Snape woke, vaguely aware that there was light and movement around him, and came to the conclusion that he was not in fact dead (although he suspected he might wish he were if he actually tried to move). This was mostly on account of the stiffness in his back, however; while a hangover was present, it was the least of his problems. It was by no means the worst hangover Snape had ever experienced but it was different, and therefore uncomfortable: very little nausea, and less headache and sense of one's mouth being stuffed with cotton-wool (probably because Hermione had forced water on him, blast her for being sensible), but he felt weak. Washed-out and unsteady, and he could already feel the aching in muscles that had had far too much exercise yesterday. It was probably a good thing he hadn't had to use the loo in the night after all: he might have had to crawl there, because he bloody well wasn't going to take Hermione up on her offer.

It was surprising he hadn't had to piss, actually: the sad fact was that the older a wizard got, the more often he had to. He shuddered a bit at the thought, remembering many occasions when Dumbledore's eyes would suddenly go glassy and vacant in mid-sentence, and he'd abruptly excuse himself and begin peeking around the edges of tapestries, looking for the Room of Requirement.

(Hermione had noted once after an Order meeting, that last year -- utterly mystified -- that Dumbledore seemed to check in on her quite frequently when she was working in the Room, and would for no apparent reason disappear into one of the little anterooms, stay in there a bit, and then just as suddenly leave. Snape had been hard-pressed not to laugh at the time, or to tell her what the old man had interrupted her for: but he wasn't laughing any longer. He reckoned that he was on the cusp of Old Coothood -- not surprising, given that his plumbing had got more than its fair share of wear and tear, for one reason or another -- and he was not looking forward to the long, downward slide.)

He heard a rustling next to the bed, and a blast of cool air hit him below the waist.

He forced open his sleep-caked eyelids to find Hermione bent over him, the covers lifted, her head half-buried under them: and while in other circumstances that sight and her warm breath on his bare thigh might have brought some interesting thoughts to mind (and activity elsewhere), the fact that she was poking -- actually poking -- at his bad knee, roughly twelve inches too far down from where she might be, rather blasted any hope that she was doing anything constructive about making him feel better. (Not that he expected it. She was still adamantly unresponsive to hints about reciprocating favours, and he wasn't about to force her, not given the parameters of the agreement they'd reached.)

That plumbing was still working to satisfaction, thankfully, if not as frequently or quickly as when he was a youth.

"Your technique leaves a lot to be desired," he managed to say with maximum nastiness, and Hermione jerked upright, dropped the covers, stared at him, defiant -- and blushed.

"It's still very red and swollen," she said.

"Ah. Not uncommon in the morning, you should have sussed that out by now. Tactile examination is the usual method, however, not visual, and not poking, either. A bloke's bits are rather sensitive in that state."

"I meant the knee," she sputtered after a moment's shocked fuddlement, and looked very much as if she wanted to throttle him before she flounced out of the bedchamber.

He managed to stagger to the loo for that pee, then, sniggering all the way, quite justifiably pleased with himself. (He still greatly enjoyed keeping her off-balance, and it was pleasant to see her cheeks redden. Even if it usually meant she had murder on her mind.) And after a lovely, long pee he staggered back to the bed, collapsed in it, and spent the next half-hour trying to go back to sleep, when in fact he was doing his best to ignore the thought of Hermione's head bent over his groin, unruly hair feathering over his skin, fingers not prodding but stroking, and of wet heat and intense pressure on some very sensitive bits indeed.

The smell of fried black-pudding snapped him out of the fantasy.

Fantasising wasn't productive, anyway -- she could walk in at any moment, and he wasn't about to be caught wanking away or rutting at the mattress like some pubescent idiot. He pulled on his clothing instead (it was all in disgraceful condition, and he wished he'd brought some things over from the club, because there were some things a Cleaning charm just couldn't address), and made it out to the kitchen without too much protest from the gods-damned knee -- although everything else was giving him hell.

"Sitting-room," Hermione muttered at him, busy with Aga.

"What have I done now?" he asked indignantly.

"Nothing, other than being deliberately disgusting first thing in the morning," she retorted. "On the sofa, prop the leg up, and I'll bring this out."

Oh. That was different, considering the knee was aching a bit, along with everything else. And he had been deliberately suggestive (he refused to characterise it as disgusting, because it wasn't), and couldn't quite blame her for being appalled: she simply wasn't the earthy type, and was absolutely unable to take sexual innuendo in stride.

He wandered into the sitting-room and did as Hermione ordered. (It was best to do so when she was in She Who Must Be Obeyed mode. Frightening, how much she sounded like Pomfrey at those times.)

She brought him tea in a minute -- nicely sugared, he was pleased to note -- and then she put something like a hot-water bottle on his knee, but it was cold.

"Blast it, woman, I told you --"

"Severus.... Shut. It. All right? It looks terrible, and there's absolutely no need for you to suffer that much."

And with that arrogant statement she went back to the kitchen to finish up breakfast.

Some part of him knew he should appreciate the gesture, but he couldn't quite manage it. He was rather proud of his ability to keep going despite minor (sometimes major) pain and annoyances: there simply hadn't been time or opportunity, most of his life, for coddling. He hated it, actually, because it made him feel helpless. It implied that he was incapable of taking care of himself. And it certainly proved that he was getting older and unable to keep up to his old standard.

Worse, Hermione sounded as though she were on the verge of going completely maternal and smothering, and he bloody well knew she didn't feel that way for him, precisely.

No, she pitied him.

The second whisky had been a definite error, much as he'd felt he needed it. He'd done it to himself, really: he'd tried to convince himself that Flaherty was wrong, or mad, and it had taken seeing those bloody documents to fully realise that the man wasn't, and that the whole blasted mess was actually far worse than either he or Hermione had imagined.

Never mind that, it was immaterial.

He shifted uneasily, and the cold-pack slipped from his knee to the floor: he glowered at it and let it lie.

