In the late afternoon the following day, the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts’ castle was filled with luggage and buzzing with voices. There had indeed been a teachers’ conference during the week that followed the pupils’ departure, but after a last meeting in the morning with the headmaster, rounded up by a fancy lunch - treat of the house-elves - it had come to an end, and the majority of the staff immediately took the first opportunity to set off on their holidays.
It was lucky, Severus Snape thought sarcastically to himself as he stood observing the scene from where the stairs from the dungeons emerged into the hall, that there were no children left to witness the muddle and the unchecked exhilaration of the adults who, during the school year, were so keen to keep up appearances and to serve as role models for their pupils. With a little aid from the wine served at lunch and from the intoxicating feeling of freedom because the vacations were finally going to commence, the teachers were chit-chatting and laughing loudly together as they stood waiting for the thestral carriages to drive up to the castle. In one corner of the hall, Professor Sprout was on her knees on the floor in front of three open suitcases, rummaging about their contents in a desperate attempt to find something that she was not sure to have packed. In the middle of the room, surrounded by interested colleagues, Professor Flitwick was demonstrating, in a rather boastful way, his acquisition of the newest brand of a wizard camera. In another corner of the room, Filch was making increasingly gross comments about Portuguese wine and women, causing Professor Hooch and Professor Vector to giggle and make grimaces of distaste at the same time.
Not even Snape, however, could pretend to be entirely insensitive to the atmosphere, and he acknowledged feeling just a tingle of that relaxing freedom that his colleagues were drunken on. He still wore his teaching robes, however, because what, honestly, was the great hurry? They had seven weeks ahead of them, hadn’t they? He was pleased with himself for making the decision to stay behind an extra day before leaving and avoid being part of that ridiculous buzzing crowd. It would give him time to get his things in order, clean out his potions lab so that it need not be a mess when he returned to start anew in the autumn.
Snape was perfectly aware of the fact that only a few years ago, he would have been the first among the teachers to leave. He would probably have excused himself, skipped the lunch, run down to the gates and Apparated from the castle as soon as Professor Dumbledore pronounced the school year closed.
He remembered so well his first summer after Lily’s death and Voldemort’s disappearance. He had not known what to expect, nor was he in the mental state to imagine what to do with himself during the vacations that towered aloft, more like a threat than a promise that particular year. He had been numb from the events of the year, having escaped Azkaban by a hair’s breadth, sentenced to twelve years of probation - a punishment that was nothing to his own violent self-reproaches and strangling grief over the loss of Lily.
Careless of his own comfort, ignorant of his own needs and ready to submit to anything his saviour and benefactor would propose, the twenty-one-year-old Severus Snape humbly obeyed the summons to Professor Dumbledore’s office a few days before the start of his first vacations as a teacher. His defender at the trials, equally his employer, was also the wizard appointed by the Ministry to supervise his probation.
Snape had been greatly surprised when Dumbledore gently and persuasively proposed that he go away to see the world. ”Bu… But the probation?” he had asked. ”The confinement, the control? The Ministry would never allow me to…” Snape had supposed that Dumbledore would have chosen to keep him close at hand at Hogwarts during the summer, having him do some archiving, or making himself useful in any other way.
”I am in charge of your supervision, Severus, and I see that you need… an opening… a distraction, if you want… or an inspiration… otherwise you will be engulfed by your grief, succumb to your depression… And if you do, you will not be able to help me in the future, like you have promised, will you?” Dumbledore had added the last words lightly at the moment Snape, in a surge of overwhelming humility and self-condemnation, felt tears of gratitude mount in his eyes. Snape had quickly fought them back. Except the night Lily Potter died, Snape had not allowed himself to let a single emotion show on the outside, not one complaint come over his lips, even when rough and revengeful Aurors had tried to tear him to pieces and throw him to the Dementors of Azkaban. Snape was surprised by his own reaction and display of emotions - he had not realised himself to be so… weary… so at the end of the rope… Obviously the headmaster had, though.
”So it is in my interest, as well as in yours, that you are allowed some freedom,” Dumbledore continued firmly. ”I suggest that you travel, make the most of it during the summers. You are a very young teacher - I’m aware of the fact that with the rumours around your person, the pupils don’t treat you kindly. And I’m afraid the prejudices of your colleagues after the trials also leaves something to wish for. But this has been an extreme year, Severus, and I believe that it will get better. Get it out of your system this summer. Allow yourself to forget, if only a bit. I only ask two things of you: first that you give me your travel schedule, with the exact places you want to visit, secondly that you wear this magical bracelet that will allow me to call you back should I need to. Rest assured that I will not use that possibility unless strictly necessary.”
