A Room With a View

Arthur's Seat

September 3, 2005 - Hogwarts

Severus woke early on Saturday morning to run through the morning exercises he'd been neglecting for the past few days. After a quick shower and shave, he dressed in a muggle shirt and jeans and summoned an elf to bring him tea and something for breakfast. He couldn't bring himself to go down to the Great Hall in anything less than his teaching regalia and he wasn't entirely sure that he could contain his nervous excitement in front of the students as it was.'

He rushed to the door in his stocking feet when a knock rang out at a quarter to ten, opening it to find a harried-looking Hermione clad in dark jeans and a muggle blouse. "Severus," she began without preamble, "there's been a bit of an accident with two of my students. They were mucking about with transfiguration in their dorm last night and - well, suffice it to say that they're both in my old house and there's considerable damage to repair. Would you be horribly upset if I delayed out Pensieve session until after our outing while I took care of this?"

"Was anyone injured?" he asked with some concern.

She laughed mirthlessly. "Nothing serious - Fanny Halifax had a broken ankle that Poppy has already repaired and Alan Tweerwottle's eyebrows have been singed. It could have been worse. There's a surprising amount of damage in the common room that needs repairing... and I need to give a lecture to the Gryffindors about experimenting with magic without supervision."

He smirked and leaned against the open door. "I don't remember you heeding such rules yourself when you were in school. I recall some interesting rumors about one Gryffindor who accidentally turned herself into a human-cat hybrid."

She raised an eyebrow in return. "And that's why I know that magical experimentation without supervision can have dire consequences. Or at least embarrassing ones. I need to run and take care of this, but I'll meet you at the apparition point at noon, alright?"

"Of course." He watched as she scurried down the stairs, trying not to feel too disappointed that their plans had been altered. Maybe I can convince her to stretch our outing into a museum visit as well, make a full day of it.

Since he was going to be at loose ends for a couple of hours, Severus gathered his lesson plans and wandered out onto the balcony. The iron bench from the night before was still in place, so he quickly transfigured it into a chair and table. He placed a no-fly charm on his papers and charmed his wand to vibrate at half-past eleven, then settled in to work for a couple of hours. At least he had a view of the lake and surrounding hills to comfort him as he worked to rearrange his plans to compensate for the shoddy lessons his students had received in the previous year. 

He worked without stopping until his wand signaled the time (Muggles had gotten something right with their vibrating mobile phones; it didn't hurt to replicate their ingenuity when inspiration struck). Gathering his papers - he'd made good progress on the next six weeks' plans - he returned the table to its former state and wandered inside to pull on black walking shoes and a leather jacket. He hadn't been to Edinburgh for more than a casual drink in the past decade, but he could well remember the cobblestones on the Royal Mile and their effects on the poorly-shod.

He was nearly to the front door of the castle when he heard Minerva's voice from the stairs behind him. "Severus! Are you leaving the castle today?"

He turned to face his colleague and nodded his head graciously. "I am. Professor Granger and I are going to apparate to Edinburgh for the afternoon."

"Excellent. You're both on rounds tonight, though. You'll be back in time, I assume?"

"We will. We plan to do some work with the Pensieve this evening as our morning plans were rather interrupted by some Gryffindor tower destruction."