SB: Chapter 15 - The Place of Turning Roads (Part II of III)
CHAPTER 15 - THE PLACE OF TURNING ROADS
PART II
Snape couldn’t find his shirt.
He was sure that he’d tossed it in the general direction of his desk chair yesterday morning when he’d gone back to sleep after visiting Fernando, but this morning when he’d gotten up, it was nowhere to be found.
Scowling, he turned back to his chest of drawers after scanning the empty floor again and thumbing through the thin stack of shirts in the second drawer, counting them-no, one was definitely missing. That was unacceptable-he didn’t have a vast wardrobe to begin with, nor the money to be constantly replacing things.
Annoyed, he pulled another from his drawer, sliding his hands into the sleeves and working it up over his shoulders so he could button it up.
A flicker of movement in the doorway caught his eye, and he jerked around-and there was that cat.
He was standing just by the edge of the doorjamb, his body tense, his eyes fixed and watching him where he stood. Snape glowered down at him. “Don’t you dare come in here,” he said severely. “It’s bad enough that you’ve just made yourself at home downstairs-you can just stay out of my bedroom.”
The cat, of course, ignored him, and without warning ran like quicksilver along the edge of the room and shot under his bed.
Snape didn’t even bother cursing-it wasn’t as if he expected any less from the little bastard, so he just blew an exasperated breath through his nose and went back to getting dressed as usual.
At least, until he heard the noise.
The chorus of tiny, squeaky mews coming from under his bed.
He froze, utterly disbelieving, and then was beside his bed in two steps and dropped to his knees.
There he was, curled up as neat as you please in a nest made from Snape’s missing shirt.
He was a she.
And she was nursing two kittens under his bed.
He stared, utterly appalled; the cat, obviously not at all pleased at having him so near her spawn, laid her ears back and hissed. Hissed at him, in his own room, under his own bed, with kittens.
That was it.
“Don’t you hiss at me, you flea-bitten bitch!” he snapped, and stood furiously up and stormed out of the room, his shirt half-unbuttoned and fluttering around his waist.
Of all the useless, miserable, ungrateful, deceitful… He stomped down the stairs, passing angrily through the living room (that he’d spent all night putting back in order, and it was a testament to both his patience and skill that there was now virtually no sign of the mayhem that had taken place the previous night) and into his kitchen for a cup of tea, slamming the kettle on the stove and yanking open his cabinets for a teacup.
Of all the unadulterated gall. That wretched thing had kittens. In his house. Right under his bloody bed.
Snarling, he jerked a teabag out of its paper wrapping so forcefully that he tore off the tab stapled to the end of the string, and it was with a hiss of frustrated fury that he just threw the whole thing into his teacup.
Oh, this morning was already shaping up to be just splendid.
And, of course, he jinxed himself with that thought, because in the next second there came a knock on his door.
Oh, for God’s sake! With an inarticulate snarl, he strode across the room and jerked the door open.
“What?!” he bellowed, ready to send whoever it was packing post haste-and then realized who was standing on his step.
It was Santiago.
The boy still cringed when he first opened the door, as he had since Snape had first spoken to him five years ago, but he straightened up quickly. “I-good morning, sir,” he said.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Snape demanded.
Santiago didn’t answer, but the furtive way his eyes cut to the side told Snape all he needed to know, and he rolled his eyes in exasperation. “May I come in?” the boy asked.
Impudent wretch. Snape grunted and went back into his kitchen, where his kettle was just beginning to boil; he left the door open, and he heard Santiago follow, closing it behind him.
He poured the water in his teacup and stared at it, watched as the water soaked the paper enfolding the tealeaves and darkened to amber as it steeped, and only then did he realize that he’d never buttoned up his shirt. God knew what Santiago had thought of that; he angrily cinched up the remaining buttons, but didn’t bother to tuck the tails in. Then he picked up his teacup and turned; Santiago had sat gingerly down at his kitchen table, and Snape scowled at him.
“How-how have you been, sir?” he asked.
Snape eyed him; even if he had the desire to so do, he’d never been good at exchanging mindless pleasantries, so he put a stop to it by saying, “I’ll ask you again, Mr. Santiago-what are you doing here? You don’t expect me to believe that you came all this way to swap inane platitudes with me when you have a new wife at home.”
“Well, no,” he admitted, and then brightened. “But I did want to tell you-I-I mean, we’re going to have a baby!”
Snape raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Was there a shotgun involved in this wedding?” he asked dryly.