What else had he blabbed? He'd got rather nasty about Lockhart, but that was nothing new and he couldn't care less. (Besides, it was true: the idiot was a flaming homosexual as well as a lying piece of research-stealing shit.) He might have done about Black, as well. Had done. Whatever had possessed him to behave so ridiculously, besides Hermione's intolerable bossiness? And he'd told her about the restricted ingredients earlier, and bloody hell, he'd almost let slip about being put on the flight list.... She hadn't picked up on that, though, he was certain.

Although, come to think of it, perhaps he ought tell her about that. If she was making worst-case scenario arrangements to leave the country it wouldn't do for her to put in for holiday leave and submit the appropriate paperwork, only to be told her husband wasn't allowed out.

Shit.

He hadn't said anything about Mother. At least, he couldn't remember doing so. Although he had indirectly told Hermione more about the tracking spell he'd used to find Kingsley, early in the day. He didn't think she knew what he was talking about -- he hoped she didn't, and not only because it was none of her bloody business: she didn't need to be mucking about with something that nasty. Or rather, he didn't want her to, for her own sake. He was willing to admit that much, although with her brains and talent she might have made a rather effective Dark Arts practitioner.

If she figured it out she might use it against him, someday. He'd given her more than enough... material to work with, in a very real sense, and he didn't fool himself about her skill and tenacity, lack of Dark Arts experience or no. He hadn't fucked Kingsley more than twice or thrice, after all, and that had been enough for him to use.

He shifted uneasily and sipped at his tea.

They'd been two lonely, oversexed young idiots with absolutely no access to females at the time (blast Bluett for living out in the middle of nowhere and not allowing them to travel), bored with solitary wanking, who'd decided to experiment. (To a point. He hadn't appreciated being on the receiving end, and that had brought it all to a halt. Snape had been damned if he'd play the girl more than the once, and Kingsley had chosen not to be generous after that, not that Snape blamed him.)

Snape stopped to consider that. It wasn't impossible that he wasn't satisfying her physically to the point that she'd appreciate a bit of change, it was just that, given his greater experience and that he took care with her, it wasn't likely....

He rubbed irritably at his knee -- it had begun to ache again, for no apparently reason -- and then with a final glare at the damned ice-pack, he picked it up and plopped it back where she'd left it, and returned to the problem at hand.

Well, he bloody well wasn't going to abstain totally, even with the threat of her picking up on the tracking spell: it was too late, anyway, and he was rather disgusted that his holiday (which he'd hoped would be sexually eventful) had degenerated into a long series of mishaps, personally dangerous idiocy, and very little sex, on the whole. (The decent food was a benefit he hadn't anticipated, but it didn't quite make up for the latter point.)

In fact, he ought to make arrangements to see Hermione during term: perhaps Hooch could be persuaded to see to his House duties for a few week-ends. He and Hermione needed an excuse to see each other, to work out the rest of this business -- he didn't want to send owls back and forth unless absolutely necessary. Too much risk of discovery.

Her poking about in his business, however.... That was something else altogether. And it wasn't entirely her fault, her blasted curiosity notwithstanding: he'd got careless the last few days, and yesterday in particular. (Shocking, that -- a lapse like last night could have got him killed, in different circumstances.) He was very fortunate that he had, to his satisfaction, proven that she could be trusted in general. But in the specifics, about matters that had nothing to do with the bloody Flaherty business....

He'd have to fix that. His past and personal life was absolutely off-limits from now on, even if it meant he had to restrict himself to a single glass of liquor in her presence and, if necessary, take himself off to the club afterward.

Yes, that seemed the sensible course, and he'd best start immediately.

Right after he told her about his flight-risk status, of course.

He'd find out soon enough: she walked into the sitting-room, balancing two plates on one arm and a second cup of tea in the other hand, and carefully set them on the table.

"I didn't think to ask if you like black --"

"Do," he admitted. "There isn't much I don't, if it's cooked well."

She didn't fuss over him again, thankfully, only handed him his plate, fork, and a napkin, went back to the kitchen for the teapot and sugar; then she refilled his cup, and let him otherwise fend for himself while she curled up in the armchair, knees tucked up on the arm, with her own plate.

She remained silent, and Snape felt obliged to start the conversation himself.

"I'll need the formula, of course."

"In the fireplace," she said absently. "Above the damper."

"Ah. I'll take a copy and leave the original with you. Have you thought of where you'll hide it?"

"I'm working on it," she said. "Sent an owl this morning, and hopefully I'll have it sorted in a day or two. I sent Flaherty's letter as well --"

"What?"

"The one to his wife, Severus."

"Oh."

"Should have done so earlier, but it's probably for the best, in case she's been watched."

He finished breakfast first, and fidgeted with his napkin. Hermione was uncharacteristically slow with her meal this morning, and the fact that she wasn't (for once) peppering him with questions was frankly unnerving: he'd got used to it.

"I shall work on deciphering the formula at the club today, then," he said. "I might be quite late, so, ah, I shouldn't count on having to feed me at all today."

"Very well."

"In fact, if I don't make much progress I might stay there overnight."

"Ummmmm," she said, and stared out at the street, seemingly barely aware of his presence.

"What," he asked, immensely irritated, "is wrong?"

"Wrong?"

"You're not paying the least attention."

"Oh, I... I'm just thinking, that's all. Sorry, did I miss anything important?"

The reasonable part of him recognised the idiocy of his pique: the more sulky part told the reasonable bit to sod off. "Not really," he muttered. "There is something you need to know, however."

"Yes?"

"Regarding your arrangements. I shouldn't plan on trying to get approved travel clearance. Not for both of us, at any rate. I'm on the damned list."

She stopped with a forkful of tomato poised in mid-air, stared at him, and said, "Well, I'll think of something else, then," and went right on eating.

"You don't think that's significant, in some way? Important? Or had you written me off?"

