Work Text:
Living in the quiet little town of Rye, in East Sussex had its merits. The tiny sleepy town located just two miles from the sea - and some sixty-odd miles southeast of London - was undoubtedly a sight to behold. It looked like it was a picture torn out of a children’s fairytale book, and the small town’s oldest residents told tales of witches and trials, and of fairies and pixies living in the nearby woods.
Little would they know, a real witch and a wizard would move there in the span of just five years at the cross of the century/millennia.
First to appear was a strange but tolerable man in the early fall of, what was it? 1999? No, it had to be before grandma Ruth died… So the year before? Yes, I’m sure it was 1998, since she got sick just that very winter, after the butcher’s son went missing and was later found in the creek, his body stiff and unmoving.
That was a truly horrible year, and…
Where was I?
Oh yes… He was the first to appear. Silently one night.
He occupied one of the many abandoned houses, a quaint little cottage at the edge of the village.
He was rarely seen out and about the small village, and spoke even less, but he seemed like he would have a big impact on the small community.
And he did. A bigger one than they could ever dream of. But all in due time, all in due time my dear reader.
When asked about himself by all kinds of fellow villagers, he responded simply, coldly. “Perseus Prince.” He said was his name.
What a strange name, but incredibly fitting for the odd man.
The strange fellow seemed to have gotten his hands on an exotic bird of some kind. It was almost as if the feathery being was his familiar of some sort. It was all rather peculiar. The local townsfolk could see the bird soaring through the skies constantly.
At first, it was not that common, he sent it out to fly and stretch its wings (poor thing, probably kept in a small cage) every Tuesday, at 7 o’clock sharp. Only folks out with their grazing cows and sheep and local bakers could witness it, since it was at the crack of dawn.
Then he seemed to start sending it out biweekly. But never on the weekends. Or strangely enough, Monday.
All of the villagers swore they always saw it carrying something when it went flying, but none of them could ever remember what funnily enough.
The bird was never seen on the same day twice. It must have spent the nights out flying, hunting mice and the like (in reality it travelled great distances, all across the island).
Its flight pattern seemed to alternate. It flew, then it wasn’t seen, then it flew back, then it rested, then it flew again. And that continued for months upon months. It turned into years.
Just as that phenomenon started occurring, the strange fellow decided to go out one day and seek out the town’s mayor. He had something to ask him. He inquired about purchasing one of the properties in the town centre.
“What for? If I may ask?” The mayor was a sceptical one.
“To start a business, of course.” The darker man replied simply.
And it was left at that. He presented the mayor with the wanted cash, in neat 100£ bills the first thing that very same Monday morning. Key in hand, the property was his and no more questions were asked. He obviously didn’t like them - the questions - and as long as it was legal, the official was content with refraining from asking.
Townsfolk could see changes happening gradually but steadily the very same day.
The exterior of the building was the first thing he seemed to work on. It needed a little touching up and he seemed to work on it at night, when the town was asleep, and the earliest of risers could see the progress made as they started their days, but no sight of the raven-haired man.
As if it was done by magic overnight. And maybe it was.
By the time he started on the interior, for some reason he put up all kinds of blockages so no one could see inside. Not through the few windows the building had, nor through the small door.
For some reason, he decided he didn’t want nosy locals peeking in.
But walking by, going to the butcher’s or the farmer’s market for produce, one could often hear all kinds of imaginative curses and swears in a magnificently deep baritone of the one Perseus Prince, more often than not accompanied by all kinds of loud crashes and noises that demonstrated he was working on something in there and it probably went very wrong ( it hadn’t ).
And at last, it was finally done that same winter.
The little town had gotten its first Apothecary.
*
Nine years after the war, one fateful Summer morning, a face from his past came back to haunt him.
Hermione Bloody Granger came into his little shoppe of all places on the great big island he called home.
He didn’t think he’d ever see her again, least of all here, alone in this forgotten town. Not in person at least. Or at all. He wasn’t subscribed to the blasted “Prophet”, and more importantly, he was dead.
She didn’t think she’d ever see him again, least of all here, alone in a small town in the middle of nowhere, but more importantly, he is dead .
Or was, in this case, now that she saw him in the flesh as he stood before her.
No, it must be a mistake, a trick of the mind, a hallucination. At that moment she was willing to believe anything in order to explain his (continued) existence.
He must’ve inhaled a harmful fume or wasn’t wearing protective equipment around some of the more dangerous ingredients, and was now experiencing the hallucinogenic side effects.
She must’ve wanted him alive too much so she saw a dead man walking. An image of a man with an impossibly deep gash across his neck, bleeding out in front of her haunted her dreams for years and wouldn’t let her get a blink of sleep without getting addicted to sleeping draughts.