Santiago reddened, but he was still beaming. “No, no-nothing like that. I mean, we didn’t expect one so soon, but we just-”
Snape snorted roughly. “I am well acquainted with the manner by which children come about, Mr. Santiago,” he sneered, “so I’ll thank you to keep the details to yourself.” He swirled the teabag in his cup with his spoon before sarcastically asking, “When do you expect the blessed event?”
“January,” he said proudly. Snape shook his head as the boy went on. “I did want to ask you if you had anything to take for swelling, though-Belicia’s ankles hurt her terribly.”
“You are well aware that I do,” Snape said coldly. “You’ve spoken to me and seen what I sell enough to know exactly what I have for sale. Now, why don’t you stop this poor attempt at misdirection and tell me why you are here?”
Santiago wilted a little in his seat. “Well, I-” he paused, and worried at his lip for a moment, and then went on. “I was worried about Señor, sir.”
Snape rubbed a tired hand on his forehead as the boy kept going. “I-it’s Day of the Dead, and Señor-he doesn’t like that day-I’m pretty sure it was when-” he pointed two fingers vaguely at his eyes, “-and he-I was worried that he was going to-do something,” he finished lamely.
Snape growled in his throat. “Oh, he did something, all right,” he said, and Santiago looked up, alarmed. “The great idiot got into a huge fight and smashed right through my living room wall!”
Santiago swung his head around to the living room and then looked back at Snape, his eyes wide. “Sir, was it-was it El Mariachi?” he asked hoarsely.
“It was someone with a guitar case,” Snape said dismissively, but Santiago’s mouth dropped open in horror and he bolted out of his seat.
“What happened? Did he-is he-?”
“Sit down,” said Snape crossly. “Sands is fine. The guitar player-” he paused and scowled, “-subdued Sands and then left.” He jerked his head to the side, in the direction of Sands’s house. “As far as I know, he’s still holed up in there-and he’s perfectly all right.”
Santiago let escape a huge breath, sinking back into his chair and leaning his forehead down on the table. “Gracias a Dios,” he muttered, and Snape rolled his eyes. Santiago looked up. “El Mariachi-he’s a legend in México,” he said softly. “The greatest fighter there ever was. And Señor, he-I think he wanted to kill him. I don’t know why-I think it was about his eyes, but he-no one can kill El Mariachi-no one who crosses him lives. And I was-I was afraid that El Mariachi would come and kill him.”
“Well,” said Snape dryly, “fortunately for Sands, this mariachi of yours was feeling generous and merely put him in his place, rather than take things to that extreme.” He scowled. “They simply decided to destroy my house-again.”
Santiago raised his eyebrows and looked behind him. “It looks fine now,” he said, his voice neutral.
Fishing the sodden teabag out of his cup, Snape glared at him. “I’m very handy with home repairs,” he said icily, and turned to toss the bag in the bin.
“And gunshot wounds?”
Snape turned and regarded the boy with narrowed eyes. “And what is that supposed to mean?” he asked dangerously.
The boy didn’t shrink under his glare this time, but rather gazed evenly back at him. “That day in the café,” he said. “When Señor shot that guy who was trying to steal his wallet.”
Snape stared at him.
“You said he just nicked that little girl,” Santiago went on, his voice serious and his eyes bright, “but he didn’t. I saw it. She was shot to pieces when you took her in that room-and when you came out, she wasn’t.”
Snape felt his stomach tying itself in a knot. He had missed. He would have hit himself if he could have; in lieu of that, he vented his fury at his own carelessness on the idiot in front of him, crossing the floor and grabbing him by the collar and jerking him forward. “Who have you spoken to about that?” he demanded, shaking him.
The nosey brat was not cowed; he just shook his head. “No one, sir-not even Señor.”
Snape released him, marginally relieved, at least with regards to Santiago, but still furious. Just how many others had he missed in his years here? That kind of negligence was a sure-fire way to get him caught by the wrong people-by Potter, if the interfering little ape took it into his head to show up again.
He glowered at the boy, who just looked steadily back. “How did you do that, sir?” Santiago asked.
With a weary sigh, Snape leaned back against his worktop. “Magic,” said he tiredly.
“…Really?”
“Really.”
Santiago looked at him, biting his lip, and then nodded. “Okay, sir.” Snape looked up, incredulous. “I believe you,” the boy said simply.
Never in his life had he met a Muggle who just believed it.
