour had passed.
Kay moved her head just enough so that she could catch Mark’s eye. But he merely gave her the slightest of shrugs in return. Kay narrowed her eyes, and Mark sighed, but nodded.
“Professor…” Mark broke the silence, but found he had to take a deep breath before he continued, “Professor, I know that tomorrow is Saturday… but are you going to keep us here all night?”
“If you did not want to be kept out late perhaps you should not have snuck out,” Snape said without looking up from his grading. He let them stand there for another quarter of an hour as he finished the stack of essays he was working on. He finally set his quill aside, “very well then… since you are so eager to get this over with, do you have any suggestions on what I should do with you?”
None of the Slytherins answered. That was the sort of question that was best to avoid. They didn’t want to get into more trouble for offering a punishment that let them off too easy or to dig themselves deeper by offering something a bit on the harsher side of the scale.
Severus rolled his eyes heavenward as his students stared back at him expectantly, “I ought to thrash the lot of you…” he looked back down at the Slytherins who were now looking more nervous, “but, seeing as it is so late… I want the Common Room scrubbed, without using magic, from top to bottom tomorrow. The Bloody Baron will oversee you. Get out.”
“Yes sir,” the Slytherins chorused.
“Thank you sir,” Mark said on his way out, knowing very well that they had been let off easy.
“Yes, thank you sir,” Kay threw her arms around their Head of House briefly before dashing out of his office.
Severus snorted as he closed the door behind them and went back to his grading, sometimes he thought they were more trouble than they were worth. But at least they were entertaining about it.
~~~~~~~~~~