"No, I hadn't. You said you thought people with access to restricted substances were under suspicion," she said matter-of-factly. "It stands to reason you're in that group. I'd meant to ask you before I actually did anything."

"Oh."

"There's more pudding," she added.

"No, I.... Thank you, I'm done."

He watched her, not even bothering to conceal it, and noted that she hadn't slept well -- circles under her eyes, and how her eyelids drooped and then shot back open as she re-focussed on whatever thoughts were keeping her from... well, from whatever. Namely himself.

He ought to be a bit more considerate, he supposed. She'd been through as much as he had yesterday: he could plainly see scratches along the curve of one calf, and the shocking, purple-red of an angry bruise in the milky skin just behind her knee -- that was his fault, really, for choosing an unmarked area rather than something more sensible, like a road or clearly-marked field....

Hermione finished up the last few bites of her breakfast, refilled his teacup, and then cleared away their plates and went back to the kitchen without another word.

Snape simply didn't know what to make of it, but he suspected he'd put his foot in it somehow. He was torn between the unaccountable urge to find out why, and the voice of self-preservation that told him to leave bloody well enough alone, she's fine, and what does it matter, anyway?.

He finally gave up, retrieved Flaherty's box and his own notes from their hidey-holes, and copied the formula; and then he pulled on his frock-coat and cloak, took the ice-pack to the kitchen, and then gave in to the urge to check on Hermione before he left, if only for the sake of the most basic courtesy. She was in the bedchamber -- back in bed, in fact -- and seemed startled when he stepped into the room, glancing up from the book she was reading.

"I'd thought to go back to Hogwarts tomorrow, but I suspect I'd better give it an extra day, just in case."

"Oh," she said. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow, then?"

"Yes, although I don't know that I want to commit to luncheon.... You were going in, tomorrow?"

"Should, but I don't feel particularly well. I think I must be fighting off that cold. I may stay in tomorrow instead, so perhaps you shouldn't stop by the Ministry."

Oh, good, Snape thought. Feeling poorly, that's all.

"I won't, then. Ah...." Damn it, this is ridiculous. "I didn't intend to be a nuisance last night."

"You weren't, really," she murmured. "I was just concerned that you'd nearly drowned yourself. Your head had almost slipped under by the time I found you."

"I'll... be off, then," he muttered, took himself back to the entry of the flat, and Apparated to the club threshold.

*****

Fresh clothing was definitely first thing on the agenda, and, while he was at it, another quick bathe; he felt unaccountably filthy, somehow, and he suspected it had to do with his ill-temper with Hermione, or at least that he'd misread her feeling poorly for indifference. (The bath didn't help, of course, though he caught some grotty spots he'd missed last night.) He dismissed his worries about what else he might have said to her -- particularly what he might have called her, in the shock of her invading the bath, and the fact that he hadn't had the guts to ask or to apologise -- and then dressed in clean clothing and left the damaged and filthy things with Smithers, and holed himself up in the Library to begin sorting through the formula.

Bluett was, for once, absent; and three hours' determined study on Snape's part to separate the two constituent potions and to research known similar formulae made clear that this wasn't a good thing, because Snape couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. The aphrodisiac component simply didn't match previously established potions, and while the substances involved in the fertility component looked as though they might work, there was no precedent, no record of research trials into anything similar, and no available Muggle research to attempt to correlate it with.

There really wasn't anything for it but to try to duplicate the blasted stuff in the next twenty-four hours, separately, first, and check for any negative reactions among the little population of mice and toads that the club kept for experimentation. That would only work with the aphrodisiac component: the fertility component would take far longer to prove out, and he should have to work on that at Hogwarts.

It was probably useless -- there was the matter of the Ministry's damned proprietary ingredient, and which potion it properly belonged to -- but a start had to be made somewhere: if he and Hermione couldn't side-rail any attempt to implement the damned stuff, any research at all that might lead to an antidote would prove useful.

But the laboratory was, unfortunately, occupied. Bluett was mucking about with a very large cauldron, and had bottles and crates scattered across the work-tables.

"What are you doing in here?" Snape demanded.

"Brewing, of course," Bluett said innocently, and absently-mindedly tucked his beard -- now plaited -- back behind his shoulder. "Like to keep my hand in."

"What the bloody hell are you...."

Snape crossed to the nearest table, scanned the hodge-podge of ingredients Bluett had left strewn across it -- the jars were almost all empty, now, and some of them were labelled in his own handwriting -- and glared at the old man.

"You're brewing contraceptive?"

"Why not? Someone has to."

"Two-thirds of this lot is mine, you old thief, not Guild stock. You've raided my cupboard --"

"Well, what were you going to do with them?" Bluett shot back. "Not much call for this lot for anything else, is there?

"I'll have to replace them," Snape noted in disgust. "And now half of them are bloody restricted."

"Toss Slug-Repellant into the curriculum this term," Bluett said, "and blame it on wastage by the little buggers. It's what you'd do anyway. Probably have done, to get together all this. You always raided my stock rather than buy your own, don't tell me you've given that up."

"You paid a pittance, old man, and I don't have time to add another potion to.... That's a bloody great lot of contraceptive."

" 'Course. Booming black market, now. Did you see the Prophet this morning?"

"No," Snape said, and snatched it up off the table (it was smeared with marmalade, blast it -- one always wanted to get to the paper before Bluett did) and scanned the front page: there was brief mention of a raid by the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department on a Knockturn Alley apothecary that had been selling 'morally-questionable Muggle artifacts of great illegality', but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.

"Well?" Snape demanded.

"Cruikbeak and Figgity's," Bluett said. "They'd been selling Muggle condoms out of the back room. Quite reasonably, too, considering the cost of a legal potion. They caught a few customers as well."

"Disgusting," Snape noted, tossed the paper down. (He tried, with little success, not to think about how Bluett knew of condoms or what a reasonable price might be, or what Arthur Weasley would make of them.)