After that first summer - that had turned out a mind-boggling experience, being the first time he visited a foreign country - Snape had travelled broadly and widely, during in total ten summers. There was nothing compared to travelling in order to soothe a grieving heart and to distract a rummaging mind. He travelled under the disguise of a Muggle back packer, because luxury was not what he sought or allowed himself, and the under-cover made it possible not to stick out among the tourists, and to avoid magical communities, as he was still unsure if the Ministry would take kindly to his being let loose like this by Dumbledore.
He used to live for these summers, submitting his travel schedule to Dumbledore already in April, enduring lazy, incompetent or malicious pupils all year thanks to the prospect of the freedom the summer would allow him. Dumbledore’s need to know about his whereabouts limited his itinerary somewhat, inhibiting that unplanned, capricious kind of travelling that he had come to understand many Muggle youths indulged in. It did not bother Snape, as he was a structured person who enjoyed to keep to his plans. He had another advantage on the Muggle travellers in that he did not need to spend hours or days travelling from one place to another on trains or buses, but Apparated cleanly from one place on the surface of the planet to another.
He usually alternated one week in a big city with one week in the countryside. In that way he could visit the big libraries for research and indulge in cultural activities, alternated with treks - the more perilous the better - in beautiful sceneries combined with activities like fishing and botanising for his potion ingredients stocks.
As they did not cross paths on the means of transportation, it was his lodgings, mostly, that brought Snape together with the community of Muggle back packers. They all seemed to stay in the same youth hostels, or use the same bridges and waste areas in the cities to sleep outdoors, where ever in the world you went. They seemed to be drawn together like bees to honey, always finding means to gather up, for example on the parcels of beaches by the oceans where they knew they would not be chased away. Snape did not mind to move in the outskirts of these gangs, joining the occasional bonfire on the beaches, or camping fire in the forest, keeping to himself, but still seeking that peripheral human contact out voluntarily.
Except that last year something had changed. He could not pinpoint any particular condition or circumstance that had been altered as to the travelling, so he finally concluded that the change must have occurred within himself. It was his tenth summer out in the world and he had just turned thirty-one. All of a sudden, his fellow back packers appeared so young to him. In a very irritating way, they had all started to resemble his pupils at Hogwarts - not first years, but fifth and sixth and seventh years. Muggles let their children out in the world way before wizard children were allowed to test their wings on their own. He seriously doubted that Muggle children were any more mature than magical teenagers and he seriously doubted their parents’ sensibility in allowing them that much freedom.
The last summer he had needed to intervene and come to the aid of no less than three different, impossibly young and eerily lost, back packers. The first one was a girl who had been robbed of her passport and money in the middle of broad day-light on the crowded La Rambla in Barcelona and who did not know how to apply for a temporary identity card at her embassy. Her friends had looked like fools and Snape who had witnessed the scene and who knew how to keep his Muggle papers in order, had taken pity on them and guided them to the right places. They had been embarrassingly grateful.
Only a week later, when Snape was on a solitary randonnée in the Pyrenees Mountains, he encountered a young boy who had taken a fall on a steep slope on the hillside and obviously broken his ankle, although his fellow travellers had not realised the seriousness of his injury and simply continued their journey, taking turns to carry the light boy between them, two by two. The ten or twenty young people did not know each other from before, but a hierarchy had formed among them where a tall Slovenian boy was the leader. This young man, Snape found out, had a strong will and was determined to finish his trek according to his plans and at any price. At the same time he was social, charming and had this strange streak of misdirected protectiveness which made him ”collect” every stray walker they encountered and invite them to join the gang, which grew steadily and claimed themselves to be the best friends in the world, for ever and ever. It was this authoritative Slovenian who had decided to ignore the injury of the hurt boy who was very young indeed and could not speak up for himself and went along with his comrades’ ’help’ without complaining, despite quite substantial pain. When their paths crossed, the Slovenian boy had called Snape over to the gang, eager to recruit him to the group, especially since he instinctively seemed to realise that Snape, due to his mature age and experience, might be an asset.
