Professor Slughorn's invitation was written on paper too thick to fold properly.
Severus discovered this because he had already tried twice.
The first fold left a pale raised line across the cream surface without lying flat. The second made it worse.
He stopped before damaging it.
Around him, breakfast continued.
Knives scraped toast. Cups knocked against saucers. Someone farther down the Slytherin table was complaining about an essay that had apparently grown longer overnight without being touched. Above, owls moved through the enchanted morning sky beneath the Great Hall ceiling, dropping letters, parcels and once, at the Ravenclaw table, something wrapped badly enough that three oranges escaped and rolled under the benches.
Severus barely noticed.
He read the card again.
Mr Snape,
I should be delighted if you would join a small gathering in my rooms this Saturday evening at seven. Nothing formal. A few students, something to eat, and conversation before examinations make us all thoroughly unbearable.
H. Slughorn
The handwriting was round and confident.
Nothing formal.
Severus distrusted phrases like that.
Formal had rules.
Nothing formal usually meant rules everyone else already knew.
He turned the card over.
Blank.
Turned it back.
A first-year across from him glanced up from his porridge.
"What's that?"
"Nothing."
The boy looked directly at the cream card.
"That's a strange shape for nothing."
Severus slid it beneath his Potions textbook.
The boy shrugged and returned to breakfast.
Severus did not.
He had received the invitation ten minutes earlier from an older Slytherin who had stopped beside him, placed the envelope on the table and said only:
"Slughorn."
As though that explained the paper, the message and whatever response Severus was expected to have.
Perhaps it did to everyone else.
He had seen Slughorn speak to older students before. Sometimes after lessons. Sometimes in corridors. Occasionally at meals, when the professor would pause behind a bench and ask about someone's father, aunt, examination results or holiday plans with the same easy interest.
Severus had assumed that was simply how Slughorn behaved.
Slughorn noticed people.
More accurately, he noticed particular things about people.
Ability.
Family.
Plans.
Yesterday he had noticed Prince.
Severus looked down at the edge of the card beneath his textbook.
That made the invitation less simple.
He disliked things becoming less simple after he had already understood them once.
"You're going to crease it."
Severus looked up.
The boy opposite nodded toward the book.
"You put the corner underneath."
Severus moved the book immediately.
There was, in fact, a slight bend in one corner.
He flattened it with his thumb.
The other boy hid a smile by drinking pumpkin juice.
Severus ignored him.
At seven on Saturday, he would go.
Not because the card mattered.
Because not knowing what it meant would be worse.
By six fifty-three on Saturday evening, Severus had walked past Slughorn's door once without stopping.
He told himself this was because he was checking the corridor.
It was not entirely untrue.
The dungeons were quieter than they had been during the day. Examinations had pushed most students toward libraries, common rooms and badly organized study groups. The stone held the remains of afternoon warmth poorly. Torchlight sat against the walls without reaching very far into the spaces between.
Severus turned at the end of the passage and came back.
The door looked ordinary.
Dark wood.
Brass handle.
No sign.
No sound beyond it at first.
He checked his cuffs.
Then immediately disliked having checked them.
His school robes were clean.
That should have been sufficient.
One cuff had been repaired near the inside seam where the fabric had begun to pull. Eileen's stitching was small enough that nobody would notice unless they were looking for it.
Severus noticed it.
That was different.
He raised his hand.
Before he could knock, the door opened.
A fifth-year Ravenclaw girl stood on the other side holding an empty glass.
"Oh."
She looked at him.
Severus looked back.
Behind her came voices.
Several.
Laughter.
Slughorn's among them.
The girl stepped aside.
"Are you coming in?"
Severus had no useful answer to a question whose obvious answer was yes.
He entered.
The room was larger than he had expected.
Not enormous.
But arranged in a way that made space seem generous.
Chairs had been moved into loose groups rather than rows. Two small tables stood near the centre beneath trays of food. Lamps had been lit despite the hour not yet requiring them, softening the stone walls until the dungeon looked almost warm. A shelf of bottles caught the light in amber and green.
There were perhaps twelve students.
That was worse than twenty would have been.
Twenty could become a crowd.
Twelve meant everyone might eventually be required to speak.
Most were older.
Severus knew this instantly not merely from height but from ease.
They stood differently.
First-years still moved around Hogwarts as though some part of the castle might unexpectedly demand proof they belonged there.
These students leaned against furniture.
Sat sideways in chairs.
Reached for food before being invited.
They behaved as though Slughorn's rooms were not a professor's private space but one more place Hogwarts occasionally allowed them to occupy.
Severus stopped just inside.
The door closed behind him.
"Snape!"
Slughorn's voice crossed the room.
Several faces turned.
Severus's shoulders tightened before he could stop them.