"Effective, mostly, even if they are that India-rubber stuff. What d'you expect now that proper French letters are illegal?" Bluett said indignantly, utterly misinterpreting Snape's disgust, and then gave him a sly look. "I suppose you were only whipping up contraceptive for that sweet bit of crumpet you smuggled into the Library last week, and no-one else. Very selfish of you, Severus."

"Never mind that. Do you honestly think I believe you're supplying the black market?"

"No," Bluett admitted quietly, and continued canting the potion. "Actually, my third cousin's boy is a healer at St. Mungo's. He's been giving it out to the needier women, the ones who've already got two or three little ones and can't afford the restricted or illicit stuff. I've been making it up for some time, now."

"Oh," Snape said, the wind quite effectively taken from his sails. "It's still highly illegal. You could get the club in a great deal of trouble."

"When laws transgress the boundary of private morality -- barring laws against harming other sentient living creatures, of course -- they're bad laws," Bluett serenely informed him. "And it requires the determined efforts of those capable to protest and circumvent them. The club can take care of itself."

"Never thought I'd hear you say something so --"

"My boy, I was engaging in Civil Disobedience when your grandfather was a mere tadpole. Before it was even called that," Bluett said. "I don't intend to stop now. Does your lovely lady require a bottle?" he added, and waggled a stoppered one in Snape's face. "Mine tends to keep very well, hence a bottle rather than a phial...."

"No, she.... Well, yes, she might," Snape grumbled, and snatched the bottle from the old man. "You're certain it's --"

"Looks right and smells right," Bluett said cheerfully. "If not, you'll find out in a few months."

Snape collapsed against the edge of the bench and rubbed at his temples.

"Of course it's right, you fool," Bluett growled. "I'm not so old that I can't manage a simple Class 1 Potion."

"Fine," Snape said, feeling immensely tired. "I actually need the facility for something else entirely. Will you be done soon?"

"In a tick. Found whatever it was, did you?"

"Don't pry into.... Yes. Are you happy, you nosy beggar? And I still can't make sense of it."

"Give me a moment, then, and I'll clear up here," Bluett said calmly. "Of course," he added, "you might roll up your shirt-sleeves and help me finish, and I'll be out of your way that much sooner...."

If the suggestion hadn't made eminent sense, Snape should have throttled the manipulative old coot.

*****

"No, I don't understand it at all," Snape muttered, bent over the formula. "It certainly has elements of an aphrodisiac, but not enough to be effective on its own. It must be the bit that includes the proprietary ingredient...."

"That might to be the strongest coercive element, yes," Bluett said, stroking at his plait. (He'd insisted on staying in the laboratory, much to Snape's rage, but Snape couldn't very well boot the old man out; verbal viciousness had never worked on Bluett before, and Snape wouldn't stoop to physically pushing him through the door.)

They'd been going over it all for hours, now, quite illegally hauling many of the herbals and relevant potions texts into the lab for ease of consult; but they were getting nowhere at all. And if two such excellent brewers couldn't manage to piece together the evidence....

"Can't be a proper aphrodisiac, I'm afraid," Bluett continued. "Those other bits seem familiar, but I'm damned if I can see how they'd work with human beings...."

Bluett straightened suddenly, nearly falling off his stool, and his expression hardened. "What do you know of Elf reproduction, Severus?" he said sharply.

"Absolutely nothing. I assume the Ministry has some kind of breeding programme."

"Not the Ministry. Greenaway Limited used to, back in the day -- my great-grandfather Prewett was one of the keepers for the initial breeding stock, after the Elf Alliance of 1602." Bluett snorted. "'Alliance' my hairy hole.... The little beggars can shut their reproductive systems right down, did you know that? Took Greenaway two years of intense study to figure out why he couldn't produce more breeding stock. His test subjects kept mating happily away, but no sproglets were ever conceived. Turns out the little devils -- both sexes -- can just shut everything off. Females won't release eggs, and the males won't produce spermatozoa."

"This is something they can do as a matter of course?"

"A natural adaptation, yes, but not precisely passed along by inheritance alone -- hang on, I'll get to that. They don't conceive particularly easily in any case, and they're prone to miscarry in poor environments. The ability appears to have developed to take advantage of only the best circumstances for bearing and raising the young, because while their birth rate may be far lower than most magical mammals, their success rate for raising sproglets to sexual maturity is much higher. Anyway, nothing Greenaway tried could circumvent that adaptation, not even Imperius.... The little beggars couldn't do anything about being subjugated, but they could bloody well refuse to breed.

"Greenaway theorised that while the ability to prevent conception was a magibiological factor, if he could only get two or three generations removed from the initial stock -- totally isolate them -- he'd be able to make the later generations forget that they could do it."

"So he developed a potion to get around that."

"Right. He was able, through trial and error and some damned sneaky research into Elf culture, to find the one thing that can counteract the shut-off mechanism. Developed a hybrid potion that included an aphrodisiac, administered it, and the poor little buggers went wild. Incidence of pregnancy shot up before the Elves cottoned onto it, and with some careful tending of the females, he managed to produce a new generation."

"Merlin's -- Forced breeding," Snape said grimly. Damn. I shall have to tell him about the Azkaban trials.

"It turns out that he was quite right. In the wild, their systems shut down naturally in response to bad environment -- lack of food and appropriate nesting-sites, things like that. But the ability to shut everything down consciously is learned, and the parents have to teach it just as we have to teach specific spells. Took a lot of nasty work to get enough viable second-generation stock. He tried to leave the sproglets with the females as they did poorly when raised by hand in the laboratory, but the mothers actually... well, they killed the poor little things, deliberately. So he found human wet-nurses and managed it that way. Females were kept drugged to prevent miscarriage or self-harm, females in labour were restrained, sproglets were birthed, then they were snatched away and handed over to humans who raised them just like a human babe."

"Merlin's bloody balls and beard," Snape said viciously.

