Good For Everything

Chapter Three: Syntactic Category

Severus Snape was slightly taken aback at the phone call from Molly Weasley, informing him that he had been invited to the Burrow for Sunday brunch. Thankfully, he was relatively ahead of all his casework and would be able to attend. He knew, given Hermione's relationship with young Ronald, that she would be in attendance, and it was always pleasant to see her and catch up with her. She was a bright young woman with a wonderful future, now that Mr. and Mrs. Granger had adopted her and set her on a good track, both educationally and personally, and she seemed to be thriving.

Severus got his own car out of his flat's garage, and immediately drove directly to the Burrow in West Berkshire. His car, a black 1976 ford Cortina GT, was his pride and joy and had been since his mother had managed to pinch enough pennies to buy it for him upon the occasion of his sixteenth birthday. He had upgraded to a CD player, replacing the cassette tape one, at some point at the beginning of the decade, and never went anywhere without the Please, Please Me album by The Beatles.

Severus took good care of the thing, too, getting the beast of an automobile washed and checked over regularly, and Arthur Weasley always gave it a complimentary once-over whenever he found himself over at the Burrow. He had bonded with the Weasley patriarch over the thing, and the man had always shown Severus trade-secrets about the business and allowed Severus to see whatever projects he'd brought home. Severus anticipated such things immensely, and yet he always kept his pocketbook handy just in case, knowing that the Weasleys really could use the money, and he didn't feel right having the talented Weasley patriarch constantly looking over his car for free.

Severus made it to the center of town, smiling fondly at the various businesses there, and pulled off into the parking lot at the small, family-owned grocery store that he'd frequented whenever he was in town. Stepping inside and nodding in greeting towards the wife, who ran the front counter, he went to the back of the store towards the butchers, where he obtained some fresh meats and cheeses from the patriarch of the family. He passed through the wine aisle, picking up an Italian red that Molly had spoken fondly of on more than one occasion, as well as a fresh loaf of bread before he returned to the front counter. He paid for the food and wine and spoke to the woman for a moment; her name was Mrs. Wright, and her husband was Mr. Wright, and they always spoke enthusiastically about their only child, a son called Bowman, who would one day inherit the shop for himself.

Severus thanked Mrs. Wright as he always did before he went on his way, meandering back to the parking lot. He unlocked his car and placed his purchases on the passenger seat, before getting in himself and driving the rest of the way to the Burrow. He parked behind Draco's car and got out himself, grabbing the purchases again and tucking his paperback copy of The Wicked Count and the Secret Masquerade within his peacoat before making his way towards the front door of the Weasley house.

"Oh, Severus!" Molly greeted, immediately pulling him closer. "Come in, come in!"

"Thank you, Molly," Severus replied, and handed over the bag from the shop.

"Oh, you delightful man!" she crowed, kissing him on the cheek and squeezing his shoulder and drawing him in further. "The children are upstairs with the twins, and Arthur is tinkering with something or other in the garage beyond. Sirius and Remus haven't shown up yet, but you know how they can be," she said with a laugh.

"Yes, I can," Severus confirmed.

"Well, now," she began again, and her eyebrows raised at the spine of the book creeping out from within his coat. "That's the latest one, then?"

"Yes," Severus said with a laugh, and pulled it out, permitting Molly to look over the cover. "I do hope the shop here sells them."

Molly laughed, rolling her eyes. "Of course they do. Thomas and Merope are doing quite swimmingly for such a small area of a larger town," she told him. "Tom Jr. is studying his doctorate over at Oxford but comes down regularly to help with the place."