Slughorn came toward him carrying a small plate with something iced on it.
"Excellent. Excellent, you came."
He sounded genuinely pleased.
That made Severus more suspicious rather than less.
"Sir."
"No 'sir' every third word tonight, if we can manage it."
Severus did not promise.
Slughorn looked him over briefly.
Not his robes.
His face.
That helped.
"Something to drink?"
"No, thank you."
"You've been here twelve seconds."
"I'm not thirsty."
Slughorn laughed.
"Then wait thirteen."
He turned toward the room.
"Everyone, this is Severus Snape. First year."
Severus wished immediately that he had remained outside.
Someone near the mantel looked surprised.
A boy sitting on the arm of a chair said, "First year?"
Slughorn glanced back.
"Yes, yes. They do occasionally produce useful ones."
There was laughter.
Not cruel.
Severus could not decide whether that improved it.
Slughorn continued.
"Very fine hand with a cauldron. Better attention than some people develop after seven years of being told to acquire it."
This produced another small laugh, particularly from a Hufflepuff boy near the food table, who raised both hands as though accepting the accusation personally.
Severus stood still.
He had assumed the invitation concerned Potions.
It did.
That should have been reassuring.
Then Slughorn said, "Come in properly, boy. Doorways are no place to spend an evening."
Severus moved.
For the first ten minutes, he spoke to no one.
This was not difficult.
Slughorn's gatherings appeared to operate without any visible structure.
People talked in groups that formed and dissolved without warning. Someone would cross the room to refill a cup and return in another conversation entirely. Slughorn moved between them, carrying information from one cluster to another like a person deliberately stirring several cauldrons at once.
Severus took a glass eventually.
Pumpkin juice.
He held it longer than he drank it.
Watching was easier when one's hands had something legitimate to do.
The room began arranging itself.
Not physically.
Socially.
That was always the faster arrangement.
The Ravenclaw girl who had opened the door was there because she had received the highest Charms marks in her year.
Severus learned this when Slughorn mentioned it.
The Hufflepuff boy had apparently won some sort of school competition the previous year.
Another student had an uncle in the Ministry.
That information surfaced twice within fifteen minutes despite nobody discussing the Ministry.
A seventh-year girl had already been offered an apprenticeship somewhere in London.
One older boy's father knew Slughorn well enough that the professor asked after him by first name.
There were patterns.
There were always patterns.
Severus drank.
The pumpkin juice was colder than expected.
Someone told a story about a Ministry official arriving at a dinner in mismatched shoes.
The room laughed.
Severus did not know who the official was.
He gathered from everyone else that this was part of the joke.
A surname was mentioned.
Severus knew that one.
He had heard it in the Slytherin common room.
Another followed.
Known too.
Not because he knew the person.
Because other people had spoken the name with small pauses around it.
Potter.
Black.
Prince.
The thought came without invitation.
He pushed it aside.
"You're very quiet."
Severus turned.
The Ravenclaw girl stood beside him now, glass refilled.
"So are you," he said.
She looked mildly amused.
"I've spoken to six people."
"I wasn't counting."
"You were."
He said nothing.
Her smile became slightly more certain.
"What did Slughorn invite you for?"
"Potions."
She glanced across the room at the professor.
"Probably."
Severus looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means probably Potions."
"That's what I said."
"Yes."
She drank.
Then, because apparently older students had developed the ability to leave conversations before answering properly, she moved away to speak to someone else.
Severus watched her go.
Probably.
He disliked the word.
A voice rose near the fireplace.
Slughorn.
"...nothing wrong with having a respectable position waiting for you, but you ought at least to pretend to consider your alternatives, Burke."
A boy near him smiled.
"My father would say the alternatives are the problem."
"Your father," Slughorn replied, "was saying the same thing at sixteen."
More laughter.
Severus looked over.
There.
That was something else.
Slughorn remembered people before they became the adults being discussed.
Parents had been students.
Teachers had known them.
Families extended backward through the school as naturally as staircases.
Eileen had too.
The thought arrived sharply enough that he looked away.
Prince.
He had not opened the notebook since writing the question.
He had considered returning to the genealogy section twice and not done it.
Examinations were near.
That was the reason.
It was also true.
A shadow fell across the table beside him.
Severus moved half a step automatically before looking up.
The boy standing there was Slytherin.
Older.
Much older.
Severus knew him by sight.
Everybody in Slytherin knew Lucius Malfoy by sight.
Not because he was loud.
He wasn't.
That was part of it.
He occupied space differently from Potter.
Potter seemed not to notice when a room made space around him.
Malfoy noticed.
Severus was almost certain of that.
He was tall, pale, fair-haired, his robes sitting on him with an irritating correctness Severus had never managed to achieve even when his own were freshly pressed.
