18 18) Teaching

Severus looked at the address which was written in the letter and sighed, perhaps he was going to regret this.

When he had agreed to Alice's request he didn't thought that she would invite him to her home.

Well here it goes, he thought as he apparated to the familiar address. The Fortescue had their house in Beaconsfield which was home to many wizards and witches too. Godric's Hollow was not the only place littered with wizards.

He appeared near the district as adult Severus had visited this place which meant that he would be able to apparate there with the help of his memories.

'Here it goes' he thought as he pictured the place in his mind while he apparated to the location.

With a pop he appeared in an empty alley in the district where wizards tended to apparate.

He walked out of the alley, his attire was a normal jeans and black shirt which suited him fine and showed his body's physique nicely.

He looked at the letter and searched around, where are you house number 27?, he thought inwardly as he finally spotted a house with number 3 written on the side of the gate.

He looked around the numbers and crossed the small street as he searched for house number 27.

He finally found it and he had to admit that the house was kind of nice. It was three storeyed with a gothic look to it and the outer appearance of the house was impeccable with light blue colour. The arch above the door was pointed and the house size was on a scale of mini manor. The Fortescue family was fairly old and it was clear that they had managed to maintain themselves as he could feel that this was not the only house in possession of them.

He rang the bell which was present on the door as he waited for someone to open the door.

The door was opened some moments later by an old lady who had sharp features and wrinkled skin. Her sea green eyes were still sharp despite her age as she measured him with her eyes.

"Yes?" she asked neutrally looking at me.

"Excuse me mam, but I am here to meet Alice" he said politely looking at the old lady who was obviously from an old family.

The lady nodded as she opened the door widely to let him enter and guided him to the sitting room.

"Tippy, bring some tea for our guest" she said calmly as she walked upstairs.

The elf who was following the Lady nodded and popped out of the room leaving Severus alone in the sofa.

A minute later Alice arrived downstairs hurriedly wearing a red top followed by the older lady.

"Severus, thank you for arriving" she greeted me as Tippy arrived at the same moment with a tray full of cups of tea.

"Grandmother this is my year mate Severus Prince and Severus this is my grandmother Lady Bethany formerly of house Fawley" she said cordially with respect introducing me to her grandmother.

"It's nice to meet you Lady Bethany" Severus said with a respectful bow to her, the lady looked at him and smiled "the pleasure is mine Heir Prince" she said with a bow signifying her respect.

"I didn't knew that Princes were sorted into Gryffindor" she said amusedly as she took a seat and picked a cup from the tray.

"I am in Slytherin, my Lady" he replied back calmly.

"It's surprising to hear, I didn't knew Alice that you had friends in Slytherin. Atleast you are following my advice" she said in a frank tone as she looked at Alice.

She looked at him sharply "I expect that you are treating my granddaughter nicely?" she asked Severus with a hawk like gaze.

That was the wrong time for that issue as Severus choked on the sip of tea he was drinking. He coughed slightly and could see that Alice was looking red, her face resembling a tomato.

"I apologise my Lady, but we are not courting each other. I am here to just help her in some subjects" he clarified slowly as he waved his wand over the spluttered tea, vanishing it nonverbally.

The lady nodded as she got up "I hope that you find our hospitality well Heir Prince" she said as she got up from there with an amused look at her face.

As she left the room, Alice broke the silence "Severus, I am sorry for my grandmother" she said with embarrassment.

"Oh don't worry, I find her cool though" he said as he waved of her concerns, it actually was quite amusing to talk to her.

Alice looked at him strangely but decided to wave it off for now.

"So should we start on potions" he said breaking out the purpose for which he was there.

Alice nodded "so how will we start the potions revision?"

"Ohh we will start from the basics and I will explain you about the reason for certain things, why they should be done so" he said as he brought out a shruken notebook of his first year and passed it to her.

Alice looked at the notebook and opened it, there were scribbled notes on the pages and she felt overwhelmed slightly. Seeing and reading through Severus meticulous thoughts even as a first year made her realise how far he was to others.

"Now we will start with the cutting methods and general description of ingredients and their uses" he said as he started with the simplest but one of the most useful plants called Dittany to the wizardkind.

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Severus kept his gaze at the plate most of the times as he politely made small talk with Alice's grandmother while her father glared at him along with Alice's younger brother, her mother Lady Alyssa meanwhile chastised her brother Florean Fortescue who will be in his fourth year this year.

"So Heir Prince, have you started to look around for bethorals or marriage contracts?" Lady Bethany spoke up curiously.

"My focus has been on other aspects apart from marriage for now Lady Bethany" he spoke up as he chewed the piece of potato.

Beside him, he could feel Florean glaring daggers at him. Meanwhile Alice who was sitting in his front was keeping a straight face except that her eyes indicated how embarassed she was at that moment.

"Hmm, so what aspects are you working on?" she asked as she finished chewing a piece of salad.

"At the moment, I am busy with the preparations of a shop which I had decided to open in Diagon Alley. The shop is nearly finished and I would have to just start the productions" he said calmly looking at the old woman infront of her.

"Ohh, quite ambitious. What are you planning to sell?" she asked becoming interested.

"I have created perfumes and bathsalts as well as some herbal soaps if one wants to use it. There are many further things which I plan to introduce later on but for the moment these three are the priorities" he said looking at her.

Mr Fortescue looked at him and frowned slightly "I didn't remembering someone selling their store, so where did you get the place Severus?" he asked curiously.

"Ohh Heir Malfoy got me the place, we are friends so he sold me the place in return for some profit percentage" he said politely looking at Mr Fortescue.

"I wouldn't have expected anything other than a Malfoy. I heard about his loss though, Abraxas for all his reasons was a nice person to debate with" she said with a fond smile as she remembered the blonde boy who was too easy to get riled up in his first year.

Severus gave a respectful nod as he didn't knew what else to say at the moment.