Snape had reluctantly let himself be talked into joining their camp for the evening, but when, the next morning before setting off again, he explained to the Slovenian leader that they had to interrupt their itinerary and take the wounded boy to the nearest village and transport him to a hospital, the Slovenian boy had not been so candid and charming as before. There had been a heated argument where no one but Snape dared contradict the tall young man who suddenly behaved quite threateningly and insisted in his primary assessment that the ankle was only sprained and not broken. Snape who had performed a diagnostic spell on the boy’s foot, was sure of his diagnosis and simply glared at the Slovenian, not bending an inch in his judgement of the situation. It had ended with the group splitting up, the Slovenian boy leaving with his most loyal friends, which proved to be a minority of the youngsters that had followed him. When given the chance, most of the young people chose to get away from him and helped Snape bring the boy back to civilisation, get medical assistance and call the unsuspicious parents. Again, several of the assisting young people were so grateful towards Snape that they nearly burst out crying. They had been worried for their young friend, but had not dared to question the dominating young Slovenian. When it was time to split up, Snape realised to his horror that several of the young back packers wanted to attach themselves to him instead, asking him where he was heading, not leaving his side until he told them bluntly to bugger off as he always travelled alone. There was no way those young people could find him a charming companion, he thought, and it was certainly not his looks that made those young girls want to follow him around. What was it then? Did it say ’trustworthy teacher’ in big letters on his forehead, he thought with irony, appalled that his profession might have rubbed off on him to that extent. They obviously felt safe around him somehow, he concluded, disgusted because he had no wish to take care of young people in his spare time, when he was busy doing just that during the school year.
Snape Apparated to another continent altogether, all according to the planned itinerary, and ended up in Viet Nam. But somehow the travelling did not deliver the relief it used to do. Travelling alone was, Snape started to feel, indeed lonely. He surprised himself by recalling the summers of his childhood, invariably spent at Spinners End as his family had no money to go away for a holiday. He remembered the burning sun of July and the smell from the heated asphalt, recalled the bush wood next to the car park which had been the only place to find some shadow and cooling unless you became desperate enough to plunge into the filthy river that ran through the industrial parts of Spinners End. He was reminded of all this as the surroundings of the Youth Hostel in the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam, located by the Saigon river, was as dirty and in a state of tumbledown as the neighbourhood where he grew up had been.
Several Europeans stayed at the same youth hostel and Snape could not help but notice three British Muggle girls in their eighteens who seemed to be rather inexperienced travellers. They had just started on a several months round-the-world-trip and one evening, Snape found the three of them in near hysteria. One of them was dissolved in tears, and the other two were debating fiercely. Reflexively, in his teacher’s voice, Snape demanded to know what was the matter. All too obediently the two girls who were not crying turned to him to explain that the third girl had been reached by the news that her father had died suddenly in a heart attack and that she needed to go back to Britain quickly. They had already decided beforehand that should something like this occur that forced one of them to abandon the voyage, the other two should be allowed to carry on. They had all worked hard during a whole year to earn the money for the trip that was already paid for to a large extent. The question now was how to get their friend back to her family in the best way, and that was where the two friends did not agree, panicking slightly over their grieving friend who seemed incapable of making decisions of her own at the moment.
In a way, Snape understood the two friends’ wish not to interrupt their adventure after so short a time, but with a sting of regret, he could not help thinking that had this been Lily, she would not have hesitated to give her friend all her support, interrupted her own journey and accompanied her friend all the way home. And he doubted that the three friends had seriously considered what it would truly feel like to travel alone and in shock from the sudden loss of a parent through foreign countries. He suddenly heard himself stating that he, too, needed to return to Britain and that he would take care of their friend. The grieving girl renewed her sobs, but they were now tinged with relief.
Snape notified Dumbledore of his change of plans and guided the no longer crying, but pale and thanks to some Muggle tranquillising pills numb teenage girl through security controls at the Vietnamese airport, making sure that she ate and drank during the long flight to London Heathrow from where he took her to Paddington station and accompanied her on a five hour long train ride all the way back to the small village in Wales where her family lived and where he handed her over, rather stiffly because he was exhausted by the long travel, to a shocked widow. When the girl saw her mother, she crumpled up in sobs and tears in her arms and Snape was ready to leave the grieving family on the spot, but the widow gestured him inside because she wanted to thank the so kind and responsible teacher properly, relating, between her efforts to comfort her daughter, how her husband had gone from perfectly healthy one day to completely unexpectedly falling down on the lawn in a heart attack the next day.
