Snape cut in: "You are already a vampire, Mr. Walter. Allow me to correct that — if all goes well, it will be the Graham estate."

Snape and Walter locked into a peculiar standoff.

This time Walter stopped playing along, and Lucas went quiet too.

The apartment fell so silent that only the hum of the heating vent filled the air.

After a moment, Walter spoke with obvious displeasure. "I had planned to take Lucas to find the entrance to the estate on Christmas Eve. May I ask what role you play in this, Mr. Snape?"

"He's my mentor!" Lucas answered brightly, jumping in before Walter could, with a cheerful obliviousness that had no read on the room whatsoever.

"Ah!" Walter let out a short, sardonic syllable.

A vein pulsed at Snape's temple. He could not stand watching Lucas show off about this.

But the tension eased.

Walter happened to know exactly where this mentor and apprentice pair stood in their ritual. "Have you decided on the grade of apprentice contract you intend to use?"

He turned to Snape. "The last time I ran into you at the school, I recall your grasp of the details wasn't quite there yet. If you need it, I can recommend a ceremony: straightforward procedure, and still carries a high degree of magical recognition."

Snape refused him with a cold look.

He had always felt that Walter's attentiveness went a little too far. There was probably something else buried underneath it.

Lucas felt the same way. He knew more about Walter's affairs, and after a moment's thought the calculation became obvious.

Looking at it now, the prophecy Walter had spoken was very likely true.

The traditional apprenticeship had already fallen into decline. In the wizarding world these days, five or six years might pass without a single mentor taking on an apprentice.

The moment Lucas and Snape formally completed the ceremony, part of the prophecy would be confirmed.

And selling information was very lucrative.

At some point in the future, Walter could sell the prophecy orb to either side, dark or light, whichever suited best.

Lucas already knew that Walter was a fraud. Just like Gilderoy Lockhart.

Now that the Christmas Eve plan had been settled, Walter invited Lucas to stay for dinner, but the would-be mentor and apprentice declined on the grounds that they weren't accustomed to Muggle food.

The vampire said nothing more. Simply observed every courtesy with great regret and saw the two wizards to the door.

He watched as they changed into Muggle clothing and stepped out onto the street, where the snow had yet to melt.

By now the Christmas atmosphere was already everywhere.

Night had fallen. Muggle shops were strung with lights and decorations.

The sound of hymns drifted over from a church not far away. Children in thick woolen jumpers and knitted hats wove between Lucas and Snape, snowballs packed in their hands, then ran off laughing and shouting into the dark.

Lucas was thinking about the Christmas gifts he still needed to send to the professors at school.

His gaze drifted to a glass display window at the side of the road. The handwritten poster lettering was impossible to miss: all capitals, plastered with LIMITED-TIME DISCOUNT and SALE.

A little further along, enthusiastic young people were handing out paper coupons.

When Lucas walked past, two were pressed into his hands.

He glanced over at Snape. Even dressed in Muggle winter clothes, the Potions Master still projected a clear keep-away aura.

The leaflet distributors swerved sharply around Snape. Every single one landed in Lucas's hands instead.

Lucas started to wonder: why hadn't they headed home yet?

Snape led him into a shopping centre.

Strips of plastic Christmas tinsel were stuck to the revolving glass doors. Lucas followed his professor step for step inside, and spotted popular advertised products arranged under a decorated Christmas tree near the entrance.

The labels on the boxes read Star Wars and Barbie.

Both displays were ringed by parents and children, many of the kids roughly Lucas's age.

Some clung to their parents' hands and whined persistently, desperate to take something home. Others had already come equipped with toys and were there purely to show them off.

Lucas was only passing by when one child, wielding a plastic lightsaber, began circling him with a string of sound-effect vwoom-vwoom noises.

Lucas had no idea what was happening.

Then the child shouted at him: "My lightsaber hit you — you're supposed to fall down!"

Lucas was completely lost.

He and Snape had drifted a little apart, which had probably convinced this child that he was on his own.

Lucas tried to step around the kid and keep moving.

A child with bad intentions would at least have been easy to handle. But this one was simply, purely, relentlessly over-familiar.

Seeing that Lucas had no intention of playing the one who fell, the child grumbled and conceded: "Fine, fine, I'll be the Sith Lord!"