Then again, with everything that Santiago had seen from Sands, a little magical healing was probably not all that outlandish. “I’ll thank you to continue to keep that to yourself,” he said severely, and Santiago grinned.
“Don’t worry-I will,” he said, and Snape snorted.
“I find it hard to believe that you’ve kept anything from your precious ‘Señor’,” he sneered, and went on before the boy could say anything, “but you needn’t let your conscience bother you on the front-he knows as well.”
Santiago chuckled, a little wistfully. “Well, Señor can be pretty smart,” he said, and when Snape gave a rude snort, Santiago grinned ruefully at him and added, “When he isn’t being stupid.”
The boy sat silently for a while after that, as Snape drank his tea. It was a few minutes before he spoke again. “Don Greene, sir?” he asked tentatively, picking at the wood grain of the table. Snape looked at him. “Do you think that-that maybe you could-sort of, keep an eye on Señor for me?” he asked.
Snape sighed. Why did it always fall to him to look after that idiot? “Mr. Santiago,” he said wearily, “rest assured that I will not sit idly by and let harm come to anyone if it is in my power to prevent it-and that even includes that pinheaded Yank next door.”
And Santiago smiled at him. “Thank you, sir,” he said earnestly.
Snape shook his head. “Why on earth you feel compelled to stand by that wastrel is beyond me,” he informed the boy.
The boy just shrugged. “He’s Señor,” he said, and Snape couldn’t argue, could only tiredly pinch the bridge of his nose, because once upon a time he’d used a remarkably similar argument with his mother about why it was all right to spend time with a Muggle-born, and a Gryffindor at that.
“Well-I’d probably better be on my way-since I know Señor is all right,” Santiago said as he stood to go. “And you too, sir,” he added, and it didn’t sound like an afterthought. “Oh-and while I’m here-do you need me to go out and pick up anything for you? For old time’s sake,” he added hastily at Snape’s look.
“It’s Thursday, Mr. Santiago,” Snape told him.
The boy just shrugged. “I’m here,” he offered. Snape snorted again, and then turned to retrieve his list from its usual place on the blackboard.
“Here,” he said, giving it to him with the necessary cash. Then he added a few extra notes. “Pick up something for that nitwit next door as well, will you? He’s more than likely to sit in there and starve if someone doesn’t feed him-he already drove off the boy he hired to replace you. And I’ll have that potion for swelling for you when you get back.”
Santiago beamed. “Yes, sir-thank you, sir,” he said, and he dashed out the door.
Snape shook his head and stood, taking his empty teacup back to the sink to wash it and put it away. He needed to get to work; he had potions to brew for tomorrow’s day in the square.
He paused at the foot of the stairs, suddenly remembering the unwanted gift he’d found in his bedroom this morning, and his brows lowered like rain clouds. With a series of angry mutters, he ducked into the kitchen and retrieved one of his more tattered tea towels from the linen cupboard before going angrily up to his workroom. There he retrieved an old cardboard box originally destined for the rubbish heap and tossed the towel in it.
He met the cat in the hallway as he came out, and he fixed her with a fiery glare before sweeping past the deceitful mongrel and back into his bedroom. The cat, of course, followed him back in, but he ignored her and knelt down beside his bed and grabbed a fistful of his crumpled shirt, tugging out into the light.
The wiggling contents of the shirt started howling immediately, their little pink maws opening wide while the slits of their eyes remained tightly shut. Their ill-begotten mother was hovering around them, standing in the way, trying to stand over them-not hissing or clawing, at least, but definitely making things difficult. “Get off,” Snape told her crossly, and went about untangling the miserable rat creatures from his shirt. Their tiny white claws stuck in the material, and their wobbly legs and curly tails seemed to go everywhere; he finally managed to get the black one off his shirt, and he stuffed it unceremoniously in the box. The mother went in after it, and as such his job of wrestling his clothes out of the grasp of the tortoiseshell and white one was considerably easier, and it soon joined the rest of its wretched family.
“There,” Snape spat at them, shoving the box and its mewing contents roughly back under the bed, clutching his shirt, which was stained with all manner of ungodly animal filth. “You stay out of my clothes! And I’ll thank you to keep your whelps out of my sight for the duration and have them out of here as quickly as possible!” he snapped at his dubious houseguest, who just looked back at him over the lip of the box.
Grumbling, he stood up and stalked into his workroom. He had potions to brew.
And he had to launder his shirt.
Back | Table of Contents | Next