Delivering Medicine

Snape knew he definitely wouldn't be able to learn about the trio's escape at once, so he planned to look for Lucius the next day. Unexpectedly, when he got up early the following morning, he saw a Malfoy owl outside his office.

When Snape saw Lucius write that he wanted to come see him, he raised an eyebrow in surprise and wrote back, "You're welcome anytime." After thinking it over, he felt that although Lucius could enter Hogwarts as a school governor, and Dumbledore would know and approve of it, the office still wasn't a good place to discuss such matters. So he added, "At Spinner's End."

Snape had thought he would welcome his friend that afternoon. However, just after he returned to Spinner's End and was about to sit down and look through the ancient potion book he had copied, his fireplace stirred—and a somewhat dejected Lucius stepped out of it.

Seeing Lucius, who had always cared about his appearance, looking haggard with dark circles under his eyes, Snape was shocked inside. On the surface, however, he merely parted his lips slightly before asking, "The head of the Malfoy family, who drinks beauty potions like water... is preparing to give up water?"

Lucius shot him an annoyed look, then dropped onto the small sofa in Snape's sitting room. Bracing both hands on his cane, he hunched over, rested his forehead on his hands, and let out a heavy sigh in an extremely un gentlemanly and thoroughly inelegant manner.

Snape's gaze immediately became that of someone looking at a rare species.

But when he thought of the news he had received the previous night, he abandoned his urge to mock him and asked hesitantly, "Could it be... that you've received a summons?"

"What summons?" Lucius, who hadn't slept all night, was clearly still slow-witted. He suddenly looked up at Snape and froze for several seconds before saying slowly, "No, I haven't. I just—can you imagine it? Little Dragon is already that old, yet I was still lectured by my father and grandfather for an entire night! While standing, too—oh, sorry, Severus. I didn't mean to. I just forgot that you couldn't imagine it."

"...I'm delighted that you remembered after saying it." Snape's lips curled inward slightly as he pressed them together, looking speechlessly at the dazed Lucius. "Then may I ask what great deed the current head of the Malfoy family committed to make the two former heads of the Malfoy family agree to punish you by making you stand all night?"

"I threw the Dark Lord into Hogwarts."

"?" Snape suspected he had misheard. "What did you say?"

Realizing that his wording had been inappropriate, Lucius answered seriously once more. "Because I put a diary containing part of The Dark Lord's soul into Hogwarts."

Snape was silent for two seconds, then abruptly rose and stared at Lucius in disbelief. "You put it there?!"

Lucius stared back at Snape, equally incredulous. "You didn't know?"

"Why would I know?" Snape found it inexplicable. His mind had already begun recalling events from more than a decade ago, wondering whether he had once seen that diary and simply forgotten it.

"Sekerei told me to come find you."

"..." Snape felt a subtle mixture of astonishment and, somehow, a lack of surprise. "Why did she tell you to—" Suddenly, he recalled Dumbledore's thoughtful expression several times when he reported Cyberlina's whereabouts. Inspiration struck, and he changed his question. "What does she want me to do?"

"Teach me Occlumency?" Seeing that Snape had known nothing about it, Lucius said uncertainly, "At least, that was what I understood."

Snape sat back down in his chair expressionlessly.

"Tell me about the foolish thing you did first." Snape floated the book in his hand back onto the bookshelf, then handed Lucius a potion that restored energy. "And yesterday's matter as well—I think we're still in the same boat, Lucius."

Lucius had understood that much as soon as Cyberlina told him to find Snape for tutoring, so he nodded and accepted the potion.

As he poured it into his mouth, he was still thinking that his junior schoolmate was being unusually generous. But the moment he finished drinking, he heard Snape say—

"Put it on the tab for your next batch of beauty potions."

"...Fine."

Lucius explained that The Dark Lord had once hinted that he should put the diary into Hogwarts. But since he had spent his earlier years trying to clear himself of suspicion, and The Dark Lord had died, he had put the matter out of his mind and locked the diary away. It wasn't until the Ministry of Magic began investigating prohibited items this year that he remembered it. Then he thought of stuffing the diary into the Weasley family's hands—the family responsible for the inspection—so they could be caught red-handed while accusing someone else.

What Harry and Ron had done to Lucius at the beginning of the term had been an unexpected delight. He had immediately wanted to manipulate the situation and use it to crush Arthur. But Cyberlina had appeared out of nowhere and caught everyone off guard. After everything was put on hold for half a day, people from the Enforcement Department helped Arthur settle the matter.

Lucius was still puzzled—was that Weasley simply too well-connected, or was that Carverlin from the Enforcement Department too meddlesome? How had she intervened so quickly?