He reached past Severus for a small pastry.
Then stopped.
His eyes moved to Severus.
Not surprised.
Assessing.
"Snape, isn't it?"
Severus felt every small defect in his clothes at once.
The repaired cuff.
The thinning edge near one sleeve.
His shoes, polished but old enough that polish could not repair their shape.
"Yes."
Malfoy nodded once.
"First year."
It was not a question either.
"Yes."
His gaze flicked briefly toward Slughorn.
Then back.
"I thought so."
Severus waited.
He had no idea what answer belonged after that.
Malfoy appeared not to require one.
He took the pastry.
"You did well in Potions this term."
Severus looked at him more carefully.
"How do you know?"
One eyebrow lifted.
It was not mockery exactly.
"Slughorn talks."
Across the room, as if summoned by the accusation, Slughorn laughed loudly at something.
Malfoy's mouth moved.
Very slightly.
Then he said, "Enjoy your evening, Snape."
And walked away.
That was all.
Severus watched him join two older Slytherins near the fireplace.
No introduction.
No invitation to join them.
No question about Prince.
No interest in Spinner's End.
Nothing.
Yet something had happened.
Malfoy had known his name.
Not before tonight, perhaps.
But now.
Slughorn talks.
Severus looked down at his glass.
He had taken only two proper drinks from it.
The surface reflected one of the lamps in a warped yellow oval.
He drank again.
The evening changed after that.
Not the room.
Severus.
Only slightly.
He began listening differently.
Until then he had been trying to understand why everyone else belonged there.
Now he started looking for why he did.
The answer was not family.
At least, not obviously.
Slughorn had not mentioned Prince once.
He had introduced Severus as good at Potions.
Nothing more.
Some of the others had family names Severus recognized.
Some did not.
The Ravenclaw girl was here for Charms.
The Hufflepuff boy for something he had done.
Another student spoke about Herbology with the sort of detail Severus recognized as real ability rather than memorized enthusiasm.
The room was not made entirely from inheritance.
That would have been easier to understand.
Nor was it made entirely from achievement.
That would have been fairer.
It was both.
Slughorn seemed to gather anything he considered promising.
Sometimes promise had examination marks.
Sometimes a surname.
Sometimes a parent.
Sometimes a skill.
Sometimes, Severus suspected, merely the possibility of becoming interesting later.
It should have made the room feel false.
It did, partly.
But there was another fact beside that one.
Severus was still inside it.
His father worked at a mill.
His house stood in Spinner's End.
There was no silver at his table at home except the dull colour of cheap cutlery.
No Ministry uncle.
No inherited connections he could name.
Prince existed somewhere behind his mother, but Slughorn had not offered it to the room.
And still Severus had been invited.
Because he was good at something.
The thought produced a strange tightness beneath his ribs.
He did not examine it.
"Snape."
He looked up.
Slughorn beckoned him over.
Three older students stood around a low table.
A small bottle of dark red liquid sat at its centre.
Severus approached.
Slughorn pointed at it.
"We're disagreeing."
One of the older students said, "We're not."
"We are. You simply haven't realized you've lost."
The student rolled his eyes.
Slughorn looked at Severus.
"Tell me what you think."
Severus looked at the bottle.
"What is it?"
"That would rather spoil the question."
He leaned closer.
Dark red.
Slight sediment at the bottom.
Viscosity heavier than water.
The bottle had been uncorked.
He smelled something bitter.
Metallic.
Then something underneath it.
"Can I move it?"
One of the students looked surprised.
Slughorn looked delighted.
"Of course."
Severus lifted the bottle.
Turned it slowly.
The liquid clung to the glass before falling.
Not syrup.
Too thin.
He held it toward the light.
There were tiny suspended particles.
Brown rather than red.
"What was done to it?"
Slughorn's moustache lifted.
"Again, you would like the question answered before answering."
"No."
Severus looked at the bottle.
"I want to know whether I'm identifying what's in it or what's wrong with it."
Silence.
One of the older students laughed.
Not at him.
Slughorn beamed.
"Excellent distinction."
Severus felt the room notice.
Not everyone.
Enough.
He looked back at the liquid.
There.
The smell again.
He knew it.
Not the finished thing.
An ingredient.
"Shrivelfig."
The student opposite him frowned.
"In that?"
"Burnt."
Severus tilted the bottle.
"The seeds were overheated."
Slughorn took it from him.
"And?"
Severus hesitated.
Something else.
He smelled his fingers where the glass had touched them.
"Too much ginger."
The Hufflepuff boy from earlier leaned closer.
"You got that from smelling it?"
"No."
Severus looked at the sediment.
"That."
Slughorn laughed.