A… Well, not quite a ghost, for he wasn’t pale enough to be one, but just a mere lookalike, perhaps… There had to be some kind of explanation, she was acting so irrationally and-
There was a loud sound of glass smashing and neither of them flinched, neither one looked away.
Wait…
If they both saw it, then it couldn’t have been a hallucination. Then it had to be… Then it was… True?
“S… Sev… Mr. Snape?” She was the first one to speak up.
“Miss Granger?” Came his quiet response.
It couldn’t be, right?
It was…
After neither one blinked (or spoke), they hastily looked away, he at the broken glass on his floor, she at a suddenly really interesting spot on the wall.
He needed a moment to kick into gear, and then he addressed the seemingly forgotten two customers in his little shoppe.
“I apologise… But could you come back later today if that isn’t too much of an inconvenience? I have… An impromptu meeting with my ingredients supplier.” He basically pushed them out of the door before he was through with the sentence. They knew better than to come back the very same day.
He hastily turned the sign on his door to “CLOSED” after locking up the shop, and steeled himself before turning around to face her. He opened his mouth but she beat him to it with a jumble of questions. Old habits die hard, indeed.
“ What? How?! Why?!!”
“I thought you were smarter than this Miss Granger, but I guess over a decade and a half of being conjoined triplet of one Potter and Weasley they were meant to rub off on you sooner or later.”
“What?! I’m not- ” She tried to reply before getting cut off.
“As I’ve said, extremely coherent and eloquent, as always.” He calmly retorted with, while pretending to file random paperwork laying around.
“Let me speak for Merlin’s sake!” She was getting frustrated with the man already, and it has only been a couple of minutes since she heard his voice again after a decade.
“Then speak already.” He ordered.
“I would if you didn’t interrupt me!” She yelled back.
“You can go on like this for much longer? I have a shop to tend to if you haven’t noticed.” He feigned nonchalance.
“Can you just shut up for a moment and let me gather my thoughts?!” She was heaving by this point.
“As bossy as always.” He commented as he bypassed her in order to go around his counter and into the back of the shop, out of her view.
She just stared at the empty space and the doorway he’d gone through until he returned a moment later with a tray of brews, seemingly continuing with his job despite the minor disturbance, as if she wasn’t standing in the middle of the room with a bewildered look plastered to her face.
Seeing as she didn’t start speaking yet, he decided to take the initiative.
“How did you find me?” He asked, seemingly nonchalantly as he still looked at the brews he was organising on the shelf, and not trying to lead a serious conversation.
She was still flabbergasted, her mouth agape.
“Will you stop trying to imitate a fish on dryland and answer or will I have to ask you to leave as you’re disrupting my business?!”
“What?”
He looked up at her and arched his eyebrow at her.
She closed her mouth and he looked back down at his work - in this case, a batch of mangrove roots that he was tending to.
“I didn’t find you…” she finally managed to whisper out, “on purpose.” She quickly added after he gave her his “Oh really?” look.
His head snapped up quickly, surprise evident across his features. He observed her for a moment, before concluding calmly, “You’re lying.”
“Oh, but I’m not.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I could ask you the same.”
“But you know why I think you have the ulterior motive in this case?”
“You also know not everything rotates around you, right?” She retorted somewhat sardonically.
*
News travel awfully fast through the Wizarding World.
News travel awfully faster through the small sleepy town of Rye.
In the end, it turned out that girl was there to stay.
Because, as the eighth month of the year died, she opened the doors to her bookshop. Coincidentally so, the only available building in the whole town centre was the one next to the dour man’s apothecary.
So, the “Raven’s Apothecary” was now neighbours with the “Bookworm’s Bindery”, even though the two owners didn’t seem to be on neighbourly terms with one another. She had the kindest smile. And the warmest eyes. A complete opposite to his cold and harsh demeanour. Just the way he carried himself was enough to make anyone leave him alone.
It was an interesting sight to have Potions & Parchment stores next to each other.
And still, the seemingly always grouchy Apothecary owner wasn’t alone anymore.
Another peculiar thing was that there was a beautiful, black cat that always seemed to frequent the bookshop. It took naps there and was even fed, as well as often times cuddled by the owner. It never visited the Apothecary next door, though.
She nicknamed him “Toby”, even though he probably had a different name back home - she was sure he wasn’t a stray, he was too well-kept to be one, even if his demeanour suggested otherwise.
Oddly enough, Severus the Apothecary owner, and Toby the black cat sauntering around the Bookshop were never seen together in the same place.
It was a rather peculiar couple.
Fin?