"For once, my boy, I agree whole-heartedly. By the time he got to the third generation not only were they totally ignorant of the adaptation, but they'd bonded to humans more closely than to their own kind."

"The ramifications of this are...."

"Exactly. Look at the poor little buggers themselves. Totally bonded to their human owners, and with such a low birth rate -- because conditions in captivity are seldom ideal for successful reproduction -- that they're still, to this day, a valuable commodity. Greenaway Limited made a packet in the first hundred years or so, because there simply weren't enough produced outside of his laboratory to make a dent in his sales. His methods and the potion itself were closely-guarded trade secrets, of course."

"And the Ministry's got hold of the potion and fiddled with it, obviously," Snape murmured. "What was the substance Greenaway found? It's not likely to be the same, but --"

"Oh, that was kept secret from everyone, even the most trusted keepers and laboratory assistants -- Great-Grandpapa Prewett had no idea. But I can make an educated guess, can't you?"

Snape stared blankly at Bluett, who cackled.

"Don't remember your Magical Creatures classes, do you? It's right there in Irwin's Bestiary."

"Bloody -- Just tell me."

"Elves are averse to snakes in general," Bluett said. "And one in particular is avoided and reviled by them --"

"Nadder," Snape shot back. Bloody hell. "Damn it all, Irwin didn't say why, though."

"I don't think he knew. He was a purely observational naturalist, not a biologist. But Greenaway made the connection. I'll wager that's where your snake-skin comes in, isn't it? From that first bit you had me look at."

"But can it be used to similar effect? Is it a fertility booster in humans as well?"

"I don't know, my boy, I've never seen a study done of it. I'd venture to say that it isn't, but the hallucinogen would be quite enough as part of the aphrodisiac as it is. Humans don't have a similar adaptation, after all, so if they've no access to contraceptives they've got no way to prevent conception but abstinence, which the aphrodisiac addresses. And humans have, furthermore -- most of them, at least -- such an aversion to ending a pregnancy that even if a woman and her mate don't want another child, she'll only resort to abortificiants with very compelling reason."

"Not that that matters," Snape said. "Those have always been restricted."

"No," Bluett corrected him gently. "They'll always be available, no matter what the Ministry does. They always have been, you know that. It's just that the poorest women can't afford them, and have to live -- or die -- with the consequences."

"Yes, I know," Snape muttered, and grudgingly gave Hermione high marks for latching onto the main point. "Fuck."

Bluett didn't chide him, and in fact awkwardly patted him on the shoulder. "You're certain the stuff works?"

"Trials in Azkaban," Snape admitted. "Seventy-two percent effectiveness within two months. Higher over a four-month period,"

"My word."

"And they already have a plan to disseminate it. A different pretext, of course."

"Oh, good. I shouldn't muck with trying to prove its effectiveness, then," Bluett said contentedly. "They've well and truly got themselves in a hole, ethically and legally speaking, whether it works or not. You simply have to be able to prove they're doing it."

"We may have. Proof of the plan, at any rate. It's a question of who we can get to listen. They've got a bloody media blackout."

"What about the ICW?"

"Are they aware of it? Have they approved it? I have grave reservations about that point."

"Oh, my...." Bluett said. "That bad, really?"

"I don't know. And I don't think I'm willing to place my neck on the block, not until I'm certain."

"Hmmmm. Quite the quandary," Bluett said helpfully, and rubbed at his eyes. "Well, it's past time for my pre-dinner nap...."

"Nap?" Snape said, astonished. "I've just told you the Ministry's planning to --"

"I can't do anyone good if I'm half-asleep, can I?" Bluett retorted. "And this is something for younger minds and tougher bodies, in any case -- I'm well past the age when running about behind the authorities' backs to this extent is wise. I'll do my little part on the Home Front, my boy, and I'll advise you as well as I can, but I simply don't have the energy or the contacts that it takes, any longer."

"Bloody...." Snape mumbled, and buried his face in his hands.

"If you, er, do get any restricted ingredients in, I should appreciate any extra you have -- you wouldn't mind, given that it's for a good cause, would you?"

"No," Snape moaned. "But I can only claim to teach Slug-Repellant so many times in a term, you know."

"Good lad," Bluett said, and patted Snape's shoulder again. "Don't give up -- it's early days, yet. When they announce whatever-it-is --"

"Prophylactic genetic treatments."

"-- yes, well, when you see them start to crow about their wonderful new treatment in the trade journals, you shall know your back's against the wall. Is your lady working on this, as well?"

"Yes. She's... she's got the potential ICW contacts, I think."

"Good. I should let her worry about that angle, then, and help her as best you can. Be supportive, all that. Make your case as strong as you can, and then take it to the ICW if you think it will help."

"You're taking all this very calmly," Snape accused.

"When you've lived as long as I have, Severus, you'll have seen just about everything. The actors are different, that's all, and the ways they try to muck up peoples' lives aren't nearly as original as they think. No use in getting upset. And you have to know your own limits. I often wonder," Bluett said thoughtfully, "if that wasn't part of Albus's problem."

"The inability to see the other side, the getting upset, or the over-reaching?" Snape retorted snidely.

"All of the above, but particularly the last. One may be an Elder, and one may be admittedly powerful, but that doesn't make one a great strategist and leader," Bluett said mildly. "I know my limits. You're the strategist, Severus, not me, and you've the enviable ability to do what needs to be done without fussing about casualties and inconvenience. The question is whether you've the stomach to do it once again, and I can't say I blame you if you decide otherwise."

Bluett stood and tottered on his feet, gave a tremendous yawn, and then shuffled off toward the door. "Be a good lad and tidy up my stuff, would you? I'm quite --" (yawn) "-- knackered. And tack down the crate-lids."

Snape grunted an affirmative, eyes still fixed to the research, and heard the soft snick of the laboratory door when Bluett left.