In the end, Weasley had even turned the tables on Malfoy Manor.

"Get to the point." Snape interrupted his monologue. "I have no interest in the love-hate entanglement between you and Weasley."

Lucius choked on that description and looked at Snape with distaste.

"The lady never brought it up, so I assumed the matter had actually passed..." Lucius, now considerably more energetic, was no longer dazed like he had been at first. Though his face was still haggard, his behavior had returned to normal. He lounged against the small sofa with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. "But she mentioned it while asking about something similar to a Dark Arts object. Then my father and grandfather heard her... They thought the matter had angered her—well, and I really shouldn't have said what I did at the end of the banquet. They thought the lady was angry."

Snape didn't even want to comment on how quickly Lucius had changed his wording. He merely mocked him with an amused look. "How could you possibly think she wasn't angry?"

Lucius froze, then hurriedly sat up straight and waited for Snape to explain.

Snape was in a good mood, and magnanimously offered him a hint. "The timing of when she brought it up was too perfect. Don't you think?"

The mocking look Cyberlina had given him after he closed the door immediately flashed through Lucius's mind. Lucius temporarily decided not to speak.

Looking at Lucius, who appeared to be staring at him but was clearly letting his mind go blank, Snape's lips twitched slightly. Then, watching those gray eyes, he asked, "So what did you say when Sekerei asked you about similar objects?"

"I..." Lucius hesitated for a moment when he thought of the prison break.

"It was related to Lestrange?" Snape asked expressionlessly. When Lucius's expression became suspicious, he continued, "Everyone already knows what happened last night."

Lucius paused, then thought that made sense and nodded at Snape in agreement. He also went over the previous night's events in his mind, considering how best to explain them to Snape. But just as he had organized his thoughts, Snape said—

"You should be grateful that Sekerei didn't take your words as a provocation." Snape raised his eyebrows high, a trace of surprise in his black eyes. He truly had no idea how his old schoolmate's brain worked.

Although Lucius had been somewhat frightened when he first realized what Cyberlina had done, he had acted quite well in front of Flint and the other guests who had not yet left. So how had he ended up blurting out that sentence? To be honest, after spending more time with her, Snape felt that Cyberlina's final smile had sent a chill down his spine.

"?" Lucius paused. After thinking for two seconds, he understood. "You used Legilimency on me?!"

"Training, Lucius." Snape spread his hands and turned down the corners of his mouth. "No wonder Sekerei told you to improve your Occlumency."

To be fair, Lucius's Occlumency was quite decent, especially for the head of the Malfoy family, who often interacted with people.

Unfortunately, after Snape realized that his Legilimency and Occlumency were completely inadequate before Cyberlina, he had practiced frantically for a long time. He had even set aside his prejudices and asked Dumbledore, who knew a great deal about him, to help him train. As a result, his mind-related spellwork had improved by a significant margin. Thus, using Legilimency on Lucius without being noticed was easy.

Lucius was shocked. He immediately claimed that it had happened only because he had lowered his guard around Snape, and strongly demanded another attempt—but Snape still succeeded in using Legilimency on him.

Lucius stared at Snape with wide eyes. He remembered feeling something when Voldemort had used Legilimency on him. How had Snape read his memories without him sensing anything at all?

"Because he takes perverse pleasure in deliberately disrupting people's memories... and he also likes watching people's faces contort in pain." Snape lowered his eyes and explained.

Lucius fell silent for a moment. So it hadn't been because his Occlumency was strong that The Dark Lord had needed to use such a rough method of Legilimency...

"Again!" the head of the Malfoy family said through clenched teeth, refusing to accept it.

He truly couldn't believe that his junior schoolmate was also so skilled in matters of the mind. More than ten years ago, when Snape had been before The Dark Lord, he hadn't seemed this capable—

Lucius stopped. His Occlumency briefly developed a gap, and Snape caught sight of what he was recalling: Snape being subjected to Legilimency by Voldemort, and... Voldemort ordering him to spy beside Dumbledore.

Snape paused, ended the Legilimency, and asked as though he had seen nothing, "Are you ready? Shall we begin again?"

Lucius nodded in silence, then once more activated his Occlumency.

He realized that his old junior schoolmate's career as a spy had not been as simple as it seemed. But those past matters were no longer important, because they were both on Sekerei's ship—and Dumbledore was clearly on it too. Thus, who had spied on whom back then no longer mattered.

The pair's training ended with Fawkes's arrival.