”My husband and our daughter were so close,” she said tenderly, tears mounting in her eyes. Snape made a new attempt to rise, but the widow, who in her grief seemed to cling to the decorum of politeness, would not let him leave, concerning herself over the fact that the last train back to Cardiff had already departed and insisting on Snape staying the night. It was impossible to enlighten her on magical ways of travelling, but Snape who had no wish to intrude on the family, declined the invitation with increasing determination and, at last, to appease her, he had to accept that she called a Muggle taxi for him so that he could be driven to a nearby larger city from where a night bus to London might be leaving. Snape found himself with clenched teeth in the backseat of a Muggle taxi, on bumpy roads for another hour before he finally could climb out of the blasted car, move into a deserted lane and Apparate away from Wales.
This was how Snape ended up, at four in the morning, in front of the house where he grew up in Spinners End, because this was where he had reported to Dumbledore that he would go. He had not visited the place for ten years. Living at Hogwarts during the school year and travelling in the summers, having no good memories attached to the place, he had simply chosen to ignore it. Even in the darkness of the night, it was obvious what terrible state of decay it was in - a wreck of tumbledown, but Snape entered, found his old bed where he laid down with his clothes on and closed his eyes. He found himself thinking about the girl who had lost her father and wondering how she would view her friends in a few months when they returned from their journey and her grief had lessened. Would they continue to be friends? From there his thoughts wandered to his own father, who he did not know whether he was dead or alive. Did he want to know? Did he care? Snape turned in his bed. The Muggle way of travelling did not agree with him at all, he wearily concluded before finally drifting off to an agitated sleep.
Snape had not departed again, but stayed the remaining four weeks of the summer holidays at Spinners End, sinking into some kind of dazed apathy. He could not really account for what he did during those weeks. He tried half-heartedly to fix and mend some of the most obvious damage to the house, tidying up and making it possible to live at the place, but when he summed his work up before leaving for Hogwarts again, it appeared to be a poor achievement for all those weeks.
His only social engagement during that time had been to make a customary appearance at the garden party in August at the Malfoy’s, like he always dutifully turned up for the yearly fox hunt in autumn, the New Year Eve party and the first garden party of the year in May. Socialising with the Malfoys was part of his agreement with Dumbledore in order to keep an eye on the former followers of Voldemort.
This particular party served as an awakening for Snape, because this year Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were particularly welcoming towards him which surprised him greatly as he was merely a peripheral acquaintance, until he recalled that it was time for the couple’s only son to start at Hogwarts and he realised that his position as a professor would improve his status vis-a-vis the wealthy family. At the same time he was reminded of the fact that other than Draco and a couple of other Death Eaters’ children, like Goyle, Crabbe and Nott, this was the year that Harry Potter, the Boy-who-lived, would enter Hogwarts. He did not understand how it could have escaped him. If he was honest with himself, though, he recalled that Dumbledore had mentioned it at their meeting during the preceding spring and somehow, more or less unconsciously Snape must have put it out of his mind.
At the Malfoy’s garden party it had been a matter of debate whether to let the pure-blood children approach and befriend Harry Potter, or whether to tell them to avoid him. The eleven-year-old, self-confident Draco Malfoy gathered a little audience around his person, explaining that he would probably attend the same class as Potter and that he would approach the Boy-who-lived and check him out, because, the aristocrat child lectured, it was easier to befriend someone first and then reject him, than the other way around. And as it was difficult to foresee what part this Potter was going to play in the future wizard society, it would be better to be on the safe side. Snape smirked to himself when listening. Those were, of course, Lucius’ words coming out of his son’s mouth. And - Snape added to himself - one had probably better stay away from Harry Potter as the child, being the son of James Potter, was bound to be a nuisance. Draco would probably be painfully aware of the fact in less than a week.
All those thoughts about past summers flew through Snape’s head as he observed his colleagues preparing for departure in the Entrance Hall. For the first time in ten years, after the fiasco the previous summer, he had decided to stay at home. Snape had finally got a grip on himself and reached the sensible decision to rebuild Spinners End to a proper house. It would take most part of the summer, but that did not matter. He needed to be alone and to have something do - something meaningful, he repeated to himself, as if trying to convince himself of making the right decision, because he was still ambiguous about his childhood home.
