Challenge 12: Snape, Surge, and Secretarial Duties (original) (raw)

[	mood	|	tired	]
[	music	|	"All the Way to Reno" by R.E.M.	]

Characters: Mainly Snape, but Moody, Tonks, Sirius, Lupin, McGonigal, Potter, Shacklebolt, Dumbledore, and Sinastra all get shoutouts.
Rating: PG, for language
**Warnings:**brief language and pink wolfstar shipping. Also HBP spoilers.
Het, Slash or Gen: Yes. Mostly Gen, though.
Description: Moody needs someone to keep an eye on the Prime Minister. Snape doesn't want to.
Disclaimer: I don't own any HP characters, Mac Apples, or Surge, but I could really go for a bottle of the latter right now... Auriga Sinastra's first name comes from "Lamentations of a Starry-Eyed Twit" by She's a Star.

* * *

“You’re putting another member on the case?” Snape asked Moody.

“Somebody’s got to watch those Muggles. We can’t have their government nosing into any of You-Know-Who’s funny business; he gives enough trouble as it is. We think he’s got a spy in the Muggle Prime Minister’s cabinet.” Moody’s eyeball never stopped scanning the area. “We’ve got a job opening in the secretarial staff, and I want you to fill it.”

“Me? Have you lost your mind entirely, Alastor? I can’t do this and teach at Hogwarts and attend Death Eather meetings.” Snape stared at his fellow Order member open-mouthed.

“I can’t pass among them with this eye, Dumbledore’s on a hot lead that he refuses to tell the rest of us about, Shacklebolt’s doing Ministry business, Lupin’s busy with the werewolves, and Tonks… I don’t dare trust the girl with something this delicate. Your mum was a Muggle; surely you know how to blend in well enough!” Moody shrugged irritably, taking a swig from his hip flask.

“Plus, I’m sure our Snivellus’s handwriting is still as pretty as a girl’s!” Sirius spoke up from the couch.

“Useless, all of you,” the Potions Master muttered, waving away his old enemy’s comment. “What shall I tell Voldemort? Who’s going to teach my classes? Black? I think not.”

“I did nearly as well in Potions as you, Snivellus. If it comes down to it, I could teach them at that.” Sirius, eager for a chance to do something, even if it was simply taunt Snape, rose from his collapsed position on the sofa.

“Hardly. You only passed because Lily Evans showed you how to cut your mandrake root. You obviously have no idea how to properly slice anything. Your knifework is horrid.” Snape sincerely believed that Sirius should have gotten the Troll he deserved on his potions O.W.L.

“I’ll leave proper backstabbing technique to those who need it, Snivellus. Say hello to Peter for me at your next meeting.” There was more tooth than good feeling in the animagus’s grin.

“Walk it off, Black,” Moody warned.

“I see no reason to stick around,” Sirius said, stalking out the door.

“Don’t forget your leash,” Snape’s smile was even less convincing than Sirius’s. “Now that that annoyance is out of the way, perhaps you will see reason. I do more for the Order than half the other members combined. This is ridiculous, Moody. I don’t even have anything that I could pass in the Muggle world with!”

“Tonks can help you with that. The girl’s the clumsiest thing to trip over my doorframe, but she’s got a good eye on her.” Mad-Eye tapped under his own magical eye. “What you tell Voldemort is your prerogative, but Dumbledore and I can feed you false information as to his missions that will give you some leeway about missed meetings. McGonagall can supervise a few of your classes if you need her to, but you probably won’t be missing many. They just need you nights and weekends at the secretary job, at first.”

“Joy.” Snape crossed his arms. “Contrary to what some students may tell you, I am a mere mortal and require sleep upon occasion, Alastor. One cannot maintain your level of vigilance without it.”

“Not necessarily. Tonks introduced me to this Muggle invention called ‘Surge.’ It works even better than tea.” Moody smiled and took another swallow from his hip flask, leaving Snape to stew in his thoughts.

* * *

After what felt like entirely too long a time spent in the presence of Lupin, Black, and Black’s cousin, Tonks, Severus Snape was at last declared ready to face the professional Muggle world of politics and secretary duty. Lupin, a fellow half-blood, had loaned the would-be counterspy an old suit that Snape had to admit looked good on him. A little tight in the shoulders and too patched for his liking, but it was not too uncomfortable. And black was always slimming.