Their speculations could be wildly off, after all. There was no telling if the Nadder-skin really was the missing factor; Flaherty might simply have left it as a clue to the historical problem of Elf-breeding, in hopes that someone would make the connection. (And thank the gods Bluett had.)

No, Snape bloody well wasn't going to get anywhere on the Ministry's formula. Bluett was quite right: he wasn't going to prove anything by trying to replicate it, and he didn't dare turn it over to a researcher elsewhere, someone with the facility and resources to really work at it properly; it was too dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. The gods only knew what an unscrupulous researcher or company would make of it, if it proved effective.

But he simply wasn't used to sitting by and doing nothing, which was more or less what Bluett had counselled, at least for the time being. There must be ways to make a stronger case, certainly, but at the moment he was too tired and outraged to think about it properly.

In the meantime, Bluett had left a bloody mess in his wake: so Snape set about clearing away, trying to distract himself with the mindless labour of putting things back where they belonged. (The Guild stores really were in a deplorable state; that was undoubtedly why the reagent had been tainted and blown up in his face.) He really ought to sort it all out. So he did, starting with the jars of herbs and extracts.

Abcess root, Abyssinian shrivelfig, Aconite, Adder's tongue, Adonis, Agrimony (Hemp), Agrimony (Water), Alder, Alecost, Aloes, Angelica root, Armadillo bile --

He frowned and set that aside: animal extracts belonged in a different cupboard entirely.

-- Aralias, Archangel, Arnica, Ashwinder egg -- blast it, there's another, he thought, and plucked it out. Asphodel, Avens....

His hand halted over that last, and he paused and scanned two jars back.

He set the Arnica aside, and the others required for what he had in mind as he came to them. Lastly, he found a clean, dark jar and carefully tucked away the Nadder-skin (blatantly mis-labeling it as garden-snake, which no-one in their right mind would want to use) and tucked it in the very back of the cupboard where only Bluett would think to snoop about.

Then he began the finicky and soothing process of a brewing. Never mind that it was an incredibly easy potion, and quite a minor thing when compared to the larger problem: the rituals of grinding, chopping, blending, of adjusting proportions to the relative freshness of the available ingredients -- these calmed and centred him, as they had for as long as he could remember, since long before he'd entered Hogwarts and determined -- to the great surprise of at least one person, and eventually despite his interest in Dark Arts -- that he would master Potions.

*****

Snape had Smithers send a late dinner up to his room. (It wasn't done, not really, but he and Bluett were the only two in residence at the moment, and Smithers tended to turn a blind eye in that circumstance -- just as he managed to ignore that food in the Library was absolutely forbidden, despite Bluett's habit of smuggling it in.) As he ate, Snape carefully enciphered the Ministry formula and then destroyed the unenciphered copy, in case his journal should fall into the wrong hands.

And then he lay on his bed in the near-dark, still in shirt-sleeves and trousers, staring up at the ceiling, unwilling to continue to beat his brains against the problem but quite unable to fall asleep.

Snape usually found the club quite restful: everything orderly (with the exception of Bluett); Smithers, who seemed to know in advance precisely what one might want or require, and who fulfilled his duties quite to satisfaction but never seemed in the way; plenty of rules which made it entirely possible to avoid speaking to anyone at all, if one wished (that was an odd one, but then the club's Founder, a Muggleborn, had been the member of a similar Muggle club in which one was not allowed to speak at all, save in the Visitor's Room); a comfortable if not capacious bedchamber Silenced against the snores of any adjoining neighbours... of which there were none at present. There hadn't been for years, besides Bluett: the last time Snape could remember another member lodging in the residence was well over a decade ago.

Snape and Bluett were, in fact, the only two members who ever stayed over any more. The rest -- and there were few -- only ever came for meals or to consult the Library texts, and their numbers declined every year. Snape briefly wondered how much longer it should be until he were the only one left.

The silence was totally unnerving. Snape was well-accustomed to the night-time sounds of Hogwarts -- creaking from the ancient beams overhead, and a sort of hum that emanated from the stones themselves; they were familiar and comforting, and so much a part of him now that their absence made him quite uncomfortable. This place, despite his familiarity with it, was totally unnatural tonight, its silence unbroken as it was by so much as a human breath other than his own....

He found himself groping at the other side of the narrow bed, and only then noted that he'd kept to the one side, out of a habit that he shouldn't have picked up nearly this soon.

*****

In the end there was nothing for it but to get his arse up, get fully dressed, gather his things together, and leave. (He had tried to ignore the problem, but even another forty-five minutes of determination to sleep -- after pointedly wriggling directly into the middle of the mattress -- had been fruitless, and for once he decided to accept defeat with some grace.) He Apparated into the entry of Hermione's flat --

-- and groped his way down the hallway, stumbling into the little side-table where Hermione always dropped her handbag and keys, and had just sidled into the bedroom when something smacked him in the solar-plexus and knocked him against the wall.

A wand-tip was digging into his throat, squarely against his Adam's apple.

"Don't move."

He finally managed a wheezing, pained "Hermione?"

"Severus?"

After a second's hesitation the wand withdrew, Hermione snapped on the lights, and all hell broke loose.

"What in bloody hell do you think you're doing, sneaking in here --"

"Wasn't sneaking --"

"-- in the middle of the night?"

"I thought I'd check on you as you'd felt unwell," he said defiantly, and had to stop for a coughing fit.

She stared at him, all raging eyes, blushing indignance and sleep-snarled hair -- and wand still very much at the ready -- and demanded, "What happened to knocking?"

"Should I knock on what is presumably my own door, at --" he shot a glance at her alarm-clock, which was still blinking an unhelpful 5:00 - 5:00 - 5:00, "-- at whatever blasted hour of the night?"

"It's not your own door, damn it."

"I said presumably, to anyone watching," he said, his own anger growing by the second.

"I thought you said you wouldn't be back tonight," she muttered, stomped back over to her side of the bed, set her wand on the bed-table, and plopped down.

