Smoke-Novel

Chapter II
Monday, June 24, 1996
Severus Snape arrived at the room in the Divination Tower at a little past 8:20.
For a moment, he thought a fire must have broken out in the 'smoking room'.
Then he realized that the rich smoke was from Havana cigars. "Merlin! How
many of those things have you smoked already?" Snape demanded, amazed.
Professor Russell, he knew, kept cedar boxes containing two types of cigars,
and a third with an assortment. He rarely smoked Havanas, let alone enough to
fill the room with this much smoke. It was almost unheard of to even see the
smoke hang about in a room this size, even with the windows shut.
"This is the second one," Russell growled around his cigar. Snape saw there was
a third cigar in a cedar sheath laying atop the book shelves. It was the longest,
thickest cigar Snape had ever seen, yet the cigar Russell was smoking was
barely two inches long.
"What the devil is the matter with you? You'll make yourself sick! Open the
windows, man!"
"I can stay angrier this way!"
Snape was preparing to undertake some special projects outside of Hogwarts.
This would be his last chance to relax, and he did not want to spend it playing
games. "And why are you angry?" he demanded.
Russell stopped pacing at glared at Snape. "I have just received the worst
dressing down I have ever had, that's why!"
"The Headmaster?"
"Well, since I'm not under arrest for using Unforgivables in retaliation, it must
have been!"
Snape winced. He knew himself to be a very powerful wizard. Russell was
certainly in his league. Russell had also come out a generation which had taken
its dueling seriously, and his name was listed on several of the old dueling cups
in the Trophy Room. For a wizard as basically decent as Russell to even be
talking about using Unforgivables was more than a definite sign of anger. "May I
inquire as to the reason the Headmaster's ire was raised?"
"Because I offered to tutor Potter!"
"In Occlumency?"
"Exactly!"