Then, seeing that Lucas was still standing there like a lump of wood, the child added: "I am not going to be an Imperial Stormtrooper!"

And with that, the plastic sword was in Lucas's hand.

"I'm not—" Lucas watched helplessly as Snape walked further and further away.

As luck would have it, at the exact moment he was standing there holding a children's toy, Snape noticed he hadn't followed and turned back to look for him.

Their eyes met. Lucas instinctively hid the plastic sword behind his back.

But Snape had already seen it. He had already understood everything.

Lucas watched Snape try to hold a stern expression. The attempt failed completely. A contorted, barely-contained smile broke through.

Snape was genuinely amused. He simply covered his face with one hand and laughed, openly, without any pretense of hiding it.

He turned back, and by the time he reached Lucas's side, the child was already performing an impromptu Force choke on the spot.

Lucas had never felt so helpless in his life.

This child was absolutely doing this on purpose!

Fortunately, Snape's adult presence was enough to finally send the child on his way.

Lucas's face was red. He moved ahead of Snape this time, resolved not to let any more children block his path.

Then Snape, being thoroughly mean-spirited, called out from behind him: "Don't run in a crowded space, Lucas!"

He paused, waited until Lucas had slowed and turned around, then pointed at a cluster of little girls dressing up Barbie dolls nearby and said with perfect composure: "I just heard them mention they were still missing a prince."

Lucas's expression was something truly spectacular for a moment.

By the time he had finally escaped the toy section, the number of children in the area had only grown.

Lucas felt a distinct swell of dread. Unfamiliar with the layout of a Muggle shopping centre, he looked around in every direction, trying to work out what all these children were doing there.

This group was a little different from the ones before. Most of them were wearing red-and-white Christmas hats.

Some had reindeer-antler headbands. Some wore small dress suits. Others were dressed as characters Lucas couldn't identify, red-and-blue costumes, black-and-yellow costumes, comparing notes on "Superman" and "Batman" with great enthusiasm.

As Lucas passed by them, his feet sped up again before he could stop them.

He made his way to the middle of the queue and finally saw what was at the front: a small log cabin assembled indoors, and inside it, a plump white-bearded Father Christmas sitting in his chair.

The children and adults waiting in line were all there for the same thing: a photo with Father Christmas, something to hold onto after the night was over.

➤ Next: A Good Deed a Day

Chapter 225 - A Good Deed a Day

Lucas stopped and waited for Snape to catch up, but the crowd had already begun moving in that direction.

Following the flow, he saw several formally dressed workers unloading heavy Muggle equipment from a cart. Moments later, a camera was set up in the middle of the crowd, and another Muggle lifted a long pole with a microphone boom.

Snape's path was cut off.

He felt it immediately — something was wrong.

Sure enough. Because he was dressed head to toe in black, the camera crew noticed him at once. The enormous microphone followed right after, thrusting itself under his large nose.

"Sir, we're with the television station." The interviewer smiled politely. "Is there anything you'd like to say about the upcoming Christmas?"

Snape's expression went completely blank. Then he turned a furious look on the camera.

"I am not giving an interview!" He stepped around it quickly.

Lucas felt a flicker of schadenfreude. To get a better look at what was happening, he had even climbed up onto a foam-decorated gift box display.

The other children nearby were doing exactly the same thing. A live news interview wasn't something you saw every day.

It looked like Snape was almost free of the reporter.

Then Lucas caught it out of the corner of his eye: a cluster of electrical sparks shooting up from one of the spotlights on the first floor. The light died almost instantly, leaving behind a long, lazy curl of white smoke.

The surrounding circuits flickered a few times. One bank of lights went out.

Before the crowd below could even react, the lights in the shopping centre began going out floor by floor.

Only the soft green glow of the Christmas decorations remained.

The crowd erupted.

Snape quickly sidestepped the woman blocking his path.

He spotted Lucas standing on top of the gift box at once.

The box had fluorescent stickers on it too, arranged in the shape of a cross, and the young wizard was staring upward at something.

"Let's go!" Snape grabbed Lucas and made to Apparate.

"Wait!" Lucas seized his arm back.

High above, a tongue of open flame flared. Then the fire began spreading outward along the spotlight frame.

"It's caught fire!" Lucas warned him.

The crowd below was already reacting to the smoke. Heads turned upward. People saw the burning frame.

