“Isn’t it? Didn’t you want more deaths? To get revenge because you were hurt? It didn’t matter that your father was just as innocent as Mr. Potter in what happened to you? Did it? You just had to prove that you could be just as vile and violent as the men who hurt you – just as bigoted as them – hating someone for a heritage they had no choice or control over? It didn’t matter to you that your father is a war hero, who has spent most of his adult life working to bring down Voldemort and his mob of death eaters. If you had only read the prophet article that I brought you at St. Mungo’s you would have had a far more accurate perception of your father. But, instead, you chose to act on information that you should have found suspect to begin with and further injure someone who has only been hurt time and time again by the people he called family.”

“Enough, Jule!” Severus finally cut her off. “She had no way of knowing that this would be the outcome. Unsolicited, Potter also made an informed choice to risk his life for both of us. It’s not even the first time he’s done something like this. The boy seems to throw himself in danger on an almost daily basis. The child has an obsession for it. Even though he knew it was his duty to confront Voldemort, he would virtually forfeit his life to save a house elf’s if he could. He has no sense of self-preservation…”

“Severus!” Juliette chastised him severely. “I will not debate the wisdom of his choice, but it was a different choice – he sought to alleviate harm – while she sought to cause it. She has to accept the responsibility and knowledge of what she’s done and caused.”

Turning back to her daughter, she began “You have given the boy-who-lived Kanner’s core-burn syndrome, a currently irreversible condition, in which a Dragon’s pure core energy, carried in its blood, rejects the lesser core energy of its human victim. The unfathomable power of Dragon’s energy overwhelms the victim and burns the lesser magical core out, causing intense pain that overwhelms and destroys the victim’s nervous system and upper cognitive functions – including the ability to communicate and understand verbal and nonverbal communication, the modulation of sensory experiences, and the ability to moderate emotional responses while leaving the mind itself persona, emotions, and intellect are left intact – undoubtedly aware of both its body’s intense pain and forced isolation. The greater and purer a wizard’s magics – the longer his body resists the burn – the longer the torture he suffers.”

Juliette watched her daughter pale and finally finished, asking: “I wonder, Celeste, if you can think of anyone living whose magics are greater or purer than Mr. Potter’s?”

Severus, who also had watched his daughter pale and devolve into a trembling wreck, decided that it was surely time to intervene again. 

“Juliette, I must insist that you cease. What the child had suffered and done are irreversible events. No good can be served by badgering her with them before she has fully recovered.”

Turning on him in a near rage, his wife flashed him a glance that was at once frustrated, pleading, calculating, and demanding, as she answered him, “No Severus, my husband, I will not cease until she considers the decision she has made and the decision she has yet to make?”

“What decision? What decision is left? I belong in Azkaban for what I’ve done.” Celeste sobbed.

“Celeste…Child...” Severus began but stopped abruptly as his wife threw her hand up to forestall him as she answered their daughter.

“Celeste, your father and his colleague, at great risk to themselves and their careers, are prepared to offer you a second chance despite your despicable behavior. To attempt to slow the Kanner/core-burn syndrome, we are going to de-age Mr. Potter to the approximate age of six years old.

If you so choose, you may remain as an adult to deal with any consequence of your actions at Snape manor: whether that means facing the Wizengamot or relocating under an assumed identity. In either event, you must understand that you will do so as an adult facing her problems. While we will not abandon you, neither will we abdicate our duties to care for the young man you have so grievously harmed – which means that we will not stand against the ministry’s actions – as to do so would place him in infinitely more harm.

Or…

You could allow us to de-age you to a similar age and raise the two of you as brother and sister. You will have the opportunity to know both your father and myself as you should have – as parents. We have the ability to use already placed pre-charmed forms with the ministry to create new birthdates for you, which will enable you to be invited to one of the magical schools when the time comes. If you choose to so, perhaps, you might even be able to make up for a measure of the harm you’ve caused him -- by becoming his sister and helping us to give him the family that he was denied in his youth. There are sacrifices to either decision, but I trust you to make your own decision… despite your recent behavior. Now, turn over and go back to sleep. I expect you to rest fully before I will accept your answer. Come, Severus.”

Sparing his daughter a quiet encouraging glance that she accepted in her depression with relief and gratitude, Severus paused and reached to brush her shoulder with a barely felt touch as he assured her, “Mistakes are seldom easily transcended, yet they are most always possible to rise above – with sufficient time and intent.”

His level comment calmed her as she considered it- grateful that he hadn’t tried to soothe her with an inane comment like everything will get better. Somethings didn’t get better. Celeste understood that all to well, but if her father was willing, as the man she’d just observed seemed to be – perhaps she could still make things right.