Snape needed to collect his thoughts, come to terms with the events during the year which had indeed been tumultuous, not to say alarming. Which in turn had to do with a certain eleven-year-old who Snape had stated from the beginning that he would be a problem, had he not? An eleven-year-old child, a Potter, who had thrown him completely off balance during the year, managing on the one hand to put him in a state of fury at regular intervals, and on the other hand at plunging him in a stupor, lost in regretful thoughts about the past, during his lonely evenings in the dungeons. Snape had been bewildered by himself, ashamed at times for his behaviour towards the child in class and irritated by the depressive thoughts that seemed to assail him whenever he was left alone, rendering him vulnerable, bitter and passive. He did not recognise himself. During this winter he had not once opened the Atlases and the travel guides that lined the shelves of his library, like he used to do when he prepared his summer trips. He had not even felt the temptation, by Merlin! Nothing but a Potter to put him in a state like that! But if he was honest with himself, that kind of floating, unreal and depressing feeling had started to assail him already when he returned home prematurely last summer, had it not? And by then, he had not even met the Potter child… So he should probably spend the summer to come to terms with his ambiguous feelings about Lily’s son as well. Or he might just try to put him out of his head altogether. Yes, that was probably the best. Have a rest from the terror, that was exactly what he needed.
The thestrals arrived in front of the castle and the bustle in the Entrance Hall climaxed as his colleagues collected their belongings to mount the carriages. Snape watched indulgently. The relationship with his fellow teachers had improved slowly over the years, even if this particular year might be a drawback, as many of them objected to his treatment of the Boy-who-lived. He finally caught Filius Flitwick’s attention and the small professor approached him. Snape handed over a thin pamphlet.
”Here you are, Filius,” said Snape. ”The recipe to prepare your own developer. I have copied it from my book and simplified the procedure for you. It should be possible to set it up while you’re still travelling and develop your photos.”
”Splendid! Thank you, Severus!” said Flitwick, beaming at him.
The crowd thinned out as the first carriage left. Pomona Sprout had finally found what she was looking for.
”I searched that pouch five times before I got hold of my favourite self-patterning knitting sticks,” she told Professor Vector as they headed towards the door. ”What would I have done without them all summer? But they were in the suitcase all along.”
At that moment, Madam Pomfrey came running down the stairs with a trunk vacillating in the air as she levitated it impatiently. Last minute packing, Snape thought disdainfully. That’s a guaranteed spoiler for your vacation.
”Please, hold a carriage and wait for me,” panted Poppy Pomfrey. ”I must speak to Severus before I leave.”
Snape’s eyebrows hit the ceiling in surprise as he detached from the wall he had been leaning against.
”Over here, Poppy,” he said. ”What could you possibly…”
The matron looked relieved as she approached him.
”I was afraid that I would have to search the entire labyrinth of the dungeons to find you, Severus. I don’t have much time. Now, I’m afraid there is a spot of trouble. Such an inconvenient time for it to happen, too. It put me in a tight corner, it did, receiving that letter just after lunch. Only a few hours to pack and then this in the middle of everything!”
Snape looked at Poppy impatiently. Even if she was a competent nurse, she was easily stressed. And people like that, he emphasised to himself, should not pack their things in the last minute.
”Read this!” Pomfrey handed him a letter which, to Snape’s surprise, was written in a child’s handwriting, a sprawling one at that, which he thought he recognised. Snape narrowed his eyes and scoffed as he skimmed through the content. Rolling his eyes, he handed the letter back to the nurse. At the same moment he opened his mouth to protest the seriousness of the letter, Pomfrey said:
”I agree that Mr Potter’s appendicitis is extremely ill-timed.”
”Appendicitis? Isn’t that a bit late?” Snape answered surprised. ”Wizard children all get their appendicitis around the age of…”
”Between five and twelve with a peak at the age of seven years old,” Pomfrey filled in sententiously. ”I should have known, in Harry’s case, that the disease was bound to develop this summer. I interrogated him at the start of the year as to previous illnesses and he denied ever being sick, so I knew that he had not had his appendicitis and I should have prepared him when he left for the summer. But that terrible incident with Professor Quirrel and…” She lowered her voice. ”…and You-know-who, at the end of the year distracted me. And I forgot to warn him about the impending appendicitis. I admonished him about everything else but this! He turns twelve at the end of July after all - it was bound to happen.”
Snape sighed, but then he started to laugh. Pomfrey looked disapprovingly at him.
