"I see," Draco agreed, nodding. "Now it all fits. Slytherins are supposed to have ambition, right? I kept wondering why one would work a dead-end low-wage job like Family Services."
"Oh yes," Snape agreed, a bit of a smile playing on his features. "That does make sense."
"Just so you know, you two are speaking some foreign language," Harry complained, stabbing at his scramble. "Slytherinspeak, something like that."
"The files, Harry," Draco laughed. "Steyne cut his teeth on blackmail here, and then what did he do but go find himself a plum job where he gets to sit in an office all day, surrounded by files that contain the most personal kinds of information imaginable."
Harry thought then of the lengthy questionnaire Snape had had to fill out as part of the adoption, and winced. Personal was right. It had even asked about income and assets; perfect for a blackmailer.
"Well, at least we know now why he specialized in Muggle studies," Draco shuddered. "Doesn't Family Services have to deal with a lot of squib children? That degree probably gave Steyne an edge getting the job, since he could claim to be able to counsel them."
"Claim being the operative word," Snape remarked as he began to spread jam on a scone. "My guess is that he got through his degree program blackmailing his professors. Certainly that would explain why he didn't know much at all about the Muggle world."
"Thank Merlin he knows not to blackmail you, though," Draco put in.
"Oh, I doubt we've heard the last from Richard Steyne."
Harry chewed his lip, worried. "How many Galleons do you think it'll take to keep him quiet?"
Snape gave the boy a dry look. "I think he'll want something that's not in your vault, Harry. Or mine, for that matter. A potion. Quite possibly a poison. But he doesn't need it now. He's biding his time."
"Would you brew him a poison if it meant you could keep me?" Harry blurted, not sure which answer he would find more horrifying, a yes or a no.
"No, but I might well dose him with one," Snape levelly answered.
Draco laughed out loud, then assured Harry, who had gone quite white, "He's joking! Can't you tell he's joking?"
"I am not joking," Snape contradicted. "I don't take kindly to someone threatening to part me from my son, as Richard Steyne will find out if he is foolish enough to pursue the matter."
As if hearing that, the letter abruptly dissolved itself to ash, the cinders burning cleanly away to nothing.
"Evanesco," Snape said anyway, then turned to Harry. "Don't think on it, except to remember the salient point. Steyne may ask me for something, and he may be fairly unpleasant about it, but he won't press it as far as blackmail, not with me."
Harry weakly nodded. Just thinking of his father poisoning someone made him feel ill. But Snape used to make poisons for Voldemort all the time, didn't he? "I guess your... reputation is useful, sometimes," he finally said.
"You look a bit disturbed by that."
"Uh, just wondering if it influenced Hermione," Harry said, though it wasn't true. With that, he turned his attention back to breakfast and tried to ignore the weight of Snape's stare as it settled on him.
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"Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, do come in," said Snape that evening as he swung open the heavy door to his dungeon quarters.
Ron sauntered inside without hesitation, but Hermione looked a bit as though she were crossing a street, the way she glanced both ways before moving forward. It didn't help that Snape, obviously enjoying her discomfort, drawled a sardonic, "Today, if you would."
Coloring slightly, Hermione stopped dithering and stepped inside.
"Would you care for an aperitif before we dine?" Snape blithely went on, waving first Hermione and then Ron into separate chairs.
"Firewhiskey," Ron answered without missing a beat.
Snape raised an expressive eyebrow as he turned on the red-haired boy. "I believe I offered an aperitif, not an invitation to get falling-down drunk."
Harry thought it was a bit much to expect his friend to even know what an aperitif was--he certainly wasn't sure--and when Draco strode forward, he could just hear the insults sure to fly... something about Ron's family being too poor to afford anything but water...
But the Slytherin boy merely looked levelly at their guests, then turned to Snape and suggested, "I'll order a round of something appropriate then, shall I?" At Snape's nod he went to do so.
Harry sat down on the sofa and said in a casual tone, "So, Severus and I thought it might be good to have you both down for a chat."
"Any particular reason, Harry?" Hermione smartly inquired. Clearly she had no intention of pretending this was a social occasion.
"Actually, yes," he retorted, a little bit of his anger with her seeping through. He'd been trying hard to repress it, to be mature, to recognize that she'd only been trying to help when she'd filed that dratted report... but that knowing look in her eyes was his undoing. She still thought Snape or Draco was abusing him, he could just tell. And that steamed him, it really did. "We had a visit yesterday, Hermione, from Wizard Family Services!"
"Good," she had the gall to reply.
"How dare you file a report against Severus!"
"Hermione?" Ron questioned, his brows drawing together. "What's Harry talking about?"
"Your bloody-minded girlfriend has decided that I'm getting beat to a pulp down here, that's what!"
"Oh, honestly, Potter," Draco smoothly drawled as he came back from the Floo, "you have no concept whatsoever of proper manners. I leave you for ten seconds to arrange refreshments and you're at our guests' throats." The Slytherin boy glanced at the coffee table expectantly just as a tray appeared, then levitated it upwards with a few careless flicks of his wand as he said politely to Hermione, "Mimosa?"
"Mimosa!" she echoed.
"Mmm, champagne and apple juice--"
"A mimosa's made of orange juice, Malfoy," Hermione snapped.
"Really. I will have to try that some time," Draco returned, nodding his head slightly. "Though of course orange juice is hardly known at all in wizarding circles. I must say, I've quite grown to like it since Harry began getting it so frequently."
Harry had the feeling that Draco could make polite small-talk with his worst enemies all night long if it suited him. Must be all those Ministry dinners he'd been dragged to by his father. Well, little good it did him here; Ron and Hermione were far from through with the previous topic.
"Don't you call Hermione bloody-minded," Ron said with a glare at Harry before turning to her. "Now what's this rubbish about Harry getting beat up?"
"He's only covered with bruises from head to toe some days," Hermione vastly overstated the case. "You visit a lot. Don't tell me you've never noticed."
"Some people," Harry loudly stressed, waving away the mimosa Draco tried to hand him, "are smart enough to not go thinking they know more than they do!"
Snape spoke then, his tones somehow both measured and curt. "Miss Granger, when I spoke with you in my office I explained that in the interests of helping my son I had been teaching him physical self-defense techniques."
"I know what you told me," Hermione said, lifting her face to look up at her teacher.
"You were perhaps understandably perplexed as to why Harry didn't simply explain this straight away when you noticed his injuries, but I thought we had covered that matter to your satisfaction--"
Hermione interrupted then, her eyes slightly glimmering with tears. "Sir. I can't deny being upset to learn Harry had lied to me, but that isn't why I owled my concerns to Wizard Family Services." She looked away then, her gaze seeking out Harry's furious expression. "Professor Snape said that you were just embarrassed in case people thought your learning Muggle fighting meant your magic was doomed forever. He said that was why you weren't going to Madame Pomfrey, so that there'd be absolutely no chance that anyone would realize about your training. And that made enough sense that I was going to come back and talk to you about it, I was. But that was when I realized that it didn't matter."