"Observation."
The word struck.
Yesterday.
Not instinct.
Observation.
Slughorn remembered.
Severus looked at him.
The professor's amusement softened, only slightly.
Then he turned back to the older students.
"Gentlemen, this is why one should occasionally consult someone who hasn't yet learned to make simple things complicated."
Conversation resumed around him.
But Severus remained within it.
No one told him to go back to the food table.
One student asked how he had seen the burnt seeds.
Severus explained.
Another disagreed with him about the ginger.
Severus disagreed back.
For several minutes he forgot to wonder what his hands were doing.
At half past eight, the gathering began to break apart.
Not all at once.
Students left in twos and threes, pausing by Slughorn to thank him or answer some last question about summer.
Severus waited.
He did not know whether leaving early was rude.
He did not know whether leaving last was worse.
This was precisely why formal rules were better.
The Ravenclaw girl left.
Then the Hufflepuff boy.
Two Slytherins moved toward the door.
Lucius Malfoy was among them.
He spoke quietly to Slughorn before leaving.
Severus could not hear the first sentence.
He caught the second.
"...father will be pleased to hear it."
Slughorn chuckled.
"Your father is pleased by far too few things."
Malfoy smiled.
Then his eyes passed briefly across the room.
Across Severus.
No pause this time.
He left.
Severus looked away before he could be caught still looking.
"Snape."
Again.
Slughorn stood near the table gathering empty glasses.
Severus approached.
"Thank you for coming."
There it was again.
As though Severus had done him a favour.
"Thank you for inviting me."
That sounded safer.
Slughorn placed two glasses on a tray.
"You looked as though you expected an examination for the first half-hour."
"I didn't."
Slughorn gave him a look.
Severus amended:
"Not an academic one."
The professor laughed.
"No. Though perhaps that's what gatherings like this are. Examinations without marks."
Severus did not like that possibility at all.
Slughorn seemed to notice.
"Don't look so alarmed. You managed perfectly well."
"I didn't do anything."
"Quite."
Severus frowned.
Slughorn picked up another glass.
"Most people your age try far too hard when they're uncomfortable. They talk."
He glanced at Severus.
"You watch."
Severus said nothing.
Slughorn's expression changed by the smallest amount.
Perhaps remembering their conversation over the cauldron.
Observation.
"Come again next term," he said.
Severus looked at him.
The words had been given casually.
Almost while cleaning.
That made them harder to judge.
"Why?"
Slughorn stopped.
"Why?"
"Why invite me again?"
The professor looked genuinely surprised.
Then amused.
"Because you're clever."
Severus waited.
Slughorn waited too.
There was apparently no second half.
"That's all?"
"Would you prefer a worse reason?"
Severus had no answer.
Slughorn's smile became less broad.
"Talent ought to put a person in useful rooms, Snape."
Something in the sentence caught.
Not ought to be rewarded.
Not ought to matter.
Put a person in rooms.
Severus looked toward the chairs.
Most were empty now.
Plates with crumbs.
Half-finished glasses.
A folded napkin abandoned beside the fireplace.
Nothing extraordinary.
Only a room.
Still—
he had been in it.
"Good night," Slughorn said.
"Good night."
Severus left.
The corridor outside had gone cold.
He noticed immediately.
Slughorn's rooms had been warmer than he realized.
The difference followed him down the passage.
His footsteps sounded too clear after the layered conversation inside.
He walked alone toward the Slytherin common room.
At the first corner, he put one hand into his pocket.
The invitation was still there.
He had brought it with him without deciding to.
His fingers found the thick paper.
One corner was bent despite all his care.
He took it out beneath a torch.
Mr Snape.
Not Prince.
Snape.
That was the name Slughorn had written.
The name he had introduced to the room.
The name Malfoy had remembered.
Severus looked at it for several seconds.
At home, Snape meant Tobias before it meant anyone else.
A name on envelopes.
A name spoken by neighbours with different tones depending on what had happened lately.
A name Severus had never considered something that could open anything.
He folded the card once.
Carefully.
This time the paper gave along the old crease.
He put it back in his pocket.
Two older Slytherins passed him near the entrance to the common room.
One nodded.
Severus nodded back.
The wall opened.
Green light reached across the stone floor.
He stepped inside.
No one asked why he had been gone.
No one needed to.
Someone by the fire looked up from an essay.
"Slughorn's?"
Severus stopped.
"Yes."
The boy nodded.
That was all.
Then he returned to his work.
Severus stood there another moment.
The common room had not changed.
Same dark water beyond the windows.
Same green light.
Same chairs.
Same books.
But the invitation remained inside his pocket, its thick edge pressing lightly against his hand.
He went upstairs.
He did not throw it away.
End of Chapter 68