”I don’t think that Mr Potter would appreciate being laughed at, in the vulnerable and precarious situation he finds himself in,” she said sternly.
”I don’t care what Mr Potter would like or not. However, you must acknowledge that he is in the right place, is he not?” retorted Snape. ”As he is with his Muggle family, residing in the very middle of the Muggle world. But that’s just like Potter to be awkward and make difficulties about the single disease that cannot be treated by magic. What irony!”
”You’re right, it is the only time in a wizard’s life that he has to submit to Muggle surgery. I answered Potter in those exact words by return of owl, immediately after lunch. But to be sure about the measures to take, I mounted to the headmaster’s office and showed him the letter. When we reread it, we spotted certain disquieting elements,” said Madam Pomfrey, casting a look over her shoulder out through the entrance door. When Snape followed her gaze he saw the thestrals trampling impatiently.
Snape inclined his head inquiringly. What had Albus Dumbledore had to say about the Boy-who-lived going through a perfectly natural step of maturation towards adult wizardry? A necessary step, in fact. The removal of the appendix, in a witch or a wizard, liberated magical powers. It suddenly struck Snape that his initial assessment of Potter as a mediocre wizard might be a bit warped, if the child had not yet fulfilled his appendicitis rite.
”Look, Albus wants someone to check it out, just to be sure,” continued Pomfrey. ”Potter does not seem certain that he will be able to persuade his aunt to take him to a doctor - that is a bit strange, isn’t it? If he has had symptoms since the return from Hogwarts that appendix should be ready to be removed by now. It’s a simple enough procedure - for Muggle doctors - but there is a danger if the surgery is delayed.”
Snape furrowed his forehead.
”Petunia Evans… Dursley… should know all this. Her sister went through the rite after all…” he said. Madam Pomfrey sighed.
”It’s not obvious. The Muggleborns often have their appendicitis early in childhood and from the magical community we are not very good at supervising and clarifying what happens, but as it only requires Muggle surgery, and the magic evolves on its own, it is not necessary to explain the procedure to Muggle parents or siblings. It is perfectly possible to just let the magic rite have its course. Therefore it’s not certain that Potter’s aunt knows what’s going on.”
Snape frowned harder. There was something. Something that Lily might have told him long ago… Too long ago - he could not remember.
”There are people who are afraid of doctors and of hospitals and who will avoid them at any price. Mr Potter’s aunt may be one of them. It’s extremely irresponsible when those people let their fear impeach the care of their children, however,” Pomfrey said distractedly, looking over her shoulder again.
”There is an uncle as well,” Snape pointed out dryly. ”It is unlikely that he, too, should suffer from nosocomephobia. Therefore, I have no doubts that Potter will be taken care of.”
”Well, Albus wanted you to check it out, just to be sure that everything was in order and that Potter was brought to the hospital,” said Madam Pomfrey. ”I’m sorry Severus, I really need to be going. Our colleagues are waiting for me and the Hogwarts express is soon to leave…”
”Albus wants me to go and check on Potter?” Snape spat angrily. ”Why on Earth me? I’ve had nothing but trouble with that child in my class!”
”Albus has already left the castle with Minerva for that conference in Sicily on The Frontiers of Transfiguration. As you know, he is to make the inauguration speech. He must not be delayed. They Apparated from his office only thirty minutes ago. I was lucky to get hold of him before he left. He told me explicitly to ask you. And I really don’t see who else…” Madam Pomfrey looked around in the now empty Entrance Hall.
”I had planned to stay the night at Hogwarts before leaving in due order tomorrow. If I need to check on Potter tonight, I still have to lock up the castle and draw the wards because I’m the last one to leave. You realise that it will take me at least a couple of hours before I can go? Dumbledore entrusted me with the security measures. And now, on top of everything, he asks this of me! And I will either have to pack my things right now, in a hurry, or go back after checking on Potter, in which case I will have to first undo and then reset all the wards again, because naturally we cannot leave the castle unprotected! It will be a waste of time!” Snape raised his voice.
”I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, Severus,” answered Madam Pomfrey, taking a step towards the exit. ”I suppose the best alternative would be to prepare your things tonight and shut the castle up for the summer before you leave for Little Whinging. I’m truly sorry for the haste. I hope it turns out all right. Have a nice summer, Severus… I must not miss the train…” And so she stepped out and mounted the waiting carriage from which Pomona Sprout waved at her with increasing desperation, leaving Severus Snape behind, swearing and scowling.