"Seventy-five," Snape said.
Tom produced his counter without expression. "Alternatively, you could negotiate directly with my teacher, Nicolas Flamel. I should mention his mood has been somewhat difficult lately."
He offered no explanation for why. The fact that nine-tenths of the reason was Tom himself was not information he felt compelled to share.
Even Snape was not interested in a dispute with a six-hundred-year-old master alchemist in a poor humour. He agreed to fifty, and spent the following moment reflecting privately that a man who found a thousand Inferi insufficient was operating in a category of madness that made his own research look sensible by comparison.
"Do you want them purified or not?"
"Unpurified, obviously. What use is a purified Inferius for toxicology research?"
Tom was about to ask where exactly Snape had found a closer copy of The Most Toxic Magic when noise from outside the room overtook the question entirely. A crowd, excited, loud, with the particular pitch of people gathering to watch something.
They pushed the door open.
In the entrance hall, a ring had formed around two figures. The subject at the centre was a recurring attraction, reliably available at the intersection of any two points in the school year.
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.
They operated like opposite magnetic poles, which is to say that no matter how much space was placed between them, they found each other with dependable precision and produced energy on contact. Currently they were in the middle of a physical altercation that, by some tacit agreement, had remained wandless. Harry's wand was in Ron's hand. Malfoy's was with Goyle. Everyone was keeping it sporting.
Snape clocked that it was Harry at the centre of things and immediately became interested, deploying his greasy hair and jaundiced complexion as a social tool to part the crowd and arrive at the front with time to spare. He waited for exactly the moment when Malfoy's knee found Harry somewhere impolite, then used a spell to separate them with the timing of a man who had been planning the entrance. Harry's face, as he was pulled back, was the face of someone who had not yet processed what had just happened to them.
"Impressive," Snape said, drawing the word out with the care of someone who has thought about the exact intonation. "First day back and you've already provided the school with quality entertainment. A welcome-back performance. Very committed."
The two combatants went red. The watching students went poorly contained, laughter filtering through from several directions at once.
"Malfoy." Snape raised an eyebrow. "Tell me what you did to provoke the famous Mr. Potter this time."
Tom gave him a sideways glance.
Framing it as what Malfoy did to provoke Harry, then letting Malfoy speak first. Whatever Harry said afterward would arrive already categorised as a response rather than a statement of fact. Snape had been doing this for years and it still worked because Harry never identified it in time, and Ron's assistance in that particular area was limited.
"I'm genuinely confused, Professor."
Malfoy's expression was a masterwork of sincere puzzlement. "I was simply asking after Potter's wellbeing. I enquired how things were going with his new guardian. He responded by hitting me."
"He's lying!" Harry's face was vivid with anger. "He called Sirius a disgrace to pure-blood and I hit him for it!"
"Was I wrong?" Malfoy said. "Ask any pure-blood family what they think of Black. I was stating a widely held view. Does Potter get to punch everyone who disagrees with him? Is that the new standard?"
"Who made you a Dark Lord, Potter?"
The Slytherin students behind him produced sounds of agreement. Several offered more direct endorsements. The Gryffindors rallied in Sirius's defence with the uncomplicated loyalty that characterised their house at its best, and the two sides were building toward something louder when McGonagall appeared and the whole thing stopped.
"What is everyone standing around for? Is losing house points how you want to start the term?"
McGonagall's presence operated on a different register than Snape's entirely. Where Snape created unease, she created the specific discomfort of disappointing someone who had expected better from you. The crowd dispersed inward, toward the walls, eyes dropping.
"Mr. Riddle." She turned to him after the sweep, her voice settling from severe to something closer to collegial. "What happened?"
Tom gave both accounts without editorialising, Malfoy's version and Harry's, as reported.
McGonagall's visible irritation went up a level. She looked at both of them with the expression of a woman who has seen this exact situation more times than she can count and finds it no less exhausting for the familiarity.
"Save your energy for the examinations the day after tomorrow. I would have thought that was sufficient motivation to behave like adults." She paused. "Neither of you is losing points today since term has not officially begun. However. Tomorrow, after the examinations, both of you will report to Filch and assist him with the storage rooms."
Harry and Malfoy accepted this with the identical slumped posture of people who have lost something they were not going to get back. The crowd broke up. The flow moved toward the Great Hall.
Snape, quietly put out that he had not been able to add anything to Harry's situation, fell into step beside Tom and murmured a time for the exchange.
They walked into the Great Hall.
Snape felt a sharp, focussed gaze land on him and Tom simultaneously. He looked up toward the staff table.
Dumbledore was looking at them.
Snape stared.
One holiday. One holiday, and Dumbledore looked like that.
What in Merlin's name had happened to him?