Severus waited by the gargoyle which guarded the headmaster's office for several seconds before Phineas arrived and muttered the password under his heaving breath. Severus allowed the current headmaster to precede him onto the revolving staircase, and took in the changes to the round room when they reached the top.

The room was entirely decorated in shades of green, silver and black. Even the gilt on the ornate frames of previous headmasters had been changed from their normal gold. Severus recognised the intimidation value this provided, warning those who dared to trespass that they were in the snake's den, even though he thought it betrayed a lack of imagination. Even the owl which stood on a perch behind the huge ebony desk was unmitigated black.

Phineas saw the direction of his gaze. "A gift from the Minister. He thought her appropriate."

"I don't recognise the species," Severus confessed.

"You wouldn't," Phineas answered. "At least one of her parents was a spotted owl. Dubh is a genetic mutation. A melanistic owl, even rarer than her antithesis, an albino." Black gestured towards the visitor's chair at the near side of the desk as he pulled parchment, quill and ink from a drawer. He set these items before Severus and then approached a display cabinet set against the wall. "Would you care for something to drink?" he asked. "You seem to have had rather a traumatic evening." Even as he spoke, he pulled two crystal tumblers forward and splashed an amber liquid from a decanter into each of them.

"I appreciate the offer, but I must respectfully decline," Severus said as he looked up from his newly started note.

"Nonsense," Phineas said, sitting down in the throne-like ebony chair behind the desk and pushing one of the glasses forward, then cradling the other in two hands as he leaned back in his chair and seemed to appraise Severus anew. "Do you think I would poison you?"

"If you believed you could benefit from it," Severus answered coolly.

"Surely you place more faith in house loyalty than that?"

Severus raised an eyebrow. "I think you mistake me for a Hufflepuff." He kept the note brief and soon passed it over to Professor Black, who read it before re-folding it and sealing it.

When Phineas rose from the desk to attach the message to the owl's leg and open a window for it, he left both glasses on the table.

Severus silently used a Levitation Spell to switch the gently smoking glasses around.

"So," Phineas began. "What are we to do with you?"

"It is my hope that if you allow my pupil and me access to the school's library, then I will be able to ascertain the means by which this temporal shift was accomplished and, from there, I will find a way to return both of us to our own timeline."

Phineas lifted the glass in front of him and, meeting Severus's gaze, took a thoughtful sip. "And if your research does not yield immediate results?" he asked.

"We cannot afford for it not to."

"I thought that you said you were not a Hufflepuff," Phineas replied with a snort. He swirled the liquid in his glass gently and then inhaled the rising smoke with an expression of satisfaction. He took another sip, half-closing his eyes in appreciation like a cat revelling in being petted.

Severus's glower would have had most first-years and not a few seventh-years running for the shelter of the toilets to have their own private pity party. The well-matured Firewhisky warmed his throat and stomach as he swallowed and left a pleasant aftertaste of peat smoke on his tongue.

Phineas set his glass down on the desk. "I will give you two days to find a solution on your own. After that, if you have yet to make significant progress I must insist that our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher be brought into the secret and consulted to see if she has any relevant knowledge."

Severus seemed to consider. "If you insist and you are confident that she can be trusted to hold her tongue. I believe she was considered more than competent in her field. Now, perhaps you would be so kind as to furnish me with a date?"

"Are you saying you really don't know?" Phineas asked with a sly smile.

Severus prepared to lambaste him with a sarcastic and cutting reply, but instead the only word which left his mouth was, "Yes." Severus's eyes narrowed to slits and he rose abruptly, sending his chair scooting backward about a foot as he did. "You—" Try as he might, he couldn't force his lips to frame the word bastard, and his repeated attempts only left him with an acute resemblance to a goldfish.

"Is everything you have told me thus far the truth?" Black asked gleefully.

Severus whirled for the door, but he couldn't escape in time. "Yes, you son of an inbred bitch!"

Phineas's eyebrows raised in some surprise, but when Severus reached the door, he allowed him to pass through the room's many wards.

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http://www.owlpages.com/news.php?article=86 = Info on recorded incidence of melanistic owl.