' If I have to hear you drone on about those bloody birds one more time I will poison the lot of them. '

Severus Snape art for @intristitia~

The two figures blend into the night in dark robes. Lucius crouches for a few seconds in the grass in front of the small, run-down place, casting a silencing bubble around the whole place. It's filthy and run-down, not enough room for one person, let alone three. Even looking at it causes Lucius to curl his lip in derision. Going into it will be a necessary evil.

"Finished." Lucius stands up, walking past the barrier of the spell. From here on out, any noise in the bubble will not be heard outside of it, to prevent any nosy Muggles from contacting any . . . he forgets the word. The loud ones with the bright lights.

Lucius agreed to kill Tobias himself, but he's sure that once they're here he can convince Severus of it. This is a battle he is not particularly willing to fight for him. It's Severus's responsibility to cleanse his own family tree . . . to take a concept out of the Blacks' book. The fact that he has been alive this long is unconscionable after his treatment of a witch and a wizard.

closure. it was something she had wanted for years from him, from their.. relationship. something that could have been more but never was. truthfully, lily wasn't even sure if he would have read her letter, much less agreed to meet at a muggle cafe- after all, he was too good for muggle things, was he not? just like he had become too good to remain her friend. at least that's how she saw it. how it had felt.

the redhead had felt him before she saw him, the familiar sense of comfort his presence had once brought her. a soft smile formed on her lips as she watched him sit across from her, hands wrapping around her mug as if to ensure they stayed there instead of reaching across the table for him. "You came."

"You seemed busy, so I asked Professor Flitwick," Theo said. "But I'll confess that I might have misled him slightly about my intentions. He's not as skilled at spotting lies of omission as you are, sir."

It was only three weeks into the new school year, but Theodora Nott had found that she already hated the newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Dolores Umbridge had quickly proven herself to be utterly useless, even more so than Gilderoy Lockhart had been – and that was saying something indeed!

The situation was made even worse by the fact that this was the year Theo was scheduled to take her OWLs, one of the most important sets of exams that she would ever sit. And yet the Ministry had saddled her and her classmates with a teacher who wouldn’t even allow them to practice spells.

It was unconscionable, and she wouldn’t stand for it. That was why she was now in the corridor outside Professor Snape’s office, her bag slung over her shoulder and her notebook in her hand.

"No, Lucius didn't cast the Mark," Narcissa says. "Neither did I, nor Crabbe nor Goyle, nor . . ." She waves her hand ever so slightly, gesturing to everyone else she knows. "The Dark Lord has been gone a very long time. What happened at the Cup was only childish wildness." She fixes her eyes on Severus. "I'm sure you know that what happened to those Muggles is nothing like what the Death Eaters used to do. I suspect someone simply went too far, lost their head, thought the old days were coming back."