"Ah. I've interrupted an assignation, perhaps?" he retorted. "Congratulate him for me on his Apparition skills -- I didn't hear him go."

She twisted around to stare at him, shocked, the blood draining from her face: and then she finally managed to say, "There was absolutely no need for that. You know it's not true." And she curled up on the bed, back to him, and buried her face in the pillow.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, forced himself to reassess the situation, and took a deep breath.

Yes, he did know it, and it was unnecessary of him to... cruel of him to have said that. (It certainly wouldn't have been the kind of assignation he'd implied, in any case.) The one surprising thing about Hermione (besides her prior virginity and sexual naïveté) was that she had few or no personal ties to anyone. There were no pictures of anyone significant littered about, no letters he'd found from admirers or potential lovers. All the names in her address-book had been carefully notated as to relationship; no meetings written in her calendar other than doctor, dentist, banker; and barring any obfuscation on her part that those labels might represent, he'd concluded that she was remarkably isolated -- a condition he approved whole-heartedly, given the risks she was taking.

He wasn't going to apologise, though, damn it. Yes, he'd obviously given her a fright: but he thought she was also considerably disappointed that he'd turned up like a bad sickle after all.

"I had to give up on the bloody formula," he explained quietly. "It wasn't any use. I didn't think it would do any harm to return here."

"Oo scrd d hl odov ee," she muttered, voice muffled in the pillow.

"What?"

"I said, you scared the hell out of me," she said more distinctly after raising her head. "I'd fallen asleep early, before I'd checked the doors. And then I heard someone pop in."

"I see. That was careless, but I'm glad to know you were ready to shoot first, at least." (He was, actually. Never mind that second of absolute terror he'd felt when she'd dug the wand into his neck. Hermione could take care of herself, and that was some consolation.)

She refused to answer him, and burrowed back down into the pillow.

He walked back through the flat, checking and warding doors and windows, and then returned to the bedchamber to shed cloak and frock-coat and boots: Hermione continued to ignore him even when he sat on his side of the bed (might as well admit it, damn it, that was how he thought of it).

Well, let her ignore him all she wanted. She was in just the position he wanted, anyway, arse up and her nightshirt rucked up halfway above her knickers....

She did perk up a bit when she heard him unscrewing the jar-lid.

"What are you --"

"Nothing," he muttered.

"Severus, that is not the bloody aphrodisiac, is it?" she said, obviously worried, and fidgeted.

"I told you," he said, and planted his left hand in the middle of her back to keep her down, "I couldn't get a blasted thing done on it."

He slathered a dollop of the ointment on her before she had a chance to wriggle away, and began to work it into her skin.

"Sever -- Ow! What the hell are you --"

"Arnica," he finally bothered to tell her as he worked the ointment in around the margin of the first nasty bruise. "Used to be the standard treatment for bruising and mild abrasions."

"Oh." She shifted uncomfortably, and he let up on the pressure on her back just a bit. "If I'd been that upset about them, I'd have --"

"No you wouldn't. I doubt you've seen a healer in years, have you? You don't go to St. Mungo's, you have a Muggle physician. You go to the chemist's for Muggle slop, not the apothecary," he said, intent on his work. "You don't even bother to use magic in the flat, much less keep up with your Arithmantic skills. Is there anything you do in Wizarding fashion any longer, Hermione, other than at the Ministry?"

He'd taken great care, for once, to keep his voice soft and level, and as far from accusatory as he could: and perhaps that was why instead of taking offence, she lay silent for a moment before finally admitting, "Not much."

He took another dollop of ointment -- he bothered to warm this one in his palm, first -- and then began working on the second bruise.

"Any particular reason?"

She seemed to struggle with that one for a while: he could feel the muscles of her back tensing, and knew that it was only partly in response to occasional discomfort as his fingers hit a particularly tender spot.

"I don't know," she finally muttered.

"It doesn't make a great deal of sense," he said reasonably. "Perfectly capable witch, top of your Form, and yet you seem to have as little to do with magic as you can."

"I don't know why," she reiterated. "It just seems.... It's wasteful, somehow. Just because you can do nearly everything by magic doesn't mean you should, not when you're -- ow --"

He gentled his fingers on the bruise.

"-- when you're perfectly capable of doing things..."

"Normally?"

"The usual way. The way I'm used to," she said sullenly.

"Ah."

He thought he ought leave it at that, though he suspected there was much more to it: but she was still irked with him, and he didn't want her snappish again, not tonight -- he was too bloody tired and achey, and wanted nothing so much as to simply sleep, never mind that Hermione looked rather enticing.... She might be more slender than she ought be or than he really appreciated, but he'd grown used to it, and her body now appealed to him. (What curves she had were very much in evidence at the moment, with that nightshirt nearly up to her waist and those chaste-white-but-daringly-cut knickers that barely covered her arse.... He couldn't recall ever seeing her in this state of undress before, unless he himself had done the undressing.)

He decided to confine himself to visual appreciation tonight. Once started on anything else he'd probably fall asleep in the middle it, and he didn't want to risk the embarassment.

"What do you mean, you couldn't get anything done on the formula?" she asked, and wriggled under his hand again.

"Stay put, I need to work more of this in."

"What does it do?"

"It soothes the damaged tissue, mostly. And the massage helps disperse the bruise." (He suspected the latter action was the truly useful part of the treatment, really, but he wasn't about to tell her that.) "Bluett and I sorted the bloody formula into what we think are the two separate potions, but it's no use going ahead without the proprietary bit. It might be the Nadder-skin -- he believes it was used to stimulate fertility in Elves when they were first, ah, acquired -- but there's no way to know for certain, and he doesn't think it's been tested in humans."

"And if it is, there's no way to know if it's chopped, ground, infused --"

"Precisely, so attempting duplication is useless, for the moment. I left the Nadder-skin at the club, by the way -- Bluett can find it if... if I'm put out of commission. He also thinks that we might have a bit of time before it becomes absolutely necessary to act, so perhaps we ought work on strengthening our case before taking it to the ICW."

