(Untitled)

[mroliverwood]

Date: November 25th
Time: 'Round Noon
Place: Spinner's End
Characters Involved: Oliver Wood, Wini Wood, Perry Derrick, and any of the other residents
Rating: PG-13 at least, probably.

Comments

[subtle_simmer]

Severus didn't come back to the house every weekend. Indeed, except for the full moon or if one of the household specifically asked him to come, Severus hadn't returned to the house since the school year had begun.

However, as he was about to find himself more stringently restricted by the Ministry, there were certain... issues... in the house which he needed to address. Primarily dealing with the storage and concealment of an assortment of items. As he would not be able to use magic to get to them once the Ministry could record his every magical action, he was creating various mechanical methods of concealment, instead, which would allow him to get to the possessions through more mundane means, should the need arise

[mroliverwood]

"Mr. Snape," Oliver said levelly, eyeing him. He would have much preferred June, or even Derrick, answering the door. He took two steps inside, giving Snape a curt nod. That was about as close as he'd get to saying, "Thanks for letting me in."

Wini looked up at him from the place where she was held against Oliver's chest, and Oliver felt a little out of place with the baby carrier wrapped around him -- the sort you probably usually saw on Mums, not dads, but he kept his face in a stone-like stare.

"I'm here to see Derrick. I owe him something." Oliver tiltted his head towards the bag on his back as a sort of explanation. "He knows I'm comin', and so does June. She said she'd be here." That was a comfort, at least someone who he hadn't punched would be around. "I thought they might have let you know, too."

"Da." Wini pressed her face against his chest, no longer looking at Snape.

"Yeah, 'salright, Wini," Oliver said. "We'll be out of here soon." He looked at Snape in the silence. "Is Derrick around?"

[subtle_simmer]

Severus didn't give a rat's arse what Wood thought of him - the animosity was quite mutual. However, he was highly incensed that there had never been any acknowledgment of the antidote he had provided to the child upon her discovery. He also cared, more than he wanted to admit, what the child thought of him, and more importantly, how well (or not) she had recovered from her over-sedation and near-poisoning of Asphodel

[mroliverwood]

Oliver went and sat down, removing Wini from the baby carrier, and setting her on his lap. He stared at Snape for a few moments, determined to keep disliking the man. He knew that Snape's antidote had helped, but there was no way that he was going to give Snape the sense that he wouldn't have been able to take care of Wini without him. He would rather pretend that he had been able to take care of her all by himself, no matter how much Ginny had said that the antidote was going to aid in Winifred's recovery

[sightlesswolf]

June had never had a pet, growing up. She'd had no idea how rapidly an innocuous little Puffskein could go through food! At the shop the other day she'd gotten what ought to have been plenty to start Winifred off, but in the past two days the little ball of fluff had gone through nearly half of what she'd bought. Maybe it was still growing

[subtle_simmer]

AS might be expected, it took a great deal of effort for Severus to hold his tongue after Wood's tirade. He would have been delighted to enumerate all the examples of Wood's prejudice and bigotry to rub his proverbial nose in his own shite, to prove its stench.

However, these past months of hard-learning, changing long-held habits of solitude to accommodate not one but six other cohabitants, and even briefly more than six, had gradually taught Severus that, indeed, there were times when something was sodding well none of his business. EVEN when that business was occurring under his own roof.

One can only imagine how difficult that lesson must be for someone like Snape, but there you are

[sightlesswolf]

A pay-off? June remembered Oliver saying he had something for Perry, the reason he was coming over that day, but... oh. He'd offered a reward for finding Wini, hadn't he? A large reward. She barely remembered it being mentioned, but as it hadn't yielded any results, she'd forgotten. Certainly she didn't think Perry had expected anything of the sort. As she'd noted before, Perry hadn't been participating in the search out of any concern for Oliver or for Winifred, but he hadn't been in it for money either, and considering his pride she thought she could see what had begun the squabble.

She was just trying to decide whether, having just walked in, she had any business getting involved in this, when Severus's pronoucement distracted her.

"What? But - no!" Obviously yes, he was just leaving, considering he'd practically plowed her over on his way out the door, but she couldn't help reacting with dismay. "Not yet, just a minute; let me just grab Wini's present from my room!" Not as though she couldn't perfectly well bring the

[mroliverwood]

Oliver felt terrible for barreling into June like that. "Sorry," he said quickly, "We're fine, right Win? Yeah, we're alright. Are you okay?" He knelt down to pick up her package and offered it to her as Snape handed Wini back the picture. The girl, while unharmed, was a bit overwhelmed but the quick succession of all these events of being picked up, carried off, bumped into and then dipped upside down while her dad picked up the package, and she pressed her head against her father's chest, not taking the picture and giving a very quiet whine