Typist: (confuses PJ's three weeks with Felix's six months) (resolves to start working on database again)
"How thoughtful of you," Severus says firmly, and has another bite. "No doubt the staff would value your custom especially if only they knew of your consideration."
"Did you?" he inquires, despite knowing better, since he doubts Rus will be satisfied by scoring off him once.
"I'm not asking you to stop looking," he agrees with a quick, briskly sympathetic half-smile. "By all means, keep looking. But I've been able to get away temporarily by intending to return on that occasion; you might, as well." Severus nods, pleased. He'd thought Rus would like that. And shakes his head, saying, "Being open to that sort of custom is one thing, restricting myself to it is another. My cousin never had a snowdrop's chance in hell to reap the benefits of apparent legitimacy. I do." His mouth curls up at one corner. "Besides, when respectable people are forced to a dodgy shop, they sneak incompetently. When they can get what they need from a shop they're not ashamed to be seen going into, they can merely cover up their necessary purpose with an innocuous one."
"So it is." He turns up a palm. "Well, if you like."
He shakes his head regretfully. "Two, but they have exactly one venomous serpent between them, and that's a false water cobra." Still rather charmed by this, he adds, "The one in Lympne does have several constrictors and one of those ones that kills its prey by beating it against rocks. Not what's needed though. ...Oh? Mean to go trick-or-treating, do you?" He looks harassed, and glances out the window: one day to full. "Well, I suppose if I can find a patch of fluxweed by tomorrow night... you realize it's an American plant? Even then, with the lack of proper drying time... well, I daresay you can manage that..." He sighs. "I suppose, if you can find the bicorn horn within six days and the snakeskin in ten--they need to be added at specific points in the process--it might be managed."