Late February, a Thursday. The air had turned mild, and darkness came later than it had in winter.
Hogwarts drifted through the hour after supper. The Great Hall emptied by degrees, students filtering off toward their towers and dungeons. Most of the Gryffindors packed themselves in front of their common room fire, shouting over a game of Exploding Snap. In Ravenclaw, a few older students hunched by the hearth comparing essays, while Hufflepuff had likely started another round of snacks.
Slytherin ran quieter. The common room stood half empty, though quiet never meant idle. Some people vanished the moment dinner ended, as Slytherin students always seemed to have a few inexplicable places to be.
Snape was one of those who went to such places.
Third floor, east side, behind a faded tapestry stood an abandoned classroom that had been permanently locked, the key in nobody's known possession. Desks and chairs had been shoved and stacked against the walls, leaving only a small open space in the middle of the room.
Eight or nine boys gathered there, all Slytherin, all upper years. With their hoods up, they came in one after another without speaking, accompanied only by the whisper of robe hems against the doorframe and the occasional short shriek of chair legs scraping across stone.
Snape entered hooded as well. No one looked at him, and he looked at no one. He went to his usual chair and sat down. Nobody fought him for it. After a few visits, the seat had simply become his.
For a while, he watched the torchlight flickering across the wall.
Then the door swung open again.
The boy who entered stood taller than most, his robe finer than anything else in the room. Unlike those who had come before him, he did not slip inside with his head bowed beneath his hood. Instead, he paused just inside the doorway, shut it behind him, and slowly swept his gaze across the room.
He was unhurried. His eyes rested for a moment on each face, as though the gathering only counted as assembled now that he had arrived.
Then he crossed to his chair, sat down, and pushed back his hood.
Wilkes, seventh year. Not one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but his family carried weight nonetheless. His father had spent over a decade as deputy head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and a good number of Ministry officials owed the family something. Real leverage.
A slight smile sat on Wilkes's mouth as he drawled, "Everyone here?"
"Only waiting on you, Wilkes," someone answered immediately.
Wilkes tipped his chin toward him. "Let's start."
Snape pushed his own hood back, fingers sliding from the edge of the fabric to rest on his knee as his sallow face emerged from the shadows. He settled back in his chair, his eyes fixed on whoever was speaking.
The speaker was a fifth year named Jugson.
"We've got people inside the Auror Office now. Two more went in last month." He shrugged, continuing before his shoulders had even settled. "After the positions opened up, naturally."
His gaze moved along the faces opposite him, the corner of his mouth twisting upward.
"The Ministry lot, and I mean the ones still sitting up top, are still holding meetings. A full month of meetings on the question of whether the staffing structure of the Auror Office requires review."
He recited the ponderous title word by word, and with the exaggerated accent he put on it, the imitation nearly worked.
Then he made a contemptuous noise. "By the time their review's done, the names on that list will have changed already. Once he has a free hand, whatever needs clearing gets cleared, whoever needs replacing gets replaced."
Light came into his eyes as he spoke, thick with superiority. His gaze traveled around the circle, silently telling every face there that his family had picked a side long ago.
"About time."
The agreement came from a fourth year called Gibbon, who spoke quickly and with absolute earnestness.
"Do you know what the head of Magical Transportation did? The Floo Network went down last month, half the fireplaces in London cut off, and his solution was..." He broke off, laughing at his own punchline before he could even deliver it. "...to issue a notice telling everyone not to use their fireplaces."
"Not to use their fireplaces," Wilkes repeated, unhurried.
"Not to use their fireplaces." Gibbon laughed harder. "That's the caliber of thinking you get from someone a Mudblood promoted."
Short bursts of laughter went around the room. It was absurd, but not the least bit surprising. Someone shook his head while another drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair.
Snape pulled his mouth into something like a smile.
The story was true. He had seen it buried in a corner of the Daily Prophet, three lines phrased to sound like nothing. Out of Gibbon's mouth, it had become a joke.
"The International lot are soft."
A sixth year sitting beside Wilkes spoke next, his voice lower than the others and his sentences clipped.
"Not one man in that department, top to bottom, who can carry weight. Always yielding to the French, always coaxing them. Once he's decided, they're the first to go."
"Go on then." Wilkes turned his head, a challenge in his expression. "International's finished. Who's next?"
"Magical Law Enforcement. The Auror Office answers to them, and we're already inside. One more layer up and the Head's ours as well. Then your Aurors, your Misuse of Magic Office, all of it becomes decoration!"
"And if Law Enforcement goes, what does the Wizengamot say?"
Another voice joined in, this time belonging to a fifth year named Peregrine.
"The Wizengamot doesn't move. Seats there aren't settled by whoever climbs into them. It's blood, it's years, it's how many people below you acknowledge you. You can't rush it."
Peregrine continued without waiting long. "What about Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"
The boy next to Snape muttered, "Who wants that dump?"
"My father says there's plenty to skim over there. The export quotas on Unicorn Hair alone..."
"Your father runs an ingredients shop. Of course he says there's money in it."
The laughter came louder this time.
Jugson waved a hand, pulling the conversation back on course. "The genuinely good posts are elsewhere. Once he has a free hand, the seats on that list get new occupants sooner or later. Whatever needs clearing gets cleared, whoever needs replacing gets replaced."
"Magical Law Enforcement." Wilkes took his time with the words. "My family's had an eye on the Head's chair for a while."
"Your family's watching it, and nobody else is?" Somebody bristled.
"Watch all you like." Wilkes lifted an eyelid. "It comes down to whose word he chooses to honor."
The room fell quiet.
By then, Snape understood exactly what he was looking at.
They spoke of Ministry posts, of which family wanted which department, of who had already gotten a foothold where, and they spoke with heat and absolute conviction. They were a pack of schoolboys who had not even graduated yet, carving up a joint of meat that nobody had caught.
And they were doing it in perfect seriousness.
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