Tonks had insisted that it was all the rage for men with longer hair to pull it back in a ponytail for professional occasions. The resulting rat-tail made his headache worse, but getting away from Black and company was worth it. Really, the three of them shold just be left to get it over with and shag. Sirius Black by himself was bad enough, but Sirius Black and a roomful of unresolved sexual tension made Snape’s stomach do knots.

It was late, his head hurt, and he had left his lesson plans to Minerva, God help him. The last thing Snape needed was an upset stomach. He didn’t understand just why this place required a night shift, anyway. They kept a decent number employed, certainly, and there were a bunch of old political dogs that never seemed to sleep, but surely there couldn’t be that many needed to jot things down and bring coffee. If he didn’t already know that Moody held himself above that sort of thing, Snape would have thought that the old Auror was having a laugh at his expense. There had been that Bouncing Ferret Incident when Mad-Eye had taught at the school, after all, or at least Snape assumed that had been his doing…

“I take it that you’re the new hire?” A voice interrupted his thoughts. Severus straightened, smoothing his expression from brooding grimace to nearly sociable annoyed flat stare.

“Yes, that would be me. Severus Snape.” Moody had insisted on an alias, but the Potions Master had neither the time nor the imagination to make one up right now.

“Severus, eh? Your family from around here?” The receptionist raised an eyebrow.

By dint of effort, Snape managed to avoid strangling the unfortunate cretin. Keeping himself from blurting out “For Merlin’s sake, my father was a Muggle from Spinner’s End, you little sod” cost him further reserves of patience. Snape had no doubt that that vein in his forehead was visibly twitching as much as it did when dealing with Potter. “Indeed,” he replied through clenched teeth.

“You’ve gotten a good reccomendation from this Dumbledore character. Would you like to share your reasons for parting with your last employer?” The little blonde Muggle tapped a pile of papers into order, then slammed them into a three-hole punch as if releasing a guillotine. Snape recoilled at the noise.

“I was not aware that I was here for an interview. My sources said they already had me cleared for the job.” Moody was rapidly rising on Snape’s inner list of people that needed killing. The Potions Master considered inserting something into Alastor’s hip flask, but quickly dismissed the idea. That Surge stuff itself ought to be poisonous enough.

“We have to check everyone to make sure that the Prime Minister is safe.” The little receptionist nodded sagely, leaning forward into the desk.

“But of course.” Snape could not be blamed for undue levels of sarcasm. The Muggle was asking for it.

“Now, let me show you around the office a bit. Are you familiar with the Macintosh Apple? Most of our office computers are on that system.”

“I know plenty of uses for apples,” Snape snapped, trying to cover his nervousness. Computers? He had never had any truck with such things. Too many magical “accidents” involved spoiled Muggleborn brats and nonworking laptops. And Professor Sinastra never let him throw them and their owners off the Astronomy Tower. Really, Auriga could be such a twit, sometimes.

“Good, good. We’ll start you off easy, with a review of last week’s budget reports,” the receptionist said.

“Perfect.” Thirty minutes later, Snape still could not find the “On” switch to the computer they had seated him at. He picked up a pen, reasoning that it couldn’t be much different than a quill. He rummaged through his desk, searching for an inkwell. “Where the bloody hell is it?” he muttered. They didn’t make fountain pens like they used to, or at least this establishment didn’t supply them properly.

“Pen out of ink?” A Muggle woman in a business suit clicked the butt of her own pen, peeking around the cubicle wall.

Severus tried the same on his own pen, revealing a metalic tip, smudged with ink. “Never mind. It’s fixed,” he told her.

“Rough first day, huh?” the woman asked.

“One might say that,” Severus agreed bitterly.

“A lot of the old hands meet down at the coffee shop once the shift’s over. You ought to join us,” she reccomended, wheeling closer to him in her office chair.

“I think I’ll pass.” Snape concentrated on the smudged paper before him until he heard the squeak of wheels that heralded his coworker’s retreat.

The budget review was slow going. It was nearing three in the morning by the time he looked up from his papers. He stumbled out the door after the rest, too tired to Apparate back outside of Number 12. The Knight Bus gave him one of the most restful sleeps in his life, despite the driver’s hairpin turns and weavings through traffic. To Snape, it was all like the rock of a cradle.

When he stumbled into Headquaters, only Kingsley Shacklebolt was awake, reading on the couch. “Sod it,” Snape whispered. “You take the bloody job!” He threw the leaking ballpoint pen in his shirt pocket at Kingsley and never looked back.