"What do you think?" she said, craning her neck to look at him.

"Lie down. I think it's the most sensible thing, at present," Snape admitted, slipped his left hand down to her lower back, and leaned over to grasp one of her slim ankles with his right, pulling her calf up to examine it.

"What --"

"Blast it, I'm seeing if you -- No, no bruising there. The scratches are already healing nicely. The unfortunate fact," he said, lowering that ankle and checking her other calf, "is that we'll have a much stronger case if we wait until they actually begin to implement the damned plan."

"Severus, we can't wait that long. Bloody hell, how many people will they bollocks up if we --"

"And if we don't, they'll simply hide or destroy the evidence, wait until we're disposed of, and then go ahead. I'm afraid," he said, "that there shall have to be a few sacrifices."

"But that's horrible."

"Regrettable, yes, but necessary, Hermione. All we have at present is evidence that some unethical fool developed an illicit and morally reprehensible potion. We don't even know if the bloody thing works, or exactly how as the damned Azkaban trial doesn't go into the procedure. It isn't enough to be getting on with, not yet, not when we're risking so much. We must try to time it so as few as possible are harmed, but enough to prove malfeasance. My job, therefore, is to keep my eye on that part of the situation. And yours," he added, fingers idly stroking the small of her back, "is to proceed with your arrangements and keep your eyes open for any documentation that helps prove the case."

"But it's.... Oh, God," she muttered. "I just can't bear to think about those poor people."

"I know, it's a Devil's bargain. But we simply can't afford to tip our hand too early, not if we want to keep the majority of them from harm."

She lay silent and unresisting under his caresses for a while, and then said, "I wonder how things would have played out if you'd had Dumbledore's job."

He smirked. "You're the second person today who's made more or less the same observation. I don't know, and I don't want to speculate about it -- it's over and done with. What I do know is that, in the end, I'd rather take responsibility for a few lives ruined for the sake of the rest, rather than lose them all because of timidity. If I'm blamed, so be it."

She shuddered a bit at his last words, and tried to slip out from under his hand with a muttered, "I need a glass of water."

"Just a moment longer -- it needs to dry," he lied, and then bent to blow air across the bruises. He was quite gratified when she shivered in response, and to see gooseflesh rise on her legs; and then after a minute he took pity on her, pulled his hands away, and let her pad off to the kitchen.

I'd quite forgot the utility of ostensibly non-sexual touch, he thought smugly, untying his neckcloth. Not to mention not doing the expected. All right, I admit it -- I'm out of practise. Only proves one shouldn't take anything for granted. (One should not, most particularly, take one's 'sweet bit of crumpet' -- as Bluett had called her -- for granted, whether one was technically entitled to or not.) Not that he'd planned to use the Arnica for that purpose: he hadn't, actually, not until she'd begun to relax under his touch, something he could seldom persuade her to do. But, like most people, Snape felt that killing two birds with one stone was a very attractive and efficient proposition, and he wasn't one to pass up the chance.

He'd stripped and got beneath the covers by the time Hermione came back into the room.

"I made up some Pepper-Up as well," he murmured, "although I wouldn't suggest taking it at bed-time."

"No, I'm... I'm fine, really," she said. "Tired, mostly. But thank you."

She turned out the light and slipped in next to him, and fussed with the edge of the coverlet for a moment before asking, "What did Bluett mean about Nadder-skin and Elves and fertility?"

Oh, bloody hell.

"The short version," he said after a long sigh, "because I really am quite tired, is that Elves can shut their reproductive systems down. A man named Greenaway developed a potion to override that mechanism, which effectively boosted their fertility and made the first Elf breeding programme possible. Nadder-skin appears to have been the most effective ingredient in that, according to Bluett. He doesn't know for certain, because Greenaway's potion was a trade secret."

"Oh. But you said Nadder-skin wasn't anything more than an --"

"Yes, but at the moment that's not the point. What is is that someone knew about Greenaway's approach or may have stumbled across the potion, and they've used it as the basis for this idiocy," he said, and rolled onto his side, back to her. (She'd keep going with questions all night, otherwise.)

"I wonder where, and who," Hermione mused.

"What does that matter?"

"Documentation, of course. Someone had the idea to apply the same approach to humans, and they'd have to approach the Ministry, or their superiors in the Ministry. There's likely to be a memo of the 'I have a bloody brilliant idea' variety."

"I shouldn't be surprised, considering how careless they've been with everything else...." he mumbled, and stifled a yawn. "By the way, are Flaherty's originals sorted?"

"Not quite yet," Hermione murmured, hesitant. "I have a meeting set for tomorrow which should do."

"Hermione," he said, slightly alarmed despite feeling immensely groggy (the urge for sleep had finally hit, and now that the light was out he was having trouble keeping his eyes open), "if you're involving someone else --"

"Not directly, no. This person really... well, they really owe me a lot..."

For several blissful, contented moments everything receded as he teetered on the knife's edge of sleep: he could still hear Hermione, it was just that the words weren't making any sense. All he could seem to register was the music that underlay the specific words; she did have a pleasant voice when she wasn't shrieking like a fishwife or babbling on quite pedantically about something.

"... will keep their word --"

He managed to pick that out, and forced his eyes open.

"-- just a bit awkward, that's all," she was saying. "I'll tell you who it is if I'm successful."

"Very well," Snape mumbled, closed his eyes, gave up all pretence of listening, and fell asleep.

He was gratified on waking next morning -- though not particularly surprised -- to find Hermione curled up against his back, like a soft, fragrant version of a sulky little hedge-hog (her generally-prickly temperament made it an apt comparison, as far as he was concerned): what was surprising was that when he carefully persuaded her to unfurl her limbs, pulled her closer, and woke her in what he considered was a very nice way indeed, she gave him only token protest.

*****

Chapter 10 Footnotes.

Link to Chapter 11