Looking at the phoenix, which was not affectionate but was clearly familiar with Snape, Lucius fell silent yet again. No, wait—he had just figured out a few things, and that Dumbledore was already being so open about them? Should he praise him for truly knowing everything, or say that he feared nothing?

Snape took the note from Fawkes's beak and frowned, his expression turning somewhat serious.

Seeing this, Lucius tactfully offered to leave.

Yet after he departed, the stern-faced Snape asked Fawkes a question that seemed not entirely serious: "Has your master really been eating Tooth- укрепляющий Potion like food?"

Fawkes let out an indignant cry, shook his little head, then pressed against Snape's arm and flapped his wings before disappearing from the spot.

"Tsk, stupid phoenix." Snape irritably moved the arm that Fawkes's wings had slapped.

Since November, he had handed the monthly order for Tooth- укрепляющий Potion over to Cyberlina. She had indeed brewed it in the Potions office. Although the amount had been insufficient, she had said she was planning to limit how often Dumbledore ate sweets, so Snape had left it alone.

In any case, it was a matter between the teacher and student.

Later, Dumbledore had asked him for Tooth- укрепляющий Potion twice more. Snape had brewed it for him after charging an additional fee. Counting it up—the potion Cyberlina delivered at the beginning of the month, plus the extra batches he had delivered in mid-November and mid-December—and now it was the end of December—

That Old Bee really didn't want his teeth anymore???

Snape was shocked. He angrily vowed to himself that he absolutely would not deliver it, but in the end he still returned to the school—he had to report today's events to Dumbledore.

Then he brought the extra Tooth- укрепляющий Potion Cyberlina had brewed last time into the Headmaster's office.

"Oh, you're here, Severus." Dumbledore stood in the middle of the Headmaster's office with his hands clasped, seemingly chatting with the portraits of the former headmasters.

"Yes, I came to see whether our Headmaster still has any teeth left." Snape snorted.

Dumbledore looked at Snape helplessly. "Severus..."

"You can count for yourself. How many times has this been this month that you've asked for Tooth- укрепляющий Potion?"

"This is only the second time." Dumbledore sounded slightly aggrieved. "And the amount is very small."

The tone made Snape break out in gooseflesh. He drew his brows tightly together. "Act normally, Dumbledore—wait, you said this was the second time? Sekerei didn't give you any potion at the beginning of the month?"

Dumbledore froze. "Cyberlina? You asked her to deliver it?"

Snape fell silent. Somewhat hesitantly, he said, "Since November... Cyberlina has been brewing Tooth- укрепляющий Potion for you and delivering it to you. You never received it?"

"No." The mouth beneath Dumbledore's beard pressed tightly together, curving upward as he spoke unhappily. "Not once!"

Laughter began to echo from the portraits of the former headmasters.

Snape also found himself at a loss for words. Suppressing the corners of his mouth, he took out the Tooth- укрепляющий Potion and walked over to place it on the Headmaster's desk. He suspected that this was Cyberlina's method of punishing Dumbledore for all his spying—somewhat absurd, but quite reasonable. It would cause Dumbledore to eat more sweets, thereby dealing him tremendous harm.

But after thinking it over, he realized the timing did not match.

Dumbledore had also realized that this was Cyberlina's punishment. But he thought it was punishment for her earlier accusation that he was playing favorites, which he had never followed up on. The timing matched as well. Thus, he slowly sighed, muttered inwardly about how excessive Cyberlina was, and walked behind the desk.

"Has Cyberlina returned to school?" Dumbledore sat down and looked at the bottles of Tooth- укрепляющий Potion as he asked.

"Not yet. She said earlier that after the Malfoy family's banquet, she would look for several more distant—" Thinking of the African Teebo Warthog, Snape sounded far from confident. "Nearby places, so she could collect the ingredients together."

"She certainly didn't refuse your orders."

Thinking of the fresh blood on the ingredients, Snape's expression darkened. He had already begun to suspect that Cyberlina merely wanted to find fierce magical creatures to fight, and that gathering ingredients for him was just an excuse.

As he thought this, he said it aloud.

Dumbledore laughed when he heard him. "That really is something Cyberlina would do. So which poor magical creatures are left?"

"The remaining ones aren't magical creatures. They're plants."

"Oh? What plants?" Dumbledore picked up a bottle of Tooth- укрепляющий Potion from the desk and asked curiously.

Snape pursed his lips. He was somewhat unwilling to answer. After all, this was his "work outside school," with the Malfoy family acting as the intermediary. But then he thought that if Dumbledore asked Cyberlina, she probably wouldn't hide it from him. In the end, he answered reluctantly, "Sap from the Bavarian Dragon Blood Tree and Vienna Magic Vine."