Flaming debris started falling. The shopping centre, already packed, descended into chaos almost instantly.

Snape stopped. He braced himself against the display Lucas was standing on, holding position against the surging crowd.

Just as Lucas had said, the fire moved fast once it hit the foam decorations.

With so many children on the floor, the scene turned to complete pandemonium.

DING — automatic fire suppression systems on the upper floors triggered by the smoke and began spraying water.

Steam billowed upward. Visibility dropped even further.

Snape grabbed a person running in the wrong direction and pointed, his expression dark, toward the actual exit. The man was too panicked to register who had redirected him and blindly sprinted off along the new route.

"People are going to get hurt," Lucas murmured.

He could already see it coming: a stampede, Muggle casualties. He looked toward Professor Snape.

Snape's face was dark.

He quietly aimed his wand at one of the sprinkler heads. The water flow surged, falling almost like a waterfall.

"Don't let the Muggles see!" Snape reminded him.

Lucas raised his wand as well, following Snape's lead, and produced several more exaggerated indoor waterfalls.

Snape cast a Notice-Me-Not Charm over the spot where they stood.

That way, when Lucas applied Protego Totalum to people who had fallen, there was no risk of being discovered.

"You two..."

In the middle of the chaos, a small child clutching a plastic sword stared blankly up at Snape and Lucas.

Both wizards paused. They turned around in unison.

The child had been separated from the adults. The plastic sword was one of those light-up kinds, and that small glow had helped dodge the worst of the stampede a few times. But the child had still run in the wrong direction, and had stumbled directly onto the two people who weren't fleeing.

Real Jedi Knights.

Eyes shining, too overwhelmed to say a word.

Lucas looked more closely and realized he had misjudged earlier. This was actually a young wizard.

Snape studied the child with a grave expression, clearly working out how to handle this complication.

Then he noticed Lucas had already put on that signature sociable expression. Lucas held a finger to his lips, hushing the child, and waved for them to come over.

The child's eyes lit up. They scrambled up onto the gift box.

"This secret cannot be told to anyone," Snape heard Lucas tell the child with complete seriousness.

Even a precocious child like this, the moment Lucas confirmed they were a young wizard, he could manage the situation again.

"Does that mean I can do what you do?" the child asked. "Can I control the Force too?"

Lucas wasn't familiar with Muggle pop culture, but trying to explain what a wizard was under these circumstances wasn't exactly practical either.

Snape heard him say: "This is a magical power granted by Father Christmas — stop saying 'the Force.' He won't be happy if you keep saying that!"

Snape gave Lucas a surprised look.

With a mouth like that, no wonder his roommate ran around cheerfully doing things for him every single day.

The young wizard quickly fell silent.

They looked at the burning Christmas tree and wanted to do something too.

"You can do it," Lucas said. "Look at that tree. Imagine the flames going out."

Snape glanced at Lucas. He was just about to point out that encouraging an unenrolled young wizard to use magical energy was extremely dangerous, when he saw Lucas give a small flick of his wand behind the child's back.

The tree went out.

Well then. Snape turned back around, expression blank.

The fire was mostly under control. Somewhere in the distance, fire engines. Some people had inevitably been injured in the crush, but it was far better than if no one had done anything at all.

"I did it!" the young wizard shouted.

Then came a voice from behind: "Remember to keep this secret. Before you turn eleven, do not use your abilities in front of anyone. Can you promise me that?"

"I promise!" A surge of exhilaration swept through the child, who made the promise loudly and with complete sincerity.

They turned around to look.

The two figures, one tall, one small, had already vanished.

Snape brought Lucas out onto a different Muggle street some distance away.

Lucas's hair was grey with soot. Snape's had gone from its usual oily sheen to a flat, ashy matte.

Both of them quickly cleaned themselves off.

Lucas, still rattled, said: "That kid was definitely a Gryffindor."

Snape glanced sideways at him. This one would deceive children without blinking, though he couldn't be bothered to point out how thoroughly Lucas had just pulled that off.

"We could have left immediately. If you hadn't decided to play hero, we wouldn't have been seen at all!" Snape was first to lay the blame.

Oh.

Lucas dismissed that mentally.

If Snape had truly wanted to leave, the moment his hand closed around Lucas's arm, they would have already been gone.

➤ Next: All Is Ready